#writing
The Descent of Pirithous V
Richard III stayed in power after his meeting with the Inquisitor, though his rule was vacant and empty, carried out from the privacy of his castle and relayed through delegates and messengers. He was hardly seen by any except his most trusted servants, and visitors to the castle who wandered through the halls late at night who had seen the Emperor claimed they had glimpsed a ghost of a long dead ruler. He would spend hours meandering, staring down at the cold stones. His appearance had grown ragged as his health unexplainedly declined over the course of years. His face was long and unkept, his skin wraithlike and thinly molded over his skeletal figure. The Inquisitors were never again to be seen in the halls of Jonas, but this was little consolation. Everyone knew they were there, blended into plain shadow, watching from the eyes of the raven and gargoyles that dotted the roofs and towers of the castle. They were among the common folk, in the arms of the guards and within the church especially. Richard did not attempt any sort of cunning nor treachery. When surviving scholars and such from the purge came to him Richard had them wait in his halls, never to appear again until the shadows had taken them away as ordered.
And yet the spark did live on within him. Richard III hoped that his aspirations might live on through his son, who was destined to be Emperor as well and in short time as his own health was deteriorating rapidly. Late at night, The old king would meet with young Richard in his bedchambers. There he would release a loose stone which sat anonymously behind a wardrobe, and from a dusty container would reveal a single book, perhaps the last one of its kind, which had survived the purge. Here the boy would see his father light up and become envigored with a spirit that he figured had gone long ago. His father would read to him the discoveries of the edge which to him held the mysteries of the world. He would explain the marvelous contraptions of steel wood and rope which sent astral vessels into space itself. He would talk of the brave adventurers who first went out and sailed to the edge, he talked of the Elysius and the Orpheus and the Odysseus, how they braved the rogue storms and violent winds and then the ever encompassing mist which obscured even your hand along an outstretched arm.
Young Richard was captivated by his father’s words, and felt himself swelled into them as those few ships were once swelled over great waterfalls into the unknown void. He imagined himself an explorer himself, sat upon the biggest astral vessel ever built. It would be the size of a temple and built like an ark, holding an army of soldiers draped in gold and riding the finest stallions. It would be equipped with large stores of all varieties of food and goods, and hold within it a garden likened to paradise itself. From here young Richard would descend into the unknown and go on a great many adventures, fighting off giant space beasts like dragons, krakens, and drifting whales. Richard would find a new land, where he would settle his army and rejoice in a new world to enjoy and discover. With these thoughts he would trail off into sleep, and his father would look upon him and smile.
From here we are brought past Richard III’s death and to Richard IV, who disavowed the Church and Velles, and with his rebellion bringing forth a civil war that was to decimate the Kingdom and its subjects. From the perspective of the peasant who fled their destroyed homes and famine ridden lands or from the peasant who burned them, the battle had no motive—Nor was one required; They fought not for the virtues of the Church or the ambition of Richard, for these ideals were not known to them nor would they have mattered. They were displaced from the motives of their rulers as were the nobility from the blood which now spilled from their soldiers necks. The side they fought on did not matter to them, nor the banners with which they carried upon long poles at the head of each company. The peasant was recruited as a matter of location, drafted not by coercion or conscious decision but by necessity, perhaps equated to the drinking of water by the thirsty. War was visible only to the Nobles, and battle only to the subjects. War was a conscious affair, a matter of politics and planning. The peasants did not see war. They did not know they were in one. They merely subsisted in a transient state of experience that brought them marching from town to town, interrupted occasionally by the encounter of opposition—who were by all means like them—and then the bloody affair of conflict which was chaotic, quick, and unstrategic—quite antithetical to war.
And so the war was fought in contrast to the battle. The war was personal, long, and arduous. The battle was impersonal, quick, and required not a vessel of thought. It was no more unfamiliar to the peasant than the tilling of soil in a midday summer heat. It is only the poet, high in his ivory tower, who weeps for the dead, and who contemplates the emptiness of an existence they would never endure.
It is here when the war had been raging for some years and had tainted all but the far reaches of the Empire that the existence of a new character becomes relevant to the story. He was a simple scholar then, a scribe of the church, and found within the bowels of a small chapel much separated from the conflict, surrounded by parchment and lit only by the light of a small wax candle. He lived in a small town on the outer fringes of the Empire, a fishing settlement to the South by the name of Insmuth along a path hardly travelled; He was born in this very chapel some twenty five years ago, and was trained in the theological arts as his father was, and was very much destined to do the same for his children in the future. Of his earthly possessions—ignoring frankly his keen mind and diligence—was an inheritance of his late parent’s house, a small mud building with a thatch roof, which sat half a mile down the main road of the village. It was very likely that he was to die there having never ventured beyond the border of his small world, and he was rather content to subsist within the world of text and scripture.
Above the crypt could be heard the creak of a large wooden door opening and the entrance of several men by way of their footsteps. The Priest was absent, for he was seeing to the sick in part due to the resurgence of the plague that had reached even our small enclave. The scholar put down his quill and went up the stairs, coming to face several individuals who looked up and down the buildings interior.
“I’m sorry gentlemen but Father Corinth is tending to the sick at the moment. He should be back by sun down.” The men turned to him. They were soldiers clearly, bearing the cross of Celestine upon their chests and wreathed in chainmail. At their sides were swords and maces, and one of the men leaned on a long halberd which he could only wonder how it had gotten through the door.
The front man, who was senior to the others and bore on his face long healed scars of combat approached, eyeing him seriously and inspecting his robes. “Are you Marlow? Scribe of Insmuth?”
“That is I.”
“We come from Ryden, soldiers of the Church in the command of Sir Baldwin. Do you know of it?”
“I do, though I have never been. It is a mining town to the South. You have travelled a long way. And to come here, you must be either lost or in search of solitude.”
“Neither I am afraid. We have come for you. You are a scribe of the Church yes?”
Marlow stood there puzzled. “You have come for me? Surely you refer to the Priest?”
“Nay. Our lord requests a scribe, a scholar who is trained in the sciences and scripture a like. You can read yes? And you have talent with a quill?”
“I do”.
“Then it is you he requests. You must come at once; It is best not to keep our lord waiting.”
The scribe was not one to turn down a lord. Sir Baldwin was a name he was familiar with, Baron of the lesser state he occupied. When Marlow was very young it was said the Baron travelled through the hamlet on his way to war, though he did not remember the encounter. The Baron had his capital within Ryden, which had been made prosperous by its plentiful deposits of silver and iron. Why a Baron would be interested in a scribe from a forgotten hamlet, and Marlow no less, was a mystery. Yet the scribe did not have time to gather his belongings and was assured that food, clothing, and lodging would be provided; He was not informed about the purpose or length of his stay.
The soldiers watched the town warily and stood in front of a wagon which was pulled by two horses of medium breed. The party sat for a moment, listening to the quiet heartbeat of the small village before setting off South along the coast. They moved past the harbor, made unmistakable by the squawks of gulls overhead and an ever present smell of rotting fish, before heading inward and passing by the outer farms of the town. As they passed field after field, the stone brick wall that paralleled the trail eventually descended into the ground, and the homes became more and more scarce. Eventually they passed a crossroads with a sign of many directions, one of which pointed back to the town they had come from. Marlow did not recognize this sign, upon which he realized rather unceremoniously that this was the farthest he had ever been from home.
The trail was bumpy but quiet, and they encountered no other travelers for a time. Even the gulls that seemed to hug the coast had left, preferring to congregate around the settlements in the hopes of an easy meal. Marlow sat up front with the veteran soldier who directed the cart, while the others in the back cycled between talking, sleeping, and singing songs of chivalry and salacious intents.
“The ride will be long I am afraid,” Said the Soldier. “Are you accustomed to travel?”
“I have never had the experience of travel. All my life I have lived in this small town. Every second we ride is one step further than I have ever been”
The Soldier went quiet for a moment, staring absent mindedly at the reigns in his hands and the bobbing heads of the horses. Worried that he might’ve upset the man, Marlow tried to change the subject.
“You must be well travelled then I ‘spose? Being a soldier of our lord and all and in such times as these.”
He spoke again without turning his head, “Aye I am. I have been a soldier all my life. When you wish to fight for a living the fight will not often come to you, you must go out and search for it, meet it on amenable grounds. I fought originally here in the South, defending convoys into that great rotting jungle. There more men were lost to illness and accident than any sword or spear. Then I served to clean the roads of brigands and highwaymen when the land was in relative peace. Recently though they have made a reoccurrence, taking ample opportunity of the war. Now in my age, which in my profession is both rare and a detriment, I serve more closely under the baron. I pray that he is not called to war, for then I must accompany him and my time will be short.”
“I wouldn’t imagine you would. Ryden is a great source of wealth and the Pope likely aims to safeguard it as a source for the Empire’s mint. It would make little sense to stretch it so thin.”
The veteran laughed, an inconsistency with his behavior that made Marlow jump. “Are you sure you have never left your hamlet?” He said. “You are awfully well learned.”
“You would be surprised what a life surrounded by cold stones can teach you” the Scribe responded.
“Ah. That is until those stones move. That my friend is the other side of the coin” He grumbled. “Keep this between our tongues, but the Church itself is stretched thinner than it might appear. Even now there is movement, and talk of deployment to replenish the Northern territories which have been drained so far. And it is not only Richard’s Armies you have to fear but the plague that now spreads blind to all borders like the devil’s fog. Our battalions have been sent into these towns of unburied death to pile up the bodies in mounds and burn them—a truly improper death for any God-fearing folk but a necessary one.”
“Tell me properly.” Asked Marlow, “What need really does the Baron have for a scribe? And why me specifically? Am I to think there are no literate folk in Ryden?”
“You can ask him yourself when we arrive.” Said the veteran. “As I said before, I’m merely the carrier, and you’re simply the cargo. Whatever the reason though, I likely am not versed enough to understand it. You should be proud though! Perhaps it is an appointment to the court? That would strike me as plausible, what with your knowledge. Imagine that: you would never go hungry, cold, or lacking in any other human desire again. Every morning waking up in silk clothes, bathing in the finest bathhouses and attended to by maidens at any whim. What more could a man want?”.
“I suppose I will have to wait and see.” said Marlow.
The rest of their journey was rather mundane, save for a moment towards the end where they passed through the ruins of a village. The smoke column could be seen rising from a mile off, and the smell seemed to pervade much further, getting louder as the cart came within proximity of it. The party stopped for a moment and studied their maps, but found no road to pass the village that wouldn’t extend the trip by a disagreeable amount of time. In the end they decided to pass through the village. Upon arriving Marlow was surprised to see familiar flags of the celestine army, though what remained of the village was little: Here and there between muddy tracks of footprints lay the charred remains of houses and other structures. The Chapel, which was often the only stone building in villages such as these, had similarly crumbled, and on its crest was a pole which waved a tattered flag of white, gold, and blackened soot.
The veteran jumped down from the cart and knelt before the ground. “What rider visited this place I wonder? Plague or War?”.
One of the soldiers, who had walked off to the top of the chapel shouted back, “It seems clear. Whoever was here has long since departed.” He pointed. “There is a large amount of tracks, horses and men, off to the East away from our destination.”
Marlow was on edge. The ground below him felt alive, like it was still echoing the events that had occurred only hours or days before. “We should leave”.
The veteran turned. “In a moment, son. Let’s take a minute to look around.”
He threw up his hands. “What for? There is nothing to compel us to stick around a place like this”.
The veteran smiled, which distorted the scar along his face into an exaggerated smile. He made a rubbing motion with his fingers and spoke laconically: “Your books must have skipped a section on the muses of man”. He turned with the others to scavenge the remains of the houses.
The scribe walked off in the other direction, though hesitant to stray too far from the cart. ‘Depraved vandals’ he told himself. ‘How could they think to loot a place such as this? It is not only ungodly but reckless.’ He fumed silently to himself, staring absentmindedly at the floor. He stared down at the mud as he walked, oblivious to his surroundings. The ground was sludge like and filled with holes of water. Footsteps of horse and man alike trailed all over, much more than could be accounted for by normal traffic. They pointed off in all directions, like some sort of mad dance. Though to follow such a choreography would require the greatest of skill.
As he walked, he noticed that the footsteps began to coalesce and trailed off out of the village. Curious, he followed the steps. Out in the distance he heard the shouts of one of the men. ‘Probably found himself a nice necklace’ He muttered to himself and kept walking.
The steps followed one of the main arterial roads out of the town before veering off of the path over a hill. The steps were disjointed and nonuniform. They were not the markings of soldiers marching in unison but of a nonhomogeneous group, perhaps the missing villagers, young and old. The scribe climbed up the hill and looked down, where the river’s mouth opened to its end. There, obscured by the hill, was a mound two meters high composed of bodies. Smoke still lingered off of the blackened corpses, which were stilled into a snapshot of their once living and breathing embodiments. Hands with their fingers curled stuck out and groped towards the cold air. Bones lay smashed and broken under the weight of a hundred others. Legs, arms, and scraps of hair jutted out at odd angles from the amalgamated mass. Surrounding the perimeter of the mound was more flags of white and gold. Marlow fell to his knees, suppressing the urge to vomit. He stared down at the floor, his vision spinning rapidly. He began breathing heavily, unable to comprehend the site in front of him. ‘This cannot be, this cannot be’, he thought to himself repeatedly. Before long he looked up again, and let out a scream, which was heard by the others. After a few moments they came running, weapons in hand and ready for a fight. They reached the top of the hill and stared down at the mound, still breathing heavily though much more relaxed.
Marlow sat on the floor sobbing quietly. The veteran looked down at him sternly, perhaps with disappointment, though he wasn’t sure why.
“The army, they killed them.” Marlow said. “They herded them all up like sheep, and burned them alive in that pit.”
The veteran sighed and bent down to his level. “It was the plague, these people were sick. They were to die anyways.”
“You don’t know that.” Marlow responded.
“I do.” said the veteran. “I’ve seen it before, many times.” He stood up, “It always starts small. A cough or fever. Just a kid or babe at first. No one takes it seriously, because these things happen. In a matter of days it spreads to the whole village. A tickle in the throat becomes a hacking cough, and is accompanied by blood. The fever begins to bed lock people, and yellowish buboes develop on the neck, and body of the afflicted. The sacks go from yellow to red, then purple and black. Rot sets in on the living in the most painful manner, and yet the afflicted’s fate was sealed long before. Before long it takes the whole village, much swifter than any barbarian troop or army. And it spreads just as fast. It was better these folk now than ten more settlements later.”
Marlow did not respond. He merely sat looking down without a sound. Then the veteran, overcome by an anger, grabbed his hair and yanked him violently upwards, positioning his face towards the mound. “See? Do you see that? The cross of red and black? It is the plague! And yet it is more than that! This is the world you live in, raw and unfiltered. Look! Look at it! This is your Empire? Do you see it now? Huh?”
Marlow screamed, and shoved him down into the dirt. “Off me, heathen! I’ve had enough of you”. He knelt down over the veteran, overcome by a rage. Marlow flailed his arm at the man’s face, the fingers connecting clumsily with the man’s jaw. Pain shot through his hand, which had never once been used in such a physical manner. Marlow knelt over holding his arm, which now resonated a dull pain. The veteran got up, as if rising from a peaceful sleep. He smiled at Marlow.
“Are you done?” He asked.
“I think you broke my hand.” Said Marlow.
The veteran wiped some blood from his nose, which stopped running immediately. “Unlikely,” He said, “It’ll subside.”
The other soldiers watched the struggle absentmindedly. Others simply stared off into distance, unphased by both the mound and the conflict. Marlow, now more composed, even felt a little humiliation at his outburst. “I would like to go now.” Said Marlow.
And off they went to Ryden.