The Harp and the Blade

by John Myers Myers

  Who then walked off with no trace of a jag on?

  We know—wahoo!—

  but

  we

  won’t

  tell.”

  Everybody was already in a good humor, and our own very ripe good humor but served to heighten the general tendency. They whooped, and we saluted them while taking stock of the seating arrangements. Our two empty seats were in the middle of one side of the family table, of course; and Ann had thoughtfully arranged for Fulke to sit next to us in his earned place as one of the honored. Beyond him were Jean and his wife, while Rainault and his were next to where I would sit. Ann and Marie were beyond them again at one end of the board. Raymond was not there, having evidently elected to sleep.

  It was customary to keep the side toward the generality in the hall open, but there were unusual and unbalanced features of the placing. “You are not sitting next to me, my little dove,” Conan called out deeply.

  “I am not, my hero,” Ann called back with serene firmness. “I have no intention of having my ears deafened and my ribs bruised when you start showing how you and Finnian massacred armies.”

  Conan laughed. “My wise woman!” he praised her as we finally advanced to seat ourselves. “You know, I think we’ve come to the right place, brother. They have wine here.”

  “Providential,” I pronounced. “Shall we have a toast?”

  “Naturally. I suppose you have sense enough to know whom we’re going to toast first?”

  I caught Marie’s amused eye on us and winked. “Fill the cups,” I challenged, “and I’ll prove that I know.”

  Conan handed mine to me, and we rose. “We’ll drink now,” he began loudly, and as he spoke everyone in the hall started to lift his wine. Fulke was imitating the others, but I reached over and spilled his to the floor.“To the man who brought the horses to the men who needed them!” my friend went on. “Were it not for him we’d be feeding crows instead of drinking with you all tonight. To Fulke!” And we two, at least, drained our cups to him. Others might not give him justice, but we appreciated to the full the special courage and coolness required for waiting, inactive, for the right moment. When every sort of devilment is breaking loose within sight and hearing, it’s harder to stay still than to act.

  Fulke was stunned and embarrassed, which was as it should have been. A cocky youngster is as unpleasantly hard to overlook as a neighboring goat on a damp night. Conan picked up the lad’s cup, filled it and thrust it before him. “You can drink this next one,” he smiled.

  Still red, Fulke looked up. “Father Clovis?”

  “None other,” I assured him, “and we’ll throw the Abbot into the cup for good measure.”

  After Jean, his good-natured face laughing with wine, had toasted the chief and Rainault had called for a drink to me, we sat down to eat. I understand it was a particularly good meal and that I ate like a starving bear, but I have no recollection of that. All I can remember is that Conan or I would stop every now and then and loudly propose to the other some new thing to drink to. The only one I can bring back was dedicated to the life-long sacrifice the capon had made for us.

  While we were getting our second wind after the feast, Fulke sang for us. He had a pleasant voice and played well, though the viol has but flimsy tones if a man is used to the power and sweep of the harp. As I listened dreamily, I looked around, liking what I saw and counting it my own. No idea could have startled me just then, but actually a startling thing had taken place in my life. I was thinking of this place as my home and of these people as my clansmen.

  And why not? It was a fine thing to see them, young people and old, hearty and happy at the feast, snug in their fortress. And each of them would always have a smile or a good word for me. They already looked on me as a leader; only my acceptance of the status was needed to make it official. As for those at the table with me, it was not likely that I would ever again find so many I liked as well.

  I looked them over, finishing with Marie. The insidious thing about conceiving the idea of marrying a particularly pretty girl is that the more a man thinks about it the more reasonable it seems. A little pulse of passion stirred in me as she caught my glance, smiled, and resumed talking to Ann. No, there didn’t seem to be any sense in going anywhere else, now that I rationally considered. The Lord could attest that I’d done all the traveling, and more, that I’d ever benefit by.

  A bard didn’t have to keep moving except in pursuit of new audiences, and as a landed man I wouldn’t have to scratch for such a catch-as-catch-can living. That would be a fine thing, too, for instead of using good effort to turn out a lot of popular nonsense I could give my time to writing something I could be proud of, maybe. And the matter of a livelihood aside, I could get more done if I didn’t have to be always on the go. Take Virgil and Horace: they stayed on the premises and got things accomplished. I nodded a head full of vague plans for master works.

  Fulke had finished another piece and was being called on for more. I looked at his instrument enviously, wondering where and how I was going to obtain another harp. I could make the frame and string one myself, but where I’d get the proper stringing was something else again. Possibly, I thought hopefully, Fulke himself had the craft of preparing the gut.

  When he begged off to rest awhile, the women cleared away the dishes and left us with the wine. In token that we were resuming our obligations I filled Conan’s cup and my own. “You know,” I said, my face aglow with the sudden inspiration, “there’s someone to whom we owe attention that we haven’t fixed up this evening.”

  He eyed me with interest. “Who could that be?”

  “The lad we both love—Chilbert!”

  “Right, by God!” Conan brought his big fist down on the table with a bang. I caught up my cup in time, but he slopped the others and flipped Rainault’s neatly into his lap. Everybody but the latter was delighted, and he was appeased as soon as his cup was filled again. “Now about Chilbert,” Conan said in a businesslike voice.

  After a weighty discussion of forms and styles we decided on something approximating the Irish satire/With this to go on we set to work, gravely weighing the abusive values of words and metaphors until we’d hit upon our theme. Then with Conan supplying hints and occasional epithets, I set to the making. By dipping a finger in wine I was able to keep track of the rhymes and key words.

  Loud talking and louder laughter were incessant in the room. But we had attained that hushed clarity which attends the later stages of a careful wine drunk. Other beverages do not grant this Indian summer of the brain, and our fellows might not have been sharing its charm; but we were fully endowed. We worked with unperturbed concentration, pausing only to pour and drink. Finally, after mumbling it over together a couple of times, we shouted for attention and gave it to the world at the top of our voices.

  “Had I been a bunion or a fiend’s hang nail,

  A louse on a viper, or an eel gone stale,’

  I’d have hated to be slated To doff my breeches.

  Fated to be mated

  To the bitch of bitches,

  The whore Who bore

  In her festering belly

  The crawling corruption, murderously smelly

  As the oldest member of an ancient eggery,

  Ranker than Judas, Ganelon, or Gregory—

  That thing called Chilbert, fish-scaled and verminous,

  His face the spit and image of his terminus;

  His sum a belch fathered by thin, sour wine,

  A participle dangling on a vile bard’s line,

  A tick and a leech and the sweat of a craven

  Fused to a cheese in the crop of a raven,

  A walking hare tip, a dung heap slug,

  A pustule on the rump of an idiot bug!

  Here’s to you, Chilbert, may the Devil’s tail spike you!

  May you marry a ferret and have children just like you!

  It was an immense success. The men were riotous with laughter and demanded repeti
tions we were nothing loth to give. After each every man present would toast Chilbert with solemn ceremony. He should have been there.

  But by the time we got tired of that we were merely started with song. It didn’t matter whether or not anybody else joined in or even listened. We sang in French first, then switched to chanting Latin poems, Irish ballads and Danish lays.

  Then the good talk began. And here, too, one language was not enough for the largeness of our minds. We exchanged viking experiences in Danish, talked of school life in Gaelic, and mooted points of scholarship in Latin. We told jokes, both those of the flesh and those of the spirit; we reconstructed philosophies and smashed them with a quip; we drank to heroes, retold the lives of saints in a way that seemed unbelievably funny at the time, though the bawdy details now elude me, wrangled over poets, and wondered at the terrific intellect of the man who’d invented wine.

  We were having a marvelous time, but the others must have got tired of us. Most of them, mindful of the day of drudgery to follow, had left in a body fairly early. At what time we were deserted by Jean and Rainault I can’t say. I remember that we were intimately alone, and that the fact wasn’t of sufficient interest to make us comment.

  Yet at a certain point, a few cupfuls left in the last flagon notwithstanding, we looked at each other thoughtfully. “We have had about enough,” Conan spoke for both of us. “There’s no use in overindulging ourselves.”

  I was shocked at the idea. “Certainly not!”

  He rose with immense dignity and nearly tripped over something. Looking down to see what his foot had caught on, we saw Fulke, prone and sleeping with quiet soundness. The lad must have felt it was his duty to try to keep up with us.

  Conan stroked his chin broodingly. “What do you think can be the matter with him?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered worriedly. “He must be sick or something.”

  “You’d better take a look at him.”

  I rolled Fulke over, which was a mistake, for he immediately began to snore. Rolling him quickly back on to his stomach, I stood up, shaking my head. “Why, he’s been drinking, Conan!”

  “No!”

  “You don’t think I’d say a thing like that about anybody unless it was so, do you?”

  “That’s true. What do you think the world’s coming to, anyhow?”

  “No good, I’ll bet,” I said darkly.

  “That’s my own suspicion. And to think such things can happen in my house—my house!”

  “He’s only a youngster, too.”

  “Hardly more than a boy.” Conan’s face was now stern. “Well, let’s put him away now. We can lecture him in the morning.”

  That was the end of that great night. Grinning at him affectionately, we picked Fulke up and went happily to bed.

  We were a little subdued the next morning but had no regrets, realizing that a man cannot always walk the world as a giant. Conan spent the morning surveying the progress of the harvest, while I looked around for a suitable piece of seasoned timber to use for a harp frame. Finding one that would serve, although not of the best wood, I set to work. Albeit not an expert, I could fashion one that would do until I could secure one made by a master.

  Later Raymond, still wan but looking much better for the good rest he’d had, found me and conversed awhile. He proved to be an intelligent, likable youth, and I made up my mind that I had done Conan a good turn by taking him into the household. He on his side was well pleased with everything.

  “This is a fine place,” he stated, and I could see that he was already considering it possessively.

  I was rough-hewing my timber down to workable dimensions and didn’t look up. “You won’t find a better one,” I said with conviction.

  “I know that,” he said confidently, “because you brought me here.”

  My head jerked up at that and I stared at him, speechless.

  “You’re my luck,” he informed me with cool assurance. “I had bad luck before I met you. I had a chief I couldn’t like much and who ran things ill. Matters kept on getting worse, and the Dane raid just killed the place before it died. I nearly died myself, but I didn’t because of you. Then I didn’t have any particular place to go until I heard that Conan was a friend of yours. He turns out to be a real chief and a friend to follow—I’ve found out how his men feel—and his place is strong and living, with good people in it. And because of you I have a chance to show I deserve a place with the leaders. I’ll keep that place because I’ll work and fight well, and good service in a friend of yours will be rewarded.”

  I was a little nonplused, and he noticed that. He smiled a little. “You see, I’m really your man; maybe the first you’ve ever had.”

  This was true but none of anybody’s business in view of my new aspirations. “What makes you say that?” I growled.

  “Marie told me about you. She says you don’t want either to follow or lead Only a woman would know that about a man on the basis of no evidence at all. Still it was pleasant to know I was one of her topics of conversation. “H-m-m,” I said noncommittally, mentally promising myself that she would see that I could run a house and rule those in it as well as the next man. I returned to my hacking, making a good resolution with every chip.

  “Conan’s chief over everybody but you,” he pursued, “but I’ll follow him only if you have no present need of me yourself.”

  He was not without humor, but he had a dominant and direct purposefulness that, seeing myself one of its stepping stones, I found embarrassing. I straightened up again and looked him in the eye.

  “I may want you later,” I said, dimly envisioning a fort and hall of my own where this young fellow might have an. honored post, “but you came here looking for a niche for yourself, and the place isn’t mine. If Conan accepted you as my guest, that only holds good while you are convalescent. Once you are well enough to hold up your end there’s only one man you can work for here. That’s Conan. If ever I have an establishment of my own and positions to offer, it will be because I ask, and he grants, a favor.”

  He nodded cheerfully when I’d finished. “It doesn’t matter from which of you I take orders. For once I know that I’m in a place where I have a chance to get somewhere. You’re my luck, and whatever you advise will be good for me.”

  With some moodiness I looked after him. Every canon I had for judging character told me he was the sort of man you’d want around when the going got rough. But though I had an instinctive admiration for him I could not feel the warmth I’d experienced toward many another man. There was nothing wrong with his avowed lust for getting on in the world, yet I couldn’t see why he had to talk about it. If it happened, well and good, but if it didn’t, why, there are plenty of men, no less grand for being landless, to split a bottle with.

  Conan would be a power because his natural efficiency set him to coping with conditions that angered him. He, however, took his abilities for granted and never palavered about them or the success they achieved. But I wasn’t being fair to the youngster in holding him up against Conan. Not many had the latter’s faculty for living in most good corners of life.

  There was a clattering on the bridge, and I looked across the court to see the man himself enter the gates. He had dismounted and was walking toward me when a guard on the wall halted him. “There’s a rider coming,” the fellow called down. “He’s in a hurry, too.”

  Chapter

  Eighteen

  CONAN stood undecided a moment, then went up on the wall to see for himself. These were days when a rider might well be bringing a message that would radically change the state of things. I went on with my work until I heard somebody yell: “No, there are two of them!” Then curiosity sent me up on the wall also, where I shouldered my way to stand beside Conan.

  He nodded to me, and we silently watched them draw near, pushing tired horses hard. After a little my friend whistled and slapped his thigh. “It’s the Abbot, by Jesus! Take a good look, Finnian.”

  I shaded
my eyes. The rain the day before had laid the dust, so the still distant figures could be seen clearly enough in general outline. They were churchmen, all right, and one of them didn’t look like an ordinary monk. “It might be the Abbot,” I said cautiously.

  He snapped his fingers, more excited than I had ever seen him. “Man! I hope it is!” he said with a fervor I understood. He’d been trying to win the Abbot as ally for a year now. If the prelate was coming to visit him it might mean that he had at last decided to seal the entente.

  The Abbot was big news, and the possibility that he was arriving took everybody from work. Jabbering speculations, they swarmed up to point and stare. One child, with a boy’s genius for such things, fell off the wall into the moat. Even the Abbot couldn’t compete with that, and the laughter while the brat was being fished out served to lighten the waiting.

  Conan’s attention had not been diverted, however. “It’s he, all right,” he said, quiet and contained now that he was sure. “Everybody off the wall except the guards,” he ordered. “And when he comes don’t crowd around him as if he were a dog fight.” He touched my sleeve, and we descended to the court. “Send him to us in the hall,” he told the gate warden.

  It was nearly lunch time, but as the meal was to be served outdoors the hall was an empty place. Conan ordered wine which we sipped disinterestedly, in strange contrast to the night before. Most of the time he paced up and down while I tapped out tunes on the table with my fingers. Then we heard the horses coming over the bridge. Conan seated himself with a great show of nonchalance and turned his head with easy naturalness when the door opened. But it wasn’t for the Abbot. One of our own men entered.

  “The Abbot says he’d like for you to come outside first,” the man told Conan. “He says he has something he’d like to show us all.”

  That was a puzzler. Conan stuck out his lip, shrugged, and rose. Something strange, we saw at a glance, was undoubtedly in the air, and we approached the churchman watchfully, though with outward cordiality. The Abbot on his part was neither friendly nor inimical. He greeted us, but he was terse and hard-eyed.