No Present Like Time

by Steph Swainston

  “My lord Emperor,” he announced. His voice gave way. He tried again: “I humbly petition to join the Circle and I claim the title Serein, having beaten Gio Ami Serein in a fair Challenge.” He thought for a second, eyes aside like an actor trying to remember his lines-but also because it meant he didn’t look at San. “I intend to serve you and the Fourlands every minute of my life.”

  San regarded Wrenn and the members of the Circle in silence. Even at this distance I felt the scrutiny of his incredibly clear and intelligent gaze. San always wore white-a tabard with panels of colorless jewels over a plain robe that reached to the floor. The pointed toes of his flat white shoes projected from under them. The style of San’s clothes had remained the same since the year he created the former Circle, four hundred years after god left. His whole body was covered except for his thin and ringless hands.

  The sunburst throne also remained a symbol of permanence. An ancient broadsword and circular shield hung from its back. They were a keen reminder that if we Eszai finally fail him in the Fourlands’ struggle against the Insects, San will again direct the battle himself. In the Castle’s stables a destrier is always reserved for him, never ridden, never used.

  San rose and approached the front of the dais. “You have selected yourself for the Circle. You have humbly placed your talents at the world’s disposal. I thank you. Every successful Challenger must complete one last observance to become immortal. You must tell me everything about your life so far. Relate all that you think is significant from your earliest memory to the events that brought you here. You will not lie. My Circle will hear your testimony but they will neither interrupt nor judge. Nothing you reveal will ever be repeated. Only a refusal to speak will jeopardize your entrance into the Circle, not what you say. You have already won.

  “The ceremony continues with your reception afterward: for one hour the other members of my Circle may question you as they wish. You will always reply with the truth; they will neither criticize nor condemn. They are not permitted to repeat your words at any time or place. If anyone ever reveals what he or she learns, he or she will be rejected from the Circle. During the following hour you can question the other immortals about themselves. Likewise they are obliged to tell the truth and you must never disclose what they say.”

  It’s the only chance you’ll ever have, I added to myself.

  San looked expectant. Wrenn hesitated. He suffered in the intense silence, and so began, “My name is Wrenn Culmish. I’m…I am from Summerday bastide town. Insects killed my mother when I was an infant and my father brought me up. He was a fyrd soldier given land for his service, and he taught me to fence…I surpassed him in skill when I was fifteen…But he proudly organized bouts with the other townsmen. I learned from them and soon I always won. So I had a faint dream of trying for the Circle.

  “The year after, a soldier turned highwayman picked a duel with my father, who knew his identity. The robber waited on the road for him on the way back from the pub. My father did not return. I searched for him-I never stopped-but three days later the river washed his damaged and dirty body onto the sandy bank right in front of the governor’s house. It was so badly beaten that we could not tell how he died.

  “I borrowed some rich clothes to disguise myself and I went looking for the highwayman. I rode up and down the Lowespass Road until he held me up. I disarmed the swine in a minute and he knelt, begging for mercy. Before I handed him over to the magistrate-he was hanged-I…I cut him…I took him apart. Until he told what he had done to my poor father.

  “The first night he buried the body in the woods outside town. He could only scrape a shallow hole because tree roots blocked the soil. The following day he fretted that a passerby might find the grave and unearth his crime. So the second night, in raw weather, he dug it up, carried the body to the Miroir moor and buried it in a deep hole. But then the idea tormented him that the moorland peat would preserve it forever and the disturbed grass would reveal the grave. So the following night he dug it up again. He threw it into the river from the top of a rocky outcrop. The river’s flow brought the broken remains straight to Governor Merganser’s door…I am sorry for what I did to the highwayman…”

  San made no comment, so Wrenn continued. “Anyway…when I knew that I was alone, I decided to travel south. If I had stayed in Summerday I would still be there now, gradually forgetting everything I dreamed of. I went to Tanager and joined the ranks of the Select Fyrd. I helped clear Insects from Rachiswater and the land around the River Oscen. I conducted myself well, I’m proud to say, and when Skua was killed I was made division captain. Then I saw the future stretching out, always the same. I was thwarted. I sparred with all-comers. I gave the gentry scratches but they came back wanting more, unable to believe they had lost to a smallholder’s son. In the end I beat them all. Well, yes, I resent them…But that doesn’t matter now, does it? I’ve done something they could never do.

  “My dreams of the Circle returned. Thank god, my skill rather than my background is what matters to the Castle, I reckoned; there’s a way out of this circus. For five years solid I spent all my off-duty time training. I was full of doubt and hope. I thought I was a dupe and a wretch to consider fighting the Swordsman. I nursed the idea for years and did nothing about it, then one night on a mad impulse I sent a letter to him. He chose to fight using rapier and dagger, which is my forte…Um…” Wrenn’s speech filled the hall and it seemed to him that his voice droned on. “I am twenty-five years old,” he whispered, looking at the backs of his hands. He stuttered and fell quiet. He realized that in a few minutes he would be twenty-five forever and their appearance would never change.

  “Answer my questions,” said the Emperor. “Have you ever fought Insects alone?”

  “Yes, my lord. I’ve killed Insects one at a time in the Rachiswater amphitheater and hunted a couple found lurking by the town.”

  “Have you ever felt fear?”

  Wrenn hesitated, wondering what the best answer was. I knew that doubt well; in my initiation I had to confess all kinds of crimes to the whole Circle. I saw from his panicked expression that we seemed more forbidding and the Throne Room door looked tempting. I thought he was going to make a dash for it.

  “Yes…” he said eventually. “I have never been as frightened as I am right now. But I master my fear.”

  San asked, “Do you have a partner to bring into the Circle?”

  Wrenn shook his head. He tried to smooth over his exhaustion with confidence but it could still be seen like the shape of wings under velvet. “I’ve made no time in my life for girlfriends.”

  There is no way you can lie with the Emperor’s gaze on you; it’s impossible to hide anything. Wrenn squirmed uncertainly and stared at the floor. “You want me to tell? I spent my nights in the brothels instead. Well, it’s easier. I’ve been planning this Challenge for years; I couldn’t afford the time to have relationships.”

  We all privately remembered how terrible it is to speak alone in that vast space and felt sympathetic. I had witnessed the ceremony as an Eszai three times before, firstly when Tern joined at my wedding, and most recently when Ata Dei became Mist. I glanced at Mist; she looked shifty, probably recalling how during her initiation she tried to lie but instead found herself confessing that she murdered her husband for his place in the Circle.

  San stated, “You swear to serve me, in my service to the Fourlands, in god’s name, for as long as I give you life.”

  “I swear,” said Wrenn, forcefully.

  The Emperor raised his right hand, bony fingers and prominent joints. “Come forward.”

  Wrenn climbed the dais steps, wondering at the great transformation about to take place. I could practically hear him thinking: this is it. He braced himself for immortality as if it would burn through him. It’s nothing like that. It doesn’t hurt, in fact when it happened to me I could feel no sensation.

  The Emperor extended his hand to Wrenn. Wrenn grasped and pressed his lips to it for a se
cond. The Circle took him in.

  Wrenn looked up finally to the Emperor’s eyes. San announced, “Now you are the Swordsman. Your name is Serein.”

  A smile broke slowly over Serein’s face. He dropped to his knees at San’s feet, in silence. Then as if he could not bear such close proximity to the Emperor and aware that the rite was over, Serein quietly backed down from the dais, turned and passed the benches. We all stood as he passed. Lightning and Rayne glanced at each other; they had felt the ripple in the Circle as San made the exchange: one out, one in. After the transfer they’d feel Wrenn’s presence as slightly different from Gio’s, like a new person joining an inhabited room. Serein walked down the aisle, seeming to diminish in size, and left the Throne Room by himself. Lightning would join him outside; he made it his responsibility to greet new immortals and give them some much-needed advice. One by one we bowed to the Emperor, who was always last to leave the court, and followed Serein. As I passed through the door I grabbed two pocketfuls of confetti and glitter, swept up my hands and threw it over our heads.

  A babble of a hundred conversations hung in the air of the Great Hall. I wanted to climb up to my rafter where I customarily sit, legs dangling, to watch the party. But I couldn’t do that with my arm around Tern. I led her through a dozen conversations.

  “Is he here yet? I want to meet the boy. I’ve questions to ask him…”

  “He’s twenty-five, bless. How rare it is to be so adept so young.”

  “Try the smoked venison, it’s excellent.”

  “Eleonora? Busy revitalizing the kingdom. She’s good, by god, I only hear praise.”

  “But the court’s full of scandal. What she does with chambermaids, I-”

  “‘For an Eszai everything is easy.’ Ha! How can they think that?”

  “Look! There’s Comet. He’s back! Hais-gelet, Jant?”

  The Emperor was seated at the high table on a raised stage. He did not touch the feast before him. Tern swayed her skirt a little to the music-a young lad slammed away at the piano, lissome women in jasper red played fiddle reels.

  Confetti on the carpet, candelabra; people leaned on the oak paneling, kissed under the arches. Frost was building a cantilevered bridge out of forks and salt cellars. Rayne and Hayl played chess with marzipan pieces on an enormous pink and yellow cake shaped like a chess board.

  What platters and plates and bowls of food! There were sugared almonds, edible stars, spiced wine, iced wine, spring water, wheat beer and cream liqueur. There were flambéed swordfish, sliced lengthways on silver trenchers.

  There were packets of Cobalt cigarillos on the table for those who wanted them. Boar pies-speciality of Cathee, charcoal-roast mushrooms, fat onions, saffron rice from Litanee, steak that juices up your mouth. There was peppered asparagus and kale from the Fescue fields; squash, tomatoes, baked potatoes cracked and oozing butter, Shivel cheeses like crumbly drums with fat blue veins. There was fruit: glazed, glacé, covered in cream.

  There were warm loaves, soft inside and smelling sensual, lobster claws pickled from the Peregrine coast, poached pike from the river. Northern exotics like pinnacle rabbits spirited in from Carniss, eels from Brandoch, Awndyn salmon and sundry seafood.

  East into Awia, the spices were wilder-fenugreek and turmeric dhal, moist cake with nutmeg and cinnamon sultanas. The best coffee from Micawater, prime grapes plump with juice, olives like slick jewels, floury chorizo sausages in net bags, artichokes you had to be Awian to understand, pizza, prosciutto, ciabatta and more olives.

  Tanager crispy duck, all kinds of little birds, larks in pastry, magglepies, dumstruks and starlings caught on lime and cooked on the branch because Awians consider falconry insulting. There were peacocks couchant looking haughty with their skin and fantails replaced. There were crackling hogs with grafted wings and bemused expressions. Bustards were stuffed with turkeys stuffed with pheasant stuffed with partridge stuffed with quails stuffed with chestnut-cutting into it revealed layers of meat like tree rings and was more than I can face. A swan glided up the high table, by gingerbread with silver metallic icing that the Emperor quite ignored.

  Eat, eat, eat. Immortality in gluttony. Watch out for checkmate on the marzipan cake!

  Lightning noticed us and remarked to Serein, who was gorging on sliced beef and fruit sauce in a wood bowl. His chest was broad and his arms well-defined muscle. He held himself tensely, trying not to dissipate under the tide of strange things, expressive people. Serein’s regime of training had not prepared him for the duel’s aftermath-he was the center of attention but he still felt alone. If he wished himself back in Summerday now, he would feel much worse when he bore the responsibility of command on the battlefield.

  Aside from his skill in archery Lightning has cultivated many social talents. It was said of him that if he was in the building no woman would ever have to open a door. He was dapper in black tie and a raised-and-slashed celadon silk shirt, his wings sticking out the back. Some people say that wings have become smaller over millennia because they can’t be used and as Awians, especially non-aristocratic ones, intermarry with humans. Whatever the truth, Lightning’s wings were distinctly larger than Wrenn’s.

  “Serein Wrenn,” Lightning said, “may I introduce you to our Messenger and Lady Tern? Comet can fly; I think that’s because he takes things too lightly. He will carry your letters anywhere in the Fourlands, and will help if you need translations, so don’t hesitate to ask.”

  The frontier boy bowed, steering back his sword hanger with his left hand and staring at me. I tolerated the usual scrutiny. People don’t notice the subtleties straight away but they find my leggy proportions jarring. I shook his hand. “I’m impressed-nobody can be taught to fight like that.”

  “Comet Jant Shira. Lady Tern. It’s an honor to meet you,” he said, looking as if he meant every word of it. His eyes were so wide I could see all the whites around the blue irises. He was wired on anxiety. He could not put a foot outside the narrow sphere of etiquette for fear that he would say or do something dreadful and be rejected from his hard-won place in the Circle, without ever knowing why. His fear was unfounded because only another Challenger could replace him, but he was almost frozen by the manners he imposed on himself.

  A servant passed by, carrying a salver of champagne flutes. I took the whole tray from her, balanced it on one hand. I swept it low in front of Serein. “Take a drink.”

  He declined, uncomfortably.

  “Go on,” said Tern.

  “I don’t drink,” he said, reddening.

  “No, really? Tonight of all nights!” I pushed the tray toward him. “One glass of champers to celebrate?”

  “Sorry, no, Shira-I’m not used to it. If I took a drink now, I could never rise at six to practice.”

  After a duel like that, who would anyway? “Sleep till midday,” I said. “Your first day as an Eszai. That’s what I did. I sprayed champagne everywhere; I love being soaked to the skin in it.”

  Lightning was enjoying this. “The Swordsman doesn’t drink alcohol, so leave him alone.”

  “Shira, if I slip up and lose my edge a Challenger will get the better of me.”

  Every time he said “Shira” I bit my teeth together and they were starting to hurt. I said, “Call me Jant. The name Shira really signifies I belong in the lower caste among the Rhydanne. It means ‘Born out of wedlock’-I can’t translate it better than that.” Well actually I can, because it means “bastard,” but I’m not putting ideas in his head.

  Wrenn had caused offense already and he was appalled. His face moved awkwardly; he was overaware of its every feature. “I’m sorry.”

  “Worry not.” I waved a hand. I make my body language expressive to compensate for the difficulty most people have in reading my cat eyes.

  Wrenn shuffled his feet as if they took up too much space on the carpet. I wanted to tell him, I understand how daunting this is, but lighten up, you won’t be out on the street tomorrow. You’ll still be here, immortal, starin
g at the backs of your hands like a fool.

  He was frantically searching for something to say. Every word sounded loud and momentous to him; he picked them carefully, knowing they would be permanently impressed on his memory. I remember when I was in his position, in my reception when I was surrounded by Eszai-I had heard of every single one before through tales or monuments to their work. They were all here, in one place, and they talked to each other! I had been a novelty to them. I tried to get to know them all in one night, but the Eszai I most wanted to speak to was the Comet I had displaced. I practically pinned Rayne against a column and gabbled to her excitedly about chemistry and the latest research into Insect behavior. I told her far too much about my past, without realizing she understood, and that in describing the slums of Hacilith I had reminded her too much of hers.

  I could offer Wrenn advice and he might bring something new and interesting to the Castle. I began to understand why Lightning took newcomers rapidly under his wing. I said, “Serein is your stage name; you’ll be grateful for it. You can make Serein whoever you want and Wrenn, your real self, will be safe.”

  Serein glanced across the hall and suddenly gaped at a gossipy cluster of extremely beautiful girls. They saw him watching and wafted their plumed fans, parading themselves. They were mortals-Zascai-only fleeting names; they stood on the outside smiling, craving to be chosen and drawn in. Tern eyed them stonily. “That’s just the beginning. Next time, when word gets around, there’ll be crowds.”

  “Look,” said Lightning urgently. “Be careful of those ladies. You need to learn how to discourage them.”

  “Have fun,” I said vaguely. He could choose a different gold digger every night; no need for whores.

  Tern snorted. “Seduction’s their job, Wrenn,” she warned. “They’ve studied it. If you give them an opportunity they’ll eat you alive. They will try anything to marry into the Circle.”