The Birth of Song

In a land not so distant but a time quite so there was a villa on the middle of the flight of a hill. It housed, other than the vassals, a benign knight of a decent reputation and a young maiden of about eighteen who was rumored not to be his daughter. The knight’s fame was earlier born out of his abstinence from the political developments of what had vaguely been his days. In the days that we talk of, though, his name figured only in discussions centered about his daughter. This daughter of his was exceptionally beautiful in a small way because fewer people had seen her than had heard of her.

This account begins with the first of what was going to be a series of sleepless nights for her. The knight was woken earlier than daybreak by loud sobs. Not being one easily excited he walked the distance to see her crying, without shedding a tear, whilst staring out of her room and passageway into a very ethereal darkness. The day passed as usual. She was a tad more fidgety, avoiding whatsoever other eyes. The next night passed the same way for her though there were not to be any of those fits that had woken her father the previous morning. As the days passed her countenance became more and more clam but her red bleary eyes would give away the tribulations of those long bothersome nights.

For in each of these she would rise from bed as the moon fell on her pillow. She would walk in to the passageway and channel her eyes towards the nave of the valley below. Her eyes would briskly move to where each light that went out had been and then rest back on the center. Each night the last light would be the one of the singular cottage set at the very top of the opposing hill.

Many doctors, quacks, priests and magic men visited the villa in those somber days drawn as much by the knight’s wealth as by hearsay of her beauty. They would leave deeply impressed by both but never managing to put the damsel to sleep.

One very dull night saw a friend of the knight’s at the villa’s gates. The knight and he talked of the place they thought the country was headed, of wars won and lost and all the while she stared at the candles on the dinner table. He took surreptitious glances at her but did not manage even for a fleeting moment to draw her gaze.

Thoughtful and ponderous the visitor stepped out of his room around midnight to see the knight’s daughter gazing at the few lights that remained. Soon only the last light, the one of the cottage remained. Walking over he whispered “Staring at the night?”
He went on while she looked at him. His beard and scars seemed to melt away taken in her by her with his words. “About lights that go out they sometimes just let you see the darkness that surrounds us.” He stopped sensing someone behind him.

The daughter lay awake on her bed listening to the footsteps of the traveler on the floor next to hers. First it was anger then a sudden happiness and soon his footsteps hit the floor so rapid and unpunctual that she could no longer place her finger on any one emotion. A mixture of elation, guilt and fright. She wafted to sleep afloat on her love of the music and what was probably the music of love.

About lights that go out, yes they do let one see the darkness around him. But it is traveling the road that leads nowhere that the most satisfying of human endeavors come about. It is in traveling that darkness, that void, devoid of the world’s preconstructed truths, its lights that one is most apt to do the things that mean anything.