Hugh Cook: The Wazir and the Witch

Begin at the beginning.

Bolfrigalaskaptiko.

A curse word?

No, it is not a curse word, though it comes within a couple of syllables of being obscene in the extreme.

Bolfrigalaskaptiko.

Is this perhaps a dish of fried seagull livers mixed with a touch of basilisk gall and served with side helpings of baked yams and diamond-shaped segments of dried jelly-fish?

A good guess.

But wrong.

For tolfrigdalakaptiko is the word which denotes the above-mentioned dish of seagull livers, and the mystery which here confronts us is bolfrigalaskaptiko.

Give up?

Very well.

All will now be revealed, and your education will thus be made complete.

Take down your atlas and open it to a map of the continent of Yestron. Run your finger down the western coast of that continent until you reach the equator. Here you will find the huge lagoon known as Manamalargo. What vast and slovenly river of fever fogs and predatory crocodiles empties itself into this lagoon? Why, the River Ka, of course. And what is the city of marshlands and malaria which lies just upstream from the estuary of that river?

Look!

If the atlas you are using is worth the price you paid for it, your finger will now be resting upon a blob (or at least a flyspeck) which is labelled ‘Bolfrigalaskaptiko’.

Thus the mystery is solved.

Bolfrigalaskaptiko is a city.

A city which lies upon the River Ka.

A city just upstream from the great lagoon of Manamalargo.

A city on the western coast of the continent of Yestron, that sprawling land mass which has for so long been dominated by the Izdimir Empire.

Now this has been learnt, it can all be forgotten, for the history which this text deals with has nothing whatsoever to do with the great lagoon of Manamalargo, the city of stilts and sewage canals known as Bolfrigalaskaptiko, or with the River Ka. Manamalargo, Ka and Bolfrigalaskaptiko are equally irrelevant to the action which follows, for this tome deals not with the history of Yestron but with Untunchilamon.

And Untunchilamon, as your atlas will doubtless reveal, is far from Bolfrigalaskaptiko; it lies in the deeps of Moana, many horizons from the furthest shore, and is but a piece of rock beset on all sides by the rolling seas. A piece of rock? A considerable piece of rock, for Untunchilamon measures its length in leagues by the hundreds. Untunchilamon, then, is an island marooned in the middle of the ocean, a great many leagues from the nearest continental mass.

It is to Untunchilamon that this tale must go, and there remain until the intricacies of a political crisis upon that island have been properly explicated, together with the tragedies, betrayals, murders, killings, manoeuvres, heartbreaks, traumas, loves and loyalties so richly entangled in the web of that crisis.

Yet Bolfrigalaskaptiko remains an excellent place to start, even though we have already agreed that this city and its attendant geography may be conveniently forgotten. For it is here that an important meeting takes place. A meeting? Yes. A meeting between a heart specialist and a young man.

The heart specialist?

His name will not be given here, for he is of the Ola caste which is unique to the city of Bolfrigalaskaptiko; and, as any standard text of ethnology will tell you, names of male members of that caste never run to fewer than seven thousand syllables. Furthermore, it is considered culturally offensive to give such names in any abbreviated form, and were this text to take such a liberty it would doubtless be prosecuted; so, bearing in mind the length of the name, the limitations of paper and patience, and the sensitivities involved, it is best that the good doctor remain anonymous.

As for the patient?

The patient declares himself to be Jean Froissart, a name which at once identifies him as a child of Wen Endex. The patient gives his age as thirty-two, which is correct; therefore, while he thinks of himself as being young, he has already attained a maturity which beardless striplings and their giggling and newly nubile mates would look upon as being close to antiquity.

The patient complains of sharp stabbing pains, sometimes in the region of his heart, sometimes in his arms or shoulders. At times he also experiences a vicious pain which makes it impossible to breathe except shallowly. He fears himself to be in danger of a heart attack, which is why he has presented himself to this medical specialist of the inordinately long (and hence ungiveable) name.

The good Doctor Anonymous takes a detailed case history then declares that the young man known to him as Jean Froissart is suffering from symptoms of anxiety rather than cardiac delinquency. As for the stabbing pains which sometimes force this fearful patient to breathe as shallowly as possible, why, these are most unlikely to be connected with the heart.

Doctor Anonymous puts it this way:

‘The lungs exist within a sac known to medical science as the plad’dnog’k’qara. This sac has two layers. There is an outside layer, which medical science in its genius has chosen to call the outer layer. Then there is an inside layer, the name of which you can guess for yourself.’

Doctor Anonymous smiles, then sits back in his creaking chair of mangrove wood as if all has already been explained. His office shakes alarmingly as a punt collides with one of the struts which hold it clear of the sewage canal over which it is built; the monkey breeder who shares the premises gives vent to strident vituperation.

‘And?’ says Jean Froissart.

‘It is simple,’ says Doctor Anonymous, rubbing his hands together.

He is endeavouring to help his patient to discover the truth for himself.

But Froissart is in no mood for discovery. He is oppressed by the suffocating heat of Bolfrigalaskaptiko, the stench of rotten dogs and decayed sewage, the furious chatter of half a thousand caged monkeys and the persistent ministrations of the flies which he no longer bothers to brush from his face. With some disappointment, Doctor Anonymous accepts that his patient lacks an inclination to intellectual endeavour; the good doctor therefore proceeds with his lecture.

‘It is simple, as I have said already,’ says Doctor Anonymous, once more rubbing his hands together. ‘As you breathe, so the inner and outer layers of the plad’dnog’k’qara rub against each other. Sometimes, for reasons unknown to us, they stick together. This occasions pain upon breathing. Hence your symptoms.’

‘Perhaps,’ says the patient reluctantly. ‘But surely my other symptoms are…’

Froissart pauses.

Hesitates.

‘Trust me,’ says Doctor Anonymous. ‘In some patients, some of the symptoms you complain of are associated with angina or impending myocardial infarction. However, my careful elucidation of your own personal medical history assures me that in your case these symptoms indicate nothing but anxiety. However, if it would set your mind at rest, I will give you a clearance test.’

‘A clearance test?’

‘Yes,’ said t)octor Anonymous, beaming. ‘It is a seven-day test. On the first day, you join the crew of a galley. From dawn to dusk you row upstream against the flow of the River Ka. On the second day, the swelter bath. On the third day, exposure to controlled doses of medicinal alcohol. The forced march comes on the fourth day, the fifth is spent in the smoke chamber, the wrestling match follows on the sixth, then we finish with the sledgehammer test on the seventh.’

On receiving this intelligence, Froissart finds that it is too hot to indulge in anything as athletic as a shudder. So he contents himself by asking:

‘Is there not some… some element of danger in this test?’