‘Corpse?’ said the king, trying to make it easy for him. ‘Certainly.’
They wandered over to the other side of the room.
‘The fact is, O gracious king of-‘ Dil began, in a conspiratorial whisper.
‘I think we can dispense with all that,’ said the king briskly. ‘The dead don’t stand on ceremony. “King” will be quite sufficient.’
‘The fact is, then – king,’ said Dil, experiencing a slight thrill at this equitable treatment, ‘young Gern thinks it’s all his fault. I’ve told him over and over again that the gods wouldn’t go to all this trouble just because of one growing lad with urges, if you catch my drift.’ He paused, and added carefully, ‘They wouldn’t, would they?’
‘Shouldn’t think so for one minute,’ said the king briskly. ‘We’d never see the back of them, otherwise.’
‘That’s what I told him,’ said Dil, immensely relieved. ‘He’s a good boy, sir, it’s just that his mum is a bit funny about religion. We’d never see the back of them, those were my very words. I’d be very grateful if you could have a word with him, sir, you know, set his mind at rest-‘
‘Be happy to,’ said the king graciously.
Dil sidled closer.
‘The fact is, sir, these gods, sir, they aren’t right. We’ve been watching, sir. At least, I have. I climbed on the roof. Gern didn’t, he hid under the bench. They’re not right, sir!’
‘What’s wrong with them?’
‘Well, they’re here, sir! That’s not right, is it? I mean, not to be really here. And they’re just striding around and fighting amongst themselves and shouting at people.’ He looked both ways before continuing. ‘Between you and me, sir,’ he said, ‘they don’t seem too bright.’
The king nodded. ‘What are the priests doing about this?’ he said.
‘I saw them throwing one another in the river, sir.’
The king nodded again. ‘That sounds about right,’ he said. ‘They’ve come to their senses at last.’
‘You know what I think, sir?’ said Dil earnestly. ‘Everything we believe is coming true. And I heard something else, sir. This morning, if it was this morning, you understand, because the sun’s all over the place, sir, and it’s not the right sort of sun, but this morning some of the soldiers tried to get out along the Ephebe road, sir, and do you know what they found?’
‘What did they find?’
‘The road out, sir, leads in!’ Dil took a step backwards the better to illustrate the seriousness of the revelations. ‘They got up into the rocks and then suddenly they were walking down the Tsort road. It all sort of curves back on itself. We’re shut in, sir. Shut in with our gods.’
And I’m shut in my body, thought the king. Everything we believe is true? And what we believe isn’t what we think we believe.
I mean, we think we believe that the gods are wise and just and powerful, but what we really believe is that they are like our father after a long day. And we think we believe the netherworld is a sort of paradise, but we really believe it’s right here and you go to it in your body and I’m in it and I’m never going to get away. Never, ever.
‘What’s my son got to say about all this?’ he said. Dil coughed. It was the ominous cough. The Spanish use an upside-down question mark to tell you what you’re about to hear is a question; this was the kind of cough that tells you what you’re about to hear is a dirge.
‘Don’t know how to tell you this, sir,’ he said.
‘Out with it, man.’
‘Sir, they say he’s dead, sir. They say he killed himself and ran away.
‘Killed himself?’
‘Sorry, sir.’
‘And ran away afterwards?’
‘On a camel, they say.’
‘We lead an active afterlife in our family, don’t we?’ observed the king dryly.
‘Beg pardon, sir?’
‘I mean, the two statements could be held to be mutually exclusive.’
Dil’s face became a well-meaning blank.
‘That is to say, they can’t both be true,’ supplied the king, helpfully.
‘Ahem,’ said Dil.
‘Yes, but I’m a special case,’ said the king testily. ‘In this kingdom we believe you live after death only if you’ve been mumm-‘
He stopped.
It was too horrible to think about. He thought about it, nevertheless, for some time.
Then he said, ‘We must do something about it.’
Dil said, ‘Your son, sir?’
‘Never mind about my son, he’s not dead, I’d know about it,’ snapped the king. ‘He can look after himself, he’s my son. It’s my ancestors I’m worried about.’
‘But they’re dead-‘ Dil began.
It has already been remarked that Dil had a very poor imagination. In a job like his a poor imagination was essential. But his mind’s eye opened on a panorama of pyramids, stretching along the river, and his mind’s ear swooped and curved through solid doors that no thief could penetrate.
And it heard the scrabbling.
And it heard the hammering.
And it heard the muffled shouting.
The king put a bandaged arm over his trembling shoulders.
‘I know you’re a good man with a needle, Dil,’ he said. ‘Tell me – how are you with a sledgehammer?’
Copolymer, the greatest storyteller in the history of the world, sat back and beamed at the greatest minds in the world, assembled at the dining table.
Teppic had added another iota to his store of new knowledge. ‘Symposium’ meant a knife-and-fork tea.
‘Well,’ said Copolymer, and launched into the story of the Tsortean Wars.
‘You see, what happened was, he’d taken her back home, and her father – this wasn’t the old king, this was the one before, the one with the wossname, he married some girl from over Elharib way, she had a squint, what was her name now, began with a P. Or an L. One of them letters, anyway. Her father owned an island out on the bay there, Papylos I think it was. No, I tell a lie, it was Crinix. Anyway, the king, the other king, he raised an army and they . . . Elenor, that was her name. She had a squint, you know. But quite attractive, they say. When I say married, I trust I do not have to spell it out for you. I mean, it was a bit unofficial. Er. Anyway, there was this wooden horse and after they’d got in . . . Did I tell you about this horse? It was a horse. I’m pretty sure it was a horse. Or maybe it was a chicken. Forget my own name next! It was wossname’s idea, the one with the limp. Yes. The limp in his leg, I mean. Did I mention him? There’d been this fight. No, that was the other one, I think. Yes. Anyway, this wooden pig, damn clever idea, they made it out of thing. Tip of my tongue. Wood. But that was later, you know. The fight! Nearly forgot the fight. Yes. Damn good fight. Everyone banging on their shields and yelling. Wossname’s armour shone like shining armour. Fight and a half, that fight. Between thingy, not the one with the limp, the other one, wossname, had red hair. You know. Tall fellow, talked with a lisp. Hold on, just remembered, he was from some other island. Not him. The other one, with the limp. Didn’t want to go, he said he was mad. Of course, he was bloody mad, definitely. I mean, a wooden cow! Like wossname said, the king, no, not that king, the other one, he saw the goat, he said, “I fear the Ephebians, especially when they’re mad enough to leave bloody great wooden livestock on the doorstep, talk about nerve, they must think we was born yesterday, set fire to it,” and, of course, wossname had nipped in round the back and put everyone to the sword, talk about laugh. Did I say she had a squint? They said she was pretty, but it takes all sorts. Yes. Anyway, that’s how it happened. Now, of course, wossname – I think he was called Melycanus, had a limp – he wanted to go home, well, you would, they’d been there for years, he wasn’t getting any younger. That’s why he dreamt up the thing about the wooden wossname. Yes. I tell a lie, Lavaelous was the one with the knee. Pretty good fight, that fight, take it from me.’
He lapsed into self-satisfied silence.
‘Pretty good fight,’ he mumbled and, smiling faintly, dropped off to sleep.
Teppic was aware that his own mouth was hanging open. He shut it. Along the table several of the diners were wiping their eyes.
‘Magic,’ said Xeno. ‘Sheer magic. Every word a tassel on the canopy of Time.’
‘It’s the way he remembers every tiny detail. Pin-sharp,’ murmured Ibid.
Teppic looked down the length of the table, and then nudged Xeno beside him. ‘Who is everyone?’ he said.