The Knight of Scarred Hearts

O Your Majesty, I’m infinitely honored to stand in your illustrious presence and to have been granted permission to trouble your night with my words. What I am about to tell you will have neither the splendor of your heroes’ exploits, nor the sweetness of your ladies-in-waiting’s tales, nor even the accuracy of your bards’ songs.

No, the story I must tell you tonight, at this late hour, is sorrowful in many respects. It isn’t here to flatter pride, nor to absolve sins. This story is a warning to those who still believe that kindness alone suffices, and a reminder to those who learned too late that it can also wound more sharply than a blade. It’s meant for those who love without measure, for those who hope despite contrary signs, and for those who sometimes mistake patience for sacrifice.

Allow me, therefore, Your Majesty, to warn you that I cannot swear that all I’m about to recount is accurate, but in the light of what I know, I swear that nothing in it is false.

It’s the story of a knight, said to be mad. Not with that bitter madness that drives men to brandish knives or clench their fists, but with a madness without hatred or blame, like that seen in certain wandering knights whose souls rear but never bite. His madness, in truth, didn’t stem from a storm of blood, but from the fact that almost no one saw him. He had taken it into his head that if he showed enough valiant courage, enough steadfast virtue, if he endured the contrary winds and the perils laid across his path, then others would eventually see him and love him.

Alas! Nothing worked. They kept him at a distance, like a leper at the threshold of inns. And each refusal pierced his chest with a nagging stab, for though he had lost his mind, his heart remained intact. To remember this, and perhaps to draw some strength from it, each time it happened, he would carve a heart into his skin, right into his flesh. Rows and rows of scarred hearts on his arms, legs, and torso, like a graveyard of shattered hopes.

Nevertheless, he pressed on. Ever more alone, ever more mad. He multiplied gestures, feats, and journeys, believing he could fill the gaping void gnawing at his soul; but a void remains a void, even if filled with a hundred exploits. At night, in his camp, under the high moon that seemed to look down at him, he wondered: by what curse had he been led to this place of solitude? And was it even permissible for him to hope, one day, for a little love? Did there exist, somewhere in the vast theater of the world, a soul made to hear his own?

Still, he let himself sink into this fragile hope. And, in the same breath, he recognized that he had always lived alone, eating, walking, dreaming alone, like a pilgrim whom company no one sought. He was born to wander, and destiny seldom disowns its first draft. To cheat his sorrow, he fashioned kingdoms of shadow and light. He told himself fables, populated with imaginary voices, gilded promises, an embellished past, and a future embroidered in azure. He invented an invisible companion; he pictured walking with her, sharing his bread, seating her beside him in theaters. He pressed her to him in his dreams, and his nights were all the crueler upon waking. For all this was but a mirage, a fleeting reflection upon the water.

Then one day, like a bottle the gods push toward the most desolate shore, someone appeared whom he hadn’t expected. No one knows when or where such bottles and their messages wash ashore, but sometimes their words illuminate an entire horizon, brighter than any dawn. That encounter was gentle, reassuring, as unexpected as a lightning bolt failling from the sky to strike the soul. A voice that, suddenly, made the world seem less hostile.

Just when he thought his chance had slipped away forever, he convinced himself that all the injustices, all the blows of fate, had been merely the prelude to this apparition. As in legends, where, at the darkest hour of night, a princess or prince appears to restore harmony. The hardest part, he thought, is never the trial itself : it is finding the right door and the path that leads to that destiny, without ever breaking.

So he did his best to preserve this story and make of it an idyll that all the bards of the world would sing. A story where his flaws were silenced, where his fears dissipated like morning mist. He amended himself, he matured, he shed his old skins. The scarred hearts, one by one, faded under the caress of happiness. They knew wonderful seasons : mingled laughter, shared roads, entwined dreams. But life, perfidious old thing, always moves its pieces in the shadows. Plans sank, trials loomed, and the old ache of his soul returned to knock at the portcullis. The scarred hearts slowly resurfaced.

For no story ever progresses straight as a lance. No path runs to its destination without detours. Even the sun has never crossed the firmament in a straight line. Even the stars sway in slow sarabandes. Life is a tangled web, a labyrinth without a master. Only tragic tales fly straight, like Cupid’s unreal arrows.

Thus their story could not unfold without faltering. It was but a mirage. His efforts to transform himself, his years of solitary asceticism, all of it dissipated like ashes in the icy wind of truth, along with those dreams of eternal love. He understood that even when one means well, even when one never succumbs to hubris, the face of our own weaknesses always ends up showing itself… and we pay the price. Thus ended their idyll.

Then he wondered : had their story lasted longer than necessary out of true love, or out of fear of returning to the original solitude ? Had they pursued this path in hope of recapturing the best moments of the past, or out of terror of the abyss that lay ahead ? Or had his beloved’s patience worn thin at the sight of his suffering ? Whatever the case, he knew that both of them had desired, in their own way, to preserve the splendour of their tale and spare it from any misfortune. But he also knew this : it’s the end that gives meaning to the journey, and we remember the wounds more than the joys. For him, it remained a precious novel, one he would reread a thousand times. Perhaps on every page, every line, every character, he will discover imperfections, awkwardness, inaccuracies, but that was precisely the beauty of this novel, what gave the story its strength.

Yet, in the eyes of his beloved, he was nothing more than a footnote. He stirred, struggled, tried to contribute to the harmony of the whole, but his name faded into the margins. And yet he clung on, convinced that a splendid work deserves to be held close to one’s heart, even at the cost of a thousand pains, and to prevent its end.

But the more he tried to reclaim his place in this narrative, the more the characters of this novel dissipated, as if it were simpler to erase them than to rewrite them.

What use had it been to write this story for years? To shed his heavy armour and offer his bare flesh to the arrows of fate? Perhaps certain wounds were necessary to push the story forward. But he was no longer certain of that. He had sometimes brushed against the living heart of this novel, but had never pierced its secret. And now, that had become impossible. She who had given him his most beautiful memories had herself become a memory.

His last hope was that one day, the sun would cross the firmament in a straight line to illuminate their story once more. That an eclipse would reunite them, or that their dawns would answer each other so they could take up the pen together and begin a new chapter. He believed, against all reason, that this tale was only just beginning, that valiant souls accept one another with their imperfections, their metamorphoses, their storms, and move forward together no matter what might happen. That no matter the struggles and challenges they would face, no matter whether they supported or exhausted each other, they would remain, despite all opposition, lifelong companions devoted to one another forever. But perhaps, for that to happen, one must let the bottle drift a while at sea, let its mysteries wander as long as necessary, before it finds its shore under better conditions.

So the knight tried to put his emotions and feelings aside, lest his misery and fears become a source of endless despair. But alas, stories transform those who live them, and he no longer recognised the knight he had been. A vicious circle bound him like irons. His old fears returned in a cavalcade, and now that he had tasted the light, the return to darkness was all the more bitter. What was the point of all these efforts if he could not share them? If he could no longer catch pride in the eyes of the one he loved? And in this suffocating reality, he sank ever deeper into madness, more broken, more alone.

Though time passed, nothing ever altered his feelings. So, in the silence of the night, he contented himself with scarred one last heart, thus erasing the pain forever.

But this story doesn’t end there, Your Majesty ; it’s infinitely more complex. He now knew that, to survive, he would have to awaken from his shattered dreams, even if it meant leaving behind the brightest shards of what he had hoped for. He knew that pain and longing would remain within him forever, but that he would have to relearn how to move forward and find joy in his daily endeavours.

So he set out on a very long journey to the ends of the world. There, it was said, the roads led nowhere, save to one’s own path. His armour, once bright and gleaming, rusted and fell to tatters. He learned to sleep without dreams, to eat without sharing, and to fight without glory.

Days and months passed, and he continued onward with only the song of birds and the rustle of leaves in the wind for company.

In the evenings, he let the fire live, and sat by its blaze to warm himself. And perhaps, Your Majesty, that is the final truth of this tale. Some fires are not meant to be extinguished, but to teach us how not to burn.