Hard to Be a God

Chapter 5

It wasn’t long ago that the Arkanarian court was one of the most educated in the empire. There had been scientists at court, most of whom were, of course, charlatans, but there had also been some like Bagheer of Kissen, who had discovered the sphericity of the planet; the healer Tata, who had made the brilliant conjecture that epidemics come from tiny invisible worms, spread by wind and water; and the alchemist Sinda, who like all alchemists had been in search of a way to transform clay into gold but instead had discovered the law of conservation of matter. The Arkanarian court had also had poets, mostly foot lickers and sycophants, but some like Pepin the Glorious, the author of the historical tragedy The March to the North; Zuren the Truthful, who had composed more than five hundred ballads and sonnets that had been set to music by the people; and also Gur the Storyteller, who had written the first secular novel in the history of the empire—the sad story of a prince who had fallen in love with a beautiful barbarian. The court also used to have marvelous actors, dancers, and singers. Wonderful artists had covered the walls with unfading frescoes; fabulous sculptors had decorated the palace parks with their creations. You couldn’t say that the Arkanarian kings had been enthusiastic supporters of education or connoisseurs of the arts. It had simply been considered the decent thing to do, like the ceremony of dressing in the morning or the presence of splendid guards by the main entrance.

Aristocratic tolerance would occasionally go so far as to allow scientists and poets to become visible cogs in the state apparatus. Thus, only half a century ago, the highly learned alchemist Botsa had occupied the now-abolished-as-unneeded position of Minister of Mineral Resources, founded a number of mines, and made Arkanar famous for its amazing alloys, the secret of which had been lost after his death. And Pepin the Glorious had been in charge of public education until very recently, when the Ministry of History and Literature, which he had headed, had been discovered to be harmful and guilty of corrupting minds.

Of course, even in years past, there had been occasions where a scientist or artist who had displeased the king’s mistress—a dull and lascivious creature—was sold abroad or poisoned with arsenic, but only Don Reba had set to work in earnest. During his tenure as the all-powerful Minister of the Defense of the Crown, he had caused such devastation in the world of Arkanarian culture that he had even managed to displease some of the noble lords, who declared that court had become boring and that balls were now only good for mindless gossip.

Bagheer of Kissen, accused of lunacy bordering on treason, had been thrown in a dungeon and had only been rescued by Rumata with great difficulty. He had been sent to the metropole, but his observatory had been burned down and his surviving students had dispersed. The healer Tata, along with five other healers, had suddenly turned out to be poisoners who had been plotting against the king at the instigation of the Duke of Irukan. Tata had confessed to everything under torture and was hanged in the Royal Plaza. In the process of trying to save him, Rumata had spent seventy pounds of gold, lost four agents (noble dons who knew not what they did), and been injured during an attempt to free the prisoners, but he couldn’t do a thing. It was his first defeat, after which he had finally realized that Don Reba was not a random figure. After learning a week later that the alchemist Sinda was going to be accused of concealing the philosopher’s stone from the treasury, Rumata, enraged by the defeat, had organized an ambush by the alchemist’s house. He wrapped a black rag around his face, disarmed the storm troopers who came to take the alchemist away, tied them up, and threw them in a cellar. He had then sent Sinda, who hadn’t understood a thing, into Soan, where he shrugged his shoulders and continued to look for the philosopher’s stone under the watchful eye of Don Condor.

The poet Pepin the Glorious had suddenly become a monk and retired to a secluded monastery. Zuren the Truthful, pronounced guilty of criminal innuendo and pandering to the tastes of the lower classes, had been stripped of honor and property; the poet had attempted to dispute the findings and read his now openly subversive ballads in pubs, and had twice been beaten half to death by patriotic individuals. Only then had he yielded to the entreaties of his good friend and fan Don Rumata and left for the metropole. Rumata would always remember him, bluish-white from drink, standing on the deck of a departing ship, clutching the rigging with his thin hands, and in a clear, young voice shouting his farewell sonnet: “As a wilted leaf falls on my soul…” As for Gur the Storyteller, after a conversation in Don Reba’s office, he had realized that an Arkanarian prince couldn’t have fallen in love with enemy scum and threw his own books into a fire on the Royal Plaza. And now, hunched and dead-faced, he would stand in the crowd of courtiers during the king’s appearances, and at a small gesture from Don Reba would step forward with poems of ultrapatriotic content, inducing boredom and yawns.

The actors now only performed one play: The Fall of the Barbarians, or Marshal Totz, King Pitz the First of Arkanar. And the singers now preferred songs without lyrics, accompanied by an orchestra. The surviving artists daubed signs. However, two or three of them had managed to remain at court and painted portraits of the king with Don Reba respectfully supporting him by the elbow (originality was not encouraged: the king was always depicted as a dashing twenty-year-old in armor, and Don Reba as a man in his prime with a significant face).

Yes, the Arkanarian court had become boring. Nonetheless, lords, noble dons with nothing to do, officers of the Guard, and thoughtless beautiful doñas continued to fill the palace reception halls each morning—some out of vanity, others out of habit, still others out of fear. To be perfectly honest, many of them didn’t notice any changes at all. In the concerts and poetry competitions of times past they had most of all appreciated the intermissions, during which the noble dons could debate the merits of their hunting dogs and tell jokes. They were capable of a brief discussion about the attributes of the creatures of the netherworld, but questions about the shape of the planet or the causes of epidemics were considered simply indecent. The officers of the Guard did feel somewhat dejected about the disappearance of the painters, some of whom had been masters at depicting the nude form.

Rumata got to the palace a little late. The morning reception had already begun. The halls swarmed with people, and he could hear the king’s peevish voice and the melodious commands of the Minister of Ceremonies, who was in charge of dressing His Majesty. The courtiers mostly talked about last night’s incident. Some criminal with Irukanian features had infiltrated the palace armed with a stiletto, killed a watchman, and burst into His Majesty’s bedchamber, where he was ostensibly disarmed by Don Reba himself; he was then torn to pieces by a crowd of patriots, maddened by their devotion, on the way to the Merry Tower. This was the sixth assassination attempt over the last month, and therefore the fact of the attempt itself elicited almost no interest. Only the details were under discussion. Rumata learned that at the sight of the murderer, His Majesty had sat up in bed, shielding the beautiful Doña Midara with his body, and uttered the historic words “Get along, rascal!” The majority willingly believed in the historic words, assuming that the king took the murderer for a footman. And everyone agreed that Don Reba was, as always, on his guard and incomparable in hand-to-hand combat.

Rumata made some gracious remarks in concurrence with this opinion, and in response told a just-invented story about how Don Reba had been attacked by twelve robbers, three of whom he felled on the spot, and the rest of whom had fled. The story was listened to with great interest and approval, after which Rumata mentioned seemingly casually that the story had been told to him by Don Sera. The interested expressions immediately disappeared from the faces of those present, for they were all aware that Don Sera was a noted fool and liar. No one said a word about Doña Ocana. Either they didn’t know about it yet or were pretending not to know about it.

Scattering courtesies and shaking ladies’ hands, Rumata gradually moved into the front rows of the decked-out, perfumed, profusely sweating crowd. The noble gentry were chatting in low voices. “Yes, yes, that same mare. It was lame, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t lose it the very same night to Don Keu…” “As for the hips, my noble don, they are of an extraordinary shape. As it is said by Zuren… umm… Mountains of cool foam… umm. . . no, cool hills of foam… Anyway, tremendous hips…” “Then I gently open the window, take the dagger in my teeth, and imagine, my friend, I feel the lattice bending beneath me…” “I gave him a good crack on the teeth with the sword hilt, making that gray dog roll over twice. Feast your eyes on him standing there, as if he has the right…” “And Don Tameo barfed onto the table, slipped, and fell headfirst in the fireplace…” “… so then the monk says to her, ‘Tell me your dream, beautiful.’ Ha ha ha!”

What a terrible shame, thought Rumata. If I’m killed now, this colony of simpletons will be the last thing I ever see. Only the element of surprise. The element of surprise will save me. Me and Budach. Seize the moment and make a surprise attack. Catch him off his guard, don’t let him open his mouth, don’t let him kill me, I have absolutely no wish to die.

He made his way to the doors of the bedchamber and, holding his swords with both hands, bending his knees slightly as required by etiquette, approached the king’s bed. The king’s stockings were being pulled on. The Minister of Ceremonies, holding his breath, was closely watching the nimble-fingered hands of the two valets. Don Reba stood in front of the messy bed and was quietly conversing with a tall, bony man in a military uniform of gray velvet. This was Father Zupic, one of the leaders of the Arkanarian storm troopers, a colonel of the palace guards.

Don Reba was an experienced courtier. Judging by his face, the conversation was about nothing more important than the paces of a mare or the virtuous behavior of the king’s niece. Father Zupic, on the other hand, as a military man and a former grocer, didn’t know how to control his face. He darkened and bit his lip, his fingers on the sword hilt would clench and unclench, and he finally jerked his cheek, spun around, and, breaking every rule, left the bedchamber heading right at the crowd of courtiers, shocked into stillness by such bad manners. Don Rumata, smiling apologetically, watched him leave, and Rumata followed him with his eyes and thought, There goes another dead man. He was aware of the tensions between Don Reba and the gray leadership. The story of brownshirt leader Ernst Röhm was about to be repeated.

The stockings had been pulled on. The valets, obeying the melodious order of the Minister of Ceremonies, had reverently picked up the king’s shoes with their fingertips. At this point, the king, kicking the valets away, turned toward Don Reba so abruptly that his stomach, which resembled an overstuffed sack, rolled onto one of his knees. “I’m tired of your assassinations!” he screeched hysterically. “Assassinations! Assassinations! I want to sleep at night, not fight off murderers. Why can’t we make it so they do it during the day? You’re a crummy minister, Reba! Another night like that and I’ll give the order to strangle you!” Don Reba bowed, pressing his hand to his heart as the king continued: “Assassination attempts give me a headache!”

The king suddenly stopped and stared vacantly at his stomach. The moment was right. The valets were hesitating. First, Rumata had to draw attention to himself. He snatched the right shoe from the hand of a valet, dropped to one knee before the king, and started to respectfully place the shoe onto the pudgy, silk-covered foot. This was the ancient privilege of Rumata’s family—putting on the right shoe of the crowned heads of the empire.

The king was looking at him dully. A spark of interest appeared in his eyes. “Ah, Rumata!” he said. “You’re still alive? And Reba promised to strangle you!” He giggled. “He’s a crummy minister, that Reba. All he does is make promises. He promised to eradicate insubordination, and insubordination keeps growing. He’s stuffed the palace full of some gray bumpkins. I’m sick and he’s hanged all the healers.”

Rumata finished putting on the shoe and took two steps back, bowing. He noticed Don Reba eyeing him closely, and hastened to assume a haughtily vacant expression.

“I’m very sick,” continued the king. “Everything hurts. I want to retire to rest. I would have long since retired to rest, but you dolts would be lost without me.”

His second shoe had been put on. He stood up and immediately gasped, grimacing, and clutched his knee.

“Where are the healers?” he wailed mournfully. “Where’s my good Tata? You hanged him, moron! The sound of his voice alone made me feel better! Silence, I already know he was a poisoner! And I don’t give a damn! Who cares that he was a poisoner? He was a heaaaler! Get it, murderer? A healer. He’d poison one, heal another! And you only know how to persecute! You ought to have hanged yourself instead!” Don Reba bowed, pressing his hand to his heart, and stayed in this position. “You’ve hanged everyone! There are only charlatans left! And the priests, who give me holy water instead of medicine. Who’ll make the potions? Who’ll rub the salve into my foot?”

“Sire!” Rumata said loudly, and it seemed to him that the whole palace went still. “You only need to give the order, and the best healer in the empire will be in the palace in half an hour.”

The king stared at him in bewilderment. It was an awful risk. Don Reba had only to blink… Rumata knew why there was a row of round black vents under the bedroom’s ceiling-he could feel the number of eyes looking at him intently over the fletchings of their arrows. Don Reba was also looking at him with an expression of polite and benevolent curiosity. “What’s the meaning of this?” the king inquired testily. “All right, I give the order. All right, where’s your healer?”

Rumata felt his whole body tense up. It seemed to him that the arrows were already pricking his shoulder blades. “Sire,” he said quickly, “order Don Reba to present the famous Doctor Budach to you!”

Apparently Don Reba really had been caught off guard. The most important thing had been said, and Rumata was still alive. The king shifted his bleary gaze to the Minister of the Defense of the Crown.

“Sire,” Rumata continued, no longer in a hurry and using appropriate language. “Being aware of your truly unbearable suffering and bearing in mind the debt my family has to the Crown, I sent for the highly learned healer Doctor Budach from Irukan. However, unfortunately Doctor Budach’s journey was interrupted. The gray soldiers of the honorable Don Reba captured him last week, and his further fate is known only to Don Reba. I would assume that the healer is somewhere close at hand, most likely in the Merry Tower, and I hope that Don Reba’s strange aversion to healers has not yet had a fatal effect on Doctor Budach’s destiny.”

Rumata paused, holding his breath. Everything seemed to have gone off without a hitch. Watch out, Don Reba! He took a look at the minister—and went cold. The Minister of the Defense of the Crown had in no way been caught off his guard. He was nodding at Rumata with affectionate paternal reproach. Rumata hadn’t expected this at all. Why, he’s delighted, thought Rumata in bewilderment.

The king, on the other hand, was behaving as expected. “You rogue!” he screamed at Don Reba. “I’ll strangle you! Where’s the doctor? Where’s the doctor, I ask! Silence. I’m asking, where’s the doctor?”

Don Reba stepped forward, smiling pleasantly. “Your Majesty,” he said, “you’re a truly fortunate monarch, for you have so many loyal subjects that they occasionally interfere with each other in their efforts to serve you.” The king was staring at him vacantly. “I will admit that as with everything else that happens in your country, I was aware of the noble plan of the fiery Don Rumata. I will admit that I sent our gray soldiers to meet Doctor Budach—solely for the purpose of sparing a venerable old man the trials of a long journey. I will also admit that I was in no hurry to present Budach of Irukan to your majesty.”

“How dare you?” the king asked reproachfully.

“Your Majesty, Don Rumata is young and is as naive in politics as he’s experienced in noble battle. He is unaware of the lows the Duke of Irukan would stoop to in his insane fury at your majesty. But you and I know this, sire, do we not?” The king nodded. “And therefore I felt it incumbent upon me to make a preliminary investigation. I would not be in a hurry, but if you, Your Majesty”—a low bow to the king—“and Don Rumata”—a nod in Rumata’s direction—“so insist, then this very day after dinner Doctor Budach will appear before you, Your Majesty, to begin a course of treatment.”

“You’re no fool, Don Reba,” the king said, thinking about it. “An investigation is a good thing. It can’t hurt. Damn that Irukanian—” He howled and grabbed his knee again. “Damn this leg! So after dinner, then? We’ll be waiting, we’ll be waiting.”

And the king, leaning on the shoulder of the Minister of Ceremonies, slowly walked toward the throne room past a stunned Rumata. As he entered the crowd of courtiers, which parted in front of him, Don Reba smiled amiably at Rumata and asked, “I believe you’re on duty tonight at the prince’s bedchamber? Am I not mistaken?”

Rumata silently bowed.

Rumata wandered aimlessly through the endless corridors and passages of the palace—dark, dank, and stinking of ammonia and decay. He walked past luxurious rooms decorated with rugs, past dusty studies with barred narrow windows, and past storerooms piled with junk stripped of gilding. There was almost no one here. Only the rare courtier would risk visiting this maze at the back of the palace, where the royal apartments imperceptibly became the offices of the Ministry of the Defense of the Crown. It was easy to get lost here. Everyone remembered the incident in which a patrol of the Guard, walking the perimeter of the palace, had been frightened by the heartrending wails of a man stretching his badly scratched arms through the bars of an embrasure. “Save me!” the man shouted. “I’m a gentleman of the bedchamber! I don’t know how to get out! I haven’t eaten for two days! Get me out of here!” (There was a lively ten-day correspondence between the Minister of Finances and the Minister of the Court, after which they did decide to break down the bars, but for the duration of these ten days the unfortunate gentleman of the bedchamber had been fed with meat and bread passed to him on the end of a pike.) Besides, it wasn’t entirely safe. In these tight corridors, you could meet drunk guardsmen who were protecting the king’s person, and drunk storm troopers who were protecting the ministry. These would fight tooth and nail, and when satisfied would go their separate ways, carrying away the wounded. Finally, the murdered also wandered here. Over two centuries, the palace had accumulated a lot of them.

A storm trooper on sentry duty stepped out from a deep recess in the wall, his ax at the ready. “You may not pass,” he declared sullenly.

“A lot you know, fool!” Rumata said carelessly, pushing him aside.

He heard the storm trooper stomping indecisively behind him and suddenly caught himself thinking that insulting words and careless gestures now came naturally to him, that he was no longer playing the role of a highborn boor but had largely become one. He imagined himself like this on Earth and felt disgusted and ashamed. Why? What has happened to me? Where did it go, my nurtured-since-childhood respect and trust in my own kind, in man—the amazing creature called man? Nothing can help me now, he thought in horror. Because I sincerely hate and despise them. Not pity them, no—only hate and despise. I can justify the stupidity and brutality of the kid I just passed all I want—the social conditions, the appalling upbringing, anything at all—but I now clearly see that he’s my enemy, the enemy of all that I love, the enemy of my friends, the enemy of what I hold most sacred. And I don’t hate him theoretically, as a “typical specimen,” but him as himself, him as an individual. I hate his slobbering mug, the stink of his unwashed body, his blind faith, his animosity toward everything other than sex and booze. There he goes, stomping around, the oaf, who half a year ago was still being thrashed by a fat-bellied father in a vain attempt to prepare him for selling stale flour and old jam; he’s wheezing, the dumb lug, struggling to recall the paragraphs of badly crammed regulations, and he just can’t figure out whether he’s supposed to cut the noble don down with his ax, shout “Stop!” or just forget about it. No one will find out anyway, so he’ll forget about it, go back to his recess, stuff some chewing bark into his mouth and chew it loudly, drooling and smacking his lips. And there’s nothing that he wants to know, and there’s nothing he wants to think about. Think! And is our eagle Don Reba any better? Yes, of course, his psychology is more intricate and his reflexes are more complicated, but his thoughts are like these palace mazes, reeking of ammonia and crime, and he himself is just foul beyond expression—a dreadful criminal and shameless spider. I came here to love people, to help them unbend, see the sky. No, I’m a bad operative, he thought remorsefully. I’m a no-good historian. When exactly did I manage to fall into the swamp that Don Condor was talking about? Does a god have the right to feel anything other than pity?

He heard a hurried clomp-clomp-clomp of boots along the corridor behind him. Rumata turned around and crossed his arms, placing his hands on the hilts of his swords. He saw Don Ripat running toward him, holding on to the blade at his side. “Don Rumata! Don Rumata!” he cried from afar in a hoarse whisper. Rumata let go of his swords. When he got close, Don Ripat took a look around and in a barely audible voice said in his ear, “I’ve been looking for you for an entire hour. Waga the Wheel is in the palace! He’s having a conversation with Don Reba in the lilac quarters.”

Rumata even squeezed his eyes shut for a second. Then, cautiously moving away, he said with polite surprise, “You mean the famous robber? But he’s either been executed or was invented to begin with.”

The lieutenant licked his dry lips. “He’s real. He’s in the palace. I thought you’d like to know.”

“My dearest Don Ripat,” Rumata said impressively, “I’m interested in rumors. Gossip. Jokes. Life can be so boring… You have clearly misunderstood me.” The lieutenant looked at him with wild eyes. “Judge for yourself,” Rumata went on. “Why should I care about the unsavory relationships of Don Reba—who, however, I respect too much to presume to judge? Besides, I apologize, I’m in a hurry. There’s a lady waiting for me.”

Don Ripat licked his lips again, gave an awkward bow, and sidled away.

Rumata was suddenly struck by a happy thought. “By the way, my friend,” he called out amiably, “how did you like the little intrigue that Don Reba and I carried out this morning?”

Don Ripat stopped eagerly. “We are very pleased,” he said.

“It was very charming, don’t you think?”

“It was magnificent! The gray officers are very glad that you have finally openly taken our side. You’re such an intelligent man, Don Rumata, and yet you consort with barons, with noble bastards—”

“My dear Ripat!” Rumata said haughtily, turning to walk away. “You forget that from the height of my birth I see absolutely no difference even between the king and yourself. Good-bye.”

He strode through the corridors, making confident turns and silently pushing sentries aside. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he realized that this was a piece of astonishing, rare luck. He had to listen to the conversation between the two spiders. No wonder Don Reba had asked fourteen times as much for Waga alive than for Waga dead.

Two gray lieutenants, their blades drawn, stepped out toward him from the lilac curtains.

“Hello, friends,” Don Rumata said, stopping between them. “Is the minister here?”

“The minister is busy, Don Rumata,” said one of the lieutenants.

“I’ll wait,” Rumata said. He passed through the curtains.

It was pitch black. Rumata groped his way between the chairs, tables, and iron lamp stands. A number of times he distinctly heard someone huffing by his ear and was enveloped in a rich odor of garlic and beer. Then he saw a faint streak of light, heard honorable Waga’s familiar tenor, and stopped. At that instant, the end of a spear gently poked him between the shoulder blades. “Quiet, blockhead,” he said irritably but softly. “It’s me, Don Rumata.” The spear was removed. Rumata dragged a chair toward the streak of light, sat down, stretching his legs, and yawned loudly enough to be heard. Then he began to watch.

The spiders had met. Don Reba was sitting in a tense posture, his elbows resting on the desk and his fingers interlaced. A heavy throwing knife with a wooden handle was lying on top of a pile of papers to his right. The minister was wearing a pleasant although somewhat dazed smile. Honorable Waga was sitting on a sofa with his back to Rumata. He looked like an eccentric aged nobleman who hadn’t left his country palace for the past thirty years. “The chonted will shlake,” he said, “and they’ll unbiggedly shump the margays with a hollow blackery. That’s twenty long heapers already. It’d be marky to knork the motleners. But the heapers are bedegging redderly. This is how we’ll heaten the rasten. That’s our struntle.”

Don Reba stroked his clean-shaven chin. “That’s tooky jelly.”

Waga shrugged. “This is our struntle. Denooting with us isn’t rastenly for your gnawpers. It’s revided?”

“It’s revided,” said the Minister of the Defense of the Crown decisively.

“And drink the circle,” Waga said, getting up.

Rumata, who was listening to this gibberish dumbfounded, discovered a bushy mustache and a pointy gray beard on Waga’s face. A true courtier from the time of the last regency.

“It was nice to talk to you,” said Waga.

Don Reba also got up. “The conversation with you gave me great pleasure,” he said. “I have never before seen a man as courageous as yourself, honorable…”

“Me too,” said Waga in a bored voice. “I’m also amazed and proud of the courage of the First Minister of our kingdom.”

He turned his back on Don Reba and shuffled toward the door, leaning on his staff. Don Reba, continuing to look at him pensively, absentmindedly placed his fingers on the handle of the knife. Someone behind Rumata’s back immediately took an extremely deep breath, and the long brown barrel of a blowpipe squeezed past his ear toward the gap between the curtains. Don Reba remained standing for a second, as if listening, then he sat back down, opened a drawer, extracted a pile of paper, and became absorbed in his reading. The man behind Rumata’s back spat on the floor; the blowpipe was removed. Everything was clear. The spiders had agreed. Rumata got up and, stepping on somebody’s feet, started making his way back out from the lilac quarters.

The king dined in a huge hall with two tiers of windows. The ninety-foot table was set for a hundred people: the king himself, Don Reba, the royals (two dozen full-blooded individuals, gluttons and drunks), the Minister of the Court and the Minister of Ceremonies, a group of highborn aristocrats invited by tradition (this included Rumata), a dozen visiting barons with their ox-like baronets, and at the very end of the table various aristocratic small fry, who had somehow finagled an invitation to the royal dinner. When these last were being handed their invitations and chair numbers, they were warned, “Sit still, the king doesn’t like it when people fidget. Keep your hands on the table; the king doesn’t like it when people hide their hands under the table. Don’t look around; the king doesn’t like it when people look around.” At every such dinner, vast quantities of fine food were devoured, whole lakes of ancient wines were drunk, and masses of dishes made from the famous Estorian china were damaged or broken. In one of his reports to the king, the Minister of Finance bragged that just one of His Majesty’s dinners costs as much as maintaining the Soanian Academy of Science for half a year.

While he waited for the Minister of Ceremonies to proclaim “To the table!” three times, accompanied by trumpets, Rumata stood in a group of courtiers and listened for the tenth time to Don Tameo’s story about the royal dinner that he, Don Tameo, had the honor to attend six months ago.

“… I find my seat, we stand up, the king comes in, sits down, we also sit down. The dinner goes on as usual. And suddenly, imagine this, my dear dons, I feel something wet underneath me. Yes, wet! I don’t dare turn around, squirm, or feel it with my hand. However, I find an opportunity to stick a hand underneath me—and what happens? It really is wet! I smell my hand—it doesn’t smell like anything in particular. What a fable! Meanwhile, everyone is getting up, and as you can imagine, noble dons, I am somehow afraid to get up. I see the king—the king himself!—walking toward me, but I keep sitting, as if I were a bumpkin baron without any manners. His Majesty comes up to me, smiles indulgently at me, and puts his hand on my shoulder. ‘My dear Don Tameo,’ he says, ‘everyone has gotten up and is about to go to watch the ballet, but you’re still sitting down. What’s wrong, did you eat too much?’ ‘Your Majesty,’ I say, ‘chop my head off, but something is wet underneath me.’ His Majesty was so gracious as to laugh and order me to stand up. I get up—and what happens? Laughter all around! Noble dons, I had been sitting on rum cake for the whole dinner! His Majesty was so gracious as to laugh a lot. ‘Reba, Reba,’ he said, finally, ‘these are all your jokes! Would you be so kind as to clean the noble don up, you soiled his seat!’ Don Reba, laughing uproariously, takes out a dagger and starts scraping the cake off my pants. Can you imagine my condition, noble dons? I won’t deny it, I was shaking in fear at the thought that Don Reba, humiliated in front of everyone, would take revenge on me. Fortunately, nothing happened. I assure you, noble dons, this was the happiest experience of my life! How the king laughed! How His Majesty was pleased!”

The courtiers roared with laughter. In fact, such jokes were customary at the royal table. The invitees would be seated in pâtés, in chairs with sawed-off legs, on goose eggs. They’d been seated on poisoned needles too. The king liked to be amused. Rumata suddenly thought: I wonder what I would have done in this idiot’s place? I’m afraid that the king would have had to look for another Minister of Defense, and the Institute would have had to send another man to Arkanar. In any case, I need to be on my guard. Like our eagle Don Reba.

The trumpets sounded, the Minister of Ceremonies bellowed melodiously, the king limped in, and everyone began to take their seats. The guardsmen on duty were standing motionless in the corners of the hall, leaning on their two-handed swords. Rumata got taciturn neighbors. On his right, the seat was filled with the quivering bulk of the sullen glutton Don Pifa, the husband of the well-known beauty, and on his left, Gur the Storyteller was staring at an empty plate. The guests paused, looking at the king. The king stuffed a grayish napkin in his collar, scanned the dishes, and grabbed a chicken leg. As soon as he sank his teeth into it, a hundred knives fell onto plates with a clatter, and a hundred hands reached for dishes. The hall became full of chomping and sucking sounds; wine started gurgling. The mustaches of the motionless guardsmen with the two-handed swords began to twitch avidly. Once upon a time, Rumata had gotten nauseated at these dinners. Now he was used to them.

Carving a shoulder of mutton with his dagger, he glanced right and immediately turned away: Don Pifa was hanging over an entire roasted wild boar, working like an excavator. He left no bones. Rumata held his breath and drained his glass of Irukanian wine in one gulp. Then he glanced left. Gur the Storyteller was listlessly picking at a small plate of salad with a spoon.

“Are you writing anything new, Father Gur?” Rumata asked in a low voice.

Gur started. “Writing? Me? I don’t know… A lot.”

“Poetry?”

“Yes… poetry.”

“Your poetry is abominable, Father Gur.” Gur looked at him strangely. “Yes, yes, you’re no poet.”

“No poet… Sometimes I wonder, who am I? And what am I afraid of? I don’t know.”

“Look at your plate and keep eating. I’ll tell you who you are. You’re a brilliant storyteller, the founder of a new literary movement—the most fruitful one there is.” Gur’s cheeks slowly started to glow. “In a hundred years, and maybe even earlier, dozens of storytellers will follow in your footsteps.”

“God help them!” Gur blurted out.

“Now I’ll tell you what you’re afraid of.”

“I’m afraid of the dark.”

“Of the nighttime?”

“Of the nighttime too. At night we’re at the mercy of spirits. But most of all I’m afraid of the dark, because in the dark everyone becomes equally gray.”

“Very well put, Father Gur. By the way, is it still possible to find your book?”

“I don’t know… And I don’t want to know.”

“Just in case, you should know: one copy is in the metropole, in the library of the emperor. Another is kept in the Museum of Curiosities in Soan. The third is with me.”

Gur spooned some jelly onto his plate with a trembling hand. “I… don’t know…” He looked at Rumata mournfully with his huge sunken eyes. “I’d like to read it… reread it…”

“I’ll be happy to lend it to you.”

“And then?”

“And then you’ll give it back.”

“And then you’ll be given back!” Gur said sharply. Rumata shook his head. “Don Reba really scared you, Father Gur.”

“Scared me… Have you ever had to burn your own children? What do you know about fear, noble don!”

“I bow my head before what you’ve had to go through, Father Gur. But I wholeheartedly blame you for giving up.”

Gur the Storyteller suddenly started to whisper so softly that Rumata could barely hear him over the chomping and the drone of voices. “And what is it all for? What is the truth? Prince Haar really did love the beautiful copper-skinned Yaivnivora. They had kids… I know their grandchildren. She really was poisoned… But I was told that it’s a lie. I was told that truth is what currently benefits the king. Everything else is a lie and a crime. I had written lies all my life… And only now do I write the truth.”

He suddenly stood up and loudly recited in a sing-song voice:

The king stopped chewing and stared at him vacantly. The guests pulled their heads into their shoulders. Only Don Reba smiled and gave a few silent claps. The king spit the bones onto the tablecloth and said, “Infinity? That’s right. That’s true, it’s in retreat… I commend you. You may eat.”

The chomping and conversations resumed.

Gur sat down. “It’s so sweet and easy to tell the truth to the king’s face,” he croaked.

Rumata was silent. Then he said, “I’ll give you a copy of your book, Father Gur. But under one condition. You will immediately start writing the next one.”

“No,” Gur said. “It’s too late. Let Kiun write. I’ve been poisoned. And anyway, I’m not interested in any of it anymore. I only want one thing now—to learn to drink. And I can’t. It hurts my stomach.”

Another defeat, thought Rumata. I’m too late.

“Listen, Reba,” the king said suddenly. “Where’s the healer? You promised me the healer after dinner.”

“He’s here, Your Majesty,” said Don Reba. “Do you order me to summon him?”

“Do I order you to? Of course! If your knee hurt like this, you’d squeal like a pig! Get him here this instant!”

Rumata leaned back in his chair and got ready to watch. Don Reba raised a hand above his head and snapped his fingers. The door opened, and a hunched old man wearing a long robe adorned with images of silver spiders, stars, and snakes entered the hall, constantly bowing. He was holding a flat, oblong bag under his arm. Rumata was puzzled: this wasn’t at all how he had imagined Budach. The sage and humanist, the author of the comprehensive Treatise on Poisons, couldn’t have such faded, darting eyes, such fearfully trembling lips, such a pathetic, ingratiating smile. But then he remembered Gur the Storyteller. The inquiry into the suspected Irukanian spy probably involved a literary conversation in Don Reba’s office. Oh, to take Reba by the ear, he thought longingly. To drag him into the dungeon. To tell the torturers, “Here’s an Irukanian spy, disguised as our glorious minister; the king has ordered us to extract the whereabouts of the real minister from him. Do what you do, and woe be upon you if he dies in less than a week.” He put a hand in front of his face lest it betray his thoughts. What a terrible thing hatred is…

“Well, well, come here, healer,” the king said. “You’re a weakling, brother. Now squat—squat, I tell you!”

The unfortunate Budach began to squat. His face contorted in horror.

“Again, again,” the king said nasally. “Once again! Again! Your knees don’t hurt—you healed your own knees. Now let’s see your teeth! Hmmmm, not bad. I should have such teeth. And the hands aren’t bad, nice and strong. Nice and healthy, though you’re a weakling… Well go on, my dear, treat me, don’t just stand there.”

“Y-Your Majesty… be so g-gracious as to show his leg… his leg…” Rumata heard the healer say. He looked up. The man was on his knees in front of the king and was carefully kneading his leg.

“Hey… hey!” the king said. “What are you doing? Don’t paw at me! If you’re going to treat me, then treat me!”

“I u-understand everything, Your Majesty,” the healer mumbled. He started hurriedly digging through his bag.

The guests stopped chewing. The minor aristocrats at the end of the table even stood up and craned their necks, burning with curiosity.

Budach took a number of stone bottles from his bag, opened them, and, sniffing them one by one, lined them up along the table. Then he took the king’s goblet and filled it halfway with wine. Making strange gestures over the goblet with both hands and whispering incantations, he quickly emptied all the bottles into the wine. The distinct smell of ammonia spread through the hall. The king pursed his lips, looked into the goblet, and, screwing up his nose, looked at Don Reba. The minister smiled sympathetically. The courtiers held their breath.

What is he doing? thought Rumata with surprise. The old man has gout! What is that concoction? His treatise clearly states, massage a three-day infusion of white snake venom into the swollen joints. Maybe this is the salve?

“What’s this, salve?” the king asked, nervously nodding at the goblet.

“Not at all, Your Majesty,” said Budach. He had already recovered a little. “This is taken orally.”

“Orally?” The king pouted and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t want anything orally. Massage it in.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty,” Budach said meekly. “But I must take the liberty to warn you that massaging it in will be of no use.”

“For some reason, everyone else massages,” the king said peevishly, “and you absolutely have to pour this stuff into me.”

“Your Majesty,” said Budach, proudly standing up, “this medicine is known to me alone! I used it to cure the uncle of the Duke of Irukan. As for the massagers, they certainly didn’t cure you, Your Majesty.”

The king looked at Don Reba. Don Reba again smiled sympathetically.

“You rascal,” the king said to the healer in an unpleasant voice. “A bumpkin. A lousy weakling.” He picked up the goblet. “I have half a mind to give you a good crack on the teeth with this goblet.” He looked into the goblet. “And if I throw up?”

“We’d have to repeat it, Your Majesty,” Budach said mournfully.

“All right, the Lord be with us!” the king said, bringing the goblet almost to his mouth—but he suddenly jerked it away so abruptly that it splashed onto the tablecloth. “Hey, you drink some first! I know you Irukanians! You sold Holy Míca to the barbarians! Drink it, I say!”

Budach took the goblet with an offended look and drank a few sips.

“Well, how is it?” said the king.

“It’s bitter, Your Majesty,” Budach said in a choked voice. “But you have to drink it.”

“Haaave to, haaave to…” the king said peevishly. “I know I have to myself. Hand it over. Look at this, you polished half of it off, took your chance…”

He tossed off the goblet in one gulp. Sympathetic sighs sounded around the table—and suddenly everything went still. The king froze with his mouth open. Tears rained from his eyes. He slowly turned purple, then blue in the face. He stretched out a hand above the table, convulsively snapping his fingers. Don Reba hastily handed him a pickle. The king silently hurled the pickle at Don Reba and again stretched out his hand. “Wine…” he wheezed.

Someone dashed off and got the pitcher. The king, his eyes frantically rolling, swallowed loudly. Red rivulets were pouring down his white waistcoat. When the pitcher was empty, the king threw it at Budach but missed. “Bastard!” he said in an unexpectedly bass voice. “What did you kill me for? Haven’t we hanged enough of you? Blast you!”

He stopped and touched his knee.

“It hurts!” he said in his former nasal voice. “It still hurts!”

“Your Majesty,” said Budach. “For a complete cure, the potion must be taken every day for at least a week’s duration—”

Something squeaked in the king’s throat. “Out!” he shrieked. “Everyone get out!”

The courtiers, overturning their chairs, swarmed toward the doors.

“Ouuut!” the king screeched, sweeping the dishes off the table.

Rumata rushed out of the hall, then ducked behind a curtain and began to laugh. Someone else was also laughing behind the adjacent curtain—hysterically, gasping for breath, with little yelps.