Friday, November 15, 2013

Julian Travels to London (Excerpt, If I Should Live So Long; 11-13)

Mary had then been my friend a full year, before she made clear to me she was falling in love with me. In love! The words seemed frantic and harsh. For I had yet to truly awaken inside. Yes, I had a love in my breast which I held for my Muse, and for the beauty of God and the Stars and Planets, but love for a woman? Nonetheless. She was certain she loved me. And how must I feel for her?
“You are my friend. You are maybe my only friend in this entire town, and I have friends here, and far, now. You speak of love. But such it is, that I fall quite late to this myself. You shake your head, you ask me why so? When it has not been obvious to you? You are the daughter of a guildsman. I am but the younger son of a poor crofter, and all that I have is what I have garned by my own hands and talents. Such it is that I have so little I might offer you but a life by the open road! And what must your father think, me and all that I am, some nothing, a jester and minstrel, a man of such low worth compared even to his modest merchant life!”
“But Julian, Julian,” she cried, “It matters not that to me. It is you and your mind and company I crave! All these days and months I have been working here in his shop, minding the time and the hours. Surely you must have noticed how kindly he takes to you? This is because he knows I do fancy you. And if he says nothing, it is perhaps because he seeks to know the intentions of your mind. Would you be serious with me? Otherwise, he is just making politeness. It comes easy enough to him.”
“And your mother? She sometimes scorns me, as though she knows my true place on earth.”
“What? She only wants for my happiness, and has her own hopes that I might find some landed squire. That is why she seems to despise you. But she takes me seriously. Whenever I am to tell her “Julian wants me and we shall make it our life to be together,” she will grudgingly agree. Whatever makes you happy, daughter!”
“This is no easy game, Mary. I do have a little something, but I have no land, nor even a horse to call my own! I am carried hither and yon such as my purse buys me passage. And I do have a fair dinkum of coin, but I have hidden it away, and when I make my travels, I save all that I can, and hide it as well. I am not so sure how much I DO have, though it reckons to be something far short of a thousand pounds... Smile! It is not much, but it buys me lodging when I travel, and the carriage from travelers, and my Luisa more often as not buys me my fare.”
“Julian, I want to share life with you! Do you understand me? I am in love with you, even if you are yet to silly to see it.”
“Mary I do not doubt this the least! But you must give me time to think these things through.”
“Time enough. But mind my words- should you wait too long, Father’s patience will run out before the sands.”
“Well met, dear. I shall leave for Porcull’s and I shall be back within the week. And let you know my heart. I plan to travel to London soon. It will be a hard journey, and I cannot take you, nor expose you to the dangers of the road, nor should I ever be so intemperate as suggest you take your leave of home. But I think so fondly of you.”
And she gave me a kiss, not the usual one she often gave, which was a brush to the cheek, but this was full passionate on the lips, and set my head to reeling. Indeed, I would have to go think this all over. I left her to her handiwork, which was, as we were sitting together outside the shop, another puppet. And I wandered my way back to the manor, playing a fine new tune.

And I lay awake most of the night in my meager bed on Porcull’s floor, thinking about her.
It was a difficult thing to think on- should I take her to wife? She, with whom I was not-just quite-yet-in-love? But there were again doubts- why not fall in love? What was it, that drew her to me if not natural affection? How rare could this be, that a woman of the town and a prenticed guilds worker might take me- me of all people- to heart and fancy and choice? the longer I thought the more kind fair things I thought of her. By the time I had finally fallen asleep, I could say I loved her. For such a fair friend comes at no given price, but that they gave themselves.
In the morning, over the morning mash, Porcull advised me, such as he could.
“I am hardly the one to offer you real sense on matters of the heart, Julian. I am nothing but an old scholar, aging now, and off my bloom. Were there to be a match for me, I am sure she might be some withering crone herself, and less comely to the eye than the girl you say you love. I only know the things of the scholar, little more. Had I been blessed by love at an age so young perhaps I should say there was little more important to living. Alas, I was not, and so I only hear tell of this from they who have married. Some are happy, many are not. But if you care to hazard the chance, you might come out ahead. I have full faith in you, Julian, you are a lad of resource and wise recourse. That you might NOT be the fool to rush in, I hope perhaps I have helped you but little.”
“I am leaving for London soon, Porcull. I must wait on any affairs with Mary until I return. I will go to see her today and let her know my choice- for her, but not just yet. Let me see the city, and make my return. All will be well, I am sure!”
Porcull gave me a short lesson in the forenoon on the stars aspects- the trines, squares, sextiles, semisextiles, oppositions and conjunctions. It was all enough to make my head swim! To remember which were fair and foul, and for which planets auspicious! But he told me I was coming along. He asked me to recite them back, and this I did fair, but I forgot about midheaven and the nodes. Oh Well. He said I would get more learned as time passed, but again, he had fair assessment of my possibility, and I was a good learner.
I left the cottage full confident, and now my heart sang. Walking along on the hedge that led to the road which took me to the High Street, I chattered after the birds who called to each other from the bush. There were only a few clouds, and yet so high away they could not mean rain. Sun glittered on the leaves of each tree, each leaf new, full of its sap, calling to me “live, young man! And live well!”
By the time I reached the Carpenter shop, my mind had only one thought- to sweeten the day with Mary’s kiss, and return her favor of the night before with a firm answer. Full confident I knocked on the door...
It was answered by Mrs. Carpenter, her eye was assuming, and not apprehensive.
“Julian, I see! Well! Sit yourself down, I shall bring you an ale. Have you been busy this morning?”
“Only with some thinking. I have come to give an answer for Mary.”
“I shall call her. She is upstairs sewing costumes. You wait. She’ll be down soon.”
And she returned with a mug of her small ale. Such it was that it was refreshing, and coming as it did with only porridge in my gut, was fair spirit. I sipped slowly the ale, knowing Mary would only fill the mug again once she appeared.
And she did! She skipped out the door and onto the porch and held me close.
“Julian, you have an answer for me?”
“Indeed, and I say, yes, Mary, let us be at one with the stars the trees the fish the birds the sea and the wheel of time. I shall love you, and while it lies yet small in my heart, it grows each hour. You are so fair. The song in my heart is thus”— I pulled Luisa up across my chest and set to singing.
“My Mary is the fairest lass, she cares so how it goeth
I only have a beginner’s heart, and that is all I knoweth
for she is wise in worldly craft, and in the things that showeth
I should be like the leaf from a tree, and blow whereof she bloweth.”

“Charming! and I do love thee, Julian. How much you shall only learn by time.”
“I have one other thing to tell, though, Mary. I decided I shall leave for London in a day.
I will do fine- I will take some money of my hoard, and it shall see me through the trip. There will be plenty left when I return, if I do not return with more! But it is something I need. What young man could live in England long and never want to see the capital! And I have someone to see and stay with, mayhap, some friend of Master Porcull, or so he says, an abbot. And I know I should like to go with you, only, these things are not yet meet. So I go alone.”
“Indeed, Julian. There are yet passes we must cross, least of which might be being married!”
Least of which. Least of which it was hardly the least matter!
“For I fear high the leirwite and the bailiffs. Should word get out we are consorting, the guildsmen too will place their knock on my father and his shop. So while we wait, I shall wait for you, and we- will one day be man and wife! I know it!”
Fair it may be it was her womanly intuition speaking there, but I knew this as well- I had no other fair chance at love, and if this be the biggest catch I might haul, then this would be my lot, no better. Still one could start out at a worse point, could no?
And then again she embraced and kissed me so full I took care not to fall back upon the doorstop. But I matched her blow for blow, and returned it this time full. She was highly pleased.
“I am finishing my poppets off with costume! I wonder how long shall you be gone, to London?”
“I reckon some weeks. And I will not be back to Chester ere I return. But take this-“
I handed to her as a token of faith my medallion of Saint James. This had been given to me in my youth by my mother, who had been a pilgrim to Spain. A half scallop. It hung about a leather thong attached by a small metal link.
“If I should live so long, Mary, we shall marry when I return.”
“Would you go with Godspeed, and god speed the day we are again united! For I love thee, Master Julian!”
No one, not even Porcull, had ever called me “Master Julian” before. This of itself told me I was getting someplace in the world.
I prepared for my trip, taking my usual small things along in my pouch. I would take Luisa, and Porcull as well gave me fair victuals as would see me to the next wayfare station. I would set off walking the Watling Street, through Stoke, Stafford, Oxford, and Saint Albans. I planned to make it in a fortnight, if not sooner, for I was taking a fair number of shillings to look for passage with some cartmaster, as I had become accustomed on journeys to Bristol and Penzance. There was spring in my step and all the world lay about me to conquer. For there was love blowing me at my back! With all good luck, I would do well in the big City, going less to get lost, than going to see to say I saw.

And so I began, walking southeast from the manor, to the London road. I played Luisa while I strolled. All things were possible. When I reached Stoke two days later, I  began my search for a cartman. I stayed at the inn of a Mr. Finchead, called the Rogue Boar. I was quite bored there, to be true! Because all who came to drink there were oafs and wenches. It was one of the more dismal stops along the road to London. However, there actually was a cartman. And he was headed down that way, although he would be turning off after Stafford, at least, it would be a lift to me.
The cartman’s name was Guilford, Gilbert Guilford. He was employed by the bailiff of Shropshire, and heading to Stafford in order to pick up a load of wine. He bade me to play the lute while we traveled, but was not one much for talk. That was fine- so long as I could go farther, and make time, so I would be satisfied. And I slept for some while in the back of the wagon on my blankets under stars so bright they thrilled me. Thoughts of Mary always cheered, me, for I knew that I went with blessings. I even thought some of my Mother and how she might be pleased to know I had found someone to live for. These things all came and passed through my head.


Stafford came, and the cartman left me at the road near a village called Flembucket. I headed into town and to the public house. It was half in riot as I arrived! There was some type of disturbance, and I slipped in with nobody really espying me. The men were all crowded round a table, where two of them were having at each other in an arm-wrestle.
“Come on, Flyswater! Don’t let Cooperman take your champion!”
“Aye, Cooperman, would you look at that coward Flyshitter! He can’t handle!”
“Put a brake on! Taverner, more ale!”
The men were so far into the wrestling match, none of them ever noticed me. I led myself to the bar and asked the taverner for a pull of his perry. A farthing but, for the good tall cup. I sat in the corner, off by myself, assured that I was no attraction. If I were to haul out the lute, however, things would be different.
But I did not want for coin, and only for the continued journey. So it was that, when the match had ended, and Cooperman had fair bested Flyswater  his two of three, and was the new town champion, the disgruntled patrons now turned their attention back to the surroundings, of which I was just another ear on the till. Yet one noticed.
This was a purser known as Wigley. He had a fair group of roustabouts with him, all traveling by horse. I offered him a shilling should he be heading to Oxford.
“A shilling? For a rider? Yea, we be headed to Oxford, then, matey!”
It was a deal I would come to regret.
For as we rambled, outside Birmingham, the gang overtook a rich lord and relieved him of all his coin and victuals. The being along for the riding could only hurt me, if the nobleman had seen my face, I might be languishing then later at gaol, or perhaps even swinging at the gallows tree. These were not the type of men you would have called friends, or even (had I had the sense to apprise them before foolishly coming along) to spend time at pub. All the same. They carted off their booty and retired to the woods to feast on his game sack, and count up each a share. I watched from the darkness near my horse. There was little on me they might avail themselves of, lest it be my own meager purse, but they showed absolutely no intention nor inclination to it. Perhaps it was Saint James protecting me after all. All I know is I did awake and the whole gang were gone! And they had taken my horse. Now I was back to square one. So I kept to the road, hoping for another cartman.
But none came that day, nor the next. I was outside the town of Peatspit when finally one did. This was an oysterman- an oysterman! So far from shore, and here in the Midlands! Whatever was he doing out here, and he asked me the same.
“What is a young lad not yet of majority doing out walking the roads so aloof? Why, had I a son like you, I would have him locked under key and table! To think! Get on, lad, get on. Where go you?”
“To London, Squire Oysterman.
“Ah! London, to see the King, I take it? Some foul branch of heaven has fallen on your lot, and you seek to make redress?”
“Nay, nay. I go to see the sights. And look for a certain monk. And conquer with my lute, the ears and hearts of many.”
“Well, bientot to you for that! What do I do, rolling my oyster barrels through the far country, where none might even know of such? Just as you like it, young sire. I bring oysters from the Thames to the interior, where such delights fetch fair penny. You might have the thought too, if you were a bright beam.”
The manner in which he said this was meant to insult, of course. I no bright beam! and yet, free, unshackled, on my way to more adventure than this man could yet account for, apparently!
I thought him jealous, and said so.
“Jealous? Of some young pup half off his cock and heading to the wicked city? For that she is, London. A fine, wicked, irredeemable city. Like Babylon she sleeps by the Thames, her ministers full of guile, her minstrels so full of bile...”
“Bile?”
“But yea, or do you not know? They who to London go, as you, end up often at the bottom of a dog-pile.”
“Dog pile?”
“But yes! Silly ass. Nobody goes to London thinking not to make a name of themselves, most especially those who reek of song. Well, the king already has a jester. I should think you would end your time but busking in the street.”
“Busking the street is no bad end, for me. I could do well but to do better, but it suits me well.”
“And one might so well ask Neptune to throw you a dud, too. I suppose.”
He was a right obstinate character, this Oysterman. I did well just to suffer the stench of his barrels as we rolled by Bilge Ferry, Oxenham, and Duarte, on the way to Oxford. For three days I suffered this oysterman, and even caught him a few fish. So untalented for that, he seemed. He was one to scour the tides, not to bait a hook and line, I suppose. Three days it took to ride to Oxford, and I hated nearly every minute, for he never stopped his contention, he never ceased speaking ill of those back in Cheshire (“the country of the Cheese-heads” he called it) and of my own chosen path as minstrel. What I would do for better company than this!
And so in Oxford when I arrived there, I quickly made haste away from whatever place he had hitched his wagon, and off on my own. To the Bear Inn, where I made new friends.

It was said to be the oldest establishment in the town. And there was a kindly taverner, one Master Pope, who saw quickly to my needs- water, a shepherd’s pie, bread, ale, and perry. I could have relaxed there and snored at the fire, but I paid him for a bed, and slept deeply. When morning broke I was off again, and this time, I would have another fright for all my troubles.

People love to make jest of the green and the unworldly. So much so that those who creep the roads in guile are always waiting for a new sucker to come along. I am afraid I was never so betrayed as I was by the next gang I traveled with- “Esquire False Taffy and his Erstwhile Monks.”
The Erstwhile Monks were no monks! Not even close! They were cutpurses all, of hard mien and sour countenance, and rotten teeth, and snarling scowl. None of them had washed in several years, by the smell of them. And yet, they gave me saddle and mount, and for another shilling, promised to take me to Saint Albans, where they were to meet up with another gang of muckers-about, that of Iron Willy and his Demons Bright Shining.
I have no idea how I survived all of it but for the protection of my Saints and stars and by some fortunate cause of the Lord. For no sooner had I saddled up and was riding, than they were at me to take up Luisa and sing them songs. Of course, the Lay of Robin Hood was their first choice. I managed to make it last the fair part of an hour, and added many new verses made up on the spot. These kept them well entertained and guffawing, and somehow this sense of what pleased helped me to survive the entire time.
One of them fancied himself the likeness of Friar Tuck, and another that of Little John.
Obviously the leader False Taffy thought himself the spitting of Robin Hood. And they laughed carousing each time singing the refrain, “To rob the rich, and feed the poor, we riding go again! Three Cheers for Lord Robin, and we his Merry Men!”
But they were less likely to rob a truly rich man, many of which passed us, with train of knights and squires... most likely it were the knights and squires which drew down their pikes. For they were more likely to assault some poor wretch without wench beside, and take his full sack, for he was armed but with a dagger, or a bow, and in a fair fight quite outnumbered, for there were ten of them in all. Now when we arrived outside Blanch Hole they put it to me.
“Squire minstrel Julian, we have suffered thee with your songs, and fair well they are. We have given you mount and saddle and you have seen what we do and how we live. We can not fair allow you your leave, if you ought not to take up with us, knowing what you know...”
“Aye,” said the one self-styled Friar Tuck, “we’d as soon slit your throat as cut your purse, and leave you hanging for the shrikes at a yard post!”
Nods, and shakings of the head, and agreed murmur from all in the band.
“What then may I offer you? For I would soon as cut the throats of each and all of you should you choose to rob me of my lute, or deprive me my own purse!”
“Nay, Julian, we would not do THAT. You are a brave lad to ride along with such a fierce brigade. No, Julian, we ask of you the favor. Since you ride to London, where we can none of us ever return, we ask of you this one favor.”
False Taffy took me aside then and handed to me a small bill with a seal upon it.
“Take you this letter to Squire Dover at Inns of Court. I am pleading for pardon from all the King’s reeves between Oxford and the city. Half the things they mean to say about me are not true! I am no murderer!”
“But thou art indeed a thief!”
“Hmm, could be. But none so worse than they who rode before me, took my loving wife for rape, and held me down while forcing me to see - it all! And Squire Dover is in his debts to me as well. For I fully paid him to find those men who took my lady love and this he did most untimely, such that, now there be no other witnesses, and these men who ride with me would sooner slit HIS throat than allow this breach of the justice go on fair long.”
More murmurings.
“If I should meet this Squire Dover, and deliver your message, then what will you do for me?”
“We will grant you fair use of the roads, wither and hither you go!”
This sounded better than it looked, I must admit. But the friendship of a highwayman like False Taffy was suspect on all angles. Nonetheless if it meant relieving myself of their company sooner as later, I agreed to take the letter on to London with me.
False Taffy shook my hand, wished me well, and wheeled the whole group about back towards Oxford. Saint Albans was still miles off. I started on foot again, alone.
It was only one more day and night before I was in Saint Alban, and the next day, outside London itself! Or at least, I finally came to Bentlea Priory, where Porcull had told me I could find Vincebus.
The Priory was a shelter for Augustinians, of both genders. They kept a manor farm employing hundreds, and of these Vincebus was the sheeper. Vincebus had a collie-dog and also kept a small popinjay in his cell, which was yet small, but held everything he needed. What he did not need he did not fancy to own, either, so it was spare, and he had his Bible, his animals, his one cloak, and a writing desk there.
I must say it was a shock to him, however, when I gave of who I am, and why I had come.
“Porkle? Porkle is one of those... Lollygagging Lollards! He is a man unchurched and in so dire need of his soul astraightened he stinks of the sulfur of Hell itself! Yes, I know old Porkle. We taught together at Exeter College, Oxford, when we were young and stiff-necked.”
“He said you owe him a debt?” I inquired, my question trailing off, for who knows where that would lead.
“Hah!” he laughed. “Surely a drinking bet of thirty years on deserves to be forgot! What a sot! What an ass! Owe him a debt!” and he was then silent.
I looked him over. Monk Vincebus was old, yet, round about the waist, and his tonsure was falling out in patches. His skin was leathery and tanned, but also crinkled. He worked outside all year, and when he was not at that, he was writing at his desk by candle light. He was writing a history of the Priory, he said, and he hoped to be finished sometime by the end of the year. His collie dog was friendly, and he called it Rambeaux. The popinjay was a wiseacre, and filled the little cell with foul cursing.
“Silly bird! I am not his first owner- all those things he says, his owner before had taught him. He is a naughty one! Just the same. He is now in his twenties! And quite fond of me. When I get too old for caring of him, I will take him to a window and set him loose. Of course, he will probably just fly right back, so accustomed is he to his seeds and fruits.”
“What do you call it?”
“He is called Bitcher, because that is what he does best!” Laughing again, Vincebus set me down at the chair near his desk, and sat himself on the bed. Bitcher hopped over to his shoulder, where he sat for the rest of our talk.
“Now, Squire Julian, or such is your name, you say, why are you here, truly?” There was a sense in his question that I had not been fully forthcoming, and that he was one from whom nobody could keep their confession inside.
“I come to London to see the town. I am a minstrel and a fair one now. I bring my lute”— I nudged Luisa out between us— “and I sing for my supper. Or play, which I prefer, anyway. Tunes as such will you never find again, and tunes such as I have learned of others. And while I am here in London, but for a week at most, I hope, I hope to learn more songs. For I was also told by Porcull there are many singers in London!”
“Indeed there are, child. There are so many singers and players here that they all compete fair weather and foul for a tiny patch of space they shall call street, and for the crumbs off the nobles, for the king already has a jester.”
“Yes, yes, this is what they say. The king has a jester. But has he accomplished courtier players, those who can make their lutes ring as I can mine?”
I played a few passages from the new set of dances which were flitting about in mind.
He set his head on his arm while he listened.
“Ties fair, sure. Maybe you will find something of what you hope for down there. I can also refer you to someone...”

But this someone, as you will learn soon, was again, not the best of persons I might have hoped to have met. I shall tell of him a bit later. Yet it was that I was to spend my first night in the Priory sleeping on a cot in the larger hall, where some other beggars and widows spent the night as well. One of them snored, but she was also not so bad to look at, so I was not irritated. When I slept, it was as if I were back in Penzance, happy to be thinking that Providence might soon reach me.


Buy the full book here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/399170
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Monday, November 4, 2013

It’s Always Something

"All Presidents must go to a diamond hell"- Allen Ginsberg

      Hardly a week nor a day goes by anymore   without new “astonishing” revelations of outright brigandry undertaken by the U.S. Government on behalf and in the name of its citizenry.Today, it’s the CIA using doctors in direct deviation from their Hippocratic oaths as agents of torture and interrogation of terror suspects. Since when were Gestapo tactics welcome to the White House? Well, say many (an I am among them) the paper trail leads back to legal advisor to John Ashcroft, John Yoo, who drew up a legal brief during the regime of G.W. Bush. Approval of these tactics against “rendered suspects” would under normal circumstances earn such criminals an outright dismissal of any charges, due to government misconduct.
     “But these are different times,” apologists would like us to understand. These are indeed. When the USA can forego its once believable moral authority as champion of human rights and dignity in order to become as low as the terrorist they seek to destroy, now they’ve sunk to a grossly debased acceptance of the worst and most evil maxim of Macchiavelli’s: that the ends justify the means.
     “It was necessary to kill the patient,” (Ms. Liberty) “in order to save her,” one can well imagine Barack Obama telling us all at one of his courtly, staged “press rehearsals.”
     The current administration has done nothing less than to continue the war crimes of the former one. The man we elected in the name of peace murders and lies and acts as if there’s nobody else in the entire country who might pose any challenge to his intellectual and political conceits. He’s wrong.
     Of course, he could always just send his Seal Team Death Squad into Russia, to “get” Mr. Snowden just as he did Osama bin Laden. After all, what are sovereign borders and target locations deep inside a nation’s heartland to them? If Mathias Rust could do it, so could they! Although one imagines the new Russian government might have somewhat altered their aerial security technology and capacity  by this time. (Or, if the President of the United States is so good at killing people as he says, why doesn’t he just go over there and do it himself?)
     But Ed Snowden just happened to be in the right place at the right time and with the right approach to authority. Authority must ALWAYS be questioned, because Authority is ALWAYS seeking no less than the continuance of its power, and absolute totalitarian power is no less than tyranny- in their case now, a tyranny that they would hope would enshroud and enshadow the entire world.
     I did not elect Barack Obama to brag about his murders. I elected him to bring culpable authority into account for their crimes against national and international law and recognized values of human rights. And to bring figures such as Osama bin Laden to a justice worthy of the word, not lynch mob law. He’s been a total failure at such on every level in these regards. Nor did I elect him to be the Democratic Party’s version of the man he replaced, or the ringleader of the most notorious secret police spy ring in history.
     No, I elected him to be something which he never was, and never can be- a humane, just, fair, honest man devoted to upholding the nation’s Constitution and by so doing, keeping the esteem and good reputation of the USA in the eyes of the world community..
 http://news.yahoo.com/new-book--obama-told-aides-that-drones-make-him--really-good-at-killing-people--144734667.html
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/05/obama-administration-drone-strikes-war-crimes?CMP=twt_gu
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/03/207332/newspaper-snowden-documents-reveal.html
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2013/11/05/the-main-danger-to-peace-and-liberty/
Being President of the United States of America means never having to say you're sorry:
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Friday, November 1, 2013

SUPPORT PILOT LICENSES FOR WITCHES!



    On the day after their most solemn and festive occasion, it needs to be addressed- it’s a national problem! Each year on Halloween thousands of witches nationwide lose their lives due to intoxicated flying. The photos above only illustrate a small percentage of the problem.  Everywhere, witches drink their potions and fly, and this is the result!
     That’s why Congress and the States must create a new law and programs designed to discourage witches from flying while drunk. Griselda, Endorra, and Baba Yaga might prefer a nip of the old henbane or nightshade, but, all too often, a night of wicked joy turns out to be a pyre of ash- especially for those who navigate into high-voltage wires!
     As an unrepentant civil libertarian, I fully endorse the idea that witches should be free to practice their personal religion. And in most cases I feel additional regulatory legislation makes social issues like drug abuse worse, not improving them. But this has gone on for too long and for too far!  Think of the children!
     If driver licenses can be issued to “non-documented” aliens, then why not pilot’s licenses for witches? Even domestic drones are now under the purview of the FAA!

     If you agree that these irresponsible, “wise” old crones need regulation and oversight lest they continue year in and year out to pose a threat to public safety, and heedlessly expose themselves to danger, please, write to your Congressional Representatives and State Legislators! Please Fly Safely!
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Monday, October 28, 2013

What, You Say, Is Treason?

United States Constitution, Article III, Section 3:

     Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
     The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
The President of the United States of America singlehandedly destroys 800 years of Western legal tradition - 12-31-11

     The word treason has been bandied about lately quite a great bit, and not least by the once known as “tolerant” “liberal” class of American politics. As defined above, treason consists only of taking up Arms in War against the United States or manifestly helping those with whom it is at war.
     The word "traitors" has thus recently been thrown at Edward Snowden, as well as the Congress of the United States itself, in its failure to pass a meaningful and legally binding budget. As though a general disagreement in the policy of the US was ever enough of itself to make one a traitor!
     That the sobriquet was foisted upon Mr. Snowden after plainly embarrassing the US government in the unconstitutional act of spying against innocent citizens, with neither substance nor charge, reeks of the type of sanctimonious partisanship germane to BOTH major US political parties at this stage of the game. Mr Snowden has sought only to make the public aware of its government's actions- he has not traded information with foreign powers (the precise definition of espionage, with which he has been charged in absentia) only with the free press (such that still is) and has gained no personal favor or reward by his having been accepted for political asylum in a nation once long feared as the US’s largest military threat. A nation which has, by the way, become itself a free and democratic nation.
     But Mr. Snowden is getting his due, for nearly double as many Americans see him as a patriot than call him “traitor.” Those who claim he IS traitor perhaps bask in their own love of authoritarianism- or in an all-enveloping, cradle-to-grave government as comforter.
     Yet, the founders of this nation knew so much better than to trust government. They set up a Constitution for a State which by its very nature was delimited in the powers it might claim over any individual.
     And why should the entire Congress be called traitor, other than that just one Congress ago, they approved the indefinite detention of US Citizens, and a president who claimed he was opposed to just such a policy signed it into law? Are Americans so afraid of living without their government that they absolutely could not do to live without it for one or two weeks? Perhaps the latest government shutdown proves that. Perhaps there really is a segment of the public who would be completely at sea without their government to hold them by the hand and lead them through the wilderness.
     Maybe Americans have become complacent and willing to grant their government new unconstitutional powers over them, preferring Security to their God-granted Liberty. Perhaps they would prefer a society where government can inflict a mandatory program- (any mandatory programs at all!) over taking care of themselves- to actually living freeing the state of Liberty which was, again, Creator-granted!
     I am absolutely and resolutely opposed to this government making anything mandatory absolutely at all. That goes for everything from mandatory military service, to mandatory civil service, from medical care, to income tax. I owe this government absolutely nothing BUT my income tax. If only that by this income they have stolen from me before I even handle the proffertory note of a paycheck, they are able to guarantee to me the rights granted by the Constitution. But! The government did not give to me my life. They did not give me my liberty, nor my conception of happiness. These came from the Creator and exist within me as an individual prior to ANY claim of a State upon them. Compulsion under this Constitution is antithetical to its purposes, from the start. If there is not freedom NOT to participate then there is not freedom of choice, the very hallmark of freedom.
     Love of any country cannot be in any way qualitatively equated with love of its government. This is the problem facing our society today- which government’s propaganda would choose to confine the rational thought of the individual to consider otherwise. It’s said, “we only have our freedom because thousands died in battle for it.” Bullshit! As the Declaration of Independence states quite plainly, Liberty is a self-evident and inherent right of the living, as life is, granted self-evidently, by our Creator. (However or whatever you might conceive this to be, be you Deist or Atheist.) And loss of liberty can only be justified under our constitution as taken- under the due process of law.
     It really appears that for the past seventy years or so, Americans have been fighting, not for their country, but for their government. It even appears now, that, what they are fighting for isn’t the freedom Americans long knew (and took for granted) but a freedom subject to the whims of what the government- or at the least, the Executive Branch- says it is. This present president apparently only studied the Constitution in order to learn what he ought to most effectively destroy of it- Amendments I, IV, and V are particularly endangered under his acts and his policies, and defiance of his programs is perhaps the only rational resistance one can offer. Certainly the power to impeach him still resides within the Congress.
     But for all who care to take offs with one party or the other in Congress, they would do well to realize this Congress was elected, just as was this President. Adolf Hitler was freely elected as well, and his laws approved, legally, by a duly elected government. But just as Adolf Hitler’s laws led inexorably toward the loss of freedom for the individual in his society and eventually transgressed the moral imperatives of the international community, so this president’s national security apparatus has come to abrogate the standards of the international community- as well as his country’s own Constitution- in its overweening surveillance of foreign leaders, its executions sans due process of innocent civilians- both American and otherwise- its determination to overwhelm all resistance to the creation of a worldwide surveillance sate- under the ultimate accountability of No One- in the name of some Pax Americana. “American exceptionalism” indeed appears to be a “figa tu!” at every other nation on the face of this earth. And must have rights to accuse it, as I see fit, to dissent from its departures from justice and international law, and insist on accountability of its leaders to its people. If I must love my country, then I must also despise the actions and policy of my government.
     The notion, propounded in the John Kennedy inaugural address, “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can bla bla bla bla bla…” is nothing more nor less than bruiting a prescription for servitude and sheepledom. Since that speech Americans have been lulled into believing that fighting in the armed forces means fighting for their country. Its meant as an invitation to the young to join in as willing cannon fodder, for the middle aged to act as slaves to a govern god, and the elderly to give their last breaths in defense of a fortress built of cannonballs. High time it is for Americans to demand of their government to restore the “inalienable rights” which were enshrined in the first ten Amendments of the Constitution. If that is too much to ask of this government then it, in and of itself, deserves to fall, of its own inability to guarantee the survival of those rights once so cherished, now so ripely despoiled.
     Now if that’s all treason, then hang me, but I have now got plenty of company, and you have not got the room in your jails to hold us all.
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Sunday, October 13, 2013

If I Should Live So Long -- Excerpt from a Work In Progress (10/13)

    My name is Julian Plectrum and I am but a fool in love, they tell me. I guess I should begin by telling you about myself, but I am not that interesting, really. I would prefer to tell you about my prized possession, Luisa, my lute, and how I got her, for starters. Because I would not be who I am today, had I not had the good fortune to have her placed in my hands, by a noble benefactor. And so I shall tell you of how that happened, and what I have done with her. Luisa goes wither I gambol, and all of my minstrelsy would be paltry, had I not her advantage.
I was ten and four years of age, when it happened. I had been spending a day swimming in the Dee. There was a group of older lads up the stream a way, who were also swimming. It was a hot day in July and there were many bluejays in the air as well as many blackbirds on the banks. I floated in the river upon my back.
I heard a shout, a yell, what sounded most like a cry of distress. As I looked toward the group of older boys,  I noticed one of them had gone under the water, or was struggling with something in the water, and was not able to keep his head up above it. He was crying for help, but his companions were doing nothing but laughing, and his head would keep disappearing. It was as if he were being held back by something deep in the water.
Since his friends were not helping, I came to his aid.
As I reached him, he noted to me that he was caught- his cloak, in which he swam, had been snagged by some sort of tree-stump, and it was not possible for him to unravel the kink or to find the spot on the cloak which was fast held. It was the manner in which he had been swimming, and the direction, as well as the speed of the current, but he was fighting to keep his nose out of water.
I told him to be quiet, since an open mouth invites only more water inside, and he was silent.
I struggled with the cloak. The snag had actually wrapped the cloak in such a way that a knot in his belt was the source of his distress. This was, actually, easily remedied. But he was overjoyed when I helped drag him from the water.
“I cannot really swim,” he told me.
“Why then do you seek refreshment in the water?”
His companions had fallen silent at the riverbank.
“Because- I must keep up- with them.”
He nodded in the direction of his companions, who, falling back, now began to grab their other garments from the bank and began to scatter, back in the direction of Chester, our large town and the fief of the great Earl. Chester was where I was born, and have sometimes lived. Nowadays I live in the forest, though, and go where I will. As I hoisted him out and he flopped onto the bank, he thanked me, and told me his name (Stephen) and said that he was the son of a traveling merchant, who was now gone on another journey over to France. He wanted to thank me, somehow, in such a way that would express much gratitude for saving his life. So he asked me to go with him to the manor of his father.
This was a large home located still yet outside the city, on many acres of pasture, with great expanse of wheat and rye and oats, as well as many stock of sheep and also much fowl. There were also apiaries and pens for bees and for geese, and there were many servants at the manor. I wanted to wait outside at the door, but he bid me enter, so I followed.
Inside the great home was like few places I have seen. It was not like my father’s home, as that was but a two-room cottage covered with a ceiling of straw, but that it had oaken beams for its roof, great gables that extended all the way down so far as I could see, and many hallways, and even more upper floors than one.
As I hesitated out at the door, he indicated that I should follow, and told me that as his father was well away there was no need my worrying over that I might be welcome there.
“I want to thank you so much for saving my life,” Stephen told me again. “I can think of only one way to repay you, which is to give you something of such value to me that it would never be thought nor said that I do not regard you most fondly.”
At that point, I was flabbergasted, as he placed in my hands Luisa.
“This is an instrument which my father  gave to me after his last visit to the Amiens Fair. It comes from a land far south of the Spanish- indeed, they call it a Moorish oud. In France it is called “l’oud” and so here, we call it the lute. Do you know music?”
I told him, yes, indeed, I did know music, I had studied music and the great works of Homer and the Lay of Arthur and Merlin and that his gift would be most fondly appreciated. How much more, I could not then say, but then, Luisa has now become my best friend of all, and as I said, goeth with me everywhere.
“The trip he went on, he brought this back for me, and he gave it to me as a trifle, perhaps. I can play it only some. It has strings of gut in eight courses, as you see, but to get new ones you must go to Chester and see Earnest on the street of Blodwyn and pay to have more. But they cost not more than a ha’penny. These are all good as new, for I hardly play it.”
I told him much in the way of my thanks.
He bid me to stay for the meal of the evening. The servants would wait on him, and myself as his guest, and I could eat my fill of his father’s goose and the many fruits which would be brought to table. This we did, and he told me more of his father’s line of trade.
 Like me, he had lost his mother in the Plague- but mine was killed earlier, when I was but four. His mother just died three years ago, when the Plague last came to Cheshire but spared both my own father and myself. I saw many people laid waste, and everone wondered just what anyone may had done to deserve this. It was even said many great noblemen and their ladies had died. Somehow for my father and myself that Pale Horseman passed us by. I still shudder to think of the things we saw, and the carts piled full of the dead.
But anyway, Stephen told me of his father’s work. He traveled across the Channel to Calais, Harfleur, to Belgium, to Amiens, and Provence, gathering various bolts of fine cloth, which he sold to nobles and rich persons both in Chester, and on his way to and fro. He often left on his trips from the South country, travelling overland until coming to Penzance, where he had friends who owned cogs, and which holds he would fill high with these rolls of cloth, gathered from his travels in France and Belgium. He would rent a cart to convey them back from Chester. Often he rode with a guard he would hire, a man named Roger of Wirral, who lived in Chester, and would sometime accompany him the entire journey. Stephen told me that he hoped to go on his father’s journey next year. But he was expected back by mid spring, and by then, the older man might have decided to remain in Chester. So it was expected.
I thought of these places he described, in France and Belgium. While they seemed far away, in many ways we lived under the same economy. I do not like to spend a lot of time thinking about economy- I would rather study the world of nature and the creatures and the plants which grow about us. But for Stephen business and economy was his prime thought.
While Stephen had lost his mother recently, my own mother was but a far memory. In fact for most of my life all I have known for a family was my father. My father is just a crofter, and makes his money selling the wool of our sheep, and working for the Earl sometimes in the fields. In fact Stephen tells me that perhaps my father’s wool sometimes goes with his own father down to the coast and to Europe! This was news to me, and set us another reason for becoming friends.
I played a game of chess with him after we had supped, and had our dessert of stewed cherries and pears. a servant brought us wine, which was very pleasant, and I had a pair of henaps of that. But still, I beat him at the chess game! For that, he was very gracious, and said, he would work to learn the game better, and do me better next time for it.
Then he gave me another surprise- he said that in the event of my having saved him from the river, he would grant me a boon in the absence of his father- that so long as I lived, I would be able to journey at my leisure on his father’s lands, which one day would become his. That I would be welcome to enjoy the fish of the streams and the coneys I caught- and take the firewood I wished form his forest- provided that I show a special seal to the woodward. I was still only 14 and still bound like my father and older brother to the fief of the Earl, but I had a great plan- I was going to leave Cheshire and head to another city. Maybe to London, but now that he had mentioned it, Penzance! If I might stay uncaught for a full year, I might return as a freeman to Cheshire. If I could win money somehow (and the lute beside me might well be my ticket!) I could purchase lands of my own- perhaps, right beside my father’s! And that would do me better than my brother..
My brother, Thomas, was born three years afore me. He actually was very lucky, our mother had borne twins, but neither lived, three years before Thomas. So we were long hoped for. Only I am the disappointing one. I showed my father I was bright, and full of talents, but he only wanted me to work the crofts and the fields, lend the sheep a shearing, and my heart has never been in that. My learning of Homer and of Aurthur and Merlin, and of late, the recently buried great Bard Chaucer, has encouraged me to think on new things, and of the Muses. Now it came to my hands, this wonderful machine! I swore to Stephen that I would do him right by his gift, and learn and master it, and that in a year I would return to Chester.
Stephen was disappointed, and told me, one of the catches to his boon was that, I must return to help with the yearly harvest, and so, my journey to Penzance must of needs end before that year. However he promised he would help to keep me from the learning of the shire Reeve in that event, and keep me hidden, and I would be at liberty on his lands, in any case! I wondered how his father would feel about all that, but, for the nonce, I had my work cut out for me. If I could travel south to Penzance and thence return in time for the harvest, then indeed, I could fulfill all my obligations.
And that was three years ago. I will tell more of that journey, and of others, quite soon.
Before I left his manor that night, to sleep on my own out under the open sky, he gave me the seal that was to be my signature of liberty walking his lands, and also a cord, with which I might sling Luisa over my shoulders as I traveled. I thanked him most graciously for all his kindnesses, and felt I had done so little to deserve all this great new good, but he demurred, and told me that his friendship and gifts were sincere, and that I should never doubt of our friendship. On those things I pondered as I headed for sleep, and when I woke in the morning with the birds a'singing by me, I filled my heart and mind with new ideas.
When I took Luisa home to my father’s cottage, he was well disturbed to find her sitting in my seat at his table. “How did such a thing come into your hands?” he asked. He seemed incredulous that such could befall me, but I told him. I suppose it was then a mistake I also mentioned Stephen’s boon to him, for then he only thought of what I might to do for his increase by it, and not my own. “And you shall be able to catch game and to fish and to bring home firewood? This is much to praise!”
But then I found myself to argue with him, as my older brother Simon had already the favor of my gaining father’s inheritance, and I was to go into the world with nothing. I spoke sharply to him, in such a fashion as that I meant for him to understand I was going to be my own man, and sooner than later, that I would leave his lands and go to a faraway city, to make my own life, but that I should return for each harvest, for Stephen had my word of that.
“So you see, Father, that this new boon is for me a means to my freedom and wellbeing! And I shall take leave of you, and this house on the morrow and you and Simon will be all so much the better for the loss of me!” 
Surely I spoke with anger and sharp tongue and at the time no regret, for I knew that his not favoring me over Simon otherwise could mean I should end up a conscript in the army of the Earl. And the Earl was foresquare allied with the new King Henry, and would be for some long time to come as he was, indeed, his own son. Yet it would surely be death to join an army, for I have no patience for that type of toil, nor the stomach for mayhem. Simon himself would be lucky that he would not end in the Earl’s army either, if he were not careful, and not set out himself to learn a trade. Peace would not be long in our lands because of the quarrel between the Earl, his arrogance with the Welsh, and with Percy of Northumberland, who for the nonce marched against the Scots and the Welshmen of Owyn Glyndwr, who still rode roughshod and free in the marches, calling on those who would to join him for a fight for free Wales.
All of that, added up in my decision, of course, to leave for the south, and to go from Father’s house, that I need be no longer a burden on he or Simon. And filling my pack with a number of victuals off the pantry shelf, I set forth that very next day, walking the high street south, south towards Penzance.

When I left Father’s cottage, I took a few things along with me. Surely I looked quite burdened, but these were what they were: the lute, of course, on its cord over my back. I even found that I could play whilst I walked along, which made for more pleasure in my going. A blanket, which I also wore rolled over my shoulder and within, one change of clothing. A wineskin, over my other shoulder, in which I kept either water or wine, or whatever I should come across for drink. In my pouch on my belt I kept a few things: A knife, and a whetstone, a flint stone and magnifying lens, that I should have fire in light or darkness, a folding spoon, a handful of extra lute strings Stephen gave me as well, a comb, and two smaller bags: one for my chess pieces and the other for my coins. I took all I had in that way, [some 16 shillings worth, all I had saved in my life up to that time, just less than one mark.]
In this fashion I found by walking I might cover one, to two leagues per day, keeping to the roads, and if I were lucky perhaps before I had left Cheshire I should have avoided being caught by the reeve or his men. That is, of course, how it happened, and I kept on my path, for a week or two, until I came to Penzance. Before I reached Penzance though, I had had many adventures and met many people. Some of them were good, and kind, and invited me into their lodgings, where I found succor and a place to lie me down. When I could not, I ate from fruit trees, and slept out in the fields.  I would pay if I must for food, when I hit a town, or for drink, but often as not if I came upon a tavern I would be welcome, for where there are taverns there are carousings, and where there is merriment or carousing, there must be music.
It was in this fashion I learned to master Luisa: I knew my chords and I knew my notes, my breves and quavers. What I knew not was how to slip my fingers round her neck most graciously and expeditiously. This however, I forced myself to learn as I walked. The more I played, the better I became. I also tuned her to a tone which I kept in my own head, this would not be the intonation of the expert, I learned later, but just an instinct I had. Nonetheless, it helped me to learn the frets and to work my fingers well upon it.
The carousing that took place the night I reached the tavern at Wroxeter was perhaps the worst of it. Without meaning to, I nearly found myself robbed, by men who thought me miserable and oafish.
That however does not describe me or my mind. These men thought to deceive me at my game of chess, for I set out the pieces in the tavern on a board which was a tabletop. There is really no way one might escheat at chess, save that, one might fain to move a piece while his opponent does not look. But it is a bad chessman who does not know wither he left a piece. One cannot then cheat at chess as one might at cards or dice, since there is little honor and little to gain by such.
And I found them out, and they were ready to strike me, but the taverner came to the table, and ousted them by the scruff of their collar, and bid me to play on the lute, and I sang them the story of Robin Hood and Friar Tuck, which earned me a trencher of stew and another tankard of ale. This was most agreeable, and the taverner bid me to stay for several more days, and at the end of that time I was weary to move on, and so I did.
Outside of Wroxeter I met a man traveling who would tell me he was escaped of late from the dungeons at ­­Stafford Castle where he had been shackled, for speaking against King Henry. He was to have been pilloried, but somehow had managed to break his shackles (“These men of Staffordshire do not know how to work iron so well. There was a flaw in the seam of one of the links. I fairly broke it quite easily”) but to travel with him was disagreeable, and I made some excuse, and went on alone.
It was after a month’s travel I made it to Penzance. Being a port, it was full of sailors, and wherever sailors be, there are carousings and merriment, and of course, there be music as well.
I made my way to the shop of a maker of instruments where I might find more catgut strings. This man became a great friend in my year in Penzance. His name was Clarence and his shop was located in a most out of the way area, the southern harbor of Mousehole. He took me aside and showed me the proper tuning for my lute, and gave me lessons of songs and melodies. I soon developed my own presentation of these. Some have said I am a great improviser, but I only am because I had to learn so much of what I do on my own. While there are minstrels like John the Jester of Exeter, of whom I have heard much talk, who are boring and uncouth, and farters, there are also those like me who value cleanliness and honesty and virtue. This I represent as my gift of music, that I keep this vision of Luisa and my muse on its true and proper course beneath the Lord’s stars- I have no use for the scatological and crude.
Yet I was forced in Penzance to earn my keep by writing at least one bawd. This was my original adaptation of the tale of Oddysseus and Penelope. Homer tells of her as the faithful beseiged woman who fight off the temptation of conducting herself unseemly with any suitors, who have made claim upon her as Oddysseus has been gone so many years, such as to be dead. But this,she saith, was not so.  In my version, however, she behaves much more like a common woman, and welcomes in each suitor in his turn, and has her way with each. As such Odysseus returns, to find himself a cuckold, and kills the suitors, one by one. “What would you have expected me to do?” she asks at the end. This caused much mirth and jollity with my hearers in the taverns, and soon I was being sought after by more than one taverner, and paid a penny, even more, for a night of song. In such a way I gathered much to my purse, and soon had many shillings to speak of. Each night I slept with my head on the coin sack, with Luisa beside me, her cord slung round me. In such a way  I hoped to cheat the spirit of ill-fortune, and did so, week by week, month by month. When autumn had come, I began to make my way in return to Cheshire and the lands of Stephen’s father, that I would fulfill my pledge to him and help in the harvest. The road back took less time, in fact, it seemed I traveled at a much quicker pace than I had before, even with my purse so full. Mayhaps it was the colder air that put a push in my step, but the further north I came the colder it grew, and my blanket was loth to warm me in the fields. Often now I awoke encrusted with dew, and only the honor of my oblige to Stephen was cause for my travel.
Stephen welcomed me, and bid me out among the others working in the wheat. He gave me leave to work with the gleaners and winnowers- this was quite welcome, and honestly I was able to do him justice, filling more than two bushels a day, and he paid me my eight-penny in wages just as he would the others. I buried my purse in a spot secret and known but to myself, deep in a wooded copse, beneath a tree with a squirrel hole. While some might have just placed their sack in the hole itself, I had presence of mind to dig a burrow of my own beneath the stump to secure it. When I returned on my next journey back from Penzance I would yet find it there.
But this is to move ahead quickly too. The quandary was how to keep myself from discovery by the reeve as the harvest continued. Stephen had set me in a part of their manor barn apart from the horses and sheep, where I could hide during hours not in the fields. He brought me good foods from the manor and oft sat with me and shared good talk. He wanted to know more of the carousing sailors of Penzance- he had been there, but only on his journey with his father. In fact it was in such a manner of being social that his father came upon us one of those nights, and demanded to know who I was, and why food had gone missing from pantry and table, and why I was hiding out, there in the barn.
“Father,” he said, “this is Julian, the son of Davis the Crofter in Upton. He had saved my life from drowning last year. I told him in favor of that I would grant him free leave on our lands in perpetua, and did give him that fine lute, which I cannot play upon in any way. For such it was, my other firends had fain to laugh at my distress, but Julian, a stranger, came forth and freed me from a wood in the water, and kept me from being drownt.”
“But that is outrageous, that he should take of our table and fields, yet! The son of a crofter?
Well I know Davis of Upton and his other son, Simon, who works hard to bring the woolsacks for his father. Of this son I never heard.”
I spoke up.
“Sir, my father is not so proud of me as he is my brother Simon, who though he be more dutiful, it yet less clever than I.”
“And Julian is not taking from your table, Father, he is helping with the harvest, and has pledged to do so en perpetua, that our boon to him be fairly compensated.”

At hearing that, his father then smiled on me, and leaned over to me, and said “I will help keep you safe, then. Such shame as might come from my helping you will fall upon me as it may. For you have saved Stephen’s life, and that to me is no small matter. Feel free to do as you choose when on our lands... I feel this to be a good and fair reward. That the reeve should not learn of you we must make our concern, but rest assured then Julian Crofter, we are in your favor and debt.”
I said to him I am no longer called Julian Crofter, but Julian Plectrum, for this was the name I had chosen, and now what the men of Penzance called me, and he laughed.
“Then so be it. Penzance, eh? You have been there and back?”
I said that I had, and that I planned to return after the harvest.
“Then you shall come with us. We will leave after harvest too, for I have more sacks to trade for bolts in France, and Stephen will be coming along with me this time. You will ride with us. So be at ease.”
The next two weeks were very happy ones, and all I did was take a care not to let many of the others working the wheat to know my name or face. I made me a pole with which I might fish, using one of my spare lute strings for a line, and a hook from the kitchen which Stephen gave me. The stream that bordered their manor land was full of perch and trout, which were good to eat, and these I cooked out in the barn where the wheat-workers did not see. So long as I kept the fire safe and free from the stock feed, Stephen’s father paid no mind. And the days flew past! So quickly that, before I knew, the harvest had been all in and the wagons set with goods, and we were traveling on our way back south, to the sea.

We rode in the back of the large cart as Stephen’s father drove, two horses he did have which both were tall and handsome and strong. Roger of Wirral made a stern companion and was not so much friendly, but Stephen and I arranged the sacks of wool that we could each sit upon one with room for our legs outstretched upon another if we chose, and we rode in the center of the cart, such that none might see us from the road, unless they should stand in the saddle to peer over its edge. And Roger of Wirral could not make bother with us, so far back we were from the lead. I made up many new songs of my own on this trip, mostly they were but melodies, but they were all fine, and I strove to put within them all the gladness of my heart at the sights passing around me- what birds, what trees, what wind, what clouds! For the storms were now coming, and in just a month or two would be Christmastide.
This time my journey took much less time, but a fortnight, for it was aided by the strong horses. We passed three leagues and a half each day, and never were we burdened by accosters. In the city of Wroxeter where I had stayed before, we took abed at that same tavern, after I had played some of these new songs, and both Stephen’s father and the taverner were quite pleased, for I lent to each of them word of their fame and their honesty in coin.
His father’s name was Richard, Richard of Westchester, and he had been a freeman all his days himself. The lands he owned had been passed down by his own father, and the villeins who worked them, such as I met on the harvest-wain, were in thrall to the Earl more than to he. But each year all took part in the haying and wheating, and he paid them all fair, and was not quite like the Earl, in that the Earl took their work as his due, but he paid a wage. He also gave them generous of food and drink, and on the feast of Mary the Magdalene (which was my birthday) promised me the next year he would feast me alone, myself. Lest I grow too proud of my associations with Richard and Stephen, and took too much pride in their bounty, I resolved that I would keep these things between us, and never speak of them, and return each year, once I was free, for the birthday feast and the harvest and that I would labor for them honestly. For many there are who pray feel that minstrels know not any honest toil, such that their wealth grows but from their wits, not their hands.
On our trip Richard continued his most generous ways with me, faring me well with bread, and with stew, and also tankard of my favorite drink, which is perry. Along the way at times when weather was fair he would halt the horses and wagon, and leave Stephen and I to fish, where we might. These we would share with him and our manner of travel was leisurely but measured. We came to Penzance on the 18th of October. I remember because it was the Feast of Saint Luke. I have always liked the Gospel of Luke most and there is not an association in my mind with the other apostles, who seem reluctant to be of forgiveness as they are sure of their place by the Lord’s side.
    I took Stephen with me to meet with Clarence of Mousehole. He was charmed by the older youth with his fine speech and manner. Stephen garnered amongst all the instruments hanging in the shop, looking for one which he might easily choose to play upon. He bought him a small flute, of the type that blow straight through the tube, and when he had it, we both went out on the streets ourselves to make songs. We collected a number of ha’pennies and farthings, and this we took to Richard, who pronounced us fine clever lads. I told Richard that I would take me a room for lent someplace nearby, such that I could leave my pouch and my lute and be of more assistance, as Stephen was called on, to move the great number of woolsacks from the cart onto the drayage dock at the ship they would be taking across to France. It took us the better part of a day to move them all, but at say’s end, Richard again treated us to perry, ale, and cider. But the combination of all three gave me a bellyache, and my head was sore in the morning. When the ship sailed, the next day, and Stephen and Richard were departing, I stood at the dock and waved farewell. It would be another quarter year before I would see either again, and during that time, I had to make do how I might with the winter of Mousehole and Penzance.

My little room was above a street full of shops. There were always men coming and going with market carts, there was always a stray cat in need of milk, there was always a cry in the street of the mussel woman and the fishmonger. Here, life was not expensive to live, but one must be careful. When I went out to the street to busk, I needed to watch my cap, for there were rogues who would fain to rob me of my earnings when my back might be turned. They often sat by the side as I played, offering their weak comments on my playing. Sometimes I would get tired of them, and brush them aside, calling them drunkards and layabouts, for that they were. I had to be careful however- sometimes they would follow me to a tavern, thinking to steal my lute, or to talk me into standing a round of ale on their behalf, but I said I only would drink with friends, and they were as strange to me as none by Adam.
At the end of the first winter week I made a new friend, Ranulf, who was a piper. He played a bagpipe made of cloth and skin, with several pipes and a chanter, and he played in what he called the Breton style, of the northern French coast. There were many songs which he taught to me, the melodies, at least, for he could not sing while he blew the pipes, but he knew many. These if I could recall so many I turned into my plainsong, without a lyric, and performed in the taverns when they were open to me. Some nights I would be sent early on my way, being so young, but then there were also taverners who enjoyed my playing so much that they would set me at a high table with a good meal, and all the perry or ale I might regard for myself, if I would but play all night for the publicans. Sometimes they would offer in a penny as well, and again, the more pennies I earned, the more I saved them, until the pouch in my little room where I kept my sleep was fat with silver.
Ranulf came from France, and as such, spoke both his tongue and mine. Where we could communicate best was on our instruments, where speech was not needed. I would accompany him, or he I, and in so doing, we reckoned ourselves to be more profitable by two than we were each by one. The best night of all came when we had been heard by a local noble Sir Anselm at the Bracken Eel, a dank tavern of the Penzance dock;  and he took us aside that we should spent the Christmastide at his manor, which was at the far north end of Penzance, and entertain all the fine knights and ladies who would make their way to his table fair.  These knights were all loyal to King Henry of Bolingbroke, and I made it a secret that my own loyalty would be to the Earl of Chester, as I also wanted no one to know I was keeping my way alone, that the Shire Reeve of Chester should not come to know my leaving Cheshire. Were I to be found out I might be dragged back in chains and irons, and forced into vassalage. So therefore I was no longer Julian Crofter of Chestershire but Julian Plectrum, of the country of Bristol,  my name I took from the bright, flat greenstone which Clarence of Mousehole gave me for my plucking the strings of Luisa. Green is my lucky color, and happy were the days and nights we spent at the hall of Sir Anselm.


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Wednesday, October 9, 2013

In Whose Name Do They Work Their Ways?

     Hard to tell about this man who sits at the desk of Secretary of State. Once upon a time he was a soldier who saw through the ugliness implicit in warfare. Now, as the nominal head of the State Department, he sees war itself as a form of diplomacy, enough of one that he can use it as a threat and bully-stick to get other nations to jump through his hoops. Once, he took umbrage at the United States working against principles it had signed on to in the Geneva convention- now, he flaunts the Geneva Convention while insisting that those who would rather the US uphold it are 'lending support to terrorists"- those whom he feels he has the right to abduct and hold at bay on the high seas, rather than, subject them to justice in a true court of law.
   
     This man, whose somnolent eyes and sophomoric expression (akin perhaps to that of a sad, pathetic old beagle, say) and squinting glance attempt to assert authority and senatorial wisdom, has helped to take the United States from a nation at odds with a few, to that at arms with many.
 
     Just consider, if you would, their secret drone campaign. This has killed average of about ten foreign civilians per week in the past three years, often along with a claim of "suspected militancy" on the part of those so doomed. As if every single use of a drone-launched missile had the accuracy of knowing exactly whom it had targeted, and that the operators (hidden deep within the United States, or one of its proxy foreign outposts) had complete knowledge of whom and what they had targeted... Although, we have learned, often as not, innocent civilians are the victims of these attacks. These attacks are fully sanctioned by his State Department and CIA. The targets never know they are targeted, although they are, in a general sense, aware that there are always drones flying about in their vicinity. The knowledge that death might rain down upon you from the sky, is itself "terror." So when the Secretary of the United States gets up on his pedestal and claims that these things are done in order to "fight terror" not only is he being disingenuous, but he is lying.
   
     Lying, of course, is nothing new in American politics, but this administration has been raising it to a high art. Not only does the President lie, on many occasions (the most egregious, of course, in this writer's mind, was the one that he would in no wise sign the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, which legalized summary executions as well as indefinite detentions for US citizens) but so do his highest ranking national security advisers, with regularity, and most commonly, when confronted with allegations by their Congressional overseers.
   
     One must wonder, of course, who is actually overseeing these people. Who, for instance, authorized the building of a giant Mega-Brain for Big Brother's Metadata Mining Operations in Utah? This came out of the NSA's "black box budget"- someone, somewhere. If not the heads of the congressional national security oversight committees, then who? What is it that led a supposed "Constitutional Scholar" to become the very symbol of constitutional transgression of the contemporary age? The one who said he would hold his predecessors responsible for their violations of constitutional duty and international law? The one who decided, once he had obtained that coveted office, the best course in that regard would be "Forward, March!" over the lemming cliff?
   
    Disagreement with tyrants is not necessarily unpatriotic, although the new world we live in is in actuality post-nationalistic. Internet access across the globe is threatened by those who would insist they have the right to interfere in the sovereignty not only of other nations, but of every computer-literate individual on the planet.  And that these people are tyrants is only a matter of time to be proven, but they have "of necessity" built up the framework for the most totalitarian society ever conceived by the human mind. And this, they would say, exists to protect the freedom of its citizens. It would seem that the freedom our ancestors fought for to acquire and defend for over 200 years has been itself consigned to the dustbin of history, since in no wise could it have meant that the Bill Of Rights was a negotiable issue, subject to some "tradeoff between liberty and security." Such conceptualizations are oxymoronic and sophist, and cannot bear the scrutiny of the enlightened and liberty-loving mind. When liberty itself is outlawed, only outlaws will be at liberty.


Being President of the United States of America means never having to say you're sorry:
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