27.
Poictesme Reformed
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NOW the tale, for one reason and another, does not record the miracle which Yaotl performed. The Gods of Tollan were always apt to be misled by their queer notions of humor. Instead, the tale is of that Poictesme to which—borne by that favorable if malodorous wind which Yaotl provided and aimed,—Coth now perforce returned alone.
During the years of Coth’s absence there had been many changes. Nominally it was the Countess Niafer who ruled over this land, but she in everything seemed to be controlled by St. Holmendis of Philistia. About the intimacy between the Countess and her lean but sturdy adviser there was now no longer any gossip nor shrugging: people had grown used to this alliance, just as they were becoming reconciled to the reforms and the prohibitions which were its fruitage.
For now that Manuel was gone, Coth found, the times were changing for the better at a most uncomfortable rate. To Coth of the Rocks these days seemed to breed littler men, who, to be sure, if you cared about such kickshaws, lived more decorously than had lived their fathers, now that this overbearing St. Holmendis had come out of Philistia with his miracles: for this sacrosanct person would put up with no irregularity anywhere, and would hardly so much as tolerate the mildest form of wonder-working by anybody else. Even Guivric the Sage, who in the elder and more candid times had attended to all of Dom Manuel’s conjuring, now found it expedient to restrict his thaumaturgies to a wholly confidential practice.
For the rest, you could go for days now without encountering a warlock or a fairy; the people of Audela but rarely came out of the fire to make sport for and with mankind; and, while many persons furtively brewed spells at home, all traffic with spirits had to be conducted secretly. In fine, Poictesme was everywhere upon its most sedate behavior, because there was no telling when Holy Holmendis might be dealing with you for your own good; and the cowed province, just as Guivric had prophesied, stayed subject nowadays to a robustious saint conceived and nurtured and made holy in Philistia.
But yet another unsettling influence was abroad, nefariously laboring to keep everybody sanctimonious and genteel,—Coth said,—for over the entire land Coth found, and fretted under, the all-enveloping legend of Manuel the Redeemer. Coth found the land’s most holy place, now, to be that magnificent tomb which, in Coth’s absence, the Countess Niafer had reared at Storisende to the memory of her husband. And that this architectural perjury was handsome enough, even Coth admitted.
The intricately carved lower half of the sepulchre displayed eight alcoves in each of which was sealed the relic of one or another saint. The upper portion was the pedestal of a very fine equestrian statue of Dom Manuel with his lance raised, and in full armor, but wearing no helmet, so that the hero’s face was visible as he sat there, waiting, it seemed, and watching the North. Thus Manuel appeared to keep eternal guard against whatever enemy might dare molest the country which he had once redeemed from the Northmen. And there was never a more splendid looking champion than was this mimic Manuel, for the armor of this effigy was everywhere inset with jewels of every kind and color.
How Madame Niafer, who was, moreover, by ordinary a notably parsimonious person, had ever managed to pay for all these gems nobody could declare with certainty, but it was believed that Holy Holmendis had provided them through one or another pious miracle. Coth of the Rocks voiced an exasperated aspersion that they were paste; and declared paste gems to be wholly appropriate to the mortuary imposture. In any event, the Redeemer of Poictesme had been accorded the most magnificent sepulchre these parts had ever known.
And Coth found all this jewelry and tortured stone-work, as a work of art, to be wholly admirable, if you cared for such kickshaws. But as a tomb he considered it to lack at least one essential feature, in that it was empty.