Drums beat slowly as the royal mûmakil, their tusks encased in beaten gold, dragged the Empress's bier into the Palace's central courtyard.
After Chief Eunuch Eruhen had extolled the late monarch's many virtues, ending with the confident anticipation that She Who Once Was Brighter than the Moon would now take her rightful place among the gods, and A Little Green, to the accompaniment of Pomegranate's mournful flute, had performed her sinuous ritual dance with the sacred serpents twining about her, a troop of fine young slaves of both sexes reverently lifted the bier and carried it to the top of the immense funeral pyre. The slaves, whom Eruhen had selected for their comeliness, then made ten circuits of the pyre, one for each year that the Empress had reigned, before being sacrificed in the proper manner. (The assassin Galadriel55 made a more-than adequate replacement for the still-missing Royal Executioner.)
Finally, Eruhen leant forward from his balcony above, and hurled a lighted torch onto the pyre. The oil-soaked wood quickly caught, and soon a wall of flames and coiling smoke hid the Empress from the eyes of her grieving subjects.
Although, with the Palace sealed to aid in the hunt for the murderers, the funeral was more modest and less well-attended than might otherwise have been expected, everyone agreed it was a most satisfying and artistic ceremony. The crowning moment came when Eruhen, in an unheralded departure from the programme, cast himself off the balcony onto the blaze that consumed his mistress's body. This was generally held to be a most touching act of loyalty, though there were those who, claiming to have seen a shadow moving on the curtain behind him, firmly believed he had been pushed.
It was all a great mystery.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I'll tell you what else is a mystery," said one of the spies later, when the four were again gathered at their nightly meeting-place. "That handmaiden, Rikae– she's pretty enough,
and a personal slave of the Empress– why wasn't she sacrificed along with the others? I know how these Southrons do things."
"I think you've been in Harad far too long."
"Did I say I approved, you fool? There's more to that girl than meets the eye, I'm telling you. Did any of you ever see her before this morning?"
"What matters this?" said a third member of the group. "Our only concern now is escaping the Palace–"
"Which we're not likely to do if it turns out we're suspected. That girl is more than she seems, and I believe she may know something."
"Very well, then," the other agreed. "I suppose talking to her can't do any harm..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rikae leapt to her feet, clutching her silken robe about her. "Who are you?" she demanded of the four strangers who had entered her sleeping-chamber. "What do you want of me?"
"Now, now, my lady, we just want to ask you a few questions–"
"Ask me questions?
Ask me questions?" Rikae's thin smile was barely visible, but the loop of wire she held glittered in the faint moonlight. "Oh no. I believe it is
I should who ask questions of
you! I know you for what you are! Spies! Northern fiends! Murderers of She Who Now Walks Among the Gods!"
The smile became a baring of teeth, and with a cry of fury and bloodlust, Rikae launched herself at them.
The struggle was fierce, but in the end one of the spies managed to wrest the garotte away from Rikae. This merely sent her into a frenzy of kicking and biting. It was never quite clear what happened then, but suddenly the girl's thrashing ceased and her body sagged in their grasp. When they finally managed to get a candle lit, it was to find Rikae with staring eyes and swollen tongue, the wire pulled so tight around her throat it had almost disappeared into her flesh.
Rikae, the Royal Executioner, had suffered the same death she had dealt to so many others.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Living
Boromir88 –Wealthy mûmak breeder.
Sally –Messenger girl.
Galadriel55 –Professional assassin.
Shasta –Particularly attentive guard-lieutenant.
Steve –Court Jester (from Umbar).
Pomegranate –Entertainer.
A Little Green –The Empress's favourite snake-charmer.
Pitchwife –Captain in the "Provisional Royal Númenórean Navy" and emissary of Angamaitë IX, Lord of Umbar.
Lottie –Accident-prone sorcerer's apprentice.
Inziladun –Minister of the Treasury.
Lommy! –Court physician.
Nogrod –Camel and coffee trader.
Legate of Amon Lanc –Legate of Khand.
Dead
The Empress of Harad. Mod.
–assassinated in her sleep.
Bom Tombadillo –Greatly afflicted beggar. Ordo.
–multiple stab wounds.
Eruhen –Court eunuch. Ordo.
–burned to death on the Empress's funeral pyre.
Rikae –Empress's handmaiden. Royal Executioner.
–garotted with own wire.
Day Two has begun.