Brother Grimm's Story

Part 2.  The Knight of the Broken Heart

As he crouched, transfixed, one of the ghostly company seemed to falter and moved apart from the advancing line.  After a momentary pause, this lone figure seemed to start and to his horror the boy saw that it was moving purposefully towards the scrubby bush which was his hiding place.  It was a great  knight, dressed for war in chain and plate, and yet his sword was sheathed and his armour, though tarnished, bore no scratch or dent.  His face, behind a grizzled beard, was racked with pain and his arms clutched tightly at his breast.  Staring unerringly at the spot where the boy lay he lowered his arms and with one hand removed the gauntlet from the other.  Only then did the boy make out the glowing device emblazoned across the breastplate.  A living heart, sundered in two as if by some mighty blade, lay pulsing there and drops of blood like tears mingled with the dancing sparks surrounding him.  It was then, pointing a crooked forefinger directly at the fearful boy, that he spoke.  “I choose.”  The words reverberated across the bare mountainside and seemed to fly up to the stars behind the peak and into the woods and vale beyond the sleeping village.

For a moment panic gripped the boy and in his confusion he rose from his resting place and made to flee, but the thunderous bass of the knight’s proclamation seemed to grip at his senses and instead he fell in a heap, out in the open at the knight’s feet.   Many a stout heart would have succumbed to  fear there, lying alone before the terrifying figure in that rocky landscape and cloaked in a darkness relieved only by the relentless sparks pursuing their ghastly dance.  Yet this boy raised his head and spoke – for here was one who had known no love or certainty or happiness whose loss he feared and who faced these terrors here as mere extensions of those he had faced each day at the hands of his unfeeling fellow creatures during his miserable existence.   “Who are you, sir, and what causes you such pain?”  And then the knight replied:-

“I am the Knight of the Broken Heart, or so I am known among this company.  Once, when I was but a callow youth like you, orphaned and cast out, I sought to make my mark upon this world and set out on the highways and the byways of my land.  One summer night, while sleeping by the roadside, I dreamed a Guiding Spirit woke me and carried me high up to a mountaintop and there, in a cave, my Spirit showed to me a truly wondrous place.  It was a world like none I had ever dreamed of, filled with mountains, rivers, seas, with hills and plains and forests, great jungles, deserts, bitter fields of ice.”

As the words tumbled from his lips the boy discerned a change in the knight’s features as, from beneath the pained and grizzled visage, an expression of purest joy was glimpsed.

“The land my Spirit showed me teemed with life, with birds and beasts and settlements of every race from tiny villages to mighty cities whose walls and towers touched the clouds.  A place where friendship thrived and music, song and jest were daily celebrated and deeds of honour and valour performed.  But a land, too, where evil stalked and devious plots were hatched and executed and a place where the undead walked.  And there my Guiding Spirit put me down and told me that my dream was real and gave to me a place to rule and asked me only this.  ‘Only to me be true in all you do’.  So I became a ruler in this land and life was good for my cities thrived and my people were happy and I was much in the company of the kind and honourable and gentle and loving folk of this land and my scouts and merchants and armies travelled far and wide to discover its secrets.  And always I remembered what my Spirit spake;  honour was the watchword of my people and always we would strive to protect the weak, to look kindly on the foolish, to bestow charity both on those deserving and those less so, to use the word before the sword and above all to have a  generous heart.  And life was good.”

At this point the knight paused and the gaze of his piercing blue eyes, which up until now had held the boy, was broken and his expression was glazed as if for a moment transported to another time and place.  And strangely it was the boy who broke the silence, for the knight’s tale had fired within him a curious imagination long starved of nurture.  “What befell you, good knight?”  At once the knight responded, his whole body seemingly convulsing as he clutched at his heart involuntarily before resuming his narrative.

“There was no warning.  It was a bright summer morn and life was burgeoning and vibrant all around.  As was my daily habit I made my way to the chapel in my castle to seek my Spirit and to reaffirm my vow.  There as I knelt to meditate and meld my mind with His a terrible crack was heard and a pain of indescribable intensity gripped my whole body, driving me into unconsciousness.  Just before the darkness descended I saw the stained glass window in the chapel, bearing my device, a living heart, shatter into a thousand pieces.  That was the last I ever saw of my land, my people, my friends.  When I woke, close by to this place, I was confused and knew not where I lay.  Yet I sensed that many months, or maybe years, had passed and that I ne’er again would return to that land where once I dwelt.  So I looked once more to seek my Guiding Spirit but as my mind reached out to His, He was not there and I sensed only a terrible sickness in His place.”

Once again the knight dropped his gaze, but this time it was to look to the east where the faintest flecks of newborn light now streaked the dark horizon.  When the knight turned to him once more the boy  sensed in him a new sense of urgency which he had not seen before and he noticed too that the ghostly procession had turned and was now proceeding apace towards the top of the mountain.  Gazing intently at the boy, the knight extended his arm in his direction and a curled forefinger beckoned.  “Come!”

One might wonder what thoughts filled the lad’s head as, just for a moment, he escaped the knight’s piercing stare and glanced down the mountainside towards the village.  One can only imagine what memories of whippings and mockery and untold unkindnesses informed the decision that he made then. Or perhaps it was simply the absence of love and hope in his life up to this point which decided him, for maybe the knight’s tale had shown him hereto unimagined possibilities.  In any event the boy arose from the stony ground and joined the knight at the rear of the trail of lights.

And two events are worthy of recall as they made their way to the summit and there passed across the threshold of a cave concealed in the rock.  As soon as the boy made to join the knight the lights surrounding him seemed to glow more brightly and a greenish glow detached itself and seemed for a moment to dart playfully about the boy’s head and just for a moment he glimpsed, or imagined that he did, a grinning set of upturned fangs and then a pointed ear within the lights.  Just before they entered the cave the boy looked to the east where day was advancing rapidly and saw a sight he had not seen before for silhouetted against the growing dawn a congregation of great black birds tumbled out of the sky, cawing triumphantly.

Next Time:-  In the Cave of Tears