by Craig Davis
Chapter XI
The dark silence reigned, save the crickets’ well-rehearsed chorus, so blanketing the night that it hardly existed at all. The days had seemed to merge into sameness, even the calendars of nature only adding to the tedium. One breath draws no differently than the next. As each of the king’s watchmen had come and gone, their words sank into a meaningless tide, sometimes in, sometimes out, always identical. I tried to trudge on as ever, turning each vain morning into vain evening, and think not of that day in the quarries. At times I saw the scene as if in a dream, overlooking the horror as if someone distant, but always awaking as myself still. I had seen it, caused it to happen, I couldn’t escape it. I found consolation in some sort of unreality, and therefore I took yet more aid from my drink as often as finances allowed, which also would serve to shut up Gastgedal for a time. I felt like I was rotting from inside.
Finally this day I fully reaped the harvest of my sodden therapy. I rested fitfully in the grasp of clammy perspiration, too engrossed with shaking to move from my cobblestone sickbed. My eyes hazily stared into the sky, not really seeing any more distant than the end of my nose, or perhaps the dark side of my eyelids. My goal was either survive the night or curse the morning. So weary I grew of this glove I wear; surely I came forth for more than this mortal frailty. Certainly there dwells something better in me than the appetites that insist upon my eyes and hands. In delirium my mind grew more clear: I despaired that I would never know, until the day I cast off the fleshy shackles. That day appeared to creep ever closer. The demons made sport of me, regularly racking my body with some new spasm.
Beyond the reaches of my distraction, directly overhead, a speck of light I had never before noticed burned bright, brighter than the twinkling points of the constellations of old. It grew and ebbed in my sight, disappearing into blur, then returning to pinpoint sharpness, until finally stabbing my brain right through. Or did the wretchedness of my body simply take liberties with my mind, showing me visions of no existence? I did not wonder then, nor now. All the elements conspired to lay me low.
That night found Domen sitting upon the walls bordering the orchards. “Master Domen,” a voice cackled behind him.
Domen turned to see a fawning smile upon a shriveled man. He struck a withdrawn pose, his hands together in prayerful attitude, and his body shook more nervously than even my own feverish cadaver. Layers upon layers of tattered clothing hung upon his drawn frame, as though just one more piece would at last warm the cold or cover his nakedness. His tiny eyes, whiskered jowls and odd nose strangely recalled the bristling expression of a pig. Vaguely familiar in face, Domen did not know him as a man of Feallengod. “What do you claim to be?” his foul mood wasted no time.
“Fela I am called. Remember? Master Domen?”
“No – nor either do I care. Had I ever known you, I regret it now. Go crawl back under your rock, you sorry bug.” The figure hunched and simpered, vile to look at, yet drawing a morbid fascination. The man rubbed his hands together, looked about warily and shifted his weight uneasily from foot to foot. His voice and manner teetered on the verge of panic.
“Fela, call me. With you that day. Fled away.”
“What day?”
“That day. Gægnian. Day of freedom, you say.”
“You — come from Gægnian?” said Domen, beginning to recall; but surely this creature could never have belonged in the king’s courts. “We did not know you as Fela.”
“No. Forget name, king’s name,” he said, with a look of alarm. “Have forgotten much. Remember that day.”
The day of freedom – when fully one-third of Gægnian’s citizenry had been cast into one prison or another. That day grated upon Domen’s memory as well. So many times he had relived those events, but never giving any thought to the pawns sucked into his frustrated plot. Always he had dwelt only upon his own fate and Ecealdor’s cursed, cursed calm.
“I stood with you. In the halls. King’s guard! Oh, terror, terror. Some ran away. Pretend to be of them! Then escape.”
“You ran away?” Domen frowned.
“I escape.”
“The king sent you into banishment?”
“Got away. Those caught now deep in dungeons. Many in dungeons. Some got away. The king knows! The king knows! I ran, had to run. Follow you, Master Domen. Wait upon you.” Wisps of hair floated upon the wind with no direction, words gurgling between gapped teeth.
“Waited for what purpose? I have no use for you, except to grind you under my heel.”
“Waited for you, lord. Always knew. Knew you’d rise up. Need me. Needed Fela then, need Fela now. So wait.” He shifted from one foot to the other, and back again.
“You’re mistaken. I don’t need you. You made yourself a curse to me then, even more so now. Get out of my sight,” Domen spewed anger. He had lost no vindictive for Fela nor any of the others who had failed him in Gægnian, tools broken in his hand. For their failure he languished upon Feallengod.
“Still with you. What have you for me, Master Domen?”
“Nothing! Begone!” Domen growled at him.
“What have you for me? Have for us to do? What work should I? What reward for me? What place for us in kingdom? What place in Feallengod?” Fela’s excitement became increasingly aroused as he ran through his pleadings, not waiting for answers.
Thoroughly incensed now, Domen’s temper exploded. “Begone, before I cast you into Heofon!”
He slung a fist-sized rock, catching Fela squarely on the chest. The blow felled him, racking his body with yet greater tremors, but Fela did not relent.
“With you, Master Domen,” he croaked. “What part me kingdom? What power me?”
“I’ll share no greatness with you nor anyone! Out of my presence, you cowering, disgusting tick!” Dawn began to break, and Domen left the wall to strike out in the direction of the deep forests, trying to leave Fela behind. But Fela would not give, following a wise distance behind Domen, continuing in a sing-song manner, “Master Domen, what have you? For me, for me? What for us?”
Domen’s fingers clawed the ground for more stones. He made a few more throws at Fela, but his aim failed him against the dancing troll. Fela continued, singing and shaking, singing and shaking, “With you, Master Domen. What for me? What for us?”
This monologue endured the entire way to the forest lands, until Domen could stand no more. He would say anything to rid himself of this nattering shadow. “Go then, go into the town, curse your soul, and rot there! Go find another to torment! Stir trouble elsewhere — I care not where, nor what, just get away from me — now — or I’ll beat you into the ground!” He lunged toward Fela, who jigged nimbly out of his way.
“Yes, Master Domen, I do as you wish. Do as I wish. Do as we wish …” said Fela, and his voice faded from Domen’s hearing as he scurried back toward the orchards and the community, a plume of dust and pebbles left in his wake.
Did the spirits again turn traitor upon me? Did my sickness fall upon me first, or Fela? Yet do I not know. Surely he among many stepped over me in the street, his ragged breeches touching my waning body with putrid caress. What injurious favor did he infect into my flesh? With what mastery could he have anointed me, to follow my own ends so doggishly, and fall blind to the king at this moment? I can blame no one, not even the mosquito of Ecealdor’s enemies, this Fela; I alone carry the burden of my defiance. But even still there passed another.
As Domen approached the forest, in a little hollow where the landscape bowed to the woods’ edge and offered a glimpse of the Ocean Heofon, he noticed a sailing ship at anchor some distance off the western coast. A lone banner fluttered from its rigging. Sandy beaches dressed the coastline, and no inlet would allow a large vessel to put in; the island’s docks lay far away on the eastern side. Domen paused to peer sharply at the curious activity: A small skiff took off from the ship and made for shore, two men rowing and a third sitting in front, grasping a long staff. A solitary pelican flew across the bow.
“He comes for one purpose,” Domen grimaced as he escaped into his dusky glade.
Coren stepped off the boat, and the beach gave witness to his presence upon Feallengod. A cloak draped his shoulders and simple peasant’s garb, a belt winding around the waist, a heavily laden sack slung over his shoulder. In his hand he bore the simple wooden staff of the island. His sandals left deep, soft scars in the white sand, healed by the warm touch of the waters.
One of the men manning the oars wiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm, further shading his eyes as he looked up to Coren. “My Lord, would you have us come with you?” he asked. “Grave danger lies in wait here.”
“No, you must return to the ship and set out for Gægnian,” replied Coren. “You need not be troubled. I must enter into the work of my father.”
Though he had never set foot upon Feallengod before, the expanse of land seemed familiar to Coren. A sudden shower had broken the early heat and left a musky fragrance hanging in the air, filling his senses as he stepped to his mission. As he trekked toward the community, he remembered his father’s tales of the tall forests and rising mountains, and his staff gave aid to his gait. Wading through Four Rivers, he recalled stories of the pure waters and the life they endowed upon the lush greenery. Such a bountiful gift had Feallengod been to this people.
I had no thought of the island’s inhabitants in those hours, nor knowledge of events soon to transpire at the outskirts of the community. I lay in the street groaning against the dawn, as was my plan. With thoughts of pilfering an apple or pear, I lurched to my elbows, but then fell back into hazy darkness. Barely did I see Gastgedal puking upon his hands and knees. My brain wafted into a dream or vision, something only on the verge of reality. I saw a figure, a shadow hard against the sun. Slight trails of water streamed around my shoulders, my shirt saturated by drainage and sweat. A hand upon my forehead, first cool, then quickly warm, and then strong under my neck. I felt my head drop suddenly back; as I struggled to lift and see, my mind only rolled about feebly and left me. My legs wagged from the knees as if I myself walked. What time passed, I can only guess. Some minutes or days later I awoke lying deep in soft mattresses and warm coverlets. “You are paid through the week,” the woman gruffly declared as she banged about the room. “Then you are out.”
From that day I foreswore the bottle, never again to crawl into its comforts. No gaining of wisdom inspired this decision, no wonderful reasoning borne of the advancing years, but merely the aging of my entrails – I couldn’t do it anymore. The memory of my body’s suffering served to make me long for sobriety, in liver if not mind. Greatly did Gastgedal complain against me for this rehabilitation in days to come, and I confess, at times I would surrender, only to swear off again. It mattered not either way – my will to stand upright was no match for its sister, the spirit of rebellion. Throwing off numbness, instead I put on false bravado to cover the conviction of my guilt. Violence doubled up upon violence. Yes, even in the face of his protests, I found ways to bind ever closer to Gastgedal.
As Coren crossed over into the orchards, he knew to look for their succulent fruits. In this one thing did the island disappoint him, for his eye met only an ill-kept field of weeds choking out crops, and vines with twisted branches of dead wood. Within the walls a single young man, dressed only in linen trousers, slowly worked a small patch of ground.
“Good fellow,” Coren addressed him. “Why do you toil alone this morning?”
“My father and brother have abandoned their labor,” he did not look up. “To tend the orchards requires too much work for me alone. I cannot produce a crop because birds and blight attack the trees, thorns and thistles tear at my hands and feet, and the fruit that does come I cannot save from thieves. The orchards carry a curse.” Though the youth detected a hauntingly aromatic fragrance in the air, still he did not lift his head from his tilling.
Coren pulled a handful of seed from his sack and cast them to the ground. “Plow them deep, dig around the roots, and this patch will again bear fruit unto you. I have come to set things right, Hatan. I am Coren.”
Hatan dropped his hands. Looking up at last, squinting into the sun, his face at first betrayed disbelief but suddenly sprang into genuine delight. “I know that name. It is no name of Feallengod — you are son of the king.” He threw down the hoe and snatched up his shirt, to cover his naked torso.
“Just as you say.”
“But where lie your royal courtiers? Where have you left the power of your office?”
“Today I arrive as one of you, a simple walker of Feallengod. A day comes when I will ride a war horse.”
Hatan threw up his hands. “At last, at last! Why have you waited so distant for so long? Feallengod saved at last! The people must listen to you! Feallengod must return its heart to the king now! He sends his son!” After months lying in ruins, Hatan’s spirit exulted.
Coren smiled. “Well you wonder, son of the soil; one day your questions will find satisfaction. Even now you see much and understand more; but tell no one of this for now,” he said. “First I must face Domen. Then we will bring our message to the people of Feallengod; lay aside your tools, and join me.”
“You will find Domen in the wilds, the darkest part of the forests.” Hatan struggled with his shirt as he hastened at the buttons. “I will follow you, but not there.”
“Well spoken. Your tender age has not cheated you of wisdom. Indeed, where I go, you can not follow; and yet you must in your own time. My task I face alone, but later I will need you, and require of you.”
“I will wait for you here.”
“Good day to you then, Hatan Feohtan. I will come to you again.”
Coren continued his way, turning off Beorn’s lorn path and toward the forests. This land was like a jewel to his father’s eye, like a delicate diorama set within a golden box. Coren fully understood now why the king so deeply loved the people, even in their fallen ways.
In the forests he declared himself. The very woods that had closed in on Beorn in his despair appeared to open wide a way for Coren. “Domen!” he called loudly. “I am Prince Coren, come for you. Show yourself.”
“I have seen you,” Domen’s voice crawled from the shadows.
“I will reclaim the people of Feallengod for the king.” Coren did not turn toward the voice, and Domen circled about from a thicket to face him. In his hand he bore a battered sword. Coren’s staff cut the air with a flash, swift and sudden as Domen’s flinching, and the blade flew from his hand. Coren stood before him placidly. “Your desire will lead you not to kill me, but only to serve.”
“I serve nobody,” said Domen, shaken.
“Make straight your path, Domen. Dare you challenge the king? Dare you truly, to challenge the heir?”
“I am prince of the island — so has he said.”
“That one thing you believe from the king’s mouth, but nothing else. A lord has many lords beneath him, and they answer to him, and serve at his beckoning.”
“I serve nobody,” Domen’s clinched teeth repeated.
“No?”
Domen fell to silent rage.
“Indeed Ecealdor makes you prince of the island, but not slave master to the people. They belong not to you, and as many as will come I will reclaim for Ecealdor.”
“As many as won’t, I will destroy,” retorted Domen. “And they won’t. They descend into their last chance; otherwise, Ecealdor wouldn’t send his precious son.”
“You will not appoint a last chance to these people. I come for neither end nor beginning, but only according to my father’s time. His judgment remains his deciding. You will not displace my father.”
“I will be just as he is.”
“You will be neither just as he is, nor just, as he is.”
Domen snarled at the proverb. “Perhaps I failed to understand; perhaps this will be your last chance. The people follow only me now, they serve me and nobody else. Join me, and I will give you part of their loyalty, you long for
it so. I will give you reign over Feallengod, a more tempting offer than death, you must agree.”
“I will serve the king only. Best you also, and his heir.”
“I will rule as king of Feallengod,” insisted Domen. “But I can give you dominion over the people, and all the glory of the land. Certainly you saw the beauty of the island as you came from the sea. Your feet trod the soil — make it your own! Claim your right as firstborn! I can give authority to whomever I will, if you will follow me.”
“I abide in the high palaces of Gægnian,” replied Coren. “Do I covet Feallengod? Does this island not already lay within the greater kingdom? I will follow the king only. You too must obey.”
“The king! How can you remain faithful after he sends you to this miserable lump of clay? Look about you, as you are utterly alone! No regal appointments here for your fine, royal head! No home, no fire, no comforts of any kind! Not even a simple servant to see to you here. The king has abandoned you, exiled you! He has even removed your princely robes. You’re no better off here than I.”
“Yes, consider yourself, Domen: Cast upon Feallengod, stripped of your greatness as penalty for your crimes. But I have chosen to take on my humility. I willingly make myself as common as my subjects, in order to win their love. My glory remains for me to take up again.”
“Prattle!” spat Domen. “Your humble grace will do no good upon Feallengod. My island chews up the humble and spits them out. Your humility will gain you only exhaustion and hunger among a selfish people. And yet you sojourn with nothing, not so much as a crust of bread! The king certainly takes good care of his one beloved son.”
“I will suffer weariness and hunger, indeed, but life flows over from more than food and rest. If the people of Feallengod had remembered that truth, they would not have fallen away from Ecealdor. They would have remembered to give in every way just as they have received. The truth of life abounds in his law.”
“Your law means nothing to me.”
“Nor did Ecealdor grant it you.”
“The king’s law lies as dead as its own stone carvings,” said Domen. “Even a rotten loaf can at least sustain maggots. Unless you can change a stone into bread, the law will not keep even a starving roach alive.”
“You have forgotten much, Domen,” said Coren. “I need not change a stone to bread; the law needs change stone into hearts, beating with kindness. Clinched fists must open up into caressing hands, and gnashing teeth soften into warm smiles. Your cursings have hardened many here upon Feallengod. My work will declare Ecealdor’s law, to show that these stones can bleed tenderly again.”
“You wax eloquent, Coren, but talk doesn’t fill an empty stomach. Do as I say, and I’ll present you a banquet that will leave you fat with merriment.”
“I will obey the king only,” Coren again said. “See to your own duty.”
Domen tried a third time. “Do I waste my breath? I just want you to see! Your misguided loyalty to Ecealdor endangers all of Gægnian. Do you not know what lies at stake? Can you not see how you break the king’s heart? You’re his only son – Coren – he loves you above all else in his kingdom. What if something happened to you? Peril stalks behind every tree upon Feallengod — what horrid fate might befall you here? You’re the last of the royal bloodline.”
“Ecealdor’s love extends beyond me, a love woven as one piece, as a covering for many. The king’s love reaches even to the depths of sacrifice.”
“If my men were to lay hold of you here upon Feallengod, the king would send legions for your rescue,” Domen said.
“You fill up with deceit, and you spawn nothing but lies. My father sends me not to bring judgment upon the people, though you may tremble. I have come to offer them covenant with the king. Do not think you can test the king nor know his designs, for in seeing you do not know, and in knowing you do not believe,” said Coren.
“Do you say then that were your life to come into danger, Ecealdor would not move to save you?” asked Domen. He knew the fullness of his future lay in the answer.
“You see me alone. You see me as a simple man. You see me unarmed. If you desire my life, with what can I defend it?”
“Then you make the challenge,” grinned Domen. “The love of your king against the power of my multitudes. Who do you say will claim the prize?”
“The fool surely turns back upon the pit he has dug,” replied Coren. “As for me, I will obey the king only.”
Coren looked to the skies. Through the dense foliage overhead winked brilliant points of light glowing from an orange sun — soon the brightness of the afternoon would fade. He turned his face toward Domen and addressed him a final time.
“I must work while light reveals the way, for darkness soon falls throughout Feallengod.”