The Manor Portense

The Manor Portense had stood by the river for eleven decades. Built of thick, pale stone and thatch, it looked much like an overgrown cottage squatting at the edge of vast meadows. Low-beamed and bright windowed, it had all the rustic appeal of a home, rather than the overstated grandeur of an impersonal mansion.

Mereavus had stood in the same spot for at least ten minutes. She regarded the building with unabashed fondness, russet eyes rarely without evidence of sadness in the few months that had passed. Winter remained a memory. It had passed in flurries of ice and grief, and left in its wake a spring that felt as lifeless as the grave she’d bidden goodbye that morning.

And now, time for another goodbye. Steeling herself with a single, long inhalation, her felt gloved hands lowered to take hold of her skirts in the descent of the rough stone steps that led into the windswept yard. Movement by one of the windows suggested she’d been seen, and then the door opened. A tall, androgynous woman appeared, clad in the simple combination of leather and green that went along with the ‘ranger’ occupation. Dressed and cut like a man, to all intents and purposes, with cropped, dark hair and boyish, youthful features.

Mereavus stopped, eyes lifting from their careful evaluation of the ground, and laid her eyes on the owner of this most odd of family homes. She was struck with several memories all at once, running past her in fleeting images. Leather gloves on her hands, guiding them into the correct positions for the bow in her grasp. Slow, deep massages of her complaining muscles in the evening. The quiver in her wrist when steel tapped steel, pretty patterns in the dust where fencers’ feet had stepped. The warmth and solidity of lithe muscle behind her, and a chin on her shoulder, simply seated in the bay window watching the snow. Intense kisses in the night; tender mimicries in the morning.

“Eave,” the subject of her memories murmured, having approached and slid her rough, blunted hands towards her elbows. “Really, you shouldn’t be here, not alone. The roads are too dangerous alone.”

“Please don’t lecture me, Verne darling,” the Advisor answered. “Prince Ilgnuit was kind enough to escort me, he’s waiting for me at the gallow-tree.”

Verne’s expression turned wry, and she placed a light kiss to the forehead in front of her. “Something tells me his kindness might have something to do with his adventures into manhood,” she commented. “You won’t stay for tea, then?”

“Don’t be silly, darling,” the Advisor chided. “He’s come into his chivalry very nicely. And no, I’ll only be here briefly.”

Verne frowned some, having never had a short visit from the Advisor in the last two years, and one of her hands rose to curl her forefinger underneath the more delicate chin. “One of those days?” she enquired, anticipating Mereavus would know what she meant.

She kept her eyes down. “It’s always one of those days,” she uttered, barely above a whisper. After half a moment, she straightened, and drew her eyes upwards. “I’m leaving for the Convent.”

Verne stared at her incredulously with very wide, almond shaped green eyes. “You’re... visiting, or taking a break? The Manor must be full of memories, a break would do you g-“

“I’m taking vows, darling,” she interrupted quietly, hands moving to gather the longer set of fingers into her own. “I can’t handle it anymore. Not the memories, not the constant barrage of remarriage suggestions, not putting on a smile when all I want to do is fall apart. You know I can barely stand to be touched without it becoming unbearable. This seems for the best.”

“Eave,” the taller, more boyish of the two moved her hand to tuck a wave of mahogany behind one of the Advisor’s decorated ears. “If it’s escape you need, you can always just stay here for as long as you like. Bring your things, and the dogs. There’s room in my stable for Luthien. I’ll take good care of you, I promise; I know how fragile you are, and how you need taking care of. It’ll be like home, you know – I’ll cook for you and fetch anything you like. Tea, dresses, jewellery, whatever you like. You won’t have to leave for anything, you can just-“

“Darling,” Mereavus cut her off a second time, felt covered fingertips rising to touch over her lips lightly. “You talk of another marriage. It’s a wonderful and idyllic suggestion, but no place for a broken woman. And could you imagine the uproar? I’m the Queen’s Advisor, I can’t flee to the country with my boyish, Sapphic lover and abandon court. I’m sure it’d be excusable as effects of grief, but Danele isn’t my employer. She’s my friend. You know that. I have to be there for her.”

“Even whilst you fall apart?” Verne demanded, turning her head in apparent anger. “Who’s going to be there for you, Eave? Who’s going to pick up your pieces whilst you’re holed up with a bunch of nuns and books and silence?”

“Better nuns and books and silence than lust and touch and mimicry,” the Advisor answered. “Touching you is too much anguish. Kissing you would break me. I must be in a world where no one can touch me, and no one can love me, nor I them. Where the only things I can possibly lose are dust and echoes.”

Verne’s hands were at the burgundy wealth of Mereavus’ skirts within seconds, and her hose clad knees hit the twig scattered stone with a crack. “You can’t,” she blurted, voice breaking into a sob midway through her utterance. “You can’t leave me. Don’t leave me, Eave – I’ll die without you!”

Mereavus’ knees bent, hands going to dislodge those clutching at her clothing carefully. “Don’t be dramatic, darling,” she murmured, as tenderly as she felt able. “It’s time to let me go.”

Verne shook her head, falling backwards into a sitting position and squeezing the fabric of her tunic at the shoulders, arms crossed over her chest. “No,” she mumbled, continuing to shake her head and sob, remaining on the ground even as the Advisor straightened. “I can’t let you go. I love you too much. I breathe you. I’m nothing without you.”

“You were happy before me,” Mereavus answered. “And you’ll be happy again after me. Hate me if you must, loathe me for abandoning you. Resent my abjuration of this heavenly life I know you’d give me. If it makes it easier, hate me.” She looked over her shoulder, back up the road in the direction she knew the Prince waited for her. Bless his patience, or whatever kept him there. “Darling, I don’t have any more time. He’ll come looking for me.”

“Let him,” Verne muttered, rocking herself forwards and back on the stone of her yard. “I hate him for having you in his life. I hate him for being able to see you when I’ll go without. I hate him.”

“Darling, please. I have to go, let’s not make it calamitous and bitter.” She moved back to her, descending to a crouch and pushing tousled brown curls out of the ranger’s face. “I will see you again. I promise I’ll see you again. But I must go.” She kissed her cheek lightly, taking with her the salt of tears still tumbling down Verne’s face.

As the Advisor turned to walk away, both women crumbled. The ranger clawed at either side of her head, and released a rough, crushed wail. The Advisor’s eyes closed, and her own tears came as though some dam had been broken, and she clenched both hands very tightly together in front of her.

“Eave!” the ranger practically shrieked, hair flopping in front of her eyes and her jaw widening in a consistent expression of devastation. “Eave!”

She kept walking.

Verne began scraping herself across the cobbles, sobs coming in jerked wracks that shook her body. “Don’t leave me,” she begged, hauling herself until she cut her hand on a sharp side of stone, and rolled onto her back. “Don’t leave me!”

And the Advisor kept on walking, with every step feeling like a hammer to a freshly broken bone.



Received at the Cloister of Silence, three days after transcribed events.

Eave, my love,
I have decided that it must be over. Please do not break. Be assured that I love you, as I always have, but losing you has bereft me. I never wanted to inflict this on you. I don’t have the strength to carry on the way you have, so bravely, without him. For I do love you as you loved him – to be without you is as a world without sight, and sound, and taste. I can’t live in a world colder than death itself.
And so, I have chosen death. If it makes it easier, hate me, and loathe me for my abandoning of you.
I wish you no more anguish. Know that I will go on loving you even in death, and that my last breath was yours, and my last thoughts of you.
- Verne

Luthien’s hooves skidded to a halt, scattering sticks and dried ivy. A breeze made the scene before wet, widened, russet eyes creak.

Hanging from the thickest bough of a blossoming tree outside that squatting manor was the blue-skinned, glaze-eyed and rigid form of Verne Portense. Barely recognisable in death. A pitiful, sorry sight with one hand still wrapped around a handkerchief bearing red stitching, and the initials M.V.

A hand wrapped in a black glove, trailing a habit draped forearm, reached for the cloth fragment and drew it from between those blunt fingertips. The Advisor made no sound, simply turned her hand in towards her white and black shrouded chest with the handkerchief held tightly between her fingers. Her eyes worked upwards, over boots she recalled sitting in her hallway when the doors stood open in dusty summers. Leather trousers – the ones with the laces that were damned awkward in hurried moments. The green tunic that always smelled like bread, and made her hungry. The necklace that always dangled and froze her skin. And those eyes, now so pale and glassy and white, staring right back at her, lacking in the vibrance and adoration that made them so remarkable beforehand.

Just a body in a tree.

There was a moment of creak-punctuated silence. In that moment, the Advisor lost every minute desire for life. Her muscles capitulated, and lost their strength. Her mind slipped, and passed into unconscious darkness. Her form slipped from her saddle in one wilting collapse, and would perhaps have dashed all to pieces had it hit the ground in a state of such brittle frailty.

Bless the Prince a second time, for his fortuitous, unknown presence, and a well-placed catch to a well-broken body.