Out on the Town

[John Ivory 4547]

 

 

OUT ON THE TOWN

 

The ornate oaken door opened with a creak. Faintly, drowned beneath the throng of voices, the sound of moving wheels could be heard. The Council of State, pregnant with discussion as it was, paid no mind to the interruption.

 

In due time, the squeaky wheels ceased. In walked a herald. With a long and stately bow, the man, clothed as he was in the colors of his office, announced in a baritone voice: "His Imperial Majesty The Emperor."

 

As if a midwinter's candle extinguished by a swift gust, so too did the voices of the Council cease. With half-surprise, half-awe, the members of the Orenian Cabinet rose to their feet, attendants and undersecretaries in tow. It had been nigh a decade or perhaps longer that such an entrance was announced in that chamber, and the topic of the diverse maladies with which the Co-Sovereign had been afflicted with, being a taboo subject, had led many - especially the younger generation of attendants - to forget much about his existence altogether.

 

Soon enough the surprise turned, universally, to a pity. After the herald had finished his business of calling out in the wilderness, into the chamber was pushed His Imperial Majesty, rolling on a wheelchair. His doctor, Mr Noah M. Wheezer, was the propellant. It was learned shortly after that Joseph could barely move his arms, let along the affliction of his lower parts.

 

 

His Imperial Majesty was in an awful state, as his chamber maids often related to one another whilst in the enclosure of the palace kitchens. He had long ceased wearing his powdered wig, and had grown a scraggly, unkept beard, the likes of which might have belonged in a more ancient Canonist era to a hermit, who had fled from the world in emulation of Saint Theodosius of Istiam. To add, Father Time had reaped his toll on Joseph. His cheeks sagged, the doctors often diagnosed cataracts in his eyes. To crown it all age had combined with malady, each exacerbating the effects of the other, leaving the old man - now sixty-four - with perpetually swollen limbs.

 

Spirit over body, or so the theologians say! The new philosophers would instead replace spirit with mind, but it is the same difference (we beg you not to disagree!) to our poor Joseph. For all his ill health, and the slow destructive spiral that had consumed his body for the past decade, his mind seemed still fresh. He was deferential at the first to his Cabinet ministers. There is only so much an elderly man can accomplish.

 

He looked out over the table. For all Time had piteously exacted upon the Emperor's flesh, still more had it done to his memory: all his friends were gone. Simon Basrid had left to wander and chart the stars. The Duke of Sunholdt was long dead, his son and heir now General of the Armies, sitting to Joseph's left. Frederick Armas joined the Old Duke. The black dwarf, Urrigon Drumm, had burrowed for his bi-centennial slumber. To count on one hand, these were the new faces that he was forced to become acquainted with: A new Treasury Secretary. A new Foreign Secretary. A new Home Secretary. A new Director of the Secret Service. In that council, the organ which runs his very government, he recognized three men.

 

 

At midnight, Joseph asked for a walk to Helena. The lights of the city dazzled him. He had not known such color for many years. The Emperor was out on the town, and his identity may have gone unknown, if not for the cavalcade that trailed at a good distance behind his wheelchair. A party of soldiers assigned to protect the Emperor's life, powerless against the fate that awaits all men.

[argonian 14254]

A passing civilian notes to never let Dr. Wheezer vaccinate inoculate him.

[MRCHENN 4741]

George Galbraith smiles the Sun's Smile, glad the Emperor is back from his rest in the Imperial Apartments, hopefully to review his bills pending for assent.

 

He takes a drag from his cigar, the contents making him feel more jittery than usual for some reason.