The Brass God

by K. M. McKinley

  When her father was away, only then.

  Skirts held high, she rounded a corner, nearly slipping on the polished marble as she headed for the staircases leading into the palace’s vast atrium. Forced to run at an undignified trot, panting against her corset, she made it down into the entrance hall as her father was leaving.

  He was in his wheelchair, having condescended to be helped out now his gesture was made, and was being pushed toward the doors. That must have hurt his pride.

  “Father!” she called.

  Gelbion’s servant continued to push.

  “Father!” she said, and ran to the front of his chair. It stopped dead.

  Gelbion Kressind lifted his face to meet his daughter’s eyes. One side was slack with infirmity.

  “Daughter,” he said.

  She faltered. There was nothing but hatred in his expression.

  “I... I wanted see you. To say thank you for backing my motion. I am so pleased you have found it in your heart to think of the poor.”

  Gelbion looked away, his jaw working. He did not look back to her as he spoke, but whispered with controlled fury.

  “I care not a jot for the fate of the poor. They are poor because they are meant to be poor. If they had more intelligence, then they would be rich.”

  “Then why?” she said, confused.

  “I voted for your pathetic humanitarian folly to prevent this family’s name being dragged through the mud. You are a Kressind, I will not fuel the furnaces of gossip by publicly opposing you. Nor will I stir up trouble in my own workforce. You put me in a very difficult position, child. My workers look to you and make trouble. In my own circles, I am a laughing stock because of your antics. A woman, running a mill, whipping old Horras’ boy like a servant so he’ll do your bidding. Marrying him to get your hands on his wealth, like a common low rank goodmaid. You are disgusting. Your marriage was supposed to strengthen our family, not gift you some doll’s playset to make believe with.”

  “Father!” Katriona said. “It is a good match. And the Morthrocksey Mill makes more money now than it has for years. Demion and I are happy together. I admit, I saw an opportunity when he proposed the match and you approved.” She paused, the admission was hard to make. It made her seem so calculating, just like her father. “It is love that—”

  “Love!” scoffed Gelbion. He gave a sidelong look at his daughter. Perhaps there was a little respect in it. “Out-manoeuvred by a woman. I blame myself. I should never have educated you. I was too indulgent. Demion is weaker than I thought possible, and between us we have made a monster every bit as bad as the Hag of Mogawn. What you are doing is against the rightwise order of things. No doubt you indulge yourself in Prissian practises. You should go there, where women like you are wanted.”

  Katriona’s face hardened. “Do not accuse me of perversion. I am a good woman, and I am my father’s daughter. You taught me well. I am as capable of fury as you. You spurn me, very well, it makes me more determined. Things are changing, father. You should recognise it, before it is too late.”

  “Perhaps I could have forgiven your gender. Demion is a feeble excuse for a man, and for all the unnaturalness of it, you have shown that you can run a mill well, certainly better than Morthrock or any of your wastrel brothers might,” he grumbled. “I heard you have diversified into arms.”

  “We made some already,” said Katriona. “I decided we should concentrate on them. I have turned over much of our capacity to the manufacture of ironlocks.”

  Her father nodded, and for a fraction of a second he appeared to be close to approval. “Wise, in a time of uncertainty.” His reasonable expression vanished. “I will not bless your actions. Now I have done what I need to save this family’s reputation, I will not aid you through the Third House. When this goes before the prince, it will rightly fail.” Gelbion waved his good hand at his servant. “Simeon, take me home.”

  His servant pushed him hard, forcing Katriona out of the way.

  “Father!” she called after him. “You will see, one day! You will see. I am right!”

  “You will fail in the Third House,” Gelbion said. “Repent your ways, daughter, if you desire our affection.” Doormen held open the palace’s doors, and he was wheeled out.

  Katriona’s cheek was wet. She dabbed at it with her hand. Her glove came away dirtied with a mix of powder and tears. She was crying without realising.

  She touched her belly protectively. She hadn’t told him she was pregnant. She wasn’t sure she ever would.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  A Fortress Remembered

  THE TAIL END of Gannever came and went with barely a day of sunshine. Rain clung to Mogawn even when the mainland was bathed in light. Flat skies and seas suited Lucinia’s mood. She was not miserable, exactly, but her spirits were subdued. Her leg troubled her, and when she slept at night she relived the moment of the explosion more than once in her dreams. She could not abide the sight of raw meat, for it reminded her too much of the aftermath.

  She paid little attention to what went on in the outside world, leaving her broadsheets unread and letters unopened. The events of the last year had exhausted her, and she fell back into the simple rhythms of Mogawn gladly. They were a comfortable bed she had been kept out of for too long. The rising and falling of the castle to the pulse of the tides soothed her back toward health. Gradually her leg started to heal. Six weeks—thirty-six days—the physics in Karsa had told her it would take, but among the countess’s eclectic store of knowledge was a deal of medicine, and she knew it would not take so long. The healing magister in Perus had been among the best that nation had, and the magical marks he had stained her leg with speeded the knitting of the bone considerably. She reckoned it would not be long. She was confident in her prognosis; she always was in matters of rationalism, whatever the branch.

  By the beginning of Seventh her strength was returning The splints would have to stay on for most of the month, but the pain was less, and with a little application she could manage the stairs so could at least access her study and observatory where she tried, and mostly failed, to work.

  The dreams continued. A muzzy disconnect from reality refused to lift. The business of the castle went on without her input. She needed Mogawn, but it did not appear to need her. That made her sad in a way she found perfectly ridiculous, but could nevertheless not shake.

  The month finished with incessant drizzle. The motions of the sea were pushed out of their usual patterns by the nearing Twin. Seventh opened with a modest Great Tide that brought with it foul weather off the ocean. A blistering westerly blew in successive waves of belting rain so hard half the harvest on the coast would rot in the fields. Such was the trouble of cultivation in the rainy isles. A good percentage of her income depended on the farms of Mogawn-On-Land, but she could not motivate herself to find the industry of farming more interesting than she did. In part it was because her father had taken such pride in agriculture. Farming was a human problem, the grubby question of day-to-day survival. The improvement of dracon breeds and crop rotations were the province of dull yeomen scientists. She preferred the soaring, the ineffable. The divine, dare she say it.

  She was reading when the soldiers came. Her study was snug from the fire burning in the grate. It took a heroic effort for the fireplace to raise the temperature of the stones of Mogawn, but once heated, they stayed warm, and the damp of the castle was driven back for a while. Lucinia had toyed with installing more modern systems of heating, but there never seemed to be any time.

  Outside, the bad weather persisted. By rights it should have been warm still, with Seventh the last month of summer, but rain tapped at the window, announcing the possibility of an early autumn. She guiltily remembered her unfulfilled promise to visit the village as she stared at the water coursing down the glass, then promptly put all thoughts of the land from her mind.

  She sighed. She could not concentrate on the book, and set it face down on her outstretched leg. The top and
bottom of it was that she still had not been into the village as she had said she would to the railway porter, but had instead closeted herself away with her books.

  “When my leg is better,” she said to herself. She was uncharacteristically bad-tempered, she knew. The explosion had shaken her. Waking from nightmares of bodies blasted to pieces every day was exhausting. Terror gave way with the dawn to a more generalised sadness that doubled the effort of any task. People could carry a trauma like that through their lives, she knew. She had seen the psychological effect of battle and tragedy on others. She would be fine, she told herself. She just needed time.

  That is why you are not speaking to anyone, or bathing, she said to herself.

  “Traitor,” she hissed.

  With scowling care she lifted her injured leg off its footstool and hobbled from her couch to the shelves where she slotted the book back into its place.

  Titles danced before her eyes. Most of these books she had read, of course, but familiarity meant comfort. That was why she had come home. She squinted at them, but they would not be read.

  I need to get out of here, she thought. I will go mad.

  She pulled a tome out at random. It was written in Ferroki, a language she had difficulty with. Maybe the challenge would help her concentrate.

  “Why the hells am I so damned fretful?” she grumbled.

  She had just eased herself back into her chair and got her leg out at the least uncomfortable angle when a knock interrupted her.

  “What is it?” she bellowed.

  The door opened a crack. Light from the room illuminated a stripe of her housekeeper Astred’s face. “Begging your pardon, my goodlady, but there are men here.”

  “Men?” said Lucinia. “What men?”

  “Soldiers. So they say,” said Astred suspiciously. Most of Lucinia’s staff distrusted strangers. Island life bred that mentality.

  “How many?” said Lucinia uneasily.

  “Fifty or so.”

  Fifty men. In its day, Mogawn had been one of the greatest fortresses in Karsa, it still was, but without warriors to man it, a fortress was nothing. She quickly counted her staff in her head. She had twelve, mostly goodmaids, men past their prime and youths too young to leave for better work. Ardwynion was ancient and mostly blind, the younger Aldwyn was lazy, and his sons were still boys. Only Ardwynion’s sons—sired late in his life—were vigorous, and hadn’t the eldest gone away to the military academy in Stoncastrum last winter? She couldn’t remember. She hadn’t seen him for a while. There was Holless of course. Her coachman was young and loyal, but he was the only man in the prime of his life resident at Mogawn.

  Fifty men could kill them all.

  What the hells am I thinking? she thought. What foreign power could reach me at Mogawn?

  “It will be the government. A patrol, or an inspection or somesuch,” she said, waving her hand in annoyance. “Send them away.”

  “Begging your pardon, goodlady, but it ain’t no inspection or the like. I think they mean to stay.” Astred opened the door fully. Her doughy peasant’s face was creased with worry. “Holless only let the one in, well two. He says he’s their leader. A captain. He’s on a dracon!” she said, with a little flash of excitement.

  Lucinia set her book down. “If he is riding a dracon, then he is at least a soldier and not a bandit.” She shivered with sudden relief, not realising how seriously she had entertained the possibility of attack. She would never have reacted this way before. What was wrong with her? “What the hells do they want here?”

  She rose slowly, pushing her weight up from the chair with her arms to save her leg.

  “Shall I tell them you are coming down?” said Astred. “Ardwynion says he’s going for his gun.”

  “Tell the soldiers the mistress of the house is coming down, and tell that old fool Ardwynion to keep his gun locked away. He’ll only shoot himself in the foot, or get us all arrested. Or both.”

  “Yes, goodlady.” Astred executed one of her catastrophically bad curtsies, and bustled off.

  Lucinia considered changing her clothes. She was wearing a skirt, for once, for the ease it gave her in moving her broken leg, but it was dirty, and coupled with a labourer’s jerkin it was wholly unflattering.

  “Driven gods woman!” she scolded herself. “You’re supposed to send them packing, not screw them. Anyway,” she smiled wryly, a touch of her old manner returning to her. “Fifty is too many to bed.”

  She dragged a blanket on as a makeshift cloak to ward off the chill, and hobbled downstairs.

  ASTRED, HOLLESS, ARDWYNION’S younger son Barniby, and Aldwyn’s lad Bolth, the cook’s boy, were drawn up in the door of the great keep in an ineffectual battle line. The stairs were slippery in the rain, doubled back awkwardly on themselves, and had no railing, all minor details of Mogawn’s formidable defensive architecture, but the captain had ridden his dracon to their summit nonetheless, and stood dismounted holding its bridle. When the countess hobbled into the door he bowed. Barniby, who acted as kennel boy, regarded the reptile nervously, but the officer did not require him to take it.

  A fine army, Lucinia thought. She was touched by her servant’s protectiveness, though irritated by their suspicion toward the soldier, for he was very plainly what he claimed to be.

  The majority of the captain’s uniform was hidden beneath an oilskin poncho, but his sodden legs were visible. He had the knee high shiny boots favoured by a sauralier, coupled with the tight, yellow-piped black trousers of an infantryman. Rain streamed off his oilskins in miniature waterfalls. He was soaked. It was then that she realised she knew him.

  That was potentially embarrassing. They had met at the revel of Katriona Kressinda.

  The countess pulled her blanket closer about her. It was unseasonably cold, the Twin was wreaking havoc on the weather as much as the tides. Looking at the wet man made her feel colder.

  “What do you want?” she said imperiously.

  “I am Captain Qurion, of the Twenty-Second Foot,” he said. He affected to look proud. He was as handsome as she remembered, but the effect was spoiled by the water dripping from his moustaches.

  “Right,” said the countess. “We have met before, though I did not get your name the first time.”

  Qurion’s face betrayed nothing. “You are the countess of Mogawn, Lucinia Vertisa, that is correct?”

  So he wants to play it like that then, she thought. He was pretending not to recognise her. It increased her temper.

  “Yes, that is correct,” she said snappishly. “This is my castle. You are stood on my bloody threshold. I am the bloody countess. What do you want? You haven’t come all this way to propose to me, I take it.”

  Was that the hint of a blush? She thought.

  It was not. It was the dawn of realisation.

  “You’re not expecting us,” said Qurion “You didn’t know we were coming.”

  “No, I didn’t know you were coming. Why have you come? Please be quick. I am cold. I have recently been injured. I do not wish to add influenza to my catalogue of ailments.”

  “My commanding officer told me you had been written to. He said that it was all arranged.”

  “I have received no communication. Nothing has been arranged, and had I known about it, nothing would have been. We are all fine here, thank you very much. Now please go. There is an inn in the village. The tide will cover the causeway in less than half an hour. If you go this minute, you will not drown.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” said Qurion. He looked skyward. Large raindrops bounced off his face. Lucinia felt a little sorry for him, in spite of herself.

  “Bad weather for the harvest,” Qurion said. “Bad weather for anything. Can I come in to talk? I’m sopping wet. We are here for your safety.”

  “I think not,” she said, appalled at the brittleness in her voice.

  “Please,” he said. Some of his pride left him. “We have been marching through this rain since dawn. There is a big tide t
onight, you are right. We are stuck with each other, because I am not going anywhere. Do you think we might come into the castle, or shall I go outside your walls, and spend my remaining moments before I die of the cold writing to my superiors to tell them that the hospitality of Mogawn is not what it was in your father’s day?”

  The countess’s nostrils flared. Her father was twelve years dead. She still hated him. She hated all reference to him.

  “It is a frightful night. You must be gone before the leading wave comes.”

  “Goodlady Countess, the causeway is already covering over.”

  “Then you must swim.”

  Qurion clenched his jaw. “Fine, fine. Then I will explain here, where I am extremely uncomfortable. I had hoped to keep this pleasant, but seeing as you are poorly disposed to me and my men, I will have to do it this way.”

  Qurion tugged off his gloves, and reached inside his streaming poncho to draw out a leather message tube. Ardwynion, ridiculously, tensed before the tube was revealed. As if such an old man could wrestle a pistol from the captain’s grasp.

  “I’d read this inside,” Qurion continued, holding out the tube. “Or the ink will run. I can tell you what it says, if you like. This is an official missive from the Interior Ministry invoking Article 19 of the Defence of the Realm act, which, as I am sure you know, names Mogawn as a Fortress of Karsa. We are here to garrison the castle. I have my orders. I cannot leave.”

  The countess snorted. “That clause hasn’t been applied for a century.”

  “That is because we have not been at war for a century,” said Qurion.