The Iron Princess

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘General,’ Taravel said, bowing.

  Marsan seemed to wave the title away, indifferent to it; Ayah guessed that Gothram was over-proud of his title. ‘Captain Keeva and I will want to debrief you later.’ Now he did look at Gothram. ‘We often learn the most from our mistakes.’

  Taravel acted as though the statement had been directed at him. ‘There were certainly mistakes made at Garia City. The greatest was in not taking the threat seriously.’

  ‘That’s one we won’t be making. Garia City put us all on alert regarding Emperor Siyu’s plans. As I said, we’ll talk later, but what can we expect from them now?’

  ‘When they’re fully formed up with their catapults at the ready, they’ll want to talk.’

  ‘Threaten and then offer a way out?’

  ‘Yes, laoshi. Assuming you don’t surrender, they’ll want to start the bombardment before the light goes. However, in this siege, that may be as much a distraction as it is a serious attempt to reduce your walls.’

  Marsan frowned. ‘This relates to this “vital information” you have to present?’

  Taravel nodded. ‘They have something new at their disposal. An alchemical mixture quite capable of causing massive structural damage to the walls if used right. My estimation is that they will attempt to get miners in fairly close to the walls, using the bombardment as cover. I suspect they’ll be tossing containers of burning pitch up onto the battlements to keep people back from the walls and reduce the effectiveness of your own siege weapons. Then they’ll get several barrels of this mixture down into the foundations and bring the walls down in short order.’

  ‘Mining takes time,’ Marsan said, but he sounded more calculating than disbelieving.

  ‘It does, but they don’t need to carry it out in the usual way. This “Thunder Water” is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.’

  ‘Are we expected to just take his word for this?’ Gothram asked, his tone incredulous.

  ‘I’ve seen Thunder Water in action,’ Xian said. ‘It’s real and it’s powerful. I’ve seen it reduce a ship to kindling in an uncontrolled explosion. Used properly, it is even more destructive.’

  ‘And you are?’ Marsan asked.

  ‘My name is Xian, General Marsan. I’m… an interested party.’

  ‘So, we’re just supposed to take her word for it?’ Gothram said, now more annoyed than incredulous.

  ‘You’re not required to accept what either of us have to say,’ Xian replied, her voice level, reasonable. ‘If you wait for a few days, you’ll be provided with ample demonstration of the power of Thunder Water.’ She smiled. ‘Of course, by then it will be entirely too late to do anything about it.’

  ~~~

  It was crazy, to Ayah’s thinking, but the show had been ordered to go on. No one was lobbing boulders at the walls, yet, and the citizens of Istollam needed to think things were going to be fine. Apparently, the circus was important to that.

  Houndstooth pastries were, apparently, important to the wellbeing of Istollam. Ayah could almost believe it given that they were selling better than usual, which was saying something. She still felt like they were helping to paper over the cracks. Everyone seemed to be being rather forceful with the fun, like they were really trying to enjoy themselves. And Avoona had a queue that was circling around the square.

  Taravel and Xian were still up at the hall. Taravel had sent instructions back with Ayah and Jun that Avoona was in charge if anything happened which would have needed his attention. So far, nothing had, thankfully: Avoona was too busy to take the time to deal with anything.

  Ayah watched the crowd, hoping to spot any sign of someone looking for Princess Sying, but her biggest problem was keeping a smile on her face. Everyone was supposed to believe that the city had a fighting chance, but it did not. The defenders were outnumbered by a huge margin. The port was blockaded; anyone trying to leave by ship would be captured or, quite possibly, sunk and left to drown. There was no escape from Istollam for anyone. They had, perhaps, a week before the imperial troops were swarming through the streets killing anyone who put up a fight. It was hard to smile with that hanging over your head.

  ~~~

  As predicted, an offer of parlay had been delivered to the city’s gatehouse soon after adjustments to the imperial siege catapults were done with. It was really adding insult to injury: it was clear that the imperials had the superior force and now they were making the offer of avoiding a fight which they knew they would win. They did not even send their leader to the meeting.

  Xian watched the imperial envoy as he strode into the meeting room. He was a tall, handsome man with an air of confidence about him which could have deflected arrows. He was fairly young, but he wore captain’s insignia. Nothing identified him as such, but Xian suspected that he was from the Office of Military Intelligence. Brown eyes with a slight slant to them took in everything, examining and cataloguing. He saw Xian and his eyes paused briefly before she saw the dismissal in them as he moved on. Well, that was fine by her.

  The envoy bowed quite deeply before Marsan before speaking in unaccented Garick. ‘General Marsan, I am Captain Lok of the Imperial Third Army, representative of General Guang and the Empire of Iron. General Guang offers his gratitude for this opportunity to forestall a conflict which will surely cost many lives.’

  ‘You’ve parked an army outside our gates, Captain Lok,’ Marsan replied. ‘Your General Guang is known to me and I doubt very much that he wishes to forestall any bloodshed. So, what is it you want?’

  Lok apparently did not feel that reputing this slur upon his superior was required. Anyone who did know Guang knew that he was a bloodthirsty man with a preference for crushing resistance. He had been in charge of the Third Army when it had marched on Garia City and he was directly responsible for the activities of his troops there. It was said in the Iron City that Emperor Siyu had not been entirely happy about those activities, but he had not replaced Guang after hearing about them.

  ‘His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Siyu, requires that you return to him his daughter, Princess Sying, the Iron Princess and Flower of the Empire,’ Lok stated without the least hint that he doubted the princess was being held in the city.

  That took Marsan a little by surprise and it made Xian nervous. Marsan rallied himself and frowned. ‘I hadn’t realised the Empire believed its own lies. Istollam had nothing to do with the disappearance of Princess Sying. We can’t hand her over because she is not here.’

  ‘If she isn’t here,’ Lok countered far too quickly, ‘you would have no objection to allowing a regiment of our troops to enter your city to conduct a search.’

  Marsan laughed, and went up a point in Xian’s estimations. ‘Oh,’ he said after an appropriate amount of hearty laughter, ‘you weren’t joking. I felt sure you were.’

  ‘You realise, General, that the consequences of our finding Princess Sying here after your defeat will be quite dire.’ There was a smile playing at the corners of Lok’s lips. He was an intelligence officer, but not one with a great aptitude for fieldwork.

  ‘As I said, I’m aware of Guang’s reputation.’ The humour had entirely left Marsan’s face. ‘I have no doubt he’ll use whatever he can to justify his atrocities, but he won’t need any reason to commit them.’

  ‘Very well. My orders are to allow you until dawn to consider your surrender. If we have not heard from you before the sun rises fully over the ocean, hostilities will commence.’

  Marsan nodded. ‘I’ll take this before the city’s leaders. I shouldn’t expect a swift reply.’

  ~~~

  ‘So far,’ Xian said, ‘Marsan doesn’t know you’re here. I’m not sure how long that will remain the state of things.’

  ‘No one else knows,’ Suyin insisted. They were in the room in the boarding house. Xian had insisted and it had taken a little time to arrange cover for Ayah and Nareel, but it had seemed like it was an urgent matter.

  ‘The men who came to capture you know,’ Naree
l pointed out. ‘Perhaps others too.’

  ‘At this point,’ Xian went on, ‘your best hope is that news of what they demanded doesn’t get out to the public. I’ve no doubt that Guang knows you’re here and that his spies in the city know where you are, but they won’t be telling anyone. Your father wants his excuse for this invasion and Guang wants an excuse to murder anyone he likes when you’re conveniently “found” after the walls fall. It’s the outside factors that will decide what happens.’

  ‘Outside factors?’ Ayah asked.

  ‘Those bounty hunters and anyone else who knows who she really is. They may see an opportunity to make at least something out of the situation. If they do… Well, I suppose we’ll have to work out what to do if that happens.’

  ~~~

  The man who walked into the meeting room with a couple of soldiers flanking him was a disreputable sort of figure. He was limping and he looked sickly, pale-skinned and sweaty. He also looked like the kind of man who was out for himself and no one else. None of these things endeared him to Marsan.

  ‘You have, I’m told, valuable information for us,’ the general said, keeping his tone level despite the fact that he doubted the claim very much.

  ‘I have, your honour,’ the man replied. ‘There is the matter of how valuable…’

  Marsan allowed his disgust to show. ‘That would be difficult to judge without knowing what your information is.’

  ‘Yes, your lordship. I know where you can find the imperial princess.’

  Marsan’s eyes widened. ‘She is in Istollam?’

  ‘She most certainly is. The Imperial Army would be willing to pay a hundred crowns for that information–’

  ‘You’ll get twenty and be happy with the arrangement or you’ll spend the night in the dungeon being entertained by several men with the ability to beat the information out of you.’

  The bounty hunter appeared to consider that briefly and then nodded. ‘Seeing as the general is an honourable man, and as a gesture of good faith, I’ll even tell you what I know before I’m paid.’ He pointed at Taravel, standing beside one of the windows and uninterested in the proceedings. ‘She’s hiding in that man’s circus.’ Taravel spun, his own eyes widening. ‘She’s one of his sword dancers. She’s living in the boarding house with two other girls. A redhead with a sword and a brunette from the north.’

  ‘Suyin?’ Taravel asked. ‘She joined us in Astollar months before there was any noise about the princess being missing.’ His gaze shifted to Marsan. ‘If she is this princess, I knew nothing about it. I can’t believe it.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ Marsan stated flatly. ‘Get this man his twenty imperial crowns and keep him somewhere safe until we’ve verified his story. Get a squad together and go to the circus–’

  ‘General,’ Taravel interrupted. ‘The circus will be closing down for the night soon and a squad of soldiers marching in to arrest one of the dancers before then will raise a lot of questions and some panic. Wait for things to end naturally and then go in quietly.’

  ‘You understand that I’ll have to place you under arrest to prevent anyone warning her?’

  ‘If you must.’

  Marsan turned back to the guards. ‘Get him our informant his money and lock him up. Have a squad made ready. I want all three of those girls brought to this hall before midnight.’

  ~~~

  The knock on the door came as Ayah was just about to unhook her bodice. She paused and frowned and looked at Nareel who was still dressed. Well, Ayah was dressed but not in a manner she really wanted to greet a caller in. Suyin had already removed her breastplate – or that was what she called the armour-like dancing costume – and so was even less well-equipped to answer the door.

  ‘Alright,’ Nareel said and pushed herself off her bed. She walked to the door and opened it just enough to see who was outside. Then she looked back toward Suyin. ‘Cover yourself up.’ When Suyin had picked up her bodice and pressed it over her chest, Nareel opened the door to reveal the five soldiers standing outside it.

  One of the men stepped into the room and his eyes scanned over the three girls, stopping at Suyin. He looked like some merchant family’s younger son, upright and attractive and regularly bathed, and also a little arrogant. Maybe he was minor nobility. ‘I’m Lieutenant Adar,’ he said. ‘I’m to escort the three of you to General Marsan.’ His eyes fixed on Suyin. ‘He is very keen to meet you, taitai.’

  Ayah frowned. So, the secret was out, just as Xian had expected. ‘Alright, lieutenant, get out.’

  ‘I don’t think you understand.’

  ‘I understand perfectly, but if you think I’m being arrested and escorted to see the general in a loincloth, I’d like to disabuse you of that idea right now. Suyin is practically naked. We’re not going to jump out of the window. Not without breaking our legs. Out you go.’

  Adar seemed a little nonplussed by her attitude, but he backed out of the room and Nareel closed the door.

  ‘What do we do?’ Suyin asked nervously.

  ‘Get changed and go with them,’ Ayah replied, reaching to the catch at her back. ‘There’s really not a lot else we can do.’

  ~~~

  Ayah walked into the meeting room she had been in before and dressed in her deerskins as before. She felt naked this time, however, since she had decided that bringing her sword would have caused problems. She hated leaving it behind. Nareel had put on her northern tunic and trousers. Suyin – or perhaps Ayah ought to start thinking of her as Sying – had put on a sleeveless version of the slim, straight dress Xian chose to wear more often than not, but Suyin’s was white with an oddly abstract pattern of twigs and leaves in black printed onto the fabric. She had paired it with some simple sandals, but she walked with her back straight and her head high and she looked more like an imperial princess than she had at any time Ayah had known her.

  Marsan got to his feet as the three girls were brought in. ‘Thank you, Lieutenant Adar, that will be all.’ He was clearly going to say nothing else until the room was cleared.

  Taravel was standing near the window and quite obviously fuming. His gaze was locked on Suyin, but there was an element of self-recrimination about his expression: he was thinking that he should have known and not doing so had placed everyone in his circus in danger.

  There were others there. Gothram and the lone woman on the war council did not get up. Another man, closer to Marsan’s age, rose to his feet. He wore a richly embroidered tunic in purple over dark-blue trousers and his hair and short beard were grey. His hazel eyes were unreadable, but Ayah suspected he was a politician of some sort.

  Marsan bowed to Suyin. ‘Your Imperial Highness,’ he said with a bitter edge to his voice. ‘You seem to have caused my city to become the focus of your father’s attention.’

  ‘You give me far too much credit, General,’ Suyin replied. ‘Siyu has been making plans to conquer the rest of the Western Plains ever since he took Garia City.’ It was the first time Ayah had noticed, but Suyin never referred to the emperor as her father. Ayah also noticed that, having cast aside the need for pretence, Suyin was being Princess Sying. Faced with guards and generals with accusations, she was standing tall and acting like she belonged on a throne. ‘The question, it would seem, is what you intend to do about it.’

  ‘We hand her over,’ Gothram said, now getting to his feet. ‘We give them what they want and–’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot, Gothram,’ Xian said, stepping out of the shadows at the back of the room. Everyone turned to look at her. ‘Retrieving a wayward princess is not why that army is outside your walls and anyone with a single iota of sense would know that.’

  ‘How did you–’ Marsan began as Xian strode across to stand beside the three girls.

  ‘Get in here? Obviously, I walked through one of the walls. That’s not the point. What possessed you to drag her in here under guard, Marsan? She was perfectly alright where she was. Now every imperial spy in the city knows that you know wher
e she is.’

  ‘You knew?’ There was a definite accusation in the question.

  Xian rolled her eyes: trust the military mind to jump on the wrong thing. ‘Of course. I knew who she was as soon as I laid eyes on her. Which was yesterday.’

  ‘We could have given her to Lok when he came!’ Gothram shouted.

  ‘And what, exactly, would that have accomplished? “Oh yes, Lieutenant Lok, we do happen to have your princess. Here she is. No hard feelings. Trot along, would you?” That would be admitting that you had kidnapped her.’

  ‘But we didn’t!’

  ‘Of course not. She kidnapped herself. Do you really think Siyu is interested in the truth? He wants an excuse to invade. If you say you don’t have her, then he wants in to search for her. If you say you do, he wants to punish you. His spies found her months ago and nothing was done about it because Siyu wanted her here.’ Xian’s gaze shifted to Taravel. ‘Stop glowering like that, man. What would you have done if you’d found out who she was?’

  ‘I’d have turned her out. She’s been a danger to everyone in–’

  ‘Would you really? She hates her father as much or more than you do. She’s been a loyal member of your crew of misfits for a long time now, Taravel. Don’t be so quick to use hindsight to make your decisions.’ Xian turned her head back toward Marsan. ‘Taravel did not know who she was and you need his expertise. I say again, what are you going to do about all this now?’

  Marsan sagged a little. He turned and looked at his colleagues. The woman looked up and shrugged. ‘What can we do? Xian is right. The army out there is not really here looking for the princess. Whatever we do, they will attack us.’

  ‘Agreed,’ the well-dressed man said, ‘but sending them back to the circus seems like a bad idea. There are apartments in this building set aside for visiting dignitaries…’

  Marsan nodded. ‘We’ll put the three of you in a suite on this floor. You’ll be close at hand and safe.’

  Suyin opened her mouth to respond, but Xian got in first. ‘Don’t argue, Princess. A suite here is bound to be more comfortable than that dreadful boarding house.’