Felix and Ahmed: Conquaerere AND Educere - Short Story by Duane L Herrmann

 

Felix and Ahmed: Conquaerere AND Educere

Short Story

by Duane L Herrmann

    “Did you hear of the tragedy at Lindisfarne, Britannia last month?”

    “No.  What happened?

    “It was horrible.  Barbarians, called themselves Vikings, attacked the university there.”

    “No!” Felix was aghast to hear this news. He and Ahmed, dons of the University of Nocabulabet, were walking through the quadrangle to evening prayers. Being laid out in good Roman fashion, the university was in the center of the city. Being the capital of the State of Branden, named for its founder nearly three centuries earlier, the university filled half the city center, the capital complex filled the remainder. The location was pleasant, overlooking the Moshassuck River just above joining with the Woonasquatucket.

    Felix was just as proud of his Narragansett heritage as Ahmed was of his Wampanoag. They had been friends for several years. Both had been teaching for about a decade, he, Roman Federal history and Ahmed, Islamic Jurisprudence.

    “They burned the Great Mosque of Lindisfarne,” Ahmed continued. “But hadn’t made their way to the university, or its Library, before the Legion came and defeated them.”

    “Thank Caesar for that!”

    “The Great Mosque can be repaired. Only by the Grace of Allah was the Library spared. What a disaster that would have been!”

    “Yes,” Felix agreed. “Especially after the books in the Great Libraries of Alexander and Baghdad had been copied and preserved there! How are we coming along with our accession project here?”

    “Well,” Ahmed was thoughtful. “About a thousand books from each have arrived, though it's a bit hard to say. The copies are being made in Lindisfarne, so there's no duplication. The last shipment had just left before the attack. The Commander of the ship learned of it at his next port. They arrived here the day before yesterday.

    “Aren't we about finished with that project?”

    “Yes,” Ahmed answered. “We nearly have a replication of the Combined Great Library here. Scribes are working on making copies, so we won't have the only copies on Turtle Island. Who knows what the Will of Allah may hold.

    “The loss of life at Lindisfarne concerns me.”

    “Yes, but they gave their lives defending the Holy Qur’án, and...and civilization itself! The invaders deserved to be crucified and that was done the next day. They warranted no mercy, the barbarians!”

    “We were barbarians once, too, you know, before Saint Branden reached our shores. Such a little thing, that currach, he and his men sailed in.”

    “I know,” Ahmed replied. “But WE didn’t attack him and his men.”

    “No, our people didn’t.”

    “Saint Branden and his men were famished when they reached these shores. If they hadn’t been taken in by our peoples, they would have perished for sure. Days and days of sailing, they had no idea the sea was so huge! They had no knowledge of our Land of Penobsquat. They were surprised to find land, and us, and that we knew of the Great Creator Spirit.”

    “They shouldn't have been that surprised that we believed,” Felix replied. “The Holy Qur’an does speak of each tribe having its own Messenger. It doesn't say that Messengers are limited to certain lands or peoples. We had Messengers here, as well as they did in Arabia and Europe.”

    “And, our teachings from the Times Before were, in many ways, much like those of Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him.”

    “Praise Allah, for His wonders and bounties! And, the Might of Rome!

    “Yes,” Ahmed agreed. “One young Viking was made to watch the crucifixions, then sent back home with the heads of the rest.”

    “That should show them a lesson.”

    “I’m sure,” Ahmed agreed, then added. “The heads were returned in their own ship. Britannish sailors sailed it, then brought the ship back as a trophy. After touring the ports of Britannia and Gaul, they’ll sail it over here.

    “I’ll be interested in seeing it.”

    “It should be worthwhile to see. It's very different from a currach, or our canoes. The report said it was decorated in an outlandish fashion. Dragon ships they are called, with carved heads like fearsome beasts. They, themselves, are the beasts.”

    The young one too?”

    “That young Viking wasn’t sent home in one piece,” Ahmed added. “He was soundly mutilated to impress the point. As the song says: ‘A castrato he became, I hope he likes to sing!’” Ahmed paused.  “It will be a lesson they'll not soon forget. If they try such a raid again, we’ll invade their lands! We know where they’re from. The Norsemen have gone too far. They can stick to trading. They are good traders, you know.”

    “Do you think they'll return to invade Britannia again?”

    “Not likely.”

    The sun was setting through the trees, glinting off the river. The breeze was pleasant. It was a perfect late spring evening. Flowers were blooming on all sides. The two walked on, both deep in thought. They could hear the call to prayer as it echoed through the campus. The two men unconsciously quickened their pace.

    “I was thinking about offering a non-credit seminar next semester,” Felix remarked. “Just for fun actually, to challenge students to think outside the box.”

    “Oh?” Ahmed was intrigued.

    “For instance, one topic would be: What if the early Roman Empire had NOT been dedicated to education as well as conquest, and had NOT established schools for all the children of the Empire, and universities in the colonies in the new lands. If the natives had not been educated, just as our ancestors were, would they have reverted to their pre-Roman ways at some time?”

    “What an interesting proposition,” Felix replied. “I’ve never considered the possibility.”

   “And, aside from that, what if Holy Brendan had not sailed west from all known lands, and ended here. Imagine; that little hide-covered, wattle framed currach sailing all across the Great Sea! Even the Viking ship is larger! It’s an act of God that they arrived!”

    “And our ancestors welcomed them, revived them and accepted his instruction.”

    “That’s right!” Felix exclaimed in excitement. His friend was beginning to see the possibilities of taping the imagination. “Our people could have continued in their old ways, but they saw that Roman order was much more efficient and productive. They could defend themselves better when they fought like Legions. They saw the advantages at once. Being a part of the Roman Federation just makes sense.”

    “Holy Allah! We could have remained savages!”

     “Yes! And, another possibility: what if the Christians had defeated the forces of the Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him, at Tours and not the other way around. Unthinkable, I know, but, maybe then Islam wouldn't have spread throughout Europe and the world.”

    “But that’s impossible!” Ahmed expostulated.

    “You and I know that,” Felix countered. “But just because events went one way, doesn’t mean they couldn’t have gone another.”

    “But it was the Will of Allah.”

    “I know. But an exercise of the imagination is a good thing too.”

    “Your ideas are wild.” Ahmed shook his head in disbelief. He was much more comfortable with the stability of the Order of Law. But, after a thoughtful pause he asked, “Do you have trouble getting to sleep at night with such thoughts in your head?”

    “Sometimes,” Felix chuckled. “Sometimes I do.”

    Together they entered the mosque for evening prayers and the peace of dusk descended over Narragausett Bay.

Duane Herrmann, a reluctant carbon-based life-form, was surprised to find himself in 1951 on a farm in Kansas. He’s still trying to make sense of it but has grown fond of grass waving under wind, trees and moonlight. He aspires to be a hermit, but would miss his children, grandchildren and a few friends. He is known to carry baby kittens in his mouth, pet snakes, and converse with owls, but is careful not to anger them! His full-length collections of poetry include: Prairies of Possibilities, Ichnographical:173, Family Plowing, Remnants of a Life, No Known Address, Praise the King of Glory and Gedichte aus Prairies of Possibilities, plus a science fiction novel, and a number of chapbooks. Individual work has been published in more than sixty anthologies and Midwest Quarterly, Little Balkans Review, Flint Hills Review, Orison, Inscape, Lily Literary Journal, Hawai'i Review and others in print and online in English and languages he can't read. He is the recipient of the Robert Hayden Poetry Fellowship 1989, and the Ferguson Kansas History Book Award 2007 (for a local history). He survived a traumatic, abusive childhood embellished with dyslexia, ADHD (unknown at the time), cyclothymia, an anxiety disorder, PTSD.