The Knight and the Dying Man

The knight said nothing more, and the man said nothing more the rest of the day. The knight held no sword, for the despair had wholly seized the woeful man in the tree. When night came, the knight undressed and ate and offered the man food, but he only shook his head and remained in the tree as long as the knight was awake. The knight found sleep difficult to attain that night, for thoughts of a babe suffering from birth till he was bald once again harried him. The baby's cries rang in his ears louder than the metal reverberating in his helm, until the cries became keening and... he slept, finally, though he knew not how the man in the tree ever did.

He awoke to it: the keening. The man in the tree was on the other branch now, Squire under him, staring up.

"He stopped me from reaching the water," the man said when he noticed Joseph had awoken.

"He's a good horse." the knight rose and refreshed himself before donning his armor and breaking his fast with unmailed hands. "Bread?" he offered the man.

He refused and instead pointed out, "You wear your armor even now, after you've seen how hopeless I am with a sword."

The knight chuckled and ate his bread. "It is not you I hope to defend against, but a monster."

"A monster? Nothing lives here but you and I and the leaves."

The knight shrugged. "Deeper on, perhaps. I cannot lower my guard."

The man straightened a bit. "So you intend to go on."

"Once I'm certain of your health," the knight replied. "You shall not be quit of me. Nor life, friend."

The man slouched again. "There is so little you understand. You fear monsters that don't exist and think to keep a dying man from death. The monster lives in you, sir," the man accused.

The knight rose to the challenge and said, "Me? I am a knight, my honor is vouchsafed by my deeds and conduct. I've done you no harm, but the opposite! A knight could not allow a man to die within his power to save him!"

The man was quiet for a time. "Knights aid the weak and save the doomed, do they not? Do you not?"

"It is why I am a knight, yes," the knight responded.

"Then aid this weak and doomed soul! Let me die, sir. Knights grant mercy to any who yield, do they not?"

"They do, but-"

"Then allow me to yield!" the man shouted, shaking on his branch. "I yield to life and being and suffering and to this forest!" He threw out his arms and shouted his surrender to the treetops. "I yield to you," the man said in his normal voice, "grant me mercy."

"I..." The knight had granted countless men mercy, on the battlefield and in duels, but never... to a man bested by life itself instead of his own hand. He was no foe he had struck down himself. Though, was it much different than fighting within the king's army and capturing his foes, preserving their dignity and life in the king's name? Did any one have the authority to grant a man mercy on life's behalf, in its name? "I will have to think on this... my friend."

The man smiled wanly, though his voice sounded relieved. "Thank you, sir. That is enough for now."

Joseph went away to ponder what the man said and what he should do, as a knight or as simply a man alive. The sun passed over and shone through the break in the trees. Squire was getting restless, so Joseph took his lead and walked him around the clearing, lap after lap. He didn't see, as lost in thought as he was, but the man watched them.

He watched Squire step carefree, hoof after hoof after hoof after hoof, grateful for every step of movement. He saw the innocence of the knight, never before confronted with such things, to be tested soul over body. He looked away when the knight and the horse turned to walk toward him, lest he be caught, but the knight never saw. He envied and hated him, then, but remembered he was only just thinking on what he had struggled his whole life to fall down and understand. He looked away and did not look again.

Joseph was no closer to understanding, come nightfall. He washed himself in the water of a pool but noticed the man cared not at all to drink while the water was safe. This worried him even more. He could not force the man to drink as he could catch him falling from a tree. He dressed and took his last meal at the foot of the tree.

"Perhaps you were a man of faith before, friend."

The man in the tree was befuddled. "How is that so?"

"You seem a wise fellow, and you speak with a mastery of introspection I could never understand, simple knight I am."

The man shook his head but Joseph went on. "You dress as men of faith in my home kingdom do, meaning no offense, and they are often bald as well. They deny themselves food and water as tests of their faith as well. Perhaps you are inclined to do so because you are an uncle."

"An uncle," the man echoed. "No, I've no faith."

"Perhaps you've lost it. I'm no man of great spirituality myself but listen to this hymn, notice if it stirs something within you or dredges up old memories."

The knight then recited to the man in the tree a hymn of popular use within his country. The man showed no sign of recognition but, excited, Joseph went on to sing a short song of prayer he had been sung as a boy. This only inspired tears from the man in the tree.

"Why do you weep so? Do you remember being an uncle?"

The tears flowed freely down the man's face, his voice was choked with sorrow as he spoke. "No, I remember not, but how I wish I did. I would love to have faith and sing such songs with joy and gratitude in my heart. There is naught. Always been naught."

The knight knew not what to do. "There, there," he attempted to soothe from below the tree. "I know my voice was not intended to sing," he tried to joke, but he knew it was imprudent timing as he spoke the words.

The man turned away from him and continued to weep. Joseph felt shame and sat against the trunk of the tree until he fell asleep. The knight dreamed he stood atop Squire, a noose hanging from the man's branch tight around his neck. The man stood away, and wished him well. He told Squire to go, and he did. He hung until every measure of air was squeezed from him until he burst. Then he woke.

The man lay slumped over on his branch, and Squire was looking at him from beside the evil water. The knight rose to dress and he realized the man was awake, though faint and weak.

"Friend," he called up to him before climbing up the tree. "Forgoing water is slaying you as surely as the daylight water."

The man answered not, and resisted not at all to being carried down the tree. He accepted no water from the knight's skin, however. His wits returned to him somewhat, reminded of his determination to die by the knight's mission to stop him.

"No... no, no." he murmured. "Mercy. Mercy."

"I... You cannot do this, man. There must be another way," the knight insisted, looking around the clearing for such a way. Only two paths lay on either end, and two pools, one on either side.

"I've looked for a way... all my life, sir. Knight, listen close, I have my memories. I always have. Could never forget, never... Only sometimes."

Joseph was shocked, but leaned in to hear the man's weak words. He listened to the man tell of his life. Years of torment as a boy, failing crops, brothers who died. He heard of the money never had, the house that collapsed, the wife who never again smiled. He could hardly bear the man's telling how his children had died or gone astray. No knights appeared in his story, no lord to pass judgement. Only silent life ruled over the means and ends of the man's life. He had had enough of it, could suffer no more of it. And Joseph could not blame him.

He moved away from the man to sit beside the pool of toxic water, while his horse whinnied his worry for him. He stroked the beast's muzzle, and assured him life had not bested him. He looked back at the man dying against the tree. No knight, whatever their banner or name, was as bloodied by battle as that man. He could not judge him weak or craven for wanting to finally lay down his sword.

But should the knight raise his? Could he? If it were the first dishonorable act of his life, he would not mind. But was it the right act?

Noon came and went and neither he nor the man ate. The leaves brightened with the intensity of the setting sun around the rim of their roofless clearing, save the tree of the dying man. He was the dying man now. Joseph knew there was no other way of it. He was going to die. The dying man left him no choice.

"Will you drink, friend? One last drink."

The man raised his head in search of the sun. "Light still. You will... let me drink day water?"

The knight knelt and pressed the skin into the dying man's hands. "No," he said. His voice was a croak, for he hadn't the strength to say the words as a knight should. "Drink of the moon water, and live out your last day in comfort."

The man's dim eyes lit up. He looked alive again and looked up at the knight as if he were the candle at the end of a darkened hall. "Do you mean..."

"Will you drink, if I will grant you mercy on the morrow?" Joseph said plainly. It was the hardest thing he had ever done.

The dying man nodded, and received the skin a marooned man saved. "I shall eat what you can spare as well, my friend," the dying man said, his strength ebbing back into his being.

The knight retrieved his pack and gave the dying man all the vittles he had left.

"What of your supper? And the day tomorrow?" the man asked before he touched the food.

"I shall be quit of this forest tomorrow. I will ride all day and night if I have to." Squire neighed his concurrence, though he needed only the sweet grasses of the clearing.

Joseph watched him eat, and then he climbed the tree to watch the sun set. It was still a sight to behold: the pink and bloody orange hue it gave the clouds and the horizon. The leaves of the Forest of Yesterday were not the most beautiful sight in the world yet.

The dying man regained his vitality and climbed to sit beside Joseph on the strong limb of that ageless tree. They watched the sun set together in silence. Joseph wondered if the beauty of it were enough to give the man pause, so he asked him.

The dying man laughed and shook his head wearily. "It is a wish I could never expect to be granted --to die happy. No, there is no better way."

Joseph understood. He wished to die well in battle. Most knights did, he supposed. The thought made him uneasy, then. How should the dying man die?

"How would you like to end?" Joseph asked, quietly. So quietly.

The man looked at him and then looked away. He thought about it, watching the sky turn purple black and the leaves begin to illuminate. "I should like to leave without pain, after so long living with."

The knight hesitated. "I should not like to spill innocent blood on my sword."

The man laid a hand on the knight's shoulder. "Plunge your blade into the water and see it come out clean, after. You do no wrong by helping me. You are the Knight of Mercy."

Joseph had to turn away. He began to cry. He wept, in the light and view of the rising moon. He wept for he could not retract his word, and he knew he must kill his friend come the morning. The dying man wept beside him, for he knew it was much he asked of the knight, who never knew how selfless he would have to be to uphold his vows.

The man slept at peace that night, but the knight not at all. He wept until the moon passed overhead and he had no more tears yet to weap. He watched the leaves glow bright as stars under that moon, their colors as deep and rich as his friend's final day. And as unfading as his own sorrow.

Day and the sun came, the knight knew not how many hours later. He climbed down from the branch without waking the man and donned his armor. He had but a fish and a crust of bread remaining to him and he ate them. He donned his helmet and stood guard at the foot of the tree. The leaves of the ancient gray tree as well as those roofing the bounds of the clearing no longer glowed but shone their tinted light over the forest floor, seemingly blessing the coming blood that would be spilled upon it.

The man stirred, and smiled down at Joseph, his friend. Quietly he descended the tree and sat against the trunk of the tree.

"You do not know the words," said Joseph the knight, approaching to kneel before the dying man, "But recite my vows with me."

"I would be happy to," the man replied.

They said, one after the other, "A knight I say I am,

honor I claim to have,

to do good I swear

to protect the weak I promise

to serve true I shall

with these words I vow

a knight again I rise."

"You are the knight of your vows," the man said after a time.

The knight drew his sword and sat the man up straight. "I did all I could," he made himself say.

The man wrapped his arms around him. "You did," he whispered. "And so did I."

"Fear not. It passes soon."

The knight pushed the sword though the man's chest, piercing his heart.

The man gasped and fell back against the tree. The knight's words were true, and soon his eyes did close.

The leaves above rattled farewell, a hollow sound like a gourd holding a stone being shaken. Joseph fell back, and stared up into the sky. Squire nickered, and he knew he wished to take him away. He allowed himself a moment, and got to his feet. The man's head slumped against his chest but his face reflected a peace so serene, Joseph would never have known him to be so tortured in life.

He drew his blade from him, and doused it in the pool of day water. The blade hissed, but came away unmarked, as the man had assured him. He pulled the man back, so his head did not loll so, as if he were simply napping a careless day away. He saddled his horse and made ready to depart from the clearing. He took one last look at the tree and his friend, and something came to him.

He took up his shield and dismounted. With leaves dipped in the corrosive water he painted upon the face of the shield the tree and the dying man sitting upon a limb. The knight remounted and received an approving snort from his horse. Then they were off, and Joseph did not look back.

The knight named Joseph entered the Forest of Yesterday a knight of no name. He left it a Knight of Mercy, as his friend had dubbed him. Joseph forever after called himself the 'Knight Who Tried.' He cared not so much as he had before he knew such beauty could surround such pain.