The Miocene Arrow

by Sean McMullen

  The note of the barge’s engine rose a little in pitch as they pulled away from the quay and out into the canal.

  “We Bartolicans like to keep the mechanics out of sight,” said the guard captain as Glasken looked about in astonishment.

  “And why is that, Sair Captain?” he asked in confident Old Anglian.

  “So that they will not get ideas about being part of the vista, so that they will remember their places as mere cogs in a greater machine. There are men beneath the decking, although there is little more than a foot of clearance. They crawl about on their bellies, tending the compression engine and peeping through slits in the bow to steer.”

  “This is an impressive welcome.”

  “A stranger made welcome is a friend to be. You are just in time for the flypast of wardens and allocation of standing ranks for the coronation tomorrow. We Bartolicans take it very seriously, in fact three nobles died this morning in their efforts to get here in time for those ceremonies.”

  They glided amid gardens of flowering vines hanging down from the stone sides of the canal and trailing in the water. All the bridges were drawn back, even though the low barge could have cleared them easily. The captain explained to Glasken that they were in one of the fleet of royal barges, and nobody was permitted to be above any barge of the Airlord of Bartolica.

  “That’s the official story, at any rate. The truth is that a blind beggar named Rinol Harz pissed on Airlord Jumeril the Fourth in 3791. The poor wretch was seized and shot before he’d even had time to lace up, then Jumeril had every bridge in the city put on hinges. The Yarronese later erected a statute honoring Sair Harz in Forian, their capital.”

  “So the Bartolicans and Yarronese are not on the best of terms?”

  “Not for more centuries than the number of my lovers, no. We of Bartolica strive for the glories of the Age of Cybers. We seek to emulate the machines of that glorious time, using servants instead of cybers, all the while striving to rebuild the cyber technology itself. The Yarronese wallow in grease and rivets without remembering what those rivets and that grease are leading toward. What is your level of technical achievement in Veraguay, Fras Glasken?”

  Ah, the thin edge of civility that precedes the wedge of espionage, Glasken thought.

  “I am only from Mexhaven, but the envoy often speaks of home. The land is mountainous, far more so than yours. They have walled roads, cable-cage railcars, terraced farmlands, and rangepens of cobarci.”

  “Cobarci?” asked the captain.

  “They are like little, fluffy pigs, and are not affected by the Call. The villages are small, and there are only five towns with more than ten thousand souls. The cathedrals and universities are in those towns.”

  “But where do your artisans work?”

  “They go where demand leads them.”

  “That seems unworkable. What about the governments and armies of their dominions?”

  “The roads are built into the sides of mountains and are easily defended by the town militias. The Conciliar members have no specific capital or palace, they travel from town to town. They are artisans of organization, just like blacksmiths or tailors.”

  They passed the Enclave of Dominions, where the foreign diplomats were housed. Rosenne said that it reminded her of a university: all parkland with ivy-shrouded buildings blending in with the trees. One tower nearby reached high above the trees, a conical structure with a circular gallery near the top. Hannan proudly announced that this was part of his mansion. Presently they passed through a gate in the wall of the outer grounds of the palace, and Hannan noticed a lone figure at one of the stone landings.

  “Odd, that’s Warden Stanbury,” he remarked. “I wonder why he’s not over at the wingfield for the flypast.”

  Warden Stanbury paced restlessly beside the palace canal, hardly believing that his governor was dead. Carabas had promised, and Carabas never broke a promise. “Your way will be clear for honors,” he had said. Stanbury had thought the man had the ear of the Airlord Designate, and had not expected the disaster that had followed.

  He plucked a sky-blue rose from a bush beside the stone barge quay and began methodically breaking the thorns off the stem and flicking them into the water. Carabas finally appeared in an oargig with another man rowing, and both of them wore the uniform of the merchant carbineers. He beckoned Stanbury to join them. The well-mannered Carabas was in his late forties, and although he walked with a slight limp he was as lean, strong, and fit as any warden in his prime.

  “It is chronicled that roses were never blue before the engineers of the twenty-first century took a hand to them,” said Carabas with a neat, circular gesture to the bloom in Stanbury’s hand.

  “What of him?” Stanbury asked, looking to the lean but muscular rower.

  “He knows all that I do, Warden Stanbury. You may speak safely in front of him.”

  Stanbury stepped into the oargig and they pulled out into the center of the canal. There were other boats on the water, all full of noisy excursionists and bedecked with flowers. The rower began to pace a barge in which a brass band was playing.

  “Well, how did you do it?” hissed Stanbury, his heart pounding.

  “I do a great deal, Sair Stanbury,” replied Carabas. “To what do you refer?”

  “The gunwing crash that killed the Governor of the East Region!”

  “The Inspector General’s inquisitors have been over the wreckage but found nothing.”

  “That’s just the field inspection. The guild scrutiny will not be so easy to escape.”

  “There is nothing obvious to find, a mere pinprick in the bottom of the atomizer’s floatwell, nothing more. A stick of wax sealed it shut initially, but the bypass pipe on which the stick rested became hot and caused the wax to melt within a half hour. After that the engine began to burn an unreasonable amount of compression spirit. The fire burned all traces of wax from the engine, and who would notice one tiny hole extra amid all the other damage?”

  “So your people did do it. That’s bad, the hole will be found when the pieces are scrutinized in the guild chamber.”

  “Good, it is meant to be found.”

  Stanbury flopped back in his seat and flung the blue rose into the water. The enigmatic carbineer clearly had agendas that he could not even guess at.

  “Flight guildsmen guard their wardens’ gunwings better than they guard their own balls. How did your people do it, are they Callwalkers?”

  “If you learned the truth, Sair Stanbury, your hands would be too unsteady to take your gunwing up for a duel.”

  Carabas leaned back, waving one hand in time with the music from the barge up ahead. Stanbury folded his arms and shuddered.

  “Did you have to kill him?” Stanbury asked in a voice that was barely audible above the music.

  Carabas shook his head as if chiding a foolish child. “The Governor killed himself, good sair. The sweep of the Call is only nine miles deep, he could easily have glided to a field, road, or pond beyond the sweep and made a forced landing once the compression engine died.”

  “That would have delayed his governor’s arrival until after the coronation seating had been declared.”

  “Ah yes, but what is a life against an event? Alas, he was determined to land at the palace in time to secure a place that befitted his rank in the coronation ceremony. He paid the price of hubris and ambition.”

  Stanbury had the look of a dirkfang cat cornered by a gang of birdherders, even though the day was warm, sunny, and tranquil, and Condelor resembled nothing more threatening than one huge carnival.

  “The Governor was not a bad man,” said Stanbury miserably. “He presented me with my warden bars … I even flirted with his wife. I saw her body being carried away. Gah, her hair was burned off and her skin was charred black and oozing blood.”

  “One way or another, Sair Stanbury, you would have had to destroy him—in reputation if not in body. Your only problem now is that Warden Desondrian is his named succes
sor and will be appointed tomorrow unless you declare him to be unfit.”

  Stanbury sat forward and hunched his shoulders as a gunwing droned overhead trailing streamers of colored smoke.

  “Desondrian is sure to hand the black glove to me if I do that. How will you help me to fight him? We are evenly matched for any duel.”

  “I do not help, Sair Warden Stanbury, I provide opportunities. You have your opportunity, and now you must cultivate it if you want to seize a magnificent destiny. Remember that chances like this come only once in a lifetime. Declare an objection to Desondrian’s appointment, sair, then fight for what is yours to take.”

  They were approaching another quay by now, and Warden Stanbury was as anxious to be done with the meeting as he had been to commence it.

  “I have been doing some research in the registers,” he said, looking up at a gunwing practicing aerobatics. “Your birth, studies, and career are all recorded, but up until four years ago people have trouble recalling you.”

  Carabas smiled easily, as if he had anticipated the question long before Stanbury had thought to ask it.

  “The Marquis de Carabas was a character in a very old fairy tale. He was a man of importance from very far away who did not quite exist. I am all of those things, Warden Stanbury, so I am called Carabas.”

  Juan Glasken and the captain of Hannan’s escort had by now discovered that they shared a strong interest in women. While Hannan pointed out the glories of the ancient palace to the Veraguay envoy, across the barge a rather less tasteful conversation was taking place between the captain and Glasken.

  “Your Bartolican women, do they, ah, jiggy jump?” asked Glasken.

  The captain blinked at the man’s boldness, then smiled knowingly and leaned closer.

  “They have strong motherly instincts, Sair Glasken. First make them feel sorry for you. Then—and only then—pay them compliments. Bartolican women tend to be generous of figure, and cleavages in particular are a matter of high fashion just now.”

  “Cleavages and I are old friends from decades past.”

  “Mind out, Sair Glasken, that you engage their sympathy first. Otherwise you may find yourself with a slap on the face.”

  “My face is no stranger to slaps, Captain. Love and war cannot be engaged in without casualties.”

  “Of course, Glasken, I understand. Seduction is part of my stock-in-trade in the diplomatic service. Public lies are shouted in councils and courts, but secret truths are whispered in beds.” The captain gripped Glasken’s arm suddenly and inclined his head toward the stone quay that the barge was approaching. “That rather formidable battle tram on the quay is Semme Laurelene Hannan, the Inspector General’s wife. Don’t waste your time looking for her sympathy.”

  Glasken looked in the direction he had indicated to see a woman in her mid-forties who was a little above average height and considerably above average weight. She was surveying the canal imperiously. Her hair was bound back tightly to hang in a plait festooned with gold and red tassels, while her blue, ankle-length skirt was cascading with flounces. Obviously meant to disguise her figure yet they expand it all the more, he decided. As was the current Bartolican fashion, she displayed an expanse of cleavage that was to Glasken more awesome than alluring.

  The barge docked and Glasken was first to step onto the quay. Laurelene swept grandly along the flagstones, with a little page boy running beside her holding a long-handled parasol high to keep the sun from the flawless white skin of her face and cleavage. She stopped before Glasken.

  “Sair Envoy, I am Semme Laurelene Hannan,” she declared. “I thought I should meet you at least, but I cannot stay. The Airlord Designate’s wife has asked me to—”

  By now Glasken had bowed so low over the white expanse of her breasts that the waxed point of his beard had dipped into her cleavage. She let out a squawk of surprise but otherwise retained her composure.

  “I regret that I am but the envoy’s guard,” Glasken explained as he straightened. “The envoy is safe in the company of your good husband.”

  Hannan was helping Rosenne from the barge. Laurelene stood speechless while the quite beautiful Veraguay envoy swept along the stone quay, escorted by the Inspector General.

  “Semme Hannan, my thanks for troubling yourself to meet me here,” she said without waiting for her escort’s introduction.

  A minor diplomatic incident was averted by the arrival of an official of the Airlord Designate, who came clattering down the stone stairs and whispered something to Laurelene.

  “I regret that I must leave my husband to look after you,” said Laurelene to the envoy in a voice as cold as the north wind. “The wife of my new ruler has need of me.”

  She cast Hannan a glare that said he would soon suffer for this, then turned and ascended the steps with her parasol boy trotting beside her. Rosenne, Hannan, and Glasken climbed the steps together, then stood watching Laurelene sweeping away down the path.

  “An … extraordinary woman,” said Glasken in a language that neither of his companions could understand as they set off along the path to the wingfield.

  “Uh, your pardon, Sair Glasken?” said Hannan.

  “Ah, she is a gracious woman, mistaking me for an envoy,” Glasken replied in Old Anglian.

  “Gracious?” snorted Hannan. “I would not even wish her married to my worst enemy. Well, maybe my worst enemy, but nobody else.”

  The envoy took Hannan’s hand and squeezed it, smiling warmly at him. Hannan was so startled by the gesture that he stared blankly at her as they walked.

  “Poor Inspector General, there is little mercy in your life, is there?” she said gently.

  “Why, I—I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I see it in your eyes, in the lines on your face, I hear it in the stiffness of your voice. You were not prepared for this meeting, were you, Sair Hannan?”

  “You have a sharp eye, Semme,” he admitted wearily.

  “Then tell me, dear Sair Hannan, why did you come to welcome me while the rest of the nobles are making merry at the palace?”

  Hannan gave a sigh that almost turned into a sob. Somehow talking to Rosenne was like collapsing into a soft, welcoming bed after a very bad day. One simply wanted to trust her and depend on her.

  “My wife, Laurelene, was supposed to meet you. She said she had better things to do than trade grunts with some barbarian yokel, so I came in her stead.”

  Rosenne put a hand on Hannan’s shoulder and kissed him on the cheek. “You grunt most charmingly, Sair Hannan. Seeing that your wife is so busy, would you do me the honor of being my escort on this day?”

  The woman admired him. That single fact stood out like a gunwing in a clear sky. Hannan paused to bow low to her, sweeping off his hat to reveal a prematurely grey and seriously balding head.

  “Gracious lady, of course, how could I refuse when your charm all but reduces me to tears?”

  Some paces ahead, Glasken and the captain were oblivious of the rapidly flowering romance.

  “We are about to see wings and meet wardens,” the captain explained. “Wardens are our warrior nobility. Each of their families maintains hereditary engineers, airframe builders, and other such guildsmen to keep their gunwings and sailwings maintained and flying.”

  “So being a warden is an expensive business?” asked Glasken.

  “If you need to ask the cost, you are too poor to qualify. Look, there’s another flock of gunwings arriving for the coronation week.”

  To the north a wedge of dots was moving across the sky. There were three of the little aircraft, and Glasken soon saw that they were awkward, triwing shapes painted with heraldic symbols and codes. Their compression engines were loud and insistent as they passed overhead.

  “Only Yarronese gunwings,” the captain said with a sneer. “Now then, among our dominions the wardens settle the more intractable disputes in duels with their gunwings. They are armed with reaction guns mounted in the nose.”

  “Ah, what
are reaction guns?”

  “They are guns that use the reaction of each shot to reload. They can fire hundreds of times in a single minute.”

  “But should a Call come past while they are flying they would be as good as dead!” Glasken exclaimed innocently.

  “Oh no, a gunwing flying above treetop height is not affected by the Call, Sair Glasken. Proximity with the ground or contact with the ground is required, by either rope, building, tree, or whatever. Even should they land during a Call, they would not blank out until they were within about fifty feet of the ground. I—”

  He had turned, to see Rosenne with her arm on Hannan’s. They were laughing and smiling, oblivious of the crowd and splendor around them.

  “Sair Glasken, remember when you most bravely dipped your beard into Semme Laurelene’s cleavage just now?” the captain asked, turning away quickly.

  “It was something of an accident.”

  “Well my master is currently doing something far braver.”

  Flown as the preferred weapon of wardens, the gunwings of Mounthaven’s dominions were what the warhorse had been to the European knights of three millennia earlier. While hard to tune, expensive to build and maintain, underpowered, difficult to master, and dangerous to fly, they were nearly invincible to all but another gunwing, as well as being the very soul of wardenly status.

  Only the wardens and a few of their support guildsmen flew, looking down on the countryside like gods and traveling between dominions within mere hours.

  Serjon Feydamor’s family had been in the engineers’ guild for centuries, and they worked for the estate of Jannian, one of the principal wardens of Yarron. Warden Jannian had sent his airframe guild, engineers’ guild, fuelers, and armorers in advance by steam trams, along with spare parts and tools. Serjon had flown there in a spare sailwing, but Jannian was to arrive in his gunwing. Jannian was well known for making spectacular entrances, however, and he had sworn to fly not from his estate on the border, but all the way from the Yarronese capital.