The Marble Window
--With apologies to Oscar Wilde, Guy de Maupassant, and Franz Kafka.*
'Twas dashed off carefully & thoughtfully written in response to a specific online whiner, but one that was but instancing of a common trope, which itself is but a narrow version of a general syndrome, and thus may be applied elswhere as applicable...
Flames like small candles in the dark beneath a cathedral's high altar burn at the foot of the wall, so far below the palace window that their light but faintly touches the casement where stands, like such a sacred image, pale and pure and still, the prince of this unhappy realm.
It is autumn, when the peasants should be reaping the fruits and grains of their prior labour, and the plumpening swine to graze all in piggish unawares of their coming fate upon the plentiful acorns of the forest; but the summer has been all of drought - save when the thunderous deluge and battering hail fell upon the hapless enfeebled stalks like the rain of war, accompanied by roar more awesome than e'er was cannons' - and so the exhausted populace has drawn, like a tide of locusts, upon the capital in search of succour.
They have not found it, or not to their satisfaction; and so the growing throngs of grimy churl and careworn wench begin to fret, and more than fret, withal. A knot here, a cluster of bodies there, about a bench or barrel or wellhead, wherever people pause to gossip as they work, or after, or before - but no more like to common gathers than a half-closed hand resting atop table is like to a clenchéd fist, these days. And likewise the sporadic scuffle, the fistfights over nothing, the market mockery of the city guard and besotted brawl at lights'-out: all of them singly nothing, no more than the snortings and itches of a vast body at rest or work or disporting in play. But there is that difference about them, in the waning heat of the unhealthy year, that makes many more thoughtful heads wonder if these be not like unto the itches that betoken a pox, or the hacking cough that foretells the Plague...
A tavern was burned, a month since, in what might perchance have been accidental overturn of a glim; but the riot in which the flame did fall was no accident, as it was after averred that the brewer had been caught measuring his pints into tankards with overthick bottoms, proven when a soberer and more suspicious stranger to the town surreptitiously removed one under his cloak, and bore it away to the Clerk of the Market for compare, whence upon discovery returning with many angry customers filled with righteous intent to belabour the host's own overthick bottom, the city guard, whether for prudence or sympathy or both, was not overzealous to intervene.
Even that, in ordinary season, should not be more than a fortnight scandal, and a matter for neighborhood reminiscences; but there had been too many other like occurrences, and far more ominous to some minds (those of scholars, or such as have studied more than merely tales of war and battle) too many occasions when no violence transpired, but many stood in silence to hear one or another speak, for longsome whiles, and oft sober withal. The humour of the capitol is bitter, and winter's bite has not yet begun to close.
Into the dimmed room enters, bearing a branch of gilded metal with leaves of flame, the prince's trusted bodyservant; the scatters of light from the candlesticks make as much of impress upon the darkness as scattered coins upon the famine in the streets. The realm's young regent does not answer - does not even turn his head from contemplation of the disquieted night, where few now heed the cover-fire warnings, and there are too few watchmen to enforce them, upon the ever-growing human tinder packed about the palace.
"My lord?"
"They rail," he says through shuttered jaws, "at me, now - it has been reported they curse all of us without distinction, all of the blood royal, making no mark betwixt my father and his cohorts and mine own self! How durst they? Have I not met, day after day, with the city elders and the senior clergy to discuss what may be done for the relief of the poor?
"You did, my lord."
"Am I to blame, for my father's policies? --For the rapacity and ineptness of their own lords? Do I not strive each day to correct the laxity and indulgence of my sire's reign, now that he is sunk in dotage and I come into my majority?"
"Aye, my lord."
"Did I not hand out, with mine own hands, the sacred loaves and rosebuds of holy Elysia's feast? Even as that sainted queen herself!"
"Indeed you did, my lord."
"And yet they are thankless." Tears spark upon his eyelids, catching the firelight like cut crystals on a saint's festival robe, more limpid and canescent than the broidered beading of his vestiture. "Did you not hear, how some of these villeins did rob a wain of firewood for the bishop's own store, and used moreover most irreligiously to burn their dead in strictest contravention of the law?"
His valet murmurs some assenting sound.
"--I incline ever less to give them aught at all! Can they not see that by their unseemly anger, their thankless violence, they cause me to look with disfavour upon their appeals?"
To this his servant says nothing, nothing, haply, needing to be said.
"They say I do not comprehend their need! --As though I did not spend hour upon dreary hour listening to them drone on, saying naught but same as ever, the worn-out burthen to a monotony! Has there ever been a time when peasant did not complain of poverty, or burgher of ill-use, soldier of fees unpaid or treasurer or empty coffer? What do they comprehend, of the burden of rule, of the torments of responsibility, and unending weight of power - of the heart's ache that comes of having ever to be stern, or else to smile, not as the heart would but as circumstance commands - they cannot. And they do not even think of me, or how I suffer."
For the first time the still, fire-gilt figure of the realm's king in all but crown unbends, leaning one hand upon the marble sill, the which is carven most cunningly with figures of acanthus and squirrel and hairy woodwose, inset with lapis and jet and carnelian to give the lie of life. Wearily he passes one hand across his visage, from brow to stubborn dynastic chin.
"I cannot bear this," he groans, "I must have respite." Tossing back his well-kempt hair, he turns thus to the indistinct figure of the valet, made all one piece by the gloom, like a statue as yet unpainted, declaring, "Summon my guard - I shall ride this night to my hunting lodge, where the cool of the mountains and the sport of the chase shall, I trust and pray, restore my humours' equilibrium."
He sweeps out of the darkened chamber, the flames of the candlestand bowing to the breeze of his passing, and only the shadows which swirl in his wake are left to hear his servant's whisper:
"--But you do not."
* Possibly a bit to Eddison, too.
'Twas dashed off carefully & thoughtfully written in response to a specific online whiner, but one that was but instancing of a common trope, which itself is but a narrow version of a general syndrome, and thus may be applied elswhere as applicable...
Flames like small candles in the dark beneath a cathedral's high altar burn at the foot of the wall, so far below the palace window that their light but faintly touches the casement where stands, like such a sacred image, pale and pure and still, the prince of this unhappy realm.
It is autumn, when the peasants should be reaping the fruits and grains of their prior labour, and the plumpening swine to graze all in piggish unawares of their coming fate upon the plentiful acorns of the forest; but the summer has been all of drought - save when the thunderous deluge and battering hail fell upon the hapless enfeebled stalks like the rain of war, accompanied by roar more awesome than e'er was cannons' - and so the exhausted populace has drawn, like a tide of locusts, upon the capital in search of succour.
They have not found it, or not to their satisfaction; and so the growing throngs of grimy churl and careworn wench begin to fret, and more than fret, withal. A knot here, a cluster of bodies there, about a bench or barrel or wellhead, wherever people pause to gossip as they work, or after, or before - but no more like to common gathers than a half-closed hand resting atop table is like to a clenchéd fist, these days. And likewise the sporadic scuffle, the fistfights over nothing, the market mockery of the city guard and besotted brawl at lights'-out: all of them singly nothing, no more than the snortings and itches of a vast body at rest or work or disporting in play. But there is that difference about them, in the waning heat of the unhealthy year, that makes many more thoughtful heads wonder if these be not like unto the itches that betoken a pox, or the hacking cough that foretells the Plague...
A tavern was burned, a month since, in what might perchance have been accidental overturn of a glim; but the riot in which the flame did fall was no accident, as it was after averred that the brewer had been caught measuring his pints into tankards with overthick bottoms, proven when a soberer and more suspicious stranger to the town surreptitiously removed one under his cloak, and bore it away to the Clerk of the Market for compare, whence upon discovery returning with many angry customers filled with righteous intent to belabour the host's own overthick bottom, the city guard, whether for prudence or sympathy or both, was not overzealous to intervene.
Even that, in ordinary season, should not be more than a fortnight scandal, and a matter for neighborhood reminiscences; but there had been too many other like occurrences, and far more ominous to some minds (those of scholars, or such as have studied more than merely tales of war and battle) too many occasions when no violence transpired, but many stood in silence to hear one or another speak, for longsome whiles, and oft sober withal. The humour of the capitol is bitter, and winter's bite has not yet begun to close.
Into the dimmed room enters, bearing a branch of gilded metal with leaves of flame, the prince's trusted bodyservant; the scatters of light from the candlesticks make as much of impress upon the darkness as scattered coins upon the famine in the streets. The realm's young regent does not answer - does not even turn his head from contemplation of the disquieted night, where few now heed the cover-fire warnings, and there are too few watchmen to enforce them, upon the ever-growing human tinder packed about the palace.
"My lord?"
"They rail," he says through shuttered jaws, "at me, now - it has been reported they curse all of us without distinction, all of the blood royal, making no mark betwixt my father and his cohorts and mine own self! How durst they? Have I not met, day after day, with the city elders and the senior clergy to discuss what may be done for the relief of the poor?
"You did, my lord."
"Am I to blame, for my father's policies? --For the rapacity and ineptness of their own lords? Do I not strive each day to correct the laxity and indulgence of my sire's reign, now that he is sunk in dotage and I come into my majority?"
"Aye, my lord."
"Did I not hand out, with mine own hands, the sacred loaves and rosebuds of holy Elysia's feast? Even as that sainted queen herself!"
"Indeed you did, my lord."
"And yet they are thankless." Tears spark upon his eyelids, catching the firelight like cut crystals on a saint's festival robe, more limpid and canescent than the broidered beading of his vestiture. "Did you not hear, how some of these villeins did rob a wain of firewood for the bishop's own store, and used moreover most irreligiously to burn their dead in strictest contravention of the law?"
His valet murmurs some assenting sound.
"--I incline ever less to give them aught at all! Can they not see that by their unseemly anger, their thankless violence, they cause me to look with disfavour upon their appeals?"
To this his servant says nothing, nothing, haply, needing to be said.
"They say I do not comprehend their need! --As though I did not spend hour upon dreary hour listening to them drone on, saying naught but same as ever, the worn-out burthen to a monotony! Has there ever been a time when peasant did not complain of poverty, or burgher of ill-use, soldier of fees unpaid or treasurer or empty coffer? What do they comprehend, of the burden of rule, of the torments of responsibility, and unending weight of power - of the heart's ache that comes of having ever to be stern, or else to smile, not as the heart would but as circumstance commands - they cannot. And they do not even think of me, or how I suffer."
For the first time the still, fire-gilt figure of the realm's king in all but crown unbends, leaning one hand upon the marble sill, the which is carven most cunningly with figures of acanthus and squirrel and hairy woodwose, inset with lapis and jet and carnelian to give the lie of life. Wearily he passes one hand across his visage, from brow to stubborn dynastic chin.
"I cannot bear this," he groans, "I must have respite." Tossing back his well-kempt hair, he turns thus to the indistinct figure of the valet, made all one piece by the gloom, like a statue as yet unpainted, declaring, "Summon my guard - I shall ride this night to my hunting lodge, where the cool of the mountains and the sport of the chase shall, I trust and pray, restore my humours' equilibrium."
He sweeps out of the darkened chamber, the flames of the candlestand bowing to the breeze of his passing, and only the shadows which swirl in his wake are left to hear his servant's whisper:
"--But you do not."
* Possibly a bit to Eddison, too.