Interlude An Excerpt from a Tourist’s Guide to the Capital of Evermore #2
Gretsella looked down at her bare toes and gave them a brief wiggle.
Her cheeks went slightly warm. “We witches never wear shoes when we’re working our most powerful magics,” she declared in an authoritative tone that she hoped Janet would find convincing.
“Now, where will we find Bradley?” Her sleeves, as she spoke, twitched.
There was a draft coming through the window frame at the other end of the room, and the late curtains weren’t sure whether or not they ought to billow.
Janet led her through the palace to a room that Gretsella could only assume was the great hall, as it was very large and very long and very full of people who appeared to be courtiers doing something that could only be described as feasting.
Bradley was sitting at the very head of the table, looking deeply glum.
When he saw Gretsella, he beamed and leapt to his feet. “Mother! You really came!”
“Of course I did,” Gretsella said as she withstood the onslaught of embraces that Bradley shortly began to rain upon her. “I’m a witch.” She didn’t add that a witch’s word was her bond (except when she was lying). She thought that went without saying. “You look terrible.”
“Oh, I’ve just been feeling a little low,” Bradley said.
“But I’m much better now that you’re here.
I’ll tell the servants to throw you a feast of welcome!
” Then he glanced to the side and noticed Janet.
“Miss Janet! What are you doing here? I beg your pardon, but I am positive that I fired you just a few hours ago. Is something the matter?”
Janet briefly attained the somewhat flustered glow that Bradley often incited in young ladies when he was beaming attentive politeness at them out of his bewilderingly handsome face. Then she gathered herself and cleared her throat. “Oh, yes, uh…your mother wanted to speak to you. About that.”
“We’ll go somewhere private,” Gretsella declared, and marched them both smartly out of the room.
“Oh dear, Mother,” Bradley said. “What happened to your shoes?”
“Never mind, Bradley,” Gretsella said. “We have more important things to discuss. I need you to hire Janet back.”
Bradley frowned. “It’s a little delicate, Mother,” he said. “I did feel awful for firing her, but she was being rude to my guests.” He said the last bit of that sentence in a hushed whisper, as if he were describing having caught the court jester engaged in unwholesome communion with a jam jar.
“It’s not rudeness if it’s in the course of jesting, Bradley,” Gretsella said.
Bradley’s expression took on the vague, abstracted quality it always took on when someone tried to explain to him why, say, a pound of feathers weighed the same as a pound of lead. Then he brightened. “Oh,” he said. “Like how if it’s art, it’s not naked.”
“Exactly like that, Bradley,” Gretsella said. “What a perfect way of putting it.”
Bradley beamed. Gretsella went in for the killing blow. “And, you know, all of the most fashionable courts have jesters. Magnetia was telling me so just the other day. It would look funny if you were the only king who didn’t have a jester.”
“Your lady mother is right, Your Majesty,” Janet put in.
“As your jester, I’m also sworn to relay all of the court gossip back to you, so that you can never be taken off guard by treachery.
It’s a very important role, Your Majesty.
As your loyal subject, I feel that it’s my duty to urge you to hire another jester as soon as possible.
That way, you won’t be left without an essential member of your palace staff. ”
“And,” Gretsella added before Bradley’s poor overheated brain had any time to percolate any stray thoughts, “if you keep Janet as your jester, she’ll be able to provide entertainment at my feast tonight.”
Just as Gretsella had anticipated, the mention of a party perked Bradley up immediately. “I suppose that’s right,” he said. “It is nice to have music at a party.”
“Exactly. Good! It’s settled, then,” Gretsella said, and moved on to the next subject without giving Bradley the chance to contemplate what had just transpired. “And I’ll need you to send someone into the dungeon to get my things.”
“But what on earth are your things doing in the dungeon, Mother?” Bradley asked with great evident astonishment.
“Never you mind, Bradley,” Gretsella said, and within two minutes, King Bradley was happily sending his servants scurrying hither and yon in service to every one of Gretsella’s wicked ends.
Skip Notes
*1 It isn’t said by anyone who has even a slight familiarity with the archeological record, but it’s definitely said.
*2 Syphilis.
*3 Being illegitimate, Horace had not enjoyed the privilege of a princely education and was not very good at spelling. He was, however, very good at having people’s heads put onto spikes, so no one ever corrected him.
*4 Old High Evermorish was only ever spoken by a few members of Evermore’s ancient tribal nobility, and it is notoriously nearly impossible to learn.
In modern Evermore, a small guild of about half a dozen scholars of Old High Evermorish charges exorbitant fees to anyone who wants an impressive-looking runic inscription for a gravestone or marriage certificate or family coat of arms. Cynics have suggested that the members of this guild are wily old frauds who’ve made up a bunch of interesting-looking scribbles in order to sell fake cultural heritage to upwardly mobile types, and that true Old High Evermorish, if it ever existed, has long since died and been completely forgotten.
Less cynical Evermorians suspect that the cynics might be onto something, but they like how the genuine reproduction ancient tablet they bought looks on the mantelpiece, so try not to think about it too deeply.
*5 They’re known mostly for hard cheeses, and for the kind of traditional folk dancing that’s both uninteresting to watch and exhausting to participate in for longer than almost exactly one and a half minutes.[*6]
*6 One of the most famous traditional Evermorish folk dances is called Luulabennagalbolein, which in Old High Evermorish means “dance in which we wave heavy wooden clubs in very slow circles over our heads until we feel tired.”[*7]
*7 Allegedly. See note four.