Wisdom's Kiss (58 page)

LAX Rhymes with "max." "Lax" began life as the pairing to "Om" (now Ahmb,
above
), part of a very violent reaction I had to some long and garbled place name in a now-forgotten fantasy novel. My next book—so I declared—would have place names that were easy. You know, like Frizzante and Sottocenere and Höchsteland and Pamplemousse ... okay, not those. But definitely some of the countries would have three-letter words that were easy to pronounce and easy to spell. Hence Lax. It's quite funny (to my mind at least) that all these long-winded little duchies and kingdoms are run by an empire with a name so very, very short.
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Also, x is a very cool letter, as seen on all those maps for buried treasure. Note
RIGORUS
and my
commentary
on the empire.
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MARY MUNTANYA (MAR e moon•TAN•ya) Rather akin to "surf and turf," mar y muntanya (or "sea and mountain" in Catalan, an ancient hybrid of French and Spanish), consists of shrimp and chicken combined with olive oil, onions, and tomato, a trio ubiquitous to Spanish cooking—I think there's a law somewhere requiring it. Catalonians take both their language and their food extremely seriously and will doubtless censure me for saying "hybrid," but hey, they got something named after this great dish.
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MONTAGNE See also

CHATEAU DE MONTAGNE
. In the map I sketched for my own reference while writing
Wisdom's Kiss,
Montagne is about the size of my thumb. Small wonder that Drachensbett was forever trying to conquer it and Wilhelmina took such offense that her giant country would in comparison be only a duchy. I based Montagne's topography—though certainly not its climate—on Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which is also a flat valley surrounded by peaks, although unfortunately it's not sealed at one end by a giant, plunging cliff. If you're really curious and/or geographically inclined, picture Jackson Hole plunked atop the bluffs and with the climate of St. Paul, Minnesota.
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PAINDECAMPAGNE (pan•de•cam•PAN•yuh) Translated literally as "bread of the country," this is a rough sourdough loaf that several of us Murdocks find absolutely addictive. One year I bought a full loaf—approximately the size of a manhole cover—for my son for Christmas; he ate the whole thing. I must have been hungry when I was
naming the countries
surrounding Montagne; either that or (equally probable) I just really, really like food.
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PAMPLEMOUSSE (POHMP•la•moose) This is a true story I heard from a friend of a friend about her parents, who honeymooned in Paris. Their very first night out at dinner, they overheard someone ordering pamplemousse for dessert. How glamorous! They excitedly ordered it as well ... not knowing that pamplemousse is French for grapefruit. When our family visited Paris a few years ago, we ate pamplemousse ice cream every day—actually "pamplemousse rose," or pink grapefruit sorbet—and it was so good that we almost levitated like angels.
J' aime pamplemousse
("I love grapefruit")is now my daughter's favorite French phrase. At one point while writing
Wisdom's Kiss,
the country of Pamplemousse had a much larger role, but it's since degenerated solely to watchmaking. And probably sorbet, though this isn't specified in the text.
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PHRAUGHELOCH PALACE A homonym of "Froglock" as "kauphy" is a homophone of "coffee." ("Kauphy" is an old English-class joke.) I,
like Edwig of Farina
, tried to make "Phraugheloch" the name of the whole capital city but was relentlessly lambasted by my readers/family. Luckily I came up with the solution of naming the palace instead, which got me my delicious homophone but preserved me from (at least some) ridicule. For a good visual on Phraugheloch, check out the real life Belvedere Palace or Wurzburg Residence.
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PICCOLO (PICK•o•lo) A piccolo is a flute so small it makes a normal flute look like a pile driver; it's also great fun to say. As with many of the locations and terms related to the Kingdom of Montagne, the word first appeared in
Princess Ben,
and it makes a cameo here as the seat of Trudy's eventual husband.
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PNEU (P•nuh) French for "tire." This, one could point out, is rather an anachronism given that rubber tires probably hadn't yet made it to the Empire of Lax. But it, along with pamplemousse, is another favorite foreign word o' mine, and another little
statelet
—principality or duchy or whatnot—through which our heroes must slog in order to reach Farina.
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