“Father’s three rooms away with Uncle Ian, wearing a hole in a very expensive Verakhoon rug. Men can’t handle childbirth. That’s the one constant in the universe. Not so cute smothered in blood and jelly, are you?”
I was at my daughter’s birth.
“I wouldn’t brag about it in Aandor. Men and women have specific roles here. I’ve often begged Father to teach me fencing like he taught you and Laurence-but my job is to breed sons and the occasional daughter for some lovely, noble fat cat. I wouldn’t even know which end of a sword to hold if it weren’t for you. Remember our lessons…”
… In the stables, before supper. You had a great parry, but a lousy thrust.
Meghan beamed with pride. She addressed the eye chart. “Am I good or what?”
His mother and the midwives disappeared with a shimmer.
Cal studied the room. He’d been here before. Outside the tall arched windows lay the whiteness.
Where’s the world?
“Listen to you… concerned with the world when you haven’t even figured yourself out yet.”
The scene changed. On a divan before the same great fireplace frolicked a young man and a woman, barely dressed. Cal recognized the lad as himself at fifteen. The girl was a few years older.
“Remember her?”
Loraine. She worked in the kitchen.
“Not the only place she worked.”
She ushered in my manhood a week before. On this day, though…
“… On this day, you made a very important decision. It defined you.”
“Loraine, stop,” whispered young Cal. The girl sat up. Her large smooth breasts bounced enticingly before him.
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked. “There were no reservations when you took me the first time in the gardener’s shed; or the servant’s pantry the day after. Am I no longer appealing…?” Loraine lowered a nipple to his lips. Young Cal suckled it, drawn in by the pink bud’s exquisite sensuality. Then he lifted her off him. He sat up and covered himself with a blanket.
“It’s not that. You’re lovely. It’s just-I’ve seen how lust draws men away from decent things-makes them spend their time and fortunes on decadent pleasures.”
“My little lord’s been spending nights in town, I see,” she said. “Have I competition?”
“No, that’s not it. I am very fond of you, Loraine, but I do not love you.”
“Little lord, my legs part for you as winter parts for spring. I don’t care who else you bed, and you don’t have to spend anything to have me. Someday I’ll be wed to the cook or the valet or the stable master, or if I’m lucky, a bejeweled, fat merchant, and I can look back on these days with a smile.”
“Loraine, someday you’ll be wed, and to have been used… to think of another over your own spouse… that does not sit well with me. Your husband should be your world, as my father is to my mother, as I will someday be to my wife.”
“You mean Godwynn’s child? You’d deny me for a girl you’ve only met twice? I doubt her blood has even flowed. She is a child.”
“I’m resolute in this.”
Loraine gathered her clothes and stormed to the exit. “Your father was a much better romp than you, anyway.” She slammed the door.
“Somehow, I can’t picture Father servicing the female help.” It was a different voice that said this-a young lad of about twelve years, with sandy hair and green eyes. He wore a black tunic with gold trim and pantaloons. He didn’t belong in the scene as Cal remembered it. “Personally, I think the slut was lying.”
Laurence?
“At your service.”
Where’s Meghan?
“You mean the Pest? Her tour is done.”
Pest. Yes, that’s the nickname we gave her.
“Making progress, bro.”
The runes on the bottom line of the eye chart were all gone, and the slightly larger ones on the next line were beginning to move and turn red. Outside the window, the whiteness had been replaced by rolling fields. A mountain distorted by distance loomed in the background.
“That’s our piece of Aandor out there. Eight hundred acres of rolling fields (and one village), hitched to a minor, yet respected, noble title. The next eighty thousand acres, and the mountain, belong to Lord Godwynn. A bit of a tight ass, but he sires hot daughters. I’m hoping to get one myself.”
It’s coming back.
“It’s the runes. We’re rebooting your head. All this history is scrambled in there.”
There are no computers in Aandor. We don’t use words like “reboot.”
“We’re not in Aandor. We’re in your brain, and everything in here is fair game to get you up to speed. Meghan and I are just coopted memories augmented by the spell to walk you through your life. But there’s not enough self-awareness yet to manifest your self-image. The third will help you do that.”
Is he the ghost of Christmas future?
“Hey, that was funny. When did you develop a sense of humor?”
The scene shifted. They were in a courtyard. Troops in black and gold uniforms stood in formation. Black banners with the symbol of a red flaming bird’s wing on yellow circles were flying. Behind the dais, a large tapestry with the remnants of the eye chart was tacked behind a throne. Half the runes were gone. Cal watched his younger self lean on one knee, as though he were proposing. He was slightly older than the version with Loraine. In his left hand he held his battle helmet like a football. A tall, red-haired man touched his shoulders with a gleaming new sword. Then he turned the sword around and presented it to Cal hilt first. Cal accepted the sword and sheathed it. Trumpets blared and the crowd rejoiced. An older man with red cheeks, a white beard, and the biggest smile in the yard walked over and threw his arms around the boy.
Father? This is Aandor court… the day I joined the Dukesguarde.
“You made Father’s year,” Laurence said.
And the red-haired man…
“… Archduke Athelstan. Well, gotta run.”
Wait!
“Oh, let him go,” said a female voice behind him.
Laurence’s replacement was a beautiful young lady dressed in a white linen dress. She wore flowers in her sandy hair, done in a long French braid that fell to her hips.
“He has to go play with his toy soldiers.”
Valeria.
“Handsome, noble brother.” She walked up and took his hand. Cal realized he had a body now. He saw his reflection in a puddle and felt the pull of gravity on his bones. Valeria stood on her toes, took his face in her hands, and planted a gentle kiss on his mouth, tasting his lips with a flick of her tongue. “They broke the mold when they made you,” she said.
Valeria?
“Oh, what do you know? I’m a manifestation of Valeria, tainted by your subconscious belief that no man is good enough for me. Remember this?” The scene shifted to a hidden glade in the woods. Valeria and a young knight are kissing. The knight had successfully maneuvered her out of her blouse. “Remember your childhood buddy? Gentle, handsome Salimon, born of the gentry and passionately in love with me? Ah, look, I let him get to second base. The ability of a supple nipple to draw a smile on the most stoic faces- I controlled that smile. Forget lances and swords, true power lies in the curves of a maiden. I had intended to let Salimon have his desire, but…”
Cal watched himself crash through the bushes. He pulled Salimon off with one arm and hurled him ten yards. Valeria screamed at Cal as he pounded Salimon. The paramour was outclassed and yielded often, but Cal would not relent. Other friends arrived and pulled him off his former friend.
“Double standard, wouldn’t you say?” Valeria asked. “No one crashed the gardener’s shed when Loraine rode you like a buck. Imagine how frustrated you would have been.”
You were not Salimon’s first. Nor were you even his thirtieth. He had a taste for whoring. Half the daughters of the gentry are diseased for being with him, including his half-sister. I was trying to help you…
“You were keeping the family’s prize heifer pristine and pure. Daddy can’t sell soiled goods to the highest bidder.”
Why are you showing me this? How’s this important to me?