‘And to accept your forged medical reports. The Bank gave me written orders to do as much. You see, we thought we might have a use for you.’
Alfric opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. Like a fish dragged from the water, a fish trying to breathe in a world suddenly become inimical and incomprehensible.
‘You see,’ said Xzu softly, ‘the Bank cannot predict the future, nor does it attempt to do so. But it does make contingency plans a long, long time in advance. We think long term, you see.’
Alfric bowed his head, as if ashamed of himself.
He was ashamed of himself.
He had been totally outclassed, out-thought and outmanoeuvred; and such was the blindness of his pride that he had never suspected this for even a moment, not until the revelations of this day of disaster.
Then Alfric straightened up. He picked up a paperweight, a glass bauble with a yellow flower encapsulated in its depths.
‘May I have this?’ said Alfric.
Xzu looked at him in surprise.
‘What for?’
‘A gift,’ said Alfric. ‘A gift for my mother.’
Xzu studied Alfric and the paperweight both, tried to figure out what Alfric’s tactics were, then said abruptly:
‘Take it.’
‘Thank you,’ said Alfric.
And withdrew.
Alfric collected the orks from the Council Chamber then left Saxo Pall, making for the Green Cricket.
‘Where are we going?’ said Cod.
‘To Anna Blaume’s,’ said Alfric.
‘Oh, that’s good,’ said Morgenstem. ‘You’ll have a chance to have a drink with us, and we can have a good talk.’
‘Sorry, but no,’ said Alfric. ‘When we get to the Cricket, I’m going to buy horses and be gone. I have to get out of Galsh Ebrek soon, now, today. Because those who rule from Saxo Pall most definitely intend to kill me.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As Alfric walked through the streets of Galsh Ebrek, he began to consider what kind of future he might make for himself in Port Domax. His years of strength were half over, but in all probability another thirty-three years of health remained to him. In that time, could he raise the army he would need to recover the throne of Wen Endex?
As Alfric was so thinking, he turned into Fraudenzimmer Street. And there was the Green Cricket, a two-storey building painted pink. Yes, it had always been pink. But Alfric had seen it so often by night that he had quite forgotten its colour till now.
‘Flowers, mister?’ said a girlchild, coming up to him with a bouquet.
‘How much?’ said Alfric.
She named the price; he paid. Where women were concerned, flowers were a most effective weapon of diplomacy. They might sweeten Anna Blaume’s temper and lower the price of the horses Alfric wished to buy from her.
Thus armed, Alfric advanced upon the Green Cricket. The slovenly thatch was steaming in the hot sun. A few icicles yet clung to the eves; but, even as Alfric approached, one fell off and dagger-darted to the mud below. The front door was open, and the dwarves Du Deiner and Mich Dir were fighting in the doorway. They were supposed to be scrubbing the front step, but, instead, Du Deiner was trying to force Mich Dir’s head into a bucket of hot soapy water.
‘Hey,’ said Alfric. ‘Stop that.’
At which the struggling dwarves knocked over the bucket of water, which went all over Alfric’s boots. He didn’t worry. He had other things to worry about.
With Cod and Morgenstem on his heels, Alfric went inside, into the Green Cricket. He looked around, as if he had never seen it before by daylight. Skaps the vogel hung upside down from one of the rafters overhead, sleeping. Alfric reached up and chucked the vogel under the chin, whereupon it opened one purple eye and looked at him in a malevolent fashion which was disconcerting in the extreme.
‘For a parrot-bat,’ said Alfric, trying to recover his composure, ‘you don’t talk very much.’
‘Some of us,’ said Skaps, ‘prefer to think.’
Then the vogel closed its eye and went back to sleep, leaving Alfric unsure whether he had actually heard that little speech or not. He concealed his discomfiture by pretending an interest in the cradle which sat on one of the tables. Inside was the baby Alfric had rescued from the swamp giant Kralch. Much to Alfric’s surprise, the infant was giggling. When Alfric thought of babies, he thought of them as perpetually operating in the crying mode. The idea that they could sometimes be happy was an alien notion indeed.
‘Isn’t it cute?’ said Morgenstem.
‘I love it,’ said Cod.
‘I’d love a drink,’ said Alfric, turning from the baby to the bar.
Nobody stood behind the bar. But on top of the bar stood a huge hissing cockroach, which was doing its best to deal with the repeated onslaughts of a determined untunchilamon. Alfric moved closer, fascinated by this scene of combat. Though the miniscule dragon was no larger than the massive orthopterous insect, Alfric thought the firedrake would surely conquer.
As Alfric watched, the dragon spat sparks and closed with the cockroach. The roach hissed and outsquirted a fine spray of a vile and stinging fluid. The untunchilamon squeaked in rage and threw itself upon its manxome foe. The two creatures grappled with each other, rolled over and over, then tumbled to the floor and broke apart. Making a rapid recovery, they confronted each other, ready for a second round.
Then the floorboards began to creak and tremble as someone came tromping down the stairs, and the cockroach scuttled away to the nearest mousehole while the untunchilamon took to the air.
Who was it who was coming down those stairs?
Why, it was Anna Blaume herself, she of the larded skin, the blue-green yellow hair.
‘For you,’ said Alfric, handing her the flowers.
‘Thank you,’ said Anna Blaume.
Then kissed the flowers.
One of the petals came away, and she ate it, her strong white teeth crunching its force-grown beauty into little pieces. Then she swallowed it, grinning. She was strong and virile, the promise of many children dwelling between her stalwart thighs.
‘Is Viola here?’ said Alfric.
‘Viola has taken herself off to the convent,’ said Anna Blaume.
‘You must be joking,’ said Alfric in astonishment.
‘No,’ said Anna Blaume. ‘It’s the truth.’
Alfric thought a convent was the last place in the world where Viola Vanaleta would be happy. Galsh Ebrek’s convent was the refuge of all those women who were dissatisfied with life in a world of men; and, if there was any truth in the rumours Alfric had heard, their days were largely given over to drinking bouts, wrestling matches and shameless indulgence in other uncouth pleasures.
‘She’s divorcing me, I take it,’ said Alfric.
‘She’s divorced you already,’ said Anna Blaume.
‘What?’
‘Go to the divorce court if you don’t believe me,’ said Anna Blaume. ‘It’s all finished.’
‘But-but-’
‘She forged your signature on certain documents, of course,’ said Anna Blaume. ‘Otherwise the whole thing might have taken much more time. You don’t object, do you?’
‘It is but a trifle,’ said Alfric heavily. Then, realizing he was a free man: ‘Will you marry me?’
‘No,’ said Anna Blaume.
‘Why not?’
‘You had your chance.’
This was true. When Alfric had been engaged to Viola Vanaleta, Anna Blaume had asked him to break the engagement and marry her instead. But he had refused. A mistake.
‘Your mother’s here,’ said Anna Blaume.
‘Gertrude?’ said Alfric, again startled.
‘Yes,’ said Blaume. ‘You don’t have any other mother, do you?’
‘Not that I’m aware of,’ said Alfric. ‘Where is she?’ ‘In the beer garden,’ said Anna Blaume.
So Alfric went out of the back door to greet his mother. She was sitting at a table which rested on the flagstones which paved the beer garden. She was drinking gin. Little Ben Zvanzig was sitting under the table, playing with his pet frog, while Anna Blaume’s daughter Sheila, with half a dozen dolls at her disposal, was playing at being a brothel keeper.