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A Delicate Constitution
As of four and a half months ago, I am twenty-seven years of age. My mother died giving birth to me; since then, I have been systematically following in her footsteps. Since infancy I have been pale and weak; I am ill constantly, and become more ill at very little provocation. I’ve endured a few deathly illnesses, as well, and come out the worse for it, but apparently my body is more stubborn than it feels. With the sedentary lifestyle I am more or less forced to lead, it would have been easy to grow fat. However, much like everything else in my life, food is nothing more than a distasteful necessity to me, and so I eat only what is required for my continued survival. If I were to stop eating altogether, the only thing that would bother me about the situation would be the terrible pains associated with starvation. There is nothing I really enjoy about living, so I cannot say I truly wish to continue doing so, yet I persist because I have even less of a wish to die.
It does not help that I am lord now.
Those around me-- the servants and vassals, whose names I would probably forget if they ever actually told me-- say my health has declined even further since the death of my father. I find it hard to discern a real difference.
Although I am now the sole ruler of the estate and all its surrounding lands, I am still referred to as the “young master.” The young master is not feeling well today. The young master has had a lot on his shoulders. Now that the young master has taken control, our fortunes are uncertain.
I do not think myself a good ruler, but I suppose I am neither a bad one. There was little else for me to do during my childhood and early adulthood than to learn about ruling; the executive decisions, tithe collections, all the duties a ruling lord has to his people-- I fulfill these competently. I am not harsh or greedy. I suppose if I fall short of being a just man, I err on the side of mercy; it is difficult for me to condemn a man when any failing of his was probably caused, at least indirectly, by an earlier failing of either my father or myself. Still, I am not a good ruler, and I think I never shall be. I feel too disconnected from my people; even when I see them face to face, they are an abstraction to me. I cannot even walk among them, as many rulers like to do; I cannot go out at all, except borne on a palanquin like an old woman, and even these vain, feeble attempts to form some kind of connection with my subjects typically deplete my stamina more than my physicians think is good.
I have tried a few times in my life to believe myself a hypochondriac. I even tried, once, to run away from the palace and lead a nomad’s life; I was eleven at the time and convinced all the medicines and cautious handling were really keeping me sick, that I would discover that I was a strong, normal boy once I was away from the lazy, austere existence of the frail and sickly young master. If I recall correctly, I made it as far as the river a half mile outside the palace grounds before collapsing, utterly exhausted and completely unable to do anything other than listen to my own shrieking, ragged breaths and cough up spatters of blood. I hadn’t even been running. I was discovered by a sharecropper after a few hours and taken back to the palace; at the time I was told how close I had come to dying, and I’ve finally recognized the folly in doubting it.
Today, I am feverish. It’s not all that unusual a scenario, but it means there are more blankets piled on top of me than normal. Their weight makes me feel that I am sinking into the bed, or maybe decomposing. Sometimes it surprises me to wake up in the morning and realize that I’m still alive.
If I were a stronger man in some ways and weaker in some others, perhaps I could discover a hardiness and health in myself that I had been denying all these years-- perhaps I could even force it of myself. Do my people not deserve a ruler who can at least meet with them on equal terms, a ruler who can stand on his own feet and unite them, who can be counted on to survive, to produce an heir, to not be bedridden twenty days of every month? Do they not? Yet I am not that alternately strong and weak man that the people might prefer to believe in. I am strong and weak in my own ways. I will never be well, and my frailty cannot be undone, no matter how I or they might wish it. I know this. I accept it. Were I a king I might choose to abdicate-- might that not almost certainly be better for my people, and for me?-- but I am a lord, a nobleman. It is not an option. I have discussed it with my ministers. That path leads to nothing.
Perhaps... I am beginning to understand.
A king is not a person. No ruler is. I have known that it is I who serve my people and not they who serve me, but-- to them, I am as much an abstraction-- a concept, an entity, but never a human being-- as they are to me. We can sometimes understand each other, but we cannot connect. We can never all be humans together. But they are the true humans, because they at least understand and connect with each other-- they are people among themselves. But I-- I am alone. A ruler is not a person to anyone. A ruler cannot be human with his people. I could choose to rule willfully, selfishly, greedily, emotionally-- in as many utterly human fashions I could imagine-- and still I would not be recognized as their fellow human, because I am not their fellow human. I could become a warlord-- were I strong-- and conquer outlying lands in this period of upheaval, I could become a just and compassionate ruler, loved by my people, I could become a name handed down through history and learned by all future generations as one who was great. But I would be known as a great ruler. Never as a great human. Perhaps these are only feverish ravings, but somehow I can feel that they are real. That must have been what I was really trying to find when I was eleven-- a place where I could be a human, too-- but I did not find it. And I shall never find it.
As lord, I am slave to the wishes of my people, and my people do not wish me to abandon them to an able-bodied man. My life has been woven around me with its threads of illness and stagnation, and I must remain within the tapestry for the good of all but myself. Perhaps it would be better if I could become selfish.
But why was I born to this?
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