Mountains Vast and a Kingdom So Red

Chapter 107

Tess breaks her spell of avoidance when she spots me the next morning upstairs from outside her chambers. Her white robe with sheer finishings make her ghostly. And her face matches, akin to a raw anger that has been soured.

"Have you by chance seen a note that has a lip stick stain on it?" she asks.

"No, but I have not been searching for it. You need it, I imagine?"

"It is a keep sake. The last I have that reminds me of Simmons."

"I will look for it," I promise but she waves me off.

"Do not make it a concern. You will probably peruse the spots I already checked," she tells me and walks northward to the staircase before changing her mind and shutting the door to her chambers. Tess flits out in jeans and a short sleeved flannel and evades me once more. I level my expression and knock on the King and Queen's bedroom door. It takes a few moments for them to answer.

"Come in!"

I stiffly come in and regard my parents. Both of them mimic deer having crossed the road at a perilous moment and their mounting worry ties into mine. "When are you meeting Xirna's family members?" I wonder.

"In an hour or so. They have no carrier bird so it was difficult to make arrangements," my mother informs me. Her hair is styled but her slippers belie any polished armor. My father wears sleep pants and a button shirt fit for a wagoner not a king, but he typically loathes fanciness and this is instrumental to his warmth.

"We are giving a speech at promptly eight thirty this morning," he tells me. I assume it is in bow one and I assume my brother, sister and I will need to fit ourselves in the stately picture.

"What are the contents of it?" I say.

"Bedivere and Xirna laid down their lives for their country. Every speech needs a theme," he says crossly and he reminds me the board meeting is at twelve o clock before he walks deeper into the large room and I cannot see his form.

"I have to change as well," my mother informs me. "Need anything else dear?"

I look at my hands, the veins and come up with a list but I stay silent instead of becoming dependent. "I will inform Winter and Damien."

"About what?" she presses and annoyance stirs in my chest.

"The speech," I say.

Her smile is a decoration. "Very good." I watch her use her wand to airbrush a fresh coat of nail polish on her toenails and from there the wand freshens her up and transforms her sleep set into a marvelous gown.

In bow one on a slightly balmy day, my back aches against the chair's back as a crowd of citizens begin to form behind the dais. However, crowd may be misrepresenting to total people who have decided to show up to hear a royal address and the flexibility and freedom of our people reminds me of what the Fairies the lack. What possibly could upset our people? They have books to read, boats to roam to dream destinations, a Minister who houses those seeking comfort, lovely, idyllic lives in all. But the Bewitched have marched to war before and maybe this speech will spark a rumor.

But my father starts, proving he is an excellent king. "Another day shines but I dreaded this day because it means I have to come to you grief stricken and hanging from a distinct sadness a man knows when he has lost a friend. His heart stopped beating and I will never see my Head Servant Bedivere Simmons again. This male, as he is of fairie origin, has been in service to the throne for twenty six years and I will tell you the story of how we met. I gave a female Head Servant a stipend for she was about to go on maternity leave and once she had birth she told me she would not come back for work. I did not tell Rebekah and thought myself fit to keep the home in shape and this was of course before we interviewed Tess. I lost bills and had a poor grasp on finances already so it was time for me to lose hubris and find someone else to be the spine of the Estate. And it turns out no interview was required as I found a male drunk off his head arguing with a jogger who ran into him. He was unlike anything I have seen with a face devoid of imperfections but a backside covered with vestiges of wings, however it was hard to tell at first because they were gray. I had nothing on to prove my station as a king. I advised him to take it easy on the Bewitched man, partially because I saw the man's wand and Bedivere realized he was bested and told the fellow to have a nice day. The fellow gave him a tentative smile and continued his jog and I was left with this mysterious male who was not a countryman of mine. I asked him if he has tried the tomato wrap at the harbor's carte yet and he said he had not and that was our first meal together out of thousands."

My father massages a tear out of his eye. "He said he was not happy here but he could not go home. He hoped he would find the magic to bring his wings back but found no leads. I asked him if he needed physical therapy. He said yes. I asked if he needed mental therapy and he did not know what that meant. I admit I stumble over expressing my feelings to my utmost potential but at that time I felt incredibly blessed. My wife, Rebekah..." My mother rises from her seat and twirls around, eliciting laughter from the crowd, which has grown five fold. "Was very happy and I was very happy with her. She was not in the place to expand our family with a child and this pang whispered to me to have the male visit our stables and learn how to ride a horse. He was skeptical but after finding solace with Angel's physical therapy he lept on the challenge and became a horse fellow, and this was phase one of my plan. Get him hooked on the work benefits before explaining there was work available. A month or so passed, and Rebekah urged me to issue an offer for him to stay with us as long as he would like. And I asked him what he knew about the upkeep of a house and he certainly fudged his knowledge as he made countless mistakes, a true rookie extraordinaire, but this did not matter because he learned. His character was pulled in two directions. We never subdued the fairie elements to him and it hurts to know that a faire ended his life."

This evokes a change in the listeners as I pay them rapt attention in my seat.

"On the tide of Mikah's birth, he was overjoyed and Rebekah was relieved her children would have a go to guardian. A person to sneak up on them and handle a curfew and sing them songs when they were sad. This is unconventional but this was our life and when Rebekah gave birth to Damien we found an Ornate Servant Tess who made a great bond with Bedivere and she completed things. It is unconventional to ask a servant to journey abroad but we did and he died in a place forty five kilometers from where he was born. So I implore you to grieve for him today and grieve for a fairie named Xirna Kiplin who shared the journey with him. She is gone and she deserves to be echoed not just in Aux Duvrex but in all of Ganymede. A brave and daring female who is remembered by her family as their snarky girl whose dreams were bigger than the sun. I have assigned the Scholars to begin her story along with Bedivere's once we have more information. There are inevitable hardships in life and this is one of them. We are hurting and we pray for repair and aim for transparency. Thank you all," my father says, ending his speech.

A person yells from the crowd: "How did your servant die?" The people close to them startle but become interested.

My father folds his hands together. "We do not have that information."

"That is shit!" another Bewitched yells. "It had to have been murder."

Alarm crests on my mother's face. My finger's tense at the civilian's insensitive comment and I have to untense them.

"We deserve the truth," the same Bewitched adds.

"Yes, you do," the Queen responds. "We imagine that it is murder but we do not have the facts yet."

Winter grouses that she has been sitting for three hours and she rises from her seat and begins weaving in another direction. I cringe but follow her, whispering her to come back. She rolls her eyes at me and I wonder if it is worth the effort to explain we are being scrutinized. I give her a packaged mint and she places it under her tongue. "It is just five more minutes," I say. "People just have questions."

Crowd members, clearly journalists, try to receive confirmation that it is murder and the pantheon is to blame but my parents do not concede to the narrative and thankfully we have some plausible deniability. We have no clue about the type of murder so my father passes the spotlight to Minister Neith and she explains that the worship manor is always open to people seeking counseling.

Damien mouths to me that this is a disaster, but I shake my head, disagreeing. This was exactly what needed to happen and I am looking forward to finding a beautiful place in the glen to prepare a memorial.