- Most pernicious
- Be careful what you wish for...
- New Page
- New Page
- Homeric hymn to Pan
- New Page
- Home
- What the hell. I have nothing to lose
- My Adventures
- My Story
-
Essentials
- The earth is not flat
- The abolition of mind
- Things that only need saying once-one e tel
- Manners makyth man
- Coal in the bath and the victim culture
- The withdrawal of love and forcing oneself on others
- So some guys had the really freaky idea that we should love one another
- Jesus!
- 'Judge not that ye be not judged'
- Goo
- The way we were: Anglican England
- 'Avatars of living grace'
- Ditching the theology of love
- Reality >
- PANTHER: the argument
- Moi
- The new Marxism
- Dill's World (blog)
- New Page
- The collapse of education
- The Anile Heir
- For Katie: Harry Secombe: 'The Lord is my Shepherd'
- For Katie: He who would valiant be
-
'And now Amanda is seriously ill.'
- Otting
- THAT AM I >
- Medicine: the joke
- It's like this, Doc >
- Medicine: the continuing joke
- 'By Tummel and Loch Rannoch'
- The laughing-stock of the civilized world
- And be damned to you
- In the garden with Mummy
- Transforming the Na-Mhoram's Grim
- Blair: the icing on the cake
- Expecto patronam
- Scarlet battalions
- My family: any colour so long as it's red
- Back to the freaking juniper-tree (1)
- Back to the freaking juniper-tree (2)
- Our grandfather who art in heaven (though I doubt it), Howard be thy name
- So you have a problem with my family, fucker?
- 'Jew-Communists'
- Margaret, my great-grandmother, an Irish tart
- The FUQs
- Dear Wannabe Nemesis
- Shall we try again, Bobbles my sweet?
- Evil
- Dixi (that's Latin, you know, Father)
- The cultural use of the lamp-post
- A home from home
- All times are now (1)
- All times are now (2)
- For Katie: All times are now (3)
- For Katie: All times are now (4)
- For Katie; All times are now (5)
- For Katie: All times are now (6)
- Non serviam
- This colour doesn't run
- The balance
- Civilization - the balance
-
Gallery
- And be damned to you
- Catholic Encyclopaedia 1912: Obedience
- Voltaire and Jesus
- Tertullian, Women in Canon Law (1912) and Mulieris Dignitatem (1988)
- Padding through the Vatican archives
- The Vatican State
- Extra ecclesiam nulla salus: go to hell, go directly to hell, do not pass 'Go'
- A short history lesson
- A phrase-book for monkey-nuts
- Summary: the abode of the loon
-
Translations from Voltaire (mine): Concerning the Church of England
>
- Bukharin and Preobrazhensky: Communism and Religion
- Translations from Voltaire (mine): Freedom of Thought
- Translations from Voltaire (mine): Transubstantiation
- Thomas Paine: The Age of Reason
- Lenin: Socialism and Religion
- Marx: 'So much for the social principles of Christianity'
- The Horcruxes and the illusion of power
- 'And death shall have no dominion'
- Led Zep: Kashmir
- Buddhist meditation music: Zen Garden
- Karula
- Summary: the love way or the power way
- Flashtest
- The worst university in the country
- Just finishing off, Dolores
- Miss Smila's feeling for snow
- Death of an expert witness
- Interesting, those trips to Moscow
- 'His single hand portrayed it'
- Of course no-one pays any attention to poets
- The desire of the moth for the flame
- The Hospital
- The ghost in the machine was riled
- I am the very model of a medical practitioner
- I am the very model of a modern faith apologist: reprise
- I am of course reminded of a little list (of a little list)
- In the garden with Mummy when the Nine turned up
- Grow the fuck up, comrades
- Thin red line
- 'The Party', 'The Regiment'
- Once upon a time there was a big red giant
- Britain's not very secret weapon
- The headlines
- The waning of the age of aquarium
- Letter to MI5: Playing The Patriot Game
- Those in peril on the sea
- The Patriot Game (song)
- Country matters: 'Elf and Safety
- The Matter of Britain
- Marianne
- Riders on the storm with soundtrack
- The rat-catchers
- 'And gentleman in England, now a-bed, shall think themselves accurs'd...'
- The evidence no-one asks for
- England
- My father when young 2
- A few of my books
- The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism
- Barry's book-plate (evil grin)
- Barry: 'demob' if only from the MOI and redeployment at JWT
- Barry: publishing contracts with Curtis Brown
- Barry's funeral service
- Family album
- Barbara's 100th birthday
- And Nigel's funeral: read by Saul on the whale-backed Downs
- Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
- Class mum lives in a field with Dinge: the intellectual Left
- Within you, without you
- Because the world is round, it turns me on
- More Lattic and other incredibly cool stuff
- Hass and Venga
- The Lover of Jalaluddin Rumi and some things you never wanted to know about translation
- Love IS the law
- Shahriar's sites for sore eyes
- Islamic art and civilization
- Abu Nuwas
- Fisking Warsi
- Harry's Place v. Scumbag College
- Henrietta wondered if HP was too soft on Sparte-Smythe
- Koorosh Modarresi of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran
- Rumy Hasan of the Birmingham Socialist Alliance
- Sharia socialists
- ComSymp, ShariaSymp: plus ca change....
- Illustrations of the Rubaiyat
- Hell, objectively speaking: St Catherine of Genoa
- Joe Stote
- Katy Kianush
- 'Brothers, if you hear...'
- L'Internationale
- A Lioness's Quest
- The Battle of Evermore
- Rosa Luxemburg
- Love in a time of cholera
- TEKEL: Religious, guys? Doesn't that mean shit?
- Please do not feed the god. He really doesn't appreciate it.
- Instead of God eating people, people eat God. Seems a good swap
- Herstory
- Ultramontanism
- Multiverse defined by the sexual equipment of the human male
- Civis romana sum?
- Sunday School, 1913: 'THE GATES WILL BE OPEN TO ALL MANKIND'
- Huxley
- Consciousness 101
- Jesus Christ the apple-tree
- WE DO NOT KNOW
- Trial before Pilate
- 'For the sake of the nation, this Jesus must die!'
- Much how I feel about doctors and other forms of intellectual pollution in the University, really
- Jesus, a human being
- By all means get us wrong, Father
- 'They turned to Rome to sentence Nazareth'
- Buddhism: frightful threat to the Church, you know
- Dharma the Cat and the Barefoot Doctor
- Non-duality
- Exo, eso, balance, Balrogs et le Parti Communiste Francais 1939-1945
- ComSymp, ShariaSymp: Fit the Second
- Printing and the Reformation
- Glossary
- Early chess: more, er, gentlemen (and ladies)
- The Crusades: it's good to look at dates
- Richard and Saladin: perspectives
- Richard and Saladin: perspectives
- Nathan the Wise
- Portly and the Piper at the Gates of Dawn
- Otters return to Thames (maybe)
- The Ottery, TW9
- Spring: rain and shine
- Problems with numeracy: cardinals, generals and rock 'n' roll
- Franny and Zooey
- The tail does not wag the dog
- Try again? I think not: finale
- How many deaths does it take till they know that too many British Muslim women have died
- Who killed Banaz
- Sexism, racism, Islamophobia, Marxophobia and a rather interesting school
- Aaargh! The Terrible Tonge-Monster!
- Just hammering the stake a little further in
- A second English Civil War: women against women
- The vorpal sword goes snicker-snack
- You were saying...
- Of course I've slain the bloody Jabberwock
- Chapter One - Stalinism is just so yesterday
- The rightful heir, the usurper and the usurper's bloody wife
- Wiping excrement off the sole of one's boo
- Fascism victorious, gloating and spurious - for the moment, certainly
- Six counties (sob, the horror of it) lie under John Bull's tyranny
- Calling Lord Haw-Haw
- Cool Britannia
- 'Hell is just as properly proper as Greenwich or as Bath or Joppa'
- 'Any old iron, any old iron, any, any old iron...'
- The Front Line
- Taking it from the top...
- Happy birthday to m
- Extract from The Anile Heir including Lattic
- My body my self
- Culluket, Kastanessen and of course Coulter
- The Girl Who Talked to Otters
- Notes, some of which are Caroline's
- Our revels now are ended
- Pallas Athene
- More notes
- Pan pipes - conclusions - allegory
- Shit, man, they won't even state their problem in the Agora
- Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad
- Poetry in motion
- Ain't no use in looking down!/Ain't no discharge on the ground!
- Queen - We will rock you!
- Queen - Killer Queen
- The wrong shaped body, inferior product
- What a friend they have in evil, all their sins and griefs to bear
- In sum
- 'Building a remedy for Kruschev and Kennedy'
- Classic Islamoballs (and of course pure Stalinism)
- Deja vu
- Really, there are more important things to think about....
- Sleeping Pan by InertiaK
- Hymn to Pan by Faun
- Pan pipes
- Dirty old men
- For Katie: 'And death shall have no dominion'
- The Stone Table cracked
- 10 intellectual frauds of the orthodox religious and their slaves
- A Miracle of Exmoor: a Christmas masque
- WE DO NOT KNOW
- Intelligent women
- 'Tales of brave Ulysses'
- Coursera
- Free
- Milburn
- A fifth column
- Ain't there nuffink wrong with my back, apes?
- Gunfight at OK Corral
- Gunfight at OK Corral: the movie
- Harmonica and Frank
- Captain's Log: Star-Date Whatever
- Women, the US election, the President of the United States and other cool stuf
- The fury of a woman who has been raped
- "Are all American officers so ill-mannered?"
- The grand-daughter of not-quite-the-founder of the Labour Party
- Meanwhile...the lamp-post
- 'Sarat's little joke': the Economic Liaison Officer to the Anile Throne
- Where have all the SovSymps gone, long time passing...
- Roots and reductionism
- 'At anchor here I ride...'
- 'Against all things ending'
- New Page
- Verstehen Sie?
- Memoirs of London medicine
- 28th August 2010
- Irreducible evil
- Irreducible evil
- Just for you: Anthea Turner - and the python
- Goose-stepping morons should try reading books not burning them
- Just call me Serafina Pekkala, or possibly Lady Godiva
- A few reminders
- More? You want more?
- Grand finale
- It even has a pretty cover
- Bambi
- C'est nous qu'on ose mediter/De rendre a l'antique esclavage!
- A reminder of who is Marianne
- Voici Noel!
- Vicar of Bray
- Spanish Ladies
- Meanwhile back in Scilly....Song of the Western Men
- Twenty years behind enemy lines
- Family tree
- Pavarotti: Little Drummer Boy
- Walking in the air
- 'So you think you can love me and spit in my eye/So you think you can love me and leave me to die'
- Aw, come on, Doc, you're such an academic
- Je suis allee voir dans sa tete
- 16 chants de Noel
- 16 chants de Noel
- Talking of sheep...
- The distancing of Jesus from the churches
- So this is how it is to be
- And....And Stafford....And
- A limp prick and no balls
- Excuse me while I dress my hair with vine leaves
- Excuse me while I dress my hair with vine leaves
- Other notes
- Other notes
- Blair
- No?
- 'Are you still laughing, Sarat?' Pt One
- 'Are you still laughing, Sarat?' Pt Two
- If you're going to Acton Vale, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
- The truth about medicine
- Getting nowhere fast
- Bird in the bloody wilderness
- As I have so tiresomely repetitively said
- Untitled
- That which sustains
- Therefore, Vice-Chancellor
- The lies they tell and the drivel they spout
- Rising above the evil reptilian kitten-eaters
- We too do not do cowering
- What the papers say
- The closed (sealed/wounded/stunted/practically non-existent) mind
- Dust and sparkles: child of Dust and Light and Lenin
- Just screaming
- More ridiculous womanish screaming
- Look, children, do look, it's a Five-Year Plan
- Fictionally speaking...The House that Keir built
- The heavy mob moves in: "We're Ancient Greeks. We do reason. And of course democracy."
- What did New Labour achieve?
- Apollo speaks
- Physician, heal thyself - or not
- Wholly unnecessary footnote
- Ah, the dirty underbelly of medicine
- Artemis' arrows
- Dear Apollo, I think the mind-itch needs to be stronger
- A few hymns
- Rhinoceros!
- Begging them to sue me for 15 years
- 'Now that I lie here/My body all holes/I think of the traitors/Who bargained and sold'
- Of course, if anyone has a spare atom bomb
- Whatever it takes
- Shit on the sole of my boot
- Shit on the sole of my boot
- You will see me dead rather than support me
- Vultures waiting for the flesh that dies
- Would you like to see the state of my mattress?
- 'When you've shouted "Rule, Britannia!"...
- 'I vow to thee, my country...' Aw, come on, you know it makes your skin crawl
- The Fixers
- The prince, the cardinal, the duke, the politician and the professor
- The Enforcers
- Me charm. You just strange
- So what exactly am I saying here?
- Pussy Riot: Yet another day in the destruction of Ivana Denisovich
- Untitled
- Pussy Riot (2): no pasaran
- Just smile for the camera, fuckers
- PANTHER: the animations, though not yet the videos
- Theme music
- So-o-o
- Just a stupid woman screaming
- Just a reminder of the Miracle of Exmoor
- Mess with the best. Die like the rest
- The essential paradigm
- No-one wants me to survive. No-one wants me to succeed
- "Are you still laughing, Sarat?"
- You have heard of the University, Doctor?
- PANTHER: The Manual, out now on Scribd
- Going back to work tomorrow
- The gift of speech
- Point counterpoint
- To cut a long story short, therefore
- To cut a long story even shorter
- A few things you need to note
- Death rather than dishonour
- In brief, therefore
- Start of first draft - what do you think of it so far?
- Let me tell you a story, Jackanory, Jackanory...
- Phase II
- Thus we see the great esteem in which London medicine holds the University
- Washed down the drain
- Raped, butchered, destroyed means what?
- "I invoke Artemis"
- I invoke Artemis (II)
- The closing-down sale. Everything must go
- Murder by remote control
- Insufferable
- Befehl ist Befehl
- Order of play
- The Broadmoor annexe
- I say, don't they shoot collaborators?
- You pay them
- Dear British Public
- Graphically speaking.....
- I have taken a lead
- Endsum
- The good news and the bad news
- The education suitable to the masses prescribed by the C19th industrialist, therefore
- 'Are you still laughing, Sarat?/Medicine: the joke
- I shit on you daily
- It is fact
- A new continuum...Watch this space not
- Lady Sybil's swamp-dragons (footnote to the above)
- The Age of Aquarius
- But of course your usual Christmas present, little sick-bags
- 'Sing as you raise your bow, shoot straighter than before'
- There's just one huge and enormous difference, isn't there
- Shall we just highlight that bit?
- Untitled
- Untitled
- Off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz
- Untitled
- 'Don despicable, don of death' Could I leave it out?
- Finish with a summary of the facts
- Roll bloody up for the greatest show on earth
- Just thought to start to make a couple of videos
- Killer Queen
- It is concluded
- A short note
- I need help
- Get out of my university, animals
- Bluestockings
- Oh, when is this going to end?
- Go for it, fuckers, go for it
- Fnords, Jesus and the gerund
- Corsin and coradium
- TAH: Chapter One
- The cancer that is medicine
- The Petri dish
- Hanging them is good. Exposing them is better
- Lattic....
- Female = non-person
- That which sustains reprise
- Faun: Unda. To that which sustains, we can add...
- Non, c'est pas ca
- Quod erat demonstrandum
- To move on, therefore
- So there you have it
- The script
- Ars longa vita brevis
- PANTHER: the movie
- Animal Farm: the midden
- The word is psychopath
- If you prefer, a septic tank
- And the rest
- Twin cores
- Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit
- Here the matter rests at present
- So just what is this bloody nonsense?
- My knowledge of Photoshop has increased by leaps and bounds
- Question One
- Words and pictures
- Etched in acid
- Dear fucking world
- More
- Caniba and Hokabi
- I think - class (Lancashire A, puh-lease, rhymes with gas)
- What is the point of what you are saying? What is it intended to achieve?
- PANTHER was created in 2008
- Happy Samhain
- Profound concern
- The Road to the Isles
- And of course Andy Stewart
- 'Banks on every finger'
- Don't tread on me
- A Miracle of Exmoor: a Christmas masque
- Untitled
- Pretty much a classic, wouldn't you say
- Goose-stepping morons should try reading books not burning them (2)
- There is no reasoning with them
- A little give and take
- Extraordinary irresistible find
- Music
- So there it is, part solution, mostly not
- Reprise: 'Are you still laughing, Sarat?'/Medicine: the joke
- Mireille
- Espèce de pute!
- Etched in stone
- Hate Fal the most?
- Or Shav?
- Or is it Dill?
- Or is it Dill?
- Reminder: Ars longa vita brevis
- Reminder: PANTHER: the movie
- 'If you cannot make up rhymes/There are always the columns of The Times'
- Jarring blast: letter to my father 19th February 2012
- Vermin made simple
- You were saying
- And so, dear MI5, dear Labour Party, dear University...
- I who might as well be fucking dead
- Death rather than dishonour
- Strands
- Dolls on music-boxes wound up by a key
- Beyond death
- You can fit a lot into a five-minute video
- Je suis Charlie
- Marble Arch? The Brandenburg Gate? The Colosseum?
- Sort of cross between Athena and Artemis, really
- OK, lemme be rational
- Meanwhile...
- Meanwhile...
- As if: cui bono?
- Dark satanic mills
- Work in progress
- Welcome to sewer NHS
- Over my dead body
- Beam them up to the Great Prick in the Sky
- So there it is, part solution, mostly not
- That which sustains finale
- Messing about on the River: Lattic, Sarat and Shavli too
- Christ, it's a mad monkey
- Lots of nuffink
- Led Zep: Kashmir (2)
- The pillars of the West/By all means get us wrong, Father
- Evil reptilian kitten-eater
- Cockroach Protection League
- Happy Easter
- The very models of a medical practitioner
- The Act of Desecration
- No is the answer. What is the question? Loony alert, therefore
- The Grand Plan
- Go for it
- Waste of oxygen
- Prologue
- Intermezzo
- Just the time for a brief reminder
- Mess with the best - die like the rest
- Wailings of sick Trots not
- Heavy metal
- 'Allow me to introduce myself...'
- Freddie and Peter
- How to depict one of the most powerful men in the world
- Moog
- Anyone for tennis?
- Hair
- Hairier?
- Hairiest?
- Untitled
- Python and Allen
- Prepared for any eventuality
- Bad moon rising with soundtrack
- Riders on the storm with soundtrack
- 'Sing as you raise your bow, shoot straighter than before' encore une fois
- Not one foul animal among them will uphold freedom and democracy
- Flower power
- Meanwhile there's really only one song for Ardeshna (and Blair)
- Thin red line - the third of the set
- PANTHER: the movie - nealy there
- Do you like my channel art?
- Couple more soundbites to choke on
- Home movie
- Damaged goods
- How is Virginia these days?
- The Hunger Games
- Now on YouTube
- Second vid
- The Mutts
- The Mutt Pit
- The video I shall make
- Kindly therefore display all the wit, creaivity, intellect, education and intelligence you don't have
- The last picture show
- Faun: Unda. To that which sustains, we can add...
- Faun: Unda. To that which sustains, we can add...
- Faun: Unda. To that which sustains, we can add...
- The Last Picture Show 2: female eunuchs
- In tg
- New Page
- New Page
- New Page
- In
- In the heat of the night
- In the heat of the night
- Not a complicated image
- Vermin
- 'It is a slave's lot thou describest, to refrain from uttering what one thinks'
- Won't that be fun, Fitter?
- New Page
- Nous sommes tous P:aris
- Meanwhile back at the ranch
- You may remember the Squelch?
- DIXI
- I laugh at you daily
- The end
- Fuck your lies, your cowardice, your hypocrisy, vermin
- Got it all sewn up
- I am Dill
- PANTHER: the movie - a reminder
- And of course the manual
- They deploy
- New Page
- Traitors and would be murderers
- And the other video
- Yes, there are, aren't there.
- Zopiclone
- Hell
- No answer is a very clear answer
- For Katie: All times are now (1)
- For Katie: The Lord of the Dance
- For Katie and m: The heart will go on
- If it's the last thing I ever do, whcih I suppose it might well be
- My fine body twisted, all battered and lame
- Reflections
- For Katie: The trumpet shall sound
- For Katie: Hallelujah Chorus
- For Katie
- The service
- Reading from 'Burnt Norton'
- Going Back
- or in other words
- I need help
- Time past and time future
- Tomorrow
- How many other lives have you destroyed?
- Arundel
- After such knowledge, what forgiveness
- Let it be said - it will be said
- Information governance
- So----
- Sitting in their tin cans far above the world...
- Another shit-filled weekend
- The Cull
- Society has the right to require of avery public agent an account of his administration
- The laughing stock
- 'Sing while you raise your bow...'
- Simple questions
- For fuck's sake they're all vermin
- Functionally illiterate
- Of no significance to me whatever
- The best story
- Mess with the best. Die like the rest
- The visible difference
- Drop the dead donkey: UCH imploding
- It remains the case
- Oh, and it remains the case
- What matters
- Salvat regina!
- Nancy Wake
- Nancy Wake 2
- 2016: your annual treat - A Miracle of Exmoor
- Dunscreaming (shortly, anyhow)
- Any normal person
- Malice
- Keep your loving brother happy
- Surprised by joy
- University Challenge
- Meanwhile back at the lamp-post
- Except to speak of the absolute horror
- And in particular
- Because I screamed I needed help
- QED
- Sredni Vashtar
- The wild and wacky world of the Waffen SS
- Think I'm a bloody servant, do you
- Irrationality
- Literate, literary, educated, intellectual England
- Refinements
- Doesn't the University see the joke?
- The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
- On the whole, I think....
- Ain't taking it from a woman
- A great and mighty wonder I'm still standing
- The zenith of human possibility
- ' pilot of the storm who leaves no trace'
- 'Sing while you raise your bow. Shoot straighter than before'
- In the face of the evidence
- Watch this space
- Brennt Paris?
- 'I vow to thee, my country...' Aw, come on, you know it makes your skin crawl
- Within you, without you - especially without you
- Ain't I got no respet
- Goose-stepping morons should try reading books not burning them
- The Matter of Kadun: physics and metaphysics
- Cartoons
- Over-arching significance not
- They just wouldn't list
- 'And now that I lie here/My body all holes'
- Photoshoot
- I saved about half the books
- I just don't understand
- Fnords
- Pigs in clover
- See you in hell, fuckers
- Attempted murder
- Bog-rats
- Person or persons unknown but very guessable
- All you need is love
- One more time
- More
- Depict them in bondage
- In sum, Mr Benn's questions
- 'Arnold Lane/Had a strange/Hobby...'
- '...Doors bang/Chain-gang...'
- Etx
- Shoot straighter than before
- My moon and my wand
- My college, my university
- Inevitable and not
- painfully slow on the uptake
- This too you may stuff up your arse
- And of course this
- Pout
- TTFN
- Wiping excrement off the sole of my boot
- A West End comedy, perhaps
- Fascism
- I really don't think so, no
- For Katie: He who would valiant be
- For Katie: He who would valiant be
- For Barry: Danny Boy
- Epitaph: it's your funeral
- Yea, though I work in the Land of the Valley of the Shadow of Death
- Do learn to read, Doctor
- The crooked road the English drunkard made
- By Oak and Ash and Thorn
- Can't un read plain words of English
- I get the gist, I surely do
- The world of perversion
- The Ottery has moved to the banks of the Arun
- Snapping my claws at the foeman''s chants
- Yes, the crash of the waves on the foreshore
- The even longer march of Everywoman
- You tried so desperately hard to destroy me
- Evil reptilian kitten-eaters
- The five most evil men in England
- Love does not drown in corruption)
- Like something out of Hieronymus Bosch
- Harry Secombe: The Old Rugged Cross
- The Drivellers
- Insolence is so very vexing, is it not
- Protected by the faith of my fore-fathers
- Lost causes
- Solid Soviet steel
- 1
- Murderous vermin who jeer at disability
- Clarity
- De profundis clamavi
- Reprise: Nancy Wake 2
- Generals gather in their masses...
- Cry foul and bloody murder
- Tumour
- New Page
- Ludicrous
- I think I said get me out of there
- This is not life
- All bets off, fuckers
- New Page
- Dearest darling Katie and Barry
- You think you impress me?
- Manners, ladies and gentlemen, puh-lease
- I suppose the exact charge would be
- No-o-o I don't thik you should forget about Lattic
- Boys having a bit of a larf
- I thnk, you know, dear Artemis...
- Sttill drooling, are you
- 'Thou shallt not suffer a witch to live.;
- My YouTube channel
- Education is what is left
- New Page
- To su
- To sum up
- The endless road traversed (nearly)
- It's a mandala, stupid
- Happy New Year
- Keep your loving brother happy
- Not with a bang but a whimper
- I, however, have outstanding questions
- Feline groovy
- Suitable cases for treatment
- I have spoken
- Nothing taxing to the sane
- I have of course the utmost...
- Doctors and nurses cannot cope with quantum physics
- Addended: Etched in acid and have been for years
- The psychology of medicine
- No outcry
- A very simple question
- To which task I shall now..
- RIP the Labour Party
- First things first
- I a woman
- The Howard lion
- Lest we forget: I don't
- New Page
- Pat me on the head and tell mee not to be a silly little girl
- I a woman of over 60
- A hanging matter
- The gross falsification of history
- 'The writers by their presence...'
- One more time just for the hell of it
- Lastly...
- The answer is no
- So that was the Universiity that was
- Hey you, get off of my cloud...
- Off. off, off of my cloud...
- A right waste of make-up
- So what?
- Footnotes to the above
- So where - ?
- What is the name of - and can't they - ?
- The glorious first of June
- Why has the door not been smashed down/?
- Your professors, Vice-Chancellor
- Anti-dialogue
- Shall we finish with a quick...
- They don't want the Jabberwock slain
- ABOVE THE LAW?
- So - I think -
- "Sentence first = verdict afterwards."
- DA and TM
- Post mortem
- Everywhere I go people are collecting bloody food
- how many people are on PAYE?
- I am naturallly reminded...
- Where was I?
- Where was I (2)?
- Welcome to the NHS
- Let's play doctors and nurses
- 'Senior members of the University'
- These are {{DOCTORS}}} and {{{NURSES}}}
- The girl who talked to otters
- How you hate intelligence
- And you always get away with it, don't you
- And you always get away with it, don't you
- The Hundred Flowers Movement
- New Page
- In one line
- Belloc, Apollo and May
- While readiing The Four Men
- Golgotha, place of a skull
- Troll toes
- So go for it
- PUT-DOWN
- New Page
- The required result
- Sex and mind
- Their mommas told them...
- Greece or Rome
- The new normal
- Isn't this interesting?
- New Page
- Ruthless vicious evil old men
- The charge is atteempted murder
- The C-List
- Q&A
- Ludicrous propositions
- Chained to the oars
- Footnotes
- 1095 and all that
- The Anglican garden
- Or of course a Kabbalist
- I have some time ago...
- Cult, Death-Eaters
- Not forgetting Nathan the Wise
- Cultural exchange
- And of course not forgetting...
- In short, in my young day...
- Contemplating this Matter of Kadun
- Nearly there
- I detect, therefore
- 'That government by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth.'
- Tingle
- Follow-up
- Cave-meen
- Not ancient history
- I have indeed graphically
- 'By their deeds'
- So maybe you'll also like this bit
- Just to be exact
- Which?
- Oh, all right, just for you
- Left something out, didn't I
- Didn't quite finish that off
- Ciletij
- Ritawa
- Shav and Zik
- The party
- Spetzi
- senoki
- Punching the pixels
- Reality
- More tails from the riverbank
- The Sarat and Maya Show
- Perverts
- If we may now...
- In short
- progress
- A national joke
- The Spetzi Effect
- Quanta
- Who owns me if I do not own myself? Reprise
- Who owns me if I do not own myself? Reprise
- Boys having a bit of a larf
- You really have....
- And they all just sit there
- So exactly what - ?
- Hostile fascist foreign powers
- Personal, very
- Rubber dolly
- Essentially
- Fana
- LLLLOLLLL
- Unnatural, innit
- It's over, monkeys, over
- You might learn something but probably not
- So now Blair will tell us all
- Spetzi and Qine
- RL
- Qine and Spetzi
- Fucktards united
- Capital
- Well, didn't I just hand myself the short straw
- Do they actually understand?
- Quotable quotes
- 3D printing
- Ah, but can you print fluffy cushions?
- Taking an intelligent interest
- Vaudos 1
- Vaudos 2
- Vaudos 2.75
- New Page
- Anniversary Waltz
- Automation: ostrich land
- The Kirit and Micaela Show
- New Page
- Cookery time
- What are they like!
- Until we meet on camera...
- And just because I know you love Homeric hymns
- New Page
- Dear Artemis, Athena, Apollo and Pan
- Baz and Paw on the loose in Van-Senok
- Back to the fermions
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- A crude, vulgar, ugly, insolent, mad and evil little man
- RIP English Christianity
- And the outstanding question is...
- Foxes, fruit, fermions and fuck you where you breathe
- Varna's Wall
- Particularly working on
- From the Shrine to the Viledeen
- Spring
- Fisking Welby
- New Page
- And how is the great penis in the sky tonight?
- After-thoughts: don't forget Isis and her pal Sobek
- The cat I don't yet have
- The Greater and Lesser Lunacies
- To whom it may concern....
- New Page
- Frank
- Cock-suckers
- Should you not be a movie buff...
- Marked as property
- Questions, questions....
- You will publicly answer those questions
- And this was Margaret
- Reprise: Our grandfather who art in heaven (though I doubt it), Howard be thy name
- To remind you...
- England the poem
- Back to the Viledeen
- Come on, I just want you to...
- So this is the story
- New Page
- Theme from The Water Margin
- Turn off the bloody Horst Wessel Lied
- Is it -10 yet?
- Chesterton - and Belloc
- New Page
- So what have I proved?
- Mock you incessantly
- No problem, no problem at all
- They have only one interest
- Misa and ban-Razit
- Rowley and Saunders
- HARD WIRING
- Bad science
- Dereliction of duty here, comrades
- Taking it from the top..
- New Page
- Dot the i. Cross the t
- More Fal
- Maya's assassination
- So-o-o
- Well, hi there, Sar-fenan
- And the third reason
- Ysabel Belinda Felicity Jehan Howard
- 'And now that I lie here...'
- Ain't they really
- And so
- 'Of course she has to do this on her own.'
- Who the fuck are Bonnie and Clyde
- How the cards fall
- And don't forget Dill
- And Shav and Dill
- Squishy, Archchancellor: not a healthy diet
- Back to you, Sar-Fenan
- This is not a physics textbook
- e=mc2
- A NON-EVENT
- woo hoo
- Her story
- Oi, you, Sar-fenan!
- Bloody kitten-eaters
- HHGG 1
- HHGG 4
- HHGG 2
- Reprise: It reallly is...
- Dave Allen
- Some psycho schizoid freak
- So absolutely insolently irreducibly evil
- This site
- Under the block
- Do you not understand?
- Gee, it's so wonderful to know
- Parameters
- I might go so far as to say
- I might''ve finished losing my temper
- Archaeopteryx flew like a pheasant
- I am not a child. Children are under 16
- New Page
- Blair, Corbyn, WCPI
- Smile for the camera
- 'Labour'
- Nothing you won't surrender
- HTF do I hitch a lift to Betelgeuse?
- "We are the Daleks."
- Back as ever to the Viledeen
- Scream quietly or the neighbours will hear
- The products rejected out of hand
- ComSymp ShariaSymp Fit the Third
- How to defend England
- If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you...
- National Museum Wales
- Why is this continuing?
- My mission I seem to have been landed with
- Dixi
- Go it alone, suffer alone, what's new
- Deep breaths
- New Page
- Gratis
- Justt to complete the set
- About that grave
- Damn!
- About that clock
- Oh pilot of the storm that leaves no trace
- Last but by no means least
- After which
- Or in short
- Notification...
- I think perhaps tomorrow...
- C17th England
- Je suis comme je suis
- Whatever you do, take pride...
- Selfies
- There remains of course my mind
- If you failed to get the gist
- Alice's Left Hip Esquire
- Limp pricks and no balls
- New Page
- Never ask them to strip
- You, off my planet
- If they absolutely won't...
- Achilles' heel
- Oh just do begone
- No-one on Planet Normal
- Welcome to Labour's England
- Democracy...
- New Page
- Bringing back the dark
- The best story
- Is there one single point?
- To come up to date
- Evil
- The destruction of the intellectual basis of the free world
- The mad relations in the rafters
- Let this be my contentment
- Results
- None of which of course
- A purely indigenous evil
- Here the matter rests at present
- New Page
- New Page
- A toss-up
- Blair
- New Page
- Reality 105
- The wearing of the green
- Recently come to light
- Growly snarly wolf
- New Page
- Five years later...
- Bobbles
- OK, assume.
- A flight of fancy
- So long as we understand each other
- Footnote
- Fisking Warsi reprise
- Why was nothing done?
- Job well done, filth
- Being a galactic mail from me to Zaphod
- Beyond evil
- In the 61st minute of the final hour
- Doo-be, doo-be, do
- English Christianity until....
- New Page
- 'I AM KING AND GOD AND LAW#
- So I get this
- Bad mood
- Another book for you, Blair
- One should always write things down - in some form or another
- All cleared up in five minutes
- Of course I have worn such a hat
- Thus, bloody thus
- No pasaran
- I continued...
- You prefer Misa and Ban-razit
- The 3D printer in the town centre
- Labour's apotheosis
- Selling women by the pound
- Why, my own mother and father wouldn't recognize me
- And the punchline is
- Do just go and fuck yourselves
- Fruit Loop
- Only one interest
- The price of a woman's body
- Eris
- Just can't hear you
- VR
- Not as exciting as Hokabi
- 'Unfortunate'
- Oh look what they're saying about me
- Should one really not...
- I am intelligent.
- From the archives: fisking Warsi
- Do MPs entirely grasp what they're there for?
- Our servants not our masters
- New Page
- Or you could say the reverse
- The problem is that there is no problem
- Irrelevant
- From the archives: who killed Banaz
- From the archives: ooh, we are so sensitive
- From the archives: wondrous multiculturalism
- From the archives: Banaz' sister spoke out
- Neither right nor honourable nor gentlemen
- The carrion chorus
- And so
- New Page
- Can hear you from here, animal
- Forgot it at Christmas
- 'Blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain'
- So golly gosh
- And I laugh (2)
- What else can we talk about
- Thus
- Spare ribs
- Mene mene tekel upharsin
- And of course...
- Matthew 7: 3
- Blair
- This exchange
- Because it's a horrible way to die
- Peter
- Those convictions
- A purely pernicious twist
- The open mind
- They took away the post-its
- First part of Fal 2
- Sarat at the Shrine 1
- Sarat at the Shrine 2
- To continue...
- Contemplating this Matter of Kadun 1
- 2. Contemplating this Matter of Kadun 2
- Shav, Petrush and this Matter of Kadun
- Shav, Petrush and this Matter of Kadun
- Dill and this Matter of Kadun
- Of course
- Ridiculous and viie
- From the archives: obedience (1912)
- I should imagine...
- From the archives: And who kept this bubbling?
- From the archives: Voltaire on the CofE
- From the archives: Extra ecclesiam nulla salus
- From the archives: The Vatican archives 1
- From the archives: the Vatian archives 2
- From the archives: The Vatican archives 3
- 2000 years making most of it up
- Proud Archbishop of York conducts his own daughter's wedding ceremony
- New Page
- Nothing may be said. Nothing may be done.
- It seemed a good idea at th e time
- Sarat, Maya, Cioulis, Spetzi,Ritawa reprise
- Aren't they gorgeous?
- A precedent has been set
- Something else for the animals to gloat over
- Let's play doctors and nurses
- Women beware women
- How best may we accommodate you, o master
- The Agora
- New Page
- Violence power coercion desecration
- BOURGEOIS MORALITY
- New Page
- Once more from the top
- So what do I think?
- First part of Fal
- Fal 2 2021
- Fal and Tet
- To conclude: to whom it may concern
- Sarat and Hass
- THis is what I look like, Vice-Chancellor
- Sonderkommando
- The balance of probability
- Can I keep this up for ever?
- How you hate intelligence 2
- Et freaking cetera
- Honestly, darling, that mantilla
- The prince, the duke, the cardinal, the politician and the professor
- The Fixers
- The Enforcers
- By the balls of Apollo!
- Cernunnos
- Burunda
- Solidarity
- About that new sofa I printed...
- A position it is entirely easy to understand
- Yes. Yes, you are ridiculous
- Yes. Yes, everything I have said about you is an understatement
- Meanwhile back at the ottery
- The flawed concept of Islamophobia
- Oh rats!
- The revolving door
- Ah yes, my future
- Explicit liber
- So now....
- Deep breaths
- Thanks awfully for the suggestion, old boy
- A list, therefore
- Previous reflections
- Ah, culture
- Ah, here you have the nub
- New Page
- Tropes
- Letter to my dead parents
- New Page
- These they left me
- Don't forget Lattic
- Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
- Song of the Western Men
- The new national anthem
- Wanna see the Deeds
- New Page
- Another very fine song
- Shamima Begum
- The perfect citizens of a fascist state
- Grease
- Love, Serafina Pekkala
- To whom it may concern
- First part of Fal
- Fal 2
- Also to whom it may concern
- So what happened then?
- New Page
- New Page
- Who has no authority in England
- I shall now potter off
- La trahison des clercs
- 'Those who cannot remember the past...'
- A little intellectual exercise...
- The view of the Labour leadership
- Take it from the top, Karl
- Is Abbott a feminist? We shall see
- Ooh, we are so sensitive
- Death before dishonour
- Listen very carefully. I shall say this only once
- Of course certain lines here
- Hide the Secret. Hide the Weakness
- The very model of a modern faith apologist
- Models of modern health practitioners
- Meanderings
- Negation
- Bloody certifiable
- Convert, comrades, convert!
- Found the articles
- Dangerous animals
- I name you the Duke of Plaza-Toro
- New Page
- New Page
- Christchurch 1
- New Page
- New Page
- To May, whom it concerns
- Shouts and whispers
- Hic jacet
- Hyde Park, London, England
- Condition of the Working-Class in England 1845
- Thus ComSymp ShariaSymp
- Ooh, you guessed
- You are so obvious
- In detail
- Hard wiring
- If mind does not exist., democracy is unnecessary
- Th Age of Reason, 1794
- Fisking Cantuar
- Danger: profoundly esoteric image
- The seer and that which he sees are one.
- Meanwhile hats off to the Guardian
- Letter to MI5 in case you missed it.
- Fucking Pollyanna
- The Greta Garbo Home for Wayward Boys and Girls
- Perhaps in five year old English
- Non serviam
- The 7 principles of public life. Pix too
- Tor and Tonge
- Barking moonbats
- Herr Hitler, I presume
- A rich joke, Blair
- Eire in the 1950s?
- Cold shower
- By definition 'God' has to know what a lepton is
- Ah, the Yorkshire Ripper
- Parallel government
- New Page
- You will not look at them
- The magic migraine
- From about a year ago
- La nausee
- Yes, it's Operation Mindfuck
- Book review
- Happy bloody Easter
- A little quiet attempted murder
- Fal 2
- The curse of the killer zombies
- So the next logical step would be...
- Don't my silly little arts degree mean nuffink?
- Oh dear I have upset someone(s)
- New Page
- A few questions
- There are no great ones
- Gets so horribly in the way
- Violence against women, it's what you pay your taxes for
- 'Bring me the head of Alfreddo Garcia'
- Just don't forget Lattic
- The House of the Rising Sun
- The initiation of force
- Yes, that's right, I said Bentley
- Turning now to this Matter of Kadun I
- Shav, Petrush and this Matter of Kadun
- Shav, Petrush and the Matter of Kadun 2
- Do admire your handiwork
- Marche funebre
- Misogyny
- On this 75th anniversary...
- The Enchanted Forest
- If you should confront these filth
- Encore une fois
- Impertinent evil filth
- A successful outcome
- Therefore...
- Which end is up
- I shall create it
- PANTHER: The Manual, out now on Scribd
- Sarat, Maya, Cioulis, Spetzi,Ritawa
- First part of Fal
- Fal 2
- Indeed there are many interesting people to talk to in my mind
- Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof
- To dig a little deeper
- Of food-banks and reprographics
- No dark
- Just remembered another spectacular waste of money
- More about Tories
- And more...
- This and that and some of the other
- Or in short
- Don't forget The House That Keir Built
- Memo to the Senate of the University of London
- Turning now to this Matter of Kadun I
- Shav, Petrush and this Matter of Kadun
- The fur does settle...
- Models of medical practitioners
- HARD WIRING 2
- Strange things happen in the quantum universe
- Strange things happen in the quantum world
- "Are you still laughing, Sarat?"
- Falsity
- Je ne regrette rien
- Of course you could always check the facts
- 'Do you recall what was the deal/The day the music died.'
- The family handbook
- Goose-stepping morons
- Riidiculous
- Welcome to the diverse and plural real world
- Does it not sound sweet?
- This half-wit waving her degree...
- O tempora! O mores! O mayhem!
- Sexism is a crime
- ''I can't be treated like this.'
- And here the matter rests at present
- J'ai vecu
- Extreme unction
- The free movement of peoples
- The rules
- The witch must burn in hell, he trumpeted,
- You can always ask Google
- Monsters
- Just think, then you can add murder to your CVs
- New Page
- No dark
- In sum
- Give them everything they ask for
- Good for a laugh
- The end. Full stop.
- Just grow a pair
- Bad moon rose
- To whom it may concern
- And?
- And don't forget Lattic
- The Hall of Mirrors
- Because of course
- How to murder a woman
- Bwahaha
- They gave them time
- My big brown eyes
- A n all-party statement from the House of Commons
- Fat pig
- Always remember...
- Always remember...
- The whole lot of them
- Clear and present danger
- Note to Jackson, Hughes and Ardeshna
- So...
- Oy, you
- They did not like the New Marxism at all
- Irritable Owl Syndrome
- The drivel show
- Oh, you know, Woodstock
- Aqiuarius
- One more time and once again...
- Anglican England
- Since I feel bloody annoying
- At cock crow
- Civilized behaviour
- New Page
- 'Thirty pieces of silver'
- 'I look for truth and find that I get damned'
- Found the quote
- Carrion
- Books
- Singer to my clan in that dim red dawn of man
- Five Prime Ministers
- The victory of the Tuatha de Danaan
- A briefer response
- Bonfire Night
- Conjecture
- Or as I said more lucidly...
- They really didn't like my poems at all
- Denis Diderot
- The Age of Reason
- Some years later...
- We the people
- Side-dishes
- So do tell
- Facts
- Reality
- Because I know you hate it even more
- So perhaps
- Termites
- So you go right on..
- I even told them about the SOE
- Transforming the Na-Mhoram's Grim
- Oh and this
- I think Hafiz would have liked Bunyan's hymn
- Fisking Warsi
- Welcome to Brighton, a plural and diverse community
- An 'All Party Parliamentary Group'
- Oh, when will this end?
- QEbloodyD
- To return to civilization.
- Fal continued
- Fal and Tet
- Dill and this Matter of Kadun
- Shav, Petrush and this Matter of Kadun
- Maya's assassination
- They stripped
- For monkey-nuts: dixi
- Fisking Malik: Preamble
- Melodrama
- Fisking Malik: Part One
- The end is Nye
- Aberfan
- New York Mining Disaster 1941
- Resonances
- Don't talk to me about the law
- And so...
- And the other thing...
- you so love lies, don't you
- Writing things down
- I am the very model of a medical practitioner
- PAINLESS BUT PERMANENT
- Love from Serafina Pekkala
- A difference of opinion
- Just a theory
- What the hell do you think I am, you ridiculous little pieces of shit
- This will do for the time being
- This colour doesn't run
- The desired result
- No balls, 'Frank', just no balls
- Just call me Harmonica
- Hokabi
- In his tin can, far above the world
- Bloody psychopaths, in short
- Berchtesgaden, 1935
- You are so obvious, Blair
- So what happens next?
- So what is the matter with you
- End of the road
- Happy New Year
- Meaningless
- Kinky boys
- A sick joke
- So:
- Bottom-feeders
- New Page
- So why are you here?
- There, isn't that just so cute
- The Lizard of Oz
- And stuff this...
- And they have never heard of...
- Of course I'm a fucking witch
- Just getting out my tunic of skins
- Erudite, that's me
- In short...
- First part of Fal
- Fal 2
- So, as ever
- It is a slave's lot thou describest
- Shav, Petrush and this Matter of Kadun
- Medicine: the joke
- Are you five-year-olds?
- The Directorate
- Murderers and traitors
- Books....
- Books, filth, books
- Since I have no intention...
- Oh, how they stripped.
- Indeed, it is like this, Doc
- Thus...
- And the fuss is about what?
- This and that
- And don't forget Lattic
- Lemme set the scene
- Diversity
- This matter of Kadun: (inner and eso) 1
- The matter of Kadun (inner and eso) 2
- They are the Daleks. They are Masters of the Universe
- I however do not remotely think that
- 'See how I die. Just watch me die.'
- A simple case of attempted murder
- The final act
- Our story
- So why did they not support PANTHER?
- Love drowned in Corruption
- All times are now (1)
- Transforming the Na-Mhoram's Grim
- 'The Father took from him the Keys and the Sword'
- 'That government by the people....'
- Ir's a fucking doddle
- The smoking gun
- Read all abaht it
- Woo-hoo, it's a full moon.
- Carrion
- 'All you need is love'
- Just not macho
- So what precisely - ?
- so when England's answer to Indiana Jones...
- And you filth at UCH
- 'When Julius Fabricius, Sub-Prefect of the Weald...'
- More history (after a bit)
- Exodus 32 (well, loosely)
- A 99% confidence rating
- Something of the kind..
- Come to my funeral, Blair?
- Do anything for them, anything to feed them
- Forgot to repeat the Bobbles letters
- England in the C21st and the C12th
- In the event of.
- My head held firmly under water
- The most basic standards
- Miscellany
- The primate pecking order
- Cancer Ward
- Locke, Hume, Kant, Mill, is there anyone they didn't ban
- Farce
- The Tories' own quest for ideological purity
- 'opium of the people'
- Blair's New Model England
- In English not Latin or Arabic
- Because no-one stops them
- The thin end of the wedge
- Intellectually sickening
- And don't forget Lattic
- Sickboy
- From the Shrine to the Viledeen
- The company of civilized people
- The care of the penis
- So you're happy now
- Unlikely
- I hope...
- So very much more interesting
- Astronomy for Kids of all ages
- Dill and this Matter of Kadun
- In sum....
- Shit
- And I laugh
- Feeesh
- And be damned to you.
- Avatars of perfection
- New Page
- Marked for extermination from the start
- i'm helpless and desperate and alone so just fuck you
- So just go and
- Wouldn't it be lovely to be in hospital
- Alice's adventure in hospital
- The NHS does not live by bread alone
- Just say cheese
- Clear and present danger to women
- There are those who despise being able to spell....
- I remain, yours sincerely
- Do you think I don't know what you are
- Thus troll toes
- Achilles
- Complete barbarians
- Bloody rings of power
- Lady Sybil's exploding dragons
- Mesdames, messieurs, faites vos jeux
- A societal archetype....
- Sascha doing his renowned impression of a baby zebra
- Pog ma thoin!
- The continuum
- Good to see the young people out in the fresh air enjoying themselves
- Look once again at spite-ridden lower-middle-class women
- So the hell with you
- Mr Morgan, Mr Paxman
- Ah, you're going to sue me?
- Or perhaps
- So which particular set of ludicrous and obscene lies?
- The opium of the people
- Throw them my body, throw them my life. Can't do enough for them
- The hell with all of you
- First part of Fal
- Fal 2
- Fal and Tet
- All any of them want, my destruction, the destruction of democracy, destruction of the University
- Maya's assassination
- Sarat, Maya, Cioulis, Spetzi,Ritawa
- Vultures
- They had one chance
- Monsters
- So the fuss is about what?
- Unrectifiable harm done with malice aforethought
- There was, you will recall, a bad moon rising
- Cool stuff
- Just what is your fucking problem?
- So now Emglishwomen are destroyed at the command of sadists
- Aggravating factors: adding insult to injury
- Selfies
- Evidence
- Bonnie and Clyde
- Chinese whispers
- Beyond evil
- Evidence
- They jumped from 40,000 feet without a parachute
- Kindle and things
- Bloody Operation Mindfuck
- What to do when they push Chinese writing under the door
- The word you seek is brainwashed
- The bloody cosmic laughter.
- I thought you might like to see...
- Women's bodies break easily
- They were told and they were told and they were told
- Not on the whole given to Schadenfreude
- Do they actually have IQs or do they flatline?
- Wouldn;'t it be funny if Bobbles were Francis
- All times are now, yet again
- Shame
- What you need to do...
- So all of it a right bloody waste of make-up
- 'There is nothing you can't buy'
- And of course I told them what would happen
- The sub-species woman
- Le quatorze juillet
- Oh and this bit, comrades
- 'Tell all the boys I'm back in the city...'
- Time for a wash and brush-up
- And, and, and
- Verse 5 of the Red Flag and don't forget Lattic
- New Page
- But of course
- Fill in a few gaps
- Merit
- Homo sapiens sapiens stands erect
- Bunch of boobs
- The required result
- Lower than vermin, much lower
- And another one
- The Wizard of Oz
- And the only outstanding question
- Cooking the books
- so come on....
- Hell and tarnation
- You did go to school, Blair?
- New Page
- New Page
- Sick-boys
- Pscyho-sexual cripples
- Understanding
- Oh and because I know you're thick...
- Another scalp for the sick-boys
- So, pig-bitch
- Pig-bitch 2
- Pig-bitch 3
- Functionally illiterate
- How you hate human
- The ghost in the machine was riled
- Dear MI5 person
- Or perhaps Linch and Goldstone prefer...
- Yes
- First part of Fal
- Fal 2
- Fal and Tet
- You, Blair
- This site will self-destruct...
- Left out repeating the juicy bit
- Hi to the University of Witwatersrand or wherever
- You are really very funny
- You are really very funny
- How very funny
- As if
- If...
- Can it be more obvious>
- Conclusion
- The initiation of force
- A busted flush
- Shall we have that again?
- The sum of the ravings
- This meanwhile
- But of course
- Point-blank rejection of the governing system of the country
- What part of fuck off does the Vatican not understand?
- Please save the crackling
- Happy Hallowe'en
- This bit's fun too
- Time it was
- Oh you know, like this
- Screw you....
- As if
- NHS bureaucracy strikes again
- More asses
- Show's over
- My body, my self
- New Page
- Hate intelligence, hate better
- The Library at Alexandria (and things)
- HARD WIRING A
- Hard wiring B
- Hard wiring C
- And of course they ain't fucking illitrit
- Index Librorum Prohibitorum and things
- New Page
- Jesus, look at them!
- So take a walk on the wild side
- But your Achilles' heel remains
- Addressing an empty crisp packet
- Empty crisp packets
- So here's to you, criminal vermin
- Only 4000 variants
- So they sat there jerking themselves off
- And on no account forget Lattic
- So, Mr Benn's questions
- The contents of the septic tank
- Lizard men
- Playing with my dolls
- Ah, yes, the funny farm
- Hic jacet 2
- New Page
- This was Anglican England
- I really understand
- First part of Fal 2021
- Fal 2 2021
- Fal and Tet 2021
- Trash
- The horoor
- The Reformation
- Uncle Joe and the Na-Mhoram's Grim
- Dixi@ I have spokwn
- And govenment is for what?
- And here is picture of Jesus with his beloved pet ferret
- Your Christmas favourite
- Peter
- And this is what happened
- Les Eleutheromanes
- I repeat, just for the hell of it.
- So I'll just go on thinking my own thoughts
- All times are now (1)
- All times are now (3)
- 'Be careful with that axe, Eugene'
- La Ballade des Pendus
- We do not know
- Banal
- The wrong kind of snow
- Oy, monkey-nuts
- Lizard-men
- And of course they all know too
- Fiver in the Death Warren
- And lo it came to pass
- One way to deal with sexual fuxk-ups
- Dill and this Matter of Kadun 2021
- Frauds
- Complications
- Yes, but I know who I am
- Today satirized as
- Dill, the bit in the middle
- Question
- Ah, but
- What can be wrong with that?
- So what have I done
- And this is the state of my body
- Absolutely insolent, absolutely evil, absolutely degenerate
- Dangerous wild beasts
- Cowardly, contemptible cock=suckers
- Farce
- Thus, m'lud, it is clearly demonstrated
- An offence against law, fact, reason, sanity
- So we go through it all again
- The empty swimming-pool
- So I have questions
- One more bloody time
- It remains the best way
- Get real
- Two to the power of 75000 to one against and falling
- Along with Oolon Colluphid
- Head honcho
- So why - ?
- Civilized behaviour
- 'Be careful with that axe,Eugene' (2)
- Deep Thought
- England in the C21st
- So what's next?
- I do understand
- Right bloody waste of make-up
- An aggressive cancer
- A question of degree (not the academic kind)
- McDonnell's little friends in Iran
- Ah, yes, McDonnell
- Everything was perfectly normal
- Blog
- So when did you hear - ?
- Time for a wash and brush-up
- Time for a wash and brush-up (2)
- So calming
- The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
- Google Images search
- Am enthusiastic amateur classicist
- It only remains therefore
- Aum mani padme hum
- New Page
- WHen everything fails
- Jackson
- Thus
- Tsk, tsk, tsk
- If I may translate...
- Perhaps you prefer - ?
- Roast aurochs
- Totally synbolic, totally not
- Just doesn't matter, does it
- Base details
- History, should there be any
- Libro de los juegos
- Yuck! Kitten-eaters!
- Sea-changes: writing the 60s out of history
- So do just tell
- The end of the world is nigh
- New Page
- The party of law and order
- Thank you, Prime Minister, that will be all
- Fit for human habitation
- Aw, Dimitri!
- Yes? And?
- Ah, bon, les putes
- Indicting Tories
- Poor Mr Sunak
- Falsity
- RL
- Untitled
- The D-word
- Nye, wouldst that thou wert living at this hour!
- Sp gp fpr ot
- Fortunately there are more elevated things to do than contemplate infected shit
- The parable of the respirator
- Arbeit macht frei
- Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
- It's the grapes that come from Chile
- Untitled
- The actual social principles of Christianity
- The social principles of Christianity as observed by Marx
- Bananas and eggs with your polio
- The hallmarks of the age
- Gilead
- Spinal tap
- Purr
- An atypical population
- New Page
- Leche-culs
- The Woman with the Book and the Woman with the Bow
- RTFM
- The ceding of democratic control
- I shit on you daily
- The ceding of democratic control pt 2
- Fortunately there are civilized people to talk to
- This is how to deal with pervert monkeys
- Pink stars and burquas
- Ditching the theology of love: reprise
- A happy communist life
- Or you prefer Nigel?
- Our papa
- My turf, bubba
- Guarding the pigs
- Just a little obvious
- New Page
- BDSM
- The deeds, Naylor, the deeds
- So Sarat, Maya, Cioulis, Spetzi,Ritawa
- And the hunt continues
- Jesus!
- Question for those with daughters
- So what has happened to Jesus?
- New Page
- All on prime-time television
- Lest we forget: I don't
- You know, like at Hokabi and Caniba and so on
- Until they learn
- Vaudos 1: so it's a walking fence
- Vaudos 2
- Vaudos 2.75
- First part of Fal
- Fal 2 2021
- Fal and Tet
- New Page
- Don't forget they ain't fucking illitrit
- There when it gets shitty
- Luke 23:46
- Of course he argued with himself about it.
- Democracy: a system devised to cage and contain power
- If there are any future historians
- What to, the Higgs boson?
- Maya's assassination
- Dill and this Matter of Kadun 2021
- 1. Shav, Petrush and this Matter of Kadun
- Astronomy for Kids of all ages
- 1. Contemplating this Matter of Kadun 1
- 2. Contemplating this Matter of Kadun 2
- 2. Shav, Petrush and the Matter of Kadun 2
- Who are pensioners?
- Party political broadcast...
- Look at all the little lungfish
- Unfit to govern
- Protozoa capering in the primeval soup
- Have you managed to be human?
- Life in a fact-free world
- And of course our dear friends the anti-vaxxers
- The wrong kind of Muggle
- Just put this on Twitter too
- Precisely how - ?
- Aroint thee, Muse!
- Death by government
- Cruel and unusual punishment
- It is, I think, the creation of Vernon and Marge
- Gee, isn't it just the market?
- There would not therefore seem to be an real difference
- The goose that laid the golden eggs
- The gifts that kept on giving
- Only 37.9 million tourists a year
- The Big Squeeze
- All the same gig
- Lolling insolent evil
- So now I walk with a rollator
- So, I deem
- Terror-tactics against a medically vulnerable woman
- New Page
- There is no dark
- Me
- The issues facing my grand-parents
- Don't forget the house that Keir built
- The desire of the moth for the flame
- The way through the woods
- Bit late for me and my steed...
- Art is individualism
- Magdalene laundries
- I told you not to put all the stars out
- Indeed the animals have a big problem with my family
- In the garden with Mummy
- ComSymp
- Chanctonbury Ring
- Doubtless too busy
- Light reading
- Reality 102: reprise
- Reality 103: reprise
- Reality 103a: reprise
- Reality 104: reprise
- Religious census of 1851
- Mortal sin
- If Twitter is anything to go by...
- The 1945 Labour landslide
- So just look at them all, Vice-Chancellor
- And of course an offence to UCL
- Time for a wash and brush-up
- The new Marxism
- Coal in the bath and the victim culture (2)
- Nice bit of bedtime reading
- Christ, you are so boring!
- First part of Fal
- Fal 2 2021
- And of course this
- Just don't forget Lattic
- Thus Bobbles
- Fal and Tet
- Mr Benn's questions.
- Mr Benn's questions. A good clear message. The IRA
- Just so - so - so
- None of this of course is subject to discussion
- Therefore, ain't I got no respect
- Nor do I tug my forelock
- Book of Common Prayer
- 'I know that my Redeemer liveth'
- Meanwhile an offal-fest on Twitter'
- Spine
- This is what they expected me to push
- What? Oh, the picture Jesus mentioned
- Our servants not our masters (2)
- His Majesty's the model of a modern major-general
- The withdrawal of love and forcing oneself on others (2)
- Sarat, Maya, Cioulis, Spetzi,Ritawa reprise
- Journey to the edge of the universe
- Oh they do get so antsy
- I am the very model of a medical practitioner: reprise
- I am the very model of a modern faith apologist: reprise
- Quid agas
- Balrogs
- C10th architects
- Truss and Braverman
- Imbeciles
- As for the rest of it...
- So:
- Totally ordinary Brits
- The corruption of history
- 'Imagination has seized power!'
- So, you, Blair
- Without fear or favour
- So a special round of applause for
- The Anglican garden: reprise
- It is remarkably tedious
- All times are now (1) reprise
- All times are now (2) reprise
- All times are now (3): reprise
- All times are now (4): reprise
- All times are now (5): reprise
- All times are now (6)
- Maya's assassination: reprise
- Lizard-men: reprise
- Doth it not say in the Book of Pious Crap
- That government by the corrupt and inane for the corrupt and inane shall not perish from this earth
- And answer Mr Benn's questions
- Thus the dirty shit-filled hierarchical fascist brains
- PANTHER...
- 'And now Amanda is seriously ill.'
- You might also enjoy Sredni Vashtar
- Girls. You were saying? About girls?
- 'And gentlemen in England, now a-bed, shall think themselves accurs'd...'
- This happened in RL
- Ooh
- HMQ
- How to lose operations other than war
- There, isn't that just so cute:reprise
- Ah, the sub-species woman
- How do you dare?
- Oh look what they're saying about me: reprise
- 'Blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain': reprise
- A lemur speaks!
- Welcome to London, Mr President
- HMQ (2)
- Gee, guys, what might have happened
- Neither benefiting from nor obsesssed by
- In sum, then
- The succession that matters
- In sum, therefore
- It has therefore been established
- And be damned to you: reprise
- Who did impose on a subject of Her Britannic Majesty
- How the cards fell
- Prefer high crimes and misdeameanours
- Time for something else
- Couldn't finish without your favourite song
- The Abbey
- The end of the world is nigh: reprise
- Men don't get it
- 'In order to rightly judge these efforts known as the "woman movement"'
- I'm sure Mr Kwarteng believes in equality
- Get real fast
- Roast aurochs: reprise
- It didn't work last time, peeps
- Doctors
- Ants
- Bellatrix
- Vaudos 1: so it's a walking fence
- Vaudos 2
- Vaudos 2.75
- It's like this, Nurses
- Letter to MI5: reprise
- And you do not make me into a porter
- I do so understand
- How you hate intelligence
- How you hate intelligence; reprise
- So how many people has Medicine destroyed?
- Don't you like my DNA?
- So you're going to sue me?
- I understand
- Hmm, so I guess...
- Yes I understand
- This is how it should be? Reallyy?
- Special mentions
- The wayside
- My country. Took seizin
- To whom it may concern
- Do tell
- A blank wall
- Democracy is so yesterday
- Nothing is too low
- https://www.coursera.org/learn/our-earth?
- No interest to me, old boy. No interest whatever
- Burn the witch at the stake! How much money we shall make!
- One quick question
- And something for Bobbles
- If...
- 'MI5's mission is to keep the country safe.'
- Reality reprise
- Reality reprise 2
- Your life in their hands, Episode 923452
- New Page
- New Page
- Never trust, never assume sanity will prevail
- New Page
- So in short
- The University in its death throes
- Narrow focus
- The absolute insolence, therefore
- In shorter
- Same old
- Same old (2)
- So there it is
- So they just couldn't possibly
- Ringleaders
- Encore une fois the manual
- Butchers and would-be murderers
- Nor of course response to my vid
- Or the second one
- The closed (sealed/wounded/stunted/practically non-existent) mind (20
- Please don't forget The House That Keir Built
- Sarat, Maya, Cioulis, Spetzi,Ritawa
- First part of Fal
- Fal 2 2021
- Fal and Tet
- So who knows
- As if I were capable of caring
- Above the law
- Depict them therefore in bondage
- Money talking
- Pure BDSM
- Please don't forget Lattic
- Meeee
- 'There is no dark'
- Hellenismos, tau-neutrinos, hanging
- Vita brevis ars longa
- True targets
- I a woman
- Boring
- Therefore, Vice-Chancellor
- Thus I refer you to...
- Break the stupid cunt's back
- So there it is
- irreducible evil
- Oversight
- Mock, yes, crawl, no
- All the things you haven't changed
- Cute family picture
- You can check it out on the DTIC site
- Eagles are rare in WC1
- High crimes and midemeanour
Dill: “Is this what’s called a propaganda war, Dad?”
Mitch: “No, I should not say that. This is what’s called wiping excrement off the sole of one’s boot.” There is no good explanation of why I have been left to drown in shit
Extract from The Anile Heir © 2006.I, Ysabel Jehan Howard, hereby assert and give notice of my right under s.77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act1988 to be identified as the author of this book.
Karula tried to ring Kile, was told Kile was away and discovered ‘away’ meant a month’s cruise. Grandmamma’s enthusiasm for seeing the world in her old age was clearly undimmed. And why should she not! she had cooed at Mitch who having spent his life moving from continent to continent had seemed to think it strange his mother should decide to do likewise. Not if it means leaving Var-segan represented by our two delightful children. She rapped her knuckles. They are no longer children. They are young persons. Better they were children. OK, have it out with the man.
“Sit down a minute, Mitch.“ She grinned. “Hearken!”
“Hearken? Could this be serious?”
“Yes.”
He sat.
“Well?”
“You do not want to go back.”
“So?” he said calmly.
“Before you were merely close. You are now united in a bond – this presents practical issues.”
“Death or victory,” said Mitch.
“I also feel that way. It does not, however, include bringing our – our remaining children to Azt.”
“What then?”
“You will unnecessarily exhaust yourself commuting – really, there is no other word for it – between Var-segan and Azt.”
“On the other hand our children are nearly grown. We are committed to my standing for election. You have always known that should I be successful we shall be based in Azt.”
“I know I cannot stop – not yet, Mitch.”
“Our children have come out well from being carted around the world.”
“A little more carting will not dismay them? I do not have a plan.”
“We have so far – I do not quite know how we have so far but nonetheless we have so far and to our cost avoided dumping our children while we go off to war.” He took her hands. “We are not perhaps being entirely rational.”
“I know.”
“Perhaps in the rush of events we do not talk enough.”
“I wish to shield them from any inkling all is not well because they know all too well all is not well. How mad is that?”
“Sounds like motherhood to me. I’ll talk to Dill.”
“I tried to talk to Kile,” admitted Karula. “She’s away again.”
“How remiss of her,” murmured Mitch.
And so they flew home and Dill was summoned to Mitch’s study.
“Sit down, honey.”
“I rack my brains. I haven’t done anything more than usually bad for at least a month.”
“We have to have a little talk about the future.”
She frowned.
“Is that good or bad?”
“Good, honey, good. I hope good.” He walked over to her and picked up a soft emerald lock, let it fall gently through his fingers. “I love it!” He put his hands on her shoulders. “You have always understood our lives – all our lives – were to some extent at risk.”
“Well – yes…”
“Your mother and I are returning to Azt to live. There are arguments on both sides concerning what I have to say to you. You are Var-segan, honey, and your place is here, but – “ he grinned. “Look who’s talking! You may if you wish come with us. Azt is not for the moment the safest place. In order that your mother and I sleep at night, you will not be even mildly idiotic. Nor will you if you stay! Your mother thinks that if you are far from her eagle eye you may behave – inappropriately. I do not mean taking calls on your mobile during dinner! As I understand it, she does not wish to wake to pictures of you on a soap-box. You may say – we do say – that is rich coming from the pair of us. We do not wish you to make yourself more of a target while you are a minor. We understand, as – as Baya and Essa understand, as Pietri and Caluna understood, when you are an adult you will do what you have to do. Do you read me?”
She looked at him a moment, then gave a small, slightly puzzled smile and saluted.
“Yessir…Dad – is it going to get bad again?”
“There is infrastructure in place that should maintain Kadun’s stability. The possibility of chaos, the risk of chaos, I calculate as lower than at any time during the past ten years. The risk of individual casualties of course is something different. Among them may be me. You understand that. That is your worst-case scenario. On the other hand Kadun will come out the other end of this and we shall too.”
“What we think – Qirl and I. Now we’re older. We didn’t understand what you were doing when we were home before. They came for us. Now they want Sarat.”
“If I am elected, they will want me.”
“Oh! I see that.”
“You would hack it. You would have no choice.”
“You – you’re going back because you have no choice. It’s – what Var-segan means. I understand, Dad. Dad…If something happened, I mean if something really bad happened, if everything…”
“I should expect you to fight for the last stone and blade of grass. It is not going to come to that. It is something we have avoided to date. By sheer gall, by raw cunning – and by accommodation. There is no longer space for accommodation.”
“It wasn’t a game, Dad!”
“I do not understand.”
“The picture I’m getting – you and mom think I play at being a stoopid teen to – to pretend everything’s all right.”
He was utterly taken aback.
“That is not what we think, honey.”
“You don’t trust me!”
“We know too well what we were at your age. Perhaps that overly colours our judgement.” He put his arms around her. “I think I have not said anything of which you were not previously aware?”
“It’s my way of being brave.”
“Understood.”
“OK, I’m a loud-mouthed brat!”
“We love you all the more for it, honey.”
She suddenly went on the attack.
“And what you’re telling me – I can stay here and be Var-segan only I mustn’t actually open my mouth!”
He laughed..
“Did I say that? Would you not acknowledge that you are a little young to be a leader of revolution?”
“Old enough to be Var-segan.”
“I can’t have it both ways? I shall be frank. Parental dread can have it all ways.”
“This is coming from mom – if you became President, you would not think it appropriate to retain the title, you’ve said that.”
“If. That is not the immediate future. A year is a long time at your age.”
“I can be useful here. But you don’t want that. You are confusing me. I’m not stupid. I mean – that’s not the right word. I guess I seem arrogant? That’s what worries you and mom. But that’s confusing too. It’s what you say. You go out there and busk it.”
He grinned.
“Here I think myself the model of rational parenthood and I do nothing but sow confusion.”
“I’d ask, Dad. There’d – there’d be someone to ask. I mean it’s what you say. I know it already. I’m not saying I’m not a kid. I’m not saying I can’t be an idiot. I’m saying I – saying I know – knew – have known since I’ve been old enough to know something could happen to you and there’d just be me. I’m not claiming to be fit enough or old enough or responsible enough. I’m stating a fact. Just like you said. I’d hack it. I shouldn’t have a choice.”
He cocked his eyebrows.
“So why shouldn’t you hack it when you do have a choice? You are 16! You are claiming you want to be Steward of Var-segan?” The disbelief in his voice made her giggle.
“No! Not tomorrow, anyway! I’m – I’m trying to say - look at it this way. Just about every kid in Kadun is having this conversation! School! Homework! Exams! There’s a revolution going on and it’s our future.”
“I seem to remember a well-known young man dropped out…” He grinned again. “Not of course until he had finished school. Revolution? What revolution?”
“It doesn’t matter who you are, parental dread’s the same. Though broadly – this is still a very class-based society, you know! Posh folks take the real risks and – non-posh folk make the revolution, are free to make the revolution because posh folks are taking the flak. We talk about these things, Dad. We kids want to make the revolution and you – parents – want to keep us safe. If it’s not that they want things to be normal. Want us to behave normally while you don’t. It’s really unfair.”
“I am enjoying this,” said Mitch.
“You’ve always found time for us. We think you’re miraculous! When have you talked to our friends?”
“Would there be some measure of truth in saying be damned to the age of majority, you are adults, young adults, but adults nonetheless?” She nodded vigorously. “What exactly do you want, Dill? Do you all want, for assuredly Var-segan should take a lead in these matters.”
“To be part of the action.”
“OK. You’ll come to Azt, at least for a while. Accompany me.” He grinned like a fiend. “Mingle. Suffer gross sleep deprivation. Live on – and this is worst of all – the Hadin Wadud’s catering. There’s qallie soup, qallie mousse, qallie stew… “
He walked in on Karula fresh from the shower.
“Remove that towel,” he suggested. “It is unnecessary.” He laughed suddenly and picked her up.
“Unhand me, sir!”
“Not a chance…Just asserting myself in the face of two of the damnedest females…” He sat her on the bed. “Our daughter…” He laughed again.
“I gather it went well.”
“It went. Our daughter is entirely prepared to be at least nominally Steward of Var-segan. Like now, man. How old was Sarat? We are screaming idiots.”
“Hold on there!”
“You keep wriggling.”
“Sarat was not in Azt in his mid-teens!”
“Different scenario.”
“That is true. You are not seriously – “
“If I become President, I should not consider it wholly appropriate – have I not said that.”
“A retentive memory,” said Karula drily. “She is 16!”
“I am a miraculous parent. I know my daughter’s age. She has taken a deep breath and geared herself up to it. There is more! Every kid in Kadun is screaming because parents are having all the fun. It’s their future. They’ll come back with us, school be damned.”
“I see. I should prefer Steward of Var-segan.”
“That’s next week.”
“Talk me through it. Make it real good.”
After a bit, she said: “What happened to our young people’s revolution?”
“We never meant this young. Suddenly we are an open society. They are bombarded with news, events, change, innovation. It must be as though a party’s going on to which we have forgotten to invite them.”
“One with an unwanted guest.”
Much later she said: “She did not mention - ?”
“No.”
“She never does. I have been as inviting as it is possible to be without forcing it.”
“I did not think I had to ask why my daughter will hack it because she has no choice.”
Mitch sat down to dinner.
“Shouldn’t the ladies be seated first, sir?” asked Qirl. Karula choked and turned it into a cough.
Qirl pulled out a chair for Dill, who sat and thanked him graciously, then turned wide eyes on her father.
“Like we thought we’d been giving out the wrong messages, man.”
“Do you realize,” said Qirl, “we’ve never been to Azt! Talk about country cousins.”
The one with green fronds is the heir. Then the Cult released its video and Mitch’s madness was forgotten. Everyone with half a brain knew the exact taunt. Are you still laughing, Sarat? Sarat embracing Maya who turned into Death at his touch. Sarat placing Death on the Anile Throne and kissing his hand. Sarat making love to Death.
Not completely surprisingly, no-one wanted to show it to him.
“They have produced something past obscene,” said Faun. “We don’t think you should see it, but you must see it.”
Sarat watched it. Sarat said absolutely nothing.
At length, he said, “Thank you.” It was rather clearly a dismissal.
If I have any sense, thought Faun, I take my leave. I never had any sense.
“So?” Bloody stupid thing to say.
“Back to the cutting-room?”
Karula went up in smoke.
“Bring them to damn’ Azt! Young adults! There is more than one kind of safe, Mitch!”
Mitch was unmoved.
“It is a video. It is all over the Grid. I prefer they see it holding tightly onto our hands. Should they not face the enemy of their future?”
So much about him that was pure Fidubi. Jaizal sat cross-legged among the flowers.
Cantilip tried to explain something to Mel.
“We were mad. We were all mad. We thought we should bounce into Azt and they would evaporate like shadows in the sun. Is that what we thought, Mel?
“You are not leaving me,” said Mel.
She stared at him in horror.
“Mel…No! No.”
“What then? We cannot go back.”
“My duty is to fight. Is that not also yours?”
“Were we mad? Are we? Where does that lead, Cantilip?”
She closed her eyes.
“It is nonsense to think we can win.”
A girl came running into the room in tears. “They will hurt him! You must help!”
Sarat sighed but tried to be polite. He listened stunned. “You are Sheheela, my lady?”
The Star offered herself to him. He declined. She said Jaizal had sent her. He said Jaizal should have had more sense and thought fondly of the luxury flats over in Turnin.
He mailed Cho:
Aside from the more normal emotional and moral dimensions – what is the cosmic significance of sexual intercourse with someone from another time, pray? Supposing she became pregnant. At that point, I may say, I begin to titter madly. Supposing all this were in fact the consequence of my sexual relations with Jaizal’s favourite. Or some similar – trans-temporal alliance. To be here alone is…..Words fail me. With Maya – perhaps it was mad optimism or just madness to think we should make it a cosy family home. Together we were in charge. I gloss it: ‘it is getting worse’. The change (of course) is in me. I alone am dwarfed, overwhelmed by history. I have to overcome it.
So let us can the crap. There is no ‘rooted evil’. There is this asylum I have made my home where time is a flexible concept. The field of flowers has been planted. What does this mean? What I think it means is probably impossible but nonetheless theoretically what I think it means is the ‘five-headed ogre’ comes through time. The most obvious objection to this is why then has he not confronted me, doubtless dripping with gore. You have observed that Jaizal has been absent from my guest-list. His ladies, however, plural, have not. I have met Sheheela. She was petrified, but not of Jaizal.
She said: they are hurting him, you must help! She was very young, younger than I am. Cho – ‘they’ hurt him and the rest is history?!!? It is a little difficult to sustain a conversation when time keeps hiccuping. I should not go so far as to say he was a much-misunderstood guy, but there is something here that we do not understand and have misunderstood.
Jaizal must have the throne! Because the throne would heal/rescue/save him??? I have therefore done something right, bringing her here. But if she could – take him to the source of the rot to ‘slay the ogre’. Zani knew. I feel that in my gut on no evidence whatever!
Let us posit – the rot began with Kaminua, who tried to fight it, and ended with Jaizal, who also tried to fight it and was – overtaken. Three things obviously rocket to the front of my mind. One is the connection between the chair and the worm-hole(s). In which case she is ‘making it worse’. One is that the Cult predates Narulis, never mind Kaminua. Might we then say - do we not say - that the Cult realizes, immanentizes – that from elsewhere we call death? The third – there’s nothing about it in the records, but that might of course be because they didn’t know what it was, only what they thought it was.
Meanwhile there is gross national product and the cost of shoe-leather. I have not come – I did not come here to – what has happened to ME? Someone once told me I should remain Sarat. I admit to the occasional urge to vandalism, flatten the place and build a glass palace, but I do not of course, other considerations aside, think that would make a scrap of difference. Nor is it in some sense possible to move out. Did I not say I wanted to sort Kadun? I have got myself where I have to be. What’s that they say about being careful what you wish for in case you get it?
Oh dear, thought Cho. He padded off to the archives and was gone a long time.
“The continuum changes,” said Hass, “but we do not change with it. Is that not remiss?”
“Very slow,” agreed Venga. “Darling, stop that! I try to think!”
“If of course you have no objection,” said Venga, “we’ve decided to move in.” There was something about Sarat’s laugh that made him raise his eyebrows. “Was it something I said?”
“There is someone I should like you to meet,” said Sarat.
He is gay, now sets up a menage a trois! That one, gentlemen, we had seen coming.
His Imperial Majesty’s houseboys. Alzani-Meta stands in the sun laughing.
A second video duly appeared. The Anile throne shimmered in ethereal light. Death approached it clearly wounded, repelled by the light, but nonetheless sat and crumbled to dust. Sarat appeared with a small vacuum cleaner and sucked up the crumbs, grumbling to himself about having to clean up the mess other people leave behind them. He sat and remarked, with a good deal of satisfaction, “This is my chair.” But suddenly he was surrounded by a pack of Deaths, all leering and generally trying to be terrifying. He settled back in the chair, yawned, and turned the vacuum cleaner on them. Their black robes blew up over their skulls and they groped blindly and tried to pull them down over their bony knees. Sarat laughed and adjusted the controls, sucked them all into oblivion.
The World This Week got itself in a mess over whether Sarat was top of its list of the world’s most eligible men. Frankly are the looks, the title, the wealth and the disposition worth trading your life for. People thought that could have been more tactfully put. Nonetheless, they were clear that it was unlikely Sarat would spend the rest of his life single – if he had a rest of his life.
We had not quite realized how Maya’s mere existence had informed the whole enterprise. Ah me, those gender dynamics. Although a number of things, of which decorum was only one, prevented every woman under thirty from visibly lusting, the sexual tension was there.
Ah well, if he did decide to give it all up, he could always become a rock-idol.
Consequently any woman identified as having been alone with Sarat became a target.
Including Karula. Including me.
AIt was all a bit obvious. He couldn’t have been consulting our lethal cutting intelligences, could he.
Droit de seigneur and all that. A healthy young man has his needs.
Karula and I plotted. Had we been single, we should have grinned and said, I should be so lucky! Had we been single, we should have hammed it up. Playthings of an idle hour (we should be so lucky). A little old, suggested Karula. Should I show them my stretch-marks? We were not single.
My Cioulis was promoted. Reward for services rendered. I thought I was going to go up in smoke.
“These people are such crap!” said Dill.
Mitch looked about to burst with fatherly pride.
But Jaizi said: “Consider it a diversion.” That was true. It was much better than people dwelling on exactly what had been Sarat’s mental state when Maya died. It had all been very quick of course, faster than it takes to tell it, but not so fast that the word ‘shock’ hadn’t been bandied around.
“We are going to send this up,” said Karula. “They seem a little confused as to who is paired with whom.” She explained our cunning ploy to the men. None of them said anything. “Do you think we’re making them nervous?” asked she in a stage-whisper.
“This lot?” I said.
Mitch gave a fairly undescribable smile somewhat like a hungry panther who has just been presented with a trio of fat calves someone has kindly caught, skinned, gutted, dressed and cooked for him.
Before we had the opportunity to put our poetry into motion, they targeted Dill. She had been brought to Azt to be presented to Sarat, gift-wrapped with a little bow and pink ribbons. Dill, bless her little green fronds, said she preferred boys her own age – yes, of course he’s everyone’s pin-up but he’s a bit old, isn’t he. That of course sent the slime-merchants off on how many boys has the little tart Known Carnally. We are good at grading slime and on the whole thought max 5/10 for that one.
Dill: “Is this what’s called a propaganda war, Dad?”
Mitch: “No, I should not say that. This is what’s called wiping excrement off the sole of one’s boot.”
“You could not call this young lady beautiful. A strong, attractive face. Her mother’s features.”
Thanks a bunch, thought Karula.
“Her father’s colouring. Her father’s hair – we think. A young woman who will surely turn heads.”
“Is there a joke there?”
Cantilip flew in for a board meeting of something green and leafy, not NoZone, Trees R Us, I think it was. Hass greeted her as his delicate and fragile long-awaited bride. “Shall I swoon in your arms?” muttered Cantilip. “That might be over-doing it,” conceded Hass. He unwillingly released her hand. “Beloved, we must part!” cried Cantilip. Hass turned to the gulping assembled company. “There are people confused about who is paired with whom. We thought we should send them up.”
“Soap-boxes are taboo,” said Dill.
“Nasty, dangerous things,” said Mitch. “No child of mine would be so foolish as to be associated with them.”
“That does not mean I cannot have an idea.”
“I accept that,” said Mitch. “May I – dare I – ask?”
“Not yet,” said Dill.
Mitch caressed Venga’s cheek. Venga reached for his hand and clasped it. “Darling,” said Mitch, “it has been too long!” “A day without you!” said Venga. “An eternity of longing!” proclaimed Mitch. There was a great deal of gulping over that one.
At least His Imperial Majesty keeps himself aloof from these – amateur theatricals. Just looking for the appropriate angle, guys.
Cioulis stomped up to Sarat.
“I am not your partner!”
“That is exact,” agreed Sarat.
“How can you not be his partner?” demanded Karula. “I’m not his partner.”
“I thought it was me,” I said. “I’m definitely not your partner.”
“This is confusing,” said Cioulis.
Inevitably we evoked: And these lunatics are running Kadun? That wasn’t far below the surface anyway and Kadun was not suffering thereby.
Dill spent less time going around with Mitch and more time on the Grid. Researching. Karula groaned.
“I am sure you are investigating the formation of shale mindful that you will return to school.”
“What’s shale?” asked Dill and meant it.
“Back to school instantly!”
Dill returned to her terminal and later treated them to a short tutorial on shale.
“I have an idea. I don’t think it’s a bad idea. It’s pretty crazy. You said the reason for all the school stuff was – kids having normal lives was proof the revolution was working. I can see that. What I’ve been looking up is education policy. Throwing out old history books, teaching by argument. It’s cool. It’s like school in Zur. Even student representatives, that’s just normality, Dabida-style. We the kids need to be responsible for making something happen. All our boundless youthful energy is being wasted on shale! There’s a big class thing here too. Working-class parents now do complain if they think the teachers aren’t enthusiastic enough. It’s not just enthusiasm about teaching. It’s about the whole building and whether there’s hot water. It’s not parents who are affected. There was a case in Klisan. The school refused to replace the heating. There was frost on the inside of the classroom windows. School’s where everyone gets a chance, yes? There’s an absolute row going on over school catering. Is it an admission of defeat to say schools should provide maybe the only good food the kids are likely to get? I think there should be student committees in every school with some kind of real power to demand the things that affect everyone every day.” She borrowed a line from her father. “You are not yet screaming. That is good.”
“Is that all?” asked Mitch.
“No. That’s the sensible bit.”
“I shudder to think,” said Karula.
“The rest can wait. I haven’t finished with it yet.”
“I have no problem,” said Mitch, “with the basic thesis, which if I have it correctly is that even those younger than you can take responsibility for things within their immediate orbit, things they can understand. One does not require a grasp of geopolitics to grasp frost on the inside of the window.”
“I too do not dispute the basic thesis,” said Karula. “I note that equally everything that affects domestic life affects children but I see of course that conditions at school – I have always hated the expression ‘more uniquely’ – particularly, particularly affect the young.”
“What is your answer,” asked Mitch, “to whether it is an admission of defeat?”
“I think it’s twisting things. There’s a word for it you taught me and I’ve forgotten. Pretending things are connected that aren’t connected. Kids are at school all day and you can’t go all day without eating. Schools should provide good food, end of story. Home should too.”
“What is the unsensible bit? Briefly.”
“Laters!”
“Nows. I do not send you off to talk to Sarat without knowing the whole story.”
She made a moue and giggled.
“Sending them up. This is also known as winding up the straights.”
“A dangerous game.”
“Not if every kid in Kadun is playing it.”
“Less so,” allowed Mitch.
“Hi,” said Dill.
“Long time, no see,” said Sarat.
“My generation, we kids, are being left out of the party.”
“There are some nasty guests.”
“I know that,” said Dill. “That’s not a reason for doing nothing!”
Sarat laughed.
“You’re telling me?”
“I knew you’d understand,” said Dill. “Try thinking of me as Cantilip.”
Sarat passed the test.
“Gender is not relevant.”
“It has never mattered a hoot to Mitch that his eldest is a girl. You know how we’ve been around the world. OK, not in Zur! In the City, just about everywhere else, there are people who think there are some things girls don’t do.”
“Such as leading, taking responsibility?”
Mitch, this is not what you led me to expect!
“At first I didn’t understand. It’s because mom’s such a feminist she’s over-protective. What – what happened. It could have happened to me if I were a boy.”
“Yes,” said Sarat.
“I hate them,” said Dill. “For Baria, for me, for everything.”
“So you’re climbing the walls because no-one will let you fight.”
“Do something,” said Dill.
“I shot my mouth off in Zur,” observed Sarat.
“I’ve thought of that,” said Dill. “I don’t think that would be at all appropriate – “ Half-mocking. “- in the present situation.”
“True,” said Sarat.
“What is a girl to do?”
“I gathered you are going to tell me?”
“I thought, I don’t mind not being centre-stage. But I do want to start something.”
“Backroom girls can be the brightest,” said Sarat.
“Mom’ll love that. Sarat – emperors are different, right. You can say things you wouldn’t say to anyone else in the world, wild horses wouldn’t drag out of you.”
“There is a conception to that effect,” said Sarat.
“OK…Mom was a radical feminist when she was 12! Dad, I’ve told you. I am his heir, period, full stop, over and out.” She paused.
“I think I guess,” said Sarat. “After what happened, to you, to your family, you think that if you were a boy they’d understand that you want to take a machine-gun, but you’re a girl, so they don’t.”
“Yes,” said Dill.
“How d’you know they don’t?”
“All of you,” said Dill, “you – channel it - ?”
“Refract, channel.”
“I know my father. I know so far as certain people go, he is capable of – advancing and firing, just keeping on firing until all the rats are dead. Instead he – you – mom – all of you – you talk, you joke.”
“The enemy is not – in a neat little army flying a separate flag.”
“Until they’re on your doorstep!”
“There is nothing about Karula at that time or any other that suggests to me she would fail to understand.”
“This may be a bit complicated for one of my young years but – couldn’t that be the point?”
“Tell me what you think, feel, hope, fear. Do not ask me to analyse your mother.”
“Sorry. But how do you separate - ?”
“It’s called growing-up,” said Sarat. He grinned. “Tell me about it! Dill – all of us, Mel, Hass, Maya, I, we took a one-way express ticket to adulthood. That much I understand.”
“You must miss her terribly. Tell me if you think that’s a pathetic thing to say because it’s so obvious.”
“Not pathetic. Just obvious. Thank you.”
“I still miss Baria. If I can’t talk about mom to you, whom can I talk to? You expect me to find an analyst, no doc, it’s not me I want to…”
Sarat bit his lip.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t willing to listen to you talking about Karula. I said don’t expect me to tell you my view. Mitch. Karula! My lady of Var-segan, do not tell me you cannot talk to your mother!”
“Of course I can talk to my mother!” She sounded quite irritated. “We’re too close. I know what she thinks. I know what I think. What I need is what someone else thinks.”
“Perhaps I’m too close too. There’s an elderly gentleman in Fidub with a lot of practice talking to mad teenagers. Would you like to talk to Cho?”
“That would be fantastic! Thank you!”
“I bypassed my parents,” said Sarat. “Oh, I rationalized it. Head of the family and so on. We were just too close. The hard thing wasn’t telling Essa what I wanted to do. It was telling him I hadn’t talked to him first.”
“I did talk to Mitch. Not the same scale. There’s just the one thing, do you see, but it’s everything.”
“That is obscure.”
“I love them to pieces. I don’t want consent or grudging approval.”
“That is more obscure.”
“I’m trying, Sarat. There’s a phrase, OK. You should know! Is Sarat taking people with him on this? I want to take mom and dad with me. I want them to understand where I’m coming from.”
“I want to understand that,” said Sarat.
“Writhing around on the floor enslaved by the fucking Cult.”
“You don’t have to try to prove you’re grown up to me.”
“In that case you may be the first intelligent person I’ve ever talked to. Yes, I know that it is a gross slander!”
“Dill – you’re trying to tell me that is not obvious to Mitch and Karula?”
“Yes but not how it sounds. OK, obscure again! Supposing something really awful happened to you when you were just past puberty! You’re not sitting there with neato grown-up explanations of what you feel…It’s like – what you said. Death does not sit on the Anile throne! But – people see that as a boy’s reaction, d’you see. Not a reaction a girl could have had. It’s not on their screen, Sarat.”
“I do see.”
“I was totally – taken over. It’s not I had a will to resist. Something in me that – was resistant. Mom worries they scared me. That and my – sexual health. Scarred, scared. It’s all on a different planet.”
“Then why don’t you say so!”
“Because I don’t know how to ask my mother what it’s like to kill!”
“Ah. You know what I’m going to say.”
She sighed.
“I have to talk to them! I’m sure your parents are brilliant, loving, rational people and my parents are brilliant, loving, rational people. Do you understand what I mean by caught in the parental head-set?”
He burst out laughing.
“Of course!”
“Right! Somewhere I’m lisphing my first words. I did manage to explain some of it to Mitch. It doesn’t come out right.”
“I’m going to ring,” said Karula
Mitch hooted.
“His Imperial Majesty would not have sent our daughter home in the hands of a cowboy minicab-driver who has abducted her.”
“That or worse!” said Karula.
“Be a bit sensible,” said Mitch brusquely.
“OK, that was out of court! Mitch, it has been five hours, what are they doing?”
“For a start,” said Mitch, “we do not know that ‘they’ are doing anything. He might have been called away and she willing to wait.”
“Then she should have called!”
“I really do not think it would occur to anyone except you that she was not in the safest place in Kadun.”
“Plotting,” growled Karula. “That is what they are doing.”
“An old family tradition,” said Mitch.
Dill arrived back looking radiant.
“You had an interesting time, honey?”
“I had a fantastic time. We just talked and talked and talked.” Oh dear. “Sarat says I should talk to Cho. Lots of experience with mad teenagers, girls a specialty.” That sounds better.
“But you found plenty to talk about!”
“He said backroom girls can be the brightest. I said you’d love that. Honestly, mom, this is not about making the six o’clock news! It’s about making a difference.”
“I understand that, honey.”
“What’s next?” asked Mitch.
“He’ll take the school thing where it needs to go. No credit, no come-back. IF it has your approval, he’d like me to just keep mingling, build up a network of kids who want to make a difference. He reckons that would stay below the radar. I gave him some names.”
“The leaders of tomorrow,” said Mitch.
“How about the sending-up?”
“T-shirts with Sarat and a vacuum cleaner may just be coming in vogue. Beyond that, no, or on stage by people who can handle themselves. He would not forgive himself and I quote if some bunch of well-meaning kids got hit because he’d given the green light.”
“I fear,” said Karula, “I cannot readily see anything to which to object.”
“You just became a plotter,” said Mitch. “Welcome to the club!”
“We’ve got so much in common,” said Dill. Eeek! “He understands about an express ticket to growing-up. He pointed out he was in Zur and I said, yes, I’d thought of that, of going back, but I didn’t think it was appropriate.”
“I am most relieved to hear it,” said Mitch primly.
“I am now going to be very brave and very honest. When you hit the roof, you will at least give me credit for my noble, open nature.”
“Possibly,” said Karula.
“I did ask first. The emperor is someone you can say stuff to you wouldn’t say to anyone else in the world. I said there was something, one thing, I had trouble talking to you about.”
“Indeed?”
“He said – he said the hard thing wasn’t telling Essa, it was telling Essa he’d talked to Cho first.”
“What it is you want to do?”
“Talk about Baria. Talk about what happened to me. What it means to me.”
“Honey!” squealed Karula.
“Oh dear,” said Mitch. “If I just put my arms around the both of you….”
“I have tried to get you to talk! I thought I had!”
“You were – “ Fluency momentarily failed her. On another planet. She managed to soften it. “A different wavelength.”
“Come on, team,” said Mitch, “onto the sofa. I am a big guy and you are not too old to sit on my lap though you may be too big….OK…We’re listening, honey. We really want to understand.”
“I said mom was a radical feminist when she was 12!”
“Well, 13,” murmured Karula.
“I said I knew it had never made a scrap of difference to dad that his heir was a girl.”
Mitch frowned but only with trying to work out where this was going.
“And?”
“But you still didn’t understand! If I was a boy, you’d understand.”
I have to hear this, thought Karula. I do not think my radical feminist brain wants to hear this!
“Tell us, honey.”
“Wanting to kill. It’s more complicated than that. Sarat pointed out it’s not like the kind of war where the enemy has one bit of land and you have another. You – he – all of you, you – ‘you too have suffered terrible loss’,” she mimicked viciously, “and pain and anger – but you do something. Make it positive.”
“You’re just a kid,” said Mitch, “you don’t have those big, dangerous grown-up emotions. It would help if I shot myself? No, I thought not…”
“Maya, honey,” said Karula.
“I grew up,” said Dill, “the day I was on the drawing-room floor. I’m not saying I understood what I was feeling or I could express it, that it was - all laid out on the top of my mind. Maya’s death kind of - crystallized it. Something resisted. I didn’t have any control over it or anything. Like a little – core.”
“You do not do this to me and live,” said Mitch.
“Just so,” said Karula.
“I’m still a virgin,” said Dill, “but I think I’m sexually normal.”
“There is,” said Karula, “more than one kind of - big, dangerous, grown-up feeling. I got it half-right.”
Dill kissed her.
“It’s because you killed them.”
“I do not follow that.”
Mitch hazarded: “It would have been – more raw, more open, more on the surface if it were not a closed case.”
“You don’t talk about it,” said Dill. “What it feels like to kill, even rats.”
“My dear, darling daughter,” said Mitch. “We have just not kept pace.”
“One minute it’s the story of the little green donkey…”
“We went there,” said Dill. “It’s just parents. Somewhere you’re Grandmamma’s little boy.”
Mitch grinned.
“That is true.”
Karula lay back in bed her hands clasped behind her head.
“I am not filled with remorse because I understand that this is a fast moving train. I am not even contemplating the deeper levels of my consciousness. One word fills my mind: soul-mates.”
Mitch guffawed.
“Gee, honey, they can really talk to each other. I am sure that for the moment at least he regards her as another sister.”
“That is a good thought,” said Karula enthusiastically. “Nonetheless I think I have developed a recurring nightmare. It goes what is a vast gulf in age at 16 – what is supposedly a vast gulf in age - is diminished at 18 and annulled at 20.”
“Alas,” said Mitch, “I shall be President and she will be Mistress of Var-segan. I knew you’d warm to the idea.”
“They are the same mix,” said Karula. “Southern radicalism and irtubi tradition. That is your fault!”
“I am sure there are many other young women closer in age in whom the two are combined.”
“But they are not part of the plot! That is a question on its own, all other considerations aside. Does that not above all limit the field?”
“He will not be in a hurry,” sighed Mitch. “He will want, as we all do, a safe and stable Kadun.”
“Meanwhile,” said Karula.
“There are places I do not go,” said Mitch.
“Hass was his first love.”
“You will not convince yourself that Sarat is gay, tempting though the idea is.”
“What is a child?” demanded Karula. “Perhaps I mean, when did Sarat become a man?”
“The day he drove into Kadun. Because he had no choice.”
“That is an interesting reflection. It is so much a matter of will?”
“There is a kind of no man’s land, a transitional stage. Childhood ends when this dubious state is achieved!”
“He has a thousand things to think about besides our daughter. Nonetheless, I find it reassuring to think he did not retire to an empty bed. There are two things. I shall put aside my nightmare and be intensely rational. One is that if Sarat could hear this conversation he would undoubtedly think us raving mad. As you say, a fourth sister. Of course they talked easily. No, three things. The second, being intensely rational, to whom should I prefer my daughter lose her virginity, some pimply lout who will kiss and tell? The third of course is that Maya’s fate is for the moment a remarkably efficient passion-killer. The future is another place. No young woman I think will in this now be carried away in a romantic haze of happy ever after.”
“I love you,” said Mitch. “Because of course – “
“Because of course it is far more likely she will fall in love with him than that he will fall in love with her.” She rolled over onto him suddenly. “We said we weren’t going to have any more. We said – we said three was enough. Since then we have not stopped to think about some things.”
Sarat retired to an empty bed and thought a lot about Mitch’s daughter, but not, Karula would have been mightily relieved to learn, in any kind of romantic or sexual way. He thought about her pain and anger and found it better than thinking of his own. He thought about it as though she were family and indeed (Karula would have been in seventh heaven) thought he felt how he’d feel if it were one of his sisters. Then he thought about Mitch and Karula and felt an intense anger that he hadn’t (yet!) been able to stop it, but reined himself in on the grounds that that was in part an unproductive thought and in part his normal state of mind. He drifted off to sleep thinking of Maya. Karula is the last person anyone could describe as heartless. She just doesn't fully understand the Sarat-Hass-Venga thing.
Dill went out with a few guys her own age and found them immature. This of course fed the nightmare but Karula regained intense rationality mode and recognized it for what it was, simply the consequence of the express ticket. Some nice stable young man a couple of years older. Sure, Karula, and they’ll live happily ever after in a cottage with roses round the door. Sadly, she dismissed the nice stable young man as a fantasy.
There was something Dill wanted to ask Sarat so she rang him up. They continued talking long after he had sensibly answered her sensible question.
“Hey, we click!” she said to Mitch.
“Sounds good,” he said. “Who’s we?”
“Me and Sarat.”
“Sarat and I,” said Mitch.
“It’s like having an older brother.”
Galvanizing one’s fellow kids is something one can only do as a kid oneself and Dill is growing up rather fast now and also becoming more introspective as she learns about the other matter. At the ripe old age of 17 she said: “I’ve worked through it. May I go back to school now!”
“Naturally I am delighted you - ?”
“In Zur,” she said rather urgently.
“Is there anything you would like to tell me?”
“It’s not serious. Hey, it’s OK to go to school!”
“Now that’s an about-turn! It’s OK to – be normal?”
“I can never be that! It’s OK to behave normally. It’s even what the whole thing’s about. I’ve been really trying to think. All of us, it’s like we’re in two worlds, the old and the new. There are things we’d do – no, have to do in the old and things appropriate to the new.”
“And if you’re 16 it can be hard to work out which is which! Or 36 or 50!”
“Right! On one hand, we’re fighting a war centuries-old and on the other we’re living in a modern democracy, or about to be, a free country, anyway. I do not have to be a major figure in anything when I’m not even 18, really I don’t! I’m not going to have much chance to be just part of a crowd. I have friends in Zur. I have friends in Var-segan. I don’t have to worry I’m not being grown-up enough in Zur. I don’t know if that says it right? Like being a hothouse-plant? Only it’s been me forcing my growth. Do you see what I mean? Yes, there’re all the obvious outside things but – I guess because of them? It’s been me trying to make myself. And all the other stuff. I told you, I’ll hack it if I have to. I don’t have to.”
Dare to believe, thought Mitch. Dare to believe we all have a future.
“My daughter is turning into a most interesting young woman.”
She kissed him.
“Thanks, dad!”
“If that is Sarat’s influence,” mused Karula, “may there be more of it!”
“He cannot allow himself to have regrets.”
“There is not a parallel between the instigator of the revolution and one caught up in it.”
“Maybe that’s what he told her!”
Cantilip found Dill a nest in the rabbit-warren. She applied herself to her studies. Any time she wanted an update on the revolution, Mel was happy to oblige, until the election campaign was all over the world’s news, anyway.
Analysts in fact divide the period into the election campaign and the pre-election campaign. The pre-election campaign started as soon as a date was set. I suppose you could say that. You could also say it started the day Sarat entered Kadun. Political parties had sprouted, as people worked out what they felt about it all. The main opposition to CLIK came from A New Alternative. ANA were clear in their commitment to capitalist democracy (and of course maintained CLIK wasn’t, but CLIK had genuinely changed), but stood for a slower, more traditional way of doing things, which tended, although they had female candidates, to mean women in the home and gays with a lower profile, kids more docile. Since they were political innocents they got rather severely nibbled by the banks, so they split. Others raised the capacity of the State to ensnare rather than liberate. Some were single-issue parties, nationalists, women, the environment. In all there were nine parties with any significant following and two major divisions. One was gender politics. The other was state provision.
I am standing here in a wind-swept corner of Vaudos witnessing yet another round in what is probably the dirtiest election campaign the world has ever seen!
And it hasn’t even started yet!
The stage has been set for this, we have to remember, censorship went out of the window the day Sarat entered Kadun. People have consistently been invited to say exactly what they think. Consequently, smear, slander, innuendo are rife.
But confronting it is reality, the sheer experience of change. Bedrock remains what has been achieved by the sheer hard work of the Workers’ Committees at grass-roots level – and by their unflinching backing from the top! It does not matter – I trust! – how often people are told Sarat eats babies – what you know is you eat better, your kids have shoes. Broadly what has happened here is that Kadun’s class war has realigned. Whereas previously we had – thought we had – all other sections of society crushing the working-classes, now we have the workers, the intelligentsia, and of course the aristocracy on one side and a load of people in the middle who feel more or less threatened thereby.
I think we need to be clear what we mean by ‘aristocracy’. Let’s be exact, it’s a handful of people part of an ancient feudal system!
And one or two real old families. Eban-tole!
That is true but my point is there is a caste which likes to think itself aristocratic and who indeed to us common folks would seem aristocratic which are very much not part of the revolutionary trend. .
Let us face it, we expect this election to be rocked by blasts.
I have wondered about that. The tragic truth is that terrorism has consolidated the revolution!
Even the smears, gross as they are, only recycle the garbage we heard before Sarat entered Kadun.
And ever since! The radicalization of the working-class, particularly on social issues, is most certainly to the credit of CLIK, but we cannot forget it is equally to the credit of Micheal and Karula ban-sarndit-vaq, Mel Talal!
Hasiyata Talal! I mean it’s incredible. These are people who two years ago beat up gays.
I was talking to a man, a gay man, who said, no, it was more subtle than that. The dominant ideology gave free rein to gay-bashers and others thought it wise to keep silent. As we know, the dominant ideology changed!
Dill considered returning to Kadun, but really, she said disparagingly, this isn’t the sort of superficial farce they hold in Harn, all about kissing babies. This isn’t about Mitch’s and Karula’s beautiful children, it’s about what people have done. Early polls showed people thought Mitch had done a lot.
“Ask you something?” she said to Cantilip.
“Sure!”
“What really does it mean, ‘emperor’s steward’, in the context of normality? I mean, when has Kadun been normal! I know my – duty if things went pear-shaped. That’s worst-case scenario.”
“I think you mean the rule of law,” said Cantilip.
“That’s it. If you actually don’t have to protect people.”
“It’s a good question. To me it’s about keeping communication open, communication with the emperor. Remember we’re running on the same rules! Anybody can go to Sarat. Someone in Var-segan would find it easier to go to you. The rule of law is great. Law can become bureaucracy, people getting tangled in red tape.”
“Being prepared to cut the crap,” said Dill
“Do I hear an echo of Mitch’s dulcet tones!”
“Not much different, really! A parallel government, that’s what I heard on the radio. I rather thought it was true.”
“I take it it wasn’t particularly positive.”
“A threat to our fledgeling democracy.”
“Drivel,” said Cantilip. “An assurance people will be heard.”
A major – oh, all right, a mega – row then blew up over the army. It is unthinkable to those of us who believe in a real democracy that the ‘Imperial Army’ be accountable only to the emperor.
Who said that? said the army. Did you say that? I didn’t hear anyone say that.
It was formally clarified by someone who just managed to keep a straight face that of course the army was the servant of the state.
Right, man! Until it decides not to be.
Challin said: We serve the people of Kadun, being the people of Kadun. It is our role, our duty and our honour to ensure the proper conduct of this poll. There would appear to be certain elements who do not care for the notion they may not terrorize the electorate!
It’s a big problem for them, yawned Faun, not being able to rig the ballot because a thoroughly deterrorized populace would scream the roof down to the nearest guy or girl in khaki.
If all is well, pointed out someone, trying to be soothing, the Crown and the State are synonymous.
Mitch said: “To just reiterate, the three heads of the people are the Crown, the State and the Constitution, the law. Should one go haywire, the other two remain. As well to say it is a threat that the courts may command the army. Let us cut to the chase. If the Imperial Army were a threat the country would be under martial law and there would be no election.”
“Point taken! Someone has to be C-in-C!”
“That is Sarat,” acknowledged Mitch.
“What is really the issue is whether the army is a law unto itself.”
“You got it,” said Mitch. “Try the servant of democracy.”
“It could uphold counter-revolution.”
“It could. That is true, however, of any nation under the sun. I ask you to consider who has toiled day and night to make our revolution work! Apart from me, of course.”
“Lovely sense of humour,” said Qine.
Dill got into an argument in the Saa’nda Senta.
“In the first place, if you feel so desperately strongly about Kadun, why aren’t you in Kadun?” A couple of people who knew who she was choked quietly into their beer. “In the second place, you obviously don’t know a d –arned thing about Kadun. Why are you standing here talking such rubbish?”
The orator gaped.
“And you are who?”
“Mitch’s daughter.”
Couple of wolf-whistles.
“Never have guessed!”
“So you think perpetuating a feudal system that was out of date ten centuries ago is rubbish! ‘Course you do, love. Your privilege comes from centuries of the sweat of the working man, from exploitation, from deference. Yessir nosir three bags flippin’ full, sir. It went out with wearing skins.”
Dill realized she was unspeakably angry and did her best to control it.
“My privilege lies in being assaulted by the Cult, my privilege lies in my dead sister, in watching my mother kill. Maya’s privilege lies in being dead. Sorg’s privilege lies in being dead. Let me tell you about my family’s privilege. It means sticking our necks out century in, century out, to defend the working man. No-one’s denying it wasn’t democracy! It was a hell of a lot better than whingeing in the safety of Dabida! You’re just a fake. Ask Qine about Mitch’s privilege!”
“CLIK’s sold out, everyone knows that! Bought and paid for.”
“And you’re not?” shot back Dill.
“That is a very serious insinuation.”
“Oh gosh,” said Dill.
“Well, what are you doing here!”
“Enjoying the last fleeting remnants of childhood until I take over Var-segan when Mitch is elected! That was the theory.”
“You? My fine lady Var-sega’?”
“Me. You have a problem?”
Although attacking Qine and Mitch is not the way to Zur’s heart, Zuri have strong stomachs for the –er, cut and thrust of political debate, and now they started to enjoy this.
“I expect it’s the hair!”
“Mitch never looked like that!”
“She’s nothing like him, is she!”
The orator got a word in edgeways.
“And all the little pezzies will bow and curtsey. What’s a stupid little tart like you ever done to earn respect?”
“You are a moron,” said Dill. “Somewhere in all this, I had a talk with another stupid little tart. She’s generally called Cantilip. Because we are not morons, we actually talked about what it all means when Kadun is a democracy. It means what Alzani-Meta means. That’s what it always did mean. Did and will. Kadun’s bigger. It means keeping the line open to the Crown. If you want to stand in the middle of Zur and challenge the outmoded feudal system that is Alzani-Meta, you be my guest! I’ll just enjoy.”
“’Course she can’t be Mitch’s daughter!”
Someone had it all on video. Within an hour it was all over Kadun.
Mitch was greeted by a round of applause.
“I thank you!”
“Oh no, that’s not for you, that’s for your daughter!”
“Spare my blushes!”
“Right chip off the old block!”
“Mel,” said Cantilip.
“Yes, o stupid tart.”
“Stupid little tart,” she corrected demurely. “I guess she learned at the feet of a master!”
He patted her bump
“We must be careful what we say in front of him!”
Yes! Cantilip is pregnant! Someone had to be. All this dying and no-one being born. Tint right.
“Are we in place of parents?”
He pretended not to understand.
“Bit difficult.”
CLIK went to town on it.
“We also are not morons. We have learned. What we say today is there’s nowt like a few big capitalists behind yer! You fight fire with fire not a leaking bucket. Anyone who thinks the working-people of Kadun could have achieved this on their own and not been crushed by capital is talking out of his – well, never mind.”
“Let me be frank,” said Zulagan. “The figures are on our Grid-site, we have nothing to hide. Who backed us? Choit-ban-varna. He did not have to back us. There was many a more mealy-mouthed organization if he’d wanted puppets. I appreciate that some folk have a mind that does not readily digest that the imperial family wanted our activism, but after 30 years in Fidubi politics that particular gentleman has a reputation in his own right, as you might say.”
The video reached Sarat.
He rang her up: “Welcome to the club!”
They chatted.
Qine, Gontwin, Zulagan were all elected. So was Varulin. I’m 45, he’d said. If perish the thought we ever have to defend Kadun with a gun, there’s plenty younger and fitter. Reckon I’ll put aside me uniform and try me hand at talking.
It’s that 3 in the morning election-night feeling. Cubs barely keep up with the dirty cups and half-eaten biscuits as people come and go. Cho has come to join Sarat and the pair of them are lounging on the sofas like cats who’ve got the cream as two superficially conflicting results become plain.
Qine appeared on the screen.
“It looks like CLIK are going to get a majority!”
“Aye,” said Qine, “not a clear majority, I don’t think we can hope for that, but the people of Kadun have clearly spoken.”
“The people of Kadun are clearly saying Micheal ban-sarndit-vaq, Master of Var-segan, is President!”
“Good for him,” said Qine. “I think we’ve all learned from each other. Takes all sorts to make a world and you can’t deny Mitch is one of the best.” He paused. “Such suspicion as there were remaining remained concerning whether in the end they would transfer power and they have transferred power.”
“Another way of looking at that,” it was commented in the studio, “would be that the folk who made the revolution have kept the power.”
“Ah yes, the malign clique!”
“CLIK, clique!”
“Was it ever about anything else? How do you want things to be? You decide.”
“That’s what they said, that’s what they meant! You do not know how it can be. First we show you, then you choose.”
“You know at the time that seemed crazy.”
“You are Prime Minister!”
“I am,” said Zulagan. “It sinks in slowly. I suppose that means I have to present myself to the emperor and tell him what I intend. I expect he will think it somewhat cautious! What the people of Kadun have said today, what they understand, is there isn’t one of lads and lasses who made the revolution who isn’t a ‘dangerous radical’ and that goes right back to – “ He gave a huge grin. “ – Mr Fixit himself
, Choit-ban-varna. As Qine says, we’ve all learned. Now I think we have work to do!”
The President will now address the nation.
I shall? Who, me?
It’s been a bumpy ride, said Mitch, and it would be reckless of me to proclaim no further bumps possible, but we are now living in a constitutional monarchy with a democratically elected government, we are now living under the rule of law…
Which roughly translated, thought Zulagan, means we still expect someone or ones to blow up our democratically elected government. And the onerous responsibility for preventing that lies with me.
Dill jumped up and down squealing. She flung herself into Mel’s arms then included Cantilip in the hug..
You did it, you did it, you did it!
Yes, said Mel, I suppose we did. He seemed stunned. He recovered. Dare to think the unthinkable!
It was, wasn’t it, said Cantilip later. That’s the point. That’s the generation gap! Dill’s generation has grown up with uncertainty. Another word for that is possibility or even probability! It might all go wrong but things are open. We grew up in a closed world. We took a can-opener!
By appointment, said Mel, can-openers to the Anile throne!
Cho came in range of the press-fiends.
Cho, you must be so damn’ proud!
Cho shook his head sadly.
“Reckless, lad were, just flamin’ reckless. Couldn’t do a thing to stop ‘im.”
Dill walked into the Principal’s office. The Principal managed to conceal a wild grin.
“Please may I have permission to cut school for a while. I really need to go to Azt.”
“There have to be very exceptional circumstances,” said the Principal severely. The wild grin escaped. “How long for?”
“I don’t actually know,” said Dill. “There’s a whole lot of legal stuff too. Handing over Var-segan.”
“I shall not be so stupid as to think you have not discussed with your parents what this means for your future.”
“There’re a lot of people looking out for me. I can go to college if I want. It’s a flexible world!”
“In no small part due to your father!”
All of us, she thought, as educators have watched like hawks as a bunch of mad teenagers changed the world. All of us have been changed, no matter how liberal we thought ourselves, how committed to developing maturity. It doesn’t even quicken my pulse to think her Mistress of Var-segan!
She said something of the kind to her colleagues.
“It was a game we played,” observed one. “Certainly we treated them as young adults, but we didn’t really think of them as young adults. We didn’t really think they could run the world!”
And Sarat still had too much to do, transferring power, defining his new role, getting to know the new members of the Senate and spending hours with lawyers finalizing exactly how much of Azt he owned, how much he didn’t wish to continue owning and how he was going to dispose of that which he wished no longer to own.
Finally lad reckoned ‘e could put ‘is feet oop. He took himself off to Zur.
He hadn’t reckoned with a delirious Dabida. Banners greeted him at the airport. He did it, he did it, he did it, he did it!
He escaped finally to the hill. We did it!
So there was Dill. They talk real easily.
Er-oowee, said Mel after a couple of days. Cantilip has given a lot of thought to rendering the sound exactly.
Do you think he’s old enough to know what he’s doing? asked Cantililp anxiously.
Maybe we should ring Baya.
Seriously.
Who else is there?
I know, said Cantilip.
He’s taken her riding.
Fatal! said Cantilip.
Indeed Sarat’s mind was ricocheting through all the things an honourable young man might say to a girl younger than he and realizing with a sort of delighted horror that they didn’t apply. You’re too young to commit yourself. Your life stretches ahead of you. You don’t want to be tied down. She is tied down! I could be killed, leaving you to be Anile empress. Who better? You could be killed. You’re a target anyway. Do you understand? Of course she understands. We both know terrible things can happen. I could pair with someone twenty years older and she still wouldn’t understand.
Var-segan. What about Var-segan?
Who else is going to understand?
Right now, as Mitch’s daughter, she may just be more of a target than I am. Well, that settles it! She’s not going back to Var-segan on her own, not even with half PANTHER in tow.
He treated her with a sort of courtesy that was most unbrotherly.
Believe it! said Cantilip. Brothers do not treat sisters like that.
Did I ever tell you we used to spend our holidays with Essa?
I am a modern girl, thought Dill. I am not averse to making the first move. But in this case I think I do not. How deliciously feudal! How quaint and outmoded. I think I am being courted. She considered. If I am not being courted, then he is extremely naïve and I do not believe that. The alternative is that he thinks of me as a schoolgirl, but that I doubt, given his history. Anyway, isn’t that the same thing? Shared horror. How can either of us pair with someone who does not understand terrible things happen? If he does not say something before he goes back to Azt, I am wrong. If he does not say something before he goes back to Azt, I shall say something. Better to know.
A word about fronds is called for here. They are about to become critical. Everyone knows what a plait is. One takes one’s tresses, divides them into three strands and overlays one strand with another. Dill’s emerald streaks had by now become electric blue. The electric blue fronds were created by taking the streaks, dividing them into three and plaiting them. Tiny tortoiseshell clips secured them at the bottom. They hung endearingly around her face. It’s not a style that suits everyone. When I tried it, Cioulis creased with laughter. It did, however, suit Dill; she retained it whilst gracefully maturing..
Here is Dill sitting at the terminal in her sitting-room, because (fortunately! breathed Cantilip)
Cantilip had found it reasonable to accommodate the child with a bedroom and a space to do her homework and entertain her little friends. Sarat is lounging in an armchair.
“Look at this!” said Dill.
Sarat came up behind her and leaned over her shoulder.
And
(Honestly!)
His hair, which at that point was longer than usual and parted in the middle got caught in one of the little tortoiseshell clips.
He didn’t realize until he drew back. Ooh!
His hand reached for the frond to disentangle himself at the same time her hand reached for the frond to disentangle him.
His hand stayed there.
Her hand stayed there.
He turned to her with a cartoon expression of surprise, wide eyes and mouth in an O.
She made the same face back.
“May I kiss you?” asked Sarat.
“I’d like that,” said Dill.
He kissed her.
At length he led her to the settee where they sat with their arms around each other and stupid grins on their faces.
What are we going to do!
So – I mean, look with whom you’re dealing here – they plotted.
Sarat rolled onto the floor and landed on one knee, laughed, threw back his hair.
“Do the thing properly. My lady, will you do me the honour of sharing my life?” He grinned. “Somehow.”
“My lord,” said Dill, “the honour is mine.”
By the way, it was mid-afternoon. No idea of the relevance of that, absolutely none.
They went on talking.
“Sarat – I don’t know very much.”
“Go with the flow.”
“That – may be the problem.”
He cocked his head.
“You’re with me. You’re safe.”
“I know that,” said she with a sort of ecstatic sigh. “Look – a few fumbles. Penetration once. It might have been happening to someone else. Total – dislocation. Either I should have found it so ghastly I pushed him off or I should have slightly enjoyed it. What I think I think is that if I lose control I might remember.”
“Then I shall have to make sure you don’t.”
He just kept kissing her, very gently, very tenderly, and above the waist.
“Please,” she breathed, “please…”
He looked up instantly.
“Stop?”
“No!”
He moved on down until he was kneeling between her legs, kissing and caressing the inside of her thighs and all places between.
Shadows stirred in her mind.
Again he looked up, hair falling over his face. He sat back on his knees and pushed his hair back with a flounce.
“Can’t do a thing with it! Do you think you could plait it for me, please?”
“Idiot!”
He stretched out on top of her
Mmm, mmm, mmm!
“It is just incredibly sexy to feel you under all that silk.”
“I aim to please.”
And so on.
“So that’s what all the fuss is about!”
“Fun, isn’t it.”
Somewhere around 4 in the morning she was running her fingers through his hair and making little plaits of it. Sarat refused to comb his hair before appearing for breakfast. Mel looked up lazily from the table and dissolved.
“Me, me, me! I want!”
“The curls, darling,” said Cantilip.
Sarat looked smug.
“Don’t you think they suit him?” asked Dill.
“Dare you,” said Mel.
“Go down into Zur? People might talk!” said Sarat.
“Is there anything you’d like to tell us?” asked Cantilip.
But the second night was clouded.
Sarat drowsily reached for her and found empty space. He sat up. She was sitting in the corner of the room and he knew she was crying.
He bounded over to her.
“Darling! What - ? Did I hurt you?”
“No! No..I’m being silly.”
“Tell.”
“You called me Maya.”
Damn! “Oh damn, damn, damn, damn, damn..”
She managed a laugh.
“It was a shock.”
“You’re Dill. You’re special and wonderful and unique and mine.”
“It wasn’t just – it’s only because they killed her that I – “
Double damn. Quintuplicate damn.
“But they did and you are.”
“Anyone older than me is going to have some kind of history.”
“It’s just mine is a bit more – shattering than most!”
“But then so’s mine.”
“I guess there’re some things I need to tell you.” Rather a lot of things. And somehow being naked doesn’t seem wholly appropriate to telling them. “We can cuddle better in bed.”
They cuddled.
“There’s this chair,” began Sarat. He ended with Maya’s death.
“So at the deepest level you’re still with her,” said Dill. “It’s OK. I can handle that once I understand.”
Sarat closed his eyes a moment.
“No,” he said firmly. “At the deepest level I am with you. That is how I want it. That is how it has to be.”
And he thought: the real Mistress of Kadun is a piece of motile metal!
“You’ll always love her,” said Dill. “I mean, I’m not a complete idiot. I did understand that. It was just a shock.”
Sarat found himself blinking away tears.
“Would it upset you if I cried in your arms. For everything.”
“No,” said Dill. “I think it would make me feel quite protective.”
Then later they talked more about motile metal and he thought, fleetingly: she must sit! But then memory flooded him, Maya running in tears from the chair, the flight to Fidub, and he thought violently: I don’t want to know! But the thought returned that the Anile empress must sit on the Anile throne.
Aloud he said: “It’s a bit hard to say without prompting. I am in something bottomlessly deep. There’s no-one to talk to about it, no expert who can definitively give the low-down. It’s generally called the universe.”
She grinned.
“Anile Emperor. So this is what all the fuss is about.”
“It has its moments,” said Sarat. “Say it,” he teased.
“It has its moments. No, OK, let me clear my throat.” She gave a theatrical cough. “I am Anile Empress. Waaaaaa!”
“You’re really getting the hang of it,” said Sarat.
Sarat stood on the balcony of the Room and looked out over Zur. He turned to Mel.
“I suppose I should have asked you if you’d mind.”
“Good grief! What brought that on?”
“I called her Maya in my sleep. We had the sort of intimate conversation most folks can’t have because they just don’t have the raw material.”
“Gulp! But it’s all right.”
“Yes!”
“So what’s wrong?”
Sarat laughed and waved his hand airily at Zur.
“That is.”
“Zur? My Zur? Don’t you go talking like that about my Zur.”
“There is nowhere from Sesqual’s caff to the Taheen.”
“Which hasn’t got a little plaque,” said Mel softly. “Sarat and Maya woz here.”
“Or of course I could take her home! Where do I take my girl, Mel! The other question of course being why does it matter?”
“To whom,” corrected Mel.
“I told Dill about the joining. She said I was still with Maya at the deepest level and once the idiot had explained that to her she could handle it. OK, not those exact words! I said no. At the deepest level I’m with her. I refuse to have it any other way. Not those exact words….Then she said she understood perfectly well that I’d always love Maya. Then I did a bit of crying for all the times I haven’t cried. Then we had a really very enjoyable time.”
“She’s good for you,” said Mel.
“I told her that! Actually I said she’s unique and wonderful and special. She is, isn’t she.”
“Externally, therefore, you need somewhere new.”
“While I find the balance,” amended Sarat.
“Or,” said Mel. “What you don’t want is some old codger in the corner reminiscing I remember when you first come ‘ere…”
“Cho to the life! Try it another way. I am screwing up the courage to take my partner home to meet my mother and father.”
“A pleasing residence in the dunes, replete with constant hot and cold running memories bouncing off every wall.”
“I have to face the fact it’s too soon. The hell with that! Anyway, it’s not exact. The – the healing capacity of memory to fade is out of sync with the – capacity of the heart to heal.”
“Nonsense,” said Mel. “Two things. One is bloody time – “
Sarat sighed.
“All times are now.”
“Ex-actly. The other – I think the other. The other is the intensity and historic significance of the memories.”
“Amend the plaque! Sarat and Maya plotted here.”
They did, thought Mel. I do see the difference between my spare room and Sarat’s bedroom at Essa’s, of course I do! He floated it anyway.
“Thus the Anile emperor beds His Imperial Majesty’s Steward in the palace at Zur!”
“I did say, should I have asked!”
Mel felt his way through that.
“This is my space?”
Dill vigorously towelled her hair.
“Think of me as an older sister,” said Cantilip. “Is everything all right? Anything you’d like to ask?”
Dill laughed.
“I think I am in most capable hands!”
“I thought that. I thought I’d ask.”
“Thank you! There are a million questions. Sarat’s taking me through it slowly. You have had a time, haven’t you! Chairs and things.”
“Chairs can be quite unspeakable!”
“Where does earthpower fit in?” asked Dill.
“Ah,” said Cantilip.
Sarat dialled.
“Mum? I’m still on the hill…Going to Cho’s…Something important to tell you…Could you and dad get there…”
“This is Dill, Mitch’s daughter.”
Essa smiled.
“We have met on the hill.”
“Her Imperial Majesty,” said Sarat. “But don’t tell anybody! Not yet.”
“Oh my dear.”
I am not sure, Baya said after, if I hugged the poor girl or collapsed onto her. Var-segan! He has married Var-segan!
Most people, said Cho, think he did that some time ago.
They talked mostly Fidubi politics and Maona-pri gossip, Sarat interjecting explanations where necessary or indeed asking for them.
“They,” said Sarat, “rather reckon that when I take a break the last thing I want to talk about is Kadun but I think on this occasion. Dill and I have been plotting. Input appreciated.”
“Sounds interesting,” said Cho.
He did want to show her Maona-pri. CLICK CLICK CLICK
“We’re staying at Cho’s,” said Sarat.
“The world is a pretty strange place,” said Dill, “if the Mistress of Var-segan can’t stay with the emperor’s grand-parents.”
“The world,” muttered someone, “is a pretty strange place when an emperor has grand-parents!”
“Admit it,” said Sarat, “you wouldn’t give it two secs if she were he.”
“I reject that accusation!”
“Dill comes from a really apolitical family.”
Laughter.
“I’m 18,” said Dill.
“What was I doing when I was 18? Or Mel?”
“Of course they were boys,” mocked Dill.
“Representatives of a peripheral and outmoded feudal system,” said Sarat.
“I think we’re receiving a message here, Sarat.”
“Have to be darn’ thick if we didn’t!”
“Forget it or be forever cursed as sexist pigs!”
“OK, you are working with my lady of Var-segan!”
“May we ask what on?”
“I think the place is called Kadun. Serious, guys. I now have a little more time for the – peripheral. I want to explore, with Dill, with As, with Behna, just what it does mean in the context of a democracy.”
“Right now,” said Dill, “he’s trying to show me Maona-pri.”
“After all, I did grow up here!”
“Did we notice that?”
“We don’t have too much time,” said Dill pointedly. “I have to be in class tomorrow.”
“You’re at college in Zur?”
“I’m at school! Only because I dropped out and went back.”
“I am really not sure,” said Karula. “Is this the cunning ploy?”
“Assuredly they are a team. As to what is the game.”
“In the given context, what more natural than that he takes her to Cho’s. Outside it – “
“A whirlwind visit to one’s family that could not wait.”
“They will have talked. Of that I am sure.”
“Certainly. The role of the emperor’s steward in the modern age is a most engrossing topic. I shall discreetly enquire.”
Mitch started to mail Cantilip
Subject line: ?
Body of message: ??????
Then he realized even the feeblest anti-spam program would eat it alive. He picked up the telephone.
“Born to it!” said Cantilip. “Really, the stage’s loss…”
“That goes for all of us,” growled Mitch.
“An eternity of longing, darling!”
“There are many basic human rights,” said Mitch. “Am I the emperor’s father-in-law?”
“He’ll explain when he gets back to Azt.”
Pause.
“The correct answer is ‘Mitch do not be absurd’.”
“Just so,” said Cantilip.
Dill packed her school-bag. She’d left Sarat in Fidub until next weekend. Of course I can be more private and anonymous in Zur. Fortunately if anywhere has seen it all, that place is Zur.
Hi, Dill! Good weekend? Did you have a nice weekend? Looks like you had a really interesting weekend! Hey, Dill’s got a boyfriend!
We’ve known each other since I was knee-high!
What’s that got to do with anything?
I’m a school-kid! I’m Mitch’s daughter.
We know that, dear.
Dashed suitable!
She turned to Basan, frantically scribbling in the corner.
At least I did my homework. I mean, how romantic is that.
Politics! I guess Sarat could be really helpful with that.
Hey guys, Sarat helped her with her homework.
Lots of giggling.
No, said Dill sorrowfully, I sat all alone in my little room The revolution is their generation. Our turn will come! That’s one of the reasons we’ve been talking. What you lot think about the world shifting 180 degrees. I’m like a bridge to the new generation.
The teacher came in.
Perfection, Mitch had once said, lies in never actually lying. Oh dear, I seem to be getting good.
“We think of Sarat as experienced because of the guy thing. I think we can safely assume there has only been one other girl.”
“Girl, boy, does it make a difference?”
“Confident,” said Karula. “I should not want a botched job! One has to remember that they were probably no more than 16, neither entirely sure what they were doing. Now one is entirely sure what one is doing!”
“He may of course feel no-one could take it seriously.”
“Except them!”
“I am quite sure they will have explored their feelings for each other.”
“No-one may tell me I may not email my daughter. That right is enshrined in the Constitution.”
“I wrote it myself…If she is Anile empress, she will not tell you in an email. OK, I said it.”
“Deep breaths now,” said Karula. “Calm, centred….I am sure they have talked.”
“Are they protecting me?”
“Oh Mitch. It’s not as though you were Prime Minister!”
“Does it make a difference? Nothing prepares me for this and I did not think I knew those words! Everyone knows I could not be – everyone thought – closer to Sarat if we were brothers. How in those circumstances can I be compromised by being his father-in-law?”
“The separation of Crown and State being a fiction, how can it be more of a fiction!”
“We are setting this up long term. Furthermore, if there had been any rooted objection to the feudalism which resulted in Kadun’s first free elections I should not have been elected. I do not think we shall find this covered in the manual!”
“We don’t know, Mitch.”
“Do we not?”
There were some imaginative explanations. Dill had been hurt by a guy in Zur and Sarat wanted to
make it clear no-one messed with her. Like Mitch doesn’t exist, man? Ah, but modern girls don’t run to Daddy. No, no! Modern girls just pour out their hearts to old family friends.
An old friend of the family.
Where have I heard that before?
No-one would give it two seconds if she were he.
They would if he had his arm round him!
Spoken for. That is a quaint old-fashioned phrase.
If she is not, then intentions had better be honourable!
Young men are going to be very cautious about making advances here.
Sociologically interesting, is it not. One can – people have – told Sarat to take a running jump.
Certain matters on which one does not risk the emperor’s wrath!
Maybe she’s gay!
Now that is an interesting thought.
Or of course he is.
Some were more perceptive.
“One may assume the lady is under His Imperial Majesty’s protection.”
“Under, definitely, yes, under.”
Dill smiled up at them from the mag.
“One is reminded of a well-fed cat.”
“They are working on a project,” said Num in the flat tones of one who knows he’s being taken for a ride. “Now Kadun is a constitutional monarchy, Sarat has more time for the things that interest him personally.”
“OK,” said Seani, “it’s a cover-story and everyone know it’s a cover-story, but unless he declares her Anile empress it’s an unbreakable cover-story and since we are not sub-human we understand at least one reason for the cover-story.”
“She’s terribly young.”
“I’d imagine you grow up pretty fast as Mitch’s daughter. I would not for instance think she was politically naïve.”
Num cackled.
“Any more than certain young men were at her age.”
“We have been asked a question,” said Seani.
“Have we?”
“Whether ‘terribly young’ is code for ‘sexist pigs’.”
“Ouch,” said Num. “Or do I mean oink? If it isn’t hooey, we’ll know at the end of their vacation.”
Seani frowned.
“The pressing question would then be how long can they bear to live apart?”
“I suppose, you know, I mean it seems inconceivable and I don’t even think it’s politically possible but if you look back at what Sarat said when he was 18. Or so.”
“Don’t understand.”
“Who on earth would want to live in Azt!”
Seani stared.
“It’s not politically possible to step down.”
“We do not really really know what our brash Fidubi kid thinks about it all.”
“The stepping down is obviously crazy. Sorry, but it is! That doesn’t mean you’re not onto something. For the first time for years he has a little time on his hands. “
“That’s where we started,” pointed out Num.
Seani made tearing hair out gestures.
“It won’t be the first time we’ve been sent round in circles!”
“No, he cannot do that!” said Num with a sort of crazed leer. “He cannot move the imperial capital to Var-segan.”
“He’s Anile Emperor! I think you will find that Constitution or not there are certain areas in which he can do what he likes.”
“No,” said Num again. “For good, for bad, for rampant evil, for whatever! Azt’s identity lies in being the imperial capital. There didn’t even have to be an emperor! It’s like saying Alzani-Meta are mooching off to Batna-kri! Zur’d go ape.”
“I know.”
Indeed it floated through Sarat’s mind that once upon a time he might have been going to live in a cottage with roses around the door. Too many people had given too much to him personally and anyway, he’d be bored stiff. Somewhere he existed on the edge of uncertainty as to whether he had a rest of his life but the threat was diminishng, was and was not. He tried to imagine what that rest of his life might be. Being surrounded by children and grand-children in the Jumesit refused to rock. There was of course something else. There had been no visits from the future. He rejected the more cataclysmic explanations – the end of the line, oh, decidedly the end of time itself – and decided his heirs and successors weren’t going to be living in Azt. Where, then? And where just happens to be free of memories of Maya? The thought of explaining this to Mitch made him laugh but I promise you moving the capital never entered his head.
Sarat’s car drew up outside the President’s official residence.
“We’re cool,” said Mitch.
“We are the coolest,” said Karula.
Sarat was shown in. He looked at them. They looked at him. The door shut.
“Hi, mum, hi, dad,” said Sarat. “It’s quite complicated, isn’t it.”
“I believe the last time this happened,” tested Mitch.
“Vaudos’ heir,” said Sarat. “But she renounced it.” They smirked at each other. “Dill likes the word ‘annexed’”
“Her or Var-segan!”
“Oh both,” said Sarat.
“I guess you get to keep the Pika after all!”
Sarat looked around.
“I don’t know. I think it would go rather well in here.”
Sometimes men are unbelievable. Perhaps they’re both in shock?
“There is a word,” said Karula, “congratulations! I trust I may kiss the groom?” She kissed him anyway and he hugged Mitch. “Now please what is your plot!”
“The alternatives were:
We were not seen in public together and she duly returned to Var-segan.
We were seen in public and announced our troth
We were seen in public and wound up the world.
1. She is still at school. 2. As you know, I have never had any overwhelming desire to spend my entire life in Azt. 3. It is the case that any partner of mine would be a possible target; Dill is in a target in her own right and as your daughter. Denying alliance is not the way we have done things or do them. Many of these things would be so if she were male. She is not male. She is the woman I love. 4. She does not feel quite ready for the job. The way we went seemed to us the way to go. It allows us to spend a great deal of time with each other, in a variety of interesting places. It allows Dill to finish school and to go to college if she wants. She’s still deciding.”
“While you oversee Var-segan!”
“D’you think I’m up to it?” asked Sarat anxiously.
Mitch turned to Karula.
“Think lad can cope?”
As I see it, Sarat had said, there are three ways of doing it. One, my heir is Var-segan’s heir, two, our second child is Var-segan’s heir, three, Qirl.
“He must love her very much,” said Karula. “He really does not want this.”
“The guy,” said Mitch, “has had enough complexity in his young life.”
Txtg s al v wl. Sarat realized he’d had the same mobile for three years. Great heaven! He went shopping and acquired a dinky device that possessed a tiny but usable keyboard. This he used to send Dill daily mails that were not always very long but were usually very funny, and gave an insight into his days.
I am frantically in love with you and also I love you. The difference is what Telephone rings.
That was one of the grimmer bits. There are protocols when there have to be. One such occasion is when a prisoner asks to see me. He or she passes into the care of PANTHER.
Sarat took himself off to Var-segan, wondering if anything, anything, he had done to date was quite as mad as this. Dill had paved the way. Sarat’d like a break from Azt. You can have too much of a good thing! He really needs to talk to Kile. I mean, the views of my generation are one thing. I didn’t go back to school to drop out before taking the silly exams! Looking after the place for me. Reckon ‘e can cope? I think you can regard him as master of ‘ouse, don’t you.
And I wasn’t born yesterday, thought Changri. What a flamin’ turn-up!
“Just house-sitting,” said Sarat. A lot of people covertly watched his every move attempting to discern more. He don’t behave like a guest, but then he wouldn’t, cos there int no ‘ost. He don’t behave like he owns the place, though technically speaking, as we all know, he does. And he does seem very ‘appy.
Sarat is pretty good at covert watching too. He mailed Dill
My every move! I promise I shall do nothing aggressive. Move a chair fractionally to the left. Adjust a painting. Meanwhile, fortunately, I entertain, the expected and the un-,entertain and am entertained. A guy, bit younger than me, bit older than you! Very, very shy. Things have changed a lot, he says. I am encouraging. They have! After a bit he tells me he has faith in me, I’ll understand. He really trusts me. I shan’t laugh at him. That’s great, I say, thank you! I really cannot think what this is about. On a superficial reading, it’s nothing sexual. At least that was right. It turns out there is a species of water-rat that is endangered because people mistake it for vermin. Note to myself to find out whether the skagga survived without me. But what, I hear you cry, does he want me to do? Well, you, actually. He thought it would be a good idea to set up a breeding-colony in the park and so give the critter a high profile. Thinks: it might be a very good idea, providing the critter is as innocent as painted. I do not wish to have infestation laid at my door! I tell him I am sympathetic and shall consult with you. My lady, I ask it: do you wish to be known as the saviour of Cella’s river-mole. Such is the beast’s name. Will you trust me? I have investigated it fully. I have even asked NoZone. Contacts, you know. It breeds but annually producing litters of four or five hairless, helpless and frantically ugly young. Also it appears wholly devoid of common-sense since it nests in grassland. My guess is actually that it is threatened with extinction because of its absolute stupidity rather than because every man’s hand is against it. It doesn’t look in the least like a domestic rat, though come to think of it it’s probably thick enough to eat rat-poison.
“Where’s young master, then?” asked Qine
“Reckon he’s talking to folk,” said Changri.
Qine’s grin broadened.
“Aye, he’s good at that. What’s he doing here?”
“Got a book open,” said Changri. “Care for a flutter?” Qine shook his head. “Allus did say tha were tight-fisted bugger.”
“Does he use the pool?”
“What? Oh, every day. Teaching some of the youngsters.”
“Keeps you fit, swimming.”
“I remember Mitch tried to teach you!”
“Cold,” said Qine, “and wet! Couldn’t get the hang of it at all.” He looked at his watch. “Must be off! Could you tell him I’ll drop back later, after dinner.”
“Got your mobile, has he? If he int going to be here.”
“Glad to see you’ve got the hang of how things work around here.”
“Seeing as you’re here,” said Qine.
“Aye,” said Sarat.
Qine looked mischievous.
“And there’s a lot of folk wondering quite why you’re here but I say look on it as doing a favour for a mate, a pal, that’s to say.”
“Sounds right to me,” said Sarat innocently. “Seeing as I’m here?”
“New sports centre’s been finished. Would you like to declare it officially open?”
“That sounds wonderfully normal,” said Sarat.
“Bit more to it than that,” admitted Qine. Oh yeah? said Sarat’s expression. “Now don’t go getting the wrong idea. I’m not asking you to give lessons, though I hear there’s some. Beautiful pool, it is. We can all see that. Only thing is, none of us can swim.”
“So?”
“That’s pretty commonplace hereabouts. A few encouraging words about the joys of the water.”
“What! You don’t want me to do thirty lengths!”
“I was wondering if maybe your mum and dad had a few pictures. You as kids.”
Mel hanging on the side of the boat, Hass with the dolphins, me diving. Do people remember where I’m coming from better than I do? Mad green water-baby who thought he’d change Kadun. Am I still that guy? Yes. No. Discuss. Remain Sarat. Uh, yeah, right, dad. Let me (cautiously) dissect. A lot of things.
Break no break. Maya was a constant while I changed direction. Mel and Hass. Frightened rabbits. It is a little obvious that I feel protective of Dill. Is the feeling different or is it just the change in context.
We all knew we were going over the top. Maya is everything I am. Dill is everything I shall be? Which would seem to put me in a sort of limbo. Which is just about the last thing I feel.
There are many complications. That I love Maya did not cross my mind as one of them. It is given, embedded, that I love Maya. Organic, part of me. Maya is dead.
I put myself in my future. If you do that, the past rebounds. So where is now?
Where am I now?
Pretending not to be Master of Var-segan.
Which I guess is limbo.
Which probably means I should be wedding Dill instantly with all the style and ceremony the imperium can muster.
But not.
Suppose I – he grinned to himself – decomplexify. I am here. She is on the other side of the continent. Is this necessary?
He thought he realized what his problem was.
He mailed Cho.
I stood naked in front of the world. My lady is my grace and my truth. I repeat the performance?
Perhaps, mailed back Cho, everyone will understand except you.
Ouch! typed Sarat.
Cho: No-one expects you to remain single.
Sarat: Betrayal.
Cho: That is ridiculous!
Sarat: I know. I also know I have put myself in this limbo.
Cho: A place to heal? You need to talk about Maya.
Sarat: Do I?
Cho: Yes!
Sarat: I know what my problem is.
Cho: I will come.
“Take it slowly,” said Cho.
Sarat growled.
“What is this, regression therapy?”
“You are 10. You are playing at the back of the stables. Maya misses the catch. Hass laughs and runs off with the ball.” Cho smiled. “I was there too. So?”
“So it wasn’t her country, it wasn’t her problem. And I can’t ask her if there’s something she never said.”
“You know there wasn’t.”
“She died because of what I wanted.”
“And having got it?”
“Forget her. One more casualty of war.”
“That is not what you feel.”
“The entire continent has accommodated itself to what I want.”
“Only because everyone else wants it too. Make up your mind, Sarat. You are separate or you are joined?”
“Oh for – “
“You are building a fantasy of Maya safe and happy in Zur. Leave Dill in Zur. She is safe in Zur. It may be the stupidest thing you have done. Purely on the grounds of your own well-being.”
“Until I decreed Kadun safe. What I’m doing is proving it’s possible to live apart. It’s not the same.”
“It never is. That doesn’t stop it hurting.”
Sarat muttered something about bloody sheep on the bloody Leolisle.
“Who said,” asked Cho, “everyone says it’s not their problem.”
“Perhaps,” said Sarat, “what I have done here is a little too big for me to grasp. We did live apart - ”
“Yes,” said Cho. “You were 16 at the time.”
“So long,” said Sarat, “as you don’t say – she isn’t a bit like Maya. Not Maya at 18, not Maya any time.”
Cho laughed.
“Nor did you contrive her schooling in Zur! Let us start with you and those sheep.”
“You are totally missing the point.”
“Then,” asked Cho in tones of sweet reasonableness, “what is the point?”
Silence.
“Somewhere you are terrified.”
“That,” retorted Sarat, “is normality.”
“You are in love.”
“I know that.”
“No, you don’t. You could be in a two-room hovel – not of course that hovels remain! You could be in a cottage without main drainage and no electricity. So long as you had some blankets and a couple of sticks to rub together. You want to be with Dill. You want to be whispering sweet nothings and planning your future. You would not be thinking about Maya’s – place in your heart. As you say, organic. You love her. You always will love her. That is natural. You love someone else. That is also natural. It will fall into place if you let it.”
“I know all that,” said Sarat.
Cho sighed heavily and unflatteringly.
“Or you are Anile emperor. You wish to lay the world at your lady’s feet. You act under restraint. You cannot show the world your bride. OK, that’s cool. Also you cannot behave like a regular guy. That is less cool. You paw the ground with your hoof!”
“Neigh!”
“The shadow.”
“Shit, man, everyone else is living a normal life.”
“Somewhere you want to sweep Dill off to the Leolisle. Why not? You have done what you set out to do.”
Sarat burst out laughing.
“No. N-O. That is not it.”
Cho smiled.
“What, then?”
“I am off-centre. That is not the road back.”
“You have run Kadun.”
Sarat grinned.
“Ooh, the power!”
“I enumerate the breaks.”
“Think about that one,” suggested Sarat.
“At the moment you are experiencing a certain amount of emotional turmoil it happens that you have comparatively little to do.”
“So? What does it mean?”
“Tell me!”
“A change of gear. A certain passivity which would be welcome were I fully able to get on with my own life. Instead of riding off into the sunset with my bride I am – I have – accidentally or due to this that and the other, as you prefer – gnawed at the wound. The stark decision that faces me as to whether to simply fling her over my saddle and take her home is – slightly, let us not make a huge deal of this – complicated by the question of where home is. I do as I please, cognisant the entire world watches. Do photographers have fins?”
“Webbed feet. Also gills. Were you ever in love with Maya?”
He waited for the explosion. There was a moment there when it nearly came.
“Oh yes,” said Sarat. “Shower with rose petals, the whole bit.” Then we have not understood, thought Cho. “I know it didn’t show.”
The last great romantic gesture, thought Cho, riding through Azt on a silver horse. We have been such fools. But what a strange thing to say.
“Joined at the hip,” said Cho then wished he hadn’t.
“History shall record,” said Sarat, “we spent most of our – last years together in fatigues sitting on crates. History shall talk bollocks.”
“My lady was my privacy,” said Cho. He continued, but cautiously. “You still feel naked.”
“I stripped,” said Sarat, then, “d’you remember the other time I chafed at the bit?”
“You wanted to take off.”
Sarat grinned.
“We got as far as the Taheen. We learned to be a bit subtle, a bit clever. Not all at once. There was nothing secret. No reason not to shower her with diamonds – rose petals.”
“I don’t understand – “ began Cho. “Your secret.”
“We learned to have it all,” said Sarat.
“I may be being obtuse,” said Cho.
“The present relevance? It didn’t matter not being able to escape to the Leolisle. We could have. We didn’t.”
“You – appeared to live centre-stage.”
“The things you’ve said are true but they don’t matter.” He knew Cho was waiting for him to expand on that one. "Of course the cottage – preferably with main drainage. Certainly the silver stallion. Do not forget the diamonds. Rose petals are mandatory.”
“You are laughing at me,” said Cho, “which is certainly an improvement in your frame of mind.”
Sarat shook his head.
“I’m laughing at me.”
“What, as the young people say, is your problem?”
“I want union. She wants union. We are getting there. We haven’t got. It is all delightful, delectable and fun. Alas, other things howl at the borders. That is my centre. The howling will continue until I get there.”
“I,” said Cho, then stopped.
“You are my dear, grey-haired old grandfather,” said Sarat. “You are thinking of me. May I say I consider it wholly appropriate.”
“Otherwise all is well.”
“I’m a good teacher,” said Sarat.
“There remains the question of the wedding.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll say what I want to say.”
Dill stood in front of the mirror and looked at herself thoughtfully. Incomplete thoughts floated through her mind, including, yes, what the fuck does the Anile empress look like, but she wasn’t really thinking about her appearance. After a while she trotted off to find Mel.
“We all,” she began, then stopped. “Something Happening To One Of Us.” The capitals were audible. “I don’t think – feel. I’ve been asking myself and I really don’t think I feel any different about that. “Losing Sarat, losing Mum and Dad. They’ll get me because I’m Mitch’s daughter, because I’m Mistress of Var-segan or they’ll get me because I’m Anile empress. I want to talk about a really low-grade trivial terror. It goes something like, I have thought, yeah, yeah, used to the public eye, the glare of publicity, blah. Mel – when Sarat was just starting this, didn’t he ever have stage-fright?”
Mel, who had composed his features into an expression of loving concern appropriate to dealing with that old thing again, began to chuckle.
“Sweetheart…I have to tell you – actually, no. Sickening, isn’t it!”
“There is a sense – I have thought – in which I have just become the property of the world. I comfort myself that democratically elected government deflects some of the heat.”
“Except,” said Mel. She sighed. “Sarat protects his privacy,” said Mel then wondered why he’d said it.
“I went to see him a few times. How it struck me – “ She giggled. “A terribly posh bedsit, of course, rather a lot of rooms to it. It did not seem to me the lifestyle was put on to make me feel at ease.”
“Lives like a bloody student,” said Mel, imperturbable. “It is not of course exact.”
Dill put on her serious face and mimicked Cantilip.
“One must be exact.”
“Except that,” said Mel with glee. “Rather a lot of except thats. Let us enumerate them.”
“Gosh, is that dangerous?”
“Could be!”
“I thought – none of us expects to be waited on hand and foot and then I thought with a big family it’s got to be different, heaps more work, for a start. Then I thought – is regressed a wicked word! That he’s simply being the single young man he would have been. Except that!”
“What?”
“Nothing a guy can’t handle.”
“Meaning?”
“You know what they say in Azt? He’s the boss. Everyone knows he’s the boss. He knows he’s the boss. There’s absolutely no need for him or anyone else to show he’s the boss because everyone knows it already.”
“So? Why are we talking about this?”
“What? Oh, he is my beloved, the light of my life, my heart’s desire. There is no aspect of his life too trivial to be of all-consuming interest to me. Stuff like that.”
“Well, that of course. I don’t get the feeling you think it’s trivial.”
She giggled again.
“I’m not planning to write it up for the tabloids!
“Promise?”
“What does he want?” .
I’m studying that question, thought Mel. After a moment he said it. “I should not seem to me to be the obvious person to ask,” he added gently. “D’you mean – low-grade, trivial regrets! Not the big obvious ones. The life he chose not to have.”
“I don’t want to hurt him.”
“Sweetheart,” said Mel again, feeling rather strongly that he didn’t have the faintest idea what this conversation was actually about. “How, Dill, how could you possibly hurt him?”
“Not that,” she said with a sort of horror. “No second thoughts.”
“What are we talking about?” asked Mel, making tearing hair out gestures. “Please?”
She gave a small laugh.
“Mel - out of my depth is a feeble way of putting it. Doggy-paddling with numberless fathoms of ocean beneath me. I don’t know him, not the way you know him, not even the way Mitch knows him. There was a kid from Maona-pri. I feel that – I’ve got it into my head that – unless I understand him I’ll get something terribly wrong. I don’t know why I feel that! There still is. Is that the point?”
“You’re the one who brought up bedsits. You have a terrible feeling that you know the Anile emperor not Sarat. How true that is.” She looked shocked. “And also garbage! . Matured, we have all matured. We fought against it but we were defeated. You probably haven’t heard the ‘stay Sarat’ clause. The ‘stay Sarat’ clause is crucial here. Long, long years since, Essa told him he must stay Sarat. Others’ expectations, others’ definitions would assault him. Sarat’s instincts, Sarat’s reactions are unchanged. The Anile emperor is the Fidubi radical. To that extent there are no unexplored depths. Move it, shake it, remove the digit from the hole.” Oh Sorg. “He does not understand that things can’t be done.”
“Yes,” said Dill in a small voice. “This. I mean it’s a problem to him, right. I didn’t want that.”
“Not a problem,” said Mel warmly. “A – you will be together.” He tried to make light of it. “No-one could deny Sarat’s general approach to things – see Dill, love Dill, live with Dill. He’s a simple chap at heart!” Time is foreshortened. “He had no idea what he was getting into at the esoteric level.” Is that what scares you? “None of us did. He – he is the Anile emperor. We don’t any of us, perhaps Sarat most of all, exactly know what it means to be Anile emperor . The brash Fidubi brat was not aware of cruising in the infinite vortices of space-time.” He tutted and shook his head. “It just wasn’t in the job description. He has found that he has embarked on a venture wholly independent of the standard of living of the masses. So far as the standard of living of the masses is concerned, he might be 17. Is any of that coherent?” Oh help. “A bit scary?” Anything to do with this separation?
“Hidden depths,” said Dill rather uncertainly.
“Doggy-paddles! Sarat to some extent – swims on the surface of Sarat, who is also the Anile emperor.”
“It’s bound up with Maya.”
“Sarat before Maya?”
“I know it looks like that. Mel – one of the things that binds us is knowing shit happens, OK. What – what he wants is Maya. What I want is Baria, never to have been – I do ask myself.”
“It’s much more exact to say it’s bound up with the guys – Narulis, Kaminua, Jaizal. For some reason, they seem to be the only ancestors who matter in this gig! They all got – what we think is they all got close to – er, he finished lamely, something. It’s as though there’s unfinished business. That works of course at all levels. The Matter of Kadun is unfinished business. It would of course be useful to know what that business is, but we don’t.”
“You can’t end death,” said Dill.
“Grass grows greener, feeds ‘un fat little rarbits,” said Mel. “D’you know about Sorg?”
“What about him?”
“Ah. Fal is or was for a time or may always be in an – enduring relationship with his – ghost. Which is to say he has visited her and they converse, so it has seemed.” He watched Dill acutely. She seemed unfazed. “Shall I continue or do you wish to say something such as Waaa!”
“Please continue,” said Dill.
“Your dead,” said Mel.
“My dead,” said Dill. “No ghosts, nothing flashy. I talk to them.”
“Baria,” said Mel.
“My sister loves me,” said Dill, “present tense. Mostly Heela.”
“Opinion differs as to what is going on with Fal. My own view – mostly. I mean it’s the interpretation I have most of the time. My own view is that it is real and in some way bound up with the Matter of Kadun, that the Matter of Kadun is some kind of disturbance in the ether. Interestingly, Hass, who is the most ethereal of us all, tends – there is a great deal of tending – tends rather to the projection interpretation. Many cultures have had taboos against communion with the dead, between the living and the dead, diminished it as ‘evil’ when it is – if it is – a symptom rather than the disease.” Clear blue-grey eyes continued to study him unblinkingly. He sighed to himself. After all, she is the Anile empress! Not easily perturbed…Don’t I have that rather the wrong way round? “Perhaps I digress. I’m really good at that. My little point was of course not only can no-one end death, no-one would want to.”
“Normal death,” said Dill.
“Have I got anywhere near answering you?”
“I wanted to be sure,” said Dill. Mel cocked his head. “My – my overwhelming memory of Sarat from before, before I grew up, before the revolution.” She shrugged. “Before! The Flight From Var-Sega’! I was in shock, like totally traumatized. Of course I knew him from Zur, but – we were in this darned hangar, I suppose it was. He dominated. This guy from VILE and Dad were – sounded like they were doing the organizing. About all Sarat actually did was put the kettle on and pour tea. I wanted to know if he’d changed.”
Mel’s head was practically at a right angle.
“That’s kind of the opposite.”
“I know,” said Dill. “It’s quite complicated.”
“No stage-fright?” hazarded Mel.
“There are things in life you either blot out or remember for ever. I think – what you’re really – what you’re also saying is the depths in Sarat, as in all of us, have become part of him day-to-day. I think that’s the first time he was Anile emperor, d’you see. Him pottering around being Sarat and being terribly polite about it because after all he was in someone else’s country couldn’t stop it showing.”
“With the eyes to see,” said Mel softly. “You of course were in a highly – sensitized state.”
“I of course was in a highly sensitized state, layer peeled off. Converse?”
“The emperor’s peace?”
She made a moue.
“That would have been rather showing off.”
Mel laughed out loud.
“Can you remember the exact vibe?”
“Barrier. Brick wall. Dad’s granite slab! Resolute. Immovable. In the way.”
“Interesting. So?”
“International outrage, revolution, tragedy, the impossible you did at once. All because a kid from Maona-pri was - resolute."
“I think I see,” said Mel. “The impossible question! Why did he think he could do it? The man you love is the man who has done it.”
“I thought what you said was very interesting. Yes, that’s it. I think I haven’t been very clear. I don’t mean Sarat the plotter. I mean before that.”
“The skagga phase. There was no other way. I don’t just mean he couldn’t say Kadun’s a sewer and now I’m going back to saving the skagga, true though that is.”
“That’s the opposite!”
“Isn’t it just? Oh, those expectations. In one line, maybe two, a matter of conscience. He kept his mouth shut about Kadun or not. He didn’t want to be Anile emperor! Being Anile emperor was how to hack it. Simple. Is that what you mean?” Is Sarat Living a Lie? What am I into here?
“Being Anile emperor is in the way.”
“Yes,” said Mel.
“Realistically,” said Dill.
“Oh, realistically the press would hound you if he announced he was going to live on a mountain-top.”
“We’re not there yet,” said Dill shyly. “It’s me. If he goes too fast – I understand he needs that. It’s like we can’t be together unless we are together. We need to drop out physically so we can drop out mentally.”
“Oh sweetheart,” said Mel.
“My measured opinion,” said Mel to Cantilip, “is nothing can be worse than this.”
“Darling, he is so desperate to protect her.”
“Is he?” asked Mel. She laughed. “The proposition,” continued Mel, clearly still in measured opinion mode, “is absurd. That he cannot engineer a little privacy.”
“Then you rather miss the point,” said Cantilip. “Maya so soon forgotten.”
“Just at this moment he can’t bear it.”
Sarat returned to Azt. Notwithstanding all this, his view of Dill’s life in Zur without him was perfectly reasonably informed by how Maya’s life had been in term-time. Maya had been in her own place, popping over to the Kadun for the weekend had been unthinkable and even if it hadn’t been there weren’t numerous convenient flights.
She ran into his arms.
“I am irresistible?” she murmured after a while.
“Well, you are, of course. No sitting without me.”
“What?”
“The chair.”
“Oh. No.”
“Later,” said Sarat. “If you want the why – I don’t know it makes much sense. Because we’re apart?”
“Mentally or physically?”
“That sounds terrible.”
She snuggled closer.
“Promise. It’s – it’s a bit scary.” Pause. “That’s not why I came. I wanted – it’s very silly.”
“Tell,” he nuzzled.
She pretended to wriggle out of reach.
“Shan’t!” She giggled. “It is not exact!”
“Not another Cantilip!”
“It’s something in the water?”
“What is inexact?”
“I don’t know what I’m talking about,” said Dill. “I thought Mel might be able to tell me. When I knew what I was talking about I could talk to you about it. It’s about you when you were a kid, not a teen, a baby. When – when you were just Sarat, d’you see. It’s like I need to know that part of you.”
“Before I – morphed!”
“Sort of.”
“You don’t think I – you’re probably right!”
“Now you’ve lost me.”
“Someone who can tell you what I was like at eight! I’m really not sure I can!”
Why do people keep reminding me of my childhood? Why does it matter? There is a crack, but that’s not it. This was ill-conceived. This is crazy. The alternative is to proclaim her Anile empress.
“I want to know every bit of you,” Dill was confessing.
“Why?” asked Sarat.
“That’s the bit I’m not sure about. Serious now. I feel – I think I feel there’s something I need to understand. I said I wasn’t clear!”
“How did I get from there to here?”
“Like – like the key is you wanted to do it - “
“I wonder if I did,” said Sarat. She frowned. “It had to be done. I really don’t think anyone who knows me would say I wanted to be Anile emperor. It was not the impetus, put it that way.”
“I can understand that,” said Dill.
“What I understand,” said Sarat, surprising himself, “is that right now I want to sweep you away to somewhere literally out of this world away from everyone and everything. Unfortunately, I rather like being Anile emperor.” He grinned. “Do you think that’s very selfish of me?”
“Oh Sarat.”
He made huge wide eyes at her.
“What are we going to do-o-o?”
“This doesn’t work.”
“For the first time for something like ten years the next step is – “ He laughed and shook his head. “Not clear to me. It’s me, d’you see. Yes, of course I want to protect your privacy. It’s me,” he said again. “I don’t want the whole world talking about us.”
“You’re not ready,” said Dill.
“No, no, no!”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“It’s something I did,” said Sarat. “I don’t know if I can explain. Sarat-and-Maya was the package, given. The tabloids drooled over the colour of the soft furnishings but they didn’t go into our feelings for each other. I put my feelings in the public domain. It was like being naked.”
“Everything,” said Dill slowly, “everything but that, every word, I do see. It’s like Mom and Dad, Sarat, I understand!”
“Yes, of course,” he said. “I’m not being very bright, am I.”
“It’s not,” she said, “your feelings for me.”
Sarat felt like crying.
“It’s not my feelings for you. “
“We know they hate us.”
She left for Zur before he left for Var-segan, giving Venga time to pronounce, “This is crazy.”
Sarat looked at him witheringly.
“We know that. You have another answer?”
“What’s the question?”
“Rape by the press. That’s one I’m sure of. There are others.”
“Do not misunderstand me,” said Venga. “Dill is the solution not the problem. Sarat, what is the problem?”
“It’s so obvious?” asked Sarat.
“You have been brooding,” scolded Venga.
“It hasn’t hatched. I’m not even sure of the shape of the egg.”
“You need to be together!”
“It’s a toss-up,” said Sarat.
“You need to hide in each other,” risked Venga, “hide and heal.”
“Where?”
Venga realized the territory he was in.
“She is young.”
“Let us say,” said Sarat, “I am looking for the end of a ball of string.”
“For the first time for many years you have time to think about you. You are no longer 17. That is a shock to you?
“Wrong,” said Sarat. Venga smiled. “I have occasion to think about me.”
Venga plunged.
“You do not wish to kill twice. She is Mitch’s daughter. Your desire to flay yourself, therefore.”
“Go away,” said Sarat, then “We were 17.”
“She is in many ways older.”
“Yes.” He managed a laugh. “I should balk at dragging me at 17 into this. In fact she’s 18. What she is not is any of us at 18.”
“You did not kill Maya!”
“Sort of,” said Sarat, “sort of, I did.”
“Beyond that?” insisted Venga.
“Cho says my fantasy of Maya safe in Zur is – not good for me.”
“Excellent! We progress.”
“It’s all nonsense,” said Sarat.
“Of course. But it is powerful nonsense. What are you doing here? What possessed you to drag the woman you love to her death in a foreign country?”
“There’s one thing I’m sure of. True betrayal of Maya, of myself, not to mention Kadun – “
“But it is a seductive fantasy.”
“No. I’ve told Dill. I like being Anile emperor.”
“Do you really?”
“As you know full well – being Anile emperor is what I want it to be.”
“Except.”
Sarat laughed.
“Ah, I was younger then. Do you remember?”
“That it was sufficiently critical to address the nation thereon? Of course!”
“Unconstrained. Is Maya’s death a constraint of position?”
Venga sighed.
“Of course. Think on the eso. The five-headed monster, as you prefer.”
“Guilt?”
“Perhaps you have no time. The Matter of Kadun requires resolution.”
“The Matter of Kadun,” said Sarat firmly, “has waited for 1500 years or since the beginning of time – as you prefer. It can go hang while I chase my bride!”
“Can it?”
“Yes. I am not so arrogant or so superstitious that I think it must be I personally who – “
“Shavli has not sat on the chair.”
“That is true,” said Sarat.
“Very good. All these things float in your mind. Their sum is what?”
“I was the only one to realize. Because I’m a woman. She said that. Oh Venga.”
“What possesses you to drag your sister - ? No-one would mind, Sarat. It is no betrayal of Kadun.”
“Of myself. Of Maya. Except of course.”
“Except of course you would never forgive yourself.”
“Shit,” said Sarat.
Venga grinned.
“The sum of your thoughts?”
“Just about,” said Sarat. “We could live in Fidub!”
Venga raised his eyebrows.
“You could live in Var-segan.”
“That might be pushing it,” admitted Sarat, “which is a whole other can of worms.”
“Do you not do things your way?”
“Over-turning centuries of tradition,” mused Sarat.
“This paired bliss too is a fantasy? Listen! Hearken. The relationship is not the problem. Its form is. You have not changed the world because your heart’s desire is to grow roses.”
“May there not be a rose-grower in me? Did I have a choice?”
“Ah.”
“Round and round. When Kadun is safe.”
“The Never-Never-Land, the realm joyeux.”
“Then I have failed.”
“Then you have yet to address the Matter of Kadun!”
“Or what Dill wants.”
“Oh yes,” said Venga. “What does Dill want?”
Cho arrived uninvited and unexpected in Var-segan and found Sarat in the library surrounded by open books, books with bookmarks peeping out of them, books piled on the floor next to his chair.
“Return to study? That is what you want?”
“Sort of,” said Sarat.
Cho examined the nearest hefty tome.
“Principles of Geology?”
“Tectonic plates! The earth moves. The most rationalist geologist will admit to that one. It’s why the Isles sing, you know. One day, Fidub will sink without trace into the Straits. That’s one theory. It does just occur to me the field effect is intermittent.”
“Why?”
“Because suddenly they needed an emperor!”
Cho laughed.
“There are – there may be – many reasons for that.”
“Indeed there may,” said Sarat.
“All this – “ Cho gestured. “ – is the Matter of Kadun?”
“Am I not known to be thorough?”
“Also it stops you thinking?”
“I am not brooding. I am thinking.”
“I may ask your thoughts?”
“No, frankly,” said Sarat.
“Why not?” challenged Cho.
“Partly because there are too many of them that are incoherent even to me. Partly because they are none of your business.”
“A lot has happened to you.”
“You could say that,” said Sarat.
“Maya,” said Cho.
“You could try saying ‘Dill’ and look to the future.”
“This is looking to the future?”
“This is looking for where to start.”
“You have perhaps moved too fast.” Sarat was looking at him with frank hostility. “That was not my meaning. The pace of events left little time for reflection.”
“Now I have time and I’m reflecting,” said Sarat in a voice that said, so what is your problem? He collected himself, got up, stood behind Cho’s chair and put his arms around his neck. “You are my dear grey-haired etc, wishing only my happiness, etc. I understand that.”
Cho laughed.
“That happiness is at present best attained by my absence?”
“You want me to talk about Maya. I don’t want to talk about Maya. That is something of an impasse.”
“Would you say you were happy?” tried Cho.
“Yes. It’s natural I feel certain things, experience certain emotions. That doesn’t mean they’re not complete bollocks.”
“I understand that, of course.”
“But do you?” asked Sarat affectionately.
“You think – I am fixed on the transitory?”
“I did not say Maya was transitory.”
“What did you say?”
“I love Maya, present tense. Maya is dead. I love Dill. Dill and I are alive and here and now. Cho, I love you. May this conversation now end?”
“I should not have come,” admitted Cho.
“Feel free to examine the mosaic! Regale me with tales of Fidub! Visit the new sports centre and tell them about teaching me to swim.” Sarat grinned. “Just don’t move the furniture.” Cho looked puzzled. “I am watched like a hawk for any sign of proprietorialness. Is there such a word? Any sign this is now my home. Do you know about Sheheela?”
Cho, who was just about to stand, froze.
“What about Sheheela?”
“The Anile heir being Mistress of Var-segan.” Cho’s face showed he knew. “I think that’s why this is freaking you.”
“You will do well in politics,” said Cho. “An illustrious career ahead of you.”
Sarat mailed Shav.
They’re driving me mad! Me, me, me, I want to drive me mad. Can I share some stuff with you?
Cho mailed Mel.
I may visit? I am both worried and curious. That may lead me to ask questions you may not wish to answer. I understand that.
“Oh dear,” said Mel.
“Hang onto your hat,” said Cantilip.
Cantilip waddled in.
“I ought to be resting. Shouldn’t miss this for the world.”
“Very soon now, I think,” said Cho.
“Late,” growled Cantilip. “Taking her time.”
“But all is well.”
“Oh yes.”
Mel was smirking. Mel’s daughter, thought Cho. Something stirred in his mind, but he dismissed it. They cannot live apart for 18 years, she and their child safe in Zur!
“Maya,” said Cho. “He will not talk about her.”
“What,” asked Mel, “would you expect him to say, a replay of the final moments?”
“Does he replay them?”
“Sorry.”
Cantilip said: “You think Sarat is behaving like a lunatic?”
Cho laughed.
“It would hardly be the first time.”
“He is no longer preoccupied every waking minute. A hiatus is inevitable.”
“I can think of two circumstances in which he would kill me.”
Mel pouted.
“I don’t count? I am terribly good at keeping confidences. Since, however, I have none to reveal. He isn’t talking to Hass, either.”
“Maya,” hazarded Cho, “was profoundly esoteric?”
“Ah,” said Mel. A small smile appeared. He looked down at his feet and twiddled his toes, then looked up laughing. “My intimate knowledge of Sarat. It – would not be wholly removed from the truth to say – what would it not be wholly removed from the truth to say? I don’t know all of it. My feeling would be – a greater stimulus than the present – hiatus would be required to ask. I’m hedging! To say Maya put him up to it would be quite wrong. To say it followed from his relationship with Maya would – possibly – be quite right. Our little child of the surf and the sun found his esoteric side in his relationship with Maya, perhaps in Maya. Thus they locked like two halves of an amulet. It is perhaps – or perhaps not – an exaggeration to say that even at 16, when of course relationships are usually fluid, who is your boyfriend this week, neither of them looked at another boy or girl. And then…”
“He was terrified of losing her,” said Cho.
“Should one not say,” said Cantilip, “that in the circumstances he is behaving remarkably sanely?”
“Maya,” said Cho, “was not a plotter. We all observed it and wondered what it meant.”
“It meant,” said Mel, “taking into account that to some extent and notwithstanding we are where words fail, it meant Maya was and Sarat did. Maya had as many ideas as the rest of us but – laid-back is a remarkably trivial phrase. When she became Anile empress, she would be Anile empress, without – preparation is a bad word, hiatus perhaps a good one. She got on with being a student in Zur. People talked, as they do. Either that was a feint or Sarat was bluffing or any variation you care to think of. It was just Maya.”
“Hass. Maya. Dill?”
“Profoundly,” admitted Mel.
“His analysis then is exact. He says when they have union all will be well. Only he needs to go slowly and they need to be together.”
“That is her analysis,” said Mel.
“Naked,” repeated Cho. “Flayed. I don’t know how to be without her.”
“One thinks, perhaps,” said Mel, “such things are raw emotion rather than simple truth.”
“Busy, busy, busy,” said Cantilip. “Fortunately, he didn’t have to.”
“There is a question there,” said Mel.
“The relationship?”
“The relationship is absolute. He fell into her, as he fell into Maya. It should – perhaps – be happening in two years’ time, but it isn’t.”
“You think that would make a difference?”
“I don’t know. It forces him to resolve whatever he has to resolve.”
“Then he would prefer not to resolve it? There is the element of betrayal.”
“What Sarat is doing to himself by loving Dill? I don’t think so.”
“And Dill herself?”
Mel sighed.
“What I think - she understands. She couldn’t say how or what she understands.”
“That he is screaming in pain over another woman, even a dead one?. That is perhaps rather a lot for anyone, let alone a 19-year-old.”
Mel frowned.
“But he’s not. Sarat isn’t hurting. At least not like that.”
“What, then?”
“How much of his past does he want to take into his future,” suggested Cantilip. “It operates on all levels.”
Mel grinned.
“Not forgetting all times are now. It’s a question – a question of what Sarat is, what he wants to be. Maya will always be a part of him.”
“Perhaps the problem is literally,” said Cho.
Mel took a deep breath.
“Is that possible?”
“That is,” said Cho, “not my view, but the direction of my thought – this is locked so deep inside him, he wishes to share with no-one. What is?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I shall say it,” said Cantilip. “Then their union would exorcise Maya?”
“What a clear mind you have,” said Mel. “I do repeat, I think this is nonsense.”
“There is also the chair,” said Cho.
“Oh yes,” said Mel. “What happened there, as I understand it, is that Maya worked as an anchor.”
“Did she?”
Mel got up and began to walk towards the window.
“Sssh, I’m thinking…I am reminded, long ago and far away. Before. Sarat did not like Saski enquiring into their relationship! What he would have said had her two loving and obedient sons – it was always like that. Out of bounds. It is possibly perfectly straightforward. Sarat’s problem is working out how to be wholly, passionately, depthlessly and intimately in love with two people at the same time, one live one dead.”
“He said as much,” agreed Cho, then, “He has told me categorically, possibly even gratuitously, she is nothing like Maya.”
“She is nothing like Maya. Except.”
“I may assume the meaning of her existence is not bound up in being Anile empress?”
“No more or less than Maya’s. I could have put that better. Everyone told him,” said Mel after a moment. “If he got on the chair it would be very hard to get off.”
“He is adamant he likes it.”
Mel laughed.
“I am quite sure he likes it! I am also quite sure, as you must be, that it is war to the death. Whether being the constitutional sovereign of Kadun is the best position from which to prosecute that war – it has of course one limitation, the necessity of residing at least most of the time in Kadun.”
“The City?” Pause. “There is of course no conflict?”
“Baria. Dill herself. None.”
“He becomes a scholar!” Cho told about the books. “One does not doubt Sarat has a brain. He insists I look forward while he looks back!”
“He did not – “ I was about to say none of us did, thought Mel, avoiding casting a sidelong glance at Cantilip. “ – bargain for the very real presence of ancient history in our daily lives!”
Cantilip said: “Suppose you go to fix the plumbing and find the plumbing dates from pre-history.”
“You didn’t even know,” sighed Mel, “that they had plumbing then.”
“You two are good for me – your pardon, you three!”
“You know there’s a theory,” said Cantilip, “even before they’re born, they in some sense absorb what they hear.”
“Leave the room instantly!” teased Cho.
“Instantly is not a word in my current vocabulary.”
“I’ve just had a thought,” said Mel. “I shall try to be delicate about it. A cot in the bedroom?”
“I think, darling, we shall not pursue that line of thinking. He goes to the Schools, he kills two birds with one stone.”
“That had occurred to me. He will not dump it on Shav.”
“There is also me,” said Cho.
“Eeoow,” said Mel, then, “You really are worried!” He tried to sound cheerful about it.
Cantilip was giggling.
“It would be just a bit hard to refuse.”
“I don’t think he wants to leave Kadun. He fell into her,” said Mel again. “He could of course have refrained from saying anything but equally she rather clearly fell into him. Bit like an unplanned pregnancy, really. It wasn’t, it wasn’t! Neither of them, I am quite sure, expected it. Like bringing yourself up short stepping on your shoe-lace. Sarat follows his heart. None of us would have him any other way. It’s a rather sticky shoe-lace.”
“Shall we keep this simple?” asked Cantilip. “Behold His Imperial Majesty! Who hath done to Kadun the unthinkable, the net reaction of the world being cool, Sarat. Now the rest of his life stretches before him. He can do anything he wants, except the things he most wants to do. Isn’t that a downer?”
“Two things?”
“The relationship,” said Mel, “between Crown and People exports neat. The relationship between Crown and State does not, cannot. Vanya is not looking over his shoulder to see if I – I and our valiant army – disapprove sufficiently to reseize the reins..”
“Thus the election of Mitch,” said Cantilip.
Cho frowned, then nodded.
Mel looked sceptical.
“That’s an awful lot of people voting with – subconscious prescience.”
“Call it something less florid,” suggested Cantilip.
“Feudalism?”
“The word I was thinking of is trust. There has to be an arch-plotter with democratically elected power.”
“Most people,” murmured Cho, “assume Mitch is the counter-weight to CLIK.”
“Most people,” said Cantilip, “didn’t hear Mitch at 17.”
“Mel,” said Cho, “exactly what do you do?”
“Ramble on. I’m good at that. Throw my weight behind anyone being unfairly treated. It’s my job. Everyone knows it’s my job. The checks and balances should suffice, but human nature being what it is sometimes fail.”
“The difference, therefore?”
“It’s a learning-curve. Kadun has to get into the swing of the checks and balances before they can be said to have failed.”
“Say it,” said Cho.
“There can’t be two governments. It’s like watching children grow up. They have to make their own mistakes.”
“For the moment, therefore, Sarat is keeping right out of politics? One would have thought that was quite a relief!”
“Time to attend to his personal life. It does not of course impede his personal war, which is interesting because he does not appear to be pursuing it.”
“Surely,” said Cho, “his personal war is for the moment the one inside him.”
“This is going to sound ridiculous,” said Cantilip, then stopped.
“Well? Don’t keep us on tenterhooks.”
“Did he believe in it? He got the rest of the world believing in the restoration of the Anile throne, but did he – really believe he would – spend the rest of his life as Anile emperor?”
“That is of course bound up with believing he has a rest of his life.”
“Suppose we – posit – he would give it up for Dill if that changed anything, but it doesn’t.”
“I don’t really think that’s the point,” said Cantilip. “The whole thing comes from what he said at the funeral. They’ll tear him apart.”
“I know this sounds absolutely feeble and pointless,” said Mel. “He didn’t say he could only love Maya.”
“I may stay to dinner? I do not think it unreasonable I enjoy general conversation with Sarat’s partner!”
“You’ve barely spoken to her, have you.”
“It can’t help,” said Cantilip.
“Lengthy conversation,” recalled Cho, “some ten years ago! I am not boring. If I were boring, she’d have gone to bed ages ago. I dined with Mitch and Karula in Zur. The fight began to get the kids off to bed, in order, as Karula frankly put it, that the grown-ups were not forced to hold their conversations at three in the morning.”
Mel and Cantilip looked at each other.
“Has she changed!”
“’You are a moron.’ It is delicious but it is not eso.”
“Oh but she is. An eso Mitch.”
“That sounds fairly devastating.”
“Isn’t that the point?”
Shav told Sarat what Cho thought.
Aaaaargh! typed Sarat.
Zani Marula Talal squeezed her eyes tight shut, wrinkled her nose and smiled up at her doting papa. Mel insisted it could be a girl’s name. This I have to see! thought Sarat. After a while he slipped away with Dill.
“Come back to Var-segan with me?”
“I need asking?”
“I’m getting my head straight. I want to take you through all of it and see what you think we should do next.”
“Cool,” said Dill. She kissed his cheek then warmed to her task. “I want to show you something,” she said eventually. She got up and opened her wardrobe. “I had it made!” she said in mock-shame. “I saw the material and I just had to have it.”
“What do you think,” asked Sarat, “about changing and going back to the party?”
Her little black dress transfixed the throng. It shimmered. It sparkled. It was not exactly black, depending on when the light hit it. The colour it was when not black is usually known as imperial silver.
What I am thinking, thought Mel, can never ever be shared with Sarat. But of course he must know.
“What I thought,” confessed Mel, “made even me feel uncomfortable.”
Zani continued gurgling quietly at Cantilip’s breast.
“Embodiment,” agreed Cantilip. “It made you feel Maya - ?”
“Prototype,” suggested Mel. “This is the completed design.”
“And of course,” said Cantilip.
“And of course anyone who thinks either of them don’t want to do it is talking out of the back of his head.”
“Considering all the possibilities,” said Cantilip. “I believe he’s quite well known for it.”
Sarat and Dill returned to Var-segan,. Changri took his time looking them up and down. When eventually they were out of earshot, he said, “Look lively, lads. My lord my lady Var-sega’ back ‘ome! ‘Ad some shocks,” he added later, “don’t think I’ll ever get over this one!”
To the considerable consternation of the world press corps Sarat spent ten days pottering around Var-segan with his arm round Dill. Well, he spent one day pottering around Var-segan with his arm round Dill before Qine in the bar of the Senate said of the impending vote on working-hours, “Cake-walk it! And if we lose by one vote, I shall say imperial business called me away and we’ll have to have a new vote. Man’s place is with his constituents at a time like this.” “Nosy bugger, aren’t you!” said his pal. Fal was caught by the press-fiends on the steps of the Senate. Like a gazelle, thought Kyse dreamily. A carnivorous gazelle? That doesn’t quite work. “Of course it’s what Maya would have wanted,” said Fal. “Anyone who thinks Maya would have wanted Sarat to spend the rest of his life on his own needs his head examined.” There Has Been No Announcement. “Reckon it’s our business,” said Varulin, aware he was on egg-shells, but not much caring. “Kadun’s business, Sarat’s business. Is there someone has a problem with my lady Var-segan on the Anile throne? Of course there’ll always be them that stirs it, tries to make life hard for our Sarat.”
Mel only winced a little bit.
“Now it is – organic,” suggested Cantilip.
Or of course life hard for our Mitch. The country is being run by Var-segan! Surely this provokes a constitutional crisis!
“That’s right,” drawled Mitch. “I engineered the whole thing. Doubtless I murdered Maya also. I did not, however, coerce the whole of Kadun to vote for me. I am not aware of anything in the Constitution that conflicts with the President’s daughter being Anile empress. My daughter is a free, autonomous individual, which I do recall is one of the binding principles that got us all here. I do not see how her choice of partner is logically connected with the votes of millions of people. You are I think aware a common set of principles binds us all. Naturally there would be a dilemma had I the misfortune to be widowed, Shavli sat on the Anile throne and we two...”
Karula shut her front door behind her with a resounding bang. She flopped.
“You know I have never wholly seen why in the years of the interregnum – “ She grinned. “ – one of the Houses did not become top banana. I do now!”
Hey, Dill! Imperial Majesty! Dill? Anile empress, Dill?
“You guys are really something,” said Dill. “What century are you in? A man and a woman can’t be working together? Of course we’re close, we’re like that.”
Would that be upright or horizontal, Dill?
“You know which end is up?” asked Dill.
Honey, the question is if you do!
“What,” demanded Dill, “affects more people, the deliberations of the Senate or one bed or two?”
You admit! Come on, Dill, that’s a confession!
“Nonsense,” said Dill. “It’s your obsession. Why don’t you prurient little beasts admit that?”
In fairness, though fairness to press-fiends was not latterly a feature of the Anile empire, some press-fiends were not wholly attuned to the direction the dialogue was taking and asked bright interested questions about stewardship in the modern age.
Sarat tightened his arm around her.
“Of course I’m protective. Faced with you lot! Who knows what direction our relationship may take in the future?”
Zulagan’s face also tightened.
There must be a vote in the Senate!
“Time I put my oar in,” said Zulagan. “My government is running this country, in accordance with the votes of millions of people.” He paused. “It can be an habit of people to live in the past, in this case of course the very recent past. I, however, live in the present. It would seem news to some people that Kadun is no longer an absolute monarchy! I shall trouble you neither with the position of the emperor within the Constitution nor with the right of people, all people, to live their lives as they see fit, for all that has been aired many, many times, but if you ask me if my government has the right to dictate, whether to Sarat, to myself, to any citizen of Kadun, who he or she may have as a partner, I say that is nonsense. That is not to say, of course, there are not better and worse choices. It is not to say, for instance, that were I to pair with a lady whose politics were hostile to all we have achieved here, all we intend to achieve, folks would not rightly question my full commitment to my job. That does not apply in the present circumstance! I for one can think of no better choice.
“There is something else I would say in this context, speaking as what you might call a consumer of a free press, and that is that, apart from the tragedy when as we all know feelings ran high and I for one would have landed one in the face of vultures, it would seem to me that Sarat and his friends were fair game, right up to the moment the last vote was counted. I personally trusted them absolutely to transfer power, and there were many others of like mind, but equally there were many comrades and others who had their doubts and I do not think the less of them for that. Now, we may not be young and pretty, we may not have the glamour of 1500 years of history, but it seems to me that the ladies and gentlemen of the press are to try to harass anyone, it should be me and my government. That is what a free press is for, not asking young ladies their sleeping-arrangements.”
“You heard the man,” said Sarat grinning evilly. “I am not news.”
Aw, Sarat, come on, Sarat, you gotta say something, Sarat, hearts and flowers, Sarat, when’s the wedding, Sarat?
“Of course we’re bonded!” went on Sarat. “Bonded by this matter of Kadun.”
To whom it may concern, thought Baz.
Love her like a sister, right, Sarat?
“I have sisters,” said Sarat. “I really don’t think it’s the same!”
“I had a sister,” said Dill. “If you had any brains, you might actually be able to work out.”
Still miss Maya, do you, Sarat.
“Not as much as when she died in my arms to the delight of you people, no. Time does help heal that particular wound.”
Sarat! Aw, Sarat! Come on, Sarat, you can’t say – you can’t believe, Sarat.
“Vultures,” said Sarat, “just at one remove.”
That is not fair!
“You really want me to say something?” asked Sarat. “You’re sure about that?”
People who knew him started to back-track,, but there were many who didn’t.
“Butt out,” said Sarat.
A moment’s silence.
“It’s like this,” said Sarat, “as I see it. I, none of us, would deny for a moment we owed you guys for your help, for spreading the word. Equally none of us would deny that debt has long ago been paid. You have had our lives. You have had our deaths. You have sold papers by the million, you have made reputations, you have won awards out of our pain, our anguish. That debt is paid a thousand times over. So butt out. If you really want family news, Zik is pregnant. The thing is, there’s malice, of course, pure malevolence, but there isn’t really any point in bumping me off, too many of us. The general consensus among the security services of this great continent is – is and was – attempting to wear me down by hurting those I love most.”
“You are on our side, aren’t you,” said Dill. “I mean, where is the news? It’s as Zulagan said, Sarat and Searc’s daughter, that’d be news.”
“Uggh,” said Sarat.
Cho caught up with the news. He looked upset.
“He set up maximum coverage for that?”
“If I were he,” said Vax, “I’d wind them up so tight, party, party, party, wine and dine every woman in Kadun. It’s just not Sarat.”
“A serious little boy,” said Cho. “I suppose he always was a serious little boy.”
“Us, prurient?” asked Seani. “Never!”
“As ever they give as good as they get.”
“It can’t go on. The war between Sarat and the press.”
“It is, I suppose, possible he’s – courting her. Separate beds.”
“I think everyone is clear he wouldn’t sleep with her if it wasn’t permanent.”
“What,” demanded Seani, “do you suppose ‘permanent’ means to Sarat? Perhaps to either of them.”
“Enjoy your life while you have a life. Mitch, Zulagan, they’ve as good as.”
Seani laughed.
“Mitch and Zulagan have very thoroughly explored such issues as might arise if there were occasion to cause them to arise.”
“As ever we’re being wound up?”
“Sarat,” said Seani, almost to himself, “don’t you understand you goad? Red rag to a bull! We are always searching for the story behind the story.”
“That is part-true,” decided Num. “Vultures.”
“It is very human,” said Seani, “when people are totally in the wrong to pretend nothing has happened and continue the same behaviours.”
“I don’t think we see it like that. We see it as good news.”
“What can possibly be wrong with trying to obtain good news! I think the deliberations of the Kadun Senate.” Pause. “I don’t think we home in on Fal.”
Dill returned to Zur. Sarat commuted at a leisurely pace between Var-segan and Azt, taking in large swathes of Kadun in between.
Scene: Sarat’s bedroom in Var-segan; The room is at the front of the house. He is sitting at the desk in front of the bay window and day-dreaming. Let us keep this clean and not intrude on his thoughts. His lap-top is open on the desk in front of him but pushed aside. He turns to it, about to share his more interesting thoughts with Dill, and blinks, and looks out of the window again and blinks again. The vista before him is enshrined in the mosaic, stream, boy and deer optional, but something is strange. He closes his lap-top down, just in case anyone should wander in (o those interesting thoughts), and wanders downstairs to gawp at the mosaic, as though he’d never seen it before. Some ancient Fidubi with a strange sense of humour propels him to return to Azt that very evening and prowl around the Jumesit. He asks PANTHER for the plans. Of course there are plans! Aren’t there? We suppose there are plans. The whole place was renovated. That doesn’t mean there are plans. Plans of Azt, then, said Sarat. Baz grinned. Rooted evil woz here! Nothing so dramatic, said Sarat. Water, water is the thing. Underground streams.
“Go and look at the mosaic. My one. Look at it long and hard. Here’s a hint. Pretend you’re back in Var-segan.”
Baz returned shaken.
“We’re idiots!”
“Possibly.”
“They ran out of ideas?”
“Tunnel. Maya, water. Jaizal. Zani. Sheheela. Dill. Great Divide. Fields in Carlin. View from Mel’s balcony. Fidubi games. Jigsaw. Sunflowers. Earthpower. Water. Someone knows what all this crap means. Someone alive and well. I do not think we have stumbled on something lost in the mists of history.”
“There are laws against killing Cho.”
“It’s not Cho.”
Baz managed a wry grin.
“There are definitely laws against killing Cantilip..”
Dill came on the line. After ten minutes of the usual he told he he’d pick her up at the border and they’d have a really interesting time, a sort of royal progress.
Dill has her panthers enabling the usual degree of semi-normality. There is now, as we know, a railway line between Azt and Zur. The entrepreneurial spirit flourishing on both sides, and the Great Divide being in the way, facilities have developed around the platform on both sides, so here is Dill in a huge black hat, sitting outside the café with her pussy-cats, when a small frisson shakes the assembled company. SARAT I is a cross between a racing-car and a limo, low but broad
four tiers of seats, with smoked glass, the sort of vehicle that gets noticed in a crowd. He doesn’t use it much, but when he does, it achieves the desired effect.
“Ah, my taxi!” exclaimed Dill, a girl who rises to the occasion.
Baz jumped out and opened the door for her.
The girls slid into the seats behind and chucked the bags into the back.
Dill snuggled up against Sarat.
“You are utterly compromised,” said Sarat enthusiastically.
“I’d only be utterly compromised if we’d been seen vanishing into the bedroom together.”
“I can do that,” said Sarat. “Call it a state visit.”
“To whom?”
“Vastulis.”
“That piece of – I do but quote my papa.”
“Vastulis is so-so. It’s the house. I have to see the house.”
“I suppose you do.”
“There are five mosaics. No-one notices the other four.”
“I didn’t know that! Why not?”
“My one is in a room the size of a large lavatory. Some tiler got bored!”
“What about them?”
“I don’t know! That’s what we’re going to find out. “
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