by Jen Williams
‘I will do no such thing,’ said Chenlo in a low, even voice, but the guards forced her down onto the path while birds chirped from the fruit trees. Kreed made as if to do the same to Vintage, but she shook her head and got to her knees, cursing Tyranny and all of Sarn for this nonsense. Helcate remained where he was, watching silently, and Vintage took a moment to be glad that they weren’t forcing him to kneel too; that could end badly.
‘It’s good to see you again, Helcate,’ said Tyranny, cheerily enough. ‘Last time I saw you, you were some sort of terrible monster in the night, spitting acid all over us. But in the daylight, you actually look like a big scruffy dog.’ She grinned. ‘I’ve kicked better-looking strays than you on the streets of Mushenska.’
‘Helcate,’ said Helcate.
Tyranny, Vintage noted, had changed a little herself. Her white-blond hair had grown long and messy on top, although it seemed she was still shaving the sides, and her neck and a small portion of her right cheek were discoloured – a darkish purple colour, very striking against her pale skin. Vintage pursed her lips, remembering how Helcate’s acid had spattered across her clothes and throat, sending up an oily smoke and leaving the woman bellowing with pain. Curse our luck, she thought, a sinking feeling in her gut. Resentment for that injury could change everything.
She was also much better dressed than when Vintage had seen her last. She wore blue silk robes, and there were several chains studded with glittery jewels strung around her throat. Across her forehead there was a thin gold band, similar to the one Windfall wore, and her fingers too were thick with rings. Despite all this, there were still some nods to the practical in Queen Tyranny’s outfit; she wore a thick leather belt at her waist, which cinched in the robes and carried several knives that did not look at all ornamental, and her feet were clad in soft leather shoes, laced up to the knee.
‘Lord Helcate has some unusual talents,’ said Vintage evenly, reaching up to pat the curly fur on the war-beast’s neck. ‘And his siblings value him greatly.’
Tyranny ignored this thinly veiled threat and tipped her head to one side, smiling at Chenlo.
‘Wasn’t it a war-beast that destroyed your cosy little club, Chenlo? How are you coping without your precious Winnowry? Without your precious girls?’
‘It was Lady Noon who destroyed the Winnowry,’ said Chenlo, her voice still even, devoid of emotion. ‘And it was not to last. It chose to make you an agent, Fell-Tyranny, and such decisions only revealed the poison at the heart of it.’
Tyranny’s mouth twitched, the smile dropping away. Vintage stood up hurriedly, raising her voice.
‘Queen Tyranny, we are here to talk to you about the war-beast known as Windfall, and about the Jure’lia threat. You must realise –’ she forced herself to take a breath – ‘you must have known, darling, that this conversation would come up eventually? You stole from Ebora. There will be consequences.’
Tyranny laughed at that, apparently delighted. She pulled her leg down from the arm of the chair and leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees.
‘Do you understand what I’ve done, Lady de Grazon? I have done the bloody impossible. I hatched the war-beast pod myself, with my own hands. I pulled that war-beast free and I held her in my arms and told her her name, and then I fed her and kept her close to me. I raised her from a tiny thing, and made her strong. Windfall is mine, and I am hers.’ The mocking smile shivered on her lips, then reasserted itself. ‘Together, we came to Tygrish and we saw the stupid people who were in charge, saw the riches that were here, and we bloody took it. Because we could. And now we are queens of Jarlsbad.’ She grinned, leaning back on her throne. Sunlight glinted in shards off the jewels around her neck. ‘I’m a fucking queen, Lady de Grazon.’
‘You murdered the royal family here?’ Vintage let the question hang lonely in the air. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched to see if the guards reacted, but they stood still, their faces impassive. Tyranny shrugged.
‘They’re in prison. They haven’t even left the palace. The people of Tygrish like their history, so I’ve kept it for them, but they also like to be safe.’ She nodded up at the sky, which was currently clear and blue and blameless. ‘They have their own war-beast, one who sees Tygrish as her own personal property. Who is safer during this Rain, I ask you?’
Vintage shook her head in disbelief. ‘You mean to hold off the Jure’lia by yourself? I know you’re not stupid, Tyranny . . .’
‘You will address the queen as your majesty,’ put in Kreed. Vintage made a strangled noise.
‘Your Majesty is not, I know full well, a dim-witted fool – she must be one of the most cunning and tricksy thieves I have ever had the misfortune to meet –’ Kreed muttered at this, but Vintage ignored it. ‘Yet you think you will be safe here? The war-beasts work as a team. As an army. You know this. All of Sarn knows it. You must allow Queen Windfall to return to her rightful home so that she may help to protect it. To protect us all!’
‘And leave Tygrish open to attack?’
‘All of Sarn is in danger,’ said Vintage quickly. ‘Or do you mean open to attack by neighbouring kingdoms of Jarlsbad who might like to see their relatives back on the throne?’ She sensed Chenlo looking at her, but she didn’t dare make eye contact with the woman. She was being too forthright, and she knew it.
‘Send Windfall home, to a place she has never known? To be without me, the only human who has ever cared for her?’ Tyranny looked away across the rows of fruit trees, as if truly considering it as an option. The garden was baked with heat, protected as it was from the winds by four tall walls, yet Tyranny looked entirely at her ease, her brow smooth and free of sweat. ‘Why don’t we ask her?’
She whistled, a quick, trilling note a little like that used by the Winnowry to summon their own bats. Vintage looked up. A huge white shape emerged from the tower and began to slowly spiral down towards them, leathery wings spread. The blue of the skin and the blue of the sky were too similar, and she blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of it. It was like a ghost was floating down towards them.
However, when Windfall landed just behind Tyranny’s throne, there was no doubt of her solidity. On the ground she looked muscled and powerful, and even a touch larger than Helcate, Vintage noticed.
‘Windfall,’ Tyranny gestured to where Vintage stood, and Chenlo still knelt. ‘These people have come to talk to you about returning to Ebora.’
Vintage cleared her throat, and sketched a quick bow. ‘Your Majesty, Queen Windfall, I am Lady Vincenza ‘Vintage’ de Grazon and I come as an envoy for Ebora, your birthplace.’
‘I was born on the plains.’ The giant bat’s voice was sharp, strident almost. Vintage nodded rapidly.
‘Of course, Your Majesty, but your pod was birthed from Ygseril the tree-father.’
‘I don’t care for trees.’
‘You will not know, because you and your siblings were born without your root-memories, but it is the birthright of all war-beasts to share a bond and fight together against a common enemy.’
The bat sat up on her haunches, and dropped her wide mouth open. Vintage had a moment to contemplate the alarming array of jagged teeth on display, when the creature’s throat began to glow from within.
‘Wait!’
It was too late. A column of blinding blue and white light shot from Windfall’s gaping maw and struck the ground between Chenlo and Vintage. Instantly, Vintage felt her entire left side grow stiff, rigid with cold, and the breath seemed to freeze in her lungs. She fell awkwardly onto the ground, where she saw rimes of frost growing across the tiny mosaic tiles. She gasped, and saw her own breath in a white cloud.
‘You don’t tell me what to do,’ said Windfall. ‘I am a queen.’
‘Damn right,’ said Tyranny, clearly very pleased with herself. ‘You can’t just waltz into our kingdom and start ordering us about, Lady de Grazon.’
Vintage opened her mouth, suicidally intent on telling Queen Tyranny to cram her kingdom
up her arse, but the words were strangled in her throat. Something warm nudged at her neck, and she reached up and stroked Helcate’s snout. Don’t do anything, she warned him, hoping he would understand. Darling, don’t fight her, not yet. We’re outnumbered.
With some difficulty, Vintage turned her head to look at Agent Chenlo. The woman was still kneeling, although now her head hung down, and her black hair was white with ice.
‘The nice thing about being a queen,’ said Tyranny, adjusting the gold circlet on her head, ‘is that I get to employ lots of fancy advisors now. It’s like your second hands when you’re running a gang, only they talk fancier and are less worried about offending you. I think, Queen Windfall, we should ask one of our advisors what to do with our visitors.’
There was a small flurry of movement as someone was summoned from within the building. Vintage lifted her head and straightened her shoulders; some of the stiffness was easing out of her body, but, she reminded herself, she hadn’t even been hit by the beam of cold directly. Windfall’s talent would be formidable on the battlefield. If she was on the right bloody side.
A figure approached the throne, initially difficult to make out in the bright sunshine. She wore a loose silk shirt with a hood that covered her long black hair, and she was tall and long-limbed. There was a small pair of spectacles on a long gold chain around her throat, and she was Eboran. Abruptly Vintage found that her legs were full of strength again, and in an instant she was on her feet.
‘They are dangerous,’ said Nanthema, her voice calm and devoid of any emotion. ‘I wouldn’t trust them. You can hide them in the deepest cells, but it might be simpler to have them killed.’
‘You absolute cow!’ Vintage took a step forward, and Kreed’s hand was on her shoulder immediately. ‘You scheming, lying, untrustworthy, rotten, feckless creature! I should have left you in that fucking Behemoth to rot.’
Tyranny was laughing, tipping her head back so her blond hair flashed in the sun. ‘Take them each to a cell. We’ll have to find something special for the war-beast.’
Vintage spun and sent a single thought to Helcate – fly! She felt him hesitate, wanting to take her with him, but there were guards swarming them already, men and women in tough leather armour, and several of them carried a huge muzzle.
‘Go!’
Helcate leapt. There was a terrible moment when one especially burly guard leapt for his back leg and dragged him back down, but the war-beast shook him off and, after bouncing somewhat less than gracefully off the courtyard wall, turned and flew up into the clear blue sky. Vintage watched him go with a strange combination of despair and triumph like a hard knot in her chest. The great bat unfurled her wings again, her blue eyes intent on the retreating figure.
‘Never mind,’ shouted Tyranny, looking at Windfall then back to the guards. She had stood up and was brushing a fine layer of dust from her robes. ‘Let the runt go. His acid will have little effect on my palace walls, after all. Put the other two below.’
Swallowing down her own anger, Vintage forced herself to speak in a level tone. ‘This is unnecessary, Your Majesty. We’re not here to fight you, or to steal away Queen Windfall. We’re just here to talk to you.’
‘Fell-Tyranny does not talk,’ said Chenlo. The ice had melted on her hair and she stood with two guards at her side, each wearing long gloves and masks. ‘She just takes what she wants, because that’s all she’s ever known.’
‘Well, thank you very much for that diplomacy,’ hissed Vintage, but it was too late. The guards were dragging them towards an archway leading off from the courtyard, and Tyranny herself was walking casually away, stretching her arms above her head as if she’d just done a good morning’s work. Before they were moved to the dark interior of the palace, Vintage managed to get one last look at Nanthema. The Eboran woman’s red eyes returned her gaze without a flicker of shame, and then she was lost to sight.
Chapter Seventeen
‘So. Tell me about your childhood.’
‘What?’
Noon looked up from the plate of pastries. She had slept overnight in the entrance to the castle, under the stars but still within the strange cocoon of warmth that surrounded the glass castle. When she had complained of being thirsty and hungry this morning, She Who Laughs had produced breakfast out of apparently thin air – cheese and delicate pastry twists, berry preserves and a large jug of clear water. She didn’t ask where it came from. For a being who could inhabit different bodies at will, she supposed that sourcing breakfast from miles away was easy enough.
‘It’s important. For the figuring out.’ They sat again in the courtyard of bones, and the square slice of sky above them was a hot flat blue. She Who Laughs was still in the body of the dark-haired round woman, and the crown of green fire cast lively shadows against the glass. ‘You’re from the plains,’ she prompted.
‘I’m from the plains,’ repeated Noon. ‘When I was eleven the Winnowry took me from there, and then I spent the rest of my childhood in one small cell in a big tower full of miserable people.’
‘That is a summary,’ said She Who Laughs. ‘I want details. Did you have brothers or sisters? What were your parents like? What are your clearest memories?’
‘I don’t have time for this.’ Noon gulped down a mouthful of water, and shook her head. ‘I’m supposed to be fighting a war, not having a cosy little chat about people who are – people I haven’t seen for a very long time.’
She Who Laughs didn’t respond. Instead, she shifted so that her short brown legs were folded under her, and she interlaced her fingers in her lap. Noon chewed down another bite of pastry, then sighed noisily.
‘I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. My father died not long after I was born, and I don’t remember him.’
‘How did he die?’
‘It’s not an easy life out on the plains. He fell from his horse on a hunting expedition and broke his neck. My mother told me he was a good man, but reckless with his riding. He trusted his horse, and his horse trusted him, but the ground wasn’t in on the deal. He was chasing something down and didn’t see a hole in the ground. The horse broke its leg, too.’
‘And your mother? How did she die?’
Noon blinked. ‘How do you know my mother is dead?’
She Who Laughs tipped her head to one side. ‘What do you remember of your earliest childhood?’
Somewhere outside the castle, the wind was picking up, and it sang through the empty battlements like a lost spirit. Noon looked down at her hands, at the buttery pastry crumbs clinging to her fingers.
‘I remember the smell of grass and horses, more than anything,’ she said eventually. ‘That hangs over every memory. It’s on the inside and outside of it, all over.’ She had not slept well, and her dreams had been plagued with images of Vostok, frantic and searching, flying over a cold and stormy sea while waves leapt up to lash at her belly. Despite the sand on her skin and the heat beating down on the top of her head, Noon felt as though she hadn’t quite escaped those dreams. ‘I remember my mother’s tent too, full of books, and herbs drying in the roof. It was the one place that didn’t smell of horse.’
‘There were lots of tents?’
‘Lots. We weren’t a big group, but each family had a tent, and each family had horses, and a few fleeten that we kept all together in the herd. In the winter we built huge fires to keep the wolves away, and in the summer Mother Fast put on puppet shows at dusk. We had a tent-cat once, but she ran away.’
‘The group. Your people. What happened to them?’
Noon looked up sharply. She felt like she’d just been pinched awake. ‘What do you mean, what happened to them?’
‘Did they travel, your people?’
‘With the seasons, we did. There were better places for grazing at different times of the year, and we would seek out the Trick and the Ember too. The other groups would gather there, and when we met up sometimes there would be big festivals.’ She smiled, despite herself. ‘I remember
thinking the other plains people were so weird. Their clothes were different, some of them had tattoos. Their voices, too, were strange, and some of them travelled in these huge wheeled carts. There would be fights sometimes, and disagreements, but mostly we would trade with them and drink. Fermented mare’s milk, mostly.’ She frowned. ‘I never liked the smell of it but the children who were older than me, they liked it a lot.’
‘What’s the last thing you remember of them? Your people?’
Noon paused with a pastry halfway to her mouth. Slowly, she put it back down.
‘Why do you want to know all this, anyway? It was a very normal childhood on the plains. Nothing interesting or unusual about it.’
‘Is that so?’
She Who Laughs leaned her head back against the courtyard wall, her eyes narrowed like a pleased cat.
‘Yes, it is fucking so.’ Noon sat up. ‘What are you getting at?’
‘The last memory you have of them . . .’
‘I don’t have one. That’s the truth of it. There was –’ She leaned forward, the skin on the back of her neck prickling with discomfort. ‘You clearly know what happened, or you wouldn’t be asking. There was an incident. An accident. They died. I killed them. That’s it.’
‘And the memory.’
‘There is none!’ Noon stood up, letting the remains of her breakfast fall to the sand. ‘I don’t remember it, and thank blood and fire I don’t. They all died, and then next thing I knew, I was in the hands of fell-witches, being bound for the journey to Mushenska. I don’t have any memory of what happened at all.’
‘Ah, but we need that memory, Noon.’ She Who Laughs unfolded her legs and stood in one fluid movement.
‘Why? What possible reason—’
‘You have to trust me.’
‘Trust you?’ Noon threw her hands up into the air. ‘The woman who has abducted me to the middle of bloody nowhere? Listen,’ she took a breath, trying to calm herself, ‘you should just take me back. I’m sorry, really I am, but I genuinely don’t remember what happened. There’s just a black space where that memory should be. Even if I wanted to tell you, I couldn’t. And that’s the truth.’