Dust of Dreams

life.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘I’m undecided. Vanity.’
    ‘Your ageless countenance.’
    ‘The prospect of unending pleasure, actually.’
    ‘Don’t you think you might tire of it someday?’
    ‘I doubt it.’
    Queen Janath pursed her lips. ‘Interesting,’ she murmured.
     
    Tehol plucked a globe of pinkfruit from the tree beside the fountain. He studied it. ‘That was harsh,’ he said.
    ‘They wanted to make it convincing,’ said Bugg. ‘Are you going to eat that?’
    ‘What? Well, I thought it made a nice gesture, holding it just so, peering at it so thoughtfully.’
    ‘I figured as much.’
    Tehol handed him the fruit. ‘Go ahead, ruin the prosaic beauty of the scene.’
    Squishy, wet sounds competed with the fountain’s modest trickle.
    ‘Spies and secret handshakes,’ said Tehol. ‘They’re worse than the Rat Catchers’ Guild.’
    Bugg swallowed, licked his lips. ‘Who?’
    ‘Women? Lovers and ex-lovers? Old acquaintances, I don’t know. Them. They.’
    ‘This is a court, sire. The court plots and schemes with the same need that we—uh, you—breathe. A necessity. It’s healthy, in fact.’
    ‘Oh now, really.’
    ‘All right, not healthy, unless of course one can achieve a perfect equilibrium, each faction played off against the others. The true measure of success for a king’s Intelligence Wing.’
    Tehol frowned. ‘Who’s flapping that, by the way?’
    ‘Your Intelligence Wing?’
    ‘That’s the one.’
    ‘I am.’
    ‘Oh. How goes it?’
    ‘I fly in circles, sire.’
    ‘Lame, Bugg.’
    ‘As it must be.’
    ‘We need to invent another wing, I think.’
    ‘Do we now?’
    Tehol nodded, plucking another fruit and studying it contemplatively. ‘To fly true, yes. A counter-balance. We could call it the King’s Stupidity Wing.’
    Bugg took the fruit and regarded it. ‘No need, we already have it.’
    ‘We do?’
    ‘Yes, sire.’
    ‘Hah hah.’
    Bugg bit into the globe and then spat it out. ‘Unripe! You did that on purpose!’
    ‘How stupid of me.’
    Bugg glared.
     
    The two women who followed the spotty handmaiden back into the dining room were an odd study in contrast. The short, curvy one dripped and dangled an astonishing assortment of gaudy jewellery. The clothing she wore stretched the definition of the word. Shurq suspected it had taken half the night to squeeze into the studded leggings, and the upper garment seemed to consist of little more than a mass of thin straps that turned her torso into a symmetrical display of dimples and pouts. Her plumpness was, perhaps, a sign of her youth as much as of soft living, although there was plenty of indolence in her rump-swaying, overly affected manner of walking—as if through a crowd of invisible but audibly gasping admirers—perched so perfectly atop high spike-heeled shoes, with one hand delicately raised. Her petite features reminded Shurq of the painted exaggeration employed by stage actors and weeping orators, with ferociously dark eye liner flaring to glittering purple below the plucked line of her eyebrows; white dust and false bloom to the rounded plump cheeks; pink and amber gloss on the full lips in diagonal barbs converging on the corners of her faintly downturned mouth. Her hair, silky black, was bound up in a frenzied array of braided knots speared with dozens of porcupine quills, each one tipped with pearls.
    It was likely Shurq gaped for a moment, sufficient to earn an indulgent smile from the haughty little creature as she flounced closer.
    A step behind this two-legged tome of fashion travesty walked the handmaiden—at least, that’s what the captain assumed she was. A head taller than most men,burly as a stevedore, the woman was dressed in an embroidered pink gown of some sort, shrieking femininity with a desperate air, and utterly failing to render the wearer any sort of elegance whatsoever. Diamond studs glinted high on her cheeks—and Shurq frowned, realizing with a start that the handmaiden’s face was surprisingly attractive: even features, the eyes deep, the lips full and naturally sultry. Her hair was cut close to the scalp, so blonde as to be very nearly white.
    The curtsy the highborn girl presented before Queen Janath was elaborate and perfectly executed. ‘Highness, at your service.’
    Janath cleared her throat. ‘Princess Felash, welcome. May I present Shurq Elalle, captain of
Undying Gratitude
, a seaworthy vessel engaged in independent trade. Captain, Princess Felash is the