The Old Man of the Mountain

Every morning, he walked out onto the balcony. We thought of him as one of those battle-scarred hounds, perhaps of the kind used to bait bulls. He had no patience for bulls, even in the singular.

He would nod to the head of his prefects. And the whole Citadel would be silent in the morning sun.

We saw him afar off and uncomfortably near. But as a man on his own, body stretched out but mind sharp and clear as a glass dagger, he was both our lord and a father to us. Words came from him in a drawl that was somehow tightly executed.

He made us better. It was his duty, and he did not shirk duty. There was no encounter you could have with him, in which you did not learn something more. Whether that thing was of this world, of others, of society or of yourself, it would be something useful—and that, even if you did not know it at the time.

When I became a teacher, he said, "Well done." It was his way to stress the final word, to give a short bright smile of approval, sometimes guffaw when particularly cheered or pleased. He had taught my parents, and it was not small honour they felt that he believed they were of worth. I too felt that way.

In later years, with my own scars, I went to visit him in his rooms deep in the hill. He looked at me, said, "Do your best. Do what good you can. There are always those... who will blow their own trumpets. But we... do not have to care so much."

We spoke for more than an hour. He spoke to me of difficult times ahead, of changing times, of holding sure and steadfast even while moving with the times. At the end, he asked me to convey his regards to my parents.

I never got the chance to have another long chat with him, although I saw him a few times more. Since his time, there has been no lord at the Citadel, or any other House of the Wyvern, that has been as brave and strong in the Spirit and in the faith of God.

I do not think I mourn, although that is what I did when I first heard of his passing. He would have said, "That is... growing up. We make do. We muddle on, but we do our best. We fight... the good fight."

His cadences were always tempered and carefully chosen. He would stretch out his lines, hurry them up, add force, subtract cruelty. He was fond of the dramatic pause, but sometimes it was because he sought the exact word, the right word, the truthful word.

And if ever a true lord were to return to the Citadel, I would wish it to be a man like him. A hound of God. Domini canus. To all such men who have made their mark in this grand endeavour:

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.

He would have remembered his old university motto and grinned.