The Weight of Honor (10 page)

She stood there, waiting for her father’s response. But for the first time in his life he stood there, speechless.

Finally, when he spoke, they were the words of a broken man, a man who looked much aged since she had strode into the room, a man who looked filled with regret.

 “You are right,” he said, his voice subdued, broken. She was surprised; never in her life had he admitted he was wrong. “We don’t deserve to be called warriors. And I didn’t realize that until this day.”

He reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder, and this time she allowed it.

“Forgive me,” he said, his eyes welling with tears. “I never knew how wrong I was. It is the greatest shame of my life, and I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you, if you allow me to.”

Dierdre felt her own eyes well at his words, all of her pent-up emotion rising to the surface, remembering how much she had once loved him, trusted him. But she fought it back, unwilling to show these men any emotion, still unsure if she would be able to truly forgive.

Her father turned to all his men.

“On this day,” he boomed, “my daughter has taught us all a lesson we have forgotten. She has reminded us what it means to be a warrior. Of the warriors we once were. And of what we have become. She is the bravest and best of us all.”

The men grunted in affirmative response, banging the table with their cups.

Her father stood to his full height, welling with pride once again, a gleam returning to his eyes that she had not seen in years.

“On this day,” he called out, “we shall take up arms once again, even at the risk of our lives, as our women have so bravely done!”

The men cheered, their faces brightening.

“We shall learn what it means to become warriors once again. The enemy lies before us. We may die confronting him—but we shall die, once again, as men!”

The men cheered loudly, rising to their feet.

“Bring me that scroll.” He gestured to a squire.

The boy rushed across the room and removed from the wall a scroll with Pandesian writing, several feet long. Her father held it out for all to see.

“The Pandesians declare that their laws must be hung in our meeting halls. Removal is upon pain of death,” he reminded.

He held the scroll out before them and then slowly tore it in half, the sound filling the air.

The men let out a great cheer, and Dierdre felt her heart warming as her father threw the scraps to the floor.

“We shall fight Pandesia,” he said, turning to Dierdre, “and you shall point the way.”

Her father reached for her, and this time she embraced him back, as the men cheered.

Life, she felt, maybe, just maybe, could begin again.

Aidan held on as the wagon jolted him on the bumpy roads. White was finally asleep, resting his head in his lap, Motley across from him, and he took in the country scene in wonder. The caravan of wagons, with its jugglers, acrobats, actors, musicians, and all manner of entertainers, was full of life, everyone telling jokes, laughing, playing instruments, singing songs and jostling with each other—some even managed to dance. Aidan had never seen a group of people so carefree, so unlike the grim warriors he had grown up with in his father’s fort. Where he was from, men stayed silent unless they had something to say. He barely knew what to make of these people.

Seeing all of this was like a veil being pulled back on the lighter side of life, a side that had never been revealed to him. He had no idea that life could be this carefree, that one could be
allowed
to be this carefree, that it was okay to be this happy and foolish. It was something he was sure his father, a serious man with little time to waste, would frown upon. Aidan had a hard time grasping it himself.

They had been riding for days through the countryside, twisting and turning their way through deep and dark woods, their destination never in sight. As they went, Aidan marveled at the foreign landscape, snow giving way to grass, twisted black trees giving way to perfectly straight glowing green trees that lined the road. The air was different this far south in Escalon, too, balmy, heavy with moisture; even the sky seemed to take on a different tint. Aidan felt a mixture of excitement and apprehension the further they went, eager to see his father, yet realizing he was further from Volis than he had ever been. What if, after this huge journey, his father was not there?

Aidan felt a twitching in his lap and he looked down at White’s paw as Motley came over, knelt beside him, and checked his dressing. This time, White didn’t whine as Motley wrapped it up again. Instead, he licked Motley’s hand.

Aidan reached over and gave White some water in a bowl and a small treat—a piece of dried meat that Motley had given him. White snatched it hungrily, then licked Aidan’s face, and Aidan could already see his dog’s spirits returning. He knew he had a friend for life.

There came another burst of laughter and a shout from the wagon beside them, as a group finished a song and drank from sacks of wine. Aidan frowned, not understanding.

“Why are you all so happy?” he asked.

Motley looked back at him, puzzled.

“And why wouldn’t we be?” he countered.

“Life is a serious business,” Aidan said, echoing something his father had drilled into him many times.

“Is it?” Motley countered, a smile forming at the corner of his mouth. “It doesn’t seem so serious to me.”

“That is because you are not a warrior,” Aidan said.

“Is being a warrior all one can do in life?” Motley asked.

“Of course,” Aidan countered. “What else is there?”

“What else?” Motley asked, surprised. “There’s a whole world out there outside of killing people.”

Aidan frowned.

“Killing people is not all that we warriors do.”

“
We
?” Motley smiled. “Are you a warrior then?”

Aidan puffed out his chest proudly and used his most mature voice.

“I most certainly am.”

Motley laughed, and Aidan reddened.

“I have no doubt that you will be, young Aidan.”

“Warriors do not just kill people,” Aidan persisted. “We protect. We defend. We live for honor and pride.”

Motley raised his sack and drank.

“And I live for drink, women, and joy! Cheers to that!”

Aidan stared back, frustrated that he was unable to get through to him.

“How can you be so joyful?” he asked. “There is a war to fight.”

Motley shrugged, unimpressed.

“There is always a war to fight. This war, or that war. A war that you warriors begin. Not
my
war.”

Aidan frowned.

“You lack honor,” Aidan said. “And pride.”

Motley laughed.

“And I have lived very joyously without either!” he countered.

Several musicians rode up beside them, laughing and singing. Aidan wracked his brain, trying to figure how to make him understand.

“Honor is all there is,” Aidan finally said, recalling a saying from the ancient warriors he had read.

Motley shook his head.

“I require a lot more than that,” Motley replied. “Honor has never gotten me a thing. Besides, there’s honor in other things besides fighting.”

“Like what?” Aidan asked.

Motley leaned back and looked up at the sky as he seemed to think.

“Well,” he began, “there is honor in making someone laugh. There is honor in entertaining someone, in telling a story, in taking them away from their woes and troubles and fears, even if just for an afternoon. Transporting someone away to another world holds greater honor than all of your swords combined.”

Motley took another swig.

“There’s honor in being humble, in not being so puffed up with pride like most of your warriors,” he added. “There’s even honor in laughter. Your problem,” he concluded, “is that you’ve been around warriors too long, growing up in that fort. Your vision is single-minded.”

Aidan had never considered any of this before. For him, he wanted nothing more in life than to be around his father’s warriors, to hear stories of battle and honor recounted again and again by his father’s hearth. For him, honor meant nothing else. He had never heard words spoken such as this, and he marveled at this man and his words and his brightly colored clothes, at all of his friends, all these people who seemed so foolish to him, who seemed to trivialize life.

And yet, as Aidan pondered the man’s words, he wondered if perhaps there could also be other side of life, another type of man out there, different ways to live. After all, he had to admit there was some truth to the man’s words: Aidan himself had never experienced any greater feeling than being carried away by a story, getting lost in the fantasy of ancient worlds and battles. They were what inspired him, what sustained him. And if this man could recount such stories, then maybe, perhaps, there was honor in him after all.

“Is that what you do?” Aidan asked, curious, looking the man up and down. “You tell people stories? Are you a bard, then?”

“I don’t just tell stories,” Motley replied. “I create worlds. I ignite the imagination. I inspire. I invite people into a world of fantasy, a world they could not enter on their own. What I do is no less important than what your father does.”

“No less important?” Aidan demanded skeptically. “How can you say such a thing?”

“Without me,” Motley replied, “who would tell the tales? After the warriors have won their battles, who would recount them to the masses? And if no one recounts them, they will not live on. All your father and his men had done will not even be a memory.”

As Aidan pondered his words, Motley took another long swig on his sack and sighed.

“Besides,” he continued, “your father’s wars are mostly mundane. For every dramatic battle worth mentioning there may be a year of trivialities. My stories, though, are never mundane. My stories extract the life from your father’s mostly dull journeys. My stories are not dry histories, are not encyclopedias; they are what matters most in them, what is worth remembering.”

Aidan frowned.

“My father defends kingdoms,” he said. “He has many people under his protection. You tell stories.”

“And I defend kingdoms of my own,” Motley replied, “and I, too, have many people under my protection. It is a different kingdom—one of the mind—and a different sort protection—one of the heart and of the soul—but it is of equal worth. The kingdom of the mind, after all, comes first. It is what enables men to dream, to imagine, to plan, and eventually to conquer the kingdoms of the world. The inspiration they draw, the lessons they learn, the strategies they deduct, are all from my stories. After all, what is life without story, fantasy, the legends we tell each other? Ask yourself, young Aidan: where does story end and life end begin? Can you ever truly extricate the two?”

Aidan furrowed his brow.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

Motley leaned back, took a long swig of his sack, and studied him.

“You’re a wise boy,” he replied. “You
do
understand. I can speak to you as an adult, and I know you listen. You just need to think on it. To let go of all your preconceptions. And I know you have a lot in there.”

Aidan looked out as the cart rolled and bumped, watching the landscape change again and again as a heavy mist rolled in and out. He wondered. Was there any truth to what this man said?  Were there other virtuous paths in life aside from being a warrior?

A long, comfortable silence descended over them, interrupted by nothing but the sound of the carts jostling on the rough country road and the occasional laughter and music of the others.

 “When we die,” Motley finally said, breaking the silence Aidan thought would never end, his voice more tired, heavy with drink, his face partially obscured by the mist, “we have nothing left in this world. Not our siblings, not our parents, not all the whores we’ve slept with, and not even the drink in our bellies. All we have left is memory. And our memories often trick us. They become half-truths, distorted truths, part real and part how we wished them to be. Our memories morph over time, like it or not, to fantasy.
Fantasy
is all we have left. Fantasy will always trump memory. When you look back on life, when you try to grasp whatever it is that you have left, you will not cherish the fading memories, but the fantasies that became so real they are now a part of you. And those fantasies are driven by story.”

Motley leaned forward, impassioned, a sudden intensity in his stare.

“You see, young Aidan, too often our lives are too mundane. Or too complicated. Or too unjust. Or too mysterious. Or too unresolved. Our lives can be messy stuff, with no resolution, sometimes even stopped in the middle. But our stories, our fantasy—well, those are different things altogether. They can be everything our lives cannot. They can be perfect.
They
are what sustain us.”

He breathed deep.

“
More
than that,” he continued, “we are not only sustained by our stories. If we live with them long enough, we
become
our stories. Do you understand? The legends we read, the fantasies we choose—they sink into us. They became a part of our fabric. They come to define us. They become as much a part of us as our real memories—even more significant, because our memories are thrust upon us, while our fantasies we
choose
. Whenever you hear a great fantasy, such as the ones I tell, it will change you.
Forever
.”

Motley finally sat back, sighing, taking another swig on his sack.

“So you see, boy,” he concluded, “I don’t just tell stories. I change people’s lives. As much, if not more, than your father. Your father’s swords are temporary; my fantasies shall live long after.”

Motley folded his hands on his chest, closed his eyes, and just like that, to Aidan’s surprise, he was snoring.

Aidan marveled at this man, so unlike anyone he’d ever met, wondering where he had come from. He looked around and he had to admit that he was in awe of all these people, so happy, so carefree. Aidan had never seen such joy in his father’s fort. Were the people of Volis missing something these people were not?

The cart rode on for hours, jolting its way, Aidan holding White beside him, trying to shelter him from the bumps, his wounds still tender. Aidan looked out and watched the passing terrain, trees turning from green to purple to yellow to green again, and just as he wondered if these woods would ever end, suddenly, they gave way to a great open plain before them.

Aidan sat up, feeling a rush of excitement as the vista changed dramatically. The sky opened up as the forest gave way, and the sun shone through in the open plains. He sensed they were close now. The ride was smoother, their horses moved faster, and as Aidan stood in the cart, eager to take it all in, he was stunned at what he saw.

There, on the horizon, emerging from the mist, sat Andros, the capital. It took his breath away. It was the most remarkable place he had seen in his life, stretching across the horizon, as if it filled the world. He looked as hard as he could, but he could not see where it ended. Before it was an enormous temple, soaring in the clouds, and through its center, an open arch, was its massive entry gate, mobs of people hurrying in and out. Aidan studied the parapets, expecting to see the royal yellow and blue banners of Pandesia, the battlements lined with Pandesian soldiers—and yet, as he surveyed the city walls, he was delightfully shocked to see none. Instead, his heart raced to see, the banners of Escalon hung proudly. He blinked, wondering if his eyes were misleading him.

They were not. The capital, he realized with a thrill, was back in his people’s hands. And that could only mean one thing: his father had taken it. He had won.

And that meant something even more important, Aidan realized with a thrill: his father was here, inside.

“Look!” Aidan called out excitedly, kicking Motley’s leg as he stood, staring out at the approaching capital, not believing how anyone could sleep through such a moment. The horses gained speed and Motley finally opened his eyes, startled. He looked around, then sat up and glanced at the approaching capital—but then he just as quickly sat back down, to Aidan’s astonishment. He folded his hands on his chest and closed his eyes again.