A Fool's Bucket - Ch. 16.1

On the morning of the ambassador’s arrival, Buck spent close to half an hour just staring at Simone. He could feeling his stomach rumbling away, getting hungrier and hungrier, but he just couldn’t drag himself away. He kept on scratching her on the head, even as the sun drifted past his window. She didn’t move much, just watching him. It would be okay though. He had an afternoon initial meeting scheduled with the ambassador, assuming everything went to schedule. All he had to do was make sure he had settled his nerves some time in the next six hours.

“Ah, screw it,” he muttered. “I’m better off just going.”

He pushed himself to his feet but found that took all of his strength, and sat straight back down again. On his next attempt he made it to the window, and on the attempt after that he even managed to clamber out and set himself up against the tree. But even then he wriggled back through and sat down in front of Simone. She looked up at him and squeaked.

“Look, I’m just nervous okay!” Buck exclaimed. “And I don’t know why – I mean, it’s not like you’ve been discovered at any point up until now. But you just cannot be seen today, you hear me?”

Simone squeaked again, sitting back on some of his clothes that he’d arranged as bedding for her.

“But what if someone comes up here!” he shouted.

Simone squeaked once more, lower this time, and shuffled back towards him again.

“Again, I know it’s never happened before, but the fact is that it could.” Buck sighed and stared at her. She didn’t squeak anymore, just kept watching him. “Alright, I know I’m being silly. I’m going.”

Buck stood up and leaned out the window. He picked up his bucket, stuffing some note paper and a quill in. Then he looped it over the crook of his elbow and headed down the rope. This time when he reached the bottom he did tie the rope in a knot and hurl it back up. That way if his worst fears were realised and someone did for some unknown reason come by the treehouse, at least Simone would be able to deny them access.

With that he jogged off to the palace. He figured he could get some final planning time with Pires, maybe see if any messages had come in by bird regarding the progress of the ambassador’s journey. When he got to Pires’s office, Erson was already sitting at her desk in front of her. Of course. Buck had pretty much been expecting that one. He shrugged off what was left of the shock and pulled over the chair he’d used last time, which he’d left nearby under the window.

“Good morning, Buck,” Pires said. “I hope you got a good night’s sleep?”

“Oh, yes,” Buck said. “The sleep was good. Waking up was somewhat trickier but I made it out eventually. How goes it?” Buck glanced briefly at Erson but the man was so still Buck wondered if he was in fact still asleep, just with his eyes open.

“Rather well, in fact,” Pires said. “Stressful, but well.” She pointed to an open scroll on the desk. “This here’s a message we got in just a few minutes ago.”

“Oh, is something the matter?” Buck asked. “Is the ambassador going to be late?”

“Actually, no. Early in fact,” Pires said. “They had extra ‘lagnetes’ – no, I do not know what that means. Lord, Buck, your father must have fit in brilliantly with them. I don’t understand half the terminology in some of this correspondence.”

“Oh?” Buck hadn’t actually seen any of the letters. Stupid Erson had been here before him all the time and getting to see the big reveals as Pires read their contents. They tended to paraphrase from there – which made sense, if neither of them understood the actual words.

“Yes, it hints at many dazzling wonders that this society may have uncovered, or developed. We were just talking about that, weren’t we, Erson?” Pires looked at Erson, who just nodded with a grunt.

“Okay…” Buck said, looking from Erson back to Pires. “So when is the ambassador actually getting here then?”

“About lunch time,” Pires said. She glanced out the window and screwed up her eyes. “So in roughly three hours.”

Buck gaped at her. “That soon? Doesn’t that cut our preparation time in half?”

Pires nodded. “Yes, but luckily there’s no poets to schedule, dancers to harangue, face paint to don. A simple ceremony, remember? Gather the people into the announcements hall, announce the ambassador, home time.”

Buck raised his eyebrow. “Um, no, I don’t remember this? I thought I was coming here for you to tell me what songs to sing.”

“Oh, right,” Pires waved a hand. “That must have been Erson and I had that conversation. Right, yes. Er, well, we’re thinking that simple is the way to go. Nothing that looks like we’re trying to show off.”

“Are you sure about this?” Buck said. “It sounds kind of boring.”

Pires shrugged. “To you and me maybe, but to others: diplomatic.”

Buck assumed she meant that this would be the ambassador’s point of view, but for the briefest of moments she glanced towards Erson. As he forced himself not to do the same, he realised who this diplomacy was actually for. You could put on all the singing or dancing you liked, but it would be rather ruined if one of your star players wouldn’t keep their bodily functions to themselves all night. If Erson wanted a boring reading of names, then it sounded like he was getting a boring reading of names.

“Alright then,” Buck said, agreeing that that was likely the best route forward to avoid a stink. “In that case what’s for lunch? Surely we can have an interesting lunch.”

“We’ll be having a classic curry,” Pires said. “Hey, don’t look at me like that! Just because it’s a classic doesn’t mean it’s boring.”

Buck gasped. “You will be having me sing The Chronicle of the Last Battle next.”

“Re-lax.” Pires chuckled. “Nobody’s that dull.”

This time they both successfully avoided looking at Erson, and instead held each other’s gazes for a moment. Buck hadn’t had a laugh with Pires in months now. Erson was so quiet he may as well not have been there, so that moment had felt painfully close to old times. Now they had to pull themselves together into something resembling professionalism.

Trying to put a little oomph into his agreement, Buck exclaimed, “Alright, curry it is!”

And then he heard the slightest squeak. He frowned for a moment, but then he noticed Pires looking at him. He better move on before they asked what that was. And anyway, it probably wasn’t what he thought it was in the first place, even if he had very loudly just shouted the word curry.

“So what kind of… um… y’know,” Buck said.

“Curry?” Pires asked. At the same time, Buck pre-emptively said, “Yes!” to try to cover the word. Although maybe it only mattered if it was his voice saying it.

“A classic one?” Pires said, tilting her head to the side. “A Rehon to be precise. Are you alright, Buck?”

“Yes, yes,” Buck said. He desperately wanted to check if Simone was in his bucket, but he didn’t want to suddenly move his hands away from the notes he was writing just while Pires was looking him over.

“They’re actually doing it old style,” Pires said. “Making a bit vat of it then keeping it warm until it’s needed.”

“Ah, yes,” Buck said, “to get a better kick out of the spices. I think I was here for just the end of that fashion, before Northerners like my family started compl- oh my dear Gods I think I smell it coming right now!”

Normally having the kitchen near Pires’s office was heavenly – hot snacks for many a late night planning session. But now what it meant was that a gradually increasing scent got closer and closer to their nostrils as the sound of the cook’s wheelie cart could be heard coming down the corridor.

Buck shoved his hands into the bucket – composure be damned – but Simone wasn’t actually there. For a moment he thought maybe he’d imagined the squeak, it had just been his panic from this morning. But then he heard a skittering and saw a flash of brown and black darting left towards the door.

“Simone!” he screamed, shoving his chair back and bumping Erson so hard he toppled over.

Simone stopped at the doorway and looked back at him.

He held the gaze of all eight of her eyes. “No, Simone. Here.”

She scurried back over and climbed up onto his trembling hand. He made to put her back in the bucket but Pires grabbed his wrist between his fingers. As Erson clambered to his feet – leaving his chair lying on the ground for the moment – she stared at Simone.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight legs,” she said, then she pointed at the tail. “Tell me that’s a ninth.”

Buck’s shock had decimated all the brain space available to him for lying. “That’s a tail, Pires.”

“Where is this creature from, Bucket?” Pires didn’t look at him, but her grip on his wrist got even tighter.

“From my dad,” Buck whispered.

Now Pires did look at him. “Well, if you ever hope to see your father again, you better hope that that that creature is not within smelling range of the ambassador’s curry.”