Taste of Lightning (3 page)

Now the gardens, and the hills and woodlands that rolled away beyond them, were lit up by the erratic dazzle of lightning.

As a tiny child, Skir had been struck by lightning. He had no memory of it, though his body seemed to remember: his hair crackling, the taste of metal in his mouth. He did have a vague memory of his mother singing, to comfort him. It was all he could recall of his mother.

Someone had told him about the lightning, one of the priests in the Temple at Gleve, long before he came to Arvestel. The priest – who was it? Not Bettenwey – had been reprimanded for telling him; he was still quite small then, maybe six years old. Beeman knew that he knew, but they never talked about it. There were many things they never talked about.

Beeman said, ‘It's awfully hot in here. Do you really need that fire?'

Skir glanced indifferently at the hearth. ‘I told the maid to build it up while I was in the bath. I hate drying myself in a cold room.'

‘Haven't you noticed it's summer? I'll open the window.'

‘No!' said Skir. ‘No. Maybe later.' He shivered, and glanced involuntarily outside, where the storm still flickered about the horizon.

Beeman followed his look. ‘If you're not going to bed yet, I'll light the lamps.'

Skir leaned on the windowsill as his tutor moved around the room. ‘Do you always have to be so damn
tactful
?'

‘I do my best,' said Beeman in his mild, dry way. ‘I won't light too many. Let's be cosy.' He set the taper to one lamp, then another, and made a puddle of golden light around the fireplace that softly lit the rest of the room.

The floor was thickly carpeted, and long velvet curtains framed the windows. There were carved chairs and sofas piled with embroidered cushions, paintings in gilt frames, and fine porcelain vases filled with flowers. Scattered about the room were a harp, a flute, several paintboxes, an abandoned clay sculpture of a girl's head, and an empty birdcage woven from silver wire. There were throw rugs of woven silk, and lamps in golden brackets.

Through a doorway stood a curtained bed, heaped with sumptuous quilts in subtle shades of crimson and purple. Dirty shirts and crumpled socks were strewn across the floor around it. Skir's clothes were all beautifully made and delicately embroidered, but without a single splash of colour. High-ranking priests of the Faith should wear dark blue, but the Baltimarans had declared that too, too dreary; they'd compromised on soft dove-grey. Skir's shoulder-length red hair, damp after his bath, was tied at the nape of his neck with a grey ribbon, and he wore a grey silk dressing-gown.

He was pale-skinned, slightly built, and looked younger than his sixteen years. He had a thin, clever face, dusted with freckles. His eyes were wide-set, the grey-green of the ocean on a miserable day. The last time he'd seen the ocean was on his journey from Cragonlands, five years before.

Beeman drew the velvet curtains across the windows and blotted out the storm. ‘I forgot to ask, how was your riding lesson?'

‘Cancelled. Old Ingle said we should give the pony a rest.' Skir looked up. ‘What?'

‘Give the pony a rest, indeed! How these people won a war, I do not understand . . . I'll speak to Ingle.'

‘I don't care, Beeman. I can't be bothered with it, really.'

‘I'll speak to Ingle,' said Beeman, pretending he hadn't heard, which was his usual way of defying Skir's orders. ‘Your riding lessons are important. It's good exercise, and it teaches you other things, too. You need to be firm, but gentle. You must make the horse trust you, and you must learn to trust the horse. Just like the relationship between the ruler and the ruled.'

‘In that case, it would be more useful for me to learn it from the point of view of the horse,' said Skir caustically.

Beeman laughed. ‘You'll see I'm right one day.'

‘Oh, you're always right. It's very annoying of you.' Skir sighed. ‘It hasn't been as bad as I expected, actually. I've only fallen off three or four times, and I've hardly hurt myself at all. And at least I don't
wobble
like the Baltimarans. No wonder the horses need a rest.'

The Baltimarans were nervous about Skir's riding lessons. He took them under the strict supervision of armed guards, and he was not permitted to ride anything but the smallest, tamest ponies, supposedly for his own safety. But really they were afraid that he might suddenly gallop off over the hills and head north for the border. Although everyone maintained the polite fiction that Skir was an honoured guest of the Baltimaran King, in reality he was a prisoner, a hostage.

A nearer rumble of thunder rattled the ornaments on the mantel, and Skir jumped. Beeman said hastily, ‘Why don't you finish your drawing?'

Skir wandered to the table and peered at the half-finished hunting scene on its square of canvas. ‘Is it worth finishing?'

‘Certainly. The shadows are excellent. And the trees in the snow.'

Skir held the picture at arm's length. ‘But dogs aren't my strong point.'

‘Oh, they're dogs, are they? I thought they were goats. Perhaps, if you smudged them out, it could become a picnic.'

‘In the snow? They'd freeze their backsides. Maybe a Rengani picnic. Renganis wouldn't let a bit of snow spoil their fun.'

‘Renganis don't believe in fun, or picnics. Better make it a military training exercise. Well, if you don't feel like drawing, shall we do some exercises of our own?'

Skir rolled his eyes. ‘You mean the ceremonies? Again?'

‘Yes, review the rituals,' said Beeman. ‘We've been neglectful the last few days.'

‘So?'

‘Skir, please don't take that moody tone with me. You know as well as I do that you must keep up your practice. When this is all over –'

‘When I've expired from a mysterious illness, you mean? Or fallen from the window in a tragic accident?'

‘I mean, when you're restored to the throne. When you go home to Cragonlands. These are rituals the Priest-King performs every day. Every word and gesture must be perfect.'

Skir slouched over the table. ‘But I'm never going home, am I? I'm stuck in this – this
room
.' He flicked a contemptuous hand at the satin and velvet. ‘His Highness, King of the Northern Territories of Baltimar! I wish they'd put me in the dungeons! At least that would be honest.'

‘If you had ever seen a dungeon, you wouldn't make such a fatuous remark,' Beeman said quietly.

Skir pushed the charcoals around the table. ‘Why pretend?' he said. ‘Even if I
do
go back to Cragonlands one day, it won't be as ruler. I might have the Circle of Attar on my head and the Staff of the Temple in my hand, but the Baltimarans will be pulling the strings and everyone will know it.' Skir let his hands rise and fall limply, in imitation of a puppet.

Beeman didn't flinch. ‘Don't try to out-guess fate, Skir. None of us knows what the future may bring.'

Skir kicked at the table leg. ‘I know those ceremonies inside out. I'd rather practise writing the Signs.'

‘Not here. Let's keep the Signs for when we're safely outside the Palace, with no one watching.'

‘Don't
fuss
. No one's watching now.'

Beeman was unmoved. ‘Spies are everywhere. We can't be too careful. The Baltimarans may be rich, but they know nothing of the Signs.'

‘The way you carry on, you'd think the whole court was teeming with spies, instead of fat young men who've got out of fighting and lounge around pretending that they don't sniff rust, and fat young women who spend all their time flirting with the fat young men, and fat
old
men who moan on and on about the war, and fat old women who moan on and on about the young people –' Skir stopped; Beeman was laughing. Skir laughed too, a little ashamed of his own vitriol.

‘Nevertheless, there are spies,' said Beeman, rubbing his eye. ‘That's why I didn't teach you to write for so long. It's secret knowledge, priestly knowledge.'

‘But you're not a priest, Beeman. How did you learn about writing?'

‘Oh, I picked it up along the way,' said Beeman vaguely.

Skir sat down near the fire and rested his chin on his hands. ‘Why you?'

‘Sir?'

‘Don't call me sir. You sound like the Balts.'

‘Don't call them the Balts,' said his tutor automatically. ‘Try to speak respectfully, even if you can't think of them with respect.'

Skir was not to be diverted. Tonight felt special, different from ordinary nights. He and Beeman usually went to bed early, unless there was a banquet or a concert or some revelry that Skir had to attend. They never sat up talking like this. Perhaps tonight Beeman might tell him things. There was one topic in particular that Skir both longed and dreaded to talk about; but he wouldn't ask about that, not yet.

‘Why you, Beeman? Why did the Baltimarans choose you to be my tutor?'

‘They didn't.' Beeman drew up a chair on the other side of the fire to face his pupil. His melancholy face relaxed a little, and he stroked his drooping brown moustache. ‘The priests sent me, with the King's consent. They had to send someone. You were only a child.'

‘I was eleven. Boys of eleven fight, in Rengan. They fight in the war, beside the men.'

Beeman frowned. ‘That's Baltimaran propaganda. The conscription age for the Rengani Army is sixteen, for five years' minimum service. It's true, quite young children help to make the weapons in the manufactories. But they don't fight. And anyway, as you know, a Priest of the Faith is not permitted to take the life of another.'

‘Have you noticed how the Balts – sorry – the Baltimarans always skim over the “Priest” part of my title? They don't mind calling me “King”, even here, with their own King spitting-distance away. But not “Priest”.'

‘It makes them uncomfortable,' said Beeman. ‘It's not like Cragonlands. Baltimar has no Faith, no chantment, nothing to believe in.'

‘They believe in wealth. And winning wars. And they have their own magic.'

‘Superstitious rubbish. The magic of shreds and scraps.' Beeman frowned. ‘They don't understand what a chanter is, let alone a priest.'

‘I'm not sure that I know what a priest is, either,' said Skir. He darted a glance at Beeman. But Beeman wore his usual absent-minded look, as if he were only half-listening. Skir leaned forward. He would make Beeman pay attention. He said loudly, ‘At least I know what I'm not.'

Beeman unfolded himself and reached down to poke the fire. He said mildly, ‘What do you mean by that, Skir?'

‘You know. I'm not really the Priest-King, am I? I'm a fraud.'

Beeman looked puzzled.

‘No,' he said carefully. ‘You are the boy the priests recognised as the new embodiment of the Priest-King, when you were four years old.'

‘But they made a mistake, didn't they.' Skir's heart was thumping. This was the subject he had never dared to discuss with Beeman, though they'd skirted around it often enough. ‘The Priest-King is always a chanter. Every Priest-King that's ever been has had the power of ironcraft: they can sing to the earth and make it move. But not me. Never.'

The storm had moved away, and the Palace was hushed. The ticking of the clock on the mantel sounded very loud in the silent room.

At last Beeman said, ‘There's plenty of time, Skir. Be patient.'

‘I
have
been patient. I've waited and waited. But the gift won't come! I've been practising the damn chantments for years, and
nothing
.'

Beeman sighed. He plunged his hand into his pocket and drew out one of the little machines of wire and wheels that he liked to build: his own equivalent, Skir often thought, of a Baltimaran luckpiece. He began to fiddle with it, frowning.

‘Well?' said Skir.

‘Don't be bitter.'

‘I'm not – I just don't – how could they make a mistake?' Suddenly exhausted, Skir slumped in his chair. ‘Didn't they ask for proof? Bettenwey was there, wasn't he? He's no fool.'

‘Bettenwey was not High Priest then. It was Devenwey who recognised you.'

‘Well, anyway – why didn't they ask for a demonstration? And what about my parents? Why didn't they tell the priests I wasn't a chanter? Were they so keen to see the back of me?'

‘It is a great honour to be chosen by the priests,' said Beeman quietly.

‘I suppose the priests gave them money,' said Skir.

‘Now you're talking like a Baltimaran. Your parents . . .' Beeman paused.

‘Was it because of the lightning?'

Beeman looked at him sharply. ‘What do you mean?'

‘When I was struck. Did they think it was an omen?'

‘No, no, nothing like that.'

‘Did they think it was a curse then? Is that why they wanted to get rid of me?'

‘No one wanted to get rid of you. Your parents thought you would have a better life in Gleve. They didn't know what would happen.'

‘That the Baltimarans would invade, and kidnap me? Why didn't anyone see
that
coming? I would have thought it was absolutely predictable. The Baltimarans and the Renganis have been fighting over Cragonlands for generations. Fighting over
rust
. Whoever controls Cragonlands controls the supply of rust, because Cragonlands is where the chaka-weeds grow, and since half of Baltimar is addicted to rust and pays the other half to get hold of it, there's a lot of money tied up in the rust harvest . . .' Skir's voice trailed away; he'd forgotten the point he was trying to make.

Beeman said dryly, ‘I'm glad to see you've been listening to my lessons after all. I was rather afraid I'd been wasting my breath.'

‘Like I wasted my breath when the soldiers came,' said Skir. ‘They saw me, trying to sing. Trying to shake the pillars down. Hands in the air, shrieking away, making a fool of myself. What a joke. They must have had a fine laugh over
that
sight.'