Revelations: Anselma Penhaligan's path to the Light.

Anselma Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:01 am

Anselma’s father had never seemed young. Grey since his twenties, a curse which she inherited, his battle-worn face had always been to her the epitome of authority and wisdom. Service to the Light, she had heard people say, was in Jaspar Penhaligan’s blood. For generations his male ancestors had borne arms against the Shadow, and it was for this reason that Jaspar wanted at least one son. His marriage to Mathwyn Lewis, one of Lordaeron’s fabled fair-haired beauties, was chiefly arranged for this purpose.

In her idyllic childhood Anselma did not fully understand the implications of birthright. Her father doted on her as an only child; she had a sedate, fat pony whom she spoiled with apples, and there was always food on the table. For ten happy years she learned her letters with her patient mother and romped across the Penhaligan estate. Unaware of the deeper currents affecting her parents, careless of her future, she delighted in her freedom. However, Jaspar was already nearing his fiftieth year and his imperative to pass on his name was growing stronger as he aged. Too young to see through the façade her parents upheld, she did not understand the significance of her mother’s announcement that she was to have a little brother or sister. That autumn as the leaves fell and Mathwyn swelled with child so much that her ten-year-old daughter half-expected her to burst, Jaspar was called away to campaign. Ingvar was born in the winter, after a hard labour and a lengthy recovery for Mathwyn. He was a weakling, left arm twisted so that he would find it almost impossible to carry a shield.

Anselma remembered wearing red the day her father came home from war. She had picked up her long crimson skirts and ran eagerly down the leaf-strewn dirt path to meet Jaspar, but instead of picking her up and swinging her around as he might have done a year ago, he curtly admonished her for having dust on her face and swept into the house to view his son and heir. Older and wiser, Anselma knew that the conversation that left her mother red-eyed and her father thunderously angry was something to do with her baby brother’s arm. Jaspar took to brooding in his study, shouting at the maids and at Mathwyn and forgoing dinner for wine or cider. Still, Anselma had enough occupying her child’s mind to avoid the worst of his anger. Ingvar.

At five years old Ingvar was a pale, fair child, resembling his Lordaeron-born mother more than his sturdy Westfall father. He adored his older sister and she shamelessly stole cakes and invented games for him, hurrying him away into the gardens when their father’s heavy footfalls sounded nearby. Mathwyn taught him to read early which Jaspar approved of; she also constantly consulted with doctors about the boy’s health, which her husband derided. He was to start his training as early as possible, Jaspar decreed, and his poor health was nothing more than over-mothering and an excess of sweetmeats.

However much she loved her brother, the constant discussion of the boy's far-off future chafed on Anselma. Why, she asked her father, was she forbidden to study his heavy magic tomes? The curt answer that she was too young over time became the assertion that magic was unsuited to a woman’s mind. Neither answer assuaged Anselma’s desire to learn. She began to disobey, creeping into his study long after the candles had burned down and huddling out of sight of the door to pore over the huge, leather-bound books. She whispered the incantations aloud, simple beginner’s magic designed to do nothing more impressive than sent up a shower of blue or gold sparks. Mixed in with the incantations and their applications were prayers to the Light, history and guidances for the poor sinner. Anselma drank it in over many weeks and months, instantly feeling how much more symbolic it was than the repetitious formulas she recited before meals and bedtime. She memorised the pleas to the Light, slowly reciting them in whispers. Ingvar’s begging for games and treats began to go unheeded as Anselma hid away in the estate’s sizeable gardens and practiced her secret skills with a dedication Light-sent.

Once, absorbed in mastering a complicated healing spell in the early hours, Anselma did not hear her father’s footfall outside the room as he padded to the privy. As she opened her fingers to release the spell, she cried out in exhilaration as it finally worked, sending a fountain of golden sparks over her and instantly knitting together the cut on her left hand from preparing vegetables. The door cracked back against the wall; Jaspar’s rage was terrible. He had never laid a hand on her in anger before, but that night she fell into bed bruised and sobbing, wounded as much by the injustice of her lot as by the beating her father inflicted with a leather belt.

The next morning she stood in the centre of his study, trying to look penitent. He told her she was a sinner, lying and disobedient, and Anselma tried to appear sorry although secretly she knew herself to be thrice a sinner for her pride in her unlawfully-gained magic skills. She was a dishonest daughter, a poor example to her brother who, Jaspar reminded her, was to grow up to be a protector of the Light, and she was to be sent away. He declined to tell her where, but a sheet of parchment on his desk held the seal of a nearby earl and upside-down, she read her own name and that of his oldest son, a horse-faced, red-headed oaf called Branneth. The connection was obvious.

Although nominally confined to her room that night for prayer and contemplation, Anselma spent her time adding to her sins. Disobedience, by packing clothes, supplies and gold into her saddlebags. Immodesty, as she wriggled into a pair of ill-fitting men’s hose and a shirt. Stealing, as she tip-toed to the kitchen, stomach growling as she had been forbidden meals all day, and stuffed as much as she could from the larder first into her mouth, and then into her bags.

She left no note for her mother. Doubtless gentle Mathwyn would miss her wayward daughter, but would welcome the peace and quiet afforded by her absence. She scribbled two lines to her little brother explaining that she had to borrow his horse and she would be back to see him someday; she felt no guilt as he disliked riding anyway. He would make a poor paladin, she reflected as she saddled Brock in the dark, straw-scented stables. The mail vest and light mace strapped across the horse’s flanks were silent declaration that she could – and would – do better.

Swinging herself into the saddle she touched her forehead and both shoulders in a traditional salute to the Light and remembered a phrase from one of her father’s books, the final line in a prayer.

“The Light’s will be done.”

A new strength filled her as she galloped out of the gates and headed due East towards the rising sun and towards her destiny.