The Two of Swords: Part 9 by K. J. Parker Read Free Book Online

graphic scenes of the Day of Judgement, the punishment of the damned and the enrapturement of the Elect. All four walls and the ceiling were covered with mosaics, mostly scenes of feasting and the hunt. The bed was the size of a large hay wagon, and the chamber pot was rose-pink alabaster. Her room was next door; half the size but still bewilderingly huge. The walls were decorated with tapestries and the ceiling was a fresco of a personified Blemya trampling on a nest of disturbingly realistic snakes, presumably representing the old Empire; there was, however, no bath.
    “That’s all right,” Oida said. “You can use mine. Any time.”
    She glowered at him. “I’ll send down for a big basin of hot water and a sponge.”
    “As you wish.” He sat down on her bed. “A bit on the lumpy side compared to mine. Still, a damn sight better than what we’ve been used to lately. Now aren’t you glad you came?”
    “No.”
    “Ah well.” He stood up, then knelt down and placed his hand palm-down on the marble floor. “Underfloor heating,” he said. “They run hot water through bloody great copper pipes under the floor tiles.”
    “I thought it was a bit stuffy in here. Can you make it stop?”
    “Not really. It’d mean putting out the fire in the big boiler down in the cellars, which supplies hot water to the whole palace complex. I don’t think it’s gone out any time in the last hundred and fifty years.” He stood up. “You’ll just have to grin and bear it,” he said. “If it gets too much for you, I suggest taking a blanket and a pillow out on to the balcony.”
    She growled at him. “We didn’t get anything like this the last time.”
    “True. But then we weren’t guests of honour, we were part of a delegation they were being politely rude to, so we got stuck in the poky little rooms on the fifth floor. More protocol, see. They do love it so.”
    She took the makeshift veil off and wound it round a bed post. “Have you found out when we’ve got to do this presentation thing?”
    “Not yet. You’d better get ready. We’ve got the reception next, followed by dinner.”
    She glanced down at the dress she was wearing. The other one was filthy with dust from the road. “I’m ready now.”
    He studied her for a moment. “No,” he said, “you’re not. Try and do something with your hair, for pity’s sake. I don’t know what to suggest about your nails. Make two fists, and lean forward when you eat.”
    Both the Eastern and Western ambassadors were at the reception, anxious to meet the celebrated Oida so that they could tell their friends about it when they got home. It was quite easy to tell them apart; the Westerner was short, bald and thin, the Easterner was tall and fat, with a mop of white hair. They both smiled very pleasantly at her, then ignored her completely.
    There was also an ambassador, or something vaguely equivalent, from the Lodge, and she was sorely tempted to try and get a private word with him, in the hope that he could expedite her escape, or at the very least get a report back to her superiors, so they’d know she was still alive. But whenever she tried to get near him, he seemed to shy away and find some Blemyan to talk to. He couldn’t be avoiding her, because how could he possibly know who she was; and if he did know, why wouldn’t he want to talk to her? But it was rather strange, and made her feel nervous.
    The dinner presented its own problems. She was hungry, and the food looked wonderful – escalopes of pork in a honey and mustard sauce, with chickpeas and anchovies and salad and thin strips of fried apple – but the thought of trying to eat in a veil melted her appetite like snow in sunshine, and she told the man sitting next to her that she was fasting, as part of the purification process. He turned out to be a junior minister in the Exchequer, so she asked him to explain Jotapian’s Law of sound money to her, and was mildly amused when he got most of it