The Empire of Ice Cream Read online

  She sat on a pile of deerskins covering a low rock shelf beneath the light of the torch. Taking out her knife, she held it not by the bone handle but at the middle of the blade, so as to have finer control over it. The technique she employed in carving features into the Mandrake root was an ancient art called simpling. First, she carefully gouged out two eyes, shallow holes precisely equidistant from the center of the head bump. An upward cut beneath the eyes raised a partial slice of the root. This she delicately trimmed the corners off of to make the nose. Next, she made rudimentary cuts where the joints of the elbows, knees, wrists, and ankles should be on the limbs. With the tip of the blade, she worked five small fingers into the end of each arm to produce rough facsimiles of hands. The last, but most important job was the mouth. For this opening, she changed her grip on the knife and again took it by the handle. Applying the sharp tip to a spot just below the nose, she spun the handle so as to bore a deep, perfect circle.

  She laid the knife down by her side and took the Mandrake into the crook of her arm, the way in which one might hold a baby. Rocking forward and back slightly, she began to sing a quiet song in a language as old as the forest itself. With the thumb of her free hand she persistently massaged the chest of the plant doll. Her strange lullaby lasted nearly an hour, until she began to feel a faint quivering of the root in response to her touch. As always with this process, the life pulse existed only in her imagination at first, but as she continued to experience it, the movement gradually transformed from notion to actuality until the thing was verily squirming in her grasp.

  Laying the writhing root in her lap, she lifted the knife again and carefully sliced the thumb with which she had kneaded life into it. When she heard the first peep of a cry come from the root child, she maneuvered the self-inflicted wound over the round mouth of the thing and carefully let three drops of blood fill the orifice. When the Mandrake had tasted her life, it began to wriggle and coo. She lifted it in both hands, rose to her feet, and carried it over to a diminutive cradle she had created for it. Then looking up at the crow, who perched on a deer skull resting atop a stone table on the other side of the vault, she nodded. The bird spoke a single word and flew up out of the den. By morning, the remaining band of forest people would line up before the cradle and each offer three drops of blood for the life of the strange child.

  King Pious hated winter, for the fierce winds that howled outside the palace walls in the long hours of the night seemed the voice of a hungry beast come to devour him. The cold crept into his joints and set them on fire, and any time he looked out his window in the dim daylight all he saw was his kingdom buried deeply beneath a thick layer of snow the color of a bloodless corpse. During these seemingly endless frigid months, he was often beset by the thought that he had no heir to perpetuate his name. He slyly let it be known that the problem lay with the queen, who he hinted was obviously barren, but whom, out of a keen sense of honor, he would never betray by taking another wife. The chambermaids, though, knew for certain it was not the queen who was barren, and when the winds howled so loudly in the night that the king could not overhear them, they whispered this fact to the pages, who whispered it to the soldiers, who had no one else to tell but each other and their horses.

  To escape the beast of winter, King Pious spent much of the day in his enclosed pleasure garden. Here was summer confined within four walls. Neat, perfectly symmetrical rows of tulips, hyacinths, roses, tricked into growth while the rest of nature slept, grew beneath a crystal roof that gathered what little sunlight there was and magnified its heat and light to emulate the fair season. Great furnaces beneath the floor heated the huge chamber, and butterflies, cultivated for the purpose of adding a touch of authenticity to the false surroundings, were released daily. Servants skilled in the art of recreating bird sounds with their voices were stationed in rooms adjoining the pleasure garden, and their mimicked warblings were piped into the chamber through long tubes.

  In the afternoon of the day on which the king was given the news that the first stirrings of spring had begun to show themselves in the world outside the palace walls, he was sitting on his throne in the very center of the enclosed garden, giving audience to his philosopher.

  On a portable stand before him lay a device that the venerable academician had just recently perfected, a miniature model with working parts that emulated the movement of the heavens. The bearded wise man in tall pointed hat and starry robe lectured Pious on the Almighty’s design of the universe. The curious creation had a long arm holding a gear train attached to a large box with a handle on the side. At the end of the arm were positioned glass balls connected with wire, representative of the Sun and Earth and other planets. Pious watched as the handle was turned and the solar system came to life, the heavenly bodies whirling on their axes while at the same time defining elliptical orbits.

  “You see, Your Highness,” said the philosopher, pointing to the blue ball, largest of the orbs, “the Earth sits directly at the center of the universe, the Almighty’s most important creation, which is home to his most perfect creation, mankind. All else, the Sun, the Moon, the planets and stars, revolve around us, paying homage to our existence as we pay homage to God.”

  “Fascinating,” said the king as he stared intently at the device that merely corroborated for him his place of eminence in the far-flung scheme of things.

  “Would you like to operate the device?” asked the philosopher.

  “I shall,” said the king. He stood up and smoothed out his robes. Then he advanced and placed his hand on the handle of the box. He gently made the world and the heavens spin and a sense of power filled him, easing the winter ache of his joints and banishing, for a moment, the thought that he had no heir. This feeling of new energy spread out from his head to his arm, and he began spinning the handle faster and faster, his smile widening as he put the universe through its paces.

  “Please, Your Highness,” said the philosopher, but at that instant something came loose and the entire contraption flew apart, the glass balls careening off through the air to smash against the stone floor of the garden.

  The king stood, looking perplexed, holding the handle, which had broken away from the box, up before his own eyes. “What is this?” he shouted. “You assassinate my senses with this ill-conceived toy of chaos!” He turned in anger and beat the philosopher on the head with the handle of the device, knocking his pointed hat to the floor.

  The philosopher would have lost more than his hat that afternoon had the king’s anger not been interrupted. Just as Pious was about to order a beheading, the captain of the guard strode into the garden carrying something wrapped in a piece of cloth.

  “Excuse me, Your Highness,” he said, “but I come with urgent news.”

  “For your sake, it had better be good,” said the king, still working to catch his breath. He slumped back into his chair.

  “The company that I led into the forest last week has just now returned. The remaining forest people have been captured and are in the stockade under guard. There are sixty of them, mostly women and children and elders.”

  Pious straightened up in his seat. “You have done very well,” he told the soldier. “What of the witch?”

  “We came upon her in the forest, standing in a clearing amidst a grove of willows with her arms crossed as if waiting for us to find her. I quietly called for my best archer and instructed him in whispers to use an arrow with a poison tip. He drew his bow and just before he released the shaft, I saw her look directly at us, where we were hiding beneath the long tendrils of a willow thirty feet from her. She smiled just before the arrow pierced her heart. Without uttering a sound, she fell forward, dead on the spot.”

  “Do you have her body? I want it burned,” said Pious.

  “There is no body, Your Highness.”

  “Explain,” said the king, beginning to lose his patience.

  “Once the bowman hit his mark, we advanced from the trees to seize her, but before we could lay
hands on her, her very flesh, every part of her, became a swirling storm of dandelion seeds. I swear to you, before my very eyes, she spiraled like a dust devil three times and then the delicate fuzz that she had become was carried up and dispersed by the wind.”

  “Well,” said the king, looking skeptically at the captain, “you had better pray that I do not see or hear of her again.”

  “The remaining people of the forest lamented her death so genuinely, I believe that she is gone for good,” said the soldier.

  Pious nodded, thought for a second, and then said, “Very well. What is that you carry?”

  The soldier unwrapped the bundle and held up a book for the king to see. “We found this in her cave,” he said.

  The king cleared his eyes with the backs of his hands. “How can this be?” he asked. “That is the copy of the Good Book I keep in my bedchamber. What kind of trickery is this?”

  “Perhaps she stole it, Your Highness.”

  Pious tried to think back to the last time he had picked the book up and studied it. Finally he remembered it was the night of Kairn’s execution. “I keep it near the open window. My God, those horrid birds of my dream.” The king looked quickly over each shoulder at the thought of it. “A bag of gold to the bowman who felled her,” he added.

  The captain nodded. “What of the prisoners, Your Highness?” he asked.

  “Execute the ones who refuse to convert to the faith, and the others I want taught a hymn that they will perform on the day of the tournament this spring. We’ll show our visitors how to turn heathens into believers.”

  “Very good, Your Highness,” said the captain, and then handed the book to the king. With this, he turned and left the garden.

  By this time the philosopher had crept away to hide, and Pious was left alone in the pleasure garden. “Silence!” he yelled in order to quell the bird song, which now sounded to him like the whispers of conspirators. He rested back in his throne, exhausted from the day’s activities. Paging through the Good Book, he came to his favorite passage—one that spoke elegantly of vengeance. He tried to read, but the idea of the witch’s death so relaxed him that he became drowsy. He closed his eyes and slept with the book open on his lap while that day’s butterflies perished and the universe lay in shards scattered across the floor.

  The tournament was held on the huge field that separated the palace from the edge of the forest. Spring had come, as it always did, and that expanse was green with new-grown grass. The days were warm and the sky was clear. Had it not been for the tumult of the event, these would have been perfect days to lie down beneath the sun and daydream up into the bottomless blue. As it was, the air was filled with the cheers of the crowd and the groans of agony from those who fell before the sword of the Red Knight.

  Pious sat in his throne on a dais beneath a canvas awning, flanked on the right and left by the visiting dignitaries of the southern kingdoms. He could not recall a time when he had been more pleased or excited, for everything was proceeding exactly as he had imagined it. His visitors were obviously impressed with the beauty of his palace and the authority he exhibited over his subjects. He gave orders a dozen an hour in an imperious tone that might have made a rock hop to with a “Very good, Your Highness.”

  Not the least of his pleasures was the spectacle of seeing the Red Knight thrash the foreign contenders on the field of battle. That vicious broadsword dislocated shoulders, cracked shins, and hacked appendages even through the protective metal of opponents’ armor. When one poor fellow, the pride of Belthaena, clad in pure white metal, had his heart skewered and crashed to the ground dead, the king leaned forward and, with a sympathetic smile, promised the ambassador of that kingdom that he would send a flock of goats to the deceased’s family. So far it had been the only fatality of the four-day-long event, and it did little to quell the festivities.

  On the final day, when the last opponent was finished off and lay writhing on the ground with a broken leg, Pious sat up straight in his chair and applauded roundly. As the loser was carried from the field, the king called out, “Are there any other knights present who would like to test our champion?” Since he knew very well that every represented kingdom had been defeated, he made a motion to one of his councilors to have the converted begin singing. The choir of forest people, chained at the ankles and to each other, shuffled forward and loosed the first notes of the hymn that had been beaten into their memories over the preceding weeks.

  No sooner did the music start, though, than the voice of the crowd overpowered its sound, for now there was a new contender on the tournament field. He stood, tall and gangly, not in armor, but wrapped in a black, hooded cloak. Instead of a broadsword or mace or lance, he held only a long stick fashioned from the branch of a tree. When the Red Knight saw the surprised face of the king, he turned to view this new opponent. At this moment, the crowd, the choir, and the dignitaries became perfectly quiet.

  “What kind of mockery is this?” yelled Pious to the figure on the field.

  “No mockery, Your Highness. I challenge the Red Knight,” said the stranger in a voice that sounded like a limb splintering free from an oak.

  The king was agitated at this circumstance that had been no part of his thoughts when he had imagined the tournament. “Very well,” he called, and to his knight said, “Cut him in half.”

  As the Red Knight advanced, the stranger undid the clasp at the neck of his cloak and dropped it to the ground. The crowd’s response was a uniform cry torn between a gasp and a shriek of terror, for standing before them now was a man made entirely of wood. Like a tree come to life, his branch-like limbs, though fleshed in bark, somehow bent pliantly. His legs had the spring of saplings, and the fingers with which he gripped his paltry weapon were five-part pointed roots trailing thin root hairs from the tips of the digits. The gray bark of his body held bumps and knots like a log, and in certain places small twigs grew from him, covered at their ends with green leaves. There was more foliage simulating hair upon his pointed head and a fine stubble of grass across his chin. Directly in the center of his chest, beneath where one’s heart might hide, there grew from a protruding twig a large blue fruit.

  The impassive expression that seemed crudely chiseled into the face of the wooden man did not change until the Red Knight stepped forward and, with a brutal swing of the broadsword, lopped off the tree-root hand clutching the stick. Then that dark hole of a mouth stretched into a toothless smile, forming wrinkles of joy beneath the eyes. The Red Knight stepped back to savor the pain of his opponent, but the stranger exhibited no signs of distress. He held the arm stump up for all to see and, in a blur, a new hand grew to replace the one on the ground.

  The Red Knight was obviously stunned, for he made no move as the tree man came close to him and placed that new hand up in front of his enemy’s helmeted face. When the king’s champion finally meant to react, it was too late. For as all the crowd witnessed, the five sharp tips of the root appendage grew outward as swiftly as snakes striking and found their way into the eye slits of the knight’s helmet. Ghastly screams echoed from within the armor as blood seeped out of the metal joints and onto the grass. The knight’s form twitched and the metal arms clanked rapidly against the metal sides of the suit. The broadsword fell point first and stuck into the soft spring earth. When the stranger retracted his hand, the fingers growing back into themselves, now wet with blood, the Red Knight tipped over backward and landed with a loud crash on the ground.

  Pious immediately called for his archers. Three of them stepped forward and fired at the new champion. Each of the arrows hit its mark, thunking into the wooden body. The tree man nonchalantly swept them off of him with his arm. Then he advanced toward the dais, and the crowd, the soldiers, the visiting dignitaries fled. The king was left alone. He sat, paralyzed, staring at the advancing creature. So wrapped in a rictus of fear was Pious that all he could manage was to close his eyes. He waited for the feel of a sharp root to pierce his chest and puncture his heart. Tho
se moments seemed an eternity to him, but eventually he realized nothing had happened. When he could no longer stand it, he opened his eyes to an amazing scene. The tree man was kneeling before him.

  “My liege,” said the stranger in that breaking voice. Then he stood to his full height, and said, “I believe as winner of the tournament, I am due a feast.”

  “Quite right,” said Pious, trembling with relief that he would not die. “You are an exceptional warrior. What is your name?”

  “Vertuminus,” said the tree man.

  A table had been hastily brought into the pleasure garden and laid with the finest place settings in the palace. The feast was prepared for only Pious and the wooden knight. The visiting ambassadors and dignitaries were asked if they would like to attend, but they all suddenly had pressing business back in their home kingdoms and had to leave immediately after the tournament.

  The king dined on roasted goose, whereas Vertuminus had requested only fresh water and a large bucket of soil to temporarily root his tired feet in. Soldiers were in attendance, lining the four walls of the garden, and were under orders to have their swords sharp and to keep them drawn in case the stranger’s amicable mood changed. Pious feared the tree man, but was also curious as to the source of his animation and bizarre powers.

  “And so my friend, you were born in the forest, I take it?” asked the king. He tried to stare into the eyes of the guest, which blinked and dilated in size though they were merely gouges in the bark that was his face.

  “I was drawn up from the earth by the witch,” he said.

  “The witch,” said Pious, pausing with a leg of goose in his hand.