To Strike a Chord - Prose Fiction by Greg Patrick

 

To Strike a Chord

“All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien

At the threshold of oaken glade a figure paused hesitantly like an unhallowed spirit shying from crossing into sacred grounds, casting a glance behind pivotally in sad valediction and in anticipation of the sight of pursuit.

Before the gaze looked up to a newly-raised castle looming darkly upon the hills by which sceptered tyrants sought to wield dominion. The eyes became chill and unyielding as a knight's blade then and he stepped into the greenwood as a distant war horn brayed, heralding the enemy’s approach. Crossbow arrows struck the boughs of trees around him, their shafts quivering from impact. The war horn was replaced by a huntsman's horn by its tone as the pursued man was dehumanised to a mere beast to be hunted down.

He turned at bay like a lion teeth bared into an unheard battle cry before he dematerialised between the towering oaks of his native land, a stranger now in his native land, the last harsh quaver of the enemy's horns trailing away, replaced by the ageless forest song, the cries of bird and beast, ceased, an expectant tense hush befell as one made his entrance, curious eyes from oak canopy and fern regarded him, appraising him before his presence was considered natural and nonthreatening in the greenwood and the sound recommenced as if it never ceased.

There was something of the sentinel and something of the pilgrim but everything of the huntsman to his aspect, proving sometimes the best expression of faith is not to kneel but to make a stand. Not to bow before foreign crown but to take up a bow and arrow.

The eyes bore a practiced sight, a hunter's eyes that left no detail of forest unmarked or unobserved and though he sought haven when his hall had been put to torch and sword and he borne forcibly away by his retainers though he strained against their hands to take up his sword, the cries heard in the dark in familiar voices already haunting him as if centuries passed in heartbeats. Taken to the forest, the last bastion of a rebel prince. He sank haggard and weary to his knees then making vow on hilt of sword, to return, to avenge.

"By Saint David and upon the blood of my household shed I swear it. “

The forest like a living shrine. The ancient oaks that stood like faithful retainers, stewards of his forefathers holding vigil and standing by him in exile. Trees that were ancient when his first cry was heard lest their line end and his great grandfather’s last battle cry lest its strength be unsung.

"Prince of the Forest" he had been mocked by the usurpers yet the forest seemed very much a palatial hall of a sylvan court. Leaves fell from the tapestried canopies as if in homage, hailing him as if saying "homage rightful prince" "even were I blind I would know thee for what thou art.”

He was as much a force of nature as on earth or in sky. The knights that had pursued him to gain the bounty on his head pursued him zealously into the greenwood's labyrinth of trees, their formidable ranks were thrown into disarray and awkwardly encumbered by armour their lumbering warhorses faltered and stumbled amid the roots and undergrowth as their riders hacked machete-like at branches and shadows.

Then one of the knights drew reign so strongly that his horse reared and nearly threw him. From the greenwood materialised wraith-like a lone figure who shifted into archer's stance as a challenge was made.

They advanced, vying with each other to be the first to cross blades with him only for him to draw armour-piercing arrows from his quiver in swift succession and loose them with a longbow that had been fashioned and cloven from the strong and charred wood of a great ancient oak that he had seen struck by lightning. One by one they fell, the last of the knights being unhorsed in such proximity that he skidded in a shower of fallen leaves and dust at the bowman's feet only for him to draw the last arrow and loosed in into his vitals with grim finality. The squires waiting at the edge of the forest for their knights saw the eerie sight of their master's white horses appearing riderless from the forest.

He stood reflectively then; the sunlight tinged with green that filtered through the leaves lent an eerie spotlight to the lone warrior of the glade. The tyrant was not so omnipotent that he could deny the land renewal and spring. The forest, last bastion of a rebel prince. It was haven, shelter, and rallying point.

The last of his retinue, the bard of his hall remained with his lord to play the songs of their people, with nothing less than magic drawn by string, harp strings whose music would sever the strings by which free men would not suffer to be pulled by.

The harp song that haunted the glade seemed to shepherds hastening through the forest to be so exquisite as to seem Elvish or disembodied ghostly laughter, in a shepherdless land overrun by wolves.

How long had it transpired that he had closed his eyes to the bard's song in his ancestral High King's hall, enthroned and flanked by his wolfhounds.

The bard kneeling at the harp his touch on the strings as light as moonbeams but heavy on the heart as yearning or tidings of bereavement, dulcet yet pained as a parting caress on eve of battle or before voyage into the horizon casting off into the moon-raised tides.

The chords quavered with harp song drawn by the court bard's conjuring touch quavering, as if with something that dwelt in safe darkness struggling to be free from an arachnid strand. The notes like dreams passing a dreamcatcher's chords transcending snares that were all that separated dream from nightmare.

Often rebuked for a daydreamer in his youth, the lord of the halls and misted hills, forest glades and warrior's blades were eyes that beheld too may nightmares to take fate lying down, for sometimes the greatest expression of faith is not in kneeling but in making stand, the better to honour a crown of thorns. His sword-callused palms of a swordsman and bruised fingers of an archer were as adept at drawing blade and bow as harp strings, he closed his eyes and unconsciously followed the bard songs as if his hand were at the strings his lips echoing the ancient songs and when he opened his eyes it seemed that dulcet haunting notes took form and face to mingle with the gentile assemblage for he saw his betrothed then make her entrance like dawn lighting the hills of their land anew from night. And she seemed to have strayed from the bardic songs and legends as a dream passing through dreamcatcher's chords. Her smile that was silence set to heady music and her laughter was the only song that could outmatch the soloist bard's mastery.

As if by a stage illusionist's craft as the bard played the flames in the hearth seemed to take shape and morph into scenes of battle and passion like a tapestry of flames and the entities shaped by flame seemed to cast a tribute of light to the radiance of his muse as if veneration to a demigoddess of fire, all by the bard's conjuring hand and Shaharazadian art, the music seemed to rise to the ash-darkened rafters like dark poetry and the firelight lent her cascade of hair that seemed that the northern lights lent her their radiance to shine by and walk in, with a splendour of crimson as if a Renaissance master lent a series, in a palette of striking hues and shades of red in finishing touches to a masterpiece in fast-forward.

Warriors seemed to be conjured before his gaze by fingers at the harp that seemed to beckon in their drawing at the strings like a prisoner break of nightmares passing through warding dreamcatcher chords pulled apart and they seemed to pass in phantasmal procession, some gazing with familiar faces of ashen pallor. "Join us then if you dare.”

To be immortalised by the strings to be a "lord of the strings" is not know no puppeteer among kings of men. Then he realised he was but gazing at a tapestry's storyboard of warriors marching to battle, yet his dreams beheld more, as if ghosts had strayed from the images of legendary battle and huntsman's chase.

He gazed over the bejewelled rim of his goblet, the eyes intoxicated more so by the sight of his betrothed, the very essence of a Celtic bard's inspiration cast in the wall-length hearth's blazing fired then subdued nearly to the embers at the night drew on and the flames that sighed like charmed serpents to the harp song diminished to a whisper as one with his own. Where was she now? The ghost of his nights in the forest that he feared the most.

Alive? Broken? He was neither really, he drew breath and blade and bowstring but he felt a lifelessness as if he were merely haunting a past life not restoring it.

The procession of ghosts he envisioned at the harp song beckoned again.

He followed. No…

"Hold! Make way. Follow me!" as I follow the song.

The only one who can walk in front of the prince as he strode forth.

the bard played the now forbidden native songs as warrior materialised as

if conjured from the mists to march on the usurper's castles.

"I've returned.”

Their swords hailed him in the pale light of the midnight sun in silent acclaim that though wordless bore its own song.

There is a time when shadows lengthen across the land and before the last light dwindles and the dark falls. When the crimson immolation of the dying sun flares with a sudden intensity

that leaves one lingering and dreaming anew. A shadow of the twilight, a figure astride a horse.

Those of the old blood still watch for him. It was by that light of the dusk fire that he rode forth at last to silhouettes of warriors waiting by the setting sun as if standing at the portal of Valhalla.

A chill gust of moor wind like an apparitional caress stirred the

fields of barley, like a dark seas’ waves forming a trail of fire into the twilight and on eve of another battle as he paced like a lion at the edge of a nomad's fire, aloof from his men at arms he looked up it seemed to meet those afar in silent duet...looking to the eyes of one suspended from a cage as sentries paced the flagstones in case of rescue attempt, like a beautiful phantom the night hair like red beams of sunset that never reached the earth, as if crowned in dusk. Dignified and head held high despite the ordeals suffered. Like a maiden meant to draw the dragon forth. She seemed to hearken to the distant harp song played as if in serenade by a horseman in the night. More than a mere itinerant minstrel. A ghost amid the dreamscape of moon-lit castle or a man at last in these times?

On the morrow he made his entrance again as if the fires of the eve of battle were rekindled, haunting his eyes like a red apparition of his the night before his hall became ruins and the foundations of stone castle by hearts of stone. And he emerged, not with crown of gold but that of leaves, the Prince of the Forest, like Caesar's grass crown.

He knew the forest so that he could find his way by touch alone, by the unique grooves and scars that each tree bore. Knew his way back by heart. One eve he was cried out from the writhing throes of nightmare with sword drawn at shadows and chest heaving. He arose like a somnambulist and approached the threshold of forest, a crimson glow was cast on his face. The fires of burning homesteads in the distance illuminating it like another dawn. His eyes gleamed with it like a maharajah's pavilion flame in a tiger of Bengal's eye, with balefire microcosmed.

"The land bleeds" the bard whispered.

"Your land. Your people. Will you not return to defend it?"

Like a spark drawn from the stirred embers of the hearth of his once grand hall to reignite the fire so the bard could play long into the night. His eyes gleamed anew like the gleam of a reforged armour and blade that he donned and homed in reply for battle.

No longer would he run from the past but the past would run from him towards the future. Thinks of the future he had been advised by his councilors seek favour with the new

lords from distant lands.

"No.”

He held a lock of red hair like a candle burning in the rain, pressing it to his lips

like a sacred relic. The red banner of the dragon, rewoven where it was left in the rain with hoofmarks, unfurled cleansed and restored striking angry matadorian red emblazoned against a background of white. Red the universal colour if rebellion that pulsed in every heart in every land.

The armies of the usurpers were arrayed before him in vast numbers in the cauldrenous shroud of mist, an army meant to reclaim him like the dark itself. Armour-clad knights astride great warhorses whose iron-shod hooves trembled the ground at they advanced to deafening heraldry. Banners signifying there would be no quarter given flew from lances that were levelled in unison like the bared teeth of a dragon's jaws closing on a solitary knight. His eyes gleamed a feral red with the dawn in reply.

"There number are so vast a great host My Lord." his squire whispered.

"Then they make a better target."

"Better to accept the king's pardon for those who yield arms. Better to choose ones battles with care."

"Better to choose one's battlefields with care. This field is perfect. Yield? Over his dead body." The glacial gleam of vulpine eyes gazed at the enemy commander, across the expanse of field, high borne, imperious and arrogant, mounted on a grand white horse and garbed in ermine and gilded armour as if on the parade ground instead of the battleground.

His eyes narrowed to slits. "I hate when you get that look in your eyes." "So does the enemy."

"Perhaps fall back? Rally more men? Edward's men are marching on us. That name means death.” "With a longbow it means target practice. No. Archers to the vanguard!"

Around them streaming, from the forest and the armies advancing and hacking their way through the undergrowth, beasts of prey and predator fled as one. A flight of ravens arose like a dark fire from the canopy of trees. It made an eerie sight.

He closed his eyes, listening to their mingled cries. He felt the primal power of the forest then, felt strengthened by it. His own mouth opened as if he cried lycanthropically as one with them. A battle cry.

An age is not measured by years but in experience and he felt ancient then from the ordeals suffered. It is often advised to forget the past but here he would rally upon it. He would not run from the past but make it run from him. He stood like a lion over its kill of three fallen knights that had dared to break ranks and endeavour to slay him.

Their swords had glanced sparkingly off his shield, emblazoned with his dragon insignia that seemed to scream an angry red as it warded off their blows as his own sword shimmered in reply, rage behind its wielding as they had never faced. “Alas for them, all brawn and no brain. Might makes right for them. Barbaric." "That it is My Lord yet try arguing with it." "I intend to."

He felt ancient then, ageless as the standing stones of old Midsummer's rites, as impassive as if sculpted and cloven from the land.

He remembered then, the radiant ghost of his betrothed.

Her smile like silence set to music, a song one could not get out of his head.

As fine a poetry as was ever read. He rallied upon the memory.

"My lord if we give battle than you will fall to their swords."

"Then I'll be with her."

His breath steaming in the chill air as if by a duellist's pistol at dawn.

He drew his sword brandishingly, feeling her eyes upon him from on high.

Higher than the aerial perspective of a circling falcon, higher than the arrows ascended

as he swept his sword down and the archers emptied their quivers.

He had willed himself not to shiver from the cold lest it betrayed fear and demoralise his

men. Before the formal gauntlet cast he drew his sword aloft in defiance and brandished

it before the foreign king's men. The spectral pallor of the sun seemed to ignite the lordly blade as hotly as the eve it was forged and in the background the trees seemed like green torches by the flaring sunrays.

Stung by his rebel's insolence and his eyes tearing up in the blaze of sun, the enemy commander slammed down his visor and ordered the general attack.

Crossbowmen levelled their weapons as the knights rode full tilt gathering momentum. The desolate expanse of moor shuddered under the smite of their hooves.

Their lances were poised to impale the rebels and trod them into the earth.

He then swept his sword down.

"Arrows men of Wales!"

It seemed then that the stars themselves, so long obscured by the smokes of burning villages appeared by druidic incantation by day and arose in defence of mortal man.

The shafts ascended arcing like a dark rainbow over the land after ascending so swiftly so as not to be seen by the naked eye till they amassed and seemed to hover in mid-air, casting an ominous shadow like an immense black dragon spreading its wings over a quarry on the field cowering far below.

It seemed that stars constellated the azure of midday. Arrows the

length of a rapier foil, reached a great zenith casting an ominous shadow upon

the chevalier's varnished armour obscuring the sun. Had one beheld the field of battle from that

perspective he would have seen a seismic wave of steel surging upon a nigh invisible line.

Ere that tsunami struck home the points caught with silvered gleam the sun-light then

fell like the skies themselves. A medieval artillery barrage.

A great huzzah arose as the knight's fall. So intent upon his adversary the warlord

did not notice his mortally wounded horse begin to falter yet its momentum carrying it

forth raised his sword to cleave him down.

Though many arrows protruded from its heaving flanks they

seemed only to enrage the Andalusia stallion further as if possessed, driven and tortured by the

inhumanity of war, bearing its rider inexorably forth with weapon arced for the kill.

A protective hand slammed upon his shoulder and a voice cried: "Volley I say! Bring him down

Daffyd!"

At point blank rage the description-beggaring force of a Welsh longbow can only be imagined. The unhorsed warlord staggered dazed to his feet only to stare across the length of a

warrior prince's sword and unyielding eyes. His sword fell from a trembling hand. In the silence that followed the chill wind whispered through the manes of fallen horses and stirred the torn banners still clutched in lifeless hands. A silence like a truth that came out only in anger hovering between two people. Then the aged bard came forward with a shuffling step and raised the hand of his prince on high.

"Long live and hail your prince." Hundreds of swords were raised then among cries of praise and clashing of blades. Only then did he allow himself a smile in what seemed like centuries.

Tyrants may win wars but rebels win hearts. All become history in time. Not all become legend. Like a rebel angel with his harp who bore not a halo of leaves instead one of celestial gold the "Forest Prince" looked back at the oaks and all but beheld through fevered eyes like a nomad's thirst-tortured scenes seeing a mirage…the awaiting vision of a lady and horse waiting for him beyond the field of battle.

Days later he stood with the green background of forest behind him, which was for so long his haven, his stronghold, place of pain and of healing.

Before him was his betrothed, gowned in as green garments as swayed from trees

like banners. The land had not seen her like gracing those summer days of the midnight sun since Guinevere passed into legend with Arthur.

Heart-breakingly beautiful and welcomed with reflexive sigh and doffed helm and hand that would not tremble at the sword hilt did at her touch. Even in a land as storied and each stone and tree haunted by legends as every life was by tears and laughter, like an angel's embrace at battle's end. "My Lady."

"The terms have been met. Your word..." the Norman king's emissary interrupted.

"Is given. An armistice." As their hands were joined again, the bard by the harp stayed his hand letting the silent duet of gazes sing their own song in silence set to music.

He placed down his harp, knelt and offered to his lord a woven garland of rare flowers than bloomed only from the sheer mountainsides. He took it and placed it upon her brow like a floral halo. Then his own grass crown.

Then he played the last song played at their hall before they followed the bard and song

back to the forest and the mist seemed to be conjured protectively around them as if ghosts that haunted the forests and battle's aftermath were summoned as guardians and it was an eerie sight to the enemy herald's eyes to see them dematerialise into the forest, in the way of legends.

And in the silence that makes such men uncomfortable the knights dispersed into the brief darkness as the shadows of the trees were cast long by the brief setting of the midnight sun as if an army of shadows marched upon them to laughter from the greenwood.

A dual citizen of Ireland and the states, Greg Patrick is an Irish/Armenian traveller poet and the son of a Navy enlisted man.  He is also a former Humanitarian aid worker who worked with great horses for years and loves the wilds of Connemara and Galway in the rain where he's written many stories. Greg spent his youth in the South Pacific and Europe and currently resides in Galway, Ireland and sometimes the states.