Afsan clicked his teeth lightly. Dybo’s exuberance was both amusing and embarrassing. “I’m always glad when my studies permit me time to see you, too, Dybo.”
“Have you eaten? You’re looking as scrawny as a wingfinger.” Afsan was thin for a Quintaglio, but it was only in comparison to Dybo that he might be thought of as scrawny. The prince’s appetite came at a price.
“No,” said Afsan, “although I will eat soon. I like to sleep even-nights.”
“Right, right. At some unspecified time in the future, you must tell me what it is you do while the rest of us are sleeping. Great mischief, no doubt!”
Afsan clicked his teeth in jest. “No doubt.”
“Well, then, you must eat, my friend, eat so that you will deep soundly. You see, while you are the only one sleeping, the rest of us are out doing things we won’t tell you about.” Dybo’s teeth clattered in heavy laughter at his own joke. “Eh, Afsan! Someday you’ll wake up and find your tail tied in a knot!”
“If I do,” said Afsan, “I’ll simply cut it off and make the most likely suspect swallow it whole.”
“Yuck. Not while I’m eating.”
It was Afsan’s turn to laugh. “What other time is there?”
Dybo nodded slight concession. “When indeed, my friend?” He pointed to the hip joint. “This one is pretty well finished. I’ll have it put out for the wingfingers to pick over. But I could use a little more, and I’m sure you’d enjoy a fine piece of meat.”
“That I would.”
“It is done, then!” Dybo slapped his palm against the side of the dayslab. “Butcher!” he called. “Butcher, I say!”
A Quintaglio clad in a red smock appeared in a doorway. He was long-of-limb, almost insectile, and his muzzle had a drawn-out, melancholy look.
“Bring another hip joint,” commanded Dybo. “A nice, bloody one, not yet drained. And water.”
With a loping stride, the butcher went off to do as the prince had asked.
“There, Afsan. We’ll get some flesh on you yet. Now, what brings you here? Not to sing again, I hope! I do like you, you malfunctioning bowel, but, by the moons themselves, if I have to listen to you sing again, I’ll stick pebbles in my earholes to drown out the noise.”
Dybo’s musical ability was almost as enormous as his appetite, but even Afsan conceded that his own was virtually nonexistent. Still, the young astrologer loved the sound of music, admiring the mathematical precision of it.
“Well,” said Afsan, “in a way, I do want to talk to you about my singing.”
Mock horror ran across the prince’s face. “No! By the eggshell of God, no!”
“And about God, too. You see, I wish to take my pilgrimage.”
Dybo slapped his palm against the dayslab again. “Excellent! About time, you puffed dewlap! You may be a skinny thing, but your height betrays your age. It’s time we shipped you off on a boat.”
“Indeed so. But—”
At that moment, the butcher reappeared. With his long arms, he managed to place the hip joint on the table without stooping, positioning it over the drainage trough. This joint was even bigger than the one Dybo had been gnawing on before. Steam rose from the flesh; the animal had been killed moments ago. Afsan looked up at the butcher. His long snout was bloodied. He had slain the beast himself.
“Thank you, butcher,” said Dybo, who had never been good at names. Even Afsan, who had been here less than five hundred days, knew this lanky fellow was Pal-Cadool.
“Yes,” said Afsan. “Thank you, honorable Cadool.” The butcher bowed, and with that insect-like walk of his, strode off to get the bowls of water.
“Well, don’t just stand there, you crusty growth,” Dybo said to Afsan. “Lie down. Eat.”
Afsan lowered himself, push-up style, onto the angled surface of another dayslab, letting the wood take his weight. “Dybo, I want you to go on the pilgrimage with me.”
Dybo’s face was already buried in the carcass, ripping hot flesh from bone. He came up, gulped down what he’d taken, and then stared at Afsan. “Me?”
“Yes, you. You do have to go sometime, don’t you?”
“Well, yes. Of course. I haven’t given it much thought yet, though. But my mother would never let me sail on some scow—”
“I’m going on the Dasheter. With Captain Var-Keenir.”
“Are you, now?”
“Yenalb has lifted some dragging tails for me.”
“The Dasheter, you say. By the prophet’s claws, that’s a fine ship! We could have a grand time aboard her, that we could! Think of the fun we’d have!”
“I have. Will you come?”
“My mother will have to say yes. The Family belongs to the people, after all.”
“The people might find they got a lot more to eat if you weren’t around for three hundred days or so.”
Dybo released gas from his belly. “That’s probably true,” he said, then clicked his teeth in laughter. “Very well! Let’s assume we’ll do it.”
“Excellent. The Dasheter sails in a dekaday.”
“That soon?” Dybo used his claws to worry a gob of flesh from between his teeth. He examined the errant meat, skewered on the polished curve of his middle-finger talon, then nibbled it off. “Well, why not?”
“There’s one more thing, Dybo.”
“You’ve got my food. You’ve got my company. What more could you possibly want?”
“Yenalb says one should take the hunt before going on the pilgrimage.”
“Does he, now? Well, I suppose that makes sense. But the hunt—” Dybo looked away.
“You’re afraid?”
“Afraid?” Dybo’s voice sounded hollow. “You are addressing the son of the Empress, you would-be astrologer.”
“That I am. Well, if you are not afraid, then why not join me in the hunt?”
“It’s just that—”
Pal-Cadool had returned bearing a platter holding bowls of water. Dybo fell silent.
“How is the meat?” asked Cadool, his words, like his frame, elongated.
“Excellent,” said Dybo, still slightly tremulous.
“Young Dybo,” said Cadool, each word a ponderous, lengthy sound, “it’s not my place to comment, but I overheard a bit of what you two are talking about, and, with your permission, I have something to say.”
Dybo looked up, surprised. It was as though he was seeing Cadool as an individual for the first time. “Speak, butcher.”
Cadool dipped his muzzle, now wiped clean, to show that he was looking at the hip joint on the table. “Nothing, young prince, tastes better than meat you have killed yourself.”
Dybo looked up at Cadool. The butcher’s muzzle retained its normal green color, so the prince knew that he was telling the truth. Dybo looked back down at the meat, flared his nostrils, enjoyed its smell. “Well, in that case, I must try it. Afsan, a-hunting we will go!”
“You’re not afraid?” said Afsan.
Dybo dug into the meat in front of him. “I’ve endured your singing, excrement from a shovelmouth. What could be more frightening than that?”
*5*
Well, thought Afsan, among other things, meeting the Empress herself could be more frightening than my singing.
Afsan had seen Empress Len-Lends many times, but always from a distance. Her stern visage oversaw most official events and she often greeted returning packs. But now Afsan was to have an audience with her. He would never forget the expression on Saleed’s face when he had arrived at the astrologer’s office that morning.
“Young Afsan,” Saleed had said, a tremulous note in his voice, “the Empress commands your presence at her ruling room right away.”