by Cpt._Funkotron » Sun Jan 21, 2018 8:31 am
Venta
Sir Miles accompanies Sir Madoc and his eight knights to a stately manse not far from the cathedral, laid in stone with small glass windows and crowned with a tile roof. It is arranged in a hollow square with a garden courtyard in the middle. Each side of the building is as large or larger than Mile's own manor hall at Wylye. A burly slave greets them at the door and permits them entry. Roman slavery is still very much the norm in the south and east. The knights wait a short while in the atrium, a large waiting room with four columns around the center painted with vines. They marvel for a while at the intricate mosaic tilework in the walls and floors. A cymric knight and a roman knight examine one section, along the widest uninterrupted patch of wall, depicting scenes from the Iliad. Prince Aeneas of Troy, the father of the roman people, is nowhere to be seen. Also missing is his grandson Brutus, the first King of Britain, who banished the faeries and giants to the deep forests and the high mountains. "Figures a roman wouldn't honor King Brutus" says the Cymric. "Lord Bishop Andronicus not a Roman, he's a Greek. That's why he's left out Aeneas". They begin arguing over which omission was a greater offence. No one present is sufficiently well read to know that the mosaic ends where it ought to, at the funeral of Hector, and that neither the sack of Troy, nor the founding of Rome by Aeneas, or the conquest of Britain by Brutus, was featured at all in the text, that the first was featured in the Odyssey, the second in the Aeneid, and the third only in oral tradition and popular folklore. Not knowing any of this, but thinking to argue from great authority, this debate continues to storm for a fair while as the others wait quietly. Finally, Madoc, no better educated than they but quite fed up, says "Oh, stop your bickering, you're worse than Cain and Abel", it's possible that he includes this allusion to pass himself as more learned than he has right to, as it's more than likely the only such biblical story he knows, "it's clear as day that the artist ran out of room before it could finish, look there, the city's still standing. Troy burned, everyone knows that." he says with a scoff. There is a general hum of consensus, and the dispute is mollified.
A moment later, the lady of the house enters and bids them welcome. She is a handsome woman, even Miles can admit, a slim creature not even twenty, pale-skinned , lithely limbed, and red-haired. She wears an elegant stola, the traditional garb of a roman matron, but as soon as she opens her mouth, Miles can discern an Irish accent. She is Lady Rhianneth, wife of the bishop. The Prince introduces himself, and Miles notices almost immediately that the Pince has taken notice of her beuaty as well, and indeed looking at how she looks at him, the feeling is returned. Although Miles had only eyes for Eliver these days, he had noticed the Prince's rugged good looks in the past, the permanent shadow of his father's beard, pronounced cheekbones, eyes not tortuous to look at, in fact although he shared enough key features with his father to prove the blood relation, Madoc's handsomeness was evidently a product more of Uther's famous taste for beautiful women than fatherly inheritance, for as has been whispered by court gossips of nearly any court, the King can be more likened in appearance and behavior to a lecherous troll than a dashing knight. The intersecting sight-lines of their come-hither eyes are subtle, and layered beneath the traditional formalities, had Miles not been paying perfect attention at the right moment, he would have assuredly missed it.
Rianneth leads them through the house. Miles can see out into the courtyard that the knights of the bishop are using the garden lawn to spar with eachother, if he needed any reminder that the Bishop was as much a secular lord as a religious leader; a baron of the cloth. Each guest is given their own small bedroom, with a feather bed, a hanging lamp, a coal-burning brazier for warmth, and a wooden tub for bathing. Slaves file in and out of the guests rooms bringing hot water for the bath, under Lady Rhianneth's anticipation that the adventurers would need to wash and relax after so long at see and so many battles. Once the water has been brought for Mile's room, his squire Diane, Terwynn's sister, dismisses them and insists on handling it herself. "Shouldn't trust slaves too far, Sir" she reasons as she undresses him, like she's done several times before, an ordinary routine. But something seems different this time, he notices. Her cheeks seemed a little pinker than usual. The way she sent the slave away said something deeper than her words, it was almost possessive.
In the evening, they are all summoner down for versperna, supper, in the dining room. They all lie front-facing on sofas in a semicricle as they eat, in the roman fashion. The food is exquisite, more sumptuous even than one of Roderick's feasts, rich with sugar and exotic spices. Through polite conversation, they learn that Rhianneth is a daughter of Gilliomanus, a petty Irish king who attempted to invade Logres and crown Paschent, a son of "The Tyrant Vortigern and his Saxon Whore [sic] Rowena, daughter of Old Hengest", as its king seven years ago. As part of the truce won by then-prince Uther at the battle of Menevia, she was given over as a hostage as a young girl to the court of the Pendragon, where she remained until last year when her hand in marriage was awarded to Bishop Andronicus, for his services to the crown. She rebukes her father's foolishness in trying to depose the right and proper king.
The next evening, the Bishop himself arrives. His Grace the Bishop Andronicus of Venta looks like the last sort of person who would fit that title. He is of square jaw, wide slumping shoulders, height on level with Miles. He is not dressed like a holy man but like a Baron, toga excepting. There is good reason why he is called "The Bishop of the Mace". He is truly neither Roman nor Greek by birth, but Cappodocian, hailing from the eastern-most frontier of Anatolia (Turkey) . Even after being ordained into the priesthood, he took great pride in leading his own men in battle and slaying his enemies by the strength of his own arm. By a clever legal loophole, he is permitted to do this by canon law. A priest is forbidden to bear the blade, but the canon is decidedly silent on the subject of maces. Of course many clerics live in ignorance or unspoken defiance of current doctrine and carry swords anyway, but Andronicus makes a point of being proper in all things. The Holy Father in Rome thought that by assigning Andronicus to a British bishopric, that the near-constent sleeting rain might cool his fiery spirits, but the deployment has given him nothing more than saxons to slay, wealth to wage war with, warlords to compete with, and most recently a pretty young wife to enjoy. He couldn't be jollier.
The conversation is of course dominated by the raids. Madoc regales Andronicus of his own exploits, of taking the hand of Old Hengest himself, and setting fire to three fleets. Andronicus, delighted, toasts Madoc and vows to accompany him to set fire to the fourth. At one point the subject turns to Sir Miles of Wylye, and his heroic leap and double impalement while one of his arms was barely in his socket, and how it rallied his shipmates to conter-board and massacre an enemy crew twice their number. Bishop Andronicus raises his wine to Sir Miles 'Excelsior' as he calls him, and the others follow suit. "One condition on my involvement in this venture, my Prince" says Andronicus, in an aside. "What's that?" answers Madoc. "I want to be in the same ship as him" laughs Andronicus.
The next night, late after dinner, Miles finds himself unable to sleep. He climbs out of bed, careful not to disturb Diane on her bedroll as he does so, and begins wandering the house. He comes to the garden, and hears hushed voices. Acting before thinking, he conceals himself behind a pillar and listens. It's undoubtedly the Prince and the Lady. In not so many words, she seems to be trying to seduce him, and he trying to resist her for the sake of propriety. A minute later, it sounds as if she's won. Miles is in far too deep now, if he moves away he fears being spotted for an eavesdropper. Suddenly, he hears a noise behind him, and sees the hulking figure of the Bishop in his night gown carrying an oil lamp ambling down the hall towards the courtyard, no doubt looking for his wife. Miles may be in a position to halt him somehow if he thinks and acts quickly.
EDIT: Fuuuuck, that was way longer than I meant it to be.