Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 13:18:44 -0800 (PST)
From: Kris Gibbons <bookwyrm6@yahoo.com>
Subject: SongSpell 33

This story is a work of fiction. It contains descriptions of, and
expressions of, physical affection without regard for affectional
orientation. If you find this type of story offensive, or if you are
underage and it is illegal for you to read it, please exit now. All
characters are fictional and in no way related to any persons living or
deceased. Any such similarity is purely coincidental and uncanny.

This work is copyrighted by the author and may not be reproduced in any
form without the specific written consent of the author. It is assigned to
the Nifty Archives under the provisions of their submission guidelines but
it may not be copied or archived on any other site without the direct
consent of the author.

My thanks to Rob for his editing, his offerings, and his guidance.

I can be contacted at Bookwyrm6@yahoo.com

Copyright 2003 Kristopher R. Gibbons All rights reserved by the author.


                     33 Most Holy Fear

                Guildenstern: Most holy and religious fear it is
                To keep those many many bodies safe
                That live and feed upon your majesty.

                           Hamlet Act 3, Scene 3, lines 8-10


     "There is more to discuss. Can you forgive the late hour and tarry a
trifle longer?" Evendal asked, looking from one friend to the other.
     Metthendoenn nodded, and rasped a bitter reply. "So long as I know
Ierwbae remains virtuously at post on the other side of that jamb."
     Aldul's answer followed hard upon. "And any matter we discuss would be
sweeter than my sleep has been. Say on."
     "I cannot, while my friends live hourly in such
distemper. Metthendoenn, has Ierwbae given you more cause for distress?"
     The young man shook his head, unconvincingly.
     "Your manner, the very tenor of your countenance, tells me
otherwise. Or are you not certain?"
     "If my whole body did not ache I would be at the pells with a waster,
even now. No, I am not certain. How can I know? Four..." He swallowed
hard. "Four years ago he acted little different than he does now, than he
has over the last three years. I would not know if he were true, or if he
were handing out markers for liaisons during his free time! He says he
loves me. He's... he's a lot less impatient with me than he had been. And
all I can think is, 'Whom else have you said that to?' But... but he could
have anyone... And has! Yet he still tries to succour me, to woo me; so he
must mean it, else he would be long gone and engaging others, not suffering
under the scourge of my doubts and distrust."
     Aldul watched in fascination as Metthendoenn's face and voice
expressed an uncongenial sequence of reactions: From worry and anxiety,
through petulance, into affectionate concern, a brief display of
bitterness, only to end in self-deprecation and self-doubt. Clearly
Metthendoenn had spoken to no one, confided his situation to nobody,
resulting in this conflation of his pains and uncertainties.
     The King was not so phlegmatic as Aldul. "I hear from you a distress
at your own indignation. True or no?"
     "I see the pain my wrath evokes, and doubt I'm just."
     "That pain finds its like in your own heart, and makes you
cringe. Offering empty solace that you do not truly feel will only grant
him sanction to wrong you again. Unlike many, your love requires you to act
as would a king. You must remain as cunning as a serpent, and stern against
evil. True, patient, just, generous, and persuasive, affirming what is good
in him. He has a lifetime of lies he has told himself -- and you. Your
heart will never heal free of bitterness, nor will he learn new habits, if
you place his comfort ahead of your truth.
     "Does no one heed me?" He flung out his hand in a purposed excess of
drama. "All my pithy sayings, and deep thoughts and chestnuts of
wisdom... Do they fall on deaf ears?"
     Aldul knew his duty. "We couldn't tell it for the dunnage and sewage,
Your Majesty. How does one know the difference?"
     "There is none."
     Slightly scandalised, Metthendoenn smirked briefly.
     "In truth, cousin," said Evendal m'Alismogh, "were he to fail his
better self again, I would know of it, and then so would you. I pledge to
your peace of mind that much. And I can affirm that he is and has been true
since his profession to us."
     "So often I wonder what I did, or failed to do... But he insists... He
says I could have been the most insatiable rake and he would yet
have... put horns on me. How do I help him secure his integrity? And ease
my heart?"
     Befuddled, Evendal looked in vain to Aldul. When the Kwo-edan merely
shrugged, the King tentatively replied. "You cannot. But he has made
himself vulnerable, reassured you where he could have kept silence, and
tarred himself instead. Ierwbae stays honest, and has only one cause for
it; he loves you."
     Exasperated, Metthendoenn shot back, "His love I do not now question;
it is his steadfastness and trustworthiness that he has marred and
imperilled."
     Evendal could think of no answer that he had not already given. "And?"
     "Of late, I do not know how to have common speech with him."
     After a quicksilver pulse of annoyance, Evendal responded, "If you
cannot think of what to say, say nothing. Do you truly want to share your
life with him as your heart's haven and equal? When you look at him or
think on him, is he someone you ascribe such worth to?"
     "Yes," Metthendoenn replied, looking surprised at the question. "He
is... He is Ierwbae. Large-hearted, earnest, passionate..."
     "I need no list of his qualities, cousin. I would depend on him for
much, and do. Accept that, for a time, every joy you shared will feel
tainted with uncertainty and a tincture of melancholy, and so must be
reclaimed. Then do so! And if your silences together are burdensome,
perhaps you or he needs to unburden."
     After looking down as his child laboured to stay awake, Evendal added,
"It is not just that you have to struggle so much to refashion a bond you
yourself did not imperil, but love and equity seldom meet amicably, if at
all."
     "I do not want to add to the turmoil he feels, but I have my own,"
Metthendoenn choked out.
     "When what you have to tell him sounds accusatory, preface your charge
with just such a profession. When you fear indeed that he might see attack
where there is none, preface your words with just that reassurance. Do not
hide from him the wreckage he has caused, lest his worser impulses use your
silence for ill. But ask of him, after, the sharing of some intimacy;
thusways you two confirm your mutual purpose in a manner that words cannot
confuse." Evendal's tone had turned thoughtful, slow, and reflective,
almost dreamlike.
     "My thanks, Your Majesty," Metthendoenn said, signalling his wish to
cease the dissection of his painful unveilings.
     Evendal frowned. Metthendoenn's use of the honorific pushed him away,
creating a distance that stung him. "Stop that, Metthendoenn!" he snapped,
his eyes flaring.
     "Have I displeased...?"
     "Your emphasising the difference in our estates is a gesture of mere
pride. I have none, and yours will only guarantee you a comfortless
solitude."
     "You deny me my dignity?"
     "Think but a moment and you will see how absurd is that idea. Dignity
is not invoked or evoked. It either emerges from one's sincerity and
courage or it is a sham. Do not adorn yourself wilfully with the
colours(127) of a victim seeking a victim's wages. I am your friend and
brother; I ken no diminishing in either you or Ierwbae. Do not fear my eye
or sense, brother, I beg of you."
     "It feels so strange to know you my King and call you beloved friend,
brother."
     "No more strange than for me, after being so long isolate, to say
'brother' to anyone. Take now my hand, and Kri-estaul's, and see we are no
different flesh."
     Metthendoenn complied, and smiled with less strain than had been seen
on his face in over a sennight.
     "See, now, Aldul, what you have crafted?"
     "How so... Evendal?"
     The King grinned. "'Twas you that rescued my form from the Wastes, and
you that safeguarded my heart and mind after Abduram's death. You that
again shielded the throne of my sense when I learned of my true parentage,
and when I ignored my better instincts toward Kri-estaul's amputation. I
suspect I would have been a ravening of rage, fear, and deadly glamour but
for your intercession."
     "I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." The smirk on
Aldul's face eased Evendal's yet unvoiced worries but did not erase
them. "It's a knack."
     "Having been my shield, the lancet for the sore of my fears, and the
support to my faltering progress, let me be whatever you might need here
and now."
     "I know not what that might be, my friend."
     "Your sleep?"
     "Has been indifferent, that is true. The cold, I deem."
     M'Alismogh shook his head. "The night after Tothi's death passed
peacefully enough for you. Pray, report for me what night since have you
slept without remembered pain or terror?"
     "None."
     "Aldul," Evendal besought gently, "I know you find succour in silence,
in keeping your joys and troubles locked behind the walls of the only safe
place you have. Refute your custom for a time; talk to me."
     For the first time in Evendal's experience, Aldul's skin darkened
significantly in a deep blush. "What would you have me say?"
     "No!" the King barked, alarmed. "I would not have you say anything. I
do not command or coerce. I only ask. You felt free enough to mention your
travail but a moment ago. Elucidate or not, solely at your will."
     Aldul sat still, considering at length. Here, if nowhere else, he felt
none of the tension that had imbued his life in Kwo-eda. Initially, he did
not know what the difference was, but from the moment he first saw
Bruddbana pale at Evendal's tears over Onkira, he felt... focused, engaged,
and unencumbered by the pains that still clamoured for attention. People
needed him for what he knew, what he felt, and not what he represented --
an unmated generative male. Blithely, he had befriended the most puissant
man of his time, and that man asked for his confidences. Evendal had not
needed to reinforce what Aldul had presumed: If he did not feel free to
speak his heart, Evendal would not take umbrage; the King would only assume
Aldul felt too vulnerable, too endangered still, and would seek some other
way of easing his friend's cares.
     Kri-estaul, despite heroic effort, had succumbed to the demands of the
late bell, and slept as he had trained himself -- with mouth closed.
     At first, Aldul squinted slightly against the glow from Evendal's
eyes. Even as he looked, some change commenced and the glare transmuted, or
his perception did. The Kwo-edan looked away, and then back again; what had
been a radiant glare of orb-aching light now shone to him as a nimbus, like
a burnished sundog around Evendal's head. Aldul held himself willing, open
to any proving the King might need to gauge his uberrima fides(128_ even as
he answered, "The Temples have disciplines, pathways of consideration, and
arts of memory. Should I exhaust those and yet need, I would turn to you,
my friend." Less certainly, he added, "What I need for the nonce is what
you wordlessly offer every day."
     "You have it, 'til the horizon rolls the landscape back over us.(129)
     Aldul scowled. "Do not make such a promise so recklessly."
     The King shook his head, his attention seemingly on his somnolent
son. "To live as a good ruler I must exercise memory, intelligence, and
foresight(130). This makes it easier to be neither fearful nor rash,(131)
though it is no guarantee. I know what it is you do not name, and I cherish
it as well. My door, as my heart, is always open to you.
     "To return to the second concern for which I have kept you from your
slumbers. Kri-estaul disturbed the progression of a dream. I lay in a
ship's cabin -- one well-appointed -- and was not alone. One other person
was beside me: long sable locks, dimples, high cheekbones, with eyes more
black than grey. This one and I exchanged..." Here he paused,
discommoded. "We offered each other... tenders of deep affection." Evendal
reckoned that he sounded moonstruck, the one bespelled rather than the one
spelling.
     "And what does this bode? What does it signify?" Metthendoenn asked,
confused at the consequence given to dreams this night.
     "The personality is one that I have encountered before. The
circumstance and manner of converse were all familiar, comfortable, and
comforting. The measure of my sensate clarity, responsiveness, and mental
acuity was duplicate to this moment. 'Twas either a memory or direct
communion."
     "What did you see? Did any element draw your eyes more than any
other?" Metthendoenn asked.
     Evendal pondered. "A huge arc of ivory, with a haft whittled out of
it. The inner curve was embattled by nature, a rayonny pattern.(132) It
hung like an ornament on a wall of the cabin."
     "So someone had fashioned a grip on this bit of bone?"
     The King nodded, ashiver at the memory.
     Aldul piped up, "Any other notables? Sounds? Smells?"
     "Wet wood, tar, salt brine, and betony smoke. The winelike sweet scent
of sophisticated beer on the other's breath. Our breaths misted too, as
they do now because of this season's weather here. The only sounds I recall
were a deep voice and the creaking of the ship."
     "Not a memory, then," Aldul decided, on hearing of the fogging.
     "The person had dimples," Evendal blurted in sudden recollection.
     Metthendoenn smirked. "Nor a phantasm, I warrant," he remarked,
impressed by the amassing of detail.
     "My thanks to you both. I but wanted some confirmation of my own
abstracts. Cudgelling my mind for answers serves no purpose, so I am no
closer to a name or history for this person. I only know that the one I
beheld is dear to me. And still lives."
     "The tides of your life will give up such pearls when they are ready
to, and not before," Metthendoenn assured, and stifled a yawn.
     "Then I hope it is soon," Evendal muttered in disgust. "I am tired of
the mystery. Touching on 'mystery'... Our discussion reminds me that our
cuckoo's fool(133) needs to be aspersed, and soon."
     "The Lady Onkira? How, in this weather?" Aldul asked.
     "Earlier I admonished Kri-estaul not to revive the past. I suspect I
might manage to do just that for long enough to accomplish my purpose. Let
me consider further and we will speak more on this after the sun has risen.
     "Is there aught else either of you would share in this moment of
privacy?" Both men shook their heads. "Then I bid you find what rest the
last of this night can offer you."
     Metthendoenn stood, bowed and walked out. Aldul tarried.
     "Your Majesty..."
     Evendal had begun covering Kri-estaul in the bedclothes, but stopped
at the tone of uncertainty and straightened. "What is toward, my friend?
Would you sleep better in our company?"
     Aldul shook his head more vigorously. "Quite the opposite,
Your... Evendal. I would ask, is the room next to be mine for the length of
my tenure?"
     "Only if that is agreeable to you. You know that, surely."
     "Yes. Then I would ask that the curtains, though traditional to your
Palace, be removed from that apartment's entry, and a solid door be placed
in their stead. Birch, but if birch is not feasible, then oak."
     The King had never heard of such as a furnishing aboveground employed
for personal use. "Of course. I did not think. There must be other customs
that discomfort you as well, peculiar to the Thronelands."
     The Kwo-edan hesitated, clearly uncomfortable with the very moment. "I
would not leave you so deceived. From long ago Kwo-eda adopted Osedys's
practise of curtaining doorways; we simply hang them with sheerer silks,
like sendal(134), and claim to be the originators of the fashion
entire. No, my request is peculiar to me. I ask this for myself."
     "Work shall begin on it tomorrow," Evendal vowed.
     "I don't... I sleep better knowing no one can surprise me..."
     Evendal raised a hand, eschewing explanations. "It promises some
measure of peace for you. That is the matter. It is done. You do realise
that people are going to speculate what mysteries you hide in so secured a
room."
     Aldul opened his mouth to protest, and then saw the smirk on his
friend's face. He responded with an answering grin of his own, abetted by
relief. "Let them!"

---------------------------------------------------------------------

(127) I.e., household colours.

(128) The most apt correspondence I have found, though its current semantic
arena is legal not interpersonal:

http://www.theiob.org.uk/digest/u/utmost_good_faith.html "A contract
uberrimae fidei... is not just a matter of ordinary commercial good faith
but one of the utmost good faith. The principle works both ways... The
picture conjured up by the expression is that of two men of equal standing
-- though not necessarily of equal commercial power -- sitting in a quiet
corner of a busy market place and settling the details of a contract which
is intended to benefit both. An essential part of the bargain is an
understanding that each has taken the other entirely into his
confidence. If there were to be any question of one withholding from the
other what he needs to know, the entire transaction would be void."

(129) From a common marchen in which the participants' world is a scroll.

(130) The three components of the fundamental virtue of Prudence (memoria,
intelligentia, providentia): To order present matters, to foresee future
ones, to record past ones.

(131) 'Nec timidum esse hominem nec audacem'... from the Formula Honestae
Vitae of Martin of Braga (6th cen.). Sobrietas; Temperance.

(132) Evendal is employing heraldic terms for the apparently natural
serration on this object.

(133) The cuckoo is a bird that lays an egg and then leaves it in the nest
of another bird species. The egg is incubated and hatched by the other
bird, which may even feed the resulting chick in preference to its own.

(134)A thin light silk used in the Middle Ages for fine garments, church
vestments, and banners.

----------------------------------

Short, I know, but it seemed to both Rob & I as complete even in its
brevity.