FROM DYAN'S JOURNAL
I had met Ceann back before I assumed captaincy of the Fyana. For years, that day I laid eyes on her had seemed like one of the the pivotal moments of my life. Now, looking back, I was no longer sure what, exactly, that day had meant.
Ceann's despondency had cast my every assumption about the two of us into doubt. It actually made me ask myself if she had ever loved me, or even whether I really loved her. Why should that be? Our years together seemed to have lacked nothing, but had something actually been missing? Why had she turned away from me in her sorrow, instead of toward me, as I would have wished her to do? I did not know.
That troubling conversation made me think. What did I still feel about Ceann, really? I loved being with her. But was this, the thing I felt, the love of lovers?
I knew -- or rather sensed in my gut -- that what we still had wasn't the all-consuming passion that poetry likes to build its air castles around. Somewhere along the road, we two had started to treat one another as dear friends, not soul mates. The realization of this had only slowly crept in. It had come upon us subtly, like a mouse moving inside a wall. I hadn't thought a great deal about the matter, considering it merely a passing mood that would soon right itself. When I had been wounded, I had been so overwhelmed by Ceann's display of devotion that it had caused me to see her once more as the object of my celestial love.
But true love, as I envisioned it, true love was immortal; it could not fade away in the face of a person's day to day adversities. What made me wonder whether my own love ran deep was my lack of intense grief at the possibility of losing her. I almost would have preferred to be devastated. Instead, I was thinking that, should she leave me, I could go on, albeit with a heavy heart.
Had I grown cold? Had she? If what I had had with Ceann never amounted to true love, then what was true love? I was at a loss to know. We loved each other; of that I had no doubt. But could it be that not every kind of love, no matter how wonderful seeming, could make true lovers of friends.
I tried to force myself to see what she must have been seeing. Ceann had to have suffered a terrible shock when confronted by my change. Whatever she had once believed lay ahead for the two of us, it would have crashed at that moment. Her desired future, no matter how vaguely or how hopefully conceived, could no longer exist for her, not even as a remote possibility.
Wasn't it natural that a young woman, looking at her life in the long term, would to start to think about where she had come from, where she now was, and where she might wish to go? I had to face the prospect that Ceann soon no longer be a part of my life. She loved freedom, she hated Harouck, but that wasn't enough to keep her at my side. The simple fact was that the vital thing that had enabled her to endure the strange, harsh life of the woodlands was her bond with Rodin. Did she see, even more clearly than I could see, that Rodin was, in fact, gone, even though I was still resisting that idea strongly?
I couldn't fully get my mind around the current situation, so I thought back to the first day that I had met Ceann. She might have lived as the commonplace daughter of a minor nobleman, except that her beauty had attracted Sir Fultur, an odious creature beholding to Harouck. Her parents supported her rejection of the brute, but the man obviously had gone running for help from the chancellor. The latter's idea of rule was to dictate every detail of every other person's life. Success had made Harouck expect that his every whim ought to be flattered with instant obedience. He presumably thought that all the Trybalids needed was a minim of arm-twisting to make them see reason. But the man's touch could never be subtle. His clerks obliged him by finding -- or inventing -- anomalies in the grant of title by which the Trybalid family had held its ancestral property rights.
The lord took the challnge to court, but the regime obstructed the family's legal defense. Forgeries and destruction of archival documents had been suspected by Lord Trybalid's attorneys, but the papers sought from the government were withheld. When the lord's family still did not yield to his conjoling on behalf of Sir Fultur, his response was again in character. A hundred armed militia men appeared at the family's townhouse in Moyarien and escorted Ceann, her parents, and her siblings into the public street. Royal agents took possession of their country estate at the same time.
Sir Fultur visited the clan at a city inn and strongly intimated that he had such influence with the chancellor that he could intercede. All Ceann had to do was set a date for their nuptials. The maid gave him no certain answer, but asked for more time while she consulted with her father.
She didn't have to. The girl's parents were now certain that their family had become a playing piece in a game of rogues. They saw no future for their clan in a kingdom so debased. For that reason, they urged Ceann to go with a servant who would hide her with a friend's family. The Trybalids hoped that if Ceann were not with them, the chancellor's spies would cease their watch. They intended to take the rest of the family out of the country, to a place where the lord held investments enough to save them from a mean and disgraceful existence. Once secure, they would send loyal retainers back to Arannan to guide their daughter back to them.
At the friend's house, Ceann soon heard that the entire Trybalid family had been murdered early in their flight, by “bandits.” As horrifying as that was, it was further made known that “any surviving family members” would be taken under the wing of chancellor and become his ward. To make matters worse, the family friends whom the girl was staying with grew fearful in the face of what was obviously a political assassination. A servant of the house came to warn her that she would soon be turned over to the chancellor's care. That moment changed Ceann. It hardened her, made her willing to take unladylike risks. Thus is was that a gently-reared maiden, one not yet twenty, fled alone into the night.
Ceann surprised everyone, and most of all herself, by managing to live, mostly by theft. She displayed a knack for burglary and found a rogue to teach her the cutpurse's art. Among the people she met, some thought that the Fyana might agree to champion her. So, with the help of someone who knew someone who knew someone who knew someone, word came to our band regarding the fugitive lady in the woodlands.
I had not been Fyana leader that far back, and the cautious man who then held that honor thought that there was nothing to be done and that it would be best to steer clear of the wayward girl. But the rumors, as I received them, had described a minx of allure. That I could believe, insofar as it had been the curse of beauty that had first aroused Sir Fultur's unwanted attentions. As for myself, I had been finding the forest camps socially stifling, and was curious to meet this intriguing the Cutpurse Coleen. She sounded like a heroine from the rousing old stories.
I sought out Ceann and met her at cottager's home; that moment was like magic for me. The fascination I had already been feeling not only continued, it achieved an even firmer grip upon my heart. One customarily won a fair lady by lending her assistance, and so, when the lady suggested killing Harouck and Sir Fultur, how could I say nay?
Despite my zeal to win the maiden's favor, assassinating the chancellor was obviously too tall an order; everyone in the Fyana had wanted him dead without result. But the loutish Sir Fultur was another story. We learned his pattern of movements, his moments of vulnerability. At last, we took him between taverns. Even without his assumed complicity in the murders, Fultur's other notorious deeds as a henchman for Harouck merited execution. Neither of us felt any need to question the man. What could be gained? What if he had been able to, say, implicate the chancellor in murder? What if he had been an actual eyewitness to Harouck's riding along with the false bandits and striking down the maiden's parents with his own blood-stained hands? In a kingdom like ours, accusations against a man who stood mighty in power were worth nothing at all.
How had Arannan come to this? When men hear that a beggar has killed and robbed, they are instantly incensed and howl for his life. But when these same paragons of righteousness hear about even worse crimes committed by a lofty official, they do not react at all. Cawdour had told me that such passivity was not the result of mere fear. People are flawed creatures. They have difficulty imagining that those who hold the levers of power, who are charged with punishing crime themselves, could, or even should, be held subject to that same law. The higher men of government stood, the less the people wanted to hold them accountable.
The mighty are, in fact, looked upon as if they were gods, and gods can do no wrong. If persons of rectitude think this way, imagine the cynicism of those who have never been aught but scoundrels, rascals who benefit handsomely from a lawless regime. Such persons -- Sir Fultur being one -- were willing to sacrifice any number of other peoples' lives in order to keep their benefactors in power.
It is an age-old concern. When those who govern do evil, who can hope to punish them? Who but a daring assassin as any hope at all to exact justice against the fortress of their power? King Cathmor, a mere cipher, would never act against his over-mighty servant, and, in fact, he lacked any real authority to do so. It would have been certain doom for him to make some vain gesture in the cause of decency, which is an undervalued thing. So, Harouck's life was safe.
Sir Fultur alone could be made to account for his deeds. Ceann asked for my dagger, but I knew that killing a man changed a person, and I did not want my bandit girl to be changed, not by one wit. So I did her a knightly service. Some men slain by me I have deemed to have honored my blade. But running Fultur through was like dispatching a rat; his blood did naught but befoul it.
Ceann was not much cheered. What did it matter that some small beast had been hunted to the kill if the great beast still prospered? But what was more immediately important to me was that Ceann should not go back to thievery. For that reason, I supported her as best I could, which was an uneven and spotty venture. Sometimes I was spent down to the very lint in my purse, and I worried that poverty would drive my lady to do something unwise. About that time, our leader's death brought about my election to the captaincy.
Rank has it privileges, but I did choose to bring the maid into the Fyana at once. I had to show the band that their captain had a brain, not just emotion. I got them used to Ceann by letting her accompany me when I gathered with rebel friends. After I accepted the lass's offers to spy for the Fyana in places where a man could not easily go, she proved her worth. Little by little, Ceann affirmed to one and all that she was not like the women whom the stalwarts of the Fyana hand known before. She reminded them of the adventurous goddesses of myth.
At last, before I even realized it, my beloved had become as much a part of the band as any man in it. When she started attending the gatherings, we wisely refrained from sharing a bed. We were already known to be lovers, but we respected the moment when important matters needed to be discussed. Flaunting my mistress would have affronted my comrades, who would themselves have liked to keep their women with them.
In those days, Ceann and I took daft chances and survived. It seemed as though our companionship was blessed. It was a magic time and I thought that naught but the death of one of us could end our happiness. I was wrong. All too soon, time would teach me that, just like there are many types of love, there are many types of death.
At Bronell's inn, the crisis had come and, apart from the obvious, I didn't know why. If a maid can love a prince bewitched to be a forest cat, as might happen in the old stories, why couldn't Ceann love me now?
On the other hand, what else should I expect? Who could stay with such a creature as myself? Stories are stories and life is life. When I stand back and take a look at myself, I have to ask what can I possibly offer to anyone? I see in the mirror a misfit, one that can scarcely hope to love or be loved again. It seems that all that is left to me, before the book of my life closes, is the chance to work for vengeance. And if vengeance can only come at the cost of my life, that is something that I am willing to accept.
But I want to go to the Western Isles only after I have arrayed everything that I possibly can in my favor before casting the dice. It is not so much that I want to live, I simply believe that it would be too galling to fail.
* * * * *
The Opposite of Victory
