“You’re glad to be alive?” The female man did not wipe her tears away, but continued to weep.
The boss came to her and petted her head. “Red Man, Red Man, why do you weep? It was only done in fun.”
She winced at his touch and he pulled his hand away, fearing her teeth which were bared.
“He is just glad to be alive,” she said, pointing sadly to the table, “but there is still a well-cooked man on your plate. Why can Yellow Fellow not understand this? How can he be so selfish?”
Her tears continued to flow.
“Out here in this blackness, this loneliness, this place of barrenness, selfishness, and stone, the bitter tears of Red Man continued to flow.”
And here the bard did end his song.
6
The Bridge
The sun still rested in its dark bed when the boss was awoken by a jangling as of much metal. He quickly opened his eyes, for he thought someone might be troubling his silver. At the entrance to his tent stood a wide oaf in a scarlet tunic of brass.
He announced, “Today, you shall not go to the mines, but to war.”
“Huh?”
The boss still had much sleep in his eyes. He wanted to roll over on his cot, but in the face of this visitor with the sword at his side there was only seriousness. The boss, accustomed to being the one who barked the orders, was reminded of his manners.
“What am I to do?” he implored with all due politeness.
“Gather your oafs and your mans,” the soldier said, and then he explained to him what and why.
Afterward the boss ran into the tent of his red-haired female man and shook her awake. She looked around. “It is still dark.”
“Early-morning darkness is the best time for war, it seems.”
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “What is war?”
“War is like a battle in the fight yard, a battle with all of your companions against all of the other’s companions, but with blades that chop and much more blood.”
She nodded as though she had understanding. “And we chop them in order to gain collective victory. I have heard many oafs talk of this war thing,” she said. “But don’t people fall in war?”
“Yes. Yes,” he said, and he thought, Oh great creator! but she is a clever little man.
He continued: “And if your companion is to fall, then you are to chop whoever did fell him. In other words, if I am to fall, you must set upon whoever felled me, you understand?”
She said, “Oh, so now I am your companion?”
“Yes!” he insisted. “Are we not companions?”
She hesitated. “I guess.”
The memory of the trick played on her with Yellow Fellow was still fresh in her mind. The look on her face asked a question.
“What is it, little man?”
“When you fall, what am I to do then?”
He corrected, “If I fall, and hopefully that will not happen, but if it does . . . well, I guess you are to join with other mans whose oafs have fallen and set upon whoever it is that is setting upon them.”
She frowned. “All this setting upon and setting upon, what does it really mean?”
He bumbled through poetic, grandiloquent, rambling answers that he could see from her expression she found less than convincing, but as he talked the confusion on her face disappeared and a kind of respectful boredom settled in.
Obediently, she went into each tent of mans, roused them, and they all came out, whereupon they lined up in order to be told what the oafs required of them so early in the morning.
Was the food wagon again to be delayed? Were they all to be eaten? What a grand meal that would be, for every tent had been emptied and every man assembled.
And is that snow on the ground? But it is not even the season. Wait! That’s not snow, though it shines as white. It is the gleam of blades reflecting the light of the moon, blades so unlike the dull gray tools used in the mines. Blades for labor, no doubt. But labor of what kind?
And just what is this thing called war that Red Man told us about when she roused us from our needful slumber?
They waited quietly as they had been trained by the cudgel and the lash to do.
* * *
“War,” said the wide oaf in the jangling tunic, “is where you’re going today, because the army said why not use talking mans as soldiers? Why not use them to fill the gaps where soldiers who are dead used to be? They can take orders. They can hold a sword.”
That made sense to the boss, and he nudged his female man, who was standing at his elbow. “Isn’t that true?”
“Yes. We can certainly take orders,” she said.
It took a few minutes of blows to the head and kicks to the gut, but the wide oaf finally taught them to stand at attention. Other oafs passed through the columns of mans and draped over each small body a tunic of brass, which clattered and tinkled musically when the man moved about in it. There was wonder in the eyes of the mans as they looked at the symbol on the breastplate.
The boss draped a tunic over his female man, and she said, “What is this black star?”
The boss silenced her with a finger. “Shhh. Listen to him.”
“That,” the wide oaf announced to all, “is your standard. Your standard is how you know what side you’re on. In war, you can’t go in there and chop just anybody. The goal of war is to go in there and chop anybody not wearing your standard. Now look at that standard. Anybody not wearing that standard, you chop him, and be he oaf or be he man, you chop him good.”
Each man looked at the standard. It was a black eight-pointed star on a scarlet background.
The boss looked down at his female man, and she said, “I like the part about chopping oafs, boss. Don’t you?”
He smiled back uncertainly. The usual weariness in her eyes was replaced by a twinkle that could be taken for playfulness, or malice. He could not decide which.
Another oaf said to the wide one, “It’s time.”
The wide oaf commanded, “Hurry now! Grab a sword as you pass. Chop anybody not wearing your standard. The enemy is poor, he is savage, and he is polluting the earth with his foul presence. They want what we’ve got, and we’re not going to give it to them, and that’s why we must win this war. Nobody wants to live in a world where the poor don’t know their place. All praise be to the great leader! Now bow your heads!”
The oafs bowed their heads.
“Oh great creator, protect us as we do your will. And if we fall in battle, remember us evermore in your kingdom to come!”
“Verily in your name!” the others said as one.
“Verily in your name!” the wide oaf said. “Now move out! Fight for freedom! Fight for your side!”
The boss was first among poets, and he whispered to his female man: “A slayer of the innocent and the merciful of heart, is war. Stay close to me and you shall live. Ah, war. When this is over, there are more battles to be won in the fight yard. There is more silver to be taken from the careless and the unwary.”
Then the mighty host of mans and oafs hoisted the standard of the black eight-pointed star and lumbered off to war, their scarlet tunics of brass singing.
And the female man came to know what war was, if war was shivering in the cold dark morning as she followed the standard for two hours up a steep mountain trail.
If war was metal projectiles pinging and popping all around her like angry applause.
If war was fire sprouting like bright red flowers too hot for fingers to pick.
They came to a broad, wooden bridge and made it halfway across. Over the noise of battle, there rose the pounding of drums, the pealing of trumpets, and a battle cry like a great screeching fowl, as tunics of black swarmed down the mountain. The enemy!
War had become bursting shells, foul smells, and bodies pressing against bodies, each side thrusting with sword and bullying with battle axe to establish a position of dominance on the bridge. The bodies were packed in tight and were heavy. The bridge, weighted t
o its limit, swayed. They pressed against each other, metal clanging against metal, each side pushing forward with javelin, battle hammer, pick-stick, and bludgeon to drive the other back or knock the other off the bridge.
As the bridge swayed, the female man’s side was pushed back and back and back. She struggled to hold her position as well as keep her balance. The strain was too much. Twisted slantwise, she was still falling. She would tumble into the murky water. And her side was still being pushed back. Back.
Just as she felt herself going over the edge, her feet met solid ground again. But it was muddy ground, and slippery. She swung her blade and lost her footing. The blade was whacked from her hand. She reached down to retrieve it and could not believe her eyes. Where was the earth? Where was the earth? The fertile earth had been turned to crimson mud.
“Oh lord great creator, not this!” she wailed.
To her right, the female man Gold Braid was felled by an arrow. To her left, the musical man Yellow Fellow was trampled underfoot by sandals of brass. Ahead of her, the wide oaf stepped into a nest of bursting shells and was set ablaze. As all around her oafs and mans fell, she took a blow and went down.
But the boss was first among gamblers, and he raised his sword. “After war there is much silver! Rise up! Strive on!”
The female man climbed back to her feet.
The boss clanked his sword on his shield proudly. “That’s how it is with war, my little red top! The battle is not to those who fall last, but to those who rise back up first.”
Then he felt a sudden pain as his belly was torn by a blade thrust into it. He shouted a profane oath and cried: “Undone—and on the first day of battle!”
His belly was split in two. All that had been in it was coming out. Ideas rampaging through his brain, he struggled to come up with an adage to sum up the strange quality of his situation, but he found it difficult to organize his thoughts. A battle raging in the belly is war? War is a belly split in twain? War is a belly with its silver spilling out?
When he went down, he scowled as the enemy who had felled him extended a hand to his little female man. He grimaced as she grabbed back. He shouted, “No, little man! That’s not how it’s done!”
He looked on helplessly as the enemy lifted her, kissed her cheek, and carried her back across the bridge, sheltered within his brass tunic of war. The boss did not know what to make of the scene. It was difficult to think with his stomach on the ground beside him. The words to describe it he struggled to find. Just before he died they came to his lips: “Compassion for one’s enemy is a most rare and beautiful thing.”
And the poet closed his eyes.
Almost as soon as he had closed them, he revised the adage: “Compassion for one’s enemy is rare, beautiful, and almost as wondrous as a belly full of silver.”
And the gambler opened his eyes nevermore.
7
Man at War
She knew caves, so she knew that she was in a cave, a cave lit by waxen candles, and gathered around a table studying a map were the leaders of the oafs with the tunics of a different standard.
And the different standard was a scarlet eight-pointed star on black.
In the cave there were other oafs. Many of them had deep cuts and frightful scars. All of them had swords. Many of them lay on cots. Those who had not cots were seated on the ground on rocks, and they leaned against their swords. Their eyes were closed. They were resting while waiting for the war to continue.
On the floor of the cave were the bones of mans. The bones were picked clean.
There was a fire and a spit.
There was a man roasting on the spit while an injured oaf slowly turned him by winding the handle. The man was charred already. One of his charred legs was missing. The injured oaf slowly turning the spit was nibbling on a charred leg of man. He sniffed the man on the spit to see if he was done being cooked. From her years in the mines, she knew the smell of well-cooked man. The smell turned her stomach. This man on the spit was well cooked.
The oaf turning the spit saw the red-haired female man looking and leered at her with an open mouth that was missing all but three of its teeth. “The red-haired one awakens.”
The others looked at her with bored indifference and went back to resting on their cots or against their swords, or studying the map.
Now she knew another quality of war. War was when oafs were so tired from fighting each other that they would rather rest against their swords than torment you.
* * *
She was in a cave of the east, where she had toiled for two years, and she ate from the bowl of grains they had set out for her and drank from the bowl of water beside it. She must be a favorite again, she thought.
The other mans in the cave were each bound together or caged together or roasting on the spit or littering the ground as bones and blood.
But she was left unbound, uncaged, and uneaten. Where was the boy of her childhood who had rescued her from the battlefield? Where was he?
She slept and then she awoke and then she slept again. When she awoke the second time she observed that the cave was being used as a place to care for the sick and as a place to plan the battles. All day long new oafs with new injuries came and were tended to and then went back to the war. Some came to eat from whatever meat the three-toothed oaf was roasting on the spit. Some came to rest. Some came to lay their bodies down and die. At the end of the day, the first boy of her childhood, the boy of the wealthy, came, laid his body down, and died.
They stacked him on a heap of bodies that was piling ever higher. When the heap was piled high enough, they pushed it out of the cave in barrows and set it on fire. She was careful to conceal her tears from the oafs, but they did fall.
Some came to gather around the table with the others looking at the map. She heard one of those looking at the map say, “It is going well. It is going as well as could be expected. In a few more days it will all be over.”
Another map reader said, “Yes, everyone did a great job. Many are to be congratulated. It shouldn’t be much longer before we take the mines.”
“It is a great day, Gen’rl,” said the first.
“After we take the mines, we will have the advantage. There is no going back now.”
“We shall raise our standard and be proud.”
“We shall overrun their cities and make our demands. There shall be blood in the streets. The people shall rule the day. The wealthy shall be taught a grave lesson.”
“Blood will settle these warring philosophies.”
“War is the king of philosophies.”
“It is a great day.”
The oaf called Gen’rl yawned. “Now I can rest, as I have done my duty to the best of my abilities. I have served the people. I can rest now, because we have all of us done a great job. It is a great day. I am going to rest on my cot and no one is to awaken me unless there is very good reason. And when I awaken I will eat. Prepare one of the mans for my meal. That one there will do, the one with the red hair.”
She gasped as the oaf called Gen’rl pointed to her.
“But she is a favorite of Luf’tnt Auutet, sir,” spoke a subordinate officer of the oafs, out of turn, to the one called Gen’rl, who responded to him with a look in his eyes like a great burning fire.
The subordinate officer bowed and uttered an obsequious apology and then quickly gestured a command to the three-toothed one that roasted mans slowly on the spit.
Obediently the three-toothed one hefted a large stone club in one hand, lumbered over, and grabbed her by the neck.
Swinging her arms and kicking with her legs, she struggled to free herself from the oaf, but she was grabbed and grabbed well.
The cave stank of death and other filths, as these were the unclean oafs. The cave, though it was a place of healing, was littered with their waste and the discarded remains of the mans they had eaten.
The one called Gen’rl stretched himself out on his cot. His subordinate officer, who had sp
oken out of turn, removed a small singing harp from his sack and set it on the table with the map, which was now rolled into a tube.
The subordinate leaned back against the table and ran his fingers over the strings. The small singing harp sang: “Justice vision, Justice true, fair to the unfair, Justice bleed, Justice be, fairness and equality, Justice be . . .”
As the music played, the oaf with three teeth in his mouth swung the female man down to the ground when he found a good clean flat place upon which to bash her brains out. She landed on her back. He pressed her down with one hand as he raised the club. But she arched up, flipped away, landed on her feet.
Ran.
He came after her swinging the heavy stone club, which quaked the earth each time it landed.
“Get away from me!” she screamed as she ran.
The others, laughing and calling, “Pick one, pick one, pick a nice fat talking one,” rose up, as did their spirits, and joined in the chase.
She was limber and swift, and she eluded them as she ran to the mouth of the cave.
Laughing and calling and making jokes at each other’s clumsiness, they reached for her and missed, and laughed some more. The one with the club swung it down, quaking the earth beneath her feet. “Fi! Fi! Fi!” he laughed.
She ran. She was almost at the entrance to the cave, but the one who had lost an eye got up from his cot, his mouth a gaping black maw of hawing laughter, and he jumped in front of the entrance, blocking it. He crouched low with his hands out to catch her.
She stopped in midstride and abruptly changed direction. Now she was running toward the one with the small singing harp.
He saw her coming, set it down on the table, crouched low with his arms outstretched and his mouth open in hawing laughter. He waited to catch her.
Narrowly escaping his grasp, she changed her direction again and went up this time.
Up!
Now she was leaping up to the top of the low table, and as they grabbed and clutched after her, she reached for the small singing harp.
Every Boy Should Have a Man Page 8