“How can I repay your kindness?” he asked Seyret. “I have some gold, if that would help,” he offered.
“Oh but I have money saved. The lady warden who hit you gave me one silver dori, too.”
Serjon ran his fingers through his hair as he considered all this.
“I’m sure I can do better than that, but what would you like most of all, Seyret? Her Ladyship suggested that you might want to go home. She was curiously coy about it.”
“Oh yes, I would like to go home,” exclaimed Seyret, hugging a stack of clean towels to herself. “I come from Pocatello, but Pocatello is in a new dominion now. If I stay here, well, Sennerese men are horrible, bad for the likes of Seyret. I need border papers to go home, but after the war, well, border papers now cost five times more than all my savings. Papers are hard to get, too, whether one is a noble or commoner.”
Her voice had become stiff and controlled, as if she was hiding something. What have they done to you, he wondered as he laced his boots and cast about for the clean shirt that Seyret had brought. He thought again of his mother and sisters, then knew that he could not hate her either. She had warm hands, she was alive.
“Well, I can’t get you papers, and few will do Serjon Feydamor any favors, but … last night you helped me when I was trailing flames and spinning earthward. Perhaps I can give you something in return. Tell me, have you ever been flying?”
Seyret gasped. “Sair! Flying is for the nobles! I am not a noble. Definitely. I am a baker’s daughter.”
“Nonsense. Flying is for anyone who is friends with a flyer.”
Bronlar was waiting at the pennant pole when Serjon emerged from between two maintenance tents with Seyret. She was speaking with the adjunct, who looked distracted and uncomfortable.
“The mad woman, the mad woman!” squealed Seyret as she caught sight of Bronlar.
Starflower roared overhead as Samondel practiced a roll. Serjon put an arm around Seyret and kept walking until he reached the adjunct and presented his credentials.
“Nice calm day for a flight, Sair Adjunct?” Serjon said cheerily in Yarronese, ignoring Bronlar except for a crisp salute.
“Too true, Sair Feydamor. Wish I was up there, like Her Ladyship.”
“Sorry to have missed you last night.”
“None’s the harm.”
“I’m touring the three new Bartolican capitals. This fine lady here is to, shall we say … see me off. So to speak.”
“What fine lady, Sair?”
Serjon nodded as the adjunct smiled knowingly and stared into the distance.
“I owe you yet another favor, Sair Adjunct.”
The adjunct laughed as he handed the dispatches to Serjon. “Just return safe, my friend.”
Serjon began to walk to the line of sailwings with Seyret, but Bronlar hurried after him.
“Serjon, it’s me. Why don’t you speak?” she asked, also in Yarronese.
Serjon stopped dead, turned, and saluted again.
“Warden Jemarial, I’m not your peer. By chivalric law you have a right to beat me if I hail you first, and I’m in no mood or condition to be beaten.”
Bronlar spread her hands, and there were tears on her cheeks below the dark circles beneath her eyes.
“Serjon, Serjon, I grant you eternal permission to hail me. You and nobody else beneath my peer level. Should any other flyer, squire, or guildsman hail me I’ll flay the skin from them!”
“Warden Jemarial, kindly put that in writing and get it endorsed by a magistrate. Until then I cannot afford to believe you. Now, may I pass?”
“I sat on my gunwing all night,” Bronlar said desperately. “A chaplain was good enough to sit within sight, he will testify that no man approached me.”
“You don’t have to go to those lengths to prove you’re saving thirteen for me,” said Serjon, rubbing the bruise on his face. “I’m not so desperate.”
Bronlar curled over slightly, her stomach again cramping. Her vigil of devotion had become another gibe at Serjon, and she was close to despair.
“Serjon, I apologize, you were right, I admit it.”
“I’m always right, people never listen.”
“Please, please, please, listen! I tried to find you last night, I tried to apologize but you were gone.”
“I was at the banquet, one of the Airlords spoke on my behalf and got me admitted. Now can we please get past, Warden Jemarial? I’m on Airlord Sartov’s business and you’re frightening my little friend here.”
Bronlar was in fact smaller than Seyret. She stood before the Bartolican girl and bowed. It was the crisp bow of a warden to a noblewoman. Seyret shrank back behind Serjon, still convinced that Bronlar was mad. The conversation had been in Yarronese until now, and was too fast for her to follow. Now Bronlar spoke in awkward but rehearsed Bartolican.
“Semme Seyret, I do, ah, for frightening, apologize. Grats you for, ah, tending Serjon, for service of. Very dear, to me, he is. Badly hurt, I had him?”
Summoning up all her courage, Seyret managed, “Yes, Warden Jemarial. As a matter of fact he was hurt, and badly.”
Bronlar squeezed her eyes shut and more tears trickled down her cheeks as she bowed again.
“Serjon, when you return I shall have the declaration for you, all signed by a magistrate,” she said in Yarronese.
“No hurry. I’ll be gone ten days at least,” he said lightly.
“I’ll have done it this morning. I already had a testimony done to Airlord Sartov, about how you gave false testimony to clear my name. Serjon, the truth will be known to all Mounthaven in this very hour, I—”
“You what?” he barked, his words like gunshots.
“I cleared your name.”
“You swore as a warden that I lied to the council! That means an automatic charge of perjury, and more. Even if I’m not dragged out and shot I’ll be broken so low that I’ll not even be allowed onto a wingfield to carry out the nightsoil.”
Serjon turned and put his arm around Seyret, saying, “Hurry, we have little time left,” in Bartolican as he led her around Bronlar.
“Wait Serjon, I can help with anything!” Bronlar cried as she went after them.
“Warden Jemarial, I would really appreciate it if you would help your Cosdoran knobby-boy guildsmen in exactly the same way you have helped me,” Serjon said as he walked. “It’s a terrible thing to wish on them, but I’m feeling vindictive this morning.”
Desperate, she slapped her hands against her forehead. “Tell me what to do, anything!”
“Stop walking after me.”
Bronlar stopped dead, as if she had come to a stone wall.
Serjon kept walking briskly away with Seyret hurrying along beside him.
“Serjon, I’ll make it up to you,” Bronlar called after them.
“Go screw your reaction guns,” muttered Serjon without turning.
His field guildsmen were waiting beside a sailwing, whose compression engine was already chugging. Serjon signed for the borrowed aircraft.
“I wish to take a passenger,” Serjon said as he handed back the clipboard.
“That is not permitted on an airlord’s business, Squire Feydamor,” his guildmaster warned.
“It is important to this Bartolican girl, very important.”
“What girl?” replied the guildmaster, staring straight past Seyret as he handed her his coat.
The sailwing was one of the newer, larger types, and it had no trouble ascending with Seyret’s weight and a full load of fuel. Seyret sat in the front seat, squealing whenever the sailwing bounced or tilted in the early morning thermals over the boundary between desert and mountains, and exclaiming with delight at the view.
After an hour Serjon began circling a regional city, and he fired two colored flares as a patrol warden approached to investigate. The Bartolican sailwing displayed unfamiliar colors, but after a brief exchange of wingdip code they began to descend together. The perspective was all muddled for Seyret, who though
t they were over another part of Condelor. The wheels squeaked on the flightstrip and Serjon taxied to the couriers’ line near the pennant pole. In the distance they could see officials hurrying about and pointing.
“That was magical,” Seyret cooed as they came to a stop.
“It’s better than servicing other people’s compression engines,” replied Serjon as he starved the engine of spirit. “Best leave the guildmaster’s coat with me.”
“But I’d like to thank him.”
“I’ll pass on your thanks,” said Serjon as he slid the canopy forward.
A line of officials and armed guards waited as Serjon helped Seyret out of the sailwing. Seyret realized there was something wrong. This was not Condelor.
“Welcome to Pocatello, sair, uh—” began the adjunct in Bartolican as Serjon walked forward.
Seyret turned with a shriek of joy, dropped the coat, and flung her arms around Serjon. She was unable to speak or release him as Serjon held a folder out to the adjunct with his free hand.
“This is from the Council of Alliance Airlords, convened in Condelor,” he explained. “Please take it to Airlord Designate Mostiron.”
“Of course, Warden …” He looked at the dispatch note and swallowed. “Feydamor!”
“Just Feydamor. And this girl has a bakery to find. Could I have a diplomatic pass to escort her there?”
“You can have a pass, to be sure, but why would she want to go to a bakery before seeing her family?”
“Please explain,” asked Serjon.
“Her grandfather, the Airlord Designate, would be of fended if this dispatch arrived before she did. Semme Sey-Rettelliar Mostiron, welcome home to the new dominion of Eastgarde. Squire Feydamor, this is the most noble of gestures by your Alliance Council.”
“It’s … nothing, really,” replied Serjon, dumbfounded.
“Come home, meet my family,” gasped Seyret between sobs of relief and joy. “You will be welcome.”
“Seyret, I’m just a courier.”
“Please, you’re a hero here, you brought me home, you freed Bartolica from Stanbury and the featherheads: you deserve a welcome and by the Call I’ll make sure you get one.”
“A hero? I’ve shot down seventy-four of your wardens, ninety-seven of your wings. They call me Warden Killer. This trip was assigned to me as punishment! Ten days of cold shoulders and isolation, ten days of widows trying to tear my eyes out.”
Seyret turned to the adjunct. “Escort us at a distance, there are words we must have on the way to the Governor’s palace.”
The story was voiced about that Serjon had discovered Seyret’s secret by accident, and had immediately arranged to be the flyer on a courier mission that would take him to Pocatello. He had placed himself at risk of very serious charges when he returned, Seyret told her grandfather, but he had done it so that she could be returned to the arms of her fiancé, Warden Prolean.
“You, the greatest air warrior in the history of Mounthaven chivalry, would sacrifice it all for the honor of a girl?” marveled the old man.
“It is the Yarronese way,” Serjon replied, thankful that Alion would never hear his words and realizing now what Samondel had been suggesting.
The Airlord Designate of what had been East Region in Bartolica needed several days to assess the dispatch and discuss it with his wardens. Serjon became the toast of the city, and spent his time being feted by the Bartolican wardens, some of whom had even fallen to his reaction guns. He was also given a great deal of attention by the women of the new court. Presently he flew on to Evansburg in the north and Hedria in the west, and wherever he landed his reception was no less enthusiastic.
20 August 3961: Condelor
By special favor of the Cosdoran Airlord, two regals had been made available to fly the guildsmen of Bronlar’s ground crew to Condelor. She had made the request herself by courier two days earlier, and the Airlord was inclined to deny her nothing. The regals landed three hours after Serjon and Seyret had left, and the guildsmen tumbled out in high spirits, singing the drinking songs of the Cosdoran highlands and dancing jigs as their travel kits were unloaded and Monterbil played tunes on his flute. Farrasond alone was subdued.
The adjunct appeared in the distance, marching at the head of a squad of Dorakian carbineers. They were smartly turned out in red uniforms with ochre epaulettes on swallow coats cut back at the waist to show off their large brass belt buckles. They carried assault carbines whose woodwork had been inlaid with silver tracery. The squad stopped with the mechanical precision of a powerful machine; then the adjunct strode forward and stopped before Farrasond, who was in his guildmaster’s jacket.
“Guildmaster Farrasond of Vernal?” barked the adjunct crisply in Cosdoran.
“Aye, that be me,” he drawled, aware that the show of glitter was meant for him and his guildsmen.
“Accept this from the magistrate of Palace Precinct!” the adjunct said crisply, handing over a leather document sheaf.
Farrasond glanced inside, but it was only a translation of the dispatch that the Council of Alliance Airlords had sent to Bronlar, along with some other papers with seals.
“Well, much obliged, but this can wait until we’ve caught up with Bronlar,” said Farrasond.
“Take us to see her, if ye will,” said Ryban. “She’s anxious to see one of us.”
The adjunct turned on the spot and marched back the way he had come. The guards fell in behind when he passed them.
“Rude bastards,” sneered Monterbil. “Aye, but I saw her marking from the air, I’ll take us to her gunwing.”
They began to walk, but noticed very quickly that nobody was paying them the slightest attention. Monterbil asked several guildsmen the way to Bronlar’s gunwing and tents, but they either ignored them entirely or gave them an odd sign: a thumb crossed over an open palm.
“Feels like I should know that sign,” said Farrasond.
Bronlar was sitting on the lower left wing of her triwing gunwing when they finally came upon her amid the maze of little aircraft. She was hunched over, glaring at something in the distance, and did not appear to notice them as they approached.
“Ah, Semme Hero Bronlar, they made us work to find you,” began Monterbil, trotting up to her with his arms extended.
Bronlar slipped from the wing and brought a heavy parade cane around and down in a vicious swipe that slashed across Monterbil’s left cheek and laid it open. The force of the blow knocked him to the ground, and she stood over him, slashing at his head and hands.
“Hail a warden, will you?” she screamed. “I’ll teach you respect, you guildsman slime!”
Thekam, Lasser, and Rewlon rushed forward and seized Bronlar by the arms, but suddenly carbineers in red and ochre uniforms burst upon the scene and there was a brief, deadly stutter of assault carbines on reaction setting. Thekam, Lasser, and Rewlon fell dead beside Monterbil’s cowering form, expertly excised from Bronlar, who remained standing and unhurt.
The other Cosdoran guildsmen stood frozen, scarcely daring to breathe. Bronlar looked down at Monterbil, then gave him one additional slash that pulped his left ear and left him stunned. She looked through the guildsmen as if they did not exist, then hailed the adjunct who had arrived with the Dorakian carbineers.
“A good day to you, Sair Adjunct,” she said in a voice that might have scratched piston rings. “Do you have business with me or Warden Ramsdel’s guildsmen?”
“I have heard that unaccounted personnel are on the wingfield, Warden Jemarial. I mean to keep them in sight, lest a disturbance take place.”
Bronlar was pacing slowly among the guildsmen now. Sweat streamed down Ryban’s face as he stood trembling, frantically trying to think of what may have happened to cause such a nightmare, and of why the wingfield adjunct was ignoring their very existence. Bronlar circled Ryban slowly, staring into the distance all the while. She was wearing a new green flight jacket sewn with masses of glittering gold and semiprecious stones. Her collar was encru
sted with jade pentagons for each of her victories in the air, and she was wearing a sharp, heady perfume.
Black bars of a girl faithful to her absent lover were painted on her lips. Which absent lover, wondered Ryban? Her lips and the veins of her neck were engorged with blood, and stood out in a way that he found strangely sensual. An erection began pressing against his trousers. Bronlar was lusting … for who, for what … and she kept lingering near him. Never having fought in clear air, he did not know that sexual lust and battle lust were not separated by very much.
“Warden, dearest Bronlar—” he managed.
“Slime does not hail a warden!” she shouted as she whirled and slashed his face with her cane.
Bronlar laid open Ryban’s ear, cheek, and lips; then, as he raised his hands to his face she swung it up between his legs. The shock alone made Ryban topple and Bronlar slashed at his face and hands as he fell then stood beating him blindly for another half minute. The adjunct came forward holding a cloth that smelled of compression spirit.
Bronlar wiped her hands and cane in the towel, then thanked the adjunct and returned to her gunwing and sat on the lower port wing. The adjunct remained, watching with his squad of carbineers, who were standing alert. The safety catches of their assault carbines were off and the sliders set to reaction. Farrasond slowly put his hand into his coat, aware that several assault carbines were probably trained on his head. Even more slowly he withdrew the folder that the adjunct had given him a few minutes ago, before the very world itself had been transformed into the depths of hell. The other Cosdoran guildsmen stood petrified while he read. Quite a large crowd of guildsmen, wardens, carbineers, medics, and nurses had gathered by now. Even the wingfield chaplains of several denominations were watching from a distance.
“Sair Ryban, these are translations of the dispatch that you translated for Warden Jemarial back in Cosdora,” Farrasond said in a cold, level voice. “They have been signed, dated, and timed as of late last night by the scribe and countersigned by a magistrate. The dispatch has been translated into Yarronese, Cosdoran, Montrasic, Dorakish, and Sennerese. There is also a sworn statement from the Council of Alliance Airlords’ office that these faithfully match and reflect the official records. There is not a word missing—or misplaced.”
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