“My birthday gift to myself”
Hey, if you’re reading this the day that I post it, yesterday was my birthday! I’m twenty-two now, which is really weird to say out loud, because as Cheyenne pointed out to me, that’s the end of the “special birthdays.” It isn’t like 21, where I can drink legally for the first time, or 18, where I can vote for the first time (please, please vote in November). Now I’m just one year closer to death, I guess? I don’t know, at least I’ve still got my 25th birthday to look forward to, where I can rent a car for the first time and can no longer use my parent’s health insurance. Yay?
But, anyway, this weekend has been a bit of a whirlwind for several reasons, one of which is that my brother visited (which is great), another is that I finally finished my application for the Fulbright program (which is relieving), and another is that the restaurant I wanted to eat at is now permanently closed (which is sad). There were some other things too but I can’t tell you about them. Sorry. But I can tell you that I’m giving myself a birthday gift and taking is easy on the blog this week, since I still have other shit I need to get done. So here’s the next chapter of my ongoing German vampire saga. Enjoy!
Here is chapter nine, too.
Spectral Crown, by Andy Sima: Chapter Ten
It wasn’t much longer after the introduction of gifts that we servants were herded back to the stable. We received instructions from Iacob, who told us to return to our carriages and collect our personal items. He said that we would be further instructed from there.
To make our way there, we were mostly left to our own devices to wander the empty halls of Castle Blestem, but King Adalbert insisted on Reinhard escorting us. There was some grumbling about this, but there was nothing we could do to avoid it. That tumor of a man was stuck to us.
“Alright, you buggers, let’s get a move on,” the man called from somewhere below eye level. I glanced down at his array of reds and oranges that coated his body and was reminded momentarily of a garden gnome. However, this garden gnome, had enough political clout to have me executed on the spot, even if he didn’t know the first thing about politics.
Us servants and handmaids made our way out of the throne room, into the foyer, and back through the same spotless passage that Simon had hurried us through earlier. As we walked, it surprised me that Reinhard did not possess the blue tint of the other court members. But it made sense; he was not of Uradel blood. He was a native of Stalpert valley, albeit a nasty one.
“Now, Simon, how exactly did you mess up those clocks?” Reinhard chortled as we ambled down the marble hall. “Not even a week old and they’re already broken.”
“They were in perfect condition when we left Uradel,” Simon sweated. Reinhard was perhaps the only person the king heard more from than Simon. “They must have been damaged in transit.”
“Perhaps when we crossed the border,” Ema the cook suggested. The others murmured in agreement.
“Crossing the border?” Reinhard tittered. “What a preposterous idea! No one intelligent has ever heard of clocks being damaged by crossing an imaginary line.”
“That crossing was no feat of imagination,” Kolte said from the back of the pack. “We all felt it. Even you must have felt it, Reinhard.”
“I felt no such thing,” the mayor said. And his eyes narrowed as he walked. “And you would do well to remember, Kolte Vogel, that my name is Sir Reinhard to you. We wouldn’t want to have a diplomatic incident here, would we?” Kolte said nothing, but his face pulled tight into a skull-like grimace.
“I’ll show you a diplodactic incident,” Franz muttered between puffs of smoke. Some of the other servants chuckled. So did Reinhard. He stopped walking and turned around.
“Now, Franz,” he laughed, face growing as red as the suit he wore. “Remember your place. It wouldn’t due for an oaf like you to think too hard, would it? You might lose your head.” Reinhard’s smile was unfaltering.
“Oy, remember where you are, little man,” Freda said. “It’s all of us against the one of you here. You wouldn’t be the first bit of livestock I’ve had to skin.”
Reinhard’s smile twitched, and his eyes narrowed further, until they were nothing but snake slits. “Are you threatening me, Brandt?”
“Only an idiot wouldn’t recognize that as a threat,” Freda said. She chuckled, but the rest of the group had gone quiet.
“It’s true that you have numbers,” Reinhard said. “But I have prestige. Once I get back to the king, you had better watch out.” Freda was about to say something, but Reinhard spoke over her. “And even if I don’t make it back, do you think the King would like it if his favorite villager didn’t return? Whose side do you think the soldiers will take, Adalbert’s or yours? Realize this, maid. Even after my death, you cannot escape me.” Reinhard hopped on ahead, down the hall that never seemed to end.
Freda was about to say more, but she caught my mother’s eye instead. My mother just shook her head and Freda went quiet. She got the message.
The rest of our passage back to the stable was uneventful, though more quiet than I would have preferred. Even Franz said nothing more until we made our way back into the hay-covered floors and found that all of our horses were gone.
“Where are our steeds?” Franz was the first to speak. The rest of us didn’t have to; our faces conveyed message enough. Even Reinhard was confused.
Indeed, the stable was devoid of life, save the occasional rat crawling through the hay or a bird in the rafters. All the horses that had pulled our carriages through the forests and across the mountains were nowhere to be found, and the stalls we had placed them in were empty. Our carriages sat silently, mournfully, tied to their wooden posts. It looked like they would never move again.
“I’m sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this,” Simon said, adjusting his glasses as he made his way forward. “There must be. Right?”
“How do more than a dozen horses disappear in a matter of an hour?” Ema said.
“It does seem quite odd,” my mother chimed in. “But Simon is right. Perhaps they are being relocated, as our soldiers are.”
“We still ain’t seen hide nor hair of those soldiers, neither,” Kolte added. The other servants agreed and added their own takes on things, quietly and to each other.
As we stood about the stable, dumbfounded, a voice came from the shadows of one of the empty stalls. The voice was low and sweet, an operatic bass, and as the owner of the voice stepped from the shadows, I saw that he, too, was as beautiful as his voice. Another perfectly formed Blestemat member. But there was one distinct difference, this time; this particularl Blestemat was old.
“Your horses will be taken care of, don’t you worry,” he said. He was the first old man in Umbra I had seen. His white face, wrinkled by age, stared out from the shadows. He gestured to my mother with his bearded chin. “You, madam, are correct. Your livestock have been moved to the same places your soldiers are. They are being acquainted to certain necessary matters of our kingdom of Umbra, and will return to you shortly, in better health than you left them.”
“That’s all good and wonderful,” the gnome that was Richter Reinhard piped up. “But who are you, and why should I believe you?”
“Who am I?” the old man chuckled. “I’m the stable master. Appointed directly by King Titus Blestemat in my youth to care for the royal horses and all matters equine. You have my word when I say your animal companions are in the best care we can provide.”
“They’re probably skinning the poor things as we speak,” someone muttered. Franz and Freda chuckled gently. The old stable master did not falter.
“A good jest, but only a jest, I can assure you,” the old bass said. “We do not eat horses in Castle Blestem. Our palates are far more refined than that.”
“Right,” Kolte said. “Just as sailors are promised good rum and hard tack without mold.” No one seemed to understand the comparison, and there was no laughter. In fact, none of us besides Kolte had ever even seen a body of water larger than the Arch River back in Uradel.
“Do you doubt my word?” the stable master raised an eyebrow. “Once preliminary matters are taken care of, I would be happy to show you to the location of your horses. I would not mind in the slightest.” I had no doubt he was telling the truth, but something about this truth was more frightening than a lie.
“That sounds like a great plan, but we do not have time for any further idle talk,” Reinhard interrupted. The stable master glanced at the little man. For a moment, the stable master’s impassive face sputtered with malice. “We must make our way to our sleeping quarters. There is much preparation to be done for the wedding.”
“Of course,” the stable master said. “I am certain you are much needed by King Adalbert and Queen Annalise. Prince Maynard must trust you implicitly.”
“I’m quite pleased to believe that he does,” Reinhard said, puffing out hot air. I could feel my mother rolling her eyes behind me.
“I’m sure,” the stable master said, face giving away nothing. Reinhard seemed to fall for it.
“Now,” Reinhard clapped his hands. “Let’s get on with business. Servants, maids, collect your personal effects. Simon, I want you to help me gather my things. The rest of you, be ready to move in five minutes.” There was a moment of stillness, and then Reinhard clapped his hands again. “That means now!”
The initial movements were sluggish and resistant, as no one enjoyed having Reinhard tell them what to do. Between my mother and myself we only carried one trunk each, and were thus ready to move. From behind us, I smelled pipe smoke.
To my surprise, the offending individual was not Franz or Freda, but rather the stable master himself. Smoking seemed like a dangerous habit to have in a straw-covered stable supported by wooden posts, but the stable master seemed to have no issues with it. He smiled as Franz and Freda took out their own pipes in mock salute.
But, as Reinhard insisted, there was no time for further pleasantries. Once everyone had found their own trappings, and once Simon had managed to decipher a way to carry not only his own luggage but that of Reinhard, too, we exited the stable and returned to the white marble hall.
“Shouldn’t we be retrieving the trunks of the court, too?” someone asked. Simon, my mother, and I were silent, even though the question seemed to be directed at us. We had been wondering the same thing.
“Prince Iacob informed me that his own personal servants would retrieve the baggage of the Uradel court,” Reinhard said officially. “Myself excluded.” There was quiet snickering from the group at that. “Shut it!”
The rest of the walk was in silence, though not to comply with Reinhard. It was more that no one had much else to say. Everything had been strange since my mother and I first met Prince Iacob, and now the rest of our friends were seeing it, too. Although we had every indication from the royalty that this wedding would go well and we would be back in Uradel in a few weeks or less, I could not help but feel that it would be much longer before we managed to return home.
Making our way further down the hall, we came back to the foyer of the castle, where Prince Iacob was waiting for us.
“Ah, good to see you, my Uradel friends,” he said, black cloak swiping the floor. “I shall have some of my servants escort you to your rooms on the east side of the castle.” As he spoke, he snapped his fingers, and from one of the many corridors off to the side of the foyer, a small group of escorts appeared. Much like the handmaidens that Sorina had called earlier, these new servants were nearly identical, wearing black worker’s garb to contrast their pure-white skin. They were all beautiful and as well-built as Iacob, though they did not emanate the same kind of force of presence that Iacob seemed to.
“Please take our guests up to their rooms in the east wing, third floor,” Iacob said to the tallest servant, though tallest was relative; they were all mostly the same height. He bowed low at Iacob’s command.
In that instant, too, the rest of the Uradel court exited the throne room and came down the stairs at the center of the foyer. Maynard and Adalbert were laughing heartily and falsely at something that Princess Sorina had said. She smiled, and it made her look cute in a childlike way, rather than the womanly beauty she normally possessed. It was absolutely disarming and absolutely intentional.
As the Uradel court and Sorina reached the landing, she clapped her hands and a small group of handmaidens, in their black dresses, came out of the walls and awaited their lady’s instructions. I overheard Sorina speak to them.
“Please retrieve the remaining luggage from the stable,” she said. “And then take our royal guests up to their quarters in the west great hall. Position Prince Maynard, King Adalbert, and Queen Annalise as near my quarters as possible.” There was an almost imperceptible head bow by the maid I presumed was the tallest.
“Wait,” Simon said quickly to Iacob, before his servants could fully usher us away. “The King will be on the opposite end of the castle? How am I supposed to care for him? Or how will Josefa care for the Queen, or Saelac for Prince Maynard?”
“Do not worry, Simon,” Prince Iacob soothed, gently placing his hand on Simon’s arm. “Servants of Blestem will care for their needs. You shall still be the King’s attendant. But here, you are guests. You may rest.” Under the prince’s touch, Simon’s muscles seemed to relax, and his face drooped.
“Alright, I understand,” he said. “If you insist. I do wish I were closer to the king, however.”
Now Reinhard spoke up. “Really, Prince Iacob, as the King’s proxy for the people, I believe that we should be closer to our royalty,” Reinhard said, using his most suppliant voice possible. Iacob was unwavering.
“These are matters we cannot alter, unfortunately,” Iacob said, now placing his hand on Reinhard’s arm, too. “My apologies. Now, wouldn’t you like to rest in your own quarters after such a long voyage?”
“I suppose so,” Simon said. Iacob removed his hand from the older man’s arm, and after a moment from Reinhard’s, too. Simon perked up, but Reinhard remained unchanged. “Alright, men and woman of Uradel. Let’s get a move on. Our quarters await.” Off to the west of the foyer, the Uradel court was being led away by Sorina’s handmaidens. And with the swish of dark clothing, we, too, were lead out of the foyer by Iacob’s servants. The Blestemat prince smiled as we left.
We exited through a large wooden door on the east end of the foyer, which placed us into a high-ceiling marble hallway, identical to the hallway that lead to the stables. My mother and I hung towards the back of our group, and after a moment Simon joined us. Once I believed we were out of earshot of Iacob in the foyer and the servants in front of us, my mother, Simon, and I all locked eyes.
“This castle becomes stranger and stranger with each passing moment,” my mother said.
“Quite,” Simon said. “Who had ever heard of a king’s attendant being kept on the opposite side of the castle from his ward?”
“I, personally, do not mind being away from Maynard for a time,” I said.
“Nor do I mind being away from Annalise,” my mother confided. “But still. It is highly unusual.”
“I agree,” Simon said. “But what choice do we have? Iacob made it perfectly clear to me.”
“Frankly,” I said, “his explanation was as clear as mud. Most of his explanations so far have been of such a nature.”
“I understood,” Simon said. “But I still do not like it.”
“If you understand it,” my mother tested, “can you explain it to Saelac and me?”
“I can try,” Simon said. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out but a guttural squawk. He closed it again, and as we walked through halls that turned and branched and broke off from the main, his face darkened and clouded.
“I am unable to explain it,” Simon eventually admitted. “It made perfect sense at the time. Now, I am uncertain.” He wiped sweat from his pained face.
My mother nodded as if she had expected no other answer. I heard the caw of ravens in my head, and there was a momentary flash of that tattoo carved into Iacob’s back. “Simon,” she said, “do me a favor.”
“Yes, Josefa?” Simon said, eyeing her out of the edge of his vision.
“The next time Iacob asks you to do something, don’t let him touch you.”
This kind of fits in with the spooky October theme that I’ve got going on, so hey, works for me. Next week will be about more writing and stories, but this year, it won’t be about ones that I’ve written. Tune in to see!
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