Greyboar claims I trampled the snarl on the way, but I think that’s nonsense. I mean, wouldn’t the beast have gobbled me or something? Greyboar claims the only reason it didn’t was because I don’t weigh enough to really disturb a dozing snarl, even stepping on its great hairy ugly flanks. In fact, he claims the snarl purred, as if my footsteps were like so many little petting strokes.
Could be, I dunno. I suppose things might have gotten stickier if I’d trampled the snarl on the way back, what with being weighted down with the casket. But I couldn’t lift the thing, anyway, so Greyboar had to come and do the crude muscle work. He claims he carefully avoided the snarl in the doing. I dunno. Maybe. It’s true that he doesn’t have any of my sense for the true worth of things.
The next three days or so are pretty vague in my memory.
Greyboar and the girls were gone most of the time, down in the salon with the composers listening to music. Me? Ha! Sure, and I love music. But a man has to have a clear sense of priorities. Art and entertainment come a long way second after the really important stuff. Counting your money being pretty much at the top of the list.
It was so strenuous. A lot of people don’t give much thought to the matter, you know, but a connosoor like myself understands that money-counting (when there’s enough money) is an art form all in itself. You always want to start with racking up the total, of course. But after that, the variety of styles is almost endless. Stack coins by size, then by content of actual precious metal. Arrange them in a lot of short stacks, a few tall ones. Then, of course, the whole world of truly creative work opens up as you stack and restack them in the multitude of wondrous shapes available to the intelligent mind in full flower. Castles, pyramids, bridges, you name it.
One of the happier times of my life, it was. Even though I don’t remember much of it because I was lost in such a state of artistic frenzy. But that’s the way creative work always is, I’m told.
On the morning of the fifth day after our arrival, Greyboar interrupted my plans for the day with a most outlandish proposal.
“Hildegard said she wanted to talk to us today, Ignace. So let’s go.”
“Ridiculous!” I protested. “I’m halfway into my next creation! A perfect replica in coin stacks of the Leaning Tower at—”
No use. Greyboar picked me up, tucked me under his arm, and hauled me off to Hildegard’s office. Once there, he plunked me into a seat.
I was so disgruntled that I didn’t start following the conversation for a couple of minutes. When the words finally penetrated, however, I started really paying attention. And within a few seconds was participating in a lively fashion.
“Ridiculous!” I protested. “You’re nuts, lady! Give up a perfectly respectable trade—pay’s good, work’s steady, what else do you ever get in this world?—for a lot of airy-fairy theological gobbledygook? Ridiculous!”
Hildegard responded to my sensible words with a look which combined amusement at the antics of a child with that “more in sorrow than in anger” business that amusement at childish antics always brings in its wake with a certain brand of individual. You know the type. Policemen, workshop owners, slave drivers. Parents. Abbesses.
“But my dear Ignace,” she said, “surely you don’t deny the existence of an immortal soul—”
“Surely I do!”
“—and even if you do, you must surely recognize the necessity of maintaining a proper psychological balance in life—”
“Surely I don’t!”
“—and even if you don’t, you can’t deny the simple claims of morality.”
I maintained a stubborn silence.
“Which, no matter how you slice it, are sorely tried by your current occupations as a serial murderer and his accomplice. Accomplice, did I say? It might be better to use the terms: aider and abetter; instigator; organizer of the mayhem; miniature butcher; diminutive monster; bantamweight fiend—oh, I could go on and on!”
“No doubt,” rumbled Greyboar. “And it’s not that I haven’t got a certain sympathy for your argument, Abbess. It’s a dirty rotten trade, no doubt about it. But—” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “The truth is, I don’t believe in any of that stuff much more than Ignace does. And in the meantime the food’s got to be put on the table. As he says, the pay’s good and the work’s steady and what else do you get in this world?”
For a moment, his eyes got a little hard. “Fine for you, Abbess—meaning no disrespect—to spout fine sentiments. You weren’t working in a slaughterhouse from the time you were a kid, earning barely enough to keep alive just enough to stagger into the slaughterhouse again the next day.” His eyes got very hard. “So screw it.”