Nightshade and Damnations (16 page)

“Your Grace sentenced your nephew to perpetual solitary confinement. His Excellency was to be left to cool his head, to quote your own words.”

“Did you starve him, Hyrax? You had no right to starve the boy.”

“No, your Grace. He had everything of the best. The passage of time did our work for us,” said Colonel Hyrax.

“Time? What time? The young fool hasn’t been locked up four months. What are you talking about?”

“If I may explain?” begged Colonel Hyrax; and, his master nodding, he continued: “I had prepared for his Excellency a commodious chamber, padded at walls, floor, and ceiling with heavy quiltings of lambswool covered with gray velvet. There was a double window, out of which his Excellency might look at the wild countryside surrounding the fortress.”

“Better than he deserved.”

“His viands were, as I have said, of the best. But his meat was cut for him, and all his cutlery consisted in a horn spoon. For he was so violent, at first, that I feared the young gentleman might do himself a mischief.”

“Ay, ay, he always was an overbred, nervous young fool. Well?”

“Then we asked his Excellency for permission to shave his head,” said Colonel Hyrax. “He gave it.”

“What the devil for?”

“Your Grace will see, presently. So, by his leave, we shaved off all his hair. We provided him with some quills, ink, and paper, but nothing edged or pointed. To calm him, a mild and harmless opiate was mixed with his Excellency’s breakfast. He ate, and then, leaning on the casement, gazed moodily at the landscape under the morning sun. He dozed, leaning thus, for perhaps five minutes. When he opened his eyes he was looking upon a night scene with a rising moon, and the attendants were bringing his supper. His Excellency was bewildered. ‘Am I bewitched?’ he asked. But since, by your Grace’s order, he was
incommunicado
,
the attendants were silent.”

“Bewildered?” cried the duke, “So am I. From breakfast to supper—morning to moonrise—is a matter of hours. What was the purpose in bringing Stanislaus his supper five minutes after breakfast-time?”

“Pray let me explain, your Grace. The prospect beyond his window was
not
open country. It was a blank wall, upon which I had caused to be projected through a lens, by means of a powerful reflector, highly realistic scenes painted upon glass by one of the finest landscape artists in Europe. Thus, I could create a perfect illusion of the various stages of the day, and of the four seasons.”

“But what for?”

“In order, your Grace, without violating your law, to let his Excellency confuse himself in his conception of
time
. Soon, he fell into a deep sleep, and an adroit barber shaved him and trimmed his nails. Men incarcerated can gauge time, to a certain extent, by the rate of growth of their beards, you see. It was necessary to
bewilder
; it was necessary to let his Excellency
force himself
to have recourse to reason, and to make his reasoning invalid. Do I make myself clear?”

“Go on.”

“Hence, he would awaken—let us say—at midnight, look out of the window, see high noon; doze again, rise again in ten minutes, and—lo! and behold!—dawn. Or, awakening at dawn, he would see nothing but the rim of the setting sun, while the attendants came in with supper. Sleeping soon after, by the judicious administration of opiates, he would start up to observe another sunset. So, after a week, he asked how many months he had been there. There was no reply, of course.”

“Clever, clever,” said the duke.

Colonel Hyrax bowed, and continued, “Although the month was July, his Excellency awoke one morning to a scene of naked trees under a blanket of snow. Sometimes breakfast, dinner and supper would arrive at intervals of only a few minutes after the clearing of the table. Or sometimes hours might elapse, what time his Excellency, starting out of a fitful sleep, might notice that it was early autumn now, where it had been mid-winter when he last looked out.

“I took good care—since men in prison sometimes grow preternaturally observant—to age the guards and waiters, and to see to it that their uniforms showed increasing signs of wear. The chief warder was always accompanied by a pair of great dogs. At first, it was a couple of wolfhounds. I replaced these with older and older wolfhounds. Then there was a new young warder, and he had a pair of mastiffs—which, in their turn, I made appear to grow old, by a system of substitution.

“Naturally, I never entered the young gentleman’s chamber myself. But I had my reports to rely upon. Your Grace—within a few weeks, your nephew believed that he had been incarcerated for an incomputable number of years! Your Grace has had the nightmare, no doubt?”

The duke said, “I have, and it’s horrible. A second is an eternity, or worse. I think I understand you now, Hyrax. Go on.”

“By means of concealed lamps, there was always a diffused light in the chamber which, by the judicious use of hot-air pipes was maintained at a constant temperature of precisely seventy-four degrees Fahrenheit. As his Excellency slept, his clothes were taken away and replaced by others, precisely the same in pattern, but just a little more worn. I also arranged that his clothes should be made progressively a hairsbreadth larger, so that the young gentleman grew gradually convinced that he was becoming shriveled and wasted with long imprisonment.”

“Oh, clever, clever!” cried the duke, with a slight shudder. “I think that, on the whole, given the choice, I’d choose the iron boot, the thumbscrew, or the rack. Proceed.”

“Ah, but there is no question of
choice
, your Grace; for this method of mine depends for its effectiveness upon complete ignorance of the surrounding circumstances. Do I make myself clear?”

“Your object being, to plant a firm illusion that there has been a prolonged passage of time, when, as a matter of fact, only hours have elapsed,” said the duke.

“Just so,” said Hyrax. “I have written a carefully annotated ‘procedure’ for your Grace’s perusal. I can make four minutes last forty-eight hours, in the consciousness of the prisoner. I hasten to reassure your Grace that no common hand was laid on his Excellency, your nephew Stanislaus. His table was almost as well furnished as your Grace’s own; only he had the delicacies of the season
out
of season. And, allowing for certain inevitable margins of error, the young gentleman seemed to live a long month in half an hour. Between your Grace’s breakfast and dinner, he passed approximately a whole year.”

“Well,” said the duke, “that may teach the pup a lesson, not to plot against his poor old uncle, who used to think the world of him. Well, come to the point. What made Stanislaus betray his friends? They are my enemies, it is true, but . . . well, I think the worse of him notwithstanding.”

Colonel Hyrax said, “But his Excellency did not betray his friends, your Grace.”

“Will you tell me what the devil you are talking about?” roared the duke.

“I mean, he did not betray them wittingly.”

“Oh? If you have deranged the rascal with your dirty drugs—” began the duke.

“No, no, your Grace. The drugs were used discreetly, and sparingly, and then only for the first three weeks. Time, time, time was the illusion with which I took the liberty of bedazzling the young gentleman—time as man knows it, through the contemplation of mere external change. Men and fashions seemed to come and go. Once, on my order, a guard let fall a newspaper. It was post-dated fifteen years: I had had one copy only printed before the type was broken up, and it was full of news of people and affairs his Excellency had never heard of.”

“Most damnably clever!” exclaimed the duke. “And my poor—I mean that wretched fellow who is supposed to be my brother’s son, and couldn’t even keep faith with his fellow-criminals: did he write nothing?”

“Only some verses, your Grace.”

“About me?”

“About worms. But I see that your Grace is anxious to be after the boar, so I will conclude for now. After the young gentleman had been in that chamber about forty days, the door was opened by a young officer in a strange uniform—gray faced with yellow—and an older officer, in the same colors, but having a dolman trimmed with sable, came in, fell on his knees, and hailed your nephew as martyr, savior, and leader. The duke, he said, was dead, the new party was in power, and Stanislaus was to sit on your throne.”

The duke laughed. “Ha! And I suppose my nephew jumped for joy?”

“Not so, your Grace. He said—and I quote, so you will forgive me—he said, ‘The old ruffian was kind to me once upon a time.’ Then he said, ‘And all my friends, I suppose, are dead, or old—which is worse.
’
”

“Aha!” cried the duke, “we are coming to it, now!”

“Yes, your Grace. The commanding officer said, ‘If you will tell me whom you mean, your Excellency, I shall immediately ascertain.
’
” Whereupon, your nephew recited a list of forty names, which are on the paper which I have the honor to place in your Grace’s hand.”

“Hyrax,” said the duke, “you are
hellishly
clever! And my nephew—how is he?”

“I was listening to the proceedings at a concealed aperture, and did not see his Excellency at first. Then, when he came into my range of vision, I was astounded. For where, a few weeks before, I had seen a sanguine young man of twenty-four, I now beheld a decrepit and enfeebled man of sixty!”

The duke was silent. Colonel Hyrax pointed to the paper upon which the names of the conspirators were written. “Your Grace will hang them?” he asked.

“No. I shall shock the wits out of them by pardoning them, and make forty friends into the bargain. Where’s Stanislaus?”

“Asleep, your Grace,” said Colonel Hyrax.

“You are an astonishingly clever man, Hyrax,” said the duke. “Did I not say that if you cleared this matter up I’d make a nobleman of you?”

“The work is its own reward, your Grace,” said Hyrax.

“No, you have earned my gratitude. I hereby confer upon you the Barony of Opa, with all lands, rents, and revenues pertaining thereunto.”

“Oh, your Grace! Words cannot express—”

“—Save them, then. Leave me, now.”

Hyrax having bowed himself out of his presence, the duke called for his secretary. A soberly attired gentleman came in and made his obeisance. “Your Grace?”

“Colonel Hyrax is now Colonel, the Baron Opa. Make a note of it.”

“Yes, your Grace.”

The duke paced the floor, tugging at his beard. “And write me an order to the Lord Provost,” he said. “Write as follows:—‘Bearing in mind the new dignity of Colonel Hyrax, whom we have recently created Baron of Opa, you will procure a silk cord and hang him forthwith’.” Scrawling his signature at the foot of this document, and impressing the warm wax with his great carnelian ring, the duke muttered, “One could no longer sleep with such a man awake. He is too clever by half.”

A nameless cold had crept into his heart. He looked long and anxiously at the morning sun, and listened with more than usual attention to the portentous ticking of the great bronze clock. Presently, he said to his secretary, “Dismiss the men. I hunt no boar today.”

“Yes, your Grace.”

“I desire to see Stanislaus.”

“Shall he be sent for?”

“No. I go to him.”

The secretary, a good-hearted man, ventured to ask, “Oh please, your Grace—is it your gracious intention magnanimously to pardon the unhappy young gentleman?”

The duke growled, “No. My Grace’s intention is humbly to beg the unlucky young gentleman, out of his magnanimity,
to pardon me
.”

The proprietor said, “You gave this person five dollars, you say?”

“He asked twenty,” said the editor. “I advanced him five.”

“You throw my dollars about like rice at a wedding, my friend. Yes, you have my leave to print. Let the fellow have five dollars more, if he presses. A Latin title is a drug, sir, a drug. Take a title out of context,” said Mr. Bozman. “Out of context, out of context. And since I am paying for the job and writing it too, sign it Bozman—John Helliwell Bozman. Incidentally, you owe me five dollars.”

So saying, the proprietor of
The Baltimore General Press
walked sedately out of doors.

VOICES IN THE DUST OF ANNAN

I
landed on the
northeast coast, with tinned goods and other trade goods such as steel knives, beads, and sweet chocolate, intending to make my way to the ruins of Annan.

A chieftain of the savages of the Central Belt warned me not to go to The Bad Place. That was his name for the ancient ruins of the forgotten city of Annan, a hundred miles to the southeast. Some of the tribesmen called it The Dead Place, or The Dark Place. He called it The Bad Place. He was a grim, but honorable old ruffian, squat and hairy and covered with scars. Over a pot of evil-smelling black beer—they brew it twice a year, with solemn ceremony, and everyone gets hideously drunk—he grew communicative, and, as the liquor took hold of him, boastful. He showed me his tattooing: every mark meant something, so that his history was pricked out on his skin. When a chieftain of the Central Belt dies he is flayed, and his hide is hung up in the hut that is reserved for holy objects: so he lives in human memory. Showing his broken teeth in a snarling smile, he pointed to a skillfully executed fish on his left arm: it proved that he had won a great victory over the Fish-Eaters of the north. A wild pig on his chest celebrated the massacre of the Pig Men of the northwest. He hiccuped a bloody story, caressing a black-and-red dog that lay at his feet and watched me with murderous yellow eyes. . . . Oh, the distances he had travelled, the men he had killed, the women he had ravished, the riches he had plundered! He knew everything. He liked me—had I not given him a fine steel knife? So he would give me some good advice.

“I could keep you here if I liked,” he said, “but you are my friend, and if you want to go you may go. I will even send ten armed men with you. You may need them. If you are traveling southwards you must pass through the country of the Red Men. They eat men when they can catch them, and move fast: they come and go. Have no fear, however, of the Bird Men. For a handful of beads and a little wire—especially wire—they will do anything. My men will not go with you to The Bad Place. Nobody ever goes to The Bad Place. Even I would not go to The Bad Place, and I am the bravest man in the world. Why must you go? Stay. Live under my protection. I will give you a wife. Look. You can have her—” He jerked a spatulate thumb in the direction of a big, swarthy girl with greased hair who squatted, almost naked, a couple of yards away. “—She is one of mine. But you can have her. No man has touched her yet. Marry her. Stay.”