‘Get up then,’ said Blaume, ‘and I’ll get you a drink.’
A drink she got him, and then a second; and of the drinks that came later there is no counting. At one stage Alfric heard her say:
‘One observes that the thumb is second cousin to the left foot.’
Then she laughed; but what the joke was, Alfric had no idea.
‘Did I imagine it,’ he said, ‘or did you just say-’
‘What?’ said Blaume.
For Alfric’s speech had become quite incomprehensible thanks to the prodigious importation of liquor into his system. While he thought himself quite lucid, his ears were garbaging what was said to them, and his tongue was rubbishing his every word to a mulching slather. Even his vision was starting to fritz, for the outlines of reality were blurring and bifurcating in a way which had nothing whatsoever to do with any optical deficiency.
Nevertheless, Alfric was sensible enough to recognize Pig Norn when that mix of brawn and flabber came crashing through the front door with Muscleman Wu close behind him.
‘Jabraljik!’ said Pig, or seemed to Alfric to say.
This Alfric took to be a distortion of his name: and, taking this distortion to be a challenge to battle, he got to his feet. His feet he tripped over. His face he recovered but his spectacles were missing, and by the time he had groped his way to his sight’s salvation, the battle was well underway.
Pig and Wu were trying to spear orkflesh with their swords, but close-clinging dwarves and battering women were making this feat of chivalry difficult. Skaps the Vogel was swooping overhead, screaming in shrillvoiced anger. Some of the drunks, woken by the brawl, were fighting among themselves, or trying to.
‘Stop!’ said Alfric.
But nobody did.
So Alfric picked up a chair, or tried to. But his balance was betrayed by a draught from the fireplace, and he had to lean on the chair to keep his balance. He tried again, was more successful, and broke the chair over Wu’s head. While the chair definitely suffered — it was asundered into woodwarp and wormdust, dowelling and splinters — Wu fought on, dauntless and dentless.
Alfric took off his spectacles, put them into a beer mug for safety, then threw himself into the battle. With Alfric deadweighting from his neck, Muscleman Wu began to tire. Then a couple of guardsmen entered, and, thanks to their intervention, both brothers Norn were overcome and were booted out into the street.
Full of the vigour of war, Alfric pursued them. He stood in the doorway of the Green Cricket and swore prodigiously at a much-battered Pig Norn who was even then picking himself out of the mud.
‘You want a fight?’ said Wu Norn. ‘A real fight?
Then come out here and we’ll settle things.’
‘I will,’ said Alfric.
But Anna Blaume and others grabbed him from behind and dragged him back to safety. Viola Vanaleta recovered the spectacles and shoved them on to Alfric’s face, and the guardsmen delivered their message.
‘Compliments of the Wormlord,’ said they. ‘Your presence is desire d at Saxo Pall. Tonight is the night. All the Yudonic Knights are bein g ingathered for your banquet, which starts as soon as you present you rself.’ ‘Impossible,’ said Alfric. ‘I’m drunk.’
But Anna Blaume gave him a drink which made him throw up, then fed him some revolting black stuff, then burnt some white powder and made him inhale the fumes, then marched him to his home to recover the ironsword Edda, then escorted him to Saxo Pall and handed him over to Guignol Grangalet, and very shortly (or so it seemed to Alfric, whose time sense had become grossly distorted ever since he had breathed the fumes of the white powder) the young banker was in the throne-room in audience with the Wormlord, with a mass of Yudonic Knights in attendance.
‘You have done well,’ said Tromso Stavenger.
‘Have I?’ said Alfric, too dazed to know whether he had or had not.
‘You have done very well,’ said Stavenger. ‘For you have brought us the ironsword Edda. Give it to me.’
In obedience to this command, Alfric presented the king with the saga sword. Some of the onlookers tittered when they saw what a rubbishy thing it was, but only Ciranoush Norn was bold enough to challenge the presentation.
‘My lord!’ said Ciranoush.
‘You wish to be heard?’ said the Wormlord.
‘I will be heard!’ said Ciranoush. ‘Edda was a hero’s weapon. But this? Some refuse-iron! The hilt intact, to be true, but the blade a stump of rotten rust. How know we this to be Edda?’
‘I know,’ said the Wormlord.
Then, to Alfric’s astonishment, the king unscrewed the top of the sword’s pommel; and from the hollow hilt the Wormlord poured a glitterment of diamonds, emeralds and rubies. One last thing rattled out. A single chip of lapis, incongruous against the glory of the jewels.
‘The sword,’ said the Wormlord, ‘has proved itself.’
As Ciranoush stared at the jewels in dumbfounded silence, Alfric steadied his head for long enough to add: ‘If further proof is demanded, seek it yourself on Island Thodrun. Qa lies dead, his body butchered, as other bodies will be before all differences in this kingdom are settled.’
‘Other bodies?’ said Ciranoush. ‘What mean you by that?’
‘You will not ask that question!’ said the king. Then he tossed the chip of lapis to Alfric, who surprised himself by catching it neatly. ‘A souvenir,’ said Tromso Stavenger. ‘I might give you another souvenir before the night is out. A head. A head for you to take home. The head of one of the brothers Norn.’
‘My lord,’ said Ciranoush, ‘how has the family Norn excited your displeasure?’
‘I am told,’ said the Wormlord, ‘that your brothers Pig and Wu have been brawling with the orks who happen to be ambassadors from the king of the Qinj oks. ’
‘Then I will see that apologies are made,’ said Ciranoush.
Without further ado, Ciranoush called his brothers forth from the mass of Yudonic Knights gathered in the throneroom. A sullen Pig and a slowvoiced Wu made formal apologies to the king.
‘I am not necessarily entirely satisfied by your apologies,’ said the king. ‘It may be that I will make an example of one of you. I do not say that this is necessarily so. Only that I reserve the right to so act. Any offence against any ambassador is a most serious matter, whatever the nature of that ambassador. What I need from you now is a peace. A peace between the brothers Norn and the family Danbrog. Is there a peace between you? Alfric?’
‘There is,’ said Alfric.
Pig hesitated, then said:
‘Yes, there is.’
And Wu:
‘My brother speaks for me as well.’
‘Good,’ said Stavenger. ‘Then you will all four of you sit together as a token of mutual trust and alliance. The three brothers Norn and Alfric Danbrog. Come, let us retire now to the banqueting hall.’
That they did, and soon a most uncomfortable Alfric Danbrog was seated at table with the three brothers Norn. Pig was seated to Alfric’s left and Ciranoush to his right, with Wu a further place to the right. A four person Trough of Friendship was brought forth and set in front of them, that they might all eat from the same dish in token of the truceship to which their king had bound them. A select portion of a gigantic river worm (a worm which was all of a horselength from nose to tail) was placed in that dish, and vegetables mounded on top of it.
A great heat rose from the river worm; and heat likewise flushed forth from the brothers Norn; and further heat assailed Alfric from the hall itself, a hall heated by a full half-dozen blazing fireplaces. It is scarcely surprising that he found himself sweating, and that his neighbours were similarly afflicted.
Certain formalities then took place; then the Wormlord took out his false teeth and wrapped them in a silken handkerchief, and all knew they were free to eat, which they did.
As the banquet got underway, Alfric did his best to ignore the brothers Norn. Easy enough to do, since Justina Thrug was seated opposite, and she was enough to take anyone’s mind off his neighbours. She was a phenomenon.
Justina Thrug was a meaty woman with the most abstraklous history of debauchery. On this occasion, she
