Andrea Höst - The Towers, the Moon

Eluned doubted that very much, but she thought that she would be glad, at her new school, to be a person who had at least glimpsed the answer to certain mysteries, even if she still did not properly understand them. All of the descriptions of kissing she had ever read had talked in grand phrases: of being swept away, transported, transfigured. But she was still just Eluned, in a storeroom, with a cousin she had only started to get to know.

"Do you think Tesaire really loves this woman he calls the Queen ?" she asked, reaching for the reason they had been talking about kissing in the first place.

Milo’s play, Death and the Moon , was all about a French conscript in the old Roman Empire’s armies. It was full of harsh army discipline, battles with Hellenic rebels, and a mysterious woman whom Milo’s character, Tesaire, meets at night.

"There’s nothing in the script to suggest his love isn’t true," Milo said. "Why do you think it?"

"He’s only spoken to her a couple of times. He doesn’t know anything about her other than she spends a lot of time staring up at the moon."

"He knows she is beautiful," Milo said. "For some, that is enough."

"But she could be horrid! She won’t even tell him her name! And when he warns her his commander is planning to attack the whole district where the rebels are based, all she does is lecture him."

"Because he says he wants to act, to help the Hellenes, for her," Milo said, and then stepped back and spoke in a voice both compassionate and disapproving:

" My poor boy. Do you think to barter for my affection? Wherever the Fates take you, what point in arriving as anything but your truest self? "

Eluned blinked, because even though the words were the same she had read to him a short while ago, Milo had somehow made the Queen a much better person. Eluned had read her as ungrateful, but Milo had made her wise.

"That’s a little like magic," she said. "I couldn’t begin to sound so grand."

"It is not so mysterious," Milo said, laughing. "Here." He pulled a low crate out from beneath one of the shelves. "Climb up on this. Yes, and now stand very straight – no, put your shoulders back and try and make your neck long."

Eluned obeyed, feeling silly, but he smiled at her encouragingly.

"Now. You are a woman of power, of consequence, and this boy – this puppy – has come to you and asked you to give him a reason. To be his justification. You do not dislike the boy, but you will not be his excuse. So you say…"

" My…my poor boy …" Eluned faltered, and felt stupid.

"Deep breath," Milo said. "Keep your neck long, even as you look down at me."

" My poor boy ," Eluned said again, and was surprised at the way the words rang out. " Do you think to barter for my affection? Wherever the Fates take you, what point in arriving as anything but your truest self? "

"There." Milo beamed up at her. "That is acting. More than words. Being."

"I think I see," Eluned said.

"The Queen – ah, I am so lucky that Sophia Nokoto is to play her. Because, more than beauty, the Queen must have gravitas. It is entirely understandable that Tesaire has fallen in love with her, for she is a being of such power, such aura, that it is impossible to see her and do anything else."

Eluned, who had once met a god with plenty of power and aura , did not really agree. Of course, that god had been a deer, most of the time, and quite scary.

"This is important to you somehow, I think," Milo said, unexpectedly. "Why Tesaire loves the Queen."

"I…not really. Not Tesaire." Eluned hesitated, but forged on, because Milo was only a little older, and kind. "My sister, Eleri, she met someone recently. Only once, and they didn’t even talk directly, but Eleri hasn’t thought of anyone else since. It’s like she’s been enchanted."

"Le élixir d’amour," Milo said, and Eluned more or less understood what that meant, and nodded.

"I have never experienced that," Milo said, "although I have known people who have. One look, and they are pierced to the core. Of course, for some it is a regular event, and comes and goes like the seasons. Others…" He lifted his hands. "For others, one look is a lifetime, a devotion that nothing will shift. Although…perhaps it is possible that eventually all passions wear thin?" He looked pensive. "You disapprove of your sister’s choice, then?"

Eluned shrugged uncomfortably. "It isn’t making her very happy. Have you ever been in love, Milo?"

"Oh, yes. Twice. Both times I have been a Tesaire, a puppy, tolerated by a Queen. Not someone to take seriously. And at times I was angry with myself, because it is not enjoyable to be made a puppy, even by your own heart. But…" He took Eluned’s hands and traced a few steps of a dance around her. "It thrilled even as it hurt, and though it left the shape of itself behind long after it faded, I do not think myself the worse for it."

"Unlike Tesaire," Eluned pointed out. "If he’d never met this Queen, he wouldn’t have ended up dead. Worse, dead as a traitor in Roman territory, so his soul will go to the worst part of the Roman afterlife. All to try to prove himself to someone who doesn’t love him back."

"No, no, I don’t agree with that interpretation at all. The Queen’s words drive Tesaire to prove himself, yes, but only that he is a Frenchman, not a Roman soldier. That he is not someone who will participate in a massacre in the name of the Empire."

"It’s really an awful play," Eluned said, wishing he’d been rehearsing something more cheerful. "Tesaire goes through so much after being conscripted, and tries to do the right thing by sending a warning to the rebels – for whatever reason – but ends up walking into an ambush with the rest of the soldiers. Is the audience supposed to be happy that his Queen shows up and kisses him before he dies?"

"Ah, but we haven’t finished the final scene." Milo collected his script and handed it back to her, then arranged himself into artful collapse at her feet.

" My Queen ," he said, gazing up at her with a mix of defiance and pride. " This is the last I look upon you. But I look upon you as Tesaire, a free man of France. Remember me well. "

" You will not be forgotten ," Eluned promised, remembering to hold herself as he’d taught her. She stepped down from her crate, but was a little flummoxed as to how to kneel beside him in a grand way. Nor was she entirely sure how a Queen would kiss a dying man, but decided that lightly on the lips would do.

Then she had to stop and look at the script, for this was where they’d paused before for lessons on kissing.

"' Tesaire rises' ?" she said, reading the pencilled stage directions. "Don’t tell me she’s god-touched with some sort of healing powers?"

"No, no. It is his spirit we see rising," Milo assured her, lifting himself up as he spoke, as if he was being hauled by ropes. "There is to be a mannequin for his body, hastily inserted from under a nearby bit of scenery. The Queen stands as he rises, and perhaps allows him to touch her arm."

He then dropped back into character, and cried out: " Grant me the gift of your name, before I am taken! "

" I have many names ," Eluned read. " I am Sister of the Grain. I am the Moon of the Depths. I am Kore of the Shades. I am She Who Destroys Light ." Eluned paused, frowning, then read on: " Come, my Tesaire. I have a place for a true and valiant man of France ." She lowered the script. "I don’t understand. Is she supposed to be a French god?"

Milo laughed. "No. You might recognise her best-known name. All this time, Tesaire has been talking to Persephone."

"Proserpina?"