Rytius Records (Substack Edition), Ch. 14

Chapter 14. Assembly

14. Assembly

Carnation had Rytius at a table with Floweria Giddens, the baker, and D-Man Furness, the blacksmith, a married couple of recordkeepers with deep roots in Eo, on both their families’ sides. Hunnybunny Henry, a language arts teacher and modern dancer, and her boyfriend Wascal Chase, stem teacher, were Speculative Historians, but that’s only because her parents had been social-science teachers who knew Tellem personally. They came to most of the games anyway, and had presented more than a few of their own. And then there was the lovely Vinilla Breem and her 11-year-old daughter Light. Light was the youngest ever to play the game, and her first presentation had been on cartoon tricksters, and particularly the relationship between Anansi and Bugs Bunny. Rytius still hadn’t told anyone about the letter to his brother or the prince and the Tower of Records. It was past breakfast and before lunch but, aside from the whiskey, he had so far only slurped at a smoothie—a calming potion with carrot, celery, pineapple, cucumber, beet, and kale—putting off bringing it up, and he ran a dumb hydraulics quasi experiment whereby he measured how long it took the fluid to rise to the top of the straw as all the ice, pulverized into smoothie grain fluid dust, defrosted and turned back to water. Almost everybody in the hall was finished eating, and just sort of picking at bones and licking spoons clean.

“Y’all heard about Huggums?” Wascal asked Floweria, D-Man, Rytius, and Vinilla.

“No…?” Floweria answered. “Do tell.”

Rytius didn’t say anything, and Hunnybunny interrupted anyway. “I don’t want to hear all that again right now, Wascal,” she said. “Let’s have a good time celebrating today.”

“You’re right,” Wascal replied. “How’s the food Rytius?” he asked, gesturing at his uneaten plate of grits, mussels, and dandelion greens.

“Yeah. You’re not going to eat anything?” Vinilla asked him, smiling.

“I’m not hungry yet,” Rytius answered.

“How can you grow up to be big and strong if you don’t eat anything?” her daughter Light asked him.

He laughed. “But I’m already grown up!”

“You sure?” asked Wascal, smirking.

“No, not really,” chuckled Rytius.

“He fills up on duck eggs daily before leaving the house,” Floweria playfully defended him.

“Goose eggs, you mean,” D-Man said. “He sells all the duck eggs.”

“Well, not all of them,” Rytius said.

“You know how to cook, Rytius?” Vinilla asked him.

“I can burn a couple of things,” he said, smiling. “Name something and I bet I can make it.”

“Hmm,” Vinilla pondered the challenge. “I wonder.” She was trying to come up with something challenging but not outrageous. Like lasagna.

“You cook all your own food?” asked Wascal.

“Yeah, mostly,” Rytius said.

“There’s some things that don’t taste right unless you make them yourself,” Floweria said.

“Yeah, but that’s usually only ’cause that’s how your mother used to make it,” D-Man said, refining the point.

“And if it’s not exactly how you want it, you can’t eat it,” Hunnybunny added.

“It’s the narcissism of small differences, and the tiniest is all it takes,” Floweria said. “Like sweet pickles instead of dill pickles in potato salad.”

“Ew!” squealed Hunnybunny. “Gross.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” D-Man vehemently agreed.

“You never eat at the restaurants or sandwich stands or anything like that?” Wascal asked Rytius. “There’s a gang of them over where you stay at.”

“Not really,” he answered.

“It can get expensive,” Vinilla offered, wondering whether Rytius might be a bit too frugal.

“No, it’s not that,” he responded, smiling. The speed of his denial struck him. He did not want Vinilla to think he was a cheapskate. But she must have known that he was from a powerful family, and that money probably wouldn’t ever really be a problem for him. “It’s just flavor and quality.”

“Ooh, an Epicurean,” Hunnybunny teased.

“You like crispy crawlers?” Wascal asked.

“Sure,” Rytius answered, trying to remember where he put his rooping iron.

“Oh. I just thought you might be a vegan or something,” Wascal continued, looking at Rytius’s smoothie.

“No, I eat meat,” he answered. “How else could I have grown up so big and strong?” He grinned at Light, flexed his biceps, and laughed.

Light appreciated that, and Rytius realized that he had also most likely been flexing his muscles for Vinilla, which made him feel silly and juvenile.

“Are you a vegan? Or vegetarian?” Rytius asked Wascal.

“No, I eat everything. Almost everything. I stopped eating out, though,” Wascal said.

Floweria raised an eyebrow and cocked her head at Hunnybunny, who swallowed a chuckle. D-Man smirked, and Vinilla tried her best to ignore it for the sake of her daughter.

“I think you’ve got the right idea, though,” Wascal proceeded, not acknowledging his double entendre. “You can’t go wrong cooking for yourself.”

“Indeed,” Rytius agreed. “And you can save money, too. Ahem.” He shot a smile and a glance at Vinilla.

“I would keep it up if I were you,” Wascal noted.

“And you can impress any ladyfriends you might have a mind to entertain,” D-Man came with an assist.

“Oh, well, in that case, I would like grilled chicken salad this evening,” Floweria said sweetly, leaning over and fluttering her eyelashes at D-Man.

“Look at you, Rytius, got me running my mouth, getting myself in trouble,” he said, turning to kiss Floweria. Rytius would have blushed if he could have.

“It’s no trouble at all. Not if you make some artichokes, too,” Floweria continued, presenting her face for another kiss from D-Man. He obliged. “With that chili-ginger dipping sauce I like.”

“Don’t forget dessert, girl,” noted Hunnybunny.

“We’ll talk about that later,” Floweria said.

Rytius couldn’t continue his light flirtation with Vinilla after such a public display of affection, so he decided the time had finally come to change the subject and share his new knowledge.

“I have some news,” he said to his tablemates.

“Oh, yeah?” D-Man asked. Rytius realized he was speaking too softly, and that he needed to address the entire dining hall.

“I HAVE SOME NEWS I NEED TO SHARE WITH YOU ALL,” Rytius barked, standing. No one didn’t fall silent and turn to listen. “First I want to say how much I appreciate Fila and his family and I want to say something about how I feel the truth of what he was saying before, before his beautiful daughter Firebrite chose her name.” He swallowed hard and continued. “My brother—you all know my brother, Ritius, one of Prince Feelharmonica’s men. I received a letter meant for him from the prince this morning, and I read it by mistake, thinking it was for me. It had some instructions for my brother, regarding a tower Feelharmonica is building. The prince is building this tower atop Orange Mountain, and he means it to be a tower of records. He instructed my brother to collect our records to fill it.”

He ceased speaking and observed his colleagues’s faces. They expected additional words clarifying the nonsensical message he had just delivered. He remained silent, swallowed, and focused on his breathing while calmly looking from face to face, meeting eye to eye. Sugarpie was the first to understand, and he knew that because her face cracked and she desperately searched his face for any sign of anything further. Her husband gj croaked loudly involuntarily something like “Aw,” or “Naw,” and left his mouth open like that. Rytius sought out Fila among those seated and saw him, met his eyes, and Fila betrayed no emotion at all. Surely his mind was spinning, as was Rytius’s own that morning. Perhaps he did not believe the news either. Tellem was the first to break the silence.

“Why?” he asked, loud but plaintive. This set off an uproar, and there was rattling of utensils and slamming of fists and furious damnations all around.

Rytius attempted to answer over the din. “Ritius…Look, Ritius…” Folks fell silent to let him finish. “Ritius didn’t tell me why.” Those gathered felt that Rytius deserved further recrimination, and they gave it to him loud. Rytius tried to continue, and he yelled that Ritius probably didn’t know why himself, but somebody screamed and a green bean hit him in the middle of his forehead and slid down his nose. He wiped his face and opened his mouth to speak, but Carnation was suddenly in his face, and he thought she might be trying to comfort him, but she was yelling for people to stop throwing stuff and Vinilla was removing several other green beans from his headdress. He closed his mouth while Carnation shielded him and Vinilla cleaned him, while those gathered got the initial shock out of their system. The green beans had been simmered in a tangerine butter sauce, which was quite good.

BB bumped his belly against a long bench table before him when he stood, and it moved, loudly scraping the floor of the dining hall, which is no easy feat, considering that such bench tables typically seat 12 comfortably. The unmistakable screech of the scrape commanded such attention that he hardly had to hold his hands up and gently pat the air to calm the ruckus before asking gently, “Why didn’t you ask?” Folks started getting mad again, so BB held one hand aloft, and delivered Rytius the malicious accusation nearly all felt he deserved thus far: “And are you going to?”

“Of course I am going to ask him. He’s coming by my record store tomorrow morning, to take an inventory. I plan to ask him all about everything we discuss and decide here today,” Rytius reminded everyone of their power in the situation, and the muttering faded.

“It was only the circumstances of the letter that made it hard for me to get into all of the questions. But my first question, which I did ask, was what is this tower all about,” Rytius continued.

“It could probably be about preserving everything in a nice safe place,” said Hunnybunny.

“Yeah, it could be something like a library,” said Voom.

“Or maybe a museum,” said Rytius, nodding along to encourage the new sense of cooperative discussion emerging from the initial anger and dismay.

“Or a prison,” said Fila, souring the mood immediately.

“We don’t know anything,” said Rytius.

“It’s kind of arbitrary, isn’t it?” asked Fila.

“Of course it is. All I’m saying is that we need to talk about it.”

“In deals like this, the substance of which is entirely one-sided, there’s usually something like money changing hands as well,” Fila continued. “Please tell me Ritius said something about some kind of money or some kind of consideration or compensation at least.”

And with that, Rytius was convicted once more. Someone hissed. He knew that his answer would not elicit mercy. Rytius said “He didn’t,” and a woman cursed loudly while a large piece of home-fried potato crusted with sauteed garlic, parsley and marjoram flew past his ear. “WAIT A MINUTE, GOD DAMN IT!” he barked, and he turned around threateningly in the direction from which the fry had flown. He felt a glop of something near the back of his headdress, where his hair came out beneath, and so, reluctantly, drawing far too many giggles, he lifted his right hand slowly to the back of his neck to discover the food with which he had been pelted this time. It was a gooey clumpy farina lump. It could have been worse.

“Control,” Sugarpie offered.

“Well, yeah,” said Fila. “That’s obvious.”

“I agree, it has to be about control in general, but in particular, I think we can deduce the reason for the confiscation,” Kloz began, attempting to be helpful. “The prince cannot stop us recordkeeping or speculating on historical events,” he stated diplomatically. “But the prince can stop us working on the materials we have gathered to date. That’s the only possible reason for the action.”

Rytius was about to respond, but Floweria answered Kloz sharply, quickly, “The action taken is not necessarily bound by date. Perhaps the confiscation is to be ongoing? Perhaps we are to be conscripted to staff a new research library? Perhaps that library is a mere vanity project. Perhaps it is serious. Perhaps the records will be burned because the prince worships ignorance in his every habit and posture? Perhaps the prince just randomly this moment decided to express his hatred for us in policy? To ascribe significance to the current moment on the basis of our knowledge so far is an overstep, I’m sure you recognize.”

“Now is not the time to mistake hopes for facts. Is and ought and all of that,” Tellem interjected, defending his colleague from the argument threatening close at hand.

“That’s right,” agreed Rytius.

“We need some sort of plan,” Dancy stated the obvious. “I mean if the tower is like a library or museum, do we want to be staff? If it’s something more like a prison, do we want privileged access or do we simply refuse to cooperate in that case?”

“But what would it mean to refuse to cooperate?” Cococreem asked.

“Do you mean refusal like just saying no or do you mean some sort of self-defense?” Tweety asked Dancy.

“Armed self-defense?” asked Fila.

“Is there any other kind?” BB replied.

“Words in both cases,” Wascal proposed.

“Yeah, well, we should think about the worst case,” said Voom.

“I haven’t worked all that out yet, but let’s just say words right now,” Dancy answered.

“We’re nowhere near the point of discussing battle plans,” Rytius interjected. “We don’t know near enough yet.”

“We know more than enough,” Carnation said, sitting back down next to Fila, who stood.

“We can do two things at once. Why don’t we start planning our defense,” Fila said, drawing approval, “and we also get our questions together now.”

“I think that’s a bad idea, because it’s starting in bad faith,” Rytius said. “You know actions and thereby the effects caused by those actions can be clouded by impure intention, bewildering the mind of the actor when their action fails to produce the clarity they expected.”

Rytius had known what needed to be said, and he had just been waiting for the right moment to say it. He knew these people, devoted to knowledge and reason in and for a real life well-lived, self-appointed guardians of the spiritual narrows, that sliding space between the concept and the execution, the intellect and the administration, the council and the plan. Reminded of their vocation, they could no longer so easily turn their fear, anxiety, and helplessness to blame Rytius for failing to defend the community singlehanded, by surprise. A more reflective mood descended, sadly.

Tellem stood, scraping his chair. “I think Rytius is right, for what it’s worth,” he said. “No use going off half-cocked without the proper perspective, frame of reference, and point of view. I’m talking about information, little bits of immediately useful data, like facts, about the concrete situation with this so-called Tower of Records. Facts is what we lacks. But we can get them, and we’re going to get them, because this man lives up to his name. I think we need to show our brother here some appreciation for the risks he has taken, and for all he does,” Tellem praised Rytius and initiated a round of sustained applause. The recordkeepers and the Speculative Historians were ready first to understand their situation, and they were determined then to take whatever actions would be required to continue their work.