Aileen and Jon

By Gordon Kearns

Part Two

in line to be monarch after the king's nephews. They didn't know it before, when they began making their plans to end the rule of kings on Saint Paul. But as they were deciding to execute the nephews, one of the nobles sent the message that there was a living girl heir. He remembers the palace gossip about that night fourteen years ago. I know about the message. I myself was the messenger who carried it to the nobles in Tara."

"But, but," I was finding it hard to find words. "But no one knows it is you."

"No, not yet. However, the nobles are confident they will find out who it is. It won't be hard. The midwives are still alive. And the record of births: the scribe who made notation of the births that night on a stone will be able to find it again. You scribes are good at remembering where you etch your records," She punched me teasingly in the side. She was back to playing the giggly birthday girl who spread her legs and held her crotch-lips open for me. I tried to laugh with her, but the clouds in my heart were growing darker with impending doom, just as the clouds in the morning sky that shaped themselves into a chubby Lord Mosely were becoming darker with impending rain. Then Aileen added in a tiny voice, "When I left Tara a little while ago, they were putting up three execution frames." We stopped and I held her close to my body."

"We have to run away. To hide so you can't be found," I said.

"No, my love Jon," she said. "There is no place to hide on our small island. Besides, I have never hidden myself before. I have always been open and naked to the world. I am what people see of me. I will not hide. I want to go back to Tara now, and if the marshals are waiting, I won't pull back. I will face what there is to face naked and open to the world." She kissed me on the lips. "But first, let us couple again, and not as brother and sister. Let us couple in the way of lovers, as we did before, and enjoy of each other's body everything there is to enjoy."

We laid ourselves down on the grass of our island and coupled in the way of lovers, and enjoyed of each other's body everything there is to enjoy.

Afterward, we both remained nude, and I walked proudly beside my lover as she strode easily and without hesitation to whatever fate there was awaiting her in the city of Tara.

As we came close to the gates of Tara we saw many people milling around. Many more people than are usually idle at this time of the day. What was strange was the way the people backed out of our way as we came close, as if we were important personages. Or terrible criminals. Inside the walls of Tara, the closer we walked toward the city square, the more people were milling. And when we arrived at the corner where the city square was open to be seen before us, we found so many people crowded there that you couldn't see the bricks it was paved with. We made our way deeper and deeper into the city square. Then Aileen squeezed my hand. And I saw. In the middle of the square were three execution frames. Two of them were already being used. We were close enough that we could see every detail. On each frame a naked boy hung spread-eagled, with an ugly cleft in his torso from his ribs down through his crotch. Blood was still dripping from the clefts. And things were oozing out. And entrails hung down between their legs like bright red decorator ropes. The boys were so young to have their bodies tortured and torn that way. And for a moment we stared at the third frame. The one that was empty. The one by which the giant executioner stood with his powerful arms folded over his chest. At his side the great sword lay on a table waiting to kill yet a third time this day. The great sword is as long as I am tall, and as wide as my two palms side by side. It is

double-edged. And softly curved upward when held straight out; this to give the executioner greater leverage as he slashes the blade down through the person's body and through the hard bones of his pelvis. It should have been easy for the executioner to cleve the young pelvis bones of the naked children who were now hanging spread-eagled and dead on their execution frames.

Then we heard a stir in the crowd, and they parted a little to make way for an official group walking across the square in our direction. They came to a stop directly in front of us. Leading the group was the noble, Lord Conner. Behind him were six professional marshals, hot and sweating in their formal dress armor. Each had a sword sheathed at his side. Aileen smiled at Lord Conner as he stood before her. He managed a sad smile in return. Lord Conner was the lord Aileen coupled with to save his marriage. "It is good to see you, Lord Conner," she said courteously.

He touched a finger to his eye, but answered formally, in a nervous voice: "It is good to see you messenger Aileen." Then softly to her alone: "But how I wish you hadn't come into the city today. Even now, if you turned to run, with all this crowd and as fast as I know you can run, the marshals and I could never catch up with you. Even if you ran down to the pier, I can assure you we would never catch up with you before you could make off with a currach. And with your brother Jon the scribe at your side, you would be gone over the horizon before we could even get another currach started."

Aileen reached out and touched his hand. "I know you mean well, Lord Conner. But messenger Aileen has done nothing wrong that she should run from the justice of her homeland. So please tell me what you have come to say, my friend."

The noble swallowed back a sad feeling in his throat. "This," he began in an official voice, in a shaking official voice, "Then this is what the council of lords has sent me to tell you, my ...messenger Aileen. As of this morning the council of lords in their emergency court has found you guilty of treason." And in a soft voice to Aileen alone, he pleaded, "Run, child, please. Please run."

But Aileen held my hand tightly and said to the lord, "I have done nothing wrong. I will not run."

Lord Conner sighed and continued official-voiced again: "The council has sentenced you to be hung spread-eagled on the execution frame before you, and your belly split open by a professional executioner as our system of justice decrees, and die a horrible death before the witness of the good citizens of of Saint Paul. This edict has been decreed by the Council of Lords and is to be carried out forthwith." The marshals put their hands on the hilts of their swords. "And when it has been determined that no life is left inside you, your body, along with the bodies of the other two traitors who now hang dead in their execution frames, will be thrown into an unmarked pit, covered with lime to dissolve all evidence of your having lived, and covered with this days' garbage collection from the city of Tara as reward for your ignomy, and then over-covered with rock and bad earth. Such is the justice due a traitor."

The day was becoming darker because of the coming storm. I still held Aileen's hand. And our bodies touched. And we both shivered. Not from our nakedness in the rising chilling storm breezes, but from the horror of what they were about to do to the living spirit that is my love Aileen.

Suddenly there was much noise at the rear of the crowd from the direction of the palace, which forms the one side of the city square. Someone was pushing through the crowd. "Stop," he was crying.

A breathless messenger broke through into the little circle formed by Lord Conner, the six marshals, and Aileen and myself.

"I have the following official message from the council of lords: 'It has been announced by a messenger from the professional physician attending at the bedside of the king that the king has died peacefully in his bed within this last few moments. As of that instant, messenger Aileen is the ruling queen of the Land of Saint Paul. The execution of messenger Aileen has been rescinded."'

There was loud cheering all about, so that no one could have heard what even they themselves were saying.

A chant began: "Long live the queen. Long live the queen."

The chant lessened the big noise of the crowd. Voices among ourselves could just be heard now.

Lord Conner said to my love Aileen: "You are saved, Aileen. The council has no authority to execute the monarch. And they couldn't hide the fact of the king's dying until later, because so many professionals were around the palace to witness the news."

By now I was crying. And Aileen was crying. And we were hugging each other dearly.

And then Aileen whispered nervously into my ear, "It ...it is not to be." She kissed me on the lips, and then drew away from me. She wiped her eyes and smiled weakly at me. But not a smile. It was the grin she has that reaches across to hold my heart. And something in my heart became frightened anew. Aileen raised her hand to the crowd surrounding her. Such is the authority of a monarch that somehow the crowd suddenly knew she was to speak. And they grew solemnly silent to listen to her words. And I was more and more frightened.

"My friends," she began. Her voice lifting only a little stronger than when she talks to just me. But her words were carrying to everyone in Tara city square. "Only a moment ago you were waiting to witness my execution. I know you love me as I love you. But you were accepting that I should be executed. You were accepting that I should be executed because you were told it was the proper and legal thing to happen to me, because they said I am a traitor. But I am not a traitor. I have done no wrong. Everyone here knows that. Everyone knows I was to be executed because I am a royal family heir. Though I never lived as part of the royal family. Though I was a commoner all my life. Though I was only ever a professional messenger. And not a lord. And never a princess. I am now what I was yesterday. I am Aileen. Aileen only. Who loves Jon the scribe. Who delivers messages. Who cares for your children. And dances for you in the city square.

"But to the nobles I was a royal family heir. And nothing else mattered. I was to be killed for being a royal family heir.

"But the king died before I was to be executed. Fate does such things. So to the nobles and everybody in Saint Paul I was then the queen. And because I was queen I could not be executed.

"I do not wish to be queen. I wish only to be Aileen. However, there is no choice for me. I must be queen. Because as long as the queen lives, the people will accept no other authority, even the council of lords. Always they will look to her for leadership, good or bad, and not for carrying messages. And if I have children, they and my grandchildren will in their turns be accepted as heirs to the thrown, no matter what kind of queen Aileen is.

"Thus, I cannot turn down being queen so that I can be what I truly am: Aileen the messenger and lover of Jon the scribe."

A moment passed. Then she said, "I only ascend to be queen because two innocents were put to death moments before I myself was to be executed. Two innocents who were ahead of me in line for the monarchy.

Aileen threw back her shoulders proudly.

"However, know this, my friends. I will not be queen through the execution of innocents."

Tears flowed from my eyes.

She stopped for a moment and listened to her thoughts. And then she spoke again.

"I think the nobles are right when they say that monarchs are bad for the country. And I think they will always try to put an end to the monarchy. But they were wrong when they killed the innocents. Yet if they want to end the monarchy someday, they will again be willing to kill innocents. They believe in the end of the monarchy that much.

"I know in my heart there is only one way to assure the end of the monarchy. To assure that never again will innocents be killed to end the monarchy --that my own innocent children or grandchildren will not be killed in order to end the monarchy. That way is for the monarchy to end this moment; and for Aileen --who refuses to be queen through the execution of innocents, who at this moment has no one behind her in line for the monarchy --to die this moment."

There was a drawing in of breath of everyone in the square. And I was crying unashamed.

This next she said with a voice that often wavered. She understood what it would mean for her. And she feared what was to come. But though her voice wavered, her heart did not; and she spoke the words she felt she must. "Therefore, as the only declaration I will ever make as queen, I..." she swallowed hard, "I order the execution of Aileen to continue as planned." Her voice became stronger. "I am no traitor. But as queen I have authority of life and death over everyone in the land. It is an authority no one person should have. It is an authority no council should have. But it is an authority you accept in me as queen. So it is on that authority, and not for the accusation of being a traitor, that I..." her voice wavered only slightly, "that I sentence Aileen to be executed."

What could I do? What would I do?

"But the dignity of queen, the dignity of messenger, the dignity of lover of Jon the scribe, and the dignity of Aileen the person demands that I not be taken to the execution frame as a criminal surrounded by marshals. I will go alone, not carried or pushed by the marshals, not leaning on the arm of my lover Jon the scribe. There is nothing more to be said on this subject. My order is clear." She sighed with a shaky breath; but when her words came out, they were clear and firm. "The professional executioner will do his contracted duty."

Aileen looked at me. And her eyes were twinkling like starlight in the night sky. And her grin was reaching across to hold my heart. And without another word she touched my outstretched fingers and turned toward the platform that held the execution frame. The people in between edged away to give a free path for her. And they knelt and bowed their heads as she walked by them. She walked strong and straight and proud in her nakedness. And I would have wished to reach out to touch her soft shoulders and her firm buttocks, which will now be defiled. In moments she was on the platform steps.

Now she stood on the platform. I quickly moved to the side of the platform before the crowd could rise and block me from being close to my love Aileen as she dies.

The executioner had placed a stool beneath the execution frame. Aileen stepped on it and turned to face us. She raised her arms for the executioner. He tied a hemp rope to each of her wrists, hooked the ropes to the upper corners of the execution frame, and pulled the ropes tight, so that her feet lifted off the stool and she was hanging by her arms. Then he attached a hemp rope to each of her ankles, hooked the ropes to the lower corners af the execution frame, and pulled the ropes tight, so that her legs were spread wide apart. He removed the stool.

Now she hung spread-eagled and vulnerable on the execution frame. She was still looking at me. And grinning. Though the grin was edged with pain.

The executioner wasted no moments. He quickly lifted the great sword and plunged it into Aileen directly under her ribs. The point of the blade went through her body and out her back. So tiny was that space, I thought. Then he gathered his great arm strength together and before blood could even leak from the stab, he slashed the sword downward in a swift, strong, and sure stroke. From where I stood I heard the crack of her pelvis as the sword crashed through, and now downward faster than lightning through her crotch lips with such tremendous force that the blade cut deep into the floor beneath the frame. The whole bottom half of her torso, from the front through the back, was split open. Blood spurted and flowed like a river everywhere along the horrid cleft, and splashed to form a red lake on the floor beneath. And now her insides oozed out in odd-shaped clumps all along the cleft. And her entrails hung like red decorator ropes between her legs.

The executioner had done his contracted duty. He took the great sword and left the platform. Aileen hung alone in her execution frame. Her eyes were still upon me. And they twinkled like starlight in the night sky. And her grin reached across and held my heart. Suddenly, though her eyes still looked at me, there was no twinkle left. And though the grin still graced her face, it had no reach. And her head sagged to her chest. Aileen's dancing soul was no longer in that abused body. But the eyes remained open. And the grin didn't fade. Even in death.

Suddenly, a man climbed up and stood on the corner of the platform. He was shouting out: "She is dead. The queen is dead. The monarchy is ended. The monarchy is ended." The crowd cheered and cheered. And, although I don't understand how it could be, they cheered happier and louder, by many times, than when they cheered for Aileen being their queen. And from the back of the city square a chant rose. "Hooray for the council. Hooray for the council." And all the people were joining in. "Hooray for the council," they sang loudly over and over.

Then the thunder rolled in over the Tara's walls. And angry storm winds and punishing rain rushed through the city of Tara. All the people were scurrying for cover. Even the marshals deserted their posts, leaving the silent innocents alone to face nature's rage.

I realized the storm would delay the removal of the bodies to the pit of lime and garbage and rock and bad earth.

And at that moment I knew what I had to do.

I turned from the platform and ran like a messenger from the Tara city square to the city gates. I ran to the hillside where this morning Aileen had teased me with her crotch lips. The place where we first coupled as lovers instead of loving brother and sister. I picked up the heavy kit of tools I left there. The storm was in the middle of its fury as I began my run back to the city. But in the end it was a storm of little substance. The winds had abated much by the time I reached the city gates. And by the time I was severing Aileen's head from her spiritless torso with the sharp blade and the stone-saw from my kit of tools, the storm had spent the last of its threats.

Cradling Aileen's head in my arm, I turned to the steps down from the platform. But I found I was facing one of the guarding marshals who had returned to his post.

"Here, here, scribe Jon," he said to me as he put his foot on the first step. "I cannot permit you to steal the head of Queen Aileen." He started to draw his sword from its scabbard.

Without spending a moment to consider my action, with my free hand I swung the kit of tools around with all my might, and hit the marshal soundly on the side of his head. He lost his balance and fell backwards, clanking to the ground in his formal dress armor uniform. I was down the steps in a moment, and by the time the marshal regained his feet, I was gone from the city square.

Jon the scribe

It is now for me, Brent the scribe, Brent the artist, Brent the metal-caster, to carry the sad story to its conclusion.

The boy, naked, wet, and blood-smeared, sat at my table, tenderly holding the head of his dead beloved in his lap. I had given him warm tea to settle the chilled shaking of his body. Now I went to my bed for a blanket to lay across his shoulders.

"In that moment after Aileen's spirit left her body, and the rain was chasing everyone from the square," he said, "I knew I had to do something for my love Aileen. They had not allowed her to have the single separate spirit of Aileen the messenger. And that is why she had to die. But I would play a trick. I would make Aileen the most separate person ever to live on the island of Saint Paul. Since nobody was watching because of the storm, I would get my tools and cut her head off. Then I would take it to my workshop and make a mold of it, as sometimes when I make molds of noble's faces when they contract with me for masks to wear at holiday celebrations. From the mold I would make a head of clay in the image of Aileen, but afterwards I would touch it up to reflect more Aileen alive than dead. I would fix her hair so it isn't plastered about her head. And I would shape her cheeks a little in order to relieve the look of dying from her face. And to the clay head I would shape from memory her pretty neck and shoulders to form a bust, similar to the busts nobles have made for them in plaster. However, what I would do is make yet another mold, this one from the new clay image of Aileen. And from this I would cast a bronze bust.

"I planned to install the bronze bust of Aileen in our own private cave high on Tower Mountain, facing away from the weather. The best part of the trick is that hundreds of years from now, all anybody would know of the people who now live on Saint Paul would be the few words we scribes etch for them on the big boulders. You can hardly tell one from another. But Aileen's beautiful grin that reaches across to hold my heart, and her eyes, which I would make almost to twinkle like starlight in the night sky, would be there almost always. And in that time hundreds of years from now, people who climbed Tower Mountain would see and appreciate that there was an individual spirit who once lived on the island of Saint Paul. Aileen would be the only individual those people hundreds of years from now would know. Everybody else who lives today on Saint Paul, who didn't want to give Aileen a chance to be her individual spirit, would be gone, not even to be wondered about those hundreds of years from now. Even the plaster images of the nobles will crumble to dust in a those hundreds of years."

He sipped from his tea, and I refilled his cup.

"I knew I couldn't do it all by myself. I am pretty good with shaping clay. You taught me very well. As you taught me to be a good scribe very well. But I don't have all the experience necessary to do a good job of making a decent bronze cast from a mold. And to clean up the cast of imperfections and mold-lines when it is done. I hoped that you, who was my teacher, who is an expert in such arts, would help me. I haven't much money saved. But I thought if I sold my tools, perhaps I would have enough to make a contract with you."

I paced the floor of my kitchen. The idea of making a bronze cast of a human image is something never thought of on the island of Saint Paul. We make weapons and tools and decorative designs for houses of nobles, and the palace of the royal family, of course. And plaster statuary. But to use bronze for a true work of art, so many possibilities leaped into my mind.

I turned to look at my young son in the heart, Jon. Jon, not yet out of his childhood, as reckoned by an old man such as I. Jon, who I took under my wing when his father died. Jon who was as a blood son to this man who had no family of his own. As Aileen was as my own blood daughter. I would have taken both children to tutor in the skills of scribing and the arts. But Aileen was ever the one to seek the glorious freedom of body, which only the profession of messenger provides. Yet she was as my own daughter, and I loved her. And Jon was as my own son, and I loved him. And Jon was also my student. So apt. so quick. So in love with written words. And art and casting, and working with metal.

I said: "You know I would give you whatever you required. No contract is necessary between father and son, or teacher and student, or friend and friend."

He smiled in a sad way. "Yes," he said. "I know that." He sighed. "But, even so, it seems now my hasty plans have disappeared as fast as the storm."

I went to stand behind the boy. I brushed meaninglessly at his wet and mussed hair as he brushed meaninglessly at the hair of the child's head he held in his lap. A tear came to my eye.

"Fate steps in," I said. "The marshal has probably already reported the incident at Aileen's execution frame. He called you by name, so by now it is well known in the halls of the palace who it was that took Aileen's head."

"The marshals will look for me," he said.

"Yes."

"I had hoped ...but it is impossible now." He turned to look up into my face. "They will arrest me for stealing."

"That," I agreed, "and more. There will be great fear among the nobles that the head of the queen would someday inspire common people to rise against the good order of the new government. To make a point they will accuse you of being a traitor."

He sighed again. "I wasn't thinking government plots when I took Aileen's head."

"I know that," I said.

"Treason is a crime for the execution frame."

"Yes, it is," I said.

He thought for some moments. Then he said, "Even if they find me, and there is no way for them not to find me on this small island, but even when they find me, they will still not rest until Aileen's head has been found. They will look everywhere. Probably my home first."

"Yes."

"And then probably here. They know the closeness our relationship."

"They will look here," I agreed.

"Then the only way I can spare my family and my father is to surrender myself and Aileen's head to the marshals."

I said nothing.

Another sigh. "It was a good trick to be played on them, wasn't it."

I smiled. "It was a very good trick."

Moments of silence passed between us. Then Jon said: "It won't be long before they come. If they find me under your roof, you will be arrested as well as me. They probably have already begun the search."

I thought a bit. "No, I don't think so. There is no longer a single person called a king who is given the absolute authority to decide that an execution will take place. The nobles will find it necessary to meet as a council to make the execution decision. It won't be difficult for them to get together. They were all in the city for the king's final hours and to decide on the future of the government."

"And to put three innocents to the execution frame."

"And that too," I agreed.

"But they will search for me."

"Yes."

"And Aileen's head."

"Yes."

"And. ..truly, I will be executed." He turned his head to look at me. Tears were welling in his lower eyelids.

"Of a certainty before this day is over," I said sadly. And then I added. "But they won't search for a little while. Until after the warrant is issued by the council of lords. And after a new execution frame is constructed. They won't use the frames now still bearing their victims. It is a tradition that every execution must be on a new frame."

Silence between us. Then I said: "I believe there would be sufficient time for me to make a mold of Aileen's head. And do with it as you had planned. And make a fine bronze bust of her to last for hundreds of years."

He took my hand. "You would do this for me?"

"It is so little a thing to do for my son."

He said: "And you will put it on a stone pedestal in the cave on Tower Mountain?"

"Yes. I will do that." I paused a moment. "But I think there is something more to be done." He looked up into my eyes in question. "I think the image of Aileen would be very lonely in that cave. Her life and yours were always twined as the strands in a good hemp rope." I rubbed the tense muscles of my son's neck. "The messenger Aileen loved the scribe Jon with her whole heart. And he loved her with his whole heart. Those visitors hundreds of years from now would not truly understand the spirit of Aileen without her beloved Jon at her side."

"What are you thinking, my father?" he asked.

"Jon, you know how it goes with making molds. In the time it will take to shape the mold from Aileen's head, I could as well make a mold of yours. And I could with little further effort make a bronze cast of your bust while working on hers. Then Aileen will be most happy that your image and hers are sharing the cave on Tower Mountain in blissful happiness for those hundreds of years."

It was only the beginning of the island's long summer evening when I finished the molds. Jon was most pleased that the world of the future would understand that these two were lovers long ago. But he insisted that Aileen's bust be placed a little forward of his. "Because of the honor and dignity and courage she showed to the people of Saint Paul the time they made her their queen." I agreed. I had already pictured in my mind how it would be. Their busts would both be part of one bronze casting so there wouldn't be a temptation in that unknown future to separate Aileen from Jon. But I would also honor Jon's wish to have her head slightly forward of his.

Later I helped the boy bathe, so he could present himself to the execution frame with dignity. And I helped him clean the head of his Aileen, although I knew they would mistreat it terribly when they put their hands on it.

The sun had come out to make its final showing of this long day. Naked, Jon the scribe stepped out of my door and walked proudly to the city square, where now four frames were set up. So as not to waste coin by taking the bodies to the garbage pit in separate trips, the nobles had decided to leave the dead bodies of Aileen and the king's nephews hanging in their frames until Jon the scribe's execution was done. A few birds now and then swooped down to one or the other of the frames to pick at a bit of flesh. No one tried to frighten them off. The body of Aileen was especially strange-looking because of its missing head. A large crowd was gathering. The prospect of an execution always draws many people.

I followed Jon as he made his way to the platform on which execution frame stood. The giant executioner waited stoically. The great sword rested on the table beside him. Jon had reached the steps to the platform before the nobles and marshals, who were discussing how they would find and arrest Jon the scribe, noticed he was already in their hands.

They turned to him in surprise. Jon held out the head of Aileen. No one knew how to respond, until Lord Conner accepted the offering from him. The nobleman gently cradled Aileen's head in his arms. "I am glad that you were here to take her, Lord Conner," Jon said to him. He knew that even though Aileen's head would join her body in the garbage pit, she would now be treated with all the dignity that could be given.

Another noble stepped forward and read the execution warrant to Jon the scribe. True enough, he wasn't charged with thievery, which I am to understand some nobles feel isn't a crime that should demand such excessive punishment. However, they did agree that the taking of the queen's head was an act of treason. After the reading of the warrant, Lord Conner prevailed upon the marshals to allow Jon the scribe the dignity of mounting the platform unescorted. "The boy did, after all, come to his execution of his own volition," Lord Conner said.

Moments ran by too rapidly. Jon was up the steps. He was on the stool and stretching his arms up for the executioner. He was hanging spread-eagled and vulnerable. The executioner thrust the great sword through Jon's body and immediately slashed it downward, smashing with a loud crack the boy's pelvis; and, as with Aileen, the blade was driven out of his body with such force that the executioner had to use all his strength to pull it from the floor of the platform. Then the executioner was gone.

Moments passed. Jon looked down at me. "Is it terribly painful," I asked.

He smiled. "Yes, it is terribly painful."

Tears flowed from his eyes, but he allowed no sobs to escape his lips.

He said: "It seems such a long time." And sadly, "Am I not to die?"

I looked at his body, rent from his ribs through his crotch. Even his penis was split apart. Inside organs oozed from him. His blood poured down like a waterfall. And his entrails hung from between his legs like red decorator ropes.

I swallowed back my sorrow. "You do not have five breaths left in your body, my son."

"That is good," he whispered. In death a smile remained on his face, and his eyes remained open.

Moments later they took the four young people from their frames, dragged them feet first from the Tara city square, threw them into a deep pit, and covered them with lime, garbage, rocks, and bad earth.

Why, oh why do we slay our innocents?

And now I, Brent the scribe, speak to strangers hundreds of years from this date. On this last day of my writing I will destroy the high stone steps leading to this cave. This so it will not be discovered too soon. And not truly understood. I aim my words at people in the far distant future. I present to you the bronze images of my two children of the heart: Aileen the messenger and Jon the scribe. I also present you with the story of their last day of life. I have always been a student of words. I understand how the meanings of words change over time. I know that the words we now speak came from a language spoken hundreds of years ago in another land far to the north. But our words now are also different than in those old times, because of the hundreds of years of change our living has wrought between then and now. There are changes in words. And new words invented to satisfy our own needs. So if you know something of that old language, you know something of ours. And if you studied the pictures I made to help you unlock my words, perhaps you will then know enough additional of our language to understand the tragic story I etched upon this wall. The story is true. Aileen the messenger and Jon the scribe lived. The execution frame was real. And Aileen and Jon were killed on the frames because our culture couldn't accept them as individuals apart. So be it. Now our culture is gone. All the people and the nobles are dead. But the spirits of Aileen the messenger and Jon the scribe live on in this cave. And if you who read this are from the outside, perhaps Aileen and Jon will live on even in your time. Perhaps beyond. Someday certainly the world will stop. I think maybe the stars will fail ever to shine again. Perhaps there will be no more earth or sky. Perhaps the gods themselves will die. But the light from the eyes of Aileen the messenger and Jon the scribe has shone. And because their light has shone it can never be denied. It existed sometime, someplace. Even if there is no more time or place.

Historian's Epilogue:

And I, a historian from a millennium in the future, again read the story of Aileen the messenger and Jon the scribe. I do so every year as I visit this archaeological treasure. And I again study the real-life faces from the past, whose spirits will live beyond my future. The cave and its contents will be around for many years to come. This island is now under the protective custody of the British government. Qualified students may come to study. But nothing may be taken from the island, except the memory of the only lives who ever lived here that we can know about. So I study the faces. The girl's grin reaches across to hold my heart. And in those blank eyes I can imagine the twinkle of starlight in the night sky. Both the children wear pageboy haircuts. Both boast attractive dimples at the corners of their mouths. Her face is a bit leaner than his: the face of a runner. His bears the hint of serious scholarship. Both would look to be in their natural element walking the halls of my children's junior high school. My children are twins. I can easily imagine Aileen as my fourteen year old daughter. As I can easily imagine Jon as my fourteen year old son.

End

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