The wheels of bureaucracy, as I have written before in these pages, move slowly. One might say, even glacially slowly. The Bureau for Supernatural Affairs and the Consilium Arcanum are still considering the latest draft of the Accords that will enable us to welcome visitors to Awenia. There are committees. I have come to believe that the purpose of committees is to obstruct progress. So far, all they ever seem to commit to is the date of the next meeting. Thankfully, despite being author of the Accords, they rarely request my presence in person. Still, the time drags. Heck, the Treaty of Versailles didn’t take this long!
Awenia is ready. Well, as ready as Awenia ever is. It is the nature of a faerie realm to be somewhat fluid. Gwyneth, my beloved wife, is, as ever, constantly changing things. Moving a lake here, rebuilding a castle there, extending the Book Forest yet again. At least she has finally gotten the hint I have been dropping for nigh on a year. We now have a private residence entirely separate from the official residence. A place we can be Gwyn and Nate, rather than Queen and Consort.
I still have my office in the castle, from where the business of the realm will be managed. The place where I will be Lord Nathaniel Ballard, CEO of Awenia Leisure Holdings Inc. etc. Just as Gwyneth has her Throne Room, where she will be Queen. It is an equitable division of labour. I do the managing, she does the ruling.
Today, I decided to start moving my personal library from the castle to our home. The trouble with moving books is that you have to handle them, and handling them leads to opening them, and opening them leads to reading them. It is a temptation I know only too well, but have mostly steeled myself to resist. Easier, perhaps, with heavier tomes such as Le Morte d’Arthur, or any of my other tellings and retellings of the Arthurian stories. Harder, though with the poetry, especially with such favourites as Leaves of Grass. When that volume came to my hand, it was not surprising that I soon found myself seated in the arbour in the Book Forest, settling down to re-acquaint myself with Mr Whitman.
Inevitably, it fell open to “O Captain! My Captain!” A favourite, not so much for the content, as the associations and the memories. Memories of my dear, but absent friend, Catt. An association that started the first time I was formally presented to the then Winter King and Queen, Artur and Katarina. Catt had recently been appointed Raven – Captain of the Guard – for them, so it was not overly surprising that they invited me to appear before them. I knew them outside of their regal roles, of course. How could I not when, for a while, I managed their night-club, Twilight Pleasures, for them.
What I did not expect is for them to invite me to be a part of the Winter Court, to be a part of the Guard, under Catt. I was a little troubled by that part. Would having a formal relationship of different rank affect the friendship we had? That is when it began. I turned to Catt and quoted the first line “O Captain! My Captain!” at her, for she knew well my love of poetry, and I received a smile in return. She knew then, and I knew then, that whatever this appointment might make of our respective ranks, it would never change the friendship we had enjoyed before.
My fears assuaged, I gave Artur and Katarina suitable obeisance and said I would be honoured to serve them. Some may have thought it strange for the fae crown to appoint vampires to their personal guard, but they, and we, felt it might improve relations in the city. It fell to Catt, as Raven, to administer the blood oath. That is where things went slightly amiss. Instead of a simple cut to my hand, Catt was a little too enthusiastic, and severed my hand entirely from my wrist. A simple mistake that anybody with a preternaturally sharp sword might make.
For a moment, we were all frozen in a horrified tableau. I stood there, staring stupidly at my wrist, too shocked to make any move or comment. Catt yelped and started gabbling apologies. Artur just looked on with some bemusement. Katarina, in her own inimitable way, smiled faintly. Then, as though it were no great matter, reached down and picked up my hand, saying drily “That wasn’t supposed to happen.” She asked for my arm, and I dumbly lifted it towards her, still somewhat in shock.
“We’ll soon have this fixed,” she said. She offered the hand up to the wrist and wrapped her other hand around the join, speaking something in the faerie tongue. I felt a rush of energy, at the same time icy cold and burning hot, around my wrist. My first experience of the healing power of faerie magic. A foretaste, though I did not know it then, of the power that a later queen, Isabella, would use to give me back my heartbeat and my breath. She removed the hand around my wrist. To my astonishment, my hand was attached to the wrist, as if nothing had happened. I could flex my fingers, turn my hand, and feel the touch of Katarina’s fingers on mine.
“I think we can take the oath as read,” said Artur, chuckling, “but please don’t make a habit of losing appendages while in our service. Let us take a drink to celebrate. We have blood wine for you.” And so we did, although it did take Catt some time to stop apologising. So began my service to the Winter Court.
That was so many years ago, before the implosion of the Nexus scattered us far and wide to many different dimensions and realms. I still think fondly of Catt. We were never lovers, although we perhaps could have been, had circumstances been different. Still, I treasure the time we had. The scar on my wrist tingles sometimes, as if somebody had applied ice. At those times, I wonder if that means she is near, or that she is thinking of me. Certainly, during the short times that our paths crossed since the Nexus separated us, I felt that sensation before and while in her presence. Perhaps next time it does that, I could try to walk the realms, to find her and renew our friendship. Gwyneth would not mind. And, while the committees grind their way on, I have the time.
Home is the Sailor 