CHAPTER SIXTEEN
As the Empress Justina was hustled towards the Temple of Torture she collapsed, she went down, and the boots went in. Then Dardanalti was shouting, his lawyerly threats restoring order. Justina was hauled to her feet and marched into the Temple, into a blood-cooking heat where the air stank of curry-flavoured diarrhoea, where screams of agony bucked and contorted, where writhing smoke singed nostrils and rasped within throats.
Then the Empress was hauled into the naos of the Temple, and there was Dui Tin Char, and there were two children of Wen Endex — but both men were strangers, and their faces denied her all hope of help. An executioner bulked forward and wrenched back her head.
‘Stop!’ said Dardanalti. ‘I demand-’
Someone hit him, and he demanded no more.
Justina tried to plead, to protest. But vomited instead.
The executioner raised his blade.
Justina fainted.
‘Hold!’ cried Dui Tin Char.
Obediently the executioner stayed his hand.
‘Come on, man,’ said Manthandros Trasilika testily. ‘Get on with it.’
Dardanalti picked himself up from the ground, wiped a thread of blood from his mouth, and decided that for the moment his client would best be served by his silence.
‘The Thrug has fainted,’ said Tin Char.
‘What of it?’ said Trasilika, he of the heavyweight build and the cauliflower ear.
‘Your colleague will explain,’ said Tin Char, glancing at Jean Froissart.
The priest of Zoz the Ancestral stammered, looked around as if seeking an escape hatch, saw there was no getting out of the place, then said defiantly:
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘It is Written,’ said Tin Char, ‘that Delight depends on Desire, and the heights of Desire upon a studied Postponement. Is that not so?’
‘Verily,’ said Froissart weakly.
The sweat was bulging from his forehead and furrowing down his face. His eyes blinked furiously.
‘Are you ill?’ said Tin Char.
‘It’s the heat,’ said Froissart.
‘He’s had malaria,’ added Trasilika.
Whether heat or malaria was to blame, the great and ever-increasing distress of Jean Froissart was a sight to see. Tin Char found it a most delicious sight. Tin Char was a Janjuladoola racist who hated the children of Wen Endex; therefore he found Froissart’s suffering worth savouring. How could that suffering be prolonged?
The answer came to Tin Char almost immediately. ‘Friend Froissart, ’ said Tin Char, ‘I’m most concerned to see you suffering so badly. We will therefore dedicate this sacrifice to the cause of your improved health. You are conscious of the honour, I hope?’
‘Yes,’ said Froissart weakly.
‘Then,’ said Tin Char, ‘we will proceed, but in the leisurely way that this most honourable ceremony demands. We will start with the Torture of the Thousand Scorpions. Ah, Justina! Are you awakening? You are? Good. You will be happy to hear that your execution has been postponed. Instead, we are going to commence with some preliminary delights.’
Tin Char explained, and his explanation left Justina Thrug so sick with fear and horror that her vocal chords were temporarily paralysed. As she was strapped down in a torture chamber, Dardanalti intervened on her behalf, saying:
‘By what authority do you bring Justina here?’
‘By the authority of this warrant,’ said Tin Char, flourishing Jus tina’s death warrant before her lawyer. Dardanalti snatched it, read i t, then said:
‘This warrant is good, valid and legal. On behalf of my client, I demand that this warrant be executed immediately. I demand that my client be killed on the spot.’
‘You are in no position to demand anything,’ said Dui Tin Char, starting to get angry.
How dare this prating attorney interfere?
‘I demand,’ said Dardanalti, ‘what Aldarch the Third demands. This warrant is from Aldarch Three. He demands and commands the immediate execution of Justina Thrug. Immediate. As in now. Executioner, proceed!’
‘Yes,’ said Froissart, who wanted to get out of that sweltering place of blood and shadows, to escape before he fainted. ‘Yes, kill her.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Justina faintly, as she found her voice at last. ‘Kill me.’
The Empress Justina knew death to be far preferable to the horrors offered as an alternative, particularly when those horrors would in any case ultimately lead to her demise.
‘What say you?’ said Tin Char, looking at Manthandros Trasilika. ‘As wazir, you have wide discretionary powers. Even in the face of a direct order such as this warrant. Well. Are you wazir, or are you not?’
‘I am,’ said Trasilika, with more emphasis than was strictly necessary.
The vehemence of Trasilika’s insistence startled Tin Char. It consolidated a dozen half-felt suspicions into a series of most definite questions. Was there more to Froissart’s mounting panic than a surfeit of heat? Were these two children of Wen Endex the wazir and priest they claimed to be?
What an interesting line of thought!
Dardanalti, whose mind was as sharp as a meat skewer, observed Tin Char’s speculative scrutiny of Jean Froissart and guessed its cause. Here was hope!
‘May I humbly suggest,’ said Dui Tin Char, ‘that you establish your authority by granting me permission to vary the terms of this warrant. ’
Dardanalti was disappointed. He had expected Tin Char to denounce Jean Froissart as a false priest. But Tin Char had not. Why not? Maybe his suspicions were too slight. Maybe, thought Dardanalti, Tin Char actually did not have such suspicions. Or maybe he suspected but reserved those suspicions for later exploitation.
‘We all know from historical example,’ continued Tin Char, ‘that Aldarch the Third is very lenient in his attitude to death warrants. It would seem to me that he cares not how they are executed, as long as the subject of the warrant ends up dead.’
Tin Char then cited several historical cases to back up his judgement. Then he made a little speech.
‘Manthandros Trasilika. Untunchilamon has long suffered the lack of legal leadership. We are ready for a true wazir. We hope you show yourself to be such a man. But… may I venture a small observation? Untunchilamon is far removed from the heartland of the Izdimir Empire. Our wazirs have traditionally been chosen for their initiative, independence and self-sufficiency. All qualities unacceptable in Obooloo, as we know. But our isolation demands that we have a true leader in our midst, lest our island be paralysed by a bureaucracy with its brain seated half an ocean away. Manthandros Trasilika. I beg you. Grant me this boon. Show yourself to be a wazir true. Show your initiative. Your independence. Your confidence. Show us we have the leader we desire. Grant us a variance to the terms of this warrant. Allow me to torture the Thrug before she is killed.’
There was a pause.
Jean Froissart swayed on his feet, as if he would faint.
But Manthandros Trasilika was made of sterner stuff. He looked Tin Char in the face and he said:
‘Dui Tin Char, I speak to you as the rightful wazir of Injiltaprajura. The witch must die. That is the law. But, as wazir, I grant a variance to the terms of her death warrant. You may torture the Thrug before you kill her.’
‘Excellent!’ said Tin Char. ‘May the pleasures both major and minor delight your years till the very end, and may your hereafter join your ancestors amidst the fragrance of the nine million lotus flowers of the seventy-fifth heaven. May you-’
But there is no need to give the rest of Tin Char’s speech of gratitude, for it is one of those formalized speeches which most cultivated people know by heart; the uncultivated but curious student will find the complete text (plus an account of the appropriate accompanying hand gestures) in Lady Jade’s Book of Common Etiquette.
With the speech complete, Dui Tin Char ordered that ten hundred scorpions be produced so the Torture of the Thousand Scorpions could commence. Unfortunately, there were not a thousand scorpions to be found. Indeed, there was not even one. A furious Tin Char swiftly extorted the truth from two shamefaced acolytes: they had sold the delectable arachnids to Jarry the chef, Ganthorgruk’s master of cookery.