Viol took her sister’s hand and they sat for several minutes without words, resting in each other and the last view of the world before they disappeared into the clouds. Their calm was disrupted at last by Garrity’s voice bellowing down to them, calling their names.
Viol yelled back that they were coming, and reluctantly, they pushed themselves into the thick, foggy cover. Handhold by foothold, they pushed their way up, up, into the white emptiness, its chill engulfing them in its cold folds. After straining and pushing and climbing, they came at last to Garrity, who had backtracked to find them, and stood dancing on his toes on a large platform.
His eyes danced and he wore a smile that took them both by surprise, it was so radiant and uncharacteristic: his mouth open and his whole face crinkling with delight. He took Lavendier’s hand and pulled her up so fast that he nearly pulled her arm from her socket, but he did not seem to notice.
“Come with me,” he urged them, “just over that ridge. Come on!” He preceded them up the final climb, leaping like a boy, and bending down to give them a hand up.
He lifted Viol over the ledge and she disappeared from sight, then Garrity bent down to pull Lavendier after. She hesitated.
“Not so hard this time,” she told him with as much breath as she could spare, “I want to be in one piece for the journey down.” But as she looked up at him, she saw that his face shone with a hope she had never seen before. Cleared were the deep grooves of his forehead, smooth the heavy bags beneath his eyes. He bore the face of youth, a face he had never worn in all his life, and he radiated a spirit she had long forgotten: of carelessness, joy, and zeal for life. So bright were his eyes, so easy his jaw, that he seemed to shine with an inner light.
“You won’t have to worry about that,” he told her, and with his superhuman strength, he lifted her up as if she were no more than a bag of cotton, and set her on the very peak of the mountain.
* * *
Beneath her, the ground sloped away at a gentle fall, thickly carpeted, as if for an emperor, with daisies and grass. It sloped in swells and steps all the way down until it met the floor of a giant canyon, and there it widened into a field, like a waterfall meeting a lake, and the soft grass engulfed the entire bottom. On the other side of the canyon, the ground swelled back up to meet the sky and, in ecstasy, embrace her. On all four sides the mountains rose to their peaks purple, yellow, and white, sheltering in a natural basin a private paradise.
Great weathered oaks and graceful stone pillars dotted the bowl of the basin, decorating the ground that served as a collar for the pristine pool that glistened gently in the center. From the mountains of the other side, a rivulet of a wild waterfall leapt over the stones of its bed and then fell fifty feet into the lake, rippling the water and keeping it alive.
Here in paradise, life was a celebration that nature celebrated wholeheartedly. The trees had their arms raised to the heavens and the flowers leapt for joy out of their beds. The exultation was contagious, and spread wonder over the small band who stood to see.
The flashing of the falls, blinding in the way that they caught the sun, filled the onlookers with passion. The majestic sweeps of the mountains gave Lavendier goose bumps. The great still lake in the center calmed Adlena’s soul, and a mighty upheaval of giant winged birds filled Viol’s heart as they soared to the sky. The weeping willows, like a protective, nurturing wall, bordered the edge of the lake all around, enclosing Cila’s pain with a tender promise of peace. The brilliant sun, beating its rays in time with the sparkling waters and the stirring trees, quickened Garrity’s sight and filled him with joy. The swell of the ground cradled Jacian and he giggled and laughed at its freedom.
The roaring of the falls, the flapping of the wings, the trilling of the birds, and the beating of their hearts joined together in an irresistible melody, and suddenly, Viol’s voice broke out in song. It rose and soared high above the mountains, and then, with a dive, fell to meet them and roll along their peaks; the sound dipped and flew in and out of the soaring birds. It fell lower and dived deep to the base of the pool before rising again and holding tenor on the surface. Then the ethereal, untouchable quality of the tone lowered, as it celebrated with the glory of the trees and plants below. It vibrated and pulsed with warmth and life, living and growing and changing.
Lavendier laughed and, as all the weariness, sadness, and exhaustion from her travels melted away, she threw herself into the wind to dance. She moved her arms in lithe, airy movements that rippled through her gown and rustled with the breeze. She loosed her woolen cape and it flew away like a heron after a long flight. Her skirt caught the air and twisted and billowed as she spun and twirled on the grassy slope. Her hair flowed and rippled behind her as she moved in perfect time to Viol’s joyous song.
Garrity laughed and his laugh was strong, resounding, and deep. He ran forward and swept Lavendier into the air. Together, they danced. Joyous and exhilarated, two became one in the poetry of nature.
And it was more beautiful than language.
Garrity and the princesses made their nest close to the lake, where a rivulet branched out and pure water flowed. One of the many stone structures, which in themselves were unlike any building they had ever seen before, offered cover like an open-walled house. There were many pillars, six or so, meeting together seamlessly at the top, and all sides were open to the wind and elements. A rivulet gurgled and sang beside their new home and bounced rainbows off the underside of the ceiling. All was quiet and serene where the waterfall swept with a torrent of coolness across the smooth rocks of its descent, the lake sparkled lazy in the sun, and the mountains glistened white at their frozen peaks. It was, in every respect, paradise.
86
Paradise
When Garrity awakened in the morning, the first morning in months wherein he awakened without a thought of care, he took a long moment to admire the beauty of the stones, the land, and the water. As he looked out upon the pristine view, he caught sight of the oldest princess as she knelt beside the river, washing their laundry. Her arms were bare, her brown hair was drinking in the sun and forming golden streaks in the curls, and her back curved gently beneath her worn linen gown. Far removed, in this moment, from the glittering, ornamented, and veiled woman he had first known, kneeling before him now was a woman more mysterious, adorned, and beautiful, with callused hands and sun-tanned face.
“There was a time she would have scorned that work,” Viol’s voice came from behind him. “But how well she looks doing it.” He turned around to where she was setting out blankets and beds, dishes and food: making a home.
“Every person looks well when they do their duties with grace,” he said.
“You, for instance,” she observed, looking him up and down. “By far the most handsome man I know, but is that simply because you are the most humble? You always look fine, drawing your bow or swinging your blade, carrying Jacquee or helping Adlee over a difficult path.”
He smiled at her. “Or maybe I am simply handsome.”
“Maybe.” She threw a basket at him and he dodged, laughing.
Viol fetched the basket, and trotted down to Lavendier where, as they wrung out the clothing, she told how Garrity was watching her.
“You looked beautiful, and he was noticing,” said Viol. To her surprise, Lavendier did not blush, simper, or glance coyly over her shoulder, but was thoughtful instead.
“I do not feel beautiful anymore. Nor ugly either. I feel like there is no time to think about it. I have been trying to think of other people, not myself, to make myself a better person. It is what you do.”
Viol did blush at that, it took her so by surprise. “Yes, I guess I do try to do that.”
“I have wasted so much of my life,” Lavendier cried, with such vehemence that Viol paused in her work and stared at her sister, “trying to live it in all the wrong ways! And what have I gained? Instead, I have lost so much of myself that I am only now beginning to meet me. And I have found that the only w
ay to be the self I want to be is to serve others. I care not anymore which comes first – loving myself or loving others. They are all of a piece.”
Up to now, she had been staring out over the water without seeing it, but now she turned to look at Viol. “I have spent all my life chasing approval, and I renounce it. I will only love, as much as I can. That has to be enough – isn’t it?”
The young princess bent forward and took Lavendier’s hands in her own, whispering with intense feeling, “I have always found it so! It really is. Don’t be afraid to love, as much and as often as you can. Your strength will only grow and you will only be more fulfilled. Lose yourself, my darling, and find yourself.” They embraced and held each other for all they were worth, and when at last they drew apart, they still held tightly to each other’s hands.
“That was what Garrity was noticing,” said Lavendier confidently. “He knows something of this desire in me. It was his influence that decided me on it to begin with.”
“When he was looking at you, he said, ‘Every person looks well when they do their duties with grace.’”
Lavendier smiled. “That is what I am trying to do.” Then, thinking about him, she smiled despite herself. “Do you like him?” she asked.
“Of course. Very much. Do you not?”
“He is very kind.”
“Yes. He is good, handsome, strong, brave, and everything else a man ought to be.”
Lavendier frowned. “And he has suffered so much.”
“Has he?” Viol watched where he was building a scrapwood pile against one of the pillars. “Yes, I suppose he must have. Suffering is what makes great men.”
Lavendier’s eyes widened, “I would still be my other self if it were not for my suffering. How much I owe to this thing I hate!” She laughed but it was also a sob. “How could I be grateful for pain? It has torn me away from all comfort, all the things I desired, and yet… Oh, Viol, how different I am now, how different are all the things that I love and hold dear. I do not wish to be what I was before – I am… I am grateful for the pain!” Pain and joy ran together within her, pushing against the walls of her heart, and she was too overcome to speak again. So she only wept in gratitude, felt, and squeezed the sympathetic hands she held in hers.
Three months passed quietly away. In the valley, Garrity and the girls were as calm as the world around them for here, it seemed, time stood still, as if the rest of the world had forgotten about them, as if nothing outside could reach them in their nest.
XIV
PEACE
“Such certainties all mean… that everything comes to its appointed goal; that in spite of all appearances, underlying all things is - peace, salvation, gloria;… that “God holds in his hand the beginning, middle, and end of all that is.” Such nonrational, intuitive certainties… can be vouchsafed to our gaze even when it is turned toward the most insignificant-looking things, if only it is a gaze inspired by love. That, in the precise sense, is contemplation.”
- Josef Pieper
87
A Party
“Excellent! Take them to the hall. Put a few by each seat in a glass, and stagger the large arrangements along the walls.” Adrea was coordinating a feast, and enjoying it immensely.
It was two weeks since the entire living population of South Drian had marched across the expanse of their country and buried their dead. At each town, after gathering and burying the already decomposing bodies, they cleansed themselves in a ceremony, and then the young men danced wet and naked before the fires, chanting dirges for the departed, singing loud and heartily to send the departed well on their way with Death. And at the final village, after they had looped from the easternmost point up north and back west toward home, just before they arrived, Death himself had come down to them. He floated above the roaring flames as the dancers whirled around him, and looked down upon the lady of Drian seated in the circle of women onlookers.
She sat still and silent in awe, but felt none of the fear or foreboding that had consumed her when Power came.
Death was nothing like pictures she had seen in books. He sat upon no throne of skulls, nor wielded any mace. His face had a light of its own – not pallid or white like a mortal’s, but warmly red, almost hinting more at life than death. Looking upon her, he spread his arms wide.
“In all the years I have roamed and taken from Minecerva, no one has ever honored or mourned me as you have done in this pilgrimage. I cannot ignore your cries – they come to me, beyond this world; they pierce my soul, and remind me of what I have long ago forgotten. At the beginning of time, I had a pact with man: to lead him gently from this world, to teach him to face the afterlife with courage and strength of heart. I have broken it. How thoroughly I almost broke it, you will never know. But I make a pact with each man here today!” The dancers had stopped whirling round the circle and now stood in place to hear his words, a quiet hum of their throats the only sound in the darkness. “I swear that each of you will depart this world in peace. You will have the grace of a happy death. I swear it by the Golden King, whom I have betrayed.” Afias was standing directly before the god, and the mighty being suddenly enshrouded the prince in smoke. The god and mortal disappeared from before all eyes, and in the midst of the cloud, the god said to Afias, “Do not betray the Golden King. Do not bow before Power.”
Then with a gust of great wind, with a tearing of thunder and lightning in the sky, and with an earth-shattering rumble of the earth beneath their feet, Death departed.
On their return to the capitol the hearts of all the south Drinians were lighter than air, and there was an exhilarating release from the evil that had hung so long above their heads. Their good mood was only strengthened when, two days later, Captain Wilhem docked in the gulf of Haron, laden with three ship-loads of provisions that would see the entire country through the winter, for Afias’s bet on Cronice had paid off.
“This spoon is so clear I can see the flecks of gold in my eyes,” Adrea now told a young maid, who was scrubbing for all she was worth.
The girl smiled so wide it seemed her teeth would run away from her face. “Thank you, my lady.”
Adrea glided from one work station to another, reveling in the fun and order that Afias had left entirely to her to plan. “I have no pleasure in planning a party,” he told her, “but I assure you I’ll enjoy it when I’m there.”
Every lay of a fork, every turn of a spit, every dusting of a chair was an act ordered directly toward his enjoyment. Without quite realizing what she did, Adrea asked herself every time, ‘will Afias like this?’ Arranged just for him were millions of details he would never notice. And when all was prepared, Adrea surveyed it all and beamed with pleasure: it rivaled any party she had ever thrown for her father.
After dressing for the celebration, Adrea went straight to the grain stores, where she found him standing in the doorway of the largest silo, gazing at the store of food that would save the lives of all his citizens. She knew that the prince still doubted their good fortune and returned here again and again to take his fill of the sight.
“Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?” Her voice came from behind him and he turned to answer, but words died on his lips.
Adrea always wore dark colors, and black especially was her staple. It off-set her white skin and straight black hair, dressed her up without effort, and concealed any errors she might let slip in her posture. So it took his breath away to see her in cream.
She was delicate, airy, and pure – like a spirit. For a brief moment, he was even afraid of her. Her hair was piled atop her head in wisps and twists; cream gauze flowed free from her shoulders and drifted around her like a cloud; a crown of delicately-wrought gold flowers encircled her brow. She seemed like a stranger. But then she smiled at him, and she was his friend again.
He smiled too and offered her his arm, and together, they made their way to the hall. He searched back to remember what she had said. “Did you ask me a question?”
&nbs
p; “I asked if you’d ever seen anything so beautiful?”
“Never.”
She blushed. Her eyes sparkled with excitement for the evening, and she said teasingly, “I meant the grain silo.”
They reached the double doors and just before they entered, he said, “I did not.”
* * *
The party was a great success. Interspersed between five courses of meat, side dishes and desert, there was entertainment, dancing, and beautiful songs.
Afias had become a hero figure for the people of South Drian, and they had worked him into some of their songs. Now they honored him loudly for his mighty feats. They sang of how he had fought the group of gorgans on his journey between the capitols of Drian and South Drian, of how his plans had saved them from starvation, and how he had led them all from town to town to put their dead to rest.
One man, generally acclaimed as a great musician, stood before the assembly and in a deep, rolling chant, commemorated Prince Afias:
“I sing with joy of the marvelous feats
Of the new-crowned Prince of Drian.
When came the enemy,
the gorgans from the west,
And challenged the Drinians to battle,
The brave men roared and rallied their swords,
And screamed and swore and rattled.
Before the fight there was brief quiet,
As calm before a storm.
Quiet such as when you walk
beside a still, round lake,
And all is hushed and silent;
When erupts a flock of geese
Winging, squawking from the rush –
So bursts the clamor of war!
Crying combats, valiant victories
Belonged to the brother of Trinian,
And he, above all else, won fame
As he crossed the ground – a hurricane.
Trinian Page 40