The homework this week was to take the title of a book by Italo Calvino, and use it to inspire! I cheated, Im afraid, and dug out a monologue that Id written for a play I did with Wired Theatre, adding a few bits and pieces and working in the title at the end. IF, ON A WINTERS NIGHT, A TRAVELLER...... We were wed in a time of ice and snow, and such also was our marriage. My lord was a cold and heartless man; he showed no warmth or affection for his wife, his land or his people. He would spend his days in the ruthless pursuit of pleasure. No maid was safe from him; many were the bastard children conceived in fear and agony. Nor were the men more safe for he was quick to anger and would brook no dissent. “I am King!” he would say, and this was enough. Such was the fear he engendered, none dare oppose him. But a king cannot ignore forever the duties which kingship demands. Our gods, while bountiful to the deserving, are vengeful and full of wrath for those who do wrong. As my husband’s sins became ever more abhorrent, the gods grew angry and visited plague and destruction on our lands. Disease stalked the villages, snatching the lives of the innocent children. Storms raged and destroyed the crops, and hunger ruled the land. Many people took sick and wasted away; others could not pay their taxes. The king was consumed with rage, and in his rage he slew any who dared whisper against him. Much blood was spilled – much blood. It came to pass that Death visited our house too, and stole away our only child, our son – the one thing the King had come to love. My lord suffered anguish beyond tears, rending his garments and tearing great weals in his skin with his own fingernails. “What have I done?” he cried. “What have I become, that Death should punish me so?” And he rode out and saw with his own eyes that all was not good. In that time, the King withdrew from the gaze of men. He kept to his chamber and looked deep into his soul to discover how he could make right the wrongs he had done to his people. For three days, he neither ate nor slept, and our dwelling-place echoed to the sound of his torment. Finally, he came to me and told how the gods had demanded he make sacrifice of his own life in recompense for his evil deeds. At the time of the next full moon, I alone accompanied him as he walked to the sacred place, where he divested himself of his garments, raised his arms in supplication and awaited his fate. Silent and still he stood, as the life slowly drained out of him and into the soil. I watched, as a great change came over the king; roots grew from his feet and legs, twisting down into the dark earth. His body became thick and solid, and his arms turned, inch by inch, into strong branches. By dawn, a great oak stood where my husband, the king, had stood. Since that time, our land has been prosperous and the crops have never failed us. The mighty oak stands there still, shelter for the creatures and faeries of the forest, giver of great powers – or so the Druids say – and a portal to realms beyond ours. In the many years that have passed, people have ceased to talk of my lord and his evil ways - other kings have come and gone and new stories take the place of the old ones. But if, on a winter’s night, a traveller should pass by the ancient oak in the heart of the forest, he may just hear the soft sound of a voice whispering of sorrow and regret.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 11:22:14 +0000
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