Small Gods

‘Ah? Yes, the Library. The Library that they have here. Of course. Crammed with useless and dangerous and evil knowledge. I can see it in my mind, Brutha. Can you imagine that?’

‘No, Lord Vorbis.’

‘Your innocence is your shield, Brutha. No. By all means go to the Library. I have no fear of any effect on you.’

‘Lord Vorbis?’

‘Yes?’

‘The Tyrant said that they hardly did anything to Brother Murduck …’

Silence unrolled its restless length.

Vorbis said, ‘He lied.’

‘Yes.’ Brutha waited. Vorbis continued to stare at the wall. Brutha wondered what he saw there. When nothing else appeared to be forthcoming, he said, ‘Thank you.’

He stepped back a bit before he went out, so that he could squint under the deacon’s bed.

He’s probably in trouble, Brutha thought as he hurried through the palace. Everyone wants to eat tortoises.

He tried to look everywhere while avoiding the friezes of unclad nymphs.

Brutha was technically aware that women were a different shape from men; he hadn’t left the village until he was twelve, by which time some of his contemporaries were already married. And Omnianism encouraged early marriage as a preventive against Sin, although any activity involving any part of the human anatomy between neck and knees was more or less Sinful in any case.

Brutha wished he was a better scholar so he could ask his God why this was.

Then he found himself wishing his God was a more intelligent God so it could answer.

He hasn’t screamed for me, he thought. I’m sure I would have heard. So maybe no one’s cooking him.

A slave polishing one of the statues directed him to the Library. Brutha pounded down an aisle of pillars.

When he reached the courtyard in front of the Library it was crowded with philosophers, all craning to look at something. Brutha could hear the usual petulant squabbling that showed that philosophical discourse was under way.

In this case:

‘I’ve got ten obols here says it can’t do it again!’

‘Talking money? That’s something you don’t hear every day, Xeno.’

‘Yeah. And it’s about to say goodbye.’

‘Look, don’t be stupid. It’s a tortoise. It’s just doing a mating dance …’

There was a breathless pause. Then a sort of collective sigh.

‘There!’

‘That’s never a right angle!’

‘Come on! I’d like to see you do better in the circumstances!’

‘What’s it doing now?’

‘The hypotenuse, I think.’

‘Call that a hypotenuse? It’s wiggly.’

‘It’s not wiggly. It’s drawing it straight and you’re looking at it in a wiggly way!’

‘I’ll bet thirty obols it can’t do a square!’

‘Here’s forty obols says it can.’

There was another pause, and then a cheer.

‘Yeah!’

‘That’s more of a parallelogram, if you ask me,’ said a petulant voice.

‘Listen, I knows a square when I sees one! And that’s a square.’

‘All right. Double or nothing then. Bet it can’t do a dodecagon.’

‘Hah! You bet it couldn’t do a septagon just now.’

‘Double or nothing. Dodecagon. Worried, eh! Feeling a bit avis domestica?^{44} Cluck-cluck?’

‘It’s a shame to take your money …’

There was another pause.

‘Ten sides? Ten sides? Hah!’

‘Told you it wasn’t any good! Whoever heard of a tortoise doing geometry?’

‘Another daft idea, Didactylos?’

‘I said so all along. It’s just a tortoise.’

‘There’s good eating on one of those things …’

The mass of philosophers broke up, pushing past Brutha without paying him much attention. He caught a glimpse of a circle of damp sand, covered with geometrical figures. Om was sitting in the middle of them.^{45} Behind him was a very grubby pair of philosophers, counting out a pile of coins.

‘How did we do, Urn?’ said Didactylos.

‘We’re fifty-two obols up, master.’

‘See? Every day things improve. Pity it didn’t know the difference between ten and twelve, though. Cut one of its legs off and we’ll have a stew.’

‘Cut off a leg?’

‘Well, a tortoise like that, you don’t eat it all at once.’

Didactylos turned his face towards a plump young man with splayed feet and a red face, who was staring at the tortoise.

‘Yes?’ he said.

‘The tortoise does know the difference between ten and twelve,’ said the fat boy.

‘Damn thing just lost me eighty obols,’ said Didactylos.

‘Yes. But tomorrow …’ the boy began, his eyes glazing as if he was carefully repeating something he’d just heard ‘… tomorrow … you should be able to get odds of at least three to one.’

Didactylos’s mouth dropped open.

‘Give me the tortoise, Urn,’ he said.

The apprentice philosopher reached down and picked up Om, very carefully.

‘You know, I thought right at the start there was something funny about this creature,’ said Didactylos. ‘I said to Urn, there’s tomorrow’s dinner, and then he says no, it’s dragging its tail in the sand and doing geometry. That doesn’t come natural to a tortoise, geometry.’

Om’s eye turned to Brutha.

‘I had to,’ he said. ‘It was the only way to get his attention. Now I’ve got him by the curiosity. When you’ve got ’em by the curiosity, their hearts and minds will follow.’^{46}

‘He’s a God,’ said Brutha.

‘Really? What’s his name?’ said the philosopher.