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Saturday nodded.
With the power flowing inside him he had, she thought, the fire he'd had when he was alive. He had not been a particularly good man, she knew. Genua had not been a model of civic virtue. But at least he'd never told people that they wanted him to oppress them, and that everything he did was for their own good.
Around the circle, the people of New Genua - the old New Genua - knelt or bowed.
He hadn't been a kind ruler. But he'd fitted. And when he'd been arbitrary or arrogant or just plain wrong, he'd never suggested that this was justified by anything other than the fact that he was bigger and stronger and occasionally nastier than other people. He'd never suggested that it was because he was better. And he'd never told people they ought to be happy, and imposed a kind of happiness on them. The invisible people knew that happiness is not the natural state of mankind, and is never achieved from the outside in.
Saturday nodded again, this time in satisfaction. When he opened his mouth, sparks flashed between his teeth. And when he waded through the swamp, the alligators fought to get out of his way.
It was quiet in the palace kitchens now. The huge trays of roast meat, the pigs' heads with apples in their mouths, the multi-layered trifles had long ago been carried upstairs. There was a clattering from the giant sinks at the far end, where some of the maids were making a start on the washing up.
Mrs Pleasant the cook had made herself a plate of red stripefish in crawfish sauce. She wasn't the finest cook in Genua - no-one got near Mrs Gogol's gumbo, people would almost come back from the dead for a taste of Mrs Gogol's gumbo - but the comparison was as narrow as that between, say, diamonds and sapphires. She'd done her best to cook up a good banquet, because she had her professional pride, but there wasn't much she felt she was able to do with lumps of meat.
Genuan cooking, like the best cooking everywhere in the multiverse, had been evolved by people who had to make desperate use of ingredients their masters didn't want. No-one would even try a bird's nest unless they had to. Only hunger would make a man taste his first alligator. No-one would eat a shark's fin if they were allowed to eat the rest of the shark.
She poured herself a rum and was just picking up the spoon when she felt herself being watched.
A large man in a black leather doublet was staring at her from the doorway, dangling a ginger cat mask from one hand.
It was a very direct stare. Mrs Pleasant found herself wishing she'd done something about her hair and was wearing a better dress.
'Yes?' she said. 'What d'you want?'
'Waaant foood, Miss-uss Pleassunt,' said Greebo.
She looked him up and down. There were some odd types in Genua these days. This one must have been a guest at the ball, but there was something very. . .familiar about him.
Greebo wasn't a happy cat. People had made a fuss just because he'd dragged a roast turkey off the table. Then the skinny female with the teeth had kept simpering at him and saying she'd see him later in the rose garden, which wasn't at all the cat way of doing things, and that'd got him confused, because this wasn't the right kind of body and nor was hers. And there were too many other males around.
Then he'd smelled the kitchen. Cats gravitate to kitchens like rocks gravitate to gravity.
'I seen you somewhere before?' said Mrs Pleasant.
Greebo said nothing. He'd followed his nose to a bowl on one of the big tables.
'Waaant,' he demanded.
'Fish heads?' said Mrs Pleasant. They were technically garbage, although what she was planning with some rice and a few special sauces would turn them into the sort of dish kings fight for.
'Waant,' Greebo repeated.
Mrs Pleasant shrugged.
'You want raw fish heads, man, you take 'em,' she said.
Greebo lifted the bowl uncertainly. He wasn't too good with fingers. Then he looked around conspiratorially and ducked under the table.
There were the sounds of keen gurgitation and the bowl being scraped around on the floor.
Greebo emerged.
'Millluk?' he suggested.
Fascinated, Mrs Pleasant reached for the milk jug and a cup-
'Saaaaucerrr,' Greebo said.
- and a saucer.
