But my memory shrivels as I peer past the shield and into the great red tent. I see him. I see Holiness. The man-shaped monster is before me again, but this time it is no vision.
My bravery fails me.
The great bulk of him. That great gleaming sword of his, as long as a man. That great cross on his tabard that no sword can pierce, as red as blood or hellfire. He has made himself great in this place, and he has made me weak. My knowledge is instant and utter—I cannot kill this creature.
He does not see me, he does not hear the grass crunch beneath my feet. Perhaps he is not even looking for me. He hunts greater monsters. Dragons and devils.
I could run and hide and bide my time. It would be the easiest thing in this world.
But again I think of my brothers. Of faith and of law. And of … something else, just beyond my grasp. Something that once brought me joy.
I can cower no longer. If I face him, I will die, and it will not be an easy death. But I can cower no longer. I, the youngest son, the would-be poet who sleeps too late, will stand for my brothers, and God will decide my fate. One way or another, I will have an escape from this place.
His back, a great mailed mountain, is still turned to me. I could strike. But though this place has stolen God’s love from me, I will not let it make me a devil. I will not let this Albion make me a backstabber. I will not let it make me a murderer.
I call out a challenge.
V.
Whereas an errant knight in armes ycled,
And heathnish shield, wherein with letters red
Was writ Sans joy, they new arriued find:
Enflam’d with fury and fiers hardy-hed,
The Knight of the bloody Redcrosse, the killer Saint, the hate that calls itself Holiness, turns slowly. His impossibly handsome face is radiant, an unforgiving sun. His ice-blue eyes are alight with bloodlust and madness.
He answers my challenge with haughty mock honor. He can afford this charade, for he knows that his grisly magic protects him. He has his chivalry and his cheat both. He wipes his gory hands on an unstained tabard.
Soon we stand twenty paces apart, in a circle of hard-packed earth. Each of us prepares our arms and our armor, our hearts and our souls. Each of us dreams of killing the other, though I know my dream is folly. Across the tanned leather of my buckler, JOYLESS, the only name I know, is scrawled in lines like knife slashes.
Another flash. I am young, in the courtyard of a small mansion. I can see the old tree that I grew up reading beneath. An important man in yellow silk—my father—is training me to use the saber, though he knows I will never be the type who loves fighting.
“Always remember, Joyless, that you are fighting a man.” Some part of me knows that my father did not call me Joyless. And yet I can remember the smell of his breath as he did so. “It is the man you are fighting, not his sword or his dagger.”
The lightning flash fades. A look up at my foe. This Redcrosse is no man. He is anger in a suit of armor. He is war made flesh.
We raise our blades and step toward one another.
His great sword swings. I deflect the blow with my saber and riposte. We each dodge death once, twice, thrice. But each blow I meet rings through my muscle and weakens me. I will not last long.
We match blow for blow for blow. Our swords meet in a storm of steel, and each of us staggers from the impact. For a long moment we can only stand there and stare at each other, as shocked as two rams that have just butted heads.
But I see in his snarl that this is all a mock to him. Sweat barely beads his brow, and his breath still comes easy. And my own body is sore and tired. Each breath I suck down is like drinking a bowl of fire. I will die soon.
Redcrosse attacks again. His great downward chop knocks my shield away, splitting the wood beneath the stretched hide. It comes close enough to killing me that I can smell the oil on his sword.
I will die soon, but I will not die hiding. I will die doing what is right. What law and faith demand. And …
And then the moments flow as slow as honey. And God takes mercy on a man about to die far from home. The Lord of the Universe—of the true Universe—grants me a boon.
Before my eyes, the letters on my lost shield slip and tumble and writhe. They squirm and wriggle like newborn babes until I can nearly read my name.
My name!
My name, not the name this murderer-Saint has given me. Not the evil name that he has forced me to falsely recall having painted there.
The man-thing Holiness, with his monstrous mock courtesy, waits for me to regain my feet.
I stand slowly, my eyes on the shield at Redcrosse’s feet. And as the letters reweave themselves, stolen memories return to my barren mind, like cool water on parched lips.
My wise little daughter, sitting on her divan, mastering her letters at four.
My daughter, Aisha. When we learned my wife would never give birth again, I thought God had robbed me by not giving me a son. We had named her after the wife of the Prophet.
Aisha—Alive.
As she grew, I knew what true joy was. The clever tricks she pulled. My pride, in spite of her uncles’ disapproval, as she wrote her first lines of poetry. Her name is Aisha! Redcrosse’s spell stole that joyful sound from me, but now it is mine again! Aisha, who made me as proud as any son could have. I will never see her again, but I will not die having forgotten her.
Yes, I once knew joy.
“My daughter’s name is Aisha,” I say. My voice, her name, is sweet and strong to my own ears. Like an angel’s war horn. This place had nearly made me forget that I can speak!
“My brothers were Abdullah and Abdul Hakam.”
Redcrosse’s eyes widen with shock and fury, and he bares his teeth.
Again I fix my eyes on my lost shield. Ain. Ba. Dal. The letters of my name weave themselves into words. Lam. Waw.
I am not Joyless. I have never been Joyless. “You have lost, creature. I am Abdul Wadud!” I shout at the Saint. “Abdul Wadud, the Servant of God the Loving!”
And as I raise my sword and go to my death, I am smiling.
AUTHOR’S NOTE …………………………………
Sir Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene is, in many ways, the unacknowledged urtext of the modern Anglophone epic fantasy novel. Everything we love about epic fantasy—sword fights, monsters, jaw-dropping scale, a cast of thousands, deliberate antiquarianism, the ability to make magic real to the “rational” reader—is there in The Faerie Queene. Book One, at least, is one of the masterpieces of English literature.
However, The Faerie Queene also prefigures many of epic fantasy’s weaknesses: It rambles horribly in later books (and was in fact never finished). There’s far too much description of clothing. More important, via a series of gruesome caricatures—of women, of Arabs, of Catholics—Spenser sets a sort of precedent for epic fantasy’s all-too-common hatred of the Other. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Book One’s recurring Muslim villains—the “Saracen” brothers Sansfoy, Sansloy, and Sansjoy—have always spoken to me. What was it like for them, being trapped in this hateful allegory? That question led to this story …
“Goblin Market” (1862). The reclusive Christina Rossetti was already a very popular English poet before she published this long poem. Peopled as it is with two loyal sisters and a host of little goblin men offering their enticing wares, it was first thought to be merely a fairy tale intended for children. But the careful reader has only to ponder the “Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices, squeezed from goblin fruit for you” or “Eat me, drink me, love me; For your sake I have braved the glen, and had to do with goblin men” to see other levels to her enticing poem. This subtle, erotic subtext has, over the years, enticed many illustrators to draw from it. Christina’s brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (the Pre-Raphaelite painter), was the first, followed by Laurence Housman and Arthur Rackham among many, many others.
—Charles Vess.
Uncaged
GENE WOLFE
>
I ought never to have read the letter. More signally, I ought never to have returned to the Ivory Coast. The letter found me at Cape Town. It was accompanied by another, from one Dubois. His went something like this:
For the present, monsieur, I have the honor to hold the position of your good friend M. Bercole, who is, alas, somewhat ill. This is to say, I am acting administrator general of this district. It is to be hoped that my term of office will be but short. The letter I enclose reached my hands only yesterday, though it has been weeks, it may be months, in the hands of others. Rest assured, monsieur, that it has been read not by M. Bercole nor by myself, and that those who placed it in our hands had not the capacity.
I have saved the letter itself. I will transcribe it here.
My Dear Friend:
Do not be offended, I beg you, by this salutation. When one drowns, any passerby is the dearest of friends. You may recall that the administrator general advised Joseph to shoot me. For me to appeal to him now would be hopeless. Your eyes were filled with a pity which I then resented. Yes, I was such a fool! Joseph is dead. He was killed by a leopard, the workers say. There is no work for them and no chance of payment should they work. They are fewer each day. I am imprisoned in this cage. Sometimes I am fed. More often I am not. Please help me! You look so kind! Please help! Marthe Hecht
I went. What else could I do? A trading schooner returned me to the Ivory Coast, a voyage of thirty-two days that might easily have taken much longer. Bercole was clearly too ill to accompany me, though he wished to go. Dubois, the new man, flatly refused. To give him his due, he had nearly worried himself into a breakdown, crushed under the new responsibilities fate had heaped upon him; the trek up-country would have done him good. I tried to persuade him, but he was adamant. Seeing that argument was useless, I left as soon as possible, with four porters and a native gendarme called Jakada. He had brought the letter and so was a potential source of information about the Hecht plantation and specifically about the condition of the late owner’s wife. I write “potential” because I really got few facts from him. She was kai gaibou, a leopard, meaning possessed by a panther spirit. When I inquired concerning her cage, he affirmed that she was locked inside it—but soon spoke of her roaming at night in search of prey. When I reminded him that he had told me she was caged, he shrugged.
I have written earlier of the baboons. They were as numerous as ever and seemed even more curious about us than before. They were, I believe, simply bolder in their curiosity because my party was smaller than Bercole’s had been. Here I ought not, perhaps, record an experience that I still find uncanny and has no connection that I can see to what was to follow. Between one step and the next I found myself seeing myself and our party through the eyes of a baboon. It (or perhaps she) was normal, as were the rest of the troop, her friends and relations. I was utterly askew, a pale cripple forced to walk on my hind legs alone and covered with scabs. This took, as I have tried to say, no time at all. Then it was over, leaving me with the feeling that something intended for a baboon had been delivered to me by mistake. Before I had taken another ten strides, a young female ran up to me, felt the material of my shorts, and took my hand. For the next quarter hour or so we walked on in that manner, the young female reaching up to clasp my hand and walking easily on three legs. At length she released me and bounded away. I have no explanations to offer. Not even for a moment did I suppose that before a week had passed I would be shooting these same baboons.
Reaching the Cavally, we forded it and marched upriver for three long days, fording it again when we came in sight of the plantation that had been Hecht’s. It appeared deserted, its fields returning to jungle. Seeing it, I felt quite sure his wife was dead.
We had come too far, however, to return to the coast without investigating, and it seemed at least possible that a few items of interest might be found in the bungalow. I told Jakada and the porters we would camp here for the night, and perhaps for two nights. When we had set up our camp, Jakada and I entered the bungalow.
We had no more than set foot in it when a woman’s voice called, “Oku? Amoue?” Tired and sweating as I was, I ran toward it.
The cage was built against the side of the bungalow. A door of the kitchen gave easy access to it, and to the wide slot in its barred door through which trays were passed. I saw her then, her hands gripping the bars, and saw, too, the unmistakable joy she felt at the sight of me. It touched my heart, and touches it still. Yes, even after all that has happened.
I would have released her at once if I could, but the cage door was closed with a formidable padlock, and the key was nowhere in sight. When I asked Marthe whether she knew where it was kept, she replied, “Please do not call me by that name. It is not mine. Joseph used it because he wished the world to think me French. Though I loved him, I never loved the name he gave me.”
I was tempted to question her then, but the chief business of the hour, as I then saw it, was to free her. Thus I asked again where I might find the key.
“Joseph always returned it to his pocket,” she said. “He used to visit me in the evening. I feel quite certain you understand.”
Of course I said I did, and went off looking for the key.
After an hour or so it occurred to me that if I had been in Hecht’s position I would certainly have kept the key in my pocket, and not in a drawer of my desk or any other such place. Some of his employees might well have been minded to assault his wife or even to kill her. They might perhaps have accomplished her death by thrusting spears between the bars of the cage, but it would have been difficult and perhaps impossible. If they could enter her cage, however, one slash of a cane knife might easily have been enough. Those who had found Hecht’s body might well have taken the key, but where were they now? Except for Hecht’s widow, who could not leave, the plantation seemed utterly deserted.
And if they had not taken the key, it had presumably been interred with Hecht. The prospect of exhuming a corpse, one that had spent months in a shallow grave in central Africa, positively horrified me.
By that time I had discovered a workshop in one of the outbuildings. Such tools as remained there were few and simple, but I collected them and attacked the bars with a will.
Two hours of hard work availed nothing. My porters and I prepared a tray for the imprisoned woman. Her disappointment as she accepted it was as obvious as it was understandable.
I had washed and taken refuge beneath my mosquito net, sick with self-recrimination. I ought to have brought tools—no doubt they could have been purchased without difficulty in Abidjan. I ought to have brought skeleton keys, and asked a locksmith’s advice, too. I ought to have learned the location of Hecht’s grave. Though his widow could never have seen it, she might have known it. I could have sent Jakada and a couple of porters to look for it. Before I fell asleep, I decided that since all my labor on the bars had been fruitless, I would concentrate my efforts on the lock and the hinges in the morning.
And that is what I did. In a little over an hour I had drawn the pins of all three hinges and opened the door. But I have omitted too much by speaking of that humble triumph now. Not long after I had fallen asleep, I was awakened by a pistol shot. I called out, and one of the porters came. He told me that Jakada had shot at a leopard. He himself had not seen this leopard; Jakada had seen it and shot at it. I told him to send Jakada to me; but if Jakada came it was only after I had returned to blissful sleep, and Jakada did not wake me.
That night I dreamed that a woman’s naked body was stretched upon my own, and that she was kissing me. It was, I know, a dream of a kind only too common in men who have been long separated from the warm commerce of the sexes. Later this woman lay close beside me whispering, promising all the delights of marriage with none of its pains. I longed to tell her its pains would be my delight, if only we were wed; but I could not speak, only listen to her; and her voice might have been that of a breeze from the sea.
There has been another loss, a small boy t
his time. Sailors and volunteers are searching the ship. If we were ashore, I might buy handcuffs at some shop catering to the police. Then I could handcuff Kay to me and entrust the key to a friend. Nothing of the sort seems possible here. I would have the steward lock us in if that might be done; but the mechanism of our stateroom door prevents it, locking automatically when we go out but opening readily to those within.
How then, does Kay reenter? She must possess a key of her own. If I can find it and drop it over the side, she will be unable—no, what a fool I am! She takes my key from my pocket while I sleep. Thus the solution is simple. I must hide the key. She will not dare to leave unless she can reenter. I will hide it tonight, but I will most certainly not name its hiding place here.
Later. There, it is done! Kay has not returned; presumably she is still playing cards in the lounge. I will go out and rejoin her. When we return to this stateroom, I will tell her that I have left my key behind (which will in fact be sober truth) and get the steward to unlock the door and let us in. Clearly I cannot do the same thing tomorrow night, but I will have all day in which to think of a new plan. Or something better, I hope.
Morning. Kay was still sleeping when I left. My little ruse seems to have worked perfectly. The key was where I had hidden it, and I saw nothing to indicate that Kay had gone out. What I must do tonight, clearly, is return to our stateroom before her and conceal the key. When she returns, she will find me bathed and in my robe. In the morning I must rise before her and retrieve the key before she wakes.
But what am I to do when we reach New York?
Kay excused herself at dinner, I assumed to go to the ladies’ room. She did not return. When she had been gone for half an hour, I enlisted the colonel’s wife. She returned to say that Kay was not in there. She had looked in the booths, had looked everywhere, and there was no sign of her. Mrs. Van Cleef suggested that she might have been taken ill. It seemed unlikely—the South Atlantic was anything but rough—but I nodded, left, and toured the railing. She was not there.