by Eric Flint
"Impudence, is it?" roared the first, slamming his great fist onto the table. "And who are you, sirrah, to call us impudent?"
"I bear the dreaded name Zulkeh of—"
"—Goimr, physician," concluded the lowborn in one voice.
"Author of Reason's Absolute Idea?" asked the second.
"The Speculative Logic?" queried the third.
"The Phenomenology of True Truth?" This from the fourth.
"They number among my titles," spoke the wizard in a majestic tone.
"And are you not as well the originator of the Theoretical Theorem, that all facts derive from theory?" boomed the fifth.
"That I am!"
"And—this last but not least," demanded the sixth, "are you not also the author of The True Law of Gravity, Properly So-Named Only By Myself?"
"Quite so!" spoke Zulkeh. "And may I say I am pleased, albeit surprised, to find that my fame has penetrated even into the—"
But his speech was cut short, for even at that moment did the motley crew erupt into gargantuan laughter, slapping their backs and pounding their fists onto the table, rocking back and forth in mad abandon upon their chairs, several, indeed, collapsing onto the floor in most unseemly mirth. Grievous to relate, into this grotesque revelry did the now-utterly-inebriated Shelyid throw himself without a thought, behaving in a manner which, were there justice in the world, should have seen him burned at the stake.
"Ho! Ho!" gasped the first, as his rollicking humor flung him to the floor, "my graveness pulls me down!"
"Ha! Ha!" shrieked the second, his ale slopping across his noisome workhabit from the shaking of his shoulders, "perceiving the True Truth, my brew unfolds likewise in accordance with the foamy logic of its essence!"
"Hee! Hee!" giggled yet the third, draining his mug in a single quaff, "my own brew, closer to the speculation that is its proof, finds its Absolute Reason in the Idea of my gullet!"
Great was the mage's wrath. "This is an outrage!" he cried, gesticulating wildly.
"An outrage, is it?" demanded the fourth, clutching his heaving ribs. "How so?" he gasped. "Have we not caught the germ of your thought, stripped it like a seed from its husk, and shown it to the world as its own true kernel?" And at this latest uncouth witticism, the entire party of rogues exploded into a veritable hurricane of laughter.
This most disreputable scene was now brought to a positively disastrous state of affairs. For 'twas at this very moment that the dwarf Shelyid, his normal lack of wits compounded by gross inebriety, chose to rise in defense of his mentor.
"Should't make fun a th'master," protested the gnome. "Hissa mighty mage, th'master, an' hissona great 'n' dangerous kest—quest." He took another draught from his pot, spilling a good half of it down his tunic. "Me too!" he added proudly. "I'm 'nis 'prentice." The diminutive numbskull peered owlishly at the party of louts. He placed a finger before his lips. "Shhh!" he hissed. "Gotta keep kite—quiet. We got enemies, y'see. 'N' thass why—"
"Silence, cretin!" spoke the mage, wroth with wrath. He waved his arms wildly. "Be silent, I say! Enough harm have you done, you unspeakable dolt!"
"Cretin, is he?" roared the first.
"Unspeakable dolt, is he?" bellowed the second.
" 'Tis a damnable lie!" cried the third.
"'Tis a decent little man!" averred the fourth, clapping the dwarf's shoulder.
"A right and proper shorty!" concurred the fifth.
"Here's to all shrimps!" hallooed the sixth. This was apparently in the nature of a canaille toast, for the six vulgarians guzzled their pots in unison, Shelyid joining in, with a passionate ardor so utterly inappropriate to the situation that even the lambs of the field, should they have been witness, would have bleated for his blood.
"You seek the witch Magrit!" boomed the first.
"A mystery has befuddled his mind!" cried the second.
"But 'tis not for lack of his science!" pronounced the third.
"Nay—perish the thought!" protested the fourth.
"Not he—not such a prodigy among philosophes!" concurred the fifth.
"Verily, the answer lies elsewhere!" concluded the sixth.
As one man, the roughnecks leapt to their feet and cried out in unison:
"He has enemies, don't you know!"
Then, spreading into a ragged line, the six hurly-burlies linked arms and elbows and began a most uncouth dance, accompanied by the following doggerel verse:
It's enemies brought him low, don't you know,
don't you know?
Enemies what's brought him low, don't you know,
don't you know?
Hid the truth from his cunning, don't you know,
don't you know?
Hid theyselves from his cunning, don't you know,
don't you know?
And that's why he's here, don't you know,
don't you know?
A-looking up old Magrit, don't you know,
don't you know?
At any rate, this tiresome and disgraceful ditty went on for some little time, showing on the part of its authors neither couth nor urbanity. Even worse was the spectacle presented by the treasonous dwarf Shelyid, who not only attempted to join the dance—in which enterprise he failed due to his by-now-total state of drunkenness—but even, sprawled on the floor, attempted to learn the words, and then!—when he failed in this enterprise as well due to his sodden incapacity to form any words beyond mush—still managed to beat time to the tune with his ale pot. A sad and sorry sight, indeed!
As for the wizard himself, it is not inaccurate to state that this proved to be one of the rare moments in his life when he was actually speechless, so great was his indignation. It goes without saying that this atypical speechlessness was all that saved the six lowlifes from the most gruesome of fates. For had the wizard been able to form coherent phrases, there is not the slightest doubt that the hexes and spells which would have issued from his lips should have brought down upon the half-dozen hooligans a termination so hideous as to have served generations of proletarian mothers in cautioning their children on the dangers of insulting a sorcerer.
As it happens, however—and in this we see that primitive cunning so often evidenced by the lower classes—'twas at this very moment that the gargoyle group announced, again as one man, that it was time to turn in for the night. No sooner said than done, the loathsome gang staggered out of the tavern into the darkness of the streets beyond. Yet did the sixth of the motley and disreputable crew pause upon the threshold, and, gazing back within, wave a thorny finger in the direction of the street to his left, announcing: "You'll find the witch Magrit down this street—two blocks, turn left a block, right three blocks, and there she is—an old great gray house, tall and turreted about. You can't be missing it." And so saying, he followed his brethren.
These events recounted, the gentle reader may imagine that it was in no great humor that the wizard returned to his rooms above, dragging his apprentice by the scruff of the neck. Therein he stormed about, casting down curses upon lowlifes in general, a half-dozen lowlifes in particular, and one specific dwarf.
Especially, one specific dwarf.
Indeed, indeed, he waxed most eloquently upon the subject of this one specific dwarf, cursing not only the fate which had saddled him with the witless and unworthy gnome, but every habit, attribute, characteristic, feature, foible, trait, earmark, peculiarity, particularity, singularity, lineament, quality, property, idiosyncrasy, mannerism, tendency, detail, aspect, streak, stripe, crasis, diathesis, disposition, affectation, temperament, bent, bias, warp, woof, twist, turn, leaning, inclination, propensitude as well as propensity, propendency, propension, proclivity, predilection, and predisposition, forgetting not humor, mood, temper, tone, vein, grain, cast, cue, heart, mettle, and spirit, the which, taken together, summarized the persona of this specific dwarf, even including in this condemnation certain descriptions of the gnome which, fairness requires me to say, were something of an exaggeration, of whic
h "cloven-hoofed" was perhaps the least ill-tempered.
No doubt this lecture would have greatly enlightened the wretched dwarf, opening up to his understanding many aspects of his character which the dull-minded runt had not hitherto grasped. But alas, the wizard's efforts were in vain, for the dwarf Shelyid had long since fainted away, whether in awe and wonder at the wizard's psychologic facility, or from the unaccustomed effects of many pots of ale, it is difficult to say.
PART XIII
In Which We Return to the
Autobiography of the Malefactor
Sfrondrati-Piccolomini, this Portion
of Whose Story Consists of a Crude and
Unscrupulous Attempt to Win the Favor
of the Reader, by Means of Mawkish
Romance and Melodrama.
The Autobiography of Benvenuti Sfondrati-Piccolomini,
Episode 7: Signs, Signals, Sighs and Sorrows
So it was on such a note of frustration that I awoke the following day. Gwendolyn and I saw little of each other. She spent the whole day sitting at a table in a corner of the Free Lunch, talking to an endless stream of people who came in and out of the alehouse. All of them ambled in with a smile and left in a hurry, great frowns on their faces. I made it a point not to overhear her conversations, but it was plain enough even to one of my limited grasp of politics that she was energetically spreading the word through the revolutionary network. And I couldn't help but overhear some of the comments made by people as they left the alehouse, among which "A Rap Sheet!" and "We're doomed!" figured prominently.
I couldn't help but overhear, I say, because I myself spent the morning perched on the colonnade in the front of the Free Lunch. As I had promised the Tapster, I repaired his sign. When I was done, if I may say so myself, I had turned the thing into a work of art.
Then, partly because I had nothing else to do and partly because my artist's instincts, once aroused, are difficult to control, I started working on the entire colonnade. The underlying construction of the colonnade was sound enough, but whoever had built it had absolutely no sense of decoration and what little they had was long since eroded by the elements.
So there I was, happily painting and carving away, when I heard a loud voice below.
"That's enough, Benvenuti! Enough!"
I looked down. It was the Tapster.
"Look at it! It's a work of art, now, for the love—gargoyles, even." He shook his head, jowls quivering. "You couldn't eat and drink that much in a lifetime."
I climbed down off the colonnade. A lengthy debate followed, at the conclusion of which I managed to convince the Tapster that since I myself considered his beer and "arsters" a form of art in their own right I considered us to have made a reasonable exchange of use values. The clincher—a shrewd move, this, though it pained me deeply—was my insistence that I was deeply in his debt for correcting my pronunciation with respect to edible mollusks.
"Well, that's true," he mused, "seeing as how I not only did you the great service in its own right but probably saved your life, in the bargain. Most people aren't as tolerant as myself, you know, when it comes to the proper name for arsters."
In the end, he was mollified. But he still insisted that I'd done enough. And so there I was, it being only the early afternoon and with too much time on my hands.
After enjoying an enormous lunch—the Tapster insisted on heaping my platter time and again—I approached Gwendolyn at her table.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," I said—and no sooner did these accented words issue forth from my lips than I was greeted with a sea of hostile and suspicious faces from the people gathered about the table—"but I just wanted to tell you I'm going to wander about the town for the rest of the afternoon. I'll see you tonight."
Gwendolyn smiled at me. Then, noticing the expression on the faces of the others at the table, she scowled.
"And what's your problem?" she demanded of them. "So he's an Ozarine—so what? He's with me. I vouch for him."
The frowns eased, but did not vanish. Gwendolyn slammed her fist onto the table. Everyone jumped a foot in their seats.
"What is this?" she roared. "Bigotry? In the movement? I won't have it!"
I managed to keep from smiling. This, coming from Gwendolyn!
The frowns were replaced by looks which combined shamefaced guilt and not a little trepidation. This latter was not surprising. Gwendolyn in a fury is not a thing to be taken lightheartedly.
"I'll probably be tied up most of the night, Benvenuti," growled Gwendolyn, her fierce gaze not on me but on her comrades. "There's still a lot of the comrades I have to talk to, and then"—her voice here resembled a great feline's—"there's perhaps a little matter of political re-education to be dealt with."
I left the room, then, trying not to laugh at the expressions I left behind.
The rest of the day passed pleasantly enough. It's an odd place, the Doghouse, but not without its own charms. The artwork, I found, had a crude but strangely appealing quality to it. There was one figurine in particular that I found attractive. It was made of terra cotta, unpainted, depicting the bust of some very rough-looking man. More like an ogre than a man, really, with his beetling brows, great hook of a nose, and deep-set eyes. Some of that was due, I was sure, to the crudity of the craftsmanship, but I felt, without knowing why, that it was not unlike the original model. But what struck me about it was that, even despite the obvious lack of skill of the artisan, the figurine somehow managed to capture a hint of a great spirit lurking within that horrid exterior. It was really a fine piece.
I noticed it in one shop, and then began seeing it in several others. Eventually, I found myself so taken by the thing that I determined to obtain one, so that I might make my own carving. I retraced my steps back to the first shop, whose figurine had been of the best quality, and effectuated an exchange of services with the proprietor. It was not difficult. My travels about the town had made it clear to me that if I should ever decide to become a sign-maker I could easily set myself up in the Doghouse and enjoy all the simple bounties of its life.
And so it was that I returned to the Free Lunch, gay as a lark, and walked into a most painful episode.
By the time I got back it was very late. Gwendolyn was sitting at the same table, but the crowd of the day was gone. Only one person was sitting there with her. I did not pay much attention to him, so happy was I to see her again. A general impression of great height—obvious even seated—and a luxuriant beard, was all that initially registered. Gwendolyn glanced at me as I approached, then looked back to the man. Something in the set of her shoulders—a rigidity, perhaps—stilled the affectionate greeting that I was about to utter.
"Have a seat," she said. Her voice seemed distant. She motioned back and forth. "Roach, this is Benvenuti Sfondrati-Piccolomini. Benvenuti, meet The Roach. He's an old friend of mine, just got here. I wasn't expecting him."
The man stood up politely. A large, long-fingered hand reached out. I shook it. For the first time, I looked at him closely. Extraordinarily tall, he was. Middle-aged, rather slender, although obviously sinewy. His face was difficult to discern, so covered it was with an immense beard. His hair and beard were streaked with gray. I got an impression of a great prow of a chin buried somewhere beneath the hair, but I was more struck by his eyes. Somewhat deep-set, light-colored, and very hard to read. His clothes were those of a workman, very nondescript except for the most immense and striking set of boots that I ever saw in my life. The Boots, I was later to learn.
"Which branch?" the man asked, after he resumed his seat. His voice was a pleasant tenor.
I began to explain where my immediate family line fit on the complex hereditary tree of the Sfondrati-Piccolomini clan, but before I got very far into it he began nodding his head.
"Yes, yes, I know it." A look which combined amusement and a certain respect. "An odd lot, not at all like most of those pedants. When I was in the Ozarine, I spent some pleasant afternoons quaffing ale with an
Idomeneo Sfondrati-Piccolomini. A cousin of yours, he must be."
"Second cousin. I've only met him once. My uncles sent me to bail him out of jail."
The Roach emitted a great baying laugh. "I can believe it! He never had the proper respect for his patrons, that lad. 'Rich slobs couldn't tell a work of art if it bit them on the arse,' he'd always say."
My initial warmth toward the man, however, began ebbing as the night wore on. Soon enough, I came to view him with a great coldness. The fault was not his, actually. Indeed, it was part of the growing horror of the scene, that I knew him to be a man whose acquaintance I would have enjoyed, perhaps even cherished, under other circumstances. Under that rough and bristly exterior I could detect a great, somehow gentle, self-confidence—a quiet dignity, a sense of his place in life that it is given to very few people to possess in this world.
But the fact is, the circumstances were as they were. Nothing was said, neither by he nor by Gwendolyn, and they never so much as touched each other once. But I am not a fool. I will admit I stayed at the table well past the time I should have made a graceful exit. The Roach seemed oblivious to the situation. But I am an artist, with an artist's eye, to whom the tension in Gwendolyn's posture was obvious. So stay I did, trying to forestall the inevitable, until my stern upbringing came to my rescue.
"When it comes to romance and heartbreak and all that," my uncles had told me more than once, "try not to be a complete jackass."
And so I finally rose from the table, bid them goodnight, and made my way to my room. Sometime later, I heard Gwendolyn and The Roach moving through the corridor and into her room. The indistinct murmur of their voices came through the wall for a few minutes, followed by silence, followed, some minutes later, by sounds which I did my best to ignore. Eventually, I managed to fall asleep.
When I awoke, my body feeling ill-used and my soul worse, I lay in my bed unmoving. After some time, I realized that I was hearing a conversation coming from Gwendolyn's room. I could not hear the words, but I seemed to detect an undertone of anger in The Roach's voice and a coldness in Gwendolyn's. For a moment, the temptation to press my ear against the wall and eavesdrop swept over me like a tidal wave. But I resisted it, springing to my feet and charging downstairs after hurriedly making my ablutions and throwing on some clothes.