The Carpet People (16 page)

"You don't think so? I would have said the same about Jeopard," said Brocando.

"Hardly anyone is allowed in the place these days," said Owlglass.

"It's not cucumbers you're talking about, is it?" said Glurk.

"What can we do?" said Pismire.

"Slice 'em!" said Glurk, waving a cucumber.

Bane put his hand on his sword. "Yes," he said. "I knew this would happen. Ware was a great city, once. We fought for things. And when we got them ... we just sat back. No more effort. No more pride. No more honesty. Just fat young Emperors and stupid courtiers. Well, I'm not having that. Not in Ware. Let's go." He stood up.

"Oh, no," said Pismire. "What are you going to do? Barge into the palace waving your sword and kill any mouls you see?"

Brocando stood up too. "Good thinking," he said. "Good plan. Glad we've got that sorted out. Come on-"

"That's ridiculous!" said Pismire. "That's not a plan! Tell them, Glurk. You're a level-headed man."

"Yes, it is ridiculous," said Glurk.

"Right," said Pismire.

"We'll finish our tea," said Glurk, "and then attack the palace. It's no good attacking on an empty stomach."

"Mad!" said Pismire.

"Listen," said Bane, standing up. "You know what she said. Nothing is too small to make a difference. One person at the right time."

"There's three of us," said Brocando.

"Even better!"

"Oh, blast! I suppose I'd better come," sighed Pismire, "if only to see you don't do anything too stupid."

"Can I come too?" said Owlglass.

"See?" said Bane. "Imagine what a difference five can make. And if we're wrong, it won't matter. But if we're right ... what else can we do? Run around? Shout? Try to raise an army? Let's sort it out now."

"Anyway, the palace walls are too high. And very thick," said Pismire.

"Nothing will stop a pone going where it wants to go," said Bane. "Or me!"

"I always wondered," said Brocando, in the sudden silence, "and now I know."

"Know what, for goodness sake?" said Pismire, thoroughly rattled.

"Why the Dumii conquered the Carpet," said the king. "It was because, every once in a while, they thought like this."

After a while Glurk said, "Anyone any idea about how we get in?"

Snibril was also learning something. He was learning about the power of sergeants.

Careus had found the palace kitchens, because sergeants always know how to find a kitchen. It was a long low room, with half a dozen fireplaces and a blackened ceiling.

And then he'd found the head cook, who was an old friend.

"This is Mealy," he said, introducing Snibril to a huge red-faced man with a scar across his nose, a patch over one eye and only one arm. "He used to be in the army, like me."

"Was he a sergeant too?" said Snibril.

"That's right," said Mealy, grinning. The scar seemed to grin, too. When he stepped around the table, Snibril saw that he had a wooden leg. "Seen action in dozens o' campaigns," said Mealy, following his gaze. "Then one day Careus here picked me up and carried me back to safety and said Mealy, boy, you better retire right now while there's still some of you left to send home. Good to see you again, mate."

"Strange stuff happening, Mealy," said the sergeant.

"No error. Top brass been sacked all over the place. No-one's seen the Emperor for a fortnight. Spends all his time in his rooms. Has all his meals sent in."

"And these advisers," said Snibril. "What about them?"

"No-one's seen 'em," said Mealy, scratching his back with a ladle. "But I bin up there with a tray one time and they smell-"

"Moulish?" said Snibril.

Several other cooks had wandered up and were listening with interest. They all looked very similar to Mealy. There were half a dozen of them, but only enough arms and legs and ears and eyes for about four whole people. And most of them had scars that you could play noughts-and-crosses on.

"Right," said Mealy. "And I bin pretty close to mouls enough times to know what I'm smellin'. We don't like it. But there's only the handful of us. If we had some lads with us ... "

Careus and Snibril looked at one another.

"They're right here, in the palace," said Snibril.

He looked around at the cooks. They were all very big men.

"You were all sergeants, weren't you," he said. "I can tell."

"Well, you see," said Mealy, "you learn about arranging things, when you're a sergeant. Like, you make sure that when you retires you gets a cushy number. In the warm all day. Regular meals. Old sergeants gets everywhere."

"Let's go and-" Snibril began.

He stared into the darkness at the end of the sooty kitchen.

"Who's she?" he said.

"Who?"

The sergeants turned.

Snibril hesitated. "There was someone there," he mumbled. "In white. And this white animal by her. And she was saying-"

He stopped.

"No women in the kitchens," said Mealy. "The reason being, women aren't any good at sergeanting."

Snibril shook himself. Must have imagined it, he told himself. It's been a busy time ...

"Sergeant Careus, can you get back and bring the army?" he said.

"To attack Ware?" said Careus.

"To defend it," said Snibril.

"Who will we be fighting?"

"By the time you get back I hope we'll have an enemy," said Snibril. "Have you cooks got any weapons?"

Mealy grinned. He picked up a long meat cleaver from a big wooden table, swung it in his one arm, and brought it down on a chopping block. The chopping block split.

"Who, us?" he said.

The guards on the palace gate were nervous anyway. They didn't like their job. But orders are orders, even if you're not sure where they came from. At least, they are to a Dumii. If we didn't obey orders, where would we be?

And they were even more nervous when four heavily-cloaked wights turned up at the gate, pushing a cart. One of the guards stepped forward.

"Halt!" he said.

His companion nudged him. "They're wights," he said, "I don't think you can say Halt to wights. They must have a reason to go in."

"That's right," said one of the wights.

The first guard said, doubtfully, "But one of them's eating a cucumber ... "

"I expect wights have to eat."

"And there's only four of them. There ought to be seven," said the first guard.

"We've been ill," said a wight.

Another wight added, "Although, of course, when we say we we don't mean-"

A wight nudged him in the ribs. The first guard was not going to give up easily.

"I don't think you're wights at all," he said. The wight who was eating cucumber turned its hood towards him.

"Can prove it," it said. "Can tell you the future."

"Oh, yes?"

The wight took a club off the cart.

"Going to get hit," said Glurk.

"Not too hard," said Bane, pushing his hood back. "He's just in the way. He's not an enemy."

Glurk hit the guard in as friendly a way as possible. The second guard started to draw his sword and opened his mouth to shout, but he felt something pointed touch his back.

"Drop the sword," said Pismire.

"And when we say drop, we mean let go of in a downward direction," said Owlglass, hopping up and down. "Isn't this exciting!"

Mealy knocked on a large, ornate door. Two cooks behind him were pushing a trolley. It was a large one; a white tablecloth hung down on all sides.

After a while a courtier opened the door.

"Dinner," said Mealy. "Bring it in?"

"Oh. The cook. Very well," said the courtier. The trolley was wheeled through. There were a couple of guards sitting on the bench in the room beyond. They didn't look very happy.

There was another door beyond. The courtier opened it. There was yet another room beyond. It was empty. There was another closed door in the opposite wall.

"Leave it in there," said the courtier. "Then be off."

"Right, right," said Mealy. The cooks pushed the trolley into the next room. Then they filed out obediently. The courtier closed the inner door.

"Don't you ever wonder what happens next?" said Mealy.

"It's not my job to wonder about the Emperor's business," sniffed the courtier, "and certainly not with a cook."

"In fact," said Mealy, taking off his tall cook's hat, I'm a sergeant. You lads there-attention!"

The two guards stood to attention before they realized what they were doing. Several more cooks filed into the room. Each of them was carrying something sharp.

"This is-" the courtier began, and then realized that he was in a room with half a dozen large armed men, who probably were not ready to be shouted at.

"-against orders," he said.

"We've put the food in there. That was orders," said Mealy. He limped over to the door and put his one ear to it. "We're just waiting to see what happens next."

The long cloth made a sort of mobile tent.

He heard the door shut behind him. After a minute or two, another door opened.

He smelled moul. It was not in fact a particularly bad smell; they smelled like a fur coat that hadn't been brushed for too long.

The trolley moved. The door shut, and this time it shut behind him, in a very final kind of way.

The moul smell was overpowering. And only now did he hear voices.

"Your dinner, sire." A moul voice.

"I'm not hungry!" A human voice, but with a sulky whine in it that suggested that its owner had been given too many sweets when he was young and not enough shoutings-at. It was the kind of voice that's used to having its life with the crusts cut off.

"Sire must eat," moul voice, "otherwise there will be nothing left of sire."

"What's happening outside? Why won't you tell me what's happening outside? Why doesn't anyone do what I tell them?" Snibril thought he heard a foot stamp. He'd never believed that people really did that outside stories.

"The civil war rages on," another moul voice, "you have enemies on all sides. Only we can protect you. You must let us do that, sire."

"Call Fray down on them!" The Emperor, thought Snibril, horrified. Only well-bred people can be as rude as that.

"Soon, soon, just as we did in Jeopard," a third moul voice. "In the meantime, my people are fighting hard on your behalf. Perhaps we shall have to call on Fray, in time."

"I am surrounded by enemies!" whined the Emperor.

"Yes, yes," said a moul voice, as if it was talking to a baby.

"And everyone must do what I say!"

"Yes, yes," moul voice. "Within reason."

"You know what happens to enemies," said the Emperor. "They get sent away. To a bad place!"

Our village wasn't that bad, thought Snibril. Pismire used to say it was full of homely comfort. I thought the Emperor was going to be noble!

"I'm hungry now. Have you finished tasting my food?"

"Not quite, sire."

"But it's nearly all gone!"

"Poison could be even in the last bite," said a moul voice, and it occurred to Snibril it was speaking with its mouth full.

"Yeh. Yes, of course you're right," said the Emperor uncertainly. "I've never trusted those cooks. They've got far too many bits missing. Even so-perhaps a crust?"

"Why, certainly, sire. And I think we can trust a little of this gravy ... "

We've come all this way to defend this? thought Snibril.

And then he thought: what would Bane say about this?

He'd say: he's the Emperor, whatever else he might be. You've got to do something.

All right, what would Pismire say? He'd say: listen and observe and then take unprecipitate action based on received information. So that's not much help.

Brocando would say, no, he'd shout: Attack!

Glurk wouldn't even wait to shout.

Oh well. I just hope Mealy is still outside.

Bane peered around a corner, and then beckoned the others.

"Don't look too conspiratorial," said Pismire. "If we walk as if we've got a right to be here, the guards won't take any notice."

"I'm fed up with skulking around," said a very small wight behind him. "That's no way for a king to behave."

Bane threw off his robe.

"I thought those guards took it very well, considering," said Pismire.

"Considering what?" said Glurk.

"Considering we've just hit them. They positively wanted to be tied up, I thought. They didn't like what they had to do."

"They still did it, though," said Brocando. "They still obeyed orders. Stupid. What would Deftmenes be if we went around obeying orders all the time?"

"They might be ruling the Carpet," said Pismire.

"Ha!" said Brocando, "half the trouble about obeying orders is, it becomes a habit. And then everything depends on who's giving the orders."

They reached another archway. There were two more guards there, Glurk gripped his stick.

"No," said Bane. "Let's do it my way this time."

He stepped forward.

"You men-eyes face! Preeeesent armssss! Very good. Very good. Come on, people-"

One of the soldiers looked doubtful.

"Got orders to let no-one through," he managed.

"We're not anyone," said Bane. "And that's an order."

The guard stood to attention.

"Yessir. Verygoodsir!" he said.

"Don't talk to me, I'm not here," said Bane.

The guard started to speak, and then nodded instead.

"Good man. Come on."

Owlglass tapped the guard on the shoulder as he passed through.

"Of course, when we say 'not here' we mean only in a figurative or-"