#dominusevent

The candles go out, the beds and rooms are vacated, and the gates swing shut for what seems to be a final time in Castle Berkeley. 

Tomorrow will be Monday: the resumption of classes and what is supposed to be normal life—or, perhaps, normal inasmuch as normal can be said in the days that followed the discovery of the late Viscount Berkeley’s body. There is still too much left unanswered and there is still pressure coming in from all sides about what precisely happened that Sunday morning. 

It is something they know well, having experienced some rather harrowing encounters throughout their weekend stay in the castle. 

 Now, with them back at Oxford, there are several matters that they need to attend to. What to make of the funeral? for one. Who is to be named Dominus? for another. What happens now? is perhaps their most pressing question yet. 

Her guard was up from the moment the stranger’s eyes met hers; lips pursing and gaze lowering to the palm that grasped her elbow and led her to a secluded corner. Apolline silently followed, standing across from the woman and regarding her with elegant expectancy. Despite the utter tranquility of her demeanor, there was no denying the soft-edged sharpness of her gaze as it skirted over the palm still shackling her before rising to observe the shadowed features of the woman before her. It was difficult to glean anything off of her expression, pinched and ironed-out as it was, but there was a tangible hint of urgency in the stranger’s words when she finally addressed her. Apolline grabbed the silken end of that thread and pulled, answering with a curt, “Yes, I am.”

Brow hiking in an elegant arch, Apolline was careful to rearrange her own expression to reflect the required degree of reverence, chin inclining as she sent a mild smile in the woman’s direction. “It’s an honor to make your acquaintance.”

Her expression sobered, however, when she registered the woman’s following question. “I’m not sure what you mean by that, ma’am,” She answered with a delicate frown. “If you’re referring to Edward’s death, then I feel obliged to correct you. His death is not a mess, it’s a tragedy, and a grave loss to our societies. It deserves better than to be reduced into an inconvenience.” To Apolline, words were like coins; fickle things to be fiddled with and exchanged for a worthy bargain. But just like the currency they were likened to, some words stood to bring losses rather than victories and Apolline wasn’t ready to take that risk. If she had to demean a former Sebastos in order to maintain her narrative, then so be it.

“But if you’re referring to the… looming danger,” She paused, allowing the silence to emphasize the implicit meaning behind her words – if you’re referring to our potential exposure... “Then rest assured, we have as much involvement with that as we do with the heinous act that prompted this danger in the first place; none.”

Placing her hand atop the woman’s, Apolline lowered it from her arm before clasping it in a feather-light grip. But when she spoke, it was with steel-tinged words. “Pandidakterion’s pride will be preserved no matter what it takes. I promise you.”

Losses and victories were so easily bought with words…

WHEN: 13 October 2019, the weekend after the discovery of Edward’s body

WHERE: Berkeley Castle, Gloucester, United Kingdom

WHAT: A Requiem for Edward Hardwicke

At first: a low and heavy note, resonating loudly inside the church. Then, the choristers’ voices start to lift up into the heavens for the passing of Edward Hardwicke, praying for eternal rest for those who departed from this life to go onto the next. At first, the attendants are nervous, flicking nervously through their programs, but then they settle into an uneasy sort of participation, their voices eventually joining the fray.

The requiem mass for Edward Hardwicke, Viscount Berkeley, has begun.

By the right hand side, in the front pews, the mournful faces of Lord Hardwicke and his wife stares sombrely at the casket. They are surrounded by the friends of the young viscount. The funeral rites are long and awkward, the Latin strange and foreign for all those uninitiated, the music almost jarring. They would have rejected the invitation, but such an action would prove even more suspicious, and so they found themselves, almost reluctantly, having to perform as a group of friends mourning the passing of their fallen comrade.

But with every flicking of the missal and the singing of the hymns, furtive glances are sent around when they think nobody’s looking. All of them knows that among their midst is the one who betrayed them, the one who dug up Edward’s body and presented it as a work of art for everybody to see. Suspicion and the threat of a conspiracy weighs heavily on their minds: was it a lone agent? Was it a group of people? And, at the back of their minds, though they know it’s impossible: was it someone else?

The past week had not been kind to them. Almost every single acquaintance and associate of the deceased viscount had been interviewed or questioned by the police, in varying degrees of intensity, and they are not altogether blind to the unasked question Edward’s parents seem to pose with their gaze. How did this happen? they seem to be asking. How did it happen that such a heinous crime was committed and that his body came to be desecrated?

It is not only his parents’ questions they have to face, the conspirators knew, for they cannot help but recognise the faces of the older attendants. How could they not, when it was those faces that lined the walls of their crypts and secret rooms and meeting places? There are equal parts disapproval and interest there—interest aroused by the macabre turn of events and disapproval for the fact that Edward’s murder has officially put both societies at threat of exposure; and while most members have amassed power and commanded influence, they cannot make the world turn a blind eye to the corpse that was displayed at the grounds of Oxford that cold Sunday morning. They cannot make people forget that macabre vision, like something drawn up by a haunted and possessed artist. Something happened to Edward Hardwicke, and it seems the whole world is determined to find out exactly what.

Yet even as suspicion and the threat of exposure looms, the political machinations of certain individual members continue to roll on. Tensions begin to arise as both societies seem to be instructed by their alumni to play fair and nice with each other, self-preservation beating hundreds of years of tradition. In addition, the question of who would take up the mantle of Dominus (and, most importantly, how) seems to still be left unanswered.