LIGHTNING
I was taking morning coffee in my study when a crisp impact outside surprised me and I looked to the window. Comet was at the end of the lawn, crouching where he had landed in a patch of grazed snow. He folded his wings and, without wasting a moment, sprinted towards the house. I crossed to the bay window and watched him approach, so fast over the snow-blanketed grass he seemed scarcely to touch it. At first I couldn’t identify his clothes. Then I realised it was a Rhydanne outfit such as Dellin had used for a bedspread. He must have bought it in Carniss; perhaps the mountain climate had given him a change of heart.
A second later I could only see him through the sidelight, then he passed into the porch and the bell sounded. My reeve, who keeps few servants, answered the door himself. A hasty sotto voce conversation ensued then the reeve’s footsteps pattered along the corridor followed by Jant’s rapid tread. My door swung wide and the reeve’s head appeared in the gap. ‘My lord,’ he announced. ‘Comet—’
Jant pushed past him, muttering, ‘He knows, he knows.’ His shoulders hunched and hood up, he was unshaven and glistening head to foot with ice crystals. His coarse jacket and trousers glittered like sandpaper made of diamonds, an effect which lasted but a second; they melted to damp suede and I noticed the front of his coat was spattered with grease. He looked much stronger, built up by the arduous mountains and their denizens’ meat-rich diet. He scanned the breakfast table with a look of relief, picked up the cafetière and poured coffee into my glass, drank it as if it was vital and poured himself another. Then he dragged out a chair and sat down gratefully.
‘Have you gone native?’ I asked.
‘What?’
‘Those clothes. That ice axe on your belt instead of a sword.’
‘Oh … yeah. For the conditions … the conditions up there.’ He pointed at the ceiling.
‘Have you brought me any letters?’
‘No …’
I folded my arms. ‘Then what have you brought? The flu? You went to Carniss. Have you finished talking to Raven?’
‘I’ve just come from Carniss. Dellin’s still there. I don’t know what Raven could be doing to her - hunting her with dogs this very minute. She … It’s all … Everything’s gone wrong.’ He tucked one slush-wet boot under him on the chair cushion, unbuttoned his parka showing nothing but a T-shirt underneath and fanned out his wings to shake drops from them. He looked like a black peacock. He looked like an old crow. ‘Saker Micawater,’ he whined. ‘What the shining fuck do I do?’
‘Why? Have you caused some kind of disaster?’
‘I haven’t caused anything!’
‘Then to what do I owe this visit?’
He began counting on his fingers. ‘Raven built a fortress as defensible as Lowespass. Covering a sheer crag - it’s not a manor house at all! Fyrd are on their way to him from Francolin Wrought in Lowespass. As soon as they arrive in Carniss Raven is going to attack Rachiswater. The palace itself! He hates his brother.’
‘I know he does.’
‘He’s going to seize the throne! And Dellin—’ He counted her off too, but I interrupted him.
‘I should have known Raven would make another bid for the throne. Have you told Tarmigan?’
‘No. I thought I’d tell you first.’
‘And the Emperor?’
‘No! Not until everything’s fixed!’
‘Do Raven or Francolin know you’ve discovered their plot?’
‘They have no idea,’ he said and leant forward, head in hands.
‘Good. Good.’ I retrieved my newspaper from the table because ice was dripping from his hair and soaking into it. ‘Is Raven’s attack imminent?’
‘New Year’s Day, to catch Tarmigan unprepared.’
Yes, he needs the element of surprise and, knowing the king’s banquets, everyone in Rachis would be stuffed too full to move. ‘But aren’t the roads impassable? The snow is bad enough here; I thought Carniss would be cut off?’
‘He’s banking on Tarmigan thinking that. Yes, the Pelt Road looks blocked - from the air it’s a sheet of white - but it’s not impassable to anyone with knowledge of how to travel in snow. Raven can get through: he learnt about dog sleds and snowshoes last year … from the Rhydanne.’
‘I see.’
‘He’s halted all contact with the lowlands to give the impression he’s stranded. He isn’t cut off; he’s preparing. The keep is full of stockpiled weapons, so I think Francolin’s soldiers are travelling light and Raven intends to equip them in Carniss. They might lose some lives to the Rhydanne, though.’
‘Rhydanne? Why?’
Jant emerged from behind his clasped hands with a sombre expression. ‘Raven is persecuting the Rhydanne. He wants to cleanse Carniss of every last one.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Dellin … Dellin’s defending her forest and prey. The Rhydanne are starving, Lightning, they have to find food. She—’
‘How much damage have they caused?’
Jant placed a worried hand on his forehead and pushed his hair back. ‘They killed at least thirty settlers. Raven’s retaliating. I’m worried he’ll pen Dellin into a small area and trap her. She moves so stealthily I hope she can sneak out, but you know how single-minded Raven is.’
‘To the point of insanity. But his hands are full on two fronts.’ I pushed a platter of bacon towards Jant. ‘Would you like some breakfast?’
He shrank from it and stared at me with wild incomprehension. ‘We don’t have time! How can we, when Raven’s forcing her to hide in the forest, subsisting on … on whatever she can find?’
‘I thought they always lived that way. Look, spend a minute on breakfast and hunger won’t hinder you in a couple of hours’ time.’
‘You sound like Ouzel,’ he grumbled, but he selected a couple of pieces of toast and began buttering them neatly.
Unfortunately I could envisage no way to be rid of him. I had been avoiding any exchange with the outside world and I didn’t appreciate Jant barging into my peaceful, snowbound retreat, where I had planned to stay sequestered until after the festivities and long into eighteen ninety-one. I only rarely managed an escape from the parties of the self-conscious nobility or those Shatterings I feel I have to hold myself. Out here in Foin I have an excuse to decline the conviviality and the sleigh rides. The last thing I wanted was to be wedged in a sleigh with some governor’s wife shrieking with laughter, first-footing to Bitterdale and beyond, as if I needed to visit everybody’s halls again. So I had quite deliberately ensconced myself in the smallest and furthest-flung muster of my manor. The reeve knew to leave me to my comfortable melancholy; he respected my wish to be alone. The dim light and quiet woods soothed my memory of Savory. I had been spending my time at archery practice and in the weight room; long evenings standing with my violin by the fireside playing sonatinas; watching the reeve’s children build winged snowmen; watching the figures in dark coats trudging through the snowbound woods. These were the dregs and dog-ends of the year, when the people’s weariness rubs off onto the land itself.
Now Jant appeared looking like a savage and with the apparent intent of dragging me into the machinations of the Rachiswater twins. If it wasn’t the Tanagers or Shearwater idiot Mist it was the fractious bloody Rachiswaters. I sighed and sat down. ‘Support for Raven is more widespread than you might think. You wouldn’t know, having been in the wilds, but Tarmigan is losing popularity and Raven is gaining.’
‘Is Tarmigan unpopular?’
‘He is becoming so.’
‘Why?’
‘He keeps levying taxes to reward his favourites and extend his palace. People mutter against it; they don’t like having to dip into their pockets time and again, especially with only five days until the festival. But Tarmigan will collect the taxes and Rachiswater Palace grows ever more ornate. And tasteless, incidentally.’
I looked out to the lawn, the outbuildings of the hall on either side, down to the gable end of the tithe barn just
visible by the river. Ice so thick it looked like snow coated the trees uniformly white, their branches meshed like lace. The sky was pregnant with yet more snow and the morning silent. The tessellated panes of glass in the leaded window had, over the years, settled at slightly different angles, so even in this overcast light they glittered like the scales of a fish.
‘My steward told me that two days ago someone climbed Tarmigan’s statue in Rachiswater Grand Place and carved a scar on its face.’ I drew a line across my cheek.
‘A scar?’
‘Yes. Turning King Tarmigan into King Raven with one stroke of the chisel! Right in the centre of the square, bang in the middle of the capital.’
‘Do they know who did it?’
‘No, it was under cover of darkness. The night watch covered the statue straight away but enough revellers saw it for the gossip to spread. Many people are turning against Tarmigan; my steward tells me their whispering grows bolder every minute. If Raven pushes now, he may well topple him.’
Jant’s eyes widened. ‘Who would you declare for?’
‘Comet, Comet. I support the throne, no matter whose backside is on it, Tarmigan’s or Raven’s. And if no one’s is, then I support the idea that someone’s should be. I support the idea of the throne itself.’
‘Would you send archers to protect the king?’
‘The last thing I want to do is arm my manor or his.’
‘And about Dellin?’
‘What about Dellin?’ I paused and turned to him. His preoccupation, his appearance so unusually neglected, his adoption of their dress, the distant look in his eyes reminded me of how I felt with Savory. I studied him and grew more certain. Certain? It was obvious! ‘Tell me of Dellin?’ I offered, just to be sure, and he bowed his head. ‘You love her, don’t you?’
‘If you’d seen her slay a bear single-handed, you’d be in … you-know-what too.’
‘In love?’
‘Oh god, don’t make me say it!’
Well, well. Could it be that all this time Jant simply needed to find one of his own kind? I had never thought it possible. I had thought him utterly devoid of the ability to love, not least because generosity is a prerequisite of love and Jant was so thoroughly self-centred that he had little passion to spare. In fact, I sometimes wondered whether he even realised other people had independent existences and thoughts - other than those about himself.
He kept himself as hard as his orphan days. If he had been born with the ability to love he had mislaid it in the backstreets of Hacilith or had it frozen out of him on the altiplano. Segregation had suppressed it; poverty had parched him of it; and adversity made him hate more easily than he could find it in himself to love. He could ask ‘Where’s the brothel?’ in ten languages, but he has never said ‘I love you’ in even one. He just drifts through life casually sidestepping any sort of anguish. It was completely uncharacteristic of him to submit to the most exquisite torment of all.
‘That’s why I came,’ he admitted. ‘I thought I’d ask the expert.’
‘I’m hardly an expert.’
He raised a grimy hand theatrically. ‘You said, “My love for Savory was the greatest the world has ever known. Love flowed from me like waves, the colour of waves of heat. A love as strong as this could not exist for long because its intensity threatened to drive me to madness. I struggled day and night to recover, but in vain.”’
Yes, those were my words. I can tell you what book he cribbed them from if you like. He had started sarcastically but ended miserably and added, ‘That’s how I feel.’
‘It’s pointless asking you to forget about her?’
‘Yes.’
‘So what do you want from me?’
‘Some advice.’
‘Some advice? Let me see … Remember what happened to Savory? Well, Dellin is at risk of dying too, and so soon - being Rhydanne she will race through life and be old before she’s forty. She’ll leave you lonely and bereft, Jant. There’s hardly enough time to befriend and court these mortal women before they die … Time is short. She will change so much in a year that you’d be shocked and disgusted with yourself for falling in love with her in the first place. I have known women fascinating for one night and repellent a mere six months later. For love to persist you must change at the same rate they do and, believe me, it isn’t easy. So be with her as much as possible. Isn’t it unbearable to be away even this long?’
‘Yes. But we have to stop Raven.’
‘For god’s sake, Jant. If you’re Eszai you can do both!’
I walked to the stone fireplace and stood watching the brassy flames with my back to him. I suddenly felt tired of the mortals’ constant striving for supremacy, whether a village blood feud such as ended Savory’s life, or the never-ending stream of Challengers for my position in the Circle, or the Rachiswater twins wrestling for the crown of the most powerful country in the world. No two mortals, like no two snowflakes, are identical, but their aspirations are all the bloody same.
‘The twins are stubborn,’ I said. ‘This won’t pass without bloodshed. Such a terrible waste of life … Aren’t the Insects enough to contend with?’
Jant shook himself. ‘All right! I’ll forget Dellin! The Empire’s business comes first!’
I doubted he would be able to give her up. Willpower is something Jant sadly lacks. I had never known him so agitated. I’ve seen him exhausted by flying and drunk seven eighths to oblivion. I’ve seen him with his shoulder broken - by myself - in a joust, but each time his natural energy buoys him up. Now it seemed to be driving him to distraction.
I glanced around the room at the oak-panelled walls, the low ceiling, the bulbous turned legs of the furniture, my violin on its stand wreathed in sheet music, my kitbox for fletching arrows, and lastly down at the now-cold coffee, plates of bacon and toast on the table. So much for my quiet New Year. So much for archery practice and long evenings stoking the memory of Savory … I sighed and reconciled myself to trailing north to Darkling. ‘I will come with you.’
Jant’s face lit up. Then he bit his lip. ‘But it’s three days’ ride in the snow.’
‘How long did it take you to fly here?’
‘Um … Just under two hours.’
I laughed, impressed, but he leapt to his feet.
‘Why should I be in love? Am I only flattering myself? Why should I go through this? What does it matter!’
Let him disown love. He twists on the hook because the emotion is new to him.
‘I shouldn’t concern myself with anything that isn’t Messenger’s duty,’ he ranted. ‘I nearly let the rot set in! Already! If I give way I’ll be prone to all sorts of luxuries … Love? I’m being soft! Lackadaisical. Unfit! If I go on like this a Challenger will beat me. I’ll lose my place in the Circle. It mustn’t happen!’
‘You can tear your heart out and concentrate on nothing but your work, but you’ll end up as hollow as the Architect. You should welcome feeling different for once in your life; you should make a virtue of it.’
‘A virtue of it? It’s horrible!’
I returned to the table and pressed his wing reassuringly. ‘Fly ahead and prepare the way - at each stage a meal and quarters for the night. I don’t need a change of horses; Balzan is better than any of theirs. Tell Raven to expect a guest for the Shattering. Send him into a scuffle for the best roast ox and hot negus, and clay for the Wishes. Don’t tell him either of us knows about the coup.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea. I’ll only know when I see his face. But somehow we’ll check his reins. Watch for my arrival and give me the latest news.’
‘And Dellin … I hope she hid—I mean, moved camp.’
‘Certainly you must find her,’ I said, and this time I couldn’t keep the envy from my voice. He has a chance to be happy and I have left all my chances behind in the deep past.
He offered me his hand. ‘I’ll land at Irksdale hunting lodge, Toft coach inn, Plow reev
e’s hall. I’ll tell them you’re riding, warn them to be ready: every stage, all the way through! From Plow take the Pelt Road to Eyrie village and up for six kilometres through the forest to the keep. The track’s marked by posts and notches on the trees. And …’
‘And what?’
‘Beware of Rhydanne. In the forest you wouldn’t even see Dellin before she lands on your neck.’
I nodded. ‘Then three days. Goodbye, Jant.’
‘Goodbye, Lightning.’ He gave me a grateful half-smile, then was out of the door. He let himself out of the porch and I watched him open his vast wings, sprint down the lawn and jump, flap up over the ridge of the barn and into the sky - smaller and fainter into the low cloud until he disappeared from view.
I quelled the surge of envy I always feel on seeing him fly. Seventy years since he joined the Circle and it’s still a novelty. My wings twitched and I spread them - if I stretch, I can just brush the mantelpiece with my feather tips, and the wall on the other side. Oh, well, maybe I will learn to fly on the day he learns to shoot straight. I reached over and pulled the bell rope.
The reeve appeared instantaneously - almost, I surmised, as if he had been listening outside the door. ‘Ready Balzan,’ I told him. ‘His winter caparison, ice shoes - everything for Darkling. I must go north for some days, perhaps weeks.’
‘But the festival, my lord?’ He was crestfallen. Months of planning, baking, preserving, ordering everything from the traditional ox to spiced apple sauce, vanished in an instant.
‘Believe me, Foin, I would stay if I could.’
‘I understand: the Castle’s duty.’ He nodded sorrowfully. ‘Does the Messenger ever bring good news?’
Soon afterward, muffled in scarf and greatcoat, my lidded quiver of arrows and two longbows in cases on the saddle, I rode out of Foin and up over the fell. The pristine snow covered the long hills seamed with drystone walls and the bristling trees in the woodland below.
Above the Snowline Page 27