Chapter Nineteen The Cobra at the Manor
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Cobra at the Manor
“I think we should have an assembly of ministers to advise the king and represent the people,” proposed the Golden Cobra.
“Why would we want to represent the people?” asked Lord Adel. “The people are grubby.”
Prime Minister Pio, who rarely agreed with the Cobra, seemed interested. “There is something to be said for the power to influence the world.”
“You are all blasphemers,” declared Lord Cyrillus. “It is not in our power to influence the world. All is, and ever shall be, in the Great God’s hands.”
Time of Iron, ANONYMOUS
Marius’s welcome back to Ancilley Manor was far warmer than he had ever dared hope.
His sister was all that was loving and forgiving.
His lady mother even gave him her hand, and ordered rooms be prepared for guests in the west wing, in her own and Caracalla’s quarters.
The duchess must not recognize the bandits for what they were, and certainly could have no idea about Amelia and her business associates of the Golden Brothel.
He stopped at the door of the west wing to thank his lady mother, though of course he did not go inside. She froze for a moment at the sight of him, but then graciously accepted his thanks.
“I felt it my duty to make the marquis’s friends comfortable. He will be family when he marries Caracalla.”
“Yes,” Marius said hoarsely. “Of course.”
He had not thought about the engagement since he made the oath of blood and gold to Eric, and what kind of brother did that make him? But he and his lady mother both knew full well what he was.
“Will that be all?”
He should not have lingered so long. “You should lock the door to the west wing,” he told her before he went. “I will take no offence. You should all be safe.”
“I will lock it,” promised the duchess. “At night.”
The door had been locked against the duke his father by day and by night. The duchess was, as always, a kind mother to him.
She asked his turned back: “Marius. Have you been to the east wing yet?”
“No,” Marius admitted. “Not yet.”
Marius took himself out of her sight. In a moment of shameful weakness, he went to find Eric. He knew the Cobra would be prowling through the manor, as he had done nothing else since he arrived.
He found Eric in the Great Hall, with the door open so he could study the Heart of Ice set upon the threshold.
It was a pleasure to have Eric there, in spite of his incessant absurd questions. Perhaps because of them. Over time, Marius had grown familiar with and almost fond of absurdity.
Eric waved and smiled as soon as he saw Marius. Another absurdity.
“It’s so cool to actually be in Ancilley Manor.”
“Yes, it is always cold here. They say this is due to the nature of the enchantment on our foundational stone.”
Marius nodded to the Heart of Ice. The floor of the Great Hall was set with many flagstones, and on the threshold lay three. The Heart of Ice was the central stone. In certain lights a pale-blue shimmer of magic could be seen across its pale surface.
“Legend has it the First Duke walled up a woman when he built the manor. Sacrifice makes its own magic. Nobody can cross the Heart of Ice without the permission of a Valerius.”
“That’s something of a relief, with a ghoul outside,” Eric remarked.
Marius had been hoping he could make an excuse to go out and kill the solitary ghoul before Eric spotted it. Unfortunately, it was difficult to miss the corpse making its way through the field of poppies outside the manor.
They went outside to meet it. Marius tolerated its unclean presence near his home for as long as it took for the rotting thing to drop a letter into Eric’s hands.
Marius waited until it had shambled away, and taken the charnel smell of a day-old battlefield with it. “I hope you can tolerate the chill of the manor.”
“I think I can.”
“In winter, the walls freeze,” said Marius. “The village folk say they are the frozen tears of the woman walled up in the manor. Hundreds of women have died young between these walls. But Caracalla will not.”
He met Eric’s eyes, and had the comfort of knowing that in this, they were in perfect agreement.
After reading Lady Rahela’s letter, the Cobra insisted on gathering everyone together, Marius’s family, bandits and servants alike, to tell them the Great God lived.
Marius was used to the Cobra’s strange whims. His family seemed confused, but supportive.
“Personally, I follow the Great Goddess only,” said the duchess, “but I respect your faith. Would you wish to conduct a ritual to celebrate him?’
“I don’t worship him!” exclaimed the Cobra.
“Listen, the Great God being alive is a problem. I read in a… book of prophecy that the Great God is supposed to be dead by now! A classic prediction! The Emperor was meant to kill him when he ascended. Judging by my friend’s message, it seems the Emperor killed someone else instead. ”
The Oracle predicted it, years ago. “Only the Great God’s child can strike him down.”
“The Emperor seems overfond of killing,” murmured Marius.
The Cobra shot him an exasperated look. “I just wanted to tell everyone to be very careful,” he warned. “The whole game has changed, with another god around. I’ve read stories…”
“In this book of prophecy you mentioned?” Ink the stable girl asked, her voice hesitant and tremulous.
Marius had already noticed she was shy. In this moment he deeply sympathized with the girl. It must be nerve-wracking for her to speak in front of a duchess.
“No, a different book,” answered the Cobra. “About myths.”
“Myths, which are lies, and prophecies, which come true?” Marius remarked. “I hope you won’t get the books confused, Eric.”
“I hope so too. I’ll try not to.” The Cobra began to pace the floor.
“Telling the truth isn’t easy. Hearing the truth isn’t easy either.
That’s what stories are for. Stories tell the truths people find hard to hear.
In one myth, the god Cronus heard a prophecy he would be overthrown by his own son, as he had overthrown his father. ”
Collective murmurs of approval came from all sides, servants, bandits and duchess alike. Even Marius felt on firmer ground. The people of Eyam understood a prophecy.
“To escape the foretold doom, Cronus ate his children. One of them, Zeus, escaped and overthrew Cronus and possibly castrated him. So Zeus became king of the gods. Then Zeus had many children with many different women. Zeus ate one of his lovers and their unborn child, but his daughter the goddess Athena was born by bursting out of Zeus’s head. ”
Marius rolled his eyes. If he must listen to a tale, he wished the story would not be predictable and the characters would not be stupid.
“That was obviously going to happen. If you see someone’s downfall because they ate their own children, you should simply not eat your own children.”
“One should not eat one’s children for many reasons,” murmured the duchess.
Marius let himself look at her. His lady mother was looking, of course, at her daughter.
“So then the goddess Athena kills her father Zeus and becomes queen of the gods?” asked Caracalla, clearly feeling she saw where this story was headed.
“No, Zeus stays king of the gods, Athena never attacks him, they work it out and get along,” the Cobra replied.
“Athena’s a daddy’s girl. Some myths are sexist. But that was an excellent question.
You see, there are many myths. Another tells us of the god Osiris, torn to pieces by his brother Set to steal his throne.
Osiris was put back together and rose as the god of the dead, and Osiris’s son overthrew the usurper. ”
“I know I will hurt you with these words,” said Marius. “But can you make this brief?”
“There’s a ghoul lurking about our property waiting for a return letter, and it’s almost dinnertime.” The duchess paused. “Not, one hopes, for the ghoul.”
The Cobra smiled at her, as if he found something about the duchess’s icy tones amusing.
“I swear I have a point, I swear it’s relevant.
The story repeats, again and again. It is the same with stories of kings who have the power of gods.
In one tale, King Oedipus fulfils a prophecy by killing his father.
In another, King Arthur’s son Mordred is destined to destroy his father and his father’s realm.
“This is a pattern. The old god tries to destroy the new god, and the new god rises up. The new god strikes the old god down and takes his place. The old god is dead, long live the new god. But gods are immortal. The new god won’t ever inherit the throne naturally.
The new god has to be strong enough to overpower the old.
Nothing else will work. If, for whatever reason, the new god doesn’t strike down the old god, then the old god rules on with all his old power. Daddy is Daddy forever.”
“What does that word mean?” Marius asked. “Daddy?”
Eric frowned, then laughed. “That word sounds incredibly strange coming from you. I’ve always believed if you know the rules of a story, you have an advantage.
What I’m saying is this. In the story, in all the versions of the story I know, the Emperor kills the Great God down in the abyss.
This time, the Emperor didn’t. That changes who holds the power. That changes the whole story.”
If it wasn’t for Eric, that would be a relief.
As a child, Marius had never liked watching his father perform the balcony rituals for the Great God.
He never let Caracalla witness them. He refused to lead rituals in the capital, when he was the Valerius representative expected to head the Divine Order.
Marius had chosen to follow the Great Goddess like his lady mother, to reach for the door and the light.
But Marius still respected the Great God.
In a choice between a wild thing on the throne and the strong hand of the Great God, between chaos and order, the choice was clear.
But Marius had pledged his soul elsewhere. He did not have two souls to give.
“Where is the Great God now? And what does it mean for our fates,” asked Marius, “that the Great God lives?”
He looked anywhere but at his sweet, small sister, who Eric feared was doomed to burn.
The Cobra answered, “I wish I knew.”