Heirs of the Blade

by Tchaikovsky, Adrian

  ‘Go home,’ said Lisan Dea softly, giving her another of those hidden looks. ‘Lowlander, go home.’

  Tynisa smiled keenly. ‘I have no home in the Lowlands. That is why I’ve come here.’

  The seneschal opened her mouth to utter some further dismissal, but then a shifting amongst the guards heralded a new arrival. Without fanfare, the princess herself was with them.

  ‘I thought I recognized the Lowlander girl from my window,’ she remarked. ‘Tell me, why have you taken it upon yourself to turn away our guests?’

  Lisan Dea stood very straight, looking ahead and not daring to glance at her mistress. She made no reply.

  ‘You are a capable enough servant for peacetime, Lisan, but perhaps not fit to act as my seneschal in war. Return inside and contemplate that,’ the princess ordered. Tynisa expected a glare from the Grasshopper as she obeyed, but instead caught an unguarded expression: she read sadness on the face of Lisan Dea, and not as a response to her mistress’s anger.

  ‘You seek my son, no doubt,’ the lady of the Salmae observed. ‘I have heard about your actions during the hunt, and the Salmae recognize our debts. Come with me.’ She turned and strode inside.

  Elass led the girl to her throne room, never once glancing back but confident that mere curiosity would draw the Lowlander after her. She should appreciate that I am doing her a great honour. But these foreigners seemed to have little grasp of propriety, and who could blame them, being bereft of proper rulers, no great familes, no royal blood. They should be congratulated for not declining into utter savagery.

  Taking her accustomed seat between the two statues, she saw Tynisa hovering uncertainly in the doorway.

  ‘Sit,’ she said, the word sounding somewhere between an invitation and an order. Tynisa entered cautiously and Elass saw her eyes flick towards the friezes adorning the walls, all the life-size figures carved in high relief. Noblemen and women of the Commonweal led horses or drew back bowstrings, waged war in elegant mail or played musical instruments. The girl obviously possessed some latent courtesy, Elass decided, for although distracted, she proceeded to the correct position where a petitioner should kneel, and sank to the floor.

  For a moment, Elass adopted a stern face, studying this Spider-kinden waif before her. Whitehand is right: something has changed within her. There was now an edge to her that had not been evident before, a purpose. Even sitting, the girl exuded a sense of being kept still only under restraint, and that if her leash were slipped she would explode into violence. And how may I channel that? Elass let her expression lighten, like storm-clouds dissipating from the sky.

  ‘I learn that you performed admirably on the hunt,’ she stated. ‘Most importantly, my champion speaks well of you, and his faintest praise is worth the applause of many.’

  She saw no flush of pleasure at the words. The girl accepted the praise as Isendter himself would have, impassively.

  ‘Alain is not here, or doubtless he would have met you at our gates himself,’ Elass began. Just then, and as she saw Alain’s name spark life from the girl’s expression, a servant entered with a pair of scrolls for his mistress. She laid one down and scanned the contents of the other, apparently forgetting Tynisa’s presence. Another servant was suddenly at her elbow, placing bowls for kadith.

  ‘I understand that you are Maker Tynise of Collegium,’ the princess continued absently.

  Tynisa merely nodded.

  ‘Alain will not have given you my personal name. The boy never was one for proper introductions. I am Salme Elass – although, of course, you should address me as “my Princess” or “my lady.”’ As she mummed reading the scroll she was watching the girl obliquely.

  Of course, revealing one’s name was a privileged concession, but Elass was not sure whether the Lowlander knew that. She saw an understanding somewhere in Tynisa’s eyes, though, that names represented power to the Inapt, and so she would think she was being given some great gift.

  Elass followed this indulgence with a smile, transforming her face from stone to flesh. ‘My son will need you, in the near future,’ she said.

  Again Elass read that curious reaction: the eagerness of the young woman that became the eagerness of the Weaponsmaster to prove her skill. For a moment, Elass found herself disconcerted by the latter, sensing almost a personal danger here. She is so young, and of such an unusual kinden, that I had forgotten that she must have earned that badge. For a moment she wondered whether using this tool would be wise, but then she dismissed the doubts. So, she is a sharper blade than I had thought. No matter, though, as long as I hold the hilt.

  ‘We are at war,’ Salme Elass declared flatly.

  ‘War?’ Tynisa was startled into speech, and that same eagerness for combat waxed like a flame behind her eyes.

  ‘Ah, you have a tongue, then?’ Salme Elass permitted herself another smile. ‘You will not have heard of this, while in Prince Lowre’s care, for he always seeks to isolate himself, but this province is under attack, and even now Alain has flown off to scout the enemy. This coming spring we will be obliged to fight.’

  ‘Is it the Empire?’ Tynisa enquired, even though she must surely know how far they were from the Wasps. Unconsciously, her hand curled towards her rapier hilt, and Elass found herself delighted. How I shall use her against Lowre Cean!

  ‘Not the Wasps, but a considerable danger nonetheless. There is a brigand army assembling at our southern border, challenging our rightful authority. The winter has seen them coming to seek easy prey amongst my people, and for that they must be destroyed. Alain shall be in the vanguard of the assault, and I hope, Tynise, that you shall be alongside him.’

  ‘Of course.’ The words came without the need for further thought.

  Salme Elass nodded, looking down at the scroll again. ‘There is one matter in particular that you can aid us with.’ She paused to ensure Tynisa was listening. ‘I have few swords that I can call upon here at Leose. My people are diminished since the war, and these brigands are many. Therefore I need to call upon my allies, but I fear they may not answer me. There is one, in particular, whose skills would hasten our victory and so save many lives. His mere presence would hearten those loyal to the Monarch, and strike fear into our enemies. He is old, however, and he suffers from a curious condition whereby he seeks to hide from what he was, by losing himself in mundane pursuits unworthy of him.’ She looked up again, and saw that the girl understood.

  ‘Lowre Cean,’ Tynisa offered, thoughtfully.

  ‘I will ride to visit him shortly,’ Elass explained, ‘but I am unsure of the welcome I will receive there. However, if there was one of his own household who spoke on my behalf, and had already softened his resolve, then my task would be that much the easier. We need him.’

  There was a brief moment’s pause in which Tynisa surely weighed up all that she had experienced of Lowre Cean: an old man bumbling aimlessly from one pointless pastime to the next. But Elass knew that Lowre had acquitted himself admirably on the hunt, at the last moment, when no other would step in, and Tynisa had surely seen that, too.

  ‘I shall do it,’ the girl confirmed, and Elass carefully restrained her smile from growing any wider.

  A tenday later, Salme Elass herself arrived at Lowre’s enclave, a nearly unprecedented occurrence. The old man met her in his main hall that was, for once, cleared of most of his other transient guests. He sat at one end of it and, though wearing only a darned robe, his posture and bearing had transformed him again into Prince-Major Lowre Cean rather than the semi-recluse normally to be seen pottering about the compound.

  A little late to try and recapture all that authority, she reflected. Elass sat across the room from him arrayed in her full and formal robes of silk ornamented with gold trim and silver threads. Isendter knelt at her right hand, his head bowed in deference.

  ‘My lord,’ she said, instilling available humility into her tone, for all that this whole enclave of his was but guesting on her land, ‘you have heard now how
the people of Elas Mar are oppressed, how villains are come north from the unclaimed provinces to burn and rob, and prey on the honest folk who live under my protection. I cannot stand idly by at such a time and, my lord prince, I am sure that you cannot either. You fought with my husband against the Empire, and your victories are famed throughout the Commonweal, so I am sure you will take up arms to defend what was his. Having dwelt here in Elas Mar all the years since your own estates were lost, I am sure that you would defend your newfound home. You have been a Mercer in your time, and surely you cannot stand by and see evil done. Therefore I ask you now to attend my war muster at Leose and give us the benefit of your wise counsel, strengthening my few followers with your own. What do you say, my lord prince?’

  Lowre Cean looked away from her and pinched at the bridge of his nose. Elass let her eyes flick across to Tynisa, sitting on the sidelines, and found the girl’s attention was fixed firmly on the old man. She has already done her part, the noblewoman decided. Tynisa had obviously hurried back to Lowre’s compound full of righteous purpose, and how could the old man say no to all that? How could he have lessened and lowered himself in the eyes of his new ward, by refusing to go to battle? Elass particularly enjoyed the slightly baffled expression she saw on the girl’s face. There was a war on, and Tynisa plainly could not understand why Lowre Cean would not gladly cast aside the mundane in order to don his armour once again.

  The Prince-Major sighed. ‘I am an old man and I have long put aside warlike pursuits. Your husband was a comrade to me, before the war took him away. He was a comrade to my son, before the Wasp-kinden killed him also.’ He was speaking so softly that Elass had to lean in to catch the words. ‘I am no necromancer to know the wishes of the dead, however.’

  He paused then, as one of his servants produced kadith, Isendter pouring for his mistress and Lowre’s young messenger performing the same duty for his master.

  ‘Nor can I allow the happenstance of residence to move me, for all I was invited here in your husband’s fond memory,’ Lowre continued, at last. ‘The Commonweal is wide, even that part of it left to us by the Wasps, and there are no longer so many of us to people it as before. There are other places for a man such as me, if need be.’

  Another pause, age-old conversational paths meandering between them.

  ‘As for evil, that is a dangerous word that can turn like a centipede and bite its holder. I will make no judgements regarding evil,’ Lowre added. ‘These arguments cannot move me.’

  Elass nodded, nothing daunted. ‘And if I extend the invitation to all your folk here, so that they may join me in this venture, be we however few, be the enemy so many? I am sure that there are some here who will do what must be done, even without your leadership to guide them. Or perhaps there is some other reason whereby you might agree to lend us your skills.’ She pointedly did not look to Tynisa, but Lowre knew exactly what she meant. Join me or not, the girl is mine now. She would stand in a fire if I told her my son would applaud it. So, Cean, what does she mean to you? Is she a mere distraction that you will let go easily? If she does mean something, will you let her go off to war while you remain behind? Another name to add to your list of the fallen, Cean?

  The Prince-Major gave a long sigh, looking older than he had ever done before: just a frail old man, now. The messenger beside him put a concerned hand on his arm. ‘Oh, I’ll come,’ the old man agreed at last. ‘My counsel you shall have, even though you may not like it. I shall bring my few followers to join your new grand army. I shall not plan your battles for you, though, Princess Salme Elass. I have enough blood on my account already.’

  It was the smallest of defeats, now that he had agreed to lend his name to her offensive, but for a moment Elass found even this thwarting response hard to bear. So the great tactician, the hero of Masaka, would just watch idly, would he? Did he fear that his skills might have rusted from disuse? Or was he looking forward to laughing at the mistakes of others? Anger rose inside her, but she fought it down and was all calm once more. ‘We will be honoured by your presence, my Prince,’ she told him. ‘I shall hold a muster of all those who will lend their strength to mine – within a tenday I shall hold it. I shall look out for you there.’

  Twenty-Five

  The barge brought them to within sight of Suon Ren and offloaded them – two Wasps and an unconscious Beetle girl – without comment. The vessel’s crew had spoken barely a word to them throughout the long journey, but had just as obviously been glad to have them aboard. They had treated the two renegade Imperials as though they were guard animals of proven ferocity. The horror of the Twelve-year War would resound in Commonweal minds for decades yet to come.

  Che had not been comatose the whole way. She woke sporadically, clawing at the air, talking feverishly, staring about her. Thalric then made it his business to get some water into her, and sometimes even food. She would wander about the barge, bumping into things, flinching from objects invisible. She spoke to him, too, but it was seldom him she actually saw. Often she would explain something at great speed, something mystical that the two Wasps could not follow. Sometimes she was trying to flee from something, and had to be restrained from simply flying off the barge. Once . . .

  Once she was being tortured, or under threat of it, and Thalric knew with a sick feeling that, this time of all of them, she saw him for who he was.

  He wondered at what point he had changed, that he no longer considered just abandoning her.

  Some nights, as Varmen slept, Thalric would sit and gaze down at her, as she trembled and twitched in the grip of whatever affliction had befallen her. His feelings of despair, during those lonely hours past midnight, were nothing he would ever admit to in the light of day.

  The journey from the Commonweal’s borders to Suon Ren had proved steady and untroubled, and in Thalric’s mind was a simple thought, What now? They had come here at Che’s behest, for reasons to do with her foster-sister, yet it seemed unlikely to him that Tynisa was now within a thousand miles of them. Che seemed to have picked Suon Ren randomly from a map of all the places she had ever heard about and, now they were here, she was in no state to capitalize on it. Thalric himself did not know the plan. I don’t mind making my own way, I don’t mind receiving orders, but this in-between business is no use at all.

  ‘They have a prince at Suon Ren, don’t they?’ he asked, casting his mind back to the war. Isn’t this where Stenwold Maker was heading in search of Commonwealer allies?

  ‘A big one, I think,’ Varmen agreed. ‘Going to seek an audience, are you?’

  ‘I need help.’ Thalric glanced down at Che. ‘I need a doctor, or at least what passes for one in this place. Problem is, I can’t see how two war veterans like us will carry much weight when it comes to exacting favours from princes . . .’ A flicker of movement caught his eye, and now he saw a handful of Dragonflies approaching. Two of them were armoured in a way that was depressingly familiar, provoking a momentary recollection of men and women like that seen on the battlefield, glittering and graceful, and doomed.

  They landed in front of the two Wasps: two warriors in shimmering mail, and another man who was lean and grey, wearing what Thalric took to be fine clothes of the local cut. Whereas the warriors held swords and were watching the Wasps warily, their leader had eyes only for Che.

  Something twitched in the Dragonfly’s face, as he studied her, and he said, ‘She must be taken before Prince Felipe.’

  Thalric exchanged a glance with Varmen. ‘Then we must go with her.’

  The Dragonfly regarded him narrowly, but nodded agreement at last, and Thalric wondered whether the man simply felt it was too dangerous to leave two Wasp-kinden running loose. ‘Send for a stretcher and bearers,’ he ordered one of his fellows. ‘She must be shown respect.’

  At that moment Che awoke, wide-eyed, flinging an arm out as though to protect herself, crying out wordlessly. There were tears in her eyes.

  Thalric looked at the Dragonflies to see if this displa
y had diminished their ‘respect’, but to his surprise he saw that, if anything, they were eyeing Che with a measure of superstitious awe.

  Entering Suon Ren, Thalric caught Varmen’s eye, and thought he saw a kindred look of recognition on the man’s face. For both of them equally, this pure Commonweal architecture must provoke memories of once putting it to the torch.

  Their escort took them to the exact centre of the town, a broad area of open space that must serve as a meeting place or muster or market for the people of Suon Ren. All the locals were staring, perhaps wondering if this was some precursor to further Imperial aggression. The adults’ faces were hostile, yet fearful, as though even just two Wasps posed a danger to their entire town. The children, however, pointed and whispered, and soon the oldest of them were exercising their Art wings, seeing who could swoop closest to the dreaded enemy. Some even mimed being seared by stingshot, spiralling from the air to collapse with great theatrics. To Thalric it all seemed in horribly bad taste, from these children who had surely lost relatives in the war.

  ‘We will now take her to the prince,’ explained the leader of the escort. ‘You will stay here.’

  ‘Now wait – where she goes, I go,’ Thalric insisted, but the man merely raised an eyebrow. He jerked his head slightly in the direction of the wooden-frame castle on the hill, and Thalric saw that another half-dozen soldiers had appeared from it, with bows in hand.

  ‘You will wait here,’ the Dragonfly repeated, as though instructing a slow student. The stretcher-bearers took up their burden once again, and they set off for the castle.

  There was just a moment when Thalric thought of going after them, bows or not, but then his common sense reasserted itself. He had no feeling to suggest that the Commonwealers actually meant Che any harm, and perhaps it was sensible for a prince to avoid private audiences with the Wasp-kinden.