Egderus at Mountain House

Here beginneth the Testament of Egderus, 9th Superius Frater of Mountain House, in the 50th season of his tenure. May he be shielded from illness and disaster, until it be completed.

... At that time Robenc was Phylax at Mountain House. Officially he commanded the stratioti of the garrison, but also he reported to the old Golias upon the doings of the Superius Frater. But the Superius was shrewd, where Robenc was young and rather naive...

... At first I found it hard to be away from my mother, whom I would never see again, and whose stories I told myself over and over at night in order to fall asleep. But the Superius took me under his wing, asking me to do things for him, treating me with kindness and asking my advice on many subjects, even though there could hardly be anything that I could teach him.

Only once did I see him become perturbed about anything, and that was when Robenc came to Mountain House. The House had always been guarded by stratioti — soldiers — who lived in the outbuildings and patrolled the paths and roads. There were five stratioti and the Phylax, their commanding officer, and they kept watch in pairs in quarter-day shifts.

The man who was Phylax when I first arrived was named Gig, and he terrified us all because of his fierce appearance and awful temper. Off duty he was often drunk, and sometimes chased the younger brothers with his axe. Gig never entered the House, so if we could prevent Gig from ever getting between us and the House, we could usually escape without much trouble. But Gig was sly as well as mean, and would sometimes surprise one of us out on a trail, and then a fearsome chase would ensue. To my knowledge he never caught anyone, though occasionally a slight injury was incurred in trying to get away from him.

He never came after me, perhaps because I could not run, and so chasing me would give him no pleasure. But one day he did catch me out in the open. I was on my way to meet the Superius Frater, who had gone down the mountain to meet with the Golias. The Prior, who liked to be called The Good Doctor, sent me to make the hour's walk to the Gatehouse because, he said, he could spare no one else, and he was not going to spoil me like the Superius did.

About halfway between the House and the Gate, the road drops off steeply on the left hand side while a rocky bank rises just as steeply on the right. Gig jumped out from behind an outcropping, roaring like a bear. In my terror I turned too quickly, my leg collapsed, and I tumbled onto my back. Gig loomed over me and raised his axe. Even if I had not been paralyzed with fright, I could never have escaped this giant man.

But when he saw my face, he jumped back as if he himself were terrified. His axe clattered on the paving stones, and he looked as if he was going to run. I must have let out a cry or made some sound, for he came to himself, and grabbed up his axe, raising it again over me. I covered my face with my arms, certain that I was about to die. He grunted once, and I heard the axe whizz through the air. My ears began to ring like the inside of the bell tower, and sparkling golden light washed over me.

I awoke on a cot in the infirmary. The Superius Frater himself was dozing on a chair beside me. He told me he had found me lying in the middle of the road on his way back from the town. When he asked me what had happened, for some reason I didn't want to tell him, at least not until I'd had a chance to ponder it for a while. So I pretended I could not remember anything since before he left for town that morning.

After a day or so I was able to resume my duties, and it was then I learned that Gig had disappeared. The stratioti were more irritable than usual — each had to pull double-shifts to cover Gig's absence — but they also were frightening the younger brothers with stories of demons lurking in the woods. And of course the off-duty stratioti would want to hunt for Gig, and would press anyone they could into service.

A week later poor Brother Anders found a limbless torso beside the Spring. He ran back to the House, his hair still on end, and told us what had happened: as he was filling the buckets, what he thought was a large rock hit the roof of the spring house, then bounced into the weeds beside the path. Curious, he had gone to look at it.

I could not walk so far, so I did not see the scene which awaited the party of brothers and stratioti who returned to the Spring, but Brother Anders told me about it: a brief search of the woods turned up two arms without hands and two legs without feet; Anders was unfortunate enough to find Gig's head balanced on top of a boulder just off the path. He had never seen such an expression on a human face, he said, and never wanted to again. But more than that, he prayed that he would never have to see what that face was looking at.

I never saw the head or the rest of the body, but I believe I had seen the look that Brother Anders described. And Gig was looking at me.

The new Phylax was named Robenc. He was tall and stern-looking, but after he had established his personal authority over the stratioti, he started speaking to the brothers, even smiling when one of us crossed his path. This caused considerable discussion at meals, for none of us, except on rare occcasions the Superius Frater, had been spoken to by the Phylax or the stratioti.

Brother Anders received more attention from Robenc than had anyone else. Robenc asked him about the incident at the Spring, about how Gig behaved, about how the other men treated him, and particularly about Gig's habit of chasing younger brothers to scare them.

One day the Superius Frater told me that Robenc wanted to see me. I was worried. He must have found out about my encounter with Gig on the road to the Gate; Anders was the only one I had told, and I had not told him about the look on Gig's face.

So I hobbled around the end of the lake to the Council House, where Robenc shared quarters with the stratioti. When I scratched at the door, he himself let me in, and bade me sit down underneath the large window which overlooked the lake.

'You are Egderus, the Superius Frater's pet, are you not?'

My answer came out before I could stop it. 'Pets are animals. I am a man. My name is Egderus.'

Robenc's eyes opened wide, then he burst into laughter. 'I am rebuked by the man named Egderus!' he cried. 'Not yet a man by his stature, methinks, but the voice is almost changed.' He chuckled again. 'Now tell me, Man Egderus, are you not His High-and-Mightyship's secretary?'

'If by that taunting name you mean the Superius Frater,' I said, becoming angry, 'I do sometimes write down what he dictates to me.'

'And what makes you better than the others, that you get to stay in the house all day when they must toil in the fields in all weathers?'

'I am lame.'

He frowned at me, and was silent for a time.

'Forgive me,' he finally said, in a voice quite different from before. 'We begin suspicious of each other. I make it worse. I am an ignorant brawler, to treat you so rudely; foolish also to act so high-handedly without first determining the character of the man to whom I speak. Your pardon, Brother Egderus.'

I was so surprised I could only nod.

'The Superius believes I have been sent by the Golias to spy on him. My orders are to guard Mountain House, along with my men. We interfere as little as possible in the activities of this community, the purpose of which we do not understand. It is not necessary, fortunately, for a soldier to understand his orders, only to obey them."

He drew his chair closer. 'Brother Egderus, in order for me to carry out my duties, I must find out what happened to my predecessor, the man called Gig. You knew him, did you not?'

'We never spoke.'

He leaned very close to my face. 'I have just asked and received your pardon for behaving foolishly toward you. Do not reverse our positions by evading my questions.'

I swallowed, then nodded. He asked me about Gig's reputation, his drinking, his habit of chasing people out in the woods.

Finally, he asked, 'Would you say that Gig was an intelligent man?'

'No.'

'Would you say... he was a good man?'

'No.'

'Would you say that Gig was a man who was easily frightened?'

I thought for a moment. 'No.'

'You hesitate.'

'I did not know him well.'

'Right, you never go outside.' He was watching me closely.

'I did meet him once, on the road to the Gatehouse.'

'Ah?' He acted surprised, but he was not. 'Tell me.'

I told him the story I had told Anders, again leaving out Gig's moment of terror. Robenc listened carefully, nodding. When I was finished, he regarded me for a long time.

'And who else knows?'

'I only told my cellmate, Brother Anders.'

'The one who found Gig's body?'

'Yes.'

'You know, of course, that this makes you the last person to see Phylax Gig alive?'

I had not thought of that. I must have turned pale.

'Do you think your incident with Phylax Gig on the road to the Gatehouse is significant?'

'I think it may be.'

'Did you kill Phylax Gig?'

I laughed out loud. 'I?'

'Do you know who did?'

Now I was bewildered. 'Who?'

'Someone did,' Robenc said grimly. 'Someone who lives here.'

'But how could one of us do that — ?'

'Do what?'

'Tear off his arms and legs like that, drop them out of the sky — ?'

He leaned toward me again. 'Something did that to him, it did not just happen. No wild beast dismembers its victim so cleanly, and then places the head on a boulder beside the trail to face the next person who comes along. Now go tell your Master I wish to see him.' He got up and left the room.

I stumbled back to the House, entering through the refectory door on the lake side. I had seen someone in the window of the Superius Frater's study, so I went there right away. But the door was opened by the Prior, the one who liked to be called The Good Doctor.

'What were you doing in the Council House?'

'Phylax Robenc wished to speak to me.'

'Without my permission?'

'The Superius Frater — '

'The Superius Frater is supposed to clear these things with me. Well?' he said, leaning towards me as if to strike.

I started stammering, repeating what the Superius Frater had said to me.

'You should have come to me.'

'The Superius Frater said right away — ' I was almost in tears. The man could do that to me, any time, he was so snappish and impatient.

'Well? What did you tell him?'

'The Superius Frater?'

'No, halfwit! The Phylax!'

'I didn't tell him anything — '

'Did you tell him about seeing Gig on the road?'

'Well, yes, but — '

This time he did strike me, a slap across the face. 'You fool! Now he'll think we are in a plot against him. Well, it's too late now. I will simply have to deny it, convince him you made it up to feel important.'

'I did not — '

'Of course you did! Why did you not say something right away? You heard everyone else telling tales around the table, you had to have a tale yourself to tell about Gig.'

'But I didn't — '

'And do not you dare bother the Superius Frater with this. I will handle it. You get back to the Scriptorium.'

He pushed me out and slammed the door.

I could never determine who was the stronger, the Superius Frater or Phylax Robenc. They had no love for one another, and I thought I understood why: Robenc believed that it was a brother of the House, or a group of them, who had tortured and mutilated Gig, out of revenge for his having chased them with his axe. The Superius Frater appeared to be indifferent to the question of who killed Gig, whom he had regarded with distaste but ignored as best he could. But Robenc he seemed to fear, perhaps to hate, for a reason I could not fathom. The one time I tried to ask him about it, he glared me to silence.

After my interview with Phylax Robenc, I had little opportunity to speak with the Superius Frater, mainly because the Good Doctor would not let me see him, and found tasks for me to do in the Scriptorium, which kept me out of the Superius Frater's sight.

In any event, my Master became very preoccupied, and spent more and more time in his little study, doing what I could not imagine, watchfully guarded by the Prior, who set up a workspace for himself in the library off the refectory, all but blocking the Superius Frater's door.

My time in the Scriptorium, however, did not go unrewarded. The project the Prior had set me to complete was to copy more than two dozen books from the library. This work would force me to stay at my desk as long as there was light, as he well knew, if I were to finish before Year's End, the day when my labors must be accomplished if I were not to be punished.

It was not my habit to question orders given me by my superiors, but in this case I did have to wonder.

The books he had given me to copy were the chronicles of the Old Kings, several Scriptures, the Songs, and a collection of miscellaneous writings — annals of Mountain House, receipts and accounts, inventories, even recipes from the kitchen! Stuck in the back of this hodgepodge of scribblings, I found some notes in the Superius Frater's hand...

And so I took my leave of Mountain House, and entered the service of the Good Doctor. Brother Anders wept to see me go, for he loved me well, but I was too stunned, I think, to feel much of anything except dread for the future. At a moment when the Good Doctor was busy supervising the gathering of his belongings (including the copies of ten books from the library that I had managed to finish), the Superius Frater secreted me into his study for a farewell interview.

'My son, I must apologize for not seeing as much of you lately as I would have liked, but the events of the past few months have been most distressing and have required my complete attention. There are so many things I want to tell you, but there is no time, and I dare not trust anything to writing — I think you understand what I mean.

'I wish you did not have to leave here at all; but the world you will be entering I hope you will find fascinating and not wholly evil. My advice to you is to trust no one your own heart tells you is untrue; better yet, trust no one at all. Humans will promise anything, and you will often wish to believe things do not work the way they do. The world your new masters will represent to you is not the only world; as you have already seen, life can change utterly in a moment. Believe what seems to your heart to be true, but be prepared to abandon that truth the instant it plays you false.

'We will most likely never meet again. I am old, and my enemies compass me round about, as the saying goes. I will think of you with great fondness, and with regret that I could not keep you with me. Should you ever return to Mountain House, I will make sure that whoever takes my place will have a gift for you. There, I have just made one of those promises I warned you about.

'The time has come. My blessing go with you.'

He embraced me and then turned his back, to stare out his window over the lake.

Having been brought to Mountain House as a boy, the only thing I remembered about the world outside was what my mother told me in stories during the days when my leg was healing. And so it was with no little curiosity that I gazed about me as the wagon creaked and swayed along its way out of the Gate and started down the hill towards the town.

Phylax Robenc had opened the barrier himself, staring at me fixedly as long as I remained in view. But then we went around a bend, and the trees closed the Gate out of sight, and we started downhill.

We were already nearly an hour's slow ride from the House, and it would be nearly dusk before we reached the town, as the road wound back and forth across the face of the mountain in order to manage the descent.

The Good Doctor had left before me at dawn, and my only companion on the trip was the driver, who let me know by his stolid silence that he had no wish to converse, so I was left alone with my thoughts for most of the day. I attempted to gather in my mind all the events that had taken place since the death of Phylax Gig, and to try to understand them.

First: although I had always been in awe of the Superius Frater, it was clear to me now that his power was not absolute at the House. Phylax Robenc had told me to tell the Superius Frater that he wished to see him — an order, not a request. And the Superius Frater was unable to stop Phylax Gig from terrorizing the brothers — indeed, I did not remember his doing anything about it.

So perhaps the Phylax and the stratioti were in some way not just the guardians of Mountain House, but also, in a way, our gaolers as well. And this meant that they had been placed over us by somebody, which further suggested that they must report on our doings to that someone from time to time.

Second: the Superius Frater seemed not to have complete authority over the Prior either, or else I would certainly have been permitted to see the Superius more than just the once after my interview with Phylax Robenc.

Indeed, from that moment the Superius Frater became almost completely isolated from all the brethren. This reclusiveness was unlike him. He always took meals with us, found a reason to speak to every brother almost every day; he regularly read the lessons and led us in the prayers — and even worked in the fields when the weather was fine and his official duties were not pressing.

The Good Doctor had been with us for almost two years before the death of Phylax Gig. And never in all that time had he seemed more than a bad-tempered busybody who ordered everyone around, but whom no one — least of all the Superius Frater — took seriously. But with the appearance of Phylax Robenc, the Good Doctor quickly took charge of the situation, and the Superius seemed unable to do anything about it.

So now it seemed to me that the Good Doctor had not transferred innocently from another chapter, as we had been told when he first appeared. He may have come from that chapter but he was placed at Mountain House in order to keep an eye on the Superius Frater. Again: by someone.

Third: I began to think more about the man the Superius had been before he came to Mountain House — only a few years before I myself was donated to this community. He had not always belonged to our order, but in fact had led quite an active life in the court of the old Golias, as one of the older brothers told me. What brought about this drastic change in his life? Had he committed a crime? created a scandal? made a powerful enemy?

No one knew, and no one had the courage to ask him. It was possible that he had simply tired of worldly life and wished to spend his last days in peace and contemplation. Were that the case, however, I do not believe he would have accepted the position of Superius Frater, at Mountain House or anywhere else.

So I concluded that the Superius himself had been placed at Mountain House, not unlikely against his will, though there was nothing in his manner to indicate he was unhappy with his circumstances — that is, until the coming of Phylax Robenc.

Finally: who was this Phylax Robenc? As Phylax his responsibilities were far from clear to me, and I could not tell what kind of man he was from just the one 'conversation' we had had.

But he inspired apprehension, perhaps even fear, in the one living person I loved more than anyone in the world, and so either he or the one who sent him had a dreadful hold over the Superius Frater. What kind of hold could that be? I was determined, now that I was to enter the world where such power was generated, to find out.