The Eclipsed Sun at Judith's Gate

[MCVDK 2830]

 

His parents found it charming. “Such discipline,” his mother once said, watching him scrape ashes into his tea, “and from such a little heart.”

 

At the age of ten, he declared himself a devotee of Saint Carolus of Carrenhall. The saint’s martyrdom consumed him. Carolus, the protector of the innocent, the guardian of the chapel flame, became Faustin’s model for everything a holy man should be. He commissioned a painting of the saint shielding a church door with his bloodied back. It was hung above his bed. He would kneel before it at dusk, whispering prayers for wrath and purity.

 

Two years later, Faustin was sent to the Seminary of Saint Judith of Czena. His parents believed the rigors of cloistered study would refine him. The Prior believed structure would temper him. Neither belief proved correct.

 

Faustin excelled in doctrine. He memorized all three Books of the Scrolls within his first term. He wrote long treatises on the martyrdoms of Carolus, Judith, Emma of Woldzmir, and Adrian of Leuvaarden. But darker patterns soon emerged. He dragged his bedding nightly to the reliquary hall, explaining that he could only sleep near bones. He left black feathers on the pillows of boys who missed morning Mass. He rewrote the margins of hymnals and chapel missals with personal corrections, signing them A child of Carolus.

 

He shaved holy symbols into the heads of sleeping classmates. He stole a finger bone from the reliquary of Saint Carolus during the Feast of the Sanctified and later claimed that it whispered warmth into his palm. The bone was never recovered.

 

The symbol of House Ashford de Bruges, an eclipsed sun with a black center and radiant edge, was sewn into the collar of his cloak and the corner of his satchel. He kept it polished. When asked why he wore it so openly, he replied, “It is the mark of righteous power hidden behind impurity. The light is there, but must be revealed by flame.”

 

On the feast day of Saint Judith, he disrupted the Mass by climbing the rood screen and reciting verses from the Scroll of Spirit in reverse. When the bishop attempted to intervene, Faustin threw ash into the air and shouted, “There is no virtue without fire. The Church will not rise until it learns to burn.” A candelabra was overturned in the struggle, scorching part of the altar cloth.

 

That evening, the faculty met in quiet. There was no argument. The letter was written by hand and sealed with the seminary’s sigil before sunrise.

 

---

 

To Lord Roger Ashford de Rouen, @Vikenz

 

My Lord,

 

I regret to inform you that the young Lord Faustin Ashford de Bruges has been formally dismissed from the Seminary of Saint Judith of Czena.

 

He is, by all accounts, gifted in theology, formidable in recitation, and relentless in piety. He is also uncontrollable. Despite repeated correction and compassionate instruction, the boy has continued to act in ways that defy obedience and endanger those around him.

 

He has developed private rituals, imposed unlawful penances on his peers, and most recently disrupted the feast of Saint Judith in a way that was neither harmless nor holy.

 

As no suitable guardians from House de Bruges have answered our letters, we have elected to send him into your care. He travels with a courier and arrives bearing his devotional items and necessary belongings.

 

He should reach you before week’s end.

 

Good luck.

 

In the Light of the Scrolls,

Fr. Matheus of Loche, Prior

Seminary of Saint Judith of Czena

 

---

 

When the carriage arrived, Faustin was already waiting in the courtyard. His satchel rested beside him, the symbol of the eclipsed sun catching the gray morning light. He made no farewell.

[DISCOLIQUID 2702]

Dismissed from the streets of Alba, a mud-stained urchin lurks the watchful precipice above Lord Rouen's pristine castle halls. The strange child picks their fingernails clean with a dagger more rust than metal. They know nothing of scripture, and less of Faith. Their eyes track the pathway of a lone carriage across the hillside. Ro's gaze follows the arrival of a boy, a few years senior to the urchin's age. An eclipsed sun caught the delinquent's attention - the youth bore a similar eclipse on the lapel of their jacket, a symbol of their Rhenyari heritage. High above, the street-rat considers Faustin with curiosity. They too had been sent to seek discipline under the hand of Lord Rouen. The two might be similar. Then again, perhaps not.

 

 

[Vikenz 1162]

Lord Roger Ashford de Rouen did not write, nor speak much, once the prior’s letter was read. Instead, he took to the high balcony overlooking the road to Waldermer, a place where one could see the dust rise long before a rider breached the gates.  He gave no orders beyond a quiet nod to ready a room distant from the family’s wards and chaplains. No welcoming party, was offered just the watchful figure of a man who had already heard too much, waiting to see for himself what the Church had given up on.