Halcyon The Complete Trilogy (50 page)

No hint of green except in the brief reprieve these people called summer.
Two months of grass and stunted fruit trees
. Qhora closed her eyes and tried to remember the rainforests, the endless jungles pulsating with life. The chirps and drones of millions of insects, the screams of monkeys, the songs of birds, the roars of the great cats. The Empire was never silent, even at night in the dead of winter. But here in España, one could imagine the world itself was dead. Nothing but snow and ice, a world drained of all color and sound except the pale slate blue of the sky and the dry rasping of the wind.

A knock at the door drew her attention to the older gentleman in the hall. Buried beneath layers of shirts and coats, it was difficult to tell what sort of build he had, but judging from the weak chin and soft jowls, she guessed he was little more than a scarecrow with a lump of fat around his belly and neck with no room wasted on frivolous muscle.
Not a threat to m
e, she thought.

He smiled. “Excuse me, Dona Qhora?”

The title still sounded strange to her even after a year of marriage. “Yes?”

“I’m Commander Rui Faleiro. I’ve come to speak with your husband on several matters of business. But I have a bit of a strange question for you, if you’ll indulge me.” His smile was false, but probably more from practice than actual deceit. “When we arrived a short while ago, we heard some strange noises coming from your stables. The boy out there said I should ask you about it.”

Qhora nodded. “What you heard, sir, were my personal animals. A kirumichi and a hatun-anka from the New World.”

The man smiled blankly. “And what are they?”

“The one is a hunting beast.”

“Like a hound?”

“Exactly. Only he is a cat, and eight times the size of a hound, with fangs as long as your hand, and he is trained to hunt men. And to eat them.”

Faleiro’s smiled wavered. “And the other?”

“My mount. A bird twice as tall as I am, and almost as deadly as the cat.”

Faleiro nodded slowly. “Is that so? Fascinating.” He stepped over the threshold and folded his hands politely in front of him. “If you will indulge a further intrusion, Dona, I would also like to ask you about your husband before I meet with him this evening. I thought it wise to consult the lady of the house so as to be…well prepared.”

“Thank you for that. It seems few people here care much for what a lady thinks.” She pointed him to the other chair in the room. “What business did you come to discuss?”

Faleiro sat and began a long ritual of wiggling his buttocks and rearranging the folds of his coats under his legs. “Yes, well, I serve under Lord Admiral Ferdinand Magellan, who is currently rebuilding our naval forces in the Middle Sea. With the loss of our Atlanteen fleet in the New World, our reserves are stretched to their limit maintaining even the most basic patrols. But in addition to ships, there is something else that concerns the Lord Admiral, which is our men’s ability in hand-to-hand fighting when the ships come together in battle. We are currently recruiting combat instructors from across Europa and North Ifrica to train our new sailors. Just last month we hired a wrestling champion from Hellas, for example. And I’m here today to ask your husband to train our sailors in swordplay. We have an Italian fellow at the moment, but I don’t think he’s going to work out, frankly. But Don Lorenzo’s reputation is well earned, judging from that display back there. He is without question one of the most skillful diestros I have ever seen. He is stunningly fast. But he also has this religious reputation, which concerns me. In your opinion, Dona, what do you think he would say to my proposal?”

Qhora folded her cold, dry hands in her lap. “First, he would thank you for your generous offer. And then he would politely decline it.”

Faleiro’s vacant smile faltered. “Really? Why do you say that?”

“Commander, when I first met Enzo, he carried a musket, an axe, and a fat cleaver of a sword. I thought he was just another wild-eyed butcher. It wasn’t until weeks later that I saw him duel with an espada for the first time,” said Qhora. “My husband is no longer a soldier. He spends more time in church now than in the practice room. And you saw what he did just now with that Italian boy. He toys with his opponents, sometimes he even preaches at them, and then he snaps their swords and sends them on their way. If he did go with you to your navy, he would only teach your sailors to do the same. And if you insisted that he teach them to kill, then he would leave.”

Faleiro sighed and scratched at the stubble on his chin. “I see. That would be a problem, indeed. We can’t have a military that refuses to kill the enemy, can we?”

“Perhaps
you
can’t. It would be Enzo’s greatest dream come true.”

“Really?” Faleiro cocked his head to one side with a wide frown on his fat lips. “But he was such a talented soldier, according to every account I’ve heard. Did the ghosts of his comrades begin to haunt him? Did some priest get to him about his sins during the wars? Frighten him away from bloodshed and killing?”

Qhora frowned. “Something like that. He had several dark months, and almost gave up the sword altogether. For a time, I thought he might take the cloth himself.”

“But he didn’t. Why?”

“Because he married me.”

“Instead of God?” Faleiro chuckled. “Well, I suppose that proves he’s still quite sane.”

Qhora smiled briefly. “I suppose so.”

“So this is it, then?” Faleiro waved at the room around them. “Don Lorenzo intends to remain here, teaching his bloodless warfare? A pity. A waste, really. He might have done so much for his country. My cousin, Prince Valero, spoke rather highly of him when we were discussing candidates for the instructor position. I’m disappointed to find that one of our most esteemed patriots has been reduced to such a meager shadow of a man.”

“My husband has done enough for your country already,” she said sharply. “He fought your wars in the streets of Cusco, he saved your soldiers from the destruction of Cartagena, and if it had not been for him the crown of Marrakesh would be in the hands of a war-mongering bitch who no doubt would have razed España to its bedrock by now. What did you say your position was,
sir
?”

Faleiro glared at her. “Commander. I serve as chief advisor to
Lord Admiral
Magellan. I am a master cartographer, as well as a cosmographer.”

Qhora laughed. “You claim to read the stars? To predict the future? Did you predict that your mission to recruit my husband would fail?”

Faleiro sputtered. “I’ve not failed! I’ve not even spoken to Don Lorenzo yet. And I’ll have you know I can be quite convincing when needs be.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s true. Prince Valero is a fairly shrewd man. You must have been quite convincing indeed if you talked him into making a feeble halfwit a commander in his navy.” Qhora smiled and leaned back in her chair.
Words aren’t as satisfying as knives, but there is something to be said for stabbing at a man’s pride.

“Yes,” Faleiro said in a slow gravelly voice. “Well, better a commander in His Royal Highness’s navy than a worthless coward hiding in some ruin preaching nonsense to a handful of idiot children. And married to a heathen savage! Pathetic. Can your husband even read?”

“Of course he can read, you disgusting toad,” she said calmly.
And if Lorenzo wasn’t in the house, I would show you what a savage I can be
. “He’s writing his own fencing manual right now. It will make the books written by Capoferro and Carranza look like a child’s scrawl. My husband is going to change the world. He’s going to end war itself.”

Faleiro laughed a deep belly laugh. As he wiped the tears from his eyes, he said, “You poor stupid girl. What idiot could think that someone like Quesada could end war?” He laughed again. “But I suppose that’s what you get, living in filth surrounded by blood-thirsty animals.”

Qhora felt her blood rising, the heat flush in her chest and neck and cheeks. She wanted to pull the Aegyptian dagger from her left sleeve and slit the fat man’s throat. “What do you know about war? War isn’t natural. Animals don’t wage war. Not even people make war. Only cowards wearing fancy hats and titles make war. Enzo is going to change all that. He will break all the swords raised against him, and then he will raise an army to break all the swords in the world. And after he has become the greatest peacemaker in the world, he will become the greatest explorer in history. Have you heard the legend of the skyfire stone?”

Faleiro puffed his wet lips and rolled his little eyes. “The nun who saw a meteor fall to earth? That was hundreds of years ago. So what? Don’t tell me Don Lorenzo is reading that old garbage. The skyfire stone was just a rock, little more than a holy relic for idiots who understand nothing of science.”

“Enzo was trained to slaughter men by Don Jeronimo Carranza. He was trained in mathematics and anatomy, as well as metalworking.” Qhora leaned forward with her right hand edging closer to the dagger hilt hidden in the lace folds of her left sleeve. “I think he knows a thing or two about your precious sciences. He even knows a thing or two about mapmaking. And he’s already found the skyfire stone.”

Faleiro flashed a very brief smile and then stared at her for a moment. “What do you mean, he’s found it?”

A sudden stab of doubt twisted in her chest.
He’s actually interested! Enzo said never to discuss the details of the stone with anyone.
She feigned boredom. “He knows where it is.”

“No one knows where it is. In my school days, I read that nun’s letters to the bishop myself. She didn’t know where it was. And even if she did, who cares? It’s just a rock.”

Qhora felt her heart at war between her desire to protect her husband and her desire to lord him over other men. Especially this man. She said, “That nun, Sister Ariel, knew more than she said in her letters. And she told it all to Enzo.”

“She told it all to—” Faleiro’s eyes narrowed. “No. Her ghost told him?
Him
?”

Stop talking. Stop telling this bloated fool about the stone!
But she still wanted to slash the man across the throat.
To hell with Espani etiquette
. She said, “When Enzo retrieves the stone, he’ll have the most powerful weapon in the world. His name and his deeds will be remembered for centuries, long after yours have been forgotten.”

“Weapon?” Faleiro sat up. “What weapon?”

Stop, stop, stop!
Qhora smiled coldly at the man’s plain-faced eagerness. “Good day, commander.” She stood and left, still smiling to herself.

She spent the rest of the afternoon walking the grounds. With her shoulders aching under the weight of her coats and her breath steaming like a locomotive’s funnel, she trudged up and down the frozen muddy lanes around the old Diaz estate where Lorenzo had established his school. She passed through the dead remains of the apple orchard where the trees slumbered in anticipation of their two months of summer sun, and she crunched along the edge of the pond where the young boys liked to chop holes in the ice to fish with thread and wire. For months, she had stubbornly clung to this ritual of pacing around the yards, insisting to anyone who asked that with enough time she would grow accustomed to the Espani climate to the point at which she might wear as few as one coat. But she was still wearing two, in addition to her shawls and knit pullovers.

More often than not, she skewed her schedule later in the afternoon when the sun was already low and bleak shadows stretched across the snowy hills. Enzo had told her that the walking dead might be glimpsed only in the deepest cold and only in the dimmest light. But she also knew that the spirit had to choose to visit, and so far none had chosen to visit her. Not even Sister Ariel. She had no great desire to meet a ghost, but it was the one truly intriguing aspect to this foreign land. And yet that too seemed to be denied to her.

The sky was black as jet when she returned to the house by way of the stables. Beneath the brilliant winter stars she glanced over the horses and then entered the pen in the rear through the heavy leather curtain. Inside she found Atoq sleeping on a thick bed of hay, twisted and rolled mostly onto his back with his great furry belly exposed. He was all soft browns and warm blacks flecked with the odd patch of white, his hide wrapped tightly over layers of heavy muscle, most of it concentrated on his huge shoulders and neck. The enormous fanged cat had curled up against the wall opposite the stabler’s stove for warmth and the glistening red stain on the floor told her that Atoq had been fed within the last hour. Whatever regret she had about confining the hunting beast faded when she saw him sleeping contentedly on his bed. After all, his life back in the Empire would have been no more or less comfortable.

But across from the cat stood her feathered mount, the hatun-anka Wayra. The massive bird hovered by the narrow window, gazing out over the hills, her talons clicking softly on the stone floor, tiny chirps and hisses escaping through her hatchet-like beak. Her head and neck rustled with blue-green plumes, but her eyes were ringed in bright red feathers, and in the darkness she appeared as a bloody-eyed demon. She held her short wings tight against her sides and stood in a wide-legged stance, tensed as though ready to sprint through the jungles as she once had. Wayra turned and blinked at her mistress, then shuffled around and dipped her plumed head to receive Qhora’s gentle caresses.

Atoq may have been content to lie on the floor and bask in the glow of a full belly and a warm bed, but Wayra needed more than food and water. She needed to run. Time and again, Qhora had tried to find roads or trails where they might ride alone, far from the people of Madrid. But there was always someone on the road who would see them and run away screaming, to be followed by a visit from the local constabulary who required endless promises from Enzo that the bird would be kept under lock and key. And they couldn’t travel cross-country, at least not in the snow. Wayra had learned to run on the rocky mountain slopes and dense jungle floors, but the slippery ice and unreliable snow mounds made her uncertain, which made her angry, which made her dangerous.