Pyramids

we could find Dios. He always knew what to do, that was the main thing about him.
    A guard pushed his way through the milling throng of priests and nobles.
    “Excuse me, your sire,” he said. “There’s a merchant to see you. He says it’s urgent.”
    “Not now, man. There’s representatives of the Tsortean and Ephebian armies coming to see me in an hour, and there’s a great deal that’s got to be done first. I can’t go around seeing any salesmen who happen to be passing. What’s he selling, anyway?”
    “Carpets, your sire.”
    “ Carpets ?”
    It was Chidder, grinning like half a watermelon, followed by several of the crew. He walked up the hall staring around at the frescoes and hangings. Because it was Chidder, he was probably costing them out. By the time he reached the throne he was drawing a double line under the total.
    “Nice place,” he said, wrapping up thousands of years of architectural accumulation in a mere two syllables. “You’ll never guess what happened, we just happened to be sailing along the coast and suddenly there was this river. One minute cliffs, next minute river. There’s a funny thing, I thought. I bet old Teppic’s up there somewhere.”
    “Where’s Ptraci?”
    “I knew you were complaining about the lack of the old home comforts, so we brought you this carpet.”
    “I said , where’s Ptraci?”
    The crew moved aside, leaving a grinning Alfonz to cut the strings around the carpet and shake it out.
    It uncurled swiftly across the floor in a flurry of dust balls and moths and, eventually, Ptraci, who continued rolling until her head hit Teppic’s boot.
    He helped her to her feet and tried to pick bits of fluff out of her hair as she swayed backward and forward. She ignored him and turned to Chidder, red with breathlessness and fury.
    “I could have died in there!” she shouted. “Lots of other things have, by the smell! And the heat !”
    “You said it worked for Queen wossname, Ram-Jam-Hurrah, or whoever,” said Chidder. “Don’t blame me, at home a necklace or something is usually the thing.”
    “I bet she had a decent carpet,” snapped Ptraci. “Not something stuck in a bloody hold for six months.”
    “You’re lucky we had one at all,” said Chidder mildly. “It was your idea.”
    “Huh,” said Ptraci. She turned to Teppic. “Hallo,” she said. “This was meant to be a startlingly original surprise.”
    “It worked,” said Teppic fervently. “It really worked.”

    Chidder lay on a daybed on the palace’s veranda, while three handmaidens took turns to peel grapes for him. A pitcher of beer stood cooling in the shade. He was grinning amiably.
    On a blanket nearby Alfonz lay on his stomach, feeling extremely awkward. The Mistress of the Women had found out that, in addition to the tattoos on his forearms, his back was a veritable illustrated history of exotic practices, and had brought the girls out to be educated. He winced occasionally as her pointer stabbed at items of particular interest, and stuffed his fingers firmly in his great, scarred ears to shut out the giggles.
    At the far end of the veranda, given privacy by unspoken agreement, Teppic sat with Ptraci. Things were not going well.
    “Everything changed,” he said. “I’m not going to be king.”
    “You are the king,” she said. “You can’t change things.”
    “I can. I can abdicate. It’s very simple. If I’m not really the king, then I can go whenever I please. If I am the king, then the king’s word is final and I can abdicate. If we can change sex by decree, we can certainly change station. They can find a relative to do the job. I must have dozens.”
    “The job ? Anyway, you said there was only your auntie.”
    Teppic frowned. Aunt Cleph-ptah-re was not, on reflection, the kind of monarch a kingdom needed if it was going to make a fresh start. She had a number of stoutly-held views on a variety of subjects, but most of them involved the flaying alive of people she disapproved of. This meant most people under the age of thirty-five, to start with.
    “Well, someone else, then,” he said. “It shouldn’t be difficult, we’ve always seemed to have more nobles than really necessary. We’ll just have to find one who has the dream about the cows.”
    “Oh, the one where there’s fat cows and thin cows?” said Ptraci.
    “Yes. It’s sort of ancestral.”
    “It’s a nuisance, I know that much. One of them’s always grinning and playing a