Farewell Angelina

This is a bit of fiction I wrote in college. I'm rather fond of it, but anyone who has a suggestion is welcome, in fact requested to comment. I don't consider criticism as intrinsically negative.

It begins with a familiar melody, telling a story from an unfamiliar world...

Farewell Angelina the bells of the crown

Have been stolen by bandits I must follow their sound

The triangle tingles; the music plays slow

But farewell Angelina the night is on fire and I must go.

There is no use in talking and there is no need for blame

There is nothing to prove everything still is the same.

A table stands empty by the edge of the stream

But farewell Angelina the sky is changing colors and I must leave

The jacks and the queens they forsake the courtyard

52 gypsies now file past the guard.

In the space where the deuce and the ace once ran wild,

Farewell Angelina the sky is folding; I’ll see you after a while.

See the cross-eyed pirates sit perched in the sun

Shooting tin cans with a sawed off shotgun

And the corporals and neighbors clap and cheer with each blast

But farewell Angelina the sky is trembling and I must leave fast.

King Kong, little elves, in the rooftops they dance

Valentino type tangos while the heroes clean hands.

Shut the eyes of the dead not to embarrass anyone

Farewell Angelina the sky is flooding over and I must be gone

The camouflage parrot he flutters from fear

When something he doesn’t know about suddenly appears

What cannot be imitated perfect must die

Farewell Angelina the sky is flooding over and I must go where it is dry

Machine guns are roaring puppets heave rocks

At misunderstood visions and at the faces of clocks

Call me any name you like I will never deny it

But farewell Angelina the sky is erupting and I must go where it is quiet.

Farewell Angelina

We had left the main camp late in the afternoon because I had wanted to ask the Lady Angelina to marry me. I am not a nobleman and although I will certainly be at least a Commander in the army someday it would still have been an affront to her honor to be asked for her hand in public by a commoner. I was going off on campaign soon; the Alleman were already raiding in the east. But I had decided that I loved the Lady Angelina and I knew I had to ask her before leaving on campaign because I would lose my nerve otherwise.

She looked so beautiful as we rode a mile or so from camp to a glade I’d found scouting before we stopped for the night. The Bells of the Crown hanging in her hair like musical gems gave off giggling tingles whenever she tossed her hair. I could hardly speak as we entered the glade and the sunset shone off her face, I had no eyes for anything or anyone but her, more foolish me. In my anxiety I bent down on one knee almost before we’d really come beside the stream with the fallen log. I stared into her surprised eyes and asked the question I’d learned by rote, knowing I wouldn’t be able to think.

“My love, will you become my wife?”

She screamed.

She screamed again and turned to run. Only then did I see the men approaching from behind her. As they reached for her I went to whip out my blade but a sharp pain at the back of my head put me on my face in the edge of the stream. Before my eyes cleared, before I could even roll over there were two men sitting on me.

“The first of you who makes another sound will eat their own tongue before we leave,” the voice was raspy and lilting. “We don’t mean you any harm milady, we only need those bells in your hair.”

When I heard this I was furious, this scoundrel was going to steal the Bells of the Crown and probably sell them to some noble who would use them to shame the King or else hold them ransom for a ridiculous price. I started bucking and squirming but all it got me was a kick in the groin, which of course shut me up.

It by no means cooled me off though, especially when they proceeded to lay hands on the Lady Angelina, taking the bells from her by force.

“You coward, no man with honor would treat a woman so—“ I stopped abruptly when a knife slid lightly along my neck, drawing blood shallowly and nearly cutting my jugular. I tried to slow the pounding of my heart, the pressure through my veins, anything to gain another micrometer from that slicing edge. I could feel the painful burning of the lightly sliced skin already beginning to throb in my brain.

“But I am not a man of honor Lieutenant Graves; I have been spying on you and I knew that you would be coming here tonight, I followed you from camp, I’ve been listening to your most intimate moments for months, knowing that you were the key to separating the Bells from their owners just long enough to snatch them.

“Ah, my dear, I am afraid I have ruined what was supposed to have been a very special moment. You should never have worn your lady’s Bells without her permission. I know because it is my way that she will not fault you. But the guilt will be intense. Hmm,” he smiled to himself, “no, not a man of honor at all.”

It was less than a minute before they were gone. They smashed my horn before leaving and galloped off without touching our purses or the strongbox on the wagon.

The moment they were out of earshot I was up and running after them. As I ran I shouted direction to the Lady Angelina to send men after me with a horse and my armor. I still remember her face, tear stained and still full of fear, but as I ran off into the night I saw her face grow determined and she turned to the wagon. The last time I saw my beloved Angelina she was marching over to the mule without even gathering the picnic basket from the ground.

The road the bandits took ran west; back the way we had come, away from the castle and its garrison only a day to the east. I chased them on foot for an hour before my squad game pounding up the road behind me. I didn’t even let my men stop to wait for me to mount up, only caught up with them a minute later. The bandits had followed a small cart path north and east, directly into the setting sun when the main road curved south around a set of hills.

The sun set in an orange blaze of fire that fueled my drive to find to bandits and I drove the horses hard those first hours. But in the twilight, I had to slow the men and in the end I had to call a halt when the trail could no longer be made out even though we climbed down from the saddle to try.

My squad was three twenty-man teams. The first team carries lances and broad swords and their horses are heavily plated. The second team carries large shields and one-handed battle-axes. They also have horses outfitted for a charge. The last team carries bows and broad swords. The bows are long for horse bows, meant for use while the horse stands still and the horses themselves are much more lightly armored so that the team can move quickly. You’ve never seen a more disciplined bunch than my boys; there wasn’t a sound from man or horse through the three-watch night. For all the bandits knew they had gotten away free as Scotts.

All night I sat up and kept an eye on my men. Well, I told myself that was what I was doing. Really I was replaying the encounter with the bandits over and over again in my head, first the lights sparkling off the Lady Angelina’s eyes, her spreading the blanket then me grasping her arm and sinking down to one knee. Was that a flicker of movement I should have seen? A clink of chain mail rustling?

I don’t know how many times I told myself that it didn’t matter if it was my fault, that what had happened had happened and now my only choice was to follow the lost Bells. My Queen had charged her serving maid Lady Angelina with the protection of those bells and I intended to see that what I had allowed to be lost was returned. But that didn’t help ease my guilt, especially when I thought how I had let these bandits interrupt our privacy, my farewell before going off to campaign, my proposal.

I thought of Angelina, I worried whether she would have answered ‘yes,’ I wondered how she would greet me when I returned the next day with the bells. The King would probably reward me with a small title, recovering the Bells of the Crown was no small thing after all. I scolded myself for thinkng of the advantage. Ha.

I never did sleep that first night; I kept thinking I heard the bells tingling in the night. It was never repeated but it would get me thinking through the same old circle of guilt. When I finally calmed my mind and settled down near sleep I would hear it again and start listening for it, but my mind would always wander and then quiet before the bells would ring again. The moment I could see my hands I began rousing the men, first my sergeants then going down the row waking each and whispering the day’s orders which began with absolute silence until otherwise ordered. We had been no more than half an hour behind the bandits when we made camp and they could not have gone much farther than us in the pitch dark of an overcast night even if they’d scouted the area beforehand. If they had been following me for a long time they probably had a hideout here but it was likely not their headquarters.

The true headquarters would be farther from the capitol: I have still never heard of another bandit incident within one hundred miles of the capital. Well, not in the last two hundred years. They would be going back to their true headquarters today if they could, but if I could find them before they left I could have the Bells back in the castle before the King even had a chance to hold court. No one would ever need to know they had been stolen; they don’t come out in public except at court.

Sure enough a half hour tracking on foot brought us to a secret trail and after scouting the area I surprised the bandits at their breakfasts. In the end I killed twelve and captured captured fifty-two of the outlaws, but a small group, no more than six escaped out of a second exit to their hideout. The bells escaped me. I sent the squad back to the castle with the prisoners. I collected all the papers I found in the leader’s tent and read them as I set out in pursuit of the bells with a dozen chosen men.

The papers contained many assorted maps, some of the area, which we put to good use in our pursuit. We realized they were heading for the King’s forest to the north by tracing our path on the map and we even chanced some shortcuts and gained nearly an hour by my guess.

We kept right on their tail like this for three days, sometimes losing a few minutes, sometimes gaining, always scheming, always pressing, but they were forever out of reach just at the next ridge.

I soon wished I’d brought more men and especially more mounts. I knew I couldn’t simply ride off across the kingdom with my unit but I still grudged the loss of manpower when I came upon fired bridges and toppled trees that had to be cleared. Lady Angelina had made quite a scene when she arrived in camp all windswept and calling to arms. Speaking to Angelina in private the King told her that he had decided he could not spare any units from the campaign but that he charged me directly with retrieving the Bells in the name of the Crown.

Lady Angelina, being clever as well as beautiful left this meeting with the King knowing that I could not hope to retrieve the Bells without soldiers and a horse and knowing that the King would never dispatch them. But I had given an order for her to deliver as she shrewdly saw and as the order to bring you a horse did not in any way keep your men from going on campaign they, at least, if not the rest of the king’s soldiers had to follow you. Such technicalities of logic are easy to forgive if one acts first then appologizes where permission might never have been granted.

It was thus that I had first been rescued from my sprint. A full rank would have let me surround and capture the horn that first morning but I had to respect the King’s word, I had to return my squad quickly to the capitol so they could go on campaign even if I did not lead them. They left the bandit redoubt as the sun rose and were aparently less than an hour behind the King in returning to the city. In the confusion of the Queen’s long welcoming ceremony no one even noticed their coming despite the fifty-two prisoners in rough armor and rich jewelery.

I felt badly for my men. I’d stripped the squad of most of it’s backbone, I’d left two talented recruits and a veteran of middle yerars in charge of teams of underseasoned men who were more frightened than anything at the prospect of going out on campaign. Unless they got a few more talented recruits to replace the dozen I’d taken as escort on my quest those boys would break like a stick if they faced any heavy units.

But I could not think of that. I had to retrieve those Bells, even more so now that I had the King’s command, but I didn’t need any more encouragement. The dozen ment I brought with me made it two to one odds in my favor instead of six to one against and there was time to replace fifteen men including the one dead and two seriously injured from the fight with the bandits. The squad would have a full roll by the time the King called muster.

We followed on our quarry’s very heels for four days before there was any real change in the routine of the chase. Late on the fourth day the terrain began to change, the forest to thincken and the land to roll in low hills. We began to encounter patrolls of soldiers who loomed on the hilltops threateningly and kept us from going past for fear that they were truly hostile.

I found a map of the area deep in the pile of maps; on it was marked a castle near the edge of the King’s forest. Using the map and some luck we snuck past the patrols and onto the castle grounds. I left my men guarding the exit by which we’d entered and followed the sound of bells on the other side of the castle. Sneaking past a pair of bandits patrolling I came to a place where I could here the bandit leader’s raspy voice.

“…Now, highness we have made a bargain regarding this little goodie and what you have paid me already is lost I’m afraid since my nw employer offered me three times as much money. And that is not the only thing which is lost to you,” a strangled cry brought me around the corner in time to see the Prince, filled with arrows, fall to the ground. Five bandits stood behind him lined up executioner’s style. One of them spit at the body and the rest laughed.

I was on them before they knew it, even before I knew it, and they fell to me in my rage like stalks of corn. I managed to take the Bells and I killed the remaining five bandits who attacked the Lady Angelina but the bandit leader got away once again and I, having attracted the attention of the bandits on duty guarding the castle was forced to cut my way back to my men past the two men I’d avoided before. That was the only encounter I had though and we slipped out of the castle and mad a run for it.

We were pursued of course by the patrols and we had a few close calls and we lost a man and two more took significant injuries. But finally came a time when I was sure we had lost our pursuit. I brought the company to a halt by a stream where I could wash the dried blood from my hands and bandages could be changed.

It began to rain as we ran from the castle, a hesitant drizzle building to a steady rain, which soaked everything to the bone. I’m told the King had a planned festival the evening he heard that his son had been killed and rather than call it off and go into moruning he only delayed the start of the festival so he could write a new commencement speech. The long and short of the speech, as I have heard it recounted is to say that I, Captain Graves am wanted for the treasonous murder of Prince Gerald and the thrft of the Bells of the Crown.

I tried to return to the castle. I arrived carrying the Bells of the Crown for all to see and presented them to the King with my version of events, but a man with a familir rasping voice, a councelor to the King interrupted me before I had the chance.

“Silence, lying dog,” he called me, ”You hve spun a pretty tale my friend, but we here have all seen the body of the Prince and it has been beheaded with a sword, not shot full of arrows. I have had enough of your lies, for returning the Bells you have earned yourself your life, but you are forthwith banished from this kingdom now and hance.”

Just like that I was chased from my home and the only master I ever served. With never a chance to tell them that this was the true bandit, without even the chance to see my Lady Angelina I was run from the capitol and hounded all the way to the border in the driving rain.

These days I fight for a new King, he has accepted my allegiance because he knows I am an effective commander, but I will never be a General as I might have in my true King’s army. My new King does not trust me though, he has heard both sides of the story and though he claims to believe me, I know that he will never trust me enough to give me a real command of armies.

I have fought in two wars against my old King. Apparently my name has become a common curse word in his domains, a very foul description for traitor. There are always plenty of commanders willing to fight me, the great betrayer, but none has ever beaten me and my King has lost ground to my new master year by year. It seems like I’m constantly at war now, either in the West against my old King or to the south against the Goths.

I know not how my lady sees me these day, she has probably married some rich courtier who lies through his teeth like all the rest and she likely hates me more passionately than any other in the capitol. As far as I’m concerned she can call me any name she likes; I will never deny it. I’m only tired of it all, tired of the war, tired of fighting the good fight for the other side.

I hate being a foreigner in a strange land. These court intrigues have broken me, left me a shattered hulk of a man. I fight because it is what I was born to do, but really all I want is to go off somewhere beyond the plots and beyond the fighting. When the rain comes down these day my thoughts turn back to those happy days returning from the King’s forest, still stupid enough to think I would be a hero when I returned, still thinking I was a hero.

But there are no true heroes, even the ones with the right intentions are only playing martyr in the end for the cause of someone else’s power. This is Farewell my Angelina, I wanted to write this to you, I wanted you to know my side. You have probably not even read this, merely tossed it in the fire, but I wanted you to have the chance to hear it anyways. Someday soon I will not be coming back from war, no man’s luck can last forever, after all. All I ever want out of this life is that you will mourn my passing and not find pleasure. Maybe in another time, another life we will have better luck, better time together, but I cannot bear the thought of you hating my memory through the long years of your life. I simply could not bear it.