The floor of the atrium was covered with carpets and mats on which stood half a dozen over-stuffed bookshelves and a couple of tables covered with layers and rolls of paper. Exercise equipment in the shape of dumbbells, weights, heavy clubs and flexible bars lay strewn amongst the stuff of ancient scholarship.
In the centre of it all stood the tallish, gaunt figure of an almost naked elderly man with a white mat of hair on his chest and a shock of thick black hair on his head. He was clad in a grubby loincloth and clutched a pair of hand-weights which he was raising alternately, breathing heavily and grunting with each lift. There was sweat on his fined, tanned face. Zefla reckoned he was seventy at least, though his figure was relatively youthful; only the white chest-hair and a certain slackness round his belly revealed his age. “Ha; good-morning, lovely ladies!” he said in a deep voice. “Ivexton Travapeth at your service.”
He thumped the hand-weights down on a massive book that seemed to be holding down one corner of an age-brown chart, raising dust and making the table beneath shudder. “And how may this humble and undeserving scholar help two such radiantly pulchritudinous gentle-ladies?” He stood, arms crossed, biceps bulging, on the balls of his feet, facing them, still breathing heavily. His expression was somewhere between mischievous and lecherous.
“Good-morning, Mister Travapeth,” Zefla said, nodding as she stepped forward and put out her hand. They shook. “My name is Ms Franck; this is my assistant, Ms Demri.”
Sharrow nodded as Travapeth glanced, smiling, at her. “We’re researchers for an independent screen production company, MGK Productions. Our card.” Zefla handed him a card from one of Miz’s many front companies.
Travapeth squinted at the card. “Ali, you are from Golter. I thought so from your accent, of course. How may Travapeth help you, my saxicolous damsels?”
Zefla smiled. “We’d like to talk to you about a place called Pharpech.”
Ivexton Travapeth rocked back on his heels a little. “Indeed?” he said.
At that point the little man rushed out of the shadows behind the scholar, holding open a long grey gown. He jumped up and tried to put the gown over the tall man’s shoulders. He failed, and tried several more times while Travapeth boomed:
“Pharpech! Ali, dear, belovable lady, you utter a word-an almost magical word-which summons up such a welter of emotions in this well-travelled breast-” There was a hollow thud as Travapeth struck his white-haired chest with one fist “-I scarcely know where or how to begin to respond.”
The little man put the gown over one forearm and pulled a chair from beneath a table, stationing it behind Travapeth. He climbed up onto the chair and went to put the gown over the scholar’s shoulders just as Travapeth moved away towards a chest-high wooden stand holding a set of dumbbells. The little grey-haired man fell to the floor with a squeal.
Travapeth lifted the dumbbells from the stand, grunting.
“You say screen production company?” he said, straining to lift the dumbbells to his chin. The little man picked himself up and dusted himself down, retrieved the gown from the carpet and looked sulkily at Travapeth. Sharrow had her lips tightly closed.
“That’s right,” Zefla smiled.
The little grey-haired man scowled at Travapeth, then left the gown draped over the chair and returned to the shadows, muttering incoherently and shaking his head.
“Hmm,” Travapeth said, finally heaving the dumbbells level with the top of his shoulders and standing there panting for a moment. He swallowed. “I happen to know His Majesty King Tard the Seventeenth rather well,” he boomed. He smiled at the two women with a sort of radiant humility. “I was present at his coronation, you know, back when you two beautiful ladies were still suckling at the generous globes of your mothers’ breasts, I imagine.” He sighed contemplatively, perhaps sadly, then looked more serious as he strained at the dumbbells, and after a while relaxed. “And I have to say,” he panted, “His Majesty has shown… a consistent reluctance… to allow any sort of pictographic record… to be taken of his realm… which the modern world seems to regard as… bordering on the pathological.”
“We understand that,” Zefla said. “Nevertheless, Pharpech appears to be a fascinating and even romantic place, from what one reads about it, and we do feel that it would be worth some time and effort-by an experienced and highly talented team of individuals widely respected in their respective fields-to produce a true, factual and faithful account of life in what represents one of the last vestiges of a time gone by, miraculously still surviving into the present day.”
Travapeth seemed to strain again. Then he grunted; he put the dumbbells back on their stand and reached with a shaking hand for a stained towel lying crumpled on top of a bookcase.
“Quite so,” he said, shaking the towel until it uncrumpled. “But try explaining that to His Majesty!”
“Let me be candid,” Zefla said as Travapeth wiped under his armpits, and then his face. (Sharrow looked away.) “Our intention is to go there initially without any equipment-without even still cameras, if that’s what it takes-and perhaps, with your good offices, if that proves agreeable to you, establish some sort of understanding with whatever authorities control the sort of very limited access rights we’d require for the extremely respectful and tasteful prestige documentary production we have in mind.”
Travapeth nodded, blew his nose noisily into the towel and put it back on top of the bookcase. Sharrow coughed and studied the upper balcony. Zefla glided smoothly on. “We do of course recognise the difficulties involved, and we hope that-as a highly respected scholar and the foremost expert on Pharpech in the entire system-you would agree to act as our historical and anthropological consultant.”
Travapeth’sbrows knitted together as he flexed his shoulders and went to a sit-up bench, lying on it and jamming his feet under the bars.
“Yes, I see,” he said, clasping his hands behind his neck.
“Should you agree to this,” Zefla continued, “we would of course credit you on screen.”
“Mm-hmm,” Travapeth said, grunting as he did a sit-up.
“And, naturally,” Zefla said, “there would be a substantial fee involved, reflecting both the added academic weight your involvement in this prestigious project would contribute and the worth of your valuable time.”
Travapeth sat back on the narrow padding of the sit-up bench with a sigh. He stared up at the courtyard’s membrane ceiling.
“Of course,” he said, “financial matters are hardly my first concern.”
“Of course,” Zefla agreed. “I can well imagine.”
“But-just to give me a rough idea…?” He performed another sit-up then twisted, touching both elbows off his knees in turn.
“Might we suggest ten thousand, inclusive?” Zefla said.
The scholar paused, touching elbow to knee.
“Four immediately,” Zefla said, “should you be prepared to help us, then three on first day of principal photography and three on transmission.”
“Repeat fees?” Travapeth grunted, still swinging from side to side.
“Industry Prestige Documentary Production standard.”
“Single screen credit?”
“Same size, half the duration of the director’s.”
“Call it fifteen.”
Zefla sucked her breath in and sounded apologetic. “I’m not really authorised to exceed twelve thousand for any single individual.”
Travapeth sat back panting heavily. “Butler!” he shouted into the air, his voice resounding round the atrium. His sweatstreaked face looked upside-down at Zefla. “My dear girl,” he breathed, “you won’t need any other individual. I am all that you require; all that you could possibly ask for,” he leered.