By scifiscribbler

When Stuart returned to the three women waiting in Judi’s office, he brought the librarian with him, her body language shy and uncertain as she looked around the room.

“You all stayed where I told you to,” he said. “Well done.”

Judi gave her lord a polite, deferential smile. “Hello,” she told the newcomer. “I assume you’re here because you were told to be?”

She nodded.

“I’m Judi,” she said, and hoped it was reassuring. “You’re among friends. We all are, in Stuart’s court.”

“Court?” Stuart asked. After a moment he remarked, thoughtfully, “Yes, I suppose so;. I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

“The mark makes you King,” Judi said. It was meant as a prompt, a nudge in the right direction, but it provoked a glare that surprised her.

“Well, not king of much yet,” he said. “No offence, all.” He cleared his throat, walked around the desk. Waited.

Without him needing to say, but blushing that she hadn’t immediately considered it, Judi stood up and gave him her seat. It being the only one behind the desk, it came with inherent authority.

“I think I need to get to business,” he told them all. “I don’t know if I want to. But Professor Slater’s already told me she doesn’t want to give this up, even if she knows, rationally, that she probably should.” His gaze swept across them all.

“Reanne,” he said. “Does that describe how you feel?”

She was hesitant about answering, but nodded. “But until I saw enough that I had to actually believe in the spell,” she said, “I was perfectly happy about it.”

He turned his head again. Judi could read his expression well enough. “Rebecca,” she supplied.

“Rebecca,” he said, “How about you?”

“It’s scary. I feel out of control. I think I’m happier now I’m not being made to be calm,” Rebecca said. “But no. I don’t want this to stop.” After a moment she added, “I’m pretty sure I should, though.”

Stuart looked at the latest arrival. After a moment’s silence, he snorted with laughter. “You know what,” he said, “this is awful of me. You distracted me very well, or I might have remembered Rebecca’s name.” He gave a quick glance sideways. “I might not, I admit,” he said. “Sorry about that.”

Rebecca ducked her head respectfully, but she was blushing too. Stuart continued. “I’ve just realised I never even asked you your name,” he told the librarian. “Consider this me asking, and me apologising.”

“You don’t have to apologise,” she blurted. Judi found herself nodding along approvingly, but after a moment to consider realised that was ridiculous. She only thought that because he was king. But if he was a gracious king…

The kings of old had often not been so gracious.

She tried to remember if Stuart had been the type to think of things like that beforehand. If he had been changed by the rune, just as it had changed their opinion of him. Her memories were largely positive, but she had no way to know whether that was true, or whether the enchantment simply made her judge him differently.

“Your name,” Stuart said, and there was enough amusement in his voice that Judi couldn’t tell if there was patience there as well.

“Oh.” She coloured. “Gracie.”

“You’ve got no idea what’s going on right now,” Stuart went on. “Right?”

“That’s about right, aye.”

“What’s your guess?”

Gracie shook her head. “My guess doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

“Then it’s probably close to right,” Judi put in. Gracie looked at her curiously.

“I’d like to hear it either way,” Stuart said. “It’d be useful to know what this seems like.”

Judi watched her hesitate again. She smiled, as encouragingly as she could.

Gracie took a deep breath. “You guys are acting like there’s some kind of magic,” she said. “The king showed me his scar, and-”

“God,” Stuart said abruptly. “That doesn’t get any less weird to hear.”

Gracie looked back at him with much more calm than she’d had before. “It seems natural, though. When you had me sucking your cock, the word king floated through my mind, before I even heard any of this discussion.”

Judi found herself much more satisfied seeing his blush than she’d expected.

“You sucked his cock?” Reanne interjected.

Gracie nodded. “He told me to.”

“I offered to,” she answered, looking at Stuart rather than Gracie. Her tone sounded more than a little stung.

“Power corrupts,” Rebecca put in, and she sounded amused. “I guess in this case power corrupted real quick.”

Judi cleared her throat. “Perhaps there are lessons here,” she said, diplomatically, “but for the most part I think we can move on.” She looked across to her King. “But for the record, I think we all stand ready to be given similar instructions.”

Stuart looked deeply uncomfortable, but only for a moment. She watched him rally, and the moment he had control of himself again he seemed more in control than ever. “This is beside the point,” he said. He looked back to Gracie. “Go on with your guess.”

“I assume the scar has to be magical,” Gracie said, a little weakly. “Which makes no sense, because magic isn’t real, and if it was I can’t see why it would happen here. Especially if it’s royal magic.”

“But whether it makes sense or not, I know how I feel and the only explanation that makes sense is magic. So since you showed me your scar, it has to connect to that somehow. Right?”

“I think there may be a little more to it,” Judi put in. “But for the most part, I think you’ve picked up the pieces and put them together very well, considering.”

Gracie smiled warmly. Stuart was now looking at Judi. “When you called you all a court,” he said, “is that what you mean by more to it? That there’s some… accretion… of people?”

“Possibly,” Judi said. “But at least one of those gathered here was picked at random. Unless we assume the magic can shape coincidence to find the right people. But if it can do that, we have to wonder why rule by magic was so fleeting.”

“And that’s something else we should think about,” Reanne put in. “The original kings by this magic didn’t last long enough or have enough impact for history to even remember them. So there’s no guarantee of safety here.”

“Safety?” Stuart asked.

“I’m not sure,” Reanne said. “But there are things that threaten this, I’m sure. Whatever they are.”

“The original king probably had guards for other reasons,” Judi put in, soothingly. “A royal guard was common at the time.” She broke off. “Except… you’ve been showing people the scar, and they’ve been yours?”

Stuart nodded.

“What would a king who can do that need a guard for?” she muttered. “There’s something else here. Something that makes this make sense.”

“And the worst bit is that we might never work it out, exactly,” Rebecca put in.

Gracie blinked at her. “You’re trying to figure this out?”

“I do wish we knew all the rules,” Stuart said, which ended that discussion. “You’re right, though. We can guess and never know for sure we’ve got it right or we’re missing something. Maybe they were afraid of other magic, although I don’t know who they thought had it.”

“They were,” Rebecca said abruptly.

“How can you be so sure?”

Rebecca wasn’t fazed by the question at all. “If you’ve got the power to rule over whoever you want, this isn’t a place you stay,” she said. “So they never managed to leave it, which means something kept them here. Something they couldn’t beat.”

The King’s Court looked at one another, deep in thought.

Eventually the king broke the silence, though when he spoke it wasn’t to address that question specifically. Instead, he said to Reanne, “Where do you usually get your tattoos?”

*

It was easy to see why the tattooist got on well with Reanne, Judi thought privately. Both women were powerfully built and heavily tattooed, but the tattoos even resembled one another. Her hair was bleached blonde and cut short, but the black lipstick and heavy kohl shading still marked her out as a goth. She only lacked Reanne’s bountiful chest, which still managed to be the first thing most people noticed despite her biceps.

She was certainly nonplussed to find so many people crowding into the foyer of her tattoo parlour. Probably not hers alone; there were two reclining chairs visible from where Judi was standing. But it certainly wasn’t a big operation, and Judi was pretty sure she was the only one in the place.

She nodded to Reanne, but then turned to the crowd as a whole. “We don’t do group bookings,” she said.

Stuart held up his hand, turned so she could see the scar. “You take this one,” he said firmly.

Her eyes had flicked to the cuts. Now they lingered there, longer even than the shock value of seeing them would last. And Judi expected a tattoo artist would be more comfortable seeing drawing blood than most.

When they did drift back to Stuart, she said “What’s the job?”

“Reanne and the others have a new design they want to share,” Stuart said. And then he grinned. “As a matter of fact, you’ll wear it too.”

Judi watched her frown uncertainly. She dipped her head, a swift and probably uncertain nod of acceptance. “Alright,” she said.

“And as for me, I want this copied onto my shoulder,” he said. “Everyone else it can be a tramp stamp, except I guess for you we’ll have to find somewhere else.” After a moment he added “I’ll be happy to take suggestions.”

She looked back at him, seeming bewildered. “I have some working space on my thigh,” she said at last.

“Show me,” Stuart said, a gleam in his eye.

She unbuckled her belt, unzipped her tight black jeans, and pulled them down. Judi glanced toward the shop window, through which any passer-by would be able to see the scene, and was somewhat relieved not to see anyone there.

The artist’s legs were largely covered, and her left thigh in particular Judi thought looked inexpert compared to what covered most of her right leg and along her sleeves. It occurred to her, perhaps belatedly, that the woman had probably used herself as her own practice canvas. True to her word, there was a section on the inside of her right thigh which was bare. On a body so heavily tattooed, it looked less as if it was empty and more as if it was simply waiting to be filled.

And now, Judi supposed, it would be. Stuart was nodding. “Good enough,” he said. “Let’s get started. We’ll do me first. You won’t charge.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed at that, but she accepted it.

*

The small of Reanne’s back itched. It was, she thought, a good itch; she carried her lord’s mark now, and that was a satisfying thing. It was also a relief to know she would not abandon him, that the spell could not now be broken. She knew the others felt the same way.

The whole thing was crazy. The good news was that she no longer felt any jealousy toward any of the others who wore her lord’s mark; she could be protective of him but didn’t worry at all if he chose another as a bedfellow for the night.

That didn’t stop her sitting up, watching through the window of the rented house’s living room as if she was standing sentry. She was, after all, one of his guard, and a watch needed to be kept.

What worried her was the conviction that there was something out there to watch for. She hadn’t arrived at this conviction logically (and, indeed, she was pretty convinced you couldn’t arrive at it logically, as there was nothing to base it on) but she still felt it as a certainty, a truth she’d somehow absorbed on an instinctive level.

Part of her was worried that the magic was giving her a warning.

She was surprised when Judi joined her. It was near three AM. “What are you doing awake?”

“Thinking,” she said. “And hoping you’ll be able to confirm things for me, either way.”

“Go on.”

Judi’s breath came out in a long exhalation before sha answered.

“He’s giving in to temptation,” she said in the end. No need to specify who he was. There was only one man now who would receive that degree of automatic reverence from either of them.

“At the least.”

“Isn’t this your job?” Reanne asked, and immediately felt uncomfortable with what she’d said. Another echo of wrongness, she wondered? Was this somehow bound in with the spell?

“Perhaps,” she said. “But it’s the responsibility of more than just one of us.”

She felt the sting of the other woman’s words, but didn’t want to admit it to herself. She looked sideways at the Professor. “Who are we to refuse him?”

“We can’t,” Judi said simply. “So there must be something else.”

“If you can tell me what,” Reanne said, “I’ll listen. I -” She broke off. For a moment she was uncertain how to express what needed to be said. “A king should be better than this,” she said in the end.

It wasn’t that he was bringing in any women he found attractive. It wasn’t that neither of them was in his bed, not least because Judi had been one of those chosen earlier in the night. Reanne could picture her all too easily lying there, unable or unwilling to sleep, long after he’d dozed off. Getting up, even though it might disturb him, to track down the other member of the Court with longest standing, so she could talk through her concerns.

It was good to know Reanne wasn’t alone in her discomfort, she thought. And maybe that was the real issue. The threat her instincts told her lay ahead was internal, not external.

She would certainly believe it.

“That’s how I feel, too,” Judi said. “I…” Now it was her turn, Reanne thought, to try to find the right way to express herself. “A question has been worrying me since we realised the enchantment was real,” she said. “Who could stand against such a ruler? And if nobody would, there’s an obvious question.”

In spite of her sombre mood, Reanne smiled, the ghost of a laugh escaping her. “Same old Professor,” she said. “Always testing your students to see if they can reach the next step.”

“Can you?” Judi returned. If she was surprised to have been called out, she didn’t show it.

Reanne nodded. “If not, there has to be a reason,” she said. “I thought perhaps it couldn’t reach past a certain region.”

“I had a similar thought,” Judi said. “Now I worry that there might be more to it.”

“You’re worried that somehow Stuart will destroy this for us.”

“When a secure castle falls,” Judi said, “it falls from within.”

Reanne looked at her for a long time and said nothing.

*

A month later, Stuart and his thirty-strong all-female following swept onto the dig site with the gusto, if not the precision, of an active military. Each of them bore the tattoo that marked them as one of his guard, and while they were not armed, security at the dig site was more concerned with keeping the few local kids who went wandering from getting anywhere they shouldn’t than with anything violent. Even that security was as much for the kids’ own benefit - and their safety - as it was for protection of the site itself.

They were overwhelmed by numbers, the security disarmed and one by one those working on the site were herded into the dig site canteen. Professor Bingham was confused but (at least somewhat) relieved to see Judi there, moving through the group with a clipboard, taking notes of names.

“Judi,” he said, marching over to her, “thank God. Maybe you can tell me what’s going on.”

Judy looked back at him expressionlessly. She was thinking (although she knew it was unfair) that Bingham always came across like he expected to be an authority over here, and that somehow he still did even when he was effectively under arrest.

“We’re commandeering your research,” she said. “That’s the main thing you need to know right now, I think.”

“Why? And who is we? Are you in charge of this mess?”

Judi simply smiled. “I’m not sure you need answers to those questions, Professor,” she said, not because she believed it but because she didn’t know which way Stuart would decide. It wouldn’t do to weaken her lord’s position before she knew what was what. “I do, however, have some questions for you. To begin with, what has your team put together so forth about the runes born by the inhabitants of the dig?”

Open-mouthed, Bingham stared at her. “This makes no sense,” he said at last. Judi waited, quiet, knowing him well enough to know that given silence he would talk to fill it. “We’ve talked about this sort of thing, of course,” he went on. “The primitive beliefs in magic. The attempts to prove it. The ridiculous things that people have recorded as proof, when you and I know they have to have been happenstance.”

Judi still said nothing. It was true that they’d talked about magic before. The professor had never exactly claimed to be a believer, but he’d given the idea much more credence than he was at that moment. Now, though, he was trapped in a room, unsettled, out of joint. Under such circumstances, men reverted to whatever self-image they thought would get them through it, setting aside their own private thoughts.

“Someone believes, then,” Bingham said. “And that’s why they’ve done all this, that’s why we have to deal with this palaver. Alright. But you’re here with them.”

Judi looked up from her notes and met his eye. She was sure nothing of her own thoughts could be read from her face. He would have to make his own assumptions. She would not give her lord’s ideas away.

“And you,” Bingham continued, “are a rational woman. But you are asking about magic. Has…” She watched him swallow uncertainly. “Has something happened to change your stance?”

Would he have sounded so skeptical, she wondered, if she’d come to him with her observations on the magic, the way she’d initially intended? Or was this only because of the stress of the situation?

Impossible to know for sure, as much as she wished to. But his line of thought was now leading away from what she needed. “The runes, professor,” she prompted.

She watched him compose himself. “Runes connected to people?” he asked. She nodded. “Hm. Well. There was certainly some sort of hierarchy. If I suppose for a moment that this has some magical effect…”

“If you would, Professor.”

He settled down into a chair, frowning thoughtfully. “If I suppose that,” he said, “in view of the four runes we’ve identified and the people they seem to be connected with, I think this is some kind of system for imposing a court.”

Four? “Go on.”

“We identified a leader, a soldier, an older advisor,” Bingham said. “And a fourth which we’ve been debating how we should name. They seem to have primarily been a steward, but not just for the king’s household, also acting as a representative for the people in peacetime. One of my juniors insists they’re the female voice in the court, although I’d hardly say the other roles are automatically gendered.”

Judi nodded along.

“So perhaps the magic, if it’s there, enforces these roles. But it seems to me as if it’s intended as a system.”

“What do you mean?” Judi asked slowly. A sinking feeling was already settling over her as she asked. The way Stuart was acting…

“I mean that viewing each part of a hierarchy as distinct is a very modern view,” Bingham said. “When these people lived here, your role didn’t stop with neatly defined edges. You let an expert handle a problem if you possibly could, but you’d muck in with whatever you were capable of if you had to.” He paused. “It seems evident to me that any magical definition of a hierarchy would have to do the same thing. Therefore, four runes is not four individual spells, four sigils. They’re all part of one greater work. Most likely they feed back into each other.”

Judi took a deep breath and leaned forward intently. “Professor,” she said. “I must demand that you show me these runes.”