by John Gardner
Christ and Our Lady
And sweet Saint John
Send to every haughty maid
Such another one!
Amen.
When he’d finished, the prince looked up at Armida and boyishly grinned. “What do you think?”
“Strange rhymes,” she said, and smiled shyly. She glanced down at the horse, which was blinking merry tears out of his eyes and chuckling.
Prince Christopher looked at the horse in surprise and found he was beginning to feel friendly toward him. “You like that?” he said. The horse nodded and chuckled harder. Prince Christopher mused. As had often happened, in his experience, poetry had mysteriously reclaimed the day. “You want to hear another one?” he asked.
Armida leaned forward in the saddle and batted her eyelashes. “Maybe later,” she said.
Though he’d intended to at the start—if only from curiosity about what kind of poetry a prince might write—Chudu the Goat’s Son had not paid particular attention to the poem, or anyway the last few stanzas of it, for he was thinking, with gradually increasing excitement, that perhaps Prince Christopher the Sullen might be the answer to his prayers. When poetry put the prince in a better disposition than was, apparently, normal for him, his antics had a tendency to distract Armida; and like a bolt out of the blue it had occurred to the Goat’s Son that such a tendency, pushed to an extreme, might in the end lead Armida to forsake her intention of committing suicide. With an eye to finding out how long the prince might be expected to remain with them, the Goat’s Son said now—with what seemed to Armida, the prince, and the horse an uncivil abruptness—“So your father, you say, ordered you here on a quest.”
It was a stupid thing, he saw at once, to have said. The prince suddenly became more dejected than ever.
“It’s filiacide,” he groaned, and in the failing light the Goat’s Son was just able to make out that large tears were falling from the prince’s beautiful dark eyes. In his misery—as if the whole burden of the world had dropped on him—the prince seemed not so much to walk as to stagger. He threw his left hand up in a dramatic gesture, the right one still holding the bridle. “I have to slay an outlaw,” he said and heaved a sigh. “The notorious six-fingered man.”
“I’ve heard of him!” Armida said, then stopped herself and in haste made her face shy and foolish.
“Everyone,” said the prince irritably, “has heard of the six-fingered man. Master of disguises, heart of a dragon, the man no jail in the world can hold—” He walked on a few steps, shaking his head, the tears still falling. “I haven’t got a prayer. He’ll kill me like a rabbit! What match is a mere poet and violinist for an experienced murderer?”
“Perhaps when the time comes,” Chudu began, but he let it trail off. Prince Christopher was right; he had no chance. In his mind he saw Prince Christopher lying on a heath with an arrow through his heart, Armida kneeling beside him in a long black dress, inconsolably weeping. He, Chudu, would wear his top-hat.
“Well,” Armida said, cheeks flushed with distress, “you’ll simply have to do your best.”
Christopher the Sullen laughed. It was a terrible thing to hear and made the night—or so it seemed—grow abruptly darker. “That’s what everybody says. ‘You’ll have to do your best.’ I don’t agree. Not one bit. It’s stupid! And undignified! There I’ll be, rattling my mighty lance and yelling ‘En garde, vile villain!’ and there he’ll be, smiling, sitting with his legs crossed, fiddling with his pen-knife—” The shame of it made Prince Christopher cover his eyes with his arm. “I won’t do it,” he moaned. “I can’t! I’d rather be hanged on a gybbit high!”
“What,” asked Armida, lowering her lashes, “is a gybbit high?”
The prince took his arm from in front of his eyes and thought about it. “I’m not sure,” he said at last.
Chudu the Goat’s Son pushed his hands into his pockets and pursed his lips. After they’d walked a little further, Chudu the dwarf taking three steps for every one of theirs, Chudu asked, gloomily fearing he could guess the answer, “Well then, Prince Christopher, what do you intend to do?”
“I’m going to kill myself,” said the prince. “I’ve made up my mind.”
Chudu the Goat’s Son nodded. “I thought so,” he said.
Armida gasped and peered through the darkness at the prince as if she might not have heard correctly. “You mustn’t!” she said. “Oh, you can’t!” She pressed her hand to her bosom.
“I can do anything I please,” snapped the prince, “and I intend to.”
Armida fell silent, abashed at having had to be yelled at. “I love him,” she thought, heart full of anguish, and was astonished at herself. Tears began coursing down her cheeks, but no one saw, for it was now dark as pitch. Ahead of them, at the top of the mountain, flimmering at the very edge of Suicide Leap, there were lights. It was the Ancient Monastery.
Chapter Seven
Come in, my children,” said the abbot.
In the hazy dimness of the hallway behind him, where bats flew silently from beam to beam, and holy brothers hurried quietly, like owls, about their evening chores, there were numerous sick people lying in straw on the flagstone floors, with their relatives sitting or standing nearby, saying prayers, and their neighbors peeking in through low doors. The saintly abbot was famous far and near for his ability to heal the sick by miraculous means; also for his gentleness and wisdom. His powers were legendary; there were songs about it. From far and wide people came to him for help, and though the abbot couldn’t understand himself his miraculous power, he said, for he was no better than other men, at least in his own eyes, and perfect neither in love nor in faith, nevertheless he would admit himself (this he would say with his glowing, bald head tipped sideways, quizzical) that he seemed in some way to exert a beneficent influence, or else his legend did; he seemed, without consciously trying, merely joking and praying, in fact, to elevate the courage and faith of the sufferer so that “occasionally,” as he said (but he was absurdly modest), a cure did indeed take place. He gave the credit all to God.
“Come in, come in,” said the abbot again, bowing in a way that seemed faintly oriental, his baggy eyes beaming, his great bald dome gleaming, his ancient miracle-working hands buried deep in the folds of his floor-length black cassock, and he backed away—lightly, almost dancingly, in fact, though he was a man in his seventies—to give them room.
Armida entered first, then Chudu the Goat’s Son, scraping his cap off with one hand and looking around him in alarm and angry distrust, then Prince Christopher the Sullen, who threw one last gloomy look in the direction of the horse being led to his stable, which was somewhere around back, then stepped in and closed the door behind him.
“You’re just in time for supper,” said the gentle old man, and his smile was so warm, so absolutely simple and pure and personally affectionate, that even Chudu the Goat’s Son was inclined to partly trust him.
“Thank you, father,” said Armida, and for some reason curtsied.
Prince Christopher the Sullen said, “Let us introduce ourselves. This is Armida, and this is—” He glanced down at Chudu the Goat’s Son, but the dwarf flicked his eyes away. It was against his policy to tell anyone his name. Prince Christopher looked puzzled but retired behind a sad smile and did not press. “This is Armida’s dwarf,” he said, “and I am—Christopher.”
The abbot lit up. “Ah ha! Prince Christopher the Sullen! Exactly! I thought I recognized that incomparable, grieving face! I’ve seen you, light of my life, in visions.” He brought this out with such perfect simplicity that no one even noticed that the claim might have seemed, on some other man’s lips, preposterous. He leaned forward, toward the prince. “How’s your poor father?”
“Much better lately, thank you,” said Prince Christopher. He’d forgotten that his father had been unwell.
“God bless him,” said the abbot, beatifically smiling, and his eyes went unfocused for an instant, as if he was looking at something far
, far distant, quite possibly the Throne of God. “Well!” he said then, “this is an honor! Yes yes! Exactly! Now we’re on the track!—But I forget myself, you’re starving!” He nodded down the hallway, past the sufferers in the straw, the watchful relatives and neighbors, toward an archway. “You go right through there, my loves—right through there, exactly!—and the brothers will provide you with fresh clothing and food and anything you need. I’ll be in in a minute. I have to—” He smiled and looked floorward, his shoulders briefly rising in a meek, apologetic shrug.
Chudu the Goat’s Son said, head tipped back, staring straight up at him with ferocious and unabashedly skeptical eyes, eyes close together and empty and black as shotgun barrels: “You mean you’re going to heal these sick people?”
“Well, try anyway, with God’s help,” said the abbot with a laugh.
“Goodness,” said Armida, forgetting to look dim-witted, “is it possible that a person might watch?”
“God bless you, my child, for your interest! Certainly you may watch!” He turned his smile toward the prince. “Would you care to watch too?—And you too, of course, my friend.” He bent to smile at Chudu.
“I’d be fascinated,” said Prince Christopher sadly. The Goat’s Son said nothing. He looked more skeptical than ever, and offended, as if someone had insulted his intelligence.
“Fine!” said the old man. “Fine and dandy!” He nodded in the direction of some chairs along the hallway wall. They were wide and comfortable, once-expensive chairs, overstuffed and leather covered, the leather now sewn and patched in innumerable places. The prince, Armida, and the dwarf sat down, and the abbot, with a nod that suggested that he’d be only a moment, went over to the sufferers and their sad-faced families. To a boy who lay rolling his eyes and drooling, snapping at the empty air with his teeth, and occasionally jerking his hands and feet, the abbot said cheerfully, “Well well, my son! What seems to be our trouble this evening?” The boy went on biting and jerking as before. His mother, who was lean and hollow cheeked, her skin gray as ashes, her eyes much too large, raised her hands imploringly and shook them. “It come over him sudden,” she said.
“Mmm,” said the abbot, and creakily got down on his knees, first one, then the other. Beyond him, holy brothers scuttled back and forth, not even glancing in his direction. He smiled and winked at the boy. “You believe in God, my friend?”
“Larble,” said the boy and rolled one eye.
“Good,” the abbot said, nodding and smiling with satisfaction. With only his fingertips poking out of his sleeves, he began to pray.
Strange to tell, as the abbot prayed, not only the boy but also the two cripples sitting closest to the boy began to glow all over with an indescribable light. The jerking and twitching of the boy’s limbs grew less noticeable, then ceased altogether; he stopped biting at the air, and his eyes no longer rolled. Right next to him, the first cripple’s corkscrewed leg began to straighten itself, the foot turning around and around shoe and all until it was exactly as it should be. The cripple bent over to stare in surprise, then yelped and tossed up his hands, wildly joyful, and leaped to his feet and did a tap-dance. The cripple beside him, who had one leg nine inches shorter than the other, watched the dance with interest, then got a startled look and abruptly stuck both legs straight out. Lo and behold, before his very eyes the short leg was growing, about half an inch a second, and soon he was exactly like anyone else. “It’s a miracle!” he cried, and leaping up, danced a little jig. The boy who had been twitching and jerking was now smiling from ear to ear, tears of joy on his cheeks. He seized the abbot’s knees and began kissing the hem of the abbot’s cassock for gratitude, his poor mother screaming and clapping. “Larble,” cried the boy. “Larble! Larble!”
So it went. The abbot cured one after another until there was no one left to cure. Then, gently smiling, the abbot came over to where the three friends sat watching and invited them to go in with him to supper.
When they had eaten their fill in the huge, dim room with its long plain tables, the abbot all the while sitting over in the gloomiest corner of the room with his back to the others, for that was one of his penances, he said, and also he’d always been ashamed, he confessed, of the dreadful way he ate, for he could never, try as he might, keep from talking with his mouth full—the abbot led them to a pair of rooms where the prince could get out of his knightly armor into more comfortable clothes, and the dwarf and Armida could find garments that made them look like nobility. After that the abbot led them to a large, stone-walled chamber where the holy brothers had prepared a roaring fire and set out for them brandy and brandy snifters. The abbot declined, with a little headshake, to take brandy. It was sufficient for his happiness to sit gently watching them, smiling and smiling like a fond old grandfather, his hands in the folds of his cassock.
“Well now,” the abbot said, “tell us about yourselves!”
Armida and the Goat’s Son immediately told him everything, opening their hearts as they might have done to God himself. “I’ve come up the mountain to kill myself,” said Armida, and tears filled her eyes.
“And why is that, my dear?” asked the abbot with great interest.
She told him her secret, how she was not at all what she seemed but, God help her, mannish—complex and quick of mind and as strong as a gorilla.
“Ah!” said the abbot.
“I too came here to kill myself, originally,” said Chudu the Goat’s Son, bleating it really, for pity of himself. “Try as I may I can never persuade anyone that deep down I’m a civilized, decent sort of dwarf, fit to be an alderman—and indeed, perhaps I’m not. Who knows?”
“ ‘Originally,’ you say?” the abbot softly prodded.
The dwarf glanced over at Armida in confusion. He would bite off his tongue before he’d shame her by speaking of his love. But the abbot, it seemed, was a man who missed nothing.
“Yes, I see,” he said, gazing thoughtfully at Armida. “That’s grave, very grave. And you, Prince Christopher?” He tipped his head to look above his spectacles at the prince.
“That’s why I’ve come too,” said Prince Christopher the Sullen. He was standing by the abbot’s mantel, staring moodily into his glass. “I don’t care to go into it except to say I’m, as they say, a misfit. I’m a prince by birth, but by inclination I’m an artist. I hide it, naturally, and I admit I’m deeply ashamed of it—”
“You paint?” asked the abbot, sitting forward in his chair.
“I’m a violinist. Also, in a small way a poet.”
“Marvellous!” cried the abbot. “You must play for us a little before you leave. I absolutely insist! And you must recite some of your verses!”
“My,” said Armida, “I didn’t realize how late it is.”
The abbot laughed aloud. “Something tells me our Armida has been ‘overexposed,’ so to speak, to poetry.” He winked slyly at the prince. “Never mind,” he said, “no one can hate poetry indefinitely. It’s like trying to think ill of Christmas.”
Then some thought occurred to him that made him frown and purse his lips. He asked, delicately brushing past the slightly awkward word, “This ‘suicide’ business: you’re not planning to do it tonight, I trust?”
“Actually,” Armida began, wringing her hands…
“No no, really!” the abbot insisted. “Not tonight, I beg you! Keep me company awhile. You know how it is, way up here on the mountain. Besides, I want to tell you a story.”
“A story?” the prince echoed, raising one eyebrow but carefully not looking at the abbot for fear of seeming over-eager.
Chapter Eight
The Abbot’s First Tale
Things are not always what they seem,” said the abbot, and tipped his head and smiled. “The sly man digs down through illusion; he picks up a nugget and cries, reading it: ‘Ah ha! No man does anything for another man except for personal gain!’, and on the back: ‘The witch was an innocent child once; the good man, a witch.’ Poor fool! The nugget it
self is an illusion, and all the nuggets he stands on (so triumphant!) with his spade. They will suck him to the hall of the accursèd king and we will hear nothing more of him.
“In a certain kingdom, in a certain land, there lived a rich merchant who had a beautiful five-year-old daughter by the name of Anastasya. The merchant’s name was Marco the Rich, and one thing he could not abide, among many, was beggars. Whenever they came begging at his window he would shake his fist and order his servants to drive them away and loose the dogs upon them.
“One day two gray-headed old men came begging at his window. Anastasya, who was familiar with her father’s ways, wept for pity of the two old men and began to implore her father: ‘Dear father, for my sake at least let them shelter in the cattle shed.’ The father consented and ordered the beggars to be shown there.
“When everyone in the house was asleep, Anastasya rose up and went to the cattle shed, where she climbed up into the loft to watch the beggars. When the time came for morning prayers, the candle beneath the ikon came alight by itself, the old men rose up, took priestly vestments out of their bags, put them on, and began their service. An angel of God came flying through the window and said, ‘In such and such a village, a son is born to such and such a peasant. What shall his name be, and what shall be his fortune?’ One of the old men said, ‘I give him the name of Vasily the Luckless, and I hereby present him with all the wealth of Marco the Rich, in whose cattle shed we are spending the night.’ All this Anastasya heard. Now that it was daybreak, the old men made ready to leave the cattle shed. Anastasya went to her father and told him everything she had seen and heard.
“The father decided to see if a babe had indeed been born in such and such village. He had his carriage harnessed, went straight to the priest of the village, and asked him, ‘Was a babe born in your village on such and such a day?’ ‘Yes, a babe was born to our poorest peasant. I christened him “Vasily” and surnamed him “the Luckless,” but I have not yet baptized him because no one will stand as godfather to such a poor man’s child.’ Marco offered to stand as godfather, asked the priest’s wife to be godmother, and bade them prepare a rich feast. The little boy was brought to the church and baptized, and everyone feasted and sang to his heart’s content.