Bruegel

Distant voices called out to me, but I lay on the mattress motionless. Visions and portents, omens and dreams, countless sights and scribbles, one following another, though somehow I knew I was in that withdrawal men call awakening. I listened, immobile, only the blackened tips of my fingers twitching, dancing on linens, or perhaps that was my imagination. I lay and listened to the distant voices.

Soon said voices resembled greater and greater the disembodied cry of terror. I discerned shouts, screams, the twin moans of panic and pain. Women’s voices, though I’ve heard (don’t ask me to recount) men’s voices risen in timber when the terror turns too magnificent a burden. Squeals as children squeal quickened my heart a piece, but still I lay motionless upon the mattress, eyes unopenable.

An uninvited acrid smell pried them apart. Nausea and the singe of disgusting fumes invaded me. I gasped unexpectedly harsh; a tremendous fit of coughing blew spittle across the walls. My alarm increased geometrically – no, hyperbolically, for though I did not know who I was, where I was, or why I was, I sensed extreme danger and realized I simply could not move.

Burning, I realized; something nasty’s burning, and I prayed it wasn’t human flesh. I hesitated, not wanting to breath in, not daring to breath out lest a cry escape my lips and call attention to myself. But I gave in, and, surprisingly, joyfully, I was able to turn to my side, testing both the components of the air and the joints in this unfamiliar body. Both were unwelcome, though not as badly as I might have first assumed.

Treated wood, it was, I believe, the cause of that horrid smell. Wood and fabric, perhaps grasses and other foliage. But there was a distinct unnatural odor in the air, too. Nevertheless, buildings or houses nearby were aflame. I squinted through the haze in my room and the tears in my eyes and after an endless moment I was able to resolve my whereabouts. A small rectangular room, something like a monk’s cell. Stone and mortar, and I breathed a sigh of relief, for at least the flames at the edges of my awareness would not engulf this room, at least before I had time to flee.

My body had not been so safe, it seemed. I had been bandaged about my torso, my left shoulder, my left leg, and around my head. The wrappings were dirty, stained with grime and old blood, much to my dismay. The thought of infection occurred to me – was I given antibiotics? – but a quick glance at the table nearest the bed indicated only a pan and pitcher of water. There was a dull ache behind my ears; perhaps a blunt object struck me back there in the near past? I inspected my fingertips: black from caked mud beneath the nails.

It was also impossible to steady their shake.

Carefully, cautiously, I pulled my legs up, fearful of reopening any wounds. A sharp flare of protest from the left leg quickly warned me to proceed very slowly; with minor adjustments I was able to shimmy to the edge of the wooden cot with its straw-stuffed mattress and throw the right leg over. Bracing my upper body with my right elbow, I pivoted up to a semi-sitting posture with a minimum of groaning, and only a dull throbbing pain generalized in my left extremities. As I raised myself my sight and my very self swam for a moment, and I feared falling. More nausea, but only for a brief moment, for at that exact instant an explosion, nearer than I would have desired, rocked the small stone cell.

I was clothed as a soldier, it appeared to me on narrow inspection, though of whose army I knew not. Anyway, the uniform didn’t feel right – and not just the fit. I wore fairly new leather boots on both feet, which clicked heavily on the floor, cold stone covered by the short fur of some large gray animal. The blue yellow-lined pants were torn and dirtied, and my bloodied white shirt held epaulets of two sapphire emblems.

Thirst! I had never, ever been as thirsty in my life as I was in that moment. I think, at least, for all I knew of a life previously was blank and void. The burning smoke – yes, a darkening haze of smoke entering my cell through a small aperture across from the bed – the burning smoke made my dry throat painfully raw. Pray to God, I hoped, that the bedside pitcher was filled with water.

Unsteadily did I rise to my feet; indeed, I almost tottered over. Two short steps brought me to the table and I seized the pitcher with both hands, splashing water to my mouth and greedily gulping it down. The water was pleasantly warm and tinged with some spice. I downed the whole thing in a half-a-minute, and paid the immediate price for avarice by vomiting half of it up.

A second explosion, louder this time, punched at the air in the cell. The pan fell from the table, shattering. I tossed the empty pitcher on the mattress and wobbled over to the aperture. Not quite a window, its sole purpose must have been ventilation. I had to stand on tip-toe to see out of it, but it was wide enough to allow me to rest my chin and fit my whole face. I held myself steady with my hands, my bandaged left side turning up the tactile volume of its protests angrily.

The scene before me was nightmarish; I don’t know exactly why but I had the vague sense that I had seen it before. Apparently my position was in some sort of keep on a hill of variable steepness; below the whole landscape opened up before me in vivid spectacle. A cove brought what must have been normally tranquil waters directly up to the shore a hundred yards below, splitting in half a small port town. To the left sat a few modest buildings and acres of full fields, to the right a half-dozen docks extended out into the cove, attached to larger wooden enclaves and a walled stone castle, nearer to my view.

On both sides of this inlet flames leapt hungrily through the air, hundreds of feet into the air.

Three large sea-going vessels, double masts, still bobbed tied to the docks. They were neither burning nor crewed. A fourth double-mast floundered adrift near the center of the cove, motionless except for perhaps a slight backward drift. Its sails were still furled; it must have come unmoored from the docks during the commotions.

Closer to my position a different type of vessel, with rounder and different hued sails than the docked vessels, was sinking.

And closer still were two similar ships – one moored at a dock below me, the other approaching rapidly and soon to be docked. The smoke thickened and spiraled about the landscape, making it quite difficult to see detail, wet black clouds rolling in on the wind from the enflamed fields a mile or so to my left. I had to rely on other senses. Outside the screams and shouts magnified in volume and diversity, given the overall impression of surprise and confusion. The clang of metal reached my ears, punctuated with several more minor sounds of explosions – gunpowder, instinctively I knew, though I knew not how or why.

Then I knew exactly what was happening.

War.