by way of practical demonstration of her lack of prejudice where form was concerned, she was bringing along Log Jaris.
Quite apart from that, Justina was these days going to great lengths to cultivate Log Jaris’s acquaintance, because the bullman was an expert on the geography of the mazeways Downstairs. Since Justina might not be able to get off Untunchilamon, she might one day have to flee Downstairs to preserve her own life; in which case, the help of experts such as the bullman would be indispensable.
Yilda had been brought along because Justina had recruited her as a spy, and was setting her many tests of observation and recall. When they got back to the pink palace (presuming they were not eaten or otherwise destroyed by an irritated Crab) the Empress would debrief Yilda and make any recommendations needed to improve the woman’s observational talents.
The corpse-master Uckermark, a man richly tattooed and grossly scarred by burns, had been brought along as extra muscle, for he was a handy man in a fight. Justina feared assassins — and with reason — and hence seldom went anywhere without the company of loyal fighting men.
Uckermark was not actually all that loyal.
Furthermore, the Empress Justina knew as much.
She knew Uckermark to be a man very much engaged in the furtherance of his own ends. He was an individual of piratical inclinations, who had once (he did not know she knew, but she knew it right enough) gone so far as to steal Injiltaprajura’s precious wishstone on the occasion of a royal banquet. Even so, Justina felt she could safely make use of him, at least for the moment.
Perhaps she was right, perhaps she was wrong, but… either way, she had very little choice in the matter. A year ago, she had felt she could trust almost everyone on Untunchilamon. But, since an attempted coup by Aquitaine Varazchavardan, Justina’s hold on the affections of her people had become very shaky indeed. Why? Simply because the valuable illusions of invulnerable power which had long supported the reign of the Family Thrug had been rudely shattered.
These days, all Injiltaprajura knew that Justina Thrug ruled only by the good graces of the Crab, which had intervened to restore her to the throne after Varazcha-vardan’s coup. Injiltaprajura knew too that, were the Thrug to lose the Crab’s support, she would swiftly be overthrown by the wonderworkers of the Cabal House, or the Inland Revenue, or her own soldiers, or a priestly conspiracy acting in the name of the Izdimir Empire, or by some whim of the mob.
With Justina went Dardanalti, the lawyer who had first entered her life on the recommendation of Log Jaris.
Also with the Empress was the conjuror Odolo, whom she brought along for the sole purpose of confusing her enemies. She knew her enemies wasted much time and effort wondering (and seeking to discover precisely) what dark part the ever-present conjuror played in the imperial power plays. The mundane truth (a truth which the imperial enemies never suspected) was that Odolo was no more than he appeared to be, that is to say, an entertainer and a personal friend of the Empress.
(And in this connection let us say that the oliveskinned Odolo is not to be confused with the professional jester or fool whom you will find at many courts imperial, for the Empress Justina had no need for such; she was her own fool, and maintained a sense of proportion without the professional assistance of a jester.)
On reaching the island of Jod, the Empress Justina conducted her expeditionary force to the cave where Chegory Guy and Olivia Qasaba were attending to the needs of the Crab.
When discovered by the Empress, Chegory and Olivia were locked together in a close embrace. Given the heat of the day, this embrace must have been extremely uncomfortable; and, as the mouths of those two young people were in intimate communication, it must have been rather difficult for them to breathe. Perhaps this combination of this discomfort and difficulty accounts for the fact that both were distinctly heard to be moaning.
For its own part, the Crab was doing very little. To be more precise, it was doing precisely nothing; and looked for all the world like a statue of itself.
Justina was startled to see the chips of glass, the rags of silk and other junk coliaged across the Crab’s carapace. The Empress did not receive regular intelligence reports on the hermit of Jod because fear made people give the thing the widest berth possible. It was the imperial startlement which prompted her first question:
‘Blood of the Gloat! What has happened to you?’ ‘What has happened to me?’ said the Crab. ‘I appear to have been disturbed by a crowd of uninvited visitors led by the daughter of a Yudonic Knight. That is w hat has happened to me.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ said Justina. ‘I meant — oh, never mind. I have to talk to you about something important.’
‘Nothing is important,’ said the Crab.
Whether the Crab really believed this is a moot point, and my own opinion is that it did not. However, rather than arguing the point, Justina began to pour out her sorrows. She told the Crab all about the depredations of Dui Tin Char and the uncertainties which now attended her grip on life and power alike.
While Justina was thus lecturing the Crab, a juvenile delinquent arrived to see what had drawn this great crowd to the domicile of Injiltaprajura’s most distinguished eremite. The delinquent was Shabble.
‘Hello,’ said Shabble brightly. ‘What’s going on?’ ‘Hush,’ said Ch egory Guy, who had ceased his slow-motion wrestling with the delectabl e Olivia Qasaba.
‘But why?’ said Shabble.
To this, Chegory made no answer.
So Shabble drifted closer.
‘… and after all,’ said the Empress Justina, ‘it was you who imposed the present peace upon Injiltaprajura. When Dui Tin Char moves against the pink palace, that’s really an offence against your dignity.’
‘Dignity,’ said the Crab heavily, ‘is a vanity. I am not partial to the vanities.’
‘There’s more to it than questions of vanity,’ said the Empress, with a note of desperation in her voice.
And she went on to elaborate.
While the Empress was elaborating, an ant of the red and biting kind (a very Ebrell Islander in its humours) was doing its best to circumnavigate Shabble’s surface. As Shabble had temporarily made Shabbleself a mirror, this surface reflected the tense and anxious spectators, notably the hard-bitten Yilda (a woman somewhere between the ages of forty and sixty), the corpse-master Uckermark (he of the many tattoos) and the conjuror Odolo (he of the olive skin and the hooked nose).
Shabble, who was no respecter of persons (or of much else, for that matter) rubbed Shabbleself against Justina’s neck in order to be rid of the ant. This was a merciful way to dispose of this nuisance, since Shabble could just as easily have heated Shabbleself until the ant was burnt alive, or (alternatively) could have made Shabbleself’s surface as cold as ice (or colder), thus freezing the poor thing.
Unfortunately the insect, when let loose upon the neck imperial, failed to appreciate either the honour which had been done to it or the dangers of its present position; and, irritated or enraged by some ant-style emotions which it is beyond the power of the historian to elucidate, the small hymenopterous insect launched a sanguinary assault upon the mistress of the pink palace.
Now it happens that Justina Thrug was great in mercy; and, had she realized that she was under attack from such a source, she might have asked Yilda or Log Jaris to remove the thing. But such was the stress of the moment that Justina merely brushed the beast away, crushing it without consciously realizing she had felt the thing bite her.
‘… and,’ said Justina, ‘given your help, I could secure ships sufficient to remove myself and my supporters from Untunchilamon for ever. All I need is help sufficient to maintain my power until the Trade Fleet comes.’
‘Why should I help you?’ said the Crab.
‘Out of mercy,’ said Justina.
And Shabble said, brightly:
‘I’ve found a cockroach.’
Nobody took any notice.
‘I will be eternally grateful for any help you give me,’ said the Empress Justina, still speaking to the Crab.
‘You will not live for eternity,’ said the Crab. ‘You will be lucky if you live another forty years. Your rhetoric is
