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About four o’clock in the afternoon, an elderly man rushed through the halls of a sprawling palace. He was a king, King Henry, and it was in this complex of buildings and courtyards that an administration of his sustained a whole realm. Situated upon a tall, narrow plateau, the web of buildings included stone walls, a castle, churches, markets, homes, cisterns, parks, and more. Many people lived there—so did Henry.
The commoners of the land were once gleeful to have King Henry. He was active, vivacious, ambitious; he brought new wealth and benefits for the common people. As of late, though, the social reservation of his old age kept him from being much adored by anyone. Territories proper, fiefs, and marches, both now and then, all acknowledged Henry’s suzerainty over them. Henry was a powerful king indeed, and he (of all people) came to learn that fact very well. Within this complex, he ruled. His reign rushed by with glamorous success, but with old age, whatever he accomplished took so long that it may as well have stagnated without effort. But such is besides the point. On this particular day within this complex, he went about through a quarter of the palace he seldom visited. It was a dog day in the dying summer, a summer which he was gravely concluding would be his last.
A dun dust laminated decrepit drawings on the wall of the corridor. Even the monarch, so accustomed and often appreciative of the ancient palace, was perturbed by the decor. It made him wonder how even during their finest hour, anyone could have appreciated the characters on the walls. Devoid of perspective, geometry, and of flamboyant colors they perhaps possessed ago. They did not even resemble men and women and life, he thought to himself; not like the lovely baroque motifs he favored in his decor. They gave themselves out to be more like the uncannily vague pictograms from the old kingdoms of Egypt. It was one of the first rooms of the palace to be constructed, centuries prior to all the events anyone alive could have witnessed. Nonetheless, there were far older things than it, more innate to the projects of mankind. The cradles of society, noble and prestigious lands of Egypt, of Persia, of Greece, of Rome…dead civilizations killed by barbarians as those responsible for eerie things along the room’s interior.
His pace had slowed, distracted by the immensely disconcerting sketches flanking him on each side. Realizing that he was loitering there with little purpose, Henry swiftly jolted back to life, and discarded his surroundings as he pushed further into the palace’s most dilapidated corners. He passed a few doors to his left, although to his right were long, old, foggy windows facing the most unmanaged courtyard. Branches still sprawled out of trees whose existence had coincided with that of the foundation of the citadel. The core buildings there were constructed in the heyday of…Lewis? William? Some king, he admitted to himself, in the likes of himself.
Henry opened the formidable doors to a chapel, the chapel of that long-gone king he couldn’t quite remember offhand. He hadn’t been in there since his childhood, since his coronation years back. Other chapels besides it were made since then, by him and others in the palace, and so that particular one had fallen out of use many years prior. Yet somehow, besides all of the dust, the room preserved its life through all those years. There was a quaint vitality in this deserted landmark of a chapel, its atmosphere decorated by the glistening dust particles that were illuminated by the glass. The glass panes, picturing biblical scenes with the pious imagination of the medieval clergy, never lost their vibrant tint, and the pigments that nestled into those crystals ages ago still could color the particles of dust in the air. Not much at all had changed to the place since he last had come; it was all there, in all of its majestic beauty. In an ironic twist, the breathing spirit of the chapel brought revival to old, buried, lapsed memories hidden within Henry. These fragmented figments erupted into a rhapsody of remembrance that flickered and coalesced together, and it gave rise to an eclectic, coagulated network of recollection.
The king thought of the many faces who he saw at his coronation many years ago. His parents and siblings, his cousins, his friends, persons of great importance within and without the kingdom, which was much smaller back then. The eager bishop, looking earnestly at the young regent-to-be, crown in hand. It was just as illuminated back then as it still remained that day, but the dust was alive; as glitter, as confetti, as palatable spices, as opulent metals. There was food and drink and laughter and company all abound, all with the promise of a prosperous future for himself and his land lying before him; oh, what a euphoric joy it would be to relive it again!
Lining those seats, he could see only caricatures of the people that his mind could recall. Sure, he could summon many of those smiles who had embraced him at face value when he took the laurels of power. But where were those other noted people, who weren’t so keen to love him—that wasn’t a question. He knew. Those people, whose fates became intertwined with his own, became severed from his with each injustice. They were servants, courtiers, nobles, rivals; all eager to slit his throat while he slept defenceless. All intent were they on ensuring their own successes, fulfilling their own wills, but never for the people’s will! It was him and only him, he reiterated, that had the right to rule, the heart to rule; the unabated passion of progress that fueled the achievements he accomplished many years ago when most of the faces had to leave. Still, would he ever see those ill-fated, ill-minded people again? A bout of sorrow went through his spine, and Henry shivered forlornly.
His attention was called to the pipe organ above the entrance, sitting upon the mezzanine. He climbed up the stairs, and with the press of a key, determined that it was still functional. Henry was of fluency in the arts, and so he sat down to play an aimless arrangement of an impromptu project. Chord by chord, a sonorous recall from wall to wall flooded from the pipes across the chapel’s air. Could it seduce those spirits out of hiding? As he continued playing, he proclaimed across the desolate hall. “Come about!” he shouted, “and let us make amends.” All he heard was a human’s echo punctuating the sonically colorful backdrop. "Let us make amends for I have done you wrong.” He kept playing his song, glancing across the chapel’s decor and walls, expecting something. There was an emptiness in the chapel, and Henry felt awfully alone. The hollowness of the room became ever so more apparent. The organ kept on amusing him for a while, providing humming motifs to supplement his train of thought. He looked more tired, as though the energy in him was seeping into the singing pipes.
His fingers decelerated as he came to the penultimate chord of his ramblings. The organ urged for Henry to complete the song, to finally settle down to the tonic, but Henry sustained the dissonant discord. With his head bent still bent backwards, his eyes finally settled onto the altar across the room. His eyes dilated deeper into the altar, realizing an incongruent reflection between a man that once was and the man that he had become. A crown of gold before there, bestowed upon the noble, righteous man. He had done much in his reign. A long, accomplished history. He looked for a long time at that altar, and with the chapel staring back at him, he wished intently on brushing aside all of the history of all that he had ever made.
Finally, Henry’s fingers slid onto the keys of the tonic chord, and the delirious man slept his burdened mind until he hadn’t a breath left to give to the organ and to the chapel that had given him everything.
