Theatre of the Gods (44 page)

At 535 local time they arrived at the banquet hall, a mile-long open-sided hall placed in the middle of the river. The hall was filled with Diemendääs’s greatest citizens: artists, poets, leaders, generals, the conspicuously wealthy; they all stood to applaud our friends, their jewels and medals tinkling merrily. The people of Diemendääs applaud in time, did you know? They were escorted to the far end, to a raised platform below a throne some eight feet high and carved with serpents. At 548 local time Lenore complained of a fever. ‘Miss Lady, I don’t feel good. This place is all too much. There’s a beating in my head.’

‘It’s just the heat. Drink some water.’

At 549 local time Lenore drank some water.

At 600 l.t. the royal barge came through the mist like a river monster, and the assembled guests rose, a gangplank fell, a figure emerged, a tall shadow in a long coat who spasmed in the hot and hazy air. The figure lingered along the gangplank and spent a minute
staring down the river, and Miss Fritzacopple would observe later (at around 2213 l.t.) that he seemed lonely, and the captain would observe (at roughly the same time) that he seemed ‘stupid’, and Fabrigas would comment that he didn’t seem to be the man he remembered.

‘That’s him?’ said Fabrigas.

‘If you mean the Emperor,’ said the mayor, ‘then yes.’

‘I’ve met him. I think. I do not remember him ever looking so … imperious.’

‘Our beloved ruler has many things on his mind,’ said the mayor. ‘With the giant worm, the armies camped at his western wall, the terrible virus that recently struck our bee community, the outbreaks of dancing sickness, the monks who every day proclaim the coming end – even our own moon wants to destroy us. The stress has begun to show … And of course there’s the deaths.’

Yes, a series of mysterious deaths in the steamy jungle city.

At 616 local time, with several thousand heavily armed guards surrounding the venue, with ‘frog-men’ in the river, and snipers with blow-dart tubes hidden in the eaves and on the roofs, and several thousand guests each holding a fluteful of wine and a lungful of foggy air, the Emperor turned and walked briskly to his throne. He was followed by three boy-servants, one carrying a ceremonial bowl, one carrying a golden egg and one carrying a lamp with lighted wick. The Emperor ascended his throne and sat stern, motionless. The pudgy Prince Panduke arrived, stood by his seat at the lower table and frowned. ‘So it’s you people again.’

‘Yes, hello, I will have a brandy or strong wine,’ said Lambestyo, and the prince snapped, ‘I’m not a wait-boy, insolent fool!’ Kimmy and Miss Fritzacopple smiled behind their hands. There was no sign of the Empress. It was 618 local time.

‘Honoured guests,’ said a young crier, ‘you bless the royal family with your presence. You have destroyed a creature which could have ridden across the city’s walls as if they were made of chalk, smothered us all beneath its blubbered belly. But you killed it with a manned
bullet through the brain-pan, and for that they are royally grateful.’

‘Who? Us?’

‘Shhhh.’ The botanist glared at the captain. ‘Put down your fork.’

The captain put down the fork and turned his chair, slung one arm across the back. He did not enjoy long speeches.

‘… Our city is suffering a tide of misfortune. The worm, the outbreaks of the initially hilarious, but now tragic, dancing fever; the invaders massed upon our western wall, though fortunately not our eastern!’

A shudder of agreement passed through the crowd.

‘Oh, oh yes,’ the captain gestured with a steak knife, ‘not the eastern!’

‘Shhhhhh,’ said Fritzacopple. ‘If you don’t behave I’ll send you home.’

‘You aren’t the boss of me.’ But he put down his knife.

‘And of course,’ continued the crier, ‘there are the recent misfortunes, those which have made us all afraid to leave our apartments, mansions and bungalows.’

Killings. He could have said ‘killings’ and heard no less a desperate wind pass through the room. A plague of brutal and mysterious deaths had beset this city. The city’s elite had begun to dispatch themselves in increasingly bizarre ways. Only a few days before, Krugg Micentrappen, acclaimed for his adorable photographs of babies dressed as vampires, was found suffocated to death, his mouth stuffed with several cubic feet of purple velvet, though there was no sign of forced entry to his apartment.

And late the previous morning, just as our guests were punching through the skin of the great beast, Gustvavas Kambert, a hat-maker famous for his outrageous fashion statements, was found beaten to death with a steam iron. Mysteriously, he was found still clutching the iron, lying in a room locked from within. What could have compelled him to do such a thing?

The Emperor remained motionless, emotionless, as the speech
went on. Just the week before, the poet Deltiminy – a good friend of the Emperor and twice awarded Diemendääs’s annual ‘Strangest Attired’ award – was killed by consumption of a poisoned pudding. What was most bizarre was that only the victim’s fingerprints were on the poison jar. Also that, according to the post-mortem specialists, he seemed to have continued eating even as the poison took hold.

‘… And so we bring to you this humble banquet in your honour, for we are humble people.’

‘They’re what now?’

‘Shhhhh!’

For the enjoyment of the Emperor and his honoured guests at his banquet table on this, the 1st day of the Festival of the Dead.

Bitter essence of mountain cave-slug on a bed of snake-blood ice

7-times-cooked blood-sucking fire ants scorched in 400-year-old tortoise liqueur and served on a paradise of giant mountain-sloth’s ear-fungus with a drizzle of salty dove tears

A bird’s beak of cold were-weevil flesh soup smoked with giant cave-bat wings and graced with a lattice crown of bees’ web and preserved jungle-leeches

Cutlet of giant western fighting crab (from the Sea of Sadness) embalmed in Royal Jelly from Their Majesties’ hives and served with 10,000-year-old falcon eggs on a tapestry of uncooked pheasant eyes

Live Northern Black Widow butterfly held in a droplet of gorilla snot

BANQUET

At 630 local time the first course was served.

‘So it’s you again,’ said Prince Panduke.

‘So it is,’ said Kimmy. The prince was at the second to last place at the table, and the last place was empty.

‘Who sits there?’ said Miss Fritzacopple.

‘That’s Mother’s place,’ said the prince. ‘She never comes to these events, but we always leave a place.’

‘How sad. Is she ill?’

‘She is …’ said the mayor, interjecting quickly, ‘… shy.’

At precisely 800 local time the King’s Plate was served, centrepiece of the entire feast, a signature delicacy chosen by His Majesty the Emperor to dazzle his guests.

‘… Butterflies?’

Butterflies.

‘It is so. These are from the Emperor’s private nursery. Each was raised by hand and they have a flavour I think you will find … quite unlike anything you’ve tasted.’

‘I’m sure,’ said the captain.

Each plate set before them had a single butterfly, and each butterfly was held to the plate at one leg with a dot of amber snot.

‘I like my butterflies … done,’ said the captain as he held his shaking specimen up to the light. Each butterfly was a work of art in its own right.

‘Sweet mercifuls,’ said Lenore. ‘Even the smell of them is ferocious.’

Miss Fritzacopple said nothing. Her butterfly was deepest black with pale violet circles on her wings, and she quietly pulsed upon her silver platter. Fritzacopple became aware of the freakish crunching of butterflies between teeth. The people were eating them. Not admiring the exquisite markings on their wings. These people … they were
eating
them.

‘Is everything quite all right?’ said the mayor.

Would you eat a painting? Would you eat a song? Of course you wouldn’t. How absurd.

‘Everything is fine,’ said the botanist. ‘This food is … not what I’m used to.’ Her butterfly was still. The time was 816.

By 824 a diplomatic incident was pending. Every other guest in the room had finished their King’s Plate, even Lenore and Kimmy. Several servants were now standing by the botanist, even the Emperor was gazing down from his throne at her stiff little figure.