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bi’Amr Allah would feel better for a few rashers under his belt, and in a tete-a-tdte encounter…
Plum felt a tap on his shoulder. His travail was over, but the business of court went on—the business of recessing for lunch in conformity with the inexorable schedule of the local grailstones.
One of the spearmen sat him in an alcove with a few heterogenous gents, and took his tiffin-tin. The usual magic was done offstage, and it came back not quite an hour later for Plum to open.
The fee for this service was all his cigarettes and alcohol. Plum hardly minded crossing the callused palm of the local IRS. At some date umbrage might set in, but for the nonce he took a larger view. Made affable by a melange of chicken, paprika, onions, and sour cream, he tried his French on the swarthy gang around him. French, language of diplomacy, perfect for the exchange of secrets— but his halting attempts ne marche pas.
German? Latin? Carpe diem might as well be a Vietnamese fish recipe. After some diffidence and throat-clearing, the Apache-looking customer ventured his English. “Don’t use Jesus dates. He’ll ask you. Subtract six hundred thirty from everything.”
Plum beamed mutely, his mouth full. The Apache went on. “It’s not always the same number, because they got shorter years. But if you lived on Earth after 1200 his time, he’ll be interested in you.”
Plum did the math. The six hundred part was easy: Thirteen dah-de-dah. Thirteen forty-two. He might round it upward—fifty, sixty, seventy. “Do I want to be interesting?” he asked.
The Apache laughed. He might have said louche, but the Norman conquest had never reached Arizona.
144
Phillip C. Jennings
BLANDINGS ON RIVERWORLD
145
After the pudding, Plum tried to ease himself among this crowd: “Ah, an afterlife of leisure.” The irony, apparent in the English, did not survive translation. He reconsidered his cheerfulness, adopting the general silence until a pair of black-robes—lots of kiltcloth wasted here—strode in and grunted him to his feet.
The local gendarmerie marched him left through an atrium and out a roofless corridor. Under a semitropic sun the corridor doubled on itself, stones like polished incisors on both sides. Giant chiclets, Plum thought, always keen to improve a metaphor. His way ramped into a shallow pool and out again. The three left wet footprints for a distance, and the labyrinth opened to compass a field just too small for a cricket match.
The man Hakim waited under a tree. Close up, he boasted a heroically Semitic face: like an Assyrian fresh off the frieze, minus the beard and trimmings. A guard or two stood at wide distances, as unmenacing as they could get, but still Plum thought of those biblical stories—the ones involving wolves on the fold, and mountains of severed heads. He bowed, unsure of the protocol, and his escorts beetled away to join the others. “When did you die?” Hakim asked, getting straight to the point.
Plum took the plunge and exaggerated manfully. “The year 1380,” he said. “—after Mohammed did whatever it was.”
“You’ve worked it out. Good.” Good puppy, he might have said. Good infidel. Hakim paced a circle. “You shall have a hut. See that row? A hut to each of my historical consultants. I labor under a disadvantage, and you will help me. Who have you run into?”
This al-Hakim bi’Amr Allah had one thing going for
him—he knew how to keep a chap off balance. “What? Where?”
“In your several lives,” Hakim said. “Hitler? Lenin?”
Plum shook his head. “Queen Bilkis. That was my first resurrection. She and Madame Blavatsky set up an aunt-aucracy of women who lived long lives on Earth, and learned not to take backchat from me. La Blavatsky— she got this religion going when I was a schoolboy. Er—ah.”
“Yes?”
“I do a splendid job of organizing things on paper; it’s only in real life that I’m a broken reed. Do you want to know all the Hollywood types I met on Earth? Movie stars,” he went on. “Clark Gable. Fred Astaire. Broadway chappies, too.”
“Queen Bilkis is a mythical figure,” Hakim said.
“There was a good muchness to her, for a myth,” Plum answered. “She had the advantage on me of a stone or two, and made dashed sure I learned Arabic. Who else? Bilkis’s neighbors across the river tugged their forelocks at Prince Fernando Montesinos, who claimed to be somebody. You couldn’t prove it by me. I mean, I couldn’t tell you if Rowena was Horsa’s daughter, or Hengist’s.”
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