The passing of the Great is portentous. It means change and oftentimes trouble. This year of Our Lady has witnessed the conjunction of three such deaths. There will be a great deal of trouble.

One passage. Light and vaulted. High in a fair and many-towered castle set in a green sequestered vale. One passage. Three young women. That is where we need to be; one passage, three young women and then, of course, a princess, but to get there, first we need three deaths.

One death is of a prelate, and one is of a king. The other is to be regretted. Two result from invisible darts of doom set by mishap upon fatal courses. One is purely malicious. Two turn the wheel of fortune sooner than any had expected, raising some men to unlooked for heights while lowering others. One death will benefit no man. All three will, within a half-year, have consequences none can imagine.

The first in point of time is Adeldore, Archvilicor of Eoforwick. He is a man of middle years, young for a prelate, especially so for the second highest in the Kingdoms. He is from a dynasty; power among those who fight usually determines power among those that pray. An ascendant family, a winning manner and a good deal of money well placed secured the matter. Abeldore likes being an archvilicor. It has many benefits. He does not think he is making that bad a fist of it either. He is not a great reformer, or organiser, yet at least he is not an ambitious aggrandiser or strict disciplinarian. He tends to favour a light touch. There are plentiful abuses in the Chirche, it is true, but then there ever have been. Those whose abuses become too public may look to be punished, which tends to have a dampening effect on excess. There are also enthusiasts, those who take the Word of the Mother a little too much to heart, like the black mourners, or those red pilgrims that have been so troublesome of late, but, again, a persistent strain of fundamentalism is also in the nature of the Chirche. It will come to the fore, from time to time, but then subside. Things are best, Abeldore has found, when left to follow their natural courses. Extremes abate. Everything tends to balance out in the end. There still are worries, from time to time, of course, but on the whole it is a good life.

Now, however, Abeldore’s enjoyment of life in high office is being cut short by an ill-advised goose, a bone of which sticks in his throat and chokes him to death. While preosts, muncks and servitors flap helplessly around the dying man, his guest, a visiting baron, remains seated, remains calm. Even as the second highest preost in the land heaves his last, choking, breaths, the baron calls his squire to him and bids him ride with all haste and no pause to the Abbey at Gislandune with news of the death. The squire, who knows his master, hesitates only briefly before hurrying away. The baron sits back in his chair, cocks his eyebrow and awaits the inevitable cessation of choking. He does not need to wait long.

History does not record the name of this squire, which is rather unfair, because, not sparing the horses, he reaches the Abbey at Gislandune, a distance of 210 miles, in a little more than four days. Quite a feat. In the hall of the Abbat’s lodgings at Gislandune he meets the Pryor and also a man who wears the garb of a cleric over the harness of a soldier. His hood and cloak are red. This holy warrior passes by the name of John of the Land, a name not yet widely known, not yet widely feared. It is he who questions the squire. He does so closely in an undertone before dismissing him and directing him to the lay refectory and into the care of the hospitaller. John of the Land then turns to the Pryor, “his Grace Archvilicor Abeldore choked to death in his palace at Eoforwick four days ago, which will teach him to eat goose on a Friday on the pretext it is fish. I will inform the Shepherd”, and the warrior-priest stomps off to an inner chamber.

The Pryor recalls that geese are said to be born in the water and thus generally accounted fish, though, he reflects, they are in many ways not at all like actual fish. The Shepherd’s view of the Rule is narrower than most, it is … uncompromising.

When John of the Land re-emerges, the Pryor stops his pacing, “Well?” he demands.

“The Shepherd sorrows, of course, for the untimely loss of his Grace Adeldore of Eoforwick, and will pray for the Archvilicor’s soul and for guidance.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we shall see a world transformed. We are to muster the Orders and see the Will of the Powers done.”

The Pryor is still looking confused. He raises his hand questioningly, “So…?”

John of the Land is a little impatient now, “So the Chirche will be returned to the truth and to the light, to the Red Rule!”

***

News of the Archvilicor’s tragic demise has yet to reach the court of the Paramount King before tragedy strikes there too.

King Bonomio is also a man of middle years, vigorous middle years, and he likes to show his prowess sometimes on the jousting field. Today the colours of one of his mistresses are borne on his lance and he is in his arming tent readying for his next tilt. Yet, even here, even now, he is not free of the bothersome business of the realms. As Paramount King he finds that his care extends beyond his own kingdom. He must show a lead to the Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Kingdoms. Increasingly he is engaged also with matters pertaining to the two Fallen Kingdoms of the north. Thus, he is seldom free of counsellors or of counsel. Three plague him even now as he is armed for the field of honour.

One, Sir Jolion Throape, is a tall, spare-framed man of about thirty. He wears an old-fashioned tunic that hangs loosely, save where girt at the waist with a belt, and which reaches almost to the ground. Its cloth is rich, its colour dour. He stoops. He looks far older than he is. He speaks deliberately in a deep laconic drawl that confers the authority of absolute certainty upon anything he chooses to say.

What he chooses to say is that the matter cannot be put off. The other Kings and a good portion of their nobles, and of Bonomio’s own lords, will not be put off any longer.

“Sire, a decision must be made. Since the Kings’ Wars we have enjoyed thirty years of peace, thirty years of prosperity ….”

“Spare me a lesson in what we all know, Throape”.

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“Yet years of want are now upon us. A surfeit of villeins who grow hungrier by the day. The people groan under the burden of the Elventithe at such times. They wonder what it is for. They see the rich lands reserved to the Elves, left fallow in the main, while they have not the land to support themselves”.

“Yet Elves hold less land than the acreage your lords and the chirche take for themselves anew each year, reducing ever more folk to bondsmen,” this is from a modestly attired man in black, a law-speaker, his demeanour that of a man who feels he must say what he sees to those who do not wish to see it.

No one speaks in support and the King looks pained, as if the man has soiled himself before him.

Throape continues smoothly, “It is without need of saying, even to Sir Sanwell,” Throape shoots a look of contempt at the law-speaker, “that lords and abbats provide places for the common folk on the land and so support them.”

But Sir Sanwell is not done. Truculence overcoming fear gives edge to the sombre timbre of his speech, “Times of want fall hardest upon those with least, where is our relief of their condition? A third failed crop and the people will starve.”

“Then the Powers grant us a good harvest this year. The Powers will surely treat the people according to their desert. Yet, the Elves suffer not in times of want, of that you may be sure, and the poor wonder at that.” Throape pauses, then decides to go further, “They wonder why a King of Men should kneel to a Lord of Elves.”

“Yes, yes, but be mindful of what we owe to the Elves…” says the King, feeling all this talk suddenly so very tiresome.

“We might have owed them once, Sire, though I, fear that has been overstated. We did not truly need them then and we do not need them now.”

“Nonsense, Throape!” This is the other man, silent until now. Unremarkable in build and stature, a little older than Throape, yet more fashionably dressed in a gaily-coloured buttoned doublet. His voice is perhaps less persuasive, for it is agitated and betrays impatience, “they yet aid us, in a thousand ways with skills we had not possessed since the days of the Ancients, new skills, indeed, exceeding those of the Ancients’, and all freely shared with us ...”

“Oh, my Lord Beviers talks again of ploughing I suppose,” Throape affects an exaggerated disdain.

“Yes, better ploughs, cloth-working, brewing, these things improve the lot of the of people, giving increase to the common wealth. Though you care not, who dress like your grandfather and who always have wine to drink …”

“The People were content without all these costly … innovations,” that last word Throape pronounces with distaste as if the word is unfamiliar, unwelcome.

“You may count the people as credulous, but you and I know better, Throape. The Elves have protected us. They do protect us.”

“No, my Lord Beviers, the Elves constrain us. The claim that we need them is false, a lie to keep us in their tutelage, their thrall. Are we to fear the monsters of mere faerie tales? And it is not merely the people, but the lords of this realm who in ever increasing numbers call for us to break the shackles by which the Elves seek to bind us.”

“The Elves, who once returned to this lonely isle to teach us the Faith and the art of praise..”

“Long ago, Beviers, long ago, and who now can say… Listen, all the people need is pious submission to the Powers and faith in the good government of the Chirche and their Kings.”

“Like the good government that led to the misery of the King’s Wars?” interposes Sir Sanwell, not yet cowed, “We would have destroyed ourselves entirely without the mediation of the Elves…”

“Hardly…!”

“Enough!” The King’s patience has run dry. “We have not resolved this debate in ten years of angry argument, we will not resolve it now!”

“Yet we must, Sire”, counters Throape, “and without more delay, before the condition of the land worsens. Before the people lose faith in their leaders.”

Lord Beviers clears his throat. The King gives Throape a very nasty look.

Sir Jolion appears perfectly composed in spite of this, “Sire?”

“Very well”, says the king as trumpets herald the next bout. He strides to the tent flaps and flings back the command, “Call a moot, call a great-moot for all the Kings, all the lords temporal and spiritual and the knights and commons of all the Kingdoms. Let them consider and counsel what is to be done”, and with that he is gone.

“A great-moot ….,” exclaims Lord Beviers, “there has not been one for ….”

“Thirty-three years. It is, however, the only way to settle the matter for once and all,” concludes Sir Sanwell.

Perhaps this wearying conversation has distracted the King. For years he has been plagued by ambitious, rebellious kings and lords chafing against each other, and against the wild Wallacha of the west, against the kings across the Narrow Sea and, increasingly, against what they are pleased call the Elvish Yoke. So much needless rancour, and all so mis-directed. Hate, he remembers a preost once saying, seeps through the cracks in this world and feeds the demons beyond. He hopes that is as silly as it sounds, but wonders why he now recalls it to mind. The King sees the covenant with the Elves as more of a partnership. A fruitful, indeed, an essential partnership. Albion is surely blessed by it. He does concede that things need adjusting in favour of the kingdoms of Men. Have we not waxed strong and come into our full estate? That should be recognised, he reasons, and the balance may not be quite right for these difficult times. Yet still, he cannot really understand the hatred some of the powerful nurse against the Elder Folk. He would like to dismiss the matter from his mind but finds he cannot wholly do so. Perhaps this is why, even in the charge as he bears down upon Sir Ortaire, his lance point glances wide. Sir Ortaire rocks in his saddle but remains seated, and his lance drives upward, tearing the helm from King Bonomio’s head.

It makes a mess of his nose. Some flesh is torn. There is a lot of blood. Yet it likely looks worse than it is, concludes the King, as he, too, remains seated. As he makes to canter to the end of the tilt for the next, pass, Sir Ortaire calls to him. Should you continue, Sire, he says, visor up, face full of concern. Well might he be concerned, thinks Bonomio, he is captain of my house knights and responsible for my safety, and he’s just given me the mother of bloody noses! Let him worry, thinks the King, and he waves the knight away. He glances up at where he knows his mistress, Lady Torena, is seated. It shocks him to see her blanched, mute and rigid, with a look of frozen horror on her face. Then he hears Queen Aonene call to him. Those are not her colours he bears on his lance tip, they are Torena’s, yet the Queen is loyal. She begs him to stop. He will not hear of it. He hopes she will not entreat him more, he says. He hopes she stops lest she appear unseemly, though, of course, he does not say that. He reaches the end of the tilt and turns. He has not replaced his helm. The mask of blood that is his face remains unprotected. He levels his lance.

This time he is not distracted. His lance tip finds its mark. Before his lance shatters, as it is designed to do, its blunt tip slips beneath Sir Ortaire’s pauldron and drives home, dislocating the knight’s shoulder. Sir Ortaire is thrown backwards off his black destrier. The fall, Sir Ortaire thinks briefly, will be heavy. Before he hits the ground, however, something worse happens. By some curse’d fluke a splinter from the King’s lance shoots backward and penetrates Bonomio’s left eye as far as the brain.

It takes him ten extremely painful days to die.

The first conversation anyone has after the King hits the dirt, and shock and shouting subsides, takes place in the dim interior of the King’s arming tent. An official from the Ministrare asks Sir Jolion Throape if they had best not proceed with the convocation of the great-moot until the King has recovered or, the Powers forfend, a successor has been chosen?

“Certainly not,” replies Sir Jolion, “the King’s decision will be confirmed by the Council this afternoon. In the meantime, there is much for you to set in motion. Thought must be given to which of the athelings will succeed. The King will not recover.”