Hard to Be a God

Chapter 8

Rumata took the back roads to the office of the Bishop of Arkanar. He crept through the residents’ small yards, getting tangled in old clothes hung out to dry; climbed through holes in fences, leaving splendid bows and bits of precious Soanian lace on rusty nails; and hastily crawled between potato patches. But he still couldn’t evade the watchful eye of the black army. When he climbed out into the narrow, crooked alley that led to the dump, he bumped into two gloomy, tipsy monks.

Rumata tried to go around them—the monks drew their swords and blocked the way. Rumata grabbed the hilts of his swords—the monks gave a three-fingered whistle, calling for help. Rumata started to retreat toward the hole he had just climbed out of, but a nimble little man with an insignificant face suddenly jumped out toward him into the alley. Jostling Rumata with his shoulder, he ran up to the monks and said something to them, after which the monks picked their cassocks up over their long, purple-clad legs and trotted away, disappearing behind the houses. The little man shuffled after them without turning around.

Got it, thought Rumata. A spy-bodyguard. And he isn’t even bothering to hide much. The Bishop of Arkanar is being prudent. I wonder what he’s most worried about—what I’ll do, or what they’ll do to me? Following the spy with his eyes, he headed toward the dump. The dump led to the back of the offices of the former Ministry of the Defense of the Crown and was, he hoped, not patrolled.

The alley was empty, but he could already hear shutters softly creaking, an infant crying, and people whispering cautiously. A gaunt, thin face, black from baked-in soot, warily poked out from behind a half-rotted fence. Fearful, hollow eyes stared at Rumata.

“I beg your pardon, noble don, and beg your pardon again. Won’t the noble don tell me what’s happening in the city? I’m the blacksmith Kikus, nicknamed Limpy, and I need to go to the smithy, but I’m scared.”

“Don’t go,” Rumata advised. “The monks aren’t kidding around. There’s no more king. The man in charge now is Don Reba, the Bishop of the Holy Order. So sit tight.”

The blacksmith hastily nodded after each word, and his eyes filled with anguish and despair. “The Order, huh,” he muttered. “Oh, cholera… Beg your pardon, noble don. So it’s now the Order. Are they grays or what?”

“Nah,” Rumata said, eyeing him with curiosity. “The grays might be finished. These are monks.”

“Oh, wow!” said the blacksmith. “So they got the grays too. That’s some Order! The grays are finished—that’s good, of course. But what about us, noble don, what does Your Lordship think? Will we adapt, eh? Under the Order, eh?”

“Why not?” said Rumata. “The Order needs to eat and drink too. You’ll adapt.”

The blacksmith perked up. “That’s what I figure—we’ll adapt. The way I figure it, the most important thing’s not to bother anyone, then no one will bother you, eh?”

Rumata shook his head. “Oh, no,” he said. “The ones who don’t bother anyone get slaughtered first.”

“That’s true,” the blacksmith sighed. “But what can you do? All alone in the world, with eight brats clutching my pants. Oh, Holy Mother, I hope they at least slaughtered my master! He was a gray officer. What does Your Lordship think? Could they have slaughtered him, noble don? I owed him five gold pieces.”

“I don’t know,” Rumata said. “They might have slaughtered him. Here’s something else for you to ponder, blacksmith. You’re all alone in the world, but there are ten thousand of you in the city.”

“So?” said the blacksmith.

“Think about it,” Rumata said irritably, and kept walking.

The hell he’ll think of anything. It’s too early for him to think. And it seems so simple: ten thousand hammerers like that, in a rage, could crush anyone to a pulp. Except rage is what they don’t have yet. Only fear. Everyone for himself, only God for all.

The elder bushes at the end of the block suddenly rustled, and Don Tameo crawled into the alley. Seeing Rumata, he cried out in joy, jumped up, and, tottering wildly, moved in his direction, reaching his mud-smeared hands toward him. “My noble don!” he cried. “I’m so glad! I see you’re also going to the office?”

“Of course, my noble don,” Rumata answered, skillfully avoiding the embrace.

“May I join you, noble don?”

“I’d be honored, noble don.”

They bowed to each other. It was clear that Don Tameo had started yesterday and hadn’t yet been able to stop. He extracted a finely made glass flask from a pair of extremely wide yellow pants. “Would you like some, noble don?” he offered courteously.

“Thank you,” Rumata said.

“It’s rum!” declared Don Tameo. “Real rum from the metropole. I paid a gold piece for it.”

They went down to the dump and, holding their noses, began to walk between piles of garbage, corpses of dogs, and reeking puddles swarming with white worms. The continuous hum of myriad emerald flies was in the air.

“How strange,” Don Tameo said, closing the flask, “I’ve never been here before.”

Rumata didn’t say anything.

“Don Reba has always amazed me,” said Don Tameo. “I was convinced that he would eventually overthrow our worthless monarch, pave new roads, and open shining prospects for us.” With that, his foot slipped into a yellow-green puddle, splattering him heavily, and he grabbed Rumata in order not to fall down. “Yes!” he continued when they reached solid ground. “We, the young aristocracy, will always stand behind Don Reba! The desired relaxation has finally come. Judge for yourself, Don Rumata. I’ve been walking the alleys and kitchen gardens for an hour but I haven’t met a single gray. We’ve swept the gray scum off the face of the earth, and how sweet and easy it is to breathe in the reborn Arkanar. Instead of the coarse shopkeepers, those insolent boors, and the peasants, the streets are full of the servants of God. I’ve seen it myself: some noblemen are now openly strolling in front of their houses. They no longer need to fear that some imbecile in a dung-covered apron will splatter them with his filthy cart. And we now no longer have to fight our way through yesterday’s butchers and haberdashers. Blessed by the great Holy Order, for which I have always had the utmost respect and, I will not conceal, heartfelt affection, we will arrive at a state of unprecedented prosperity—in which not a single peasant will dare raise his eyes at a nobleman without a permit signed by the district inspector of the Order. I’m bringing a memorandum about this right now.”

“What a horrible stench,” Rumata said with feeling.

“Yes, it’s awful,” Don Tameo agreed, closing the flask. “But how easy it is to breathe in the reborn Arkanar! And the price of wine has fallen by half.”

By the end of their walk, Don Tameo had drained the flask to the very bottom and hurled it away, and had become extraordinarily excited. He fell twice, the second time refusing to clean himself off, declaring that he was sinful and unclean by nature and wished to present himself in that state. He kept reciting his memorandum at the top of his lungs: “How forcefully put!” he exclaimed. “Take this passage, for example, noble dons: ‘Lest the reeking peasants…’ Hmm? What a thought!” When they got to the courtyard behind the office, he collapsed onto the first monk he saw and, bursting into tears, started begging for absolution. The half-suffocated monk fought back fiercely, tried to whistle for help, but Don Tameo clutched his cassock and they both tumbled into a garbage heap. Rumata left them behind, and for a long time, as he was going away, kept hearing the plaintive intermittent whistling and exclamations: “‘Lest the reeking peasants’! Bleeessings! With all my heart! I felt affection, affection, you get it, peasant face?”

A detachment of monks on foot, armed with fearsome-looking knotted clubs, was standing in the square by the entrance, in the shadow of the Merry Tower. The corpses had been removed. The morning wind was swirling yellow columns of dust around the square. Crows were screaming and quarreling beneath the wide conical roof of the tower—there, as always, the bodies of the hanged swung upside down from the exposed beams. The tower had been built about two hundred years ago by an ancestor of the late king for military purposes. It had been built on top of a solid three-story foundation, which was once used to store reserves of food in case of a siege. The tower was later turned into a prison. But then an earthquake had collapsed all the interior walls, and the prison had to be moved to the basement. In her time, some Arkanarian queen had complained to her king that the wails of the tortured resounding through the neighborhood interfered with her amusements. Her august husband ordered a military band to play in the tower from morning to night. That was how the tower had gotten its current name. It had long been an empty stone shell—the investigation chambers had long been relocated to the newly excavated, very lowest floors of the foundation—and it had been a long time since a band had played there, but the residents still called it Merry.

The square near the Merry Tower was usually deserted. But today the place was bustling with activity. People were being led, pulled, and dragged along the ground toward the tower—storm troopers in torn gray uniforms, lice-ridden vagabonds in rags, half-dressed city residents covered in goose bumps from fear, hysterically screaming girls, and whole gangs of sullenly staring tramps from the night army. And at the same time, corpses were being removed from the tower, hauled out with hooks through some hidden passageways, stacked onto carts, and driven out of the city. The tail of an extremely long line of noblemen and wealthy citizens, which extended out of the open doors of the ministry office, watched this appalling commotion in fear and confusion.

They allowed everyone into the office, even bringing some people in under escort. Rumata pushed his way in. It was as stuffy here as at the dump. An official with a yellow-gray face and a big goose feather stuck behind his protruding ear was sitting at a wide table surrounded by lists. The next applicant, the noble Don Keu, gave his name, arrogantly fluffing his mustache.

“Take off your hat,” the official said in a colorless voice, without looking up from his papers.

“The privilege of the family of Keu is to wear a hat in the presence of the king himself,” Don Keu proclaimed proudly.

“No one has any privileges before the Order,” the official said in the same colorless voice.

Don Keu huffed, turning livid, but took the hat off.

The official ran a long yellow nail along the list. “Don Keu… Don Keu…” he muttered, “Don Keu… Royal Street, Building Twelve?”

“Yes,” Don Keu said in an irritated bass voice.

“Number four hundred eighty-five, Brother Tibak.”

The heavyset Brother Tibak, who was sitting at the adjacent table, crimson from the stuffy air, searched through the papers, wiped the sweat off his bald head, stood up, and read out monotonously, “Number four hundred eighty-five, Don Keu. Royal, Twelve, for the defamation of the name of His Grace the Bishop of Arkanar Don Reba, which took place at the palace ball the year before last, shall receive three dozen lashes on his bared buttocks, and shall kiss His Grace’s boot.”

Brother Tibak sat down.

“Down that corridor,” said the official in a colorless voice, “the lashes on the right, the boot on the left. Next.”

To Rumata’s complete astonishment, Don Keu did not protest. He had apparently already seen a lot in line. He just grunted, adjusted his mustache with dignity, and departed for the corridor. The next in line, the giant Don Pifa, quivering with fat, had already taken off his hat.

“Don Pifa… Don Pifa…” the official droned, running a finger along the list. “Milkmen Street, Building Two.”

Don Pifa made a guttural noise.

“Number five hundred and four, Brother Tibak.”

Brother Tibak again wiped his head and stood up. “Number five hundred and four, Don Pifa, Milkmen, Two, not known to be guilty of anything toward His Grace—consequently clean.”

“Don Pifa,” the official said, “take your symbol of purification.” He bent down, pulled an iron bracelet from a chest next to the chair, and handed it to noble Pifa. “Wear it on your left arm, produce it as soon as a soldier from the Order demands it. Next.”

Don Pifa made a guttural noise and walked away, examining the bracelet. The official was already droning the next name. Rumata took a look at the line. There were many familiar faces here. A few were dressed in their customary rich fashion, others were clearly attempting to appear poor, but all were thoroughly smeared with mud. Somewhere from the middle of the line, loud enough for everyone to hear, Don Sera declared for the third time in five minutes, “I see no reason why even a noble don shouldn’t receive a couple lashes in the name of His Grace!”

Rumata waited until the next person was directed down the corridor (it was a well-known fishmonger, who had been given five lashes but no kiss for unenthusiastic ways of thinking), pushed his way through to the table, and brusquely put a hand on the papers lying in front of the official. “Pardon me,” he said. “I need the order for the release of Doctor Budach. I’m Don Rumata.”

The official didn’t raise his head.

“Don Rumata… Don Rumata…” he muttered and, shoving Rumata’s hand away, ran his nail along the list.

“What are you doing, you old inkwell?” said Rumata. “I need the order for the release!”

“Don Rumata… Don Rumata…” Apparently this automaton was impossible to stop. “Boilermakers Street, Building Eight. Number sixteen, Brother Tibak.”

Rumata felt everyone behind his back hold their breath. And he had to admit he also felt a bit uneasy. The sweaty, crimson Brother Tibak stood up: “Number sixteen, Don Rumata, Boilermakers, Eight, for special services to the Order has earned the particular gratitude of His Grace and will kindly receive an order for the release of Doctor Budach, with whom he will do whatever he pleases—see sheet six seventeen eleven.”

The official immediately pulled this sheet from underneath the lists and handed it to Rumata. “Through the yellow door, up to the second floor, room six, down the hall, go right then left,” he said. “Next.”

Rumata scanned the sheet. It wasn’t the order for Budach’s release. It was the justification for his receiving a pass into the fifth, special department of the office, where he was supposed to receive instructions to take to the secretariat of secret affairs.

“What did you give me, blockhead?” asked Rumata. “Where’s the order?”

“Through the yellow door, up to the second floor, room six, down the hall, go right then left,” the official repeated.

“I’m asking, where’s the order?” Rumata barked.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Next!”

Rumata heard heavy breathing by his ear, and something soft and hot pressed up against his back. He moved away. Don Pifa squeezed up to the table again. “It doesn’t fit,” he squeaked.

The official looked dully at him. “Name? Rank?” he asked.

“It doesn’t fit,” Don Pifa said again, tugging on the bracelet, which barely fit over three fat fingers.

“It doesn’t fit… It doesn’t fit…” the official mumbled and suddenly jerked a thick book lying on the table to his right toward him. The book had an evil look—the binding was black and greasy. Don Pifa looked at it dumbfounded for a couple of seconds, then suddenly recoiled and, without saying a word, rushed toward the door. The people in line shouted, “Hurry up, get a move on!” Rumata also walked away from the table. What a quagmire, he thought. I’ll show you… The official started droning into space: “If the indicated symbol of purification does not fit onto the left wrist of the purified or if the purified has no left wrist as such…” Rumata walked around the table, stuck both hands into the chest with the bracelets, grabbed as many as he could and walked off.

“Hey, hey,” the official called without any expression in his voice. “Your justification!”

“In the name of the Lord,” Rumata said significantly, looking over his shoulder. The official and Brother Tibak stood up together and dissonantly replied, “In His name.” The people in line watched Rumata leave with envy and admiration.

Coming out of the office, Rumata slowly walked toward the Merry Tower, clasping the bracelets onto his left arm along the way. It turned out that there were nine bracelets, and only five of them fit on his left arm. The remaining four Rumata stuck on his right arm. The Bishop of Arkanar is trying to wear me out, he thought. It won’t work. The bracelets clinked with each step, and Rumata was holding an impressive-looking paper in his hand—sheet six seventeen eleven, adorned with multicolored seals. Every monk he met, both on foot and on horseback, quickly got out of his way. The insignificant spy-bodyguard kept appearing then disappearing in the crowd, keeping a respectful distance. Rumata, mercilessly bashing the dawdlers with his scabbards, made his way to the gates, barked menacingly at a guard who tried to butt in, walked through the courtyard, and descended the slimy, weathered stairs into a semidarkness lit by smoking torches. This was the where the holy of the holies of the former Ministry of the Defense of the Crown began—the royal prison and investigation chambers.

In the vaulted corridor, smoking torches stuck out of rusty sockets in the wall at intervals of ten feet. A black door was visible in a cavernous alcove beneath each torch. These were the entrances to the prison cells, locked from the outside by heavy iron bolts. The corridors were full of people. They were shoving, running, shouting, and giving orders. Bolts were creaking and doors were slamming; someone was being beaten and he wailed; someone was being dragged and he resisted; someone was being pushed into a cell that was already packed to full capacity; someone was being unsuccessfully dragged out of a cell, screaming hysterically, “Not me, not me!” and clutching his neighbors. The faces of the passing monks were businesslike to the point of severity. Every one of them was in a hurry; every one of them was involved in affairs of importance to the state. Rumata, trying to find his way, slowly walked through corridor after corridor, descending lower and lower. Things were calmer in the lower floors. Here, judging by the conversations, the graduates of the Patriotic School were taking their examinations. Half-naked, broad-chested young oafs in leather aprons were standing in clusters by the doors of the torture chambers, flipping through their greasy instruction manuals, occasionally walking over to a large tank with a cup chained to it to drink some water. Horrible screams and sounds of blows were coming from the chambers, and there was a thick burning smell. And oh, the conversations, the conversations!

“The bone-crusher has this screw-on top, and it broke. That my fault? He kicked me out. ‘You dumb lug,’ he says, ‘go get five lashes on your buttocks and come back.’”

“We oughta find out who’s doing the flogging, maybe it’s one of us students. So you could arrange it in advance, collect five coins a head and pay ’em off.”

“When there’s a lot of fat, no point in heating up the prong, it’ll cool off in the fat anyway. You should take the tweezers and tear a bit of lard off.”

“So the Greaves of Our Lord are for the legs, they are wider and have spikes, and the Gloves of the Great Martyr, they have screws—that’s specifically for the hand, got it?”

“Funny thing, brothers! I go inside and see—you know who’s in chains? Fika the Red, the butcher from our street, used to slap me around when drunk. You better watch out, I think, I’m gonna have some fun.”

“Pekora the Lip hasn’t been back since the monks dragged him off this morning. And he didn’t come to the exam.”

“Ugh, I shoulda used the meat grinder, but I stupidly bashed his sides with a crowbar, so, you know, I broke a rib. So Father Kin grabs my head and kicks me square in the tail-bone, and brothers, I gotta tell you—I saw stars, it hurt so bad. ‘What are you doing,’ he says, ‘spoiling my goods?’”

Look, my friends, look, thought Rumata, slowly turning his head from side to side. This isn’t theory. This is something no one has ever seen. Watch, listen, videograph this… and appreciate and love your age, damn it, and bow to the memory of those who went through this! Take a good look at these mugs—young, dumb, indifferent, used to all sorts of brutality—and don’t turn up your noses at it, either. Your own ancestors were no better.

They saw him. Two dozen eyes who’d seen it all stared at him.

“Hey, there’s a don. His Lordship’s so white.”

“Heh… Everyone knows nobles ain’t used to it.”

“You’re supposed to give water in these cases, I hear, but the cup’s chain is too short—we couldn’t reach him.”

“No need, the don will come around.”

“I hope I get that kind… With that kind, you ask them a question and they answer it.”

“Quiet, brothers, before His Lordship starts slashing at us. Look at all those rings… and the paper.”

“See how he’s staring at us. Let’s get out of harm’s way, brothers.”

They moved away together, retreating to the shadows, their cautious spider eyes gleaming at him from the gloom. That’s enough of that, thought Rumata. He was about to grab some passing monk by the cassock, but then he noticed three of them at once, not scurrying around but doing their work. They were beating one of the tower’s torturers with sticks, probably for negligence.

Rumata approached them. “In the name of the Lord,” he said quietly, clanking the rings.

The monks lowered their sticks and took a good look. “In His name,” the tallest one said.

“Now, Fathers,” Rumata said, “please take me to the floor attendant.”

The monks exchanged glances. The torturer nimbly crawled away and hid behind the tank. “What do you need him for?” asked the tall monk.

Rumata silently raised the paper to his face, held it there for a bit, and lowered it.

“Aha,” the monk said. “So right now I’m the floor attendant.”

“Excellent,” said Rumata. He rolled the paper into a tube. “I’m Don Rumata. His Grace has given me Doctor Budach. Go and fetch him.”

The monk stuck his hand under his hood and loudly scratched himself. “Budach?” he said meditatively. “Which one’s Budach? The child molester?”

“Nah,” another monk said. “The child molester—that’s Rudach. He was already released last night. Father Kin unchained him himself and took him out. And I—”

“Nonsense, nonsense!” Rumata said impatiently, slapping his hip with the paper. “Budach. The king’s poisoner.”

“Ah,” the attendant said. “I know him. But he’s probably already been hanged. Brother Paca, go to twelve, take a look. Why, are you going to take him away?” he addressed Rumata.

“Naturally,” said Rumata. “He’s mine.”

“Then hand that paper over. The paper’s for the file.”

Rumata gave him the paper.

The attendant turned it over in his hands, inspected the seals, and then said in admiration: “They sure can write! Don, you stand aside for a bit, we have work to do. Hey, where did he go?”

The monks started to look around, searching for the delinquent torturer. Rumata moved away. They dragged the torturer out from behind the tank, laid him down on the floor once again, and started giving him a businesslike thrashing, not being excessively cruel. Five minutes later, the dispatched monk appeared from beyond the turn, dragging a thin, completely gray-haired old man wearing dark clothes on a rope behind him.

“Here he is, your Budach!” he shouted happily from a distance. “Not hanged at all, Budach’s alive, he’s healthy! A bit weak, though, must have been sitting hungry for a while, I guess.”

Rumata stepped toward them, tore the rope from the monk’s hands, and took the noose off the old man’s neck. “You’re Budach of Irukan?” he asked.

“I am,” the old man said, looking at him from beneath his brows.

“I’m Rumata; follow me and stay close.” Rumata turned toward the monks. “In the name of the Lord,” he said.

The attendant straightened his back and, lowering his stick, answered, a little out of breath, “In His name.”

Rumata looked at Budach and saw that the old man was holding on to the wall and could hardly stand. “I don’t feel well,” he said with a sickly smile. “I apologize, noble don.”

Rumata took him by the arm and led him away. When the monks were out of sight, he stopped, took a sporamin pill from the vial, and handed it to Budach. Budach looked at it quizzically. “Take it,” Rumata said, “You’ll immediately feel better.”

Budach, still holding on to the wall, took the pill, examined it, sniffed it, raised his shaggy eyebrows, then carefully put it on his tongue and smacked his lips.

“Swallow it, swallow it,” Rumata said with a smile.

“Mm-m-m…” he said. “I had assumed that I knew everything about medicines.” He paused, noting his sensations. “Mmmm!” he said “Curious! The dried spleen of the boar Y? Although, no, the flavor isn’t putrid.”

“Let’s go,” said Rumata.

They walked along the corridor, went up the stairs, went down another corridor, and climbed another staircase. And then Rumata stopped in his tracks. A familiar deep roar was resounding through the prison arches. Somewhere in the bowels of the prison, bellowing at the top of his lungs, spouting monstrous curses, raging against God, the saints, hell, the Holy Order, Don Reba, and who knows what else, was the friend of his heart Baron Pampa don Bau de Suruga de Gutta de Arkanar. The baron got caught after all, thought Rumata with remorse. I had completely forgotten about him. And he wouldn’t have forgotten about me.

Rumata hurriedly took two bracelets off his hand, put them on Doctor Budach’s thin wrists, and said, “Go up, but don’t go through the gates. Wait off to the side somewhere. If someone bothers you, show them the bracelets and act impudent.”

Baron Pampa roared like a nuclear ship in the polar fog. The echo resounded through the arches. The people in the hallways froze, reverently listening with mouths open. Many of them were making circular motions with their thumbs, warding off the devil. Rumata rushed down two staircases, knocking the monks going the other way off their feet, laid himself a path through the crowd of graduates with his scabbards, and kicked open the door of the chamber, which was warping from the baron’s roars. In the flickering torchlight he saw his friend Pampa: the mighty baron had been chained to a cross, naked and upside down. His face had darkened from the blood flow. A stooped official sat behind a crooked table, covering his ears, and the torturer, glossy with sweat and somehow resembling a dentist, was sorting through clanking instruments in an iron basin.

Rumata gently closed the door behind him, walked up to the torturer from behind, and hit him on the back of the head with the hilt of his sword. The torturer turned around, wrapped his arms around his head, and sat down in the basin. Rumata pulled his sword from its scabbard and struck the paper-covered table at which the official was sitting, cutting it in half. Everything was now in order. The torturer was sitting in the basin, hiccuping softly, and the official had very nimbly crawled away into the corner and lay down there. Rumata came up to the baron, who had been looking at him upside down with cheerful curiosity, grabbed the chains that held the baron’s feet, and ripped them out of the wall with two jerks. Then he carefully put the baron’s feet on the floor. The baron went silent, froze in the strange position, then gave a hard tug and freed his hands.

“Is it possible,” he thundered again, rotating his bloodshot eyes, “that it’s you, my noble friend? At last I’ve found you!”

“Yes, it’s me,” Rumata said. “Let’s go, my friend, this is no place for you.”

“Beer!” said the baron. “There was beer somewhere around here.” He walked around the chamber, dragging the broken links of his chains and continuing to rumble. “I’ve been running around town for half the night! Goddamn it, I was told that you were arrested, and I beat up a ton of people! I was certain that I’d find you in this prison! Ah, there it is!”

He walked over to the torturer and flicked him off like dust, along with the basin. There turned out to be a barrel beneath the basin. The baron knocked the top out with his fist, lifted the barrel, and turned it upside down over himself, throwing his head back. The stream of beer rushed toward his throat with a gurgle. How lovely, thought Rumata, looking tenderly at the baron. You’d think this is an ox, a brainless ox, but he was looking for me, wanted to save me—he probably came to this prison to find me, by himself. No, there are people in this world, let it be damned… But how well things turned out!

Baron Pampa drained the barrel and hurled it into the corner, where the official was shaking noisily. A squeak came from that direction.

“There we go,” the baron said, wiping his beard with his hand. “Now I’m ready to follow you. Is it all right that I’m naked?”

Rumata looked around, walked over to the torturer, and shook him out of his apron. “Take this for now,” he said.

“You’re right,” the baron said, tying the apron around his loins. “It would be awkward to come to the baroness naked.”

They came out of the chamber. Not a single person dared get in their way—the corridor kept emptying out for twenty paces in front of them.

“I’ll destroy them all!” the baron roared. “They occupied my castle! And they stuck some Father Arima there! I don’t know whose father he is, but I swear by God, his children will soon be orphans. Damn it, my friend, don’t you find that they have amazingly low ceilings? My head is all scratched up.”

They came out of the tower. The spy-bodyguard flashed in front their eyes and ducked back into the crowd. Rumata gave Budach the sign to follow him. The crowd by the gates parted as if split by a sword. You could hear some people shouting that an important state criminal had escaped, and others that “here he is, the Naked Devil, the famous Estorian torturer and mutilator.”

The baron went out onto the middle of the square and stopped, squinting from the sunlight. They had to hurry. Rumata quickly looked around.

“My horse was around here somewhere,” the baron said. “Hey, you there! A horse!”

There was a commotion at the hitching post where the Order’s horses were tied up.

“Not that one!” barked the baron. “The other one—the dapple gray!”

“In the name of the Lord!” Rumata called out belatedly. He started pulling the sling with his right sword over his head.

A scared little monk in a soiled cassock brought the baron the horse.

“Give him something, Don Rumata,” the baron said, climbing heavily into the saddle.

There were shouts of “Stop, stop!” by the tower. Monks were running across the square, brandishing clubs. Rumata thrust his sword at the baron.

“Hurry up, Baron,” he said.

“Yes,” said Pampa. “I must hurry. This Arima will plunder my cellar. I’m waiting for you tomorrow or the day after, my friend. What should I convey to the baroness?”

“Kiss her hand for me,” Rumata said. The monks were already very close. “Faster, faster, Baron!”

“But you are safe?” the baron asked anxiously.

“Yes, damn it, yes! Onward!”

The baron urged his horse into a gallop, aiming right at the crowd of monks. Someone fell down and rolled, someone squealed, there was a cloud of dust and a clatter of hooves on the flagstones—and the baron was gone. Rumata was looking into the alley where some passersby who had been knocked off their feet were sitting, dazedly shaking their heads, when an insinuating voice said in his ear, “My noble don, don’t you think that you’re allowing yourself too much?”

Rumata turned around. Don Reba, smiling somewhat tensely, was looking narrowly at him.

“Too much?” Rumata repeated. “I don’t know the meaning of these words—‘too much.’” He suddenly remembered Don Sera. “And anyway, I see no reason why one noble don can’t help another one in trouble.”

Riders with their pikes at the ready galloped past them heavily—in pursuit. Something changed in Don Reba’s face. “All right,” he said. “Let’s not talk about that… Oh, I see the highly learned Doctor Budach is here. You look wonderful, Doctor. I’m going to have to inspect my prison. State criminals, even ones who have been released, shouldn’t walk out of prison—they should be carried out.”

Doctor Budach lunged at Don Reba, as if blinded by hatred. Rumata quickly stood between them. “By the way, Don Reba,” he said, “what’s your opinion of Father Arima?”

“Father Arima?” Don Reba raised his eyebrows high. “An excellent soldier. Occupies a prominent position in my diocese. Why, what about him?”

“As a loyal servant of Your Grace,” Rumata said with an acute malicious joy, bowing, “I hasten to inform you that you should consider this prominent position vacant.”

“But why?”

Rumata looked into the alley, where the yellow dust hadn’t yet dissipated. Don Reba also looked in that direction. A worried expression appeared on his face.

It was long after midday when Kira invited her noble lord and his highly learned friend to the table. Doctor Budach, after bathing, changing into clean clothes, and carefully shaving, looked very impressive. His movements turned out to be slow and dignified; his intelligent gray eyes peered out benevolently and even indulgently. First of all, he apologized to Rumata about his outburst at the square. “But you have to understand,” he said. “This is a terrible man. A werewolf who only came into this world by an oversight of God. I’m a doctor, but I’m not ashamed to admit that if I had the chance I would have gladly put him to death. I have heard that the king was poisoned. And now I understand what he was poisoned with.” Rumata pricked up his ears. “This Reba showed up in my chamber and demanded that I make up a poison for him that worked in the course of a few hours. Naturally, I refused. He threatened me with torture—I laughed in his face. Then the villain called to the torturers, and they brought in a dozen boys and girls no older than ten years of age from the street. He lined them up in front of me, opened my potion bag, and declared that he would try all the potions on those children in a row until he found the right one. That’s how the king was poisoned, Don Rumata.”

Budach’s lips began to twitch, but he managed to control himself. Rumata, tactfully turning away, nodded. I understand, he thought. I understand everything. The king wouldn’t have even taken a pickle from his minister’s hands. So the scoundrel snuck in some charlatan to the king, promising him the title of healer for curing the king. And I understand why Reba was so thrilled when I exposed him in the king’s bedchamber: it’s hard to think of a more convenient way to sneak in the false Budach to the king. All the responsibility fell on Rumata of Estor, the Irukanian spy and conspirator. We’re babes in arms, he thought. The Institute should introduce a course dealing specifically with feudal intrigue. And proficiency should be measured in rebas. Better yet, in decirebas. Although even that’s too much.

Apparently, Doctor Budach was very hungry. However, he gently but firmly refused animal products and devoted his attention only to the salads and the tarts with jam. He drank a glass of the Estorian wine; his eyes brightened and a healthy glow appeared on his cheeks. Rumata couldn’t eat. Crimson torches crackled and smoked in front of his eyes, everything smelled of burnt meat, and there was a lump in his throat the size of a fist. So while he waited for his guest to eat his fill, he stood by the window, keeping the conversation polite, quiet, and unhurried, so as not to interfere with his guest’s chewing.

The city was gradually coming to life. People appeared on the street, voices became louder and louder, hammers were pounding and wood was cracking—pagan images were being knocked off the roofs and walls. A bald, fat shopkeeper was pushing a cart with a barrel, off to sell beer at the square for two coins a cup. The residents were adapting. In the entrance across the way, the little spy-bodyguard was picking his nose and chatting with the skinny mistress of the house. Then wagons filled all the way up to the second story drove by the windows. At first, Rumata didn’t understand what these wagons were, then he saw the blue and black arms and legs sticking out from beneath the burlap and hurriedly walked over to the table.

“The essence of man,” Budach said, chewing slowly, “lies in his astonishing ability to get used to anything. There’s nothing in nature that man could not learn to live with. Neither horse nor dog nor mouse has this property. Probably God, as he was creating man, guessed the torments he was condemning him to and gave him an enormous reserve of strength and patience. It is difficult to say whether this is good or bad. If man didn’t have such patience and endurance, all good people would have long since perished, and only the wicked and soulless would be left in this world. On the other hand, the habit of enduring and adapting turns people into dumb beasts, who differ from the animals in nothing except anatomy, and who only exceed them in helplessness. And each new day gives rise to a new horror of evil and violence.”

Rumata looked over at Kira. She sat across from Budach and listened without looking away, propping up her cheek on her little fist. Her eyes were sad; she was clearly very sorry for humankind. “You’re probably right, honorable Budach,” said Rumata. “But take me, for example. Here I am, a simple noble don.” Budach’s high forehead creased, his eyes opened wide with surprise and merriment. “I have tremendous love for learned men—that is, gentility of the soul. And I cannot figure out why you, the keepers and only holders of high knowledge, are so hopelessly passive. Why do you meekly allow yourself to be despised, thrown in jails, burned at the stake? Why do you separate the meaning of your life, the pursuit of knowledge—from the practical requirements of life, the struggle against evil?”

Budach pushed away the empty plate of tarts. “You ask strange questions, Don Rumata,” he said. “It’s funny, I was asked the same questions by Don Gug, the chamberlain of our duke. Are you acquainted with him? I thought so. The struggle against evil! But what is evil? Everyone is free to understand this in his own way. For us scholars, evil is in ignorance, but the church teaches that ignorance is a blessing and that all evil comes from knowledge. For the plowman evil is taxes and drought, and for the bread-seller droughts are good. For a slave, evil is a drunk and cruel master; for a craftsman, a greedy moneylender. So what is this evil against which we must struggle, Don Rumata?” He looked sadly at his listeners. “Evil is ineradicable. No man is able to decrease its quantity in the world. He can improve his own fate somewhat, but it is always at the expense of the fate of others. And there will always be kings, some more cruel and some less, and barons, some more violent and some less, and there will always be the ignorant masses, who admire their oppressors and loathe their liberators. And it’s all because a slave has a much better understanding of his master, however brutal, than his liberator, for each slave can easily imagine himself in his master’s place, but few can imagine themselves in the place of a selfless liberator. That’s how people are, Don Rumata, and that’s how our world is.”

“The world is constantly changing, Doctor Budach,” said Rumata. “We know of a time when there were no kings.”

“The world cannot keep changing forever,” Budach disagreed, “for nothing lasts forever, even change. We don’t know the laws of perfection, but perfection will be achieved sooner or later. Consider, for example, the order of our society. How pleasing to the eye is this precise, geometrically correct system! At the bottom are the peasants and artisans, above them is the gentry, then comes the clergy, and then, finally, the king. What careful planning, what stability, what harmonious order! Why would we want to change this polished crystal, made by the hands of the jeweler in the sky? No structure is more stable than the pyramid—any knowledgeable architect will tell you that.” He raised a lecturing finger. “Grain spilled from a sack doesn’t settle in an even layer, but forms a so-called conical pyramid. Each seed clings to the next, in an effort not to roll down. So it is with humanity. If it wants to be an entity of its own, people must cling to one another, inevitably forming a pyramid.”

“Do you sincerely consider this world perfect?” Rumata asked with surprise. “After meeting Don Reba, after prison…”

“My young friend, yes, of course! There’s much I don’t like in the world, much I would like to be different. But what can one do? Perfection looks different in the eyes of a higher power than in mine. There is no sense in a tree lamenting that it cannot move, though it would probably be glad to flee from the lumberjack’s ax.”

“And what if you could change the divine decrees?”

“Only a higher power is capable of this.”

“But still, imagine that you’re God…”

Budach laughed. “If I could imagine myself as God, I’d become him!”

“Well, what if you had the chance to advise God?”

“You have a rich imagination,” Budach said with pleasure. “That’s good! Are you literate? Wonderful! I would enjoy working with you.”

“You flatter me… Still, what advice would you give to the Almighty? What, in your opinion, should the Almighty do, in order for you to say, ‘Now the world is good and kind’?”

Budach, smiling approvingly, leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on his stomach. Kira was looking at him eagerly. “All right,” he said, “if you wish. I’d tell the Almighty: ‘Creator, I don’t know your plans. Maybe you never intended to make people kind and happy. Then start wishing it! It would be so easy to achieve. Give people plenty of bread, meat, and wine, give them clothing and shelter. Let hunger and need disappear, and with them, all that divides people would be gone too.’”

“Is that it?” Rumata asked.

“You think that is not enough?”

Rumata shook his head. “God would answer you: ‘This would not benefit man. For the strong of your world would take from the weak that which I have given them, and the weak would still remain poor.’”

“I would ask God to shield the weak. ‘Enlighten the cruel princes,’ I would say.”

“Cruelty is power. Having lost their cruelty, the princes would lose their power, and other cruel men would replace them.”

Budach stopped smiling. “Punish the cruel,” he said firmly, “so that it would become unseemly for the strong to be cruel to the weak.”

“Man is born weak. He becomes strong when there’s no one stronger around him. When the cruel of the strong will be punished, their place will be taken by the strongest of the weak. Who will also be cruel. Then everyone will have to be chastised, and this I do not desire.”

“You know best, Almighty. Then just make it so that people have all they need, and do not take away from each other that which you gave them.”

“Even this will not benefit people,” Rumata sighed, “for when they get everything for free, without working for it, from my hands, they will forget how to work, lose their zest for life, and will become my pets, whom I will henceforth be forced to feed and clothe for all eternity.”

“Don’t give it all at once!” Budach said fervently. “Give it to them gradually, little by little!”

“People will gradually take what they need themselves.”

Budach gave an awkward laugh. “Yes, I see, it’s not that simple,” he said. “Somehow I’ve never thought about these things before. We seem to have considered everything. Although,” he leaned forward, “here’s another possibility. Make it so that people love work and knowledge more than anything, so that work and knowledge are the only meanings of their existence!”

Yes, that’s another thing we were planning to try, thought Rumata. Mass hypnoinduction, positive remoralization. Hypnoemitters on three equatorial satellites. “I could do this, too,” he said. “But should we deprive mankind of its history? Should we exchange one mankind for another? Would it not be the same thing as wiping mankind off the face of the planet and creating a new mankind in its place?”

Budach, crinkling his brow, pondered silently. Rumata waited. The melancholy sound of creaking wagons sounded outside the window again. Budach said quietly, “Then, Lord, wipe us off the face of the planet and create us anew in a more perfect form… Or, even better, leave us be and let us go our own way.”

“My heart is full of pity,” Rumata said slowly. “I cannot do that.”

And then he saw Kira’s eyes. She was looking at him with horror and hope.