Ghyll:Bethany Mboya

The story of Bethany Mboya is perhaps best conveyed following the order in which facts about her became known, for otherwise it is hard to convey the serious impact she had upon the political, religious, scholarly, artistic life of Ghyll – and above all the impact various sensations had upon the Housewives And Nannies' Debatory Banter Association of Ghyll, who have still not recovered from some of the later revelations.

The birth date of Bethany was never clear, but on her entering the public eye (so to speak) in -11 EC she was apparently 19 years of age. There being no record of her before than, her name was assumed to be a pseudonym; while there are now many girls called Bethany between the ages of 2 and 11 and though the name has again this year returned to popularity (being recorded by the Bureau of Numbing Research as the 4th most popular name for girl babies) it sounded quite exotic to the ear of her contemporaries.

It is, of course, a feminine version of the common name Bedanant; Mboya is so common as to be almost a default when creating a pseudonym on the spot. Of course, using a pseudonym is so common in Ghyll, and all the more so amongst those who move in the artistic circles, she immediately impacted that the use of a pseudonym was not remarkable except in that it added to the mystique surrounding her past.

At any rate, it was at the age of 19 that she was rumoured to be the romantic partner of the artist Siam Sinch and to be the inspiration for much of her work both in the rôle of muse and as an intellectual force behind Sinch’s, now still rather daring, ideological views on the use of light in artistic expression.

Sinch denied all such rumours, or any knowledge of anyone by the name Bethany Mboya. However, she was at that point entering the final tri-menth of her betrothal march before marrying Gabson Foye. Many therefore assumed that she was indeed involved with young Bethany but wished to keep it secret for, while it had not been enforced in law since the Karcist Truce, taking a lover during this period will still bring scorn from all but the most perversely depraved members of society.

The rumours intensified throughout the tri-menth especially after an incident, that they quite likely precipitated, when Sinch and Foye were entertaining guests that had travelled far to attend the marriage, then a mere two days away. Reports say that Foye was talking with some distant relatives and became visibly pained at what was being recounted to him. Abruptly he left that knot of people and approached another where Sinch was in the middle of an anecdote about a daring trip to Alezan with a childhood friend who was attending the wedding. Just as the friend and her began to argue about which of them had wet themselves when startled by a swarm of Burnflies and which had fainted, Foye leapt upon them and forcibly grabbed Sinch by the elbow and led her into a private room while her childhood friend fainted in shock.

Some indistinct, but clearly heated, words were heard being spoken by both Sinch and Foye. Then the argument abruptly stopped and Foye emerged from the room bleeding profusly from his nose and left the party. He was not seen again until the day of his wedding at which he had prominent bruising underneath both eyes. After the wedding, Foye and Sinch were reported to be the very model of a happily married couple and Mboya’s involvement with her seemed less likely as she never featured amongst the series of lovers Sinch later enjoyed.

Already at this time, Mboya was being featured in a series of lumograms which showed her wearing a light robe of sheer coomecloth which fluttered, often revealingly, in the wind (indeed there was rumoured to be a limited collection of further lumograms which had a heavier ephasis on revealing and a considerably lighter emphasis on robes). The largest collection of these published contained the following accompanying text, which is attributed to Mikel Mboya (who did not claim to be a relative):

"Bethany’s hooded eyes shine from underneath her flowing red hair. A light sprinkle of freckles, like the sprinkle of stars on a clear summer night, sits delicately across the tops of her cheeks and decorates the wind-pinched blush that speaks of innocence and knowing at the same time. Her thighs are enticing curves of flawless white…"

Bad purple prose aside, suffice it to say that she was considered attractive.

Mboya was soon reported to be lovers with a variety of artists, scholars, Bindlet Ball players and politicians of every persuasion. Many denied or ignored the rumours, but some openly admitted to such affairs, like the performer Pararariax who claimed to be involved in a complicated relationship involving himself, Mboya and Bunny Hutch. He later claimed she could be considered a 6th muse and was convicted of numerical heresy.

It was around -9 EC that the first writings of Mboya were published. These small pamphlets, invariably featuring a lumogram on the back in the familiar situation of wearing clothes suitable for calm conditions in near-gale conditions, addressed a variety of subjects researched (if that word may be applied at all) through inspirational techniques that are at best lead to hard to verify results.

The effects of these pamphlets are hard to measure now. They tied in to various current trends in intellectual circles, in particular the morality of studying light, the benefits of publishing regained knowledge and the wisdom of commencing a project whereby a large body of scholarship would be published in the form of an encyclopædia.

None of this was entirely new, and some of it had peaked as a matter of controversy some time before, but it was in balancing the generally scholarly, scientific, and occultological nature of these trends with a poetic and irrational component that Mboya added a new flavour to intellectual life.

“We are all enthrall[sic] to the beauty of Bethany Mboya” notes a comment scrawled in the margin of a draft index to this very encyclopædia – adding the suggestion that the gender balance of the encyclopædia’s scholars, being strikingly different to the more egalitarian balance in much other endeavour, may give a good measure of the percentages of members of given sexes favouring female lovers. In fairness, a further comment scrawled below the first refutes this, and yet another states “Just because none of us want to bring your putrid body to our beds does not mean we’re keeping the space warm for Bethany”.

By -5 EC, it was common for people, especially men, from all strands of cultural life to openly boast of nights spent in Mboya’s company, and of the considerable pleasure such encounters would bring. Perhaps most remarkable is the general warmth felt towards Mboya from most quarters, including those who strongly resisted the scholarly and artistic movements with which she was associated. It is hard to find record of an unkind word being spoken of her, though clearly the mother mentioned in this extract from the Folktown Records was an exception:

The question: My mother says that Bethany Mboya is “No better than she ought to be”. What does this strangely formed sentence mean, and is it true? And the reply: I can assure you from personal experience that Bethany is considerably better than any one woman has any right to be.

By -3 EC, it was clear that it was not physically possible for Bethany Mboya to have the estimated 6,437 lovers she was said to have taken that year and still have time to publish a pamphlet on the importance of light in the racial memory of Ghyll, along with posing for at least 27 lumograms on at least 3 different windswept moors wearing (or nearly wearing) at least 7 different robes or gowns alike in the lack of resistance they posed to the slightest breeze.

More pressingly it was increasingly clear that Mboya did not appear in public and was seen only in the lumograms. Around this time, Gabson Foye, perhaps still smarting from the events some 6 years previous, began to research the source of the pamphlets and lumograms. Early in -2 EC, he located Bethany Mboya.

Upon discovering that Bethany Mboya was in fact Spearholder Jan ver Daath (Retired) of the Tarkherk Corps – a fat balding man lacking his right eye and two fingers on his left hand (a legacy of his part in the Conflict That Is Not Happening) afflicted by an immediately perceptible lack of personal hygeine and a tendency to csratch his genitals with his injured hand every 2 to 3 minutes, claims to have slept with Mboya immediately dropped in frequency.

The writings clearly lost their market, and Bethany Mboya soon became no more than a memory.

Citations: Burnflies, Betrothal march, Lumogram.

--Talliesin 11:41, 14 Sep 2004 (EDT)