The first thing the Ear Taker did, when he came back to the country of his people, was to pay a visit to old Prickly Pear Woman. He intended to point out to her that she had misled him badly in the matter of the edge of the world, which was not in the north, as she had insisted it was. But when he came to the vast field of prickly pears with the narrow tunnel underneath, the hole where she had lived showed no signs of recent habitation. Several rattlesnakes were using the hole as a den; they were irritable when the Ear Taker showed up. He killed one fat snake and ate it, but left the others alone. He remembered that the old woman had a hiding place nearby, under a flat rock; she kept the equipment she used in her spells there: dried-up toads, scorpions, dead mice. The Ear Taker found the large rock easily enough but the only thing there in the hole was some of the bitter cactus buds that the old woman sometimes chewed when she was seeking a vision. The buds he took for himself—now and then he would chew one and feel as if he were flying.
Soon the Ear Taker began to take ears again, slicing ears off drunken drovers, just as he had before. His skills had eroded somewhat; several times he made bad cuts, once by accident even cutting a drover’s throat. Once again he became fired with his mission, which was to humiliate whites as the whites had humiliated the People they took captive after the big pueblo revolt many grandfathers back.
The irritating thing, though, was that the jackrab-bits continued to stare at him in an unnatural way; also, he kept seeing owls. Once one flew directly over his head, a sure sign that his death was near. He was glad to be back in the country of red canyons and piñon trees, but the owls worried him. Before he could make up his mind to go farther off the now busy trails to Santa Fe, the thing that had been coming happened: a quick soldier caught his foot. He had the soldier’s ear in his hand, having just sliced it off, but for some reason he hesitated a moment before springing away. He did not think any soldier could be as quick as this soldier was. The quick soldier hung on to his foot; the soldier yelled out and very soon the famous Ear Taker was caught and firmly tied with rawhide cords. Before they tied him he quickly crammed all the remaining cactus buds into his mouth and chewed them, hoping they would poison him and allow his spirit to float away before the torturers got busy; but he vomited up the buds while the excited soldiers were beating him and kicking him. From time to time, in the days of pain that followed, it seemed that his spirit might fly away, but the feeling didn’t free him from the pain entirely. The Mexicans were convinced that he had special powers—to make sure that he didn’t escape them, his feet were chopped off and the stumps seared with hot irons. Then they hung him on a gibbet in the center of the Plaza, where all who wished could observe his pain. At first he was hoisted off the ground with hooks through his ears, a fitting punishment for an Ear Taker, it was felt. But the weight of his body soon pulled the hooks through and he fell. Many soldiers, convinced that he was a devil, wanted him garroted right away, but the Governor refused to hurry. Any man who was missing an ear was allowed to come and give the Ear Taker twenty lashes: fourteen men took advantage of the offer. The Ear Taker was by then close to death, but he was not dead. Screws were driven into his skull through what remained of his ears; the screws would hold his weight whereas his ears wouldn’t. Thin rawhide cords were attached to the screws, and the Ear Taker, naked and bleeding, hung several feet off the ground, his facial muscles horribly distorted by the weight of his hanging body. Through it all the Ear Taker scarcely cried out. He sighed great sighs—but his sighs grew fainter as he weakened. The native people shuffled about the Plaza, doing their little bits of business. They kept well away from the gibbet. They did not need to see what was happening to this small man. Their memories were full of terrible stories about things the Spanish had done to the People.
But the Mexicans watched: laborers, soldiers, women. The Governor’s wife, Doña Margareta, spent hours at her window, staring at the dying man whose practice had been to take ears. Watching the blood drip from his numerous wounds gave her an unexpected satisfaction. When two more one-eared men turned up and claimed their right to lash the Ear Taker, Doña Margareta watched every stroke. She even sent a manservant to search about the city and see if one or two more earless men could be found. When none turned up she persuaded her husband to allow some of his victims who had already lashed him to lash him again. What were lashes compared to the loss of an ear?
While the Ear Taker was dying, a process that took four days, the Berrybenders all stayed away from the windows that looked out on the Plaza. Amboise d’Avigdor, who had lost an ear, declined to claim a turn with the lash. Lord Berrybender, leaving the Plaza on his hunts, turned his face from the spectacle.
“Excessively cruel, I sometimes think, the Spanish race,” he said. The sight of the hanging man rather upset his digestion—once he even called off a hunt without firing a shot.
It was Amboise who happened to notice the stranger, a thin bald man sitting well back in the shade, with a drawing board on his lap. The man was watching the Ear Taker’s suffering with an almost scientific interest—he looked down from time to time, sketching what he saw.
“Why, where’d that fellow come from—I’d swear he’s English,” Lord Berrybender announced, when Amboise called his attention to the stranger.
Then he looked more closely and drew back with a start.
“My God, it’s Edgechurch,” he said. “Elliott Edgechurch. Met him in England more than once.”
“Is he an artist, then?” Amboise asked. “He’s drawing this poor hanging man.”
“I suppose he can draw but he’s not precisely an artist,” Lord Berrybender replied. “In London he’s called the Torture Man.”
9
. . . soup would be spilled and wineglasses knocked over.
THAT MAN’S TOO SCABBY!” Petal announced, in what was, unfortunately, her most carrying voice—the remark embarrassed everyone at the table except the mild gentleman it described, Dr. Elliott Edgechurch, who peered at the little girl in a kindly way.
“Oh damn, she’s escaped again,” Tasmin declared, setting down her fork. Before she could jump up and seize her impolitic child, Petal had darted under the table, amid a thicket of adult legs. She knew from experience that if she could just get right under the center of the wide table nobody would be able to reach her, though as various diners made the attempt, soup would be spilled and wine-glasses knocked over. Sometimes, if pressed, Petal might seek sanctuary in her grandfather’s lap. Lord Berrybender—though, to Vicky’s annoyance, quite indifferent to his own two young sons—could seldom resist Petal, even when she had just delivered an embarrassingly accurate description of their distinguished guest, a man who had been physician royal to several majesties and was generally thought to be England’s most eminent surgeon.
“She won’t stay in the nursery—finds the dining room more exciting,” Tasmin explained. “If I had a dungeon I’d fling the brat into it, but I have no dungeon.”
“Oh, it’s no matter, I am scabby at present,” Dr. Edgechurch admitted. “It’s the harsh American waters. I am from Wiltshire, where the waters are far softer. Even in London I am sometimes troubled with eczema. I generally carry various emollients and a very delicate soap that can only be obtained from France—not cheap, my soap, I assure you. But a vital piece of my kit bounced out of the wagon and the muleteers absolutely refused to go back and look for it, so here I am, entirely at the mercy of American waters. The young lady was being no more than truthful, as the young so often are. I am too scabby.”
Petal remained under the table, just out of reach of various grabbing hands. She didn’t really object to the scabby man—what she objected to was being left in the nursery with the five boys while, downstairs, the adults were eating exciting meals. Sometimes Kate would mind the nursery, but usually that chore was left to Little Onion, the more easily eluded of the two. All that was necessary was to pinch a little boy hard enough for the boy to raise a howl. While Little Onion soothed the injured male Petal could
often sneak out and slip down the big staircase; by the time Little Onion realized that a miscreant was missing, Petal could be under the table or in her grandfather’s lap. It was an exciting game, one Petal didn’t always win. Sometimes Little Onion ran her down before she could reach the stairway.
“Leave her be, the brat,” Tasmin said. The tall doctor with the scabby skin seemed kindly, on the whole. He also seemed to know everyone in Europe, including the French doctor who had taught Father Geoffrin anatomy. When he discovered that Amboise d’Avigdor had lost an ear to the Ear Taker he examined Amboise’s head carefully and took some arcane measurements.
“The fellow was a specialist, and a sound one,” he announced. “He knew how to remove an ear, but I doubt he knows much else. The appendix would stump him, I imagine, or even a joint.”
Lord Berrybender was uneasy. Somehow he couldn’t quite like this kindly surgeon, though he was certainly vigorous in pursuit of his goals. He had arrived in Santa Fe from California, where he landed after making a long and thorough examination of the elaborate tortures practiced in China and Japan. All the way to China just for torture? It seemed to Lord Berrybender that there was something slightly unwholesome about it, but the Governor’s wife, Doña Margareta, found Dr. Edgechurch fascinating—she couldn’t get enough of hearing about the many severe cruelties the famous doctor had witnessed. It annoyed her that the little Berrybender girl had distracted Dr. Edgechurch from an elaborate description of how the Ottoman sultans punished women who failed to please them: by tying them up in sacks with wildcats and flinging them off a cliff, or else crushing their breasts with viselike instruments designed solely for that purpose. Doña Margareta meant to encourage her husband to try to keep Dr. Edgechurch in Santa Fe—then she could draw the man out at length. Santa Fe was filled with criminals—it was her opinion that better tortures needed to be devised, in order to subdue this element.
“How much longer do you think that little Ear Taker will hold out?” Lord Berrybender inquired. “Rather puts us off our feed, having him hanging there. My cook is even reluctant to go to market. The sight of him preys on the mind, you know.”
“Two more days will finish him,” Dr. Edgechurch assured them. “He has no very serious injuries, but it’s a strain on the heart, having the muscles pulled out of shape as they are. It’s the mistake most torturers make: they don’t understand that the nerves grow fatigued. Pain exhausts before it destroys. The Japanese understand this well. They allow their victims regular respites.”
Tasmin found that she disliked Doña Margareta intensely. About the English doctor she wasn’t sure. He was a surgeon; he cut people for their own good. Torture, of an approved sort, must be all in a day’s work for him. While recognizing that humans must sometimes be cut open to remove diseased organs, Tasmin still felt that it must take a curious sort of human being to choose cutting as a profession.
“What drew your attention to torture, Doctor?” Piet Van Wely asked. He saw in Doctor Edgechurch a fellow scientist. But to his dismay, the question drew a frown from the great man.
“I am not drawn to torture—as a humanist I strictly oppose it,” he replied. “If a criminal must be put to death I advocate doing it humanely, with a bullet or a noose.”
He took a long swallow of wine. “What draws me to the torture chambers—and I’ve inspected more than one hundred, most of them quite bloodily active—is not torture but nerves,” Dr. Edgechurch said. “The human nervous system is as yet poorly understood. I am even now attempting a comprehensive atlas of nerves, but my atlas is far from complete. Nerves are not easily traced. They mainly reveal themselves under extreme conditions—such as torture. There’s more to be learned about nerves in torture chambers than in anatomy classes.”
“Excuse me, I believe it’s time for my devotions,” Father Geoffrin said. He had grown pale, he felt queasy; he did not want to hear of any more horrors.
“So tell me, Dr. Edgechurch,” Tasmin said, determined to tough this curious diner out, “which nations produce the best torturers? Or do I mean the worst?”
“Oh, that’s easy, the Japanese,” the doctor said at once. “There’s something aesthetical about it. They’re very good with cords, for example. Very good with cords.”
Doctor Edgechurch paused to reflect on his long experience.
“Of course great specialists do pop up here and there—you might almost call them artists,” he said. “There’s a Viennese called Schoensiegel. Extraordinary fellow. Confined himself entirely to feet, and yet he broke the strongest men. Plenty of nerves in the foot, I can tell you that.”
Tasmin found the situation curious in the extreme. All the Berrybenders, even the usually unshockable Mary, were looking discomfited. Petal had crawled up in Lord Berrybender’s lap and was rapidly polishing off his cabrito. Buffum and Vicky looked distinctly peaked. And yet Dr. Edgechurch had said nothing improper or suggestive. He was a famous physician, determined to understand the workings of the human nervous system. Accordingly, as he had politely explained, he went to places where nerves were stretched to the limit: that is, torture chambers. It made sense, and the doctor had been modest and matter-of-fact in explaining it. And yet Geoff, turning green, had to flee. Buffum excused herself, Vicky remained expressionless, and Lord Berrybender was too distracted even to play with his granddaughter. Mary Berrybender, who could talk about the most recondite sexual practices without turning a hair, was now twisting her hair into curls, a nervous habit she was thought to have outgrown. With the exception of Doña Margareta, whose eyes shone more brightly every time a torture was mentioned, the whole table had been quelled.
The odd effect he was having on his hosts did not escape Elliott Edgechurch. He drained his wineglass, stood up, thanked Lord Berrybender, and bowed to them all, in his face a touch of sadness.
“There! I’ve done it again—spoiled a perfectly good dinner party,” he said.
“Now, now,” Lord Berrybender said, but the doctor ignored him.
“Healthy people don’t want to hear about tortures—and why should they?” he asked. “It’s the same with operations. Healthy people don’t like to watch them. In both instances there is always the possibility that such agonies will in time be theirs.
“Thus,” he added, “my investigations will of necessity have to be of a lonely nature.”
“But one day you’ll have your atlas,” Tasmin told him. “No doubt it will win you great fame.”
“I hope not—that too would be a form of torture,” Dr. Edgechurch said; then he left the room.
“Too scabby!” Petal said again. In this instance no one disagreed.
10
. . . a snug stall, well provided with straw . . .
AMBOISE D’AVIGDOR had a stall in the stables, a snug stall, well provided with straw; yet he did not even try to sleep. From his stable door he could see the Ear Taker, hanging from his cords. At first the man’s deep sighs could be heard across the Plaza, but now there were no sighs. The two soldiers who were supposed to guard the dying man—lest he dematerialize and slip away—were asleep, wrapped in their heavy coats.
Amboise walked over and stood looking at the small hanging man. The Ear Taker’s eyes were closed, but he was not dead. Amboise could hear the rasp of his breath. Amboise wished the man would open his eyes—he wanted the Ear Taker to look at him once more, to realize that he came as a friend. He wanted the man to know that the loss of his own ear meant little. Amboise supposed that the taking of his ear, and all the others, was an act of vengeance. He had seen how the Mexicans treated the Indians and could well imagine that any Indian might want vengeance. Taking ears was a novel vengeance, but Amboise wanted the little man to know that, for his part, all was forgiven. He liked to think that if he and the Ear Taker met in a time of peace they could be friends.
Amboise waited a long time beneath the gibbet. It was cold. Finally his teeth began to chatter and he stumbled away to his stall, deeply disappointed. The moment of recognition that he
wanted had not come.
In the morning the Ear Taker was found to be dead, his eyes frosted shut by the bitter chill. The Governor didn’t allow the body to be cut down. The Ear Taker hung in the Plaza until his body fell apart, a warning for all transgressors and food for the carrion birds.
11
The Governor was vexed—he couldn’t find his wife.
THE GOVERNOR WAS VEXED—he couldn’t find his wife. There were thirty servants in the Palace and yet none of them seemed to know where Doña Margareta had got to. Even the majordomo, a thin, severe fellow who, as part of his job, attempted to keep track of all the rumors floating around the intrigue-ridden city of Santa Fe, merely shrugged when the Governor asked if he had seen Doña Margareta. The Governor went to the kitchen, but no one was helpful there either; he went to the carriage house, thinking his wife might be taking a drive, but all the buggies and carriages were correctly lined up. No one in the stables had seen Doña Margareta. It was most annoying. Normally the Governor’s heavy responsibilities permitted him little freedom. He was the Governor—the paperwork seemed endless. He employed two secretaries and several scribes, but still, all day, he had scarcely a chance to lift his head, to sit and think, to smoke a cigar—or to visit his wife.
Today, though, the paperwork had been unaccountably light. It was only a little past noon, yet his desk was clear. Even a governor was human—it was a rare day when he could escape in the afternoon. He stood at the window for a moment, watching some soldiers drill, and then his thoughts turned to Doña Margareta, the wealthy beauty he had captured in the City of Mexico. He enjoyed his cigar— why not take advantage of the fact that his desk was clear and go enjoy his wife? He was a heavy man and Doña Margareta a petite, small-boned woman. Sometimes he wondered whether Doña Margareta really liked him. With a wife it was sometimes hard to say. She didn’t refuse him, but it could not be said that she performed her conjugal duties with much enthusiasm. The Governor suspected she found him gross, a sweaty bulk to be tolerated. After their lovemaking Margareta would sit and fastidiously pick his chest hairs off her breasts and belly. It embarrassed the Governor slightly. He tried to be considerate in their lovemaking but he was a hairy fellow and somehow the hairs kept coming off on Margareta. She never said a word but it was clear she didn’t like it that she rose from their bed sweaty and covered with hairs.
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