Well Dead

XXI. Agricultural Differences

Harun stopped, propping himself up on a tree stump to catch his breath again. These walks through the forest were annoyingly exhausting. If at least there were roads. But no, only mud and bramble as far as the eye could see. Which wasn’t very far, because of all these trees. Was he still going in the right direction?

He caught a glimpse of a distant gray tower through the rufous leaf-roof above him. Yes, there was the castle. The scribe sat of again.

Start all over again…

How could he start all over again? Just assume he had made an error somewhere and look for anyone with a motive for murder, whether equipped with a sword or not, living in the castle or outside it? One could just as well kick out logic through the window and assume Lukas was murdered by a passing devil on his way to hell. Anyway, there was no one with a motive to kill the peasant, neither inside the castle nor outside.

By now, Harun had almost reached the edge of the village. He wandered around it, always careful to stay in the shadows of the trees which he suddenly found not so annoying anymore. There were people on the little fields and between the houses. They had no logical reason to want to do something to him, but he preferred to stay well out of their way nevertheless. Perhaps they had an illogical one.

An idea came to the scribe. Perhaps that was what had taken place. Somebody had killed Lukas, not for any particular reason, but just because he just felt like doing it.

But than were did the murderer have the sword from? It all made no sense. No, it could not have been a quarrel or sudden rage. Apart from the matter of the sword, why should any two people come together at the well before the castle gates at this hour, if not because it was a designated meeting place? This was a premeditated crime. But then again, nobody had a motive.

Harun had reached the castle gates, which was opened at his knocking. The guards were considerably disappointed that he was still alive and apparently all in one peace. They pushed him around a bit but he was able to escape and retreat into his Scriptorium where he barred the door after him.

“Ruffians,” he muttered. “Appalling what the envy of a superior mind can make man do.”

He needed to compose himself. He sat down in his chair, and took out the Trial of Socrates. He opened it again randomly, hoping against hope that it would show an absolutely insignificant sentence which would not at all remind him of what he should be doing.

‘It is my task to reveal, as in this case, what is true, and, if doubtful, to inquire and reveal as untrue.’

No, not again. What he needed were not any reminders of what he had to do, but hints as to how to go about it. What good was Philosophy if it could not even manage that?

Angrily, he shut the book. As he did so, the peace of parchment he had used as a bookmark fell out and tumbled to the floor. He bent down to pick it up, and then froze, his eyes fixed on the little brown scrap.

He shut his eyes, breathed in deeply, opened them and stared again.

There they were. The same numbers, on the same peace of parchment. And he had used it as a bookmark. As a bookmark! And gone on looking for solutions in the Defence of Socrates. Practicality indeed.

112 Pounds on the old field behind the smithy, 109 Pounds on the old field up the hill, 104 Pounds and 111 Pounds on the two newest fields, only cleared last spring…

How could he have been so stupid! To have known about it all the time and yet failed to piece it together.

He saw once again the glinting of a sword, hanging from a belt of a man sitting in the main hall of Sevenport. The same man, the same sword, in Danzig, at the market, near the merchants selling and buying grain.