“Now, a moment, please, O noble lord,” Heldo-Bah calls from the rear of the little column. “You have told us that you originally came from the great northeastern trading lands, home to those tribes for whom buying, selling, and bartering are not mere ruses to make raiding and raping easier, as is the case with their cousins farther north, but a wholly different and more enlightened way of life.”
Caliphestros simply smiles and laughs quietly, for he has also come to understand many of Heldo-Bah’s seeming insults, clownish or otherwise, mask a strangely fascinating willingness to do the distasteful work of actually attending to the safety of his tribe, and especially of his comrades, by determining the reliability of newcomers.
“Yes, my small friend,” Caliphestros replies, echoing Heldo-Bah’s impertinence with muted amusement. “That is what I told you.”
“‘Small’?” Heldo-Bah replies. “If I were without my feet and half my legs, and required the use of mechanical contrivances and legendary beasts to get about, I’m not certain I’d be so free with that kind of language, O Legless Lord.”
“Perhaps not,” says Caliphestros. “But then, never having had the trust of a legendary beast, I doubt that you are able to appreciate precisely the sense of security that such a bond brings.”
At that instant, in a further demonstration of her remarkable intuition concerning human language, Stasi turns her head fully about, looking over her shoulder at Heldo-Bah just as a long, large drop of saliva falls from her panting tongue to the ground.
“Very well,” the malodorous forager replies. “Let us stay away from such questions — what I particularly want to know is this: you say you studied, for the most part, in this city called Alexandria, in the grain kingdom of Egypt-land, where they let you cut up dead bodies to your peculiar heart’s content; which was not the case in Broken, where you were forced to have your minions steal bodies before they were placed atop funeral pyres. And you became fascinated, you say, by the subject of diseases, and of plagues — and most especially by the Death itself.”
“Your memory astounds me, Heldo-Bah,” taunts the old man.
“And when the Mohammedans, displaying that infinite wisdom of men who worship one entirely improbable god, conquered this Egypt-land, and then, after a brief period of uncertainty, decided that all you grave robbers and body hackers should either go somewhere else or have your own bodies hacked to pieces, you set out for the capital of the still another people who believe in one god, but who hold that their one can actually be the sum of three deities — an only slightly less idiotic notion than that of one almighty lord creating both all the good and all the evil in the world.”
“The Christ-worshippers may indeed hold beliefs that seem to turn back on themselves, Heldo-Bah,” Caliphestros concedes. “But I am not so certain that they can be dismissed as ‘idiotic.’”
“No?” queries the Bane. “Well, listen further, then: I have made a study of their faith, and even conversed with that fool monk who has for so long been wandering about from tribe to tribe and kingdom to kingdom. Surely you know of him, great traveler that you are — the lunatic who cut down the ash tree of the Frankesh thunder god—”†
“Winfred?” Caliphestros queries, in such amazement that he almost falls from Stasi’s back. “You, Heldo-Bah, have discussed the Christ-worshipper’s religion with this man, who was given the name Boniface by their supreme leader, after he crossed the Seksent Straits to undertake his work?”
“The very fellow!” Heldo-Bah laughs. “‘Vat of Turds’!† I shall never forget his face when I explained to him why so many laughed at his ‘holy’ name, in Broken — for it has the same sound, does it not? You know of him, then, do you, wise man?”
Caliphestros nods slowly, still in profound amazement. “I knew him quite well. It was before ever I saw Broken — indeed, I first journeyed to that city in his company. I was living, then, at the abbey at Wearmouth, across the Seksent Straits, in Britain. My friend — the historian Bede to whom I have made reference, Veloc — was unusually curious concerning science, for a Christ-worshipper. He had given me a chamber and a place in their apothecary, where I worked for the abbey by day, and conducted my own labors by night.” His words coming to a sudden halt, Caliphestros looks at both Veloc and Keera, without seeming to actually see them. “I have not spoken of all this since … by the heavens, for so many years …” His body rattles suddenly, and he returns to his tale: “I met Winfred there — he was a monk and a priest, seeking funds as well as companions and followers for the great endeavor of converting the tribes and kingdoms hereabouts as well as farther north to the way of the Christ. I had heard many tales of the kingdom where the Kafran faith ruled, and was deeply curious about it. And so I packed my instruments and books, crossed the Seksent Straits in Winfred’s company, and went on to the city upon the mountain. One of Winfred’s first objects — although those of his faith called him Boniface, by then — was to convince the God-King Izairn to accept the Christ. He had heard that Broken was a mighty state, where law was maintained and commerce thrived, and that Izairn was a fair man, as indeed he was—”
“Hak!” Heldo-Bah exclaims with a laugh. “I did not know he ever attempted to play his holy tricks upon Broken’s God-King — although he seemed fool enough to try. The last I heard of him, some few years ago, he was planning to convert the Varisians! Imagine it — those bloodthirsty rapists, attempting to live according to the Christ’s babble about loving their enemies. I should like to know if he ever undertook that mad effort, and what became of him, if he did.”‡ Seeing that Caliphestros either will not or cannot continue his own tale, for the moment, Heldo-Bah charges on: “At any rate, this fellow, this Boniface, had, as I suppose you know, been booted out of Broken, soon after he first entered the kingdom and city. He was doing his best to get back in, at the time I made his acquaintance. Indeed, I was to provide the horses for his followers, if they were ever allowed to return — although such was plainly unlikely.”
“And I’m sure his party would have been safe, under your guidance and protection, Heldo-Bah,” Caliphestros mocks softly.
“Indeed he would, for they had far too little gold to—” Catching himself before the indiscretion is voiced, Heldo-Bah declares: “The point that I am attempting to make, my lord, is that he and I spoke, several times, about this idea that three divine entities can be one god, and that the one thus produced should be praised as having authority over all the evil as well as all the good in this world. ‘Yet how can this be so?’ I asked of him. ‘If your god is indeed three deities in one, and the one master of all, then his actions are either capricious, or tell us plainly that his mind remains badly cracked into warring parts.’ And the next question I asked him, I will put to you, Lord of Woodland Wisdom: how, tell me, how can one almighty creature be so unmercifully wanton as to create and spread pestilences such as the Death, on the one hand, and yet, on the other, claim credit for what enjoyments and pleasantness this life offers? The entire proposition is madness!”
Caliphestros laughs quietly again, using a small swatch of cloth to wipe perspiration from his own brow, and then pouring a small amount of water from a skin into Stasi’s upturned mouth, before drinking himself. “You Bane have a peculiarly perverse manner of arriving at the of truth of things, or rather, at a kind of truth.”