And the patrons! Scrambling for cover under tables one minute, climbing on each others’ shoulders for a good view the next. It’s not like they couldn’t have left if they were worried about their skins. Naturally, nobody did, except old Sylvester, and he never heard the end of it. “A proper Trough-man’d rather die than miss a good fight.” He’s heard that sneer a thousand times since, if he’s heard it once.
A great fight! Best fight in years! Everybody agreed on that after it was all over. Of course, it always helps to have a local favorite, and it goes without saying that everybody was cheering for the Cat. Even the ones with their money on the Goatmonk, which was almost all of them.
A great fight! Went on for quite a while, too. After a good ten minutes, the Goatmonk hadn’t landed once on the Cat. Didn’t sound like he even came close. And the Cat? Well, it’s true, the first ten minutes she hadn’t made a real mark on Father Venery, either. But she’d nicked him more than once, and in the meantime she’d turned half the furniture into kindling and put a few hundred serious ale drinkers through a crash exercise program that must have dropped eight tons, collective gross.
The end was inevitable. One moment the Cat was over in a corner, making toothpicks out of a chair. The next thing anybody knew she was standing right in front of the Goatmonk, caught him smack off guard.
Sssstttt. Plop. The moment of truth.
When Leuwen got to that part of the story, I couldn’t stop laughing for five minutes. Even Greyboar cracked a smile, mad as he was.
Don’t let anybody tell you there’s no such thing as poetic justice.
The Cat never even noticed. Sssstttt, plop, and she’s on her way, hacking up a table down the room. But everybody else saw it. Total silence. Father Venery was just standing there, eyes popped out, couldn’t even move.
The Trio broke the spell. They convulsed to the floor.
“Goatmonk no more!” howled the Weasel.
“We’ll call ‘im Monkmonk f’r sure!” came McDoul.
Yeah, that’s where the name started, and it’s stuck ever since. The Monkmonk. Father Chastity. You still see him around, now and again. Look for a very fat monk lying in a gutter somewhere, clutching a bottle of cheap wine, sobbing and wailing and crying out to the Lord. In a high-pitched voice.
A great story, and under other circumstances Greyboar would have been the first to relish it.
But at the moment, things were a bit sticky. Because the Goatmonk, you see, was beloved by the Church authorities in New Sfinctr, especially Luigi Carnale, Cardinal Fornacaese, his drinking buddy. And the Queen! Belladonna III thought the Goatmonk was a holy man, listened to every word he ever drooled. Main reason Father Venery had survived as long as he had, seeing as how half the fathers and husbands of the Sfinctrian aristocracy would have cut his throat in a minute.
So naturally it wasn’t but a few hours later that the Praetorian Guard came pouring into The Trough to arrest the Cat. Wasn’t any problem for them, the arrest itself. The Cat was sitting in a corner, sharpening her sword, paying no attention to anything. Totally ignored the Guard when they grabbed her and hustled her into the paddy wagon. Off in her own world, like she often was. Strange, strange woman.
But first, of course, the Guard had to get through The Trough. Packed solid, mind you, with proper Trough-men. Took a bit of time, that did. Time and trouble. A few months later, a friendly Guardsman I met in a tavern told me it was worse than the Second Battle of the Bundy.
For the moment, however, the problem was that Greyboar was not entirely satisfied that the patrons had quite put up the good fight. I’ll grant you, his demands were a bit unreasonable.
“Two hours?” he roared. “Two lousy hours?” The Trough-men in the room blanched. Greyboar continued bellowing.
“When they came after Lefty Davidovich we stood ’em off for four hours! Long enough for Lefty to make his escape!”