The Iron Ship

by K. M. McKinley

  The donjon’s door was halfway up the side, narrow stairs leading to it with a tight turn at the top. A defensive feature turned huge inconvenience. The door banged wide, workmen emerged, laughing and joking. He heard the countess shouting in a friendly manner, one that quickened his pace. He entered in a cold fury, and faced the workmen down with an imperious stare. Their laughter choked off. They tugged their caps and cleared their throats.

  The reception hall of the donjon was crowded with large wooden crates, some open and spilling straw and packing rags onto the floor. As he feared, the countess was attempting to curry favour with the lower orders, swapping bawdy, workman’s wit with the last pair of stragglers, if wit was the appropriate word for such filthy badinage. It was imperative he got them away from her.

  He clapped his hands as he entered. “Your quarters are prepared, goodmen. You are to be entertained in our barracks. Our guards will see to you. We have provided a barrel of beer in thanks for your labours.”

  The men looked from Mansanio to the countess. She winked. “Listen to my servant, goodfellows!”

  Mansanio shuddered inwardly at the honorific’s misapplication.

  “I thank you for your efforts,” she continued speaking to the men. “I’ve waited so long for this machine, you have made me very happy. Enjoy your stay, but be warned you will not spend it in idleness. You will be trapped here with me until the tide recedes, late Martday morning. I may call on you tomorrow, for my equipment is complicated, and heavy. It may require a man’s touch,” she said, with outrageous innuendo.

  “Yes, yes!” said Mansanio letting his annoyance show. “Please, goodmen, to your quarters where all is waiting.”

  “Good night, my lady,” said the remaining two men. They all looked the same to Mansanio in their draymen’s work clothes, all equally dirty, all so terribly common. He supposed these two to be the underforemen. Gorwyn was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t like the way one of them was looking at the countess. “And thank you for the additional funds. Most appreciated.”

  They bowed and doffed their caps all the way to the door. Additional funds? How much extra she had given them? He glared at them as if he would push them out of the donjon hall with his stare.

  “If you had but waited two days, then we would not be suffering this minor inconvenience, my lady,” Mansanio said when they had gone.

  She looked at him in disbelief. “Wait for this? When I have waited for six months already?”

  “Two extra nights does not seem excessive when you put it in those terms, my lady.”

  She went back to her crates. “A minor inconvenience. Minor,” she said. “They’re glad of the extra pay. Why put them in the barracks? They’re not very comfortable. When was the last time anyone stayed there. Probably before Iapetus’s time.”

  “You know that is not true, my lady. Guests are often quartered there. There are many of the draymen. We would not wish them to ruin the linens of the hall. There is an issue of status here, and your finances, my lady, are not infinite...”

  “Unlike your patience, I suppose, eh, Mansanio? My finances are robust enough to withstand a little extra beer and ten silver thalers! Mansanio, I had to have it! Don’t look like that! If you’re worried about the money, get Holless to set up a shankey game. He’ll fleece them blind.”

  “We will not have the money still,” he pointed out.

  “No, but Holless will, and he spends most of it when he goes ashore in the Mogawn-by-Land’s taverns.”

  “Which are mainly owned by you. Of course, my lady.”

  “Oh, don’t be so... so... unctuous about it! You bloody Ellosantins think you are so full of charm and understanding. And attractive too, no doubt, with your dusky skin and big brown eyes. Well it won’t wash here in Karsa, do you hear? Oily, the lot of you. That’s what I think. Put them in the hall!”

  “As you have mentioned, my lady.” Mansanio bore her prejudices without complaint. No matter that her father was his countryman, and had brought Mansanio to the isles with him.

  “And you’re going grey, and you’re getting wrinkles. You’re losing some of your filthy foreign allure.”

  Mansanio’s even expression got a little stonier.

  “Oh do stop standing around like an extra poker by the fire. Come and give me some help, damn you. And don’t you pull a face at me! I’ll make sure you don’t get your precious hands too dirty.” She gave him a fierce smile. She loved to bate him. He, for the love of her, allowed her to do so. Only her.

  “And,” she said, as he reluctantly rolled his sleeves up, “I do wish you’d stop referring to Ardwynion and his sons as the ‘guard’. He’s half blind and the boys, sweet as they are, are only slightly more fearsome than you. And another thing. You never responded to my telling you to put them in the hall. I know you well, you old devil. If you don’t acknowledge my orders, you think it doesn’t count.”

  “My ears are not so young, my lady.”

  “Put them in the bloody hall!”

  “The barracks are the appropriate place for men of their station,” said Mansanio.

  “Really now? So you didn’t put them there to keep them away from me, or should I say, me away from them.” She had a most lubricious way of smiling that affected Mansanio in many conflicting ways.

  “There are standards, my lady.”

  “Are there? In our brave new world?” she waved a hand. Mansanio noted with dismay that it was filthy, and her fingernails bitten down to the quick. “Rot etiquette, rot standards I say. If I want a tumble with a dog handler than I’ll bloody well have one, do you hear? I don’t give a shit for what should be or should not be done!” Her ears were colouring at the tips. Provided the flush stayed off her face, he should be able to salvage the situation.

  “It is my duty to ensure standards are met, my lady, that is all.”

  She gave a crooked grin, her eyes blazing with malicious amusement. “You’re jealous, aren’t you? That’s it, isn’t it?”

  Mansanio was mortified.

  “Oh do stop being such the mother hen, Mansanio. I am teasing you. How many years have I been doing that? Twenty? Ever since I could talk. And still you get flustered. You really are quite inflexible. I scandalise you, but I can assure you that I am not yet in the habit of screwing the lower orders. It looks to me like you are starting to believe the rumours.” She chuckled at that, but Mansanio could see the hurt. And she did not know the half of what was said about her. Nothing riled him more than when he heard her referred to by her nickname; nothing upset her more either, he was sure, although she went to great lengths to pretend she did not care. More, she went to great lengths to provoke it, so she could publicly display her lack of concern.

  They called her the Hag of Mogawn. It was ludicrously unfair. Countess Lucinia was no Maceriyan ideal of beauty. She was, if he were entirely honest, plain, a state she did little to alleviate by the manner of her dress and behaviour. A heavy nose, weak chin, a brow that could kindly be described as strong but might better be said to be furious. She looked far too much like her father and not enough like any one of her female relatives. She was unkempt, dirty in habit and mind, foul-mouthed, libidinous. She smoked, and was prone to drink, but she was brilliant, truly, truly brilliant. What man could not love a mind like hers? That she remained alone pained him as much as if she had taken a husband. Mansanio could never rid himself of the hope that one day she might reciprocate his feelings.

  She did not know how close she had come to the truth. Mansanio was jealous, and he was also guilty. In attempting to shield her from the rumours, he’d become to half believe them himself.

  He was just as adept at hiding his feelings as she was, however.

  “Gorwyn is a noble, of the Gorwyn family. Don’t look so bloody surprised man! Times change. Some of us are having to work,” she stressed the last word gleefully, with a wicked expression. “What does that do to your notions of status? By your own rules you should put him in the hall.”

  �
��The barracks—”

  “Put him in the fucking hall, Mansanio!”

  “As you wish.” He looked at the crates dubiously. “What do I do to help?”

  She looked at him in disbelief. “Get a crowbar, you outland fool! Then use it to prise the lids off! You do know how to use a crowbar, don’t you?”

  “Yes, mistress. Of course.”

  “Then get to it!”

  He retrieved the tool. With delicate disinclination he fumbled at the first lid. The countess rebuked him and he tried harder. He was no stranger to manual work, no matter how hard he feigned incompetence. She always saw right through him, except in that one important regard.

  “Come and look at this, Mansanio,” she said.

  He walked over to her as if it troubled him to be drawn from his work opening boxes, although that could not be further from the truth.

  Standing by the countess was something Mansanio relished. Her body gave off a quick and lively heat more nourishing to him than the sun of his homeland. He relished the smell of her. She had a vigorous scent, and tonight the air buzzed around her intoxicatingly.

  It was his privilege to be allowed so close. He forced his attention from her to the object she was uncovering in the box. The upper third of a sphere made of blacked bronze poked out of the straw. The Twin. Threaded holes waited for bolts to attach a curved rule about its vertical circumference. At about a yard and a half in diameter, it was huge. An incomplete topography was graven into its surface, her supposed map of the second world. Those lines had bought the countess much derision from those she desired as peers. Mansanio’s heart sank to see them so brazenly displayed.

  “You see this?” she said eagerly. “This is the Twin. Other planetary bodies await in the boxes. Once this is assembled...” She looked up into the rafters. She smiled. “We’ll see then, won’t we? We’ll show them, you and I.”

  “Goodlady, you should take your dinner.”

  “Hmmm? Yes, yes. You are quite right.”

  “Goodlady.” Mansanio stood, waiting to accompany her to the dining room.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Goodlady?”

  “Bring it to me here! Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  Mansanio suppressed a sigh. “I will see to it immediately.”

  “Don’t be like that.” Most of her attention was on the boxes. All trace of her anger had gone. She patted Mansanio on the arm. “You are too good to me, Mansanio. A more loyal servant a lady never had. I’m sorry I tease you, it is but in jest.”

  “Of course, goodlady,” he said. He left for the kitchen, his skin tingling where she had touched him.

  The feeling of happiness quite deserted him when he returned from the kitchens bearing his mistress’s dinner. Light blazed from the hall. Laughter echoed from the open windows. The countess had called the men back to help her unpack her precious equipment already.

  His frown deepened at the sight of Bolth, the cook’s lad, carrying a crate clinking with bottles up the steps to the donjon door.

  It was going to be a long night.

  DAWN WAS APPROACHING. The Twin was setting, the White Moon followed slowly, the Red Moon had already gone.

  The countess was in her observatory. The turret provided only a modest platform for the her equipment. Her telescope and its turntable occupied the most of it, and so the circular walkway around the outer edge was crowded with every other bit of astronomical and astrological paraphernalia that would not fit in the middle (Mansanio could never remember the difference). But with the folding glass doors all around the wooden walls open and the dome cracked wide, the universe was let in, filling the room with endless space. The sea was dark in all directions, the sky blazed with stars. On the horizon, the lights of Karsa City made a poor attempt to outshine them. The chill of early autumn filled the room. Mansanio busied himself tending to the room’s three braziers while the countess disgraced herself, smoking her pipe while entertaining the chief of the draymen. Both were slightly drunk. Learning that Gorwyn actually was lesser nobility did nothing to warm the seneschal to the man.

  “I do not think your guardian likes me much,” said Gorwyn. He lounged on the countess’s couch as if he were the master of the place. Mansanio pretended not to hear the man’s comment, as a good servant should not.

  “Him?” said the countess. “Ha! Old Mother Hen. He is a relic of my past, a man out of my father’s country. I am cruel to him sometimes, but he is honest as the day is long and his devotion is as deep as the seas. You will not say anything against him, do you hear...?” she stuck her head forward questioningly, searching for a name.

  “Tuom, madam. I am sorry, I do not mean to slander your servant.”

  “Sorry, sorry. I am terrible for names,” she waved a hand. “Too much other nonsense in here,” she tapped her skull. “But I can’t be calling you Master Gorwyn all night. The time is past for that.” The countess removed the long stem of her pipe from her mouth. Clouds of blue smoke spilled out with her laughter. “What you said about my servant was no slander, sir, for he does not like you. You don’t like him do you, Mansanio?”

  “As you say, countess,” muttered the seneschal.

  “He doesn’t think I should be having strange men up in my den,” she said. Her eyes twinkled suggestively. “If you weren’t the son of Houter Gorwyn, he’d have you defenestrated.”

  Tuom smirked. “Then I thank my father for being who he is.”

  “He also does not think the likes of you or I should demean ourselves with physical labour, or by concerning ourselves with anything but lording it over those born lower than we.”

  “He is welcome to his opinion, but he would be wrong. My father was quite insistent that I acquaint myself with our family’s interests.”

  “That a family such as yours should have any trade at all is quite scandalous, as far as Mansanio sees it.”

  “Father believes the old families will survive only by following the new money’s lead. They are not afraid to engage with the meaner things in life. Already, the richest among the new families are richer by far than the old lords. Land is no longer enough, countess. Industry is the key to wealth. Father says that our kind face a rapid decline into penury if we are not wise to it. I am sad to say I believe him. And so, here I am, third heir to a barony and a master of drays!”

  They laughed.

  “Well said!” she said. “This is an exciting era, Tuom.”

  “For some, perhaps. I would have preferred things the way they used to be,” said Gorwyn. “But I’d rather be a rich drudge than an impoverished lord. As my father says, the aristocracy has had to change before, so we can change again. The world is not static, whatever the appearance of it. Those who think so forget our warlord forebears who bludgeoned their way to riches. It is fortunate our dilemma is less bloody.”

  “But I disagree!” said the countess. “If only this change were more like those in the past. From warrior to indolent landlord. I rather feel it is going the other way this time around.”

  “Then you are more sanguine in nature than I. I prefer the dogs to the dracon.”

  “They say that once my ancestors were pirates, wandering where they would upon the seas, until one of them fell in love with a kelpie girl and set down iron chains to snare her, blah blah blah. This, of course, is nonsense. What is true is that they were clever enough to get themselves granted the rights to the floatstone islands that once shoaled hereabouts. Carving them up made them, and by extension me, rich. We were new money once, so long ago that people forget. My ancestors did not disdain industry, nor will I.”

  “What is it that you do here now, countess?”

  “Lucinella, please,” she said. Mansanio’s spine stiffened to hear her offering the familiar form of her name up like a penny.

  “Lucinella.” The man tried the name. Emboldened, he stood and went over to the countess. Mansanio risked directly watching. The man was ten years younger than his mistress. He had the look in his eyes;
another young buck who would soon be bragging he was bold enough to have bedded the Hag of Mogawn. Mansanio’s hands shook with anger.

  “I am engaged on a quest for knowledge, and am rich enough to indulge my whim. Come here, look at this.”

  “More stargazing, Lucinella?”

  “Oh now, I have saved the best for last.” She put her drink and pipe down and walked to a set of wheels on iron stalks. She worked the handles of the crank to her telescope. “The entire structure is mounted on a turntable, masterfully geared. Clever fellow from Corrend. All mechanical, no assistance from glimmer machines. I spin a wheel here, and so! The centre of the room and the dome rotate around the periphery, which is fixed. That includes Mansanio there.”

  Tuom grinned, pacing to keep himself level with the countess. She giggled.

  “One would almost think that you had been within such an observatory before, Goodfellow Tuom.”

  “Oh no, this is my first time.” He said this with such licentious innuendo Mansanio’s blood boiled.

  “Is it now?” she said. She stopped the turning, glanced behind her to make sure the slot was lined up with the setting Twin, and hopped back onto the turntable. She declined the angle of the telescope, pressed her eye to the eyepiece, then beckoned to Tuom. He replaced her at the sight.

  “What do you see?”

  “Blackness. It’s the Twin. It is, as they say, the kingdom of shadow.”

  They both sniggered, sharing the mirth of drunkards. Mansanio felt deliberately slighted.

  “It is and it is not, Goodfellow Tuom. Look longer.”

  She rested a hand on his back. He accepted it. Mansanio seethed.