The End of All Songs

Father, son and wife hung over the white gate like so many children, waving to the Duke of Queens, who marched at the front, a long pole whirling in the air above him, two others whirling on either side, a baton in one hand, a swagger-cane in the other, a huge handle-bar moustache upon his face, and a monstrous bearskin tottering on his head, goose-stepping so high that he almost fell backwards with every movement of his legs. And the band had grown so loud, though it remained in perfect time, that it was utterly impracticable to try to speak, either to the Duke of Queens or to one another.

On and on it marched, with its sousaphones, its kolaphones, its brownophones, its telophones and its gramophones, performing intricate patterns, weaving in and out of itself, making outrageously difficult steps coupled with peculiar time-signatures; with its euphoniums and harmoniums, pianos and piccolos, its banjos, its bongos and its bassoons, saluting, marking time, forming fours, bagpipes skirling, bullroarers whirling, ondes Martenot keening, cellos groaning, violins wailing, Jew's harps boinging, swa

"Haydn, eh?" said Lord Jagged knowledgeably as the proud Duke approached.

" Yellow Dog Charlie , according to the tape reference." The Duke of Queens was beaming from beneath his bearskin. "But you know how mixed up the cities are. Something from your period again, Mrs. Un—"

"Carnelian," she murmured.

"—derwood. We simply can't leave it alone, can we? I've seen a craze last a thousand years, unabated."

"Your enthusiasms always tend to prolong themselves beyond the capabilities of your contemporaries, ebullient bandsman, most carefree of capellmeisters, most glorious of gleemen!" congratulated Lord Jagged. "Have you marched far?"

"The parade is to celebrate my first venture into co

"Music?" enquired Jherek.

"Marriage." A wink at Jherek's father. "Lord Jagged will know what I mean."

"A wedding?" laconically supplied Jagged.

"A wedding, yes! It is all the rage. Today — I think it's today — I am joined in holy matrimony (admit my grasp of the vocabulary!) to the loveliest of ladies, the beautiful Sweet Orb Mace."

"And who conducts the rites?" asked Amelia.

"Bishop Castle. Who else? Will you come, and be my best men and women?"

"Well…"

"Of course we'll come, gorgeous groom." Lord Jagged leapt the gate to embrace the Duke before he departed. "And bring gifts, too. Green for a groom and blue for a bride!"

"Another custom?"

"Oh, indeed."

Amelia pursed her lips and frowned at Lord Jagged of Canaria. "It is astonishing that so many of our old customs are remembered, sir."

His patrician head moved to meet her eyes; he wore the faintest of smiles. "Oh, didn't you know? In the general confusion, with the translation pills and so forth, it seems that we are all talking nineteenth-century English. It serves. It serves."

"You arranged this?"

Blandly, he replied. "I am constantly flattered by your suggestions, Amelia. I admire your perceptions, though it would seem to me that you are inclined to over-interpret, on occasion."

"If you would have it so, sir." She curtsied, but her expression was hardly demure.

Fearful of further tension between the two, Jherek said: "So we are again to be guests at the Duke of Queens'. You are not disturbed by the prospect, Amelia?"

"We have been invited. We shall attend. If it be a mock marriage, it will certainly be an extravagant one."

Lord Jagged of Canaria was looking at her through perceptive eyes and it was as if his mask had fallen for a moment.

She was baffled by this sudden sincerity; she avoided that eye.

"Very well, then," said Jherek's father briskly, "We shall meet again soon, then?"

"Soon," she said.

"Farewell," he said, "to you both." He strode for his swan which swam on a tiny pond he had manufactured for parking purposes. He was soon aloft. A wave of yellow froth and he was gone.

"So marriage is the fashion now," she said as they walked back to the house.

He took her hand. "We are already married," he said.

"In God's eyes, as we used to say. But God looks down on this world no longer. We have only a poor substitute. A poseur."

They entered the house. "You speak of Jagged again, Amelia?"

"He continues to disturb me. It would seem he has satisfied himself, seen all his schemes completed. Yet still I am wary of him. I suppose I shall always be wary, through eternity. I fear his boredom."

"Not your own?"

"I have not his power."

He let the matter rest.

That afternoon, with Jherek in morning dress and Amelia in grey and blue stripes, they set off for the wedding of the Duke of Queens.

Bishop Castle (it was evidently his workmanship) had built a cathedral specially for the ceremony, in classical subtlety, with great stained glass windows, Gothic spires and masonry, massive and yet giving the impression of lightness, and decorated on the outside primarily in orange, purple and yellow. Surrounding the area was the band of the Duke of Queens, its automata at rest for the moment. There were tall flag-masts, flying every conceivable standard still existing in the archives; there were tents and booths dispensing drinks and sweetmeats, games of chance and of skill, exhibitions of antique entertainments, through which moved the guests, laughing and talking, full of merriment.

"It's a lovely scene," said Jherek, as he and Amelia descended from their footplate. "A beautiful background for a wedding."

"Yet still merely a scene," she said. "I can never rid myself of the knowledge that I am playing a part in a drama."

"Were ceremonies different, then, in your day?"

She was silent for a moment. Then: "You must think me a cheerless creature."

"I have seen you happy, Amelia. I think."

"It is a trick of the mind I was never taught. Indeed, I was taught to suspect an open smile, to repress my own. I try, Jherek, to be carefree."

"It is your duty," he told her as they joined the throng and were greeted, at once, by their friends. "Why, Mistress Christia, the last time I saw your companions they were trapped in a particularly unpleasant dilemma, battling with Bra

Mistress Christia, the Everlasting Concubine, laughed a tinkling laugh, as was her wont. She was surrounded by Captain Mubbers and his men, all dressed in the same brilliant powder-blue she wore, save for strange balloon-like objects of dull red, on elbows and knees. "Lord Jagged rescued them, I gather, and I insisted that they be my special guests. We are to be married, too, today!"

"You — to them all!" said Amelia in astonishment. She blushed.

"They are teaching me their customs." She displayed the elbow balloons. "These are proper to a married Lat female. The reason for their behaviour, where women were concerned, was the conviction that if we did not wear knee- and elbow-balloons we were — um?" She looked enquiringly at her nearest spouse, who crossed his three pupils and stroked his whiskers in embarrassment. Jherek thought it was Rokfrug. "Dear?"

"Joint-sport," said Rokfrug almost inaudibly.

"They are so contrite!" said Mistress Christia. She moved intimately to murmur to Amelia. "In public, at least, dear."

"Congratulations, Captain Mubbers," said Jherek. "I hope you and your men will be very happy with your wife."

"Fill it, arse-lips," Captain Mubbers said, sotto voce, even as they shook hands. "Sarcy fartin' knicker-elastic hole-smeller."