THE WRITINGS OF A PALADIN: Chains He Shall Break,
For The Slave Is Our Brother
O Holy Night! And truly it is, for I am at last home. An ordeal endured to be sure that has sobered me. I hope also changed me, but as to that, time will tell.
There is yet something that bothers me.
So far I have avoided it.
Alluded answers to the questions posed, the raised eyebrows, the suggestive remarks.
I did not tell Lana, the woman I consider to be my oldest and most trusted friend. True, it was she and her crew who effectively rescued us - lock, stock and sadly listing ship - from slowly sinking into the sea and who saw us safely into port, even sustaining the children with food and drink. How they needed that, and even the companionship of Lana's men who let them simply be children again. But I could not confide in Lana why, where we had come from, or what we had endured. To be sure, time was short, and I knew Lana was, after all, merely performing her duties to us, even as gracious and concerned as she was.
And I have yet to find the words to tell even my wife, although perhaps it is not fair to include her here, for I would not have brought that into our first night together again after so long a time. Indeed, there were little words that needed to be said between us, once we got the household settled for rest. It is amazing the amount of energy and preparation required to put twelve small children to bed, and were it not for the wonderous find in Miss Summer Raine, engaged now as our nanny and coming home with us from the Gypsy's shop last eve, I fear we would not have completed the task even when the night had progressed into the coming day.
Perhaps it is because to speak of it I must think of it. As of yet it is still too new, too close, too dark and I wish to push it as far out of my mind as possible. No doubt the repercussions of my own inadequecy are an underlying factor. It I had been more alert, if I had been stronger, wiser, surer, more courageous, and on and on. If I could have thought of the possibility of it months ago, and fairly ashamed I am that I did not. If I could have thought of another way.
If....If.... If.....
It is a surity that it will not disappear of its own accord....neither the past or the consequences of that...nor the future, unless I act.
The past we all must live with, find some peace within ourselves, and go on existing in spite of it.
It is the future that can be altered. It can. And I must.
I know I must speak of it. And soon. Even if only to Pene. It gnaws at me, like a mongrel gnawing at a bone. Perhaps I shall brave the apprehension and talk to her, in the hopes that she will help me find a way to tell the story. Its not that it should not be told, but it is not pleasant nor pretty. I should tell her, if for no other reason than the justification of my actions to her, and I know she was right to question that.
But I know that is not all.
I owe it to the children to have it made known what has happened to them. The atrocity of it, even as hard as it will be to believe in such a thing happening here.
I will owe it to the Duchess when I go to her to ask her permission for what I now must do, as a result.
I will ask.
But with or without her permission, I will act.
Yet my fear is how to tell. I would have the tale be known in such a way that these children are not looked upon with pity and sympathy. They are stronger than that and deserve better. They are incredible survivors. They are the heroes.
I have always had a special talent with words.
But I have always believed in the ultimate goodness of men's souls.
I can no longer cling innocently to that belief. There are men who are cruel and evil. There are men who cannot be rehabilitated. There are men that should die for their crimes and there should not - will not, as long as I have breath in my body - be excuses. Is it not the Code itself that promises this and gives me my very course of action?
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 honor bound.
A knight is sworn to valor.
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.
And so it must be.
I sit here in the early hours before dawn, warm and comfortable in our home, writing these words in a room where my wife slumbers and our unborn child with her, having brought into our lives children who were ripped away from their families and their homes and have lost that time that can never be reclaimed for them -- children who were destined to be sold into slavery in lands where they knew no one, and no one in turn cared for their lives or their souls, except as mere property.
And here -- here -- we all are safe.
But there are others who are not.
And they are not so very far away.
The cycle has not been broken, merely interrupted. And I cannot take comfort in that fact.
I am one of them and they are one with me.
I have known the lonliness of imprisonment, the pangs of starvation, the agony of torture.....and the darkness that is the evilness of men's souls.
And I will not wholly rest until that evil is struck down.
~~~ Sir Antonio Sabatier ~~~
Diplomatic Liason to the Duchess of Ashford
The Marquis of Pantera, a.k.a., The Black Panther
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within." ~~ Emerson
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