To Prime the Pump - A. Bertram Chandler [48]
"I did," said Marlene. "I did. But we von Stolzberg's have a family tradition. Shall I tell you? Try to do something, and fail. Try a second time, and fail. Try a third time, and fail. Try a fourth time, and the consequences are unforeseen and disastrous."
"Superstition," growled the Hereditary Chief.
"This from you, Lobenga . . ." murmured the Princess.
"The Old Religion is not superstition!" flared Eulalia. "If we had been allowed to do things our way . . ."
"We still can," said her husband.
"But not," stated the Princess, "in Schloss Stolzberg. I am fully conscious of the obligations of a host."
"Mr. Grimes!" It was the Duchess of Leckhampton addressing him. Then, sharply, "Mr. Grimes!"
He turned to her, still bewildered by the conversation in which he had played no part, but of which he appeared to have been the subject. "Your Grace?"
She was very much the great lady again, and she spoke with hauteur. "Mr. Grimes, I shall apologize to you, even if these others will not. It must be embarrassing for an outsider to be the witness to what, in effect, is a family quarrel. Yes, we are a family here on El Dorado, even though we are of diverse races and origins. But I must commend you, Mr. Grimes, for having the good sense and the courtesy not to take sides."
He tried to make a joke of his reply. "I didn't know whose side to take, Your Grace."
"Didn't you, Mr. Grimes?" sneered de Messigny.
"No," said Grimes. He allowed his indignation to take charge. "Damn it all, you people are the upper crust of the entire bloody Galaxy, or think that you are. But I tell you that such squabbling at table would not be tolerated in the Fourth Class Ratings' messroom, let alone the wardroom of a ship."
"That will do, Grimes!" snapped the Count.
"That will do, Henri!" almost snarled the Princess. "John was right in what he said."
"John?" echoed de Messigny, with a sardonic lift of his black eyebrows. "But I was forgetting, Marlene. After all, you have Karl and Fritz and Fredrik and Augustin and Johann . . . Although John has the advantage of being flesh and blood, not metal."
"De Messigny . . ." Lobenga's voice was an ominous rumble. "De Messigny, you will be silent." His strange yellow eyes swept the table. "You will all of you be silent, until I have had my say." Then he addressed the Lieutenant directly. "Mr. Grimes, what has happened should never have happened. What has been said should never have been said. But there are forces loose tonight in this old castle. Perhaps, even though there are no ghosts, the centuries of bloodstained history that these walls have seen have left a record of some kind on the very stones. There has been a clash of personalities. There has been sexual jealousy, and so the record has been played back. It was in this very hall, I am told, that Her Highness's forebear, Magda, died of her wounds.
"Be that as it may, Mr. Grimes, too much has been said in your hearing. You know too much, and too little. But I, we, feel that you have the right to know more. Do we have your word, as an officer and a gentleman, that what we shall tell you will never be divulged?"
Grimes' head was buzzing. Could it have been the effects of too much wine, or of something in the wine? And those yellow eyes staring into his were strangely hypnotic.
"Do we have your word?" asked Lobenga.
"Yes," he whispered.
"Is this wise?" asked Eulalia.
"Shut yo' mouf, woman." The deliberate lapse into the archaic dialect was frightening rather than ludicrous. This was the High Priest speaking, not the cultured Negro gentleman. "Shut yo' mouf, all of yo', until Ah is done.
"Mr. Grimes," he went on, "I can tell you that you were to have been honored, greatly honored. But circumstances now are such that, after your stay here, you will be allowed to return to your ship."
"Honored?" asked Grimes. "How?"
"You were to have been the white goat, the goat without horns."
Grimes stared around the table in horror rather than in disbelief.
"It is true," said Marlene.
Chapter 23
"Yes," said Lobenga, breaking the heavy silence, "you are