Deus Ex Machina - A Chapter of Trade Wars

[Julian Luke Monroe]

Hardly amused, Julian seemed to pull himself back from the small break in his character. His heart however was the one truth that could not be masked, for it beat like a wicked and wild wind against the sides of the stone mountains. In this his reputation was to be made, filled from one moment to the other with surprisingly little effort to seem so miserable. “It is an impressive collection.” He would shake the hand given, and offer truth as well as a bit of falsehood to the man. “Poetry? They are mistaken, I fear that is all my darling sister. My verses go only as far my observations.” Meaning he didn’t write about the world in such flattering manners, but offered the cold hard truth. “She gets it from Father.” A smirk pulled over his lips as he eyed her, finding the lighting rather flattering to everything that seemed to shine about her. Perhaps this was simply his way of indulging in a small moment of pleasure in beauty, or a confession she wasn’t as bad as he had always thought.

In the next question of the land, somewhere Jean-Claude was holding his breath. It was the mistake of many to ask Julian his opinion on anything, for it was always jaded and rather lengthy in why. However, as the attention of the young master was pulled away he would only be pulled back by the man’s voice, “Its actually been rather nice. I had not thought to have enjoyed it so much, given the reputation our founding fathers speak of Spain.” The truth. Jean-Claude had always turned his nose up, Now Italy..Julian, Mon Dieu, what a wonder. He hated the heat. He hated the sandy streets, and he hated how it seemed to never rain. Julian, on the other hand was fascinated by how everything seemed so eerie even in the light of the sun. Even the trees were strange. In that moment, Julian returned to face the man, folding his hands behind his back and standing like any aristocrat in that moment, “Everyday I find some reason to prove them wrong.”

The Father gave Janice a look, surprised? Pleased? Both.

[Luiza de la Segovia]

While Angels Dream - II
somewhere on a Spanish Plain...
(as written by the creators of Vaasco and Luiza)

Toledo was a ground littered with the butchered remnants of what once were people. In the smoldering city square, a child's hand reached up in frozen shock for a savior but found none. By now, the hand was trampled three, four, and five times by passing people soaking in the end results of the assault. Broken fingers seeped blood from exposed bone to form a trail to others burned to cinders or forming piles. Where was his mother? The lost youth's eye foretold, an image frozen as his mother's broken body lay by the fountain where she had been pushed from the balcony above. It was a cruel way for so many to die. Yet, when a merchant's product is cruelty, he measures his success in how many pounds of flesh he accumulates…

No matter the number of days bygone since the event that was what the most seasoned veteran remembered as he sharpened his blade, waiting for the next encounter. The smell of black powder weapons was harsh in a world that hadn't known it before. The scent of the central land could not sweep away the chemical mixture. They had lived in this camp now for weeks since the deed's completion, waiting for a word that hadn't come from de Garza. Waiting for a body's remains to surface or for the figure of Luiza. Waiting for action, for absolution. The men of Saanchiz had to wait for everything now. It wasn't as if they had much to return to.

"Vaasco, there is nothing here. We will find more reports if we move. Madrid. Grenada.Aragon, if we dare.Perhaps even the desert you wish to see, that...progress." Paco paused in the tent's opening. In his hand, he held the weight of three Spanish coins from the looting. These coins were special, for he kept them as a symbol of the wealth of a man he had killed; a man whose money had suffocated his own family in bad dealings for many years.

“Paco… Paco… Do yu not see, if we go to Grenada, Madrid, or Aragon… we will be trapped… far into Spanish territories… Here they are afraid to venture… for we OWN the plains…” But this was a flimsy excuse. He was closer to Toledo that anywhere else… and the last known place Luiza was located. If she had only left with him…

"You are not a man that sits." He then came in again, waiting to see what his senior officer would say. They were a rag-tag assembly of military men. Butchers, really. Demons on the plains. In Lisbon, or in any city he named, they could be hung for dead, but when you moved with as much bravado as they did, death was what you laughed at. He poured Vaasco a drink of wine, the one unspartan thing they allowed themselves for the city had ample stores of it. Inside of casks, barrels, and in packs they had the wealth of Toledo sitting inside of a makeshift Sparta. "Let us take all of this, a ransom if you will, or enough to begin your life anew. Pay the right hands..the price on your head vanishes. Do something other than sit for de Garza. The man is twisted, what makes you think he will not twist you?" He pointed at him, directly.

“Si… Maybe yu are correct my friend… we have plenty…” and then as paco pointed and spoke… Vaasco looked up, the brim of the hat just revealing his whiskey-brown eyes. “Has wealth given you enough gaul to speak to me that way?” Vaasco levels the handgonne toward Paco and cokes it. His third in command, and friend, now changes his attitude and holds up his hands in defense… as if it would do any good.. Quirking his neck to releave the stiffness, he lowers the weapon, laying it in his lap. “Mabbe yu are right Paco… In the…” and just as he started to speak the sentries set upon the silent alarm… then an arrow lands near Paco.

“Someone approaches, Capitan…”

Outside of the encampment, a hush was falling. Through the ruins and toward the tent city came a carriage with no symbols, etched nor painted. No banners flew. In secrecy, it was learned that within the carriage was the daughter of the Portuguese King, the cast aside Castillian Queen, yet ever the Infanta. Was it not better to be the Infanta of her father's Kingdom than the Queen of a sordid, fallen land? Spain was etched in sin, she breathed, and would burn in sin. Some of the men said allowed that she was a Castillian whore now, not of her father's house, why should it matter? Others realized the chance that could come with such a woman almost as if she offered it to them from her own small hands. Inside of the carriage, the cloaked woman sat as still as a figurine in a case. Observed, all that moved of her were the hands. Behind the hood the mind moved constant: Pious, pitiful, fretful, quiet. The Infanta of gossip was not hard to mimic. Men believed in anything, didn't they? So many questions yet the woman posing as Infanta had all of the answers because the bridgands under Vaasco Saanchiz always needed something to believe in.

The life of Luiza waiting to be unmasked by his hands would prove enough, as would her news.

Each sentry did as they had been instructed and checked, not only the carriage, but the paths behind it, ensuring nothing was following it. Eventually, after the outriders gave the ‘all clear’, the carriage would be allowed in. And as it came within the camp proper, Paco and Vaasco would meet it

Inside of the carriage was nothing to cause alarm. Hard seats were softened for travel with pillows and furs, but it was to no avail. The transport was old, and the contents inside was tossed about. As the men checked the carriage the 'Infanta' turned her face from them, sinking deeper in to private sanctity. Given permission to disembark a hand was offered her to do so. "I need privacy," she pleaded in soft,torchured Portuguese, "please, do not make me expose myself before all of them. Not yet."

Something in her voice was enough to move battle worn Portuguese. The guard shielded her from the men who looked up from over their fires, from the circles that they kept escorting her to where Saanchiz was. "Privacy," said the guard, Portuguse for Portuguese. Soon enough the parade of circumstance was quiet again as the party made their way back to his tent, where in the entrway before Paaco and Vaasco, the demure being pulled away the hood to reveal the dark, thick black hair that shone in the light of the sun. With but one eye across the shoulder, one smile, she vanished inside. "Come, we have much to talk on."

The Capitan had a vantage point favoring what she wanted to see. Smoldering, broken Toledo on a Spanish plain drying after days of rain. To see this view, she merely curled up a flap from behind the tent. Memories moved unbidden in the mind in a sequence not really stringing one to the other. Of all women, she knew what it was to let go because she had to let go a thousand times before. A glacier's child always knows from a young age men destroy the most precious of they make with their hands. "You sit here. I am surprised. Arecelia was right of men. No patience, you Portuguese are more enflamed than the provinces of Espania, and less patient. But what foolishness keeps you here when the desired prize is in Aragon province? You do not go to Catalonia or Leon, Valencia? Not even them so not brave enough for Leon. Come now Paco don't stare, you offend me." she watched as the man seemed beside himself. She had stayed as the flames tore through the city. Part of him didn't trust a woman who survived yet envied what tactics she employed. She pulled gloves from her hands, sighing softly. "Do not tell me you are waiting for word to spring out of your mess? Mm. You never struck me as stupid."

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

'They break the most beautiful things
But I hear violins, when I close my eyes
I am at the center of the sun
And I cannot be hurt
By anything this wicked world has done
When I close my eyes
I am at the center of the sun
And I cannot be hurt
By anything this wicked world has done"

Janice put on a mask. The sides were nailed in to her skin likes spikes sinking down to penetrate the brain. Slick, black spikes punched the nerves just so to make the perfect facimilie of a smile. Brother dear corrected his sister. Poetry for observations. Observations for science. The young woman laughed in delicate tones reminiscent of dulcet bells rung in the hands of little children. "Papa says that Julian should be a man of all things, but his observations are better than any poetry. He can align the world, my brother," she turned her eyes away from the men. To them it was an easy interpretation of the shy maiden inexperienced in these dealings. The woman who could not deal with the impact of her own brilliance, but in fact it was so that she could collect herself. "If it is the mind of science you seek you can do no better than him, I will do my best to honor this arrangement." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ears. De Garza leaned back in the chair he occupied, pressing his fingertips together with an approving look as to their patronage. "It will go well, I am certain. Shall I show you what the business will be about, senor y senorita?" He uncrossed his legs and put them under him, standing straight up without extra assistance. He was by record not among the youngest of men, but it looked as if he could cut down what stood in front of him like errant weeds in an elaborate garden. Soft spanish leather was given a harsh rap to travel in step as the heels of his shoes were lifted and made of pure silver. The Priest looked at Julian with approval as the patron put his back to them. He was a nervous man of God today. Deathwatch beetles dragged over his skull wanting to pull out his eyes. The moon was split to hatch the Beast out of it. Every image of every picture was burned like a brand in his mind driving him insane, and he exposed them to this. Would it mark them, too? The pagan journey of a few Templar now marked the path of ages. Devil-charms became the treasure troves. Events pictures waiting to be drawn on the timeline of those who kept it. The zealots prepared for apocolypse but was he really any different?

Worse yet, his future was half instilled in the minds of those too young to remember the expulsion from France. He remained cordial, though, nodding his head to follow as he left space for his young companions to do so. This time he left 'Danielle' to the arm of her brother so that he could escort dust. De Garza told them of what they plainly called Aragon, "Oh, they refer to the court as Aragon everything Aragon but this is only the province of the Kingdom..well, now part of it. The capital where we sit is Zaragoza. No one calls anything by its name anymore. What do you think of names, de Avignon?" He looked over to each of them, as if they were a unified being. The court spoke that to speak with one was soon to entertain the other. They moved in parallel or horizontal lines, never too far. At least it was the illusion they gave. Weathered eye watched them as if waiting for the storm to share its eye. Danielle spoke first. "I think a name denotes only part of the thing, the other part when you unlock the mystery it contains, Senor de Garza." Accented French spoke English now as their common denominator, it seemed de Garza was interested in using the language as he had thus far the entire conversation. As they walked down the halls her eyes turned up to see the collection of scrolls, the vast amount of hand written books with a conservative wonder so as not to appear too impressed any further ,too outlandish. "Your sister speaks the poetry she writes," he said to Julian, "Look,this is a collection of math. Here." He reached up to the left of him pulling out a tightly bound set of pages. They were not meant to be rolled. Immediatly Janice's eyes knew what the book desired; a binding of supple leather, tender hands to sew ancient page or repair frayed ends. Good eyes if it needed to be duplicated. "The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing, I am told this is...by Muhammad ibn Mûsâ al-Khwârizmî. A Persian. This is in the Arabic...but we are possed of the Latin translation Liber Algebrae et Almucabola." He placed it in to Julian's hands, leaving him free to look on it if he wished. What one couldn't fathom of the Arabic, he knew the boy could fathom the numbers. His sister fathomed the language, so he sought to test it, "I am told you have composed poetry in other languages for the court, Danielle. What do you speak, read, write? I am interested in your equal services.." The Priest looked at her, finding it interesting. Spanish was no feat for a woman, there were many who spoke the language, but the Latin and Green denoted a deeper sense of education. As they rounded a corner, pen and ink waited for Julian as if to see the formulas he could write. The farce would end here, thought Peter, and I will die because they will die. It will all be for nothing. Arcelia..look for me..

Then she opened her mouth to speak to de Garza the end of his last phrase. He was astonished to hear not only Spanish, Greek, Latin, or even French, but she replied to him in Hebrew and Arabic. More, she figured, would have been regretful, immodest. The silks she wore had pulled around her for she'd lowered in curtsy as she spoke, as if a woman should be doubly humble when humility was ruined with knowledge. Ah, but here was a pawn that his associate could never possess! While he worked in league with de Lugo and Mortimer, while he finessed the Queen to bring his case before the King de Garza was not without his independent identity. If anything went wrong, the work must not be compromised or lost. With these two, he could not only translate his key for dominance, but understand the mechanics of what it unlocked. With them, he could find other lost stores, other missing wealth. If he could but keep them..

If he could but keep them.

He shook his head, laughing as he walked the few steps back to Janice. "Danielle," he called her, knowing this as her only name, "You are a marvel, my child. There are men who would vye for the chance to have your mind." Like a father he lifted her face to gaze on her with pride, flicking stray hair away. The touch was too familiar. Too endearing, but they were on his battlefield. "Shall we see what you brother has produced? You have done well Priest, I thank you for making this contact."


"Pardon me. I will return for you both, later." It wasn't the reply he should have given, but it was one he did give all the same. 'Jean' would keep 'Danielle' from the claws of the Beast while she kept him from spiraling down in to depths you couldn't return from. The sort of depths where he had gone. He felt as if he had sold them to the Devil for his own escape, or was it that he gained his liberation in them. As he left the magnificent scrolls and compendiums were being settled on the table. The talk of fire began to move in the room as the sensation of it from Toledo seered off the skin at the back of his neck:

"I want you both to study these, I believe something valuable is to be learned, a formula for what they call the a potent elemental weapon. They say it is a myth, but with the Berber fighting the rest of the Middle East can not be far behind. This is a secret from the glory of Byzantium. If it is real, it will save not only Espana, but all of Europe from the infidels. It must be kept secret, safe. None at court may know of your work save those that already do."

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

Everything was moving beyond plan's accordance. If De Garza were a lesser man he would have been dizzy with the heights the operations were aspiring too. With the weapon from the text he could restore the Templar's place in the world. They would call Espana home, by the Grace of God, and not France. What was France? Unified but isolated. Here, there was unifacation with omnipotent vantage point. The provinces interlocked like the squares of a chess board. Every move of the opposition thus far made more of the pieces fall away. The whispers of consequence from the Aquitaine painted the King as one with his sanity departing him. With the faculty of Alfonso IV well intact, de Garza conspired wisely with the heighest of the landscapes three.


The King of Portugal ground his teeth in Lisbon, imagining he could watch across borders as a convict brought his kingdom lower in the eyes of the Spanish crown. The ally he made when his daughter married the Castilian King was crumbling to nothing. He was not holding control of his lands but pawning them off with ease. Was he away barganing where the other couldn't go? Ah well. While he cursed Sanchiz, de Garza was happily awaiting the luring of the man Mortimer said he could fetch. With gold vagabond armies are often brought to heal. With gold, all blood lust is satiated.

It was knowledge that was precious, knowledge worth preservation beyond all else that made the killing acceptable. No, he didn't have heavy investment in moral scruples. He was only...careful. In his room the sun streamed through cut out Arabic style windows. He felt as if he were in a Moor's palace, instead of a library in Zaragoza. The light danced across the floor illuminating spoils of old wars. Arabic names for God on a hanging artwork. Iconography from Damascus. Pieces of many faiths as Jerusalem treasure, and soon he was going to have Greek Fire in his hands! With the money from the treasure stores he would be able to finance the making of it many, many times over. He began to think of his comerade, de Lugo. Should he include him in all of this? Was he still in Algiers, causing the proverbial pot to boil over? Just as they could prevent a war - they could start a war. He wondered, too, if the rumors painting de Lugo as holding barrels of the ancient mixture obtained from Rhodes had any real weight. If so, each man had a barganing chip. No matter! Ancient things ran out or spoiled, but what was nuevo, new? What was new would endure in replication. The man was supposed to come to Aragon after Grenada, but evidently the cause spurned him to Algiers after Morroco. Virgin territorty, genius, really. Extend the war was to extend what they could conquer.

Just as the world made sense he was dealth a crushing blow to the superiority of his ego. Othul-man emerged from shadow of a doorway. A thick, black spider he clung to his master's every whim and word. He spoke in impeccable Spanish, as the bastard son of a Spaniard. His skin came from the woman of the Sudan that bore him. A pity. Had he but been born lighter, he might have been an equal. The black centry opened his mouth to impart a nasty piece of news, folding his arms together. Verbatim, little emotion. As if to say I told you it would be with his eyes. "Maestro, they are not coming. As you instructed I went the palace to fetch them and the priest. DeVaureux is there, but not the de Avignon," still, they refered to Danielle and Jean in the symbiot sense, "The courtiers say that Jean has taken ill, and Danielle is caring for her brother. When I asked another servant to show me to their quarters, they said it would not be possible. When I went to the Priest, I found him..not correct. He recited the story yet looked beside himself."

De Garza's face fell. His hands crashed down on the desk but Othul-Man didn't jump. He only stared with his bottomless black eyes out to De Garza as the senior of the two ran his hands over the smooth wood. "So then we wait." Othul-Man didn't stop staring until de Garza made him draw his eyes down. Something in that man's eyes was..demonic..he thought. Something, unfinished, as if he would realize his indentured, forced state and take revenge on it. Even as he looked down he was still given leave to speak. "Maestro, what if they are gone, hmm?"

*

Read: The Spirits in the Hills
Read: Lerida

*Advance & Return links available in each log set

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

"When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they have all one rank in my eyes." - Napoleon Bonaparte

Fire on the Water


Last night, heaven and earth met on the horizon line called Monroe. It wasn't listed on a single map other than what two people could etch across one another when they intersected to form a union. Janice called it the center of the soul. Instead of metaphor she dreamed in exact time indicative of what had gone on that very day. Catalon sifted under her feet through a sieve as one memory graduated to the next until she returned from dreamscape. She couldn't say that the earth was dull compared to the realm of God because as she opened her eyes to the Leridan morning, the pair of them still glowed. Why did she have to wake up now? With the warmth stretching out to conquer shadow on the floor it wouldn't be long before the yellow fingers of a morning angel brushed across their bodies to fold over in Julian's eyes. In protest, she snuggled down back in the arms of him. In the silence with only herself and his heartbeat for company she considered all the many things she thought she had until the moment of reception that told her she hadn't a clue to a single thing. Love was among the lessons emphasizing every point of coming to know the man who made a deal for an arrangement; it changed them and it changed how they would deal with any future course. He held her up, up as if she could brush the moon. He told her she had wings.

If she had them, she'd curl them around him now, like her arms.

The longer she lay in bed the more the hypnotic scents of last night still touched the day thus calling her back to bed. One night of peace was all they had purchased but surely the morning couldn't be too much extra? She breathed in and out until she all but purred. Strands of hair collapsed over the side of her face as she was nearly asleep again until the muted argument of two servants outside of the door pulled at the sense that had always been beyond Lerida, waiting in Zaragoza. "No, no! I swear to God. A meteor fell from heaven last night, or an angel!" said one while the other scoffed "You had too much wine. The angel fell to Lerida? Why. Did it want lamb?" The first said emphatic, "But the river was on fire! It burst into flames just before dawn, and it is still smoldering even now." Again the second was a skeptic,"God torched the River Segre?" On and on they went. On and on! The conversation would have been pushed aside if it weren't for the talk of water burning on a river. Not upon something in the river, but ignited on the surface. Listening harder, she learned it had consumed one of the little river barges from the festival, the roots of a tree, and was about to move to the woods if the sudden influx of rain hadn't passed. Thank God for capricious elements, they agreed, before moving on their work.

As she sat up then in bed, Janice saw the orange fabric still billowing. Beyond it, the peaks of tall trees and mountains were caught up with a strange white mist that had no place on a clear morning.

*

The little pleasure barge was easy fodder for the fire to consume. It didn't crawl up so much as spring, didn't taste so much as consume all the wood, covering, an ornamentation. The fire danced across the river to the opposite side before the coming of the rain, intertwining in roots or so it looked to Peter. He saw fuego, fire, do impossible things as it seemed to dance over every wave. It dove on the underside of a ripple before it twisted ribbons up to heaven back to the God that created it. He laughed to himself. Arcelia, this is what you were doing. This is what you were trying to tell me. Beyond pictures, rituals, all of the things that hide what really is.. he constantly spoke to Arcelia inside of his head. To him, she was still an ghost. Could you make love to a ghost? Before he left Zargoza for Cantalonia, thus Lerida, the ghost had returned to his arms. She walked down the hall of the palace with her usual ease. A commanding present that conived to take advantage before being taken advantage of. Even with gloves to hide healing burns her beauty was an inexplicable jewel that tore the eyes of men from other things. Everyone wanted to possess her. Soon, it was known that the invitation la Cornado had to reside at court as as valid a reason as the stares she payed him. It was a ghost everyone could see, a ghost who spoke to him about the barrels of dark fire matter in Toledo that helped the Portuguese with his slaughter, that helped the Church with their punishment. Both Spain and Portugal destroyed Toledo but in the name of God Spain had reason while Portugal was waiting to pay a price. He could remember crushing her against his body, feeding his starving mouth with her mouth just like the tree toppled down to the river bank, its roots eaten out from under it. He was betraying her now by standing with the men who gave her to the pyres of the Inquisition. He had taken her to his bed and entered her knowing that even with his love living her mind saw her as half-dead. DeVaraeux was terrified. He was elated. He was losing his mind. He remembered:

"Peter, Peter you can not go. De Lugo will go looking for the rest of his little prize. What do you have to offer him? He will kill you same as the others will. What are you going to do, look for the ones you say came from that pitiful island? Bah. Peter it is serious..they will kill the king and still asay the plot for is wife to leave Castile defenseless..to rile Portugal.Peter.." How could she speak to him when she'd left him alone? Alone! He shook his head furiously but succumbed to the want to hold the crowned jewel of Leon and Toledo in his hands. When he took Arcelia it was with a sense of violent rage born of his constant apologies.

He was here anyway.


In Grenada, what was left of friends had turned to indifferent foe by circumstance. They had either gone silent in fear of repercussions or allied themselves with De Garza and De Lugo, the second leading them to prepare for a battle for the Christ in Algiers. In a twist of irony if Algiers had any meaning it was enough that Ricardo de Lugo could leave it alone for a little. He had made quite a journey but he stood with Peter watching the last of the fire go out. "So you do have my barrels," he mused, looking to the priest with a hard line face, "and you have improved the trigectory of it. How did you do it?" Peter merely turned his head, tired, angry eyes fixed on de Lugo. The man had to admit, DeVaureux looked like a ghost.

"Agree to return with me to Zaragoza, we give it to Eliseo de Garza and what ever will be will be. Let us be finished with it."

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

In the night at Zaragoza, just before the dawn across the country...

The Death of Old Castile
Sin Unrepented
*suggestive themes



Maria clutched her rosary in an awkward attempt at prayer practice. The more nervous she looked made her companion sigh with want to relieve the strain on her mind. She shook, but Joan caught her hands from behind. "Maria, what is wrong? You pray as if you are going to be martyred." It was agonizing to watch the woman continue with the Ave Marias. A trembling body lay back in arms that were steadier only by half. Despite the covers on the bed or the arms entwined, both of them were chilled by what seized the court. Alfonso the XI of Castile was coughing hard enough to break his lungs in half. His throat was raw so that when he tried to speak one almost wished the mucus would come up again to give it lubrication. He was dying, and with it the last hope that Castile would go back to itself. Maria leaned her head against Joan's chest. Of the two she seemed to always be the stronger, always the more assured that they were invincible in simplicity. If her husband was a faithful servant of the Aragonese, Maria thought, what then warranted his death? The surgeon had bled him numerous times. The Queen of Castile stayed with him until he expelled her in his fits, his calling out for his mistress Guzman. If he was dying who was she to deny him? Let his soul go to purgatory or hell for wanting the harlot.

It wasn't as if she couldn't say she wouldn't join him.

Joan had been a party comprised of the two queens, herself, and other women that flitted through the lives of men. Mortimer paced outside of the Castilian's chambers, calling on any number of saints to restore the man to health. Should he die, the merger may come to question for he wouldn't be able to make the warring in his provinces stop. His wife, Mortimer said, was too weak to do it herself and the Aragonese believed her. It was better than she remain where it was safe than seek any sort of travel. He would be buried in a cathedral in this province as he would ripen before they could take him to Castile, he said. Joan recalled this just as Maria said, "He has trapped me..he is going to kill me, Joan. I am so afraid." Could she call on God with the unforgivable sin she continued to practice? She prayed to be relieved of the want, to surrender it away, laying on her belly in the chapel only to be just like this now with Joan. Not sewing, not laughing nor sitting as women are want to do. "Your husband is the Devil..my father can do nothing. Nothing. You are shaking too." Her paramour nodded, "Roger has grown dark again. He wants Isabelle in his bed, I see it. The more he spurns me, the more he seeks her the more corrupt he becomes. I have heard him talking about men called de Garza and de Lugo.."

The Portuguese woman turned sharply with cutting words,"Why did you not say? Those men are no good, they talked my husband in to much, they want to restore the sanctity of God to a fallen thing..and are using him to do it.They are worse than Guzman. She held him between her thighs..they..they hold his mind. Now he is losing it..it is them that did it.." The English woman snarled back, striking Maria against the arm, "Do not be a fool! He is dying because he played with fire, Maria, as all men are want to do and fire burns! No matter where one goes it is always the same. You have heard it as much as I if not more, you are the queen your majesty. Yet you do nothing but simper and play with your damned beads!" She'd had enough. No, Joan couldn't take the quarrel of a woman while living under the constant, dangerous scrutiny of a man. For seeking reconcilation with him she could be damned should she ever return home. Damned, for honoring her vows. Damned all the more still, for in Spain she'd touched a forbidden knowledge. "If God should hear you please, let me know Maria. Erstwhile should you not be clicking your beads at your husband's bedside and praying for your soul yet again? If this is so damning to you then be gone from my chambers, be gone! Better my husband's wife than your constant sin and begrudged tryst! BE GONE."

The Infanta rose out of the bed and stalked over toward the opposite end where Joan was scathing. Opening up the beads she caught one of the woman's flying hands before it could catch her face. The rosary was bound once, twice, and thrice across that hand. Maria was not a woman of action. Paralyzed by fear she watched the world change if not fall to pieces without doing a single thing. De Genville, as Maria preferred to call her, shuttered she breathed so hard. Anger could be cleansing, though. "To where, you have no where to go but this room, Joan..but maybe we should think on what to do...I have no where to go, unless you help me." She pushed the joined hands against the wall, watching as her lover dissolved into tears. Joan was always so much stronger than she had ever been. So poised when sitting in the company of the She-Wolf who swallowed up everything of theirs in her beautiful French jaws. "Isabelle bends the mind of the King and my husband, what will we do..how will we.." The Portuguese shook her head, speaking in her native tongue before returning the translation to English, "We will figure it in the morning, my love. I am sorry, forgive me. forgive me." "God have mercy on my soul," Joan touched the rosary beads in order to grasp Maria's hand. Suddenly it'd begun to rain, suddenly, the world of palace was drowned out as she kissed the woman who condemned them both to the same place as the Castilian King for what they did. False penance was worse than unrepentance, yes? They promised to find a way to leave, a way to live that this might not end. It was a promised sealed in whisper as the English woman settled her forehead between the breasts of Maria, of warmth, of the world.

[Julian Luke Monroe]

The world had fallen away only to rise again with his soul gone from his body in flight, with passing motions of endless night. The river moved like a snake through the mountains, having carved the foothills long before there was ever man. He believed this with all his heart, but it was when he dreamed of flying did he feel so very connected to the world outside. Janice had given him chance to feel as though he had been chained for far too many years. This soul tormented by inner demons had been lifted with her passion, her desire, and more importantly her love. He had loved her with all heart in this night as it beat as wild as the fires that burned beyond the city and against the riverbanks.

Their bed was a safe haven, as her wings surrounded them. Julian had let her modest remain, but let his hand rest against the small of her bare back with his thumb brushing along the warm flesh beneath it. Was it such a sin to want to touch her, to feel her breathing against his chest, her heartbeat beneath his fingers? If it was such a sin, he would happily walk through the fires of hell to be at her side. Go away sun. Go away morning.

When she stirred in her sleep, it caused him to tense, his eyes to open in fear of what was to come. However, it was her smile that would coax him to ease, her kisses to replace the fear that nothing was coming to take her away. It was such a shame to be so jaded, in fear this warm happiness he had found was going to be taken from him at any moment. It was the images that filled his mind when he slept, and through the course of the night he held her so tight in the troubled quake of his dreams.

“Don’t..” He whispered trying to catch her as she moved to sit on the bed, Don’t leave me, Julian came up beside her letting his fingers brush over her own before he bent to kiss her neck, in silent argument of how the morning should be spent. It was an addiction really, to love her so, but one he was far more then willing to dwell in. However, through the brush of his lips and the tips of his fingers he could not help but follow her line of sight. “What is that?” Slowly he came to stand pushing the fabric back of the window and his heart stopped.

“Is that smoke? Janice..” Turning his face paled, “That is close to the mountain pass..Margot.”

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

Fire on the Water - See it Writhe, See it Burn

Written by the writers of Julian, Janice, Margot,Vasco, & featuring other sundry cast


Janice dreamed in a metaphor that became real but every dream comes to an end when morning light touches it. For all the world now she wished she didn't hear talk of falling comets or angels. She wished that the smoke on the horizon was no more than a haze of clouds that hadn't burned off yet. She could dream in metaphor, but she couldn't live in one. "Julian, I heard them talking, the servants in the hall..." The kiss on her neck was so sweet. Bittersweet. The last brush of starlight from the flight to heaven before he moved away to leave her cold. His fear now her fear but when he mentioned Margot she got up out of the bed so fast it was almost blinding.

"They said it was water, it must be the river, winding towards the mountains .The origin. God if it is spreading. It could be here..right here." Greek fire. Black fire. Call it by any name it was still a flame ridden serpent eating its way through Catalonia. If men were still handling it they would put Margot in danger..if not more so "Benoit..if they move too far. The both of them." She turned so hard on her heel that she had to catch herself. Her hands grabbed at the deeper of the wounds now scarring. Some of it so deep it was still healing even if most of the string holding her together was gone. Pain. Call it a taste of what was to come or the after product of what had been. Julian was right - all they would have was that one night. She pushed the pain away as she went to grab her clothes to put on, her hair to bind back in the fishtail braid. The prized dagger would be kept against the front of her dress, while second cousins would be stored in her sleeves save for one that would hold up the long, grown out edges of her hair in the thickest section of braid. Worry, anger, and desire to be done of it motivated her precision. It would be done sooner rather than later. God so help them, they would go to Zaragoza with the skeletons of fire weilders to throw down at de Garza's feet. "We have to stop them, and have it done. When we return Zaragoza it will be the end. Our checkmate." Between Lerida and Zaragoza would they meet every accomplice to the wicked, broker deals with ferry men to take souls to the gates of Hell or pray to God to allow the likes of Margot to return home with them. She looked at her Julian. Companion, Partner, Husband, Opposite. Best Friend. She locked her hand in his bringing it up between them as her eyes said that together they began it, together they would finish it.

***

Peter DeVareux watched as the haze began to creep further away from the water. It burned out at its own will, the fire. Already he watched it as if watching his soul crawl forward in its last bid at life before being crushed. Everything became an allegory to him. Everything became so very broken. He watched a hand he hardly believed was his giving the Templar betrayer information. "I am done , de Lugo," he said, "have your barrels. Take them to Zaragoza, de Garza has the formula to be translated anyhow. Once he gets his hands on the French pair, he will have it. You both need one another. I simply want a way to him, that's all. It was all more complicated than you need make it anyhow. You wanted the weapon, the way to produce it, and the means to use it. Here it all is. You were both working for Mortimer to turn the King's head through him, but instead found better reciprocity in the Queen. Mortimer wished to draw out Sanchiz. What does it matter? It all seems accomplished anyhow. Vasco Sanchiz took down Toledo, and with it any remaining resolve in Castile. No doubt something else smolders now. By the time we return he will be there in the capital, at court. Waiting. You will have your means and those means have indeed influenced the turning of the tide. The King of Castile will be dead. His dynasty, all but ash. My lord you have the Peninsula at your feet. No doubt the sand will soon follow. I want nothing more than to remain where fortune is favored. God seems to favor you." He could have choked on his own words! Still, a greater part of him believed. It was easy to see every scene of this plan and of the other that seemed to intertwine filling the picture places left on scrolls, making every biblical sounding prophecy of this great time come true.

Let it all rise or burn. He couldn't seem to care anymore. All that mattered was he would kill whom he chose to kill with the rightness of time. He would die, damned but happy. It didn't have to be that way...but the pair left him.

***

Dawn was a rosy reprieve that sadly did not reach the depths of Benoit's underground home. Yet Margot was always the first to rise, donning a clean dress and apron, climbing the set of stairs into the shack above. It first touched her in rays of peach, turning her skin gold, softening shadows. Where the light here was so oft harsh, reducing colors to wan hues of the originals, and casting deep shadows on jagged rocks, the softness was a blessing. Deeper down in the valley, Lerida held a lushness these hills could not afford. She loved the University city down below, and all the treasures it held, but she also loved the stark reality of Benoit's shack. It held out the world like an old fortress, broken and decrepit, but nonetheless fighting off the night through the aeons. Not particularly given to romantic thoughts, Margot grabbed the feed bag and set out across the yard. The chickens flocked in her wake, the scraggly old rooster giving out his call, for this one time of the day, exactly when he should be crowing.

She stopped off in the vegetable garden to see if anything was ready. The little purple carrots had already been yanked from the ground and the cabbages were not yet ready, but here and there, she found a little gem to tuck away in her apron for the stew pot that night. It would just be the two of them again, silently sharing a meal now that Janice and Julian would no longer be with them. Sullen as Julian was, he played a good part in keeping conversation flowing at the dinner table, even if it was only to contradict Janice. She stopped, crouching down low in the dirt with her arms folded across her stomach, tilting her head momentarily upward to catch the last of the pink-gold rays on her face. She hadn't yet pinned her hair up, and with the heavy jewelry she wore, she seemed ever more like the princess cast out of her castle and into the depths of common life. Her skin was golden with sunshine, her hands worked this earth, her clothes were plain and sturdy, but she was proud, too. What Margot wanted clearly was not this dirty, dusty homestead in the hills above Lerida.

Benoit knew this. Though she heard him, she still flinched when he announced his presence by touching her shoulder. She looked up at him, rose-gold lips quirking half a smile. She stood up slowly, letting her knees adjust as she went, and dusted her hands off on her apron.

"You must go with them," Benoit said. Margot sighed and shook her head, but Benoit was not finished. He touched her cheek, letting his fingers linger on her jaw, forcing her to look at him. Neither was particularly tall, merely average, though they both had the distinct ability to look utterly out of place even as the day's light began to balance out, and myth began to turn into glaring reality. "There is nothing for you here, child. They will come and they will find us. Let an old man die in peace, not hungry and cold on the road running from old enemies. I doubt they are here any longer if you have not managed to find them yet. Go. Ask them for help. They seem ready to give it."

Margot took her father's hand and clasped it to her heart, joining it in place with her other. She did not tell him she was glad she found him. She did not tell him she loved him. It would have been more lie than truth. However, she leaned forward and kissed him on his old cheek. It felt like paper beneath her lips, and she immediately regretted the action. She let his hand go and turned back into the shack to throw her vegetables into the hanging basket. When she returned outside, the light had shifted onward, and all the rocks held stark new shadows. She ducked into the hen house to gather eggs for breakfast, but Benoit was already gone to visit his prisoner in the spring house.

Neither smelled smoke on the rise, nor felt the heat from the fire snaking its way across the dry brush littering the distance between the mountain stream and Benoit's home. For now, they had a moment's peace, Margot holding a wealth of eggs in the sling of her apron, Benoit secretly watching her from the spring house as Adelaide's itinerant father ate his breakfast.

[Luiza de la Segovia]

While Angels Dream – III

By the writers of Vaasco and Luiza

Restraining himself, he smiled finally able to recognize her. She was the love behind the inner self. He appeared, not as the stories told… but a man with respect and genteel… polite and courteous… If he had any good qualities, it was because of her; despite their diverging lives…

The handgonne produced upon her unexpected arrival was immediately lovered upon seeing her… and he extended his hand to push back the tent flap. “Go back to yer own business…” he spoke as he looked at his men, then he re-focused back upon the visitor.

He removed his wide brimmed hat. The scar crinkled in a smile… then responded in his native language. “Senorita… boa vinda a meu domici’lio…. entre por favor” [m’lady… welcome to my domicile… please enter] his hand waving her to enter deeper into the tent.

He watched her move to the tent flap. “Come, sit… I can offer you only a rough chair to sit upon…” and he guided her toward a small chair… “Senorita, why do yu come here in secrecy… with no guards, no banners… You, I would harm in no way…” and he smiled, keeping his feelings bottled up inside, and sat beside her after she was seated. For his battle was not with a woman… especially one so innocent, as far as he was concerned.

Vaasco laid his hat upon the bed, then crossed his leg over the other, his hands in his lap. The hat no longer hid the receding hair line, nor the entirety of his facial scar. He canted his head at her… “Prize? What prize could be in Aragon? The men are weak and the women… oh the women…” he glanced to Paco, who displayed interest elsewhere… “…are nothing special. What prize is so special there…” He smiled when she said brave… and he nodded sarcastically.

In actuality, Vaasco waited for two things… One had come true… his questions now answered with her arrival. And the other was word from Mortimer… Mortimer had made promises… promises that would eventually keep him safe from the Kings. With a simple cant of the head, he looked back to the Lady, as if to wonder… He could resist no more… and motioned to Paco to leave… Once his second had departed, he looked to Luiza. “M’Lady… How have yu been? It has been so long after Toledo… I feared for your life…”

He shifted in his chair, his whiskey-brown eyes gazed at her up and down, resting upon her face. “Port’gal and Espania is but a hell on earth… Kings play a game of politics with the peasant… and send boys where men tread…” he eyes shifted to the tent flap, then back to her… “They realize it not, but they shall pay in eventuality… for there is yet another land, strong and just, that shall reap Castile’s downfall… but the Iberians should worry about me, instead of the Celts…”

The man who created so much violence was now genteel. It took more than meek lambs to tame lions. No, it took a lioness who understood the almost divine power of held back claws and the omnipotence of eternal thought. Luiza wrapped her fingers about the frog clasp of her cloak so that when she pried it apart it was a slow exposure to the black silk underneath. Mourning. Her sister, to her knowledge, was dead. Despair was worn well on the courtesan, though. Too well. "Gracias," she demured to a show of hospitality, "A chair is fine. Camps are humble, it is not a hacienda. My expectations thus are not great." She lowered her body to sit, crossing one leg behind the other. Back straight, the shoulders rolled back, she looked as if she were about to sit for a portrait. Luiza was a living portrait, after all. The visit wasn't to discuss the fine Spanish features honed, shaped, and cultivated to be as they were now. Instead she observed Sanchiz. Without the hat, his age was apparent. Gray was the head that once was colored. The scar wanted to be touched by her fingers but she refrained. She could trace it like any other line on him, knew its origin, its reason. Everything had a reason. "The Infanta moves better in Castile than a plain woman or a rich woman. The Queen she is here, by name if nothing else. The Infanta of a neighboring country. So I elect to move as an Infanta with better knowledge of a Queen. I use it better than she does, at any rate."

She looked around the settings with a cluck of the tongue, "Waiting. Waiting. Like good serf for the Lord to commend him of his service and say come, si, come. I commend you. I reward you. Yet what is it about serfs? Expendable? Replaceable? Useless after a time?" She looked from the tent wall over to him with piercing eyes. In the shadow, the color bereft left them damn near so dark they were black. "While you envision hell the rest of us move to purgatory, closer to heaven than you. You sit near rotting corpses, ruins, and smoke. All it would take would be for one whisper to blow on the right wind, and nothing." She shut her hand, then opened it, "You would be as nothing. All this, for nothing. Waiting for commands and the world, mi amor, waits not for you. Everything is in Zaragoza, in the province of Aragon. The King of Castile, his Queen, the Infanta. The Aragonese who would rule everything and the french woman who came from England to wear his crown. And of the other whom he takes such advice from? Pssht. Do you not think some of them perished, his little messangers, in your mess? Or that he had a hand in this… to lure you, or condemn you if you did not follow? I came to tell you sit if it should so please you. I believe Arcelia was going to Zaragoza but I do not believe she lived out the night. Inquistors would make that very hard." Thus the reason for the black. She mourned, but not evident. Collect of gold filigree swirled under her bosom, held up high waisted by thick gold chord. Black, billowing sleeves spilled down, a delicious reprisal of a Gothic vision. Put her by a church, let her cry. She might make someone feel repentant.

"You flatter yourself. The Iberians care little for the Celts. Oh, who has not heard of their ships flitting about in these waters like little children's play things. England is a matter of crowned heads, a land to claim under God as a marriage was so made under God. That is how all these things go. My sister was the Castilian's mistress, you know. He is too distracted. I wish to learn though, unhindered of things. See them to the conclusion. I owe her that. So. You may learn something yourself, to benefit your… war mongering." She stood up walking about, "Or are you going to sit waiting for ruin? That is hell, not Portugal or any part of Espana. Waiting. Ignorance. Defeat. I take it before you 'lay seige' to the walls you did not know what… riche, lay within. What... things, for the taking besides what fill your coffers? Tut tut. The sun is weakening more than Paco's mind, I see."

A living portrait indeed… and he resisted the urge to move to her… to handle her like no man would… or could. Their relationship was one for the record books; one that bore the telltale of time. Since he saw her in the mission square all those years ago, she kept his heart. No wonder, some say he is heartless…

He chuckled at her remark about the hacienda… He had not seen one beneath his feet since the Spanish burned his father’s down in past history. Infanta? Luiza? He smiled… should she be so lucky. She was courtesan born, if not bred for such… A courtesan that he could nigh afford; for his lifestyle would afford him no such luxuries. And so their love went… different paths along the trail of life.

Serf? His whiskey-brown eyes narrowed and the mark shifted upon a scarred face. “I wait for what I desire… if word does not come, and I feel the urge… I shall take the Soldados de Ventosa and go where profit takes me… Espania and Port’gal has no holds upon me… Now that I know yu are safe, then nay much reason is left, madam…” And he canted his head… “And what of you… do you have reason to remain?”

Vaasco lets out a laugh… “Closer to heaven than me? I shall never be so lofty to think such… I tossed my cross and beads away longggg ago…” then he pretended to take in the scents offered by a burnt city… “Such aroma stirs a man like me… for if I can smell it, then I know I am not part of it… does it offend yu?”

“Zaragoza?” he cants his head again, this time the opposite way, this time with interest. “They are all there? And Mortimer? Is the rabbit there?” Then he straightened his head squarely upon broad shoulders… “So Espania cares not for the celts eh?” Hmmm, a direct contrast of his information. “The Celtic King has better ships than Alfanso…” his nose crinkled as she spoke… “Woman, you know how to irk me… I am not ignorant… You know the hatred I have for both Espania and Port’gal…” he stands and begins to pace a bit… his hands furling and unfurling fists.

Sticking his head out of the tent… “Paco…PACO… Ready the men… no packs, all luxuries into the wagons…” The Soldiers of Ventosa were a light cavalry… well-armed with the newest handgonnes. Able to travel more than 55 miles a day, endure a fight… and travel again…Their logistics train were supply wagons loaded with essentials to live, no frills or spoils… When not in a fighting stage, there spoils of war were enjoyed with the fervor they displayed in battle… Work hard, play hard…

Looking at Luiza… “Madam… I pray I go into a fight I can win…” then he began to pack his own belongings… he would definitely prefer to bed her, but now was not the time. Soon his tent would be struck and put in the supply train. “Zaragosa, yu say? Do you have a suggestion of a plan?”



"If you wait for what you desire your urge is failing. Strange in such a robust man, no?" She bated him in ever sentence. She laced him with elegant phrased barbs only to watch the results unfold on his person while she stayed as calm and collected as anything. Warrior's heart inside of manicured hands where she pressed at its soft parts. Sometimes she massaged them while others held it in tender fashion. "Solados de Ventosa have their profit, if they want more profit it won't come from dead bodies, or the graves you put them in, or the ashes. The world waits, and you still sit." Slender shoulders went up and down in nonchalant indifference.

Vasco was smelling the city as if it were the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. With a shake of her head she waved him away. Soldiers. Always feigning over their handiwork. To love was to accept, thus she accepted long ago that her beloved took pleasure in his flesh carving as time went by. She preferred a lifestyle of arts for what was a high courtesan but an artist of such caliber she was prone to attract admirers? The good ones attracted admirers unless they wanted to be common, underclass prostitutes subject to abuse, ill health, and poverty. Her lover did have a point, though. At her age with the amount of wealth she acquired she could retire! First she had to finish up lose ends in Zaragoza, at the very least, bare witness.

"I'm too old to be offended by things like that, the base habits of men. You learn to put them aside. Ignore them all together." A smile curved up on her mouth as she stood from the chair to watch him plot his next course.One other sure "Like you ignore sense. But if you are moving, si, they are all there. I have word that the King of Castille is on his death bed. So there will be little barrier to stop you in either cause, stopping your raid for fortune, or working for the Aragonese but..that does not seem like you. You hate Espana, you hate Portugal. You are out of places on the peninsula. I'm surprised you havent' taken to the Africas or the East for some relief from the plight." He gave the commands and in time the little world of his calvary was packed away in wagon. What wealth would he keep, what wealth would he sell? She found it very interesting to consider while never answering his question of what she herself would do.

He would to his men while she would make her way back to the carriage, "I may leave Espana to see why the world would have a care of a cold little country. At the very least, it will not be so far from France." She shrugged, baiting him again. Always chasing. Always cat and mouse.


Vaasco seemed to wander around the tent aimlessly, but in fact he was listening to his beloved Luiza. “Espania holds nothing for me… except hate and vengeful thoughts… My world is collapsing..” Was it a moment of true heart? Did his wall falter? None had seen his wall wane but Luiza, for she knew him in his true self. “All I know is gone… Toledo was the last bastion that held ill ag’n me…” If she was to mention his true self to someone, none would believe it true. “What shall I do when I have no revenge left?”

Wealth was what he thought could provide him a better life. Wealth was what he could take from any Portuguese or Spaniard… If it damaged those people of significance once he took it away, that was wealth to him. He had sold his life away for lesser values… so now, he would keep every coin, candelabra, cross, and piece of jewelry. And his sentences seemed as only a portion of what his mind was generating. His eyes darted around the tent as if to find words for her.

“Leave Espania?” the words flowed slowly… “Yu would venture to Skye?” he plopped into a chair… then rose when one man asked for it to pack it… Nearing her, his hands clasp her arms… “What is there, that is not here?” He meant him… but in all these years, they have loved… mostly from afar… but at least it was within riding distance. His heart was pounding like a drum.



He finally made it - a confession. A confession so honest that it took years to crawl its way to the surface through the heavy layers of bravado, violence, and vengence. A part of him would never forgive the world from what was stricken from it. He couldn't reclaim his ancestral home nor his family no matter how many homes he blighted. What was wealth? She wouldn't give him a warning on the danger's of wealth. No plithy statements of camels, needles, or gates of heaven. Didn't he consider himself damned? Being Catholic, forgiveness was as easy to come by as guilt was though. He was lapsed. Luiza found it odd a glorified whore wished him to know the company of a priest but it was so today. She watched his men put away the trappings of his conquest. Every piece of wealth that the dead couldn't use he would cart across the land until it could be squandered on temporary pleasures or used to fund more blood bathing.

"That is something to ask yourself many times beyond this time. What will you do when you have destroyed, or what will you feel when men rebuild for that is their nature? When someone comes to bless the ground you soaked in blood, to move stones over the ground for it will not be littered with the dead forever." As the tent was stripped of material things he looked so small when left only with himself. His head was free of his hat, his voice held no bombast. This was the inside of the man that she loved. In youth the brash arrogance of the soldier was thrilling to one who for all her education was still tender and young.Now it was the knowledge of the older man, his humor, and the succor given one another in times of meeting. How much did she have to offer him now? Spurning him on to Zaragoza because she could with half whim to see if he'd accept and half want to watch a chapter of Spanish life come to a conclusion.

He grabbed at her arms, asking where should go and why. "You have burned my home, Sanchiz, and I do not fault you for the reason. Madrid is no better a place for me to go now, when things rumble as they do for Castile-Leon has no King. I could go to Portgual, but you could not reach me there. I would go anywhere in Spain, but will I ever be guaranteed to see you anymore after what calls you?" She tilted her head now to the empty tent standing on a Spanish plain. "We are neither married nor are we suited to marriage, I think. We would have no one but ourselves to amuse, we'd grow bored, restless, and hostile. Or would we be happy? I don't know. I do know that I should like to see why the world looks on something so small for value. I should like to know that I can look at something small, and give it value. You are no small thing to me. You have much, much value." She softened her voice to the low-hum of their bond being sung, a voice bereft of temptation or taunting. "My sister is dead, burned. I am not so young anymore. What man could I have of Spain that would support me with such risk as it is to take one? A woman should have no care so long as she is given gown or sup, but alas. The honored courtesan is too educated in her own right to play so dumb."

She smiled for him, then sighed, "I do not know if I will go but it is almost certain that I will. The Celtic nations seem to thrive despite being so mal-aligned to anything but the North Wind on a map." The shrug was small, nonchalant as if resigned to the idea. "So there it is. I put all the things in your hand, mi amor. What will you do with them? No matter where I go, it doesn't change that I came to you out of some sense to offer you the same. De Garza is using you, trying to bring you out for the advisor Mortimer's pleasure. I have supped with the man. He cleaves to his lover's skirts because he, for all his education, is not the sharpness nor the beauty of the Queen. You know, I think she will be the death of him. She may be the death of the Aragonese if he does not unlatch the viper from his chest. Women are the undoing of great men as much as they are there to build them for rise. Men merely do not acknowledge it that way."

Vaasco looked at Luiza… picking up his hat, settting it atop the balding head, tugging the brim down just above the eye, the scar once again partially covered. “Mi Amor… seek yer path to Zaragoza. I shall be close about… If flames arise, you shall know I am visiting…” he smirked. “deGarza… nor Mortimer shall use me… I do as I desire…” He slings the handgonne across his back, and reattaches the sword belt. A cant of head, and his eyes veer to her. “Sometimes, I feel as you also use me… for yu have a fearsome way of maneuvering me…” and again he offered her a smirk.



Paco returned and informewd his commander that the Soldados de Ventosa were ready… all they needed was his orders to mount… Vaasco nodded… “Paco… we ride to Zaragoza… send a rider to the east and gather the other men to meet us in the western plains near the city…” then he looks back at Luiza, only to speak to Paco again… “MiLady is leaving now… five men in uniform of Aragon… once the lady is safe… they are to gain access to the Queen’s quarters as guards… and set up communications within…”



As Paco nodded and left, Vaasco neared Luiza… his hands upon her upper arms… “My love with yu always woman…” those eyes of his… they bore into her as words failed to escape his mouth. Would she know? Would she understand? Did she truly care?



Slow and deliberate, he leaned to her and kissed her cheek. “Go, it will be almost dark before yu get to the city… and buy me a ticket when yu buy one…” he smiled a shift of his head revealing a smile.

(1) commander of Soldados de Ventosa (Soldiers of Ventosa)

[Luiza de la Segovia]

On Toward the End


To the city before nightfall, he'd told her. A kiss on the cheek, he'd given her. Escort and instructions to buy his way within as she took her own place. How long she would remain was indefinite but his place could be permanent as any stone laid in the foundation of the palace. Zaragoza wouldn't be reached before nightfall on that day, but on the next with the pace of the horses it could be so. Traditional was not how the horsemen of her beloved rode. They stopped only to offer the animals what was needed while taking nothing for themselves, and so they rode no less than full pace when it could be helped. It made the journey a hard one to bear inside of the carriage, being that it was pulled at a rate that challenged what could be carried of the horses weren't burdened by the woman inside. She leaned back, seeking her comforts inside of her head.

By now the flames of Toledo would have passed on to Zaragoza where they would be at the heels of certain persons. DeGarza was no less guilty of her sister's murder than DeLugo. The Castilian court abandoned its right to Aragon without much of a fuss, leaving only for a grandiose end. When anything came to occupy the royal castle in the region again, it would be a shadow unless someone in the future to give substance. The region was fretful, fitful, and had lots its patience.

"You were right, Arcelia," she whispered to the air occupying the other end of the carriage, "You were right."

***

Sanchiz would have laughed, spellbound at her ability to insert herself in through a door where it was unlocked. Her way in to the heart of Zaragoza was to take on,for the duration of her remaining Spanish time, one of her former clients. Age is beauty made a fine wine. She offered to her clients the delight of a razor-sharp mind wrapped in china silk for the benefit of presentation. At times she wore hardly a thing to her face, utilizing only berry juice to enhance the tint of lip's color, to moisten them. The man had recieved her carriage at his door for seeing the guards in Aragon's livery. She? In the vestige of an instant some important woman of state. She was an important figure of state who stated that she would within the court of the King dazzle his contemporaries for his benefit. Without the fire or war it was as if time had little changed. Was she shallow? Hardly. Merely a creature of comfort that thrived in precise settings. After the taxing experiences of the plain she was pleased to bathe in water with oils. Rose petals belonged next to her skin. Milk against her face for youth. Fabrics that challenged the make of every sumptuary law by bordering on the edge of acceptable legality. These things were idle past times to many but armor to a courtesan. To halt the advance of time. To go forward to battle in a court attired in beauty's armor.

On the arm of the Don who patroned her with relish she saw the stars collied in the court. At every supper, in ever idle thing to break up the boredom of the late summer, there was something amiss. It was here she learned the Queen of Castille would take herself and her claim to the throne of an empty place to Portgual with the Queen's principle lady in waiting, Joan de Genville and the Queen's small son, who had till now been kept in a convent with a nurse for his safety. It was in whispers of course but she learned to listen close to these things long ago. The two women conspired with their eyes. Her ears were Sanchiz's paid men who infiltrated the setting with her direct guidance. These men would learn the meaning of patience while waiting for their blood thirsty master. Luiza was a different master, only gathering information, securing him his place, waiting to see what might be later used to advantage.


The Queen of old Castille, the Infanta, whichever one preferred, was attired in mourning clothes while the rest of the court erupted in rainbows around her. Poor little thing. Young, that one. Beautiful yet tragic. Women needed to learn early to command without seeming to command or tragic was the only fate entitled them. Joan de Genville seemed to have a similiar stake in life yet was older than the woman she companioned, older by a decade at the very least. More, potentially, given the lines of worry well worn. Still she was a handsome woman. All of them kept company at one turn or another. The Queen of Aragon, the Queen of All was vivid by comparison. The French mark was left in the sounds of the language wafting on the air as courtiers tried their hand at the language of their Aquitaine neighbors or engaged the Queen in political topics. How the Aragonese looked on, pleased. Neither too much but by no means diminished, his wife. This woman knew how to conduct herself.

It was obvious the Aragonese had a French song-bird he kept singing by his ear. It was a pity he had not stayed wed to the other who remained Queen but a little, he might have found a good companion yet not have lost his senses. Now of Mortimer? Well, he seemed a man entirely too at home in a place where he shouldn't have fit. Still, by the way the King eyed him it seemed Mortimer realized his time was short. There was talk of a weapon which had not been delivered, a plan that as left lagging after the putting down of the little battles all through Castille as the quandry of Portuguese politics was figured. Where was the weapon he asked one day on a demonstration time not fufilled. Where was his weapon of fire to afix to his ships to burn through the straight as it seems pirates had blazed through some of the best ships in his armada? Where would be the weapon to lay seige to the North of Africa, and the rest of the Middle East? She smiled over her wine often realizing she knew what they did not, even the location of the man Mortimer had been so desperate to secure for his own campaigns. His star was faultering while the star of the woman all knew to have been his lover still stayed fixed. Fascinating.

It was good to be queen.

[Luiza de la Segovia]

On Towards the End: Zaragoza
written by the creators of Vaasco Sanchiz and sisters Luiza de la Segovia and Arcelia la Coronado

i

Not far from Zaragoza, the wind carried the dust aloft… below causing the disturbance were the Soldados de Ventosa, some 500 mounted cavalrymen, and ten or so wagons rode toward destiny. At the lead, was Vaasco, and his captains… Paco and Aldredo. A mighty force to be reckoned with… Would he raze Zaragoza? For now, Vaasco would settle for them meeting his demands…

Ringing in his ears were Luiza’s words… “leaving Spain…” Where would he go? Could he be content with the Celts? He too wondered how could such a small island become so powerful? He raised his hand… motioning to the west… east… and south… the 500 riders broke into a division of four, surrounding the city. Was his mind on this? Or elsewhere?

Below, in the valley, just outside of the city, Spanish infantry formed lines of battle… First, were the archers… It must had been 200 or so, all in a line… behind them was a line of two hundred spearmen alternating pikemen every three spearmen… to the rear of them were five lines of 200 infantry with sword and shield at the ready… and behind them in the last row were men with gonnes, readied in the stand…

“A mistake… vital to them all, but good for us Paco…” he smirked at his captain… “They form as they are fighting a standing force… did they nay learn at Toledo… they learn their rear and left flank open…” Nodding to Paco as he spoke… “Vaasco, we have gonnes upon the hill… 20 at least… we should give them plenty of time to weaken the strongest lines below… Once we have damaged their lines, we can charge straight at them, shifting to the left at the last moment… their cavalry is nay being used.”

Nodding again, Vaasco knew this was an attack that should be chosen at a different time and place… but he did not need the Argonese and Castilian to regroup. They were a splintered group, and he needed them to remain so… He looked to Paco and Alfredo… “See you on the other side my brothers…” then he signaled them to take their places.

***

Life in Zaragoza moved on until summer started to wan for the first taste of fall. The air was warm and mild still, so there was nothing to worry over. Talk of the body politic subsided with planning for festivity to break the monotiny of mourning youth accompanied by mature age. At the King's death bed Maria had worn black, sitting beside women who did the same in solidarity. While Eleanor Guzman fawned and cried in bad taste over the withering body, another mistress had become the Queen's friend. De Genville too embraced an elegant whore by allowing her to sit with them in sewing circles, over games of cards, and at meals. It was never said aloud the relationship the woman bore to the old King, but it was noteable that while Guzman was the Portugese woman's every horror during the years of her marriage, la Coronado was an exceptable indulgence.

Arcelia la Coronado let her body be covered in night's shade for no less than nine days beside the Portugese. She attended novena for the deceased ordered for a fortnight instead of the customary nine days. Rosary beads clicked across her perfect hands while imperfect legs met the stone. Even veiled, she could see through the sheet sheet before her face a world imbalanced. Many fates were in question as the court would turn devout eyes up to the saints,Christ, and all holy hosts. Could courtesans have answered prayers? Did it matter at the time she was not within full practice of art?

On the fourth day of novena, she was beside a woman with only a covered head. This woman had nothing to mourned for it seemed as the beautiful veil on her head was made of a sage green silk . Daring times replaced the staunch, straight wimple for some favoring only the fabric to cover the hair and high, ornate necklines to conceal the chest. Beside Arcelia ,the sage green veiled one had a neckline that was high, but there was no doubting the effect it produced, drawing attention to the thin area of flesh that was exposed with careful darts in the fabric as from it every curvature, every line was enhanced. There was no doubting the height of woman's charms or the round of the hip. It was sacrilege parading as pious at its finest. On the ninth day of novena, she was beside the woman again, only it was she who sought to practice the art of concealed enticement for a little bit of laughter. It was only when the woman turned to look at how dark black looked eye catching on another fair figure that she accessed who she was next to. Oddly, when novenas were finished for the day the two remained kneeling, merely regarding the other in silent surprise. la Coronado pulled away the front veil in order to regard the naked face de la Segovia. Luiza's breath caught in her chest. Arcelia said nothing until Luiza offered, "Well.."

"Well," whispered Arcelia.

"In my prayers I prayed you to have had confession and to find peace in heaven, and if you were between, that my prayers should count for something to lift you there." Luiza pushed herself back in order to sit within a pew. Between the two fabric whisper-rustled in order to be heard at the same pitch as their low voices. For the first time in nine days of novena she had a reason to laugh. Doing so in all discrete taste she settled herself gently beside her sister. "Does God listen well to the prayers of jezebel and babylon women?" Hand interlocked in hand as both turned to look at the front of the chapel. "The King must be comfortable. He had his mistress, and I do not her hear now praying for his soul, where his second favorite sat beside his wife and considering he has not touched the pair of you in some time, you are pure enough. I, too, have not been indulged in with the physical manner so." When each looked at one another long enough, Luiza looked at Arcelia with watery eyes that didn't spill a tear. Through the murked image she could see herself reflected back in the eyes of her rival, which sisters were born to be, and her kinswoman, which God intended best. "I did not enjoy to think of a life where you were not. Now I do not have to think on that." The day was moving on as the saints went back to silent supposition and the pair left to combine separate lives in to parallels.

***

Joan was surprised to find Arcelia not with them for the late repast on the fourteenth day, and when she did come, there was a guest. "We were worried," she intoned with a bit of annoyance. One did not keep royal blood waiting, and no matter the relationship she had with Maria, Joan understood very well what her place was. "You could have sent us word. Who is this? No one told you to bring guests." Imparticular because guests meant the utmost decorum continued on with no relief until the setting of the sun. Not only would she be forced to see Maria in mourning, but she would be forced to entertain the idea that her place beside Isabelle was more important.

In the death of Old Castille the wife of Aragon had taken to bouts of deep worrying and deeper moments of intense prayer. She confided in Joan that men seek power in so many ways, and she grew tired of providing Mortimer the favors he desired when once they had brought her joy. In infantile way, she thought herself tied to him in lover's bonds, and lo, they were tied, but love was the lesser of all evils. A part of her loved Roger still, but the ambitious quests to which he embarked could endanger too much. The failure that was reaching them of England, a land broken by Spain but not conquered, put his reputation in dire jeopardy. The King was demanding the weapon he'd promised be tested if it was so found, and that his agents reveal themselves for proper discourse. She worried he would hold her among the things to reveal to Alfonso if it moved him to do so, as he knew it would move her to throw him down before herself. What was it like, she asked Joan, to love him without as much reproach? Joan has answered that she could not say when it was she loved Roger beyond duty, but she had for a time. Even now she was not free of that love. When it was called of her to do so Joan gave unto Roger her duty as he now did to her. Somewhere amidst the ambition he was as all men, still a man. As men are apt to do they lose their way.

Isabelle was lost but Joan could only have mild pity for a woman who had torn their lives to shred offering Spain as the balm to soothe wounds that still ached. Roger had pulled her away from her living children, all given their own households no matter the age. What could have soothed a mother's aching heart died in stillbirth after stillbirth. No, the Queen of Spain was left to her own devices even when she was surrounded by them in a room. Distance was necessary, sad, and times were too dangerous to make bridges.

Arcelia broke Joan's memory by speaking in the present time again. "I am sorry, and I know that I did not send word nor self to tell you. I beg the forgivness of you and Her Majesty. Countess de Genville, may I introduce to you my sister, Lady Luiza de la Segovia. She is the reason I have been amiss. We thought to have lost one another." Segovia lowered herself before de Genville, instantly intrigued by the woman's lack of her husband's name. This was a Spanish custom, not an Engish one. "Senora, I apologize for detaining my sister. We have had not had the pleasure of shared company for some time, and instead of mourning her, God be praised I may celebrate her life." Maria felt the absence of Joan, and on coming to find her found that instead of Arcellia, there was a woman who seemed her mirror image! On noticing the presence of the Castillian Queen all three women lowered until told to rise. All three entered the room, making four, and stories would be told. All the while Vaasco Sanchiz was not as fortunate as the room of women. He had made a mind for himself to surrender to blood lust instead of sense. Had he not given Luiza men with which to find information, and could he not send message by any other way than sword? While the pair were set to tell the story of how they came to lives led, one of the guards was granted admittance, posing as a messenger for Luiza in the livery of her patron Don. Accepting the parchment, she broke the red wax seal . The mind drank in through the eyes quick memorization of the facts in the hand of the men who'd left it, now returned to his lord and master on the field of battle. No sooner had the letter been read than out in the halls came talk of the battle just beyond Zaragoza, of Castillian and Aragonese poised against the Soldiers of Fortune.

In that moment, Arcelia came to realize she might never seen her Peter again while Luiza might entertain an unorthodox, unfitting reunion with Vasco."You will pardon me, your majesty, Countess. Sister. I have a summons I can not ignore." Her sister did not wish to leave her alone, and would do the same, leaving two women in the room where there had been four. Arcelia followed quickly side by side in stride with Luiza. "Is it over what was in Toledo, sister? Can he not detain himself for but a month, a month." Giving a shake of head Luiza looked to her fraternal twin "Si, one might wish but it is not to be. I would have given him what he could have wanted as John the Baptist's head on a platter, but he is not only impatient, it is near desperate. I do not know this country anymore Arcelia. Where is the priest? I am surprised he has not joined you." Arcelia reached out for her sister, making her pause in her step. In hushed tones she told her of how Peter had come, peter had been, and Peter had made love to what he thought a ghost. He was beside himself, and left when two young people who had been in his company had vanished from the inner circles of those that favorited them. Together now pieces of a life were fitted again.

As the men made ready to fire on the field of battle, the twins relieved the night of burning that marred parts of Arcelia's beautiful legs and feet, and even now left scar on her exposed hands still healing. There was talk of the Templar papers traded, of the two men De Lugo and De Garza, and of the second having the most power while the first had a material possession the second desired. It had been all along about the weapon known as Dark or Greek fire, and the fact that de Lugo possessed barrels, one of which lent itself to consuming Toledo. The priest had come to track the reasons for Templar sightings in the wars of Spain only to find this sordid fact. Fire writhed with texts to be translated and others sent to follow in the foot steps of DeVareux, to find him, only to fall in to a raven deeper than ever imagined, wider than thought, with an ending of violence and terror. Be it that neither Peter or the youths had returned, it was not for any to worry over what fate hadn't changed. At present, Luiza said, "I believe I can stop him, still him at least." Was this in part her fault, for bating him? No. It was to inspire action in him with some hint of sense, which he obviously abandoned by choice. "We will talk more soon."

***

In the midst of the titans that were planning to clash would ride a party under the royal banner followed by those of white, signifying they were not to attack but to bring word. To any of Vaasco's Captains,this would be said aloud if not heard at a distance:

"Agents on behalf of the King have been sent to parlay with the leaders of the Soldiers, and with the true head himsel, as to come to terms with presenting selves before the great and sovereign prince of the land!" For that bombast alone they might have been tempted to shoot, but some of his own men were amidst those riding out to hold banners and offer protection. As bold as he was refined, the Don had been entrusted with the task of delivering the message in writ, as well as another he kept under the fat, seal laden scroll. "I am inclined to say," he whispered when one of the Captains came forward to accept, "That the Segovia bid him think before acting, and listen before speaking, and hold himself still before aiming or he will ruin what has been set for him by his own prior actions." Beneath the official documents was a small, folded note "For Sanchiz, only."

[Luiza de la Segovia]

ii.

Lines were drawn in the sandtable… Armies readied upon a field of battle… Zaragosa sat idly in the background, as the Butcher of Toledo motioned for his men to move to the departure line…

As predictably as the sun rose and set, so the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the four divisions of the Soldados de Ventosa continued to march steadily forward, unimpeded. Upon a knoll overlooking the shallow valley below, Vaasco sat upon the grey horse… eerie shdows cast upon him.

"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him...”
Revelation 6:8:

For a country so deep in religion, almost to the point of self-destruction, the man upon the pale horse knew, nor cared, for religion… for religion did not console him… nor feed him or his men… To him, religion did what they wanted… that is why he saw so many children starving, while the Church lay in gold…

And gold was aplenty in the city beyond the army… Greatly outnumbered, his men were still a faction to be considered… They carried no flags… only symbols of the apocalypse… the Bow and Crown… a large Sword… a hand holding a pair of scales… and the scythe… all upon lengthy staffs, so all could even see from a distance…

“RIDERS!!!! Under the white !!!” yelled a man… and its message resonated back thru the ranks to the man upona pale horse… his darkness hidden eerily in the shadows…. Vaasco, tilted his head… The white flags fluttered behind royal banners. The army behind them had halted, advancing none while the party advanced. “Arrogant bastards…” he exclaimed. Little did he know what was to come…

As easy as lifting his arm… the war machine stopped… orders had passed thru the ranks… battle-ready horse were pawing the ground, as if to urge their masters onward… No man would disobey Sanchiz… for fear of death… As Paco, and Juan met with the parley party, it was Paco who listened to the Don.

Juan, more literate than Paco, meanwhile, accepted the document… breaking the seal… looking over the scroll. His gloved hand caught the smaller document and smirked when he saw Sanciz Only… Portuguese words passed off from one man to the other, as Juan took the party behind enemy lines… Paco returned to his position, simply watching Vaasco’s hand to empower the war machine once more.

Can people even imagine a world where these 'dark powers' don't prevail? How easily people became resigned to their bleak inevitability and rationalize them as natural and inevitable manifestations of 'the human condition. What had people thought of this awesome force? They must have certainly deemed them as angry instruments of the gods bringing havoc and suffering to humankind. Had the world become infected with the disease of cynicism and give into the basest instincts and fears, or would they take a stand for the possibility of being alive and start a new story about who they are and who they can be for each other? Did they deem the future a choice, or did they become spectators to the inevitable demise and destruction of values, world and possibilities?

The man upon the pale horse gave no motion… only resigning to himself to meet the parley party.

***

The court was a flurry of conversation, motion, and action. Luiza left her sister only to return to a tumultous state of affairs. People were in tight groups in the great hall so thick she could only hope as they separate to join other conglomerates she could break through. "Don Delgado has been elected by the King to lead the parlay party out to the field." Of course he had, she thought, because she deliberately instructed the Don to put himself before the King long ago should ever such a moment arise for his glory. Concidently it coincided with the need to stay the hand of the rampaging Portuguese. Reports from messangers spilled from one end of the hall to ring up conversation anew. "He rides a white horse, the priest has said not unlike the sign of the horsemen at the end of the world!" The deeply pious would excuse themselves, cheifly women set to become nuns, elderly women, and men with little better to do and a lack of place to do it in. It left space for the mentally capable to entertwine themselves but it was still too thick for her liking. Wonderful. He had turned the one bastian of civility left in to a place of praying pigs. In rooms people would cleave to statues of patron saints, namesake saints, and rock while rosary beads clicked through shaking hands that much she knew.

In the main hall everyone remaining would lower to the will of the King. He entered in but did not go to his dias. No, he endevoured only to walk half of the way. With him went four guards, two of which were Vaasco's men, two of which were his own. All of them knew nothing of the farce so it mattered little. Wasn't this all turning to just that? She remained lowered like the rest of the courtiers until the King announced, "I will take with me those that command my forces, and those who can lend to them. Come. We counsel." Behind demure eyes did she see what looked to be the celebrated, lauded Mortimer pale? These were the things that could write his warrant right out on his skin. After rising she turned to look through one of the windows at the sun. A dry heat would soon dissolve in to a chill with a hollow crisp. As seasons change, so to do the world.



Delgado waited as the captains rummaged their paws over the seal to read the words for themselves. Captains. Pah. They were indebted to the Sanchiz with no chance for a life in Portugal lest the King deprive them of a head. Luiza had told him to expect this, that they would act as Sanchiz's body. His ears, eyes, even his mouth if they had the gaul to speak for him. He inspired that sort of thing. It mattered little because he could see that approaching him now was the Devil himself. He brought others with him, no matter. The letter would be enough:

What is this that you do? You ask for a way and I would give you a way only for you to trample it under the hoof of your white devil's horse? What of your men within, did you expect them to kidnap the king or where they to listen to me only until they saw our scarred hide? I tell you where to go to seek a fortune but you will never hold one without blood on a sword or flowing through your fingertips. I pray, I expect, you will heed me if this one last time:

Do not attack. Do not endanger the lives of my sister and I at your discovery, or of those few within the court worth something. Your men stand by the king at all times and the time of Mortimer is coming to an end. De Lugo is not yet here, but De Garza? I have seen him before me in church, at meals, in the idle times of the court. Don Delgado was waiting for your arrival so that he might bring you in, a man of court or by your silence if preferred to do your business. He is now in the parlay party where you should negotiate with him terms, wherein it would be best if as no one knows what you look like, come in to the court and allow one of your other capitans the honor for now of being you. Ride elsewhere once the parlay is settled, and attack elsewhere. A man who goes to puts his hand too fast in to the basket of fruit does not know the thing waiting inside to bite him. I do not wish you dead, no matter the anger you inspire in my heart. I love you too much. To that same token your presence, so bold is a problem of highest concern to not only myself but my sister, Arcelia. Have no love for her, I expect you not to, but respect that she is all the family that I have in this world. We are rivals, but I would do anything to ensure she remains that only and not a corpse.

If you want Mortimer for toying with you, if you wish De Garza in the same instance do this. If for no other reason do this in memory of your love for me. It will give me time to arrange for the escape of the Infanta back to Lisbon where she may begin her work of securing what is rightfully hers or whomever she deems to take to the throne, what is her sons: Castile. In some way, shape or form this must occur. You may then have what conquests of deserts or Europe that you favor, selling your services or keeping them to yourself to do with as you please.

Once inside of you was a man who thought as well as fought. I hope that today that man wins superior to the sword wielder. I have missed him most of all.

Luiza

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

Note: Though unstated prior , the sequences of events takes place in the late warmth of 1333, Fire on the Water series preceeds Zaragoza: The End, herein telling the finality of the adventures in Lerida and the adventures of the Monroes and other associates in Spain.

Fire on the Water: So We Too, Become Sparks


In the mountains near Lerida a fire snake was eating beyond the river, only partly stilled by the odd happening of rain to come after a festival celebrating the sun. It hadn't taken long for Monroe to lose all of his senses to a rage at seeing the priest that he had never wanted to trust but had tried, selling himself, all of them in fact, to De Lugo in the form of the barrel still waiting to be taken for whatever vice lay beyond the River Segre. The two men stood in silence watching the object of desire devour a part of Spain. De Lugo threw all his subservience to De Garza as if a body on a pyre. "If you can take me to them," he told the priest, "then we will have no need for De Garza. I will finish the weapon for the King, expose de Garza for what he is, " as if de Lugo was not the same, "and you may be done of this."

To be done. Oh, God! To be done! The priest smiled a grin with a curve wicked sharp. He tossed his head back, he laughed! As the smoke climbed higher and higher his soul tore from the bonds of skin to dance in front of his eyes. It didn't matter anymore than he had made love to a woman he considered a ghost, that he had thought her dead, or that his life was entrusted to the pair who came from Scotland. What did they know? It was his venture.It had always been his. His victory or his defeat. For so long he was lost with the death of the Courtesan, swimming through an old life, nearly dead under the plaza a prisoner of living dead Moors in Seville. Suddenly it all mattered precious little. River water kissed his feet as he walked in up to his ankles. It was cold, and a fine place to stand on a warm morning to watch the fire burn.


In the town of Lerida, the night after a beautiful time was marred by the dawn. What else could they do? The pair dressed in order to meet that same dawn. By now the people gathered on the outskirts of the streets to see the gray smoke topping over buildings still hung with the red celebration cloths. Eyes fixed on the sight, the occasional observer would notice the figures of slender man and woman moving past the crowds. Some wondered why, others wondered among themselves at the reasons for smoke. Was it moving closer? "Where are you going? Fools get too close to what no one should touch!" Of all to issue a warning to the travelers it was the keep of the small inn where the pair had stayed. Janice looked back over her shoulder for the instant, offering a steady gaze coupled by a silent goodbye. His money had been given, his thanks abounded. He had in the gesture of giving Julian a room for the night given her a soul again. Julian's hand was gripped firm on her shoulder. Firm, but gentle. Silent suggestion of having no time to spare was true. Still, as they disappeared beyond the crowd of people she told the inn keep, "We are a blessed, useful sort of fool."

If his sarcasm wanted to make a gripe he never said it aloud. All he did was steer her like a ship through the people he didn't want to be close to. The way he looked at the hills, Janice shared his thought if not in exact measure, in spirit. God forbid the fire reach up, up to where an unknowing Margot and Benoit would be defenseless against it. Guilt pricked the corners of eyes and she blamed it on the dust as reason to close them for an instant. Afterward they walked on following the trail of the River Segre, looking at the little bits of ash in it. Stream of conscience thought flowed like a river, too. Why hadn't they offered Margot to come with them again, insisted? As precious as the time in Lerida had been two could have become three, couldn't it? Onward Janice - it didn't matter now - what mattered was bringing it to a resolution. In irony had not Julian said this same thing would come with the dawn? How prophetic.

*

It seemed they walked through a bright day cut in half by a night that wouldn't cease. Janice coughed the closer they came to the smoke, blinked to bring moisture to her eyes until the picture of the priest in water and de Lugo on the shore brought everything in to stark clarity. How clear was it for Julian? He was like air exhaled for just as she did, he was already moving for the best vantage point to cast his hidden weapons. She crouched down behind the shrubbery. The men laughed. They kept laughing at nothing until spent,de Lugo went over to bring the last barrel of Greek Fire to the wagon to transport. Just as he was about to climb in to the seat and bid the lunatic priest to come with him, he felt moisture on his thigh not from the capricious sprinkles of rain beginning to fall. It flowed downward as he leaned over, gasping for breath. Between his fingers the substance flowed unbidden. Just a moment ago he was fine, ready to take in his prosperity as the sun rose in the sky.He was going to leave de Garza's service, but instead he would be leaving life. Another knife thrown between his shoulder blades summarily ended the of Senor de Lugo with little fanfare despite the background around him. Julian's aim was so exact it couldn't be wrong. No doubt he had calculated it even as he threw the instrument of destruction. For her part, Janice remained low for the time being.

"It will be over," he said to the waves in the river. So caught in his own thoughts that by the time he noticed de Lugo's bleeding body he was already in range to be taken down by the instrument Janice had fixed from her back on to her arm. Sprung by her wrist when lifted, it unleashed a long, sharp piece of metal in to the priest's thigh. "What is this?" DeVaureux screamed out as pain strangled his words. He stumbled up to the shore, finding falling on his knees flexed the muscle to lodge the rod in deeper. From the brush came the reason for his injury, and from the sides of the scene came the reason for de Lugo's death. Looking down on him Janice could hardly find a worthy word to put on the man that didn't sound cliche. She was prepared for Julian to kill him. His eyes seemed to hold the contents of two streams of thought at once. In the first, he realized it would never be over the way he intended. He would die, damned for this. In the second he realized he hadn't given them a fitting chance, and in his own selfish worry went on to betray them with no care for what could come in his wake. Thinking only for himself. Bitter madness fueled his every action. Gripping at the object in his leg, he fell forward to his elbows. The two of them looked on the man. He was the source of the reason for coming. People sought his presence, worried for him only for it now to come to him crawling on his belly, mad with grief, bitterness, and symbols no one should ever have to understand. Despite what small sympathy may have lived in Janice for him, she still put her boot heel in to his belly and pushed down to crush his diaphragm in. Gurgling, desperate sounds came as he closed his eyes, and winced in impossible pain. Would either of them say anything to him? For all intensive purposes the objectives had been done: Find DeVareux, find what fuels the Spanish Templars, and end it. The last? Well, there was to be more finality but it would not be uttered here. Julian delivered a crushing blow to the side of his skull. His bones shattered, drifting in his brain as the river drifted lazily on. With the coming of the rain, it was as if God gave those they couldn't reach a chance. Weather the rain would cease the fire entirely or that it would self burn down they couldn't say, but the chance was all that mattered.

It was time to be done,time to go home.

The End