Where Ideas Come From – 5

From THE KING IN THE STONE

 

by Carmen Ferreiro-Esteban

 

A gnarled oak sprung from the face of the mountain, and it was under its heavy branches I saw the tomb for the first time. It grew from the earth in the middle of the expanse, seeming as much a part of the mountain as the granite from which it had been carved.

I stepped onto the ledge with the reverence I would upon entering a temple, the rustle of the dry heather under my shoes the only sound to break the silence. The soil, I realized when I came closer, had been excavated around the tomb revealing the scenes carved around its sides. On the slab used for a cover, the lying figure of a knight emerged from the stone.

Eyes closed, his hair loose over his shoulders, he was wearing a tunic that fell down to his knees and boots tight against his calves––the way noblemen dress in my world. A king. He was a king, I knew, even before I saw the circlet on his forehead and the pommel of the sword he held over his chest, the pommel with three lines entangled in the shape of a mountain, the design of the House of Montemaior. My father’s House.