Under the watchful eyes of the Palace Guard with their weapons at the
ready, his Royal Majesty, singular ruler of the fertile gulf plain and
self-proclaimed Anointed of the Gods, his Highness the Emperor
Euphrates, father of many noble offspring and husband of countless
wives, entered at a sedate pace accompanied by various officials and
took with unfeigned boredom to the throne, his back against the stone
wall and a pageant of armed guards in watchful attendance on either
side. He was huge and gross of body, fleshy of face, hair and beard
molded into one mass of shining streaming black all streaked with gray. To
look up at him from the floor at a time like this was to die.
The proper doctrinal announcements were made by the Royal Crier, a tall
thin reedy-looking fellow who could by now have pronounced them in his
sleep without interrupting his own dreaming, and the great and terrible
Emperor Euphrates was duly installed for the day.
The Public Hearings came first, during which he lounged on his amply
padded stone throne and ate purple plums -a favorite delicacy; and gods
have mercy upon the slave who dropped and stepped on so much as a
single plum in the act of serving them- as he sat in state and heard
out the wearisome, endless complaints of his subjects.
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