‘This is an outrage! They ask too much of us this time, they ask for the impossible.’ Most of the assembled elders nodded in a half-gesture of quiet approval, while As-Far-As-You-Can-Run’s statement rang off the walls before leaving silence to envelope the conclave. The hollow void hung heavy about the room like an uninvited guest, mocking as it did, the absence of twinkling seashells. Each of the huddled elders pulled their shawls tighter about their shoulders in an effort to keep out the chill silence. Their honored vestments couldn’t seem to sit right, each man shifting in his seat, fidgeting absentmindedly with loose hems. The unaccustomed weightlessness on their bare chests left the congregation hunkered and self-aware, yet another shame heaped on top of a growing pile of abuses.
Though the elders were the last to feel the keen edge of their people’s poverty, they felt it all the same. There had never been a time, for as long as any man could remember, when ornate seashell-braid necklaces hadn’t hung about the necks of the village elders as a symbol of their venerability. The tradition seemed to stretch back forever, as far as the time of each man’s father’s father’s father’s father. It had been this way for ages, no one had reason to believe it would ever change. Why should it? The people of my village never lived under more than forty-seven roofs, they never sailed after a red-sky morning, and they took care not to displease the Jinn. Surely they could do nothing more.
For all these things, the warlike Uhuti did not care. Each new ransom demand they made upon our village tightened the noose, and before long, well intentioned sons began doing the tightening themselves. A growing number of voices pointed out that to offer resistance would only speed up a terrible fate, that the only chance of survival was to capitulate. It was under the sway of these voices that our coffers had run dry, stealing the shell-braids from the necks of our elders and forcing our people to trade in rocks instead of shells. In fact, the effect of surrendering our way of life had unforeseen and less tangible consequences for our tribe. Men no longer walked briskly when going about their business with their heads held high, fewer and fewer were the occasions when light hearted laughter could be heard over the crash of the neighboring surf. Our people did not expect that to buy off the Uhuti it would come at the cost of their souls. And still, there were those amongst our tribe who reveled in the death of our ancient ways, claiming they paved the way for a newer, better future. Those that made these claims had begun digging up the many colored rocks from the ground, polishing them to a sparkling sheen and replacing the shell trade. Such a dead currency should have meant nothing, it was cold, lifeless, a bastard substitution to what belonged in its place. As more and more of our people traded in the pebbles, fishermen and shell-hunters had begun abandoning their craft, the demands of the growing gem trade ending generations of tradition. No longer could the singing of boatmen heading out to sea be heard nor their lively banter at the market. It had been replaced by ugly scars that now littered the earth, the quest for rocks driving men further and further into the mud and dirt. The time it took a man to harvest the stones left him no time to till the land, hunt, or fish. Man-by-man the proportion of our tribe who embraced the new ways found himself indebted to the provision of another, men like As-Far-As-You-Can-Run. Good intentions had cut the ailing throat of the ancient ways and made a prostitute of our people to the demands of the future.
‘And what would you suggest then, As-Far-As-You-Can-Run, that we deny their demands?’ The most venerable of the elders, my father, had spoken up in a quiet but powerful tone. Though none of the five assembled men held official rank above the others, it was customary for the eldest member of the conclave’s voice to carry the most weight. His eyes had been open longest to see the world, his hands had built and rebuilt our peoples’ walls.
A murmur broke out as heads titled side-to-side and neighbors leaned in close snatching at whispered words. ‘I only point out that which is not possible,’ his voice blasted across the hearsay as sure a sign of his namesake, and not a bit of his ambition. ‘The sun has risen and passed noon, no man could make the 80-stone-throws journey,’ he left his words hanging, allowing them to settle into the silence. Sitting stock straight amongst the aging cohort he glared with eyes wide, nostrils flared, chest triumphantly bared, the stone around his neck staring out with the frozen blankness of a dead man’s eye. The lifeless thing dominated his chest with its pride of place, showing it off like it was a badge of honor and not a mark of our people’s growing shame.
Perched amongst the conclave As-Far-As-You-Can-Run relished the implications his words carried. The truth of the matter was that the slowest runner in the village could make an 80-stone-throws journey. In fact, he could make it before darkness fell. He knew this. However, he also knew this was to be no simple journey. To where the runner would be going no offers of rest or respite would be waiting. This would not be an errand of friendship or mercy, and not a single door would welcome the restless and weary traveler at road’s end. A runner who undertook the journey of 80-stone-throws would have to repeat that distance again, without rest, without replenishment, twice over before nightfall.
‘Send To-The-End-Of-The-River,’ my father spoke, looking past the hulking form of As-Far-As-You-Can-Run, dismissing his judgmental gaze. He too knew full well the implications that the journey carried, as everyone else did. My father straightened under the scrutiny, flaring his weathered nose, puffing up his sagging chest. He had every faith in me. Like the man before me, I had earned my name. It echoed that of all my proud peoples’, governed by reason, so unlike the ugly Uhuti who wallowed in their vainglory and covetousness. Ours were the measure of a man, a testament to his strengths, a bond he shared with his kinsmen. Theirs were arbitrary titles, selected like gaudy peacock headdresses to be paraded about. My father had faith that if I didn’t survive the journey at least I would not dishonor my village, that I would accomplish the task.
As-Far-As-You-Can-Run cocked his head back, bellowing out a chest rattling laugh. ‘You put too much faith in your son, the Uhuti are demanding thirty shell-braids this time, I don’t think he’s up to it.’
His audacity slapped the murmurs from every man’s mouth. My father snapped to face the braggart as if he had been stricken by him, his blood-shot eyes uttering unspeakable curses. In that instant, the stifling air in the chamber congealed about the five seated figures. A man could be struck dead for uttering such a thing. As-Far-As-You-Can-Run knew this, he welcomed it. In fact, he reveled in it. His pride demanded as such, writhing under his skin, threatening to burst from each pulsing vein criss-crossing his naked torso. It was a well-known, albeit unseemly, fact amongst our tribe that As-Far-As-You-Can-Run coveted that which I possessed. Though his lustful desires would have been more at home with the Uhuti, his antics were tolerated by our tribe with the same resignation a man shares watching his game-prize carried away by a lion pride. His predator’s smile showed his intentions as plain as he knew the music of my heart. A man’s soul cannot survive on water and food alone. Regardless of the danger, I had no choice but to accept.
The absent sound of shell-braids thundered about the room as he and my father shared the tension, wresting it back and forth with the intensity of their glares and the pulse of their nostrils. Infernos leapt from their eyes and the strain of their quivering bodies bored through the choking atmosphere, melting it like lard left to spoil. Instead of freeing the room’s occupants and offering release from the stalemate, the mounting tension threatened to strip those present of their sanity. It filled their heads like a fever, making each man’s fingers twitch with the desire to claw out his eyes and tear out his tongue rather than let it boil his brains.
With exaggerated slowness As-Far-As-You-Can-Run reached over his shoulder and snatched up his cape in one meaty fist. Keeping his eyes locked with my father’s, he cast his garment to the ground in open challenge. Looking in turn at each sweaty and strained face, he prowled about the room with unwavering defiance. ‘Who will bear witness?’
For a breathless moment the conclave couldn’t seem to muster a reply. ‘I witness the challenge,’ my father spoke, his customarily measured tone showing signs of strain. A bead of sweat traced a path down his flushed cheek as his trembling fingers grasped at his cape. The others assembled nodded feebly, their heads barely rising from the pits of their sunken chests.
I carried the weight of these events as surely as I carried the burden about my neck. Clutching at my back like dead-weight, it threatened each plodding stride with hesitation and anxiety. Reaching down I clasped the handle of my dagger. The supple weight of its ivory haft responded to my embrace, warming in my grip, soothing and reassuring. My people have a saying, ‘greet your neighbor with open arms but depart with one hand concealed.’ Never before had I felt such a connection with that ancient proverb. My father’s recounting of the conclave tugged at my attention. I found myself casting quick glances behind and off into the plains, regarding each bush and bramble with equal measures of suspicion. Though I wouldn’t admit it, I half expected to see As-Far-As-You-Can-Run or one of his male relatives lying in ambush, ready to lay me low. ‘The plains are a dangerous place,’ he would say if I never came back, ‘especially after the sun sets.’ Such foolishness, I know. Why waste the effort to kill a man when the terrors that lurk in the dark will do it for you? The thought sent a chill through my core and I whispered a few words to ward away the jinn. I prayed they wouldn’t smell my fear.
Still, I chided myself for the weakness it showed. This journey would be like all the others made to the Uhuti, eighty throws of the stone there, then eighty more back. The sensations were the same I had felt on scores of runs; the familiarity of the packed earth beneath my racing feet, the gentle hiss of the passing wind singing in my ears. I allowed the music and rhythm to wrap around me, beating in time to my heart, reassuring in their honesty. The sensations brought back ghostly whispers from other times, simpler times. I smiled to myself as the stories that my father had told me as a child echoed in the wind. His voice gained ground against the ambience, its deep baritone crashing over the afternoon like a tide. I could hear him recounting the feats of our village’s greatest thrower in myth and legend. He explained how a stone-throw came to be. I could see his eyes sparkling in the firelight like knapped flint as he enthusiastically whipped his arm back and slung it out, casting a phantom rock away into the distance. He would give a theatrical grunt and triumphant sigh as he watched the stone carried up and away, disappearing amongst the clouds. I remembered how his stories could lift me up from the gloom of our yurt, carrying me to an ancient field drenched in sunshine. I could see him there, the heroic figure of legend casting about, stretching and swaying before launching his discus. His ebony skin shone with the exertion of each movement, the figure of a god cast against a backdrop of infinite cerulean. Those stories captured my imagination, and as I listened to them I resolved to live on as those of legend had, I would be their equal and earn a great name.
The tribulations of tribal politics had left me. Running possessed that power over my soul. The way the warm breeze cleansed my mind as I cut through it, tugging gently at the trailing form of my cape. Though I did not carry such a weight as the shell-braids on every run, I could forgive their burden, their musical chime tinkling in an accompaniment to the patter of my feet. The sensations wound about one another, weaving a blanket on my senses. My motions became dreamlike and automatic; feet moving on their own accord, breath flowing in unthinking unity. I could travel many stone throws this way, without being aware of the distance travelled and yet every footfall was sure, every stride harmonious. My mind would float outside my body, free of earthly concerns, free to ponder unrestrained.
I picked the strife presented by As-Far-As-You-Can-Run from the depths of my mind like a man picks fruit from a tree, grasping it in his fist, turning it over, regarding it casually for blemish or bruise. The issue was troubling and complex, with each new day he grew bolder and his power swelled. Our village’s elders still operated within the constraints of the ancient ways, bound by honor and code. As-Far-As-You-Can-Run did as well, however, only to an extent. Every stone that passed from its resting place in the earth through his hands emboldened him further, goading him to push the constraints of our ways until they were fit to burst. He had not openly defied the customs of our tribe yet, but the dark shadow that his intentions cast was something I could not escape. The infection he propagated would grow, an ugly white-head straining the fabric of our people to the point of translucence, when its danger would finally be visible, but too late to be stopped. Finally, a pair of roving hands would break it open, no longer able to bear its strain. Maybe events would see the change occur upon the simple failing of the ancient ways, maybe instead a chance occurrence would see it sundered; an unlucky swipe of the nose catching on a branch hanging too low. Either way its corruption would spread.
The encroaching future offered nothing in the form of certainty, beset on the outside by the Uhuti, rankled from within by As-Far-As-You-Can-Run. I wondered if he could he be so bold as to consolidate his power openly in a bloody coup? I told myself that such thoughts were ludicrous, an act like that having had no precedent. In their time our people had known war, famine, and plague, but kin-slaying? Such a thing was abhorrent. Children’s tales told of demons so twisted they fed on their own. These tales were simply meant to scare children into obedience, not to depict a threat that any logical adult would know to be empty. Our ways were those of reason; never did we live under more than forty-seven roofs, nor did we sail after a red-sky morning. We avoided jealousy and vice, the fruits that fed evil spirits like the Jinn. Such were the ways under which our people had prospered, neither growing too numerous to displease the land, nor tempting powers beyond our control. To slay within one’s own hearth and home reeked of something akin to insanity. With so many threats hanging over a man’s head, the only reliable ally he could call upon were his people, a currency beyond worth. As-Far-As-You-Can-Run could not be so bold.
Yet the memory of his predator smile and the dead eye stare of the stone about his neck sent a shiver through my spine.
If the water tastes tainted, drink no more.
With aversion in my eyes I took the thought and discarded it like a piece of rotted fruit. To know is power enough, to hold corruption close threatens to spoil the mind. I knew I shouldn’t dwell on dark speculations, for the dangers they possessed.
Under my brooding pall I didn’t see the root that hooked my foot, sending me staggering, blundering too close to the bramble lined path. Though I righted myself with practiced grace before I plunged headlong into the thicket, I cursed myself for my inattention, for allowing my fears the best of me. A simple misstep could lead to a broken foot and that alone was a death sentence on the plains. Even a deep cut could herald another slower demise, unless he forfeited the afflicted appendage. Most would rather let the spirits claim them, than cheat death and live on as an invalid and become the ward of his wife and children.
A man’s soul cannot survive on water and food alone.
I took a moment to settle my humors and check for any sign of bodily harm. The braids about my neck sat in an unruly heap. As I straightened them the insult of their burden pushed its way to the fore. With each journey to the Uhuti fewer and fewer braids were those laced with shells, the time when only pure shell-braids were paid for ransom having long since passed. Fussing over the payload I noted, that for the first time, the number of braids containing stones outnumbered those containing our people’s native currency. The Uhuti had upped their demands when the stones began being incorporated into our tribe’s payments. Whether this was because they valued the new currency more and were becoming ever greedier or because they were punishing us for not supplying a pure form of payment, I did not know. A nagging sense led me to believe that As-Far-As-You-Can-Run did, seeing as the increased demands placed on our people did nothing but swell his growing enterprise.
There I stood, with shame heaped about my neck, a bad omen laced with more of the same. I confess, the despair at its realization nearly laid me low.
A man’s soul cannot survive on water and food alone.
I had settled my burden and fought to settle myself when a terrible cry sounded from the thicket to my side. The foliage exploded in a shower of splintering twigs and torn leaves as a crazed beast hurtled itself into my path. I had a single heartbeat to react, throwing my weight hard left, spinning on the ball of my foot. Allowing the motion to add momentum to my swing, I released my dagger from its sheath and lashed out at the monster, gouging a deep groove across its cheek before its head ploughed past. The thing shrieked when my strike found home and careened wildly in its course. As it stumbled forward I was afforded a brief moment to know my adversary. It took the form of a gazelle, though I knew at its core it was a dark spirit masquerading as the mundane. Only something truly evil could have rankled the air as this one did, reeking of frustration and defeat. Its hair hung in disheveled clumps, matted with filth and weeping sores. Its eyes possessed only madness.
The image brought a ghost memory to my waking consciousness, the glint of a dead eye, cold, hard, and lifeless. There was nothing dead about this thing’s eyes. Each glazed orb was run through with horribly distended veins, the pupils enlarged to the point that they vied for supremacy with the disfigured whiteness. Its eyes appeared to be voids into which a man could glimpse the madness that lurked within, empty, desiring, devoid.
For the first time in my life I wished I hadn’t reached for the familiar comfort of my dagger, but had brought a spear. It was a choice that I had to make, however, bringing two weapons being as unconscionable as swearing the same promise to two friends. A jealous blade wouldn’t perform if it couldn’t be sure if it had your complete trust. Perhaps it would fail and break in the heat of battle, maybe it would not strike true, such risks were not worth taking. Besides, a dishonored blade would never be the same.
As the spirit wheeled in front of me I gripped my dagger and pushed those doubts from my mind. I would have to take it at close range, within the grasp of its thrashing hooves and rending horns. It screamed something insane as it rushed me. This time no bush or branch would block its advance. The monster came on at a full gallop down the beaten path, foam and gobbets of saliva lashing out from its laboring maw.
An evil thing can only truly be killed by a clean conscious. Scant seconds stood between the monstrosity and me, and I took the time to utter a counter-curse and cleanse my mind. It had crossed the distance in a blink. Still, I stood firm in its path, making as if to take the charge head on. Relishing the thought of plunging its horns into my waiting flesh, it had spurred ahead heedlessly. At the moment before impact it lowered its head to bare its horns and for a fraction of a second lost its sight. With its gaze averted I spun neatly to one side and trailed out the edge of my cape. It ploughed into the fabric like an after image, its horns easily punching ragged holes into the light cloth. The cape unfurled from my shoulders and was taken up by the spirit as a mask covering its face. It floundered it its advance, thrashing about, trying to free itself from the garment. I was upon it immediately, dagger in hand, plunging its tip into the monster’s straining neck. With the blow struck I backed away, content to let it spend the rest of its fury as the life drained away from its stumbling form.
You burn bad omens. This one claimed my cape, and a good deal of the fading daylight. I had no choice, to ensure a spirit couldn’t follow you, it had to be burned. As the sun traced its path across the sky, I clambered about the brush looking for kindling and flint to properly dispose of the corpse. When flames finally licked the sky, the whole horizon had taken up a similar hue. Nightfall would come soon. The gazelle-thing may well have killed me by its dalliance as surely as if its horns hand gouged my flesh. Watching the sun slide across the inking sky, doom reached its fingers into my soul. My bare shoulders shivered, and I did the only thing I could. I whispered a prayer to ward off the Jinn.
The sun had completed its descent by the time I neared the end of 80-stone-throws. A flash of trepidation crossed my features when I was surprised by the sight of a second sunset staining the horizon ahead. This one differed from the first, its light not imparting any suffused warmth to the sky. The light from this sunset hammered a stark contrast from the night-shade of the twilight, its unnaturalness a sign of warning.
I crouched low on my approach to the boundaries of the Uhuti, sticking to shadows, working to muffle the chatter of the few shell-braids. Duty demanded that I continue on and complete my task, while wonder motivated each new wary step. What could create the false light of a setting sun?
My answer soon presented itself as the village of the Uhuti came into view. Every building in the sprawling complex offered up great plumes of flame to the depthless night. The incoherent din I had heard upon my approach gained clarity as I mounted the final ridge, and for the first time I heard it for what it was; the roaring crackle of fire and the terrorized cries of women and children. Only my eyes registered emotion while witnessing the spectacle, they shone with the shock of disbelief. In all the years of tribal warfare, never had a village been laid low as the Uhuti’s was now. Battles in the past had been fought on the open plains, away from women, children, and the livelihoods. An unspoken compact had been forged in the ages past, which allowed for the settling of disputes by conflict, but discouraged waging war in a way as to invite extinction. Amazement flooded my mind as the leaping fires danced in my eyes. Who could be capable of such a thing?
As if to pose an answer to that question, a group of figures moved amongst the sprawling flames. Even from a distance I could tell that they were not Uhuti for not only did they wear foreign clothes, but the sound of their speech was something I had never heard before. Their words came across in a sing-song manner, spoken with a cadence that rose and fell. However, there was no merriment in their tone, each word sounding like a terrible curse. They pursued a group of fleeing Uhuti men. I was surprised to see the odd ones stop short in their pursuit and was sure they had decided to allow the villagers to flee. Instead they raised spears to their shoulders and held the tips away from their bodies, pointing at the figures retreating before them. Each stick exploded in a sharp crack, issuing a flame and a great gout of smoke. All of the fleeing Uhuti fell from the sound, and lie unmoving on the ground. I nearly fainted as I recognized what had to be the sorcery of Jinn. Somehow the Uhuti had incurred their wrath, probably by violating the most fundamental laws. It was true that they built more than forty-seven roofs under which to live, the Uhuti cared not if they displeased the Jinn.
As I watched in horror, a single male languished on the ground where he had be stricken. Somehow he had not been killed outright like his fellows. One of the Jinn crossed the distance to the crippled man and ripped the braid from his neck. He grasped the man, dangling his shoulders above the ground, shoving the braid in the man’s face. The light cast from the dancing flames glinted off something in the braid. I began uttering feverish counter-curses as I realized the light was catching facets of stones, the same stones we had been supplying as ransom. The Jinn shook the man and pointed questioningly at the stone-braid. With a wavering hand the dying man pointed directly at me. He pointed down the path which I had come.
I discarded the ransom-braids in a careless heap before turning to flee and bring warning to my people. A sharp crack sounded in the distance and I ran, chased by the night.
The high shrill of brass trumpets could be heard rising over the feverish roar of the crowd. Sharp raps on horse-leather drums beat in accompaniment, keeping time with the pulse of a thousand racing hearts. With each passing moment the pace quickened and the tumult grew. Expectation hung heavy in the air, thick like the palatable sense of a rising storm. The roof shook under the assault of pounding feet and gaping mouths, loosing from the rafters a year’s worth of thick dust motes. Buried under a meter of basalt rock, mud-brick and thatch, it could be felt even here.
I found it impossible to keep my mind on my duties. Even at a distance the excitement acted as a contagion, raising my heart rate with the electricity it carried. The cacophony struck a mortal chord within my soul, speaking to my most banal instincts. I felt the crowd’s collective hopes, dreams, and expectations growing together as one in my mind. Crossing any divide or distinction amongst men, I was one of them. Enraptured by the mob I would have charged headlong into battle, I would have cut short my mortal coil for the greater good. My name was no longer my own, but the one shared by all of mankind.
In an instant the thunder broke and the air parted, raining down cheers from the crowd. Their champion had arrived. I stood where I had been, imagining his splendor; the sheen of his plate, the richness of his tunic, the freedom he enjoyed galloping around the royal circus under a shower of rose petals. He was magnificent.
‘Boy.’ The husked voice shook me from my reverie with only one word. From an early age I had been trained by the switch to heed its call without delay.
‘Yes sir.’
‘Mind that rake.’ My rapture hadn’t gone unnoticed by the stable’s head shovelman.
‘Yes sir.’ Snapping to attention I hefted my pole arm, acting as if to continue mucking out the horses’ stalls. Still, my mind stayed mired, unwilling to let its fantasy go. This was my lot in life, born to servants my aspirations could never exceed the switch of the head shovelman or the drafty walls of the Duke’s stables. For my station the glory of the arena or the freedom of lordship were dreams akin to flying upon a pair of eagle wings. Never to be done by me in this lifetime.
‘Working on a lashing, Frederick?’ The question came from my best mate, Pierre, with as much mirth as his melancholic demeanor could muster. He was the closest to a brother I could ever hope to have. In seventeen years I had been my parents’ only son, the strain of royal servitude long since chilling their cramped bedchambers. I was never left wanting in companionship, however. At an early age both Pierre and I had been picked for a predestined life as stable boys under his lordship Ebalus, the Count of Poitou and the Duke of Aquitaine. We had been inseparable ever since. To be completely honest, Pierre and I were as close to opposites as two individuals could possibly be. In terms of temper, when I was hot-headed and brash he could remain rational, pragmatic even. He was completely incapable of living outside of himself, never once stopping to wonder what could be or, more importantly, what should be. Duty was his life’s calling, whatever it may be. On occasion I would tease him, saying that he would unflinchingly wipe the Duke’s ass if that were his appointed station.
‘Of course,’ he would reply, either incapable or else unwilling to fall prey to my jibe. I could never tell which.
‘It must be nice, a life of fiefdom and watching tournaments,’ I said gesturing towards the source shaking the walls.
‘Nice or no, it’s not a life for us. There’s no sense in dwelling on it, what matters is right here in this stable. I’ll have no lashing for something I can never have.’
‘Isn’t that it, Pierre? What star marked sign were they lucky enough to be born under and not us? The thought that by simple circumstance they live a better life makes this drudgery all the more difficult to endure.’
‘Endure it all the same, my friend, neither your whimsy nor your animosity will change the way of the world.’ With that spoken he turned, stone-faced, back to his work scraping horse dung off the floor. It was that ineffable quality of simple reason in my friend that only served to stoke the smoldering embers of my temper. His rationale never quashed my anger the way he hoped it would, but only ever made it greater.
Trying to look convincingly busy I made my way over to the stall in which he worked, shuffling dungs heaps as I went, ‘I can’t Pierre, something within my soul cries out at the injustice of it all. There needs to be a better way.’ He paused for a moment in his labors and gazed stoically at my hand. Taking his cue, I looked down and became aware that the rake I held rattled in my trembling grip.
The rake clattered to the ground after the first lash fell. For the second, third and fourth I was ready and braced myself with clenched teeth to endure the salvo. Even as I was receiving mine, Pierre bowed his head obediently, steadying himself for his beating.
‘For god’s sake, he didn’t do anything, it was my error!’ I cried as Pierre dropped to one knee after receiving a devastatingly heavy blow. The head shovelman took notice of my protests like a cattleman takes notice of a bothersome fly. He spun on his heel after delivering one last relishing whip to my friend, heading back for me. I could tell he was savoring this opportunity to deal us each a lashing. The only thing he loved more than beating yet more obedience into my obedient friend was squashing any spark of dissidence in me. For my part, I kept giving him ample reason to continue his abuses. A thin smile tugged at one side of his mouth as he stalked back towards me. His eyes glinted hungrily with a predator’s desire to do harm. He looked like an animal torn between two prize kills.
Crossing the distance in swift strides he spun the baton expertly in his hand, revealing its cold iron butt. I had never seen him do this before, mired in uncertainty I froze. He seemed to inhale my terror as he approached. Reaching out one of his wretched skeletal hands his smile became a snarl. Grabbing me by the scruff of my tunic he wrung me off my feet, pulling me in close, his eyes drinking in the moment. Seeing his gnarled features so close and feeling the hot stench of his breath I recoiled in disgust. My dangling leg flew out in a jerky spasm, thudding weakly off his ancient form. This only infuriated him further. With a bark he shook me out to arm’s length and then yanked me in again. Against the whiplash I was unable to control my lolling head and it met the blunted end of his weapon with a sharp crack. I don’t know if he hit me again, or if he even needed to. After the first blow I lost consciousness, and according to Pierre a sizeable amount of blood.
‘-two boys will receive worst next time.’ The words were spoken cotton-soft, muffled by the darkness clouding my senses. I couldn’t discern the identity of the speaker. Its voice floated into my consciousness as lazily as a feather on the wind. Perhaps I was dreaming, though I didn’t remember going to sleep.
‘Yes, madam.’ Pierre. Of course that would be him. I remembered seeing him, being with him, doing what I couldn’t remember. It seemed like that was ages ago, like he was a figment of my imagination.
There was something about the shovelman. Yes. That was it. The fog clouding my mind began to thin as memories emerged. Pierre, the shovelman and me. Doing what? My head hurt, making it all the harder to think. Wait, that was it. My head. The shovelman had hit me on the head for protesting his abuses against Pierre. He must have stayed by my side through it all.
Pierre, diligent to the end.
‘He’s awake.’ I must have groaned. The world around me was coming back into focus in degrees and shades. With it came a hovering face, aged heartbreakingly beyond its years. Stress lined my mother’s expression as she looked down at me. Its weight had drawn her features long, darkening the flesh below her eyes. The effect a lifetime of strain had had was accented even further by how she insisted on gathering her greying hair into an achingly tight knot high above her head. It stretched her features further, making them more severe, but it did nothing to diminish the gathering flesh, crowding at the bottom of her neck and jaw.
She had been her mother’s envy once, though even now she wasn’t altogether unattractive. An ounce of the Duchesses’ makeup would have done wonders to recoup that bygone appearance, affording her the opportunity to feel beautiful again. For a servant, however, that was simply out of the question. Only her highness and the gaggle of bickering court hens she kept in tow were afforded such lavishness. Not that a life sheltered from the sun and hard labor necessitated any need for cosmetic enhancement. They had no melanoma blemishes, no rough cracks to fill in their skin. Their plump white features were comical in their fragility, nearly translucent. And yet they heightened them further, with every shade of pink, purple, green and blue to the point they no longer resembled a human being, they longer appeared to be one of us.
‘Frederick. Son.’ There was a hint of concern in her blue eyes. It fought its way stubbornly to the fore, forcing away severity and rebuke.
‘M-mother,’ I stumbled through the word, the effort of moving my jaw setting alight my throbbing skull. Wincing back the pain I strained to put to words a desire that nagged at my heartstrings, ‘is father here?’ I knew the answer before she spoke in response. I knew I spoke in vain.
‘No.’ Rebuke drove away the vestiges of concern from her eyes, ‘if he were here he would finish what the stable keeper started.’ She spoke with over exaggerated levity. My father would finish what the shovelman had started when I could once again stand.
Still, the secret desire of my heart was to see him standing vigil over me. It was to see that he cared. I knew he had received word as my mother had, but chose to ignore it. Mother would receive hand lashings for neglecting her duties and coming to my side. Her duties would be all the harder for it, but still she was here. My heart ached to know that.
‘Mother-’
‘Quiet Frederick, the damage is done. I’ll be back to my duties now.’ Without my saying it she knew. It must have been the tone of my voice. ‘Pierre, bring him water as he needs it. I can’t afford a burial.’ With that said she tutted out of the room, bustling with motherly aggravation.
I screwed my eyes shut and let out a loud sigh. The sound of a stool scraping across the floor and its thud told me Pierre had pulled up a chair. With my eyes shut I struggled to find the words. My actions had seen him punished and would see him punished again for staying by my side. I was living a waking nightmare that threatened never to end. No words could rectify the damage. There was nothing I could do. Lying in bed with a crown of pain swirling about my head I decided to tell him as such.
‘Did you ever think,’ he spoke slowly, deliberately, ‘there is nothing that you can do?’ My childhood friend knew me better than I knew myself. He knew what I meant was that I hadn’t thought of what I could do yet. He understood my comment as a flicker of defiance. Under any other set of circumstances I would have flown into some tirade about the human spirit or freedom or the injustice of it all. Lying prone on my straw cot, for the first time in my life, I couldn’t muster the strength, save the willpower, to rail against anything.
‘Our hair is going to grow grey, time and labor will ravage our bodies. We’ll be as bitter as the shovelman, as cruel and unjust as everyone else.’ For once I didn’t seek to set fire to our world with my words, but rather had conceded to its simple facts. That we would turn into our parents, or worse still, the shovelman, had been the unspoken fear lying hidden in our hearts for years. Up until now it had been a fate too inevitable and too terrible to contemplate. I had glossed over that fact with my fanciful dreaming and Pierre with his dogged stoicism. Still, we both knew what awaited us.
Now, with Pierre at my bedside and me lying still, we were cornered face-to-face with the truth for the first time. The truth laid bare the void between his world and mine. He was in arm’s reach, but the narrow space between us was filled with all the distance in the world. There wasn’t a thing I could say or do to reach him, and he to me. All the debates and rhetoric we had propounded to one another throughout the years didn’t matter. He would live life in his own way and I mine. In the end we would be separated by the void that lurked between us. At that moment, with him at my bedside, I knew I was saying goodbye to my best friend.
A hollow voice squeaked next to me. It seemed to come from so far away, ‘hush now, be well my friend.’ A tear streaked down my cheek, wetting the matted hair behind my ear. He knew it as well as I did. In his own way he was saying his goodbye. I squeezed my eyes shut, letting sleep take away the pain in my head, the pain in my heart. I let it take it all away.
An unjust world makes thieves of us all. Those were words from another age, another time, when truth was up for debate. In my youth I believed that there was another way, a better way, I railed against the rogue who said those words to me. In my later years I have come to embrace his words. They have been engraved into my being by the blade at my hip, embossed with the blood soaking my hands. I have attained everything I dreamed of as a boy, freedom, choice, escape, and yet I have lost everything. Poor Pierre, I wear his ghost about my shoulders. In the quiet hours I hear him speak, whispering. He’s closer now than he ever could have been. Somehow I think this is how he would have wanted it to be.
The future came to pass as I had known it would. Father beat me again once I had recovered, nearly as savagely as the shovelman. My mother struggled in her duties with ravaged knuckles and Pierre stoically bore the punishment for his diligence as my friend.
Countless beatings failed to achieve obedience in me. Though, from the moment with Pierre at my bedside I kept my protestations to myself, letting the embers of dissidence quietly lap up each scrap of injustice. Things would be as they were, I realized that now. I wouldn’t be able to save my best friend. I alone could save myself. He was still there by my side, through good days and bad, but our voices were all but lost to one another. We grew apart.
Once I recovered from my father’s beating I stole two mounts from the stables under the cover of darkness and made my escape into the forests surrounding Pointers. Pierre remained behind. I didn’t warn him of my escape, though somehow I think he knew that would be my plan. His eyes had said as much. He didn’t try to stop me.
‘This is foolish Frederick.’ Without my friend telling me I knew it to be so. ‘The Duke’s men will be waiting, it’s an ambush.’ Of course it was, though that fact wouldn’t change my mind. It had been made up two days ago when I received the news. I had stood in silence for a moment, nodded slowly, and then turned on my heel heading directly for the stables. Securing my mount’s saddle I moved like a sleeper in a dream. I was in shock.
It had been two weeks since I fled Pointers when I received word of Pierre’s fate. It had followed me out of the county and into hiding with the inevitability of death. Every gallop of my stolen steed had darkened the sky behind me, each step sealing his doom. Before my escape I had consoled myself with a fantasy. I told myself that there would be no reprisal for my actions. That they would never find me and that would be the end of it. I was wrong. There would be retribution for my crimes. It would be swift and it would be decisive. I lied to myself thinking that those dearest to me wouldn’t be the ones to pay the price.
Poor Pierre, he took the brunt of the blame for my absconding, naming himself as my sole accomplice. His actions saved my parents as surely as my actions had damned him. Poor Pierre, diligent to the end.
I didn’t say a word, after two days of travel Pointers was once again in sight. A kick to my horse’s flanks spurred her down the gully towards the city gate. At my back I knew Roland was smiling, I could hear it in his voice. ‘To our deaths then!’ With a jolt his mount added her clattering strides to mine.
Ahead of us Pointers rose out of the French tree line like a colossus of stone, its ramparts framed by the glimmer of river flow on three sides. We made our approach to its gate by the only clear route, cutting a scar across a farmer’s wheat field. The morning sun winked out behind the town as we made our descent. We raced into shadow as the sky opened up and started pouring down rain. I didn’t dare tear my gaze from the looming black monolith, willing it to stay in place. My body moved as if possessed. I couldn’t feel anything, but was aware that an arm whipped out from my side, that legs beneath me were locked to my horse’s flanks, that a body was bent over in a crouch, rocking in time to my mount’s thundering shoulders. The ghost arm fell in frantic strikes, each lash spurring my mare faster. Faster. It wasn’t too late.
The black walls dominated my view. Jerking taught the reigns I brought my mount up short. She bucked back and reared on her hind legs. We came back down to the earth together and she whinnied nervously. Above our heads the sky was clear with morning light. My face was streaked with tears.
A silhouette hung limp above the city gate, framed by the oranges, pinks, and lime greens of the dawn sky. Thick droplets of blood flecked off my mare’s flanks and dappled the packed earth under her prancing feet. The air shimmered with the settling dust, even as a scream pierced the swelling calm. The scream was my own.
In the shadow of that silhouette I raged at the shovelman. I raged at the Duke. I raged at my father. I raged at the world for what it had made me become.
‘An unjust world makes thieves of us all,’ the words were spoken by a cotton-soft voice at my shoulder. Ghostly echoes of my outburst were fading as they raced across the morning pall, rebounding dimly off the cold stone of Pointers. I looked up to the ramparts looming above us. Where there had previously been one, now two silhouettes hung, creaking together in the cold morning air.
