by Vic James
‘I will defend your wall.’
Slowly, he drew the blade along the length of his thumb and dragged it round the heel of his hand, stopping in the centre of his palm. Blood welled up. Gavar could smell it from where he sat.
‘I will uphold your roof.’
Silyen moved the knife to the top of his index finger. Stab.
Down went the blade, unpeeling a red seam in its wake.
‘Your land is my land.’ Stab.
‘Your line is my line.’ Slice.
‘Your honour is my honour.’ Cut. ‘I ask you to be my lord.’
Silyen cupped a five-petalled flower of blood.
Despite himself, Gavar was on the edge of his seat at the grisly spectacle. As his brother opened out his hand, the edges of the wounds gaped wide, and blood spattered audibly onto the floor.
His patrician features blanching, Lord Rix offered his own hand, placing it palm down on top of Silyen’s. Their fingers locked in an oozing handshake. It was all pretty disgusting, but nothing for Rix to be looking so queasy about.
Then Silyen spun the knife in his hand and offered its hilt to Rix, and Gavar understood.
‘I unbar my gate to you. I open my door to you,’ Rix intoned, holding the knife just above their clasped hands. ‘My land is your land. My line is your line. My honour is your honour. I take you as my heir.’
His hand trembled for an instant before the knife flashed down. Gavar heard Silyen’s pained intake of breath. Rix gave an agonized groan and let go of the handle.
The blade skewered their conjoined palms like a hand kebab. Father was watching avidly. Maybe it was the blood that riveted him; maybe it was simply the pain. The man was one sick puppy.
Lord Jardine rested his fingers atop the knife hilt.
‘Blood has mixed with blood,’ he declared. ‘A kin bond has been sealed.’
Father pulled the blade. It came out clean.
Rix looked uncertainly at his hand as it began to heal. Silyen didn’t spare his injury a glance. He wore a vague, faraway smile, as if high on Skill.
The light in the chamber was shifting oddly.
The House of Light was lit solely by the radiance from the world beyond – that creepy, shining realm that Gavar and most of the peers tried not to think about. Not thinking about it was usually easy. But not at this moment. Up above, something was happening on the other side of those glass walls.
Gavar wasn’t the only one to have noticed. Around him, Equals stirred in their seats. Murmurs ran through the chamber and a sense of growing unease was palpable.
Was it getting darker? Or brighter? How could it be impossible to tell which?
Nobody knew what the shapes were that moved in the world beyond. They passed like clouds on a sunny day or the shadows of wind-tossed trees. But you only had to watch for a little while (Gavar tried never to watch) to understand that the movement was purposeful.
Right now, that movement was towards the walls of the chamber. Distant forms became larger and brighter, gathering there.
Then someone – several people – screamed as a gout of gold flared impossibly through the glass walls towards the trio on the Chancellor’s dais. Rix cried out and recoiled. Father lifted an arm to cover his face.
And Silyen?
Sil was staring upwards, his arms wide, open-mouthed and breathing raggedly. Something about the sight of him made Gavar feel sick with apprehension. He wished his baby brother had never graduated from toddling round the garden turning blackbirds orange and making the housekeeper’s cat bark.
What had Rix and Father done?
The light died almost as quickly as it had flared. The structure of the House appeared intact. Parliamentarians were looking around with relief, and conversation began to rise.
Father strode forward and made a hushing motion, and the assembled Equals quieted.
‘Well,’ he said, loud enough to be heard by those in the uppermost tier. ‘Now you see why most of us prefer to get our heirs the way nature intended.’
Gavar heard Lord Lytchett snuffle with amusement behind him. Scattered laughter broke the tension in the chamber, and Father gestured for Rix and his new heir to kneel for their investiture.
The estate seat of Far Carr was in the fourth tier back, gratifyingly mid-rank. But as Rix staggered towards it, Silyen remained where he was. What now?
‘As my son turned eighteen only two weeks ago,’ Lord Jardine said, ‘that makes him the new Child of the House. Heir Brogan, you may return to your seat. Please pass the Chancellor’s mantle to Heir Silyen.’
The dismissed Child moved faster than Gavar had ever seen anyone move in the House of Light. He left his spot at the side of the wooden throne, thrust the bundle of velvet into Sil’s arms, and hurried to the estate seat where his mother waited.
Father settled into the Chair. He sat straight-backed, fingers gripping the armrests with an air of casual command. Silyen stood very close by.
Marvellous. Now Gavar had both of them to look at.
‘Last week, you elected me Chancellor to deal with an emergency,’ Father said, his leonine head turning to gaze sternly around the chamber.
‘The events of the past months and weeks have revealed a shocking conspiracy among the common people of Great Britain. A conspiracy so extensive that it duped one of our own number with tragic consequences. He’s here today and we are glad to see Heir Meilyr among us once more, after his regretfully necessary chastisement.
‘But there have been no consequences yet for the prime instigators: the seditionists and rabble-rousers among the common people. In the coming weeks, I will introduce a preliminary raft of laws to regulate the proper status of the commoners, including baseborns. But my first duty as Chancellor is to protect our peace. So I take two initial steps, effective immediately.
‘The first is the suspension of the parliamentary observers. Until cleared of any disloyalty, the commoners have forfeited their right to representation among us. The second is an even weightier task. I entrust it to two young parliamentarians of proven ability, both members of the Justice Council.’
Gavar sat transfixed by his father’s stare. There was no escaping the direction Lord Whittam was looking – right at Gavar, and at the girl sat behind him.
‘We must purge the slavetowns. With justice. But where necessary, without pity. To spearhead this I appoint Heir Bouda of Appledurham and – as proof of how seriously I take this threat – my own son and heir, Gavar.’
Because just when Gavar thought things couldn’t get any worse, of course they always, always could.
6
Silyen
The Chancellor’s Chair was a riddle disguised as a piece of furniture. Once, it had been the throne of kings. But not of the fabled Wonder King himself – only the low kings who came after. The Skilless.
How had that happened, Silyen wondered? How had power passed from those with Skill, to those without – before Lycus Parva’s overthrow of Charles the First and Last had wrested it back again a thousand years later?
If you could understand that, you could understand how it might happen again.
Or how it could be prevented.
The day’s session that had begun with his own investiture was over, and Silyen was alone in the deserted House of Light. He crouched down by the side of the throne and traced the worn carvings with his fingertips. As heir of Far Carr, he could now walk in and out of this chamber as he pleased. As Child of the House, his place was next to this Chair. It was perfect.
Rix hadn’t wanted to adopt him. But he couldn’t argue with what Silyen knew – that it was Rix’s Skill that had Silenced Luke Hadley after the little mishap in the ballroom. That as good as pinned the crime on the man. So Rix had bought Silyen’s discretion with an inheritance.
Now the deed was done, the lord of Far Carr couldn’t take it back. Indeed, if anything were to happen to Rix, then the estate would pass entirely to its new heir.
Rix really hadn’t thought it through.
Silyen stroked the bowed seat of the Chair. This was an entertaining game to play. He could see how it might obsess men like Father, and women like Bouda Matravers, to the point that they believed this was all that mattered: mastery of your peers, mastery of the country. But none of it mattered without mastery of yourself.
What would it take to make the Equals realize what they were truly capable of? More than the need to suppress a riot in Millmoor, that was certain.
‘Hello? Silyen?’
Sil straightened up. Who was seeking him out here? The tapping of a cane on the marble floor provided the answer. Silyen watched as Meilyr Tresco limped across the chamber.
‘It’s been a few centuries since any of my ancestors sat in that,’ said Meilyr, coming to a halt and raising his stick to point at the battered throne.
‘Jory Tresco,’ said Silyen, smiling. ‘One of the best we ever had.’
When Napoleon had conquered the unSkilled countries of Europe and turned his covetous eye on Great Britain, Chancellor Jory Tresco had been waiting.
He had gathered together the Equals most Skilled in elemental manipulation. Being a true Tresco radical, he took pains to seek out talented women who he believed had an affinity for such work. Risking scandal, he took a group of them to Highwithel – for which one of Silyen’s ancestors had attempted to impeach him. There, they worked in seclusion for more than a year. And when Britain’s bold Admiral Nelson, acting as bait, had finally lured Napoleon’s fleet up the coast of Spain and France towards Britain, the noblewomen had simply rolled up the sea behind him.
‘It’s memorialized in the windows of our hall at Highwithel,’ said Meilyr. ‘All the French ships falling off a cliff of water and smashing on the bed of the English Channel. Did it really happen, do you think?’
Silyen rolled his eyes. Meilyr’s own ancestor had made it happen. The corridors of Westminster and half the great houses of Britain were hung with paintings of The Grounding at Gorregan. Barely two centuries had passed since that day, and already its events were regarded as half legend. Just as the deeds of the Wonder King had been consigned to folklore, judged too fantastical to be true. Silyen begged to differ. But that was a conversation for another day.
‘I doubt you sought me out to talk about history,’ he said. ‘But I’m glad you’ve come by. I wasn’t there to see what Crovan did to you, but from the descriptions I’ve heard, it must have been spectacular.’
A hurt, haunted look crossed Meilyr’s face.
‘Do you mind me asking,’ Silyen continued – a phrase you only ever said when you knew perfectly well that your interlocutor would mind, and greatly – ‘what it felt like? And how you feel now?’
‘Actually,’ said Meilyr, pushing himself erect on his cane, ‘I have some questions for you. Perhaps we could trade answers?’
Which was intriguing. Silyen nodded and lowered himself onto the rim of the Chancellor’s dais, swinging his legs over the edge.
‘You first,’ he offered.
‘Would the binding that you place on all slaves at the Kyneston gate prevent someone who had been bound from, say, shooting one of the Jardines.’
‘It would.’ Silyen wondered who Meilyr’s source was. Two possibilities presented themselves: Abigail Hadley, or the Dog. ‘My turn: is your Skill merely damaged, or gone?’ ‘Gone,’ said Meilyr. ‘As far as I can tell. Dina hopes it’ll come back soon. My mother hopes it’ll come back eventually. But I don’t think it’s ever coming back. My next question: when you examined Luke Hadley after the shooting of Chancellor Zelston, did you find any evidence that he had been Skillfully interfered with in any way? Compelled, Silenced? That sort of thing.’
‘I did,’ said Silyen.
It had to be Abigail who’d worked it out. She was smart enough, and had been missing ever since running from the Labour Bureau car. She must have fled to Highwithel. Which would also explain – Silyen couldn’t believe he hadn’t connected it before, though to be fair, Jenner’s activities were usually of minimal interest – why his middle brother had gone to ‘inspect the family properties’ in Devon and Cornwall.
‘And?’ Meilyr demanded. ‘Who?’
‘If I told you, what would you do with that information?’
‘I would make sure that an innocent boy is freed from Crovan’s clutches, and that the person truly responsible answered for their crimes.’
‘And how would you do that?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘How would you make sure that an innocent boy, et cetera, et cetera?’ Silyen waved a hand airily. ‘Because I thought you tried that already, and it didn’t go brilliantly for either of you.’
Meilyr Tresco stared. His fingers were white around the head of his walking stick; his breathing was harsh and appeared painful. Crovan had really done a number on him.
‘I would confront . . . the person in question. And whether he confessed or not, I would take what I know, and your evidence, to the proper authorities.’
‘Meilyr, there are no proper authorities. There hardly ever were, but now there’s just my father.’
‘Surely your father would want to know if someone had made an attempt on his life? An attempt that only failed by accident. I doubt he’d be pleased to hear that one of his sons knew who the perpetrator was and hadn’t told him. Particularly if the son had used that information to advantage himself.’
Meilyr pointedly lifted his gaze from Silyen, to the estate seat of Far Carr.
Sil smiled.
‘Oh, I don’t know. My father would probably give me a medal for cunning or something. But think for a minute, Meilyr. You want Luke Hadley out of Crovan’s custody. Turning in an Equal you suspect of using him isn’t going to achieve that. Guilt isn’t an either/or thing in these sorts of circumstances. It spreads to everyone it touches.
‘That Equal would be punished, most likely just as you were. My father gets to make another show of strength that will even further cow his already few opponents. Luke will stay right where he is, as a deterrent to the common folk. Is that really what you want? The person you’re talking about was your ally once. He can still be useful to you, just as he has been useful to me.’
Meilyr hadn’t taken his eyes from Silyen’s face. The man’s internal struggles were plain to see. Poor, principled Meilyr. So worried about justice that he couldn’t see logic.
‘I can’t let Luke suffer,’ Meilyr said. ‘Not when I’m to blame.’
‘Well, technically,’ said Silyen, ‘I’m to blame, seeing as I’m the one that had Zelston introduce the abolition Proposal that started this whole thing off. But I’m not losing sleep over it.’
Meilyr’s hands slumped at his side, the head of his cane banging his hip.
‘The rumours said it was you. But I never understood why you’d do that. You’re no abolitionist – not that I know of. What are you, Silyen Jardine?’
Which was a good question. Silyen thought about it.
‘Curious.’
Meilyr half laughed, seemingly despite himself.
‘You can say that again.’
Silyen smiled. ‘You owe me a second answer, Meilyr. So here’s my second question: When you realized what Crovan had done to you, did you want to die?’
The knuckles went white around the cane handle again. Meilyr Tresco actually lifted it, as if his hand itched to smash it across Silyen’s face. There was something magnificent in the spectacle of Highwithel’s heir warring with his own honourable nature.
When the cane struck the marble floor hollowly as Meilyr let it drop back down again, Silyen was almost disappointed.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I did.’
‘I think,’ Silyen said, jumping down from the dais and landing lightly on his toes, ‘that we’ve covered everything. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go. I have an estate to restore – my Aunt Euterpe is returning to Orpen Mote, and she needs my assistance.’
Silyen sensed Meilyr watching as he left.
What
would Highwithel’s heir do? Silyen couldn’t predict. Tresco was plainly desperate to get Luke away from Eilean Dochais. Would he try and turn Rix in? He surely knew that wouldn’t work.
Would he attempt to rescue Luke the old-fashioned way? That would be something to see. The wards on the ancient Scottish castle were fascinating. Silyen had taken an interest in them, and specifically Crovan’s collaring, when crafting the act of binding for Kyneston’s slaves. But though Meilyr was brave, bravery alone wouldn’t get you into – or out of – Eilean Dochais. Particularly when you no longer had Skill.
All the while they had talked, Silyen had been probing where Meilyr’s Skill should have been. He’d encountered nothing. A void. Tresco didn’t think his Skill was ever coming back. Silyen didn’t think it was either. Meilyr was now Skilless, like Jenner.
Deep in thought, Silyen ran his fingers along the corridor tapestries as he left the great chamber. Aunt Euterpe had scolded him for doing that at Orpen when he was a child and she still lay comatose at Kyneston, and they had walked together through the lost house of her memories.
What he had found at Orpen, in the journals of Cadmus Parva-Jardine, had raised questions about his brother’s lack of Skill that Silyen longed to investigate.
Cadmus’s fabled ability had gone unremarked in his youth. It was only in adulthood – after his first wife’s death and the birth of his supposedly Skilless son – that word of his great Skill had spread. The reason for that was abundantly clear to Silyen: Cadmus had possessed no exceptional power, until his child was born. And that power had come from taking his son’s Skill.
It was something never acknowledged in Cadmus’s journals. So it had plainly happened accidentally. Involuntarily.
And Silyen would bet his newly minted title that something similar had happened between him and Jenner in their earliest childhood. The coincidence of his brother’s lack of power and his own Skillful strength was too great.
So could Skill ever be restored? Or if Skill originated not in individual human bodies, but somewhere external – what they all called the World of Light – could it be drawn upon, and replenished?
