The Year of Our War (12 page)
Home, I thought. Sleep, I thought, but I simply stood there trying to work out which way was up so I could attempt to walk.
When I need a fix I get flashes of past. Darkling, Hacilith, Wrought. Bleeding on the battlefield, running from the gangs in the city. I fear I will shake myself apart. May leave sweat stain on the wall like a shadow. Need rest. Need chocolate. Want a solid gold hypodermic and Tern to massage my wings with warm oil.
Shearwater Mist swaggered down from the gallery. “The Emperor certainly took it out on you,” he observed.
“Uh…Yeah. Only stopped because he could see I was…knackered.”
“If I flew seven hundred kilometers I’d be knackered too. Rest. Wicked. We’re only bloody human. Flesh. Bone. Rhydanne, in your case.”
“Yeah.” I slid down the wall until I was sitting with my knees bent up in front. Mist’s lined face loomed over me, above a rough cloak wound like a chrysalis around his barrel chest. “No offense,” I slurred, “but I’m going to be sick.”
“So tired?”
“Need cat…”
The Sailor plucked me upright and allowed me to lean on him. The most bizarre sight in the Castle—like a rotund crow trying to support a heron—I was so much taller than him I ended up draped over his broad shoulders. He trod on my pinions, I stumbled on the flagstones and eventually we made it to the Hall where he poured rum down me—and into my mouth—and averted his gaze while I shot up some scolopendium.
“God. Oh, god-and-the-long-wait. Ow. Fuck.
Why is the Empire fucking falling apart?
”
“Are you all right now?”
“Oh. Yes.” I giggled abruptly, realized I was being hysterical and stopped.
“The Emperor shouldn’t put you through that.”
“Hey, we’re immortal. We have a duty to work hard.”
“Hard, yes. To death, no. Candle. Both ends.”
“If San wants a scapegoat it will be me! I’m the most dispensable, Mist. He’ll blame it all on me and throw me out of the Circle!”
“That’s drug talk. I’ve heard such from the sailors in Hacilith Dock. Clear conscience?”
“Not really.”
“Nor have any. Comes from living so long.” He sat hunched over his tankard, a well-rolled cigarette in one three-fingered hand.
“Don’t tell anyone you saw me in that state,
please
,” I urged. My problem must not become widely known. Mist shook his leonine head, with an “it’s all right” smile.
“There’s been so much happening here lately to distract us that nobody’d notice you. Drop. Ocean. Swallow Awndyn’s louder, for instance.”
“Huh?”
Mist drew on his cigarette. “She threw the biggest tantrum of all time. She was even louder than Ata.” I realized that I had broken my golden rule: preoccupied with my own news I had not asked for the most recent happenings here.
“She destroyed Lightning’s harpsi-thingy, you know. Gift horse. Mouth. That thing was worth a ship and a half. Why? Well, waif, you missed a real treat. Swallow had the harpsi-thingy set up right here in the Hall and she sang her heart out for two hours solid. Pounded the keys till I thought they would break.”
“What did she sing?”
“Opera, mainly. Some blues. Without accompaniment. The reprise from ‘Lynnet’s Song.’ Over my head, it was. The Emperor was here. All here; your wife looked gorgeous.” He rolled a cigarette deftly and passed it to me. I declined because smoking is a bad habit.
“Ha! Pot. Kettle. The Emperor listened to Swallow an’ he seemed to enjoy it…It’s only the second time I’ve seen San out of the Courtroom…He spoke to her afterward. He said her performance was excellent, but he said she couldn’t join us. Cat. Pigeons. She was exhausted—she didn’t look as foxy as usual. It was after that she went completely crazy. A woman and a ship ever want mending. We could have done with you there to help calm her down. I think she fancies you. Birds. Feather. So now she says she’s going to the front—”
“What!”
“’S right. She won’t listen to Lightning. He’s pissed off as you might imagine but he brought it on himself. Heart. Sleeve. He’s a fool for love, always has been. The Circle is no stronger than its weakest link.”
“Lightning is not a fool!”
“You never had a father, did you?” Mist asked.
“No…What’s that got to do with it?”
“Grow up, waif. You hang around Lightning like one of his hounds. You’d lick his hand if he let you.”
Nonsense. “I want to know about Swallow; when is she leaving?”
“Oh, I guess tomorrow—or rather, later today because it’s half midnight. Strike. Iron’s hot, she tells me, but I think she just wants to be out of the Castle to escape embarrassment. I’ve noticed all Lightning’s loves look the same. It’s because—”
“She’ll take her fyrd?”
“Sure. They’re getting in the way here. I’m off to Peregrine because Ata has something to discuss with me about our daughter. Absence. Fonder.”
I gave him a look that I expect was mostly green because my pupils were contracted to fine lines. I floated on the drug. “It’s like when Staniel left Lowespass.”
“Yes. Frying pan. Fire. But the foxy redhead is too smart to get in trouble, like the rich sissy did. Chalk. Cheese. No offense but I want the sissy to be King because he won’t dare interrupt my trade in Peregrine. It’s an ill wind. Bloody Dunlin kept taxing tobacco.” I thought Mist was wrong; Staniel was stupid enough to meddle in anything.
The Emperor and I were the only ones who knew how desperate the situation was. Reading other people’s letters brings with it a terrible responsibility.
“Did the Emperor order Swallow not to go?”
“On the contrary, he said it was her choice.”
“Damn it!” I tested my weight on my shaking legs. Result: not good. I had to go to Swallow and stop her riding out. She wouldn’t last a minute at the front.
“Where are you going?” asked Mist.
“Have to see her.”
“Don’t be daft, waif. Haste. Speed. You’re in no fit state to—”
“Don’t care. Have to go.” I wobbled to my feet and Mist turned his attention to beer. “I’m telling you, Jant, rest first. You’ve been run ragged.”
“Cat keeps me going.”
“No fit state…”
I made it across the Hall and almost to the door before I passed out. I woke up in bed two days later.
I
t wasn’t difficult to intercept Swallow’s Band although I had to landfall a couple of times to be sick. They followed the Eske Road north, toward Awia, and the twin columns of horsemen, infantry, and baggage train were seven kilometers long. While Swallow and Lightning, riding proudly in the vanguard, passed the half-timbered Eske manor, the tail of her fyrd were still entering the manorship. Those in the middle helped each other traverse the river. When Swallow passed the Quadrivium Cemetery, the middle of the column was bunching together in order to get a long look at the manor, and those at the end were still crossing the river. When Swallow crossed the border into Awia the middle of her column crept past the Cemetery and those at the end straggled to glimpse Eske. She rode past Silk Mill and Donaise, Foin, Slaughterbridge, and the Place de la Première Attaque. They passed through Rachiswater, and held up all the traffic in the town. Lightning craned his neck to catch sight of the Micawater estate wall.
Lightning rode straight-backed on his white horse, red-caparisoned, by Swallow, his armor gleaming like the sun. Often he hung back, reluctant as a dog that’s sensed danger. But he had given up arguing with her a long time ago and was now following her for her own protection because he knew she wouldn’t see reason. I thought that if he had strength enough to stop following Swallow and let her go alone, after ten kilometers she might have suffered self-doubt, and turned back to join him. But each kept the other going, and they radiated a dangerous courage that rose like warm air. Swallow’s hair was copper; she held a guitar on her lap. Her dolphin standard leaped and twined. The fyrd moved with a rustle along the road deep in infinite colors of autumn leaves, sepia brown, russet, rust, and gold.
And all the time I hung above them, as high as a kite.
T
here was nothing I could really do to influence their strange dilemma—Lightning’s unrequited love for the musician. Although I had been a confidant to both, I was not intimate enough to break the seal of such a private problem.
Unintentionally attention-seeking, I have taken too much cat on occasion, but I couldn’t raise Lightning’s wrath when he was obsessed with Swallow. Swallow hasn’t noticed me even though I have cheekbones to die for. Adamantine Awndyn has eyes for no man.
I can’t divert you with observations and epigrams on the nature of love, because I know so little about it. I decided my disinterest in love was lucky. I’ve had lots of relationships, starting with Serin in “The Wheel,” and ending with Tern, but none have been as intense as Lightning’s agony. I have noticed that lovers can be nostalgic for places where they lingered, even gray tram platforms on freezing nights, which makes me think that love is not just blind but blindingly stupid. I do love Tern, but I love within reason and within the bounds of comfort. Lightning’s old-fashioned way of loving shakes the roots of his very being.
Lightning first saw her in the opera house in Hacilith. She caused a sensation, a standing ovation, and he heard the news while he was practicing archery in the Long Field at Micawater. Immediately, he took his coach to see what all the fuss was about a “new talent.” The Moren Grand was sold out, but he owned a box so close to the stage he could look directly down on her. When she walked forward into the spotlight and began an aria he was overcome and, leaning out, dropped his program, which fluttered down slowly, slowly and noisily in the complete silence onto the stage at her feet. He spent the rest of the performance in the dark recesses of the box, head in hands, overwhelmed because her voice was so perfect. He decided to send her red roses, and the floral carnage was such that roses have been rare in Awia since.
Lightning paid me to carry the first letter to her, and I found Swallow backstage in stripy tights and a green velvet shawl. A visit from the Emperor’s Messenger frightened her; then when she read the letter she fainted and I had to bring her round with sal volatile.
I flew their correspondence all year. Lightning pressed a letter into my right hand, dropped fifty pounds into my left hand. I stepped over the ledge and off I went. Swallow dropped a note in my right hand, pressed five pounds in my left hand, and off I went. Lightning sipping coffee on the archery field in Mica, Swallow tapping two-four time on the podium in Awndyn. Lightning in a long brocade coat, Swallow in a tuxedo and tails. Between them, I made a killing on the travel expenses.
Micawater Palace Mews
Saturday 20 June
The Year of Our War 2014Dearest Swallow,
In your last brief letter you were kind enough to thank me for the gift I sent. It was nothing, a mere trifle. I beg you not to worry about the value of such things when you yourself are so precious to me. You say the difference between Awndyn and Micawater is too great, but I assure you that material wealth matters little. Gold and banknotes are only valuable because we—every one of us—accedes every day in allowing it. We acquiesce in the illusion, but money is simply shaped pieces of metal and paper that we can wisely use to serve us. A small amount can be used as wisely as a fortune when it is the use to which it is put that matters. In terms of your musical prowess you are far richer than I.
Know that I will wait for you and that I can be relied upon. It is good that you want to become immortal on your own worth. As I have said before and you urge me to say again I believe wholeheartedly in your ability, your music is live haunting to me and I speak to the Emperor on your behalf at every available opportunity. I can wait, even, as you say, until you grow old. Eszai who are old forever are more grateful for immortality than the young impudent ones, but they miss their youth and wish they were eternally young.
I can never receive a straight answer from you, you twist and turn like a swallow in flight, but although it pains me to wait, I will. Do you know, heartwood is used on the inside of longbows because it is older and more resilient. As it is hard, it springs back to shape quickly and so can throw an arrow farther. Micawater is the heartwood of Awia, a resilient family with flawless honor. But good bows need sapwood bound to heartwood, to make them more pliable and so shoot true.
I am tormented by wondering how I can prove myself worthy of you. Tell me what you will. Love balances the weights unequally, always forcing a man to love a woman whom no amount of sedulous courtship can win, since she does not entertain reciprocal feelings, not having been fired by love’s arrows. Marriage is eternal, and it is mortals who fail it. Only immortals can be truly married, and an immortal can only be truly complete when married.
Don’t worry about my Messenger. The first Rhydanne I ever met disturbed me too. She told my brother how he was to die. For a long time I thought it was a power they all had, but it was simply a coincidence. My brother Shryke was an accomplished hunter; he went riding every day and returned with deer and boar. He enjoyed the amphitheater where we had bullfighting, and we brought in Insects and whole packs of famished wolves.
A fair would converge every summer on the meadow by the river. My brothers always clamored to go visit, but Mother always withheld her permission. On this occasion, there were archery tournaments as part of the fair. Mother was both proud of my skill, and keen to remind Awia that our family was worthy of the throne. So I went under the protection of Shryke, my second eldest brother. I remember toffee apples, fire-eaters, iced wine, jugglers, and horses racing on a grass track.
The Rhydanne was telling fortunes, using cards like the ones Jant has. She was sitting on the damp grass among all the patched, bright tents and banners. She had a long black skirt, spread out on the grass, and the cards were placed on it. I was uncertain, because she looked so strange, but Shryke was very interested—he lingered near her until people had drifted away, and I wanted to leave too. He gave her a coin, and she looked at it fiercely, in the flat palm of her long hand. He took it back from her, went and bought a bar of chocolate with it, and presented her with that. She smiled. I expected her teeth to be sharp, like a cat’s, but they were quite normal. Then she cut the cards and arranged them, while Shryke stood and watched. She said he would die within the year. She said that an animal would cause his death.
I watched the Rhydanne girl. She knew she was telling the truth. Shryke laughed and dismissed it, boasting that everybody had to die sometime. All the way back he told me that fortune cards didn’t work, it was nothing but a game, and anyway only mountain people believed those things. The next day he went to fight leopards in the amphitheater. Nothing could discourage him from hunting, fishing and falconry; in fact he grew more ambitious, careless, trying to prove that cards are foolish. Celebrations resulting from the archery tournament eclipsed my fears, and soon I forgot all about it.
Mica River cuts through a narrow gorge in the forest near Donaise. Shryke was fond of walking down there with his favorite dog on a lead, and often I went too. It was a great challenge to jump the gorge, it could be done in summer when the river was low. He left one morning and I was in my room, when my cousin came in, tears streaming down her face. I tried to console Martyn but I could not, and she bade me come to court. There we found Shryke’s body laid out on a catafalque, and Mother sitting on the throne room floor, wailing and beating her fists in the air with grief.
The gamekeeper found him in Peregrine, which is twenty kilometers downstream. His limbs were broken, and his skin vivid with bruises from being in the whirlpools. Nothing can survive the rapids there, they even carve holes in rock. Mother said that brigands had killed him but when the faithful dog came back wearing its lead I knew that Shryke had simply tried to jump the gorge. The little dog refused, and so pulled him in.
I never spoke to another Rhydanne after that, until Jant arrived. He has done much since which convinces me that they can’t see the future.
My love, while I write it has grown dark and the stars are reflected in the lake. Stars, like people, do not change but very rarely I have seen a bright star bloom among them—like you, Swallow. Write to me, don’t deny me a letter; it is deceitful to deny what has been pledged. Your reluctance to love is good because you will be more willing to keep secret what I confide. There have been many women in the past seeking to prey upon Micawater’s wealth and the promise of immortality, but I have shunned them because their love is not genuine. Your reluctance marks you as worthy. If I could only succeed in winning your hand, and if just a little of the ardor you show for music could be set aside for love, then I would at last be content.
Yours,
S
AKER
On receiving this, Swallow wrote to me:
MEMO
F
ROM
: S
WALLOW, THE
B
EACH
, 8/2/14
T
O
: C
OMET
, F
ILIGREE
S
PIDER
, S
CREEJant—Help me! Help me! The Archer asked me to marry him!! You said I could treat you like a brother so please help—should I say yes? Can I say no without insulting him?? He isn’t someone I should insult! I want to be immortal on my own worth, and this sounds more like a demand than a proposal! I know what my father would have wanted me to say, but I never took any notice of him when he was alive, so why now? Send your reply to Awndyn. And, Jant, I know you have the biggest mouth in the Fourlands but please don’t gossip about this. Or else.
Lightning offered her the most fantastic opportunity in the world. In fifteen hundred years, she was the one. Proud and principled, she was turning it down. Maybe she didn’t understand how untouchable an Archer Lightning was—his immortality seemed the most secure of us all. She must know more about what she had done to him. And as Lightning’s bride, Swallow would have plenty of time to convince the Emperor to make her the Circle’s Musician, immortal in her own right. I sent a hasty reply:
The Filigree Spider inn
Turbary Track
Scree
September 27, 2014Dear Governor Awndyn,
In answer to your question: say yes. Micawater has held out this long before asking because he doesn’t realize how long a year can seem. Tern has made me think of things I would never have otherwise considered; so I suggest that if you do consider yourself to be an adventurer in this life, the very best thing you can do is accept his belated proposal. In fact, if you want my advice, I’d like to invite you to Wrought so we can discuss it face to face and over a glass of whiskey.
The Archer is a hunter and a fighter, he is not a successful lover albeit he has spent centuries practicing. He usually keeps his business private but in the last few days I have seen him shattered with apprehension, which cannot be assuaged even by vintage port. I thought he had forsaken romance, that time had made him indurate. I wondered on whom you had set your sights instead…But now I write to say please accept Lightning’s offer; if you do not you may end him completely. Even in my worst moments I doubt I have looked so unwell.
If you make your way north on the Coast Road after Cobalt and Peregrine you will reach Wrought manor; wait there. I will come down to meet you. Then we can speak face to face and out of the Archer’s way.
I can think of many anecdotes which would sway your appreciation of him one way or the other. If you had seen him with Savory in Morenzia, you would not doubt his tenderness. Unfortunately Savory did not survive. He was blood brother with her, take a look at the scar across his palm. He used to say that he was married to her. I used to say that she was the fifth race, that there were Awians, Insects, humans, Rhydanne, and Lady Savory. He was in an adolescent storm of passion; I was like a chess player, touching pieces he did not wish to move.
On the other hand, and not to put it lightly, Lightning can be an arrogant and nasty piece of work. He has refused to lend me money when I have been most in need of it, and in dealings of real estate can be absolutely mercenary. Your relationship with him must be all or nothing, clear-cut black and white. I am aware so far that it has been “nothing” rather than “all,” but now I beg you to reconsider. Surely you should be pleased that he can be bad.
For example, I still haven’t forgiven him for what he and Tawny did to me on my stag night. We’re talking late December 1892. I held it a week before Tern and I got hitched—it should be the night before but I didn’t think that would be particularly wise. Lightning lent me the folly at Micawater to stage it and, since I was famous for giving parties, everybody was there. Everybody male, that is, from four lands, and we had been drinking for two days solid by the time this happened…
I’d had syllabub for supper, actually I was covered in it, and a bottle of whiskey. Well, let us say I was a little intoxicated. Lightning had been planning for this, and said with that scornful smirk we all know so well, “Do you still think you’re the fastest thing in the Fourlands?”
I stutteringly asseverated that indeed I was. He prompted that I didn’t sound convinced. It’s essential to be convincing because otherwise the next day brings a flood of Challenges from idiots thinking they can outpace me. I climbed onto a table and announced it to all and sundry. Sarcelle Rachiswater smacked his hand on the table gleefully and said, “Right! Grab him!”
The next thing I know I’m in Tawny’s vast grasp, with my face pressed against the table and my wings belted up behind my back. They stripped me, wound a deerskin around my waist, and with a strap under my chin, placed a pair of antlers on my head. They were heavy, twelve-tined, gilded. In exploring them with my hands I dropped the deerskin, to much wild hilarity from those not unconscious or preoccupied with the call girls.
Lightning stood, gauntleted hands on hips, and said, “Now you are the king of the forest.”
The best I could manage was: “Look guys, this isn’t amusing.” Sarcelle whimsically slipped a butter knife into my hand. Tawny picked me up over one shoulder and carried me outside, in a ribald procession, into the frosted gardens. The tower clock was striking one, a hunter’s moon jaundiced the snow. I stood there, they stepped back and regarded me silently. I said, “What am I supposed to do now? Piss against trees and eat berries?”
Then from round the stables, came a barking and a baying, the sound of frost being crushed under a hundred scabby paws. They had released the dogs. And you know what Micawater hounds are like: purebred and well-trained, evil little killers. Lightning gave me an experimental push, and said, “I think you’d better run.”
How I ran! I ran deep into the forest, in the semi-darkness, with the pack behind me. I ran till my feet left blood in the prints. I ran wide-eyed and bruised with cold. The antlers kept catching on low branches and jerking my head back—I lost valuable seconds crouching down and struggling with the strap. I went over fences and stiles rapid as prey, heart matching my strides, salt taste in my mouth, every decision the same: run. At the back of my mind, although reduced to instinct, becoming stag, I knew I could do it. I believed with a chance I could outrun twenty dogs. Then I just ran.
Until at length I reached the summit of a rise and looked down on a shallow valley strung with hammock fields. I realized this was Bitterdale; at the far end were the lights of Wrought. Stopping for breath, I heard the snuffling of hounds closing in. They began to howl in excitement. I backed up against a tree which I had no strength to climb. On the edge of Tern’s manorship, at the brink of safety, my spirit gave out. I was too exhausted to care anymore. I would make a stand.
The dogs were pouring through a gap in the hedge, blurred by the darkness. The first ran toward me, gathering itself to spring. I wondered whether it was possible to shove the butter knife down its throat before I would be teeth and fingernails with the others.
I hissed in a breath. I knew the beast’s exultation; I’ve run down so many deer myself. It closed in, canines, spit, and dirty fur.
The dog leaped, and an arrow caught it in midair, slamming it down into the snow, where it curled, whimpering, skewered through the shoulder.
The muscled bulk of a white horse galloped between us, and Lightning’s hands, one on my wing the other on my backside, lifted me fluidly over the cantle. In the same easy gesture he swung the quiver onto his shoulder, wheeled round and rode through the pack, which scattered. The hunt master, on a scarred charger and with a whip, was following. He made a tight bundle of the dogs and we returned in silence. I don’t remember the details of that, except for a bumping, jarring, the world being upside down. I was still drunk; my loose hands brushed the top of every hedge we jumped.
I remember Lightning prizing the knife from my grasp, placing a firm hand on my neck for my heartbeat which was calm and cold. He murmured “Rhydanne…” with an awestruck tone.
Lightning fed us with mulled wine and venison until I recovered. They figured that I had run forty kilometers, across Donaise to the outskirts of Wrought, just out of Lightning’s manorship. Forty kilometers may not seem impressive when you know I have done a hundred in a day, and three hundred when flying, but under the circumstances…
Swallow, when I last saw Lightning he was splitting arrows at two hundred paces on the archery field, with lifeless repetition. He’s hooked on you: obsessed. Don’t say, “But he doesn’t even know me”; he has been alive so long he knows the type of person you are. He can predict all your decisions from his own experience. Perhaps every second century he’ll find a strong-willed woman who is worthy enough, otherwise they are a disappointment to him, and those with fewer morals shock him entirely.
So, sister, when the Governor Lord Micawater goes down on bended knee, you say yes. I shouldn’t have to tell you this; it isn’t as if you’re Rhydanne. You want to be immortal, don’t you? By all the blood of Lowespass, what does it take to get through to you?
Never think that you are young and have plenty of time; you cannot know how soon the end will be. I will gradually let you into secrets that will make your acceptance into the Circle much easier. There are things which the Emperor does not want Zascai to know, and assumes that Eszai are less likely to tell.
The first room in the pueblo has been whitewashed. It is white only from ground level to head height, because the owner couldn’t be bothered to equip himself with a ladder. God, I love this village.
Now I should go. Judging from the way clouds are forming and eagles wheeling over Mhadaidh there is some lift to be had there. I am tempted to join them, but I will meet you on the ground, in Wrought in a week’s time. Don’t forget to bring your guitar.
Failte bhâchna.
Yours with the will of god and the protection of the Circle,
C
OMET
J
ANT
S
HIRA
,
M
ESSENGER AND
I
NTERPRETER FOR THE
S
OVEREIGN
E
MPEROR
S
AN