The Carpet People

CHAPTER 7

They arrived at the camp just in time to stop the search party that was setting out. Brocando immediately became the centre of attention, something which he enjoyed and was obviously used to. Snibril was more or less forgotten. More or less ...

"Where have you been?" asked Pismire, relieved and angry. "Wandering off like that! Don't you know there are mouls about?"

"I'm sorry," said Snibril. "Things just happened."

"Well, never mind now," said Pismire. "What's happening over there, now? Doesn't anyone of your muddle-headed people know how to welcome a king?"

"I don't think so," said Snibril. "He's quite brave and a bit excitable and doesn't really listen to what you say."

"Sounds like a king to me, right enough," said Pismire.

Brocando was in the centre of a crowd of chattering, staring Munrungs, beaming benevolently.

"There I was," he was saying. "One step away from the treasure, when, jingle! There it was, behind me. So ... "

Pismire elbowed his way through the crowd, removed his hat, bowed till his beard touched the ground, and stuck there, confronting a surprised Brocando with a tangle of white locks.

"Greeting, oh King," said the old man. "Honoured are we that so great a son of so noble an ancestry should deem us worthy to ... er ... worthy. All we have is at your disposal, valiant sir. I am Pismire, a humble philosopher. This is ... "

He snapped his fingers wildly at Glurk, who was standing open-mouthed at the spectacle of Pismire, still bent double in front of the dwarf warrior.

"Come on, come on. Protocol is very important. Bow down to the king!"

"What's a king?" said Glurk, looking round blankly.

"Show some respect," said Pismire.

"What for? Snibril rescued him, didn't he?"

Snibril saw Bane, standing at the back of the crowd with folded arms and a grim expression. He hadn't liked school in Tregon Marus, but he'd learned some things. The Dumii didn't like kings. They preferred Emperors, because they were easier to get rid of.

And on the way back from the temple he'd asked Brocando what he'd meant when he said his people didn't Count. It meant they had nothing to do with the Dumii.

"Hate them," Brocando had said, bluntly. "I'd fight them because they straighten roads, and number things, and make maps of places that shouldn't be mapped. They turn everything into things to Count. They'd make the hairs of the carpet grow in rows if they could. And worst of all ... they obey orders. They'd rather obey orders than think. That's how their Empire works. Oh, they're fair enough, fair fighters in battle and all that sort of thing, but they don't know how to laugh and at the end of it all it's things in rows, and orders, and all the fun out of life."

And now he was about to be introduced to one of them.

At which point, Brocando amazed him. He walked up to Glurk and shook him warmly by the hand. When he spoke, it wasn't at all in the way he'd used in the temple. It was the kind of voice that keeps slapping you on the back all the time.

"So you're the chieftain, are you?" he said. "Amazing! Your brother here told me all about you. It must be an incredibly difficult job. Highly skilled, too, I shouldn't wonder?"

"Oh, you know ... you pick it up as you go along ... " Glurk muttered, taken aback.

"I'm sure you do. I'm sure you do. Fascinating! And a terrible responsibility. Did you have to have some sort of special training?"

" ... er ... no ... Dad died and they just gives me the spear and said, you're chief ... " said Glurk.

"Really? We shall have to have a serious chinwag about this later on," said Brocando. "And this is Pismire, isn't it? Oh, do get up. I'm sure philosophers don't have to bow, what? Jolly good. And this must be ... General Baneus Catrix, I believe."

General! Snibril thought.

Bane nodded.

"How many years is it, your majesty?" he said.

"About five, I think," said the king. "Better make that six, in fact."

"You know each other?" said Snibril.

"Oh, yes," said Brocando. "The Dumii kept sending armies to see us and suggest, most politely, that we submit and be part of their Empire. We always told them we didn't want to join. We weren't going to be Counted-"

"I think it was the paying of taxes you objected to," said Bane, calmly.

"We did not see what we would get for our money," said Brocando.

"You would be defended," said Bane.

"Ah ... but we've always been quite good at defending ourselves," said Brocando, in a meaningful tone of voice. "Against anyone." He smiled. "And then the General here was sent to suggest it to us again, with a little more force," he said. "I remember he said that he was afraid that if we did not join the Empire, there would be hardly any of us to be Counted."

"And you said there'd be hardly anyone left to do the Counting," said Bane.

Snibril looked from one to the other. He realized he was holding his breath. He let it out. "And then what happened?" he said.

Bane shrugged. "I didn't attack," he said. "I didn't see why good people should die. I went back and told the Emperor that Brocando's people would make better allies than unwilling subjects. Anyway, only a fool would attack that city."

"I always wondered what he replied," said Brocando.

Bane looked down at his ragged clothes. "He shouted quite a lot," he said.

There was a thoughtful pause.

"They did attack, you know, after you ... been recalled," said Brocando.

"Did they win?"

"No."

"You see? Fools," said Bane.

"I'm sorry," said Brocando.

"You needn't be. It was only one of a number of disagreements I had with the Emperor," said Bane.

Snibril took each of them by the shoulder. "Anyway," he said, "just because you're sworn enemies doesn't mean you can't be friends, does it?"

When they were having the evening meal Glurk said to his wife: "He's very gracious. Asked all about me. I've met a king. He's very important. He's called Protocol, I think."

"Good name. Sounds royal," she said. "And Pismire's a philosopher, he says."

"I never knew that. What's a philosopher?"

"Someone who thinks, he says," said Glurk.

"Well, you think. I've often seen you sitting and thinking."

"I don't always think," said Glurk conscientiously. "Sometimes I just sits."

He sighed. "Anyway, it's not just thinking. You've got to be able to talk about it entertainingly afterwards."