The Man Who Spoke Snakish (30 page)

“Well?” I asked, annoyed. “How far have you got with your chattering? Can I stay here or must I go back to the forest? What do you say, Johannes?”

I looked at the village elder’s rage-reddened face, and suddenly a good idea passed through my head—to kill him and end all this ridiculous arguing, make a drinking goblet of his skull and live in peace with Magdaleena without having to put up with the idiotic old man. But I hadn’t come to the village to fight; I had come to bury myself. I was awaiting an answer and listened to Johannes panting with exasperation—but it was Magdaleena who started speaking.

“Of course you’ll stay here,” she said calmly. “You’re my husband and the father of my child, and you don’t have to become a Christian. There are many Christians here in the village; if I’d wanted to find a husband among them, I could have had one long ago. But I wanted you. Did you hear, Father? I want Leemet
and my child—who is the child of a knight and in whose veins runs the blood of jesuses, don’t forget that!—wants Leemet too.”

“So be it,” said Johannes, though I thought I heard his teeth grinding. “Let him stay then. But I tell you, Magdaleena, God won’t forgive us for giving shelter to a pagan. He’ll punish us for it. One cannot serve two masters!”

“I won’t serve anyone,” I said. “I don’t need a master, and even less do I need to invent one.”

“So be it, but you know you are the only and the last pagan in our village!” declared Johannes.

I didn’t reply. What was there for me to say? I was used to the knowledge that I was the last. Everywhere and always.

n the evening Magdaleena invited me to the swing.

I no longer wore my old animal-skin jacket. Magdaleena had peeled that off me and instead given me some old rags of her father’s. They weren’t bad, but no better than my previous clothes—and it was quite clear that a lot of trouble had to be taken to make such clothes, whereas for us in the forest a proper animal skin was no more than the work of a lunchtime.

By the swings I met first of all my former friend Pärtel—now Peetrus—and his mates Jaakop and Andreas, whom I’d met that time by the monastery. There was also a large group of village boys and girls, swinging, sitting around the fire, and joking with each other behind the swings.

It was quite clear that Magdaleena was treated by this group with the greatest respect. If it was usual for the boys to pull the girls’ hair and try to pull their skirts over their heads, with Magdaleena no one was permitted any such behavior. The girls tried to stay close to her, hung on her every word with great attention, and from time to time put timid questions to her.
They seemed to be most fearful of being embarrassed or saying anything foolish in front of her. For her part Magdaleena treated them with maternal sternness, and never lost an opportunity to emphasize the fact that she was carrying the child of a knight in her belly. Every time she reminded them of it, a hum of wonderment passed among the girls.

The boys, on the other hand, kept a respectful distance from Magdaleena and only glanced at her from the corners of their eyes, rather as a little weasel looks greedily at a lynx’s slaughtered prey, licking its lips, but not daring to go closer. I could feel great satisfaction in the fact that I was the only one who was allowed near such hallowed flesh.

My arrival by the swings was greeted with curious looks and quiet murmurs, but since Magdaleena held me proudly by the hand, all the girls at once reasoned that if the all-wise Magdaleena deemed it good to carry on with a man from the forest, this must be the last word in fashion, and they rushed to get to know me. Magdaleena scared them off with an icy look and a sharp word or two. Her whole being gave to understand that men from the forest were in vogue, but only selected women could possess them—those who had been bedded by a foreigner.

I left the girls and went to greet Pärtel, the sight of whom awakened happy childhood memories and nourished the deceptive dream that people who have vanished from one’s life are still around somewhere, even if changed and living by another name. Unfortunately I knew that this applied only to him, and actually even from Pärtel there was no joy to be had.

Pärtel greeted me fairly indifferently, though this wasn’t out of any special unfriendliness, but because Andreas had found a
dented knight’s helmet from somewhere. This bit of junk was being passed around the group; they were trying it on and admiring it with extreme reverence.

“I know this is Spanish steel,” said Jaakop, tapping delicately with his fingernails on the helmet and smiling happily. “Ah, what workmanship! They know how to do it there!”

“That’s not Spanish steel,” objected some fat village man, taking the helmet in his arms and pressing it harshly between his coarse paws. “This is obviously the work of German smiths!” “Don’t twist it like that, Nigul!” snapped Andreas. “It’s mine. I found it. You’ll break it if you squeeze it.”

“Now,” laughed fat Nigul. “That’s a thing I’d like to see, a peasant like us with his bare hands being able to break the work of German smiths in half. A helmet like this can withstand a heavy blow from a sword if it has to.”

“All the same, you don’t have to mangle it so hard,” said Andreas, taking the helmet in his hands. “It’s beautiful, men; there’s no denying it. World-class quality. Ah, those knights have fine things.”

“No disputing it,” they all agreed. “Quite different to our headgear.”

“Why are you even comparing such a fine helmet to some old cap of ours?” cried Andreas. “This is gleaming and it’s made of metal. Well, in our village no man has anything to put against it. I’ll put it on and all the women will line their arses up for me!” They all laughed, except Pärtel, who asked doubtfully, “Do you dare to go around with that on? What if some knight sees you?”

They all fell silent, and even Andreas became thoughtful. But still he put on a brave face and with a swagger continued,
“Well, why shouldn’t I? Obviously not in daylight and on the main road, but in the evening when it gets dark. Who will see me if I put the helmet on and bundle around with it? I’ll go behind the cowsheds; no knight will come snooping around that dunghill!”

“You’re right they won’t,” said the others, terribly glad that their friend found a way out of a tricky situation, already anticipating his future conquests. “They won’t want to soil their horses’ hooves with manure. If you hide behind the cowsheds, they surely won’t see you.”

There was no jealousy; they obviously all thought it was right that the owner of such a splendid foreign helmet should pounce on all the women in the village.

“Oh, if only I could find one of those!” fat Nigul sighed. “But I know you only get a privilege like that once in a hundred years. Such precious things don’t grow everywhere like mushrooms. The knights look after their helmets.”

“I think they’re easy to get,” I said. “You simply have to kill a knight, and the helmet’s yours.”

My words were followed by a hesitant silence. The village men looked at me as if I’d recommended them to go home and eat their mothers. Finally Jaakop said, “What rubbish you talk. How could we kill a knight?”

“Well, why not?” I questioned. “Do you think they’re immortal? Eternal like rocks?”

“No, it’s not that; it’s that we wouldn’t overcome them,” said Jaakop. “They sit on horseback and they have armor. They have a sword and a lance. They’re much stronger and more powerful than we are. Attacking them would be insane.”

“Squatting there in the forest, maybe you simply haven’t seen them?” added Andreas scornfully. “Here in the village we meet knights every day, and know very well what they’re worth. They are mighty masters. Do you remember, Nigul, just a couple of days ago you didn’t dip your cap low enough, and a knight knocked you flat with his sword? Lucky that you jumped into the ditch; otherwise you would have got a good walloping.”

“Why do you have to take off your cap?” I asked.

“Well, you really are from the forest! It’s a famous old foreign custom! Abroad they always do it: when a knight comes riding along the road, a peasant doffs his cap. It’s polite. If you don’t take your cap off, you’re a boor.”

“I’m not a boor,” objected fat Nigul. “I always take my cap off when a knight rides by, and I bow down to the ground too. I’m a decent person. I know how to behave among the finer folk. But that time I simply didn’t see my lord the knight. The bloody sun was shining in my eyes!”

“Yes, and you got a lesson!”

“That I did. I’ll be more careful in the future.”

“Now you see how stupid you were,” said Jaakop, turning toward me. “Good lord, you want to kill a knight! What for? Because he brings such beautiful helmets to our country? We would otherwise never see the miracles of the outside world if the knights and monks weren’t looking after us.”

I couldn’t be bothered arguing with them. I didn’t tell them that I’d killed several knights and thrown their helmets into the woods like useless rubbish. I could even have led those men to the exact spot where those helmets and coats of mail would be rusting away to that day under a rotting corpse, if the wolves
and foxes hadn’t dragged them to gnaw at elsewhere. But I didn’t wish to help them.

I left the men admiring the helmet and walked toward the women. Even from afar I could hear Magdaleena’s voice, explaining, “Yes, he knows the devil.” She was obviously talking about me. The girls gasped and looked at me with horrified eyes, but when I sat down among them, only a few of them shifted away, probably the timidest ones. Others, on the other hand, gradually slipped closer and glanced at me with greedy curiosity, as if hoping I would suddenly bring about something frightful.

However, I merely sat and chewed on a stalk of grass. I noticed a few girls picking up similar stalks and putting them in their mouths, probably thinking it involved some fairy trick or spell. Finally a little flaxen-haired lass dared to speak to me, clearing her throat a little at first to beg my attention, and piped up: “I have a question! Please tell me, is it true, if you give the devil three drops of blood, you become a witch and you can fly in the sky?”

To a few especially well-mannered girls this very question seemed so horrid that they got up, startled, and went off to swing, preferring that innocent pastime to this dangerous conversation. The bolder ones, however, stayed there and awaited my reply, holding their breath. To my mind they were dreadfully childish. In the forest a three-year-old brat might have thought up something similar. I told the girls that I had never seen anyone flying. I wasn’t going to tell them about my own grandfather and the wings he’d made of human bones; it would have given rise to too many more questions.

“I’ve also heard that if you kill the king of the snakes and eat his crown, a person can learn the language of birds,” continued
the flaxen-haired one. “That’s true. Magdaleena told us you can talk to the animals.”

“There is no language of birds,” I replied. “I know Snakish. To learn that you don’t have to kill anyone, and certainly not the king of the snakes. Eating his crown wouldn’t help; you have to learn the Snakish words. It takes a long time, but when you finally master them, then it’s really possible to make yourself understood to the animals. And the birds too. But you can’t talk with them, because very few animals can answer you back. They understand and obey a word, but they don’t talk themselves.”

The flaxen lass wasn’t satisfied with my answer: “Eating the king snake’s crown does give you some power, though. People don’t tell such stories for nothing. There must be a grain of truth in it.”

“There’s none,” I said. “Pure silliness. People who’ve never even seen a snake-king talk a lot of twaddle.”

“Have you seen a king of the snakes?” asked Magdaleena, evidently anticipating the answer and wanting to make an impression on her friends.

“I have,” I said. Again this was a subject that I didn’t want to dwell on too long; all too clearly I envisaged Ints, her father, and all the other adders. They were my best friends, but now I was sitting among humans who wanted to kill them and devour them only in order to learn the nonexistent “language of birds”—what an idiotic idea. What had I got myself into?

“I don’t want anyone attacking the king of the snakes!” I said angrily. “Before you reached out your hand for his crown, he would have time to sting you ten times. As I said, there’s no need to go after the crown. You could eat a barrelful of them, and the
language of birds wouldn’t be any clearer to you. Eat bread, not snake-kings, and be content with your own sweet life.”

I got up and walked away, disgust and pain in my heart. I had wanted to bury myself here, forget all my previous life—but could that be done? Ignorance was splashed in my face and kept reminding me of the happy times in the forest. How long could I put up with this? I was too different to these villagers; I could never become like them. I had escaped to the village from mourning; now, though, I was very close to leaving the village to escape from stupidity. But where would I go?

Somebody was stroking my head; it was Magdaleena. She had come after me and was now kissing my neck.

“Take no notice of them!” she whispered in my ear. “That’s why I didn’t want a peasant for a husband. They don’t know anything about the forest, the place where they too came from but which they’ve forgotten, nor about the wide world, where they have never been and never will be. They wouldn’t have anything to teach my son. You’re a different matter; you know the old world and all its secrets. You will teach my son Snakish, his knightly father has already given him his blood, and I will add mother love and bring him up as a great man. Leemet, forget those idiots! I saw from your face that you’d like to run back to the forest, but you mustn’t do that. You and I have to bring up my son together, so he can learn about the old and the new world equally. Then there will be at least one man like that, not only just people who don’t know either one properly.”

“Why are you so sure that it will be a boy?” I asked.

“What else?” replied Magdaleena, astonished. “His father is a knight. Knights don’t have daughters.”

I stroked her soft cheek and kissed her earlobe tenderly. But I was thinking, Oh, she’s just as stupid as the others. But what of it—I’ll stay. Where would I go anyway?

We stayed by the swings, but Magdaleena and I sat apart from the others and it felt good. The villagers swung in a great arc, rocking back and forth between earth and sky, and hooted for all they were worth. In this way they seemed actually quite pleasant, because their faces couldn’t be made out in the gathering dusk. By the firelight one could see only a single large bundle of noisy merriment.

And so I stayed in the village. With the other villagers I went to the fields to cut rye. I helped to thresh, winnow, and grind it. I felt an actual awe for the enormous trouble people were prepared to go to in order to imitate foreign ways and munch the bread that to me still tasted like tree bark.