Castle of Days (1992) SSC

by Gene Wolfe

  Thus we have a return to full-fledged cavalry warfare, with dragoons, scouts, and charges. If it sounds fantastic, it should not; it is merely a revival of military techniques that have been in abeyance for scarcely a hundred years. Wait until genetic engineering really gets going and someone questions the need for separable mounts and riders. Fighting centaurs! (Sometimes it almost seems as if the Greeks …)

  These Are the Jokes

  My son Roy has suggested that this book requires more funny bits. Desperate, I have ventured to request that each of the characters in The Book of the New Sun supply me with one humorous story, and a few of them have been sufficiently cooperative to do it. Although we may not find them amusing, they should at least supply us with some additional insights into life on Urth.

  Severian: I have never been considered a raconteur, but I do remember a joke I heard when I was in charge of the Vincula in Thrax. It seems there were two shopkeepers there named Maden and Madern who hated each other. Their shops were on the same street only a few steps apart, and for years they undercut each other and spread false rumors about each other’s merchandise, and in short tried to harm each other in every possible way.

  Eventually, both grew rich and went into politics, joining contending parties. Politics is a violent occupation in the north, and one day they found themselves chained by the neck, side by side in the Vincula.

  “How did you get in here?” asked Maden.

  “I tried to overthrow the archon,” said Madern. “How about you?”

  “Same thing,” said Maden.

  Soon they fell to talking about their experiences in trade, the way their suppliers had tried to cheat them, and so on. Most of the other prisoners were wild eclectics from the mountains, and Maden and Madern became fast friends.

  Fever came, and Maden fell ill. There was very little his friend Madern could do for him; but he did what he could, sharing food, trying to calm his delirium, and even sacrificing a part of his own water ration. Health and death alike cool the body. Maden’s final moment came and his fever abated. Madern was holding him in his arms. Maden looked up into Madern’s face and said, “My friend, I shall soon be free, while you remain here in chains.”

  Madern nodded sadly, and all the prisoners near them fell silent.

  “There are times when even a good merchant should tell the truth.”

  “I know, I know,” said Madern. “You are going to confess some bad thing you did to me in the old days. That fire—I knew it was you. It’s all right. I tried to do such things too, and I forgive you now.”

  Weakly, Maden shook his head. “Madern, I was just going to say that my life was a great deal happier when you hated me.”

  Drotte: Once the funds that support the work of our guild did not arrive. The masters were desperate, because there was no money to pay the journeymen and buy food for the clients. They discussed the matter among themselves, but no one could offer a suggestion of the least value. They called in the older journeymen; none of them had any ideas either. They called in the younger journeymen, and when that failed, they called in the captain of the apprentices.

  “Have no fear, my masters,” he said. “Let me have half the boys for a week, and you shall have all the money you require.” Of course they let him have them, but they were so afraid he would do something they couldn’t approve that they didn’t ask him what it was.

  In a week he was back with two boys to pull a cart-load of silver asimis after him. “What did you do?” the masters demanded. They thought he must have raided a treasure house.

  “It was quite simple,” the captain of apprentices said. “You know that everyone in the Citadel is terrified that he may someday be sent here.” And he produced a little card lettered in ink.

  “Certainly,” said all the masters.

  “Yet the chance that any of them actually will be sent here is very slight indeed.”

  “Of course,” said all the masters.

  “So I had the boys going around the Citadel selling these cards. One asimi. The card pledges that if the bearer is ever sent to the Matachin Tower, he will be released immediately.”

  “Wait a moment,” said the masters. “Suppose that somebody who has one of these cards of yours is actually sent here. We can’t possibly release him in defiance of the court.”

  “That’s all right,” said the captain of apprentices. “We’ll give him his asimi back.”

  Roche: A man with a heavy purse went to a brothel. The owner showed him a lovely, dewy blonde, graceful as an oribi. “Fifty orichalks.”

  “No, show me something cheaper.”

  The owner whistled and a voluptuous brunet came out. “Thirty orichalks.”

  “No, something cheaper.”

  The owner whistled twice, and a gorgeous, passionate redhead appeared. “This is our daily special. Usually seventy orichalks. For you, tonight, a mere twenty.”

  “Something cheaper.”

  “This is all we have. Listen, Goodman, I want to ask you a question. Just how much did you plan to spend tonight?”

  “A hundred orichalks.”

  “A hundred orichalks! Everything I’ve shown you has been under that. Why, for a hundred you could have all three!”

  “Yes, but this is only my first stop.”

  Eata: I am going to ask a riddle. You may not find it funny, but that’s because you’ve never been an apprentice here. We think it’s very funny, and if you think about it, I think you’ll think it’s funny too. The answer is at the end of this essay.

  Once four apprentices were scrubbing a floor. One threw down his brush, tore his clothes, and said, “There’s nobody but the Increate! I’m going to run away to the desert where I can be with him forever.” And he ran outside.

  The other three were talking about him, should they have stopped him and so forth, when a door none of them even knew was there opened and this man in a blue uniform trimmed with metal came out. He said, “One of you cadets will have to help me get this bird up. You, there!” And he pointed to one of the apprentices who was left, and when the apprentice didn’t come, he went over and grabbed him and pulled him through the door.

  The two that were left just stared at each other. Only they hadn’t been staring like that long when a beautiful exultant girl dove her flying destrier through the port, grabbed up an apprentice, and flew away with him. The last apprentice was looking out the port after them when Master Gurloes came in and asked him where the other three boys were. Now here’s the riddle. What did the last apprentice say? Think about it. Like I told you, the answer’s at the end.

  Master Gurloes: Once a monial, a wildgrave, and a master torturer were walking through a wood when they met an arctother. They ran, but the brute caught them all and held the wildgrave and the master torturer down with its paws while it savaged the monial. She prayed so as to bring tears to the eyes of a statue, but it mangled her horribly.

  Then it turned upon the wildgrave. He announced that he represented the landowner and ordered the arctother to desist, but he was torn and bitten worse even than the monial.

  As the arctother was about to turn on the master torturer, however, he whispered in its ear. It hesitated for a moment, then fled into the woods. The master torturer got up and began to bind the monial’s wounds.

  “What is this?” exclaimed the wildgrave. “That beast would not heed the terror of the armiger’s name or even listen to the pleas made by this good woman to the Increate. What did you say to it?”

  The master said, “I explained that it was going about its business in entirely the wrong way.”

  Master Palaemon: By the lore of our guild, there was once a certain Master Werenfrid whose self-control was such that he was only known to have lost it once, and that when he was a very elderly man. It so happened that he retained the passions of youth even until the end of a long life, so that despite the not insignificant income of a master, he was ever strained in his purse by his losses in gambling and gifts he made to women.
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  Now it so happened that a certain journeyman had acquired the services of a doxy whom Master Werenfrid mightily admired. He approached her, urging the advantages of his position as a master of the guild, the expectations he held of a high income when once his debts were settled, and so on. But she refused him—the journeyman was young and handsome, he was faithful to her (as she well knew Master Werenfrid would never be), he refrained from troubling her head with discourse intellectual, and so on. Master Werenfrid nevertheless persisted, and at last the girl promised that if he should see to it that the journeyman, her lover, should be engaged the whole night, she would entertain him.

  Now it so happened that at that time the guild had a large number of clients requiring excruciations of various difficult and delicate natures. Master Werenfrid therefore called in the journeyman, and after explaining to him that he had noticed his ability, his application, and so on, told him that as a great favor he was to be wholly charged with the performance of one such excruciation, an operation sure to consume a dozen watches at least. The young journeyman was overjoyed; Master Werenfrid saw that the client was delivered to him and went off to the girl with a high heart.

  About mid-morning of the next day he appeared to inspect the journeyman’s work, yet still he burned for the girl, and so he found this and that to criticize, and ended by assigning a second client to him, the work to begin with the coming evening. And the day after, just as before.

  By the time he began upon his third client, the young journeyman was both greatly fatigued and confused, and terrified in mind by all the criticism he had received; he botched the work badly, Master Werenfrid was furious, and a fourth client was assigned who fared no better at the young journeyman’s hands than the third. Nor did the fifth fare better than the fourth, or the sixth better than the fifth.

  At last Master Werenfrid arrived to inspect the seventh, and found everything most horribly bungled. The client had lost consciousness almost before the operation had begun, had been carried to the very border of demise, and so on. While the young journeyman cowered in a corner, Master Werenfrid bit his own fingers, chewed his mustache, and in short did all he knew how to retain his famous self-control. At last he could stand it no more. He rounded on the trembling youngster and in a voice like thunder demanded, “What are you trying to do, you miserable whelp! Kill an old man?”

  Thecla: There was a chatelaine at the House Absolute who had several lovers. One night her maid came hurrying in to tell her that one of them, a handsome young officer of the Praetorians, was outside. As it happened, her chief groom was in her bed at the time, and she told him that he must leave it at once and take up a position beneath it.

  She and the young officer, however, had no more than embraced, when the maid came in again, nearly frantic. The young officer’s chiliarch was outside. The young officer dived under the bed.

  The chiliarch had hardly disrobed when the maid burst in again. The Chief Magistrate was outside and panting for the sight of her mistress. Under the bed with the chiliarch too.

  No more had the chatelaine and the Chief Magistrate kissed but the maid came flying into the room. The Autarch himself was outside! Under the bed with the Chief Magistrate, where he and the groom bumped heads most painfully.

  Now the Autarch is not a man as men are generally counted, but all that he lacked in prowess he made up in desire, while the chatelaine’s wish to please him was very great, and her skill—as may be imagined—considerable. They bounced, tickled, kissed, bounced again, and rubbed until the night was half worn away and there was no part of her body he had not tasted, and no part of his that she had not sampled twice at least.

  At last there was no more either could manage but to lie side by side and hand in hand, both covered with sweat and too tired to so much as order the maid to fetch clean sheets. At last the Autarch said, “My dearest of all chatelaines, I know you have many lovers …”

  “Oh, no, Illuminator of Our Sphere! None but you!”

  “Many lovers, I say,” insisted the Autarch. “Do you imagine that you are not watched day and night? What I wish to learn is whether every familiarity you allow them you also permit to me.”

  “Oh, yes, Illuminator of Our Sphere! Every one and more!”

  At that the Autarch only sighed and was silent, and for a long moment the poor chatelaine felt her head loose on her shoulders.

  “Every one, Chatelaine?”

  “Yes, oh, yes, my darling, Breath of My Life, Breath of All Our Lives! Every one, and more than I would dream of permitting any of the others!”

  The Autarch sighed again. “Then why am I never allowed to go under your bed?”

  Dr. Talos: Once there lived a man and wife who always quarreled. One day they fell to quarreling about the making of new life, the man saying that the whole effort was his, while his wife held stoutly that she did all the work. The quarrel dragged on for days, weeks, and months, until they had nearly forgotten that they had anything else to fight over. At last they hit on a way to settle the matter. For two years they would sleep apart. The first year should be hers, and she would make a child alone if she could. The second year would be his, and he would do likewise.

  For all the first year she embraced trees, visited shrines, and bribed priests, but nought availed.

  The second year came. Her husband secreted himself and sealed his semen in divers flasks and bottles with broth, bread, salt, blood, and other substances as seemed appropriate to him. Nought availed, however, and at the termination of the year he presented himself shamefaced to his wife.

  To his amazement, she shrieked for joy, then knelt to kiss his foot. “How is this?” asked he. “My good, dear woman, know that I succeeded not a whit better than you yourself did.”

  “No, no!” she exclaimed. “Master of my house and heart, you are gloriously triumphant. I’m pregnant!”

  Jonas: Once three sailors got shore leave on a planet where a woman was taking a poll. She and her clipboard stopped all three and asked what it was each wanted the most. The first was a big, swaggering fellow with a red beard. “Why, I’ve never thought about it,” says he. “Which is what the dog said when they asked why they shouldn’t cut off his tail. But now that I do, why it’s power. Yes, power’s what I seek! I’d like to be a captain, then an admiral—a person of authority and a man of power.”

  The second was a sleek, smooth-looking fellow. “My dear lady,” says he, “I’ve not thought of it either, and that was what the diplomat said just before the war broke out. At least, that was it as well as they could recall afterward. Now that I have, I should say I would like to acquire more polish. It is my ambition—have your clipboard write this down, please—to shine in the most polished society.”

  The third was a handsome young fellow, and he said, “I haven’t thought about it any more than my friends here have, but I tried to think while they were talking to you, and I believe that what I most desire is love.”

  The woman laughed at that, and said, “Why you’re all three just robots!” (You must understand that the word robot comes from the Czech robotnik, which designates a certain kind of laborer, and that there had been a strong Czech influence on this planet.)

  “Why that’s perfectly true, ma‘am,” says the first sailor. “Which is what the skipper told the strumpet when she asked if he wasn’t usin’ his wooden leg. But how’d you know? I can see how you saw through me and this swab beside me, for power and polish is things all robots look for. But the devil take me—which is what the Irishman said, that didn’t have time to say wife—if I see how you saw through our young shipmate here.”

  “Because I began life by looking for power and polish myself,” said the woman, who was quick-witted. “And wound up just as he has.” Then she and the young sailor went off to have a drink, and if either one of them ever came back to the ship, why I never heard of it.

  Abdiesus, Archon of Thrax: A certain young man of our district fell in love with one of his father’s slave girls. I
nstead of asking the old man to give her to him, he carried on behind his back. Then the old man died, leaving no clearer will than a note directing that his property should be divided between his two sons.

  As it happened, the young fellow’s older brother hated him and refused to let him have the girl. So he went to the best legist in the district—modesty forbids my saying who that was—and promised him half his inheritance as a fee if only he could get the girl for him. “My dear young client,” said the legist, “there’s nothing to it. Wait here and leave everything in my hands.”

  Then I—I beg your pardon, the legist, I mean—went to see the older brother. “Look here, my good man,” he told the brother, “your brother is determined to contest the estate with you, and I am determined to assist him as long as an aes or an ear of corn remains. It will be a long, difficult, and costly proceeding. But before we go to court, I should like to propose a remedy that will permit you to begin the enjoyment of your inheritance forthwith.”

  “Say on,” quoth the brother.

  “Divide the property yourself, and as fairly as you can. Then I shall choose for my client the half I think best.”

  “As you say,” quoth the brother. Then he called all the slaves before him, and began by putting the slave girl on one side and the largest and strongest slave on the other. Then he chose the eldest and weakest and put him with the girl, and another strong slave with the other, and so on until all were divided. Then he ordered the slaves to divide the farm animals, putting the worst with the girl and the old and sick slaves. Then he himself divided the land, placing the house and the best fields with the strong slaves.