My husband died a year ago today. On a day much like this one, with the wind sighing through the towers and the sky threatening rain, I heard the last words I ever shall from his lips. Mostly they were words of love, the gentle words he gifted me lifelong. And he had one last request for, as he asked so sweetly, “a final boon from my queen”. He asked me to finish his story.
I told him I would do it, though little gift have I for crafting tales or prosey. Of course, neither did Niles when he began his memoirs so many years ago, though he dictated the story to the royal secretary, Anais, who may have had a part in its composition. Often enough I heard them arguing a point of style or grammar in the back chamber. Mine I shall inscribe by hand with the quill of a durr goose as I sit here alone in my bedroom, to which I am often retired since Niles’ death. My years begin to weigh upon me.
Beginnings begin with waiting. So said my teachers when I was a mere nûnyet in the Sisterhood of the White Dragon, and I have long believed them. Much of a woman’s life is spent waiting, for it is our lot to be beginners. And enders. Men fill up the middle.
So how to begin the end of Niles’s story? First of all, his royal title was Henrius Niles Avilar Halifay Max Orloit, High King of Pan, Stonebringer and Swiftrider. Not that I ever cleped him with such a mouthful. To me, his first love and lifelong queen, he was always just Niles, though I glimpsed his destiny when first I saw him, with the blind and visionary eyes of virgin love, the eyes of a dreamer.
Niles was born prince Henrius Orloit, youngest son and seventh in succession to the throne of High King Avilar XII, whom historians have dubbed The Foolish. By such an epithet history fools itself. For Avilar was a wise man who ruled circumspectly in those most desperate times. His doom fell upon him like nightfall upon the day. And what mortal could ever reign in Chaos?
His queen, Lady Wenderly of Silva, bled away her life in birthing Niles. King Avilar’s passing followed hard upon hers, as did all of Niles’ brothers and both his sisters. Niles was born into a vortex of death that consumed every last member of his family but himself.
But I get ahead of my beginning, rattling on as old women do about the long gone-away. Much of this tale has been recorded by our history keepers and laid down in books elsewhere. Some of it, to be sure, has been sung by storymen throughout the kingdoms and thence passed from the common folk into lore itself. And so I shall apologize to those readers for whom my story is twice-told. Yet there are parts of this tale none but I have ever known. Not Niles himself knew it all. Some things even a queen daren’t tell the king. And, as the storymen say, this is the sort of tale that bears retelling.
I shall begin with a short introduction of myself: I am Queen Marisa III, once wife and consort, now widow of High King Henrius XVI. I reigned beside my beloved king for sixty-three years after the troubles. All of them were good years but the last, when Niles lost his eyesight and fell ill. Though weak and blind, he was full of peace and truly at heart’s ease when the end came. He said he could still see me in his mind’s eye – as I will always hold him in my heart. He was a fine king, a great warrior, and a gentle husband. I shall never face his like again, until we meet on the other side of mystery.
For most of the events I am here to relate, I was a witness and can speak in truth what I saw with mine own eyes, for a Dreamer of the Sisterhood never forgets the details. The tutelage of one’s youth returns as time wears on.
However, for some of the events in this narrative, I must rely on accounts related to me after the affair – though of those stories most were from our hero himself, and ever have I felt the truth in his heart and known the accuracy of his perceptions. Niles was a speaker of truth and a keen observer – certainly a droll storyteller. Especially when we were alone. In the last years of our rule we often went for long strolls in the palace gardens, winding among the pools and fountains, along the hedges, cypress, and weeping willows. He had a fondness for willows. We would occasionally reminisce of his times with Magus or his youth with Cley, before I knew him, or when we were apart. For such a renowned soldier and general, he was disinclined to speak of the warring years. I saw him but once in the midst of battle and never will forget that sight. Fearsome it was to me and horrifying, the single time he ever looked right through me, as though I were not here at all. His eyes shone with death. I can only imagine what they looked like to our enemies.
For those battles or meetings or places where I could never be, I know not how to tell this tale but in the voice of the storyman, as speaking listener not describer only, a voice known in the Sisterhood as the tellermode of the songsmistress, a mode of art as well as open sight and full heart. Yet the song I sing will be as true to the events as I am blessed to make it, for my song is not my own but the lifesong of my husband, who belonged to all the goldenhearts of Pan.