The Philosophical Strangler(77)

The end was inevitable. One moment the Cat was over in a corner, making toothpicks out of a chair. The next thing anybody knew she was standing right in front of the Goatmonk, caught him smack off guard.

Sssstttt. Plop. The moment of truth.

When Leuwen got to that part of the story, I couldn’t stop laughing for five minutes. Even Greyboar cracked a smile, mad as he was.

Don’t let anybody tell you there’s no such thing as poetic justice.

The Cat never even noticed. Sssstttt, plop, and she’s on her way, hacking up a table down the room. But everybody else saw it. Total silence. Father Venery was just standing there, eyes popped out, couldn’t even move.

The Trio broke the spell. They convulsed to the floor.

“Goatmonk no more!” howled the Weasel.

“We’ll call ’im Monkmonk f’r sure!” came McDoul.

Yeah, that’s where the name started, and it’s stuck ever since. The Monkmonk. Father Chastity. You still see him around, now and again. Look for a very fat monk lying in a gutter somewhere, clutching a bottle of cheap wine, sobbing and wailing and crying out to the Lord. In a high-pitched voice.

A great story, and under other circumstances Greyboar would have been the first to relish it.

But at the moment, things were a bit sticky. Because the Goatmonk, you see, was beloved by the Church authorities in New Sfinctr, especially Luigi Carnale, Cardinal Fornacaese, his drinking buddy. And the Queen! Belladonna III thought the Goatmonk was a holy man, listened to every word he ever drooled. Main reason Father Venery had survived as long as he had, seeing as how half the fathers and husbands of the Sfinctrian aristocracy would have cut his throat in a minute.

So naturally it wasn’t but a few hours later that the Praetorian Guard came pouring into The Trough to arrest the Cat. Wasn’t any problem for them, the arrest itself. The Cat was sitting in a corner, sharpening her sword, paying no attention to anything. Totally ignored the Guard when they grabbed her and hustled her into the paddy wagon. Off in her own world, like she often was. Strange, strange woman.

But first, of course, the Guard had to get through The Trough. Packed solid, mind you, with proper Trough-men. Took a bit of time, that did. Time and trouble. A few months later, a friendly Guardsman I met in a tavern told me it was worse than the Second Battle of the Bundy.

For the moment, however, the problem was that Greyboar was not entirely satisfied that the patrons had quite put up the good fight. I’ll grant you, his demands were a bit unreasonable.

“Two hours?” he roared. “Two lousy hours?” The Trough-men in the room blanched. Greyboar continued bellowing.

“When they came after Lefty Davidovich we stood ’em off for four hours! Long enough for Lefty to make his escape!”

“Those was just Stullens,” whined Fergus.

“And what about the Big Banjo?” demanded Greyboar. “When they came after him, we held ’em off for a whole day! They quit trying!”

“Them was just porkers and such,” whimpered Angus.

“An’ besides,” sniveled Danny Boy, “the Big Banjo’s hero of the people, the whole Flankn turned out that time.”

“Was just us this time,” blubbered Scotty, “and you wasn’t here, nor The Roach neither.”

But, like I said, Greyboar was in one of his rare unreasonable moods. He glared around the room. Everybody hung their heads. Then he cracked his knuckles, like the doom.

“I am not pleased,” he announced.

Now and then, you’ll sometimes hear it called The Running of the Bellies Through The Streets of New Sfinctr. Other times, The Great Flankn Stampede. But mostly, people call it The One Day The Trough Emptied Out.

Casualties were minimal, however, thanks to O’Neal. Don’t think it wasn’t appreciated, either. Never been a day since somebody doesn’t buy the poor fellow an ale pot and politely listen to him croak a word or two.

Naturally—I believe I’ve mentioned before that O’Neal was not quite bright?—this was the time O’Neal chose to stand his ground.

“And besides,” he’d grumbled, just as the stampede got started, “she’s only a woman. Shouldn’t even be hanging around in here at all, she shouldn’t, ’tisn’t ladylike. So why should—” His last words spoken in a normal tone of voice, here faithfully recorded for posterity.

I tried to tell Zulkeh the story, years later, but the wizard cut me off before I hardly even got started.

“Bah!” he oathed. “Am I an ignoramus, to be told of The One Day The Trough Emptied Out? ’Tis the classic illustration in the literature of the theory of natural selection! Darwin Laebmauntsforscynneweëld himself devoted an entire chapter to the episode in his Evolution of Common Sense in Man.”