Hard to Be a God Read online

  “What? Go to bed? What bed is there in an open field? Our bed is a horse blanket!” With these words, he tore the unfortunate tapestry off the wall, wrapped himself up to his head in it, and collapsed under a lamp with a crash. Rumata ordered Uno to put a bucket of brine and a tub of pickles next to the baron. The boy had an irate, sleepy face. “He sure is plastered,” he grumbled. “Eyes pointing in different directions.”

  “Quiet, fool,” Rumata said then, and … something happened after this. Something very bad, which chased him all the way across the city to the vacant lot. Something very, very bad, unforgivable, shameful.

  He remembered when he was nearly back at home, and when he remembered, he stopped.

  Flinging Uno aside, he had climbed up the stairs, opened the door, and burst in on her, like her master, and in the light of the night-lamp he saw a white face, huge eyes full of terror and disgust, and in those eyes, a reflection of himself— staggering, with a drooping, slobbering lower lip, with raw knuckles, with trash-smeared clothes, an insolent and loathsome blue-blooded boor. And this look threw him backward, onto the stairs, down into the hall, out the door, into the dark street, and far, far, far away, as far away as possible …

  Gritting his teeth and feeling all his insides freeze together, he quietly opened the door and tiptoed into the hallway. In the corner, resembling a gigantic sea mammal, the baron was slumbering peacefully, puffing in his sleep.

  “Who’s there?” cried Uno, who was dozing on a bench with a crossbow on his knees.

  “Quiet,” Rumata whispered. “Let’s go to the kitchen. Bring a barrel of water, vinegar, and new clothes, quick!”

  He spent a long time furiously pouring water on himself and rubbing himself down with vinegar, acutely relishing scrubbing off the night’s filth. Uno, who was unusually silent, bustled around him. And only afterward, helping the don fasten a pair of idiotic purple pants with buckles on the behind, he informed him gloomily, “At night, when you took off, Kira came down and asked me if the don had been back, must have decided she dreamt it. I told her that you hadn’t come back since you went off for guard duty last night.”

  Rumata took a deep breath, turning away. That wasn’t better. It was worse.

  “And I’ve been sitting by the baron with a crossbow all night. I was worried he’d drunkenly try to climb upstairs.”

  “Thanks, kid,” Rumata said with difficulty.

  He pulled on his shoes, went out into the hall, and spent some time in front of a dark metal mirror. The casparamid had worked beautifully. The mirror showed an elegant noble don with a face that was slightly haggard after an exhausting night shift but eminently respectable. The damp hair, clasped by the gold circlet, fell softly and beautifully around his face. Rumata automatically adjusted the lens above his nose. They got to watch some pretty scenes on Earth today, he thought grimly.

  By now, the sun had risen. It was peering into the dusty windows. Shutters began to slam. Sleepy voices were calling to each other in the street. “How did you sleep, Brother Kiris?” “Soundly, praise the Lord, Brother Tika. The night is over, and thank God.” “And we had someone try to break into our windows. The noble Don Rumata was partying last night, I hear.” “His Lordship has a guest, they say.” “There’s no real partying nowadays. I remember, in the young king’s time, they’d party—wouldn’t notice before they burned half the city down.” “What can I say, Brother Tika? Thank the Lord that we have such a don for a neighbor. If he parties once a year it’s a lot.”

  Rumata went upstairs, knocked, and went into the study. Kira was sitting in the chair like yesterday. She looked up and gazed into his face in fear and anxiety.

  “Good morning, little one,” he said, came up to her, kissed her hands, and sat in a chair across from her.

  She was still looking at him searchingly, then asked, “Tired?”

  “Yes, a little. And I have to go out again.”

  “Shall I make you something?”

  “No, thank you. Uno will do it. You could put perfume on my collar.”

  Rumata could feel a wall of lies growing between them. Thin at first, but becoming thicker and stronger. For our whole life! he thought bitterly. He sat there with his eyes closed as she carefully dabbed various perfumes onto his fluffy collar, his cheeks, his forehead, and his hair. Then she said, “You didn’t even ask me how I slept.”

  “How did you sleep, little one?”

  “I had a dream. You know, a scary, scary dream.”

  The wall became as thick as a castle wall. “That’s how it always is in a new place,” Rumata said artificially. “And the baron was probably making a ruckus downstairs.”

  “Should I order breakfast?” she asked.

  “Please.”

  “And what kind of wine do you like in the morning?”

  Rumata opened his eyes. “Order some water,” he said. “I don’t drink in the morning.”

  She went out, and he heard her calm, clear voice speaking to Uno. Then she came back, sat on the arm of his chair, and started to tell him her dream, and he listened, raising his eyebrows, with each minute feeling the wall become thicker and more impregnable, forever separating him from the only person truly dear to him in this hideous world.

  And then he hurled his whole body at the wall. “Kira,” he said. “It wasn’t a dream.”

  And nothing in particular happened.

  “My poor darling,” Kira said. “Wait, let me bring you some brine …”

  Chapter 5

  It wasn’t long ago that the Arkanarian court was one of the most educated in the empire. There had been scientists at court, most of whom were, of course, charlatans, but there had also been some like Bagheer of Kissen, who had discovered the sphericity of the planet; the healer Tata, who had made the brilliant conjecture that epidemics come from tiny invisible worms, spread by wind and water; and the alchemist Sinda, who like all alchemists had been in search of a way to transform clay into gold but instead had discovered the law of conservation of matter. The Arkanarian court had also had poets, mostly foot lickers and sycophants, but some like Pepin the Glorious, the author of the historical tragedy The March to the North; Zuren the Truthful, who had composed more than five hundred ballads and sonnets that had been set to music by the people; and also Gur the Storyteller, who had written the first secular novel in the history of the empire—the sad story of a prince who had fallen in love with a beautiful barbarian. The court also used to have marvelous actors, dancers, and singers. Wonderful artists had covered the walls with unfading frescoes; fabulous sculptors had decorated the palace parks with their creations. You couldn’t say that the Arkanarian kings had been enthusiastic supporters of education or connoisseurs of the arts. It had simply been considered the decent thing to do, like the ceremony of dressing in the morning or the presence of splendid guards by the main entrance.

  Aristocratic tolerance would occasionally go so far as to allow scientists and poets to become visible cogs in the state apparatus. Thus, only half a century ago, the highly learned alchemist Botsa had occupied the now-abolished-as-unneeded position of Minister of Mineral Resources, founded a number of mines, and made Arkanar famous for its amazing alloys, the secret of which had been lost after his death. And Pepin the Glorious had been in charge of public education until very recently, when the Ministry of History and Literature, which he had headed, had been discovered to be harmful and guilty of corrupting minds.

  Of course, even in years past, there had been occasions where a scientist or artist who had displeased the king’s mistress—a dull and lascivious creature—was sold abroad or poisoned with arsenic, but only Don Reba had set to work in earnest. During his tenure as the all-powerful Minister of the Defense of the Crown, he had caused such devastation in the world of Arkanarian culture that he had even managed to displease some of the noble lords, who declared that court had become boring and that balls were now only good for mindless gossip.

  Bagheer of Kissen, accused of lunacy bordering
on treason, had been thrown in a dungeon and had only been rescued by Rumata with great difficulty. He had been sent to the metropole, but his observatory had been burned down and his surviving students had dispersed. The healer Tata, along with five other healers, had suddenly turned out to be poisoners who had been plotting against the king at the instigation of the Duke of Irukan. Tata had confessed to everything under torture and was hanged in the Royal Plaza. In the process of trying to save him, Rumata had spent seventy pounds of gold, lost four agents (noble dons who knew not what they did), and been injured during an attempt to free the prisoners, but he couldn’t do a thing. It was his first defeat, after which he had finally realized that Don Reba was not a random figure. After learning a week later that the alchemist Sinda was going to be accused of concealing the philosopher’s stone from the treasury, Rumata, enraged by the defeat, had organized an ambush by the alchemist’s house. He wrapped a black rag around his face, disarmed the storm troopers who came to take the alchemist away, tied them up, and threw them in a cellar. He had then sent Sinda, who hadn’t understood a thing, into Soan, where he shrugged his shoulders and continued to look for the philosopher’s stone under the watchful eye of Don Condor.

  The poet Pepin the Glorious had suddenly become a monk and retired to a secluded monastery. Zuren the Truthful, pronounced guilty of criminal innuendo and pandering to the tastes of the lower classes, had been stripped of honor and property; the poet had attempted to dispute the findings and read his now openly subversive ballads in pubs, and had twice been beaten half to death by patriotic individuals. Only then had he yielded to the entreaties of his good friend and fan Don Rumata and left for the metropole. Rumata would always remember him, bluish-white from drink, standing on the deck of a departing ship, clutching the rigging with his thin hands, and in a clear, young voice shouting his farewell sonnet: “As a wilted leaf falls on my soul …” As for Gur the Storyteller, after a conversation in Don Reba’s office, he had realized that an Arkanarian prince couldn’t have fallen in love with enemy scum and threw his own books into a fire on the Royal Plaza. And now, hunched and dead-faced, he would stand in the crowd of courtiers during the king’s appearances, and at a small gesture from Don Reba would step forward with poems of ultrapatriotic content, inducing boredom and yawns.

  The actors now only performed one play: The Fall of the Barbarians, or Marshal Totz, King Pitz the First of Arkanar. And the singers now preferred songs without lyrics, accompanied by an orchestra. The surviving artists daubed signs. However, two or three of them had managed to remain at court and painted portraits of the king with Don Reba respectfully supporting him by the elbow (originality was not encouraged: the king was always depicted as a dashing twenty-year-old in armor, and Don Reba as a man in his prime with a significant face).

  Yes, the Arkanarian court had become boring. Nonetheless, lords, noble dons with nothing to do, officers of the Guard, and thoughtless beautiful doñas continued to fill the palace reception halls each morning—some out of vanity, others out of habit, still others out of fear. To be perfectly honest, many of them didn’t notice any changes at all. In the concerts and poetry competitions of times past they had most of all appreciated the intermissions, during which the noble dons could debate the merits of their hunting dogs and tell jokes. They were capable of a brief discussion about the attributes of the creatures of the netherworld, but questions about the shape of the planet or the causes of epidemics were considered simply indecent. The officers of the Guard did feel somewhat dejected about the disappearance of the painters, some of whom had been masters at depicting the nude form.

  Rumata got to the palace a little late. The morning reception had already begun. The halls swarmed with people, and he could hear the king’s peevish voice and the melodious commands of the Minister of Ceremonies, who was in charge of dressing His Majesty. The courtiers mostly talked about last night’s incident. Some criminal with Irukanian features had infiltrated the palace armed with a stiletto, killed a watchman, and burst into His Majesty’s bedchamber, where he was ostensibly disarmed by Don Reba himself; he was then torn to pieces by a crowd of patriots, maddened by their devotion, on the way to the Merry Tower. This was the sixth assassination attempt over the last month, and therefore the fact of the attempt itself elicited almost no interest. Only the details were under discussion. Rumata learned that at the sight of the murderer, His Majesty had sat up in bed, shielding the beautiful Doña Midara with his body, and uttered the historic words “Get along, rascal!” The majority willingly believed in the historic words, assuming that the king took the murderer for a footman. And everyone agreed that Don Reba was, as always, on his guard and incomparable in hand-to-hand combat.

  Rumata made some gracious remarks in concurrence with this opinion, and in response told a just-invented story about how Don Reba had been attacked by twelve robbers, three of whom he felled on the spot, and the rest of whom had fled. The story was listened to with great interest and approval, after which Rumata mentioned seemingly casually that the story had been told to him by Don Sera. The interested expressions immediately disappeared from the faces of those present, for they were all aware that Don Sera was a noted fool and liar. No one said a word about Doña Ocana. Either they didn’t know about it yet or were pretending not to know about it.

  Scattering courtesies and shaking ladies’ hands, Rumata gradually moved into the front rows of the decked-out, perfumed, profusely sweating crowd. The noble gentry were chatting in low voices. “Yes, yes, that same mare. It was lame, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t lose it the very same night to Don Keu …” “As for the hips, my noble don, they are of an extraordinary shape. As it is said by Zuren … umm … Mountains of cool foam … umm. . . no, cool hills of foam … Anyway, tremendous hips …” “Then I gently open the window, take the dagger in my teeth, and imagine, my friend, I feel the lattice bending beneath me …” “I gave him a good crack on the teeth with the sword hilt, making that gray dog roll over twice. Feast your eyes on him standing there, as if he has the right …” “And Don Tameo barfed onto the table, slipped, and fell headfirst in the fireplace …” “… so then the monk says to her, ‘Tell me your dream, beautiful.’ Ha ha ha!”

  What a terrible shame, thought Rumata. If I’m killed now, this colony of simpletons will be the last thing I ever see. Only the element of surprise. The element of surprise will save me. Me and Budach. Seize the moment and make a surprise attack. Catch him off his guard, don’t let him open his mouth, don’t let him kill me, I have absolutely no wish to die.

  He made his way to the doors of the bedchamber and, holding his swords with both hands, bending his knees slightly as required by etiquette, approached the king’s bed. The king’s stockings were being pulled on. The Minister of Ceremonies, holding his breath, was closely watching the nimble-fingered hands of the two valets. Don Reba stood in front of the messy bed and was quietly conversing with a tall, bony man in a military uniform of gray velvet. This was Father Zupic, one of the leaders of the Arkanarian storm troopers, a colonel of the palace guards.

  Don Reba was an experienced courtier. Judging by his face, the conversation was about nothing more important than the paces of a mare or the virtuous behavior of the king’s niece. Father Zupic, on the other hand, as a military man and a former grocer, didn’t know how to control his face. He darkened and bit his lip, his fingers on the sword hilt would clench and unclench, and he finally jerked his cheek, spun around, and, breaking every rule, left the bedchamber heading right at the crowd of courtiers, shocked into stillness by such bad manners. Don Rumata, smiling apologetically, watched him leave, and Rumata followed him with his eyes and thought, There goes another dead man. He was aware of the tensions between Don Reba and the gray leadership. The story of brownshirt leader Ernst Röhm was about to be repeated.

  The stockings had been pulled on. The valets, obeying the melodious order of the Minister of Ceremonies, had reverently picked up the king’s shoes with their fingertips. At t
his point, the king, kicking the valets away, turned toward Don Reba so abruptly that his stomach, which resembled an overstuffed sack, rolled onto one of his knees. “I’m tired of your assassinations!” he screeched hysterically. “Assassinations! Assassinations! I want to sleep at night, not fight off murderers. Why can’t we make it so they do it during the day? You’re a crummy minister, Reba! Another night like that and I’ll give the order to strangle you!” Don Reba bowed, pressing his hand to his heart as the king continued: “Assassination attempts give me a headache!”

  The king suddenly stopped and stared vacantly at his stomach. The moment was right. The valets were hesitating. First, Rumata had to draw attention to himself. He snatched the right shoe from the hand of a valet, dropped to one knee before the king, and started to respectfully place the shoe onto the pudgy, silk-covered foot. This was the ancient privilege of Rumata’s family—putting on the right shoe of the crowned heads of the empire.

  The king was looking at him dully. A spark of interest appeared in his eyes. “Ah, Rumata!” he said. “You’re still alive? And Reba promised to strangle you!” He giggled. “He’s a crummy minister, that Reba. All he does is make promises. He promised to eradicate insubordination, and insubordination keeps growing. He’s stuffed the palace full of some gray bumpkins. I’m sick and he’s hanged all the healers.”

  Rumata finished putting on the shoe and took two steps back, bowing. He noticed Don Reba eyeing him closely, and hastened to assume a haughtily vacant expression.

  “I’m very sick,” continued the king. “Everything hurts. I want to retire to rest. I would have long since retired to rest, but you dolts would be lost without me.”