Vespera

by Anselm Audley

  Stretched between two poles, the Museion and the Palace of the Seas, Triton felt subtly different from the rest of Vespera, and it wasn’t simply that it was so obviously older, or that there were almost more squares than streets. Perhaps it was that everyone in these tight, twisting streets seemed to know each other, or maybe the bewildering array of clan colours he simply didn’t recognise. The eastern side was crammed with the offices of minor clans, vying for space with shops and restaurants, their people coming and going constantly along the waterfront, bound for the Museion or the Exchange.

  And Triton was, if possible, even noisier than it had been a few nights ago. Every square had two or three cafés and restaurants, tables set out at the edge or round the central fountain under canvas awnings or colonnades. Half the buildings were covered in scaffolding, surrounded by cranes and carts and workmen drilling. Triton had been left to decay under the Empire, when the City’s centre of power moved south towards Palace Hill and Sanctuary Harbour, and now it was being reclaimed, with even more zest and gusto than the rest of the City.

  It was also where the luthiers and a good many of the musicians still lived, cheek by jowl with hordes of scholars. There were few workshops left in central Vespera now; most of them had moved north to Avern and High Avern where they had space, but here on Triton the instrument-makers had clung on, in the shadow of the Charis Opera. Raphael took another detour to pass through the square in front of it, where the façade with its golden patterned stone hid a labyrinth of a building, and stopped to listen.

  From the tiny windows under the eaves, he heard voices drifting out, one singer moving through scales and exercises, another practising an aria. He paused, trying to catch what it was above the din of people coming and going, laughter from a group of people in one of the cafés across the square. Andrieli, from the sound of it, but too indistinct for him to pin down. It was the smallest and least prestigious of the City’s three opera houses, but also the liveliest: a place for aspiring new musicians, singers and composers, for experiments which often went awry.

  It had also, Raphael knew, retained a strongly republican character which had outlasted Ruthelo’s defeat. Few spoke of it now, but too many musicians of the Charis had fought and died in Ruthelo’s defence during the Anarchy, including some whose name might have shone as brightly as Tiziano’s by now, had they lived.

  But they had died, along with hundreds of thousands of other across Thetia, and their music remained forever unwritten, their voices forever silent. Whatever they might have been had died with them, the price of civil war.

  Estarrin Palace lay a few streets further on, perched on the western tip of the island with water on three sides. Its street-front gave little away, a modest if old building in weathered cream stone with tall, elegant windows in an archaic style. Only the turquoise-armoured marines standing by the gate and the constant comings and goings indicated this was the seat of one of the richest clans in Vespera. There wasn’t even a clan crest over the gate, though one might have stood there once.

  The guard centurion was deep in conversation with two women in the blue of the Oceanographic Guild, but he broke off the conversation as Raphael approached, and the two oceanographers turned to look at him with frank curiosity.

  ‘Raphael Quiridion? The High Thalassarch warned us to expect you. If you’ll come with me?’

  The Estarrin spy network was working properly, then. Not that he’d expected anything else.

  The small courtyard with its stone arches and exuberant creepers was a scene of chaos. Cheerful chaos, but chaos nonetheless. The colonnades seemed to be packed with Estarrin clanspeople in their finery, all apparently talking at the tops of their voices, and none content to stay still for long. Dozens of marines were lined up in one corner, under an awning, as a man in a silver-trimmed cloak and the plumes of a legate inspected their kit, apparently oblivious to the din around them.

  ‘Have I interrupted something?’ Raphael shouted, above the din.

  The centurion – the clans used legionary ranks, or more accurately, since the clans had been here long before the legions, the other way round – smiled broadly. ‘You could say that. I’ll leave it to the mistress to explain, wouldn’t want to steal her thunder.’

  The centurion made his way across the courtyard, nudging clanspeople on the far side out of the way. Raphael followed him up the Palace’s main staircase, across into the upper storey of another courtyard. Old it might be, but the paint was in good order, the key-pattern border meticulously maintained, the arches freshly repaired, and the noise was somewhat less by the time the marine stopped in front of a doorway. It was almost at the end of the corridor, where a window looked out northwards over blue water to the Portanis, half-hidden in the heat haze.

  There was a crest over the door, recently repainted by the look of it, but not the eight-pointed silver star of Estarrin. A white sea eagle on a sky-blue field. Clan Eirillia, allies of Ruthelo, obliterated during the Anarchy along with Azrian, Theleris and a score of others.

  The centurion knocked, and poked his head around the door. ‘Raphael Quiridion to see you.’

  ‘Wonderful timing,’ Leonata said. ‘Well, send him in then. Or is he only here in spirit?’

  The marine grinned and ushered Raphael in, closing the door behind him to cut off the noise, and for a second Raphael could only blink. It was a sparse, elegant room with a scalloped ceiling and delicately restored friezes on the walls, ancient fishing scenes, but that wasn’t what caught his eye. Three windows led out onto a loggia enclosed between wings of the building, and beyond it there was only sea stretching away to the western horizon, shimmering in the haze. No trace that they were in the centre of the Heart of the World, a view broken only by the faint line of reefs a few miles out, at the edge of the lagoon.

  ‘You like my view, I see,’ Leonata said, after a moment, when Raphael remembered to bow. She was immaculately dressed this time, flowing formal robes and a necklace of interwoven silver stars. Every inch the Vesperan patrician. Two other women, one about ten years Leonata’s junior and the other much younger – her aide, Flavia, Raphael remembered – dressed equally formally but less splendidly, stood close by.

  ‘This is why you’re here?’ Raphael asked.

  ‘Is there any other palace with such a beautiful setting?’ Leonata asked. ‘Anywhere else you can escape from the City and still have such views?’

  Not that Raphael had seen in Vespera, and this was a city where it was considered lucky to have a view of the sea, even if one didn’t have the convenience of being close. He’d seen some amazing architectural contortions in newer houses as a result.

  ‘My apologies,’ Raphael said, remembering his manners, ‘I’ve interrupted an occasion. I’ll return later.’ He was eager to know what the occasion was, but with any luck Leonata would tell him.

  She glanced at the older of the other women for a second, then back at Raphael. ‘Not at all. Be my guest.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m dressed for an occasion,’ he said, a polite refusal, and also true. His plain robes, black silk, were fit only for everyday wear, which had become a matter of some concern once he’d found out about the upcoming masked ball. For which he needed a mask as well as formal robes, and to find those in the time available would be a tall order.

  ‘I insist,’ Leonata said. ‘Beside, I’ll need a relief from all this turquoise eventually.’

  ‘Arria and the others won’t be wearing turquoise,’ Flavia pointed out helpfully.

  ‘Stop exposing my polite lies, girl,’ Leonata said, without reproof. ‘Besides which, he’s a Quiridion. His formal robes will only be a deeper shade of black.’

  ‘There are shades of black?’ Raphael inquired, half-joking.

  ‘Ask a tailor,’ Flavia said smugly.

  The other two women smiled.

  ‘I’ve been terribly rude,’ Leonata said suddenly. ‘Raphael, allow me to introduce my Mercantarch, Mazera Estarrin. She’s actually done most of th
e clan work ever since I was fool enough to let myself get elected to the Council.’ The Mercantarch was a lean, sun-browned woman with calloused hands; she’d be Leonata’s deputy in the clan hierarchy, overseeing matters of trade. Estarrin would have a variety of other senior officers – a clan admiral, a legate of marines, a spymaster, a chamberlain, perhaps one or two others specific to the clan, but Mazera would be first among them.

  ‘I’m honoured,’ said Mazera, with a bow. ‘Both to meet you and for being credited with doing all the work, when Leonata insists on taking it on herself. I could quite happily have stayed a captain, and the Clan none the worse.’

  That explained the calloused hands, and told Raphael a great deal about the Estarrin – whether or not this display was for his benefit, he was fast learning what kind of clan this was.

  ‘So what is the event?’ Raphael asked finally, since they’d clearly decided to keep him in the dark.

  ‘We’re going to the harbours to dedicate a new manta to Estarrin service,’ Flavia explained. ‘As you’d know, if you’d stayed here instead of running off across the world.’

  Was there an edge to her voice lacking in the other two? She was smiling, so it was hard to tell, but she was also the youngest of them, and the least able to conceal her thoughts. Raphael would have been hard pressed even to guess what Leonata or Mazera thought of his past.

  ‘He had good reason,’ Leonata said, and then to Raphael, ‘For an older ship this would be a much smaller ceremony, but this is a new manta, straight from Clan Aruwe’s yard. And overseen, in the last few years of her growth, by my daughter.’

  ‘As if we needed any more reasons to celebrate.’

  Flavia looked meaningfully at the clock on the table – an elaborate mechanical affair, not one of the more common aether timepieces.

  ‘Yes, I know, we’ll be late. Go on ahead, and give me a moment with our guest before we board.’

  ‘A moment,’ Flavia said.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Leonata a little more forcefully. ‘I won’t be late.’

  The two other women left by a side-door, and Leonata waited until the sound of their footsteps had died away before she spoke again, more businesslike now. Though she’d still been remarkably open, considering how short a time she’d known him.

  ‘Is it urgent?’ Leonata asked.

  ‘No. Private, but no urgency as yet.’

  ‘You say as yet as if it were significant,’ Leonata said. ‘Please explain.’

  Raphael paused, weighing up the options for a split second. How much to tell her? Silvanos had talked as if some things were common knowledge, others not. His instinct was that Leonata was more trustworthy, at the moment, than his political superiors, but instincts could be wrong, and he’d already landed himself in deep water with the Empress.

  But he would not be kept in the dark on this, led to a false conclusion because it pleased the Empire to conceal vital information from him. There was no way he would trust the line the Empire fed him, particularly not when it came from his uncle. If it proved to be true, fair enough. He very much doubted that would be the case, but it would probably be accurate apart from one or two small but extremely important details Silvanos had left out.

  ‘What do you know of the Lost Souls?’

  Leonata’s green eyes held his for a very long moment.

  ‘The Empire thinks Iolani is connected to them,’ she said finally.

  ‘The Empire thinks Iolani is one of them,’ Raphael corrected. ‘And I sense no-one will tell me the whole truth about them.’

  ‘That would be difficult,’ Leonata said, moving over to the desk to open a small jewellery case, and pulling out a heavy clan signet ring which she slipped onto her finger. It looked out of place, too blocky and ostentatious amidst the rest of her jewellery. ‘Nobody’s entirely sure who they are.’

  ‘The Empire seems quite certain.’

  ‘The Empire’s frightened of them,’ Leonata said, snapping the case shut and looking at him again.

  ‘If they’re a revival of the Tuonetar and they’re holding themselves together in the cause of our destruction, maybe the Empire has a point.’

  ‘As I said, the Empire’s afraid of them. As yet, they haven’t given us a reason to be.’

  ‘I can’t believe,’ Raphael said, letting a trace of sarcasm creep into his voice, ‘that even the Council of the Seas would watch a new power grow and fail to check whether it’s a threat.’

  ‘The Council of the Seas has done a great deal more than that,’ Leonata said sharply. ‘Unlike the Empire, we come with open minds. Northerners aren’t fanged demons with black wings who eat children for breakfast.’

  ‘They will be by the time Tiziano’s finished with them.’

  ‘Which is not a prospect for amusement, even in private,’ Leonata said. As if looking for a way to keep her distance, she went over to the furthermost window and pulled the blind down, to cut out the afternoon sun. Something the palace servants would undoubtedly have done as soon as she’d gone, if there were any left. Half the Clan seemed to have been packed into the main courtyard.

  ‘I know it’s not,’ Raphael said, his levity disappearing. ‘But it’s been nine years since I was in the north or anywhere close. A great many things could have changed. The pirates of Sertina were encouraged, and possibly aided, by someone from the north, and I don’t believe he was acting alone. There is a new power, and I need to know if Iolani is merely its agent. Or doesn’t it matter, as long as they bring money into the City’s coffers?’

  ‘That was unworthy of you,’ Leonata remarked, moving on to close the middle blind, cutting out more of the light and that sublime view.

  ‘I’m getting a little tired of people choosing not to tell me things.’

  ‘And I’m wondering how much of what I say will end up on Silvanos’s desk,’ Leonata said, in exasperation. ‘So, you see, we both have our concerns.’

  ‘The Empire hasn’t won that kind of loyalty from me yet,’ Raphael said, and for a moment Leonata paused, her hand reaching for the third blind-cord. She seemed to shake whatever it had been off again a moment later, but she didn’t speak for a moment.

  ‘The Lost Souls have a cause which binds them,’ she said at last. ‘The Empire is sure it’s Thetia’s destruction, but we don’t agree, and our intelligence in this respect is better than theirs. The Council ordered – in Iolani’s absence – that all intelligence on them was to be shared from now on. They’ll talk to us, to a point.’

  ‘And Iolani is one of them?’

  ‘She’s a product of the revival, and she has close links with them. As far as we can tell, the ice trade is all her own, and she’s not subordinate to a higher authority.’

  ‘Who is their highest authority?’ Silvanos hadn’t mentioned their leadership.

  ‘We have no idea,’ Leonata admitted. ‘We don’t even know if they’re an autocracy or some form of republic. Now, we should go down,’ she said. ‘I can’t be late, it would be discourteous in the extreme.’

  She held open the door the advisers had left through, which Raphael saw led onto a landing with doors and a wooden staircase. ‘Down there. Stop at the bottom.’

  ‘One more question,’ Raphael said, pausing.

  ‘What?’

  ‘How many of Ruthelo’s people and allies survived his defeat?’

  ‘Almost none,’ Leonata answered. ‘You can’t begin to imagine how bloody the Anarchy was.’

  She refused to say more, so Raphael left the darkened room, regretting that he’d brought argument to such a place, and made his way down to the cramped space at the bottom of the staircase. The sound of voices filled the air again, louder than it had been upstairs, but there was no window for him to see where they came from.

  Leonata came down behind him, smoothing her hair into place again, her expression far less happy than when Raphael had arrived. She reached out for the handle.

  ‘My apologies,’ Raphael said. ‘I don’t like blundering in t
he dark.’

  ‘We’re all doing that,’ Leonata said, with a trace of concern. ‘But today, put it aside. My daughter is bringing me a new ship. I’ve waited a very long time for this.’

  She opened the door and stepped out into a high-arched hall, paused for a moment, then walked out onto the watergate where the barge was waiting, as a shout of ‘Estarrin!’ came from the gathered Clan.

  Leonata loved travelling on the Manatee.

  Actually, she loved ships, partly because of the smells and the sound and the motion, partly because they were worlds apart, worlds she’d lived in for much of her life. Places with their own rules and intricacies, microcosms of the greater world but ones she could know, and understand, completely. For which it didn’t matter whether the ship in question was a sailing vessel or a manta.

  It had been her one act of sheer vanity as Thalassarch, having a barge made for the Estarrin. Everything else – new ships, the expansion of the Palace, having so many of her clanspeople trained as botanists or biologists – was justifiable. The barge was different, and had made even some of her advisers question her fitness to lead, at the time.

  In truth, it had been as much a matter of the shipbuilders as the barge itself. She had come across them in the Portanis when Anthemia was about five, but already fascinated by anything that sailed or glided on or under the waves. A crumbling boatyard which had built clan barges for centuries, driven almost to ruin when demand dropped off in the Anarchy, now reduced to churning out work-boats and vaporetti, vital but not objects of art in themselves.

  She had given them an order within days, an act of madness at the time, had demanded that they build it to the very highest standards, and that it be of a quality and splendour to compete with the barges of Salassa, Xelestis, or any of the ancient clans. Who, unlike Estarrin, already possessed them, but were leaving them to decay in shrouded boathouses.

  She’d wanted to give the Clan back its pride after all that had happened, and also the boatbuilders theirs, but in the end she had given Vespera back some of its self-esteem, and she couldn’t pretend it was entirely unintentional. She’d sent the message loud and clear that Estarrin were proud to be a clan of Vespera, no matter what had befallen the City during the Anarchy. That she wasn’t willing to abandon the ceremonies and regattas on the Deep, because they were part of what made Vespera unique.