9.
The Loans of Wisdom
══════════════════════════════════════════════════
BUT Gonfal, when the Queen consulted him in private, as she was now apt to do about most matters, tall handsome Gonfal shrugged. He said that, to his finding,—as a, no doubt, unpractical realist,—her lovers had, once more, fetched back no gifts, but only loans of very dubious value.
“For I have seen Dom Manuel purchase a deal of just such wisdom from unwholesome sources: and I have seen too what came of it when the appointed season was at hand for that gray knave to be stripped of his wisdom. Just so, madame, must every sort of wisdom be reft away from everybody. These wise men that had all this knowledge in the old time, do they retain it now? The question is absurd, since the dirt that once was Solomon keeps no more sentiency than does the mud which formerly was Solomon’s third under-scullion. Indomitable persons have, before to-day, won to the wisdom of Audela or of the Sea Market; and that Freydis with whom Dom Manuel lived for a while in necromantic iniquity, and that unscriptural Herodias who was Tana’s daughter, these women, once, attained to the wisdom of Antan: but might they carry any of this wisdom into the grave?”
“I see,” said Morvyth, reflectively; and she smiled.
“Equally,” Gonfal continued, “where now is your Thorston or your Merlin? All which to-day remains of any one of these thaumaturgists may well, at this very instant, be passing us as dust in that bland and persistent wind which now courses over Inis Dahut: but the mage goes undiscerned, unhonored, impotent, and goes as the wind wills, not as he elects. Ah, no, madame! These quaint, archaic toys may for a little while lend wisdom and understanding: but, none the less, within four-score of years—”
“Oh, have done with your arithmetic!” she begged of him. “It serves handily, and I approve of your mathematics. I really do consider it is perfectly wonderful, sweetheart, how quickly you realists can think of suitable truisms. But, just the same, I begin to dislike that wind: and I would much rather talk about something else.”
“Let us talk about, then,” Gonfal said, “the different way I feel concerning you, as compared with all other women.”
“That is not a new topic. But it is invariably interesting.”
So they discussed this matter at some length. Then they went on to other matters. And Morvyth asked Gonfal if he was sure that he respected her just as much as ever, and Morvyth tidied her hair, and she summoned the Imaun of Bulotu, and sent also for Masu the prime minister.
“The wisdom of this world is as a dust that passes,” said Morvyth. “The wise men that had wisdom in the old time, do they retain it now?”
She then repeated the rest of Gonfal’s observations with applaudable accuracy.
And her hearers did applaud, in unfeigned emotion. “For this prying into matters which Pygé-Upsízugos has not seen fit to reveal has always seemed to me unwholesome,” remarked the prime minister.
“In fact, the claims of science, so-called—” began the Imaun; and spoke for the usual twenty minutes.
All was thus settled edifyingly. The offerings of the kings’ sons were decreed to be no true gifts; the quest was cried again; and once more the seven champions rode forth. There was no thought of tall Gonfal going with the little heroes, for a cripple who could not bear a sword was not fitted to ransack the treasures of the world. Instead, fair-bearded Gonfal stayed in Inis Dahut, and lived uneventfully in the pagan Isles of Wonder. And if people now talked outright, a queen can never hope to go wholly free of criticism.