The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [695]
It was called the Paragon and was the most perfect 1920s tea-room, nestled in the safe and unobserved background fabric of P. G. Wode house’s Summer Lightning. To your left and right upon entering through the carved wooden doors were glass display cases containing the most sumptuous homemade cakes and pastries. Beyond these were the tearooms proper, with booths and tables constructed of a dark wood that perfectly matched the paneled interior. This was itself decorated with plaster reliefs of Greek characters disporting themselves in matters of equestrian and athletic prowess. To the rear were two additional and private tearooms, the one of light-colored wood and the other in delicate carvings of a most agreeable nature. Needless to say, it was inhabited by the most populous characters in Wode house’s novels. That is to say it was full of voluble and opinionated aunts.
There were two Jurisfiction agents sitting at the table we usually reserved for our three-thirty tea and cakes. The first was tall and dressed in jet black, high-collared robes buttoned tightly up to his throat. He had a pale complexion, prominent cheekbones and a small and very precise goatee. He sat with his arms crossed and was staring at all the other customers in the tearooms with an air of haughty superiority, eyebrows raised imperiously. This was truly a tyrant among tyrants, a ruthless leader who had murdered billions in his never-ending and inadequately explained quest for the unquestioned obedience of every living entity in the known galaxy. The other, of course, was a six-foot-tall hedgehog dressed in a multitude of petticoats, an apron and bonnet, and carrying a wicker basket of washing. There was no more celebrated partnership in Jurisfiction either then or now—it was Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and Emperor Zhark. The hedgehog from Beatrix Potter and the emperor from the Zhark series of bad science-fiction novels.
“Good afternoon, Thursday,” intoned the emperor when he saw me, a flicker of a smile attempting to crack through his imperialist bearing.
“Hi, Emperor. How’s the galactic-domination business these days?”
“Hard work,” he replied, rolling his eyes heavenward. “Honestly, I invade peaceful civilizations on a whim, destroy their cities and generally cause a great deal of unhappy mayhem—and then they turn against me for absolutely no reason at all.”
“How senselessly irrational of them,” I remarked, winking at Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.
“Quite,” continued Zhark, looking aggrieved and not getting the sarcasm. “It’s not as though I put them all to the sword anyway—I magnanimously decided to spare several hundred thousand as slaves to build an eight-hundred-foot-high statue of myself striding triumphantly over the broken bodies of the vanquished.”
“That’s probably the reason they don’t like you,” I murmured.
“Oh?” he asked with genuine concern. “Do you think the statue will be too small?”
“No, it’s the ‘striding triumphantly over the broken bodies of the vanquished’ bit. People generally don’t like having their noses rubbed in their ill fortune by the person who caused it.”
Emperor Zhark snorted. “That’s the problem with inferiors,” he said at last. “No sense of humor.”
And he lapsed into a sullen silence, took an old school exercise book from within his robes, licked a pencil stub and started to write.
I sat down next to him.
“What’s that?”
“My speech. The Thargoids graciously accepted me as god-emperor of their star system, and I thought it might be nice to say a few words—sort of thank them, really, for their kindness—but underscore the humility with veiled threats of mass extermination if they step out of line.”
“How does it begin?”
Zhark read from his notes. “‘Dear Worthless Peons—I pity you your irrelevance.’ What do you think?”
“Well, it’s definitely to the point,” I admitted. “How are things on the Holmes case?”
“We’ve been trying to get into the series all morning,” said Zhark, laying his modest acceptance speech aside for a moment and taking a spoonful