Wonderful, cute little betrothal. Starting off as brother/sister at five could lead to a wonderful marriage at sixteen. An oyster shell may be cheaper than a diamond ring and have more meaning. Thank you for inviting me to the meeting.
You are most welcome!
It can be difficult to write scenes for children, but here somehow the personalities of Czenzi and Bohodar suggested themselves fairly readily.
It is great to meet you finally, Czenzi.
If she has also pearly hairs, then there will be also the chance of a beautiful song for the story too. Álmodtam vagy igaz talán.
Cheers,
@filcat!
(However, the pearly hair song reference is one which rather eludes me...)
In that regard, have to make a slight necro-mention on the previous discussion. Sincere apologies for the disruption in advance.
Have to say hard disagree on the subject of what is to be included in the fiction of the writAAR. The story belongs to only and only to the writAAR, and the readAARs are only bound to the infinite limits of the imagined worlds created in that mind.
Moreover, in consideration of a criticism for the intersecting points of the fiction and the real despite a divergence in the course of the timeline; that addition -
in this case the existence of Miyazaki Hayao within the world of The Lions of Olomouc, along with the actors in the animated film- is not a disruptive nor a skewed concept of space-time continuum by the entropy increase leading to the impossible-possibilities of such coincidences; no, and it can be regarded as a homage to the director by the writAAR, creating
Serenade of the Magpie in this world instead of
Princess Mononoke (1997).
And thus, that reference is beautiful.
And yes, moreover; on checking the image in the Interlude IX again;
The characters do not look as a fan-art found from the net or else etc. Therefore will claim that the image was created specifically for the story by the writAAR.
That is the ultimate dedication of the creatAAR for the aesthetic. Even if this claim may not be true and whether it is only an image found from any other third-source, the composition of the laserdisc cover is still remarkable.
Only one word remains to be written for
@Revan86: Kudos.
(Yeah, by the way, on the graphics: The arrow shaft floats in the air rather than being held by the Czenzi character, and the antler is jumping from the air over the edge of the cliff, though. Not sure about the scabbard's position too. Sorry for highlighting the details; old habit learned from family).
Again,
@filcat, cheers!
I confess to being somewhat influenced by
Star Trek at least in terms of how alternate histories / mirror universes can 'rhyme' with each other, even if the divergence point is located centuries in the past. The rough sketch of the LaserDisc cover art (yes, that's a
@Revan86 original, flaws and all!) actually came before the text of the interlude, and I based the interlude on the sketch art.
EIGHT
Ladina
17 May 1129 – 15 February 1132
The family of Rychnovský-Kluczbork had a reputation. Arguably, it was a reputation which went back all the way to the founder of the cadet line,
Nitrabor the One-Eyed, who became the
šafár for Eustach
staviteľ chramu by means probably best left unexamined. But whereas the Rychnovský family in the main line had largely focussed on martial and intellectual pursuits, their cadet branch centred in the Opole region had specialised in the subtler arts of intrigue and manipulation.
The family seat in Kluczbork was awash in dark whispers and murmured secrets. Nitrabor himself had been an infamous libertine as well as a blackmailer. Among his three sons, the eldest Múdroslav was stabbed to death and the second Sokol was poisoned. The family headship had thus passed on to his third and youngest son, Zdravoslav. Zdravoslav, the most cunning and ruthless of his father’s sons, had revelled in his sinister deeds. He had gleefully tortured and executed his own kinsman Blahomír Rychnovský; and in addition had been implicated in the unlawful death of Božena Kopčianská of Nitra, the only daughter of
Knieža Radislav.
Zdravoslav’s descendants—most of whom suffered from various forms of deformity on account of his successive unions with two close kinswomen (Slávka Rychnovská and Slavena Budínská)—had followed gladly in the footsteps of their father and grandfather. Two of his inbred sons, also named Nitrabor and Zdravoslav, had been killed in battle against the
severané shortly after their majority. Among the two surviving offspring, his one-eyed son Igor, having been raised in such a household, had developed an acute sense of paranoia, and this was understandable given that his younger brother Zelimír happened to be a criminally-violent lunatic. The bloody succession struggle between Igor and Zelimír had ended only with Zelimír being brutally impaled and eviscerated by a group of Igor’s loyalists. But that hadn’t stopped Igor, in a stroke of what might have been either malice or obdurate affection, from naming his only son and heir after his dead brother.
As such: those who crossed a Rychnovský-Kluczbork were said to suffer from strange cases of disappearance or sudden illness, and as such there were likely more than a few skeletons in more than a few of the estate’s closets. Incest was far from unknown among the Rychnovských, the affectionate union between
Bohodar 1. and his aunt Blažena having been officially sanctioned (though spoken of thereafter among clergy and the pious laity with a certain degree of shame and embarrassment). However, the Rychnovských-Kluczbork line
revelled in the perversion. Each and every bedroom in the Opole estate was said to have been defiled with the heat and sweat and mingled bodily fluids of mother and son, father and daughter, or brother and sister at one point or another—and that was in addition to the church-sanctioned unions between cousins of varying degrees. It is worth note that English author and 18th-century pioneer of Gothic horror, Cuthred Alderman, had stayed as a guest for about two years at the old Rychnovský-Kluczbork estate between 1780 and 1782, doing research for his novels.
The current
vojvodkyňa of this storied estate, Ladina Rychnovská-Nisa, was the fruit of the union between Igor’s son—the second Zelimír—and Zelimír’s cousin Bohumila. (Bohumila, in turn, was the daughter of the aforementioned Blahomír Rychnovský, who had been tortured to death by Zelimír’s grandfather Zdravoslav, with Zdravoslav’s niece Držislava Rychnovská-Kluczbork.) She had inherited the manor and surrounding lands from
Vojvod Igor upon his death in 1084. She had then been fifteen years of age.
Despite being the fruit of such a horrendously-tangled self-pollinating family tree, and despite having grown up in—and become mistress of—such a hothouse of madness, torture, murder, paranoia, intrigue and incestuous lust, Ladina Rychnovská-Nisa was a
fairly well-adjusted individual. There were no visual or habitual traces of her family’s inbreeding on her. Indeed, she had a fairly pretty face, good health and a formidably-intelligent mind. More to the point: the
vojvodkyňa had taken great pains to distance herself from the dark reputation of her forebears.
Firstly, she had founded her own cadet branch of Rychnovský-Nisa, symbolically distancing herself from the sinister Rychnovský-Kluczbork legacy. She took a lenient policy with the local Silesians, and also took it upon herself to be charitable to pilgrims and the homeless. However, she was cautious to a fault, and took great pains not to place herself at risk. As her consort, she had chosen Bratislav Aqhazar—a man who far preferred samelies with other men (in secret) to women, and who was as cautious and fastidious of comportment as she herself was. And if she ever used the secret compartments and passageways of her family estate at all, it was only to assure herself of an easy route of escape at need. She had never hurt any of her servants, and anyone she imprisoned was assured of a short sentence and decent treatment.
‘Are you well back there, milady?’
The driver of her carriage had looked back at the
vojvodkyňa, who smiled. He needn’t have worried. Even though she was now a widow of sixty-one years, she was still healthy, and as keen of mind as ever she had been. She only wished she hadn’t put on so much girth in the years since Bratislav’s death. ‘I am quite well, thank you. How far off are we yet from Olomouc?’
‘Shouldn’t be far, milady. We passed Bělkovice a couple of miles back on the road. We should be in Olomouc within a couple of hours.’
‘It
has been rather awhile since I last attended a royal feast,’ Ladina remarked, half to herself. ‘I do hope that the standards of hospitality in Olomouc haven’t degraded too far from what they were in Tomáš’s time. Now
that man—
he knew how to hold a feast!’
‘I believe so, milady.’
Ladina scoffed lightly. ‘You are
far too young to say that for yourself with any authority,’ she told her driver tolerantly. ‘I’ve seen two kings of Moravia before this one come and go. It will be
quite informative to see how this young Prisnec has shaped up.’
When they arrived at last in Olomouc Castle, Ladina Rychnovská-Nisa was conducted graciously into the banqueting hall, and was seated together with the other
vojvodovia and
kniežatá in a place of high honour. Ladina saw at once she herself needn’t have worried about the standards of hospitality. Whole roast calves and pigs on spits graced the tables; there were huge amphorai of good Greek wine; rich wafts of cumin, mint, coriander and liquorice teased their way delectably into Ladina’s discerning nose; rich glazes of honey and cream gleamed appetizingly upon the egg-breads and sweets of the feast. To judge from the outlay of the food alone, this was as grand a feast as any that Ladina remembered attending in Tomáš’s day. Indeed, the table-settings, with their riotously-coloured blown Bohemian glass and burnished Hory Kutné silverware, were of Prisnec’s grandfather’s vintage.
Archbishop Slavoj came in alongside the
Kráľ with, censer, bowl and aspergillum, and blessed the food and drink in the name of the Holy Trinity. When this was done, the king raised his hands to his guests.
‘Well, everyone,’ he said simply, ‘enjoy.’
The guests set to the rich repast with delight, but this unadulterated joy was rather short-lived. The high table began to creak and groan under the weight of its burden, as well as under the elbows of all the gathered guests, who were too busy with their trenchers to pay much attention to it… until there was an almighty
crack. The legs of the table slid out to either side as the centre gave way, and tablecloth, silver, glass, spits, platters and all went careening inward, imploding toward the depress.
Ladina noticed to her satisfaction that Prisnec took the disaster in stride, calmly directing the servants to clean up the mess and joining in himself in the work, before assigning the guests with their wares to different tables that were still standing.
‘What rotten luck,’ Ladina heard her kinsman Chvalimír Rychnovský-Kluczbork, the
hrabě of Doudleby, grumble. ‘It figures I’d be sent to rub elbows with the riffraff.’
She noticed that the
knieža of the White Croats, Vyšebor Bijelahrvatskić, acquitted himself of the situation with a much greater degree of congeniality and equanimity. The
vojvodkyňa had not hitherto had a very high impression of the
knieža, judging him to be a brash and simple-minded hothead, but she was quietly impressed with the social grace with which he handled his new placement. As for Ladina, she found herself seated on the left of the
kráľ himself!
‘… I did read it,’ Prisnec was commenting to his son Radomír. ‘Tzoumenēs does know his minerals and herbs. His understanding of humoural flows is also subtle and profound.’
‘Are you speaking of Alexios Tzoumenēs’s
Ad sanitatem?’ Ladina asked the king, interested.
Prisnec was taken aback, but he wasn’t displeased. ‘I am. Have you read it?’
‘Indeed!’ Ladina looked toward the king with interest. ‘It is a fine study, truly fine! But what do you make of Eremej Drevľevič’s critique of
Ad sanitatem: that Tzoumenēs focusses too strongly upon the remedies to the yellow bilious diseases, and neglects the diseases stemming from a surfeit of phlegm?’
‘I don’t agree with Drevľevič at all,’ Prisnec answered bluntly. ‘Tzoumenēs is a responsible scholar. He lives in Mesopotamia, not Novgorod. Of course he spends more time on diseases he sees more, just like he’ll speak about the herbs and the alchemical ingredients he knows. A man ought, in judging, to look at circumstances.’
‘For example?’
Prisnec said pointedly, ‘It wouldn’t be wise for a man to judge by parentage alone. For example.’
Ladina took no offence at this comment. In fact, she grinned. ‘Particularly not in present company. Truly well put, O
Kráľ.’
Prisnec and Ladina spent nearly the entire evening talking about medicine, astronomy, grammar, rhetoric, mathematics and theology together, comparing notes and recommending each other new (and old) books to read. Prisnec was truly astonished by his female vassal’s breadth of knowledge and her curiosity. For her part,
Vojvodkyňa Ladina was in turn surprised that Prisnec was neither just a dull bruiser nor a vapid carouser, but instead himself a man of fairly profound learning. Even after the high table was replaced and the feast could continue with its original settings, Prisnec Rychnovský and Ladina Rychnovská-Nisa kept fast in each other’s company.
Ladina proved to be an immensely valuable friend. Not only were her connexions and judicious use of Opole’s
sub rosa connexions superlatively useful to the Moravian state. But she even managed to fill in for Kveta Kostolanská when she was out of town, and there was an injured townsman who needed care. Even just talking with her together with Viera, about various problems over a quiet glass of wine or two, calmed the king’s nerves greatly. But Ladina had not entirely eluded the furtive nature of her family’s past, as the king soon happened to discover.
Prisnec was soon enough a frequent enough visitor at Kluczbork to see Ladina in the company of her retinue. And he was near enough in Ladina’s confidence to notice how she spoke to her suffragan bishop, Vojmil.
‘Your Grace,’ Ladina spoke to him in passing, ‘I do believe I require another confession. Could you make yourself available before Vespers tomorrow?’
‘I think I can arrange that, milady,’ Bishop Vojmil answered her mildly.
Prisnec looked from one to the other, and judging from the secret smile on Ladina’s face, he guessed (correctly) that the ‘confession’ would not be taking place in any chapel or before any altar, but instead in Ladina Rychnovská-Nisa’s
boudoir, or someplace similarly secluded. Still, he said nothing about it.
It was sometime later during that visit that Ladina invited him to sit with her in the drawing-room of the Rychnovský-Kluczbork manor. It was, she told him, a matter of some urgency and great delicacy.
‘Your Majesty, I have reason to believe that one among your vassals is plotting against your life.’
‘How so?’
Ladina drew out a rolled-up pile of vellum, and handed it to the king. The documents did indeed contain some deeply troubling communications, including contacts among Prisnec’s and Viera’s servants, maps of castle grounds and escape routes, as well as possible weapons or poisons to be used. Prisnec looked over them with concern, but did not lose his calm.
‘Who do you think is responsible?’ asked Prisnec.
‘I have no way to determine that as yet,’ Ladina answered him honestly. ‘But with this intelligence you should be able to stymie whoever is responsible for a good while yet—possibly indefinitely. Rest assured that I’ll continue working to uncover the originator.’
‘Thank you,’ said Prisnec gratefully.
‘Anything for a friend,’ Ladina answered him.
Little Botta scrutinised the paper before him, dipped his quill in the inkwell, and began tracing out the letters in Latin uncial on the other side. ‘
Jól… vagyok.
Jó… estét.’
Botta’s little sister Katarína came in where he was studying. ‘Whatcha doin’?’ she asked.
‘Magyar,’ replied Botta seriously. ‘Have to study.’
‘It’s always something,’ Katarína sighed. ‘I thought you were studying ‘rithmetic!’
‘I was,’ Botta explained. ‘But I wanted to study languages.’
‘All languages?’ Katarína asked, in an infuriatingly-sly voice. ‘Or just your ‘tended’s?’
Botta blushed, and folded up the vellum as his sister giggled. Why did his little sister have to be such a pest? ‘
Ocko studied languages. And a lot of other things,’ he said airily. ‘I’m going to learn as much as
ocko, so that when I’m king, no one will be able to fool me.’
‘Good luck,’ Katarína rolled her eyes and left the room.
Botta chuffed. But his hand went to the drawer of his desk, and he withdrew from it the mussel half-shell that Czenzi had given him. The rough side of the back had smoothed a bit from handling, and the shiny side gleamed from polishing. It was one of Botta’s precious keepsakes. Riding around and hunting with a Magyar girl was sure to be a lot more fun than having a little sister who snooped into everything. He wondered whether Czenzi would remember him… and also, if she remembered him, whether she would remember him fondly. He opened up his Magyar lessons again. He wanted to be sure that when she saw him next, he could speak with her in her own tongue.
