The Philosophical Strangler(74)

Hildegard sighed. “You are determined, I see. Very well. I simply thought I’d bring the subject up, for your consideration. My duty, you know, as a pious woman of the Church. Do please think about it, from time to time, will you? And you might want to consider that the world is teetering on the brink of a Great Change. Joe’s return will surely trigger off a cataclysm. Interesting times, as the ancient curse goes. During which, of course, nothing is needed more than heroes.”

Greyboar nodded. So did I, after a moment’s sulk. No point in refusing to humor someone who’s just paid you the biggest commission of your life, don’t you know?

As soon as we got out of her office, of course, I said something sarcastic to Greyboar. But he didn’t seem to be paying any attention to me. His mind was off in a cloud, somewhere.

Then he started muttering about the conflict between entropy and the search for lucre, and I realized right off that it was time to get out of that Abbey. Money-counting is a high art, sure. But you’ve got to keep your priorities straight. Unless you keep the money you’ve got no art to practice.

“We’re outa here,” I growled. “I’ll tell the girls. Pack up your stuff. We’re leaving right after lunch.”

We left an hour later. Hrundig came along with us, but Olga and her daughters stayed behind. I guess the plan was that they’d wait until the hunt for them died down before making their way south to the Mutt. In the meantime, Hrundig was going back to New Sfinctr to see if there was anything he could do to help Benvenuti. Wasn’t much chance of that, of course—not with Benny in the Durance Pile—but I guess Hrundig felt an obligation.





We had a little encounter on the road out of the Abbey which stiffened my determination to get clear of the place. We had to stand aside while the mailman came by on his rounds. The poor bastard was sweating like a dog, pushing a wheelbarrow in front of him. Whatever was in it must have weighed a ton. But I couldn’t see because there was a tarpaulin of some kind covering the contents.

When he came abreast of us he set down the wheelbarrow and heaved a sigh of relief. Then, straightening up and massaging his back, he gave us a polite smile.

“G’d afternoon, folks.”

“What’s in the wheelbarrow?” asked Angela.

The mailman sighed. Then, grimacing ruefully, he flipped off the tarpaulin. Nestled in the barrow was another of those stone tablets. The letters inscribed on it were practically shooting jets of flame. The heat drove us back a step or two.

“Really pissed today, He is,” announced the mailman. He pointed to the lettering. “I can’t read but a bit of it, you’ll understand, on account of the cipher is that Order of the Knights Rampant stuff. But I can recognize some phrases, well enough.”

His finger moved about, indicating the most fiery clauses in the message “ ‘Fry in hell,’ that one. This is ‘eternal damnation.’ Over there’s a bit about the ‘tortures of the netherworld.’ The real big lettering at the bottom says: ‘BURN, BITCH, BURN!’ ”

The mailman clucked his tongue. “He really shouldn’t talk that way to an Abbess, I don’t think. Even if He is God Himself.”

I took Jenny and Angela by the arms and started hustling them down the road. “We’re outa here!” I hissed.





By late afternoon we were off Abbey land and back into the coach which Oscar and the boys had kept ready. I started to relax. Left to himself, without an Abbess sticking her nonsensical notions into the works, Greyboar’s silly fiddling with “ethical entropy” wouldn’t lead to anything more annoying than laziness. Philosophy’s a pain in the ass, sure, but left to its own devices it’s really pretty harmless. It’s when it starts getting filled with all that moral content business that it starts getting really dangerous.

So, at least, I told myself. But it was all a fool’s paradise. For, just as Greyboar had said, the fact that a sane man doesn’t recognize philosophy does not prevent philosophy from recognizing him.

Or, to put it in more mundane terms, you can play around with cause and effect all you want. Doesn’t change the fact that effects are caused by causes, and that causes are caused by people fiddling around with the damned things. Then, as sure as effect follows cause, you’re in that one-way tunnel to disaster that philosophers call “the logic of events.” Which sensible fellows like me preferred to think of as “what happens when you mess around with stuff you had no business messing around with in the first place.”

Or, as the wise man puts it: “If you want to stay out of trouble, don’t trouble yourself.”