The Miocene Arrow

by Sean McMullen

  “Madness. The wardens of Cosdora and Yarron are both an even match for Greater Bartolica’s, and all the southern dominions would rally against us if Senner, Montras, or Westland were attacked. Bartolica would have formal wars with as many as five dominions, yet is scarcely united enough for even one.”

  “Do you really think so? A chivalric war is a good way to ensure unity among wardens.”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  Stanbury was gracious in victory, paying respects and consolation to Desondrian’s widow as soon as he landed, then praising the dead warden’s skills to the adjunct. He finally returned Samondel’s favor with profuse thanks.

  “The power of your favor is exceeded only by your beauty and kindness, Semme Samondel of Leovor,” he said as a circle of admiring nobles and guildsmen applauded. “Would that it could be available next time I ascend in service or anger.”

  “Would that a lady be lucky enough to be tied to your heart by then, Governor Stanbury,” she countered gracefully.

  Alion stood in the background, looking studiously at the toes of his brass-capped parade boots and with his hands clasped firmly beneath the tails of his flight jacket. As the group began to disperse he scarcely noticed. Samondel touched his arm. He looked up.

  “My lady, I had no idea!” he exclaimed in a sharp whisper. “Yesterday I thought—no, I mean I hoped that—”

  “Alion, hush. The new governor was caught alone and without colors, and I came to his aid. It was the honorable and chivalric thing to do.”

  “Of course, of course, but—”

  “Alion, I would be honored if you would wear my colors when next you ascend in service or anger. Keep them until then.”

  “My lady, Semme Samondel!” whispered Alion, going down on one knee and kissing the hand that held the bunch of ribbons out to him.

  Not far away a group of commoners was watching. The young Yarronese guildsfolk could not hear what words were being spoken, but the expressions on the faces of Alion and Samondel spoke far louder.

  “I think they’re so sweet and romantic,” said Kallien Feydamor, Serjon’s youngest sister.

  “The stitching on her colors is sound, but lacks imagination,” observed Ramsdel.

  “I hear she once flew a sailwing trainer,” Bronlar said with approval.

  “There were thirteen ribbons in her colors,” Serjon pointed out. “No good will come of it.”

  Vander had returned to the window to watch Stanbury’s gunwing being mobbed as it landed. Presently he turned to the footman, spoke an order, and went back to his chair. The footman reappeared with a long case and presented it to Sartov, then left the rooftop gallery.

  “Please, open it,” Vander prompted.

  Sartov lifted a beautifully made flintlock pistol from the case. Although there was some damage to the wood of the stock, it looked serviceable, and had been cleaned and oiled recently. Its action was firm and sound.

  “What do you think?” Vander asked.

  “Not an ornament,” was Sartov’s verdict. “This is the work of a guildsman who specializes in such weapons, yet to my knowledge no such guildsmen exist. Does it work?”

  “I have tested it myself. It has a heavy kick, but shoots true.”

  “Who made it?” asked Sartov, intrigued.

  “I had hoped you might help me with that matter. A trapper on the northern Callscour frontier has his terriers trained to follow men lured away by the Call. The dogs bring back items dropped and discarded by the doomed followers of the Call, often after days away.”

  “It is a living, I suppose, and no less honorable than diplomacy.”

  “One of his dogs found this four years ago, but the trapper thought it of no importance or value. He added two more pegs to his gunrack, and there it stayed until I happened to pay a visit relating to moonshine whisky production in the area.”

  Vander took the lead ball that he carried and tossed it to Sartov.

  “It probably shot this half-inch ball—which was cut from the body of the man it killed back in 3956. It was fired in near darkness at quite a long range. Whoever used this was very experienced with flintlocks, and beat an opponent on his own ground who had a rapid-fire carbine made by a reputable guildsman. How do you explain that?”

  Sartov thought for a moment.

  “Logic suggests that an elite warrior from some distant Callhaven has reached Bartolica. In his Callhaven they have very skilled artisans, yet their weapons lag behind ours by centuries.”

  “Such a visitor should have caused a sensation, yet I, the Regional Inspector, heard nothing. Either this is an elaborate prank, or there really have been visitors from a remote but civilized dominion that fled home at once.”

  “Or they are known to highly ranked people within Bartolica.”

  “That is true, and thus worrying. Why would a pair of explorers armed with flintlocks be kept such a close secret?”

  “I cannot say, but then there are many things that I cannot explain about your dominion, Vander. Why are so many carbineers being recruited by Bartolica’s merchants for the tramway militias? Your outlaw problem is no worse than Yarron’s, yet your merchant carbineers have increased tenfold in the four years past.”

  “Why worry? You can’t wage war with carbineers,” said Vander dismissively.

  “The Mexhaven dominions do,” said Sartov.

  “Maybe so, but their nobles have no gunwings.”

  Later that afternoon the Inspector General released his scrutiny inquisition ruling on the death of the late governor. He found that the fuel system of Governor Merrotin’s gunwing had been tampered with, and as the Daimzer guildsmen serviced both the governor’s gunwing and that of Desondrian, suspicion fell upon the house of Daimzer. All field engineers and artisans were ordered to be arrested, and their tools and assets impounded.

  Not only had Stanbury been proven right, he was also shown to be an excellent judge of character and behavior. His bravery and skill in the air made him all the more of a hero. The new airlord formally confirmed him as governor of the East Region, and lauded him before his court, the envoys, and the visiting dignitaries as being an example of the finest virtues of Bartolican chivalry.

  That evening Vander Hannan was at home having dinner when the mansion’s main door slammed. The boom reverberated throughout the large residence. Vander looked up to see the footman wince.

  “My mother is in another of her tempers,” Vander commented, the forkful of emu meat poised just below his lips.

  “Semme Laurelene has been in a continuous temper since the envoy from Veraguay arrived in Condelor, Sair Vander,” the footman replied.

  “So I have observed, yet what is the problem? My father has had discreet dalliances before.”

  “They were discreet, Sair, and for those which Semme Laurelene discovered he was given a great deal of tongue. With the envoy there is no discretion, and—”

  The doors to the dining hall were flung open by Laurelene, who stormed in without breaking stride. She was dressed in an afternoon gown with a skillfully designed and sewn framework supporting an expansive cleavage rimmed with olive-gold frills. The rest was just an impression of gold brocade and ruffles to Vander as she swept up to the table and pounded so hard with her fist that the silverware jingled.

  “That filthy, lecherous stoat did it again!” she thundered. “The Veraguayan guard of that scrawny little hen of an envoy!”

  “Sair Glasken is from Sierra Madre in Mexhaven, he—”

  “Don’t contradict me!” she shouted, pounding the table over and over again. “He, he hung about with Kyleal. I feared for her virtue so I sent her on an errand and remonstrated with him in person. I told him that loose and fast romance was not the Bartolican way, but he replied that he did but learn by example—that was a remark about your shameless father, make no mistake. Then he swept off that absurd feathered hat of his and bowed to me so low that the filthy waxed point of his beard dipped into my, my … cleavage!”

  An a
dventurous man, thought Vander. He clasped his hands, rested his chin upon them, and tried to look sympathetic.

  “Of course I complained to your father but it did no good. That’s the second time that Veraguayan guard has shamed me in public. If your father will do nothing then you must!”

  “My region is the north, I have no authority here,” replied Vander hastily.

  “But you can challenge him to a duel.”

  “He is not a warden. As far as I can tell his rank is about that of carbineer yeoman. It is his master who must punish him or duel.”

  “His master is the envoy.”

  “The envoy can’t fly. You could declare a civil feud and—”

  “No! That would shame me because my husband and son did not intervene on my behalf.”

  “Then what do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to arrest Juan Glasken for molesting a noble. Make the envoy accountable in court.”

  “Mother, the diplomatic protocols—”

  “I didn’t come here for excuses!”

  “Well, why did you come here?”

  Laurelene swept up a goblet and flung it at Vander’s plate, scattering his dinner along the table and onto the floor. When she had left, slamming the door behind her, the footman suddenly became reanimated and called for a serving man to clean up.

  “Semme Laurelene is a loud, intimidating, and forceful woman,” observed the footman as he cleaned scraps of food from Vander’s dinner coat.

  “But the envoy is a soft, sympathetic, and persuasive woman,” replied Vander. “With luck I may be back north by the time they square off across my father’s body, but then I am not a believer in luck.”

  11 May 3960: Condelor

  Rosenne Rodriguez was not on any of Laurelene’s lists of people to invite to Inspectorate gatherings in the days following the coronation, but to her annoyance her husband seemed to find his way into the company of the envoy at every other function. On the evening of May 11th there was no delaying the invitation to the reception for the envoys any longer. Rosenne was an envoy, so Rosenne had to be invited. The invitation was sent out with an hour . remaining to the commencement, but the envoy’s acceptance came straight back with the message boy.

  The Inspectorate mansion had quite a large reception hall, and it was ideal for entertaining the thirty-one envoys from four Callhavens. They talked mainly in Old Anglian out of deference to the Veraguayan envoy, a point that was not lost on the fuming Laurelene. Rosenne’s guard Glasken also mingled with the envoys and aides. His clothing was a contrast of tight straps over baggy cloth, with the trousers tucked into his boots. Laurelene knew this to be the Hildago fashion of around a year ago. She also had the impression that his eyes lingered on her breasts whenever he had cause to look in her direction.

  “What impressed me most was that pretty little … how do you say it, gunbird girl,” Rosenne was saying as the platters of delicacies were brought past by the servants. “She was so small and sweet, yet she flew all the way from Yarron in that big war gunbird.”

  “The word is gunwing, my dear,” said Inspector General Hannan, his voice easily familiar, “and as to her flight, well, it was quite impractical as a feat of endurance.”

  “Impractical? I do not understand,” said Rosenne with a simpering smile.

  “Oh she was far lighter than a strong, trained warden and thus the gunwing could carry more fuel. She has little strength, however, and strength is required for combat.”

  “Strength? Oh yes, a warrior must be strong.”

  She charms men with great facility, thought Laurelene, holding an amiable smile over a sullen glare. She asked intelligent questions, but played the fool with the answers. From her observations of the envoy Laurelene realized that Rosenne reserved her greatest charm for men of the senior nobility. Her husband was just such a man.

  “You too have-traveled an immense distance, Semme Rosenne, I can barely imagine it,” Laurelene interjected, more to defuse an obvious buildup of her own anger than out of interest. “I envy you so much.”

  “But you travel as well,” Rosenne replied. “You have said that you go with your husband on some of his trips.”

  Not when he could help it, thought Laurelene. “All that I have seen is North Bartolica and parts of the Dorak frontier. Oh I have traveled to Senner and Westland too—and Montras, everyone goes to Montras.”

  “So you like travel?”

  “Peasants and peons are much the same everywhere.”

  “What sorts of guns do you have in Veraguay?” asked Vander, who had said little during their reception so far. “Do they load at the muzzle and have flints to strike sparks when you shoot?”

  Rosenne reached beneath her parlor jacket and took out a small, ornate gun with two barrels and handed it to him. Vander turned it over several times, making a careful appraisal.

  “The inlay work is beautiful,” said Vander.

  The artisan who made it had been wonderfully skilled, but had clearly based the design on one by the Lewistar family of Denver. He removed one of the rounds and saw that it had been made in Cosdora.

  “We of Veraguay believe everything that adorns a lady should be a work of art as well as functional. Guns are the weapons of the better classes in Veraguay. Commoners use crossbows and snares for hunting.”

  “And outlaws?”

  “Oh I would not know such things.”

  Just then Envoy Sartov was announced. Being the Yarronese envoy, he was pointedly late and was dressed in a plain promenade coat instead of formal finery. At the door he registered a request to be presented to the Veraguay envoy.

  “Semme Envoy Rodriguez, I am pleased to introduce the envoy from Yarron, Warden Sartov,” Hannan said with smooth politeness, making the presentation only to be near Rosenne.

  “I am as honored to meet you as I am stunned by your beauty,” replied Sartov, bowing low as he took a step back.

  Rosenne made a show of being charmed by any compliment and beamed at the Yarronese envoy as he straightened again. His movements, however graceful, were slightly uncoordinated. The Yarronese envoy had arrived drunk.

  “Gracious sair, I see you are a warden,” she replied. “That means you fly. How brave of you.”

  “Ah, but you flew in a regal to cross the Callscour from Mexhaven,” Sartov replied earnestly. “You are brave as well as beautiful, while I am merely brave.”

  Rosenne simpered and blushed, but Hannan drained his glass, called for another, and drained that too. This was proving to be a very trying exercise in diplomacy.

  “I am envoy to Bartolica for only two months more,” Sartov was explaining. “We Yarronese like to share the burden of living in Bartolica, so even though I am a provincial governor and seventh in line for the Yarronese throne, I had to suffer here for six months.”

  Rosenne leaned forward and examined the tiny badges of gold sewn into his collar. She counted fourteen, and noticed that they were all different.

  “Are those your house crests?” she asked, pointing with her two index fingers pressed together.

  “No, they are victories in clear air combat. Three in duels and eleven in chivalric wars. Five are Bartolican kills, you will note.”

  Rosenne squirmed slightly, knowing that Hannan was beside her. She turned to him, meaning to ask about the number of victory badges on his collar, then discovered to her discomfort that he had none. Very hastily she turned back to Sartov.

  “Your wife must be very proud of you,” she said.

  “Alas, my wife died last year in a training accident.”

  “As a flyer?” Rosenne exclaimed in genuine admiration.

  “Yes. She was preparing for accreditation as a flyer. We Yarronese are very advanced in such matters. Her death broke my heart, but I am more proud of her than of all my victories. She was accredited posthumously. I declared myself governor in absentia, then petitioned to be the envoy to Bartolica for six months. I reasoned that the torture of being in Bartolica would distract me fro
m grieving for my wife.”

  Rosenne had by now decided that the conversation should end before the tipsy envoy said something that caused her host to die of apoplexy.

  “Would it be possible for me to be presented at court when I visit Yarron next month, Sair Sartov?”

  “Introduce me to your secretary and I shall make the arrangements.”

  “Ah no, my guard Sair Glasken oversees all my travel plans.”

  Hannan put on a show of forced sympathy once they had left Sartov with Glasken.

  “He may be rude, but he comes from a good family. Their tradition of flying goes all the way back to the dueling kites of the twenty-fifth century. He lost his soul when his wife died, and now he is supremely rude, even by Yarronese standards. He has killed two fine Bartolican wardens in clear air duels since arriving here. Sometimes I think he is looking for an honorable way to die. Most times I wish he would find one.”

  A handsome, heroic, unmarried envoy compliments her so graciously, yet she spurns him to flirt with my lecherous old stoat of a husband, fumed Laurelene silently. To make matters worse, the guard Glasken was still allowing his eyes to linger on her own cleavage. Theresla had been standing nearby, and Laurelene now noticed that a man in the blue uniform of the merchant carbineers had come up to her.

  “What in hell are you doing here?” she heard him demand in a very odd dialect of Old Anglian.

  “We were sent to provide an independent perspective,” Theresla replied calmly.

  Carabas, his name was Carabas, Laurelene recalled. She had met him earlier in the week, but remembered only that he was part of some new tramway militia.

  “Our work is sensitive in the extreme,” Carabas hissed. “If you betray us, we can never go home.”

  “Fras Carabas, the Miocene Arrow operation has cost hundreds of thousands of gold royals, yet nobody is willing to say just what it might be—outside the Supreme Assembly of Aviads. We are here to find out.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “Tell me about the Miocene Arrow and I might discuss my transport arrangements.”