Power is derived from the boundlessly innovative wealth creation capacities of human relationships, requiring total war against any and all resentful Adoptables and Resentfuls and their ceaseless efforts to deny healthy and productive relationships.
The Eternal War | Doctrine | Power | Responsibles’ Principle
All along the journey that’s been a life, he’s been deeply motivated and driven by a single compulsion, that of protecting humanity. That this is wired deeply into his genetic makeup, into the neurotransmitter and hormonal balances drive the functioning of his brain, nervous system, organs and every one of the hundreds of trillions of cells in the community of life we each are. That the environment in which he grew up in was also heavily conditioned by the genes and the genetic expression of those around him, primarily the mother he spent the first fourteen years of his life with, in their self-imposed high-country isolation.
None of that enters into it, not consciously, not actively. Unless he stops to go deep inwards in meditation into the neurocognitive space within. Even then he can only see the faintest outlines of it, not into the immensely complex working of every cell as it goes about enabling this single purpose. An unbroken continuation of actions unceasing from the moment life began here four and a half billion years ago. This compulsion just was, is and will forever be, for as long as biomolecular-bioelectrical life exists.
Many humans are directed by the incredibly powerful motivating force that is the protection of their own genetic lineage, perhaps those one or two generations older and one or two generations younger. A far fewer number of are directed by a compulsion to protect their community, however it is defined by them, whether they themselves have children or elders or not. Whether they are adopted or not. All of this powerfully encoded in the genome of life, the variance of beings, in the energetics of life, all life. No less so in the highly interdependent great ape that is homo sapiens sapiens. The last remaining hominid.
It isn’t a matter of morals, or of good and right, this driving compulsion he shares with every member of The Order. No, this powerful compulsion originated far earlier than morals and such paltry concerns as right or wrong. Going back billions of years, to the first communities of singled-celled life. In him and those of The Order, this compulsion to protect, while oriented to all of humanity and not merely family and community, inevitably and quite naturally focuses on specific matrilineal dynastic houses. Even his highly experienced, scientifically educated and trained mind can see no other way. Protect these, such that they, across great stretches of generations, fully engage in the fight for the children and future children of others. For the genetic diversity which is the only real diversity and life’s great heritage.
That this too is coded into his genetic makeup, matters not. That at the fundamental level, as a male, as an XY Chromosome being, his entire construction from the biomolecular up through the bioelectrical and through the emergent neuropsychometric is designed solely to enable him to protect the genetic heritage of humanity. This all matters very little. It’s not something must be thought about or to concern oneself with being in conflict with. If only more recognized this, that the only purpose of life is current and all future life, the world would be a somewhat better place.
None of this enters his conscious mind. One does what one must. When and where and how one must. It isn’t a matter of thought, but of loyalty. Yes, loyalty to specific human beings, to great houses. But far more, fundamental loyalty to the species. Maintain this and those who do, no matter the cost. Recognizing that despite all the immense knowledge humans have teased out as to the workings of life. That even the simplest life is orders upon orders of magnitude more sophisticated than anything we’ve yet devised. All of which goes to the recognition that we yet need humans, many of them, for all the brilliance of random resiliency and innovation they represent.
You are needed and there’s no other more suited to the task. This was the message in Harrison’s unannounced arrival to the Westlands of Scotland. Of course, he would answer the call.
“Last we discussed, I believe you were looking to set up local metal salvage, smelting, blacksmithing and machining capacities? Have you attained local sufficiency in these?” Harrison asks as he looks out to the shimmer atop the waters of the Firth of Clyde, sipping from the finger of 21-year-old Balvenie Portwood Carl had provided him.
“We’ve lain those in over the past few months. Now we’re expanding our makers lab here on the estate to support distributed small-scale just in time local manufacturing out in the surrounding communities and modestly into Glasgow.” Early responds. Knowing full well the Lord Commander has not travelled all this way to discuss such things. Though these are of genuine interest to the older man. The neo-feudal community building and supporting efforts centered around the Kilwinning Estates and their replicability are both supported by and are of great interest to The Order and the great houses it secures. Questions about operations and planning are not completely out of place.
“It’s something of a bother the materials for print manufacturing are becoming harder and harder to source. A problem we’re seeking to solve locally from salvage, recycling and other means.”
“Energy reliability?”
“Wind and solar are proving far too unreliable and expensive. As they’ve always been. Though with some applications in the small scale. Particularly with micro-wind and solar farming via smart paints and materials. We’re finding heat capture and piezoelectric generation are filling the gaps increasingly. Both of which we’re more and more integrating into structures, such as floors, manufacturing facilities and others. Even looking at some roadways. We’re steadily making small-scale local energy production from human activity more of the mix. Though there are issues with distribution which must be gained through efficiencies in storing and moving electricity about. More and more however, as discussed. It does look like nuclear, pebble bed reactors, is the only way to go in the end, to ensure affordable continuous local energy production.”
“Your hydraulic despots?” A topic Harrison often brings up in just such discussions related to alternatives to the centralized, heavily monopolized, world. Hydraulic despotism being the reason all previous human civilizations had given up on their experiments in centralized living, to go back to pastoral and hunter gatherer societies. The very same direction of societal organization many currently argue for. Though most of these motivated by the illusion of the days of noble savages, more than from an understanding of the power used throughout history to throttle humanity’s freedom and development through the control of only a few life essential resources.
“You didn’t come here to talk about the estate, local politics and bureaucratic feudalists.” Early responds, moving to the overstuffed chair across from Harrison. Sitting down heavily. Motioning to Carl at the main doors to Early’s private library and study. Privacy.
With a smile denoting both exhaustion and joy at the thought of more action. Carl closes the double doors and moves down the hall, spreading the word. Privacy. A powerful whisper, that ripples through the sprawling old stone mansion, surrounding buildings and in not so very long, across the entire estate. The Lord Commander is here to speak with the Earl. It can mean only one thing. Action!
“Which house?” Early MacKinnon Raedbora, the 5th Earl of Rothbury, born a bastard child, the outsider, getting right to it now that they’re alone. Perfunctory niceties out of the way. He’d always been a blunt man of thought and action, since he was a poor unknown bastard child growing up in the Americas. Long before being elevated to his late adopted family’s ancient, but then extinct, title. The machinations of a well-bred, connected and utterly capable wife, this elevation to the peerage had been. Now in his early sixties, he’s neither the time nor the desire to change. It’s a trait that endears him to many, and, obviously, not at all to others.
“All of them.” Harrison pauses, turns and adds another finger of the single malt Carl had left in the Wexford decanter in the mirrored bottom ancient dark wooden tray on the side table beside his worn overstuffed chair. He’ll let that knowledge settle in. Allow the expansive mind of the Earl, Lord Raedbora, to chew on it.
“Which is primary.” Ah yes, leave it to Early to get right to the crux of it. Recognizing which of the matrilineal dynasties is the primary familial line greatly reduces the search space as to who and what the threats against the individual are. This while providing some idea as to how great the threat is, what resources might be brought to bear, what tactics and techniques will be employed. As well as all the many related concerns.
“Euphrosyne.”
“Russian.”
“You remain far too well informed for someone retired to their country estates.” Harrison knows the Earl remains current on most things in the world, as do his people. “Do you know this or is it an approximation?”
“There are markovian gossamers which fit far larger patterns, that the former line will be restored as a constitutional monarchy. As the only means by which to ensure the oligarchs retain what balance they’ve achieved under their former KGB Colonel. When the Colonel is gone.”
“The first order threats remain obvious then?” Harrison states.
“Yes. Everything intentionally broken. Across the next two decades. Absolutely everything.” Early responds his eyes closed as he senses and thinks through higher complex projections.
“What are the second and third order threats?” Let the Earl’s mind chew on this question. There’s no doubting he’ll come out of retirement and take the task. If the Countess will let him! To this, the Lord Commander can play his own hand. He’d come himself to ask in person. For this very effect. To impress upon Her Ladyship the importance. Also, best the Earl and his people know fully what they’re committing to. Particularly as the very notion of it is committing The Order to a vergence in the path forward. A path followed for eight hundred years. A vergence could lead to the final obliteration of The Order and its members. A modern telling of Friday the 13th? Possible. The fate of the great houses so long hidden and secured? Unknown, but projectable.
It had taken the bureaucratic feudalists, their pet and allied titled houses and thrones, more than four hundred years to brush aside the old ways, the rebelliously capable old houses. Four hundred years for the Gnostic Hermetics, bureaucratic-minded Resentfuls, to rise to ascendancy across all institutions. To make their push to brush aside all the old ways in which power was balanced. Old ways which didn’t prevent but at least blunted the worst of tyranny and usury, ensuring at least something sustained for future generations of the commons. Four hundred years to move humanity from the land to the factories, then to the universities, corporations and bureaucracies then into these and the many institutions of the dependency economy. Finally, into decrepit cities, urban blight, total and utterly controlled and dependent upon the priests of the bureaucratic feudalist state and religion. Slavery restored!
It had all been accomplished by breaking the individual’s connection to truth at each step along the way. Putting in place an unaccountable slave economy built on fees, rents, taxation and debt and righteously defended through a total base reality denying one world religion. The religion of the Bureaucratic State as God. Parasitic bureaucratic feudalist priests, Gnostic-Hermetic Technocrats, will never give this up! They will burn the world to the ground before allowing reality to reassert itself. Before allowing the slaves to break free once again. Any attempt to restore connection with underlying base reality, now far more genuinely knowable, must be sought out and destroyed before the slaves and captured petty elites know of its existence.
“The Neo-Pagan nobility, feminized paganism, will have its human and child sacrifices. As many as they possibly can before a violent reaction is incurred. Hundreds of millions, if not billions.”
“Passive-aggressively, of course.” Harrison replies. This confirms another psychometric analysis on the massive funding pouring into the denial of family and children and the gaying and transing of younger and younger children.
“The Ladies of great houses and their captured males will have their sacrifices. They won’t allow new leaders and ideas to emerge from the masses.” All that random genetic variance and intermixing at work could upset their family’s dominance. Anti-humanist women and their pet males will never allow it.
“So, we return to human and child sacrifice among the ruling class.” Harrison reacts calmly. It had always been thus. Not for any real religious purpose, but as a form of genetic control and warfare masquerading as a belief system. Rituals sustained across millennia giving higher purpose and meaning to the staving off of the inevitable rise of a ruler from out among the people for as long as such control can be maintained. Seeking to delay as long as possible a return to organic status hierarchies.
“Lack of and poor nutrition, sexualization of children, child trafficking, legalized pedophilia, drugs, alcohol, anxiety and depression, gender and sexuality confusion, sterilization, mutilation and a lifetime of heavy hormonal treatments. To say nothing of genetically modified and targeted diseases and a return to all out conflict everywhere at all times.” Early states, looking out the windows, out to the sun glinting off the sea in the firth. “An ever-increasing assault on women, women’s rights, sports and spaces, on motherhood. All while providing predators with ever greater access and legal protections.”
“Yes, destroy the common woman’s will to live, to participate, to be that which evolution and nature have so deeply coded her to be.” This is old knowledge in The Order. The first signs of these things showing up in the late eighteen hundreds, accelerating and broadening since the nineteen sixties.
“At least until their fertile years are over. Then leave them to live out their solitary and lonely lives. Lives greatly shortened by it all. Millions and millions of broken women with nothing to live or fight for.”
“This is not the paganism of old.” Early continues. “There was outright death and slaughter in classical paganism. But nothing like this all-devouring cowardice which seeks far more to destroy than to kill. Malevolence unchecked become evil on a vast accepted scale.”
“Classical paganism returns?” This is another projection of the analysts. Though the confidence level of their predictions is yet less than high. “Much as Christianity, for some time, before also failing?”
“Classical Paganism and post-schism Christianity will re-emerge for a time. Neither will hold and something else, something truly new, will have to emerge. If this something new fails to emerge, civilization will only continue to be drug back and down to a level Resentfuls believe they can control.”
“You don’t believe they will succeed in bringing about a modern medieval period.” Harrison asks.
“No. At some point enough of the tech oligarchs will realize a greatly updated classical feudalism is the only way. They will break the bureaucratic state, end bureaucratic feudalism.”
“That means all-out war for at least two generations, perhaps three or four.”
“As you well know, Lord Commander. All-out war is already upon us and has been for a generation and a half so far.” Early, still looking out at the interplay of water, clouds and sunlight. “Scratch the surface but a little and all can be seen.”
The Lord Commander can almost clock the exact moment the Earl will rise and begin pacing his study lined with shelves of old books and windows looking out across the Clyde. Exactly on que, Early rises and begins pacing. It had been a very long stretch of generations since there was someone in The Order, whose mind worked like the Earls. Interesting how life, driven by genetic interactions directly with the environment, seems to bring forth exactly the right beings, exactly when they are needed most. To give them the abnormal life experiences to prepare them for the task.
The one flaw, he’s a horrible administrator. When it comes to thinking through vastly complicated interdependencies to see the threats and solutions. There’s none better! Fortunately, he’d always attracted to himself highly capable individuals. Many of whom fill the many roles Lord Raedbora is simply not designed for. Many being forced upon the Earl by his wife, the indomitable Countess more than twenty years his junior.
As Harrison sits patiently, Early paces, his subconscious mind unleashed, letting his default mode network engage fully. Over the past four centuries the information systems, educational systems, economic systems, the financial systems, cultural systems, belief and political systems, all the vast array of systems comprise human interaction. Have been fundamentally changed by automation, virtualization and centralization. Everything extracted and organized into valuation and transaction systems. Systems of power not the least of. Knobs and levers inserted for manipulation, control to scale up or down extraction from the populace, added into everything at every level by Resentfuls.
While the modern world, the functioning of it, is become vastly complex. There are yet discrete and simple fundamental forces at play beneath, within and across all these systems. The binding forces and forcing functions of key dependencies. Understand these dependencies, the power laws which drive them, and you understand each system and the entire system of systems. Functions which are ancient and can be functionally, though never exactly, modeled. Forcing functions and dependencies not even Resentfuls can in the end deny and overcome. The power of organic life being immense and undeniable, to even humans who have come to think themselves gods.
In human civilizations, there’s but one fundamental dependency, one forcing function, throughout all time, across the history of all life on this planet. The infinitely ruthless eternal interplay between genetic despotism and violence. Making those capable of full-spectrum violence, even more so, those capable but in absolute control at all moments, worth far more than their weight in whatever the most precious metal currently is. This isn’t merely violence of the body. No, that’s available from even the least among us, given the right circumstances. No, this is total and absolute violence, that of mind and emotions, of processes, systems, and every means of individual and collective control. Both when on the offense and on the defense. A thing goes far beyond one’s shadow. Going to fully embracing The Eternal War, always, in all things, and in every way. Regardless of whether one is a Resentful or a Responsible.
Harrison can see the Earl’s mind is fully engaged. “First order threat?”
“Irreversible population decline has set in motion unstoppable forces. Extraordinarily destructive forces.”
“Yes, billions of humans who will never be, quadrillions of essential new wealth will never enter the system. The global Ponzi scheme inevitably collapses.” Harrison assisting the Earl’s thoughts to flow. “Resulting in?”
Early, his mind beginning to fully spin up to meet the needs of the Lord Commander. “The world returns violently to that posture and distribution of wealth and power was natural and sustainable in the pre-industrial world of much smaller populations and economies. To static classes and hidden but all-powerful matriarchy.”
“Resentfuls seem to be fully engaged in bringing about total domination of every aspect of this future.” Harrison responds. “And if they cannot dominate, then to prevent.”
Alliances change and in the time of change, all those many forces for chaos and destruction, all the mass volumes of barely contained resentment kept at bay by the old alliances, break through and unleash. Seeking to force their way to power or to burn it all down so no one can have anything. All the immense power of repressed genetic propagation energy seeking to change everything, even those things which cannot be changed. Seeking to reinstate and strengthen organic status hierarchies or to emplace and strength artificial status hierarchies.
Increasingly over the past four hundred years, in the West primarily, organic status hierarchies have been almost completely replaced by artificial status hierarchies. Those whose power, whose genetic futures are based on these artificial status hierarchies, will not give up their dominance of the genetic future of the species, perceived or real, without a massive and ugly, murderous and genocidal fight. Even if it means their own end.
“All systems are being forced to their extreme. Most are breaking, permanently. The descendants of the Fascists and Communists of the last century are seeking their final ascendence using corrupted and weakened world organizations to sow global chaos.” Harrison only nods as Early continues. “The eugenicists have reemerged powerfully. Using the pharmaceutical and medical industries and regulatory bodies. In the form of converged genetic-biological warfare. Directed in discriminate and indiscriminate fashion against their own populations.” This is a projection the analyst had also come to, Harrison notes.
“As these efforts are underway, bureaucratic feudalists in public and private institutions are moving to steal as many assets as possible from the current and all future generations. Turning on the great houses once the people have become sufficiently dependent and caught up in internecine conflict. Once enough of the population has turned away from fundamental science and knowledge and have accepted a return to belief in magic.” This is not exactly how the analysts projected this third point. Harrison had suspected it might be the case. Now he’s certain, if the Earl’s mind has come to it.
“A turning away from actual scientific knowledge, then.” Harrison probes further.
“We’ve entered a period where there’s no longer connection to truth and reality. Everyone is trapped in an artificial reality tunnel it’s becoming ever more difficult to break free of. For many, the belief in magical ideas is the only way in which their psyches can function. Though it requires them to believe what they know to be impossible. To turn against the output of their own senses and logic in order to remain in cowardice. In order to justify not standing to and preventing those robbing them and their children of a future.”
Harrison pauses a moment before responding. “The analysts believe there are three great themes will play out across the next two decades, as the elder generation dies out, as the Westphalian systems fully fail and as Resentfuls seek to lock in place their global, one world Gnostic-Hermetic religion. Revenge, punishment and theft. Which assessment it would appear you agree with.”
“The bureaucratic feudalists and their masters have achieved that future they sought, where only power matters. Power only they as the priests of the great magic, the law, can understand and wield. They’ve made truth and reality impossible to grasp without going down to first principles. First principles being that which they have always been, the propagation of life through classically organic means.” The Earl’s mind is warming up nicely now.
“Mothers, their children, the genetic heritage of our species represented. And the distribution and security of the assets necessary for the protection and survival of these.” Harrison posits. “Revenge against the organic as motive.”
“Yes. Revenge against the descendants of those who previously defeated bureaucratic feudalist systems in the past century. Punishment of those who are not actively worshipping according to the bureaucratic feudalist religion rapidly being forced into place. And theft of absolutely everything that can be stolen before the artificial status hierarchies are locked in permanently by the new system, or before the power and lights go out for a very good stretch of time. This last resulting in the destruction of the artificial, and reemergence of organic status hierarchies as the innately strong rise once again.”
“First order assumptions…” Harrison asks.
“Self-rule, republicanism, has bankrupted itself beyond any recovery. The illusion of democracy, mercantilism as the dominate organizing force, are over, and there’s no going back. Which means there’s one of three futures. Technology enabled totalitarianism everywhere and for all, communist or fascist appearing, but truly Gnostic-Hermetic; genocidally religious. As long as Resentfuls can keep the old machine on, that is. Which they’ll hard point, as they kill off the threat, humans, until humanity is reduced to perhaps irrecoverable numbers.” Harrison recognizes this validates another hard assumption.
“Brutal civil wars, such as the English Civil War, the French Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, in which the people recover their safety or freedoms and restore at least a temporary balance of powers, though at the cost of independence, standards of living and asset destruction. With a vast number of petty elites and a large number of actual elites dead, fortunes destroyed, the breakup of many states and the end of the Westphalian model. A true tower of babel event.”
Early looks Harrison in the eyes, confirming he should continue, ensuring the Lord Commander hears the third. “Return to formal feudalism, a powerful and capable aristocracy and monarch, though not tied to land alone, but tied to in whom one’s capital is at work, standing in staunch support and defense of specific peoples, greatly enabled with all the scientific, technological, financial and medical advances of the past two hundred years. Allowing for an aristocracy which is less extractive than it is enabling and protective. One not dependent on states, nor on a reality denying religion.”
“And…?” Harrison prods. Sensing there’s something further processing in Early’s subconscious. He’d learned long ago to ask questions. As the Earl’s mind works best when asked a direct question.
“Billionaire warfare. Conducted mostly through non-profits, private armies and captured state and international institutions. The oligarchs are at all-out war even now, all around us. Some are seeking to fight one another globally, if they can. Most, however, are at war with themselves. These caring not if they get a global war.”
“Meaning the Great Reset is actually a return to great house competition.”
“There are far too many whose wealth and power are based on artificial status hierarchies. State protected monopolies. These won’t be given up willingly. Even if the risk from states that can less and less provide the oligarchs with protected extraction supporting monopolies, is greater than the value derived.”
“Who wins?”
“Those houses which survive. Physically and financially.” Early pauses as he takes a drink of water from the glass sitting beside the scotch decanter. “These will only do so with the will of the people. Not random people somewhere in the world or online. But by the will of those people, they know by name. People in the physical world. First order relationships. Those families whose futures are directly entangled with that of the members of the great house. These houses secretly led by matriarchs who own and control most all of the real wealth, who bind the highest quality men to them and the securing of their families and assets. The old ways greatly updated and restored.”
“Seeking out men of quality rather than wealth?” Harrison asks.
“Yes. As in the old sustainable way of things. The women will continue to own and control the far greater part of the wealth across generations. These matriarchs, their daughters and allied women will seek out, test and bind quality men to them. Those men necessary to organize, manage, lead and secure the wealth and assets of their wives and liege lords and ladies.”
“Projection!” Forcing the Earl’s mind into a single computational summation.
“No more than twenty percent of the current great houses, survive this century.”
“That few?” The council had argued this very thing, upon more than one occasion. The consensus being something closer to fifty percent attrition by the end of the century. Eighty percent! Only World War One had brought about cataclysmic change in the West even a fraction of this. “And wealth destroyed? Also, eighty percent?”
“At least fifty percent. Though it really depends on rate of population decline and the degree of destruction as the oligarchs and states fight it out over the coming two decades or more.” Early takes another drink of water, looking directly in the Lord Commander’s eyes. He and his team had obviously been going through all these projections for some time. This, running vast amounts of data through massive computer simulations here on the estate. “That is only if the matriarchs can readapt female hypergamy to assess a man’s value and status not on his wealth, but his ability to lead, manage and secure his family and the great house during total war.”
“Where?” Early asks. It's only to be expected the Earl would know the computations asked of him were finished. That it's time to move on to the task ahead.
“San Francisco.”
“She’s there now? It is a young woman, is it not?”
Dammit, but that mind of his makes leaps that take all the fun of surprise right out of these conversations. “Yes. She’s twenty-three.” Of course, it’s a woman. Men, being disposable, never attain from The Order the level of training and security represented by Early and his people.
“I’ve given the brief to Carl on the way in. Certainly he, at least, has already gone through it in detail. He’ll have a list of questions, which I’m sure you’ll add to.” Harrison continues, “we’ll provide all further answers on your flight over.”
“You will assign me full command of the chapter.”
“Already done. You’ve full command of training and continuity operations. Bronson will retain management of overall operations, her care and assessment. You have sole duress command, however. Given directly by me.”
Early recognizes the pattern, the warning in it. Danger from within! There had been times of great change and danger over the centuries. But if his projections are correct. Nothing like this. Nothing that could have actually ended The Order. An end only obtained through failing in its mission to maintain the balance in the genetic warfare that is the underlying reality of humanity, of all human endeavour.
“I will use my own people. Some are here or are retired elsewhere. These will need be reinstated. Some are on assignment elsewhere. These will need be reassigned. Carl has a list started.”
Harrison smiles. It’s a given the Earl had started preparations for some great action. His senses highly tuned, even in retirement, to the needs of The Order. More correctly, to the mission of The Order. Even if he didn’t know if there should be such nor what it would be. “I’ve already made arrangements. Carl even now has access to the systems required. Stateless accounts have also been established. For which, you will have instructions for secure access couriered to you later today. And before you ask. You report directly to me. No one else!”
On this the Lord Commander rises. This was to be a short visit then. A message. I come, taking time from an already impossible schedule, to give you this mission personally. He knows the message will be heard. Not only by the Earl but his people. The Earl is required once more, as are many of you. The sense of it could already be felt across the entire estate. The relevant people already closing up their efforts and moving towards the castle. To be nearby when called upon.
Harrison closes the distance between them. In an ancient show of respect for the title and the man carrying it. As is proper, despite that he is Early’s superior in The Order, the Lord Commander. “My Lord, you don’t need to see me out. I know you and your people will have much to do.” Outstretched hand taken in a firm grip. Before turning to cross the room and open the double oak doors. To the surprise of Clarence, the very elderly family butler, who had been moving down the hall to enquire after whether lunch should be prepared or not.
“Clarence, get Carl in here. Clear my schedule for the entire day. And find Regan.”
Just as he says it, Regan shows at the end of the hall, seeing he’s alone, sensing the change. Having felt the whisper across the estate. She moves down the long, grey stone hallway lined on the outside with windows of an ancient glass somehow survived six centuries to let light and the modest warmth of the sun stream in.
Seeing that her father is about to tell her what she already knows. “Go! Isn’t much you can share with me; we’ve not already discussed. I know well what needs doing here.” Regan Raedbora tells her father.
“Where’s the lady of the manor? The countess is not going to be so understanding.”
“She’s in the clinic and won’t be back till after five.” Regan informs her father. Shaking her head slightly, denoting the truth of his observation. No, her much respected stepmother would not. A knowing smile breaking out. Indeed not!
“Do come home, soonest.” She states, guardedly, in that subdued and detached British manner she’d picked up even before moving from the US. As she moves to put her arms around the father, she has grown to be far too similar to. Before turning and smartly moving out of his study, down the hall. Passing Carl on his way in. Exchanging a knowing look with him, a look her father can’t see, given her back is to him. Bring him back home to us, or I’ll hold you accountable!
“So, they’ve another noble bastard for us to teach and secure?” Carl asks. Knowing already the answer, having read the brief, the Earl has yet to. “There’s something not quite right about all this. The Lord Commander coming here in person. Unannounced! One might get the thought The Order is not in accord with itself.”
“Given time, healthy genetic systems have a way of restoring themselves. Regardless all the human forces set against just such.” Early responds, reaching for and taking the thick brief in Carl’s left hand. “If they survive that long.”
“Reality finds a way.” Carl responds with a phrase common to the members of The Order.
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