City of Saints and Madmen Part 32

25 . In a city otherwise so pristine, such blatant "disorder" should have made Tonsure suspicious. Was he now so completely set, as was his master, on the goal of discrediting and dehumanizing the gray caps, that he could see it no other way?

26 . Unfortunately, this claim strengthens Sabon's a.s.sertion with regard to the Patriarch of Nicea-see footnote 6.

27 . Poor Tonsure. Just preceding this diatribe, the monk describes a kind of hard mushroom, about seven inches tall, with a stem as thick as its head. When squeezed, this mushroom suddenly throbs to an even greater size. While walking innocently between the "library" and the amphitheater, Tonsure came across a group of gray cap women using these mushrooms in what he calls a "lascivious way." So perhaps we should forgive him his hyperbole. Still, shocked or not-and he was a more worldly monk than many-Tonsure should have noticed that for every such "perversion," the gray caps had developed a dozen more useful wonders. For example, another type of mushroom stood two feet tall and had a long, thin stem with a wide hood that, when plucked, could be used as an umbrella; the hood even collapsed into the stem for easy storage.

28 . Here Lacond proves useful. He puts forth two theories for the gray caps' pa.s.sivity: first, that Manzikert had landed in the midst of a religious festival during which the gray caps were forbidden to take part in any aggressive acts, even to defend themselves; second, that the gray cap society resembled that of bees or ants, and thus none of the "units" in the city had free will, being extensions of some hive intellect. This second theory by Lacond seems extreme to some historians, but the idea of pa.s.sivity being bred into particular cla.s.ses of gray cap society cannot be ruled out. This would support my own theory that the entire city of Cinsorium was a religious artifact, a temple, if you will, in which violence was not permitted to be inflicted by its keepers. Were Manzikert's actions tantamount to desecration?

29 . Typically, Sabon cannot bite her tongue and disagrees, citing the Calabrian Calendar used by the Aan as schismatic-most definitely not synchronized with the modern calendar. However, Sabon fails to take into account that Tonsure, as the non-Aan author of the biography and the journal, would have used the Kalif's calendar, which is identical to our own.

30 . Cynically, Tonsure reports, "Better to name a city after the nether parts of a whale than to actually go whaling, for Manzikert, lazy as he is, finds piracy much easier than whaling: when you harpoon an honest sailor, he is less likely to drag you 300 miles across open water and then, turning, casually devour you and drown your companions." Other names Manzikert considered include "Aanville," "Aanapolis," and "Aanburg," so we may be fairly certain that Tonsure suggested "Ambergris," despite his ridicule of the name.

31 . Or, as Sabon put it, "how cunning a fungus."

32 . Tonsure does, in his journal, write that the lichen in question "more closely resembled one blob rutting with another blob, but who is to doubt the vision of cappans?" Are we to believe that the carnage to come was all the result of two unfortunately-shaped lichen? Sabon points to the Holy Visitation of Stockton (alternately known by historians as the Sham Involving Jam), where a stain of blueberry jam resembling the heretic Ibonof Ibonof sparked seven days of riots. Lacond, in agreement with Sabon, relates the story that the Kalif's order to attack the Menite town of Richter was the direct result of a Richter lemon squirting him in the eye when he cut it open. Unfortunately, Sabon and Lacond have joined forces to support an idea that lacks merit given the context. It is my opinion that, lichen or no lichen, Manzikert would have attacked the gray caps.

33 . Tonsure never indicates what he did during the ma.s.sacre- whether to partic.i.p.ate or intervene; later circ.u.mstantial evidence indicates he may have tried to intervene. Nonetheless, Tonsure's description of the ma.s.sacre has a disturbingly cold, disinterested edge to it. Predictably, the biography account speaks of Manzikert's bravery as, surrounded by "dangerous gray caps armed to the teeth," (read: "wide-eyed, weaponless midgets") he managed to cut his way through them to safety.

34 . The bersar, an honorary t.i.tle peculiar to the Aan and awarded only to men who had shown great bravery in combat.

35 . All the information we have about the events that follow comes from Manzikert II, who is not nearly as entertaining as Tonsure, lacking both his wit and powers of description. Manzikert II was serious and 17-a disastrous combination for historical writing, as I can attest-and I have resisted direct quotation for the most part.

36 . The gray caps must also have taken the fabulous golden tree, for there is no mention of it in Manzikert II's account, or in any future chronicle. It defies the laws of probability that such a remarkable invention would not be mentioned somewhere, in some account, had it not already been taken back by the gray caps.

37 . I will call him Manzikert I from this point on, so as to avoid confusing him with his son.

38 . Lacond: "An act of utter barbarism, destroying the finest artifacts of a culture that has never been found anywhere else in the known world and destroying a people both peaceful and advanced. Genocide is too kind a word." Sabon: "Without Sophia's bravery, the new-born city of Ambergris would soon have perished, undone by the treachery of the gray caps."

39 . Sophia, in the biography, would have us believe that she destroyed all of the buildings, but since we find Manzikert II, 10 years later, using several of them for defensive and storage purposes, this seems unlikely.

40 . We begin to wonder if Manzikert did believe in his heart of hearts that he should ma.s.sacre the gray caps because of two oddly-shaped lichens.

41 . So many that Manzikert II had to ban the feeding of rats during a time of famine.

42 . Much to the disgust of Truffi dians everywhere, Manziists often claim to be the Brothers and Sisters of Truff, a claim that has led to riots-and dozens of rats cooked on spits-in the Religious Quarter.

43 . The impatient, f.e.c.kless reader, posessed of no glimmer of intellectual or historical curiosity, should do an old historian a favor and skip the next few pages, proceeding directly to the Silence itself (Part III). I would a.s.sume that, in these horrid modern times, that will include most of you. Of course, those readers least likely to read these footnotes, and thus least likely to appreciate the next few pages, will skip this note and bore themselves upon the ennui of history . . .

44 . Sophia was never the same after Manzikert I returned to her blinded and deranged-she died soon after him and while alive expressed little or no interest in governing, although she did on at least two occasions, at her son's insistence and with great success, lead punitive expeditions against the southern tribes. Sophia had truly loved her brute of a man, although not in the maudlin terms described by Voss Bender in his first and least successful opera, The Tragedy of John and Sophia; it is diffi cult not to laugh while John dances with a man in a rat suit, which he has mistaken in his madness for Sophia, toward the end of Act III.

45 . He was, by all accounts, a handsome man, if not possessed of the swarthy, thick handsomeness of his father; he had a slender frame and a head topped with a tangle of black hair, beneath which his green eyes shone with a cunning fierceness.

46 . For a long time, these tribes avoided the city and accorded the new settlement an undue measure of respect-until they began to realize the gray caps had left, apparently for good, after which a vigorous contempt for the Aan became the norm.

47 . For a thorough overview of the early political and economic systems, as well as particulars on crops, etc., see Richard Mandible's excellent "Early Ambergrisian Finance and Society," recently published in Vol. x.x.xII, Issue 3, of Historian's Quarterly. Such detailed information lies beyond the brief of this particular essay, not to mention the patience of the reader and the endurance of an old historian with creaky joints.

48 . A catalog kept during Manzikert II's reign indicates that at least two of these relics were taken from saintly men while still living, and that although the Cappan's agents bargained long and hard for the purchase from the Kalif of the "p.e.n.i.s and left t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e of Saint George of a.s.suf," they managed only to procure the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e. (We can only imagine the bizarre sight of the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e's triumphant entrance to the city, borne upon a perfumed, gold-embroidered pillow held high by a senior Truffi dian priest while the crowds cheered wildly.) At the height of the religious frenzy, the Church of the Seven Pointed Star even put together an array of different saints' body parts-a head here, an ear there-to make a creature they called the "The Saint of Saints," a sort of super saint. This was put on display for 20 years until several other churches, on the verge of bankruptcy due to their own lack of relics, launched a joint raid and "dismembered" this early golem.

49 . The rebuilt palace elicited neither condemnation nor praise; indeed, its most interesting features were its many interior murals and portraits, several of which commemorate victories against the Kalif created out of thin air by Ambergrisian historians. Worse, the first two portraits in the Great Hall depict cappans who never existed, to gloss over the Occupation, a period when the city was under the Kalif's control. To this day, Ambergrisian school children are taught the exploits of Cappan Skinder and Cappan Bartine. Braver if less substantial leaders have rarely trod upon the earth . . .

50 . Evidence suggests he may have been poisoned by his ambitious son, whom he was always careful to bring on campaign with him, so as to keep the boy under a watchful eye. Manzikert II died suddenly, with no apparent symptoms, his body quickly cremated on his son's order. If there was little protest, this may have been because he had never been a popular leader, despite his excellent record. He lacked the necessary charisma for men to follow him unthinkingly.

51 . In the north, the Cappandom of Ambergris, as it was now officially known, encountered implacable resistance from the Menites, adherents to a religion that saw Truffi d as heresy. The Menites would subsequently establish a vast northern commercial empire, based in the city of Morrow, some 85 miles upriver from Ambergris.

52 . Sabon insists it was leprosy, while others believe it was epilepsy. Regardless, we can choose from three spectacular diseases with very different symptoms.

53 . Jungle rot can have various manifestations, but, according to an anonymous observer, Manzikert III's jungle rot was among the nastiest ever recorded: "Suddenly an abscess appeared in his privy parts then a deep-seated fistular ulcer; these could not be cured and ate their way into the very midst of his entrails. Hence there sprang an innumerable mult.i.tude of worms, and a deadly stench was given off, since the entire bulk of his members had, through gluttony, even before the disease, been changed into an excessive quant.i.ty of soft fat, which then became putrid and presented an intolerable and most fearful sight to those who came near it. As for the physicians, some of them were wholly unable to endure the exceeding and unearthly stench, while those who still attended his side could not be of any a.s.sistance, since the whole ma.s.s had swollen and reached a point where there was no hope of recovery."

54 . Although Manzikert III's order (rescinded after his death) was extreme, his charge that the city's doctors knew little of their craft is, unfortunately, true. In an attempt to upgrade its service, the Inst.i.tute sent representatives to the Kalif's court, as well as to the witchdoctors of native tribes. The Kalif 's physicians refused to reveal their methodology, but the witchdoctors proved very helpful. The Inst.i.tute incorporated such native procedures as applying the freshwater electric flounder as a local anesthetic during surgery. Another procedure, perhaps even more ingenious, solved the problem of infection during the st.i.tching up of intestines. Large senegrosa ants, placed along the opening, clamped the wounds shut with their jaws; the witchdoctor then cut away the bodies, leaving only the heads. After replacing the intestines in the stomach, the witchdoctor would sew up the abdomen. As the wound healed, the ant heads would gradually dissolve.

55 . Although I have certainly devoted enough footnotes to him.

56 . One menu for such a banquet included calf's brain custard, roast hedgehog, and a dish rather cruelly known as Oliphaunt's Delight, the incomplete recipe for which was uncovered by the Ambergrisian Gastronomic a.s.sociation just last year: 1 scooped out oliphaunt's skull

1 pureed oliphaunt's brain

1 gallon of brandy

6 oysters

2 very clean pigs' bladders

24 eggs