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Our mother says you are "eager" for news of the siege,
for accounts of heroism and high adventure, that you
practice your swordplay in the parlor, much to her ill ease
and at the mortal peril of her heirloom vases and silver.
That you sing of "returning souls to Huma's breast" as your
sword dances carelessly near cabinet or candle.
The words of the chant are "Return THIS soul to
Huma's breast," Bayard. To be spoken over the fallen body
of a comrade, not over the phantom draconians you fight
amidst Mother's porcelain. The chant is more individual,
more personal than you have imagined. But you were not
there at the siege.
Do you know that sometimes the darkness seems more
penetrable? That it shifts from a uniform blackness to a
muddy or even rust-colored brown? Or it seems to shift to
those colors I believe I still remember. Then, perhaps, it is
only from the monotony of dark that I imagine the colors
arising. Perhaps even dead eyes play tricks, as the living eye
plays over the white on white of a blizzard and begins out
of boredom or dazzlement to see impossible reds and greens
in a snowfall.
For the snow, pure white on white and over white, began
to fall as we were on the road to the tower, as we heard the
footmen grumble about Now SNOW ON TOP OF
EVERYTHING ELSE, Sir Heros grumbling back to me,
NOW GRUMBLING ON TOP OF SNOW, as I set his
helmet and sword in front of me on the saddle so that the
blanket I had wrapped about my shoulders would cover
them, too, would keep them spotless and dry for the battle
we knew was coming, inevitable as weather
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