The Spirits in the Hills

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

The Spirits in the Hills

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dyin'
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
'Cause I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad world, mad world

Mad, Mad World - Tears for Fears

I.

Margot

They made camp after another hour of sedate walking. Though she disagreed with Julian, he had certainly given her something to mull over. Margot, at least, did not think their silence was due to stewing, but the young man had already proven himself difficult to read many times before tonight, it would be a surprise to no one if she read his silence incorrectly again. She slid down from the horse and slid the strap free, chuckling as the mare whuffed in appreciation. "I am not that heavy," she said softly, and then swiftly removed the saddle. Margot was quite practiced at making makeshift camps. Within moments, she had the mare hobbled near some fresh grass, the saddle blanket unfolded and draped over the silvered back, and was already seeking pine boughs to use for a bed that night. Were their pursuit more immediate, she wouldn't have bothered making a camp at all, but there had been no traces that they were followed. She hacked off a few branches and offered them to Julian first, and then went back to hunting down another tree to make her own bed. She'd had her fill of sleeping on hard, rocky ground. At least the branches smelled nice. They hadn't passed any farms in their flight, so there was no food to share, only sleep to catch. She felt woefully unprepared for a long flight through Spain, but she had reached such a point of desperation that she was willing to settle for the feel of a juniper-scented breeze upon her face. Aragon was cooling from the desert heat of the day, and from the mountains to the north and settling over the wide plateau was the fragrance of wild herbs, desert places that they would soon cross. She returned to where she'd laid her branches and began scooping out a slight curve in the ground, then arranged the branches within. Sleep, she knew, would not come. So she sat upon the boughs and listened to the deep night surrounding them, the stolen sword balanced on her lap. *



Julian Monroe

Young boy in the market, follows all the men. When the men leave he's out of his head. When his eyes are closed again he sees the dark market of above, and he sings 'They break the most beautiful things' He had a wicked tongue, but what that did not lash out in desperation. His words had parts of wisdom well beyond his years, though the vendetta laced deeply in such sounds seemed almost to taunt her like some starved fool he had once been. She could deny it all she wished, bit his were knowing eyes that came forward with the careful flicker of judgement as he watched her in her restless nature. Why had they even stopped? He would never rest, not with feeling as though his heart was left behind in that city. He shouldn't have gone, but was it such a sin to feed into his curiosity? Jean-Claude would have gone, no matterhow much he would deny it. Undone, the bracers that went over both shoulders hung at his sides still attached to the belt that kept them in place, as each small throwing spike was cleaned with careful precision. Work would have given him credit for his desire to continue on, but somewhere along the lines of his backward mind he could not find just reason. There was no doubt the man in the mountains knew well how to perfect the formulas, Ada knew, but he simply refused. Chemistry was not his pleasure, but it was one more reason Jean-Claude kept him close. He could read commit the text to memory, pull information through places left unread, and with a single glance committed it like a picture somewhere behind blue eyes. "Why did we bother stopping?" The cloth closed over the tip of the spike before placing it back in the belt. "You have to get forward, and I have to get back." Already doubting his reasons, Julian should have simply turned then, but..he felt pulled. (d


Margot

She ran the cleanest bit of her skirt over the blade, polishing an inadvertent fingerprint. "You wished to sleep. So sleep," she said, not unkindly, but clearly wishing to be back upon the horse and continuing their journey. Perhaps it was no safer with Benoit, but no harm had ever befallen her since meeting him. "If you do not feel like it, then let us finish cleaning our weapons and be off. You may even sleep in the saddle, if you wish. I can walk." Margot looked heavenward for a moment, as if asking advice what to do next. How could he look up at the stars, and know for a certainty they were alone here? How could he look upon the marvels of nature, and feel a deity was not responsible for the grandeur and majesty, the awesome scapes of wilderness? It confounded Margot, though she did not think any less of him for it. This, she thought with a look around their camp, was not a life for the faithless. It was not a life for the cowardly, weak, timid, nor those prone to living without direction or purpose. This young man was not destined to live with Benoit or to become his newest student, as so many had sought to do when he was at his zenith in Paris. To study books, he said they came, from places as far as Lisboa and Venice; but the wisest -- they came from little villages where the old ways were still taught, mother to daughter, and the fire feasts held in the most uncivilized, most feral of lands. They were taught the ways of the Moon, the natural and the feminine, the divine nature of plants and animals. But Benoit was a practitioner of the Sun Path, and with him was the countering wisdom that traced its way in code throughout the pages in his books. No, Margot thought rather sadly. This young man would take what knowledge his wished to know, and he would leave. He would return to his people and he would forget the mysteries set before him to uncover. He would walk away. *


Janice deBrabant

The night encroached like the one before it to fall with a quality of faux sedation. Everything was always teeming in the scheming depths of the black. Nothing ever went as it was plainly supposed to go when etched on paper with an eased, if not displaced sense, of grace. "We did not see your brother today," said courtiers, over and over, "He is not at supper, is he well?" A child of paper could concoct a trifle to appease the uncultured palet; gossip was not the stuffs of genius so it was no trouble to say, "He has business to attend where it is a matter for him, not I" or "He is unwell, pardon me, I should look in on him." The time of his absence recycled through the mind as no one else was about to break the tedium. What was she doing? The Guardians said nothing each time Monroe embarked on an expedition contrary to the one that brought them to Spain - or in truth - her. Everyone needed to devise a path to follow not dictated to them by anyone, a chance to observe, to settle among the river-reed to watch the river go on beyond the curve of the bend as the ocean became the stars. He could map stars. She would climb them and on the way remember the story set down by each. Now it was back in a castle of high walls as the heat of day subsided the Guardians would be of lock-jaw, stern expression. They were charges whom could order them about but charges all the same. Absence of one, but now of both? She looked up, wondering if the stars were latched on by threads. If Mountains were applied by paste to backgrounds, if the earth was made of paper. It felt that way. There was not one agenda, but several to unravel. Beneath her fingernails were tell-tale signs of the paths of others coming to an end as she went on. By now she was no image of shimmering light but daunted by the landscape. She could have almost laughed. It never mattered what one wore, nothing seemed suitable for foot trecks through forests, mud, up hills or heat..yet at the very least she traced his footsteps enough to give no rise of her own. One odd trait of the docile is their ability to be ever-quiet at all stages of life when desired. She tried her best to allow her dress to meld with the environment, the boots she wore were better for outdoor paths than court floors, allowing her the chance to carry arms. It wasn't as if she had much time to gather anything yet had to gather everything. Behind her, men died, women could die, and in a flurry shower of papers falling like comets the world was being decided. "Julian..what have you done," she bemused. It was hard to distern full details watching stories from afar (d)


Julian Monroe

Everything about this world seemed to laugh, from the first breath within Spanish air he felt even the sky laughing, but it was when he would swat the second bug did even the horse give out an exasperated sound that caused his icy blue eyes to turn knives upon the beast. He didn't see souls in the stars, nor lives past, he saw lines of figures that were hardly even figures of a stories he liked, though he knew so few. His mother did not read to him, his father told him stories to keep him from the woods, but what good was Orion's story when all that mattered was his belt. Old yeller eyes lived in the woods, and the old clan keepers would reassure his father's words with their jest poking at the small boy until he conditioned himself to never need sleep for fear of the monster returning. "Do you really think me that much of a child?" Suddenly, the smallest of sounds faint at first made his eyes as large as the moon and the spike in his hand held so tightly his knuckles turned white. "We're being followed." He whispered. By old Yeller eyes. (d


Margot

"Are you always so argumentative?" She slid slowly to her feet and stepped out of the pine bed, lifting the tip of her sword ever so slightly. She had a distinct feeling the answer was yes, or some such equivalent, except the young man seemed hunched in his own bed and too busy strangling his own weapon to carry on a conversation. He was a bit of a child, but in an endearing way. He'd probably not appreciate the sentiment.She crept out into the darkness, sliding along the scraggly trees that proliferated along the stream they'd been following, hiding her body well in the darkness. Her hair darkened with soot, and the rest of its braided length hidden beneath the kerchief, she was dark enough to blend in. With a new moon hiding its light from the world, it was blacker than usual, working to no one's advantage. She passed by the horse, with enough distance that the gray mare didn't even raise her head in greeting as Margot slipped by. A girl. Margot would have crossed herself in relief had she really thought about it, but her first reaction was not of the religious nature, but of grasping at Janice's nearest wrist and twisting it behind her back. The sword, with two razor sharp edges recently finished from the blacksmith's shop, was placed beneath the young woman's chin. "We do not have a fire, nor do we have food, but I encourage you to accept our hospitality, and to explain why a dove such as yourself is out walking among the wolves on a moonless night." *


Janice deBrabant

Yes he is she could have answered the question with many examples of the fact. He was alright by all accounts, was the woman he rescued the same? She seemed able to survive well without him beyond so why on earth did he linger so long on the edge of one venture and the one he left behind? The woman didn't know of the invisible tether tied between Monroe and deBrabant. Dark strands of obsidian made the world outward what many felt inward in these times. She shook her head, half tempted to leave him yet more than half to stay. It was the oddest fraction. She knew that the walls of the castle hissed with the frustrations of the Guardians who knew that the youth were now able to slip beyond a tether. DeVareux would have nothing to stop his thoughts from turning maudlin nor know if his purpose would be protected without them. Everything was balanced between two sets of shoulder blades yet in the dark words she sat. Not revealing herself, just sitting. This is ridiculous she chastized all of them without verbage. Had Julian at last found a feminine figure worth his attention enough to distract him from his writing, or his formulas? She'd congratulate him if he hadn't fallen headlong in to the estoteric beyond right along with it. She would have left him had not the dark broght out the wolf of his distraction to grasp enough to cause half a second's gasp to shoot outof her mouth. How odd. A blade at her throat, a hard hand on her wrist but no scream. She was beyond screaming as an expression of fear. She found in its face she did what he skye did. Laughed. Sardonic was not the usual flair of Angels but in macabre circumstances it'd do. "Because you have my brother, and that is reason enough, unless you have taken his sarcasm with you as a token for your stay" She tried to study features in the dark, a slight tilt of head of her own admonition. "Now, you can take that from my throat or we can test one another. Julian wouldn' t enjoy it. I am sure he would chastize me if I put a mark on your person, and I have enough on mine in the last few days. Thank you." (d)


Julian 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' She carried the world, her fate along side what they called her --Angel. Sometimes he felt as though there could be no other answer, but was he the only one to see this would be her undoing? Perhaps, Marius had known it too, and in a more cruel world this was why he left. Someday, she would have to die, but "No! She's a friend." He came to his feet in a single motion with the a fierce fire that seemed to melt the ice of his eyes and replace it with electricity. "Let her go." She would not leave this world today. Moving to separate them, he would take her wrist--seemed to be the theme, and in a harsh manner made his demands. "What are you doing here??" He hissed. "Are you stupid?" He knew the answer, but was an awkward youth that was not easily frightened. However, his heart beat so fierce that there was only one reason. "She could have killed you." He would know. When the world came crashing back to him he let her go, and turned to Margot. "Jean. She meant to say Jean. This. Is." So far he had told only the truth to this woman, and found himself trying hard to lie. "My sister. The crazy one I was telling you about who should not be here." He shook his head as now the anger/fear moved to simply anger. He slipped into French so easy, having not known if Margot spoke it or not--in this moment of questioning her reasons for being out or the chastising her stupidity for blowing their cover. "Mon nom est Jean, rappellent?" Taking a deep breath he turned a look back to Margot as he came to calm. (d

Margot

Margot let her go immediately, though she was uncertain whether to apologize. The etiquette for this situation escaped her, though she did not seem the sort to apologize as she gently rested the blade of the sword to her shoulder, a soldier at rest from sentry duty, despite the soot-darkened hair and rough clothing torn into utility, as fashion had been left behind when she was pulled out of the boudoir and cast to the blacksmith.She eyed both of them, though, her face ever placid, though even she could not pull off the look of arrogance required to deliver such a line, only mild humor. Fortunately, it was extremely dark, and just as she could not see the lack of resemblance between the supposed siblings, they could not see what was playing upon her eyes. "Yes, I could have killed her, but I did not. My reputation for staying the lives of innocents is perhaps not as stirling as I would like, but let us put this one in my favor this once, yes? Come," she said with a smile as she turned away from both of them, and began walking back to camp. She found where they had been sleeping by sheer luck -- recalling the pine she'd hacked free Julian's bed from, and within three steps, the shallow pit containing her own bed. "I should like to hear the story of why brother and sister have such close, but remarkably different, accents." She sat back down in her bed, and rested the sword across her lap. "My name is Marguerida." *


Janice deBrabant

Released only to be recaptured by the same mode - her wrists throbbed from the continued use of the entire arm. From shoulder to fingertip, every bit was required to keep their pace over what was useful. Rocks, tree to tree. Creep crawling on belly only to fumble in the assumption it was not his false pretense given. Had she been so driven to worry that it slipped with that much ease when the effort to persue had been difficult? Such a visible hole ate awayat her as he excused the error with - what? Guilt was dispersed like sour notes on a violin by an indignant anger that made hazel-azure gaze swim in a molten sea. Instead she rubbed at the offended limbs while offering a cant of head "No, madame did not kill me, so there is no offense to be had. You only digress in this case to the one a moment faster, well done, madame. The answer to our voices is one uses one language more than the other, and with the useof language within our family's business, our tones are all distinct. Danielle, a pleasure." Danielle was her mother's name. Janice wasn't even what she would have been called if secrets weren't in the family model. Sometimes, one could grow sick of pretend. Fortunate enough to find a log in the dark encampment, she elected to sit upon that. Did Julian notice she tresspassed no where near him? No, it was not out of fear of chastizement either. For once shewas blantanly angry. "I am sorry I had to use such means, but I was not sure how far my brother intended to go or if he would turn around." (d)


Julian Monroe

It was his turn to find his place by the fire, though in a world that had constantly been laughing it was now he would shake his head with the sound, before letting himself pull his knees to his chest with the slump of defeat. His laughter was not of happy sounds, nor was it sinister, but if there was a way to make such pleasantry sound judgmental he did. He was beyond tired of pretend, and in this world in this very moment he wanted them both to know his name. It was easy to be swept up in this lie, "Janice..I trust her. She's not like them." Jean-Claude would have turned a cross eye on him, knowing he was young and in fact male--Margot was beautiful, of course he trusted her, but did she not see the dead bodies in crossing? Until now, Margot had never asked him for his name, and he never gave it. "She is the widow I told you about, they had locked in the tower. I'm helping her escape, she's taking me to a man who knows well the poison we need. He is a man of Adelaide's past. The one I met in the market." He was going because he was stuck, and it showed. Julian looked tired no matter how much he didn't wish it to show; proof there with his eyes now tired showing that he had been up for far too many hours worrying over the right formula, and never one to listen to instinct--far too proud to ever ask her. They were working on that though right? (d)


Margot

They were very good liars, but liars they were. Margot settled back for a good tale, and was somewhat disappointed. The accents in which they spoke a foreign tongue was different. It carried into French, and without betraying her own sordid history -- as if it got much worse than her tale of Villena -- she could not disprove Danielle's story. It carried from tongue to tongue, their deception, but it was skilled deception. This, Margot could respect. Honesty, too, made her heart warm despite the cold air surrounding them. She looked between them, where they should be sitting by the sounds of their voices.Ah, and now she knew. Janice and Julian. "He is the most skilled at his craft, but he has grown reclusive since the fires of Paris some years ago. They say he turned himself in, just for the opportunity to prove a theory. But few know he escaped, and now leads a very quiet life in a small shack about a day's ride from Lerida. Of course, he would choose a University town for his residence. He is many things, but he is not a fool." She was quiet for a long time, as if she waited for other sounds to join them in the dark, other trespassers that she would not hesitate to drop to the ground with a clean slice of her blade. She wanted vengeance for whatever destroyed her life in Villena. She merely needed an excuse to shed the blood of those who hounded her. "He is my father." *


Janice deBrabant


"Ah. That is it then, it will be a trio, instead of a traveling duo. Forgive the intrustion, m'lady. It is good to hear more details to my brother's other agendas. " A schackled widow went into the hill sides with a Jean come Julian and were followed by a Danielle come Janice, on their way to see her father who as skilled with poisons and survived the same fires that scarred Jean-Claude and gave Adelaide permanent pause. It was official, they should be damned. "Since it has been revealed, if we should cross others, call me Danielle infront of them please." No need to repeat what was said for if the woman could wield steel in the dark she had an accute sense of hearing. Had Julian dropped dead from the daggers Janice was glaring at him yet? If looks could kill, he should be convulsing despite the cool exterior the eyes were quite vivid in their display. One word cycled 'crazy'. Oh yes, Monroe. It isn't crazy to follow a widow from prison on one horse through the Spanish ever-where to a man with poisons while not telling one's accomplice they were heading out on said venture but being followed by them in pursuit instead. God forbid she worry our seek to see what was wrong, yet crazy? Marguerida would be every inch the saint, not the devil who tempted him hence. Oh no, he was as large a hypocrite as those they'd left behind. Forbid her the horror of one inch near danger yet go galavanting off toward the dark. When time presented itself she would slap him. soundly. For now though she confessed an inward fascination with Marguerida as well. "Your imprisonment had crossed with our objective, though it is good to know and see you are no longer bound. Julian explained what he had seen, yet he never told me of the reason for your captivity, if I may ask." She was going mad. She felt her eyes express her words and words go mute with the bland. She was turning in to Sorschal or St. Laurence, or maybe it was a trait of her true parents. 'Papa' seemed far more docile, Mama was an enigmantic vibrant mystery (d)


Margot

"I am surprised you did not hear it for yourself," Margot said with a surprising lack of levity. It was as much deception as their names; the tale of what had led to her capture wasn't one that could be forgotten simply because liberty had been temporarily achieved. "I was being held in response to charges that I had murdered twenty-five men in Villena. The specifics of their murders are not fit for polite conversation, but it was horrific enough that the village is still lacking in residents, who fear my return."


Julian Monroe

Touché. OH No. Heaven forbid he have a life without her? Though really she was in fact very right, but getting that confession from someone like Julian was like trying to get him to smile. "She's not a fool, Janice. She is...Your father??" He was struck by that. Would explain a lot. A lot. (d


Margot

The rumors were gruesome, but not entirely without truth. The men had been slaughtered in the castle, torn apart limb from limb. Her husband's death had been the most painful, and the most grotesque. That she had not done it did not dispel the horror of seeing his corpse from her memory. She was not certain how much Janice would believe, or if she much trusted this woman. That Julian had not particularly believed made Margot skeptical of bringing the insanity to another. "I ... I suppose I am a very powerful witch. Or I was. I am bound now. Benoit discovered the method; he came to the castle while I was suffering from some long illness, and .... When I woke, it was necessary to flee. And yes, he is my father. Not much of one, but it is true. He is not very apologetic for my upbringing, either, nor do I really expect him to be. He lives in his own world. I was unintended." *


Janice deBrabant

Heaven forbid he live his life without telling one of simple fact? She didn't care of his other-world, didn't begrudge him his explorations so long as he knew the point of return. Margot's story went from the improbable (not impossible, given the circumstances of witch she lived) story of twenty-five dead men that made Janice consider the possibilty before striking it aside. It would have taken a great deal of force to kill twenty-five men under horrid detail, and while she could envision two, twenty five? "Fathers can be unconventional beings beyond their part in creation of life. Their presence depends on personal feeling. So now here you are, and here we are." Slightly softened exterior for the part of the lady looked over on the man with a simple, "I didn't imply nor suggest that she was a fool. At any rate, if the knowledge her father harbors may be of use than it is a prudent venture. I for onewill not begrudge any help we can find." Julian was only foolish in certain ways. He couldn't humble himself to ask for her help and the rational of his ego led him on expeditions as opposed to his curiosity leading him on expeditions instead. He loathed her but didn't while at the same time being afraid, yet wasn't. No, maybe he was only confused. She wouldn't begrudge him that. She stood up only to sit down, letting out a soft hiss as the pain came and went. No, it wouldn't be discussed right now. It wasn't the time, and she wasn't in pieces. (d)


Julian Monroe

'I didn't imply that you implied that. I simply stated the facts." It was what he was good at, Julian could find any flaw. They had made camp after all, and as Margot went off to find her own bed she would leave the nests made for the duo. A careful move was made next when she stood, only to sit again, and in that Julian would stop all of his argument. In reality he would have been a good lawyer, or even a politician. Yet, there it was placed out before her like an ace in the deck of cards she held his sympathy. "I'm very surprised you came all the way out here. We're very far from the city. I figured you would be too involved with your court to even notice I was missing." His way of asking her if she was ok. In truth he had not wanted to come, but there was so much of him being pulled in the direction they were heading. He no longer could help the way he wanted now to see what was beyond those mountains. (d



Janice de Brabant

I am supposed to notice. I noticed it every other time before, but something told me you would not come back this time. You'd go too far ahead to go back so easily, and with things as they are..you're missing this time was not something to let be." Margot was an interesting soul. Janice wanted to sit down with her, listen, discuss the ebb and flow of time making her life to better understad what it was all about. One look at her person was enough; words from Margot's mouth made Janice riveted. She wasn't immune to curiosity's prick, only swords were much sharper. "What if something had happened to you?" She didn't conceal in different meanings another meaning. The scent of the pines and relief of heat was soothing. Like a gargoyle on stone ledged was she perched unto the log. Gently, it animated itself again, moving hand to settle in her lap (d)



Julian Monroe

"What did you think I would fall into some dark pit and never return?" Would be more of a 'witch cast a spell on me and I followed'. "Janice, I'm perfectly able to take care of myself. She didn't kill all of those men you came across, nor walked this far on her own. I've been balancing it just fine. I don't need you nagging me like some mother hen because of some loyalty you have to Jean-Claude. We made our agreement back in the palace. We don't go home without the other." He squared his eyes with her own, settling directly across from her enjoying the way the fire flickered through the darker parts of her eyes, but then he laughed again, recalling her entrance. "You made such a fool of yourself."It was great. "Thankfully she's not in dire need of gold to sell our secrets out. You wouldn't have any money left." He was being cruel, but hardly realized it. However, it was nice to know she was human too, and the weather was nice even he had to admit that. "Has there been any change in the court since my single night of departure?" Yes. He was still poking at her. (d



Janice deBrabant

:She remained where she sat as he went on his merry way poking, proding as if nothing mattered in the night except the shadows swaddling the woods or tomorrow. He threw in a promise like an agreement they made in passing, and leveledhis sin against her in mock idiocy. He enjoyed it, the way her eyes seered as if to burn holes in his skull. With the help of the log she pushed herself up to walk across the forest floor and beyond the light of the fire. Without the fire all of them would have tripped in the dark except for Margot. To counter his words came nothing to his immediate hearing other than shuffled pine needles and pebble under her shoes. Did her appearance show in the fire to fascinate him further? The garment she wore of home-spun shirt with earth colored dress spoke more peasent than Aragonese courtier. The sleeves were worn cuffed up to the elbow, sullied with dirt and blood spots on their lower halfs'translating to interesting patterns further up. She settled in his space as if she belonged there, some piece with jutting edges that was made to fit by sheer will power. It wasn't his fault that he didn't know how out of sorts she :was this particular evening, but he knew better than to prod. So much she could take, really, and often took far more. She opened up her right hand, palm connecting hard with his cheek as to be the only sound in the entire wood! The crack she gave his face was enough to suggest somewhere in the last handful of years strength had been hiding in their all along. Still indignant, the hand went another round, only i twas the back of the same right hand connecting with the other side of his face! "You are an ass." Came the flat tone, as if all the want to feel had been sucked dry. His eyes could travel down if they choose, to see where the snagsin the dress were..and also the blood. Her side blossomed with scarlet flowers for it. In fact the hand that smacked him was attached to a bruised arm. "You are a great, cruel, ass." With that she turned, proceeded back to her place..but didn't sit, only looked into the black (d)



Julian Monroe

His eyes watered from the hit, but not of emotional outpour. No. Monroe didn't cry, but the slap did make his eyes water and in turn they seemed to dance back and forth with the anger of the fire, as well the light of the moon. His fists came to ball, as the air against his face felt cold from the heat of her hands. Rumor had it this son of Munro had the very devil in his heart, but his was a heart of stone. However, in this moment he felt it crack like the egg of a dragon, and the beast to claw at his ribs. The laughter came again, inside his mind a deep sinister sound, that caused him to close his eyes in silence. In the moment that passed, the split second that seemed like an hour he gathered his senses and channeled them to pure rage. The camp was surrounded by rock, as high up as his back, and when he took her wrist once more he would push her against it with such a force that perhaps the air would have been taken from her. This. Was to keep from returning the favor, though it was not necessary he knew he was out of place. He would pin her wrist just where it was against the stone to expose the underside of her arm once more. "What is this?" A place to channel his anger, "What are you not telling me??" He hissed. "What happened back there that has made you forget who you are? Finally you crack. Finally I pushed you as far as you go..but is this really the best you have got?" He narrowed his eyes on her, "No." He shook his head, "I know its not, but are you really mad that I left or left you there?" (d)



Janice deBrabant

No moon was in the sky so did Julian conjure one up in his stare? He laughed like a crazed, rabid thing with a disease. It despaired, letting humor conquer the macabre as it would not be thought on any longer. She didn't turn whenhe started to express himself and yet wasn't unprepared for a retaliation. Did he enjoy the undersides of her exposed as a plaything for the darkness inside he wanted to feed. A creature fashioned from an Id stimulated not enough but too high, too mighty. She widened her eyes at the extent of his revolt, the force slamming her back against rock that warranted a high, painful hiss between her teeth that went on to become a sharp, lowwhistle. If she were as cruel as he was she would have applied her knee just at the right point to bring him down on his. Instead the hand he didn't grab tensed. Fingers became claws as thenails dug at the side of his neck leaving angry red marks. Did one draw a red line of blood? She shut her eyes as the pain kicked in again, but she wouldn't give him the pleasure of seeing her downed. "Why should I tell you anything, and I have forgotten nothing. Instead of asking, you would instead think of further ways to humiliate me. How dare you say anything of a promise when you, in this time, can not think for half a second to keep all parameters of it? Had this been me..you would have done no different. Do you really want to know for the sake of knowing, or for your own foolish vanity as to prove your statements, knowing you, you'd find more cruelty. Do you know what was behind you.." Of course not. He only knew Margot was infront of him. "We were engaged, and we have lost some of our guardians.Or did you think they didn't notice either? Translating for de Garza isn't without its peril. So there has been not time to notice court," she hissed again, that free hand pushing at his chest suprisingly enough drawing him somewhatback. "He is no fool, he knows we all play one another, but we need one another unfortunatly. But I suppose all of that will wait now. It is a time for action, as your vanity could not allow you to tell me what your plan was nor seek for help in her liberation, yet I do not make your night harder for it. Find some other way to defend your shortcomings, Julian. All of the time I can not be your experimental plaything." Her face was half flushed, and half pale. Eyes were entirely electric. One would almost think she were pretty half raging, half pained if it were for the pain. "You're going to make me tear my own bandaging." She tore back her wrist from him, holding an arm aroundherself as she stalked off to another rock ridden end of the camp (d)



Julian Monroe:

For every truth she spoke he had a reason, but how could he simply cry out about how they were going to burn her. That he didn't have time to think, he acted. Would she have done something different? They had Margot at the blacksmith to remove those silver bands, if Janice would have been there would she have done anything different at all? No. However, he felt there were not words to make up for the wrongs done on this night, and the guilt weighed in as if all the iron in his blood tightened around his heart. He didn't believe in fate until Margot, but he didn't believe in love until Janice. His heart broke. "Which ones?" A voice just above a whisper right on the verge of breaking asked of their names. It was a change in his persona for he had never thought of them as men, simply soldiers. Why would it matter now what their names were? The bad guys could die left and right, but this was the same as losing the baby that one cold winter those many years back when he was just a boy. Julian felt sick to his stomach, and grew deathly pale. Jean-Claude always knew his apprentice would need air then, but outside? What did he need? That rock behind him now. It became his crutch. In the lean he took against the stone Julian ran his fingers through his hair and down his neck to pull away the one that brushed the blood.The little drops ran down his finger not enough to make it to his shirt, but it was a reminder of the blood that once did. His hand covered his mouth drawing down his lips he looked to her then, not knowing where to start. "How bad are you hurt?" It was a plea more then a question, for her to be alright. He took a few steps closer just to stop, "I don't have my bag." His fingers moved to touch his temples, and he closed his eyes, "It all happened so fast. Janice..I.." When his eyes opened again there were real tears, as Julian started his break down. "I'm sorry." He fought them back. "I'm so so sorry." He was shaking, but still motioned for her to sit, "Are they deep?" Maybe Margot would have something he could stitch with. (d)



Janice deBrabant

He could have cried out and found that in the midst of his delirious ideas she would have championed the very things that made him a man with lost wits trying to save the world while ruing it at the same time. There were no words he could use right now to make up for the fact he painted her the fool when she did what he, too, would have done. Every move abscent or adjacent of him had some comical element in it of her self degradationwhile touting a strange admiration. His respect couldn't be earned by that admiration while her person was torn down as fast. He could have all the fate he so desired if he would only but see her as more than a thing to be envied.:Janice, by this point, only wished to be as their partnership decreed. Siblings. It was a twisted situation, but so was what was behind them. "Leon, Martinet, Jamison. Mathison. Grigsby was gravely injured, by God's grace will he live. They were attacked by a mixture of guard. Aragon guard, and Muslims, wanting revenge for what happened in Seville, in the Plaza. The world blames the priest for all its woes, yet wantshis promise of help. Yet while you were gone, DeVareux also drew my mild apathy." She looked at the motion to sit, regarding it tentively. She stood next to him instead, holding her side as the pain throbbed hot. "I don't want to :replace his Arcelia, but his eyes. He needs to be done, we all do. he needs to return to his brothes. So if this Benoit can make the poisons, than praise God. The fighting in Fez is intense, yet it might open at the same time the :very thing the King wished all the time, Free trade through the Strait. I was so close.." she whispered. His tears surprised her, enough so that she sat somewhat adjacent of him "They are deep enough, but not so deep as to need many stiches. I think the ones Grigsby's brother did may hold. He is the only one who knew where I went." A part of her wanted to ask why on earth was he crying, but that would have been like asking after her anger.It just was. "Julian." She shook her head softly, looked at the dried blood beneath her nails. " I am just..happy you are alright." (d)



Julian Monroe

There were only a few tears before those hardened on his face. It had been legend for many years until Oxford that when Claramae cried they turned to diamonds that, this was why Jean-Claude called her as such. "Let me see?" He asked her quietly. He laughed while fishing through his pockets for anything, but as he shook his head he came back empty. "I should have known." Looking to her again, "I thought this whole thing was fate. I thought meeting her in the market, and again..then with Benoit, and Ada..then again. I thought it signs." God he was so stupid. "I hadn't expected her to not be in her tower. I panicked. I didn't have time to get anything or tell anyone. I don't even have my journal." She should know what a sin that was to him."For her to be Benoit's daughter? Everything pointed in this direction, and the first time I act on my feelings and not the logic 4 men are dead, Grig is hurt..you. I've never been responsible for someone's death before, and least not without a fight." He caught her eye once more. "Do you really think its that simple?" (d)


Janice deBrabant

That you can't blame on yourself, it was bound to happen. So many people are playing at so many things here, Julian," A sense of modesty crept to the fore even in the middle of no where. She considered revealing the injuries as he spoke his piece. Signs. Everywhere had them from DeVareux accompanying them to the way that de Garza met them. There were reasons that DeVareux had never left or the sigils that spread out on paper in an Aragon castle. Reasons for:the translation the King asked of her. Would it have been so simple if she could have gone to Fez with him, yet no...with Marius that wasn't possible, but he complicated things all the more."Signs are at once complex and more complex than we could ever make them, God we follow blind while he is our eyes. People are often like that. Grigsby's pain or their deaths are not your fault." She had her fingers against theside of the dress, pulling the lacing apart. Radiant pink moved across Janice's face as she then pushed it away, slowly lifting the blouse portion up to a bunch to reveal one side of it, the worst side. Imagine Grigsby's brother was no better to her sense of modesty. Head turned, she died a little to reveal herself to the men even hurt. It was hard being the only woman on this venture. At least Margot would make for another female. Finger pried at the bandage to shift it up, where he saw a sword's swipe, four inches long, perhaps five and a half from just at the front end of her waist to near her hip as an area.It as clean and stitched at only its deepest junctures, as obvious to say she had a great deal of time to employ in finding him. "I'm not dead." First instinct was to roll the bandage back down (d)


Julian Monroe

"Margot did not kill those men, and they were going to hang her, burn her..I couldn't let that happen. I would have done the same thing if it had been you. I just didn't think, I acted. If this is where God's eyes put me, I won't let it happen again." He went quiet when he saw the wounds, the stitching not bad, but all he could think of, "Jean-Claude is going to kill me. You should rest. There was a tavern not far from here, a small village. I'll get you a room?" He would start to undo his shirt, the buttons down the front. "Here. You will bust a stitch if you sleep in that." He had another layer of a thin cotton undershirt. "We'll clean that up. Don't blush." He would point to stop her, "If I survive this, and finish my schooling you'll have to get over this." There was something about the night air that made him want to stay outside, the sudden wash of the cool against his bare skin felt exotic, and perhaps tonight Julian would talk to the stars by the fire if she wished to stay, or he would sit by the window of her room. It was almost the darkest hour of the night, when his mind moved the most.

"Can you walk?" He would carry her. (d)



Janice deBrabant

Yes, but you needn't get me a room. I am coming with the pair of you, and will stay here..thank you. I believe you, Julian. You needn't doubt that. God has a plan for you. Let it unfold, you've come this far." She wasn't a prophet though couldn't divine what the path was. The hand had done a fair job. "Jean-Claude will not kill you. He can't kill you for what he can't see, and the Master has always had me attended by women." She wanted to laugh, to chuckle. Did Jean-Claude expect him keep her pristine? If that were so, he should have put her in a convent in Spain. Not Aragon. "Thank you..but.." He was handing her the shirt, so the blushing only increased.."You are going :quite out of your way, I think if I trecked thus far the stiches will hold." The bare skin had her eye fixed completely against the fire, yet she'd listen to him without fail. As the stars tried to penetrate the deep black she andcouldn't help but smile (d)



Julian Monroe

He put his hands in his pockets, not certain where to go next, but he did turn to give her privacy. "I could read to you part of Doctor Mirabilis's Opus Tertium..? I don't have it, but I've got it memorized." He spoke quietly thinking of Roger Bacon, and how that was the night Jean-Claude brought him that book was when they all found out about her divorce. He read it a hundred times forward and back just to make sure nothing was missed. Jean-Claude attended many of his lectures. "He was the one who did the study of the optic system." Another quirk of his personality showing through, Julian went on about nothing when he was nervous, and though his tone was still a bit dry it did seem at least interested in her reply. "Its up to you..I worry about the wound festering."Lord he would never sleep tonight, but she wasn't a doll she was right she was not dead. (d



Janice deBrabant

She tucked back in the blouse and laced upthe side of the dress as he spoke "That sounds nice. It's quite a feat to memorize such a text." She paid him the kindness of a half smile before shaking her head ,"We will wash it well before leaving again,the world will go on. It's stitched, it isn't open, the other one isn't near as long or as deep. You don't have to worry Julian," voice softened a little more, "Truly, merely cuts and bruises. That is all. Cuts and bruises. (d)



Julian Monroe

He turned to face her, reaching to cup her cheek gently before brushing his thumb over the apple curve of her face. "Cuts and bruises still, hurt just as much as a Lady's backhand." He truly would never forgive himself for this, but smiled all the same. "Come on. I'll find another log for the fire and settle you in." He let his hand touch her back to direct her, and he would keep watch all night. (d)

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's gone
All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind.
Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see

Dust in the Wind
{Log Forthcoming}

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

How many roads must a man walk down
before you can call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
before she can sleep in the sand?
Blowin' in the Wind - Bob Dylan

Julian Monroe

Couldn't sleep so I went out walking, thinking about you and hearing us talking. And all the things I should have said echo now, inside my head. Coaxed from his restless nature there was an animosity that the old Master knew well as he pulled upon the strings of the puppet's heart. Through the almond trees, the ashy oaks of the the wind rustled the leaves, and Julian found himself listening desperately for the chants to rise. He sat perched in the window, one leg drawn to his bare chest fighting battles with demons there trapped by his ribs. Flashes of light, haunted his closed eyes when he felt them claw from the inside and his mind shifted quickly from one topic to the next. He hated the window that held no pane, the glass a deep protection from a world with winter, and he wondered of a nation that hardly knew of the cold. It kept away the wind, and the deep rich smell of the soil beneath the grass. The glass had been a luxury without the city ever knowing what a winter was like without it, or even a tapestry to keep away the deadly chill. Was this his problem with Spain? How far they were from home, but when there..did he feel any different? He was a strange creature who moved from window to bed again, of one who carried far too much hate at such a young age. Yet, would that farmer's wife know her son now grown into a man? Of what used to be skin and bone, now started to harden a build, and he was as tall as his father had once been. He suffered this night, of a restless nature that missed home, and dragons in his chest. (d



Janice deBrabant

The shack in the hills was something from the omnious encyclopedia of foreboding; on the inside lay finery beyond the ramshackle destitution to ward away the prying eye. She twisted in the bed clothes, inhaling the secrets of Catalonia for air. Name is a secret, life is a secret, lineage a secret..you are made of secrets..flesh and bone a lie. Her mouth opened to call out only to find that nothing came out accept the faint glimmering edge of an exhale.The scent of the woods twined hard along the edge of wet stone. The feel of fresh bandaging under the borrowed sleeping gown Margot had given was a reminder that underneath her skin was no longer token perfect. Curiosity's price was paid in the etching of another sword. Through the thick darkness she saw the figure of a boy-man walking, pacing. Sleep escaped restfulness and bordered on dreams that made insomnia favorable. Turning her back on it, she rose from her bed to walk in her half-full stride manner. Had there been something in the tea she drank before bed ,something to make her rest? The effects of it on waking early were strange - stranger still she endured it with such ease " Julian, are you awake to?" (d)


Julian Monroe

He had made it as far as the bed that was made, the covers pooling around his hips as he wrote beside the candle, but the book had long been closed. The Apprentice would say nothing, rising from the bed in wayward manner to answer her without waking the rest. "I can't sleep." In truth he was an awkward soul who could not place his feelings, what suffered the youth's heart then was homesickness, but he made the mistake of telling his heart he was indifferent. "How are you feeling?" The door was cracked only enough he could stand on one side while talking to her on the other. "You should be resting." Yet, he wasn't the healer--yet. A sudden wave of dread washed over him that made him shudder in his stance, and chills to start in waves up his spine. It simply did not make any sense to feel this pulled to home, with the irony taste of blood against his tongue. He was going insane, and Adelaide would argue he had been there long before this night. Did she feel it too? Opening the door enough to see her he pressed against the frame, "I can't sleep." He spoke softly, proof that there was a well mannered man beneath his dry exterior. (d


Janice deBrabant

The Apprentice and the second one would soon not be the same on returning home. Surely this proving ground without the wings that sheltered them from the ravages of world weather would hold them up to the rank of journeymen. Was ittruly a desire, moving further through the realm of the beautiful dark that tantalized, titilated? Blue eyes turned up to view the sorts of things living in Benoit's rafters. Did he dry herbs? Were their bats or birds making nests? Through the sliver in the door she attempted to share with Julian the workings of the mind - yet- the mind united and divided the pair inexplicably. She canted her head, watching him shiver only to grow worried, "A little sore, but better. Master Benoit put something in my tea but a dream ruined the best laid plans. I should be resting, but..I can't...are you alright, Julian?" Her palm was opened up, gone flat to press on the door only to find he opened it. Instead, she leaned in to the door frame. Gold hair swung long across her shoulders, creeping. It'd grown, just like the curvature of figure. (d)


Julian Monroe

He closed his eyes for a moment letting his face fall if only for a moment, "I can't sleep." As if saying it three times there had been a charm, but tonight even the spells placed upon the doors had not worked. When he opened his eyes again they were pale, "I'm worried." His narrowed face turned to the room before he opened the door fully to let her in. She would wake them in the halls. Closing the door behind her, he moved to pull on a shirt, something to cover from once virgin eyes, though the way she blushed when he saw to her wound made him question her marriage. "I just wish we could have some news from home is all." He had started a letter, and upon the book of paper the quill remained atop still warm where his hand had held it. "I have written home twice now, and have heard nothing back." He knew the odds of being found up here, but somehow he thought his Master to find a way. In Julian's eyes Jean-Claude could do anything. "I.." No he wouldn't tell her, but would run a hand through his hair; down his neck. Margot's touch, even to his face had put images in his head he would not scare her with. Yet now his worry turned from Jean-Claude to Claramae. It would not be long before the rumors of the Spanish victory of the life of the Lady Duchess came rushing up the mountains, but what was one more night. On the table was the formulas written to resemble Claramae's, with the mixture of what was Benoit's. (d

Janice deBrabant

Fingers curled down to the palm while she bit her lip in mild embarrasment. She'd been worried, worried enough in an instant to tear apart a door while at the same time being able to marr his face when she became indignant. When she was granted enry she moved in on quiet feet as if walking through the nun's cells. While a covering was put over his flesh she turned her face to the side with familiar blush part hidden by the dark, part betrayed to him by cande light. A man's body was not a thing she stared at with moon-eyes; the mind of a person was favorable unto a woman who was favorable to God, favoring the greater work of substance to the flesh. The letter looked at her as if it too had eyes, a mouth to say You want to know too, you have tried the same thing.. "I feel very scared for them. At court, I too tried..to no avail. The messenger was there to meet me, yet he brought no information the first time, the second, he never returned." The thought of blood spilled from either master made eyes tear, but the tears went unshed. Instead she looked at the formula the Master Benoit's knowledge was filling in. "My God, Julian, these look brilliant." she praised, tucking a strand of hair behind her left ear as she looked a moment, only a moment. This same woman had looked at him with daggers earlier, only to be gentle again. (d)


Julian Monroe

He sighed leaning against the table with his back to her and his arms crossed over his midsection, "What are we going to tell the court? They will wonder of our disappearance. The last I heard was of the move on England, they will think we deserted?" He turned to her looking for the answers, knowing she had them--she always did. He hated her for that, but there was not much in her he did like. Yet..the way her hair was down tonight, and the soft white of the gown of Margot's brought out a beauty that was there without all the glory of wealth; the fake smiles she put on for the crowd. However, even he had to wonder how untrue any of them ever were. Sometimes he was green with envy of her, moving through crowds so easy uncaring of the judgement placed on her. Julian for once would have liked to have known how that felt, or to feel anything at all. "They are a bit too malice. I don't trust that man." He finally admitted, feeling as though he held that confession in for far too long. (d

Janice deBrabant

"If we have deserted we are French, they will think we've returned to France. All that matters is that De Garza thinks we do his work. In a way, that is not untrue." She held her hands together, letting them lower infront of her middle as she walked to the time of her thoughts. Manners were practiced with aplumb until the radiance of her posistion was never questioned; it was to be pleasing so as to be pleased with self. No one in this country knew the truth of her. An anchored wife in the eyes of God dishonored in seperation by man's law. A mind with an affinity for deciphering bable, understanding the origin of a thing. No one understood what it was like to have hands descended from men of God who murdered for the glory of a King. To be mannerful was to wear a shield. In the outside world or the world of secrets, she was never really comfortable. Only living as best she could. "They are far too malice. But I have deciphered the reason the Templar here are as they are. They have perverted Christian texts, even beyond the thought of mystics or gnostics. A perversion of God's will, of God's law in image and in word. I've been translating the writing of a Saint who experienced an exctasy with a knife through her middle, the pain so divine she wished it never to end. It is metaphorical. The 'knife' is their deeds, poised on the 'heart' of where they stand ,to bring about the will, or the ectasy. These same men helped Alfonso defeat the Muslims only to betray him as he lauds them, only for them to seek..other places to pierce. I am worried de Garza is the source of turning one on the other. Yet his man..where is he in all this. I think he is in Algiers, trying to spread the war out, like a plague. I worry what they have poisoned the Spanish thoughts with, I worry that it is more than the Queen's coaxing that moved the King..but theirs..out over the sea. When your formula is done, we go back I suppose." She rubbed at her sideat the idle irratation, wincing softly, but it wasn't from that pain alone. A pain in her heart, too (d)

Julian Monroe

He laughed then, the kind of laughter that seemed to be directed to her particularly almost mocking, "You could not go one single day without speaking about God could you? Everything is birds singing and praise to the almighty is it not, Janice? Its not a perversion of God's will, its the damn greed. There isn't a God here, what kind of terrorist fool would do such a thing? This. Is why none of us can trust anything in that book, and I'm doubting your work. Yet..at what hand does a translation start? One single slip in the wording and it could take a whole new meaning." This coming from a man of Mathematics. He would sigh looking over the formulas over her should crossing his arms over his chest, suddenly sick with worry she would find something wrong with it. She would know..again she knew everything didn't she? In the silence he stood for a moment, "I bet you even dream in metaphors." He would know the truth that they all did, if he could only see. He could have spent hours with de Garza, and perhaps even the old Priest." The potential of going much darker in this is easy.." He touched the scribble connecting two lines with invisible etches under his nails. "With that much poison, you could destroy the mind. It was Jean-Claude's biggest mistake. Well.." He scoffed, "Other then Ada." (d


Janice deBrabant

"It is what is in the work, whether you see it as religious folly or heathen corruption is no-never mind to me, but at the very least have respect for what is being told you at all, unless you've developed a magical ability, Julian, to float seamless through tracts of Spanish, dance over latin, only to arrive at the conclusion in Hebrew. I am not discussing God but telling you the nature of the text, put your abhorance of the Christ aside for a few blessed moments and do not mock my faith in God again! Which book speak you of? If it is anything on this Island, you stand a chance if it is in numbers. If it is beyond the island, a particular book of fame? Not even the masters could read it which was why they had to ask. You know, asking, not mocking? You should try it. It would make you plain spoken and sufferable." She snapped back without a moment's apprehension, curling her fingers up to ball into fists. How she grew to hate that he was better in numbers. She could memorize and mix formulas but he could break them apart better, refine them. He could use his science for strategy and she hated that she had any use for him at all. They weren't children anymore, though. Could he not grow out of this child's need to press her. "I do dream in metaphor, and it terrifies me." She sighed, looking down at the formula, finding nothing wrong with it. "But with just enough, you can cripple it. Brava. He would be proud to see it. Leave Mistress Adelaide alone tonight, for once do not mock or defame. Just..don't." Her footsteps carried her towards the no glass window to feel the air. She was pale in the face only to go scarlet in the cheeks. More than anything, she detested how much she cared for him (d)

Julian Monroe

"The Holy Text, you know..the Bible. B-I-B-L-E. What book do you think I speak of?" He huffed knowing they were going down a quick path towards a deeper seed of hate, that someday would see them to their grave for it was certain death would come quick. "Oh I should should I? Would that make you happy? Because it seems to be all that matters in this damn world." He watched her ball up her fists, and narrowed his eyes on them. "Going to hit me again? Strike at me because I for once don't bow down to your forced smiles, and unending happiness?" He would shake his head, as his chest tightened around his heart. "Its just funny to me how you can have such faith in stories, Janice. Stories of a man living inside a whale, and how my rib cage made you. Yet, you can hardly have faith in yourself. What happened to you? You never gave into my quips about your big nose, or bookie ways. Why now? It was the one thing that was sufferable about you." It was a lot to ask of a anyone, and her especially. "There is something you are not telling me, and maybe you don't realize it or not but the only way I could ever get you to tell me anything is out of anger." Backwards wasn't he? "What are you hiding? What did you trade for your passage to de Graza? A night? Your hand? What?" (d

Janice deBrabant

"No, why would I bother for it only seems to insight you to more terrible pleasures. I do not ASK you to bow down to anything, but I behave as I should, as is proper and as is expected of my station in this place among lions and heartless wolves! What would they care of the truth of myself, they are only fascinted by anything because it is in the company of a man that makes it acceptable! Yes, you should..you should!" She hissed, trying not to wake the household. It was her fault for stepping in to the viper's chamber, succuming to his bites. No, she didn't hit him, instead she pushed him. Hands trembled as the tears fell unbidden, "My nose, my books, that is nothing ,nothing! Turn the other cheek. If your enemy should hit it, give him the other! I have nothing left to give you when you tear at the very thing that keeps me sane...and you..you suggest my virtue, how dare you, how dare you?! All that you've hidden from me, all that you still hide...yet in patience I wait for it...hope you will tell me. How dare you! Do you know how many of them look at me with those eyes..do you know how many..would seek to ask you for such a thing..do you know!? NO!" She smacked at his chest over and over again, sobbing. "You tear at the heart of me here, why, because you doubt your own? I AM SCARED! Scared that this horrible world will ruin what is left of...of anything that was of my life in England..of my..uncle..of...all that falsehood that still made so much sense..they will ruin it! They will hurt Claramae.. they will tear everything we love because that is where it is, I know it! I know he would try to help her...they are like brother and sister..there love is so perfect" She pulled her hands back.."It only magnifies..they know one another, they make one another humor. They have loves that will never betray them even beyond that. No..never me. I am a thing, a curiosity no mater where I am or what I do, and you put me under one of your looking glasses and study me. You aren't teasing me, you're ripping me apart! " She made it to the other side of the room before she trembled too much to walk, holding her side but refusing to cry aloud. She broke apart, with hardly a sound.Shook from an anger so intense she could have killed him if she didn't love him. Love hurts. She hated that, too (d)

Julian Monroe

His eyes grew wide as she burst into tears, not expecting it at all. He wanted to tell her, to reply in ways that were unnatural of him. There were so many things left unsaid, but he let her have the moment. "Janice, nothing is going to ruin anything for you. You don't have to be scared. Its me, this is who I am. I don't know how to be anything else." He touched his own chest, "Until this trip that has never bothered you, and I'm asking this not because I think you a whore. You act out of duty, you always have. I ask that because I'm afraid you are not telling me something. Its been a wicked world that you have been without guardians, walking up mountains alone. I do not say this because you are woman! I say this because heartless wolves! THAT PIG of a man who put his hands where he should not, would have NEVER done that if he knew you were married, but at the same time would he have given you the key?" He acted almost insulted, "You think I put you under glass to study you? I'm not my Master in that respect. I don't want you under some stupid glass, looking at you on MY terms." He drew his brows together to scoff, almost hiss at the idea of it. "Nor do I want to parade you around in expensive things and run you home to mommy and daddy like some...bird of paradise you hang on walls. I don't like the way they look at you, I can't explain it but I feel.." He tried to find words, "Angry. I get angry, and its not of jealousy..but it is. Its not childish jealousy. Its the kind..you know? You are so.." Julian froze up when it came to expressing himself, a constant in Jean-Claude's struggles to make him aware of his surroundings by making him aware of himself, "Perfect." (d

Janice deBrabant

She sobbed as if all of heaven broke apart to put the water inside of her body. Endless rivers from her eyes flowed no matter how she tried to stop them. It was humilitiating to no end, yet in a way she wanted him to see the nature of what his words could do. In a night black as this a woman climbed mountains over miles to find what became of a companion only to meet his scorn as she bled. They lived here in the home of a mystic man with answers to all of Time itself. She wanted to tell him about what it was like to sit beside someone who knew her family, to want to learn of what they couldn't say..but instead they quarreled. She perfected his formulas and screamed at him instead. Even as he self confessed to all that he was he still got on her for what she wasn't. "Your terms are confusing, and often cruel. Yet you can be the opposite..I just..you baffle me to all ends Julian!" she hiccuped, still crying. Perfect? All of that to call her perfect? "How can you say that, you ..told me..practically that I would have been De Garza's." She couldn't bring herself to say the word, closing her eyes and wrapping her arms about her sorebody pricked by all the tension. "Julian.." she whispered. "You are more than you think of yourself. I.." She was in utter humilitation. What was more humiliating. "I love you. I don't want it marred." Forehead pressed down into a corner. "I was pressed and still am to this day of the nature of our relation, why it is not the husband and wife . My dreams have shattered so hard when they break, and I can not mock a Sacrament of God. Not after it was mocked..against my wish, and I was mocked, worse than you ever could." Her head banged against the wall twice (d)

Julian Monroe

"I meant you were whore to the whole court and not just De Garza." Because that made it better didn't it Julian. "Women don't get to move about courts freely, and you are unwed. Divorced, but still without a husband. That is what I mean." Somewhere Jean-Claude hung his head in his hand. "Then tell them we're married! We'll go tomorrow to the church down on the hill. Anything to make them stop pawing at you! It makes me sick. That pig of a man, with the greasy hands held his." He motioned down though as if there was a form before him, "In his hand when you left and I wanted to cut it free." Such a way with words. "I'm tired of hurting you. I want you to stop." Messed up. Yet, he crossed the distance between them and put his hands on her shoulders, surprisingly his hands were warm. "You are falling apart, and I need your sanity. You have no idea how badly I need you to smile." He whispered desperation set deep, and there was a hint of red rimmed eyes from their lack of sleep burning then. "Its f**ked up, I know it is, and I'm sorry. I don't get off on hurting you. I don't want to hurt you, but when I cut at you I'm just looking for encouragement. No matter how mean, or how cruel I am you always smile. I don't understand it! I don't! I've tried! Jean-Claude has tried! All I can say is I'm sorry. I should be kind to you, you need it right now..look at you..you've not healed from this, and we threw you in this mess." He pulled her against him, his height causing a very thin frame to practically curl around her. How was it fair that he could mock her, but when she spoke of others he had visions flash before his eyes of spines being pulled from their backsHas anyone held her while she cried since her husband left her? They were all too wrapped up in their world to even notice their Angel was falling apart. "Its not me your mad at." He whispered keeping a firm hold on her. "I don't help, but in truth its not me..let it go, Ma Ange." She needed a clear head, and he needed her sanity. Slowly he started to rock as he kept her close, and an awkward hand came to rest between her shoulder blades. (d

Janice deBrabant

"Julian Stop, stop! For all that is just..stop!" Because she was frantic, unraveled at the seams so that he could see everything she was inside. Knives cut her "I have to move of my own accord, I have to! I can't mock the sanctity of marriage..I can not pretend at something. But you do not want to marry me, and..and if we go back what will we say then..it will be..we'll need a whole other tale." The cover would be ruined. Or would it be enhanced ,a husband tospeak for his wife's brilliance as she could extol the wonder of his discoveries? Easier to move without fear of being picked at or pawed, stared at with eyes holding no modesty at all. She had been a coquette in a way, playing at being an innocent virgin knowing full well enough to see how a man's reaction could be illicited. It made her sick to think any of that true, so she cried harder. "Julian...just please, whatever else you do, just do not leave again without telling me. Do not push me away from you when you are all I have. Please don't...don't hurt me so much I can not praise your mind, it is so brilliant. They misunderstand you and push you and push you and I've felt so horrid of how for I know what..it's like.. you are so much more..than you believe you are. I love you. I am sorry. I am sorry forbeing." He pulled her against him, his body hard and warm in her arms. Both of them were the exact portions of strength and slenderness to fit. A clear head was hard in the log and sanity was hard to attain when the world was mad. He was right. It wasn't entirely him she was mad at. It was his cruelty pushed by the world's cruelty, by an order cruel enough to toss her down when all she did was kneel to pray. Cruel enough to keep tearing at her. To never let He was right. It wasn't entirely him she was mad at. It was his cruelty pushed by the world's cruelty, by an order cruel enough to toss her down when all she did was kneel to pray. Cruel enough to keep tearing at her. To never let the nighmare of being so desired end. No, no one held her, because she lived alone. Not even a servant in those final days to go to for comfort before she'd left for Spain. It made her wish she hadn't refused her old rooms in the hall for at least there were others there! She hated Marius for making her defy them, for...giving her a reason, a chance..only to take it away when he left. God how she hated everything and wared with God for his forgiveness.. "I love you, and I'm sor..sorry.." (d)

Julian Monroe

He could feel her tears warming his skin beneath the thin fabric of his shirt, and closed his eyes. "I've let this go on for far too long." He would wed her tomorrow because it made sense, because he should protect her like a husband, not be ok with every suitable suitor pawing over her thinking they would prize themselves in her virginity. "We'll figure it out when we get there." She really was alone in this, just as much as he was, and it all suddenly became clear. The hall worked on the dynamics of duos, and she was not the sort to be like being left alone. In truth? He wasn't either. He had wondered why Claramae had wanted him to go, but suddenly it came together. This journey was about self discovery, and in this moment he could have lived to regret only this--he had told her sooner. She felt so small against him, though they were a good match he couldn't help but feel her weak beneath him--hardly able to stand. They both had gone for far too long, but tonight he wasn't going to let her go. She was tired of being alone, and he had not known what it was like to have another. His desire was often confused, and he was many times accused of sodomy. For this very reason..He pulled the covers back, the smell of the lavender that was placed under the pillow lifting in the breeze, and picked her up from the floor as if she were nothing more then a doll--mindful of her stitches. Pulling the sheets back up around he would stretch out beside her atop the covers to protect her virtue, but keep her tightly bound. "I'm not going anywhere." His promise to her as he curled an arm over her carefully as if testing to make sure it she did not object. Even in this small simple innocent act it would be the first time he shared a bed with a woman since being to his mother's breast. Women found him attractive? Of course. But once he opened his mouth? Ha. (d

Janice deBrabant

"A..alright.." she let himself believe in him because despite how backwards he was he never steered her wrong when it mattered. She nodded her head, letting the forehead always be in contact with him. She wondered if she were visiting her lonliness and pain on him, some reason that made more sense than really loving him, yet no, she wasn't. It would be easier to believe that the heartache she felt over the last few month's couldn't possibly be cured by this backwards idiom. Pain pierced the center of her head, her sides, enough to make her cringe but she didn't want to be let go of. Poor man. It was easier to be seen as chaste and modest than a sodomite. Sodomy was a sin punishable by death in the world that wasn't their cloudy, secular Skye. She wasn't expecting to be picked up nor tucked in to his bed. Infact her cheeks rose in flames again. How were they ever going to pull this off? Still, he held her. A respectful seperation, one that made her respect him in a way that nearly mended all his past offenses. "That is good to know, " she whispered, gently kissing his cheek before snuggling further in to bed. So. Tomorrow she was marrying her 'brother'. (d)

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

So tell me what you want to hear
Something that will delight those ears
Sick of all the insinceres
So I'm gonna give all my secrets away

One Republic - Secrets



Janice deBrabant

The morning dawned with a sensation that pricked the hairs on the back of peach-pink neck. In the shadow, the woman's eyes were dark enough to swim through substance to appear like unlit ocean on the other side of it. It suprised her, almost enough to make for a bout of fear...yet ..in pause? It was only the sound of her cohort's heart beat against the shell of her ear, and the wind raising neck hair was his breathing. Today is the day..isn't it? Is it wrong to be afraid, to be terrified? Lord help me, for how I fail. Thought beat on the base of the skull but the lips didn't move. She shifted though in the tight-packed sheets, having to squirm to the point she almost laughed outloud. Swollen lips and puffed eyes met reflection in the mirror. Not very bride like, not at all. Somehow she ensnared herself from the cloth prison only to sit on the bed's edge with a half smile. Even in fear, there was a bit of hope. Of knowing that she would be protected, of being known, fully and completely, by him. No pair were ever a stranger partnership but nothing under the cosmos was without purpose. (d)


Julian Monroe

Sleep had been but an object there dead weight upon his back while he dreamed of nothing. His chest felt heavy, but his arms felt heavier as if he were afraid that in the night she would fly away. It was rumored beneath the gowns of rich splendor was a set of ivory wings, with feathers that felt like silk. Men across the sea and through this nation dreamt of where he was, but all Julian could feel was how dreadfully worn he had become.He had wanted to cry to when the dawn had come, reaching out with his hands to shield the light had not been enough, but when she moved there had been a moment where he had wanted to pull her back. Yet, the dawn signaled the new day, and with it came the duty they both carried for their beloved nation. Skye ran his veins, no matter how long he wished to shed it away, the blood was there. In anger the proof came alive in his voice, and Julian held that ability to inherit all the Scots with how quick his tongue was to bite.He was an awkward fool, who spoke of nothing when he moved on, to start the day without her. Not very groom like of him, but something made him turn to stand in the door for a moment, "Noon? When the sun is the highest?" As if there was something romantic in it, and perhaps would have been if there was conviction in his words. (d


Janice deBrabant

Spindles held the cloud-fabric being pulled by angelic hands to be interspun with bands of gold light. In the arid crisp of dawn, she tasted the beginnings of the warm, flavorful air tinged with pine. Rock dust settled in the back of throats to flavor Spanish accents. In a town not far away men would poor over books, people would work as work was expected. "Noon." She nodded her ascent to the condition. Romance was lackluster at best; awkward, bitter sweet beauty tinged the edge of understanding for each. At the center was an appreciation, a thing no one could touch shrouded under unfathomable jealousy and moments of rage. She felt the want for the cool comforting clouds of Scotland. Spain was coloring her skin, and if it were possible making her hair all the more striking. Gold was as a halo, and remnants of old brown settled in to give copper like accent. Nothing more need be said, really. As she watched the sunrise, though, he received a thing he'd asked for the night before. With no words said, with nothing to detract it, she smiled to fill the silence while watchng sunrise (d)


Julian Monroe

Jean-Claude would have killed him had he not sent her something, even in the mask of another objective it was still a wedding. Jean-Claude would have killed him regardless, but even Julian was not that cruel. He went forward with his morning, cleaning up nice like he always did, but he would see to it every little detail was taken care of. The church was horrid, without a flower in sight, old and falling apart. In these little mountain towns there was very little need for it, and with Benoit near by? Julian would have thought for certain it would be a bit more used. The smell of the almond trees pressed through the wind, with the juniper breeze not far behind filling the musty old condemned place. Perhaps they should have had the father do it, the one of their journey, but there had always been something Julian did not trust in that man. The locals had taken to Julian, despite his backwards expressions and narrowing eyes save for one.

Old Woman

"Bruja! Él es el hijo del diablo!!" She cried, her Spanish so fast it sounded like the beating of his heart when the woman came round, her eyes wild with the sunk in pleasures of her skin. Her fingers long and twisted clung to the stones in her hands as if they would slip like water. The first was hurled at him, with the crowd gathering hitting him hard against the shoulder as if she had perfected this aim. How many times had she thrown them at Benoit? A crowd gathered then watching, until the father of the church came out with his voice just as cross speaking of how the boy had come to confession, and was on the right path. Wasn't that how it worked? Julian hadn't burned in the house of the Lord. (d


Janice deBrabant

Janice spent the morning in partial reflection while the other half was divied up between translations and preparation. She turned to the steady, lackluster ability of picking apart the written word to make sense of other words to be spoken as the morning slipped away so the sun could go ever higher. Pieces of paper on the works of saints were metaphors for the work of men believing themselves saints. A fluid was recurrent in the work; blood flowed from passion wounds, rivers, things forever moving with similar attribute. "It is sent forward so then it must mean that it is...shot, across elements which means it may master many.." On the verge of completing the translation of the Latin-Spanish text, she made ready for her wedding before it dipped to a subset section of Greek. Like she assembled words, she assembled herself with help of the women in the village. She would trade work ethic for assistance, making them faux mothers in a time when a daughter would need one. From one, for promise to assist with sewing she earned a dress from a tailor. The owner had never come to claim it, and the deal fell through. She would be it's owner, pondering the shade of creamy yellow it was died. She was no virgin so would not offend Christ in the wrong shade, and it seemed that yellow would do well. "he forever comments upon all the light and birds around me." He might find a humerous mockery in Church terribly funny, if not see the beauty in it. From another for helping to mind a fussying babies, she was granted a pair of clean tan leather shoes. In this array she henced herself to church, making the part of bride by weaving the plants and herbs, small mountain blossoms into a crown for her hair. "Padre, is all well?" said the timid bride as she appeared from her preparation, openly scowling at the old woman who tossed rocks as if it were rain pelting skin. No, never a bruise from the rain. Only death from hard set things. She stepped beside Julian with a glare for the old woman, no respect for the aged woman at all. No empathy for her supersticion. Hadn't they seen something like her once before, in Seville? (d)


Julian Monroe

The priest would be quick to turn his apology upon the pair, but Julian was prone to this. It was something in his eyes he felt certain that made them fear him, or in the darkness of how he held his lips..he would never know. However, perhaps it was simply that one lost soul knew of another. "All is fine." He spoke without looking at her, in his dry manner; a voice that seemed to have little care, even to women with eyes the color of almonds and a great overhand. It was noon, and that small little one room church set in the hillside of Spain became their barging chip. She didn't have much reputation left to ruin, though Julian? Hardly had anyone that would care. There wasn't any music, there wasn't any laughter or a single flower in sight save for the bit in her crown, and his sympathy flared for only a moment until realization hit this was in fact for pretend. Their vows to one another only went as far as the room, and once upon Skye's soil he would be without her. Yet..what was this strange feeling in his chest when even the dark and gloom of this place of faith could only be warmed by the woman at his side? She was such a word here, as little girl hardly fit her anymore. "You are wearing yellow." His call of the obvious as he escorted her to the end of the pulpit, but in typical fashion his nerves somewhere formed a compliment..yet his sharp tongue destroyed it. (d

Janice deBrabant

As the priest apologized Julian was quicker to dismiss the notion of anything being amiss with a barbed tongue expressing the satisifaction of the moment while mirroring none on his face .The old women went along her way with mutterings on sin concerning who caused it while one weathered eye observed the golden headed woman at his side. A finger pointed, as if cautioning her to avoid him while at the same time seeming to indicate that this was a sign of salvation for the witch. If only the old woman knew that despite golden hair he was marrying a Half-Jew who's conversion to a life long love of Catholocism was made offical by secretive immersion prior to her arrival on spanish shores, she would have thought twice. She turned to take his hand, to move toward the altar as she realized that this was her first wedding within God's house. She hadn't been married before the crucifix, only in her own home with a man in the late of the night. He could have just as easily replicated it, found a priest's cell yet took her to church. For the sake of protection, for business was this done. Just another notch on the post of accomplishment, yet..she did not feel as awful as she thought in kneeling before God today. It would end in Scotland. She'd never be subject to his humiliation yet would he not challenge her as much, brooding that he ever did this at all? She wanted to tell him as they advanced that she heard redemption in his heart beat, as the world threw stones. "and you are not." she replied. It was a part of him, and she vowed to accept that. It was pretend a lie, but something felt so different..this time (d)

Julian Monroe

Gathering here today..The spanish started, but between the voice of the man who said their prayers Julian leaned in to whisper, "I meant it looks well." Such a strange boy really. Redemption came with marks on his face, from lines of thin silver that were scratches left from the church's ruin upon his boyhood. This building was no different to him, then any of the rest, and he did not pull away from the crucifixes on the walls. There was a great deal of him that wanted to believe, and in the confession he had told the priest asked of answers too much for one man to give.Going to church was like walking down a path, and along the way he stopped every now and then to be reminded there was in fact some sort of something out there. His time came to speak in turn, prayer that sounded almost ridiculous against his lips, but in his vows he swore to protect her, to be with her, guide her through heaven and hell should the time come. Something in that felt very real. Witnesses had come in small rounds to peer in through the window upon the pair, but when the time came to kiss the bride large eyes watched. Julian's heart stood still..wait..what? This part had slipped his mind. (d

Janice deBrabant

When the silence was required of them she filled it with little things of her own "Thank you, Julian. You look handsome, too. Very much so." To Janice, God was the only constant as she was paradox in skin and bone; no people, nor faith, nor truth had ever been transmited other than for the sake of people, faith, and truth she beloved. Saints pictures in crude mud to beautify the back of the altar told stories she had been raised to believe by a woman who left her faith for that which came before Christ, or did she really leave it at all? How much of you really ever changes? She looked at him while she said she would forsake all others for him, be obdient, steadfast, to hold him up when all else would dash him down.. To her..somehow, it felt far more real than simply honoring one's brother come strange friend. When it came time to kiss the bride it dawned on her --- this was his first kiss, she would steal it from him. Or would he willingly give it? It was not as if she could do it for him, by God no, she even blushed so much that onlookers laughed. (d)


Julian Monroe

The blush to paint her face darkened his own, over the tops of his cheeks as he wasn't certain he could even stand. The hand that held her own became hot, and would it be known to the world his heart pounded like a drum against his chest. Both of their hands joined, he looked down the line of the sight to her, unaware of the rest and certainly unable to see through a way out. Monroe was not a man to back down, but when the nerves took hold he couldn't help while his eyes lowered. This was the spanish way, a small token of the night to come when man and wife filled the other with love and laughter..formulas and poisons mixed with words of heathens.She could have spoken words of kindness in any language, and he would only hear what he wanted. Nothing of their life was normal, why would he start now? He kissed her, as quickly as he could before turning for the door practically leaving her their on the alter, did that feel familiar? (d


Janice deBrabant


He spoke vow, she spoke vow. He promised, she promise. It was a farce unlike anything they'd ever played because this would eradicate the bond known before. Today, she wed her 'brother' disolving the display of the bond in spain. Today, he went so far to protect her that he gave away a part of his timid innocence, one speck of himself in a display of the faithful. To the end he would be a faithful heathen who's bonds of faith extended only so far as what he could touch. Janice tried to understand the nature of thought by patterning everything with him, yet 'her' echoed keen between he ears. Today, she relinquished all simplicity for them, for even if they lived away there would be no going back from what change could come. She gave up her desire to remain alone while answering the want to not be alone. God's sacrament was a play thing that while feeling real of yet still would hold no ground beyond Spain.

The kiss was quick , so quick she couldn't say anything before he left her at the altar with her face in the palm of her hand. The priest was confused. "He is only a nervous, practical man," she reported after gaining her composure, laughing softly, "We will no doubt laugh over this at supper, thank you father." Janice gave a reverant curtsy before kissing the priest's joined hands. As she rose, a question was poised her, "It seemed so out of place. This day. There is no child that needed wedlock's place?" The way she looked aghast suggested a no. He apologized, leaving her to find her own way out of the church after Julian. That was her wedding.

Left hand's ring finger was as naked as it was the day before. Why, by now, even the sigh of her last marriage's mark was gone from it. Reality was woven between the digits. She was married again - for a short time. It would be a falacy. Even if it endured... even.

Was there even that chance? With no witness, no signatures presented she was under no obligation to change her name, become a part of his family. Looking out at the high sun she laughed softly before walking on. Laughter was the sign of her heartbreak. What had she done? Feeling of what it was to repeat vows to find them even in half earnest was as sinful as the fact he would protect her only until Spain, not life, did they part. Yet..and yet.

She could hardly understand the reason her mind tried to rationalize anything beyond her second marriage within the same year, another doomed to fail marking her always. Even if no one knew the second existed! With the deed done she turned on her heel to return to the little shack with its silent pig, its underground finery and upper hovel. Translations waited to be finished on her wedding afternoon. Wedding. Ha. He meant well, and she believed him. She would honor him. Aye, she would honor him.

*

Janice deBrabant

Afternoon fell down to the latter period where the sun was lagging towards a Western descent. She found the full advantage of light occurred if she sat uppermost in the shack utilizing both sunlight and candle. She scrutinized the details of her work with a heavy handed imperialism. Everyone had something to pride. For Julian it was mathematics, and she admitted he was begrudgingly better at it though she was not lacking, but her true talent was in breaking literary bounds. Every bit a child with a bit of adventure that they were too reluctant to put down, she held book, candle, the sun her bell. Pagan spells were worked through Christian texts as she devoured symbolism to arrive on the other end of near euphoria. On her wedding afternoon eclipsing to eve, she was euphoric over a book, it stood to figure. A concept was becoming full fledged truth. A frightening one, at that, if the weapon she deciphered from it proved real, but one couldn't blame the intelligent thing her academic delirium. She was a librarian (d)

Erart Benoit

There were many things in this world beyond his ken. He made no pretenses that he knew everything. But he did know one path, knew it well enough to be considered a Master of it, and had taught it to the best of his abilities to one of his most talented students many years ago. Benoit still mourned that the path he most wished to tred was not the one given him. Despite Margot's presence in his abode, he was a solitary man given to a hermit's pursuits. He spent most of his days tinkering with more physical remedies to the pains of this world, but there were experiments to check on at the spring, and the small shack he'd built nearby to keep the waters cool for drinking. Under the floorboards was a surprise of another kind that nevertheless required tending to. The man must remain alive. He was of no use to Benoit dead. Nor known. His eyes narrowed as he spotted Janice a bit too close to his experiment. "You should not be reading those out in the open. There are candles inside if you wish to read in better light."

Margot:

"Benoit, please, let her be," Margot said in a placating voice, rising from her own chores in the yard and wiping her hands on her already dirtied gown. She was a woman who went from marquesa to peasant as easily as a chameleon shifted colors. It made one wonder who she was, as Benoit's daughter was not answer enough. She smiled ever so briefly and left. The chickens were scattered around the yard, and looking harried in Margot's absence these past several months. Benoit never cared for poultry, living or dead. *


Janice deBrabant

"The movement of water is the movement of the thing over water,the burning is it steady burning a union of both elements.." She muttered whilst lifting the candle higher, shifting the paper on her lap to take full advantage of the sun's last breath. "Forgive me, Master Benoit.. I need both.." Generally obedient, she digressed in a day-dream distant way as it seemed whatever was on the page ensnared blue eye's fractionation. Forwards, backwards, she eyesmoved at a rate not equal to the mind's ability to absorb. Scooting from inside the cabin she dallied a half foot outside. A chicken crossed over tan booted toes. Edging it away, the bird return to nip at her finger, yet she didn't swear, only shake it to abate the pain before slipping back inside to blow out the candles. Then she paced in deep thought. Hmm, a house of weirdness. "If that is so..well. By heaven. My my. My God!" If she shouted Eureka, it'd be too much (d)


Erart Benoit

Benoit slipped into the shack behind her and looked around. No, she had not found what was under the floorboards, and the spring water bubbling in the trough was as clear as ever. He shut the door firmly behind him. "Margot, we are going to need more firewood for tonight. I hope you chopped enough." He often seemed brusque with her, though she never seemed offended by it. Her attitude toward him was similarly odd: she was caretaker, but hardly loving daughter. She worked better on her own, miles away from civilization, roaming the wilds of Spain in search of her sons and the truth. It was a romantic, and foolish, way of living, but he'd long since cured himself of any notions he'd have a daughter living in his home out of filial piety. Frankly, he'd never thought he'd have a daughter at all. "What are you working on, then? If you need all these things? Margot could show you the spring's source, if you need water so badly, eh? There is more firewood off that way, isn't there, Margot?"

Margot

"I've already tended to it, Benoit," was her response, with far more politeness than he deserved. The smoldering look she gave him as she continued with her chores was enough to silence the old man for a moment on that topic. Margot walked away, confident there were more unwelcome surprises left for her in her absence. For such a small plot of land, with so many animals merely to serve the purpose of deception, he certainly let this farm go to shambles without her. *

Janice deBrabant

The excitement made her hold her side a little (she'd jumped) but walked back outside sans materials after putting them squarely away in her room (wherein she'd jumped on the way down and up) in order to stand by the pig that nevermade noise and cross paths with the angry chicken again. Being stationary seemed a complete sin now that her work was complete, the hours would be filled with useful service. "Do the pair of you need any help?" The pig needed it, but couldn't ask. She didn't speak pig, and he couldn't speak. Could chickens glare? If that were so Benoit could be sweet as he was brew ding, and Margot was a delight if not odd. Oh well. Such was life. "I could draw water for supper or help with the animals, does your home need any sweeping?" The yellow dress she wore for her wedding was still on, tucked up at the front skirts as to not become dirty so she could preserve it as long as possible. A little ray of sunshine in a bizarre world. (d)

Margot

"You are maybe dressed too nicely to be much help, my dear. But if you like, you can grab a broom, do not expect gratitude from him." Margot emerged from the house with the broom. "Only the upstairs, please, it shall not take you more than two minutes. He does not have many candles, you see. He is used to lighting them only for ourselves, and keeping the passages lit down there is burning through his supplies very quickly. I will have to go down to Lerida soon, but I would like to put it off for some time, if I might."


Erart Benoit

Benoit waved the girl off. Perhaps she was someone special, perhaps she was merely a nuisance. He retreated to where he kept his own work, disappearing through the brush and toward the natural source of the spring. Benoit did not do farm work. *

Janice deBrabant

"A dress is a dress, mistress, and hands are for working. Certainly." Work ethic could not be beat out of the girl no matter how many hands did work, many hands made work lighter . She took the broom from Margot's hands with a delight. It was good to do something simple, something expected. She was used to regular chores, prescribed times. Even here she still ceased if she could in order to pray, peer nearby to see if a hand could be lent. She applied broom to stair, listening to Margot as if she gave a lesson. Waste not want not it was, she frowned, "We are impeding upon his means and hospitality, aren't we? Goodness, I would happily make him more candles. My mother was quite good at it, and taught me. I used to make them for my uncle, he went through them in a feverish manner." Margot could tell, perhaps, the girl was soothed by something a simple as a broom. Broom's didn't bring Armageddon (d)


Margot

"No, no, do not worry yourselves, we are simply unused to company." If the natural surroundings were not inhospitable enough, the day's journey from the university made strangers rare. For a long time, Benoit had a local woman come up every now and then to deliver supplies, and occasionally, a priest came to visit. But assured that Benoit was a law-abiding Christian, if a bit ascetic in his practices, they left him alone. Few even knew that Margot often lived here for months at a time, supplementing her travels across the country with respite here.She watched the young woman sweep, glad to have a slight break in the day's activities. She should be starting dinner already, she thought with a brief frown, and with that, started peeling vegetables for the simple stew she had in mind for the evening's fare. "We do not have wax, but if we did, I would be very flattered at your offer to help. Did you learn to do many things from your mother, then?"


Erart Benoit

Benoit could hear their voices through the brush. He was not far, but far enough -- their voices nevertheless carried in the thinner air. He wondered just what the girl's mother had taught her. And he snorted at the idea of Margot's mother teaching her anything of value, but did not carry the ungenerous thoughts far. It physically pained his heart to do so. *

Janice deBrabant

"Still, if we become a burden do not hesitate to say. I am very appreciate, Margot, of all you've done for Julian and I," Her actions indicated arms not unused to labor at all, what should take a pair of minutes would take double as like God with the world the step would be made new again. Once the steps were cleaned Janice in silence offered a hand by taking up a vegetable, missing only a knife. "Hmm, a pity. Yes, my mother taught me a great deal of things.What most girls are taught at times, how to sew, cook, keep a home even if one has servants employed, she never doubted the better of her own arms or hands. My Papa (her uncle, though at times it was hard to reckon one man with the other. He'd raised her) oversaw my education after my mother instilled the basics, I kept his ledgers for him, so well my mother allowed me to help with the household ledgers. Of course there was also religion, saints, catechism, I think she could have put his Holiness to shame." The faint memory brought a glimmer of grin as she looked on the past. A stern, stern woman who could be soft at turns. Strict, suspicious, but docile. As she aged only now did she understand why, because she'd been shown a life beyond her means only to lose it. (d)

Margot

"She sounds like an extraordinary woman," Margot commented, holding out the knife she had been using, and scrounging for the one the tinker had brought repaired from his last lonely sojourn up the mountain path. They were hermits up here, immune to the world. She glanced upward with a tiny smile on her face at the thought. She'd once reflected on the same with her husband, from their mountain aerie built by the Moors scant centuries before their arrival. She'd liked the thinner air, the idea of sitting upon a crossroads. She'd liked the caravans when they came through the main gates, the colors of the flags and clothes, the parades. Villena remained in her heart, even if the Villena she knew was dead. She tossed the carrot into the stew pot, the water already rolling merrily to the surface and back down again.Margot had learned none of these things from her mother, but she didn't regret it. Her mother was as much a mystery to her as the nature of fire. Neither was capable of being studied without inflicting damage upon the observer.


Ezart Benoit

"Your mother," Benoit said gruffly, arriving in the cabin with a gravelly sound to his voice that instantly drew Margot's attention with a darkening of already sloe eyes, pinned upon him in accusation of foul words he'd not yet used. He waved her off. "Had a stick up her ass. You, my dear, turned out well in spite of her." *


Janice deBrabant

"She was. Stern, but not without her reasons. She astounded me even if our life was simple." Simple by comparison. A carrot was clipped off of its skin in long, sure strokes before it was diced up as an offering to the stew pot. She remembered the little village in France,the knowing that Avignon was a place of interest but never really going hither nor yon without reason. A world confined to the garden gate still was one of precious time despite how schewed it really was. As she took up another vegetable, a radish this time, the Master stated his thoughts. To shock, perhaps, as she engaged in the domestic chore she replied, "My mother's husband was a physician with a specialty that could kill his patients, as well as heal them. She gave up her faith only to be forced back to a watered down version of self, let alone in having to marry my father's brother, for my sake. My mother was rigid. Any woman would be if she wanted to live, Master Benoit. If you knew the brothers Vittergaust as you say you do, and in seeing how I 'turned out' as you say, she had her reasons." Her voice didn't raise as she defended matrilineal descent with un-ending loyalty. For that loyalty to the brothers Vittergaust, Danielle de Barbarac was rigid, indeed. Cold dead "If she lived surrounded by the three of you, she should have been canonized for saint hood." (d)

Erart Benoit

Benoit made a rude sound. "They were all a bit insane. We had to be, to hunt our quarry and put food on the tables. It is romantic to hunt the Questing Beast, eh? Until you meet a woman, get her with child, and find yourself with more responsibilities than merely scrounging for food and coin to supplement your lifestyle. I never married. I never intended to have children, either." He ignored Margot. He often did. This girl could hold her own, just as her mother had held her own. But where Danielle's steel had become brittle, Janice's was supple, and moved as the wind blew. She could take the truth. "Another would say my life is selfish, but I would have said to them, before I knew of Margot, what child did I leave starving? What lives did I endanger but my own and those who sought what I had to teach? None." He sat down at the small kitchen table that had nevertheless seated all of them for dinner the night before. He didn't offer to help, but drew the hat down off his silver-white hair and tossed it onto the table. "Ah well. Ghosts now, all ghosts. Everyone from those days is gone. Ash or worse -- a hermit in Lerida." He rolled his eyes. "Margot -- "

Margot

"I was wondering when you were going to ask," Margot said, her tone mild, as she turned back to her vegetables, attacking them with renewed fervor. However, each stroke was precise, she never missed, and her knuckles never came close to shedding skin. "They were lost. I threw them into the river."


Erart Benoit

Benoit bowed his head for a breath. Then he looked up, and settled back into his chair as if nothing had happened. "Well, it could have been worse."


Margot

"They hit me on the back of my head," she said dryly. "I almost threw myself in after."

Erart Benoit

"And yet you are here with us today." Determined to be unpleasant, he went back to ignoring his daughter, his eyes moving between the stew pot and Janice. *

Janice deBrabant

"By all lore, sir, he took my mother willingly and had me with the same willingness. It stands to reason that isn't in your way of things. You must have quarelled often over his Humanistic idea in more than being educated on ancient literature or being well rounded, but in the very humanism of his work. My uncle was rather hermetic though, seemed to suffer from the usual envy do the proverbial lesser son, but he was a good man. I don't think he would have married Maman if it weren't for love of his brother and honored promise, but he came to care for her in time. Though they are only ghosts in the last handful of years, Uncle and Maman," she flicked another vegetable to submission, the nunnery doth breed practical, well rounded domestics. "Murdered, not even a handful of years ago, yet as his associate it stands to tell you that it is not in vein. His Masterwork is preserved to some degree, completed. Nor are all of them from such days deceased, my masters are my father's apprentices. Of them, Master St. Laurence he most prominent as Master Sorschal has settled to his own devices." Her heart thumped against her chest. God, let her be prominent, let her not become a ghost, unknowing she was on the verge of doing so a world away. He kept looking at her or the stew pot. "You look like you're studying me, or vegetables in stew must be that riveting . There is no formula sir, peel and toss, boil." (d)

Erart Benoit

"Well, that is a shame," Benoit said simply. "And no, there is no formula, merely you remind me of someone. I am old. Everyone reminds me of someone. I have already met their past selves." He stood up slowly, and pointed a finger at Margot. "Except her. She is new. She does not belong here."


Margot

"New souls make him cranky," Margot said dryly, turning to the bag full of mushrooms now. Where they had been found in such a dry climate, only Margot knew. She was nothing if not resourceful. "Always have. He does not know what to make of them, and worse, he does not know of what use we may be. Rather than accept the blessing for what it is, he pokes at it. Perpetual scientist, he knows not when he has been given a good thing."


Erart Benoit

"Cynic, my dear, I have not been a scientist for many long years now. They burn scientists." Was that a joke? His dry laughter was leaves blowing in the wind, autumn approaching with scents of wood smoke and apples. "We had a few arguments, yes. We called one another many names unfitting for your ears." But they were fine for Margot's, his smile said. "Then it was business as usual. We had many interests in common. It befitted us to be allies, with so many enemies about." *


Janice deBrabant

"New souls make him cranky, yet how is it not to reason that the paternal lineage you share with your daughter is not indicative of a new twist to an old tie from your prior life? It is said among those who believe in reincarnation nothing is without reason. Or if she is new, she is squarely where she ought to be by providence." Benoit wouldn't have put her there, or it was Margot was a sadist. To that logic, after what she did in the crippled house of God at noon that day she was very much herself a heroine of self deprecating fables. "You are still a scientist where no one sees Master, they burn Jews too, but to that note we are all abiding Christians. They still burn those, too." Toledo must have been a sinner's tinderbox. Instead of speaking of current affairs she looked at him with a wit of interesting, a half smile creeping up one side as the other came along for the ride, "You are minding my ears? Master Benoit, there is a gentleman with the scientist yet, what adventures did you share with my father, what sort of enemies did you have? I am unfortunately familiar with your day's remnants of unsavory sorts." She said as another turnip was given over to the stew. Did Margot have a preference? She could also clean something, too when vegetables were done. The daughter of Vittergaust, slaving like a pea sent while holding the glory of languages inside the little golden skull. Only in cabins above Leireda did this make any sense. He was just the most cantankerous soul ,but she couldn't help but to find something redeeming in Benoit. Sweet, if not too sweet, thing. (d)


Ezart Benoit

"A wonder? I was very successful at what I did, once," Benoit laughed, and sent Margot off to the shed to wash the mushrooms. He watched her go with an unusual look upon his face, but then turned back to Janice. "She is where she needs to be, for the moment. But she will go before long. I do not mind being on my own. I have many things to write, many pages to organize. My work is never finished, though I wish ... I wish very much at times it was. Perhaps there is a part of me that wishes I had been a little more selfish. That I had started a family of my own, and did not need to live in seclusion to protect them. Your family." Benoit shrugged briefly. "What is there to say, save an old man's musings, and that nostalgia often paints a brighter picture than reality. We operated in different parts of the city, for example, so our clients were very different. Mine were sailors and whores and drunks, the occasional noble who believed I practiced the dark arts and demanded poison for coin. I stitched them all up, put them back together again, treated what I could, and sent them all along their ways. As for the poison, I had the ability, but my loyalty had already been bought in the court. It was rare that I sold anything without diluting it several times over. We met a few times in a society, it operated under pretense of scientific thought and philosophy, and there were a few years where our minds were aligned, more that we differed and went our separate ways." There were stories to tell, oh yes. He told what he could, glancing out the front door and noticing how the light faded, and wondering just how dirty those mushrooms were. *


Julian Monroe

Hearing the words Benoit spoke made his chest ache with the thoughts of home. The hills were a constant reminder of what was, and the pig...well the pig about did him in. However, in the days that came to pass he had come to find more of himself that he had never thought he lost, but Julian had not realized he had walked this world unfound. In the hall he came to stand before Margot, every bit the apprentice of his master by way of silent steps. It was easy for such a frame thin and tall to move about without so much as his breath giving him away. This day had become something, with a secret wedding and now finally news from their home. Yet, he was pale from it, holding the letter from his Master still in his hands the cold sweat that broke over him could have been first give away the news was dire indeed. He was well, it should have been all that mattered, but of Claramae? Julian worried deeply. "Is she in there?" He asked in a quiet voice, looking over the shoulder of Benoit's daughter, and if she passed he would push on. However, for the moment he was content being there in the quiet seclusion, as he didn't wish to break Janice's heart. (d

Janice deBrabant

"An old man's mind is no different than a daughter who never ceases to believe in the good of her parents, better than it was, yet never less colorful. A secret society you say? My father was a member of many then, my goodness, yetto have such gatherings with so many great minds on..ancient thought, mathematics, literature, ancient arts...the theories behind all these things. What I would not give, sir, to have conversations daily on Plato and be understood," Those who fathomed were too busy to indulge her want to discuss it, so she lived of them, beside them yet not really within she felt. What drew the most sensation of that was the likes of it were the same who made time for her. St. Laurence, Inveryne, de Aquitaine...even Peregrine. If it weren't for thought of what a crippled Spain could do to them, there might have been a chance to leave when fear became high "he was a physician, my father, the brother's vittergaust? His poison lore and his knowledge of the body were preserved in some effect by Uncle, it disturbs me as much as I found it riveting. I saw a sketch of the inner tracts of digestion, and a hand. This is what put me in the nunnery." Yet her mind was only cultivated further, funny. She came to them a bumbling bumpkin with the ability to order whatever they'd require, of the right consistencies, and to pen their thoughts. It made as much sense as her being with Benoit did now. "You, why sailors sir, and harlots? Were you seeking the underside of what could not be found in courts by those who went beyond it? My curiosity can get the better of me.." she blushed, as if discussing passing fancy's. Morbid little darling, this one. "My uncle, what was he like in these times?" Keep washing,Margot. Please, by God, wash vigorously (d)


Margot

Margot walked slowly back from the bathing room, having decided she wanted hotter water for washing with, and wove her way through the narrow hallway. It was dark downstairs, none wishing to waste their precious store of candles while it was still daylight above, but she held a candle in one hand and the bag of mushrooms in the other. "Julian," she said, startled into stopping. He looked like a specter standing there in the dark. Whatever was he doing below ground? But then, it made sense -- she hadn't seen him while they were upstairs doing chores less than an hour earlier. "She is upstairs in the kitchen, speaking with Benoit. You should let her be, it seems she has waited a very long time to have this conversation with my father." She set the bag down on a nearby table. She knew it was there from long practice, not that she could see it clearly, and went to the sideboard to pour herself a small sip of something from an old stone bottle. "You have been planning on marrying her for a long time? You should have said something." There was nothing they could have done to make it a more special event than it was, but maybe they could be one less pig for the sake of having meat on the table.

Ezart Benoit

Benoit laughed. "My shop was near the Seine, my dear, it was nothing sinister to start with. But as my shop grew, I learned sailors had quite a bit of information they were willing to part with in trade, and it grew from there." *

Julian Monroe

His hands folded the paper away tucking it close to his heart, where it would remain until further notice, but Julian gave into the open conversation rather freely. "I can not stand her. Why would I have said something?" A part of him told the truth, but the rest simply tried to remind him of feelings long gone. Julian had worked his best at hiding from her the rest of the day, keeping a low profile, traveling back into town, and now hiding beneath the shack. Janice's voice carried down through the halls, and he listened drawing the connection as it was presented. For the moment the comment Jean-Claude had made of the Lady Margot would be left unsaid, but as she worked there he couldn't help but agree. He would let Janice have her peace, and perhaps would simply hide here for the rest of the evening. Yet, when the boards of the floor above made a sound he tensed, afraid? No. Nervous, for only fools feared little blondes they married out of business right? Right. How would he ever face her again!? (d


Janice deBrabant

"True, oh so true. Master Benoit, it is an honor to have met you, you do know that, don't you? My mind is full by way of the half-truth I lived so long but of the whole truth, it is only my research and those who live who can tell me of what I have known yet don't know all of. There are many holes to this day in my memory, yet knowing of their pasts gives them more life. Thank you, sir." No one in their right mind thanked the Devil, but akin to wing touchingscale her hand touched his as she laid her head upon it from the chair. What they talked of would live on a burning candle in her mind for many years, of her father's escapades on the Seine, and his own in London. Of the secret meetings where her uncle disagreed with them all to the point of invoking anger. She awed at the edges of his most frightening adventures and softened in how he was with her mother, that even her mother was more educated than she Janice ever know. How would he face her again, given he had left her at the altar without escort, alone with a priest who wondered if pregnancy was the reason for so hasty a wedding. He quipped only to compliment only to embarrass. Indeed as she listened to Benoit speak of how some took for themselves of companionship, she pondered her own lot. Married for love, abandoned. Marriedfor business, to be left on arrival in Scotland. With a sigh she rubbed at her forehead, finding another vegetable to chop. It needed it, regardless of how many were in there already. "Master Benoit..I don't think I will ever have such as my parents had, or even that the masters have found." It could be deciphered as a girl's sullen hope for a father to uplift, but he wasn't her father. More like the eccentric off hand uncle who lived with a voiceless pig. "I think I will always be paying the price for whatever sins they committed, doubled with my own (d)

Erart Benoit

Benoit would scoff at the notion he was anyone's relation. He had given Margot hell until she had proved beyond doubt her parentage. But he let it go unremarked, watching her carefully, as if she might do something unexpectedly feminine. "It is not our place to know our paths in this life, only to tread well the one we are given." That was all the fatherly, or even uncle-ly, advice he had in him. It was admittedly lame, and Ada had often let loose scathing replies when he offered it to her, as if it might mollify whatever circle of hell she'd walked through that day on his errands. He had been too hard on her. The woman she had become, was entirely by her own merits. Benoit had no hand in that. The smell of the stew tickled his nostrils and made his stomach grumble. He was hungrier than he had thought.


Margot

"What is this?" Margot asked, seeming unusually sympathetic in the half-light of the candles, reaching out to briefly touch Julian's chin. He was so very good at keeping his face as still as a marble statue's, but there was something.... The flicker of a shadow? No, he had stiffened at the sound of a floorboard overhead. Margot reached over to the sideboard and poured Julian something, too, then handed him the cup. "Drink. To .... Well, that is a good question. What do you and I drink to? To fortune? Mine has been abysmal. To beauty? Janice and I certainly qualify, but you need a bit of work...." She smiled, but had already taken a drink. "You will have to come upstairs eventually. You will go sallow down here." *

Julian Monroe

"I like it down here, it is away from the heat, and that pig." Did he mean Benoit or the animal? The words fell through the cracks like a gentle rain, and in Janice's words his chest tightened around his heart. Though he couldn't help but want to laugh at the thought of the sins they all committed together. Taking the cup, he would turn the contents back quickly before returning it to her, "We must leave in the morning, I fear there has been much to happen at home, will you tell her this?" He would not hand Margot the letter, "To meet me when she is finished? I'm going to wash in the stream." What? There was a farmer's son there, but before Julian could get too far he turned on Margot, "My Master wishes you come with us, he will see to it you have a place to stay, and looks forward to meeting you. So.."Before he made his way out, he would look around, "If you don't want this to be your life? You can come." (d


Janice deBrabant

"Perhaps you are right." It was left at that. There was nothing else to say because he would only go distant at nothing more than her whining, it was whining. She chose it, all of it so would do duty as expected while excelling for the second thing was her reason to elect on this venture on premise set up by none other than the man who left her. God, she could go all the way to Rome on her name, burning happy on their pyre for one look inside their library. Instead she devoted mind, body, heart, and soul to the Spanish case with no promise of ever getting two of the four things back. "The stew looks ready, would you like me to ladle you some?" She pushed herself up, ignorant of the pain in her side. It was really just an annoying prick at her being. Everything like to prick at her, ask Julian. "Master Benoit." She said unknowing Julian had told another person, so it was not so secretive "I married Julian at noon today, and I am cutting vegetables for stew. God has a strange sense of humor." (d)

Margot

"We have a bathing room, why don't you use that? The water is hot. It feels nice, like it can wash away anything." She smiled faintly in the dark. "I would like to go, Julian. I think that I would. My sons are here, though. I may still find them." She was glad for the poor light downstairs. He couldn't see her first vulnerability since they met, and yet she did not bother wiping the faint moisture pooling in her eyes. "I am no one. I have realized this. I was born into nothing, raised to marquesa because he was grieving and I was beautiful, and just as quickly .... I have no skills. I have no trade. Who is to say my life would be better in Skye? At least here, I am with my father." And her sons were somewhere here, in this wide land. She shook her head briefly. "I cannot go."

Erart Benoit

"The stew is missing its mushrooms," Benoit said loud enough to disturb the pair talking down below. They were not being quiet enough, and he had heard Margot pouring his stash of grappa. "Bring it upstairs, girl. We are all drinking tonight, eh?" That matter settled, Margot appeared with the stone jug, and set it on the table. She introduced the bag of mushrooms to the stew, along with a bit more flour for thickening, and a handful of herbs from a bag hanging on a hook near the fire, and then began pulling down cups from the cupboard, setting them on the table with a reassuring stone thunk. Benoit was not the sort to ask whether Janice was happy, nor to offer his polite best wishes. But he would break the tenets of his ascetic lifestyle and offer drink tonight. He pretended not to notice Margot's red eyes, but he saw them before she turned away. Well, and be gone, he thought bitterly, swallowing the contents of his own cup before he'd offered a toast. He refilled it and started anew. *


Julian Monroe

"I'm not in the mood for a bathing room. I'm not in the mood for reality at the moment, and frankly I'm not wanting to wash it off." He spoke a bit out of his normal, the turn in his voice something replacing the sinister way he moved his mouth as he smiled softly. There were strange gears shifting inside this stoic man who kept close to the clocks, and worked just like them. His humor was dry if any at all, and his heart could not have been without reason yet its beat was slow and steady this night. He had turned his back on her until she spoke of herself, and in a slow motion he turned back to face her. "If you were in fact nothing then why would they have locked you away? What reason? Your sons may have a better life, but they deserve to know you...who you are. Even I know this much of love, my mother may have been crazy, but she loved me." In many ways he loved her too, but Julian would never admit it. "Skye would offer you a chance to live free of your bonds, and you would not have to stay." Julian smirked, his eyes finding distance as he thought of home, "Besides. It is not every day he offers." Holding up the letter, pinned in the most perfected script, with Jean-Claude's insignia done in red. He signs it in blood, they say, but it somehow kept its color. Perhaps, Jean-Claude, invited only because it was not like Julian to mention the opposite sex in anything, and at the Frenchman's age he wanted to see Julian married before his death.

[Janice Olivia Monroe]

"Please, let's have a care with ourselves.."


Julian Monroe

He had let her have the afternoon, living in the moments between reality when he knew the truth was there upon the edge of his cold lips, where his sharp tongue was tucked behind his teeth. He had cleaned up well, with all the world a stage he played the part of his role too well, but even the villagers had to wonder of the man who had such humble attire..yet wore it like a lord. Jean-Claude, had been a constant when it came to keeping the image forward, though he could not never break Julian of his will to undone appearance. He was relaxed in his nature of attire, though kept it professional, something even his Master could not accomplish. With sleeves rolled back from his wrist, and the shirt tucked into his pants with braces that held his weapon of choice--he seemed the part of an Englishman far too put together to be a poor farmer's son, but that was there too. (d


Janice deBrabant

The evening was late but there was something to attend to. A wifely duty in obedience to meeting at a per scribed hour made her take only a half cup of grappa. Intoxication was never an option. No drunkenness, no immodesty, yet how could she perform the greatest farce in a house of God, no matter how broken the walls? The dress of yellow glowed eerie in the few patches of light that were left out of doors as She suspected he would be out of doors, doing anything to avoid the hall where a chance meeting was inevitable. Instead, it would be below in the soft darkness broken by candle light. (d)

Julian Monroe

It was in the hall they would meet, a man before her though he had long since been a child. His hair still damp from the bath, but combed back in a respectful manner. His fingers warm from the nerves that kept them heated reached out to touch her elbow, to draw her attention to him. He was dressed for battle? The bracers that went over both shoulders held throwing spikes in neat pleated rows. "I need to talk to you." The first time he had even been in the same room with his wife since their wedding. Icy eyes moved over one room to the other, until he finally came to understand he simply could not break it to her in such a place. "Can we walk?" Something was deeply wrong, and this was not like Julian to want to be so easy on her. (d


Janice deBrabant

She suspected he would be out of doors, doing anything to avoid the hall where a chance meeting was inevitable. Instead, it would be below in the soft darkness broken by candle light. Elbow grazed, she turned to find that he was not dressed for the present life of the mountain village, but to the dark end of legacy. "Yes, of course. Please.." It held so many pleas, that one word. So she followed him, her husband. Indeed, her husband. (d)



Julian Monroe

The letter from home was folded in his breast pocket, and it seemed to warm against his heart as the drum beat beneath it. He had faith in his Master more then perhaps he should, but there was something about Jean-Claude that he marveled at. It was a surprise the note had gotten this far, but the man that carried it seemed well fed. Perhaps it was in fact black magic his Lord practiced. There was another packed object in the pocket behind him, and he was not certain as to what he was more nervous to give her. The world opened up to them, and no matter how much he would have been better suited inside, even he could admit how nice it was to be outdoors. They walked in silence for what seemed eternity, but it was not in him to start a conversation; that had always been her part had it not? She had been the bird singing to the sky for so many years, that happy ray of sun each day to start the morning when books needed finished. He had always been that quiet boy working in the corner, far too busy pretending to be annoyed with her to ever truly care of what she spoke of, but now he felt himself longing to hear her talk of anything--talk of nothing. "The weather. Its nice." Good one, Julian. (d


Janice deBrabant

Tan boots walked where he walked with a sense of being led in ridiculous rounds but she followed him because there was nothing else to do. He had something on his mind but wasn't loquacious; Janice thought that with his need tospeak he might offer up some conditional start on the subject. Silence stayed the staple between husband and wife until he asked after the most far fetched thing still pertaining to setting, only. "Yes, it is. It is not hot anymore, that is a blessing." She replied, indulging him. Looking to her feet, she then looked up. A hand touched his forearm, lightly for the sake of confidence. "What do you want to tell me, Julian?" (d)


Julian Monroe

He stopped, letting his head fall as if ashamed he could not mask his feelings, and as he sighed the ends of his hair came forward to brush against his eyes. Taking her hand he lead her to a flat stone that had fallen from the mountainside with wishful thinking that perhaps the cool surface would remind her of the warmth of hope. Julian sat with her, knowing that the news would pull her from this world, and as he reached inside the linen pocket of his shirt he watched her as she read. It was sickness perhaps to want to see the emotion cross her face, the fear? The worry? He didn't feel it like the rest of the world, that through her he could understand what it was like to be normal. The letter was penned in the finest of script, Jean-Claude had many years to perfect his letters, and an education that started from birth. My Dearest Julian, the letter started going on of his deep apology for worrying him so, and that his health was fine. However, in great detail he wrote of what was going on in the world of England, and how he feared greatly for Claramae's life. An illness, Son, we can recover from, but she was shot once as well stabbed. I have been on my knees praying, and I hope that when you read this you will to. The letter went on a bit further, but finished shortly after. Did it pain her heart with missing him like it always did he just to see his insignia? (d


Janice deBrabant

What was he trying to accomplish in bringing her outside to speak with him? Uncertainty never flooded him this way as he said he relied on her stability to quell his own anxiety. This expression was making her as anxious as anythat ever tried to walk across shards of glass for fear of feeling pain if religious fervor should pass. He took her hand, not hard. Soft grasp made her wonder all the more at the reason behind it only to see him shift in his closefor a bit of knowledge to pass her way. Was he trying to make amends for the circumstances that brought them here by sharing what he knew? Would he in doing so, wish he hadn't? Janice opened up the parchment to see the elegance of de Aquitaine. The Lady of Letters could pin point the masters' writing from miles. Each individual letter concocted a word that she heard matched with his voice in her head. "You've done it, you've gotten word of home. Julian..." for the first part of the letter was plain. Talk of health, of worry, asking after all things before it detailed what was left behind in such terrific horror that the color of her face dropped down to moon-pale. Her hand graspedat his own to read it, shaking first in small, wing like action before it became a spasm she had to constrict to stop. "No.." She didn't let the letter fall, but pressed it gentle to her heart before passing it back to him, unable look at the words that were as good as writing her master's name in the book of life. "You're dressed for hunting," the topic was equal, no, transitioning from one to the next. She turned to look at him, "Why?" No accusations, only a question that bordered almost on fear of watching him go, only to lose him too. Closing her eyes, her forehead came to his shoulder, between neat spike rows." (d)

Julian Monroe

He did not reply to her first question, simply watched her ready to take her if she wished him, but he also kept quiet in her second until he she rest her head against his shoulder. "We've got to get home." He spoke quietly not fighting her off, but letting her rest. "We have to finish this, we're so close, but you have to go home to her. This is bigger then we are. I'll pray if it will help, but I know more then prayers we need to be done." Claramae didn't have children, and sometimes he wondered if Janice was the closest thing in that Order of a daughter to many. Julian knew her mother was dead, so did she feel the same? He had been sick with worry the last he knew of his backwards family, and for once could not find any reason to think any less of her for giving in. He put his arm behind her, to support her not only as her husband but as a man should a woman, and let her remain. "Its not hunting this time, but becoming the prey." Of what did he mean? "We need an in, Janice. If I were caught..the formulas are strong, but I fear not strong enough. We could work our way out." (d


Janice deBrabant

She leaned on him without saying anything, only listening. She considered what he was saying as hard as it was to hear before his plans on being the bait, the thing they caught made her lift her head with a quickness. Almost furiousshe spewed "No, no absolutely not! No! Not when the translations are complete and your way in is with your head.not with your spikes..with the formulas you make. No, do not say anything to me of chasing your possible demise on the heels of that." she pointed at the letter, but then calmed. It was so sudden as to have been two different people in one body. The relationships forged were symbols of patrilineal and matrilineal, brother to sister, lover to lover being the last form of the agape that furthered the Humanism with an emotional theory convoluting all lack of it. She had risen, only to sit. "I have wanted to tell you all day, but you weren't about." Like a child who completed a lesson anxious to show the tutor. She was hurt he hadn't seen her all day, spoken to her, on this their wedding night he spoke of leaving. How much did he want her to forgive, how much would she? "Greek fire. Do you know what it is? An ancient weapon of Byzantium, an original firepower so potent it ignited across water, leapt across lines to its targetto consume it so complete, so quick as if it never stood. De Garza is looking for the formula to Greek fire, in fact I believe he has it in his collectionwhich is why he requires a translator and a scientist. I could not compound it as you, nor improve it. You would not fathom it without my reading it. He means to use the Greek fire, while I believe his associate, de Lugo is looking for an original store that the order who replaced the Templar, the Knights Hospitaler, was said to have.
Which is why we have not yet seen him. If you are within, and we are separated..." It seemed so pathetic, so desperate to say "I have not your complete affinity with numbersJulian, nor formulas, I can make poisons, but you perfect them. I teach you to apply them with a steady hand." She bit into her lip. "Please don't go." (d)

Julian Monroe

Take care of her heart, Julian, it will be crushed. Forever, Jean-Claude. "Janice..Greek fire is a myth. The laws of physics make it impossible, don't be ridiculous." He almost wanted to laugh at her, but he didn't. "De Garza has spent too much time behind those books, and not out in the real world." He said with such conviction for the man that there was enough of him to think of how it could in fact be possible. It was not that he doubted her, at all, but there was a great deal of him that wanted very much to laugh. "Even if the formula did exist. Its been lost for years. I doubt even you could translate it." Though his interest was peaked. Julian felt all this world could be measured by math alone, that even his heart that beat in his chest could be something he counted. "All that was in those battles was the wind, the oil and the wind." Proof however Julian has in fact looked into it. (d


Janice deBrabant

"The Masters often spoke of it's possible reality with the right chemical compound to thicken on what the fire travels as to make it impervious on launch to a quantity of water. It was a great personal fascination with any historian, scientist, any antiquity keeper. On the ships were fixed heads of beasts and iron or brass piping, gilded as well so as to allow it to pass through. Sulfurs, limes, many things have been thought of but it is the language of Byzantium, this I can read, I read the language of Christ, I can read Hellenistic Greek. There must be twists upon the language or de Garza isn't fluent. It would be no hard thing to keep him guessing during translation as I tell you what it truly is. You could assemble it yourself, and if that is so during and after we hold him in the palm of our hands. de Lugo, as well, for he could only have so many barrels of it, not many. To get him to bring them out, to see them gone. This is the war machine..it has to be. It must also be armada ready ships, or even god forbid land canons.Think of the fires of Toledo. What if barrels of it were already destroyed? DeVareux's mistress knew things Julian. It sounds mad and far fetched but please, please consider it. If anything else, do not go give yourself to their hands. Do not make me beg, Monroe!" She hissed, running hands in hair before calming again. "You left me at the altar." (d)

Julian Monroe

The focus of his eyes was apparently lost when his mind traveled through the unorthodox tunnels that was the mind of Monroe. It was here he gathered around the idea, and always did Jean-Claude smile as if watching the light at the end of the tunnel. It was possible, or Julian wouldn't have even fancied the idea a reality. "I guess it would be possible." Finally he came back to her, as if his soul entered his body again and his mind snapped into reality. "Its just the right mixture..but we would have to get to that translation first. Perhaps its time you pulled out a few of the Lady Aramoire's tricks?" It was a joke, but one poorly spoken. He had started to move his mind towards business, but stopped with the comment about the alter. "So? Its not like this is a real marriage. If I loved you then things would be different, but they are not. Its business. I hadn't even planned on telling anyone, but that was spoiled when you told our hostess."(d


Janice deBrabant

He was lost to himself as she spewed forth radical ideas like a fountain untapped. Unchecked, still, she attempted to flood the woods with the vivacity of daring thought until he cut the channel off at a pass. She glared at him. Such eyes Spain constructed, "If it is the right mixture, and my being a coquette makes it so? Oh, push me enough, push me Monroe and to secure that formula and our lives and this end you know I would! My soul would weep but I would pay the price any woman has paid in history, her body. I was fortunate my first time was under such sanctity, but could you watch De Garza touch me? For I would let him, if that is the price to be paid and it will without you, if you go. You would call me whore all my days but what does it matter, you've called me no less than that right up to the altar itself. You are wearing yellow. I should have worn black!" shespat, recoiling. "If it isn't real I should go lax of my sanctity of the holy office then." She moved up to him, an inch from mouth, from face. "I told you how I felt, it was no lie, yet I am all the stupider for saying it. I should have had more grappa." She turned away, head flipping so fast it brushed his face. "My master is shot, yours prays for mine to live, and twice I am wed with them not their to see it, once you. Each day the list of accomplishment lessons and idiocy grows. At the very least conquering the impossible would provide some redemption. You do not love me" Why did the last sting so much. She knew that..didn't she? He married her out of business - or pity - she willingly did it. "You do not love me." She repeated. It was wounded anger indeed. (d)

Julian Monroe

He lowered his voice as well his eyes to her own, narrowing in her challenge, "Do you think I would have married you any other way? Be his seconds? You may think me an idiot all you want, but there is one thing all these years I have clung to." Love, he never knew it. "I don't want to be his replacement. By the time our marriage is over, you will be healed enough to move on in hopes you don't make the same mistakes." Why did it hurt him so bad to admit this? "If I did love you, do you think I would tell you? Look at you. You are about to fall apart! You are so mad at him for leaving you." He pulled back, "If you wanted to make a whore out of yourself I would think less of you for bedding your work, then stringing along an already messed up heart to realize that you are not over your Knight in Shining armor." Julian crossed his arms over his chest, as if to shield away the cold .I wouldn't think less of you. "May come to a shock to you, but I've never been kissed." His cynical nature really came through then, "Do you really think that I wanted my first kiss to someone who would think of him every time she closed her eyes?" (d


Janice deBrabant

She snarled, only to turn about with a hiss, "You never tell me anything but your sarcasm or your barbs, and only after you deliver them do you say anything of true merit. Tonight you brought me out, held me, truly had care of what companionship we share. Part of me..dared believe you might. Oh yes my knight is not coming back. Brava, you've stated the obvious. If your tact were as skilled as your math you'd already have been courted and kissed, but you are no better than me, who dares believe in anything while you shut yourself off from the world. I smile at it, you hide from it. We are extremists. At least I'll admit it." How did it turn to this sort of thing when it should be on "I can't stop you obviously so I will just have to be the consummate actress. Marry me to leave, which makes costively no sense whatsoever as your capture would mean I am still with out escort or husband and thus a jezebel. Someone should pin you with a medal. If you go to meet them, in the morning I am going to town for supplies and back to Aragon. I will get to de Garza, and I will pull you out anyway that I can. As no one of consequence witnessed it and nothing was signed as you left the premises before it could be, I will burn the certification thus sparing you the indignity of a wife who mourns the lost of her marriage.What a stupid, stupid plan. God, be my brother. We argue like we are. You are no better for stringing my heart along. You give signals! " She waved her hands at him before moving off to the grove of nearby trees to recover herself. "I do not want you to go. You probably will. I am sorry .Stupid, rather, and sorry at the same interchange. It is no wonder you would think...oh god never mind it isn't about that. It was a plan towards the objective, objectives change. De Garza will win himself a mistress. Danielle de Avignon will be quite pleased." But she wasn't. God she was prepared though, for as much as she ran off at the mouth as was her custom when flustered, she could shut up, dress up, and perform enough to break all their hearts. (d)

Julian Monroe

Julian stood with his heart in his hands then, and took a deep breath defeated, "I didn't mean to point out he wasn't coming back, Janice, but what would happen if he did." He spoke so quietly as if wounded by the very idea. "You can't tell me you love me, Janice. You don't know me. It is not so much to ask in this world to want to be loved, and I do. For who I am, and what I do. All the little messed up insides, and broken glass. I can't be changed. My beliefs, my mind." He closed his eyes and touched the tips of his fingers to his temple. "No matter how many times I'm beaten, or struck its who I am." Has she noticed the little silver sparrow around his neck by way of a string? Did she know there was one in his pocket for her too? He couldn't form words for the next part, seeming caught on the very subject of it all. He closed his eyes suddenly as if trying to figure things out, but "You fog things up. You always have. I can't think straight when I'm around you. I can't form words sometimes. My heart beats fast, and my hands.." He would raise them showing the sign of his protest, "They get warm. Is that love? Do I love you?" It was a real question, one he was not ashamed to admit he needed the answer. "When we were young, you would come in, and I would ignore you on purpose just because I liked how pink your cheeks got." He smiled, "It got stuffy in the winter when we couldn't open the windows, and when you came upstairs you brought the sun with you. I could feel it." He took a deep breath, "Remember when Jean-Claude said I was sick, and that I couldn't come to the shop? I was sick, but it was not my body. I could hear your concern. He kept me upstairs to keep my close, but I was so mean to you..why did you care?" Pulling back from the memory he shook his head, "Let De Garza have Danielle. I didn't like her much anyway." He smiled. (d

Janice deBrabant

"If he came back, then there would be no way for us to reconcile. How could I, after what he did? Not only of our marriage, but to everyone. He tried to make them look like fools or people lesser than his belief, his need to mend his own faults from a life none of us had a part of." She would cast him from the house they shared only briefly, her house by all legal writ, by principle. Inveryne believed she went to Spain to mend the wounds he caused by seeking out the impossible, that it had gone to her head. Not so far to her brain that it clouded all principles. She couldn't take back an egotistical traitor, even if she wore his name because this was a name she could make. It was the only name she ever had given out of any truth to give one. She had two names, one plain, one Hebrew. Two maiden last names, one false, one unable to be used. She had two religions, one a fallacy, one she couldn't claim but was her blood as was the people hood. DeBrabant someone willingly had given, and she'd settled squarely into being that. Funny. Janice deBrabant lived a better, less confusing cycle than the proving of Janice Viscreed in the end of the day. She listened to him say she couldn't speak of love knowing in part he was right. History was stacked high against her.Then he spoke in such a way that made her look at him with equal parts tenderness, and a little fear. Jean-Claude had once professed to love her the same way yet had given her to the Knight, for that was where she belonged. So she thought too, and Adelaide was far better for him. Now, his son looked on her with the same set of eyes, a heart on his sleeve in better expression. He spoke not of days, nor weeks, nor struck dumb in a moment but years. "One time.Once. I wore a dress and you told me I looked pretty. It was yellow." She recalled, adding that to the exchange. "I do remember, Julian. I have never forgotten. There are times I wonder if part of loving Marius was loving all he represented, I do not deny I was caring of him, or that by the end my heart was broken for want of love. I do not mourn the loss of him, Julian. I am more angry that he turned my head to something that I was content to read about." She went over to him, "What's that?" inquiry came of the sparrow, before she looked at him. "It sounds as if you may, but that love is something you must answer for yourself. I dare not answer for you and predict wrong, and..I could tell you but you'd say I was wrong anyway." She grinned a little before looking at her shoes, "I have done you a hurt that I can not mend, other than to hope you will let me earn your love so in your eyes it is validated, justified and proven. It was for one thing, our marriage. Yet one might consider it almost..arranged." If Marius had never come along, the suggestion surely would have been put out. "If you feel it is worth it, you may sign the certificate and turn it inwhen we are home, at the very least, I may make a fitting friend. All of your little pieces, your glass and steel. I walk over them every day, hoping you will not turn me away so you are not alone. If you feel it is..not what you wish, no one ever need know beyond this peninsula." She touched his chest, gently, "yet as I must earn it, I do. I know that much. I do not know many things any more either. You know me better than even your master or mine." She walked past him again, sighing softly as to put all the burden off her back to the stars. (d)


Julian Monroe:


He was quiet for a moment, letting her walk past him just far enough that the reach was not enough to miss and he took her hand. That feeling rushed over him, the kind that made his hands warm, and his heart pound..his knees weak, and his mind glaze over. However, Julian felt himself acting before he let logic take hold. To touch her. To smell her. To breathe her in. He kissed her. His lips were timid almost not wanting to go any further, but deepened as he let go. His eyes were closed, and his hands then came to fall at his side unsure of where they went. It would not be long before he let her go, but slipped the small wrapped package into her hands. She would not have time to even read the note attached before he was on his way back to the house of Benoit. Though he was not running, he certainly felt he could have been, and when the door shut behind him he tried to catch his breath. I would rather see you soar, then be some pretty bird in a cage. The note read attached to the string that held the little silver sparrow in flight something he had picked up the first week in Spain. (d


Janice deBrabant

Advance, retreat. Catch, retrieve. Call it by name as the perpetual dance always went that way when the pair spoke. It would be unfair to say that to their credit, they hadn't mended the last several offenses with more closeness than distance. She anticipated his catch was to say more, but he didn't. Janice watched him as he studied her in a certain way only to surrender study for action, unlike him. Highly unlikely when he paid her answer in the form of a kiss that did not find him fleeing in quickness. In his action she recalled a woman as timid as this man, being beckoned to take her first real kiss, closer Janice..do not move Janice. All those she had taken before were meagerdocile things or embarrassments. How could she begrudge him his want to believe, to believe slowly when if he did love her he'd seen her rise a phoenix in someone else's arm only to fall from grace? God, he had seen Jean-Claude profess a love for her, and to his thought (ignorant she was still of it for all anyone said on the matter) she made men fall to the knees in want of her affection. She was no ruby, no great prize to be won, only a librarian with a peculiar talent for antiquity or supply. She was a klutz with a large, bulbous nose and hair that didn't remain the same color. Her eyes were water color pictures. They shut, though, one hand lifting to his cheek as the other settled on his shoulder. She had never been given something so precious and tender to keep. This, this was his first true kiss. Not soon after he fled, leaving her to reach out for him instead of ushering his name on a stunned mouth to slow to speak. Well, here was a first with him. She was at word loss. In the wake of the kiss, her still tingling lips couldn't compare to the weight of sparrow in hand. Unfurling the tiny note, she thought her heart was going to stop beating. They damned him, called him sick, strange, and twisted. He was a great many things but beneath the dark knots making his demons he saw her. He saw. He asked nothing, wanted nothing of her but to be the very same he railed against because it was something he didn't know how to be, yet admired. He taught her another lesson: How it is so easy to bypass a thing in youth only to realize an adult's folly. She slipped the little bird around her neck using the ribbon that held back her hair. It would need something more sturdy, but for now this would do. Having not done this with anything less than mixed results. In time she went from outside to in. She found him in the dark, not truly hard to do. "You should learn something. Stand still." She whispered. Shaking her head, she softly applied her mouth to his again, fingertips caressing his face. When she pulled away, she said, "Thank you." The sparrow would be on her throat, her eyes saying goodnight as she slipped down the steps to bed (d)

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