by Craig Davis
Chapter VII
Moreso than any other man of Feallengod, fortune had smiled upon Liesan. In long times past he had been the faithful servant of Ecealdor, in return earning title to vast lands. His property lay far from the community in the foothills, and his family flourished. Skilled servants, numbering in scores, and well rewarded, toiled with ease and facility at the tasks of his grounds. His properties returned so abundantly, he had no needs, not even the produce of Beorn Feohtan’s orchards. A modest fleet of sailing vessels rested at his docks, and herds of cattle, sheep and feisty horses roamed his pastures. Blessed with this great affluence, still he never failed to acknowledge the king’s goodness, each month setting sail to Gægnian a gift from his prosperity.
Every year a grand celebration marked the day the king had released Liesan from his indenture. Fatted calves, flowing wine and exotic fruits filled his tables at these feasts as all, master and servant, indulged equally of the bounty. Then, late at night, under glorious explosions of fireworks, a wonderful tribute — a jewel-encrusted sculpture, a magnificent animal, or perhaps a rare historic artifact — parted the sea’s waters for the king’s courts at Gægnian.
Wealth earns interest, and the interest of the common folk generally emerges in idle gossip. Whisperings of greed hidden away or clandestine generosity, extremes from either perspective, swirl about the reputations of such men, never finding their balance. Concerning Liesan, I attest that no such rumors swelled. From Liesan flowed only sincere, true giving, with no agenda but charity, with no hope of return; his arrival always inspired a smile, teeth or no. For too short a time, before trying the quarries, I worked his docks, and many a time did I load those ships that sailed for Gægnian. I swear that the treasures were no mean counterfeits, and fully worthy of my coveting. Always did Liesan oversee the work, encouraging much care especially with the annual gift, joyfully pointing out the delicate details of each.
“I have nothing to offer of value to him,” he told me once. “So I offer him everything.”
“Yes, sir,” I stammered in return. “You fear not that your gifts might rather offend in their smallness before the king?”
“He could take all I possess, if he so desired, or he could double. Either way, he would see no gain nor loss. Out of his abundance he shows generosity, and so also I the same, though surely I can not claim to profit him. What he has shown me, I must show to my kindred.” And he laid his hand upon my shoulder.
I know it true that a handsome bag of coin fell to the palm of each worker as the ships skimmed away upon the dappled water. And I know as well that exuberant thumping upon our backs and words of praise always followed, yet more precious to the hard-knock folk of the docks, for corruption could not squander those words.
Not that any man’s influence might have hindered me, any good man, at least. My desires for things of Feallengod, however noble in intent, rose before my knees an idol. Devotion deferred, and my thoughts strayed ever further from Ecealdor, gladly making faint the memory of the pendent stone. Already my grand efforts as solid citizen and family man proved themselves vain pursuits.
The companion of my nights showed me her back, and I took the invitation to swim strange pools. The power of the bed reigns. Do wives not realize temptation so often lives and dies by their touch? For all women surely share the essential part, and one’s the same as another in the dark. But was no woman’s fault, neither hers nor theirs. Such emptiness poured from my heart at my own behest. Love once again failed me, or I failed it.
So also fealty to Liesan suffered at my hands. None of his beautiful wonders could I pass off as my own. What good might a golden chalice do for the vagrant found with it? But the matter of denying another’s claim and possessing alone took hold of my thoughts. Should Ecealdor consider closely Liesan’s gift of that year, a magnificent gem-studded equestrian, if indeed he looks at such things at all, surely he would notice the empty setting for a single sapphire. A few twists of a knife blade, and I made again for the quarries, to dig more honest stone.
Yet even for having made of him a fool, Liesan prevailed over my conceit — the finest man ever I knew, a strikingly handsome man even in his age, the man I wished my father to be. A subject loyal to the end, more an adopted son than a servant, the name of Ecealdor never lagged far from Liesan’s lips. So did my petty crimes vex me more for simply giving them birth than any pain they returned upon him. Much I would learn about pain.
Liesan’s habit each morning found him sitting at his gate, reading the ancient writings by the rays of the rising sun. Though he lived not within the community, all the townspeople regarded him well. Not just toward kings and servants, but also for the plain folk of Feallengod, Liesan’s generosity never failed. Often one or two islanders might journey to his home with some news, or to seek counsel, or just to partake of his hospitality, as he always welcomed visitors gladly. I myself attempted the pilgrimage once, but by this time, and this time of day, so sodden with wine, I could never have found the way. Catching sight of two figures and their rough wooden cart, drawn by an ass, working up his path as dawn broke came as no surprise to him. The travelers approached slowly up the way, the rickety wagon lurching from side to side upon every bump and rut, threatening to fall apart at each step.
Domen and Begietan approached.
“What a grand morning — and only the arrival of guests could better it! And so brave to make the trying journey, in spite of your difficult transportation, do you think? A most beautiful day today, is it not? The early sun braces the attentions just as the crisp air, I dare say, wouldn’t you agree?” his usual effusiveness gave no ground. “What brings you gentlemen into the embrace of my lands today?”
Domen heard not a word, nor did he return more than a grimace. “Do you recognize this seal, man?” his voice and arm snapped before Liesan’s face, the scroll roughly flung open in his hand.
“You have the seal of the king, good fellow. Very prestigious. Years upon years have passed since I last lay eyes upon it. What good fortune to see it again, don’t you think?” replied Liesan. Startled by Domen’s rude manner, still he would not respond in kind.
“My words exactly. You will read here an edict from the king.”
“Please, let us not do business under open skies. You have been long on your journey, no doubt since the very early hours, no? A fire and sharing hot mead would better serve our comfort and conversation, would they not?”
Begietan looked hopeful, but Domen only barked a single word: “Read.”
Liesan sighed and looked to the parchment. “Who are you?” he asked as he read.
“I am Domen of the mountain. You will remove yourself from my property immediately.”
“Domen! So the word I hear speaks truly, does it not? You have been stalking about Feallengod, like a lion skulking. How comes this paper to you, hmm?” The caustic words of the scroll scraped at his eyes and astounded Liesan.
“You trespass. Get him off my property,” he said to Begietan, who promptly grabbed Liesan by his cloak, manhandling him out of his seat and heavily to the ground.
The wind knocked from his chest, Liesan lay stunned and silent upon the dirt, still grasping the curling scroll, trying to catch his breath and thoughts, looking to his attackers in confusion. “Now, look here! Stop! Stop this! I know my rights!” he protested in gasps.
“Your rights!” Domen spat in spirit and truth. “By rights you should be mine to chew your head off if I please. My rights would have you dead.”
Liesan struggled to regain his feet, calling out as if moaning in a dream, but two kicks to the head ended the attempt to rouse his sleeping household. His anger won no opportunity to rise, snuffed out quickly in the dust. Heaving coughs, cheek again to the ground, raised clouds off the path, and his lurching breaths only drew the dryness deeper into his throat and lungs.
Domen snatched the paper away from Liesan’s failing grip. “Do you honor your king? Then submit to him.” Begietan secured the old m
an’s hands tightly behind his back.
“I don’t believe!” Liesan wheezed. “You lie!”
“You’ll learn better what’s worthy to believe. Until then, you’d best believe this – I am prince of Feallengod. He’s said so.”
“What of — my family? My servants?” he croaked, as Begietan dragged him toward the cart, limp legs trailing winding designs in the dirt.
“I’ll take care of them — turn them out of here as well,” said Domen. “Let’s go,” he commanded Begietan.
The thug grinned as he punched Liesan once more. They quickly fled those lands, beating speed from their poor, braying animal with an unmerciful stick. Arriving at a wooded area just outside the borders of what had been Liesan’s property, a dump where refuse burned constantly, they again threw him violently to the ground.
Liesan couldn’t focus his mind or eyes, and before he knew it Begietan had him trussed in strong cords like a sheaf. They propped him up, sitting against a tree, and Domen cut a stout cane of oak.
“So does Ecealdor repay devotion – obedience returns its fruit at last. Thus does your dear king reward your friendship. He has sold you to his worst enemy.” The wood cut a broad swath in the air.
Liesan coughed again, tried to swallow, and then again. “I received my lands from the hand of Ecealdor. Why should I not so lose them as well? Sovereign in all his lands, is he not? I will serve the king who reigns in Gægnian.”
Domen struck him a stinging blow with the rod. Liesan fell to the ground with a grunt, held tight by his bonds, blood oozing from the blow to his neck. “The king has deserted you. All the bribes and deals you’ve made with him mean nothing! He is your enemy now. He curses you – return the curse upon him! Curse the one who brought you to this!” Domen demanded.
“I began this life with nothing, and gained all I had from the king. I suppose now I shall leave with nothing, no?” Liesan groaned. He struggled against the embrace of the bonds, but the course rope held too strong, too tight.
Domen squatted low, pushing his face into Liesan’s. “Does your integrity run so costly? Count you so-called honor more precious than life? Do you not know you can save yourself, just in cursing Ecealdor, just making yourself loyal to me?”
“My grief pours out from me,” Liesan’s voice struggled against his torment, “because he who once called me friend now rises up an enemy. The lord I sought to serve now finds fault in me. The very things I dreaded have fallen upon me, that Ecealdor has hidden himself from me. What fate could descend more grave? He levels his judgments in rightness, but, oh, to suffer these things at your hands!” A tear tinged red fell upon the ashes.
“You have much to suffer at my hands!” Domen flailed with the rod until the blows fell fruitless, lost in his rage. He gathered himself to deliver several kicks to Liesan’s ribs, making each new breath a knife to his chest.
“I weary of this,” Domen said, and he thrust the cane into Begietan’s gut. As he drifted deeper into the wooded gloom, the sound of blows grew fainter into the background. Eventually Liesan would break, Domen thought, in time he would call down curses upon the great king. Once the people of the island saw Ecealdor’s treachery, once Liesan had turned against him, all of Feallengod would quickly follow.
For days, for weeks a rain of bludgeoning fell like divine verdict. The pounding of the rods opened up Liesan’s body with welts and wounds, running with ooze and pus. Dried blood caked his face, mixed with dirt, washed with tears, his robes rent into rags. His only grace a shallow dish of gruel, placed by his head, compelled him to lap his subsistence like a wounded dog. Just nourishment enough allowed him to stay alive; beatings just restrained enough kept him from death.
Liesan came to dread the rising sun. He preferred the nightmares of his feverish sleep to those of his reality. Yet still, through the unholy abuse, he did not accuse the king. He was the finest man ever I had known.
“Whatever did I to deserve this? The injury is one thing, the injustice something quite else,” he murmured. “This only I know – my actions of my blessing rang no different from the actions of my downfall.”
“You have hated the king! Admit it! He wouldn’t allow this upon you if you hadn’t offended him!” Begietan growled as he applied the rod.
“I know not so, but still he would be right in his judgments, would he not? I protest —never did I play the knave before him, my devotion to him never false. I want to speak before the king. I must know my offense.”
“You’ve made him turn his back on you! What have you done? Confess it! Wouldn’t he rescue you if his anger did not burn? Wouldn’t he save an innocent man from this torture? You’re guilty! Guilty — you might as well admit it!”
“Better to have never breached my mother, isn’t it so?” said Liesan weakly. “Though even then never my own choice. All my years of favor in Ecealdor’s eyes repay not even a moment of his wrath. But redemption falls silent.”
“You suffer alone, you see? The king does not punish me. He doesn’t even know. You writhe under the heat of ordeal like a worm. How dare you demand the king’s motive? Domen is your master now, the only one to demand answer! You claim to serve the king, yet you expect him to answer to you like a circus fool.”
“He knows my heart, he knows my suffering. He will answer my cries. He will return and stand upon Feallengod one day,” Liesan sounded like he was trying to persuade himself.
“Traitor, I tell you, he sees your treason!” Begietan sneered, and down came the rod again. “You people will learn to listen to me. And now you cause my shoulder to ache.”
“False witnesses attack me, never the king, and they treat me cruelly. I know I am accused; so will I be absolved.”
“Your family rots in the ground, all of them,” Begietan told him, shaking the fist that held the rod. “He has ripped out their throats with his teeth! Your servants as well. They die upon your account.”
“False witness … lies … is it … is it …” and Liesan’s voice trailed off.
His eyes swollen shut, his teeth loose and bloody, and his chest ached with each breath. The cords that still bound him rubbed his wrists and ankles raw. A purplish black spread over his shoulders from long weeks of hailish blows, in turn discolored by dried blood. As time dragged on, the battered man could no longer offer any defense, and he took the brutality without flinching, exhaustion adding the facade of bravery to his ruin.
I hate my hand for writing such things. I hate my feet, for choosing the path of stumbling. I hate my head for the drunken stupor that prevented me knowing, from stopping the injustice. But surely did I not know, until the time turned much too late for Liesan, and for myself. The revelry of my companion, the desire to merely experience and then forget, the thirst to forget and forget, all twisted my mind to the service of escape. Only through twirling clouds of stupefaction did I at last see. And then even more so did I not understand.
Liesan fell deeper into torpor, unaware of the beatings, no more so than he once had been of the blood coursing his veins, or the breathing of his sleep. Indeed, his existence seemed to him somewhere outside his body, and at times in his mind he again walked the floors of his home. The physical pain mattered less and less to him, but his soul groaned under the accusations of his tormentors. The heartbreak of his abandonment, the injustice of the sea swept down upon him, bore heavily upon his perseverance.
Domen strode through the undergrowth, seeing Liesan upon the ash heap, the dusk of the fortieth day. Begietan awoke, caught in a nap of dereliction, and rubbed his eyes witlessly.
“You will turn today,” Domen said, and through slits of blurred vision Liesan could make out a heavy, spiked cudgel in the brute’s hand. “Today will you curse the king.”
“I have done nothing to deserve your abuse,” Liesan began.
“You do suffer for what you have done, for you have followed after Ecealdor,” Domen growled.
“Who can know the mind of Ecealdor,” Liesan said in barely a whisper. “Mys
tery shrouds his ways. Terrible are his judgments. I transgress to seek explanation from him.”
“Don’t entreat confessional from me, son of treason. You’ll gain no absolution from me. Damn Ecealdor and die!” The club, cocked over Domen’s shoulders, and then again, came down upon the back of Liesan’s head, and jagged, rusty spikes carved a smiling gash. The sickening crack of wood against Liesan’s skull made even Begietan wince as he looked on grimly, half-supine still where he had slept.
“You do this not to me, but only the king, for you have no power outside his will. The days make me only wish to die. Surely you so wish as well. But the king does not grant it me,” Liesan said, his words gurgling through blood. “Bless the king in his sovereignty. Bless him in his mercy.”
Domen snarled at the thought of his servitude. “You double your crimes in lying, for your thoughts curse him.”
Liesan fell silent.
“Your faking piety conceals not what fills your heart, nor will it protect what fills your skull. Curse him! Curse Ecealdor!” Domen raised the cudgel a second time.
Liesan cringed. “At his mercy. Mercy —”
At that moment a metallic song rang in the air, an exclamation point upon the sound too of footsteps breaking through the bracken. A flashing blade sliced Domen’s club cleanly in two – the terrible spiked end tumbled impotent at Begietan’s feet. Liesan turned his head stiffly to see: A dark figure loomed over him, accompanied by a dozen armed aides, arrived from the courts of Gægnian. Mægen-El considered Liesan’s wounds, and turned ferociously upon Domen.
“Though I might wish to have arrived under mine own authority, to fulfill mine own desires in this matter, oh ye Domen, instead I have come to thee again as messenger of thy king, Ecealdor,” he said, spewing outrage. “It is finished. The king declares Liesan vindicated.” Then to his aides: “Bind his wounds, and give him water.”
“No!” protested Domen. “You heard him – he dared to question Ecealdor! He will curse him! You cannot have him back!”
“Never was he thine, Domen,” said Mægen-El.
“He shall remain mine as long as he fouls this island! Surely all who tread Feallengod fall under the curse of my eye!”
“Rightly ye may say, Domen, but just as ye have been given right to the island by the king, so do ye suffer control at his hand. Ye shall have no more dominion over this man. So has he said.”
“You cannot!” Domen raged. “He is my witness against Ecealdor! His broken corpse will lead all of Feallengod against the king!”
Liesan, half-conscious, faced down in the dirt, croaked, “The king have mercy.”
“Ye have dug a trap, and fallen in thyself, Domen. Dost thou not hear the man speak? Hear ye me not? Ecealdor declares him vindicated. Now hold thy tongue, in the name of thy lord.”
Begietan, trying to go unnoticed in the background, now turned tail and slunk from the ash heap.
“Curse you! Curse you for a fool!” Domen wailed.
Liesan struggled to sit upright, but unable to gather any strength, instead lay upon the mercies of the aides. “You come from King Ec – ?” He could not finish.
“Yea.”
Liesan strained at his words, ribs heaving in attempt to sustain his pleas. Broken breaths crippled his speech. “Never did I seek to harm Ecealdor. Neither in Feallengod nor anywhere. The king spares my life, yet besets me with life. For years he saw no fault in me, only now to repent of his blessing. Please, I beg your forgiveness, why this flow of wrath?”
“Feallengod lies alone and separated from Ecealdor,” said Mægen-El. “Thy land hast lost the glory that once dwelt upon its shores, and the island itself, the very ground, weeps for its tragic condition. The suffering swells much greater than thou dost realize, Liesan, and soon it will come to rise even more.”
“But so many dwell upon Feallengod – why does the king see only me? Why fall my lands and friends from my embrace? My family, even my body broken? I never changed my ways toward the king. Why have I lost his favor?” Liesan struggled to lean upon his elbows, though Mægen-El’s aides supported him. Tears long run dry again trickled down his ravaged face.
“King Ecealdor shows himself sovereign, and for his own purposes he allows some to prosper and some to struggle. All serve who see the will of the king done. All who rejoice in his judgments will see their reward. Ecealdor has not averted his eyes from thy suffering for his sake. Feallengod gives birth to suffering, and so he will choose it as well. Thou art weak now, weak from the yoke thou hast borne, but thou hast shown the king to be strong in the love ye, his faithful subject, have for him. Whenceforth have ye won this his battle.”
“I still my voice, then,” said Liesan, too weak for more talk anyway. “The king be praised. May I find grace on the day I stand before him.”
“Thou hast suffered much for the king. The struggle will continue for Ecealdor, but for thee, Liesan, for thee the time passes, the affliction ends,” Mægen-El continued. “Most favored Liesan, in thy steadfastness thou hast won a dear victory for thy king, Ecealdor. In thy humility thou hast not transgressed against him. What thou hast lost returns again to thee, doubled. Rise and receive thy great reward.”
With that, he grandly gestured toward his aides. Liesan made no attempt to rise, so Mægen-El knelt. A scroll passed from hand to hand, and he read: “All powerful King Ecealdor, sovereign lord of all the greater kingdom, hereby rescinds his order and returns to Liesan of Feallengod all previous lands and properties. Further, he awards to Liesan the towering high mountains of Feallengod that rise out of the foothills of the community, specifically including the realm of Domen, prince of Feallengod. Witness the date and insignia of the king, to so enforce this order immediately.”
Domen’s fury, miserable in abject quiet, jaws and fists clinched, blew through his teeth at hearing the proclamation. His anger boiled into utter despair — Liesan had slipped his grasp, and now even his mountain was cast away from him. “No, no, no! You must curse him! Ecealdor mocks me in my own dominion! He has humiliated me!” Domen lunged toward Liesan.
A corps of guards from Gægnian, their swords suddenly flashing and leveled at Domen’s gullet, prevented him from reaching the stricken man. Domen arched himself backward and discharged an anguished stream of profanity.
“Not Ecealdor, but Liesan. Thou hast chosen thy battle, Domen, and thou hast lost. Thou hast been bested by a man of Feallengod. Thou hast been bested by the spirit of the king.”
One man’s triumph well often leaves another man inhaling the dust of destruction. Oh, my king, have mercy upon my neck! I know myself an arrogant and stupid man! It is said that Liesan harbored never a single bitter thought toward the king, but I more than took his part. Thousands of hateful, angry blasphemies, all put to words.
In the middle of town, lying in the street, conquered by intoxicating love, I spied movement in the haze, a silvery serpent winding through blades of grass. In muddled mind, still I could see a multitude of heads, shoulders bobbing against the baleful sky long past dusk. Yes, I saw the assembly of men from Gægnian under the waning moon’s glow, led by Mægen-El. Through the haze of my stupor I even recognized, I little know how, the battered body of Liesan, limp upon a litter, carted about like a load of lumber.
Yes, I remember now, the words of Gastgedal made sure I knew. Lying with me there in the gutter, my boon companion, he lifted a sodden arm and noted, “Is that not your beloved patron, Liesan, beaten and wounded, the favorite of the king?”
Carefully did I rub the liquored ooze from my eyes, indeed to consider well the cursed sight.
Perhaps a demon’s gift, to lie in that spot and see at that moment, cuddled with my accuser, and make out the marred face of a man — I know not even yet. The curse of that vision, as I drifted into nightmare upon the cold cobbles of the street, turned upon my heart to paint it with poison, to run venom through my putrid veins. The island had turned cruel — a senseless, hopeless cruelty for the mere sake of spilling blood — and who
better to accuse than its royal patron? In my mind, upon the passing of that minute, I saw what the favor of Ecealdor brought about.
“Well does the king treat his friends,” Gastgedal droned into my ear. “Better to see to oneself only, to follow one willpower only, and will to do so mightily. But I shall never leave thee, my lovely.”
I did not know, my king, I had no knowledge of your courts! I knew nothing of Domen’s evil design! But what counsels could Liesan throw his strength upon, and still he clung faithful, while I turned to the service of your enemy. Though, truly, how much turned I? Or did I only come to realize my utter estrangement? Domen’s boot print glanced off Liesan but landed squarely upon my head; Liesan’s devotion shames me even now. I saw so much, and yet so little did I understand, as my thoughts imagined Mægen-El and his men themselves torturing Liesan. The outrage of atrocities against those I most loved, they became too much for me! Then also, the tears I wept fell more for myself than any other. So from that night, though long indifferent toward the king, I became his adversary outright. From then on, I determined to take up only my own cause; at that moment, I considered myself just as he is. I took the cutting burr I lay upon, a metal goblet still hidden away in my waistcoat, and cast it into the gutter.
