Prynne's Island

By Claralice Hanna Wolf

Adam Prynne lives in a world beset by ambition, greed and class distinctions. The Red Prophet has planted a seed of vision and authority inside him that allows Adam to think differently than his peers. As a result, he--along with his wife Zoe--sets out to rebuild society based on love and mutual respect on an island filled with unicorns that sometimes speak...to those who have the ears to listen to their vision. Can Adam, Zoe and their children teach others to overcome the darker side of human nature and live unselfishly, generation after generation, in a world of peace, equality and justice?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Writers Exchange E-Publishing
• Release date: Mar 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781921636080

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By Claralice Hanna Wolf

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Prynne's Island

Copyright 2009, 2015, 2022 Claralice Hanna Wolf

Writers Exchange E-Publishing

PO Box 372

ATHERTON  QLD  4883

Cover Art By: Odile Stamanne

Published by Writers Exchange E-Publishing

http://www.writers-exchange.com

ISBN    978-1-921636-08-0

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Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author's imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

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Now falls the night of the world;

O Spirit moving upon the water,

Your peace instill . . .

You are the night

When the long hunt for Nothing is at rest

In the Blind Man's Street,

and in the human breast

The Hammer of Chaos is stilled.

Be then the sleep

When Judas gives again the childish kiss

That once his mother knew

and wash the stain

From the darkened hands of the universal Cain.

      From The Canticle of the Rose; Poems:

      Edith Sitwell

      Vanguard Press, 1

Sage and Stranger

An old man, small and bent, came out of the inn and paced the arched stone portico. He shivered, stepped out of the deep shade, and slowly crossed the sunny garden to the edge of the lake where he stood staring at an island that lay a league across the channel.

Sky met water in a shimmer of sunlight, forming a backdrop against which the island appeared as a dark cloud in a pale blue sky: Prynne's Island. Its towering headland of stone had originally been a mate to the bluffs behind the sage, but now they had a harsh and jagged profile. Often in the oblique light of the setting sun, it made him think of a clenched fist. Now, under the direct afternoon sun, it showed up for what it was - a carelessly quarried deposit of red sandstone.

A great weariness burdened the old man. It had come over him that morning as he sorted the papers and records which he had accumulated over the years. He realized how many more questions his research had raised than he had ever been able to answer. He felt as though the island itself rested on his back, and he could not throw it off. He had come out of doors to try to clear his brain.

He turned, chose a bench in a wind-sheltered corner, and sat down.

The inn was old; red stone darkened to purplish gray, clay tile roof, green with moss. In the garden grew ancient olive trees, silver-green leaves gently draping the gnarled trunks. This part of town was old and charming, for, as trade had grown, the stream that edged the grounds of the inn had become too small for the barges and ferries that plied the lake, and wharves and warehouses had moved away. That left the inn isolated in a peaceful backwater, nestled under the towering red bluffs which stopped abruptly at the lake. Today water lapped gently at the edge of the garden, a soothing place for an old man to warm himself in the sun.

His appearance was that of a scholar: high brow, deeply set, intelligent eyes, long, slender hands, and an air of dignity. Snowy hair fell over his shoulders and glistened in the sun.

A stranger came out of the inn. He stood a moment in the shadow of the porch, looked about the garden, then walked across it to stand before the old man.

Venerable? He waited for acknowledgment.

The scholar looked up, squinting against the brightness, to see a large man in travel worn garments and shabby boots. In his left hand, he carried a leather bag, his right was thrust deep into his cloak. This was a man in his middle years - or of great age, judging by the deep creases about his face and the haunted look in his eyes. The sage pulled his mantle closer about his shoulders in a gesture to disguise a shiver that the stranger's mien aroused in him.

In the Beginning

In the beginning the island knew no human habitation. No ringing ax disturbed the stillness, no smoke of cook fires frightened the small beasts. Only bird song, wind tune, water music; only fragrance of flowering shrub, sunshine on cedar, rain on dried leaves, earthy and fresh. Very occasionally a visitor came, a warden or forester on official inspection for the king. But each time he left after a day and it remained unspoiled for the little creatures that made it their home.

The island itself seemed like a creature; gamboling with the winds that brought the early rains; basking and purring in the winter sun; submitting patiently to the hot dry months. A first view, seen from the mainland, also gave the impression of a great, live beast. To the west, a promontory of red sandstone, with a fringe of pink sand at its base, resembled the beast's head resting on its paw. This headland dropped abruptly to a valley, then rose again gently to form the beast's back, sloping to end in a sandy spit that curved like a tail back toward the head. When harsh storms swept down the lake, waves dashed against the head, sending spray almost to its mane of evergreen. On quiet evenings when the setting sun ignited sky and water, the red cliffs appeared to be a face inflamed.

Most of the island was heavily forested; fir, larch, oak, chestnut. Juniper crowned the headland. A grove of purple beech occupied the basin, a favorite nesting place for small birds. The branches crisscrossed to form a maze where golden orioles felt safe from the sharp eye of the hawk. In the darkness below, there was only light undergrowth - violets, honeyberry, ferns.

The pride of the island was its cedar - ancient giants, straight and smooth. Here and there one lay felled by the storms of long ago, small mountains of rotted humus that nurtured moss and coral fungi. The tempered light fell on bracken tall enough to conceal the unicorns, those shy beasts that hid their colts there.

Two streams watered the island. One drained the promontory - a trickle in dry season, a noisy, tumbling torrent during the rains. The larger creek's source was a spring at the center of the island, halfway up the hill. Along its course grew willows, bulrushes, the white-blossomed water jasmine. Here kingfishers rivaled for the largest fish, but left myriad water beetles to the red-breasted fly catcher. Where the two streams joined, the forest opened into a meadow, bright with sun loving flowers - lupine, day stars, tropic gentians. Beavers had formed a pond where wild ducks made their home, the unicorns came to drink, the bullfrogs splashed. The pond fed a small river, which flowed smoothly south to the lake, ending in a cove at the base of the towering headlands.

In the beginning the island was a jewel - a crown jewel. It belonged to the king, and no man lived there until it was given to Adam Prynne, a royal gift for a loyal friend.

The Red Prophet

The dogs announced him first. Then boys playing in the creek at the edge of town observed a stranger approaching. When he reached the bridge and stopped to look down on them, they saw a huge man with a comical face, wearing colorful, tattered garments. Was he pauper or clown? Curly red hair stood out in a brush around a bald pate. A short, red beard covered the lower half of his face, like a mask with a large flexible mouth. From this mouth tumbled the most amazing noises - warbling, barking, explosive hissing, birdlike twittering, whistling.

The astonished children had stopped their play to watch and listen. Suddenly he laughed and thrust one huge, hairy hand into a deep pocket and drew out walnuts, which he juggled in the air. Now and then one seemed to escape him, but it always fell where a boy could reach out to catch it.

Next he turned and strode toward town, singing a merry tune. Boys and dogs clambered up the banks and chased after him, and when they had caught their breath, they joined in the refrain to his songs. At every house they passed, more boys and girls followed them until they formed a noisy parade of laughing and singing children, barking and capering dogs. Once, the big man broke his stride to lift a small girl to his shoulder. At Widow Canda's gate, he stopped and appointed the two largest boys to be crutches for her crippled son, Belden. Belden's feeble stick became the clown's baton as the parade continued up the road. Mothers looked out the windows when they heard the racket, then followed at a distance to see where their children were going.

The clown steered the procession toward the main square of the city. Vreden, the capital of Sawankalok, lay near the delta at the mouth of the palm fringed Waters of Lok. It was a crossroad for trade routes, both by land and sea.

The past winter had been unusually harsh. The seed-time rains had come late, and now a hot wind blew in from the east, drying the fields and gardens, shriveling the fruit on the trees, and the hopes in the breasts of the farmers. The baskets of produce brought in early that morning were already empty, but merchants and buyers stood about, mopping their brows and complaining of weather and taxes. Shopkeepers sat on benches outside their doors and fanned themselves. Women stood around the well worrying how long the water would last, grumbling about the dust. Laborers putting a new roof on a market stall worked listlessly in spite of the foreman's cursing.

As the children's parade approached and grew louder, people turned to watch. The big clown stopped in the middle of the square, and, seeing the eyes of their elders upon them, the children were suddenly hushed. The clown had all the attention.

He addressed the crowd with a voice that could be heard throughout the square. Upstairs windows were flung open and more folk leaned out to listen.

I have a message for you, he bellowed. Gather 'round and hear! I have a word from God, the Lord. Come listen, and I'll give you an oracle!

All the time he talked, he walked or leaped about, juggled walnuts, made the young folk laugh. When he had a large audience, he leaped to the well curb and shouted.

"Now hear the words of the Lord, your God!

'You can read the signs of the seasons.

You say:

The rains were good this year.

There will be a fine harvest.

Or you say:

The Winds-of-Blessing brought no

blessing this year.

There will be a poor vintage.

I say:

The rich have trampled the poor again,

There will be rebellion.

I say:

The rulers have used their power to

extend their borders.

There will be war.

How is it you know that seed time is followed by harvest,

But don't know that greed is followed by jealousy?

How is it that you know night is followed by day,

and again comes night,

But you don't know that fraud is followed by hate,

which in turn is followed by violence?

When will you learn,' says the Lord, your God."

He stepped down from the well curb and resumed walking about, talking to them about their daily affairs; about buying and selling; about eating and drinking; about justice and truth; about love and mercy. He spoke words of consolation and words of condemnation. Sometimes his voice sank to a whisper, or he bent low to speak in someone's ear.

Everyone heard what he said, yet each one heard something different. A merchant heard him say: sell honest goods; charge fair prices. The laborer heard him say: give honest work for your wages. The matrons heard him say: refrain from unkind gossip, from dissension; learn contentment. A youth heard him say: cease mischief making; use your strength and your wit to bring about good. A maiden heard him say: seek inward beauty; practice loving kindness. Modesty has the fairest face of all. One man heard him say: go home to your wife. Another heard: look not for vengeance. Children heard him say: obey your parents; learn to do good. The poor hard him say: God cares what happens; God walks with you.

Once again the ruddy stranger leaped to the well curb. He held up his hand and a change came over him. Whereas he had been speaking in a natural voice and with common words, now his voice was harsh and angry, his words stern.

"'You who are rich, hear this!

You wear elegant clothes, your bodies are sleek,

You eat the choicest foods, and live in magnificent houses,

But at the expense of the poor!

I have an oracle for you.

You will see a scarecrow in a garden,

Its rags flapping in the wind.

The sparrows will be sitting on its head

Plucking straw for their nests.

The crows will be walking about at its feet

Eating the corn you have planted.

On that day, remember my words.

For then is the time near,' says the Lord your God,

'When your fine garments will be putrid tatters;

When the people will point at you and laugh;

When those who tilled your fields and

planted your vineyards

Will eat the fruits of their own labor,

and sleep in your beds.'"

A few, well-fed and well-clothed, shrugged their shoulders and left the square, but most of his hearers liked what they heard.

Preach it to them, Prophet!

When will all this happen?

Tell us more!

Two priests had been standing in the shade cast by a wall. Now they pushed their way into the crowd and spoke to the clown.

You have no business speaking for God. You delude the people and give them false hope. Better you should tell them to go to their places of worship and make atonement for their sins. Then God will send them rain.

The clown bellowed, "You who are priests, hear this!

"You who make religion a keeping of rules,

making heaven inaccessible to the weak;

You who preach for hire and divine for money,

making God unacceptable to the wise;

You who love adulation and praise,

but have become yes-men to the powerful!

I have an oracle for you.

Your choirs will rise to sing,

and the congregation will titter,

for it will sound like a canticle of crows.

You will open your mouth to chant the service,

and the worshipers will guffaw,

for it will sound like the croak of a crake.

On that day, remember my words.

Weep, and be silent."

The crowd tittered and the two priests stalked away, flushed and angry, their white robes swishing about their ankles.

As always, when a large crowd gathered, soldiers had appeared. As long as no trouble seemed imminent, they merely mingled and watched. Now one felt bold to question the clown and came close.

What you said before - about poor people sleeping in rich folks' beds - that means war. Your God isn't going to send war on us, is he? War is bad for us soldiers.

The clown looked down at the man. So it is, he said. "But war is not from God. Give your masters this message:

"Hearken, Warriors!

You sit in a house, a house with strong walls,

and plot murder and plan aggression.

You trade in arms with no thought of the slaughtered.

You doom the common people to disaster

for the sake of invasion.

You silence those who speak for peace.

"I have an oracle for you.

"You will see a flock of sheep turn and kill

the sheepdog that protects it.

The lambs will trample the shepherd's boy

under their feet.

"On that day remember my words!

for then is the time near, says the Lord your God,

when you shall be pursued with the swords

you raised in assault;

when you shall find no hole in which to hide yourself;

when your enemies shall be your own people

crying against you."

A harsh military command rang out, and the soldier hurried off to where his fellows were being ordered into ranks.

A new voice spoke.

Hey, Old Prophet, you better leave. They'll tell their superiors and a guard will come after you.

The clown chuckled. Thank you for your advice. I'll take it! He jumped off the well curb and strode from the square.

There had been a boy of about twelve in the crowd listening and watching, a large, black-haired, square-faced youth. The words had stirred his soul as nothing ever had before. To him, God had always seemed a petty tyrant to be appeased with chants and offerings, then ignored. This clown had made God sound like a champion of the poor, a defender of the weak, One who cared about people, who demanded morality and unselfishness.

Questions crowded his mind, and when the prophet left, he ran after, caught up with him, and tugged at his sleeve.

Yes. What can I do for you?

The boy was so excited, the questions he wanted to ask escaped him. All he could think to say was, Venerable, will you give me an oracle?

An oracle for a little boy? He laughed so contagiously, the boy laughed, too. Then pointing at the patch of eastern sky that could be seen at the end of the street, he said, See that cloud? What does it look like?

A gray storm cloud. The boy was disappointed

What is its shape?

Shape? Well, it looks like an island in the middle of a blue sea. Or maybe it looks a little like a sleeping animal, his head there, he pointed, resting on a paw. That's his tail.

That cloud brings rain. The drought is over.

How can you tell?

I have it on good authority, my son. Now, this is your oracle. A far away look came into his eyes as he stared at the cloud. There will be an island where all my people will dwell in love and harmony. Men and women will love each other as brother and sister, as father and mother, as parent and child. They will bind up each other's wounds. They will serve, each the other first, self last. They will be helpers, and healers, and looseners of snares. There will be no strangers there. Even the wild creatures and the land will be blest, for God will dwell with them.

The man looked down again at the boy and placed his big hairy hands on his shoulders. Whenever you see the clouds that announce the great rains, remember that. Now, go find Belden, the widow's son, and take him home. Before you get there, you will both be wet. He started to leave, but turned back. What is your name, son?

My name is Adam. Adam Prynne.

The big clown turned and disappeared around the corner.

Young Adam in Vreden

It was still early afternoon, but storm dark when Adam reached home, drenched to the skin. The cloud had grown till it covered the sun, then, before they reached Belden's house, had pelted the dry earth with its water. Everyone they had met as they hurried along had been drenched but, laughing, called happy greetings to one another.

At home, the oil lamps had been lit, but his parents stood at the window watching the streams run off the roof and across the garden. There was excitement in their voices.

Eagerly, Adam told his parents about the clown in the square and his prediction of the rain. He called him the Red Prophet, and watched his father's face grow sober as he reported the other things the man had said.

Later, when Augustine, his father's friend, came to the house to talk and the two men had been shut up together in his father's sanctum for awhile, Adam was called in and asked to repeat some of those oracles. It made him realize the words were even more important than he had supposed. Afterwards, wishing not to forget them, nor to misquote, he wrote them down carefully in a notebook, erasing and rewriting till he was sure he had got them correctly. Now and then, over the next days, as he pondered the meanings or talked about them with Colin, his father, he remembered more things the clown had said, and added them to his book.

One day he asked, Eepaw, the child's word for father, do you think the things the Red Prophet said are truly true?

Yes, my son, the words are true. Your oracle is a beautiful ideal, one for which all men should strive. The others were given for warning. Maybe they don't all have to come to pass if we change things. My friend, the Venerable Augustine, is working to bring change, and I am helping him, the little I can.

The father could not burden such a young boy with the knowledge that Augustine, a nephew of the king, plotted to overthrow his uncle's corrupt government.

Adam began to pay more attention to how things were in his city of Vreden. He noticed the shabby and crowded quarters of the common folk and compared them with the walled estates of the rich. It was a city of walls, for the rich feared the poor. Guards stood at iron gates and watched at entrances to public buildings. These things, which Adam had always accepted, now grew to appear to him not quite so right.

Several times Adam went with his mother on Days of Laud and Libation to attend the worship. Each time he hoped the priest would either speak of a God who cared about people, or that his voice would change to the harsh cawing of the crows. Each time he was disappointed. He heard only discourses on ceremonial regulations, diatribes on the sins of the flesh, solicitations for money. He stopped going.

Secretly he began to pray to the God he thought the prophet had described, to invent his own little rituals. He composed his own chants and blessings, and wrote them in his notebook.

The next four years saw some of the prophet's predictions come true. Discontent grew, fed by rampant corruption. Augustine's plot was uncovered, and he was sent into exile. His cause seemed lost. Then came civil war and the overthrow of the government. Those who brought it about called Augustine home and made him king. It was the beginning of a period of reforms and stability, but not of peace. Greed and discontent had only exchanged sides.

The year he turned sixteen, one of the clown's predictions affected the life of young Adam. Among the noblemen in Augustine's court were some who were jealous of Colin Prynne. He was only gentry, and he had too much favor with the new king, so they had him assassinated. The lambs had trampled the shepherd's boy under their feet.

Boyhood was over for Adam. He had to find work to support himself and his mother, and the work available was not always pleasant. He had no time to play, but plenty of time to think while he worked.

Those next years were maturing years. He learned that greed and injustice are not limited to the rich and powerful. He learned that poverty is an incurable disease, and no one is immune to it. He learned that to protest mistreatment of fellow workers only brought reprisal on himself. He learned, too, that his father's friend, now king, could not reform everyone, and could not stamp out all corruption; nor was he free himself from bondage to those who had put him in power.

The prophet's words often came back to him, but he concluded that the fulfilling of the oracles would be repeated over and over again, as seed time is followed by harvest, as night time is followed by day.

As for his own oracle, it was only a beautiful ideal, as his father had said. It could be accomplished only by a fresh start, and by all people being committed to it. His God wasn't going to produce a miracle.

Vreden was not only a center for trade, but also for learning. All the brightest young sons of good families attended the university there, even those from other lands, such as Shorr Arunodd to the east and Hesperios to the west. Time and a few deaths made it safe for Augustine to remember his old friend, Colin, and he quietly came to the aid of his family. Adam was sent to the university.

He studied the seven arts and excelled in all, but philosophy was his first love, and he spent many hours talking with the instructors. His elders grew to love this black haired youth with the soft curly beard and lively brown eyes.

But Adam had strange views. He seemed to think philosophy should influence politics and practical living - areas where pure truth is rarely consistent with social custom. His ideas of what religion should be conflicted with what it really was in practice. And he always asked questions about the rights and claims of government and power.

Who ordained it to be so in the first place? he'd ask. Only his modest bearing and good nature kept many an argument from becoming too heated. Among themselves the instructors would laugh uncomfortably and call him an impractical visionary, his ideas utopian. Then each would wonder to himself, Who is really right here?

There was another youth at the university; Augustine's son, the crown prince Abelard. He was a shy and lonely boy, for he had an infirmity that made him sickly and had crippled his tongue. He, too, had a gift for thinking new thoughts, but no one had the patience to listen when he tried to talk.

One day he and Adam met in the library. With the shouts and cheers of their fellows sounding faintly from the playing fields, these two sat and talked the afternoon away - one strong, vivacious boy, one frail and gentle one - and from then on the library was a little less lonely for the prince, while Adam learned to control the rush of his own thoughts till his friend had had time to stutter his views. Two minds had met to fence and tease each other about the universal ways of people and the ultimate purposes of God.

After his studies were completed, Adam left home to live and work on a farm for two years. He was looking for practical applications for his new scientific