Simon shook his head slowly. “Never think that, simply because thou dost love a person, or she doth love thee, that she is no longer her self, a separate thing, apart.”
“But… but… but that’s the goal of marriage!” Rod sputtered. “For two to become one!”
“Tis a foul lie!” Simon retorted. “Tis but an excuse for one to enslave another, then make her cease to be! Thy wife is, withal, one person, contained within her own skin, and is, and ought to be, one whole, of which all the parts are fused together, a being, separate, independent—one who loves thee, yet who is apart.” Suddenly, he smiled, and his warmth was back. “For look you, an she were not a separate person, thou wouldst have none to love thee.”
“But… but, the word marriage! Isn’t that what it means—two people, being welded together into a single unit?”
Simon shook his head impatiently. “That may be what the word doth mean. Yet be not deceived; two cannot become one. ‘Tis not possible. I confess it hath a pretty sound—but doth its beauty suffice to make it right?”
Rod stared at Simon, astounded by the older man’s words.
“What of thee?” Simon demanded. “Would it be right for one to attempt to make thee someone other than thou art?”
“No! I’m me, damn it! If anybody tried to make me somebody else, he’d eliminate me!”
“Then ‘tis wrong for thee to attempt to make another become part of thee!” Simon stabbed at him with a forefinger.
Rod frowned, thinking it over.
“An two folk do wed,” Simon said softly, “they should take pleasure in one another’s company—not essay to become one another.” He smiled again, gently. “For how canst thou become a part of someone else, save by erasing either themselves, or thee?”
Rod lifted his head, then slowly nodded. “I see your point. And as it is with my family, so it is with Lord Kern, isn’t it? He keeps trying to become Lord Gallowglass—and if he did, Rod Gallowglass would cease to exist.”
“Ah, then!” Simon’s eyes lit. “Dost thou, then, mislike this notion of thyself and Lord Kern merging together, fusing, growing, into something larger and greater?”
“I’d kill the man who tried to wipe me out that way!” Rod leaped to his feet in anger. “That’s not making me bigger and better—that’s stealing my soul!”
Simon only smiled into Rod’s wrath, letting its force pass him by, untouched. “Yet if the thought so repels thee with this Lord Kern—who, thou hast told me, is thine other self—how can it be right if the ‘other half is thy wife?”
Rod stared, poleaxed, his anger evaporated.
“Is it thy wife, or thy bairns—or the fear of ceasing to be?”
Rod dropped down to sit crosslegged again, leaning forward intently. “Then why do I only get angry when they oppose me? Why don’t I get angry when they agree with me?”
“For that, when they oppose thee, there is danger of thy self being digested; but when they agree with thee, ‘tis they who may be merged into thee.”
Rod mulled that over. “So it’s a threat. I get angry when there’s a threat.”
“Certes,” Simon said, surprised. “What else is anger’s purpose?”
“Yes—self-preservation,” Rod said slowly. “It’s the impulse to fight—to get rid of a threat.” His mouth quirked into a sudden smile, and his shoulders shook with a silent, internal laugh. “My lord! Me threatened, by my three-year-old son?”
“Art thou not?” Simon said softly.
Rob sobered. “It’s ridiculous. He couldn’t possibly hurt me.”
“Oh, he can,” Simon breathed, “in thy heart, in thy soul—most shrewdly.”
Rod studied his face. Then he said, “But he’s so little, so vulnerable!” Then he scowled. “But, damn it, it if hard to remember that when he’s coming up with one of those insights that make me feel stupid!”
Simon nodded, commiserating. “Thou must, therefore, be ever mindful, and tell thyself again: ‘He doth not lessen me.’ For that is what we truly fear, is it not? That our selves will be diminished, and, if ‘tis diminished too much, ‘twill cease to exist. Is that not what we resist, what anger guards against?”
“But it’s so asinine,” Rod breathed, “to think that such a small one could hurt big me!”
“Aye—and therefore must thou bring it to mind anew, whenever thou dost feel the slightest ghost of anger.” Simon sat back, smiling. “And as ‘tis with thy bairns, so ‘tis with Lord Kern.”
Rod just sat, spellbound, then, slowly, he nodded. “So that’s the key to holding my temper? Just remembering that I’m myself?”
“And that Lord Kern is not Rod Gallowglass. Just so.” Simon closed his eyes and nodded. “Yet ‘tis not so easily done, Lord Warlock. To be mindful of thyself, thou must needs accept thyself—and to do that, one must be content with his self. Thou must needs come to believe that Rod Gallowglass is a good thing to be.”
“Well, I think I can do that,” Rod said slowly, “Especially since I’ve always felt Rod Gallowglass is an even better thing to be, when he’s with his wife Gwen.”
“Thy wife?” Simon frowned. “That hath a ring of great wrongness to it. Nay, Lord Warlock—an thou dost rely on another person for thy sense of worth, thou dost not truly believe that thou hast any. Thou shouldst enjoy her company because she is herself, and is pleasing to thee, is agreeable company—not because she is a part of thee, nor because the two of thee together make thy self a worthwhile thing to be.”
Rod frowned. “I suppose that makes sense, in its way. If I depend on Gwen for my own sense of worth, then, whenever she finds me less than perfect, or finds anything at all wrong with me, I’ll believe I’m not worth anything.”
Simon nodded, his eyes glittering, encouraging.
“And that would feel to me, as though she were trying to destroy me, make me less than I am—which’ll make me angry, because I’ll feel that I need to fight back, for my own survival.”
Simon still nodded. “ ‘Tis even as it happed to me—’til I realized why, with my wife and myself, each quarrel was worse than the last—for, of course, she felt even as I did—that she must needs attack me, to survive.” He shook his head, like a cautioning schoolteacher. “Tis wrong of thee, to make her the custodian of thy value. That is thine own burden, and thou must needs accept it.”
Rod nodded. “Learn to like being inside my own skin, eh?”
“Aye.” Simon smiled, amused. “And do not seek to so burden thine horse, either.”
“Yeah—Fess.” That jolted Rod back to the issue. “He was the symbol that pulled me back to my own identity. Does that mean I’m closer to my horse, than to my wife?”
“I think not.” Simon throttled a chuckle. “For when all’s said and done, a horse is a thing, not a person. It may have a temperament all its own, and some quirks and snags of mood, just as a person hath; and each horse may be as unique and separate as each human is from another—yet when all’s said and done, it hath not an immortal soul, and cannot therefore challenge thee in any way that will truly make thee feel any less. It cannot lessen thy sense of self, any more than a shoe or a shovel can.”
Rod nodded slowly. That made sense—more than Simon knew; for Fess wasn’t a living horse, but a computer in a body full of servo-mechanisms. Sure, the computer projected a personality by its vocodered voice—but that personality was only an illusion, a carefully-crafted artifact, albeit an intangible one. Fess was, really, only a metal machine, and his identity was as much an illusion as his ability to think. “My horse is like a sword, in a way,” he said thoughtfully.
Simon laughed softly. “In truth, he doth seem to be somewhat more than a shoe or a shovel.”
“No, I was thinking of mystique. For a knight, his sword was the symbol of his courage, his prowess—and his honor. Each sword was a separate, unique, individual thing, to the medieval mind, and its owner invested it with a full-fledged persona. He even gave it a name. Sometimes, in the legends, it even had a will of its own. You couldn’t think of a famous sword, without thinking of the knight who owned it. Excalibur evoked the image of King Arthur, Durandal evoked pictures of Roland, Gram brought to mind Siegried slaying Fafnir. The sword was the symbol of the knight who bore it.”