Hugh Cook - The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers

‘They are indeed,’ said the waiter. ‘A tragedy, young sir! There is, you see, a staggering degree of ill health in Untunchilamon’s ruling class. Why, here is Lord Idaho’s script. Two beers for his poor digestion, five glasses of wine for the pain of his war wounds and a double brandy to help with his flat feet.’

‘Flat feet?’ said Chegory. ‘You can cure flat feet with brandy?’

‘I, young sir?’ said the waiter, whisking further prescriptions into place. ‘I am but a waiter, hence nothing I can heal. But doctors, young sir — ah, their skills would grace a very miracle worker!’

‘You mean,’ said Chegory, following the swift-moving waiter, ‘they can really cure flat feet with alcohol?’

‘Cure?’ said the waiter. ‘A strong word, surely! For it implies a degree of certain resolution which your bravest philosophers will tell you is quite impossible in a world so chancy. Nay, young sir. Your best physician can often work his miracles, yet cannot attempt such feats impossible. Speak not of cures. Speak rather of treatment.’

‘Treatment?’ persisted Chegory.

‘Certainly! Balm, soothing, comfort. For such is alcohol the world’s best medicine. Hence here we have in plenty treatments for ague and palsy, for goitre and hernia, the multiplication of chins and the distension of the belly, the loss of potency or an excess of the same, for snakebite, old wounds and varicose veins, for fits of elation and for dooms of despair.’

By now the waiter’s progress had taken him almost to the centre of the Table of Honour.

‘Here sits Uckermark,’ said the waiter, putting down a parchment. ‘The corpse master. I know him well. He stuffed my grandmother three years ago. Still she looks as good as new.’

The waiter moved a single place closer to the centre. He stood with the starvation cage just behind him and scanned the parchment in his hand.

‘Young sir,’ said he, ‘are you by chance a victim of anaemia?’

‘So I’m told,’ said Chegory doubtfully.

‘If a doctor told you, it must be true. An Ebrell Islander, thus it says here. Chegory Guy by name. The name is your own?’

‘It is,’ said Chegory.

‘Then here you sit,’ said the waiter, and with a flourish he deposited Chegory’s prescription in the place to the left of Uckermark’s.

‘Then whose place is that?’ said Chegory, as the waiter deposited the next parchment.

‘This?’ said the waiter. ‘This place belongs to a lady fair who suffers from… let us say insomnia. That is the polite way of putting it, is it not?’

Then he winked, which was quite unprofessional of him, then went on his way.

Chegory wandered off to find Uckermark, but had not yet located the corpse master when trumpets flared and silenced all chatter in the Grand Hall. In came guards bearing naked scimitars. Then the Empress Justina entered upon the banqueting chamber. She waved gaily to her subjects as she made her way to her place.

Which was…

Which was the central seat at the Table of Honour.

Right by that assigned to Chegory Guy.

But surely, surely…

‘A mistake,’ said Chegory, as someone grabbed his arm. ‘There’s been a mistake.’

‘You’re telling me,’ said Juliet Idaho. ‘Come on! Don’t keep the Empress waiting!’

So saying, the Yudonic Knight steered Chegory toward the Table of Honour. He drove his fingers deep into the young man’s bicep.

‘Remember what I told you!’

‘Stabs,’ said Chegory. ‘Yes, yes, stabs, I remember, not to touch, no steel, no touching. Eat with my fingers, everything, fish, soup, the lot.’

‘Eat soup with your spoon, fool!’ said Idaho. ‘But the rest with your fingers, certainly. One hand on a stab, and that’s it! Wwwhst! Off with your head! See the muscle?’

‘I see it,’ said Chegory.

He saw the scimitarists standing to either side of the starvation cage and knew they were the muscle to which Idaho referred. They could be upon him in a moment. Slicing off his head!

‘So watch yourself,’ said Idaho, his threat pitched low, meant for Chegory’s ears alone.

Then he gave the Ebrell Islander a push which sent him staggering forward. The Empress Justina smiled on him. At all three tables the guests were standing by their chairs. Waiting to be seated. Chegory felt dizzy. Panic-stricken. He longed to run, flee, sprint from the pink palace and bury himself forever in the deepest part of the underworld.

Chegory reached the table.

A servant pulled out his chair.

What now? Presumably the Empress would seat herself, then her guests would take their places.

Chegory waited.

Beaded sweat rolled down his forehead.

‘Sit!’ hissed Uckermark, his mouth but a fingerlength from Chegory’s ear.

What was right? To sit, or not to sit? Surely he couldn’t ‘You’re guest of honour,’ whispered Uckermark frantically. ‘You! Sit sit sit!’

Chegory sat.

The rest of the guests followed suit with a great scraping of chairs, soon followed by a swelling murmur of remark, expostulation and outright gossip. Still the Empress was standing. Was something wrong? Chegory risked a quick glance over his shoulder. The muscle to either side of the starvation cage had not moved. But it was there. Ready. Waiting. The muscle was in the form of two huge men with bullock-breaking thews, their faces impassive as they stood leaning on the hilts of bare-bladed scimitars, the points of which rested on blocks of cork to preserve their sharpness.

Still, still the Empress stood. The chair to her left was empty. Was she waiting for another guest?

Round the table there was a regular tinkling clatter. What? People were pulling off rings, brooches and other baubles. Tossing them so they fell amidst crystal glasses, polished silver, white porcelain. Chegory, who was ignorant of the customs Justina’s father had brought with him from Galsh Ebrek, was totally incapable of fathoming the import of this simple ceremony.

The last ring was, temporarily, discarded.

Then, and only then, did Justina sit, exhaling a happy sigh as she ensconced herself in the chair next to Chegory Guy. He stood instandy, as a sign of respect.

‘Sit!’ said the Empress in a peremptory tone. Then, as he complied, she went on (more mildly): ‘Silly boy! You didn’t think you could run away, did you?’

To Chegory’s surprise, even at banquet she spoke in Toxteth. Now all acknowledge that the language of Wen Endex is good enough for war, at which the Yudonic Knights are expert. Yet it is entirely unfit for social intercourse at the highest levels, for it lacks the subtle honorifics and diminutives by which the ever-hinting Jan-juladoola allows lessers in their every utterance to honour betters and betters to impress upon lessers the inferiority of the latter.

‘My lady,’ said Chegory, ‘I exist only to serve.’

This he had hastily rehearsed but a few moments before, and — better still! — he had rehearsed it in Janjuladoola. For ‘my lady’ he used Janjuladoola’s ‘thayalamantalajora’, which translates literally as ‘goddess surpassing’. From the nine forms of‘I’ which were available to him he had chosen (correctly) the word ‘varacasondundra’, literally ‘myself a worm’. It came out perfectly.

Still, even though the Ebrell Islander surprised the universe by choosing language proper and words correct for this pretty little offering, it must be observed that what he came out with was cliched and unoriginal in the extreme. But then, Chegory Guy had no prior experience in dealing with imperial power, and must perforce fall back on stereotyped dialogue stolen straight from the legends of hero-princes and such.

While young Chegory was still complimenting himself on his successful survival of the first of his many trials in the halls of grace, Justina’s albinotic ape Vazzy was brought to the table and installed in the previously empty chair to the left of the Empress. On this occasion the installation included the attachment of the creature to its specially weighted throne by means of leather ankle cuffs. At the last banquet, Vazzy had indulged his passion for staging tournaments at table once too often, and Justina had at last come to the conclusion that a rampaging ape is not an ornament to an evening’s entertainment.