Eathel the Bastard, Chapter 7: The Wasted of the Clericy
In which MASTER ELMANDT takes his JUNIOR to TASK. For the sole reason PARENCE and his COHORT hate it, the senior partner at HASHER, ELMANDT speaks to his associates in the THIRD person; & a FABLE
!! Note 2025-04-03
Long story, but since I haven’t had time to make edits w/ all the news continue to break April 1-2, this is just the beginning in middle of chapter 7. This was supposed to be scheduled to go out earlier than it did but Substack broke. Bear with me as I updated. Thank you. Please stand by…
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❗️A return … to Xiatep Tera💥
It didn’t start with open rebellion; it started with some public men and women beginning to speak differently.
That cannier sort who moved in the world adjusted their rhetoric to better match a feeling that rose up from under one’s toes.
The feeling continued to rise through one’s chest and out into the air until everything started to sink then toward a kind of Saturnalia1 but one not lively; one dreary and fraught with tension.
~
“147 pieces silver to this Madta,” said Elmandt. “Did I employ you in error?”
“You have only lately returned from the front,” said Parence.
“Never tell me an excuse,” said Elmandt.
The capital, vast and dense, stank outside the gauzy curtains lilting in the earthy air of the open window, letting in warmth of interminable rain of Xiatep Tera.
The Teran capital was center of the world when matters pertained to trade, vice and games of power.
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It was in this way that when war broke out in 1,021 no man or woman was surprised by the news; at least those to whom Parence paid a yearly assize of some 1,294 silver pieces across 17 different sources in 12 different households and Bishoprics.
Some gentry were even with him.
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Beyond the specie, what troubled parence more were the favors, commitments to which his own conscience was witness to consider. By trafficking in these, the gaunt man burrowed ever deeper into debt with the Dukedom.
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‘Burrowing’ was not quite the right word. It was not the right turn of phrase Parence needed exactly.
No, the right word must be ‘borrowing.’ For now more than ever he was beholden and exposed. He served now not one but dual masters, both exacting I hefty fief.
~
“Three if you counted his most immediate sovereign,” said Elmandt. “His hunger for women.”
Parence was a man given over to the sin of lust.
“You were in the Drag. And you were there for the reason of,”
The senior partner at Hasher, Elmandt pinched the bridge of his hooked nose with enough strength to draw pain. His eyes were sealed with disappointment.
Parence told his chief he had indeed been in the half-sunk slum that was the bedrock of Xiatep.
“You tell me you met this girl in a whorehouse?” Elmandt was exasperated in disappointment at his only junior Iscaer.2
“A girl she is, this is true,” said Parence. “But it was not long until the Earl Eathel of Darren agreed with me Madta Cagenet was fast becoming far more woman than girl.”
“How dare you gauge any profit might be born of this misguided scheme,” said Elmandt.
~
For this, the weak Parence may be forgiven, for him to which the young lawyer was bonded was known to be a mercurial young man.
A fable of Haliday
OR; Märchen über Honigeize3
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We return to Eathel and his band. They ride hard and Eathel bids his storyteller Haliday to relay one of his tales.
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LONG AGO IN ATOLOS, there was once a little girl born to a humble farmer and his wife. They had yearned for a child but sadly had not been blessed with one until they were well into their older years. To them, though unexpected, the birth of their daughter, healthy and happy, was a blessing.
They were an Olteran family, and the tradition there is to name a child after the nature of the family’s provider’s living; as her father was a farmer, he wanted to name her “Eiza,” which means a little flowering sprout of iceberry. The mother, however, wanted to name her “Honic” after her honey-colored hair. “Honic” or “Honig” both are used for “honey” in Oltera.
So in the end, they settled on Honigeize, which means “little honeywheat” in Oltera.
Years went by, and even as Honigeize grew into a young woman of astonishing beauty, her parents grew more ill with each year. She was troubled by this and resolved to help. Though their farm was just a little plot deep in the country, Honigeize walked into town every day to fetch what medicine she could from the apotheque.
It was in the town square the son of the king saw Honigeize striding across the main square with her head held high and her golden hair peeking out of her stark white linen coif, and was breath taken by her lovely form, which was clear to see despite the modesty of her dress.
The maiden, unknowingly herself, took every one of his senses away entirely, beguiling his gaze; he was seduced to follow her.
It was the prerogative of the prince that he could take any woman in his father’s kingdom as his wife. So he resolved at that instant to have her as his own. He found out who she was and, even though she was a commoner, took her as his lawful wife.
Though the man was a stranger to Honigeize, he was comely and stimulating in conversation enough. More importantly, he promised his betrothed that his men would send to her parents a bag of gold coins every month. His father the king would assign tenants to work the fields. He promised to send his royal doctor to tend to them and give them the best care. She could visit any time she wanted, and this proved to be the prince’s undoing.
“And then what happened?” asked Wenham.
“Well, it’s funny you should ask,” said Haliday. “For the saga continues forthwith.”
“Honigeize’s father was so happy at the change in the family’s fortunes that he thanked his beloved daughter with tears in his eyes, and her mother kissed her on her forehead.
“Honigeize’s heart was warmed because her elders had raised her well and with constant love, and Honigeize felt she was being a good daughter to them that poured affection so liberally into her childhood. It was this charity on Honigeize’s part that ultimately ensnared her.”
Haliday indulged in a smirk. He let the silence hang until Wenham and Utamore grunted with impatience. Only then did he continue.
“At first, all was well with Honigeize’s life. Her dear parents were cared for. The prince proved a dashing and handsome man who brought a great deal of excitement into her life.
“Things happened very quickly. He overwhelmed her with gifts and embraced her every time they met. He whispered little commitments into the nape of her neck as they held one another at night.
“He mumbled promises that he would never love any other. He spun nice little sentences, that she was his world entire.
“He kissed her ear and said into it with a deep, resonant voice that he would love her with all the passion he lavished upon her now as long as they lived.
“Honigeize awoke happier every day. She was becoming besotted with the prince. She had grown to find him very attractive. Honigeize began to feel the strings of her heart grow taut when he went away. Now, when he sauntered toward her, cheeks ablaze with smile, and his left hand draped over the polished hilt of his saber, there was a weaving, tickling cloud of butterflies in the base of her stomach. None had been there before.
“She learned how he wanted to be loved, and how to hold him in bed. She taught herself what he liked to hear his partner say. Before long, the prince rushed to visit Honigeize’s bed every night.”
“Hell,” said Utamore. “This girl’s all right.”
Haliday nodded with mock gravity, as if to say “I told you.” Then he continued.
“This prince was profuse in his love at the outset of affairs; voluble in his charming lines of poetry and wit; and alluring in his person. Yet little did Honigeize know that he was the specie of man who grew bored—and with a rapidity.
“Whatever had theretofore bewitched his interest, that thing, one day, ineluctably, devolved into a distraction or annoyance. As years went by, he grew bored of Honigeize and moved his attentions elsewhere, to other wheat fields, one might say.”
Everyone laughed.
“This defect in character was one thing, but the prince was even more sinister than that. He had found an afflicted person in his demesne, practicing as a witch. On threat of death, he entombed her in a lair in his dungeons. There she did his bidding. This wicked woman was diseased with the stain, cursed by God. Unrepentant, she rapaciously pursued the evil powers of her curse, growing wise in alchemy and les arts obscurs.
“This witch had a spell that would make in one day a morphoba of the young woman, from birth to her present adulthood, like her in every—”
“What’s that?” asked Wenham.
Hal was just getting on a roll and smacked his lips in agitation. “What’s what?” asked the storyteller.
“A morfona?” asked Wenham.
“You don’t have morphobas north of Reondir?” asked Haliday.
Wenham shook his head. No one had heard of morphobas except for Dhalen, who was from West Hratherast and so knew the tales of the local people.
“A morphoba is another person, made again by magic.”
“Like raising the dead?”
“No, that’s something different. The person who is,” Hal paused, looking for some kind of word that didn’t exist, “morphobatized is still alive. It’s like an imprint of that person. Another one of them walking around.”
“A twin,” said Eathel.
“Yes, lord, like a twin,” said Haliday. “The kind of twins that look so much like one another you cannot tell them apart unless you get to know them very well.”
Hal continued:
“Though the prince was bored of his wife in person, he was still charged with lust at her form. They had passed that early part of marriage where no one of the newlyweds strayed too long from the other’s embrace. So he inveighed upon the witch to make her potion, and thus make of his wife a sister.
“But oh, they don’t know how I loved you, do they? They cannot touch you the way I did, can they? They may be innocent to your ways and still come alive to your touch as if they first were meeting you, but they do not have that slower-burning knowledge that leaves you out of breath and spent just as the pale blue light rises.”
The men whooped and hollered.
“Fine, so she tricks him by promising a three-way. She and her sisters kill him. What’s the moral of the story?”
“Don’t do magic,” said Eathel.
“Quite,” said Sera.
A Saturnalia was an ancient Roman celebration in January during which servants adopted the roles of their betters, and their betters assumed the roles of their inferiors in turn.
Iscaer is the Teran equivalent of esquire, appended to the end of an attorney’s salutation.
Märchen über Honigeize translates to The Tale of Honeywheat in German.