Tanith Lee - Claidi Journals 01 Read Free Page B

bloomed up there like a new plant.
    It was only then the House Guards gave a raucous cheer. They were yelling, as if in a game, “A hit !” And “Well done, Jovis.” And “Think we killed him?”

HIM
    When we got into the House, everyone was going mad. People were running along the corridors, colliding when two or more were coming from different directions. They were running up and down the stairs, too, and sometimes tripping and falling. The row was almost as bad as the cannon.
    Pattoo, Daisy, and I ran up the stairs toward the apartments of our evil mistress.
    When we reached the double doors, they were open, and inside everyone also rushed about. JL sat in the middle of it all, screaming and pulling her own hair, thumping her fists on the sofa, and kicking her feet, off of which her green silk shoes had flown.
    She seemed worse than usual. I thought it was fear of the “invasion,” but surely she’d seen the balloon shot down?
    Dengwi sidled up to me and hissed, “She says insects have gotten into her dress. Fleas or bees or something.”
    This nearly made me laugh. I’d wished bees on Jade Leaf, hadn’t I?
    I could see now the others were trying to get her dress undone so they could sort out the situation, but LJL was in such a state they could hardly get near her. Suddenly she sprang up and ripped the dress in two bits with her own hands. She’s strong. (All those smacks and beatings she’s given have undoubtedly built up her wrists.)
    There she stood in her lace-trimmed petticoat, snarling and pulling at herself.
    The other maids began wiping and dusting her off. A few poor little ants were being murdered for daring to get into her gown.
    I rushed forward too and began, more carefully, dusting the ants off, then carried the rescued ones and tipped them out of the window.
    Outside, smoke still billowed over the Garden. Some of‘ the Guards were marching up the Cedar Walk, and there was someone, not a Guard, having to march in the middle of them.
    “Is that—the invader? ” whispered Daisy, letting go of more ants down the wall.
    “Must be.”
    We tried to lean over and see more, but JL was screaming again even louder.
    Daisy and I helped shake out JL’s petticoat. Jade Leaf thrust us off, managing to poke Daisy in the eye.
    “Oh you filthyword little sluts!” squawked JL.
    Outside, they’d be marching right under the window now.
    I leapt away, dashed back to the window, and looked down, calling as I did so, “Oh, madam, the Guards have a prisoner.”
    “Of course they have, you extrafilthyword little pest. Leave that and come here. I’m covered in these filthyword-Claidi-doesn’t-even-know things!”
    Under the window, the ghastly Guards swaggered, and this man sort of swaggered too. He wore a longish, grey, quite-military-looking coat, and the sun was gold, pure utter gold, all over his long, rough-cut hair. It didn’t look possible, this hair. Powdered, perhaps? Didn’t seem to be. It looked…
    real , in a way reality seldom manages.
    Just then JL threw something at me—it was a paperweight, I saw later—and it caught me sharp and cold with pain in my back. My breath went in a silly oof Below, the prisoner—the invader—turned up his head to see, in the midst of capture, what creature it was that made such idiotic noises.
    “Come here, you filthy filthyword !” screeched dear Lady J.
    I don’t know what happened. I cant explain. Perhaps you can. Perhaps it, or something similar, may have happened to you sometime.
    Spinning around, I pelted straight at Jade Leaf. And as I reached her, I slapped her a huge, stinging slap across half her disgusting, pointy pink face.
    Although the House was bursting with noise, this one room became completely silent. As if we had all been turned to stone.
    I gazed at Jade Leaf and had the thrilling joy of seeing the place I’d slapped turn from pink to boiling magenta.
    Her mouth was wide open.
     
    “You… hit me.”
    “Lady,” I cried, very