Authors: Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Wisdom's Kiss (59 page)

POTS DE CRÈME "pots" as in "poe"; "Crème" as in "phlegm" Pots de Crème is to chocolate pudding what Porsches are to bicycles; that it's served with a lavish topping of fresh whipped cream makes it even more extraordinarily, fantastically irresistible. I'm still not exactly sure what or who the Pots de Crème Giants are, but I chuckle nonetheless.
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RIGORUS (RIG•ur•us) Get it? The empire is "lax" ("careless; relaxed") but its
capital
is "rigorous" ("thorough; strict"). They're opposites! Oh, wordplay just slays me. And while we're on the subject of Rigorus, let's take a moment to chuckle over the publisher of
The Imperial Encyclopedia of Lax.
Hazelnut and filbert are, of course, the same tree and nut, so the names are redundant. Ha! Also, they're quirky sounding (z is almost as much fun as x) and tremendously fun to say, which never hurts prose, even boring encyclopedia prose.
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SOTTOCENERE (sew•toe•chen•YARE•ee) Italian for "under the ash." An absolutely delicious Italian cheese flavored with truffles, named for the thin coating of volcanic ash in which the cheese is rolled in order to preserve it. (The rind is edible, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it.)
Sottocenere
the country originally had a much larger role in
Wisdom's Kiss
; had I known the whole
dragon scene
would ultimately be removed, I might have saved the name for something bigger. Apparently there's also a famous Italian movie with
sottocenere
in the title, but I'm not worldly enough to know about that.
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UNDERJOYVersus, you know, overjoyed. A castle obviously founded by someone who forever sees the glass half-empty.
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UNIVERSITAT DRACHENSBETT (you•knee•VARE•see•tate DROKH•enz•bet) The whole Drachensbett business probably makes zero sense to anyone who hasn't read
Princess Ben;
if you haven't yet read it but want to, try not to pay too much attention. But if you have, you'll know that Drachensbett was for centuries an archenemy of Montagne, until_________ (I won't give it away). Afterward, the Kingdom of Montagne, being a gracious winner, founded a university in Drachensbett (the university-founding part isn't in
Princess Ben;
all that happened after
PB
ended). Anyhoo, "universitat" is German for "university," and the name is great fun to say aloud if you really draw out the VAAAARE sound and then make the "kh" part of Drachensbett really throaty and spitty. Throaty and spitty is pretty much the high point of German, at least for me, although I can—two-plus decades out of college—ask for a German newspaper. I don't know how to read it, or what the person I ask this of says in response, but I still know how to ask for one.
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Bonus Material: Queen of All the Heavens

Author commentary on the entire play
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