CHAPTER VI - Path of the Soldier
After signing up I was shipped, come morning, to Wist Hill — the nearest castle, for basic training. I was sent with three other recruits, all of whom were criminals. I was glad to be away from Drentwych, and I really did hope that a change of scenery would make for a refreshing new start. All things considered, being a soldier didn’t sound too bad, and it certainly beat the alternative. I was rather disappointed with basic training though. I really had hoped to be suitably instructed and taught military secrets. Instead, I was given a couple of lessons on how to use a spear and shield. I was taught how to tell the rank of soldiers and, most important, I was taught that my job was to accompany the Tax-Collector and make sure commoners didn’t give him any trouble. To say the least, I was displeased with my new job. I was stationed at Over Hampton, a mining community not far from Wist Hill. Most of my fellow soldiers allowed their fitness to slacken, content with spending their days beating commoners, taking additional “taxes” for their hard work, and then spending those hard-earned taxes on cheap liquor and women. I tried to be numb to their deeds, telling myself that this is the way things are, and always have been, but I took no joy or pride in my work, or in my fellow soldiers. I reminded myself that it’s a harsh world and that it’s beyond one man’s power to change it. But, deep inside my work took its toll on my soul. I was as malcontent and angry as I’d ever been, quick to lash out at anyone who stirred my wrath. I felt as if, step by step, my journey was taking me deeper into an abyss. Worse still, I knew no better way. Every choice I made seemed to be the wrong one, and I had only myself to blame. This is the part of my life that I now think of as the time of numbness. Time flew by; days became weeks and weeks became months, until finally a change did take place. I may have grown numb and uncaring, but the commoners who were constantly robbed by the Tax Collectors were not.
The miners often complained to the protecting Lord by proxy that they were being robbed by the Tax Collectors. But the Lord, for his part, never bothered to investigate. Either because he was bribed by the Collectors or simply because he didn’t care, regardless of his reasons, no action was taken. In my heart I sympathized with the commoners, though they loathed me for the fact that I was a soldier. I kept silent on my political opinions though, since any person, soldier or otherwise, who dared say anything, was charged with treason and promptly put to death in the most gruesome fashion. They used to tie the victim to a wheel, then spin it while striking hammer to limbs. If they were merciful, you’d be hanged, suffocating to death.
It was one such political execution that triggered the riots. A miner was hanged in the town square on the charges of disturbing the peace. His daughter pleaded with the Lord for a pardon while her father waited with the noose already tight around his neck. The Lord, for his part, forced her to watch as her father choked to death. He then charged her with acting rebelliously and sentenced her to “amuse the soldiers” before being executed the following morning. She died with a curse upon on us all on her lips.
The riots broke out at noon, a few hours after the poor girl died. A Tax-Collector and his two bodyguards were doing their ‘honest’ work, collecting from the commoners, when an owner of one hovel claimed he had nothing with which to pay, and offered his daughter’s virginity as payment instead. The trio were quick to accept, and were greeted by armed men with knives, instead of a girl to deflower in the bed chamber. Initially we just heard that a Tax-Collector and his guards had been brutally murdered, and we were sent to arrest the killers, but the affair had turned into a full riot by the time we got there.
We were greeted by screams everywhere. Some cried for blood, while others cried because they bled. It was a cacophony of sounds most terrible and dreadful, a prelude to the true hellish nature of war. I didn’t want to fight. I felt that it wasn’t my fight; I didn’t believe in this; I didn’t want it. Killing civilians is far from the reason for which I had enlisted. I wanted to protect our borders, to win respect and glory in war. Not to turn sword and spear against commoner. Nothing I have ever done had prepared me for work of this type, for mass murder. I was rough, yeah, and sometimes cruel, but this, this was evil! I was fighting for the wrong side. Only now did Ivar’s teachings sink in. Oh, how easy it is to lose one’s humanity in war.
I remember that at the fateful moment, when we were given the order to attack, my thoughts were all in a jumble; I didn’t know what to do and I couldn’t think clearly. It didn’t make sense — nothing did. Yet I charged with the rest. Some of my comrades had been my enemies only a few days before, some perhaps even friends. Most I didn’t really know. They were just masks, faces I’d seen here and there in town. Now we were all blood brothers, fighting, for we were told our cause was just, while our hearts screamed otherwise.
War is the purest form of insanity, hatred, and cruelty on the face of this earth, I know this now. Yes, I who have fought countless wars and have killed thousands, would like nothing better than to live my life in peace, and I do hope with all my heart and soul that all humanity will someday loathe wars as I do now, a thousand years of life.
Only in fairy tales are battles neat and clean; in real life they’re gruesome and chaotic. There is a time to die, for everyone, and everything. We live our lives, ignoring the terrible truth of our mortality. Death lurks in every corner; in sickness, in health, in joy and sorrow. Death comes to everyone in its time and its place. In war you witness the workings of Death first-hand, as every sword swing, every arrow cruising through the air may mean the death of someone; maybe you, maybe me. Every soldier; every man and boy, says his goodbye to the life he left behind, for a man of arms, more than anyone else, is aware of how fragile life is. I was thinking of my family when I went to war, and grieved for all the things I should have said and done. But this sorrow I felt inside, threatened to consume me if left in such fertile soil; if only I allowed myself to pay it too much heed. Instead, I clung to another type of poison; one much deadlier than self-loathing. Anger… Rage was my guiding light; my shining star. Anger overpowered every other feeling inside of me, burning deeply through all the weakness, ruling my thoughts and guiding me to victory and sweet release.
It takes a great man to conquer his inner demons. I was not such a man, yet.