Okay, so here's the deal. All I have here are first drafts, to get me over my fear of showing my writing, but I believe I've grabbed that brass ring now. My next step is going to be to revise. There will still be new posts, such as this, but alongside will be the hopefully improved versions of my deformed first draft children. I had intended to leave the Brothers alone after my short story, but something inspired me. Jean in Order of the Holy Mechanism is now Brother Joachim d'Anjou, twin brother to the knight Jean d'Anjou. Why the change? Because it felt right. Jean said it was okay. This is still an emerging idea, but hey. I pledged to post EVERYTHING I write.
The brass box emitted a happy hum as its springs stretched themselves to comfort, causing the hard wax cylinder within to spin and run the gooves in its length along the needle held within. The gold decoration showed the hand of Brother James of England's fine touch in the use of biblical angels instead of the more typical winged humans. Burning wheels, radiating spokes of wings, other shapes that were terrifying in their beauty graced the contraption. Upon the top perched Gabriel perched, wings outspread, and trumpet to his lips; from the angelic instrument came the voice of Pope Eugene II as if from a great distance, but nowhere near the hundreds of miles that seperated the box and its audience from where the sounds had been taken.
“Which, by the grace of God, and the zeal of your fathers, who at intervals of time have striven to the extent of their power to defend them and to spread the name of Christ in those parts, have been retained by the Christians up to this day; and other cities of the infidels have by them been manfully stormed,” this last bit elicited a soft roll of laughter among the monks who circled the player as it lectured them from the table top.
“Oh certainly, and they also glutted themselves manfully on wine, women, and blood to the glory of Christ!” Joachim looked around for laughter, agreements, and then met the half-gaze of Brother Michel. The older monk's face was split by a crevasse earned by a Saracen blade upon the walls of Jeruselam, which had ruined his face and his looks. He'd seen Jesus, he said, as he lay upon a pile of the dead and dying. The Lord had reached his hand to the dying Crusader to save him, and in return the man had pledged his life to the Church. Joachim suddenly envied said dead and dying, as Michel could channel all the fiery rage and displeasure of two eyes into one and strike down the unwary. The room went silent but for the recording, the younger monk shrinking down and back and doing his best to become a single entity with his chair. Michel's mouth set as a hard line, before it quirked up on one side. That single movement of muscle showed something beyond Hellfire-like anger and Joachim attempted to unfuse himself from the furniture.
“We did not drink blood, boy. The wine sufficed. Now shush so we can hear the Pope finish his pontifications,” the creaking of wood and stiff joints signaled his settling back and the end of the matter. Joachim finally breathed out as the dragon turned its gaze away, hearing the Pope once more.
“We exhort therefore all of you in God, we ask and command, and, for the remission of sins enjoin: that those who are of God, and, above all, the greater men and the nobles do manfully gird themselves; and that you strive so to oppose the multitude of the infidels, who rejoice at the time in a victory gained over us, and so to defend the oriental church,” Joachim allowed himself a snort just soft enough to not be heard over the hollow recording that one of the lesser brothers had brought back. Fancy words the pontiff had which all boiled down to giving free reign to the nobles and layity to draw steel on each other. Joachim couldn't stomach to hear anymore without being able to give his thoughts, and he had already tested Michel's limited patience. Arms crossing tight across his chest, he hunkered under his hood and imagined each of the imp sculptures that supported the box were a tiny Pope Eugene, his Grace's face twisted into comical images of agony at being put, finally, to God's work.
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1 comments:
This is fantastic.
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