Madness at the Gate
By Nathan Thomas
The walls were high, even for a town this size, and the light within them warm and rich, climbing into the night sky like a golden giant, slowly waking. The walls that cradled it were tall as pines. They were cut long ago from black and heavy rock; old, and crumbling in the high places, too tall and slick from frost to climb. Their gates were great and broad, and not a sliver of that golden light slipped through. On either side, twin guardians of stone stared out into the bleak night plain of early spring that spread before the he walls.
Benjamin knocked hard. The door was cold and solid as stone against his knuckles.
There was no answer.
The Old Norse sentinels that flanked the door still looked on, impassive. As Erith held the lantern, he pounded with his fists, again and again; and together, they called and shouted until their voices broke and their dry throats went raw. But only silence came, and the statues watched, unmoved.
In the dancing light and shadow of the lantern, Erith saw Benjamins’s face contorted in a rage that gripped him, held him, and twisted him in solitary madness. She spoke, softly, to no one, in the silence that isolated them;
“...They won’t take us.”
As her hope waned, and exhaustion set in to her cold bones, Erith fell to her knees in the delicate snow.
From the barred gate, Benjamin saw her, the quavering lamplight burning weakly, doubtfully, with its last few drops of precious oil. Nearly all that was left of her now was a whisper, disbelieving;
“They won’t take us.”
“They have to - or they have to tell us why - where is the sentry? Where is the watchman? Can’t they hear us?”
“Every beast of the plain heard us,” Erith croaked. “They ignore us.”
“Maybe if we wait till morning- “
“-If we wait till morning, the frost will take us before the wolves can. We won’t last the night. You know it, Ben.”
He knew she was right, but he could do nothing but unchain the last of his wrath against the doors. He kicked until his feet were numb and twisted, struck blow after blow with skinny fist and forearm, wailing in alarm, and in frustration, and despair.
No one came.
He collapsed against the cold and heavy oak, and felt the deep scars from long-forgotten sieges against his sallow flesh. He dug his brittle fingernails into the frozen grooves, clawing madly, screaming at the silence beyond the gate, at the cruelty of mankind, at the indifferent statues, and at God Himself.
And the statues looked on; they were older than the gates, older than the wall, old beyond the remembering of anyone of Roric, living or dead. They had seen stars born, and age, and fall from the sky like silver rain; they had seen the blood of men spilled in fire and in ice and in the names of a dozen Gods; under the banners of kings and of warlords; in need and in greed. Men and women lived their lives passing through the guardians’ shadows, and still they stood as silent witnesses to the passage of the ages, of the living and the dying of years. Time had begun to choke them with creeping twists of dark thorns, and stuffed the cracks beneath their arms, between their legs and toes, and under their feet with spongy, purple moss.
Erith reached out to the cold foot of a statue, and felt the lichen growing there. She numbly ripped it free in clumps, making a little heap in her lap, and Benjamin had slumped, back to the door, his eyes downcast.
Then, without explanation, he walked as a man entranced to their wooden cart, and in one swift motion, upended it, spilling the last of its meager contents in the snow.
“Benjamin, stop!”
He didn’t reply. Instead he pulled an old, linen shirt from the tangle on the ground, and began tearing it apart.
“Benjamin, please - what are you doing?”
He tossed a stained tunic into her lap. “Rip it apart.” When he had finished reducing the shirt to ribbons, he dropped the rest of the clothing at her feet. “Tear all of it apart.”
By then, Erith had begun to figure out his plan. “For a fire.”
She still found it annoying when he would get sucked away into an idea, like he was now, leaving her to puzzle over his intentions; especially on the occasions his intentions backfired. Fortunately, Benjamin wasn’t a lost cause, and could, when reminded, communicate enough for Erith to fill in the gaps and understand his bouts of madness or of genius, and usually to know the difference between the two. “No, for smoke. Yes for a fire, but also for - mainly for - smoke. Help.” He was already at work dismantling the cart, smashing it with havy blows, fist and knee and forearm, prying and twisting it apart to splinters and kindling. Noticing for the first time the good-sized heap of lichen she had absent-mindedly gathered, Erith brought it, along with the strips of fabric, and added all of it to the gathering of wood and cloth and memory; “We’ll need tinder,” she said, and arranged these components at the base.
The thorns cut her hands, but she ripped them free from the statues, stripping the warriors of their mantles of moss and bramble and neglect, and added all of it to the pyre.
They destroyed everything. Every plank from their cart, every spoke in their long-travelled wheels was split and broken, and rebuilt into a crude pylon, stuffed with with the rich, purple tinder in its centre. Any extra scrap of clothing was shredded to ribbons. Nothing was spared but what little cloth separated their thin, goosepimpled skin from the elements. They annointed what they had built with the last drops of oil, to be sure the flame would take, and Erith set the lamp’s last light to tinder. Darkness came.
The tiny tongue of fire disappeared, burrowed deep into the heart of moss and cloth before it took, and blossomed across the loosely bundled core, which soon began to smoke and glow and feed the growing flame.
They squatted upwind of the smoke and warmed their hands. Without a word, Erith produced the small, hand-crocheted blanket from beneath her cloak. It was for a boy who was born to a world with too little to give, and for whom love was not enough to survive. She looked to Benjamin, and held it, as in offering, and he nooded, slow, and solemn. Together they laid it tenderly upon the flame, to render it to smoke, and be carried to the sky.
All that remained was a prayer-shawl, and wrapped together under it for warmth, the travellers watched their silent call arise. Smoke began to climb, a pale skylike whisp of blue from a tender, tentative flame.
“Benjamin, look” The lichen flared, and began to glow like a bundle of wires. The blue of the smoke grew to deeper and richer, until impossible billows of royal blue tumbled from the hungry fire and up into the night.
“Listen.”
Benjamin did, and he heard the beat of a drum, and the stirring of music. He pressed his ear to the door, and coughed on the rich, blue smoke as he passed through it. The sound was growing, steadily louder and wider and more wild. It grew and grew, and the drumbeat was like the heart of some great wild thing driven mad with passion. He backed away from the door, toward the fire and his wife, where he would stand his ground. He was ready.
