Part 36 (1/2)

Stealing Honey

Extreme north on Hyspero was like nowhere else on that world.

The Doctor sat up and gazed around. The air was golden and blue, s.h.i.+ning lucently through ceilings and walls.

He stood and brushed himself down.

In the distance he could hear the manic humming and drone of the bees.

He knew all about them. He knew about the alchemy of their honey-making process. He knew it was fresh honey he needed, not the sickly, stultifying brew that the Scarlet Empress had basked in. This much he had learned from his study of the Aja'ib . He patted the book in his coat pocket. Everything came in useful. Now he had work to do.

He strolled and got used to the soft waxy feel of the walls and floors, the cloying sweetness in the air. It was like walking and breathing in a whole new substance. Somewhere, beyond the walls of these tunnels and cells worked bees the size of bicycles. But they didn't bother him. He'd dealt with viruses the size of lobsters, lobsters the size of dinosaurs and dinosaurs and other horrors again and again in his hectic career. He started to whistle.

When he came to a wide, open s.p.a.ce and a choice of routes, he took out the old leathery book and opened it to the relevant page.

He traced through the arcane words with his finger and muttered a particular spell.

With a flash and a rush of dusty air, the ma.s.sive, bronzed figure of the kabikaj, djinn lord of insects, stood patiently before him.

'Doctor,' he grumbled. ”This had better be good.'

'I've got a little task for you,' smiled the Doctor.'Something I think you might help me with.'

Chapter Thirty-Two.

A Month Later

Sam woke in her unfamiliar bed. Satin sheets. Street noise outside.

Incense burning still. All around her bed, night lights flickered. She stirred and decided she had slept quite enough.

For a while she sat out on her parapet, watching the bustling streets below. She picked at and peeled grape after grape. The crowd down there, below the palace, consisted of an odd mixture of the night-time crowd, still out enjoying themselves, and the early-morning traders, wheeling their multifarious produce into the streets on barrows. The offworlders were back. Hyspero had returned almost seamlessly to its usual routines.

There was a knock at the heavy wooden door and she turned to see the Mock Turtle apologetically poking his head round the gap. She motioned him in.'Sit out here with me,' she said. He was a little less shy with her now. He peered cautiously over the balcony.

Apparently,' he said,'the Empress will see us this morning.'

'Good,' Sam murmured, and wondered what she ought to wear.

'I don't think it will be good news,' he added gloomily.

'She has to help,' Sam burst. 'She's got the resources. She can send a whole platoon out to look for him.'

'The way she looks at it, she needs all of her resources here, rebuilding the palace. Undoing everything the previous Empress did wrong.' How resigned the Turtle looked, she thought, slumped inside his sh.e.l.l like that.

'Do you think she's going to suggest we give up on waiting for him?'

'I think so, yes.'

Sam's eyes flashed with anger.'If it wasn't for him and Iris, Ca.s.sandra would never be back on that throne. She'd still be out in the wilds of Kestheven. Living in a jamjar.'

The Turtle looked uncomfortable. 'I wish Angela hadn't gone back there.

We could do with her help in pet.i.tioning the Empress.'

Sam was still cross with the Bearded Lady for leaving so soon. She should have been more grateful, too.'I suppose she wanted to get back to those bears of hers.'

'Go and get ready for our audience,' the Turtle urged.'I'll wait here.' Sam was bathing, moments later, in the deep verdigris tub in the next room, when she heard the Turtle shout through.'Have you checked that the Doctor's s.h.i.+p is all right?'

She told him that it was all sorted. It was ready for him whenever he returned. Then she was quiet as she got out, dried herself, and pulled on Hysperon garb. Layers and layers of gaudy fabric, most of them scarlet.

For the past month she had dressed as a local. On a sudden impulse, though, this morning, she went to the cupboard and found her own clothes, her T-s.h.i.+rt and shorts, washed and good as new. She took off the layers of scarlet and put them on. Sam was ready to go.

In the staterooms of the palace, everything appeared to be back to normal. The guards were back on duty, resplendent in their tattoos, marching about. The rubble had been cleared, the frescoes refurbished, and the ceilings patched up. One of Ca.s.sandra's first decrees was that the rooms filled with motorised mannequins, h.o.a.rded tattooed skins and severed heads should be dismantled. These relics of the previous monarch's obsessions were buried, safely, in the desert. The guards who buried the staked heads of the seers said that, as they poured the sand into the hole to cover them up, the poor devils were still muttering their dire prophecies. Ca.s.sandra had announced there would be no more prophecies. Hyspero would have to concentrate on living in the present.

Sam and the Turtle went before the Empress.

They found her in a pleasant mood that morning. Since her youth was restored, and she had found her place on a gold and crimson throne, her moods had been changeable to say the least. In the past weeks she had been rather volatile at times, stressed by the work still to do.'I've been on holiday for thousands of years,' she had moaned at one point. 'Of course I'm stressed now I'm back!'

She chatted happily with the two of them and suggested that they should all go and look at Iris together that morning and check that the old lady was doing all right.'Perhaps there has been a change in her,' she said brightly.

Sam wouldn't bank on that. She didn't relish the idea of an afternoon spent beside Iris's tomb.

In a gilded cage beside the new Empress's throne sat the small alligator.

He snapped his jaws at them.

'Poor Gila,' said the Turtle reflectively.

'Maybe he's happier like that,' said Sam.

'Perhaps,' said the Empress, and led them out of the throne room. She trod lightly across the marble floor.

Behind them, narrowed beadily, the alligator's eyes glowed a livid crimson.