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Excerpted Inspirations #219

  • Writer: Linda Odhner, with photos by Liz Kufs
    Linda Odhner, with photos by Liz Kufs
  • 1 day ago
  • 0 min read
[In the year 1720, Jade has been sentenced to hang for piracy. Her enemy-turned-friend-turned-lover Rory MacDonald tries to break through her discouragement at the ugly cruelty of the world.] “It isn’t enough.” […] “What?” she asked huskily. “I said, it isn’t enough, is it? Courage, I mean. By itself it’s just useless heroics.” Jade looked at him for a long time. It was true. And it didn’t make her feel any better. “What, then?” “I don’t know.” His face was more than ever like something carved with a dull knife – but under the weariness there was still purpose and intelligence and determination. He’d never be defeated! Jade sat a little straighter while he groped after an idea. “Something – that gives reason and purpose to courage?” “Like reforming the world?” Her voice was bitter and low. Rory’s eyes had begun to gleam with that sardonic amusement of his. “Perhaps the world’s just a wee bit big to take on,” he suggested blandly. “Then there’s no use in anything! Are we supposed just to close our eyes and let things like cruelty and injustice go on happening, and not even try to do anything? Well, I won’t play those rules, and if that’s what God wants, I won’t – mfffgh!” Rory had placed his horny palm firmly over her mouth. “Shut up and stop fighting God,” he ordered her kindly. “In the first place it’s no use, and in the second place I don’t think He’s fighting back, and in the third place I think it’s really yourself you’re fighting in the first place. Whose good opinion really matters most to you, anyway?” he challenged her, as she jerked her head away, glaring. “Mine!” she sputtered. “Aye. And quite right,” he agreed surprisingly. “And your own good opinion says you have to try to do something about the awful way humans treat humans. But – ” His eyebrows slanted, self-mocking. “Could it be you and I have taken ourselves a bit too seriously? Could it be we’ve even been a wee bit conceited, going out to reform the world and not stopping to think that we might need to reform ourselves first?” Jade blazed. “Well, I like that! If we – ” She stopped. She frowned. She thought about it. “Oh,” she said doubtfully, and looked several questions at Rory. “Do you suppose we’re being punished for that Greek thing in their plays? The one that meant arrogant pride, and always led to a fall.” It was a shattering thought. “I don’t know anything about Greek, but I don’t think God punishes us. I think He just lets His Law take its course. I think He has just one Law, that sooner or later, in this world or another, everybody reaps exactly what he’s sowed. And I think the whole purpose of life is to learn some wisdom and courage from it.” He looked slightly astonished at himself, as if he hadn’t really known he believed all that until he heard himself saying it. Jade, deeply impressed, digested it for a while. “What good will it do us to learn wisdom if we both hang?” she asked, more as a point of argument than anything. Rory grinned. “You’ve got it backwards. What does it matter if we hang, if we’ve learned a little wisdom?” Jade took a deep breath. Nothing had really changed – and yet everything was different. She was somehow coming through the gray fog and finding that there was light on the other side, and a new kind of serenity. She felt much better – well enough to launch into a spirited argument. “Well, but what about the slaves? I don’t believe they did sow slavery, especially the babies. And even if they did, God couldn’t want people to turn their backs and not care. You can’t just sit there and not even try to do something – and I’m glad we let those slaves loose, and I’d do it again tomorrow, and I do wish we could have been pirates who only pirated slavers.” Something sparked between them. “Aye,” said Rory, grinning briefly. “But not taking ourselves too seriously, mind.” Jade nodded. She smiled at him. “I’m hungry,” she decided. Sally Watson, Jade (1969), pp. 252-255

 
 
 

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