Once again, I have been asking myself "what is to be done?" In 2006 I set myself a complex agenda which is now 100% complete and achieved. From time to time I added various small goals and extensions to that plan, and sometimes succeeded in kidding myself that I had a new set of goals and had reached a new stage in my life. With the Isle Martin Plan and its modifications complete, I have been once again asking myself "what is to be done?"
Whilst I am very happy where I currently live in the short term, what I would most like to do is inhabit a space where I would not be disturbed by the rules and expectations of those around me. Just as moving out of my parent's house was liberating when I was 18, I would like to move beyond the confines of 20-something shared housing into a world where I can define the parameters more freely. I do not wish to replace these rules with another set of rules, such as "living on a council estate", "living in a commune" or enforced nomadism.
Recently, I have found myself deeply regretting not being able to take various dead animals (roadkill fox and badger, two ravens) home and process them. I would like to spend a winter sleeping on a mattress of rotting bracken. I would like to be able to fill my attic with straw without anyone saying "planning permission" or "housing code". I would like to collect plants into a garden, and no, I am not at all interested in most of the plants you keep in yours. I would like to be able to dig a hole when I feel like it, and leave an open pit around for people to fall into. I would like to build furniture in ways no one but Syd Barrett would approve of. I would like to leave a brick on a synthesizer turned up loud for several hours whilst I cook meals you would not eat. I would like to be able to mess up the mains electrics and I would like to paint and texture things in ways that would reveal your aesthetic conservatism.
These are my goals. I believe that to achieve them I have to take control of a unit of geography. This seems vile to me, an affront to nature and a denial of "love thy neighbour". But in the cost/benefit analysis, it becomes clear that I must make myself look big and threaten trespassers with violence.
For some months now, I have been looking at houses for sale. They seem ill equipped for my needs. What I would like is a large garden with a shed in it. Whilst I take my responsibilities seriously with regard to eutrophication in an overcrowded world, there are very few parts of a "house" that I am interested in retaining. Roofs seem useful. But what is the boiler for, other than the socially-dictated generation of debt?
One solution would be to acquire a ruin and live in a shed in the garden. I do not know how to achieve this. Another would be to get a wood and hide in it. Here I am vexed by availability.
It is clear to me that the price of a house is dependent upon the availability of land. Bricks and mortar are cheap, and anyway I'm not bothered if they're all there (although you seem to need me to be concerned, and I suspect will force me to be so). Land is highly available in areas where the hand of the king is weak. The more slummy an area is, the less invested both the inhabitants and the authorities are, and the cheaper land becomes. A lack of investment leads to a weakening and diversification of polities (modelled continuously), and a greater concern for defining the boundaries and setting the rules I wish to escape. Or, in short, I would not go down very well on a council estate.
Secondly, the things you value in a house, the heuristic you call "well presented" has no value to me. "Well presented" is a burden, and entanglement of denial and a demand disguised as a duty to curate somebody else's ideological subjectivism. It is a threat against John Stuart Mill's property, and I bet there's magnolia in there somewhere.
I am spoilt by the freedoms of a rural middle class youth. It occurred to me only months ago that I was waiting for the large suburban house everyone around me had had growing up to fall into my lap. Unknown consciously, I had an expectation that I was due such a thing and that it was only a matter of time before I was burdened with such. The slow lumbering approach of home ownership felt like an unavoidable onerous task, something moderately irritating like having to clean your teeth or waiting for a train, coming towards me immalleably through the semi-accessible mists of the future. Now I have identified this misconception, perhaps it will allow me to move on.
I want to slip through the holes in the fabric of your social paradigm. I don't want to cheat or take shortcuts, I just have different expectations and have a closer relationship with fate than you do. The whole tangled ball of this system is only tenable because each of us sees only a few facets, distracted as we are with our egotisms and opiates. For better or for worse, the parts I am looking at don't add up. There is great narrative truth in several million small agents working selfishly, but in order to sustain the journeys we are on, we require a million small fibs and unnecessary regulations and abstractions.
I suppose what I want is to be left alone, to select what elements of culture and humanity I come into contact with. When feeding my ego, I would describe this desire as a true, pure liberalism. But it is truer to say that I don't want my million small fibs to be challenged any more than you do.
This is why I am living in my friend's attic.
26 Sept 2010
24 Aug 2010
Cheese Experiments
Thought I'd give cheesemaking a go. I've ordered some proper cultures and rennet off of the webnet but for now here's some small experiments. I've been using live yoghurt as the culture and spirit vinegar in the place of rennet. The yoghurt in question contains three bacterial cultures, including the Streptococcus used in cheesemaking as well as the two normally found in yoghurt. No idea why the cheese culture is in there, but I've seen it a few times so must be fairly standard practice?
Experiment 1
Three tablespoons of live yoghurt were gently heated. Three capfuls of vinegar were gradually added stepwise. The yoghurt became thinner. No curds were formed. The experiment was halted and the ingredients thrown away.
Experiment 2
A small quantity of ordinary homogenised semi-skimmed milk was gently heated. A capful and a half of vinegar was added stepwise. A couple of tablespoons of curds precipitated, but only fully after the stated quantity of vinegar was used. The whey tasted strongly of vinegar and was discarded. The curds were drained, and tasted noticeably of vinegar. They were washed with cold water, reducing the vinegar flavour, although the taint remained. Eaten with salt.
Experiment 3
A tablespoon of live yoghurt was added to a small quantity of ordinary semi-skimmed milk, and the mixture left to stand at room temperature for thirty minutes. After this time the mixture tasted noticeably "cultured". It was gently heated and only half a cap of vinegar was needed to precipitate the curds. The whey remained pleasant and was retained for experiment 4. The curds were washed in cold water, yet retained a very slight vinegar taint. Eaten with salt. Yield was similar to experiment 2. This method is similar to the normal recipe for mexican Queso Blanco.
Experiment 4
A teaspoon of live yoghurt was added to the hot whey and left to stand for a couple of hours. The whey was then reheated and a tiny amount of vinegar added. A very slight precipitate formed, which when collected in a muslin cloth and washed with cold water. A further yield of a tablespoon of curds was recovered. Ricotta is an example of a whey cheese made by methods similar to this.
The curds produced in Experiment 2-4 were indistinguishable to my uneducated mouth.
Experiment 1
Three tablespoons of live yoghurt were gently heated. Three capfuls of vinegar were gradually added stepwise. The yoghurt became thinner. No curds were formed. The experiment was halted and the ingredients thrown away.
Experiment 2
A small quantity of ordinary homogenised semi-skimmed milk was gently heated. A capful and a half of vinegar was added stepwise. A couple of tablespoons of curds precipitated, but only fully after the stated quantity of vinegar was used. The whey tasted strongly of vinegar and was discarded. The curds were drained, and tasted noticeably of vinegar. They were washed with cold water, reducing the vinegar flavour, although the taint remained. Eaten with salt.
Experiment 3
A tablespoon of live yoghurt was added to a small quantity of ordinary semi-skimmed milk, and the mixture left to stand at room temperature for thirty minutes. After this time the mixture tasted noticeably "cultured". It was gently heated and only half a cap of vinegar was needed to precipitate the curds. The whey remained pleasant and was retained for experiment 4. The curds were washed in cold water, yet retained a very slight vinegar taint. Eaten with salt. Yield was similar to experiment 2. This method is similar to the normal recipe for mexican Queso Blanco.
Experiment 4
A teaspoon of live yoghurt was added to the hot whey and left to stand for a couple of hours. The whey was then reheated and a tiny amount of vinegar added. A very slight precipitate formed, which when collected in a muslin cloth and washed with cold water. A further yield of a tablespoon of curds was recovered. Ricotta is an example of a whey cheese made by methods similar to this.
The curds produced in Experiment 2-4 were indistinguishable to my uneducated mouth.
25 May 2010
Glimpses
My mind is still milling over the DIftW. I'm not even sure it's made of words any more. Every now and again I catch glimpses of how I felt about the world when I wrote them. It's just below the surface, this feeling that I can't communicate, but I can't access it reliably. I have narratives - sophisticated joyful understandings in flow and rhythm - but it is the craft of turning them into something communicable that I do not care for.
I caught a glimpse looking at a workman today as he threw bricks and swore, his arm tattooed with his daughter's name and his eyes desperate: there is nothing slight or passing in the tautology that the world is created in the image of the world. I heard it last night as we walked by the Salvation Army hall and the distant buzzing of the brass switched on my mind. There was the celestial music again, the quest object, the sound more beautiful than anything external could ever be. I have heard music more beautiful than anyone has ever been able to describe. But it is not enough that it is so; it is my unshoulderable duty to externalise it, to codify the colour of creation. This is why I could not make small talk when you were drunk.
I have been dead for six months, maybe more. This winter was an impossible struggle against seemingly nothing. I had to numb myself against the weight. Now I can allow myself to scratch again at it, and I find the colour occasionally under my fingernails. Today and tomorrow I must be as I am now, but today I can once again hope for the day after tomorrow.
It would be easy to fall into hatred for the banality of it all, but I am too calm and too patient for that. So much is rotten.
I guess this attempt proves that it's too early to try to write again.
I caught a glimpse looking at a workman today as he threw bricks and swore, his arm tattooed with his daughter's name and his eyes desperate: there is nothing slight or passing in the tautology that the world is created in the image of the world. I heard it last night as we walked by the Salvation Army hall and the distant buzzing of the brass switched on my mind. There was the celestial music again, the quest object, the sound more beautiful than anything external could ever be. I have heard music more beautiful than anyone has ever been able to describe. But it is not enough that it is so; it is my unshoulderable duty to externalise it, to codify the colour of creation. This is why I could not make small talk when you were drunk.
I have been dead for six months, maybe more. This winter was an impossible struggle against seemingly nothing. I had to numb myself against the weight. Now I can allow myself to scratch again at it, and I find the colour occasionally under my fingernails. Today and tomorrow I must be as I am now, but today I can once again hope for the day after tomorrow.
It would be easy to fall into hatred for the banality of it all, but I am too calm and too patient for that. So much is rotten.
I guess this attempt proves that it's too early to try to write again.
25 Apr 2010
List 2
Ozone and hydrocarbons when a mattock hits industrial slag.
The certainty and precision of technical drawings.
A lungfull of cement dust.
Builders.
Silence at lunchtime when the machines stop.
Talking all day, more exhausting than shovelling.
Sheet-metal buildings felled, revealing pristine green slopes behind.
Evening vegetation.
A day in the office, a day wasted.
A picnic by the sheaf.
Celandine, anenome, every plant a friend.
A carrier bag full of ramsons and ground elder.
Every glance a potential meal: how could you ever starve here?
Bicycling against time, patience exhausted.
A tour of secret art galleries.
Pathetic expressions of privilege and wasted opportunities.
A room full of pure magic.
St. George's day on Devonshire Green: a perfection of blandness.
Waiting, waiting, waiting in a bar.
Reaching exhaustion behind a drum set.
Too little sleep.
The smell of rain at dawn.
Bicycling empty 6am sunday morning city arteries.
Hull.
Mud further than the eye can see.
Mist over spurn head, the end of the world, the threshold. (Song for Our Ancestors)
Plastic pollution in the seas.
The certainty and precision of technical drawings.
A lungfull of cement dust.
Builders.
Silence at lunchtime when the machines stop.
Talking all day, more exhausting than shovelling.
Sheet-metal buildings felled, revealing pristine green slopes behind.
Evening vegetation.
A day in the office, a day wasted.
A picnic by the sheaf.
Celandine, anenome, every plant a friend.
A carrier bag full of ramsons and ground elder.
Every glance a potential meal: how could you ever starve here?
Bicycling against time, patience exhausted.
A tour of secret art galleries.
Pathetic expressions of privilege and wasted opportunities.
A room full of pure magic.
St. George's day on Devonshire Green: a perfection of blandness.
Waiting, waiting, waiting in a bar.
Reaching exhaustion behind a drum set.
Too little sleep.
The smell of rain at dawn.
Bicycling empty 6am sunday morning city arteries.
Hull.
Mud further than the eye can see.
Mist over spurn head, the end of the world, the threshold. (Song for Our Ancestors)
Plastic pollution in the seas.
18 Apr 2010
Eating Dock
I heard that dock leaves were edible if cooked twice. So, when collecting ground elder to eat (highly recommended) I picked some fresh spring dock leaves to experiment with. There seems to be a lack of reliable information on this subject, so I present my results here. I am not an expert when it comes to the complex Rumex genus so no identification to species level was attempted. However, this specimen seems like a fairly standard English dock to my country eyes.
Raw, the leaves were acceptable, bland, and slightly acidic.
I chopped the leaves into approx. 7mm strips and boiled them in water in a small saucepan on a hob for about 5 minutes.
The resulting liquid was green, pungent and reminiscent of stinging nettle juice (these two plants are often considered to have some sort of affinity, growing in similar habitats. The dock is considered in folklore to be the antidote to the nettle). The liquid tasted acidic, bitter and dangerous. Adding dock to a sauce would make the sauce unpleasantly bitter and acid, and possibly introduce harmful chemicals (I do not know if there is anything harmful in dock) so I recommend firmly against doing this.
After pressing the cooking juice out of the leaves, they were tasted and found to be bland and unremarkable. All traces of acidity were removed to the taste: in fact, all traces of taste were removed entirely. The structure and thickness of the leaf had also been destroyed, and the remnants brought to mind thin seaweed in terms of appearance and texture. These leaves could be used as a spinach substitute, but as it is likely that most of the vitamins have gone down the sink and due to the availability of many tastier alternatives in the English countryside (not least of which nettles), I do not think dock worthwhile eating.
On final comment, the famous Lancashire dish of "dock pudding" is made using bistort, Persicaria bistorta, which, whilst closely related to the true docks, is a different plant.
Raw, the leaves were acceptable, bland, and slightly acidic.
I chopped the leaves into approx. 7mm strips and boiled them in water in a small saucepan on a hob for about 5 minutes.
The resulting liquid was green, pungent and reminiscent of stinging nettle juice (these two plants are often considered to have some sort of affinity, growing in similar habitats. The dock is considered in folklore to be the antidote to the nettle). The liquid tasted acidic, bitter and dangerous. Adding dock to a sauce would make the sauce unpleasantly bitter and acid, and possibly introduce harmful chemicals (I do not know if there is anything harmful in dock) so I recommend firmly against doing this.
After pressing the cooking juice out of the leaves, they were tasted and found to be bland and unremarkable. All traces of acidity were removed to the taste: in fact, all traces of taste were removed entirely. The structure and thickness of the leaf had also been destroyed, and the remnants brought to mind thin seaweed in terms of appearance and texture. These leaves could be used as a spinach substitute, but as it is likely that most of the vitamins have gone down the sink and due to the availability of many tastier alternatives in the English countryside (not least of which nettles), I do not think dock worthwhile eating.
On final comment, the famous Lancashire dish of "dock pudding" is made using bistort, Persicaria bistorta, which, whilst closely related to the true docks, is a different plant.
5 Apr 2010
List
A woman losing control of her heavily-set pony.
The smell of the rain on the moors.
Standing in the sleet.
The frozen heather rubbing my bare calves raw.
A moorland stream in spate.
The perfect camping spot: a patch of flat dry grass: the head of a silted up pond on the moor.
A two centimetre partially articulated bird claw inside an owl pellet.
The threat of the giant dread owl eating hawks.
Two hawthorns: lurking sentinels in the threshold of the city.
Diseased larches thick overgrown with extra branches bending down to the soil and creating rooms underneath.
Two magnificent venerable red deer stags well within the city limits.
A harpist performing in a pub.
Mother of Vinegar.
Conversation.
Storm Cats.
Driving all night.
Arriving at dawn.
Sleeping at a festival.
Setting up the cake stall.
Spiral Navigators.
Dreaming that I was turning left at a junction. A little girl steps out in front of me and I sound my horn. She dashes forwards into the path of a tram and I see her body ripped apart and her flesh ground into the tarmac.
Incestuous space rock bands.
A barbecue on the beach.
Other people's drugs.
Trying to think of more interesting things to do than sleep.
I love my granny.
Spring in Hertfordshire.
Driving to Sheffield on autopilot.
A woman losing control of her slight arab horse as she crosses the motorway bridge.
Arriving home and wondering what it is I do here.
Back up to 12 stone 7.
Having absolutely no idea what to do next.
The smell of the rain on the moors.
Standing in the sleet.
The frozen heather rubbing my bare calves raw.
A moorland stream in spate.
The perfect camping spot: a patch of flat dry grass: the head of a silted up pond on the moor.
A two centimetre partially articulated bird claw inside an owl pellet.
The threat of the giant dread owl eating hawks.
Two hawthorns: lurking sentinels in the threshold of the city.
Diseased larches thick overgrown with extra branches bending down to the soil and creating rooms underneath.
Two magnificent venerable red deer stags well within the city limits.
A harpist performing in a pub.
Mother of Vinegar.
Conversation.
Storm Cats.
Driving all night.
Arriving at dawn.
Sleeping at a festival.
Setting up the cake stall.
Spiral Navigators.
Dreaming that I was turning left at a junction. A little girl steps out in front of me and I sound my horn. She dashes forwards into the path of a tram and I see her body ripped apart and her flesh ground into the tarmac.
Incestuous space rock bands.
A barbecue on the beach.
Other people's drugs.
Trying to think of more interesting things to do than sleep.
I love my granny.
Spring in Hertfordshire.
Driving to Sheffield on autopilot.
A woman losing control of her slight arab horse as she crosses the motorway bridge.
Arriving home and wondering what it is I do here.
Back up to 12 stone 7.
Having absolutely no idea what to do next.
27 Mar 2010
Nightmares
Recently, when I have been trying to write, all I have been able to produce is ugly, dark and boring. I don't want to share what I've been working on both because it is not of sufficient quality and because it is greatly lacking in generosity.
When I write the good DIftW I get myself into a special mental state. This is the great effort of the writing. So long as I have an idea I am at least slightly interested in, if I can get myself feeling like that then it just comes. Now, when I try to write I find myself in falling into a pit of despair. So, I have stopped writing.
I have been troubled by nightmares. The simplest ones are when I am a kid again and either at home or at my grandmother's or in Wales. "Last night I dreamt I went to Collye Grove again." These places are perfect, joyful wonderful memories, but I find something about it deeply upsetting. Perhaps it is the contrast between then and now? I am yearning to regain my childhood.
I have dreamt twice that I was tricked into going to South America to play some gigs. Slowly, all the other musicians drop out until only I am left with the duty to show people round an old mine. It's in a dangerous, abandoned remote village. I travel up there and try to make the shack inhabitable. Then my co-workers turn up but there's something sinister about them. They say "you've been here two hours and you haven't even put the kettle on?" and so I have to go outside to the standpipe to get water. It's night, and creepily there are lights on in the other buildings even though they are abandoned. A crazy hairy man appears from one of the huts and starts throwing hatchets at me. I run back into my shack and then I wake up. This has happened twice.
I found myself in a sleepwalking state in a tent recently (this is not something I often experience). I was neither awake nor asleep. I was conscious but still dreaming. I was able to open my eyes but it was unpleasant so I kept them shut. I found myself searching along the seams of the tent, desperately trying to find the secret door. I knew where the actual door was, but I had to find another one. Then I went back to sleep.
The worst dream of all was that I was in a house I owned with a wife and a three year old boy. The boy had a certain name that was significant but I don't recall it. I didn't know anything about the boy, it was as if I had ignored him his entire life. There was more detail, but it's gone.
These are just a selection of the nightmares I have been having. Last night I was in South America for the second time. The night before I think I slept soundly. Every other night from Wednesday back about two weeks I have had a bad dream.
When I write the good DIftW I get myself into a special mental state. This is the great effort of the writing. So long as I have an idea I am at least slightly interested in, if I can get myself feeling like that then it just comes. Now, when I try to write I find myself in falling into a pit of despair. So, I have stopped writing.
I have been troubled by nightmares. The simplest ones are when I am a kid again and either at home or at my grandmother's or in Wales. "Last night I dreamt I went to Collye Grove again." These places are perfect, joyful wonderful memories, but I find something about it deeply upsetting. Perhaps it is the contrast between then and now? I am yearning to regain my childhood.
I have dreamt twice that I was tricked into going to South America to play some gigs. Slowly, all the other musicians drop out until only I am left with the duty to show people round an old mine. It's in a dangerous, abandoned remote village. I travel up there and try to make the shack inhabitable. Then my co-workers turn up but there's something sinister about them. They say "you've been here two hours and you haven't even put the kettle on?" and so I have to go outside to the standpipe to get water. It's night, and creepily there are lights on in the other buildings even though they are abandoned. A crazy hairy man appears from one of the huts and starts throwing hatchets at me. I run back into my shack and then I wake up. This has happened twice.
I found myself in a sleepwalking state in a tent recently (this is not something I often experience). I was neither awake nor asleep. I was conscious but still dreaming. I was able to open my eyes but it was unpleasant so I kept them shut. I found myself searching along the seams of the tent, desperately trying to find the secret door. I knew where the actual door was, but I had to find another one. Then I went back to sleep.
The worst dream of all was that I was in a house I owned with a wife and a three year old boy. The boy had a certain name that was significant but I don't recall it. I didn't know anything about the boy, it was as if I had ignored him his entire life. There was more detail, but it's gone.
These are just a selection of the nightmares I have been having. Last night I was in South America for the second time. The night before I think I slept soundly. Every other night from Wednesday back about two weeks I have had a bad dream.
23 Mar 2010
Music
I have moved my musical postings to a sister blog, Dangerous Ideas in Music. I wish to keep this blog more purely dedicated to words and woods.
21 Feb 2010
DIftW Progress
The main document file for Dangerous Ideas from the Wood is now at 35,000 words. I keep finding stuff that needs to be fixed and I'm really happy about that because it means it's improving. There's another 7.5k in the House of Cornus thread and another 7.5k or so that I can't fit in with the story in any meaningful way. I've got gaps and bridging bits and so on that will probably require another 5k words to be written. And then there's the ending. I've sketched it out but it really needs to be three or four times larger than it is. I imagine the final afternoon of the story will take up about 20k words once it's finished. I know what's going to happen but it's going to be very hard to control it all in a believable way. Along the way no doubt I'll spring a few more cunning ideas that will fit nicely into it.
I know It's pointless counting words but I need some way of marking my progress so there we go. Once I've done all the work I should end up with the first draft of something large enough to be considered a novel. That would be exciting.
I know It's pointless counting words but I need some way of marking my progress so there we go. Once I've done all the work I should end up with the first draft of something large enough to be considered a novel. That would be exciting.
15 Feb 2010
Dangerous Ideas from the Wood: The Pretender
The old captain had always been very kind to the boy prince. He was a canny man, the captain, with something deeper in his eye than most and scars on his body from combat. He was bald at this stage in life and as often as not wore his mail shirt, though he reserved his greaves and spalders for special occasions.
“Now, young prince,” the captain would say, “this stuffed shirt is your uncle. I want you to prove your accuracy. Let's go! Now!”
The captain hated the prince's uncle. The prince's father should have been the legitimate king; his uncle had only won the throne by fratricide. They had fought, the two brothers, and torn the country apart with war. For five years every villager hid his crops away and buried his coin-hoard on his land. For five years every wife had slept uneasily in her bed, her mind running round and round with the idea of her sons and her husband and daughters and the memory of burning torches and a horse burnt alive in the stables the last time the war had reached their village.
The old captain knew whose fault it was: the captain knew a thing or two about history and the story of their people. It was the King's fault, that vile evil man: he was one who had started this war. The very man that now sat on the throne of the kingdom and claimed to protect it was the man that had wrecked it.
The captain had fought in the civil war. He had opposed the evil king. They had struggled, his comrades and he, struggled against hunger and cold and mud and blades tearing roughly through meat and skulls crushed by the reverse point of a axe or a hammer. He'd seen a thing or two, and he'd been one of the few that had seen it clearly. It's one thing having your opinions and ideas sat back at your hearth, sleeping in a bed with your woman and living off the fat of the land: that was all well and good, but if you've not been to war how can you begin to understand it? He hated war, the old captain, in that pure true way that only someone who has murdered for the king can understand.
“It's a vile business,” he said on one of the days he wore all the armour he owned. He was kneeling in front of a soldier's grave, medals dripping from his chest and tears of pride weeping from his eyes. “Vile. Best pay tribute, young prince, in remembrance of all those brave servants of the cause who struggled to maintain civilisation when all around them fell into barbarism.”
“Never forget, lad, the things those bastards did. They'd come early in the morning and take whole families away. They'd line them up in front of a pit and” - the captain slapped his palms together - “that was it. They took the foreigners. And their political opponents, and anyone who said anything against their false church. I myself had a Jewish grandmother; perhaps they would have tried to take me? See, they'd take anyone, didn't matter what sort of person you were if you fell into a category they didn't like. Those murderers. I tell you what I'd do if one of them walked in here now. He wouldn't walk out again, I tell you.”
At the start, the civil war had seemed to be simple. The old king, the prince's grandfather, had been murdered. A man was hanged for the murder, but that is about all we may say with any certainty on the matter. Soon, the old queen, the wife of the murdered king, was firmly in control. Her son, our prince's father, was the heir, but he was not yet of age and she and her loyal courtiers had been elected to the regency council.
Then people began to talk. They said that the old queen had arranged her husband's demise. She was certainly more powerful than she had been, and the king had had a number of mistresses. It was not thought that his infidelities were motive enough to provoke regicide - after all, what is a king without a number of women to lord over? - but it would certainly have made things easier in the mind of a woman drunk on the acquisition and enjoyment of power. That she was a royal consort was proof enough that she was a grasping climber.
Soon the younger son, the current king, found himself surrounded with men eager to wrestle control from the regency council. They soon found that there were just as many titles and estates to go round as their were eager politicising men. It is true that men like that like to appear to be self-satisfied and important, but no matter how far they climb or how much importance they believe they have attained, they are never satisfied and always demand more. Occasionally these men see the errors of the ways, but usually the only balance on this runaway system is death, either natural or unnatural.
The pot boiled for fourteen years, and the man who had been a boy king found himself with a young son of his own. But then the greed of men exceeded the elasticity in the system and the suffering spilt over from those whom it belonged to into the lives of all those they touched.
Today, twelve years hence and seven years since the end of the first civil war, the old captain and the prince found themselves together on the evening after a battle which had been neither decisive nor short. Now the men on both sides had returned to their lines, sentries were posted and they tried to sleep.
“You know,” said the prince, who suddenly found himself on the cusp of becoming a man, “you know... it seems to me... it's one of those things...”
The proud captain had one hand on the shoulder of his protege. He felt sure the prince was about to say something that military historians would proudly quote for centuries.
The prince stammered, and then began to spit it out. “Since my father died,” he said, “I have been so alone.”
The boy looked up at the man who had taken his father's place. He saw the pores on the powerful man's face, and the quality of the shave the captain had had perhaps an hour before. The prince saw a thousand meals of rich meat and the thoroughness of the nutrition that had built the captain's features.
“Please, sir,” said the prince, “there are men laid dying as we speak. There are harvests uncut in the fields and old women who will find, come February, that there is no more flour in the sack.
“There are men who otherwise would be poets and scientists and doctors all bleeding to death. I met a man once, I only spoke to him for a few minutes, but do you know he felt such an affinity with water? When he dreamed he felt himself draining through the moss into rivers and flowing down and out to the sea. He said he'd spent a month in the blood vessels of an otter. Can you imagine? Sir?”
The captain shook his head. “I always knew you were simple,” he said, “but I had to try. Soft, that's what you are. You don't know what's good for you. Bleeding heart. What would you do if they were here now? What would you do if your father was still alive and you were there as they were torturing him?”
“Please.”
“Would you stand by? No, you'd fight like anyone else.”
“Of course I'd fight, just like you did. And then I'd be as bad as you.”
In the morning, the prince rode out alone across the lines. He had tied a token of parlay to his personal standard and was quickly picked up by the enemy knights and taken to the King's tent.
The young prince was almost thrown into his Uncle's presence. The King turned and faced the boy, taking his crown from his head and wiping the sweat of concentration from his brow. But there was such a look upon the young man's face. It made everyone in the area stop. No one spoke. The boy did not hate his Uncle. The boy did not forgive his Uncle; they were beyond forgiveness.
A tear formed on the King's cheek. The warlord offered his hand, and they shook, and they embraced, and the King fell to his knee and cradled the boy in his arms.
“Now, young prince,” the captain would say, “this stuffed shirt is your uncle. I want you to prove your accuracy. Let's go! Now!”
The captain hated the prince's uncle. The prince's father should have been the legitimate king; his uncle had only won the throne by fratricide. They had fought, the two brothers, and torn the country apart with war. For five years every villager hid his crops away and buried his coin-hoard on his land. For five years every wife had slept uneasily in her bed, her mind running round and round with the idea of her sons and her husband and daughters and the memory of burning torches and a horse burnt alive in the stables the last time the war had reached their village.
The old captain knew whose fault it was: the captain knew a thing or two about history and the story of their people. It was the King's fault, that vile evil man: he was one who had started this war. The very man that now sat on the throne of the kingdom and claimed to protect it was the man that had wrecked it.
The captain had fought in the civil war. He had opposed the evil king. They had struggled, his comrades and he, struggled against hunger and cold and mud and blades tearing roughly through meat and skulls crushed by the reverse point of a axe or a hammer. He'd seen a thing or two, and he'd been one of the few that had seen it clearly. It's one thing having your opinions and ideas sat back at your hearth, sleeping in a bed with your woman and living off the fat of the land: that was all well and good, but if you've not been to war how can you begin to understand it? He hated war, the old captain, in that pure true way that only someone who has murdered for the king can understand.
“It's a vile business,” he said on one of the days he wore all the armour he owned. He was kneeling in front of a soldier's grave, medals dripping from his chest and tears of pride weeping from his eyes. “Vile. Best pay tribute, young prince, in remembrance of all those brave servants of the cause who struggled to maintain civilisation when all around them fell into barbarism.”
“Never forget, lad, the things those bastards did. They'd come early in the morning and take whole families away. They'd line them up in front of a pit and” - the captain slapped his palms together - “that was it. They took the foreigners. And their political opponents, and anyone who said anything against their false church. I myself had a Jewish grandmother; perhaps they would have tried to take me? See, they'd take anyone, didn't matter what sort of person you were if you fell into a category they didn't like. Those murderers. I tell you what I'd do if one of them walked in here now. He wouldn't walk out again, I tell you.”
At the start, the civil war had seemed to be simple. The old king, the prince's grandfather, had been murdered. A man was hanged for the murder, but that is about all we may say with any certainty on the matter. Soon, the old queen, the wife of the murdered king, was firmly in control. Her son, our prince's father, was the heir, but he was not yet of age and she and her loyal courtiers had been elected to the regency council.
Then people began to talk. They said that the old queen had arranged her husband's demise. She was certainly more powerful than she had been, and the king had had a number of mistresses. It was not thought that his infidelities were motive enough to provoke regicide - after all, what is a king without a number of women to lord over? - but it would certainly have made things easier in the mind of a woman drunk on the acquisition and enjoyment of power. That she was a royal consort was proof enough that she was a grasping climber.
Soon the younger son, the current king, found himself surrounded with men eager to wrestle control from the regency council. They soon found that there were just as many titles and estates to go round as their were eager politicising men. It is true that men like that like to appear to be self-satisfied and important, but no matter how far they climb or how much importance they believe they have attained, they are never satisfied and always demand more. Occasionally these men see the errors of the ways, but usually the only balance on this runaway system is death, either natural or unnatural.
The pot boiled for fourteen years, and the man who had been a boy king found himself with a young son of his own. But then the greed of men exceeded the elasticity in the system and the suffering spilt over from those whom it belonged to into the lives of all those they touched.
Today, twelve years hence and seven years since the end of the first civil war, the old captain and the prince found themselves together on the evening after a battle which had been neither decisive nor short. Now the men on both sides had returned to their lines, sentries were posted and they tried to sleep.
“You know,” said the prince, who suddenly found himself on the cusp of becoming a man, “you know... it seems to me... it's one of those things...”
The proud captain had one hand on the shoulder of his protege. He felt sure the prince was about to say something that military historians would proudly quote for centuries.
The prince stammered, and then began to spit it out. “Since my father died,” he said, “I have been so alone.”
The boy looked up at the man who had taken his father's place. He saw the pores on the powerful man's face, and the quality of the shave the captain had had perhaps an hour before. The prince saw a thousand meals of rich meat and the thoroughness of the nutrition that had built the captain's features.
“Please, sir,” said the prince, “there are men laid dying as we speak. There are harvests uncut in the fields and old women who will find, come February, that there is no more flour in the sack.
“There are men who otherwise would be poets and scientists and doctors all bleeding to death. I met a man once, I only spoke to him for a few minutes, but do you know he felt such an affinity with water? When he dreamed he felt himself draining through the moss into rivers and flowing down and out to the sea. He said he'd spent a month in the blood vessels of an otter. Can you imagine? Sir?”
The captain shook his head. “I always knew you were simple,” he said, “but I had to try. Soft, that's what you are. You don't know what's good for you. Bleeding heart. What would you do if they were here now? What would you do if your father was still alive and you were there as they were torturing him?”
“Please.”
“Would you stand by? No, you'd fight like anyone else.”
“Of course I'd fight, just like you did. And then I'd be as bad as you.”
In the morning, the prince rode out alone across the lines. He had tied a token of parlay to his personal standard and was quickly picked up by the enemy knights and taken to the King's tent.
The young prince was almost thrown into his Uncle's presence. The King turned and faced the boy, taking his crown from his head and wiping the sweat of concentration from his brow. But there was such a look upon the young man's face. It made everyone in the area stop. No one spoke. The boy did not hate his Uncle. The boy did not forgive his Uncle; they were beyond forgiveness.
A tear formed on the King's cheek. The warlord offered his hand, and they shook, and they embraced, and the King fell to his knee and cradled the boy in his arms.
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