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Eyes black as thunder twisted with rage,
only Joe’s death could his anger assuage.
He wanted his head on a spike, this lyrical mage.
‘Now what can you do, you musical clown?
Your castle is done, the keepgate is down.
After you’re done, we’ll level the town!’
Not causing fear, instead raising spite
could such a remark upon Joe incite.
His eyes aglimmer with a terrible light.
His longsword was raised to slice off Joe’s pate
as Inigo charged driven by raging hate —
only to meet an unexpected fate.
Joe’s flute issued a shrilling blast.
Fingers invisible they moved so fast
the runes of the gods took a curious cast.
At Inigo’s breath and sneer on his face
Joe’s bowels began to churn and race
as the momentous stroke gathered its pace.
A whinnying peep was all that was heard
from the paltry whistle that had armies deterred,
thus the fatal blow to Inigo was incurred.
Resonant sword exploded in a shatter,
shards on the battlement flagstones did clatter,
and Inigo’s hulk was torn to a tatter.
With a thud, Inigo dropped to his knees
swaying and tottering as if in a breeze
and finally gasped his death rattle wheeze.
Stunned and shocked were the plundering hoard:
with no-one to lead their planned discord,
with their leader slain, what now for reward?
A sickening noise as he slumped to the stones,
their King all pulp and fragments of bones
the rabble’s response only mutters and moans.
But Joe, being close, had not injury escaped.
Though his cloak had helped, several holes now gaped
and many a sliver had cut and scraped.
Trembling now and close to a faint,
Joe raised his pipe, once more music to paint,
though his fervour now was less than a saint.
With screams of terror afresh they all ran down
all thoughts gone of pillaging the town,
intent only on escaping the soun’.
They poured out from the gate, this fearless mob,
without even a whim to carry out their job,
running until their breath came in a sob.
Out of the town and over the hill,
where they met upon a greater ill:
meeting Baron and army was a very bitter pill.
They crashed like a wave upon the shield wall,
crazed and poor armed by the score did they fall,
like lambs to the slaughter barely giving a call.
The Baron’s army had hastily turned about,
alerted by Inigo’s trail picked up by a scout.
Pity and quarter from their mind was kicked out.
The heads of the bandits were levelled and reaped,
dead bodies and armour untidily heaped,
their streams of blood over the heath seeped.
The silence was eerie as they stood on the brow.
Not one ravager left standing now,
they witnessed the result of the previous row
Their homes ablaze and nothing left of the town
surrounding a castle with its gates torn down,
what had happened to the beauty to which they were avown?
A quiet approach still in a daze,
smoke, flame and mist still hung in a haze,
when something appeared underneath their gaze.
A lone figure stood high up on the keep,
playing tones melancholy and funereal deep
with a sombre rhythm — a shuddering weep.
Raising in them their deepest fears,
when up from the castle came wondrous cheers
a surviving throng miraculously appears.
Lilting now the air plays on,
greetings and huggings, such a carrying-on,
though tainted with grief for those that had gone.
Fires extinguished, the smog starts to clear.
Heartwarming sun adds its own cheer,
though the cost of glory is unusually dear.
Nobody noticed as the tune grew weak.
Joe slumped to the floor, respite to seek,
Ever more a minstrel, ever so meek.
The story now was bandied around
of how Joe and his flute had saved the town
when they saw he had crumpled onto the ground.
Weeks passed and under a herbalist’s care,
Joe’s body did ever so slowly repair,
though he missed a grand victory fair.
Fluting Joe was his popular name.
So proud were the townsfolk of his unwanted fame,
after such a deed life could never be the same
With the Baron installed as a true righteous King,
an occasion which ensued much in the merrymaking
Joe’s heart no longer ached to sing.
Joe took on the role of a roving hermit,
emotion burnt out, soul like a pit,
in a trancelike daze he often would sit
To the end of his days his heart he would search,
sometimes on the bank of a river to perch,
but nothing was there save for a soulful dirge.
The Tune was all gone, nought left in his brain,
agonising search near drove him insane,
no joyful jigs to be found there again.
The folk of the land still him adored,
welcome at any hearth, no need to pay board,
his dry sense of wit was ample reward
Crippled he was from the strain of that day.
Often the gifted have a heavy price to pay.
Only three years later on his deathbed he lay
The good King was summoned and warned to make haste.
The grains in Joe’s hourglass had started to race.
Arrived with his train, he looked on Joe’s ashen face.
‘My Lord, I am going. I have no doubt.
Pray bury me without pomp not even a shout,
but please in a place from which to look out.
‘Where none shall disturb my everlasting sleep
but from where I can see that infernal keep
that cost me the Tune and made me weep.’
He slipped away without further request.
The King fulfilling the strange behest
laid Joe on a high plateau in endless rest.
So when you climb the mounts, as you may
and the winds whistle past, don’t dismay,
for ’tis only Joe trying to play.
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