“To sup and be merry! To sup!”
The lady whispered, “Be attuned. Much will unfold as the evening grows. We are a nation that lives in theatre and, I fear, at times cannot tell our own lives from the tales we spin. Let us go”
The prince, fair and tall, stood and eyed the room while roasted meats and root vegetables on steaming platters were served. His eyes stopped on Ara, as if he knew much of her already, and then moved on.
As of one great voice on queue, the assemblage of actors roared, “Hail to the Prince!”
“Hail, yes!” answered Thorn. Ara watched his careless swagger.
After a further filling of flagons, he stood.
“Our first toast,” he said in voice loud and clear, “even before we hear a tale, is to our king, Lady Bregan’s and my father, and to his safe return!”
The entire hall duly stood and, to a loud “Here, here!” all drank their flagons to the last drop. Other toasts followed in close order. A noble of dubious lineage but definite girth rose, unsteady as if that were his steady state, and intoned in voice deep, resonant, and intoxicated.
“Now the sun is in her retreat. A fair hot wench, but not of our time. Our mistress is the moon, under whose countenance we do plot. We that live as good neighbors to the Dour Eye should do him a favor. He is too downcast and graceless. ‘Cheer up!’ I tell him, by his minions’ ears. ‘Come and drink with us, and let us conspire together to wind a bawdy tale, and much redeeming will be done. What of passion, and lust, and gentle grace, and the good gift of irony at our fate? Or do you, Red Eye, know only of the hunger to complete your darkness and then blow out the torch?’ There’s no irony there, and perhaps that’s the crux. His minions may yet visit us this eve, and we shall once more give it a try. My prince.”
At this, the servants all grabbed the torches from the walls and with wet skins extinguished them all at once. Only the flickering light from the huge hearth illuminated the hall, now washed in yellow glow. Four players in outlandish minstrel costumes vaulted into the hall, one from each direction, and landed as one, each upright on a separate table. They spoke in turn, back and forth, full and clear across the hall, the crowd turning to each voice:
Cadence stopped reading for a moment. The day had grown to noon. She would have to go to the Library soon. She settled in the overstuffed chair and picked up where she left off:
“A tale to be told at every feast! And of a good tale none can foretell where it may lead. For each is but a setting out on a road that may reveal a hidden gate.”
“Our tale is of our times.”
“
“Though its very prospect may deal with its end.”
“An end to be commenced on strands far remote, with furious close of butchery!”
“With great losings and findings. As of our noble King, lost in lands beyond our horizon.”
“And findings of a token precious, that does awake great strategies and cause this very age to shake and convulse with self-inflicted change!”
“As the lantern doth signify that night has fallen, so this token, despite its scale as but a coin pence in the hand, tells us that a night has come from which this age may not awake.”
“A changing, clear as the sudden smell of fall over the northern horizon, now comes to us.”
“And for our age, as certainly as we ask the sky each for ourselves, what will be left, and who shall care?”
“Will any tattered pennant, carried forth today with great bravery and purpose, flutter in the world to follow?”
“Will any word, or name of place, or keep of tumbled stone survive to speak of us to the ages to come?”
“This we ask, as your humble entertainers of this night. We who are but students in this land of word- masters the equals of whom do not strive in Middle-earth. Will even our august tales live on?”
“Will some quaint word, like a lost artifact lifted from the farmer’s plowed row, give birth to the story from whence it came?”
“Fools, all of us! For with this coming whirlwind there shall survive but tatters.”
“
The guests were rapt as he continued. “I shall now unclasp a secret book. And with your quick-conceiving discontents I shall share a matter dangerous and deep.”
Unveiling it from a robe, and undoing its brass hinge, he held forth a heavy, leather-bound book, its pages thick and warped, and its writing dark on the yellowed vellum as from a heavy hand.
“Minstrels, you despair too quickly. Yes, we are not of warlike powers. Yes, we are surrounded. But we are armed nonetheless. This is our weapon!”
The book he extended and slowly turned so that all could see.
“Its edge is subtle, yet it cuts. It stays both our enemies — the lesser and the greater. The Dark Lord, and Time.”
He knelt and placed the book solemnly on the table on which he stood. Rising, he spoke again.
“Now, I know well that among us tonight is some disguised ear, bought by the Great Evil that borders our land. Listen then, ears of friend and foe. I shall address the lesser enemy first. We raise no arms, nor hinder his armies crossing our sovereign; indeed, we tithe our share to the coffers that feed his war machine. Granted, rings have been neither offered nor accepted, and thus the unbreakable Vow of Protection does not exist between our realms. Nonetheless we sleep well, for our treaty among men stands intact. The terms of our contract of peace we honor in full to thee.”
Thorn’s arms were outspread.
“Champion of the Oppressed, Ringmaker, Spell-Holder over Mighty Kings, Adversary, Familiar of Evil, Eye of Menace, Bastard Spawn of all Witches,” He hesitated for a dramatic count. “Master of the Source. Supplicant of … Bind.”
His arms and his voice dropped.
“And for our contract, we enjoy the security that allows us to mock him and ridicule his many names. But mark this! Our survival is not cowardly groveling. It is not so that we may babble strong language to the wind but not to the face of our enemies. We do not mutter low-breathed in fear.
“Our weapons are the words we speak. Remember this: words are acts. They cut like sand in a windstorm. They break the rocks of untruth like the seepage of water and spread of roots into crevices. Winter and summer they break the rock. Thus did my father, the king, take pilgrimage to spread words of hope against our mighty neighbors. May the king return to us!”
He became silent. The hearth light flickered off wall and ceiling, glowed faces upturned and flashed glints of light in many eyes.
“In a moment, I shall tell you one part of a famous story, a saga crucial to remember in our time. For, of the great kings that fell before the false songs of the rings, this one, this man, this king, defied the overture of the Dark Confuser. A hero he should be, the greatest of men whose glory-song and exploits should be recounted at hearthside a thousand years from now. His should be a tale to rival brigand dragon-slayers and trove-thieves. His name should be honored in the Great Lays.
“But without our voice, and the ear and the memory it serves, his tale will pass. Few of these lays, I fear, will survive the unraveling of this age. Perchance some fragment may survive in some vault to be unearthed and seen with fresh eyes. Our greatest enemy, then, lurks not on our borders, but here. There are no curse-names for it. It is simpler. It is time.
“Against this, the greater foe, we yet have some power. For words and tales may float on its great tide. The very commerce of our kingdom is our tales. These, some of them at least, may live on.
“Now note this well. Should they ever be stilled, with their bridle cut so that none may ride them, then will the world turn to ash. That fate is not of our time, for we bequeath both well-cobbled roads and secret gates to all that may walk in the continuing story. We live here by the tales of forebears and the bonds of our stories. So long as
