Bribery.
Injiltaprajura’s treasury was rich in gold. And silver. And diamonds, jade, emeralds, ultramarines, opals, japonica, turquoise, celestine, carnelian and so forth; and in coinage, for it boasted dragons and damns by the sackload, dalmoons by the bushel, and a surfeiting overflow of spings, flothens, zeals and ems. The imperial hoard reflected the wealth of Untunchilamon, and Justina was prepared to squander all of it to bribe her soldiers.
The Empress Justina made careful plans along these lines as the season of Fistavlir drew to a close, and she was full of hope by the time the rule of the doldrums finally ended, the Long Dry coming to an end in an outbreak of wind and of rain.
But hope soon changed to something remarkably like despair when the Inland Revenue raided Justina’s pink palace.
As has been stated, the head of the Inland Revenue was the redoubtable Dui Tin Char, who had long pretended loyalty to Justina. But Tin Char (so we must name him, for Dui is a personal name, and to refer to him merely by the family name of Tin would be ever so slightly insulting) was of Janjuladoola race like Aldarch the Third. Tin Char longed to see the rule of Aldarch Three triumph on Untunchilamon, and to see Justina and her cohorts punished for their various acts of repression and usurpation.
To give but one example of Tin Char’s grievances, he had long lamented the suppression of the rites of his dearly beloved Temple of Torture. Under the reign of Wazir Sin, Tin Char had been a most enthusiastic priest of that temple; when the Family Thrug had outlawed his religion, Tin Char had abandoned the priesthood for the bureaucracy with the specific idea of rising to a place of eminence from which he could exact revenge.
Now Tin Char was eminent indeed.
Treachery, blackmail and poison had made him head of the Inland Revenue in scarcely seven short years, and he was ready to move against the Family Thrug.
But…
What would be the reaction of the Hermit Crab?
The potential dangers from this quarter were so great that they gave even Tin Char cause for thought; accordingly, he did not begin by chopping off Justina’s head, but contented himself with looting her treasury. His logic was very simple. If the Crab objected, he could always return the treasure and make apologies, whereas decapitation could not be so easily reversed; on the other hand, if the Crab proved compliant, Justina’s head could then be removed without trouble.
Tin Char offered immense bribes to Justina’s soldiers, who then co-operated with the raid in which every bit of treasure in the pink palace was removed to the premises of the Temple of Torture. The legal pretext for this move was very simple. According to Tin Char, Untunchilamon was still a part of the Izdimir Empire, and Justina Thrug was still a subject citizen of that empire and hence liable to penalties under imperial law; which meant that, as she had paid no taxes for the last seven years, all her assets could be confiscated.
Justina’s dismay can easily be imagined.
The winds were blowing; the Trade Fleet would in due course arrive; but she would never get her twelve ships unless she had money for bribes. Unless suitably bribed, her soldiers would prevent her escape: and now Tin Char had all her money.
What was Justina to do?
A direct move against Tin Char was of course impossible. Except for a trifling handful of fanatical Thrug loyalists, Justina’s soldiers would rather fight for the Inland Revenue than against it; and, besides, Tin Char had the tacit support of most of Untunchilamon’s resident sorcerers.
In the end, Justina realized there was only one thing she could do. She would have to go to the island of Jod, confront the Crab face to face, and register her protest. She knew she might get turned inside out if she thus disturbed the denizen of Jod. But she had no choice in the matter! So she girded her loins (precisely how I do not know, for I am not privy to all the feminine mysteries), summoned certain of her retainers who were both loyal and reliable, then set forth for the island of Jod.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Empress Justina did not allow herself to be carried to the waterfront in a litter. No. She walked down Lak Street on her own two feet. This fact may well amaze some of my readers, particularly if they come from one of those cultures where the wealthy traditionally regard walking as evidence of sin, to the point where the Watch will often arrest and interrogate people solely because they have been caught in an act of perambulation.
But the facts are the facts, and the historian has a duty to record the facts even when they may seem to call the veracity of these annals into question. The truth is that Justina Thrug habitually walked about her city on her own two feet, even though she was an imperial ruler with many slaves at her command; and, unbelievable though this may seem to many of my readers, she actually enjoyed walking.
Here we must remember that Justina Thrug was the daughter of a Yudonic Knight, and hence a child of Wen Endex; and the children of Wen Endex are possessed of a culture which is in many ways singular and unique.
After walking down Lak Street to the waterfront, Justina did not embark upon an outrigger canoe. For a start, she did not like canoes; for she was a fleshy woman, and found the constrictions of such craft nearly intolerable. Besides, she preferred to walk. So, with her loyal and reliable retainers, she strode along the embankment of crushed red coral and broken bloodstone until she came to the harbour bridge, and this she crossed.
Those who accompanied the Empress across the Harbour Bridge to the island of Jod were the corpse-master Uckermark, his woman Yilda, the conjuror Odolo, the lawyer Dardanalti and the bullman Log Jaris.
Notably absent from this expedition was Juliet Idaho, a warrior of unimpeachable loyalty but dubious reliability. Unfortunately, Idaho was a Yudonic Knight who tried to out-knight all other knights real and imaginary, living and dead; and, consequently, he had but small skills as a diplomat. If Idaho had come along, there was a danger he might have attacked the Crab; and such were the Crab’s powers that such foolishness would only have served to secure a hero’s death for the Yudonic Knight.
As Justina and her trusty few made their way across the harbour bridge, their progress was observed by a number of people. Among these was Threp Sodakik, an innocent fisherman. He was fated to be torn to pieces by sharks, and his relevance to this history is precisely zero, so no more will be said of him.
Other observers included a group of drummers based on four outrigger canoes which were rafted up together in the middle of the Laitemata. Despite the heat and the suffocating humidity, the drummers were pounding their instruments of delusion with an unabated frenzy, sweat drenching from their faces as they did so. For these juvenile delinquents, drumming was life; hence their political impact was zero, and no more will be said of them either.
The Empress Justina was also scrutinized by several of the many spies who those days infested Injiltaprajura. At this time, fear and suspicion had reached such a pitch that virtually every power in the city had its spies, so it is certain that the Empress was under observation. However, as it has proved impossible for the historian to unravel the intricacies of espionage and counterespionage which played such an important part in the final days of imperial rule on Untunchilamon, nothing more will be said of these spies.
The oncoming band of petitioners was observed from the Analytical Institute. Artemis Ingalawa (Jon Qasaba’s sister-in-law, and hence Olivia Qasaba’s aunt) looked up from her work and saw them approaching. But, as the algorithmist’s attention was engaged by a complicated problem in binary logic, she returned to her labours and thought no more about it.
Thus it would have appeared to the casual observer that nobody was paying any attention whatsoever to the progress of the imperial party, who might have been mistaken for an idle group of tourists on their way to gawk at the Analytical Engine.
Of course the reality was entirely different.
Many people were watching Justina, either directly or by proxy; and her mission was one of the utmost delicacy, danger and importance, which was why she had very carefully chosen her companions.
The bullman Log Jaris had been brought along precisely because he had the head, horns and fur of a bull, for all that he walked along on two feet like a man. Justina suspected that the Crab knew that many people feared and hated it merely because it was in Crab shape rather than human. Justina personally found the crustacean configuration aesthetically pleasing, but doubted that the Crab would believe her if she simply stated this fact; so,
