by Allen Werner
The journey started innocently enough. When the whisper said, ‘proceed,’ the meadow before him went for several more acres until he entered the wood which was wide and wondrous, just common wood, various openings and clearings, streaks of golden sunlight breaking through the canopy, shades here and there. Nothing foreboding. Nothing menacing. Pero roamed freely in any direction he so chose. West was preferable. But then the darkness came. Not a darkness from the sky but a darkness from the earth. The trees grew monstrous and The Eagles Forest closed in all around him, the wood became thicker and more compactly knotted, thousands of gnarled limbs wrapped doggedly around ancient boughs, dense and tangled since time began. At every turn, decomposing stumps, rotten and fetid, spiked out of the earth like an abatis. It was the nearest thing to a jungle Pero de Alava had ever experienced.
Inhaling a deep breath of the stagnant air, Pero reached for an obstinate vine intending to tear it from his path. He felt a twinge near the elbow and knew he must act quickly. He clutched the right arm with the left, cradling it. A chronic, reoccurring sting had been abusing him, throbbing at times, radiating up to the shoulder and down through the fingers. He knew the warning signs. The gash in his right forearm had not been treated or rewrapped all day. Blood was pushing through the bandage. He feared the wound was infected again, the curative elements in the poultice no longer effective. The ache would come and go, linger for a moment and then soothe.
“Patience and prayer, son,” he heard Druda’s dulcet voice sing to him yet again from the past. “If we don’t have time for those, we desereves what we get.”
‘Fuck you, bitch,’ he cussed in weary frustration, his conscience hardly recognizing the biting tone as his own. The memory of Druda’s son, the fat little kid reading that goddamn story was the reason he was out here in the first place, or so he wished to believe and blame. ‘Bid me to come. Bid me to come.’ Wiping sweat from his eyes, pushing back his long black hair, the Spaniard surveyed the desperate scene, the dense wood all about him, towering over him, roots and tendrils winding around his ankles again. ‘Hopeless.’
Pero de Alava had not rested all day. He had not eaten or drank a thing since consuming the warm bread and sweet wine Druda served him over six hours ago. He thought about all the food products he had ingested since his quest began. It wasn’t much. He was ill and had slept the whole second day away. He ended the first day with a hot trencher of beef and several flagons full of wine. His stomach was protesting the abuse.
‘It’s a trap,’ he told himself. ‘The Eagles Forest is possessed and has a mind of its own. It is slowly sapping my will to live, a labyrinth of futility.’ And yet and still, he had no idea how to escape.
Begrudgingly, Pero twisted his neck and glanced back over his shoulder to locate the Apennine mountains. They were still there. It seemed no matter how far he had gone, how deep he penetrated the abyss, the ominous peaks and gray stone shelves were always there, looming high above him, waiting for him to come back. Up there above the tree line, he could relax and scope the western horizon for cavities in the forest, possible entry points leading to trails. Thus far, every cavity rotted on him.
Pero de Alava had only two goals in mind and both lay in the west, in the Campania region.
Reality terrified him so he tended not to think on it, it was not a goal. Night was coming and The Eagles Forest was inhabited by a wide variety of indigenous wildlife, snakes, rats and bats, wolves and bears. Already he had crossed paths with a few. Some growled at him. Others hissed and spit. Most bared their claws and teeth. They were livid. Pero was an unwelcomed intruder in their world and apparently, many of them had never encountered a human before. They did not fear him, not in the least. They bravely stood their ground, expecting him to go around.
There were also insects and spiders everywhere. Ancient, sticky funnel webs, some tall as the trees, constantly inhibited his movement, clinging to his clothing and hair, a variety of mosquitoes, ants and gnats taking every opportunity to pinch and jab his skin. He suspected that some of the bites he received were poisonous and he worried that this slowly massing exposure to venom would eventually sap his energy and weaken him to a point where he could not carry on. There were times he became so entangled in the massive silks, the endless radial spirals, that surrendering sometimes seemed the wisest option. Just lie down and die. His arms and legs were growing weary of the wars. Life seemed so vain.
The chief goal Pero wanted to focus his mind on during his personal crusade, the one that gave him the greatest pleasure while seeming the most unlikely to be accomplished, was revenge.
The exiled Spaniard had not forgotten a single word Turstin Fabbro spoke the first night they met. Turstin was Gherardus Fabbro’s brother and revealed the whole plot that sent him on this suicidal quest in the first place. There was no princess Meliore being held hostage in Melfi, Benevento or anywhere else for that matter. It was a ruse, a foolish quest for brash knights, that headstrong, troublesome breed of men who believed in their own physical prowess over all odds. Such pride. Such arrogance. Such recklessness.
Pero didn’t recognize the conceit associated with his vision for revenge. He unpretentiously imagined himself carrying this damning evidence to the good people of Parthenope. They would welcome him with open arms. The astonished guards standing the battlements would cheer him on, throwing open the city gates with hopeful abandon. They would brandish their silvery weapons for his cause and lead him triumphantly through the streets of the city and into the palace itself. Pero would oust the whole Fabbro family and their advisors, exposing all their indiscretions. And, Pero would claim the throne as his own.
However, one quick glance at his threadbare attire reminded Pero de Alava that he was no hero. It would be suicidal to march up to the gates of Parthenope and expect justice to occur. No one was going to throw down arms and follow him.
Pero wore no armor. His trusted sword, Miriam, the symbol of his newly awakened devotion to the religion of rage, was squirreled away in a pile of straw in a corner of that little house in Ithaca.
“Ithaca.” The word made him snigger and shake his head. Every time he heard ‘Ithaca’ or even thought about it, he was reminded of Greece, and all things Greek reminded him of Anthea.
In Capua, Pero had forsaken his bride, the love of his life. He ignored her heartfelt tears. Bloodied and desperate, she crawled to him on hands and knees begging him not to leave her, to stay and disobey Gherardus Fabbro’s command. Pray with her.
“It’s a trap,” Anthea Manikos leveled. “It’s a trap.”
Of course, Pero knew it was a trap, but that didn’t stop him from disregarding her. Pride thundered up from inside his black heart and the spirit of obliteration was in his hands and feet, quicker than lightning. In seconds, he set the whole world on fire. He blew it all up; the Cross of the Angels and Anthea’s antique loom.
Pero then coldly, callously, stepped to the door, watching time weave its golden finality through the thick, black grains. Golden snakes squirmed before him, their sinewy bodies forming the letters R and R. And then he entered death. He went away.
‘Duties of a knight. That’s what I told her. I’m a vassal of a greater lord and will not allow my baser pledges to get in the way of doing my duty.’ Pero now realized how smug that all sounded as he scanned the ever-darkening woods. He grimaced. The sun had not yet set but nightfall was coming soon. ‘My duty. My sacred duty. A forsaken, forgotten knight in the middle of nowhere.’
Pero hated that is was so easy to recall his feeble defenses from the madness of that first day. He told Francis Whitehall he was a scapegoat riding off to save his people from ruin. He pictured himself sitting on the drawbridge with his best friend. He hoped now with all his heart that Francis Whitehall was busy packing up his family for a permanent move back to England and Warwick. ‘Run, my friend. Get the hell out of there. The people of Capua will be no worse off than they were before we arrived. It’s just the way this evil world works. We can’t make
a difference.’ He lowered his head. ‘They win. They always win.’
Pero was tired of thinking about his missteps but there was nothing else to do out here and they kept assaulting him. Experience seemed to have taught him nothing. His impatience was still too powerful. It always got the better of him and clouded his judgment. Leaning against the thick bark of a dark tree, he paused a moment and saw his father seated on the corral fence wearing his black sombrero, deeply disappointed. ‘Reckless. Like my father always said.’
A sadness washed over Pero as he also recalled Blassilo Velez condemning himself on his death bed, claiming the same crime. ‘Temerario. I am my father’s son.’
Pero’s second intent was Capua. He wanted simply enough to go home and forget this whole situation ever happened, rewind time and forget the recklessness. He was ready to beg their forgiveness; that is if they hadn’t already departed for more fertile fields. He did, after all, spurn Anthea, instructing her to return to Greece and her father. He also gifted the Griffin an enormous fortune. The Englishman may already be employing it to take his family home.
An unexpected noise stirred in the brush. Pero froze and waited for the ruckus to move on. It was a whiny or snicker of a horse but he couldn’t be sure. There was no reason to believe a horse was in the thicket unless it was trapped. It was then Pero remembered Zaon and how the powerful grey palfrey busted through the tangled hedges to rescue them and deliver freedom. Glancing around the cluster of trees he felt lightheaded for a moment, remembering the cryptic, surreal objects that were kicked up during that daunting escape. A black branch whizzing by his head, a thousand crackling twigs, a million leaves including an inverted black oak leaf suspended in time. Thousands of those inverted black oak leaves surrounded and protected him from the four wolves. With a sly smile, Pero considered his fresh-faced attendants, Niccolus and Arrigo, the men that died in the darkness on Eagles Pass. They paid the ultimate price for his recklessness.
Pero started crawling over a fallen log, doing the only sane thing he could do. It was hell going in but only took a few moments to come back out. He had turned around and was going north-northeast again. He felt like the mountain was laughing at him. ‘Rocks can’t laugh.’
For a few minutes, Pero continued this course, continued to follow the gradient and elevate, climbing upward on loose stony soil, seeking handholds, footholds, anything to aid his ascent until he reached a flat escarpment.
Beaten and weary, he took a seat on the ledge, his legs dangling from the side much in the same manner as the drawbridge at Capua. This was a much more picturesque view than anything he could see from the drawbridge, the entirety of the Italian countryside spread out before him, painted by God’s own hand. When he looked directly down where his feet dangled, it was a fast drop, roughly twenty feet before the next landing, and perhaps sixty after that. He wouldn’t have considered the depth of the drop had not his fingers cramped up while he removed his shoes and one got away. He watched helplessly as the soft slipper fluttered downward, over the first landing and into the top of an enormous tree.
‘Ah fuck. I’m not going all the way back down there to retrieve it, not that it was doing me much good anyway.’
Pero took a moment to pick two small barbs from his soles, wiping a bit of blood away as well.
The orange sun was westering and although the rays were warm, he could feel a chill materializing. He was in the mountains now and they were turning purple. The air was thinner, crisper this far above the sea. He knew the night would turn even colder.
“Come?” Pero questioned the question. “Come where? Here? The middle of nowhere? On the side of a mountain?” He wanted desperately to trust in the validity of this mysterious force that kept interfering with his life and impelling him forward but the miraculous escapes he had engineered along the way seemed far behind him now. ‘There must be a limit to the number of miracles I have been afforded,’ he thought dismally, ‘to the number of times I can challenge the Fates and win.’ He suddenly chuckled to himself. ‘Is this what winning looks like?’ A sigh followed, his bleary blue eyes seeking a sign from his home in the west. ‘I don’t see salvation on the horizon.’
The Spaniard craned his neck and scanned the impenetrable wall of rock rising behind him. The crags were formidable, wearing a face of doom. He knew he could go no further in this direction. He would have to go back down a bit more and move north again, find another way around this obstruction.
Pero also knew he must find shelter before the dark was upon him but the hollows and caves were unfriendly, most likely inhabited by powerful, ravenous beast. He missed Miriam. Without her, he didn’t feel like a knight.
‘Beef stew.’ He could imagine the taste of the beef in that trencher he ate the first night in Ithaca. ‘Lamb shanks. Druda was going to prepare lamb shanks tonight, in my honor. They are probably eating them right now. Iya basta. I should have stayed or at the very least, thought this through. I'd really love some lamb right now.’
An innocent girl’s face appeared in his mind’s eye. ‘A lamb. Giselle. I saw her as a lamb. Sweet and innocent, a bit flirtatious.’ Pero nodded ruefully. ‘I was the wolf then. Now I’m the lamb. I’m the one who is exposed and fragile. Defenseless. Vulnerable. Shit.’
Pero licked at his dry lips that hadn’t touched water in what seemed forever. He yearned to find a stream, a rivulet, anything. If he were desperate enough, as he may be by morning, he could suck on the roots and stalks of various scrub plants. He hoped to find a better option before then.
A wave of fatigue washed over his mind. It had been steadily creeping up on him. He felt as though he could sleep for a month. For weeks on end, in Capua, he had hardly slept at all, haunted by visions, paranoia lashing him to task. Now, since the quest began, he could fall asleep whenever his eyes shut. Sleep was not so hard to come by, just the comfort and security. He chastened himself for entertaining such slothfulness. ‘I’m always finding new ways to contradict myself. What a fool?’
Scrubbing his shaggy black mane with worn fingers to rid himself of anymore doubts, Pero slowly began to rise to his feet. Before he could get all the way there, the pain in his forearm gave no warning and sent a bolt of excruciating pain through his nerves. The muscles in his legs cramped up. He locked up, his whole body tensed, the spasms causing him to lurch uncontrollably, uncontrollably forward. His blue eyes opened in wide wonder as he tumbled helplessly over the ledge and off the escarpment, falling all twenty feet to the next landing which had a slope to it.
Tumbling head over heal, a rain of pebbles and stones accompanying him, Pero thought about the shoe that had fallen the rest of the way into the void. He continued to slide awkwardly down the mountainside, coming to a halt on a flatter part of the slant just near the edge of the next drop.
He could hear the wind, the wind he had not felt all day. It was gentle and moving all around him. Some of his senses seemed intact and heightened. He could smell the pine trees beneath him. It was all kind of peaceful and quiet. Pero’s head was turned in a manner where he could still see the sun westering but something was wrong, amiss. He couldn’t feel his legs anymore or his body for that matter. He couldn’t move his arms or flex his fingers. Something inside of him had cracked and shattered. He was broken.
Pero de Alava stared motionless at the sky, his mind completely blank. A majestic convocation of golden eagles soared into view, gliding dauntless and stolid. He couldn’t think of anything more serene than what he was witnessing right now. The eagles soared on the invisible currents, fearless and poised, strong and royal.
Pero watched and he waited, not even trying to cry out for help, not surrendering to any form of panic, knowing the world no longer cared about him.
The eagles left as the mountain grew darker. Soon there was nothing left to see but a billion twinkling stars. Pero started to read the sky. It had been so long since he had done this. Life had become so hectic and unnerving. He never had time anymore, the concentration. He rememb
ered Francis Whitehall teaching him a few of the constellations and even the tales that accompanied them. Life seemed so much simpler back then. Warm affections, strong drink, smiles and laughter, love. Time.
‘Cepheus, the king. A member of heaven’s royal family fixed between the dragon and the queen.’ Pero stared at the familiar constellation remembering how Francis said the king never sets. He is ever vigilant, always above the horizon, never caught off guard.
Pero wanted to feel sad but could not. He was not a king after all. There was no way he could be vigilant all the time. The world was too unpredictable and he had been caught unawares by his enemies.
‘I’ve come this far to learn what I already knew. There are no gods. We live and we die. My remains will stay on this mountain and turn to dust. The memory of my existence shall fade. It is all so pointless and vain, filled with thousands of instances of wonder and fear, joy and grief, gain and loss. Unless we set our minds to enduring them all, we are not worthy. He sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. How will I ever know if I were just or not? Who stands to judge me, condemn me? Help me?’
Everything Pero de Alava had imagined to do with his life; every purpose he had wished to accomplish; every goal he had ever dreamed of reaching, were extinguished. There was nothing left but the stars and the sky. No expectations. No vanities. Pero was here in the moment and there was nothing else. The minutes, the seconds that remained to him on earth, in life, were out of his hands, beyond his control, abandoned and cursed. Nobody and nothing.
Pero finally found in necessary to close his dry eyes. He felt his heartbeat slowing. ‘This is the end. I’m sure of it.’ He didn’t want to leave emptyhanded. He pictured Anthea, her pure soul that first morning at La Torre, pressing a soft cloth on his faith, her hand so warm, her fetching eyes wanting him to pay attention to her and nothing else. He could see his love, eyes closed, heart open.
‘I’m so sorry you had to fall in love with a fool. A reckless knight. I wish I had been brave enough to stay with you in Capua. I wish I had been brave enough to take your hand and pray. I wish…’