The Second Collected Tales of Bauchelain & Korbal Broach [с иллюстрациями]

Is it cowardice to turn away, to leave Mister Must to his work whilst one admires the sky and horizon, or perhaps frown in vaunted interest at the watchful regard of the horses or the gimlet study from the mules? Certainly not to meet the gaze of anyone else. Cowardice? Absolutely.

Poor Calap Roud. What grief and remorse assails me!

Brash Phluster sidled close as the trek resumed. ‘That was vicious, Flicker.’

‘When the mouse is cornered—’

‘“Mouse?” Not you. More like a serpent in our midst.’

‘I am pleased you heeded the warning.’

‘I bet you are. I could have blurted it out, you know. And you’d have been lying there beside Roud, and I’d be safe.’

‘Do you wish me to resume my tale, Brash? Recounting all the other lovers of the woman with the brothers?’

‘Won’t work a second time.’

‘You would stake your life on Tiny Chanter’s self-control?’

Brash licked his lips. ‘Anyway, now you have two stories, and Purse isn’t happy about it. She’s disgusted by what you did to Calap. Using her story like that. She feels guilty, too.’

‘Why, Brash, that is most perceptive.’

‘She won’t be forgiving, not anymore.’

‘Indeed not.’

‘I think you’re a dead man.’

‘Brash!’ bellowed Tulgord Vise. ‘Cheer us up! Sing, lad, sing!’

‘But we got our supper!’

Tiny Chanter laughed and then said, ‘Maybe we want dessert. Midge?’

‘Dessert.’

‘Flea?’

‘No thanks.’

His brothers halted and stared at him. Flea’s expression was pained. ‘I been bunged up now six whole days. I got bits of four people in me, and poets at that. Bad poets.’

Tiny’s hands twitched. ‘A dessert will do you good, Flea.’

‘Honey-glazed,’ suggested Midge, ‘if I can find a hive.’

Flea frowned. ‘Maybe an eyeball or two,’ he conceded.

‘Brash!’ Tiny roared.

‘I got one! Listen, this one’s brilliant. It’s called “Night of the Assassin”—’

‘Knights can’t be assassins,’ objected Arpo Relent. ‘It’s a rule. Knights can’t be assassins, wizards can’t be weapon-masters and mendics got to use clubs and maces. Everyone knows that.’

Tulgord Vise frowned. ‘Clubs? What?’

‘No, “night” as in the sun going down.’

‘They ride into the sunset, yes, but only at the end.’

Brash looked round, somewhat wildly.

‘Let’s hear it,’ commanded Tiny.

‘Mummumummymummy! Ooloolooloo!’

‘Oh sorrow!’ came a gargled croak from Sellup, who stumbled along behind the carriage and was now ghostly with dust.

‘I was just warming up my singing voice,’ Brash explained. ‘Now, “Night of the Assassin”, by Brash Phluster. An original composition. Lyrics by Brash Phluster, music by Brash Phluster. Composed in the year—’

‘Sing or die,’ said Tiny Chanter.

‘In the black heart of Malaz City
on a black night of blackness so darrrk
no one could see a thing it was all gritty
when a guard cried out “harrrrk!”
But the darkness did not answer
because no one was therrre
Kalam Mekhar was climbing the tower
instead of using the stairrr
The Mad Empress sat on her throne
dreaming up new ways of torturrre
when she heard a terrible groan
and she did bless the mendic’s currre
There was writing carved on the wall
great kings and mad tyrants wrote dire curses
there in the gloomy royal stall
so rank with smeared mercies—’

‘She’s sitting on a shit-hole?’ Tulgord Vise demanded. ‘Taking a dump?’

‘That’s the whole point!’ Brash retorted. ‘Everybody sings about kings and princesses and heroes but nobody ever mentions natural bodily functions. I introduced the Mad Empress at a vulnerable moment, you see? To earn her more sympathy and remind listeners she’s as human as anybody.’

‘People know all that,’ Tulgord said, ‘and they don’t want to hear about it in a damned song about assassins!’

‘I’m setting the scene!’

‘Let him go on,’ said Tiny. Then he pointed a culpable finger at Brash. ‘But no more natural bodily functions.’

‘Out of the dark night sky
rained down matter most foulll
and Kalam swore and wiped at his eye
wishing he’d brought a towelll
But the chute yawned above him
his way to the Mad Empress was a black hollle
could he but reach the sticky rim
he was but moments from his goallll
In days of yore she was an assassin too
a whore of murder with claws unfurlllled
but now she just needed hard to poo
straining to make her hair currrlll’

‘I said—’

‘It’s part of the story!’ squealed Brash Phluster. ‘I can’t help it!’

‘Neither could the Empress, seems,’ added Apto under his breath.

‘Kalam looked up then to see a grenado
but swift he was in dodging its plungggge
and he launched up into the brown window
and in the narrow channel he thrashed and lunggged
And climbed and climbed seeking the light
or at least he hoped for some other wayyy
to end the plight of this darkest night
as he prayed for the light of daayyy
Through the narrowest of chutes
he clambered into a pink caverrrnnn
and swam among the furly flukes
“oh,” he cried, “when will I ever learrnnn?”
’Tis said across the entire empire
that the Empress Laseen did give birrthhh
to the Royal Assassins of the Claw entire
you can take that for what it’s worrthhh
But Kalam Mekhar knew her better than most
and he did carve his name on her wallll
and we’d all swear he got there first
because we never went there at allll!’

Imagine, if you dare, the nature of the silence that followed ‘Night of the Assassin’. To this very day, all these years later, I struggle and fail to find words of sufficient girth and suitable precision and can only crawl a reach closer, prostrate with nary more than a few gibbering mumbles. We had all halted, I do recall, but the faces on all sides were but a blur, barring that of Sellup, who marched in from a cloud of dust smiling with blackened teeth and said, ‘Thank you for waiting!’

It is said that as much as the dead will find a way into the ground, so too will they find a way out again. Farmers turn up bones under the plough. Looters shove aside the lid of the crypt and scatter trucked limbs and skulls and such in their hunt for baubles. Sellup, of course, was yet to be buried, but in appearance she was quickly assuming the guise of the interred. Patchy and jellying, her lone brow a snarling fringe above murky matted eyes, various thready remnants of mucus dangling from her crusted nostrils, and already crawling with maggots that had writhed out from her ear-holes to sprinkle her shoulders or choke in the nooses of her tangled hair, she was the kind of fan to elicit a cringe and flinch from the most desperate poet (though sufficiently muted as to avoid too much offence, for we will take what we can get, don’t you know).

The curious thing, from the point of view of an artist, lies in the odd reversal a dead fan poses. For the truly adoring worshipper, a favourite artist cursed to an undying existence could well be considered a prayer answered. More songs, more epics, an unending stream of blather and ponce for all eternity! And should the poor poet fall into irreparable decays – a nose falling off, a flap of scalp sagging loose, a certain bloating of intestinal gases followed by a wheezing eruption or two – well, one must suffer for one’s art, yes?