A Plague of Giants (Seven Kennings #1) - Kevin Hearne Page 0,249

fresh broiled moonscale, fire-glazed swamp duck, and some rare wild fyndöl mushrooms sauteéd in even rarer Fornish cream butter. These merchants had really spared no expense to impress us. That only made me more curious about what they wanted.

Jahm Jeikhs couldn’t wait to get to that and began to speak of it in halting Brynt as soon as we sat down, clearing his throat and saying, “Pelenaut Röllend, I’d like to speak of some vital matters in Ghurana Nent—” but Rölly held up a hand to stop him.

“Time enough for that after we’ve eaten, Jahm. I’m famished, and that’s a vital matter as well. Let’s enjoy this extraordinary meal.”

“Surely we can do both?” Certainly not a diplomatic reply; he’d been given an undeniable cue to wait until later but chose to ignore it. My friend just smiled at him.

“We could, but a dinner like this is a rare treat. Please eat first and then we’ll talk.”

“Eat first? We didn’t travel all this way to eat, but all right.” The bootmonger’s long fingers darted forward to the swamp duck resting in a shallow pool of orange glaze, and he tore off a wing and crammed it into his mouth. “I’m eating,” he said, his words muffled by the food, and everyone stared at him, aware that he was jumping into a pool of embarrassment but unable to do anything but look on. “Mmm! So good! Delicious! I want some more of that!” He grabbed the swamp duck with both hands and simply tore at either breast in a fantastically rude spectacle and moaned as he brought the hunks of greasy meat to his mouth. “Oh, mmm! So saucy!” His cheeks bulged with the flesh, and he kept cramming it in faster than he could chew. Trickles of the sticky orange glaze dribbled down his chin and soaked his goatee, turning it into a glistening rope of hair. When he couldn’t fit any more in, he glanced at his countrymen, who universally wore expressions of horror at his behavior, and he laughed, necessarily spitting some of the duck out to do so. That only made him laugh harder.

“Aha ha ha ha!” he cried, duck bits spraying across the table, but when he took a breath to continue, his eyes boggled in panic and he wheezed, spitting the rest out without even trying to keep it in. He clutched at his throat and attempted to breathe but couldn’t.

“Hygienist!” Röllend barked, worried that the food might have been poisoned somehow after all and perhaps a hygienist might still be able to purify his blood. One of the hygienists rushed to the Nentian’s side and placed a hand on his neck, using her kenning to search for poison in his system. Jahm continued to struggle, slowly turning blue from lack of oxygen and pointing at his throat as if we weren’t aware there was a problem. The hygienist shook her head.

“He’s not poisoned. He’s choking.” She began to pound him on the back, not being gentle about it either, and Jahm’s choking noises changed tenor but didn’t cease. The bone he must have inhaled was lodged firmly in his airway and refused to budge. Duck bones can be broad and flat, and even if they are hollow, they are excellent at blocking air. The Nentian’s complexion continued to go pale and blue until his eyes rolled up and his head crashed to the table, his long fine hair mired in swamp duck meat, causing both Poudresh and Ghurang to leap up and join in pounding the abyss out of his back to eject the bone.

They failed, and Jahm Joumeloh Jeikhs died there in front of us, ending the dinner before it truly began.

The surviving merchants and the pelenaut all floated experimental sentences to express their shock and deep regret, having never been trained in what to say when someone dies at your dinner party.

I turned to the bard on my right and said in a low voice intended only for him, “That was certainly a rare dining experience. I’ve never seen someone kill himself with a glazed duck before.”

“You realize I can’t let him die like that for nothing, don’t you?” the bard whispered back to me.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I have to write a song about this. Kids can learn a lesson from poor old Jahm. Take your time eating and chew your food.”

“Fintan. No.”

“How can I pass this up? ‘The Saucy Fire-Glazed Swamp Duck Death of Jahm Joumeloh Jeikhs.’ The tale of