Steph Swainston - No Present Like Time

“…so the Empire must explore Tris,” Mist concluded eventually. Lightning glared; he rightly thought that we were making unnecessary problems for ourselves.

“Are you worried?” she asked Wrenn.

“Nothing worries me,” he said.

“Nothing!” I said. “Poor lad, there’s quite a lot of it out there.”

He stared at me. “I haven’t even unpacked my rucksack. I’m ready to go.”

“Aye, thought so. Gentlemen, you will be discreet and keep this a secret. You must go out into the party with knowledge that no one else in the whole world has. Smile; you’ll find it hard. I will see you at Awndyn by the end of the week; the Stormy Petrel is ready to sail.”

Lightning beckoned a butler and said, “Go down to the cellars and bring me a bottle of Micawater wine. The oldest you can find.”

The party sashayed and shone around me. I walked through it, dead to the heart and scarcely seeing Tern in a clumsy two-step with the Strongman.

I ran out to the balcony and jumped to the balustrade, threw myself off. Beating hard and yelling with fury I reached eighty k.p.h. between two spires, just brushing stone with my wingtips. I zigzagged close to tightly packed walls near-missing by a centimeter on every familiar turn. I exploded out of the fog, still climbing to the clear starry sky. The tallest towers poked though the mist’s cotton blanket like black sea stacks; lights flickered deep among them. I reached the top of my trajectory, for a second hung there. Somersaulted. Fell, headfirst, masonry soaring past, the mist’s surface undulating.

I splashed through it, silently.

I flew circuits of the Castle until I slowed down and my anger wore off, turning into hopelessness. I landed on the sill of the Northwest Tower, bounded down into my room, sprang onto the four-poster bed and ripped its curtains together. In its gloomy, ivy-entwined brocade cave I sat and thought. Drugs, that’s what I need. Drugs.

Next morning I decided to seek an audience with the Emperor and appeal against the terrible orders that he had given me. I left Tern sleeping in the four-poster bed; I had pretended to be asleep when she came in late. I dressed, ate breakfast and shut the door as the Starglass struck ten. I ran down the frescoed spiral steps three at a time, at a speed that may well be the death of me one day. I ignored the thick rope that serves as a handrail and opened my wings for balance as far as was possible on the dizzying staircase. I hurtled around the last corner and crashed into Lightning, who was climbing up. “Huh? Get out of my way, Micawater.”

“Jant! I have to talk to you. The Emperor’s just asked me to put Gio out of the Castle!”

“Who?”

“Gio Ami. The Swordsman for four hundred years until last night.”

Gio was from Ghallain, a bleak town on the tip of an inhospitable cape. His wealth and acumen were entirely self-made. Three-letter names were often used among the coastal Plainslanders, a tradition dating back as far as the Emperor’s birth. Like Awian names, they’re not gender-specific. I thought, Gio really belongs in sixteen thirty-nine. What the fuck is he going to do out there, in the twenty-first century?

We walked toward the Simurgh Passage on the extreme eastern side of the palace, and along past Lightning’s rooms where pale watercolor paintings covered the walls completely, their frames touching. The Archer said, “Gio refuses to leave. I have sometimes seen defeated Eszai act this way. He has lived a long time in the Castle; he may fear the outside world although he’ll never admit it. It has changed since he was last mortal.”

I remembered Gio’s arrogance and said, “More like he can’t accept that anyone could beat him.”

“Yes, I agree.”

“Well, I hope he isn’t armed.”

“Oh, of course he is armed. That’s why I need your help to evict him.”

We walked up a flight of steps to the attic of the passage and the quarters traditionally appointed to Serein. Bucklers were displayed on the walls outside his doorway, with dusty bullfighting cloaks and wood-and-leather dusack swords for practice. Broadswords and falchions were arranged in circles and fans, next to sail-hilted daggers and Wrought katanas with naked blued steel. There were ceremonial two-handed swords with curlicued quillions and flamberge blades inlaid with gold wire, and several portraits of Gio. Servants passed us, carrying boxes and suitcases down to the ground floor. One wore a sallet helmet and the others had shirts wrapped around their heads.

Lightning and I peered into the awkwardly shaped room, which had a sloping ceiling. It looked like the den of a sports-obsessed teenager. It smelled of rubber-soled shoes, canvas ingrained with sweat, the wooden grips of polearms smoothed and varnish worn away with use. Twinned rapiers in cases and practice foils in holdalls were stacked along the wall, under a shabby dartboard with a fistful of darts jammed into the bull’s-eye. A beautiful schiavona cut-and-thrust sword with a basket hilt and a sharkskin grip hung in pride of place on the opposite wall.

In a big glass tank at the far end of the room enormous yellow koi carp cruised back and forth, their mirror scales glinting like plate armor. Two servants were indiscriminately stuffing the clutter into boxes and moving it out.

Gio Ami was sitting on the divan, slouched against the wall with despair. A foil with a round guard lay across his knees. His long, old-gold-colored hair hung in twists to his shoulders, he had a single ring in one ear. His face was somewhat lined and worn, hollow cheeks offset by a broad chin, which now had fair stubble. His bare chest and taut belly showed under his unfastened frock coat. It was of Awian manufacture because it had wide slits up the back that were empty and looked peculiar without wings. His pale blue breeches matched, but laces trailed from his open boots. A number of Diw Harbor Gin bottles lay discarded on the floor.

Gio still had the quality of those who are great at what they do, an intense concentration unknown to most people. His coat’s rich embroidery was testament to his affluence, gained through running his fencing salles d’armes since the turn of the seventeenth century. Branches of the Ghallain School had been opened in Hacilith and the majority of Plainslands manorships.

Gio had taken the dressing off the wound at his throat, which gaped a little, pink and clean. He must be trying to make it scar. He noticed us standing in the doorway, “What do we have here? A lonely aristo and a gangland killer.” He looked from Lightning to me. “Neither high looks of authority nor smart words will make me leave.”

Lightning sighed. “Gio, if you don’t go now, Jant and I will put you out of the Castle bodily.”

Gio spun the hilt of the foil, making the sword roll up and down his thigh. I watched it, well aware that he was still the second-best fencer in the world. His voice slurred slightly. “Don’t call me Gio. I am still Serein.”

“You were outmatched.”

“I have just said goodbye to the Sailor, the Cook and the Master of Horse. All my former friends are abandoning me.” He gestured at the servants. “And the new Serein will have my rooms, as well as my title and my immortality.”

“We’re not deserting you,” I said.

“All immortality belongs to the Emperor,” said Lightning.

Gio gave him a dirty look. “Yes, you nobles are great at knowing who owns what. None of you will stand by me now I’ve fallen from grace. Why should I be cast out? It wasn’t a fair fight!”

The oldest servant began to pack Gio’s combat manuals. “Bugger off,” said Gio, and threw The Academy of Defense accurately at his head. “The floodlights in the amphitheater are useless. I demand a retrial.”