“No sister, I don’t think Demion is up to that sort of thing,” said Guis. “But I imagine you can use marriage as a shield to protect yourself. He can’t carry on behaving this way toward you, not without damaging his reputation.”
She slipped her arm through his. “Thank you, Guis.”
He laid his hand over hers. “You’ve saved me more times than I’ve helped you. I still owe you a great deal.”
“SHE SHOULD HAVE married Alanrys.”
“Do you think, father? She hates him,” said Trassan,
Gelbion Kressind grunted. “What has like or dislike to do with it? It’s marriage boy. He’s a hero of Karsa!”
“He’s a monster.”
“There’s too much of your mother in you children. What kind of a man do you think makes a hero? Not the likes of you. Only strong men can perform such deeds. It is up to their country to decide if they are heroes or not. Heroism is an ugly business, Trassan.”
Gelbion Kressind was old before his time, twisted by apoplexy four years gone. His left leg moved stiffly, and the weight on that side he supported on a stick. This he held awkwardly across his body with his good right arm, his left arm also having been affected with weakness. His arms were thus awkwardly crossed. His posture was otherwise unaltered, and he stood as tall as his weakened limbs allowed. In his face the full ravages of his condition were apparent. His left eyelid drooped, the skin slack around it as if partially melted, while half his mouth was frozen upwards in a perpetual sneer. But the real damage was deeper inside. Gelbion Kressind had been a man of influence, of power. Forced to withdraw from the politicking of the Second House, he had become bitter. His ambition was thwarted, and become poison.
“If only she’d been born a boy,” said Gelbion.
“She is talented, father.”
The right side of his mouth twisted to match the left. He banged his stick on the floor. “She is a woman. She cannot inherit, and she’s ruled by her emotions. See how she dismissed Alanrys like a peasant, calling that worthless brother of yours to help her. She is the most like her mother of all of you. Weak! One setback and she sinks into misery. Is she the first young widow in this world? No! So it goes if one tries to engage with women as equals. The cycle of their menses rules their minds. Women are flighty and inconstant, Trassan. You would be good to remember it.”
“I think you underestimate our sister, father,” said Trassan. His father scowled intently, a master craftsman inspecting inferior work.
“And what would you know about it, childless and wifeless as you are? Spend six months sharing your bed with the same woman, then you’ll know. It’s about time you left your dalliances behind boy. Settle down.”
Trassan persisted. “Katriona is intelligent. She...”
“It matters not one jot! You can teach a woman many things, but you cannot make her a man,” said Gelbion. He had trained away much of the speech impediment the apoplexy had left him with, but he slurred when angry, and dribble spilled from his lips. He dabbed at his mouth with a handkerchief held in his feeble left hand. “Even if she overcomes all that nature has put in her way, how by all the banished gods will she ever get anyone to take her seriously? Look at that over there, that creature your brother was cavorting with,” he said with disgust, “conducting herself so shamelessly. There is a woman who would be as a man. Do you see how she is laughed at, how despised? Her cunt rules her mind, she is filth. A bitch sniffing around the dogs. She acts like a man and seeks to outdo them to prove her point. She is a countess! Where is her dignity? A disgrace. How Demion Morthrock has the temerity to invite her to this celebration...” Gelbion slammed his cane down again. “If you love your sister as I do, my boy, you will not encourage her. Shame and infamy is all that awaits her.”
Trassan nodded. “Yes father.”
“Good boy, good boy.” He patted at his son, anger suddenly spent. “Now help me to a seat and sit with me. Standing so long suits me poorly.” Trassan took his father’s elbow and guided him across the polished floor. Guests moved aside. Trassan caught their reactions. The pitying glance, the patronising smile, the expressions of distaste. “Tell me about this latest venture of yours. I am glad to see you putting your mind to good use, unlike that pointless elder brother of yours.”
Trassan stole a look over his shoulder at Guis. Their eyes met, and Guis raised his glass in salute. Trassan smiled back. At least Guis had stopped sulking, that was something.
“The witches are proving popular.”
Gelbion’s ruined hand twitched. “Their time is done. Not so long ago they’d have been at court. Look at them now, performing tricks for coppers. The magisters’ science is infinitely preferable. This era will see magic tamed, and it will herald prosperity for all.”
They reached a chair, and Trassan eased Gelbion into it. Gelbion stuck his bad leg out and sighed. “That is better. There are some things, Trassan, that will never change. Never mind Alanrys. Demion is a good enough match for Katriona. An alliance between the Morthrock and Kressind families will stand us in good stead. Especially you. You’re an engineer. One of the best, trusted of Arkadian Vand himself. Bloody fool that he is, but it counts for something.”
“He is sorry he could not attend.”
Gelbion sniffed. “Well. Vand’s a bloody fool and you’re a bloody fool to follow him so closely. A genius when it comes to building, but a dog of a businessman, and I won’t have you going the same way, do you hear? If you continue as you are, you’ll be the one to take over after me. Don’t look so damned surprised, or I’ll change my mind. Don’t say anything. You’ve a clumsy mouth and you would only make a mess of it. That, my boy, we will have to work on, but what other choice do I have? Garten’s sworn into service of the crown, Katriona’s a bloody female and I wouldn’t trust Guis with my legacy if the rest of you fell off a cliff, Rel’s an idiot and Aarin has his vocation. Well done Garten for providing me with grandchildren, confound him for producing girls. No, it has to be you.”
THE DAY WORE into night. Katriona departed with her husband to a fanfare of trumpets. As custom dictated, with the departure of the bride and groom the Revelry began. Music became softer. The lights were dimmed. The water flowing from silver fountains in the hall’s alcoves ran pink then red as it was replaced by wine. Rooms were opened upstairs for trysting. Guests retired for a while, returning an hour later in their evening costumes—dressed as diaphanously clad Wild Tyn tree maidens, priapic devils, lustful outlanders and other, more outrageous garb. Hirelings in revealing attire insinuated themselves into the crowds to entertain the guests. A myriad of physical types drawn from across the Hundred. All beautiful. All paid for by Gelbion Kressind.
“Would you look at that,” said Trassan, turning his head to track a glittered woman whose costume left nothing to the imagination.
“Patience brother,” said Aarin, who had finally arrived. “There is the matter of etiquette. Guests first.”
“I’d leave off altogether,” said Garten. “You can be sure father will be interviewing every whore afterwards. Sanctity of the Revelry be damned.”
“Still,” said Trassan. “I’m tempted, aren’t you?”
Guis grinned drunkenly. “I’m not tempted to have our father discover my sexual preferences, no. But by all means, you go ahead.”
The brothers spoke in a quiet corner close by a wine fountain.
“You are a little distracted this evening, Trassan,” said Aarin. “Is there anything wrong?”
“No, not at all. It’s just well, all this flesh... That’s what’s distracting me.”
Guis took a goblet of wine from a naked serving woman. “Trust you. Personally, all this is rather over the top.”
“It is a wedding night,” said Aarin. “Vows are suspended. Love celebrated.”
“Spoken like a priest,” said Guis. “But I find it disturbing,” he added lightly. Trassan saw that something troubled him. Guis caught him looking and raised his wine glass in mock salute, but the darkne
ss was in his eyes; there was movement on his shoulder.
“Let her have her fun,” said Garten. He was quite drunk. “She’s a pretty one,” he said, nodding at a girl.
“You’d get to find out if Charramay wasn’t here.”
Garten sighed. “I never would. I just like to look.”
“A voyeur then?” said Guis archly.
“Not like that! I’m window shopping, is all. I’m a good man. I’m in love.”
Trassan made a face. “Please.”
“Well this is a fine gathering,” said Guis. “Trassan distracted by tits, Aarin glum with the dead.”
Aarin raised his hands to protest. Guis pointed at him. “No! You do appear glummer than usual, Aarin.”
“The order of the Guiders is not what it once was. We are underfunded, and undermanned.”
“No one wants to spend all their time with ghosts and corpses any more?” said Trassan.
“I suppose not. Today I caught a deacon washing funeral shrouds. They’re not supposed to reuse the cloth, but they do,” Aarin said regretfully.
“Doesn’t sound so bad,” said Garten. He swayed on his feet.
“It is but the least of the things that I have encountered recently.” He would say no more, no matter how they tried to draw him on it.
“I feel like dancing,” said Guis. “Only it’s not the same without Rel.” He raised his glass. “To Rel, wherever he is.”
“To Rel,” the others said.
“And to Katriona, I hope she’s happy,” said Garten.
“I hope she knows what she’s doing,” said Guis.
They talked, they drank. The evening wore on. Their eyes strayed more and more often to the women. Garten determined to drink himself insensible before he betrayed his wife. “After all, the wine is as free as the sex,” he said, before collapsing in a corner and falling asleep.
Their group was joined by others, conversational tides pulled them apart. Trassan found himself separated from his immediate kin. He was by this time quite drunk. The evening took on an hallucinogenic air. Couples no longer went upstairs, but copulated openly in the corners and along walls. Laughter and soft sighs out-competed conversation. Other guests—the older ones, the firmly attached, the already sated—talked in polite knots. A juxtaposition that struck Trassan as faintly ridiculous.
He moved to a wine fountain. A small hand caught his wrist. He turned to see a young woman he did not recognise, wearing a half-smile and little else. She had long blonde hair worn up in a plait wrapped around her head, large eyes lined with blue and green and flecks of gold. She wore a flimsy shift split all the way up both sides. The shoulders were pinned together with large brooches with serpents coiling upon them. At her waist, the front and back were held together with chains linked with golden locks.
Trassan furrowed his brow. It was an effort staying upright.
“Aren’t you a little young for all that?”
“All what?” she said with feigned innocence.
“The gold locks. You’re a sybarite. All that pleasure and pain business. I thought you had to be jaded to enjoy that.”
“And are you jaded?”
Trassan took a slug of wine. He smiled and shrugged. “I suppose I could be.”
“I could not help noticing that you are alone.”
“I seem to have lost my brothers,” he admitted.
“I am not talking about your brothers.”
“A woman?”
“A lover.”
“No, none of that. Not here anyway.” He felt a twinge of guilt. Customarily, all vows were suspended for a Revelry, but as with Garten’s Charramay, there was no chance Veridy would be pleased about this.
He decided to blame the wine if he were found out.
She stood up on her toes to whisper in his ear. “Come with me,” she said. Her breath was cool and sweet, and he felt self-conscious for the stink of wine on his. She did not wait for an answer before she led him away. He decided not to think about it, and followed after her.
They made their way through the party. The light was low as a cave, and red as blood. She was surefooted, he less so. He passed Guis’s friend, the army officer Qurion, who winked at him, trailing his own woman.
Trassan peered behind him.
“Was that the Hag of Mogawn?” he said.
The girl looked back at him. “Hush,” she said.
She led him up the leftmost of the hall’s twinned grand staircases. Upstairs no one was talking. They stepped over entwined bodies, through a door into a large stateroom. It had been prepared for this stage of the wedding. There were couches and heaps of cushions, thickly piled carpets everywhere. No lights burned. Glimmer shine from street lamps and light from both moons streamed in through the windows, highlighting half-hidden curves of flesh. The girl led him to a round couch by the window. Curtains stirred in a breeze. Cold. Trassan shivered. The girl was unaffected.
She unpinned the brooches at her shoulders, but held her dress on with her hands. The breeze pressed the cloth against her body highlighting her breasts and the mound of her genitals.
“Who are you?” he asked. He was captivated by her eyes.
“I am whoever you wish me to be, Goodfellow.”
“Oh, right. You’re one of...” He couldn’t bring himself to say what he was about to say. “You’re one of father’s,” he finished lamely. He felt inexplicably disappointed.
She released her dress. Her clothes slithered to the floor and pooled about her feet. She laughed. “If you like.” Pink moonlight sparkled off the glitter on her breasts.
Trassan reached for her face. They kissed.
She drew him down onto the couch.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Eastwards
FROM KARSA CITY to Macer Lesser, through the highlands of Maceriya, from there to the permanently shadowed Umberlands where there was the city of Perus, then on through the remainder of Maceriya to the borders with Daiserich and Brodning, across the broad lands of the Grand Duke to the forested plains of the Queendom of Pris, from there through the quarrelsome minor fiefdoms of the Olberland, whose pocket handkerchief territories made up near half the number of all the Hundred Kingdoms, the train clacked on and on and on.
Autumn came earlier to the Karsan Peninsula and the Isles than the continent. On the far side of the Karsan Sea, summer’s rearguard fought. Almost as soon as Rel was past the Neck a dry, drowsy heat descended, thickening the air of the carriages and inducing a state of extreme lethargy in all aboard. The heat worsened Rel’s despondency. He drank too much, he ate too little. If he were honest with himself, and in this state of mind he was bitterly so, he was moping.
There were some richer moments. The passage over the Neck from Karsa to the mainland was stunning despite the absence of the crashing sea. If it made his melancholy greater, at least for the time it took the train to run across the Neck he felt as if he were the hero of his own story, cast out, but sure to return home in triumph. He imagined the look on his father’s face as he returned after performing some notable deed or other, and relished it.
These notions of grandeur evaporated in the face of reality. On rare occasions a spectacular piece of scenery roused him but the effect diminished the more tedious farmland and trackless forest he traversed. The ringing of bells and cries of the train waysayer announced the name of each new land they crossed into, but to Rel the land either side of the borders looked very much the same. Five weeks in Hamadan gathering his papers did little for his mood. The city of aesthetes was definitely not to his liking. He swore he could hear Alanrys’s laughter echoing from every hushed courtyard.
By the time he reached the grand chasm of the river Olb and its thousand tributaries, said to be the great natural wonder of the entire Ruthnian continent, he could not care less.
The train chuffed doggedly alongside the canyon, rattling over the many bridges linking the various scraps of Olberland to one another. He gazed woefully at the splendour of small castles atop p
innacles of rock, the six-winged silhouettes of dragonlings coasting over purple moorlands, intricate as models, and decided to hate it all.
He drank some more.
The canyon narrowed. They crossed at speed a bridge of stone whose many piers were topped by monumental statuary. Dead gods, dead heroes, the usual dead things commemorated in dead stone. A broad river that fed into the Olb glinted in the canyon far below, worming its way through banks of mud. They were many hundreds of miles from the sea, near the limit of the tide’s long reach, yet still this far away the ocean exerted its suzerainty. It ordered the rivers of the world to kneel and rise at its command and rise and kneel they did, crawling upon their bellies to pay obeisance at sandy shores.
The waysayer rang his bell as they hit the halfway mark of the bridge.
“The Imperium of Mohacs! The Imperium of Mohacs!”
“I’d like to shove that bell of his somewhere it won’t ring so well,” said Rel. The only other person in the compartment with him rattled his three-day old newspaper.
Rel went back to sulking at the view. Presently, he fell asleep.
When he woke again it was high afternoon, the sun burning in the cloudless sky. His face was hot, and had stuck to the window. He sat hurriedly, wiping at his mouth. A parade of awesome buildings rose in the distance, shrouded in thin smoke.
“Mohacs,” said Rel. “Or is it Gravo?” He turned around, but the man with the paper and the middle-kingdom scowl had gone, leaving him alone in stuffy opulence. The train swung wide around the city. He saw signs of the chasm that divided it from its sister city, a strange break in the skyline. The station was in Mohacs.
“Must be Gravo over there,” he said to himself. He returned to his seat as the waysayer announced their imminent arrival at Mohacs station.
Train wheels squealed. The whistle hooted. The city engulfed them. Everything was colossal, overblown in the pompous eastern style, all towering stone needles and flat domes. Boulevards opened in slowing zoetrope, light dark, light dark. Rel caught a flash of a long street crowded with small palaces. The heyday of the Imperium was long past, but after being absorbed by the Hundred, Mohacs had reinvented itself as the de facto centre of the southeastern Hundred and had remained wealthy. There was money on display, and plenty of it.
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