What strange and mystic powers rest in the eye. There are words beyond words, stories bound up in a glance. A mystery of time that cannot be fathomed was the Lady Aiden. She was old when we met, but from her stories, from her quiet sighs of olden days, I knew she had been more than a beggar and charwoman. She once was worshipped, I think, in the way that men worship women. An alien grace remained in her body which time could not dispel, like a ghost. I have found one monument, however; when she was younger, she had posed as Venus. How many men have adored the nakedness of a shapely stone who cannot recognize the enfleshed reality now clothed with age? She is still here, alive and unnoticed, while her dead statue draws the eyes of thousands to our temple.
Time is like a lion along the path of life, devouring those who travel. There once, I think, were knights who would guide pilgrims home on that thorny way. But Aiden has tarried long in this city, and her knight feels the crawling vines climbing over him.
Tale Told 