<html> <body> Metamor Keep: Divine Travails of Rats by Charles Matthias and Ryx Pars I: Disipicio (i) Friday, May 14, 724 CR “Do you know the only mistake we made in capturing the hart?” Charlie regarded his long-eared equine friend now dressed in a brilliant red doublet with gold trim along the collar. Bryn favored him with a humorous moue and said, “We have to return to Metamor now!” “We couldn't stay away much longer,” Charlie reminded him after chuckling. “Would you rather we spent a few more days out in the woods only to come home empty handed?” “Nae,” Bryn admitted with another laugh. He brayed once and leaned back in the saddle. Argamont plodded along at a leisured pace beneath him. “And the hart does give me a few hours before the train of tutors descend on me again!” Charlie reigned in beside Argamont as the young duke's mount slowed from its sedate walk to halt upon the rise. Before them, revealed over the treetops of the valley still a couple hours ride ahead, the towers of Metamor Keep rose above its surrounding walls. The castle sprawled proudly atop the steep ridge that divided the north of the valley from the south, a river coursing through a cut in the rocks to one side. Beyond that ridge, around which they would have to circle to enter the castle, Euper spread out unseen but for the tendrils of smoke rising from the countless chimneys. A southerly breeze coursing down the valley behind them cut wispy tendrils off at the crest of the ridge and left a faint smudge in the castle's lee. “Always quite the sight, isn't it, Charlie?” Bryn asked with a smile as he rested both hands upon the pommel of his saddle. No reins descended from his fingers as they did from Charlie's, for Argamont had neither halter nor bridle, needing neither. Charlie sat up a little straighter and stretched his back, flicking his tail side to side across the croup of his mount. “Aye, that it is. I will be sore glad to be off of horseback for a few days. My spine will be so thankful.” Bryn looked back with a twist of his broad shoulders and Charlie followed his gaze. Behind them stretched a train of servitors; wagons and horses and people afoot, all to provide for the two young nobles and their hunt. Six wagons laden with tents, wardrobe, provisions, and a rolling kitchen lumbered along amongst a line of Hassan house servants that tended them and their two charges. Where a typical journey to Glen Avery might take a man on horse perhaps half a day, if they were traveling slowly, with such a train it was lucky going indeed to leave with dawn and arrive before sunset. Bryn whickered a laugh, “I'm for home, Charlie, what say you?” “I concur.” His gaze roved along the lines of humans and animorphed once-humans following in their wake, cordoned by the soldiery sent along to provide little needed security. With the peace that had come with the final treaty signed with the Lutin hordes some years past the valley was as safe as anyplace had any expectation ever to be. Strife broiled in the southern kindgoms and the dangers of the north were still there, beyond Sir Dupré's slowly growing wall, but within the borders of the Northern Midlands peace was an often complacently overlooked luxury. “What of your host?” He waved a sharp-clawed hand toward the train. “They will follow safely enough, barring a broken wagon wheel.” One of which had plagued their outbound journey for the better part of the first day. “Let us get hither, my friend!” With a slight forward shift of his weight Argamont lifted his hooves and paced forward. Charlie gave a flick of his reins and a tap of his paws to spur his mare forward, pacing out ahead of the young stallion that would one day be his liege despite his lower station. Argamont cast him a challenging look and raised his head to prance forward a trot. With a laugh Charlie snapped his reins again and his spirited mount fairly leaped forward into a quick gallop. Argamont, never one to pass up such a challenge, was quite to give chase. ---------- The Keep and its strange geometry made the passage to his home different nearly every time he sought it out, but nevertheless the entrance always appeared the same. The ceiling sloped upward into a beautiful rounded arch leading to a wide set of tall doors bearing his family's heraldry on either panel. So familiar to him now, he only briefly glanced at the crossed trident and oar, with sky blue over dark sea blue on the sinister, green grass on the dexter, before nodding to the guards standing watch outside. “Welcome home, Lord Charles,” said the taller of the two, a broad-shouldered white-furred bear that stood four heads higher than the rat and whose meaty paws were wrapped about the haft of a glaive; his claws were kept as long as knives and with one paw he gripped the latch on the door and pressed it open. The other guard, an ox with sharpened spikes on the end of each horn and who only stood three heads taller than Charles, echoed the greeting and glanced behind him. “Where's Lord Thomas? I thought you went hunting together.” “Bryn is seeing to the hart he caught, at least once it arrives in an hour or so! If he can get free he may come by later. Has my father returned?” “Your father has not returned yet, Lord Charles,” the bear replied with a grunt. “Your mother and sister are home and will be delighted to see you.” “Good,” Charlie replied, smiling to the soldiers loyal to his house. They did their duty well. “May the gods smile on you both.” They returned the blessing as he stepped between them and back into the place that was truly home. A high vaulted ceiling with artful tapestries of field, forest, and sea greeted him in the ornate foyer. Little spiraling pillars lined either side in terracotta with blue and green tiling along the wall behind. The foyer opened into a wide room divided into two sections. The area on the left was arranged for entertaining guests, with a large hearth framed by several comfortable chairs and lounges with cabinets holding musical instruments and cupboards holdings chalices and a selection of wines. Embroidered pillows adorned every chair the hearth was flanked on either side by tall paned windows to let in both light and air. The floor was covered in a mosaic over which several Sondesharan carpets had been overlaid. The right half of the room was similar in purpose with another hearth and chairs arranged in a comfortable and welcoming semi-circle, but the patterns and design were more typical of Metamor, with thick bear-skin rugs, granite floors, and all color patterns in dark hues. Depending on his father's mood or the comfort of his guests he could entertain on whichever side seemed best. Charlie was never quite sure which one he preferred, but seeing both of them side by side felt right. At the other end of the room open doorways led into other sections of their home. One was for the servants and while he had often sneaked into their rooms as a child he did not venture there much anymore. The others led to their private gardens, library, and recreation. Bedrooms, drawing rooms, and places of repose occupied the rest of their home. Charlie wondered where he might find his mother or sister, or even his sibling pages, when he felt a paw on his back. “Ha!” his sister's voice growled in his ears. “And you said I couldn't sneak up on you!” Charlie stifled a start at the predatory silence that heralded that sudden strong grasp upon his shoulder, his tail thwacking against the knees belonging to the herald of that touch. He turned and cast a glance upward at the tall, slender, russet hued canine towering behind him. “Suria! Just how long have you been waiting there behind the tapestries for me to come home?” He gave his younger, albeit considerably taller, sister a poke in the stomach with one paw, eliciting the expected titter of girlish, and very canine laughter. Even though he did not seek to tickle her, which was always a hilarious past-time, the expectation that he would try just that made her jump and laugh in expectation of it. Her large ears backed, pinned forward as she leaned down to give him a rather wet slurp across the cheek. “I saw you and Bryn ride through the city up from the solar. He looks very handsome in that red doublet.” Her tail wagged as her jowl drew back in a bright smile. Suria had been born as a human and had only changed into the russet-colored wolf three years ago. So many of its mannerisms and instincts continued to surprise and frustrate her. But the wagging of her tail never seemed to do so. “Tell me about the hunt! Did you have to fight off bears or mountain lions? How long did you chase that white hart?” “I've told you before that most of the time on a hunt is quite dull. I had more excitement coming home only to be set upon out of dark corners!” he said with an exaggerated sigh even though the smile did not leave his face. “Until we saw the hart yesterday there was little to do except wander the forest.” Her eyes brightened and she leaned forward, snout inches from his own. “You saw the hart? What happened?” Her ears then rotated upright as she spied someone beyond her brother. “And has my son brought anything back from his hunt to please his mother?” Another voice called from the central hallway. Charlie turned and smiled at his mother who emerged from the passage with two young rats and a taller white tiger in tow. The fox's luxuriant, soft red fur was adorned by an elegant but understated lily-white dress that was both form and function for the wife of an important diplomat. He had seen her in much commoner clothes on the few occasions she had witnessed their servants not doing a sufficient job; they never made the same mistake twice, even when it came to cleaning the corners of each stairwell. Those that did make the same mistake twice did not remain in their employ. “Mother!” Charlie embraced his mother and laughed, hoisting her a few inches from the floor in boisterous boyish glee. The smaller vixen yapped a laugh, her tail lashing at the indecorous greeting. “I fear that it was Bryn who brought something back from the hunt. His arrow struck the hart true while mine only pierced the wildflowers.” Setting his mother down with a moue of contrition he reached into a small pouch at his side and gingerly removed a trio of purple, blue, and yellow blossoms, their gossamer thin petals fragile but unbroken. “Here is what my skills have claimed.” His mother glanced into his open paw and smiled, vulpine snout stretching to reveal white fangs behind her black jowls. “They are very pretty. What did you intend to do with them?” “Preserve them in one of my journals. They aren't good for much else. Unless you actually want them.” She laughed and shook her head. “Keep them for your journal. Or use them to practice your drawing. Your tutors are eager to see you again. But that can wait for tomorrow.” She sniffed the air and her eyes narrowed. “For now you should bathe. You stink of horse and of the woods. Peter, Timothy, draw a bath for your brother, please.” The two rats, both dressed in blue livery and looking at the elder rat with eager faces and trembling whiskers, bobbed their heads and nearly bounced on their feet and tails. “Yes, milady!” Charlie raised his paw and clicked his tongue against the back of his incisors. “Before you go, Peter, Timothy, your mother wanted me to let you know that she and your family send their love.” Their eyes grew wide and their scalloped ears lifted high above their large heads. “You saw Mother? Father?” Peter asked with a boyish squeak. “I did,” Charlie said with a nod. “And they expect to hear how well you took to your duties when I see them again!” “Of course, Lord Charles!” Timothy pipped up, glancing at Misanthe, and Suria before the two of them turned and walked as swiftly as they could without childish scampering back down the hall to draw the bath. Once they were gone Misanthe cast a curios glance at her son. “You visited the Narrows? I thought you were hunting north of the Glen?” “Word reached Bryn and I of an accident involving Baron Matthias. I had to make sure he was all right.” A worried touch graced his mother's golden eyes. “An accident? I hope nothing serious!” “His left leg was broken but he'll recover.” Charlie lowered his face to hide the slight twitch in his jowls. He slipped the flowers back in their leather pouch and took a moment to tighten the drawstring. “A crane broke and one of the granite blocks that they are using to build their fortifications fell on him. Luckily he's fast for an old rat and managed to evade having it land upon his head.” Charlie grinned boyishly with a twitch of his whiskers, “Though perhaps that may have done him less harm. He says he'll be fine in a few weeks despite the healer's expectation of a more protracted recovery,” Charlie explained while he unbuttoned his surcoat. With Misanthe's help he shed himself of the soft outer layer leaving him with only the lightweight cotton vest worn beneath. This Misanthe handed to the tiger who obediently draped it over one arm. Suria fidgeted behind him as if she wanted to help but wasn't sure what she should do. “Aspittier,” Misanthe said with a slight smile toward the tiger, “have paper, quill, and ink brought. I would like to write a message to Baron Matthias expressing our sympathies and wish for his speedy recovery.” Aspittier, the fifth of his family line to serve as Steward to their House, nodded. “Shall I have them sent to your drawing room, milady?” “Yes, thank you. That will be all.” Charlie smiled briefly to the dutiful Steward as the tiger bowed his head and returned the way he'd come carrying the rat's surcoat. He then turned back to his mother and asked, “Has there been any news of father? How are his negotiations faring?” Misanthe spread her paws wide and glanced briefly at his sister who shrugged her shoulders. “There has not been much news, but none of it is bad. His last message said that he is considering allowing Kelewair to keep the ingot in exchange for allowing Metamor to increase their border patrols along their northern and western baronies.” “If they take it,” Charlie mused thoughtfully, “then Metamor will continue to expand our influence and power to the south. No matter what Kelewair does with the ingot they still become more reliant on Metamor for internal security. If that is all I hope they agree.” “Are we going to see Bryn?” Suria asked, her voice light and her eyes looking past her brother and mother with a look that they had often seen in her eyes whenever the name of the Duke's eldest son was heard in their home. Charlie nodded and stretched. “I'm not sure yet whether Bryn will be coming by later to celebrate his victorious hunt, or if he'll wait until we see him at the Duke's table.” “I suspect the latter,” Misanthe noted. “Duke Thomas is overjoyed at every triumph any of his children have. Even your own.” He smiled and felt a slight blush creep into his ears. How well did he remember his childhood playing in the ducal apartments, scampering after a young colt, only to tug his tail and then scamper away as he stomped his hooves and chased after him. The strong arms of the Duke would reach down and grasp him almost effortlessly beneath the shoulders and hoist him high into the air with a hearty laugh, even when Charlie's tail had smacked him upside the snout in his excitement. His father always chided him not to do that, even while he was laughing at their antics as well, but the Duke had never objected and only smiled with a deep fondness that had never departed. “Well, if we are going to eat at the Duke's table this evening, I should definitely take that bath.” He smiled to both his mother and sister and bobbed his head once more. “I will return smelling much better.” “And better dressed!” his sister chided with an impish grin. “That too!” Charlie bowed to his mother, bringing them briefly to a similar height, only to have his ears captured and a kiss laid between them. With that parting gift Charlie churred a merry laugh and wandered toward the rear of his family's residence. While modest considering their station their home was palatial by the standards of the less well placed, with private rooms for each of them. Charlie's was across a wide hallway from his sister Suria's, with a common bath between them. Common, insofar that they could only use it individually, as ever, despite that one room being larger than the totality of a peasant's home. Charlie was aware that he lived in opulence compared to, say, the coyote that helped them find the hart that was even now being prepared for the Duke's table, and some place of importance in the trophy hall. He had long ago become accustomed to such a marked distinction that was due to his station and not his personal desire for opulence. Not, of course, that he spurned what he was raised into. Had he remained in the Matthias household he may not have had his own private room, as there were many children in his sire's family and never enough room for any of them, but he would have enjoyed a degree of comfort not far below what he had in Metamor Keep. Here he was given four whole rooms and foyer for his body servants; a seating room to entertain his guests more privately, his bedchamber replete with canopy bed, a reading room with never less than two windows despite the Keep's changing nature, and a private room for his meditations. Suria enjoyed a room for her rather considerable collection of finery where Charlie's raiment was confined to a single, if large, wardrobe in his bedchamber. The seating room was the largest of the three, but not so large it would become uncomfortably cold in Metamor's often brutally icy winters. The foyer featured doors to both sitting room and bedchambers, and a pair of cots on which reclined his body servants would both take their sleep and await his needs. He had brought one on the hunt with Bryn, but he remained with their vast train still navigating the streets of Euper and Keeptowne. The other had been given the day off with his family and so Charlie enjoyed the strange privacy of an empty foyer and the unusual experience of tending to his own needs. He shrugged out of his vest and hung it from a rack beside the door. His garments would be retrieved by the other household staff for laundering while he was out. Only the crescent moon medallion remained against the soft, brown fur of his chest. He ran one finger down its smooth edge and narrowed his eyes, gazing into one of the shadows as if expecting to find something there – a cat perhaps. Charlie shook his head and ground his molars. He stepped to his bedside and opened the top drawer in the ornate night stand. For many things he wanted, it was best to send a servant to the market to procure it. But when it came to chewsticks Charlie always went himself. Only a fellow rat could even understand the importance of proper grain, texture, and flavor that went into a proper chewstick. He picked three up in his paws, sniffed them, and settled on the cinnamon-flavored stick to gnaw for half a minute. His jaws worked up and down, his teeth grinding away at the hard surface, breaking little bits free, but none so large as to give him a splinter. The flavor tantalized his tongue and made his nostrils swell with heady excitement. Satisfied, he returned the slightly gnawed stick to the drawer and wiped the little shavings from his chest fur and riding breeches where they were lost in the fresh rushes spread upon the floor. He entered his reading room and walked over to the small bookcase where he kept the tomes for his study as well as the journals that he kept at his father's request. Gingerly he took the wildflowers from his pouch and softly pressed them between the pages. The delicate scents of each soothed his nose and he smiled at the memory of the meadow and pine trees, and the hart grazing unawares. His smile widened as he recalled the twang of the bows, the whistling of their arrows, and the whump of the stag as it collapsed against the forest floor. Every hunt was unique with its own delights and disappointments, but this one was one he knew he would never forget. Charlie slipped the journal back into the bookshelf and then paused, his clawed fingers tracing the binding of the journal thoughtfully. There was very little that he did not write down in his journals and that again had been at his father's request. And that made him wonder just what he might find in his father's journals, especially about him and about his sire Baron Matthias. Charlie took a deep breath and let his paws fall to his side. Later. He had no time to investigate now. His duty was to bathe and then make himself presentable for a feast at the Duke's table. Tomorrow there would be time in between his studies and lessons. His course set, Charlie prepared for his bath. He was home and it was time to clean the forest off. Taking a robe and his personal grooming supplies from the wardrobe, Charlies walked past the silk curtained edifice that was his bed to a door at the back of the room. Through it was the bath where he found his younger brothers, who retained the Matthias family name, that had been attached to the ducal residence as pages so that they might learn their place in noble society. They were lounging beside a large wooden tub that they had finished filling with steaming water when Charlie entered and doffed his robe to a peg by the door. “Hello Tim, Pete.” Charlie smiled warmly to the younger boys. They both beamed at him and fairly bounced upon their paws in excitement to learn more of the family that they would be spending the season away from. “Charles and Kimberly send their best regards and that they miss you both.” Mounting the stone blocks serving as a stair to the top of the deep tub Charlie sank into the heated water with a delighted groan of relaxed pleasure. While his brothers offered up soap and a long brush to scrub his back Charlie relayed the stories, and gossip, that he had learned while visiting the Matthias homestead. ---------- May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love, Charles Matthias </body> </html>