The Mortality of Queens

12 In the Queen's Halls

 Stanton

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Umbra of note

Dawn Withheld and her human ally The Chancellor of Balliol

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'There is a depiction of your Treaty, Minister.' The Chancellor of Balliol had arranged their meeting in The Queen's Halls near Crutched Friars. The imposing early 14th Century building was kept as the Queen had left it, part shrine and part-museum. It acted as home for many artefacts, paintings, other depictions and a little-visited archive on her rule and various queendoms. On this Monday morning only three other visitors were present, scattered around the stately vastness of the main hall. Silence reigned where once the Queen had ruled.

Remote ceilings reflected the reticent light, which crept in from high small windows, with little enough slithering down to where Stanton stood with the Chancellor.

The Oxford College don held up a lantern to better illuminate the picture, which he informed Stanton was 'too lifelike' to have been painted by Walter of Durham, and therefore, was probably, 'by one of the Italians'. In it the Queen did indeed sit 'Neath the Hedge, cross-legged in a manly leather jerkin and hose. The remnants of a gown, shredded to rags, draped over her thighs to the knee. Behind her a stretch of hedge was depicted. Stanton estimated it at six yards in length.

Upon the hedge, above and beside the Queen at its left-hand end, sat, stood or swung seven Umbra, diverse and battle-clad, gazing straight out at the observer. At the other end of the hedge stood King Edward Longshanks, bent by the tribulations of his reign and age. He was attended by three knights of the realm, a bishop and a herald. These faces too were stern. The artist had done his job too well in capturing the lines on the King's face, the notches and contortions of the knights' weapons and shields, their stained armour and frayed robes.

Stanton studied the stretch of vegetation that dominated the painting between the two groups. The only message he took from the depiction was that defeat was clear in the slumped demeanour of the King's contingent. The Umbra and the Queen were yet more sombre, showing none of the triumph that was their due. There was nothing amicable in their fellowship.

'What does it say? Can you decipher its contents?' asked Stanton.

The painting displayed the constraints of its time, which the Chancellor gave as barely into the 1300s. It was simple and muted in colour, dark hues masked their secrets from the lantern light.

The Chancellor was a corpulent and jovial man, more often seen at dinners and party gatherings than at Oxford College halls. Umbra Studies were of passing interest to everyone (and accounted conspicuously for the popularity of the one hundred and fifty newspapers of the day) but they were considered of little practical value. They attracted students with inherited wealth and more attractively flamboyant or socially inclined Umbra – the very opposite of Stanton and Maraziel.

'Decipher its contents.' The Chancellor studied the painting hard, until a smile interrupted, '...elder, may, reed, buckthorn and bramble with rose briar accents, bindweed and honeysuckle running through it.'

Stanton coughed his disappointment, 'I meant...'

'Forgive me, it was my jest. I know what you meant, however, the skills of the artist do not extend to capturing the script within the hedge. Like you, Minister, I know the broad scope of the Treaty, but as for the exact terms written into it, I have no information to give you.'

'But you are Master of Umbra Magicks and Linguistic Studies,' said Stanton. 'This is surely the most important document relating to the Other Realm.'

'Hedge is barely read, even by most Umbra, these days. It is still sometimes spoken, but few understand the seasons' portents sufficiently to write... haha should I say, to grow, a solitary sentence of Hedge, let alone a tract of legislation.'