Steph Swainston - Dangerous Offspring

‘Well, ten years ago the campaign of King Dunlin Rachiswater tried to breach the Wall and for our pains all we had was the worst swarm of Insects for centuries and a horrendous death toll. Altergate lost every man in its conscriptable generation, so that now the Castle has exempted it from the draft. Tambrine is also exempt from fyrdinge. Awndyn manor is in the enviable position of being able to use its Trisian trade profits to pay scutage rather than raise fyrd. Lowespass and Summerday are the only two manors where the Castle can appoint a governor, and both have been given to the Queen’s lance captains. Their garrisons have been increased because the threat still remains-’

‘Kestrel-’ I said.

‘-But you are proposing to advance into the Paperlands again . What did we gain last time? Nothing! The Wall is still in the same place. Many people think it should be left alone. Don’t mess with it. Is your campaign military necessity, or are you rushing ahead too fast?’

Eleonora took a breath. ‘Comet, I will answer the man. The offensive of Dunlin Rachiswater was poorly thought out. His was a campaign of muscle not the mind. The Insects’ bodies are so much stronger than ours, we can only beat them with our skills and our brains. Dunlin responded to them rather than outwitting them and it was the downfall of his dynasty. Our current attack in no way compares. We’re using our knowledge of the Insects’ behaviour rather than our soldiers’ lives. We will take ten times more land than he did. Our fresh approach uses the Castle’s latest innovations-which are, dare I say, watertight?-and the might of my well-trained and experienced Select. The Emperor approves it.’

She hooked her thumb in her sword belt. ‘Insects from here devastated the western reaches of my kingdom; I must protect Plow’s precious fields. I will not allow Insects to make paper from Awian feathers and bones.

‘I am simply first among the governors of Awia. In a time of emergency I took special care of my people and now that things are returning to normal I have made sure of my governors’ support’-Lightning nodded in agreement-‘Awia has always had a stoic attitude. The Tanagers never accept defeat. I have fielded all my Select Fyrd because I know this will improve their families’ lives.

‘Let me tell you that if we are successful we will no longer need to call up the General Fyrd. There will no longer be a need for a general levy of the whole of the people. I know they resent their sixty days’ unpaid service per year, and we are aware of desertions during the harvest and midwinter. Well, from now on they may remain at their proper work.

‘There is good news for the Select Fyrd too. Their monthly payments will be raised to five pounds a week and an equipment allowance of twenty pounds a year. Commissions will be renewed as usual on godsloss day. I expect that the advance will be over by then. At last we have the means to win the war! In future we will look back on this as a momentous date, not because of nineteen twenty-five but twenty twenty-five, when we at last halted the onslaught and took the first step that led to the death of every last Insect!’

Eleonora gave her grand smile. Kestrel and the other journalists were hunched over, scribbling rapidly. None of them, therefore, was free to meet her eye. Their finished pages dropped, leafed down and slipped under the benches.

I said, ‘Are there any more questions…No?…Very well. Then on behalf of the Castle I draw this meeting to a close, may it please Your Highness, ladies and gentlemen.’ And added informally to the reporters, ‘You can get lunch in the pub.’

They still took ten minutes to finish and gather their belongings. The benches scraped on the flagstones and they left the hall. It suddenly seemed very spacious. I rested my backside on the table edge, leant back, arms straight and stretched my legs.

The Architect had disappeared in a crowd of excited students in thick fustian jackets. They were asking her questions and surrounded the table to watch while she sketched an answer to one. She extricated herself by giving them as many figures and equations as they could take in and then we all watched them trickle out of the hall with their minds reeling.

‘I think that was successful, if I do say so myself.’

‘Red or white?’

‘No thanks. I had too much yesterday and I’m still recovering.’

Lightning was now on his second glass. ‘The vintage is not as good as the previous year, but still…’

‘Well, a splash of red then, thank you.’

Frost, Eleonora, Lightning and me were celebrating with lunch in the hall. We were together at the head of the table so we could hear the hubbub of the other immortals further down and occasional voices from the tavern across the square as the journalists entertained themselves. Frost rested her notebook on the table beside her. Woe betide anybody who gets between her and its pages when she has an idea.

She neatened her bone-handled cutlery with precision and began to rub a little butter into her chapped hands. ‘Thank you, Jant,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t have done it on my own.’

‘No more should you. It is Jant’s office and I am glad he is pulling his weight for once.’

‘Hey, Archer, what are you drinking? That’s not like you.’ I grinned at him.

Lightning scowled back. ‘At least your Messenger service has become more reliable recently.’

Eleonora, at the head of the table, leant to the side as a boy served trout cooked in verjuice. She said, ‘Cloud has surpassed himself, don’t you think?’

‘It is all right for the front,’ said Lightning, who tended to bring good food and a cellar’s worth of wine with him. It was his only show of wealth because his clothes were understated, if expensive. You wouldn’t know from looking at him that he has millions a year.

Each of Lightning’s features taken separately would also seem normal rather than striking, but even if I didn’t know he was noble he would impress me as such; he has that confidence that casts a glow and makes a man the centre of attention, because he knows he ought to be. Give his plain grey eyes an imperious look but make them often prone to be cloaked. Dimple his chin, make his mouth firm, used to command but with a twist of sarcasm. Mark that he not only alternates between being ardent and brooding but sometimes manages to be both at once.

Constant training is the only thing that will make men stick fast in a shield wall, and Lightning drills the fyrd until they are less terrified of the Insects than they are of his anger. Since he is the Lord Governor of Micawater manor, as well as an Eszai, he boldly shapes the world but he still welcomes the yearly cycle of harvests, hunting seasons and accounts. He takes the world seriously, because he has no imagination. Because he has no imagination, he is a popular novelist.

The Lowespass wind blustered across the square and howled through the alleys. It never seemed to stop. The Riverworks banner fissled and slapped on the roof.

Frost glanced at me. ‘The wind’s getting up again.’

I shuddered. I had a sudden vivid image of the soil crumbling over my clothes. I could taste it. I said, ‘We’re supposed to be celebrating your accomplishment. Don’t remind me of the state I was in a hundred years ago.’

Lightning said, ‘You survived. Simply take more care next time.’

‘Next time?’

‘Most of us have been bitten. Tornado has been bitten more times than he can count.’

‘Do you remember being picked up?’ Eleonora asked me.

‘Ha! Of course not.’

‘He was in a coma,’ Lightning said.

‘I was moribund.’

‘He lay unconscious for fourteen weeks in the field hospital at Whittorn. Rayne moved him to Rachiswater Infirmary, then to her hospital in the Castle. He stayed there for a year.’