Tanith Lee - Claidi Journals 01 Read Online Free

concerned, “I had to. There was this awful insect on your cheek—you hadn’t noticed. It might have stung you.”
    But Jade Leaf only plumped down on the rug abruptly, like a child, and said, “Hit me.”
    “Yes,” said Pattoo, surprising me by her invention, “look, madam.” And Pattoo showed JL a piece of squished fruit she must have gotten hold of just that moment to help me. “Its horrible.”
    “A good thing,” said Dengwi, “Claidi acted so quickly.”
    Jade Leaf’s mouth opened more, and she screwed up her eyes. “Mummy!” she warbled. “I want Mummy!”
    Magically on this cue, through the open doors stepped Princess Shimra in a cloud of attendants.
    “Get up, Jade Leaf. What are you thinking of? The enemy balloonist has been taken to the Debating Hall.
    Change your clothes at once. Everyone will be there. Even Princess Jizania Tiger,” added Shimra, with wondering scorn.

    ==========
To go to the Debating Hall everyone has to wear blue. I don’t know why. It’s yet another rule of the House.
    Changing that hurriedly wasn’t easy, although JL was abnormally docile.
    We powdered her hair on top of the green, and it looked fairly awful. Pattoo powdered the red slap-side of JL’s face with white. Shimra hadn’t even noticed.
    We didn’t have time for our own hair, so we had to tie it in hasty, untidy blue turbans.
    My hands were shaking anyway.

    ==========
The Debating Hall is huge—a high ceiling decorated with silver medallions, upheld by marble pillars, and below, a slippery polished floor. I know about the floor, because when I was nine or ten, I used to be one of the kids who polished it once every five days. And it took all day to do.
    The ladies and princesses sat on their blue plush seats on the raised area, and the maids and servants and slaves gathered around to fan them and offer little tobacco pipes and calming drinks.
    On the other side were the lords and princes, who, almost alone, make a decision at the end of every debate. However, at the head of the room was a long draped table and, behind that, seven gilded chairs under a canopy. These are for the Old Ladies, the most ancient princesses. They too have an important vote.
    Only three of the OL chairs were filled. There sat Princess Corris, who’s eighty, and Princess Armingat, who’s eighty-five. They attend every debate and argue wildly at the end, always disagreeing with each other.
    Today a third chair had been filled.
     
    Princess Jizania Tiger is said to be one hundred and thirty years old. She does look it, but she’s absolutely beautiful. She seems made of the thinnest, finest pale paper. And her large hooded eyes are like pale amber pearls. She’s bald, and today she wore a headdress that was a net of almost colorless silvery beads, set occasionally with a bud of emerald. (She alone hadn’t bothered with blue. Her gown was ash-colored.)
    I can’t imagine ever being old, let alone old like this. But if I had to be, she would be my model.
    She has a fine voice, too. Soft and smoky—musical. She sounds only about sixty.
    As a rule, though, she never bothers with debates. Only the most unavoidable dinners and Rituals.
    It must be nice to get out of so many boring and unimportant things.
    Now she sat there, leaning her slender old face on her slender, crooked graceful hand, which had one colossal topaz burning on it in a ring.
    The big space at the Halls center was fenced on two sides by weapon-bristling Guards, standing three deep.
    I’d looked for him—I mean the prisoner, the enemy-invader—the moment we’d arrived. But the Guards are often dramatic. Only now did they march him in.
    He seemed quite good-humored and certainly not upset. I wondered if he’d been hurt when the balloon fell, and was bravely hiding it.
    The Guards left him alone in the middle of the Hall, and we all now glared down at him, and some of the royalty held up magnifying glasses.
    Under the lighted lamps, which are always lit in the hall,