The Brass God

by K. M. McKinley

  “Are you speaking of the events in Perus? There is no threat there. I have recently returned from the city.”

  Qurion looked thoroughly put out. “It is not Maceriya you should be concerned with, goodlady. Some weeks ago, the Ambassador of the Drowned King delivered a notice to Garten Kressind of the Admiralty stating that the Drowned King is considering retaliatory action against the Isles of Karsa for the trespass of the vessel, the Prince Alfra into his territory. The Prince naturally rejected the Drowned King’s complaint. I don’t think that will make the Drowned King very happy. Seeing as Mogawn was among our primary defences against the drowned in centuries past, my superiors expect that any action against the kingdom will begin here.” He regarded her. There was a shine in his eye. He recognised her. He was asking her to play along. She rather liked that, she had to admit. “Looking at the vast forces arrayed before me, I can see that you have things under control. If you prefer, we can go home when the tide is amenable.”

  “We are at war with the Drowned King?”

  Qurion shrugged. “It may come to that, goodlady.”

  “But this happened weeks ago?”

  “While you were in Perus.”

  “You took your bloody time then.”

  “I am not party to diplomacy, goodlady. I have been told to anticipate the possibility of retaliatory action, that is all. A raid, perhaps. I doubt we will see a full blown war. Maybe nothing will happen.”

  “We better hope it does not!” she exclaimed. “The Interior Ministry sends me fifty men against a horde of the undead? You are partway between an infuriating inconvenience and a token gesture.”

  “Fifty men is what I have, and it’s more than enough to defend this place. I’ve not seen it before, but I’ve studied the plan; formidable is the word I’d use. In fact, I’ve always wanted to see it. It takes fewer men to hold a castle than you’d think. With the cannon I’ve been provided, it will be accomplished.”

  “Mogawn is less formidable than it was.”

  “We shall see about that,” he said. “Or perhaps we will be lucky enough not to.” He shivered. “There are further stipulations in the decree commanding you and you servants off the isle until it is safe, but I suppose you won’t pay any attention to them, so I won’t bother informing you. We’ll just take it as read you won’t go.”

  “You’re damn right. I am not leaving my home. I don’t care who’s coming.”

  “Then let us meet on the middle ground, and get me in out of this rain. I am now very cold. Where shall I billet my men?”

  “Hmmm,” said Lucinia. The drumming rain and inconstant gurgle of malfunctioning downpipes took the place of conversation.

  “We could put them in the barracks,” said Holless finally. His expression and tone suggested he didn’t want to say that, and that he wanted the soldiers gone, but nobody was moving and it was getting late.

  Lucinia rolled her eyes and groaned theatrically. “Why does everyone want to put all our visitors into the barracks?”

  “So you agree we can stay?” said Qurion.

  “The damned barracks is full of holes.” She pulled a face. She’d given in. “Stick them in the great hall.”

  Qurion smiled. “Goodlady, we are soldiers. Soldiers belong in barracks, not halls. I take it your barracks have their own cookhouse, stables and latrines?”

  “Of course they do, or they did... Captain, the barracks have not been used seriously for the better part of eighty years. They are in a dire state. Part of the roof has collapsed. The rest of it is leaky as a sieve. The stoves are rusted through, the latrines filled in and it is full of junk. I doubt your men will like it.”

  “Is it drier than where I am now?”

  “Naturally,” said Ardwynion unpleasantly.

  “Then I will take it and I will like it,” said Qurion. “We shall withdraw there. I shall consider it a personal honour if you allow us the favour of repairing them for you. I find an idle soldier is a troublesome soldier, and nothing motivates him more to good, honest toil than his own comfort.”

  “Captain...” began the countess.

  “It will keep them out of trouble.” He winked at her. He actually winked.

  “Very well. The barracks. Holless, open the gates. Let the rest in. Rouse the cook. Have him prepare a stew or something.”

  “We’re all out of meat,” grumbled Ardwynion. “Market’s not for two days.”

  “Then fish, gods-damn it man, fish! We live in the blasted ocean, don’t we?”

  “Fish,” sneered Ardwynion, as if it were a terrible curse. Ardwynion went off on his errand, muttering to himself about the pains in his joints and the impositions of duty.

  Qurion tipped his sopping hat and clambered back onto his dracon. The beast rattled miserably. Its coat of feathers was so wet they were plastered to its skin, and it was consequently sluggish in the cold. Qurion was obliged to employ his spurs to get it moving back down the steps. Once in motion it strutted across the bailey, its clawed feet splashing in puddles in the uneven cobbling.

  Holless and Aldwyn swung open the gates at his approach. The lesser bailey within the gatehouse was cluttered with rubbish. The salty atmosphere had stripped the paint off the inner gates and the bottom-most planks were rotted through. The outer gates, which her retainers hurried to swing open, were in even poorer repair. Only now they might be required to hold an enemy did she notice their parlous state. Her gaze wandered over the castle, to the semi-derelict great southern tower, the barracks with its slumped roof, the lesser towers weakened by the addition of windows. Iron fittings eroded by the sea air spread the majority of their mass down walls as long orange stains. Bronze and brass were bright green with verdigris. The great hall, kennels and the kitchen block were in more tolerable condition, but barely. The whole castle was rundown, little better than a seed-peck baron’s provincial domicile.

  She blinked and frowned, as if the arrival of actual soldiers into the castle forced her to see all of this for the first time. Her home was a mess. Mogawn, once reckoned the third greatest fortress in the western Kingdoms. What armies could not reduce, neglect had.

  She was embarrassed by that.

  Qurion’s men entered Mogawn to the squelch of soaking boots. There was a mix of artillerymen and infantry, with a small accompanying staff of officers. Water streamed off the oilcloth-wrapped weapons slung over their shoulders. The wheels of gun carriages and tenders caught in the mud. The paired dogs that pulled them were soaked. The best any of the men, dogs or dracons could manage was stoic acceptance of the rain. In the main they were weighed down with the misery of the truly sodden.

  Thick blue smoke curled out of the barrack’s chimney, its exhaust added to by the burning of eighty years of birds’ nests, cobwebs and dust that had accumulated inside. At least it worked, there was that.

  She could think of no more positives. Cheeks aflame, she turned her back as her kennel boy nervously helped Qurion and his three subordinate officers take their mounts inside.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Lessons in Astronomy

  THE COUNTESS CAME awake in the close dark of her curtained bed. She half sat, not daring to breathe, fearing an explosion that did not come.

  The banging of hammers broke her fear.

  The tide had come in, lifting Mogawn free of the mud flats. The gentle rocking of the floatstone isle was not to the dracons’ liking, and they shrieked from the kennel block with every shift in the swell. The hammering started up again, drowning out the reptiles’ complaints, and the stop-start sawing of wood joined the racket. She heard men shouting.

  The soldiers.

  She pushed aside the bed curtains and picked her way through the detritus cluttering the floor of the bedchamber. Only her books, her laboratory, her observatory, her wardrobe and her love life were properly organised, and the last only haphazardly so. As she kicked a boot out of the way with her good foot, she resolved there and then to do something about the state of her castle. Mogawn wo
uld be tidied, whether it liked it or not.

  She limped to the window, and screwed up her eyes in anticipation of opening the curtains. A moment of painful blindness followed their withdrawing. She blinked against a bright grey sky of that headachy intensity found only in the isles. She regretted the flask of wine she’d drunk before bed. The masked sun seemed intent on flattening her brain against the back of her skull. It was a small mercy that it was no longer raining.

  Down in her muddy courtyard men went to and fro, carrying long planks of raw yellow wood. Qurion stood at a table made of an old door and a pair of sawhorses, consulting plans with a man in the garb of a military engineer.

  “Hmph,” she said, blowing a stray lock of hair out of her face. “They brought timber. They expected to do work here.” She was freezing in spite of her long woollen nightgown.

  “Astred!” she called. “Astred! Get me a fire going in here!”

  LUCINIA EMERGED INTO the courtyard shortly after, washed and better dressed than the day before. Annoying though the intrusion of the soldiers was, it had shaken her out of her melancholy. The thought of new people to bait put a spring into her step. She had Astred dig out one of her finer outfits. It was last year’s, but the mannish styling was still shocking to the average Karsan. The left leg had be cut off the trousers, but in a way her naked, splinted leg only increased the outfit’s potential for offence.

  “Good morning captain!” she called cheerily.

  Qurion looked up from his work and raised his eyebrows at her clothes.

  “Good morning, goodlady. I am relieved to report a cessation in the rain.”

  “Your work may proceed more quickly. Lucky you.” She looked over at the barracks. The tiles had been removed and neatly stacked, exposing the rafters. The soldiers, though tired, were nevertheless enthusiastically pulling out rotten timbers in preparation for replacement.

  “And here was me thinking your offer to repair my barracks was made from the goodness of your heart, captain.”

  She looked pointedly at the fresh timber and the engineer. The engineer grinned. Qurion gave him a sharp look, and he stepped back.

  “I’m afraid it’s more than the barracks, my lady,” he said. “Perhaps I might come within your keep, where we may discuss this like people of good manners?”

  “Why are you always trying to get yourself into my keep, captain?” she said, cocking an eyebrow.

  “Your reputation for innuendo is well earned.”

  “I assure you that is the first saucy thing I have said in weeks. I’ve not been feeling myself. The arrival of fifty fine young men can wake a lady’s appetite.”

  He laughed.

  “You have a soldier’s sense of humour,” he said.

  “That’s not all I have in common with soldiers. Come on then, come into the keep. We shall discuss your plans while I have breakfast.”

  “Breakfast? It is nearly noon,” he said, coming out from behind the trestle.

  “If you tell me I have missed the best part of the day, I shall shoot you. I prefer the hours of the night. The morning is a blasted inconvenience.”

  “I had no intention, goodlady.”

  “Very kind. You may have an early lunch, I shall have my breakfast.”

  THE COUNTESS HAD the table in the keep’s hall set for two. She took responsibility for moving the mass of papers heaped on it, but restricted her other preparations to barked commands at Astred, the maid Hovernia and Bolth as they brought in food. Dried fish, bread warm from the morning’s second round of baking, small beer and pickled seaweeds plucked from the underside of the island at low tide appeared on the table with varying amounts of efficiency. Hovernia was particularly clumsy, being flustered by Qurion.

  “Hovernia! Stop gawping at him!” the countess snapped. “I realise that now he is uncovered and dry he is a comely man, but please remember yourself.”

  Astred smacked the younger maid around the head. Hovernia went a deep crimson, practically dropped the last wooden bowl on the table and made a hasty retreat.

  The countess and the captain sat opposite each other under the orrery. Its engine was disengaged, and the globes were still. She looked at him carefully. He was as good looking as she remembered.

  “Do you always have that effect on women?” she asked. She picked up a mug and poured herself some beer, then filled another and handed it to Qurion.

  “Not always,” he said, accepting the drink.

  “You do remember me don’t you?”

  Qurion grinned widely, an expression that transformed him from stern captain to cheeky boy. “Of course I do. It was a fine revel, and we had a fine time at it, as I recall. I apologise if you were offended yesterday that I offered no recognition, but I do not think it appropriate to allude to my nocturnal adventures directly in front of my men.”

  “The sanctity of the revel must be honoured,” said the countess with mock solemnity.

  “Quite,” said Qurion.

  “So have you come here solely for the warfare, or are you pursuing me?”

  “I would not be so forward as to do that,” said Qurion. “I was not lying when I said I have always wanted to see Mogawn, and the few words we exchanged spoke of a certain rapport. I volunteered.”

  “You could have written to me, I am glad of the occasional guest.”

  ‘Well, I am here now,” he said.

  The countess smiled and bit into a pickle with a loud crunch. “Please,” she said, “eat.”

  Qurion helped himself to some fish.

  A fire flickered inconsequentially in its grate, failing to raise the temperature. She shivered.

  “Two cold summers on the run. It’s a couple of degrees from being able to see your bloody breath on the air,” said Lucinia.

  “Perhaps we can help with that,” said Qurion. “We knew that Mogawn required a certain amount of preparation to make it secure, although not exactly how much. We can clear the chimneys and effect general repairs besides improving the fortifications. It will be only a little extra work.”

  “The place is a mess,” she said. “I have let it go to ruin while I concentrate on my science. Your arrival has made me painfully aware of it.”

  Qurion smiled apologetically. “We have enough lumber, and enough hands. Engineer Koby is a good man, very talented. We are to improve the defences and see to our own accommodation, but if there is anything else we can do, we shall, and I mean that without any condition.”

  “Koby? Is he the one that looks like he is twelve years old?”

  “Yes,” said Qurion. “I find that happens as one gets older. Everyone is suddenly younger than you are.”

  She snorted. “You can’t be over thirty.”

  “Thirty-two,” he said.

  “Try nearing forty,” she said. “That feels like age, even though I know many people who are older, I do not look forward to living through the years they have. This is the top of the mountain my lad, only downhill from here.”

  “I understand you are thirty-six.”

  “My, your intelligence is good, but not perfect. Thirty-seven,” she said. “A month ago.”

  “Then a belated happy birthday.”

  Qurion looked up at the orrery hanging over them.

  “This is your science? They talk a lot about your discoveries in the city nowadays. I must admit, I was interested in meeting you as well as seeing Mogawn.”

  “The reputation of my mind will never outmatch that which my body has brought me. Not that I care.”

  “Is that really true?” he said. “I know goodfellows and goodladies who would either die from shame or shine with pride to be so gossiped about as you are, but rarely would they not care.”

  “Captain, you are forward, despite that you protest you are not.” She finished her pickle. “The answer is yes and no. I do and I don’t care. I suppose I must care less than I might. If I really cared, I’d probably make more of an effort to keep my underwear on. But then sex is so much fun.” She stared at him
as she said this, awaiting one of the usual array of reactions: embarrassment, lust, a polite ignoring of what she said, nervous laughter, or all of them.

  Qurion merely nodded in agreement. “I enjoyed myself the time we last met.” He put down his beer and poured himself a cup of Ocerzerkiyan tea. “What you say is too true. Why is something so pleasurable so frowned upon? I myself have courted trouble in that department.” He picked up his cup and sipped. He pulled a face.

  “Sorry, the tea is awful. That is why I gave you the beer,” she said. “I was absent for several weeks in Perus. My staff have not replenished my stores since then, though I did send word. I have a large shipment of reasonable food coming.”

  “They seem a...” he thought carefully. “A likeable crew.”

  “Likeable, but largely useless.”

  “I do not understand why women must deny their passions. Your science, your loves,” he said. “You are commendable for following them.”

  She picked up another pickle and pointed it at him. “Now I know you want to take advantage of me.”

  “I mean it sincerely. You have more admirers than you know.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “I was quite the darling of the Perusian fashionistas, though I doubt one of their empty heads could comprehend what I do here. They liked my clothes. Once, that would have been enough for me. Now I need more.”

  “There are many in Karsa that do understand your mind, and that admire you for it.”

  “The times are changing,” she said ironically.

  “I know for a fact that Katriona Kressinda-Morthrocksa praises you highly.”

  “Ah, the Kressinds. I assume you know them, seeing as you were at the wedding?”

  He nodded. “I know some of them. I attended the same school as a couple of the sons. I got to know the sister through them.”

  “How well?”

  “Not as well as you are implying, although I was good friends with her late husband, Arvane. I was there when he died, in fact.” He said no more, though she waited.

  “It is a small island. You are of the nobility?”