rdfs:comment
| - ‘Bedura's Defence’ in The Slaying of King Qualin Tros of Bellid, transcribed as song by Fisher, Malaz City, last year of Laseen’s Reign. "An old man past soldieringhis rivets green, his eyesrimmed in rust,stood as if heaved awakefrom slaughter’s pit, back-cutfrom broken flightwhen young blades chased himfrom the field.He looks like a promise only foolscould dream unfurled,the banners of glorygesticulatingin the wind over his head,stripped like ghosts,skulls stove in, lips flapping,their open mouths mute.‘Oh harken to me,’ cries heatop his imagined summit,and I shall speak ... of richesand rewards, of my greatness,my face once young like theseI see before me ... harken!’While here I sit at the Tapu’stable, grease-fingeredwith skewered meat, cracked gobletpearled in the hot sun, the winewate
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abstract
| - ‘Bedura's Defence’ in The Slaying of King Qualin Tros of Bellid, transcribed as song by Fisher, Malaz City, last year of Laseen’s Reign. "An old man past soldieringhis rivets green, his eyesrimmed in rust,stood as if heaved awakefrom slaughter’s pit, back-cutfrom broken flightwhen young blades chased himfrom the field.He looks like a promise only foolscould dream unfurled,the banners of glorygesticulatingin the wind over his head,stripped like ghosts,skulls stove in, lips flapping,their open mouths mute.‘Oh harken to me,’ cries heatop his imagined summit,and I shall speak ... of richesand rewards, of my greatness,my face once young like theseI see before me ... harken!’While here I sit at the Tapu’stable, grease-fingeredwith skewered meat, cracked gobletpearled in the hot sun, the winewatered to make, in thealliance of thin and thick,both passing palatable.As near as an arm’s reachfrom this rabbler, thisravelling trumpeter who oncemight have stood shield-lockedat my side, red-hued, maskeddrunk, coarse with fear, inthe moment before he broke—broke and ran-and now he would call a newgeneration to war, to battle-clamour,and why? Well, why ... allbecause he once ran, but listen:a soldier who ran onceever runs, and this,honoured magistrate,is the reason—the sole reason I say—for my knife finding his back.He was a soldierwhose words heaved meawake." ―Bedura’s Defence by Fisher
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