A Wizard in Bedlam

CHAPTER 9

The rising sun found a party of four wandering down the King’s Highway—an old hedge priest, a young woman in a dark, hooded robe, and two filthy madmen, crusted with dirt and with only a twist of loincloth for clothing. The one might have been very tall, if he ever stood straight; but he was hunched and shambling, shuffling down the roadway.

What the other lacked in height, he made up in energy. He bounded down the road capering and crowing, howling a hymn of glee to the rising sun.

“Quite well done, I’m sure,” Father Fletcher said dryly, “but I think you do it with too little cause and too much will. I would ask you to remember that I am, after all, a Christian priest.”

“Of course, Father,” Dirk tossed back over his shoulder, “but any good Christian would agree that only a madman would chant a hymn to the sun.”

“Nonetheless, our good Father has a point,” Madelon demurred. “True, we must be disguised from the King’s patrols, and two madmen and a maiden bound for convent will scarcely be noticed in this land, if they travel under a priest’s protection; but I would like to remind you that no Soldiers are watching at the moment.”

Dirk brushed the objection away. “You don’t understand the art of it. The true histrionicist must always be in character; you never know when you’re going to have an audience.”

“Ordinarily, I wouldn’t find that argument too compelling,” Gar demurred. “But, since three horsemen have just come into sight ahead of us, I must reluctantly grant it a certain validity.”

Dirk looked up, startled. Far down the road, half-obscured by the morning mist and the sun behind them, three riders stood in silhouette.

“Be easy, my children.” Father Fletcher seemed relaxed around a core of tension. “We are only two poor madmen and their grieving sister, journeying to a Bedlam house under the protection of a priest.”

Dirk filed the fact for ready reference, and whirled around to begin the next act of “Salute to the Sun.”

Halfway through the second stanza, a voice cried, “Hold!”

Just in time, too—Dirk had almost run out of lyrics.

He whirled about, one hand poised over his head like a fountain-statue, staring wide-eyed at the Soldiers.

Father Fletcher came to a halt and looked up, mildly inquisitive. Gar kept shambling on; Madelon tugged at his arm, and he stopped, then turned, slowly, to gaze at the Soldiers with a vacant bovine stare.

The sergeant scowled down at them. “What have we here, Friar? Three geese, plucked bare by the parish?”

“Only two poor madmen, Sergeant,” Father Fletcher intoned, “newly orphaned; and their saner, grieving sister.”

Saner. Dirk wondered about that.

One of the troopers leaned down to yank Madelon’s cowl back; rich auburn hair tumbled down. The Soldier whistled.

“Under my protection, of course,” Father Fletcher murmured. The sergeant glared at the trooper, and the man drew back. Dirk was amazed; he hadn’t realized the clergy had so much influence.

“And where would you be traveling to, Father?” The sergeant was measuring Gar with his eyes.

“Why, to the nearest Bedlam house, of course,” Father Fletcher said easily. “The Hospice of Saint Orthicon, at Chambray.”

“Three, they are,” the second trooper growled, “and, if you straightened out the big one—”

“Pray do not attempt it,” Father Fletcher murmured. “He becomes violent if you touch him.” The trooper eyed Gar’s bulk, and moved his horse back a little.

“Well, what of it?” the first trooper growled. “Do we arrest them?”

Father Fletcher looked up in mild puzzlement. “What for? Surely these poor unfortunates could have harmed no one.”

“I’m sure they could not have.” The sergeant’s sarcasm was thick. “But, ridiculous as it may seem, we Soldiers are bound to consider that even you, a man of the cloth, might be trying to smuggle dangerous criminals past us.”

“No!” Father Fletcher was appropriately scandalized. “Is there really so little faith left among your superiors?”

“Even so,” the sergeant lamented. “But—ours not to question why, Friar.”

“Sergeant,” the priest reproved him gently, “I am a man of peace.”

Dirk thought about arrows and kept his mouth shut.

“My superiors, I fear, are not,” the sergeant pointed out.

Father Fletcher’s tone became more severe. “Sergeant, if you meddle with those under the protection of a priest, you earn the displeasure of the Almighty.”

“There’s some truth in that,” the sergeant said thoughtfully. “But if we don’t, we earn the displeasure of Lord Core—which is apt to come a little sooner than God’s.”

“But it doesn’t last quite as long.”

“There’s some truth in that, too.” The sergeant glowered down at Dirk, who had fallen into a rapt study of the grains of dust in the roadway.

Madelon looked up at him wide-eyed, almost adoring.

The sergeant straightened in the saddle, with an air of decision. “Well enough, then, Father—we won’t interfere with the clergy. We’ll let you take your charges to the Bedlam house.”

“I thank you,” Father Fletcher murmured.

“In fact,” the sergeant went on, “our respect for your cloth is so great that we’ll even escort you.”

“Oh.” Father Fletcher pursed his lips, thinking that one over for a moment. “I thank you greatly, but … surely that is too much bother to ask of you.”

“Not at all, not at all,” the sergeant said affably. “After all, we couldn’t have you being set on by outlaws, now, could we?”

The sun was setting as the priest brought the madmen to the Hospice of Saint Orthicon—with three steel-clad Soldiers behind him. Their sister kissed them a fond, tearful farewell at the door—and muttered between kisses, “Keep your hearts up, as well as you can. We’ll get you out somehow—I just can’t promise how soon.”

Then she stood back, hand raised in parting, while the priest blessed them, and the attendants ushered them in, out of the sunlight—and into a dank, chilly gloom, filled with the smell of unwashed bodies and excrement.

They stopped in the doorway, involuntarily pulling back as a pandemonium of moans and wails hit them. Dirk’s eyes fought to adapt to the gloom; there was only a little light, from a few small windows way up high on the walls—barred windows, set in granite thirty feet above them. By the time this modicum of sunlight filtered down to the floor, it had spread out to a sourceless, uneven murk, out of which rose islands of pallid bodies clothed in rags and filth. Some of the islands moved in a constant, slow churning.

The attendants pulled them forward, and, as they passed between rows of poor madmen lying on straw pallets, Dirk saw an occasional one whose movement was hurried, frenzied—and totally aimless; a kind of threshing pantomime of violence. Dirk tried to shrink away, inside his skin, away from them all; they filled the long, narrow room, standing, sitting, or lying against the walls. Each one had a chain, some on the ankle, some on the wrist; the other end of the chain was driven into the wall. He stared about him, horrified, following the attendant, feeling as though he was wading through a sea of groans, walls of despair, cries of rage, and shrill, gibbering laughter. Suddenly, he doubted if he could even make it through one night here. He could only stare, horrified, as the warder riveted a chain around his ankle and went away, leaving both of them chained between a Tradesman who crouched against the wall, glaring at an unseen persecutor and cursing steadily in a low, even voice; and a Farmer, squat and flabby, who sat hunched against the wall, munching slowly at a sore on the back of his hand.

“It’s a madhouse,” Dirk whispered, stunned.

“Yes.” Gar swallowed heavily, his eyes bulging. “Not a mental hospital, not an insane asylum. A madhouse. The real, genuine medieval article. A Bedlam.” He swallowed again, thickly.

“I don’t know if I can even make it through one night here.”

“Shut up,” Gar snapped, his eyes burning. Cold sweat stood out on his brow.

Dirk frowned up at him, puzzled—and felt a sudden hollow fear, as he watched the anger bleach out of Gar’s eyes, leaving only agony. The big guy looked like a wounded man fighting against a burning pain clawing inside him, able to hang on only because he knew the doctor was coming. “What’s the matter with you?”

Gar swallowed thickly again and muttered, “The walls … agony … despair …” He turned on Dirk furiously. “Shut up, can’t you? You’re tearing my ears out!”

Dirk shrank back into a crouch, staring up at the big man as fear scooped out his entrails and jellied his legs. He hadn’t been saying anything.

As the light faded, Gar sank back against the walls, lower and lower into a crouch, back plastered flat against the rough stone, staring bug-eyed up at the little, high window across from him, sweat trickling down his face in the chill.

When the sun had set, and the huge stone room was cloaked in twilight, a warder came by with bowls of food—a hunk of stale brown bread, a cup of water, and a bowl of gruel for each man. There were no spoons; the inmates ate with their fingers and drank the gruel, or spooned it up with their hands—or turned it upside-down over their heads.

Gar wouldn’t touch his food. He sat on his heels, jaw clenched tight, eyes bulging, sweating. Dirk watched him, and wisely held his peace. At least, he thought it was wisdom.

Clank of keys; a warder stopped in front of Gar. Dirk looked up at a miniature gorilla, obviously chosen for the sensitivity and delicacy of his feelings. He scowled down at Gar. “Come, then—eat! We’ll not have you wasting away, and robbing us of the penny a day the King gives us for you!”

But Gar just sat on his heels, staring off into space.

The attendant looked worried. With a shock, Dirk realized the Neanderthal actually had some dedication. He sat on his heels, staring into Gar’s eyes. “Come, come, it’s not so bad as that. Only eat, and hold onto life, and all will grow better.”

Gar’s throat muscles worked, but he stayed silent.

The warder scowled, and Dirk remembered that even the finest empathy can be blunted by the wrong environment. He screwed up his courage and reached over to give Gar a shake. “Nay then, coz! Will you not do a king’s bidding? His Majesty bids you to eat—why, then, glad fellow, you were ever a man for the trencher! Come, ‘tis a fat pullet, and wine from the King’s own table!”

The warder’s brow smoothed; he nodded approval. “Aye, there, good fellow, talk him into it, if you can.”

“To be sure, Majesty, to be sure!” Dirk salaamed, turned to hiss into Gar’s ear. “Come out of it, idiot! What’re you trying to do—get yourself force-fed?”

Gar’s head turned, slowly, almost mechanically, as though it were separate from his body. His voice was a hoarse, grating whisper. “The walls …”

“Yeah, the walls. Well, the hell with the walls! Eat the damn food, man, or they’ll ram it down your throat!”

Gar’s eyes stayed glassy.

Dirk scowled to hide abiding fear. “Come on! What’s the matter with you?” He slapped Gar’s cheek and cried, “Wake, coz! For the moon, that startled into flight, the sun before him, from the lake of night …”

He hoped Khayyam’s ghost wasn’t listening; but it seemed to work. Something seemed to click behind Gar’s eyes; they seemed to focus suddenly. He turned, frowning, to stare at the bowl of food, Then he shuddered and began to eat.

The warder nodded approvingly, climbing to his feet. “You’re a proper man, though a daft one,” he said to Dirk. “Care for your brother, then. You seem to have wits enough for that, at least.”

At the far end of the chamber, a man screamed, rearing up to claw at the air, straining against the chain harnessing his shoulders. The warder looked up in alarm and leaped over to him. Another attendant slammed into the man from the other side. They grabbed the ancient’s arms, wrestled them down around behind him. “Come then, old Jean, come,” the warder growled in a tone that was meant to soothe. “It’ll pass, Jean; it always has. They’ll go away …”

Dirk turned away, stomach rebelling, as the old man collapsed, sobbing, sliding back down the wall, drooling and trembling. Dirk looked up at Gar, and felt alarm grab him. The big man had frozen again, into stone, eyes squeezed shut, lips parted, breath hissing in and out. Sweat dripped from his temples.

Dirk scowled. “Hey, then! What’s the matter with you?”

“I can’t …” Gar swallowed thickly. His eyes opened; he gave his head a quick shake. “I can’t … not much longer …”

With a heave, he rolled forward to his knees, rolled back to sit on his heels with only the soles of his feet in contact with the floor. “The stones, dammit! I can’t take them! The clamor in here is bad enough, but the stones! Ten times worse—it’s too much! They … the emotions … screaming … rage, despair, the …” He swallowed, and was stone again, his mouth moving as though trying to force sound out.

Dirk felt a thrill of panic, and under it, the dread certainty that, if Gar hadn’t been crazy when he came in here, he would be when he went out. This was just the place for it.

He tried to calm himself—maybe it was all an act. Too good an act, something inside him prodded. He’d heard of such cases—actors who really began to believe they were the characters. And if the character was insane …

The gloom in, the chamber deepened into night.

A single lamp burned at the far end of the hall, where two warders sat playing cards. The inmates lapsed into slumber—most of them, at least. A few began to moan, rocking themselves from side to side. Several lay huddled against the wall, sobbing with the tearing agony of total despair. Now and again one sprang to his feet with a scream, arms windmilling as he fought invisible demons. The two warders were at his side almost before the first long scream was ended, hedging him in and keeping pace with him as he turned, so he couldn’t harm his neighbors, until the spasm passed and the patient sank into a sobbing puddle.

It was a night of nightmare, lit only by the flickering rays of one feeble lamp, filled with wails and the howling of demons—and Gar reached over to slap Dirk on the arm. “Talk—anything! Give me bits, anything to chew on.”

Dirk stared.

Then he shook himself; he could remember when he’d needed distraction. “Okay. Obviously there’s no psychology here, not even an attempt to understand any of what’s in their minds; the authorities stick on the label ‘mad,’ and don’t question any further. After all, everyone knows there’s absolutely no understanding of a madman’s mind, right?”

Gar nodded. “Right. But—common sense, at least? Her!”

He jabbed a finger out into the gloom; Dirk looked across the way, and saw a girl, maybe twenty, who would have been beautiful anywhere else—hair golden under the crust of filth, heart shaped face, high, full breasts and a tapering waist, which were easy to see, because her gray tunic was ripped in a dozen places, shredded. Her eyes were glazed, vacant; and Dirk might have been wrong, but he thought Gar winced as he looked at her. “Don’t they wonder why a beautiful girl would despair?” Gar grated. “Can’t they see why—”

The girl erupted in a sudden, soundless fury, her face contorted in a silent scream, ripping and tearing at her clothes .as though they were on fire.

Gar snapped his head down, huge fingers digging into his scalp, eyes squeezed shut, body rolled into a tight ball balanced on the balls of his feet, until the girl had relaxed into silent, shuddering sobs. Then, slowly, he looked up, breathing hoarsely.

“What’s the matter?” Dirk said gently. “Couldn’t you even stand the sight of her?”

Gar shook his head, looking up wide-eyed, gasping. “No. It was … what was going on in her mind.”

Dirk frowned. What kind of figure of speech was that?

“It gets worse.” Gar waved vaguely toward the right, past Dirk, not looking. “There’s a man down that way who’s watching her like a gorgon, and his tongue is thick in his dripping mouth.”

Dirk turned and looked, frowning. He could just barely make out the humped body of a Merchant who sat tailor fashion, leaning elbows on knees, staring at the girl in rapt fascination, lips parted, a thin thread of saliva hanging from his lower lip.

Gar hadn’t even looked. How had he known? Noticed the guy earlier, probably.

“Don’t they see what she’s doing to him?” Gar rasped. “The fantasies he’s building around her, the constant tension she keeps him at?”

Dirk turned back to him, scowling. “How do you know that?”

Gar shook his head impatiently, went on as though he hadn’t heard. “And there’s one down beyond him, gene damage—from inbreeding—with only the stump of a leg, and it’s not amputation, born that way—and with a piece of his mind missing, too; born without a left frontal lobe.”

Dirk peered through the murk, but this one he couldn’t see at all. Could Gar have that much sharper eyes?

No. Impossible.

He turned back to Gar. “You can hear their thoughts, can’t you? And you can’t shut them out—not this many, this strong.”

Gar shook his head, staring, glassy-eyed. “That’s not what’s doing it. Not just that much, alone. It’s the stones, you see.” He rose into a crouch, shifting from foot to foot, picking first one off the floor, then the other, in a sort of shuffling dance. “It’s been stored in the stones of this place, year upon year, agony and despair, piling up into centuries, and I can’t get away from them!”

Dirk glanced nervously at the warders. “Keep your voice down.”

“If I just didn’t have to touch them, if I could get something between me and them, a good thick board maybe, but no, that wouldn’t help, they’re coming at me from all sides, pushing and shoving into my head, and I can’t … can’t … I can’t take it!” He whirled about, clutching at his head, spinning around against the chain. “Stop them, damn it, stop them; shut them up! I can’t take it! I’ve got to get … out of here!” He grabbed the chain in both hands and set his foot against the wall.—“I can’t take it!”

Dirk jumped to his feet, remembering the bars in the arena, as the warders came running up. Gar’s body convulsed, straightening out against the chain; metal groaned, screeched—and the warders piled onto him. One threw an arm around his throat, the other bear-hugged his arms to his sides. The giant whirled about, roaring, shaking them like a terrier with rats; then three more warders out of the bunk-room piled on, bearing him down under sheer body-weight. Dirk plastered himself back against the wall, staring, horrified. Then he shook himself, and dived into the churning mass of bodies, throwing his arms around a warder, yanked him loose—and Gar surged up with a bellow, spewing warders out like a volcano, blasting out one huge, blood-congealing shriek that lanced through Dirk’s ears down his spine. It echoed, and faded, but the dim light showed a huge, stiff silhouette bowed over backward, mouth gaping, vacant eyes staring up. Then, slowly, the human spring uncoiled, and slowly, slowly, folded in on itself, crumbling; then, in a sudden cascade, collapsed, sprawling trembling limbs and bowed head to the floor.

The warders stood back, watching, faces locked in lugubrious tragedy.

Dirk stepped forward, knelt, reached out a hand toward the huge body.

“Does he live?” one of the warders rasped. Dirk touched the massive shoulder tentatively, then grasped, shook it.

The huge body lifted itself up agonizingly, one leg straight out, the other folded under him. The torso lifted up, leaned back, backward, until shoulders and head fell back against the wall. The great arms lay limp, hands upturned and empty on the floor. The eyes stared upward, blank.

The warders stood in a silent semicircle, their faces grave. Then one frowned, leaning down, and slapped Gar’s face. “Now, then, answer—do you hear me?”

The face rocked to the side with the blow; the eyes stayed empty.

“Gone,” another warder muttered thickly. All their faces seemed to gel; they turned away, slowly, back toward the light. The warder who had spoken stood over Gar, then turned to Dirk. “He’s gone, then, lad. Do you know what that means?”

Dirk remembered he was supposed to be mad. His eyebrows shot up in surprise; he managed a smile. “Aye, Nuncle! Why, ‘tis my brother!”

For a moment, the warder’s face seemed to soften. “Aye, poor idiot. But is he here, still?”

Dirk turned to look at Gar in surprise. “Why, wherefore not? He is as he has always been, since the day of his birth. Except …” He rolled forward onto his knees, thrusting his face to within an inch of Gar’s, peering at him from every side while he fought down a sudden surge of nausea. Then he looked up at the guard with a delighted, beatific smile “… except he is bigger now.”

The warder stood silent for a moment, his mouth working. Then a sad smile won over his face; he turned his head from side to side. “Aye, lad. Aye, he is bigger now. Aye, that is all.” He started to reach out to Dirk, as though to pat his head, but thought better of it, and pulled his hand back. “Aye, care for him, then. He is your brother.” He turned away, going back to the light.

Dirk watched after him, staring at the feeble glow of the lamp—anything to avoid looking at Gar. Yes, Gar was his brother now. There was a bond between them—now, when it was too late.

And the warder was right again—Gar was gone, or his mind, at least. Catatonic, probably—he wasn’t an expert. He couldn’t be sure.

And, now that it was too late, he understood. Gar was a telepath; he could “hear” other people’s thoughts; but not just that. He could “hear” the thoughts of the dead, too—if he was in the room where the dead had lived. There was a word for it, “psychometry,” and even a theory to back it up—that strong emotions made minuscule changes in the electrical potentials of objects within range; and a special kind of mind, “scanning” those objects even centuries later, could still resonate tiny echoes of those long-lost emotions and, through them, of the people who had held those emotions. A really good psychometrist was supposed to be able to pick up a rock, or a cup, or anything, and describe the personality of the person to whom it belonged and the main events in that person’s life. And here, in a room that had never held anything but the mentally ill, and had held generations of them, for centuries … A room in which there had never been anything but strong emotions, and most of them negative … For a moment, Dirk felt a touch of what Gar must have gone through and shuddered, automatically pinching the sensation off, closing it away from his mind. Gar must have thought he had walked into hell. Presumably a telepath—or any kind of a psi-built up automatic defenses against psionic input, a kind of blocking or closure that would automatically shut out any signals he didn’t want to hear, the way most people can be in a room where music is playing and never really be aware of it, until the music stops. But even the strongest dam can be breached. Or overwhelmed …

And what happens then, when the floodwaters come booming in, and the storm churns throughout the land? Why, you find yourself a bolt-hole, some watertight place in the bowels of the earth, and you go lock yourself in and pull the key after you, so that nothing can ever get to you, ever, ever again.

Somewhere, some cul-de-sac corner of Gar’s brain, the giant’s mind had retreated into, pulling the hole in after it, leaving the rest of his brain clear, for the demons to play in …

Suddenly, frantically, Dirk ached for daybreak.