The Sword
Author: Amata le Fay
Title: The Sword
Story: Danse Macabre (RP)
Flavor(s): Flavor of the Day (‘sblood: shortening of “God’s blood,” an archaic oath), Fig 7 (sword of damocles)
Toppings/Extras: Butterscotch
Rating: PG13 (modern and Tudor-era swear words and heavy innuendo)
Word Count: 1074
Notes: “Is it your aim to make a mockery of me? ’Sblood, I will not have the Tudor line die with only two kings to its name!” // This week on "L'Ordre yells at historical figures," it's totally not Wolf Hall crossover fanfiction! Nope nope nope!
In the innermost private chamber of Henry VIII, King of England and Lord of Ireland, sat a black man. He was dressed in the finest clothes a Tudor lord could afford, his clothes almost rivaling those of the King’s in quality, and his presence would have been considered quite appropriate were it not for his location, complexion, sudden appearance, and lack of proper sleeves, exposing his bare, dun arms. Henry himself, upon seeing the intruder, responded in the only manner befitting a man of his nobility: “’SWOUNDS AND BLOODY BONES! GUARDS, TAKE THIS AFRIC WHORESON AND CHOP HIS BOLLOCKS OFF!”
“Henry and Arthur didn’t jest when they told me of your fire,” said the aforementioned Afric whoreson. “Nor of your immaturity.”
“Who art thou, to speak of your kings thus?” snarled Henry.
“Your L’Ordre and your God.”
“Blasphemy.” The King drew a dagger from his sleeve and soon held it at L’Ordre’s throat. “’Tis a black devil thou art. Be gone.”
L’Ordre sighed. “Oh, for a world where complexion were no problem. I take the form of a man from the New World-you’ve heard of Spain’s new Hispaniola, I presume?-yet I am the same God you Europeans foolishly assume is fair like yourselves. Think, Henry. When Arthur died and you became heir, did your father not tell you of the threefold manifestations of God that have guided each King since the days of William of Normandy?”
“He did.” There was a pause. Henry put aside the dagger, then mumbled, “I wasn’t expecting a Moor.”
“I’m no Moor, Henry. I choose this form because I am at ease with your family. You wouldn’t like to know me as a woman.”
The King burst into hearty laughter. “I have known no Ethiop women, but I’d be keen to try.”
In an instant, L’Ordre towered above him. The god now took the form of a woman with even darker skin. Her eyes were an impossible color-entirely blue and entirely black at the same time, and glowing in defiance of nature. Henry crossed himself.
“Do not jest with me, Henry Tudor," said the goddess. "My fellow loa La Mort backed your family’s claim to the throne, not I. I would easily replace you.”
“With whom?”
“Any Lancastrian, really. Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley could easily arrange it.”
Henry cocked an eyebrow. “As easily as I shall arrange for their executions.”
L’Ordre’s nostrils flared, but her eyes did not waver in their condemning stare. “You have the makings of either a tyrant or a great man. Your actions determine which that shall be, but I alone determine how you are succeeded and remembered. Let that be the sword above your head, and make your decisions carefully. For I have seen the future that awaits you..”
She began to stride out of the room. Henry grabbed her arm. “What know you of my future, goddess? Tell me.”
“You will have but one son survive you,” she said, and after a moment, she was gone.
*
“Katherine has given me no sons living. I need a divorce.”
For a long time, L’Ordre was silent. She did not even look at Henry, only at the general area of the room he occupied, and even then, her eyes were unfocused, her mind elsewhere. When she spoke, her voice was calm but cold. “You pull me away from preventing the mass slaughter of my people for this? Mere impatience? Or perhaps a wandering eye,” she added scathingly.
“Katherine is past her child-bearing years!” Henry’s arms were crossed, his brow foreboding. “And you promised me a son! Or did you mean the bastard FitzRoy?” Hand flew to dagger, though Henry knew he could not wound the goddess with that which would wound mortals. “Is that it? Is it your aim to make a mockery of me?” he hissed.
“You alone decide whether or not you will be made a mockery. Will you accept your fate with grace, or will you fight?”
“’Sblood, I will not have the Tudor line die with only two kings to its name!” The King drove his blade into the wood of a nearby table. “Hear me, goddess of this ‘New World’ you are so keen on protecting. Cromwell tells me if I break from Rome, I can marry as I please.”
“Breaking from Rome would mean breaking from me,” L’Ordre said, finally focusing her eyes on him. “Who would protect you and your new whore then?”
“I will do it, goddess,” said Henry, “if you do not kill Katherine for me so I may marry Anne whom you call whore.”
L’Ordre glared at him with her impossible blue-black eyes. “You underestimate my patience for you, Henry. You underestimate the suffering I have witnessed, how much mercy I’ve left by the wayside. If you want your whore so badly, stay by Cromwell. He is a servant of La Mort, I suspect, if not of the Devil herself. I will not kill your wife to suit your whim. You blancs have killed enough of my people in that way.”
The goddess began to shimmer with Stygian blue light that nearly blinded the King in its burning intensity. Her face melted away, revealing only a skull for a head. Her voice made Henry’s bones rattle and click against each other. “Hear my prophecy for you, Henry the Eighth. When my sword falls down on your head and you die at last, you will have a royal son, but he will last but four years. Your daughters will try the throne, and one shall thrive, but she shall bear no heirs. Scotland shall overtake the English throne, and all shall descend into warfare, bloodshed, and death. And then there shall be no more kings.” Her foot slammed down on Henry’s neck. “This is my will, and if I must kill a million Englishmen to see it done, I will steel myself for the slaughter by remembering you. The mewling tyrant for whom I have naught but contempt.”
She vanished in a burst of flame, leaving Henry on the floor. Next to him lay a sword he had never seen before, whose hilt bore an awful, blue-black skull the very sight of which made the mighty King vomit. He pushed it out of his line of vision and scrambled to his feet.
The future was his own now.
“Send for Cromwell,” Henry called out into the night. “I’ve had a terrible dream, nothing more.”