The warrior takes the last, ragged steps up to the peak and then leans forward onto his knees, taking in huge gulps of cold mountain air. Glancing up, he sees his master is already there, staring off across the lip of the stone edifice to the land below. Despite her age and short stride, she still beats him on the run, regardless of his efforts. He draws himself up and walks over to her, hands on his hips, as his heart pumps hard inside a chest encased in armour. They both wear their full suits, on these runs. ‘What’s the use in running, if you can’t do it in battle?’ his master will frequently intone.
He goes to say something witty, but is struck by the beauty of the view. The sharp points of distant mountains can be seen rising through the misty tides of the morning, which blanket the shallow valley below in a white shroud. Great stretches of untouched forest thrive, wild and free, giving way to gentle grasslands populated by golden grasses and a speckled rainbow of wildflowers, visible even at this great distance. A few fluffy clouds occupy the amber sky, themselves turned bronze by the ascending sun, and a dense flock of swallows swell and arc across this striking canvass.
The warrior has seen it all before, of course. He sees it most mornings. Yet every time is like the first time. Each day offers something new for the eye or the ear to catch. The air might smell different; the breeze carrying up petrichor one day, pollen the next. The sun warms his skin differently each morning, surely as the dawn chorus changes its melody. When he first made this run, many years ago, he barely saw this tapestry of tranquility, because his vision was swimming so badly and his body was on the verge of passing out. Also, in his youthful arrogance, he didn’t care. He wasn’t sure why some mean old woman was making him run up steep mountainsides. It still knocks the wind out of him, all these years later, but it no longer requires a full day of recovery. And now he can appreciate the view.
His master’s breath is hardly pressed at all, though once she wouldn’t have so much as sighed. He knows her winter years approach, but he doesn't dare say as much. She can still run circles around him. More pertinent, she can still beat him in a duel with one hand tied behind her back. He knows, because she does it regularly. At least, when it comes to swords.
‘We’ll break fast when we return,’ says his master, ‘then you can get to work digging that new well. I have to travel to the city for the rest of the day.’ She’s away more and more these days. War is brewing and she is still a Lady Marshall of the court. Her expertise is needed in a crowd that has only ever known peace.
‘Have the evening to yourself,’ she says, ‘go fishing or something. Have dinner ready when I return.’
‘Yes, master,’ he says. She sounds distant, as if her thoughts are elsewhere. He’s glad for the free afternoon but something is bothering him. Something he has meant to say for a while.
‘Master,’ he feels his face twisting into a frown, which he is helpless to stop. ‘I don’t think I want to go to war.’
His master continues to look out across the valley. Her eyes follow the movements of the swallows. ‘Oh?’ she says, in a tone he has heard before. ‘Do you fear you are not capable?’
‘No, master. I was twelve springs when I came to you, and for twelve springs I have studied under you. I’ve known peace all that time. Yet I am confident that I can outpace all but the greatest runners. Outride all but the greatest horsemen. Outthink all but the greatest tacticians. I know that I can beat almost any other swordsman in the land. I can hit a diving swallow at twenty yards with a half bow. I can outduel anyone with a spear, including you.’
‘This is true,’ she says with a small, wry smile on her face. ‘You can beat an old lady with a long stick.’
‘Master,’ he says, his tone unflinching, ‘you’ve taught me well. But war is coming and despite all I have learned of it, I fear it more than anything else.’
‘It is only natural to fear the unknown,’ his master says with a shrug. ‘You’ve read about war in books, heard about it through my tales and felt a modicum of its touch through our training. But to actually see it? Hear it? Smell it? That is altogether a different experience.’
‘Master, when I was young I craved war more than anything.’ Which is true. They had come to blows about the subject during his early years. The warrior wanted nothing more than the taste of blood and victory in his mouth. Wanted nothing but to flex his skills, honed over many years through much hardship. ‘But now…’ the warrior sighs.
‘But now I have come to understand the brevity of life. I understand the temporary, changing nature of things. Life is something to be cherished while it is there, no squandered away over territory, or prestige, or gold. How can I go willingly into something I know will only destroy and never create?’
‘Ah, you have caught a most serious affliction.’
‘Master?’
She looks up at him and, with a wink, says ‘You have become infected with compassion, my student.’
He returns his gaze to the valley. The warrior wants his heart heard, not his words mocked.
‘But…’ his master says, ‘you are right to fear war. If it were to arrive here,’ she gestures to the valley and all its natural splendour, ‘it would burn and ravage everything before you. We’d be left with nothing but ash. And despite your skill with the sword and the bow and, yes, the spear, there is little you can do to halt its advance. To wage war is in the territory of those who have never known it. It is up to those that have, to end it, and prepare the next generation for its onslaught. War is ingrained in the imagination as something bright and bloody. In reality, it is mud, boredom and death. From time to time, we must endure it as we endure winter. Be glad you are prepared better than most.’
‘I will be expected to take lives,’ he says, his mouth drying.
‘Yes,’ his master says. ‘But, more importantly, you will be expected to know when to spare them.’ She rests a hand on his shoulder, ‘And that requires compassion, which no master can teach. I am glad you have found it by yourself.’
His master gives him a good pat on his padded shoulder, then turns away. ‘Come on now, that well isn’t digging itself.’
The warrior hesitates, taking a moment longer to admire the swallows that are settling into the treeline at the edge of the plains. He makes a silent promise to himself. The sword at his side will know only the darkness of its sheath, for as long as he can keep it there. He thinks his body can survive this war. He hopes his soul can too.
Paddy Dobson
7th September 2020