TCOTNK Season 3.8
The Castle Of The Naked Knights. The origins of the picture book that will change so many lives....
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TCOTNK Season 3.8
Gorgio wants to keep me on the horse but I don't want Gorgio. I'm floating. Not ready to land for a long time. I want to go to the woman. Talk to her. Ask questions. I slide off the warm horseback and give my smouldering arrow to a bystander. Then I want to go back to the caravan. But I don't get the chance. I am being whisked away. Am the queen of the moment. The lord of the castle comes down to see who has caught his arrow. The atmosphere is very cheerful.
“You!?” he says in surprise, “The looking girl that draws. About whom my African guests couldn't stop talking.” He takes my arm. Girl? I half expect that I will now have to go to the castle. Where the rich guests are. Where the actual party is. But he has taken off his striped suit and now looks like an ordinary visitor. "They'll be fine upstairs," he says, "I've done my duty." He doesn't walk possessively with me. Rather proud. Relaxed and satisfied. He is happy and cheerful. Smiles at everyone and kisses both men and women. Almost everyone knows him. We are on our way to the bottom of the field near the road. The heart of this gathering. A scene that could be from any time, and it is. It is timeless, we are in a different place. A temporary opening. It could be anywhere and it can only be right now and nowhere else. We pass a spontaneous concert of two saxophones. One low and one high. Pies are sold and my chaperone treats. He drinks beer. I don't want alcohol and order Ambrosia, which the saleswoman says is completely plant-based. It's very sweet. Tastes like elderflower and pear and a bundle of herbs. The lord of the castle holds my food because I have to hold up my torn skirt with one hand.
We choose a patch of grass at the front of the stage. I am spontaneously offered a blanket because of my beautiful dress. We eat the shamelessly delicious baked goods. I'm a little too greedy.
"You haven't had time to eat yet either," he says.
I shake my head no with my mouth full.
“That's how it should be,” he says, “first the unworldly matters, then food.”
“Unworldly?” I ask through the last crumb.
He nods and smiles. Looks musingly at the still dark stage.
I tap his knee. He looks me in the eye.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
"It was a time arrow," he says, "symbolically of course."
He looks away again. I'm sure he's reluctant. He’d rather not say out loud what I want to hear.
“If you had aimed a millimeter higher,” I say, regaining his attention, “I would have been done for. I want to know what that means, a time arrow.”
He looks around. Establishes that we are relatively alone.
“This arrow passes on the old fire,” he says.
Yeah, like I know something now, I think to myself.
"The recipient," he then says, almost inaudibly, "is the one who will light the new fire in the future."
He smiles at passers-by. Looks at me again intently. Moves a bit to the side for a gray-haired friend who lowers his stiff buttocks next to him, groaning. There seems to be some movement on stage. And I'm still looking at him. I know there's more to come.
He leans over me, pushes my hair aside.
"It's not right," he whispers in my ear. 'you are water, not fire.'
He sighs and adds, 'yet you are without a doubt the recipient. I don't know what it means, it's obviously too early, and…'
He sniffs and leans his head against mine for a moment before continuing, "the story goes that the recipient of the time-arrow dies after passing it on."
