And he was a member of the queen’s council. That was both an honor and an interest—imps and jotnar together could never be dull, as he knew from his life afloat. Only once had he watched the king chair a meeting. The queen did very well in his absence. Before Efflio came to Krasnegar he would not have believed for an instant that any collection of male jotnar would ever allow a woman to call it to order.
He was quite looking forward to today’s meeting, therefore but he was not looking forward to getting there. With his weak lungs, he could not walk up the hill. In the summer he had traveled by coach. When winter plugged the road with snow, he had resigned himself to missing the meetings. The queen had not. The queen of Krasnegar was not easily balked.
Mistress Sparro lifted the kettle from the hob and topped up her best pink china teapot without dropping a stitch in her cross examination. Abandoning the subject of the recent rise in prices she tacked back to the matter of the king’s disappearance and what the council knew of it. All the imps in the kingdom were going crazy with curiosity on that subject. So was Efflio, and he knew no more than Mistress Sparro did, but of course he could not admit that.
“Matter of state, ma’am,” he said for the hundredth time ”Can’t discuss it.”
There was a knock on the door.
To be precise, something drummed deafeningly on the door, slamming it to and fro on its hinges, almost ripping the latch from the wall, and creating enough noise to be heard in Nordland. Before either Efflio or Mistress Sparro could rise, the door surrendered and flew open. Two youths burst in, making the kitchen seem very crowded. There was something about young male jotnar that could make anywhere seem crowded.
Efflio stayed in his chair. He would still have to crane his neck if he rose, for they were both an arm’s length taller than he was. They looked very broad and bulky in their winter fur and wool. They both sported uncertain mustaches, one silver and one almost reddish. Red professed to have a beard also, but it was the sort of beard that needed a good light.
“This the baggage for the palace?” Silver boomed, jabbing Efflio with a finger like a belaying pin.
“Come on, Granpop!” the other said, equally loudly. “Can you walk as far as the door?”
Mistress Sparro slammed down her kettle. “Captain Efflio is a member of the queen’s council!” she snapped.
“He’s baggage to us,” Red said. “Salted herring or fat old men, it’s all the same.”
“Listen!” Silver cupped a large horny hand to his ear. “Can you hear a pussy cat somewhere? Charge extra for livestock.” Efflio could do nothing about his wheezing, but he did not intend to tolerate the ill manners of a pair of common porters. He had been taken unaware the first time the queen had sent a carrying chair for him; he had thus had to endure the effects of what jotnar regarded as a sense of humor all the way to the castle. He had been jeered at and insulted; he had been rocked and bounced to establish whether he was prone to seasickness; he had been stranded at a saloon halfway up a steep staircase until he agreed to buy a round of beer.
That had been the first time. Since then he had traveled with more dignity. He had a lifetime of experience in handling jotunn louts. Young ones were easy, no matter how big they were.
“There’s been a mistake,” he said, and held out his cup to Mistress Sparro for a refill.
“Huh?” Silver said.
“I am expected at the palace shortly. Major Domo Ylinyli was supposed to send a sedan chair and two men. There has been an error, obviously.”
“What’djer mean?” Red demanded.
“Men. Not boys.”
With no visible effort, Silver took the front of Efflio’s doublet in one hand and lifted him to his feet. “Don’t get smart, Fatso!”
“Somebody should.” Efflio sat down again. “We agreed we needed men and he sends boys. We agreed we needed imps and he sends jotnar. Oh well, the queen can manage without me, I’m sure.”
“Another muffin, Captain?” Mistress Sparro said calmly, offering the plate.
“Imps?” Silver said, looking bewildered. “What’ju want imps for?”
Efflio paused with his hand poised over the muffins. “So I can get there before midsummer.” He looked up in exasperation. “Off with you both! Tell Ylinyli to be more careful next time, and close the door quietly.”
“We was told to carry you to the palace!” Red said stubbornly. ”Silver penny apiece.”
“You couldn’t.” Efflio sighed. He leaned back and stared up at the two giants—Silver’s woolen cap was actually touching the ceiling. “Listen, sonny! In the Impire there are lots of sedan chairs, see? They’re all over the place in the cities, and they are always carried by imps! Imps can run, you see. Jotnar don’t have the wind for it.”
Silver said, “Wotchermean, wind?”
Red said “Run?” with a hint of caution—that one might discover he had a spark of intelligence if he wasn’t careful. Efflio took a sip of tea. ”I mean that a couple of impish bearers from Hub, say, or Shaldokan, would run that chair back up to the castle in a few minutes. You northerners make good sailors, and I agree you’ve got muscles to spare, but you don’t have the wind that imps have. Not for running with a burden. It’s a knack. I don’t plan to spend all day in a carrying chair while you two lumbering hulks stagger around. Tell Ylinyli I stayed home.” Wheezing contentedly, he took another muffin.
Red was suspicious. “Vark and Zug never said nothing about running!”
Efflio had no idea which pair they had been. He laughed. “Of course not! They wouldn’t!” He smirked at Mistress Sparro. “Remember me telling you? The jotnar who tried to run?”
“Oh, yes!” Mistress Sparro sniggered. “Was that one of the ones who fainted on Whalers’ Steps?”
“And the one who kept throwing up. I did warn them that jotnar shouldn’t try to run with a load like that, but no, they thought they could do as well as imps . . .”
Silver’s wispy mustache bristled with fury; pale-blue eyes burned. Again he lifted the captain bodily to his feet, and this time he stooped, so that they were nose to nose. “Get your coat on, Imp! We’ll show you running!”
“Oh, don’t give me that!” Efflio protested. “You young jotnar think you’re tough, but I’ve seen what happens, and you’ll never—”
Silver raised him off the floor, still one-handed. Tea slopped. The kid’s face was scarlet with anger. “Get your coat on or you go without it!”
Red and Silver did very well, the best pair yet. They made a fast trip, and neither had breath to mar it with jokes about the captain’s asthma. Had it been physically possible for two men to run all the way up Krasnegar carrying a sedan chair with a fat old sailor in it, then they might have been the first to do so. Alas, they collapsed simultaneously at the top of Royal Wynd. Efflio left them crumpled on the ground and embarked on an easy stroll to the palace gate. At that point, their breathing was a great deal louder than his.
2
“Rank profiteering, that’s what it is!” Foronod screeched, thumping a fist on the table. His decrepit old jotunn face was flaming red, his skimpy silver hair awry, as if it were trying to stand on end. He was drooling in his fury.
The old man was past it, Inos thought sadly. He contributed nothing to meetings now, but he was a Krasnegarian monument, the nearest thing the kingdom had to an elder statesman; to dismiss him from her council would be unthinkably unkind.
“And what you propose is outright robbery!” Across the table, Mistress Oglebone was becoming even redder, swelling ever larger and more pompous as the discussion grew more heated. She was blustering, but for any imp to face up to the old factor was an unusual display of courage and conviction. ”One quarter the stock at the usual price means one quarter the income, and the merchants will starve!”
“Starve?” Foronod sprayed the word. “Live off your fat, you oversize pigs!”
“Councillors!” Inos hammered with the whale’s tooth that served as gavel at meetings of the state council. Candlesticks shuddered, dribbling hot wax.
The resulting silence presented an unfortunate opportunity for Havermore to intervene. “Indeed, your Majesty, honorable ladies and gentlemen, I think our first moral duty here is to consider the poor, who certainly may starve, or freeze, or being faced with the choice may, in the way of our less fortunate brethren . . .” The old bishop could be counted on to blather for at least ten minutes, but perhaps that would give everyone else a chance to calm down.