‘But you will be,’ said Uckermark. ‘To her heart, liver, kidney, spleen. And something equally wet and warm.’ Then he winked in a truly obscene and insinuating fashion. Did he mean…? No, surely not!
‘Are you sure… are you sure she wasn’t making a joke?’
‘I’m positive!’ said Uckermark. ‘Justina’s her father’s daughter. She knows what she wants. Oh, she fancied for sure when she clapped eyes on you. So enjoy your sleep while you’ve got the opportunity!’
Chegory hoped he misunderstood the implications of Uckermark’s comments. Nevertheless, whether Uckermark was truthing or joking, the young Ebrell Islander could certainly use all the shuteye he could get. So, after a quick visit to the courtyard, he got himself upstairs and laid himself down on the bed he found there, and was near instantly asleep.
Young Chegory Guy was still asleep when Log Jaris arrived at the corpse shop. Long did the bullman and the corpse master confer and most serious were the matters which they discussed.
Several members of the Calligrapher’s Union had been arrested as troops swept and reswept the city in their search for the wishstone. The solution was obvious. The Calligrapher’s Union must itself catch the thieves who stole the wishstone. Before things got out of hand.
Thanks to information Uckermark had received from Chegory Guy, they knew the wishstone was Downstairs with three Malud marauders. Log Jaris and Uckermark both knew the depths intimately. One of their legal sidelines was bounty hunting, and they had many times in the past ventured Downstairs to run down escaped slaves, rapists, murderers and eloping young lovers.
‘How many men can we muster?’ said Uckermark.
‘Twenty at short, more at long,’ said Log Jaris.
‘What about dogs?’
‘A dozen hunters, no problem. We’ll backtrack from my cellar. Follow the boy’s trail till the dogs pick up something else.’
‘Will that work? Will the scent be fresh enough?’
‘We can but try,’ said Log Jaris. ‘If that fails, we’ll quarter the underworld by sectors. Track any scent we find. Might take us a few days, but they can’t hide forever. Got the map?’
Uckermark pulled out a map, one copy of many of the plans of the underworld which the Calligrapher’s Union had assembled over the years. Then the two began to discuss tactics in detail.
‘What if we catch them?’ said Log Jaris. ‘Interrogate them ourselves, or what?’
‘No, straight to the palace,’ said Uckermark. ‘The sooner this State of Emergency comes to an end the better.’ ‘What about this thief in the palace? The man the boy thinks to be an elf?’
‘The Zozimus fellow?’ said Uckermark. ‘Leave him. He’s doing us no harm, is he? Might be blackmail money there. I’ll keep close hold of the boy, he’s our witness against Zozimus.’
‘What if Zozimus sees the boy at the banquet?’
‘What if he does? I’ll be with him, won’t I? No, don’t you worry about that. Get the dogs together, get the men.’ ‘Just one thing,’ said Log Jaris. ‘What if our quarry’s gone to ground in here?’
So saying, he pointed at the plan of the underworld. The section he indicated had been mapped more by guesswork than anything else. It was a region of doom. Of hideous things from which nightmare itself would have fled.
‘Turn loose the dogs, that’s what I’d do,’ said Uckermark. ‘Let the dogs hunt free. They might flush something out. But if the dogs fail — forget it. You wouldn’t catch me going in there!’
‘Okay,’ said Log Jaris.
‘You’d already decided, hadn’t you?’ said Uckermark. ‘You’re not fool enough to hunt to the horrors!’
‘Yes,’ said Log Jaris, ‘but I wanted to hear you say the same for yourself.’
Then the bullman and the corpse master both laughed, and settled down to share a drink or three before Log Jaris took himself off to organise a hunt of the underworld for the wishstone and the Malud marauders from far-off Asral who had stolen it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Young Chegory Guy slept on through much of sala-hanthara till Uckermark woke him and escorted him uphill toward the pink palace.
‘When’s the banquet, then?’ said Chegory.
‘Not yet, not yet,’ said Uckermark. ‘Don’t be in such a hurry! You’ll be close enough to her ladyship soon enough.’ ‘Oh, brender menoth,’ said Chegory, who was bad-tempered from lack of proper sleep.
[Brender menoth: chop away. Toxteth phrase. The implication is that the one addressed is guilty of unwelcome use of a wit too blunt to be amusing. Oris Baumgage, Fact Checker Minor.]
They were hiking up Lak Street before Chegory was struck by a question, which would have immediately occurred to a woman.
‘What about clothes?’ said he.
‘Clothes?’ said Uckermark.
‘Yes, look, if we’re going to, like, a banquet, okay, I can hardly go like this, can I? I mean, look at me!’
Chegory was still wearing the trousers, shirt and boots in which he had been dressed when he had left the island of Jod late in the afternoon on the previous day. Since then, he had been fighting with a kraken and brawling with soldiers, had slept in his clothes on a number of occasions and had gone on all kinds of adventures in a variety of unhygienic places.
‘Oh, don’t worry about clothes,’ said Uckermark. ‘The Empress will love you just as you are.’
‘That settles it!’ said Chegory. ‘We’re not going to a banquet at all, are we? So where are we going? Where are you taking me?’
‘You’ll find out,’ said Uckermark, his voice becoming stem and grim. ‘Oh, you’ll find out in time, young Chegory! No — don’t try to run. You can’t get away. You can’t escape! You’re doomed!’
But Chegory made a break for freedom regardless. Uckermark grabbed him before he had taken as many as three steps, and, after a brief tussle, the Ebrell Islander was subdued then marched up to the palace.
‘What’ve we got here?’ said a guard, when Uckermark and Chegory entered the foyer of the palace.
‘Meat for the kitchen,’ said Uckermark. ‘Human meat. To be cooked up in the kitchen.’
‘Oh, meat!’ said the soldier cheerfully. ‘For the Empress, is it?’
‘Yes,’ said Uckermark. ‘Her master chef Zozimus will cook it up especially.’
‘Oh, capital, capital!’ said the guard. ‘Fresh meat, yes, that’s the thing. If I recall right, she ate bits of three when she banqueted last. The heart of a fisherman’s boy, the liver of a young blacksmith and the kidneys of a — what was it?’ ‘That tender young singer from far-off Ashmolea,’ said Uckermark.
‘Oh, the singing boy, yes, that was it!’ said the guard. ‘Well, my lad, are you pleased with your privilege?’
‘You can’t do this!’ wailed Chegory fearfully.
So this was what it was all about! He was appalled by the monstrous conspiracy which had been revealed to him. So that was what Justina had meant about having him to a banquet! Now he understood Uckermark’s joke about Chegory getting close to the imperial gut. He tried to run — but Uckermark and the soldier both grabbed him. This time he struggled with such violence that it took the strength of both to control him.
As the pair were wrestling the hapless Ebrell Islander to the ground, a harassed official came bustling up to them. It was Justina’s major domo.
‘What’s this, what’s this?’ said the major domo. ‘What’s all this fighting then? Stop it immediately!’
‘This,’ said Uckermark, panting and laughing at the same time, ‘is meat from the imperial kitchen. This is young Chegory Guy. The Empress Justina wants him slaughtered for her banquet tonight.’
‘Guy!’ he said. ‘We’ve been waiting for him! You’re late, you’re late, oh we’ll never get him ready in time.’
‘It takes but a moment to gut him and clean him,’ said Uckermark. ‘Then the chef can quick-fry him in moments.’ But the major domo was not amused.
‘Let the boy go,’ he said. ‘Stand up, boy. Look! He’s shaking all over! Worse, you’ve bloodied his nose! Stand
