The Modern World (6 page)

I said, ‘They pose no danger to the advancing troops, wouldn’t you say, Lightning?’

Lightning stood up. ‘The only difficulty I foresee is an attack from further down the valley. Insects have been pressed back into the Paperlands where there is nothing edible left, so they will be ravenous. But with archers and lancers at all sides, I assure you no Insects will infiltrate our defences nor live to lay a scent trail for the rest.’

Kestrel nodded, and I pointed at another man who had his hand up.

‘Smatchet
, Hacilith Post
,’ he said. ‘Is it true the Trisians are causing difficulties for the Sailor?’

I said, ‘We’re not discussing Tris now. We’re talking about the dam.’

‘I hear Trisians are striking because they don’t want to be fyrd or sailors.’

‘It must have been days since you ran a story on Mist Fulmer,’ I said sarcastically. He was beloved of the gutter press, finding as he did a whore in every port and a port in every whore, and only half of them women.

‘Is it true there’s a garrison in Capharnaum?’

Kestrel turned to Smatchet and said, ‘The Trisians have put a chain
across the whole harbour mouth to prevent ships entering.’

‘Really?’

‘Absolutely.’

I glared eloquently at both of them. ‘The Senate has asked the Castle for assistance in restoring order and we’re complying with Governor Vendace, nothing more. OK?’

Smatchet backed down: ‘OK.’

‘Any more? Yes, Kestrel?’

‘Will draining the dam be safe?’

Frost said, ‘Oh, yes. I agree these are immense hydrostatic forces. To novices the interactions between fluctuating pressures would certainly appear frightening. But I will raise the gate very slowly and control the outflow. It will take five days to release a year’s accumulation of water. I wish I could be more accurate but I can’t, of course, because the reservoir and tunnels are an irregular shape, so we have conditions of flow under varying head. To put it in context …’ She rummaged through the papers on her table and emerged with a sheet covered in a complicated sum. She held it up, then looked frustrated as she realised few people in the room would understand. ‘Come and see me afterwards and I’ll explain … Well, I’ll try to. You can watch the event from a safe distance. It’ll be great – air entrainment and bulking –’

‘White water,’ I said.

‘Whatever.’ Frost shrugged.

I said, ‘Not only will it be safe, it’ll be a sight you can tell the grandchildren about. Are there any more questions? Yes, Smatchet?’

The
Hacilith Post
reporter addressed Lightning, ‘My lord, our readers would like to know if you are ready to announce a date for your wedding with Governor Swallow Awndyn?’

‘That’s not our topic!’ I said, exasperated.

Lightning answered mildly, ‘I think our engagement needs a little more time.’

I said, ‘Well, there’s your answer. Any more
relevant
questions?’

Kestrel crossed his legs and nudged his assistant to keep writing. He said, ‘With respect, Comet, is Queen Eleonora making the same mistake as King Dunlin?’

Frost panicked but Eleonora stood up and looked at Kestrel impassively. I said, ‘I don’t understand. What do you mean?’

‘Well, ten years ago the campaign of King Dunlin Rachiswater tried to breach the Wall and for our pains all we had was the worst swarm of Insects for centuries and a horrendous death toll. Altergate lost every man in its conscriptable generation, so that now the Castle has exempted it from the draft. Tambrine is also exempt from fyrdinge.
Awndyn manor is in the enviable position of being able to use its Trisian trade profits to pay scutage rather than raise fyrd. Lowespass and Summerday are the only two manors where the Castle can appoint a governor, and both have been given to the Queen’s lance captains. Their garrisons have been increased because the threat still remains –’

‘Kestrel –’ I said. ‘– But you are proposing to advance into the Paperlands
again
. What did we gain last time? Nothing! The Wall is still in the same place. Many people think it should be left alone. Don’t mess with it. Is your campaign military necessity, or are you rushing ahead too fast?’

Eleonora took a breath. ‘Comet, I will answer the man. The offensive of Dunlin Rachiswater was poorly thought out. His was a campaign of muscle not the mind. The Insects’ bodies are so much stronger than ours, we can only beat them with our skills and our brains. Dunlin responded to them rather than outwitting them and it was the downfall of his dynasty. Our current attack in no way compares. We’re using our knowledge of the Insects’ behaviour rather than our soldiers’ lives. We will take ten times more land than he did. Our fresh approach uses the Castle’s latest innovations – which are, dare I say, watertight? – and the might of my well-trained and experienced Select. The Emperor approves it.’

She hooked her thumb in her sword belt. ‘Insects from here devastated the western reaches of my kingdom; I must protect Plow’s precious fields. I will not allow Insects to make paper from Awian feathers and bones.

‘I am simply first among the governors of Awia. In a time of emergency I took special care of my people and now that things are returning to normal I have made sure of my governors’ support’ – Lightning nodded in agreement – ‘Awia has always had a stoic attitude. The Tanagers never accept defeat. I have fielded all my Select Fyrd because I know this will improve their families’ lives.

‘Let me tell you that if we are successful we will no longer need to call up the General Fyrd. There will no longer be a need for a general levy of the whole of the people. I know they resent their sixty days’ unpaid service per year, and we are aware of desertions during the harvest and midwinter. Well, from now on they may remain at their proper work.

‘There is good news for the Select Fyrd too. Their monthly payments will be raised to five pounds a week and an equipment allowance of twenty pounds a year. Commissions will be renewed as usual on godsloss day. I expect that the advance will be over by then. At last we
have the means to win the war! In future we will look back on this as a momentous date, not because of nineteen twenty-five but twenty twenty-five, when we at last halted the onslaught and took the first step that led to the death of every last Insect!’

Eleonora gave her grand smile. Kestrel and the other journalists were hunched over, scribbling rapidly. None of them, therefore, was free to meet her eye. Their finished pages dropped, leafed down and slipped under the benches.

I said, ‘Are there any more questions … No? … Very well. Then on behalf of the Castle I draw this meeting to a close, may it please Your Highness, ladies and gentlemen.’ And added informally to the reporters, ‘You can get lunch in the pub.’

They still took ten minutes to finish and gather their belongings. The benches scraped on the flagstones and they left the hall. It suddenly seemed very spacious. I rested my backside on the table edge, leant back, arms straight and stretched my legs.

The Architect had disappeared in a crowd of excited students in thick fustian jackets. They were asking her questions and surrounded the table to watch while she sketched an answer to one. She extricated herself by giving them as many figures and equations as they could take in and then we all watched them trickle out of the hall with their minds reeling.

‘I think that was successful, if I do say so myself.’

‘Red or white?’

‘No thanks. I had too much yesterday and I’m still recovering.’

Lightning was now on his second glass. ‘The vintage is not as good as the previous year, but still …’

‘Well, a splash of red then, thank you.’

Frost, Eleonora, Lightning and me were celebrating with lunch in the hall. We were together at the head of the table so we could hear the hubbub of the other immortals further down and occasional voices from the tavern across the square as the journalists entertained themselves. Frost rested her notebook on the table beside her. Woe betide anybody who gets between her and its pages when she has an idea.

She neatened her bone-handled cutlery with precision and began to rub a little butter into her chapped hands. ‘Thank you, Jant,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t have done it on my own.’

‘No more should you. It is Jant’s office and I am glad he is pulling his weight for once.’

‘Hey, Archer, what are you drinking? That’s not like you.’ I grinned at him.

Lightning scowled back. ‘At least your Messenger service has become more reliable recently.’

Eleonora, at the head of the table, leant to the side as a boy served trout cooked in verjuice. She said, ‘Cloud has surpassed himself, don’t you think?’

‘It is all right for the front,’ said Lightning, who tended to bring good food and a cellar’s worth of wine with him. It was his only show of wealth because his clothes were understated, if expensive. You wouldn’t know from looking at him that he has millions a year.

Each of Lightning’s features taken separately would also seem normal rather than striking, but even if I didn’t know he was noble he would impress me as such; he has that confidence that casts a glow and makes a man the centre of attention, because he knows he ought
to be. Give his plain grey eyes an imperious look but make them often prone to be cloaked. Dimple his chin, make his mouth firm, used to command but with a twist of sarcasm. Mark that he not only alternates between being ardent and brooding but sometimes manages to be both at once.

Constant training is the only thing that will make men stick fast in a shield wall, and Lightning drills the fyrd until they are less terrified of the Insects than they are of his anger. Since he is the Lord Governor of Micawater manor, as well as an Eszai, he boldly shapes the world but he still welcomes the yearly cycle of harvests, hunting seasons and accounts. He takes the world seriously, because he has no imagination. Because he has no imagination, he is a popular novelist.

The Lowespass wind blustered across the square and howled through the alleys. It never seemed to stop. The Riverworks banner fissled and slapped on the roof.

Frost glanced at me. ‘The wind’s getting up again.’

I shuddered. I had a sudden vivid image of the soil crumbling over my clothes. I could taste it. I said, ‘We’re supposed to be celebrating your accomplishment. Don’t remind me of the state I was in a hundred years ago.’

Lightning said, ‘You survived. Simply take more care next time.’

‘
Next
time?’

‘Most of us have been bitten. Tornado has been bitten more times than he can count.’

‘Do you remember being picked up?’ Eleonora asked me.

‘Ha! Of course not.’

‘He was in a coma,’ Lightning said.

‘I was moribund.’

‘He lay unconscious for fourteen weeks in the field hospital at Whittorn. Rayne moved him to Rachiswater Infirmary, then to her hospital in the Castle. He stayed there for a year.’

I wrapped a strip of fish around my two-pronged fork. ‘It was terrible. I’m far too impatient to convalesce in hospital for day after day, with nothing to do but the occasional haemorrhage.’

I had a collapsed lung and pneumonia – which injured Awians are prone to – and a bloody great hole in my side. Sepsis led to organ failure but Rayne knew to let me lie dormant until my body recovered itself. When I came round I screamed solidly, high and eerie like a sick infant until she pumped me full of painkillers. I was in shock; it cocooned and isolated me from reality. I knew I was very badly hurt but could only lie still and trust her. The thought I might never fly
again constantly distressed me; if that broken wing had grounded me permanently I would have been vulnerable to Challengers so I made sure Rayne paid it careful attention. I also suffered from a great sense of failure because the mortals who looked to me to lead them had all been killed. I desperately needed to talk but I kept my silence. It was like being in a dark tunnel that very gradually widened and I began to realise what had actually happened to me. I relived it again and again and I grew to understand it. Then I began to talk about it and I healed more quickly.

‘He harried us for all the news,’ Lightning told Eleonora.

‘Four months were missing from my life!’ I said.

Eleonora asked Lightning, ‘Where were you in that battle? Why weren’t you hurt like Jant?’

He shrugged modestly.

‘Go on,’ she teased. ‘Tell me.’

Lightning never needs much encouragement to recount a story. ‘In the preceding weeks,’ he began, ‘everyone seemed tired, overworked and irritable. Little things kept going wrong. We couldn’t know then that it was because something so momentous, so awful, was going to happen that it sent ripples back down the flow of time, to disturb us and disrupt our attention.

‘I was in the Sun Pavilion, writing. You know the story where an Eszai is Challenged, but he sends an assassin to murder the Challenger before they meet, so San throws him out of the Circle?’

‘No,’ said Eleonora.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Lightning. ‘But this is proof that romantic novels can save your life. The ground began to shake and, one by one, the candles guttered out. I could see nothing, not the back of my hand, not the page in front of me. I couldn’t grasp what was happening.