The Emperor of the Ancient Word and Other Fantastic Stories. Darrell Schweitzer

swallowed it, and spat it up again, still burning—no one gave them any pennies for their pains. There were only ghosts abroad, and ghouls, skeletons, the King of Faerie with his rout, the occasional furtive wizard, the former Lord Chancellor of England in all his state (but minus head) and frequent lunatics—there being such a surfeit of Moons that for the moonstruck it was a very special occasion indeed.

      * * * * * * *

      Yet the respectable folk of England were still in their beds, still asleep, in the night that would not end.

      Peter the Poet paced, not asleep at all.

      King Henry dreamed of meat-pies.

      * * * * * * *

      Tom and Nick came upon a man who sat calmly on a low wall. As they approached he rolled his eyes and shook his head, made a gobbling noise, and fell over backwards into a snowy rubbish heap.

      Tom looked down over the wall.

      “Never mind the formalities. Can’t ye tell we’re as mad as thou art—?”

      “Forsooth,” said Nick. “Or possibly fivesooth.”

      But the other merely groped among the rubbish, crooned, and said, “Do not wake me from this wondrous dream, for I lie in the arms of a beautiful maiden!”

      Nick regarded him, then turned away.

      “Is it sooth he says?”

      “No, ’tisn’t.”

      “You keep saying that.”

      “That’s because a madman must be obsessed, Nicholas. Therefore he hath tics and twinges and odd tatters of phrase, which he repeateth anon and anon, as, well, one whose wits are diseas’d—”

      “Oh, aye.”

      “You ought to do it more yourself. Keep your madness in good trim, for Madness, though the most natural and unpracticed thing in the world, requires practice, which is a paradox, as ’twas told to me by a pair o’doxies once in a particularly friendly fashion—”

      But before Tom could continue his discourse, lunatic as it might be, Nick tried to remind him that none of this would matter a jot if they both froze to death in the dark.

      “That nears dangerously close to common sense,” said Tom. “Stop it.”

      But even as he spoke there came One with hooded robe and scythe and hourglass.

      “Do I not know you two?”

      Tom shook his head and jingled his bells.

      “We’ve met before, perhaps?”

      Tom and Nick shook their heads in unison.

      “Let me look it up.” Bony fingers flipped through a notebook made of tiny tombstones, which clapped thunder as the pages turned.

      But Tom reached over and flipped the pages back, with a thunder, a crackle, and a crack, losing the place.

      “This gets so confusing sometimes.”

      “Aye,” said Tom. “It does at that.”

      * * * * * * *

      Tom and Nick ran. Nick continued his discourse on how the world was ending, the sunrise would never come, there would be no more pennies, warm cups of ale, or inn floors to sleep on. He started to sob. His tears froze and fell down like sparkling diamonds. He stopped to scoop some of them up, wondering if he might be able to use a few to buy ale and mutton.

      Tom turned to him and shook him.

      “Nick. You’re almost making sense, a fearful thing from a madman.”

      “Saint Fibberdeygibbet preserve us! What shall we do?”

      “I think we should sleep on it.”

      “Are we not already dreaming? That makes no sense at all!”

      “Exactly.”

      So they lay down in the street, in the snow and mud, and again slept, and again dreamed, though they were never sure they had ever awakened. A coach ran over them almost at once, but it was a phantom coach, drawn by flaming, headless horses, conveying a bishop of London speedily to Hell (or possibly a bishop of Hell speedily to London), and so it hardly disturbed their rest.

      * * * * * * *

      Meanwhile the poet rose from his desk and paced the room, mournfully, yet again. His fancies gathered all around him, thick as gnats, or fleas, or flies...he would decide which later on...and he imagined himself no more than vermin, crawling on the face of mankind...and all ladies gazed upon him as if they were foul specters, or he was...and he yearned for someone who could understand the burning yearning he had in his breast...that phrase, he knew, would have to go into the rubbish heap, as soon as he found the words, as soon as inspiration returned....

      * * * * * * *

      Tom O’Bedlam slept, and dreamed that he rode in a phantom coach drawn by flaming, headless horses (there were a lot of them on the streets this night; business was booming for spectral conveyances of all sorts) and that a queen in all her finery sat across from him.

      The coach sped; it jostled and swayed as it rattled over the rough streets.

      The queen’s head, which had been in her lap, bounced to the floor at Tom’s feet.

      “Oh dear,” she said. “You must excuse me.”

      Gently, Tom placed the queen’s head back in her lap. There was no room to bow, but he swept his hat from his head in a gallant gesture, bells jingling.

      “Are you a Fool?” she asked.

      “Are they the ones who say ‘i’faith’ and ‘hey, nonny-nonny,’ and call everybody ‘nuncle?”

      “Yes. My husband had one like that.”

      “Tiresome lot. No, I, Your Highness, am a madman.”

      Her Highness found that to be something of a relief. It was a relief, too, to have a sympathetic ear to talk to, as she recounted how the King and wronged her, jilted her, and lopped her head off for good measure, which didn’t even let enjoy the afterlife, because of the constant, tedious obligation to rise from her grave and haunt him.

      “We ghosts wail and sing a lot,” she said. “Not that it does much good. No matter how off-key we are, I think he likes it.”

      Tom commiserated. He did remark, incidentally, on how the sun did not rise and the world seemed to have come to an end, but only incidentally, remaining focussed on what really mattered, which is to say the lady’s sorrows, lost love, broken hearts, and the miscarriage of romance.

      “Ah me,” the ex-queen sighed. The coach bumped. This time her head bounced into Tom’s lap.

      “Ah, you...by the way, while you’re here...are these your fancies that fill and haunt the night, that forbid the sun to rise...?”

      She groped forward and took her head back.

      “You have been a friend to me, sir. I would grant you any favor I have within my power...but, alas, my powers have been much curtailed by, by...you know.” She hefted her head and gestured with it. “All I can offer you is the advice, that, being a madman, you alone understand the mystery that is love, and that if you find the one who is most wounded in love, and somehow heal that wound, then the world will go on as before...though I can’t see why even a madman would want that.”

      “You’d have to be mad to understand, Majesty. Being dead isn’t enough.”

      “Ah, yes, of course—”

      Just then the coach hit a particularly large bump, the door flew open, and Tom tumbled out into a snowbank.

      He sat up, sputtering, awake (relatively speaking), though some distance from where he had lain down with Nick.

      On his way there he passed a line