when the ashes had settled on Arion’s pyre,
only then did Hieronymo bring forth the harp
(though some there were curious, who late in the night
had heard, or had thought they heard, the apprentice
weeping and playing the sonorous mode of the Rending),
and late on the fifth night after the burning
Hieronymo sang for the host at the Vingaard Keep
and the Rending changed as he spoke of its birth
in the spiral of prophecy, the brush of its wing
on the glittering domes and spires of Istar
the swelling of moons and the stars’ convergence
and voices and thunderings and lightnings and
earthquakes
as Hieronymo told them that night by the hearth
that hail and fire in a downpour of blood
tumbled to earth, igniting the trees and the grass,
and the mountains were burning, and the sea became
blood
and above and below us the heavens were scattered,
and locusts and scorpions wandered the face of the
planet,
as Hieronymo told us, and then he leaned closer
and NOW, he said, NOW, I SHALL TEACH YOU
OF TIME
OF THE FAMINE AND PLAGUE AND PYRRHUS ALECTO.
DOWN IN THE ARM OF CAERGOTH HE RODE:
PYRRHUS ALECTO, THE KNIGHT ON THE NIGHT OF BETRAYALS.
WHEN A FIREBRAND OF BURNING HAD CLOUDED THE STRAITS OF
HYLO.
LIKE OIL ON WATER, HE SOOTHED THE IGNITED COUNTRY.
FOREVER AND EVER THE VILLAGES LEARN HIS PASSAGE
IN THE GRAIN OF THE PEASANTRY, LIFE OF THE RAGGED ARMIES.
THEY CARRIED HIM BACK TO THE KEEP OF THE CASTLE
WHERE PYRRHUS THE LIGHTBRINGER CANCELED THE WORLD
BENEATH THE DENIAL OF BATTLEMENTS,
WHERE HE DIED AMID STONE WITH HIS HOVERING ARMIES.
FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS THE COUNTRY OF CAERGOTH
HAS TURNED AND TURNED IN HIS EMBRACING HAND,
A GARDEN OF SHIRES AND HAMLETS,
AND Lightbringer HISTORY HANGS ON THE PATH OF HIS NAME.
X
His duty dispatched
and the old bard murdered,
Orestes returned
toward rescued Caergoth,
skirting the foothills,
and long were his thoughts
as he passed over Southlund,
the Garnet Mountains
red like a memory
of blood in the distance:
THERE IS NO LAW,
Orestes murmured,
his hand on the harp strings,
NO RULE UNWRITTEN
THAT YOUR FATHER’S SLANDERER
CANNOT INSTRUCT YOU,
THAT THE MAN YOU MURDER
YOUR HEART CANNOT HONOR,
EVEN AS YOUR HAND
CONCOCTS THE POISON.
The landscape ahead
was diminished and natural,
no thing unforeseen
sprang from the heavens,
the waters were channeled
and empty of miracles.
SO THIS IS HISTORY,
Orestes considered,
SO THIS IS HISTORY
NOW I CAN UNDERSTAND
as the road lay before him
uninherited, heirless
cut off from its making
and silenced by blood.
At the borders of Southlund
the smoke was rising,
the Arm of Caergoth
harbored incessant fire:
Orestes rode swiftly
through billows of prophecy,
the stride of his horse
confirming the dead words of Arion.
The cavalry plundering
the burgeoning fields,
leveling villages,
approaching invulnerable Caergoth,
heeded little the ride
of a boy in their column
cloaked in the night
and in helpless mourning.
A bard, some said,
or a bard’s apprentice
returned to his homeland
burning and desolate.
The captain of cavalry
turned to the weeping boy
and addressed him as soldier
as fellow and brother:
SOONER OR LATER, SING YOU THIS,
BARD OR BARD’S APPRENTICE.
FOR THE VOICE OF THE HARPER
THE MUSICIAN, THE PIPER
SHALL NO LONGER BE HEARD
IN THE ARM OF CAERGOTH,
LONG KEPT FROM THE FIRE
BY THE SONG OF A POET
WHO SAID SHE WAS BURNING ALREADY:
FOR A FRESH FABLED COUNTRY
IS THE NEST OF INVASIONS,
THE QUARRY OF CAVALRY,
RIPE FOR THE SWORD AND THE FIRE.
Orestes rode forth
and the captain continued,
turning his pale horse
as a star tumbled down
from the fixed dream of heaven:
FOR THE BARD’S SONG, THEY TELL ME,
IS A DISTANT BELIEF
IN THE SHAPE OF DISTANCE.
FOR CAERGOTH WAS BURNING
WHEN SHE SAID IN HER HEART,
‘I AM QUEEN, NOT A WIDOW
AND SORROW IS FAR FROM ME,
ELUSIVE AS THOUGHT
OR THE CHANGES OF MEMORY.’
SOONER OR LATER, SING YOU THIS.
And he vanished in histories
of rumor and smoke,
and sooner or later,
a bard will sing this,
in beleaguered castles
abandoned to night
and the cough of the raven.