by Simon Brown
‘Well, thank the Sefid that’s the last time we’ll hear that bloody song,’ said one of the soldiers.
‘Be grateful the massacre they lament was visited on them and not us,’ Paimer said harshly.
No one else spoke, and in a short while all except Paimer and his bodyguard had left the gallery.
Slowly, the same way a headache can start as nothing more than a suggestion, Idalgo came to the gallery. At first it was the idea of Idalgo, and then the impression of Idalgo, and finally the thing itself.
‘I am starting not to recognise you,’ Idalgo said wistfully. His voice sounded from far away, but grew louder as he spoke.
Paimer’s mind was trying to discover some change in himself, something that could explain the erosion of the isolation he had previously felt in Beferen.
‘You are no longer the Duke Paimer Kevleren I knew and loved and served.’
Obviously it must have had something to do with the lament. It had touched him, he knew, but as a rule sad songs did not change his mental state. He was, after all, Kevleren born, bred and trained, and the lament should not make any difference to him.
‘You knew your place in the world once,’ Idalgo continued, ‘and now look at you, in your nightrobe standing in a wooden gallery for the whole city to see, with nothing but two guards to keep you company. You have come down in the world, your Grace, and it is not an improvement, at least not in my eyes . . .’
Paimer turned to the bodyguards and waved them off. They looked at him uncertainly. ‘Leave me. Wait by my room. I will return shortly. For now, I wish to be alone.’
In the end, neither of them was prepared to argue with a duke and they left.
‘. . . but at least you still have some air of command about you.’
‘What are you?’ Paimer said, facing his Beloved. ‘Where do you come from? Why do you haunt me?’
Paimer saw bemusement flicker across Idalgo’s face, as if it did not comprehend the questions, but it was quickly replaced by anger. ‘You ask that?’ Idalgo cried. ‘After serving you since I was a child, only to have you pierce my throat in the middle of the night, you ask me why I haunt you? I come from the dead, Duke Paimer Kevleren. I come back from the dead to remind you every chance I get that you murdered me, the only thing in the world you truly loved!’
Paimer retreated before the outcry, but he could not forget the expression he first saw. ‘What are you?’ he repeated.
Idalgo seemed uncertain, and hesitated as if calculating a reply. ‘I am what is left of Idalgo Axkevleren.’
Paimer looked deeply into Idalgo’s eyes and tried to imagine the mind behind them. ‘Tell me, Idalgo, sweet Beloved, how did you die?’
‘You know very well how I died. You pierced my throat . . .’
‘How do you know? You were asleep when I killed you, and you did not rouse.’
‘You are a Kevleren, and the Kevlerens always kill their Beloveds that way. And I am a ghost, a ghost of the dead Idalgo, and there are no secrets from ghosts.’
‘If that was true,’ Paimer said mildly, ‘no one alive would be safe from your kind.’
‘You are overtired. You should return to your room.’
‘You haven’t answered my questions, have you? Not really. What are you, where do you come from, and why do you haunt me?’
Idalgo straightened, raised his neck to show a tiny puncture mark over his jugular. ‘This is where you did it. This is the wound from which all my blood flowed.’
‘Go away, Idalgo. I do not need you anymore.’
Idalgo was shocked. Genuine pain and fear crossed his face. ‘But I love you. You love me.’
‘No, I do not.’
‘You need me.’
‘No, I do not.’
Idalgo started fading away. First the colour seeped from him, then his outline thinned and his body gradually dispersed like smoke in a breeze. ‘But your Highness,’ he whispered, his words barely audible, ‘I need you . . .’
And he was gone.
*
Montranto had always considered himself a pragmatist first and a citizen of Rivald second. He had to admit to himself, however, that the period of mourning, with its sorrowful lament rising over the city every night, had demonstrated he was no more immune to patriotism than the next fellow. He wondered if the Hamilayans felt the same way about their country, and assumed they must. Our country, he reminded himself. We are all Hamilayans now. It was the way of things, and he would do well under it, he was sure.
So why did it hurt so much to see Hamilayan soldiers in the royal palace? And why did it hurt so much to see a Hamilayan duke, rather than a Rivald Kevleren, lording it over one and all?
‘It’s important, Commander, to ensure that the main roads are cleared first,’ Paimer said, writing out new orders for the day. ‘I want supplies and trade to flow into Beferen as soon as possible. And in exchange we will have to bring goods through our port to distribute to the rest of the province. It is cheaper to transport merchandise by sea than over land. Once an exchange is going, we can get the city back on its feet.’
Montranto nodded. He knew all this, but he found that Paimer often treated everyone as if they knew only one-tenth as much as he did. Perhaps that was just something the Kevlerens were trained to do from childhood. It was not the ability to command, Montranto thought, but the ability to demand, to bully, to push around.
Paimer paused in the writing to look out of the long windows of the throne room where the greying sky let in little natural light. ‘Winter is coming. I want the city ready by winter.’ He turned back to Montranto. ‘And how is work progressing on the port?’
Montranto checked his report sheet. ‘Not much damage to repair. It was the north of the city that bore the brunt of the assault. The docks and warehouses need workers and clerks more than anything else.’ Montranto cleared his throat. ‘And ships, your Highness. No ship has come since a tenday before the empress’s attack on the city. We need to let everyone know we’re open for trade again.’
Paimer sighed deeply. ‘I know, Commander, I know. I have written to her majesty requesting that vessels from Somah and Bowtell and Koegrah be directed to Beferen, but have had no reply yet.’ He reached for a new sheet of paper. ‘I will write again, stressing how urgent it is. I am sure merchant ships will arrive any day now, bringing goods. We must stock the warehouses in anticipation. What did Beferen usually trade with Hamilay?’
Blood for blood, Montranto thought, but said, ‘Grain and furs, mainly. Some minerals. Some glassware. I will see what is in the warehouses already and prepare a manifest. Perhaps that could go with your letter to the empress.’
Paimer nodded. ‘That’s a very good idea. See to it immediately. I will get a courier to take the letter first thing tomorrow.’
At the same time as Montranto was making his way out of the palace to go to the harbour, a sedan arrived. At first Montranto did not think twice about it, but a few steps later he stopped and looked up in surprise. A sedan? Here? Once – a thousand years ago it seemed now – sedan chairs pulled up outside the palace all day long, dropping off Kevlerens and generals and artists and rich merchants, but other than Paimer’s rather plain-looking box, Montranto had not seen a sedan in Beferen since before the overthrow of Queen Sarra. Then he noticed the imperial insignia on the side of the sedan, and the livery of its carriers.
By the Sefid, it was the empress!
Even as he had the thought the guards that had been standing by the main entrance rushed forward and presented arms, while another rushed into the palace to warn the duke. Montranto was caught between a desperate urge to run away and an equally desperate curiosity. He had never seen the empress, probably the most powerful person in the history of . . . well, the history of everything. But she was also the ruler personally responsible for the deaths of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of people, mostly people from Rivald. As it was, however, he could neither flee not move closer. His brain had frozen and his feet could not budg
e.
The sedan door opened and a rather short, overweight man got down, glanced around with something like bewilderment, glanced back into the sedan in case there was something there he had not been aware of, then turned back to the guards, Montranto and a cluster of passers-by and smiled nervously.
‘Am I in the way of something?’ he asked.
One of the guards moved him aside and stared into the sedan.
‘There’s no one else there, I assure you,’ the man said. ‘I just checked.’
The guard pointed dumbly at the imperial insignia.
The man looked astonished, and then burst out laughing. ‘Oh, I see! You thought . . .’ He started laughing again and could not finish the sentence. Finally catching his breath he said, ‘Her majesty lent me her sedan, that’s all. I would rather have ridden or even walked, but she insisted –’
The duke suddenly appeared, his red wig balanced precariously on his head and his fingers still working on the buttons of his jacket. A servant hurried behind him with a clothes brush. The pair stopped as if caught in mud. Paimer stared at the recent arrival. ‘You!’ he said. Like the guard before him, he peered into the sedan to make sure Lerena was not lying there in wait.
The stranger bowed deeply from the waist. ‘Your Highness, Duke Paimer Kevleren, Lord Protector of her Majesty’s Province of Rivald.’
‘I already know who I am,’ Paimer said curtly.
The man cleared his throat, ‘Of course you do, your Grace.’ He waved at the sedan and started explaining again how he came to be arriving in Lerena’s personal chair.
‘I’ve forgotten your name,’ Paimer interrupted.
‘I am Leader of a Thousand Avenel Kendy, your Grace, lately ambassador from Rivald to the court of Empress Lerena. I am your new secretary.’
On hearing the words, and guessing what it might mean for his own position, Montranto now wished the sedan had indeed carried the empress herself.
9
If she had not been on Kayned that morning, Strategos Galys Valera would not have been the first to see the Saoa sailing through the Bay of Kydan towards the city and, more importantly, because the arrival of Saoa or another like her was inevitable, she would not have met Veira Vulper. It was a clear autumn morning, with a good southwesterly blowing away any moisture in the air, but cool enough to make the hard labour being undertaken on Kayned more bearable. A large part of the western end of the island had been cleared of most of its vegetation; now hillocks were being dug away and holes filled, while supervisors constantly checked a crisscross of water channels to ensure the ground would eventually be level throughout the site. As well, a levee was being built around the cleared land to make sure the next spring surge caused minimal damage. Most of the workers were new Kydans, and when construction was finished they would become the foundry and port’s cast makers and iron workers and smelters and stevedores and even customs officials. Galys was most interested in progress on the area set aside for the foundry. It was an oath that first drew her to a woman supervising a group of labourers digging away on a lopsided mound with mattock and pick.
‘By Kydan’s tail!’ the woman swore. ‘Can’t you see you have to work on the south side or you’ll make it even more lopsided and risk it collapsing on top of you!’
Now that was interesting, Galys thought, a new Kydan cursing in old Kydan, even going so far as to translate it into Hamilayan. Galys went to her and asked her name.
‘Veira Vulper,’ the woman said offhandedly, more interested in the work than in Galys Valera. She was tall and raw-boned, wearing a dirty dress tied up above her knees and nothing but a man’s sleeveless vest to cover her breasts. Her shoulders and neck were red from the sun, and her skin glistened with sweat despite the cool southwesterly. She looked fifty or more, but could have been a lot younger. Wispy grey-streaked red hair blew like cobwebs around her lined face.
‘Who made you a supervisor?’ Galys asked genially.
This morning it’s my turn,’ Veira said. ‘After midday, one of these stupid layabouts will have their turn and I’ll inherit their pick.’
‘And this system works well?’ she asked dubiously. Based on her past run-ins with Kysor Nevri, she had expected him to organise work on the site a little more effectively. She absently searched for him around the site.
‘Well enough most of the time,’ Veira answered. ‘That Nevri fellow from the council told us to do it this way, and he walks around and watches us. There are one or two gangs where he’s made the supervisor permanent.’
‘Ah,’ Galys said, more to herself than Veira. There was method behind Nevri’s system, then, and Galys realised no better system could have been devised considering no one knew the potential of any of the new Kydans until they had been tested, with the possible exceptions of Arden, who was gone, and Heriot Fleetwood, who was working flat out on becoming a vocal and prominent member of the council on behalf of her constituents on Karhay. Nevri studied each gang in turn, noting which workers made the best bosses and then making them permanent supervisors.
‘Are you hoping to work here on Kayned when all the building is finished?’ Galys asked somewhat vaguely, searching now for sight of Nevri.
‘No hope about it. I’m already down for it.’
‘Really? In what capacity?’
‘Cast maker,’ Veira said, and glared at Galys as if expecting a challenge.
‘This was your profession back in Hamilay?’
‘My husband’s. When we married I joined his workshop and he taught me everything he knew. His shop specialised in shot and ball for the Hamilayan navy. And firegon plates and barrels. And bayonets. Did a good line in those.’
‘Is your husband here?’ Galys asked, nodding to the gang.
Veira’s face went stone hard. ‘He caught a ball in the throat when that beast Numoya Kevleren attacked the city. We were defending the wall side by side. I dug it out myself, but the bleeding was too much and he choked to death on the blood.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Galys said.
Veira’s hand disappeared into the folds of her tucked-up dress, reappearing with a firegon ball. ‘This is it,’ she said, handing it to Galys. ‘I’m going to keep that, and one day I’m going to find me a Kevleren and shoot it through his black heart. Or hers. Don’t care which. But I’ll have to get close. That’s a badly made shot.’
Galys studied the ball more closely. It seemed rougher made than most she had seen, with a definite bulge to one side.
‘Make for terrible windage, that would,’ Veira said. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the bloody thing whistled when it left the barrel.’
‘Windage?’
Veira looked at Galys with surprise. ‘Why, Strategos, I would have thought you knew all about firegons and the like. I mean, being a strategos and all.’
‘I know how to fire one,’ Galys replied, trying not to sound defensive.
Veira snorted and took back the ball from Galys and held it up inside a loop made by her curled forefinger. ‘Imagine this is a firegon barrel. See how the ball fits badly because it’s cast irregular?’
Galys nodded.
‘When the gonblack in a firegon explodes it forces the ball out of the barrel, see? The tighter the fit, the further and straighter the ball flies.’
‘So badly made balls have to be fired closer to have any effect.’
‘I knew soon as I saw you you’d be a fast learner,’ Veira said dryly.
Galys took no offence. In fact, she could not help feeling slightly ashamed she did not already know this. As a strategos she had always taken the broadest possible view, but she was learning very quickly that a broad view was next to useless without a knowledge of the minute, the small, the seemingly inconsequential. Back in Hamilay there were experts and specialists to handle all of that, to worry about the components, the small things, the bits and pieces. But here in the New Land, with only the population of a single city to draw on, with a future that had to be made and not inherited, everyone had to be
an expert and a specialist.
Galys reached out for the ball again and Veira gave it to her. Galys cleared her throat and said uncertainly, ‘Could you put, umm, feathers on a ball?’
‘You’re daft,’ Veira said, and laughed, and turned to tell her gang what Galys had just asked.
‘I mean metal feathers, obviously,’ Galys said sharply. She accepted she had a lot to learn, but she had no intention of allowing her ignorance to be used for others’ entertainment. ‘Archers use feathers – flights – on their arrows to make them go further and straighter.’
‘Who doesn’t know that?’ Veira asked.
‘But did you know the archers here twist the flights of some of their arrows to make them spin after they’re loosed?’
Veira looked dubious. ‘Now why would they do that? Would change the arrow’s direction, wouldn’t it?’
‘No,’ Galys corrected her. ‘It makes the arrow go even further, and makes it even more accurate.’ She tossed the ball back to Veira. ‘How about that?’
Veira caught the ball. ‘I didn’t know any such thing,’ she said quietly, almost to herself.
Galys felt marginally more satisfied with herself. Something at the edge of her vision made her glance up, and she saw white squares in the bay. Sails, she thought, even though the ship bearing them was still too far away to make out properly.
‘I wonder . . .’ Veira continued, still talking to herself.
‘It can’t be Avier,’ Galys said aloud. ‘He must be near Somah by now.’
Veira looked up at Galys, then followed her gaze westward. ‘My eyes aren’t that good, Strategos,’ she said. ‘What are you seeing?’
‘We have a visitor, Veira Vulper.’
‘Really? From where?’
*
‘Hamilay,’ Kadburn Axkevleren said, looking through his glass. Galys and Poloma stood by him on the Citadel’s wall. He offered the glass to Poloma, who waved it away, then to Galys, who took it and held it up to see for herself.
