Throneworld Court Palace
The palace of the Chatcaavan Emperor on the Chatcaavan throneworld.
For information about courtiers and their culture, see Throneworld Court Society.
Layout and Environs
Receiving Room
Fields
Where the court eats, outside on a field where pillows and tables are set on slightly elevated mounds overlooking a central pit/field; this central field is used for entertainments, particularly duels. There's a pillow for foreigners on the corner that I've forgotten the name of but it's in Wingless. The Emperor's pillow is black, apparently. [1] Chatcaava do not dress their tables with tablecloths, and they're low.
The tables are brought out in the morning and returned inside after the final meal, but the pillows are set out for each meal, and returned to the palace after each meal, by castrates who clean them and keep them free of mildew and damage. There is a single castrate (title-less but known for the job duty) whose sole job is to track all those pillows, see to their mending and replacement, and oversee their distribution daily.[2]
After the Emperor's restoration, a new mound was sculpted in front of his hillock for his favored courtiers. The tables on this new mound are set at angles so that the people at them can look both at the field and at the Emperor.[2]
The meals are mostly several courses of meat dishes (charred or raw), with flavored ices for palate cleansers. Wine and water are served.[2]
Personal Chambers
Ambassador's Chambers
Emperor's Tower
The Emperor's is the tallest tower at the Throneworld Court, with many, many stairs arranged in a nautilus pattern.[3]
Harem Tower
To approach the harem tower on foot from the Emperor's tower, one must descend the stairs, cross an arcade over a large room, and pass through several hallways before entering the tower proper.[3]
There is a broad central stairway through the core of this tower lined with jeweled mosaics of fighting drakes with glinting white teeth[3], and guards stand outside the doors leading into the various chambers at each level.[4] There is surveillance throughout this tower, except in the Queen's suite. "You belong to the Emperor, my Queen. For anyone else to spy on you would have been an insult to him. Only he should have access to you." [5]
The Queen and the inhabitants of the harem have relative freedom of the tower, if perhaps unofficially; the Queen could traverse it to the catacombs as could Laniis[3], and the Mother was able to visit the nursery despite the irregularity of it.[6]
Catacombs
The catacombs are a damp, cold chamber in the basement of the Harem Tower, cutting down into the cliff. Alien slaves were held there before being brought to the harems.[3] The secret tunnel within it, designed to evacuate females in the case of attack, was later used for escape. The tunnel debouches near the palace landing pad. Had not been used for over a hundred revolutions when the Knife described it to the Queen Ransomed. [4]
Menders
Imperial Nursery
Installed near the base of the tower. Guarded by males, overseen by tongueless female caretakers/slaves who were taken from rivals but not beautiful, significant or young enough to be remanded to the harem. Separated into at least two rooms; the room nearest the interior of the tower is reserved for female children, and the one with the window for male children. [6]
Gift Harem
The Gift Harem is at the midpoint of the tower, and houses the females that the Emperor lends to guests and favored members of the court.[3]
Use Closet
Halfway between the Imperial Harem and the Queen's Suite, the use closet is reached from a door at a landing, and occupies the space beneath the final flight of stairs.[7] The space has no built-in lighting, but is illuminated with a hand-held lantern. It holds implements of pain and pleasure, hanging on the walls and on tables: whips, plugs, straps, racks, and torture implements. In addition to objects meant for use on harem females, the use closet holds racks intended for use on males, with specific restraints for binding wings.[3]
Imperial Harem
The Emperor's personal harem is a large space of cream stone with a central column, and tall arches separating the wings. It has the nest-like wells in the floor believed to be soothing to females in its central space, and both they and the floor are set with red, blue, and gold pillows for sitting or lounging on; there are also benches cut into the walls to provide further places for seating. Around the borders of the central chamber are trysting alcoves that can be closed with a curtain for some privacy. Perfumed incense burns in the room. A thick ribbon of mosaic in carmine, cobalt, and white line the arches and the tall, pointed windows.
Queen's Suite
The wide corridors present in the rest of the tower narrow on the last stretch to the Queen's suite; it is only when reaching the next set of rooms that there is enough room for two guards to stand. The suite consists of several chambers. The central chamber featured a well- or bowl-like depression in the floor, set with pillows for sitting or sleeping; it was a general belief that these "nests" would comfort flighty females, but the Slave Queen hated them. The room also featured a bureau near the stairs, and pillows on the floor for sitting. (Is there a bench or similar for the visiting males, or just the pillows?) The chamber also features several large windows, either without panes or shutters or with retractable panes and shutters; the Queen frequently sat in them looking at the sky, at genuine risk of falling.
To one side of the central chamber is a closet large enough that four aliens could sleep on its floor. The closet contains spare pillows in piles, brushes, jars of sand, and hand towels, among other things.
The bathing chamber is a series of baths set on tiers. The hottest water flows into the top bath, from there into the medium-temperature middle tier, and from there into the tepid bottom tier. The Queen prefers to wash in the tepid pool, but soak in the hottest; Laniis, however, found all but the bottom pool too hot.[3]
Clinic
The clinic is never closed. [4] Females and menials are never treated there, only ranking males. Has a reception area, where Triage sits. Then a corridor leading back to various rooms, a room for gel-tanks, some surgery theaters, and the Surgeon's office.
Servant's Quarters
Sleeping chambers, kept fastidiously clean, with few belongings, and their pallets are meager and lack privacy. The end of their chambers is an external door, leading outside where they do other chores. [8]
Palace Port
References
- ↑ Amulet Rampant, Chapter 18
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Major Pieces, "Deserving," Chapter 3
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Even the Wingless, Part One
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Amulet Rampant, Chapter 8
- ↑ quote from The Knife, Amulet Rampant, Chapter 13
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Amulet Rampant, Chapter 2
- ↑ Amulet Rampant, Chapter 14
- ↑ From Ruins, Prologue