The Ordained Path

[LithiumSedai 4835]

The Ordained Path

 

 

The streets of Atrus, c. 1890

((David Street, Jerusalem, Gustav Bauernfeind))

 

8th of Harren’s Folly, 1892.

 

“Full house!”

 

A thunderous crack of laughter, cheering and shouting broke through the tavern, deafening the stubborn complaints of the unlucky. The fair-haired princeling’s luck and unrestrained generosity seemed to endear him to most established patrons and spectators, and many sought to shake his hand in congratulations, drawing back with a gifted tip - sometimes in gold, sometimes in silver - if gentlemanly friends, or with a southern rose conjured by sleight of hand, should it have been earned by a maidenly charm. The audacious cavalier, comfortably seated, rattled his dice cup and swept it away, embracing a Farfolk maid - although not before offering his opponent, now several hundred old Orenian marks poorer, a carefully-crafted apologetic grin.

 

As loaded as the dice, James thought of his coin pouch, praising the naivety of these Southerners in wise silence. He considered his own resilience admirable; many hours past dusk and after many tankards of cheap Balianer ale, twenty rounds of dice poker in, the drunken stupor has only just begun to settle in, and the night yet offered many opportunities. He dandled his Farfolk companion upon his knee, undid the top lace of his silken shirt to ward off the heat, and watched the assortment of guests gathered by the table. He was quick to join the celebration, and asked nothing of its cause; through the fog he recalled some sort of trouble in the north which benefited his hosts in the reaches of Atrus, and so he offered no complaint, eager to revel and secure for himself another assortment of drinks, bets, and fine company.

 

The lights of the lanterns danced before his eyes as murky flames. The Balianers continued the game of dice poker without him. His former opponent, a hardened cataphract of the King’s guard, now desperately sought to reverse his fortunes against a Petran merchant, plump and rounded and considerably lucky. A vague retelling of the newest story of the north played in James’s mind - he knew it had to do with his father, somehow. “The old man doesn’t need me,” he mumbled, drawing a confused hum from his companion; he shushed her. He was content to waste away here in the south, far from the reach of his overbearing family - though his titles, empty or not, drew much attention from the tavern wenches, to whom he had no qualms invoking his name.

 

“Tough luck,” James offered to the soldier, now relieved of his entire salary, slurring his words heavily through the excitement of the crowd. “Have- I haven’t seen such an upset since Eastfleet,” the princeling teased, unable to restrain an ugly snort, thinking the off-handed remark would elicit much laughter among his friends.

 

It took him a fair few moments to notice the abrupt change in the mood, the sudden tension permeating the air. A tangible chill in the arid southern night surrounded his table; an expanding wave of silence overtook his surroundings. It was not his stupor that deafened him: with growing embarrassment and alarm, James noticed all eyes laid on him in stillness. A sobering glance put the soldier’s scars, obtained at Haverlock, into his view; he saw the sneering innkeep, stood before the backdrop of Philip the Fiddler’s grandiose portrait, fondle the hilt of his curved dagger; the Petran trader watched him in disdain, and his fair-weather company slipped underneath his arm into the kitchens. James cursed his stupidity, his recklessness, as frantic thoughts of escape flooded his mind. They have always hated your kind, he recalled, far too late. Your coin, your attention matters not to them. Orenians. Novellens. Never will a hand of reconciliation be offered - to suffer an Alstion to live? Already he knew he faced a dishonourable death.

 

The merchant’s guards, rowdy men bearing tailed helms of the former State Army, intently watched James’ blade in its scabbard. The silence dragged on and weighed upon his eardrums; he inched forward in his chair…

 

Naive? How foolish.

 

The doors swung open with a loud crash - suddenly the revellers’ gaze settled on the intruders, and the subject of much tension was replaced with another: five armed and belted Daelishmen pushed through the threshold, at their helm a ginger lad of eighteen. He fixed the fit of his green-and-orange plaid, and waved his bonnet towards James. Their claymores gleamed underneath the lanterns; the Balianers discreetly and hastily resumed their game of dice. To have another diplomatic breach fortuitous to Atrus was less so to the victims whose blood was to be spilled - Galbraith, at the very least, was alive. “Gude God, Jamie- let’s awa’,” Iain Gromach, his Daelish friend, cried out to James. Sobered, humbled and humiliated, the Alstion slipped past the table with a sneer, his cup abandoned upon the floorboards. Not one person looked at him as he departed with his guards.

 

He owed his fortune to more than loaded dice.

 

 

Saint Ottomar’s Hill, c. 1890

((Saint-Cirq-Lapopie in Evening, Henri Martin))

 

6th of Harren’s Folly, 1896.

 

“Ye canna keep this up.”

 

The bell of the chapel chimed, carrying the ringing far past the Arentanian hills. He tugged on the rope endlessly, toiling away in his penance, and pretended that the chime drowned his friend’s words. Oh, his regret was genuine; his liberation, so close to his father’s wartime residence, was not. James isolated himself within Saint Ottomar’s chapel, yet his attempts at seclusion were often frustrated by Iain, who carried to him unwanted reminders of reality, both from neighbouring Corwinsburg and the rest of Aaun.

 

“Says who?” He obliged Iain with an answer after a long few moments, bordering on disrespect. The Daelishman raised a thick brow.

 

“I dinna ken they taugh’ deacons tae be bauld an’ rude,” he retorted, rolling his Rs as keenly and as deeply as any one of these new-age Daelishmen. “That maun be a prince’s ain privilege.” James sighed in frustration. Earlier that day, news of Aaun’s triumph over the rebellious Acre was brought to him. Certainly, he never wished for his friends, or his father, to fall in battle; yet the news brought with it an inevitability he had been hoping to postpone. For years now he had been maintaining the quaint chapel, evading Charles’ Nauzicans - and Charles himself - and his responsibilities both; he found penance in menial work, and quickly any desire to sin escaped him. James frowned, however: the Salvian elf who had taken it upon himself to be his visiting mentor would have, rightly so, classed his evasion as irresponsible, and sinful in itself: proud and in equal part cowardly.

 

Horen’s teachings appealed to him and his royal blood, he had admitted in the long evenings of studying the nature of the Scrolls, generously given to him from Corwinsburg, by candlelight. So Horen went into the east, and followed the path ordained for him, he quoted hesitantly to himself - Horen’s scriptures were ingrained in his memory, although each time he recalled them he was so aptly reminded of his name and calling. He concurred that to free himself of his desires of vice was a path ordained for him; he no longer wished for ale and dice and cheap thrills; his health and complexion improved, and through God’s grace he once again enjoyed the good form of his royal ancestors. 

 

He would not be the first abstinent to admit, however, that he had enjoyed it. Coming of age as the heir to an ancient princedom was not without its challenges, and the temptation of indulgence in his earlier days was often too difficult to resist. But he was now six and twenty years old, and, as he was all-too-often reminded by his friend Iain, rapidly approaching his third decade in this world. Too many times had the frivolities of youthful indulgence gone on to destroy a man, and James knew this well. He had seen it before in the old drunken sops that the tavern master liked to keep close to his bar. It was why he was here in the austere periphery of the Heartlands, and it was also why he feared to leave. And as he often read the gospel of Horen - his alleged progenitor in an unbroken chain of Emperors, Kings, Princes, and Dukes - he knew that destiny maketh, and consequently might undo, the man. But that did not mean he was in a hurry to find out which side of the coin he might fall on.

 

“Leave me be,” James mumbled through his teeth, releasing the rope to battle a sudden itch upon his back. Good Horen, the habit was uncomfortable. “Leave ye be?!” The Daelishman protested, throwing his arms up. “Ye maun ken weel, man, they wadna e’er leave ye be. No at Corwinsburg, in Atrus or Lurin, or Salvus, or anither place, de’il ta’e ye.” That much was true, James bitterly conceded to himself. His gaze strayed towards the nearest window of stained glass. The lands of Aaun lay beyond the Arentanian Alps - filled with men and women who had placed their trust in his father after decades of darkness, and who repaid it in kind with one victory; without effort, work, responsibility, there would not be another. His royal house was beset by enemies on all sides, and no matter how far he escaped, he would never live down the shame of abandoning those loyal few who had trusted them.

 

“Starin’ at that bonnie blue circle o’ yours, the books an’ the scrolls, tae speir the auld Elf a faith, hae ye learnit ane thing?” Though Iain meant well, James knew his question was genuine. In a moment of clarity, akin to the one he had experienced four years earlier on death’s doorstep in Balian, the plague of uncertainty upon his mind dissipated: like Horen, he resolved to follow the path that was ordained for him. Nobody else would.

 

“Just one.”

 

 

9th of Horen’s Calling, 1897.

 

TO THE PEOPLE OF AAUN,

 

God's peace and blessings upon you.

 

Almost forty years ago my late uncle William, the Lord of Alba, fell in battle at the siege of Haverlock. He was the first Alstion to do so since John VI, the child Emperor slain by Pertinaxi usurpers. He died alongside Nauzican, Haeseni, and Sedanian comrades against the forces of an excommunicant. 

 

William Alstion believed that the right to rule was not something inherent in birthright, rather something to be earned and then tempered by an adherence to the social contract of men. Kings, he believed, had no right to impede on the Sovereign Individual but by that which they are granted as the will of the majority. For too long the powerful and wealthy had trampled on people they saw as lesser, and had rigged the levers of state to their own undue advantage. My uncle believed in restraint, actions derived from study of scripture, and a fair and just society.

 

He is now remembered as a martyr for the cause of good, and he lies amongst the righteous dead. Born to ruin and dead to one; his legacy are the pillars of piety which we will hoist up that we might observe creation. 

 

I kneel to my duty as my uncle’s successor to the vacant Lordship of Alba, and as a consequence the heir to the Principality of Alstion and the United Kingdom of Aaun. In this, I swear allegiance to His Majesty the Sovereign, to the traditions of our many peoples, and to the social contract upon which our nobility are cast. 

 

I will live as my uncle lived, and one day rule as my father does. I make a covenant to you all upon risk of damnation that I will respect the word of the law. I will bear our Gospel with austerity; I will serve in the interests of solidarity between our peoples, and I will serve His Majesty as his liege man of life and limb.

 

THEREFORE, Content as the Lord of Alba and happy heir to the Realm;

 

AWARE of my long absence from the country, having tended to my faith in private piety;

 

NOTING that the nobility of the Heartlands does live in prosperity as the authors of their own destinies;

 

CONVINCED that the longevity of our nation state depends on the able advice of our leal councillors;

 

CONSCIOUS that only our utmost sacrifice of duty to the realm will we create solidarity in these Heartlands;

 

FEARING God and faithful to the High Pontiff as His Vicar;

 

DESIROUS of a happy union and the smooth succession of the Crown undaunted by the anxieties and hardships of war and strife;

 

DECLARES the Right to Life, Liberty, and Trial will always continue as the fundamental basis of the Realm;

 

REAFFIRMS that the long friendship and commonwealth of Canonist realms will forever be my priority;

 

PROCLAIMS to my future subjects that my whole life, however short or long it may be, will be dedicated to the ministrations of the United Kingdom and the happiness of its people.

 

 

James Leopold Alstion, Lord of Alba

 

 

[seannie 6832]

King Charles stood with hands fidgeting in some vain attempt to distract himself from the current discomfort, expression clearly unsettled as he was held in wait by the gate of Corwinsburg - clear in wait for a certain individual. His mind abuzz with thoughts; he was never a good father, ultimately, for after all, was it not him who abandoned his children to his divorced wife in Balian? To go off on some selfish undertaking eventually resulting in the formation of his Kingdom. At the time, he had convinced himself his ambitions was in part to create a better future for his family, but it was evidently disproven as he became consumed by his monarchist expectations - would his family simply not have been better off if he had just remained initially present in the raising of his own children? Wedged between duty and familial love.

 

Regardless, the imminent return of his firstborn washed away the doubt that had crept upon his countenance, a sense of fatherly pride now replacing such disturbance.

 

The doors of Corwinsburg swing wide open, and Charles for the first time in many years, smiles a true sun's smile.

[argonian 12836]

"You ever wonder what happened to Jim?" Stanimar asks of his good friend Theodosius Uialben at their Atrus gamehouse. 

[Totalitarianism_ 478]

2A101

Agathor, Aeldin
 

A holy man dressed in priestly attire rides at the front of a small caravan, flanked by dozens of armored men-at-arms. Some of these men-at-arms were heavily armored and mounted on horseback, but most walked beside the caravan on foot, carrying spears and shields, and wearing metal plate over a purple gambeson. Just behind the holy man was carried a spectacularly gilded reliquary, carried between two monks. Behind the reliquary followed two standard-bearers, one carrying a banner of purple and white, centered with a golden dragon, and the other carrying a crimson red banner, embroidered with gold thread.
 

From the distance, a shout, followed by the trampling of hooves. The priest raised a fist and the caravan stopped. From behind the retinue came a lone messenger, who delivered onto the priest a letter stamped with the seal of the Dragon of Horen. “Prince Ferdinand—news from Aaun.” The priestly-Prince Ferdinand Francis of Aaun took the sealed letter, a look of pride filling the face of the religious mystic as he read its contents.
 

Ferdinand took the reins of his horse, turning to face his retinue. “My nephew, Prince James, has been invested as the Lord of Alba and heir of our holy kingdom of Aaun!” The Prince declared, and the retinue—loyal men of Aaun who had come to the lands of Aeldin in search of the lost treasures of Horen—cheered.