The Honorable Barbarian

by L. Sprague De Camp

  Retire they did; but they were long kept awake by intermittent howls of "One! Three! Four! Two!" from the common room.

  Next morning, Kerin had trouble with the ass, which rolled its eyes and shied as he approached it. Toga explained: "It is your barbarian smell, Master Rao."

  With porters holding the ass's head and tail, Kerin mounted. The stirrups proved too short, even after the straps had been let out to the last bucklehole.

  "This person will find a worker in leather—" beganToga; but Kerin said: "Bother not. At the first stop I shall make the needed holes with my dagger.''

  Toga sighed. "You would do manual work that you can hire others to do for you? Ah, barbarians!" Shaking his head, he climbed into the chair vacated by Kerin.

  The little caravan plodded northward along a muddy road lined with endless brown-and-green fields of crops. Often they passed by fields at the corners of which coffins were stacked. Toga explained that the owners' families had not yet gotten around to burying their dear departeds, Some coffins had been in place long enough for the ends to have rotted out; pigs poked their heads in the openings for anything edible.

  Kerin's saddle, a simple wooden frame with a square of blanketing fastened over it, proved rather uncomfortable; but it was better than being forever bounced. Kerin noticed that Toga's tubby form held the chair steady as his own lesser weight did not. Nogiri did not seem to mind the bouncing.

  On the third day, a downpour caught them on the road. Toga brought out rain capes of yellow oiled silk for himself and his charges. The soldiers and porters had to plod on unprotected, stooped aiid squinting.

  The group wound its way beneath a low, gray sky through a country of low but rugged hills. Farms were few here; the inhabitants mainly raised livestock. In the inn that night, Toga said:

  "Honorable Rao, this is bad country for robbers. We must keep a sharp watch."

  When he retired, Kerin dug out Pwana's spyglass. The next day he stuck the telescope into a jacket pocket.

  They continued through the hill country. At the midday halt, Toga muttered about brigands. Kerin got out his spyglass and scanned the hills.

  "I see none," he said.

  "Good, honorable barbarian! Then let us eat. I have a bottle of wine that is not altogether disgusting."

  Kerin was shoveling in the first chopstickful of rice when a porter sprang up, crying out and pointing. A group of men had erupted out of a gully and were running towards the caravan, waving weapons.In a scramble, all the porters rose and fled. The five soldiers snatched up their pole arms but then ran after the porters. The ass galloped off in the midst of the crowd.

  "Run!" shouted Toga, lighting out after the soldiers.

  "Come on, Nogiri!" said Kerin. "We can't fight the whole band alone!"

  Hand in hand, Kerin and Nogiri ran after the rest. The porters fled up a long incline. Kerin soon passed the stout Toga, laboring and puffing. He and Nogiri overtook the soldiers, slowed by the weight of their arms and buffcoats.

  The rise went on and on, until Kerin also began to pant. He paused to look back. A group of their attackers had seized Toga and were dragging him back to the luncheon site. Others were eating the food that the caravan had abandoned.

  Kerin finally reached the crest. The ground dropped sharply on the other side, and in the draw before the next rise the porters and soldiers huddled, talking. The ass placidly grazed.

  Kerin strode up to Captain Mogami. "A fine lot of brave soldiers you are!" he snorted.

  Mogami clasped his hands, bowed, and spoke. It took a couple of repetitions in his dialect, but at last Kerin understood him to say: "But honorable barbarian, they outnumbered us three to one! Since no help could be expected from the porters, to stand and fight were futile."

  "But they were also a ragged, starveling lot, with a miscellany of weapons and no armor. Besides, you let them capture Master Toga."

  The officer shook his head. "Indeed, sir, ye have shamed me. Be so good as to take this!"

  He thrust his fauchard into Kerin's hands, pulled off his crested brass helmet, knelt, and bowed his head. Kerin supposed the man to be praying. After Mogami had knelt silently for a while, Kerin asked:

  "What do you?"

  "I wait for you to cut off my head," said the officer. "I do but beg a single, clean stroke."

  Kerin recoiled. "Now what on earth do I want with your head, without the rest of you?"

  "Honorable barbarian, since ye have shamed me before my men, it is the only way I can recover my lost face."

  "Excuse me; I must think." Kerin strolled back up the slope until he could just see over it to the luncheon site. Through Pwana's spyglass he watched the sixteen robbers feasting and passing Toga's bottle of wine around. Toga they had tied up, and one was heating his sword blade in the smoky little fire. He and others laughed and pointed to Toga. Kerin guessed that they were thinking of interesting things to do to the civil servant.

  Kerin rejoined the group at the bottom of the draw, where Captain Mogami still knelt, and said: "Art fain to recover your face?''

  "Aye. Therefore I begged a quick, sure stroke."

  "I have a better idea. If you will follow my orders, you may not only live but also gain glory. Up!"

  As Mogami rose, Kerin handed him his fauchard. "One of you hold this beast whilst I mount it. Follow me, all five of you!"

  Kerin rode up the slope and halted where he could make out the robbers. "We shall charge downhill. If you are all quiet, we may get close ere they see us. When they espy us, I shall call on you to shout and scream. If any stand his ground, we shall slay him. Do you all understand? ''

  They topped the rise. Kerin waved his sword, saying: "Charge!"

  The ass trotted; the five soldiers ran. Halfway to the luncheon place, a bandit saw them and cried out. In a trice the robbers were scrambling for weapons.

  "Shout!" called Kerin. He and the soldiers burst into roars and screams of threat and invective.

  The robbers formed a ragged line. As Kerin galloped closer, waving his sword, one robber dropped his spear and ran. Then another turned tail, and then the whole sixteen were in flight, dropping pieces of loot.

  Filled with the lust of battle, Kerin galloped after them; but the ass put a hoof into a hole and pitched on its head. Kerin went flying, coming down on a patch of muddy road. By the time he had regained his feet, scraped some of the mud off his face, and assured himself that he had no broken bones, the robbers were out of sight. The ass was placidly munching grass again.

  Kerin limped back leading the ass. The porters and Nogiri were straggling down the slope. A soldier had cut Toga's bonds, and the civil servant was rubbing his hands to restore circulation. He bowed, saying:

  "This negligible person is eternally grateful, and not merely for saving his worthless life."

  "What else?" asked Kerin.

  "Why, they were going to try a red-hot sword blade on me."

  Mogami spoke: "A terrible thing to do with good steel! It ruins the temper."

  Toga continued: "I should not so much have minded dying. But I feared that, by crying out under torture, I should lose face before those scum."

  Kerin said: "Pray explain something. . . ." He drew Toga aside and told of Captain Mogami's invitation to Kerin to behead him. "Did he really mean it?"

  "Of course he meant it!" said Toga. "That is what any Kuromonian gentleman would do. Although Mogami is a mere soldier, he hopes to rise above that status, which amongst us is one of the lowest grades."

  "If a soldier is deemed such a contemptible fellow, no wonder they ran away!"

  "True; but what would you? Admire one whose sole skill lies in slaying his fellow beings? That were to stand civilized values on their heads! But tell me, honorable Rao, in view of their numbers, how knew you the robbers would run from your charge?"

  Kerin chuckled. "Something I learned of the habits of the Mulvanian wild buffalo. A fellow named—" He had been about to name the original Rao, but checked just in time as h
e realized that he was supposed to be Rao. "I forget his name, but he'd traveled in the jungles. He told me there was one coward in every herd. Tell me, what would have happened if I had cut off Mogami's head?"

  Toga shrugged. "His soldiers would have stripped the body of aught of value. If they were honest, they would give these things to his widow on their return home. The corpse would have been left for the pigs and wolves."

  "Would nought have befallen me for the slaying?"

  "Nay; why should it? He offered you his life before witnesses, and under the circumstances you were entitled to take it."

  Kerin sighed. "I find the customs of the Heavenly Empire as confusing as you would doubtless find ours."

  Toga chuckled. "This person blames you not. After all, you have not had the advantage of a civilized upbringing."

  Later, when Kerin was alone with Nogiri, she said: "My lord, you are a true hero. Were you not at all frightened?"

  "Forsooth, I was; but not of the robbers. I feared that my gallant soldiers would flee at the last instant, leaving me to fight the banditti alone!"

  The rest of the journey saw few incidents, save that it took twenty-five days instead of the promised fourteen. When Kerin twitted Toga about this, the official said:

  "Ah, Master Kerin, you have not yet learned this feature of polite civilized discourse. The first principle in answering a question is to give the questioner an answer that shall please him, even if one must bend the literal truth a bit."

  At every halt during the day, Kerin ordered the soldiers to post at least two of their number as sentries. Since he had proved his prowess, they obeyed his commands with alacrity. Whether or not the sentries discouraged evildoers, there was no more sign of robbers during the journey.

  On the night before reaching Chingun, the caravan stopped at a village where dwelt a cousin, Hizen, of civil servant Toga. After Toga had settled the party in the local inn, he took Kerin and Nogiri to his cousin's house for dinner. Nogiri was sent to eat separately with Hizen's women.

  Although Kerin was circumspect in his behavior and cautious in his drinking, Toga and Hizen got slightly drunk and sang ribald songs. Anon, Toga lurched to his feet and plucked Kerin's sleeve, saying:

  "Come, honorable Rao. It is time to visit the garden."

  "Garden?" said Kerin, puzzled. "At night, when the moon is hidden by clouds?"

  Toga giggled. "Of course, how stupid of this inferior one! Know that in the Heavenly Empire, it is polite, when one has dined at another's house, to leave nightsoil in his garden afterwards." He wagged a finger. "Waste not, want not!"

  As they neared Chingun, Toga persuaded Kerin to change places with him again, "as a matter of face." Toga, now astride the ass, led the way to one of the colossal gates in the buff-colored outer wall. He produced a sheaf of papers from his scrip, which the officer of the guard went over one by one before returning them and waving the caravan through.

  In Koteiki and in the towns they had passed through, Kerin had seen the features of Kuromonian architecture: the lavish use of vermillion, black, and gold; the hip rafters curving up at the end like the toe of a Mulvanian slipper; the rows of little gilded figurines of guardian monsters along the hip rafters.

  In Chingun he saw the same features but on a larger scale. Like Janareth and Kwatna, the city had some broad, straight avenues and, between these, tangles of narrow, crooked streets. But the scale of Chingun was so vast that Janareth and Kwatna, if moved to Chingun, would have been merely two more wards of the metropolis.

  Kerin bounced in his chair along one avenue, and another, and another. The streets swarmed with Kuromonians, mostly in the universal working-class blue jackets and trousers worn by both sexes. The middle class wore ankle-length robes. Men's hair was worn long and tied in topknots. The streets were noisy with the bells, gongs, horns, drums, whistles, and other noisemakers used by itinerant tradesmen such as barbers, knife grinders, and sellers of snacks.

  The local feature that most startled Kerin was one he had not seen elsewhere. On the well-paved streets of the capital, many did not merely walk but glided along on roller skates. Each skater wore a pair of high-topped, metal-framed shoes to which were journaled two wheels, forward and aft. Kerin inferred that, since paved streets were rare in smaller towns and villages, the device would not be useful there.

  The caravan entered a public square in which a string of two dozen camels awaited loading for the journey northward into the steppes. Some had not yet shed all their winter fur, so that they presented a patchy appearance.

  Beyond the camels, a small crowd was gathered. Amid this crowd a group of men stripped to the waist knelt with their hands tied behind them. An executioner was going down the line with a short, broad-bladed, two-handed sword. Two bodies already lay prone on the pavement with their heads detached and crimson blood pouring out. As the caravan passed, the executioner swung, and chug! off went another head. The head bounced and rolled while the spouting body fell plop on its chest.

  "Who are those?" Kerin asked.

  Toga shrugged. "Miscreants of some sort. Chingun swarms with cutpurses and other criminals. In my native village there was none of that sort of thing."

  They passed the spectators and came to a two-story tower. On the roof, reached by an outside stair, stood a cluster of astronomical instruments, protected by a canopy. Below, the tower had a series of openings, stacked vertically, in which appeared a series of figurines about half life-size, carrying squares of board on which symbols were painted. The tower emitted clattering and splashing noises. As they passed, a gong sounded. One of the figures moved out of sight, while another appeared in the opening. Kerin called:

  "What is that?"

  "The great astronomical clock, built by the ingenious Hukuryu. It tells not only the time but also the date, the phases of the moon, and the motions of the stars and planets."

  This, Kerin thought, I must see at more leisure. The caravan plodded on until the party reached a walled section in the center of the city. At the gate into this interior wall, the whole tedious business of checking papers was again undergone.

  At last Kerin and Nogiri were borne into the enclosure, which Toga explained was called the Prohibited Precinct. Within each side of the wall stood a row of large one-story buildings. Within the square formed by these structures, a vast plaza spread, bedight with bronzen dragons, armillary spheres, monumental stone stelae, and other ornaments.

  Kuromonians bearing scrolls and sheaves of papers bustled about this plaza, some afoot and some whizzing by on skates. They streamed in and out of the buildings like ants in their nests. At the center of the plaza rose an even larger building, covering several acres. Its gilded roof flashed blindingly in the sun.

  "That," said Toga, "is the Proscribed Palace, where dwells the Son of Heaven."

  "Are we going thither?" asked Kerin.

  Toga gave a mirthless little laugh. "Any wight who sought to enter the Forbidden Interior uninvited would find himself shy of a head before he could blink."

  "Then whither go we?"

  "You shall see. We must pass you through official channels. First I must report to my superior, the honorable Third Assistant Secretary Aki of the Foreign Barbarian Section."

  Toga led the way to one of the large buildings of the outer square. He dismounted, helped Kerin and Nogiri out of their chairs, and led them inside. The corridors swarmed with Kuromonians in clean but sober dress, afoot and on skates. Sometimes Toga had to push through the throng, crying: "Borrow light! Borrow light!"

  When the crowd thinned, Kerin asked: "Honorable Toga, who are all these people?"

  "Clerks and officials."

  "Why on earth are so many needed?"

  "Because the Heavenly Empire rules millions of subjects, and a government cannot control so many and promote their welfare without this apparatus."

  "I should think so many would get in one another's way and duplicate one another's work. Or else they would spend more time in intrigue and pecu
lation than at their proper tasks."

  "True, Master Rao. One of our problems is that, as the size of an organization grows, it become harder and ever harder for even the ablest and most upright administrator to keep an eye on every official, clerk, and other underling so that he perform his duties with diligence and honesty. We must therefore hire people to watch them, and this increases the total number and aggravates the problem of keeping an eye on all. So we must hire still others to watch the watchmen, and so on."

  "Well," said Kerin, "methought our little Kortolian monarchy and its Chamber of Burgesses an ineffectual, ramshackle sort of government, but on the whole I prefer it to this."

  "Ah, but if your kingdom had a population like unto ours, you would encounter all our difficulties."

  "Then is the Empire simply too large to be well-run?"

  "In a sense, perhaps. But when Kuromon was divided into a host of contending kingdoms, ever warring and ravaging one another's lands, things were even worse."

  Toga gave his name to a guard at a door. The guard disappeared, and Toga and his charges stood so long in the corridor that Kerin asked: "What's the matter now?"

  Toga chuckled. "It is usual for an official to keep a subordinate waiting to see him. Thus he gains face and proves his status."

  Eventually the guard returned and ushered the trio in. They found a stout man seated at a desk, and flanking that desk two smaller desks at which sat clerks with writing brushes. The stout man wore a device new to Kerin: a pair of reading glasses in a frame that fitted over the bridge of his nose and were secured in place by a pair of ribbons tied at the back of his head. He rose, and he and Toga exchanged so many bows that Kerin fancied he could hear their spines creak.

  "Ineffable superior," said Toga, "permit this lowly one to present the honorable barbarian, Master Rao of Mulvan. Master Rao, you stand before the honorable Third Assistant Secretary Aki."

  Kerin bowed as he had seen the Kuromonians do. Aki stared at Kerin as if he smelled something offensive and gave a slight nod.