After Phyrebrat honoured Ancient Tradition last month by resurrecting the thousand-post Critique extract, I thought I'd better follow suit with this, my 15,000th post.
I'm also resurrecting something, but in my case a piece I put up for Critique some 6+ years ago. The structure didn't work then, and I'm hoping the current iteration might provide better flow and more onward progression -- basically as well as doing some tweaking after taking on board comments made here, I've chopped up two POVs into separate pieces and alternated them.
By way of Introduction (which I'd hope any blurb on the back cover would make clear) this is a fantasy-detective set in Georgian England somewhere between 1760 and 1790 -- when I've decided exactly what socio-political or world events would be best as a background -- but with a twist of alternative history. In 54 BC a concord was reached between British-Celtic female druids and Rome’s Vestal Virgins in order to preserve some of their powers and magical relics against the storm winds of Christianity which they had already seen would batter them. That eventually led to the creation of the Collegium of Drya Vestals which some 1400 years later is regarded as a quaint anachronism by most people, with Vestals being wheeled out at important state and civic occasions. Despite adhering in public to whatever religious sensibilities were uppermost over the centuries, the Collegium has never lost sight of its pagan roots, but its wood-magic remains a secret, though senior Vestals are now permitted to perform ceremonies for private individuals, which is why one of them is here.
~~~~~
I'm also resurrecting something, but in my case a piece I put up for Critique some 6+ years ago. The structure didn't work then, and I'm hoping the current iteration might provide better flow and more onward progression -- basically as well as doing some tweaking after taking on board comments made here, I've chopped up two POVs into separate pieces and alternated them.
By way of Introduction (which I'd hope any blurb on the back cover would make clear) this is a fantasy-detective set in Georgian England somewhere between 1760 and 1790 -- when I've decided exactly what socio-political or world events would be best as a background -- but with a twist of alternative history. In 54 BC a concord was reached between British-Celtic female druids and Rome’s Vestal Virgins in order to preserve some of their powers and magical relics against the storm winds of Christianity which they had already seen would batter them. That eventually led to the creation of the Collegium of Drya Vestals which some 1400 years later is regarded as a quaint anachronism by most people, with Vestals being wheeled out at important state and civic occasions. Despite adhering in public to whatever religious sensibilities were uppermost over the centuries, the Collegium has never lost sight of its pagan roots, but its wood-magic remains a secret, though senior Vestals are now permitted to perform ceremonies for private individuals, which is why one of them is here.
~~~~~
Whispers reach Oak-Rose as she stands at the window gazing out onto the trees. Furtive, excited whispers; frissons of delighted shock.
“Is that really her? The Vestal?”
“Who else would ever wear the stola?”
“And not even any stays underneath!”
Women’s whispers. Thin needles of electrification charging the air in the room.
“Gracious, she’s so very tall.”
“And so very black.”
Muffled whispers. Spilling from pale, painted faces, concealed behind fans of vellum and ivory, lace and mother-of-pearl.
“Do you think she was a slave?”
“Slave or servant, how is it possible she could become a Vestal?”
Wasp whispers, darting ever closer. Stinging.
“Whatever was the Collegium thinking, sending a savage here to conduct the ceremony?”
Each sting draws fresh blood, ignites flames of loathing in her breast.
She resists the compulsion to turn, to confront the whispers. She only moves her gaze, raising her eyes from the alders and willows trembling at the edge of the distant lake, to the oaks and sycamores sweeping down to the slighted ruins of the old castle beyond, seeking their stability, their reassurance.
But what was the Chief Vestal thinking, sending her here to this nest of rich, pampered, privileged insects?
*
I should have been threading my way through the crowd, greeting, smiling, playing the role ordained for me, the mousy Miss Artemisia Barrington, not quite lady of the house, not quite housekeeper. And my part should have been enacted not in the cramped confines of the library, but in the great drawing room, where much of the furniture had been removed in order to cope with the numbers, for Admiral Gray had invited much of the county to witness the ceremony for the old tree. Yet the crush in the room and my failure of duty were all too soon the least of my concerns.
Our being in the library and not the drawing room was due to the Drya Vestal herself. Immediately after arriving she had stalked through each of the rooms on the piano nobile in turn, paying no heed to the new and expensive furnishings the Admiral had purchased, interested only in the views commanded from the windows. When she reached the library, she could not be persuaded to move further.
Curiosity undoubtedly brought the Admiral’s guests to the room, a rare chance to be close to the embodiment of ancient custom and venerable rites, as the Admiral had phrased it in his invitations; a living link to Celtic druids and Caesar’s Rome. Yet it must have been more than curiosity which kept them there in the over-heated crush. Something in her presence surely held them, overriding their sense of decorum, as it did mine. I had met eminent women before, for until his final illness Great-Uncle Thomas had entertained widely, yet whatever power those women possessed came from their father’s rank or their husband’s wealth. Lady Oak-Rose was power incarnate. I was transfixed.
*
Beneath the women’s whispers, a drone hum rumbles around Oak-Rose, male voices spewing from faces the colour of meat – beef-bloody, pork-slabbed. Their tones not muffled by fashion, but pitched low, lip service paid to her status.
“Don’t mind her colour meself, served in the Indies after all, but thought she’d be a damned sight more womanly.”
“One hears stories about their Sacred Grove. Unnatural practices of a carnal nature. Scurrilous, no doubt. Yet one cannot help wondering what befalls there. So many women without male control.”
More stinging pain pierces her, more flames of hatred rise. Her expression remains blank as she stares through the window, but the fire in her soul crackles and spits, like green pine ablaze – thirty years in the Order providing the appearance of composure but never yet the reality.
Still the powdered, periwigged drones rumble on.
“All this for a blasted tree. In this day and age. Ludicrous superstition.”
“Gray’s a sailor. They’re superstitious to a man.”
“It’s pagan heresy. The whole diabolic cult should be extirpated, the false temple and its trees destroyed, the women and their credulous supporters subject to penalties as with the Papists.”
Discipline tells her to remain aloof, impervious, but her heart yearns for retribution, to show the parasites her power. The Amici hear. As ever, oak responds first – beams above, floorboards beneath, shivering at her call. With them, she could destroy the whole swarm of insects. The satinwood chairs, the mahogany desk and longcase clock, the sycamore bookcases, all quiver, waiting to be used; the walnut stock of a fowling piece above the mantel thirsts for blood. Even the birch spills, shuffling in a vase over the fireplace, are eager for her word.
Discipline holds. She compels her mind to calm, quietens the Amici.
Then among the waspish, droning buzz, a hornet.
*
My lack of propriety went unnoticed, the women too absorbed in their spiteful gossip, the men with their offensive remarks. Then the Reverend Mr Eliot spoke, an intelligent, gracious man, moderate in all things save his dislike of Catholics and Dissenters, and, as it appeared, the Collegium of the Drya Vestals. He had, I knew, already spoken to the Admiral setting out his objections to the ceremony for the tree, so I was a little surprised at his agreeing to attend, but I was unable to listen to his further comments since I was then distracted.
The distraction came – I can scarce write this without thinking how absurd it must sound – as the room shuddered. No volumes shifted in the bookcases, the many paintings – ships, ships and more ships by mediocre artists, and one exquisite Canaletto – moved not one hair’s breadth on the walls, the fragile porcelain lids of the Chinese jars upon the mantelpiece made no sound, yet the sensation was as palpable to me as though the earth quaked beneath us. No one but I appeared to notice, however, for the talk continued uninterrupted.
Then Mr Edgar Wilson appeared. His remarks ended the gossip as the room’s convulsions had not.
*
“Egad, but she’s ugly!” The hornet’s voice is loud, imperious, lordly in its own conceit. “Sure it ain’t a man in disguise? Ought we to look, see if there’s a pizzle under all that outlandish clothing?”
Ridiculous vapours issue from the wasps, vapid reproaches from the drones. Oak-Rose pays no attention to them. The blaze of anger has flared higher, so damping down the flames takes more effort. She succeeds, but broods on retribution.
What if she were to avenge herself? Not on all the insects, merely on one? Covertly, so her powers remain concealed as required by the Order? Which of the Amici could she use? Oak would be too dangerous. Satinwood, mahogany, sycamore, all too large, too obvious. Walnut, still too overt. Birch spills, too weak.
There. A fan wielded close to the hornet. The fan’s guards are stained and lacquered to resemble costly tortoiseshell, but beneath the paint is plain cheap deal. The slivers of pine tremble under the touch of her mind, releasing their long-forgotten memories of life – cold wind blowing from the mountains, the cry of eagles, the howl of wolf and skitter of deer, the companionship of resin-scented brothers stretching mile after mile over the Scottish uplands. Majesty reduced to a lying painted trinket in a fat woman’s hand.
Laughter spurts from the hornet. “Face like that, black as my horse to boot, no surprise she’s a Virgin, eh, for who would want to ride her?”
With an eruption of fire, discipline is overwhelmed. The pine heeds her call. The fan tears itself from the woman’s grasp, flings itself at the hornet’s face.
There’s a scream of pain and a clatter as the bloodied fan drops to the floor.
She doesn’t move, doesn’t shift her gaze from the patient trees, doesn’t allow her expression to alter, but in her heart Oak-Rose laughs.
*
At Mr Wilson’s licentious remarks, several ladies felt it necessary to enjoy an attack of the vapours, recalling me to my duty. I sent a footman for sal volatile and feathers to burn, while some gentlemen provided aid to the vaporous by assisting them to the window seats. Others reproved Mr Wilson. Whether they would have extracted the apology demanded of him, I cannot say, for a second strange incident then occurred. Old Mrs Browning hurled her fan at him, cutting open his cheek.
I was dealing with the aftermath of this assault – not least endeavouring to comfort Mrs Browning who was in tears, claiming the fan had flown from her grasp – when the Admiral’s nephew, Mr Harker, appeared at my side.
“Have you seen the Admiral, Miss Barrington? It is surely time for us to think of commencing the buffet luncheon.”
Mortified at this further dereliction of my duty – for I was charged with the arrangements for the meal – I was about to reply that I had not seen him for some half an hour, when a piercing scream came from outside.
The Admiral had been found. His body, that is.
