Vol.7, Ch.2, P.5
From the Writings of Lord André,
Fourth Son to the Baron-house of Håkansson
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Ah, peace. What could be better? That’s what everyone says, very sure, but I’m rather inclined to follow the herd, if given the choice. What could be better? Now, don’t get me wrong. Not everyone deserves a slice of the paradise pie. Some on this good earth are rotted down to the core, don’t you know. And for them, a generous helping of the Deuce’s soup is well in order, I say, alongside a dallop of live and angry centipedes to go along with it, what?
Take the housekeeper back at the old nest, for instance. Yes indeed, that one. The ancient, unwedded prune, always trampling me with that ghastly, sneering look of hers, like a warthog snorting at a dung-less dung beetle happening to pass shyly by. I do pray she goes all the way to the bally grave without ever walking down the aisle. The hands clasp. The soul begs. Absolutely.
Now, where was I? Peas? Peanuts? Pen—ah, yes. Peace and all that. Precious, important. Wouldn’t want to live without it. But what I was driving at is just how many of us truly apprehend the value of such a pearl, if you drink my drift? And I mean truly?
I remember the old man telling me once when I was a wee lad that I “ought lose an eye or three, boy. Then you’ll see. Then you’ll know,” or some stink to that effect. And now I’m bound to say, he might’ve been bally on to something. A spotless truth, dare I say. Or more rather, oh, what’s the word? Impenetrable? No. Unimpeachable? No, no, not that, either. Ah, imperishable. Yes, that’s it. An imperishable truth applicable not only to yours truly, but to all of Man at large.
What’s that? Too heady for you? Well, all right, then. How about this: it’s not till you’ve swum in the soup that you can truly appreciate the plate. And by “soup”, I mean a beastly bit of trouble. Life-threatening, touch-and-go, tiger in hot pursuit; that sort of rot. And by “plate”, I mean peace. Ah! now you see. Now you know. Peace is priceless, you will therefore agree. Right-ho.
Well, as for your dear old egg André, he’s lived all his life without so much as a toe in the dashed soup. And given how all this world is practically drowning in it, that’s quite the feat, if I say so myself. That is, till I’d taken a biff to the bum, as it were, and found myself landed square on the nipple of a rumbling battlefield.
An icy waterfall roars down the spine, and a warm trickle threatens to run down the thighs, just to reminisce upon it. No, no, don’t expect a regurgitation of the tale here. I’ve done enough of that some pages ago, if you recall. But to spare you the trouble—and me a change of trousers—it suffices to say that my eyes had met those of Śāṭān’s upon that battlefield. Yes, you read that aright: Śāṭān. And if that’s not a soup swimming with sharks, I don’t know what is. Why, the thought alone, that some sabre-toothed whale should prowl the depths even as we speak, is enough to make me curse all the world. So you must allow me, therefore, to keep the lips tight about the nightmarish details.
All that to say that I had lost an eye or three, as suggested, and so had since become quite the choirboy in the church of peace. Never mind that I became, as well, a lay-soldier after that ghastly affair. Oh no, no, it’s quite all right. Nothing ever really happens in this new line of work, you see. No blood rudely spitting everywhere, no arguments between swords and spears to avoid. Quite peaceful, really. And nothing could’ve beaten that.
And “soldier” is perhaps too jagged a term for it. I became, more precisely, a sentinel for some rural garrison, out in a place where the meanest thing to fend was perhaps the seldom goat with a grudge. And so was all as rainbows and twittering birds.
But then, clouds loomed.
On a certain occasion, I was posted to a school in the nearby countryside, where a jolly important gathering was to take place: a meeting for reconciliation or some rot. Well, a monumental rot, from what’d I heard, the kind that brings together the eminences and notables from all ’round, but rot all the same. Now you might say, “Egad, André! Rubbing shoulders with royalty already! You’re moving up, aren’t you? Splendid!” Well, no. Thank you, but no. For if you know me, “moving up” sits right at the bottom of the bucket list, only scribbled there because the old man happened to be snooping over the shoulder at the moment. No, André Håkansson is a rose smeller, an afternoon napper, not some upstart keen to have himself writ bold on History’s pages.
“Well, how’ve you snatched such a golden posting, then?” you might ask next. That’s the question. That’s the mystery. As it happened, the garrison was run through with a fine-toothed comb after the commission had been handed us. Hearings, interviews, that sort of bosh. I gathered that the powers-that-be wanted to ensure we hadn’t got smut under our nails, if that’s the expression. Can’t have lazy-eyed ne’er-do-wells on watch and all that. Fair enough, I’ll admit.
Well, being an upstanding citizen, I laid it all on the table. Told them that I’d been “dishonourably discharged” from the Salvator coop. That ought get these royal blighters out of my hair, I thought. Only, it didn’t. That blot on the old précis seemed rather to have delighted them, in fact. So much so that it bunged my name straight onto pages of another sort. My word. Bally rummy, what? I suspect now that my being something of a smelly let-down in the Church’s eyes might’ve had much to do with it.
The bean is fogged. The curiosity is stoked. This mystery needs some getting-to-the-bottom-of. Oh, who am I kidding. Of course not. “Let dreaming dragons snore” is my motto, and an ironclad one, at that. After all, I was a sentinel now, not some inquisitor out to uncover the skeletons in high society’s closets, no, no. If one needs not know it, then one needs not even try. That’s the sage’s secret to a long life. “Ignorance is wisdom”—dear me, I never knew I’ve got the philosophical streak, what?
Anyway, now the scene is set. There I was, on duty at the—what’s the dashed place called again? Something to do with a mirky loft. Or milky love. Anyway, there I was at the school grounds, strolling here and there, humming a fruity tune, and—being on patrol—checking under a rock every now and again. We Håkanssons take our duties very seriously, you see. There was, however, hardly anyone else ’round. All the students and magisters were on a holiday of sorts, from what I’d gathered. Mandatory, if memory serves, what with the foresaid meeting to convene today. Excellent. I fancied to go and find myself some tree to nod off under. But remembering that Her Royal Highness was also to grace the premises, I cheesed the idea. Duty and seriousness and all that.
Although that scarce should’ve mattered, thinking on it now. The princess had got a whole rattle of knights and royal guards to look after her, after all. What value could one André or three add to a strapping lot like that? Might well explain why we barrel-bottom chaps from the garrison were to patrol elsewhere, as a matter of fact, away from the steeple where the meeting was to meet. But that pipped me little. I didn’t fancy mingling with the luminary flock, anyway. Too snooty, touchy, you see. I mean to say, a wrong word in their earshot, and all of a sudden you’re at the gallows mumbling your last prayers, if you understand. Nay, I left them to their devices and I to mine.
At any rate, it wasn’t all humdrum traipsing about on my lonesome. This was easy money. Think about it: a hefty-ish pouch of reugoles just to stroll and smell the green, and sip in the quiet, juicy weather, with nothing to report back but a squirrel that’d given you a toothy sigh. And then, it biffed me. Struck home, if you will. This was peace. No doubt about it. When André Håkansson, survivor of Śāṭān’s death-stare, appraises so, you trust to the old fish’s word.
I lifted up my nose and sniffed it all in. The sun was warm like a bakery. The breeze massaged the very soul. The sky blushed blue, the white clouds waddled about. There was no peril here. None. Only peace. Only the passing of a fruity day. What bliss, I lipped to myself. And then I chuckled, pinching myself for having never savoured it enough before, for forgetting that this was how things ought be: slow and blissfully boring. I tell you, my bosom swelled at that moment, like the tummy after a Yuletide binge. Ah, tranquility. Right-ho.
Anyway, I raised a contented hand to the brow and squinted at the velvety sunniness all ’round. Before long, I found the steeple not too far off, standing tall and delightfully tower-ish, and hosting near its tip the princess and all that’d come to meet her. How quaint a thing, what? I mused at it, giving the thing a long up-and-down. Old and mossy—very well makes a painting against the sky so blue, what?
And as I looked up, the spire glimmered down at me. I glimmered back. Peace. Absolute peace. Yoná’s in Her Heaven, and all’s right with the world, as the choir would sing.
Only, the singing cheesed. The air startled. And like a horn-blow, a roar boomed. I blinked, and the next thing I knew, the steeple cracked open, and out of it puffed a great poof of flame.
My jaw oozed open. My lids leapt past their eaves. I stood there confusticated. Absolutely blowed. And as I did, there was a rummy thing: the world, it seemed, had slackened to a caterpillar’s leisure. And in the slowness, I beheld the crack in the tower steadily, steadily opening up, and even more flames huffing and puffing out from it. And soon enough, the top of the tower gave. Its wall bunged out, and its spire dislodged, falling in a sort of inebriated somersault.
A beastly noise then rose. The roof of the building below had taken it in the nape as all manner of rubbish landed and jumped upon it like little nieces and nephews bent on reducing the bed to a pancake. But next came the spire. With the ease of a fat uncle’s knife through a pad of butter, it delved through the roof, and caused a good-ish deal of the thing to cave down and disappear. The ears shuddered again. And imitating a baker’s sneeze, an enormous fume of dust then billowed there, and soon shrouded all the lower half of the steeple like a ballerina’s tutu. And to top it off, there last fell burning bits and bobs to sprinkle all the scene.
In summary: a biffed tower, a flapping of dust, and a ghastly pother of flames. All the world had transformed right afore my eyes.
I couldn’t tell you to save my life for how long I stood there. A few seconds, maybe, or till teatime—my bean was all mush, like a sheep that’s been slapped amidships and didn’t know what to do about it. But one thing was for certain: all that I saw was bally real. And no amount of pinching was going to snap me out of it.
And so, I did the only sensible thing for a Håkansson to do: I reared back the lemon, unmoored the tonsils, limbered up the throat, and screamed.
“Dear Deiva, drat it aaa—all!!”
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Notes
Reugol
(Language: Schemed Latin; plural: reugoles) A standard currency of Londosius. Comes in coins of different composition (i.e., a gold reugol).
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