Hard to Be a God

by Arkady Strugatsky

  “Hey, hey,” the official called without any expression in his voice. “Your justification!”

  “In the name of the Lord,” Rumata said significantly, looking over his shoulder. The official and Brother Tibak stood up together and dissonantly replied, “In His name.” The people in line watched Rumata leave with envy and admiration.

  Coming out of the office, Rumata slowly walked toward the Merry Tower, clasping the bracelets onto his left arm along the way. It turned out that there were nine bracelets, and only five of them fit on his left arm. The remaining four Rumata stuck on his right arm. The Bishop of Arkanar is trying to wear me out, he thought. It won’t work. The bracelets clinked with each step, and Rumata was holding an impressive-looking paper in his hand—sheet six seventeen eleven, adorned with multicolored seals. Every monk he met, both on foot and on horseback, quickly got out of his way. The insignificant spy-bodyguard kept appearing then disappearing in the crowd, keeping a respectful distance. Rumata, mercilessly bashing the dawdlers with his scabbards, made his way to the gates, barked menacingly at a guard who tried to butt in, walked through the courtyard, and descended the slimy, weathered stairs into a semidarkness lit by smoking torches. This was the where the holy of the holies of the former Ministry of the Defense of the Crown began—the royal prison and investigation chambers.

  In the vaulted corridor, smoking torches stuck out of rusty sockets in the wall at intervals of ten feet. A black door was visible in a cavernous alcove beneath each torch. These were the entrances to the prison cells, locked from the outside by heavy iron bolts. The corridors were full of people. They were shoving, running, shouting, and giving orders. Bolts were creaking and doors were slamming; someone was being beaten and he wailed; someone was being dragged and he resisted; someone was being pushed into a cell that was already packed to full capacity; someone was being unsuccessfully dragged out of a cell, screaming hysterically, “Not me, not me!” and clutching his neighbors. The faces of the passing monks were businesslike to the point of severity. Every one of them was in a hurry; every one of them was involved in affairs of importance to the state. Rumata, trying to find his way, slowly walked through corridor after corridor, descending lower and lower. Things were calmer in the lower floors. Here, judging by the conversations, the graduates of the Patriotic School were taking their examinations. Half-naked, broad-chested young oafs in leather aprons were standing in clusters by the doors of the torture chambers, flipping through their greasy instruction manuals, occasionally walking over to a large tank with a cup chained to it to drink some water. Horrible screams and sounds of blows were coming from the chambers, and there was a thick burning smell. And oh, the conversations, the conversations!

  “The bone-crusher has this screw-on top, and it broke. That my fault? He kicked me out. ‘You dumb lug,’ he says, ‘go get five lashes on your buttocks and come back.’”

  “We oughta find out who’s doing the flogging, maybe it’s one of us students. So you could arrange it in advance, collect five coins a head and pay ’em off.”

  “When there’s a lot of fat, no point in heating up the prong, it’ll cool off in the fat anyway. You should take the tweezers and tear a bit of lard off.”

  “So the Greaves of Our Lord are for the legs, they are wider and have spikes, and the Gloves of the Great Martyr, they have screws—that’s specifically for the hand, got it?”

  “Funny thing, brothers! I go inside and see—you know who’s in chains? Fika the Red, the butcher from our street, used to slap me around when drunk. You better watch out, I think, I’m gonna have some fun.”

  “Pekora the Lip hasn’t been back since the monks dragged him off this morning. And he didn’t come to the exam.”

  “Ugh, I shoulda used the meat grinder, but I stupidly bashed his sides with a crowbar, so, you know, I broke a rib. So Father Kin grabs my head and kicks me square in the tail-bone, and brothers, I gotta tell you—I saw stars, it hurt so bad. ‘What are you doing,’ he says, ‘spoiling my goods?’”

  Look, my friends, look, thought Rumata, slowly turning his head from side to side. This isn’t theory. This is something no one has ever seen. Watch, listen, videograph this … and appreciate and love your age, damn it, and bow to the memory of those who went through this! Take a good look at these mugs—young, dumb, indifferent, used to all sorts of brutality—and don’t turn up your noses at it, either. Your own ancestors were no better.

  They saw him. Two dozen eyes who’d seen it all stared at him.

  “Hey, there’s a don. His Lordship’s so white.”

  “Heh … Everyone knows nobles ain’t used to it.”

  “You’re supposed to give water in these cases, I hear, but the cup’s chain is too short—we couldn’t reach him.”

  “No need, the don will come around.”

  “I hope I get that kind … With that kind, you ask them a question and they answer it.”

  “Quiet, brothers, before His Lordship starts slashing at us. Look at all those rings … and the paper.”

  “See how he’s staring at us. Let’s get out of harm’s way, brothers.”

  They moved away together, retreating to the shadows, their cautious spider eyes gleaming at him from the gloom. That’s enough of that, thought Rumata. He was about to grab some passing monk by the cassock, but then he noticed three of them at once, not scurrying around but doing their work. They were beating one of the tower’s torturers with sticks, probably for negligence.

  Rumata approached them. “In the name of the Lord,” he said quietly, clanking the rings.

  The monks lowered their sticks and took a good look. “In His name,” the tallest one said.

  “Now, Fathers,” Rumata said, “please take me to the floor attendant.”

  The monks exchanged glances. The torturer nimbly crawled away and hid behind the tank. “What do you need him for?” asked the tall monk.

  Rumata silently raised the paper to his face, held it there for a bit, and lowered it.

  “Aha,” the monk said. “So right now I’m the floor attendant.”

  “Excellent,” said Rumata. He rolled the paper into a tube. “I’m Don Rumata. His Grace has given me Doctor Budach. Go and fetch him.”

  The monk stuck his hand under his hood and loudly scratched himself. “Budach?” he said meditatively. “Which one’s Budach? The child molester?”

  “Nah,” another monk said. “The child molester—that’s Rudach. He was already released last night. Father Kin unchained him himself and took him out. And I—”

  “Nonsense, nonsense!” Rumata said impatiently, slapping his hip with the paper. “Budach. The king’s poisoner.”

  “Ah,” the attendant said. “I know him. But he’s probably already been hanged. Brother Paca, go to twelve, take a look. Why, are you going to take him away?” he addressed Rumata.

  “Naturally,” said Rumata. “He’s mine.”

  “Then hand that paper over. The paper’s for the file.”

  Rumata gave him the paper.

  The attendant turned it over in his hands, inspected the seals, and then said in admiration: “They sure can write! Don, you stand aside for a bit, we have work to do. Hey, where did he go?”

  The monks started to look around, searching for the delinquent torturer. Rumata moved away. They dragged the torturer out from behind the tank, laid him down on the floor once again, and started giving him a businesslike thrashing, not being excessively cruel. Five minutes later, the dispatched monk appeared from beyond the turn, dragging a thin, completely gray-haired old man wearing dark clothes on a rope behind him.

  “Here he is, your Budach!” he shouted happily from a distance. “Not hanged at all, Budach’s alive, he’s healthy! A bit weak, though, must have been sitting hungry for a while, I guess.”

  Rumata stepped toward them, tore the rope from the monk’s hands, and took the noose off the old man’s neck. “You’re Budach of Irukan?” he asked.

  “I am,” the old man said, looki
ng at him from beneath his brows.

  “I’m Rumata; follow me and stay close.” Rumata turned toward the monks. “In the name of the Lord,” he said.

  The attendant straightened his back and, lowering his stick, answered, a little out of breath, “In His name.”

  Rumata looked at Budach and saw that the old man was holding on to the wall and could hardly stand. “I don’t feel well,” he said with a sickly smile. “I apologize, noble don.”

  Rumata took him by the arm and led him away. When the monks were out of sight, he stopped, took a sporamin pill from the vial, and handed it to Budach. Budach looked at it quizzically. “Take it,” Rumata said, “You’ll immediately feel better.”

  Budach, still holding on to the wall, took the pill, examined it, sniffed it, raised his shaggy eyebrows, then carefully put it on his tongue and smacked his lips.

  “Swallow it, swallow it,” Rumata said with a smile.

  “Mm-m-m …” he said. “I had assumed that I knew everything about medicines.” He paused, noting his sensations. “Mmmm!” he said “Curious! The dried spleen of the boar Y? Although, no, the flavor isn’t putrid.”

  “Let’s go,” said Rumata.

  They walked along the corridor, went up the stairs, went down another corridor, and climbed another staircase. And then Rumata stopped in his tracks. A familiar deep roar was resounding through the prison arches. Somewhere in the bowels of the prison, bellowing at the top of his lungs, spouting monstrous curses, raging against God, the saints, hell, the Holy Order, Don Reba, and who knows what else, was the friend of his heart Baron Pampa don Bau de Suruga de Gutta de Arkanar. The baron got caught after all, thought Rumata with remorse. I had completely forgotten about him. And he wouldn’t have forgotten about me.

  Rumata hurriedly took two bracelets off his hand, put them on Doctor Budach’s thin wrists, and said, “Go up, but don’t go through the gates. Wait off to the side somewhere. If someone bothers you, show them the bracelets and act impudent.”

  Baron Pampa roared like a nuclear ship in the polar fog. The echo resounded through the arches. The people in the hallways froze, reverently listening with mouths open. Many of them were making circular motions with their thumbs, warding off the devil. Rumata rushed down two staircases, knocking the monks going the other way off their feet, laid himself a path through the crowd of graduates with his scabbards, and kicked open the door of the chamber, which was warping from the baron’s roars. In the flickering torchlight he saw his friend Pampa: the mighty baron had been chained to a cross, naked and upside down. His face had darkened from the blood flow. A stooped official sat behind a crooked table, covering his ears, and the torturer, glossy with sweat and somehow resembling a dentist, was sorting through clanking instruments in an iron basin.

  Rumata gently closed the door behind him, walked up to the torturer from behind, and hit him on the back of the head with the hilt of his sword. The torturer turned around, wrapped his arms around his head, and sat down in the basin. Rumata pulled his sword from its scabbard and struck the paper-covered table at which the official was sitting, cutting it in half. Everything was now in order. The torturer was sitting in the basin, hiccuping softly, and the official had very nimbly crawled away into the corner and lay down there. Rumata came up to the baron, who had been looking at him upside down with cheerful curiosity, grabbed the chains that held the baron’s feet, and ripped them out of the wall with two jerks. Then he carefully put the baron’s feet on the floor. The baron went silent, froze in the strange position, then gave a hard tug and freed his hands.

  “Is it possible,” he thundered again, rotating his bloodshot eyes, “that it’s you, my noble friend? At last I’ve found you!”

  “Yes, it’s me,” Rumata said. “Let’s go, my friend, this is no place for you.”

  “Beer!” said the baron. “There was beer somewhere around here.” He walked around the chamber, dragging the broken links of his chains and continuing to rumble. “I’ve been running around town for half the night! Goddamn it, I was told that you were arrested, and I beat up a ton of people! I was certain that I’d find you in this prison! Ah, there it is!”

  He walked over to the torturer and flicked him off like dust, along with the basin. There turned out to be a barrel beneath the basin. The baron knocked the top out with his fist, lifted the barrel, and turned it upside down over himself, throwing his head back. The stream of beer rushed toward his throat with a gurgle. How lovely, thought Rumata, looking tenderly at the baron. You’d think this is an ox, a brainless ox, but he was looking for me, wanted to save me—he probably came to this prison to find me, by himself. No, there are people in this world, let it be damned … But how well things turned out!

  Baron Pampa drained the barrel and hurled it into the corner, where the official was shaking noisily. A squeak came from that direction.

  “There we go,” the baron said, wiping his beard with his hand. “Now I’m ready to follow you. Is it all right that I’m naked?”

  Rumata looked around, walked over to the torturer, and shook him out of his apron. “Take this for now,” he said.

  “You’re right,” the baron said, tying the apron around his loins. “It would be awkward to come to the baroness naked.”

  They came out of the chamber. Not a single person dared get in their way—the corridor kept emptying out for twenty paces in front of them.

  “I’ll destroy them all!” the baron roared. “They occupied my castle! And they stuck some Father Arima there! I don’t know whose father he is, but I swear by God, his children will soon be orphans. Damn it, my friend, don’t you find that they have amazingly low ceilings? My head is all scratched up.”

  They came out of the tower. The spy-bodyguard flashed in front their eyes and ducked back into the crowd. Rumata gave Budach the sign to follow him. The crowd by the gates parted as if split by a sword. You could hear some people shouting that an important state criminal had escaped, and others that “here he is, the Naked Devil, the famous Estorian torturer and mutilator.”

  The baron went out onto the middle of the square and stopped, squinting from the sunlight. They had to hurry. Rumata quickly looked around.

  “My horse was around here somewhere,” the baron said. “Hey, you there! A horse!”

  There was a commotion at the hitching post where the Order’s horses were tied up.

  “Not that one!” barked the baron. “The other one—the dapple gray!”

  “In the name of the Lord!” Rumata called out belatedly. He started pulling the sling with his right sword over his head.

  A scared little monk in a soiled cassock brought the baron the horse.

  “Give him something, Don Rumata,” the baron said, climbing heavily into the saddle.

  There were shouts of “Stop, stop!” by the tower. Monks were running across the square, brandishing clubs. Rumata thrust his sword at the baron.

  “Hurry up, Baron,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Pampa. “I must hurry. This Arima will plunder my cellar. I’m waiting for you tomorrow or the day after, my friend. What should I convey to the baroness?”

  “Kiss her hand for me,” Rumata said. The monks were already very close. “Faster, faster, Baron!”

  “But you are safe?” the baron asked anxiously.

  “Yes, damn it, yes! Onward!”

  The baron urged his horse into a gallop, aiming right at the crowd of monks. Someone fell down and rolled, someone squealed, there was a cloud of dust and a clatter of hooves on the flagstones—and the baron was gone. Rumata was looking into the alley where some passersby who had been knocked off their feet were sitting, dazedly shaking their heads, when an insinuating voice said in his ear, “My noble don, don’t you think that you’re allowing yourself too much?”

  Rumata turned around. Don Reba, smiling somewhat tensely, was looking narrowly at him.

  “Too much?” Rumata repeated. “I don’t know the meaning of these words—‘too much.’” He suddenly re
membered Don Sera. “And anyway, I see no reason why one noble don can’t help another one in trouble.”

  Riders with their pikes at the ready galloped past them heavily—in pursuit. Something changed in Don Reba’s face. “All right,” he said. “Let’s not talk about that … Oh, I see the highly learned Doctor Budach is here. You look wonderful, Doctor. I’m going to have to inspect my prison. State criminals, even ones who have been released, shouldn’t walk out of prison—they should be carried out.”

  Doctor Budach lunged at Don Reba, as if blinded by hatred. Rumata quickly stood between them. “By the way, Don Reba,” he said, “what’s your opinion of Father Arima?”

  “Father Arima?” Don Reba raised his eyebrows high. “An excellent soldier. Occupies a prominent position in my diocese. Why, what about him?”

  “As a loyal servant of Your Grace,” Rumata said with an acute malicious joy, bowing, “I hasten to inform you that you should consider this prominent position vacant.”

  “But why?”

  Rumata looked into the alley, where the yellow dust hadn’t yet dissipated. Don Reba also looked in that direction. A worried expression appeared on his face.

  It was long after midday when Kira invited her noble lord and his highly learned friend to the table. Doctor Budach, after bathing, changing into clean clothes, and carefully shaving, looked very impressive. His movements turned out to be slow and dignified; his intelligent gray eyes peered out benevolently and even indulgently. First of all, he apologized to Rumata about his outburst at the square. “But you have to understand,” he said. “This is a terrible man. A werewolf who only came into this world by an oversight of God. I’m a doctor, but I’m not ashamed to admit that if I had the chance I would have gladly put him to death. I have heard that the king was poisoned. And now I understand what he was poisoned with.” Rumata pricked up his ears. “This Reba showed up in my chamber and demanded that I make up a poison for him that worked in the course of a few hours. Naturally, I refused. He threatened me with torture—I laughed in his face. Then the villain called to the torturers, and they brought in a dozen boys and girls no older than ten years of age from the street. He lined them up in front of me, opened my potion bag, and declared that he would try all the potions on those children in a row until he found the right one. That’s how the king was poisoned, Don Rumata.”