‘That was amazing,’ said the Fool. ‘I mean, the way they volunteered to go home and get some more money as well, after you gave them that speech about the rights of man.’
He dabbed some more ointment on his head.
‘And the youngest one started to cry,’ he added. ‘Amazing.’
‘It wears off,’ said Hwel.
‘You’re a dwarf, aren’t you?’
Hwel didn’t feel he could deny this.
‘I can tell you’re a Fool,’ he said.
‘Yes. It’s the bells, isn’t it?’ said the Fool wearily, rubbing his ribs.
‘Yes, and the bells.’ Tomjon grimaced and kicked Hwel under die table.
‘Well, I’m very grateful,’ said the Fool. He stood up, and winced. ‘I’d really like to show my gratitude,’ he added. ‘Is there a tavern open around here?’
Tomjon joined him at the window, and pointed down the length of the street.
‘See all those tavern signs?’ he said.
‘Yes. Gosh. There’s hundreds.’
‘Right. See the one at the end, with the blue and white sign?’
‘Yes. I think so.’
‘Well, as far as I know, that’s the only one around here that’s ever closed.’
‘Then pray allow me to treat you to a drink. It’s the least I can do,’ said the Fool nervously. ‘And I’m sure the little fellow would like something to quaff.’
Hwel gripped the edge of the table and opened his mouth to roar.
And stopped.
He stared at the two figures. His mouth stayed open.
It closed again with a snap.
‘Something the matter?’ said Tomjon.
Hwel looked away. It had been a long night. ‘Trick of the light,’ he muttered. ‘And I could do with a drink,’ he added. ‘A bloody good quaff.’
In fact, he thought, why fight it? ‘I’ll even put up with the singing,’ he said.
‘Was’ the nex’ wor’?’
‘S’gold. I think.’
‘Ah.’
Hwel looked unsteadily into his mug. Drunkenness had this to be said for it, it stopped the flow of inspirations.
‘And you left out the “gold”,’ he said.
‘Where?’ said Tomjon. He was wearing the Fool’s hat.
Hwel considered this. ‘I reckon,’ he said, concentrating, ‘it was between the “gold” and the “gold”. An’ I reckon,’ he peered again into the mug. It was. empty, a horrifying sight. ‘I reckon,’ he tried again, and finally gave up, and substituted, ‘I reckon I could do with another drink.’
‘My shout this time,’ said the Fool. ‘Hahaha. My squeak. Hahaha.’ He tried to stand up, and banged his head.
In the gloom of the bar a dozen axes were gripped more firmly. The part of Hwel that was sober, and was horrified to see the rest of him being drunk, urged him to wave his hand at the beetling brows glaring at them through the gloom.
‘S’all right,’ he said, to the bar at large. ‘He don’t mean it, he ver’ funny wossname, idiot. Fool. Ver’ funny Fool, all way from wassisplace.’
‘Lancre,’ said the Fool, and sat down heavily on the bar.
‘S’right. Long way away from wossname, sounds like foot disease. Don’t know how to behave. Don’t know many dwarfs.’
‘Hahaha,’ said the Fool, clutching his head. ‘Bit short of them where I come from.’
Someone tapped Hwel on the shoulder. He turned and looked into a craggy, hairy face under an iron helmet. The dwarf in question was tossing a throwing axe up and down in a meaningful way.
‘You ought to tell your friend to be a bit less funny,’ he suggested. ‘Otherwise he will be amusing the demons in Hell!’
Hwel squinted at him through the alcoholic haze.
‘Who’re you?’ he said.
‘Grabpot Thundergust,’ said the dwarf, striking his chain-mailed torso. ‘And I say—’
Hwel peered closer.
‘Here, I know you,’ he said. ‘You got a cosmetics mill down Hobfast Street. I bought a lot of greasepaint off you last week—’
A look of panic crossed Thundergust’s face. He leaned forward in panic. ‘Shutup, shutup,’ he whispered.
‘That’s right, it said the Halls of Elven Perfume and Rouge Co.,’ said Hwel happily.
‘Ver’ good stuff,’ said Tomjon, who was trying to stop himself from sliding off the tiny bench. ‘Especially your No. 19, Corpse Green, my father swears it’s the best. First class.’
The dwarf hefted-his axe uneasily. ‘Well, er,’ he said. ‘Oh. But. Yes. Well, thank you. Only the finest ingredients, mark you.’
‘Chop them up with that, do you?’ said Hwel innocently, pointing to the axe. ‘Or is it your night off?’
Thundergust’s brows beetled again like a cockroach convention.
‘Here, you’re not with the theatre?’
‘Tha’s us,’ said Tomjon. ‘Strolling players.’ He corrected himself. ‘Standing-still players now. Haha. Slidin’-down players now.’
The dwarf dropped his axe and sat down on the bench, his face suddenly softened with enthusiasm.
‘I went last week,’ he said. ‘Bloody good, it was. There was this girl and this fellow, but she was married to this old man, and there was this other fellow, and they said he’d died, and she pined away and took poison, but then it turned out this man was the other man really, only he couldn’t tell her on account of—’ Thundergust stopped, and blew his nose. ‘Everyone died in the end,’ he said. ‘Very tragic. I cried all the way home, I don’t mind telling you. She was so pale.’
‘No. 19 and a layer of powder,’ said Tomjon cheerfully. ‘Plus a bit of brown eyeshadow.’
‘Eh?’
‘And a couple of hankies in the vest,’ he added.
‘What’s he saying?’ said the dwarf to the company at, for want of a better word, large.
Hwel smiled into his tankard.
‘Give ’em a bit of Gretalina’s soliloquy, boy,’ he said.
‘Right.’
Tomjon stood up, hit his head, sat down and then knelt on the floor as a compromise. He clasped his hands to what would have been, but for a few chance chromosomes, his bosom.
‘You lie who call it Summer . . .’ he began.
The assembled dwarfs listened in silence for several minutes. One of them dropped his axe, and was noisily hushed by the rest of them.
‘. . . and melting snow. Farewell,’ Tomjon finished. ‘Drinks phial, collapses behind battlements, down ladder, out of dress and into tabard for Comic Guard No.2, wait one, entrance left. What ho, good—’
‘That’s about enough,’ said Hwel quietly.
Several of the dwarfs were crying into their helmets. There was a chorus of blown noses.
Thundergust dabbed at his eyes with a chain-mail handkerchief.
‘That was the most saddest thing I’ve ever heard,’ he said. He glared at Tomjon. ‘Hang on,’ he said, as realisation dawned. ‘He’s a man. I bloody fell in love with that girl on stage.’ He nudged Hwel. ‘He’s not a bit of an elf, is he?’
‘Absolutely human,’ said Hwel. ‘I know his father.’
Once again he stared hard at the Fool, who was watching them with his mouth open, and looked back at Tomjon.
Nah, he thought. Coincidence.
‘S’acting,’ he said. ‘A good actor can be anything, right?’
He could feel the Fool’s eye boring into the back of his short neck.
‘Yes, but dressing up as women, it’s a bit—’ said Thundergust doubtfully.
Tomjon slipped off his shoes and knelt down on them, bringing his face level with the dwarfs. He gave him a calculating stare for a few seconds, and then adjusted his features.
And there were two Thundergusts. True, one of them was kneeling and had apparently been shaved.
‘What ho, what ho,’ said Tomjon in the dwarf’s voice.
This was by way of being a hilarious gag to the rest of the dwarfs, who had an uncomplicated sense of humour. As they gathered round the pair Hwel felt a gentle touch on the shoulder.
‘You two are with a theatre?’ said the Fool, now almost sober.
‘S’right.’
‘Then I’ve come five hundred miles to find you.’
It was, as Hwel would have noted in his stage directions, Later the Same Day. The sounds of hammering as the Dysk theatre rose from its cradle of scaffolding thumped through Hwel’s head and out the other side.
He could remember the drinking, he was certain. And the dwarfs bought lots more rounds when Tomjon did his impersonations. Then they had all gone to another bar Thundergust knew, and then they’d gone to a Klatchian takeaway, and after that it was just a blur . . .
He wasn’t very good at quaffing. Too much of the drink actually landed in his mouth.
Judging by the taste in it, some incontinent creature of the night had also scored a direct hit.
‘Can you do it?’ said Vitoller.
Hwel smacked his lips to get rid of the taste.
‘I expect,’ said Tomjon. ‘It sounded interesting, the way he told it. Wicked king ruling with the help of evil witches. Storms. Ghastly forests. True Heir to Throne in Life-and-Death Struggle. Flash of Dagger. Screams, alarums. Evil king dies. Good triumphs. Bells ring out.’
‘Showers of rose petals could be arranged,’ said Vitoller. ‘I know a man who can get them at practically cost.’