The Balladeer's Curse

In taverns they sing of me still, though their tunes ring false as they drift on the night wind alongside the smell of woodsmoke. I set no foot within such walls now for the last time I did, there sat a fair-haired minstrel weaving my wickedness into a saint’s lament. He sang that I stole from the Sheriff for love of the poor, that I spared the weak, gave bread to babes and gold to widows with milk-white smiles.God’s truth, I near choked on my own laughter. I robbed the Sheriff because he slew my brother’s horse for sport; I spared none who stood against me; I took what I would, and let fire take the rest. I drank with thieves while the babes starved; the widows cursed me when I left them poorer than before, and still I slept soundly at night.

Yet the dreamer cares naught for such truths. His eyes are full of moonlight, and he sees the world not as it is but as it might please him to be. In his song, I am no cutthroat but a hero of the hedge and hollow, a wild-hearted saint, a rebel touched with grace. He damns me with his worship.

The old still mutter prayers when they hear my name, but the young, the witless young, they smile, believe me a ghost that blesses thieves, a symbol of courage in dark times.They carve my sigil upon their doors and whisper my name for luck. The Sheriff’s men drink easy now, believing me long dead and buried. Yet I walk and I hear the songs: they pursue me o'er the hills, light as mist, cold as guilt.

The boy sings at the crossroads where the gallows lean awry. His voice rises to the heavens and even the carrion crows silent. He sings me righteous, he sings me hero, he sings of a goodly death begging forgiveness beneath a harvest moon, the earth taking me gentle into her keeping. Lie upon lie upon lie. So this night I go to end the boy, the lies, the blunting of my life. I shall split his lute and silence his traitorous tongue, and truth shall stand naked and hard once more: not legend, but a man with blood on his hands and darkness in his heart

The moor lies silvered and whispering when I make my way through the heather and gorse to find him. He turns at my step, and speaks my name as though it were prayer. My knife —is raised, glinting wickedly in the light of the moon, yet he begins to sing anew. This is no praise but prophecy: he sings how I shall sink into the mire, how my flesh shall root and feed the moss, how my name shall bloom green again from rot. And I see it then, my shadow stretching long and strange, sprouting antlers like black branches. The ground breathes beneath me; the trees lean close as if to listen. His song winds round my throat like ivy and the earth, faithless as ever, prepares to take me home.