Alfric took off his spectacles, put them into a beer mug for safety, then threw himself into the battle. With Alfric deadweighting from his neck, Muscleman Wu began to tire. Then a couple of guardsmen entered, and, thanks to their intervention, both brothers Norn were overcome and were booted out into the street.
Full of the vigour of war, Alfric pursued them. He stood in the doorway of the Green Cricket and swore prodigiously at a much-battered Pig Norn who was even then picking himself out of the mud.
‘You want a fight?’ said Wu Norn. ‘A real fight?
Then come out here and we’ll settle things.’
‘I will,’ said Alfric.
But Anna Blaume and others grabbed him from behind and dragged him back to safety. Viola Vanaleta recovered the spectacles and shoved them on to Alfric’s face, and the guardsmen delivered their message.
‘Compliments of the Wormlord,’ said they. ‘Your presence is desire d at Saxo Pall. Tonight is the night. All the Yudonic Knights are bein g ingathered for your banquet, which starts as soon as you present you rself.’ ‘Impossible,’ said Alfric. ‘I’m drunk.’
But Anna Blaume gave him a drink which made him throw up, then fed him some revolting black stuff, then burnt some white powder and made him inhale the fumes, then marched him to his home to recover the ironsword Edda, then escorted him to Saxo Pall and handed him over to Guignol Grangalet, and very shortly (or so it seemed to Alfric, whose time sense had become grossly distorted ever since he had breathed the fumes of the white powder) the young banker was in the throne-room in audience with the Wormlord, with a mass of Yudonic Knights in attendance.
‘You have done well,’ said Tromso Stavenger.
‘Have I?’ said Alfric, too dazed to know whether he had or had not.
‘You have done very well,’ said Stavenger. ‘For you have brought us the ironsword Edda. Give it to me.’
In obedience to this command, Alfric presented the king with the saga sword. Some of the onlookers tittered when they saw what a rubbishy thing it was, but only Ciranoush Norn was bold enough to challenge the presentation.
‘My lord!’ said Ciranoush.
‘You wish to be heard?’ said the Wormlord.
‘I will be heard!’ said Ciranoush. ‘Edda was a hero’s weapon. But this? Some refuse-iron! The hilt intact, to be true, but the blade a stump of rotten rust. How know we this to be Edda?’
‘I know,’ said the Wormlord.
Then, to Alfric’s astonishment, the king unscrewed the top of the sword’s pommel; and from the hollow hilt the Wormlord poured a glitterment of diamonds, emeralds and rubies. One last thing rattled out. A single chip of lapis, incongruous against the glory of the jewels.
‘The sword,’ said the Wormlord, ‘has proved itself.’
As Ciranoush stared at the jewels in dumbfounded silence, Alfric steadied his head for long enough to add: ‘If further proof is demanded, seek it yourself on Island Thodrun. Qa lies dead, his body butchered, as other bodies will be before all differences in this kingdom are settled.’
‘Other bodies?’ said Ciranoush. ‘What mean you by that?’
‘You will not ask that question!’ said the king. Then he tossed the chip of lapis to Alfric, who surprised himself by catching it neatly. ‘A souvenir,’ said Tromso Stavenger. ‘I might give you another souvenir before the night is out. A head. A head for you to take home. The head of one of the brothers Norn.’
‘My lord,’ said Ciranoush, ‘how has the family Norn excited your displeasure?’
‘I am told,’ said the Wormlord, ‘that your brothers Pig and Wu have been brawling with the orks who happen to be ambassadors from the king of the Qinj oks. ’
‘Then I will see that apologies are made,’ said Ciranoush.
Without further ado, Ciranoush called his brothers forth from the mass of Yudonic Knights gathered in the throneroom. A sullen Pig and a slowvoiced Wu made formal apologies to the king.
‘I am not necessarily entirely satisfied by your apologies,’ said the king. ‘It may be that I will make an example of one of you. I do not say that this is necessarily so. Only that I reserve the right to so act. Any offence against any ambassador is a most serious matter, whatever the nature of that ambassador. What I need from you now is a peace. A peace between the brothers Norn and the family Danbrog. Is there a peace between you? Alfric?’
‘There is,’ said Alfric.
Pig hesitated, then said:
‘Yes, there is.’
And Wu:
‘My brother speaks for me as well.’
‘Good,’ said Stavenger. ‘Then you will all four of you sit together as a token of mutual trust and alliance. The three brothers Norn and Alfric Danbrog. Come, let us retire now to the banqueting hall.’
That they did, and soon a most uncomfortable Alfric Danbrog was seated at table with the three brothers Norn. Pig was seated to Alfric’s left and Ciranoush to his right, with Wu a further place to the right. A four person Trough of Friendship was brought forth and set in front of them, that they might all eat from the same dish in token of the truceship to which their king had bound them. A select portion of a gigantic river worm (a worm which was all of a horselength from nose to tail) was placed in that dish, and vegetables mounded on top of it.
A great heat rose from the river worm; and heat likewise flushed forth from the brothers Norn; and further heat assailed Alfric from the hall itself, a hall heated by a full half-dozen blazing fireplaces. It is scarcely surprising that he found himself sweating, and that his neighbours were similarly afflicted.
Certain formalities then took place; then the Wormlord took out his false teeth and wrapped them in a silken handkerchief, and all knew they were free to eat, which they did.
As the banquet got underway, Alfric did his best to ignore the brothers Norn. Easy enough to do, since Justina Thrug was seated opposite, and she was enough to take anyone’s mind off his neighbours. She was a phenomenon.
Justina Thrug was a meaty woman with the most abstraklous history of debauchery. On this occasion, she was rigged out in flame-coloured taffeta most unfitting as wear for one who was a daughter of Lonstantine Thrug. In a further offence against custom, she had brought her pet owl to banquet. The name of the creature was Aquitaine Varazchavardan, a fact which Alfric Danbrog could not help but learn, since Justina often addressed the feathered beast by this name.
(The owl, for its part, said precious little in return.)
It was said that Justina Thrug was truly her father’s daughter, and that nothing could abash her dauntless courage; but Alfric found such rumour hard to credit when he was confronted by this overloud and overweight female, a woman hardly overyoung.
Alfric was glad when the traditional banquet-time storytelling began, for it drowned out the Thrug. The tales that were told were all the usual, traditional stuff. Heroes venturing against those monsters which inhabit the wastelands. The glut of slaughter from the great battles of land and sea. The glory of the poets of the past who won deathless fame by fabling the heroes of such tales. The sacrifices made by those who, eager for fame, paid scant heed to the safety of the house of flesh. The plight of an outcast doomed by the betrayal of his king.
On and on went the storytelling, some in prose and some in verse, but all noble, heroic, inspired by visions of grandeur.
Listening, the Yudonic Knights indulged themselves in heroic ecstasies. They were no longer the inhabitants of a muddy little city in a minor province of the Izdimir Empire; they were not the denizens of an insignificant land half-engulfed by swamp; they were not the members of a bullyboy class dedicated to exploiting the labours of a subdued and sullen peasantry. Rather, they were lordly heroes in a land built for the accommodation of such men; their houses were palaces; their bad-tempered wives were compliant maidens who delighted in braiding broidered silk and looming fleeces for the comfort of their men; their estate was great, and their destiny to be greater yet.