“The Duchess of Aquitaine has arrived.” The Lady’s maid [courtesied] as she delivered the news.
The Lady nodded. “Very good. Show her to her rooms. We’ll dine in the garden in one hour.”
Dangereuse lifted herself off of the divan. She did not need to change, so moved moved languorously. Only little things motivated her these days: a never before seen flower; an unusual food. But the habits of day-to- day life enervated her. Military politics drover her crazy. She had all but given up on her great grand children, with their rainbow of vices.
But she had certainly never given up on her granddaughters, the Ladies Aquitaine and Ithilaen.
[It was worse with her grandchildren. At least her daughter Aenor had been interesting, if a bit of a handful. ]
Of course Eleanor had to come here because of John and that cursed Ring. What trouble! She knew full well her aelven responsibilities. Her ancestors had let
[ the Ring be forged through complicity with Angra Mainyu / Ahriman. It was the responsibility of the aelven race to guard the Ring until it could be destroyed.
But she was more faerie than aelf. This argument was a data point – to be worked out with the other demands of her divided nature. It was not a call to action.
[was something to be worked out within her divided nature.]
[I am McGuffin, the solver of problems!]
[THey had no idea what it was to gambol; to frolick. They think impetuousity is a carefree state.
Who knew what would happen when her granddaughter (niece?) the Lady Ithilæn arrived. Heaven help us if the two start fighting, as they do. The Lady Ithilæn was too wound up. Altogether too much ælf. Of course the Lady Aquitaine was all too human. And from their actions you could deduce no faerie heritage at all.
Dangereuse wondered what it was about Alienor’s contempt for human’s that annoyed her. She decided that it was self-hatred. Faeries lived in the moment; they knew how to have fun. Why spend precious moments of your life hating one aspect of yourself? It was … she didn’t know the correct word, insane? unfortunate? unreal? Regardless, it was difficult to understand. Her late husband William Troubadour was a peerless musician and dancer. He could not have been more human and he could not have been more fun to be with. … Which led to a more pressing question: why did she repress her faerie nature?
And made her love Penelope de Mortain. Still a child, but so true to her nature. The essence of her bloodline.
[Unfortunately, from that branch sprouted the magic of Eleanor, the Lady Aquitaine.]
There was no arguing with Eleanor’s success, but she was … steadfast … and worst of all grounded. That was it! Her problem was elemental. Too much Earth. Færies are creatures of Air. For a færie there was nothing worse than to be grounded. To think, my granddaughter has no frivolity and therefore weak magic. She blamed that on Eleanor’s father. (Duke William Troubador’s son).
To her credit, the Lady Aquitaine was peerless at being human. That was a strength a færie could not aspire to.
[Except perhaps with Penelope de Mortain. But she was still young. How she would grow was unknown. Perhaps her færie-ælf-human mix was stronger than its component parts.]
Too bad she could not take the Ring. But she was 122 years old. The Ring would be a burden for someone in their prime. It would wear her out.
Dmitrius was 1,500 years old.
The bell in her room rang. It was time.
Dangereuse took the servants’ staircase to the kitchen, checked with the chef to ensure they were well provisioned, made minor changes to the menu and then went out to the back garden and took her seat on a padded cherry-wood chair, under an awning covered with grape leaves. Although it was a hot, sunny day, the temperature under the awning was perfect. Enough sunlight got through that it was warm, not cool. The view was mottled by shifting shadows, which moved as the breeze blew.
Dangereuse took her seat just as Eleanor emerged from southern Keep, where her quarters were. Though 65 years old, she moved spritely, and with confidence.
Dangereuse rose and proffered her right hand. Eleanor knelt, took the hand and kissed it. Dangereuse said, “Greetings, granddaughter.”
“Greetings matriarch.”
Dangereuse replied, “You are doubtless here because of King John and the Ring of Power he just stole.”
“What!” Eleanor, startled, swayed on her feet. She quickly stabilized herself.
Dangereuse smirked. It was petty of her, but she liked to surprise her grand-children. Of course, she too was surprised – by Eleanor’s ignorance. Was Eleanor so insensitive to the Universal Spirit that she did not notice when Dmitrius was killed and John stole the Ring? Apparently.
This – like too many gaffs – reminded Dangereuse of her deceased daughter Aenor, who never made such gaffs. Dangereuse scolded, “You have been insensitive, granddaughter. Open your mind and I will show you a moment, which explains our situation.” She held her granddaughter’s hand and transferred a vision of King John killing Dmitrius and kidnapping/eloping with Isabella.
Eleanor swooned slightly, but then collected herself. “Mon Dieu. That explains a lot.”
Dangereuse pressed, “Do you still have foresight?”
Eleanor replied hesitantly, “Yes. Maybe. I mean I can’t force visions, they just happen. I don’t know whether I will have a vision again. I haven’t had a vision the one I told you about last year. The battle in Flanders.”
“Yes. Yes. So no recent visions?”
“No.”
“Do you understand why? Don’t answer! When the Ring is active fate changes. Reality changes.”
“How is that different from the expression of will.”
“Reality is bent/distorted by one will so foresight fails.”
“What do your visions say?”
“Bouvines must happen. John may try to decide it must be otherwise, the Ring may give him the power to do so.”
“Perhaps not.”
Dangereuse smiles tersely.
“Bouvines?”
“Unstoppable.”
“But you don’t trust visions.”
“Not now, with your son lose on the world.” There were too many uncertain futures; none had equilibrium.
The Chamberlain entered the patio from the private dining hall. He coughed politely to get their attention and then announced, “The Lady Ithilæn has arrived.”
“Show her in.”
The Lady was already in, of course. “Greetings Dangereuse. She curtsied deeply to her Great Aunt from a distance. Dangereuse smiled tersely and made a shallow bow.
The Lady Aquitaine mused speaking to the Lady Ithilaen, through Dangereuse, “So my cousin refused a Ring of Power when offered?”
Lady Ithilaen nodded. Her decision still perturbed her. She did not want the Ring, but she didn’t want anyone else to have it either.
The Lady Aquitaine tersely replied, “A wise move. Dmitrius killed himself because he couldn’t bear it any longer. His death creates a problem for us. What will we do now?”
Dangereuse gestured for her two granddaughters to come near. She quietly said, “Lady Ithilaen, be quiet, just listen, if your input is asked for please give it.” She turned to Lady Aquitaine and said, “Is your son John fit to rule?”
“Perhaps. He is greedy, but he is a good administrator.”
“Is Arthur a better option?”
“No.”
“That part is done, thank goodness. But there is one more thing, grand-daughters. Come close” She hugged them. “In every time-line Arthur dies.”
===========
Outtakes/Useless
[Dangereuse had a terrible habit of offlanding difficult decisions onto others. This annoyed Alienor. She went on the offensive, “Eleanor – do you still support John now that you know …?”
“Geoffrey is my favorite son.”
“Geoffrey is dead! You have only two choices: John or Arthur.”
“John. Arthur. I’m tired of this. The fighting amongst my – our – progeny never ends.”
Dangereuse said, “I’m sad you have to care. But you do. They are your children.”
Eleanor replied, “Only one quarter of me is magical, grandmother. Have you forgotten? The rest of me is human. That’s why I leave the magic to you and cousin Alienor.”
Dangereuse never wanted to have this conversation, so she diverted, “What if we kill John and give the Ring to Arthur? He’s weak. We could control him. I mean even you could, Alienor, though if you needed a charm or two I could help out.”
Alienor snapped, “You know better than that Dangereuse! We know where this timeline should be headed. We’ve foreseen the possible outcomes. Arthur always looses.”
“You annoy me, Alienor but you are right. What about the haffen-aelves?”
“None of them want it, either.”
“Perhaps we should wait. See if anything is revealed to us.”
“It won’t be! That is the point of this wretched talisman. We don’t know the path.”
Eleanor, “Wait. Surely Dmitrius knew the correct path. His death was not simply out of despair. He had foresight and was pure until the very end. He gave the Ring to John to set something in motion. To move toward a foreseen outcome.”
“House Plantagenet’s victory over France?”
“I do not know.
It was a choice between immediate strong action and wait-and-see. They could combine against John and take the Ring. They would thereby regain foresight – assuming equilibrium could be achieved – but what would it give them? They did not know. They were driving blind.
Dangereuse was looking for an easy way out, and there was one, “If our goal is to destroy the Ring and re-establish the fates we can foresee, then we need do nothing now but give John what he wants.”
“Yes. Yes. That is best. You will work on that here. While this distracts him, I will join the attack on Normandy.”
“Good. Good. This will be fun.” She turned to the Lady Ithilaen. “Scoot. Scoot. Rejoin your army. John will be here any day, and I need to prepare charms for Arthur and Aylnor.”
At the Battle of Mirebeau later that year (1202) John captures Arthur and 200 other knights.
But John’s success quickly unravelled, in part because of the way he treated his prisoners. The king took the knights he had captured at Mirebeau back to Normandy in carts, heavily shackled and chained. ‘He kept his prisoners in such a horrible manner and in such abject confinement’, commented the author of The History of William Marshal, ‘that it seemed an indignity and a disgrace to all those with him who witnessed his cruelty’. Some, like Arthur, were imprisoned in Normandy, but John had so many captives that he sent dozens of them across the Channel to be kept in castles in England.
Because the king refused to enter into negotiations with Arthur’s supporters about the possibility of their lord’s release, they continued in their rebellion. In October 1202 they succeeded in capturing two of his principal cities, Angers and Tours, and by the end of the year John was forced to withdraw to Normandy. Becoming increasingly desperate, John first seems to have given orders for Arthur to be mutilated – orders which were not carried out. Then, in January, he apparently tried a different tack, and visited the castle at Falaise where Arthur was being held. According to the chronicler Roger of Wendover, the king promised his nephew many honours if he would abandon his struggle, but Arthur replied defiantly, saying he would not desist until John gave up all of the Angevin empire, including England. Wendover’s story draws some support from the fact that John did visit Falaise at the start of 1203 – his enrolled letters show that he arrived there on January 30th and stayed for three or four days.
Arthur is murdered
Mirebeau was a medium sized, tough castle, in the Anjou heartland a day’s ride north of Poitiers. The land was rich – there were vineyards, dairy farms, distiller, efficient access to the international markets at Champagne and Italy.
Alienor goes there to meet Aylenor/Eleanor and Dangereuse. Its a secret. Arthur is barrelling down from (Normandy). She is surprised to discover she can’t beat John. She leaves him, knowing he is no threat to Aylenor and completely incapable of handling John. She retreats, leaving Arthur to die – we see a scene of him being led away in chains by cruel King John.
What are you doing here? – Alienor secretly shows up … Everyone thinks she’s at Gaillard.
John is coming – earlier she senses this and the Riders turn and race to Mirebeau.
Something was bothering me that I could not put my fangs into.
Hiding cats.
Hidden thoughts.
I had it!
Euphemia had said that Tulip hid things in her armoire. I had heard her words clearly, but had processed them wrong. I thought Euphemia was referring to the trap door I’d found, but she wasn’t. She was referring to a second hiding spot. I bounded to Tulip’s apartment. It was still guarded by the Rottweiler, who recognized me and let me in. Knowing what to look for, I found it in an instant. The trap door under the armoire was long and shallow. I opened it breathlessly.
I found one piece of paper: it was Trouble’s letter to Tulip, a draft of which I’d seen in the feral’s apartment. It began with a quotation from the Keats’ poem,
Below the poem was one word written with Trouble’s wild paw, Adieu.
I heard a sound of Mittens’ conversing with the Rottweiler, four floors below. Then I heard pawsteps on the balcony.
I carefully replaced the evidence and raced down the fire escape to the street. From a vantage behind a fire hydrant I watched Euphemia enter Tulip’s apartment from the balcony, while Mittens fumbled with the latches on the main door. Euphemia was two leaps ahead of Mittens. She scampered down the fire escape with Trouble’s letter in her mouth just as Mittens’ entered the apartment.
I thought of chasing Euphemia but let it be. I needed a break. Besides, I suspected I had enough evidence to solve this case right now. All I needed was time to think.
I strolled into the rush hour crowd and lost myself in thought. There are notable differences in the ways mammals murder. For felines, killing is aesthetic. How many cat murderers are captured because their victims have been too elegantly dispatched? In contrast, elephant murderers most often act out of passion. Most eliphantidae murderers are gentle souls before they snap, and rampage. In the middle of this spectrum is the grey area of canines. Dog violence is almost always committed by alphas and their challengers. Less common, but common enough, is the canine murderer who – alienated from his pack – becomes unhinged. Tulip’s murder looked like the work of a packiopathic dog, but who? Bull ruled a pack and Fitch was too beta.
What about the fang marks on Tulip’s throat that Trouble had made? Had their mating last Tuesday been fatally rough? Perhaps, but I didn’t think so, and never had. The punctures made by Trouble’s fangs on Tulip’s throat were like paper cuts – or love bites – compared with the damage elsewhere on her body. If Trouble hadn’t murdered Tulip with his fangs, he certainly hadn’t done so with a weapon.
That left Euphemia, the jealous sister, or … a rat …? I didn’t know.
I decided to dine alone. I felt like a carnivore tonight so I went to an excellent cat-run establishment in Mont-Royal. Cats, by any dog standard, are sociopaths, but it is undeniable that they have their society. The restaurant I dined at, Bou bou’s, was at the centre of that society.
Bou bou’s caters primarily to felines, so most of the seating was either raised or hidden. That left the main floor to dogs. Because Boubou’s caters to carnivores, many courses, particularly of small rodents, were not served dead, but rather were released into a hunting room in the back, to be killed and eaten fresh. I needed a break from hunting, so ordered a rare cow steak, pre-killed. I ate my dinner in a shadowy corner on the main floor, doing my best not to be noticed.
The food was excellent but the high pitched squeals of tormented prey gave me a heartache, so I ate quickly, paid, and then went for a walk. Somehow I managed to wind up on a side street full of tattoo parlours, which given my temperament at that moment, was one of the worst places for me to be.
I am one of those who argues that domestication is not the end to the moral development of pawed mammals, but rather brings with it a new range of challenges: leisure and wealth give us the time and opportunity to be wise or vulgar on an epic scale. I am not saying that tattoos are necessarily vulgar. I can understand the impulse to turn your own body into an artwork, and have seen many artistic tattoos. But so many tattoos are of a quality far lower than that of the bodies they adorn. Casually decorate maimed and ugly things, but sully a beautiful pelt with care and please don’t doodle on the Pietà.
I loped away from the tattoo parlors to the nearest cross street, which turned out to be rue Ste. Catherine, in the tummy-rub district. The street was thick with hard young toms and curvy-soft young mollies plying their trade, or at least attempting to do so by being lewd. The solicitations weighed heavily on my mood. I am trained to smell the truth, even when it is hidden. To my nose, the promises of les rubeusses are false, not fantasy.1 I abhor lies.
I proceeded around the Mountain, toward Outremount. With the seediness of the tummy-rub district behind me, I began to enjoy the pleasant evening. There were puppies frolicking in the streets; lovers were nuzzling their muzzles; and old curs were getting re-acquainted with the smell of each other’s scrota. This was middle Canada, the world I am trying to protect.
I decided to take a break at a communal bar. A moment later one of the Dalmatians I had seen street-walking a few minutes previously sat down beside me. I must have stared at her, for she began talking to me. “Hello, my name is Buttons. What’s yours?”
“Fido” I replied, wanting to conceal my identity.
“Looking for some action?” She spoke this line straight, but two breaths later burst out laughing. She said, “I’m just teasing. I’m off duty. I saw you downstairs – she nodded down the mountain toward the red light district. Did you get lucky? It sure didn’t look like you were trying to.”
I was at first put off by her intrusion on my privacy, but the bitch had a charming manner, and when removed from the tawdry context of rue Ste. Catherine was a truly beautiful representation of her breed. I wondered how a pure bred might wind up as a rubeusse.
“Are you one of the Westmount Dalmatians?” I asked, pursuing this line of thought.
“You’re wondering why a pure bred dog would walk the streets? Well you should wonder. Most of us don’t have any choice, but I do. I won’t say I like sex work – some of the bitches are pretty pathetic and so are the johns – I mean Fido’s ! – but all work sucks, and for me this isn’t bad. You know why?” To my amazement the Dalmatian purred her next words, as she lightly rubbed her muzzle against mine. “I like to touch and be touched.” Despite earnest thoughts of my mate and pups, I became aroused. Buttons noticed this and continued to purr for a few minutes more. After an indeterminate amount of time had passed, Buttons quietly barked, “Let’s see where our natures take us.”
I knew that I was reaching the point of no-return, indeed the trajectory of this encounter seemed so inevitable I was tempted to unleash my animal lust immediately. I was saved from infidelity by Button’s star struck voice. She said, “Hey, look across the street. That’s Euphemia, you know, Tulip’s beautiful twin. Tulip, the movie star they just found murdered. The one with snow-leopard ears.”
I looked to where Buttons was pointing with her nose. Sure enough, Euphemia was langorously grooming Trouble. They lay together on a cushioned divan in the window of the restaurant directly across the street from us.
A tom who was standing on the sidewalk in front of me yowled. The noise startled Euphemia, who turned her head so that she was facing directly toward me. She caught my gaze and had disappeared before I had time to blink.
I turned back to the Dalmatian. “Buttons, I have to go. I .. I …” I didn’t know what to say because I was at war with myself. I wanted to see her again, but knew no good would come of it.
“I know who you are Doctor Inspector Patches Barks. I just wanted to hear you lie. Run. Catch the murderer. I’ll find you.”
“Don’t call me Patches!” I barked as I raced out the door.
The café across the street was bordered on the west side by a small lane. Trouble and Euphemia must have gone that way. Sure enough I found their scents by the service entrance door. I followed their trail along a cobbled path that sloped down toward the river.
One hundred metres later the scent trail branched and I was faced with a decision: should I follow Euphemia or Trouble? Without missing a bound, I set off after Euphemia down a back alley. Moments later her trail disappeared at a point where the alley ended in a pile of trash and recycling. It was a an enclosed space, defined by the back entrances of a trio of brick scamper-up tenements. I knew Euphemia must be hiding nearby, waiting for a chance to escape the way she came. The movement of a shadow along the fire-escape caught my eye, but when I turned toward it I saw nothing. I leaped onto the first floor landing, where I detected the faint scent of Serengeti perfume.
My position on the fire-escape landing gave me a view of the entire alley. Euphemia couldn’t conceal herself for long. Something, a movement, a sound, a breeze ricocheting her scent off of a wall, would give her away. The alley became still as the dusk faded to night. The only sounds were the rustle of a loose newspaper, the scurrying of a mouse, and the faint hiss of air passing through my nasal membrane.
It started to rain.
Although my senses were fully engaged, the shadow of a cat landed on my back without warning. We fell off of the fire-escape and then tumbled onto a bundle of papers. I heard the sound of claws unsheathing against asphalt. I looked up to see a fanged silhouette lunging at my throat. At that moment a dog growled and flew over me. The cat let out a great screech as it clattered across the tops of metal bins, and away.
Had Euphemia just tried to kill me? Had Buttons saved my life? I did not know. By the time I regained my bearings both my assailant and my saviour were gone.
“Are you alright, Monsieur?” A kindly old dachshund trundled over to help me.
“Sure. Sure.” I replied, while licking my bloody right fore-paw. “Did you see anything?”
“Bien sûr. I saw a cat, but not very well. I couldn’t even tell you if its fur was black or white.”
“Anything else?”
“Mais oui, I saw a pure bred Dalmatian bitch. Beautiful. She went that way.” He gestured vaguely toward the River.
“Did you see any other pawed mammal? Perhaps a mouse, rat or raccoon?”
“Now that you mention it, I saw a fancy bull-dog. Looked like he’d walked out of a velvet painting, with his vest and cigar. But he acted like he didn’t see anything.”
“Which way did he go?”
“Vers rue Ste. Catherine.”2
“Merci.” I threw the dachshund a bone, and then retraced my steps to the entrance of the alley. Even though it was now raining quite hard, it only took a few sniffs to determine that the fancy bulldog had been Bull. He was such an alpha he had marked a fire hydrant before departing.
I had three choices: follow Bull, Euphemia or Buttons. Some primal instinct urged me to follow Buttons but my reason said, “To what end? Follow Bull or Euphemia, they are your suspects.” Instinct won that round. I compulsively began to sniff the ground, trying to find Button’s trail. I continued to search vainly, long after my reason told me the rain had washed it away.
By the time I gave up sniffing I was so tired and fraught I staggered to my kennel. When I was perhaps halfway there, in one of those non-descript square parks that dot Canadian cities, I stumbled upon a scent I did not expect to encounter: Mittens. He was laying on his belly under a tent of newspaper in the very centre of the park. The paper covered only his upper back, leaving his hindquarters fully exposed. His two bright, white polydactyl forepaws rested on the box he had purloined from Euphemia.
I had no desire to encounter the ‘nip-addled feline. I gave him wide berth, being careful to stay down wind, and returned to my kennel via a detour. When I got there, I dragged my exhausted body onto a pillow but was unable to sleep. I spent the next hours brooding about all kinds of trouble. I arose unrested at dawn.