Chapter Three – Reason for Hope
Strangely enough, I do remember a story of a man that was very rich. He had land as far as the eye could see and further still. He had servants for his servants and slaves for his slaves. All of his household were decked out in lavish paintings and great sculpture, gold lined trinkets were to be found on the left hand and right. He provided well for his whole household and all that served him on his lands. He had cattle and oriffs (also known as the greater oxen), horses and harvins, even elephants and mamotes. There was nothing that he lacked. He had a good wife that loved him, and children that made a diagonal line down from his head to the ground that they owned.”
One day this man takes in a passerby to lodge the night. As was his custom, he gave the man all that he wanted. He gave him a most-fine meal, a veritable meal fit for kings because of the abundance thereof. All was brought to his guest even before he should ask. He even told him his finest tales that had been handed down for many generations in the family, though some were of his very own creation. He always had painstakingly crafted each one as he went and had given them frills and embellishments so as to make all who heard them writhe in delight and drop jaw in amazement. He told the guest tale after tale of glory and cunning and tragedy and woe.
As the night waned on, the traveler saw that his host was getting a bit tipsy, for, in those parts (being found in the kingdom of Swaggersland), alcohol was not yet outlawed and wine was served frequently in those days, especially when guests should arrive. The inebriation of his host who had begun his drinking long before the traveler’s arrival elicited a distinct boldness from the guest. That boldness manifested itself in the form of a challenge.
“I have heard all of those tales, my gracious host! Tell me of something that I do not know.”
“Impossible! Those are tales that have been kept in my family for years! How could you know of them?” the dumbfounded host asked.
“These stories, are they not told to passersby as they stop for the night?”
“But of course!” the host sloppily nodded.
“When the people leave in the morning, do not those same tales walk away with them?”
“Ha, ha, ha! I suppose that they do at that!” the host agreed.
“Then tell me something that only you know.”
“Dear Sir, I hardly know you!”
The traveler flashed pearly white teeth and said, “You can trust me. Besides, who would believe me, a stranger in these parts? I should be laughed to scorn! At any rate, I can tell that you are a most-happy individual. What is the thing that has brought you the greatest happiness in this life?”
“I suppose that you are right. Besides, you look like the kind of person that I can trust with my most prized story!” the host said, hoping to somehow impress the stranger, who was proving to be an extremely difficult audience. “This is a tale that no one else has heard, save my wife, and of which I am most proud.”
The tale of which he was the absolute most proud was the one that told of the ring which he wore. The traveler was not at all impressed with the ring, as it was not nearly as ornate as the rest of his lavish belongings and even that which furnished said belongings. It was a very simple, cut-up ring made of tarnished pewter, not something that attracted attention, save it be in disgust.
You see, that ring was given to him by his dear wife on the day that they were married. His wife had insisted that she would never marry him if he did not wear that ring day and night, as it had been handed down from one father to his son in her family for nearly three hundred years. As her father had not produced a male heir and, as he was now dying of a rare lung disease, it was decided that the ring should be given to the man that his daughter should deem worthy to be her husband.
He had never known what she could see in him, for when he was younger, he was not very well kempt, and he had a habit of chewing his nails. He was portly then and had no really attractive features of which to boast. He had very little experience with the ladies due to his shortcomings and to the fact that he was painfully aware of those flaws. To make matters worse his mother constantly meddled in his so-called love life, matching him with girls that were either way out of his class or incapable of attending any school at all.
“I met my wife one day when it was bitter cold and raining.” the host half-mumbled. “Though she did not feel quite herself that day, she had left her home in the morning when it was sunny and warm, at least for autumn, and had walked the two-mile jaunt into the nearby town’s merchant sector. When the weather turned, she was caught in the cold rainy weather.” he began. “People had passed by and never gave her a second thought as she shivered on her way back home. One man had been an on again, off again suitor that seemed to turn up when another one of his objects of attention had wised up and sent him packing. He watched her from a distance, and their eyes met for a second or two, but he grabbed his bandaged arm and left her there to shiver alone in the cold as he drove home. Anyway, she began to burn in fever and felt her strength greatly waning. She didn’t feel that she would last much longer in this world.”
The host went on to tell how the woman had been praying that someone should have pity on her when she felt a peaceful kind of overwhelming warmth enter into her heart and seem to speak the words into her mind that she should pray. She prayed. She prayed that whomever the Lord should send, let that be a sign to her as to whom she should marry. She promised that, should she make it out of that situation that she would help her husband be the type of man that he should be, one that God would have him to be.
“That is precisely when I came along!” the host explained. “Normally, I would not have dared to look her direction, let alone stop to help. She just looked so cold and frightened . . . like a lost kitten. I stopped, got out of my rig, and was about to ask if she needed help when she fainted right into my arms! My mother later said that it was the only way that she could see that I would ever meet such a woman, especially one that literally fell for me!” he laughed.
The guest did not.
“That is your story? How you met your wife? I can see that it must be a properprecious story for you, but you have obviously overlooked your audience!”
“Oh, no!” replied the host. “I really do not think so. In fact, from the sound of your last statement, you could use this tale, in particular! In fact, this tale might be the perfect one for your ears!”
“You already said that.”
“Did I?!” returned the host with such vehemence that it neared the most innocently playful belligerence, but did not quite make it there, thankfully enough.
The two stared at each other for quite some time. The host was quite comfortable to wait for the traveler to break the silence. He was debating in his mind if the traveler actually deserved to hear the story. What the man should say or do next would be the determining factor. Should he be patient enough to hear, the wisdom infused within it could be imparted, should he make feign for an excuse and leave, the wisdom would remain with its host. But there was one thing that the host had not counted on; the man had a wicked ego. He was not going to be waited out by a lesser man. So, the two men sat and waited for the other to speak. At length, the host decided that the night had waned on long enough. He was tired and did not mind saying so. He drew a breath to do so, but the guest suddenly sensed that perhaps he was being beaten to the punch, so he blurted out something semi-incoherent.
“What was that?” the host asked in disappointment that the man could come up with nothing better. “I could not hear you, or, at least, I could not completely make out whatever kind of thing it was that you were trying to convey to me.”
“Uhhhmmmm . . . I was . . . wondering if you could . . . be so kind as to continue your story.” he terrible toot-lied. “Er . . . please continue!?” he stated in a quizzical manner.
“My dear sir, you are most comical!” laughed the host. “Were it not so, I should feel the urge to retir
e for the night! As it is, I shall continue with my story that I may repay you the amusement with my story. Now, where was I?”
“You had just met your wife.” the guest said, poorly disguising his sarcasm.
With eyebrows raised in display of thinning patience, the host continued his story.
“I picked Freya up and placed her in my carriage. Though she protested when she momentarily awoke, I did not stop at her home, but drove her straight to the nearby doctor’s house, which was, luckily enough, a mere twenty minutes away from where we were.”
The doctor said that we were lucky that she had been brought to him as soon as she was, for had she been delayed much longer, she could have been paralyzed or dead. “Take your pick from the two!” the doctor had stated.
Soon the servants were called, water was boiling, medicine was sought and brought, and the doors to the chamber where they worked were closed that the crew could go about their work undisturbed by others’ best intentions. They worked for what seemed like hours, but may have only been three-quarters of an hour, tops. At length, the doctor emerged, as the others finished the final tasks in the young lady’s treatment.
The young man never left her side after that, not for very long. He fed her and brought her books to read. When she was tired, he would read for her. Eventually, she let him read the books to her, as she loved to see the characters brought to life by his voice and the gleam in his eye as he relished each instance of imagery, alliteration, personification, nuance, and irony. Old favorites became new through his eyes and voice.
She never fully recovered from the disease. She had trouble walking on some days. Others, she could get along fairly well, only to awake the next morning, excited for the new day, and find that she had no strength to even get out of bed. She thanked the Lord daily for a man that served her so lovingly as her now suitor did.
“She has said as much to me every day for the whole of our marriage.” the host explained. “You see, it was the fact that our strengths together outwaited our weaknesses that made it possible to achieve all that you have seen here.”
“You mean, outweighed . . . Your strengths outweighed your weaknesses . . . and you keep moving from the first person to third.”
“No! I did not mean that, not at all!” the host retorted. “There is no reason that strengths cannot outwait one’s weaknesses. If not so, how can they be called strengths? There was no other way. She had been brought up with money, but her father’s illness had eaten the vast amount of it away in his treatments. I was the son of merchants as well, but we had never prospered much. As far as third or first person? Well, you have me there. Maybe I have had too . . .”
“So you believe that it was God that made a match of you two, straight out of heaven?” the guest sneered skeptically.
“I know so.” volleyed the host, disturbed by the lack of flow in the guest’s line of questioning. “I already told you of my wife’s prayer. Well, I, too, was praying, not in that very same moment like she, but I had spent a considerable amount of time pleading with the Lord that he help me find a woman that . . .”
“That would help you to be the kind of man that He would want you to be?” interrupted the skeptic.
The host took a breath and let out a sigh. He pondered how he should proceed, and then it came to him. He would merely tell him the truth, no matter what the man should think of him. It was always his policy, anyway.
“My dear . . . guest!” the host reminded. “I wish that such were the case! I was merely asking for one that could overlook my faults. I had no hope, at that point, to ever overcome them; I just wanted someone that should have compassion on me. The rest of it came later.”
“Anyway, I won’t . . . rather, I will not bore you with the rest of the details, because it is a long, intricate story which I started in the middle,” said Garrve, seeming to interrupt his own story, because he had. “However, at one point, the host says to the guest that it was the ring that his wife gave him that changed his life. As he wore that ring night and day, he noticed that others began to treat him differently. He concluded that at length it happened that others began to see in him that which his wife had seen in him from that very first day.
“The guest . . .” Garrve continued.
“Turns out to be the man that turned the other way when the wife was caught in the rain . . . the ‘on again, off again suitor’ that refused her help.”
“Quite so!” agreed Garrve. “Anyway, the whole point of the story is summed up towards the end. It states that ‘Once one should choose a path’ . . .”
“One cannot choose where that path leads.” finished Joan. “Oh, I love that story! It has always been one of my favorites. You know Ga’erthwaé, then?”
“Apparently, I do.” Garrve conveyed with a surprised guise drawn by widened eyes.
“Well, great Effulgence! He is one of my favorite writers! Many people debate whether the ring in the story had some sort of great enchantment, or if it was all imagined. What do you think?”
“I think that it has different meanings for each of the characters, depending upon what value each in turn assigned it. The guest seems to believe that the ring is the source of the happiness and prosperity of the happily married couple. He cannot see that the happiness and prosperity are not inseparable. Ironically, only upon separating the one from the other can one see the real reason for their happiness. But, blinded by jealous rage and greed, the guest believes the ring to be enchanted. The very ring that he believes to be enchanted becomes his great curse. This leads him to turn thief and lose his mind, his wealth, and, eventually, his life.
“The host, on the other hand, sees the ring as a reminder that the best things in life are not purchased with gold. It is serving others in deepest humility that binds them in unity (in this case, it binds him with and to his wife). With such unity achieved, the capacity to achieve greater things blossoms within him, and he is seen by others as his wife has always seen him.” Garrve explained.
“Yes, I see your point! To the wife, the ring represents a long line of familial and religious vows that cannot be broken. Her ancestors had all trusted in the Lord to help them find the one that would be their true love, and, as wealthy merchants, they had the freedom to do so. With God’s blessing through those vows, they could stay strong and prosper through good and bad times. My father loves that book! It has been a favorite in the family. He even named . . .” Joan trailed off.
“I also love the writings of Ga’erthwaé, though I do not know how it is that I do know his works.” Garrve expounded. “My lady, as royalty, your path may not be as set in stone as you should believe.”
“You mean that there may still be a way out of prearranged marriage?”
“No, Lady Joan, I mean that within the scope of that same path, just as the host in that story begins to see his true worth as he serves his wife and others around him, so can you make the pathway brighter and much more full as you choose to plant flowers along the way. God provides for those that obey His commandments. Honoring your father is included in that.”
“It just seems too hard to . . .”
“Joan! You can do this! You can get through this sorrow! We all must pass through sorrow if we are to truly learn to love and live as we should. You said yourself that you did a great deal for each other, that much seems true, as you are so emotionally affected as you tell the tale. You felt that things were right because you were doing things that are right. You were planting flowers along the path. Even though that path took you through hardship and extreme danger, you still saw the journey as a sweet dream. Where there was treachery, you saw excitement. You exchanged bitterness for kindness, evil for good, hatred for true love. You know how to plant the flowers along the pathway. Maybe you will not see all of them bloom, but you will know that you will have improved the path, if not only for yourself, then for others, as well.”
“My dear new fri
end, you must be a most excellent man!” Joan began, with a tearful smile. Few that I have met have even read Ga’erthwaé, as he is deemed by many as too difficult to understand. Not only have you have done so, but you seem to have digested that knowledge, as it is a part of you. I never got the chance to ask, but it seems that Alban, or whatever his name was, knew Ga’erthwaé as well.”
“It seems that a man either gets it, or he does not. It is a good, sound tale that is based on good, sound principles.”
“It is based upon the word of God.” Joan offered. “But, I guess that is what you mean by good, sound principles.”
“Quite so.” agreed Garrve.
“I have found some of the plants!” yelled a man. “There are still some blooms on them!”
“Excellent!” Garrve exclaimed. “Let the camp be set up, that we may not cause so great a burden be placed on Joan! Everyone roll out your beds . . . or a bed, as we have no knowledge of what belongs to whom. We will just go and sniff until we are drowsy, and then, we will just curl up in bed. I do not think that Joan should like to try and lug us to camp after we should pass out. Wafflesgonks, pull the wagons up along the ridgeline of that plateau up there. Nordolst . . .”
“Nordholst!” corrected Joan.
“Yes!” agreed Garrve, though he did not try to pronounce the name again. “You go and round up some trigore biscuits. I saw a large deposit back by the bonfire bushes. Get a fire going, please.”
Wafflestonks and Nordholst nodded and started off to accomplish their respective tasks.
“It would be much easier if we were to pull the plants from the ground and ‘sniff’ as you put it” Joan began with laughter. “Anyway, if the drug were administered while they were already in bed, no one will have to drag anybody else around.”
“A most excellent idea!” Garrve agreed.
“Now if we could just get some water!” Joan replied.
Garrve again agreed, noting that it could prove to help knock off the edge of the misery’s sorrow as well as keep some who were already weak due to thirst.
Soon, camp was set up and the group found itself lining up to be exposed to the venomous plants again. Most were nervous, as they believed that the whole idea was an experiment, and the outcome was uncertain. Joan assured them that it was a tried and proven method that had been successful in at least two people that she knew, though there was the risk that the toxins may be the cause of more deaths. The group unanimously decided that the cure was worth the risk, as the people that they had once been were dead already, should they remain as they were. So the line grew quickly and tapered off almost as quickly.
Joan hoped that there would be no storm that night, as she was not as strong as Alban, nor very experienced in such things. She was pleased with what she was able to accomplish, though. Finally, all were bedded down and in tents or makeshift lean-tos as the stars began to show themselves in the night sky.
Joan knelt in prayer, thanking the Lord for her blessings, and then she climbed into Ryan’s wagon and got ready for bed. She thought that she would never get to sleep that night, with all that had happened that day racing through her head. She looked around at the bed where she had stitched up the object of her affection many times over and where she had nursed him back to health time and time again; her heart grew very weary all of the sudden. She did not want to sleep on that same bed, but there was no other, as Garrve had been given Decebal’s wagon.
She flung herself onto the bed. She remembered that, whenever they had gotten themselves into trouble, her father was always telling people that they had made their beds and now they must lie in them. She had known better than to give her heart to a slave. Something just seemed to have made her do it. Thinking that maybe it was the fact that he had saved her life more than once did not feel right. She knew deep, down inside that it was the reason that he saved her life that made her love him so much. She began to sob and asked the Lord in her heart to take the pain away. She felt somewhat betrayed when it was not taken from her. In fact, it seemed to swell up all the more. Some water sure would have helped to soothe the lump in her throat.
That night, she dreamed of him again. When she awoke in the dark, there were already tears streaming down her face, and the lump in her throat was all the sorer. She wondered how she would be able to honor her future husband in Alban’s memory, even though her heart would always be his.
She fell back to sleep with tears still streaming from her eyes down towards her ears.