Among those who were particularly subdued were Bro Drumel (captain of Justina’s palace guard) and Hostaja Torsen Sken-Pitilkin (builder of the imperial airship). Fear of torture was depressing the elegant Drumel, who nightly dreamt of the agony he expected to suffer ultimately at the hands of Aldarch the Third. For his own part, Sken-Pitilkin was near dead with fatigue. He was feeling his age, and was bowed down by the rigours of his airship building labours.
While the mood was subdued, the food was not, and an amazement of good things were served to the guests. There was a surpassing succulence of dragonlord salad, expensive stuff indeed as it is cut from the heart of the headgrowth of a coconut tree, and the tree necessarily dies as a result of this interference with its foliage. There was a wealth of lotus seeds soaked in honey. There was bottled abalone, fresh chicken livers, jellyfish soup, stuffed sea slugs and, of course, the inevitable flying fish (braised, stewed and brewed up in a chowder).
While this feast was in progress, a messenger slipped up to Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun. Ek and whispered into the ear of the High Priest of Zoz the Ancestral.
Ek’s eyes did not widen, nor did he blanch. For Master Ek was an old man who had endured a great many shocks and knew how to keep calm in a crisis. Even so, there was a slight tremor in his voice when he conveyed the gist of the message to his acolytes Paach Ch’ha Saat and Aath Nau Das.
‘We have been warned,’ said Ek.
‘Of what?’ said Ch’ha Saat.
‘Shut up!’ said Nau Das. ‘He’s telling us, isn’t he?’
‘I only-’
‘Silence!’ hissed Ek. ‘Listen. The messenger brought me a warning. There will be violence tonight. We must be ready to kill. Things are coming to a crisis.’
‘Why?’ said Nau Das. ‘What is it?’
‘Our spies have uncovered a plot,’ said Ek. ‘The Thrug is planning something.’
‘What?’ said Nau Das
‘The Froissart thing will fail its test tonight. Then we will have to kill it. We will have no choice. It is a false priest, however accomplished its tongue.’
‘So we kill it,’ said Nau Das. ‘So what?’
‘The Thrug has another wazir on hand,’ said Ek. ‘What!’
‘Yes. A madman. From the Dromdanjerie.’
‘But who?’
‘Our sources give two possible candidates. One is Orge Arat.’
‘Him!’
‘Yes, him. The axe murderer.’
‘But that’s impossible. Too many people know who he is. And what.’
‘Yes, so he’s not the most likely choice. It’s more probably the other candidate.’
‘Who?’ ‘Rye Phobos,’ said Ek.
‘The name means nothing,’ said Nau Das.
‘Nothing to me, either,’ said Ch’ha Saat.
So Ek enlightened his acolytes, explaining what Phobos had done at the age of fourteen, when he had given good cause for his permanent incarceration.
‘That was thirty years ago,’ said Ek. ‘Nobody’s seen him since. Nobody outside the staff of the Dromdanjerie.’
‘Then — the Qasaba girl!’ said Nau Das, who was always quick off the mark. ‘Olivia Qasaba. She could identify him.’
‘Yes,’ said Ek, glancing briefly at Olivia, who was even then sharing a joke with the Empress Justina. ‘But will she? We may have to overcome this false wazir by brute force.’
‘What?’ said Ch’ha Saat. ‘Just the three of us?’
‘Others here are friends of Aldarch the Third,’ said Master Ek. ‘If offered a pardon for past sins, Aquitaine Varazchavardan may come to our aid. Anyway, it takes but a moment to kill a man. We have blades. We can do it. So wait. Wait for my signal.’
Then Ek brought this whispered conference to an end and the three sat back, contemplating the fighting talent arranged around the table. All Justina’s allies were here, some of them potentially very dangerous fighters: the bullman Log Jarvis, the Yudonic Knight Juliet Idaho, the Ashdan warrior Shanvil Angarus May, the corpse-master Uckermark and his loud-mouthed woman Yilda.
The odds were in Justina’s favour.
But…
They will not dare to kill me.
So thought Master Ek. Surely Justina would not be rash enough to murder the High Priest of Zoz the Ancestral. If she did, then all the Believers on Untunchilamon would rise against her at once, and tear her from limb to limb.
So…
Let her produce her false wazir. And I will kill the thing. Then see what she dares to do.
Thus thought Master Ek, then, yielding to appetite, began to feed from the fresh dishes which were being placed on the table. There were juicy bean shoots and quantities of the rare green mushrooms which only grew in a particular place Downstairs. There was crab meat served with the finest polished white rice. And dogmeat, monkey meat, and the flesh of half a hundred cats as well.
Master Ek studied Jean Froissart anew as the time for the trial by ordeal drew near. Soon Froissart would have to pick up a ball of red-hot iron without injury to himself, thus proving himself a true priest of Zoz. Thanks to the intelligence he had received, Ek knew Froissart must fail.
But did Froissart know it?
Watching him, Ek was not sure.
At last, the moment arrived. The Empress Justina hammered on the table with a soup spoon, conjuring silence in the banqueting hall.
‘We announce,’ said she, ‘the trial by ordeal of Jean Froissart, who will handle red-hot iron to prove himself a true priest of Zoz.’
Then a cowled and black-masked figure entered the Grand Hall. This was the executioner who would put Froissart through his ordeal. Nobody knew who he was; this anonymity was not just traditional but was enshrined in the law, and was meant to protect the executioner from suffering vengeance at the hands of the friends, relatives and associates of those he ordealed, tortured or killed.
Two slaves followed the executioner into the Grand Hall. The slaves deposited a brazier mounted on an iron tripod. It was already alight. The slaves then departed, returning shortly afterwards with a similar tripod supporting a basket containing old iron. Atop the basket was a set of bellows. One of the slaves used this to excite the mass of burning charcoal in the brazier while the other fetched a bucket of cold water. Then the black-masked executioner muttered a command and both slaves left.
Nadalastabstala Banraithanchumun Ek evinced no outward interest in these proceedings, but lit another cigarette and sat back in his chair. In moments, Jean Froissart would be exposed as a fraud.
This was something to savour.
The Empress Justina then left her chair and walked to the side of the executioner, and there waited for Jean Froissart. He approached, and said, loudly:
‘My lady, I am here to undertake trial by ordeal.’
Justina smiled, then answered:
‘This trial has my favour.’
Then Froissart dropped his voice to a whisper and said:
‘Where is the salve? The magic salve?’
‘Oh, you don’t need that,’ said Justina pleasantly.
Froissart stared at her.
‘But — but you-’
‘I promised,’ said Justina, and smiled sweetly. ‘Well, I’m breaking my promise.’
‘You mustn’t!’ said Froissart savagely.
