the haunted kingdom by Charles E.J. Moulton (snow like ashes txt) 📕

The Lily for a month and Tom let his guards do his paperwork. Silvia and the twins let Mormidar do the Hispanic work and in Vindobon Regina was forced to say no, due to demonstrations in the capital. Mustafus sent Mario Callini and claimed to congratulate little Alfie when arriving.
Walter was still seeing Morgana and they were experts in hiding it. Erica knew about Patrick’s excursions and said nothing. She told Belinda about it. Belinda had a gigantic row with Patrick that had him gasping for air.

Iuventus Sacrum, Friday, August 17th, 1425

Alfred’s birthday arrived and Belinda again reconciled with her husband, again joining the parties. She sang with all the songs and played half of the parts in the puppet theatre for her son. She spent some of the time arguing with people about how dangerous Nomed was. As soon as Nomed spent some time with her that changed. He performed magic tricks, wrote an improvised Estampie with a following Saltarello for Alfred, labelled “Precious are thy witty sparks,” and that made Belinda’s heart weak.
The little chap was already very talkative and witty and kept the entire crowd laughing at the hill, by the waterfall, in the theatre, in the garden, by the Poseidon statue and in the Alexander Room. Slowly but surely, the royal palace was becoming a who’s who of Medatlantian royalty. Belinda had never thought it. A peace treaty with Adnicul was signed that day. She had been lured into the spider’s web and invited to drink mead with the spider.

August 26th 1425

It was Alexander’s 57th birthday. The crowd had spent an afternoon picnicking and then all went to the Iuventus Theatre that day to hear a concert by the music ensemble. It became obvious very quick that the sneezing from all the guests was forcing them to stop early. The epidemic had again returned to the palace and Nomed was handing out small bottles of potion to everyone.
Nomed had already given many herbal treatments and Henricus was again living at the castle treating patients. Everyone took the treatment that had been tested by Henricus himself and it hadn’t helped. Alexander found it all very humorous and ordered Bantrard to write a jig about sneezing.
Wednesday, September 12th, 1425 A.D.

The real demons don’t announce their arrival. They arrive in disguise. That Wednesday passed without anyone noticing it was different than any other day. It was the day Nomed presented decay to the throne with a beaming smile. Alexander smiled back, suspecting nothing in his mind.
The man that had become Alexander’s right hand next to Rolf suggested that he try something that had successfully cured his King’s court in the Ottoman Kingdom last year from a similar problem. It was a sickness that could not be cured, just as this sickness would not leave here.
It was the potion.
Nomed’s suggestion was carefully considered by the King, and the next day he said he wanted it to be tested. So Henricus, Ariana and Lisa volunteered.
There was sleep involved in the cure and the same herbal drink was to being taken with the addition of the minty flavour of the Addar-root from Hispania. Mormidar had spoken of the Moorish spice of the Addar, which almost every Hispanic took and it didn’t worry the King at all.
He did want to test it first. Being subjected to the state that Nomed spoke of as collective trance was completely safe. You simply woke up cured. The Mongolians had done it that way for years and they had taught him.
Sieglinde hated it. Alexander and she were constantly fighting about and even Belinda now tried to defend Nomed. The young family was put into a trance and awoken again. They were cured from every possible ailment. When the first anniversary guests started arriving a week later and it became clear that they, too, became infected, he invited them all to join them at the eve of the anniversary as a gift to the wedding couple, Steven and Belinda, to be cured.
The evening of the official invitation, Sieglinde slept in one of the guesthouses for the first time since the Madeleine Scandal. The late summer was filled with worry. A very oddly arising epidemic had struck the palace. Almost everyone was sneezing and blowing their noses. It didn’t seem to go away. The strange thing was that everyone at all times seemed to go to Nomed to get help. The cure also came from Nomed himself. He volunteered to produce a cure that would make everyone well and could present it on the 23rd of September as an homage to Belinda’s wedding day.

Thursday, September 13th, 1425 A.D.

Belinda had feasted with the entire gamut of royalty that night and eyed Nomed all evening. Words echoed in her mind, telling her about Nomed and Lucinda’s names and what they meant. She discarded these warnings with the light-headed superficiality of someone she wasn’t. Around one o’clock the full moon shone into the still widely lit Grand Hall and Nomed was playing songs and singing into her ear. He told her tales of love and affection from many of the very famous monarchs he had met.
They shared grapes, peaches and apricots. They fed each other asparagus, oysters, cheese and snail oil. Chicken, lobster, strawberry, nuts, truffles and tomatoes were positioned between legs for them to munch on. Wine was poured across bellies and mead was drunk from navels. Apple cider was poured over Belinda’s breasts and Nomed licked it off with a long tongue.
That night they were alone. Nomed whispered sweet somethings into the princessly ear. When Nomed seduced her there was a new world to be discovered. The princess that had hated the spider was now unfaithful ten days prior to her third wedding anniversary. Belinda tossed and turned that night, dreaming strange dreams.

The Grand Hall, Main Palace,
Sunday evening, September 23rd 1425

“Rotting decay served with a grin. So, evil triumphs at last. ”
Before entering the room, the educated epicurean mumbled to himself that he had won after all. Everyone was assembled; even little Alfie was sneezing and was happy to be there. Nomed was in the middle, serious, sardonic. Alex was laughing, not noticing the look on Nomed’s face. The most important royals of Medatlantia were there. The musicians were playing an Estampie and the food was being dished out. There was laughter and song and many sneezing people, happy to get well and happy to be drunk. The irony of the 23rd of September was that Alexander did not even think it had anything to do with Lucinda that he was being served something green in tubes against his own better judgement.
He told himself how safe it all was. The 23rd of September, moreover, was an important day for officials who were celebrating an anniversary and their own prosperity. The entire family had been invited. It was a perfect occasion for the cure. A lot of people had been having the sickness and Alex assured them it was safe.
Henricus was the living proof of its safety – or so they thought. Julius Cretan had come on Morgy’s behalf, Morgana showing off her cleavage a little more than usual, as she was an advocate of Nomed’s healing powers. He was mumbling to himself that he would regret this. The clerical representative was Bernardus Paul.
King Iwar had come. Queen Henrietta had excused herself, but come anyway. Walter was there, as well. John Lyghort had come back to town for a brief stay in the capital. He had caught the epidemic and was now among the important ones to receive the cure, sitting at the first long table by the window with the other thirty-five.
There he was, the man with the dazzling smile serving poison in the form of a cure. Geena and the entire team of the kitchen staff, every possible physician and healer in the area had checked the potion in order help make immeasurable quantities secure regarding the cure’s authenticity.
Sieglinde said, "Should he really have them drink it?" through the entire ceremony.
Forty-four Senate members had been chosen from the Clurafar Senate to take the potion. In addition to this, twenty ordinary people that were still plagued by this epidemic, selected by lottery, were there. The thirty-six leaders of the nation were in attendance as well. This selection was supposed to represent the entire Empire of Prosperania. It represented people from the church, the crown, the state, and the general populace.
Issues had been discussed, the final treaty had been signed, verifying military alliance between the nations at hand: Hispania, Olandus, Prosperania and Alliland. The food had been eaten, the songs had been sung, the entertainment completed, the games played and the liquid had been drunk.
Nomed arrived, just as he had come, in red, green and purple satin, carrying a lute, singing a song he had written himself. Geena and her team handed out the glasses and the juice was poured. Nomed calmly told the gathering a scientific lay out of the cure and everyone was impressed. The King and Queen felt that Nomed did not care and would be gone soon and that his job was finished. Now it was too late to turn back. They saw Lucinda behind Nomed's mask.
Belinda cried as she fell asleep, knowing she had been unfaithful to her Steven.
The veil lifted just in time for her to realize that Nomed Snekawa was Demon Awakens backwards and that it was all a plan to put the country to sleep. She remembered the curse from 13th of October just when it was too late to even do anything to stop the ball from rolling onwards. Soon enough, there was an entire empire in the form of hand selected elite sleeping in the Grand Hall that day. Lucinda was Nomed and the devil was walking among them as they all slept sweetly and calmly, marching toward uncertain demise.
Nomed walked among the guests, sleeping in their chairs, lying on the tables completely departed, vanished and dreaming. Outside, the sun was shining and the grass was green. He saw the dimension slowly fogged over with ten thousand years of patience. The demons of hell were arriving. The plagues were cursing the earth.
Nomed unmasked, and the Vile Sister of Hades begat demonic joy in spiritual form. It parted thrice and swept across the land in form of blight, pestilence and solitude.
She kicked the final section of her master's long journey into action while avenging her brother's penalty of exile so many years ago. She stood there erect. Reficule waiting inside the blue tunnel in the fireplace, the gate to hell, drooling and scratching, cackling and bobbing. She spat one last time at Alexander's head leaving a blob of spit on its back: "At last, you can take your own medicine! Wake up first when you kill me, Brother! And realize the name my pseudonym bore. Nomed Snekawa is backwards what my secret entails. Believe in my name!”
She walked into the fireplace with these words seeping into Alexander's unconscious, leaving it all behind her, waiting for Armageddon and slipping into another worldly dimension, abandoning all these sleeping men, women and children in the Grand Hall, deeply comatose in another dreamland, patiently awaiting the absolute certainty of a coming doom. They had too long avoided the topic of fear until normality had arrived in the form of Nomed Snekawa whose name bore the meaning of an awakening demon to work a curse of plagues. Not only thirty-six people had been cursed here. Not only one hundred guests representing the country were asleep. The entire country had been lured into an odd sort of fog. There was a three-year blight on the loose.