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Swan Queen

The King, alone, looked out from the castle towers ‘oer the village Ayr on a resolute clear spring day.  From this high he could see the river on its way wondering through the forested hills and flowers, well into spring.  On his side of the ramparts he noted where he had ordered an artisan some hundred years or so before to carve an inscription in the stone.

With the trees, now coming alive since winter’s past,
all fresh green, new season’s budding growth at last. 
And as temporal waters guide life’s eternal flowing,
the ethereal misted surface of the river now whispers, knowing.

#

            An advance guard of six bowmen on horseback approached the village from along the river and some distance after them followed the Queen and her entourage.  The Queen’s party came slowly up the path.
            The Queen rode a black stallion.  Some years before the King had rescued the wild horse as a young colt, severely hurt from a fall, and brought him back to the castle stables. He gifted the horse to the Queen to see if she could help bring the colt back to strength and raise him. The stable keepers thought the horse would never recover, quite ugly to boot, and not worth the effort. The Queen however wouldn’t give up on the colt. The Queen had always claimed the horse would one day be her noble stallion, as she liked to say, and named him Beowulf. Those same stable keepers now bragged about Beowulf’s speed and endurance; and also how striking in appearance the stallion had turned out to be.
            The youthful Queen held herself lightly in the saddle as she was happy to be back home from her travels. For the occasion of her return, she wore a blue spring tunic with a high neck and a small garland of pink lilacs wrapped around her blond hair like a crown. As the procession entered the village small groups of her subjects would stop, call out in greeting, and wave to the Queen as she passed. Tradition called, in honor of the Queen’s return, for village children to run to the balconies and cast white roses in front of the Queen’s path as she moved through the street. Children laughed as they leaned out and tossed the flowers.
            Spring plantings of all sort lined the cobbled streets in front of the orderly stone houses and craftsman’s shops. Red bee balm, yellow lily of the valley, and pink rhododendron were all in bloom and carefully arranged. Gardeners, craftsmen, and artisans bustled to get things right as they knew the Queen would be marking the details.
            Arriving at the castle, the Queen dismounted and entered the grand hall. Servants stood by.  Speaking quickly and loudly, the Queen said, “The fence I noticed is still in need of repair. What’s he been doing?  I bet he’s been napping, right?” The staff fidgeted with some embarrassment, not knowing how to respond.  “So where is he? Up to no good I bet!”
            The King could hear all this from the tower and chuckled to himself. In fact, he had napped a little with the Queen gone he felt guiltily.  He shook his head, wondering how the Queen always knew.
            Soon the Queen joined the King on the tower. “You don’t greet me any more in the grand hall?” challenged the Queen as she strode across the granite floor of the tower towards the King.
            The King stood silently. As the Queen came close he looked in the Queen’s eyes.  He could not see any criticism but only love, and a slight insecurity. He knew the crisp words of the Queen’s arrival had only been her love song.  Her eyes said, “Do you still love me? I missed you. I love you.”
            The King spoke to the eyes, not the words, and he said tenderly, “I missed you more than ever. I love you more than ever.”
            The lovers embraced on the tower.

#

            This was a time of immortality among royalty and the King and Queen had been together for hundreds of years. They had two sons named Sir Blake and Spencelot. Both were fine young men who now had their own kingdoms and their own affairs. That was how the King thought it should be. Being of royal heritage, neither the King nor Queen ever aged, nor could they die. It had always been that way in memory.  The eternal Queen was stunning, long limbed, and flawless. The highborn King carried himself handsomely and the Queen would tease the King from time to time about his vanity. His Lordship didn’t mind though because the Queen always made him feel like a man. 
            As they exited the castle gates and clattered across the wooden bridge over the moat the King thought about how very much he looked forward to these daily rides with the Queen.
            Their pet lion Mojor ran by their side. The King, some years earlier, had captured the fierce white-furred wilding and the Queen had proceeded to tame the creature. Both of the royal couple tried to ignore that Mojor’s attention was mostly on the Queen with the King having little effect on Mojor’s discipline.
            These rides as a couple gave them time together. Often, it was a time for them to enjoy the love between them in silence. But mostly his Lordship and Lady would ride and talk.  He enjoyed hearing about the Queen’s travels working with the artists and sculptors among her people in the outlying provinces. Through the years the kingdom had grown and prospered. Throughout the kingdom the Queen had commissioned paintings and sculpture.
            Sometimes their talk would turn to a challenging banter back and forth.  These disagreements were always in fun and the King and Queen both had a sparkle in their eye. The couple liked the quick wit of these interchanges and would go on and on. Their people would sometimes hear this debate between the King and Queen go back and forth and laugh at the music of it.  Even Thoamas, the court wizard and Queen’s brother - who liked to goad the royal couple - knew the King and Queen were like one.  
            The entire land knew the King and Queen loved each other and this brought security and prosperity to the realm. And indeed the King and Queen did love each other – far more than either knew.

#

            As visitors to the castle would come and go, a particularly pretty maiden arrived who did not know or care of the royal couple’s deep love for each other. The maiden tried to catch the King’s eye. The King thought the best of all his subjects and although he noticed the maiden he had no idea of the maiden’s interest or intent. The maiden, who was called Aavy, was confident in gaining the King’s favor because she was a witch. Aavy felt by ridding the kingdom of the Queen, the King would be released to marry her.  Aavy mixed a dark spell and called the Queen for a rendezvous in the same tower the King and Queen admired their kingdom together.  Speaking with the Queen, Aavy told the Queen she should leave the kingdom or be destroyed by the spell. Then Aavy saw the Queen’s eyes – and Aavy knew the Queen would not be leaving the kingdom. Aavy, now in fear for her own life, knew to caste the spell would be her only chance. Aavy quickly cast the spell on the Queen avoiding sure death.
            The King returned that evening from his duties in the kingdom and as usual called out for his Queen. The wizard Thoamas entered the chambers in the Queen’s absence and explained what Aavy had done. “Sire, the witch maiden Aavy has cast a spell on the Queen.  The Queen now resides at the lake in the valley of Glendaloch for evermore.  You can find her there at the lake transformed into a swan among many swans.  She is no more as you remember.”
            Aavy, seeing her chance, entered the chambers. “Lord, the Queen is done.  I am your choice of flesh and blood.  Our love can now be fulfilled.”
            The sovereign King rose up in his pain and anger. “Aavy, you make a grave judgment. You meant no more to me than any loyal subject. It’s only my good nature, offered to all, that falsely encouraged you. And now you mean less than nothing and I am not interested in your piffling words - for you are dead.” The King drew his sword and dispensed with Aavy.

#

            The King rode alone to Glendaloch in the land of Eyre.  As the King entered the green valley the lake was as enchanting as ever but the King did not notice.  The King and Queen had visited there many times and spent time on the dry moss enjoying their favorite view next to the shore. The Queen had always remarked on how the water was the color of translucent mercury.  This is where the lovers had planned their life together long before the birth of their sons.
            The King lay on the moss and leaned out over the still water. He could see his own face reflected.   He thought about the Queen – his beautiful immortal Queen - who had never aged in his eyes.
            He reflected on how he had missed the Queen even before he met her. He remembered how he sat alone after the end-of-year festivals and thought of his future bride and how it could be – but not really knowing if it would be.
            He thought about meeting the Queen for the first time and later knowing the Queen would love him - before the Queen herself knew she would love him. He remembered being tested by the Queen and knowing the reasons for the testing were true.  He remembered each year with his lover as a pearl - hundreds of pearls. He envisioned the Queens smile when he made her laugh while she was trying to be mad – and then mad because she laughed. And how they both laughed and forgot to be mad.
            He reflected on how the Queen could be hard and knew the Queen’s hardness was nothing compared to the Queen’s heart. He remembered how warm he felt knowing the Queen could be secure in his love – yet the Queen was still insecure. He loved the Queen for that.
            As he continued to look at his own face in the water, he was sorry he never had the chance to thank the Queen for all the times she backed up the King and defended him to others – even when he was wrong.  He was also sorry he hadn’t always backed up the Queen as well.  He remembered when their sons were young and how he had desired to build a kingdom more for his Lady’s approval than for his own. He remembered how the Queen’s advice was so valued yet so little acknowledged, and how he had taken the Queen for granted all too often in his own self-absorption. He regretted his own insecurities and time wasted in petty male arrogance.
            The King knew the Queen had not only saved him but had brought him more happiness than the king thought could be. But mostly, he missed his best friend, the Queen.
            The King’s tears caused ripples in the water. The ripples appeared to torment the King’s mirrored face.

#

            The King stayed at Glendaloch and lived on the green shore. Many years passed. From time to time the King would see a group of swans, swimming in their graceful white splendor, and he hoped one was his Queen.  There was no way of knowing. They were just swans. Only at night did the King feel closer to his Lady. It was at this time he imagined the swans could sing. The King would lie, look up at the clear night stars, and listen. He liked to think his swan Queen could now sing.
            The kingdom declined. The king refused to let Sir Blake and Spencelot help as he felt they both had their own kingdoms to attend. The kingdom’s subjects grew restless and quarreled. The gardens and plantings decayed and the castle became in disrepair but the King would not leave Glendaloch. Most of the art and sculpture throughout the kingdom was destroyed by neglect or stolen and sold by thieves. This hurt the King more than any of it. The King lived on, immortal, not aging, and in grief.
            The word went out to other lands that the kingdom was weak. As these things happen, a particularly ambitious and cowardly king named Greel of the land of Sade received news that the kingdom was now without a caring King. Greel, who had acquired his own kingdom by coup and was therefore not of royalty, was jealous of the King’s immortality. Worse yet, the witch Aavy had been Greel’s daughter.  Greel began to amass an army.
            War ensued in the King’s land. Battles formed, ebbed, and flowed. The King-General did the best he could. As much as he tried, his whole heart was not in the fight, and his army knew it.  Even so, the King battled with Greel for many years; but even the strongest kingdoms must give way when a King is without heart.  At last, the final battle was forming in the beginning of winter.  The King still had a few thousand loyal, exhausted troops, but he knew all was lost.  Greel of Sade had over ten thousand fresh conscripts.
            The King guessed a month at most before his total surrender was all he had left. Both armies were camped in the rolling hills, opposed, waiting for the inevitable. So the King made arrangements and rode out to meet with Greel.  Greel invited the King back to his camp for negotiations. Once the honors of the day were completed, suited to the meeting of two kings on the eve of battle, the King appealed to Greel’s sense of fair play. “If you let my remaining legions return to their villages without harm you can have the castle and surrounding lands. Leave me to live alone at the lake in the valley of Glendaloch.  This will save many lives in both our armies. All I ask in return is for you not to war on my sons Sir Blake and Spencelot. They know not how bad things are and are happy in their own lands.  I wish them left unmolested.”
            The thin, spindly Greel turned to the King. “You fool. I will have your castle and all your lands. Your troops will be dead by spring. Expect no mercy. As to your brat children expect them to be next. And expect them to be molested in the worst way. You killed my daughter and I want what I can take. You made the mistake, shall I say grave judgment, of coming to my camp. You are immortal and I can’t kill you.  But you can wish you were dead.”
            Violating honored rules of war, Greel put the King under arms and did not permit him to return to his haggard troops. Greel, being a despicable king, attracted those who enjoyed torturing others. For this type, pain and slow disfigurement applied to a king was a rare pleasure.
            Days passed and the King lay broken in a tent few entered. A woman came to the King. She was a high witch. “Lord, I am the wife of Greel, Queen of Sade, and the mother of Aavy who cast the spell on your Queen bride. I know my daughter did your Lady wrong and I offer a bargain to make that right. My husband wants you dead.  Should you give up your immortality, permitting yourself to die, I will reverse the spell on your Queen. She will live ageless.”

#

Some weeks later, Greel, exited his command tent and greeted the pale grey winter dusk. It was cold. Snow flurries scattered in the nearly still air. Greel shivered for a minute under his coat, but felt satisfied with the King no longer a threat and the King’s spent army in its final throws. Greel’s army stretched out in the valley behind him with hundreds of campfires and neat rows of tents. He shuddered though, with a different kind of chill, to see the dark attendants entering the broken King’s tent – and he quickly looked away uneasily from the evil of what was left of the royal man.
            ”Rider sighted, my Lord.” called out the pickets guarding near the edge of his camp.
            Turning to look in the fading light Lord Greel saw in the distance, coming out of the swirling snow, a lone figure on horseback steadily approaching. The rider rode a black horse and was not of his army. As the rider came nearer he could tell it was a woman. She wore a grey cape and scarlet boots. Her blond hair was close cropped and her skin was the color of pearl. She was beautiful in her strength.  She wore light silver armor. Close now, he could hear the breath of the black beast she mounted - nostrils blowing cold smoke in the air; hooves beating a heavy drum on the white dusted frozen earth.  Slowing in front of him the blue sapphire ring she wore explained her lineage - but it was her eyes, it was her grey blue steel eyes that caused Greel to know this was the royal Queen people spoke of-- coming to save her broken King. 
            The Queen drew up as the snow stopped falling and night closed in. “I’ll be taking my King with me now,” the Queen commanded to Greel.
            ”And what confidence you have for one woman with little army left!” replied Lord Greel.
            The restless horse stirred as the Queen rose up in her jeweled saddle. A single diamond hung from her long ivory neck. Her grey cape fell away showing a gold gilded sword at her side and an emerald woven royal sash around her thin waist.  “I have the confidence of my family and their abilities to come together on each other’s behalf”, declared the Queen. 
And with that Greel could start to see above the Queen’s shoulder in the darkness of the night a thousand campfires of the Queen’s legionnaires on the near hills. And more thousands of campfires grew brighter in the dark. Tens of thousands.  These were the war fires of Sir Blake, Spencelot, Thoamas’s wizard forces, and even the armies arriving with The Duke of Charleston and Sir Michigon.
            Greel, now panicked, quickly drew his short sword and thrust at the Queen. As the sword neared its mark Beowulf reared up, both throwing the Queen, and accepting the sword’s deep slash across his belly at the same time. With wild black eyes, the horse screamed from the pain. Greel, now thrown off balance, slipped on the slick ground and fell on his back. As he reached to lift his sword, a red boot slammed his wrist back to the earth. Looking up, he saw the Queen above him. She stood tall and held a broadsword pointed directed at his throat. Greel’s guards stayed back, by now having seen the fires themselves.
            Having lost his advantage Greel lay fully back and said quietly “My Lady, your King believes in fair play”.
            The Queen, looked down at the man and said even more quietly. “That’s true, he does”,  as she drove her sword through Greel’s neck, staking the now dying man to the ground beneath him.

#

            And so the Queen saved her broken King and took him back to their castle in the kingdom.
            As they rode the couple talked - the wounded King and his Lady.   They talked about the life they had together. They shared how fortunate they had been for so many years and how even during those years they knew it would all end some day and how important it was not to take any day for granted. The King talked about moments in their time together he had fixed with an image in his head to remember.  Those best moments were when the entire royal family of four was together dining, hiking in the forest, and traveling. 
            The King remembered seeing their sons gain awards of the realm for painting and drama. He especially remembered the Queen sharing her knowledge about the arts with her subjects and how natural that was for her. The first time he attended the Queen’s tour it was like seeing an untested ballerina enter the stage. The audience attending the ballet, with hushed hands brought to enraptured lips, listened to the Queen’s rare talent bring the art to life.
            And the King shared about how in their most intimate moments, in his private thoughts, he had known how singular those moments were - and how they would pass – while hidden tears had formed in his eyes.

#

            Years later, on a spring afternoon, the King and Queen once again visited the lake at Glendaloch.  The King and Queen sat on the shore where the King had spent so many years mourning his Queen – imagining he could hear the swans sing. Beowulf stood by grazing peacefully. A deep white scar was on the horse’s underside.
           But on this day the King lay across the lap of his Queen and looked up into her pained blue eyes as the Queen stroked his now aged grey hair.  The Queen looked down at the King, and leaned in to softly whisper in her husband’s ear from perfect red rose lips. “I was always with you. It was me you heard singing all those years.  It was I singing for you, my lover King.” The King looked up at his Lady, touched her warm silken cheek, smiled, and died.

#

            There came a time when royalty did not live forever.  Some even say the Queen was never ageless - but for in the King’s eyes – and they claim she died of old age.  Some say the Queen died from a broken heart.
            But today, if you go to Ireland and visit Ayre and the lake at Glendaloch, you’ll see an ancient stone arch you pass under to get to the lake. You can still make out these words on the ancient granite entry.
 
This gate stands as requiem for a vanquished King.
We all know what sorrow and tears this may bring.
But it’s not when, or where, or the legend’s why;
It’s not even how, but for who he was willing to die.
Twice saved by his Queen, her love now immortal.
To know her sweet sonnet, pray enter this portal.
So rest dear traveler, in this valley in Eyre.
And at night see the stars, as the heavens retire.
At such times, listen close. A swan forever does sing.
It’s the Swan Queen now weeping, for her lover, her King.

 END