But, now that Aldarch Three was known to have triumphed in Yestron (Manthandros Trasilika had been a fraud, and his priest Jean Froissart no better, but interrogation of sailors from the Oktobdoj had proved much of their news to be true), there was no rational basis for believing that Justina’s power would continue much longer.
While Master Ek belonged to that multitude which actually believed the Crab to be temporarily ruling Injiltaprajura (with Chegory Guy and Olivia Qasaba as secretary-couriers), Ek nevertheless saw that as a temporary aberration, and quite reasonably believed (on the basis of the patterns of centuries of recorded history) that the Crab would shortly lose interest in political endeavour.
Ek therefore had no long-term worries about the Crab, though he believed that dignitary must be treated with the greatest caution in the short term. Rather, he saw his true enemy as being Justina Thrug; and saw her murder as being the best way to return the island to rightful rule.
Only:
The first person to rise against the Thrug would most surely die.
Thus Master Ek stirred up the mob, knowing his mob would eventually (later if not sooner) storm the pink palace and lynch the Empress Justina, for every mob is a hero. And if the Crab then chose to kill mobsters by the hundreds, what of it?
‘People die by thousands every day,’ said Ek. ‘A human life is worth nothing.’
Adding a mental note to say: except my own.
Thanks to her spies, the Empress Justina was fully aware of Ek’s intentions. And, to her great frustration, she durst not have him killed; for his murder would be immediately attributed to her by the mob, thus precipitating the riot she hoped to forestall as long as possible.
Justina’s temper was not improved when she heard alarming rumours about her reluctant ally, Aquitaine Varazchavardan. According to rumour, Varazchavardan was trying to bargain with Master Ek. The terms proposed were simple: Varazchavardan would give Ek his full and unstinting cooperation in overthrowing the empress if Ek promised to use his influence to obtain a full pardon for Varazcharvardan from Aldarch Three.
Ek refused.
As far as Master Ek was concerned, Varazchavardan would make a most welcome addition to the pile of corpses which Aldarch III would surely demand once Untunchilamon was firmly within his grasp. Aldarch Three had a special liking for eminent corpses.
Furthermore, as Ek knew full well, Varazchavardan had profited for years from the illegal trade in liquor; but Varazchavardan had always denied Ek the very modest tithe which the High Priest had asked be paid to the Temple of Zoz the Ancestral. Now Justina’s Master of Law was going to suffer for his impiety.
Justina was most relieved when she learnt that Ek had rejected Varazchavardan as an ally. If there was to be war on Untunchilamon, she wanted Varazchavardan to be with her, not against her. She also took a certain grim satisfaction in the thought that, if she went down, Varazchavardan would fall in turn. He deserved it. In the not-so- distant past, he had caused an enormous amount of trouble by trying to coup against her. More recently, Justina’s much-loved albinotic ape, the irrepressible Vazzy, had been murdered by unknown assassins; and, while Justina could prove nothing, her dark suspicions led her to believe that Varazchavardan was responsible.
Did Varazchavardan’s discomfort give her sweet dreams? Did she delight in the thought of the terrors of torture besetting her would-be traitor? In answer to these questions it need only be said that the Empress Justina was the daughter of a Yudonic Knight. Sweet dreams became her well.
Yet, while she slept, others lay wakeful.
Those who slept least were those born amidst the rocklands of Ang, high in the purity of the cold mountains in the heart of the Izdimir Empire. There men build with rough rock and order the world with the laws of grey stone, and women kneel before men in the name of Zoz the Ancestral and take into their mouths the strength of men, and a great contentment is within the hearts of men.
And they lifted up their eyes and beheld the dark mass of Justina’s palace, a place built of shameful pink like that a woman hides within her naos. And there, it was known, the Thrug disported itself in a pool of water, swimming in her nakedness beneath the swollen moon; and the Thrug was of flesh, yet without shame; and a great loathing was within the hearts of the men who beheld it.
They knew they must do something about it.
And, by the light of day, many spoke openly of this.
When Justina realized how rapidly the crisis was approaching, is it any wonder that she began to contemplate desperate measures?
It was at this time that a band of sober citizens came to Justina with a petition asking for her to exert herself womanfully to suppress the ‘drumming’ cult which was so vexing many of the earnest inhabitants of Injiltaprajura. It would have been sufficient for her to direct them to take their petition to the Crab. Unfortunately, Justina did nothing so sensible. For once, she lost her patience — something she did not do often — and said a great many rash and intemperate things which were later remembered against her.
Justina has been much maligned in many superficial histories on account of her failure to suppress the drummers at this crucial stage of the power struggle. However, the historian believes it would have made no difference to the outcome of Untunchilamon’s power struggle had Justina beaten every drummer on the island to death. For the drummers were totally irrelevant to politics, the ‘cult’ consisting as it did of the bored and idle young; and the historian trusts that the reader can, without further explanation, see the absurdity of attempting to write Injiltaprajura’s history from a drummer-centred perspective.
With that stated, let us now turn our attention to our next chapter
CHAPTER TWENTY
Night.
And we open to a scene of hot copulation, for the Princess Sabitha is indulging her passions with one of her seafaring friends. Elsewhere, the dreams which rule the sleep of the Empress Justina have changed from fair to foul, but of them more later. For the moment, let us attend to the elegant Sabitha Winolathon Taskinjathura, she of the xanthic eyes and the delicate tongue.
She is bonking (there are many other words for it, but this one will do) in a much-shadowed scorpion wasteland between Ganthorgruk and the neighbouring slaughterhouse; and as she bonks she screams with delight, sounding for all the world as if her intestines were being wrenched from her gut a fingerlength at a time. These ravaged cries arouse the ire of the conjuror Odolo, a man whose good humour has lately been eroded because his long history of alliance with the Empress Justina now threatens his life.
Odolo scrambles out of bed.
He throws open the shutters of his window.
He takes his water jug and hurls it into the night, intending thereby to secure the death of the Princess Sabitha.
She remains undead; and, in her ecstasy, screams like a vampire.
Whereupon Odolo picks up a bowl, a baked yam and a boot, and hurls these objects in turn into the night. It is the boot which makes contact. It scores a direct hit on the Princess Sabitha and her ardent swain. In moments, both are in flight, scarpering in separate directions.
The Princess Sabitha flees down Skindik Way, shortly vanishing into the stews of Lubos. A dangerous slum- land, this; but she knows it intimately, and knows also how to take care of herself. Or so she in her youth and innocence supposes.
Her lover, a lusty seafarer named Hunk, absconds in a different direction. Unfortunately, this takes him into the Dog Worshipper’s Temple at the back of the Dromdanjerie; and, before he realizes his danger, he is attacked by a dozen of his most deadly foes. Hunk was born in Wen Endex; and, though he is of lowly birth, we may nevertheless enroll him (on an honorary basis) in the ranks of the Yudonic Knights. Certainly his fighting prowess deserves to win him such enrolment, for he disables two dogs and nearly kills a third. This represents a
