“Oh, it is a memorial. The Fifth Century is finally over with. The last man who was still living in the Fifth Century is dead now, so that era is finally finished. I wonder whether any other century can now dispute the twentieth its reality?” That was Gorgonius giving those words.
“I will call the servants and the authorities,” Laughter-Lynn said. “And I will consult with my dead husband Ship Captain Cornelius. I always admired his judgement. There is a queer geological formation here near Oosterend. It is a slab of granite that sticks out of the beach and it is called the GIANT’S TOMB. But there’s an entrance into that granite slab in my cellars, three levels below the booming sea. A very large tomb has been hollowed out there. The sea goblins have always called it Tuama no Fathach. Yes, that does mean Giant’s Tomb in sea goblin language. We will give Atrox to them to dispose of. They love to bury people and to sing over them. I believe that they will want to give him a five keg funeral at least. Yes, I’ll have five kegs of the best Holland beer brought down to the sea goblins to consecrate the burial.
“Then we will be on our way. Here are black chaplets for all of us to wear as wreaths on our heads. We will mourn Atrox till the end of the week, till ninth day midnight. Well, he thought that we were characters of his own creation and he was proud of us. Has anyone else anything to do before we go to East Sussex to the Estate of Drusilla?”
“I have to go paint a picture,” said Jane-Still-Artist-of-All-The-Arts, “but I will do it quickly, quickly.”
Jane went down to the studios and painted Earth and Ocean, and Atrox is Dead. It was one of the finest works of the entire Earth and Ocean series.
“Denis Lollardy,” Laughter-Lynn said, “if you did steal the Laughing Christ of Creophylus from Atrox, bring it here, and I will have it buried with him.”
“I did not steal it from him. I carved it out of the best Travertine Marble myself. I buried it in the earth to weather it, and then I dug it out again. It was one of my Forgeries to which there was no Original. Perhaps though, Atrox did create it, in the same way that he created us, as part of his fictions. I don’t know. We will look at it when we spend Saturday at Lecco, and we will decide about it then.”
“Oh, I made the Laughing Christ, but who made Atrox? There were some amazing mechanisms made at the End of Rome, in the murky days of the fifth century, such things as have not been made since then even till today. The strange makers of them were called Magicians, but I believe that they were only transcendent forgers, forgers in the same line as myself.”
Various things were done in Laughter-Lynn’s big ocean-house at Oosterend. The authorities came in to pass judgement on the dead Giant Atrox Fabulinus. And they were very angry at what they found.
“This is an artifact and no person at all,” they said. “This is a damnable hoax. What is this grewsome play-acting of the bunch of you anyhow? Why had you got us out of our beds to see a badly-made papier-mache giant transfixed with a big feather? Laughter-Lynn Casement, if you weren’t the biggest taxpayer in Oosterend this would be intolerable. What kind of blood is this that you have spilled all around here anyhow? Pigs’ blood?”
“I believe that it is Englishmen’s blood,” Laughter-Lynn said in a subdued voice.
“How, how could it be Englishmen’s blood?” one of the officials asked.
“Oh, sometimes blood is owed, and midnight is a usual hour to pay it,” Laughter-Lynn said. “Then there won’t have to be a report on the death?”
“Neen, neen, gekke dame!” they cried out, and they stamped out of there.
“How strange,” said Leonardo the Great the Golden Panther. “Atrox was a shape-changer and a materials-changer himself, even in his death. When they examined him, he really was a figure made out of papier-mache. But now he is made out of giant’s flesh again, and it is hardly to be distinguished from human flesh. Well, when we were characters of Atrox, we were something at least. And now we are nothing.”
Yes, Atrox was made out of flesh and blood again, lots of flesh, lots of blood. Cooling and dead flesh, but not quite cold yet. Strange.
‘A leafy land of brown and red,
A pounding ocean that enthralls,
And friendly quick, and friendly dead,
And naught but giants here are False.’
EAST SUSSEX SONG.
They all went to the Country Estate of Drusilla Evenrood in East Sussex. The Thursday dawn was just beginning to whiten the eastern sky.
“Oh Sacred Stars!” Myrtle Mobley cried as Drusilla Evenrood led her own group through her own front door of her country house in East Sussex. “You gave me a horrible start, Miss Evenrood. I had just received the report that you had died on one of the Dutch reef-islands, so I called the diggers to begin to open your grave at eight o’clock so as to have it ready for you. And now I’m not sure of your status. You do look strange, Miss Drusilla, even for you. Shall I tell the diggers not to open your grave this morning? Shall I ask them to wait until things are clarified?”
“Yes, Myrtle, tell them not to open my grave quite yet, not till things have been – ah – clarified a bit. Now then, Myrtle, set the table for fifteen places for a rousing East Sussex breakfast.”
“Breakfast will be at seven o’clock and not a minute before, Miss Drusilla. And how do you count fifteen places? Does the talking belly-button count for breakfast? And the big cat?”
“Yes, both of them are in the breakfast count. And seven o’clock is several hours away yet. Do bend the rule a little, Myrtle.”
“There’ll be no rules bent here, Miss Drusilla. Breakfast is at seven. I’ll serve fifteen breakfasts, and I’ll set a place at table for the talking belly-button. But not for the cat. The cat will eat on the floor.”
“The cat will eat at table,” Drusilla insisted. “The cat is a prince, as well as a personal friend of all of us.”
“The cat is a cat and will eat on the floor. And breakfast is at seven and not a whit earlier.”
Oh, then they all went out onto the rolling hills.
“How far is the ocean, Drusilla?” Hilary Ardri asked.
“Three miles, but it’s all downhill.”
“Perfect!” cried Jane Galatea Chantal Ardri. “We’ll run to the sea and we’ll walk back. And then it will be time for breakfast.” So about half of them went for a jog down to the ocean.
A little girl who belonged somehow to Drusilla’s kindred came to her on the rolling hills. The little girl had been crying.
“The giant is dead,” she said, “and he was the best friend I had anywhere. And now I suppose you will be dead too. I have flowers here to put on your grave, and some to put on the giant’s grave too. But I don’t know where the giant’s grave is.”
“Oh, but surely you know the verses about the giant’s graves,
‘The Giant, safe from beasts and knaves,
But always near the sound of waves,
Lies quiet in his seven graves.’
But I’m not sure which giant you mean, Audrey,” Drusilla said to the girl. “The East Sussex Giant was rumored to have died when I was a little girl, but I believe I remember the spot we decided was his grave. Another giant also died in the night past, and he is, or will be, buried three levels below the sounding sea at the town of Oosterend in the Frisian Island of Terschelling.”
“There’s only one giant, Aunt Drusilla. He says he uses different names when he goes to different towns, but there’s only one of him. He has a brother who’s bigger than he is, but the brother isn’t a giant. It takes more than being big to be a giant. Did you ever see two giants together?”
“No, Audrey, I never did. Possibly there is only one of them then.”
“Are you wearing the black chaplet on your head because you’re in mourning for the dead giant?”
“Yes I am, Audrey.” Drusilla and her little kinswoman Audrey went to Drusilla’s grave site. Four spadefuls of earth had been turned there, one at each corner of the grave site, to mark it clearly. And there was also a peg driven
in the ground there, and a tag attached to the peg had lettering in the looping hand of Myrtle Mobley the servant in Drusilla’s house: Open grave here at eight o’clock this morning, Thursday morning. And then below this there was another message. No, don’t open the grave yet. There’s been a complication. Mistress Drusilla is not as dead as was earlier believed.
Audrey Evenrood, the little girl, put a bunch of rue and forget-me-nots and rosemary-mint on Drusilla’s grave. “I’ll miss you,” Audrey said, “though you’re hardly ever here. Mama says you’re always traipsing somewhere around the world.”
“That’s true, Audrey, and so shall you traipse one of these days. Here is the Giant’s Grave on this ridge.”
“Are you sure, Aunt Drusilla. That has always been the Wolf Den, but nobody uses it now. All the wolves in Sussex are dead for a long time.”
“So are all the giants, I’m afraid, Audrey. Yes, put your flowers here. Wolves often dig graves for giants, and then they direct the people away from them so the giants won’t be disturbed.”
“Yes, I suppose so, Aunt Drusilla.” Audrey put her flowers, nettle, vetch, bramble, furze, heather-rose, on a little ledge just inside the wolf den.
A Chinese seaman came to them. He looked as if he had been walking for several hours, possibly from Brighton.
“We have heard that the Atrox Giant is dead,” the Chinaman said. “And now the Hsiang Giant says that he is weary and wishes to die also as soon as he can find a replacement. He said to ask you if you would be his replacement.”
“Oh, I don’t know anything at all about the gianting business,” Drusilla said. “I wouldn’t be able to write with one of those long pens. I wouldn’t know how to replace a giant.”
“Take the job, Aunt Drusilla,” Audrey said. “I’ll tell you what to do if you get stuck. Those long pens move over that kid-skin paper by themselves and carry your hand right along with them. And you can write things any way you want them and they’ll be that way.”
“The Hsiang Giant said to tell you to think about it,” the Chinaman said. “He says that there is really nobody else if you won’t do it.” The Chinaman walked away from them then, over the hills, to the west.
Two ancient fiddlers came to Drusilla. Ancient Fiddlers was the name of a local group, but they were not all ancient in years. One of them was a man about thirty-five years old and the other one was his daughter about fifteen years old.
“Now that you will soon be dying, Miss Drusilla, for indeed four spadefuls of dirt have already been turned at your graveside, we wondered whether you might want to institute a living memorial to yourself,” the man fiddler said, “and at the same time foster the arts in this shire and bring happiness and a measure of ease to a dozen persons?”
“It sounds like a winner,” Drusilla said. “How does it go?”
“You commission us ancient fiddlers, and our group is now twelve in number, to play, three fiddles at a time, a tune of your choosing or ours, until the very end of the world,” the girl fiddler said. “This will be in remembrance of you. We will each play eight hours out of twenty-four, nine of us for each week-day, and the three extras will play on Saturday and Sunday, the strict scheduling of the fiddlers to be set by ourselves. And you will pay each of us eleven quid a shift, which is quite cheap considering that we are the best fiddlers in all England.”
“All right, go ahead. You can start at eight o’clock. That is an hour and a half from now. And you will not play until the very end of the world. You will play until the end of the world, less three days.”
“Well, will we get paid for the three last days of the world then? Or is it really only a metaphor about our playing till the end of the world. What tune would you like?”
“It hadn’t better be a metaphor about your playing till the end of the world less three days. Certainly you’ll be paid for the final three days. But I want the extended playing to be a literal fact. Raise up other generations of fiddlers, or recruit and train them. There will be ample funds for that also. Oh Thursday at East Sussex will be the tune.”
“Yes, Miss Drusilla, today is Thursday, and this is East Sussex,” the man fiddler said patiently. “But what will the tune be?”
“The tune will be Thursday at East Sussex,” Drusilla said. “Knit not your brows at me, Fiddlers. I will have it composed and orchestrated first. The first of these handsome men coming over the ridge is Gorgonius Pantera, probably the finest composer of fiddle music in the world. Confer with him at once, and he will write Thursday at East Sussex for Three Fiddles.”
The casual English Intellectuals had begun to gather. Each of them had just happened to be strolling on the hills of East Sussex in the dawn hours, and each of them just thought that he might drop by the Evenrood Manor House. Each of them knocked the fire out of his-or-her pipe and then filled it again with aromatic shag. The men and the lady casual English Intellectuals used a slightly different set of gestures in knocking out and refilling their pipes, but that is a job for the sociological-behaviorists, not for ourselves.
Myrtle Mobley was a simple woman easily impressed by casual English Intellectuals, so she quickly set forty-two more places at breakfast and said that the people need not wait till seven o’clock to begin their breakfasts, that the seven o’clock rule was a silly one anyhow. She served them all hock, or perhaps some cheaper Rhine wine, and asked them how they wanted their eggs.
These casual English Intellectuals came from the Royal Observatory at Edinburgh, Dunsink Observatory in Dublin, the University Observatory at Oxford, the Cambridge University Observatory, the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, from Peterhouse and Corpus Christi and Magdalene of Cambridge, from Balliol and Merton and All Souls and Somerville of Oxford, and from Manchester University of the Arts. They came from all the literary circles and from all the technology circles, and from the all-powerful Futuristic Institute.
“We have heard that the fabled giant Atrox Fabulinus has died or been murdered during the night,” one of those casual English Intellectuals said, “and that the other six scribbling giants are all weary of the long life and are willing to die if only replacements can be found for them. Now, of course we are not so naive as to believe that seven scribbling giants are really writing the history of the world and that the world is following that future. But what I want to know is simply: Are there sinecures available, and whom should one see to get in on them? We believe that the future is too important to leave to amateurs.”
“We believe that we are the most important group of futurologists who have ever lived,” another of those casual Intellectuals, a lady, said, “and we believe that the future deserves the best that the past and present can give it.”
“We would not take a kind view of being passed over,” said a third of them, a person of indeterminate sex. “We are the most gifted people imaginable. Whom should we see about this?”
“If you are really the most gifted people imaginable, then you will know intuitively whom you should see about this,” Gorgonius Pantera said. “Gifted people are always long on intuition. But I believe that the whole thing is a fable.”
“Exactly,” still another of the casual English Intellectuals said, “and we are the most gifted fabulists ever as well as the most gifted futurologists ever. And we are long on intuition. Our intuition told us that your group had somehow been in contact with the scribbling giants. Well, we will be the new scribbling giants, and you must take special care to be accommodating to us if you wish to be in contact hereafter.”
“How did that big cat on the floor get the blood on him,” still another of the English Intellectuals asked sharply. “That is a panthera panthera and they’re dangerous. Where did he get the blood on him?”
“Likely Myrtle Mobley the maid of all functions spilled some of the Sussex Blood Pudding on him when she served him,” Denis Lollardy gave the considered opinion. “She doesn’t like the big cat, and she served out the blood pudding very roughly.”
“But Sussex Blood Pudding n
ever has real blood in it in these latter years,” the English Intellectual took exception. “If that cat could talk, I bet I’d have the answer from him.”
“This cat can talk,” growled Prince Leonardo the Great the Big Cat on the floor, “and the answer is that Myrtle Mobley does use real blood in her Sussex Blood Pudding. Taste yours and see.”
“I taste it. I see,” said the English Intellectual. “Yes, it is real blood she uses in it. I’m sorry I mistrusted you, big cat. What are you called?”
“Prince Leonardo the Great the Golden Panther and Knight of Malta.”
“The same Prince Leonardo the Great who wrote that provoking essay On Hybridizing The Future, And The Pitfalls of It in the spring Futuristic Review?”
“The same, Roderick Outreach, the same.”
“A well-written piece. Nevertheless, a cat is a cat, and it’s on the floor there that you belong, or else outdoors.”
But one should have known, by the way he twitched his ears, that Prince Leonardo was very sulky about this.
Violin music swelled over them then. It was the Ancient Fiddlers playing Thursday At East Sussex For Three Fiddles.
“By George the Seventh, that’s good!” one of the Britishers admitted.
But a discussion at least as important as the pentaglossal (fifty-tongued) breakfast conversation was taking place just outside the Evenrood Manor House on the yew-shaded lawn.
“I bet we could bring Atrox back if we tried, Janie,” Audrey Evenrood was saying, “just the way he brought you back after he killed you that first time. I’d have killed you too if I’d been a giant and you’d mocked me or burlesqued me. But he started you to coming back just by describing you, and I bet we could do the same thing with him.”
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