Guns of the Dawn

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘The war . . . ?’

  ‘You are an intelligent woman, Miss Marshwic. You do not need such things stated: you need only to consider matters.’ He left a pause there for her thoughts to drop into, as he sat down. ‘But I fear consideration has not been your strong suit, of late. You storm into my office with all the righteousness of your good family behind you, and you demand. Out of the privilege of bloodline, you demand.’

  ‘I would entreat . . .’ she found herself saying, disgusted by herself for leaping so quickly to such words, but knowing only that this was surely her chance to save Rodric.

  But he had cut her off with a wave of his hand before she could pawn herself. ‘The King demands too,’ he stated flatly. ‘For my part, Miss Marshwic, entreaties from you might suffice, but I could not be moved against the King’s will, even for honey.’ His smile soured as she watched, becoming something venomous. ‘Though you make it easier for me: you give me only vinegar. I would hope you might believe me if I said that I wished matters had not fallen out like this. But I am sure you will ascribe the worst of motivations to me. Let me take the responsibility from you, then. Let me put on the mantle of my office and simply tell you that your brother must take the Red, must go for a soldier. There. It is law now, and cannot be undone.’

  She finally stood, and to her horror there was a moment in which she had no control of herself. She might have done anything. She might have wept before him, begging for Rodric’s life as though he were facing direct execution. She might have lunged at Mr Northway and stabbed him to death with his own letter-opener.

  But propriety reasserted itself neatly before she could do anything foolish, and she was left standing opposite him, holding her purse like a tiny shield before her, impotent and frustrated.

  If I were a man, I would have struck him. That seemed the proper response. A true fighting hero of Lascanne would have no time for a worm like Northway. If the impulse had come to her a moment before, then perhaps she would even have acted upon it, but now she just stood, prim and proper, and he sat there and leered.

  ‘One day,’ she told him, knowing how weak the words sounded, ‘the King shall learn what a creature you are.’

  ‘He knows I am his servant,’ Mr Northway declared smoothly.

  ‘You are a thief and a villain, and I will cheer when they hang you.’ And the words were out, what she had thought – surely what everyone thought – about him, but that nobody ever dared say. For a moment the room had balanced in silence, and his face was utterly without emotion or expression, and she did not know what he might do next.

  Then Mr Northway’s broad smile returned, as coldblooded as ever. ‘Why, Miss Marshwic,’ he observed, ‘always pleasant to know that I am in your thoughts.’

  There were a dozen civilized apologies welling up inside her: the things she knew that society expected her to say to plaster over her breach of etiquette. She fought them down stubbornly.

  For his part, he plainly had not expected them from her. ‘I am sure it makes this easier for you, to blame me and hate me for this. You have my permission to do so.’ He rose smoothly then, and made a short bow, never taking his eyes off her. ‘I think we are done here, Miss Marshwic. You know the way out, I believe.’

  And now, days later, she could only watch Rodric ride away, and reflect on how she had tried and failed, and would never know whether she might have somehow won, had she bent more before the world.

  The lamps of Sergeant Pallwide and his boys were finally lost in the night, in the fog, before she turned away from the door. Alice had gone long before, and Jenna had taken the baby upstairs, but Emily and Mary had stayed until all light – all hope – had gone. Soon afterwards, in the east, there arrived the faintest leaden grey that was the first grim herald of the dawn.

  In the east and the north lay the Levant front, the swamps and dense forest that some small but vital stretch of the war was being fought through. There went Rodric and his fellows, to encounter the Denlanders, to fight a war the newspapers claimed was as good as won. With that thought, the words of Mr Northway came back to her. What did he know of it? Or was he just putting his knife into her, for her rudeness and her refusal to pretend he was anything other than her enemy?

  ‘I am sure Tubal will look after him,’ Emily said, her voice sounding hollow even to her own ears.

  Mary sniffled. ‘My poor Tubal, he could never look after himself. I don’t think he would ever have got dressed or eaten a warm meal in his life without his mother and me to help him. I wish he would write more, Emily. It has been almost a season since his last letter.’

  They went in at last, to a kitchen as cold as the night outside. Cook stoked up the fire and grumbled, because these days she had to fetch her own wood as often as not. Old Poldry sat at the table with folded hands and a mournful expression that set his moustache drooping. When he looked up, she saw a tear caught in the wrinkles beneath his eye.

  ‘Forgive me, ma’am,’ he said, rising stiffly. ‘I wish I could go with them, the young lads. I’d go in a moment, if they asked me.’

  He had been a soldier in the last war, three decades ago, fighting overseas against the Imperial Hellics and their Grand Army. He had survived that, she reminded herself, and he looked back on it all quite fondly. Surely they were all worrying themselves over nothing.

  But, when she returned to her room, it was the harsh words of Mr Northway that stayed with her.

  3

  We have stopped fighting for now, for a five-day rain has set in. Five days is Master Sergeant Mallen’s guess, at least, and all here seem to accept his word as a divine truth.

  I have yet to lay eyes on any Warlocks, but the camp is full of word of them: the Kings special servants bound to him in blood. I do not want for stories of their powers and the use they put them to in battle. I have tried to imagine how it must be: to stride through this gloomy place wreathed in flame; to sear away the fog and murk of the swamps with one’s very being; to carry no musket or pistol but to make one’s own hands weapons of war; to be a weapon.

  It must be wonderful to be lifted thus above the common lot of humanity. Not, it seems to me, for the ability to destroy, nor even for the righteousness that must come from bearing the King’s mark, but merely because with such power comes control over one’s own destiny. Surely it must, for what use would such power be if its possessors are as confused and impotent as the rest of us?

  Emily found Mary standing outside with a very small axe in her hand, staring down at a log.

  ‘What on earth are you doing there?’

  Her elder sister looked up with a worried expression. ‘I’m trying to chop wood.’

  ‘What are you trying to do?’ asked Emily, incredulous.

  ‘Chop wood,’ Mary repeated hopelessly. ‘It’s just that Cook’s always complaining about having to cut the wood as well as her other tasks, so I thought I would help her. Besides . . .’

  ‘Besides what?’ Emily looked down at the log in front of Mary, which bore a very small incision, as that of a surgeon preparing to operate. ‘Is this it? How long has it taken you to do this?’

  ‘The best part of an hour, I’m afraid,’ said Mary. ‘I don’t think I have the knack of it. But I need to learn.’

  ‘Why? Why do you need to learn?’

  Mary gave her a sad smile. ‘Think, Emily. Surely you must have thought of this. When we’ve won the war at last, what happens to all those heroes that come back? Do you think they’ll be content to go back into service, or to be mere tradesmen’s apprentices? The country will love them. They won’t want to go back to drudging, after the way they’ve fought. They’ll all be far too proud and warlike.’

  ‘You worry too much,’ Emily told her.

  Mary essayed another hack at the wood, but the weight of the axe fell short and she failed to mark it at all. ‘Then there’s the women,’ she said.

  ‘Let me try.’ Emily took the axe away from her sister before she hurt herself, and tried a practice
swing. The unfamiliar weight seemed so overwhelming on the way down, but the blade simply bounced back off the wood, leaving just a tiny scar far from where she had been aiming.

  ‘The women who’ve been doing men’s jobs,’ Mary continued, now free to philosophize. ‘Do you think they’ll all be happy going back to being maids and scrubbers and schoolmistresses? Everyone has different lives these days.’

  ‘Except us.’

  ‘We will, too. You’ll see.’

  ‘And so you’re learning to chop wood,’ Emily noted. ‘You’re right, there is an art to it. I think it might be easier if you got down on your knees and just chipped away until you cut through. How many of these were you wanting to cut?’

  ‘Grant said that Cook needs two dozen of them cut into something called billets before luncheon,’ Mary said. ‘Perhaps if we both held the axe, that would work better.’

  ‘That sounds like a sure recipe for injury,’ Emily decided. ‘I don’t want them putting my leg on the fire.’ She handed the axe back to Mary. ‘Is there anything you need from Chalcaster? Poldry’s going to take me in so that we can buy provisions, or at least whatever we can. Last week the market was almost bare. Everything’s going to the war. We will have to tighten our belts.’

  ‘Ma’am?’ Jenna had come round the side of the house to find them. Emily expected the girl to stare, seeing the two elder Marshwics about such a task, but she seemed already full of astonishment over something else. ‘If you will, Mrs Salander, ma’am, there’s a girl at the door.’

  Emily stood up. ‘Please be more specific, Jenna.’

  There was a peculiar look on the maid’s face as though laughter was bubbling inside her, just below the surface. ‘I really don’t know what to say, ma’am. You should come see for yourself. It’s mighty queer.’

  That promised a diversion at least. Emily and Mary followed Jenna to the kitchen, where the maid’s behaviour was adequately explained.

  There was indeed a girl at the kitchen table, lounging in a quite indecorous manner with a half-eaten apple in one hand. At least, from her face, Emily took her for a girl. It was not wholly clear.

  Someone had dressed her up in uniform, just as though she were a soldier. She had the red braided jacket exactly like a fighting man, and shiny black boots and white breeches that showed her off scandalously, as though she was a stockinged actress in some louche revue. There was even a silvery helm with a swept-forward crest beside her on the table. Her coppery hair was cut short, and her green eyes crinkled with amusement as she saw Emily’s obvious shock.

  ‘Good morning. Mrs Salander and Miss Marshwic, I take it?’

  Emily approached her cautiously. The girl had a sabre in a polished steel and brass scabbard, slung beside and behind her in the style of a cavalryman.

  ‘Emily Marshwic at your service . . .’ she began uncertainly. There was little in her books of etiquette to cover this. ‘Miss?’

  ‘Soldier-at-Arms Penny Belchere of the Royal Messenger Corps at your service, Miss Marshwic,’ the girl informed her, with a sharp salute.

  ‘Messenger Corps?’

  ‘That’s right, miss,’ Belchere said cheerily. ‘On account of all the men in the Messenger Corps sent to be lancers at the Couchant front, they’re taking in us ladies now. Anything for the war effort, eh, miss?’

  ‘I suppose so . . . soldier.’ Emily exchanged a wide-eyed glance with Mary and gave the woman another look over. She was no older than Alice and looked like someone from a mummers’ company, some tragic heroine playing at being a boy in order to follow her lover. ‘Then to what do we owe the pleasure?’

  ‘Message for you, miss,’ Belchere explained around a fresh mouthful of apple, producing a sealed parchment from within her jacket.

  ‘Is it from the front?’ Emily asked eagerly, thinking of Rodric, who had last written to say that his training was complete and that he was heading for the Levant in earnest.

  ‘No, miss, more important than that.’

  As the girl handed the paper over, Alice descended at last from her beautifications upstairs and stopped in astonishment on seeing the apparition that had invaded their kitchen.

  ‘Why good lord, Emily, what on earth is it?’ she said, not without some cruelty. ‘Is it a costume party?’

  Belchere gave her a very sharp look indeed, but Alice couldn’t care less. ‘Or is it the theatre?’ she asked. ‘We could do with a little relief. Things have been awfully dull here recently.’

  ‘Miss . . . Soldier Belchere has brought us a message.’ Emily held up the note, only to have it snatched from her by her sister.

  ‘Will you have tea, perhaps, before you go on your way?’ Mary was asking Belchere politely, but Alice had the letter open by then and let out such a squeal that Emily thought perhaps it contained a dead spider. Alice’s expression was pure rapture, though, and she held the note as though it reported the surrender of the whole Denland army.

  ‘Don’t keep us in suspense, please, Alice,’ Emily remonstrated. She could hear urgent running feet above them. Drawn by Alice’s shriek, Poldry came down the stairs as though ready to repel invaders.

  ‘Alice, just tell us,’ Mary insisted, but Alice was waltzing herself around the kitchen, clutching the letter to her breast.

  ‘Who is this young chap, ma’am?’ asked Poldry, whose eyes had grown no sharper with the years.

  ‘I am hoping that Alice can now enlighten all of us,’ said Emily meaningfully. ‘Alice, if you please?’

  For once, though, Alice seemed speechless. All she could do was hand the letter over to Emily to read.

  “To the daughters of the Honourable Gareth Marshwic at Grammaine House”,’ she read. ‘“Take note, one and all, that by royal decree you are hereby invited to Deerlings House on the last day of autumn to celebrate the great advances that His Majesty’s forces have made against the wicked inhabitants of Denland.”’ That explained Alice’s mad excitement, for sure.

  ‘A dance,’ she said hollowly.

  ‘I suppose our social calendar has been a little vacant,’ said Mary weakly. She and Emily exchanged glances of equal weariness. ‘I fear it will be somewhat weighted in favour of us ladies.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand,’ insisted Alice. She grabbed the note back from Emily. ‘By royal decree, you see. Royal decree.’

  Emily started, ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean—’

  ‘But it does. Look, there’s the seal and everything!’ Alice said. ‘It’s the King. The King is coming to Deerlings House!’

  ‘I can’t imagine why he would do such a thing,’ Mary said uncertainly, ‘with the war to occupy his time.’

  ‘If I might speak,’ Soldier Belchere said, ‘it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility. The King feels greatly for the privations besetting his subjects. He considers it his duty to travel the country and restore the morale of his people.’ She reeled these words off like a speech learned by heart. ‘So he may be at Deerlings. Who can say?’

  Alice had forgotten her dislike of the messenger. ‘The King! The King, Em! And he won’t be alone. There will be lords and knights and officers and soldiers and . . . men!’

  ‘Alice!’ Emily said, with an embarrassed glance at the grinning Belchere, but her sister was too transported to hear her.

  ‘I will require a new gown, of course,’ Alice declared.

  ‘We cannot afford new gowns,’ Mary objected. ‘You will have to trust to your own skills, and work with one of your old dresses.’

  ‘But we must have new gowns, all three. We cannot turn up at Deerlings looking like urchins!’ Alice declared, as though this was a matter beyond argument. ‘Mary, we will be before royalty! We cannot turn up in three-year-old fashions, patched and stitched as best we can.’

  Mary looked to Emily for moral support, but her sister was already frowning thoughtfully.

  ‘If you are to have a new gown,’ she said slowly, ‘you must not spend another penny between now and the ball.’

  ‘Yes, of
course!’ Alice agreed readily.

  ‘And I shall do the same, for I think this time you are right, and we will definitely need new gowns.’ Emily felt an echo of Alice’s excitement rising inside her. The King himself coming so near – or even the faintest chance of it. She would be a fool not to grasp the opportunity.

  ‘Thank you for the message, Soldier Belchere,’ she remembered. ‘Please, take some refreshment before you go, and I’m sure Poldry here can find a coin for you.’

  After the messenger’s departure, Mary cornered her, looking betrayed. ‘Where will this money come from, Emily?’

  ‘We will have to save and scrape.’ Emily found it hard to meet her sister’s eyes. ‘In this, though, Alice is right. The honour of our family is at stake: we must put on a good show, or no show at all.’

  Mary’s lips moved, and Emily knew that she had been about to argue the case for the latter, but seen it for a lost cause.

  ‘The honour of our family will not feed us,’ she complained softly. ‘It will not repair the roof, or pay for medicine if Francis falls ill. Or will you have me go to our tenants and tell them their rents have gone up because Alice must go to meet the King. That is the honour of our family, Emily: looking after those who depend on us – and those whom we depend on. And now, with so many missing husbands and sons, will this idle pleasure of yours and Alice’s take food from their mouths?’

  ‘We have always managed,’ Emily tried weakly.

  ‘Yes, because I have always sat with the books and planned where each penny must go. And now I must go back to them and find some magical store of money, or find what essentials are not so essential after all, just so that we may go dancing.’ And she stormed off without giving Emily a chance to answer.

  *

  Mary had spent several days closeted with the accounts, moving beads on her abacus and imaginary money in her head, before finally naming a sum that could be sacrificed to the dressmaker’s. The price for this had been her own polite refusal of the invitation. She had never been one for dancing, she said, and she did not want to either leave Francis or travel with him. Emily and Alice had exchanged guilty looks and shuffled their feet slightly. With her husband gone, and all the burdens and stresses of Grammaine on her shoulders, Mary had become a master at hiding her true griefs. It was impossible to know how she felt as she made her announcement in a businesslike tone and packed them off with funds to Chalcaster.