Bright Segment

by Theodore Sturgeon

  Mr. Saffron gives his slits to my brush-wipe khaki pants, and to my yellow shirt with russet cuffs which is really the top of my ski-pajamas, and to my face. “You’re quite sure, Miss Brandt?”

  “Of course!”

  “If you say so,” says Mr. Saffron, and sits. “We’re quite ready. Will you sign this, Mr. Ahhh?” I hear a drawer move but I am sure he pulls the white card from his spotless stomach. With the shiny pen from his desk-set I write Giles.

  “First name?” says Mr. Saffron to the card, another shiny pen in hand.

  “Yes.”

  “Last name?”

  “Yes,” I say again; and up come the glasses. “That’s his name, just Giles,” Miss Brandt says quickly. And then she recites my address. Mr. Saffron writes it, putting no more of his boiled-veal fingers on the card than he has to.

  Miss Brandt says, “You want to cash a check now?”

  “Oh sure.” I fumbled around and get the book. Miss Brandt comes close with a finger. “You write the date there, and the—” But I just sit there looking up at her until she goes away. What’s the matter, does she think I don’t know how to write a check? I write the check.

  Mr. Saffron takes the check by its two ends and it flips softly like a little trampolin. He turns it over with a brittle snap and does a squiggle with his pen. “Sixty-eight dollars. All right, the cashier will give you your money.” From his drawer he takes a yellow, ruled pad and curls down over it as if there were sudden fire in his watch pocket. Out we go through the little black gate, and when I look back he is not busy with his paper at all, but staring after us the round-pale way.

  “Is that all you want—sixty-eight dollars?”

  I look at her. “What would I do with more than sixty-eight dollars?”

  Patient, patient she says, “Anything, Giles. Anything.”

  So we go to a cage and a fierce face says in a sweet voice, “How do you want it?”

  “Cash.”

  “Any way at all,” says Miss Brandt.

  So he gives me the money and we go to a marble table in the middle of the bank while I look at it. Miss Brandt says, “Is that right?”

  “What?”

  “Is it all there? Weren’t you counting it?”

  “Oh no. I was just looking at it. It really is real money.”

  “I told you.”

  “Is there more?”

  Again she says, “All you want.”

  “Okay, good. Well, Miss Brandt, you can stay here or go do whatever you want.”

  “All right.”

  I walk away and when I get to the big door with the fanlight I look back. Miss Brandt is standing there by the table, not exactly looking my way. I come walking back. I have a feeling inside that makes the base of my nose hurt. I stop by her and look at her while I wet my lips. She has a real sunset of a shiner by now but the lashes are all right. So I tell her, “You just don’t care what happens to me now.”

  “You know I do.”

  “Well, why didn’t you try to stop me if you cared so much?”

  She says, “You’re not going to do anything important just now.”

  “With all this money? How do you know?”

  She doesn’t say.

  “I guess you want me to come running back to you so you can take care of me.”

  “No, Giles, truly,” she says in that absolutely certain way. “You don’t understand. I’m not important. I’m not trying to be important. I just don’t matter in any of this.”

  “Not to me.” Why does she make me so mad anyway? “So what is important?”

  “Why you could paint. Why you can’t paint. That’s all.”

  “Well, the hell with that for now. Well—maybe I’ll see you around.”

  She sort of shrugs. I just go. Maybe I want to turn around but I don’t. There’s something in my head about how do I get in touch with her if I should want to, but the hell with that too.

  By all the paint pots of perdition, nobody’s ever going to make Giles admit he’s a part of the works, like she does. People like her, all they do is go around believing in something and trying to trap other people into believing it too. “I just don’t matter in any of this.” What kind of a way to get along is that, the silly bitch?

  I get out of line of the bank door and then go across the street and stand in a low areaway where I can watch her when she comes out. From now on by God my business is my business. Who does she think she’s brushing off?

  It’s getting chilly out, but who cares? I’ve got lots of time. Lots of money. Lots of patience. Miss Brandt, now, she’s really got patience. On the other hand, all God’s chillun got patience. Will you look at that bank, now; those big fat pillars are doing just what? Holding up a pseudo-Parthenonic frieze, that’s what. That’s really patience. Year in, year out they stand there holding it up and nobody knows it’s there but the starlings. Patience—look at the work that went into carving all those figures, that fat, baggy nude in the middle clear down to the chow dogs or lions or whatever they are at the ends. Stiacciato, they call that work, the lowest form of relief, and that fat one in the center, she sure would be. So they in turn are patient, the hodgepodge of Hermes and Demeters and blind Justices, holding still for the starlings. And when it’s cold the starlings freeze on the marble stool, and when it’s warm they stool on the marble frieze, and the meek shall inhibit the earth.

  Oh holy Pete what’s happening to my head … listen, Giles, hold on to this area rail and keep your wall eyes on that bank and don’t go off into no magic mountains. Watch that clock over the door. Watch it? I can hear it! Well listen to it then and keep your head in the here and now and don’t let yourself go splitting the definitive. That, now, is a sick clock, it must be three hours slow, and listen to it moan. Oh I know a bank where the wild time groans … Hang on, Giles boy; think of something else, like San Francisco where the second-story men from across the Bay are called berkelers, and the Golden G—no! Think of the statue down the block, the Mayor’s father on a horse, that’s in the papers every other day should they move it or not … My father’s horse has many mentions … and in the bank, now, Miss Brandt is leaving, see the gate is open and agleam in the sun as she stumbles on stones; it is as if Atlantes’ mirth alone were bending her down to be crushed like a tree in a thunder-wind. And across the street—but meadow, meadow’s the word—the blue-black helmets of the beastly gnomes show as they watch this … could it be called a challenge? Ay; but a battle, no; only a defeat.

  All this in a flash of stern anger, and then—yea, she is sinking, twisting about as if to fall at his feet … then up she comes in a whirl, her crude staff invisible, lost in speed, and with a whip’s crack, the staff … Aiee!

  For a moment I cling to the casement, scrabbling like a cat halffallen from a wall; in that incredible moment I have leaned forward to shout and have all but pitched out through the window; and what of my destiny then?

  Back at last and looking outward:

  And the gate is lead, and shrunken, and the gnomes but a herd of ghosts; I stand not on a mighty parapet, but on the roof of a byre. Gone are the swan pools, the great gray halls, the soft-footed dancers and the grape-girls. Atlantes, mighty Atlantes, lies on his back with his eyes glazed and the bright blood flowing from his broken head … lying, aiee! like a goatherd after a bottle-fight on market day. And his steed—but horror itself! has she then turned the hippogriff into a milch cow? May the mandrake curdle her bowels if she’s harmed my hippogriff!

  Ah but no; there he stands, the blazing beauty, and throws back his eagle’s head, and hurls his joy away to the farthest mountains. I mingle my shout with his, leap free of the wall, and run and tumble down the meadow.

  In a transport I stretch myself against the unenchanted grass, and twist and turn in it until I can smell its sweet green ichor; and in just such a turning mine eyes fall upon her who stands meekly by, her two hands folded about the piece of her broken staff, her eyes downcast—but not so far they see me not. />
  “But ’tis thee, my warrior-maid!” I roar. “Here to me lass, and I’ll buss thee well for thy trouble!”

  But she stands where she is, so I must go to her. That at least I can do; has she not set me free?

  (Or is she here to imprison me again? Destiny, now, is not fragile; yonder’s a fractured magician for proof. Still—) “How do they call thee, maid?”

  “Bradamante,” says she; now, the Arabs breed a long-maned horse, and in the distance that silken banner on their necks looks like this maid’s lashes close to.

  “Well, Bradamante, I owe thee my freedom if not my life. And should I pay the reckoning, what would thee do with them?”

  Up to me she looks, with a deep calm which destroys my reckless smile; and up past me she looks further; and she says gently, “I would do the Lord’s will with them.”

  “Call me not Lord!” I cry; this creature embarrasses me.

  “I was not.” Quiet as ever, her voice, yet somehow she chides me. “I meant the Lord Whom I serve, Who is King of kings.”

  “Is He now! And what would He have thee do with a belly-hungry, prison-broke hellion of a swordless knight?”

  “If thou wilt serve Him—”

  “Hold, lass. Yon wizard told me a tale of thee and me betrothed, and crawling the mud like worms among worms with never a jewel to our cloaks. He said ’twas my destiny to be freed by thee, and free me thee did. Though I can’t say how.”

  “I but struck him with my staff.”

  “Na, lass. Even I could never do that; he could not be touched.”

  She gives me her hand; I take it and then follow her gaze to it. It wears a simple golden ring. Gently she frees herself and removes the ring. “The Lord sent this my way; who wears it is proof against all enchantments. I need it no longer.” The ring flashes in the sun as she casts it aside; with my quick thumb and forefinger I pluck it out of the air.

  “But keep it, Bradamante! Thee cannot discard such a treasure!”

  “It was given me to free thee, and thou art free. As to the future—the Lord will provide.”

  I slip the ring upon my smallest finger, and though it is thick as her thumb, the ring clasps me like mine own. (Even without it, girl, thee’d have better fortune with an angry basilisk than thee would with me, if thee would persuade me to join thee on thy rocky pilgrimages. But now—) “This much of my destiny is complete, then, Bradamante, and I am in thy debt. But surely the wizard was wrong about the rest of it.”

  “It is in the hands of the Lord.”

  “Thee doesn’t expect me to cast aside my brocades for a scratchy gown like thine, and go with thee among the peasants!”

  “We do as the Lord directs. We do it freely and with all our hearts, and are saved, or we do it blindly until we end in darkness; but serve Him we shall.”

  Such confidence is more unnerving than any magic. “I cannot believe that.”

  “Will not,” she corrects me calmly.

  “But I’ve choice! Here we stand, Bradamante, and in the next heartbeat I might slay thee or woo thee or bite thee or fall on the earth and gobble grass; and which of these things I do is for me to decide!”

  Slowly and so surely she shakes her head. “It is in thee to serve the Lord, else I should not have been sent to thee. Choice thee has: Thee may serve Him willingly or thee may serve Him blindly; and none has a third way.”

  “Thee cannot force—”

  She puts up her hands. “We do not force. We do not kill. We need not. The Lord—”

  “Thy Lord let thee kill Atlantes!”

  “No, Rogero. He is not dead.”

  I spring to the crumpled magician; and indeed, he is but stunned. I snatch out his own poiniard, and instantly, under its point, Bradamante thrusts her firm brown arm. “The Lord will take him in his own time, Rogero. Spare him.”

  “Spare him! He would have killed thee!”

  “But he did not. He too is a servant of God, though unwilling. Spare him.”

  I fling down the blade so violently that nought but the jewelled knob at the hilt-top shows between the grass-blades. “Then I will; and having done thee the one service, I shall call my debts discharged. Art satisfied, girl?”

  She makes my head bubble, this quiet creature; and I recall Atlantes’ scoffing words, that this dedicated beetle of a Bradamante shall think more of her faith than of my flesh, and that she shall have more brains than I.

  Her lashes fall, and “Sobeit,” she says, and not another word.

  I need my sword, and to get it I must turn my back on her—a good need. So up the slope I go lightly, just as if her very presence were not like a heat on my shoulder blades. I close my eyes as I spring up the smooth grassway, and it does nothing to shut her out.

  Patience, Rogero! Down the hill, over the rise, and she’ll be forgotten!

  And in any case, one could come back if one must …

  So I let my eyes come open again, and gasp; for there stands the hippogriff, and he has never let me come so close. If I am to continue upward I must go round him, or I must move him. For a split second I falter, and his great head comes round to me; and oh, I’ve looks in the wells of Kazipon which are bottomless, I’ve followed the light of my torch in the endless caverns of Qual, and I’ve known a night when the stars went out; and never before have I looked into such depths and such reaches as the eyes in his eagle head. True bird’s eyes they are, fierce in their very structure and unreadable. Through them the beast sees—what? A soft sac of blood and bones to be a sheath for that golden beak … or a friend … or a passing insect … I should flee. I should stand. I should sidle about him and be wary. I should, I should—

  But I shall ride him!

  I finish my stride and go straight to him, and when my hand falls on his purple shoulder he swings his head forward and high, and trembles so that from his wings comes a sound like soft rain on a silken tent. My heart leaps so that I must leap with it or lose it, and with a single motion I am on his back and my knees have him. Aiee! such a shout comes from me, it would rival his own; it is full of the joyous taste of terror. With it I fetch him a buffet on the withers which jars me to the very neckbones, and before I can feel the blow as any more than a shock, his wings are open and thrusting, and he rears and leaps …

  It is a leap that never will end; fast he flies and faster hurtling higher just at the angle of his leap, and the surges of his body are most strange to a horseman. Only the glint of the golden ring convinces me that we are not involved in an enchantment; for flying sunward warms nothing, curious as it may seem, and the bright air grows cold as the hoary hinges of perdition’s door.

  I think of poor sod-shackled Bradamante, and look back and down; but by now she is lost in that indeterminate new place between haze and horizon, and there, for all of me, she may stay. I shrug, and find that I have not shrugged away the picture of her face, which is strange, since it is hardly one worth remembering. Surely, Rogero, thou art not smitten?

  With her? With—that?

  Ah no, it could not be. There must be something else, something buried in the whole mosaic of our meeting. Of our parting … ah; that was it!

  Atlantes is not dead.

  That in itself is nothing. Atlantes distant is, to me, as good as Atlantes dead. But Atlantes slowly waking in the meadow, his enchantments all destroyed, his shield and steed gone—and the peaceful author of his ruin doubtless helping him to his feet with her sturdy unwomanly hands … this is another matter.

  But forget it! The sly-tongued termagant could, by the time Atlantes was fully conscious, have him so morassed in debate he would forget to be angry. Bradamante has a most powerful helplessness; she attacks with the irresistible weapon of being unarmed, immobilizes the enemy by surrendering, and at last sits on his feeble form, holding by the great weight of her passivity. I need not fear for Bradamante.

  But the ring flicks a mote of light into mine eye, and I know I have taken her last defense and left her at the mercy of the merciless, an
d this is small thanks indeed for what she dared for me.

  But what else would a knight, a true knight, do?

  One thing a knight would do, I tell myself bitterly, is to regain his sword if he lost it, and not pleasure himself with a hippogriff, however beautiful. Thou art no knight, Rogero; not yet, not again. Regain thine own holy blade, its very hilt encrusted with thy sacred promises, ere thee call thyself knight again.

  Back, then, for the sword, and decide then about the maiden; and keep thyself armed with the thought of thy destiny—it is with her, and means soaking in meekness until I am mushy as bread in a milk bowl … no! by the heart of the fire in the nethermost pit, I shall get my blade and hew out a new destiny!

  There are no reins, and I remember that the magician controlled the beast with words. “Enough, my beauty!” I cry. “Back now—take me back!” And somewhere inside a voice sniggers Thee deludes thyself with the matter of the sword; it’s the plight of the maid that drives thee. “No!” I cry, “she shall not have me! Let her King of kings save her, she’s His ward, not mine!” And I thump the hippogriff with my hard-tooled heels: “Back, my beauty, take me back!”

  And the hippogriff tilts to the wind, and balances and sails as before, for these are not the magic words.

  “Turn! Turn!” I bellow, rowelling him. I ball my fist and sink half of it in the feathered root of his neck just forward of the shoulder; for by this, if rightly done, one may stagger a horse. “Mule!” I shriek. “Turn thy spavined carcass about ere I tie a knot in thy neck!”

  At this the eagle’s head turns about like an owl’s and the measureless eyes loom over me. Slowly the beak opens that I may see the spear tip and the scissor sides of that frightful weapon. Like a blind animal, the gray-pink tongue shifts enough for any soldier. Fear, however, is an assistant to safety only up to a point, and I am far past it. “Go back, aborted monster, ere I snatch out that ugly horn and crack thine eyeballs together! By the pleasure-bred blood of thy half-bred dam and the—” Thus far I rant, and he strikes. And would he had killed with the one stroke; for instead he has slipped the point of his beak between my saddle and my hams, and I am flipped, unharmed and sore humiliated, high in the air over him. I am spinning like a broken lance, or the earth is circling me head to heel, chased by a blazing band of sun. I see the glory-tinted wings below me, too small and far away; around I go and see them again closer; and again, and this time I must touch, clutch; I claw my hands and flex my legs, and turn again—and the hippogriff slips away to the side to let me plunge past him.