Part XVI - Still as the Silence Round About His Lair
It wasn't usually the director of photography's job, on these shoots, to do this kind of groundwork. Finding sources for local legends, or the locals who could tell them, was something the writers/hosts/directors/producers had always handled. And yes,...
Part X - And Thus They Welcomed Me, One Among Their Band
The Stag was much as it had been last time. A little less crowded, though maybe not. A little less noisy, though only possibly. The same lights over the dance floor. The same pornographic encouragement on the screens. The same alcohol and cologne,...
Bragging Rights
A full moon hung low in the sparkling night sky. Its silvery light streamed through the pines and skittered across the deathly still lake. But the night was still young, and the warbling coos of pigeons still echoed from the treetops where they huddled...
Love Against Aggravation
_What glorious loves does history display,_ _But greater still is trust. There's grander, more luxurious ways to play_ _But this will do for us._ As once, within a earth-cool family room, I shepherded bright...
The Lepanto Institute
Thin thoughts thrashing in the think tank's fears (Don John of Austria's been dead hundreds of years.) You type your twitter messages of heresy and hate, But Notes of the Community shall set the record straight. The pope is not a president. His...
He Of the Trees
“Orpheus founded too the mysteries of Dionysus, and having been rent asunder by the Maenads he rests in Pieria." — Apollodorus, “The Library," I, 3, 2. “I hope you've been comfortable?" “As comfortable as one can be in prison, sir." “You...
A Reading From the Gospel According to the Wolf
_Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord_ _Of the god of earth and altar that our forefathers adored._ _Though to last until that promised land is more'n I can afford_ _I'll last a little longer yet. On that you have my word._ The...
Part XV - Of All of the Boys Who Were Schoolmates Then There are Only You and I
Someone witnessing events, invisible but ever present, from the outside, might have been forgiven for thinking that being fully and officially Will's hadn't changed Leo's life all that much. Like a newlywed after the honeymoon, the return to ordinary...
Part VII - Who Are You, Taking Coffee No Sugar
Leo came down in the morning without a shirt. He'd woken up to find it gone from the neat pile on the floor. "Huh," Will hadn't sounded surprised. "Guess you're not wearing a shirt today then, pup." The living room held only that dim, clear, faintly...
Hyfrydal
Praise the Father of midwinter Who begets the Conquering Cold Praise and pity too the Vagrant Stretch to him your hand, to hold. Void yet virile, unchaste yet childless, Take away the heat of our days Till we stand like thee unsweltering Harsh...
The Baptism Is Long But The Song Is Everlasting
"And what makes you think he set foot on my boat?" Captain Achelous Salimahum Fitzulmo kept his arms crossed and his paws carefully still. Only his tailtip stirred. He hated having to wear his jacket when they made port but the shorebound and suchlike...
The Green Night
The air smelled green up in the mountains. Bertilak had insisted they'd have supper first, and talk on the back deck afterward. Gawain's explanation that he'd come a long way, didn't Bertilak know that? It took a day and a half by train and ferry and...