by Simon Brown
‘What’s that?’ Heriot asked, nodding at the letters.
‘That says “Sorkro.”’
Heriot was very still, then took a long breath as if she was giving herself more time to think, and said, ‘Can you teach me to write that?’
‘I’ll even teach you to write “Arden Hassouly”.’
Heriot grinned suddenly. ‘You going to put “Governor” before that?’
‘Not for you.’
*
‘I’m an idiot,’ Kadburn said.
‘I’m not arguing,’ Galys said.
‘We’re both idiots.’
‘I’m still not arguing.’
The two of them were standing just outside the Assembly. People milled around them as they left the building, but other than throwing them sympathetic, almost pitying glances, said nothing. Like two birds in a paddock, though, they collected company before the Assembly had emptied. Poloma, Nevri, Gos and Lannel Thorey.
It occurred to Kadburn they made a strange group of former enemies. The six slowly migrated to the Great Quadrangle and stood there enjoying the sun as if it might be the last time they would be allowed to.
‘When are you going?’ Nevri asked Galys.
‘Sometime in the next tenday,’ Galys said. ‘I don’t want to get trapped here by the monsoon.’
‘I will come, too,’ Lannel said. ‘I will help. My place is by your side, Strategos.’
‘Thank you for offering,’ Galys said, ‘but with your height and dark skin you’d stand out in Omeralt like . . . like . . .’
‘Like a crow in a snowfield,’ Kadburn finished for her.
‘What’s snow?’ Lannel asked.
While Galys tried to explain, Poloma took Kadburn aside. ‘I am glad you are going with her. I was afraid she would insist on going by herself.’
‘She will need me,’ Kadburn said. ‘I was an Axkevleren and a Beloved, and understand the Kevlerens and the court better than anyone except possibly Arden. As well, I know Omeralt; I was born and raised there.’
Poloma nodded. ‘And you both have good reason to seek out Lerena.’
Kadburn grimaced. ‘This isn’t about revenge, Prefect. This is duty now. We’re doing it for Kydan.’ He smiled thinly. ‘But I admit, it’s fitting it be Galys or I who delivers the stroke.’
‘How will you get to the empress?’
‘I don’t know. Things have probably changed so much since we’ve been away that there’s no point in planning anything until we get to Omeralt and see with our own eyes what the situation is like.’
‘I want both of you back alive.’
‘I want both of us back alive, too. But the main task is to kill Lerena, and everything else must be subordinate to that.’
‘Spoken like a true Beloved,’ Poloma said with exasperation.
‘Spoken like a true Kydan,’ Kadburn corrected him.
*
‘What does it mean?’ Quenion asked Velan. They were walking through the market on the way down to the harbour, stopping here and there to buy fried meat and damper and sweet doughy rolls. The light meal back at the keep had not done nearly enough to fill them up. Quenion had said she wanted to see the new ships up close, and Velan thought Arden and the Fleetwood woman deserved some time together to get used to each other again.
‘What does what mean?’ Velan replied, tearing at some meat with his teeth. It was a little tough, but salty and juicy and went down just fine.
‘The new ships. And this visitor with children.’
Velan thought she sounded slightly dismissive. ‘You never wanted children?’
‘I am an Axkevleren. I was a Beloved. We do not need sex. We do not need our own families. We belong to a family already, why complicate things? And you? Did you ever want children?’
‘Can’t say I’ve thought about it too much. Don’t feel any great urge to start a family. Arden was an Axkevleren.’
‘What?’
‘He likes children. You said that because you were an Axkevleren you did not like children.’
‘I did not say I did not like them. I have no interest in them. Anyway, Arden has not been an Axkevleren for a long time. Maybe children are something you get used to.’
‘Maybe it’s because he loves Heriot Fleetwood.’
Quenion’s eyes opened wide. ‘Really? Then who did she have the children with?’
‘Arden got a letter once about children. I remember he was very distracted about it. That must have been from her, or maybe the father. Perhaps Heriot has a man she loves in every town.’
Quenion seemed a little crestfallen. ‘It must be a very strange thing to love more than one man.’
Velan shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone as much as I love myself.’
‘That is selfish,’ Quenion said matter-of-factly.
Velan was not going to let that pass. ‘How do you know?’ he asked. ‘How can it be any more selfish than Numoya Kevleren demanding everyone love him and he love no one in return? I’ve never done that. I have never demanded that someone love me. I don’t deserve that, and I’ve never pretended that I do.’
‘Then you must be selfish and lonely.’
They reached the harbour. The new ships were very large compared to the usual run of merchant ships that visited Sayenna. The bay was very blue, and the ships cast beautiful reflections in the water, their anchor lines making them look as if it was they that held up the sea.
‘So, Velan Lymok, what does it mean?’
‘Can’t tell you for sure what the coming of Heriot Fleetwood means? Only that it will probably make Arden a little easier to get on with until he remembers he’s supposed to be grim all the time.’
‘And the ships?’
‘The ships mean we’re going to war. Sooner or later. It means the old world is coming back to the New Land, but this time with armies and fleets and murder in their hearts.’
‘That’s dramatic,’ Quenion said flatly, chewing on some sweet dough. ‘Do you mean it?’
‘Oh, the armies and navies are coming all right, but I don’t think anyone who thought about the future ever doubted they would. It was just a matter of how long, and how ready we are to deal with it.’
‘Are we ready?’
‘You see, that’s the trick. No one can ever be completely ready. We just think we can.’
‘So we’re going to lose?’
‘I didn’t say that. But it will be bloody.’
‘You fighting for us or against us?’
Velan stopped his eating and sighed. ‘Who’s us, Quenion?’
She looked around the harbour, at the lovely whitewashed buildings on the slopes around it, up at the sunlit keep on the hill looking over everything. ‘You don’t need to ask that.’
‘And there was no need for you to ask your question.’ Quenion offered a little smile for an apology.
*
‘You’ve done well here,’ Gos Linsedd told Ames Westaway. They were sitting together in the open entrance to the house Ames and his father-in-law had built together. They were looking east across wide green plains, and in the distance the hint of higher land, the beginning of the Walking Mountains. The air coming off the river was cool, and the jug of Kydan wine they were sharing made things very relaxing.
‘Very well,’ Ames admitted. The horses this land produces are about the best I’ve ever seen.’
‘Won’t say the best,’ Gos said, ‘but they’re pretty and strong and hard to beat.’
Canna pushed her way past them and took the jug to fill her mug. She sat in front of Ames and leaned back against his knees. ‘You can have them in a year,’ Canna said authoritatively. ‘Then they are three and big-boned and able to carry your fat dragoons with ease.’
Gos was not sure what to say to that. He looked sideways at Ames, who pointedly ignored him, wearing a half-smile as he sipped at his drink.
‘That’s about right,’ Gos said.
‘That is what I am told by my
husband, who is knowledgeable in such things.’
‘That’s about right, too,’ Gos admitted.
‘Except I think maybe that our horses, because they are so pretty and strong and hard to beat might be ready now.’
Ames was outright grinning now, but still saying nothing.
Gos pursed his lips, noticed Canna’s very determined expression and said, ‘I promise to talk to the council about it. Probably not all, but some. The biggest.’
‘We will cut them out tomorrow for you to have a closer look,’ Canna said.
‘I’d appreciate it,’ Gos said.
‘You two have a nice talk while I made the dinner?’
‘Yes,’ both men said.
‘And you have asked him to go back to the dragoons already, Commander, or were you going to wait until I was in bed?’
Gos pretended to clear his throat and Ames’s grin disappeared.
‘We’ve talked about this before, Canna,’ Ames said. ‘I made a bargain.’
‘It’s fine, Ames. Canna has every right to ask. And for your information, I do need you back. Galys will be away with Kadburn, as you may already have heard, and Lannel Thorey will be recruiting along the Frey. That leaves me to run the army without help, and I can’t do that and lead the dragoons as they should be led. I’m making you Master of Horse, Ames, and the dragoons are all yours. And just in case something happens to me, you will be in charge of the army until the council decides otherwise, or Galys and Kadburn return from the empire.’
Ames took a huge swig of his wine. ‘That’s some promotion you’re giving me.’
‘That’s some favour he’s asking of you,’ Canna said smartly.
*
Lannel, who was tall and thin even by Kydan standards, understood the reason behind Galys and Kadburn leaving him behind. It was the right decision. Still, he could not help wishing he was going. After all, his skin colour could have been disguised, surely? And Hamilay must have its share of tall, thin people. And he was thinking like an idiot. Even with pink skin he would stand out because of his accent, his unfamiliarity with Hamilayan customs. He could not possibly have gone. And yet he could not help feeling guilty, as if letting her go without him was a betrayal of some kind.
At least he had been given an important job to do. Recruiting among the river communities might prove vital for the city’s long-term survival, and those he recruited he was to train in the techniques he had learned from Galys, Kadburn and Gos.
He was the last to leave the Saddle after the small trader with Galys and Kadburn on board sailed through the Sayeff Channel and out to the Bay of Kydan, and from there would sail west until it reached the dreadful domain of the Empress Lerena. He watched the ship disappear over the horizon as if the sea itself had swallowed it up, and wondered if he would ever again see Strategos Galys Valera.
21
‘So what did happen to the fleet?’ Mycom asked Rodin in the chancellery.
Rodin shrugged. ‘Who can tell? At least until we send another across the Deepening Sea to find out. I admit to being surprised it was overcome.’
‘Even you thought the man in charge was a bit of a fool.’
‘True, but he had able captains and good ships. Even the Hetha by herself would have been more than a match for anything Kydan possessed.’ He scratched the side of his nose. ‘Rather, should have been more than a match. Last I heard the biggest ship they had was a schooner.’
‘What about your spies at Somah and Bowtell and the other harbours where Kydan has been trading the last three years?’
‘They haven’t been coming since Lerena sent the fleet.’
‘Hardly surprising. But before that?’
‘We had sketchy information about a building program, light industry, that sort of thing. Nothing that was taken too seriously at the time. I mean, it’s the New Land, they’re decades, maybe centuries, behind us.’
‘The colonists weren’t, and Kydan had been exposed to Hamilayan science and culture for many years. That was why Poloma Malvara chose exile here after Rivald took Kydan.’
Rodin nodded. There was not much else to say. He, as well as the court and intelligence service, had completely underestimated Kydan’s rate of development and determination to remain independent.
‘I am particularly worried about one aspect of the whole thing,’ Mycom said carefully.
Rodin drew a breath and sat back. ‘Go on. What’s one more worry on top of what I’m already contending with?’
‘I’ve been going over the report of Strategos Werin Reed. He led her majesty’s initial deputation three years ago.’
‘I remember. That’s when we first learned of the deaths of my cousin Maddyn and other important leaders in the expedition.’
‘I think there are connections,’ Mycom said carefully.
‘Connections? Between what and whom? Surely you’re not suggesting Maddyn’s death somehow led to Kydan’s present state of apparent progress? I would have thought the opposite, myself.’
‘Not exactly. I think there are connections between Maddyn and Kydan’s adoption of technology. I think all of that might have been his idea originally because he himself could not Wield.’ Mycom tapped his fingers on his desk. ‘But there is another connection, one I suspect was my fault, and to a certain extent the fault of the empress.’
‘Astound me,’ Rodin said dryly, as if he would not be surprised at what might be found to lie at the feet of the empress.
‘This is a delicate issue, and I cannot reveal all its considerations, but her majesty was keen for a certain grammarian to accompany Maddyn’s expedition.’
‘The one who died?’
‘Exactly. One of her special concerns was the history of your family’s, shall we say, relationship with new machines, steam power, that sort of thing.’
‘Technology.’
‘Yes.’
Rodin was quiet for a moment. ‘How far? I mean, how technological do you think Kydan is? Has become? Is that the word? I don’t know anything about it, I’m afraid.’
‘That would be why Kydan has pursued it so vigorously, I think. Your family cares little for it. Therefore Kydan will have spent a great deal of time and energy thinking about it.’
‘I see. And you think this explains the loss of the Somah flotilla?’
‘I do.’
‘Then we had better arrive at some solutions before the new expedition sets sail.’
‘How is it going?’
‘Her majesty has opened her treasury. She has only three concerns now, and the expedition is one of them. I expect the fleet to finish gathering at Somah sometime in the next few tendays. Supplies are being loaded as soon as they arrive; and a considerable force of infantry and some cavalry are en route or already in billets waiting to be embarked.’
‘Who will be given its command?’
‘I have not yet discussed it with the empress.’
‘She will leave the decision to you, surely?’
‘After the last fiasco with Admiral Agwyer I’m not so sure. But we will see.’
‘Well, that’s one concern out of the way. The other two would include ensuring her supply of sacrifices?’
‘Yes. And the last is this manifestation of . . . something . . . in the highlands north of Koegrah that seems to so worry Lerena.’
‘Have you heard anything from the officer you sent to deal with it?’
‘Not yet. But no doubt before long.’
*
‘We killed them all,’ one of the soldiers said excitedly, one of the troopers.
Commander Salo Mikhel shook his head. ‘No. A few, no more. We all saw the ones that burned. There were more than that the first night they attacked us.’
‘Maybe they died of, umm, natural causes?’ another suggested, an ensign.
‘No. How can something unnatural die of natural causes?’
‘Then, Commander, tell us,’ the trooper said. ‘Where are the monsters?’
Mikhel wanted to
say, ‘In your imagination’, but settled for ‘I don’t know.’
‘Perhaps we should go back to Koegrah.’
Mikhel was tempted to agree. He did not want to wait out here another night. But if he and his men retreated to Koegrah, who would stop the monsters the next time they came? There would be no one between them and thousands of defenceless . . .
‘Commander, are you all right?’ the ensign asked, seeing the expression of growing horror on the officer’s face.
‘What if they went around us?’ Mikhel said aloud.
‘They are monsters,’ the ensign said. ‘What would they know about that? That’s strategy. That’s thinking.’
‘You said they were diseased, not monsters,’ the trooper said. ‘Maybe they can still think.’
‘Enough, both of you,’ Mikhel ordered. ‘They are monsters, diseased or not, that’s all that matters.’
‘Would that stop them thinking?’ the trooper asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Mikhel admitted. He looked south. It seemed very peaceful. Then looked north. A wasteland. ‘We will head south, but not all the way to Koegrah. We have to make sure they have not gone behind us.’
*
Mycom had heard Lerena’s summons in his mind. There was a time, very recently, when such a summons had filled him with pride. He, a lowborn academic, had risen to be one of the world’s most influential people.
Now the summons felt like someone had spat in his brain.
In the last two years Mycom had surprised himself by having a conscience, although discovering the fact because of the guilt he was feeling was not necessarily a character commendation. Conscience had never troubled him before to any great extent. From quite an early age he had seen a conscience as something of a handicap in the world of the Kevlerens and had quite happily lived without one, but had consoled himself by always having some greater purpose in mind, in his case the continued prosperity and influence of the university. It was a greater good he could actively promote and that outweighed any other considerations. Now the chancellor had reached a point when he saw, with painful clarity, that even a higher purpose was no excuse for ignoring wickedness.
