These stories and anecdotes are told sometimes by the changelings of Port Bowen. A few are written down in a faded cloth-bound book kept in Autumn Court’s library, and others can be heard by asking Robert Cormer, an Autumn Court historian. Many more are passed along by word of mouth.
Recorded by Robert Cormer of Autumn, told by Fred East of Summer
The pact with dreams is one of the most ancient contracts of the Fae. They have a lot in common: fickle, impossible to understand, all-powerful in their demesne, the works.
For Them, the contract is foolproof: they have perfect control within dreams, and Dream can toy with them whenever they slip up. But they don’t slip up. Ever. Changelings aren’t Gentry, though, and they get caught in nightmares way more easily. So Dream gets to play with the lesser fae, just like the Others did. Like I said, lots in common.
I was told this one night at a downtown bar and it got me thinking. Where did the Others really come from? Are they personifications of the world itself, timeless as the sea? Or did they arise from human fears and dreams?
~ Robert Cormer
Traditional tale from the 1800s told by Winter Courtiers in the freeholds of Port Bowen. Recorded by an unknown author.
The freehold makes its rules on high, where mighty men and mighty women speak from under crowns. Their words are law and their law governs all. Or so it is said.
A new law was decreed by those mighty crownèd lords and most were content to yield, as the Most so often are. The Few, those great few who opposed, sat in angry council in the dark. First, they plotted rebellion. Blood, steel, fire and Iron would raise their worthy cause above the unjust lords and triumph over unjust laws! But it was not to be. The Most were content, after all.
In anxious council they plotted still their opposition, turning to more subtle ways. A plan was hatched: the Few would seize the crowns. Then from on high, their true law would be decreed. It was a good plan, a sure plan, they said in the dark. After all, the Most are content to yield and the crowns are always changing heads.
Eight great men and eight great women exited that happy council, and one by one they set their sights on a crown. Longingly the first caressed Spring’s Antlered Crown, but it chose another in its capricious way. Frantically the second snatched at Summer’s Crimson Crown, but a coward cannot wield the crimson spear. With nimble fingers the third grasped at Autumn’s Crown of Whispers, but it would not alight upon a head so afraid to change. The fourth strode single-mindedly toward Winter’s Ashen Crown, and little stood against him. With ease, he placed the crown upon his head. The great men and great women beamed and cooed as their subtle plan, their good plan, took flight.
Sure-hearted Christopher was now King of The Onyx Court. With haste, he set his words upon the unjust laws and rallied the people of Winter. But they did not come. With patience, he courted them with power unfettered and unrestrained, such as they had been denied by the unjust laws. But they did not come. With sighs, their King Christopher reassured himself. The Most were too easily content, he reasoned, and would take time to accept their greatness.
The decrees of the new king did not please his counterparts. Where he looked back, they looked forward; and where he saw greatness, they saw ruin. The mighty ones quarreled with their new peer, and the people of all courts looked on. Those of Winter could not stand alone, and shining King Christopher seemed sure to stand apart from all. They turned from him, and mighty King Christopher found his words bereft of power.
Undeterred, resolute King Christopher held to his demand that the newest of the freehold’s rules be struck down. Only then would he swear the oaths of his kingship. Sure that such reversal would be mad, the freehold lords did not yield. As his court grew restless, kind King Christopher offered them vassalage, hoping to win them to his side at last. “That oath would bind only to him, and not to the freehold”, they said. “What good is it to be bound to a shunned king?”, they asked. Sad King Christopher could not reassure them, and the Onyx Court rejected his hollow vassalage.
Lady Rosanne, a well-known courtier, felt something must be done for her fellows. A full season without the protections of the freehold would be disastrous, yet her king would not compromise. She spoke to many in Winter and gathered those who were not content to sit idle. They and she approached good King Christopher with a plea to stop risking the court’s prosperity, and put aside greatness for a time. High King Christopher had only disdain for their petition and refused it, in the kindest of ways.
Lady Rosanne was stumped. Her king was clearly mad, and what of his court? Lady Rosanne foresaw a winter far harsher than mere snow and ice this year. And so she sat with her fellows and they argued, they talked, and they finally agreed on a plan of their own. It was a dangerous plan, an underhanded plan, but surely that was better than the dire winter now looming over their heads.
The mighty rulers of the freehold were perplexed when Lady Rosanne petitioned for an audience, but they acquiesced. She came before those silent lords and spoke of Winter’s courtly discontent. She wrought a tale of woe and ruin, of her fair court withered in its own season, and the valiant freehold succumbing at last to darkness.
The fair and elegant rulers did enjoy her tale and invited her to speak with them in private. For three days and three nights they held council. On the first night, they came to know the grave threat of proud King Christopher’s unraveling of the Oath of Lordship. On the second night, they despaired at the constraints of their own sworn vows. On the third night, they Agreed.
For those three days and three nights, perplexed King Christopher wondered why, oh why, would the crownèd lords respond to him in silence? Then they came forth, but still did not speak. Instead, Lady Rosanne proclaimed to the Hidden Court her own alliance with the great monarchs. She denounced the posturings of mad King Christopher. She bade the men and women of Winter to mourn with her the fall of their goodly King while swearing their own allegiance to her, and through her to the rightful monarchs of the freehold.
Irate King Christopher moved at once to counter her treachery. He banished her immediately from the freehold, and branded her an outlaw and a heretic! But he and she shared no oaths between them, so his words had no teeth. Determined to destroy her, he decreed anew that all fools who joined the Lying Lady would be put to sword, and any who helped her would face the fearsome Gaoler! Angry King Christopher saw that the people of Winter were afraid, and he was satisfied. Lady Rosanne would die in the night and the monarchs would cooperate with him or follow to her grave.
Lady Rosanne was prepared for this. She knew the ways of irascible King Christopher. Mere hours after his dire threats cowed the court into submission, she offered protection from their mad king, and forgiveness of any banishment. The King had guards and assassins, but she had everything else. Summer guarded the people of Winter as they fled to Lady Rosanne; Autumn used its magicks to warn and ward against King Christopher’s men; and Spring ensured that all were comfortable and safe. A week later, even lonely King Christopher’s own men had abandoned him.
And so King Christopher fell, and Lady Rosanne ruled that year as the People’s Queen.
Recorded by Robert Cormer of Autumn, told by Dennis Archambault of Winter Court
How long have there been sanctuaries in Port Bowen? The oldest story that talks about ’em is from the 1870s. They’ve probably been around ever since the city got big, though. It’s hard to have more than a few people living together before someone wants protection from someone else.
That old story starts with John Carmichael on the run from some Summer courtiers. He was Autumn himself, and a laborer by trade. He got in trouble for torching the city’s railyards as part of some human protest. Summer weren’t too pleased, and aimed to make him an example.
Carmichael led Robert Pace and his Summer boys on a long chase through the city. Every time Carmichael thought he’d slipped ‘em, Pace flushed him out again. I figure Carmichael broke a pledge or promise by burnin’ down those train yards. Pace was an ogre, y’see, and everybody knows how tenacious they can get when they’re riled.
Dinner time came and went, and Carmichael was getting winded. He knew it wouldn’t be long until Pace was dragging him to Summer’s King for judgement. Desperate, he ran up to a house overlooking the bay called Hill’s Heel. It was a safe haven, of sorts, a place of refuge where he hoped he’d be safe. Carmichael knocked and gasped out, “Help me! Asylum!” He could barely speak he was so tired. The front door opened and the master of the house dragged Carmichael inside. No sooner had the door latched closed again than Robert Pace started poundin’ on it, shouting for the renegade.
Pace’s men were determined to catch Carmichael, so they set up a watch outside the house. Pace just kept shouting. After some food and water, Carmichael opened a window on the second story and started yelling back. They went at it all night, trading threats and insults so loud they kept the neighbors awake.
Daylight brought messengers from Autumn and Pace backed down. Carmichael was tried and sentenced to community service in order to appease Summer. Hill’s Heel was never touched, though, not once. That was important. Pace had the men and the authority to break in and take Carmichael by force, but he didn’t. That restraint became part of the code of conduct expected in Port Bowen, and that’s what made Hill’s Heel special.
The events of this tale likely occurred on July 22, 1877. John Carmichael’s arson of the railyard seems to correlate with the labor strikes of the Great Upheaval, during which the city’s train depots burned to the ground.
~ Robert Cormer
Recorded by Robert Cormer, told by Chaser of Summer Court
Theobald Gillespie joined the Freehold of the Mist-Burnt Veil in 2001, and was crowned Summer King in 2002. The day after his crowning, he was approached by a nameless courtier wearing a fierce dog’s-head mask. The courtier said he represented the Hound Tribunal, and who would argue with a mask like that? He had a potent mantle, at any rate, and offered the new king an agreement. The Hounds would provide King Theobald with their support – weapons, spies, that sort of thing – and in exchange he would keep the court strong by following their advice. King Theobald was a haggler, so I’m sure that Hound had to work for it, but in the end Theobald did agree to take their offer.
During that year’s reign, the Hounds forced Theobald to exile two courtiers who they claimed were plotting against Summer’s power. One, they said, had tied himself too strongly to Winter and was giving away the court’s secrets, and the other was a subversive who could not be trusted. The subversive was just as the Hounds had said, but the other guy? Theobald didn’t see any threat in a courtier who happened to like Winter. Still, he couldn’t risk breaking his pledge to the Hounds, so he exiled both men. When his reign ended, he went looking for the Winter sympathizer but the exile had fled far from Port Bowen. No one knows where.
Theobald regretted his agreement with the Hounds. During the rest of that year, he became resentful, and angry. That anger was high on his mind when, in 2004, he was once again crowned King of Summer. As before, a masked Hound visited him the day after his coronation and offered the now-familiar bargain. But this time, Theobald flatly refused. The Hound wheedled and haggled, I’m sure, but now King Theobald knew what their demands really meant. The Hound warned Theobald not to cross the Tribunal, and left without a bargain.
Now, Theobald was King of Summer, and no coward ever gets the Crimson Crown. He hated the Tribunal’s machinations and spit in the face of their warnings. He remembered the thrust of their aims from his last stint as king: keep Summer to itself and root out subversives who think otherwise. So, he encouraged his courtiers to forge closer ties to the other courts, and worked through diplomatic channels to share Summer’s power with the rest of the freehold.
This went on for months without incident. Finally, on the eve of Winter, three Hounds visited Theobald at his home. They were clad in black robes and wore masks of snarling dog heads. They gave him an ultimatum: change the court’s policies within the next three days, or die at the hands of the Tribunal. Before he could answer, they left.
Three days went by and Theobald not only ignored their demand, he redoubled his efforts to reach out to the other courts. That fourth day was tense for everyone close to the king, but nothing happened. No knives, no swords, no guns – nothing.
Two weeks later Theobald held court, and it was there that the Hounds struck. They rose out of the crowd and dived straight for the king. His two guards were very skilled, but they were overwhelmed in moments by the swarm of Hounds. There were about a dozen of them on that dais, and one of them thrust a sword clean through King Theobald. Theo’s blood flowed out onto his killer’s hands, and the Crimson Crown of Summer went with it.
That attack only took a few seconds, and already the king, his two bodyguards, and at least one of his motley were dead. Everyone else was caught off guard. Yelling started when the usurper sliced off Theo’s head, and the yells grew to an angry, boiling mess of sound when he held it up. Then there was a gunshot, the usurper dropped Theo’s head, and the real fight got started. It was vicious. By the end, Summer had killed more than 30 of its own.
The new king, Lance Bachman, was a Tolltaker Knight – a member of a noble order of bounty hunters. He banished the Hounds from the court on the spot, and declared them outlaws. Then he put a bounty on the Tribunal and its supporters, and set out to kill them himself. Anyone who wanted that bounty would have to beat the king to the punch, which was just more encouragement.
The remaining Hounds tried to form a new Summer Court in a new freehold within the city, but that meant taking territory from the Mist-Burnt Veil. King Bachman’s retribution was brutal, and only a few escaped him. The tattered remains of the Hound Tribunal renounced the court and took refuge among the large community of courtless changelings. To this day, any sworn member of the Hound Tribunal is an outlaw to Summer Court, and can be killed for a (much smaller) bounty of goblin fruits.