Part 3 (2/2)
”You're both idiots,” said Mallet. ”Omens! Portents! My a.s.s.”
”If you'd seen what I've seen over the years, you'd be a little more respectful,” Spoke persisted.
”My a.s.s,” Mallet repeated.
Spoke crawled to the statue and slipped it from the pack, handling it gingerly He set it upright before them, knelt, and cleared his throat.
”Blessed saint, have mercy on us. We are poor men in need, and we fought only for pay. Our Duke is dead, maybe by your just anger; so be appeased, and take no further revenge on us. We promise to atone.”
Mallet snorted, ”I promise to take that thing straight to the first goldsmith I find. The eyes alone are probably worth a farm.”
Wincing, Spoke cried: ”Judge us separately, blessed saint! Rebuke his blasphemy as you see fit, but accept my contrition and spare me.”
”Oh, that's lovely,” said Smith. ”So much for being comrades-in-arms, eh?”
”Haven't you ever heard any stories about this kind of thing?” said Spoke. ”Remember what happened to Lord Salt when he mocked the Image at Rethkast?”
Mallet just shook his head in disgust and got up, looking about them. He moved off into the trees, picking up broken branches as he went.
Smith slipped off his own pack and rummaged in it for flint and steel. ”Have you ever noticed,” he said, ”how those stories are never about ordinary people like us? It's always Lord This and Prince That who p.i.s.s off the G.o.ds and get blasted with balefire.”
”Well, there could be a good reason for that,” said Spoke. ”Highborn people get noticed, don't they?
If they're punished for sin, everyone sees. Makes a better example than if the punishment fell on n.o.bodies.”
”So the G.o.ds think like men?” said Smith, standing up to peer through the shadows. He pulled down a low bough and yanked free a handful of trailing moss, rubbing it between his fingers to see whether it was dry enough to take a spark.
”They must think like men,” argued Spoke seriously. ”At least, when they're dealing with us. They have to use logic we'll understand, don't they?”
Smith ignored him, breaking off dry twigs and settling down to the business of starting a fire. He had a little creeping flame established by the time Mallet came back with an armload of dead wood. The wood caught, the flames leaped up; the clearing above the gorge lit in a small circle, and the black shadows of the trees leaned back from it all around.
”Good,” grunted Smith, stretching out his hands. He slipped off his helmet and went down to the water's edge, where it ran shallow and transparent over the smooth rock before plummeting down in mist. Here he rinsed his helmet out, and brought it back full of water. Arranging three stones close against the flames, he propped it there where it would take heat. After a moment, the other two men followed his example.
They sat in silence, watching for the water to steam. Spoke, however, turned his troubled gaze now and again to the image of the saint.
”Was his face pointed toward us, before?” he said at last.
”Of course it was.”
”I thought-it was looking straight ahead.”
The other two glanced over their shoulders at the statue.
”You're right!” said Mallet. ”Oh dear, what'll we do now? There Holy Saint Foofoo sits, taking advantage of the fact that all these jumping shadows make him look eerie as h.e.l.l. As soon as he's got us good and scared, you know what he's going to do? He'll start creeping toward us, a little at a time. Only when we're not looking, naturally”
”Shut your face!”
”He'll come closer, and closer, and then-”
”Stop it!”
”Then he'll realize he's two feet tall and armed with a teeny little golden tambourine in one hand and a-what is that thing in his other hand?” Mallet squinted at it. ”A silver toothpick?”
”It's supposed to be a dagger,” said Smith.
”Oh, I don't know how I'm ever going to fall asleep tonight, with a supernatural menace like that around,” said Mallet.
Spoke stared into the fire.
”It was looking straight ahead,” he murmured.
”You couldn't have seen that, as dark as it was here,” said Mallet.
Smith shrugged and took up his pack again. He pulled out a ration- block wrapped in oiled paper, a little the worse for wear after being knocked around in the company of his other gear. He opened it, picked off dirt and lint, and broke a few chunks into the water in his helmet, which was beginning to steam slightly.
”Let me tell you about something that happened in our village,” said Spoke. ”AU right? We had a saint of our own. She watched over the harvest and she kept away the marsh fevers. And if you had a toothache, you could pray to her, and she'd heal you every time. All you had to do was leave offerings in her shrine. And make sure her image was kept polished.
”Well, one time, somebody's little boy went in there and left a lump of b.u.t.ter in the statue's open hand. He thought she'd like it. But it was summer, and the b.u.t.ter melted, and then dust blew in from the road and stuck to the mess. When the old priest saw it, he thought somebody'd been disrespectful, and he cursed whoever'd done it. And, do you know, the child was taken ill that very night? And he burned with fever until his mother figured out what he'd done, and she went and made an offering in apology?
And right away the child got better.”
”Some saint!” said Mallet, stirring bits of ration block into his helmet.
”Well, it would have been the priest's mistake, not the saint's,” conceded Smith.
”d.a.m.n right; a statue can't make mistakes,” said Mallet.
”And I'll tell you something else that happened!” said Spoke. ”The old priest died, and we got a new one. But he wasn't a holy man. He was greedy, and people began to notice that the offerings were disappearing from the shrine, almost as soon as they were put out. When pig-slaughtering time came around, somebody left a beautiful plate of blood sausages in front of the saint's image; but they disappeared the same night.”
”Was this shrine outdoors, by any chance?” asked Mallet.
”Listen to what happened, before you laugh!” said Spoke. ”This priest had a mole on his face-”
Mallet began to chortle.
”And from that night it began to grow, you see? It got huge, hanging down the front of his face, and it turned dark red and looked exactly like a blood sausage!”
Mallet fell back, guffawing, and Smith snickered. Spoke stared at them, outraged.
”You think this is funny?” he demanded. ”This really happened! I saw it with my own eyes! And finally the priest died of shame, but before he did, he confessed he'd been stealing the offerings left for the saint.”
”Sounds like he died of a tumor, to me,” said Mallet. ”And I have news for you: all priests feed themselves on the stuff left at shrines. In my city they did it openly. And what's so unusual about a child getting a fever? Children are always getting fevers. Especially in marshy country. Especially where people are too ignorant and superst.i.tious to go to a doctor instead of a priest.”
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