SHIP'S LOG The schooner Anna-Maria, Port o' call - London Somewhere upon the Atlantic Ocean
Honeymoon Trip, Day Five August, 1888 After midnight
We are leaving. Here. Tonight.
Things between Gabriella and I have deteriorated since early this morning, in fact since we entered the fog and found ourselves on a forced sail to Carthia. Carthia, despite being her home land, once cherished by my wife, holds nothing for her now but painful memories, and it is those memories that pull at her, claw at her and threaten the very bond I have with her. I am sure that it is all Carthia. We have never been so at odds, we have never been so accusitory and hurtful toward one another, and it all started, to my way of thinking, when we felt the pull of Carthia.
I am taking her away, now, tonight. We are going anywhere, somewhere, just away from here. I will not stand for anything to tear us apart from one another like this is doing. I will take her back to the last point in our journey where we were happy with each other, connected, as she likes to put it. She will have to give me some strong conviction as to why we should not go, and even then, staying will be at the risk of us.
For my vote, I will not take the chance. I will protect now what I have found with Gabriella and if that means forcefully dragging her away from Carthia, then that is my course of action. And if she chooses otherwise, then I suppose I know the true meaning of that. My plan is not to allow her a choice, but with Gabriella, I have learned, things do not always go as planned.
Dear my love, haven't you wanted to be with me And dear my love, haven't you longed to be free I can't keep pretending that I don't even know you And at sweet night, you are my own Take my hand
We're leaving here tonight There's no need to tell anyone They'd only hold us down So by the morning light We'll be halfway to anywhere Where love is more than just your name
I have dreamt of a place for you and I No one know who we are there All I want is to give my life only to you I've dreamt so long I cannot dream anymore Let's run away, I'll take you there
Forget this life Come with me Don't look back you're safe now Unlock your heart Drop your guard No one's left to stop you
Forget this life Come with me Don't look back you're safe now Unlock your heart Drop your guard No one's left to stop you now
Scrawled across one entire page, in a sketchy shaking hand, the point of the pen pressed so hard that the paper has torn at the end of the last letter......
SHIP'S LOG The schooner Anna-Maria, Port o' call - London Somewhere upon the Atlantic Ocean
Honeymoon Trip, Day Four August, 1888 Late afternoon, near sunset
Gabriella and I are back on board the Anna-Maria for the moment, after having been forced from her a few hours ago. We are not permitted to leave yet, but I think we both needed some time to ourselves to process what has happened. I have so many questions, but Gabriella just looked exhausted, and so I can delay my interrogations, for her sake. She is resting below in our stateroom and most likely as confused and as astounded as I find myself to be. Saying that it was an interesting occurance is the least I can say about it, but I am still not sure what it all means, so I shall not recount its telling here, except to say that I am still reeling from the possibilities of all that I have learned.
There are things that I have felt, things that I have written, that I have hidden, from others, even from myself. In the very back pages of my journal is a section of different scribblings, with no organization to them, just pages with dates at the top, where I have jotted down my secret feelings of that day. They made no sense to me, yet I wrote them, being awake and fully cognizant, not in some dream or sleep state, and not as Gavin, or anyone else in the present.
I wrote them as I am, they came from the mind of Antonio Sabatier.
They did not scare me, exactly, but often I would look at what I had written on the page afterwards and wonder where I had gotten the words, and the ideas, that had formed there. I was more curious, than anything. I suppose that is one reason I have often sought to collect so many volumes for my libraries, on various and sundry topics, where often when I had spare moments, I would just browse and read the odds and ends of literature, both fiction and non. I am not sure I was searching, at least not consciously, but perhaps I was. I presumed I was just thirsty for knowledge.
I even recall one of the first things I thought of doing when I knew I was moving to London was to ask Robert to have some books procured from local sources, about the land, the customs, the people, the history, even about the city of London itself. I suppose they wait for me now, in some place in the townhouse, but I have been too busy to find them and peruse their contents. I could not have imagined, at the time I asked that they be purchased, that I would be married and away on my honeymoon, almost immediately after settling into the townhouse on Park Lane.
Destiny does have a way of holding its own surprises in this lifetime....or any lifetime, I suppose I must now hasten to add. Her fate has smiled upon my destiny. And, together now, we will make our way.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Doctors have come from distant cities just to see me; Stand over my bed, disbelieving what they're seeing. They say I must be one of the wonders of God's own creation, And as far as you see you can offer no explanation.
Newspapers ask intimate questions, want confessions; They reach into my head to steal the glory of my story. They say I must be one of the wonders of God's own creation, And as far as they see they can offer no explanation.
Ooo, I believe: Fate smiled at Destiny, Laughed as she came to my cradle: "Know this child will be able," Laughed as my body she lifted, "Know this child will be gifted With love, with patience, and with faith. She'll make her way; she’ll make her way."
People see me; I'm a challenge to your balance; I'm over your heads; how I confound you and astound you to know I must be one of the wonders of God's own creation; And as far as you see you can offer me no explanation.
Ooo, I believe: Fate smiled at Destiny, Laughed as she came to my cradle: "Know this child will be able," Laughed as she came to my mother, “Know this child will not suffer,” Laughed as my body she lifted, "Know this child will be gifted With love, with patience, and with faith. She'll make her way; she’ll make her way."
* * * * * * * * *
SHIP'S LOG Addendum
After the last entry into my journal, I looked in on Gabriella. I stood atthe door of our stateroom and watched her sleep for long moments, pondering many things....but most of all, pondering the wonder of the creature that she is....and how blessed I am to be loved by her. She could not know, she could never know, that the depth and breadth of that love she gives to me is reciprocated a hundredfold. Even more than that.
She is so many things to me, all of which I did not realize I craved to be present in my life, until she came and brought them. I am as dependent upon her for my life as if I was addicted to her and she some newfound opiate. I want to touch her constantly, if only in reassurance to myself that she is real, that she is there. Near her is not sufficient, I want to be with her, I want to hold her, feel her breathe. Inside her skin with her is not too close.
I would have gone over to her and taken her, take from her the love she exudes. But my hand was stayed by the way she looked, too much like a little girl that I should be protective of, as she played with the sleep angels behind those closed eyes, too peaceful to disturb. I could only stand and watch her in her slumber, and long for what she has brought to me to return, when she comes back from her dreams. I worry for her, when those dreams are too hard for her, but it seemed not to be so at that moment. She was quiet and content and I must allow her to be so.
I went back to the deck to savor a glass of Scotch, the first I think I had poured since that fateful night of our marriage, and watch the sunset. A few weeks ago, that would have been a most acceptable ending to the day, being alone with my Scotch and watching the sunset. Tonight, however....I am lonely, achingly so, a tangible sadness that I can feel, for the presence of the woman who slumbers below. I am empty without her to fill that part of me that she has awakened, that part of me I never knew was lacking, until I knew of her. I want to touch her, kiss her, so hard to take away her breath, her awareness, her soul, as I possess her. I want to lose myself within her.
SHIP'S LOG The schooner Anna-Maria, Port o' call - London Somewhere upon the Atlantic Ocean
Honeymoon Trip, Day Four August, 1888 Daybreak
Morning has broken, clear and pristine. The sea is calm, the air is refreshing....rarely have I seen such a beautiful morning. Looking at this day from the way it is beginning, it promises to be a good day for sailing, and a good day for beginning the rest of my life. Our lives. For well have we weathered the storm of the night, Gabriella and I. She will not run from me, she will not leave. She has said as much and I believe her....for she sang to me. Last night she sang to me. I am filled with wonder at the depth of her love for me. More than that, I am humbled by her love. I cannot wait to begin this day because she will be in it with me. I never thought to feel this way again. I never thought I deserved it. Gabriella has made me believe. She has made me believe in love again, in the joy of the moment. She has made me believe in myself again, and that there is a future filled with possibilities. Our future.
SHIP'S LOG The schooner Anna-Maria, Port o' call - London Somewhere upon the Atlantic Ocean
Honeymoon Trip, Day Three, 0300 hour August, 1888
I told her.
I was afraid she was withdrawing from me, that she was leaving me.
Ironic, isn't it? It is the very thing she tells me she is so afraid of, that I will leave her.
I am not even man enough to tell her it is the same thing that I feel.
But I told her last night. Blurted it out because she was leaving anyway. I could feel it from her. She kept saying she needed to be alone. I was afraid she meant it. It was not the right time, it was not the right place, but I had no choice.
And now she knows.
I am not the man she believed me to be.
She will put it all together eventually.
She will soon understand that the marks on my back, the ones I cannot talk about, are from that time.
She will soon understand that the dream that haunts me is the one I lived, the one I cannot talk about, the one I think about all the time.
She will soon understand the closeness it keeps, lurking beneath the surface of my every waking moment, ready to pounce and steal my sanity permanently.
She will soon understand that it was not only my grief for Pene's loss that drove me to the brink of my sanity and beyond. It was the loss of the one person that I shared it all with, the loss of one other soul in the world who knew and had given me absolution, who refused to stop loving me even when I could no longer love myself.
Even the children do not know all of it. They do not know the choices I made. They see me as some great hero, as the man who saved them, but they do not know it all. I think sometimes Benjamen suspects there is something else to it all, but he does not ask. We do not speak of it.
He had to deal with it that way and I understand that.
I cannot burden him with it. He has his own ghosts to live with.
Pene was the only other one who knew the whole of it but I waited too late to share it with her. I waited until my distance, and my silence, had already become a wedge between us. She left me a long time before she left me. It was not her fault.
That will not happen with Gabriella, for I have told her. Too soon, I think, but she knows now, for better or worse. But I will not let it bind her to me. I will not let it destroy her. I love her that much. I know what I have to do.
I shall give her the option, as I did not give it to Pene. I shall look at the charts in the morning, determine where we are, and sail the Anna-Maria to the nearest port of civilization. There Gabriella can make her way back to Jon and Maddy, they will take care of her.
I will not ask her to stay with me, now that she knows.
How could she?
How could anyone?
I think when she goes, I will go, too. I will not fight it any longer.
Listen as the wind blows....from across the great divide....
Voices trapped in yearning....memories trapped in time....
On the sea she rises...... the moon is in her eyes....
She belongs to me as no other.....I've claimed her for all time.
Raven hair and ruby lips Sparks fly from her finger tips Echoed voices in the night Shes a restless spirit on an endless flight Wooo hooo witchy woman, see how High she flies Woo hoo witchy woman she got The moon in her eye She held me spellbound in the night Dancing shadows and firelight Crazy laughter in another Room and she drove herself to madness With a silver spoon Woo hoo witchy woman see how high she flies Woo hoo witchy woman she got the moon in her eye Well I know you want a lover, Let me tell your brother, shes been sleeping In the devils bed. And theres some rumors going round Someones underground She can rock you in the nighttime til your skin turns red Woo hoo witchy woman See how high she flies Woo hoo witchy woman She got the moon in her eyes.
SHIP'S LOG The schooner Anna-Maria, Port o' call - London Somewhere upon the Atlantic Ocean
Honeymoon Trip, Day Two August, 1888
I just don’t know what she wants.
It seems to change as often as the direction of the sea’s breeze.
I thought…. so much of our love had been shared with me acting like some sort of savage beast, blindly groping at her, wild to feel her, taste her, smother her with my desires and needs.
I thought...for once I would go slow, pay particular attention to what she needed, explore every nook and cranny of her body while listening to the sound of how she was breathing, so I would know what she liked.You do not always have to say those things aloud, in fact it can be more exciting to discover them quite without the benefit of words altogether.
I thought….I would show her how much I loved her by taking the time to be deliberate, unhurried, to worship her body with my hands and. . . other things . . . to show her my love.
I thought I might please her, for once, and give her the ultimate gift.
She would have none of it.
I have never bedded a woman like her, never been in love with such a creature.
I am so…….I do not even know what I am.
I know that I cannot be angry at her, I threw away my anger, and now it sits at the bottom of the sea, unreachable.I am not sorry for that, I would not be angry with her anyway.I do not know what to be, I would be what she wants me to be, if only I knew what that was.
I am….frustrated, of a certainly.Confused, most definitely.
And more in love with her than I have ever been with any woman in my life.
I wanted this to be such a time of sharing, of open communication for us, just she and I, with no one else.
I thought…..all my life I have thought….that love was enough and that everything else could be amended and rectified if only there was love.
There is love between us, of that there is no doubt.
It grows with each day that I spend with her.For me, it does.
I want to please her, I want to lay the world at her feet, I want to adore her.
I want to be her anchor every night, I want her to need me, I want to be there for her.
I know what I want.
And I know what I won’t.I won’t give up.I won’t give in.
I will try harder.I will hold on as long as I have to, but I pray I find the answer soon, because this way….this is no way.
SHIP'S LOG The schooner Anna-Maria, Port o' call - London Somewhere upon the Atlantic Ocean August, 1888
THE RAVEN RETURNS
I find myself on the Anna-Maria in the midst of our honemoon, imagine that!! It has already been an ordeal, this marriage, and so short a time we have had with it. Some things have been marvelous, some things unsettling, but always it has been eventful. Gabriella, alone, brings such a zest for life to me that each day the dregs of the way I was recede more and more. I will not say she alone has been my salvation, because for that to occur one must be open and receptive to it, so that the reason lies quite likely with both of us, but I am glad to be alive, more glad than I can remember ever having been, and I look forward to the days, now that Gabriella is in them with me.
With Gabriella resting below deck this afternoon, I was alone in the pilothouse of the Anna-Maria keeping watch over her direction when I chanced to sight a bird above in the cloudless blue sky. Not unusual in and of itself, but we are at the moment far from shore, with nothing upon the horizon but sea in all directions, and without some nearby spot of land, why would a bird venture out this far? I was curious and took out the spyglass for a closer look. It was a raven, huge and glossy-feathered, a black speck of darkness in the otherwise perfect heavens, and I shuddered with the sight of it. I do not know why, exactly, it was an involuntary reaction on my part, and I have no basis of fact for my negative reaction to seeing it....merely a feeling. Sometimes I dismiss such feelings as having no validity, but as of late, and especially since being with Gabriella, I am thinking these are signs of some unknown important to which I ought pay some attention. Fate? A few weeks ago I would have said no, under no circumstance, but now, I am not as sure. Gabriella thinks we may have been destined from a long time ago, even from a previous life, to be together, or so she said. I will not go that far, but I must admit, I am appreciating more and more her insistence that things, at least some things, seem meant to be.
I had my journal open, ready to pen my impressions of the days thus far of our honeymoon, having been too otherwise engaged to do so before, and I thumbed through the entries to see if there had been any past encounter with a raven of which I had written. There was nothing about a bird, but there was indeed an entry about a raven. It was one of the early entries, from several years ago; I had not browsed through that part of my journal since I had written it, I suppose. As I read the words I had written there so long ago, I well remember the time that sparked it, a time of unknown personal disquiet for me, a time when I would hear in my dreams the voice of a woman, yet never know more about her, or know what she said or even know what my dreams would mean. So vibrant and vivid did the dreams become, and the feeling that I should know more, but not having any knowledge of even what to search for, I feared I would disturb my household and took to riding in the dense forest during the nights. I thought I might be going mad, my earliest thoughts of such, when I could find no respite from the voice.
Raven in ancient lore is always a messenger, a creature that brings a warning to be heeded. I do not know why I should have any warning right now, but I cannot help but think I should pay attention to it, and to the words that the Raven of my past left with me, as recorded in my journal from years ago:
I have taken to riding when the such thoughts threaten my sanity - hard and fast through the woods in the deep of night - and I am sure that my stallion will be relieved once these irregular outings cease - or at least he will be more rested, not having his sleep interrupted in the middle of the night. Trouble is....I know not when that may be....or how to bring it about. And so, for now....I ride, late into the night, to chase the thoughts of her from my mind.
Which is how I came to meet the Seer, a woman named Raven, quite a beauty and aptly named, for her hair does shine like a raven's wing. It was but a few nights ago on one of my restless journeys to nowhere that I happened upon her....and the words she had for me have haunted me ever since.
"Pride will be your downfall if these words you do not heed. The forest is deep and the path is long, but narrow. Stray but a step, and you will find that the forest is not only deep, but wide. Many who go there find the adventures they seek, but for those who do not take heed of the warning, the forest becomes a tomb."
How she knew of my almost nightly travels into the woods, I do not know, but truly she has the Gift. Her words of the present were unnerving, but not nearly so asher words of what might be:
"The path you must take will not be straight, nor will it be easy. Choose you the wrong direction and your travels will end in disaster. A great loss, you must be prepared to accept. Do not attempt to prevent the loss, or your life will be forfeit."
And that I could not share with Pene, for it would bring ill will to this trip of hers we now find ourselves in the midst of - it is bad luck to begin such a journey with the ominous words of a Seer, as it is. Quite clearly I recall my reply to Raven then and what she said to me afterwards:
"My life means nothing if I cannot give it for those I love. It matters not, then.....that I forfeit it....if my actions save one I love. That....I would gladly do....again and again."
"Forfeit your life if you must, but know this ... by doing so, you also forfeit the life of the One who can save them all. That One is yet to come. Forfeit your life, and you also forfeit Hers."
What else she said to me, this woman with the Gift, or the Curse, of Second Sight, I shall keep private, even from these pages. What she said of me alone, well...time only can be the Truthmaker there. But if her words do foreshadow future actions on my part....I can only pray to Gwyn Ap Nuad that I choose wisely indeed...guided by His Hand.
So mote it be, if it be Thy will, Gwyn Ap Nuad. I pray for your strength and guidance at first light. And if it be your time to come for me, come swiftly, and let me bring honor to you with my death. In the name of the warriors who have gone before me, and whom one day I will join in the afterlife. Hear my words and grant the wishes of my heart.
I wonder now again, as I wondered then, what the message of Raven was. It is disquieting, but no known, absolute answers lie within my grasp, even now the same as then. But I do have for comfort the words of the wise woman that I am now married to, so I will put my trust in our bond and in the words she has said to me....that all things happen for reasons.
It is worse than I feared, much worse. I have not much time, I only meant to jot down a word or two in case something happens and I do not return....in case I cannot bring her, or us both, back. I may have already waited too long to go, for the paint fades even as I write, but I thought that the differences in the dreams....Gavin's and mine....might mean that I would do harm to her, or worse. I could not live with that. If it did not kill me outright, then I should take upon myself the duty that fate neglected and by my own hand provide justice for her. So I hesitated, not knowing what it meant, indecision my tether.
But...no matter what chance I think I shall be taking....I cannot let her go alone. I owe her that, given the same as my vow to her. I think, perhaps that was a reason for her mother's help to me, when we stood before the fire together. Unspoken, her mother was nevertheless asking me to be there for her daughter, be what she could not be. I do not remember answering her, but I survived the experience. That must have been answer enough. I told her, I never break a promise.
I have also told her, more than once, I am but a man. I think she expects me to be the answer to some long sought ideal of hers, but I am bound to disappoint her in that. I am no hero, no god with feet of clay. God knows how many of man's weaknesses I actually possess and I can be no one's salvation. I shall not even try, for that would of a surety doom us both to hell. I cannot save her, hell....I cannot even save myself.
For posterity, I want it known that even if the paint fades to black, once..... I did love her.
The features of my face are too chiseled, too harsh at times. I tend to frown when I am deep in thought, my mouth disappears into a thin tight line of concentration, my eyes crinkle at their corners, and surely I look fierce, my complexion too dark and gruesome, exacerbated when I forget to apply the razor by a dark shadow of stubble. I do not look friendly or easy to approach for casual conversation at those times, pehaps appearing too raw and brutal around the edges. Dark and sinister. The Black Panther is an apt description then, to be sure.
My body is still in relatively good shape for a man in the midst of his life as I am, the muscles retain their strength still, the flesh is toned. But its surface is marred repeatedly with scars of past grievances done to it, making it flawed and imperfect. I have a long jagged scar along one side beneath my ribcage and a thin line of a white scar along one inner thigh, from knee to groin, both made by blades that were sunk deep enough to end my life, but on different occasions. My left palm is bears an old scar of a numeral that was once burned there, although the scar is quite faded now and the flesh long healed. I have faint scars about my wrists where ropes that bound me sliced into the flesh as I struggled to escape, and thin white lines that lie across my back where my flesh was ripped by the skillful application of a leather bullwhip, both of those received when I was captive to men who would have sold me into slavery, as they did the others they held against their will. One of my shoulders and arms bears the jagged scar of a past encounter with the razored claws of a wild beast, and now the other one will soon wear the mark of a bullet meant for someone else.
I am not beautiful.
She looks at me through the eyes of her love. That is the only way she could call me so. I think she is brave, quite possibly the most courageous person I have ever known.
She sleeps so peacefully now as I hold her, her body draped against and across mine, while I scratch out these few words in my journal. How she sleeps now with me, her position, somehow this gives her some stability in her dreams, some measure of being tethered, I think. I do not pretend to know the way of it, but without me here, I think she goes to another place in her sleep, a place that is sometimes not comforting or peaceful, a place of apprehension, maybe even danger. She painted last night in her sleep, she was near me in our bed, but not on me, like now, and it somehow let her move, let her act. We all have nightmares, but it seems to be so vivid for Gabriella.
What did she do before I was here? Who was here to hold her and keep her safe? She must have been so frightened every night, scared to know where her dreams might take her, yet still she faced those nights. Did she face them alone? If so, she is so brave. She is an amazing woman, my wife.
I have to find Gavin's journal, I have to understand precisely what he dreamt. I know I have it somewhere, but I am loathe to move and disturb Gabriella. Last night I called her "Highness". Later on she told me who her father was. She thinks I should not recall, as she said it when my rationality was bound by the serpents of passion, but she has yet to fully understand me. The panther watches for a long time, his body still as he observes it all with his eyes and his ears, and only springs to action when he has weighed all the variables, considered all the possible consequences, and planned his movements very carefully. I heard her. I am only being still momentarily as I consider the possibilities.
There is one thing I have already considered, and therefore decided. I do love her. I love looking at her so deep in peaceful slumber. I love being her sanctuary when she sleeps. I want to memorize the way she looks as she sleeps in my arms. I know we cannot stay this way forever. I am not sure where we go from here. Perhaps I do not have to know. Perhaps all we can have is today, or just a few todays strung together. It is she that has the Sight, and not I, thankfully so. I do not think I want to know, how long. We have right now. Today. We will have that, by God.....we will. And it will be beautiful.
A beautiful and blinding morning The world outside begins to breathe See clouds arriving without warning I need you here to shelter me
And I know that only time will tell us how To carry on without each other
So keep me awake to memorize you Give me more time to feel this way We can't stay like this forever But I can have you next to me today
If I could make these moments endless If I could stop the winds of change If we just keep our eyes wide open Then everything would stay the same
And I know that only time will tell me how We'll carry on without each other
So keep me awake for every moment Give us more time to be this way We can't stay like this forever But I can have you next to me today
We'll let tomorrow wait, you're here, right now, with me All my fears just fall away, when you are all I see
We can't stay like this forever But I have you here today
And I will remember Oh I will remember Remember all the love we shared today
Events of the past few days have compiled one upon the other, like a slowly moving steam locomotive that could not be stopped, building and building in its momentum, until it rumbled out of control.
Perhaps I feel this way because I slept through a good many of the hours and am not cognizant of occurrences during that time, but I think somehow it is more than that. I wonder, now having a moment to myself to do such, if I am as much in control as I thought. I always prided myself upon that, being in control. I should have confessed that to the priest, pride certainly is a grievous sin, to be sure, but I did not, having only one sin on my mind that night, or rather, morning. That I am not in full control, that thought should cause me great consternation, and serious sleeplessness, but I must confess, if only in this journal, that it does not. Indeed, I have been sleeping better and better than I have in quite some years, as long as my wife is in my bed.
There’s a word I never thought to write again. Wife. I thought at first discovery that was a grave error made on my part, no matter how I made it. But experience has taught me to step back, have patience, and sit with a thing before I snap to a judgment. In retrospect, I am glad I did. She has a way about her, this woman…my wife…and I cannot call to mind what it is, but I am engaged fully in things when she is with me. And I am not sorry. Nor do I want out of the position. I told her….well, I told her a great many things last night, before I sealed the words with the action of a man quite on the edge of his passion. She brings that to me, as well. Yet, I digress. I told her that life makes no promise of fairness to anyone who passes through it, that we all take chances, with no guarantee of results. I told her that my life was worth nothing lived alone, and priceless with her in it. I told her that I was quite in love with her.
I cannot explain it, perhaps because love usually defies explanation. I did not realize it until I said the words to her. But they happen to be true. She has come to me, somehow, and I will not question it further. Her love has pounded at the rock of my heart, over and over, waves crashing against the bulkhead, time and time again, reaching out to me, and last night I chose to take her offering and ride the tide with her.
I move forward with no regrets.
There is one small nagging worry at the bottom of thisall, and that is, I have had the dream again….not my own, but Gavin’s. It has been so long since I had it, that I did believe it purged and dissolved. Quite obviously that was wrong, but what it means in its appearance now, I do not know. The dream is hideous still, to be sure, but it was not precisely as I recalled. Somewhere I have the tattered journal of Captain Severe and if I can put my hands upon it, I can read how it was back then. Perhaps I can then begin to make sense of it, but even then, perhaps not. It is a dream, notwithstanding, and dreams often make no sense. The thing is….Gabriella told me I had acted while I dreamt, that she found me on the balcony, dancing with a dagger. I do not remember this at all; it was a night of raging fever brought on by the gunshot wound in my shoulder. (Whoever aimed for her and missed will have my wrath to deal with once discovered. It will not go well for him.) Because of my wife, because of her ways, she was able to bring me back to myself, and out of the fever of the dream. That Gabriella did this for me, I have no doubt, for I am here, and well again, to write these words.
This, then, I know: I am not the same without her. I do believe I love her, even as I admitted to her. This is the last; it has to be, for I could not survive the demise of another love. It would be my end and rightly so. I will do all that I can to keep her safe and keep her here, then, for God help me if she ever goes from my side.
She's got a way about her I don't know what it is But I know that I can't live without her
She's got a way of pleasin' I don't know why it is But there doesn't have to be a reason Anyway
She's got a smile that heals me I don't know what it is But I have to laugh when she reveals me
She's got a way of talkin' I don't know what it is But it lifts me up when we are walkin' Anywhere
She comes to me when I'm feelin' down Inspires me without a sound She touches me andI get turned around
She's got a way of showin' How I make her feel And I find the strength to keep on goin'
She's got a light around her And everywhere she goes A million dreams of love surround her Everywhere
She comes to me when I'm feelin' down Inspires me without a sound She touches me and I get turned around
She's got a smile that heals me I don't know what it is But I have to laugh when she reveals me
She's got a way about her I don't know what it is But I know that I can't live without her Anyway
The Black Knight was not bound to any Lord, but to his own Code of
Honour, choosing Justice over personal glory.
The Black Knight's Code of Honour:
Inside the table's circle, under the sacred sword.
A knight must vow to follow the Code that is unending, unending as the
table.
A ring by honour bound.
A knight is sworn to valour.
His heart knows only virtue.
His blade defends the helpless.
His might upholds the weak.
His word speaks only truth.
His wrath undoes the wicked.
The right can never die, if one man still recalls.
The words are not forgot, if one voice speaks them clear.
The Code forever shines, if one heart holds it bright.
