Fair Rebel

by Steph Swainston

  I launched myself past them, hauling Saker, and they followed, pouring behind me down the lawns, when at once there was a colossal explosion, and glass blew out of all the windows in the hall.

  It picked me up and threw me through the air. I slammed into the grassy slope head first and lay dazed. My neck was screaming pain. I couldn’t hear anything. I couldn’t believe …

  My hearing was just a blank. No buzz, nothing. I rolled over, down the bank, and with tunnel vision found myself looking at a maid whose face ran with blood. No. No. It was just a head with no hair, and a torso, nothing else. It looked like a horrible seamstress’ model. All around me were bodies and bits of bodies, skinned like steak. People were struggling to pick themselves up, crying, screaming, and looking to each other.

  The middle of Wrought Manor had been blown out completely. The wings on both sides were intact, but the Great Hall was an empty shell with a few flames burning on the smashed balcony – clouds of acrid smoke were pouring out. The bay window, where I’d been standing, was just a hole. The roof was gone. The parquet floor had been raked up and hurled out. All around me, shreds of clothes and skin scattered the grass.

  I stood up, clutching the back of my neck.

  Between me and the house, Saker was levering himself onto his knees. His wings dangled. Arrows and pages of manuscript splayed around him. He hadn’t been thrown as far as me. Most of the bodies around me were women. Many of the whole ones were moving now. Oh, god. Oh, god.

  I walked among them, back to Saker. He said something I couldn’t hear. I shook my head, in agony, and gagged at the smell: thick black smoke, with the salty stench of blasting powder. Cooked flesh, burnt hair and feathers, and a smell like black pudding from someone’s blood.

  There was Raggiana, lying in the midst of bits of pulverised stone and glittering glass. I took his hand and he gripped mine tightly. As I stared at him my hearing recovered.

  ‘Raggy, can you hear me?’

  The slight young man nodded, and cried out.

  I spoke slowly: ‘Raggy, help me get the people up. Find the gardeners to help … Bring our carts round. At least one for the hospital and another for the … morgue. Can you do that?’

  He swallowed. He was too stunned.

  ‘Then we start a bucket chain to put the fires out.’

  He shook his head, trying to understand.

  I paused for a minute. ‘Are you with me, Raggy? Come on …’

  ‘Yes …’ He retched. His lips were bleeding and his face was scarlet in the flickering balcony firelight.

  Behind me, Saker cried, ‘Hist!’

  I spun round to see him pointing to the tall hedge, past the gardener’s storehouse and shattered glasshouse. I caught a slight movement in the darkness.

  Saker raised five fingers. He picked up his bow and half-empty quiver, and ran over the black lawn towards the bushes. The flames from the house were throwing crazy shadows, and among them I made out people fleeing ahead of him, through a gap in the laurel hedge.

  Without breaking pace, he slipped through it. I left Raggiana and followed. When I caught up with him the intruders were some distance away, at the garden wall, beside the huge, locked, Wrought iron gates, and the first figure was halfway up a ladder, climbing over.

  Saker halted and stared at them dreamily. Abruptly he picked five arrows, nocked the first to string, flexed his bow and loosed. The intruder on the ladder gave a scream and fell to the ground.

  It was a woman. The other four stepped in front of her and levelled their muskets. We had no cover! I dropped flat on the wet grass, but Saker stood still. ‘Get up, Jant,’ he murmured. ‘Their effective range is two hundred metres. Mine is over three hundred. Let them shoot.’

  The four men aimed at us and pulled their triggers. Smoke bloomed from three of the guns. The balls spat gravel from the avenue, ahead.

  ‘Now,’ said Saker. ‘You don’t have time to reload.’ Loosed and dropped the first man with an arrow through the heart. ‘You don’t have time to run.’ Loosed and dropped the second. ‘You misfired.’ Loosed and dropped the third. ‘And you need to gauge your range.’ Loosed and dropped the fourth.

  ‘Shit …’ I said.

  ‘Jant,’ he said. ‘Epsilon gives me a hell of a hangover.’

  The woman who had fallen off the ladder sprinted into the topiary.

  ‘She has an arrow in her left forearm,’ said Saker. ‘Go catch her.’

  I brought her down on the grass some distance beyond the bushes. She fought me for a second – I felt her strength – then she realised it was pointless and lay panting. Saker’s arrow transfixed her arm, between the two bones, and blood and the dew were rubbing off the soot-paste that coated her completely, for camouflage, and revealing the story of her Rose tattoos beneath.

  I let her kneel up. She was about thirty, with long, curly dark hair, a heart-shaped face and a proud, wild expression gashed by pain. She wore a black vest and threadbare work trousers, and the muscles of her tattooed arms spoke of a labouring life. A Litanee gypsy, and by the size of the rose on her right shoulder, the leader of a troupe.

  Saker approached, looking pale. With one hand keeping an arrow at string he effortlessly picked her up and slammed her against the wall. ‘Who are you?’

  She spat at him.

  He released her, took a step back and drew his bow. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Connell!’

  ‘Why did you try to kill me? Me and Comet?’

  ‘I’ll say nothing,’ she said in Litanee.

  ‘Jant, speak their fucking lingo!’

  ‘She’s not talking,’ I said.

  Saker bent his bow till the tips arched, but she stood defiantly, pierced arm held out straight, face caked in soot.

  ‘You killed all those people. Why?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’

  Nothing.

  ‘I’m the King! This is the second time, isn’t it? The first time was the cannon. It was no accident! Was it you?’

  Nothing.

  He yelled in rage, seized her, snapped the flights off the arrow in her arm and pulled the shaft through. She screamed, horribly.

  Saker held the point in front of her eyes. ‘I should have used a broadhead!’

  ‘Connell,’ I said in Litanee Morenzian. ‘Come quietly, for you’re dealing with the Castle and the crown.’ I switched back to Awian. ‘Let’s deal with her later. Tern’s staff are dying.’

  He nodded, and picked her up in a fireman’s lift, with her head under his bow arm. Other than squeezing her wounded arm, she made no motion and not a sound as he carried her past her dead comrades, who also had Rose tattoos, back to the burning mansion. People were stumbling about on the lawn, couples helping each other, some kneeling next to dead bodies, screaming and pleading, some wandering in confusion. Two hysterical women were rushing into the North Tower to rescue something, and Raggiana was hopelessly struggling to urge people into filling water buckets, to form some sort of chain.

  When Connell saw where we were going, she started kicking and screeching, ‘No! No! No!’

  Why doesn’t she want to go back? I wondered, then I figured it. I grabbed Saker’s wing. ‘Stop!’

  Looking down the lawns we saw a sharp jet of flame erupt from the pumphouse and the explosion knocked everyone in the bucket chain flat like cards. We shrank from the bang, squeezed our eyes shut, and a wave of heat gushed around us. When I next looked, smoke filled the walled garden and I couldn’t see anyone standing. Not Raggiana. No one at all. And then the screams of the dying began.

  ‘Another one!’ said Saker.

  ‘Another explosion to catch the rescue team,’ I said.

  ‘What …?’

  ‘Because they knew we’d go to help.’

  He couldn’t believe it. He tried to think it through and still couldn’t comprehend it. He hauled Connell in front of him and shook her. ‘Is it true?’

  She looked at the sky.

  �
��They planned it,’ I said. ‘And it’s our powder. The missing blasting powder. Come on.’ I set off towards the carnage, but Saker didn’t move.

  ‘There might be another …’

  ‘Oh, for San’s sake, who knows!’

  I couldn’t tell why the Roses should suddenly want to kill us, but I had to help the survivors. We made our way down the lawn and into the smoke. Bits of bodies lay around, in the dust blown out on the shockwave. Feathers with gristle attached caught on the grass. Beside them were three vertebrae, still articulated, pale pink. Raggiana lay on his front, balled-up, his arms over his head, thankfully alive but as tense as rigor mortis, with his long ginger hair full of ash, and a fire began to roar in the North Tower.

  I knelt beside Raggy and tried to coax him out but he fended me off. So I left him and held one of the buckets under the broken water pipe until it was full. I motioned Saker to drop Connell and move aside, and I hurled the cold water over her.

  It washed off all the soot. I flicked my knife, slashed her vest into halves and ripped it open, revealing her tattoos. In the firelight I read them.

  ‘Lock her inside,’ I said to Saker.

  She was spitting and dripping, glaring at me. She cried, ‘Did you hear the earlier explosions?’

  ‘Three beyond the woods. What were they?’

  She laughed. ‘The powder mills of course. The ones you visited.’

  I was stunned. Why? Many, many people must be dead or dying out there.

  ‘Fuck …’ said Saker.

  ‘Did you do it?’ I yelled at her.

  She forked wet locks of hair from her face. ‘So you need to find the other bombs.’

  ‘What? What other bombs?’

  ‘In the market place …’ she glanced at the sun rising behind the coppice. ‘And in the steelworks.’

  ‘Where in the market?’

  She shrugged strong shoulders. She’d say no more.

  Saker pushed her into the windowless brick potting shed and turned the key. ‘The market and foundries,’ he said. ‘People will be—’

  ‘Going to work now. All right … You ride to Plume Forge. Take Balzan, go as fast as you can. Stop people entering. I’ll fly to the market; it’s further. If I can’t find the bomb at least I can clear the place.’

  He nodded, and ran off towards the stables.

  I returned to the steward, who was gradually uncurling and shaking like a waif. ‘Raggy, I know your friends have been murdered – but keep it together, okay? Okay? Take the stable hands and get the wounded to hospital. I’ll send the fire engines.’

  He gazed at the gore on the lawns and nodded mutely at a disembodied wing that had been blown against the potting shed wall.

  ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep a close eye on Connell – there in the shed. Litanee gypsies help each other. They’re sworn to – it’s their only code of honour. It’s the only law she cares for. Any other Rose or Oak will let her free. So set a guard.’

  ‘… Yes, Comet … Leave it with me.’

  I ran, and took off. I turned through the smoke of my house and spiralled up on the rising heat. The hall was a splay of rubble and broken glass extending onto the lawn. If you think of the great hall as the horizontal between the two wings of Wrought’s H-shape, then the North wing is the first vertical and now it was a formless glow beneath the clouds of smoke. Its roof was failing and falling in. The fire was beyond control inside, and its tower was now hollow. A blood-red flickering leapt from its open top: it was drawing like a kiln.

  Higher, in the plain of arable and marshland, I saw the remains of Fusain, Grough and Kingfisher Mills burning fiercely in the dawn-grey light. A bell was clamouring.

  It must look horrific down there. The bombs would have hit both the day and night shifts, as they changed at sunrise. And it’s wiped out half of our powder production. I envisaged the soldiers at the Front running out of gunpowder, and the Insects cutting into them, as I flew over town.

  I dropped into the market square. Around a hundred stall holders who had been setting up had heard the blasts and were standing among their half-erected stalls, gaping skywards at the plume of smoke.

  They switched their attention to me as I landed. I ran up onto the plinth of the Butterstone and gathered them round – their faces full of fear, shock and amazement. I told them the mills and manor had been attacked. Plenty of men and women started wailing and cursing because they had family in the mills. I sent some to harness fire engines and drive them to the manor. Then I divided the crowd into three and sent them all to the mills, and I didn’t mention the bomb in the square.

  When the market was empty, apart from its manager, I gazed over the stalls – barrels, boxes of vegetables, rolls of cloth, crates, bales, bags of fodder. Carts were parked nose to tail around the edge of the square. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Blasting powder could be hidden in anything! Where to start searching? Had I time? This was a nightmare!

  The market manager and I ran between the half-filled stalls, looking for gunpowder barrels, any trace of a fuse. The clock in the crenellated Bank Tower showed quarter to six.

  No fuses led out of the surrounding buildings. Every single cart seemed suspicious, but the market manager knew them. I had them towed away.

  We watched the hands move to the hour. We held our breath as the clock began to strike six … and nothing happened. The town emptied – everyone headed out en masse to the mills, wary of further bombs, with ambulance carriages and carts.

  I stood on the steps of the Butterstone, and was discussing with the manager how best to search the cafés, bars and shops around the square, when a clatter of hooves on Chirk Street made us jump.

  Raggiana Vitrix, his coat flying from his shoulders like another pair of wings, galloped round the side of the bank into the square, the hooves of his frothing stallion striking sparks from the cobbles.

  ‘Comet! Comet!’

  He curbed the horse steeply in front of us. ‘She’s gone!’

  ‘Connell?’

  ‘Connell! Gone!’

  His long waxed coat settled on his thighs, his red hair tangled with soot, and he was pallid with terror. ‘I had to take the maids to the hospital!’

  ‘Damn it! I told you not to leave her!’

  ‘I only left her for ten minutes!’

  ‘I told you to put a guard on the door!’

  His horse skittered away from my scent and he pulled it straight angrily. ‘Comet – the guard was killed.’

  The manager jumped down the steps and grabbed the stallion’s rein. Raggiana wiped sweat off his face, smearing dirt all over it. He looked at me in despair.

  ‘There isn’t a bomb,’ I said. ‘Is there? She fucking tricked me.’

  Raggiana bowed his shoulders somewhere in his coat cape. ‘When I returned from the hospital I found Parula with his throat slit. The door was unlocked. Someone let her out.’

  ‘I told you Roses help each other!’

  ‘Yes, Comet. I’m sorry.’

  Well, what do we do now? There was no point searching the grounds. Connell would be long gone. I swore. Behind me, the clock in the Bank Tower whirred into the introduction of its half-hour chime, and we all involuntarily braced ourselves for an explosion. There was no explosion. Raggiana, utterly downcast, hugged his arms to his concave stomach, and his black horse rolled its eyes and slathered foam all over the market manager’s hand.

  ‘Raggy,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, Comet?’

  ‘Ride to the steelworks and find the king. He’ll have shut down the whole place. Tell him there’s no bomb. Probably. Tell him Connell hoaxed us and she’s escaped. Ride back with him and I’ll meet you at the house.’

  ‘Yes, Comet.’

  ‘What’s left of my wife’s fucking house.’

  He nodded, lips pursed. The manager let go the Pelham bit and Raggy sawed the rein, gave his horse a kick and hurtled off in a shower of sparks. He galloped past the line of stalls, drew his sword and neatly skewered a loaf from t
he last stall. Sword up, with loaf on it, he slewed round the corner of the bank and was gone.

  The market manager surveyed the deserted shop fronts, restaurants and cafés, their stacked round tables and upset chairs, the trodden leaves under the vegetable stalls. ‘I’m going to search every shop anyway, just to be sure.’

  ‘To be safe.’

  He watched me shake out my wings. ‘Raggiana will send you word,’ I said. ‘And Lady Tern will be in touch. Whatever happens, keep each other informed.’

  I ran down the Butterstone steps, broke into a sprint. By the time I reached the pastry stalls I had the right speed. I swept down my wings and jumped, hauled myself into the air at the level of the shop fronts, past the bank and out along the street where Raggiana had gone.

  I prefer feeling the air under my feathers to the cobbles under my feet. I strained, beating down the air with the long forearms of my wings. All the time I could see the smoke filling the sky ahead – the morning sun shone dully through it.

  Tern rebuilt this end of town after the firestorm of ’15. It all matched the manor house; she’d insisted on the buildings coordinating in the same style like a fashion collection, and I flapped past arcades of blind gothic arches above the row of shops. Now the town survived, but her home was burning.

  I alighted on the lawn. The bodies had been cleared … mostly … but patches of blood remained. God, people had been blown apart! Maids, servants and their children had horrible burns … Blasting powder designed to kill Insects had been deliberately used on people – now I had chance to think, my mind reeled with the enormity.

  Ten fire engines were drawn up on the forecourt, pumping their tanks and spraying the flames. The fire was diminishing, but more from having burnt itself out than from their efforts. The blast had vaporised everything in the hall from the cellars to the sky above. Only the very ends of the hammerbeam roof remained. The North Wing’s entrance tower was a smoking shell, its servants’ quarters completely drenched. Water was running off the paving and pooling on the grass.

  I sat on a bench by the smashed glasshouse. I could track Connell from the potting shed to the estate wall, then who knows? We’d left the goddamn ladder in place, and riders must have been waiting on the road.