Fair Rebel

by Steph Swainston

‘No, Your Majesty, please do me the honour of keeping it, as a parting gift. Marcel himself made it; from the Brooke Street tobacconists. It’s the bee’s knees, the ant’s antennae; one cannot buy finer. Human-designed, and infallible … It’s stylish and effective. Like me.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He turned his horse. ‘Jant, this affair gives me the pip. Catch Swallow, what?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘Good. Oh, and remember, red never matches bottle green, so try not to get shot.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mist.’

  ‘A hearty pip pip to the both of you. Fair winds and following seas.’ He described an elegant arc with the cigarette, then walked the horses away towards Cullion and, as he did so, we saw his flamboyance desert him, and a hard expression crossed his face.

  CHAPTER 25

  Fulmer

  I think Fulmer, being new to the Circle, struggles with the scope of immortality. When he was mortal, and an inveterate social climber, he reached a false summit from which the Awian aristocracy blocked his further ascent. I’ve suffered their slights myself, when I was courting Tern, so I know how they scar a man. But Fulmer wanted so desperately to mix and dazzle in Eleonora’s court, that he dressed more and more perfectly and memorized the Etiquette. Every barbed comment hooks and plays him, to shape himself to fit in with those bastards, though it’s easier to become immortal than to join them.

  Some things aren’t written in the Etiquette. As Saker said, you simply know them because you’ve always known them, and if you don’t, you might as well be carrying a billboard saying ‘I used to be a harbourmaster’s clerk’. Fulmer makes faux pas so slight that only Eleonora’s crowd notice. And they laugh at him trying so hard to be a healthy pack member. They love his trepidation that they’ll hound him out.

  Fulmer hasn’t realised that, being Mist, he doesn’t have to be part of their vain and shallow world. He could slob around in an old Tanager Bay t-shirt, as long as he’s the Sailor, and they’ll emulate him, until he sets a fashion for old t-shirts. He could tell the lords and ladies, ‘History will remember you badly, because I’ll write it!’ – and they’d eat out of his hand.

  That’s what’s so great about the Circle. It lifts you from the mortal’s rat race. Admittedly it puts you into a more competitive one, but at least the Castle’s fair. Fulmer’s desire to run in the wheel of the upper class pains him badly. And they know it, and they love being able to taunt an Eszai.

  When he was Zascai, Eleonora’s patronage made him captain of the Melowne, which gave him the practice he needed to become Mist. She was his stepping stone – by all the ladies’ accounts he’s very giving in bed, but he’d rather have a word from her. His big projects are fantastic, but Society drags him down. So, as Mist he uses his gunships to bombard the Insects. He communicates with the gigantic Sea Kraits to destroy the coastal Paperlands. But as Fulmer he serves Steinasri Fleuve Nicholl brandy 1960 (not 1961), coffee with the dinner (also ‘not done’!).

  Why not?

  Because it just isn’t.

  And fish on a Wednesday in December, not knowing what ‘everyone knows’, that it wasn’t so many decades since Queen Jardine choked on a bone. I wish I could tell him he doesn’t have to care. I’d like to see his hardness, which cracks to severity, melt to a nature more congenial and sweet. I know it’s in there. I wish I could make him understand. I need to watch him. And then I realised, that’s how Saker used to feel, about me.

  CHAPTER 26

  Awndyn

  Saker rode circuits of Maple Wood until he was forced to admit he couldn’t see any sign of Connell. Hooves had churned up the ground and, though he sent riders to search the hedges, coppices, farmhouse and defused wagons, Connell had vanished without trace.

  He rode back to me. The gibbous moon was low and large, almost transparent to the blue sky, over the stand of poplars that surrounded Drussiter farmhouse on the low hill. ‘Without track dogs, what can I do? I’ll check the beach, Drussiter … Awndyn. I’ll search the border. She’ll probably try to nip into Morenzia by the canal bridge … that way.’

  ‘That’s where I’m going, to Awndyn. I’ll send a message to warn all Eszai, and I’ll meet you there tonight.’

  ‘At the manor house …’

  ‘Yes. At your manor house.’

  ‘Very well. But god knows I don’t want to go back there, now. It’ll be like holding a séance.’

  ‘Saker, have you ever held a séance?’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘They don’t work.’

  ‘Actually—’

  ‘They don’t work.’

  Awndyn is a hub for my Black Coach and the terminal of the coastal telegraph line. I landed by the white weatherboarded turret of my semaphore tower. Every tower has two masts, that is, two sets of arms, so they can send and receive at the same time. I entered and climbed upstairs to the chief operator, seated at a slope-top desk before the great viewing pane.

  I wrote a message warning all the Eszai and recalling those who weren’t at the Front, to the Castle. The risk of Connell or Swallow reading the code outweighed the fact my friends were going to be blown up if they stayed where they were. The operator began to sweep the levers across the console. They controlled cantilevers that moved the arms above us, and we watched the station on Awndyn Hill spread and fold in my wings’ callsign, and begin to repeat the first moves of my message.

  And away it went at the speed of sight, spelling itself laboriously over the Downs: Awndyn Three to Five, Dace River Six, Clobest, to the Eske Hub, and out to all the outposts of the Empire. Swooping at a rate of two words per minute, my message being ten words long, that is five minutes through thirty-five stations, over a distance of two hundred and eighty kilometres; it will reach the Castle in an hour.

  The Awndyn Hill tower mirrored us. Like an exotic dancer in a floor-length dress, she sinuously scissored her black and white arms to our melody. I watched her zip through her symbols, then lower her arms in readiness, and I fell in love.

  Then I gave sealed letters to fast riders at the Black Coach mail office, which never closes, and watched them gallop away, each to a different Eszai, to the Governor of Hacilith and to the Emperor. Across the world, the telegraph paddles will fold in silence. I’d warned my friends not to broadcast their movements, now Swallow’s code book lies in terrorist hands.

  I had Awndyn Manor house searched before I dared enter. My burns were agonising and my whole body was shaking, so after dinner I went to the annexe and shot up a phial of scolopendium into my unburnt arm.

  I lay on the Awian chaise longue and watched the streaky sky darken, flickering whenever a sparrow flew past the intricate leaded windows. Although they gave onto a sea view, I preferred the annexe to Swallow’s study or the hall, because they were still pervaded by that weird musty smell. I preened my wings with a sinking feeling of grief for them, feeling the stricture of my burnt skin. It’ll take a year for my flight feathers to moult through. They’d grow back faster if I pulled them out, but I can’t afford to ground myself.

  Branches of wisteria crawled and spiralled around the window. They tapped on the glass, but they couldn’t get in. Night fell, and dew beaded into grey canopies the spiders’ webs covering the lawn. Glow worms flickered in the flowerbeds. The constellation called the Lawyer was tilting south from her zenith, as if dipping her starry scales into the sea. Two of Awndyn’s three lighthouses winked beyond the north wing of the sleeping mansion, and the pier lighthouse gilded a path across the ocean. Beyond the south wing the sea was just a black expanse, no waves, no movement at all.

  I could see across the lawn to the conjoined chimneys of the main house. They stood tall above the low roofs and cast striped moon-shadows over the grass. A single lamp burned in an iron cage by the porch, and glittered the panes in the bay windows. It cast a tongue of light, moths curled around it, and the rest of the house lay dark and almost blue in the chirruping summer night.

  Saker must have come in while I w
as unconscious, because he was suddenly sitting on the backless chair unlacing his boots. ‘Jant,’ he said, ‘When you fall off the wagon you land with a crash.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Don’t relapse. Please. Not now.’

  I pulled my wings in, sat up and recounted everything I’d done. He listened carefully. ‘…Well, I’m grateful. I couldn’t find Connell. I’ll return to Tanager tomorrow; Eleonora will be relieved to hear we’re not the target … This sepulchre is making my skin crawl. I can’t decide whether Swallow’s dead or not.’

  ‘Resurrected to wreak vengeance.’

  ‘She had a temper enough to raise the dead.’ He pulled off his boot and stared at the sole of it. ‘Breaking vases … and harpsichords.’

  ‘She wants to break the Circle.’

  ‘Yes.’ He levered off the other boot. ‘Swallow knew I loved her … and part of me still does … I mean, love her music. But she didn’t care about me, so I’m safe, I think. After I lost my Challenge I might as well have stopped existing.’

  ‘She should’ve listened to you.’

  ‘She wanted to be immortal on her own terms. Well, nobody can. It’s impossible. You can only be immortal on other people’s terms.’

  ‘San’s rules.’

  ‘Oh, and those of the admirers and musicians who choose to listen to her music … I would have married her, Jant.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Because of her music, her spirit. No wonder she attacked Cyan first. She … hated Cyan. Absolutely hated her, because I asked her to look after my girl, when she was growing up.’

  ‘And because Cyan was a recent Eszai.’

  He looked down to hide the pain. ‘She mistreated Cyan when they lived together. It was my fault. I regret it … I thought the two could be my family. But she wanted to be the Musician, not my wife. It’s her folly … She’d be immortal now, instead of … pushed to this extremity.’

  ‘Bunting witnessed her dead body.’

  ‘Bunting? Call him. We must revisit his account.’

  Saker lit a candle with Fulmer’s lighter, and the flame yellowed his face. He put the candle aside, flicked the lighter and gazed at it in melancholy fascination. Flicked it again, and again, and each time it provided a perfect flame. ‘Did you see what the rifle did to that man’s head?’

  ‘I was next to him.’

  He said nothing for a while, but flicked the lighter and watched the flame. ‘I taught myself archery, you know,’ he said quietly. ‘When I was eleven, I walked out of the palace … though they’d forbidden me to, ’cause of Insects. I went to San’s bowmen.’ He flicked the lighter. ‘Do you know, your eyes reflect every time the beacon beam passes the window?’

  ‘I only see a glimmer.’

  ‘Ah … right … I made my way to San’s infantry and asked them to teach me. I had this notion I could stop the Insects, and I’d used to spend every day practising with my child’s bow. I never let go of it. What else does a boy do, who can extinguish a candle with an arrow? Who can hit the spokes of a galloping chariot? Who can put twelve shafts in the air before the first hits the ground? I was a better hunter with my recurve than they were with theirs. When I trained with the longbow men my brothers found out and jeered … relentlessly. A prince should lead the cavalry, they said … But the cavalry weren’t holding back the swarm.’

  He closed it, flicked it. ‘Winning the Games made my brothers’ taunts worse. For ten years … then they stopped …’ He snapped it shut, flicked it. I think he was trying to break it. ‘It takes tens of thousands of hours practice to become perfect enough at your skill to be Eszai … and, when you are, that’s only the beginning of hundreds of thousands of hours more … Jant, look at this thing …’

  The lighter was a weighty silver disk with a salamander coiled around it. The creature’s eyes were first water rubies.

  ‘Fulmer likes to savour the wealth he’s made,’ I said.

  ‘What? No, I mean …’ Flick: another almond flame.

  ‘You’ll wear it out,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. This will wear out. This—’ he brought his tinder box from his coat pocket ‘—never will. This lighter is convenient and powerful. This tinder box takes skill and practice to use. But anybody can use a lighter. So people stopped using tinder boxes oh … back in the eighteenth century I believe they invented matches. Now everyone uses lighters, because lazy always wins. Do you understand?’

  ‘It’s the difference between bows and guns.’

  ‘Exactly. Bows need training and strength. Guns are lazy.’ He weighed the salamander lighter and his ancient fyrd-issue tinder box, one in each hand. ‘Jant, who can hold back this tide? Even if I give every man a rifle my archers have ten times their efficiency at two hundred metres. But men will adopt guns because they’re too lazy to train and, you know, I think they like the bang. Today you saw how messy it’s going to be.’ He held them out. ‘The effect of the rifle shocked me. But you’d choose it, wouldn’t you? You’d choose the lighter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, Jant. You don’t get it. You don’t get it, at all. What happens to those millions of hours of perfection?’

  ‘They’re in the past.’

  ‘No. They’re not. They’re here.’ He tapped his chest.

  ‘Why not keep both?’

  He looked at me uncertainly.

  ‘The lighter might be more convenient, but when it runs out of fuel it’s worthless. Remember your sundial and your watch? They both have benefits, so you kept them both.’

  He sighed, and smiled. ‘I’m glad to hear you say that.’ He placed them on the table.

  At this point Bunting came in with a cafetière the size of a binnacle, and put his tray down. ‘Bunting,’ Saker said. ‘From the bow to the rifle, do I have to start again?’

  Bunting regarded him, perplexed. ‘Why did you stop?’

  We questioned Bunting about his discovery of Swallow’s corpse, and his story remained the same. He became distressed at the memory, and more so that we seemed to be doubting him – and when we showed him the manuscript he recognised Swallow’s writing but couldn’t explain it, and grew even more upset. Eventually we let him go to bed. Under the influence of coffee as strong as bitumen my high had long gone, and I was tired, too.

  ‘Mist’s right,’ I said. ‘Swallow’s probably in Litanee.’

  ‘Well, Dunlin said the Vermiform is everywhere,’ said Saker. ‘Why don’t we ask it? Maybe it can see her.’

  I dug in my pack for the worms, which I’d put in a jar, and tipped them onto the table. They lay in a soggy lump. I stirred them with my finger and they pulsated feebly.

  Saker tipped a spoonful of sugar beside them. The worms disentangled themselves, crawled over and devoured it, and started dancing in energetic loops.

  ‘It eats sugar.’

  ‘It eats anything.’

  He asked it, ‘Do you know who Swallow Awndyn is? Can any of you see her?’

  The worms started crawling in a circle. He stirred them, and they spiralled up and down his finger in a precise network. ‘Does that mean it doesn’t know?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  He sighed. ‘If Swallow is masterminding this!’

  ‘It would certainly explain where her money went.’

  ‘Oh, god. After all I did for her.’

  I glanced around the annexe room. The tiny, elaborately tessellated panes of the oriel window were asleep with the night behind them. We heard the sighing of the wind over the marram grass and the susurration of the ocean beyond.

  ‘I remember her father.’

  He gave his ironic smile. ‘I remember the previous families.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And this place being built. And the town. And Swallow … sitting next to me at the piano there, playing duets. When I was recuperating from my wound … hands over each others’ on the keys. We could clasp hands in a quaver rest without missing the beat … And now I know it will outlast
me.’

  The Vermiform crawled onto his arm and made bracelets. He plucked at the worms but, braided together, they were incredibly strong. ‘It doesn’t know, does it?’

  ‘It’s not telling.’

  ‘Then we must think about this logically. Swallow and Connell may ride anywhere, but their barrels are difficult to transport. They sailed them by schooner to Cullion, then what?’

  ‘They must have loaded them onto carts.’

  ‘Connell will be prepared for road blocks, so what would she do?’

  The Vermiform swarmed off his arm onto the table and crawled in a big, thin ring, came together into a point and suddenly spread out. There, as if I had drawn it, was a map of the familiar twists and turns of the Moren River and the straight line of the Awndyn-Moren canal.

  ‘By barge!’ I said. ‘Look, it’s the canal.’

  He leant closer.

  ‘The canal ends just the other side of town,’ I said. ‘Connell can load powder on the barges and take it straight to Hacilith.’

  ‘Then let’s go to the canal basin.’

  ‘What, in the middle of the night?’

  He glanced at the window, exasperated. ‘Very well. At first light, then.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said to the Vermiform. It swarmed over the spilt sugar and seethed there for a few seconds, then it drew back. It had arranged individual sugar grains into ‘YOU’RE WELCOME’ written on the table.

  ‘Give me half of them,’ said Saker. ‘So I can speak to Dunlin.’

  Some worms crawled to him, and the rest climbed back in my pocket, and I went to bed.

  CHAPTER 27

  Heavier measures

  The sound of boots on the path woke me. I lay in the oak poster bed, listening to them scrunching below my window, then grappled for my watch. It was four in the morning. I’d only had three hours’ sleep.

  I sank back with a groan, and then peeled myself out of bed and threw open the shutters. On the manor house forecourt Saker had assembled his three Tanager heavies and a company of Awndyn Select infantry. He sat attentive on his horse before their ranks, with his rifles in the saddle holsters. A pink line of dawn was showing along the sea’s horizon and the faintest colours were seeping into the grey.