LITMIR.BIZ

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country that is much more terrible than Denmark, even more terrible than Hell itself. The Scoundrel claims that I’ll be there for ten years, that he can see my whole life from the place where he now finds himself. He says that my life is spread before him, written in a rough hand, not fine calligraphy.

      For a few brief moments I miss him.

      We used to walk around at the harbor, laughing at all the folly in the world, at the newly minted nobles with their yolkcolored silk stockings, at the gypsy women begging from morning to night. It was a life filled with satire. No one was spared; everyone was scorned and denigrated. We hated both the rich and the poor. We saw no reason not to, since they all hated us: the executioner’s assistant and the dwarf, the craziest pair in the king’s city. But gradually I grew weary of my life. I grew weary of the eternal taunts and of the smell of blood enveloping Terje. The blood of the executed seeped into his skin; it sat in the corners of his mouth, under his fingernails, even in his navel. Maybe that was why I murdered Terje. Because I couldn’t stand it any longer. Because deep down inside I am evil.

      The first time I fornicated with the Scoundrel, he told me something strange. He said, “You have saucy little feet.”

      That was the only kind thing he ever said to me in six years. You have saucy little feet! Since then I can’t remember him ever praising or appreciating me. I was merely a sewer into which he could empty his seed.

      Yet the victim can still miss the executioner.

      But the roles are often reversed in life.

      That may be the only form of justice that exists—the fact that we take turns playing the victim. The fact that evil is not permanent. It comes and goes like the tide.

12.

      I’VE BEEN LIFTED UP FROM MY STOOL AND SET ON TOP of the table. My small legs dangle helplessly, my hands are pressed flat on the oak surface, and I’m trying to understand the man in front of me. His name is Vasily Dolgoruky. He is the tsar’s envoy at the court of Frederik IV, and he is inordinately drunk.

      “Danish is a homespun language not suited to silken tongues!”

      Dolgoruky looks at me through glazed eyes. He has poured more vodka into my goblet. I consider declining, but I’ve learned that it’s futile when in the company of Muscovites.

      “Whereas Russian…” Dolgoruky smiles blissfully, “is like a plaintive breeze…a poem that rolls around in the mouth like the most delicious Rhine wine.”

      The Russian envoy is a man with red eyes and a malicious mouth. He has long since cast off his Western wig, and his voice has grown hoarser as the evening has progressed.

      “Russian sounds like a beautiful language,” I say diplomatically.

      I have been given lodgings at Merchant Edinger’s house along with Peter’s envoys, but I haven’t seen the tsar since coming here. It’s rumored that he is not pleased with the king. The Danish troops are not ready to occupy Scania. And the summer is on the wane. It’s now or never, if the Swedish king is to be defeated.

      At that moment Dolgoruky stands up. He stares straight ahead. He reaches out for his goblet.

      “We must drink a toast to the tsar!”

      “But with your permission, we have already—”

      The envoy grabs hold of me and lifts me up in front of his face. It’s clear that he thinks he can frighten me, but I’ve seen uglier faces than his.

      Dolgoruky puts me back down on the table. I land on my tailbone and feel an urge to scream. The liquor numbs me nearly as much as Dolgoruky’s breath.

      I catch sight of another Russian lying under the tiletopped table. His white singlet is hanging out of his trousers, one arm is hugging a crumpled sofa cushion. The knowledge that I’m not the first to fall gives me renewed strength.

      “Prost !”

      We drink from the Bohemian goblets. I have a hard time swallowing the vodka. It gets stuck in my throat and comes up again. I notice that I can no longer feel my knees.

      I set down the goblet with a grimace. If I’m to follow the rules of etiquette, then it’s my turn to propose a toast to His Majesty Frederik IV, but I just can’t do it. I look down at Dolgoruky’s leather boots, pondering what’s in store for me, and when I might see the tsar. Will he take me to Russia and give me away, handing me over to someone else at random?

      At that moment Æreboe comes staggering toward us. His chin is glistening with vodka, and his wig is askew on his head. He seems extremely drunk; his eyes are vacant and veiled. Today the notarius has come here to negotiate with Vasily Dolgoruky. I have no idea how the negotiations have gone. I know only that the Russians have been complaining about one thing after another: about the fact that they are called Muscovites, even though the tsar’s court is in Petersburg; about the fact that the delegation receives only eight jugs of liquor a day, when it has a need for fourteen; and most importantly, about the fact that the tsar’s one hundred titles were not declaimed at the official banquet at the castle. Instead they were abbreviated to forty-two. The Muscovites are suffering from a perpetual need to complain.

      Dolgoruky looks at Æreboe, his eyes swimming.

      “Have you got yourself anything to drink, Eerenbom?”

      Æreboe nods and sits down. His lips are cracked. I’ve never seen him look so wretched. If I had any maternal feelings in my body, I would have tried to comfort him.

      “I’m about to drink your dwarf under the table, Eerenbom.”

      “Is that so?”

      “I am not impressed by its capacity. The Russian dwarves are much hardier than the Danish.”

      Æreboe stares at the envoy, then at me, as if he doesn’t understand what we’re talking about.

      “A toast to your king,” says Dolgoruky.

      “We’ve already toasted Frederik IV eleven times tonight!”

      Dolgoruky laughs boisterously. “That’s eleven times too few!”

      “With all respect, Your Grace, things are done differently in the Kingdom of Denmark and Norway…”

      “The Kingdom of Denmark and Norway!” Dolgoruky squints his eyes. “Who cares about the Kingdom of Denmark and Norway? You Danes are so arrogant that it turns my stomach! The only thing you think about is getting Scania back. Negotiating with you is like negotiating with mules.”

      I glance at Rasmus Æreboe and scuttle away.

      “…Prussia and Saxony-Poland are proper allies. The tsar has respect for them. It’s even possible to respect the Swedes, because at least they can fight, but the Kingdom of Denmark and Norway…” Dolgoruky leers. “The tsar has no faith in the Danish army. You lose every war you get into. When was the last time you won on the battlefield—the time of the Vikings?”

      Æreboe snarls something in Russian. Dolgoruky replies. For several minutes the discussion surges back and forth between the two men. I sit a short distance away and watch those hotheads; how they vie with each other, how they argue in a way that women would never argue. Why are men so proud? Is it something that’s part of their cocks? Or has God merely blessed them with a smaller-sized brain?

      “You should have seen His Majesty the Tsar when he read that book your kings hate. What’s it called?”

      Æreboe flinches. “I have no idea what you are referring to.”

      “An Account of Denmark As It Was in the Year of Our Lord 1692…a splendid piece of writing.” Dolgoruky nods spitefully. “The tsar doesn’t usually read books, but he found the German translation profusely entertaining.”

      Æreboe’s cheeks grow hot. “With all due

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