A Caress of Daemons

From Castile Elan to his friends, greetings

"War is all Hell," wrote a long-dead general about the carnage he had been forced to inflict upon his fellows. The words had come unbidden to my mind and as if being warned by a silent angel guiding my hand, I had written them down into my journal. The black ink stared up at me, drying slowly like an old wound.

War had now infected the weakened body of Britannia in all her vital organs. Few places bar the capital were free of the bloodshed. Yet this war was not the formal clash of armies, the great fiction of valour, brotherhood and honour that usually rationalises the failure of politics. This was a brutal, bloody, cruel war fought on a thousand small fields. Orc murdered savage murdered human murdered orc. Not for honour or glory, not even for power or territory but for sheer hatred. Worst of all, the war was not going well. It was spiralling beyond control.

The casualties had been increasing in number for weeks now. Every field hospital was over-run. It had become clear that the Hospital of St Francis was needed once more as a safe haven. Yew had been relatively untouched and we could provide a much needed place of healing there.

Reluctantly, I asked Baga-Bars, Agha-Khan of the Mongols, to release the building to my care once more. With that unfailing good humour that always lit his eyes, he agreed at once, noting that unlike a good tent, the building was too drafty and had spiders in the ceiling. He then revealed that he had in fact commandeered two buildings a few paces south, and that the spiders there did not have to pray every three hours. I believe I am still glad to have him as neighbour!

The beds had filled almost as soon as they were nailed together by the carpenter Jared. The activity had been frenetic all day, organising the construction, tending to the wounded, ministering to the dying. Now it was after midnight and only the sighs and snores of the patients interrupted my meditations.

The Devil chooses our most vulnerable times to present us with his seductions. Caught up in the blood and pain that was the bountiful harvest of this war, anger rose silently in my heart. This was not unusual, for waste and pain should anger any decent person. Yet as I looked into set after set of eyes glazing with a final rest, heard yet another young life call fruitlessly for his mother's arms, sawed through one more crushed limb to condemn its owner to life as a cripple, something whispered in my ear. Too faint to hear, it spoke directly to my anger.

Now, in the dim candle-light, the inner voice was clear. I knew how this war might be ended. I knew how the tide might be turned and the killing brought to an earlier end. Yet to do this would demand the betrayal of those who could not be betrayed, and the likelihood of much greater immediate bloodshed. Yet without intervention, this kind of war might last for decades.

I have never believed that the end justifies the means. Ends are rendered corrupt if the means to achieve that aim are flawed with corruption. Yet were my high-minded principles worth a hundred thousand lives? Were they worth just one life?

I stared at the parchment before me, yellowed to luminescent gold by the steady candle-light. No breath of air stirred. "War is all Hell." Indeed, and I now wandered those sulphurous alleys searching for my answer.

Castile Elan,
Healer and Franciscan Friar of Yew

© 2001 Pól-MichelSeachra AnDaingean