by Simon Brown
And the university gave Chancellor Malus Mycom hope for the future. Once, and not too long ago, that hope had resided in the Kevlerens as well. He remembered with pride the closing years of the reign of Empress Hetha, how Hamilay had made such advances in so many endeavours, and even remembered how hopeful he had been that under Lerena those advances would continue. Now all that was changed. With Lerena in power he wondered if there was a future at all. His only chance was to use his influence with Lerena to change her, to bring sanity back to the court. After all, Hamilay needed both the Kevlerens and the university, and the way Lerena was behaving lately it might soon find itself without either.
And now, for the first time since becoming chancellor, he discovered he needed an ally, and one from the unlikeliest source. General Second Prince Rodin Kevleren, a member of the nobility who had always detested his influence with the empress – either Hetha or Lerena – and detested him, truth be told. But working together they might be able to save the empire. There was the crux. Would Rodin even consider Mycom as an ally? Would it be possible? He had made the first gesture by offering the prince a way out of a sticky situation. Would Rodin accept his hand, if not from friendship then from necessity?
As he walked from his office in the chancellery, a suite of rooms that lay between the university and the palace precinct, he ignored the world around him. Not from indifference for his fellow creatures, though he possessed plenty of that, but from total absorption in the problem of how to broach Rodin’s prejudice. He paused as he reached the university gateway to consider the sky. It was mostly clear, and gave no sign of changing, so he would do without his sedan. He preferred to walk anyway; it gave him more time to think. He fell again into his reverie and made his way into the precinct, ignoring passers-by here as easily as he had in the university.
‘Chancellor!’ a familiar voice called out.
Mycom stopped, blinked, looked around for someone he recognised, but without success. He did notice for the first time, however, a line of people, mostly old, poor or destitute judging by their dress and physical condition, being shepherded through the precinct by a squad of Royal Guards.
‘Over here, Chancellor!’ said the voice again, directly behind him.
Mycom spun around and came face to face with Rodin Kevleren. The prince was in his sedan, and studying Mycom with peculiar intensity.
‘We need to talk,’ Rodin said, and opened the door to the sedan.
Mycom automatically fell into his obsequious pose. ‘Your Highness! How pleasant to see you –’
‘By the Sefid’s sake, Chancellor, get in!’ Rodin said irritably.
Mycom bowed his head and climbed in. He was expecting there to be another present beside Rodin, then remembered all the Beloveds were dead. The pair were alone. Rodin closed the door and tapped the roof. The bearers moved off.
Rodin patted the heap of paper in the seat beside him. ‘The report,’ he said.
Mycom’s eyebrows lifted questioningly. ‘Your Highness?’
Rodin breathed through his nose. ‘The written report for her majesty concerning our administration of the empire during her recent absence.’
‘Ah, of course. Already?’
Rodin smiled thinly. ‘Well, after all, as you told the empress, I’ve been working on it for several tendays.’
Mycom matched the smile. ‘Naturally.’
*
The first one was a woman whose age Lerena could not determine. She seemed far too old to be considered young, but her skin and eyes and the erect way she stood suggested she was far too young to be considered old. Lerena did not know people could be so rutted by life, so run over by poverty. At the back of her mind was the thought that perhaps she should do something about that, but the thought was dissolved by her growing excitement.
‘Do you love her?’ Yunara asked, looking as if the woman repelled her. ‘Can you love something like that?’
Lerena considered the woman for a long time. Could she? After all, the woman was one of her people. Her beloved people. Yet she was so haggard and anguished, and so remote from anything in Lerena’s experience.
‘What is your name?’ she asked.
The woman started as if pricked by the point of a knife. ‘Ma’am?’
‘Call me “your Majesty”.’
‘Your Majesty?’
‘What is your name?’
‘Settaira, your Majesty.’ Her voice quavered with fear.
Lerena had sent the guards and servants and courtiers away, but looked around to make sure there were no lingerers. ‘Are you afraid, my dear?’
‘Ye –’ Settaira stopped, her eyes widening. Lerena could almost read her mind in that moment. The woman did not want to offend the empress by saying she was afraid of her. ‘No, your Majesty.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Seven and twenty, your Majesty.’
Lerena could not hide her surprise. Why, she was younger than herself, but looked a lifetime older. And at the same time so much like a child. No, she thought, so much like a frightened, shivering bird.
‘Sit next to me, Settaira.’
‘Your Majesty?’ Settaira was shocked by the instruction. ‘Me?’
Lerena nodded, shuffled a little on the stone bench to make more room.
Settaira hesitated, but eventually sat down on the bench, placing herself as far from Lerena as she could. The trees above the clearing swayed with a breeze that came out of nowhere.
‘Where did they find you?’ Lerena asked. ‘My guards, I mean.’
‘In the poor yard, your Majesty. I lost my husband and my two children and had nowhere else to go.’
‘That is so sad,’ Lerena said sympathetically.
Yunara nodded her agreement. ‘Life is just a burden for her,’ she said. ‘Poor waif. Poor mother. Poor lovely widow. Poor little starling.’
‘No one in the world to care for you,’ Lerena said.
‘No, your Majesty,’ Settaira said, her teeth chattering despite the warmth and humidity.
‘Except me,’ Lerena cooed, and reached out to stroke the woman’s hair. Settaira pulled back, but again realised who she might be offending and forced herself to remain still.
‘I care for you the way a mother cares for her child,’ Lerena said softly, now stroking Settaira’s neck. ‘You are safe with me, daughter.’ When the stylus under the nail of her little finger pierced her jugular, Settaira jittered like one of her birds, but Lerena used all her strength to hold her by the neck.
Warm blood ran over her hand, and the Sefid opened up for her.
Yunara laughed with glee. ‘Oh, you can love them! You do love them!’ she shouted. ‘The whole empire is yours!’
Lerena joined in the laughter. Anything would be possible. As a wren passed overhead she extinguished it, and all that was left were a few soft feathers, downy and white, that fluttered down and got stuck in Settaira’s blood pouring over the stone bench.
11
‘We haven’t properly talked since you got back,’ Velan Lymok said to Quenion Axkevleren. He had found her at the top of the keep, where he knew she would be. It had always been a favourite place for her to go to be alone, or to think. As it had for himself, he had to admit. Their relationship under Numoya, for friendship was too strong a word, had started here, looking out over Sayenna, and Velan thought it appropriate it be resumed here as well.
‘We both have been busy,’ she said matter-of-factly.
Velan thought she might be trying to keep her distance, but she seemed relaxed, and her words had been direct rather than evasive. She was watching him with frank curiosity, and that encouraged him to continue.
‘There is an easiness about you that you have not possessed before,’ he said.
‘You’re being very forward.’ Again, it was said plainly, without reproof.
‘I am being very honest,’ Velan returned. ‘I think Sayenna suits you. I think this work suits you.’
‘I could say the same about you, alt
hough while I am prepared to admit you are right concerning me, I doubt you would admit I am right concerning you.’
Velan had to think that through for a moment, not sure what Quenion meant by it. ‘You think I am uncomfortable in Sayenna?’
‘I think you are very comfortable in Sayenna, but either you do not recognise it or you refuse to believe it.’
Velan laughed lightly, but he could not hide the slight agitation he felt. ‘Why do you think I would refuse to believe it?’
‘Then you admit to recognising it?’ Quenion said quickly.
Velan paused. He was having trouble figuring out how Quenion had got them to this point in their conversation. After all, he had come up to renew their relationship, such as it was, and not to subject himself to an inquisition.
‘Why would I deny it?’ he said. ‘Sayenna has much to recommend it.’
‘It is not Beferen,’ she said.
Velan shook his head. ‘Sayenna is definitely nothing like Beteren. But I consider that an advantage.’
‘It is not Omeralt or Somah or Hamewald or even Kydan.’
‘You are right. Sayenna is like no other place in the world.’
‘Then where would you rather be?’
Velan opened his mouth, but said nothing. After a long moment he said, quietly, ‘I don’t know.’
‘And instead of commanding and training troops, making sure they are well disciplined, well looked after, loyal and committed, what would you rather be doing?’
‘I don’t know.’
Quenion nodded. ‘That is the difference between us, Velan Lymok. We are both exactly where we should be, doing exactly what we should be doing, but only I know it.’
*
Arden Hassouly.
Yes. That is who I am.
He needed to start collecting taxes. Not a lot, but enough to cover basic services. Sayenna’s sewerage was primitive at best. There had been a lot of rain recently, and much waste had been washed into the harbour. Some people had fallen ill eating fish and mussels and sea urchins. Sayenna had no fire service. It needed a water cart, and each street needed a fire warden who could be paid a penny a week for their extra work.
Governor Arden Hassouly.
Quenion told him that some of the stevedores wished they were as big as Arden. ‘As big as a mountain!’ one of them had said. And my name is Hassouly, Arden thought, which is a mountain. It is right, then.
He needed a way to collect the taxes. That meant hiring someone who could be trusted. Or setting up an office where people would come to pay. But how many people were there in Sayenna? No one knew. So maybe the tax collector could also run a census, make a register of those who could afford to pay something.
He had overheard one of the Sayennans call him very grim. The Grim Governor. He smiled – a little – at that. Heriot would have fallen over laughing.
Perhaps he could forgo taxes and collect tithes instead from the merchants who used Sayenna’s docks and warehouses.
Heriot. Arden could hear her laughing.
But first he had to determine how much money he needed. No, first he had to determine what services Sayenna needed. And then there was the army. Right now, being a militia, only the dragoons needed pay. (Or did Kydan take care of that? Another thing he would have to write to Poloma about.) But eventually Sayenna would need a regular force, or a militia that rotated in service so extended operations could be carried out when needed. They would need more than food and board then. Uniforms, for example. And where would he get the firegons to replace breakages? And swords and lances and stirrups . . .
Arden put down his pen. Ink dribbled on his scratch sheet. Too many questions for one night, and not nearly enough answers.
He closed his eyes and wondered what Heriot was doing at that very moment. He half wished she was with Poloma, for Poloma would look after her, give her what she needed. And he half wished she was alone in her cottage, with her eyes closed and thinking of him.
I am learning to be selfish, Arden thought, and then, for the first time in his life, did not immediately think being selfish was wrong.
If selfishness is wrong, he thought, then so is desire, for they are the same thing really. And what I feel for Heriot is a kind of desire, and I cannot think that is wrong. Love cannot be wrong. Without love, how could anyone bear responsibility and duty?
Responsibility and duty. He opened his eyes, picked up his pen and started a list of all the things Sayenna needed, and ways they might be funded.
*
Velan galloped the dragoons harder than he should out from Sayenna, and the horses had to be rested for longer than he had planned. When they finally made it back to the stables, their mounts were foamy with sweat. By the time the horses were brushed down, watered, fed and fresh straw thrown in their boxes, the troopers were exhausted.
Physically, Velan felt exactly the same, but his mind was whipping like a whirlwind. He returned to his room at the keep, avoiding Quenion or Arden, and ordered hot water and a bath to be brought up. When he finally cleaned the dirt and grime off himself and changed into fresh clothes, his brain was still at a pace, and he strode down to the dock in the hope that even more exercise and fresh air would calm him down. As he had the night he spotted Avier’s flotilla approaching Sayenna, he stood at the end of the dock, the furthermost point out over the sea, and let the night surround him. The air was noticeably cooler. Winter was coming, if not already here, and he wondered vaguely if snow was falling in Beferen yet. Quenion told him that snow had not fallen in this part of the New Land for more than a generation, before Sayenna had even existed. It could get cold here, certainly cold enough for a frost to lie on the grasslands a few miles inland, but never cold like back in the old world, cold that ate its way into your bones and made them as brittle as kindling, cold that made your lungs ache every time you drew in a breath.
He heard fish slapping in the water. Insects. And the stars overhead. Together they made a machine sound, a hum, a song of time, time wearing away his life and leaving him stranded.
No. That was not right. He did not feel stranded, in place or time. But he was irritated Quenion had marked him so well. And that she was right. He had realised it most fully when he was speeding along the grass on his mount, his half-troop keeping pace, the rhythm of their beating charge thrumming through the ground and air, and realised it again now listening to heaven spinning above him over a land that was new and clean and just waiting to be filled up and made afresh. He and all the others – Quenion, Arden, Gos, the prefect and his allies back in Kydan – were making civilisation. Not bringing it with them from the old world, but making it here in the New Land. Something freer. Something better.
His mind stopped turning. His breathing eased. His heart came to rest.
*
At breakfast the next morning, which Arden, Quenion and Velan now routinely ate together so they could go over the day’s schedule, Arden said, ‘I am going to start a court. It will be held one afternoon every tenday.’
‘You will sit as judge,’ Quenion said, not even making it a question.
‘To begin with. We all need to keep an eye out for anyone from Sayenna who may one day suitably fill that role permanently.
‘Quenion, you will be court bailiff. You know Sayenna better than anyone, and I need someone to organise the sitting and make sure the right people are there at the right time.’
‘Who are you going to judge?’ asked Velan.
‘Nobody,’ Arden said shortly. ‘We are not going to judge people but actions. Which is where you come in, because sometimes justice requires a hard edge.’
Arden watched Velan’s face closely. The soldier took the news without pleasure, but he did not argue the point. Which was a good sign, Arden thought; he did not want an eager executioner.
‘But the court will not only dispense justice,’ Arden said. ‘It will be used for determining transactions, binding contracts, commercial regulations.’ Arden stopped for a moment to pick at
a chicken bone. ‘And taxes and levies.’
‘I was wondering when you were going to raise that matter,’ Quenion said.
‘What did the Kevlerens do when they ran Sayenna?’ Arden asked. ‘I’m willing to steal their ideas if they were good ones.’
‘Just a levy on commerce. The army was paid for by Beferen, of course, and Numoya received income from his lands back in Rivald to pay for the upkeep of his own household, with a small stipend from the queen for being governor. Otherwise town services were left up to individuals and businesses that benefited from them.’
‘Well, we’re going to change that, and a levy won’t be enough,’ Arden said. ‘Any ideas?’
‘A single tax,’ Quenion said.
‘A single amount, you mean?’
‘No. A single portion of their wealth. So merchant, trapper, draper and fishmonger pay, say, one penny in ten. That way no one is forced to pay more than their fair share.’
Velan looked shocked. ‘If you’re going to do that to them, you had better make it worth their while.’
‘A fire protection service,’ Arden said. ‘A jail and warden. A home for orphans. Street cleaners. Sewerage. Maybe labour gangs to improve roads, build canals and defensive walls.’
‘A customs house,’ Quenion suggested. ‘And you can draw your levy on trade that way.’
Velan still looked dubious.
‘And money for your soldiers,’ Arden suggested. ‘Proper uniforms. Away-from-home pay.’
Velan looked less dubious.
‘And us?’ Quenion asked. ‘Eventually, Kydan will want Sayenna to support its own administration.’
‘Eventually,’ Arden conceded, ‘but they will want to keep that sort of control over Sayenna for themselves for the time being. We can employ public workers, though. I see no problem with that.’
‘I have one main question,’ Quenion said. ‘Whose law are we using?’
Arden blinked. He had some idea of Kydan law from his time watching the council, and some idea of Kevleren law from his years as one of Empress Hetha’s Axkevleren. ‘Is there a strong local law?’ he asked.
