Winter's Son
Climbing the hill once more.
Dark clouds in the horizon of a windy morning. The smell of dust mingled with a
promise of rain.
He could hear them now, the hooves thundering heavy on the grassland below. He
quickened his pace to a near run, painfully aware of how his lungs were
screaming for a pause, just like his mind constantly yearned for quiet
contemplation.
All around him were the sounds of cattle, of children at play. Yet for him a
circle of empty space, a void - he had willed it so, for his own protection,
but it felt little like a luxury for the pain that it brought. Ice dividing
water and air.
On through the city he strode, heavy garments billowing out like wings in his
wake.
~~~~~~
He recalled well the
sickly-sweet scent surrounding him in the gardens, and the sun through the
budding trees. Persistently spring had come, though there was an icy wind from
the east.
The golden bee in the golden flower had seemed so filled with purpose.
Long gone was the time when he had harboured thoughts of truly human emotion. Little
by little all hope had since been buried. He was trapped in the frost with the
trees of the garden - neither of them stood a chance.
In the golden house the gilding was of cold metal, not the warm light of day. Its
inhabitants were strange, pale creatures. Their skin so white, never touched by
the sun.
And the fair daughter of kings, palest and most distant of all. Even when she
looked at him with the eyes of a prey willing to go down with a furious fight,
he could not leave her be.
Oh, how she still overwhelmed him! In the bloodstream, there were more senses
than was known, senses and sensations...a seething, raging storm of feelings
that twist and transform, and yet refuse to die.
~~~~~~
Through the eyes of a bird of
the plains, he would have appeared to aimlessly wander up along one little
road, then down another, but he knew the shortest ways through the city.
Onwards and upwards. And inwards away from the world.
It was time then, for a deep breath and a plunge. Now there would be no idle
hours.
It left him with a feeling he could not quite fathom.
~~~~~~
As a horn called for noon
over the simmering heat of the plains, the sound was carried far by the rising
wind. Clouds were hanging low in the sky. One could taste the water that was
yet merely a threat, an invisible oppression waiting for release.
He was excluded from this all, in the darkened halls of once-fair Meduseld. He
had to observe every action taken, every word uttered at the audiences of the
king, now that it was finally time to lure the kingdom deep into a web of
carefully placed lies. The web had been long in the weaving, by many a cunning
man, but it was his task alone to tighten the strings.
He had the kingdom on a leash, he knew. Now to lead it where he wanted...where
his master wanted. And to have all that had been denied from him.
~~~~~~
The eve was darkening when he
passed through the great doors again. He had talked to royalty and errand boy
alike, tugged one string, loosened another. Sometimes he cut those that were no
longer needed, with knife or poison, with silent death that descends by night.
He had said a good many things, some of them truly for the good of the land, if
not because of love of its people. He had worked harder than usual, for his
soothing impression, for the dazzle and allure.
And the fair golden lady had smiled.
The rain began to fall, at long last. He licked the droplets off his lips,
slowly, contemplatively. Cold ghosts of kisses that never were.
There, a drop of lost tenderness...it slid down like a pearl of rain. Down,
ever down. Any good thing was so fleeting.
~~ The End ~~