The Tattler

In a village in Kardesh there lived a woman who loved to collect stories of people. Whatever tale wove together the heart of a man, she adored to know. ‘I understand this man better than anyone,’ she would think. ‘I perhaps know him better than himself,’ she would dare. ‘He trusts me, and I love him,’ was the conclusion that flushed her with joy.

For this pursuit she was a masseuse in the spirit of Rest and of Kindness. She reprieved by her hands the body of ache, and by conversation, the soul. Many came to speak of their woes and hear her gentle advice. In this way she learned even the dreadful confessions of every person in her village.

‘She is a robber, and he is a drunkard, and she once laid with a man’s wife!’ she gasped and tittered. ‘Who but me knows these secrets? Perhaps the Abbot ought know to condemn them,’ and so she told their transgressions to the Abbot, who condemned or absolved them in measure.

‘What disappointment,’ she thought. ‘He forgave so many who have done such ill. Surely he did not understand them as I do. This man is violent, and that one is lewd. I shall tell one of my clients, for these ones will hear me, and someone ought know.’

She so told her clients of the people’s transgressions. They gasped, then they marvelled, then they laughed to know of such salacious iniquity. The tattler joined them in laughing. ‘Just so! Who would have expected but us? Watch this man in the day; to most he is the jolly woodcutter, but you will see now that his heart beats with the wickedness of child-beating Violence, in his voice, in his manner, under the covers.’ And the clients heard her so, and a cruel spirit of Judgement joined into their eyes forever.

They told others, and they told others, and the others told others. The village said of that man, ‘he is not the woodcutter. He is the brute who slaps children.’

‘It was once! I try not to do so!’ The woodcutter wailed, clumsy of tongue.

‘You are the brute who slaps children; shut up.’

And the tattler grinned. Even when the Abbot pardoned him, more hearts listened to her than the scripture. ‘I shall tell another secret,’ she determined, ‘for the people ought to know.’ And so she told many secrets of many people to the town, that soon nobody in that town was good. Every man was the one who had erred, and every man crowed condemnation over every man’s errors.

The great spirit of Fear lurked over that town then, soon to leap in and seize it. The people quivered that the tattler would spread their own secrets, for many still trusted her gentle hands and gentle smile, and many still laid upon her for reprieve.

Then on a morn with a pale half-moon there came the Tax Collector.

“Welcome, Tax Collector. Would you like a massage?”

“Sure—but if you touch me, I’ll kill you.”

“I’m afraid I can’t serve you; I don’t serve witches.”

“Very smart,” the Tax Collector said. “I see what you’ve done—oh, you don’t think you’ve done anything.”

“But tell the truth of some wickedness? I’m not in debt; I’m like you. We might be colleagues.”

“Not smart. My job is a punishment for killing three people, and now, you’ve done worse than me. You’ve murdered the spirit of Circumspection that reigned once in this town, and by fostering in its place Unforgivingness, killed every good person within it. That is thousands. It’s more than a serial killer.”

“What do you mean? They are all still alive, and I only spoke ill of bad people.”

“There were no bad people here until you made them such. You are not me and you don’t have my judgement—these were not reprobates.”

The tattler covered her mouth.

“When you ceded judgement to Czjeir’s Abbot, you despised it. You fashioned yourself the judge. You fashioned yourself, then, Shien. Shien’s advocates are witches and worse; you are the mother of every soul in this village pawing at me to eat it.”

“Well, take them. I’m sorry, Tax Collector. I’m closing my shop for today. Thank you for your warning; I will stop tattling.”

“It was a pronouncement. I’m starving. You have a week to shrink your sin to less than the sum of every other wicked soul here. I take you, or I take them all. That is what will sate me.”

The tattler ran to her house, where she shivered and hid. She knew from the Tax Collector that she must forgive, but she feared to do so in public. Meanwhile the Tax Collector went boldly into the town every day, and told the people, ‘I will kill the tattler for her murdering tongue, unless she comes out of the house and speaks sweeter than honey.’

Because the people loved the tattler’s soft hands and soft words, they hated the Tax Collector. Many jeered and pleaded for her. Many others even threw rocks at him.

Each one of them said, “Even if it kills us all, we won’t let that woman fall!”

One even said, “If he looses his dog after innocents, damn Czjeir!”

And each one of them said, “Our love is the virtue of Caritas!”

And one even said, “It is righteous Caritas to even die for a murderer!”

‘Yes,’ thought the tattler, who cuddled her knees as she peeked out the window, ‘they defend me, and draw his ire. Such fools with rotten hearts to resist the Tax Collector’s rule. He must understand their faultiness now. Please, let him grow angrier at them than me!’

But the second she thought this, her own sin increased twice.

So it went, day after day, until the week ended. The Tax Collector shattered the window and took the tattler out of her house.

“You fool,” he laughed. “You bred every sin committed by those you corrupted; that is what I told you, and that is the key to my puzzle. Your sin’s weight is not just yours; it’s also the sum of all theirs. Had you forgiven, their sin would have lessened, and yours lessened twice. You instead cheered them on, for you’re a mother of sin, and happy with blasphemers as children. Your balance quadrupled!”

“How can this be happening? I merely told the truth.”

“You lied, to the end, when you called persons more good than wicked bad people.”

And the Tax Collector rent her apart into pieces and ate her little giblets all up. Once the tattler was gone, the people began to forgive again, for their ears inclined to the Abbot, and good people returned to the village. Praise ever be to Czjeir and the sublime judgements of His Auditor.