Empress of the Endless Dream

Book 0: The Orokon

by David Rain

Genres: Fantasy; Epic Fantasy

Synopsis

Long ago, the mysterious bearers of a golden, magical jewel retreated to the Lamasery of the Winds, high in the mountains. Then came the avalanche. Many think the lamasery has been destroyed. Others know the truth is stranger by far. Caught between dimensions, its powers persist and grow. But are they powers of good -- or welling, insidious evil? Returning at last to his rightful kingdom, Prince Jemany faces the final conflict in his desperate battle to reunite the sacred Crystals of Orok and defeat his evil rival, the anti-god Toth-Vexrah, whose campaign of conquest is now almost complete. In an icy, midwinter city, ravaged by terrorism, brutal murder and impending war, Jem struggles for clues to his last, most mysterious, and most powerful prize, the searing, sun-like crystal of the sky god Agonis. From its mysterious opening scenes to its devastating climax, Empress of the Endless Dream, the fifth and final volume of Tom Arden's apocalyptic fantasy epic, is a helter-skelter, heart-stopping rush of black humour and horror, murder and mysticism, the divine and the depraved.

Release date: November 1, 2002

Publisher: Orion Pub Co

Print pages: 400

Sample

JEM, the hero, seeker after the Orokon

CATA, the heroine, beloved of Jem

RAJAL, loyal friend to Jem, beloved of Aron Throsh

MYLA, Rajal’s younger sister, now much older

LITTLER, their small companion

EJARD ORANGE, a most remarkable cat

POLTY (POLTISS VEELDROP), Jem’s implacable enemy

BEAN (ARON THROSH), accomplice of Polty, beloved of Rajal

LADY UMBECCA VEELDROP, evil great-aunt to Jem and Cata

NIRRY, formerly her maid, now landlady of the Cat & Crown

WIGGLER, loyal husband to Nirry

EAY FEVAL, a distinguished man of the cloth

KING EJARD RED, rightful ruler of Ejland: see BOB SCARLET

HIS IMPERIAL AGONIST MAJESTY KING EJARD BLUEJACKET

HER ROYAL MAJESTY JELICA, his wife, the former Jeli Vance

TRANIMEL, their First Minister: see also TOTH-VEXRAH

FRANZ WAXWELL, the apothecary

WIDOW WAXWELL, his aunt, and much else besides

CONSTANSIA CHAM-CHARING, former great society hostess

TISHY CHAM-CHARING, her unmarriageable daughter

LADY MARGRAVE, friend to Constansia

FREDDIE CHAYN, heir to a worthless principality

PROFESSOR MERCOL of the University of Agondon

BAINES, also known as the ‘one-eyed beauty’

MORVEN and CRUM, hapless young recruits

BLENKINSOP, a brown rat, pet to Crum

CHOKEY, keeper of an exclusive gentlemen’s club

MR BURGROVE (‘JAC’), a ruined man of fashion

MAJOR-GENERAL HEVA-HARION of the War Lords

PRINCE-ELECTOR JAREL of the War Lords

GENERAL-LORD GORGOL of the War Lords

BARON-ADMIRAL AYNELL, formerly Rear-Admiral

VARBY & HOLLUCH, one man, not two

WEBSTER, of coffee-house fame

JAPIER QUISTO, Agondon’s finest gentlemen’s tailor

JILDA QUISTO, his ruined daughter

HEKA QUISTO, his other ruined daughter

MASTER CARROUSEL, the great hairdresser

XAL, ‘Great Mother’ of the Vaga tribe

The FLYING MENTINIS, remarkable blind acrobats

MISS TILSY FASH, the ‘Zaxon Nightingale’

SERGEANT FLOSS (‘CARNEY’), a drunken Bluejacket

ROTTSY and SUPP, also Bluejackets

MISS VYELLA REXTEL, an unfortunate young lady

The BACK-UP BABY

ALEX ALDERMYLE, young society buck

Other ALDERMYLES, VENTURONS and BOLBARRS

MAZY MICHAN, wife of the Zenzan governor

SIR PELLION PELLIGREW, withdrawn from society

MISTRESS QUICK, making a cameo appearance

GOODY GARVICE, her trusted second

ARCHMAXIMATE of the Order of Agonis

CANON FLONCE, who is soon to change his state

LECTOR ARDEN, soon to change his

RIPANDER, last of the celebrated Castrati of Wrax

The CLUMPTON CLOWNS

PUG, a dog, but not in fact a pug

The CONGREGATED in the Great Temple

QUALITY-FOLK at the Wrax Opera, also at the Ball

FOREIGN DIGNITARIES invited to Agondon

COURTIERS, SERVANTS, GUARDS,

SOLDIERS, RABBLE

&c.

 

REDJACKET REBELS:

BOB SCARLET, rebel chief: see also KING EJARD RED

HUL, a scholar, loyal member of his rebel band

BANDO, not a scholar; even more loyal

RAGGLE and TAGGLE, his two young sons

LANDA, beautiful young Priestess of Viana

The FRIAR, another of their band

FOLIO WEBSTER of the rebel scholars

ROLY REXTEL, Cantor of Varby, whose sister has vanished

ONTY MICHAN, cousin of the Zenzan governor

DANNY GARVICE, a wizard with explosives

MAGDA VYTONI, great-daughter of the philosopher

SHAMMY THE HOOD, underworld leader

‘SCARS’ MAJESTA, another one, even worse

OFFERO THE MOLE, another one, even worse

The SKIVVY or the SLUT, his downtrodden daughter

FIGARO FINGERS, corrupt turnkey of Oldgate Prison

PETER IMPALINI, ex-sword swallower, good with knives

MOLLY THE CUT, notorious female felon

HARLEQUIN of the SILVER MASKS

CLOWN, his longtime companion

PRISONERS of Xorgos Island

Bluejacket DEFECTORS

&c.

 

IN THE CRYSTAL SKY:

STARZOK, a mysterious old man

BLAYZIL, his mysterious son

SILAS WOLVERON, father to Cata; not really dead

BARNABAS, a magical dwarf; certainly not dead

LORD EMPSTER, Jem’s treacherous guardian: see also AGONIS

ONDON, Lord Secular of the Children of Agonis, long ago

FATHER-PRIEST IR-ION, an ancient Father-Priest

AVATARS and FALSE AVATARS of the gods

BEARERS OF THE VEXING GEM

MALLARD DUCKS

ACOLYTES

&c.

 

OFF-STAGE – OR DEAD:

ZOHNNY RYLE and family, back in Varl

TOR (TORVESTER), uncle to Jem, and a harlequin

LECTOR GARVICE, formerly of the Great Temple

STEPHEL, missing father to Nirry

WYNDA THROSH, mother to Bean, and Polty too

LENY, VEL and TYL, members of Polty’s old gang

Starzok’s family, MISHJA, EKIK, LANZIK and JAMAJA

NATHANIAN WAXWELL, Irion’s physician

BERTHEN SPRATT, a servant

The LADY LOLENDA

ZADY, a Vaga-man

GAROLUS VYTONI, the great Zenzan philosopher

‘MISS R—’ the distinguished authoress

‘FANNY O’, not a distinguished authoress

MR COPPERGATE, a distinguished author

MR BELFORD SLIPSLOP, not a distinguished author

DR TONSON of Speculator fame

MR CREDULON, the noted stage designer

THELL, ancient author of the Theatricals of Thell

The composers ELGNAR, STROSSINI and BACHOVEN

The artists RAPHIAN and BELLORETTO

Many other LIVING PEOPLE

Many other DEAD

&c.

 

GODS AND STRANGE BEINGS:

OROK, Ur-God, father of the gods

KOROS, god of darkness, worshipped by the Vagas (purple)

VIANA, goddess of earth, worshipped in Zenzau (green)

THERON, god of fire, worshipped in Unang Lia (red)

JAVANDER, goddess of water, once worshipped in Wenaya (blue)

AGONIS, god of air, worshipped in Ejland (gold)

EMPRESS OF THE ENDLESS DREAM

PENGE, a most important part of Polty

W’ENGE (WOODPENGE), his woody avatar

TOTH-VEXRAH, the evil anti-god: see also TRANIMEL

The LADY IMAGENTA, his mysterious daughter

HAWK OF DARKNESS, his mysterious servant

The MAUVERS, mysterious purple birds

CHORASSOS, or the Unbeing Bird

The serpent SASSOROCH

The HARLEQUIN

Other CREATURES OF EVIL

&c.

The snow has possessed the city again, fluttering down over spires and spiky railings, battlements and gables, alleys, cobbled streets and broad, sweeping boulevards. In the day, like weary soldiers, ragged teams sally forth, struggling with shovels and coarse brooms to hold back even a fraction of the tide; with nightfall, the mocking whiteness has triumphed once more. On and on come the frozen waves, rolling out of the darkness like a strange enchantment.

Time-bells toll. Still it is early, but when darkness descends in midafternoon, evening might as well be the depths of night. Light comes only from a thin, seeping moon, and sometimes from the fugitive glimmer of a lamp, insisting its way through a shuttered window. It is the night before the Festival of Agonis. From the rank tenements of the Vaga Quarter to the elegant terraces of Agondon New Town, from the suburbs that sprawl across Ollon Fields to the ancient, imperious edifices of the Island, the city lies suspended under a shimmering pall.

And yet there are stirrings, here and there. On the Island, a fine coach-and-four rumbles down the steep incline of Aon Street; at the Wrax Opera, just across from the Koros Palace, quality-folk assemble for an evening’s performance. In more than one alley, a drunkard slithers and slips; hopeful harlots wait for trade; along the Embankment, the rampart that circles the old city like a collar, stonily dividing it from the river below, a huddled figure makes its shivering, stumbling way.

It is a woman, with an infant in her arms.

Labouring through the snow, the woman turns her head this way and that. She peers behind her, towards Regent’s Bridge and the darkness of the New Town; she gazes up into the different darkness before her, into the steep, forbidding maze of streets, as if she cannot quite remember her way. When a patrol goes by, ominous in trudging boots and bearskin coats, the woman fades like a wraith into a doorway, cringing from the rays of a swinging lantern. Then she looks down at her swaddled infant and hurries onwards.

In her haste, her headscarf slips; for a moment, moonlight reveals her face. Now an observer, if observer there were, would see that she is barely more than a girl; decidedly, no common girl. If there is not quite nobility in her face, still there is evidence of breeding, of distinction.

She hurries on as best she can, making her way round the curve of the Embankment. But all her striving has taken its toll; in an alcove that curves back in a high wall, the girl staggers, breathless.

She looks up imploringly. In the alcove is a fountain, one of many in Agondon, of the type known as a Foretelling. Here, surmounting a marble bowl, are the Lord Agonis and the Lady Imagenta, united as they have never been united in this world. Life-sized, they look across the frozen river. In seasons of heat, water arcs over their naked marble bodies, and in the bowl beneath they shimmer in shifting green; now, icicles cover them in a glittering crust and the waters beneath, like the bowl that holds them, might almost be made of marble too.

The girl slithers to her knees in the snow. Hugging the infant tighter at her breast, she offers up a prayer. Moonlight, through a gap in the clouds, shines with harsher radiance, illuminating the tableau of desperate piety.

But now the girl hears a clatter of hooves. Chains rumble over the paving-stones. It is a coach, and there are voices; the voices of men. She staggers upright; the infant whimpers and she rocks it nervously, whispering to it to hush, hush.

The infant squeals, but there is a howl of wind, bearing away the high-pitched cry. Fresh snow flurries into the girl’s face. She flails forward, almost tripping over her skirts; she turns, then turns again. Which way? There is only darkness; darkness and snow. Now, perhaps, she will sink down; snow will cover her, and she will be still.

But there is something else, suddenly there. The girl gasps. Has her prayer been answered? Wind whips her headscarf away; she is oblivious. Wonderment fills her face; snow lashes her; the infant struggles and cries, but the girl can only flail towards the mysterious, glowing vision that has appeared before her.

It is a woman dressed in flowing robes, like a Sister of the Enclosed, but this woman’s robes are of no austere black, and instead shine with all the varied brilliance of a rainbow. The woman – the lady – stretches forth her hands; the lady, it seems, is an embodiment of goodness, though strangely, disturbingly, she has no face, and there is only golden, streaming light where her face should be.

Mysterious music fills the air, insisting its way through the wind and snow. The girl stumbles forward, moaning, sobbing. Visionary ecstasy fills her; she has no thought for the coach she has heard, or the voices of the men. There is only the lady, the beautiful lady.

But now there is a man, too, stepping towards her.

‘What’s this, my beauty? Out in such cold?’

Sharply, the girl draws in her breath. At once, the lady is gone; now, before the girl, there is a very different figure, mountainous in a bearskin coat. If there is lamplight behind, it is an orange haze; refracted, juddering through the swirling snow, it makes the man only darker, more mysterious. The girl almost cries out as he steps closer, reaching for the child that she clutches so hard.

His voice comes urgently: ‘Are you lost, my beauty? Abandoned? Have you been cast out? And what’s this? An infant, in weather such as this? Come, I think I must assist you. Come, let me take this burden from your arms.’

Perhaps, at that moment, the girl would scream; perhaps she would turn, even try to run; but all at once the man is upon her.

Bewildered, she feels his hungry kiss.

*

It was over in an instant.

The girl, enveloped in the hot, sudden embrace, could not have seen the blade that plunged decisively through her bundled garments, ripping up through her abdomen. Perhaps, in her shock, she barely felt the pain, or the slithering, steaming lengths of intestine, discharging like an abortion beneath her skirts.

Her eyes grew wide. She stumbled, swayed.

Smoothly, as if with practised ease, the man plucked the infant from her arms.

Moments later, the coach moved away, rumbling slowly up the cobbled hill. In the cushioned interior, the killer sank back, satisfied. He had covered the infant’s mouth to stop it crying out; still he kept his glove over the tiny face.

‘Fool, you killed that girl, didn’t you?’ From the gloom inside the carriage came a peevish voice. It was the voice of an elderly man, a man accustomed to wielding authority, but one to whom authority, evidently, gave little satisfaction. ‘Couldn’t you just have knocked her unconscious? The cold would have done your work well enough. The Watch would think she was a drunken harlot, passed out in the snow.’ A sigh. ‘Another death on our hands, and for what?’

‘Sir, I had to do it. That girl was strange. Trouble, I’m sure.’

‘Trouble?’ Disbelieving. ‘How so?’

‘Mad, sir – cracked. Why, when I approached her, she was staring wildly, alarmed—’

‘At you? And that was mad?’

‘No, as if – as if at some vision. Some dream.’

‘Dream?’ Disgusted. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Her eyes, sir – trouble, sir, definitely.’

The sigh again, dismissive this time. ‘Well, the snow shall cover her, soon enough – I dare say the Watch won’t find her for a while. They’ll think she was just a harlot, at least.’ Then, alarmed: ‘But the brat! You’re not smothering this one, are you?’

The killer shifted his hand. ‘N-no, sir, of course not.’

The infant made a gurgling, gasping cry.

‘You were, weren’t you? Fool, if this one dies before we need it, I don’t rate your chances high of finding another, do you? Tonight? In this weather? Just remember, Veeldrop, my patience may be infinite, but Brother Tranimel’s is decidedly not.’

‘Y-yes, sir. Y-yes, Major-General.’

The infant let out a piercing shriek.

‘Oh, make it shut up!’ cried the old man. He rapped with his stick on the roof of the carriage. ‘Hurry, Throsh, hurry! Don’t you know I’m late? Don’t you know I’m expected at the Wrax Opera? In the royal box?’

The driver cracked his whip.

*

But all is not quite over.

On the Embankment, the corpse is already half-covered; all, perhaps, might be as the Major-General has predicted. But the rainbow figure comes again, stretching forth mysterious hands; and now the golden beam, shining from where her face should be, flares with an intensity greater than before. Perhaps it is a summons. A call.

A wraith arises from the murdered girl, shimmering in the darkness like a tremulous flame.

‘Look at the woman!’

Constansia Cham-Charing rolled her eyes. At another time she might have restrained herself; now, over the hubbub, she would speak her mind.

‘Really, just look at her!’

‘One would rather not,’ said Lady Margrave.

‘There are those of greater charms,’ said Freddie Chayn.

‘Some,’ Professor Mercol murmured, ‘amongst this present company.’ With twinkling eyes he smiled at Miss Laetitia Cham-Charing, a scholarly young lady who had been persuaded only with difficulty to relinquish her book.

Laetitia looked abashed; her mother, for her part, was not to be beguiled. All around the Opera House, the audience had risen for the arrival of the Queen. As the stirring, familiar strains of the royal anthem boomed up from the orchestra, Lady Cham-Charing could not forbear from further remarks. Her family box was exactly opposite its magnificent royal counterpart. Maliciously, she gazed across the auditorium, past stiff-backed clusters of Bluejacket guards.

‘Why, the creature is even wearing a tiara! Has she forgotten the respect she owes to the crown?’

The lady’s tongue made a series of sharp little clicks. The object of her attention was not Queen Jelica, but the huge, toad-like, decidedly non-royal personage who swelled beside her, for all the world as if the anthem were her personal tribute. It was an outrage. Just a moonlife before, His Imperial Agonist Majesty had announced a contest to fit words, at last, to Mr Elgnar’s time-honoured tune; the fat woman, by all accounts, was to chair the board of judges. Waggishly, Freddie had suggested that the sure way to win would be to submit an ode in praise of Lady Umbecca.

But what would one praise? Her ability to eat?

‘Of course, she has no breeding at all,’ Lady Cham-Charing went on. ‘Would you not say so, Freddie? Would you not say, Professor Mercol? Why, just look at that gown! Imagine, Tishy, had it been your good fortune to be chosen as the bride of His Imperial Agonist Majesty! Should I have paraded about in the gaudy raiments of – of a harlequin, whilst my daughter confined herself to royal blue? Should I not have appeared only as a virtuous dowager?’

With infinite grace, the Queen – young, blonde, radiant, the very embodiment of the ‘Ejland rose’ – waved benevolently to the adoring public who had braved the elements to be here tonight. Thunder filled the theatre, and only the guards failed to join in the rapturous applause.

‘And where,’ murmured Freddie, ‘is the Queen’s husband?’

For a moment, Lady Cham-Charing considered suggesting that His Imperial Agonist Majesty was obscured, as well he might be, by the immense bulk of his wife’s fat aunt.

Of course, it was a joke. With Her Majesty occupying the Opera Throne, and Lady Umbecca in the Chair of the Consort, the position was clear: no superior personage was here tonight, or would be. Once again, Ejland’s not-quite-rightful monarch was – as so often happened – indisposed.

But now Lady Cham-Charing saw another figure, looming in the background of the royal box. She blinked. She coloured. Would she have one of her turns? In late moonlives, Constansia’s once-brilliant eyes had assumed a watery appearance, which no powders or potions seemed able to allay; worse, her head had begun to wobble, just a little, as if in the grip of a perpetual mild shivering. How she would survive the Festival season, with its myriad engagements, was anyone’s guess.

Lady Margrave leapt in. ‘Dearest Constansia, you are right, as ever. Have we not known already the blessings of married love? Do we not appear gladly in black? (Ah, but still I sorrow for my dear, late lord!) For what reason does a woman don finery – unless, of course, she is abandoned to all virtue and shame – if not first to win her husband’s love, and then to reflect glory upon him, for the choice he has made?’

It was an impressive speech; Tishy appeared to have some reaction to it, as did Professor Mercol; even Freddie was not unmoved.

Constansia, unfortunately, was not paying attention.

The anthem had ended now and a rousing overture had taken its place, a rag-bag of melodies from popular marches, ballads and novelty songs, such as always introduced the Last Night at the Opera. Anticipation rippled round the theatre, but Constansia could only gaze upon her enemies.

Umbecca Veeldrop was bad enough. Eay Feval was worse. Far worse. Could it be less than a cycle ago that Constansia’s merest word, uttered almost casually in the Archmaximate’s ear, had consigned that gossiping creature to the furthest provinces? (The Tarn! How much further could he go?) But now that fat, common old trollop – a merchant’s daughter, of all things – had brought him back!

Constansia’s only consolation was that Feval, for all his unctuous ways, could surely be given no distinguished position in the capital. Let him be canon of some vulgar suburban temple – Cantor Lector of Ollon-Quintal, at the most. But even Constansia, who saw decadence on all sides, could hardly credit the rumours that Feval was a candidate for Lectoracy of the Great Temple, following the death of Great Lector Garvice. Never. Absurd. Not even the Archmaximate would sink so low.

In the box beside Constansia’s, a party of young bucks – raucous young fellows, in the dress uniforms of a fashionable regiment – passed a bumper of ale back and forth. Already they appeared a little the worse for wear.

Lady Margrave shot them an angry glance. Why could not all military gentlemen – excepting, of course, those of the highest rank – assume the impassive, respectful demeanour of guards? The sentries, stationed all around the theatre, were fine models of manhood, common in origin though many of them must be. The bucks, by contrast, were sniggering loudly, and for a moment the terrible thought came to Lady Margrave that they were sniggering at Constansia.

Or at herself.

Surely not. Must there not be some deference, even in this degenerate age? Lady Margrave raised her voice, perhaps a little too much.

‘Indeed, Constansia,’ she sailed on, ‘not only are we women of refinement, but we are Agonists – Agonists, whose piety is no mere sham! Would we, in widowhood, in this Javander-season of our lives, seek admiration for mere outward beauties, like parading, painted strumpets – or like giddy girls, fresh from Mistress Quick’s, lined up in the Koros Palace to make our Entrance?’

She gestured to the balcony across the way, where Mistress Quick herself, stiff-backed and white-haired, and her redoubtable deputy, Goody Garvice, sat surrounded by the latest pupils from that great establishment where gens of Ejland’s fairest flowers had been, as they would put it, finished in the womanly arts.

The great educationalist did not look towards them, but nonetheless Lady Margrave halted, alarmed not so much by her unintended comparison of Quick-girls with ladies of the night as by the recollection of certain misfortunes which had attended the Entrance of young – though no longer quite so young – Miss Laetitia.1 Pleadingly, Lady Margrave turned to Freddie Chayn, who likewise complimented the ‘Great Cham’ (as the girl’s mother was known) on her immaculate refinement.

Poor Constansia was by no means mollified.

‘Really, I just don’t know what the world is coming to,’ she sighed. ‘Did I tell you, Elsan, I had a letter just this morning from dear Mazy Michan?’ (She had: several times. Their old friend – Mazy Tarfoot that was – was the wife of the Zenzan governor.) ‘Shocking news! Remember that peevish cousin of hers, who went to visit her in Wrax? Waylaid on the way home, she was, by that vicious Bob Scarlet! Shot dead! Found in the woods!’ Constansia shuddered. ‘And her loyal old servant, Baines, has disappeared, lost without trace. Oh, what a world is this—’

There was more in the same vein. In the box beside them, the sniggers had risen to guffaws.

*

‘Oh, be careful, do!’ came the whisper. ‘Can’t you come back here? Quick, on your mark, on your mark!’

The young woman twitched the plush curtain back into place and turned, smiling, to her fellow performer. ‘I had to have a look, didn’t I? Just a peep?’

‘Chance enough for that when the curtain goes up!’

‘Really? It’s all I can do to remember those dance-steps.’

Her companion rolled her eyes, or attempted to do so. Having already assumed her opening pose – arms curved gracefully above her head, left leg jutting towards the wings – she was concentrating hard on not letting it slip. She staggered a little, trying to resume her fixed, dazzling smile.

‘Are you on your mark yet?’ she muttered through her teeth.

‘Trying. I tell you, if I don’t fall on my face, it’s going to be a miracle. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so ridiculous.’

‘Not even when you were at Mistress Quick’s?’

‘Close. But not enough.’ Poised in the midst of an elaborate set – the drawing-room, supposedly, of a country house – both young women wore frizzy yellow wigs and the black and white lacy uniforms of parlourmaids. Each carried a colourful feather duster. ‘This is hardly what I thought I’d be doing when I joined Bob Scarlet’s band, is it?’

‘We had to be backstage tonight. What better way than this?’

‘Backstage? We’re on the stage.’

It was hard to believe they had come this far. When Bob Scarlet first devised this evening’s scheme, the others thought it the merest fancy. Perhaps it was. Soon they would know whether a moonlife’s careful planning had all been for nothing. The evening would end either in triumph or disaster. One or the other: one or the other.

Of course, there was Plan B. There was always Plan B. But that, thought Cata, was even worse than Plan A . . . No, they would never have to resort to that.

The overture ended with a last flourish. There was a signal from the wings. Applause thundered. As the curtain rose, the two young women pirouetted and pranced, flicking at the furniture with their dusters. Behind them, Lexion windows opened on what appeared to be a sunny, luxuriant garden. In moments, mercifully, the glamorous figure of Miss Tilsy Fash would emerge through those windows; the gentlemen soloists, then the chorus, would burst from the wings.

The young women brightened. Really, this was not so bad, was it? Mugging absurdly, they bobbed up and down, swinging their dusters from side to side.

This is what they sang:

An enchanter threw a hex upon

The Widow of Midlexion

To make her irresistible

To every man she sees!

This widow fair with magic arts

Would gladly break a hundred hearts:

She loves to see fine gentlemen

A-scrabbling on their knees!

It was the beginning – but only the beginning – of Strossini’s best-loved comic opera. Soon, after the celebrated Miss Fash had flicked away a brace of lovers, sung several choruses of Widow Am I, But Young (though the diva in question was hardly young) and curtseyed expansively to the royal box, the oft-told tale would proceed no further. The drawing-room would vanish into the wings and flies, to be replaced by a wholly different spectacle.

Such was the way on the Last Night of the Opera. Each year at this time the three chartered theatres – the Wrax Opera, the Volleys and the Theatre Royal, Juvy Lane – were obliged to close in deference to the Festival of Agonis. But on the night before closing, the Wrax Opera, most opulent of all – named for its great counterpart in the Zenzan capital, where the operatic arts had achieved their finest flowering – would stage an extravagant royal gala. There was no pretence of a coherent programme; rather, it was a motley collection of popular turns, musical, dramatic, acrobatic, hippodromatic, said to be chosen personally by the monarch. Neither the Volleys nor Juvy Lane attempted to compete; apart from anything else, their finest performers would invariably be filched for the Last Night.

The two young women faced each other, wide-eyed, index fingers poking their cheeks:

For vengeance on the stronger sex

The Widow sought this spell:

But is it such a blessing after all?

Can blessings pall?

Watch, and we shall tell. . .

And twirling their dusters, they retreated to the sides of the stage as Miss Tilsy Fash made her elaborate entrance. Over the applause, the young women managed the following exchange:

‘You were right – I didn’t dare look up. But you did see her, didn’t you? She’s in place?’

‘A sitting target. Just think – at Mistress Quick’s, she was my greatest friend. Landa, what if she recognises me?’

‘Got up like that? Cata, don’t be silly!’

But Cata was worried. From the beginning, this scheme had struck her as mad. Only now did she see just how mad. Bluejackets everywhere! How could a little band of Redjacket rebels manage – here, tonight – to kidnap the Queen of Ejland?

Stumbling, Cata made it to her next mark.

‘Laetitia, will you put that book down?’

By now, Miss Tilsy Fash and the chorus had completed their excerpt from The Widow of Midlexion. A tedious clown act had taken the stage: Pierrot, Pantaloon, Columbine, and a dog in a ruffle that leapt through hoops. Queen Jelica, it appeared, found them most diverting; Miss Laetitia Cham-Charing evidently did not.

In those days – long before the politeness of the present era – the auditorium in a theatre would be lit throughout the performance. Nor would the audience necessarily attend, with any particular ardour, to the traffic of the stage; instead, the evening proceeded to the accompaniment of gossip, assignations, and the frequent comings and goings of those intent more upon promenading. Quality-folk, after all, were as keen to look upon each other as upon mere performers; for the merchant classes, gathered on benches in the pit, and the lower orders, jammed into the high galleries, the spectacle of their betters was no doubt quite as edifying as the official entertainment.

There were, however, less orthodox ways to take advantage of the light.

Lady Cham-Charing snapped, ‘Laetitia!’

Tishy, who did not look up, muttered annoyingly beneath her breath. For the purposes of this evening the young lady had assented, if grudgingly, to her mother’s demands that she dress with some decorum. Forgoing her customary green shift and stockings, she wore instead a beaded, puff-sleeved gown which at least revealed something of her admirably white shoulders. She had even permitted the application of curling tongs. But why, why would the girl not desist from those horn-rimmed eyeglasses? And must she pursue her studies, even here?

How Tishy would survive the Festival season was anyone’s guess. What could a mother do but despair? Think of tomorrow. The day would begin in the Great Temple, with the service known as Agonis Inaugural. Early as it was, anyone who was anyone would be there, not least because the Archmaximate was to reveal, at last, the identity of the new Great Lector (certain to be Canon Flonce, Lady Cham-Charing thought with confidence).

In the evening, stil