Food started to arrive, prodigious in its delicacy, variety and quantity. On the long tables below, Poldarn watched the Amathy house men; they were hardly eating anything, and they kept their hands over their wine-cups to stop them being refilled. Up on the top table, silver dishes were as thick as volcanic ash, and the true nobility was talking very loudly with its mouth full, but not to him. That was fine. He picked off a few bits and pieces from the trays and servers as they cruised by; he had no idea what he was eating, and it didn't taste of anything much, but the colours were amazing.
'And just then,' someone was saying, 'the stable door opened and in walked the sergeant; and he looked at the young officer, and he said, "Actually, what we do is, we use the mule to ride down the mountain to the village.'"'
It was probably a very funny story; at any rate, everyone but him was laughing, and someone suggested that that called for a drink. Before Poldarn could copy the Amathy contingent, his cup was filled up with red wine; then someone away in the distance called for a toast, and everybody stood up, apart from Tazencius. After the toast ('His majesty') they all sat down again and started drinking in earnest, even the Amathies. He noticed Cleapho laughing, his head thrown back, his mouth wide open, like someone who'd had his throat cut from behind. But the red was spilled wine or crushed velvet, and a moment later he was sitting up straight again, listening attentively to something Tazencius was saying. Poldarn also noticed that from time to time, apparently when they thought nobody was watching, some of the Amathies stared at him and frowned before looking away.
'It's all over Tulice,' the man next to him was saying. 'They reckon they've got it stopped at the border, though; the only ships coming across are the charcoal freighters, and they're being unloaded by tender without actually putting in, and they're keeping the dockers segregated, just in case. I did hear they reckon it won't cross the Bay; seems that it only flourishes in warm, wet places.'
'Let's hope,' someone else replied, hidden behind his neighbour's head. 'Do they have any idea where it started?'
'Morevich,' someone else interrupted. 'By all accounts the place is practically deserted, all the survivors are drifting east into the desert or scrambling into ships and launching out into the ocean, heading west.'
'Let's hope they pitch up where the raiders come from,' someone else put in. 'Everything comes in useful sooner or later, as my old grandad used to say.'
'Now then.' Someone a little further off. 'We've all had a nice drink. How about some entertainment?'
It was a popular suggestion, something on which the home side and the Amathy contingent were apparently able to agree. Many of the men and several of the women too were cheering and stamping their feet.
Cleapho looked up at Tazencius. 'Well? How about it?'
Tazencius nodded, and made some sort of signal to someone or other in the background. After a brief interval during which nothing much happened, eight men in overstated livery brought in two large wooden frames (like window frames without glass or parchment). Inside each frame a human being was stretched like a curing hide, hands and feet pulled tight into the corners. One of them was a woman, and she looked familiar, although it was hard to make out the details of her face through the bruises and dried blood. The other was a man, in even worse shape; and on the top edge of his frame someone had written, in neat gilt letters, 'The Mad Monk.' They were both naked and dirty and thin, with raw ulcers and sores on their ribs and shins. Their heads had recently been shaved, and their eyes and mouths were red and swollen.
The men in livery manoeuvred the frames up onto a raised dais on the right-hand side of the room-they dropped the woman, which caused a great deal of mirth, particularly on the top table-and someone passed ropes over hooks in the ceiling beam. From these they hung the frames, securing them at the bottom with more ropes passed through rings set in the floor. The presence of these specialised fixtures suggested that performances of this sort, whatever it might turn out to be, were a regular event.
Once they'd finished fastening the ropes, the servants got out of the way in a great hurry; which turned out to be a sensible move on their part, because the company around the table were busily arming themselves with missiles of every sort, from soft fruit to the chunkily vulgar wine-cups. The barrage they let fly was more vigorous than accurate. Most of their projectiles banged and splatted against the wall rather than the poor devils in the frames; but such was the volume of shot that inevitably a proportion found their mark. Poldarn saw the man's head knocked sideways by a goblet, splattering the wall behind with wine or blood or both. Two of the men in the middle of the table were having a contest, to see who could be the first to land a napkin ring on one of the woman's breasts. Other diners were throwing spoons and knives.
It wasn't long before the table was stripped bare. The ebony crow had been the last missile to fly; it had been claimed by a tall thin man with a very long beard, who took a long time over his aim and managed to catch the woman square in the ribs with considerable force. The thin man got a good round of applause for that.
After the last missile had been thrown there was a general round of cheering, mixed with shouts for more wine (and more cups). When these basic needs had been provided for by the impressively efficient table-servants, one of the men down the far end of the table called out, 'Get on with it!' Everybody laughed and cheered, and two men appeared from the direction from which they'd brought the frames in. They were clearly very serious men indeed; they were dressed in military uniforms, with gleaming black boots and white pipeclay belts, immaculate red tunics and breastplates that hurt the eyes, especially after a drink or two. One of them was carrying a long stick like a broom handle, and the other a long knife with a curved thin blade.
The man with the knife stopped, right-wheeled, threw Tazencius a crisp salute and said, 'By your leave, sir.'
'Carry on, sergeant,' Tazencius replied. If anything, he looked slightly bored.
The sergeant turned to the man stretched in the frame and wiped a section of his midriff clean of fruit pulp and wine dregs. Then he pinched a fold of skin near the solar plexus and carefully inserted the point of the knife, working it in with the skill and concentration of a high-class surgeon. Once he'd made his incision he pushed the knife in an inch or so-he was taking care not to puncture any of 'the internal organs-and drew down in a straight line, slitting the skin like a hunter paunching a hare. He tucked the knife into his belt without looking down, then pushed his two forefingers into the incision and gently drew the skin apart to reveal the intestines. His skill and delicacy of touch earned him a round of applause from the diners that actually drowned out the noises the man was making; it was hard to see how the sergeant could keep his mind on his work with such a terrible racket going on, but apparently he was used to it, because he didn't seem to be taking any notice. Retrieving his knife from his belt, he hooked a strand of the stretched man's gut round his finger and snipped through it. Then he nodded his head and the other soldier handed him the stick, around which he started to wind the severed gut.