Jack of Tales

My spear arm aches. Blood and the screams of the dying surround me. There is a fresh wound that will add to the tangle of scars my sisters etched into my face in the ecstasy of the ritual of my coming-of-age. My teeth clench. I have never felt such joy.

            I remember that ritual. I remember the sun rising over the green fields and the wailing of the Flock and the blood on my cheeks and the taste of the seeing-mushrooms that rise from the ground all over. I remember the voice of The Lady as she declared me a woman grown, and took my blood into her hands, and blessed it with her love.

            Today is different. Today the sun is setting. Today the green fields stink of battle, and the groans and pleas of our defeated enemy mingle with our triumphant ululation. My sight is good, I scan the treeline in front of me for stragglers or another wave of raiders, but they are done. My armour of fire-hardened oak is battered but unbroken, my spear is sharp, my shield dented, the great hall still stands half a mile behind me, and we are alive.

            ‘This is our land!’ I shout, hoping that the remains of the enemy can hear me, ‘this belongs to me! To Skala! This belongs to the Flock and The Lady of the Green Fields! This is our land!’

            I am the Elder of the Flock. I have seen the back of twenty-three winters. The young warriors get to work behind me, finishing off the enemy and giving what help they can to our wounded. They are bloodied but bold, the enemy are shattered and destroyed. Pale, emaciated male bodies in rags are scattered here and there in the long, green grass. And before me on the path lies Barrabas, their leader.

            I sit on a rock beside him, rest my weight on my spear, look at him closely for the first time instead of spying him in shadows as he lurks beyond the treeline. He might be handsome on another day. A thick mop of auburn hair, big, dark eyes and a firm jaw. Not today though. Today he is not handsome. Today he lies in a disgusting puddle of blood and his own intestines. He writhes in agony, abandoned, and knows that death is near. I smile and wipe some of the filth from my face with the back of my hand.

            His eyelids are heavy. They lift slowly as he glares at me. He is in pain.

            Good.

            ‘Water,’ he says, meekly, ‘water…’

            I shake my head and purse my lips.

            ‘You’ve got some nerve,’ I say, enjoying the pain on his face ‘and you’ve had your last drink. Ever. You came here to steal the holy Lady’s water. Our spring. And for other reasons. You think we didn’t notice all your people are boys?’

            My voice has risen. I didn’t want it to. I wanted to speak calmly, dispassionately, I did not want this monster to know the rage and dread he brought out in us all.

            Barrabas is silent. A pained expression crosses his face, then fades back to dull resignation. I have questions I want to ask, but he won’t live long enough to answer them. I stand and lift my spear again, prod the sharp end into his spilled guts. Why did they attack so relentlessly? Why were they so thin? Is there nothing else out there, in the wilds, through the desiccated, lifeless trees?

            I think of the ones he killed. The Flock is smaller by six since the start of his attacks. I think of Erin, and the paintings she made, Laila, and the songs she sang. I feel my veins light with the fire of battle again. I clench my fist around the shaft of my spear, quake with rage, close my eyes. Nausea. For a moment I think I may scream, and the joy of our triumph is overwhelmed by a tidal wave of pitch-black fury.

            I kneel in front of him and grab him by his ears, use my strength to lift his face level with mine. He whimpers as I drag his torso over the ground and more of his guts slide from his belly. Good. Good. Bastard. I hope it lasts. I hope he lives a little while yet.

            ‘But it’s worse than that,’ I say, my voice leaden with rage, ‘worse than sexless men and thirst. I understand that. I understand why you’d want the only fresh water south of Ynys Mon. I understand why your little group of boys might fancy their chances against us. What I can’t forgive, what I won’t forgive, is the insult to The Lady. You brought violence here! To the Green Fields! You threatened us. You hurt us. You threatened her. The disrespect is… it’s blasphemy. Blasphemy. And you’re going to see what we do to blasphemers.’

            ‘Please,’ Barrabas wheezes, ‘water.’

            ‘No.’

            ‘Then,’ he says, ‘kill me.’

            I didn’t expect that. The filthy little bands of raiders that bother our great hall from time to time are never clever; they’re simple, savage things, roving through the wasteland with crude clubs and a taste for feral violence. Only The Flock and The Lady know civilisation. Only The Flock and The Lady understand there is something greater than our base instincts. She uplifts us with Her wise teachings. This enemy has been a little smarter, gathering their strength, attacking in force, they had even built some sort of shelter in the forest before we burned it to the ground, but they were still empty. Still knowledgeless, grunting barbarians, grasping and stealing whatever they could to eke out their pitiful lives in squalor and desperation.

            ‘No,’ I say, looking into his eyes, ‘you die slow. You die painful. You die thirsty. We’ll take your guts and dangle them from branches at the edge of our land. We’ll take your head and put it on a spike on the northern path. We’ll take the rest of you, and we’ll cook it, and we’ll eat it, right here in the Green Fields. We’ll destroy your existence. Scatter your bones through the forest. What we’ll do to you will send a message to the boys who ran away, who’ll be lurking at the treeline for a while, watching. We’ll defile your corpse. I want you to know that. I want you to know that before you die.’

            A groan behind me, cut short. The Flock are still finishing off the dying. I don’t even turn to look. I bask in the misery on his face.

            ‘I want your boys to know. They need to know.In their hearts. They need to know that we are harder, and crueller, and worse than them.’

            Behind me The Flock cheers and bang their wooden spears against their wooden shields.

            The celebration stops. A cry of horror, long, ululating, pure and soul-deep, rolls over the long grass from the distant hall, and I feel a numbness, and a shudder runs up my spine. I drop Barabbas into the filth of his own viscera in the light of the setting sun, heft my weapon, and run. I forget the exhaustion, forget the pain, the scream came from the hall, The Lady is in danger.

Why does it take so long? I can run across the Green Fields in an hour, and the hall stands in the centre of them, far from the grey and leafless trees. I see images of my past flashing into my mind unbidden. I think of my parents, dying of thirst, when the trees still had green leaves and flowers bloomed in spring. I remember the sound of birdsong, now long gone. The feeling of rain on my skin. Waking in woodland to the sound of violence. A busy life, full of pain.

            ‘Your name will be Skala’ The Lady said, with her warm and inviting smile, when she found me wandering near the Green Fields, ‘and you will be safe here.’

            I slam the doors open with all my might and run through the corridors to The Lady’s chamber. Nilith, The Lady’s guard, is slumped in a chair outside the golden doors and tears are streaming down her face. She is tearing out chunks of her hair, the lustrous red mane she’s so proud of, so careful to keep clean and brushed. Two of the Flock are dead on the floor. Four pale boys lie dead with them. There is blood on the wallpaper. Blood on the ceiling.

            They snuck around the back, tried to take the hall while the rest of us were fighting.

            I remember the ash storms, and the sound of hooves. I remember the last lamb, and the first time I tasted cockroach. I remember the Green Fields when I first came, a flash of life in the heart of a hundred miles of unending desolation.

            I step through the golden doors, into The Lady’s chamber.

Her eyelids are heavy. They lift slowly. She is in pain.

            No. You trained me. Made me a warrior.

            She’s dying. She can’t be dying. Please. She is The Lady of the Green Fields. Our God. The Flock gather around her cooing and sobbing, reaching out to try to feel her flesh for the last time while it’s still warm. Their hands brush against her, their wooden armour is still stained with the filth of battle, her bed is shaking with the weight of The Flock desperate to be close to her. Her blood spreads slowly across the sheets, stains her pure white gown.

            No. No, no, no.

            Her wound is deep and red, just above her abdomen. She is the oldest woman in the world, and she is dying. I brush her pure white hair with my hand, look into her bright green eyes, and she looks into mine, and gestures for me to lean closer. The Flock stares, my sisters, do they all feel the same grief as me? Did I fail? Did I fail my God?

            She was never a God. That was just a story we told ourselves.

            ‘I…’ The Lady tries to speak. A hush settles over the gathered Flock. Twenty silent warriors in a silent room. The bed creaks. The sun is setting. I hold my breath.

            ‘Do you remember,’ she whispers to us all, ‘the words I told you? The words of the Bhagavad Gita?’

            The silence is total, but The Lady is looking right at me. Outside there are soldiers of the enemy, dying. Breathing their last. The Lady nods, as if she thinks it right that she will join them soon.

            I say the words she told us, ‘now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.’

            The Flock remembers. The twenty gathered at The Lady’s bedside remember. They remember when The Lady told them that her husband had killed the seas and the forests. That the world burned, and the bees died, and the flowers wilted, all because he spent his days in dark back rooms and lied to the rulers about the black oil he was selling.

            ‘There is more,’ she says, focusing on me, on the last face she will ever see. ‘That book… that book teaches… a lot of lessons. But it was the one that… it…’

            She coughs. A trickle of blood escapes her lips. My heart is like a stone. Heavy. Still. The Lady steels herself and continues.

            ‘A King, in that book, a King, and we were Kings, remember? He was a billionaire, my husband. As good as a King. Well, a King… a King who rules well, who rules fairly, who uplifts his people, who makes them wise and joyful, he is rewarded. He is rewarded with bountiful karma.’

            Her voice is fading. My heart is breaking. The Flock is holding its breath.

            ‘I never stopped him. I never tried. Do you understand?’

            My God is dying, and I can only stare. I have no words. My God is dying and babbling in her death throes. No words of wisdom from the world before the fall, just madness.

            ‘I took his money. I lived his life. I watched as the ice melted and countries burned. I did nothing to stop it. I revelled in wealth. In the good life. He was… we were billionaires. Untouchable. We were Kings. And if a King who uplifts his people is rewarded, what’s given to the King whose rule drives his people to madness? To squalid, debased despair? What is the weight of the curse on such a King? I tried to make amends. I tried. I took you all in… I took you in. I trained you. I tried to teach you the right way. The good way. I took you all in. And I failed, didn’t I? I failed. I could never succeed. I am cursed. I am cursed…’

            I watch the light fade from The Lady’s eyes in her chamber as the sun sets, in that old bedroom of flaking wallpaper and boarded up windows, in the great hall, in the green fields that wither a little more every year.