The Modern World

by Steph Swainston

  ‘No.’

  ‘On the eve of the advance? Certainly not.’

  ‘It’s only four days’ flight there and back,’ I said blithely. ‘You’ll scarcely notice I’ve gone.’

  ‘Of course I will!’ Frost snatched her notebook off the table and held it pressed to her chest, her arms folded across it and her eyes round. ‘Honestly, Jant. Another of your picaroon ideas! Just because it’s Lightning’s daughter. Just because it’s him! Quite frankly I think all those beads you wear are cutting off the blood supply to your brain. The Emperor asked thee to work for me this year. Thou knowest I need thy help. I need communication and logistics more than anything else!’

  I can tell Frost is distraught when she starts to pepper her speech with the remains of her old Brandoch accent. Nobody, not even in the Plainslands, has spoken like that since the seventeenth century.

  I said, ‘I’ve already sent out my dispatches. The troops are on their way and no matter how much I chivvy them, they won’t march any faster. I want to see you raise the gate as much as the journalists do, but it’s eight days from now. Even if I don’t find Cyan, I can easily make it back in that time.’

  Eleonora said, ‘How like an Eszai to take too much on!’

  Lightning said, ‘Frost is right. When Cyan was kidnapped before, I deserted my duty and went looking for her even though Insects were swarming. The Emperor was unforgiving – and rightly so – because there are still bite marks in the gates of Shivel manor house and paper stains in the parlour of Tanager Hall. San only gave me one more chance and his decrees are set in stone. I do not want to have to crawl to him like that again. He went so far as to say that every one of those thousands of people killed had been worth as much as Cyan.’

  ‘You’re afraid of the Emperor.’

  ‘Yes, I am. For myself and for you.’

  Frost said, ‘How old is this Cyan, anyway?’

  ‘Seventeen,’ said Lightning, refilling his glass.

  ‘Seventeen!’ Frost exclaimed.

  Seventeen … I thought, and confirmed my decision to go and find her. Mortals seem to age very fast these days. I had been thinking of her as a child but now she must have a mind of her own, and a body too. Her father was born with the silver spoon and could afford to believe the best of human nature. Her mother, who died at Tris five years ago, was a schemer convinced of humanity’s worst. How had these traits mixed in Cyan? How had she turned out?

  Frost said, ‘She’s probably just enjoying herself and she’ll come back when she’s ready. Don’t you remember what it was like to be seventeen?’

  ‘Yes. Why do you think I’m worried? I did a lot of stupid things when I was that age … There was that incident with my father’s chariot and the lake … Anyway, we had a sense of propriety and Cyan, I fear, has none. It is strange. Why should she run away? She can’t be angry with me or I would definitely know about it, otherwise she would have wasted the effort. Either she has been untruthful for some time or this was a temporary aberration. I imagine her coming to her senses again and realising she’s lost.’

  ‘She’s smart enough to get herself found,’ I said. ‘She hasn’t exactly led a sheltered existence.’

  Lightning twiddled his glass and gazed at the stationary surface of the wine inside it. ‘She has not visited the city before … Meanwhile I’m supposed to be drilling these archers who seem to think they’re here for a stroll by the water stair.’

  I thought Lightning was wrong. He had always said Cyan could do what she wanted, but now she chose to exercise that freedom he was up in arms. If she had only just discovered freedom, of course she’d want to know how much she could use it without losing it. She would just drink too much and spew in the street at three in the morning. She’d have gut-rot and a hangover, recover and feel ashamed. Then she would find the sheets rough in the coach house and bedbugs too; cold water in the pitcher and no soap in the bowl. I said, ‘Lightning, she’ll come home wiser in the ways of the world, with her tail between her legs, and vow not to leave the palace for a long time.’

  Lightning passed a hand over his forehead. ‘Oh god. You don’t understand. Cyan has the blood of a thousand-year-old dynasty. She is the new heir of the house of Micawater … Why does nobody have the slightest inkling what that means to me?’

  I said, ‘Blood doesn’t matter any more.’

  ‘It matters. It matters to me. Oh, I know what you’re thinking. That I’m some sort of relic of the seventh century. Well, let me tell you, it was the golden age of Awia – hic! – (excuse me). The genealogies of every other family twisted and turned and snuffed out. But Micawater comes straight down through the centuries: me. And now Cyan. She is the heir to Esmerillion’s crown. And she’s also my daughter and I love her and I want to see her safe.’

  ‘The old money of the country even then,’ Eleonora murmured.

  I said, ‘All this past is just like a millstone around your neck. Can’t you forget about it for once?’

  Lightning said, ‘That would be forgetting history.’

  ‘I do forget history.’

  ‘You would. You’re a Rhydanne. But the history of my family is the history of my country, and even if Insects take our land they won’t take what we are.’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ said Eleonora.

  Lightning nodded, warming to his subject. ‘When in four-fifteen the Insects first appeared in Awia, the chaos they caused led to the collapse of the governments in every country. The Insects extended their Paper-lands and Awian families began moving south to escape them. Everyone knows that account, but my ancestors were among them. Our records don’t stretch back that far; we were not notable then. We were unplanned settlers but we had courage and intelligence. We settled Pentadrican land. They were in anarchy and grateful for the order we brought. We also brought the knowledge of how to fight Insects. We lived in harmony with the Pentradricans who remained. Soon King Murrelet made a decision to shift the boundaries of Awia south. All the land from the rivers Moren to Rachis was Pentadrican land back then. If you know what you’re looking for, Eleonora, you can still see vestiges of the Pentadrica today – the Dace River, that was one of their fish names, like the Trisians still use. Awia stretched from the Rachis river to the north coast of the continent, all under paper now.

  ‘My family staked a claim on bountiful land in Mica River valley. We founded the manor and took the river’s name for our family name. Then gold was discovered in Gilt River, my family started to mine it and we flourished. We married into the Sheldrake family and gained all the land south of the river mouth. Our rise in influence seemed unstoppable.’

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘We know all this.’

  Eleonora said, ‘Shut up, Jant. He’s talking to me’

  She gave Lightning an encouraging nod and he continued, unfortunately: ‘The Murrelets held the throne for centuries. They had claimed the Rachis Valley, but they died out in five four nine and we inherited the throne. Queen Esmerillion was the first of our dynasty – her charm was legendary. She moved the capital from Murrelet to Micawater town. She built the palace, away from the best land, obviously, but she gave it the best vista.

  ‘Ninety years passed. Then my grandfather, King Gadwall, married Minivet Donaise and we gained her manor – the whole of the Donaise hills were added to Micawater. Gadwall and Minivet had two daughters, the firstborn being Teale. Teale Micawater married a warrior called Garganey Planisher and, though their children – my siblings and me – numbered nine, we were the last generation … until Cyan was born.’ Lightning sighed and folded his arms.

  I drained my glass noisily and declared, ‘God, I needed that.’

  ‘I understand, even if Jant doesn’t,’ said Eleonora. ‘We live forever through our descendants.’

  ‘I prefer to live forever through being the fastest messenger in the world,’ I said. ‘Lightning, do you want some more wine?’

  ‘Thank you. But, you know, I was only fourth in line for the throne and I was never expected to
inherit so I was not brought up knowing how to run the manor as were my brothers Peregrine, Gyr and Shryke. I made many mistakes in the first few years.

  ‘Peregrine knew he was dying of cancer. He speculated that I would live longer than a whole mortal dynasty so he placed the manor in my hands, but Gyr should have inherited. Gyr was the last of my brothers left alive but he was the black sheep of the family; he had been embittered by the death of his sister decades before. We quarrelled … I handled it badly. You see, the Castle had made me a soldier not a statesman. I beat him around the Great Hall and I threw him out. Every harsh word is still burnt into me.

  ‘That was in the year six eighty-seven and it was the end of our dynasty. Gyr wanted to put some distance between us, so he married bloody Korhaan Allerion. He wanted to change his name but the process was the same then as now; the name of the wealthier parents’ family was passed on to the children. The Allerions could never be wealthier than the Micawaters, so Gyr changed his name completely. He called his dynasty after the river that flowed through the lands he carved off from my manor. His lack of originality was the final insult.

  ‘Eventually the Avernwaters yielded the throne to the Piculets and I knew there was not a drop of my family’s blood left in the world, apart from me …’ His forehead creased, then he shrugged and sipped claret.

  ‘I try to trace my line as far as the Rachiswaters, but I am only fooling myself,’ he added. ‘So, when I say the seventh century was our golden age, I mean it. I have managed to keep my manor preserved at the peak of my dynasty’s expansion and achievement. We brought stability to our manor, then the whole of Awia, and we stopped the Insects coming further southward. I have always thought that’s the reason why San let me keep the land when I became Eszai. It also meant that Awia couldn’t expand its borders any further into the Plainslands. Adventurous dynasties like the Tanagers beat north against the Insects instead, and the Rachiswaters pushed west.’

  Frost had been talking to Gayle on her other side, but she caught a fragment of our conversation and smiled. ‘No one can better Lightning on the ebb and flow of featherback dynasties. He remembers them all.’

  Lightning raised a finger shrewdly and drunkenly. ‘I knowed … I mean … I knew them all.’

  ‘We realise. Why don’t you have some of this?’ I said, offering him a slice of fudge cake which would be well-nigh impossible to talk through.

  Lightning refused it for the chance to show Eleonora his knowledge. ‘Our court was in power from five forty-nine until six eighty-seven. My mother held the throne at the time of the Games. The Avernwaters followed, from six eighty-seven to the year one thousand; they held out a long time but their town is now only a Tanager muster. The Piculets rose in power, from the year one thousand until ten eighty-one. Then the Pardalotes were very successful, ten eighty-one to thirteen twenty-six, when Insects killed the last. The Piculets returned from thirteen twenty-six to thirteen ninety-eight. I liked them, but I didn’t think much of the Fulvetta dynasty (thirteen ninety-eight to fifteen sixteen), very debauched in the fifteenth century. The exhilarating times of new Awia had long gone. They used to tell me, “Be decadent while you still can. The Insects will destroy us too.” Well, the last one, Lanare Fulvetta, poisoned her family and was imprisoned for patricide. Then rose the Scoters (fifteen sixteen to fifteen thirty-six) until a flu epidemic put an end to them and tens of thousands more. They were followed by an interregnum and I was champing at the bit then, let me tell you. The Falconets were merchant arrivistes – with sporadic insanity – who filled the vacuum from fifteen thirty-eight to sixteen forty-one. I had to sit through that; they were all quite mad. There was a schism in the family and poor Petronia Falconet went to Hacilith, but his son did well as the first Aver-Falconet. Then the Tanagers appeared, a famous warrior family –’ He smiled at Eleonora ‘– and succeeded to the throne. They restored some of the wonderful original vigour from sixteen fifteen until eighteen twelve …’

  ‘Financial problems,’ put in Eleonora graciously.

  ‘Financial problems,’ Lightning concurred. ‘The Rachiswaters rose to power (eighteen twelve to twenty fifteen). They founded Carniss but an Insect swarm ended them, and back came the Tanagers … twenty fifteen until who knows when?’

  Eleonora said, ‘That’s the way you see mortals, isn’t it? Just offshoots of family lines, just the latest kings or servants or soldiers.’

  Lightning prodded a finger at the table top. ‘That is a very involved question. So in simplest yes and no terms, let me just say, perhaps.’

  ‘I expect you think there’s no point in getting to know them personally.’

  The smile spread over his face again. ‘You, Eleonora, are an excellent personification of the Tanagers.’

  ‘We may have been good warriors but we weren’t so successful in peaceful times. My forebears didn’t care as much about money as yours must have done.’

  Lightning said, ‘Nevertheless, I think you’ll last. Pass the wine, please.’

  ‘You’ve drunk enough.’

  ‘I … have drunk enough claret in my life to fill Micawater lake. ‘S true. I worked it out. A whole damn lake of calret. Claret.’

  ‘Only Awia has such royal splendour,’ Eleonora continued. ‘I feel sorry for the other countries.’

  I felt sorry for Lightning’s daughter. He seemed to want her to begin his dynasty once more, so this time he could watch over it properly, but evidently he couldn’t even look after her. I said, ‘If I find Cyan, I’ll explain all this to her. Besides, I’ve been at the front for a long time; I’d welcome a change of scene.’

  ‘You all have your priorities wrong!’ Frost wailed.

  Lightning said to her, ‘I wouldn’t let Jant go if I didn’t think he could do it. Cyan knows and likes him. She listens to him.’

  ‘I know the underworld, too,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, god … Good luck.’

  ‘What do you want me to do if I find her?’

  Lightning propped his head on his hand. ‘Hmm. Send her to the palace. No, on second thoughts, bring her here. I can keep an eye on her. Otherwise she might run away again. Harrier may be growing too long in the tooth to keep up with her.’

  ‘She can watch us drawing up the troops,’ Eleonora suggested.

  ‘Yes. It might do the uncouth young lady good to see the fyrd in action. She needs a firm hand. She calls herself Cyan Peregrine, as she should, because she will inherit the manor when she’s twenty-one. I am glad she accepts it, but everything else she does these days seems designed to cause me pain. If … If the worst has happened and you need constables, or horses, ask Aver-Falconet. Cyan was supposed to be meeting him anyway … Harrier had to make all kinds of excuses.’

  Frost shook her head and clasped her hands around her coffee cup. ‘I don’t like it. I’m busy with my speciality as San wants us to be. I don’t branch out. I don’t have pastimes; I work all the time. But, Lightning, when you’re not playing geopolitics you’re playing family history!’

  He asked her, ‘Will you be able to work without Jant?’

  She bristled. ‘Yes, of course! I coped for hundreds of years before he flew in!’

  ‘Use my couriers,’ I said.

  ‘Typical. Everything to be done at the pace of a nag rather than the pace of an eagle.’

  Lightning said, ‘Give him six days, Frost. You never give anybody enough time off. Including yourself, I suspect.’

  ‘How else would I have built the dam?’ she asked, then turned to Eleonora. ‘Your Highness, be my witness that I object to this ridiculous errand.’

  Eleonora shrugged. ‘As you wish, but we’re at the front so I can’t intervene in an argument between Eszai.’

  Frost could see she was outnumbered and I felt a twist of guilt because the advance is supposed to be our priority. However, I can manage both and she’s probably just annoyed that I’m more busy than her. She said, ‘Jant, when you return, report straight to me. I’ll have a stack of letters for you
by then.’

  I picked my jacket off the back of the chair, leant over the table and gathered some cheese rolls.

  Lightning said, ‘Wait a minute.’ He struggled to his feet and threw an arm around my shoulders. He was taller than my one metre eighty-five and nearly twice as broad as I am. He accompanied me to the door with a confidential air, saying, ‘Jant, you must know that … Um … I have my own doubts. Um … Oh, god knows I have always tried to show you the right way but you are far too easily tempted …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Cyan is a very attractive girl.’

  ‘Good,’ I said.

  He rubbed the tips of his fingers over the scar on his right hand. ‘I’m not sure if … if she pretty how knows she is. Knows how pretty she is. It might have an effect on certain men … On certain men who have volunteered to find her.’

  ‘What!’ I said indignantly. ‘I promise I won’t touch her!’

  ‘You never know what you are going to do, Jant, so don’t bother promising. I wish for once you would plan ahead rather than living in the instant and rushing into things. I remember how you were when you first joined the Circle, eagerly looking for ways to destroy yourself. You still pride yourself on being dangerous.’

  It took him some time to say this and I waited patiently. ‘Lightning, you have old-fashioned ideas.’

  ‘With time you’ll learn they’re the safest. If you … If you take advantage of Cyan I’ll have your guts for bowstring. I will do you more damage than that battle did … I’ll break every one of your weird-looking fingers.’

  ‘God. You really know how to get through to a Rhydanne. There’s no need to worry, trust me; I told Cyan to think of me as her brother.’

  He nodded, mollified. ‘Well, my town house and hunting lodges are at your disposal, as usual. Oh, and Jant, if you can’t find her in the six days, you must return. Don’t let your tremendous energy tempt you to ridiculous feats. The Emperor would dismiss us both.’

  CHAPTER 4

  I found my pace and the wind was with me; I flew over the convoys coming in to Slake Cross. I was glad to be flying in the opposite direction, against the flow, at right angles to society. I was enjoying myself; I live for flight. I felt light and ethereal.