A Highly Unlikely Scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza Employee's Guide to Saving the World by Rachel Cantor Read Free Book Online Page B

will not admit it, is to win back his place at court. He cannot stop talking about Edward of England, though what a king would want with such a man, I cannot say.
    What does he want to write about? Leonard asked.
    Frippery! This is his entire interest! Wealth, excess, opulence—any evidence of riches. Ordinary riches are not sufficient. If I speak of a tower made of silver, he wants one made of gold. If I speak of a palace, he subdivides it into a fantastic number of rooms, each filled with gemstones and silks, the finest paintings, porcelain, and napery. A dinner for one thousand in his telling becomes a ten-day feast for ten thousand. The world knows ordinary riches, says he. No one wants to read about ordinary riches!
    Who wants to read about any kind of riches? I reply.
    But I misspeak. The knave has another interest. He wishes scandal, he wishes … but my mouth can scarcely form the words!
    Try, Leonard said.
    He wishes …, Mill had started whispering. He wishes … an affair of the heart. He wishes an amour! Preferably with the wife of the Khan. But I would never! Molesting the wife of my liege would mean death! Do not fear, says he. I shall write it so that you may escape his clutches. In the dark of night! Yes, the dark of night! Wearing the garments of a lady-in-waiting!
    I punched him, of course. What choice had I? Despite what he might now say, he landed nowhere near the spittoon, but it is his manner to tell tales that cast himself as victim.
    He also has that fascination with war that afflicts those who have never experienced it. He quizzes me most intently about battles I did not witness, battles with no bearing on my tale. It must have been like any other war, I venture. There were elephants, of course, and arrows. People were betrayed, people died. His face turns an unhealthy red when we discuss slaughter on a large scale; he goes into his dank corner, breathing heavily, and scribbles.
    There are some things he will not write about, of course. He will not believe that Cathay is bounded by a long, tall wall, fully the length of the country, so he will not write of it. He believes me when I say that cultured folk in Cathay drink an infusion of sticks and leaves, but he finds the practice disgusting and will not describe it. He will not write about foot shrinking …
    Foot shrinking?
    In Manzi, they swaddle a girl’s feet so tightly her feet will not grow, but instead bleed and exude pus and foul odors until they shrink to the size of an apple. It is on such feet that the poor creature must hobble the rest of her days. The women do this willingly because their men prize small feet. This is the truth, I have seen it! But we must not write such things! he says. Stories such as this will upset the ladies! We must not upset the ladies!
    He is a liar and knave, and would make of me the same! Mill stormed.
    We can’t have that, Leonard said.
    We cannot! Mill cried.
Leonard has a subtle mind
    It is an outrage, Mill reported to Leonard a day or two later. The man has been in his corner for days, his back to the rest of us, scribbling. I sensed some outrage was afoot, so when he was on the piss pot, I grabbed his vellum. Do you know what he has written there?
    I do not, Leonard said.
    It is too shocking to say!
    Please try, Leonard said.
    You shall take it for the truth! Mill said.
    I shall not, Leonard said.
    He has heard rumors of Princess Kokachin—all of them untrue! We delivered her intact to Arghun—or rather, to Gha-zan, for by the time we arrived, as I’m sure you know, the lord of the Levant was dead. It is true that she and I developed a rare friendship, it is true that she was young and fair like a rose and we were many months at sea and she wept copiously at our parting, but there was no amour! The prince’s women confirmed that she was whole!
    And Rusty?
    Rustichello has contrived scenes in which I look at her longingly and she at me; according to his