Page 67 of The Thrice-Bound Fool

“Will you win even one?”

“I’ll try,” I said, over which she barked, “Close your hole! It was a question for ears, not mouths,” which is the Galtish way of saying rhetorical. As she was saying this, our handler hit me with a stick. There’s going to be lot of stick-hittery in this part of the story, I hope that doesn’t bother you.

“You’ll know when I want you to talk, which is almost never,” Verna said.

Now I just listened instead of translating for Galva.

Verna saw this and motioned at the handler.

Smack.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Keep translating to Queeny.”

“But you said…”

Smack.

“Fuck!”

Smack.

“Mhm!”

I only grunted at that one, which I guess was acceptable.

“What did she say?” Galva whispered.

“Your name’s Queeny now, you vile cow.”

I waited.

No smack?

I cut my eyes to the handler.

Smack.

“Rnngh!”

Right, don’t look at the handler.

Verna kept on.

Or she would have kept on, had it not been time for the great god of shenanigans underground to make an appearance.

“You will all learn to…” she began, but a low rumble made itself heard, and soon the ground itself was shaking. Glass rattled somewhere, and something fell and smashed. Small bits of stone and dust fell in some of the archways leading off the courtyard.

“Fuck!” I said and looked at the handler, so I suppose I should have gotten it twice, but I was temporarily immune. The handler, you see, had now dropped his swatter and stood perfectly straight, his head bowed and his arms raised, palms up, as if waiting to receive something from above. Like, maybe a fatal chunk of stone. I looked around and saw that most of those in the courtyard had taken the same stance. They were also humming a mid-range note quite musically.

“Should we not, you know, get under something?” I said in Holtish.

“Under something is the worst place to be in a temblúr,” Galva said, then remembered the Holtish word for it. “Earthquake. No, the courtyard suits me best.”

They have earthquakes in Ispanthia, though not many. Holt is untroubled by them, but being full of Holtish is curse enough, from where I sit as a Galt. I later learned this standing with the arms out and the head down and humming is called the Posture of Receiving, and it’s supposed to ease the wrath of the God Under the Mountain. Sort of like not raising your guard when someone’s looking to punch you, I suppose. “I see that you’re angry, goddie—look at me, I’m just standing here like a wet kark. If you want to drop the roof in on me, I won’t mind a bit. And here’s a pretty song.”

It was only a moment or so before the whole show was over.