Seven Days in New Crete (Penguin Modern Classics) (20 page)

He looked severely at the Zapmor captain, who rose at once in self-justification: ‘The disappearance of the token gave us no advantage. Can it be that the Rabnon goalkeeper, unable to force it into our godling’s mouth, so far forgot the code of war that he used magic to make it disappear?’

All eyes turned to Open-please, who said defiantly: ‘I fought according to the code. When I tossed the token away I invoked the Goddess and begged her to take it into her keeping. I have never tampered with magic. I’m a commoner and keep to my estate.’

The Zapmor captain broke in: ‘The token was not found in the field where he threw it. If anyone had entered it we should have seen his head above the hedge.’

‘That is so,’ the Rabnon captain answered. ‘Since Zapmor must have found the token there – no Rabnon fighter having found it first – and since no neutrals were allowed to pass through the district because of the war, and since all children and elders were kept indoors; yet since, if they found it, they cannot have dishonourably concealed it or destroyed it –’ He paused, glanced around him at the sea of blank faces, then back at Starfish; and sat down.

Starfish thought deeply for a moment, putting his little finger into his mouth for inspiration; but apparently without success. He asked: ‘Is anyone present inspired to conclude the captain’s sentence?’

I found it embarrassing to make the obvious suggestion; what these guileless people needed was a course in twentieth-century detective fiction. But somehow the spell had to be broken. I stood up, beckoned to the Interpreter, and made a short speech in English, which he relayed while I sat down again. What I said was: ‘My opinion of the Rabnon and Zapmor fighters is so high that I cannot believe any of them capable of acting against either custom or honour. Therefore, the captain’s sentence must necessarily conclude with… “Rabnon has won the war.”’

A few girls giggled and some elders chuckled, but everyone else stared impassively, waiting for me to continue.

‘Explain yourself!’ said the Zapmor captain, a little vexed.

I rose and said: ‘Logically, there are only two places where the war-token can be lodged: the belly of the Zapmor godling and the belly of the Rabnon godling. In any other place it would have been found long ago. However, since it was last seen within throwing distance of this green the chances are that Rabnon has won the war, rather than Zapmor.’

The Zapmor priest made as if to go towards the totem-pole, but checked himself and sat down again.

‘Do you too accuse Open-please of making a magical throw?’ asked the Rabnon barber.

‘Certainly not; though I cannot deny that he acted under inspiration. As you will all agree, he was drunk with the Goddess.’

‘Then how do you think that the token was conveyed to the godling’s belly?’

‘Since no stranger passed, and since no Rabnon men were within a mile of the scene when it vanished, and since sheep are not intelligent animals, and since the apple-tree in the paddock is not hollow, and since all the elders were kept indoors, the only possible conclusion is that a child was in the paddock when the token fell close by him, and that he carried it off under cover of the hedge and managed to drop it into the godling’s mouth without being seen. But it cannot have been an ordinary child, or he would have remained dutifully at home at an upper window. It must have been a child of intelligence; and there can be no more than one child in Zapmor capable of such daring and defiance.’

I paused. The Zapmor boy who had been the ringleader in the damsonjam rebellion stood up, and I sat down again, glad to find that I had not made a fool of myself.

He was about seven years old, and because no discrimination between commons and captains was made until the age of puberty he wore only three bands, not one, on the cuffs of his black overall; but anybody could see that he was a born captain.

Speaking with perfect composure, he said: ‘The poet from the past is very clever. He is aware that the people of Zapmor are honourable, even the children. On my behalf a war was fought against our village, and when from my bedroom window I saw Open-please leaping heroically across the hedges, quarter-staff in hand, and felling four of our best men, my heart went out to him. I opened the window and let myself down on to the garden wall and ran along it and slid down a shed, and hurried across our paddock. There I peeped through the hedge and watched his struggle against odds. The token came flying over the hedge. I caught it, and ran with it towards the green. The totem-pole was deserted, not even our goal-keeper or his assistant was there: they had both gone to help the others in overpowering Open-please. I bowed to the godling, and said: “Godling, with your consent, I am forced to eat damson jam seven evenings of the week. Now you eat these for me, I pray, and may your gorge not rise, as mine has done! Amen!” I dropped the token into his mouth and ran home. Because the Goddess was with me nobody noticed either my coming or my going.’

‘Why did you not confess your intemperate deed?’ asked the priest gently, as he went to the back of the totem-pole, unlocked a door and produced the wooden damsons.

‘It was a private quarrel between me and the godling. For this one day honour had made me his enemy, and the Goddess was on my side.’ He sat down in dead silence.

Starfish summed up. ‘The war-token has now been found in the belly of Zapmor’s godling, Rabnon has therefore fairly won the war. The golden verse of the poet Vives applies in this case:

A friend’s hand is as my hand,
    A friend’s foot as mine.

Let no one dispute my judgement. It is this: because Rabnon have the glory of winning the war that they declared, they must eat damson jam every evening for one whole month to release the children of Zapmor from the obligation of ever having to eat it again. Zapmor, for their part, will rename the lane where Open-please was disarmed “Damson Alley”, and the paddock into which he threw the token “War-token Field”, in memory of these events. As for the boy who made his own godling eat damsons: he has declared war on his kinsmen and must not stay another night in Zapmor.’

The Rabnon captain rose and looked from face to face. After a while he announced: ‘The boy will be welcomed by our village. One day he will succeed me as captain.’

The woman in the partridge-feather hat chimed in: ‘He may live with me, if he likes, until he changes his estate. He already loves my cheese-straws.’

The boy’s mother said quietly: ‘Take him, with my blessing! You are welcome to him. My house could never hold the boy.’

So all was settled to everyone’s satisfaction, and singing and dancing followed. The festivities lasted far into the night.

The Chief Recorder of Zapmor planted himself near me and bombarded me with questions about wild animals of my epoch, now extinct.

I tried to answer him as well as I could, but my mind was distracted. All the while I was wondering: ‘When will the news come of Fig-bread’s death?’ For on the night before our Monte Cassino attack while ‘Legs’ was holding forth on the virtues of the Large Black pig, our regimental doctor, MacWhirter, had taken me aside and said: ‘Venn-Thomas, laddie, mark my words, ye’ll be left in command o’ the company by this time tomorrow.
Yon puir fule’s fey!
’

The dancing was not of the easy ballroom sort in which I should have been pleased to join. It was distressingly professional folk-dancing, in which teams from the two villages gave alternate performances under the blaze of bright arc-lights fed with turpentine. I was told that children began to learn the steps and convolutions at the age of four or five but did not become adepts for another twelve years or more. The style varied with the local marriage customs; monogamous Zapmor went in for all-male quarter-staff dances to the accompaniment of pipes with high leaps and quick gyrations, and decorous all-female flower-dances with a great deal of finger work in the Indian style and complex interlacing of the dancers’ orbits. Polyandrous Rabnon specialized in orgiastic dances: I recall particularly
The Queen Bee,
a very wild performance to bagpipe music in which a woman was courted by thirteen men in succession yet satisfied them all, and
The Nine Ladies,
in which nine women, dancing in a ring, pursued and assaulted a drunken trespasser. These were all religious dances and therefore no more to be applauded than the complicated ritual of High Mass in a Catholic cathedral.

Inaction and a full stomach made me feel sleepy. I was wondering whether I should be allowed to go home soon, when an elder strolled up and touched my elbow. He was an ex-commoner dressed in a blue linen smock with a broad-rimmed hat and cherry-coloured stockings; evidently a Rabnon man. He wandered off again without a word. I had the curiosity to rise from my hassock – the tables had been removed before the dancing began – and follow him into the darkness.

‘I have a message for you,’ he said, after a time, with a yawn and hiccup.

‘From whom?’

‘From a woman who wants you to go to her at once.’

‘Thank you, but as you are an elder and also pretty well soaked, am I to take your message seriously?’

‘You’re under no obligation.’

‘That’ll be Erica,’ I said to myself. ‘She’s got friends among the elders. Now, shall I go, or shan’t I? I might as well. I’ve promised not to break her neck, but there can’t be any harm in trying to persuade her to undo some of the mischief she’s caused.’ I asked the elder: ‘Where is she waiting?’

‘I’m under no obligation to answer,’ he said, yawning again and strolling back to the green.

‘That’s very true,’ I agreed. ‘Good night.’

‘Well, I asked for that,’ I thought, standing there irresolutely. As my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness I found that I was standing on a path between hedges of some highly-scented bush. I might as well go on and get away from the revels for a while; the path would always lead me back. After about five minutes’ walk I paused. The sound of flutes came very faintly down the breeze; that must be the Zapmor women again. I sat down on a tree-stump.

Here was my opportunity for a little serious heart-searching. What sort of a man was I by emotional instinct? All else being equal, if I had to make the choice, would I live in Zapmor or would I choose Rabnon? I wished that I knew myself better. I had never had the opportunity, because in my own age the choice had not been clear cut: it was complicated by the stupidity, hypocrisy and dullness of the general run of monogamists and the silliness and drunken bravado of the usual polyandrous set. To be precise: had I ever loved Antonia, who was a one-man woman, as much as I had loved Erica, a queen-bee if ever there was one? Not as intensely perhaps, not as insanely certainly, and how else can one measure love, except by its intensity and insanity? But then I had never hated Antonia even for a moment, as I had hated Erica quite half the time that we were together. It seemed years since I had seen Antonia (and, of course, it literally was years – hundred of years, perhaps even thousands) whereas I had seen Erica only the day before yesterday, looking younger and more mischievous than ever. Antonia had my heart; but it was only fair to admit that Erica had not recently displayed what I used to call her glow-worm light – an almost phosphorescent aura of sexuality that etherealized her not at all faultless features. In the old days she could switch it on and off at pleasure, and when it was in full glow, I was at her mercy. I greatly hoped that she had lost the knack; I loathe retracing my steps in love, as I loathe returning to a house of which I have once taken final leave. There was peace in my love for Antonia, peace and confidence which I wanted never to be disturbed. Antonia was good, in the simplest sense of the word, and with a quiet, constructive humour; Erica was evil, with a beautifully destructive wit that matched the intense dislike I felt for my age.

Now Sapphire confused the issue; and Sally. I felt safe with Sapphire, however equivocal my relations with her might be, and she and I were paired here, by general agreement. Yet, I must have been jolted into my summary declaration of love by a self-protective intuition which warned me that if I did not take refuge with her, Sally was bound to get me. Sally was a witch, and I knew that she too had a glow-worm button under her thumb if ever she cared to press it for my benefit; but first she would have to eliminate Sapphire, and I was not going to stand for that.

I reconsidered the problem of Erica. She was real enough; in a sense she was the only real person I had met since my evocation, yet it occurred to me that she was a little over life size and indeed the Hag had hinted to me that she was not the Erica I had known, but the Queen of Elphame in disguise. I knew that at the end of the sixteenth century the Queen of Elphame had made one Andro Man her lover, ‘suffering him to do that which Christian ears ought not to hear of’ – by the way, wasn’t Andrew Mann the name of the writer with whom Erica now claimed to have had an affair in Scotland? – and that ‘Thomas the Rimer’ had also claimed intimacy with her a century earlier. ‘She can be old and young whenas she pleases.’ But who or what was this deathless and preposterous character?

There was a slight movement in the grassy ditch only a couple of yards away, and a whispered sigh of endearment. It was Peaches and the Rabnon captain, both naked and locked in each other’s arms. I jumped up in embarrassment and made off, but Peaches called me back. ‘Give us a poet’s blessing!’ she pleaded.

I was just drunk enough to rise to the occasion. Raising my hand, I declaimed magisterially in English:

‘Blest payre of swans, Oh may you interbring
    Daily new joyes, and never sing;
    Live, till all grounds of wishes faile,

Till honor, yea till wisedome grow so stale
    That, new great heights to trie

It must serve your ambition to die…
May never age, or error overthwart
With any West, these radiant eyes, with any North, this heart.

‘In the names of Nimuë, Mari and Ana,’ I piously concluded in New Cretan.

‘That sounds very beautiful,’ said Peaches.