(no subject)

[jholloway.livejournal.com]

We killed a monk.

The Norman killed him, but I helped. It is hard to think of. I offered him the sword, as if he were a warrior, so that he might end with his face to his foes. When a man fights against us, that is war, and if it is war, he is a warrior. Is that not so? A monk who takes up the sword is no monk; we say "to take up the sword," but what he had was a weapon as surely as my axe.

He spared neither young nor old, man nor woman, monk nor nun. That was written long ago, in another country. For her I committed abominations, and made war on whoever she bid me make war on. If she pointed to an abbey and said "Ventrue," then those were my orders. It was war, and if it was war, they were warriors. Is that not so? Warriors as much as I.

I hate how the Norman speaks these justifications. He does not truly question -- he is only seeking excuses. He would rob them if he could; that is all his kind knows. Greedy hands.

This is unfair; they hurt him, and he was angry. Who knows what one of us may do in rage? I slew my own men in my fury, in the old days, and I would do so again. I remember hefting the axe, the last word over my shoulder: do not step in front of me. And he is young, and he has not been taught. The flaw lives in all of us; I can sense it within myself. I feel it rebel at prayers, I feel it every time I lift the axe. It coils and burns, deep inside, in me as well as in him.

God does not hate any man who turns his hand to righteous works. We live by a code; we strive to be wise, and just, and generous. We need not be brutes, simply because we are monsters. God made the lion also, and the beasts that live in the deep sea. They feed as we do; does he hate them?

I saw a saint once. He was not a saint then, of course, but very nearly. I had just been asked to come to London, there to carry my axe among the royal bodyguard. We marched through the streets of the city when the King went out, or rode. I had a good horse then; French, with a bridle I received from my earl's own hands. The king -- he was not yet a saint -- had a long face, a tired face. The illness was in him already, perhaps. He was not young.

When he died we knew there would be war. I marched before the funeral procession, bearing my axe, the sign of my office. I saw the Archbishop there, Stigand. Or was it the other one? The king's body was carried on a bier by mourners of noble blood, wrapped in a shroud, adorned with crosses. Already some were calling him a saint. They wept in the streets of the city as if they had lost a father instead of a king. Did they weep for him, or for themselves? Did they ever know him?

I remember a sad man who tried to do what was right, but who was buffeted on all sides by more powerful men: Duke William, Earl Harold. He had the wealth, but they had loyal soldiers.

I did not see the power, the certainty that I saw in the monk's eyes in his. I have searched my memory, but I see no trace of it. Does that mean the monk was no saint, or the king?

They have made war on us, and if it is war, then a man is a warrior. Is it not so?