King Ethelred IV Part 10

As she passed the front of the servant’s train and began to make her way among the gaudy carriages glittering with gold and silver filigree and constructed from exotic hardwoods and with heraldic crests emblazoned on their sides strung out along the road. And as she walked she saw lords and ladies busying themselves by ordering servants about in the hope that they might will more space on the narrow road that they might set up their tents for the night that was fast approaching.

Isabella saw Otto from between two carriages, one of them belonged to his father Albert’s lord and the other a servant’s carriage for the court. Just as she was about to call out she stopped herself. Something about the way Otto was talking and listening at the same time. Almost furtively, if one could talk that way, a sort of skulking, skittish energy. She peered closer to who he was talking to and caught a glimps of Albert’s lord just as his booming voice exclaimed, “ he has to use the device! We will lose everything if he doesn’t.”

“Of course, but if I tell him directly, he will suspect that there is something afoot.” That from a voice she did not recognise.

Otto said, “if he doesn’t already.” Just as a she was about to move to see who had spoken earlier, a hand gripped her shoulder.

King Ethelred IV Part 9

Isabella, the serving girl, was walking up the road from the carriage she and the rest of the palace waiting staff had been riding in, looking for Otto, Albert’s son. They had been exchanging brief glances when-so-ever they saw each other, and while she understood the implications of being caught—unemployment being the least of her worries—she was hoping for more. What that was or what it looked like she had no idea, though the older and more adventurous serving girls had told her that she ought to “Carpe virum!” whatever that meant. Further that any chance at enjoyable time with young men was time well spent. All she was certain of was that Otto gave her weak knees and lightness in the pit of her stomach, thrilling but entirely confusing.

The valley down to the left was deep enough that the river that raged over the stones at the bottom never saw direct sun light. Isabella saw that there was a great deal of snow below while higher up the valley walls spring flowers and the rest of the early greenery was already dying beneath the later blooming plants of early summer. The summits on the other side of the valley were stark white, steep and glistening with snow. The late afternoon light just beginning to shift into a pleasant rose that lit the waterfalls, snow, and azure tarns a striking gold as the sun continued to set.

King Ethelred IV Part 8

The castle floated above them, wisps of white cloud streamed from the battlements, and standards wiped in the wind. Amidst the bright silver flashes of iron, there was the sudden gold of a horn’s bell catching the light as it was lifted in to view. Three long and mournful blasts followed.

Ethelred laughed, “It seems, sirs, that we are to rally to them. Hmmm, their position while very defensible would leave us trapped. Herald, sound the retreat!”

“Lord,” the Chancellor said, “while I appreciate the humour, what are we to do with them?”

“That is our largest problem Chancellor? Not that the keep is flying? Not that a whole mountain went missing, and not even that the edge of this pit is both inexplicably hard and sharp?”

“My king, these are indeed mysteries, but those soldiers will die without rescue.”

“True enough, Chancellor. Have you any ideas?”

“Does the keep move, Albert?”

“Nay lord, it only appears to from the sun’s wheel, and the movement of the clouds. It is stationary and over the center of the pit. It is perhaps four hundred man-heights above us, and a further three hundred above the floor of the pit.”

“Chancellor, can the architects build a structure seven hundred my heights tall?”

“I should think not, lord. Though I shall inquire, there must be some solution.”

“Indeed. Herald, find out how long they can survive.”

King Ethelred IV Part 7

“I shall send for Albert, as I believe his eyes to be the strongest of the menservants’.”

“Chancellor, is this the self-same Albert whose carriage was placed before mine, and whose lord is a drunk and a charlatan?”

“Indeed lord”

“And who was instructed to be there by a most trusted member of the court?”

“I... believe he may have misunderstood his instructions. At least, according to the version I heard.”

“Indeed, Chancellor.” A runner was sent to find Albert and a short while later he joined them by foot. As he approached, Ethelred was struck by the particular tilt to his head as he gazed with consternation at the sky. “What, good sir, are you looking at? The pit is at your feet, have a care or you’ll find yourself at it’s bottom.”

“hmmm? Oh yes, I was in fact looking at that very odd cloud.”

The sun then went behind it, and the Chancellor cried out, “Lord King, the Keep of Mount Ethelred is as a cloud!”

“What, are you mad? You claim that the keep is flying, all I see is a most peculiar cloud.”

“Nay, my lords,” Albert said, “that is indeed the keep.”

“What other powers do these merchants posses, what crimes will they perpetrate next?” The king was pacing back and forth fuming, muttering and sputtering. Dangerously close to the edge, he seemed to have forgotten his earlier concern with it entirely. “Are there any men upon the walls, that either of you can see?”

“Nay, Lord.”

“And you, Albert?”

“Aye, there are perhaps a hundred. They are waving a flag and ahh! They have a horn.”