The Purple Emperor

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Brimstone was puffed by the third circuit of the fire, but thankfully the priest signalled them to stop. 'Stand side by side,' he instructed loudly. Then, dropping his voice, he whispered in Brimstone's ear, 'And try to look as if you're enjoying it.'

Too breathless to answer, Brimstone contented himself with delivering a cutting look. Then he turned to smile briefly and hypocritically at his bride. She smiled back cheerfully. Five husbands! If she really did put them all down, she must have a fortune squirrelled away. This wedding could prove an exceptionally profitable enterprise.

'Friends,' announced the priest in the general direction of the down-and-outs who looked as if they hadn't a friend between them, 'we're gathered here for blah-de-blah etcetera rhubarb and etcetera, ah-hummmm.''

Brimstone looked at him in astonishment.

'Full ceremony costs extra,' the priest whispered. 'Bride won't pay, but I can charge it on to you if you like.'

Brimstone shook his head firmly. 'Get on with it,' he hissed.

'Having dispensed with the religious introduction and the blessing,' the priest intoned, 'we move on to the symbolic portion of the rite. The bride, as you can see, is carrying a spiny cactus to symbolise the thorns of adversity experienced by all couples in the course of their life together. I now ask the bride to hand those thorns to her groom who, in accepting the gift, solemnly pledges himself to bear those thorns for her henceforth and for evermore, ah-hummmm.'

Fat chance, Brimstone thought, but he reached for the cactus anyway, taking care to grip it by the pot. The down-and-outs applauded listlessly.

'Hold it up!' the priest whispered.

Brimstone held the succulent above his head. This time it was the Widow Mormo who applauded. Five husbands! That had to be some sort of record; and if it wasn't, it was certainly worthy of admiration.

One of the nymphs tripped forward and relieved Brimstone of his cactus. She had the wasted body and blank stare of a simbala music addict, but she wasn't so far out of it as to forget to ask him for a coin to mark her part in the ceremony. Brimstone gave her a groat and she danced away looking cross.

'Just the impediments now,' whispered the priest. 'Then I can make it legal.' He raised his voice to fill the church. 'I now call on any here present with a prior claim to this woman to enunciate such claim clearly and fully as an impediment to the Holy Ceremony of Marriage we are here to undertake; and I further call on any here present who knows of this or any other impediment to come forward now and so enunciate or henceforth keep shut his mouth.'

This should tell us if any of the last five has survived, thought Brimstone in a moment of rare whimsy. The priest studied the ceiling of his church for a long moment, but nobody piped up to protest.

The priest hitched up his robe as if preparing for a quick exit now the rite was nearly done. 'I now call on any here present,' he repeated, 'with a prior claim to this man to enunciate such claim clearly and fully as an impediment to the Holy Ceremony of Marriage we are here to undertake; and I further call on any here present who knows of this or any other impediment to come forward now and so enunciate or henceforth keep shut his mouth.'

This time it was Brimstone who looked up at the ceiling. A decent pause, the final legalities, then off to the woods to kill her.

It was a very happy wedding day.