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invisible spheres. 'So . . . so real
.'
Travapeth looked wise.
'I don't suppose,' Zefla said, `the current King is thinking of resigning or
anything, is he?'
Travapeth wiped his hands on the front of his robe and shook his head. 'I
believe not, dear girl. The present King's grandfather did abdicate; he took
himself off to a monastery to pursue a life of holy despisal. But King Tard .
. . well, he's not really the religious type.' Travapeth frowned. `He does
believe in their god, of course, but I don't believe it would be inaccurate to
term his religious observances perfunctory rather than assiduous.'
'They don't ever re-enact-?' Zefla began. But Travapeth boomed on.
'Of course, sudden conversions to extreme holiness have been known to occur in
the present royal family, usually following traumatic events in the life of
the noble person concerned involvement in an unsuccessful coup, being
discovered with somebody else's spouse or one's own mount, finding one has
been made general of an army being sent to root out guerrillas and
revolutionaries in deep country; that sort of thing. But for a monarch to take
up holy orders is relatively rare; they tend to die in harness.' Travapeth's
eyebrows rose. 'Literally so in the case of the King's great-grandfather, who
accidentally strangled himself to death in a very unlikely position while
suspended from the ceiling of a room in a house of less than spotless
reputation.' The old scholar gave a sort of grunting laugh and grimaced
dubiously at Zefla as he took a drink from a goblet of trax wine, and gargled
with it before swallowing.
'Well,' Zefla said. 'Perhaps we might be able to catch some other ceremony. If
we do get permission to work there.'
`Certainly,' Travapeth said, belching. `There's the annual rededication of the
cathedral, the maledictions before the annual glide-monkey hunt -that's quite
colourful, and the hunt itself is exciting. . . Well, they call it a hunt;
it's more
of a spectator sport. Then there's the New Year mass-executions day, the
debtors' flogging festival . . . and there are always events celebrating the
birth of a new royal baby or the King's acquisition of some new piece of
technology.' .
`Yes,' Zefla said, tapping the stylo on the conference table again. `These
pieces of modern technology that the
Kings purchase every now and again; I take it they have purely symbolic
value?'
Travapeth shook his head. `Not even that, sweet lady; they are bought merely
to remove any monetary surplus from the country's economy. This, ah,
apparently strange behaviour is designed to keep the Kingdom stable by soaking
up profit that might otherwise lead to progress and therefore instability.
This is the very reason that Pharpech is also known as the Court of the
Useless Kings.' Travapeth frowned and gestured with his hands. `This might
strike us as a rather eccentric way to rule a state, but I think we have to
respect the Pharpechians' right to run their country the way they want, and
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certainly one cannot deny that it works; there has been no progress whatsoever
in Pharpech for nearly eight hundred years. In its own way, that's quite an
achievement.'
Cenuij made an almost inaudible noise and jotted something in his notebook.
`Of course,' Travapeth sighed. `This practice can be taken too far; I was
present in the Kingdom when His Majesty the present King took delivery of his
radio telescope.'
`I thought the area was radio-opaque,' Cenuij said.
`Oh, absolutely,' Travapeth said. `And of course there's no break in the
canopy for hundreds of kilometres. But you miss the point, my dear sir. The
telescope was not bought to be used; there was nobody in the realm able to
operate it and no electricity supply available anyway. As I have related,
modern technology with the partial exception of the guards' and the army's
weapons - is effectively banned in the Kingdom.'
The old scholar suddenly looked quite sad, and dropped his voice a little.
`Even my own modest camera fell foul of this rule after the unfortunate
business of the King being thrown from his mount while performing the annual
capital boundary riding, during my last visit . . .' Travapeth seemed to
collect himself, sitting straight in his seat and raising his voice again.
`No, sir; the King bought the telescope because it cost exactly the amount of
money the treasury had to spend and because it was totally useless. Although I
believe he did enjoy sliding around inside the bowl for a while, which goes
against the letter but not the spirit of the Uselessness creed . . . But no,'
Travapeth said, and came close to scowling. `My complaint is with the site the
King chose for his telescope, which was the old castle library; he had the
library torn down and all the books burned.' Travapeth shook his head.
`Disgraceful behaviour,' he muttered into his wine goblet.
Sharrow stared at him, then made a small note in her own notebook, just to be
doing something.
Oh shit, she thought.
Zefla was shaking her head, making noises of polite outrage.
Cenuij had stiffened. `
All the books?' he said, voice hoarse. `Burned?'
Travapeth looked up, eyebrows raised. `I'm afraid so,' he said, nodding sadly.
`They went into the castle furnace;
coated the whole city in ash and black, half-burned pages.' The old scholar
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