just for Hutch0

[realthog]

In another topic (to be more precise, one related to Uri Geller's imaginative use of pumpkin imagery) I was reminded of a passage I wrote long ago in my Legends of Lone Wolf novelization The Rotting Land in which a vegetarian princeling somewhere in High Fantasyland tries to explain to his barbarian brother that things are not going entirely too well on the connubial front.

I would have left matters there, but hutch0 was absolutely insistent I should post it -- so, somewhat against my better judgement, etc., here it is. To spare the rest of you, I've hidden it

Varnos was weeping. Two years had passed since his nuptial night, and the tiny tribal territory that his father had ruled was now the core of a large nation bordering the Danarg Swamp. On that bizarrely long day when he had pursued Evaine wherever she might lead him, he had unknowingly tracked out a colossal area of bogland and jungle, much of it poor but also much of it, especially along the river valleys and in the open land around the north of the swamp, fertile and rich. The minor tribes that had inhabited those regions in the old chieftain's day had with various degrees of gratitude conceded Varnos's rule over them, and he in return had brought to them a hitherto unthought-of prosperity. Even the Ghagrim, the gentle folk who dwelt along the fringes of the Danarg, had drawn themselves from their contemplations of the goodnesses of Nature long enough to acknowledge a truce between themselves and his people; Varnos even had hopes, never mentioned to his wife, that one day the ancient temple at the swamp's heart, built there by a race of people who had been long gone from this land before history had begun, would come under his sway. But that was to look far ahead. In the mean time, the threat from the Agarashi of the swamp had been at least temporarily contained: some of the gloomier of his shamans predicted that the foul beasts would soon erupt from their heartland and reclaim the territory they regarded as theirs, but for the moment that hazard seemed as far distant as the incorporation of the Temple of Ohrido into his realm, and the recently designed banners of the Freelands of Talestria fluttered carelessly above the turrets of Garthen (pop. 1706), the capital which Varnos had founded on the shore due south of his father's old camp, and which he had so-named in a not-so-subtle but apparently successful attempt to quell any rebellious thoughts that his brother might nurture.

 

The Sun shone brightly on the Freelands of Talestria, as if it would do so for all the rest of eternity.

 

And yet Varnos wept.

 

His brother looked at him unsympathetically. They were in the regal apartments in the North Tower of Castle Garthen ‑‑ a building only somewhat less grand than its name. Sunlight shone in through the narrow windows and played across the crudely tiled floor. From outside there were the faint sounds of the city going about its work. The wind, blowing today from the north, brought with it the sweet scents of rotting vegetation and fresh woodsmoke.

 

"You got everything," said Garthen roughly. "You got the kingdom. You got the power. You got the doxy, for what the scrawny midget's worth. You got no cause to go blubbing your eyes out, like girls do."

 

"I've got everything but the thing I want," sobbed Varnos.

 

"Wossat?" Garthen's brows, undecided as to whether to knit or beetle, wrestled furiously.

 

"The 'doxy', as you call her. Evaine!"

 

The right eyebrow seemed to have the left in an armlock, but the contest was clearly far from over.

 

"But you and her, you tied the knot, di'n you? Spliced the mainbrace? I thought you was as close as chalk and cheese. What you mean you ain't got the doxy?" Garthen picked up a jug of mead from a jewel-encrusted table and drained it at a draught. Smacking his lips, he picked up another.

 

Varnos picked at the hem of his lavishly embroidered robe, staring beyond it to the floor. His brother was coarse of locution, yet Varnos recoiled from the prospect of expressing himself in the same vulgar terms. How to explain to him in a way that he'll understand? he thought. As ever, his roving mind fell upon its old-loved topic.

 

He imagined himself to be in a marketplace. All around him were stalls displaying the ripest and richest products of the farms and fields of the Freelands. But, to Varnos's mind's eye, the brightly coloured fruits and vegetables of the displays had an additional, fresh meaning: they were also similes and metaphors rendered into physical form, so that he could pick and choose among them as he wished. He felt his inner face wrinkle with indecision as he approached the first stall. The stall-holder beamed ruddily at him.

 

Melons. Perhaps, in the circumstances, not. Nodding politely to the now disappointed countryman, Varnos moved slowly away towards the next display. Maybe pawpaws weren't what he was looking for, either.

 

He controlled his breathing, forcing himself not to panic. The market was huge: he was aware without having to look that it stretched for hundreds of yards if not miles to every side of him. Unfortunately, however, he appeared to be the solitary customer, which meant that the fruit- and vegetable-sellers were eagerly watching his every move, hoping that their monarch would choose to purchase their products, and theirs alone. He felt as if he were at the focal point of a lens, his skin in danger of frazzling in the hot sunlight of their stares.

 

Shiftily he continued to browse. Leeks were out, obviously, as were bananas and corn on the cob and especially aubergines. He gave the strawberries barely a glance, puzzled over the brussels sprouts and the rhubarb before hastily rejecting them ‑‑ likewise the gherkins and the courgettes ‑‑ and regarded the mangoes, figs, peaches, nectarines, apricots, cherries, oyster plants and walnuts in frank dismay. A towering heap of passion fruit made him shudder audibly.

 

Celery, carrots, parsnips, plums, fennel, runner beans, gooseberries, jackfruits . . . the nightmare continued. By now Varnos was sprinting in full hysteria up and down the aisles of his vast mental marketplace, seeing the strongly coloured displays as little more than blurs of light as he sped past them. The expressions on the faces of the stall-holders merged into a single, tooth-packed, miles-long leer. Chicory, chick-peas, chard, chives, checkerberries, cherimoyas and chillies smeared past him in a kaleidoscopic cornucopia. Lingonberries, lychees, loquats, limes and loganberries ‑‑ a thin scream was trickling from the sides of his mouth ‑‑ tangeloes, tangerines, tamarinds, turnips and tomatoes. A plantain cackled at him, a jaboticaba hooted, an olive ogled, a horse-radish whinnied and he was perfectly certain he heard a boysenberry belch. Huckleberries snapped at his heels like crazed terriers, while sapodillas spat and scallions scowled. His breath was coming in cruel, choking whoops as he pounded onwards, the thunder of the pursuing produce ‑‑ a mountain of tumbling fruits and vegetables dwarfing him as it trundled menacingly after him ‑‑ seeming to echo at him from the very walls of the Universe.

 

With one last despairing scream he found himself back on the wooden throne of his kingly apartments. Garthen was eyeing him alarmedly.

 

"What you bin doing?"

 

"Trying to think of a way to explain my problem to you," gasped Varnos. Cold sweat was pouring from his forehead and down the concavity of his chest. "It's a bit . . . well, personal."

 

"Just say it, man!" Garthen hurled another empty jug towards the pile in the corner. "Say it straight out! I can take it. I'm a warrior."

 

"Well, you know what . . . er . . . kohlrabi is."

 

"Greens, right?"

 

"Yes, that's it. And . . . um . . . guavas. And custard apples and persimmon. Not to mention grapes."

 

"Yes. Girls' stuff."

 

"Well, Evaine isn't letting me make a fruit salad out of those."

 

Garthen blanched. "I say, that's a bit close to the knuckle, brother!"

 

"I couldn't think of a more refined way to put it. I . . ."

 

"Yes, but ‑‑ what if Mother had heard you?"

 

The two men looked guiltily around the room's gilded walls, as if Lesa the Faded might at any moment spring from behind a panel and swoon at them. Reassured, they nevertheless moved closer to each other and began to speak in quieter, more urgent tones.

 

"Right from the outset she's been the same," said Varnos. "The very night of our marriage, when I was expecting . . . well, not much, because I'd been drinking a lot, but at least a bit of a squash, or maybe even an endive . . ."

 

"A cuddle, you mean?"

 

"Yes, if you have to put it as crassly as that. But she said no way, not ever, that wasn't what she'd married me for. What she'd married me for was to install me as ruler over the Freelands of Talestria for as long as we both should live ‑‑ which, she hinted darkly, would be a very long time indeed, or else."

 

"Glug," went Garthen's throat as another pint of wine disappeared. "Couldn't you have, er, truffled?"

 

"I truffled to the point of mushrooming!" exclaimed Varnos, slapping his thigh to emphasize the point. "'Honeydew,' I said to her, as civil as you'd wish, 'honeydew, my sweet mamey apple, a married man needs his lentils, his okra and his onions. To deny him those is to deny the dictates of his inmost gumbo.' But all she said was: 'Hagberries!' I didn't know what she meant then, but" ‑‑ he began to sob afresh ‑‑ "I do now."

 

"Well, I still don't." Garthen's right eyebrow had been thrown right out of the ring, but was gamely crawling back in.

 

"That first night, I tried to follow her into our tent. The very moment I crossed the threshold she . . . changed. It was hideous ‑‑ hideous!"

 

Garthen said nothing, just stared glumly at the last jug of wine. He had the feeling that courtesy dictated that he should leave it for his brother, but he also had the feeling that courtesy was nothing but a blasted nuisance. He reached for it.

 

"There, in the moonlight," Varnos was continuing, "she altered from the trim young bunch of spring greens I'd been following all day into . . . into a crab apple! She looked as ancient as if she'd been in her grave six weeks. Her head was shiny ‑‑ not a hair on it ‑‑ but her nostrils more than compensated for that. Dewlaps . . . pimples . . . boils . . . She gave me a terrible toothless smile, and just then her glass eye dropped out. I . . . I'm not ashamed to admit, brother, that I fainted."

 

"Sissy."

 

"And it was the same every night after that, until finally I couldn't take it any more, and gave up. Since then I've been perfecting my epic ballad, born out of my ardour for her, but she refuses to listen to me declaim it. What can I do?"

 

His final wail was truly piteous. He threw his face down onto his forearms and whimpered.

 

Courtesy be damned: Garthen drained the last of the wine.

 

"You've thought of getting yourself a bit of asparagus on the side?" he said to his brother's convulsing shoulders. "I know a perky little slice of civet fruit as'll give a man . . ."

 

"It's no use! It's her that I want ‑‑ not some substitute! Oh, woe . . ."

 

Garthen shifted in his seat uneasily. After a last exchange of forearm smashes his brows declared a truce. "Well, brother," he said ponderously, "not to put too fine a point on it, you could always just put out the lights. As the old tribal saying goes, in the night all manzanillas are . . . well, whatever colour manzanillas are. As of this moment I can't rightly recollect. But you get my . . ."

 

"You fool!" bleated Varnos, wrenching at the cloth of his robe and staring viciously at his brother through bloodshot eyes. "That's no help at all!"

 

"Whyever not?"

 

"Because she glows in the dark!"

Comments

[sarcobatus.livejournal.com]

You did a piss-poor job of hiding this excerpt but a damn fine job of writing it. Very entertaining. You've left me wanting more.

But no pumpkins. I suppose squash will suffice. But no pumpkins.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"a piss-poor job of hiding this"

Oh! Is it not hidden under the cut, as it's supposed to be? It shows (or not-shows) correctly on my screen.

"a damn fine job of writing it"

Thanks for the kind words, ma'am.

[sarcobatus.livejournal.com]

Your cut works on the "friends" page. My mistake. I thought you meant you were posting for HutchO's eyes only.

(And now, to drink coffee and snort Prozac . . .)

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Very strange climate Fantasyland has, with its mixture of arctic and tropical.

Now, that's a truly funny -- and very well-written -- passage.

I can never get the LJ cut to work properly for me for some reason.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Why, thank you, kind sir.

I can never get the LJ cut to work properly for me for some reason.

It's a real fiddle. I think the problems are (a) that, even if you follow instructions, it doesn't look as if you're doing the right thing, and (b) that if you call up the Preview function it looks as if in fact you've got it wrong and the cut hasn't worked -- it's only once you've posted the entry that you discover that (with luck) everything's just as it should be.