I grimaced, as I got an inkling of what had happened. “A most lovely one,” Golias said, and from the sober tone of his voice I knew he had the same idea. “She arrived not long after you left us to return a certain handkerchief.”
“Oh, God in Heaven!” Lucius cried. “If I hadn’t — or if I hadn’t been in such a hurry to be a damned fool. Why if I had waited to have another glass or two of wine, say — ” He broke off, shaking his head. Then he said quietly, as though no expression of his voice could contain his despair: “Gentlemen, the lady you had the happiness of seeing, and the one I cheated myself of seeing in time to preserve any chance of enjoying happiness, was Hermione Steingerd ap Hawthorn. She and her waiting woman were passing by just as I was leaving Miss Lescaut’s room.”
“How could she tell you were off the reservation?” I demanded.
“Miss Lescaut left no doubt as to that.” Lucius held out a hand which sported a ring I had often noticed, for it was set with a ruby about the size of a maraschino cherry. “It never crossed my mind that she had mercenary motives, but as I was leaving she tried to persuade me to give her this. It so happens that this was a gift from Lady Hermione in happier days. When I refused, the wench became argumentative; and at the critical moment when I opened the door, she was right behind me, scantily attired and complaining of my stinginess in rewarding specified services rendered.”
He rose and sank into the chair again. “I couldn’t speak, and my lady would not. As if I did not exist, she walked on.”
Remembering the girl I had seen the night before, and the bedroom doll for whom he had put himself in bad with her, I could see why he felt as he did. It seemed to me that if he wanted a wife, he had better write Miss ap Hawthorn off the books, soothsayer or no soothsayer, and look for somebody else as soon as he caught his breath again.
“Is there anything I can do?” Jones burst out, when we were both silent.
“Well,” I said, “you could cut your throat, but if you wait long enough, you probably won’t want to. It’s tough, boy, but lots of things are.”
I felt genuinely sorry for Jones, yet there was no use in giving him false assurances. When he nodded, haggardly accepting my opinion of the situation, I none the less gave up the idea of going back to sleep. It would be barbarous to leave him at the complete mercy of his thoughts, and with a sigh I swung my legs out of bed.
“We’d better get breakfast,” I muttered.
Golias hadn’t yet made any comment. “Where is the Lady Hermione going?” he now spoke up.
“I hadn’t had time to wonder about that.” Lucius wrinkled his brow. “Was there anybody with her besides her servant when she arrived?”
“No. And in addition to being unescorted she was traveling by stage coach. Doesn’t that suggest something unusual?”
“Perhaps. What difference does it make?” Jones asked. “If you could have seen the way she looked at me.”
“She may expect to continue to look at you that way,” Golias admitted. He swung his legs to the floor in turn. “But if she met something she liked worse, you mightn’t seem so bad.”
That didn’t appear very comforting to me, but Lucius straightened up. “Do you think she’s in any danger?”
“I have no reason to think anything. But she is following an abnormal course of procedure, and she must have strong reasons for doing so. Certainly if I was interested in the welfare of a young lady — ”
“Interested! Welfare! Why, I’d do anything! I don’t even care whether she ever speaks to me again, if only she’s all right.”
“In that case,” Golias said, reaching for his pants, “it would seem that our immediate mission is to trace her route. We can do that, as well as locate the general vicinity of her destination, by enquiring at stage stops along the way. Luckily inn keepers as a class are both observant and garrulous.”
Whether or not he believed there was any point in the course he suggested, he had the medicine for Lucius. The latter didn’t cheer up, which wasn’t to be expected, but he saw a reason for continuing to want to be. He ate well, too, which he probably wouldn’t have done otherwise. Every grim mouthful, you could see, was so many vitamins stored for use against Miss ap Hawthorn’s so far hypothetical enemies.
We found that the stage she had caught was bound for a town along the way to the City, so we kept on down Watling Street when we set out. It was drizzling and early, so Thebes looked almost deserted when we passed through it. An inn a few miles beyond that town was, as Boniface had told us, the stage relay point. Stopping there for ale, we found that Miss ap Hawthorn and her maid had continued westward, so we did.
From there on a heavy fog made it dreary going. We had walked out of it by noon, however, and about the same time we came in sight of an ecclesiastical-looking structure, where, Golias said, we could count on getting a bite of lunch. As we approached the establishment from one direction, though, a column of troops bore down toward it from the other, yelling and cheering. They reached it first and didn’t stand on ceremony when they got there. We could see the vanguard rushing forward with ladders. Meeting no opposition, men commenced swarming over the walls.
Jones and I halted. “We don’t want to get mixed up in this,” I said. “Hadn’t we better detour?”
“Yes,” Golias assented, “but let’s not side-step so far that we can’t see what’s going on. This might be good.”
It didn’t sound good. As we drew abreast of the place in our sweep around, we could hear screaming, howling, and pleas for mercy mixed with the running and stamping of feet, the rattle of weapons, and terrible crunching sounds.
I was feeling sick at my stomach. “Hurry up!” I growled to Golias, who kept dragging behind, staring.
So far, as it happened, there had been nothing to watch. The walls hid from us the terrible doings of the army, whose collective voice — as an undertone to the other alarming sounds we heard — was the satisfied snarl of bulldogs that have got their death grip. Now that changed. All sounds made way for one mass shriek of fright.
“Wait!” Golias called to us.
He had hardly said the word when men started coming back over the walls. Some in front were pushed so frantically by those behind that they literally popped over. Others were yanked back or tripped and trampled on by colleagues unwilling to wait their turn. Those who fell when they cleared the wall served as cushions for oncoming echelons. This was panic with no holds barred; but I was too amazed to be really appalled. My chief emotion was curiosity as to what could have so frightened that large a body of armed men.
Most of them milled around when they got outside, evidently afraid to choose any direction for fear it would be the one taken by the pursuing force. One group of a few hundred, however, tore off down Watling Street.
“There’s Friar John!” Golias cried excitedly. “Now watch.”
Even then I didn’t realize that the bald-headed man in the gunny sack wasn’t making a getaway likewise. I didn’t get the pitch until he caught up with the others and swung a club that he carried. It didn’t look like much of a weapon — from where I stood it looked like nothing more than a sort of long handled tomahawk — but he knew how to use it. The first swing knocked a dozen or so soldiers up in the air. Three or four heads were soloing before they hit the ground; and most of the men who weren’t decapitated didn’t move again either.
“Lord God Almighty!” Lucius exclaimed.
“Deft,” Golias commented. “Lots of power, too. I think it’s the wrist snap and the timing.”
He was pleased with the way things were turning out, and I became aware that I was also. That bunch had asked for trouble, and they were getting it. I watched while baldy mowed down every man on the road, then sprinted toward a brigade or thereabouts fleeing through the fields.
“Well, all I can say,” I breathed, “is that he’s a going son of a bitch. There he’s caught ’em. Look at him swing that thing!”
He hit them high, low, and in the middle. He hoo
ked them up in the air and clipped them before they came down. He bashed in heads, sliced off legs, disemboweled, and salivated them. He reaped squads, smashed platoons, mangled companies, shattered battalions, and mopped up regiments. I suppose he could have played weasel in the hen yard until they were all dead, but when he had crushed them beyond any hope of being able to rally, he abruptly sat down.
“Bring me wine!” he yelled. “I’m thirsty.”
“Let’s see if we can get a drink, too,” Golias said.
Having seen people I’d rather approach, I was grateful when Jones spoke up. “This isn’t a good time for strangers to be bothering them, I should say.”
“Oh, they can tell from our clothes that we’re not from this part of the country,” Golias said. “Come on.”
As I had feared, he led the way directly to where that bald-headed fellow was resting. Not that he had a corner on baldness thereabouts. In answer to his bellow for wine, several inmates of the establishment had come forth, bearing demijohns of the refreshment in question. The tops of their heads were all bare and sunburned.
Having shown their appreciation of Friar John’s prowess in the practical fashion demanded of them, these newcomers did not linger. Instead they lined up and marched off, singing a psalm. Their champion was therefore alone when we drew near, Golias a good six strides in the lead.
“Nice going, John,” he said.
To my relief the fellow didn’t reach for his weapon. Instead, he glanced at the heaps of men he had slaughtered.
“I’ve always been a peace-loving man,” he remarked, smacking his lips. “They made me angry.”
“That’s a mistake a lot of them won’t repeat.” Not wanting to make him angry myself, I didn’t touch his club, though I examined it as well as I could. It looked remarkably like a crucifix such as is a prop for a church parade. I shook my head. “Just what was the trouble?”
He downed a beer mug full of white wine and filled it up again. “I’m a peaceable servant of the Lord,” he insisted again, “so when the Lernists invaded our country, contrary to all the laws of Christendom, the tenets of diplomacy, the counsels of good taste, the pleasure of King Grangousier, the desires of my fellow countrymen, the welfare of their own sundry concerns, and the advice of their wives, who will now be in fine position to say ‘I told you so’ to the survivors, I merely uttered a prayer for their souls. When they started sacking and burning our towns, I gave them a pax vobiscum. When they began ravishing the women, I said no more than a few aves. When they commenced killing our men, I replied with a pater noster. When they swarmed into the sacred precincts of our holy order, my only comment was to tell, if I remember correctly, three beads. But when I saw them stealing our grapes and cutting down our vines, then I lost my temper.” He swigged down his drink, refilled the mug, and held it out. “Have some, Golias?”
While not so heartily as he, we drank each in turn. It was good wine. Friar John watched us benevolently.
“I think that where these poor sinners most transgressed,” he said, “was in trying to upset the balance of nature as instituted by the one omnipotent and holy God when the universe sprang from his brain — simply because it occurred to him, and it became a fact — somewhat in the manner of Athena popping out of Zeus’ head, greatly to his relief.”
A nearby victim stirred, but he didn’t do it twice, because Friar John poked him with the small end of his club. “Unfortunately,” he went on, “only deity can manage to get a woman off his mind so easily and completely; but that isn’t what I started out to say. The universe as conceived and delivered is held together by a set of natural relationships. My turn, my friend.” He took the mug from me and sloshed it full again. “What, for instance, holds clam shells together?”
“Well,” I said, “I’ve never given much thought to the structure of clam shells.”
“A clam holds clam shells together,” he announced after drinking, “and by the same token the shell holds the clam in place and keeps it from wandering, an activity for which it is fitted neither by physical prowess nor spiritual élan. You see how things are designed to balance? Marvelous. Similarly we note the close natural kinship between wine and friars. As far as I have been able to observe, and I have made a close study of the matter, one is unthinkable without the other. The friar is the destined container of the wine — which else would be imperfectly kept and utilized; and the friar would come unstuck and fall apart if he didn’t have the vinous mucilage which omniscience has provided to knit his seams. Have you lunched?”
“No,” Golias said. “We hope to eat here if your ménage hasn’t been too upset by what happened today.”
“Come on inside. I’ll see that you get something.” Friar John picked up the only jug which still had something in it. “As the burden of killing all these misguided sinners fell upon me, the business of blessing and burying them — which is not, in this case, unlike jerking the lid of hell from underneath them after wishing them bon voyage — I’ll leave to my brothers of the order. Ah, it’s time we left. Here comes the prayer and shovel brigade now.”
We lunched on cold ham, venison, capon, beef, salami, bologna, liverwurst, partridge, half a dozen lively cheeses, and that wine, which seemed to go with everything singularly well. Even Jones, I was gratified to see, enjoyed the meal. All that morning he had been glum as a zombie, but under the influence of good cheer and Friar John’s conversation he began to feel better. After a while he stopped insisting that we cut it short and get going again.
As for me, I had never had much to do with any fathers of the church, and I found I had been missing something. Of course, as our host himself pointed out, he was not strictly representative of his kind in all respects. For example, there was a song he taught us. It took our fancy, and we were singing it as we stepped out down Watling Street once more.
At times the mind works on two levels at once, and it was so with mine on this occasion. Half of it was giving itself gleefully to the moment, while the other half was revolving a new idea. What had impressed me was that this friar was well-informed and had a lot of fun out of that fact alone. In the past, if I had wanted to find out anything, it was always for a practical reason. Now I glimpsed the concept that to know a thing for itself could be a source of joy. Take the song we were bellowing. It was easy to appreciate, but I would have had more chuckles out of it if I had known, as the others did, about the personages involved. From then on I intended to begin picking up data from Golias or any other handy source.
But, as I say, this resolution, made with the solemn half of my mind, didn’t interfere with the attention the other half was giving to making as much noise as possible.
Old man Zeus he — kept a heifer in his yard;
Hera smelled a — rat and took the matter hard.
She swore she would — watch the varmint anyhow,
Damned if she’d play — second fiddle to a cowl
Here’s to Zeus and his hot pants! — He learned to pay his debts.
The more he started to explain,
The more she jawed him with disdain.
She wouldn’t hear; it was in vain
He vowed he just liked pets.
Once afoot with the song, we made pleasing discoveries. The break in the lines of the verse was admirable. In it there was room for a hiccough or a belch before, with a lurch and a stamp, we hit the accented first syllable of the second half.
Young Adonis — was a handsome lad, I hear,
But some parts were — missing from him, as I fear;
Aphrodite — swung her hips and rolled her eyes,
But for once she — couldn’t even get a rise.
Here’s to young Adonis, who is dead and ought to be!
He chased a pig, he shot and missed,
So he got killed instead of kissed.
I wish that what slipped through his fist
Had only come to me!
Once a centaur — loved a Lapithaean dame,
So he thought he�
�d — work to try to snatch the same;
But that cutie — didn’t thank him for his pass,
For she said she — knew he was a horse’s —
“Hold on!” Jones interrupted. “Keep it. There’s a woman.”
Trust him to see her, though only her head was visible. Then the rest of her emerged, as she crawled out of a ditch beside the road. Disheveled and with her face smeared with dirt, she was anything but an attractive figure. She seemed dazed, too, and not sure of where she was as she peered first westward and then east toward us. When she did so, Golias gave a startled exclamation.
“It’s the woman who was with Lady Hermione last night!”
An instant later she herself spoke. “Master Lucius!” she croaked. “Oh, Master Lucius.”
We were all sober by then, knowing there was bad trouble, and Jones was naturally in a panic. “What happened?” he cried, as he sprang toward her. “Tell me where she is!” He reached the woman, then stood helplessly holding her up. “Oh, my God! She’s fainted.”
She didn’t come out of it, although we worked over her, until Golias made a suggestion. “They say,” he remarked, “that when everything else fails, the best remedy is to take a rock and bang some sense back into the patient’s noggin. Hand me that stone, Shandon. Not the small one; the big jagged one.”
“She’s coming to!” Lucius cried.
Sure enough the eyelids fluttered, then stayed open. “Tell me where she is, my Hermione!” Jones urged.
She twitched the shoulders he was supporting. “Nobody cares what happened to me. I’m the one who got hurt.”
“Of course, we care,” Jones made haste to say, “but we want to know why you’re not with her.”
“Folks that swoon — really swoon,” she added, looking indignantly at Golias, “don’t remember much.”
Silverlock (Prologue Books) Page 18