AxDraft

I have been finding that the new revision on Ax has been, so far, more of a polish, but the first change may be the profoundest.  There is still some work to be done, harassing the SBC into helping me decide whether anything else needs to be cut (I'm willing, but unable to see a *necessity* just yet), but I wanted to share this work.  The opening page.

Here is the original (well, last-revised) version:

† 481, Autumn

            The day had been windy and hot at once, scudding clouds moving aloft in a milky blue vault.  With my elder cousin Ragnachar, I’d been on a week’s patrol with a dozen guards and scouts, between Tournai and Arras.

            Riding into the courtyard of the timber fortification, the place had an air almost like the abandoned farms we had surveyed.  It wasn’t truly deserted, yet there was a strange quiet.  The space was … insufficiently occupied.  We took our horses to the stables ourselves.

            Before we emerged, my mother Basina’s youngest slave boy appeared to fetch me.

            I saw my father in the hall, silent, facing away from everyone and staring into a powerful fire.  A slave was nearby, but otherwise, King Childeric was alone.

            It was impossible not to guess what she had sent for me to discuss—the King alone, the stockade at an unnatural hush … and the son, sent for by the Queen.  The unbidden, unwanted thrill:  a prince is always in waiting for the king to die.

            My younger sister, Audofleda, was with Basina, and all but ran when I appeared.

            The news need hardly be spoken.  Still I asked, “How did it begin?”

            “You know he was ill befor you left.”

            “He was recovered before I left.”  I could not understand what had happened.  “He had just gotten over a chill.  He was recovered.”  I repeated myself, willing it to be true, denying my guilty excitement.

            Basina turned away from me.  “It was past supper one night.  We were not yet retired—he’d bidden me join him that night—but I had dismissed the women.”  She paused and looked up.  “He’d taken leave to review work lists with Cholwig, but Cholwig came to me privately after nightfall, telling me the king had collapsed.”

            Cholwig, my father’s closest advisor and oldest friend, was with Childeric more even than the queen.  He had once been Master of the Infantry, and now was steward of the king’s house.

            “I was gone … only a few days.”  Even with the searing thrill of a throne of my own roaring through me like storm wind, I resisted, sought not to feel such desire for Childeric’s death.

            Basina placed a hand upon her belly, seeming to find no other place to rest it.  “No longer,” she said simply.  “It’s settled in his lungs, they’re filling with fluid.”  She took my hand slowly, her eyes taking a slow and directionless path back toward my own.  “You will be king any day now, Clovis.”

            It was difficult to respond.  The back of my throat had closed, and in what might be the greatest moment of a prince’s life I was choked and lost and emptied.

            As her hand absently let go of mine, Basina released me, and I found myself walking away.

... and here is the new opener ...

            Guilt and blood are the first anointing.

            Even without the sin of parricide, there is always the waiting for the father’s death.  One king takes his throne only with the death of another:  damned in the moment of fulfillment.  Unable ever to forget.

            I was fifteen years old, returning from a patrol to Arras with my cousin Ragnachar and several soldiers.  We found the stockade at Tournai too quiet, too empty.  The thought of my father’s death arose, shrill and unbidden, even before my sister Audofleda came and fetched me to our mother.  I knew.  I knew, and fought down the thrill.  But I knew.

            As it happened, he was not yet dead.  Not yet.  Childeric was attended, reclined on a cot and blankets, in front of a prodigious fire in the great hall.

            “I was gone … only a few days.”

            “You know he was ill before you left.”  Basina’s head was bowed, and she picked at a fold in her dress.

            She’d been working in the main room in king’s house, a small but finely built dwelling past the great hall, where now lay in the busy center of the stockade.  The house was needed for funeral preparation; it had always been his workroom as much as sleeping closet, and brooked less traffic than the hall where he lay.

            We were alone with none but two slaves she had set to sorting his personal treasures.  Audofleda, huge-eyed and wordless, had pulled another girl away the moment she had brought me here.  They ran across the dusty yard, I watched through the open door as my eyes accustomed to the darkness.

            “He was recovered before I left.  He’d just gotten over a chill.  He was recovered.”  I repeated denials, insisting the guilt away, insisting to myself I did not want the king dead, pretending I didn’t seek my throne.  My throat clogged with the searing fear of my guilty ambition.

            She turned away from me and began to explain.  “It was past supper one night.  We were not yet retired—he’d bidden me join him that night—but I had dismissed the women.”  She paused and looked up at the wooden wall before her.  “He’d taken leave to review work lists with Cholwig, but Cholwig came to me privately after nightfall, telling me the king had collapsed.”

            Cholwig, my father’s closest advisor and oldest friend, was with Childeric more even than my mother, the queen.  He had once been Master of the Infantry, and now was steward of the king’s house.

            Basina placed a hand upon her belly, seeming to find no other place to rest it.  “No longer,” she said simply.  “It’s settled in his lungs, they’re filling with fluid.”  She took my hand slowly, her eyes taking a slow and directionless path back toward my own.  “You will be king any day now, Clovis.”

            No response was possible, nothing I could say would not brand me guilty.  I was choked and lost and emptied.  And overwhelmed with unspeakable joy.

            As her hand absently let go of mine, Basina released me, and I found myself walking away.



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