498 AD: The Allegorical Zoo

Countess Ellen had a plan.

This was a prospect fit to make grown men run screaming. The Countess was famously airheaded and impractical, and the only mercy about her reign as Regent of Salisbury for her son Robert was that she was generally so distracted that other, more capable souls (such as Sir Elad, the Marshal of Salisbury) could do the work for her. But now she had an idea that she was fixated upon, and there was no getting out of it!

First was the small matter of Sir Rhisiart, the Steward of Leucomagus. He had made a deal with the Saxons of Essex to invade Salisbury and have himself installed as puppet ruler, a plan which went wrong when Sir Elad led a far more spirited defence than anyone had expected. The Saxons, disgusted by their erstwhile ally, had abandoned him to his enemies and departed, and now he languished in the dungeons. The knights of Salisbury debated vigorously about what should be done, with Sir Cadfael's younger brother Sir Bleddyn advocating that he be put to death immediately. However, the faction that suggests peace won the day, and Sir Rhisiart was ransomed back to his home for a princely sum, which went towards finishing the inner ramparts of Sarum - the stone walls would be useful in case the Saxons came back!

 

As the meeting was about to adjourn, the Countess revealed her new orders to her son's vassals. Salisbury had been through much hardship and suffering over the last few years. It was also said by the Christians that there were only two more years until the second coming of Christ and the end of days. Too many people were not prepared for Heaven, and so Ellen intended to solve both problems at once. She wanted to build a zoo! Not just any zoo, but an allegorical zoo, with animals representing the most important Christian virtues, so that everyone who visited would become a better person and be sure of going to heaven!

 

Sir Bleddyn, Sir Brietta, Sir Esther, Sir George and Sir Helbur were assigned the job of assembling the zoo. Sir Esther withdrew to her books for the year, looking through as many bestiaries as she could to discover exactly which animals represented the most important virtues, as well as checking the Bible to remember what the virtues actually were.  The other knights took turns aiding her, or going out into the field to track down the animals that she assigned them to find. Over the course of the year, she decided that the key virtues were prudence (represented by a stork), justice (represented by an eagle), temperance (represented by a camel), courage (represented by a lion), faith (represented by a pelican), hope (represented by a dog) and love (represented by a coot). The hunt was on!

 

Sir Brietta was soon able to track down a dog; then she and Sir Helbur went looking for a dove, thinking that it represented one of the virtues. The quest became awkward immediately, for Sir Helbur and Sir Brietta had slept together two years earlier; then Sir Brietta been taken by Faerie, and their child Deidre had grown wings and flown away. They spent more time arguing than they did looking for doves, and so failed to find any. Finally, Sir Helbur hired an expert, Michael Falconer, to help track down the doves for him.

 

The next animal that the knights needed to find was a stork. White storks were a very rare bird in Britain, but Sir Brietta had a brainwave. The Forest Sauvage was a place where the borders of reality weakened, where fable walked under the boughs. And fable said that a stork would attend a woman in labour. Perhaps if a pregnant woman were taken deep into the wildest parts of the Forest Sauvage, she would be able to summon a stork. Sir Helbur agreed, and then asked his lady-love, Lady Jenna. Jenna and he had been in love for a long time, since before she was married to Sir Arnulf. She, lonely, had propositioned Sir Helbur while she was living in Tilshead, but the knight had refused to betray his lord. However, after the strangeness of his fling with Sir Brietta, Sir Helbur had returned to Lady Jenna and slept with her, and she was to be delivered of a child soon. So Sir Helbur used his amazing skills of oratory to convince his beloved to travel to the borders of Faerie to give birth, all so that her mother could complete her allegorical zoo. To everyone's surprise, she agreed!

Sir Bleddyn, Sir Brietta, Sir George, Sir Helbur, Lady Jenna and her retinue headed north to the Forest Sauvage. On the way, they were accosted by apologetic bandits: a group of peasants who had turned to banditry to survive after the storm of two years earlier destroyed their livelihood. Rather than fight them, Sir George chastised them in the name of God, and shamed them into surrendering. The knight told them to go find a monastery for aid, and then sent them on their way.

Continuing to the Forest, the party encountered a traveller upon the road: Nineve, the Lady of the Lake who had recruited them to defeat Sir Gorboduc the previous year. She greeted the knights and asked for their company as she conducted the errands that she had on the outskirts of the forest. In exchange for this help, she would act as midwife for Lady Jenna, and help with the capture of the stork for which they quested. The knights agreed.

 

While they rode under the boughs of that strange forest, Sir Brietta was eager to talk with Lady Nineve, as she was a fervent follower of the old ways, and the Ladies of the Lake were virtually the only remnant of paganism left. She learned that Lady Nineve was looking for children who had magical gifts to join the Ladies of the Lake – one in particular, of whom Lady Evienne had dreamed: a child with powers as great as any of the Ladies, and constantly growing in strength. Sir Brietta told Nineve about Sir Esther’s child, entrusted to her by Merlin, who had calmed the changeling child the previous year. They also spoke about Ganeida, about whom the knights had heard many strange rumours. Nineve confirmed that Ganeida, although stillborn, was The Lady of the Lake, the faerie spirit who led the mortal Ladies, and, by extension, the faerie godmother of Merlin. The answers left Sir Brietta realising that she would never truly understand the ways of Faerie.

 

On the first day that they were with Nineve, the group met a beggar upon the road who requested a cloak to keep him warm; in exchange, he would guide them upon the road. Sir Brietta immediately offered hers; however, when the beggar put it on, it only covered one shoulder. Sir Helbur, Sir Bledri and a reluctant Sir George were forced to surrender their cloaks as well, until the vagrant was fully covered, and pointed them upon the correct path.

Upon the second day, the knights heard the jingle of small bells and the sound of approaching horses. A group of beautiful women, led by a fair lady so pale she seemed almost white, attended by a number of handsome young pages, were riding upon the road from the opposite direction. The two groups stopped to take food together, during which time Lady Blanche of Blanche introduced herself, and made a curious request of the knights. "I would like you to teach my ladies something," she said. "Will each of you please tell us why you are a good person?" The knights happily spent the afternoon bragging of their exploits to the attentive audience, before continuing onwards.

On the third day, the cavalcade passed through a field of red poppies, with a beautiful fragrance floating through the air. So beautiful was the odour that the riders began to fall asleep in their saddles. Only Sir Brietta was able to force herself to stay awake, and led the group through safely. All soon recovered from their brush with the poppies - save Sir George, whose beard mysteriously vanished while he was sleeping. Sir Brietta only grinned when she was asked about it.

Around mid-day on the following day, Nineve called the procession to a halt outside a small cottage in the middle of nowhere. She then asked for everyone to wait outside, while she went in to talk to the inhabitant. After an hour or more, a grim Nineve emerged and explained what was happening. The cottage belonged to a friend of hers, dying of an inoperable illness. Nineve was now going to go and pray over a poison which would end her friend’s suffering. The knights argued about the morality of this while she was gone, with Sir George particularly upset; meanwhile Sir Helbur went inside and used his skill as an orator to tell the bedridden old woman a beautiful story. While he was telling it, Nineve returned with cups of tea for them all, and the old woman slipped away from her pain-ridden life as Sir Helbur finished his story.

It was now time for Lady Jenna to give birth. The group headed deeper into the forest, for only where the border between reality and the other world blurred could the group hope to find a stork. With Nineve and the elf-stone as their guides, the procession was able to penetrate deep into the forest. In a empty glade, Lady Nineve delivered  the child, with Sir Brietta’s aid. A stork watched from the branches of a nearby tree, and the Lady of the Lake sang to it, so that Michael Falconer could catch it. The quest of the stork was a success! The new mother, her attendants, the knights, and the Lady of the Lake departed the forest. Nineve left the group behind to visit another friend of hers who lived nearby, while the others returned to Salisbury to learn what Sir Esther had learned next.

Sir Esther, in the time that the knights had been gone, had successfully discovered the location of camels! During the Roman invasion of Britain under the Emperor Claudius, a regiment of camels had been brought across in case they were needed. The descendants of the camel-handlers had settled in Dorset, and had continued to look after a herd of camels in case the Romans ever returned and needed them again. She decided to leave her books and join the other five, as they rode to meet Sir Gaius, custodian of the imperial camels. Sir Gaius received the five knights hospitably, but refused to surrender any camels to them: they were not his to give away, but the property of the Emperor!

Eventually, Sir Gaius relented and decided that if the five proved themselves to be true Romans, he would entrust them with a pair of camels – but they had to promise to give them back immediately if the Romans ever returned and wanted them! This did not prove to be a difficult task. Sir Esther, as a woman of letters, was able to quote from a number of latin literary texts, impressing Sir Gaius. Sir Brietta offered sacrifices to Epona, the pagan goddess of horses (and camels) – a deity that the Romans respected. Sir Helbur demonstrated his excellent rhetorical skills in a debate with Sir Gaius. Impressed by their Roman virtue, Sir Gaius decided to entrust the knights with a pair of camels for the zoo.

Returning to Salisbury, Sir Esther returned to her studies as she directed the group upon their next challenge: finding a lion, the symbol of courage. This would be a difficult challenge, for lions were notoriously rare in the British Isles, as well as being extremely dangerous: it was only five years since Sir Aeronwy had been devoured by one in Malahaut. Sir Bleddyn, Sir Brietta, Sir George and Sir Helbur headed out into the wilderness (with considerable trepidation) to look for a lion. After much hunting, they discovered the trail of a lion and followed its spoor until they discovered the beast itself. Sir George thought about what he knew of lion-hunting, and remembered erroneously that a lion could be subdued by an act of supreme bravery. Accordingly, he stripped off his armour and approached the lion naked – only to discover that he was mistaken in his beliefs! The lion pounced at them, its breath fetid with the stink of meat, and only Sir Bleddyn and Sir Helbur stood to fight it – Sir Brietta and Sir George turn and fled in terror! A ferocious battle ensued, in which the lion savaged the knights brave enough to withstand it. As they vainly tried to resist its claws, Sir Brietta and Sir George gathered their courage and returned to the battle. Sir Brietta drew the lion’s attention from her bleeding companions, and Sir George, still naked, struck a mighty blow with his sword, knocking the lion unconscious. With the terror subdued, it was hurried back to Salisbury, where it was put in a very secure cage.

Meanwhile, Sir Esther journeyed to London to meet with a merchant there. As pelicans, the bird of faith, were not native to Britain, she decided that it would be easiest to purchase one, and only in that metropolis might she be able to find one. She managed to track down a merchant who sold exotic animals, and after some bargaining she found herself the proud owner of an Egyptian pelican. She also had the merchant throw in some Occitanian lapdogs – a better animal for a zoo than the commonplace British hounds that the knights had already acquired.

There were only two animals left to acquire, the coot and the eagle. Sir Esther’s continued reading had revealed that both animals could be found in close proximity, in the peaks of Wales. The noble eagles made their nests at the summit of the mountains, while the coots were lower down, and often raised the offsprings of eagles which were forced from their nests for failing to meet the exacting standards of their parents. On the way to the mountains, the five knights encountered a group of Welsh tribesmen, who refused to believe that anyone would come such a distance simply for a few birds. Sir Esther and Sir Brietta went with the Welsh as hostages. True to Sir Brietta’s expectations, the Welshmen soon attempted to attack them, but Sir Brietta fought them off, and the two women knights escaped back to their companions. The Welshmen’s mountain ponies could not keep up with the stronger warhorses, and they soon abandoned their pursuit.

The group, led by Michael Falconer, found the cliffs where eagles and coots nested. Sir Bleddyn volunteered to scale the cliffs and steal eggs from their nests. He was easily able to reach the coots, and took several eggs without difficulty. Stealing from the eagles proved more difficult, as the parents attacked him. He attempted in vain to defend himself from their incensed talons with his knife on the summit of the mountain. When this proved ineffective, he decided to simply climb down again, ignoring the eagle as best he could. Sir Bleddyn managed to climb down the mountain again, even with an eagle tearing at his face, and Michael Falconer shooed off the attacking eagle. When the knights returned to Salisbury, they installed the eggs in their new enclosures. The Allegorical Zoo was complete!

That winter, Sir Helbur was married to Lady Jenna with much pomp and ceremony in the grand hall of Sarum. Sir Brietta drank too much, and the next morning woke up naked save for a codpiece in the camel enclosure, with no idea of how she got there. In addition, Sir Esther had visitors: two of the Ladies of the Lake had come for her adopted daughter. They won over Sir Esther by impressing upon her how the girl’s power would grow to be a threat to her unless she was trained in its use – and so the girl Nimue was taken from Amesbury and her playmate Morgan, to go to Glastonbury and train to become one of the Ladies of the Lake. Sir Esther was assured that she could visit whenever she wanted. Sir Brietta confessed to Sir Esther that she had told Lady Nineve about Nimue when they were travelling in the Forest Sauvage. Sir Esther forgave Sir Brietta, and as the snows began to thaw, the two travelled west to Glastonbury, to visit Nimue and the Ladies.