Amid the Winter Snow: The Slaying of the Bells
🎄❄️🎄 Merry Christmas! This is a bonus post, my contribution to the Christmas Fiction Exchange run by ! In secret Santa style, I was given the name of a fellow Substacker to write for, and that is:
🎁 ! Merry Christmas, Joseph, and I hope that this turns out to be a fun read! I had a hard time finding inspiration for this one, so I drew from a nightmare a dream I had, and it’s a little different from my usual fantasy. I hope you enjoy!
This is a very long post, so please consider reading it in your browser.
Eirlys shielded her eyes against the winter’s brightness in the cold, silvered sky, finding the banner that waved on the staff overhead. It wasn’t right for the linden of Erraleia to be slashed in half by the auroch bull that seemed to breathe menacingly with each ripple.
It had been so for two years, and to everyone’s disconcert, they were growing accustomed to it. It didn’t affect their daily lives, did it?
The kingdom of Erraleia, once the most culturally rich kingdom of the seven on the straggling island of Klukkā, like a river of earth into the sea, had found itself compromised; the invading kingdom of Arystei did so diplomatically, during a recession in the economy when it was found that many men who had worked in the employ of governors and tax collectors slipped quietly out, taking the money with them; the invaders smoothly stepped in, offering to assist in holding off the inquest from the other kingdom, Saižha, for even the money they had entrusted to Erraleia, in the form of culturally significant treasures, had vanished.
The infamous Count Catell was in the lead of the Arysteian aliens: the most strategically minded man of the Arystei, that was certain, and it was suspected he was seen as less intimidating than the Arysteians’ own prince, Rhydderch, might have been. Eirlys had met Rhydderch once before; he was always bent on a warrior’s lifestyle, needed or not. Erraleia might have found itself being drawn into some pointless battle, had he stepped in.
In exchange for granting their assistance, Arystei asked for a joint government rule for the following three years; they would assist in political matters with their personal connection to the kingdom, increase revenue to correct the economy, track down the stolen money – which they had probably directed in the first place - and, they demanded a share of all the royal possessions in the kingdom’s treasuries, often cultural treasures kept within the crypts of the churches, which had not been owned by more than one royal. Unfortunately, that was a significant portion, and included such items as the thousand-year wedding tiara of the Princess Myana, the last surviving example of ancient Klukkān jewelry, before the kingdom had been split into seven.
That tiara would have been Eirlys’. That she was a handmaiden in the stables, tending the Royal steeds, and whose transition to serving the royal ladies had been interrupted, was only a tale. It was what everyone was told, and it was half-true – but more true was that not all of the royal family in the palace were who they seemed to be. Between evading any attempts by the Arystei to make their stay permanent through royal marriage, and keeping themselves, particularly Eirlys, from being constantly shadowed, the Prince and Princess were decoys. Eirlys and her brother Cirran had discarded their formal first names to live with their godfather, Ardghal, in the woodland.
Still, it had been several years since the government had split, and for the common folk, life continued as normal. Eirlys loved the freedom of tending the horses, playing with the foals, and joining in the winter carol services in the churches, and especially seeing Aieius, who was as much a brother to her in spirit as a beloved.
She was waiting for him now; he was one of the guardsman, with a half-day shift patrolling the royal properties. Many were the guardsmen these days, due to the distrust of the unplanned flood of Arysteians. It wasn’t merely the politicians and the nobility who had come, but their retinues, and the retinues’ families and connections, and the connections of those families, and so it ran. Erraleia was hard-pressed to keep their border against any Arysteian at this point, for everyone knew someone who could let them in. Thus the men of Erraleia tightened their lips and hoped that there were not as many thieves and predators entering as was typical.
Still, that was not all Aieius was. He was also her informally appointed guardian, chosen for his trustworthiness, discretion, and pre-existing bond with Eirlys, to keep tabs on her and ensure, to all hopes, that she would not be recognized by any of the Arystei.
As the court’s clock struck in time with the bells of the church below, Eirlys spun around, sensing the footsteps that intended to surprise her.
“Foiled again, my lady,” Aieius laughed quietly. “To your grace, Eirlys. You’re growing better at sensing me.”
“Are you off-duty, then?” Eirlys smiled up at him. He was significantly taller than she, currently clad in the muted blues and greens of the royal guardsmen, but in the afternoon, he always spent his time preserving culture in the city’s eldest library.
“I am.”
“It’s awfully bright out, even with this curtain of gray,” Eirlys observed, drawing her shawl closer around her. “It hurts my eyes. Would you like to go anywhere?”
“Mm. We’ll have snow for Christmas,” Aieius replied, glancing at the sky. There was an alien hint of worry in his face that troubled Eirlys. Even when he looked down at her face again, his mind seemed half-elsewhere.
Eirlys slipped under his arm to hug him.
“You aren’t yourself, Aieius,” she pressed. “Did something happen on patrol, or are you worrying about me again?”
Aieius gently traced the faint floral birthmark on Eirlys’ brow before dropping his hand with a shake of his head.
“No, not this time, not more than is my role to. But you ought to hide that mark better, ‘Lys.”
“Is that all?”
“No. We’ve had word that another cathedral has been blown up: the Arios Diexs in Estan.”
“Another?” Eirlys sighed softly, wincing.
As winter had set in that year, rumors, and then stories of Erraleia’s most beloved ancient churches being blown up hadbegun to swirl in with the spells of ice and snow. An air of unease had slipped in to permeate the background hum of daily life, troubled by this loss of culture – but still, it was easy not to think it would happen here in the royal city of Saia, or wherever one lived.
“That makes four, in a pattern spiraling through the kingdom,” Aieius nodded. “It means the first three were not disconnected incidents. The report that came in described the explosion as inhuman: that the entire roof was dislodged in a massive slab, and cracked inwards, the spiral towers snapping off and collapsing, the walls being shaken amid massive explosions of dust and smoke and sparks until it all looked like a collapsed house of sugar, like the kinds children make for the holidays, and many artworks and precious jeweled windows destroyed. It’s a wonder there’s even a shard of these buildings left to piece back together. So many treasures lost! As yet, no lives, but I fear the bells may all go silent for safety. The Arystei mean to fortify each cathedral and major church, beginning tonight; they have too much interest in our heritage, they say. I suspect our services are going to be severely controlled.”
His eyes wandered the plaza between the low-lying, terracotta-shingled stables, the grand court of the magistrates behind, and the royal servants’ quarters, split off from the main of the palace, which lay just on the other side of the hill.
As quickly as he had grown grave, he flashed his smile at her again.
“I have a gift for you.” He dropped something into the palm of her hand. Eirlys pulled open the silk and straw netting that wrapped it, and discovered a crystal heart pendant the size of an infant rosebud, with a tiny pearl nestled inside, the glass fanning out to form a snowdrop.
“Oh! It’s so beautiful, Aieius! But tisn’t Christmas yet!” Still, she happily slipped the blue satin cord around her neck.
“Anyway!” Aieius continued, “I have some time before I must repair to my work at the library. The old tomes won’t catalog and copy themselves, but they can do without me for a little while longer! Did you want to hang out, Eirlys, or shall I take you home?”
“Cirran asked me to help with the carol service, and it starts in a few minutes.” She elbowed him gently in front of her. “I want to hear you sing, for once.”
He laughed at that, giving her his arm. “If you must.”
The carol service in question was being held at Saia’s own cathedral, Nem’Ari Kleid-Essā, a grand building of lace-like marble, flooded by a myriad of windows. This was only a short ride or walk down the hill and to the south, weaving nearer to the ancient downtown, where the old royal quarter used to stand. Now it was home to government offices and embassies, and the area was overrun by Arystei officials of all kinds, as well as their guardsmen, whom Aieius had to duck aside for and keep Eirlys from tumbling into the street.
The cathedral was already brimming with families and older couples, most of whom would sing along with the choir. Still, Christmas Eve was tomorrow, and many did not know the plaintive hymns of Advent well, so Eirlys braced herself for chaos as her brother Cirran, tall in his seminarian robes, waved excitedly for her to take her place. She dragged Aieius along, and spent the better part of the hour striving not to laugh when he tripped up, because she was holding the music, not he, until she finally passed it over, halfway through.
He dropped the book in relief when the repertoire had run its course.
“You had your wish, for chaos, that is,” he whispered to her merrily.
“I love your voice, silly!”
“If you say so! I’ll make my escape. I’ll be outside when you’re ready to go home.”
He departed, catching up with a few of his friends, and leaving Eirlys to assist Cirran with tidying up.
Eirlys began to gather up scattered straw from the life-sized manger. Children loved to clamber into the hollow cave arching over it, and play at being wise men, or children, as the case might be.
The bell in the tower overhead gave a muffled peal that made Eirlys jump; it was not unlike a sigh, something odd to hear out of such a great and grand bell as these. She searched the sanctuary and nave for Cirran, but he was in the back chapel, separated by a wall of stained-glass, and couldn’t have heard her question. There was someone, though. Most of the attendees had left, the rest filing out the doors, but one man, oddly bull-like, remained lingering, shifting through the shadows, studying faces and gazing at the angel windows in the patterned glass cupola over the sanctuary.
He moved languidly to one of the central pillars in the nave, where four stood in a square to brace the roof before the sanctuary; upon each was mounted an image, and an offering box for prayers and stray coins. He was only a few yards away, and for some inexplicable reason – perhaps it was the strange way he moved – she was sitting very still, lest he notice her. But that was pointless, wasn’t it? He was in a church, making an offering. Eirlys scolded herself silently, reminding herself to place the straw in the manger, not hold it as though it were a sceptre.
The main doors shut with a respecting thunk, closing out the day’s chill, and a shaft of sunlight.
Something like satisfaction, and like the eyes of the bull, passed over his face; and then he saw her.
In less time than it took for her to drop the straw, his eyes had snapped and he lunged unexpectedly, striking away the statue that had half-shielded Eirlys from his view
She tumbled back with a shriek in a tangle of hay and statues, part of her overly focused on the shattering of the plaster shepherd’s arm as he was hurled into the sanctuary railing. For one more breath, the man’s eyes focused on her face as his fingers latched on her shoulder, and he froze, jerking his hand back as though he had touched ice.
It was only long enough, but it was long enough, for Eirlys to get to her feet and run for the chapel.
“Cirran!” She fled, nearly tripping over the corner of the foot of the sanctuary railing as her skirts caught, but somehow she made it into the back chapel, startling Cirran so that he nearly dropped the candelabras he was placing on the altar.
“Lys?”
“He tried to grab me,” Eirlys shrugged breathlessly, running to him.
Cirran didn’t pause to clarify who she meant, instead grasping his sister’s hand and shoving aside the Madonna’s statue on the south wall, opening a hidden passage they were familiar with. The door sealed shut behind them.
“Did he hurt you? What triggered him, Lys?”
Eirlys shrugged again, straightening and letting Cirran lead the way down the dustily lamplit corridor. This was the royal family’s private entrance to the cathedral, which held a few turn-offs to the palace, grand court, and one just out into the back garden of the cathedral.
“I was just watching him, for he seemed to be hiding, even as he moved. I thought he maybe was doing something he shouldn’t, so I didn’t mean for him to see me – I was just in the manger scene. But Cirran, he let go of me as soon as he grabbed me, as though startled.”
“I hope that it was only anger, and letting it clear, and not that he recognized you, Lys,” Cirran murmured fervently, glancing around the garden as he cracked the door open behind the sprawling rose-briers which clambered over the church. “Even leaving that birthmark out of your portraits, if he has ever seen you before-”
“But I’ve never seen him before,” Eirlys protested, slipping out from the roses as her brother tugged her down the path. “I would remember him. He would have had to be within a few feet of me to know who I am. I don’t think we have to be troubled over it, not that much.”
“I hope not. Let’s reach Aieius and tell him of it, ere we run into this man again.”
It was a sentiment Eirlys heartily agreed with. They found Aieius waiting in the front plaza, amongst slowly-dispersing families sipping hot drinks as children slid, laughing, on streaks of ice among the cobblestones.
“You do keep me waiting, Eirlys!” Aieius hailed laughingly, turning from his companion, a fellow guardsman. His smile dropped when he saw the lines on Cirran’s brow.
“Tell me.”
“A stranger tried to grab Eirlys. We aren’t certain of the trigger, but we – I – think he may have recognized the birthmark after. Eirlys will argue with me, but he could have been informed of the mark by someone else. We need to know.”
Aieius sucked his breath in between his teeth.
“I’m going to have to find him. Do you see him anywhere, Lys?”
When the girl shook her head, he surmised that one of the side doors had probably proved more attractive than the plaza.
“I’ll need to talk to my superiors,” Aieius added, troubled. “Ríoghán, Cirran, please take her home.”
“Aieius, remember to have the church searched, see what he was doing, if anything,” Cirran warned. “We don’t want our cathedral blown up, if that’s the risk.”
“Well, don’t worry about getting the grounds cleared,” Ríoghán observed, nodding towards the open gateway to the plaza. A mix of Arysteian and Erraleian men were streaming through, most in uniform. The church was being fortified.
“I’ll talk to the lieutenants,” Aieius said with some relief. He turned back and lifted Eirlys’ hood over her hair. “You’d better go. Ríoghán, check in with me later.”
Ríoghán saluted and led the way. Cirran and Eirlys knew the way well, of course, after two years; so did Ríoghán, between his patrols around the mountains backing the woodland, and his own family home in the forest.
Ardghal didn’t live deep within the forest; it merely felt that way, for the trio had to take a winding way between the shallow Celeste and the Vyra rivers which wove through the area, and after, travelers needed to cut through a grove of alder and aspen before they could glimpse the outskirts of the woodland neighborhood where Ardghal lived.
The winter light was waning quickly, and already the long shadows crossed each other, changing the leaves underfoot to purple hues.
“Is it just me,” Cirran broke the quiet that had settled amongst them, “or does the wood seem to hold its breath, and more than just in winter chill?”
Eirlys paused: the birds hadn’t been singing for some time, giving only the occasional uncertain chitter, and even the squirrels were staying still in their nests.
“Noted.” Ríoghán put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Let’s get you home in haste, shall we?”
The lane narrowed ahead between two gardens on the neighborhood’s edge, where a stream cut beneath a low-lying brick-walled bridge, the air seeming to close in on Eirlys as she slipped in front of the boys to cross. As though she already knew, she turned her head aside as she left it, scanning the hedges of dormant roses on either side. She found her attacker’s eyes staring back at her.
Eirlys opened her mouth to call her brother’s name, cut off when the man’s bulk erupted from the shadow. Ríoghán’s hand found his sword, only for one sweep of the stranger’s arm to send both Ríoghán and Cirran hurtling, Ríoghán into the back of a birch, Cirran into and over the bridge’s brick wall into the stream.
“Ro! Cirr-” Eirlys jumped back from helping them when the man turned on her, moving more swiftly than someone so massive should have been capable of, herding her backwards as she tried to think. He wasn’t about to let her aid the men, and there was no way around him but in the opposite direction. She ran.
Her father, god-father, Ardghal – he was the only chance she had of safety, if she could only run more swiftly and secretly than her pursuer -
The branches whipped her face and arms as she ducked through shrubs and ivy, but she had been cut off, and could hear her pursuer not far behind, even as she managed to slip off of his trajected path towards her father’s house at the far edge of the woods.
The sunlight streaked the trees with fire in between every crack of shade, alternately burning her eyes and offering a sliver of protection.
She wanted to call for her father, but then she would be heard.
But it didn’t matter. As she turned back from throwing a glance over her shoulder to scan the trees, she ran straight into the last person she wanted to see.
He caught her by the throat, not saying a word. Only a thin smile narrowed his unnaturally black eyes as he lifted her from her feet and studied her face.
A prayer pressed its way through Eirlys’ numb mind as she stared back at him, her vision beginning to close in on itself as she tried to breathe. If she died at Christmas, that would be the most dire gift she had ever given – to her parents in the palace, to Cirran, Ríoghán, Aieius, and Ardghal. If her godfather, or someone else would only find her!
“Put her down!”
It was Ardghal’s voice, she could hear it, even if she couldn’t see him, but the hold on her throat tightened.
A horn blew sharply from the bend of the stream hard by, backing Ardghal’s order. The ground crashed upwards to meet Eirlys’ knees before she had time to feel the man’s grasp loosen. There was a shout, and a sudden clattering of hooves from somewhere behind as men charged past. Eirlys’ vision faded in, until she could see Ardghal’s anxious face and the smile of relief that lit it when she reached for him.
“There you are, Lyssi!” He hugged her tightly. “Your throat will need some looking after, but it’s a grace to me that you can breathe.”
“He hurt Cirran and Ríoghán,” Eirlys managed to whisper.
“No, they’re going to be alright. Old Master Vardil found Cirran by the bridge and told me what happened. We were trying to put a net about the two of you.” He lifted his head when the men, whom Eirlys now recognized as part of Ríoghán’s usual patrol from the nearby garrison, returned.
“We lost him,” one of them said, a lieutenant, judging by the triple floweret on his shoulder, as he knelt to check on Eirlys. “I don’t see how we did, but there’s no sign of him.”
“It’s the second time,” Ríoghán’s voice broke in. He appeared beside the lieutenant, and with Ardghal, helped Eirlys up with a little wince. “Bruised ribs, and spine, thanks to that birch,” he answered Eirlys’ look. “That man has the strength of an ox!”
“Speaking of an ox,” Cirran’s voice came a little weakly from behind as he limped in and smiled at Eirlys, only to grimace at the rapidly purpling bruise on her throat. “Lyssi. . . ugh, we missed him.”
“Yes and no.”
“Well, I did,” Cirran corrected. “Save for a bull that nearly trampled me, I saw nothing more.”
“A bull?”
“Must have broke down its fence,” Cirran agreed, gingerly checking the blood flow from a gash in his side.
“We need to get both – no, all three of you, tended to,” Ardghal announced.
“Ríoghán!” the lieutenant intervened. “You were saying, ‘second time’?”
Ríoghán snapped to attention briefly before regretting it when he remembered his bruises.
“Second attack he’s made on Eirlys. He was in the cathedral earlier, sir.”
“The cathedral? I heard a rumor that there was something happening up there. If he has a mind to come after you, miss, you might not be particularly safe at home,” the lieutenant mused. “I would say he would not try again this evening, but if he’s already done so twice in one day, you may prefer to stay in the garrison. Injuries can be tended there, as well.”
“It would be wise,” Ríoghán offered, at Eirlys’ hesitation. “Aieius would approve.”
“And I approve,” Ardghal nodded in agreement. “I want this sorted out before it happens a third time.”
“I don’t like our twice-uninvited acquaintance being left to roam these woods,” the lieutenant declared. “We’ll just have to keep a patrol out tonight. Madihin, Tadagh, assist and escort our friends up to the garrison, and give word to have patrols Tris and Kwet ready to take night shifts. Have them bring the hounds. Off you go!”
With mounts quickly lent to Eirlys and the rest, they were able to glimpse a rare second sunset, for the garrison in question was partway up the snow-crusted Mount Mariel, the slopes of which rose just back of the neighborhood.
Set within the wide, glassed-in mouth of a cave, from nowhere else could one be gifted a better view of the royal valley of Saia, its city, and in the sliver against the horizon, a faint gold and violet glow that was the last touch of sunlight on the sea.
“Something is buzzing,” Ríoghán observed, hardly having entered the cave’s warmth. He dismounted and handed his pony off to an attendant. The soldiers in the main passage were alternately bumping into each other in haste, or accosting each other to discuss-
“Want to guess?” Ríoghán invited Cirran mirthlessly, struggling to clear a pathway for them.
“. . .How long do you think it will take? I mean, it’s the cathedral,” one soldier quizzed his companion, nearly crashing into Ríoghán and Eirlys with an armful of staves.
“Explosives,” Cirran concluded quietly, “but I heard nothing.”
“I hope that’s the good news. Captain! - Oy, fellows, let the lady through, use your vision for half a second and see that we have guests-! Captain, sir!”
Ríoghán managed to pull Eirlys, Ardghal, and Cirran into the viewing room with the grand window, barely escaping a collision with half a dozen men as he did so.
“Ríoghán, I must say – half a moment, what’s happened to you?”
“An attack on my friend, sir.”
“Oh. For a moment there, I thought it was on you.”
“Uh, we got in the way, mostly unsuccessfully,” Ríoghán winced sheepishly. “It was the second time by the same man today approximately almost seven-foot, black hair and eyes, massively powerful-”
“Wait a minute,” Captain Alys interrupted, rising. “You’re describing the same man that was described by guardsman Aieius at the cathedral.”
“Exactly, sir.”
“That story led the fortifiers to inspect the church thoroughly. A charge was discovered, set within each of the offering boxes on the central pillars.”
“I’m not surprised he’s the arsonist,” Eirlys rasped, rubbing her throat. “He was violent enough to do such a thing.”
“He did such an awful thing, not to say that it’s worse than you,” the captain disclosed. “Look to the city and tell me what you see – or don’t see.”
Ardghal drew Eirlys to the window and they picked out the cathedral in the distance, so little from where they stood, the narrow towers rising above the buildings surrounding it. The city lights were glowing, but one light was missing. The bejeweled windows of the cathedral’s belltower were always lit, visible from far beyond the garrison. Tonight, there was no light, and no belltower.
“But the charges-” Cirran faltered, facing Arlys.
“There was a smaller charge set in the bells, my friend. The entire bell tower collapsed into the sanctuary when it struck the last hour. The weight did some damage to the crypts. You know what treasures were kept safe there: relics of many ages, the gold-braided furnishings of Amunaret, the emerald chalice of Prince Drav, the many sacred war-blades of the old kingdom, et cetera. As far as we know, they have been damaged, perhaps destroyed. Piece by piece, our connections to our ancestors and the history beneath our feet, and in our society, are being lost. We don’t know why.”
As the pain of it sank in, each was reluctant to be the first to speak; Cirran did at last, saying, “At least there’s the possible explanation for his attacking you, Lyssi. He didn’t want a possible witness. That’s better than what we thought earlier, anyway.”
“It’s something.” Arlys agreed. “Now, we can’t keep you boys standing here, nor you, miss. Go get yourselves patched up. I’ll have someone show you to empty rooms, Master Ardghal.”
“Eirlys….Eirlys?”
Cirran’s voice wandered into her sleep and woke her. The chimes hadn’t ring for midnight, yet. The spare room of the garrison was dark and bare. Her father hadn’t woken in the next room.
Eirlys slipped out of bed and popped her head out into the corridor. Wherever Cirran was, it wasn’t there. She wandered down, wondering if he was on the sheltered balcony that ran alongside their rooms. She went out, shivering.
“Eirlys!”
“Cirran?”
“Up here, Eirlys!”
Her brother’s excited whisper came from above her, where the balcony ran into the mountain rock, and a little path went upwards to another viewpoint, this one natural.
It was hard for her slippers to find a foothold on the slippery stones, and by the time she had clambered up, she was looking at her hands, covered in scrapes and half-frozen by the ice that had formed since nightfall.
“Cirran, what are you doing up here right now? It’s freezing,” she said, teeth chattering as she put her hand to his shoulder. The cloak slipped.
“Cirr-” she stopped.
It wasn’t Cirran, it was only a ragged black blanket tossed over carefully, such carefully, molded snow- if it wasn’t Cirran, she hadn’t heard Cirran. The blood seemed to harden in her skull with the air.
The eyes that met hers as she backed away flashed iridescent scarlet in the light, but they weren’t human. Something like a bull moved out of the shadows, with horns wide enough to spear four men between them. Eirlys started back with a gasp, only prevented from sliding off the ledge by the snow figure behind her.
“You’re so very naive, Princess.”
“Perhaps I was meant to be,” she whispered, defiant, but she was afraid, and more than a little confused. Only nightmares had talking, monstrous bulls, wasn’t that true? Yet the snow was cold and wet, numbing her hands. Could she call Cirran? Ardghal? Would they even hear her? An entire garrison of men, and yet here she was, and how was this bull in the mountains?
“My dear, there is something called ‘situational awareness,’ and it appears you lack it, gracefully.”
He charged, without so much as a preface. Eirlys gasped and dropped and rolled, leaving his horns to ram into the snow figure where her shoulders had been. The head of the figure splattered on the stone.
“Ah. Perhaps you possess more than I gave you credit for. Still, you’re out here, aren’t you? I suggest you don’t scream. You’ll die far more quickly that way.”
“What do you want?”
“I’ve killed many bells, Princess.” He, whatever he was, advanced, hooves indenting heavily into the packed snow. “There’s one bell left yet to scream, but I wish it not quite yet.”
“Y-you only destroyed five belltowers, there are hundreds left!”
He tsked, as much as a bull could without snorting.
“Princess, it’s the toll of war. And it rings death, for you.”
“What do you mean, Eirlys is gone?” Cirran’s voice was rising higher as he faced his godfather in the council room.
It wasn’t only Ardghal who had checked and double-checked. The whole garrison had been searched. Cirran knew it, refusing to believe it.
“She wouldn’t have wandered out into the snow of a mountainside, even in her sleep! How could an entire garrison lose her?!”
Ardghal had his hands on Cirran’s shoulders and drew him back against his own.
“I know. I’ve asked it too. We fear she was kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped! What do you mean, kidnapped, from a garrison full of soldiers?! If it was him – he hasn’t even got a name!” Cirran threw his hands in the air in disgust when he couldn’t find anything safe to hit. “No one knows anything about him, and he isn’t in any kind of record, either. Same thing, I suppose.”
“And yet it’s the only semi-logical possibility,” Ardghal rubbed his forehead and gave up trying to erase the lines now graven there. “We’ll find her, Heaven knows where she is, even if we don’t.”
Arlys raised his head from a whispered conversation with the patrol captain who had just entered.
“This makes it more difficult. No tracks have been found, and the hounds have had no luck, either. She must be in this garrison, and yet she isn’t!”
The door crashed open under a guardsman’s hand. Aieius’ face was flushed by cold, but beneath it his skin was pale. He tossed a feverish gaze around the room until he found Ardghal.
“Eirlys! Where?”
Ardghal shook his head. Aieius faced Arlys.
“How could she get out? Where could she get out?”
No one had yet noted Ríoghán’s absence, until they realized that he had slipped in and stood among them.
“Why would she get out?” he interjected soberly. “I think I can answer the where, and the what, but not the real puzzle of why.”
“Leave the riddles, Ríoghán!” Aieius flamed. “Speak quickly, please!”
Ríoghán gave a sympathetic nod and jerked his head in the direction of Eirlys’ room.
“The balcony. There’s a way up onto the rock-face back of it. There may not have been tracks elsewhere, but beneath the pines up there I found the tracks of a very. . . large. . . bull. There were a man’s footprints mixed in, too. But only the bull headed away from the garrison.”
“So?” Aieius snapped.
“This was up there, too.”
Ríoghán nestled the broken pendant within Aieius’ cupped hands. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, the words catching at the way Aieius shattered.
His fingers curled over the broken glass until they bled. Fury was not far behind, mingled by confusion.
“A bull. . . you’re certain?” At Ríoghán’s nod, Aieius slipped the pendant into his tunic pocket. “Tell me, how does a bull wander up the mountains?”
He didn’t phrase the fear that each felt – that Eirlys would be found at the foot of Mount Mariel.
“I believe I can help.”
At the new voice, disdainfully narrowed by nature, the men turned to find an intimidating figure whose vermillion satin cloak, barely dusted by snow, easily brushed aside the soldiers in his way as he swept in.
Every guardsman in the realm knew that face, whether he wanted to or not. It was Count Catell.
He raised his hands when the men jumped and drew theirs swords on him.
“Of course I know where your garrisons are; that’s part of my job.”
He drew a wallet from inside his cloak and removed an image.
“You are looking for this man?”
“And my sister,” Cirran snarled.
“I feared that, your highness.” He smiled a little when Cirran drew his breath and fell back. “Oh yes. We have known for quite some time that you and the princess were not within the palace. I believe it is time for Arystei to admit what we are really doing here. We did not want you to be the ones to find him. The reasons why will doubtless anger you, but I ask that you hear me out. We need your help now, and it would seem that you need ours.”
“This man is ‘Tauroch,’ a name we styled for him. You might once have known him by the name of Prince Rhydderch.”
“Rhyd-!”
“That explains the recognition,” Aieius muttered.
“He wished to be the proto-warrior, leading our people in that charge, but we failed to seamlessly blend man and bull into something human. I daresay he has not forgiven us. He was an experiment, of a glorious nature, to strengthen our warriors’ human abilities by the brutal power of the great auroch, beloved in our kingdom. Perhaps we cut too close to nature with too much magic, and too little good will or. . . prayer, you might say. Neither fully man nor fully beast. We created the power we hoped for, but the monstrosity it was meant to enact, as well.”
“You let him into our lands?!”
“Let, hardly,” the Count scoffed. “He escaped.”
“So you invaded Erraleia for Tauroch, not to help us with this ‘inquest,’ the economy, these thefts or the other lies you’ve fed us?”
“Please calm yourself. I know it is a bitter pill to swallow, perhaps more bitter than you’re thinking. We had planned this ‘invasion’ before Tauroch escaped. We bribed the right officials in your offices, the right tax-masters, everything. We didn’t want a war to be our reason for our gaining your kingdom.”
“A lot of comfort that brings me,” Cirran snorted.
“It would seem that the experiment’s inbred purpose has taken over him. Tauroch was a war-machine, in times of war, theoretically. But when one is neither man nor bull, deformed beyond what he once was, even in human form-”
“You’re saying he is a shapeshifter,” Cirran cut in. His hands were white as he gripped the table’s edge, Ardghal’s hands still on his shoulders. “The black bull in the woods, when he – Tauroch, Rhydderch – escaped – that was him?”
“It was, I’m sure,” the Count confirmed. “He is a bull, or in-between, as he wills. As it suits his purpose, he might prefer to say. He will bring war. But, he will ensure that we die, not you. Not all of you.”
“The Princess.”
“Yes. Contrary to your fears, we had not intention of interfering with either you, or your sister. We merely kept a close eye on you. We suspected that Tauroch might seize one of you, should he ever be granted the opportunity of recognition.”
“What does Tauroch want with Princess Eirlys, and how do we find them?”
Catell drew off his crimson-braided gloves and flung them on the table before Arlys, where the map of Erraleia, with all its mountains and valleys, marked by moulded stone, lay spread. Catell leaned over the map, tracing the mountain ridge’s path with the tip of his staff.
“He has a fascination with bells. He always has, since bellringers played for him as a child. In Arystei, it’s required that a ‘secret’ conflict between two or more parties must be announced by five bell tolls in the three days preceding the event, and six bell tolls the day of. We have a single toll left. She is not dead yet. At least I do not think so. He will ensure that it is as deafening as the explosions before.”
“Bells,” Cirran repeated to himself.
Aieius looked up from studying the map.
“You have something?”
“The last time a war was fought between our kingdoms, a bell was erected to commemorate the truce. It used to be rung on the anniversary as a reminder of peace, so it was placed in the mountains, near a valley where the walls would amplify the sound and it could carry into both kingdoms.”
“The Valleys of Longeines?” Aieius was leaning over the map, not waiting for Cirran’s nod.
“The bell is said to be atop the mountain peak between the five sloping valleys of Longeines.”
“Just what we don’t need! There’s a reason that’s called the Peak of Peril,” Arlys pointed out. “No one has been up it in generations. It’s too unstable with avalanches and rockfalls. The bell may no longer be there, or accessible. Even if you started out now, you wouldn’t reach it until after nightfall.”
“That may be soon enough,” Catell suggested.
“Ríoghán, you’ve been all over this range, haven’t you?” Aieius asked. “Are you able to lead me there, in your condition?”
“Don’t worry about my condition,” Ríoghán retorted. “I wouldn’t stay put if you hog-tied me.”
“Neither would I,” Cirran vowed.
“Nonsense!” Catell interrupted briskly. “Your family does not need to lose two heads, young prince. Your crown will start war for one head, much more two.”
“He is right, my son,” Ardghal admitted as Cirran began to protest and to ignore Catell’s input. “Your wound will not do well. Seminary robes are not designed for deep snow, either.”
Cirran tightened his lips and pleaded silently with Aieius and Ríoghán to back him, but even for a change of robe to tunic, they were reluctant.
“Do not worry, Cirr,” Ríoghán assured him grimly. “We will track Tauroch on your behalf, and fight him for you.”
The prince stood and looked on stonily as the other men pulled together their gear in a matter of minutes. He stopped Aieius at the mouth of the cave.
“Whatever you do, if it’s possible.” He caught his breath a little before he could cry. “Bring my sister back whole.”
Aieius gripped the prince’s arms in a brotherly embrace.
“Believe me, it’s everything that I’m praying for!”
“I do not recommend that you tarry any further,” Catell’s voice rang down the corridor, as he came forth with Arlys. “I suggest that you go. I will make it my business to alert the palace and my own circle as to the present situation. If all else fails, we may avoid war, save against Tauroch.”
“And your magical designs,” Cirran snarled back, shaking Catell’s hand from his arm. “As long as I’m no secret, I’ll go with you and ensure my parents hear this right! Go, Aieius. God speed you!”
Their ways split in the snow, one heading westward towards Saia, the other north, along the ridge.
Every stone and scrap of snow seemed the same as that they’d passed for miles, save that the view to the foot of the ridge grew progressively fainter as they climbed. The peak they sought was not all that far as the birds might have been concerned, for it was not far abreast from Saia, in fact being quite close to the grotto where the royal family was accustomed to attending Midnight Masses on Christmas Eve.
The thought froze Ríoghán in his tracks.
“What’s wrong?” Aieius asked tersely, his mind bent more on mentally and prayerfully surrounding Eirlys with a heartfelt prayer for her protection, petitioning the Holy Family to give her refuge, that he had little conscious awareness of his surroundings.
“The bell. If he means to ring it, it could bring all of the snow off the mountainside.”
“You’re thinking of the grotto,” Ardghal filled in, stamping his stave into the snow. Here it was over a foot deep. There would be far more on the peak.
“If he rings it at midnight, it could drown everyone in the grotto, if they don’t have time to escape.”
“Then we reach him before midnight,” Aieius said grimly. “Let’s go, Ríoghán!”
Night fell fast before they got much further. The stars shone piercingly clear overhead. The cross of the swan wheeled slowly through the sky towards the horizon, leaving archers and swordsmen, and the great fighting bull, to crest the sky.
The rock walls began to pile up on either side of the men, channeling the sky, bottling it into a frosty stream, the ice streaking the walls pulsing as with ocean-light, whenever the men’s teal-glassed lamps reflected off the rock face.
“We must be quiet now,” Ríoghán panted, voice low as he dropped back. “This is farther than I have dared to go, and-”
He held his peace a moment as Aieius snatched his arm and knelt in the snow. Large, heavy tracks, bull-like, and yet -
“He walked upright,” he exhaled, standing and casting a glance to the dome-like peak just barely braced in the distance between the crevice’s walls.
“No sign of Eirlys walking?”
They scanned the ground further.
“He must be carrying her,” Aieius concluded at last. “What time do you reckon?”
“Sometime after nine,” Ardghal replied, studying the stars.
“We won’t have much time beyond reaching the peak,” Ríoghán warned. “Move quickly, but carefully and quietly! Even our whispers are being amplified now and I fear the bull may already hear us. Much more noise will wake an avalanche.”
It was an impossible place to have ever fought a battle, but the signs were there, half a millennia later: a broken sword embedded in the glacial ice, a shattered wooden shield, fragilely preserved in the snow.
“They say history repeats,” Ríoghán remarked in a low voice as they struggled up the steep slope of the valley’s far wall. “I fear that we are the reenactors, or the first of them.”
“He may listen to reason yet,” was Ardghal’s council. “He was a prince, and is still so, whether his actions recognize it or not.”
“If he does not, may Christ have mercy and orchestrate this night for peace, the way men should!”
The peak was not as high as it seemed. It was possible to slide down its slopes through one of the valley channels down its sides, if one were foolhardy enough.
The peak itself was like a moulded snowball, perfectly placed, and Ríoghán gave it a dispirited tap with the tip of his bow when they came to it.
“Cirran say anything about how we’re supposed to mount this? It’s covered with a sheet of ice!”
One that was perfectly smooth, at that, like icing left long to set.
“No, I doubt anyone knows, now,” Aieius replied, examining the slick surface. Even his dagger couldn’t pierce it enough to find a hold. “There must be a way, or Tauroch is not on the top. Ríoghán, Master Ardghal, circle around the west face. I’ll meet you from the east, and we’ll see whether there’s any way up, or any tracks. Be careful.”
“Alright, same to you.”
The base of the peak was not far around, either. It was perhaps only a hundred and twenty feet in diameter, and the only thing Ríoghán found was more ice. Aieius stumbled over what he thought was only a stone ledge as he crossed halfway around, but there was another beyond it beneath the snow.
Moving to the rock face brought into sight a stream of well-eroded stairs, narrow and rounded by wind and ice. He swung the lamp from over his shoulder and set it at the foot of the stair. There was no time to waste, especially if he failed to find Tauroch and Eirlys at the mountain’s head. He found that the ice that had coated the stairs had been half-melted and cracked up the middle, making the going easier. The path spiraled up the peak, and it was a wonder he never saw Ríoghán and Ardghal below him, but it meant that they, too, were climbing the path he had marked.
A mist he had not noticed thinned here, letting the ice shine silver in the starlight. The air was thinning, too, threatening to make him dizzy at the worst of moments, before he found himself facing the last few stairs and a crust of broken snow. He tried to draw a silent breath as he inched forward to peer over the edge.
A silent starry vista of velvet blue met his eyes, but against it, an unmoving, hulking shadow, breath frosting before it, and the mutely reflective bronze of a time-tarnished bell, inscribed by old runic figures and a filigree cross, hung in twisted fittings of braided brass and steel. Bound by leather cords to the bell’s southern face was Eirlys, barely kept warm by her white gown and shawl, and the ragged black blanket Tauroch had used in his cruel trick.
Aieius slowly stood up on the top stair.
“Rhydderch. Please, let her go.”
The bull snorted, the only movement another burst of frosty breath.
“I smell the stench of Count Catell.”
Aieius moved slowly, inching towards Eirlys and the bell. Tauroch, or Rhydderch, didn’t move.
“I suppose Catell, and whoever helped do this to you, haven’t found a cure.”
“With bulls, you breed in or out. You can’t cure a creature of its traits.”
Eirlys stirred from her half-state of sleep, hearing the voices.
“Aieius,” she called softly, shivering.
“Lyssi, sweet! Are you hurt? You must be freezing, let me get you down from there.” He reached her and began to pull at the knots at her wrists.
“No!”
Like black lightning the bull slid to a halt mere inches from Aieius’ face, the creature’s breath hot and the horns threatening to spear him. Aieius didn’t flinch.
“Hm. I appreciate your nerves,” the bull snoffed. He backed off a short distance, watchfully.
Aieius slit the cords binding Eirlys, so that she fell into his arms, and quickly put his cloak around her.
“Poor thing,” he breathed, feeling her forehead. “We need to get you warm again. Don’t worry, Lys, we’ll get you someplace safe.”
“She stays.”
“To kill her?” Aieius challenges the bull’s stony gaze.
The tail flicked, but he didn’t reply. It had to be near midnight by now.
“Catell told us you likely wish for war. Is that really what you want? Or do you want to be who you once were? Or something that you haven’t been since you were a child?”
Eirlys curled up on his shoulder, shivering, likewise watching Tauroch.
“He’s hurting,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “They need to stop hurting him.”
“He’s tried to kill you twice.”
“It’s because he’s hurting. Why do we ever fail to do good? Is it sometimes because we’re wrongly trying to fill a void we feel? Re-twist a wheel that shouldn’t have been turned?”
“She doesn’t understand you, Tauroch, or does she? Will a war really close that wound? Will bloodshed stop the bleeding? Tell me.”
“Get away from her.” The bull moved in, horns lowered at Eirlys, who shrank back as Aieius forcefully placed her behind him.
Tauroch pawed the snow impatiently.
“The longer you make this take, the more she is going to suffer. Do you want her to freeze to death, let the mountain kill her, or let me end this in time?”
“You are not going to touch her again!” Aieius leapt forward and raked his blade against the bull’s neck as the creature lunged for them both, the cut of steel causing the head to swing aside at the pain.
“She must die,” Tauroch hissed, swinging round again, scraping aside the snow with his hooves. Limbs lengthened as he drew up his head, and in a grotesque shuddering, he stood on two feet and faced Aieius, one hand drawing a battered blade from a scabbard on his back.
“Why must she die for your petty vengeance?”
“It is the only way to ensure war, I drew my kingdom after me, and yet two years have seen nothing more than politics,” Tauroch growled, showing teeth that were more wolf-like than bullish.
“I have news for you.” Aieius tried to keep himself as a shield between the bull and Eirlys, but Tauroch kept shifting, forcing him round.
“Eirlys, stay behind the bell! Tauroch! You won’t guarantee war, even by her death. Your kingdom is working to ensure that the only war is against you.”
“You underestimate my ability. I will drag my people down with me. I don’t particularly care if you all die. My plans cannot be changed.”
He charged with a bellow. He was nearly twice Aieius in size and in strength, so all Aieius could do was try to move more quickly and wear Tauroch out, darting his blade in to nick, here and there, all the while trying to keep him on the opposite side of the bell from Eirlys. In one break between clashes, he glimpsed Ríoghán and Ardghal climbing the snowbank.
Tauroch sensed them, too, even as Ríoghán fitted an arrow to his bow to bring the creature away from Aieius, firing a shot into the shoulder. Tauroch rumbled savagely and shook himself back into bovine form, kicking up snow as he charged this way and that, nearly throwing all three men from the mountain by turns.
Aieius leapt aside to avoid weight as much as the horns, but there was nothing to stop the bull’s momentum as the creature plunged towards him, save the great bell. He ran into it headlong, one horn catching, and yanked the twisted metal support on one side of the bell, ripping it in two as the bull stumbled back, Eirlys scrambling the other way.
“Ríoghán, the eyes! Aim for the eyes!” Ardghal commanded. “It’s the only way to start to break him!”
“No, don’t hurt him!” Eirlys cried out.
The bull floundered to a stop, chest heaving. He twisted his head to look at the girl with one eye.
“Lys! He’s tried to kill you thrice and now us,” Aieius hissed.
“But if you fire into his eye, he won’t have it anymore,” Eirlys pleaded in a small voice. “He’s a man, Aieius. I wouldn’t want him to lose his eye.”
“What even, Eirlys, please,” Ríoghán called to her, trying to find his aim once more, but holding it, as Tauroch hesitated.
“I could kill all of you if they don’t hit my eyes.”
“Do you want them to hit your eyes?”
Tauroch turned around in the pause and plodded towards Eirlys.
“Tauroch, leave her alone.”
Aieius moved to block his path, but found himself very carefully pushed aside with a light swipe of the horns.
Tauroch ignored him, stopping just far enough from Eirlys that his horns did not risk piercing her. She crept towards him, barely keeping her footing in the deep snow in her unprotective slippers, until she came between his curving horns and knelt in the snow, her eyes lower than his. He grunted at her, but she didn’t move back.
“You know that I could kill you there.”
“Do you want to?”
She reached out and cautiously placed her hand on the crest of his nose.
The seconds ticked, as the bull’s breath puffed ice crystals around her, lifting a little of the freeze on her hands.
“You want to go home,” she whispered, shyly and anxiously laying her hands on either side of his face. “I know. You feel betrayed, but they didn’t mean to do this to you.”
He didn’t answer, the tail still flicking. If the head hadn’t turned slightly aside, she wouldn’t have seen what looked like a tear slipping from one eye.
“Was it not a little your fault for wishing to lead the new warriors?”
“I can’t go back. They will kill me, as the bull I am.”
“We won’t kill you.” She smoothed his forelock carefully.
“It’s easy for you to feel ‘compassion’ when I am a bull. I destroyed your churches, and your history.”
“Only a little of it. Our people are what our ancestors made, not the treasures they left behind. You are not what the experiment made, either. You are what God made, and I believe you don’t have to stay this way. Please let Rhydderch come back?”
“He doesn’t know how to come back.”
“Maybe a priest could help reverse this, if it’s partly magic,” Eirlys suggested hopefully, and grasped the tip of his horn when he moved to shake his head. “Won’t you try? It’s Christmas. And I believe that anything can happen.”
Tauroch let out his breath and let his head rest on Eirlys’ arms.
A squeaking groan of metal jerked everyone’s eyes to the bell. No one really had time to move, watching as the damaged metal support snapped, and the second twisted over itself and snapped under the bell’s weight. The startled bell fell into the snow, tolling once, hard, then snapped back; and pealed again, muffled by the snow, the sound rolling across the peak and down the valley. The reverb cracked the ice sheet as Aieius froze, reaching for Eirlys. The ground gave way beneath the group in a crash.
The whiteness bubbled up, effervescent, tumbling and drowning, in between gashing glimpses of dizzied sky and valley walls, and a sea of golden light between rapidly looming trees. Aieius felt Eirlys’ fingers slipping, and tightened his hold against the weight of ice, which suddenly lifted as the avalanche spat them out of the cascade into a pool of warm light and exclaiming voices. Someone ran to the snow-mound’s edge and drew Eirlys from it.
“Mother?” she mumbled, trying to focus, and to register the fact that she hadn’t drowned.
Somehow, the avalanche had miraculously halted on the outskirts of the glade wherein the grotto was set, and the Massgoers who had run at the roaring were trickling back.
“Eirlys, my sweet baby!” the Queen held her close, and for the first time in twenty-four hours, Eirlys began to feel that maybe, she could feel warmth again.
“Mother?”
“Ssh,” the Queen whispered, stroking the tangled hair. Eirlys stretched her arms up around her mother’s neck and suddenly the King, and Cirran, were bending over her, too, tucking an emerald velvet coat-dress around the girl, one she recognized from her abandoned royal wardrobe, the jeweled one she always wore for Christmas.
“Nice shortcut,” Cirran choked with a laugh, giving a hand to Aieius as the latter sat up and brushed snow out of his hair. “That was one way to make it to Mass on time!”
“Thank you,” the king smiled quietly at Aieius.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t avoid the avalanche part.” He glanced around and realized that Ríoghán and Ardghal were nowhere to be seen.
“Where are they? Where are the dogs when we -”
Aieius jumped back when Ríoghán popped up in front of him, and Cirran ran, with some difficulty, to Ardghal as he clambered from the snow farther up.
Ríoghán sat up and spat out snow. “That was amazing! Next time, I’ll take a sled, and my snow with syrup, please!”
“Well, I’m glad to see it didn’t hurt you none!” Aieius dropped a fistful of snow on Ríoghán’s hair.
Count Catell hovered in the background, scanning the near-disaster area. “Where is Tauroch?”
The bull’s head popped out of the snow a short distance from Eirlys with an angry snort at the count, leading the latter to take an unplanned step backwards.
“That’s ‘your highness’ to you, my friend.”
Eirlys couldn’t stop from giggling at that, and Aieius cracked up, perhaps a little too worn out from worry, lightly smacking the bull’s nose.
“Come on, Rhy, let’s get out of this stuff before we freeze!”
“I’ve been so cold,” Eirlys tried to stop laughing, teeth chattering even as a bit of warmth began to return to her limbs.
“Well, there’s a fire,” her father comforted her, gathering her up close in his arms and bearing her to it. “And this is where you’re going to stay, until we get the horses around to take us home!”
“But I want – I want – but Mass?”
“But, avalanche? Kidnapping? Choking?” Cirran retorted, hovering nearby.
“But Mass?”
“I’m afraid she has my persistence,” their father laughed. “If we snuggle you, maybe you can stay, baby.”
The priest, drawing his embroidered robes over his cassock, paused at the avalanche’s bank to look the bull over as Tauroch clambered out of the snow and shook himself.
“You need some help, I see. There’s usually an ox at this scene, though I can’t say I’ve had a breathing one. Well, go take your place in the grotto for Mass, and I’ll get started.”
“That’s-”
“That’s all. Go on, and stay there. You haven’t been to a Mass in some time, I suspect!”
With a puzzled grumble, Tauroch did as he was bidden, placing himself among the painted statues around the manger. It wasn’t fun, being in front of a crowd. Yet he began to lose focus on them, falling still instead, wincing as from a bothersome fly when the bells would ring, but he steeled himself and stayed put, telling himself how he could leave at once, if the priest could not help, and he would just. . . stay in the woods, or something, or let Catell drag him back to Arystei.
Perhaps something greater entered his heart as the priest lifted the Host at the consecration. It must have been so, for when the last chant and final carol had been sung, and the priest was processing out of the grotto, he gave the bull a smile, and when Tauroch started from his thoughts, he found that even Catell’s face had softened, and Eirlys was smiling from her father’s arms.
That awkwardness of being stared at and in the wrong place, kneeling in hay of all things, set in, and Tauroch got to his feet to leave, waiting for Catell to have someone rope him and lead him off.
Catell bowed his head. “Blessed feast, my prince.”
That was when Tauroch realized that he no longer was. Rhydderch was home, no longer seeming far older and other than Aieius, Cirran, and Ríoghán.
Eirlys leaned out of her father’s lap and touched Rhydderch’s face.
“You know,” she nodded confidentially, “if I marry Aieius and you marry his sister Myna, you’ll be my brother. I’m just saying so.”
Aieius struggled not to roll his eyes.
“The scrapes you get us into, Eirlys!” he groaned, but everyone was trying too hard not to laugh as the candles on the altar were extinguished, and the horses came round, so that everyone, including Rhydderch, could go home.
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Lovely and heartwarming one of the finest Christmas stories of our times.
Lovely! 💗