I don't know why I felt the urge to make him speak to me.
I don't know why I acted upon that urge so insistently until he broke, either.
Hell, I don't even know if it's that I'm just not wanting to understand or if I... really don't know.
I don't know many things, anyway.
But then again; I do know why neither of us spoke another word for the rest of that night.
My Lord, please forgive me.
I didn't know.
My mission was smooth and without any hitches caused by the men to the North. The only reason I was even a part of my patrol's company was that I needed to get out of Roma for a while and spend some time in the free land that was just out of civilizations' reach; near the invisible borders of the different barbarian tribes above our heads. I suppose I'd been camped with this station for a week or so while my men simply demonstrated to invisible parties that we were enforcing our side of the land. ...well.. It would have been worse off on both parties had I not been accompanying my own. Without my presence, they enjoyed going far past our borders to mingle and cause trouble with the small Germanic tribes along the rims. This was quite simple, considering my men to the South and theirs to the North would either mix kindly or break into war on first sight. I suppose the simple air about me of my strict view on our borders was what kept my soldiers where they were supposed to be- not my voiced prohibition. This, I'd learned to accept- and as did the ruler of the Northern folk when in private. We understood that men were men, and men would fight. We just had to discipline them and their crowns as well as we could without stepping past our boundaries. Then again, boundaries were meant to be crossed, I realize in retrospect.
The moon was beginning to near the middle of the sky, drowning out most stars around it along with the near-lightless clouds that just looked to be giant holes in the blanket of the twinkling fires. The winds were short of breadth and just the same as their homonym, though it was not hot out. I'd say it must have been the middle of Spring, but the specific date escapes me. It was actually quite nice out, but that wasn't enough reason for me to avoid my work. At that late hour, I was inside my ornate tent (the only reason I wasn't in a tent similar to my company's was that I remained more or less stationary and took on the role as instructor and dispatch, therefore I needed much space for movement and -unfortunately- desk work. How I hate desk work.) flipping through some papers that the general of this company had on past interactions with the Germanics. Apparently, this group had quite a good track record when it came to dealing with them and were not too lenient nor too quick-handed. They also had one or two barbarian recruits in their company that helped translate and discuss customs. This was the kind of border patrol I wished lined the territory between North and South. They quickly earned my approval. Of course, I should have known they were not perfect and mistakes would have been made.
In my absence from the physical world, I distantly heard the leather covers over the entrance to my tent flutter softly. This quickly grabbed my eager eyes from yet another pamphlet of Northern and Southern encounters over the span of 25 leagues East and West. My eyebrow arched when I saw nothing for a short moment yet my ears caught sound of distant voices. Insistent and commanding voices. Just as I'd set down the parchment and began to push up from my makeshift desk of wood and animal hide, one of the triangular strips of leather pulled back to reveal a bit of a flustered guard.
He was one of the sentries, and by the look on his face, I assumed we'd had a breach. All at once I stood and had the sword that was previously rested across my lap in hand, beginning to make my way towards the exit. I left the lantern that sat atop my desk behind and thought the tall shadow of mine that danced ahead of my path was simply playing tricks on me. It looked like someone was standing behind the sentry. Quite a tall someone.
The guard raised his hand to shake at me in a small gesture that made me stop in my tracks, staring at him confusedly and feeling left in the dark. What was all this about, anyhow? Apparently my befuddled expression asked the question for me and the guard stood straighter to match me before speaking. "Sir," I swear I heard his voice waver, "you, ah, have a visitor." The shiftiness in his eyes and twitch of his mouth made me wonder what else he wanted to tell me. At this point, I couldn't have been more apprehensive- neither could the clutch on the hilt of my sword have been any tighter. Who paid visits in the middle of the night other than death and trouble, anyhow?
I was about to begin walking forwards, again, but what I previously swore was my shadow swayed to the left and stepped forward. Perhaps if my eyes had been adjusted to the dark rather than contracted due to the lamp I'd been close to for so long, I would have seen it before. I couldn't stop the tick in my jaw and the tense of my muscles in suppressed surprise. The shadow took the place of the guard, its boots entering the dim glow of the belly of my tent, but my eyes were searching for the glint of steel. None came, not even as the figure closed the flap of the tent behind. My orbs now examined him with a new level of confusion.
"You may go on, now. Keep my area clear; We are discussing business." The ears of my mind were deaf to my own voice, too drowned by the sight before me. Though, I could hear the shuffling of feet outside that hurried along in compliance.
The barbarian was clad in familiar attire comprised of green and brown leathers, furs, and a heavy cloak who's hood was drawn back to let pale disheveled strands of hair tumble down and all around his shoulders. The braid on his left side looked just about as messy as the rest of the locks. Despite how disoriented his apparel was, the man stood broad and tall against the front of my tent. There was no ounce of discomposure in his framework or jawline. Everything was too fixated and in control to be jostled by the undoubtedly long nights ride that he'd apparently hastily spurred on. Everything except his eyes were rigidly controlled. ...There was something mishandled within those saucers of forestry.
I knew that look all too well. My defense riled itself up before I got a chance to take a second examination. My chest raised high and my brow lifted, my own jaw setting squarely along with my shoulders. What was he so angry about that he came in the middle of the night- death's tolling hour? What news did he have for me that was so important?
What did I do this time?
No words came from the barbarian that stood a mere four feet from me- at least words I couldn't understand with my deaf perceptibility. For the longest time, we stood as static as the borders we took for titles. It was unnerving.
"Why the sudden surprise-visit?" My inquiry was all but eased in, voice as loud and fluent as ever. The air was suffocatingly stiff, and speaking was the quickest way I could get myself to breathe again. Apparently the man, in more than one sense, to my North, did not agree. The only allusion to a response my gesture received was a ripple of his jaw and a silent exhale that was only noted by the slight flare of his nostrils. Had I been more attentive to details, I would have noticed the shudder of a tremble over his shoulders due to some unseen weight that grew in size with my words. I had been genuinely upset by this. In my eyes, this was an obscenely rude gesture on his part. The barbarian had no right to cross my border, order my troops to let him enter, and absolutely no right to give me that look. To me, annoyance was written all over his face. Annoyance and anger blended in together directed towards my gesture and my ways. Something- anything to do with me, for that was the face he wore when he was angry with me. He had absolutely no right to be angry with me when he was on my land.
My goads came in a flurried cocktail of anger, prodded pride, and insult. Past the point of accepting what I'd said, I now wonder if what I had done was contributed to the good in our shared lives or the bad.
"Flare your nose at me again, Hludowig. It's my land you're walking on, right now." My hands found the air, gesturing towards the ground we stood upon and either of us- or just flinging about in general with a sudden fit of anger that I .. quite honestly couldn't place a finger on to pinpoint the origin. Even to this day, as I think of this instant, I can't explain why I had reacted so viciously. The only conclusion I can bring myself to halfheartedly accept is that I hated how he looked down on me when I was obviously the one in power. "Did some of my men step over onto your grass again? Is that what this is about? Did they take a few steps into your eyesight? Did they not walk correctly out of your eyesight? Do tell, friend, do tell. You do every other time you come to see me," I do admit at this point I was making up excuses as to why I was so heavily ripping the situation to shreds with such greedy hands- thriving off what I thought my heart felt was true. I spoke truths, but not whole truths, for they were not my reason, nor his. I just wish I'd at least noticed how bluntly I was lying.
I continued on with jabs and annoyances, the weight of all my troubles against my Northern border falling down in an awful commotion that continued on and on with the reactions given to me by the man before me as a crude-oil fuel. His nose scrunched occasionally, lip drew up to flash teeth, eyelids narrowed to a mere shadow over his orbs, brows pulled down and together so sharply I could count the lines on his forehead with my fingers. All the while, I wouldn't let him insert a jab because I knew he'd hit where he knew it hurt with simple words coated in layers of packed ice and boiling blood.
We had been through this before.
Only when the fair-haired savage to my North began shaking with pure rage and curled his fists into balls so tight I'd never be able to unfold them did my past self hesitate in his unfiltered mental operations that flowed oh-so-freely to his mouth. My mouth. I mistook his trembling for aching muscles that yearned to constrict around my throat and break whatever they could get their master's hands on. I mistook his averted eyes for the desire to prohibit me from catching his full-frontal assault before it had a chance to launch itself from its arsenal of such a deep and unquenchable loathing for my very origins. But worst of all, I mistook his choke for the makings of words. I thought them the prequel to a retort of some kind, something that would surely knock me off my horse of high stature and refute me any means of returning again until he decided it was time for him to take his leave.
Hludowig and I weren't made to be civil. We were far too different and lacked outward means of compatibility. In no way shape or form were we intended to be anything more than operations of business and warfare. We had similar views, but from different parts of our hearts. Our intentions were good, but our means of which never were quite angelic in nature- especially not when dealing with one another. It was simply the way we were made. Then again, puppets do tend to break their strings now and again, I am glad to understand in my old age. As bittersweet as the snap might be, it is what it is- and it is something that removes us from what we should be.
A breath between my words had no silence, and thus raised a new flag in the rear of my attention- one I hadn't even set up for this one-sided conversation. A few words fell from my mouth after the skipped beat, giving way to a sound I never want to hear again in my life. The savage to my North gave a strangled choke that seemed to be from the pit of his chest rather than his throat. It was empty. It was full. It was everything, and it was nothing. Words didn't leave my open lips after my sentence had fallen from that stiffened and cold air. They wouldn't ever be able to make their way out again until I'd made the same sound as the man before me in my own due time.
His words came evenly, but strained. A strain I.. I found hard to hear within the drone of the idle thoughts in my mind that had all frozen at once.
"Romulus, I didn't come here to speak with you of our borders. I didn't even-" there was a hitch here that made me jolt, but the man carried on like it hadn't happened at all- "come here to speak."
It was difficult for me to process what the man was saying, caused by the mixture of this strange and foreign cloak he had that lied over his thick accent and his deep, guttural voice. I could nearly feel the cogs in my mind clicking with some strange bolt thrown in that was this perplexing cloak that I couldn't understand. No, I realized hesitantly, I knew what it was. But it wasn't right. I couldn't process that. And the man said he didn't come to speak? Nonsense. He needed to speak, for my past self needed to understand the function and reason for the cloak. My face contorted in disagreement, but I couldn't form the words to state such things. He continued on without turning a glance up to me, eyes shadowed by the depth of his brow and the flickering light of my fading lantern. I suppose it was the stillness and silence of the air that coaxed him to give answers that he hadn't meant to give. He never was one to operate compliantly to human things- only the urge of the nature around him.
His head lifted and rolled back slightly against the cushion of his hood, red and glossy eyes searching the roof of the tent above our heads for answers like it was a prophet, itself. "Wodin, please..." The man's voice trailed as his eyes closed, a slow and silent breath filling his empty lungs without so much as a jerk. Had I been more attentive, I most likely could have seen hands descend and begin to take hold of that weight he carried so strongly upon his shoulders. Though, revealing his current state of weakness, Hludowig did not open his eyes as he began what he swore he would never utter a word of outside of his prayers. I was left to stare at him- through him and into the world that this cloak had been concealing. It was the same world who's sign that I had mistaken for when he stepped onto my land.
It was not simple wrath that shaded his emerald eyes. It was the wrath that came with the loss of something important- something personal and perhaps even secret. It was the wrath of the inability to change destiny- to break strings. It was the wrath of a man who'd been unable to hold himself together well enough to carry on like he should have been able to. Past this gate of anger and rage was a city of despair- one that needed mourning. It needed acknowledgment. This- this left me even more perplexed. What was so wrong with my Northern border that he was coming... to me?
"I lost a tribe. It was small. It wasn't developed. It was just there. I honestly couldn't even feel it; not in comparison to my larger tribes. It was too.. irrelevant." The man's words were hesitant and punctuated evenly, giving me a blunt and honest introduction to a story I couldn't say I'd expected- nor doubted. Germania was, after all, not comprised of states or provinces in political terms- just areas controlled by basic and barbaric tribes or families. Yes, they had more advanced groups than others, but the majority was comprised of tiny gatherings of people who were virtually unseen for the majority of their durations. Even I didn't know how many of these miniscule, underdeveloped social units were littered all over the culture's property. I only knew there were many, and not one of them were the same. The only reason I even knew this was because of relayed information from traveling men, some disclosed information of slaves, and the tiny bit of time I'd spent in the far reaches of the North while visiting the man before me on business trips that were.. well.. rare. In all honesty, my past self was not any closer than a strange mixture of enemies and friends to the man that had been standing before me who so difficultly unfolded his story to me. Though, even as he spoke, I can't say I would ever fully understand what he intended or felt. He carried on forcibly, a glint being the only signal from his eyes that they were flashing open in what I presumed was a glare at nothing in particular. Maybe it was towards himself, maybe it was towards the situation, I didn't know. The only thing my mind could wrap itself around was his story.
"I didn't even meet them. They were far to the East and I have been too busy to go introduce them- they didn't even consider themselves part of Germania. They just.. existed. They existed until the Winter months came and they all froze to death. Their animals ran. Their crops failed. Their homes fell to the snow and wind. They were erased. Romulus, do you know what I felt?"
The break in his tale jarred me from my stupor, but I didn't respond. I think I closed my mouth, of all things, that had been left ajar. Maybe I straightened up. I don't remember what I'd done, but I do remember his eyes finally found mine. They were like blades that I couldn't recall seeing before. I'd seen him after losing men before, but this- this was different. The blades weren't sharp; they were old. They were dull. Dull by what, I find myself acknowledging, now, were years of tightly sheathed release. But now, the cloak was gone and it left paths that I slowly began to see but would never witness the end of. My Northern border was, of all things on God's Earth, an enigma. He would never be anything more plain. In that retrospect, I, myself, felt my sense of reason and assumed knowledge of his nature plummet from my horse upon one thing, and one thing only at that time.
A streak of light fell from one of those those earthy, forested saucers that was set aglow by the dimming flame behind my back. It cascaded down pearl skin and followed the lines of clenched muscles who strained to keep composure. I watched it descend and roll along its leisurely path to fall to the dark depths of the cloak that held on to his frame, where it dissolved so quickly I had to follow the trail back to its beginning.
"I felt nothing. I couldn't feel anything. But I did realize something was gone that I hadn't even noticed was there before." His gaze didn't break from mine, but slow and heavy clouds rolled in. "It was like taking a worn path that you travel down every day. One you know and don't have to look at to be able to feel where exactly the trees are- because you just know something's there. Then one day someone comes and takes one of the little trees for firewood or a home, and when you make your pass by as you do every single day, you can't help but shake the feeling that something is wrong.
"I experience this very often- this sense that something is wrong, but nothing about it can be done; If I couldn't even physically feel the change, then it must not have been that important anyway. So I just overlook it. But-" He cut off, hand having turned outward in gesture of a shrug of bleakness. The hand hesitated in the air and caught his attention, which he turned slowly to the fingers that were as white as bone. To my surprise, he did not return his fist to his side. His other hand uncurled itself and each drew inwards to his torso, wringing themselves and rubbing with stern thumbs for some sense of comfort. I vaguely remember my eyes burning upon this sight. He was so beside himself and suddenly.. in every way shape and form, anything but the barbarian I'd come to know him as. This must have been the closest my past self had been to my current, for I realized his simple words, coarse voice, and straight talk was more than I'd ever realized. There were riddles in his speech, I came to understand, and though I may not have been able to understand all of them at that moment, I knew I needed to search out their origins and their straightly skewed significance.
This being before me, the one who earned the undocumented title of both rival and friend in the lonely lives that we as representations of the masses we called our own, wasn't just a man with a wild eye, sharp tongue, and mountain of pure labor. He was a man. He was a man just the same as I was. Things hurt him just the same as they hurt me, and at that exact moment, I regretted ever seeing him as so heartless. The absence that I saw was simply his heart being put towards his own kind, the ones he was supposed to protect. The ones he loved and cherished more deeply than I accounted him for.
It was the combination of the realization in my eyes and the silence that engulfed us that ended all words between us for that night. Hludowig didn't need to finish what he'd tried to explain to me; He'd gotten through the hardest part of removing that weight from his shoulders. Had I not been so captivated by our exchange, I might have seen that it was his own arms that strained and worked to push that force from himself- not some divinity from above. Perhaps that 'Wodin' of his had let the world around us be calm enough to let him free, but it was his own strength that let him finally remove what was troubling him so harshly for times I would never come to know. The crash of the weight to the floor was the last piece to his puzzle, triggering tears that brimmed along their lids before spilling over in muffled chokes and every muscle that urged them back into their long-term prisons. They'd held themselves against war, death, and injury. They'd held themselves against misfortune, deception, and humiliation. They'd held themselves against every kind of pain they had been tested against, but this was it. And I didn't dare interrupt him.
The man turned his head away and moved over to my bed, bending down to ease himself onto the cool ground with his back against the fur-lined cot, leather of his light armor creaking with the slow and tight movements. Finally, he rested with an arm held over his stomach, gripping his side while his other hand found his face to let his long fingers clutch and hold as he sobbed without any noises more loud than the occasional sound of his hitched and shuddering breath. I stared for a long time at him, unable to respond efficiently.
Without being fully aware of my movement, I joined his side.
His breathes would occasionally calm down, hiccup every now and again followed by a desperate growl. Occasionally he'd groan and fight off another wave of tears, but they'd always win. I didn't do anything more than stare off into the space ahead of us. I don't know when the lantern ran out of its time. I only know the man by my side seemed to relax a little better in the dark. I heard the sound of his armor shifting against the cot and, towards the end, the occasional shuddering exhale as he slowly came to peace with himself. Through all of this, he was never louder than his most quiet speech.
I never looked at him the same way again. I'd been shown a side of him that I'd ignored so easily for so long and couldn't understand how I'd ever been so unaware- so ignorant. Even as the man's breathing slowly evened out and we sat in pure silence until the moon began to fall from its own mount high in the sky and the temperature began to give me chills, my shudders were not for physical causes. My body was numb to the cold of the world. Then again, I suppose it was my soul that felt its chilling extremities. .. our souls.
I am a warrior. I am a father. I am an existence.
We are souls. We aren't shells. We aren't casts of our people and land, we aren't mindless puppets meant for representation and representation alone. We are beings. May we have been made to be so, I will never know, for my eyes have been opened to existence beyond what we are presented. It took me decades to realize, but I am given just the same free will as the people I protect. All of these thoughts and recognitions- I thought I'd felt them before. I honestly did. Then again, I also was never kicked from my horse of high stature so hard and so honestly with such pure and unplanned means.
Hludowig left my tent in the exact same manner as he'd come; stern framework and slightly jostled apparel, though nothing about him was out of place. He didn't say a word to me, and although I felt his eyes on me before he'd gone, I can not honestly say they if they were really there in this deep reflection. Though, I can say that after I'd heard the distant sound of a horse riding off, I lost all of my composure.
I don't know why I felt the urge to make him speak to me in the first place. He hadn't even intended what I assumed.
I don't know why I acted upon that urge so insistently until he broke, either. I'd been left thunderstruck, as always. But in ways so much more scarring.
I don't even know if it's that I'm not wanting to understand or if I honestly don't know. I've been searching for answers relentlessly for years with the only results being more questions.
I'll never know many things.
But then again; I do know why neither of us spoke another word for the rest of that night.
My Lord, I thank you.
We are no longer alone.