Farther away than it looked

a fragment

It was farther away than it looked. We had started out in the early afternoon, crossing the meadows, aiming for the lichen-mottled tor. The sun was nearly gone before we touched the base.

Distances can fool you out on the flats, whether you are on the sea or on the plains. This particular deception began to ravel hours ago, but Sharlozh had refused to turn back. “And waste all the walking we’ve already done?” he said. When I pointed out that we could not possibly reach the tor and get back home before nightfall, he jeered, “What’s wrong? Are you afraid of the dark?”

“Of course not,” I told him, “but I’m sure your parents will worry.”

“It’s your parents who will worry, since they probably know what a coward you are. My parents will know better.”

I am not sure where he got that idea. Being the companion to the Prince was no job for a coward. I knew, though, much better than he, what dangers lurked in the high grass, unseen even in daylight, and the most terrible were two-legged. I was not permitted to apprise his Highness of this fact. It was treason to suggest that there existed in his father’s realm any unruly element, force of nature, man or beast that he could not command. And yet we subjects all knew of them, were even related to some of them.

Since I could not, on pain of having my tongue torn out like the previous companion, tell the Prince exactly what it was I feared, I had to point out ever more reasons why we should turn back short of our goal, and perhaps try again tomorrow, starting earlier in the day. He was not afraid of getting lost: the plain was entirely flat, and after dark there would be the guard fires to guide us. He wasn’t afraid of missing dinner. The backpack he demanded of the kitchen weighed heavy on my back, stuffed with enough food to see us through a week of missed dinners. He wasn’t afraid of punishment: punishment would fall on me for leading my Prince into any danger we came upon.

I’ve always believed that it was dangerous to allow a person, even a well-protected prince, to grow up so ignorant of the world around him. He was never permitted to gain experiences that would teach him about the borders of safety. No curb of common sense or awareness of consequences protected him from his own willfulness. We bodyguards bore the burden of caution yet had no power to guide his actions accordingly.

We finally reached the tor. Then the prince said he was hungry. I suggested that we eat as we walked back to the city. He refused.

“A Prince reclines to eat,” he said, “and he takes his time.”

He leaned back against the smooth stone wall at the base of the tor and looked at me expectantly. I dropped the backpack from my shoulders and pulled out a tablecloth, a silver goblet with gold tracery, a flagon of wine, and basket after basket of food. He sampled this and that as though he were at a formal banquet and did not seem at all like a truly hungry man. I grew impatient, but he was my Prince and I dared not rush him.

By the time I packed up the leftover food, the silverware, the dishes, the baskets and the silverware, the sun was gone and we were surrounded by gliding shadows.

I placed myself between the Prince and the nearest shadow, but the Prince called out to it by name.

My fear turned to sudden rage but before I could temper it enough to speak, a voice came out of the dusk.

“All is ready, Sharlozh.”

The voice called him by name! In the city, this was an act so unthinkable that no one had even devised a punishment for it.

“Come along, my watchdog.”

“Please, no,” I said. “The King is expecting you. Is expecting us.”

“Even if I did not command it, you must come. If you go to the city without me, the King will believe that you have killed me, or had me kidnapped.”

And if I didn’t go to the city, pursuit would follow faster than I could run.

He eyed me, then said: “You have two choices. You can come with us. Or you can die where you stand.”

So what could I do?

They wouldn’t even tie my hands so that I could later claim that I’d been kidnapped or physically forced.

He didn’t make fatuous promises that everything would be all right, because we both knew that they wouldn’t be. I could go back three-quarters dead, and I would still be executed, no doubt after long torture.

So I walked. In silence. I followed directions and kept my mouth shut. We passed between the still grass, and did not bend the stalks any more than would a deer or some other grazing beast.

Branded

 a song

My tongue still burning from the heat in your mouth

you couldn’t make me remember you harder any other way

left me branded but it’s only a scar

left me alone but you’re only far

Borrowed what you never will repay

stole everything you could not carry away

cut the strings I’m only untuned

cut my heart out it’s only a wound

Watch where you’re walking

hungry traps are everywhere

and when you wake ask yourself

what you’re doing here

no voices call from the water

moonlight path goes nowhere

beyond the railing at the end

at the end of the pier

Whether you jump or whether you fall

I’ll remember only that you went down

eyes close it’s just a short leap

eyes closed you’re only asleep

left me branded but it’s only a scar

left me alone but you’re only far

We fought the whole damned bloody day

5/2/02

We fought the whole damned bloody day. Our clothes were soaked with it--ours, theirs. We, living and dead, all looked the same. We all wore the same clothes, fought with the same weapons. And for the same land. Both armies had fired the granaries and slaughtered the kine throughout the countryside. The wheat and rye fields around us were trampled and coated with gore. This land would produce nothing for anybody on either side to eat for a long time.

But there was plenty for the scavengers. Flies were everywhere. And ravens. And the black shadows of carrion birds circled, circled.
The sun slid into a pool of blood and turned everything that was not already red into even more blood. Our swords and axes dropped to our sides as we all woke to the end of everything.

No banner waved in victory. A flutter of cloth here and there showed only where the flag bearers had been struck down.

Who could be said to have won when the losses were so great?  
Already the corpse pickers were working the fringes of the field. A heap of mangled flesh moaned off to the left, whether in hope that someone would come help, or in farewall as another soul left its body, I could not tell, and could not take the time to investigate.

For immediately after the voice sank away came the sound of a horn in the trees across the field from from me. Nobody moved. If this was to announce the coming of another army, there was nothing any of us could do to stop it.

The riders broke through the trees only seconds later. Those of us still standing turned as fast as we could bear to. The lead riders wore plumed helmets, and their immaculate armor glowed rosy with sunset. They raised standards as soon as they were clear of the branches. One showed the green griffin rampant on a field of white. This was the emblem of our lord Ansol. A few of our men raised fists in the air with feeble cries of victory which died away when the second standard was raised. A golden serpent wound across a field of scarlet. The banner of those we fought against, the men of Gwyffenroagh. They too managed a faint cheer, but the prevailing mood was one of…outrage. If the two banners were together it meant that this whole battle had been in vain. Hundreds of good men were dead for no reason. 

Mounted knights of both houses filed out from under the boughs and formed a line around the edge of the field. A herald stepped forward and announced the imminent arrival of the two lords, Menhimmon of Gwyffenroagh and our own lord, Ansol of Carloughan.

The two of them came out of the trees together, apparently enjoying some joke. We all waited in silence until they were ready to put amusement aside and attend to the view of the battlefield. Lord Menhimmon pulled an embroidered linen kerchief from inside his red-dyed leather hauberk and held it to his dainty nose. Lord Ansol merely sat his horse and gazed at the dead bodies with distaste as though they were nothing but an obstacle to his pleasure ride.

“I knew we should have sent the horse to stop this rabble before they destroyed the fields.”

Lord Menhimmon pointed to four men, seemingly at random. “You there. Each of you take a quarter of those standing and clean up this mess.”

No one moved. Exhaustion and sheer disbelief paralyzed what remained of two armies. The lord was not pleased and raised a hand. The mounted knights lowered their lances and urged their horses forward several steps. The lord dropped his hand and the knights stopped.

The four chosen men, with tears in their eyes, gathered parties around them, and began to tug men and parts of men out of the field. The horsemen lined up to provide corridors leading to sites deemed acceptable by the lords for piles of now-useless bodies. The clean-up was performed in utter silence. It took almost as long as the battle itself. The day was long gone before the pyres were lit. The smell of burning meat sent the knights away, retching inside their helmets.

  The lords had left some time earlier to attend a feast to celebrate the peace.

New grown day

10/19/2000

We walked every day under the clouded sky. Not one drop of rain fell, not one wisp of fog arose to cool our brows. We watered the desert with our sweat. And then, one day, the last straggler looked back. From the choked sound of his voice, we figured he was breathing his last. We could hardly rouse the curiosity to turn back and see who we were losing this time.

One by one our dry throats filled with tears. 

In our footprints a garden had grown. The hazy greens and the startling pinks and reds of jungle flowers halted all forward movement. One by one we staggered back until we were all encompassed by the shady green arms of the new grown day.

A more legible version

Because I am optimistic enough to think that someone may wish to read this more easily than can be done with the version in the previous post:

The marshes, thick and waving

The marshes, thick and waving fen

the reeds tall hid the wanted men

who served a king now overthrown

who among them went unknown.

Weary of the long fight, he

left off his crown and jewels three:

the ring of ruby pressed his seal;

the sceptre held with conqueror’s zeal;

and last of all the golden chain

that made him prisoner to his reign.

These all he heavéd far from him

and turned away with face so grim

to see not where they heavy sank

whether pool or stream or muddy bank.

Turned he then to join his men

and play a simple man again.

But there was one who markéd well

each resting place where jewel fell

and who the man was let them fly

and the fell look in his eye.

In overhanging tree he lay

till day and men were fled away

The swung he down into the marsh

and waded through the reeds made harsh

by winter blast, by icy rime,

unheeding of the cold and slime.

Ring and chain and sceptre found,

into a roll of cloth were bound

and when the birds sang up the day

with crown and jewels he flew away.

This is one of my favorite things that I have ever written. Someday, I'd like to write the rest of the story, just to find out what happens.


 

The marshes, thick and waving

 

I sure wish I had PhotoShop on this computer. This is hard to read. I had to build it on a Word document. A nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there. Word, that is. Except that I do. For many, many hours every day. Sigh.

Time was only water

There's something about drawing gradiants in PhotoShop that sets my mind to, well, if not quite poetry, then something close to it. This is from January 4, 2004.