"Ah!" cried Gregory. "Then that is madness!"
"Well, yes, I suppose it would be," Rod said slowly, "in the way that Count Orlando was mad."
Magnus frowned. "I have not met him."
"No, nor are likely to, son," Rod said, amused. "Roland—or Orlando, as they called him in Italy—was nephew to Charlemagne…"
"The Emperor of the Franks?" Geoffrey looked up, round-eyed. "He is history, not myth!"
"Why yes, he is." Rod looked up at Fess with renewed respect; any tutor who could interest Geoffrey in history verged on being a magician. Of course, Charlemagne was military history… "But myths grow up around people who change the world, and Charlemagne did. Still, there's only so much you can say about a king, because he has to spend most of his time governing, which may be exciting in its own right, but is only occasionally dramatic—so the tale-tellers usually find somebody near him to build their stories around, and in Charlemagne's case, that person was his nephew."
"He did really live, then?"
"We think so," Fess said, "though he certainly did none of the supernatural feats attributed to him. He was an excellent focus for myth, however, and figures largely and luridly in a fairy-haunted world that never existed."
"And he went mad?"
"For a time," Rod said, "because he fell in love with a lady who didn't want anything to do with him—and when he found out she had married somebody else, he went into a nonstop rage, tearing up forests and slaughtering peasants, not to mention the occasional knight or two."
"Are the mad truly so?" Gregory asked, wide-eyed.
"Not 'mad,' Gregory—'mentally ill,' " Fess corrected, "and there are many kinds and degrees of mental illness. But one or two varieties do sometimes result in people going on rampages, beating and slaying numbers of people, yes."
"Not quite on the scale that Orlando did, though," Rod said quickly. "In fact, I think his 'madness' was more probably a magnified version of someone suffering from rabies."
"Oh! I have heard of that!" Cordelia shuddered. "Such poor souls do become like beasts, bereft of reason and seeking to bite and beat any who may cross their path!"
"Unfortunate, but true," Fess agreed, "and they are referred to as being 'mad.' "
"But they are not, Fess! Tis only a sickness in the body, brought by a germ in the bite of a dog or rat!"
"True enough," Rod agreed, "but one of the symptoms is that the victim stops thinking, and turns homicidal."
"There are many forms of mental illness that have physical causes, children," Fess said quietly, "even so slight a cause as an upset in the balance of the chemicals in people's bodies."
"Now wait, wait!" Geoffrey held up a hand, squeezing his eyes shut. "Thou dost confuse me! Thou dost say that simple folk are fools, but fools are men of wit?"
"It is a problem in the language," Fess admitted, "brought by people using a word that describes one condition, and applying it to another. Let us say that a fool is a person of poor judgement, Geoffrey."
Geoffrey looked doubtful, and Cordelia said, with hesitation, "That doth aid me somewhat in understanding…"
"I think it might cut through some of the confusion if you tell them the story," Rod suggested.
"A story?"
"Tell it!"
"Aye, tell, Fess! Matters are always made more clear by a tale!"
"Not if it has any true literary value," the robot hedged,
"but a fable generally does clarify matters, since fables are teaching stories."
"Then tell us a fable!"
"More pointedly," Rod said, "the fable of the Wise Man, the Jester, the Fool, the Simpleton, and the Madman."
"Aye, tell!" And they all stopped in the road and gathered around the great iron steed.
"As you will," Fess sighed. "The Wise Man said, 'Gentlemen, the world will end tomorrow, if you do not save it.'
"The madman smiled with delight.
" 'If we do not save it?' said the fool. 'Will you not share the risk?' "
"Why, he was a fool in truth," Geoffrey snorted, "if he would cavil o'er fairness at a time of peril!"
"Thou hast been known to cavil so," Cordelia pointed out.
"Yet surely not when danger did threaten!"
"Perhaps not when it is imminent," Fess temporized. "Then you understand that the threat is more important than your pride—as the Wise Man satisfied the Fool by saying, 'I will go with you, to show you where to dig.'
"Then the fool felt shamed, and said, 'Do you really mean what you say?'
" I really do,' the Wise Man answered.
"The Simpleton's brow furrowed with the effort of his thought. 'How can so great a thing as the world, be destroyed?'
" 'There are tremendous fires within the earth,' the Wise Man answered. 'They burn too quickly; if we do not let them out, their smoke will burst the world.'
"The Simpleton stared. 'But how can there be anything within the earth? It is only dirt underfoot.'
" It may seem so,' said the Wise Man, 'but it is truly a great ball, so vast that we are mere specks upon it—and it is hollow, with fires within.'
"But the Simpleton only shook his head in bafflement, for he could not comprehend the notion.
" 'How then shall we save the world?' asked the fool.
" 'We must dig a great hole,' said the Wise Man, 'so that the fires may have a chimney.'
" 'Why, that is too much work!' said the fool."
"Too much work, and too great a folly," Geoffrey cried. "Did he not know he would breed a volcano?"
"He did, and so did the jester, for he said, 'Nay, Uncle—it is not the world that will be destroyed then, but us. It is bad enough to be smoked meat, but it is worse to be fried.' "
"There is some wit in that," Gregory said judiciously, "but there is most excellent sense, too."
"Nay, there is cowardice!"
"Well, there was sensible caution, at least," Fess said, "but the Wise Man answered, 'If a few do not risk being burned to cinders, all will be blown to bits,' and the Jester shivered and said, 'Alas the day, that I am one of the few who are made to see the need of it! But I shall go, then, for it is better to burn than to tarry.' ''
Gwen gave Fess a glare, and Rod murmured, "That's truly apauling."
Fess quickly went on. "Then they all took their shovels and followed the Wise Man to an empty field, and began to dig where he showed them; but the madman only leaned on his shovel and watched them."
"Is that all?" Magnus protested. "There is no madness in that, but laziness and blindness, and lack of concern!"
"Aye," Cordelia agreed. "When did he aught that was mad, Fess?"
"When the others went to dinner, Cordelia—for then he filled in the hole."
The children stared at him, shocked, while Gwen eyed Fess uncertainly, and Rod covered a smile.
"Was the world destroyed, then?" Gregory burst out.
"Nay, surely not," Geoffrey said, "for we stand on it now!"
"This was only a fable, children, and it stood on nothing but imagination," Fess reminded them. "But the world of the story was destroyed, yes."
"Why," Magnus gasped, "he was mad!" Then he stared, surprised by his own words.
"Why, indeed he was," Cordelia said slowly. "So that is madness!"
"But of only one kind." Gregory turned to Fess. "And thou hast said there are many, and of differing degrees."
"I have," Fess agreed, "but they all have this in common: that people who are mentally ill do things without reason—or at least, no reason that healthy minds can see."