Nicanor - Teller of Tales | Page 5

which vomit blood. God's death! Heard ever man the like? If thou
knowest not of what thou pratest, thou hast lied, and that deserves a
beating. If thou dost know, thou hast the black art of magic,--an
evil-doer, with familiars who tell thee things not to be known of earth;
and that deserves a flaying!"
His voice was loud. His partisans took up his cry. Nicanor found
himself surrounded. He became enraged; forgot that he himself with his
wizard tongue had worked them into a very fitting state for any
outbreak. That the emotions he had aroused should be turned against
himself was a monstrous thing. He drew his knife; one seized it from
his hand and flung it into the heart of the fire. Black figures danced
around him; he was lifted off his feet by their rush; flung down,
trampled upon, bruised, kicked, beaten. Men, losing all thought of him,
fought over his head, clamoring old pagan creeds and shrieking aloud
their theories concerning the Seven Mysteries of the Church. They
differed wildly. From the criticism of a romantic tale, the discussion
flamed into a religious war.
One with a broken head fell senseless near Nicanor. He, in scarcely
better case, turned and squirmed until he got himself covered with the
body; so saved his ribs and perhaps his life.

The combat ended, after a lapse of minutes, as abruptly as it had started.
A cry arose from the hurrying guardians of the flocks:
"The sheep! Look to the sheep! They scatter!"
The animals, frightened by the uproar into panic, broke from their
cordon and bolted into the darkness. Religion was forgotten on the
instant; men in the act of giving a blow swung around and fled after
their property. Seeing this out of the tail of his eye, Nicanor crawled
from beneath the protecting body. He stood upright beside the deserted
fire, panting, glaring, his clothes in tatters. Blood flowed from his nose,
and from a cut upon his temple. He was a sorry sight. He lifted his
clenched fist and shook it at his vanishing assailants.
"By Christ His cross!" he swore, repeating Rag's oath, "after this I shall
make you believe what I tell you, though I say that your hell is heaven
and your heaven hell. You have bruised me, beaten me, because of
what? Something too high for your sodden brains to know! You have
flouted me; now I shall flout you. I shall make you fear me, tremble at
my words--ay, kiss the very ground beneath my feet. You shall learn to
fear me and my power; you shall cringe like the curs you are!"
He went home in a quiver of rage and hate and shame, wounded in his
body, still more sorely in his dignity, and told his mother he was going
away. Where, he did not know. This was a small detail, since to him all
the world was new. Folk had faith in the manifestations of Providence
in those days; Rathumus and Susanna believed they heard Fate
speaking by the mouth of their angry son. Susanna's eyes filled with
tears. Rathumus nodded his great head gravely and slowly. Nicanor,
overflowing with his wrongs, strode up and down the hard earth floor
in a passion. Again he gave tongue to his lamentations.
"I am stronger than they--I shall conquer! Thou shalt see! I shall make
them acknowledge that I, son of Rathumus, am greater than they. This
shall be my revenge, and though it take me all the years of my life, I
shall win to it by fair means or foul."
"Son, son!" Rathumus said sternly. "Speak not thus rashly. For the gods,

and the gods alone, is vengeance."
But Susanna took her boy to his own loft, and there comforted him,
motherwise.
"Thou wilt yet get the better of them all, my son. That they should have
dared to treat thee so! But oh, be careful, for my sake! Now hearken. I
will have thy father pray that our gracious lord permit thee to go to
Christian Saint Peter's church, on Thorney, which is called the Bramble
Isle, to learn a trade. Though he be no believer in the Faith, our lord is a
good man, merciful unto us, his slaves, and I doubt not will give
consent. Then seek there a man by name of Tobias, a colonus and a
worker in ivory for the good Christian priests. He, it may be, will aid
thee for sake of her who is thy mother."
She stopped, then, and looked into his face. But he met her eyes
without a change, and never thought to question what her words might
mean. For he was very young; also his mother was his mother. So that
Susanna smiled, for pure joy and