Arkady Strugatsky - Hard to Be a God

He didn’t have the chance to finish his thought. Someone was pounding on the door with a heartrending wail of “Open up! Guardsman, open up!” Rumata threw back the bolt. A half-dressed man, blue-gray from fear, burst in, grabbed Rumata by the lapels of his waistcoat, and shrieked, trembling: “Where’s the prince? Budach has poisoned the king! Irukanian spies have started a riot in the city! Save the prince!”

This was the Minister of the Court, a foolish and highly loyal man. Pushing Rumata away, he dashed into the prince’s bedroom. Women screeched. Sweaty, jowly storm troopers in gray shirts were already trying to get through the door. Rumata drew his swords. “Back off!” he said coldly.

He heard a short, muffled scream in the bedroom behind him. Something’s not right, thought Rumata. I don’t understand a thing. He jumped into a corner and barricaded himself in with a table. Storm troopers were filling the room, breathing hard. There were about fifteen of them. A lieutenant in a tight gray uniform pushed his way to the front, his blade drawn. “Don Rumata?” he said, out of breath. “You’re under arrest. Lay down your swords.”

Rumata gave a derisive laugh, glancing at the window. “Take them,” he said.

“Get him!” the officer barked.

Fifteen well-fed bumpkins with axes weren’t too much for a man who’d mastered methods of battle that would only become known on this planet three centuries in the future. The mob pressed forward and fell back. A number of axes remained on the floor; two storm troopers were doubled over and clambering into the back rows, carefully cradling their dislocated arms. Rumata had complete mastery of the fan defense, in which attackers are faced with a solid curtain of gleaming steel, and breaking through this curtain seems impossible. The storm troopers, huffing and puffing, exchanged uncertain glances. They gave off a sharp odor of beer and onions.

Rumata pushed the table away and carefully walked to the window along the wall. Someone in the back rows threw a knife but missed. Rumata laughed again, put a foot on the windowsill, and said, “Try it again, and I’ll start chopping hands off. You know me.”

They knew him. They knew him extremely well, and not one of them budged, despite the cursing and prodding of the officer, who nonetheless was also behaving very cautiously. Rumata stood on the windowsill, continuing to make threatening gestures with his sword, and at that very moment a spear came out of the dark yard and hit him in the back. It was a terrible blow. It didn’t pierce the metalstrom shirt, but it knocked him off the windowsill and threw him onto the floor. Rumata didn’t let go of his swords, but they were now completely useless. The entire herd was immediately on top of him. Together, they probably weighed more than a ton, but they got in each other’s way, and he managed to get to his feet. He slammed his fist into someone’s wet lips, someone screamed like a rabbit under his arm, he kept smashing and smashing them with his elbows, fists, and shoulders (he hadn’t felt this free in a long time), but he couldn’t shake them off. With great difficulty, dragging a pile of bodies behind him, he walked toward the door, bending down and tearing off storm troopers who clung to his legs along the way. Then he felt a painful blow to the shoulder and fell onto his back, the crushed storm troopers flailed beneath him, but he stood up again, delivering short strikes with full force, causing the storm troopers to smack heavily into the walls, waving their arms and legs. The twisted face of the lieutenant, who was holding his unloaded crossbow in front of him, was already flickering before his eyes, but then the door opened and some new sweaty faces clambered toward him. They threw a net on him, tightened the ropes on his legs, and toppled him.

He immediately stopped struggling, conserving his strength. They trampled him with boots for some time—intently, silently, grunting avidly. Then they grabbed him by the feet and dragged him. As he was being pulled past the bedroom door, he had time to see the Minister of the Court pinned to the wall with a spear, and a heap of bloodstained sheets on the bed. So it’s a coup! he thought. Poor boy… They started dragging him down the stairs, and then he lost consciousness.

He was lying on a grassy hillock and looking at the clouds drifting in the deep blue sky. He was calm and content, but a prickly, bony pain was sitting on an adjacent hillock. It was outside him and at the same time inside him, especially in his right side and the back of his head. Someone barked, “Did he croak or something? I’ll tear your heads off!” And then a mass of ice-cold water fell from the sky. He really was lying on his back and looking at the sky, except he wasn’t on a hillock but in a puddle, and the sky wasn’t blue but leaden and black, illuminated with red. “Nah,” said another voice. “His Lordship’s alive, blinking those peepers.” I’m the one who’s alive, he thought. They’re talking about me. I’m the one blinking my peepers. But why are they speaking funny? Have they forgotten how to talk like human beings?

Someone moved nearby and splashed heavily through the water. The black silhouette of a head wearing a pointed cap appeared in the sky. “Well, noble don, will you walk yourself or should we drag you?”

“Untie my legs,” Rumata said angrily, feeling a sharp pain in his swollen lips. He felt them with his tongue. Some lips, he thought. Pancakes instead of lips.

Someone fumbled at his feet, unceremoniously yanking them and moving them around. He heard low voices around him: “You got him good.”

“Had to, he almost took off… He must be charmed, arrows bounced off of him.”

“I knew a man you could take an ax to and it didn’t do nothing.”

“Musta been a peasant.”

“Uh-huh, he was.”

“That’s what did it. And this one’s noble-born.”

“Oh, stick a tail in it… Can’t do nothing with these damn knots. Some light here!”

“So use a knife.”

“Please, brothers, please, don’t untie him. He’ll start swiping at us again. He almost crushed my head as is.”

“Nah, betcha he won’t.”

“Brothers, do what you want, but I hit him real hard with that spear. I’ve pierced armor like that.”

An imperious voice shouted from the darkness: “Hey, you almost finished?”

Rumata felt that his legs were free, tensed his muscles, and sat up. A few squat storm troopers were silently watching him squirm in the puddle. Rumata gritted his teeth in shame and humiliation. He wriggled his shoulder blades; his hands were twisted behind his back, in such a way that he couldn’t even tell his elbows from his wrists. He mustered all his strength, jerked himself up to his feet, and was immediately twisted by the terrible pain in his side. The storm troopers laughed.

“Betcha he won’t run away,” said one.

“Yeah, His Lordship’s a bit tired, stick a tail in it.”

“Come on, Don, not enjoying yourself?”

“Enough prattle,” said the imperious voice from the darkness. “Come here, Don Rumata.”

Rumata walked toward the voice, feeling himself tottering from side to side. A little man with a torch appeared out of somewhere and went ahead of him. Rumata recognized this place: it was one of the countless interior courtyards of the Ministry of the Defense of the Crown, somewhere near the royal stables. He quickly realized, If they take me to the right, that means the tower, the dungeon. If they take me to the left, that means the office. He shook his head. It’s OK, he thought. While I’m alive, I can still fight.

They turned left. Not right away, thought Rumata. There will be a preliminary investigation. That’s strange. If it comes down to an investigation, what can they accuse me of? I guess that’s easy. Inviting the poisoner Budach, poisoning the king, plotting against the crown. Possibly murdering the prince. And, of course, spying for Irukan, Soan, the barbarians, the barons, the Holy Order, and so on, so forth. It’s simply astonishing that I’m still alive. The pale fungus must be plotting something else.