‘Yes, you are very brave.’
‘Just like that fyrd captain? I’m as brave as she is.’
‘Of course, you could be.’
We walked our horses out of the stable and rode slowly through the commotion of the growing camp. Smoke from cooking fires rose into a pall above the lines of cream tents.
We rode off the road – it was completely packed with carts, horses, and men marching quickly – now that town was in sight they wanted to reach it as soon as possible. It was a river of humanity, and lancer escorts formed other streams on either side.
Cyan leant forward, sped to a gallop and hurtled past me. I gave Pangare rein; she loped exuberantly, kicking out with her forelegs, and caught up with the girl at once. ‘Hey! What are you doing?’
‘I’m just glad to be outside,’ she said, free for the moment of her usual ennui. ‘I’ve been cooped up since Hacilith. I think without a doubt this is the worst place I’ve ever been dragged to.’
‘I’m inclined to agree. Where would you rather be?’
‘In the city, of course. All the places I’ve lived are dreadful compared to Old Town. Where would you rather be?’
‘Up there.’ I pointed to where, far behind the town, the cliff-topped hills stretched along the horizon.
‘In the mountains?’
‘Those are just the foothills,’ I said. ‘You should see the high summits – there are so many pinnacles and valleys that a hundred Rhydanne could live there for a hundred years and never meet each other.’
‘Sounds awful.’
‘Let me show you what Pangare can do. Come on!’
We galloped beside the road. In the fresh air, it was almost as fulfilling as flying. The sky was a uniform white, with blue-grey round the edges like milk in a dish. The sun, a burnished silver coin, blazed ineffectually at its zenith. An infuriating, unsettled breeze stirred the few grass stalks still upstanding between drying, churned-up clods of mud. Higher on the hillside, bunches of heather hooped and shivered, clustered around the white rocks that looked like the moors’ uncovered bones.
Cyan kept looking down the road with a twinge of wanderlust. I would have to watch her carefully or she would try to escape again.
‘How many thousands of people?’ she asked emphatically. ‘Their line goes on into the distance.’
I checked my notebook. ‘This is just the Cobalt baggage train. The Peregrine archers should be next.’
‘Peregrine?’ she said. ‘You mean – my manor? I have fyrd?’
‘Of course! When you come of age you’ll have a fyrd of more than twenty thousand men. That’s more than we can see to the horizon.’
‘Like the Carniss men the other day?’
‘Pah. Carniss only has one muster. Cobalt here, only has two: Cobalt and Grass Isle, and their governor is too old to lead them. You have four musters. The baggage train for Peregrine is twelve hundred wagons.’
‘Can we see them?’
‘If you want.’
We rode to the end of the Cobalt carts but there was still no sign of Peregrine’s sleeping falcon standard. ‘They’re probably delayed by the traffic jam,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to stop here. I don’t want to take you too far from town.’
Cyan reined in her palfrey, halted and gazed at two standard bearers with vertical gonfalon pennants covered in knot-work. It was the Morenzian dexter red hand banner, rendered completely in interlaced lines. The standard bearers, riding wearing nothing but purple or grey singlets and breeches, were so covered in tattoos that their outlines looked blurred. The ingeniously entwined bands, alaunts biting their own legs, elongated horses and spiralling sea snakes in every colour covered them so confusingly that it was difficult to tell where their tattoos ended and their clothes and knot-work jewellery began. Old tattoos had been interlinked with new ones, storiated over their whole bodies apart from their faces.
The battalion they led marched to the beat of similarly decorated drums on their saddlebows. Thickly accented voices burred among them.
Cyan said, ‘Wow. Who are they?’
‘The first of the Litanee cavalry.’
‘Such beautiful designs … They’re so weird.’
‘You’ll have seen their designs on the pottery and glass Litanee exports. The Plainslands esteems their work highly. Well, these are the richer craftsmen – most of Litanee’s battalions are infantry and they’ll be coming in by ship. Let’s have a closer look.’
We cantered to meet the head of the column and I greeted the warden and took his name. He let Cyan look at his panoply, all covered in knot-work; stencilled on his brigandine from Hacilith, his helmet adorned with twisting, intertwining Insects. Tooled on his saddlebag and belt, painted on the sides of their carts; every surface was filled with interwoven designs.
‘To us they’re just pictures,’ I told Cyan. ‘But the Litanee can read them like biographies. They encode the stories of their lives. He’s covered in his memories, so to speak; no one from the Litanee region is ever short of a topic of conversation.’
‘I’ve crossed the canal into Morenzia but I never saw anyone like this.’
‘You probably didn’t go far south enough. See the pictures of grey wolves, beavers and boars? They’re extinct everywhere but the Morenzian forest. And the dogs on their muster flags? Their hunting hounds are considered the best. Your father loves them. See – there’s one.’ A huge mastiff loped alongside one of the horses. ‘Litanee brings them for guard dogs, but I’ve seen a pack take an Insect down.’
I was cut short by the rumble of hooves behind me. A shrill whistle made the nearest men stop abruptly, and those following stumbled into them. I looked around; a body of Awian lancers were bearing down on us. Metal strips like blunt fingers, riveted in splays to the backs of their saddles, screeched as they cut through the air.
The eagle banner unfurled above them; it was Queen Eleonora and her bodyguard.
The Litanee humans, most of whom had probably never seen such a behemoth of steel and horseflesh, slowed down to squint at the Awians’ ostentatious armour.
The Queen raised her hand and the others, with their lances like semaphore poles upright in their rests, slowed and spread out in a semicircle around us. She cantered up to us alone.
She had pulled the chrome tubes of her saddle back out of their housing and it projected higher than her shoulders, a padded support. The saddle’s faring almost enclosed her legs; with her feet in long stirrups she was practically standing up in it. It provided cushioning against the impact when the speed and weight of her horse drove her lance through an Insect. It was splashed with haemolymph.
She tilted her helmet to the back of her head. ‘Comet? What are you doing on the ground? Enjoying a good ride?’
I made the introductions: ‘Your Highness, I present Lightning’s daughter, Cyan Peregrine … Cyan, your Queen; Her Royal Highness Eleonora Tanager.’
‘So this is Lightning’s daughter. What a pretty girl.’ She looked Cyan over, narrowed her eyes at me and said to her confidentially, ‘I’d watch that one, if I were you. He moves faster than rumour in a morai.’
I said, ‘Eleonora …’
Cyan closed her mouth and gulped. All the etiquette she had been taught didn’t seem to fit this situation. She tried, ‘I am at your command.’
‘Of course you are.’ Eleonora made her horse high-step sideways. She spread her long, aristocratic wings and gave me and the Litanee men a flap. ‘Don’t let him be a bad Rhydanne now.’
She wore the 1910 Sword, one of the classic, bejewelled masterpieces made, about once a decade, by the Wrought blacksmiths. All the craftsmen must agree on whether a sword is good enough to be ‘dated’ and they sell at a very high price.
She put a hand on the hilt and tilted the sword back, pivoting where it hung at her waist, until the scabbard stuck up in front of her like an erect cock. She grasped the hilt and drew the sword little by little, and its soft scabbard flopped flaccidly from the tip downwards. All the lance
rs guffawed loudly.
‘You wicked bitch,’ I muttered.
‘You wicked bitch, Your Highness,’ she corrected with a smile.
She turned, and all the lancers fell in behind her, wheeling away over the open land towards the Wall to resume their patrol.
‘What was that about?’ Cyan gaped.
‘Nothing,’ I said, and in silence we watched the Litanee men go by.
I remember Eleonora’s costume masquerade in 2017 at Rachiswater Palace. I recall it with extreme clarity; it still sends a shiver through me. I was sitting on the high balcony that curved around the exterior of the circular, spotless hall. Below me, a servant carried a tray of sparkling wine out to the geometrical gardens. All was quiet, compared to the riotous clamour of Eleonora’s birthday ball.
She had only recently been crowned, and to emphasise her reign this lavish party had drawn in all the nobility. I had come as an Insect, having half-heartedly pierced holes in real sclerites and laced them over my usual clothes. I picked up my glass of wine and took a sip, sighed and lay back along the top of the balustrade. My wife had a few moments ago taken Tornado’s arm and walked him out to the spiral maze for a ‘breath of fresh air’.
Music slid luminescent from the hall; I looked down into its white drum filled with laughing, cotillion-ing figures.
Eleonora stepped out onto the balcony, her bronze mask in front of her face. She pulled her metallic silk skirts away from the threshold and shut the casement door. She tilted the mask away, raised her eyebrows and half-shrugged, meaning: What are we doing here, two sensible people like us?
I spidered a bow. ‘Happy birthday, Your Highness. Looks like you’ve passed me at last.’
‘Never ask a lady’s age, Jant. I’m three years older now.’
‘Your beauty increases.’
Eleonora strode towards me with hauteur. Her gloves covered her arms up to the shoulder and the level of her bulging breasts. Her voice was fleshy; ‘It will look better if you join the party.’
‘I like it out here.’
‘Why do you always sit near sheer drops?’
‘They attract me.’
She turned from the gardens and looked at the palace front. On both sides of us, its crescent wings curled forward, clasping the gardens’ falcate terraces between them. ‘It looks like a snail shell.’
‘I think it’s spectacular. The Rachiswaters had taste.’
My snub didn’t bother her. ‘Yes. They’re almost legend already – but we’re still here, making history.’
‘You’ve achieved a lot.’
‘Oh, there’s still so much remaining.’
I drained my glass and picked another from the tray on the floor. The rumours about Eleonora had piqued my interest. (Why, oh why, did I drink so much that night?) I’d heard that she likes to watch maids tie each other up, that she spends afternoons arranging footmen in interesting patterns for her pleasure, or she calls up gladiators three at a time, two to hold her legs open and the most well-endowed to fuck her.
I’d have to sleep with her, of course; or at least try – the Queen of Awia would be the biggest notch on my bedpost.
She said, ‘Did you receive my letter? I mentioned I always noticed you.’
I contrived to look nonplussed. ‘I always noticed you, too.’
‘You always notice everybody.’
‘But I notice you more.’
She said, ‘Jant – be careful or you’ll appear desperate.’
‘I thought I appeared like an Insect.’
She eyed my skew-whiff antennae. ‘Where’s your wife?’
‘In the –’ I gestured at the maze.
‘Oh. With someone?’ She suddenly sounded predatory. She leant over the balustrade and shouted down to the water terrace, ‘Let it spray!’
A footman dressed as a ship’s captain turned a silver wheel on a polished pipeline and all the fountains sprang up in the gardens. Shrieks from the maze as its water jets spurted. They latticed across its annular marble entrance, trapping everyone inside.
Eleonora laughed. ‘Now, feline-with-feathers …’ She studied every part of my body, imperiously spinning her mask. ‘Such long wings. Such a sculpted back. I bet you fuck so athletically … you can make me come so hard I see gold flashes … Can you?’
I didn’t meet her eye. ‘Eleonora, I’m the Messenger at your beck and call but I’m not your call boy.’
‘Pity. Still, there are others. Merganser’s here but he’s not as good as you’re said to be.’ She turned away.
‘No!’ I said. ‘Wait.’
She gave a sidelong glance. ‘Go to the Onyx Room … no, that’s occupied. Go to the Topaz Room, remove your clothes and fold them on the chair. Then kneel on the bed. Await me there.’ And she was gone, like a caravel in full sail back into the party.
Eszai have seen most things but I’d never encountered anyone like Eleonora before. (My curiosity will be the death of me.) Some Awians were starting to object to her hedonistic rule, for all that she saved them from the Insects two years before. If the previous King, now exiled in Summerday, living in a garret and writing bad poetry, ever had offspring who could claim the throne, then Eleonora would need to spend even more on guards and spies.
I turned a handstand and walked on my hands through the party, and I ran up to the room. A bottle of wine was already opened for me.
The warm summer evening backlit the curtains drawn over open windows. Eleonora kept me waiting. When she entered, she seemed pleased that I was kneeling. She swung the door shut behind her and fiddled with her skirt. It fell to the ground, revealing her bodice and some riding boots extending over her knees, tight to the shape of her legs.
I could only see her silhouette as she crossed in front of the curtains, tapping the stem of her mask on her gloved hand.
She started to lick my feathers; she ran them through her mouth and tongued between them until I was in ecstasy.
‘Put your hands on the bedpost.’
‘Why – hey!’ She grabbed my balls.
‘Put your hands on the bedpost!’
I followed her command. ‘Why? Bloody let go!’ Before I had finished protesting she whisked a cord around my wrists, tied an ingenious knot and bound my hands to the post.
I struggled, but I couldn’t free them. I leant forward and bit the cord – but she was pulling another one from under the pillow. She looped it around my wings, leant back and pulled it tight.
I gasped, beginning to lose the feeling in my wings’ fingers. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Now you can’t cover your pretty backside with your wings, when I sodomise you with my riding crop.’
‘What? – Ow!’ She cracked me across the backside. It wasn’t her mask – she was holding a whip! She passed it over my mouth and I tasted the leather, and felt the little gold ferrule on the end. Suddenly I was dangerously sober. ‘Let me go!’
‘Please let me go, my lady.’
‘Ow! … My lady.’
Eleonora smiled. ‘You’re a fast learner. Not so loud or they’ll hear you downstairs. If you dare kick, I’ll call for an audience.’
She tilted her head, appreciating her handiwork, studying me closely. She stroked the whip into my arse crack and ran it up and down. I pleaded, but it delighted her; no matter what I said she wouldn’t let me free.
She bent her knee up between my thighs and pressed it on the inside of my legs. The sparse light picked out shiny creases in the leather. She pushed me flat and straddled my arse, riding my cheeks as if fucking me until my backside was wet with her juices. My cock stiffened despite myself as it rubbed against the sheets.
Her breathing quickened. I heard her sigh and felt her shudder.
Then – oh, but I won’t go into it – she … no, I can’t say … What am I telling you this for, anyway?
Finally she left me kneeling, my cock sore from her quick, expert tugs, because she didn’t like the way I kept growing soft. She had flicked my come out of me a
nd it was helplessly dripping off my chest. I felt as if I had been milked, and my arse was … raw.
She said, ‘I’ll send word around the party to come up and view you.’
‘No!’
‘Yes. They would laugh to see the Messenger so … compromised. Oh, and your wife’s downstairs, isn’t she?’
‘Please, Eleonora.’
Smack!
‘Ow! Please, my lady.’
She lowered her mask onto my face and pulled its string tight, restricting my vision to a few centimetres of rucked sheet and my breathing to a warm hiss. She sighed with a beautiful facsimile of sadness, ‘Now you’re used up. I’ll have to leave you on your knees until you’re ready again.’
‘Again?’ I whispered, muffled.
‘I’m taking your clothes, so even if you bite yourself free you won’t be able to leave the room. Unless you want to join the party naked, on a leash?’
‘No!’
‘I will leave the door unlocked. Anyone could come in … I’ll leave it to chance.’
She slipped out of the range of my vision. Music leaked in from the party, then the door clicked shut. Rays filtered through the curtains. Flies buzzed in the open window and landed on me. They puddled their sucker mouthparts on my skin. The tracks of their feet tickled me infuriatingly as they crawled, but I was too abandoned in my shame to shake them off. I felt squandered … And I felt beaten … I was tricked. Deceived. Eaten.
Hours later Eleonora returned, dropped my clothes on the floor, and untied me without a word.
CHAPTER 17
I flew reconnaissance flights over the seemingly never-ending procession of troops. Far below me, the Peregrine General Fyrd were marching into the gate. Behind their line came the Summerday Select Fyrd, clad in dirty brigandines that had once been saffron yellow. They were driving oxen pulling room-sized espringals on wheels, capable of shooting a vireton spear through the Insect Wall. The Summerday Select were excellent at demolishing Insect paper and they knew the whole front well.
Behind them came the Shivel Select, mustered weeks before for the advance. Their columns were in close order between the lines of outriders and, further off in the distance, another body of men whose colours I couldn’t see. I winged closer and looked down to the road. After the leaf-green of Shivel rode the crimson column of the Imperial Fyrd.
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