FOOLS & SAGES I FLYNN CARSEN

Conversations

Conversations

Cliches find a home inside of him

When he enters all of the lights go dim

He's so sure he's got a tragic lifestyle...

He turned it over between his hands, hands that were soft and manicured, the hands of a man who wielded words as weapons, above delivering a blow with a mere blade. "It is a thing of beauty is it not?" he said to his companion, his gaze riveted on what would deliver the dominion he dreamed of.

His companion shook back her greying dark hair, before drawing her silken dressing gown tighter around her, hiding her displeasure at not being the centre of his attention. "What it is capable of far outweighs the merits of its craftsmanship," she said quietly, glancing out at the glittering landscape, a city that so many sought to conquer.

"You know, you don't always need to be so relentlessly practical, darling," he said with a heavy sigh, reluctantly setting it down, taking one last lingering look at it before finally facing his companion.

"One of us has to be."

"Lately though, your practicality hasn't exactly served you well, has it? First the Guinevere debacle, and then that nasty scene with Dulaque over that hideous debt" -

- "I gave everything to the Cause – even my own child. It was that fool of a husband of mine that destroyed everything, not me."

"The love a parent has for a child can be a very powerful thing."

"It didn't save him from death, did it?"

Silence span out between them, hanging heavy in the air, turning the atmosphere tense.

"What of your daughter?" he then asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed, his hand smoothing down the counterpane. "Is she still unable to remember anything of the ritual?"

"She's almost amnesiac. All she can recall is her father dying in front of her, then complete darkness. It is probably for the best though. I have no desire to explain the impossible to an imbecile. She spends all her time with her head stuck in a book, but for all that, she is remarkably dull-witted."

"She doesn't recall your part in his demise?"

"No, she doesn't. I suppose we should be grateful for her selective memory. All she does now is mope around, whining for her father to come back. She's seventeen for crying out loud, not seven. I really think it was a mistake to leave her behind in London to superintend the house move. But then again, we're only moving from squat to another."

"If you're dropping hints for me to put my hand in my pocket, I can't, darling, they're absolutely tied."

"But surely your connection to Dulaque" -

- "He's my best backer – I'm hardly going to bite the hand that feeds me, am I? After all, you tried that trick, and look where it led you."

"You have no idea, sweet one. Dulaque has completely demeaned us. He took the house and everything in it, even that portrait my stupid husband commissioned of me. He barely left us with the clothes on our backs!"

"Well, maybe you shouldn't borrow money from medieval men, darling."

"I know that now, believe me."

"Does Dulaque know of your daughter?"

"He's never met her, and he's never going to, so you can stop dropping hints of taking her round to Chamberlain House and hurling her at his head."

"Maybe if you'd told him about the Cause" -

- "Dulaque is the Cause's greatest enemy. Her blood is on his hands. If he knew..."

"You might be pleasantly surprised, darling. I think Dulaque would give a great deal to have his lady-love back. Absence makes the heart fonder and all that."

"He can't and mustn't know."

"Maybe he should know that his lost love slumbers inside your daughter, that she's just waiting to be awoken by true love's kiss" -

- "Don't be a fool" -

- "Well, at least that part of the ritual worked, didn't it?" -

- "That part of the ritual may have worked, but it's all the more reason for Dulaque not to know, for there may be a chance in the future to rectify what went so wrong. We just have to bide our time" -

- "But what if a little bird whispered in Dulaque's ear that his queen was so close yet so far? It may yet prove a profitable enterprise" -

- "The little bird only seems to think of gilding his own nest. Does Dulaque know you've acquired that rather interesting artefact? That you paid his own people to go behind his back"-

- "Perhaps it's best Dulaque doesn't know of your daughter after all," he said hastily, rising to his feet, before reaching over for his shirt. "We should just let Guinevere rest in peace."

"For the time being," his companion said coldly, hiding her triumph, her lover trusting her with too much, much to his own mistake.

"When are you returning to London anyways?" he said, swiftly changing the subject, making his companion raise a dark brow.

"Why so eager to be rid of me, sweet one?"

"That is the last thing I want, darling."

"Good, because I was toying with the idea of making a permanent move to these shores. America is the land of the free, is it not?"