To have
enemies was nothing new, and more than a few had dined on a last supper
of live coals for speaking the merest word against him.
The usual complaining went on. Conabar wanted to ravish their ailing
old bodies. Conabar this. Conabar that. The wailing, the screaming, the
emotional invectives presented quite a spectacle. When Emperor
Euphrates had just about had enough of their nonsense and was almost
ready to waggle a finger and have them all sent away as the pests that
they were, he heard the name of Puffat, and at mention of this he
abruptly held up his left hand to forestall the womens' chatter.
Raising his bushy eyebrows quizzically, Emperor Euphrates turned to his
Chief Adviser, Borla, and held out his right hand to Borla like a
peasant in the heat of barter.
"Puffat?" said Emperor Euphrates. "Where before have I heard the name
of one called Puffat?"
For he knew he had heard it somewhere, at least once.
Borla, a tall, thin figure who invariably appeared in royal court
wearing the darkest of robes, who was fond of keeping his
haggard-looking head deeply and perpetually hooded, and who was not
Royal Advisor for nothing, astutely put his long left index finger
straight up beside the right nostril of his long, thin, protruding nose
with a heavy frown, and sniffed not once but several times, somewhat
noisily and theatrically.
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