This officer was the commander of the detention centre, a lean Ashdan whose every word and gesture bespoke the habit of command. Nevertheless, neither his impressive appearance nor his thunderblast query won him reply. His men were in too much of a fighting frenzy to be distracted by anything less than a bucket of cold water.
The commander promptly found such a bucket and tossed it over Shabble’s assailants who sobered up with amazing alacrity.
‘Shut that thing in the shit pot!’ said the commander.
Men scurried to obey.
Shabble of the many musics was too intoxicated by melodic raptures to resist this indignity. Thus the potential incinerator of soldiers was bundled into the shit pot. The lid was put on, muting the cacophony emanating from within. Some twine was produced and used to tie tight the lid.
‘Throw it into the well!’ said the officer.
Again he was obeyed.
The shit pot tumbled away into the darkness and hit the water below with a muted splash. For the time being the troublesome one was lost to eye and ear alike and something close to silence reigned. Naturally Shabble would burn Shabbleself free once the musical fit was over, but for the moment the innovative one had no thoughts for anything but creative ecstasy.
The officer then ordered one of his subordinates to march away all idle soldiers and put them to work.
‘Wait a moment,’ said Ivan Pokrov. ‘I want the names of these people. I want them brought to justice.’
‘Take them away,’ said the commander.
His subordinate marched the soldiers away. Some cast dour glances at Chegory Guy as they filed past his recumbent body, and one or two muttered unveiled threats against his person. Once they were gone, Ingalawa abandoned Chegory to Olivia’s exclusive care, and got to her feet to confront the commander.
‘Who are you?’ said Ingalawa.
‘That should have been my question,’ said the commander with something of a sneer. ‘But I know enough about you without a name.’
Why was this said with a sneer?
Because he was addressing a woman who was also a child of the effete culture of Ashmolea South. The commander was from the north, where they breed ferocious fighters who vaiue physical supremacy above all else. Ingalawa did not like his attitude at all. He was dismissing her as if she were of no account, which was intolerable. Ingalawa was a scion of one of the few fighting cfans of Ashmolea’s south, and when her temper was roused the liberal Ashdan intellectual soon gave way to the homicidal berserker.
So she said:
‘Have you a name?’
In Ashmolea, this is fighting call, and always compels a response. For to be silent is to accept dishonour to oneself and to one’s family.
‘A name? Shanvil Angarus May! Is that name enough for you? May of Rest Acular! Is that genesis sufficient?’ ‘That’s all we need to sue you,’ said Ivan Pokrov. ‘We’ll have a summons drawn up as soon as we get out of here.’ ‘You’re crazy,’ said Shanvil May, speaking to Pokrov with a contempt equal to that which he had displayed when addressing Ingalawa.
‘I doubt it,’ said Pokrov. ‘Our good friend Chegory Guy has been beaten nearly to death by your soldiers. I hold you responsible. Doubtless the courts will take a similar view of your culpability. Either you ordered it or else through gross negligence you failed to prevent it.’
‘You’re the one who’s in trouble, not me,’ said Shanvil May, totally unimpressed by this fancy little speech. ‘You’re being held on charges of the utmost gravity.’
‘Trumped-up charges!’ protested Pokrov.
‘That’s as may be,’ said May, ‘but the law is the law and the law will be obeyed because it is the law. You will stay in detention until you have answered the charges.’
‘What are we charged with?’ said Ingalawa.
‘Consorting with drug dealers to start with,’ said Shanvil May. ‘Do you deny it?’
‘I’ll answer that question in court,’ said Ingalawa.
So she said, though her plan was still to resolve her difficulties by petitioning the Empress Justina. If she had to fight the matter out in court she must necessarily lose, since she was as guilty as hell, because she had indeed been consorting with drug dealers. She had even drunk of the dreaded alcohol, and the taint of the same drug was still on her breath.
‘I,’ said Shanvil May, ‘will enjoy watching you try to wriggle out of this one in a court of law.’
With that said, he turned to leave.
‘You can’t just walk off like that!’ said Ingalawa. ‘We need protection. Your soldiers have already tried to murder us. I’ll hold you responsible if one of us gets murdered. Look — this Ebrell boy is so badly beaten he can’t even stand.’ ‘Not a problem,’ said Shanvil May briskly. ‘I’ll send your Ebby friend to the palace to be Tested.’
‘Tested?’ said Olivia. ‘By what?’
‘By the squealer in the treasury, of course,’ said May. ‘What else?’
Upon which Chegory, who was not nearly as badly hurt as Ingalawa had made out, thought:
Thanks, Ingalawa! You’ve really done it this time!
He did not want to go to the palace. He wanted nothing to do with any Test. Also he did not want to be removed from Olivia who was so sweetly treasuring his bruises.
‘How will taking him away to the palace help?’ said Olivia. ‘He’ll still get beaten up.’
‘No, no,’ said Shanvil May, in a voice which was two parts of soothing balm to nine parts of lordly condescension. ‘The Test of the squealer will take all night. By the time your boyfriend gets back here those soldiers sharking after him will have gone off shift. It’ll be a new day.’
‘You’re wrong,’ said Pokrov decisively. ‘I know all about that thing you call a squealer. It gives judgement in less than a heartbeat. How can that take all night?’
‘There’ll be a queue,’ said May.
Then set about organising Chegory’s journey.
So it came to pass that Chegory Guy was very shortly marched out of the Temple of Torture, up Goldhammer Rise and then up Lak Street. Through the night went Chegory and his escorting soldiers, sweating as they laboured through the coffin-close heat of the tropical night. Past the ship-sized chunk of bone known as Pearl they went. So cool it looked, but nevertheless the night was stifling. Past the grand houses glimmering with the blue-green light of moon paint. Cool these looked also, but heat was still breathing out from the sun-tormented slabs of bloodstone over which Chegory and his escorts walked. Then at last there bulked ahead the pink palace of the Empress Justina, jewel of Injiltaprajura.
[Here an ambiguity. Was the palace that jewel, or the Empress? Whichever way this ambiguity is resolved one must find the Originator guilty of bad taste, for the Empress was a pandornabriloothoprata, as they so neatly put it in Janjuladoola, whereas the palace itself was a monument to kitsch of the worst possible kind. Oris Baumgage, Fact Checker Minor.]
Chegory was marched up the steps to the portico. Between the huge carven pillars he was led. Into the foyer he was taken. There he was handed over to the palace guards.
‘Another one for the squealer,’ said a soldier. ‘To go back to the detention centre when finished with.’
Chegory was paperworked then taken into the deep-delved interstices of the palace underlevels, there to await the Test. Shanvil May was correct in thinking the Test would not take place in a hurry. In the corridor leading to the treasury there was a long, long queue of Ebrell Islanders and similar undesirables waiting to be tested by the squealer.
Suspects were taken into the treasury one by one. The squealer (an antique device of uncertain origin) would wail long and loud if anyone presented to it had been in its presence in the last ten years.
Chegory was content inasmuch as he knew himself to be innocent. At least here in the palace no disaster could befall him. There was nobody here who wanted to kill him; Ingalawa was far away and hence unable to bully him further; he need not worry for the moment about petitions, publicity and the dire punishments which would surely fall upon him as an inevitable consequence of the crime of being an Ebrell Islander.
The queue moved but slowly.
