The Walrus and the Warwolf coaaod-4

by Hugh Cook

  'He's nothing special,' said Drumbo. 'But for his robes, perhaps. Fancy with flame they were.''Flame?' said Drake.

  'Like enough,' said Drumbo. 'Either that, or someone had vomited carrots and tomatoes all over his robes.'

  'Where was this?' asked Drake, who was, of course, seriously interested.'Outside the Old Courthouse,' said Drumbo.'Courthouse?' said Drake.

  'It's an inn, now,' said Drumbo. 'But these preacher folk have taken it over entire, use it as a temple. Platform outside, guards on the gate, and all too holy within for strangers to enter.''But you saw her,' said Drake. 'The woman, I mean.'

  'The blood-coloured bitch. Oh yes, she was on the platform with his worship,' said Drumbo. 'Wonder what colour her slunt shapes, eh?'

  'If she was on the platform,' said Drake, 'how come you got close enough for mating?'

  'Come now!' protested Drumbo. 'What is this? You talk at lies for longer than it takes to skin a whale with a toothpick, then-'

  'Did you see the woman or didn't you?' said Drake, dangerously close to losing his temper. 'I saw her!''What did she look like?' said Drake. 'Speak true!'

  'Why,' said Drumbo, shaping generous curves in the air, 'like this and like this. She had two tits, if I counted right. A tall bitch, you'd look stupid beside her.'

  'It's not fashion which worries me when I'm after a woman,' said Drake.

  'You're hot for reds, are you?' said Drumbo. 'At the Cat's Head they've got a whole pack of women in red, would do you good, man.'

  'He's been there,' said Quebec. 'We were there together the day before yesterday.'

  'Aye,' said Drake. 'Now tell me where I find this Old Courthouse . . .'

  45

  Libernek Square: small piazza in Santrim; site of Old Courthouse. House of Record;›Moonflower Temple, Land Court, River Court, Suffle Manuscript Collection, Voat Library and Archaeological Museum.

  The Old Courthouse was in Libernek Square, in Santrim, a quarter Drake had seldom visited. On arrival, he found a crowd listening to Gouda Muck preach from a platform built above the gate leading into the walled courtyard of the Old Courthouse. Drake strove toward the platform, but could not get near for the crush. He backed off, and hastened to the monumental sculpture which dominated the centre of the piazza.

  The sculpture was a rococo piece of nonsense erected to celebrate heroes of Selzirk*s glorious past. Around an enormous central column formed by a coiling dragon – which had somehow become encrusted with seashells, baby mermaids, strings of onions and other tomfoolery – there were arrayed equestrian heroes (lifesize), several Neversh (in miniature), gryphons, unicorns, a platypus (which had no good excuse for being there, and no bad one either), a taniwha, a moray eel, and numerous ribs, vertebrae, skulls and jawbones cast in bronze.

  Drake scaled this swiftly, displacing small children where necessary. On reaching a bronze horse which lacked a rider, he supplied its lack. And sat there in state, Investigating.

  '. . . doom,'said GoudaMuck.'Doom, and death, unto the fiftieth generation. . .''Boring old mother-beater,' muttered Drake.

  And looked beyond Muck to the Old Courthouse. It was built round three sides of an enclosed courtyard. The outer wall of the yard sustained the platform on which stood Gouda Muck, giving a dyslogistic lecture on the manners and mores of Selzirk. Scrutiny of the killing ground complete, Drake returned his attention to Muck.

  The preacher had abandoned the plain purple he wore when Drake saw him last, in Runcorn. Instead, he wore robes of the most remarkable mixture of red, orange and yellow. Muck was dressed as the Flame. And he was ranting:

  '. . . beware protein! Beware eggs! Beware meat! They are evil! They lewd the flesh to fornication!'

  Drake was glad to see the audience treated this as light entertainment. He suspected some would have multiplied the amusement factor by throwing things, except that in amongst the crowd were two or three dozen tough young stave-men, dressed in robes of Flame like their master.

  '. . . your daughters will die of cancers of the womb,' shouted Muck. 'Their flesh will be torn by the knives of abortion! Evil is the flesh, and evil are the pleasures thereof.'He sounded hoarse.

  He paused as a woman climbed onto the platform. She carried a glass of fine-cut crystal which she handed to Muck, who drank the water it contained. The woman was red in skin; her hair, piled up in a high and narrow tower held together with a multitude of pins, was also red. She wore flowing silks, and jewels which flashed in the sun.It was Zanya.'Zanya!' yelled Drake.She looked over the crowd, bewildered.

  'It's me!' shouted Drake, kicking the bronze horse with his heels, waving his hands frantically. 'Arabin lol Arabin! Your lover! Your husband!''Drake!' roared Gouda Muck.'Yes, I see you too!' shouted Drake. 'Go back to

  Stokos, you evil old bugger! But give me back my woman first!'

  'Kill him!' screamed Muck. 'He's the Demon-son! The Evil One! Pull him down! Cut him, bash him, burn him!'

  But the mob simply laughed. To them, this was all part of the day's theatre. Unlike Stokos, Selzirk had never been oppressed by compulsory debauchery, so the social tensions Muck's religion sought to exploit were lacking.

  'They'll do nothing against me,' yelled Drake. 'They know what you are! A mad old bugger with a withered old cock, that's what! Lunatic, man! Zanya, get down from there! Bring me your breasts most beautiful, darling!'

  After some confusion on the stage, Zanya disappeared into the courtyard. Muck gestured in Drake's direction, and his stavemen began to muscle through the crowd, determined to seize the miscreant.'Oh shit,' said Drake to Drake.

  And descended to the ground rapidly, bowling a number of small children in his haste. Leaving those wailing juveniles in his wake, he fled.

  A mad chase they had of it through the streets of Santrim, Drake in front and the better part of thirty Flame-robed stavemen in the rear. Drake was still leading when they got to Kesh, the gate-tower dividing the Four Worlds of Selzirk.

  There was usually a traffic jam of sorts at that bottleneck, but today it was worse than ever, for a funeral procession was going through Kesh. Or, more accurately, trying to go. It was getting nowhere fast.

  The demon-drivers paced up and down on the spot, blowing their horns and trumpets; the chief mourners lay cursing in their palankeens; the pall-bearers, unable to take the weight any longer, let their burden rest; the hired hands from the Weepers amp; Waiters Guild gnashed their teeth and clawed the air with less and less passion as the delay lengthened.

  Then came Drake.

  Between the legs of a horn-player he went. Up he bobbed, dived through the silks of a palankeen and crash-landed on the belly of Mistress Turbothot, alumnus of the Santrim Institute For Feminine Arts, wife of Troldot 'Heavy-Fist' Turbothot, and patron of the Seventh College of the Inner Circle of the Fish-Star Astrologers.'Pardon,' said Drake.'Rape!' she screamed.

  He dived through the far side of the palankeen, fell heavily on top of Mistress Turbothot's pet badger-dog (and killed the poor thing, though he was too busy to notice its demise), trampled over the coffin of the deceased (to whom he never got introduced), ducked a spear, dodged a sword, was missed by a whip, went pelting over the backs of a herd of hogs (no wonder there was a traffic jam!), and gained the comparative safety of Jone.

  Where he stopped, panting hard and grinning like an idiot. Man! He hadn't had so much fun since he celebrated his sixteenth birthday. And that was saying something!Then he saw a Flame-coloured robe.'How many of you, darlings?' said Drake, softly.There was just one. So far.

  'Yoo-hoo!' cried Drake, jumping up and down, waving frantically. 'I'm over here!'

  'Demon-son!' screamed the Flame-robed stave-man, spotting him.'That's me!' yelled Drake.And the chase was on again.

  Drake led the single stave-man a merry dance through the backstreets, alleyways, mews and ditchleaps of Jone, the dockland area he knew by now as well as he knew the back of his own hand.

  (Or better, in fact – for if he had been shrunk down to near next to noth
ing, then set beside the first knuckle of his own index finger, he would have had the devil of a job finding his way from there to his thumb – whereas he could have found his way round Jone blindfolded.)

  Finally, Drake led the single stave-man into a friendly tavern, where half a dozen of Drake's drinking cronies helped mug the hapless hero. He was taken to the cellar, trussed up tightly (having been first stripped of his robes of Flame) then interrogated under threat of torture.By evening, Drake knew everything he wanted to know.

  'I'm off,' he said, pulling the robes of Flame over the set of serviceable leathers he was wearing.'What happens to me then?' asked the stave-man.

  'Why, at midnight the tide rises,' said Drake. 'Aye, then this cellar floods, and the rats come up with the waters. They'll eat your corpse to bones and gristle.''There's no tides in the Velvet River.''Oh isn't there just? Haven't you heard of the eagre?''The what?'

  'Nevermind, man,' said Drake. 'Its waters will have you soon enough, aye, and the rats.'

  After a bit more bluff and bluster equally as grim and heartless, he picked up the stave-man's stave and took to the streets, looking every bit the enforcer.

  It was deep night by the time Drake had made his way from the backstreets of Jone to Libernek Square in Santrim. The gates of Muck's temple were open, but guards kept watch on the platform above the gate. Drake hung back in the shadows. Would there be a challenge? A password? or what? In the Old Courthouse, a scattering of lanterns held out against the tyranny of darkness. He could hear a woman softly singing; he wondered if it was Zanya.

  Suddenly someone slapped an arm over his shoulder. Drake was about to fight when a drunken voice slurred:'Tovarish.'

  'Darling,' said Drake, taking stock swiftly. A trio of them. All wearing robes of Flame. All stank of the strong liquor Muck preached against so vehemently. 'Bedtime,' said one. 'Aye,' said Drake.

  Together they rolled toward the gate. As they went in under the platform, all tried to straighten up, doing their best imitation of sobriety. Inside, one said to Drake:' Come have a drink.'

  Nothing is more persistent than a drunk who wants to get drunker.

  'Sorry, man,' said Drake. 'I've got a yen for purity tonight.' 'Purity?'Hooting laughter and renewed insistence.'Hush, man!' said Drake. 'You'll get us in trouble!'

  It was no good. The noise increased steadily until a challenge came from the platform. Drake ducked into the shadows under a single courtyard tree as platform-guards scrambled down to have a reckoning with the drunks.

  Drake made himself one with the bark of the tree. Wished himself to the thinness of a needle. Heard a prolonged altercation, a short scuffle, a brief protest, a sound of something heavy hitting meat. Then peace. But for a single nightingale in the branches above, testing its tessitura. And someone, quite close at hand, urinating copiously. Another drunk, no doubt.Time to move.

  Drake slipped toward the stairway which, if his captive stave-man had spoken true, led to the female quarters. Up the creaking stairs he went, to a lantern-lit corridor. He heard, from behind one closed door, the rhythm of a bed riding in heavy seas. Elsewhere, suppressed laughter. A door opened without warning and a young woman burst out, giggling. She was in a state of advanced deshabille. After her came a muscular young man who was entirely naked.

  Both stopped and stared at Drake. ' You!' said Drake, curtly, pointing his stave at the man. 'Your name?''Prothon. Who are you?'

  'That you'll learn tomorrow,' said Drake grimly, 'when you answer for your actions before the Holy One himself. Don't make things worse for yourself. Get back to your own quarters!'

  Drake thwacked Prothon over the buttocks to emphasize his point. The sinner fled.

  'You,' said Drake, to the woman. 'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?'

  'I'm not religious,' she said, in very poor Galish, pouting as she did so. Her face was gaudy with paint, her body lush with perfume. 'I'm just a maid. Why make trouble over a simple of simples? Ease your hard back, why don't you. Do we have to have trouble?'And, without warning, she kissed him.Heavy boots sounded on the stairs.'It's the Patrol!' she hissed. 'Are you in, or out?''What?' said Drake.'Will you denounce me or – '

  'We'll talk about it inside,' said Drake. They fled into her cubicle, closing the door on the Patrol. Inside, there was nowhere to sit down but on the bed.

  Some considerable time later, Drake kissed his maid-minx goodbye, made an assignation for the following night, and set off for the room supposed to be Zanya's. On arrival, he entered without knocking. Saw her. Saw her bedroom.

  Her chamber was large, and warm. Around the walls were pictures of lewdness. She had an enormous bed, canopied with silks. The air was heavy with perfume. The place would have reminded Drake of a high-class brothel, but for the fact that he was innocent of the charms of any establishment so elevated.

  As he entered, Zanya was sitting on a padded stool, peering at her reflection in a bronze mirror. She was unfastening an earbob. She had let down her hair, which flowed about her, reaching in a tide of fire almost as far as her waist. She turned, slowly, and looked at him.'Surprise!' said Drake.

  'Not so,' she said. 'It's just like you to try something crazy like this.''What am I trying?'

  'I don't know yet. But I'm sure it's madness.' After that unpromising start, they simply stared at each other for a few moments. A contest of wills. Then Drake

  dropped his gaze, telling himself he did so to admire the loft of Zanya's breasts beneath her free-flowing silks, the strength of her thigh and the turn of her ankle.'So what do you think you're doing here?' said Zanya.

  'Looking for my wife, as it happens,' said Drake, cool as cucumber bathed in liquid helium.'Your wife. Have you married, then?''Darling! I married you!''We were never married.'

  'Weren't we?' said Drake, thinking. Then: 'No, I suppose we never were. But does it matter?'

  'It matters that you can't remember one way or the other!'

  'I've been as good as married,' said Drake. 'I've never had another woman since I met you.' 'Oh yes!'

  'Why so sharp, my sweet? Come, my dearest cony, my-''I'm not your cony!'

  'Why so cruel?' said Drake. 'So cruel to your dearest treasure-snake? You were always my cony, nearest and dearest.'

  'Oh, grow up!' said Zanya. 'I'm not your cony. I'm not your anything.'

  'Then what are you?' said Drake, with a touch of anger in his voice. 'Something of Muck's, perhaps?''Perhaps,' she said.Hard. Defiant.

  'Is this where he takes you, then? Preaching for prudery then rutting his balls dry?'

  'It is Permitted,' said Zanya, angry herself. 'It makes me proud. Yes, proud! I am the guardian of his purity.'

  'You screw!' said Drake, in fury. 'With him! How could you?''It is holy!' she said.Hot. Fierce. Unashamed.'He's a dirty old man,' said Drake, savagely.'Who stole .your whore. Right? That's what I was to you, wasn't it? A hole. A cheap hole. A whore who didn't need to be paid by the night.' 'Dearest sweet-'

  'Oh yes, it was "dearest sweet" to start with. But once you were sure, then you forgot about me.'

  'Forgot?' said Drake. 'I lavished attentions on you! Most tender skill imaginable!'

  He was truly indignant, thinking he had discharged his duties to Zanya well enough by providing food, clothing and protection, and (most of all) by his diligent concern for the female orgasm (a gentlemanly concern he knew to be entirely lacking in most of the world's men.)

  'You lavished?' said Zanya. 'Oh yes, come night, you lavished, all right. When your snake wanted a hole it could snout into. How would you like to be used like that? As a lump of meat! Yes, used like a slab of wet liver!'

  'Let's say I did,' said Drake. 'It's not true, but if it were – did that make it right for you to side with Muck in Runcorn? Remember Runcorn? You screamed that I was the Demon-son. What did I do to deserve that?''You lied to me.''When?''When you said you weren't the Demon-son.'

  'Oh come on!' said Drake. 'Do you really think I was sired by the demon Hagon?'

  'No. But you
were Muck's apprentice, weren't you? You were the one who stole his mastersword, isn't that so?''That's true,' admitted Drake.

  'The truth, yes. But who told me the truth? Why, Sully Yot and Gouda Muck. Because you never admitted the truth to me. You didn't trust me. You pleaded that you weren't that Dreldragon Drakedon Douay. Oh no, you were someone altogether different!'

  'What does it matter who I was? Or who I am?' said Drake.

  'Don't you understand anything?' said Zanya, in a voice close to a wail. 'You didn't trust me! You treated me like an enemy or like – like a child. You lied to me. Not for a day or a couple of days but for month after month on end.''Then I'm sorry,' said Drake, with very little grace.

  'That's not good enough,' said Zanya. 'You've lied once too often.'

  'But there's one thing I haven't lied about,' said Drake. 'I've not had a woman since you left me. In fact, I've never had another woman since I met you.'

  'So you told me just a few heartbeats back,' said Zanya. 'I didn't believe it then. I don't believe it now.'

  'Dearest cony,' said Drake, easing honey into his voice, 'my dearest sweet, I can't lust after another woman because – because, deat heart, it's you I love. And love, my dearest, has made casual lust impossible.'

  'Then why,' said Zanya, her voice rising to a shriek, 'are you standing there with a whore's cheap lipstick plastered all over your face? I suppose there's the same on your pizzle!''Zanya! Darling! I can explain! I can-'

  'You can drag your balls back to the sewer you came from,' said Zanya savagely, 'or die where you stand!'

  'Listen,' said Drake, grabbing her. 'I've heard enough of this nonsense. You're my woman, and you're coming with me.'

  She tried to claw for his eyes, to spike fingers into his throat, to smash him with an elbow, to pound his testicles. But Drake – this time – was not drunk. And Drake, by this time, knew her fighting style well.'Give in,' he said, panting, 'or I'll break your arm.'