“Yes, that is he.” The elder indicated a pot-bellied old man with a slack drooling mouth, sitting in filth before his hut. “You see him at his ease in the pleasaunce of his palace. Lord Radkuth strained himself with a surfeit of lust, for our princesses are the most ravishing creations of human inspiration, just as I am the noblest of princes. But Lord Radkuth indulged himself too copiously, and thereby suffered a mortification. It is a lesson for us all.”
“Perhaps I might make special arrangements to secure his cusps?” ventured Cugel.
“I fear not. You must go to Grodz and toil as do the others. As did I, in a former existence which now seems dim and inchoate … To think I suffered so long! But you are young; thirty or forty or fifty years is not too long a time to wait.”
Cugel put his hand to his abdomen to quiet the fretful stirrings of Firx. “In the space of so much time, the sun may well have waned. Look!” He pointed as a black flicker crossed the face of the sun and seemed to leave a momentary crust. “Even now it ebbs!”
“You are over-apprehensive,” stated the elder. “To us who are lords of Smolod, the sun puts forth a radiance of exquisite colors.”
“This may well be true at the moment,” said Cugel, “but when the sun goes dark, what then? Will you take an equal delight in the gloom and the chill?”
But the elder no longer attended him. Radkuth Vomin had fallen sideways into the mud, and appeared to be dead.
Toying indecisively with his knife Cugel went to look down at the corpse. A deft cut or two — no more than the work of a moment — and he would have achieved his goal. He swayed forward, but already the fugitive moment had passed. Other lords of the village had approached to jostle Cugel aside; Radkuth Vomin was lifted and carried with the most solemn nicety into the ill-smelling precincts of his hut.
Cugel stared wistfully through the doorway, calculating the chances of this ruse and that.
“Let lamps be brought!” intoned the elder. “Let a final effulgence surround Lord Radkuth on his gem-encrusted bier! Let the golden clarion sound from the towers; let the princesses don robes of samite; let their tresses obscure the faces of delight Lord Radkuth loved so well! And now we must keep vigil! Who will guard the bier?”
Cugel stepped forward. “I would deem it honor indeed.”
The elder shook his head. “This is a privilege reserved for his peers. Lord Maulfag, Lord Glus: perhaps you will act in this capacity.” Two of the villagers approached the bench on which Lord Radkuth Vomin lay.
“Next,” declared the elder, “the obsequies must be proclaimed, and the magic cusps transferred to Bubach Angh that most deserving squire of Grodz. Who, again, will go to notify this squire?”
“Again,” said Cugel, “I offer my services, if only to requite in some small manner the hospitality I have enjoyed at Smolod.”
“Well spoken!” intoned the elder. “So, then, at speed to Grodz; return with that squire who by his faith and dutiful toil deserves advancement.”
Cugel bowed, ran off across the barrens toward Grodz. As he approached the outermost fields he moved cautiously, skulking from tussock to copse, and presently found that which he sought: a peasant turning the dank soil with a mattock.
Cugel crept quietly forward, struck down the loon with a gnarled root. He stripped off the best garments, the leather hat, the leggings and foot-gear; with his knife he hacked off the stiff straw-colored beard. Taking all and leaving the peasant lying dazed and naked in the mud he fled on long strides back toward Smolod. In a secluded spot he dressed himself in the stolen garments. He examined the hacked-off beard with some perplexity, and finally, by tying up tufts of the coarse yellow hair and tying tuft to tuft, contrived to bind enough together to make a straggling false beard for himself. That hair which remained he tucked up under the brim of the flapping leather hat.
Now the sun had set; plum-colored gloom obscured the land. Cugel returned to Smolod. Oil lamps flickered before the hut of Radkuth Vomin, where the obese and misshapen village women wailed and groaned.
Cugel stepped cautiously forward, wondering what might be expected of him. As for his disguise: it would either prove effective or it would not. To what extent the violet cusps befuddled perception was a matter of doubt; he could only hazard a trial.
Cugel marched boldly up to the door of the hut. Pitching his voice as low as possible, he called, “I am here, revered princes of Smolod: Squire Bubach Angh of Grodz, who for thirty-one years has heaped the choicest of delicacies into the Smolod larders. Now I appear, beseeching elevation to the estate of nobility.”
“As is your right,” said the Chief Elder. “But you seem a man different to that Bubach Angh who so long has served the princes of Smolod.”
“I have been transfigured — through grief at the passing of Prince Radkuth Vomin and through rapture at the prospect of elevation.”
“This is clear and understandable. Come then — prepare yourself for the rites.”
“I am ready as of this instant,” said Cugel. “Indeed, if you will but tender me the magic cusps I will take them quietly aside and rejoice.”
The Chief Elder shook his head indulgently. “This is not in accord with the rites. To begin with you must stand naked here on the pavilion of this mighty castle, and the fairest of the fair will anoint you in aromatics. Then comes the invocation to Eddith Bran Maur. And then —”
“Revered,” stated Cugel, “allow me one boon. Before the ceremonies begin, fit me with the magic cusps so that I may understand the full portent of the ceremony.”
The Chief Elder considered. “The request is unorthodox, but reasonable. Bring forth the cusps!”
There was a wait, during which Cugel stood first on one foot then the other. The minutes dragged; the garments and the false beard itched intolerably. And now at the outskirts of the village he saw the approach of several new figures, coming from the direction of Grodz. One was almost certainly Bubach Angh, while another seemed to have been shorn of his beard.
The Chief Elder appeared, holding in each hand a violet cusp. “Step forward!”
Cugel called loudly, “I am here, sir.”
“I now apply the potion which sanctifies the junction of magic cusp to right eye.”
At the back of the crowd Bubach Angh raised his voice. “Hold! What transpires?”
Cugel turned, pointed. “What jackal is this that interrupts solemnities? Remove him: hence!”
“Indeed!” called the Chief Elder peremptorily. “You demean yourself and the dignity of the ceremony.”
Bubach Angh crouched back, momentarily cowed.
“In view of the interruption,” said Cugel, “I had as lief merely take custody of the magic cusps until these louts can properly be chastened.”
“No,” said the Chief Elder. “Such a procedure is impossible.” He shook drops of rancid fat in Cugel’s right eye. But now the peasant of the shorn beard set up an outcry: “My hat! My blouse! My beard! Is there no justice?”
“Silence!” hissed the crowd. “This is a solemn occasion!”
“But I am Bu —”
Cugel called, “Insert the magic cusp, lord; let us ignore these louts.”
“A lout, you call me?” roared Bubach Angh. “I recognize you now, you rogue. Hold up proceedings!”
The Chief Elder said inexorably, “I now invest you with the right cusp. You must temporarily hold this eye closed to prevent a discord which would strain the brain, and cause stupor. Now the left eye.” He stepped forward with the ointment, but Bubach Angh and the beardless peasant no longer would be denied. “Hold up proceedings! You ennoble an impostor! I am Bubach Angh, the worthy squire! He who stands before you is a vagabond!”
The Chief Elder inspected Bubach Angh with puzzlement. “For a fact you resemble that peasant who for thirty-one years has carted supplies to Smolod. But if you are Bubach Angh, who is this?”
The beardless peasant lumbered forward. “It is the soulless wretch who stole the clothes from my back and the beard from my face.”
“He is a criminal, a bandit, a vagabond —”
“Hold!” called the Chief Elder. “The words are ill-chosen. Remember that he has been exalted to the rank of prince of Smolod.”
“Not altogether!” cried Bubach Angh. “He has one of my eyes. I demand the other!”
“An awkward situation,” muttered the Chief Elder. He spoke to Cugel: “Though formerly a vagabond and cutthroat, you are now a prince, and a man of responsibility. What is your opinion?”
“I suggest a hiding for these obstreperous louts. Then —”
Bubach Angh and the beardless peasant, uttering shouts of rage, sprang forward. Cugel, leaping away, could not control his right eye. The lid flew open; into his brain crashed such a wonder of exaltation that his breath caught in his throat and his heart almost stopped from astonishment. But concurrently his left eye showed the reality of Smolod, the dissonance was too wild to be tolerated; he stumbled and fell against a hut. Bubach Angh stood over him with mattock raised high, but now the Chief Elder stepped between.
