(Once Upon a December (Music Box) – The Wild Conductor)
There is seldom a moment in time and space that the universe marks as a waypoint of destiny.
Indeed, on a cold and bleak day in the early months of 1913, there was an inevitability in the meeting and crossroads that many lives made and many more would be affected. And it was found when a beautiful young woman – cold, selfish, and unkind – set eyes upon a man that came late to the English Hunt that her father set up for a diplomatic guest. His name was Kamal Pamuk, son of the Grand Sultan's cousin and a princess of Iran. It seemed a suitable match for minor royalty of which both carried the title of Prince and Princess but held little sway in the Imperial Caliphate's Court. The look of shock and girlish attraction for the foreign and exotic man did not light the fires of fate but set into motion the footsteps of doom. For Kamal Pamuk, that very day, looked upon the English Rose, and took councils in thoughts and desires eviler than had been ever conceived in his mind before.
The Prince, Kamal's father - like many Ottoman courtiers of the Royal House - kept slaves. And in the breaking off of new nation states from the Caliphate Empire – many of which were Christian and European – there was a premium on European, lily skinned, harem slave girls to be kept and horded, as the Western Empires tore away at the "Sick Man of Europe" – ancient enemies. And it was in this environment - of slavery, of association of pale skin, bright eyes, and naivety of the harem girls of Slavic and Caucasus - that Kamal Pamuk felt a rather entitlement, a superiority, of both station and promiscuity toward all Western women.
In a household in which the word 'no' could never be uttered by anyone that did not rise above his considerable station, he had been raised without a moral compass. It was at a very young age – too young – did he gain much of an appetite for sexual proclivities that would shock most people. Thus, it was, that when he set his sights upon Lady Mary Crawley that dark and cold morning, his mind was not consumed with the virginal blush of a beautiful face – but of many terrible desires that he wished to enact upon Lady Mary's young and gorgeous supple body. And it is so here marked, that something had gravely been amiss that set the doom of many a terrible thing that was to come. Fore, something happened that morning that was not intended.
Matthew Crawley had committed a great mistake – perhaps his greatest.
It was foreseen by many and was to play out that Matthew Crawley would go out riding with the hunt – encouraged by Lady Sybil who came by unannounced to his office. She had a dream, of which she could not entirely say of what, but she knew that Matthew was protecting Mary. It was then - rather more emotional than she could understand - that Sybil asked that he chuck his plans with Edith and attend the hunt. Matthew could not give her a promise, but he did take her to lunch in order to calm her nerves. Thus, began a small tradition that they held for years of going out to lunch every Friday together – later taking Tom Branson with them. Lady Sybil did not know that the warning in her heart and the violent visions of her dreams was that of a premonition, a flash, a dwarfing star of grave outcome throughout the universe. And she had felt it so keenly for she would play a bigger role yet in the unfolding of a dark deed that ends the conflict that would begin on that cold day in 1913.
The outcome most sought after and foreseen was Matthew Crawley's unfamiliarity with horsemanship and Lady Mary's hubris. In antagonization by Mr. Pamuk and in competition with Mr. Napier, Matthew Crawley would find himself doing something rather uncharacteristically rash. Spurring his unknown mount that he borrowed from Sybil, he would race ahead only for the horse to bolt, carrying the poor chap away into the Haunted Woods. Her jovial and mocking laughter joined to Mr. Pamuk and Mr. Napier would catch the eye of Lord Grantham when they entered Downton Abbey. Angered and indignant upon their return without his heir, Robert would send Lady Mary into the woods to go find Matthew and bring him back to the house. Yet, when Mr. Pamuk and Mr. Napier offered to accompany her – 'I don't believe it necessary' would be his cold and reproachful response that would ground them.
Thus, Mary – scorned and spiteful - would canter into the gloom after the lost Mr. Crawley. Hours later, instead of filled with the spring of youth, laughing jollily with Mr. Napier and Kamal, she would arrive sometime later with Mr. Crawley. She would not be laughing, but they would be shooting one another secret looks and hidden smirks in reverie of whatever happened, what adventures, found them together on the way home. Kamal Pamuk would try to corner her, try to fancy her, but her eyes would be for Matthew … her mind taken off the gorgeous Turk and, instead, wrestling with feelings that she had been hiding from for nearly a year. And later, when Mr. Pamuk arrived at Lady Mary's bedroom ... she would not be there.
Yet, on that fateful morning, Matthew Crawley was startled awake to a vivid dream that was so real that he still swore it happened. A man – beautiful to behold – was beaten and mangled upon his bedroom floor. He came crashing through door, landing with a thump. His mouth was bleeding like a river, several teeth were missing, and many more broken. One of his eyes had a four-pointed shuriken embedded deeply and gruesomely within. He crawled upon the floorboards of the master's chamber of Crawley House, slowly, desperately, trying to get away from the beast stalking him. There, with foreign accent - musical and seductive - he begged Matthew Crawley for mercy, for reprieve, as if the man in the bed was the reason that he was now fighting for his very life.
It was then, coming from behind him through the doorway … was another, a young man. He wore a peacoat of mahogany colored beaten leather – collar done up in the back. He had been stabbed through the hand, a deep ink vine slash ran painfully across his left eye from above brow down to his cheekbone, and blood was pouring down his side undercoat. With every step the young man wheezed from a punctured lung. In his hand was a curved club of an Ancient Egyptian Medjay that he dragged loud and languidly across Master Crawley's floorboards. The incredibly handsome and Arthurian looking youth had been so similar to Sybil in masculine – same eyes, hair, and facial features - that her cousin and close friend could've sworn him some long-lost twin.
Wordless and in terror, had Matthew Crawley watched Sybil's counterpart stalk the beaten and brutalized angelic man. The foreigner tried to apologize, to foreswear his part in the evils of this hateful duel between them, and he finally begged for mercy … but they all had fallen upon deafened ears as the club was raised over the young knight's head. In a rage so black it seemed demonic, cerulean eyes flared, and the beams of Crawley House rattled with the beating, pounding, madness of the ancient club in the younger's hand. Blood, pulp, and sinew covered Master Matthew's bedchamber as he watched in horror as the man with fair and knightly countenance beat the angelic figure to death, his hate manifested in noises guttural and snarling – brutal and savage to the ear. He didn't stop till all resistance and hard surface gave way, till there was no thunk or hammer, till there was only the squish and squinch of a fleshy black ooze where a head and a protective hand had been. His eyes were crazed, his sanctity and reason abandoned, and only the long-tormented years of a great many tragedies and regrets remained to overfilled him. Then, it came spilling out in a torrent that was evil and languishing.
All of Downton Abbey that morning awoke to a howling cry of savage rage and bitter suffering that was roared to the sky by a heroic young figure that had been pushed to the breaking point. It's reverberation, the luminous of a soul spewing out like a severed artery through time and space till it arrived in the morning of a cold day in 1913 – the origin point. Long and loud was the roar that roused the entire household from scullery maid to Lady Grantham. The sound of the young man, the sorrow, the pain, was felt deeply in the heart of all the Crawley family – though they knew not why. And for a long time, they sat still in bed, eyes wide, tears falling freely, and afear of whatever or whoever made such a sound that no one should ever have made.
But they were aroused once more by the sound of Lady Mary Crawley shouting from the gallery. When Lord and Lady Grantham found their eldest daughter, she seemed to be in a waking dream. Tears fell from her eyes like rain as she wandered about, looking through the nursery, barging into Sybil's bedroom. Mary was searching for someone, desperate to find them. A name she kept calling, shouting, over and over, as if they were a small child - frightened and alone - so she might run to them, this baby in her mind, and take them in her arms and protect them with her very life. Then, all of the sudden, as if someone had snapped their finger in her face, Mary Crawley came to her senses. She was shocked to find herself in Sybil's room, to see that she had been crying hysterically, and she had told Mamma and Papa a thousand times that she didn't know what they were talking about –
She didn't know anyone named George.
They might have written the entire incident off as a strange happenstance, a phenomenon, if Matthew Crawley hadn't shown up at their door only half-dressed. Mary was still recovering from her confusion and unexplained hysterics when she was informed by Mrs. Hughes that Mr. Crawley wished to speak to her. She only came halfway down the steps, still in her nightgown, when Matthew mounted the second landing of the grand staircase. Neither said a word at first. It was instinct, innate, unspoken but known deeply, that they both had the same dream, they both heard the cry … and they both knew it had something to do with them – this 'feeling' that they fought but could not deny between them. It seemed an odd business for Mr. Carson and Lord Grantham when they seemingly stared at one another for five minutes, only for Mr. Crawley to ask Lady Mary – in a deeply intimate fashion – if she was 'all right'. The young beauty – cold, selfish, and unkind – simply nodded demurely, unsure, and emotional. Then, Matthew Crawley turned to walk away, back to Crawley House. But before he did, oddly, Lady Mary called to him.
For a beat, it seemed, looked intensely, that she was going to run down the stairs and leap into the man's arms. To take refuge in him and that stalwart, hawkish, profile of upright nobility. Yet, instead, the young woman that trailed down a few steps after him … didn't say anything. What was there to say? What could be there to say? Something profound, elemental, cosmic, had overwhelmed the ether of their universe with such a strong and brutal emotion that it was felt by every person whose lives were touched by someone yet to exist. How do two people in the morning tide of their understanding of their feelings for one another, contemplate the existence, the emotional turmoil, and the darkest moment, of a life they'd someday create from their deathless love and a handful of stardust? Better yet, how does one give their heart fully to the love of their life when they saw and felt just a taste of the suffering, of the very manifestation, of every late-night's dream of kisses and holding one another close throughout eternity? The answer was to say good day, that Matthew Crawley would not be joining the hunt in a few hours, that he was looking forward to honoring his plans with Lady Edith, and that he'll see them all at Dinner tonight.
Thus, in one unsure moment of new emotions that frightened and moved them … was doom set upon the very future of the House of Grantham.
Grave was Matthew Crawley's misreading of what it was he heard and saw that morning, something that was neither remarked upon nor brought up ever again. Both Lady Mary and Matthew Crawley, feeling every bit of the hurt and remorse, sorrowed languish, of a child yet to be born from them, had took it as a warning. That if they pursued these feelings, these emotions for one another that kept them up half the night, that there was nothing but pain and evil that would come of it. However, from priests to fortune tellers alike, one might study the cosmos, the universe, and the will of God for a lifetime and not understand all the subtlety of the music and movements of the universe he created. And here, at that moment, was indeed a warning to both Lady Mary and Matthew … but in their fear and immaturity, pride and stubbornness, they heeded it not. Fore, what they saw that day, in that terrible hour, was a warning of what would come to pass if they did not surrender their pride and vanity. It was what waited if they did not submit to the universe, to their joint destiny, and to the very love for one another that was felt even upon first glance in the sitting room of Crawley House.
Some things would happen regardless - fixed points in time that could neither be gainsaid nor changed. Nothing would stop the miscarriage of Lady Grantham' son, the coming of Lavinia Swire, the crippling of Matthew at Amiens, and his death on the very day his son was born. But a great many hurts and dangers untold of the sins of a young and immature mother would not be visited upon their future child. Perhaps, new conflicts and strife would arise from the original fate of Mary and Matthew.
Lady Mary arriving late at Crawley House, in secret, losing her virginity to the man she loved, a soul mate. A scandal might have formed about them - gossip from Mr. Moseley to Anna, overheard by Mrs. O'Brien who would make sure the world knew. Bad feelings, bad blood, cropping up between Matthew and Lord Grantham, Lady Mary refusing to accept Matthew's proposal – cruelly lying to him of rather being ruined than to be sunk by his meager prospects now that her mother was pregnant with a 'true' heir. And all of it to stubbornly dig in her heels, to thumb her nose at her society and her family for telling her who she should marry … even if it was the man that she loved with all her soul. But whether by time or war, tragedy and fate, would Lady Mary Crawley marry Matthew Crawley – their love written in the stars from the moment they first shined in the midnight sky.
But alas was the warning unheeded, and the dice cast. And that cold night, as Matthew Crawley brooded by the fire of his study, Lady Mary Crawley's first sexual experience was not in the gardens of Crawley House, under a blooming rose bush, entranced by a soul mate's gentle and loving touch. Instead, it was in her own bedroom, making a guttural moan of open-mouthed pain, as a serial rapist sodomized her. But fate and destiny could not be denied, nor would the universe and the will of the highest authority be gamed. And thus, from the moment that Kamal Pamuk entered Lady Mary so cruelly, he fell stone dead atop the girl. And when a naked young woman scrambled to her feet, looking in shock upon the dead body of the man, it came into her heart all that she saw and heard that morning, and understood some of what the universe was trying to tell her. 'Matthew' she had whispered with a single tear. From that night forward, never again would Lady Mary be cruel and unkind to the man, knowing that he would've never hurt her like Pamuk had wished with every bit of lust in his blackened soul.
But it was all too late.
The damage was done and could not be undone nor changed. A fey recklessness of girlish immaturity had taken the mood of Mary that fateful night. Afear of the things heard and seen that morning had the young woman thrown caution to the wind, becoming brash and flirtatious, spiting destiny and calling out fate. Fore she believed in her young and foolish mind that she could never be tied down, that whatever it was she saw and heard, that it was a simple trifle that had nothing to do with her. She had thought it silly, vexing, that there was a deep and terrible pain in her heart that was deathly heavy throughout that day. And the more that she tried to ignore it, discard it, and call it nothing, the more it hurt. Only under the gaze of Matthew Crawley at the dinner table, in the drawing room, could alleviate this terrible burden inside her. His crystalline gaze across the many conversations, the battling of other men for her affection, had brought her comfort and drew her toward him.
Yet, still, she would not surrender, could not bear to see herself – or other see her – admit defeat to their intentions and plans for her own future. And thus, this hellacious turmoil within was masked with a defiance of flirtatious abandon and jovial suggestion. But these machinations of girlish fancy only ever played deeper into the hands of grievous tragedy and danger by allowing Kamal Pamuk into the orbit of these fey affections. Fore, Lady Mary Crawley knew not yet nor understood that the actions and intentions by someone like her - the daughter of an Earl and the Lord Leftenant of the Imperial Court - toward Mr. Kamal Pamuk - the son of an Ottoman Prince and Princess - would have grave consequences. That vendettas and blood oaths of vengeance sworn in hate by nobility and royalty of those waning days of empire and monarchy were not accounted in years nor decades …
But in generations.
1935
Newport, Rhode Island
("Far Away" – JUNIP)
The darkness came upon the world like a great event horizon. Everything known and unknown, hypothesized and certain, was swallowed whole in a sudden and impenetrable blanket that blotted out all life and light. A whirlwind of cacophony replaced sun, clouds, and open blue skies. A deafening roar of squealing metal, rotary machination, and the shrill typhoon whistle of the sea breeze, blasted through the darkness like lit gun powder through a barrel, propelling with a mighty force all rammed inside. Smoke, choking and thick, replaced the air with a poisonous fume that filled the lungs and held them in a vise like throttle. Sparks, bright and hot, flashed and ricocheted like bullets from the hurricane winds, giving shadows and shapes to the narrow and shrunken world that had contracted without warning. Between the darkness that came in shades, the smoke that sat heavily in the lungs, and the insurmountable force of the wind pressure, it had felt as if an entire mountain had caved in atop of him.
But just as he thought that his teeth would be pushed out by the hard gritting, there was a sudden explosion of open space that shocked his senses. He thought that he had gone deaf when the funneled noise of chaos, infernal and endless, cut off. His view and vector were widened to a staggering level, and for a moment he was blind as the world took a sky-blue tint with white outlines through dark obscurity. The smoke cloud that was so thick and noxious evaporated, clearing to a thin veil that lingered. He coughed violently, still in a prone position, clutching to a guard bar atop the passenger car, the other gripped the handle of his grandfather's Victorian officer's saber so tight that his knuckles were white. When he lifted his head, he glanced about himself and was momentarily stunned.
He had ducked a swipe of a centuries old scimitar and hit the deck when he heard the hollow echoing of the train reverberating louder and louder behind him. It was instinct, that old training that would never go away. It had been Captain Quartermain's main tenant as a marksman, fighter, and an aware human being – 'always mind your surroundings'. And his brain had processed and reacted without even giving a moment's thought. By the time that he hit the roof and laid flat, the train had entered the tunnel. It had been the third worst environmental experience he had ever had. He thought his eardrums were gonna burst, the temperature was unbearable between the smokestacks and the sparks from the tracks, and he couldn't see anything but what the imagination conjured in flashing shades. It was the closest that he was sure he'd ever get to The Rapture as the languishment of the tunnel turned seconds to hours in the black passage. But now, in their passing …
He wasn't quite sure he actually lived through the ordeal.
For all about him, on either side, was the Atlantic Ocean, with only the old marina visible in the distance. It was then that the young swordsman was almost positive that the train was running on the water itself. He glanced about in ill ease, looking out to the mostly bare Warf where once the most exquisite yachts and sailing boats of the Gilded Age could be found. The rotted planks, graying wood, and ivy wrapped quays did a poor job portraying the once spectacle and crowded area it had been during the summer months. The harbor filled with vessels that had crews and guests upon their decks. They had leisure cruises, fishing trips, and races – sanctioned and unsanctioned by the port authority – all over the coastline and past the ringing buoys.
The shops upon the boardwalks teemed with giggling young debutants waiting for their sailing adventures, or to be noticed as to be asked by the strutting cocks in their white captain hats, blue blazers, and ascots. One might have thought that the men who captained these expensive toys of great marvel where commanders of mighty war vessels or perhaps even "The Flying Dutchman" herself. Before the crash, many of the new money tycoons had become obsessed with yachting. For years there was a cold arm's race and rivalry between Larry Russell and Harold Levinson about who could out sail and out luxuriate the other. Now, as the green tinted water lapped against the fossilizing wharf, surrounded by the floating debris from the discarded inventories of the cobwebbed foreclosed stores, there remained very little evidence that the derelict marina had once been the very heart of Newport not even a decade past.
The train ran on elevated tracks that were anchored to a boulder and gravel seawall that looped about the perimeter of the harbor, giving yachts and sailing ships three separate exits from under three railroad bridges. Once, during July 4th celebrations, many of the yacht owners and sailing captains would give a parade of boats that would cruise the perimeter of the railroad seawall and then out into the open water. People from New York and Boston would pay for tickets just to ride the trains about the parade, the decks of the leisure barges fitted with multi-colored lanterns. Lady Edith had never forgotten the sight and still remembered it so vividly.
In that last summer of 1908, a few days before the parade, someone had pushed Edith off the quay at the Newport marina. The teenage girl had been so sure that it was Mary, fore they were arguing bitterly beforehand. However, it seemed far-fetched when the drowning girl was indeed rescued by her eldest sister, who – despite telling her how much she hated her guts all summer – had jumped in after Edith, knowing that she couldn't swim. Afterward, the young teenage girl was mortified to go near the water – refusing to get on her Uncle Harold nor Mr. Russell's yachts. When it was time for the American "Independence Day" celebration and boat parade, everyone was going but Edith. She cried at the prospect that everyone was to have fun but her, stuck in Levinson Manor … but she just couldn't get over her fear. However, coming unlooked for, Lady Gillingham – her mamma's best friend – had decided to stay behind as well, saying that she had always found her brother Larry's yacht fixation rather tedious at best. So, instead, Lady Gladys Foyle bought Edith and herself a first-class train ticket. And from their vantage point, from their open windows, the girl's breath was taken away.
In the shade of night and from the distance of the rail tracks, one could hardly make out the boats and yachts. From Edith and Gladys's viewpoint there was a line of multi-colored lanterns of red, white, and blue that floated serenely, like swans, all over the harbor. Meanwhile, from within the town, a show of fireworks shot high into the heavens where they exploded in a multitude of dazzling and mesmerizing colors of greens, reds, blues, and gold. In the distance, Edith could make out the shaded silhouettes of the seaside mansions on the bluffs and cliffs that loomed over the tree line by the wharf. Levinson Manor with its romantic towers and whitewashed walls took a chameleon coloring of the flashing and brilliant night sky, while the glass panes of the grand ballroom reflected the fireworks like a giant sparkling crystal. Below, the water flashed and glowed, giving momentary visibility to the crowded harbor - the shadows of boats and the people aboard. All their eyes were drawn to the display as they floated on the water. It was enchanting, awe inspiring – simply magic – and Lady Edith wrote every moment of it, every description, every thought, down so that she would never forget.
Now, staring out at the empty harbor, derelict marina, and rusted tracks – the bows of some of those same yachts poking out above the waterline where they had been sunk by ruined owners. It was hard for her ward to imagine what his aunt had recalled to him, to all the children, every July 4th. He never tired of hearing it, never contradicted her promise to take them all there one day to see it – it being her dream to have all the children about her, to show them true magic. However, now that he was here, the young man didn't think it would exactly smell … the way it does. The calcified rot, the rust, and the thick mildew of algae gave the entire area the most unappealing odor imaginable. The wrecked yachts and trash strewn waters seemed like a rubbish bin, hemmed in by the crumbling seawall that was left dangerously unattended. A part of him felt suddenly terribly sad. It wasn't that he particularly cared for the upkeep nor the cleanliness of this once sandbox for a bunch of venial pricks – his great-grandparents among them. It was only that he was sure that the sight of what actually lay before him would break his Aunt Edith's heart.
His loving thoughts of the glamorous elfin woman with golden hair was interrupted by a chill that ran down his spine. He heard the metallic clap of a foot atop the passenger car. He turned onto his back, just in time to see a tall silhouette looming over him in the thin shade of dissipating chimney smoke from the locomotive. They wore a long black overcoat, their hair caught in the ocean breeze, and leather gloves squeaked in the hard two hand grip they had on a scimitar of Damascus Steel that was lifted above their head. Alemdar Pamuk came out of the smoke as he brought down his ancestor's blade with a hard-vertical slash. There was an ear-piercing ring of clashing metal as a Victorian British saber met curved Islamic heirloom with a cross-parry. The blades – one straight, the other curved – rattled and rocked as they locked together.
The angelic face of the foreign man was strained as he put forth all his weight down on George Crawley who was supported on one elbow. But while their blades grinded and shook, the arm of the teenager could not be beaten. And for a moment, a look of fear, of awareness, came over the half-French bastard prince. They were atop of a runaway train with no conductor nor engineer, careening to miles unknown over open water, having a sword fight to the death … and yet, his foe did not break the cold emotionless countenance. Alemdar was seething, heaving, gritting, putting forth all the strength he had, and there was nothing from George but the intensity of elemental cerulean eyes that flashed perilously. If he was giving all the strength he had, or was merely toying with the Ottoman princeling, one could not be sure. And that frightened the older of the two more than anything. Fore, in a single stern look of frigid competence inherited from Lady Mary herself, was it shown that this type of situation, this outlandish moment, was nothing new to George Crawley. Had Alemdar been the first or the fiftieth, the hundredth, man that the master swordsman had dueled like this, with these types of stakes?
The answer was in the teenager's counter. With a show of strength, George pivoted on his elbow, redirecting the locked blades and using the bastard prince's own strength against him. The Ottoman Sultan's sword slid with a shrill screech of metal across the saber blade, with the point of the curved sword stabbing into the spot that George's shoulder had been before his pivot. Alemdar stumbled, suddenly finding himself out of position. It was then that the young Lord of Downton swept a leg to the side and gave a kick to the back of the beautiful man's knee with a heel. With a cry of pain, Alemdar's leg struck hard atop the polished metal – the warp sound of the impact was a poignant accent to his anguish. Now on a throbbing leg that felt like something was leaking inside his kneecap, the man turned just in time to take the full brunt of a heaved haymaker from George who jerked back from a sitting position and swung for the fences. Something cracked in Pamuk's jaw when he was hit with the full force of a punch that was not as powerful as it could be but was enhanced by the handguard of Lord Grantham's saber that was used by his heir like brass knuckles.
His knee protested and seized up when he found his feet, staggering away, cradling his fractured jaw tenderly. He balanced himself, leaning on the blade of his sword like a cane. When he whirled back, he witnessed his foe kip-up in one smooth motion. With his feet firmly planted, the youth gave an expert flourish of the Victorian saber from one side of his body to the other in a show of mastery and reorientation. Then, closing the distance quickly, the youth lunged, the stabbing point of Lord Grantham's former blade flickering out like a striking serpent. Pamuk, parried with a sidestep, and countered with a horizontal sweep that George ducked deftly. Circling, the two swordsman touched blades as they paced in the very compacted rectangular arena atop a gyrating and unstable railroad passenger car. When their joint orbit, connected by touching blades, led them to the edges of the breadth of the car, the bastard prince attacked.
("Those Who Fight Battle" – FFVII Remake)
Alemdar Pamuk's style was textbook, finesse, and fundamental, for he had been trained most of his life to use the sword that he wielded. The scimitar of Mehmed II and Suliman 'The Great' was a curved blade that glinted and flashed with its smoky steel whose metallurgy and making was lost to time. With long arcs and sweeping slashes, the swords curved design was for fighting upon horseback – as all ancient Islamic blades. It's crafting and purpose was to slash at the neck and decapitate, to penetrate the one weakness in the heavy armor of Latin Knights and the Byzantine Romans' Cataphracts – both the direct forebearers of the House of Grantham. There was a discipline, a frontward and backward, knowledge of how to fight with such a sword, drilled deftly and slavishly in the palatial courtyards of Bagdad and Tehran by many great Islamic sword masters of the former Caliphate – loyal to the blood of the former Grand Sultans. Day and night, since the high spring of 1920, since he was ten year's old, since word reached them that Lady Mary Crawley was reported to have had a son with her beloved Matthew, had Alemdar Pamuk been training for this very day, hour, and moment.
George Crawley, true to his fighting style, focused on defense. Robert Crawley's former blade was straight and rigid as the manners and customs of the age of which it had been forged. Unlike the ornate and regal weapon of the House of Pamuk, Lord Grantham's saber was unremarkable, streamlined in factory assembly, and industrial in quality. It spoke to the paint by numbers, mass-production, and soulless uniformity of the British Imperial War Machine of the ages of Victoria and her son Edward. Yet, while unadorned and sable, the industrial quality – built for harsh African and Sub-Asian conditions – was advantageous. For no other sword of any other time later than the late-Medieval Age could stand up to a blade of Damascus Steel. The hellish steel mills of molten fire and steaming chimney of the industrialized English Cites that wrought the high concentration of iron in the blade made it tough and near unbreakable. Also, as the design of the officer's saber, it was not a slashing sword but a thrusting weapon. Thus, though the sharpened smokey steel of the sacred Islamic blade may notch the edges of Lord Grantham's saber, the weapon's deadliest part at the point remained untouched – but not unbloodied.
The Islamic blade's vertical arching sweeps of built momentum cut against the considerable wind resistance of the runaway train like slicing through pillows. The rattle and clash of the swords gave piercing rings that echoed far over the open sea water all about them. The saber met each blow with an offensive parry that struck at the moment before the apex of Pamuk's swing could be built. George darted back and forth, feinting and parrying. In a defensive form, the young swordsman held the inside of the fight, getting in close. With the reliance of large slashing hews to use the scimitar correctly, the Lord of Downton negated his foe's ability to give full swings. Thus, each slash was met with a parry before it was fully formed, then lunging forward into his enemy's personal space with a jab or slash. Therefore, though the bastard prince was the aggressor in the fight, it was him that was constantly back peddling across the connected passenger cars to try and create space for himself.
The blades of the two inherited swords were quick as lightning, both man and teenager were studious scholars of sword fighting. Yet, each showed a different philosophy that reflected their upbringing and values. Alemdar Pamuk was aggressive, fierce, and fervent. This was the opportunity of a lifetime, years of indoctrination and hatred that dominated an unhappy life now hung in the balance and he would not waste his chance. The enemy of his fallen house, the last and greatest they'd ever face, was right in front of him. It wasn't that there wasn't a tomorrow for the House of Pamuk, fore they were rich in the shares of petroleum of the Iran and Iraq oil fields – invested in the London Stock Exchange. They, unlike many of the former Caliphate's nobility, had fallen on their feet. The British Imperium accepting more readily the Europeanized Ottoman Court than the Arabs of whom were more savage and brutal.
Yet, still, here was the last chance for the Pamuk family, their final and only heir, to win one last glory that they could live upon forever. That before he got soft and fat, before he sent his heir to English Universities and paid only lip service to the teachings of the Prophet in this European life, that he dealt with their last foe. That for one sterling moment, in foreign lands, in a fated duel, the blood running through the man's veins – all the collected memories of Sultans – was still divine in the eyes of Allah.
As for George Crawley, the teenager no longer thought of such things. He had spent many a year in bitter exile seeking out Jesuit teachers that could expand his knowledge of combat, sleight of hand, escape artistry, of life and death. A shrew judge of character - knowing much of what was in the hearts of men from his many adventures and travels - George sought only those of noble heart and moral principle to teach him all they knew. Thus, much of George's instinct was never attack, to be aggressive, but a mind bent on defense. It was the cornerstone of his combat prowess. The youth was an impenetrable wall, and unbreakable gate, that the foe assailed fruitlessly in pride and foolish glory.
Though knightly and gravely handsome in face – fairer than all his forefathers – always was he stern and joyless in seeming. A history of tragedy and sorrow percolated in his heart at all times like the rushing thunder of a hurricane's waves, and it had been his life's work to contain that dark tempest that was always just under the surface. He strove – sometimes mightily – to control his angry and black emotions so that they did not control him. And therefore, the young man often fought with the inherited gifts of intellect and study from his father rather than raw emotions that would surely consume him if he let them out for even a moment. Cold and calculating – Lady Mary Crawley in instinct – was how he viewed this duel that seemed but just one more battle in a long line of them since he could remember.
The flash and ringing of swords had long supplanted a fading memory of a happy childhood that remained only as shadows upon the walls of a ruined fortress that was once a heart.
The bastard prince gave a sweeping swing that George repelled with a ringing parry. However, in quick succession, Pamuk thrust with a flickered stabbing motion. For a moment, it seemed an over lunge that the swordsman took full advantage. The young Lord of Downton caught his enemy's blade and, twisting it to his opposite side, made a counterthrust. The Ottoman legacy side stepped the stab of Robert Crawley's old blade and, reclaiming the agency of his own, pushed the saber aside and sprang his trap. He made a long sweeping arc right for George's head with a backhand slice.
The youth quickly dropped to a knee to a avoid the slash that cut the air above his tussled grown out locks of waving raven curls with an audible swooping of razor-sharp edge. Redirecting and salvaging the momentum of his swing, the bastard prince gave a twirling repositioning of his blade and brought it down hard to strike at his vulnerable foe. Quickly, George lifted the saber and blocked the overhead strike. And in counter, the youth used Pamuk's own energy against him by meeting the next blow before it reached the apex, stopping his foe's momentum and making him vulnerable. Spring up from his low center of gravity, George caught Alemdar in the chin with an upper cut that sent him staggering back.
With the spiting up of blood that turned pearly perfect teeth red, a look of anger overcame the grown man. Having one more sequence that did not go his way made Pamuk fey and reckless. He had been expecting an all or nothing bloody swordfight where both would go at one another like animals. But instead, his enemy – his first and greatest – was completely defensive and unaggressive. The youth's style was that of a reliance not on strength but on a near impossible level of hand-eye-coordination and balance. He used his opponent's own strength against them, meeting their strikes at the apex and then countering when they were out of position or off balance with lightning speed. George also used the reach of the long straight blade of his grandfather's saber – able to penetrate the enemy's defenses with a single thrust. But most annoying of all was that he was patient. He didn't rattle, didn't get bored, nor angry. He was cold, concentrated, and observant. Pamuk knew that "The Comet" was wearing him down, waiting for the man to get frustrated, angry, and bold … begging him to do something incredibly rash and drastic – that's when he'd get him.
There was a sudden explosion of a back and forth between the two swordsmen. Pamuk, trapped on a runaway train, in his first duel – his first fight – showed his hand. He had ten years on the young Lord of Downton, a fully developed mind and body, at his prime in life. But all he knew of swordsmanship was from study, practice, and theory. His teachers were hard, but distant, unappreciative, and ingrates. After the fall of their Caliphate, the divvying up of its territories between the British Imperium and the French Republic, there was no call for sword masters any longer. In the Islamic world, the sword was still a symbol … but that was all it was. His teachers were not particularly interested any longer in the art of the weapon, but, instead, interested in keeping steady employment. Therefore, Alemdar Pamuk's education was a slow and tedious affair – informative but with absolutely no practical experience in its use.
Meanwhile, George Crawley, at fifteen years old, in throws of latten puberty, had nothing but practical experience with a sword. He had crossed blades more than once with some of the most dangerous rogues of the past age - Professor James Moriarty, Alexander Grayson, Fu Manchu, Tatsu Suchong – "The Bird Spider", and Kalemdai Rao – The Stygian Sorcerer Supreme. On his very first adventure he had killed Dununga – the "Man-Ape". Then, above all, within nightmares and mires of darkness had come …
"The Necromancer"
Trained by Captain Nemo in the discipline of "The Master's Wheel" the boy had a natural talent for swordsmanship and took to it quickly. Over the years, even after the dissolving and hunting down of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" by SPECTRE, in his long exile, the youth had studied and learned several and varied forms of swordsmanship, not just saber and rapier fencing, but disciplines with katana, Chinese longsword, Khanda, and medieval broadsword. By the summer of 1935, George Crawley had fought many men and monsters and lived to see another day … while many of his foes had not.
The swords flashed and rang at a terrific speed that was one-part elegant dance and the other deadly artistry. They sprang back and forth, thrusts connecting to counters, that led to parries – each trying to lure the other into feints and traps. George backed away from the angular slicing fans that the bastard prince made, his jabs caught in the weaving webs he twisted and twirled about him in his building momentum. As the fight went on, Pamuk dared to hope as George began opening up, breaking his defensive mold to make more overt sorties. But there were games within games, and feints within feints, in these duels, and Alemdar Pamuk had not anticipated it.
He had fought with all the hot-blooded passion, fervency, and zealotry of the fiery wheel of the Persian Zoroastrianism and Clerics of Bagdad. Yet, in the calculating cerulean eyes of George Crawley was the Logos of Athens and Jerusalem that built the Western ideals and education. The bastard prince saw this duel as a religious and spiritual battle for the soul of a family. While the exiled heir of the House of Grantham was playing three-dimensional chess with an opponent who only saw the upper level of a three-tier board. Thus, when Alemdar moved in to fight closer in what he thought would be a proper duel that he envisioned, instead, George closed off, and suddenly – without warning – shifted his fighting style. There was a look of shock on the Ottoman Princeling's face when he suddenly swiped when he should have thrusted. George Crawley ducked the swing and stuck his back foot out behind him. The momentum behind the power of his wave and miss carried Pamuk farther than he anticipated – catching George's foot.
The Damascus Steel sword clattered away from his hand as he stumbled and then fell with the tremor of the vibrating train that was on rusted tracks that were held up by a crumbling seawall. With his knee afire and his nose numbed with the smell and taste of iron from blood, rust from the metallic corrosion, and the stink of rot from the ruins of Newport Harbor cascading over him, Alemdar fell upon his stomach. With a panic, the bastard prince realized that he didn't have his weapon. He looked about alertly till he heard the skitter and rattle of metal. When he caught sight of his sword it was sliding back and forth with the swaying train that was pitching with the uneven tracks of the derelict seawall that was not built - not even at its heyday - to support the speed that the runaway locomotive was going. With painful motions, Alemdar crawled desperately to retrieve his ancestral blade. But just as he slid on his stomach to help propel him toward the rocking scimitar, a Mexican Federales motorcycle boot beat his hand to the pommel.
The prince retracted his hand immediately, looking up to find the blade of a British Officer's saber inches from his eye. With a startle and gasp, the angelic man crawled backward in fear. Yet, George Crawley didn't follow, keeping his boot pressed to the hilt of the Islamic heirloom. When Alemdar was out of range of the Lord of Downton's considerable and famed thrust, he stopped. For a long beat the two stared one another down, saying not a word. Defensively, the Ottoman prince got to his good knee, his aching hand from the vibrations of clashing blades of an intense swordfight massaged his injured other. Blood stained his expensive Parisian leather gloves when he wiped his nose and mouth, noticing it with some shock … for this was the first time that anyone had ever made him bleed. The beautiful man's slender muscles coiled, ready to move, to slither, to escape the coming onslaught without a weapon of his own. But the young Lord did not pursue, instead he stared long and hard, with a piercing glare of intensity.
It was then that George Crawley hooked his booted toe under the scimitar and popped it in the air to Alemdar Pamuk who caught it cleanly by the hilt.
The unlooked-for gallantry, the surprising show of chivalry, by the greatest enemy that the House of Pamuk – Islam itself – had ever faced, was something that the man was not expecting. All his life, he was taught, drilled, and raised, to show no remorse, no mercy, to the enemies of his family and the Prophet. Yet, when George "The Comet" Crawley had his foe dead to rights, beaten, he chose honor rather than self-interest. In a moment in which the last Ottoman Prince was hoping for himself - a mistake, a lapse in judgement, to take advantage of - he found that when he was the victim of his own folly, his foe chose a momentary mercy.
Whatever end became of this duel, it would not be with George striking down an unarmed man.
Their loaded pause was interrupted by a distant shadow that momentarily blotted out the sun. Both snapped their head to glance the second and main bridge at the apex of the seawall perimeter to find it a suspension bridge. And it was seen in both their eyes – Alemdar in fear, and a huff of disbelieving annoyance by George – that both men were far too tall for several of the overhead rungs. Immediately, George hit the deck and laid flat, the side of his head pressed to the surface. He squeezed his eyes shut as he felt the cold whoosh of the thick riveted iron support beam flash overhead. He could smell the salt, corrosion, and rust that was eating the splotchy white paint that was peeling at the boarders of the red dusty substance that was spreading over the neglected beams, supports, and rivets, of the railroad suspension bridge.
When it passed, George looked up just in time to hear a fierce cry. Above him, the bastard prince had chanced a close shave of raising himself up at the last moment. The gamble helped him get the drop on George. He lifted the blade up for a high strike and was near taking the youth's head. But the Damascus Steel blade only put a deep black gash on the roof of the old passenger car. At the last moment, George rolled out of the way, catching only sparks of ancient steel on aluminum. However, Pamuk gave chase, swinging and whiffing, creating a trail of black slashes on the green aluminum that gave a razor thin look into the dusty and ramshackle cabin inside. Eventually, as they neared the front end of the train, George stopped after the latest miss and swept up a kick that caught the princeling in the face with the tip of a fascistic motorcycle boot. He stumbled hard backward as the young Lord slipped back to his feet. There was a break in the action for just a moment as there came an awareness of a strange feral madness that had possessed Pamuk as he hissed with gritted teeth.
A mind, conflicted with newness of prospective, rebelled against everything taught and believed in an unhappy and envious life. In the honor shown in the returning of his sword – his ancestral sword – Alemdar Pamuk was confused. Why would he do that? Why would anyone do that? They were enemies, this was a fight to the death. It was kill or be killed. Yet, when he had him dead to rights … he relented. It was, in a life of assumptions and doctrine, that Pamuk saw for the first time that someone he was raised, trained, and conditioned like a dog, to hate … was, indeed, human. George Crawley was simply … a man. He had fears, he loved, he showed courage … and mercy. Why? For what purpose? It was then, in the coming and passing of a rung of a suspension bridge, that this cross wiring hit his brain. And suddenly, a life so filled with loneness, resentment, and envy, took on another tint.
That perhaps everything, everything that made him who he was, had been a lie.
However, it passed faster than the rung above him. Fore, if it were true, if everything that he had been taught, his entire life's ambition, was truly without merit – that was worse. That everything withheld, everything promised, all the dreams of a life put on hold, had always been at his fingertips and he did not have the wits to see it. That was truly a nightmare. The life and death of one child, one young man, had defined him. And it had all been for naught? That he could've reached out and took it, everything he ever wanted for himself whenever he wanted it? It … it couldn't be. That when it came to his life, his future, to seize his destiny, that he was fighting merely a man, a teenager? What had it been all for? What was any of this about?
Yet, still, Alemdar Pamuk could not escape it – the horror of his conception, of his birth. The smile of a beautiful man at a dinner in Tuscany, the youngest Princess of Monaco, who had not a drop of alcohol, playing coy. Then, she was serious when he wouldn't stop – she means no. The distant cries for help as her maid and her friend lay drugged – the man's uncle taking liberties with the French noble woman who was her companion on their holiday. The Princess's pained screams echoing down a quiet and quaint cobbled Italian street – answered only by the howl of a stray dog across the village. A king and his American Heiress wife angered, ashamed, blaming the loose youngest daughter that spends too much time with French girls – picking up their bad habits. She swears she was raped. But her parents don't believe her – if she were, why didn't her maid hear her cries? Desperate not to lose her place due to the assumption of drinking too much – despite never touching a drop of alcohol herself - the accused and accursed maid contradicted the young princess's pleas to tell the truth.
The young princess is guarded day and night during her pregnancy – making sure that no one sees her. Nine months pass and the labor had taken three days. Pained, told that the complicated delivery had caused damage to her birthing canal – creating risk to future babies and herself if she ever wanted more children – the girl says nothing. Then, one night, out of the blue, she wants to hold the child. The nurse is wary, says it's late – maybe tomorrow. She reiterates that she wants to hold 'it' … never him. The nurse insists that it should be tomorrow. Suddenly, the palace is awoken to a screeching baby and shouting. When the prince arrives, his sister has the baby by the foot, the nurse wrapped like a vise about the baby's chest. She tugs and tugs, closer and closer to the bay window. Eventually, the little sock gives, the young princess stumbles, and she falls over the balcony and into the Mediterranean below. Let it not be said that wasn't her plan … only she wasn't supposed to be alone when she leapt.
For three days the King flirts, ponders, and even climbs the ramparts with a sleeping baby – all baiting at fulfilling his daughter's dying wish. However, a beautiful woman – elegant, regal, and exotic – comes to call. She is a Princess of the Ottoman Empire and she has a need of the child … and she's willing to pay. The King asks what her interest in 'it' is? The woman's response, in counter query, is to ask what it matters to him – he's the one on the seawall, deep in council with the devil. The King requires a high ransom and the woman pays without question - gold, rubies, and a night of passion with him … and his mistress.
Her husband, "The Prince", barely notices when she returns with their grandson. 'Put it with the others.' He says without looking up from official documentation of their newest losses against the Slavs in the "Vulcan Wars". Kamal Pamuk sniffs and dismisses the baby, not denying what he did nor what the result had been was in his mother's arms. It was simply that the baby's father was just not terribly bothered nor interested in his existence at all. Later that night, naked, sweating, sore, lying next to the son that didn't acknowledge the word no, the Princess Pamuk had always a plan to use the baby for her vengeance … however, until 1913, it had nothing to do with Lady Mary nor George Crawley.
Every day, every hour, Alemdar Pamuk was reminded of who he was and where he came from. No one love him, no one cared for him – even the bed slaves laughed at him. Only she cared, only the Princess loved him. Why was he to do this? Why would he hurt that sex slave? Isn't stealing wrong? The slave boy doesn't have a weapon anymore, the sparring match is over, why must he continue to hit him? All these questions were answered with the excuse that Princess Pamuk loves him – the only person who did – and we do what our loves ones tell us … or else they stop loving us.
She had everything that he ever wanted, her love, her approval, the keys to the inheritance of their family. He was his father's only boy – his older half-sisters sold as mistresses to British and French Colonial officials in Constantinople for diplomatic access. She was the only one that knew he existed, where he came from. He could be a rich and legitimate heir to an oil fortune, live a life of opulence and splendor in London with an Anglo aristocratic wife and exotic French mistress. Or he could be the bastard born son of a raped princess that accidently died trying to murder him. It was entirely his choice, and she hoped he would make the right one … because, you make the right choices for your loved ones – of which she was his only one.
Once again, another beam came careening toward them. Quickly, Alemdar prostrated himself , feeling one of the rusted rivets slide perilously across the small of his back, tearing fabric away from his stylish Regency black overcoat. But when the angelic man looked up, he was startled into alertness. Fore, unlike before, knowing the peril of his last solution to avoid an errant rung, George, instead, took a gliding acrobatic leap over the oncoming obstacle. The momentum of the train carried him quickly to his foe. He was nothing but a looming shade against the high sun that was getting bigger as he came falling right at Pamuk. The ring of saber and scimitar was ear piercing as George's leaping slash was caught at the last minute by Alemdar who was nearly crushed to his knees. They were locked together in a show of strength. Between the blades their faces were inches apart. And there was, for the first time in their fight, the hint of darkness, the edges of a shadow, in the perilous cerulean eyes of the young Lord of Downton.
It was but a momentary lapse of judgement on George's part. Fore, while he was perhaps the deadliest man in the British Imperium, it was not by strength – never by strength – that he had earned such a distinction. He was still a teenager, not a man grown, and he still had some years before he could ably rely upon his power alone. However, even then, he was not the juggernaut boxing champion that his father had been at Oxford – of Cornish mining stock of the name Poldark. He was Lady Mary's son in physicality - lithe, athletic, and quick of mind and body. All of George's victories were not won by sheer overpowering the foe but by a wedding of Mary's speed and agility as a goddess of sport and by Matthew Crawley's vast intellect. Thus, though hard pressed at first, Alemdar Pamuk was a grown man with physic and strength in prime maturity.
With his lower center of gravity, Pamuk pushed up and off his opponent with all his strength and considerable hatred. With a stumble and train car shuttering on a bent track, George ended up on his back, his Donk's saber skittering away. With a roar, feeling that his moment had come, Alemdar rushed forward with blade raised. With all his anger, all his hate. Possessed with the awareness of a mother that killed herself rather than love him, a father who simply sniffed and told the maid to take him to … 'wherever you take these things' as he tore open the silk bodice of his own mother's gown and forced her to bed. With a life wearing the shame of base-born, a child of rape, and being the son of a monster, Alemdar Pamuk swung down at his enemy.
But the relief of a knightly and fair head cracking open like an egg was never felt. Instead, there came a cold and biting grip on his wrists. George Crawley had recovered quickly, springing to his feet in a crouch and caught the hands of his foe. Held low, the youth gritted his teeth behind pressed lips and bent knees. Their arms shook, as two foes – born of tragedy – let the infernos of great expectations, failed trials, and the great wroth of ever being born, clash in a physical contest of wills.
It was then that George only saw the same look from Pamuk that he had gotten all his life from his own family. They had always gazed upon him, the young boy, the child, and the tween, and only ever saw a symbol of their unhappiness. He was a poor replacement for a father who always knew what to do when the chips were down. He looked every bit the missing aunt that he never met whose family was ever in a state of perpetual morning for the beauty that he could never hope to live up too. Every time he walked in a room he was gazed upon as a blasphemous abomination, a changeling child, that had stolen their beloved Sybil's face and their champion Matthew's name. It was because of who he was, what they made him, that all their traditions and hopes for the future were dashed. It had been near a decade since, and he could still feel it, see it with his waking mind: the anger, the disappointment, and the shame of his very existence.
And George Crawley was tired of people laying the burden and blame of all the unhappiness and disappointment of their lives upon his shoulders.
Indeed, it was never strength that won the Lord of Downton many duels of high stakes, but by speed, intellect, and an exceeding cleverness. Thus, a look of hateful determination was replaced by surprise when all of Pamuk's strength suddenly caused him to sink forward. He felt himself be taken off his feet, boots on his stomach, and then he was suddenly airborne. Fore, rather than playing Atlas to the dark and evil childhood of a bastard prince, George Crawley fell backward, using his enemies hate filled strength to pull down on top of his lifted feet and bent knees. With backward momentum and a launching spring, George propelled Alemdar overhead where he landed with an audible metallic ring of the roof.
He slipped and slid till he caught the bar at the edge of the train. He lay prone for a moment, collecting his thoughts, somewhat discombobulated by the maneuver of which he was the victim. The last beam of the main bridge passed over head with a cold rush, its shadow falling like a pall over his hazy and startled eyes. It took a moment to realize what happened, and then another to curse how close he had come to fulfilling everything that was set before him. With a snarl, he pulled himself up and stood. And there, in the distance, he found George Crawley hook his grandfather's saber with a boot and pop it up in his hand. The youth's stare was hard and implacable like Artic layers of ice – stony in quality and unforgiving in temperament. The saber blade flourished expertly in his hand, backward and forward, behind and then level in height.
The Comet was done with this pointless exercise in futility.
Yet, there was nothing pointless, nor futile, about this duel, nor even the collisions of Lady Mary, Matthew Crawley, and Kamal Pamuk, one dark ominous day in 1913. This orbit, this meeting of the lay lines of destiny conjured by the universe went back hundreds of years before. This duel had as much to do with the death of Kamala Pamuk as it did with the final conflict between the Grand Sultan Mehmet II and the last Imperial Family of Roman Byzantium.
When Constantinople fell to the Ottoman invaders in 1453, Constantine IX's youngest daughter – a prize beauty and treasure of her people – was lost to the sea while fleeing sacking and slavery. It was unknown how the last Princess of Byzantium washed up on the Tudor shores of Wales, but her beauty was mesmerizing, and her voice was magically enchanting to those of their household who found her. She was brought to the court of Henry VI and his queen Margaret of Anju. There she became a "Guest" of the Lancastrians – her angelic and spellbinding voice of Greek hymnals seemed the cure to the King's bouts of madness.
Seeing her beauty as a prize to be offered for advantageous loyalty in her struggle against Richard, Duke of York, The Lancastrian Queen offered the Roman Princess's virginity as a prize for taking up against the House of York. Afear and with the threats to her virtue, the Princess escaped with the aid of Jacquetta of Luxembourg – the queen's own Lady-in-Waiting and best friend. Fore Lady Jacquetta sensed some destiny about the elven fair beauty that tied to her daughter Elizabeth's future. In a fog that came suddenly from the Thames that no one knew where from, the last Princess of the Romans escaped aboard a boat. From there she fled, further and further north - the Lancastrian hunters of the Royal Court ever at her heels. Cold, wet, and lost in a strange land of ruins and woods, she was found by monks of an abbey that took her in. Without question they healed, fed, and cherished her – her talent for song and dance adding to the divinity of God's worship and the written words of their chronicles. There, for a time, since before the fall of her city, had the princess felt content and safe in the walls of the ancient abbey –
Downton's Abbey.
And it was, in evening of Mid-Summer, having enjoyed a festival in the village by the old Roman abbey, that the princess was dancing and singing through the woods by starlight. Her mesmerizing voice carried in it the sorrow and joy of many memories of what she had lost, and yet, the happiness that endured within them. And it was then, as it had been foretold in the weaving of the music of the universe, that the new Lord of Grantham – alone after a grievous victory of battle with the very Lancastrians that had been hunting the princess - that he returned to his lands. Sorrowed and weary of many wounds of body and heart, he was stilled by the weaving enchantment of an ancient song echoing from his woods.
Then, his heart lightened, thinking that perhaps an angel had come forth to take him to heaven to join his father and friends lost in the battle of the day and relieve him of the great guilt of still being alive. Wounded and forlorn, the young knight searched through the woods till he spotted the Princess dancing and singing, dipping her white feet in the little stream as the nightingales fluttered in the branches and limbs above her. For a long time, the young Lord of Grantham watched her as if under spell, till – the emersion was broken by the halting of her singing to admire the reflected starlight on the sheen of the water's face - the weary knight stepped forward and harkened to her.
'Is it you? Have you finally come?' He had asked in a pain of great love that came so terribly.
But the princess did not startle, fore she felt the pull of divinity in the moment of their meeting and knew that they both were exactly where they were supposed to be.
In those days of bliss, before the War of Roses, had the young lord often come down from his seat at the old Roman fortress of Downton atop Spectacle Rock to seek the princess at the abbey at its foot. There had they often strayed in the woods together, sitting upon the ruins of Druid, Rome, and giants, swimming in the ponds and streams. In their secret talks had she spoke to him much of lore and forgotten knowledge that was ever preserved in the Eastern Empire. And he, in return, taught her much of the land, the joys of its secrets, and the romanticism of what the ivy hung ruins could've been and what they could be again when King Arthur returns from Avalon someday.
It was then that the two fell deeply in love, a love so pure and deathless that it was said to create magic itself wherever it touched. She was known to her beloved and in the histories of the House of Grantham as "Lady Elfstone" - the first Lady Grantham. And it was foretold by Jacquetta Woodville to her Queen and friend Margaret, in warning of her wrath, that the line that would be born from the love of the 'Dragon Knight of Grantham' and the last Roman princess could never be broken.
Thus, for over four centuries – from gallant knights, to scoundrel gentlemen, heroic rebel lords of Jacobite cause, corrupt old Earls, and even a wandering and nameless ronin – where they all descendants of the last Romans of Briton and the unbroken line of heirs to Byzantium. And never before had the love of Lady Elfstone and the Dragon Knight of Grantham lived so lively in the blood of their descendants than in the romance and destiny of Matthew Crawley and Lady Mary. Therefore, many centuries since the fall of Constantinople and the last of the Roman world, was there to be a period, a finality, to the ancient conflict between the Islamic Caliphate and the Roman Church, the Ottoman Sultans and the Byzantium Emperors …
And the last battle of bitter hatred between two fallen civilizations.
Intermission Music
"Mordred's Lullaby" - Heather Dale