Crown Phoenix: Night Watchman Express Page 43

Chapter 16

  The Festival

  andayala picked up another pearl necklace and tried it against her already laden breast. Something in the stony regard of her maid, who stared straight ahead over her mistress’ shoulder, made her put it down reluctantly. She revolved slowly in front of the mirror, thinking that her appearance would please the most exacting of society’s finest ruling members.

  Tonight she would sparkle and Atol would notice her. She would mention how her husband (the insignificant Girawe) was so much more reliable than that odious Weko, who hid sick girls in his garden shed and whose house was searched by the palace guards.

  She picked up a large glass flagon and gave herself one last copious squirt of perfume. She simpered at the mirror, snapped her fingers under the nose of her maid and descended, her tangerine and black train dripping down the stairs behind her.

  Girawe waited below, his face turned up and wearing its usual anxious expression. “We’re going to be late,” he complained.

  “Stop whining,” Mandayala commanded, and he subsided. “The most important issue is: how do I look?”

  “Lovely,” he murmured. He  gave her a kiss on the cheek that she proffered. A heavy wave of perfume overtook him, and he backed away with a cough. “The chair is waiting, if you’re ready.”

  “One last look.” She patted the tight, oiled braids wound around her ears as she peered in a glass hung in the hall. “Yes, that will do very well. Now, let’s depart.”

  He took her plump forearm between finger and thumb and guided her to the waiting chair, a conveyance that had been outlawed in Pearson’s time. Thank goodness, Mandayala reflected, Atol didn’t stick to such old-fashioned, ridiculous notions about workers’ rights. He had reintroduced the mode of rickshaw transportation to the islands. Otherwise, they would actually have to walk, or ride some ridiculous animal.

  She climbed in, sat down, and arranged her skirts around her feet. Girawe, after giving directions to the four attendants, sat opposite her.

  “Well,” she said as they were hoisted in the air and borne in the direction of the Palace, “this is very nice, Girawe. We can see everyone and what they’re wearing. I wonder what happened at dear Chichilia’s house this afternoon. I doubt she’ll come tonight, don’t you? Oh look, there’s Sentilo and Uwe. She’s wearing green, poor thing. I wonder that her maid didn’t warn her to wear a more fortunate color for her complexion. Oh no, Duma is in white! She’ll be splashed with mud from head to foot with this rain! Yes, her hem is nearly four inches deep with it already.”

  Girawe, from long practice, ignored this monologue, emitting grunts of agreement at intervals to give the impression that he was listening. The chair joined a line of other titled and moneyed Lampalans, who were travelling by the same mode of transportation as Mandayala and Girawe, heading to the lagoon where the waiting palace boats would ferry them across to the festival.

  “I wonder where Zonafe is. She said that she would lend me – oh, look, Girawe! How very odd!” Mandayala poked her head further out of the chair’s canopy, totally obscuring her husband’s view. She nudged him. “What do you think it is?”

  “I can’t see, my dear, with you in the window,” he said in a mild tone.

  “Well, look out there where I direct you!” she said, withdrawing her head a fraction of an inch. “See?”

  There was a line of dark figures, dressed as plainly as Capuchin monks, with black hoods over their heads. They walked in a straight line past the chairs, looking neither to the left or the right, and acknowledging no one.

  “Who can it be?” Mandayala mused. “It must be some sort of Palace entertainment. Oh yes, there’s some sort of clown, or magician, or something – no, there’s two of them.” A pair of slim figures, masked and in bright scarlet satin, pirouetted and danced around the robed monks, who ignored them and glided on in silence.

  One of the red imps saw Mandayala’s chair. Pointing and howling in a high cackle, the devilish figure threw something onto the cushions behind her broad back. There was a bright explosion which made Mandayala sit back and squeal, followed by a puff of orange smoke.

  “How dare they?!” Mandayala shouted. “Can you believe that outrage? I’m going to file a complaint – oh, look!”

  She grabbed for something that had appeared in the explosion – a little gilded box, wrought to look like a birdcage, with a parrot carved out of bolemor wood and set with corals and abalone. “How pretty!”

  “Not going to file a complaint?” Girawe ventured.

  “A complaint? Of course not! How ridiculous you are at times. Such an original way of giving gifts! Atol is all nicety and condescension!” Mandayala put the little box on the seat beside her and stuck her head out of the window again. “We’re nearly at the lagoon now – oh, those people in black robes are all getting onto one boat. Where are those red imps? I’ve lost sight of them now. Maybe they’ll throw some more presents.”

  The chair was lowered, and one attendant opened the door. Mandayala pushed her way out and looked around for the flame-colored clowns, but there was no sight of them. She dragged Girawe by the elbow and pushed her way into the line of gorgeously attired Lampalans waiting for the next boat. Quickly she was absorbed by a large group of other women, all involved in.

  “Zonafe! There you are!” Mandayala kissed a pretty girl in line ahead of her on both cheeks. “Did you bring that lace you said I could use? Uwe, such a lovely shade of green. It suits you exactly! Where did you get it – I must tell my maid –”

  “Wonderful scent,” Uwe responded. “And so brave of you to wear such an overwhelming perfume. I must buy some myself. Oh, did you see those red clowns? So clever of Atol, don’t you think, to come up with such original pastimes while we’re waiting?”

  “Charming,” Mandayala murmured. A palace guard assisted her as she climbed onto a boat. Girawe followed her, and she sank onto a padded, velvet seat. The boatman raised a pole and pushed off, joining a trail of boats that floated towards the Palace, illuminated by hanging lanterns.

  “Isn’t that pretty?” Mandayala said. She felt the material of the canopy that hung over them. “I do hope it won’t rain before we get to the Palace; this boat’s cover doesn’t provide much protection – oh!”

  She shrank back as a red imp popped up from behind her cushions. “Tell your fortune, lady?” it whispered.

  “Ipa! Such a fright you gave me! My fortune, eh? Why not? How very diverting!” Mandayala offered her hand to the imp, who pushed it aside.

  “The truth is in your eyes, lady.” It looked at her closely through the holes of its feathered, sequined mask. She opened her eyes as wide as she could, staring back. After a moment, she felt rather uncomfortable.

  “What do you see?” she asked.

  “You give everyone a lot of entertainment,” it whispered.

  “Ah.” She sat back in satisfaction. “I am a top hostess, if I do say so myself. What of our present situation? Will it change? I mean, will Girawe get the promotion over Weko?”

  There was a hiss from the imp, and a low laugh. “Oh, yes, your situation will change. You can believe that, lady.”

  “We’ve arrived,” Girawe said. The boats drew up to a long flight of marble stairs that descended right down into the water. More guards helped the guests alight by picking up fans and gloves and long skirts. Mandayala leaned on a guard’s arm and scrambled up the steps. Girawe joined her, and she looked about her.

  “Where did that fortune-teller go?” she asked. “It disappeared. Most vexatious; I was just about to ask more about our fortune and your promotion.”

  “Let us enter, my dear.” Girawe tried to guide her to the steps. Casting one last, suspicious look around her, Mandayala followed the other guests into the Palace, which glowed like a planet above the long flight of stairs.

  In the huge ballroom, the guests crowded into small groups, chattering and laughing. Mandayala and Girawe were handed crystal glasses of champagne. Mandayala took a long swallow
and gestured with her glass to a large dais at the back of the room. “There’s Atol himself!” she said, burping slightly.

  The king, wearing robes of striped scarlet and green with a turban to match, looked impassively over the crowd. He was surrounded by a group of guards who bore the usual wicked-looking spears.

  The chatter suddenly grew lower and died out completely. Atol frowned and squinted at the entrance. Mandayala turned and saw the line of black hooded figures winding through the crowd towards the dais. Atol murmured something to one of the guards, who picked up his spear and began to move towards the new arrivals.

  “He doesn’t know who they are,” Mandayala whispered to Girawe. “He didn’t arrange the imps and the fortunes! How very interesting! I wonder,” she said more slowly, “if we can use that to our advantage.”

  The crowd suddenly gasped and broke into wild applause. The two red clowns ran into the room, and one of them turned a double summersault. It bounded into a series of wild flips, past the line of hooded figures. The monks ignored it and continued their silent procession.

  Atol stared, and his face split into a grin. He laughed; a deep, rich chuckle and called out to the guests, “Come! Who has prepared this surprise for me! Admit it! Sentilo, was it you?”

  No one replied. The black monks continued their approach, and the first clown reached the dais and sank into a deep bow. The second one ran up behind it and clapped its hands; a shower of confetti appeared, and a parrot suddenly flew upward and landed on the back of Atol’s throne.

  The king laughed again and clapped. “Who prepared this surprise for me? It is truly magnificent! Come, tell me!” he called again.

  Mandayala suddenly had a brainwave. Pushing through the watching guests, pulling a protesting Girawe behind her, she called out, “It was us, Majesty!”

  Atol looked up and smiled. He gestured to Mandayala, who grabbed her train with one gloved hand and her husband with the other. She hurried up the steps to the throne, pushing past the black monks and the red clowns, who were both now frozen in deep bows in front of the throne.

  “But we didn’t!” Girawe protested, propelled along.

  “Shut up and come on,” Mandayala urged. She reached the throne and curtsied. “Did you enjoy your surprise, Majesty?”

  Atol inclined his head. “Most diverting. Can the acrobats do anything else?”

  “We don’t know,” Girawe began desperately.

  Mandayala cut him off with a look and replied, “They can tell your fortune, Majesty.”

  Atol’s eyes lit up. “Really! That would be most entertaining. Tell them to approach.”

  Mandayala beckoned to the bright clowns, hoping that they would obey her. She needn’t have worried; immediately they bounded up and ran up the steps. One turned a neat cartwheel in front of Atol and froze into a position of obeisance, and the other knelt and whispered, “You asked for us, Majesty?”

  Mandayala hurriedly said, “King Atol would like you to tell his fortune.”

  “Enough, woman,” Atol said, motioning her to withdraw. He stared at the red figure. “Tell me, will the Company succeed?”

  “Beyond your wildest dreams,” the imp replied.

  “Ah. And the riches of the Palace will increase?”

  “Indubitably.”

  “Tell me this,” Atol said, pushing his head towards the imp and dropping his voice. His eyes glittered. “Do you know what it is that keeps me awake night after night, unable to sleep?”

  The red figure nodded its head slowly. “It is a question, Majesty.”

  “Yes. And do you know the answer?”

  The imp nodded again. Slowly, he rolled back one tight scarlet sleeve, revealing white skin. Holding out his arm, he rubbed it with his other hand for a few moments. Atol looked closely, and slowly, two words appeared on the imp’s arm in red letters: MANA LIVES.

  The king’s eyes bulged and he leapt back in alarm. Recovering himself, he shouted, “Treason! Guards! Take them!”

  The guards lunged for the clowns, but the red figures evaded them and ran down the stairs. One of them leapt in a t cartwheel off the bottom step, and it thumbed its nose at Atol before dashing off.

  “Catch them!” Atol shouted, his forehead bulging with fury. He looked about him and his eyes fell on the astonished faces of Mandayala and Girawe. They both were cowering by the throne, hoping to be forgotten.

  “You– you-” Atol choked on his own anger. “Death! Dishonor! Torture! You will be hanged for this!”

  “Stop!” The shout came from one of the black-robed monks. They had been standing in a row by the steps, forgotten in the tumult. The one in front threw back her hood, revealing Mana.

  She walked up the steps to the dais, her head held upright and her eyes fixed on Atol. “Your reign is over, Atol. I claim the throne in the name of my family.”

  “Seize her!” Atol shouted. “Machi! Guards!”

  Another monk threw back his robe and pointed at the palace guards, who stopped, perplexed, when they saw him. “Don’t move,” he said. “I, Kyoge, your captain, order you.”

  “Kyoge!” Atol staggered back. “Treason! You will be hanged too! And Manapalata!” He turned suddenly to the guests, who were frozen in attitudes of shock and fascination. “Honored guests! Will you allow this pretender to take the throne from your king?”

  Kyoge reached the step where Mana was and turned to the crowd. He held up a thick sheaf of parchment and shouted, “Here are the Sacred Documents of Lampala, which prove without a doubt that Queen Manapalata is our ruler!”

  The crowd rippled. Someone in the back yelled, “Hurrah for our queen!”

  “Queen Manapalata!” another guest echoed. he room erupted in wild shouts. “Queen! Our Queen! Queen Mana!”

  “Watch out!” Chichilia gasped, taking off her own hood and pointing. Machi was approaching Mana with his spear in his hand, his teeth bared in a snarl.

  Kyoge seized the other guard in his huge arms. He took Machi’s spear and broke it over his own knee. The guards who had been guarding the king clustered behind Machi in order to defend him.

  “Stop it at once,” Mana ordered, raising one arm and pointing at the guards grouped behind Machi. They hesitated and slowly put down their weapons. One got onto his knee and bowed his head, pointing his spear towards her, and the other followed suit.

  “Queen, forgive us,” one said.

  “What shall I do with miserable wretch?” Kyoge gripped the struggling Machi in a tight hold.

  “Forget him for the moment.” Mana said. “We have other things to worry about. Where is Atol?”

  They looked around the dais and the ballroom, but in the disturbance, the former king had somehow disappeared.