Page 78 of The Thrice-Bound Fool

“So, is this little man before us a prince or a fool?”

“Let us ask him,” she said and looked at me.

Everyone looked at me, not least the king with his ridiculous false bangs and his heavy eyebrows.

An old saying in Galtia came to my aid, and I whispered my answer to the girl.

She repeated it on my behalf.

“It is better to remain silent and be thought a prince than to speak and be confirmed a fool.”

The king nodded his big head slowly, regarding me.

“We are well pleased. Tell us this princely fool’s name again?”

“Kitch,” she said.

I did not correct her.

The next days, for as much as they were full of humiliations, were days of wonder. Manreach has no city to compare with Erydon; not cold, rainy Lamnur in Holt nor colder Pigdenay in Norholt; not Seveda of the white walls nor mighty Galimbur guarding its river in Ispanthia; I never saw Mouray in Gallardia, city of lamps, nor Goltay nor Orfay, wrecked by goblins, and these may have outshone Erydon for beauty. I have not seen all the wonders of the natural world, though the stark majesty of the Thralls by morning’s light, and the violet livery of the Tattered Sea at sunset are fairer to my eye than any temple or palace. But to speak of built places, I do not expect to see even one to rival Erydon in awe.

I accompanied the princess in her daily lessons and in her travels about the city. She was an energetic child, and she loved to drag me jingling and japing through the market hall, which echoed with trade from the kynd and quarter-giant cities along the southern coast, and from such true giant tribes as had made peace with the Kingdom of Fire, as Erydon was often called. Here were spices of all colors and scents in great ox-leather bags; books in tall, leaning stacks; flowering plants whose perfumes drew lovestruck youths to them such that they had to be pushed away and slapped to clear their minds; elephants bawling and camels chewing; and slithering brassworms as long as oar-ships behind two cage walls, their scales glinting in the light of gas-lamps. The ground between the brassworms’ nearer and farther cage walls were marred with spatters of dissolved stone where the beasts had tried to spit their burning acids at passersby, the closest marks falling only a few yards shy of the second row of bars. The things could spit to twenty paces then. So noted. One eyed me with a lazy green eye, and I looked away with a brief salute.

This hall, though, was not finished showing its treasures.

Here were trees grown into the walls, their branches spreading up to mingle with the arched roof like roots; there were castrato slaves whose singing rang in the clever bones of the hall, carrying from one end to the other; here were two giants oiled and wrestling in a stockade while foreign buyers urged them on and haggled or swore.

The language of the coastal cities, from which many visiting merchants hailed, was similar to the tongue of Erydon. These foreigners all sounded Beltian to me, and when I read their signs advertising cinnamon and dried squid, or pearls and turquoise, I saw that it was indeed very like Beltian. I would learn that their ancestors had crossed the Thralls to escape the yoke of the Kesh a millennium and a half before, and had prospered; and some had mingled their seed with that of giants. So here were the great-great-grandchildren of Beltia, grown tall and handsome, worshipping many of the same gods as back home, but in strange temples and on perilous western seas. The coastal cities were separated from Beltia not only by the nigh-impassable Thralls but now by this strange kingdom of half-giants that had sprouted up with its own cruel gods, and with its terrifying knowledge. The tall kynd of the coastal cities Oexyon, Maedra, and Bathys were runts next to the Erydon and only resisted dominion by virtue of their greater populations, tenuous alliances, and their willingness so far to pay ever-greater tribute when their powerful neighbor called for it. I had heard it said that the cities of Belgoron and Kythlis, on the narrow strip of fertile land north of the sea, were both badly losing a war with Erydon and would soon be reduced to tribute states, sending a stream of gold, pearls, and slaves like other towns already under the yoke.

“Kitch!”

“Yes, Princess?”

“Speak to this parrot for me to see if it knows our elvish words.”

I looked at a very large parrot of blue and gray feathers with a red crown and, when it cocked its head at me, I cocked mine and said, “Good day, Master Berrytop! What are you knowing? How is it with you?”

It opened its mouth and moved its tongue in and out but said nothing.

“Princess, I think this is a very rude parrot,” I said in a high, mocking voice.

“Why, Kitch, why?” she said, already laughing.

She loved my many voices.

“Because his tongue is as black as mine, and yet he pretends not to know my speech.”

She screamed laughter, but then grew serious.

“Well, I will not suffer a parrot’s rudeness. Let us purchase him, and I will take him home to be plucked and boiled.”

Shyte, you had to be careful with this one.

“It is also possible that he is just shy,” I said, hoping I was not too late to divert her viciousness. “Let us see if he knows a word of my people that is perhaps my favorite word.”

“What word, what word?”

“Why, kark, of course,” I said.