Justina met regularly with Dardanalti in a bid to find a legal solution to her difficulties. If all else failed, she planned to seize a dozen ships by brute force and flee from Untunchilamon. But was there a way for her to take those ships legally, without going to war against their crews?
Furthermore, what would happen if a new wazir came to Injiltaprajura aboard one of the ships of the Trade Fleet? If Aldarch Three had already triumphed in Talonsklavara — a strong possibility — then an Aldarch appointee might be on his way to Untunchilamon with a death warrant commanding the execution of Justina Thrug.
Long had Justina and Dardanalti wrestled with these problems, but without coming any nearer to a solution. Justina had no great hopes for this latest meeting, but, to her surprise, Dardanalti announced that he had finished his analysis of her predicament.
‘Surprise me,’ said Justina.
‘By exhaustive research,’ said Dardanalti, ‘I find there is no way you can legally seize twelve ships or avoid the wrath of any incoming wazir.’
‘That,’ said Justina severely, ‘surprises me not at all. I’m not paying you to tell me what I can’t do. What’s the matter with you? Isn’t the success bonus big enough? If it isn’t, maybe you’re getting a little too greedy.’
‘My lady,’ said Dardanalti hastily, ‘you misjudge me. I know this matter to be dear to your heart.’
‘To put it mildly,’ said Justina.
‘So,’ continued Dardanalti, ‘once the search for legal methods was exhausted, I began to explore those which, ah, are not strictly in accordance with legislated guidelines.’
‘Illegal methods,’ said Justina, who always wished to simplify.
‘Um, well, in a manner of speaking,’ said Dardanalti, his customary fluency failing him. ‘Let us say, perhaps… how shall I put this? I began to contemplate a variety of manoeuvres, the legality of which has yet to be tested by the courts. That is one way of putting it.’
‘You mean for us to become partners in crime,’ said Justina. ‘Very well. If that is what we must do to survive, that is what we will do. But I can’t afford to sit here for six months or more while you dream up some wild and woolly scheme. I need something soon. Now, in fact.’
‘Then you have it,’ said Dardanalti.
‘Explain,’ said Justina, her brusqueness betraying something of the pressure she was under.
So Dardanalti did explain.
His scheme was daring, ambitious and very dangerous. Therefore it had a certain natural appeal for the Empress Justina, who was, after all, a child of Wen Endex and the daughter of a Yudonic Knight. Dardanalti proposed that they intercept one of the incoming ships of the Trade Fleet and place a false wazir aboard.
‘The false wazir would be your creature,’ said the young lawyer, growing enthusiastic as he enlarged on this scheme. ‘He would give you authorization to seize a dozen ships.’
‘But what if there was a real wazir with the Trade Fleet?’ said Justina.
‘Then things would get very sticky,’ admitted Dardanalti. ‘But we might yet win. After all, who could tell our wazir from the real thing? There’s forgers on Untunchilamon who could make the necessary seals, warrants and authorizations.’
Justina began to smile.
But only momentarily.
‘You seem,’ she said, ‘to have overlooked one vital point. Where is the candidate for this false wazirship to come from?’
She had a point. Injiltaprajura was a city of barely 30,000 souls, most of whom had been on the island for the last seven years or more. How could they find a face unknown to the city’s power brokers?
‘There is Jal Japone,’ said Dardanalti.
‘There is,’ said Justina, and left it at that.
The outlawed warlord Jal Japone effectively ruled the northern wastelands of Untunchilamon. He was of Janjuladoola race, and Justina trusted him not at all.
‘There is also,’ said Dardanalti, ‘the Dromdanjerie.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Justina.
Her lawyer had a point. The Dromdanjerie was Injiltaprajura’s lunatic asylum. It held the usual range of howling madmen, slobbering morons, helpless dements, autistic bone-bags, schizophrenic demon-angels, alcoholic degenerates and syphilitic idiots; but also imprisoned within its walls were a few very intelligent psychopaths, some of whom had not been seen in public for decades.
‘Candidates?’ said Justina.
‘Pardon?’ said Dardanalti.
‘Have you any specific candidates in mind?’ said Justina. ‘For our fake wazir, I mean?’
‘No, my lady,’ said Dardanalti.
‘Then,’ said Justina, ‘I propose that we go together to the Dromdanjerie. The sooner the better. Now being better than any time later.’
But before Justina and Dardanalti could depart, a manservant intruded upon their privacy.
‘What is it?’ said Justina.
‘We have news of the latest arrivals,’ said the manservant, referring to the two ships which had come into the Laitemata at dawn.
‘Good,’ said Justina, pleased to see that her orders were being obeyed; it was most important that the palace had intelligence about each new vessel that arrived in the harbour.
‘One is a general trader,’ said the manservant, retailing the information freshly delivered by Justina’s spies.
‘And the other?’ said Justina.
‘It is a cruise ship, ma’am.’
‘A what?’ said Justina.
‘A — a ship of ill repute,’ said the manservant.
‘He means a brothel ship,’ said Dardanalti.
‘Oh,’ said Justina. ‘I didn’t know there really were such things. I thought that was just a story.’
‘Manamalargo is famous for such cruise ships, ma’am.’
‘Well, well,’ said Justina. ‘One lives and learns. What news of Yestron?’ ‘Talonsklavara wages still. The war is undecided.’
‘Good,’ said Justina. ‘You are dismissed.’
The manservant departed, and Justina smiled.
‘That seems to solve our immediate problems,’ said Dardanalti.
‘It gives us time in which to manoeuvre,’ said Justina. ‘But no more. The sooner we choose and train our wazir the better. Come! The bedlam awaits.’
The impetuous haste with which Justina set forth for the Dromdanjerie is best explained by the agonies of impotent waiting which she had endured for so long. At last she had a plan of action: risky, uncertain, perhaps lunatic. But a plan regardless. Something she could do. And this fired her frame with energy. So forth she went with Dardanalti at her side.
But Justina had got no further than the front steps of her palace when she was intercepted by Juliet Idaho, who demanded to see her in private. Immediately.
Justina sighed, commanded Dardanalti to wait, then walked Idaho to her office. Juliet Idaho was a warrior’s warrior, a hero who would have made a fitting companion for Vorn the Gladiator on any of the missions of peril undertaken by that lusty swordsman; but Justina was not a gladiator, and sometimes (just sometimes) Idaho got on her nerves.
Once in her office, Justina sat.
‘What is it?’ said she.
‘This,’ said Juliet Idaho, passing over a document.
‘And what is this?’ said Justina.
‘That’s what I want to know,’ said Juliet Idaho, seating himself without invitation.
Justina studied Idaho’s offering, a single sheet of ricepaper nearly obliterated by a million chicken-scratchings in vermilion ink.
‘It appears to be writing,’ said she, squinting at the miniscule letters so painfully executed in a crabbed and scorpioned hand. ‘But in what language I cannot say. The words are like our dummer’s drums: they say something, but say nothing intelligible to me.’