And on the Eighth Day by Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online

might be writing, the Successor did not say.
    The Teacher pointed with his long staff to the door under the lamp. “That room is the smallest,” he said. “But the least shall be the greatest. That is the—” he pronounced a word. It sounded like “sanctum.”
    Sanctum? The holy place? Again Ellery could not be sure of what he had heard, again it seemed to him that there had been a pause, a hesitation … sanc’tum .
    The dreamy haze, half mystification, half fatigue, through which he had been seeing everything, lifted for a moment. He heard himself asking matter-of-factly, like the Ellery Queen of a million years ago, “How do you spell that?”
    “It is the forbidden room,” said the Successor. Then, “Spell—? I will write it for you.” The young man seated himself at a writing desk, selected a reed pen, fixed its point with a small knife, dipped it in a jar of ink, and wrote on a scrap of paper. There was something arcane, hieratic, about his manner. Scriptorium … Suddenly Ellery realized what it was: with his own eyes, in the century of rocket experimentation and quantum physics, he was actually beholding a scribe at work in the manner of the ancients. In silence he picked up the piece of paper.
    Sanquetum.
    That explained the pronunciation.
    Which explained nothing.
    “It is time, Teacher,” Ellery said, “that you tell me just how your community is ruled. I must ask about other things, too. But that will do for the beginning.”
    The old man looked into him—past him, perhaps. “What you require of me, Quenan, I shall do, although I know that you ask only to prove me. We are not ruled, Quenan. We have no rule here. We have governance.”
    Something flashed through Ellery’s mind; eluded him; then he had it. Some lines from an old book: Dr. Melancthon said to Dr. Luther, Martin, this day thou and I will discuss the governance of the universe. Dr. Luther said to him, Nay, Phillip—this day thou and I will go fishing, and leave the governance of the universe to God.
    What Dr. Melancthon had replied, Ellery did not remember. “Fish, or cut bait,” perhaps.
    “Governance, then,” said Ellery. The old man glanced at the Successor, who immediately rose and parted from them with a vigorous handclasp and a radiant smile.
    Taking Ellery into the long hall, the Teacher seated him at the table of the Crownsil and sank onto the bench opposite. For a moment he seemed to meditate (or pray?). Then he began to speak. And as he spoke, Ellery felt himself slip back into the dream, the timeless world which possessed “what the world had lost.” And the old one’s voice was as soft as the lamplight on his face, which made Ellery blink, for it was like looking at a very old painting through a golden haze.
    “The Crownsil of the Twelve,” said the venerable Teacher, “I shall list for you in an order, Quenan. But in this order none is first, as none is last.”
    And he uttered a word. Was the word “grower”? “Growther”? Ellery puzzled over it. But he could not decide.
    The Grower , or Growther , it seemed, oversaw all the crops and what they entailed: choosing which plots were to be planted to corn, which to cotton, or flax, or beans, or melons, or whatever; directing how they were tended, and by whom; and how harvested, and when.
    The Herder. The Herder’s responsibility was the cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys, and fowl of the community (there were no horses in Quenan, the Teacher said; what purposes horses might have served were more easily and economically served by the donkeys). The Herder saw that the beasts were kept from the growing crops and the young trees; he saw to their pasturage, to their breeding, and to the care of their progeny. The Herder was also a man wise in the ills of animals, although his methods kept Quenan’s livestock in such rude health that his veterinary skills were not often needed.
    The Waterman. The very existence of the community depended on the Waterman’s labors. It