The Iron Ship

by K. M. McKinley

  A letter from Rel had distracted him from his work, and he was sat close by the fire rereading it when the knock came at the door. Tyn started on his shoulder and dug under his collar, his tiny hands causing Guis to shrug irritably.

  “Don’t do that!” he snapped. “It tickles.”

  “Master grumpy,” said Tyn in his reed-thin voice. “Master drunk too much last night.”

  The door shook on its frame. “Oi! Guis! You’re in there! I can hear you!”

  Guis looked at the door. “Qurion,” he muttered. “It’s open!” he called. “Let yourself in.”

  The door flew open, and Qurion strode into the room. He was tall, black haired, his yellow uniform immaculate, his moustache fastidiously waxed. He had a confidence in his bearing so great it threatened always to topple into the comic, but somehow managed to remain magnetic.

  “I’m in town, as you can see, and you’re coming out for a drink.” Qurion pointed a white-gloved finger at Guis and smiled.

  Guis turned back to his letter. “I can’t. I’ve got a letter to write and then I’ve got to get the stage directions finished on this for tomorrow.” He waved his pen at an untidily piled manuscript. “I’m going back to Stoncastrum in two days. I’m on the dull bit. Done the words, got to do the actually having people saying them part. I hate it. Now’s not a good time.”

  “Don’t give me all your writerly bollocks about the pain, the art!” said Qurion, slapping the back of his hand on his forehead and casting his head back. “You’ll be saying you’ve got a touch of the vapours next.”

  “Actually, it’s going very well,” said Guis. “I have no problem writing, so long as I am left alone to concentrate on it.”

  “Soft belly, you. Should have been a soldier, that would have sorted you out.” He sniffed. “It’s warm in here.” He whirled his coat from his shoulders and cast it onto the bed. He dislodged a pile of papers and plopped himself into a chair.

  “You should have been here last winter, no money for coal then.”

  “This year, your fire is high. It’s going well,” said Qurion.

  “Yes!” snapped Guis, his irritation turning to laughter. “Yes, yes it’s going really well. Would you believe, people came to watch my play?”

  “Who’d have thought it? I’m glad for you. Going well, and you’re off for gods know how long in two days. And I’m not often back, correct?” Qurion counted the points off on his fingers.

  “That’s correct.”

  “That’s three very good reasons for coming out, set against one very dull reason for staying in. You’re not winning this argument, you know that, right?”

  “Qurion, Qurion!” Guis set Rel’s letter down carefully, so as not to lose it in the mess of papers in his room. “I’m not coming out for a drink.”

  “Oh yes you are.” Qurion leapt to his feet, grabbed him under the armpit and half dragged him from his seat. “You need to get laid, my friend. Stop you being such a miserable arse.”

  Guis protested. As much as he loved his friend, he hated it when he used his greater strength. Qurion did not desist.

  “I’m not coming out,” said Guis.

  Qurion set Guis on his feet and dusted his coat off, frowning at a stain. He plucked a piece of lint from the lapel and gave him a quick, white-toothed smile. That smile usually had some otherwise respectable woman’s skirts up around her waist before it had left Qurion’s face.

  “Yes you are.”

  “Tyn?” said Guis.

  “Master?”

  “You’re going to have to go into your box.”

  “Master is cruel!” the Tyn poked its head out from under Guis’ hair. “Tyn does so much for you, and now you say, into the box!”

  “Where he’s taking us, it’s not safe for you.”

  “How do you know where we’re going?” said Qurion.

  “The kind of places you ordinarily bring me to, my friend, are not safe for Tyn.”

  “Shame! Shame! You are ashamed!” wailed Tyn.

  “I am not, but I also do not wish to cause a riot. You have to go in your box.”

  “Pfft!” went Tyn, but clambered onto Guis’s upheld hand just the same. Guis delicately undid the chain that linked them, and carried Tyn over to a small, ornately carved box. The creature clambered in, and Guis locked the door. Qurion watched, fascinated.

  “You could just leave it behind. Bloody great burden if you ask me, I don’t know why you just don’t get rid of it.”

  Guis smiled sadly. “I can’t.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “It’s complicated. You know.”

  They stared at each other. Qurion forced a smile. “All right then, bring your monkey. Let’s get out of here.”

  FORTY MINUTES LATER Guis was in a noisy salon drinking shit ale and worse Svavincan snapsa. His face glowed uncomfortably with the booze and the heat. The noise in there was so great he had to bellow to his companions. Companions, he ruefully noted, that did not currently include Qurion.

  “What I don’t understand about that man, is that he makes such a massive fucking fuss about dragging me out here for a drink, then promptly dumps me for some floozy. It happens every bloody time. Every time!”

  “Charming, we not good enough for you?” said Hermanius. He arched an exquisitely plucked eyebrow and stared into his wine as if he expected it to give him an apology.

  “You know what he’s like, Guis!” said Bannord. Bearded and belligerent, a lump of a man, mostly muscle and heart. As made for good cheer as for war. “Led around by his cock that one. It’s not his fault he’s good looking is it?” He leaned in close. “Or that he discovered the secret.”

  “Oh?” said Hermanius. “Do tell?”

  Bannord lowered his voice, “He found out that girls like fucking just as much as we do!” He bellowed with laughter. “He’s so bloody persistent they just give in to him, because we’re all so pissing busy writing poems and glowering.” He looked knowingly at Guis over his beer. “Some of us are, anyway.”

  “I find many paramours, but they are all of high quality,” said Guis drily. “I’m more careful in my selection than you are. I’ll have you know I fence well above my grade.”

  “According to Qurion,” said Hermanius.

  “Patronising bastard,” said Bannord. “So, we going to get ourselves some action or sit around here?”

  “I came out for a drink,” said Guis.

  “Don’t go all fucking mopey on us, you bastard.”

  “No, he’s right,” said Hermanius. He tossed his watch into the air, letting the chain snap taut, and catching it. Like Trassan, he was one of the first to own the new devices. Unlike Trassan, he had no practical need for it.

  “I’m in no mood for chasing skirt.”

  “Now, are you ever my friend?” said Bannord. “I wonder about you sometimes.”

  Hermanius raised an eyebrow. “Do you now? Whether I am or I am not in the mood for chasing skirt, I have no choice in the matter. I am helpless. And tonight, I am not in the mood.”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” groaned Bannord. “Not the free will shit again! I’ve had it with all that. I just want to get pissed. You want to get a proper job, soldiering’d be good for you.”

  “Qurion said the same to me tonight,” said Guis. “Soldiers are so eager to get us all killed along with them.”

  Hermanius smiled, as tight and humourless a smile as that of a tax collector.

  “Bannord doesn’t think such things are important, Guis, I do.”

  “So do I,” said Guis. He took a nip of the snapsa and pulled a face. “Either everything is random, so our decisions mean nothing to the progression of events,” he said. “So we have no free will, or...”

  Hermanius finished off the sentence. “... everything is predetermined by natural law, and we have no free will.”

  “He’s a fucking philosopher!” said Bannord sarcastically.

  “Just a philosopher tonight,” said Hermanius. “Are you sure yo
u don’t want to be bothering barmaids? Let the adults talk, lieutenant.”

  “No, I want to say goodbye to my friend. I’ve been fucking constantly since I got back, and to be honest my cock is a bit sore.” He slammed his beer down hard, making their drinks jump. “Woman! Woman!” he hollered in the general direction of the bar. “More beer! Besides,” he said to his friends, “I’ve four more days of freedom left, so I can afford to take some time out. Unlike Qurion, I intend to spend some time with my friends.”

  “It is very nice to be so well regarded,” said Guis.

  Bannord snatched up Guis’s beer in salute, then drained the tankard. “I’m glad you think so.”

  “So you’ve been listening to Lord Delieffarn,” said Hermanius to Guis.

  “I’ve read some of his work. If one is going to write plays, one has to have something to write about. You’re going to get me another one of those, right Bannord?” said Guis, tapping his tankard.

  “Get it yourself. I’m going for a piss.” Bannord winked, and barged his way out through the press.

  “But what about random events, navigated by those possessing free will?” continued Guis. “Surely that gives us some amount of self-deterministic capability. Magic, for example is the imposition of will on the material reality.”

  “You’re quoting Unthien. You should have gone to the college,” said Hermanius.

  “I am quoting Unthien, and no I shouldn’t.”

  “The issue with that proposition is that any purported random events are collapsed into a predictable pattern by free will, especially gross acts of magic. One man’s exertion of will ripples out, affecting many others, becoming deterministic in itself. So you see, dear Guis, either way, we’re merely riding the carriage, and have no way of directing the dogs drawing it where we would. We only think we do.”

  “That’s a cheery thought,” said Guis. He had, of course, ruminated much on this topic himself. Were his own nightmarish visions and feelings his doing, or was he free of responsibility for them? In effect, he supposed it did not matter. What mattered was that he felt the feelings, and thought the thoughts. Dealing practically with them was all that mattered, and on the practical level, alcohol freed his mind from the tyranny of himself. He came close then, very close, to revealing his troubles to Hermanius, a confession he’d mulled over many times but had never dared to utter.

  Bannord drunkenly grabbed the pair of them.

  “I say fuck fate, the same way that old Res Iapetus told the gods to go and fuck themselves, entirely fucking freely, I say we drink!” He scooped a number of large jugs and tankards from the tray of a servingman trailing him and plonked them on the table.

  The moment passed, the glimpse of freedom Guis had from his condition receded. He gripped the handle of Tyn’s case hard under the table. Inside, the creature shifted.

  Conversation dwindled, leaving him caught in the dark vortex of his own anxiety. The pause was a sucking void he could not abide.

  “I’ve been invited to stay with Countess Lucinia of Mogawn,” he blurted.

  “What? What? You’ve been invited to stay with the hag?” said Bannord. “Now there’s a woman who likes fucking. You go to her, not only will you get fucked, you’ll be fucked. You know what they say about her?”

  “Do you really believe all the shit they say in your barracks, Bannord?” said Hermanius, rolling his eyes. “You’re quite the most credulous person I’ve ever known.”

  “I’ve heard some shit that’s not true, and some shit that is true. Remind me sometime, and when I don’t mind scaring the crap out of myself, I’ll tell you what one of the veterans told me about Farside skinturners. That sounded like shit, but that’s true, and I heard that in the barracks,” Bannord said pointedly. “Makes the ghouls we have skulking on the shore look pretty tame, let me tell you.”

  “She’s not like they say at all,” said Guis, feeling unaccountably defensive towards the countess. “She’s got a sharp mind.”

  “She looks like a man, dresses like a man, has no manners, ideas that are derided and a notoriously hungry twat. She’s a one woman scandal machine. You lay with her and you’ll never hear the end of it.” said Bannord warningly. Some of his humour returned. “But if you do, please take notes. I’m fascinated.”

  “Bannord...”

  “Ooh, looks like someone’s got the hots for the Hag!”

  Guis’s rage, never wholly leashed, erupted. “You know what? This was a bad idea. Fuck you Bannord. Goodnight, Hermanius.”

  Hermanius lifted his glass.

  “What did I say now?” said Bannord.

  “You know what you said.”

  From across the room, Qurion caught sight of Guis’s exit. His eyes widened at Hermanius in question. Hermanius shrugged.

  Hermanius watched him make frantic apologies to the floozy he was talking to. Well, he supposed. She wasn’t actually a floozy. She looked on the face of it, quite well mannered. Probably someone’s wife. Not that that would stop Qurion. “And now, there goes our hero.” Hermanius affected a world weary expression, and gave Bannord an admonishing look.

  “Screw the lot of you,” Hermanius said. “Screw the lot of you, but most of all, screw the son of a bitch who made this godsawful wine!”

  He drank it anyway.

  GUIS REGAINED HIS head when he went outside. The cold, foggy air was a slap in the face he needed.

  “Perhaps master should have stayed at home like Tyn suggested?” said Tyn from his box. Guis gave it a vindictive shake.

  A gaggle of drunks spilled from the tavern out on a wash of warm air, noisy and eager for more entertainment. They staggered past Guis, hallooing and guffawing. Qurion came after them.

  “And why are you being such an arse then?” he said.

  Guis shrugged.

  “It’s getting like I can’t take you anywhere.”

  “That’s the second time I’ve flounced out of a pub in one week.”

  “That’s really not like you,” said Qurion with amicable sarcasm.

  “You know what? It really isn’t. I’m not... Look, I’m not as angry as you think I am my friend.”

  “Yes you are,” said Qurion. There was an edge of enmity to his amity.

  “No I’m not! Shit, I am, I suppose...” Guis took a deep breath. “You, it’s you. You make me angry.”

  Qurion’s smile vanished. The beginnings of a glower took his place. Threat and charm, that was all he had by the way of public faces. There was more to him, but he rarely put what was inside on display. Qurion’s gifts limited him. He didn’t try harder, because he did not need to. Such a shame.

  “Let me explain,” Guis said. “I owe you an apology.”

  “Too damn right.”

  “For years, I’ve been massively jealous of you. I think you know that.”

  Qurion glanced at him. “Not this again.”

  “Look, every time we go anywhere, you fuck off and have your hand up some woman’s skirt before we’re two pints in. I get left there nursing my wine while you’re off. One wink and they drop their pants for you. I don’t get that. You’ve always been bigger and better looking than me. You don’t realise it.”

  Qurion sighed. “No, you don’t realise it, my friend. I’ve seen you scare off women time after time with your intense artist dogshit. You’re a clever man Guis, charming. You are not much to look at, but you have them eating out of your hand half the time, then you push them into the dirt.”

  Guis snorted. “You are a patronising bastard.”

  “I’m right though. They’re just after a good time. Just like us. They want a quick tumble. not your bleeding heart on a platter. All you have to do is offer them that. You give them too much baggage.” Qurion stared off into the fog. A four dog carriage clattered past. Glimmer lamps were mysterious balls of light on the other side of the road, distant as the moons. Water droplets shifted and danced to a tune only they could hear. “You could have it too.” Qurion grabbed his shoulder.

 
Guis shrugged off his hand. “Don’t you get it? I could not have it. Not like you. I have to work hard. And this is the part you don’t get. I am jealous of you, but I do not want to be like you. I’ve sat there on my own in the pub watching you play lone wolf with other people’s girlfriends. I’ve watched you chat up my women, flirt with my sister, your cock practically in your fucking hand. And not a thought in your head for your own wife. She adores you, and you treat her appallingly. Wedding vows are vows, Qurion.” He looked disdainfully at Qurion’s uniform. “If you can’t keep those, what can you keep?”

  Qurion was furious, but Guis wasn’t done.

  “I remember when your father was fucking every doxy in the Off Parade. How much it hurt your mother, and how angry it made you. Well, look at you. The fruit never falls far from the tree, does it?”

  “You call this an apology, you little shitbag?” spat Qurion. His hand was hovering near his sword hilt.

  “Don’t do that, Qurion,” said Guis mildly. “I’m not as a good a swordsman as my brothers, but I’m still pretty good. There’s one kind of swordsmanship I am better at than you, and it kills.”

  “And now you’re threatening me.”

  “I’m getting to the apology part. You can’t help yourself. I’ve been a bad friend to you. You’ve wanted a squadron mate, all this time. Someone to ride beside you on the chase. That’s not me. I can’t be your partner in that. I don’t want what you want. So if you want to go chasing skirt, take someone else. I’m sorry I can’t be the person you think I am. Trying to be has made me conflicted, and that has made me behave poorly.”

  “You’re behaving well tonight, flouncing out like a theatre diva? I suppose you forgive as well.”

  “Something like that,” said Guis.

  “Who’s the patronising fucker now?” Qurion bent over, thrusting his rage-reddened face into Guis’s. He prodded him in the chest. “You are a sanctimonious hypocrite. You’ve played the same game yourself enough. It’s not my fault you don’t play as well as me.”

  “I choose not to.”