Erwan, Painter, Son of Ernard

A short memoir of Count Ernard Diel.

A few blasphemies must be tolerated in this world. My son is Erwan Diel. I raised him in Northpoint, whence my family came in the early days of House Dorell. His mother died in the act of birth, but I provided for him well with my station. It was a lonely time.

Erwan was a precocious boy in some spheres and disinclined toward others. He took well to the visual arts, though I could never discern what it was that he would draw; he was a friendly boy, but he stumbled through the formalities and nuances of court and negotiation; he was active but never athletic, and he could not cast a spell. His schooling was a matter of concern from early on, for he wrote rather poorly for a child who could draw, and he could not recite rhetoric or keep the names of cities and kings ordered in his mind. Would that he were not a low noble, he would have faced far more trouble than he did for this.

The tutors could not understand it, and they sent me after friars and priests and a druid to seek understanding.

The Octavite priest said to me, "Your boy has a demon within him and must be cleansed. Bring him to mass and the Eight will free him." I did so, and he was not free.

The friar said to me, "Read your boy the scripts of our elders and teach him to be pious and humble. Then will he work as he should." I did so, and he would not work.

The druid said to me, "Your boy is far from the turning of Creation and does not know what he is to be. Take him to the heart of the forests and have him meditate on the Y'ffre and drink of the water of the brooks, and he will be at peace." I did so, and there was no peace.

On the road, a ragged, cackling beggar went quiet as I passed with Erwan. "You seek freedom and do not find it, nor does your son work as you wish, and he is not at peace. You believe he is shackled and so shackle him, and you think that if he does not do arithmetic he is not born to flourish, and this is the root of your troubles. Find Mals Mandas."

We found Mals Mandas, a priest of Sheogorath who maintained a monastery of sorts among the cliffs south of Farrun. "You will not like to hear this," he said to me after a first look at Erwan, "but your boy is mad. He may simply find trouble learning, but it is a madness of the spirit that he possesses."

"Worry not," he said, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Do you love your son?"

I told him that I did. "Well," he said to me, "there is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness. We seek to find that reason here, to cultivate the gifts given to those blessed as your son has been."

"So you will teach him to paint?" I asked.

"No," Mals said with a gleam in his eye. "We will teach him to be mad, and then he will paint, and we in turn must learn to see the art, just as we hear the poetry and secret knowledge of the man who babbles nonsense to himself aloud. What is nonsense? Non-sense? It is to turn inward and look into oneself and to be enlightened."

I asked him if he was mad himself.

"No, I have not been given that gift. But I bask in the light of His light when I am surrounded by those such as your son. What that I were mad! You think me a blasphemer, but I would only believe in a god who knows how to dance. Your son will be in good hands."

Erwan went easily into the care of Mals, being twelve at the time, and he grew and was happy and cared for. I visit him still and watch as he paints, hoping to see the art one day.