The balcony of the governing palace was finally quiet from the scared footsteps and terrified shouts of the servants, even the organized marching and authoritative orders of the soldiers were echoing far away from the entire place, sweeping the plundered city and drowning the balcony in a silence that was no stranger to the marble columns and floor.
Until a composedly hurried footsteps intruded on that serenity, protecting itself in the lonely governor's mind and heart, deaf to the wails and blind to the pyre.
Germanous never liked to face his uncle, lacking self – confidence when he actually accomplished something and hating lectures of reprimand when failing.
Tonight was his biggest failure, and his last one. Yet still, he turned his face at the long haired man and gazed steadily at him, not blinking once.
"Come with me, waste no more time."
Laurentius commanded as if he was ordering a child or a servant, and the governor nodded in refusal.
"If you stay here, you will only hinder the soldiers who will try to protect you…"
"No one is here, I sent them away."
Germanous answered, a bitter smile deprived of it mocking companion usually residing in the stares accompanying it.
"Then I will protect you, come with me."
The blond blinked at last, this time the words were not the commands of a counselor or a soldier, it was the fatherly tenderness of an uncle.
"Nothing can hinder you, uncle… name me one thing… "
The nephew implored desperately, as if he was looking into a mirror that only reflected perfection, but this was far from the truth. And tonight's events were a physical absolute proof. In spite of this shameful outcome, Laurentius did not shy away from his responsibility.
"I tried everything I could to protect this province and ward off these barbaric savages. But sometimes, everything is not enough."
To hear such defeated words from the most capable man in the blond's eyes tore a deep scar in his heart, brought by the dagger of soul, and not his uncle's. Laurentius spared no efforts, fought on the borders by himself, won and lost in rows, but the governor had left him with no supplies or provision… he refused his first pivotal advice that could have saved this city and still, Laurentius did not give up and fought, returning at this crucial moments to defend what is left without hesitation, not once looking down on and degrading the blond. He spoke nothing ill of his rash decisions and strived to do his duties, till the last one.
"Staying here is the true defeat. Why burn yourself when you can rise again from the ashes?"
The young blond's eyes widened in surprise, this was the first time Laurentius had spoken to him with words he would appreciate and suit his erratic fantasies and visions. Words taken out of a fairy - tale, one of triumph, resolve, and love.
Alas, and none of these were left for the red irises to look at and admire.
"I could never rise with this city, the least I could is fall down with it. When someone like me burns, not even ashes remain of his bones."
Laurentius listened but could not applaud the bravery. He was not trying to save a governor, he was trying to save his nephew.
"Then come live with your family."
"My family is burning, yet no one is hearing its screams and agony."
The counselor knew the blond was not referring to his citizens or his city. He was a man of lonely dreams, losing them leaves nothing of his backbone. He might as well become a corpse, and that was the worst judgment that could befall a boy like him.
Unfortunately, Laurentius knew this too well.
"You isolate yourself in a real beyond boundaries, one with no borders or limits yet you confide yourself behind bars somehow…"
Germanous smiles shrugging and admitting of his guilt. Laurentius looked lengthily into the blond, waiting his decisive stare to provoke some mutiny inside of the boy and force him to change his mind and escape to defy his uncle's last words but what stood in front of him was a flower, uprooted and stem – broken. Only its petals waited patiently to catch the fire.
"If only you showed similar resolution while governing this place…"
Laurentius lamented but did not say these words out loud, however, they reached Germanous just as clear, and he could not agree more with his uncle, for the first time.
When one resolves to live, many questions and dilemmas chases him, from the simplest requests about everyday needs to the hardest choices of life changing opportunities. Nevertheless, when he resolves to die, there are no questions to follow, it is a relief, an escape, a peace for the troubled minds and broken hopes.
***
The flames towered over the city surrounding it, quickly spreading amidst its roads and structures as if mocking the preached walls with an airy siege, more potent and impenetrable than the stony walls, forming walls of fire and smoke that were inescapable. These flames were creating their own dawn, creating a daily wonder through the last hours of the night turned into a giant pyre for the building and the people inhabiting them, searing stones and marbles with the same ease it seared flesh and skin, melting them into ashes dispersed by a wind treating with the same disrespect the remains of people, the good and innocent, and the deceitful and narcissistic, dispersing both ashes into oblivion, dust to be stepped upon and vilified. The statues no longer stood with raised graceful features, their protective gazes with which they guarded the city were melted in act of defiance to the gods and goddesses they represented as the blazes created their own miracle, a dawn shining through the starless hours of the night.
Those who were not burnt, did not face a favorable ending. Bodies were killed maliciously, crushed under their own roofs, or smashed while trying to escape by the shaking pillars and statues of the catapulted city, or they were met with their end all the same slaughtered by the swords and spears of the invading tribes.
The air was swaying heavily with the burden of smoke and screams; prayers for mercy, shouts of panic, yelling from pain, and few courageous last words. The fountains water ran was stagnant with blood, and the streets were now paved by corpses, some burnt other slayed, and were decorated with dismembered heads and limps.
The flames grow like a flood, not only in length but in reach like a volcano had erupted, seething with anger and lust for death, weighed by hatred and malice. Undiscriminating between the frail bodies of children, the helpless extended hands of their parents, or the strong soldiers, devouring and hunting them all alike. The roads became one large arena, where the barbaric troops roamed on foot or on horses, waving their weapon and reaping everything that seemed to breathe or move. The high ceilings were the first target of the flaming hail of arrows that showered the city like lava, collapsing on themselves and burying all what had transpired, the good and the bad, under their ruins.
As Diarmuid crossed the roads toward the palace, he had already killed his fair share of the invaders, even some soldiers who mistook him for one of the enemies. His steps were cracking human bones and scattering ashes as he went on, further and further toward the palace, turning up his stomach. The fumes almost blinded his eyes, chocked his throat, forcing him to wave his spears against anything they came in contact with. He rent his path with his long crimson spear, carving a solo path for himself to advance amidst the screams of warriors' lust and citizens' pleas. It was impossible for him to save anyone at that point or recognize any landmark, only the palace standing on the hill remained recognizable, though by the time the lancer had miraculously arrived, it had already caught on fire. But he managed to arrive, safely and nearly unscathed albeit for some minor injuries.
Were it Germanous's prayers protecting him? Was this even a night when prayers were heard?
The palace was empty, no servants or soldiers in sight and the lancer bit his lips bitterly at this betrayal. As he rose and as he fell, Germanous had always been alone but the lancer had come to fulfill his vows of protection, of never parting, of realizing dreams. He covered his face, preventing himself from laughing at the vow that was devoured by the fire, rendering it in crisps and ashes, not even suitable to be a wood to the giant pyre the city was turning into. He walked through the corridors with shaken lips and eyes that became wet for reasons he could not tell, although he did not allow his tears to fall down, there was no tears to start with, only a cryptic sensation he could not define. Was it sorrow? Was it mockery over their dreams? Was it satisfaction at this divine retribution for what had happened to countless Celtic villages? To Himself? He could no longer define or categorize his feelings, they all seemed empty, a wrack that contained no clear picture, an equipment that suited him no more.
He did not have to search the palace or call through the abandoned corridors or gardens. He knew where to find his target.
There, at the big balcony of the meeting hall, where Germanous loved to stand and gaze at his city the most, his little refuge away from the quarreling old men and the headaches of policies and burden of decisions. His little haven.
There the blond was standing like usual, giving his back to the room and viewing his city, but not its renovations or parades, rather its destruction and burial, donned in his white and golden robes looking like a different kind of flame, one that was slowly dwindling without shaking in front of the larger inescapable counterpart. The little candle was his making, and so were these giant flames. He owed them to watch their end with the same compassion and sorrow they were molded from.
Knowing the palace was now evacuated by servants and slaves who easily accepted their order to flee, Germanous could recognize to whom the unwavering footsteps belonged.
"Are you proud of me not escaping, Diarmuid?"
It was the governor who started to talk, without turning to check, his senses instead of dulling at the horrifying sight he was accused of crafting, honed to their sharpest.
"Yes."
The lancer replied solemnly without trying to invade the governor's haven. He stood few steps behind in the room. At his answer, the governor smiled, truly happy. Then, he asked again.
"Have you come to kill me?"
"Yes."
The lancer answered with the same tone.
"You are freed from your vows to me."
Germanous commented, turning his head at the beautiful man with his two spears held within each hand, thinking it was a relief for the lancer to hear, that he was gifting him something beyond valuable.
Indeed the lancer needed to hear such words, he wished he could have heard them from Fionn when a third party tried to negotiate the situation for Grainne's status. Those if spoken at that time, might have been valuable but spoken now, they meant nothing. The knight inside the lancer was lamenting these words yet eased by hearing them. But Germanous was not facing that knight at the current situation, he was talking to a newly freed man, freed from his knighthood, freed from slavery, freed from the arena, freed from all the meanings he had once learnt and principles he had upheld to. He was a newly freed man stitching the new meanings and principles he had been subjected to, to form a new picture.
"They would have been vows were there anything for them to fulfill."
"You are absolutely right."
Diarmuid was stunned, waiting for the accusations of betrayal and treason like last time. But the blond lad was totally content with hearing the truth, smiling at the Celtic man with a sincere smile that did not beseech petty. It was so human and humble that it made the lancer's regret his cold words for few moments, but at the ceaseless screams and ongoing massacre outside, he knew them to be true and the remnants of the knight he was once had to face them and accept their truth.
Germanous looked again at the blazing city, its night turned into a day that prevented the hours of the dawn from showing themselves, as if they were ashamed of their little bright and shine against these scorching flaring whips of searing light. The blond's eyes were focusing mostly on the newly built part of the city, on his renovations, on his legacy, on the pillars that should have had his names engraved onto them for eternity.
They were the first to collapse and turn ashen. Was it due to the fire, or the lack of attention and neglect? The conclusion was the same but both possibilities left a different taste of defeat in the blonde's mouth.
"I should have realized…"
Germanous began to speak, and despite the lancer's claim of coming to kill him he did not move an inch or a muscle, just raising his head to hear more clearly what the fallen man had to say through his lamenting smile.
"That the dream ends when the dawn arrives."
"Indeed."
Germanous's eyes widened when he saw his own lament and self - loathing reflected in the lancer's eyes, but burdened with his own mistakes, the same Germanous's lament was burdened by his own faults.
His one night of frivolous passion with Grainne had ended when the dawn arrived and they were on the run, his comradery with the Fianna's knights was seared as the sun kept rising upon every duel or fight he won and every life he took. The love Oscar bore him along the respect and admiration were swept away once the boy stepped into the light of his own being. Sextus's friendship was burnt like a rotted garment when the rays of reality overcame his idolization and make – belief stories.
"I never wished to wake up…"
At these words from the blond, the lancer tightened his grip around the red lance for a moment, stepping one step closer, but never into the balcony before his hand went lax again when he reevaluated these words.
"Would you fulfill a wretched last dream?"
The lancer waited to hear that desire while Germanous turned completely at him, tears glistening his eyes, but also remaining unshed, his lips trembling from the weight of failure and the multiple citizens whose death was on him, at the shame his name will be forever associated with, but not from fear or hesitation.
"Kill me with your golden spear."
The fallen governor demanded, certain that even if he stayed behind to the last moment, history would omit this detail favoring his plentiful misfortunes and failures. He would not die in a glorious flame but at least he wished, he hoped that he would die basked in the radiance of the golden lance that beckoned the same shine he wished to bestow on his dreams and visions.
The sound of whooping arrows filled the grave silence, and suddenly the sky that was pregnant with smoke and fire, brightened with the birth of more than a hundred arrows whispering across the ash – laden air promises of death and demise. Germanous trailed these arrows, and his frustrated smile grew, his shoulders shivered as he chuckled at his misfortune while Diarmuid frowned not knowing what was going in the blond's head until the latter said:
"Remember that night in the forest… the oracle had promised me the hail of a hundred shooting stars… never had I imagined these were the shooting stars I have made my wishes upon…"
Germanous laughed and stood waiting for the golden spear to claim his life in a final ray of a faithful sunshine but his wish did not come to be.
A sleet of flickering silver arrows showered the balcony like the drops of a huge wave cracking against a giant rock. Not an inch of the governor's body was spared, pierced from head to toe, his face unseen as he was giving his back to the lancer, then he collapsed embraced by the cold ground, receiving no warmness from his own thoughts or the friend that stood inches away from him. The lancer remained standing still till the man exhaled his last breath without any clever words, without any pain, with no lament showed or demanded. Diarmuid did not even try to retrieve his body from the balcony, not because of the barrage of arrows, but because he did not wish to see what face the blond wore as he died.
That face would have been the most truthful one, the only truthful one perhaps, as death denuded a person's from everything. But he did not wish to see it since it was the only time the blond's eyes were fully open.
He was afraid of seeing it.
The lancer could have ended the dreaming boy with one strike, he could have easily fulfilled his wish and skewered him at the tip of his golden spear sparing him pain and suffering, but the governor had to learn, the same he himself had learnt, that not all dreams come true.