The Palace of Laughter (24 page)

As the smoke began to clear, he could see he had hit the edge of the open trapdoor. He scrambled to
his feet with difficulty, oil still pouring from the holes in the can. The dark shape of the throne loomed above him, already nearly at its full height. He had lost precious seconds, but it was not too late. The narrow spout would not pour quickly enough, so he grasped the slippery can with both hands, leaned out over the yawning hole, and turned it upside down. For a long second nothing happened, then the last few drops of oil dribbled from the can and began to trickle slowly down the steel pillar.

Miles held his breath. The can was empty. The smoke was dispersing, and he squinted up at the throne that towered above him. It had not slipped downward by so much as an inch. Time seemed to have slowed to a crawl. He could see the Great Cortado high above him, framed in the glare of the lights. “Now you have felt…,” the Great Cortado began, and stopped. “Now you…” He leaned out from his throne and stared down at Miles, who was suddenly aware of how funny he must look: a failed, half-shaved saboteur coated in oil, soot and sawdust.

He expected to see a look of thunder on the Great Cortado's face, but to Mile's surprise it looked as though two people were fighting for control of his features. Cortado seemed to be struggling not to
laugh. Suddenly it dawned on Miles what must have happened. The Great Cortado had not had any antidote! Standing in the creaking elevator earlier that evening, he had unknowingly swallowed nothing more than a mouthful of plain water from the brass tap in the laboratory. Now a thousand nights of concentrated laughter were welling up behind his reddening face, looking for a way out, and only Miles could understand what was happening.

He glanced quickly about him. Silverpoint and the Bolsillo brothers were looking at him expectantly. The audience's laughter had begun to falter, and a number of clowns were advancing on him menacingly. He thought of Little, hiding somewhere below, far from the world of light and freedom where she belonged, and the tiger's words echoed in his head: “A friendship should be judged by its depth, not by its length.” Miles nodded to himself. It was time to set her free.

He picked up the empty oil can and threw it at Bobogeek's stand-in, who was getting too close for comfort. The can bounced off his head with a loud
toink
, and the tramp clown slithered comically in the grease before losing his balance altogether and landing heavily on his padded backside. “On with the show!” shouted Miles. The Bolsillo brothers
exchanged puzzled glances, then sprang into action as though Miles's words had released their over-wound clockwork. Gila, rolled into a ball, came careering across the ring and bowled over three of Cortado's clowns like skittles. Umor grabbed the crutches from Bobogeek, who was slithering across the ring on one plastered foot. He hopped up onto the crutches like a pair of makeshift stilts and tottered over to the fishing clown, now the same height as him. “Look at me, I'm normal!” Umor hollered. The audience laughed. He grabbed the fishing clown's nose and tweaked it hard. The clown gave a yelp of pain.

The band, confused, struck up again, and their insane music rattled around the theater, bringing more laughter in its wake. A clown's curly green wig burst suddenly into flames, and another found the seat of his pants on fire and began to run around the ring shouting for a fire hose. A burly clown with a long red nose like a carrot grabbed Silverpoint from behind. There was a loud crack, and the man staggered backward with blue sparks flying from his ears. Miles expected to be confronted with an irate Genghis at any moment, but he seemed to have vanished into thin air, yellow socks and all. A strangled sound came from above him, and he
looked up to see the Great Cortado pointing at him with a quivering finger.

“This boy…” He choked, the words barely escaping his throat. “This boy…has ruined…my…show.”

And he began to laugh.

T
he Great Cortado, clownmaster and laughter-tamer, stood on his throne high above the people of Larde, and laughed. He threw back his head and opened his throat wide and a volcano of laughter roared up into the Palace of Laughter's domed ceiling. It bounced off the pillars and echoed around the walls until it filled the entire theater. He doubled over and clutched his stomach, he bellowed and hooted as the tears ran down his cheeks. Year upon year and show upon show, joke after joke after gag after pratfall came back to him in an irresistible rush, and with no antidote to protect him his face turned pink, then purple, and the veins stood out on
his forehead like knotted string. His face-painted henchmen stared, openmouthed, as he crumpled to his knees and tumbled slowly from his perch, falling twelve feet to the floor below and landing with a clang, his head wedged tightly in the empty oil can.

There was a moment's stunned silence, then Silverpoint stepped in front of the Great Crumpled Cortado. He raised his arms as he had seen the Great Cortado do every other night for months. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” he shouted, but before he could get any further he was interrupted by a growl from Bobogeek, who had struggled to his feet and was standing unsteadily on his good leg. He pointed at Silverpoint and Miles. “Saboteurs!” he yelled in his nasal whine. “Hypnotists! Subversives! They're trying to take over your minds. Don't listen to a word!”

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” began Silverpoint again, shouting louder this time. “Now you have seen the true power of laughter. Elemental laughter that can restore your souls to—”

“Don't listen to him!” yelled Bobogeek. “He'll turn yiz into baboons.”

At this, Silverpoint's calm expression cracked slightly. He sent a firebolt flying at Bobogeek's chest, knocking him backward into another clown.
Behind them the faces in the crowd were looking confused and angry. They were muttering to one another, and some were shouting, “Saboteurs! Hypnotists! Baboons!” Somewhere in the middle of the crowd a man was still laughing uncontrollably. It sounded like Genghis.

Silverpoint tried a different tack. “We're on your side.
They
are the hypnotists. You will be safe with us.” But without the height of the throne he was just one of a gaggle of clowns trying to shout one another down.

Cortado's henchmen had picked themselves up, and extinguished their wigs and trousers. “Get them,” they shouted to the crowd. “Hold them down! String 'em up!”

“He's one of them,” shrieked a woman in the audience. Several men, and a little old woman with a sharp green umbrella, had left their seats and were climbing into the ring.

Silverpoint stepped back from the advancing clowns and the irate audience. “What now, plan man?” he muttered to Miles. “And where's Little?”

“She's hiding,” said Miles.

“Where?” hissed Silverpoint, but Miles was saved from having to answer. At that moment the main double doors at the back of the theater burst open
and a loud voice said, “That's ENOUGH!”

The audience, the clowns and the saboteurs turned as one and stared up at the double doors. Even Genghis, the unlucky winner of the second vial of plain water, twisted his head and gazed up through streaming eyes from where he sat in the aisle, giggling like a large, fat hyena.

Lady Partridge stood framed in the doorway, her hands on her hips and the red dragons flaming in her coal-black dressing gown. “SETTLE DOWN, ALL OF YOU,” she boomed, and she began to march down the sloping aisle toward the ring, stepping over Genghis as though he were a bag of rubbish. A stream of cats followed in her wake.

The big clown with the carrot nose stepped in front of her as she approached the end of the aisle. “Authorized personnel only,” he said, raising his palm like a policeman stopping a truck.

Lady Partridge paused and stepped to one side. “Gulliver!” she said, and to Miles's astonishment Baltinglass of Araby popped out from behind Lady Partridge's large silhouette. His woolly hat was still on his head, and several days' white stubble bristled from his chin.

“That's no way to speak to a lady,” he barked at the clown, and dealt him a sharp crack on the shin
with his cane. The clown let out a yelp and hopped backward.

“Who on earth are they?” said Silverpoint.

“It's okay,” beamed Miles. “They're friends of mine.” He had never been so pleased to see anyone in his life. Lady Partridge swept toward him across the ring like a monument on wheels. Baltinglass followed in the path that her long dressing gown made through the sawdust. Bobogeek, the only one who wasn't glued to the spot by this unexpected interruption, hop-clunked toward them on the one crutch he had managed to retrieve. Baltinglass of Araby stopped and turned toward the sound.

“You got a wooden leg, lad?”

“No, ye blind fossil,” sneered Bobogeek.

“Would you like one?” shouted Baltinglass, and he whipped a sword stick from the center of his cane. Bobogeek stepped backward sharply.

Baltinglass wrinkled his nose. “What happened, did you slip on the soap?”

There was a howl of laughter from the aisle. “That's exactly what I said,” spluttered Genghis, and he collapsed into giggles again.

The audience had given up trying to make heads or tails of what was going on. They slumped back in their seats with their jaws hanging open, some of
them still breaking into fits of laughter.

“Hello, Miles dear,” said Lady Partridge as she reached the foot of the throne, and she gave him a wink that only he could see. She looked over at the Bolsillo brothers and their elephant. “Well don't just stand there, boys,” she said. “Ask Jumbo to lift me up on this thing.” She waved up at the empty throne, as though it had been raised specifically for her arrival.

“The name's Tembo, ma'am.”

“Well, Tembo, ask your elephant to give me a lift.”

“Tembo's the elephant, ma'am. He's Gila. Hup!”

“Lucky she's been in training,” said Gila.

“Manners, Gila,” said Fabio, pulling Gila's hat down over his eyes.

Tembo curled her trunk and Lady Partridge stepped onto it. The elephant raised her high into the air. “Hup,” said Gila again, and Tembo stood on her hind legs. Lady Partridge wobbled slightly, but if she was nervous she didn't show it. She stepped onto the platform and sat herself on the throne, her untidy pile of gray hair obscuring the manic clown's face painted on its high back.

“Now,” she boomed, “would someone please tell me what is going on here? You all look like you've
spent a month in the asylum.”

“Who are you?” shouted Bobogeek, trying to shake a cat from his leg without falling over. “And why should we tell you anything?”

Lady Partridge glared down at the smelly man. “A gentleman would wait his turn,” she said. “However, since you ask, I am Lady Partridge of Larde. In fact, you could say that I'm now a Partridge in a Bare Tree.” Some of the audience groaned at Lady Partridge's terrible joke, and even Genghis stopped laughing for a moment.

“Well?” said Lady Partridge, looking down at Miles.

“This man is the Great Cortado,” said Miles, pointing at the crumpled heap with his head in an oil can. “He's devised a way of hypnotizing people with laughter, so he can get them hooked on a tonic that only he knows how to produce. He plans to gain control over the whole country.”

“Is that so?” said Lady Partridge. She sat straight-backed on the throne and swept the audience with a stern gaze, like a schoolmistress with a class full of naughty pupils. “You were about to let this half-pint with a tin can on his head take over the country?” She gave a healthy guffaw that seemed to sweep the remnants of stale laughter from the air. “Tin can't, more like,” she boomed.

The audience groaned. Lady Partridge's awful sense of humor was swiftly taking the edge off their hysteria, and only Genghis, who like Cortado had suffered from a massive overdose of Palace of Laughter performances, chuckled on helplessly.

“Well well,” said Lady Partridge, searching the gloom beyond the ring. “Hilda Scratch, is that you? Your mascara has all run down to your chin, girl. You look like a badger. And Spivey, your wife has fallen off her chair. Pick her up for goodness' sake, man. What on earth's the matter with you all? One day trip and you go completely gaga. You all plainly need to get out more.”

As she spoke, some of Cortado's clowns began to sneak out of the spotlit ring and up through the dumbstruck audience toward the exit doors. It seemed as though the tables had well and truly turned on their leader. They did not know what kind of treatment this formidable woman would have in mind for them, and they did not want to stay around and find out.

“They're getting away,” whispered Miles to Baltinglass.

“No they're not, Master Miles,” Baltinglass whispered back. “My nephew Radovan and his constabulary have the place surrounded. At least thirty
pairs of good boots I heard, and a great deal of whistle blowing, although that had to be stopped when we got near the place. Had to take the whistles off a couple of the younger lads. Excitable chaps, but keen.”

“Taking over the country indeed!” continued Lady Partridge from her throne. “I can scarcely believe you could all fall for this mind-control mumbo jumbo. You should be ashamed of yourselves! I don't doubt that you could all do with cheering up, but there are better ways to brighten your lives than the sort of quackery that these charlatans are trying to sell you. You could start by not cheating your customers out of their change, Piven. Everyone knows they come out of your shop a little light in the pocket. And you, Lily Green, why don't you set up a town newspaper so everyone can read your gossip in black and white, and with the same details to boot? You could get that sister of yours to run the florist shop for you.”

She scanned the faces in the gloom, and their owners began to straighten themselves up, as though waking from a bad dream. Many were dimly aware that they had seen this lady in the dressing gown somewhere before. They took out handkerchiefs and wiped their chins. They straightened
their hair and their ties in case they were next in line to be singled out.

“And you, Father Soutane,” said Lady Partridge, “you should be running a choir in that church of yours, instead of cranking out the same dismal tunes week after week from that wheezy old organ. From the sound of the braying I heard on my way in here, you'd have plenty of strong voices to choose from. Maybe if you all got together three times a week to sing a few stirring songs, you wouldn't get so overexcited when you do get out for a day trip.”

The Great Cortado began to stir in the shadow of the throne. Miles caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, and watched him closely. He sat up shakily and reached his hand up to feel his head. His fingers walked around the slippery outside of the oil can, then knocked on it once or twice. “Anyone home?” came a muffled voice from inside the can. “Nope,” replied the same voice after a pause. “Got a new head then,” said the Not-So-Great Cortado to himself, and he began to laugh in a muffled, metallic way.

Lady Partridge peered down at him. “Help him up, there's a good fellow,” she said to Silverpoint. The Great Cortado's legs buckled under him a couple of times, but eventually Miles and
Silverpoint succeeded in getting him to his feet. The tinny laughter that echoed from inside the can was answered by fits of giggling from Genghis, slumped in the darkness of the aisle. As he lay there helplessly, a small figure with a topknot slipped out unnoticed from behind the seats and rifled through his pockets before disappearing through the double doors at the back of the theater.

“Take a good look at these two fellows,” said Lady Partridge to the people of Larde. “I think we can safely say that they're out of the World Domination business for the foreseeable future. Now perhaps we can all forget about this nonsense, and make our way back home.” She looked down at Baltinglass of Araby. “Gulliver, please lead these people back to the Station Hotel, where they can have a good night's rest before making the journey home. Tell the landlord that the Circus Oscuro will be footing the bill.”

And so the people of Larde began to gather themselves—butcher and baker, horse doctor and seamstress and librarian and priest, like a crowd of revelers waking from a party that had gone on for far too long. They helped one another into their coats, picked up their neighbors who were still wobbly on their feet, and made their way to the exit
doors, herded by the blind explorer, who was not above dishing out the odd rap with his stick to keep things moving at a brisk pace.

At a word from Gila, Tembo lifted Lady Partridge down from the Great Cortado's throne, and with the help of the elephant the Bolsillo brothers joined Baltinglass in rounding up the stragglers and leading them out of the theater. As the last few Lardespeople left, Sergeant Bramley made his way into the theater. His uniform was rumpled and he had lost his hat, but he looked pleased with himself.