A single electric light-bulb shone through grimy cabin windows to reveal a single bearded man sitting on a threadbare chair at a once-green desk. The man- Harold- dipped his pen in his inkwell and touched the nib to the rough surface of his notebook and then stopped. The ink dripped and he scowled at the waste, but his rebellious fingers refused to write another word. Finally, he leaned back and sighed.
He had set out to write a tragedy. Throughout his novel, he had manipulated circumstance and shaped the major players to make the fall of the Kingdom of Mercia almost inevitable, leaving only a small irrational hope alive. And now he had to kill even that.
With a heavy heart, he began writing:
-
Her eyes searched his face and then stopped, satisfied. There was a tenderness in her that he had scarcely ever seen; usually she was fiery and hotheaded and an absolute nightmare for the royal maids. Their son was uncharacteristically quiet too, nestled in the comfortable pocket between the crook of her elbow and her bosom.
“You knew that this day would come.” There was no accusation in her voice.
He gestured to the sea of tents surrounding them. “We still have five thousand men. Have a little faith. ”
She wove warm fingers through his hair. “You always were so defiant,” she added, tugging at his crown. “But all are bound by the eternal wheel. Action begets reaction, what is sown must be reaped. Not even you may escape this enduring truth.”
He snorted and slapped his sword. “Such talk is the province of sadhus and other holy men, not of kings! I believe in what I can see: the lances of my knights and the stout shields of my fighting men.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Does your Majesty not see the arms of your enemies?” She gestured at the many camps circling the foot of the mountains. Even the distance and the morning fog could not hide the many banners below them, especially the flashy red-and-gold emblems of the Traitor Dukes.
The King coughed. “They may possess two lances and three shields for each of mine, but numbers do not decide victory.” His eyes sharpened. “Mercia yet endures!”
“But you will not endure. The skeins of karma may weave on a tangled loom, but their grasp is absolute and impenetrable. Man may propose, but it is Heaven that disposes.” She stepped back, smiling even as tears ran down her cheeks and unto the packed earth.
“Forgive me, your Majesty.”
“What is there to forgive?” He scowled and gestured for her to return but she ignored him. Instead, she stepped forward towards a nearby precipice, eyes fixated on distant peaks that trailed the horizon.
The King’s eyes widened. “No!” He bellowed, lunging for her without an ounce of dignity or gravitas but she spun out of his grasp and then she was on the very edge- the edge that he feared would crumble away in a second. She wasn’t more than a cubit from him but he dared not reach for her for fear of what she might do.
“No, “ he repeated, dropping into the royal we. “We command you- do not jump.” His eyes searched her teary face, begging her to step away. She offered him a wan smile.
“I cannot save you, my love. But I can still save our son.”
Before the king could say another word, four lines of light flashed down from the heavens. He lunged, only to find that he could not even move. He struggled futilely against the invisible restraints before the pulsating lines of light attracted his gaze; they solidified into a great door of light right behind his wife.
His wife had changed.
Once she had looked merely exotic for his kingdom, a lovely lass of red hair and eyes in a kingdom of black and brown. But now she was changed, skin of marble and hair of dancing fire with a visage so inhumanly beautiful that his eyes burnt to see it. A great mandala of flame with six spokes emerged behind the door; at each end was a magnificent horn, a musician's delight. There was a deep intake of breath and then all the fog in the sky was sucked into six whirlpools, each originating from the mouth of each horn.
They blew. The resulting sound was not unlike the mourning cry of some ancient Goliath, so deep it shook the marrow in men’s bones and so rousing that the King felt as though he could leap seven leagues in a single step and manhandle tigers. There was no time for him to ponder this strange feeling, for suddenly- inconceivably- the sky was on fire.
Gone was the familiar morning sky. In its place were dancing flames, that stretched as far as the King could see and yet emanated no heat.
The king made a complicated face. He had never asked her of her origins and she had never offered. Other, wiser, men had called the match foolish and he had never disagreed. Theirs had been a marriage of love, of trust, divorced from the jostling for advantage and alliance that normally characterized the ways of kings. But he had wondered. He had thought initially that she might have been an orphaned Kushana noblewoman from Fergana, where skilled archers roamed the unending plains upon fierce horses that sweat blood and outpaced all lesser varieties; he had even made a few discreet inquires to that effect. But distant lands bred rumors, not truths. Her soft hands and distinct lack of calluses told him of a life of ease but he could deduce little beyond that.
But he had never imagined that she was a goddess.
A goddess. It was an idea that verged on the absurd. Heavenly beings never cared to descend unless truly momentous events were underfoot. They rarely interacted with mortals, let alone married them. A goddess marrying a mortal king and bearing him a son- this was the province of myth and legend, not the world he thought he had known.
He opened his mouth but she preempted him, pressing a long finger against her lips. He fell silent then, and there was nothing but the door and the mandala and his wife in satin-silk robes against a burning sky.
There were questions like frogs, waiting to leap from his throat but he swallowed them. Demanding, imperious, they were as a king to his queen or a ruler to his ministers and in this final hour he found that he had not the heart to ask them.
“Goodbye, my love.”
He watched as she reached for the door and watched as it opened and watched even when the light grew painfully bright and hurt his all-too-mortal eyes. He stood there then, unmoving until even the phantom glare of the light had faded away and all that remained was the pallid morning blue. Then he turned, unsheathed his sword and stalked away.
Morning passed.
And high above, a mother cradled her son and wept as the proud blue Mercian banners dipped for the final time. She cried bitterly as rank after rank wavered and then broke, men dropping their weapons and fleeing the battlefield in shattered, straggling waves. She watched with numb eyes as an ever-disintegrating band of proud knights charged into the enemy again and again until the man with the golden crown toppled, never to rise again.
“You muddle-headed fool,” she croaked, stroking her son’s head. Karma had claimed its next victim.
Mercia had not endured.