Daughter of Independence

by Simon Brown

  ‘As I was saying,’ Galys said easily, ‘we could take our goods to Bowtell.’

  ‘We should ask someone the best way to get there,’ Kadburn said, and both of them immediately approached the first man, who was now about a third of the way along the alley. Kadburn saw his expression change from insouciant to surprised. Things obviously were not going the way Redhead had planned. At the same time, Kadburn heard the footsteps of the second man quicken.

  ‘Excuse me, sir!’ Kadburn said, raising his hand in greeting, and under his breath to Galys, ‘Get on the other side of him so we are between them and the entrance.’

  Galys smiled broadly and said loudly, ‘Perhaps you can help us with some advice!’

  Redhead tried a smile but it looked as genuine as a paper crown, and he knew it. The smile disappeared more quickly than it came and he reached behind him with his right hand.

  ‘Now!’ Kadburn shouted, and he and Galys drew their own blades and charged. For a moment Redhead did not know what was happening, which slowed him just long enough for Kadburn to kick him in the knee. Redhead howled and dropped the long knife he had just gripped with his right hand, and keeled sideways. Galys and Kadburn dodged around him. Kadburn turned, grabbed Redhead by his hair and placed the point of Captain Squeaving’s dagger against his throat. He glared at the bald man, now openly carrying a vicious-looking cleaver; Baldie skidded to a stop.

  ‘Right, is this a common robbery, or did you two gents have something else in mind?’

  Redhead squirmed and Kadburn twisted the hair and pricked his throat deep enough to draw blood.

  ‘Not robbery,’ Baldie said, still holding up his cleaver. Kadburn could tell from the way he stood that he was no soldier, nor trained to use edged weapons. Still, in the confines of an alley, the cleaver could do horrendous damage even wielded by an amateur.

  ‘Then what?’ Galys said.

  ‘We’re working for the city,’ Baldie said with something like pride.

  ‘Sure, and I’m Empress Lerena Kevleren,’ sneered Kadburn.

  ‘I’ve got the papers!’ Redhead hissed, scrabbling for his pocket. Kadburn shook him until he was still, and Galys checked instead. She found two folded and greasy-looking sheets of paper. She unfolded the first, read it, glanced at Redhead and Baldie, and read it again.

  ‘Well?’ Kadburn asked.

  ‘They’re thugs for hire. This is a temporary warrant from Somah’s governor giving them authority to collect vagrants, orphans and suspicious characters, as long as they be of good health and without deformity.’

  ‘That counts us out then,’ Kadburn said. ‘We’re deformed.’ He tugged Redhead a little harder. ‘What’s it all about, this collecting?’

  ‘Where have you been the last few years?’ Baldie asked. ‘It’s for the empress, of course. She’s recruiting thousands of Axkevlerens for her personal palace. We send train loads of them from Somah every few days.’

  ‘There can’t be that many vagrants and orphans in the city,’ Kadburn said.

  ‘Unless you count anyone you can knock over without someone witnessing the act,’ Galys said, and unfolded the second sheet. ‘By the Sefid,’ she said under her breath.

  ‘What’s that one say?’ Kadburn said.

  Galys held it up. Kadburn saw a tally sheet with scores along one column and in the next amounts of money in pennies. At the bottom of the sheet were totals for both columns. ‘This week’s takings, I gather,’ Galys said.

  Kadburn’s eyes narrowed. ‘Let’s see if I understand this. You two charmers kidnap people from the street and send them up to Omeralt. And for this Somah Council pays you – what? – a penny a head?’

  ‘Somethin’ like that,’ Baldie said.

  ‘They must be going up to Omeralt in the hundreds,’ Galys said. ‘That’s the special cargo the steam carriage takes.’

  ‘Three hundred and fifty in the last year,’ Baldie said proudly. ‘The biggest contribution from anywhere in Hamilay.’

  ‘This is going on in every city?’

  ‘Every large city, yeah.’ Baldie tapped his cleaver against his leg. ‘So tell me, how is it you don’t know any of this?’

  ‘We’re from a small country town,’ Galys said.

  ‘No one will miss you then,’ Baldie said.

  Kadburn tickled Redhead’s throat. ‘You’ll miss him if you do anything.’

  ‘Not really.’ Redhead made a gagging sound. ‘The way I see it, I’ve got a cleaver, and I’m facing one fellow who’s got a dagger and knows how to use it. Rest is just arithmetic. I lose Redhead. Then your friend loses you. Or maybe you lose her. I’m left with a bounty and no one to share it with.’

  ‘Why is he feeling so cocky all of a sudden?’ Galys asked.

  ‘Check behind us,’ Kadburn said.

  Galys glanced over her shoulder. Another man was slowly, quietly advancing on them. He stopped when he realised he had been seen.

  ‘This alley sure gets busy,’ Galys said.

  ‘How many?’ Kadburn asked her, keeping his gaze on Baldie.

  ‘Just one.’

  ‘Look after my friend here,’ Kadburn said, and tugged on Redhead’s hair so Galys could get a good lump of it in her fist, tangled up with the tally sheet. Redhead tried to get away from her, but she yanked him good and hard and pressed her own dagger against his jugular.

  Kadburn reached inside his shirt.

  ‘See sense,’ Baldie said to Kadburn, ignoring Galys. ‘It’s two to one. Drop the daggers and we’ll let you live. You’re not worth anything to us harmed.’

  ‘Then just let us go,’ Galys said.

  Baldie seemed to consider it for a moment. ‘No, can’t do that. Word might get around we weren’t doing our job. That’d cost us the contract. I’d rather just kill you both and have done with it.’

  Galys again glanced over her shoulder. Number three was in spitting range.

  ‘Right,’ Kadburn said, standing up. He half turned, threw the dagger at the newest arrival, then ran forward towards Baldie.

  Baldie looked vaguely disappointed that such a promising specimen was going to have to be cut up, and raised his cleaver to dispatch him with one swift slash. Then he saw the scramasax in Kadburn’s hand and realised his enemy was not after all from a small country town; indeed, he should not exist at all. Before Baldie could figure out what a Beloved was doing in a Somah alley, Kadburn had easily deflected the cleaver and struck down with such force that Baldie collapsed like a dropped sack of wheat, his chest spread open.

  Kadburn turned to see how Galys was doing and was just in time to watch her leap on the third man and despatch him as easily as she seemed to have despatched Redhead, who lay on the ground already dead, his throat slit as neatly as a smile.

  Galys stood straight, crumpled the tally sheet she still held in one hand and let it drop. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said.

  ‘Wait,’ Kadburn told her, and searched each of the dead bodies, coming up with two full purses. He weighed them in his hands without opening them. ‘I don’t know how far we’ll get on this, but at least we won’t starve.’

  *

  For the first time in what seemed a long, long time, the weather was clear enough for Rodin to get a good look at the entire fleet as it made its way south along the coast of the New Land. It looked magnificent, he thought, with proud ship after proud ship carrying full sail and leaving white wakes behind in the blue sea.

  The weather was not only clear, it was now also calm enough for Rodin’s seasickness to subside considerably, if not altogether. He was starting to feel in control again, which is exactly what he needed to be, for Captain Ainchell calculated that in two days’ time the fleet would reach Sayenna, less if the wind freshened again. For his part, Rodin was happy for the voyage to stretch out a little in exchange for a settled stomach.

  26

  Paimer followed the scorch marks with his eye, and could easily see how the fire had moved from the hearth along the skirting boards, to the cu
rtains, to the desk, to poor Chierma. It must have been a terrible way to die, he thought, and could not imagine experiencing such pain. The air in the governor’s house still reeked of the fire.

  ‘What did you do with his remains?’ Paimer asked the nervous Feruna, bowing and scraping behind him.

  Feruna wiped his brow and smiled queasily. Then decided a smile was inappropriate, but it was that or blubber in front of the duke and humiliate himself. ‘The ashes were buried in the park across the road, your Grace. It was his favourite place, I think. That I knew of, I mean.’

  Paimer nodded. ‘You say he sent you out just before it happened?’

  ‘That’s right, your Grace.’

  ‘Do you think he knew or had some premonition of what was about to happen? Did he seem scared to you?’

  Feruna tried to remember, but the events immediately following the fire were so horrifying that his memories were starting to jumble. The process of sorting them out was thrown in the air by the sudden arrival of the duke and his party, days before Feruna expected them and somehow already knowing about his master’s death.

  ‘Never mind,’ Paimer said, seeing the confusion on the secretary’s face. ‘Thank you, you may go. Prepare refreshments for myself and the commander. We will be down shortly.’

  Feruna nodded and eagerly left the office to his guests. Montranto ran a finger along the lintel stone above the hearth, drawing a thin white line across the charcoal coating it.

  ‘The first time we met was in this house,’ Paimer said. ‘You were something of a buffoon.’

  Montranto followed the burn along the wall until he came to the curtains, only half eaten away, their edges a blackened frazzle. He wiped one of the panes in the window and saw out over the park where Chierma’s remains must have been buried.

  ‘I didn’t like you much, either,’ Montranto said, then tapped his lips with a finger. ‘Actually, that isn’t right. I was in awe of you. A Kevleren at the dinner table. That was something. I didn’t like Chierma, however. Never warmed up to him.’

  ‘An interesting choice of words.’

  ‘The empress did this?’

  ‘I know of no other way that a fire can travel from one end of a room to the other without burning everything in between.’

  ‘Do you still think I’m a buffoon?’

  Paimer shook his head. ‘In some ways I wish you were. Buffoons are easier to handle.’

  ‘You don’t want a buffoon at your back.’

  ‘But do I want someone like you at my back?’

  Montranto sat down on the windowsill and looked the duke in the eye. ‘I am no longer a buffoon because after seeing my country ruled by your sybaritic family, followed by proselytising ideologues and vengeful bureaucrats, I have learned to love my country more than myself.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Or perhaps I’ve just learned to hate myself more than I love my country.’

  ‘I understand your antipathy towards my family, but you worked for the Safety Committee that replaced it.’

  ‘That was the buffoon in me. There were one or two on the committee who had Rivald’s best interests at heart, Croft Harker for example, and some who showed true mettle when Lerena invaded, but for the most part they deserved what they got.’

  ‘Including you?’

  ‘Oh no. I deserved to die ignominiously. Exactly how I avoided that is still a mystery to me. I should have been on the walls defending Beferen in the final assault, but ended up running messages for a rump of the Safety Committee instead. Truthfully, I don’t think anyone trusted me enough to put me on the wall. And then you gave me a job, and I’ve seen Beferen rebuilt into something better than it was before. And as Beferen rebuilt itself, so I rebuilt myself.’

  ‘The new Beferen is my doing,’ Paimer pointed out. ‘In fact I’ll take credit for both reconstructions.’

  ‘I won’t argue with you. But you are still a Kevleren, and you brought to my country a whole branch of your family.’

  ‘We are going now.’

  Montranto smiled thinly. ‘But will you be back?’

  Paimer did not know how to answer that. He did not truly believe he would survive the coming encounter with Lerena, but if by some marvel he did, Paimer realised he would like to return.

  ‘If I can,’ he said. ‘But not as its governor.’

  ‘You would rule in your own right?’ Montranto asked.

  ‘I would retire to my estate, if I was allowed to keep it. I have learned to like Rivald. I have even learned to love its interminable rain. Hamilay no longer has a place for me. Or perhaps it is more correct to say I no longer have a place for Hamilay.’

  ‘And your relatives? What would their position be in a world without Lerena Kevleren?’

  ‘I can’t read the future. I have no knowledge of it, and to be honest, beyond seeing Lerena dead, I have no predilection.’

  *

  Commander Sol Mikhel could hardly see through the haze. Thick plumes of smoke drifted across wheatfields. The sun was nothing more than a dim orange globe in the sky.

  ‘Who ordered this?’ he demanded.

  A local ensign, brand still in his hand, said, ‘Everyone’s doing it, sir! It’s the only way to kill the bastards!’

  ‘Stop it!’ Mikhel ordered.

  ‘What, sir?’

  Mikhel strode over to the ensign, grabbed the brand from his hand and ground it into the dirt until it was out. ‘You’re burning everything!’ he shouted. ‘What are people going to harvest in autumn? What will they use for bread? What will we feed stock with?’

  ‘But the monsters, sir! You said only fire kills them!’

  ‘Daylight kills them, but now you and everyone else lighting fires have made the day like night!’ He caught himself and swallowed hard. The ensign was right. He had not properly thought through his orders. He had panicked and felt ashamed for it.

  One of his men shouted and pointed to orchards on the edge of the fields where the fire had not yet reached. Mikhel saw at least three creatures shambling among the fruit trees, doing their best to avoid the advancing flames.

  ‘By the Sefid, what will we do?’ the ensign asked. ‘Nothing else works . . .’

  Mikhel saw the expression of hopelessness on the young soldier’s face, an expression he saw more and more on the faces of his own men. Despite everything they had tried to do to slow down the creatures, they always seemed to get around them; and no matter how many they killed, there always seemed to be more, and no matter how fast he and the others travelled, the creatures always seemed to be one step ahead, as if something was driving them on relentlessly.

  Up until now daylight had given them the chance they needed to re-form themselves, to recuperate, to find as many of the creatures’ nests as possible, but the fires had put an end to that. Mikhel swallowed. They would have to withdraw many miles now, south to where the local militia was still in control and not setting fire to farmland, and start all over again. At this rate, if they did not find a way to stop them for good, they would end up retreating all the way to Omeralt.

  Perhaps that was it, he thought. Perhaps he should be racing for Omeralt. Instead of sending messengers to the next region to call up more troops, which in the end only seemed to create panic and confusion, maybe he should go direct to the capital. If he was right and these things were humans somehow transformed into monsters, then it was a matter of magic, and the empress would know how to deal with it.

  But she already knew, he remembered. General Second Prince Rodin had told him it was probably nothing to worry about when he first sent Mikhel north of Koegrah, but the empress had insisted something was wrong. Then why had she not acted?

  He must get to her himself, Mikhel decided. He must convince her that only she had the ability to stop the slaughter.

  *

  Lerena was planting sacrifices. She would catch them in her forest, quickly slay them and half bury them in the ground. After a while they would start to sprout, trunks growing from their heads, and their limbs
turning into branches with leaves and pretty white and blue flowers. She had hoped that when they fruited they would bring little humans into the world that she could then sacrifice and plant and so on and so on, giving her even more in the world to love. But sadly when they fruited it was nothing more than drooping skin-coloured sacks filled with strange, monstrous growths of teeth and hair and gristle, and she could not love those no matter how much she tried. Still, she was determined to keep on until she got what she wanted.

  ‘I liked the way he burned,’ Yunara said to Lerena while she planted her latest catch.

  ‘I wish you would not go on about it,’ Lerena said. ‘Poor Chierma.’

  ‘You enjoyed it at the time.’

  ‘I would not do it now, you know.’ She imagined a watering can and there it was. She picked it up and watered around the new planting. ‘I’m beyond all of that.’

  ‘What do you mean? Surely if someone was to kill Idalgo, for example, you would revenge him.’

  ‘The only one who could kill Idalgo is Uncle Paimer.’ She looked up at Yunara, frowning. ‘He hasn’t, has he?’

  Yunara shrugged. ‘Hard to say. I can’t see Idalgo anymore, but we were not hurt in any way, so I suppose he is around somewhere. Do you mean you would not harm Paimer, no matter what?’

  ‘That’s right. He is the last of my immediate family, the last in the world. If I slew Paimer, what would become of me?’

  ‘That’s an interesting question,’ Yunara mused.

  Lerena did not like the sound of that. ‘Leave Paimer alone. He is under my protection.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of harming him,’ Yunara said. ‘After all, I’m his niece too.’

  Lerena sighed. When Yunara got like this there was no point her arguing, although both of them knew Yunara was not Yunara, and Paimer was not her uncle.

  Thinking about what Yunara was exactly always gave Lerena a headache. And reminded her of the cancer, growing faster day by day, approaching Omeralt like a grassfire on a hot summer day. She did not know what would happen when it reached the capital, although she was sure she would be safe inside her aviary. Perhaps she should let the people of the city find refuge under her dome. After all, there was plenty of room now. Lerena had spent months exploring her world and still had not come to its limits.