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John was dead. Finally the long trek had come to its end. Their lives had been lived and nothing accomplished. John’s body lay in the bedroom that they had shared for thirty years; Mary sat in the next room, on the floor, in a corner, crying and crying, loudly sometimes, very loudly sometimes, just moaning sometimes. After many hours, the widow stood. She was stooped not only with sorrow but with age. She covered her head with a pala and walked slowly to St Irene’s, hardly noticing the people who watched her as she climbed the hill.
Mary had hoped to find peace in the church. There was none. There was no consolation. The church was as cold as the stones with which it had been built three centuries before. Mary prayed for his soul, She begged for his soul. She feared for his soul. She cried tears for his soul. She swore to God that she would never cease to cry until He had forgiven her husband’s many sins. This was the last thing a wife could do for him but as she at last left the holy place, she noticed how brightly the sun was shining Had it been so when she came in? She hadn’t noticed. Her eyes were clear too. A peacefulness covered her own soul and Mary went out into the daylight.

INTRODUCTION

In a chateau. there is a library and an old man. I know where and when, but let me preface the story for you. There is a book. It says something like this:
“Until the fifteenth century European men and women could rarely do more than wonder at what lay outside their own continent and the circle of nations which ringed the Mediterranean sea. Subsahara Africa was blocked by a desert wasteland and the path down the Red Sea to Ethiopia, India, and the far east was the monopoly of Moslem traders. The route which Marco Polo had taken overland to China was expensive and hazardous, itself a monopoly of the Ottoman sultans except where even their strong rule was challenged by bandits.
There was the sea, and the Mediterranean was a rich province of the Italian city states; but the Atlantic was another matter indeed. It is vast and it is stormy. True, Viking longships had sailed upon it, but the galleys of the Mediterranean powers and even the high caravels, gallasses, and galleons of Spain and Portugal were at hazard if they dared it. Few captains would risk their boats for long out of sight of land until around 1450 when two instruments, perhaps known to the ancients and certainly known in the orient were reinvented or brought to Europe. These were the marine compass and the astrolabe. With these devices, the new charts that were then appearing, and a brave crew, discovery became possible.
Hence the Americas. In the following three hundred years that same curiosity which spurred adventurers to the new world also touched men of calmer minds. They avidly read the reports of sea captains and the scientific journals which by the seventeen hundreds began to appear in drawing rooms across Europe. They tried to fit it all together into their own world, adapting new ideas in agriculture and invention to their estates yet holding to the past also. Nation states were developing around the stronger kings. The once powerful lords of former days were becoming courtiers, advisors, and often mere ornaments to the powerful monarchs. For the first time critical analysis replaced repetition of myth in the recitation of history. Edward Gibbon’s massive study of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was the most popular book of the mid eighteenth century. The cloaked anticlericalism throughout that work would blossom in the writing of Voltaire and the philosophes.”

LE CHAT DE VILLAHARDOIR

I see a man, Eddie. He is Le Compte Raymond Francois Villehardouir De Champagne and he lives a life of simple loyalty to the crown untroubled by the politics at court, for which reason the King did not require his presence at court but indulged the count’s wish to remain at a small family chateau with his books and his cat. He has spent most of this day in the fields with what he considered his own very extended family. Truly, the children could be bad and sometimes he had to judge and punish petty thieves, lechers, and those who would be bullies if they were allowed their heart’s desire, but with most of the peasants who worked his various estates, and especially this one at Marmande, he enjoyed, and truly they enjoyed, a very familial relationship. Under carefully chosen overseers and a seneschal whom his own father had groomed for his duties when Armand and he had been children together, the farmers and workmen performed in sturdy fashion those duties necessary to keep the estate efficient. In turn the count took seriously his sworn duty to defend and protect his villeins from bandits, to guard the chastity of the girls when they wished it, and, of course, to provide a good blacksmith, miller, and priest. His own needs were modest for with the death of his sons in battle and of his dear wife many years before of the fever, the count had few other wants than to buy a new book from time to time. At his death the estates would pass to his brother or nephews. They were good knights, better lords than many, and his mind was not terribly troubled for the future safety and happiness of the rest of the “family.”
Now it was early evening, late afternoon actually, but the hour seemed later for the count was quite tired and the sun had dropped behind a hill. Raymond got up from the chair in which he had been reading the latest volume of Gibbon to come from the English presses. He stood at the window wondering whether to further strain his failing eyesight by reading under candlelight. No. Mister Gibbon can wait, he decided. That man is very hard on the Church. Perhaps the priests are right in condemning him. Some things are best unexamined. It’s all in the past and cannot be changed. In front of a fireplace his cat sat upon the pillow provided to warm her underside. The two were growing old together.
“What do you think, Furface, ah? You live in the present and are ignorant but contented. I have all my books but really know no more than you about the whys of things.
“But that is not the way for humans, is it? We carry all the wrongs of centuries past as prejudice and whatever good things befall us we make into religion. Ah, Religion? Too often simple superstition. … I’m becoming as much a cynic as Mr. Gibbon, Cat. But truly, religion should not be a matter of rewards and punishments and looking for miracles, but of gratitude for being, ah Cat. I think too much. Enough. Some supper, hum? I believe there is still some roasted rabbit. Enough for us, ah? Where is Marie? No; not to bother her. She’s probably outside. We can eat later, Ah. Be patient. Let Marie enjoy what remains of the day.”
The count picked up the old cat who did not resist and Presently they began to fall asleep upon a day bed that each spring he would have moved from near the fireplace to before a large window whose shutters he now kept open all day and all night. That had been done eight weeks before. The past few days had been more than warm. Summer was upon the estate once again. How many more summers, Raymond wondered, will I survive? Many? He had reason to hope for he was still not very enfeebled. But still, as the holy Bible says, the Lord comes like a thief in the night.
A little of the failing sunlight and a light breeze off some fragrant honeysuckle lay softly on the old knight like a child’s blanket. Outside his window the bees that fed upon the honeysuckle droned softly. Then Marie tiptoed into the room and quietly knelt beside his bed.
“I belong to you as your fields belong to you,” she whispered in the lowest of low voices; A sweet voice so small that the sleeping knight would not have heard it at all were she not touching her lips to his very ear.
“No one has ever said that to me, Marie. Not even my dear departed wife, the mother of our poor sainted boys.” The old man thought for a moment. “Perhaps no one has ever said that to anyone before. It is a beautiful thing you said.”
“I’m happy that you like my phrase though you have neatly changed the subject.”
“I am not so subtle, Marie. I have never been good with words. Plain talk is all I can do. Perhaps that’s why Louis doesn’t want me at court. My talk tends to the plain and the honest.”
“Will you have me?’
“You are so young. It was so good of your father to send you here to care for an old man. …”
“That was a year ago, Milord. Papa sent me to care for an old friend. But I have fallen in love on my own counsel.” Marie stood for a moment, then slipped out of her sandals and lay down beside her lord. She was still dressed in a pale green dress, the color of the great lawn and embroidered by her own hand with wild flowers. Count Raymond wrapped an arm around the young girl and they slept close awhile until his pendulum clock chiming in the great hall awoke him. Furface was looking steadily at the count, sitting on his chest with her paws upon his shoulder. The cat began a rumbling purr and touched her cheek to his.

TERRI’S THIRD STORY – POLYPHEMUS AND GALATEA

“Do you like the Greek stories, Sweetheart?”
“The myths?”
“The stories? myths? Perhaps myths. Perhaps truth with a little fiction for excitement. After all life in a Greek village must have been pretty unexciting most of the time. I will tell you one.”

Some sparks dove to earth together and fell to two mothers living not many miles apart.
One was a fisherman’s wife and their child was a girl named Galatea. As lovely as the sun on the sea, and bright and lively as the sea on a beautiful day. She loved the bay below the cliff and I think that the bay loved her for they were as natural together as lovers. The girl was just a toddling thing when her mother first took her into its gentle surf and touched the child’s toes to the water and to the sand that ran out under them with each retreat of the tiny little waves. The little girl laughed and fell and ran about under the watch of her mother and very soon … in fact that very summer … she began to swim, and then to dive off the small rocks that stood up thereabouts as though they too loved to feel the waves’ embrace.
“The other spark fell to a pregnant lass in a fine hut of dried clay and woven grass. This hut was inland from the bay where the salt air did not penetrate unduly and was on a meadow not far from the woods. The meadow was all green grass, with a vegetable patch, and many grazing sheep; for the mother’s husband was rich in sheep and cattle and had herdsmen to watch over them.
“Their child was a boy whom they named Polyphemus to be brought up strong and holy, not in the work of his father, but in the godly work of heating and hammering bronze, for tools, and drinking vessels for the feasts; and forming and tempering the precious iron that foreign traders brought across the sea into swords and axes for war. He would be a smith and all that he would make must be as beautiful as it was useful or the god would not be pleased.
One day the father took his son from his mother and bouncing him on a sturdy arm brought the child to the village hearth. The holy smith tied a leather patch just like his own across the boy’s left eye and sat him near the fire that swelled and flamed. Another, older, lad, worked the bellows. The day was hot already and the fire roared at the little group. Soon all four were besmirched with soot and ran with stinking sweat. Though careful for their eyes and loins, they could not wear much else because of the heat of the furnace and the heat of the day. Therefore they suffered from the many tiny bits of glowing metal that flew at them with each blow of the smith’s hammer.
Yet the child did not cry that whole first morning and his father and the smith marveled at his attention. When later his mother came to bring the boy to home he danced his way there and begged to return and help to form the metal.
As he grew Polyphemus became strong and skilled and the works of his hands would soon match and then surpass those of the senior smith. But the life of a smith, though greatly honored, was not easy and though the things that come from his hands be beautiful, often he himself was not. The lad grew strong but the sparks pocked his face. Then one day when hardly more than a boy the god took his unprotected eye.
He never gave up the forge entire though two brothers now took the greater part of the work that he need not risk his one good eye. Instead he spent more time with the herds that he’d inherited when the rich shepherd died. On those days that he did work the forge he began to think longer on each piece he fashioned, praying over the hot and malleable metal trying to see in his mind’s eye the future of the thing. What he saw was not always good for anger and hate covet tools to do their work. But other visions were good, bright broaches on healthy maidens’ breasts and rings to bind the harness of strong oxen at the plow.
On one of those days when the young smith did not work at the forge at all but went, instead, to sit where his sheep and cattle lay, he began to wonder: Is there more than this. I have fine herds and my hands make things that are both strong and beautiful. Five fathers would give their daughters to me for my wealth though I am ugly. I am needed by all. Yet is there more?
There is the sea on which sailors sail, and lands far off where other smiths labor at their fires making things that may be stronger and more beautiful than my own.
He left the animals to his herdsmen and walked to the beach where fishermen’s boats lay pulled up upon it. Many carried some large or small work of his hands, rings to tie ropes to, hooks, and grates. Some sailors called to him and one drew out and waved a long knife at its maker. The smith remembered it; a fine blade and hilt, wrapped with hide and with a dancing dolphin incised upon the pommel. Such art required quick and even work with an awl-like tool but it brought him a good price and to the sailor pride in ownership. A fair trade.
Then he saw a girl and knew her to be the child of the bay whom he had not seen in more than a year. She came running down the sand from beyond the rocks that marked the harbor’s end. It was perhaps five full minutes before she was close but the smith did not need to discern her face to know the girl was grown lovely and blessed by some god, for as she trotted bare footed and horse-like beside the bay her lashing limbs flung the skirt of her tunic this way and that, while her bosom bounced heavily under the bodice.
Soon the lass drew nearly close enough for Polyphemus to read her face but instead he turned away, seemingly more interested in some detail of the nearest boat than in the beautiful thing that danced the sand and sometimes ran nearly to the surf where she could feel the cool ooze of wet sand under her feet. They’re pretty feet. I know they are. But when I can read her features, so she will mine. The young master of the hearth, who created things of might and beauty and held a thousand cattle his, hid his ugliness and cried a bit inside; then forced his thoughts to matters of work. A sword, Thesius wants a sword. He’ll have a sword; the heaviest and greatest blade I’ve made; all new iron with silver-incised words of hate. Yes, words of hate…No pretense of god wisdom, or the gallantry of heroes. No poetry. He wants a great sword with which to work, not a court-blade. No curled fittings or coiled and entwined beasts. No, it shall be the largest blade I’ve fashioned but simple and ugly with only words of hate upon it.
The young smith looked up again. The girl had passed and was some meters down the beach. That horse’s legs still splaying, and it’s hind quarters bouncing left and right and up and down beneath the white tunic that fluttered over them.
Her feet were pretty.
_____________________________

‘O Galatea, light and fair, why cast my love away?
Sleeker than is the grape unripe, and whiter than the whey,
And gentle as a lamb thou art, yet calf-like, full of play….

Dear maid, I loved thee from the hour
Thou camest with my mother to the hill,
And I did show thee hyacinths in flower;
And I have never ceased to love thee still.
And ne’er shall cease, e’en though I had the power —
But this affects thee not — and never will.

I know, O gracious maiden, why thou dost shun my sight;
It is because one shaggy brow o’erspans my forehead quite;
From this unto the other ear in one long line it goes,
And but one eye is set beneath, and flatly droops my nose.
Yet even I, such as I am, a thousand cattle herd,
And from these do I drink and drain the best of milk and curd…

For thee I’ll rear eleven fawns adorned with collars fair,
And keep four sprawling cubs for thee, whelps of the clumsy bear.

Come with me, and thou shalt find thy pleasures all the more;
Leave thou the billows bright to die a-quiver on the shore!
Come with thy love within my cave and cheer its loneliness;
Thy curtains shall be laurel and slender cypresses
Festooned with ivy dark and vines with clusters richly hung;
There is cool water, down the slopes of wooded Aetna flung,
Poured from the beaker of her snows, a drink divine to me!
Ah, who would choose in place of these the billows of the sea?

But if my shagginess offends, an oak-wood fire I keep
Within whose ashes smoldering glow embers that never sleep.
Come, burn unto my very heart within my hairy breast,
Yea, burn my single eye away, dearer than all the rest!

Ah me, that mother bore me, a funny thing, to glide
Down unto thee to kiss thy hand, if thou thy lips denied.
To thy white hand white lilies would I bring, or soft and red
As are thy dainty lips, the petalled charms that poppies shed –
Nay, these are the harvest and those of early spring,
And e’en impetuous love could not their blooms a-blended bring!

Yea, maiden, if some mariner hither his prow should turn,
Now, here and now, by help of him, right gladly would I learn
To swim within the ocean depths, that I myself might see
Thy dwelling place, and know how dear its pleasures are to thee.

At evening, many maidens gay,
To me to join their night-long pastimes call,
And if I answer, gladly giggle all.
On land, at least, I’m someone, anyway.

“Where did you learn that Dear, and when?”
“The poem is an old one by Theocritus. He thought that Polyphemus was a Cyclops. That’s the myth. He wasn’t a Cyclops and he wasn’t a myth.”
“But did he ‘get the girl’?”
“Yes. God liked his poem … his plea.”
“And did he learn to swim and enjoy the sea?”
“Yes. He did that for her…They were happy together for many years. I don’t know how I know these things, but they’re so. That I’m sure of as I’m sure of my own self.”

Now I’ll tell you about another kind of love. A kind of love that some farmers made with axes.”
“Huh?”
“First tell me about Muhammad, my historian. Was he a good man?’
“Yes.”
“But the devil was about in Arabia?”
“I think so, yes. In the desert of Arabia the holy man Muhammad heard a voice and believed.
“He united the tribes and they worshiped the one God. Yet under his successors the name of Allah was to justify the slaughter of men, the rape of women, and the enslavement of their children. Omar sent from Hispania to Arabia thirty-thousand virgin children for concubinage after he had killed or enslaved their parents.
“Then Satan laughed a cold hard laugh.”
“Yes, Dearest. Now I will teach you how men make love with axes.”

Along the shore of North Africa rough men put their boats to sea. Three times in ten years they had raided the Aegean
islands and each time escaped before the garrisons of the forts located there could save the tiny villages.
On Karpathos the captain of the guard at a small fort midway up the eastern coast waited. His name was Leontius. The next time the pirates came would be different; he had sworn it to the villagers and to himself.
One village was Elymbos. It was not much; hardly worth the effort of the pirates. Even the church was nothing special with little gold or silver. The only thing of value that Elymbos had to tempt them were its children. Leontius had looked into the eyes of parents whose children were in whorehouses now and seen…nothing. He had children too. A son and a sweet daughter only a two-day journey away on the coast of Thracia. He hoped to see them again.
If warned in time parents could hurry their children to the fort or at least onto the mountain that rose sharply behind the little hamlet. The pirates dare not follow very long there lest they be caught by the hard-eyed troops of the Byzantine emperor. If that happened Leontius would take no captives. A quick death in battle would be all that they might pray to Allah for.
Indeed no pirate would have dared stand against the armored cavalry of the empire but because Karpathos is an awful place for even the rugged mountain ponies of Greece, the garrison troops on it were infantry, less mobile than the pirates but armed with two javelins, a sword, bow, mace, and sling.
Leontius thought about his own children. Honorius would become a soldier like himself of course; and in time, God willing, little Anna would marry the son of Paulo the priest. She was not strong and Leontius worried about her health. Both he and his wife prayed constantly for her both at Eucharist and in their hearts. It was good that Paolo accepted the girl’s weakness, not many fathers would be so understanding. But their children had already been together almost from birth, playing in the churchyard and planting and tending a garden when they were tiny. Even now, when most boys spent hours each day with other boys, the priest’s son would sometimes slip off to be with his Anna and her mother or call the girls to join his coterie in their confabs. That was not right but they did not care. It was all so natural and healthy that, strangely, neither did the elder men seem to care either though some old women always hung reproachfully about the pair.
Leontius missed his family. There was a road, or rather a trace, on Karpathos so that a courier could race the length of the island to alert the forts. For a moment he fantasized that he could take the road right over the mountain, find a boat, and go home. Others had done it and they had not always been punished. It wasn’t like deserting one’s comrades in battle. It was his fantasy but just a fantasy; Leontius was a soldier and an officer of his Sacred Majesty. He would never do it; not really. Reluctantly he dragged his mind back to reality. A figure was approaching along the road, On foot and seemingly in no hurry. The figure grew slowly clearer until in time Leontius recognized the gait of a friend, the monk Thelonius. Thelonius had been nearly the first to greet him when a squadron of Imperial dromons had left Leontius and his troopers at Delfani across the mountain from Elymbos on the opposite side of this long, thin, isle. He had watched with interest and admiration as the captain put his soldiers to work rebuilding weak spots in the old fort. It had been hard heavy work and Leontius had pressed local farm boys into gangs to help raise stones again where an earth tremor had tossed them to the ground. These young workmen were as hard eyed as the guard captain for all had lost childhood friends or sisters and brothers; and although they were neither masons nor carpenters they knew what they were about in the simple job of rebuilding walls and they understood the importance of their work.
In time the walls were rebuilt. Then timbers cut from local pine were thrown across old guard rooms and barracks and new roofs were constructed of fireproof masonry. These were finished only just before winter came down hard upon the island. There could be no raids in such bitter weather but there could be little building either. Instead there had been training. For both the garrison and the peasants there was much marching and practice with weapons. By day they had all practiced archery, swordsmanship, thrusting with the pike, and shattering with the ax. At night when the locals rejoined their families the regulars practiced ambushes and tested each other in near real encounters in the dark. And for them there was more marching, marching, marching; marching over the rocks, sometimes for the whole night. Leontius was determined; Karpathos would not lose one child because his men must wait for daylight. Night would not be a friend of the bastard enemy.
On Sundays those who could rested. The short brutal winter quickly ended and sometimes on God’s day Leontius would absent himself from his men in order to give them relief. He would climb the mountain to the monastery of S. Georgios where his new friend worked and prayed. Today Thelonius was returning the visit and the captain went out from the small fort to meet him on the path.
“Thelonius, my venerable friend. What brings you down the mountain today? What can I do for you?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. We are doing fine. But I have need of rest from rest. May I accompany you for awhile, most excellent of men?”
“Flattery is unbecoming in you, Brother, but yes. Let me show you how well your islanders have rebuilt the fort, and in just a few months too. But don’t tell them I said that; it would destroy my reputation.”
“Truly, we mustn’t have that happen.” Thelonius smiled. “The brothers have been busy working with the farmers. The stables are ready at Elymbos and Avlona. Boys are ready to ride and give the alarum at any time, and if there’s trouble at night there will be the big fires as you ordered. Some shepherd will always stay near the mountaintop to light one there and relay the warning to you. Our children keep piling up mountains of twigs. The littlest are so serious, so sweet and serious.” The monk smiled the littlest of sad smiles, but a smile none-the-less. “We are as ready as possible.”
Leontius could not return the smile though he tried. “Now the waiting begins. If they bring their boats where we can get at them, we’ll use the fire bombs. Ah, but they probably won’t…Still I would like it. I suppose you’ve never seen our fire used. It burns on water and if we had a dromon we could even spit it right into their faces. I was in the capital when the Bulgars attacked. Our ships made a hell for them right there on the water. My place was on the wall, of course, but from there I could see most of the fight. My men never did any work at all. the dromons just burned ’em out and sent them to hell.”
“Rather, may God have mercy on them.”
“Hah, they attacked us. Anyway, they worship devils.”
“It is their way, my friend, and the way of their fathers. Besides we’ve done our share of murdering too, whatever the lords may say. We all need God’s mercy.”
“And the slavers?”
“They’re different. Besides they’re here. I can’t feel as charitable toward them. But I should…I wasn’t in Constantine’s City when the Bulgars attacked it. But…May God have mercy on them.”
“Yes. God forgive them and me…and the heathen pirates too if they die here. But it is not good for a soldier to dwell on these things. I have my duty and that duty is to our Holy Emperor and those who serve him on this island.”
“And to Christ the Ruler of us all, including the Bulgars and the Arabs. Someday they too shall be brought within the fold.”
“I hope the Bulgars bathe first.”
The two men sat down to rest and admire the wall. Leontius wondered. “Why does a man become a monk, brother?”
“Why that depends, my friend. I suppose for many of us its just the chance to get away. Get away from family or responsibility; from temptation, or even from the law. For others it’s a vocation. We hope it’s from God but I think that sometimes it’s from the devil.”
“From the devil?”
“Its hard to tell. Sometimes a man is pregnant with love of God and seeks out a lonely spot to meditate on that love. But others do what they think is holy but for the wrong reasons; and of course a lot of monks are just mad. Surely we must blame the devil for that. God doesn’t make men mad.
“Is there not a holy madness, a madness for God.”
“Sometimes there is a great devotion and a determination. Such men are saints indeed; but the holy madness that fools speak of? No. We must pity those men and women and help them lest they harm themselves.”
“Some men go to great lengths to be holy. Are you saying that they go too far? After all our Lord Jesus died in a terrible way.”
“Yes Leontius, but he died because he was holy, not to become holy. One may wonder why those saints who went out into the desert or up on a pillar worked so hard at it; Jesus didn’t.”
“No; the chaplain often reminds us that God was the most normal of men. But even he went into the desert and fasted for forty days. Still, you are right; he did not fast for forty years or injure his body.”
“Anyhow, the monastery is a way to get away from worries and troubles. When you have nothing you can’t worry about it. I have food and a place to sleep and good friends who never argue because they never talk.” Theolonius bent to hide his face then peeked up smiling. “I have my garden and I have my prayers. I think even the worst monks, like those who take to the cloister to escape something…even they are very serious about their prayers.”
“I would hope so. After all, you’re monks.”
“Yes, and very scared monks at that. Tell me, Leontius, which is better; to die of some disease that a demon brings or even just from the cold or old age; or to die under a heathen battle ax when they attack a monastery? Surely the latter, don’t you agree? We trust that though God may not save the soul of a man who prays when he is sick, surely he will save a man who prays when he is not sick and is killed because he is just a helpless monk defending a gold chalice.”
“So it’s yourself you think of.”
“Of course. One needn’t have a halo to be saved. One only has to be a good man. A saint need not live in a monastery and most monks aren’t saints. I know; many monks think that a monastic life is the only way to be sure of salvation, and they are very worried, They reason that if, indeed, the end time is near than complete devotion is all that they should aim at. For men so concerned about their own salvation though, they are often very loud in their condemnation of those who still live in the world. But Christ didn’t live in a monastery and he did not tell others that they must do so to gain eternal life. He only said that we must keep the commandments, and especially that we must love one another.” Brother Theolonius paused. “Men do God’s will because they are afraid. If they are scared enough and unsure enough of their virtue, or want to be absolutely sure that they will not go to hell; then they become monks.”
“You’re being very hard. Monks do much good for the world.”
“Yes, it helps us to be brave.”
“Then you are no better than other men, at least no better than the priests!”
“Each man must try to reach heaven. It is easier to do that in a monastery. Outside one cannot concentrate on just that. It is easier at S. Georgios and that is all.”
“You say that you are not brave, Theo. I don’t believe you. The slavers will come, if not this year, then next year, or the year after. They might not attack your monastery. It’s so high on the mountain, but even so there are safer places than Karpathos. You could go to Rhodos or even to the City. There are plenty of monasteries in the capitol, though I fear you’d not get along with the other monks there.”
“No. I am not brave but I will not hide. If the children must be here…” He paused a long while to formulate a dangerous thought in an orthodox manner. “If God would forgive me my sins for defending a holy chalice…I don’t care what others say…The cup of Christ’s blood is beyond all valuing but a child is more. Jesus would have said so.””
A voice from the fort interrupted Theolonius and frightened him. “A sail has been sighted! And its not one of ours.”
The monk ceased his brave talk. Leontius ran to the fort, his friend beside him. It was time.
There could be no night ambush. The enemy came ashore at dawn in the northern harbor miles from the nearest fort; and though a boy had ridden his heart out galloping across the mountain on an exhausted mount it was many hours before Leontius appeared with his troops on the heights above Elymbos. Yet the pirates did not have the easy raid that they expected. The farmers and shepherds were no longer the brave but undisciplined mob of earlier years and their weapons were not just slings and farm tools but included pikes that they were trained to parry an enemy’s lance or sword with and then thrust right through his lungs. Outnumbered, they met the enemy on the shore and held him there while their children ran for safety, only slowly falling back and drawing him along the coast away from his boats.
Then the regulars came down the mountain behind him.
Now the battle was short and terrible with axes and maces as the dominant weapons. No songs were written about it, nor stories told in the schools of Constantinople about the heroism that day. There was neither the coordinated beauty of a cavalry charge nor the disdainful slaughter of distant archery. Instead there was the brutal and methodical efficiency of infantry. The imperial troops carried bows but their pirate foe was too scattered for these to be effective and so closely engaged by villagers that an arrow might as likely strike down a parent as a raider. Leontius was not going to make the children of Elymbos orphans by his own attack. He led his soldiers shield-to-shield like their Roman predecessors in close rank down the beach. At one point the men of Elymbos were able to briefly disengage and there the Byzantine squad threw javelins into the pirate mass. Many did not carry shields and they died first. But none escaped. If they faced the heavy infantry they had peasants behind them with hate in their eyes and pikes and farm axes in their hands. Those who turned to face the farmers had Leontius’ killers at their backs. Soon the fight was scimitars against imperial maces while the now-exhausted farmers fell back to give the soldiers room; but with their pikes and axes they continued to block the retreat of the doomed pirates.
That evening Leontius could report to Constantinople that though the pirates had fought desperately to disengage and regain their boats, God had given the field to his Sacred Majesty. It was not necessary in the formal dispatch about a minor police action against an annoying but petty enemy to add how when it was over the women of Elymbos had torn at the slavers’ corpses and defiled them; or how, while still wrenched by hot tears and cold anger, they had gathered their own dead and the parts of their dead. Some had vomited there and added to the stench of the field; others had entirely hid their feelings and under the repetitious prayers that they murmured. The monk Theolonius had been there too, praying over the bodies together with the local priest. For a time anger at the horrid evil men who had come to befoul and rape his island home and those he loved who dwelt upon it had driven charity from him. Anger had made him as brave as any trooper. But now Christ recalled him to duty. Though he still wore a borrowed mail shirt, he had dropped the ax which had made him look every bit the fearsome veteran which he had now become. He prayed aloud for the dead villagers, silently for the deluded miserable men who followed the prophet of Mecca and, it was said, still worshiped a stone.
On the next day the children returned from the mountain. In the church, very slowly and solemnly and without any prompting each knelt and kissed the broken skulls and torn bodies of their heroes. Many had need to cry. For them the dead included fathers and brothers and cousins. But they would live in peace and safety for two generations.”

“That’s a sad tale.”
“Most people have lived lives of tedium only relieved by hard work, my Love. For the farmers that was probably their one great adventure.”

John Briscoll was out for a drive, alone, to take in the autumn scenery as the leaves changed. He was getting older and wondered how many more autumns he’d see. Just a moment before he’d been shaken when some idiot had cut him off. Now, on nothing but a whim and to calm his nerves, he turned off the parkway – shun-piking he’d heard it called – and followed an old road that lead toward a large stand of trees; red and gold leafed maples, but also white birch and, deeper in the wood, some very old oaks which rose above the younger trees.
He neared the wood more and more slowly; the road passing through an enormous field of dead corn stalks that some farmer would soon plow under. Dead and soon to be buried – and maybe to be reborn as something else. John wished he were more sure of the last. Otherwise what was the use of anything anyone did. If there was nothing, then his life was as meaningless as had been that of some dinosaur, whether it had been good or bad, or productive, or not. Mere procreation could mean nothing. Neither could humanity’s pride: its so called progress, if it led nowhere. Then all life would always be nothing but “a searching after wind.”.
In a few minutes his old Chevy entered the wood. The field had been bright sunlit, the sky without clouds. He expected nothing but near darkness here but was surprised at the dappled look inside the little forest. Where the sun shone through the canopy of leaves it was just as bright as the open field had been. There was just a little underbrush and here and there were clusters of wild flowers, not just the little things that could survive without a great deal of light, but real gardener’s flowers whose bright colors competed with the sun.
The ground was not at all flat but bumpy with many boulders left by a long gone ice age, and with tiny hills, none more than a few feet high. Much of the ground was covered in moss; in fact the whole scene reminded John of a Japanese temple garden. Not one of those stone gardens carefully tended by Buddhist monks, but a Japanese moss garden with tall trees like these and an occasional Shishi-odoshi to take the flow from a tiny rivulet and scare the deer with its thud … thud …thud..
No deer would be frightened here however. Nor was this a wild wood. As John drove the winding road which had become not much more than a one lane path of very black and uncracked paving, he came across a house in the woods; then further on, another and another. They were neither very close nor very far apart, perhaps just a few acres. Nor did they abut the road but were at different distances and angles, all large though not mansions, and of different styles. One was white Georgian, several others wore ancient gray or brown cedar shingles, others might have been from some New England post card. All were clean and neat. There was a small pink scooter on the porch of the Georgian that reminded him of the present that he had given his grand daughter on her third birthday, just months before she died. He shook off that memory on this beautiful day as he knew he must. There was no grass and the moss needed no mowing. Perhaps, John thought, that was why no one seemed up and about doing chores or just enjoying the day. He himself would take a moment to enjoy the sunbeams and the calming melody of rustling leaves. Could the sun ever set over such an Eden-like place? Would night here be as splendid? Would there be a dawn? He did notice that there was writing incised on the boulders that lay about and decided to stop the car and read one:

RIP

Janet Briscoll
Beloved Daughter
2004 – 2012

John Briscoll
Beloved Father
1950 – 2013

Jennifer awakes on a beach at night, and meets Hrim-Faxi,
the horse who draws the chariot of night in Norse mythology.
Hrim-Faxi is wise and
good, and he shows her the wonders of the night. Is he also
an angel or is it all a dream? Jenny’s Ride is spiritual
without denominational
references. A child on the verge of adolescence will be
comforted by Hrim-Faxi’s final words: “Some day you will
be too old to believe in me. But
do not be sad about it, Jenny. Even then I will come to you
in dreams so that you can be a child again.”

To Beth Christmas eve had long ago become just another night. There was more noise than usual but most of it was from men shouting to be heard in bars, not sweet carolers in a Dickens’ fantasy. This was as far from a Victorian Christmas as one could get. The streets were dark, so dark that any caroler who ventured into them might trip on an irregular sidewalk and fall flat on his jolly face. There were a few street lamps at a factory far down the street but sodium vapor lights on a steel building had none of the prettiness of gas lamps on Christmas cards. Occasionally someone had made a half hearted attempt to recognize the season by stringing a few colored lights around a shop doorway but never on the darkened factory buildings. That would be a violation of company policy to express any notion that the birth of the Christ child was of any importance. Stupid, she thought. Even if you aren’t Christian it certainly mattered. 

The whore continued along Broad street. She could see St. Anthony’s church, a block away. St. Anthony’s would at least have a pretty manger scene if the baby figure had not been stolen again. She walked toward it hoping that she would find some cheer. She could see people arriving for late evening services. There would be some caroling, a nice sweet sermon from the pastor, and midnight mass. Of course she’d not find a customer there but whatthehell. When she arrived she did not go in but looked for a long while at the manger scene. I’ll just hang around awhile and listen to the singing. They’ll be singing real music, not about Rudolph or worse. For most people there had not been a Christ in Christmas for decades. It had become purely a Santa Claus festival and even Santa was no longer Christian, just an advertising character who laughs his fool head off throughout the season.

The whore was certainly not a practicing Christian herself, but Christ was still important to her. He was one thing that made a little sense. For some people he even made life worth living despite its dreariness. The first Christmas had been so long ago and yet it should still be important. It’s about love – so much better than sex. 

But even the good Christians hurrying to get inside the church where it would be warm took no notice of a forlorn cat in the bushes near the creche, Beth did. It was nothing special. It had no collar and certainly no pedigree. But it was a pretty striped animal if no prettier than any other. Beth thought about that and about herself. Much the same as I am she concluded. She stooped to pet it and the cat lowered her head to accept the gesture. Perhaps she felt the same toward Beth or perhaps she was just hungry but she started to rub against the prostitute’s legs.

“No puss. I’m not your mistress. Go home. Get into a nice warm bed with your humans.” But Beth knew that wasn’t possible. 

“Meow.” The cat turned away, rubbing a bushy tail against the plaster Mary with her child. Then it looked back to see if Beth were following. She hadn’t intended to but there was more Christian love here with the creche, the singing from inside the church, and this alley cat than she had seen on that night or any other for a long time. 

“You’re alone too, aren’t you?” Beth stooped to pick up the stray. She slipped it inside her woolen coat. “Now we’re going inside to pray while I decide what to do with you.” 

That, of course, was how Beth got a roommate.