Unfailing hope

[Rayven]

Sunset and the sun hung low in the sky, covering it with a golden fire. The oaks lifted their mossy heads to its glow and the pink-and-cream honeysuckle reveled in its warmth, along with the ivy mantling every branch with a glossy sheen.

Overhead the summer doves called through the trees.

High on a hill, Windstorm shimmered in the waning glow of the sun. The owls drowsed in the bell tower and the round turrets with their pointed roofs, bright pennants, and golden spires hung in the glimmering air.

It seemed in that sliver twilight that the world had enfolded Windstorm in its arms and secreted it away.

Thin snatches of sound came fleeting to my ears, the chat of plainsong rising from far below. My eyes traveled down to the courtyard and beyond that the chapel. Through the high mullioned windows, a single light burned brightly in the deepening dark. It was the flame above the altar, the symbol of unfailing hope and prayer.

I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer that this business with the Franks would be resolved without bloodshed or loss of life.

Then wearily, I turned from my window and prepared myself for bed, and hopefully sleep.

[Rayven]

I stood by the windows of my chamber, my folded arms crossed over my aching chest, my eyes focused on the gardens below.

I had not thought of these memories in years, yet as Windstorm stood on the precipice of war it was as if a dam had broken and let the waters of yesteryear flood back into my mind.

My eyes filled with tears making the garden and the surrounding court yard waver and blur as my mind took me back to that time.


The moon hung over the silent battlefield. Only the shadows seemed to move. The men on the ground would never move again. And their women, sick with weeping did not dare the field in the dark. It would be morning before they would come like crows to count their losses.

But on the edge of the field there was a sudden tiny movement, and it was no shadow. Something small was creeping to the muddy hem of the battleground. Something knelt there, face shining with grief.

A child, a girl, the youngest daughter of Lord O’Duilleain who had died that evening surrounded by his sons



A knocked on my chamber door startled me, making me blinked back the tears that filled my eyes as the garden below came back into focus. Slowly I moved to answer it, wiping the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand and wondering if there was no end to the blind folly of men and war.

[Rayven]

Dusk was drawing its cloak across Windstorm, covering the hills and meadows alike with the same dim purple-gray.

From my window I could see the higher ground in the west and watched as the sun slowly set into the horizon. Now all lay in shadow for I had said goodbye to the sun.

My thoughts drifted back in time to a place I did not want to go. I felt the landscape waver before me, blurring as my thoughts took me back to a time of war and battle I had struggled to put behind me.

I looked across the dark field and like my mother, like my sisters, like my aunts, did not dare put foot on to the bloody ground.

But then I looked up at the moon and thought I saw my father’s face there. Not the father who lay with his innards spilled out into contorted hands. Not the one who had braided firesticks into his beard and charged into battle screaming. I thought I saw the father who had always sung me to sleep against the night terrors. The one who sat up with me when nightmares haunted my dreams.

I sang to him as his lifeless body lay on the bloody field of battle. I sang of life, not death, of bees in the hive and birds on the summer wind. I sang of foxes denning and bears shrugging off winter. I sang of fish in the sparkling rivers and the first green uncurling of fern in spring.

And when I was done with my song, it was as if his corpse gave a great sigh, one last breath, though of course he was dead already half the night and made no sound at all. But I heard what I needed to hear.

I turned and went home and everyone wondered why I did not weep. But I had left my tears out on the battlefield.

I was seven years old.

The room swam back into focus and once more I was staring out my window, but now the skies were dark and filled with stars.

I pushed back those painful memories of so long ago as I climbed into my bed and fell into a fitful sleep.

[Rayven]

Stiffly I moved about my chamber. The last few days had extracted a toll on me physically and mentally and I must allow myself to rest if I am to see this through.

I moved to the window. A light summer mist still hung over the early-evening meadow far below. The daisies that had turned their golden eyes to the sun during the day now closed their pink and white petals.

The worst of it seemed over for now and if I can gain an audience with Lady Dream tomorrow, perhaps I can request another room for the men who are ambulatory and in need of a bigger space in which to move about.

I stood at the window, feeling the fingers of the waning sun touch my face and hands, I wrapped my arms around me to try and catch the warmth, but my skin felt gray and cold.

Slowly I turned from the window and slipped into bed. My senses faded as my eyes closed and the memories came, and in spite of it all, I allowed myself to dream.