Nomen Regis

     “Eheu! Rex morte est. Inquam, O Mercuri. Astra declive!” Celatrix Verna’s voice trembled, building as she timed her ‘declive’ to coincide with the chanters’. Holding her hands to either side of the podium, she raised them with the palms directed at Kaiser Rudolpho Imler’s wounded face as he lay in his lidless coffin. While slowly turning her upper body toward Archel, Celatrix Verna continued, “Ecce! Rex nasci est. Inquam, O Iphigenia. Sol oriens!” Her impeccable timing once again apparent as her words blended into the chanted ‘Sol oriens!’

     From the front row, Colonel Thompson and General Michaels bowed their heads, listening to the foreign words. Michaels leaned over and whispered, “you know what she’s talking about?”

Sua Sponte

     A buxom woman sat in the shadow of the Pissing Puppy Statue just outside of Sentinel Cemetery on the edge of the Forum Publicos. From her vantage point she could see the heavy foot traffic going in and out of the forum shops while also maintaining an ever watchful eye on the cemetery passage. She chewed her bottom lip as she waited.

     “I’ll never understand why you’d risk a public meeting,” a man whispered as he sat down in the shadows next to her.

     “The bigger risk is meeting you in private,” the woman answered. “You’re lucky I waited.”

     “I had no doubt that you would,” the Inquisitor laughed.

     Ignoring his laughter she asked, “do you have it?”

     He sat a small beige tote bag on the cement next to her, saying, “everything you need to start over.”