— Think!
— Think!
Alfric had exhausted all his ideas, and was close to panic.
Then, as he surveyed the hard-faced Knights, he heard someone say:
‘I will champion him.’
Alfric turned in astonishment.
It was Morgenstem!
How absurd!
Already the Yudonic Knights were laughing. Alfric was furious. Morgenstem must be mad. What did the foolish creature think it was doing? A blubbery ork would not have a hope in the world against the least of the Knights.
But he kept his fury from his face.
Oh well.
That was it, then.
He had no option left to him but to Change.
He looked around the throneroom and saw a side-door which was ajar. That was the one he’d make for. When should he Change? Now? No! Wait! Wait for the ork to go into battle. Once combat began, all eyes would be on the fight. That would be the time to start to Change…
‘Peace!’ said Guignol Grangalet. ‘Hush down, all of you! We have a champion for Alfric Danbrog. The champion is an Ork. The name of the ork is Cod.’
‘No,’ said Cod.
‘That’s Cod,’ said Morgenstem, pointing. ‘I’m Morgenstem.’
‘My apologies,’ said Grangalet. Then, turning to Ursula Major: ‘My lady, Alfric’s champion is the ork Morgenstem.’
Ursula smiled.
‘This will be interesting,’ said she. ‘Very well, ork. Who do you want to fight first?’
‘You,’ said Morgenstem.
Ursula laughed, and so did the Knights. When the laughter had died away, Ursula spoke:
‘You want to fight me? I’m sorry, Mister Blubber, but I’m not for fighting.’
‘The challenge is against the hall,’ said Morgenstem, with surprising firmness of voice. ‘You said so. That means I can choose to fight against anyone in the hall.’ ‘Poor orky!’ said Ursula. ‘Weren’t you listening, little orky thing? We went through that earlier. I can’t fight you even if I wanted to. Only females can fight females. That’s our law.’
‘But the women of Wen Endex do fight,’ said Morgenstem stubbornly. ‘Both the laws and the traditions of the land say as much. Many are the shield maidens who have fallen in battle for the honour of the Families, and mighty are the legends which surround them.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Ursula, with a touch of impatience. ‘Doubtless such things have happened. However, we are not on a battlefield. ’
‘Nevertheless,’ said Morgenstem, ‘the law is what the law is, and tradition likewise.’
‘Orky thing,’ said Ursula, ‘you’re starting to annoy me. We’ve been through this once, we’ve been through this twice, now we’re going through it thrice. Here, only a woman can fight a woman. Please believe me, Mister Oil-for- brains. What I tell you three times is true. Were you female, I’d have to fight you. But you’re not, so I don’t and won’t. Choose someone else.’ ‘But-’
‘But me no buts,’ said Ursula. ‘Choose a man.’
‘But I’m a woman,’ said Morgenstem.
Ursula gaped. She really did. Her jaw fell. Then she closed it abmptly.
‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Ursula Major. ‘You cannot possibly be a female. The ethnology texts are very clear. Female orks are small and shy. You’re neither. You’re big and bulky. So you’re a male. The females run around in pleated skirts. I don’t see you in a skirt.’
‘The textbooks,’ said Morgenstem, ‘are wrong.’
Then, in support of this thesis, the ork began to strip. Off came the ork’s heavy woollen shirt. Revealing sluggardly low-slung breasts. Off came the ork’s woollen trousers, revealing ‘You — you must be a freak,’ said Ursula desperately. ‘Not so,’ said Cod, starting to strip in sympathy. ‘We’re not freaks. We’re females.’
‘That’s right,’ said Morgenstem. ‘We’re not freaks. We’re fact. Your ethnology texts lie. What is more, you know full well why they lie.’
That loud-voiced accusation rang through the hall. It was received by the Yudonic Knights in utter silence. For both orks were now bare-arse naked, and the proof of their anatomy could not be denied.
And this shocked the Knights to the core.
It was no secret that the wealth of the Families was based on the slaughter of orks. While the ork-killing days were long since over, it was acknowledged that it was wealth won from ork-oil which had made the Families great, and which also made the Flesh Traders’ Financial Association a power to be reckoned with.
Every Knight knew that his family had risen to greatness as a result of the murder of many orks.
But, in Wen Endex it was an article faith that the killers of orks had always, as a chivalrous gesture, spared the females. Now the horrors of the past were revealed in full force. The victims of the orking days had been exclusively female; and those who killed them for fun and profit must have been fully aware of the fact. It was the big, blubbery females who were full of oil, for the timid little males were too small to have commercial potential.
As the Knights were absorbing this shock, Morgenstem spoke:
‘Come to me, Ursy-thing. Come here, prattle-head. Bring me your perfumed lips, the pink of your underwear. Come to me, Ursy-thing. I want to strangle you.’
‘We — we fight with swords here,’ said Ursula Major unsteadily.
‘My champion is free to opt for unarmed combat if my champion so wishes it,’ said Alfric loudly. ‘That is the law, and you know it.’
Ursula Major looked on him with hatred.
There was no way Ursula Major could best an ork in combat, and she knew it. Ursula Major was a clothes horse, not a woman warrior in the shield maiden tradition. If Morgenstem insisted on unarmed combat, then Morgenstem must necessarily win, for the ork was at least twice the weight of the human female.
‘So,’ said Ursula. ‘So, they are females. The orks are females. Very well. Then let it be so written. Alfric Danbrog was championed by a woman. Thus he lived.’
Then the Yudonic Knights began to laugh, for of course it was a great joke to think of Alfric being saved by an ork, and a female ork at that. As the Knights collapsed in paroxysms of backslapping and kneeslapping, Alfric realized his public humiliation was complete. Lower than this he could not go.
When the laughter at last died down, the throneseated Ursula Major said:
‘Your doom is withdrawn. You are free to go.’ Then, to her Chief o f Protocol: ‘Show our guest out.’ Whereupon Guignol Grangalet invited Alfric to leave. He agreed that he would leave. There was, after all, nothing he could win by staying.
‘We’ll come with you,’ said Morgenstem, who was in the process of getting dressed again.
‘No,’ said Ursula Major. ‘I command you to attend a banquet to celebrate your victory today. You and your friend. Both the orks.’
A half-dressed Morgenstem looked at Alfric.
‘I’ll be all right,’ said Alfric, who felt so miserable and humiliated that all he wanted was to escape from Saxo Pall.
‘Good speed,’ said Cod.
‘Thank you,’ said Alfric. ‘Thank you.’
Then he bowed to the orks, bowed to the Knights, bowed to Ursula Major herself, then allowed the Chief of Protocol to lead him away.
Through halls and corridors went Alfric Danbrog and Guignol Grangalet, down echoing stairwells and then through tunnelling dark. Alfric realized Grangalet was taking him into an unfamiliar part of the castle. Alfric meant to ask about this, but When he looked around, Grangalet had vanished.
