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By Aperius Ponti
Now as I prepare to leave for the last time, I recall the Loup of my youth.
Tomorrow my coach shall pass through those familiar streets and bring back memories of old friends.
Even if Loup prevails against the besieging force, much I fear will be lost.
With that in mind, I record here that which I can yet recall of my long years in the White City.
First is my mother’s house on Fishmongers Forum.
It was five stories of white limestone in the heart of the old city.
A shoemaker rented the space off the street and the first level.
My mother, brother, two sisters, and I lived on the second, and the top two levels were split into four apartments.
Tennants came in series over the years, and many were students from the monastery.
The most memorable, however, was Borus, my friend.
He and his mother moved into the attic apartment when he and I were about 10 years old.
His mother was a cook in the Anchor-Chain, a tavern a few blocks down from the Forum, and his father was a sailor on my own father’s ship.
We went to school and played together until around sixteen when he went upon the sea and I joined the order.
The next chapter of my life took me to the monastery.
My brother followed my father to sea, and as the second son, I joined the church.
The Order of Saint Gemino maintained a monastery atop Pontine hill, a privileged place, second to the Order of the Hound - well, and to the Palace of the Archpontiff himself.
The Geminines claimed the southern face of the hill and built the monastery with seven equal sides and one long side facing south to absorb the winter sun.
The dormitories lined this wall, each with a small window that projected the red light of dawn onto the far wall of the cell.
In the center was a garden, my favorite place.
Even in the wintery climate of Loup we grew apples, plums, cherries, and most every kind of berry.
Colorful songbirds roosted there each summer.
There were benches for reading beneath the overhanging trees, and the high walls kept out the cold wind.
Most of my days there were spent in prayer and study, and I was perhaps too eager to leave for the wider world.
I took my robes, my pack, and my scripture, and departed Loup on my missions for many years.
On my return, as an old man, I found the city in some ways much changed from the old days, but in some ways completely the same.
The old white limestone houses still stood in the same places and the ships still came and went with the tide.
The palace and monasteries still commanded the hilltops.
Yet the people were poorer of spirit.
Their eyes were darker, faces thinner, and voices more hushed.
Where once the streets of my home rung with ourpoured tavern-song and the patter of market-stalls, now they were filled by the regular clatter of hooves and armaments on the road to war.
I could see that the people no longer remembered me as their neighbor, but as one of the many churchmen who could share the blame for the war, for taking their sons - and that was when we were winning.
As the war drew ever nearer to home, I returned to the monastery as I couldn’t bear seeing my people starve - Reisolus forgive my weakness.
Now as we bar the gate and prepare to sail into the frozen north, I’ve picked the last of the fruit from the garden and will leave the baskets on the steps before the door.
My last hope is that the garden will survive the fires when the enemies raze the city.