Nation - Пратчетт Терри Дэвид Джон - Страница 67

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“Cookie?”

He beamed. “Told you my coffin’d keep me alive, miss!”

“Papa, this is Cookie, who was a great friend to me on the Judy. Cookie, this is my father. He’s king.”

“That’s nice,” said Cookie.

“Coffin?” said the king, looking bewildered again.

“I told you about him, Papa. Remember? The pockets? The mast and shroud? The tiny inflatable billiard table?”

“Oh, that coffin! My word. How long were you at sea, Mr. Cookie?”

“Two weeks, sir. My little stove ran out after the first week, so I made do with biscuits, mint cake, and plankton until I fetched up on an island,” said the cook.

“Plankton?” said Daphne.

“Strained it through my beard, miss. I thought, well, whales live on it, so why not me?” He reached into his pocket and produced a grubby piece of paper. “Funny little island I landed on, too. Had the name on a brass plate nailed to a tree. I writ it down — look.”

The king and his daughter read, in smudged pencil, Mrs. Ethel J. Bundy’s Birthday Island.

“It really exists!” Daphne yelled.

“Jolly well done,” said the king. “Do tell us all about it over dinner. Now, if you will excuse for me a moment, I have to reign.” King Henry the Ninth rubbed his hands together. “Now, what else… ah, yes. Charlie, do you want to be an archbishop?”

The Rt. Rev. Topleigh, who was packing his bag again, waved his hands wildly, a look of sudden dread on his face. “No, thank you, Henry!”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yes, thank you. They’d make me wear shoes. Love it down here among the islands!”

“Ah, then you choose the big sea to a big see,” said the king, in that slow, plummy voice people use when they are committing a really bad pun.

Nobody laughed. Even Daphne, who loved her father very much, could do no better than a sickly grin. Then her father did something that no one, not even a king, should do. He tried to explain. “Perhaps you all didn’t notice the pun or play on words?” he said, sounding a little hurt. “I deliberately confused ‘a big sea,’ that’s with an a, with ‘a big see,’ with two es, meaning the area that comes under the jurisdiction of an archbishop.”

“Technically that would be a province, sir,” said Mr. Black gravely. “Bishops have sees.”

“Although an archbishop is, strictly speaking, bishop of his home see,” said Mr. Red thoughtfully. “That’s why the archbishop of Canterbury is also the bishop of Canterbury. But that would be a small see, and therefore would not work for the purposes of humor.”

“There you have it, Your Majesty,” said Mr. Black, giving the king a happy little smile. “With that small amendment your wonderful pun will be an absolute hoot in ecclesiastical circles.”

“I notice you didn’t laugh, Mr. Black!”

“No, Your Majesty. We are forbidden to laugh at the things kings say, sire, because otherwise we would be at it all day.”

“Well, at least there is one thing I can do,” said the king, walking over to Mau. “Sir, I would be honored if you will join my Empire. Not many people get a choice, I might add.”

“Thank you, King,” said Mau, “but we — ” He stopped, and turned to Pilu for assistance.

“We don’t want to join, Your Sire. It’s too big and we will be swallowed up.”

“Then you will be prey to the first man who arrives with a boat and half a dozen armed men,” said the king. “Apart from me, I mean,” he added quickly.

“Yes, Your King,” said Mau. He saw the ghost girl watching him and thought, well, this is the moment. “That is why we want to join the Royal Society.”

“What?” The king turned to his daughter, who was grinning. “Did you put them up to this, my girl?”

“Papa, this is where science began,” Daphne said quickly, “and I just gave them the words. They did the thinking for themselves. Their ancestors were scientists. You’ve seen the cave! This will work!”

Pilu looked nervously from the king to his daughter and went on: “When the Royal Society was formed, the king gave them a club as full of bigness as his was — ”

“Bigness?” said the king.

“That was Charles the Second, sire,” Mr. Black whispered. “In fact he did indeed say that the society deserved a mace ‘alike in bigness to our own,’ and I suppose we can only be grateful that he didn’t say biggittity.”

“ — which means he thought they were as powerful as kings, and so we humbly, no, proudly ask that we be admitted,” said Pilu, glancing at the ghost girl. “We will welcome all men of science as, er, brothers.”

“Say yes, Papa, say yes!” said Daphne. “Science is international!”

“I can’t speak for the society — ” the king began, but Daphne was ready for this. There was no point in being a princess if you couldn’t interrupt a king.

“Of course you can, Papa. It says Royal Society outside their building, doesn’t it?”

“Your society, Your Majesty,” Mr. Black purred. “And based, of course, in London.”

“And we will give them the golden door,” said Mau.

“What?” said Daphne. She hadn’t expected this bit.

“It’s not going to be shut again,” said Mau emphatically. “It will be a gift to our brothers who sailed so far that they came back.”

“That’s tons of gold!” said the king. “About eight tons at least, I’d say.”

“Very well done, sire,” said Mr. Black. “To the victor the spoils.”

“Except there hasn’t been a war,” said the king. “It’s too much. We can’t take it! They have been kind.”

“I was merely suggesting that the people like it when kings bring valuable things home, sire,” said the Gentleman of Last Resort.

“Like whole countries,” said Daphne, giving him a sharp look.

“But this is meant as a gift, Mr. Black. It is not the spoils of conquest,” said the king.

“Well, that is indeed a happy, if unusual, outcome,” said Mr. Black smoothly.

“And you will give a gift to us, too,” said Mau. “When much is taken, something is returned. Pilu?”

“A big telescope,” said Pilu, “and a boat in sizeness to the Sweet Judy, and ten barrels of salt-pickled beef, and tools of every sizeness. Timber, metals of all kindness, books with pictures and writing inside that is about the pictures….”

It went on for quite some time, and when he had finished, Daphne said, “That’s still pretty cheap, Papa, even with the boat. And remember, the first thing they asked for was a telescope. How can you argue with that?”

The king smiled. “I won’t. Nor will I wonder out loud if anyone helped them with the list. Anyway I rather like ‘metals of all kindness.’ And you are right, of course. Scientists will flock here. And you can keep your door, Mau.”

“No,” said Mau firmly. “It was closed for too long, Your King. I will not let it be shut again. But there is one more request, which is very simple. Every man of science who comes here to see what we once knew must tell us all he knows.”

“Lectures!” Daphne burst out. “Oh, yes!”

“And someone, please, to teach us doctrine,” Mau added.

The bishop, who had been feeling a bit left out by now, brightened up at this point and stepped forward smartly. “If I can help in any way — ” he began, his voice full of hope.

“Doctrine to make us better,” said Mau, giving Daphne an imploring look.

“Yes indeed,” said the bishop. “I feel that — ”

Daphne sighed. “I’m sorry, Your Grace, but he means doctoring,” she said.

“Ah, yes,” said the bishop sadly. “Silly me.”

“Mind you, if you’re good at debating, Mau might be interested.” She looked at Mau, who looked at her, and then at the Gentlemen of Last Resort, and then at the king, and then at the Cutty Wren, and then back at her.

And he knows I’m going, she thought. And very soon. I’ll have to. A king’s only child can’t live on an island that’s lost at sea. He could read me like a book, if he read books. He knows. I can see it in his face.

At dawn on the seventh day after the arrival of the Cutty Wren, Captain Samson was ready to set sail again. The ship had already picked up most of the provisions for the return leg in Port Mercia, but eight tons of gold takes a lot of sawing up when you’re determined not to leave behind a single bit of gold dust.

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