Songs of Experience

Am I losing my mind?

Ever since the shadow touched me, it feels as if everything I see is viewed through a veil of darkness. I should be happy. I have what I wanted most in the world, and more beside. I am noble, rich, successful, respected, Courting the most incomparable woman in the Realm.

And I was happy, the happiest I’ve ever been. For such a brief shining time.

I haven’t heard anything from Bryne. I think he got my letter… and he ran.

All I can think about is my sins and my mistakes. It’s overwhelming me again… like the water over my head I wrote about before, except this time it’s blood choking me. Even the things that I had to do to save souls feel like regrets now. Lord, I am no Knight, no Inquisitor; I am too weak to bear these burdens. Knowing I brought them to salvation is precious little comfort.

The day I’m too weak to help save a soul is the day I should go to the pyre myself for my monstrous selfishness. But I fear I’m coming undone and I don’t even understand why. Why do I feel so filthy? I’ve bathed again and again, several times a day. My hands are cracked and my skin sore from all this scrubbing but it doesn’t help. I thought Caria would help, but those penances aren’t remotely enough. I just need to feel clean.

Arien. What I’ve just written… I reread it and – I’m losing it. Why? Nothing’s even -happened-. What did that mage do to me?

No. It doesn’t matter. I can’t go mad. Not when I’m needed, appreciated. Not when I finally have her.

Do you hear that, mage? Can you read these words, or my thoughts? Know this: I’ve faced darker creatures than you and they are dead and gone, while I’m still here on this Urth mostly in one piece. Whatever you did to me, I will defeat it and emerge stronger than before.

I will make up for my mistakes, somehow, someday. I will. There must be a way out.

8/25/355

Damn my infernal temper!

I hadn’t even considered the duel a necessary part of this. Theatre never hurts, but the true work of stopping this man didn’t have anything to do with weapons. It was just a little show, an excuse to tell everyone what he’d done.

But when I heard he had the cowardice to decline the duel and escape all physical consequences, so smugly talking about it – “Guess I have no honor!” – I wanted him to pay.

Not even for Sayrei. I hardly know her.

No, ultimately, for myself. For all of the people who, in my life, have reduced me to nothing but a body.

Gianina told me, the last time we spoke, that someone as petty and common as me would never have anything that he didn’t buy with his body. That I lacked the worth and skill to get ahead in life in a legitimate fashion and I should just accept such bargains, because I would never become a bard unless some woman liked the look of me enough to bestow the honor on me.

It’s difficult to put those words to paper even now, when I have achieved so much. They raise whispers in my head. Madilaire promoted me to a full bard instantly upon becoming Poet Knight… and wanted me in her bed. I know it’s ridiculous. I know. The other things I’ve achieved here in Lithmore had nothing to do with sex.

But it haunts me, and it makes me so angry. No one should have to feel this, this sense that all they are in the eyes of someone else is an attractive body. And a bard especially should never feel like all they are is a whore, with no choice but to go along with a powerful person’s desire.

I let it make me too angry. It’s probably alright; the flogging seems to have also had the intended purpose of bringing the Justiciar’s crimes to light, and possibly with more humiliation than a duel. But… I lost my temper over a matter that ultimately has nothing to do with me.

When will I learn to control myself?

The games we play with each other.

I’ve been too busy to write, so of course approximately a million things have happened since I last put quill to paper.

The melancholic humors that were consuming me have abated. While I am hardly past the horrors of the last few months, I have my feet under me again and can continue to move onward, trusting my healing to time.

Much of that I owe to Marisa. Courting, at last! I frankly don’t care at this point if we never marry. Though I suppose I must, for our baronies’ sake… but we are both young enough I think we needn’t worry. Well, I am. Do you know, I still don’t know how old she is? Four years we’ve known each other and she’s never confessed it to me. I suppose she must be thirty by now, but she hasn’t really aged a day since we met.

I have never been as happy as I was after her birthday party, after she accepted my gift and my suit. Never in my entire life. And I think it would have stayed that way… if I hadn’t seen him. I’d known that sigil anywhere, the morning bird.

I wasn’t prepared for how seeing him again would make me react. I’m still not prepared, truth be told. The contradictory feelings that reared up in me have only gotten worse after reading his letter.

You were my best friend in all the world, Bryne. I couldn’t understand when or how or why things went so incredibly wrong as to turn you into my enemy.

And now I’ve flirted with heresy myself by telling you about the warrant. I knew even as I put quill to paper that I shouldn’t be doing it, and the moment the letter was sent I regretted it. I probably could have paid the courier to give it back, and yet… I didn’t. I couldn’t.

I had to give you the chance to prove that you meant your words, but it’s already haunting me. What if that chance ends up being the death of someone who tries to take you in? What if that chance means you run away, unrepentent, uncleansed and unsaved to die just like Madi did? What you did wasn’t worthy of execution, but to run from it again… probably would be.

I don’t even understand why it’s so painful.

…enough of that. At least I’m working on something practical, meaningful right now rather than just sitting around. After reading her testimony, my resolve crystallized. Anyone who thinks bard is synonymous with whore is my enemy, and worthy of destruction. I think I could have taken my dagger to hand again and duelled him myself. It would have been unpleasant… at first. Then it would have been too pleasant.

But it wasn’t necessary, as the duel is just the theatre, the drama. The real work of taking him out happens behind the scenes. Still, people buy your vision a lot more easily when you spin it into a story they recognize. The wicked Justiciar, misusing his power and position to oppress the people. The righteous Proconsul, taking up his weapon to defend an innocent young maiden from the Justiciar’s perfidy. He demonstrates that the Reeves categorically reject their leader’s sins and still stand up for justice. The Justiciar is shamed, and the people’s faith is renewed.

Two birds, one stone.

Bryne, did you write me and only me because you suspected I was the weakest one out of everybody you wronged? Because you knew that I would find it so hard not to forgive you, after everything? Because you knew that if you could only convince me, I’d argue for you til my breath ran out? If you did, I guess you were right. Lord forgive me, I want my friend back – I want my partner back.

The games we play. Two birds, one stone.

At times I wonder just when our aim became so good, and if it’s actually a good thing.

Years ago, I sensed – knew – that I was at a crossroads in my life.

The two paths I could walk were embodied in the two women I had met my very first day in Lithmore.

I could take the easy path and idle away my life in Madilaire’s poisoned garden. Drunk on women, wine and song, uncaring of any reputation I won in the outside world. Again a pretty toy for a powerful woman, with no higher aspirations than to amuse and be amused. A two-bit bard in cheap taverns.

Or I could take the hard path and live up to the potential Marisa seemed to see in me. Change my entire self; take the lessons that I had bought so dearly to heart. Become a gentleman in clothing and airs, in bearing and in words… in truth. Become a man of substance, known throughout the Realm and respected.

I took the hard path. Of course, I was barely more than a lad then; in reality it turned out to be far less simple. In choosing the light, I had to go through the dark, and I paid a price I could have never fathomed. I try not to think about my days in the Tower… though I do anyway from time to time, albeit rarely now. I was a wounded animal, half-mad with loss and rage, and still forced every second to wear the mask lest my fellow prisoners discover the truth.

In all the horror and misery that has followed me since, I have never been as… abject as during those last few days in the cage. I clutched her handkerchief as the only line to sanity that I had left. Lying in my own vomit with the burns along my sides searing with every breath, my ribs stabbing and my broken nose a constant ache, desperately praying that no one would be able to touch me again…

…but I digress. Those days are gone, even if I still have the handkerchief.

I made the choice, and I followed the road, and it went further than I could have imagined. I have many regrets, but not the path I took.

Yet here, it stops. Again, I’ve come to a fork in the road. This time, it’s not two women representing the choice I have to make… it’s what I hold in my hands.

Down one path, I hold a sword. Scarred and weary, bitter and cold. I have chosen to walk the road of the blade to the bitter end, and what do I have to show for it? Countless wounds, an aching soul, and solitude. I know, deep in my bones, that when it ends I will be alone. Those I love will have been taken in retribution, or find themselves unable to deal with the walking mass of scars I would become. I would, too; I’m not that strong as to keep on fighting without being ruined by it.

In the other path, I hold a needle. I have still seen atrocities, and many of them I have no doubt found myself unable to prevent. I have had to watch while others protect the Realm, and if they do so with stronger hearts and souls, they still may not do so with the same success. Proud, perhaps, but I think I’d be a fool to pretend that my efforts have meant nothing. Down this road, I’d be helpless… but my triumphs would be lives saved. Not nebulously, because they didn’t become victims, but directly. People who are alive because I and my needle were there.

It’s a false dichotomy, again. It will never be a hundred percent one way or the other. But that doesn’t make the essential choice any less true. The sword, or the needle?

I feel like I’m swimming, sometimes, in a great lightless ocean. I’m exhausted from treading water, but I can’t stop. If you ask me what I would have changed among my past actions, I can’t tell you. What I’ve done needed to be done; protecting people is how I make up for my sins. And yet… the more blood I spill, the higher it all rises over my head. I can’t keep my head above the surface anymore; I’m drowning.

Somewhere along the way, I dedicated my life to saving and protecting others. The graveyard is full of people I have both helped save, and those I have failed. Somewhere Madilaire lies, mouldering to dust, in a grave I will never find how many times I look.

And now Sophie, too. Sophie, whom I failed twice. I could not help Anna… and I could not kill Sophie as I intended. Quick, quiet, peaceful, painless. I don’t know why I’m so sure she was coming to me – she sent several letters – but I feel it in my bones. I would have, Sophie. I promise you that.

I can’t do this anymore.