Inside it was still dark, in the entranceway among the beds. Farther on, in the hearth, I could see a pale fire and hear music. Around me people were asleep. I walked among them down the length of the hall. In winter they had never slept so long. They would have been outside by then, trampling the snow, running with the dogs, but in this strange red thaw it was as if the air was starving us. I walked down through the aisles of beds, hearing some flute music from somewhere, a song called “I don’t know.” But it did nothing to ease my mind, for I could see the bodies of some children stretched out on the stones in front of the hearth, their faces mutilated in a way I had already seen. I hated that mark. The barbarians had cut a double line across their brows and a hole through their cheeks, as if they were trying to pollute the emptiness of death with meaning. I hated it; I was unhappy and ashamed to admit it even to myself, for unhappiness, too, is a barbarian ritual. It is the enemy of freedom, and to console myself I thought: things happen by chance. But chance had not killed these children and marked their faces. My lords, you must think we were fools. Now, tonight, it seems so clear—the barbarians had sent soldiers to destroy us.

Your bishop had sent soldiers. And even then I knew we were in danger. But we are not easily roused, you can imagine. So I did nothing, thinking that what was clear to me was clear to all. Only I had brought the barbarians’ guns, long rifles and belts of ammunition. I threw them down on the stone steps below the stage and turned to go to bed.

I awoke to gunshots. I opened my eyes in stuffy darkness, and for a while I just lay there, listening to the sounds, gunshots and people yelling. I lay there, and in a little while I could see around me and see my sister in the next bed. The night before, she had taken a silver bracelet from a bag of barbarian jewelry. It had been slaved into a pattern of fighting beasts; now she held her arm above her head, moving her wrist from side to side, examining the effect, not altogether happy. “They mean to kill us,” she said, in a voice heavy with sleep. This was something she knew, something she had been told; doubtless the barbarian soldiers had told her, for even in a few notes I knew the mode, and I could hear no self, no speculation in it. I understood she was repeating something she had heard the night before. She continued: “They have a prince . . . a priest . . . a parson, who tells them what to do.”

These words meant nothing to her, I could tell. And I lost interest. I was more interested in the gunshots, the bracelet, her white wrist. I sat up, rubbing my eyes and saying, “Why?” to make her talk again. But that was all she knew. She made an answer, but I could hear a part of her own music in it. She was expressing an opinion, and so I listened only to the sound. I loved the sound of her. Some of her melodies I can no longer live without. They have become a part of my own music, part of myself, my own heart’s song. My lords, why am I telling you this? It is not the place. And if, then, it was part of my thoughts, it was only a small part. For I was listening to the gunshots. I thought, I will never see her again.