Hard to Be a God

Chapter 10

The Drunken Lair was relatively clean. The floor was carefully swept, the table was scrubbed to whiteness, and there were bundles of forest grass and twigs in the corner for fragrance. Father Cabani was primly sitting on a bench in the corner, sober and quiet, his clean hands folded in his lap. As they waited for Budach to fall asleep, they talked about nothing in particular. Budach, sitting at the table next to Rumata, listened to the mindless chatter of the noble dons with a benevolent smile and from time to time would give a start, dozing off. His hollow cheeks were burning from a vast dose of tetraluminal that had been discreetly mixed into his drink. The old man was very excited and was having trouble falling asleep. The impatient Don Gug was bending and unbending a camel shoe underneath the table, managing, however, to keep an expression of cheerful ease on his face. Rumata was crumbling bread and watching with tired interest as Don Condor slowly filled with bile: the Keeper of the Great Seals was nervous, because he was late for the emergency night session of the Conference of the Twelve Merchants dedicated to the revolution in Arkanar, at which he was supposed to preside.

“My noble friends!” Doctor Budach finally said in a ringing voice, stood up, and fell on Rumata.

Rumata gently put an arm around his shoulders.

“Is he done?” asked Don Condor.

“He won’t wake up until the morning,” Rumata said. He lifted Budach in his arms and carried him to Father Cabani’s bed.

Father Cabani said enviously, “So the doctor can indulge, huh, and Father Cabani can’t? It’s bad for him, huh? That’s not fair!”

“I have a quarter of an hour,” Don Condor said in Russian.

“I’ll only need five minutes,” answered Rumata, barely managing to control his irritation. “I’ve told you so much about it before that I might only need a minute. In full accordance with the basis theory of feudalism,” he furiously looked Don Condor in the eye, “this commonplace rebellion of the citizens against the barony,” he shifted his gaze to Don Gug, “turned into a provocative intrigue by the Holy Order and resulted in the transformation of Arkanar into a base of feudal-fascist aggression. We’ve been racking our brains, vainly trying to squeeze the complicated, contradictory, enigmatic figure of our eagle Don Reba into the ranks of Richelieu, Necker, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Monck, and he turned out to be a petty hoodlum and an idiot! He betrayed and sold out everyone he could, got tangled up in his own schemes, got scared to death, and ran to the Holy Order to be saved. In half a year he’ll be slaughtered, and the Order will remain. The consequences of this for the Land Beyond the Strait, and then for the empire as a whole, I shudder to think about. In any case, the entire twenty years of work within the empire has gone down the drain. There will be no room to maneuver under the Holy Order. Budach is probably the last man I’ll save. There will be no one left. I’m done.”

Don Gug finally broke the camel shoe and threw the halves into a corner. “Yes, we dropped the ball,” he said. “Maybe it’s not that bad, Anton?”

Rumata just looked at him.

“You should have removed Don Reba,” Don Condor said suddenly.

“What do you mean, ‘removed’?”

Don Condor’s face broke out in red spots. “Physically!” he said sharply.

Rumata sat down. “You mean killed?”

“Yes. Yes! Yes! Killed! Kidnapped! Replaced! Imprisoned! You should have acted. Not sought the advice of two idiots who didn’t understand a damn thing about what was going on.”

“I didn’t understand a damn thing either.”

“At least you felt something.”

Everyone was silent.

“Was it like the Barkan massacre?” Don Condor asked in a low voice, looking to the side.

“Yes, approximately. But more organized.”

Don Condor bit his lip. “It’s now too late to remove him?” he asked.

“It’s pointless,” said Rumata. “First of all, he’ll be removed without us, and second of all, it’s not even necessary. He, at least, is under my control.”

“How so?”

“He’s afraid of me. He guesses that there’s power behind me. He’s already even offered to cooperate.”

“Yes?” Don Condor grumbled. “Then there’s no need.”

Don Gug asked, stammering a little, “Come on, comrades, are you serious?”

“About what?” asked Don Condor.

“Well, all of this. Killing, physically removing… Come on, have you gone insane?”

“The noble don has been struck in the heel,” Rumata said very quietly.

Don Condor said slowly and emphatically, “Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures.”

Don Gug, moving his lips, looked back and forth between them. “D-Do you… Do you know what this could come to?” he asked. “D-Do you understand what this could come to, huh?”

“Calm down, please,” Don Condor said. “Nothing is going to happen. Enough about that for now. What are we going to do about the Order? I propose a blockade of the Arkanarian region. Your opinion, comrades? And be quick, I’m in a hurry.”

“I have no opinion yet,” Rumata insisted. “And there’s no way Pashka has one. We need to get advice from the Base. We need to look around. Let’s meet in a week and decide.”

“Agreed,” Don Condor said and got up. “Let’s go.”

Rumata slung Budach over his shoulder and went out of the hut. Don Condor was shining a flashlight for him. They approached the helicopter, and Rumata laid Budach on the backseat. Don Condor, rattling his sword and getting tangled in his cloak, climbed into the pilot’s seat.

“Will you drop me off at home?” Rumata asked. “I want to finally get some sleep.”

“I’ll drop you off,” grumbled Don Condor. “Just be quick, please.”

“I’ll be right back,” Rumata said. He ran back into the hut.

Don Gug was still sitting at the table, staring fixedly in front of himself and rubbing his chin. Father Cabani was standing next to him, saying, “That’s how it always is, my friend. You try to make things better and they just get worse.”

Rumata scooped up the swords and slings into his arms. “Bye, Pashka,” he said. “Don’t get upset, we’re all just tired and irritated.”

Don Gug shook his head. “Be careful, Anton,” he said. “Oh, be careful! I’m not talking about Uncle Sasha out there; he’s been here a long time, it’s not our place to teach him. But you…”

“I just want to sleep,” said Rumata. “Father Cabani, could you be so good as to take my horses to Baron Pampa? I’ll be there in a day or two.”

Propeller blades whirred softly outside. Rumata waved and ran out of the hut. The bright glare of the helicopter’s headlights made the thickets of giant ferns and white tree trunks look strange and eerie. Rumata clambered into the cabin and slammed the door.

The cabin smelled of ozone, organic paneling, and cologne. Don Condor lifted the machine and guided it confidently over the Arkanarian road. I couldn’t do that now, thought Rumata with a touch of envy. Old Budach was peacefully smacking his lips in his sleep behind them.

“Anton,” Don Condor said, “I wouldn’t… uh… want to be tactless, and don’t think that I… uh… am interfering in your private affairs.”

“I’m listening,” Rumata said. He immediately guessed what he was going to say.

“We’re all operatives,” said Don Condor. “And all that is precious to us must be either far away on Earth or inside us. So that no one can take it away and use it as a hostage.”

“You’re talking about Kira?” Rumata asked.

“Yes, my boy. If all I know about Don Reba is true, keeping him under control is a difficult and dangerous task. You see what I’m trying to say.”

“Yes, I see,” Rumata said. “I’ll try to think of something.”

They were lying in the dark, holding hands. The city was quiet, except for the horses that would occasionally thrash and whinny angrily somewhere nearby. From time to time, Rumata would doze off and then immediately wake up again, because Kira would hold her breath—in his sleep, he would squeeze her hand very hard.

“You probably really want to sleep,” Kira said in a whisper. “You should sleep.”

“No, no, tell me, I’m listening.”

“You keep falling asleep.”

“I’m still listening. I feel very tired, it’s true, but I miss you even more. I’m sorry to sleep. You tell me, I’m very interested.”

She gratefully rubbed her nose against his shoulder and kissed his cheek and started telling him again about the neighbor’s boy who came that night from her father. Her father was laid up. He had been kicked out of his office and beaten severely with sticks as a farewell. Lately he hadn’t been eating anything at all, only drinking—he’d become all blue and shaky. The boy also said that her brother had turned up—wounded, but cheerful and drunk, in a new uniform. He gave money to his father, drank with him, and was once again threatening that his boys would roll over everyone. He was now a lieutenant in some special squad; he’d taken the oath of allegiance to the Order and was about to be ordained. Father asked that she not come home under any circumstances. Her brother was threatening to settle scores with her for getting mixed up with a noble, the red-haired bitch.

Yes, thought Rumata, she definitely shouldn’t go home. And it’s absolutely certain that she can’t stay here, either. If anything happens to her… He imagined something bad happening to her and felt himself turn to stone.

“Are you asleep?” Kira asked.

He woke up and opened his hand. “No, no… And what else did you do?”

“And I also tidied up your rooms. It was really a mess in here. I found one book, Father Gur’s work. The one that’s about a noble prince who fell in love with a beautiful but wild girl from the other side of the mountains. She was completely wild and thought that he was God, but she still really loved him. Then they were separated, and she died of grief.”

“It’s a wonderful book,” said Rumata.

“I even cried. I kept feeling that it was about you and me.”

“Yes, it’s about you and me. And just about any people who love each other. Only we won’t be separated.”

You’d be safest on Earth, he thought. But how would you manage without me? And how will I manage here alone? I could ask Anka to be a friend to you there. But how will I manage here without you? No, we will fly to Earth together. I’ll pilot the ship myself, and you will sit next to me, and I’ll explain everything to you. So you won’t be afraid of anything. So you’ll never regret your terrible home. Because this is not your home. Because your home has rejected you. Because you were born a thousand years ahead of your time. Kind, loyal, unselfish, self-sacrificing. Those like you have been born in every age throughout the bloody histories of our planets. Bright, pure souls who don’t know hatred, who reject cruelty. Victims. Pointless victims. Much more pointless than Gur the Storyteller or Galileo. Because those like you aren’t even fighters. To be a fighter, you must know how to hate, and that is precisely what you don’t know how to do. Just like us nowadays…

Rumata dozed off again and immediately saw Kira standing on the flat roof of the Council with a degravitator on her belt, and a cheerful sardonic Anka impatiently pushing her into the mile-deep abyss.

“Rumata,” Kira said, “I’m afraid.”

“Of what, little one?”

“You just keep being silent. I’m scared.”

Rumata pulled her close. “All right,” he said. “Now I will talk, and you will listen carefully to me. Far, far away, on the other side of the saiva, there is a formidable, impregnable castle. In this castle lives the merry, kind, and funny Baron Pampa, the kindest baron in Arkanar. He has a wife, a beautiful, loving woman, who really loves Pampa sober and can’t stand Pampa drunk…”

He paused, listening. He heard the clatter of numerous hooves along the street and the noisy breathing of many men and horses. “This the place?” asked a coarse voice at the window. “Seems to be.” “Stop!” Heels clattered on the front steps and several fists immediately started rapping on the door. Kira flinched and clung to Rumata.

“Wait, little one,” he said, throwing back the blanket.

“They’ve come for me,” Kira said in a whisper. “I knew it!”

Rumata freed himself from Kira’s arms with difficulty and ran to the window. “In the name of the Lord!” roared below. “Open up! If we have to break in, you’ll be sorry!” Rumata pulled back the curtain, and the room was flooded with the familiar dancing torchlight. There were numerous riders outside—sullen men in black with pointed hoods.

Rumata looked down for a couple of seconds, then examined the window frame. As was customary here, the frame had been firmly embedded in the window opening. Rumata groped for his sword in the dark and smashed the glass with the hilt. Shards of glass tinkled down. “Hey, you!” he barked. “Tired of being alive?”

The banging on the door stopped.

“They always mess things up,” someone said softly downstairs. “The master’s at home.”

“What’s that matter to us?”

“It matters because he’s the best swordsman in the world.”

“And they also said that he left and won’t come back till morning.”

“Scared?”

“We’re not scared, except there are no orders about him. If we have to kill him…”

“We’ll tie him up. Maim him and tie him up. Hey, who has the crossbows?”

“As long as he doesn’t maim us…”

“Nah, he won’t maim us. Everyone knows he’s taken a vow not to kill.”

“I’ll massacre you like dogs,” Rumata said in a terrible voice.

Kira was clinging to his back. He could hear the wild beating of her heart. Someone downstairs ordered in a raspy voice, “Break down the door, brothers! In the name of the Lord!” Rumata turned around and looked at Kira’s face. She was looking at him with horror and hope, like earlier. Reflections of torches danced in her tearless eyes.

“Come on, little one,” he said tenderly. “Are you scared? Are you actually scared of this trash? Go get dressed. We have nothing else to do here.” He hurriedly pulled on the metalstrom armor. “I’ll drive them away, and we’ll leave. We’ll leave for Pampa’s.”

She was standing by the window, looking down. Red flashes ran across her face. Rumata felt a pang in his heart from pity and tenderness. I’ll drive them away like dogs, he thought. He bent over, looking for his second sword, and when he stood up again, Kira was no longer standing by the window. She was slowly sinking to the floor, clutching the curtain.

“Kira!” he cried.

One crossbow bolt had pierced her throat. Another was sticking out of her chest. He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. “Kira…” he called. She sobbed and stretched out. “Kira…” he said. She didn’t answer. He stood over her for a bit, then picked up his swords, slowly descended the stairs, and started waiting for the door to fall…