Sketches 1: C: The Knight and His Daughter

Now comes this part of the story, where the tragedy of life is revealed and our knight must make a choice.  Here is where kunjel stories and human stories oft diverge one from another.  In human stories the ending is set, and when one hears the story we listen and can only learn from what has happened to this character.  In this, those who hear the story benefit from another's loss or another's pain and suffering.  It makes of those who hear the story people who would live vicariously.

But with kunjel stories it is different.  The story has many possible endings.  The knight looked away and he saw some lone figure standing in the grass, possibly the one who shot the arrow which killed his daughter, like the beak of the black struk.  Perhaps it is not.  Certainly, the knight sees this figure because he is in the rage.  One who loses his child, who watches the soul depart from it, would be blind not to fall into the rage, but with kunjels, the rage is far, far worse, a bitter friend who leads us past its cause.  And to new, and irreversible, destinies.

Now we must wonder what this knight would do, and when the old grandmothers hold their children and tell this tale, they ask the child to say.  It is hoped the knight would do what justice, more than his raging throat would demand.

But let us translate this story as a human would, for humans must learn from the past better than they can the future, and humans wish to make choices based on previous choices made.  So, I shall tell this story as a human would tell it.

The knight did see the poacher on the hill, and because they were in Droddy lands, he assumed a Drod was attacking him.  The Drods are only barely tolerant of kunjels in the five hundred years since the Protector swept them out of Thortinis, and so it was plausible to assume a Droddy was there, in the dark of knight, attempting to kill the knight, but only killing his heart.

The knight roared at the shape on the hill, the killer his eyes and nose and ears cooperated to create for him there.  Before the killer could comprehend the roar, the knight charged.  Nearly running on all fours, careening through the brush and grass and even trees that separated him from his target, the kunjel knight closed the distance.  Bushes as tall as a man bowed to him, as though allowing him to pass, and their bows broke beneath his leaping feet.

The shape on the hill formed in his eyes into a man, then into a young man, until the knight had him full in his vision.  The boy, for he was not a full grown man yet, turned to face the kunjel charging him.  The sound of his approach had not signaled which direction to run.  It was not a Droddy, or at least not completely one, but a young kunjel boy, probably only a desor.  The knight was upon him now, before he even realized fully what he was upon.  He took the boy's throat in one hand, pulled back his fists.  With one swipe of his open hand, he broke the boy's neck, snapping it over his fingers like a branch until the boy's head lulled back and forth in his grip.  The boy was dead, and in his grief, the knight sinned.

And not far away, also hunting by night, was the boy's brother, or half brother rather, who watched the knight's rage subside like a dying wind.  The knight roared again, but this time his soul was heavy with the assessment of his rage, and he knew now he had let his rage guide his feet and hands to this horrid fate.  Murder does not cleanse murder, nor does murder purge away the accidental death.  Instead, this knight was confronted again with new choices.  He could go and slay the boy's brother, standing not far enough away to hide, or he could leave this site and forget it.  But neither of these things were right.  His daughter was still dead, and he had not properly avenged her death.

He took a bit of ribbon bearing his order's marks and he tied them around the boy's wrist.  He picked up the bow and snapped it across his leg and threw it down.  He ignored the other boy who also held a bow and arrows.

He walked back to his daughter's body.  He fetched the japal and mounted and made his way home.

Now in this world are right things and things that are merely what occur.  In this particular case, we do not know if the knight ever submitted himself to be judged for his crimes.  His daughter would have been buried as daughters are buried, beneath the cold and unyielding ground and covered over with stones.  Upon one of the stones is written her name, and sweet smelling candles left to burn for three days.

Time steals all intentions.  The desire to do what is right is time's greatest treasure stored away.  The younger boy, who knows if he made his way north, all the way to the wolch where the knight lived?  Who knows if he grew up and tried to kill that knight in vengeance?  Perhaps, as time often does, he was forced to help his father with the planting, after he helped his father with planting his older brother in the ground.  They would know where the order was, would be able to take the ribbon along and find this knight, hope that he would take back his ribbon and reveal himself, but perhaps there wasn't time.  For the farmers in the wildlands, battling the grasses back to grow food, there is no time for anything.  One lost hand, and the grass fights all the stronger.  The world turns its face aside.  How often does justice come to the poor?