The Carpet People

Glurk.
    ‘Well, you think. I’ve often seen you sitting and thinking.’
    ‘I don’t always think,’ said Glurk conscientiously. ‘Sometimes I just sits.’ He sighed. ‘Anyway, it’s not just thinking. You’ve got to be able to talk about it entertainingly afterwards.’

Chapter 8
    The people turned west. It was a cheerful journey to Jeopard, with Brocando riding by the leading cart. They were going somewhere that only a fool would attack.
    Many of the Munrungs were frankly in awe of the small king, but Glurk was fast becoming an uncritical royalist. Brocando sensed his respectful audience, and chatted to him in that special way royalty has for commoners, which leaves the commoner feeling really cheered up without actually remembering very much about what was said to him.
    Snibril jogged along on the other side of the cart, listening with half an ear for any signs of Fray and half to the Deftmene’s chatter. ‘And then in the north wing of the palace my ancestor, Broc, built a temple to Kone the Founder. It took the wightsseven years, carving pillars of varnish and wood and laying the great mosaic of the Carpet for Broc. We’re still paying them for it. The walls were set with jet and salt, the altar of red wood inlaid with bronze. Really that was the centre of the present palace, which was built by my great-grandfather, the Seventh Broc, who added the Wood Gate when he was made king. And I mustn’t forget the treasure rooms. I think there’s at least nine. And only the reigning king may enter. Tara the Woodcarver himself made the Crown. Seven pointy bits, with salt crystals on each one.’
    ‘We had a rug in our hut,’ said Glurk.
    And so it went on, Glurk eagerly following the Deftmene through the treasury and the armoury, the banqueting halls and the guest bedrooms, while the carts got nearer and nearer to Jeopard.
    Gradually the Carpet changed colour again, from red to deep purple and then dark blue. They camped under blue hairs, hunted the small shelled creatures that dwelt in dust holes, and wondered if Jeopard was as good as Brocando made out because if it was, it looked as though they’d better stop eating and drinking right now so as to leave room for the feasts they were going to have.
    The track began to turn into a road, not a great white road like the Dumii built, but a neatly laid track of thick planks on a bank of dust. On eitherside the hairs grew thinner, and Snibril noticed many stumps. That was not all. No Munrung ever planted a seed. They liked vegetables when they could get them, and knew what grew where and which hairs dropped seeds that could be eaten, but except for Pismire’s private herb garden everything that grew around them grew wild. The reason was quite obvious, to a Munrung: if you planted something you had to stop and watch it grow, fight off the animals and any hungry neighbour that happened to be passing, and generally spend your time, as Glurk put it, hanging around. Vegetables to a Munrung were something to give the meat a bit of a special taste.
    But in the blue land of Jabonya, around the little city of Jeopard, the Deftmenes had turned the Carpet into a garden. There were hairs there that even Pismire had not seen before, not the great sturdy trunks that crowded the rest of the Carpet, but delicate stems, their branches laden with fruit. Dust had been carefully banked up beneath them to make soil for all sorts of shrubs and vegetables. The travellers were shown ripe purple groads, that tasted of pepper and ginger, and big Master Mushrooms that could be dried and stored for years and still kept their delicate flavour. Even the track had been raised above the gardens, and small shrublike hairs grew along its borderin a low hedge. It was an ordered land.
    ‘I never noticed that it looked like this,’ said Bane.
    ‘It certainly looks better without Dumii armies camped on it,’ said Brocando.
    ‘The men under my command were always instructed to treat the country with respect.’
    ‘Others were less respectful.’
    ‘Where are the people?’ asked Glurk. ‘I’ll grant you that a nice baked root goes down well, but all this didn’t grow by being whistled at. You’re always having to hang about poking at the ground, when you’re a farmer.’
    There were no people. The fruit hung heavy in the bushes along the roadside, but there were none to pick it, except the Munrung children, who did it very well. But there was no one else.
    Snibril took up his spear.