No Present Like Time

by Steph Swainston

  I translated the Plainslands article aloud to make it easier for Lightning, and then I picked up the broadsheet he had been reading. He pointed out an editorial at the bottom of the page. “The Grand Tour just got longer,” he said.

  RACE IS ON TO THE ISLAND OF DELIGHT

  As Gio Ami’s uprising confounds the Plainslands, news spreads about the Island of Tris. It has caused a stir in Lakeland Awia. Our correspondent at the court writes that Queen Eleonora Tanager yesterday summoned to Rachiswater Palace one of the mariners of the 2019 expedition. The Court was entertained to hear, at first hand, the bizarre travelers’ tales currently filling the penny dreadfuls.

  The Wrought Standard remains skeptical of the details, yet accepts that an island has been discovered since the flagship Stormy Petrel departed on another journey not one month after returning from the first. Mist’s statement that she returned empty-handed is now regarded as a half-truth at best. The Castle must have planned her venture because Stormy Petrel was careened and resupplied within a month; the Castle is invited to reply to allegations that it has been economical with the truth.

  No place is perfect, but Tris comes close. The islanders are both winged and wingless people. The climate is good, and the soil on the slopes of the central mountain is as fertile as Plow’s black earth wheat fields. The sailor said their food was succulent fruit he had never seen before, and fish with sweet, rich flesh. The culture seems sophisticated, but sailors’ tales are not wholly to be trusted. They also tell of having seen men with paddles for hands and mountains that emit smoke like chimneys.

  The island is mostly in a wild and natural state. There are no settlements in the interior; the natives travel around their rocky coast by canoe.

  Queen Eleonora has expressed interest in mounting her own expedition, as has Lord Governor Brandoch. Tris offers opportunities to trade, and a place of settlement that can be offered to our displaced countrymen sadly suffering the lot of refugees. The race is on to construct or engage craft worthy of making this long sea voyage.

  I was interrupted by a cry from Wrenn, who had turned straight to the sports pages. He pointed out a paragraph:

  Gio Ami’s admirable life’s work was shattered in one flukish move by Wrenn, all reporters present at that immortal duel agreed. Wrenn proved that there are no universal laws in the Art; now, characteristically, the master of the Ghallain School seems determined to take unpredictability to extremes. His rebellion could not be foreseen by those of us who knew his cool fencing style. His aggression in the game used to be well controlled, he always kept some tricks back. Now he gains followers like swarms of Insects, determined to deal the Circle a mortal blow.

  As Gio Ami told us, “Serein Wrenn is away, maybe lost at sea. If Eszai can’t give one hundred percent for the Empire, they should not be Eszai at all.”

  D. Tir, Editor, Secret Cut Fencing Times

  “So,” said Mist. “Gio Ami doesn’t know when to leave.” We were all silent, thinking of the man’s gall.

  Lightning said, “There must be some mistake. It’s unthinkable! What does he imagine he can achieve?”

  Wrenn tore the paper up and cast the shreds on the floor. “I’ll meet him for you.” He glared around at us. “I’ll take him back to the amphitheater and run him through!”

  “It’s his followers I worry about,” said Lightning.

  “They won’t stay with him,” I conjectured.

  Mist slammed her hand on the table. “Gentlemen, a council to decide our course because we don’t know what we’ll find.”

  “We should hasten to the Castle as quickly as possible,” Lightning said simply.

  “Aye, but I won’t put in to Awndyn and risk a clash with any of Gio’s followers.”

  Lightning said, “I will answer for Swallow Awndyn.”

  “No, no, don’t be so unwise. We can’t trust any Zascai. Especially the allegiance of Swallow, whom San won’t allow into the Circle. I will not chance the safety of my ships. I’ll hide Stormy Petrel and leave an armed guard on her. You know in the past the most precarious times for the Castle are those when we’ve managed to beat back the Insects.”

  Lightning nodded and said, “Well, Serein wanted a chance to prove himself.”

  The next day the mainland was nearer. At first it was a pale gray silhouette, and at ten kilometers out I saw the exact instant when it became green. Colors on the coastline differentiated as we sailed nearer. The water had a blindingly bright mirror glare, as moving ripples reflected the sun. It was so calm it looked solid, almost as if I could walk on it.

  At five kilometers out the sea was busy with traffic of various vessels coming and going, small sails in the distance. Ships turned left on sight, out of each other’s way; they hailed each other when gathering to approach the port. We were at the depth and bearings of the main north-south route along the coast, which the sailors called Carrack Roads. We anchored and all the Petrel’s crates of precious cargo were transported to the Melowne.

  The Melowne sat lower in the water, a target for corsairs, so Mist ordered all her Castle pennants to be furled one by one until she only flew Tanager’s ensign. The Melowne then parted from us and Fulmer steered her northward, heading for Tanager harbor, where he and Mist had decided that the precious cargo would be most secure.

  Gray dolphins packed our bow wave, jumping and snorting; their hard bodies slicked through the water. They rolled, breaking the surface and half-somersaulting as if they were spinning on a wheel. I wondered what Tarragon thought of them-snack food, probably.

  “We’ll anchor in a sheltered bay I know well,” Mist said. But we headed for a blank chalk cliff with none of the cleavages where harbors lie. I didn’t much like it, so I climbed on the back railing, spread my wings and let the ship slip out from under me. I sailed up on a current, seeing the white chalk and lines of black flint speed past, till I was above the cliff. I looked down on the grassy top and realized that what I had thought was a continuous wall was an enormous flat, rugged stack hiding the narrow mouth of a cove. I soared along the cliff edge, hanging suspended in the wind which blew in from the sea and was driven vertically up its face.

  Stormy Petrel tacked once, so close to the rock that the gallery at her waist scraped it. Mist and her bosun spun the wheel between them, and Petrel slipped through the passage behind the stack with only a couple of meters on either side. I turned again into the wind and glided back along the cliff top toward the inlet.

  Stormy Petrel anchored herself fore and aft. She was hidden, but only from the sea. Anyone on the grass could look down two hundred meters to see the ship calmly bobbing in the dark quiet water crosshatched with ripples. Every wavelet made her dance; there was nothing in her hold but ballast and bilge water. The walls of the deep circular pool were sheer but there was a floating jetty constructed from barrels. From this landing stage a series of uneven steps hacked into the chalk led up to a cave entrance above the high-water line-a smugglers’ hideout. Though since Mist knew about it their contraband would be long gone.

  Petrel lowered her landing craft and spewed out a procession of tattered sailors who climbed the steps into the cave, where they vanished, and more men behind them tramped into the grotto that surely couldn’t hold such numbers. It was like a conjuring trick. Half an hour later, the first man emerged onto the cliff top through a pothole I had not previously noticed. Another head-torso-legs followed, until all the sailors were sitting on the grass, scraping chalk sludge off their boots. Lightning and Wrenn climbed out last, absorbed in an intense conversation, but I couldn’t hear what they were talking about. I was having too much trouble defending myself from fluttering little song-birds. My big cross-shaped silhouette pinned in the sky on motionless wings reminded them of an eagle. They could out-fly me; they orbited and dived on my head. I tried batting them away, but their tiny beaks were very sharp.

  Mist paid her crew and told them when to muster at the Puff Inn in Awndyn-on-the-Strand to gain a cut of the profit from the spi
ce ship. She briefed them to hold their tongues about Tris with a promise of future employment, and dismissed them.

  I flew into Awndyn feeling that the atmosphere had changed; people were looking up at me suspiciously. I visited the offices of the Black Coach, the postal system of stagecoaches that uses the stables and hostels of coaching inns. It was set up by my predecessors who were reliant on horses. Its mail network was nominally answerable to me as Comet, and despite their palpable disquiet the Awndyn branch seemed to be coping just as well as the last time I visited six years ago. I procured horses from their yard for Mist, Lightning and the Swordsman, and had to sign in triplicate for a carriage-and-pair for our luggage. I joined the others on the main road and directed them to the Remige Road in the direction of Eske manor and the Castle.

  The sensation of the waves’ movement still lasted from the ship. I felt as if I was rising and falling although I had both feet on dry land. It was a pleasant feeling that lulled and confused my senses; coupled with the warmth of scolopendium it sent me into a condition of bliss.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Remige Road was one of the main routes built by the Castle for the movement of fyrd to and from the Front. It was wide, for two wagons abreast, and it had worn a deep cutting into the chalk on the downs west of Awndyn where it had not been cobbled. Lightning, Mist and Serein led the coach-and-pair inland across a broom and gorse heath, under a sky of the vivid blue that is the field of the Awian flag. They rode alongside an oak plantation belonging to Mist, then an orchard. Sunlight shone on the horses’ well-groomed flanks. Light reflected from the metal panels on my boots and darted bright patches on the path.

  Flying is the most selfish pastime in the world. It’s all I ever want to do. Flying is being alone but not lonely, swept up on the exhaust of the world; my wings and the ground two magnets pushing each other apart. The sky is more gentle than the touch of any lover, and gliding on a hot day is as effortless as sleep. I hold out my wings, supported on rounded air, and change direction with a tiny movement. I traveled at an altitude too great to be seen from the patchwork farmland and toy cottages. I urged myself higher, trying to cram more miniature moated granges and dwindling trees into my field of vision. I sang, “Oh, we met in the Frozen Hound hotel, down on Turbary Road.”

  Lightning and Mist seemed to be arguing. I dropped height and circled above them, my backswept sickle wings beating quickly with the wrist joint bent gracefully as a falcon’s. I risked spooking the horses but I wanted to hear the Archer.

  “This is far worse than the year fifteen-oh-nine,” he rebuked Mist angrily. “Gio Ami is much more desperate than Eske was then.”

  Mist said, “Well, I agree, but the Castle will weather another such revolution, especially when you and I can negotiate.”

  “Let us send Comet ahead.”

  “No. I want to be present when he gives his report.”

  “What was the year fifteen-oh-nine, anyway?” asked Wrenn.

  “Oh, don’t get Lightning started or he won’t shut up till nightfall.”

  “Your charm never falters. Wrenn, I’ll tell you. Five hundred years ago we pushed the Insects farther out of Lowespass than their Wall had been for centuries. The Insects were less of a threat, so the southern manors decided they were safe. They thought they no longer needed the Castle, so they refused to pay our dues. The governor of Eske manor led the way, and the whole Plainslands followed within the year.”

  Mist sniggered. “When the taxes dried up, many Eszai thought their power was being eroded and they panicked; it split the Circle half and half. The Sailor-my predecessor-led those who wanted to use violence, and San nearly expelled him from the Castle. But Lightning’s diplomacy won, as it will again.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Wrenn admiringly. He drew nearer to Mist.

  Lightning continued: “The wisdom of our Emperor resolved the situation. We’re only his servants, whatever Ata may say. You see, San offered Eske’s only son a place in the Circle. He was a damn good horseman and deserved to be Hayl. Lord Governor Eske died of old age fifteen years later, taxes unpaid. His immortal son inherited the manor and the uprising simply collapsed.”

  They reached the edge of the escarpment and looked down; the land fell away like the inside of a bowl, to the flat-or at most gently undulating-Plainslands. From the curved grassy ridge that formed Awndyn’s border they could see to the serrated horizon of Eske forest.

  The square fields on the hillside were white with chalk soil; they looked like they were covered in snow. Yellow patches of barley with straggly orange poppies between them contrasted with the sky and hallucinogenic-green grass of the downs. Awndyn was a beautiful manorship.

  Eske and Awndyn were the only two Plainslands manors owned by families who originated, centuries ago, in Awia. The Plainslands manors might seem weak and old-fashioned, incessantly bickering over their boundaries, but because the land was decentralized, its cultures were stable, tolerant and as varied as the Plainslands landscapes-peoples of forests, heath, Brandoch marsh and Ghallain pampas.

  At the foot of the hill the coach and riders forded the pure water of a trout stream. Dust clouds and chaff blew across the road from a tariff barn where schoolchildren, who holiday at harvesttime, were brushing the paved floor in readiness to store next month’s crop. They peered out from under the barn’s thatched fringe. The older ones bowed their heads when they saw our sunburst insignia-while the teenage girls turned to each other and shrieked with passion.

  I descended and said to Lightning, “There are fewer farmers here than usual. If they’ve gone to Gio, more people are involved than I thought.”

  “Great. With a shortage of labor and food the last thing we need is the farmers joining a rebellion.”

  The air brushing the pits of my wings and the paler silky feathers under them was so erotic I started thinking of Tern again. How she giggled when I pushed my cold face down her bodice lacings. How her touch was so gentle I screamed but she kept stroking. I remembered Tern walking slowly in the snow, a parasol over her shoulder. My flitting footsteps crunch as I sprint around the corner of the black manor house. My body collides with hers. “Caught you!” We fall embraced into the snow, laughing and kissing. She would bend my flight feathers to give me a sensation of speed, and I would encircle her whole body with them. Her wondering face looked up at my smile. And all the time she carried on her affair in secret. I snarled and spat down into a corn field.

  I borrowed the horses just over ten hours ago. It had been one hour since we descended from Awndyn heath and entered the arable land. It should take another thirty hours’ travel to reach the Castle. In five hours it will be sunset. One hour after that we will reach the Cygnet Ring Coach Inn in the dense part of the forest. In eight hours I would need another fix.

  It was four P.M. when we entered the forest. The road cut through it cleanly; the spaces were open and bright sunlight permeated between the trees and threw moving highlights on the ground. Bracken and angelica sprouted among piles of bleached-white timber. In the tussocky clearings luscious purple foxgloves stood like racks of lingerie. I saw the road clearly from the air-two tracks from the wagon wheels with a grassy strip between them.

  The air above the road shimmered; it looked wet and glassy. In every hollow of the dry track there was a mirage of a silver puddle that peeled away as we got nearer, and repeated farther up the road in the hot air rising from it.

  We passed a cleared area beside the road intended for a fyrd division muster point. About every forty kilometers we passed a coach inn. These pubs and stables were semifortified with high walls. Travelers, hunters and workers of the surrounding farms could seek refuge there if Insects set upon them. Luckily, there had been no attacks this far south for twelve months. I considered the forest to be free from Insects; we had spent the last five years hunting them down.

  Wrenn dozed on the back of his palfrey. The Swordsman had no horsemanship whatsoever and sat like a sack of spuds, his chin on his chest, n
odding forward and jerking awake so I thought he was going to fall under the hooves of Ata’s mare. Ata reclined in thought, under a denim cap. Her legs braced in the stirrups pulled her leather trousers tight over well-defined muscles. She stared at the backside of Lightning’s stallion.

  Lightning knew the forest well, and he loved it. He rested his bow horizontally on his knee and an arrow across it, nocked to the string. Holding a weapon changes your perception of the surrounding world. The very act of carrying a bow tunes your awareness to find the quarry. Lightning listened to every rustle in the undergrowth, or breaking twigs in the canopy. He noticed the “coc-coc” of pheasants, the sound of grasshoppers switched on by the heat. He noticed the subtle odor of deer and differentiated it from the stink of the horses, wild garlic and ditch water. His senses were heightened-in the country, after an hour smell and hearing became as important as sight. A less experienced hunter would jump at any play of shadows and snatch up his arrows, but Lightning was confident. He knew that you always have more time to draw and loose a bow than you think.

  I noticed a commotion farther along the road. The highway ascended a slight hill; near the top it was blocked completely with people. At this distance I could only see splodges of color, brown or black clothing, some pikes or flagpoles moving about, and an occasional bright flash in the center of the milling crowd that was either a mirror or polished steel. I narrowed my eyes. This could be Gio’s work.

  I wheeled over my colleagues and called, “Lightning?”

  “Yes?”

  “There’s something strange ahead. I want to find out what it is.”

  “A den for you to sleep in, perhaps.”

  I clacked my wings together impatiently. “It looks unusual…Just because I’m hooked doesn’t mean I can’t function,” I added, muttering. I pulled on the air and surged up. I was only between one and two on the room-spinning scale. I should be treated the same as when I’m clean, especially if I have a good supply; it takes very careful examination to tell the difference.