constant.
He’d had an operation almost as soon as the diagnosis was confirmed, in New York eleven months ago. That had been kept secret from everyone. No one knew; not Francesca and certainly no one who worked for him. It was an absence of only a couple of days from his email and Twitter accounts. His retreats, his stints in rehab and his trips to remote places were so much a feature of his life that no one thought to become suspicious.
The surgery was a success. They got the whole of the growth out of him, every cancerous cell. Six months later came the all-clear. And then in February the symptoms started to re-establish themselves and he was soberly told that this time surgery was not an option. There was nowhere left to cut. Another invasive procedure would kill him. Chemo was a balance between the time it bought you and the havoc it wreaked on the quality of your remaining life. His prognosis was bleak, his case hopeless and his prospects terminal.
Saul swallowed with effort, gathered his blanket around him and thought about the picture he looked at – the narrative of it, the guy in the steel suit who had come out on top in the rumble with the creature his broadsword had decapitated. Recently decapitated, the gore still dripped from the creature’s severed neck. The blow hadn’t been delivered in death to secure a trophy. It had been the fatal last act of the fight.
How accurate was the depiction? Saul thought that in all the important particulars it was probably truthful enough. The guy wouldn’t have been dressed like that, though. The guy detailed in stained glass looked like one of Arthur’s Round Table dudes in a picture by Millais or Holman-Hunt. Saul was familiar with the style because he owned a bunch of those paintings himself. The courtly medieval world of the Pre-Raphaelite school was romantic and seductive. In this particular instance, chronology made it no more than a glamorous lie.
Warriors had dressed like the stained-glass dude in the time of the window’s creation and the artisan who made it had figured on rendering what he knew from life. The real event had taken place 300 years earlier, and though the human protagonist had certainly been of noble birth and martial inclination, he would have been dressed differently. Saul figured animal skins and jewelled broaches and probably more facial hair than on a self-respecting member of the Grateful Dead.
No chivalric code to observe, that far back in history. No notion of courtly love. That came later with the French, their manners and their madrigals and wimpled damsels prone to bouts of distress. This guy had been different from all that. No grail quest to distract him from his mission. That was for damn sure.
Armed differently too, probably, Saul figured. He thought a round wooden shield and maybe a double-bladed battleaxe rather than a sword. The guy would have been expert in the use of arms, lethal in combat and colossally strong. He’d have been completely determined. And he’d have been quite unbelievably fucking courageous.
He’d been hand-picked, obviously. But the guy had known what he was up against, hadn’t he? He’d have heard the stories from the cradle. He’d been an inhabitant of a different universe, one in which the few certainties were absolute and much was quite simply unknowable. You steered clear of the edge of the world and you kept the darkness at bay unless it was deemed your duty, as it had been his, to deliberately venture into it.
Duty was probably wrong. Calling was more like it and the word he would have used in his lost language would probably most have resembled destiny among modern English words in meaning.
Brother, brother, brother,
Saul mused. His phone beeped in his pocket. Probably Sam trying to find out where he was and what he was up to. Sam hadn’t had his Saul fix that morning and it was his employer’s belief that he had become as addicted to the presence of his boss as he’d once been to
He’d had an operation almost as soon as the diagnosis was confirmed, in New York eleven months ago. That had been kept secret from everyone. No one knew; not Francesca and certainly no one who worked for him. It was an absence of only a couple of days from his email and Twitter accounts. His retreats, his stints in rehab and his trips to remote places were so much a feature of his life that no one thought to become suspicious.
The surgery was a success. They got the whole of the growth out of him, every cancerous cell. Six months later came the all-clear. And then in February the symptoms started to re-establish themselves and he was soberly told that this time surgery was not an option. There was nowhere left to cut. Another invasive procedure would kill him. Chemo was a balance between the time it bought you and the havoc it wreaked on the quality of your remaining life. His prognosis was bleak, his case hopeless and his prospects terminal.
Saul swallowed with effort, gathered his blanket around him and thought about the picture he looked at – the narrative of it, the guy in the steel suit who had come out on top in the rumble with the creature his broadsword had decapitated. Recently decapitated, the gore still dripped from the creature’s severed neck. The blow hadn’t been delivered in death to secure a trophy. It had been the fatal last act of the fight.
How accurate was the depiction? Saul thought that in all the important particulars it was probably truthful enough. The guy wouldn’t have been dressed like that, though. The guy detailed in stained glass looked like one of Arthur’s Round Table dudes in a picture by Millais or Holman-Hunt. Saul was familiar with the style because he owned a bunch of those paintings himself. The courtly medieval world of the Pre-Raphaelite school was romantic and seductive. In this particular instance, chronology made it no more than a glamorous lie.
Warriors had dressed like the stained-glass dude in the time of the window’s creation and the artisan who made it had figured on rendering what he knew from life. The real event had taken place 300 years earlier, and though the human protagonist had certainly been of noble birth and martial inclination, he would have been dressed differently. Saul figured animal skins and jewelled broaches and probably more facial hair than on a self-respecting member of the Grateful Dead.
No chivalric code to observe, that far back in history. No notion of courtly love. That came later with the French, their manners and their madrigals and wimpled damsels prone to bouts of distress. This guy had been different from all that. No grail quest to distract him from his mission. That was for damn sure.
Armed differently too, probably, Saul figured. He thought a round wooden shield and maybe a double-bladed battleaxe rather than a sword. The guy would have been expert in the use of arms, lethal in combat and colossally strong. He’d have been completely determined. And he’d have been quite unbelievably fucking courageous.
He’d been hand-picked, obviously. But the guy had known what he was up against, hadn’t he? He’d have heard the stories from the cradle. He’d been an inhabitant of a different universe, one in which the few certainties were absolute and much was quite simply unknowable. You steered clear of the edge of the world and you kept the darkness at bay unless it was deemed your duty, as it had been his, to deliberately venture into it.
Duty was probably wrong. Calling was more like it and the word he would have used in his lost language would probably most have resembled destiny among modern English words in meaning.
Brother, brother, brother,
Saul mused. His phone beeped in his pocket. Probably Sam trying to find out where he was and what he was up to. Sam hadn’t had his Saul fix that morning and it was his employer’s belief that he had become as addicted to the presence of his boss as he’d once been to
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