I set about my work. First I fed the herd, forking hay down from the loft and refilling the stagnant water-troughs. Then, with Anastasia's help, I drenched them all with copper sulphate to de-worm them, milked the few who needed that relief (the number of kids was heartbreakingly small), and trimmed everyone's hooves. Next — what Stoker's oath had suggested — I filled the dipping-tank with creosote solution, bathed the entire herd, and then (though neither I nor my wrapper was literally verminous, as were the others) cleansed myself in that potent bath, immersing even my head, until no trace of my term on Great Mall remained. Anastasia scrubbed my back; she would join me in the dip, cold as was the air and free of lice her fleecy parts; I knew why, was well pleased, but told her it was unnecessary. We did however wash her body with saddle-soap, and groomed each other when we had brushed and combed the herd. It being then noon, and she and I both roused by the brisk shampoo of our private parts, we repaired to a bed of fresh-forked straw. Warmed by the huddling does (all save Hedda), for two hours we drowsed and coupled — but knew better than to strive for last night's wonders. She remained she, I I; in a campus of thats and thises we sweetly napped and played, and were content: not every day can be Commencement Day. Lunch, like breakfast, we forwent.
At two (I could read a goat-crook's shadow in any season quite as accurately as Ira Hector a man's, and set Lady Creamhair's watch with perfect confidence) I rose refreshed from My full-friggèd Ladyship, re-cleansed my organ in the dip, and donned my wrap. Fetching the spare horn from the gear-chest I nipped its point to mouthpiece-size with a docking-tool and fashioned for it a stout sling of binder-twine. Then to all the herd, save two, I bade farewell, pledging to return one day and to send a better keeper to them in the meanwhile. Hedda and Tommy's Tommy's Tom were the exceptions: the latter because I meant to take him with me; the former because when I bent into her lousy pen I found her passed away. I closed her glassed eyes, touched my lips to those withered teats once prouder and more speckled than my dam's, and left her, trusting that even Grandfather's aide would not deny her a respectful grave. Triple-T we tethered behind the motorcycle; a handsome buckling he was now, dipped and groomed, with a proper lunch in him; he pranced and snorted and butted without fear the very fender! Anastasia (who not only declined the syringe of vinegar I offered to douche her with, but plugged her privity with sterile gauze to retain the insemination) put on her helmet and released the clutch, and we headed west.
Our progress, however, with Tommy's Tommy's Tom in tow, proved poor. I was obliged at length to hogtie him — revolting term — with the tether and truss him behind me athwart the fender, much as I sympathized with his fright. By this arrangement, though his bleats would have moved to pity Ira Hector himself, we tripled our speed; once past the Gorge and crossroads, moreover, Anastasia displayed a skill at short-cuts equal to her husband's, and a truly Stokerish capacity for the speed that had so alarmed her as his passenger. The sun hung still a fair half-hour from the horizon when we hove in sight of Founder's Hill.
7
Set free but for a leash wrapped thrice about my wrist, Triple-T opened us a walkway through the crowd. On every slope they'd gathered through the day — students, professors, administrators, trustees, groundskeepers, clerks, all wearing holiday best. Despite the gravity of the occasion (Shafting had only recently been made public again — by Rexfordian liberals, interestingly enough, who hoped thereby to shock the student body into abolishing capital punishment) there was excitement in the air, even a certain festivity. As the execution happened to coincide with other ceremonies and observances traditionally scheduled for that day of week and time of year, Founder's Hill had been a busy place since morning. A kind of intermission seemed now in progress: martial music could be heard from loudspeakers, and strolling vendors offered food, drink, pennants, and large white flowers to the crowd. Newspaper extras were being hawked around; the one I fed to T.T.T. bore headlines about Bray's promised wonders, the full restoration of WESCAC's strength under Dr. Eierkopf's supervision from the Powerhouse Control Room, the apparent disappearance of Classmate X, the expected resumption of the Boundary Dispute on last term's terms. On all the front pages were photographs of Lucius Rexford embracing his wife in the Chancellory sidecar and winking, so it seemed, at the camera, as if to indicate that all was in hand at home as well as abroad. Indeed, despite the seriousness of the varsity situation and the great disruptions of normalcy that still prevailed in New Tammany, the captions were optimistic: LUCKY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN; "LIGHT LIGHTS," LAUGHS LUCKY. Roving photojournalism-majors prowled with cameras and Telerama-packs, interviewing the student-in-the-path and campus celebrities on such topics as capital punishment, Grand-Tutorial impostors, and what they called the "new look" of the Rexford administration. Me too they would approach for a statement, and Anastasia, when we left the motorcycle and started up: they trotted about, asking what I thought of Bray's mid-day "miracles" on the Hilltop, and whether I intended to "top his performance" or "have it out" with him. But thanks to the plunging horns and knife-edged hooves of Tommy's Tommy's Tom, they kept their distance, as did hecklers, applauders, and the hosts of the indifferent, through whose ranks we made our way.
Towards the summit, where the rocky hill flattened into a kind of park around the Shaft, the crowd was thinner; Stoker's guards had erected a great circle of barriers, several hundred meters across, past which none but high officials and their guests were permitted. Stoker himself stalked the far perimeter all ascowl, threatening would-be gate-crashers with his billy and passing upon credentials: some he admitted whose ID-cards showed them to be nobodies; others he refused whose eminence entitled them to pass. At the consequent uproar he laughed — a harsh echo of his old hilarity. Anastasia was admitted at once by the guard at our barrier, who recognized her with a lick of his lips, and at her coax he reholstered his pistol instead of shooting Triple-T. Espying us from several meters off, Stoker shouted an obscenity and ordered the guard to refuse me admittance. People in the dignitaries' stands near the Shaft turned to look.
"Go to him now," I bade My Ladyship. I might have added certain further directions, thanking her too for having fetched me where I had to go; but she agreed this time so readily, and with so knowing a smile, I said no more. Triple-T, once out of the crowd, browsed placidly; I handed his leash to Anastasia and stepped past the guard.
"Achtung, Stinkkäfer!" he cried. He referred of course to the goat-dip on me, mighty indeed the perfume whereof; but his epithet was so exactly inapposite, I laughed aloud. He swung his billy; I parried with my stick and hoofed him a clean one in the balls. Before he could let go of himself to shoot, a pair of white helmets came over from the dignitaries' stand. One intervened in the names of the Chancellor and Harold Bray, both of whom he declared had authorized my admission — murmurs went through the near bystanders at this news, and the fallen guard put by his pistol with a curse.
"You call that Grand-Tutoring?" Stoker shouted. He had started for My Ladyship, but paused when T.'s T.'s Tom bucked at him. Anastasia too seemed shocked by my deed. "Violence!" Stoker appealed to the crowd. "No respect for law and order!" People stirred; even White-helmet, though he'd come between us in my behalf, bent to assist his sooted comrade and grumbled that the man had after all been simply doing his duty.