Ancel

Suppose there is no trickery; suppose he is no more or less true than his silence.
The gifted giftless then must overcome not by merit but with sleight. In this he is honest—
Whence it follows that at one time he had always been, a part of the tower cloister, the beaten stone and lusting fog, and at another he would never have existed.
The tower is crammed top to bottom with fools of every earthen caliber, and who else is he but the fool of fools?
His hair is almost thorns—his tincture devours skin and scale like contagion or like flowers—by the Saints light he almost blooms—
By the fool’s logic it’s all but lies and at once untrue in all—
His name is Ancel. He does not answer to that name.