Solitude

When he wakes in the morning, the mattress beside him is cold. The scent of her on his pillows, cloves and honeysuckle, fades with each breath he takes from them. For a moment he feels her soft arms around his, feels her feet entwined with his. Her warm breath on his face and her great, gleaming eyes staring into his. His heart twists with longing.

He rises, dons gambeson, breeches, and boots, and makes his way down to the yard. A man at arms is there, filling in for Dolan, and taking more than the absent mercenary’s share in lumps. The sword feels heavy in his hands. He cuts clumsily, guards absentmindedly, moves indecisively, and is bested, though he should never have been touched by the opponent’s blade. The grey autumn sky opens above him, letting through some small shreds of light. He tiredly hangs his head and looks not upon it.

He speaks with the old seneschal, who provides notes and papers on stiff, brown leaf. The arches of the great hall bow around him, a bright fire crackling in the hearth on the north wall. He hears petitions from his people and sifts through orders and ledgers he has made or has yet to. His mind threatens to float above, aloof and unfocused, and he forces it back down to the scratches and notes on the table before him. He breaks for a meal; a warm plate of roast venison with root vegetables and onions in a thick gravy. He eats some, sprinkles it with salt, tastes naught.

More petitioners, more sheafs of scribbles, then he sits to discuss the day’s proceedings and future plans with those few souls who remain with him. All is recorded by the scribe. He calls for his horse to be prepared for his evening exercise, and orders the cook to prepare a barley gruel for his supper. Why waste good meat and roughage when his tongue is numb to their flavours?

He rides for over an hour, though usually it is two, and strikes his mark with lance only thrice. His horse feels unruly, his saddle loose, his vision untrue. His grip feels weak as if with sleep. He dismounts, frustration overtaking him. He leads his courser back to stable and brushes her down himself, ordering the stable hands away and basking in the solitude.

He retires early to his chambers, his supper brought to him in a plain wooden bowl, which he leaves untouched on a small side table. He sits upon his balcony and watches the sun go down, then counts the stars in the black when the dark night comes. He picks out the constellations in his mind, telling each of their stories to her, as though she were there next to him. She would know the lot of them, he expects, better even than he, and he smiles in melancholy. He looks to the bed in its corner of the room, dark and un-made, ready to receive him to the gentle crush of its grip for another passing of the moon. He disrobes and climbs under the blankets, the mattress cold where she once lay, the pillows ever less touched with her scent, and he drifts away into deep slumber. And, even in his dreams, his heart twists with longing