Written on the Dark

by Guy Gavriel Kay

One sword wound, in the thigh, hurt him at night, routinely. It came, like an unwanted guest to a banquet, when he lay down in the dark of a field tent. He was the banquet, he sometimes thought, the wound come to devour him.

Commanding an army, de Vaux thought, was sometimes about battling your own people before battling the enemy.

It is possible to love someone, even for years, and not know it. Or to hide from it, in denial, and then in a moment…know it, and not be afraid.

“Ah! So I’m all right?” Eyebrows arched. “Because I amuse?” Thierry nodded. “Though you mostly want to amuse yourself, I think.” “Well, if anyone else would bother…! ” Thierry laughed. Had to laugh.

Ambroise smiled at him. “If I hadn’t known you were a poet, now I would.” “What? Why?” Thierry had not expected that. “Really? What normal person would say ‘icy winter street’ there when ‘street’ was all that was needed?”

Which made him smile to himself as he walked. Icy winter street, indeed. But the words one chose were a way of seeing, of understanding the world. And the sound of them mattered. It did!

Sorrow will be present among joys. Our lives are made that way.

And so, finally, at this leaving and this end, is truth, among all the interwoven tales: I knew love, had true friends, may have done good in the world in a time that threatened war. And I wrote some poems. I did that. I did that.