CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Pomperaque woke up and Mingo had left Boyce and Lloyd's room, with
Bix. They had denied themselves the gold offered by Boyce and they
set out to meet many others like themselves, to encourage them to join
Boyce's cause.
Lloyd and Boyce caught themselves a few hours of sleep between the time that Mingo and Bix left, and Empal came to their room.
Empal had come to the room in order to receive his instructions from Boyce concerning the finalization of the invasion plans. He had also come to tall Boyce about the blue Mansion, since he wanted to know if it was possible for him to purchase it.
Empal came to their room that day carrying a large basket of fresh fruit, as if he was delivering the fruit to a buyer, and he woke them from their sleep.
When Lloyd let Empal into the room, he embraced both Lloyd and Boyce and welcomed them properly back into Boyce's city.
When the formalities of welcome were observed, the two men sat with Empal and ate the fruit that he had brought along with him, while Boyce listened to Empal's detailed first report that was assigned to him before they left Besten.
"The Blue Mansion has been sacked by Manguino's vermin before your parents' bodies were even laid to rest." Empal told Boyce. "The great building has been left unattended and abandoned since the time of their death, and although it had been put on the market, there has been no one interested in buying it."
The needed information that Empal was reviewing for Boyce, was depressing but Boyce was satisfied to hear that the Blue Mansion could still be his home.
He was strangely happy in realising that his old home was still his and available to him, but even though he legally held it as his own, to keep Halls from knowing who he was, he would have to buy it.
Empal was glad that he had finished giving his report. Now he could have his two friends recount their journey to him and possibly explain to him the reason for the tardiness of their journey from besten.
Boyce and Lloyd didn't leave out a single detail about their trip. Unusual as it was, Lloyd told of their meeting of Grenadine and his reactions to her. He told the story with such honesty that there was almost a feeling of melancholy in the room when he finally came to telling Empal about her death.
Empal could see, in Lloyd's face, that the woman called Grenadine had really left her mark on Lloyd's heart and he sympathised with him.
On the other extreme of Empal's sympathy for Lloyd, so was Empal's ultimate delight in
hearing the news of Boyce's marriage and to such a girl like Lilith; daughter of a Laurentine Consul.
Empal had envied them, listening to their adventures and their victories over danger and evil.
He had mentioned to them that he wished that he was young, like them, so that he could've made the journey with them.
"We would have cherished your company!" was the statement that Boyce made to Empal's wish, and it was enough to make Empal feel the importance that he held with both Besten and Virune.
"What of the Nolunge and Flinnd?" asked Empal. "Did those two peoples let you pass through their lands or did they go back on their word, also?"
Empal questioned with curiosity, since they told him that Sedara and
Palatka both rescinded their signed agreement of passage with the
Northern United Alignment.
"Everything was smooth with those two nations. They are learned and cultured peoples and they honoured the treaty." said Lloyd.
"Yes!" Boyce added. "And I would like to send to them a token of appreciation after Pomperaque becomes rightfully mine!
It neared noon when Lloyd and Boyce decided to mill around the town and finally go to Halls for a look around the lands-office.
Empal left them and returned to his stall where he opened it to public, later than usual. Oddly enough, no one had really noticed his late opening since it was an off-day for market and there weren't as many people buying goods in the towns square.
When Boyce decided to go to Halls, he and Lloyd split up. They did this for two reasons, namely; to keep anyone from possibly recognizing Lloyd, and have one supporter free to come to the aid of the other if there arose a situation where one might be imprisoned.
Lloyd had a task to do, which was to save time for him and Boyce, from having them to do it together. This task was the locating of Miel and Cassta — two of Brook Scullion-Blue's most trustworthy and loyal friends.
Boyce had hoped to seek out these men and persuade them, and their families, to follow him into forming a new rule that would prevent a monastic institution from governing the land.
Lloyd's job was just to find these men's residences and make a brief observation of whether, or not, the men and their families could still be loyal to a Blue rule.
Boyce, with Zoro on his shoulder, slowly made his way up Canon's Butte with his travel pack containing a small cask of gold bits. When he reached the top he looked at the enormity of the Halls Cathedral, which touched the blue sky above him.
The front gates were open and there were hordes of people walking about, doing business.
At the gate sat a notary vicar and he had all those who entered the cathedral state their name and reason for going in.
Boyce went in and the vicar stopped him and asked him to return. Boyce did as he was asked; the vicar wanted Boyce to sign in the visit logs.
"What is your name?" asked the vicar while he stared at the crow on
Boyce's shoulder.
"I am Boyce Loebh!" he answered promptly.
"What is your business here?"
Boyce smiled and looked around when Zoro cawed a few times.
"I am here to see the estates Cardinal. I would like to buy some property on which to live."
The vicar looked at Boyce suspiciously then proceeded with the questioning.
"You don't have a request for an audience with our estates Cardinal.
If you care to wait, he may be free to see you!"
"I will wait!" Boyce exclaimed, then he went over to a tree where a long rock post had fallen-over, and he sat on it.
The notary vicar rang a small hand bell and a young novice ran to the desk where the notary sat. He was given a slip of paper and some instructions. He ran off into the Cathedral's quadrangle and not too long after that, ran back with a slip of paper that he handed to the notary.
The notary vicar looked over at Boyce and Boyce noticed it. He got up the fallen post and walked over to the notary.
"It will be a while but the estates Cardinal will see you." the notary vicar told Boyce.
Boyce leaned over to him then pointed over to the post where he was sitting before.
"Tell me when he'll see me. I'll be over there!" he said then slowly made his way to the rock post and then reclined on it. Zoro stood watch on his chest.
The wait wasn't very lengthy and soon one of the novices came over to him and woke him up.
"It's your turn!" the novice informed him, and taking his pack with him, Boyce entered the Cathedral grounds, following the novice and ending up at the door of the lands-office.
The boy left him there and knocked on the door before entering, not caring to wait for permission to do so.
The office was strange-looking for a lands-office. It had two floors and was full of books on both floors.
In the middle of the office was a rather large table where the estates cardinal was sitting with
his nose in a large book in which he was writing something.
He finally looked up from his book after Boyce sat down in a chair opposite him and Zoro jumped down on the table in front of him.
Overhead, standing against a railing, on the second floor, Cardinal
Orren looked down at the strange young man and his even stranger pet.
He wanted to hear what this wandering fool wanted in his office.
"You are Boyce Loebh?" the estates Cardinal asked him.
"Yes!"
"How can we be made of service, Mister Loebh?" the Cardinal asked him.
"I am looking to buy some property with a habitable building on it.
What I am seeking, is something that is quite large."
The Cardinal looked at him for a moment then stood up and went to a flat shelf and brought back a large portfolio of sketches.
"I have here some twenty sketches of sturdy buildings on good property.
Of course, most are probably out of your wealth capability."
"I would like to see whatever you have available regardless of the cost!"
"Very well!" submitted the cardinal and he handed Boyce the archaic looking portfolio.
Orren, from above had grown a little more suspicious and mistrusting of
Boyce. What's more, Orren detested Zoro's presence.
Boyce was dressed in clean clothing and he didn't smell as bad as when he first stepped into Pomperaque with Lloyd. He really loved his loyal women in Gothal for giving their dirty clothing back to them. It was that necessary little detail which helped to cause confusion in many people's eyes.
For sure Orren didn't understand how a rogue like Boyce could be so unaffected when he was told that he would most likely not be able to afford that which he sought.
Boyce went over every drawn likeness of the houses that were available, seeming quite uninterested in any one of them, including the Blue Mansion, which has had passed over.
"They are all well and nice, Cardinal, but I am searching for a large place with atmosphere. I, and my friend, are artisans and scholars, and we were hoping to use such a building, in-part, to expand your own Blaisaman; where we could teach the arts and other human studies."
The Cardinal sat down, at his side of the table, and questioned him further about his proposed academy.
"Do you have a license to teach in Pomperaque?"
"Not as of yet. I was planning to come tomorrow to inquire about a license." answered Boyce with an odd confidence that, in a way, inspired the Cardinal.
This same confidence inspired Orren in another ways — it made him angry.
Orren had read the prophesy given to Manguino by Jessuum Benitar and somehow he felt that maybe this man, below him, had something in common with it.
"I am planning on bringing to Pomperaque many diverse people from all over the continent." Boyce let the Cardinal know. "I am personally fond of philosopy and I would like, at the very least, half of the building to be devoted to that topic."
"Very well, Mister Loebh! I can only suggest one place that could be large enough to house such an academy. But I must inform you, that if you want it, you must also buy the all the land on which it stands!"
If there is plenty of land, reasonably priced, I would be happy to take it. We need the land to display works done by our students of sculpture." said Boyce. "Can I see a sketch of this land and house?"
The Cardinal laughed a little and Zoro cawed, and bobbed up and down.
"You have seen the drawing already!" the Cardinal informed him, and he took it out from the portfolio and handed it to him.
"I passed this by because it doesn't seem large — in the drawing, I mean!"
"Come with me and I will show you the real size, Mister Loebh!"
The estates Cardinal stood up and so did Boyce. He led Boyce up a spiral staircase to the second floor and Zoro flew to the top railing beside Orren.
Zoro was spooked by Orren and he quickly flew to a window on one end of the floor.
Soon Boyce and the estates Cardinal arrived at the same window and the cardinal asked Boyce to look to the far side of the valley.
"The rise, over there, Mister Loebh, is called Bimini Hill. The entire mount and the Mansion which stands on it was once the estate of several sovereigns of Pomperaque and Phoride." the cardinal said to him.
Boyce looked out the window, mainly to play along with the Cardinal but also it was the first time that he saw the majesty of the Blue Mansion in this vantage point.
"Oh, yes. I saw that place coming into the city, but I didn't realise that it was the same land as on the sketch. You are right. I probably couldn't afford to but that." Boyce stopped for a moment to look out the window the continued with a simple curiosity. "How much is the lands-office asking for it?"
"Seven hundred gold bits." replied the Cardinal.
"That is a great deal!" exclaimed Boyce.
"Seven hundred gold bits is for the Mansion and the land on which it stands!"
There was quiet again, except for Zoro's occasional 'zoar-caw' squawking, and then he flew out of the window, towards town.
Cardinal Orren peaked through a shelf of books that touched the ceiling, and he saw Boyce quickly turn to the estates Cardinal and nod his head to him.
"I think that I will buy it then!" he ejaculated.
"Good!" said the Cardinal. "Let us go down to my table and write up the papers!"
He took Boyce back down to his table, and while making their way down the stairs the Cardinal asked Boyce in what manner he would be able to pay.
They stopped on the spiral staircase and Boyce took the cask of gold from his pack and opened it for the Cardinal. The cardinal was amazed and pleased.
Above them both, Orren looked at the gold with surprise and contempt.
He felt certain that the crow man was not to be trusted.
When the papers were drawn up and Boyce counted out seven hundred gold bits to the Cardinal, he left Halls Cathedral and headed for the Blue Mansion, with his key.
Before he made his way up the path to the Mansion, he first stopped at the inn and had a drink while he waited for Lloyd.
Lloyd soon came into the tavern and sat down with Boyce, at a table.
"Did you buy it?" he asked him.
"It was easier than I thought it would be!" he said, showing him the key.
Lloyd smiled at Boyce.
"I found our friends' homes and I overheard the younger man, Cassta I believe it was — saying to someone that he was getting tired of this life in Pomperaque and he was planning on moving to the Elkinnii Plains and live there!"
"Good!" sighed Boyce. "We still may be able to get the numbers that we need within the city."
"I had seen Mingo, earlier, and he told me that he had convinced a dozen of his peasant friends and relatives to join us. They are out, this very moment, looking for more of the oppressed to come in with us."
Boyce smiled with delight. He was happy because he had the Blue Mansion back and now the throng of peasant farmers that are willing to risk their lives for Boyce, son of Brook Scullion-Blue.
"If we can get Cassta and Miel to our side, they may just be able to get for us the Prominants that we need to join us."
Boyce had much hope and belief in his father's friends.
He would truly feel the power of a ruler, if those men served him as they served his father, he thought.
Cavander approached the two men and asked them if they wanted anything more to drink, or if maybe they were hungry.
"No!" said Lloyd.
"You can help us, however, if you have some time and friends who would like some work for a few hours!" inquired Boyce.
"What do you want done?" he sarcastically asked.
Cavander was playing in the way that he was asked to act before Boyce, treating them as lesser humans.
"Now, Inn Keep. There's no need to bite off our heads!" Boyce commented. "All I want is some help to move into my new house."
"And what new house may that be, may I ask?"
Lloyd was having a good time listening to the performing that Boyce and Cavander were doing and a few times he could hardly keep from laughing a little.
"It is the house on Bimini Hill!" he exclaimed with a proud smile.
Cavander was delighted beyond words when he heard that the heir to
Phoride had successfully reacquired his own estate.
"How do you come by purchasing that?" asked Cavander in an extremely agitating voice that was really beginning to bother Boyce.
"I had gold — so either say that you will give me help, in my moving into the house, or take your leave from me!"
Cavander smiled but only a trifle. He knew that he had actually annoyed the son of Brook Scullion and he also knew that he could not give him an apology while in public. He had, therefore, kept the taxing down, from that point onwards, and agreed to have a few men help him whenever he needed them.
Boyce and Lloyd made their way up to the Blue Mansion, after Cavander had agreed to give them help.
It wasn't a long way to walk to get to the Mansion's door, but the once gradual path leading
up to the top of the hill was now rugged and grown over with vegetation. The entire property was like this, from lack of use.
For a decade, since the executions, no one had been known to go up to the Mansion. Even coenobites had, for some reason stayed away from it. But it didn't matter now, because it was all Boyce's again.
They had finally made their way to where it all first happened.
Boyce's heart beat faster and faster, the nearer that he came to the door.
"Here it is, Lloyd!"
Lloyd saw Boyce's excitement as he put the key into the lock and turned it. He also felt a certain presence looming over the entire hill, as soon as they set foot upon it.
For Lloyd, this place had a different meaning then it had for Boyce. For him it meant the extension of his life which may have been cut short before he even had a chance to realize what life was. It meant the love and the admiration that he had for Brook and Dearborne, and this place was a reminder of evil's earthly triumph over good, through death.
"Would you have ever believed that I'd be back here?" a tear issued from Boyce's eye as he spoke and Lloyd cleared his throat, trying to keep from Boyce his own feelings about it all.
"It was predestined, Boyce!" he said then touched Boyce's shoulder to urge him to open the door and enter the house.
Boyce hesitated for a moment longer then smiled a little, and with a sigh he opened the door.
There was a sudden but slight whoosh at the door, as air rushed into the vacuum of the house.
It was dark and quite cool inside the house, in comparison to the intense heat outside, on this particular day. There was also a foul smell within which would have been more suitable for a
slaughterhouse. It was sour-like odour mixed with the linger type of stink of boiled chicken feathers.
They walked into the huge entrance hall and looked around the bare grey walls, and at the cracked ceiling covered with cobwebs.
"No wonder no one had come here since it was closed up!" said Boyce, his voice echoing far into the distant rooms, along with the clip-clop that their boots made on the solid wood floor.
"With enough helpers it won't take us long to make it liveable, Boyce."
Boyce nodded as he heard Lloyd's sentence carry throughout the mansion's vast number of rooms.
They walked further through the mansion going from the kitchen, to the ballroom, Dearborne's old parlour and to Brook's private den.
Every room, every corner of the great house was the same. The house was empty and stripped of anything of value, and of anything without value.
Blue-green lazurite no longer adorned the walls. There were no more crystals hanging from the ceilings, no more carpets were on the floor and there were no sculptures left in the hallways.
Only years of dust could be seen inside with the shells of hundreds of dead insects and arachnids strewn all over the place.
The windows of the mansion were still intact but they were so yellow and dirty that barely enough light penetrated into the interior, let alone having anything seen through them.
Lloyd took a knife from his belt and began to scrape some of the years from off the panes of glass in Brook's viewing den.
Shrieks echoed throughout the massive structure, as the dirt gave resistance to the knife grinding into the glass, but soon the windows of the den were cleared of dirt and the light of the afternoon sun shone through the cloud of dust suspended before the window.
Boyce jabbed Lloyd's knife into the seams and catches of the window and then pried it open with a creak that seemed to force itself into their very hearts.
They just stood there and looked at the once beautiful room that was nothing more than a void now. Absolutely nothing was left in the house after the monastic sacked it.
"Manguino is truly a mad dog warranted of dying!" said Lloyd.
"This was such a beautiful place, once!" was Boyce's only response.
Suddenly their came a loud shriek at the window and it made both men jump back in fright.
"Zoar-caw!"
Both men sighed when they saw that it was only Zoro perched at the window.
"It's only Zoro!" said Boyce. "I wondered where he's been all afternoon!"
While Lloyd and his friend looked over the house and decided what they needed to clean up and move in, Cardinal Orren was making his own assessments. His assessment, however, was not of buildings, but of the two strangers that came to Pomperaque, from the north.
"I had finally received a report from some of our spies in Besten, and I found out that these two men had left Besten a little under a month ago." Orren said to the ArchBishop.
The ArchBishop sat in his chair, at his desk, in his office as he was asked to by Orren for the meeting with him today. Orren wanted the meeting this way because he was tired and somewhat repulsed, by seeing Manguino and Eckma fornicating, almost every time that he spoke to him. Now Orren knew that he had Manguino's attention, and he listened to Orren.
"Since they've left Besten they walked south west then disappeared until they were seen passing through Flinnd on horseback. Now they had entered Pomperaque, apparently to stay!" continued Orren while he tried to find fault with the two strangers from Besten.
"Fine, Orren. I agree that we should not trust these men but I can't understand why we have to be this fearful of them. How can two men pose us a threat?"
In his typical way Manguino had once again failed to see a potential danger.
As in any nation, the greatest threat, almost always, seems to be from strangers. Since they were not known … so Orren also believed.
These two strangers were not known. Except for their names; Boyce Loebh and Lloyd, and also the fact that each man carries with him a substantial wealth, without the slightest fear of being robbed, no one really knows who they were.
Then there was the crow that was the younger man's pet. It was a strange pet that, to Orren, seemed to be as great a threat to Phoride, as the two men were.
Yet, for all their feelings, neither man could quite understand why they felt uneasy with these two men's presence. They gave no indication of being treasonous and they had even taken up a peaceful residency within the city.
They heard the story of their wanting to set up an academy of arts and philosophy, to be run as a part of the Phoridene Blaisaman; but the fact that the Blue Mansion was bought, had both monastic men worried.
Orren had been studying Jessuum Benitar's prophesy, made for Manguino, but it was odd and open to innumerable interpretations.
Manguino himself had been wrong many times about the prophesy, seeing the doom of Halls, and the rest of Pomperaque, through natural elemental causes: fire, water, earth and air. Yet, with the several natural disasters that befell Pomperaque since the executions of Brook and
Dearborne; the earthquakes tidal waves, the three-day hail storm and the great fire of four years ago — that almost burned half of Phoride — before the rebuilding, the great city had always seemed to survive.
Cardinal Orren refused to believe in whatever the Benitar prophesy had to say. Like his father, years ago, he only believed and trusted in what he could see, feel, hear and smell, and touch. Anything that was beyond those senses were just illusions.
Orren had seen the Angels of Mons several nights ago, and he knew that they meant an impending doom, but he believed that the doom would not be that great since the Mons did not ride through the main streets of Pomperaque.
Since time immemorial; from the first time that vision had foretold doom, in the years before the nonexistent holocaust which ravaged the world, the mons had been an accurate omen that warned those who saw them, of incalculable disaster.
"I am apt to disregard Jessuum Benitar's prophecy, Almighty. It is difficult to understand and can be made to mean anything, but the Mons that I had seen, came in the night prior to the men entering the city." he said.
Manguino laughed a little when Orren said that to him.
"You are just like Allen was. You only believe in what you see and nothing more. Now, tell me … how many strangers came into Pomperaque — or to Phoride, for that matter — on the same day as these two Bestenese came?" Manguino asked him.
"There were many, your grace, but these men have something about them, something that I just can't explain!"
Manguino laughed and told Orren not to worry because nothing would happen unless he
asked for the prophesy to be read to him.
To make Orren feel better and calmer, Manguino offered to him a suggestion that he find himself some virgin and have his tensions relaxed through her.
"You'll feel much better!" he told Orren.
Orren left him, angry and unsure of his own suspicions.
He went back to his chamber and tried to study the prophesy some more, trying to use his logic this time.
Manguino also went back to his own chamber and jumped into the pool of rain water which Eckma was already wading in, and drinking the scum off the surface before he entertained his pleasure.