Heirs of the Blade sota-7

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Che was silent for a while, reaching out for an empty space within her. I have thought about it since I first met this woman. Would it do any harm? We had so many things we never said.

  ‘They have the Wasps lodged in some retainer’s hut outside the walls,’ Maure informed her briskly, breaking the mood. ‘I have the directions. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel welcome enough to spend the night in Castle Leose, and besides, I find I miss Varmen more than I expected. Have your sister come to that hut, which is far enough from this castle for me not to have to deal with generations of Salmae ancestors battering at the door. Then I’ll see what I can do.’

  Thirty-Five

  Tynisa had wondered how a Commonwealer noble would be able to confine her enemies, in a castle of the Inapt, where there were no locks, and where those prisoners could most likely possess the Art to fly. It was an eventuality that the ancient builders of Leose had apparently anticipated, however, for there were so many cellars underlying the castle that it seemed remarkable the structure was not undermined to the point of collapse. The largest and most central of these was reached by a narrow and easily defensible stair leading down from the guards’ quarters on the floor above, and alternatively through a trapdoor set into the courtyard, wide enough for a horse to be lowered through it should the need arise. The lords of Leose clearly did not want to see their enemies dragged through the castle halls on their way to imprisonment. So, when the surviving chiefs of the brigands had been brought in, it was a simple matter to decant them straight into the bowels of the castle.

  There was only one cell down there: a pit excavated into the floor, some fifteen foot deep, and walled in smooth, slick stone. Of course, that would prove no obstacle to most Commonwealers, but the grille that covered it was held down at each corner by a heavy block of stone. Tynisa had watched the captives installed there, seeing those same weights swung into position on ropes that were balanced by counterweights. It was as intricate a system as the Inapt had ever designed, and plainly dated from whatever ancient era the castle was first constructed in. Only the cane grille and the ropes themselves would have needed periodic replacement, and the masters of Leose had held their enemies here in such a manner since time immemorial.

  She had now come back to view the prisoners – her prisoners as she felt justified in considering them. For had she not led the charge? Had she not been the vanguard of the assault that had scattered their army and captured them? She looked upon them, almost fondly, with a proprietorial air. My gift to Alain.

  As she approached, stepping lightly down the narrow, winding stair from above, she heard a hurried movement, the flurry of wings, and knew that one of the prisoners must have been crawling about the underside of the grille, testing it for weak points. The canes themselves were as thick in diameter as Tynisa’s arm, and they were bound together with wire, as well as cord that had been soaked first and then dried tight. Even those prisoners whose Art had furnished them with blades would not be able to pry this prison apart.

  As she stepped to the edge, they were all waiting with upturned faces, pale or sallow or the gold of Dragonfly-kinden. The only one bound was the Wasp-kinden, who had his arms twisted behind him and lashed together, that being a lesson the Commonwealers had learned well enough. She gave them time to recognize her, as she stood gazing down on them like an empress.

  A mixed bag they were, too, about a score of them, looking more like tired, wretched vagabonds than dangerous brigands. They included a ragbag of Grasshoppers and Dragonflies, the one brooding Scorpion, the Wasp, and a Spider-kinden who must have been very far from home. The Scorpion’s glare was baleful but defeated, and only one seemed to retain a spark of defiance. She almost smiled at the sight of their leader: the Dragonfly known, she had since learned, as Dal Arche.

  ‘Come to gloat?’ he asked, and the walls of the pit took the soft words and conveyed them up to her easily.

  ‘To see justice done,’ she retorted, and he nodded philosophically.

  ‘That time is it, then? Are you the executioner?’

  ‘You have a few days more to brood on your defeat,’ she declared, noting the shadows of anger and despair that passed across their faces. In truth, Salme Elass was saving them for something suitably public. She had sent messengers to cordially invite Felipe Shah to witness the death of these enemies of the Monarch’s peace, and Tynisa knew that the woman would then press for the retaking of Rhael, so as to finish off the extermination of all the scum that had gathered there in defiance of the rightful authority of the princes. Still, the brigand’s suggestion had some merit in it. ‘I shall ask to be appointed as your executioner, and why not? For who else has that right, more than I?’

  The Dragonfly looked up at her, almost smiling, with eyes narrowed like a man looking into the sun. ‘Since you’re in a talkative mood, what’s all of this to you, girl? They paying you well, are they?’

  ‘I’m no mercenary,’ she told him. ‘I just know what’s right. You’re lawbreakers and rebels against the Monarch.’

  ‘Well, that makes us sound grand,’ Dal Arche replied wryly. ‘I hadn’t realized you’d met the Monarch. I never saw her myself.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  He shrugged. ‘I won’t deny that the laws of princes don’t sit happily on my shoulders. I travelled a long way to get out from under them but, wherever you go, it seems there’s always someone trying to tell you what to do, whether they call themselves prince or emperor. I thought I might as well come home, in that case.’

  Tynisa shook her head, crouching by the edge of the grille to see him better. ‘Oh, that won’t carry weight, brigand. I’ve seen the Empire, and you can’t equate Imperial rule with the Commonweal.’

  ‘Lived there, have you? And lived a life here, to compare?’ Dal challenged her.

  ‘ His people killed my father,’ she hissed, jabbing a finger at the Wasp, who flinched back, startled.

  ‘Don’t drag me into this. I quit,’ he muttered, but Dal was already shaking his head.

  ‘If you want to play that game, then one prince or another has killed pretty much everyone I ever knew,’ he said. ‘Oh, certainly it was the Wasps who held the sword, but it was my own kinden, my glorious betters, who threw the victims onto it. It’s been some prince or other who’s taxed my kin so that we could only live hand to mouth, and never build anything more on what we had. It’s been your darling prince and his mother here who knocked us down when we tried to set ourselves up like decent folk in Siriell’s Town.’

  ‘I saw Siriell’s Town,’ Tynisa snapped. ‘There was nothing “decent” there.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry we didn’t all live in the castle,’ Dal Arche retorted, a little more fire in his voice now. ‘Perhaps then we’d have fitted your idea of how decent folk live? Tell me, who are you to judge us, living here without care as a guest of the Salmae?’

  Tynisa leant closer, feeling obscurely gratified that she had made him angry at last. ‘I’ve seen more of the world than you, old man. I’ve seen the Empire and I know what they value there: tyranny and slavery. I’ve seen Helleron and I know half the Lowlands is just greed running riot, or places like Collegium where good intentions are never quite enough. But I know… I know the Commonweal. The Commonweal makes good people, who fight for the right things: heroes. I know what the Monarch believes in. I recognize truth and honour and honesty when I see it. A friend taught me about the Commonweal, by the example of everything he ever did. He was the best man I ever knew, and he knew what was right and what was wrong. That’s how I can judge you, thief and murderer that you are. You have rebelled against your rightful rulers, and for that you’ll die.’

  She waited for an explosion of wrath, of counter-accusation, even of pleading, but it did not come.

  Instead Dal Arche leant back against the wall of the pit. ‘Oh, that does sound grand. If you ever find this mythical place you’re talking about, let me know, I’d like to see it. Until then, I suppose I’ll have
to live with the merely human nobility who got so many of us killed in the war. At least I won’t have to live with them very long.’

  Something nagged at her briefly, some echo of Lowre Cean’s words before the battle, but she shrugged it away. ‘I can judge,’ she repeated. ‘And I can be the one to wield the blade, when your time comes. Better that than suffer the crossed pikes of the Empire, no?’

  ‘And in your Lowlands?’ he asked her.

  ‘They were always too soft in Collegium,’ she replied, getting up and turning to go. A thought struck her, and she gave voice to it: ‘You can hardly deny that you’ve earned this, having robbed and pillaged your way across half of the province?’

  ‘Oh, no, not at all,’ was his reply. ‘We took what we wanted and went wherever we would. But more joined us than fled from us, and for a while at least, we were free of princes. And I will maintain, to death and beyond, that those who condemn us are themselves murderers and thieves greater than we are, and no amount of law and heritage will change that.’

  She opened her mouth for a scathing rebuke, but the words did not come to her. They are criminals going to their just punishment, she assured herself, but abruptly she had no stomach left for taunting them.

  ‘When the time comes, I’ll look for a sharp blade and a quick end,’ Dal Arche stated. ‘We’re owed that much, I think.’

  She nodded, thrown off balance but not sure why. Inside her head, her mantra whirled: I love Alain. Alain is a prince. Alain is virtuous, as a prince should be. And always at the back of that was the knowledge that Alain must be virtuous, because Salma had been virtuous. But Salma had been removed from her grasp by his Butterfly lover, and then by death, and so Alain was what she had, and he must be as much the man as Salma was. She would not countenance any other option.

  The brigands were all staring at her, and she was aware of having stood in silence at the pit’s edge for too long. She turned quickly and stalked away, hoping that such an exit would seem part of her disdain for them, yet all the while wondering what part of her thoughts had been readable in her face.

  Castle Leose was busier now than she had ever seen it, for Princess Salme Elass was about to hold some grand piece of festivity, calling all and sundry of noble blood to congratulate her on putting down Dal Arche’s little insurrection. There seemed to be twice as many servants as was usual, a general summons for itinerant entertainers to amuse the anticipated guests. In the castle’s courtyard, Tynisa watched Grasshopper musicians tuning up, whilst their long-legged acrobats leapt and balanced. A troupe of Roach-kinden had appeared, presenting themselves as jugglers and magicians, although it seemed more likely that they were opportunistic wayfarers looking for a free meal. Most disturbing to Tynisa was the trio of dancers apparently brought here at the princess’s express command. They did not practise out in public view, nor did they mingle with their peers, instead clustering together out of the way in a corner that would be shadowed if they had not brought their own light to it. Tynisa had only ever seen one Butterfly in her life, but the woman had been a dancer too, and stirred no fond memories. The mere sight of these shimmering, glowing girls, with their ethereal grace and beauty radiating from every pose and motion, stirred ugly thoughts within her.

  When she found Alain again, he was amid a gaggle of other Dragonfly nobles, the same crowd of the young and elegant that had attended the dance – less a few faces like Orian’s, that had been claimed by the fighting. Tynisa paused in an archway, looking out across the sun-splashed open garden, where, in the shadow of carefully intertwined trees, these brightly clad aristocrats were laughing at something the prince himself had just said. She could see how their entire society revolved about him; without him they were nothing, and their status and standing could be read in each individual stance, and in the distance they stood from their prince. She saw how the women amongst them desired him, but she knew that it was only for the chance of becoming the lady of Leose after Salme Elass died. The men admired him and envied his power and bloodline.

  Tynisa’s mind seemed to cast shadows over the gathering, painting their faces in darker colours, poisonous and dangerous: bad influences. Alain would be better away from this place, not entombed in stone and etiquette, not leeched at by these sycophants. After all, she did not care whether he was prince or pauper, so long as he bore Salma’s face. It would make a better man of him if he was removed from all this pointless distraction: just the two of them travelling the world, seeking out any just cause. Perhaps they would end up as Mercers in the service of the Monarch, or fighting the Empire when it inevitably turned its attention westward.

  She felt a pressure in her mind that told her she would have to take action soon, just to save him from this wasteful life. Her hand itched for her sword hilt, but she restrained herself. Whilst it seemed likely that such a course as she intended would bring her into fatal conflict with others here, Whitehand and Princess Elass most of all, she must at least try to achieve her ends peaceably. After all, it was possible that Alain was not yet so corrupted by his hangers-on, and that he would come with her willingly. Otherwise she might have to take action, for his own good.

  One of the noblewomen had spotted her, and Tynisa noticed the look of disdain on the Dragonfly’s face on seeing the Spider-kinden duellist in her tired old arming jacket, in stark contrast to the shimmering hues of the court. Tynisa smiled at her keenly, enjoying the automatic flinch of the other woman’s response, then she stepped further out into the courtyard. Her approach caused a small flurry, minute changes of pose and position effecting an arrangement that attempted to exclude her, but failed because none of them would interpose themselves between her and Alain. They could sneer at her all they liked, but their derision remained hollow so long as she could see that they were afraid of her.

  Only dare challenge me, she thought, finding that none would even meet her gaze, and we shall then see who looks down on whom, at the end.

  ‘Alain,’ she said. He had no fear of her, at least, and he put an easy arm about her shoulders, drawing her close to him. It seemed to her that he was equally amused by the way that she unnerved his compatriots. Secure at his side, she gave them all a sharp-edged smile. See who he chooses, out of all of you. See who he considers his own?

  ‘Later,’ the prince told his followers. ‘We’ll discuss later.’ So dismissed, they drifted away in ones and twos, until he and Tynisa were alone, with only the walls and the cloudless spring sky.

  ‘Discuss?’ she enquired, as the two of them found their way past the twined trees to a half-hidden garden beyond, fragrant with herbs and early flowers and the drone of bees.

  ‘Discuss the celebrations of our victory – your victory, my huntress. Everyone wants to demonstrate their loyalty and fealty to my mother, for fear of being overlooked when any rewards are handed out. Everyone wants an estate in Rhael when we retake it.’ He grinned at her, that maddening and familiar grin. ‘Another opportunity for you to bloody your blade?’

  ‘There is more to life than fighting,’ she remarked with raised eyebrows.

  His grin intensified. ‘As my wicked huntress has already shown me. Still, I’d assumed that blade-work was your first love.’

  She did not say, You are my first love, but the words were written on her features clearly enough as she faced him. It was true, as well – if one took him for his brother.

  The pause between them was a long one, but his smile did not slip. ‘Do not fear, for I have claimed you as my own, huntress, and you have served me well. You shall be rewarded as well as any.’

  ‘So tell me,’ she pressed, because that pause concerned her and she sensed adverse influence, perhaps his peers or his family trying to take him from her. ‘What do you promise me, Alain?’

  ‘Time for that later,’ he assured her. ‘At our celebration we shall bestow all manner of honours on those who have served us well.’

  ‘I don’t want such a promise from the grand family of the Salmae,’ she pointed out. ‘I wa
nt only one from you.’

  Still his smile remained constant. ‘And you shall have it, in time.’ Abruptly he broke away from her. ‘But I was summoned some time ago to meet with my mother.’ His grimace was wholly unfeigned. ‘Forgive me, as your company is sweeter by far, but duty is duty.’

  She watched him as he left: a flash of wings and a flutter of silk robes, and he was gone in a way she could never follow.

  There was a small cold stone suddenly in her heart. They are taking him from me. She did not want to act against the Salmae. It seemed absurd, in the face of her recent words to the captive brigands, that she should be contemplating her own insurrection. Still, she could see what was right and what was wrong, and since the hunt she had never been so sure of her judgement. The world was writ in black and white for her now. I will have to save him from himself seemed like an inescapable conclusion.

  Exiting by way of the twisted trees, she found herself come face to face with Lisan Dea’s severe features, as though the woman had been lying in wait for her.

  ‘What do you want?’ Tynisa demanded. The surprise had put her sword in her hand instantly.

  ‘Please recollect that this is my lady’s castle, of which I am seneschal and chief among her servants.’ Despite the woman’s calm tone, the reprimand stung, and Tynisa took a step back, her blade in its scabbard once again. The steward nodded at this concession, and continued. ‘Your part-sister Maker Cheerwell sends word. She has gone to the Turncoat’s home, to be with her travelling companions, and she asks that you join her there. I understand there is some manner of ceremony or ritual that she wishes to carry out – something from your homeland, perhaps?’

  ‘A ceremony?’ Tynisa blinked at that, wondering if Che intended to stage a one-woman re-enactment of the opening of the Amphiophos or something. The sheer banality of this, and the thought of foolish, amiable Che, brought her out of her reverie, pushing away those thoughts of blood and honour that seemed to cling to her ever closer these days.