Tanith Lee - Claidi Journals 01 Read Online Free PDF

properly whipped. The whip with… spikes.”
     
    Jizania Tiger slowly raised her exquisite eyebrows.
    “A slap? A whip with spikes? I don’t recall such a whip. I think there isn’t one.” I was afraid for a moment. Dengwi knew there was.
    Then Jizania added, “However, just in case, perhaps we had better think of an alternative to the whipping.”
    I blurted again, “Thank you, thank you.” I knew well enough Jizania had power in the House. If she promised it, I’d be safe. At least for now, which always seems all you can ever hope for.
    A crazy thought came to me. Perhaps Jizania Tiger would make me one of her own maids. They were of a rarer breed than us; they didn’t even use the Maids’ Hall but had their own rooms in the Old Lady’s apartment.
    Why such an extreme of good luck should come my way I couldn’t imagine. This kept me cautious.
    Then she said, without warning, “And what did you think of the enemy-invader, the young man called Herman?”
    Did I go red? Somehow not. I think I was too surprised.
    “Er—well—he er—well he’s—er—” cleverly said I.
    “A very awful enemy, wasn’t he?” asked Jizania. “I’m sure you were terrified.” It seemed daft to lie. Her eyes seemed to say she could read one’s mind.
    “He looked just like the princes here,” I said. “Well, actually, better.”
    “Yes,” she said, “very fit and bold. And that hair.” She sounded younger than ever when she said this, only about fifty. I blushed after all. She took no apparent notice. “And the flower he brought from the Waste. That was a shock, wasn’t it, Claidi? Did you ever guess things might grow there, beautiful healthy things?”
    “No, madam, I thought the Waste was all poisoned.”
    “Some of it. Some.”
    There was a gap then. My eyes roamed uneasily. She had a spectacular, indigo-feathered bird on a perch, which sat looking at me with wise old eyes like hers.
    All at once, Jizania Tiger rose, with a stiff old grace.
    “Come along,” she said, as I scrambled up. Naturally I didn’t impertinently ask where we were going.
    Where we went, however, was through the room and a door, and down a back staircase—a winding cranky staircase with only the narrowest windows. Several floors must have gone by, and then she took a key from a bracelet and unlocked a narrow door.
    Outside the door was a hanging. Brushing that aside, we were in the Black Marble Corridor.
    Its not a lovely place. They send you there at night for lesser punishment. Strange, eerie sounds come through holes cunningly cut in the walls, and there are dimly lit, dismaying pictures of executions and people being cast out into the Waste, crying and pleading not to be. I’d sat here on the floor as a kid more than once and had nightmares afterward, as they know you will.
    At the end of the long corridor is a courtyard and, in that, the Black Marble Pavilion.
    Another key from the bracelet opened the door to the yard.
    Huge paved slabs sloped away to the Pavilion. Its black columns hold up a black cupola. Between the columns run thick black bars.
    Above, the sun was shining, but the Pavilion looked like total darkness. I couldn’t see through the bars and columns to anything.
    But Jizania Tiger, with only me to attend her, went sailing out on the paving.
    Immediately two House Guards came striding around the Pavilion.
    They saluted and stood to attention for the Old Lady, but as she got near, one shouted:
    “Wait, please, madam. The enemy prisoner is here.”
    She just gave a nod.
    “Why else am I here?”
    “Its this, madam. The prisoner is an alien from the Waste. It would be better if you—”
    “Tottered back to my easy chair?” Her voice sliced him in two. He lost his stern military stance. “Don’t presume, my lad,” said Princess Jizania . Tiger, “to give orders to an Old Lady of the House.” Now there was creepy-crawl rather than salute. “Excuse me, madam.” (The other Guard was grinning.) She swept on,