The Buried Giant

by Kazuo Ishiguro

You must be by yourself four, five strong sons.

I shall greet the boatman contentedly, enter his rocking boat, the waters lapping all about, and I may sleep a while, the sound of his oar in my ears. And I will move from slumber to half-waking, and see the sun sunk low over the water, and the shore moved further still, and nod myself back into dreams till the boatman’s voice stirs me gently once more. And were he to ask questions, as some say he will, I would answer honestly, for what have I left to hide? I had no wife, though at times I longed for one. Yet I was a good knight who performed his duty to the end. Let me say so, and he will see I do not lie. I will not mind him. The gentle sunset, his shadow falling over me as he moves from one side of his vessel to the other. But this will wait. Today Horace and I must climb below this grey sky, up the barren slope towards the next peak, for our work is unfinished and Querig awaits us.

We must hope God yet finds a way to preserve the bonds between our peoples, yet custom and suspicion have always divided us. Who knows what will come when quick-tongued men make ancient grievances rhyme with fresh desire for land and conquest?”

“The giant, once well buried, now stirs. When soon he rises, as surely he will, the friendly bonds between us will prove as knots young girls make with the stems of small flowers.

The she-dragon’s no more, and Arthur’s shadow will fade with her.”

a promise made to the warrior; a duty to hate all Britons. But surely Wistan had not meant to include this gentle couple.

For there was a morning not long ago, the dawn brought with it the first signs of this spring, and I watched my wife still asleep though the sun already lit our chamber. And I knew the last of the darkness had left me.