“I will now,” said Yaotl, “reveal to you the third refrainment which was put upon you. It was that you must never obey my commands in anything.”
“That,” Coth replied, hotly, “is not a fair refrainment. It gives me no chance to treat you as you deserve. It is a refrainment which strikes directly at the doctrine of free will. It is a treacherous and vile refrainment! For if you will consider just for a moment,—you black and very dull-witted dancing-master!—even you will see that, by commanding any self-respecting person to do the exact contrary of your most absurd and tyrannical wishes—”
“I had considered that,” said Yaotl, dryly. “It was quite necessary I should retain some little protection for my real wishes in the lands over which I exercise divine power.” Now the Capricious Lord fell into a silence, out of which by and by bubbled a chuckle. “Well, you tricked me neatly enough, just now, when I was in train to make you the sole ruler over this country. And I was going to have a rather pleasant forenoon, too, with that Vemac! Still, I did make you an emperor: and I have kept in everything the oath of the Star Warriors. So the affair is concluded: I am released from my oath; and you may now return to that home of yours, where people have, in some unimaginable fashion, learned how to put up with you.”
“I shall not give over my searching of the West,” Coth answered, stubbornly, “until I have found my liege-lord, whom I intend to fetch back into Poictesme.”
“But that will never do, because we really must preserve hereabouts some sort of order and rule! And no man nor any deity can hope for actual ease in Tollan as long as you are blustering about like a bald-headed pink hornet. ... So do you let me think the thought of the Most High Place of the Gods, and take counsel with the will of Teotex-Calli. About this Dom Manuel of yours, for instance—”Yaotl sat quite still for a moment, thinking and looking into the scrying-stone. And his thought, which was the thought of the Most High Place of the Gods of Tollan, took form there very slowly as a gray smoke; and a little by a little this pallid smoke assumed the appearance of a tall gray man, clad all in silvery gray armor, and displaying upon his shield the silver emblem of Poictesme: and Coth knelt before his master, in Yaotl’s Place of the Dead.
Chapter XXV. Last Obligation Upon Manuel
“Coth” said the voice of Manuel, “most stubborn and perverse of all that served me! Coth, that must always serve me grudgingly, with so much of grumbling and of ill grace and of more valor! So, is it you, Coth, is it you, bald-headed, gruff growler!”
Coth answered: “It is I, master, who am come to fetch you back into Poictesme. And I take it very ill, let me tell you quite frankly, sir, that you should be expressing any surprise to see me in my place and about my proper duty! I follow, as my oath was, after the captain of the Fellowship of the Silver Stallion. They tell me that the fellowship is dissolved by your wife’s orders. Well, we both know what wives are. We know, moreover, that my oath was to follow you and to serve you. So I take it that such surprise in the matter comes from you most unbecomingly: and that much, master or not, I wish you distinctly to understand.”
And Manuel said: “You follow me across the world and over the world’s rim because of that oath, you pester these gods into summoning me from my last home, and then you begin forthwith to bluster at me! Yes, this is Coth, who serves me just as he did of old. What of the others who swore with you, Coth?”
“They thrive, master. They thrive, and they listen to small poets caterwauling about you, in those fine fiefs and castles which you gave them.”
“But you only, the least honored and the most rebellious of my barons, have followed me even to this far Place of the Dead! Coth, yet you also had your lands and your two castles.”
“Well, they will keep! What do you mean by hinting that anybody will dare in my absence to meddle with my property! Did I not pick up an empire here with no trouble at all! You are casting reflections, sir, upon my valor and ability, which, I must tell you quite frankly, and for your own good—!”
But Manuel was speaking, rather sadly. “Coth, that which you have done because of your given word was very nobly done, and with heroic unreason. Coth, you are heroic, but the others are wise.”
“Master, there was an oath.” Coth’s voice now broke a little. “Master, it was not only the oath. There was a great love, also, in a worsening land, where lesser persons ruled, and there remained nobody like Manuel.”
But Manuel said: “The others are wise. You follow still the Manuel who went about Poictesme. Now in Poictesme all are forgetting that Manuel, and our poets are busied with quite another Manuel, and my own wife has builded a large tomb for that other Manuel. . . Coth, that is always so. It is love, not carelessness, which bids us forget our dead, so that we may love them the more whole-heartedly. Unwelcome memories must be recolored and reshaped, the faults and blunders and the vexing ways which are common to all men must be put out of mind, and strange excellencies must be added, until the compound in nothing resembles the man that is dead. Such is love’s way, Coth, to keep love immortal. . . . Coth, oh, most bungling Coth!” said Manuel, very tenderly, “you lack the grace even to honor your loved dead in a decorous and wise fashion!”
“I follow the true Manuel,” Coth replied, “because to do that was my oath. There was involved, I cannot deny it, sir, some affection.” Coth gulped. “I, for the rest, am not interested in these newfangled, fine lies they are telling about you nowadays.”
Then there was silence. A small wind went about the pepper plants; and it seemed to whisper of perished things.
Now Manuel said: “Coth, I repeat to you, the others are wise. I have gone, forever. But another Manuel abides in Poictesme, and he is nourished by these fictions. Yearly he grows in stature, this Manuel who redeemed Poictesme from the harsh Northmen’s oppression and lewd savagery. Already this Manuel the Redeemer has become a most notable hero, without fear or guile or any other blemish: and with each generation he will increase in virtue. It is this dear Redeemer whom Poictesme will love and emulate: men will be braver because this Manuel was so very brave; and men, in one or another moment of temptation, will refrain from folly because his wisdom was so well rewarded; and, at least now and then, a few men will refrain from baseness, too, because all his living was stainless.”
“I,” Coth said, heavily, “do not recall this Manuel.”
“Nor do I recall him either, old grumbler. I can remember only one who dealt with each obligation as he best might, and that was always rather inefficiently. I remember many doings which I would prefer not to remember. And I remember a soiled struggler who reeled blunderingly from one half-solved riddle to another, thwarted and vexed, and hiding very jealously his hurt. . . . Well, it is better that such a person should be forgotten! And so I come from my last home to release you from your oath of service. I release you now, forever, dear Coth, and I now bid you do as all the others have done, and I now lay upon you my last orders. I order that you too forget me, Coth, as those have forgotten who might have known me better than you did.”
Coth said, with a queer noise which was embarrassingly like a sob: “I cannot forget the most dear and admirable of earthly lords. You are requiring, sir, the impossible.”