The Dragon Queens (The Mystique Trilogy) (2 page)
Read The Dragon Queens (The Mystique Trilogy) Online
Authors: Traci Harding
Recently, taking a page from Lady Ashlee’s book, my mother merged her research and family histories with the fairytale romance she and Dad
have been spinning me all these years to create a rather fantastic piece of fiction. For Mum, this sideline endeavour was never meant to be anything more than a hobby. The purpose of the text in her eyes was to make her own contribution to our family’s chronicles, every one of which mingles an element of fantasy with history to create a thoughtprovoking read. This style of writing follows the tradition of the folklore and legends that sprang up to preserve the old culture of my bloodline after the church rose to power in the eighth century—stories of valiant princes turned into frogs and princesses put to sleep for a hundred years, trapped in towers or turned into swans. Yet interwoven within these fairytales are allegories and symbology pertaining to the pre-Christian world order. Due to the mix of fiction and fact in our family chronicles, one never really knows where the facts stop and the fantasy starts, leaving it to the reader to discover how much of the text is true. Personally, I cannot wait to have a crack at writing such a tale about my life!
One part of the family chronicles that is absolutely true is the hereditary birthmark of those who belong to the Grail bloodline. It takes the form of a small cross—known as the mark of Cain—and my mother has it between her breasts, as does my father, whereas mine is on my back, between my shoulder blades.
But to get back to why my parents were arguing on the morning of my thirteenth birthday…
My father, after reading Mum’s recently completed manuscript, took it upon himself to secretly run a copy by his publisher for an opinion. This morning the publisher rang Mum to tell her
how enraptured she was by the tale and how extremely eager she was to buy it for publication. Most people would be thrilled to get such a call—I know I would! But not my mother.
‘I thought you’d be excited to learn that your work has merit.’ Dad was reasoning with Mum in the kitchen, and although they were keeping their voices low, my hearing is very acute. ‘This woman reads manuscripts all the time and she claims she hasn’t been so excited by a first novel in ages!’
‘That’s because she can see how controversial it is!’ Mum didn’t sound very excited, more like petrified! ‘It’s not the theories it contains, but the questions they raise, Albray. We’ve been through this.’
‘The truth is a good thing.’
‘Not for us!’ Mum said.
‘Well, you don’t have to name names,’ Dad pointed out. ‘And as far as anyone knows, it is a
fantasy
novel.’
‘That’s worse than if I’d written a textbook!’ Mum retorted. ‘I don’t want any of my professional associates finding out that I’ve written a fairytale! I’ll lose all credibility, and I don’t want my field work to suffer because of my hobby!’
‘Then we’ll tell them no, that you’re not interested in being published,’ Dad said firmly, trying to end the dispute.
‘But part of me
does
want to be published.’
Ah, Mum’s ego kicked in.
‘It’s a great story,’ Dad said encouragingly.
‘You would think so, you’re the hero,’ Mum snapped.
‘That’s not the reason I want to see it published,’ replied Dad in his ‘you should know better’ tone.
‘The publication of these tales was predicted. Or have you forgotten why you started writing them?’
‘This could backfire on us badly.’ Mum’s voice dropped to a whisper.
‘Or it could be a saving grace,’ suggested Dad.
All went quiet. I imagined they were probably kissing—my parents smooch a lot! Either that or they’d dropped their voices so that I couldn’t eavesdrop.
‘Come on, it’s our daughter’s thirteenth birthday, we can discuss this later.’
Good old Dad, finally someone remembered I’m alive!
‘You’re right.’ Mum forced a laugh. ‘All her presents are still sitting on the table, poor kid.’
‘Except her new journal,’ Dad observed. ‘I’ll warrant that’s what’s keeping her so quiet in there.’
‘What do you think she’s writing about?’
As I figured it wouldn’t take Mum long to work out the answer to that question, I quickly ended my first entry and locked up my journal.
I was having such a great time that I didn’t have the opportunity to get back to my new journal for two days! Needless to say, my birthday turned out to be better than expected. Still, I shan’t bore my descendants with the details of how I spent it. I feel you would all much rather know what my mother has decided to do about the publication offer on her book.
Mia—that’s my mum—is warming to the idea of being a published author. She’s always aspired to publish, only she imagined that her first published work would be about the Semitic language or her startling translation of some ancient text. But Mum
has been unfortunate in that the finds worth writing about have been too controversial, or, as she’s often in the employ of someone else, much of her best work has been attributed to the discoverer and not the translator.
The one thing she has decided is that if she does publish, she’ll do so under an assumed name—no big surprise there. She hasn’t decided what her alias will be; actually, the manuscript itself doesn’t even have a title yet! I suggested ‘Mystique’ and both Mum and Dad seemed well disposed towards it, although they may have just been humouring me on my birthday.
Now my father has taken my mother out for dinner and I’ve been left alone to choose which of our ancient foremothers’ texts I would like to read first. How awesome is that!
As a teenager I am officially entering womanhood and so my mother’s decided that I’m old enough to read the journals for myself. Before my parents left for dinner, Mum gave me the key to the steel-reinforced cabinet that houses the ancient books and told me to take my pick.
So that’s where I am now, in the study. I’m eyeing the journals on the shelf and I recognise those that Mother has read in part to me. Lady Ashlee’s journeys in the Sinai was my favourite, and I’ve also heard excerpts from the Sinai journals of Lady Susan Devere, and Douglas and Clarissa Hamilton, who were acquaintances of Lady Ashlee. I’ve passed over the journals written by Ashlee’s children for the moment, and I don’t dare touch the twelfth-century scroll written by the Cathar priestess Lillet du Lac. But now I’ve just found another huge volume written by Lady Ashlee
regarding a journey she took to Persia to visit the site of the great Ziggurat of Ur.
As I can’t recall Mother ever reading to me from this journal, I feel it to be the best selection. I shall go back and fill in the blanks of Lady Ashlee’s other tales at a later date. The thought of reading an adventure of Ashlee’s that I know nothing at all about is way too appealing.
I wonder if the Crusader ghost will feature in this tale too? I hope so, as, unlike most girls my age, I still think my dad is the greatest guy on the planet!
Anyway, here I go, back to the year 1856 as seen through the eyes of Lady Ashlee Granville-Devere…
THE SEARCH FOR UR
GENESIS
FROM THE JOURNAL OF LADY ASHLEE GRANVILLE-DEVERE
Hawah conceived and bore a son named Qayin and she said, ‘I have gotten a man from the Lord, Sama-El.’ Next she gave birth to Qayin’s brother, Hevel, son of Atabba.
Hevel was a keeper of sheep, whilst Qayin was elevated above Hevel and acquired dominion of the Earth. Hevel made offerings to the Lord from the firstlings of his flocks, and these were acceptable to the Lord, who approved of Hevel. From Qayin no such offering was needed, for he was of the Lord’s own Royal seed. And the Lord said, ‘If anyone should slay Qayin, vengeance shall be taken upon him sevenfold!’ And the Lord set his mark of Kingship upon Qayin—a cross of red—and thereafter Qayin dwelt in the land of Nodh (in restless uncertainty).
Qayin’s wife was called Luluwa, the daughter of Lilith, who was the daughter of Nergal and consort to the Serpent of the Night, Sama-El.
‘This reads suspiciously like Genesis.’ I was astonished by the translation Lord Malory had summoned me to his private library in London to read.
Richly adorned with art, treasures and furnishings from all over the known world, Malory’s apartment was located above one of the ultra-fashionable men’s clubs on Pall Mall, which was owned and run by the secret brotherhood to which he subscribed. I must say that I felt a certain feminine superiority every time I was invited to a meeting there, even though, as a woman, I was escorted in and out via Lord Malory’s private entrance. It just wouldn’t do to have the brothers know that a sister was doing most of their top-secret work for them.
I turned to Lord Malory, intrigued. ‘This implies that Cain was not the son of Adam, but the son of one of the gods, and contradicts the Old Testament’s claim that the line of kingship descended from Seth, Eve’s third son.’
‘Yes, it does, doesn’t it?’ The stately old man grinned at me, well pleased by my first observations. ‘If it proves to be authentic and the translation correct, then this text will validate the beginning of the Grail bloodline, from which we are both descended.’
‘Where on Earth did you acquire this?’
‘My dear Lady Suffolk, I am not at liberty to disclose my source,’ Lord Malory teased. ‘I present this text to you in the hope that, with your psychic expertise, you may be able to comment on whether you perceive it to be authentic.’
I shook my head; he was asking the impossible. ‘Obviously, this is an English translation of the original, which must be Egyptian? Or Babylonian, perhaps?’
‘The original text is Sumerian,’ Malory finally admitted. ‘And this version of events is consistent with that of early Jewish Midrash text, as taught by
the Qabalistic masters. We believe this earlier text could even be the source of the later doctrine, before it was corrupted in the Old Testament.’ Malory stood and approached a set of shelves filled with books and old parchments.
‘Sumerian text?’ I gasped in excitement, as Lord Malory selected a rolled-up parchment and passed it to me. ‘How fascinating!’
I unrolled the parchment as the lord poured the tea. The rubbing it held took my breath away. I knew several ancient languages, and although these picture symbols were completely baffling to me, that did not lessen my awe at laying eyes upon some of the oldest script known to mankind.
‘What does your instinct tell you now?’ Malory prompted expectantly.
I ran my fingers lightly over the text and received flashes of a desert landscape. ‘A woman did this rubbing,’ I said. ‘She is very excited by this find and believes it to be authentic.’
‘But what of the original scribe? Do you perceive anything in that regard?’
I focused intently for some time upon the parchment, but eventually had to concede failure with a shake of my head. ‘No, nothing. I would have to lay my hands upon the column from which this rubbing was taken.’
Lord Malory appeared disappointed but not surprised.
‘I feared that would be the case. Ah well,’ he returned to his seat, ‘all things come to those who wait.’ He took a few sips from his teacup whilst he contemplated his predicament and then added, ‘That parchment represents only a small portion of the texts that are currently being unearthed.’
I realised that the lord was trying to arouse my curiosity further. ‘Really?’
He nodded. ‘Obviously, we are eager to verify and document the scripts before the church gets wind of our discoveries.’
‘And buries them in the Vatican archive along with every other text ever unearthed that doesn’t agree with the church’s account of history.’ I smiled as I considered the church’s reaction to the entire Old Testament being contradicted by a text that predated anything from which their doctrine had been derived. ‘Would you not consider sending me to this site to verify and document the finds of the excavation?’ I offered.
Malory’s disappointment abruptly vanished. ‘You would consider undertaking such a journey? All expenses paid, naturally…and you would be handsomely rewarded for lending your expertise to our cause.’
I shrugged, indifferent to the money, but enchanted by the notion of the adventure. ‘It would not be the first such journey I have embarked upon.’
‘But your husband? Your family?’ He raised what he considered to be my obstacles.
‘My family are fully capable of functioning without me for a time,’ I assured—my youngest child was now aged ten, the oldest, twenty. ‘But perhaps you might consider revealing my destination before I agree to this assignment? Or does the brotherhood dictate that you would then have to kill me?’ The Sangreal adhered to a strict code of secrecy.
Malory was amused by my jest and his oversight. ‘The excavation is taking place in Persia, on the site of what it is believed might be the ancient city of Ur.’
‘Sounds intriguing!’ I sipped my tea, trying to contain my excitement. I had not travelled abroad in twenty years and at the age of thirty-nine I felt ripe for another adventure. Victorian England was a repressive, boring place for one with my unusual interests; a trip to the Near East would be a welcome change of scenery. ‘I shall require a little time to ponder the proposal,’ I added.
‘Of course.’ Malory seemed delighted that I was even contemplating the quest. ‘You do your mentor proud, I feel.’
My governess, Lady Charlotte Cavandish, had been the only woman ever inducted into the Sangreal Knighthood. I had refused Lord Malory’s many kind offers to become the second female member of the secret brotherhood, but I had been happy to consult on many an otherworldly issue over the past twenty years of our association.
I finished my tea and rose to take my leave. ‘We shall speak again soon.’
‘Before you go, Lady Suffolk, I have something for you.’ The old gentleman pulled from his pocket an envelope sealed with red wax. ‘I was going through some of our archives the other week and I found this.’
I understood this to mean the archives of the Sangreal Knighthood and my curiosity was piqued. ‘A gift, my Lord Malory?’
‘It is a gift, in so far as you may never have known of its existence had I not dug it up. You see, I was cataloguing some new additions to our collection when I came across an entry that stated that this envelope contains a piece penned by your mother, thirty-one years ago.’ He passed the envelope to me, the outside of which was marked only with a number.
I was eight years old,
I thought as I accepted the gift with awe and also with loathing, for 1825 was the year I had been committed to a mental institution. My mother had become ill and withdrawn during the episode, but that was all I knew of her state of mind during that darkest time of my young life. Perhaps this piece would shed some light on her thoughts.
‘But why should something my mother wrote have been confiscated by your order?’ I asked.
‘As I was not Grand Master at the time, I am afraid I cannot tell you.’ Lord Malory sounded sincerely sorry about that. ‘What I do know is that it was your father who brought the document to light after Lady Suffolk’s death.’
My father, Lord Suffolk, now also passed on, had once confessed to me that he had been involved with the Sangreal Knighthood around the time he married my mother. However, he claimed to have cut all ties with them after being subjected to a secret rite on his wedding night, during which he believed he had been drugged.
‘How odd,’ I said, then frowned as I observed that the wax seal on the back of the envelope had not been tampered with—but whether the document had been sealed after submission or before, Lord Malory could not advise.
I could scarcely believe that the Grand Master would pass on an uncensored document to a nonmember of the order, and a female at that!
‘For whatever reason this document has come into the hands of your chapter, surely it must contain information worthy of your code of secrecy?’
‘Most likely,’ Lord Malory agreed. ‘But I trust
that if it contains anything I should know about, you will let me know.’
‘But as Grand Master you could have read this.’ I was puzzled by his restraint.
‘If it were a document meant for reference, then it would not have been sealed,’ Malory said. ‘My feeling is that this document is personal in nature, and I do not wish to pry into the private affairs of my very dear friends.’
I appreciated that Lord Malory considered me a dear friend and yet I had to mock him. ‘I was under the impression that no one born into my bloodline had any private affairs that your order did not get wind of.’
Lord Malory was amused and did not refute my statement. ‘Then you may feel all the more honoured by my gift, Lady Suffolk.’