~~~
MAN
Dedicated to Bowen Lyndal
I wake up after a shield rim that I think’s cracked my cheek. It hurts a great deal. I guess I can forgive the bastard though, I did have a good poke about his guts.
I'm a knight, one who's earned his title on the field. I’m good at being a knight. Now that I think on it, I'm good at court and I HAD thought I was good on the battlefield, yet somehow I managed to let this one go by around me, oblivious to it all. We'd lost the fight, I'd had a good rest, and hopefully I'd make it home now without dying from one infliction or another.
So now, recovered and thinking I'd had enough at looking at a rain heavy sky, I roll over and begin to drag my aching body across the dank, bloody ground, trying to keep out of sight. It’s cold, and sweat and blood chills me. My hands come into contact with a body, drenched with blood, next to him are more bodies so I pull my way up and over it, pausing momentarily to look into a face stilled with pain deep in his expression. His innards have spilt all about him and I slip on them as I roll over his body. His sword lies nearby, chipped to hell. I imagine he had done some damage before he’d met his end. I pat him on the shoulder, there’s a good soldier.
My beard is caked with dried blood, my hair, unbound, is in knots and lank hanging clusters, dried with more blood, more sweat, freezing in the winter air. This is why I usually cut it, I remember. Court had brought out my vanity, curse it for its love of locks.
A wounded lad screams in the distance. He's woken to his wounds and knows that soon he'll die. He is calling the names of people he knows, probably from his squad. He wants help. I'd help, but I have the feeling we just lost, that’s why I’m crawling in the mud, not running around shouting my victory or poking about the ruined men for coppers or a better hauberg. I need my horse. I have to get out of here.
I can see Farfetch not so far from the battlefield, nibbling at some scrub, waiting for me to get to my feet and come to her.
There’s someone coming toward ME though. I can hear his feet squelching in the mud. I lie still, play dead. A sturdy sword lies not so far away, long, straight and simple. I visualize my plan: if I roll at the right time, I could grab it, swing it up and cop who ever it is that comes, square in the face. I'd wedge it so far into the fucker, his scalp would split right in half. I could do that, I reckon.
He comes, but I can hear he has sped to a jog, his chain mail jingling to his movement. "Play dead will ya!" He grunts between breaths. I perform my roll, take up the sword, thanking the earth mother I am still unhit, swing at thin air and see him plunge his spear into another man who screams loudly.
Shit.
The bastard looks startled to see me rise up from the dead. He hauls on the spear to free it, but the dying man screams anew at that and holds tight to the shaft still buried in him. One, two steps and on the third I bring the sword down on my helpless opponent, cleaving open his face and chest. A very satisfying sound, that parting of muscle and bone.
"Finish me." I can only agree with my dying saviour. I'd ask the same thing if a spear pinned me to the cold earth like that. My new blade falls with a heavy clump as it pierces his heart. This is a good sword. It has a good weight and balance. I'd think up a name for it soon. Not like a baby who'd grow into a name, a sword is an instrument that needs to earn its namesake. It’s certainly coming close to doing so already today, we'd see what characteristic it truly favored soon, I am sure. I feel lucky, it is lucky, and maybe I'll put lucky in the name. Hmmmm.
I turn about at the cry of others in the distance, I feel an arrow glance off my helmet. I run to the horse, leap into the saddle and turn her about quick smart, aiming her in a charge right down the sights of my attackers, all four of them. A second arrow slices the edge of my neck and catches in my chain hood. There is a brief cheer from my opponents until they realize it is only a skin deep wounding, no major arteries cut or wind pipes severed. Bastards, I'd teach ‘em what it meant to loose an arrow at Sir Roy Broken Spears!
The first one gains no luck as he swings his sword into my parry. In turn, I swing hard at his head, splitting and cutting deep his unhelmed skull. I leap from my horse, my battle rage renewed. I charge into the next man, catching his first strike on my arm. I’m mailed, but I know he'd cracked my bone. With agony in my lungs I scream and ram, the crossguard of my sword burying deep into his eye socket, a sickening sound, like pulling your leg from deep mud. I run my blade along his neck, down and back up to parry a spear thrust, I punch hard with my broken arm, crying with pain and the next pulsing bolt of rage. The blade rings off this man’s helmet as he goes down. He is merely stunned. I leave him and take on the last fucker, trusting in my reflexes that check his first swipe at the hilt, ruining his fingers. I kick him to the ground. He grabs, with what he can still use, at my sword as I push it into his chest with my own body weight. His screams come like hell. I spin and leap, swordless to the stunned one, by this time recovering. I take to his throat, pulling him to the ground, wrestling till I am atop, pushing back a screaming face and bending down, I spread my mouth wide to bare my teeth over his jugular, to clamp down on it, till fresh hot blood oozes around my tongue, wetting my parched lips. Then I pull at it swift and sudden, tearing it wide, blood pissing up to repaint my painted face.
Time seems to slow down, there is a nice quiet suddenly about. The crows peck and squawk already, and men still groan and complain about their deaths to come, but I find a grey peace. I push myself off him. His children and wife would not see him again, nor the wives of any of the men who sprawled about me, or their children. But my wife would see me and for that it was worth it. That’s four less we'd have to face somewhere else. I am a soldier, this is my job, killing and dying for King and Country. Knowing this brings me my peace, the only kind of peace that can be found in a place like this.
I can hear horses this time. I'd show them what a real horse was made of. I slip back into Farfetch's saddle, ignoring the pain in my arm. It is just cracked, no bone setter is needed, just a bit of grin and bearing till I get home. My horse is fresher than theirs. She'd rested an hour or so now, maybe more. I never tended to use her much in combat anyway. I am new to the saddle compared to born knights. I often fell off. In reality I am just a lucky rank and file man, my horse is more of a companion and a quick retreat, as she would be used for now. I spring away from the battlefield and their pursuit only lasts a minute or two. I guess I'd made up for my sleeping. I'd killed enough today. How many? Who cared?
The way home starts as nothing unusual. I patch up my neck wound and make a sling for my arm. I get some water into me and eat some dried fruits from my saddlebag. That night, I make camp in a barn away from a householder’s family, a good idea as they have a mighty pretty young daughter and my adrenaline is taking its time to lax. The householder presents me with a half-loaf of bread and some ale. His name is Tod, a good farmers name. He makes an honest living, too. He is never shy about paying his taxes, I am informed. One day, he hopes to see his son marry Tom Thomson’s daughter, but that is a year or two yet and he is happy to have his son as his own a bit longer. His son wants to march for his king. I said it was a good idea, nothing could make a man prouder than giving blood for king and country and the good men like Tod who worked it. Yes, I'd fight again. Not for a week or two I hoped, my arm needed SOME healing, but I'd certainly be sent back out. I'd be wasted talent otherwise. Tod nods sagely as I explain these facts.
By morning, I am feverish and my wounds, infected. Tod has slapped some healing herbs behind fresh new bandages, but I doubt they will do all that much, save for having me smell like a salad. I laugh at that as I get a whiff of it, climbing wearily into the saddle.
The road ponders on through the countryside of scrappy bush and farmland, cattle mostly. I am boiling hot with fever and sweating like hell, though it is windy and cold. I have to get back home, to real healers. I find myself slumping in my saddle and feel ashamed to be seen so weak. But I can’t help it. I
really have become quite tired.
It occurs to me I am dying. Many soldiers die this way, it is honorable. You die from your wounds but you still win the fight! I can’t ask for anything more... Save to see my wife again. I am only twenty or something. I have no children to carry on my name. I haven’t carried out my duties as a man yet! Who among my blood would replace Roy to fight for his king in future generations? No one! I’m gonna die here, on the road, a sack of potatoes on horseback. Sonless and daughterless. Bugger.
Lucky for me, or not, I don’t die. I fell from my horse at some point and now she's likely pulling a plow in a field someplace. I lie on the road. My arm hurts a lot and my neck throbs, infected. It is really annoying. The pain is unforgiving. I want to get up, but I know it won’t let me. I want to report to my Lady! I want a good meal. I want to see my woman, sit at the ale house with the lads and drink till I drop...
"He's handsome!" The female says, lying on my left flank. She affectionately pats my head. "A warrior. Would you look at his strength." Her thigh climbs up the side of my body, slightly lifting my unbelted tunic to expose some flesh.
"He hasn't got a very full beard yet, I think he is young." The man thing on the other side of me points out as he runs one long finger along my mustache. His other hand also dabbles in my hair.
"Such beautiful long hair he has." The female says, her voice a pondering stream of silk, her touch, suddenly on my hand, has my breath so instantly caught in my throat it hurts. I feel so intimately intimidated, yet cannot fight it for the pure undeniable love of these touches.
"He IS muscular!" The man thing says proudly, running an elegant hand over my chest then down, down, down to my lower stomach where he gently pushes against my muscles.
"Open your mouth." She demands huskily, "I want to see whether I might find your soul in there." I'd not known these creatures till I'd woken up only a minute or two ago, yet I obey.
"Big canines." The man thing exclaims, and moves closer against me to peer at them, while his hand pulls away the skin of my cheek. He looks at them so intently, his eyelids folding back from startling blue, blue eyes like two bright pools of inquisitive ocean. "A warrior’s teeth."
"Sharp." She states as she runs her fingers along them. "I'm impressed." And she sounds genuine. I feel so admired and loved.
I stretch my arms out past them, and to no surprise at all, they burrow into my embrace. He lays his head on my shoulder to lightly rub the tip of his nose across my earlobe, back and forth, back and forth. I lay my hand on his hip, so lean.
She lets me wrap a hand around and underneath her. She weaves into my embrace and rests herself on an elbow so femininely it shocks me not at all to feel a stirring in my loins. She looks down into my eyes and holds them in her depths so entirely I feel nothing else but her isness and her want. A want she reveals so readily and truthfully it frightens me.
He brushes his nose up over my face so lightly it only tickles the downy hairs like a breeze. But his mouth does otherwise, it catches, his teeth snagged onto my beard, a light tug of a bite.
Her hand startles me away from the man thing’s attention as she lays it across the flesh of my stomach. I am hers again. She leans down and kisses so silently the man, ever looking at me. My eyes are caught on the soft meeting between them. I see a beautiful light that glimmers upon the edge of the dry and wet of their lips, meeting like the sea and the land. Her hand trickles and skips up to my chest where it rests firmly again. The man thing’s hand does likewise and lands on top of hers, my shirt is in rolls up under my arms.
He leans down to kiss my hair, while she exposes her body from beneath a simple gown that slips off her with the same slow, graceful speed that she spurs her flesh to meet with mine.
"Who are you?" I ask.
"You have a rugged voice!" The woman exclaims, more than a hint of admiration there. Her body is golden, like no artwork could describe. Its shape so lovely in the world around me. Her wings catch the light in a whirl of black and orange as they shiver with sexual tension dying to be released. "What animal is he?" She asks the man thing on a breath. Her breasts are like ripe fruit, her hips round and her waist small. She is woman as no woman could ever be. And her flesh is so soft!
"Something powerful." He observes and his top has disappeared. His body is beautiful too. I can appreciate that. I am not queer! But I cannot deny his beauty. It is as if stating water is sand to think otherwise. His own stomach is long and bell shaped, his chest small but strong, his wings longer and leaner than hers, like leaves ,and are coloured as though. I am not queer.
"Like a lion?" she asked.
"Or a wolf?"
"A bear?"
"A buck?"
"A boar?"
"A falcon or an eagle?"
"A kangaroo!"
"A horse."
"An elephant."
"Tiger?"
"Dingo."
They were gone. Walked away as if into a fog, consumed by my awakening. The bush is about me. Cold and grey. The thumping of some animal, probably a roo, womping away somewhere in the scrub. I am thirsty and my arm aches. My neck feels infected, but not as if I'll die. Well there is no relief then. HA.
I climb to my feet, aching. My sword is not missing, nor my mail. But I am naked and all my clothes are gone. Fucking fairies. I will walk away under steel alone and chafe and blister and be pinched to hell beneath it, right down to my cock!
SO? What am I? What animal is mine? I guess they talked about spirit animals. Most men carried their animal tattooed onto their back. I'd never been given one or found my characteristics in any.
Who cares. I want home.
And that’s what I find in the waning morning of the third or fourth day. A cold shell of a home. Its grey stone walls hold the funeral pyre, no doubt to my woman, whose legs emerge from the door, roasted and half eaten by the carrion beasts. Amon, the death god, hops about the village, honoured with yet another feast!
Time is in a whirl. A whirl that spins faster and faster, like I am standing still but the world drags against me. A boulder in a stream. I can’t feel much and know I should be worried and sad. I can’t even feel my wounds with much emotional content. My wife lies dead. She'd have been raped. She was beautiful. She likely would have put up a fight, but against soldiers with a likely practice for the savaging of innocence? She wasn't a big girl. She was lean like a willow. Beautiful, I guess. I was satisfied with her. What man could ask for more than that. She was ever afraid I'd not return from my work, however. But I had always thought that that was what kept her rapists and murderers from knocking on the door. She had been so beautiful...
It is cold suddenly. I find my self where I'd left it. But where was that? Tears fall and fall again. I can’t stop my bellows of echoing woe through the emptiness of the town. Or the graveyard it now was. I'm too young for the cruelties of war. I should have been a farmer. Maybe in the fields I would have seen them coming and had time to run to Sherly wood with the woman. But for king and country I...
A true warrior is a man aware of his own presence. He draws a circle about himself and calls it his world. He expands his circle about his enemies and in it those he calls enemies die. In his world, his enemy is all and all that must not be. The warrior is a time bomb, for his own world he must destroy.
First, my body will heal. Then I’ll make a great many stakes on which I will skewer and let rot the severed heads of my enemy. I'll wear the skin of their leaders like fine silk when I go to make more of my revenge. I'll butcher with my fine new sword. I’ve named it Lucky. Plain and simple, for it is as lucky as any sword could be for its purpose. It will face all the enemies of the world and come through to win the day with me behind it. Its edge may be little better than a bludgeoning stick by the end, but it will be a happy bludgeon still. Oh my Lucky, my lucky sword. This truly is your day. I give you my arm in return for your edge.
“Happy work”, I call it as I take to the collecting of my stakes. They are long, a m
an and a half tall. I sharpen them with a hand axe. They are pine.
My arm is healed enough now. It’s been a week. The labour is putting body strength back together. I think I will let it take a shield or an axe to accompany my sword. My cheek is taking longer to heal and a few teeth have fallen out. My neck has healed up finely though, I think it may scar. I have so many. I've heard it’s character building. I personally think they’re just good to show off to lassies when you’re drunk. I am drunk a lot, I find, and yesterday I took the day off to nurse my head. The faeries came back that day to see how I was and to return my clothes. They still had no animal for me to call my own. Again, the female vanished into the fogs of time before I was truly granted her body. Game-playing bitch.
I went to an apocathary in a town to buy some quick poisons. I mixed them with oil thickly, and poured it into the scabbard of my sword. I had had to buy a new scabbard for my new sword, as the old one was an inch too short and tapered to a point quicker than the new sword required. I had it tailor-made with a row of heads on spikes fashioned into the leather.
I spent a night in a tavern where I met Robert the Insane.
"Hail, you lord of war." He sat by me. "Is it blood you call for?" He looked me deep in the eye, one, then the next. "Or is it something more?"
"Rhyme away crazy man."
"Door whore."
"Yes?"
"Gore tore."
"They rhyme."
"Come, all ye lords of war and taste bitter Luck. Bitter sweet with a poison’s treat. A nail driven deep into thy chest, pushed and pressed by the war gods best."
"I'll wear blood like a second skin."
"You'll be a cracked smelly thing. A sun-dried turd, but with the smell of rot!"
"Like a dried rose, pissed on... I care not."
"So revenge is your game? In whose name? For who and for what? The fallen door, of the house to the torn at whore, the carrion’s store. For the souls, small and big, I can see the running of great herds of hearts skewered that follow your footsteps. Blood-red, the rosy things, sprouting from within like a growth, your sword protrudes."
"Well put." I admit. "You mean my wife? Don’t call her a whore. She wasn't and is not."
"I rhymed." He confessed his nature and made no excuse for it. I admired that.
"True, but the memory of it insults me ever more as we think on it. I'm not going to kill you, but should there be anything in between? Should I crack your nose flat? Would that do me any justice? No, you speak words and I kill... We cannot confront, for you don’t mean to insult me and I don’t mean to kill you."
"But If I accidently insult you, does that not mean you may accidently kill me."
"My skill at killing is better than yours at speaking."
"What have these men done that deserves your killing if all they did was their job."
"They have done their job and for that I will kill them as my job dictates."
"There are many."
"That doesn't matter."
"You'll win what you can, but not all."
"I will win over all."
"And I will record all and tell it."
"This is a good thing. I would be remembered for my deeds."
"Then that is my work. Let us do it and never fail."
The next day, we went to work on the first chapter of my story or the first verse to whatever Robert the Insane would write or sing about me.
I know the keep well. I approach it at night. It’s a dark, old stocky structure. It’s squat but sturdy. There seems nothing strange about it from this side, but along the road to it there are the bodies of its previous owners, my friends, impaled on tall pikes.
I squat in a muddy paddock, slowly sinking into it up to my ankles, just a short-wall away. I watch silently and keep still to note the movements of the guards. They’re posted and hardly talk. I have decided that these men on the walls are the first I must be rid of. They are yeomen.
I hop the wall and the sheep bleet and begin to run. Picking up my ladder, I use it to herd them towards the fort. I myself look like a sheep in their skins. In the dark, they must not see me or they'll riddle my shield with their arrows.
So I go at the walls like a frightened sheep.
"Must be a wolf, or something, out there." A guard says as he leans out over the wall to spot a target for his bow.
The end of my ladder rises quickly and belts him in the face. He falls back over the other side.
"We're under attack!"
I never knew I could climb a ladder so fast. All the same, a rock glances off my helm. I can not help but laugh.
There’s a sword point waiting for me at the top, but I hurl my hand axe at him and he backs off.
I'm on the walls now and an arrow rams its head straight through my shield and stops there. Another hits it and another. I'm in hysterics. The lad with the sword, and a lad he certainly is, comes at me. I cut off his leg and let him die by my poison. Another arrow. My sword flies spinning when I throw it at an archer, the hilt cops him in the face. I re-hurl my hand axe and take another.
A man comes at me with a sword and I let him hit my helm that rings and dents, but my shield rim finds his face. I then rush another archer and put my dagger into his fleeing back. I throw this as well and leave it in a man.
I'm fighting a swordsman now with shield and arrow. My arrow darts about his sword and scratches his face now and then, not doing much until I puncture his eye and boot him from the wall.
I've found my own sword again. I re-poison it and fight some more. More and more. I don’t feel quite fit enough, but I'm so lucky with my sword. I don’t even feel like I have to do much. I just laugh and sometimes cry. I even get mad sometimes, like the men I kill have done me a great wrong... But I can’t remember what that was. Am I not a soldier? I have no better cause to kill an enemy than that.
The fairies fly about watching. They cheer my name. "Roy Broken Spears fights like a demon!"
I'm removing a head. Men are trying to fence me into a corner with long pikes. My shield is a ruined thing, so I let my left carry the head for a weapon. I spin it by the hair, round and round. The head’s bleeding gets in the eyes of an opponent, and I break his knee with my blade.
I charge the wall of men, roll across the ground beneath and under their guards, dart in the blade, push at a man, scatter them, head butt, trip, check, strike. I flick poison at a man’s eyes from my removed scabbard. I crack a mans bollacks, knee his face. Slit a throat, break an arm, crush a nose. I cleave and butcher. I'm washing myself with lovely blood. It’s soaked me and has made my hilt slippery.
The fairies descend from their flying and cheering. They land among many dead men. In fact, we three are all that lives, save the horses in the stables. I go about collecting heads.
"You have no animal spirit, Roy." The female says with a shake of her head and I stop my work to look at her. She eyes me lovingly. "Only man is capable of such massacre." She comes and kisses me. "You are all man, down to your core, you are humanity."