Wisdom's Kiss (71 page)

Then, while preparing a presentation for my publisher on a possible enhanced e-book edition of
Wisdom's Kiss,
I set myself to the task of writing the official Elephantine Stiltdancers encyclopedia entry. This raised a mess of questions, such as: What are Elephantine Stiltdancers, exactly? How many of them exist(ed)? What are their names? The answers turned out to be blissfully fun (O how I adore writing lies), and the trio's names, I decided, could be nothing other than Lucrezia, Leona, and Nancy, the names of the three foxes in a thrift-store fur stole I owned in graduate school. (It takes almost nothing to be glam in grad school; look at the competition.) This was very funny at the time, but now the three names are quite dated, and you'll have to find someone born before 1970 to explain the joke, if anyone today even remembers Leona Helmsley. But the poisoner Lucrezia Borgia is immortal. And now too, perhaps, are these dancing fat ladies.

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The history of the Empire of Lax would not be complete without the chronicles of its most revered pets: the elkhound Steadfast, whose life was immortalized in the ten-hour opera
Paws of Honor
(performed only once); the poodle Brownie, who in mistaking approaching soldiers for tree squirrels alerted Castle Underjoy to the imminent attack; the Pekingese Darling, who inspired the foundation of the Darling College for Women in Gebühr. None of these canines, however, matches the cat Escoffier, the only animal ever to be awarded the Medal of Lax for service to empire. His life story, much altered and embellished, may yet be found in fairy tales, and his visage observed in the black-cat emblem of the Imperial Department of Revenue. Born in a granary in Montagne, the mongrel was adopted while still a kitten by Benevolence, the elderly queen mother, in yet another example of that kingdom's peculiar eschewal of pedigree. His name derived from a famed chef, as the cat's appetite and tastes were legendary, and visitors to the royal seat learned to disguise their shock at the spectacle of queen and cat dining together at every banquet. Escoffier accompanied his mistress on her travels throughout the empire. He appeared to be unsettlingly cognizant of human speech, and his tendency to appear at occasions of portent—often without his mistress—led more than one unnerved observer to declare him bewitched. This accusation Benevolence contested most heartily, fearing for her pet's life, and in several royal proclamations declared that he was only a cat, and a lazy one, to boot.

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No birth record exists of Fortitude of Bacio, who was born soon after her mother's arrival in Alpsburg; the woman perished of infective fever ten years later. Fortitude remained in Bacio until Year 28 of the reign of Rüdiger IV, when a royal party traveling from Montagne halted there after the entourage was decimated by food poisoning, an event immortalized in the comic ballad "Pass the Bucket, Queenie!" Desperate for assistance en route to the wedding of her granddaughter to the Duke of Farina, and apparently unaware of the girl's supposed foresight, the queen mother of Montagne offered Fortitude a position as lady-in-waiting. In agreeing to serve attendance—a responsibility for which the girl had no training whatsoever beyond a childhood spent as a kitchen wench, and certainly no breeding—Fortitude of Bacio unwittingly tendered herself as yet another catalyst in the great turbulence about to reshape the Empire of Lax. Controversy continues to surround the girl's preternatural abilities, fanned by recent analysis (see, for example,
The Imperial Gastric and Psychiatric Journal of Ajar,
v. 84ff). Regardless, the arrival of Fortitude in the city of Froglock, along with Emperor Rüdiger IV, Princess Wisdom of Montagne, and the young swordsman Tomas Müller with his impresario Felis el Gato, would play a critical role in the forthcoming upheaval of Wisdom's Kiss, and it may be stated without exaggeration that her presence determined the life and death of two nations.

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Arriving, however unconventionally, in Montagne, Fortitude quickly made the acquaintance of young Queen Temperance; the two distant cousins formed a bond that would last both their lives. Inexperienced and fearful, Temperance benefited immeasurably from Fortitude's companionship and appears to have truly believed in the other's clairvoyance. Nor was Queen Temperance alone in this regard; too soon the fallacy of Lady Fortitude's psychic powers spread throughout the populace, until every petitioner and diplomat approaching the queen found himself grappling with the nebulous and exasperating question of whether his words—indeed, his very appearance—would make Fortitude, and thus Temperance and all the subjects of Montagne, "happy." Thus the prophetess, however counterfeit, elicited an unprecedented constraint on warmongering and greed; peace flourished, and Temperance's rule came to be known as the Reign of Tranquility. Fortitude's family history may be found in
The Comprehensive Genealogical Encyclopedia of Montagne.
Though courted by many suitors, Lady Fortitude ultimately married Count Rudolph of Piccolo, a local landowner who, to honor their nuptials, grew a pumpkin so large that they rode inside it to the wedding ceremony. They had two daughters. Faith, the firstborn, married Temperance's son Henri, and as queen of Montagne counseled her husband as diligently as Fortitude had counseled his mother; Humor, the younger of the two, assisted Fortitude with her memoirs (published privately).

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Occupying the lowest fording point of the Great River, Froglock has served as a center of trade and defense for a millennium or more. Much of the city's great wealth derives from this ford, and more recently from the twelve-arch bridge built in the reign of Clyde, Baron of Farina. (Entitled by him a "Dazzling and Fitting Triumph," the span is better known by its acronym, the Daft Bridge.) It is not surprising that the city's premier industries—weapons and paper—relate directly to the defense and administration of this bridge, as well as to other tolls throughout the provinces and holdings of Farina. According to legend, the city's name was bestowed by residents grateful to the amphibians that would croak an alarm when nocturnal travelers attempted to cross the ford without payment; the frogs were the "lock" to the community's revenue. The name is alternatively ascribed to a local swamp, long drained, known as Frog Loch. The frog-lock icon is emblazoned on both the city seal and the Farina coat of arms; chocolate versions may be purchased at every local confectionery. The city has numerous significant buildings, including the Hall of Taxes, which features fortified windows and a crenelated roofline; the equally imposing Debtors' Prison; and the Ducal Armory, with its wide parade ground and attached Museum of Uniforms and Flags. When Edwig of Farina, then only a baron, married the Countess of Paindecampagne, he sought to mark his newly elevated rank by renaming Froglock with the seemingly more prestigious if meaningless homophone of Phraugheloch. The local populace, in a rare display of subversion, refused to comply, and after several years of escalating penalties and increasingly brazen acts of sabotage, Edwig relented. Today Phraugheloch refers only to the ducal palace, a neoclassical structure of singular dimension and finish even by the criteria of the city in which it stands.

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MARY MUNTANYA BORDER CRUSADE
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The southern mountain-bound kingdom of Muntanya long sought a port for its landlocked nation; the seafront kingdom of Mar craved with equal passion Muntanya's fertile vales. This perennial dissatisfaction exploded quite abruptly in Year 33 of the reign of Rüdiger IV, soon after the Spindle Kaiser arrived in the region with his Circus Primus. At the finale of the circus's first performance, King Rex X of Muntanya produced a document, marked with the emperor's personal seal, declaring his kingdom "Muntanya y Mar," with a border extending "to the sea." That the document was a forgery is without question, yet the presence of the imperial seal (a most protected ring stolen from the emperor's personal effects) presented Rüdiger with a grave dilemma: to reveal the theft would be to admit his own incompetence and to slander Rex a criminal, yet the document, a violation of both state and imperial code, could not be allowed to stand. The old man thus postponed his response, removing himself from the jubilation of the Muntanyese and despondency of the Marites. The following evening, at the circus's second performance, Queen Regina II of Mar proffered an analogous document, also sealed with the emperor's mark, declaring her country "Mar y Muntanya," with a border now extending "to the mountain." The emperor—displaying conspicuously his ring, which he had mysteriously recovered—again advised postponement for a day. The next morn, both kingdoms awoke to extraordinary spectacles. The Font del Rei, a celebrated fountain set within the courtyard of the Castell Muntanya, now spouted seawater, and its great basin was lined with sand, starfish, and two glaring octopuses. Conversely, the courtyard of Castell del Mar held a diminutive but perfectly scaled mountain complete with wildflowers, a goat, and a melting, ice-capped peak. Not even an army of men could have transported the seawater and sand to the Font del Rei or erected silently, in only a few brief hours, such a massive volume of soil as the "mountain" required; nor had such a volume of snow ever been witnessed in subtropical Mar. The flummoxed emperor questioned most closely the guards, residents, and royalty; with the exception of one sentry who claimed to have heard a bleating sound, and another who had espied two shadowy figures lugging a tentacle-draped basket, the populations appeared as bewildered as he. Unnerved residents whispered of sorcery—perhaps a warlock or enchantress had magicked the soil, ice, salt, and sand—and
rumors of Elemental Magic
careered through the crowds. Rüdiger, in an attempt to retain some authority, declared this event not witchcraft but divine intervention. The two documents, he averred, were thus each rendered valid: Muntanya now extended to the "sea" of its own Font del Rei; Mar now possessed a mountain. Though resentful that their ambitions had been so publicly thwarted, Rex and Regina had no choice but to accede, and furthermore to donate, as a gesture of gratitude, the octopuses and goat to Circus Primus; Rüdiger left Muntanya soon thereafter with his performers, soldiers, accountants, and newly acquired cephalopods. The emperor's role in this controversy has been much parsed, in particular his carelessness with the priceless imperial ring and his reliance on a supernatural and patently inflammatory explanation. That the Mar y Muntanya Border Crusade was resolved without warfare cannot be denied, but the emperor's loss of face is of far greater consequence.
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It is possible that modern criticism, such as Snively and Moot's
Impotence in Action: The Appointments and Amusements of Rüdiger IV,
is colored as well by historians' inability to produce an alternative rational explanation for the singular appearance of the muntanya and mar.