No Present Like Time

by Steph Swainston

  I held her for months and years and decades. I took her like poison through the skin. I knew her salt taste like sea bruises, stretched nets of sinews in her neck and waves of ribs. I loved her body as she twisted like a hooked fish, kicked like prey. I was dog to her: I laid my open mouth over her throat.

  I thought of the many times when I have been asleep or drugged and gradually wakened to find her touching me, my cock already hard under her hand. I wanted Tern. It took a trial as harsh as a sea voyage for me to feel the first pangs of loneliness and realize how much I need her. I was wrong to neglect her. I must apologize. I’ll win her back.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  After midnight, people were gathering at the fencing school in Eske. I landed on the tiled roof, well concealed by a chimney stack, looking down at the wet streets. Below the dripping thatch of the last houses in the town, I could see dark coats underneath bobbing umbrellas. Men carried lanterns hung from hooks on their shields. Some drunken kids on tired nags clattered past on the Hamulus Road from the direction of Hacilith, slowing and relaxing as they traveled the opposite way from the city’s magnetic pull. I perched on the roof, out of sight and watched through the rain.

  A cold front was coming in. The clouds scudded across to merge in one mass in the eastern half of the sky. Lightning flickered in the fingers of the bare forest. The rain fell with more intensity and the pitch of its noise increased. I really didn’t think it could rain any harder. The constant hiss of the wind in the trees was indistinguishable from the rain hissing on the roof. Drops pattered on the sagging willow leaves along the river bank.

  Dace River wound through the south side of town close to Gio’s hall. I could still see the river but the surrounding countryside was too dark to make out detail. Silver snakes slithered over the river’s surface. I watched them resignedly; Tern had put me in a melancholy mood. I had run out of people to shout at, and was rather regretting storming off in disgust with the world because it was evident by now that the world had no intention of going away and leaving me alone.

  Some of the snakes are actually part of the river. Fascinating. I tried to disentangle the snakes’ silver bodies and the reflection on stirred water, before I realized that the whole thing was simply a hallucination. Only take me a couple of weeks to quit. Shouldn’t be any problem. Theoretically. I shrugged, sending all the water that had gathered on my broad-brimmed hat down my back. I swore silently, taking my hat off and wringing out the rain.

  I don’t even know if fucking her will be the same now Tawny’s had his big cock in her. I pulled the hip flask out of the top of my thigh boot and took a satisfying swig. It tasted green, like cut grass smells. I felt lighter and tighter every second. Under my long coat, my wings were warm. To cope with the gusts I had had to fly constantly flexing them open and closed at the elbow, and now they were aching.

  The fencing school’s steep roof was a sheen of water reflecting the lanterns of people arriving. Rainwater was running in wide rivulets over the tiles, dripping off the guttering. Yellow lamplight beamed out of a high square window just below me. At the far corner of the whitewashed hall Gio’s watchman swung a lantern, illuminating the empty road. He saw there was no one else to come and banged the door closed. I flicked my wings out from the slits in my coat and bounced along the ridge. A couple of slates gave way. I scrabbled madly, slid with them down the roof. I hit the gutter, heels in the trough, my pointed toes over the edge. The tiles shot off, fell and broke on the road ten meters below. I lay with my back against the slope and listened. There was no response from the hall.

  I grasped the lead gutter, swung myself over in a controlled drop onto the window ledge. I pressed against the frame, pulled myself into the smallest area possible, inhabiting space slyly as if stealing it, with the concentrated acrobat grace of a Rhydanne. I peered through the window.

  Gio’s fencing academy was packed. About eight hundred people were taking off their coats and settling down on the folding chairs. Some were seated on the floor; between them on the floorboards I saw white diagrams painted to teach fencing exercises.

  A small stage directly below me was decorated with the coats of arms of Gio’s past pupils from the nobility. The walls were hung with charts and geometrical figures, the rear wall was covered with a mirror. Padded gloves and chain mail gauntlets hung on racks, with rapiers and their corresponding diamond-sectioned daggers, round leather target shields and lead-soled shoes-which Gio used for training lightness of foot. A pendulum clock with a large, clear ceramic dial had run down and stopped, showing the wrong time. Beside it in a polished glass case awards were displayed in tiers-engraved silver cups and plates, tiny posed figurines of swordsmen on black plinths, and hundreds and hundreds of satin rosettes.

  Gio stood by the stage, looking at his audience. He was as relaxed and confident as always, perhaps more so now that the anger of being dropped from the Circle had caused him to lose his respect for people.

  Veteran Awian soldiers grouped at the back of the hall, probably fresh from fighting Tornado. They carried their reflex longbows in waxed cotton bags on their shoulders, arrows in lidded quivers. The edges of their dark blue cloaks were cut to look like feathers, drawn across each man’s body and pinned at the shoulder with enameled or billon badges. The shell-edged armor on their legs was damp with condensation. Their worn, damp lorica had some chrome scales missing. Their expressions were as grim as the weather; they only spoke among themselves. I guessed they were men disbanded from the General Fyrd who, upon finding their homes and crops destroyed by the Insects, had a very valid reason to harbor grievance against the Castle.

  The same was not true for the excited, fractious Hacilith kids, in tooled leather jackets, loose jeans and chain-link belts. Some seamen in oxblood check or orange shirts laced at the neck tucked their wet oilskins under the chairs. Unshaven highwaymen brushed down the arms of their greatcoats that were silvered with rain. They undid the spurs on their side-laced boots and let them hang loose. Gio had no coherent force. He had gathered deserters, poachers, outlaws, smugglers and fugitives.

  Twenty fencing masters leaned against the walls, with wryly amused expressions at the defiant party taking place within their hall. They were Gio’s accomplices now, not potential Challengers. They had the swagger of swordsmen who knew the brilliance of their skill.

  The cold Insect-wing window was steamed up inside and droplets ran down, channeled along by the black veins. No one could see me at this angle and the hubbub was so loud I was quite safe. I was so intrigued, I became unaware of the chill seeping into my body from the stone. I seized up, wedged into position in the corner of the window with my legs out along the ledge.

  A limber young man wearing a beautiful rapier tiptoed to the stage and held up his hands for silence. He was shaking so hard he practically blurred. The crowd fell quiet in patches, and Gio picked out one or two individuals at the back to stare at until the hall was completely silent. I strained to hear the young man introduce his master: “Gio Ami, rightfully Serein.”

  Gio nodded, stepped forward, and immediately a hundred voices vied with each other, shouting out questions. A frown line appeared between his eyebrows. He walked beneath my window, so I could no longer see his expression. He still wore the same coat, still open to a bare chest, but he wore the light purple Ghallain armiger ribbon in his buttonhole as if it was a manorship badge. His lank hair was pulled into a little ponytail.

  Gio looked at the stage floor as if thinking the elevated position didn’t suit him. He sat down on the edge, with his legs dangling over. He began to talk to the crowd rather than at them. He was a teacher and he knew how to make his voice carry.

  “Put up, put up,” he said loudly and then, “All right, I will answer one or two questions. What is it, Cinna?”

  A very fat man seated at the front wallowed to his feet. I was astonished to see it was Cinna Bawtere. His cheeks wobbled as he shouted, “You never said we would attack the Castle! You said we would speak to t
he Emperor. Why is there fighting between the fencing masters and the Circle itself? It’s a simple matter for San to send Tornado to Crush Us All!”

  Gio took a deep breath, “I have no argument with the Emperor. I think San knows that-”

  “Or we’d be behind bars already!” Cinna’s riposte raised a susurration of agreement from the crowd. They seemed to be thinking in similar fashion-they had trusted Gio to air their grievances with the Emperor, and he had led them into conflict instead, with the Eszai who had always been their protectors. For an instant I thought that the crowd might turn on him.

  “The problem lies not with Emperor San but with his deputies, the Eszai, who are corrupt and mislead him. You all know the Emperor doesn’t leave the Castle. To understand and rule the world fairly he needs his immortals, but their own interests are embroiled in what they tell him.”

  The crowd fell silent; this was what they wanted to hear. A chill wind stuck my soaked clothes to my skin; the gale whined, high-pitched, through the eaves. I pressed my ear to the pane to hear Gio’s words.

  “There is no present like time. San gives the immortals lifetime in return for their service, but few of them deserve such a priceless gift.

  “We are lucky to be alive at this point in time. Times are hard for us all, I grant you, but the opportunities are better than any period I have lived through in the last four hundred years. I truly remember the past, and I know that the only cure for despair is action.

  “Since I left the Circle I have realized how little the immoral immortals understand us Zascai. They’re all too slow and spoiled by luxury to see the advantage of this great opportunity we have: Tris. It’s up to us to make the most of it.

  “None of you worthy people will be able to join the Circle. Cinna, although you’re a good sailor; Mauvein, although you’re an excellent jeweler, the Circle’s too corrupt for either of you to enter in an honest Challenge. And I, the greatest swordsman of all time, am forced to give way to a newcomer because I speak too much truth. The prospect of immortality they hold up is nothing but an illusion to lull you. The Circle would never accept a man who really recognizes the need for change.

  “Awia can’t feed itself-they tell us-so they ask us to send our money to what is the richest country in the world. The shortage of workers is caused by bad management. Five hundred men are employed just to clean the Castle, to scrape lichen off its walls and polish its sumptuous treasure when every last drop’s squeezed out of the Plainslands to nurse Awia. Food is short all over the Fourlands except in the Castle because immortals must have their strength. Isn’t that so?”

  He looked to the winged soldiers at the back of the hall. “Awians are angry because you feel you’re making the most effort against Insects. It’s your kingdom that disappears under the Paperlands each time they advance. You feel threatened. I can understand why you think that help from Morenzia is not forthcoming. You’re right, but for the wrong reasons.”

  Gio glanced at Cinna and the city ruffians on the rows of chairs. “Morenzians and Plainslanders are angry because you’re overtaxed and fed up to the back teeth with money being sucked out of Hacilith. You’re right to feel discontented, but for the wrong reasons. Last time the Insects attacked, the Castle just followed the downright craven policy of the Awian king and it failed to control them. They fed so well on the plenty of Awia that they almost reached the banks of the Moren.

  “I have lived in the Castle and been part of the Circle. I have felt San hold time still for me. If I were yet Eszai at least my voice would be heard. I could try to make things better. San is keen to hear us-if Tornado was not bloodthirstily blocking the way we would be standing in the Throne Room now. San would open the Castle’s treasury to aid us. But in respect of your fears I have called my men to retreat. Now I’m mortal again, same as you, I’m free to tell you how the Circle is a web of deceit. San would benefit greatly to be free of the lies of his ministers.”

  The crowd sensed his conviction and gave their faith to his terrible mendacity. By god, I thought; he’s not acting, he believes it.

  Gio stood and stretched then sat down again, swinging his legs to tap the folded-down bucket tops of his boots against the planks. He swept a hand over his hair, which slipped out of its ponytail and hung around his shoulders. The crowd watched, some uncomfortably, although I imagined Cinna alert for the promise of scandal. Gio did the public speaking equivalent of swapping hands in a fencing match: “Your suffering is the fault of the duplicitous Eszai. Mist Ata Dei’s one of the worst. Ask yourselves how she could be allowed to be immortal at all.”

  Gio paced across the stage, around the lowered wrought iron candelabrum and back, his coattails flowing out behind him. He wore the 1969 Sword, a faultless rapier custom-made for him, and the jewels on its scabbard scattered lamplight as only diamonds can. Their adamantine luster threw moving spectra on the walls.

  “Zascai don’t know half of what this monster has done, because of course the confessions of new Eszai are customarily kept secret. You already know that Mist once razed your harbors, raided the coast and sank the fleet-out and out piracy from which the coast has hardly recovered! Would we be in such a poor state now if this arch-bitch hadn’t wreaked carnage? How many lives were lost? Well, we don’t know because Comet never told us.”

  I tensed at the mention of my name. How was I supposed to know? I had other pressing matters to attend to back then, like Insects besieging Lowespass. But the mortals followed Gio’s every word.

  “Ata was a wife who brought her husband down. The Emperor let her Challenge stand legitimately. Why did he make the decision to let her run riot at such a vital time? Was Comet informing San properly? What was going on between the Sailor and the Messenger that that layabout ladykiller should support Ata so much?

  “And while Comet misleads the Emperor-either deliberately or through laziness-his wife spends her time living lavishly. Every other governor leads their fyrd. How many parties and fashion shows have been thrown by Tern while Wrought is still smoking rubble?

  “And while we consider the misgovernance of manors by those Eszai lucky enough to own land, consider the most corrupt of the Circle whom you may have thought of as the most capable because you are accustomed to lies. Lightning Micawater is the best Archer ever. Nobody can deny that. Of course he is-his family could afford the best tutors in the distant past when he was a student, and he makes sure the skill of archery hasn’t changed since then. What an unfortunate mishap that he chanced to inherit the manor on the glittering river. Lightning embellishes his palace even as your farms and towns lie in ruins. What happened to Awian artisans anyway-those of you who aren’t here?”

  A chuckle went around the hall.

  “They’re all competing for work in other countries. Lightning the romantic archaist does not spend his money rightly but spends his time having affairs with married women-how chivalrous can you get? He was involved in the destruction of the harbors with his lover, Ata, and when the greedy blue-blood bagged Peregrine manorship in the spoils of war he gave it to his illegitimate daughter!

  “The newfound Island of Tris is part of Lightning’s kingdom too, now he’s just returned from playing at explorers with his pirate queen and their drunken lackey.”

  Drunken lackey? Who’s that? I puzzled. Oh, no, he means me, doesn’t he?

  “Lightning is not venerable but obsolete. He was young in spirit when the world was young but times have moved on. He’s a thing of the past; he holds us back. It’s time we took control and it’s an exciting moment for Awians to make their own decisions and live without him.

  “Frost and her River Works Company profiteer from the rebuilding process. Hayl and his immortal husband are both reckless men. Only yesterday, they attacked us without provocation and Tornado joined them soon after with a division of your own brothers in the fyrd. Now I believe that too many people are being drafted. Since Tornado lost his girlfriend five years ago, he’s taken his fury out on the Insects and the draft
continues while fields lie unplanted. The Circle should preserve lives but the Messenger flies in to the Plainslands to tear families apart.

  “Comet is fond of the bottle. The truth isn’t widely known because he really indulges in the Castle-out of the public eye. I’ve seen him staggering drunk in the Great Hall. He often isn’t spotted for days at a stretch-during which time it’s known he hasn’t left his room. Why does the Emperor keep him when I felt the Circle twitch every time he binges? I don’t know if the alcohol affects his reliability-but is it any wonder there are rumors that his wife sleeps with another man?”

  Gio waved his hand against the crowd’s torrent of wicked laughter.

  “No, no,” he said. “I go back on that. Far be it from me to slander anyone. Tern manages it very well herself. The rumors are unsupported-just like her!”

  How dare he call me a filthy drunk! I nearly flew down and told him-scolopendium is a much better type of substance abuse. And I’m good at it; I have it under control! But at least alcohol is legal. The crowd believed Gio because it matched their caricature of a Rhydanne, and that hurt even more.

  I ground my teeth and the blood rushed, red hot, to my face. Oh, Tern, why did you do this to me? In private it’s bad enough, when my prowess in bed is the only reputation I have-but I don’t think I can stand being the capricious and irresistible Messenger cuckolded in front of the world.

  Gio strode up and down, his hand resting on his sword hilt. He mused, “The worst thing about these corrupt members of the Circle is that they’ll never die.

  “I can offer you a way to live outside their rule. Better still, it comes with riches, a chance to shape your future free of kings, governors and fyrd captains too. Anyone who follows me will be set up for life. I can give you Tris.”