by Charles Matthias and Ryx
Pars I: Disipicio
(c)
Order in the Matthias family existed only through the tireless effort of the Baroness who after five pregnancies each of which resulted in litters of three to five rats could not believe that any task was beyond her ability or time so long as that task dealt with her ever expanding home. She did not need to cook or clean by the time the third litter had been born as they had been granted noble title and a generous enough stipend to hire servants to help maintain their house, but she involved herself in every duty of the home. One moment she would be in the kitchens tasting the bread, cheese, and stew, and the next she would be inspecting her children, room, dress, and fur to make sure each were properly comported. She was mistress of her house and none knew it better, not even her husband whose own sweat and sinew had gone into building it.
Charlie was swept by her firm paw, callused from her years working in the Keep's kitchens and then in her own, but still soft from the mild comforts of minor nobility. She led the taller rat from room to room of the house where each of her children his brothers and sisters by birth were occupied with their daily studies with tutors, sword and bow practice with trainers, or at play with dolls, dogs, and forts built out of toppled chairs and pillows. As she predicted they were all delighted to see him. The youngest grabbed his legs and begged him for a story or a song. The older ones begged for gossip from Metamor with his sisters wanting to know about this or that noble son and his brothers wanting to know which knights were favored to win the Summer tourney.
The sea of rodent faces, some brown like their father, others tan like their mother, and the rest either black or white or a combination of both, were hard to keep straight. Apart from his litter-mates Erick, Bernadette, and Baerle, he had trouble remembering all of their names but after a candlemark in their company he managed well enough. At least the Baroness had almost as much trouble matching name to child!
None of them, no matter how young, had any trouble remembering Charlie's name.
He was grateful when Bryn returned and they gathered for the evening meal. Like everything else in the Matthias fort, the feast hall was not very large and quickly became cramped with over twenty rodents, a long-eared horse, and half-a-dozen servants bringing bowls, plates, and platters of creamy soup, bread, cheese, boiled eggs, fruit, and finally wood roasted perch.
There were three tables in the room arranged in a disconnected 'U'. The Baron reclined at the head of one after hobbling in on a cane. He was joined at his left by his wife, and at his right by Bryn. Charlie was seated one further away, at Bryn's right, and on his own right was Erick. Opposite them, to Kimberly's left, were their daughter Bernadette and then Baerle. The rest of the Matthias clan was distributed about the other tables by age, with the youngest and most boisterous children at the farthest table watched over by the women servants.
While Bryn and the elder Charles conversed over matters political in the Valley, Charlie busied himself catching up on the lives of his litter-mates. Erick was only too pleased to discuss his knightly training and his hopes to ride in the lists that year. Bernadette gushed about her betrothal to Godfrey of the Glen, taking particular delight in describing how gentle the groundhog was to her and to their youngest siblings. Baerle confessed in a quiet voice that in all of her prayers in the last few months she had felt a pull toward religious life in the convent but she wasn't quite ready to become a postulant.
The food satisfied but it lacked the variety and delicacy of spices he was used to at Metamor. The wine was good and Charlie felt embarrassed when he realized that they had deliberately used one of their best and it still lacked a certain verve. The Matthias family was not trying to impress Bryn no matter how much interest his sire showed in the horse. It was all to make Charlie feel welcome and at home there in the Narrows.
Part of him was flattered and cheered by the gesture. There was always a deep sense of belonging that he felt when among other rats that he did not often feel with other animal Keepers and one that he never felt around humans, especially those in the lands to the south. Another part of him felt a sullen irritation at the communal implication that he did not visit them enough. There was nothing preventing them from visiting him and his family at Metamor more often than the occasional festival.
Charlie tried not to let the give and tug of his emotions distract him from the feast and from the genuine pleasant company his litter-mates and Bryn provided. When they asked him of news from afar he regaled them with the foibles of court life and the strange customs of lands where only humans dwelt. He repeated a few of his father's ribald witticisms to Baerle's chagrin and Erick's high-pitched laughter. And after being pressed not only by his litter-mates, but by Bryn and the Baron as well, he consented to offering a performance of his ballad of Misha and the cantankerous trebuchet.
The flute and hand drums he had brought with him on the hunt were still in Glen Avery with his servants and gear so he had to make do with what was before him. He asked the Steward, James, to bring him several glass goblets and fill each with water. Everyone stared and murmured as he carefully adjusted the depth of water in each until he had seven of the glasses pitched right. He glistened the tips of his fingers and then traced out a hollow bell-like melody from the rims of each glass.
Squeaks of delight and wonder filled the silences between each note. His tune glimmered with the witchlights bobbing overhead, and seemed to persist with a ghostly essence as if the ceiling were cavernous and not flat. His whiskers twitched with the unraveling melody and simple harmony that bewitched the Matthias family with its beauty.
The glimmering bell tones were so exalted that when Charlie finally did begin singing about Misha and the ridiculous series of accidents that befell him when he'd tried to repair the trebuchet it only made his ballad all the more amusing for his audience. The contrast was part of the whimsy itself. And as the fox became more and more entangled and more of his fellow engineers had to struggle to free him, Charlie sloshed some of the glasses so the notes would fall out of balance, transforming the tune he drew with his fingers from a heavenly hymn to a cacophonous parody.
Not that he didn't inwardly cringe at some of his terrible rhymes and clumsy meter. In a few weeks he could iron them out and then present it to his father and perhaps at the Blue Note one night. But neither Bryn, who'd seen the fox launched thirty feet into the air when the wrong ropes had been cut, nor his sire and siblings seemed to mind or notice the rough patches in his poetry. He brought the song to a close by dragging his fingers across as many of the glasses as he could, producing a hideous chord that nevertheless seemed to capture the moment. Two dozen paws applauded him, with the youngest predictably squeaking for an encore.
He demurred and reclaimed his seat, assuring them that next time he would bring his instruments and play more for them. The disappointment of his youngest siblings was short-lived as the next course arrived to distract them with one more sampling of cheese. Charlie wished that he were shorter so as to hide from every glance, but there was none feasting taller than he save Bryn.
Charlie chided himself on his foolishness and cast a quick glance at his sire to remind himself just why he had come to the Narrows. For one moment he caught the Baron gazing at him with a look of profound anguish. But as soon as their eyes met, his sire's pleasant smile returned and he said, Thank you for sharing that song, Charlie. Has my old friend Misha heard it?
Not yet, he said, dipping his snout to find his wine glass among the spilled water glasses and to hide the sudden anxiousness he felt. Perhaps I'll sing it for his son's birthday later this year.
Bryn almost brayed in laughter, while his mother put a paw on her husband's arm. Speaking of birthdays, will you return from the south in time to join us for your sire's fiftieth this September?
He nodded quickly and, having found his wine glass, took a careful sip. Unless the seas delay us, we should. He smiled, whiskers twitching and dribbling droplets of wine. All he could think about was how much he wished for the dinner to come to an end.
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May He bless you and keep you in His grace and love,
Charles Matthias
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