Short Story - Ever After

A slightly longer short story for you to celebrate the coming of a certain season, written for a long ago Christmas writing challenge with a large variety of cliches prompts to work in. My take was this - that happily ever after depends on your point of view…;)

Ever After 

“You’re sure they don’t know about this?”

Lord Arthek stared at the gaunt, anxious face of his old friend and neighbour Baron Tewdar and gave as much of a reassuring smile as he could under the circumstances.

 “As sure as you can be with… them,” he said, his voice betraying the slightest tremor of anxiety as he glanced once more at the vast double doors at the head of his feasting chamber. “I made everyone I invited promise not to mention this at court in case word got back and I only told those that I truly trust that we’re doing this. If we’re lucky…”

  He did not finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. The hope hung in the air like waft of sweet perfume.

  Baron Tewdar gazed around the hall, his long, languid face that had, for so many months now, been locked in dour resignation cracking slightly at the edges as he risked a smile. “You’ve done a wonderful job with the place,” he remarked with a quiet nod. “It’s…subtle. Understated. Tasteful.”

  The relief in his voice was tangible and Arthek understood exactly how he felt. When he had first decided to risk it, to try, just for the sake of his sanity and his eyeballs if nothing else, to hold a small, private celebration for the Midwinter Festival here at his remote country manor, he had resolved to do away with all the ostentatiously trappings he was forced to endure at court and go back to the simple, half-hidden designs they had perfected during those long ago years when they’d had a different life and a different ruler, one who had, to say the least, not been given to celebration and show the way their current monarchs were. Simple garlands of holly and ivy circled the doorways, the chandeliers and the windows, little posies of winter flowers nestling on the tables between the straightforward plates of vegetables and meat being laid out for the feast. Coming as they just had from a court filled with silk and velvet drapes of all colours of the rainbow, of gold filigree and silver leaf that decked every room, every hall, every chamber, of bright paintings and tapestries on every wall depicting the events of The Triumph, it was like a breath of clean, pure air.

  A little frown line had appeared between Baron Tewdar’s eyebrows, chasing away his brief moment of smile. An expression all too familiar to Arthek crept over his face.

 “You don’t think….” he started and then paused, letting escape a brief sigh before trying to speak the words once more. “You don’t think we’re being…ungrateful, do you?”

  It was Arthek’s turn to sigh, his turn to feel that terrible little of guilt that assailed him whenever thoughts such as this crossed his mind. After all, when one considered what had come before…

  The Domination. An evil emperor, powerful, ruthless, cold, who had dominated their lands, who had slaughtered their children and eviscerated their lands, who had committed the most terrible atrocities on any who defied him and then two had come, he had come and she had come and those terrible times had been over. A new rule, a new time, a new dawn…

  But now…

  He understood it, he really did. The emperor’s court had been so dark, his kingdom so devoid of colour, other than the occasional splash of blood and lick of flames, that he could understand their need to contrast, their fervently spoken desire to make this a land of brightness and joy again. But did they have to be so… rigorous about it?

  The guilt, the awful guilt, the thing that had led so many noble lords, hardened warriors who had battled fiercely and loyally for their freedom to submit themselves to the indignity of velvet pantaloons in a fetching shade of maroon, to peacock feather hats and cloaks of dyed sable, to embroidered brocade doublets slashed with splashes of turquoise and mauve, was clawing at his soul. Yes, they were grateful, of course they were grateful. But no one had ever expected gratitude would have to be like this…

 “No, no, of course not.” The words were as much to silence the claws as to reassure his old friend. “They wouldn’t want to come all the way out here anyway.”

 “You’re right of course. You’re right.” Tewdar bit his lip. “I still think about the Domination, you know.”

 Arthek nodded solemnly. “As do we all.”

 “All those terrible things that happened.”

“Dreadful, dreadful things.”

 “All those innocent people. All the dear friends we lost. Like Gorlas…”

 “Poor Gorlas. No way to die. No one should have to eat his own feet.”

 “Lewyth, of course.”

 “I’ll never look at a slice of grapefruit in the same way again.”

“And Clemo…”

 “We do not talk about Clemo.”

  Both men shuddered as one as their memories went on the same trip down memory lane and plunged straight into a mutual pit of unpleasantness. The emperor had had a rather sick sense of humour.

  “But still…” Tewdar’s voice slipped cautiously into the silent void that followed. “The time in the caves… The camaraderie we had… The meals made out of nothing much that turned into feasts. Our last Midwinter…”

  Arthek smiled nostalgically. “A sprig of holly and a curl of ivy, a half-dead grouse and some roots. We sang songs all night and laughed until morning.”

  “And you know,” Tewdar mused on. “I have found myself thinking lately that if it hadn’t been for the inventive deaths and the mass murders and the burnings and maimings and slaughterings and all that… Well… That life wasn’t so very bad…”

  He was nodding. Arthek could actually feel himself nodding along and a part of his brain picked up a heraldic trumpet and blew a very loud fanfare. He had spent ten years of his life living in caves and ditches, eating roots and in constant threat of a death that, whilst most unique, would certainly lack in dignity and he had dreamed every night that someone would come, that things would be better, that he would be rich and warm and prosperous just as he was today. He had everything he’d ever wanted and now here he was looking back on those times with nostalgia.

  How had he come to this?

  He should be grateful. He was grateful. He was.

  He just preferred to be grateful from a distance.

  “I am grateful though.” Tewdar’s words spun into his friend’s silence in almost desperate reassurance. “I wouldn’t go back.”

  “Of course not.” Arthek repeated the words. “Of course not.”

  And that was the trouble. Bad as things could be for those at court, they were still a darned sight better than the alternative.

  Arthek thought of velvet pantaloons and shuddered. Most of the time.

  And his guests were starting to arrive now, dressed in simple gowns and plain doublets, smiling at the natural decorations and the uncomplicated food. All bore expressions of relief tinged just around the edges with the fear that any second, it would all be ruined.

  His dear wife, Lady Zenobia bustled abruptly to his side. Her expression was slightly disapproving. “Don’t just hide over here with Tewdar,” she scolded him gently. “This is meant to be your party, Arthek. Circulate.”

  Images flashed through Arthek’s head of two fingers bedecked in jewels and bright colours, circulating a vast ballroom as a magical voice wove colours and exploded fireworks in the air and a sword flashed to carve amusing shapes out of the fruit centrepiece, the undisputed centres of attention. He shuddered.

 “I’m happy here,” he said firmly. “I don’t do circulating.”

 “You say it like it’s a curse word.” Zenobia sighed. “You don’t have to process or display yourself like… they do. Just go and talk to people.” An eyebrow rose cynically. “Take Tewdar with you if you’re that afraid.”

  There was to be no getting out of it, it seemed. His wife on one side and his oldest friend on the other, Arthek set out into the room.

  And it was there he discovered the problem.

  The party was everything he and his friends had wanted. It was simple, it was tasteful and it was quiet. Every one of them should have been having a wonderful time. But it was there on every face, in every furtive look, passing in every conversation. He could hear it and he could see it and he could almost smell it.

  The fear. And the guilt.

  And it was like a presence, invisible, overwhelming, watching them, an unwelcome, uninvited guest weighing down upon the party. It only took a moment’s listening to find it.

  “Not to be ungrateful, of course. I mean, she does spend a great deal on… improving the palace and gives away all those clothes and jewels. She’s got that vast fortune you know, inherited when her father was killed by the emperor…”

 “And I mean, he did defy his banishment by his family to kill his own twin brother for us. I mean, that brother was an evil emperor with a twisted gift for death but it still can’t have been easy…”

 “And of course she travelled all that way to train in the knightly arts with the ancient Hermit of Mond, last of the great warrior monks. I still wonder how a little thing like her manages to wear all that heavy armour…”

 “And, he did sail all the way to the Temple of the Fervent Virgins to master that talent of his he hates so much. I mean, how would you cope having a magical singing voice when you’re tone deaf?”

 “Not to mention them making him carry their baby.”

“Makes me cross my legs just thinking about it. I do wonder though – do you reckon that has something to do with that pendent he never takes off?”

  “…everything the poor lass did for us. She’s got that awful scar right across her cheek from her battle with the emperor’s henchman, although it does rather flatter the line of her cheekbones…”

“…those eyes of his. Have you ever seen golden eyes before? They say he can look straight into your heart and see everything within it.”

 “You don’t think… he can tell… that we…”

 “But it’s just a party. We are grateful!”

 “Of course we are!”

 “Of course…”

  Of course they were. Arthek sighed. That was the trouble. They were afraid to go back to the glitter and sparkle, to a world where everyone and everything revolved almost by default around two towering figures and their wishes. And the worst thing was they weren’t evil. They meant well, they meant to bring joy but they were so bright, so burningly vivid, so all consuming a presence that no one else could ever get a look in. They were and always would be the absolute centre of attention; even at a party where they weren’t even present. It was a world that was awful but well meant, that its courtiers longed to escape and feared, not mortally, but socially to return to but yet felt guilty for the fear. They were grateful enough to feel that they didn’t feel grateful enough.

  Zenobia was at his side, biting her lip. Tewdar just looked grim.

  And then just when it seemed that the unwelcome guests at their party could not make their presence any more felt, came the birdsong.

  The entire party froze as one, the guilt that had bred the fear abruptly crushing all hope as a vivid blue songbird swooped into the room and landed with an elegant swish on the chandelier above. Loftily, it gazed at the holly and ivy circling its perch before shoving it out of the way with one delicately poised claw. It cleared its throat.

  “I, Flittery, most noble pet and messenger of their gracious majesties, King Achilles and Queen Guinevere, saviours of your realm, bring you their glad tidings upon this Midwinter eve!” it exclaimed in a high pitcher twitter. Deep in the privacy of his own mind, Arthek quietly but fervently wished for a crossbow and a little willpower. “I also bring you their honoured invitation – to abandon this humble gathering and to indulge in the true glory of a proper celebration as befits your noble status. Your monarchs would do you honour and their carriages already await you without. Attire yourself in your finest garb and come at once for the magnificent honour of all! Long live the King and Queen!”

  There was a pause before a ripple of reciprocal “long lives…” echoed reluctantly around the hall. The bloody little bird gave them all a look of profound disdain and the ripple hurriedly became a surge. With a more approving nod, Flittery the messenger bird vanished in a flurry of wings.

  Silence fell. Fear turned to resignation but the guilt was at least sated.

  Zenobia breathed out slowly. “I’ll get your pantaloons, shall I?”

  On his other side, Tewdar was staring quietly but desperately out of the window as he faced the prospect of ever after in short, shiny trousers and doublets dripping in gaudy jewels. He swallowed hard.

  “And I’ll see you in the caves…” he said.

NOTE: For those you are interested, the cliche fantasy prompts I had to work in were:

1. Eyes which are an unusual colour, and have some sort of power or offer insight into their character.
2. The character is heir to some kind of fortune.
3. A character name which is more commonly a noun, verb, or adjective OR is taken from a mythological or historical figure.
4. The character has some kind of skill or ability which they consider a curse.
5. The character is estranged from their family/tribe etc. or currently under some sort of banishment order.
6. A strange or unusual pet.
7. The character is studying something like martial arts or magic or an obscure art form with the help of the last remaining master of that particular craft.
8. The character has an evil or very good twin.
9. The character holds some kind of gender-anachronistic position (is a male geisha, a female fighter pilot in WWII etc.)
10. The character has some sort of item (jewellery or book etc.) which they never part with, for reasons they can’t or won’t explain.
11. The character has a singing voice with some sort of power.
12. The character has some kind of physical ‘flaw’ which doesn’t detract from their beauty.

I think I did okay. ;)