Her twin sister Theodora was not as continent. Nightly, Theodora was holding revels with Troldot ‘Heavy-Fist’ Turbothot, a trader from Hexagon who owned and captained one of the ships which had been anchored in the Laitemata all through the Long Dry. But Justina herself slept solo, except when she took the Princess Sabitha to bed.
On waking, the Empress listened for drums. She had banned all ‘drumming’ in the precincts of the pink palace, but someone was disobeying her orders. At odd moments of night and day, she had heard the ominous tok — tok — thuk of a small hand drum echoing through her hallowed halls. The culprit might be a young soldier; or a waiter; or someone else. Whoever it was, Justina wanted them caught and stopped.
Justina listened.
She heard…
A mosquito.
The clicketing of some unidentifiable night insect.
And:
Her own heavy breathing.
Apart from that, nothing.
The night was not ruled by sound but by heat, the ever-heat of the tropics, the soft wet suffocation of the island nights. Justina felt as if she was wrapped in warm wet dishcloths. Her folds and clefts were swampy with sweat, with the hot ooze of fluid, the slow spralpablan-darakatarla of a woman’s bloodsea waters.
Justina Thrug scratched at her sweating armpits, digging her fingers into her tousled axillary hair as if trying to dislodge lice, then lay back on the damp sheet and pondered her dreams, as was her habit. She was a child of Wen Endex, and her own culture lacked a formal theory of dreams; nevertheless, Justina had developed her own personal oneirocritical methods, and applied them regularly to her own reveries.
What had she dreamed of?
Of home.
Of Wen Endex, land of upthrust rock and watersky winds, of sea-shocked dunes and horizon to horizon swamp-lands, of gloating quicksands and whirlpool rivers, of black-boughed forests where only the brave or the foolish dared to venture. Of the slopes of Mobius Kolb and the battlements of Saxo Pall, of the dark gutterals of the Riga Rimur and the uncanny flirtation of the zana. Red, gold, green, blue and pink were the zana.
‘Ah,’ said Justina, breathing her loss.
Tears filled her eyes. She was — for the moment — utterly homesick. She longed for the mud of Galsh Ebrek and the shores of the Winter Sea. And, possessed by such longing, Justina found it impossible to get back to sleep. Did Tromso Stavenger still rule the Families? Did Qa still lord it over Island Thodrun? Did heroes still quest for the saga swords, the brave blades Kinskom, Edda and Sulamith’s Grief?
‘Enough of that,’ said Justina firmly.
If she survived the dangers of Untunchilamon, then one day she would return to her homeland. But for the moment she must concentrate on the struggle for survival.
So thinking, the Empress did her best to get back to sleep. But insomnia defeated her. At last, abandoning the struggle, she rose from her bed, the shadows of her nakedness wallowing in her bedroom mirrors as she hunted for a silken robe of spiderweb silver, that shade known to the Janjuladoola tongue as rolabalibolifontas-dima. Once dressed, she left her room, the fluent fabric of her robe slick-sliding against her flesh as she strode down darkened corridors.
The Empress Justina, ruler of the hearts and ribs of many, ascended some stairs and ventured out on to the roof. The night was possessed by a sweltering heat despite the steady breeze; it was moonless but bright-pricked by stars.
Justina looked out over her city of dreams and nightsweats. Somewhere, a cockerel screamed, its arrogant challenge abrupting through the dark without warning. Somewhere, a dog barked, then was silent. Apart from that, the city was quiet.
Green, blue and white shone the stars; red and purple; yellow and mauve. Were stars related to the zana? And if so, then how? Were there any black stars? And supposing there were, how would one see them against the night? Those stars low on the horizon trembled incessantly, as did the night-lights of the fishing canoes out on the Laitemata Harbour. There is a Janjuladoola myth which says the night sky is a sea fished by a race of lesser gods, and that the stars are the fishing lights of those gods; Justina knew that myth, but preferred the tale native to Wen Endex which declared the stars to have been cast into the sky at whim by a spirit of frivolous inclination. To play with such conceits was particularly pleasing at a time like this when life had become, for the most part, so very very serious.
Justina stalked the rooftop in her silver robe, and was pleased to be challenged by the sentries posted in each of the four belfries. The bells themselves had been removed and destroyed on the orders of the Hermit Crab. No longer did they ring out to announce the start of bardardornootha, istarlat, salahanthara and undokon-dra. The day’s four quarters merged into each other without formal announcement; and for some obscure reason this seemed to increase the oppressiveness of the heat, the humidity of the air, and the zest possessed by that great tormenter, the mosquito.
Ah, the mosquito!
Lord of blood, master of But I must restrain myself; for, once started on the subject of the mosquito, I would be unable to stop until my scorpioned handwriting had covered both sides of a full quire of fooskin. That I would have done when I was younger and not so sane as I am now. But increasing age and sanity have given me a better sense of proportion. And, besides, the price of fooskin is monstrous, and likewise the opium needed to subdue the pains of my arthritis; and both these factors encourage me to adopt the terse concision of this present text, so different from the expansiveness of my earlier years.
Therefore I here say nothing whatsoever about the mosquito, that winged vampire which the Dagrin say is the creation of the devil-god.
(And here please note that the devil-god in question is the Evil One, Storpandif the Stone Fish, the death-lurker of the coral reefs; and is not to be confused by that mightier deity of the Dagrin, the formidable Elasmokar-charos, who is identified with the shark.)
Avoiding the subject of the mosquito — that beast with the teeth of a cactus, the whine of a woman and the morals of a pirate — I continue my account of the Empress Justina, who, having identified herself to her guards, ventured to her pool, the rooftop swimming pool which alone made these days of waiting bearable.
Waiting?
Yes, that was how the imperial days were largely spent.
Unlike Vorn the Gladiator, Justina could achieve nothing by careering around the universe trying to lop off heads. Those decisive destructions in which Vorn so casually indulges himself were forbidden to the Empress, for incontinent violence would serve only to secure her own death and ruin for ever her hopes of evacuating her supporters from Untunchilamon.
Until the Trade Fleet came, Justina’s best strategy was to preserve the status quo; and that she could best do by bluff, which meant carrying on the routines of her life with every appearance of imperturbable confidence. Until the Trade Fleet came, heroic action of any description was quite out of place; and nothing Justina could do would hurry the advent of that Fleet.
Justina, her modesty (such as it was) preserved by night, slipped off her robe and lowered herself into the water. Though dawn was not far off, the water was still warm. It would be strange to return to Wen Endex, where wet and damp were always so chilled that they must be feared as life-threateners. If she returned to Wen Endex…
If all else failed, a very swift return might be possible, at least for Justina herself. If the flying ship worked.
The flying ship?
This fantastical construction looked for all the world like a gigantic nest constructed by an untidy and braindamaged bird. It sat atop the roof of the pink palace near the swimming pool; the wizard Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin had spent days working on this weird contraption, and averred that he would shortly make it fly. But Justina had her doubts. She had little acquaintance with wizards, hence was inclined to accept the sorcerers’ valuation of the breed; the wonder-workers of Injiltaprajura were adamant that the magic of wizards was weak stuff, slow to work if it ever worked at all. Still, they would very shortly see one way or another, for the ship’s maiden flight was scheduled for that very morning.