The light of another day painted itself first on the points of Darkenhold’s graceful spires. A warm glow of dawn, ruddy with the low haze of smoke and harvest clinging to miles of landscape, it plied itself down those tapering pyramidal structures and threw color across the carved blocks of all their many angles.
And as the sun rose further, this light eased down the turrets on which those spires stood and ignited the colored glass in the tracery of lancet-arch windows decorating the keep’s highest levels. Their stained glass and geometry furnished the place a rich element of color to offset the black striated stone from which it was built.
If looking from a distance, the elegant and imposing shadow of the place might seem to rise itself from the gloom of morning haze and mist, as if it physically ascended from the earth to catch the sun. An illusion, not at all coincidental — the man responsible understood the importance of a structure’s role in the emotional and spiritual realm of the living. Darkenhold, from its inception, was always to be more than the measure of its defenses, more than its measure of safety — it was meant to be beautiful, to lift minds and souls from trouble and the mundane; it was meant to inspire and calm.
Even before the sun crested the horizon, that same man was awake and into the day’s schedule. It was late when he and Gloria finally arrived here on the road from Aithne where they had been reunited in the gloom of that crumbling farmhouse. Syl Duquesne could have slept the day away, such was his fatigue, but he had sent word ahead of his arrival and there were matters to attend to before taking the morning’s meal with Gloria and his daughter.
“It is enough beeswax for the winter, yes, but I want our stores increased.”
Morning light has not yet reached the keep’s lower levels and the clerestory windows designed to supply as much natural light as possible. Thus, sconces and chandeliers remain burning to light the common rooms and corridors of the first floor. It is in the main corridor beneath one of these chandeliers the man stands, by its light reviewing a rather large ledger balanced on his palm and forearm. Both Aithne, his private estate, and Darkenhold, a trust, had been left in capable hands while he was gone, but he wanted to personally address the present state of both to ensure their continued efficiency. Especially now.
“There should not be less than a three-year supply of any of these wares at a given time,” he says, studying the ledger’s entries. “Create an independent supply of all materials used daily to conserve emergency stores. The latter must never be touched for common use, yes?”
“Very good, my lord,” so says the gentleman who stands with him, Ros Pyne, the steward he left to attend the two estates, and who makes notes on the smooth paper of his writing tablet. Mister Pyne here employs a form of shorthand, because long experience of Duquesne’s procedural manner demanded efficiency itself. The sheets of paper he has already filled are evidence of this, detailed notes taken from the equally detailed examination of Darkenhold’s subterranean store rooms, for it is from that place the two men have lately emerged. What his employer had requested was equal to a fortune, but the expense of it all is not mentioned once — the keep was maintained by an independent fund, replenished actively by its own productivity and backed by the fruits of wise investment. “Regarding the window glass, do you prefer sheets or should the panes be cut prior to shipment?”
The architect closes the ledger and positions it under his right arm, observing Pyne’s quick, methodical writing style. His gaze stirs down the main corridor they stand in, taking note of the first light of morning as it finally approaches the clerestories and begins to lessen the effectiveness of candlelight. “Have them cut before, as it will make for quick installation in any event. I am interested in having sheet glass available,“ the man lifts his hand to stay Pyne’s quill a moment, “but make some inquiries into continental sources first; Jernoah, perhaps, with all its sands. I am uncomfortable that our importation of this has come from such distance; it is far too costly in time and coin also. When you inquire, ask for recipes — I’d like to know the composition used before we commit. If you can manage it, arrange for samples from each source to be delivered to me.”
“And if no quality sources are found, lord?” Mister Pyne has paused, looking up.
The question inspires a smile, an expression more readily seen on the architect’s face these days. “Then we produce it ourselves. Inquire after this also — what is needed to both build and supply a glass mill, and a list of capable glassmakers also.”
Once Mister Pyne has concluded his notes and the two men have parted ways, the architect walks the corridor toward his study, greeting members of the keep’s staff in the process of lowering the chandeliers and extinguishing their lamps for the day. With the sun risen and light streaming in the windows, it was a waste of wax to keep them lit — what’s more, a distraction from the appearance of the corridor’s underpitch vaults arching serenely above; daylight gathers among their ribs and across the surface of their webs, all stone and all white in contrast to the striated black stone of the walls and the borders of the flooring underfoot.
Outside his study’s imposing door, the man pauses to observe the corridor and its light and the people moving sometimes through it. He had underestimated the degrees of his longing for this place, how much he had missed being here. And as he turns to open the door beside him, crossing the threshold into his study — where breakfast would be served and where Gloria would meet his daughter for the first time — the man feels a sense of relief and no small measure of anticipation for the prospect of an open and malleable future.