The Year of Our War (10 page)

“You don’t want to follow the trend and protect Micawater?” Swallow asked.

“Of course not! If we can’t hold the front then the whole thing will fall apart.”

“Staniel wants Rachiswater to be a safe haven,” she added.

“It will be safe all right. It will be a starving island in a sea of Insects. How long will even the best troops hold out with Staniel in command?” Lightning sighed. “Swallow, I wish I could keep my fyrd for myself but you know we have to work together to save northern Awia from being overrun.”

“I came with two thousand men as reinforcements, I don’t see why you can’t let me go to the front.”

“No. Not until you become Eszai.”

I took a glass that had evidently been laid out for me, and poured some refreshing white wine. “The Insects will stay behind their Wall, Saker. There can’t be so many.”

“Yes, and they’ll push the Wall out and build new Walls and more Walls until we will have lost all Awia. I remember how quickly they used to expand, at the beginning.”

Better change the subject before Lightning starts telling us again about the old heroic days of the founding of the Circle. “It looks like Staniel’s close escape has unsettled him.”

Lightning picked up a letter with a
Top Secret
seal. “From the tone of this, he is terrified.”

“He spends summers lying in a haystack writing poetry, while Dunlin practiced jousting,” said Swallow, citing the popular opinion of Staniel’s military prowess without looking up from her sheaves of paper opera.

It may have had something to do with the wine, but I was feeling optimistic. “Don’t worry. He can’t keep soldiers at Rachis for long, they’ve got homes and lovers and a harvest to bring in next month.”

Lightning sounded grim: “Well, let us hope they would rather cut wheat and bake us bread than sit on their arses in Rachis Park for five pounds a day.”

“He’s
paying
them?”

“It seems so, if I don’t misread this letter. And as time goes on, and if the crops start dying for lack of attention he’ll have to start paying them more and more. The treasury will run dry. If Dunlin was still alive he would die a thousand times to know how his brother is misusing their fortune.”

“Let me go and speak to him.”

“Yes, and we also want to know how Tornado is faring in Lowespass; at least one of us is out there. I should go back…But San thinks what I’m doing here is more useful for the moment.”

I could not say much in front of Swallow, but I itched to know, “What
are
you doing here?”

“Simply writing letters and talking to people.”

Swallow put her manuscript down. “If you’re going to court, can I come?”

Our predicament had nothing to do with Awndyn and I told her so, but Lightning said, “It would help Swallow’s petition if she could see the Emperor again. You compered her concert in the Hall, now I would be grateful if you could accompany her into the courtroom.”

I suspected that this whole visit was just a plot so that Swallow could see the Emperor San again. “Why don’t you take her?” I moaned.

“I would hardly be viewed as impartial.”

Swallow had said that if she was accepted into the Circle, she would consider marrying the Archer and not before. It was a clever move, because Lightning now arranges as many audiences with the Emperor as possible. I know that once San’s mind is made up on an issue it rarely changes; in fact his opinion defines the issue and in pressing her case Swallow is denying him. San owes his Eszai nothing because he pays us in lifetime, a currency so valuable it leaves no favors outstanding.

Lightning asked me to take Swallow because it meant that he would not lose face if her application should be rejected. I don’t fear loss of reputation as much as he does because my reputation has been singed with scandal for a very long time. If I helped Swallow toward success then Lightning might look kindly on me. He might agree to another loan, or at least waive the interest on the two hundred thousand pounds I borrowed in nineteen-thirty.

Lightning first looked after me when I joined the Circle, fresh from Hacilith, knowing nothing about Insects or swordplay, wary but eager to please. He gave me lessons on horse riding and etiquette, as well as letting me run riot in Micawater until I learned the Awian language thoroughly. During that time I became his closest friend and, like Tern, he keeps me on the straight and narrow. I could return the favor by taking Swallow under my wing. I beckoned to her. “Come on then. Saker, what are your plans?”

“I’m going up to the gallery to watch.”

“I bet you are.”

Swallow said, “Perhaps I should sing in court. I would be able to melt even the Emperor’s heart. He would agree to making me immortal so he could hear perfect concertos forever.”

She didn’t say it boastfully, she said it as fact, and I thought she was probably right but for all I knew the Emperor hated music, or couldn’t tell the Eclipse Sonata from a football chant.

“It’s harder for me, because there is no Circle Musician for me to Challenge and so displace. Don’t the opinions of the other Eszai hold any weight?” she asked.

“None,” said Lightning sadly. He had seen Swallow change over the last year: with each disappointment her desire to join the Circle grew, till now there was a determination hard as diamond and brittle as old glass in her, which could exhaust her maiden’s spirit, leaving her resentful and still aging.

“Shall we go?” Lightning finished his heart-stoppingly expensive wine in one gulp. Pale with anxiety, Swallow nodded. Lightning once told me that growing wan was as sure an indication of love as blushing was an indication of modesty. As far as I could see Swallow was a frightened girl backed into complicated situations by the rabid dog of her own ambition. I wanted to free her. I could tell she was worried because she wasn’t looking directly at me; she was too busy looking inward, at imagined court scenes. Aware of Lightning’s jealous gaze, I hugged her chastely and told her to have courage.

Lightning had told Swallow many times that the struggle to become Eszai could be over immediately, if only she would consent to marry him. A year later she still refused. I needed to find out exactly why she wouldn’t marry the Archer, so I could convince her that she was wrong. I can’t feel as profoundly as the Archer, thank god, but I did want Swallow to join us. Even with the little I know about music I could tell she was the most talented composer the Fourlands had ever produced, and she was an excellent drinking companion, who could play the guitar so well.

I
walked automatically avoiding the uneven floorboards, but Swallow had not been this way before, and she found herself trotting along in an unbecoming fashion in order to keep up. The Archer strode beside her, arrows crackling together in a quiver at his hip.

I wanted to put the cantatrice at her ease. “Spent all your life in Awndyn?” I asked chattily.

“Apart from last year in Hacilith.”

“Your mother must have been from Diw.”

“Yes. How did you—? Oh. You can pick up my accent. That’s amazing!”

I shrugged to show it was no more impressive than her ability to remember every note in every symphony. She wrote two before she was twelve.

The flight feathers of her wings were barred. They were a dark, rust red and had red-brown lines across them, which was very rare. Her wings looked sumptuous, and the rest of her body looked so soft and tender that I wanted to touch her. I quelled the urge and lengthened my stride to put the temptation behind me.

A
colonnaded narthex runs around the outside of the courtroom, which is the very center of the Palace, itself the center of the Castle, which is the center of the world. I led Swallow down through carved arches and spiraled columns, to a staircase where Lightning left us, ran up the stairs and vanished through a door leading to the arcade. Stone Insect heads were carved in deep relief on the walls; their obsidian compound eyes polished to hungry black mirrors. Swallow shuddered when she saw them. The stone antennae of these heads were knotted together intricately so that the triangular heads hung in a column like bunches of onions. I once heard that the carvings substituted real trophies brought back by the first Eszai. I expect they were replaced because of the smell, or because courtiers got sick of maggots wriggling out and dropping on them.

Busts and escutcheons were set into the walls, which Swallow examined to see if she could recognize any emblems. “You won’t,” I said. “This part of the Castle hasn’t changed since its founding, and the manorships are different now.”

“Yes. Is Micawater here?”

“No. This was built two thousand years ago.”

Swallow fell silent; she glanced furtively at the faded heraldic paintings on the ceiling—dark gules like old blood, raw umber and green earth. I have researched their delitescent meanings for a hundred years and I am still really none the wiser.

I fretted about the entrance to the courtroom, a huge door of oak so old it is petrified, set with black iron studs. It took all one’s weight to move it, and all my weight is not much.

A guard stood by the door, simply and immaculately dressed but dark around the jowls. He held a finely honed spear and had a broadsword buckled at his hip. He saw me and stood to attention, then relaxed when I waved at him.

“Comet.”

“Hello, Lanner. I haven’t seen you for ages.”

“Lanner was my father,” said the guard.

“Oh.”

“I am the little lad you used to give sweets to and say, ‘He’ll make a fine soldier one day.’”

I nodded, fazed. Mistakes of this kind were happening with increasing frequency.

“My lady?”

“This is Swallow, Lightning’s love. She wants to be immortal. She wants another title to replace her unfortunate name.”

He looked Swallow up and down before addressing her. “You must give up your weapons here.”

Swallow glanced at me. “I don’t have any weapons,” she said plaintively.

“Not even a knife?”

“No!”

The guard grinned at me over the top of Swallow’s head. “You have to leave your jewelry too,” he said.

I explained: “Zascai aren’t allowed to wear gold in the Circle court.” Swallow nodded, thinking it was another rule designed to make people feel small and unimportant.

I said, “Everybody feels insignificant in front of the Emperor, even Eszai. It is always unwise to hide behind gold trinkets rather than your own solid achievements.”

“And your watch.”

“Why?”

“Because time doesn’t exist in the Emperor’s presence,” the guard announced.

“Because it’s bad manners to look at your watch in court,” I said.

Swallow dug out her pocket watch and handed it over. The sentry walked backward with his back against the door, to open it. Swallow started forward but I put a hand on her shoulder. “A word of advice, sister. Don’t look up.”

T
he first thing Swallow did when she stepped inside was look up. She stopped, wide-eyed, entranced, spellbound, and her mouth open. I gave her a firm push and she tore herself away, her shoulders rounded in defense.

“Breathe in and go,” I muttered.

“Shira. It’s
massive
.” Her voice was solid awe.

I glanced up, and farther up, and the ceiling sucked my gaze into the heights of its arches until I was completely disoriented, feeling as if I was falling upward. The ceiling was gold and mosaic; huge bosses with churning ships and gyring eagles hung from the pinnacles. There were figures ten times life-size with their cloaks swirling around them like pleated clouds. Oil lamps lighted the ceiling, and candles in gold candelabra illuminated the aisle, on torchères like graceful statues. But once swallowed by the size of the vaulted ceiling, it was difficult to tear my gaze away. I am used to distance but my eyes ached to focus across the vast hall. I looked at the narrow arcade, so dizzyingly distant I had to fight the urge not to spread my wings for safety, and I saw Lightning there, leaning over. I could feel the strength of his apprehension; his will that she
must do well
shone down like a beam.

Swallow swore cautiously. “By god. Oh, god. How many times could Awndyn fit into this hall?”

“At least you didn’t come from a Scree sheiling, sister.”

“Did
god
build this?”

“In a way. I think it asked the Emperor to.”

She began to walk, and as she walked down the scarlet carpet between the thin brass railings I saw her gather gracefulness into herself. Her shoulders went back, her head proudly upright; from somewhere she found an impassive expression and her hands, which had been tapping pizzicato, became still, at her sides. She paced without pause all the way down the Throne Room, past the screen, which Zascai are not allowed beyond.

We walked past beautiful Eszai in stunning clothes, who were sitting in pews along the walls. They whispered to each other as Swallow passed.

We walked past ebony eagles at the ends of the benches; they had opalescent eyes.

Her shadow jumped, grew, jumped, and shrank as we walked past the torchères. I wished I had had chance to look in a mirror before coming in here.

We walked to the steps of the dais where the Emperor sits beneath a sunburst of silk and burnished gold.

Swallow was sensible enough not to look at the Emperor. She knelt, on one knee, and then on both knees, and then her hands touched the floor as well. Her head was bowed. I stood behind her, a hand on her broad shoulder, and proclaimed, “My lord Emperor, I bring Governor Swallow Awndyn from the coast, a mortal who has a message for your attention.”

“Have I heard this claim before?”

“This time last year she was sent away from the court. But since then she’s done much, traveled throughout Awia, built an opera house at Awndyn and sung at the Moren Grand.” I recounted a list of Eszai and mortals alike who supported Swallow, a verbal petition that stopped abruptly when I realized the Emperor wasn’t in the slightest impressed.