"Father!" said Zei, who had just lighted her cigar on a gasjet. "How oft must I tell you 'tis pronounced 'chanize-kash?"
"The proper form of the name," said Queen Alvandi, "is 'chanichekr'."
"Be not absurd, Mother!" said Zei. " 'Tis 'chanizekash,' is't not, Zakkomir?"
"Whatever you say's right by definition, O star-jewel of the Zogha," said that young man.
"Weathervane!" said the queen. "Any noddy knows…*
King Kaj snorted. "If I have but a ten-night to anticipate, then by Qunjar I'll call it what I please!"
"If you say it, 'tis probably wrong," said Queen Alvandi, "and I take ill your calling on a sanguinary god whom the righteous edicts of my predecessors have banished from the land! I have always understood 'chanichekr.' How say you, O men of Nyamadze?"
Barnevelt gulped. Feeling a little like a man who has been asked to step into a cage to separate a pair of fighting lions, he replied: "Well—uh—in my land it's known as 'Chinese checkers.' "
"Just as I pronounced it," said the queen, "save for your barbarous outland accents. Chanichekr shall it be to any who'd play with me. Choose you now, arid red moves first."
She held out a fistful of markers, one of each of the six colors. King Kaj drew red. He looked at it lugubriously, saying:
"Were I as lucky in the kashyo drawing as in this, I should not now face a wretched and untimely cease…"
"Stop your croaking, you wormy old aqebat!" yelled the queen. "Of all my consorts you're the most useless, in bed or out! Anyone would think you'd not had all the luxe the land provides in the year just gone. Now to your play. You're slowing the game."
Barnevelt inferred that Kaj was one of those one-year consorts decreed by the curious customs of this land, and that the end of his term and of his life were fast approaching in the form of the kashyo festival. Under the circumstances he could hardly blame Kaj for taking a dim view of things.
"Zakkomir," said Princess Zei, "you'll get nowhere with a move of that description. Why build you not a proper ladder?"
"Play your own game and keep your big nose out of mine, sweetling," retorted Zakkomir.
"The insolence of the princox!" cried Zei. "Master Snyol, would you term my nose large?"
"Matter of fact, I should call it 'aristocratic' rather than plain 'big,' " said Barnevelt, who had been stealing furtive looks at the princess' boldly handsome features. He stroked his own sizeable proboscis.
"Why," she asked, "is a beak-nose a badge of birth in far Nyamdaze? With us 'tis the contrary, the flatter the nobler-wherefore have I ever in my companions' laughter read mockery for my base-born looks. Perchance should I remove to this cold clime of yours, where my ugliness by the alchemy of social custom might to beauty be transmuted."
"Ugliness!" said Barnevelt, and was thinking up a neat compliment when Zakkomir broke in:
"Less female self-appraisal, madam, and more attention to your game. As the great Kurde remarked, beauty of thought and deed outlasts that of skin and bone, be the latter never so seductive."
"And not pleased am I to hear our customs made light of," growled Queen Alvandi. "Such mental mirror-posturing is meet for vain and silly males, but not for one of the stronger sex."
As Zei, looking a bit cowed, returned to her game, Zakkomir turned to Barnevelt. "General Snyol… O General!"
Barnevelt had fallen into a trance watching Zei and woke up with a start. "Huh? Beg pardon?"
"Tell me, sir, how go your preparations for the gvam hunt?"
"Mostly done. There's actually little left but to pay our bills, choose our crew, and oversee the overhaul of the ship."
"I'm tempted to cast my lot with you," said Zakkomir. "Long have I lusted for such adventure…"
"That you shall not!" cried the queen. " 'Tis much too perilous for one of your sex, and as your guardian I forbid it. Nor would it look well for one so near the royal house to engage in this disreputable traffic. Kaj, you scurvy scrowl, my move to block! Would we could advance the festival's date to one earlier than that dictated by conjunction astrological."
Barnevelt was just as glad of the queen's interference. Zakkomir might be all right under his lipstick, but it wouldn't do to have strangers cutting in on the deal, especially as the expedition was not what it seemed.
"In truth," said Zei, "the dangers of the Banjao Sea are not to be undertaken in a spirit of frivolity. Could we persuade you two to give up this rash enterprise, sirs, high place could be found for you in our armed service, which being sore disordered at the moment needs captains of your renown to officer it."
"What's this?" said Tangaloa.
The queen answered: "My foolish lady warriors protest the men won't wed 'em for divers reasons, all addle-pated. There's factional quarrels 'mongst the several units and insubordinate jealousy amongst the officers—oh, 'tis a long and heavy-footed tale. The upshot is, I must bend my principles to the winds of human weakness and hire a male general to knock some silly crowns together. And as such employ to our own men is forbidden, I must seek my leader from foreign lands, however such choice may grate upon our pride. Do you perceive my meaning?"
King Kaj, who seldom got a word in edgewise, spoke up: "How soon will you depart, my masters?"
"Not soon enough to avail you!" snapped Alvandi. "I see how blows the breeze, my friends. He'll think to seduce you into leaving early, having smuggled himself aboard in the guise of a sack of tabid tubers, and so provoke the righteous wrath of the Mother Goddess by evading the just price of his year's suzerainty. Know, sirs, you had better watch your respective steps, for this day have I signed the death warrants of three miserable males who sought unauthorized to slip from the land, no doubt to join the damned freebooters of the Sunqar. As for this aging idiot of mine…"
Kaj stood up, shouting: "Enough, strumpet! If my remaining time be short, at least spare me your sluttish yap! Get the astrologer to finish the game for me."
He stalked from the room.
"Bawbling dotard!" the queen yelled after him, then beckoned a flunkey and bid him fetch the court astrologer. She said to Zei: "Find you young consorts, Daughter. These old ones like yon allicholy neither give pleasure in life nor prove toothsome when dead."
Barnevelt said: "You mean you eat him?"
"Certes. Tis a traditional part of the kashyo festival. If you'll attend, I'll see you're served a prime juicy gobbet."
Barnevelt shuddered. Tangaloa, taking the news quite calmly, murmured something about the customs of the Aztecs.
Zei's rich lips had been pressed together ever since the departure of Kaj. Now she burst out: "Never will I have friends of mine to these family gatherings again! These travelers must deem us utter barbarians…"
"Who are you to reprehend your elders?" roared the queen. "Sirs, but a ten-night past was she who speaks so nice one of a rout of young revellers who, instigated by this buffoon her adoptious brother," (she indicated Zakkomir) "did strip themselves egg-bare and mount the central fountain in the palace park, as they were a group of statues Panjaku means to set there. I had a lord and lady from Balhib, of oldest family, to walk in the park. So, say they, be this the great sculptor's new group, which we thought not yet completed? And whilst I stood a-goggle, wondering if 'twere a joke my minions had played upon me, the statues leap to life and cast themselves about us, loathly wet, with many unseemly jape and jest…"
"Quiet!" yelled Zakkomir, asserting himself suddenly. "If you women cease not from this eternal haver, I shall be driven forth like poor Kaj. There was no harm in our acture. Your Balhibo lord did laugh with the rest when he got over his initial fright. Now let's talk of more delightsome things. General Snyol, how escaped you from the torture vaults of the Kangandites when they for heresy had doomed you?"