Thrand (Part One): A New 'Tale of the Morgs'

 

“High Justice! High Justice, Sir! You must wake up!”

Thrand, High Justice of the Morgish Courts, felt a skinny claw on his shoulder, shaking him feverishly. It was obvious it was trying to be gentle, but the points of its rough claws digging into his flesh argued for some hysterical urgency behind it all. With a grumbling sigh, Thrand opened first one gummy eye, and then the other. These days he did not so much sleep as fall into a trance, but he had been asleep, for once, truly asleep. This had better be worth it, he thought blearily.

Without moving his head, propped up on a slanting pile of pillows, Thrand focused on the figure standing at his bedside, leaning over him like a worried vulture. Its long skinny muzzle only added to the illusion.  

“Gawnich,” he growled. “Gawnich, what is it at this time of night?”  

The gaunt figure leaned in, and even by the dim moonlight that permeated the room Thrand could see the excited mix of panic and thrill on his face.

“The King is dead,” he pronounced solemnly, voice trembling. “King Taryn is dead!”

The news didn’t impress Thrand half as much as Gawnich seemed to think it should. But then, he had been through two other inaugurations in his time, when the mantle was passed from one King to another. The awe of the importance was over; at his age it was the trouble that was uppermost. And there would be even more trouble this time, trouble he had long foreseen. He closed his eyes again.

“I see. Have the kitchen send up breakfast right now. And plenty of meat, mind you: beef, if they have it; cold is acceptable. A dozen or so eggs. No broken yolks, and no hard ones either. Toast. I shall need all of it before the morning’s finished.”

Gawnich gaped at him.

“But the King!” he stammered. “Shouldn’t you go to see the King?”

“What for? He’s dead, isn’t he? Nothing the Law can do for him now.” Thrand settled his head back deeper into his pillows. “I’m sure his family and the Life Witnesses are plenty busy without me poking my nose into things just yet. In the meantime, breakfast. Beef.”

Gawnich looked appalled at his indifference.

“Beef?” he squawked. “Beef? You know what your doctors said!”

Thrand started to raise himself up angrily onto his elbows. The wizened little stick before him was his Secretary, not his mother. But suddenly he stopped and sank back into bed, as if thinking better of it.

“As for doctors,” he said matter-of-factly, “You can send for one of them, too. I seem to be having another heart attack.” He paused. “But don’t forget breakfast, either.”

Notes

And off we go to Ortha once more. Somehow or other I have to establish that Thrand and Gawnich (a partial palindrome of 'chinwag', by the way) are both Morgs, and that Thrand (a name I got from Grettir's Saga, and a more Morgish name I've seldom heard) is in very late middle age and very heavy (Morgs in general are pretty husky but he is FAT). His longing for beef is a hankering I share right now, and that's why he has it. I might just tease that some of our old friends from Goldfire will be dropping by to say hello (and maybe good-bye).