you’ve been ill. My old friend Aldarch Three will understand that, particularly when he finds you in the Dromdanjerie with your father.’
The Empress hissed with rage.
Spat.
Missed.
Varazchavardan addressed the mezzanine audience directly, saying:
‘The Empress is suffering a mental disturbance. Thus will be held in protective custody lest she come to harm. Aldarch Three will understand. No harm will come to her. Or… or to us, to all of us, we who have stood by her for so long. We were right to do so while rule in Yestron was in dispute, but now rule is disputed no longer we must
… we must take care of everyone in danger here. Including Justina. To rule any longer would prove her death. And… and ours, my friends.’
This may seem a simple speech. It was. It was no great exercise in eloquence, to be sure. But it brought the audience to order, for it contained some very potent truths. Aldarch the Third was almost certain to triumph in Yestron, and would doubtless be most unhappy with anyone who opposed his claims to absolute power.
Then a strident voice cried from the mezzanine:
‘Who says she’s mad?’
‘What else could she be?’ said Varazchavardan. ‘Unless mad, why would she consort with this Ebby?’ He laid his hand on Chegory’s shoulder. He dug his talons into Chegory’s flesh.
‘Ebbies are okay,’ said the same strident voice.
Varazchavardan wished he could see who the voice belonged to. Its owner would then be in line for a bath in boiling oil. From the mezzanine there came an ugly muttering. Others took up the cry in favour of Ebbies. But Varazchavardan was equal to the situation. He plunged a hand up one of the sleeves of Chegory’s silken canary' robes and withdrew it, holding something bright and glittering.
‘What’s this?’ said Varazchavardan, holding aloft the trophy he appeared to have snatched from Chegory’s possession.
‘Something you put there!’ said Chegory.
‘Thus says a thief!’ said Varazchavardan, upholding the glittering bauble for all to see. ‘This is the wishstone, isn’t it?’
‘It’s not, it’s not!’ said Chegory. ‘It’s glass, that’s all. A triakisoctahedron in glass!’
‘Triakisoctahedron!’ said Varazchavardan. ‘My, what a big word for an Ebby! This is no triakisoctahedron. This is the wishstone! The precious magic which Chegory Guy stole from the treasury then used to overpower Justina by sorcery!’
‘You put the thing up his sleeve before you pulled it out,’ said the conjuror Odolo. ‘Besides, that’s no wishstone, that’s-’
Bro Drumel made a curt gesture. A guard grabbed Odolo from behind and muffled him. Judge Qil protested.
‘I say!’ said the judge. ‘You can’t-’
But he too was suppressed even as Varazchavardan’s voice rose above Chegory Guy’s protesting babble.
‘You see?’ said Varazchavardan, holding up the cut-glass bauble. ‘The wishstone! Stolen by Chegory Guy! Used by him to subvert the rule of law! To win the heart of the Empress! Nightly she couples with this sweaty animal, this thing from the gutter. His vices have half-emptied the treasury. His counsel-’
‘Hey, hey!’ said Chegory desperately, so astonished by these blatant libels that he could hardly speak. ‘I never-’ A guard hit him. Once. Hard. In the delectable softness below the floating ribs. He doubled up, hissing with pain. He heard Varazchavardan’s remorseless eloquence playing to the prejudice of the crowd. There was a cry of ‘Kill the Ebby!’ Things were starting to look grim for Chegory Guy. Then Justina made her move.
At the top of her lungs she shouted:
‘It’s lies! All lies! Rise up, my people! Liberate your Empress! Five dragons for every man proved loyal!’
Five dragons is a lot of money as wealth is measured on Untunchilamon. Fifty dalmoons! Or, to put it in terms even a rock-gardening Ebby could understand, two thousand damns. This massive bribe brought those most eager surging to the very edge of the mezzanine floor. But the scimitars of the waiting guards were very sharp, and nobody was quite prepared to be first to jump to the ground floor.
Varazchavardan considered offering a matching bribe to the crowd, then saw there was no need. The spectators had been for the Empress, then against the Empress, and now they were for the Empress again. Which proved they lacked the single-minded passion which makes people dangerous in decision. The scimitars alone would hold them. Furthermore — what was this, fast approaching? Why, another squad of guards!
‘Clear out the spectators,’ said Varazchavardan.
Bro Drumel amplified his orders, and soon it was done. Varazchavardan’s coup was complete.
‘You know it’s all lies!’ said Chegory. ‘That — that thing it’s, it’s not the wishstone, is it? You put it, didn’t you? Up my sleeve!’
‘Perhaps,’ said Varazchavardan, ‘but it will serve as excuse sufficient for your execution. And for the execution of the old whore who’s nightly been entrancing you into her perfumes.’
Chegory, seeing Olivia looking at him with horror, protested:
‘It’s all lies! Lies! About the Empress and me! And — and you can’t kill her. You gave your word. Taking care of her, that’s what you said. The Dromdanjerie. You gave your word!’
‘Lightly given, lightly withdrawn,’ said Varazchavardan. ‘She’s too dangerous to keep under lock and key. Come undokondra, the vampire rats will have her.’
‘This is pure perduellion,’ hissed the Empress. ‘You shall pay for this!’
‘I can afford to,’ said Varazchavardan dryly. ‘I have an excellent credit rating.’
‘You jest?’ said the Empress in outrage.
‘Why not?’ said Varazchavardan. ‘Were you ever more than a joke? A libidinous soldier’s brat from Wen Endex posturing in the robes of empire!’
The Empress struggled. Chegory struggled too, trying to make a break for freedom. Olivia screamed, and Artemis Ingalawa began demanding a lawyer. Then Uckermark broke free. The corpse master scooped up Odolo and bashed the two nearest guards with this convenient weapon. Down they went. Down went Odolo too. Uckermark was off! For a moment he was on the loose, running for the nearest door. Then Bro Drumel tackled him. The pair crashed to the floor. A good half-dozen soldiers promptly jumped on the bold-daring corpse master.
The situation was under control again.
Momentarily.
Then:
‘Gaa!’ screamed one of the soldiers holding Dolglin Xter.
The soldier’s clothing had turned to a scuttling curtain of scorpions.
As the soldier writhed away from the sorcerer, Xter flung up his hands and said:
‘Anitha! Bin go ska-’
Then a soldier kicked him in the crutch. He doubled over and (for the moment) said no more. In the air above him, a half-formed horror monster with three mouths and half a dozen arms wavered, made tentative groping movements toward Varazchavardan, then disintegrated and disappeared.
‘Right!’ said Varazchavardan. ‘That settles it! We’ll kill the lot of them! Right now!’
Thus spake Varazchavardan. Whereupon the Empress Justina wrested herself from the grip of her guards in one convulsive convulsion and tried to claw out the sorcerer’s eyes. Her savaging fingernails raked his countenance. Then her guards secured her again. Varazchavardan stood. A drop of blood welled from a claw-track. Fell to the pink tiles. Red upon pink.
Ah, beautiful, beautiful! It is strange, is it not? This Varazchavardan was but a banal power-player wargaming for dominance, yet his blood was as red as the juice of a ruby, potently suggestive of that very special wound which obsesses our imagination. But his blood’s outflow was wasted in the Star Chamber, for none had eyes for this beauty, or time for the thoughts of seduction and lost virginity which it should have stirred. Instead, their minds were given to anger.
‘Chop their heads off,’ said Varazchavardan.
