I fought for many countries, and against many countries. I avoided all the hopeless battles, but fought in many pointless ones. I fought under many different banners, and I fought beside many different men, but I only ever fought for one cause. Money. I did not know this country, but I had seen the world, and I knew a lost cause when I saw one. This country was almost dead. The towns and estates and the countryside itself lay in ruins from the war. Men of all kinds wandered the roads. Strong men driven by want, and embittered by pain, who despise their own country and don’t even care for themselves. Other men too, broken from the war, who had seen their families killed and their houses burned. Helpless, desperate, and unpredictable, who are just as dangerous and who might be more deserving of pity. If we could trust pity. If pity was any more than a weakness. They all wandered the road I was walking.
The man I had been following was alone and dressed in rags, but I knew how nobles dressed poorly when travelling on the road to conceal their wealth in times like these. He had a tall, dignified walk that revealed his true station to me. I had been following him thinking he might have need to hire a mercenary. It was likely, in a time when the only work was swinging a sword. I followed him from a far enough distance that he didn’t notice me. He seemed absent in his manner of walking, without any real direction but with a steady gait and straight back, never looking behind him. It was a short time before I realised I wasn’t the only one following him.
When men pick up spears and swords and learn to use them the fighting continues even after the battles have stopped. Bandits and petty criminals, deserters and soldiers with no army, acted with impunity. The man I followed didn’t run when three of them approached him, and they surrounded him quickly. They were dressed as poorly as he was. One grabbed his arms from behind.
“Take everything he has and kill him.” One of them hissed. The man didn’t fight, he didn’t even respond. It was as if he was willing to die, they didn’t toy with him or torture him.
He must have been a fool to walk the road alone like that. The three of them were lean and unarmed. They knew the sound of a sword being removed from its sheath, and turned to face me as I approached.
“He’s under my protection.” I said and they froze. I kept advancing and raised my sword towards them. They stood there for a moment, in a short standoff with me before they fled. Cursing at me as they did. I helped the man up from the ground and looked him in the eyes.
“I can’t pay you,” he said, seeming to know the only gratitude I would have recognized was money. He didn’t offer any other kind for saving his life either. I had been wrong, this was a real beggar.
“I’ve been on these roads like this for a long time.” He said and began to walk again. I felt a profound contempt for him. Going through life relying on the pity of stronger men, not caring if he lived or died.
“Take me to the nearest town then.” I said, and he nodded passively. We walked in silence for a short time.
“The country you see along the roads was not always like this.” He began “The people were not always so impoverished, so cruel. That came from the emperor and from the war he started.” I had heard all of this before in half a dozen different countries. I didn’t care. He spoke cleanly, like he had a good teacher when he was young.
“I don’t give a damn about these people, or their emperor.” I cut him off, and he fell silent.
—
It was hardly a town. He brought me to a small group of half ruined houses. We approached the house that seemed to be in the best condition but it had no door and one of its stone walls had crumbled. I knew I wouldn’t find work here but night was falling and I didn’t want to sleep outdoors again, so I moved to enter. He stopped me and pointed up.
There was smoke rising from the chimney of the house. We stood at the entrance where half a door was still resting on its hinges and we waited a short while. He looked me up and down. Our eyes met and he nodded. I was insulted that a beggar would even think to offer me his approval but didn’t say anything. He knocked on what was left of the door and entered. I followed him.
Inside there was a woman and a young boy, a half ruined family left over from the war. They were cooking on a fire they had built in the fireplace beneath the chimney that was still standing. They were frightened when they saw me.
“He saved me on the road.” The beggar said to reassure them.
“He looks like one of them.” The boy said, looking at me, my light armour, and my sword.
“Be quiet Elijah.” The mother said, shushing him.
“One of who?” The beggar asked gently. I didn’t care and sat down opposite the fireplace, breathing in the smell of the cooking. Asparagus.
“He means one of the fighting men I’ve warned him about.” The mother said gesturing towards my sword that I had rested against the wall. “One of the men who doesn’t care about people like us. Who fights for the emperor, or against the emperor, and who doesn’t care if we live or die.” There was a long pause. I didn’t care if they spoke about me. Nothing they could say could touch me; They were nothing.
“The emperor. His men. They were not always that way.” The beggar said after some time. “I have been walking the roads for a long time. This country was once full of birdsong, not the ceaseless cawing of overfed crows.” The mother relaxed a bit when she realised I wasn’t going to hurt them and that the beggar was harmless. She let her son talk.
“What happened?” Elijah said.
The beggar looked at him and moved closer to the fire. The sky was getting darker out quickly. “It begins with a skilled craftsman. Commissioned to make the emperor’s armour.”
“My father was a craftsman. Until he had to fight in the war. Until he…” Elijah trailed off and the beggar closed his eyes.
“The craftsman in this story was a genius. The best in all the emperor’s lands, and he knew he could make the armour.” The beggar continued. “The armour was to be made of Jade. The greenest jade, green just like the green of the asparagus your mother is cooking.” Elijah’s mother smiled thinly and kept cooking, and I kept listening.
“How did the emperor’s armour bring the country to ruin?” Elijah asked quickly. The beggar was patient.
“When the armour was finished even the craftsman was surprised, because it was too good. The armour he had made was completely impenetrable to arrows and spear points and sword strokes, and even to things like disease and the elements, all things that are dangerous to us. Such armour would make the emperor invincible and bring him power and glory.”
“This is a strange story.” Elijah said as his mother served him some asparagus, and he began to eat.
“The craftsman begged the emperor not to use the armour because he knew that it was too well made, and that once the emperor wore the armour he would never take it off. He knew the armour would make the emperor not only impervious to things that could wound him, but was also impenetrable to the things that we treasure most, the things that make us human. Compassion, joy, and the bonds of fellowship.” The beggar went on. “The craftsman was paid well, but he had put too much of himself into making the magnificent armour and threw himself from the walls of the palace.” Elijah was now fully interested in the story. I continued to listen with my eyes closed.
“The emperor wore the armour, always. On his whims began the gruesome executions we all saw, and he became the man we know him to be now. Even though most of us will never meet him. By his works, by the state of his country, we know him. Disagreement and criticism became crimes, his most violent thoughts became law, and no human cry for mercy could touch him through that beautiful green jade armour. Eventually he slew his brother with his own hands for daring to oppose him.”
“His own brother?” Elijah said, and the beggar nodded.
“It’s what started the war, but the bonds of brotherhood are deep, and are felt deeper even then the skill of the craftsman could keep out. The emperor removed the armour in disgust and finally felt what he couldn’t before. He finally knew what he had done. Only then did he feel all of the pain he had caused, and all the shame that was rightfully his.”
“What happened then?” Elijah asked eagerly.
“It’s time to go to bed Elijah.” His mother said to him and took his plate. The beggar smiled and ruffled the boy’s hair.
“I will finish the story tomorrow. Sleep now.” He said.
I dozed in and out of light sleep the way I had my whole life. It was too risky to descend into a full slumber in this country. I half heard the mother and the beggar talking as the boy slept. He was begging her. For what I did not know, she had nothing to give him, but he was begging, I was sure of it.
They were quiet. They tried to surprise me but I was awake before the bandits came again. This time they had small clubs but they didn’t fight hard. I fought them off without even drawing my sword. Elijah, his mother, and the beggar were grateful. I suppose I had saved them, but even as I was fighting the bandits I thought only of myself. I didn’t need the boy or his mother or the beggar. Nobody needed them. I was breathing hard from the fight. It was just before dawn, and I was going to continue on the road looking for work, when I turned to look at the three figures, huddled together.
“Thank you.” The mother said timidly. “How can we repay you?” Even the idea that these wretched people were in my debt was more than I could stand with them. I felt a bottomless contempt for them, these weak and useless people.
“You can’t.” I answered, drawing my sword, advancing on them. I would take what they had even if it was just a few stalks of asparagus, and ending their miserable lives would be the last thing I did for them. They saw my sword glinting in the early morning sun and knew what was about to happen. The mother and her boy were resigned to it already, but the beggar sprang forward and threw himself at my feet.
“Please.” He said. “Please don’t hurt them.” He begged, kissing my feet. “I will take you to the very throne room of the emperor’s palace, and there a man such as you will surely find work. Please don’t hurt them. I beg you. I beg you.” He said. I paused, surprised, and then sheathed my sword.
—
We left the boy and his mother behind and the beggar led me farther up the road. Until it became a larger road when it met another, and another, until gradually we were only two of many travellers on the large main road that led to the emperor’s palace, far to the east. The beggar had more strength than I thought and kept a good pace. We barely talked for the three day walk except for a few words until we reached the gates of the palace.
“This is enough, I don’t need you to show me any farther. I will seek an audience with the emperor and offer my services.” I said. He looked me up and down as he had before and I felt the contempt for him rising in me again. He shook his head this time.
“You are a foreigner, you will be arrested before you come to face him.” The beggar said. “I have taken you this far, I will take you to the throne room itself, if you don’t need me then you will have to kill me where I stand.” He said, and his conviction surprised me. I would have to part with him before meeting the emperor. I couldn’t present myself with a beggar. If I had to kill him, so be it.
We passed through the market and the houses inside the walls of the palace. A filthy, barefoot beggar and a mercenary without a country. To my amazement we were never stopped by a guard, not even for questioning. We passed several in the city and they stood motionless, expressionless at attention at their posts. I was sure the two guards beside the huge throne room doors would kill us before letting us enter, and I tried to stop the beggar from getting too close, but he wrestled his arm free from my grasp and strode towards the doors, untouched by the guards. He leaned his whole weight against the large doors, heaved them open, and walked straight in. I followed him, I was truly following him for the first time. From my position behind him I could see the politicians, generals, dignitaries and courtiers, some silent, some talking, some yelling in the throne room starting to notice.
“He’s returned.”
“It’s been so long.”
“I thought he took a vow…”
Some gasped, some smiled, some scowled, all of them eventually noticed, and all of them bowed as the beggar passed them towards the great throne at the centre of the chamber. He climbed the steps and sat on the throne as if he were born to it. They began to gather around him as the whispers spread, but a great hush had fallen on all of them.
“Pay this man whatever he wants.” He said in his strong imperious voice and gestured to me with his hand. Two servants left immediately and quickly returned with a heavy chest, placing it in front of me and opening it. It was filled with money. The emperor’s money, the country’s money, the people’s money. I met the emperor’s eyes for the first time and then looked back at the chest in front of me. The money was green, the colour of asparagus.
Matthew Cameron 
I fought for many countries, and against many countries. I avoided all the hopeless battles, but fought in many pointless ones. I fought under many different banners, and I fought beside many different men, but I only ever fought for one cause. Money. I did not know this country, but I had seen the world, and I knew a lost cause when I saw one. This country was almost dead. The towns and estates and the countryside itself lay in ruins from the war. Men of all kinds wandered the roads. Strong men driven by want, and embittered by pain, who despise their own country and don’t even care for themselves. Other men too, broken from the war, who had seen their families killed and their houses burned. Helpless, desperate, and unpredictable, who are just as dangerous and who might be more deserving of pity. If we could trust pity. If pity was any more than a weakness. They all wandered the road I was walking.
The man I had been following was alone and dressed in rags, but I knew how nobles dressed poorly when travelling on the road to conceal their wealth in times like these. He had a tall, dignified walk that revealed his true station to me. I had been following him thinking he might have need to hire a mercenary. It was likely, in a time when the only work was swinging a sword. I followed him from a far enough distance that he didn’t notice me. He seemed absent in his manner of walking, without any real direction but with a steady gait and straight back, never looking behind him. It was a short time before I realised I wasn’t the only one following him.
When men pick up spears and swords and learn to use them the fighting continues even after the battles have stopped. Bandits and petty criminals, deserters and soldiers with no army, acted with impunity. The man I followed didn’t run when three of them approached him, and they surrounded him quickly. They were dressed as poorly as he was. One grabbed his arms from behind.
“Take everything he has and kill him.” One of them hissed. The man didn’t fight, he didn’t even respond. It was as if he was willing to die, they didn’t toy with him or torture him.
He must have been a fool to walk the road alone like that. The three of them were lean and unarmed. They knew the sound of a sword being removed from its sheath, and turned to face me as I approached.
“He’s under my protection.” I said and they froze. I kept advancing and raised my sword towards them. They stood there for a moment, in a short standoff with me before they fled. Cursing at me as they did. I helped the man up from the ground and looked him in the eyes.
“I can’t pay you,” he said, seeming to know the only gratitude I would have recognized was money. He didn’t offer any other kind for saving his life either. I had been wrong, this was a real beggar.
“I’ve been on these roads like this for a long time.” He said and began to walk again. I felt a profound contempt for him. Going through life relying on the pity of stronger men, not caring if he lived or died.
“Take me to the nearest town then.” I said, and he nodded passively. We walked in silence for a short time.
“The country you see along the roads was not always like this.” He began “The people were not always so impoverished, so cruel. That came from the emperor and from the war he started.” I had heard all of this before in half a dozen different countries. I didn’t care. He spoke cleanly, like he had a good teacher when he was young.
“I don’t give a damn about these people, or their emperor.” I cut him off, and he fell silent.
—
It was hardly a town. He brought me to a small group of half ruined houses. We approached the house that seemed to be in the best condition but it had no door and one of its stone walls had crumbled. I knew I wouldn’t find work here but night was falling and I didn’t want to sleep outdoors again, so I moved to enter. He stopped me and pointed up.
There was smoke rising from the chimney of the house. We stood at the entrance where half a door was still resting on its hinges and we waited a short while. He looked me up and down. Our eyes met and he nodded. I was insulted that a beggar would even think to offer me his approval but didn’t say anything. He knocked on what was left of the door and entered. I followed him.
Inside there was a woman and a young boy, a half ruined family left over from the war. They were cooking on a fire they had built in the fireplace beneath the chimney that was still standing. They were frightened when they saw me.
“He saved me on the road.” The beggar said to reassure them.
“He looks like one of them.” The boy said, looking at me, my light armour, and my sword.
“Be quiet Elijah.” The mother said, shushing him.
“One of who?” The beggar asked gently. I didn’t care and sat down opposite the fireplace, breathing in the smell of the cooking. Asparagus.
“He means one of the fighting men I’ve warned him about.” The mother said gesturing towards my sword that I had rested against the wall. “One of the men who doesn’t care about people like us. Who fights for the emperor, or against the emperor, and who doesn’t care if we live or die.” There was a long pause. I didn’t care if they spoke about me. Nothing they could say could touch me; They were nothing.
“The emperor. His men. They were not always that way.” The beggar said after some time. “I have been walking the roads for a long time. This country was once full of birdsong, not the ceaseless cawing of overfed crows.” The mother relaxed a bit when she realised I wasn’t going to hurt them and that the beggar was harmless. She let her son talk.
“What happened?” Elijah said.
The beggar looked at him and moved closer to the fire. The sky was getting darker out quickly. “It begins with a skilled craftsman. Commissioned to make the emperor’s armour.”
“My father was a craftsman. Until he had to fight in the war. Until he…” Elijah trailed off and the beggar closed his eyes.
“The craftsman in this story was a genius. The best in all the emperor’s lands, and he knew he could make the armour.” The beggar continued. “The armour was to be made of Jade. The greenest jade, green just like the green of the asparagus your mother is cooking.” Elijah’s mother smiled thinly and kept cooking, and I kept listening.
“How did the emperor’s armour bring the country to ruin?” Elijah asked quickly. The beggar was patient.
“When the armour was finished even the craftsman was surprised, because it was too good. The armour he had made was completely impenetrable to arrows and spear points and sword strokes, and even to things like disease and the elements, all things that are dangerous to us. Such armour would make the emperor invincible and bring him power and glory.”
“This is a strange story.” Elijah said as his mother served him some asparagus, and he began to eat.
“The craftsman begged the emperor not to use the armour because he knew that it was too well made, and that once the emperor wore the armour he would never take it off. He knew the armour would make the emperor not only impervious to things that could wound him, but was also impenetrable to the things that we treasure most, the things that make us human. Compassion, joy, and the bonds of fellowship.” The beggar went on. “The craftsman was paid well, but he had put too much of himself into making the magnificent armour and threw himself from the walls of the palace.” Elijah was now fully interested in the story. I continued to listen with my eyes closed.
“The emperor wore the armour, always. On his whims began the gruesome executions we all saw, and he became the man we know him to be now. Even though most of us will never meet him. By his works, by the state of his country, we know him. Disagreement and criticism became crimes, his most violent thoughts became law, and no human cry for mercy could touch him through that beautiful green jade armour. Eventually he slew his brother with his own hands for daring to oppose him.”
“His own brother?” Elijah said, and the beggar nodded.
“It’s what started the war, but the bonds of brotherhood are deep, and are felt deeper even then the skill of the craftsman could keep out. The emperor removed the armour in disgust and finally felt what he couldn’t before. He finally knew what he had done. Only then did he feel all of the pain he had caused, and all the shame that was rightfully his.”
“What happened then?” Elijah asked eagerly.
“It’s time to go to bed Elijah.” His mother said to him and took his plate. The beggar smiled and ruffled the boy’s hair.
“I will finish the story tomorrow. Sleep now.” He said.
I dozed in and out of light sleep the way I had my whole life. It was too risky to descend into a full slumber in this country. I half heard the mother and the beggar talking as the boy slept. He was begging her. For what I did not know, she had nothing to give him, but he was begging, I was sure of it.
They were quiet. They tried to surprise me but I was awake before the bandits came again. This time they had small clubs but they didn’t fight hard. I fought them off without even drawing my sword. Elijah, his mother, and the beggar were grateful. I suppose I had saved them, but even as I was fighting the bandits I thought only of myself. I didn’t need the boy or his mother or the beggar. Nobody needed them. I was breathing hard from the fight. It was just before dawn, and I was going to continue on the road looking for work, when I turned to look at the three figures, huddled together.
“Thank you.” The mother said timidly. “How can we repay you?” Even the idea that these wretched people were in my debt was more than I could stand with them. I felt a bottomless contempt for them, these weak and useless people.
“You can’t.” I answered, drawing my sword, advancing on them. I would take what they had even if it was just a few stalks of asparagus, and ending their miserable lives would be the last thing I did for them. They saw my sword glinting in the early morning sun and knew what was about to happen. The mother and her boy were resigned to it already, but the beggar sprang forward and threw himself at my feet.
“Please.” He said. “Please don’t hurt them.” He begged, kissing my feet. “I will take you to the very throne room of the emperor’s palace, and there a man such as you will surely find work. Please don’t hurt them. I beg you. I beg you.” He said. I paused, surprised, and then sheathed my sword.
—
We left the boy and his mother behind and the beggar led me farther up the road. Until it became a larger road when it met another, and another, until gradually we were only two of many travellers on the large main road that led to the emperor’s palace, far to the east. The beggar had more strength than I thought and kept a good pace. We barely talked for the three day walk except for a few words until we reached the gates of the palace.
“This is enough, I don’t need you to show me any farther. I will seek an audience with the emperor and offer my services.” I said. He looked me up and down as he had before and I felt the contempt for him rising in me again. He shook his head this time.
“You are a foreigner, you will be arrested before you come to face him.” The beggar said. “I have taken you this far, I will take you to the throne room itself, if you don’t need me then you will have to kill me where I stand.” He said, and his conviction surprised me. I would have to part with him before meeting the emperor. I couldn’t present myself with a beggar. If I had to kill him, so be it.
We passed through the market and the houses inside the walls of the palace. A filthy, barefoot beggar and a mercenary without a country. To my amazement we were never stopped by a guard, not even for questioning. We passed several in the city and they stood motionless, expressionless at attention at their posts. I was sure the two guards beside the huge throne room doors would kill us before letting us enter, and I tried to stop the beggar from getting too close, but he wrestled his arm free from my grasp and strode towards the doors, untouched by the guards. He leaned his whole weight against the large doors, heaved them open, and walked straight in. I followed him, I was truly following him for the first time. From my position behind him I could see the politicians, generals, dignitaries and courtiers, some silent, some talking, some yelling in the throne room starting to notice.
“He’s returned.”
“It’s been so long.”
“I thought he took a vow…”
Some gasped, some smiled, some scowled, all of them eventually noticed, and all of them bowed as the beggar passed them towards the great throne at the centre of the chamber. He climbed the steps and sat on the throne as if he were born to it. They began to gather around him as the whispers spread, but a great hush had fallen on all of them.
“Pay this man whatever he wants.” He said in his strong imperious voice and gestured to me with his hand. Two servants left immediately and quickly returned with a heavy chest, placing it in front of me and opening it. It was filled with money. The emperor’s money, the country’s money, the people’s money. I met the emperor’s eyes for the first time and then looked back at the chest in front of me. The money was green, the colour of asparagus.
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