Guns of the Dawn

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  ‘And did we say that when Tubal went to war, or Rodric?’ Emily replied emptily. ‘We did not. If our little brother had the courage to take up a musket and go off to war, then what of us if we refuse? We make a mockery of his bravery, of the bravery of them all.’

  There was a sudden sob from the corner of the room, and Emily turned to see Jenna putting her face in her hands.

  ‘What is it, Jenna?’

  ‘Please, ma’am . . .’ The maid tried to say more but huge, bullying sobs muscled in, one by one, to rack her, until old Poldry put his arms around her, letting her tears stain his threadbare jacket.

  ‘What is it?’ Emily repeated. ‘I don’t understand . . .’

  ‘She thinks you’ll send her, ma’am,’ Cook explained. ‘Ever since she heard the news, she’s been frantic. I heard this morning that other households have done it, sent a servant girl.’

  Emily stared at her, and then at Jenna’s shuddering back, and inwardly her heart leapt. Life! it seemed to say. Life and freedom. I was so sure it must be me, and now . . . And her own words of just a moment before returned to her, and she felt ill at herself.

  How could I? How could I even think it? Jenna was younger than Alice, a mere girl who had known little more than domestic service. How could Emily consider sending the poor creature to some distant war far beyond the world she knew, with a gun in her hands and no real understanding in her head.

  ‘We will not send Jenna,’ she declared with finality. Inside, she wanted to cry because of the load she was taking on her own shoulders. How much more prepared was she than Jenna would be? But still she spoke, and her voice barely betrayed the fear inside. ‘I think we all know who must go, now, to obey the King.’

  ‘Oh, no, Emily—’ Mary started.

  ‘Who else? Better me than Alice, and I will not have it said that the Marshwics send servants in their stead. We have always served the King, our family. We should be proud. I should be proud.’

  ‘There must be another way.’

  ‘No,’ Emily said. ‘No other way. First Tubal, then Rodric. Let us hope the war has had its fill once it’s got me. We have little enough left to give.’

  *

  Those women thus to be drafted from Chalcaster and its surroundings were to be sent to Gravenfield Barracks, thirty miles south along the railway line, for training to last forty days. So the next notice in the marketplace explained, and the eyes that had read it were dry now. The weeping was done, the decisions made.

  A recruiting sergeant brought out of retirement had made his way from house to house throughout Chalcaster, and then by carriage between the outlying farmhouses and the estates of the countryside, and at every stop his list of names grew. When he came to Grammaine they were ready for him, and gave him bread and wine, and put brave faces on. Emily would be glad to go, she said. She would be happy to serve, as her ancestors had served.

  He had a long, mournful face with a drooping moustache and, when he nodded, it seemed that he was seeing the worst he could imagine become real. At how many doors had he been an unwelcome guest? What scenes had he witnessed in carrying out his duty? What mothers had he parted from their children, sisters from sisters?

  The list of the conscripts was posted in the marketplace, later, just in case any second thoughts were stealing about in the Chalcaster streets.

  After the sergeant had been and gone, Emily’s dreams changed character, darkening into nightmares that tormented her. In those dreams, or most of them, she was running through Deerlings House, through room after room of cracked armour and rusting swords. Behind her, almost in arm’s reach, came the Denlanders. In her dream, they were just faceless grey shapes. She had no flesh to give them, but they had lusts, still. They called after her in whispering voices, entreating her, commanding her. They pursued her through the distorted rooms, chasing just exactly as fast as she fled them. The more she tried to find the ballroom and the King, the dimmer and smaller those chambers became. If she did not wake soon after that, she knew that she would find herself in the strangling garden with the futile angels, and so she forced herself awake each time the dream assaulted her, only to lie cold and alone in the small hours of the night.

  One night, when she turned, at bay before the gate of the angels’ garden, it was not the host of faceless Denlanders that pursued her at all. Instead, Mr Northway stood there in front of her with his bleak little smile and his pale hand outstretched to offer her a dance, and she knew he was Death, and let him take her.

  During the days those dreams overshadowed, she was listless, feeling each one fade into the next as the sands ran through the hourglass. Soon there would be none left.

  The next night it was not through Deerlings that her nightmare rode, but to a place that she had never seen before.

  The sun was like a glowing rivet in a bronze sky, and all about her was desolation and waste, a dusty, barren place of scrub and dry gullies, with canyon walls rising on either side.

  ‘Where can this be?’ she asked her dream and, beside her, Lord Deerling said, ‘This is my home now. This is the Couchant front.’ He had a musket in his hands, and his savages were with him, their owl-eyes glowing. Lord Deerling had the mad, staring eyes of an owl as well, and in the dream she realized it was because he had seen too much.

  ‘Why am I here?’ she asked him.

  ‘To fight. You are a soldier now,’ he replied. There were others there with them, as well. She saw Tubal, Mary’s husband. He had a gun, but was dressed in the brown suit he had worn at his printer’s shop. Rodric was in military uniform, though, and Giles Scavian wore the flowing long coat of a Warlock and he carried no gun.

  ‘The Denlanders are coming,’ said Lord Deerling, and pointed with an attenuated finger towards the horizon, at the very walls of the canyon. They were swarming with a great writhing grey mass that coated the rock and the ground beneath, and swirled and danced towards them, faster and faster.

  Insects, she saw: crawling insects with great open jaws; a swarm of devouring insects rushing on them like a tide.

  ‘Aim your muskets!’ Lord Deerling commanded, but she backed away as the great host descended on them, devouring plant and earth and stone as it came.

  ‘Fire!’ barked Deerling, and he and his few loosed their weapons into that mass of gnawing things, and then the insects were on them, swarming all over them, consuming them and leaving only bones.

  And then a thousand thousand glittering eyes were turned on her with all the malice and loathing that her own mind could generate. Scissoring mandibles sheared together and feelers twitched.

  It was when they uttered her name, all of them together, that she awoke, thrashing at her bedclothes so hard that she tore them.

  *

  That morning found her in the drawing room, staring vacantly, lost within herself. Embroidery sat idle on her lap. She could apply her hands and mind to nothing. At the edge of earshot she seemed to hear again the gnawing and the chittering, the ant-army of Denland coming to devour her.

  She was roused by the sound of raised voices from the kitchen. Alice’s was one – to no surprise – but the other was only slightly familiar. Emily summoned enough momentum to take her from her chair and through the door.

  It was Penny Belchere, the messenger, in her pristine uniform, and she was holding a letter high, out of reach of Alice’s grasping hands.

  ‘What is going on here?’ Emily snapped, harsher than she meant to, one hand pressed to her head.

  ‘She won’t show me the letter!’ Alice complained. ‘Tell her she must!’

  Emily turned a pained gaze onto Belchere, who saluted her smartly. ‘For your eyes only, see?’ She outlined the neat writing on the outside. ‘Miss Emily Marshwic. No other.’

  ‘Thank you, Soldier Belchere,’ Emily said, and took the letter grimly. Of course it was for her. Nobody else in the house was going to war.

  ‘If it’s from Rodric, I’m going to hate him when he gets back,’ Alice said. ‘How dare he write
just to you?’

  ‘It isn’t his writing,’ Emily told her, and unsealed the paper.

  She read it, and then read it again, slowly.

  My Dear Emily,

  Or is that time not yet come? My Dear Miss Marshwic, then.

  I noted with interest and some apprehension that your name appeared on the list for the recent ‘Women’s Draft’, as the enactment is become known. I commend you for your public spirit. Well done.

  Whilst I am sure that the glories and the camaraderie of the war front must appeal to one of your good breeding, it so happens that a post has recently been created here that I have yet to fill. Of course, I thought of you immediately. Taking myself as an example, I can say that there are many ways in which to serve your country, and the hand that holds the pen is as vital, albeit not so prestigious, as that which holds the sword.

  I await your response at your soonest convenience, and ideally before the end of winter, at which point you will be required elsewhere.

  Your obedient fiend,

  Cristan Northway.

  She could almost hear his sly voice in the very wording of it. Unconsciously, she crumpled the message in her hands.

  ‘What is it, Emily?’ Alice was demanding, but Emily heard none of it. Instead, she was thinking: There is a way, after all. There is a way out. She had a reprieve. The guns of Denland would sound for someone else. The insects would not have her.

  My Dear Emily, he had written. Was that show of interest news to her? He who never lied to her had yet lied by omission, his intentions towards her hidden in a storm of needling words. When they had talked, his objectives had lain on his desk between them, noted but unacknowledged. And she had conspired with him in that regard. She had never asked, never forced an admission from him and so never rejected him. She had been happy enough for his torch to be held for her behind his back. She had known.

  She should be concerned, she realized, for he was a man who could not be trusted. And yet she did not care. He had given her a reprieve. What else was more important to her than life?

  She felt her lip tremble suddenly, a sob of utter relief choked out of her. Alice was still demanding to know what was happening, and now Mary had come down as well. Emily regarded them through the blur of her tears and held out the creased letter.

  Alice grabbed it first, and her eyes skipped across its words. ‘Oh . . .’ she said. ‘Oh my!’ And for once there was no more from her. She stayed quite quiet as Mary read next.

  She could not have borne it if they had gone against her own wishes, but she asked anyway. ‘What do you think I should do?’

  ‘Take it!’ Alice insisted. ‘Oh, you must take it.’

  ‘Despite the way he dresses?’ Emily found a little of Northway’s own sarcasm creeping into her.

  ‘You only have to work for him, not dress like him,’ Alice said.

  ‘And you, Mary?’

  ‘I do not like the man, nor should you,’ said Mary. ‘But you cannot turn this down. You can stay at Grammaine. You don’t have to fight. This is wonderful.’

  Emily thought of all her fine words, those wonderful words of duty and honour. She would not have thought that she could live with herself, by turning her back on them now.

  Yet surely Mr Northway had to live with so much more, and did. So she could work for him and swallow her pride, and never have to go to war. And still, when Francis was a boy of seven asking, ‘What did you do in the war, Aunt Emily?’, she would have something to tell him. She could use Northway’s own words. Pens and swords.

  ‘I will go to Chalcaster tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I will accept his offer. I will work for Mr Northway.’

  That night she slept well, for the first time since the draft list.

  The morning found her jolting into Chalcaster in the buggy. All around her she saw signs of the times. Shops were being boarded up by wives who could no longer maintain them for their husbands. Possessions were being put away. Gifts were being given. In fifteen days, every woman on that draft list would be on her way to Gravenfield – except one.

  She felt no guilt. She was beyond that now. The relief made her feel like a different woman. She had given in, finally. She had compromised and put herself first. It felt wonderful. It meant that she could sleep at nights.

  Somewhere far off, the artillery was pounding at the Couchant front. The famous Lascanne lancers were thundering down on their foes. The Denlanders were creeping forward with their muskets, in their grey-clad hordes. She would see none of it now. It was as though the train that had been shunting her to some terrible destination had stopped, unscheduled, and she had got out and watched it steam away. What life she could make for herself, in this new place, she did not know, but at least it would be a life.

  She brushed past the guards at the door without looking at them, without challenge. She did not wait to be announced. She swept into his office as though she owned it and stood before his desk, with her heart hammering. ‘I accept,’ she told him, casting his folded letter down on the desktop. ‘I accept it. Thank you, Mr Northway.’

  The silence that fell after she said his name hung heavy in the air, like fog. It chilled her. She looked him in the face, at last.

  She had never seen such an expression before, and never would again. Damned souls in hell would wear such a look of utter torment, but surely no man still living. It was the look of someone who had, in one single moment, been given everything he had ever asked for and had it denied him, all at once. Here was a man cheated by fate, robbed by blind chance, at the very moment when he came unto his kingdom.

  ‘Miss Marshwic . . .’ he began.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked him.

  ‘Miss Marshwic . . .’ The look of despair was slowly fading from him, to be replaced by an expression that was completely dead. His eyes flicked to the letter she had cast down, then to another missive he had lying open before him.

  ‘What is it?’ she demanded, more urgently. His hands were shaking slightly, and it was so out of character that it scared her.

  ‘I regret . . .’ He swallowed, voice drying up on him. ‘I am very sorry . . .’

  ‘What is it?’ for a third time. By this time she knew, and simultaneously she did not want to know – if he would only keep the news behind his teeth, then it need not be real. Her words spilled out from her nonetheless, inviting the worst.

  ‘It’s your brother, Miss Marshwic. He is dead.’

  And the clammy silence descended on them both again. Emily clutched at the edge of the desk for support. There was a pain inside her, as though he had stabbed her. Northway watched her impassively.

  ‘Dead? Rodric?’

  ‘Miss Marshwic—’

  ‘Say nothing!’

  She leant heavily on the desk, fighting for control, each breath more ragged than the last. A great emptiness was being torn inside her, gaping wider with each passing moment.

  ‘Mr Northway, you have always said you would not lie to me,’ she got out.

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Tell me one thing, Mr Northway. This post, you have created for me. This thing you have done, for me. When I came to you on his behalf at the start of autumn, and asked you to do this very thing for him, could you have done it?’

  ‘Miss Marshwic . . .’

  ‘Could you?’ she asked furiously. ‘Tell me the truth, as you claim you always do. Could you have saved my brother from this, Mr Northway?’

  He was bold enough to look her in the face and say, ‘I could.’

  Her resolve buckled at last and she collapsed into the chair across the desk from him and shook, fists clenched at her sides. She should weep aloud now: that was the dutiful sister’s part, after all. Her eyes remained dry, though. She had another role facing her than to be a stay-at-home mourner. Rodric was gone. He was gone and she knew what must be done now.

  ‘I bitterly regret,’ she forced out, ‘that I must refuse your generous offer.’

  ‘Miss Marshwic, please, this need not
change things . . .’

  ‘It does, Mr Northway.’

  ‘But it need not. You can still . . .’

  She looked up, steely-eyed, and pinned him to his seat. ‘I am enlisting, Mr Northway I am taking the Gold and the Red. I cannot work for you, and I cannot avoid my duty any more. I thought I could, but what would Rodric have said? What would any true servant of our country say about this sordid little deal of ours?’

  ‘You cannot go to war,’ he insisted.

  ‘I will.’

  He stood suddenly, knocking his seat to the floor. Emotions came and went across his face like clouds. ‘Listen to me, Miss Marshwic. You’re an intelligent woman. You must know what this damned draft means. No sane man depopulates his nation for a winning war. No ruler sends his women – his country’s future – into battle just to hold enemy ground. You cannot believe that, Miss Marshwic. We are losing. You must have realized that. Every fourth day a list of the Chalcaster dead arrives, a list of the wounded who will never fight again. The war is not those lies you see in print. The war is death and maiming. The war is terror and bloody stupidity. I would spare everyone if I could, Miss Marshwic, but I cannot. I can spare only one person that fate, and the person I choose is you. Please, take the post I offer you here, for God’s sake, because the war is not as the papers or the gossip or the King himself tells it.’

  The harsh words, from a man who had never lost his temper before, shocked her. ‘And you yourself have witnessed this war?’ she said quietly, for she knew he had not.

  ‘I hear. I listen. Believe me, Miss Marshwic, I know. The war goes badly, very badly for us. You cannot be blind to that.’

  Her recent dreams agreed with him, eager now to start haunting her again. ‘I suppose I have known somehow, but it changes nothing, Mr Northway.’

  ‘But it must. Miss Marshwic, please . . .’

  ‘If anything, my country needs what little help I can give it even more.’

  He slammed a fist down on the desk, scattering papers. He was racked, teeth bared like a fighting animal, and he could not force out the words he wanted. She was filled with wonder and with pity, seeing him like this. How had she driven him to it?