John Gardner - Freddy's Book

“That may be,” said the trout. “I may have made one small mistake in my life, but it’s nothing like the big mistake you’ve made!”

“Ha?” said von Melen. He drew back his knife, deciding to let the trout speak on.

“You’re a doomed man, trying to serve two masters as a general,” said the trout. “Sooner or later their wishes will conflict. However, if you took a different road, you could please them both and be as safe as a fox in a tree.”

Von Melen scowled. “How?” he said. “Explain.”

“Write!” said the trout, and gave von Melen a cunning smile. “You’re a stylist as well as a famous man. You have all Europe’s respect. Turn these things to advantages, then.”

“Write what?” von Melen asked. He bent down toward the plate. “Poetry? Autobiography?”

“You see?” the trout said. “I told you you were stupid! Write about Gustav Vasa! Vilify his name! Both Kristian and the Elector will be delighted — you’ll be a hero on both sides.” The trout looked pensive, then at last heaved a sigh. “But of course, if you think you’re not up to it—”

“Not up to it!” cried von Melen, and leaped up from the table. “Not up to it, you tell me, you stupid little trout!” He was so excited by the idea — for his hatred of King Gustav was boundless — that he forgot about supper completely and started for the door. With his hand near the doorknob he abruptly paused, turned around, and went back to the table. “Stupid trout,” he said, “you shall see how I write!” And without noticing that the eye of the trout had filmed over he snatched up the plate and carried it with him to his study, where he set it on his writing desk, near enough to watch him. For the rest of his life, von Melen blackguarded Gustav Vasa throughout Europe, comforting his enemies, thwarting his policies, fomenting conspiracies, piling lie on top of lie or, when Vasa made mistakes, trumpeting the truth. He became, from all his writing, as bent-backed as the Devil. His eye took on a glitter, his mouth became parched and cracked. The fish on the plate beside him rotted away to dust.

9.

PLOTS, COUNTERPLOTS; one would have thought even the Devil would eventually have tired of them, but he did not. For this he had one main reason: something was afoot, he could feel it in his bones. He brooded; he travelled far and wide, spying; even at the houses of the very poor he would sometimes crouch at the window, listening; but all to no avail. Of one thing the Devil grew increasingly sure: the trouble was in Sweden.

Once, in the trivial, insignificant city of Härnösand, close to the southern border of Angermanland, he saw, just at sunset, a crowd gathered around a tent which bore the shield of King Gustav. He compressed himself into a pigeon and walked inside. Slowly, carefully, avoiding people’s feet, he made his way to the exhibit at the center of the tent. No one was saying a word; everyone was looking in the same direction. He followed the people’s gaze and saw a large wooden statue — a knight with his lance through a dragons neck. The Devil felt suddenly hot all over, he had no idea why.

“Very well,” he thought, “say the dragon refers to myself, and the knight has vanquished me.” He blinked, then flew up onto a crossbeam to think the matter through. “Why should this hopeful little fantasy alarm me? Am I dead because a silly piece of wood is dead?” He cocked his head thoughtfully. “No.” He began to concentrate on reading the minds of the people. To his astonishment, nothing came. Was it possible? he wondered. Was everyone in the crowd thinking nothing? Nothing whatsoever? Now the crowd began to shift, and he began to get things. A child had wet its pants and was worrying, thinking it might be spanked. An old man had an itch on a part of his back that he could not reach. A man with his arm around his wife was looking at a woman not far off, his mistress.

In disgust, the Devil flapped his wings and flew away through the opening in the tent, changed at once to his own form, and, on his huge, dark wings, soared high into the night. It crossed his mind that the way to be safe was perhaps to kill everyone in Sweden. It was an interesting idea, but it immediately slipped his mind.

He flew to Stockholm, to watch the mock triumphal entry of Sunnanväder and Master Knut. Perhaps he would speak to them, he thought — give them a little false encouragement. Or perhaps he might whisper to the crowd, pass out leaflets, start a riot, and set them free.

Sunnanväder and Mickilsson had fared no better than Norby and von Melen. “Fly to Trondheim!” the Devil had whispered in their ears when the army of Dalarna had surrendered. Little did they know — though the Devil knew — that the archbishop of Trondheim was one of the silliest men who ever lived. They took the Devil’s advice, crossed the Norwegian frontier, and found shelter with the archbishop, who was pursuing political objectives of his own and thought the fugitives might perhaps prove useful. He met them at his door, a candle in his hand, his white hair flowing nearly to the hem of his nightgown, and kissed each of them on both cheeks. All that winter the archbishop treated his guests like princes, sitting up half the night with them, arguing fine points of theology and politics, giving them great feasts on holy days, introducing them proudly to every stranger who landed at that frozen outpost on the edge of the Arctic Ocean. When summer came, he imprudently delivered up Master Knut on the rash supposition that he would be tried in Sweden by an ecclesiastical court. He was tried by the råd —the king himself served as prosecuting counsel — and was speedily condemned to death. In September what had happened to Master Knut somehow slipped the archbishop’s mind and he delivered up his second guest to Gustav. Sunnanväder, too, was at once condemned to death.

So now they entered Stockholm on the backs of asses, Sunnanväder wearing a floppy straw crown and carrying a battered wooden sword such as children might play with, Master Knut in an archiepiscopal mitre made of birch-bark. The crowd laughed and shouted, for here in the capital, the people were all solidly on the side of the king. A mangy dog ran up to bark at the animal on which Sunnanväder rode. Suddenly what came out of its mouth was not barking but speech. “Never mind!” yelled the dog. “They laugh now, these morons. Let us see who does the laughing tomorrow!”

Sunnanväder, weeping, did not bother to look down. Mickilsson, riding beside him, opened his mouth in astonishment. When he could speak, he said, “Peder, am I dreaming?”

Sunnanväder wept and said nothing.

When the parade of humiliation was over, they were shipped unceremoniously, like animals, to Uppsala for beheading.

“So much for my human enemies,” said Gustav when the second head fell.

Lars-Goren said nothing, and the king turned to look at him in a way that commanded speech. “There are always more,” Lars-Goren said. At the last moment, a strange, rapt expression had come over Knut Mickilsson’s face. Lars-Goren’s mind would not let loose of it.

“Nevertheless,” King Gustav said, “the time has come to seek out the Devil.”

Lars-Goren looked down at the severed head in the sawdust. “Surely he’s here,” he said.

Gustav’s look became sharper. “In me, you mean? Speak plainly, old friend and kinsman!”

Around the steeple of the church, sparrows flew crazily, unwilling to rest. Lars-Goren pointed up at them. “In the birds — in you — in the cobblestones under our feet, perhaps. Who knows where the Devil ends and the rest begins?”

King Gustav’s frown was dangerous. “You have your orders,” he said, “you, my best friend, and Bishop Brask, my best enemy. You’ll manage. I think so.”