Jonathan Dunn - The Forgotten King

“But if your heart keeps you from love, love it may not be.”

“Then you do not love me: your glances originate in my mind and our kiss was but my nocturnal longings? Do you feel nothing?”

“I feel everything, but my heart cannot think and my mind cannot love. If I loved man, I would love you; I love God alone.”

Willard rose and paced the room. It was a closet by land, a cabin by sea: wooden walls, ten foot square and six high, ordained with an empty bookshelf and a paperless desk. There was nothing else, as it was only a sitting room beside the galley. Ivona was silent as he paced, having nothing to say. At length he aroused himself and spoke in a distracted manner.

“I am a man of the forest. By justice I mean strength and power: the ability make your sense of justice enforced. Yet you are something else, Ivona. To you justice is applied by the power of God and not derived from man or beast below. I am a man of the forest and I do not know you, I cannot. For you are a woman of God.”

“Then why do you pursue me? I am of God in spirit, of earth in flesh, and torn asunder by the tides of love against love. One will win and I will make it God. But, by God, why must you love me?”

“Because I am a man only in contrast to a woman. Does not the darkness love the light? For without it, what would darkness be? And do not angels love demons? For without demons, what would angels be? Thus, I love you; for without you I am not man but beast. Only your love keeps me from the forest, gives me heart above the trees.”

“But if an angel loves a demon, does it not fall itself from the light? If the light makes love to darkness, will it not grow dim? If I am yours, I will not take you from the forest; I will join you there. And if I love you, I will no longer be what you love. Thus, I will remain with God. He will be my only master.”

Willard knelt before Ivona, placing his hands together in supplication.

“I beg you, Ivona, forget the realms which cannot be known and give yourself to those which can. I love you and you love me; if God keeps us apart, then let him be forgotten and our love remembered. Even now the storms of love invade your heart. They cannot be defeated. So let it be and let us be one in love.”

Silence came down from above. The timbers creaked; the waves broke against the hull; but there was no longer noise within the room. Ivona looked into Willard’s face with raining eyes and storming lips. Her face was torn apart as he watched with forest eyes. But then, with the virgin glow of passing storm, her storm-cloud lips broke into a rainbow. Her heart was calmed. Its storm had passed.

“As for me, I will serve the Lord.”

Willard fell back with a word through his heart. His face blew foul, his heart trembled with the swell. He returned to his birth and was, once more, a creature of the forest. Time disappeared and only returned when the door opened to reveal Leggitt and de Garcia, with Khalid close behind.

“It is time,” they said, “We have reached Atilta!”

Willard went with them. He did not turn back.

Chapter 94

Thunder Bay had spread across the plain. Now the entire area was underwater. Only the tall trees of the forest stood above it and even those no longer seemed secure. The Hibernian and Atiltian fleets could come within yards of the castle walls. And still the rain showed no signs of slowing.

“Let me go, fools!” cried de Casanova to those who bandaged him. “Let me go, for if we all die what evil will my wound cause? There is much to be done.”

“No, my lord,” the sailors answered, “We have them trapped: if they resist us they cannot resist the water. We need only enjoy the spectacle.”

“Fools, I say again, that you have eyes and cannot see. Look, behind us in the bay proper, what colors do those ships fly? By God, if they are not the French! The fight continues!”

The distant trees blocked the ocean and the bay’s mouth from view, so the sailors had not seen the French coming. Now the trees seemed to vomit them endlessly, each ship lined with soldiers and archers fresh for war. De Casanova jumped from the deck upon which he was stretched and leapt between the ships as he had done before. In a moment he reached The Barber ,passingdirectly to the bow and to his king.

“De Casanova,” Lyndon said without emotion.

The same screwed back, alarmed by the ambiguous tone.

“My lord, the French fleet arrives.”

“I am not blind,” the king returned sullenly.

“Indeed?” de Casanova answered, his voice flush with anger at the other’s languid form. “Indeed? Then why do you not prepare the fleet?”

“What is this war to prove?” the other asked. “We fight on foreign ground for foreign oppression, and for what reason?”

“To destroy the rebellions of freedom, which are connected in spirit if not in force. If the Atiltian rebels fail, so will the Hibernian; and it is better we put down a rebellion without fighting our own country men. Gylain chases his own ends and Cybele is taken: you must command.”

“Gylain! Where has he gone, the fool? He would not care one way or the other, where he is bound.” He paused. “Do we not fight our own country men, even our own kin?”

“Lionel, perhaps; but it was his folly that destroyed him, not your policies.”

“War is many things and to many it is death. But I am a king, and to me a dead man is judged only by what his death has achieved. If I see a hundred bodies, do I care if they are in the known miseries of life or in the unknown miseries of death? But if I see the body of my own son, war becomes something more, something personal.” In anguish, “Lionel! Am I not his murderer?”

De Casanova turned his head one way and the other, physically pained as the French fleet devoured his own ships and drew near to them. As Lyndon finished his speech, they had reached The Barber and were beginning to board.

“Inaction rots my soul!” de Casanova cried as they came on.

“Does it not?” a familiar voice returned, “Then let me heal your innards with my blade!”

“De Garcia!”

“Then you have not forgotten my face.”

They circled, swords drawn, like vipers on the hunt. De Garcia was the first to strike, uncoiling and springing upon de Casanova with a swirling stroke.

“This is for Tarina,” and his sword played with the thunder, flipping de Casanova’s left, then throwing it right. Still, the other kept a firm wrist and de Garcia lunged forward to unset him.

“To fight for the dead is not a talisman of victory,” and de Casanova caught his lunge and forced it to the side. Then, with a laugh, he took the offensive, thrusting at his enemy’s open chest.

But de Garcia was a quick man. He rolled to the left, then – without apparent effort – jumped into the lower shrouds, climbing to the first yard arm. De Casanova followed. The storm sent a strong wind whipping through the rigging, but neither was displaced. De Garcia stood up on the yard arm, navigating its slender width with ease; and when his enemy was beside him, the duel resumed.

“I will not forget the Battle of Amorou,” de Garcia said.

“Nor will I,” and their swords sang as they spoke.

De Garcia delivered a full swing from the left, then another from the right. De Casanova counter attacked with equal strokes. The yard arm swayed beneath their force. When de Garcia came with a third side stroke, de Casanova dodged beneath it and thrust at his opponent, who could only divert it with a swift upward stroke. De Casanova’s sword was forced up, and then – as he threw himself into it – hurtled down toward the Spaniard’s head.

De Garcia stepped back and fell purposefully from the yard arm. As he did, the other’s sword passed harmlessly by. De Garcia grabbed the yard arm as he came down, channeling his momentum to swing himself forward; and though de Casanova leapt to crush his hands, he had let go again before he could. He flew through the air and into the upper shrouds, pulling himself onto the upper yard arm, the uppermost timber on the ship. It was a foot across and held the top of the main sail to the mast. De Casanova was not slow in following.