Chapter Fifty Eight – Commoner

Councillor Kamaesa knew. From the images in her head and the voices and the way the flames of the fire danced she knew. It had been done, it was over. The last Engine had ceased running. She could feel the mountain beneath her feet still and cool and quiet. There was a calm there too, a gladness, a release. What the woman who came out of the ground would be like she didn't know, she felt only peace and rest. She hoped the woman who had once been a queen would know these feelings too.

It was daylight when they emerged exhausted and dirty and blinking into the early spring sunshine. Pazu, the least infirm of the three put an arm around both ladies waists and assisted them down the hill. He stowed them in the boat like so much baggage and from some place he didn't know he had, found the strength to row them back. Sheeta fell into a light disturbed sleep and the Councillor, sitting with her in the back of the boat, held her and wrapped her in both spare coats. At one point Kamaesa turned and looked back at the mountain and said her own private goodbye.

This was a new world now, a new nation, a new people. They were a republic, no longer a kingdom, the last queen was gone. The old woman blinked in the bright clear air on that breezy lake and was glad. Now, finally, it would be over. People could put down their weapons and be at peace, like the person under the mountain.

With the fresh air biting, Pazu lifted the almost sleeping girl from the boat, and wading ashore, carried her home. At the doorway to the house he stopped. The room had been used as a dormitory and the furniture had all been pushed to one side, but the councillors were all awake, despite the early hour.

"It is done, isn't it?" Auyhonia asked
"It is. It's over," Pazu replied
"How is she?"
"Exhausted. She needs rest. Please, if you would excuse me."

He took her straight up to bed, undressed her and bathed her and asked Shuna to take up water and a warm broth should she awake but he was under no circumstances to disturb her with questions, let her sleep.

Downstairs Pazu apologized and said the final part of the ceremony would have to wait, perhaps until later in the day, perhaps until tomorrow. Auyhonia was sympathetic and Kamaesa would find accommodation for them in the village. Kamaesa said she would find a reliable messenger and send them to Penaerth with the news. Within three days Gondoa would know.

--I--
---o-o-oOo-o-o---
I I

"Pazu…?"
"Hm?"
"What day is it?"
"The next day. Forty three of Rhayadhirrin."
"What happened?"
"You're no longer Queen of Gondoa."
"Did I sleep?"
"Hm, a whole day and a whole night. Twenty six hours."

It was morning again and Pazu who had sat beside her bed all day and all night was only just awake.

"I want to sleep more."
"You do whatever you like, my love."
"She is gone?"
"You did it Sheeta. You amazed me and you did it. Yes, the last Engine has stopped running."
"Except Laputa's."
"Hm, yes, of course, except Laputa's."
"I wonder where she is?"
"Free, no man can interfere with her now."
"Good. I'm glad. Because…"
"You shouldn't talk too much."
"No, I'm fine. You know why Suethelmae was so strong?"
"Sheeta, you don't have to tell me this now."
"What I went through yesterday…"
"The day before yesterday."
"Oh, well, what I went through with her, she had been through with all the other Engines that have gone to sleep. She talked to them all, knew them all, at the end she welcomed them to her. As the last, she was all of them. And do you know where they all are now?"

He looked into her weary blue eyes and didn't know.

"Laputa. Not dead, not asleep. She didn't die, but was set free. Free of men. All of them now are together in Laputa."

Pazu got up from the bedside and walked to the window. It was musty in here, two days of worried bodies had dulled the air. He opened the shutters and swung wide the window and fresh air poured in. He looked at the view, across Sheeta's garden and the orchard beyond and up the hill to the other farms. To the left was the lake and beyond that the mountain. It had sheer faces of black rock, tumbled piles of scree, trees like children gathered happily around a parent and above all this, white peaks of snow. It was beautiful and threatening at the same time. And it was, today, this first of all days, just a mountain. He knew now, he could relax in the knowledge that it would remain here for all time. Just a rock. The hills would have moonlight on them but they would not be an island, they would just be hills.

He drew in a huge breath of fresh air. It smelled good. Spring was coming. Things were growing.

"Sheeta?"

Silence. He turned. Her eyes were closed. He returned to the bed and stood, watching her as she slept. He bent down and pressed his lips to her smooth untroubled forehead.

"Sleep, my love, you did well. I'm so proud of you."

--I--
---o-o-oOo-o-o---
I I

It was late in that day that Sheeta awoke and was able to participate in the Ceremony of Transfer and the Ritual of Abdication. She didn't care at all about the latter, she was glad, but the former was hard. Giving up the stone was hard, it felt like parting with a loved one and she shed her last tears that day, the last tears she would shed for a very long time. The next time she would shed tears they would not be tears of sadness but tears of pain. Giving birth was sheer agony and she cried the day her daughter was born, but every tear, every stab of pain, every wracking, screaming cramp was worth it.

Both ceremonies were conducted in the open air, in a field behind the communal hall where the trees and hedges were in bud and lambs gamboled in the adjacent meadow. For the last time, Sheeta wore her robes of Laputan Royal Green. After this day she put them away, and looked at them only rarely. She did wear them again, a few times, but only in private, and only for him. For him she never stopped being royalty, his princess, his queen. And the times she did wear the green robes it was only for a while, so that he could take them off her again.

The whole village and most of the two nearby villages came to witness these two strange ceremonies, ceremonies that none of them had seen before. And afterwards when Auyhonia officially declared her to be of common blood and the last of the four royal houses to be extinct, Sheeta rejoiced. A number of the Councillors were upset, and there were a good number of wet eyes in that field. But not Sheeta's. She was the happiest person there. Well, perhaps the second happiest.

A man stood at the back of the crowd. He had long red-brown hair and despite the chill breeze he wore only a loose shirt and leggings. He looked now like a typical Gondoan farmer. He didn't need to be in the front row or hear what was being said. He knew what was going on. He knew the girl up there could handle this, she didn't need him. After what she'd achieved two days ago this was easy. And besides, he had found a patch of burnt ground near some bushes behind the hall. It surprised him that it even existed because in dreams no trace was left on the ground, was it? He recalled a conversation at this patch of ground some weeks previously, and knew now who was the victor and who was the loser of that particular argument. Pazu looked at the burnt patch of ground and at the fresh young blades of grass that were already growing there, reclaiming the ground on which Maerth-dhu had stood, and where he had been defeated.

Pazu looked up. Birds were singing in the trees, spring was here, and with the spring, like all young men, his mind turned to thoughts of love.

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22 – 23 April 2007

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