The Seven Gifts
kingdom, to be dashed to pieces on the rocks at the edge of the
ocean; then demanded of her mother that a new one be built. And she
banished all thirty seven of the bands into the icy wastes of the
glacier region, where Snowman fought with polar bear over the flesh
of anything that moved.
    Finally, on the very eve of the ball, she
had the decorations to her taste. The gown at long last fitted
properly; and a brand-new coach stood at her door with twelve blue
reindeer specially captured by the Queen's Hunters after a fierce
and bloody battle with the Warriors of the Tundra.
    But still she had not found a band.
    The palace was in consternation. The Queen
was in floods of tears, and the King had long since gone to visit
his brother on the far side of the ocean. The courtiers gathered to
hold council.
    The Chief Minister presided. “I know of no
band left in the kingdom," he said simply. He was ready to resign
himself to his fate. He looked around with faint hope at all the
courtiers gathered in the Meeting Room but they were all reluctant
to catch his eye. For a long while there was uneasy silence; then a
young courtier at the back stood up. “I know of one," he said.
    The effect was electric.
    “Who? Where?" The Minister almost screamed
with relief at the prospect of maybe seeing the morrow. “It must be
brought here immediately," he demanded. “At once! I will send a
battalion of the Queen's Escort to fetch them. Where is that band?"
He pointed almost accusingly at the young courtier, as though the
whole business were his fault.
    “We..el," stammered the young man, now
wishing he had kept quiet. It was probably only the Chief Minister
who would have had the chop anyway. “Er, it's not quite as simple
as that," he said. He explained: “Some years ago I used to play the
psychological synthesizer in a band called ‘Half a Ton of Nutty
Slack', run by Coalhole Custer ...." He paused, brought up by the
sudden tension he felt in the room.
    The Minister of Technology whistled:
“Coalhole Custer! You played with him? That lunatic troublemaker?
He's not a musician." The minister felt himself begin to perspire
at the very thought of the man. He wiped his brow and calmed
himself before continuing: “You must be joking. I can just see the
face of the Princess if he appears in the ballroom and strikes up
that cacophonous rubbish of his. We'd all be boiled in oil."
    There was a strange silence in the room. The
young courtier who had confessed to having played with Coalhole
Custer quietly sat down, now regretting having opened his mouth.
The others stared at him, as though he were a strange being from
some foreign land.
    “Just a minute," came the testy voice of the
Chief Minister. “I don't know much about this Custer fellow, but as
far as I'm concerned the Princess wants a band and if he's got one
he'll do."
    The room erupted in raucous cries of
dissent, but the Chief stood his ground. He held his hand up for
silence. “If there is no band here tomorrow," he said firmly, “our
heads will be impaled on the palace gate. If there is a band, they
might not be. So unless any of you know of another band in the
country that has not been banished to the Snowmen, we will just
have to take our chances with this Coalhole Custer." He looked
around for dissent, but the logic of his argument was irrefutable.
Only the young fellow who had played with Coalhole Custer
spoke.
    “Er, he might not come," the young man
muttered diffidently. “He lives alone up in the mountains now, and
never has anything to do with the city. He was thrown out if you
remember, and I don't think he likes it down here very much."
    The Chief Minister smiled unpleasantly. “He
will come," he said, in a deceptively quiet voice. There was no
mistaking the meaning.
     
    Coalhole Custer sat huddled by his campfire.
He poked gently at the embers, stirring up sparks and crackles in
the slowly dying fire as he did. His eyes focused quietly on the
red flickering in its

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