Ruple And Evelyn (Codex Grandomina Volume II)

Chapter Five: Necessary Means

~ CHAPTER FIVE ~

Necessary Means

1620

The crisp clap of Ruple's boots against flagstones came as a welcome sound. In the past, his soles had never been hard enough and his weight had always been too meagre. But now, he was eleven years of age, the muscles growing thick on his arms, and his step could be heard throughout the palace.

At Romero's behest, he'd been summoned to the armoury. His sword-wielding brother had recently taken up a residency there, amongst the musket rifles, barrels of gunpowder, and racks of rapiers.

Rex had made it known that he wanted to Romero to make good on his youth's martial promise. The triplets would represent the three pillars holding up the country they were going to build from England's ashes. Romero, the column of soldierly prowess; Rex the column of wisdom and diplomacy, and Ruple the column of art and culture.

Like Romero, Ruple himself been prescribed a similar schedule of work, though Rex had given him very different orders. Rather than testing his skills as a warrior, Ruple would have the extraordinary job of seeing RR's south side city to completion. He would use the knowledge he'd accrued from many long evenings observing his parents, and any designs his father had left behind, to plan an urban expansion of the like Grand London had never seen.

But Ruple, ever the pessimist, had a twinge of doubt eating away at him. What use could these plans be in the immediacy? Was Rex simply giving his foolish little brother a task to keep him out of he and Romero's way?

Ruple had even confronted Rex, in an attempt to confirm his new task's purpose. According to his brother, in the years to come, the construction of a city around the cathedral of St Birinus would prove the triplets' capacity as a ruling force. It would cement Grand London as a true capital of England. And it would display the otherworldly genius of the newly crowned kings. It seemed Rex was planning well in advance.

But whether he truly trusted Ruple to design this city, or whether this was simply a fools errand to occupy his less competent brother, only time would tell.

It was with that nagging thought embedded in his conscious, that Ruple made his way down a corridor that descended into the recesses of the palace. On his descent he passed landscape paintings, depicting the battlefields of the nation's past. Poitiers: where the Vane dynasty truly began, the battle of the Seven Oaks: where the illegitimate son of Edward the Black Prince – Sir Arthur Vane – seized the throne from John of Gaunt the traitor, and finally, the battle of Inglewood Forest, where John retook the throne and Arthur vanished into the wilds of Cumberland.

Ruple stopped and found himself transfixed by the final picture: Arthur and his retinue fleeing from a snowy forest, where dark figures lurked amongst the trees. Why had his ancestors kept such an image of defeat at the gateway to their armoury?

In his mind's eye he saw a future battlefield. A cold night sky brimming with stars... The grey-haired man... Crimson snow...

He looked deeper into the picture. Inglewood was north of Grand London, but not far. It was said Arthur Vane had emerged from the North to claim his throne once more decades after his disappearance. Could he have found the land between the mountains as well? A land Rex Tremende believed himself to be the first to tread...

Ruple shook his head and walked away from the picture to continue his descent.

The armoury door was locked shut.

"Romero, are you within?" he asked tentatively.

There came an answer, but it was not Romero.

"Romero's unavailable at the moment, Master Ruple," came a husky reply.