All this went on for an hour or more, and was very boring to listen to, until one of these fellows, who thought himself very witty, said, “Let us give Yreth a turn. We shall see how his compliments compare to ours.”
I put my sketches down and said, “I do not wish to play your game.”
Then the queen said, “Why is that, then? Do you have nothing good to say about me?”
I replied, “Queen, if I were to bestow a compliment upon you, you may be sure it would be a hundred times better than anything these champions of yours have to offer. That is because my compliments are truthful, and come from the heart, unlike these casual lies you are used to hearing.”
In saying this, I meant to show her how foolish her game was, but instead, my words had just the opposite effect, for they made her determined to hear what kind of excellent compliment I would give her. At first, I declined to give a compliment, but she kept on and on at me about it, until at last I said, “Very well, I shall give you the praise you ask for. It will be in the form of a poem, and I will present it to you one week from now.”
She was delighted at this and said she would look forward to hearing my poem. She said, moreover, that she would invite many others to the event, for she wished them all to hear praise from the lips of a master.
I was glad I had given myself a full week before I presented the poem, for it took me all that time to write it. As I had promised, I made my words beautifully honest, for there are no words more flattering than honest ones. It was hard, though, for I knew I must blend compliments with loving criticism, gentle correction, and moral guidance. Her commanders might describe her to be a better person than she was, but I must outdo them and truly make her so.
It was a beautiful poem, and I put so much passion into it that I would often weep as I put pen to paper.
When the day arrived, I went to the throne room. A great evening feast had been set out on highboards, and all manner of people were talking and eating and walking about. There must have been at least three hundred people there, not only champions and commanders this time, but also many nobles too, and priests, and important merchants.
When I entered the hall, a great cheer went up, and people shouted, “Behold! The great poet is here!” Then the queen asked me if I was ready with my poem. I said that I was, and the whole place fell quiet as they listened to me read it to her.
I had titled the poem “A Very True Praise Indeed” and I remember the words to this day. They went as follows:
Now, flattery’s an ugly thing,
when taken to excess
For words that strive to move the heart
oft smack of hollowness.
But plain and simple, honest words,
undecorated by
The artful poet’s flow’ry verse,
his sweetly worded lie,
Bestow, without such gushing praise,
a greater compliment,
And, coming from a truthful heart,
are the more permanent.
And so, I ask you, hear me now,
as, in this noble cause,
I itemize, with candour, both
your virtues and your flaws.
To start: your head, the organ most
deserving reverence,
The seat, in man, of Reason, and,
in woman, of Good Sense,
Seems adequately gifted with
the faculties of thought,
And certainly you would be wise,
if you had just been taught.
Your lusty ways spring merely from
a wilful female pride—
And what young girl is not this way,
before she is a bride?
In time you’ll learn to serve a caring
husband as you should.
You’ll learn that tending hearth and home
is, for a woman, good.
Your ways could bear improvement: you
are arrogant and vain;
You often giggle, fuss, and nag,
and whimper, and complain.
Your behaviour in public lacks
propriety and grace,
Yet your visage remains cheerful—and
this brings me to your face.
Your cheeks are adequately fair,
and lack both scars and warts.
Your nose, while large, is sensitive
to odours of all sorts.
The set of teeth behind your smile
will stand you in good stead,
Remaining white and straight until
long after you are dead.
Your eyes are two in number, which
is as it ought to be.
Your hair is fixed upon your head—
a fact that pleases me.
Your neck is tough and sturdy, while
your arms are sleek and long.
Continued exercise will keep
them muscular and strong.
Your thighs greet every groping hand—
at least that is the talk.
Your legs are straight, and I would say
they aid you when you walk.
In short, I find that all your parts—
your ears, your feet, your hands—
Meet or exceed the standards that
a gentleman demands.
So, having meditated for
considerable time
Upon your pros and cons, which I
have stated here in rhyme,
I come to the conclusion, after
thinking matters through,
That I will give, without a qualm,
my best regards to you.
Then I bowed to her and said, “My very best regards to you, my queen—for being my queen, you deserve nothing less, whatever your faults.”
The queen, of course, had become accustomed to hearing false praise, and the impact of my truthful words moved her deeply, for her face was flushed like a shy maiden. She stared at me a few seconds, then at the great assembly who sat in tense expectation of her comments. But she had no comments. She was so moved by the simple beauty of my poem that she merely rose and left the room without a word. Neither need she have said a word, for the poem was a spiritual message which said more than any common words could express, and, when such messages are presented, no further word is necessary.
After she was gone, some of those young bucks were angry at me, thinking the queen was upset. They shouted insults at me, telling me how my poem lacked in sensitivity, and was, furthermore, deficient in praise. But the truth of the matter was that these men saw how much better my poem was than any of theirs, and they were envious of my skill.
The throne room is not a place for fights, so I ignored their rude invectives and left the place, with my throwing-razor in my hand to discourage attacks upon me.
I could quite easily have killed them all, if I had wanted to, but there is little pleasure in snuffing out such young lives, and I knew it was their youthful folly that made them so brash.
In any case, that is how I raised myself higher in the queen’s estimation than any other man living. I imagined my actions had won me her permanent favour and lifelong admiration.
But the world is not so simple a place as that, my friend, and I soon found out that those who occupy such high and exalted ranks as mine are in constant danger from the ambition of those below them. I will tell of this next.
The Penultimate Section Of The Eleventh Part
In Which I Tell Of How The Actions Of Others Did Great Harm To My Standing
I spent the next day wandering the beautiful grounds of the fortress. In my head, I made plans to place a maze upon the lawn. It was to be a very remarkable maze, and so complex that a map would be required in order to negotiate it saf
ely. Further, remembering the lessons I had learned while building the luma, I thought of placing small biting animals at certain points in the maze, together with trapdoors, so those taking a wrong turn would quickly pay a painful price, thereby increasing the entertaining properties of the structure.
I did not see the queen that day, because I knew those accursed commanders would also be there with her in the throne room, and if they provoked me again, I would surely draw their blood this time.
In the evening, I drew a few preliminary sketches for the maze, then I kept company with my girls for a time, took a fine dinner in my room, and afterwards slept very soundly.
The next day it rained, so I remained indoors, working on my plans for the maze. I was so pleased with these that, in the evening, I found the Principal Secretary, who was a greasy young man by the name of Toteel, and said I would very much like to join the queen for a private dinner.
He said, in an indifferent tone, “I will see what I can do, but she is very busy and does not have the time for everyone who may wish to see her.”
At this, I said to Toteel, “Look here, I am a very close friend of the queen, and you had better watch how you treat me.”
He did not like this, and he left, saying he would speak to the queen on my behalf. I do not think he could have done so, for I received no invitation to dinner with the queen, but instead was forced to dine in my room. The food I received, moreover, was poor in flavour, and cold too, which put me in a foul temper.
The day after, I waited, but no invitation arrived. I sent another message to Toteel, but received no reply. On the fourth day, there was still no reply.
On the fifth day, I met Toteel in the corridors, and I gave him a severe dressing-down for withholding my messages from the queen. I said to him, “You are walking upon a very soft bog if you trifle with me. Now, give her my messages without delay, or it will be the worse for you.”
He said, “I have already given her every message, and it is none of my affair if she does not choose to answer them. I think she is angry with you.”
I said, “Oh, you envious, bitter youth! Why do you try such lies upon me, when I know the queen now holds me in higher regard than anyone else in the world? Go! Deliver my messages, and let us have no more of your courtier’s tricks, for I am well acquainted with the way things work in palaces, and if you give me such poor service, I will pay you the grotec you have earned, which is not a silver grotec, but another, very unusual kind.”
Then he said, “Oh really? And what kind of grotec is it that you will pay me?”
And I said, “This kind!” Then I punched him twice in the face and kicked him in his private parts with my versatile golden leg. You see, although he was much younger than I, he was scrawny and weak, whereas I was still powerful and strong.
He gasped for breath, saying, “You will rue the day you treated me so,” and took his leave.
I laughed at his threat, for he looked a sorry sight with his bloody nose and broken teeth. However, I should have taken other measures on the spot, because he was true to his word.
As for me, I decided I would pay a visit upon the throne room the next day and talk to the queen in person, and if those bellicose commanders provoked me again, I would give them the fight they deserved.
Later that evening, a strange thing happened. I was lying upon my bed, looking at the walls of my chamber. They were covered with a ten-brush pattern. And if you do not know what this is like, for it is out of fashion today and not often seen, a ten-brush is a fat brush, made of a great many small brushes which clip together. Each small brush is daubed with a different colour, so, when assembled, the ten-brush paints a rainbow effect, and, if the paint is wet enough, can produce strange swirls where the colours run together.
I was looking at the patterns on the wall to see what they might resemble. There was one part which looked much like a man’s head, but with long pointed hair. There was another which looked like a ladder with many people on it. And there was another that looked like a round, comical pig, although this was a hard one to find, because it would sometimes seem to disappear, even though I knew it was beneath the window, next to the hook. But surely I do not need to explain this game of mine, for it is a commonplace one, and I have seen children playing it as they looked at clouds or flames.
As I was looking, a strange and light-headed feeling came over me. Then, suddenly, my eye fell upon a pattern I had not seen before, and I pointed this out to one of my girls, saying, “Look at that pattern. It looks very much like a mouth.”
She said, “Where? I do not see a mouth.”
I said, “There, above where you saw the snail, and a little to the right of the winged bottle. And see, behind the mouth is a book that contains all the knowledge of the world.”
But even though I described the location of the pattern in the most accurate way, she was unable to see it.
At once, I realized God was speaking to me through these patterns. The mouth was His mouth, and the book was His wisdom, and He obviously wanted to tell me something important.
I studied the wall some more, and I saw a part which looked like a hill with a group of trees on top of it. After some thinking, I realized the meaning of this: that I must leave this fortress, and take a journey across the country.
Then I noticed a pattern which resembled a man clutching a shovel with a very large blade, although the girls thought it was like an old woman pulling bread from an oven, which I too could see. The man, I knew, represented hard work, and the meaning of it was that, after my journey, I would set upon some great task of building, greater even than the one I had already been given. And the image of the old woman indicated I would earn so much money from this work that my previous wealth would seem like a widow’s savings.
I thought, “What kind of wonderful task can this be? I have already been entrusted with the rebuilding of one-third of this great domain. Can it be that all of Cyprus’s great empire will soon be mine to sculpt? Truly, there seems to be no other explanation, as incredible as it seems.”
Now, perhaps you will think my conclusion sounds far-fetched, for, you will say to yourself, “This man Yreth, while clearly very wise in all things, and skilled in both building and battle, is no trained augur. How, then, can he speak with such certainty upon the matter?”
However, the mother of one of my girls, who also worked in the fortress as a maid, was widely renowned as a great seer, and an augur too, and she was so talented that she charged five arrans for a single hour of private advice and prophecy. When I consulted her, she said my interpretation of the divine message was exactly correct in every detail. Moreover, she said I had hidden abilities as a seer myself, and I should always follow my visions in any difficult matter. And I knew she was correct in saying this, too, for there have been very many times when I have had troubles of various kinds, and often the answer would come to me in the form of some obscure vision, or some supernatural event.
I said to myself, “I will leave this palace soon, then, to set out on my profitable journey. Perhaps in another month.”
The next day, I went into Ithron to buy some fine new clothes before I paid my call upon the queen. I found a very fine cloak with jewels upon it, but the tailor had heard I was wealthy and insisted on receiving a hundred arrans for it, whereas I was carrying only eighty. This, incidentally, is one of the problems of being very rich: all the best merchants will inflate their prices by ten or twenty times.
I was not in the mood to haggle that day, so I went back to the palace to get some more money from the Earl of Tarphonay. I had got no further than the gates, however, when I was stopped by the guards. They said, now I had left the palace, I was not permitted to return.
I called for the gate commander, who eventually came, and I said to him, “What is the meaning of this? In the past I have always gone freely back and forth through these gates.”
&nb
sp; He said, “That was the past, and it is so called because it has passed by. I have new orders now.”
I said, “Oh yes? And who gave you those orders?”
He said, “That is none of your concern.”
I said, “No, but it will soon be your concern, and the concern of the Principal Secretary too, for men are apt to become very concerned when they are being tortured to death for the crime of treason.”
I knew, you see, that the Principal Secretary, Toteel, was behind this, because he was responsible for the important messages that went to and fro within the fortress, including to the guards.
The gate commander said then, “There is no use discussing it, for I will not let you pass. If you wish, though, you may write a letter to the queen, and I will take it for you.”
I said, “No, for I know all too well where such a letter will end up.” (Which is to say, on the Principal Secretary’s desk, where he might mock it, and, when he was done mocking, place it in his fireplace.) Then I said, “But please send a message to the Principal Secretary from me. Tell him I am leaving Ithron for a secret destination. There I will forge a great hammer, and, in a few weeks, that hammer will fall upon his head.”
Then, after buying some food for my journey, together with some cheap leggings to hide my golden leg from thieves, I left the city of Ithron and took the road to Beacon to begin some of my building work.
The journey took about a week. Along the way, I did indeed meet a group of thieves, who robbed me of the money I was carrying, which was about eighty arrans, together with some fine jewels I was wearing, worth more than five hundred arrans. Because I had covered up my golden leg, though, they did not steal it. I also met an angry stag, but I stood my ground against his fierce horns, throwing rocks at him until he wandered off.
When I reached Beacon, I was welcomed by the earl there, whose name was Elliel, and I was made an honoured guest.
We talked once more of the many plans I had made, and the earl expressed his enthusiasm for my project, saying he could barely wait for the work to begin, and was very honoured that the Queen’s Own Builder would come personally to oversee the work, to which I responded that I would start the detailed plans without delay.
The Ultimate Stonemage: A Modest Autobiography Page 39
