Interesting Times

Truckle? You said you got three sacks of gold and gems from that haunted castle.”
    Truckle looked puzzled, as if Cohen had asked what purple smelled like.
    “Spend it on? I dunno. You know how it is. What’s it matter what you spend it on? It’s loot . Anyway…what do you spend yours on?”
    Cohen sighed.
    Truckle gaped at him.
    “You’re not thinking of really staying here?” He glared at Mr. Saveloy. “Have you two been cooking up something?”
    Cohen drummed his fingers on the arm of the throne. “You said go home,” he said. “Where to?”
    “Well…wherever…”
    “And Hamish there—”
    “Whut? Whut?”
    “I mean…he’s a hundred and five, right? Time to settle down, maybe?”
    “Whut?”
    “Settle down?” said Truckle. “ You tried it once. Stole a farm and said you was goin’ to raise pigs! Gave it up after…What was it?…three hours?”
    “Whutzeesayin’? Whutzeesayin’?”
    “He said IT’S TIME YOU SETTLED DOWN, Hamish.”
    “Bugrthat!”

    The kitchens were in uproar. Half the court had ended up there, in most cases for the first time. The place was as crowded as a street market, through which the servants tried to go about their business as best they could.
    The fact that one of them seemed a little unclear as to what his business actually consisted of was quite unnoticed in the turmoil.
    “Did you smell him?” said Lady Two Streams. “The stink! ”
    “Like a hot day in a pig yard!” said Lady Peach Petal.
    “ I’m pleased to say I have never experienced that,” said Lady Two Streams haughtily.
    Lady Jade Night, who was rather younger than the other two, and who had been rather attracted to Cohen’s smell of unwashed lion, said nothing.
    The head cook said: “Just that? Big lumps? Why doesn’t he just eat a cow while he’s about it?”
    “You wait till you hear about this devil food called sausage ,” said the Lord Chamberlain.
    “Big lumps.” The cook was almost in tears. “Where’s the skill in big lumps of meat? Not even sauce? I’d rather die than simply heat up big lumps of meat!”
    “Ah,” said the new Lord Chamberlain, “I should think very carefully about that. The new Emperor, may he have a bath for ten thousand years, tends to interpret that as a request—”
    The babble of voices stopped. The cause of the sudden silence was one small, sharp noise. It was a cork, popping.
    Lord Hong had a Grand Vizier’s talent for apparently turning up out of nowhere. His gaze swept the kitchens. It was certainly the only housework that he had ever done.
    He stepped forward. He’d taken a small black bottle from out of the sleeve of his robe.
    “Bring me the meat,” he said. “The sauce will take care of itself.”
    The assembled people watched with horrified interest. Poison was all part of the Hunghungese court etiquette but people generally did it while hidden from sight somewhere, out of good manners.
    “Is there anyone,” said Lord Hong, “who has anything they would like to say?”
    His gaze was like a scythe. As it swung around the room people wavered, and hesitated, and fell.
    “Very well,” said Lord Hong. “I would rather die than see a… barbarian on the Imperial throne. Let him have his…big lumps. Bring me the meat.”
    There was movement in the ground, and the sound of shouting and the thump of a stick. A peasant scuttled forward, reluctantly wheeling a huge covered dish on a trolley.
    At the sight of Lord Hong he pushed the trolley aside, flung himself forward and grovelled.
    “I avert my gaze from your…an orchard in a favorable position… damn… countenance, o lord.”
    Lord Hong prodded the prone figure with his foot.
    “It is good to see the arts of respect maintained,” he observed. “Remove the lid.”
    The man got up and, still bowing and ducking, lifted the cover.
    Lord Hong upended the bottle and held it there until the last drop had hissed out. His audience was transfixed.
    “And now let it be taken to the barbarians,” he said.
    “Certainly, your celestial…ink brush…willow frond…righteousness.”
    “Where are you from, peasant?”
    “Bes Pelargic, o lord.”
    “Ah. I thought so.”

    The big bamboo doors slid back. The new Lord Chamberlain stepped in, followed by a caravan of trolleys.
    “Breakfast, o lord of a thousand years,” he said. “Big lumps of pig, big lumps of goat, big lumps of ox, and seven fried rice.”
    One of the servants lifted the lid of a dish. “But take my tip and don’t