Medhel an Gwyns

by phantomwriter05

PRELUDE - On her last visit to Downton Abbey, Martha Levinson broods over her many disappointments with her "soft" and "Ingrate" children and descendants. But suddenly she finds herself party to the bold robbing of the eldest daughter of an Earl and the intrigues of a mysterious young adventurer in search of a reincarnating princess. Prequel to "The Creggan White Hare" COMPLETE

1. Chapter 1

So, this was supposed to be a "cold opening" to something else I was working, but it got way too long and took a life of its own. So, I finished it up and decided, rather than scrap it, to split it up and post it as a two-shot rather than post the 30K word behemoth in one go.

To new readers, It is not required of you to read anything beforehand, the story will address somethings. But if you are a longtime reader consider this a Prequel 2.0 to the story series. The first epic meeting, if you will, which shapes the whole destiny of the Crawley family.

If you see () centered on the page, it's just an optional music companion to enrich the story. Totally optional.

So, without further ado, this one is for all the readers who think I can only write life ruining angst.

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Medhel an Gwyns

Part I

In the grey of the afternoon it wasn't hard to imagine the absolute feeling that there was an abject failure of pure genetics. The red room, with numerous rows of dusty books that held a sum collection of the most useless of knowledge, seemed to be a parable for the entire frivolous exercise in its entirety. It was a bitter realization that most wisdom does not come to someone till much later in life, when all their mistakes are held in retrospect. Fore, perhaps, the largest she had ever made was that she put pride before practicality. And now it seemed a waste, all of it, the lessons, the tutors, the way of raising the loveliest and most beautiful of dummies that there had ever been like a princess. It only occurred to her now, in the evening tide of life that perhaps it was all a waste.

That Martha Levinson's entire legacy was simply a waste.

She didn't voice these dreary thoughts, because, well, Cora seemed happy enough. Though, since her dummy married that idiot, she rather always seemed happy. The old woman felt like a bad mother, because, she was sure most mothers would've been happy that their daughter was happy, yet, Martha couldn't help but feel sometimes like strangling Cora … nobody is that happy all the time. But then maybe that was her fault on both accounts. It came from years of teaching her little girl never to give into temper, to never let 'them' see you sweat. She was always pleasant, lovely in sight, and amenable. But then she was always that way now, even to her, and that bothered Martha most. She was the woman's mother for Christ's sake, and yet she revealed nothing to her, not even her own mind. She treated her much the stranger, like she was some spy for an invading force trying to figure out their weaknesses. The awful truth that frustrated Martha so much was that after fifty years, she didn't know Cora anymore. She could blame the distance, the years of not seeing each other after the girls became grown. But in truth, she blamed this place, these people … and herself.

All those long years ago she had to have a title and cornet for her prize beauty. Nowhere, in any part of New York Society, was there a more beautiful girl than her Cora. And maybe it was Martha's goddamn Vicksburg Barksdale blood in her, the need to be the talk of the whole damn state with her prized calf, that made her so damn competitive. In all, she wanted the prized beauty, the aristocratic title, and the social points for it, because Martha Levinson was a winner. She was the queen of all she surveyed wherever she went in life, and she would never settle for second best. But damnit if Cora wasn't in love, and goddamn it if that Van Houten witch wasn't spreading rumors about her girl's immaturity. She wished to God that she had found a way to break Cora's unnatural fascination and habit of playing with toys. Had Martha not been so short tempered, had her husband not been so wrapped around Cora's little finger, she could've told her no. She could've told her spoiled, sweet, beautiful dummy not Robert Crawley, not the House of Grantham, and never Downton Abbey. But the rumors, Cora's endless temper tantrums, and those goddamn dollies.

It was out of her hands by the time it got to them.

But perhaps it was simply that she should've said no to the whole venture all together, of chasing titles in England. Not when there were hundreds of boys in their own country over which would've been better suited. She didn't dislike Robert. He was an idiot, he was fancy, and as over sophisticated as the instructions to cheap furniture. But he loved her little girl, still does, and she suspected always will. Robert and Cora were devoted to each other and she couldn't grudge Twiddle-Dumb and Twiddle-Dumber for it. After all, her Cora would always be a woman to die for. But in the end, their great and enduring love didn't just define them together, but so many others … including Martha's legacy.

It was clear now, since Harold fell off that cliff as a boy, that she wasn't going to get any Levinson heirs. Her boy had his good times, his parities, and it wouldn't stop, fore no woman, however keen, would want to stay with a man who was sterilized by childhood injury. So, it was here, at Downton Abbey, that Martha Levinson sat and wore her disappointment, self-deprecation with sarcasm, and prodding to all who engaged her.

The truth was simply that Martha Levinson loved her descendants, but the word "detests" seemed only slightly stronger than how she would describe her opinion of them all.

The Crawley girls were ingrates. She couldn't find any other way to describe her granddaughters. Both Mary and Edith walked around this place with airs that was all Cora. Yet, their pride and dignity were so completely unearned. Her Mary was perfect in body and face, her manners rivaled a queen, and she acted like a princess. But why she thought she could act such a way, Martha couldn't figure. From what she understood, and voiced constantly, was that all Mary has had been stolen from a dead man and his young son. To be honest, Martha had never had a more fun night in years then accusing Mary of this at dinner, in front of everyone. Her poor baby always looked a vampire her entire life, unable to get any color in her cheeks. But lord only knew how much a cherry she looked when told that she had stolen her position from a small child. Robert was howling, Mary was rancorous, and Cora could hardly keep the peace.

"Matthew willed the Estate TO ME! ME, GRANDMAMMA, NOT 'HIM'!" Mary was in a fervor in her outrage, her voice raised as she slammed her pudding spoon on the table uncharacteristically with an impressive shake.

Martha knew that it was a sore subject, fore half the county, more over, the ones that didn't have a peerage, often accused Mary of stealing from a young boy. She had been told, right to her face, in recent years that her position was short lived. That she would not rule the county for long. And she hated it, they all did at Downton. The accusation hung ever over Mary's head wherever she went amongst the common people. It was untrue, Matthew Crawley did will his one true love all his possessions, but Crawley House, to which he left to their son. But in the aftermath of the death of Mary and Henry's baby daughter, and the exiling of the young master from Downton Abbey to Crawley House in retribution, someone, possibly from the house itself, started the rumor that Matthew Crawley's last Will and Testament was a fake. The county, even now, whispered bitterly that it was all a forgery by an envious and wicked mama who felt jilted. Martha didn't know who to believe, but she did enjoy spitting in 'Queen' Mary's beans when she got too uppity.

Cora had taken her aside and laid deeply into her in private, and there she learned of the very tentative peace that her girl was trying to maintain in keeping her family together. It seemed that even in her own house, there was concerns that Violet, Carson, or even Mr. Murray, the lawyer, had forged the document. Furthermore, Cora wanted to keep that same young boy, 'HER' baby boy, out of it all. He had enough of burdening their family's weak moment of awfulness for one lifetime and she did not want to foster a foundation for a future war within the family, nor give Mary a reason to go after their heir any more than she had already. But to Martha, it was already too late. Lady Mary Josephine Crawley, Manager and Crown Princess of Grantham County, at the zenith of her power, already slept with one eye open. She knew, in the dead of night, that a solitary young rebel lived on the periphery of her kingdom and mind. And she always believed him to be bidding time before he comes to take everything from her. Then, and only when she had nothing left, would he find his terribly justified revenge against a cold and hateful mama that he had more than earned, even in her own shattered and blackened heart.

Meanwhile, on the other hand, Martha loathed being around Edith for the complete opposite reasons to her sister. Edith had more governmental and societal power than Mary could ever dream of abusing and using to walk around high and mighty. But her other baby didn't use it. To all those bastard intellectuals in bumfuck Russia who claim that God is dead. She could only give proof that he isn't, and in fact, has a sense of humor. Fore it was only by divine comedy that anyone would give Lady Edith Crawley any modicum of power, much less making her a Marchioness, Lady of Government position, and a Literary tycoon. And it tickled her in irony and prescribed pride for one who was dear to her, despite her flaws. But more so she was disappointed now that this grown woman was still flickered and twisting as a teenager at the prospect of losing her virginity. She still acted unsure, wishy-washy, and still held the position of her mama's favorite screw up, despite her ultimate power.

She still watched as Mary continued to step all over her. She still took her sister's insults, she still allowed Cora to make plans for her, and she still asked Robert for his permission. Even her husband, Bertie Pelham, a solid man, as solid as Robert had been when the girls were young, remained nothing special. They seemed like a very happy, very loving, beige wall ornament that is commented on in tours and never noticed again. They loved one another, which was great and all, but they looked rather like the poster couple in the pages of an offensive parody to an idiot's guide to England. They were full of receding hairline, big inbred nose, and panic at the first whiff of a foreigner. Yet, at least in Edith's case, both were attractive enough to warm your bed for a few nights, if only because they try so very hard to please when given even the tiniest of attention. But to Martha Levinson that was, by far, nowhere near good enough. Edith was a Marchioness, a multi-millionaire, and gorgeous in a, albeit, unconventional way, goddamn it! She should expect someone with that type of power to slap her provincial princess of a sister across the face with her checkbook and show off her name with her titles which should be embroidered on her panties. But instead, she only ever looks with commiseration to her batman of a husband and pokes at her food in disappointment.

In the end, it wasn't the lack of success of her progeny, fore they all were quite the talk of the town. Harold ran their business to skyrocketing profit. Cora was the Countess of Grantham. Mary was a business magnet, motor heiress, and famous model. Edith was the Marchioness of Hexham, had lived in an actual castle, and was one of the most successful authors of her generation. Even their little girls, Sybbie and Marigold, were the most stunning, loveable, and gorgeous young things she had ever seen. And of Marigold, in particular, did she almost cherish as a homeless serf holds a bar of gold. They were beautiful, happy, and loved, and their great-grandmother knew that they themselves would be successful beyond measure, if nothing, then with the help of their incredible looks alone. But still that did not hearten Martha. To be blunt of her assessment and disappointment of her family, it came down to a factor that one would think incredibly absurd given the circumstances …

And it was simply that Martha Levinson's children, granddaughters, and great-grandchildren, had no real guts.

Most people would have misunderstood her intentions, and she guess they'd be right to. The whole goal of parenthood was to make sure that their children had a better life. And she was sure that they all had it in spades, thinking that it would be hard to top the ease of childhood that Mary and Edith had. Though, it seemed that her precious little angels, Sybbie and Marigold, would look back at the magic of this place long afterward. But still, when she thought of her own life, of her husband's life. Watching her mother's family home burned down in Vicksburg, her sisters and cousins eating rats and living in caves in the side of hills to escape Yankee artillery during the siege. The Yankee's freeing their slaves when New Orleans fell, making the women folk fend for themselves, a house filled with traumatized Southern Belles from one occupation to another. She thought of her husband, some Jewish boy from Sleepy Hollow, New York in the wrong place at the wrong time during Manassas. A man that somehow ended up riding with JEB Stuart and Fitz Lee till the end of the war. A man who met and loved the eldest daughter of a colonel whose remains he rode all the way down from the Five Forks in Virginia to a New Orleans plantation so he could be buried by his squabbling family who hated him. These girls, which their love had a hand in creating, knew of loss, knew of heartbreak. But they knew nothing of real hardship, of living on scraps while your sisters scream and cry uncontrollably at any loud noise, thinking it was Yankee gunboats come to finish them.

No one, not their children, not their grandchildren, nor their great-grandchildren knew of that kind of hardship. And it wasn't that she wished it upon them. God only knows she would go through the long and bloody 'Last Full Measure' of the doomed 'Glorious Cause' again just to keep those beautiful girls from harm. But she began to realize, in her dimming years, that history was cyclical and not a straight line. She knew something truly awful was just on the horizon, which might change the fortunes of them all. Whether it was war or something even less predictable. And she knew that they, her children, all of them, didn't seem incredibly strong were it would count.

They sat atop their shining hills looking down at their kingdoms which they thought would last ten thousand years. But Martha knew that it wouldn't, that all things come to an end, and sometimes as quickly as they came. It seemed that there was no grit, no strength in her family. In just two generations they were as soft and uncompromising as their bleeder contemporaries, sharing their same prejudices and goals. They never really had to fight for survival, instead, only polished their laurels and built their thrones a little higher. She didn't expect anything different from the great-grandchildren.

This famous heir who she never met, whose shadow Mary flinches at, that Cora and Edith leave twice a day at different times to visit and dine with at Crawley House, she had little hope for. Martha didn't hear anything that impressed her. Yet, even with all the loyalty of the people of the county, he seemed to her to be a morose and weak child that was still attached at Cora's tit, and used Edith's surprisingly shapely ass as a snuggle pillow as he hid behind her fashionable silk skirts. As for Sybbie, the lovely girl was every bit the priss that Mary was and is, maybe even worse than her 'mama'. She was as beautiful as a fairy princess, even for one so young. But she also acted like a princess, was treated as a princess, and was in fact as spoiled and unkind as one as well. Though she was not rude to her family, sweet as a little June Bug. But to the other children and guests, she expected to be worshiped and loved. And worse of all … they did as she commanded. Then, when it came to Marigold, she wished to take her home and cuddle her. The loveliness of this elven creature was stupefying, and she was the soul of kindness and courtesy. But she also had the failings of her secret mama, the same quiet anxiety, the same allowing of less beautiful, yet much meaner, aristocratic girls insult and bully her. If this unseen and mysterious heir hid behind Edith, then poor Marigold buried her ribbon and golden head in Bertie's chest, or clutched Sybbie's hand and hoped not to be noticed by anyone, however impossible it may have been. The Ballerina had no fight in her, no strong will, she wished only to dance and love those whom she held in her heart.

With a sigh, listening to the gossip of people and places she didn't care about, Martha Levinson came to the realization that perhaps this was the goal of a dynasty. One had only to build it, see it flourish like a farmer that tends to his crop. But the key was to only see the planting through, see the stalks grow, know they'd be good for harvest time, and then leave. Perhaps, after seeing three generations come and go in her lifetime, from back to front, she was the problem. A part of her wondered if she shouldn't just get it all over with, and let the thing play out as it will. But still she clung onto life, fore there was a shadow of threat in her mind that she couldn't escape.

It was long, long, long, years ago. A foggy street at the heart of New Orleans. One-minute Cora had been there, following, holding Annie's hand as they went down "Layfette Street" to get some luncheon. She had not liked the weather, fore when they departed the carriage, it had been sunny and bright. But once they arrived in the French Quarter a deep and unnatural fog had rushed up from the river front by the Graveyard. Martha wasn't a superstitious woman, but there were certain realities that one was forced to acknowledge when born and raised in New Orleans. She could remember seeing it in every person's face as they quickly rushed for shelter, not saying a word of the anxiety in their eyes. "It done a comin …" some of the negroes would shout. "It'a comin, miss!" they'd say in warning. To what they were talking about, she couldn't say, and neither could they. It was a feeling, a certainty, that they all felt. For good or ill, someone had done something, and now it was coming to collect, to reap, or to watch. It had no name, no purpose, and no singular designation, only that something was risen from the crypts, from the river, or from the soul of the City of the Dead itself … and it was coming.

Then, when she turned back, Cora was gone.

BANG!

The whole of the Downton Library was startled with a shake when the door was kicked open rudely. Martha nearly spilt her whisky when she gripped the arm rest of the plush red sofa. Quickly, the old woman craned her head backward to see what was going on. On the surface it was odd, under the surface … it was just plain bazar. The solitary woman's private brooding and disappointment in the seclusion of the small library, during a large house party, was interrupted by the oddest thing.

It was a boy of twelve or thirteen. He had chestnut hair that was cut and combed in a bowl that framed a wide pale face of freckles. He was stout, beginning to fill out into young manhood. He wore a blazer with the crest of a rather elite looking private school. Underneath, he wore a woolen sweater vest with matching school colors. His shorts were navy blue and his shoes brown. To Martha he looked quite like any other 'chap' that went to one of those peerage 'staging' schools of Eton or Harrow. Pasty, freckled, effete, his parents were probably cousins of some sort. He grew up with a nanny, parents like the idea of him, but find it tedious to do anything with him. From the look of him, she figured that this one was a bit of a troublemaker, part of a group of titled little assholes who talk like gentlemen and are very haughty to the staff of any establishment they go to. Though, to be fair, that was also her granddaughters in a nutshell. But it wasn't so much the posh boy that had caught her attention …

As it was that he had a black eye, bloody nostrils, and was bound at the mouth and the hands by ladies' nylons.

"Get in there!"

The boy let out a muffled noise of pain as someone out of view put a foot into his backside with a stab. With a stumble, the tween shuffled inside the library, muffling something against the nylons that sounded like threats. But it was soon replaced by a high pitched and girlish shriek into a gag as he was whopped on the head by a book. He quickly shuffled faster. The strange sight left the woman speechless and bemused as she pivoted on the sofa to watch the scene in front of her. A large smile touched the woman's lip in sheer entertainment as she caught sight of the tweeny's captor as he stalked in the room behind his prisoner.

("Blue Bonnets Over the Border" - Alasdair Fraser & Jody Stecher)

"See what happens next time you talk that crazy stuff! Cause, I guarantee you, I'll whack you so hard you'll be forgetting your ABCs, Precious!"

He kept the young lordling moving with the tip of a shoe, shaking a thick tome with one hand threateningly as he closed the door behind them. This supposed hunter of preening future gentry was a boy four to five years younger than his captive. He was a nine, maybe ten-years-old, with perfectly tussled blackening blonde curls that were grown out just a tad bit more than most young boy's parents would allow. To Martha he looked almost the child of a farmer, or a fisherman. But there was something different about him than the local color. His clothing was common enough, a double-breasted suede jacket with the collar done up in the back, navy Henley shirt, black trousers, and brown old leather shoes.

But there were odd little things about the young boy that stood out. He was tanner in color than … really anyone. He had the look of someone who had been abroad recently, somewhere tropical or desert like for a good while. Though something told the woman that it had nothing to do with going on vacation. There was also a different way that he carried himself, very disciplined, very matter of fact. But it was more than just his baring. His dress and cloth did not look store bought, but, instead, was woven from material that did not look like any vegetation grown anywhere on earth. His shirt and trousers looked comfortable with a tough but luxuriously soft cotton like textile. But as he walked it seemed to almost camouflage, the material dimming based on the shadows or light that the boy stepped in, making him sometimes almost disappear in dark places. There was also a strange symbol of some sort of rune stitched onto the top of the arm of his jacket. It seemed a marking or hieroglyph of ancient meaning that was significant to the wearer. While around his neck, on a fine chain, there hung what looked like a fob watch of bright silver peeking out from the open buttons of his colorless long sleeve. It seemed an odd place to wear a time piece, but she saw that upon the cover were markings of concentric circles and lines running through them. Martha Levinson knew nothing of "The Master's Wheel", an obscure order and discipline of sword fighting known by very few. But from it she gleaned that perhaps this thing was an important talisman or trinket of some sort whose appearance was greatly deceptive.

But it went beyond just his dress or his physicality. What struck Martha was his presence in the room. With just one look of this young boy it did not surprise her that he had beaten this 'best boy' from Eton in a knockdown drag out. He bore very familiar cerulean eyes that were sharp and sorrow hardened. They said that something terrible had happened to him too early in life to be made sense of. There was a toughness in him that broadcasted a purpose to all he did or set his sights to. Whatever called him forth, whatever he found himself in, this boy would never fail again as he must have in his own short living memory. Whoever this was, he had seen some troubles, and learned from them by that hieroglyph on his arm and the "Master's Wheel" about his neck. In that moment Martha Levinson was convinced, whoever the kid was …

He wasn't any goddamn aristocrat.

"Sit!"

The boy didn't speak with a traditional English accent. Martha could still hear a bit of polish to his words, but he was losing it quickly to something quite homelike to the American woman. It seemed to her that whoever the kid was hanging around with these days, they were not British. She watched him kick a chair forward in front of the long table by the glass doors that led to the patio and garden path. The tied-up Eton tween snarled something at the youth that sounded somewhat defiant. But the younger quickly, aggressively, hammered his book onto the table with a loud and frightening thwomp that startled the older boy into the chair.

"Don't move!"

"Agumff!"

Martha chuckled soundlessly at the comedic sound of the back of the youth's bowl cut head being smacked by the open palmed hand in disgust. She watched as the smaller of the two produced, what the old woman found hard to believe, a young girl's jumping rope. It was coiled like a lasso under the boy's suede jacket as he removed it. She watched with interest while the kid began to tie the Eton youth to the chair with a frightening expertise, making nautical knots every other pair of loops.

"Having some trouble with the dogies out there, Cowboy?" Martha sipped her whiskey as she watched.

The boy looked up in surprise at the old woman's sudden appearance. It seemed that he didn't think that anyone was in the room. To be fair to the kid, the door was closed in the middle of a weekend house party. To most guests that was the unspoken language of being told not to go inside. But since Martha's money had kept this place afloat for forty years, she guessed that the rules were for other people. He frowned at the woman in puzzlement.

She seemed surprised that he would give her such a look of searching recognition. If he wasn't Anna or Baxter's kid, then he must at least be some other servants. But one way or the other, she couldn't understand why he thought he might try and place her, unless Cora let servant's children run around the place during every house party filled with their "betters". But Martha figured that the kid was either thrown by the American accent, something rare in Downton, beyond Cora and himself. Or it might have been that Martha's hair was dyed such a florescent red that it was distracting. But after a moment, misliking the old woman's tone, he turned back to what he was doing.

"Nothing I couldn't handle …" There was an assurance of one's self in the boy's reply which was dismissive. Martha wasn't sure if she should've been insulted. It seemed that the kid thought of her as just another kind of snob, or worse, an ingrate like everyone else. Though, it did amuse the woman to be met with the same kind of prejudgment that she was looking the kid over with.

"Oh, an expert, are we?" She snipped with a tone of sarcasm.

The kid looked up with a glare. "I've fought my share." He finished tying the older boy up.

The old woman only responded with a hint of condescension in her eyebrow raise. "Really …?" She swallowed her drink. "How'd that go?" She asked with a raised arm in mocking submission.

There was a dark look in his familiar eyes. "I'm still here …" There was something short and cryptic in his voice that carried a hostility that was growing. She watched him crack open the book in his hand, the pages crinkling and stiff as he flipped them.

"Yes, yes … so you are." She toasted him, sipping her drink. "Mmm …" She gave a hard swallow before she continued with a hand on her diaphragm to help it go down. "So, what's your weight class?" She added, swirling her drink.

At this point she found a fondness in his distraction as he paced absently to the center of the library. "What?" He asked distantly. It seemed that the kid was becoming incredibly annoyed, clearly, he was in the middle of something that she was interrupting. He closed the book, and then unslung a fine leather pack with a silver clasp in design of a four-pointed star from his back. It jangled as he shrugged it off and set in on the rug, kneeling to slide the book back inside and look for another.

"Your weight class, Cowboy, who are these famous foes you make a habit of tilting with?" She asked lazily, now interested in what exactly he was doing.

The young kid only shrugged distractedly. "Muslims, morons …" He began listing off, motioning to the tied-up youth who made a growl in offense. But then he looked up in a glare at Martha. "And mouthy old ladies." He finished threateningly before going back to what he was doing.

Immediately the woman knew that the kid, whoever he was, had bad experiences with old dowagers. And, sarcastically, she thought how she couldn't have imagined who that might have been in this house. But it seemed that he put up with Violet's nonsense about as well as she did, and Martha bet those must have been interesting conversations if the kid was already standoffish with her, and they just met. Yet, while threatened, faced with impotence from basically a goddamn toddler in her old age, she could help but like the kid's style.

"Hah, hat's off, Cowboy …" She toasted the gab.

The kid looked up again in puzzlement at the old woman's surprise accolade. He knew the kind of usual outrages and tantrums that had come from the Dowager and Lady Bagshaw when 'shark punched' in their vein attempts to voice their snide disapproval of his very existence it seemed. But he was taken aback by someone of the upper classes who found his sharper wit amusing, rather than fainting in the offense of being spoken to in his patented harsh and insulting manner. Who knew that so many women of low achievement expected to be given respect, because, they stepped over the minimal bar of marrying one's cousin and not dying before the age of thirty? He tried to puzzle out who this stranger might have been, when he was distracted.

Suddenly, the door to the library opened in a rush of exasperated aggression. There, through the doorway, a steely eyed blonde woman stalked into the room from the noise of a crowded great hall of aristocratic guests. She was older, though nowhere near middle-age. She was quite the pretty thing, in the working-class sense. The woman wore black blouse and skirt of silk with matching stockings and shoes. Petite and slender she might have been, but there was power behind her stride and maternal scorn in her grey eyes.

Anna Bates only paused in a moment of shock to see the Eton chap with black eye, and dried blood clogging up a nostril. But after her initial shock she only sighed at the captive's bindings of a jump rope and women's nylons. She quickly went to the door where a collection of titled older women stared in fear and alarm over their tea nearby. They were murmuring to themselves in outrage already of the parade the 'rogue' made of escorting his captive roughly in front of everyone. By now the entire Crawley family had been informed of the incident. Quickly, with an awkward smile, the lady's maid shut the door and stalked back through the library.

"What's this?!" She asked pointing to the roughed-up Eton prefect tied to Tom Branson's favorite chair.

"A gentleman's agreement." The boy responded without looking up, his voice sarcastic.

"What kind of gentleman's agreement involves a black eye and bloody nose?" She asked in outrage.

"The kind where a venal prick agrees to act like a gentleman in order to halt the beating." The kid quipped.

"I wouldn't call that much of an agreement." She glared.

"They were aggressive negotiations, but in the end, we both got what we wanted out of the deal."

"You got to beat him up, and he got you to stop?"

"Hey, he was the one who said that as a "gentleman", he had a right of ransom." The youth pointed out.

"And you were more than happy to oblige?" Anna tilted her head angrily.

"When in Rome …" The kid said distractedly still digging through his leather pack.

There was a calming breath centered in her belly as she ran taut open palms down her silk lady's maid skirt as she made her way around the couch. The boy hardly looked up as the woman loomed over him. It looked like Mrs. Bates might strangle the life out of the kid, putting the family in this humiliating position in front of everyone outside this room, but she only let out a deep breath. The woman glared, turning to remain calm by looking at something else.

"Oh!" She startled when she saw Martha. "Ma'am … I didn't see you there." Anna gave a quick curtsey, unsure what the formal protocol was for the untitled but ludicrously rich grandmother of her longtime mistress.

Martha waved her off. "Oh, don't mind me, I'm just enjoying this strange Chinese Opera." She leaned back into the cushions.

"You like Chinese Opera?" The kid found her appraisal of the situation dubious with an unconvinced look her way.

"Nah, never had the taste for it."

"Masks?"

"The make-up …"

"Why? Like looking in the mirror?"

"Hey, when you get to be my age, Cowboy, there ain't no lipstick in the world that's gonna fix what life smears on you. And if you buy something from a man who says it can, you might as well have just gotten mugged for the trouble."

"Then what's your excuse?"

"Hides the Children's blood I use to cleanse the pours. It ain't gonna make me any prettier but I'll live damn sight longer than you're about to."

"Yeah, well … I guess they do that sort of thing in Hell."

"Speaking of finite life spans and Hell. After I sent you back there, Cowboy, you should go look up my mother-in-law for an example. Nothing like looking like a cheap whore to complete the aesthetic of a long, drawn out, and needlessly theatrical mess that was that woman's endless years of tormenting everyone."

"Yeah? Is she interesting, or, you know … more like you?"

"Damn if I know. The woman was like the goddamn Chinese Opera. It was a lot of make-up, drama, and little men shouting in a foreign language … and you always get lost by the second act."

"Feels like this conversation."

"True. Come to think of it, you're about the size of a Chinaman and about as intelligible."

"Perfect, cause you're about the size of the stage …"

Anna watched the back and forth with a glare before cutting in with a clear of her throat when things sounded 'sharp'. "Yes, it's all very tragic, madam." She tried not to lose her temper, frowning privately. It all came from having years of experience of knowing that at no point in Mrs. Bates entire career had Martha Levinson helped any situation go anywhere but downhill. For the staff downstairs at Downton Abbey, the old woman was like a goddess of chaos.

She turned back. "Lady Mary doesn't negotiate with terrorists." She put her hands on her hips in an exclusively maternal way that was directed at the young kid.

"Well, she can have it her own way, I guess. But unless she intends to send in the army, it's gonna cost her sixty pounds, in sterling." There was no budging in the audacity of the young fighter at the lady's maid's feet.

Martha let out a snort. "Sixty Pounds in sterling?" She let out a hoot. "Who do think Prince Valiant over there is, Cowboy, the Earl of Warren?" She chuckled. Both the kid and Anna turned to Martha and answered in unison.

"He is …"

"I-ACH UMM!" the youth squealed his conformation through his gag.

A look of off guardedness erupted over the old woman's face. She whirled around to the kid's captive and then back to the two. She finished her drink with a knock back, pointing at the prisoner as she swallowed whole. Both the boy and Anna nodded in unison to reconfirm the information. "Oh …" She blew out in interest, getting a good look at the figure in a new light. "He seems pretty young." She spied.

"The former Earl was killed at Jutland during the war." Anna responded.

For a moment Martha seemed almost sympathetic. But then she turned back to the Kid. "Sixty?" She blew out in offense. "If you ask me, I wouldn't get out of bed for at least eighty-five, Cowboy." She advised shrewdly. To this the younger looked up from his book with a thoughtful expression at the advice. It was in this moment that no one had ever seen a more conflicted look from Anna Bates that was slowly drawn to Martha Levinson. It was as pleading as it was deadly. But, then, what did she expect, honestly?

There was nothing in this world that couldn't be made worse by Mrs. Levinson.

Anna whirled on the boy kneeling at her feet, digging through things in his pack. "You know how this is going to go. You say eighty-five, Lady Mary says no, you hold him for an hour, and then Lady Grantham comes and claps you both in irons. And where is that gonna get you?" She asked in annoyance, wishing that this ridiculous situation would be resolved already.

"You don't think I'm really gonna stick around for that, do you?"

"Lady Mary isn't going to give you a penny in ransom."

"Well …" the boy chuckled. "Then, I guess she can go without … but then everyone will know, won't they?" there was something scheming, underhanded, and vengeful in his almost teasing voice. "It's no skin off my nose …" He shrugged. "I ask you, Anna, do you know how much people would pay for such fine merchandise in the South Hampton Docklands?" There was something smirking, almost disarming, as he rattled his pack like it was a money pouch.

For a beat Martha looked from the young highwayman to the tied-up Earl of Warren. She found it an incredibly dark prospect that the kid would sell another young boy to the highest bitter to the more 'scoundrel' type of class that lived in the port areas of any city. But on the other hand, watching the way the kid jangled his pack, she began to wonder if there was something more going on to this negotiation. Something told her that the Earl of Warren wasn't the only thing that was being negotiated on.

"I couldn't imagine …" Anna rolled her eyes.

The boy looked one way and then the other, before leaning in to whisper. "I could get ninety pounds." He nodded with a strangely charming look that made the lady's maid so annoyed of the small smirk on her own lips.

"Ninety, really?" She asked trying so hard to not be amused.

"Easily … I tell them who they belonged to, and I know there's a captain of a Perth freighter that would, in-par-ticular, be willing to pay full price for the lot!" He said confidently.

"You're willing to shave off twenty percent of your dockland price, for something Lad Mary can easily just buy new?" The lady's maid asked.

The boy sighed. "I'm not saying I'm not gonna take a loss here, Anna." He shrugged slowly. "But the way I see it, she can rebuy all that stuff, sure. But it's gonna take forever to go and buy completely new and matching sets. And what happens when she's in the department store and people see her buying that stuff? They're gonna ask if she's putting on weight? Or if she's possibly … in a more delicate condition? And before you know it, she gets all the uncomfortable questions and gossip turned her way … and just in time for The Season. I'm gonna be upfront with you, it's simply easier if we do business right here and right now. That way they can get Precious over there back and she can walk around without everyone knowing that … something is missing." He explained, jerking his head back and forth, weighing his hands up and down, commiserating the hassle of his hustle to the senior staff member.

Martha made an interested noise that caught Anna's attention. The old woman lifted an eyebrow in encouragement at the pure look of agony on the lady's maid's face. The American heiress knew that the woman now understood the painful and unescapable truth in the kid's words. It was then that Anna hankered for a simpler time when women of a certain class and status in society were not judgmental and nasty cows, whose sustenance was not gossip and nasty rumors. Yet, with a sigh, she realized that it was a simpler time that actually didn't exist but for her ignorance of her young days. It was painful to know that the boy was right, and it was only going to be more painful to have to explain to Lady Mary just how right he was.

"You're impossible!"

"Indeed."

The kid lurched slightly when the lady's maid lightly shoved a toe into his hip with a frustrated, but still playful, snarl of clenched teeth before she stalked away. When the door closed behind her, the boy's face returned to a deep seriousness as he cracked open a new book. There was a drive, a purpose, to the kid's stalwart appearance as he flipped through crinkling and faded pages of a smaller red soft leather-bound book that was completely worn, having once had golden ivy designs on the front flap. Quietly he read while Martha watched him. The kid once more stood at the center of the library, flipping through pages, mouthing words that he struggled to read.

"What exactly are you doing?" She asked trying to take a sip of an empty drink.

"Looking for something …" He replied without glancing back.

Martha sighed, getting to her feet and shuffling over to the refreshment table with her lipstick stained glass. "In that book?" She asked.

The boy grunted. "It's not a book." He corrected.

The Earl of Warren's gagged pleas was met with a condescending pat on the head as Martha browsed Robert's booze collection in decanters. "Could've fooled me …" She shouted back over her shoulder as she attempted to open the brandy.

"It's a diary …" The boy said distractedly.

"Don't tell me, Edith's?" She asked.

"No …"

"Yeah, I'd guess you're right." She agreed. There was an annoyance of trying to open the brandy with one hand. After a moment of looking around, she settled on the Eton Prefect. "Christ knows it couldn't be Edith's … You're still awake." The youth growled in protest through the nylons as Martha carefully balanced her alcohol glass on the hostage's head.

"It belonged to the Second Earl." He explained.

"Sounds interesting …" Martha's tone was dripping in sarcasm as she sniffed the brandy.

"It's like getting a tooth pulled."

"People get dental work in this country?"

"In theory …"

"Like "The Pangea Theory" or "The Theory of Evolution"?"

"Neither, I suppose, since they haven't been proven …"

"Nether have the existence of Dentists in England."

"I've seen a few …"

"Really? And were they carrying changeling children?"

"Just false teeth."

"Rats, and here I thought I might follow them and find were they took my real granddaughters."

"…"

"Alright, alright … so reading the old wig wearer's memoires is like pulling teeth, eh?"

"The guy is a venial prick who fancies himself a poet.

There was a smirk when she paused. It wasn't the first time the kid had called someone that today. She forgot how kids who hear a new curse word or insult for the first time seem to latch onto it. Harold used to be the same way, till Martha got tired of his subpar use of profanity and decided to take him under her wing to educate him to a higher level of 'enlightenment'.

There was a sudden alarm of wide eyes upon the face of the prefect as he heard the rolling splash of liquid being poured into the glass that was balanced precariously on his head. He looked the sudden and still statue while Martha resigned to pour herself some of Robert's "cheap piss". Taking drink in hand, to the sighing relief of the young Earl, she turned back and saw that the kid was wandering the library. He seemed to be tapping shelves as he frowned into the open diary, trying very hard to decipher the looping and tiny handwritten cursive of an English Lord from the mid-eighteenth century. For a long moment she watched him with interest as his patterns suggested that he was following some sort of directions written into the diary. But after a short time, he muttered something under breath, looking to an ancient bookshelf half blocked by the red cushioned sofa at the right side of the fireplace.

"Gotcha …"

The boy shut the diary and tossed it carelessly onto the sofa. Martha followed laconically as he enthusiastically rushed over to the right armrest. While he squeezed himself between shelf and sofa, Martha picked up the diary and leafed through it. She couldn't make heads or tails of anything, other than what kind of silk gowns his wife wears, if he could buy her more, how gorgeous she was, and how much of a whore she was for wearing them and not loving him. The woman grunted, pondering just how unchanged people of wealth and title in this country remained even after two-hundred years.

Humanity wasted on the humans and all that, she supposed.

"A real charmer, this guy." She clicked her teeth as she sipped 'the piss'.

The boy grunted as he pushed the sofa away from the shelf. "He's just mad, cause his wife loved his brother, and that he couldn't have any children." He panted. Martha watched the boy strain. There was no doubt, the kid might have got it where it counts, but he still had a long way to go.

"Classic tale, if you ask me." Martha flipped through the pages.

"Yeah, well, the eunuch raised his brother's son as his own, the Third Earl." He finally pushed the sofa further away.

"Very nice of him …"

"No, not really … he resented him, exposed him to all sorts of vile things, and cursed his family with a bunch of prejudices that nearly destroyed them over the years … all because he forced a woman to be his wife because she never loved him." The boy sighed, observing his handywork of pushing a sofa all on his own.

"Happens more than you think, Cowboy." Martha grimaced at the iceless aftertaste of British brandy. "Sometimes the thin line between Juliet and Jezebel is if a woman responds to a love letter of some 'Venal Prick'. It's the curse of all beautiful women everywhere."

"Not strictly speaking of yourself …" the boy replied distractedly while observing the foot of the shelves, running a hand over a crevice that shouldn't be there. The glare that came over Martha's face was sharp at the latest of shots taken by the young kid that seemed to have some larger issues with old rich women and matriarchal authority. "Hand me the fire poker will ya, Methuselah?" He asked while knocking on the wooden foundation in different spots.

The old woman slid the heavy iron instrument out of the holder and lifted it above her head to brane the sharped tongued little rogue atop his head. She turned at the last moment to see the tied-up Earl of Warren nodding in frantic encouragement of the impulse. With a pride swallowing sigh of annoyance and a roll of her eyes, she handed the iron instrument into the waiting hand of the highwayman that had his back to the old woman.

"Dayum!" The prefect grumbled into his gag with a disappointed kick into the rug.

THUNCK!

THWACK!

Immediately, the youth took the point of the fire poker and began to jam it into the crevice at the base of the shelf's foundation. Finally chiseling the ancient adhesive, the boy anchored the tool deep into a crack in the craftsmanship. With force, the kid used the point to wedge and heave it loose. With a grunt he began to pry on the two-hundred-year-old addition to the ancient bookshelf. Martha was about to compliment his boldness for not only blackmailing Mary, but for now destroying the Lords of Grantham's private property. But when the panel broke off, she saw that there was another behind it. This one seemed clearly to have been part of the original shelf. There was centuries of dust and cobwebs that covered the ivy carved regal eighteenth century master woodwork. But what she saw that was even more surprising was that at the very edge of the revealed panel was a small greened brass keyhole.

"What's that?" She asked getting closer.

"The truth …" The boy tossed both false panel and poker onto the couch, getting to his knees. "Before the House of Grantham was given the Earldom of the county, they were simply the Viscounts of Downton, and notoriously part of every rebellion against the British Crown since Richard of York raised his banners against Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou. Since then, The House of Grantham had been Yorkists, Cavilers, and Jacobites …" The youth explained as he scooted up on his knees looking his own age in the very charmingly silly enthusiasm of his childlike movements on the rug. She saw him reach into his pocket as he talked.

"Well, when George I gave the House of Grantham the Earldom, there were two brothers, the heir was a Jacobite and a Catholic. The Second son was a Georgian Protestant. They both loved the same woman, a Duke's daughter, but she only had eyes for the rebel. But when he fell at Culloden, she found herself widowed and with child. So, she married the new Second Earl of Grantham. Out of shame and anger at his entire family for writing him off for being sterile and a Hanoverian loyalist, he erased the family's entire history, and taught his "Son" the fashionable prejudices of the day. So, the House of Grantham has carried the curse of such a small, small, foppish asshole's spite." From the boy's jacket she saw, much to her surprise, that he extracted a lock picking kit of old leather.

"Family's a tricky business at the best of times …" Martha commiserated watching the youth open his leather wallet and place one of the instruments in his teeth as he looked for something else. "Hating one's family could lead you down a dark road, make you do stuff you regret later in life, or that your children might." She shook her head remembering the bitter feuds she had with her younger sisters after the war, and how they leeched off her wealth, yet, spited her for it till their dying day.

Interestingly, the small boy stopped when he placed the hook in the old colonial lock. Slowly, he looked up at Martha with a hard but conflicted expression she couldn't place. Of course, she was talking to him, but it seemed that he responded as if she was actually telling him something in advice of a very real problem. With a quick flick, his eyes turned to the diary left strewn and forgotten on the couch. There was a flickered pause of some quiet wonderment, a small but existential fear that, perhaps, he and the hated fop were more alike than he saw or was ready to admit. But as soon as it was there it was gone. And Martha had no idea what it had been all about.

The kid only shrugged in fake ignorance and went to picking the lock at the foot of the ancient shelves.

Sub-par brandy was sliding down her throat when she was startled by the squealing and unpleasant noise of rusted metal sliding in friction against one another. With a lot of effort, the boy, planting a foot from his knee, finally was able to turn the ancient mechanism. There was a heavy clank that rattled the bookshelf violently. The old woman found endearment in her lighthearted interest at the kid whistling in relief, wiping his jacket sleeve over a brow that lacked perspiration. Hooking a finger in the keyhole, the boy slid open the original panel to suddenly get confronted with a rather stale smelling puff of a dust cloud. Martha risked germination using her free hand to cover the booze rather than her nose or mouth. She figured that as long as she kept dust out of her drink the abysmal Crawley alcohol would kill any ancient bacteria she just inhaled. The kid only coughed and waved away the cloud of dust before diving headfirst into the breech.

"Alright, what do we got?"

Martha sipped her drink as the boy began to shovel out stacks of documents, books, and even a few medieval scrolls. She watched in interest as he flipped through some of them before throwing them in a stack on the white dust stained red sofa thoughtlessly. "Patents of nobility for the Court of King James II …" He muttered. "Loan receipt from Paris bank to Charles Edward Stuart, rightful Prince of Britain and Scotland." He tossed the ledger on the pile. "Land Grant for the county from Lady Margret Pole to her grandson Viscount of Downton with signature from Queen Catherine of Aragon." He read off and then tossed it. Martha picked up the land grant that Queen Catherine and Lady Margret Pole had gifted to her youngest daughter's only child, including writing a small doting maternal note to him on the corner of the official document. It seemed that this Lord Grantham was rather close to his maternal grandmother. It seemed a shame that Henry the VIII had her head.

"What is all this?" She asked, gesturing to the piles of leather-bound folders, books, and rolled documents.

The boy was distracted a moment. "Declaration of allegiance to the House of Stuart, 1715 …" the boy read off quietly. Then, hearing her question, he looked up. "The Lard Ass talked a good game, but he didn't have the balls, literally or figuratively, to destroy the House of Grantham's recorded history. So, he hid all the things that tied the House of Grantham to the Yorks, Woodvilles, and the Stuarts. Then, he bent the past to fit with his fashionable politics of the age and made sure that every heir passed his twisted narrative down generation to generation till everyone accepted it as the truth." He shook his head. Martha figured that even just one of these documents would kill Violet Crawley stone dead and give Lady Bagshaw the best gift she ever had in her crusade to finally destroy the House of Grantham's reputation.

"You got letters from Lady Pole from the Tower of London to her grandson. You've got Regimental musters for units rallied to the Caviler cause under Lord John of Dundee. Secret letters from the Rightful King James from Rome. And the first patents of nobility given by King Edward IV to Sir Grantham "The Black Dragon of York", first Lord of Downton and founder of the House of Grantham. Everything that would offend the sensibilities of British Lords claiming to be descendants of Tudor men, the first Protestants in England, and ardent Georgians." He shook his head.

It seemed that in a fit of a young rebel seeking the absolute truth, that he had uncovered a treasure trove of hidden history that would destroy everything that the House of Grantham was built upon for centuries. It would be enough to shake Robert and Mary's faith in all they thought of themselves, realizing their ancestry of self-importance and monarchist loyalty was but a fantastical fiction dreamt up by one small and abusive man long ago. Thus, there would come a schism that day and ever afterward in the House of Grantham. Fore Lord Grantham and Lady Mary would sooner cling to the fiction that made them noble in the eyes of the peerage and brought them a close friendship with the Royal Family of Winsor. While the truth of their family legacy of secret Catholicism, Rebellion, and Arthurian Mysticism of an older England of yore would be embraced by their heirs ever afterward. It would lead to bitter and adversarial conflicts between the Royal House of Winsor and the Americanized Republican heirs of the rugged and fallen House of Grantham for near a century, with no sign of quitting as of even the latest of Royal Weddings.

"Here's a harsh reality of the world, Cowboy. The victors get to write the history."

"Yeah, I bet you're one of them."

"I'll take that as a compliment, but, alas, I'm from the South."

"Oh, tough break … though, I heard that the South will rise again."

Martha picked up a medieval document with the White Rose of York atop it. "I really hope not … we just got the place clean from the last unwanted barbeque, last thing we need is to invite them all back for a revival." She turned the document over to see what was on the back.

"Here we go …"

From inside the dusty cubby he pulled out the last of the hidden hoard of history. It had been the solitary item he had been looking for all along. It was a large and cumbersome tome that looked heavy enough to kill a man. Its cover was made of a hard and tough leather. As the boy strained to pull it out, cobwebs and filth spilled off its cover, the spine of the large book creaked and cracked while a page slipped from the binding. To Martha's surprise she saw that the dry leaf like paper had on it the most beautiful artistry of hand drawn and colored embroidery. The writing in it was of an elegant and artistic gothic font. She realized, as the kid cleaned the cover with hand and breath, that he had an illustrated chronicle, hand drawn by monks of the medieval age.

She took a step closer in interest and just a bit of wonder. The boy opened the book on his lap, the binding straining in the new air it was exposed too after two full centuries. The boy blew dust from the pages as he looked at a gloriously gorgeous illustration of a milky limbed maiden wandering a painted forest riverbank in long cerulean raiment and a crown of white roses. Her feet were bare upon the mossy rocks, and her tresses were long and raven. Even in the page she was beautiful beyond reckoning. The old woman was frozen a moment by the majestic picture of the girl so perfectly captured by the ancient hands of a man devoted to God's divine plan. After the boy blew more neglect off the page, he began to do something that caught Martha's attention. Mouthing to himself, it took the woman unawares that the kid was actually reading the ancient language inscribed on the page next to the Arthurian like maiden's illustration.

"You can read that?" Martha asked in shock.

The boy looked up. "Yeah …" He frowned in puzzlement. "It's not that hard." He shrugged easily, going back to what he was doing.

Martha just shook her head turning to the tied-up Earl who was also somewhat interested. "It would bruise the hell outta me." She called to the captive while motioning with her drink to the kid at her feet.

Just then, the door to the library opened again. This time, from the crowded grand hall, was a tall man with proper and stalwart demeanor. The uniform of the butler fit the sleek and dapper chap with absolute dignity, almost as if he was made for it. There was elegance and finery that exuded from the man that was only second to Lady Mary within the halls of Downton Abbey. If one thought of a butler on the London stage or in the flickers, then Thomas Barrow, with his fine features and sleeked back black hair, was your fellow. Yet, Martha Levinson always thought of the man as having a bit of shark like quality in his handsome face. Now, as co-butler of the Estate, he seemed rather a Great White atop a hill.

The difference from the anxious and exasperated Anna Bates and the solid Thomas Barrow was all in his attitude. He closed the door behind him, never opening it an inch wider than it had to be to let himself in. His face was emotionlessly pleasant, but it betrayed a deep amusement. It stood rather in contrast to Anna's panic when seeing the Earl of Warren gaged by women's stockings and tied by Ms. Sybbie's Jumping rope to a chair by the refreshment table. Seeing the butler, the youth immediately bucked and muffled into his gag, making entitled demands of the highest-ranking member of Downton Abbey's staff. But he was disturbed to find that the slender man only put his hands behind his back and observed him a moment longer.

"Well, Your Lordship, I guess we all learn our lessons in the end. Perhaps we'll think twice before bullying Ms. Marigold in the future, won't we?" The man said coolly, with just a hint of a deeper anger. Then, he reached over the sudden flinching shoulder of the prefect and grabbed a biscuit off a tray before turning.

Though, one who knew Thomas Barrow would not be shocked that he was gloating at the misfortune of one of the upper classes. It was uncommon knowledge that despite all the wrongs, hurts, and vile things the man had done to others in the past, there was one thing that he cherished above all else … and that was the children of Downton Abbey. Thus, when Mr. Barrow heard of the mean names that Ms. Marigold had been called, how she hid in his office in tears at the shaming of it, he was as disturbed as the perfect lovely girl sat downcast upon his knee. Thus, he did not mourn the state that he heard the little bastard was in when Anna came back downstairs with the news of the missing Earl of Warren's fate. In fact, he was glad to see the poshy snob trussed up in humiliation, finding it so much more satisfying than his previous plans to lace 'His Lordship's' food with industrial strength laxatives for talking to his fine and sweet little Ms. Marigold with his classist prejudice tripe.

The man popped the sweet into his mouth, crunching it as he walked up to the kid who was still reading from the ancient chronicle. Though, the look of satisfaction on his face was soon replaced with dismay to see the sofa pushed away, the bottom panel of the old shelf missing, piles of books and scrolls everywhere, and films of dust staining the floor, rug, and sofa white. But after a long moment of placing his hands on his head in disbelief, he did what most people do at the kid's antics. Thomas shook his head and sighed. When the boy looked up, the butler was looking over what exactly was found.

"And?" The kid asked.

"She doesn't believe you …" Thomas replied reading centuries old Jacobite plots in letters from Rome.

The boy slid to his feet and stood. The great effort it took for the boy to hand the tome to the butler and the effortless way he took it, told a tale of miles that the kid had to go before achieving manhood. With irritation, the boy grabbed his pack and followed the butler to an angled desk were Lord Grantham and Tom Branson's puzzle of the "Crystal Palace" in London was half completed. The pieces scattered in violent thump that hit the table when the butler dropped the book on top of it all.

There was a look of annoyance on the kid's face. "Proof of life?" he asked.

Thomas nodded. "Proof of life …" He confirmed. With a roll of his eyes, the boy reached into his pocket to retrieve something.

When Martha saw what it was, she looked bemused in humor. "Did I miss something here?" She asked taking a sip of her drink.

It was one thing when the Earl of Warren was tied to a chair in the Downton Abbey Library. It was another thing when there were secret panels in bookshelves hiding documents and medieval chronicles. But Martha Levinson felt that she had gone beyond the looking glass when the kid pulled a pair of silky Champagne colored women's panties from his jacket pocket. Without a beat he handed it to the butler.

"Proof of life, sixty sterling. In ten minutes, it's gonna be seventy! A pound a minute. You tell her that." He warned the messenger.

"I'll tell her." Thomas nodded, unwadding the tight silky shorts in his hands. Martha looked confused, amused, and tickled pink at the strange turn of events when Thomas turned and gave her a slight bow of respect before going to leave the library.

"Oh, uh, Mr. Barrow …" The kid called to the butler.

"Yes?" He turned back.

There was a glint in the young kid's eye. "Take the long way …" He smirked darkly.

There was a hint of evilness in the dapper man's wink, before he turned back to the emotionless but pleasant servant. Martha watched as the man, who had every opportunity to hide the smooth and sleek panties in his livery or balled up in his hand, instead held them out in front of him and exited the library. There, a crowd of aristocrats turned and watched the butler of Downton Abbey 'unintentionally' present the entire house party with Lady Mary's undergarment.

Martha's surprised face was marked by a grin that went ear to ear as she turned back to the boy who was going through his pack.

"Mary's Panties?" She asked with a deep amusement.

"All of them." The boy nodded.

"That's what you're ransoming …?" She chuckled at the bold cheek of it all.

"You bet …" He went back to the book, setting his pack on the desk above the chronicle. She took a moment to ponder the scheme as the boy flipped through the book, blowing dust off the pages and onto Robert and Tom's puzzle.

"What about him?" She pointed out the Earl who, at this point, was not so subtly trying to hop the chair away. Yet the legs were unfortunately caught under the rug and eventually his progress was impeded by the upturned corner that wrapped the front legs.

"Him …" The boy gave a mocking scoff, taking up a paperback that Bertie had been reading the other night and pegging the Earl in the head with it from across the room. The youth let out a muffled but intense growl of hatred as he sat stranded in a tangled snag of the library rug. "No one is gonna pay money for Lord Page Boy over there …" he shrugged and went back to what he was doing. "I needed something more real." He flipped a page with a searching frown.

"Then why is he tied up?" Martha asked.

The boy stopped what he was doing and consulted his pack again. This time instead of literature, he produced another one of Mary's satin pantie. This time they were pearly white and seemed a lot skimpier than regular shorts. She saw it as part of some sort of a scandalous Parisian lingerie set that no one was supposed to know she owned. The boy showed it to Martha with a puzzled look on his face. It was obvious that for all his knowledge of history and 'Do it yourself' indoor archaeology, he seemed absolutely stumped about something having to do with the item in hand.

"I was already hunting 'Precious' over there for calling Marigold a "bastard cunny" …" The boy whispered the word which made Martha feel an explosion of endearment for the kid. "And I caught him in the laundry, right …?" He continued.

Suddenly, something told Martha Levinson that she wasn't going to like where this was going.

"And there he was, standing in the laundry room. He had a handful of these knickers and he was smelling them." The boy reported in confusion. "Can you believe that?" He asked with a shake of his head. Martha turned back to the captive and noticed that his pale freckled face was awash with burning red of shame as he looked away.

"Somehow, I can, Cowboy …" She turned back. "I really can." She nodded.

"Well, I jumped him, and then I tied him up with what I could find." He shrugged. "I mean, I don't know what he was doing … but sneaking down to the laundry to smell a woman's used knickers seemed … kinda wrong, you know?" The boy shrugged.

"Well, it's poor form at any rate, I'll say that." There was a look of pure entertainment on the woman's face, leaning back crossing her arms over her chest. Just when she thought this abnormality couldn't get any better, now on top of a dime novel mystery, she learned that the villain was in fact a prepubescent who was sniffing her eldest granddaughter's panties.

The boy fingered and threaded the satin knickers in his hand carefully in puzzlement. "Why do you think he was doing that?" he asked.

But before the woman could answer, she let out an awkward breath of humor when the boy suddenly, and she could guess not for the first time since the incident, took a deep sniff of the crotch of Lady Mary's used undergarment. When he looked up again, there was confusion as he allowed the smell to settle in his nostrils.

"I don't get it …" He in turn offered it to Martha so that she could sniff as well. "Kinda like lobster dowsed with perfume." He encouraged.

Immediately Martha held her hand out in disinterest. "Uh, you know what? I'll take your word for it, Cowboy." She pushed it back to him.

Once more, the kid shrugged and buried his nose into the crotch of the satin panties and took a deep sniff. Then, again, he allowed the smell to sit in him before he shook his head. It was obvious he didn't understand the appeal. She found her heart so softly aglow with genuine affection for a young kid who seemed tough, worldly, and intelligent, but still so incredibly innocent that he had no understanding for even the concept of why another youth, in the start of puberty, would want to cherish and smell a beautiful woman's panties.

There was a smirk on her face as the boy did a double sniff, before shaking his head again and putting them back into his pack. She wondered how long they had been in there and was pretty sure that the smell of Mary's worn knickers would be a permanent fixture. Though, Martha did not know it yet, the young highwayman would ever live to regret having stored them there. For many long years afterward, when he was grown enough to understand these things, the kid would ever grudgingly label the lingering and pervasive smell of Lady Mary's intoxicating 'sent' in his leather pack as "The Revenge".

After a long moment the boy pulled out the rest of the documents in his pack and began to flip through them. It seemed, for the first time since Martha had first stepped foot in this room half a century ago, that someone was actually using the library for the purpose it was meant for. She watched as the boy shuffled through photographs, and then turned back to the page with the enchanting woman upon it. He read the inscription quietly, comparing her to photographs.

("Love & Honour" – Celtic Woman)

As he did so, Martha felt herself oddly drawn to her. She couldn't help but feel like she knew her, that she had seen her before. But it was stronger than that, it was like she was looking at a picture of one of her children. There was a warmth of pure love that overcame her. And she even felt a tear begin to form in her eye as her chest tightened in emotion. She couldn't explain it, could not quantify the experience. It was like she had looked upon the picture of something lost that was so incredibly dear to her that she had now found again after so long.

"Who is she?" She desperately stifled the emotion in her throat.

"This is the Lady Elfstone …" The boy read from the ancient inscription in the chronicle. "To what her real name is, I don't know, they don't say. She was a Byzantine Princess, the last of the Imperial House. She had fled the fall of Constantinople. How she got to England, no one knows, not even the monks of the abbey. She washed up in Wales and was found by a Tudor Lord. They said that she had never spoke of her life in Byzantium again, "fore the grief of her people's ancestral city afire was too great". But she was a beauty like holy sapphi … uh, well, to sum up, they say she was really beautiful. And uh, her voice was a match for even a heavenly chorus. She was kept as a prize of the Lancastrian Court in London. The monks here say that only her presence and the Grecian hymnals and songs she wove could quell the fits of madness that would overcome Henry VI, and so Margaret of Anjou kept her a prisoner in the tower." The boy turned the page. He blew on the dry piece of parchment as he leaned close to read. "It seemed that Queen Margaret wanted to give her to the Lancastrian Heir. But on the day of their wedding, she uh, she fled, I guess. Someone smuggled her out of the castle … and she rode for Yorkist lands in Northern England. She sought sanctuary at … Downton Abbey." The boy stopped and looked up in surprise at Martha. For a just a beat they felt a pang of something, a tiny breath upon their neck, a slender figure crowned in roses that sat upon the sofa watching them. The boy shook his head and continued.

"The monks took her in, but uh, Lords Somerset and Percy marched an army to take her back …"

"Must have been one hell of a woman."

"Yeah, well they incurred the wrath of the Knight of the county … Sir Grantham "The Black Dragon". He was the bastard son of Lady Katherine Percy, and Lord Percy's half-brother, whose land the abbey was on. There was a battle on that field over there." The boy pointed past the columned veranda at the edge of the gardens. "They outnumbered Sir Grantham's forces three to one, but the Knight wouldn't yield to them the beautiful Lady for any price, threat, or odds … eventually, the "Black Dragon" stood alone and surrounded, fighting his last stand by the doors of the abbey itself taking up a notched battle axe and stricken helm, but uh, he fought off waves of enemies, still unwilling to surrender the Princess even then. Oh, well, lucky for him, Edward of York arrived with his father's men and drove the Lancastrians off Grantham's land. But still, he was wounded, having cut down many of the greatest of the Lancastrian Knights in defense of the Lady. It says here that the monks and the Princess healed him, and there …" The boy was quiet a moment. "Sir Grantham fell in love with the nameless princess who sat up with him through the worst of it. He gave to her the name … Lady Elfstone for how she shimmered in the sunlight by the abbey's windows." There was a touch of a sad smile of reverence on his face as he turned the page with a crackling of ancient binding.

But then the boy didn't say anything else.

"If I wanted damn cliff hanger I'd go to a serial, Cowboy." Martha scoffed in annoyance. "What happened next?" She pressed.

The kid flipped through several pages, then flipped back. "I dunno …" The boy said in genuine confusion. "This is where the entry stops." Then, much rougher than what would be advisable for a book so many centuries old, he tore through the chronicle. "There's pages torn here …" The boy ran a finger over the edges behind the last entry of the story.

"Well …" Martha snorted in annoyance. "I'll give it to the old Second Earl … he could tenure running the Asshole department of the University of Shit-Head." The woman sighed venomously knocking her drink back. With the burn still in her throat she turned to the captive Earl who seemed transfixed on the story. "What do you say, kiddo, you look like someone vying for a full ride to that distinguished establishment." She called over facetiously. The titled youth responded with muffled growl of something that she would wager was terribly unbefitting of a gentleman.

"Magna Cum Laude material that one." She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder mockingly to the rancorous youth when turning back to the younger kid. But the surprise adventurer was thinking quietly, gripping his chin with curled forefinger and thumb, his other arm crossing his torso.

"The tomb …" He said quietly.

"The what?" She frowned.

"The tomb …!" He suddenly was hit with a visceral reaction. He turned to Martha. "The tomb!" He repeated excitedly.

"Great … that narrows it down!" She played along with sarcastic mocking. The boy glared at the old woman, then began to dig through his pack, bailing out Mary's panties as he looked.

"Jesus Christ … I bet you'd steal the drapes off her too if they weren't nailed down." She shook her head in awe at the growing pile of silky and satin knickers on the floor. The boy didn't respond, taking what looked like an old page of a similar tome from inside the leather-bound folder with the pictures he was comparing.

"I knew it!" He said with a great joy of discovery.

The woman approached putting her glass down. There, she saw that the boy was fitting the page in hand perfectly to the last rigid parchment of the torn chronicle. Upon the restored page was the drawn and painted picture of a hall of stone. There, light shined from a rounded stained-glass window upon a large marble slab where two sculpted figures lay side by side. To the left was a knight in full plate, one hand grasped a stone sword, the other was intertwined with the hand of the person next to him. There was a sorrow even upon a face so perfect and beautifully crafted. Her long tresses were finely carved as she rested on a bed of glossy flowers. Upon her brow she bore a crown of roses and her marble raiment matched the drawing in the pages of the book. Martha, for a beat, looked in wonderment at the hand drawn artistry that depicted the final resting place of the first Lord Grantham and his beloved Lady Elfstone. Somehow, she could've guessed that it ended in death eventually. Yet, still she felt cheated. She wanted to know what happened to them, wanted to know how their love story unfolded, their trials and triumphs. It felt like skipping to the end, the very end, the end of all things, really.

"I know where they are …" The kid said.

"Yeah?" Martha quirked an eyebrow at the picture, tilting her head at it. "So, do I … and we all end up there eventually." She shook her head.

The boy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, maybe not you." He shot back, reaching for something in his jacket pocket he walked over to the glass doors that led to the patio at the entrance of the Downton gardens.

"You've been talking to my airhead children again, Cowboy?" She asked in droll sarcasm.

The boy stopped and looked out the glass. "I mean, I know where their tomb is …" Suddenly he pulled out and extended an odd and ornate telescope, looking out in the distance.

"They're at the old fortress atop Spectacle Rock."

In the grey of the cold early spring the old woman could just make out an obscure structure on the slope of a wooded hill that had ever lain in the backdrop of Downton Abbey. Her eyesight wasn't much these days, but she could still almost see the ivy and vines that wrapped the smooth and mossy ancient walls. Beyond, there was a muted black to the amber and blue of stained glass that was half caved in by wild tree branches. It was an old Roman ruin, retrofitted by the last Kings of the North before the Saxons. How many Lords of Grantham had sat upon its forgotten seat which once commanded the view of vast green moors, little woods, and a solitary abbey at its foot? There was no telling when that same abbey became the new seat of the county and the old fortress abandoned, lost to time by the memory of many generations of man since then.

Martha Levinson had been coming to this place for over half a century. Yet, today, she had learned more about this family than she ever had cared too before. It astonished her how suddenly she was invested in the story of these two strangers from hundreds of years ago. She could call it boredom in old age, but she knew the truth was that, for the first time, she felt a sudden fondness for the ancestry of the Crawley family and the House of Grantham. She still refused to find it in herself to give them any admiration, they still being a bunch of pompous bleeders. But still they had some good stories that might redeem them enough for her not to think that it was a complete waste for her little girl to contribute to the legacy of such a rich love story which founded this family. Though, she was of the opinion that it all started going downhill since the last days of "The Black Dragon" and his lady love from the golden Grecian courts of Constantinople.

But most of all, she found that her fondness for the story and the many interesting mysteries to explore was tied up in a solitary young kid. She watched him with interest as he looked out toward the old fortress with a telescope of gilded metal with which had strange runes upon the edge of the outward looking glass. It looked old, ancient even, with other odd symbols engraved on it. Seeing him with that fob watch, the hieroglyph on his jacket arm, and now the ancient telescope, she couldn't help but think that there was something more about this kid ...

With all that in mind, she knew in her old bones what he was going to do. Tomorrow, he would take up his pack and fill it with supplies and gear. He'd find a tall walking staff, then, alone, he would cross field and wood, cut across countryside. When he reached the wooded hill, one by one, he would climb the rocks and hack free the old Roman road up to the fortress. Nothing would stand in his way to getting to that tomb. And Martha Levinson would give hats off to the kid, who even now, exuded a stalwart valiantry in his familiar eyes. It would become a future distinguishing feature for those of his siring that would come ever afterward. Whatever could be said for this boy and his unbroken line of ragged 'cracked' descendants from father and son till this very day, there were no shirkers or cowards in their company.

But still she couldn't shake one question in all that foreknowledge of what was to come next.

"What's your interest in all this?" Martha asked the distracted youth.

The boy was slow to turn to face her. But when he did, it was with conflict. It seemed that there were a thousand reasons to tell her about what he was doing. Yet, he couldn't find the words to describe or explain any one of them. Instead he frowned to the door as if he was looking past it toward the grand hall. It was but a solitary person in that crowd which concerned every part of his young soul, fore she consumed him by night and day. Yet, he dared not tell her all he found, fore she wouldn't understand, nor would she want too. But worse, it seemed incredibly impossible to explain his fears to her when he himself couldn't quite put them into words. It was clear of his trouble as he pushed away the puzzle and began to set up, turning back to the picture of Lady Elfstone. It seemed to Martha that the boy was desperate to speak aloud this torment that haunted him …

Even if it was to some random old woman he knew of distantly.

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Entr'acte Music

"Main Title Theme" (Ready Player One) – Alan Silvestri

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Visual Guide

Lady Elfstone

("Olwen" – painted by Alan Lee)

("Luthien" – Painted by SaMo-Art)

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Acknowledgments

"Medhel an Gwyns" – Eleanor Tomlinson

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Story concludes next week, same time, same place.