Robert Adams - The Memories of Milo Morai

“And another thing. Once we’re sure that the men who rode into the so-called shrine-city and out again are gone for good, as they seem to be, since there’s no recent traces of them in the ruins, I am going to take a large hunting party into there and root out the she-bear and the two big cats we know of, as well as any other big, dangerous beasts we can find. That much done, we’re going to start doing what we should’ve done donkey’s years back—mining the ruins for metals and anything else still usable—whether you like it or not. Is everything clear now, Mosix? You and your sons and nephews have lost your power, your hold over our people.”

“Sacrilege!” hissed Mosix, in cold rage.

“Cowflop,” remarked Wahrn good-naturedly, as he drew his knife and severed another thick chunk of the roasted veal, then dipped himself up a mugful of barley ale from the broached cask. But ail things considered, Wahrn Mehrdok was not a brutal or a callous man, and there was a hint of gentleness in his voice as he spoke again, even a bare hint of sympathy for his old enemy, the priest.

“I’ve been called many things over the years, Mosix, by you and by others, but nobody has ever been able to truthfully call me an insensitive man. It’s gonna be hard on you and the younguns, at first, I knows that; none of you has ever put in a decent day’s work in all your life, nor your daddy and his, afore you.”

Mosix stiffened. “I have labored all of my life in the Vineyards of Our Lord . . . eeek!” He squeaked and would have flinched away, had not his right wrist been suddenly pinioned in the iron grasp of the captain’s horny left hand.

Laying down his hunk of veal on the scoured boards of the table, Wahrn easily opened Mosix’s clenched fist and rubbed the hand for a moment with his greasy fingers.

Grinning and shaking his head, the captain remarked, “Well, what ever kind of work you claim to do or have done, old man, it’s not the kind what the rest of us does, for your palm is ever bit as soft as my good wife’s bottom. But by this time next year, if you live that long, those hands of yours is gonna be near as tough nor mine.”

With his hand back, Mosix regained most of his poise and his cold hauteur, as well. “No matter what you claim as fact, Wahrn Mehrdok, I well know that the Council of the Guardians never will force any of us holy men to labor like common farmers in the fields. We all will just wait until the next council is convened and then . . .”

Wahrn nodded and laughed merrily. Still laughing, he fished a staghorn whistle from out of his pocket and blew a piercing blast on it, then twomore shorter ones. “It just so happens, Mosix, that the full council is waiting outside. I had me an idea that you’d want their word on this matter from them, personal, not brought to you by me. Do we convene right here or go over to the Council Chamber?”

The wave of Guardians burst through the door, bearing two priests before them like flotsam on the crest of a breaker. One of the shaken men made to apologize to the eldest priest for the failure to halt the intrusion, but was silenced after only a syllable or two by an impatient wave of Mosix’s hand.

When all of the council were packed into the room, standing about the dining table still bedecked with a barely begun meal, Wahrn said, “All right, boys, let’s have the vote again, where Mosix can hear it and know it’s our decision, not just mine alone.

“Are we all in agreement that Mosix and his ilk have battened off the hard labor of us and our daddies long enough? Are we all in agreement that it’s high time that they went to work themselves, if they want to eat, that is? Further, are we all in agreement that in the next few years, we means to concentrate on breeding up our herds, hunting wild meat and foraging for wild plants, slowly slacking off on real farming?”

Every Guardian raised his right hand to a chorus of “Yeah,” “Damn right, cap’n,” and the like.

The first sergeant stated, “It’s what our grand-daddies and theirs should oughta have done long years back, ’stead of swallerin’ all the swill churned out by Mosix’s kin for so long.”

“The Lord and His Holy Governor will most assuredly strike you dead for such sacrilegious blasphemies, Kahl Rehnee,” Mosix snarled warningly. “Best recant such words now, for the sake of your immortal soul.”

“That’s your final word on the matter, High Priest?” asked the first sergeant, in mock humility. When the priest stiffly nodded, Kahl laughed and said, “Well, in that case, I’ll just take my chances, if you don’t mind and . . . even if you do mind. The Lord Jesus we read about in those books you and your daddies kept locked away for so long just don’t sound like the kind as would come down on decent mens just on account of them bucking a passel of greedy, lazy, lying priests from off of their backs, nosirreebob, He don’t. He sounds for to be a all right kinda feller. Too damn bad you and yourn didn’t try to be more like the Lord over the years, Mosix. And as for the ‘Holy Governor,’ you’ve done knowed all along and we’alls just found out, it ain’t been one since the Great Dyings, no kinda one. You lied to us and to our daddies and theirn about that and about a whole heap of other things, too, damn you, and all just so you could live high on the hog without doing no work. You old louse, you, you should oughta just be grateful we didn’t all vote to feed you and your boys to the fuckin’ pigs ... if they’d’veet the kinda shit you’re made out of.”

He and the others would have said more, but their captain raised a hand and cut it off, saying, “You all got the rest of his life and past it to tell Mosix and his varmints what you thinks of him and them, but time’s a-wasting, right now. The old sun ain’t gonna wait for nothing to come up and start another day, whether you’ve got you enough sleep or not. What we gotta do here and now is parcel out six grown men and big boys who know less about real work nor a four-year-old kid.

“Here’s how we’ll do it: I, as captain, will get first pick of ’em. Kahl, as first sergeant, will get second pick. Denee, you and Sam’ll get third and fourth pick, then the rest of you can draw straws or roll dice or whatever to see who gets the last two.”

“But what about old Mosix, cap’n?” This from someone back in the group of men.

“We don’t want to kill him, for all he’s done and not done for so long, boys, and to put him into the fields at his age would be killing him as sure as running a sword through him would be, though neither as quick nor as merciful. No, I’ve thought on it and I think I’ve got the bestest slot for our esteemed high priest. He can work with Dreevuh’s boy at the sluice gates until he gets the hang of the job, then the boy can go back to farming work and Mosix can take over the sluices until the creek drops, then he can operate the bucket hoist. That’s the easiest job of real work I can think of, hereabouts.”

“Who’s gonna feed him and all, cap’n?” asked the first sergeant.

Wahrn shrugged. “He can keep living here, if he wants to, Kahl, for all I care. This place ain’t more than a mile from the place he’ll be working and he’s got at least one jackass, anyway, if he don’t wanta walk it. Then, too, he can use his evenings to keep the Council Chamber, over yonder, dusted and clean and all . . . for as long as we keep using it, that is. I’ve thought for some time now that we should hold council meetings in the armory, then we could use the chamber to store grain in.”

The two younger priests could only stand, stunned speechless by all that was being said. Old Mosix had opened his mouth to speak on several occasions, but, sensing the true, pure hostility pervading the room, had wisely held his peace, while his secure and comfortable inherited sinecure crumbled about him. He never had been any kind of real leader, rather had he used the authority to which he had been born, that authority come of religious power over the people; that he had used it despotically, harshly, cruelly, had in part occurred because he wanted for courage, himself, and feared and hated those folks possessed of it. And now, when a few strong words, delivered with power, might at least have ameliorated the situation, he had not the heart to voice them.