A Snowy Valley
The old man’s gray horse shivered, shedding some of the large, light flakes of snow that drifted slowly around us. I rode behind on my younger, brown war-horse, my half-closed eyes gazing at nothing. We crossed another stream, the cold water splashing up to the horse's knees. The wind picked up a little and I took it as a sign that we were breaching the higher elevations. Perhaps we would soon reach the crest and look over the valley that the old man believed was ahead.
I kicked my horse into a trot and pulled up even with the old man. I looked at him intently until he woke from a stupor and regarded me.
“Are you strong?” I asked him. He was trembling with cold and his face was white.
“I am not,” he said.
“Let us build a fire,” I said. “I can catch a fish in this stream, or we can eat some boiled bread soup.”
“We arrive in less than an hour.”
“The valley?”
“Yes. There we will regroup,” he said, coughing. “There we will restore what was taken.” He paused again, reining in his old mare.
And then he whispered, “You will do it, not me.”
“You are not dead yet, old man. Let us finish what we have started.”
He was quiet a moment. “You are right,” he said. “I will press on until my journey is through.”
We pressed on. The snow swirled and the gray sky darkened our path. The forest became thicker and the horses stumbled along. Suddenly we crested a ridge and a valley lay before us. A simple valley, with meadows and groves. And a house in the distance with a water mill on a meandering river. A smoking chimney beckoned.
“Behold, your kingdom,” the old man said, laughing. The laughter turned into cough and then ragged, rattling breaths.
“How do we know the man is still loyal?” I asked.
“He is. He is your brother.”
“My brother? That is the first I have heard of any brother,” I said. I would have been sharper with him if he were not so weak. “Are you being figurative? Speaking a riddle?”
“He is your half-brother. A bastard.”
I paused a moment and let this surprise fall on my shoulders.
“I will treat him well,” I said with haughty humility.
“Let us hope he treats us well,” the old man said with genuine humility.
We led our horses gently down the slope into the foothills of the valley. My mind imagined a bed and I laughed at myself for doing so because I had imagined a silk-sheeted grand-bed with soft, heavy quilts and fluffy, downy pillows. If I had somewhere to sleep tonight, I would be lucky to get a couch made of stretched deer leather with a coarse, flaxen blanket.
And then a red-haired woman came to my mind, for some reason.
She might be wrapped in silks right now, either in a dress or a bed. Or, maybe, in a grave.
Could she be on a tired horse, in a snow storm? Making her way into exile? Or is she making nice with the new king? Pledging loyalty to the Impostor on bended knee?
I shook my head. Even if the Impostor had not sent us into exile, nothing could come of my feelings for her. Because of the choices I’d made.
The snow fell less heavily in the valley and the wind blew less strongly. I saw a white owl catch a small rodent. I began to relax as we approached the miller-house. It would be good to warm up. And get some nourishment for the old man.
A picket fence ran around a generous yard, with a large apple tree, a wood cutting stump and an old wagon. A barn was behind the house, half hidden in a grove. We reached the fence and I pushed open a gate after dismounting. I led my horse and the old man’s into the yard, smiling at the thoughts of a warm fire and food.
I paused.
Something was not right. There were horses in the yard, saddled as if someone was visiting. The door was ajar. As I got closer I could see that one of the windows was bashed in.
The door moved and a man came out. Instead of the humble woodsman I had been expecting, the Impostor himself came out, in his royal finery.
“What do ye here!” I hissed, drawing my sword.
He held his own sword aloft and it was dripping blood. He smiled a crooked-tooth smile. Two footmen in chain mail and leather caps came to his side, one of them holding a head. The head of a strong-jawed, dark-bearded man.
“My son!” the old man rasped.
“Manfried!” the Impostor yelled at him, snatching the severed head and holding it aloft on the point of his sword, “This is not the only son you will lose today!” He looked at me and threw the head. It thudded on the frozen ground, face-down in the snow. The old man slipped from his horse and fell heavily to the ground.
I could not help him as the two guards began circling, pointing obsidian-tipped spears at me. I made ready.
I looked at the Impostor. He smiled again, and I wondered if he enjoyed what he was doing. But then his eyes went wide, his teeth clenched. A woodsman's ax appeared, as if from nowhere, wedged in his neck.
A woman pushed him clumsily to the side and she pulled the ax from the Impostor’s shivering and then limp body. The two guards froze, literally. They became statues of stone, their spears turning to granite.
I sheathed my sword and ran to the old man. I raised his head.
“I’ve broken my hip,” he said, simply, and fainted. I checked his breath and found him still alive. I carried him to the door of the miller’s house. The woman sat on the threshold staring at the Imposter, whose body slumped on the step. Her eyes did not blink and her mouth was partly open.
I entered the house and there were two couches and two chairs, each of bear fur. On the floor lay a headless man’s body, bloody puddles everywhere. I set the old man on a couch and I hefted the headless body out the door. As I passed the woman, she stirred and then began shouting,
“No! No! don’t take him away from me!”
I lay the body on the ground in the yard and she fell upon it, sobbing and screaming.
I stood in the doorway, not sure what to do. My hands were freezing and my strength seemed to leave me. I slipped slowly to the floor, and as I did so, I pushed away the body of the Impostor with my boot. It moved and fell down the small step that it had slumped on. When it did so, a rock fell from his pocket. I picked it up and examined it closely.
It was white with brown runes carved and painted on it. It was a scrying stone. A seer stone. I put it in my pocket and the words of my father from my youth came back to me: “No matter how bad or how good things are, always look for the next tool to use to build your kingdom.” This stone seemed like a token, a sign, that things were at their worse but beginning to turn.
I stood up with renewed confidence and heard the voice of my mother, “No sitting until the work is through,” as I pocketed the stone.
I went to the fireplace and put in some wood. I blew on the hot coals and watched the wood take light. I then found a pot and went outside to gather water from the river. The woman had quieted to a musical keening and moaning. A mourning song, as snowflakes drifted down upon her and the body of my dead half-brother.
I brought in the bucket of water and placed it on the fire. I then took off my shirt and sopped up the blood. Then I took it behind the house to ring it out so that the blood would not disturb the woman. I did this four times.
The bucket of water was boiling, so I threw some of the hot water upon the floor and scrubbed it with my shirt. Blood stains would remain on the floor, but at least they would not be so obvious.
I then put my hot, bloody shirt onto the old man, who slept on.
I then went outside and said, “woman.” She looked up at me with terror, her mouth agape, her eyes wide. I must have been a sight, with no shirt, standing in the snow. Perhaps she thought I would ravish her. Or kill her. She was obviously still in shock.
“May I ask your hospitality woman?” I said, my hands facing down, a gesture of peace. “I have no shelter, no food and my father is ill. Indeed, I don’t even have a shirt to keep me warm.”
She stood, then wiped the tears from her eyes. She approached, and then stopped.
“Tomorrow, will you bury my husband?” she said, sobbing once.
“Yes, lady,” I said. “Unless you'd have him cremated.”
“Yes, that may be best.”
She entered the house, saw the old man on the couch and closed her eyes for a moment. Then she brushed her hands against her dress and, taking a deep breath, she braced herself and moved to his side. She checked his pulse and his temperature with the back of her hand.
“I’m too cold to know if he has a fever,” she said.
“Perhaps you’d warm up,” I said, “if you cooked him some soup.” I meant it helpfully.
“And why don’t you cook him some soup, sir!?” she said, sharply. “Or, do you imagine yourself a pretty prince in a castle?”
And, of course, I had been a pretty prince in a castle only a few days ago.
“You are right, mistress. I only thought...” I paused, not knowing what to say.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You are my guest and I shall feed you both. Warming some soup will warm me.”
She went to the door and yelled “John, come and help!” Then she stopped, her eyes widened and then she slumped into a chair and began sobbing again.
“He’s dead!” she yelled, several times. I gaped, stupidly at her. Then, shaking myself, I looked around. I found some turnips in a box and some beef jerky and spices in a cupboard. I sliced the turnips and jerky with my bejeweled dagger and put them in the bucket, with some more water and the spices. I put it on the fire and when it had boiled a while I fed the woman a few sips. She refused any more and slumped into the second couch and slept. I fed a few sips to the old man who was half awake, but he’d take no more. I ate the rest, ravenously.
***
I awoke in the darkness and heard a babe crying somewhere in the house. I had fallen asleep in the chair. I looked around for the woman but she was gone. I went to the old man. I touched his arm and then his forehead.
In sorrow, I closed his cold, blank eyes and said a prayer to Lord Joshua for his soul.
I then searched for a room in the back of the house. I found a closet where a deer-skin jacket hung on a hook. I decided that no one would mind if I put it on. It was loose, but better than nothing.
Then, searching further, I found a babe in a nursery crying. She was red-faced and appeared to have been crying for a long time. I took her up and brought her outside to look for her mother. I found her lighting a funeral pyre, the body of my brother on top of it.
“That is not enough wood,” I said. “It will only char him.”
“Then you stack some more, while I care for her,” she said, taking the babe.
She went into the house and I did as she said. I found a wood pile behind the house and put wood blocks around and on top of the pyre until the fire blazed around him, his body the center of a giant candle. The woman came out, without the babe, and we watched the fire for a time.
“Do you know who I am?” I asked her, at last.
“I do,” she said. “You are the king of Ysenral.”
I looked back at the house where the old man's body lay.
“I am,” I said. “And do you know what that makes your daughter?”
“Yes,” she said. “She is a simple farm girl.”
“No,” I said. “She is my heir and future queen of Ysenral.”
The woman looked at me with angry eyes. “You would take her from me?” she accused. “You could have a hundred heirs, if you chose.”
“No,” I said softly. “I can have no children.”
“And why is that?”
“There is something my brother could not have known. So he could not have told you,” I said.
“Told me what?” she asked.
I held up my hands and showed her the tattoos on the palms and then on the back of my neck.
“You are celibate then?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “And I keep my promises. Will you let her go with me?”
“I won't lose both of my loved ones in one day!” she said, fiercely.
“Then come with us. You may be Queen-Mother.”
“This is my home. I will stay and care for the farm my husband planted. I will raise my daughter as he wanted.”
I decided to use a different strategy.
“Do you have faith in our Lord Joshua?” I said.
“I pray every day,” she said. “But He forsook us today.”
“Then come,” I said. “Perhaps I can restore your faith in Him.”
We went into the house and sat in the chairs, facing each other. I took the seer stone I had gotten from the Impostor and put it in her cupped hands. Then I put my hands under hers, cupping them as a groom would during the rite of water, for his bride. The light of the bonfire illuminated the room through the broken window, her face half in red light, half in shadow.
She spoke, “Did the Impostor use this scrying rock to speak to the devil?”
I hesitated. It was possible that he’d communicated with the demons through it.
“It does not matter,” I concluded. “Seer stones are not good or evil. They are used to speak to evil spirits or good gods in the other realm.”
“The Lord will not answer us in so trivial a matter,” she said.
“He will,” I said, flatly. “It is for the future of the kingdom he founded over a millennium ago.”
“I am not worthy,” she said.
“You are more worthy than you think,” said I. “and He owes you an answer.”
“Yes… Yes he does.” she said, sharply. She closed her eyes and sighed. After several minutes of silence, she took a deep breath and spoke, softly, “Lord Joshua, hear your humble handmaiden.”
The stone began to glow, a yellow, then white, light. A voice spoke, a gentle voice murmured, a strong voice shook the house, quietly.
“I hear you, Hannah, daughter of Louise, daughter of Hannah.”
“Oh, Lord Joshua, be not angry at the discourtesy of your handmaiden, but I seek your wisdom and guidance.”
“Speak on,” said the voice. “I hear you.”
“Shall I take my daughter, Louise, to Ysenral to be queen?”
The voice spoke, “If your daughter Louise is taken to Ysenral to be queen, she shall be my servant in bringing justice and mercy and prosperity to many.”
“Then I shall?” she said.
The voice continued, “But she shall suffer greatly, in body and mind and spirit.”
“And if she stays?” she said.
“If your daughter Louise is not taken to Ysenral to be queen, then she shall grow with you in this valley. And she shall marry having the joys and sorrows that all happy farm-wives have, and her children shall love her rough, calloused, rheumatic hands. They shall love her sweet voice that will grow gruff with age. They shall learn compassion when they help her find her way when she is old.”
I looked at her and she looked at me. She had one last question.
“And Lord, if I may ask, if she is taken to be queen, is there any way that I may reduce the pain and suffering that you say she will have?”
The voice was barely a whisper, but it vibrated the house.
“If you would take her yourself to Ysenral to be queen and would have her bring justice and mercy and prosperity to many, and you desire to reduce her suffering in body and mind and spirit, then you will pluck out your eyes this night.”
The seer stone ceased to glow and the house settled down. The light from the bonfire had diminished and a darkness settled over the room. I became suddenly aware of the old man’s cold body lying nearby, though I couldn’t quite see it. Her hands trembled in mine. Mine also trembled. She wouldn’t go through with it, I was certain.
The woman took a deep breath, looking at me with a small smile. She stood and put the seer stone in a pouch that she tied around her neck with a thin leather cord.
Then she went to her cupboard and took out the bejeweled dagger I had left there.
“I have seen enough,” she said.
***
The next morning I wrapped the old man's ashen body in a coarse, flaxen blanket and lashed it onto his horse. I then set the woman on my war-horse, carefully placing her babe, Louise, future queen of Ysenral, into her arms. She held the babe tightly to her bosom, and caressed the babe's brow.
I then lead the horses out of the snowy valley toward my kingdom.
Most Current.
1. Scene where 15 year old Louise asks James(?) about how her mother became blind.
a. What is James doing when Louise approaches?
b. Louise recounts how she saw a blind man in the market or somewhere. His eyes were open. But her mother, Hannah, is blind because she HAS NO EYES. Louise always assumed that a person is blind because they were born without eyes.
c. James dissembles. He feels guilty for lying to her.
d.
Louise must go on adventure to find the 6 knights who each represent a virtue to unite and defeat the big evil bad guy who stole the red diamond (or something).
Antagonist: Comes from the sun, where the god Joshua is supposed to live. James tells her about theology of God’s civilization on the sun.
Pacing… Foreshadowing . . building…
The prologue may be a foreshadowing of the FEEL of the story. Bad stuff happens, but
I saw Louise enter the Grand Cathedral with her friends as the sun was getting that coppery summer glow on the horizon. The light cast rays through the stained-glass windows that rested under the high round arches. Long shadows fell in the cathedral on the guards and attendants who kept watch over the Empty Throne.
Some commoners and a few minor nobles milled about, waiting for the evening service. They bowed reverently to Louise, but she and her friends ignored them as they talked and laughed.
Her medium blond hair took on a golden-hue in the waning sunlight and her eyes and smile, engaging her friends in some intrigue, were quietly beguiling to me. I raised her as a daughter. Well, for the most part. She calls me uncle, but a sometimes she still calls me Papa which I wouldn’t give up for the world.
I own the world. As we know it, anyway.
There are other kingdoms. Minor ones on the islands and large ones across the sea. But our world is Ysenral and I am its Lord-Protector and Steward King. I own it, but in trust: for her. And she, for our God and Lord, Joshua.
Helen placed her hand on my arm. For the past 16 years we had been married. But we’d never slept in the same bed. I have often wondered how many of the people believed that I keep my vows. I can’t really ask them because a king’s people only tell him what they think he wants to hear, not the truth.
“Is she with Gloria again?” Helen asked me.
“Yes.”
“Good . . .” she said. “I like Gloria. She takes care of her old mother.” She rested her head on my shoulder. I led her to the sub-thrones at the foot of the Empty Throne. She sat slowly on a velvet cushion on a subthrone next to the Empty Throne and its red placeholder the Diamond Heart.
[later, soldiers charge into the cathedral, quickly overwhelming the 7 guards]
As they struggled, the nobles and commoners mostly fled, all except one old blacksmith who raised his fists against an attacker before being run through from behind by the assassins in red.
“Papa!” Louise yelled as she ran to Helen and me, chased by a sword-weilding assassin.
When her footsteps came close, Helen said, “Do it now, James.” I placed my hand on the Diamond Heart and the world was bathed in red. The clash of battle sounds disappeared and the assassins slowed to a halt.
Inside a bubble of red, Helen, Louise and I looked at the frozen people.
“What… what happened?” Louise said as she stepped back towards Helen and me.
“The king has created a bubble in time,” Helen said. Louise looked at me, a curious expression on her face.
“Then they are all… frozen in time?” Louise said.
“No,” I said, keeping my hand on the Diamond. “It is more like we are greatly sped up. If you look closely, you’ll see that they are moving very slowly.”
Louise peered at them, then turned to me.
“Why did you never tell me?”
“That’s for another time,” I said. “We need to make a plan, quickly.”
Can we harm them from in here?” she asked.
“No. If we tried, we would die,” I said.
“But we have an advantage,” Helen said. “Time to think.”
“What should we do?” Louise asked me, looking at us, worried.
“Do you have any ideas?” I returned.
“We have no weapons in this bubble,” she said.
“Are you sure,” Helen said.
“Just the subthrones and the Diamond.”
“You cannot use the Diamond because I am using it to hold the bubble.”
“Are you suggesting I use a subthrone as a weapon? That’s blasphemous.” Louise said.
“Nevertheless, use it,” I said. My words seemed to give her courage. Throughout most of her life, I have been the rule-giver. Always telling her no, that’s not proper, that’s not righteous. I think that by giving her permission to break the rules, I gave her freedom.
She went to a subthrone and picked it up.
“I’ll hold this in front of me,” she said. “And run towards that man who was chasing me.”
“And then what?” I said.
“When I get near the bubble-wall, you release it and I will drive the chair into his chest.”
“Good,” Helen said.
“Make sure you fully commit,” I said. “And that you hit him square on. A glancing blow will not do. He needs to be knocked on his ass.”
“I’m ready,” she said, holding the chair close to her chest, the legs forward.
“Begin,” I said and she took off with a war cry. When she came close to the edge, I released the bubble and she slammed into the assassin. He flew backwards and hit the marble floor with a clang of armor and limbs. Louise also fell, but she quickly scrambled up.
One of the assassins yelled, “Magic!”
Just wait one second, I thought as I lifted the Empty Throne’s golden seat and reached deep into the stone box below. I pulled out a short cimetar and held it high above me.
It shot forth a brilliant blue flame into the air, making the light coming through the stained-glass windows pale in comparison. The flame gradually died down into a teeming orange river of flowing fire.
Some of the assassin’s fled. I charged towards one of the few that stayed and cut off his head before he could parry my blade. I then ran down a fleeing assassin and stabbed him in the back. I felt no dishonor in doing so. As king, I knew I could render justice on the spot, which is not something I take lightly. But I knew that this man had killed innocent people and would kill me and my family, so I ended his ability to do so without any qualms.
I chased the remainder out of the cathedral and saw them alighting onto large black horses. Horses with wings.
{
Plot outline.
Act 1.
Big evil guy [CS1] chases James and Louise out of the throne.
They go into hiding and James reveals grandpa’s letter and prophesy and her own magical potential.
Conflict between them “why didn’t you tell me?”
James gives her the mission to seek out the 6 lost knights.
They duck guards as she tries to seek clues, to no avail. She experiments with her powers, but that gets her in trouble. She tries to intervene to protect innocent from the new evil guards who oppress the people, but aht forces James and Louise to relocate. James scolds her for her sense of justice, but repents. They make plan to get friend out of jail who was put there as a consequence of her foolhardiness. Their plan works and it gives a clue. Louise reveals it to James and friend in their new hiding spot, a cave.
Act 2
Louise had finally found a clue. When
[CS1]Needs major development and thought. Is he related to eh Usurper? Grudge against the grandpa? Grandpa had magic? What is his mysterious letter and what does it mean?
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