Hot Night in the City

by Trevanian

  "I'll have thee down in a trice, handsome knight," she called up.

  "Thank... you," he muttered between clenched teeth.

  "But first, thou must promise me a boon."

  "What... boon?"

  "Before I dislodge thee from yon forked bough, thou must promise—" And here the maiden blushed and turned her fair face aside. "Oh, how can I say it with modesty?"

  "Get... on... with... it!" muttered the distressed knight.

  "Well, then. As my father told thee, I am of swiving age and humour, but there is no swiveworthy man in this forest. Hence, ere I dislodge thee, thou must promise to teach me the ways of swiving. There, I have said it!" And she hid her face with her hands and blushed modestly.

  "Agreed," Sir Gervais rasped between his locked teeth.

  Whereupon the seeming sumptuous maid armed herself with a stout stick, then hitched her up skirts so high that both fud and ecu were cooled by the night breezes, and scaled the tree. Jamming the stick in behind the knight's helmet, she heaved with such good will that Sir Gervais was pried free and fell with a stunning clatter to the earth, where he sat all a-daze.

  Before his swirling senses settled, the maiden was upon him, clawing at the lacings of his armour that he might serve her as he had pledged to do. So willing was his brawn to redeem his promise that often he did mount her to this end, but upon each instance, his imagination warned him that this moist and panting maid was, in truth, a low-born person the swiving of whom was beneath his dignity, and this realization instantly made him all limp and unable.

  For many and many an hour was he, by turns, stiffened and shriveled until, near the dawning, he was sorely cramped with dog's cullions caused by the flowing and ebbing of ardent blood.

  Then did the maiden draw aside and pout and sniff and stamp her little foot. "All this fumbling and prodding, then fading and shriveling, surely this cannot be the swiving that I have heard so widely praised!"

  In his shame he attested that, yes, they had done the most and the best of swiving.

  "Nay, then," cried the maiden. "This swiving is a sport most treacherously o'er-famed! If it be for this that maidens dream and sigh, and in consequence of which they grow great and make babes to dangle from their teats, then no more of swiving shall I have! If God protect me from increase upon this occasion, I vow me to a nunnery, there to do His will and work 'til my flesh ages beyond yearning."

  And Sir Gervais did gravely affirm her in this choice, saying that if she drew not pleasure from his swiving—which was the best and highest of that delectable art—then surely no man could ever please her. And he did feel some pride in the knowledge that he was serving God by assisting a maiden to a nunnery where she would pass her life to the leeward of temptation.

  So it was that, in the fullness of time, the Maid of the Enchanted Forest rose from nun to abbess, and at last was hoisted to the high rank of saint in reward for abjuring the joy of men for all the six-and-eighty years she passed on this earth. For celibacy is rightly accounted a miracle in one so beauteous, lush, moist, and frick as she; while in the generality of nuns it is but a petty accomplishment, as it is no great feat to defend a fruit rendered forbidding and unpluckworthy by Nature.

  As for Sir Gervais, he did return to the Table Round, there to regale his comrades, recounting how he had passed a year and a day in the arms of a most desirable—if other-seeming—princess; and how, out of due consideration for the aged, he had let himself be bested by a pitiable and scrawny old knight, who had tried to disguise himself as a puissant woodcutter; and how he had come perilously close to being seduced by an ugly, all-rotted hag who had pretended to be a moist and frick maiden eager to swive and be swiven. And his amazed listeners were filled with wonder and envy.

  For the rest of his days Sir Gervais was so affected by his term in the Forest of Other-Seemingness that he would take to belly none but crones and hags full of years and distort of feature. And although some envious knights belittled his choice of lust-targets, they were obliged to admit that he was much more successful plying his lance in the romantic lists than he had been before his enchantment.

  Thus came it to pass that the knight's fame was sung down the corridors of time by bards and minstrels, in whose lays he was ever after clept: Sir Gervais! Swiver of Crones!

  EASTER STORY

  "Now then, young man, what have you been getting up to?" my master asked, smiling. "You have certainly managed to draw the wrath of the religious establishment down upon your head. Mind you, perhaps it does them good to have their noses tweaked occasionally, if only as an exercise in humility." I translated this into the Koine dialect of Greek, the marketplace lingua franca understood throughout the Levant. During his years of diplomatic administration on the barbarian frontier my master had developed a method for communicating on a comfortable, personal level to those whose language he did not speak: while I translated in a rapid undertone, he would hold his interlocutor's eyes with his own. This had the effect of removing me from the scene and allowing my master to make closer contact than one would imagine possible between a highly civilized aristocrat from Rome and a rustic Jew from this dusty, fly-blown outpost of Judæa. As I translated the Procurator's words I tried to imitate his amicable, even jocular tone, but the bound prisoner kept his eyes lowered, making no indication that he had heard. I looked up at my master and lifted my shoulders.

  Hiatus's smile faded; he spoke in a graver, sharper timbre. "You'd be well-advised to cooperate, young man. You're accused of blasphemy towards their god—your god too, I suppose. I cannot help you if you won't speak to me."

  After I translated this, the accused lifted his head and settled his calm, deep-set eyes upon my master, and it was then that the Procurator saw his bruised cheek and cut eyebrow, evidence that the man's interrogators had tried to beat a confession out of him. His eyes winced away, and he glared down the long flight of stone steps to the waiting knot of priests and scribes. Their nervous shuffle revealed that they read angry displeasure in my master's stern features. As the embodiment of Roman rule in Judæa, the Procurator was often obliged to order, or at least condone, such punishments as were necessary to keep the passions of this quarrelsome, litigious people under some semblance of control, but he had an innate horror of physical cruelty. It was not that he held strong moral views against physical punishment in principle; it was more a matter of his refined sensibilities. As he once explained to me, the fact that he dined on meat did not mean he chose to witness the slaughter of animals.

  As it happens, he had been dining when the request came for him to adjudicate in yet another of these local religious squabbles. The truth be known, I doubt that he minded being interrupted, as he was bored with the company of the rough soldiers of his personal guard. A young centurion officer had just ruined the climax of his story by being unable to stifle his own anticipatory laughter, but weak though the joke was, his fellow officers barked out their guffaws and pounded the table in applause. Even the highborn Claudia Procula lifted her chin and showed her small, white teeth in a polite, if minimal, mime of mirth. The corners of her eyes were still crinkled in what her husband called her 'I'm-having-such-a-good-time' expression when she glanced across to see if, for once, he was playing his role as the congenial host, or at least feigning a little interest in his guests. Her smile hardened when she saw that he was engrossed in conversation with me, a humble slave who shouldn't have been sitting at the same table with officers of equestrian rank, much less at Pilatus's side, leaving her to entertain these course border soldiers whose idea of witty chat seldom rose above the scatological. Daughter of a patrician family, she accepted that one must make do in this least desirable of all colonial posts, one that Rome bestowed only on men who lacked important patrons or who, like her husband, had earned the displeasure of Tiberius. Even before marriage had united their ancient families, she had feared that young Pilatus's caustic tongue and cool intellect might prove lethal flaws in Rome, where advancement depended more upon a f
acile smile and flexible ethics than upon ability. But he had been young then and handsome, and the danger lurking behind the acid irreverence of his wit had thrilled her. Who could have predicted that his cynical observations and wounding slights would ultimately maroon them on this twilight rim of the civilized world? Judæa, of all places! Land of superstitious goatherds and wild-eyed mystics, of jealous priests and suicidal zealots. What was it that Valerius Gratus had said when they arrived to replace him as Procurator? "I don't envy you, my dears. They say that if the Gods ever decide that the world needs a purging, they'll inject the warm oil at Judæa."

  Claudia resented not even being allowed to entertain the officers in the relative comfort of their official residence at Cæsarea. No, they had been obliged to accompany reinforcements to this crowded, smelly, provincial backwater of Jerusalem to show the long, muscular arm of Roman authority in the hope of forestalling the civil disorder that invariably accompanied their primitive religion's principal annual festival, this... this.... "What do they call this celebration?" she asked the table in general.

  A grizzled, battle-worn officer sitting two places down (a risen ranker from the vulgar slackness of his vowels) offered the information that the locals called this period 'Passover'.

  "Passover? And what is that supposed to mean?"

  "Damned if I know, ma'am. But it's obvious that these poor bastards were passed over when the Gods were handing out homelands worth having."

  "Quite," Claudia Procula's clipped diction was meant to remind the ranker of the social distance between them. "But why would they celebrate having been passed over?"

  The old soldier shook his head. "Who knows? They're a queer people, ma'am, and that's the truth of it!"

  At that very moment, at the far end of the table, I was expressing the same view, albeit with somewhat greater elegance. "As my master knows better than anyone, it is pointless to attempt to understand the Jew in rational terms. For all his cleverness and intelligence, in his deepest essence the Jew is a creature of passion who draws energy from his enthusiasms and his delusions. An example of this is the fact that, although they have been conquered and enslaved by every people who have blundered into this dreary land, they confidently believe they are the chosen people of their god. Despite all evidence, they maintain this ludicrous belief. And they are maintained by it." I smiled to myself, pleased with that turn of phrase.

  "Hm-m." Pilatus lifted his chalice, only to find it empty. But when the serving girl stepped forward to refill it, he waved her away with an annoyed gesture. He had been drinking too much of late. Out of boredom, he told himself. "When first I arrived, I sought to understand their beliefs and superstitions. I discovered that in common with other Levantine cults, their god was originally a battle god. In fact, they still call him a 'God of Hosts', despite their many defeats. This war god consumed and replaced the rest of the pantheon to become their sole deity, but although there is no competition, he remains a jealous god, so uncertain of his power that he requires constant reassurance, praise, and glorification. Proof—if additional evidence were needed—that we make our gods in our image!" He chuckled.

  I chuckled along, as befits the servant of a master of prickly temperament. "Indeed, sire, their mythology contains a tale that illustrates your point. Once upon a time, their god, being in a particularly grumpy mood, decided to destroy a licentious city and all its inhabitants unless this prophet could find a certain number of good men among the inhabitants. There follows a passage in which the prophet and the god haggle about exactly how many good men would be required to save the city, the old prophet slowly whittling the god down! How delightfully Semitic a god! A god you can negotiate with! God as market stall merchant! But for all his touches of Levantine humanity, the Jewish god is a bloodless confection, compared to the colorful heroes (and rogues!) of our own pantheon."

  "Maybe, but he's not bloodless enough for me," Pilatus said. "He's a passionate god. A jealous god. A god of vengeance." He half closed his eyes. "Perhaps that's why I find these people so difficult to deal with. So opaque. So oblique. And so intriguing, too... in an irritating sort of way. Roman to my marrow, more Roman than our beloved emperor, I am a creature of reason and logic."

  I diplomatically ignored this reference to the emperor. Descended from the Sabine clan of the Pontii (hence his name), Pontius Pilatus's ancestors had been aristocrats when the forebears of Tiberius were still brawny sharecroppers, a historical fact my master seldom had the tact to conceal.

  "I'm a creature of reason, and rational thought is Rome's greatest strength," he insisted.

  "And perhaps it's her greatest limitation, as well?" I suggested, with a tentative smile that would let me pretend I was merely playing the fool, should he take offence.

  "Yes, a need for the rational can be a limitation as well. I admit to being uncomfortable when faced with illogical passion. I can cope with the aggressive man, the cunning man, the subtle man, the duplicitous man, the stubborn man, the stupid man... but the insane man? No. The madman and the zealot confuse and confound me." And, after a pause: "...and frighten me, as well."

  "Certainly Judæa is a difficult post for one who is unable to deal with the zealot," I ventured.

  "Perhaps that's why the honor of governing Judæa is always bestowed upon those who are out of favor. We, the expendable ones." His soft chuckle was not without bitterness.

  I smiled noncommittally and lowered my eyes. I was familiar with the events that had brought my master to this wretched post. Although his high birth and native capacities should have destined him for power and privilege, he was constitutionally incapable of concealing his scorn for fools and hypocrites, a serious flaw for a politician in any form of government, a disaster in a tyranny. Some wondered why a man who so obviously lacked the thick skin and the accommodating conscience of the successful politician had entered government service in the first place. The answer was deceptively simple: Pontius Pilatus had been brought up to believe that it was a gentleman's duty to serve his country. Oh, he recognized that his view of duty was romantic and old-fashioned in this era of the professional politician with the ethics of a merchant and the tactics of a whore, yet he cleaved to the values of his class.

  But being highborn and gifted did not protect him, for when the ambitious mediocrities who had felt the lash of Pilatus's scorn and ridicule managed to sniff and snivel their way into power, they took their revenge by dissuading Tiberius from assigning the haughty Sabine to any posts of importance. Finding all paths to fruitful service closed to him, Pilatus considered retirement to his country villa, a prospect that chilled the heart of Claudia Procula, for her husband's political connections afforded those social and romantic amusements that absorbed her time and energy, and kept her from brooding over the passage of her youth. She persuaded Vitellius, Legatus of Syria, to nominate her husband for the Judæan post. It was rumored that her 'persuasion' involved bargaining from a position of strength: the horizontal. I, of course, dismiss such rumors. It is my duty to do so.

  As you might imagine, Tiberius's sycophants did not oppose Pilatus's appointment to Judæa, that garbage pit of lost careers. Serves him right for poking fun at those who are doing their best to serve their beloved emperor! Let the haughty Pilatus sneer at camels for a while! See how he likes that!

  My master soon discovered that Judæa was not only the least honored of posts, it could also be difficult and nasty, for these people deeply resented Roman occupation, and they had long ago forged their natural gift for shrill complaint into a formidable weapon for wearing the opposition down with incessant whining and whinging.

  Aware of Judæa's reputation as the dullest outpost of the empire, soon after his arrival Pilatus sought out a Greek slave-scholar trained in sophistic sleight-of-mind, hoping that intellectual exercise might serve as an anodyne for boredom. This was my humble entry into the noble household, and I trust that I have been of some small value to my lord Pontius, for I have lived many years among these people a
nd I know not only the Koine dialect but also both Hebrew and Aramaic, the language of the Aramaeans that is widely used throughout the Levant and even appears here and there in Jewish sacred writings, part of their Book of Daniel being written in it, for instance, as is their prayer for the dead, the Qaddish, and also— But there I go, parading my erudition! Shame on me! Please forgive a poor old scholar the sin of intellectual pride, remembering that pride is the only sin the poor can afford, and the only one the old can still manage.

  From the first, Pontius Pilatus revealed a fascination (a morbid fascination, in his wife's view and, I confess, my own) with the plague of wild-eyed, self-proclaimed 'messiahs' that infest this stressful moment in Jewish history. Almost every day another rabble-rousing preacher staggers in from the desert, followed by a ragged retinue of zealots drawn from the unwashed, the unwanted, the lost, the desperate, the gullible, the vulnerable, and the discontent—all seeking to magnify their miserable existences by association with things eternal and miraculous. This epidemic of rustic rabbis, with their simplistic philosophy and folksy adages, gives the Jewish religious establishment and the Roman occupiers a rare opportunity for cooperation, for the priests resent the devotion and enthusiasm that the uneducated Wad lavishes on these fanatics, and the Romans see them as foci for social unrest in a population already dangerously unstable. Have you not noticed how shared dislikes and fears bind men much more tightly than do shared interests and affections? Something to do with Human Nature, that catchall term for our baseness of appetite and paucity of spirit.

  But for all that Pontius recognized the danger in these fanatics, he was fascinated by them. He once likened this blend of fascination and repulsion to a time when, as a child, he had seen a dog crushed under a wagon wheel. The sight had disgusted him, yet he could not tug his eyes away. These zealots risked being crushed by those in power, both Roman and Jewish, yet they faced the prospect eagerly, with a ghastly appetite for martyrdom. I pointed out to my lord the logical inconsistency of a man who took pride in the cool rationality of the Roman nobleman, yet who was attracted to the passionate, the insane, the seething cauldrons of the emotions. He laughed this off, but I wondered if there were not, at some depth within him, an envy of these 'messiahs'... a desire to feel something so deeply, to want something so much that he would suffer and even die for it.