The Dead Father waited for the applause.
A storm of applause from the men!
Thank you, the Dead Father said, thank you.
Prolonged and fervent applause. Whistles. Stamping of feet. Waving of handkerchiefs (the women).
Thank you. Thank you.
A wonderful speech, said Thomas.
A marvelous speech, said Julie, would you autograph my program.
Thank you, said the Dead Father, of course.
Quite extraordinary, said Emma, what did it mean?
Thank you, said the Dead Father, it meant I made a speech.
Beautifully done, said Thomas, are you free for lunch?
Thank you, said the Dead Father, I think so.
Julie was wiping the Dead Father’s brow, with her handkerchief.
A long time since I’ve heard anything like it, she said, a very long time, not since my student days in fact.
Thank you, said the Dead Father.
The men loved it, said Thomas.
Yes, said the Dead Father.
Positively on the edge of my chair, said Emma, figuratively speaking.
Thank you, said the Dead Father, it was a pisser all right.
Enough! said Julie.
Why is it, asked the Dead Father, that alone among the members of this party I am not allowed to be filthy-mouthed?
Because you are an old fart, she said, and old farts must be notably clean of mouth in order to mitigate the disgustingness of being old farts.
The Dead Father lunged against his cable.
Look how the red is rising to his top, Emma observed.
The Dead Father burst off down the road, his cable trailing.
He is going to do it again, said Thomas.
They followed at a rapid pace.
They found the Dead Father standing in a wood, slaying. First he slew a snowshoe rabbit cleaving it in twain with a single blow and then he slew a spiny anteater and then he slew two rusty numbats and then whirling the great blade round and round his head he slew a wallaby and a lemur and a trio of ouakaris and a spider monkey and a common squid. Then moving up and down the green path in his rage he dispatched a macaque and a gibbon and fourscore innocent chinchillas who had been standing idly by watching the great slaughter. Then he rested standing with the point of his sword stuck in the earth and his two hands folded upon the hilt. Then he again as if taken by a fit set about the bloody work slaying a prairie dog and a beaver and a gopher and a dingo and a honey badger and an otter and a house cat and a tapir and a piglet. Then his anger grew and he called for a brand of even greater weight and length which was brought him by a metaphorically present gillie and seizing it with his two fine-formed and noble hands he raised it above his head, and every living thing within his reach trembled and every dead thing within his reach remembered how it got that way, and the very trees of the wood did seem to shrink and step away. Then the Dead Father slew a warthog and a spotted fawn and a trusting sheep and a young goat and a marmoset and two greyhounds and a draghound. Then, kicking viciously with his noble and shapely foot at the piles of the slain, raw and sticky corpses drenching the earth in blood on every side, he cleared a path to a group of staring pelicans slicing the soft white thin necks of them from the bodies in the wink of an eye. Then he slew a cassowary and a flamingo and a grebe and a heron and a bittern and a pair of ducks and a shouting peacock and a dancing crane and a bustard and a lily-trotter and, wiping the sacred sweat from his brow with one ermine-trimmed sleeve, slew a wood pigeon and a cockatoo and a tawny owl and a snowy owl and a magpie and three jackdaws and a crow and a jay and a dove. Then he called for wine. A silver flagon was brought him and he downed the whole of it in one draught looking the while out of the corner of his ruby eye at a small iguana melted in terror against the limb of a tree. Then he tossed the silver flagon into the arms of a supposititious cupbearer sousing the cupbearer’s hypothetical white tunic with the red of the (possible) wine and split the iguana into two halves with the point of his sword as easily as one skilled in the mystery fillets a fish. Then the Dead Father resumed his sword work in earnest slaying diverse small animals of every kind, so that the heaps mounted steaming to the right and to the left of him with each passionate step. A toad escaped.
Heavy work, the Dead Father said, looking pleased. See how many!
Thomas was collecting the carcasses of the edible.
See how many! the Dead Father said again.
Truly formidable, Julie said, to please him. Sword play of this quality has not been seen since the days of Frithjof, Lancelot, Paracelsus, Rogero, Artegal, Otuel, Ogier the Dane, Rinaldo, Oliver, Roll the Thrall, Haco I, and the Chevalier Bayard.
Rather good I think, said the Dead Father, for an old man.
His smoking whinyard wiped upon the green grass.
Emma’s gaze (admiring).
See how long it is, the Dead Father said, and how limber.
He cut a few figures in the air with it: quinte, sixte, septime.
And now, lunch, Julie said.
She produced from the knapsack a new tablecloth and a new seating plan.
I have been elevated, in the arrangements! the Dead Father exclaimed.
Temporary happiness of the Dead Father.
And I, relegated, Thomas said. He gave Julie a straight look.
Julie returned the straight look.
The Dead Father reached for Julie’s bare toe.
Please release my toe.
The Dead Father continued to grasp the toe.
Toe, he said, now there’s an interesting word. Toe. Toe. Toe. Toe. Toe. A veiny toe. Red lines on toe. Succulent toe. Succulent, succulent toe. Succulent succulent succulent —
The Dead Father placed the toe in his mouth.
Thomas rapped the Dead Father sharply in the forehead, across the cloth.
Toe fell from the mouth. The Dead Father clutched his forehead.
You have rapped the Father, he said between moans. Again. You should not rap the Father. You must not rap the Father. You cannot rap the Father. Striking the sacred and holy Father is an offense of the gravest nature. Striking the noble, wise, all-giving Dead Father is —
More grebe? Julie asked.
Is there mustard? Thomas asked.
In the pot.
Have the troops fed themselves? Julie asked.
Thomas peered up the road. Cooking fires were visible.
They are eating hearty, he said, because they know what is ahead.
What is ahead? asked the Dead Father.
The Wends, Thomas said.
The Wends? What are they?
They are what is ahead.
What is peculiar about them? the Dead Father asked.
They don’t like us.
He lifted his hand and rotated it languidly, representing negligence and of-no-consequence.
Don’t like us? Why is that?
First, because we are armed and alien walkers through their domains. Second, because you are, in one of your aspects, a gigantic and strange and awe-inspiring object.