7
Talk of the Devil
Joachim dropped the sheaf of papers on his lap as he fondled the lamb's head and said in exasperation, "This contract is the very devil!" The lamb knew what he meant or, at least, Joachim thought it did.
The contract in question dealt with the conditions in which a contingent of the Emperor's army would provide mercenary support consisting of a number of brigades of fighting men and several teams of military engineers to a neighbouring Beg or Prince of the Turks. Such was the mistrust placed in the Turks, and so numerous the sections, subsections, clauses and subclauses, of the agreement drawn up by their accountants and lawyers, that the Emperor, finding not one accountant and not one lawyer in his city capable of a full understanding of the ramifications of the contract, had been forced to issue an Empire-wide call for Joachim.
The diminutive man with the long, grey straggly beard had finally been unearthed by an advance group of the contract engineers in an archaeological dig on Mount Ararat. Because time was pressing, the Captain of the Engineers had simply lifted Joachim bodily out of one hole, immediately placed him in another and threatened him with a third. "Decipher this gobbledegook or we throw you down a dried up well and drop stones on your head," he had said, handing Joachim a copy of the contract. Then he had added by way of explanation: "Orders." Then he had further added by way of further explanation: "From the Emperor."
And so, as the group of Engineers engineered their and Joachim's way back to the Empire's borders, making roads, building bridges and hewing tunnels in the way of military engineers throughout history, Joachim had laboriously set about making inroads, constructing connections and finding loopholes in the contract. It was at the point where the Engineers had stopped to consider how best to cross the yawning chasm of a great gorge, its river swollen with the melt waters from the high mountains to the North, that Joachim, believing that the lamb knew what he meant, uttered his fateful: "This contract is the very devil!"
The lamb, however, did not know what Joachim meant. "Huh?" it said, giving him a quizzical look, as lambs are so wont to do.
"The devil," Joachim repeated, "Satan ... the Adversary!"
"You called?" said a suave voice behind them. A nauseous smell of fire, brimstone, hair gel, aftershave, ineffective deodorant and dry roasted peanuts cut across the clean mountain air.
"No," said Joachim. "Go away!"
"The usual formula is 'Get thee behind me, Satan,'" offered the Devil, helpfully.
"You already are!" snapped Joachim, in irritation. "Now, go away!"
"Okay, okay, keep your hair on," the Devil said. "I'll just go and pester the hell out of that small group of Engineers setting off to reconnoitre the gorge. You might be in a better mood when I get back."
"How's it going?" asked the Captain of Engineers, as he walked up to Joachim and the lamb a few minutes later.
"Slow," said Joachim, "The overall arrangements seem okay but the innumerable clauses with their undotted i's and uncrossed t's are really a problem. How's the engineering going?"
"Slow. I've just sent a team upstream to see if they can find a better place to cross."
Joachim looked up at him. "You might not see them again," he said. "Satan went off with them in a bit of a huff because I was a little short with him. I think he's the cause of all the confusion in the finer parts of the contract."
"What?" yelled the Captain of Engineers. "You mean the Devil's in the detail?"
"Ah-h-h-h!" said the lamb, finally understanding.
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This is one of the Tales of Joachim |
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Ink Amera |
(C) David 1/9/2007 |
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