The Islanders

Emmeret ALL FREE

EMMERET is a small island, still underpopulated, which suffered devastating bush fires a century ago. After the fires the main settlements and principal house were rebuilt, under Covenant regulations.

There are few roads on Emmeret, but walking is pleasant and maps on sale in Emmeret Town show several recommended paths. The most frequented walk is the one from the port to UGGER PARK. Beyond the main landing point in Emmeret Town’s harbour a well signposted narrow track leads through open fields and young woodland to CHUD ROCK, the highest point on the island. Chud Rock is famous for its limestone caves, which are open to the public. Tour guides take visitors through a series of spectacular rock and stalactite formations. Expert cavers may also enter the system of potholes at Chud Rock.

Beyond the Rock is Ugger Park, the seat of the Emmeret family, from whom have sprung several generations of important legislators. The fifteenth Seignior Emmeret was one of the drafters of the Covenant of Neutrality. The present Seignior Emmeret, the thirty-third, is normally absent. The house is at present closed to the public.

The history of the Emmeret family reveals many examples of the sort of eccentricity often associated with long dynasties. The twelfth Seignior is said to have banned children from the house, the eighteenth to have insisted that all house-guests should be permanently naked, the nineteenth Seignior, son of the naturist lord, is notorious for the many weekends of debauchery he and a band of regular guests enjoyed at the house; the twentieth Seignior, the son of the debauchee, devoted his life to the cloth. The twenty-third Seignior was obsessed with gardens, and spent much of his life at the house, landscaping and re-landscaping the extensive grounds. The present Seignior is said to take his feudal responsibilities seriously, is a kind and generous man, but he is rarely seen on the island that bears his name. He attends once a year for the formal collection of tithes.

During the thrall of the twenty-sixth Seignior Emmeret, Ugger Park was made into a haven for artists. Writers, painters, composers, musicians, sculptors, actors, dancers all made their long journeys across the Archipelago to take advantage of the liberal attitudes and free lifestyle they could luxuriously enjoy for weeks on end.

Some of the most famous artists of the time were semi-permanent residents in the opulent surroundings. Notable amongst them was the Mesterlinian poet KAL KAPES, who is said to have composed Elegy to Squandered Passion while staying at Ugger. A troupe of musicians, jugglers and illusionists travelled from the Qataari Peninsula and took up residence for several months. The world-renowned danseuse, Forssa Laajoki, then in the long afternoon of her miraculous career, over-indulged on the wine that was so freely available and eventually killed herself in a small room on the upper floor of the East Wing of Ugger. And the painter DRYD BATHURST stayed for nearly two years, the longest he is ever thought to have remained in one place.

Bathurst’s well-liked epic landscape, The Wool-Combers’ Return, was painted on the rear terrace at Ugger Park, although all of the eucalyptus trees in the distance, depicted by Bathurst, were subsequently destroyed in the fires.

Ugger Park was also the repository of one of Bathurst’s most famous but least seen masterpieces. Simply called The Shroud, the artist executed this oil in the weeks after he first arrived. By repute, it portrays the artist as an aquiline-featured youth, glowing with health and sexual allure. Those who were able to see it declared it to be a true likeness, and that although Bathurst idealized himself it was none the less a substantial work of art.

Bathurst donated The Shroud in perpetuity to the Emmeret family on condition that it be kept in a closed room and never put on show to the public. The only people who were authorized to view the painting were members of the Emmeret family. With Bathurst’s agreement, the painting was hung in a small room high in the East Wing. This was in fact the room where Forssa Laajoki’s blood-soaked body was later found, on the floor in front of the portrait, the shaving razor still in her hand.

Dryd Bathurst’s removal from Ugger House was sudden and sensational. His heroic painting, The Wool-Combers’ Return, had been hanging in the main banqueting hall of the house for several months, provoking much excitement and admiration from all who saw it. One of the qualities of the painting, Bathurst’s personal stamp, is the visual range it contains, from the vast sweep of landscape and sky, mighty storms and cataclysmic events, together with tiny details, almost photographically exact, worked with the exquisite accuracy of a miniaturist.

Few of these details had ever been considered, in the context of the greater image. One evening, however, a guest of the twenty-sixth Seignior Emmeret, an art critic and commentator from a major heritage magazine, took a magnifying glass to the canvas. He looked intently at the detail, concentrating on a minute group of nature celebrants, cavorting and fornicating in the lush undergrowth. With great delicacy, considering the circumstance, the art critic managed to wonder aloud at the likeness of two of these ravished nymphs to, respectively, Madama Seigniora Mezraa Emmeret, and her daughter, the pretty and nubile Cankiri Emmeret, then only fifteen.

The twenty-sixth Seignior Emmeret was a man of calm disposition, and after a brief session of his own with the magnifying glass he left the party without saying anything. He was not seen again that night by his guests.

Dryd Bathurst, who had been present throughout, later retired to his own chamber. Pulling back the sheets he discovered a forty-centimetre thryme, apparently not long dead. Serum was still oozing from its mandible. Bathurst also was not seen again that night, nor ever again, on Emmeret.

Winters on Emmeret are warm; summers are hot. The ground is often parched by the sun. For unsurprising reasons the warnings about starting fires, and practical precautions against them, are evident all over the island. The humidity can be high in the hottest part of summer, but is normally at a fairly acceptable level. The many delightful beaches are open to the public but are an under-used resource. Visitors wishing to swim in the nude should exercise special care: the beaches were endowed by successive feudal Emmeret Seigniors, and have their own rules. On some beaches naturism is actively encouraged, but on other parts of the island it is severely frowned upon and there are penalties to be paid.

The Bathurst painting The Wool-Combers’ Return is now on permanent display in the Covenant Memorial Gallery, on Derril. The painting is mounted at eye-level, so close examination of the canvas is not only possible, it is actively encouraged. However, whether it is because of time’s great blurring, or the attrition of so much close scrutiny, or merely the restorers’ art, the details that once alerted the twenty-sixth Seignior Emmeret to his house-guest’s waywardness are no longer unambiguous.

In spite of Bathurst’s permanent gift of The Shroud to the Emmeret family, it did not remain long at Ugger House. The Seignior despatched it soon after Bathurst’s own departure, but it took several months for the emissary to catch up with the great artist. The meeting took place on the quiet island of Lillen-Cay, where Bathurst was enjoying a brief sabbatical. The transaction was swift: the painting was handed over to a member of Bathurst’s entourage, a receipt was obtained, and the emissary began his long journey back to Emmeret.

Currency: Archipelagian simoleon, Aubracian talent.