Feliks told them there was no magic, only nature. He refused to confess to any crime and only asked to be turned on the spit so as to cook more evenly. His bones were scattered over the ground, and without his care, the orchards froze and faltered. Ever after, the only tree that would grow in that soil was the thorn wood, its branches thick with fruit that never ripened. The people of the Tula Valley starved along with everyone else and had their equal share of misery.
Sankt Feliks is celebrated in the spring with feasts of quince and apple and is known as the patron saint of horticulture.
SANKT LUKIN THE LOGICAL
Once there was a prince who desperately wanted to be a king. He had among his councilors a wise man named Lukin, who could always be counted upon for sage advice and plenty of it. There were those who said that Lukin talked too much, others who likened him to a prattling bird, and still others who were known to discreetly place cotton in their ears when Lukin cleared his throat to speak.
While it was true Lukin’s speeches were so long that young men grew beards and wheat came to harvest in the time it took him to reach his point, that point was most often sound. He predicted how many soldiers a rival prince would have waiting and when he meant to attack; he foresaw a year of drought and wisely admonished the prince to set aside stores of water; he guided the prince to prudent investment in merchant expeditions that brought back chests full of jewels and gold.
Once, when a neighboring army was threatening to invade, the prince sent Lukin to negotiate with them. When it came time for Lukin to plead his case, he spoke—and kept speaking, one argument leading to the next and then the next, in an endless tide of words. Soon the general nodded off and then his colonels, and then the sergeants and so on, until every last member of the invading army had been bored first to sleep and then to death.
The prince rewarded Lukin’s bloodless victory and continued to heed his advice. In time, just as the prince had dreamed, and Lukin had predicted, he became king.
With Lukin’s help the new king ruled successfully, expanding his territory and his power. But life was not without its troubles. The king’s first wife vanished in the night with a swineherd, leaving nothing but a note behind confessing that she would rather tend pigs if wearing a crown meant listening to Lukin talk. His second wife joined a troupe of traveling circus performers. His third wife ate a bad oyster and died, but no one was certain if it was truly an accident. Each of these women gave the king a son.
As the king grew older, he worried that his death would bring chaos for the kingdom if each of his sons vied for the throne. He knew he had to choose an heir, so as he always did, he went to Lukin for advice.
After many hours of holding forth on the various factors and possible outcomes each choice might imply, Lukin did something he rarely did—he paused.
This resulted in the king doing something he’d never had reason to do before—he urged Lukin to go on.
Lukin confessed that the king had sired three fools, each son more incautious and venal than the last. None of them were fit to rule and all would bring great misery to the land.
“Well,” said the king, “if you cannot tell me who will make the best king, perhaps you can tell me who would make the least terrible king.”
After much debate, during which the moon rose and fell and rose again, Lukin pronounced that the second son might possibly—under the proper conditions, with all due allowances for temperament, and given appropriate and judicious counsel—make the least disastrous ruler.
The king called the court together, and before all his retainers, he decreed that upon his death, the throne would pass to his second son—on one condition. His son must vow to keep Lukin, the king’s oldest, wisest adviser, beside him, to offer sage counsel until the end of Lukin’s days. Before all the court, the second son gave his word, and a few years later, when his father passed, he was crowned with all due ceremony.
His first act as king was to call for Lukin’s execution. As eager as many of the old king’s retainers were for a bit of respite from Lukin’s tongue, they had heard the second son give his solemn word. Such a vow could not be broken.
“Ah,” said the second son, “but all I promised was to keep Lukin as my adviser until the end of his days. That end will simply come sooner than predicted.”
The courtiers agreed that this did meet the letter of the vow, and some even marveled at the new king’s cleverness. Perhaps he wouldn’t need an adviser after all.
Lukin was marched to the executioner’s block and went to his knees with prayers on his lips, for even in these moments before his own death, he had no use for silence. The executioner raised his axe and with a single clean slice cut Lukin’s head from his body. There was a thunk as it landed and rolled onto its side, and though the gathered courtiers knew they must not cheer a wise man’s death, they did heave a great sigh at the sudden, glorious quiet, broken by no dire predictions of disasters to come, nor instructions for the best way to prepare venison, nor disquisitions on the great earthquake of Vandelor.
A bird chirped outside the window. In some distant corner of the castle, a woman laughed. The young king smiled.
Then a voice broke the silence.
Lukin’s head lay in the dust, but his eyes were still open and his lips had begun to move again. Having one’s head removed from one’s body
