“Have you tried beating him?” said Brother Vorbis.
“I'm sorry to say that beating young Brutha is like trying to flog a mattress,” said Nhumrod. “He says `ow!' but I think it's only because he wants to show he's willing. Very willing lad, Brutha. He's the one I told you about.”
“He doesn't look very sharp,” said Vorbis.
“He's not,” said Nhumrod.
Vorbis nodded approvingly. Undue intelligence in a novice was a mixed blessing. Sometimes it could be channeled for the greater glory of Om, but often it caused . . . well, it did not cause trouble, because Vorbis knew exactly what to do with misapplied intelligence, but it did cause unnecessary work.
“And yet you tell me his tutors speak so highly of him,” he said.
Nhumrod shrugged.
“He is very obedient,” he said. “And . . . well, there's his memory.”
“What about his memory?”
“There's so much of it,” said Nhumrod.
“He has got a good memory?”
“Good is the wrong word. It's superb. He's word-perfect on the entire Sept-”
“Hmm?” said Vorbis.
Nhumrod caught the deacon's eye.
“As perfect, that is, as anything may be in this most imperfect world,” he muttered.
“A devoutly read young man,” said Vorbis.
“Er,” said Nhumrod, “no. He can't read. Or write.”
“Ah. A lazy boy.”
The deacon was not a man who dwelt in grey areas. Nhumrod's mouth opened and shut silently as he sought for the proper words.
“No,” he said. “He tries. We're sure he tries. He just does not seem to be able to make the . . . he cannot fathom the link between the sounds and the letters.”
“You have beaten him for that, at least?”
“It seems to have little effect, deacon.”
“How, then, has he become such a capable pupil?”
“He listens,” said Nhumrod.
No one listened quite like Brutha, he reflected. It made it very hard to teach him. It was like-it was like being in a great big cave. All your words just vanished into the unfillable depths of Brutha's head. The sheer concentrated absorption could reduce unwary tutors to stuttering silence, as every word they uttered whirled away into Brutha's ears.
“He listens to everything,” said Nhumrod. “And he watches everything. He takes it all in.”
Vorbis stared down at Brutha.
“And I've never heard him say an unkind word,” said Nhumrod. “The other novices make fun of him, sometimes. Call him The Big Dumb Ox. You know the sort of thing?”
Vorbis's gaze took in Brutha's ham-sized hands and tree-trunk legs.
He appeared to be thinking deeply.