No Present Like Time

by Steph Swainston

  A company of about one hundred men was walking slowly up the hill behind a double ox team that pulled…At first it looked like a massive farm dray, but with an enormous wooden beam across it. At the front the square-sectioned beam was attached to a horizontal capstan whose great spiked handles projected like an unfinished cart wheel. A hawser made of twisted sinew joined a leather sling half a meter wide. It was a trebuchet, a thing of horrible potential.

  The tops of heads, like dots, became pink as men turned their faces up to see me. The drover slapped the oxen’s snouts, and when the trebuchet team ground to a halt he slipped wooden wedges under its solid wheels.

  On the hilltop was another circular, grassed-over clearing maintained for a fyrd camp. Tents packed the earth, some small triangular shelters around a spacious cream canvas pavilion. Most were thread-bare, stained with dirt, grease and wine, but some were from brand-new supplies. There were awnings and lean-tos, but I had no time to take it in because people on the ground spotted me and started shouting. Men dashed from all over the encampment to the center where a huge bonfire smoldered. They stoked it, poked it, and threw on new logs and green boughs.

  A thick column of dark gray smoke rose up. I saw it coming and a second later I was completely enveloped. Smoke burned my eyes and nose. I breathed in a lungful and started coughing violently. Acrid smoke seared my throat. My sinuses were full of it; my inflamed eyes ran with tears.

  Black flecks and sparks swirled past me. Leaves and lichen burning around the edges stuck to my shirt. I beat my palms on my stomach. I tumbled out of the billowing smoke, blinded and disoriented. I started to fall. Air whipped past me. Treetops hurtled up from where the sky was supposed to be. The sky was underneath me. I rubbed my face vigorously, tore out of my spin. I found myself above the road again, very low.

  The hard-faced men by the ox team drew their longbows with disorganized timing and loosed. A hundred arrows flew straight up; I banked away hard. Long shafts passed in the air on my right. Flights whistled as they reached their zenith, turned around and plunged back. A breeze brushed my face from the nearest one. Spent arrows thumped on the upper surface of my wings. Shafts slipped between my fingered feathers. I straightened my flight path and beat madly away over the forest.

  This could not be a case of mistaken identity.

  Hot with panic I yelped, “In San’s name, stop!” Arrows poured around me like solid raindrops. “In the name of…San Emperor, for the will of god…” But I was coughing too much.

  I flew out of range but they kept shooting for five seconds to make their point. The arrows’ broad heads crackled down behind me onto the topmost branches.

  I winged back to the coach, furious. What’s it like to be hit? To have a solid wooden rod impaled through my whole body-would I be able to feel it with my insides?

  I landed next to Lightning and Mist. “Did you see that?”

  “Yes,” said Lightning.

  “They aimed straight at me. Me! The Emperor’s Messenger!” My clothes stank of smoke. I blew my nose and flicked mucus off my fingers. “Bastards! Bastards! It’s a wonder they didn’t hit. If it wasn’t for my agility…They wouldn’t even stop for ‘the will of god and the protection of the Circle’!”

  “Aye,” said Mist. “You shouldn’t have gone ahead. Now they know we’re here, and soon they’ll tell Gio.”

  “Me! An Eszai!” I was smart enough to know I am not universally loved, but I never thought I was hated.

  Mist said, “There must be something in that camp they don’t want us to see.”

  “Probably another bloody big trebuchet like the one they’re dragging up the hill! I didn’t see its serial number.”

  I described the ox team and Mist listened with a faint smile, either admiring Gio’s ingenuity or passionate for a good chase. She said, “Why’s the trebuchet this side of Eske, if he’s taking it to the Castle? Has Swallow given it to him? Or has he stolen it? There, Lightning; you see that Awndyn’s as treacherous as the other Plainslands manors.”

  Wrenn’s eyes were wide in disbelief. He ventured, “Stop here and see if they come down to us.”

  “In range of the trebuchet? Why not carry a target and make it their sport? We could offer foreign gold as prizes!” Lightning had a clearer idea of Gio’s character.

  “They must be very confident,” said Mist.

  “They shot at me!” I said.

  “Jant, quit wringing your hands and tell us-you know these roads-how can we reach the Castle without pushing past them?”

  I said, “We’re about halfway to Eske. This is the only coach route, unless we go back into Awndyn and join Shivel Road. It’ll take a couple more days because it’d put us two hundred kilometers out of our way. And it’s probably packed with mangonels.”

  Mist took off her cap and ruffled her hair, which was damp with sweat. Her face betrayed the stress she was under, some puffiness around her disturbing indigo eyes. “Into the woods and outflank them, then. I’m carrying important information that I don’t want them to capture.”

  Wrenn found this ignominious. “We can fight if necessary!”

  “Unfortunately, Serein, I think they’d shoot you, too.”

  I ordered my driver to take the carriage back to the last coach inn, the Culver Inn, and wait there for instructions. If he received none after three days, I told him, he should return to Awndyn. I didn’t want to lose my possessions. Lightning, Mist and Serein dismounted and led their horses off the road into the forest undergrowth. At first the going was hard; brambles hooked in my trousers and tore them. The pungent smell of bracken was up around our noses. Farther from the track, less light penetrated the canopy and fewer plants grew between the trunks. Tinder-dry oak and beech leaf litter crunched under our feet and the hooves. “I hope Gio’s rebels don’t torch this,” I said.

  Mist said, “God, now he thinks of it! Scout ahead and tell us how far we have to walk before we can rejoin the road.”

  I shrugged off my water bottle that glugged at every step, and hung it on Wrenn’s saddle. I dashed away. It was impossible to move without sound in the forest; stories that tell of my predecessors doing so are just flattering lies. But I have lively reactions and I can run so swiftly through the tangle that no one registers the sound as human. I ducked under branches, leapt over fallen brushwood and sprinted with long strides. I sped up the rise and doubled back to the road. It seemed clear beyond the camp. I hid behind a tree, peered out and withdrew immediately. Another band of men strutted past with their pikes on their shoulders.

  I ran on again, enjoying myself, but every kilometer I spotted more groups, so I returned to my friends, nimbly through the spaces between snarled undergrowth. Hot saliva was gushing into my mouth; I felt real once more. “This isn’t good-they’re all along the road! We…” I lowered my voice. “We could walk in the forest all the way to Eske but there’s a hundred and twenty kilometers to go, so it would take you days. I say we keep going until nightfall and then try to rejoin the road farther on, when the rebels should be encamped or indoors. I’ll scout ahead again.”

  Mist said, “Lead on then, smoky creature.”

  “Somewhere around here is the Cygnet Ring Inn ratskeller. Foresters drink there so we should pick up a track eventually.”

  “Damn, you move so fast I can’t even see your footholds,” Wrenn grumbled. “There’s no path here.”

  “Then we make a path.”

  We walked, leading the horses, over the copper-colored floor, under the stippled green ceiling for the next few hours, some distance from the road so we wouldn’t be heard. The light began to fade and the dusk became darker by degrees. The ground could not be seen clearly; tree boles seemed to float toward us, distanceless. I felt as if something sentient and silent was watching us. I couldn’t decide whether it was large and invincible, or small and instinctive.

  On the road with their mounts, the others had been slow, but now negotiating trees and bramble thickets they slowed still further until
they didn’t seem to make any headway at all. I burned with frustration. I kept urging them on until Mist lashed out, “I’m going as fast as I can! I can hardly see. I keep stumbling over things and so does this stupid nag. I hate this; we’re in the middle of nowhere and the Empire’s suddenly crawling with people who despise us.”

  Lightning intervened. “Look, Jant, let’s rest here, have a few hours’ sleep and then check if the road is safe. The newspapers said Eske is full of unrest and I don’t want to be exhausted when I travel through town.”

  “You’re all so unbelievably tardy,” I said, but I flopped down immediately and made myself comfortable on the leaf litter. The others, who were not as practiced at bivouacking or as careless as a Rhydanne, looked about for a patch of grass or a landmark to camp next to.

  Wrenn threw his pack on the ground and sat on a stump that was so rotten he bounced off it and it fell to pieces. He brushed moss from his arse and began to unlace his boots.

  Lightning paced about. “I think that the town will be safe without Gio to stir up the Zascai. The ingrates don’t understand how hard we have been working for them all this time…” He tripped over a tree root and kicked it angrily. “Creeping about in the dark like highwaymen!”

  The post-coach jumps the news from manor to manor. I imagined every governor realizing that the Castle is only protected by tradition and their own beliefs. I almost heard them thinking: what could be in this for us? “Half the Plainslands has supported Gio for six months. We don’t know what we’re heading into.”

  Mist said, “I only know we must make haste to reach San.” She made a small hearth, unrolled her blanket and shared out some Trisian pan forte and a flask of red wine. “I think Gio wants to cause us as much pain as possible before we inevitably catch him. I can tell he must have little hope because his methods are so desperate…” She fell into a reverie and did not speak again. We heard people passing by at the road’s nearest approach. I felt satisfied that I could lie hidden and observe them, and they wouldn’t know I was listening.

  Lightning took out one of his books. He was writing his three-hundredth romantic novel, which would probably be much the same as the other two hundred and ninety-nine, but maybe this time with a nautical theme. Their popularity was a constant source of wonder to me. He usually pays me to translate his unimaginative but ardent scribblings, but he always has my translations checked. Lightning looked wistful, a powerful emotion he had practiced over centuries, which he now fell into easily. He had adopted it when it was fashionable, although it didn’t suit him. “Swallow is never here when I love her,” he said. “I wish I could speak to her. In times of trouble, she finds an inner strength. Maybe it’s because she lives in pain and is hardened to it.” He sighed, and went back to writing, with the practicality of a lover who has sought the same character in different women over fifteen hundred years.

  For the past hour I had thought of nothing but scolopendium. My mouth watered for it and my joints ached. I couldn’t hold out much longer before my need began to show. It’s just a weakness of my body, I thought; it isn’t really me. I opened a knotwork painted tobacco tin containing my stash and a syringe. I acted casually to protect me from the others; underneath I bubbled with excitement and blame. “Don’t mind if I hook up?”

  “Oh, go ahead.” Mist shook her head in disgust, though I could tell she was taking notes.

  “Thanks. You don’t know how much I…”

  “I’m beginning to guess,” said Wrenn.

  “So one day it’ll kill me. Want some?”

  “Certainly not!” he said contemptuously. He walked to the edge of the clearing and stood with his back to us to have a piss. Then he returned and lay down on his coat with his rapier to hand. He watched me covertly, pretending to be asleep.

  I hunched over and mantled wings around a candle stub. I licked my needle more or less clean, ran it through the flame and filled it from a skylark vial. I tied a tourniquet around my upper arm, and made the injection. I flushed the syringe out with my own blood and pulled the spike from my arm. Then I keeled over, into the leaves. An aching nausea filled my empty stomach and dispersed as my rush came on. Gradually and gratefully I gave up on thinking about anything at all.

  The tops of the oak trees were pushed by a wind that didn’t touch us below. Each gust churned the topmost boughs in the distance, then shook the branches above us as it passed.

  A crunch sounded somewhere deep in the forest. Lightning glanced up from his book and stood up silently. He bent his longbow against his boot and strung it. He kicked the fire out, then hauled me to my feet by the scruff of my neck and simultaneously gave Wrenn a hefty kick on the bum. The Swordsman woke with a start and Lightning raised a finger to his lips. “Footsteps,” he whispered.

  “Insects?” Wrenn’s eyes widened.

  Lightning shook his head. After the first few trees the ground was obscure. I listened. The footfalls extended deep into the woods from our left to right. As they came closer, we could tell they were made by men. There were at least five directly ahead of us, but the noise seemed to stretch out far on both sides.

  “How many?” Ata mouthed.

  Lightning held up his free hand with the fingers extended, clenched his fist, then opened the fingers again.

  Wrenn sprang to his feet, crossed his arms over his waist and drew his rapier and dagger at the same time. Mist pawed uneasily for the 1851 Wrought sword that she carried buckled to her pack.

  The footsteps resolved; the people making them walked about two meters apart. I peered into the gnarly gloom but I couldn’t glimpse anybody. We should be able to see them by now. I smelled hot oil. The crunching continued; they were almost on us. They stopped. There was silence.

  Wrenn went into guard.

  A yellow glare turned our camp bright as day. Black jumped to colors, disorienting us. They had been carrying covered lanterns and with one accord they raised their shutters.

  I was less blinded than the others. I turned as a man jumped from the forest behind us. Dagger in hand, he ran past Lightning and cut the bowstring with a neat slice. Lightning’s powerful longbow sprang back straight.

  It gave a dry crack. Splits opened along the bow’s limbs from the tips to the grip. It snapped its eighty-kilo draw weight back into his arm. Lightning jerked away so the string didn’t gash his face. The shivered wood creaked. He dropped it and the arrow, and grabbed his left arm. “Damn you, Gio Ami! Traitor and sneak!” He drew his sword with an efficient gesture but his wrenched arm seemed awkward.

  The horses neighed and reared, frightened. They pulled out their tether pegs and scattered.

  I can’t take off. The branches are too dense for me to push up between them. I’d be scratched to bits and never break through into the clear air. Fuck it, there isn’t even enough room between the trees for me to open my wings, let alone run with them spread.

  Gio sauntered toward Wrenn, gazing fixedly at him.

  “Revenge isn’t worth it,” I said quietly.

  “Comet, aren’t you fast?” Gio sneered. “Is fame worth it? I walked through Wrenn’s party and no one spoke to me. When I entered the hall, the Eszai all fell quiet and turned their backs. You didn’t even notice me!”

  He pointed his rapier at Wrenn. Gio still wore the blue frock coat, open to his naked chest. His dusty trousers were the same, tucked into scuffed boots with stirrup guards. He had probably been riding between manors, raising his rabble, for weeks. His fair hair was dirty; strands escaped his ponytail and hung around his face. His lip raised in loathing, hatred contorted his features; it burned in his eyes as he stared at Lightning. I thought: This is not the Gio I once knew. I must be careful until I know what he’s become. I said, “What do you really want?”

  “I want to fight the novice.”

  Wrenn’s whole body language was a swagger. He spun his poniard like a drumstick. “I’m Serein. I get to live till god comes back. What’s it like to be older, Gio?”

  Gio kept hi
s rapier leveled at Wrenn. He motioned with his dagger and the twenty or so men behind him placed their lamps on the ground and advanced.

  Lightning stepped across in front of Mist. His gallantry annoyed Gio so much that he turned from Wrenn and made a thrust low under Lightning’s sword. Lightning evaded it expertly. Gio’s rapier was blacked with boot polish; the point was difficult to see. He stabbed in again. Up went his other hand to ward off an overhead blow from Wrenn.

  “Oh, shit,” said Mist. She slid her Wrought sword from its scabbard.

  “Keep a clear head!” I shouted to her. “They’re nothing but Insects-defend yourself!”

  My old gangland fury seeped through my high. If these guys are attacking me it’s their funeral! A man squared up to me, tall and very broad. Everything was dark and indistinct but I glimpsed the purple ribbon of Ghallain Fencing School wound around his swept hilt. Bugger. There’s no way I can stand against one of Gio’s fencing instructors. The man smiled, his teeth incandescent white in his shadowed face. He watched me like a cat with a mouse many times its size. He strutted and said, “Comet?”

  A fencing master wouldn’t use such bluster, only a poser apprentice. To bolster their own self-esteem town-boys have to believe they can fight. Heat rose into my head. I yelled, “What?”

  I ducked under his blade, came up well in distance, kneed him in the balls and as he fell sank my ice axe in his throat. The pick emerged from the back of his neck, shining, covered in blood.

  I didn’t see Gio’s next moves because I pounced onto the man’s body, both feet on his chest, to pull my pick free. I rolled and slammed it through the nearest foot with so much force that I fastened it to the earth. The foot belonged to the man Mist was fighting. He howled. He jerked his leg, tripped over the handle, which jolted the pick from his shoe. He reeled away.

  It seemed that Gio was now the one prepared to die in the struggle for immortality. Wrenn stamped the ground and thrust at Gio. He blocked it halfway. His rapier and dagger moved fast as an Insect’s feelers, keeping Wrenn at bay. Wrenn failed to engage his sword and Gio reached right to cut at Lightning.