His quarterdeck turned out to be a small platform at the stern, which enabled him to oversee the boat, watch the progress of the mules, and look on down the canal. Mounting to this eminence, we seated ourselves, dangling our legs.
“What’s your set-up here?” I asked.
“Let’s speak low, so as not to disturb the harmony of this cruise,” he cautioned me. “You see, everybody aboard is a one hundred percent by volume, habitual, congenital, and non-convertible damned fool. And the best part of it is that although each ascribes that character to all the others, there’s not a one of them who knows it’s true of himself.”
“Uh-huh.” While not doubting that he was probing me for weak spots, I was beginning to get a brittle pleasure out of his company. I surveyed my fellow passengers. Four or five were playing cards. There were a few solitaries whose jaws worked in audible self-communion. The majority, however, were in groups of enthusiastic arguers. “Are you going any place in particular?”
“Is anybody?” he countered. “No, we’re just traveling through the country to study the fatheadedness of mankind. We really wouldn’t have to budge, being loaded to the gunwales with it; but a traveled fathead is always convinced he’s learned something.” He sucked the flavor of his joke through his teeth. “Good, isn’t it?”
I chuckled, hoping he wouldn’t sense that up to the day before I had been preening myself on my own recent travels. Now with a man who spoke my own old language, I knew again that wisdom lay only in clear eyes to recognize inanity.
“What do you get out of it besides fun?”
“They pay me!” He was so pleased with himself he could hardly whisper. “They pony up hard cash to be able to crawl under my microscope.”
“I haven’t got the fare and wouldn’t pay it if I had,” I warned him. Not that I was actually broke, but I wanted to show him I was not to be classed with the others.
“Remind me to have you put in irons later. But right now I feel I can afford the luxury of having somebody to exhibit my specimens to.” His eyes ranged over the boat. “I love ’em all; but my favorites are the rascals who’d swear up and down — and believe it — that they’re honest men.”
It is always entertaining to see other people making themselves ridiculous. “Which ones, for instance?”
“Do you see that bearded old cluck bending the ears of the card players? Never can think of his name. I call him the cloud rooster, because he’s always in a high fog. He isn’t kibitzing, as you might think; he’s just found some poor devils that can’t get away from him without busting up their game.”
I observed the wagging beard and the resigned looks of the players. “What’s he talking about?”
“Some rigmarole about just pleas and unjust pleas if he’s in form. He’s a pistol. His specialty is giving ethical advice that’ll get you hanged if you follow it. He’s a social asset in the same degree as a coral snake whose tail has just been stepped on, but it’s his positive conviction that he was delegated by Heaven to coach suffering humanity.
“Take Cave Burton, the one who’s dealing,” the skipper went on, after he’d paused to laugh. “The reason he’s so glum, in spite of having won about all the money in the game, is that he’s found somebody who can outjaw him; and that never happened before. Now if you were to ask him his status, he’d tell you he was a lawyer, although he has no comprehension either of the philosophy of jurisprudence or the mathematics of justice. Cave’s walking proof that a man can be conscientious without having a conscience. Feed him a case, he gives all he’s got, opening his mouth in the blind trust that either wiliness or wisdom — he doesn’t much care which and couldn’t distinguish between them — is bound to come out.”
“And what does come out?” I asked with malicious anticipation.
“Meaningless noise and stale air — the same things you’d expect if the wind blew out of any other cave.” Lorel nudged me. “There’s one of my jewels, just coming out of the cabin. The one reading.”
As this was the first book I had seen since reaching the Commonwealth, I stared with some curiosity. “What’s his racket?”
Instead of answering the skipper nudged me again. “See him bump into those fellows? That isn’t put on. Bayes really doesn’t know where he’s going or what he’s doing.”
“You mean to say he can’t read that book he’s goggling at?”
“It’s better than that,” Lorel chortled. “He’s that gem of jackasses, the scholarly illiterate. When he gets through that book, he’ll be able to tell you every word in it without having the least idea what any two of them mean together. He eats books, and all that is left in his mind is what is left after the consumption of any other food — a shapeless crap that gives no clue to the structure, color, and life it once possessed. Funnier yet, he thinks he’s a maker.”
I had heard Golias use the term, and because it reminded me of him, my mind growled. “You mean he’s a dope of a poet?”
“Never for an instant! To be even a rotten apple it is necessary to be the fruit of the apple tree. A puff ball can’t qualify. Yet as he looks up from a page he doesn’t comprehend and stares vacuously into space, Bayes thinks the soul he hasn’t got is in a turmoil of creative frenzy.
“In some ways,” the skipper continued while I was still chuckling, “I get more of a bang out of him than I do out of any of the others, though I’ve picked up a few who are of less account.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“Wait a minute, and I’ll point one out. There.” He flicked a finger to guide my eyes. “That fellow hunched up on a corner of the cabin roof.”
“The pretty boy — the one who looks like a gigolo?”
“Naevolus is only a part-time gigolo,” Lorel said. “Other times he’s a pimp, a pandar, and a go-between. He has a fee for getting the young wives of old men pregnant, so the gaffers can brag to the world that they’ve still got what it takes. He has another price for keeping mum about it.”
“It doesn’t sound so funny to me,” I pointed out.
“I haven’t come to the funny part. The punch line is that the reason he’s sulking is that he isn’t admired for his talents. According to his way of thinking, he’s a useful citizen — efficient, resourceful, and reliable — and he can’t see why he’s refused the standing given to other hard-working business men.”
Lorel was laughing so hard by the time he had wheezed out the last sentence that he got cramps. “I’ve only collected one lower than that,” he said, when he had caught his breath again. “I’ve been waiting till you could see him in action: the prissy barrow who’s picking the pocket of the man behind him while he lectures the one he’s got backed against the cabin. What would you figure he’s sounding off about?”
“I pass, though he looks kind of like a deacon.”
“Not a bad guess. Tartuffe is not only deacon, but vicar, canon, bishop, pope, and prophet of a religion whose only article of faith is that Tartuffe shan’t have to work for a living. I’ll give odds he’s shaking that sucker down right now in the cause of holy charity. H. Charity is another name for Tartuffe; but he’s acted his part so long he’s forgotten he started out as a thief. Call him on it, and he’ll jump back so that the lightning God sends to strike you dead won’t salivate him, too.”
24
Men and Horses
CAPTAIN LOREL’S conversation not only fitted in with my mood but outfitted my sense of humor with shark’s teeth. It flattered me to know that I was the sole passenger whom he considered worthy to be his confidant. From time to time, by way of showing him he had made no mistake, I gave him examples of my own bitter wit.
Sitting thus in mocking judgment, we dawdled along the canal for some while. The scenery in the mean time had changed without improving. Every house had been reamed out by fire. The vegetation, such as it was, had also been seared by flames. The trees held up no more than stumps of branches to a dull autumn sky. The few leaves were shriveled. The men hanging from some of th
e branches were, on the whole, in a better state of preservation.
For a time we saw no live men, but eventually a marching column appeared from behind a cluster of burnt buildings and came slowly down the other side of the canal. As long as the skipper showed no concern, I wasn’t going to, either.
“Do you figure this is part of the wrecking crew?”
“They’re not near enough for me to see just what kind of fools they are yet,” Lorel told me. “They’re not all soldiers, though.”
He was right. The fellow in front was carrying a crucifix much like the one Friar John had wielded so effectively. He and the men immediately behind him were dressed like John, too, being barefoot and wearing gunnysack gowns. In back of them was a squad of soldiers. Trailing them in turn was a chain gang, stark naked, marching double column. Bringing up the rear was another squad. The soldiers wore helmets but not much armor and carried guns and spears.
Walking on the far towpath, they didn’t have to swerve to avoid our mules. It appeared that they weren’t going to pay any attention to us; but when their leader reached a point abreast of our bow, he shouted for a halt, planted his crucifix in the ground, and threw up one hand.
“Stop in the name of God and the Holy Inquisition!” he commanded.
“This vessel,” Lorel told him, “only stops when those mules do, but I’ll bring pressure to bear. See if you can have ’em whoa,” he called to the driver.
By the time the mules had consented to oblige, we in the stern had drawn level with the cross bearer. In spite of his beggarly costume, I could see that he was a leader who was used to being taken seriously. Judging the skipper would have some fun with him, I lolled back, prepared to stick in my oar if I found a chance.
“Blessings on all there,” the fellow now offered. “Who’s in charge?”
“Blessings right back at you, and I am,” the captain said. “C. Lorel, master and owner of Menippus out of Narragonia. Would you like to book passage?”
I nearly choked over that one, but the other didn’t know he had been insulted. “No, thank you, my son; I simply want to know if you have any malefactors aboard.”
Trying to guess what Lorel would answer to that, I looked away to conceal my amusement. “Why, yes,” I heard the skipper say, “I’ve got one deadhead.” His voice lost its sharp quality and became plaintive. “He won’t pay his fare, father, though how he expects me to make a living when people take advantage of me that way, I’m sure I don’t know, father.”
Even when he put his hand on my shoulder, I wasn’t able to grasp what was going on. “It seems to me, father, that that’s stealing — just as much thievery as coming into a man’s house and taking his money.”
“It certainly is,” the friar or whatever he was agreed. As he turned to signal to one of the soldiers, he had the satisfied look of a salesman who had just secured an order. “Take charge of the poor sinner, sergeant.”
I was still befogged when soldiers strode over the gangplank gleefully furnished them by the other passengers. Lorel couldn’t have meant to get rid of me, the one man who shared his wit and sanity among this boatload of fatuous dough-heads. Because I insisted on arguing with facts, I made no effort to get away. It was only when several spearmen took rough hold of me that I fully understood that I had been betrayed.
As they started to drag me away, I made a stunned appeal to Lorel. “But I thought we were friends!”
He was still sniveling to the friar, but when he turned to me his mouth was grinning beneath crocodile-cold eyes. “Your chief trouble seems to be that you always think wrong. For example, you thought you weren’t a fool.”
He was having a tough time to keep from laughing outright. I tried to get at him, and one of the soldiers slugged me. The next minute I was hoisted over the side and shoved down the gangplank.
“Tell those damned mules we have a fair wind!” I heard Lorel shout.
The boat was already moving down the canal when I stood before the man who bore the crucifix. The only difference between the hardness of his expression and the one worn by the skipper was that it was unamused. Already furious, I hated him on the instant and let him see it.
“My son,” he said, when we had taken stock of each other, “do you believe in God?”
“My father,” I answered him, “not when I look at you.”
I considered that a pretty smart crack until one of the soldiers walloped me over the head with the butt end of his spear. I thought for a minute I was going out. While I was trying to pull myself together, I heard the friar speaking.
“Infidelity and malfeasance. Only the Inquisition can deal competently with such cases. Attend to him, sergeant.”
I was attended to. They started to peel me, and when I resisted, they got rough. I was battered into senselessness, and when I came to they were whipping me to make me get up. After a while the pain of the lashes forced me from my stupor. Naked and bleeding, I rose and staggered away from the punishment. They guided me with whips to the end of the chain gang, then jerked me into position. The prisoners were in pairs with the exception of a singleton bringing up the rear. In a moment I was handcuffed to him and shackled to the fellow in front of me.
“All right,” the sergeant snarled, “you bastards get moving and start singing ‘Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.’”
We were singing it for the third or fourth time when we turned off the towpath into a road. As I shuffled painfully by, I glanced up at a signpost. My eyes were so blurred with sweat I couldn’t read the legend at first, but after a second I made it out: “To the Dark Tower.”
“A nice day, isn’t it?”
It was a moment before I realized that the man beside me, a plump little elderly chap, had spoken the words. They had used the whips on him, too; and he had been in chains longer than I, as his scabbed wrists and ankles showed. Yet he was smiling as if he had just uttered some sensible commonplace. The rest went on singing, and under cover of their noise I felt free to answer him.
“What college of nuts gave you a degree?”
He beamed at me. “Why, it’s true that I’m a scholar, albeit not a graduate of the university you mentioned.”
I couldn’t make out who was pulling whose leg, though he looked to be in earnest. “Have you written in to the alumni association to tell them how you’re doing?”
“Oh, being a philosopher, I can’t do otherwise than well,” he explained. “The very purpose of philosophy is to fit one to recognize and admire the wisdom and careful planning which have gone into the making of this, the best of all possible worlds.”
I looked at the lifeless landscape, at the sorry remnants of man’s building, at the men to whom we were chained, singing a song made idiotic because it was wrung from them by torture instead of joy. From these I glanced to the fellow beside me, stumbling along in wretched indignity. At the same time I felt the anklets grinding my naked flesh and the sweat running into the furrows cut into my body by lashes. In full comprehension of my degradation and helplessness, I gave a wild bark of laughter.
“So this is what you call the best of all possible worlds! I could make a better one out of oyster eyes, skunk lice, and dog vomit. You son of a bitch!”
The last was a cry of pain and anger as a whip bit into my back. “Sing!” a soldier growled. And when I had caught my breath, I did sing. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”
Progressing westward, and something north of west, I think, we reached the foot hills of the Titans the next day. That doesn’t mean we traveled fast. Our chains prevented it, and the activities of our captors were an added hindrance. Sometimes we were halted so that a new prisoner could be added to our column of wretchedness. At other times the friars stopped to read prayers while the soldiers raped women whom they rewarded with evisceration. Then there would be further delay while the murderers confessed their sins and were lectured for their naughtiness.
We didn’t get far into the hills, for the steep slopes got to us. The
first two or three who fainted had to be dragged along by the rest of us; but when half a dozen were down, the friars called a halt for the night. Having had only a little over a day of it, I was in better shape than most of the others, or in no worse than a partial state of collapse. I was therefore one of those detailed to help make camp.
When they unhitched me from Pangloss, the little jigger who was my chain-mate, I thought he was unconscious; but he opened his eyes to smile feebly. “It’ll be nice to sleep stretched out under the trees in the bracing air of these hills, won’t it?”
“Go to the Devil!” I said, wishing my irons would let me kick him.
We were bivouacked in a grove a hundred yards or so from the gully whence we drew our water. As cook’s water boy, I was herded to the stream by the soldier who had been appointed my keeper. The chain linking my handcuffs was so short that I could not let the two buckets hang at my sides. Empty, they could be held in front of me, but it was manifestly impossible for me to carry them full in that position.
“What do you want?” I said to my guard. “Would you rather have me chained, or are you going to carry them yourself?”
“I never handled this detail before, but it’s a cinch I ain’t going to do your work for you.” He considered a moment. “Turn around and hold your wrists in close to you.”
Reaching from behind, he had to work with one hand, fumbling at a lock rusted by the sweat and blood of the poor chaps who had worn the handcuffs before me. At length he had to peer around my shoulder to see what he was doing; and it was then I whirled and crossed my wrists behind his neck.
The cry he gave was a poor thing even for a squeak, for the chain crushed his Adam’s apple. He beat at me, but I held him too close to permit any damaging punches. Holding him so, I watched him die with contemptuous detachment. I did not think enough of him — or of myself — to hate him. To me he was like a cockroach in the kitchen: something that had to be destroyed before I could go about my own business of messing up the place.
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