The Modern World (7 page)

‘I called the captain and together we walked along the line of tents summoning the archers, getting them kitted up and reassuring them. By the time we had one hundred men the rest had gone. They had fled. The ground was falling away under our feet so fast it brought down the palisade.’

Lightning was staring intently, watching the memory. He subconsciously dropped a hand to his sword hilt. With eyes bright and the other hand spread, he leant over the table, talking directly to Eleonora. ‘You should never meet Insects on open ground. Use fortifications whenever possible. I knew that, but what did we have? Two companies of archers and a handful of arrows.

‘We retreated along the stockade until we came to the only corner where it was still upright. I ordered them to form up inside with the
fence at their backs. They were breaking down with fear but I made them pull a fallen section in front of us and shoot for all they were worth. We shot straight out over the top, in relays, all night long.’

‘For the whole night?’ asked Eleonora.

‘If we slowed we would die, I knew that full well.’ He swept his hand out over the table. ‘Fss! Fss! Went the arrows. Every time we paused, stragglers were coming in, some no more than naked, and we lifted them over the defence. Insects scaled it and I had teams to chop them down as they reached the top. After the first hour men started giving up, falling from exhaustion and hypothermia. I dragged them to the back and I kept the rest going. We could see nothing. We knew we were hitting people out there, but they were already lost to the Insects. I could not help them. I did what every Eszai should do in a disaster: cut your losses and save your fyrd.

‘When we ran out of ammunition I sent fifty men to bring more. Only ten returned. It was a suicide mission. We had no way of knowing what was happening beyond our palisade. We just kept shooting, holding out against the instant we would be annihilated. I felt the Circle break and I knew Hayl Eske was dead, but I didn’t tell the men.’ He glanced at me. ‘I was waiting for the Circle to break for Comet and Tornado. It was not the first time I have had to leave the battlefield on my own.

‘After that first hour I knew everything out there still moving was an Insect. I kept up volleys in pulses for six consecutive hours, until dawn began to resolve.

‘The light came up slowly, pale grey, and through the murk we could at last see the utter devastation. The ground in front of us sloped straight into the pit. The middle of the camp had vanished. Only the tents at the far end were left standing, leaning inwards. Around us, the corrugated stockade sagged and twisted like a ribbon. Insects were everywhere, feeding on the bodies. We were helpless, stranded in our corner and tired to death. My vision was dark at the edges with exhaustion but I wrapped my wings around me and I persevered.

‘Then came the sound of thunder along the road. Heavy cavalry were riding in. They were armoured head to foot and they poured into the camp with their lances levelled, riding the Insects down. Do you know who was leading them? Rayne. The Doctor. Bundled up in her old cloak on the back of a destrier.

‘She had felt the Circle break. She had been here in Slake with the rearguard and at first light she gathered all the cavalry left and set out to find us. We climbed the palisade and hailed her.

‘She brought her horse around the lip of the crater. “Bracing morning you have for it, Saker,” said she. “Where are the other two?”

‘“I don’t know,’ I said. They were both pulling on the Circle, we could tell that much.

‘She said, “You have exposure. Go back to town.”

‘I did not return to town. I picked my way over the subsiding ground with her, looking for Comet and Tornado. She spotted the sunburst on his shield –’ He gestured at me ‘– through the scattered soil and set her soldiers to dig him out. Finding Tornado was more difficult. She had to bring in some of her trained dogs. But of Hayl Eske we never found a single piece … Long, drawn-out ordeals are the ones that change us. For me it was just one night. But what a night!’

I said, ‘It was my biggest battle.’

‘Falling down the hole was not the best thing to do under the circumstances,’ Lightning assured me.

‘At least I wasn’t as useless as Hayl.’

Frost said, ‘Everybody remembers where they were when they heard the news.’

Lightning nodded. His face was flushed. He unlaced the strings at the neck of his shirt, downed the dregs of his wine and called, ‘Bring some more claret. No, no … that old bottle … You’ll like this one, Eleonora. I had to sell a house for it.’ A servant gave him the bottle and he clinked his intaglio ring against its glass. ‘We shall toast Frost’s dam with this. There are only six bottles left in the world … Well, five. But you only live once.’

I made my excuses, left the table and walked out to the washroom block to have a piss. I was just buttoning my fly when a figure loomed behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Eleonora at the doorway. She looked left and right with a pervert’s smile. ‘Hmm. Interesting in here. Why is it such a mess?’

‘Why are you following me?’ I asked.

‘You have a pert backside.’

‘Oh, bugger,’ I muttered.

‘Don’t give me ideas!’

‘Eleonora …
no
.’

She laughed. I was begging and that was good enough for her. She said, ‘No, anyway. I want to talk to you about the Archer.’

‘What about him?’

‘Not here.’ She beckoned. ‘Come into the church, out of this terrible wind.’

We walked past the stores, stepping over the rail tracks that carry
fodder to the stables, through the alleyway and into the church beside the hall.

It was a quiet, white room with beanbags on the floor. Churches are only single rooms but they are often built and funded by governors and sometimes as a display of the sponsor’s wealth can be quite ornate. They employ no officials, except a caretaker to look after the building, and they are places in which to think and relax, and reflect on the absence of god. People sit, or walk around admiring the decoration. Travellers are welcome to shelter there for the night. They are for people, not god, since god has left the world on an extended break and has had no impact on anybody’s life since the calendar began.

The church was empty so Eleonora spoke openly. ‘Do you know what’s bothering Lightning?’

‘Is something bothering him?’

She blinked in disbelief. ‘Yes! Men – you never notice anything, do you? Have you ever seen him so tipsy before?’

I considered it. ‘No, not for a long time. Is it his fiancée?’

‘Swallow!’ Eleonora said contemptuously. ‘No. He wouldn’t mention it to you, because it isn’t connected with the dam. I know how Eszai hide their weaknesses. He told me and, since the weight of responsibility for the advance is on you immortals, I thought I should let you know what has shaken him.’

‘He told
you
? What? What did he tell you?’

‘Do you remember Cyan, his daughter?’

‘Of course I remember Cyan.’

‘She has gone missing.’ Eleonora paused, dramatically.

I said, ‘What, again?’

‘Pardon?’

‘She was kidnapped once,’ I explained. ‘While you were busy wresting the throne from Staniel Rachiswater and exiling the poor fool.’

Eleonora tipped her foot and thoughtfully rolled her rowel spur up and down on the floorboards, leaving a line of dents. ‘Oh, I see. Well, that explains Lightning’s extreme reaction. He jumped to the conclusion that Cyan has been snatched. She is, after all, the future governor of Peregrine and the daughter of Governor Micawater, so she’s a target for kidnappers. They know he would give his manor for her safety.’

‘Where did she go missing? Awndyn?’

‘Hacilith. In the city.’

‘Why? What was she doing there?’

‘I don’t know. I was hoping you’d sort it out. Eszai should bloody well tell each other if something goes wrong instead of moping around and drinking.’

I nodded. ‘Maybe I can help.’

I was much more familiar with Hacilith than Lightning was. In fact, I know it like the veins in my arms. I could put the word around and if any hotelier or spa owner had spotted a girl as glitteringly important as Cyan the city would be buzzing.

Eleonora followed me out of the church – and pinched my arse hard as we passed through the door. I sped up to get away from her and returned to the hall.

A servant was moving around the table placidly, collecting plates and glasses, and pouring yet more claret for Lightning. He was talking to Frost but I barged in on their conversation. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that Cyan’s gone missing!’

Lightning looked confused for a second, then narrowed his eyes at Eleonora. ‘I … Well, I admit I have been a little preoccupied.’

‘You can hardly concentrate,’ Eleonora told him.

‘On the contrary, the planning is taking my mind off the problem.’ He took a sip of wine. ‘But I can’t stand the fact that Cyan’s life may be at risk.’

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Frost.

Lightning sighed. ‘I suppose I should tell you. My daughter has contrived to get herself lost while on the Grand Tour. It is an Awian tradition, Frost. I received a letter yesterday morning from my steward, Harrier. He was accompanying her. They’d toured Awia and were stopping once in Morenzia to see the sights of the city. That morning they had visited the Agrimony Campanile, the church at the place where the Emperor was born, and the great bronze façade of Aver-Falconet’s palace. Harrier went to sign into the Costrel Hotel and when he turned his back, she vanished.’

‘I would, too, with an itinerary that dull,’ I said.

Lightning gave me a look with the force of every minute of his fourteen hundred and forty years. He was older than everything in this reclaimed valley, even Lowespass Fortress that you would have thought immutable. I shivered.

‘It is not easy to give Harrier Disante the slip. He could have traced her anywhere but in Hacilith.’

‘Did he see any kidnappers?’ I asked.

‘No. When she started the tour I thought it was essential tutoring for her to see the world, but now I am afraid she is learning too much.
I would do anything for Cyan, buy her any present, let her travel anywhere except she must not be alone in the city.’

‘I can put your mind at rest,’ I said. ‘I’ll go to Hacilith and see if I can discover news. If I can find Cyan, I’ll bring her back.’

Frost stared at me with incredulity. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’

‘No.’

‘On the eve of the advance? Certainly not.’

‘It’s only four days’ flight there and back,’ I said blithely. ‘You’ll scarcely notice I’ve gone.’

‘Of course I will!’ Frost snatched her notebook off the table and held it pressed to her chest, her arms folded across it and her eyes round. ‘Honestly, Jant. Another of your picaroon ideas! Just because it’s Lightning’s daughter. Just because it’s him! Quite frankly I think all those beads you wear are cutting off the blood supply to your brain. The Emperor asked thee to work for me this year. Thou knowest I need thy help. I need communication and logistics more than anything else!’

I can tell Frost is distraught when she starts to pepper her speech with the remains of her old Brandoch accent. Nobody, not even in the Plainslands, has spoken like that since the seventeenth century.

I said, ‘I’ve already sent out my dispatches. The troops are on their way and no matter how much I chivvy them, they won’t march any faster. I want to see you raise the gate as much as the journalists do, but it’s eight days from now. Even if I don’t find Cyan, I can easily make it back in that time.’

Eleonora said, ‘How like an Eszai to take too much on!’

Lightning said, ‘Frost is right. When Cyan was kidnapped before, I deserted my duty and went looking for her even though Insects were swarming. The Emperor was unforgiving – and rightly so – because there are still bite marks in the gates of Shivel manor house and paper stains in the parlour of Tanager Hall. San only gave me one more chance and his decrees are set in stone. I do not want to have to crawl to him like that again. He went so far as to say that every one of those thousands of people killed had been worth as much as Cyan.’

‘You’re afraid of the Emperor.’

‘Yes, I am. For myself and for you.’

Frost said, ‘How old is this Cyan, anyway?’

‘Seventeen,’ said Lightning, refilling his glass.

‘Seventeen!’ Frost exclaimed.

Seventeen … I thought, and confirmed my decision to go and find her. Mortals seem to age very fast these days. I had been thinking of her as a child but now she must have a mind of her own, and a body
too. Her father was born with the silver spoon and could afford to believe the best of human nature. Her mother, who died at Tris five years ago, was a schemer convinced of humanity’s worst. How had these traits mixed in Cyan? How had she turned out?

Frost said, ‘She’s probably just enjoying herself and she’ll come back when she’s ready. Don’t you remember what it was like to be seventeen?’

‘Yes. Why do you think I’m worried? I did a lot of stupid things when I was that age … There was that incident with my father’s chariot and the lake … Anyway, we had a sense of propriety and Cyan, I fear, has none. It is strange. Why should she run away? She can’t be angry with me or I would definitely know about it, otherwise she would have wasted the effort. Either she has been untruthful for some time or this was a temporary aberration. I imagine her coming to her senses again and realising she’s lost.’