The Shieldbearer

[KidKrinkles 2043]

 

[A missive sent and scattered far and wide, plainly available to those who read it.]

Spoiler

A reply to @The Vulgate Cycle's Where is the Bowie Knight?

 

 

(Good post, ilu Sim; my apologies for the delayed response, I had a debaucherous weekend.)

 

It was never much in doubt that you would answer, Arthur, nor is it in doubt that we will not agree. You stand beneath a banner that mounts corpse piles. Mine never has.

It is true that I left Numendil. I have never denied it. The reason was neither whimsical nor symbolic. It was not about hats, customs, or ceremony. The reason was Anorhil.

Anorhil is a monster. That we did not see eye to eye might have been tolerable, as many good people do not. What was not tolerable was his cruelty, his devotion to ritualized penance, and his ease with brutality masquerading as virtue. I endured threats and insults enough to know the shape of the man long before others would admit it.

I required no further proof when a young woman told me her wings were torn from her back, that she had been beaten and tortured in those days of elf ear shaving so familiar to us now. She named those responsible. Ser Vincenzo. Ser Riley. Anorhil himself. A fourth unknown. It was a crime then. It remains a crime now. Time has not altered that truth.

It was Anorhil who bound Numendil to the Empire. You claim I was absent, yet I remained present enough to hear the discontent and to know that leaving had been the only honest decision. Idunia may claim independence, but it was Anorhil who lied publicly of that future, who muddied those waters, and who vacated his throne so his son might benefit from the consequences without bearing the shame.

I have said this before, and I say it again now. Those who serve tyrants share in their tyranny. I hold no illusions about how my story would have ended had I remained. I would not have bent. I would not have been silent. I would have found death beneath some thin justification for hanging or burning. You and I might then have shared drink and gossip of horrors witnessed, but that is where your resistance ends. You do not demand integrity of those beside you. You preserve a status quo.

You need not raise your blade, old friend. You serve tyranny well enough by standing before it as its shieldbearer.

Tell me plainly, Arthur. Do you place your hand beneath a boiling pot to test it, or do you trust what your eyes already know?

Yes, I left. And yet an old truth remains.

“A knight anywhere is a knight everywhere.”

I claim no title of Ser, nor do I accept those pressed upon me by others. That was my own choosing. Conduct does not vanish with a name, nor does responsibility to conscience.

Many speak loudly of dying before serving. Words are cheap. I chose instead to oppose wicked systems rather than stand within them and pretend they might be reformed through patience and proximity. You say change must come from within. I ask you then, how many have you truly saved by staying. Has it brought you peace of conscience?

I do not pretend my hands are spotless. I have damned earnest souls and good people to my own fate, mistaking one patron for another, believing a gift to be grace when it was not. That burden is mine, and I carry it openly. Those with me do not crucify me, as you might try: I can bear this burden.

You speak of a child, and I know you speak of Einin, who still calls me Uncle. A child robbed of her mother before she could ever know her. I offered no chain, no command, no brand, and no binding of will. I gifted her a single dream of the woman she never met, and inscribed it upon her wand so she might carry her mother with her when sleep would not come.

That was the extent of the power my pact afforded me, and I paid dearly for it. In those days, I believed my curse was a gift. I would have offered it then. I do not now. I was wrong about the nature of the power I took, and I am glad I learned the truth before others might suffer the same mistake.

If you name that a sin, then name it so. I will not contest it. But do not confuse error with corruption, nor mercy mistaken with tyranny embraced.

You accuse me of mistrust, and on this you are correct. I never trusted Thalandir. Not after I saw him. Not after the world shook at his coming, when a touch of his finger shattered silver in our halls and the glamour slipped to reveal blackened flesh and slit red eyes. Not after he admitted openly that he cared nothing for the lives placed at risk upon that venture, especially Iduna’s.

Those you choose to follow care for little beyond their own legacies, and even less for the people beneath them.

You say I hold no right to invoke the Last Rite of Kings, and on this you are correct. I do not claim it.

It is not mine to call.

Long ago, you acknowledged crimes and transgressions had been committed, and sought only to revise their telling. Yet while words were argued, you remained idle. I had already left, and still you stayed. The mechanism to end this madness lies in the hands of those who yet stand beneath the crown. It is before you, Arthur, not I.

Tell me, Arthur, has enough blood now been spilled for you to grasp it, or will you dip your quill into that blood and take a corrective red pen upon history?

I have traveled and broken bread with strangers, thugs, and kings alike. I have known a Pontiff who washed the feet of others without hatred in his heart, and shared food with him as an equal. Numendil was never so insular that it could not hear a voice beyond its walls. Perhaps Idunia has become so.

I wear the leash upon my neck, and I fight against it. I investigate. I warn. I resist. I have never claimed otherwise.

I wonder, Arthur, when you will. It is never too late to do the right thing.

For now, I set down my pen.

 

[Werew0lf 24180]

Hadrian read the missive; he took a bite of the marmalade sandwich within his grasp—the Emperor chewed, and then, after a few moments, he swallowed.

 

”This back and forth spat is so interesting to read! It’s like… ah — what do the Kurai-Kuni people call it? Orama! Oyashi-drama, I hear they are much famous in theatres.”

[The Vulgate Cycle 577]

"I am one man, I cannot alter the destiny of Kingdoms and Empire alone." Arthur muttered. "What I can do, is be an example for the future generations. So they learn from our mistakes and push back against wanton cruelty."

 

That had been the point of his response. One that he realized has been entirely missed. As evidenced by the fact that his own words, words he very much still agreed with were being thrown back in his face, as though he did not.

 

He considered another response, but ultimately, decided against this. Time to put this fruitless back and forth behind him and prepare for whatever came next. 

[jihsoo 746]

4 hours ago, KidKrinkles said:

You speak of a child, and I know you speak of Einin, who still calls me Uncle. A child robbed of her mother before she could ever know her. I offered no chain, no command, no brand, and no binding of will. I gifted her a single dream of the woman she never met, and inscribed it upon her wand so she might carry her mother with her when sleep would not come.

That was the extent of the power my pact afforded me, and I paid dearly for it. In those days, I believed my curse was a gift. I would have offered it then. I do not now. I was wrong about the nature of the power I took, and I am glad I learned the truth before others might suffer the same mistake.

 

 

A soul clung to the bounds of crystalline walls, trapped and silenced, by the choice of the power that she had surrendered herself to. Rest was her much-needed retreat from what ailed her mind. Rest was her respite from the cruel reality that she had given her daughter, Einin.

 

Selfishness paid such a price.

Yet, rest was what Victor granted in Faeleth's stead.

 

 

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