Whispers in the Wind : The Quack

They say that all the best stories begin in taverns, whether with a gang of dwarves about to embark on a hunt for some dragon’s loot or a powerful wizard disguised as a pedlar. Well this tale of mine, which was remarkably dwarf and wizard free, began in a theatre. I’d taken to loitering in the dilapidated stalls of the Regency Theatre earlier that summer. The Regency was off the old main drag, down a side road littered with dreamers and drunks. I can remember the twist in my gut the day I found it, clattering down the fractured cobbles with three rather pissed off grocers after me. I swear it called to me, a rich orator’s voice echoing in my head.

I curled up in the foyer, panting like a dog in the sun, whilst my three pursuers thundered past, faces as red as their tomatoes. When I was certain they’d gone I naturally elected to have a good nose around.

It was love at first sight. You see, I could see past the mouldy plaster, the rubble strewn seats and the rotted drapes. To me it was like finding an old tramp who turned out to be a fantastic storyman. The boards of the place were soaked with fables.

So on this blazing day in Sunstide I was reclining in my favourite spot--stage left--watching Varsali enunciating the third act of Deradov’s epic. He was astonishingly sober for the hour; either that or the heat had made me so dopey that I couldn’t notice. I could see the sweat pooling in his pits as he bellowed like an impaled walrus.

“Forsake thy valiant proclamation lest I be coerced into striking thine fetid visage thrice times more and...ach, it’s no good...no bloody good,” he cried.

I sprang up and took him a mug of tepid water. “It’s a steamer today, Varsali, why don’t you give yourself a break and I’ll come watch you tomorrow?”

Versali glugged down the water and shook his head. “You are a good lad, Coldin, though not saintly enough to be engaged in work of productive value for your father. Nay, lad, ‘tis neither the heat nor the intricate sonnets of Deradov that irks me this day.”

I wondered perhaps if some of the Cloisters’ lads had been pushing him around whilst he was slaughtered on the spirits again--he certainly seemed troubled.

“A pain of exquisite precision lancinates like a critic’s tongue into my left man-breast. I am certain it portents an imminent end to my artistic persuasion.”

I couldn’t avoid a grin at this. Last week Versali had been convinced he had a tapeworm of such proportion that he could utilise it as bunting for the impending royal wedding. To my mind it would have to have been the most inadequate worm ever hatched to allow his gut to continue to achieve such awesome girth.

“Shall I slip down to the apothecary then?” I asked.

Versali tottered to a ripped seat, his jowls rippling as he slumped in exhaustion. He dug deep in the folds of his robe and produced a silver guilder, wet with the sweat from his corpulent flesh.

“Swiftly, lest you return to find me deceased and home to a cavorting party of blow flies.”

I dried the coin on my tunic and scampered off into the summer’s glare.

#

They used to call Kokis the Shining City on account of some king a thousand years ago that capped all the fine buildings with bronze and copper. Versali says you can’t have shine without shade and I suppose it’s true--darkness can’t exist if there’s no light. Well where I lived in Kokis was definitely the shade. Next time you stride down the broad avenues, admiring the soaring architecture and soaking up the colourful thespians that mill on each corner, take a second to peer through the cracks. Those buildings, those strutting peacocks that preen before you, are like a set on the stage. And behind the scenes is where the poor and the downtrodden live.