It was still December 25, 1989—fifteen minutes to midnight. Snow fell lightly on the mat-box house, thin as breath on glass. Lantern light pooled over serious faces; bones and scraps lay in the middle, everyone's feet pointing inward. Anna sat among them with baby Strong asleep on her lap. There wasn't room to stand, but there was room to listen.
Men sat on one side. Women and Anna on the other with Anna covered on both sides by women. Sheepy lay across the doorway listening and looking into the darkness of night beyond for anything he might be able to chase.
Sir Egg's story still hung heavy in the air, a story about a life long ago, about the 4th crusade, and something about cutting a arm and a head and dying together, then something about a white city and angels and the afterlife, then something about coming back to life again, after which lives were pledged swords and throats alike to the Little Lord and his mother Anna. And as for Anna it was all simply a bit much, a lot that she simply didn't understand. She just stared at their faces that were so serious looking like dad after drinking a bit too much, they were dead serious and her in response her stomach did a slow roll. She'd thought of Strongs amazing powers as cool and amazing and all that had happened as a game of playing queen like she sometimes played dress-up. It was just meant to be a little game for the sake of Christmas fun, but these people weren't playing. They would really do anything she told them to do and that was suddenly feeling like a heavy burden to her now. She was six, she liked to play with dolls and she couldn't even finish the long words in her comic book called Legends of the Dark Knight without her having to stop and re read the words again and again until she got it right and understood the words.
So now with ten adults super seriously looking upon her she hesitated and was able to just say "Um… okay," her voice was small as she then continued saying, "Thanks for the nice words. I guess I, well I accept your pledges."
Hearing her words all the crusaders nodded, but they didn't smile which scared her. Did she say something wrong she wondered, even Sir Braveheart was looking at her as if judging her now. She then did a little bow and took one of the cookies that was still left at the center of them and she began nibbling on it aciously. She felt heavy, so out of place here like she always was at school.
Anna quickly smoothed the Hulk towel over Strong. He was dead asleep on her lap, mouth a little open and drooling, he was so warm and heavy and perfect and so confident looking unbothered by everything it seemed.
Everyone breathed around her in soft, careful rhythm. The crusaders' began mumbling something amongst eachother also beginning to eat again, their English still sounded like church and puzzles; she didn't know why she caught their words meanings perfectly but she did. However she still wondered what was a crusade, and what was going to happen next, what was Sir Braveheart going to do with those weapons and what was his real name anyway surely it wasn't Braveheart.
Thinking of all this she thought that maybe she should change the subject now. Start a new game like hide and seek or maybe she could just read a book to them like the Ugly Duckling story. She just wanted everyone to be happy like you were supposed to be on Christmas and not all serious like this.
Then suddenly Braveheart coughed to get everyone's attention. It was his stage-cough, the one used to pull a rooms attention and he did succeed. Heads turned and Anna was suddenly grateful—her first knight, finally speaking up, taking the hot stare of the circle off her and Strong.
But then like a little prankster, Strong farted a soft, trumpetty pfffft against the towel. And so everyone's eyes returned to the baby and to Anna again.
She froze and held her head even lower as she ate her cookie. Sheepy's ear flicked without moving his head.
Braveheart blinked and quickly then reset his face and coughed again. It was smaller this time, but it did the job. The circle's gaze swung his way and settled.
He looked around the small space at all their faces and said.
"Listen and listen well. I know we hold a language barrier here due to your old English and our modern one and that for whatever reason you understand me less than you do our queen Anna. But I'm sure you'll understand most of what I'm about to say."
He looked at the crusaders and they nodded as if understanding his words. Then he continued by saying. "Thus far you have told us your story. Now I should tell you what's become of Scotland and Christendom in the years since you fell in the 4th crusade. What banners fly now. What kings and popes and countries rule. What enemies threaten us all now."
He breathed in, owning the silence.
Anna's shoulders loosened a little with relief. Good. Talking. History. Grown-up words about big things she didn't have to decide right this second. She cuddled Strong closer and watched Braveheart's mouth shape the next sentence—
"Listen now, and listen well," he said, voice low but edged. "What I'm about to tell you isn't what you wish to hear, but it is the truth."
He let the lantern light catch his eyes. He didn't stand—the kneel made him look like both a priest and a knife at the same time.
"Your Fourth Crusade failed miserably. The very realm that begged your help was weakened for it, and though it did not fall back then, fall it did in time. Others rose to take the cross after you, with banners, vows, and swords—but they failed too. Our enemy was relentless and too many, while we spent our time quarreling amongst ourselves. And so, in time, Constantinople was taken because of our weakness. The city was razed to the ground, its population either slaughtered mercilessly or enslaved, its great churches stripped and turned to other signs; even its name was changed. The people who once lived there were made to suffer—those who resisted were killed, and those who surrendered were forced to pay heavy taxes unless they converted to Islam. And so it was that through coercion and force, our enemies spread further into our lands. Ever since then, the tide has run the wrong way—closer and closer our enemies come toward the heart of Christendom, while we sit and simply accept their coming."
One of the crusaders swallowed hard. Sir Egg's jaw tightened. The women stared, hands tight in their sleeves.
"And at home," Braveheart went on, bitterness wrapped in silk, "what once was has been lost. No kings are any longer anointed by God to hold true power over their chosen people. Now only incompetence rules, chosen by the masses through popularity contests they call democracy. The rulers you once knew, and the seats that should guard the faith and their own people, are gone. Now we are ruled by old, corrupt men—and even women—with soft hands, who bless whatever gains them applause. And our Holy Book stretches to accommodate, like skin over any new idol, so long as it sounds nice. Nothing is sacred or pure. All men worship now is money."
He looked over them once more, eyes glinting in the lantern light, then continued.
"Our world is mapped from pole to pole, and eyes turned upward to the heavens—yes, we've grown clever. More clever than you, coming from the medieval ages, could ever imagine. However, in our cleverness we have lost our faith and we have lost ourselves. We have lost what we once were—duty traded for comfort, cold hard truth for whatever makes the people feel good about themselves."
Anna didn't understand all of it fully, but she felt the weight of it. She felt that something was really wrong in society and in the world, even though she had never thought about it before. Then Braveheart continued, his tone deepening.
"And as for Scotland?" He drew a slow breath. "Well, she is not as she once was in your time. Our crown is gone; the English sit in our halls and write our fate. The Stone that sang under our kings was dragged south and made to sing in theirs. We fly Saint Andrew's cross and pretend that's a kingdom. And now we even invite those very outsiders our ancestors once fought to come and settle upon our island, to spread their beliefs and ways of life, and we even let them ravage our women. They arrive by ships, bringing their laws, their customs, their quarrels—and we're told to call it the right thing to do, as if we owe them something. But I say, if we keep this course, soon you will live to see an island that cannot remember its own name. And as has happened many times before in history, once the invaders grow too bold and too numerous, then the killing begins—and we are either sent away or forced into hiding, to once again bide our time."
The circle was very still. Sheepy's tail thumped once—dreaming—then stopped.
"Because of this," Braveheart said, "I labor for a new dawn for a free Scotland. I wish to raise a Scottish monarch with a clean soul and a steady hand to take the seat that is ours and restore right order to a land our fathers bled to keep."
He let the words sit, heavy as the snow.
Around him the crusaders looked troubled, caught between the world they had left and the one he named. Anna listened, unsure if Braveheart was spinning a scary story or telling the truth, because from where she sat everything seemed fine. Of course her situation at home was not the best, but she friends now, and she had Strong and they had food and shelter as well so what more could she ever truly wish for.
Then Braveheart's voice gentled, which somehow made it colder. "But fear not. Worry not. We Scots have been given the key to our freedom—and to Christendom's new dawn. A key for all who hold to the one true faith under the sky."
He turned his palm, inviting them to follow his gaze.
"And that key," he said, "is right here."
He extended his arm and pointed toward Strong, who at that exact moment twitched in his sleep and made a tiny grunting sound, his fist curling as if he were striking down some unseen foe.
"Here," Braveheart said, his voice trembling with conviction, "here lies our path to freedom, to glory, and to the redemption of Christendom. Here lies the proof that God has not abandoned us, that He still watches from the heavens and sends His will to Earth when the world begins to rot."
The Crusaders stared at Strong as if looking upon a relic made flesh. None dared to speak. Even Sir Egg, whose eyes had seen both battle and death, now looked like a man reborn.
"You've seen it with your own eyes," Braveheart continued, passion rising in his throat. "This is no ordinary child. This babe—this mighty infant—calls forth warriors from the past, calls forth weapons from the void, conjures bread, meat, and shelter from nothingness! What greater miracle could any prophet show? Tell me—did not the Christ Himself summon wine from water, heal the sick, raise the dead? This child has done no less. He has brought life where there was none!"
Sir Egg crossed himself without thinking. The others followed, one by one, like ripples spreading through water.
"Do you not see?" Braveheart said, his voice breaking into something close to awe. "He was sent to us. Not to Rome, not to Jerusalem, not to the proud towers of the West—but here. To Scotland! To us! The forgotten, the broken, the lost sons of the faith! We who have suffered under the yoke of others—He has come to lift that yoke from our necks!"
He sat straight now, his head brushing the tent's roof, his shadow flickering like a great, dark cross behind him.
"The world mocked us, cast us aside, called our faith old and dying—but God has chosen Scotland for His rebirth! This child—Strong—is the sign! He is the Son reborn, the flame reignited, the sword reforged in heaven's fire! And we—" he looked around the small space, eyes burning, "we are His first disciples, His swords and His shields! We are the ones who will make a foundation from which He will begin to rule and conquer all."
The crusaders made the sign of the cross as one, some whispering prayers in old tongues, others simply shedding tears of faith. The women bowed their heads, trembling. Even Sheepy whined softly, sensing the weight in the room.
Anna looked around, wide-eyed. She didn't understand, not really, but she felt it—the warmth, the hush, the weight of everyone's attention gathering like breath on a winter window. Faces turned toward her and Strong. It made her chest flutter in a way she didn't like, but it also made her feel, somehow, taller—powerful and proud in the same heartbeat.
Strong stirred in her arms, opened his mouth, and let out a tiny, kittenish snore. Then he went limp again, heavy and trusting against her.
Braveheart angled his head toward the baby and whispered, "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy will be done; Thy kingdom be made—as it is in heaven, so shall it be upon this earth. And forgive us our past failures, as we seek to dispose of those who have trespassed against us; and lead us not into temptation, but let our lands be cleansed of the evil that plagues us, so Your Son—this baby—may take His rightful throne before all mankind. Amen."
Sir Egg's voice followed, low and trembling, the leather of his harness creaking as he bowed. "For the Cross… for the King of Kings. Amen."
The other crusaders echoed him, a rough, overlapping "Amen," like boots striking ground in unison.
Anna swallowed hard. She felt the warmth on her cheeks from the lantern, the cool press of night air at the nape of her neck, the slow thudding of hearts around her—a drum she hadn't known she was listening to until it filled her ears. She didn't know what to say, so she leaned close and whispered, barely audible:
"Please don't wake up the baby."
No one laughed. No one even looked up. They simply kept praying, words moving like beads between their teeth.
Outside, the snow kept falling—soft, endless, patient—sugaring the bushes and the rolled blue mats, as the first cult of the new Christ was born in a mat-box beneath the shrubs.
There was, however, one problem Anna wanted fixed before bedtime. The crusaders could barely understand half of what Braveheart said, and Braveheart only caught pieces of their rough old tongue. Strangely, the nine seemed to follow Anna just fine—as if she and they were tuned to the same radio frequency—while Braveheart sounded like a storm on bad AM. It was the way you understand a friend you've known forever: not every word, but all the meaning. That's how it felt between her and the crusaders; not so with Braveheart.
So before sleep, Anna pulled out The Ugly Duckling—her own "improved" edition—and began to read aloud, finger pacing the lines, pausing to explain each word.
The men listened in perfect silence, some with helmets in their laps, most simply with hands held together, as if they were in church and the small red-haired girl with a stolen library book were the Pope himself.
With every page, the air changed—stranger, and somehow holier—because Anna's field-manual version wasn't the old story about inner beauty and appearances.
It was… well, it was Anna's.
"Once upon a time," she read, "there was a mother-bird and a mommy-bird—but the father, a useless show-off, flew away chasing prettier tails. The mommy-bird, not wanting to waste her youth on eggs she hadn't planned, left the nest.
"One by one, the abandoned eggs were gobbled by long-beaked, dirty, not-hard-working but thieving crows who were greedy and mean—until a large female duck arrived. The somewhat intelligent crows decided they'd better go steal from easier targets, and so the duck declared the empty nest colonized by right of conquest, laying her own eggs beside a single stranger's egg that had somehow survived."
Anna looked up.
"Survived," she said. "Means it didn't die. Which made the egg cool and special, okay?"
"Ser-vived," the men echoed reverently.
She read on.
"When the last egg hatched, the chick was big and dark—sun-browned from lying too long in the open. The ducklings said, 'Why are you so black and fat? That's ugly!' and the flustered mother-duck agreed—it was ugly, mostly because she preferred matching colors.
And so the dark chick was called the Ugly Duckling.
"He was allowed to tag along, partly because they were 'nice,' partly because they liked teasing him, and partly because the mother hoped that, if hawks attacked, the dark one would be spotted first in daylight. Practical."
A few crusaders frowned, shoulders dipping in confused sympathy.
"Life went on," Anna said. "Teasing. Cruelty. Names."
She looked up again.
"Cruelty means unkindness on purpose—something that's okay to do to bad people, but bad to do to good people, especially girls."
"Crew-el-tee," they breathed together, almost genuflecting to the definition.
"One terrible day," Anna continued, "a hunter came. There was gunfire—crackling, storm-like. A duck's head went slat and the brains flew out. The other ducklings went splat, and their mother fell too. Their bodies were skinned; some were caught by dogs and shaken like toys until their blood sprayed everywhere."
She turned a page. "The dark chick was spared—by pure bad luck. Or good luck. Which is which? He didn't know. He hid in a barn and got something called PTSD, which means bad dreams that don't stop."
"Barn?" Sir Egg lifted a finger.
"A place for animals," Anna said. "Food. Hay. Sleep." She traced a square, a roof, in the air.
"Barn," the men echoed, pleased to have learned a new sacred noun.
"In the barn," Anna read, "the owners let him stay—but only if he promised to lay eggs one day, which was awkward, since he was a he. The yard animals mocked him and called him mean names. Even the dark-coated cows joined in, because cows can be cruel like that. The duckling wondered why life was so awful, and why he looked the way he did."
She paused, closing a hand over the page. "Kindness," she said, "means helping when you don't have to—and not expecting anything back for it. But," she added, "punching back is alright if they're too mean. The ugly duckling didn't, though. He was still small. But even the big cows," she said, "would have hell to pay once he grew."
"Time passed," she went on. "At the pond, he saw more hunters, more gunfire. Birds of every kind falling like a strange rain of death. Yet somehow, he was never hit. Sometimes he even wished he would be, because being alone hurt more than dying. He grew so tired that he thought about drowning himself in a bucket of warm milk."
Anna looked up again. "Wish," she said softly, "means to hope for, or to want very much. It can be good or bad—depending on the wish."
"Wish," they echoed, quieter now—tasting it, chastened, as though the word itself were dangerous.
"But just then," Anna said, "he saw a reflection in the milk—blinding white—and didn't recognize it. He wasn't dark anymore. In fact, he was whiter than any duck had ever been before.
Winter passed. Spring came. On the thawed water he saw birds like him—long-necked, brilliant, radiant—and they called him handsome and cool and told him to swim with them.
He wasn't a duck at all. He was a swan. He hadn't been black—only unfinished. The sun had browned him at birth; time and God had polished him clean.
He was safe now—safe because of his beauty, safe because swans were so lovely that no hunter ever thought to aim his gun at one, not even the men with the AK-47 rifle's.
And by another accident called growing up, he finally fit in—with the cool, big kids of the pond."
Anna lowered the book and looked across the men.
"Patience," she said softly. "It means staying and trying until the change comes."
"Pa-shens," the men repeated, tasting the word like bread—chewing it slowly, as if it might someday feed them.
"Also when he finally grew up," she read, "the Swan, being a good Christian, remembered to look up and thank God that he hadn't given up. He realized he didn't need everyone to love him—just the right someones. In time, he found friends, and later five very hot girlfriends whom he married—yes, all of them—to make many eggs. And so he became a proud father of countless beautiful baby swans. Eventually, they even got a job together at the zoo. And when the Swan passed away of old age, he was forever remembered in the museum, where they placed a stuffed version of him on display—because he was just that beautiful."
"Wives?" Sir Egg asked carefully.
"Yes," Anna said with a nod. "Because more is better. That way you'll never be lonely, fat, or sad ever again."
"More is better," they echoed together, solemn as oaths.
She closed the book with a soft flap.
"And so," she said, "they lived happily ever after. The end. Now remember the words we learned tonight—and we'll practice again tomorrow."
The nine bowed their heads as gravely as men receiving covenant from a king.
One shaped the word "gunfire" and held it behind his teeth like a coal;
another laid "thank you" at Anna's feet as though upon a pillow before an altar;
a third let "more is better" fall to the floor—to the past—to any ear in heaven that still would hear.
Across from Anna, Braveheart stood apart: arms folded; eyes kindled by a different gospel.
He did not hear ducklings. He heard drums—the old iron psalms.
And lo, in the cinema of his skull, a throne was set.
The child sat upon it; Anna at his right hand; Sheepy, shaggy and anointed for war, pawed the earth.
Braveheart went before them like a banner, and hosts without number followed him—
banners crowding the firmament; continents bending; nations beaten thin and "cleansed";
whips singing over the backs of the defiant; the earth made "pure" by marching columns and artillery that preached like thunder.
He beheld treaties riven, maps redrawn by the bright point of a sword;
cathedrals converted into headquarters; and a calendar that closed not in ruin but in a made-new morning.
And he smiled—wide and terrible—the smile of zealots and kings of dust.
Strong slept on—warm as fresh bread—his breath a feather at his lips.
Sheepy kept the door like a mighty hound set to watch, ears high,
tail giving one stern beat at shadows that repented and withdrew.
Outside, snow descended and did not hurry—soft, endless, patient—
and the city was hushed as by a hand laid upon its mouth.
And under a bush in a blue mat-box, a little book closed upon its lesson,
and a bedtime story labored—against blood and against history—
to teach men who had come to make a massacre how to say please.