Unless YHWH guards the city
The Watchman stays awake in vain.
- Psalm 127
The village sits nestled in the valley, stone buildings scurried around outcroppings and jumping over the river with a dozen bridges. A narrow wall surrounds the town. There was a time when the village was a trading center. New fabrics and knowledge and people flowed from it. But after the war, the wall was built, and the village withdrew from the country. It lay vulnerable to the weather and the raids and would have been decimated long ago if not for the Watchmen and the Knight. The Watchman paces the entrance by day, and scans the tree line by night, ever ready for attack. Every day he fights them off with his own strength. Even now, the Watchman stood, Blade drawn, Shoulders squared, hands twitching with anticipation. The Watchman believes in one thing and that is that he must remain vigil or his village will crumble.
The people say he is not alone, for the Knight can and will help him if he were to call on him. They say the Knight rode into town while it was still a trading center. No one alive remembers when. Just that the helmeted and armed man was sent by the King and said he was now the protector of the town and should the watchmen call on him he would answer. He rode to the entrance and there he remained and waited. Still waits. Has always waited. Watchmen came and went and perished and were overcome by the raiders for the sake of their village, never calling on the knight. And so, the Knight never came to their aid.
Many Watchmen were driven mad and others mocked the Knight. the Watchmen remembered the news that his predecessor fell on his own sword, taunting the knight. “Won't you help me? Won't you move?” Others served their time, believing that if they ever chose to call on him, he would come to their aid. Others swore on their lives they had seen him move. Seen the Knight’s cape swish in the wind, seen the horse paw the ground.
The Watchman however was wary of these tales. He stepped around the Knight, who some faithful members of the village left food and blankets for and did not let the snow settle on him in the winter. He stood in front of the Knight and scanned the tree line. The Knight remained still. Unconquerable. Resolute. Unmoving. Presumably staring patiently ahead.
The raiders came from the tree line, and in horror the Watchman saw a young villager running from the trees in a panic. She tripped and fell, the raiders not far behind. The Watchmen rushed forward, reaching her before the raiders, swinging his sword they attacked him, and he fought them all. “Run! Run to the Knight!” he yelled at the girl. “Ask for his aid!” she ran however past the Knight and into the village. The Knight remained still. The horse did not move.
The Watchman fought tooth and nail. He was surrounded and disarmed. One overtook him, wrestling him to the ground. The Watchman yelled and struggled but he was thoroughly exhausted. The Raider drew a knife and readied to stab the Watchman. The Watchman yelled out in desperation, “You damned Knight! Won't you help now?” The raider glanced behind. He thought they were alone. Who else was there to fight? The Watchmen took the opportunity and batted the knife aside. The two crashed and rolled until the Watchman overtook the raider and ended the fight. He kicked the corpse, and spit blood on the ground at its feet. He strode towards the statuesque knight, his arm and face and hands and chest bloodied and dirty and bruised.
He glared up at the thing in front of him. “I was near death. I fought them all off. Numbers that would overwhelm an ordinary man. You did nothing. How do I know you are not merely a statue?” The knight remained still. Unconquerable. Resolute. Unmoving. Presumable staring patiently ahead.
Later that day the girl came out to the Watchman and shyly she thanked him for his valiant defense of the town and herself. Thankful for company, he told the girl stories and they laughed and talked. As the evening grew long and conversation ebbed however, the girl finally asked what she had really come to discover: “why did not call on the Knight yourself?”
The Watchmen sighed. He looked out at the ebbing sun as it cast its last light on the village bathing them in red.
“I cannot make myself ask.”
The girl’s eyes widened at this.
“Some say the Watchmen are brave. They die rather than call. Others say they fear the knight and that he will overshadow them if they were to call him.
Some villagers say he is nothing but a statue. The village has erected a falsity, a faith and we are at the mercy of the raiders and weather. They say we must stay within the walls to stay alive. Our Watchmen are our only protection and our truest allies.
And still others lay out food and blankets for The Knight and stroke the horse’s fur and polish his boots and do not let snow settle on his shoulders. They believe in the Knight. They say the walls should be torn down, for the Knight will protect us if the Watchmen were merely to call on him.
“Which do you believe Watchman?”
The Watchman laughed sourly. “Which do you believe, child.”
“I believe in what I can see. You told me to run to the Knight as though he is real, yet I have never seen him aid a watchman. I do not know whether he is real or not, so I look to our watchmen, But even you choose not to call on him as though he is a statue and I don’t understand what I am to believe.”
The silence carried for a long time, The sun set further beneath the walls, now, only the remaining twilight through the tree set a red glow on their faces as the pair rested, looking towards the trees. Finally, the Watchman whispered:
“What if I had? What if I had called on him?
And what if he had answered?
Everything I am and have fought for would be for naught. all my aspirations and my very position in this village would mean nothing; Watchmen could have for generations called on the Knight to save them and every Watchman who has died alone before me would have died in vain.
And then, what if no one had answered.
I would have died under the shadow of a statue of a dead man on a stone horse. The hope of the village would be nothing but a lie. An illusion of hope when there was only ever our strength, our walls, and our Watchmen. We would be utterly alone. My last desperate cry would be wasted on a lie. And I would die alone and betrayed. No one would hear or know and the next Watchmen and the next and the next would go on hoping and hoping and believing and either die believing or die knowing the truth.
No, I cannot not call on him. For now, he remains a what if. A hope. A being I despise who watches me and mocks me for not calling out. But at least in my shame and my fear, and my hatred, he still is. I can cling to that perhaps. Call me a coward. But I know nothing else.”
They sat in silence for a long time, watching the sun disappear completely. Only a pale moon lighting their wake.
Finally, the girl got up, and bowing to the Watchman, she skirted around the Knight, not looking up, and walked slowly back inside the village, glancing back once more in confusion.
The Watchman stood, scanning the tree line, ever-ready for attack.
Finally, he turned to the Knight. The Knight remained still. Unconquerable. Resolute. Unmoving. Presumably staring patiently ahead.
“Won't you help me?”
There is no response from the Knight.
The Watchman swore he saw him move.
Or perhaps it was merely the wind.
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