by Bill Etem
Chapter 4. Scenes in a Krull Tavern
The descent went off without a hitch, more or less. There were some awkward moments when, having removed all of their ropes from the top half of the wall, they had to then reposition the same ropes on the lower half of the wall, which entailed finding, in the dim moonlight, the pitons which served as their principal belays and which they had hammered in 4 weeks before. Valmyristarsis, their best climber, was responsible for leading everyone down, and was responsible for resetting the ropes on the lower half of the wall, as well as testing the belays and hammering in new pitons when the old belays were judged uncertain to hold. Their second best climber, Seraphinaria, was responsible for helping the less skilled women carry the kids down, and she was also responsible for collecting the ropes, and collecting any pitons she could hammer loose.
The following morning found 34 people camped at the base of the South Face. They had reached the bottom an hour after the sun had risen. Requiring six hours to repel down 7,000 feet is a snail’s pace for professional climbers, but then they were not professionals, and every precaution was taken to make sure no slips were made and no kids were fumbled and lost.
`There are our horses,’ exclaimed Heather when she was still 1,000 feet above the plains, pointing in the distance, in the light of the rising sun, at some animals pawing through the snow and grazing of the grass beneath.
`And there’s the huge cart right where we left it a month ago,’ said her brother, Hugh.
Upon reaching level ground, Seraphinaria decided to send Mirabrasantes and Casilevates off to round up the 4 huge work horses, suspecting perhaps these horses would be less likely to run off if it was Mirabrasantes and Casilevates who rounded them up. She seemed to have a vague recollection that these two had something of a rapport with horses. In the mean time everyone else grabbed an hour’s cat nap while the two women were preoccupied with the task of retrieving the horses. Some sort of animal, perhaps a colossal cave bear weighing over a ton, had gorged himself on the supplies they left on the wagon. All of the canned good had been torn open and their contents devoured. All of the dried meat and dried fruit which they had left behind was gone. They still had 900 lbs of food which they carried down from above, a supply which ought to last them until they found their way to the Krull city of Ataz, which was a 3 week march to the east and north. They could always kill and eat a horse, or two, should some delay in this timetable threaten them with starvation. Not bothering to put up any tents, they huddled in their cloaks and under their blankets, finding this arrangement cozy enough, and from all their exertions from the previous night everyone was exhausted enough to drift easily off to sleep, though Misevasundia and Sevaladelia remained awake, standing watch and on the lookout for cave bears.
Once Mirabrasantes and Casilevates returned with the 4 horses they too refreshed themselves with a nap as the sun climbed higher and higher above them. By noon the older kids: Marla, Kayla and Shelby; Desiree and Delilah; Jackson and Luke were entrusted with guard duty while everyone else, including Misevasundia and Sevaladelia, either slept or prepared a meal.
Marla, Mirabrasantes’ 8-year-old daughter, was watching her newly adopted brother, Luke, and his 14-year-old ex-girlfriend, Debra. Both painful and thrilling emotions were running through Marla. For a few weeks there it was uncertain who would adopt Luke. Marla had developed some sweet feelings for the boy. And then he became her adopted brother, which further confused and complicated matters. And then he returned from Cromwell Town, alive, which thrilled Marla no end, but he also returned with this 14-year-old girlfriend, which devastated Marla no end. But, now, Luke and Debra were no longer a couple, and this re-energized Marla, it gave her hope for a bright and beautiful future. It stirred her soul and brought her to life again. She listened as Debra described the colors she was finding in her Hibernian sweaters to herself and to Luke. The Hibernians were famous for their disdain for both the reserved autumnal shades as well as for the gaudy primary colors. Here was a slash cobalt and there was a splash of fuchsia. Debra pointed out the difference between every shade she could find, ranging from ebony to ivory, in her supply of sweaters and blouses. Here was amethyst and there was aquamarine. Here you’ll find navy-blue, gold, silver, mother-of-pearl, mauve, ecru, teal, ocher, magenta and pewter. Marla was thinking her supply of sweaters, which were either gray or camel-colored, were decidedly dull compared to the rainbow which burst from Debra’s treasure trove of garments. Poor Luke was crushed. He looked so crestfallen. Every time he looked at Debra it’s as if he forgot completely that she saved his life back in Cromwell Town. All that he could see was that she had rejected him. For a few brief shining days of bliss he knew the heaven of having Debra. She was so thrilling to gaze upon, with her fabulous figure, with the wonderful way her beautiful eyes and her marvelously feminine décolleté could seize his attention and fill him with euphoria. Then one day Debra came to her senses. She told Luke straight out she could no longer be his girl-friend. It was as if she took a knife and stabbed it into his heart. He never suspected such pain could exist! He never knew the world could be so treacherous! Luke could see the interest Marla had for him in her eyes. But she was his new sister - Marla’s mom, Mirabrasantes, had adopted him - and even if Marla wasn’t his sister, she seemed to Luke so terribly young and immature, so terribly childish. Where was her marvelous figure? Where was the thrilling décolleté in this Marla kid? Luke wished he had the guts to throw himself off a cliff every time he looked at Debra. He actually left her a cruel note the night before. Luke had it all planned out. He wanted them to find his smashed body at the bottom of the mountain. And he wanted Debra to find the cruel note that he wrote and left in her ruck-sack. The note read: `You killed me Debra! You dashed out my brains! You broke all my bones. You destroyed me? How could you? How could you? I loved you so much, Debra, but you killed me!’
But Luke, though he made a feeble attempt at suicide, just didn’t have the guts to finish the job. Either that or his guardian angel was watching over him! It was just the night before, as he looked down from the heights of the South Face, that he attempted to put his plan into operation. But Luke simply didn’t have the guts, or rather, he had too much sense, to hurl himself off a 7,000 foot precipice. If he had found the will they would have found a mangled body indeed! Ah, but she had bashed and battered and assaulted him before the mountain ever did. Luke couldn’t find the strength within him to commit suicide. He later found the will-power to retrieve the note that he left in Debra’s ruck-sack. He almost wished she had found it, but he ripped it to shreds as he wept bitter tears of anguish and misery.
By 2:00 pm the sun was beginning to descend in the west. Though there was a hint of spring in the air, it was still a cold ordeal for the little kids to step behind the blanket they used for a shower curtain and take their showers. The warrior women made it a rule that everyone had to strip and use soap and water, every day, after visiting the latrines. Exceptions were made during blizzards but the women wanted a clean outfit, and they didn’t want anyone getting sick from unhygienic conditions. They didn’t want their kids having heads crawling with lice; they weren’t about to see their kids struck with mangy skin diseases, their bowels in tumult with dysentery which might lead to death etc., etc. A few drops of bleach and iodine went into every glass of water they drank, even in the water for the coffee which always came to a full boil. Parasites would pray on them and strike them down if they neglected to do so. The landscape beneath the towering mountains was comprised of rolling foothills. By travelling a few miles to the south they were able to attain more level ground during their push to the east. Here the plains rose gently to crests and fell just as gently to river bottoms, where the streams were seldom more than ankle deep, and generally free of ice. Huge swaths of these grasslands were free of snow. Perhaps spring was arriving early. In any event the horses had little difficulty finding both food and water. After two wee
ks of travelling to the east they saw a cleft in the mountain wall to the north. Here one might enter a wide valley that would funnel travelers to a pass between two high peaks. This pass marked a boundary where three nations met; here the borders between Avallonia, Hibernia and the Krull Republic all came together. The pass would also be guarded by patrols from all three countries, and warrior women from Avallonia were not welcome in either Hibernia or the Krull Republic. They would have to make their invasion of Krull lands, and then later of Hibernia, by unguarded routes. In two more days there would be a new moon. Ideally it would be best to pass into Krull territory on a moonless night, and on a night when the wind would quickly erase all signs of their footsteps in the snow. By camouflaging themselves in the proper garb, by climbing the slope of the mountain above and to the east of the guarded pass, they fully expect to evade the Krull border patrols. They were forced to wait a few nights after the new moon, as the air was dead calm. But when the wind picked up the gusts were blowing at gale force. The first night was spent ascending the slope and attaining a position high above the pass. Lying low and crouching behind boulders and ridgelines, getting what sleep they could while remaining perfectly silent was their one job the next morning and afternoon. Remaining hidden from guards below them who would be scanning the slopes for sign of invaders shouldn’t be too difficult. But they had to be perfectly quiet, especially if the howling winds faded away, so as to not alert suspicions of any guard dogs who might be wandering about. The second night was much like the first save it was one of descent not ascent. And the wind was still blowing strongly enough to swiftly erase all evidence of their passage over the mountain slope. There were well beneath the tree line and hence hidden from the guards by the time the morning sun began to lighten the sky in the east. It was just a matter now to avoid the border town and get to a city large enough to make them inconspicuous. They were relying on Katie’s insistence that the right way for them to pass as Krullites was not to worry much about guttural inflections and the choice of vocabulary too much. The key was to use simple words but to say everything with emphasis, and to make a big dramatic production out of everything you said, which was considered good humor and acceptable manners in the Krull Republic. For instance, rather than say: `pass the salt and pepper please’, the Krull would say: `get me that salt and get me that pepper real fast or I swear I’m gonna cut ya with this here knife!’ Katie insisted that as long as you made your threat and your big melodramatic announcement with a smile on your face, no animosity would not be aroused among the Krullite barbarians, but if you made bland statements like – `Good morning to you sir, the weather is beautiful today, don’t you agree?’ – the Krull will not only assume you are simple-minded, but they will suspect you immediately of being a foreigner, possibly a spy, and therefore they might try to provoke a street-fight with you, or they might follow you to your inn and then alert the authorities saying that they have found a suspicious character in you. So the key was to be dramatic in all things, and never utter boring if honest words, but be sure to offer insults with a smile on your face, as it was absolutely necessary that you let it be know you are just joking; and if you were incapable of these things then it was imperative that you just keep silent. Katie gave them a demonstration about how the technique worked when she went up to a lady at the counter of a grocery store and said in a gregarious and friendly way: `Boy, I’d like to sleep with your husband if your husband is that big strapping fellow over there!’ They lady just smiled in return and said: `you can have the lazy bum, but I’ll tell you something, his breath sucks as bad as yours and his feet stink ever worse.’ But then Navorrasicaa’s girl, the 7-year-old Barb, got a little carried away, and she said: `I feels like cutting an old lady’s throat because her prices is too high’, but Barb’s smile was sort of forced, and not very genuine-looking when she made her crack, so the grocer lady shot her a nasty suspicious glance. But then Barb recovered nicely by getting a genuine smile on her face as she said: `I’ll let you and your stinky husband live this time, but next time I want to see some lower prices.’
By midday of their fourth day of trudging along country lanes, mingling infrequently but now and then with the Krull Barbarians, they spied a roadside tavern and decide to cool their heels inside it. As they were entering a old man was trying to exit. Buddy, aka Hamilton, Valmyristarsis’ almost four-year-old, piped up with his naturally cheerful voice and was heard telling the elderly fellow: `get the hell out of my way you dumb son-of-a-bitch before I bust you one.’ And then after they had all been seated, Marla, Mirabrasantes’ 8-year-old, the secret admirer of Luke, wanted to try her hand to see if she could pass for a native Krullite / barbarian. She began by telling one of the barmaids: `Your face reminds me of a pig’s ass. I mean the proportions and the contours of both things are exactly the same.’ Marla was surprised herself by the vehemence of her attack. Luke wasn’t cold to her, it wasn’t as if he wouldn’t even give her the time of day, but extreme frustration was setting in for Marla. What did she think was going to happen between herself and Luke? Luke was now her brother. But young Marla had evidently not reasoned the matter out very well!
Then the barmaid shoot back with a smile: `I’ll be sure to put lots of poison in your lemonade for that crack, Missy.’
Though these speeches were all executed with what could pass as genuine good-natured smiles, nevertheless, Marla was uneasy and she refused to drink anything that that barmaid brought her. For awhile Marla retreated into silence. But then she got thirsty and she decided she would make another attempt to pass as a local, so she went with: `you’re the best-looking barmaid I’ve seen in the last 5 minutes, anyway get me a beer and hurry up about it,’ her reasoning being that that sort of crack was semi-complimentary, but it wasn’t obnoxiously fawning and ass-kissing either. Katie was now insisting that they were being bold enough but they had to ramp up the sincerity, or insincerity, and get more friendliness into their smiles to avoid suspicion.
`You’re a comely wench,’ said Brent, Mirabrasantes’ 7-year-old, Luke and Marla’s brother, to yet another bar-maid. `But I ought to spank your butt for your slow service.’
She laughed at that and replied with: `if you ever lay your hand across my butt I’ll dig your eyeballs out of their sockets with my fingernails!’
`It can’t always be about physical violence,’ said Jacqueline, Casilevatates 7-year-old, speaking to both Brent and the comely serving wench. `You have to make other sorts of cracks or else you get stuck in a rut.’
What do you suggest?’ asked the serving wench.
You could say something like: “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, these low-lifes had to walk into mine,’ said Martha.
`That’s just another insult, whereas true comedy can’t always be about insults, and good living never is,’ insisted Jacqueline.
`Such fine analysis from one so young,’ said the tavern wench. `Let me tell you a thing or two. Everyone knows you’re spies from Avallonia. You have no talent for how we Krullites actually enliven our conversations. Some of our lowest barbarians speak like you do, but your manners are the manners of our criminal class not our respectable class. You’re obviously not thugs and brigands, so what else but spies could you be? I’m telling you this because I like the look of you people. You seem like nice people with lots of nice clean-cut looking kids, once you get beyond your phoniness on the surface I mean, and, well, I’ve always like Avallonia. But you’re going to have to take to the hills or else you’ll be arrested as spies within a day or two, or perhaps within the hour for that matter.’
Katie immediately saw it was no use bluffing their way out of this one. `I’ll give you a gold sovereign, make it two, and we’ll pay all the costs, if you get us some supplies that will keep us alive in the hills. We’re trying to get to Hibernia.’
`I said I liked you. I don’t take money for doing favors for people I like. I’m not a mercenary, not a mon
ey-for-favors sort of person.’
`OK, OK, we’ won’t give you any money just our gratitude if you help us’ said Seraphinaria.