Above the Snowline

by Steph Swainston

  ‘For years our outposts in Darkling have been sending us such sought-after pelts. They also send us silver and precious stones, and the mountain lions we enjoy hunting so much.’ He produces a purse and shakes cabochons of sapphire, ruby and emerald onto his palm. ‘A few prospectors venture into the wilderness but mostly, I am told, the savages can be taught to fetch these. The mountain limit of my manor yields tall pines too, even fit for masts. Some of my subjects make a life for themselves there and exploit them. I would like to further the opportunity. I would like to, pardon the expression, kill two birds with one stone. I propose that you extend Awia by leaving the western reaches of this manor to found your own beside it. And never return.’

  ‘This is exile,’ I say.

  ‘So it is.’

  A folded map is lying on the silver ingots. I begin to feel tentatively relieved that I might survive the day, so I pick up the map and concertina it open. It represents the lower Darkling peaks, where the Pelt Road peters into the alien Turbary Track, and a near-rectangular area has been carefully outlined with red dots. ‘Carnich,’ I say. My accent scuffs the pronunciation and it comes out ‘Carniss.’

  My brother nods. ‘It would bring glory to our family and to Awia. I know you’re ambitious and frustrated; you’ve been in my shadow too long. I’m giving you a chance to govern your own manor, manage it however you wish, and make it prosper. You will, of course, send us taxes. In time you could expand it. You could even send hardy mountain soldiers to the fyrd. Think how that would impress the Emperor!’

  This is just a rock surrounded by snow, I reflect. I might as well be on Teron Island. ‘But—’

  ‘Ah! Raven intrigues against his king and then raises a “but”! Oscen, did you hear that? Shut up, brother; you’re in no position to bargain. You have choice enough: exile in Darkling as the governor of a new manor, or life imprisonment in Teron. Or you could top the bill with Estaminet the Gladiator and go out in a blaze of glory in a ring full of Insects …’

  I say nothing.

  Tarmigan continues, ‘I will give you a loan every year in return for the goods -’ he clenched his fist to make the jewels clack ‘- and little by little I will decrease the loan until you are rightfully selling them to Rachiswater. You will be self-sufficient, no longer reliant on the palace. Then you will rule the manor in your own right and it is yours to bequeath.’

  I nod reluctantly.

  Reeve Oscen pipes up, ‘Your lancers are ready, Your Highness.’

  Tarmigan becomes more serious. ‘You’re exiled for life, Raven. When you reach Carniss you may never set foot across the boundary again, or you’ll plead to be sent to Teron. If you return to lowland Awia, unscrupulous governors or reeves could use you in their schemes. I can’t let it happen.’ His hand on his rapier hilt, he turns his back on me and speaks to the wall. ‘And you look too much like me. We are indistinguishable.’ He whips round and instantly I see his rapier gleaming in front of my face, all the way back to his outstretched hand. My cheek stings - blooms into a great pain and sudden wetness. I bury my face in my hands and see them filling with blood! I look up at him in horror.

  He crooks his arm, withdraws the rapier, and wipes it on the fur. The gash across my cheek burns and blood streams down into my collar. I fold my handkerchief and try to staunch the flow.

  ‘Now people will be able to tell us apart. You won’t creep back and become impostor king in my place.’ He sits down on the throne, the rapier across his knees, and his hateful iridescent armour opals from metallic orange to bottle green. ‘Goodbye, Raven.’

  I bow to him and my blood drips on the floor. Oscen puts his hand on my shoulder and accompanies me out, past the awed ladies, to where mounted lancers are waiting, surrounding my black horse who neighs when he sees me.

  Magnificent Rabicano, much the best horse in the world, the fastest courser and my only friend. Well groomed, hair like velvet, polished hooves and braided tail. It is just me and you now, Rabicano. I climb up into his saddle and sit with the blood pouring down my face.

  Tarmigan is a better swordsman than I am. I swear I never saw his rapier move and then he sliced me like the lion. I bite my teeth together with hatred. I am resilient. It may take one year, it may take thirty, but I’ll return with an army of my own.

  ‘Have a swift journey, my lord prince,’ says the damnably obsequious Oscen.

  ‘Oscen?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘One day you’ll call me king.’

  A lancer with his visor down, like a masked executioner, takes Rabicano on a long rein and leads me from the camp, out of the woodland, and out of the manor I once called home.

  Ha! I was in such a brown study there. I pushed my chair back and went to the fireplace, where whole logs were burning. I rested my elbow on the stone mantelpiece, put one foot up on the tiled surround and looked down past the carved strapwork designs and my blank escutcheon to the flames. Then I turned round and clasped my hands behind me, warmed my backside and the backs of my legs, while surveying the room with its rich tapestries and painted hangings and the red velvet seats either side of the window.

  The first winter was the hardest. Some trappers in Skline village, a little lower down, took me in and gave lodgings to me and my supporters. We shivered and cursed in their miserable log shacks through the whole winter. Some of my followers, who had learnt where I was hiding, came to join me, bringing provisions that saved our lives. As the weather grew more clement their trickle swelled to a stream. Snipe was the first to arrive. Tarmigan had exiled him too, so he came to join me. He may have a multitude of failings but he is bone-loyal. So loyal, in fact, that he puts my interests ahead of his own. I was so relieved to see a steadfast ally that I made him my steward. He began life as a cottar and was only accustomed to farm labour, but he is proving very adept as my second-in-command.

  When spring came the deep drifts began to melt. The torrent thawed and began gushing milky with rock dust from the glacier again. I started to build and Snipe descended to Rachiswater to call for settlers. He advertised in newspapers, pasted up posters, notified the town criers, and hundreds of people came to the meeting at his old farm outside town. Some were cottars with no better prospects in life, some were youths or ex-soldiers looking for adventure. Experienced hunters and miners offered their services and entrepreneurs appeared hoping to find riches in Darkling. So did any number of outlaws who realised I would give them reprieve if they worked for me. Every man prepared to work hard was a useful man, and they respected me too. The harsh conditions have made them dependent on me.

  I designed the keep myself and sought masons experienced in construction from the battlefront, and we achieved the foundations before the first year’s snows set in. Now, from my eyrie, I can literally look down on my brother, who probably gamed and chortled while I planned and pined. It is bizarre that we look so similar. Even when I rode out of the camp with blood flowing down my cheek, I looked the same as him, because on his face he still wore the blood of the lion.

  I glanced up at a clattering in the staircase turret. Snipe swept aside the curtain and burst in. He ran into the middle of the room before he caught my disapproving expression, stopped and pointed energetically towards the stairs. ‘My lord! There’s something in the sky!’

  ‘What in the sky?’

  ‘The biggest bird in the world. An enormous eagle! The captain wants to shoot it! But I told him either it’s something from the mountains - something we haven’t seen before—’

  ‘Or it’s the Messenger.’

  ‘My lord, I think it’s Comet himself! Actually flying!’

  My heart started hammering. I took a deep breath and nodded slowly, then stood and took the coat from the back of my chair. ‘We thought the Emperor would send an Eszai to investigate. Do you remember what to do?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘Make sure the armouries are locked and the barracks are disguised as cabins. On no account must Comet be allowed to explore the kee
p without a guide.’

  ‘I told the pikemen training to go inside, but … but, if it is Comet, he’s come so soon!’

  ‘News travels quickly to the Castle. The Emperor can easily reach out here when the whole Fourlands is in his compass … But even his power has limits, Snipe, don’t you worry.’

  ‘The eagle thing started spiralling round and round. What we thought was a forked tail could really be legs and … I think he’s spying on us!’

  ‘I’ll come up.’ I smoothed my fur lapels and Snipe held the tapestry aside. I followed him into the draughty gloom of the spiral staircase, thinking rapidly. If the Emperor has heard I’m building the keep he will have guessed my plans. It doesn’t take profound intuition to deduce I hate Tarmigan, and I have attempted a coup once already; the evidence is clear. But my plans are moving fast now. My troops are on their way. It’s only a week until the main body of men will show up. I need to be rid of Comet before they arrive. That shouldn’t be difficult. Only nine days to go until New Year’s Eve; he will be raring to return to his parties. ‘We must maintain a façade,’ I said aloud. ‘Be polite to Comet and give him what he wants. Then we can see the back of him as soon as possible.’

  ‘What will he want?’ asked Snipe.

  ‘To dismantle the keep, I should think.’

  ‘My lord!’

  ‘Yes, and fine us into the bargain. I’ve built this without licence.’

  Snipe looked back over his shoulder with a worried expression.

  ‘We must manage him well,’ I continued. ‘We only need the keep for nine more days. We’ve already collected most of the weapons, most of the food. We have more than enough to barrack our soldiers. We can survive a siege if my brother launches a pre-emptive attack. But next week I’ll be King of Awia, and forget Carniss! For all I care, the Emperor can grind this tower into dust …’

  I paused to catch my breath in the thin air, but Snipe gasped his way out onto the tower top. Rock salt crunched underfoot as I turned the last curve, running my hand along the frozen rope handrail, and emerged onto the tower top. I shaded my eyes to see five archers clustered around a brazier warming their hands, with their mitten fingertips fastened back from their fingerless gloves and their bows unstrung. The bright sunlight cast their shadows sharp across the flagstones.

  I scanned the sky and immediately saw Comet - a black cross with his mighty wings spread, their feathers fingered at the ends to catch the current he was riding. I unpocketed my telescope and snapped it open but, looking through it, I just saw the same shape again, larger. It glinted, now and then, as the sun flashed on some metal he was wearing. He circled in front of the great arc of mountains confronting us, and every few minutes he passed directly overhead and his shadow flicked over us.

  ‘That’s him,’ I said.

  ‘An immortal … Here.’

  ‘They have to be somewhere.’ I clicked the telescope shut. Every time I see one of the Eszai a shiver runs down my spine - and Comet is the strangest. Yes, the others are older than him - in some cases more than ten centuries older - but they resemble normal people, so I can occasionally forget their great age and talk to them as I am talking to you. But I can’t even begin to fathom the way Jant thinks. I find it hard to read his Rhydanne eyes. I’m struck by their marked intelligence but have no idea what is going on in his mind. He looks too alien, too extreme. In the palace he appeared so incongruous that if he wasn’t so bloody relaxed about everything he would have been a monster in our ballroom. Since I came here I’ve seen other Rhydanne and realised how greatly he takes after them.

  And who can understand the mind of a man who can fly? Every day he sees the world from angles I can hardly imagine. His mind is full of maps, wind speeds and air currents, like some seagull. He sails over rooftops and descries us standing below; where we see spires, he sees perches. Gargoyles for us are easy chairs for him. He could have landed by now, right in the bailey. Once I was engrossed in a novel in the palace library and jumped, startled to find him standing behind me, and the window ajar.

  His shadow passed over us again. ‘At least he’s letting us see him approach,’ I said. ‘Trust the Emperor to have the most perfect spy.’

  ‘What if he wants to destroy the keep immediately?’

  I laughed. ‘What, will the Castle mistreat a few innocent settlers? If you knew your history you’d recall that San didn’t touch Eske Manor when Orraman Eske fortified it. And that was a rebellion against San himself.’

  ‘He didn’t send fyrd?’

  ‘To assail his own people? No, he waited for Orraman to die of old age. Look, if San does move against us, Comet will take days to summon enough fyrd, by which time we’ll be in control of Rachiswater. And if he moves sooner than I think, will he really want to besiege our little colony, which just happens to be on an unscalable cliff in the middle of winter?’

  Snipe said nothing, but watched Comet approach. I tried to quell my rising anxiety: for god’s sake, we’re already outcasts. What have we to lose?

  ‘My lord - a Rhydanne!’ called the captain of the archers.

  ‘Where?’

  He came to the parapet and pointed down to the glacier on our left. It lay like a banded slug in the sheer-sided valley it had carved through Capercaillie. A tiny dot was moving at its wrinkled, folded margin. A native had crossed the glacier crown where the ice was whole, and now he was making turns left and right to avoid the yawning crevasses.

  Jant sped over him, unusually low, his shadow swooping over the ice. He made a turn and stayed above the Rhydanne. ‘He’s checking out that native.’

  ‘Could they be together?’ asked Snipe.

  I could hardly see them. The glare was giving me a headache, and every day the wrinkles around my eyes deepened from squinting into it. I said, ‘At least they’re not dazzled. Their eyes cut out the glare.’

  ‘Could just have invented sunglasses,’ Snipe muttered. I glanced at him. He was watching the Rhydanne with contempt - the expression of a mouse who had found a foolproof way of slaying cats.

  The Rhydanne descended onto the mounds of snow beside the glacier and sat down to remove something from his feet, then climbed out of the gorge remarkably quickly. I kept losing sight of him against the brilliant white, but Comet stayed above him.

  ‘They are together,’ said Snipe. ‘What’s he doing with a savage?’

  ‘Don’t forget, he is half Rhydanne.’

  ‘Not a very superior Rhydanne,’ Snipe muttered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A Shira.’

  ‘Of course.’ I turned and smiled at him - at his chin, anyway, because his peaked cap cast a shadow over his eyes. ‘Thank you for reminding me.’

  ‘Surprised it could slip your mind, my lord.’

  A freezing gust whipped over the tower top. It rattled the wires of the flagpole bolted to the staircase turret and cracked spots of ice off the flag. It panpiped over the flagpole’s hollow tube and sounded a rising, falling moan.

  I stamped my feet. The water overlaying the paving stones had soaked my boots black and my toes had long since gone numb. Webs of ice clung to the parapet walls on all four sides and impacted snow stuck to their tops. This crystallised snow was turning into ice, just as firn patches in the hanging valleys give birth to glaciers. In fact, every crack in the wall was collecting its own tiny glacier.

  Another gust of eighty kilometres an hour tore from the icecap behind the double peak, down the gorge and over the forest. Riding it came Jant. Larger every second, then he sped over us. We were cast into shade, suddenly colder. I could have reached up and touched the length of his body. Snipe and all the archers dropped to their knees. I looked up at the underside of his wings, strung with muscle, bent at the elbow, tiled with dark feathers. Then he was gone.

  ‘Snipe, for crying out loud, get off the floor!’

  Now above the end of the promontory, Jant lost more height and turned so sharply he stood on one wing. The archers left, so I was alone but for Sni
pe beside … behind me. Jant glided straight over the bailey, wind hissing off his wings, swung into standing position and lifted one leg then the other as he passed over the parapet. He stepped down out of the air. He ran a few strides, slowed and walked towards me folding in his gigantic wings.

  ‘The Emperor sends greetings,’ he said quietly.

  ‘And I return them, I’m sure.’

  He met my eyes, then looked down at my right cheek, distracted by the scar. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘My brother gave me a very visible autograph. ’

  ‘At least it healed well.’

  ‘Ah, no. I look like a beaten duellist.’

  A smile glinted on his face. ‘A duel would be as illegal as this fortress, Governor Raven.’

  ‘But this is no fortress. This is a colony of miners and lumberjacks. Come inside and have a glass of mulled wine.’

  He studied me even more intently, then abruptly turned away and looked over the parapet to where the Rhydanne was approaching. The creature kept glancing up, his eyes flashing when the tapetum lucidum behind them caught the light. When Jant saw one of the flashes he waved and the Rhydanne below waved back. Very interesting, but more interesting still was the fact Jant was dressed in their clothes. Used savage clothes: I could see his mushroom-grey parka was made for a slighter man. It was also too bulky for his wings, which no longer crossed neatly. He’d shaved unevenly and cut himself in one place. He must have been travelling for days.

  The wrists of his wings projected a couple of centimetres above his shoulders but the pointed tips of their primary feathers brushed his shins. The beautiful cross-hilt of a Wrought sword protruded from between them, its scabbard lacquered red and gold - the Castle’s colours. Trust Jant to carry such a valuable sword so carelessly.

  ‘San is interested in knowing why you have built fortifications.’

  ‘These aren’t fortifications!’ I laughed.