Frances Hardinge - Fly By Night

Mosca, the newly named Housefly, offered no comment.

‘The dead king had a son, whom loyal servants rescued and carried abroad. The boy prince travelled afar and became a man prince. He spoke with other kings, some of whom promised to help him win back his throne. He learned the etiquette of court, and found out which princesses were worthy to be his queen. And then, while he was visiting a far-distant king in a land of burning sands, his camel unexpectedly bit off his nose. The prince took a fever and died the next day, through surprise as much as anything else.

‘Those who thought there should be a king or queen now argued among themselves. Some thought the old king’s daughter should rule, some his sister, some his cousin’s son.

‘Twenty years passed in this way, and the Parliament fell out with one another as well. They were too busy squabbling to notice their power being stolen away by a clever new enemy.’

Mye hesitated. Like everyone else who had lived through that time, he carried his share of terrible memories and once again he felt them stir, like the breath of a tiger against the back of his neck.

‘A Bad Time came upon the Realm. For ten years…’ Mye halted, looking up into his infant daughter’s face. There was still a great deal of blue in her eyes. A fancy struck him that if he spoke aloud of the tortures, the mass gibbets, the screams from the pyres, he would see inkiness flood his daughter’s eyes, to leave them as black as his own.

‘Perhaps I… will wait until you are older before I talk to you about the Years of the Birdcatchers.

‘But the Birdcatchers were overthrown and the Bad Time did pass. Afterwards, the monarchists and the Parliamentarians resumed their struggle for power. Each group of Royalists gathered an army and prepared to snatch the throne for their monarch of choice. Parliament was frightened and prepared their own armies for war.

‘And then one day, to their surprise, the leaders of the Parliament found themselves drinking tea with a group of quietly insistent men in very clean but well-used overalls who explained to them that they were not going to do anything of the sort. The Parliament were surprised, for these men were the heads of the guilds, the leaders of the watchmakers and locksmiths and stationers, and other skilled working men.’ Mentioning the Stationers, Mye felt a tiny sting of bitterness, but he continued, ‘“If you go to war,” said the guild heads, “you will suddenly find that there are no boots or coats for your troops. You will find that there are no flints for your pistols and no shot for your muskets.”

‘“No matter,” said the leaders of the Parliament. “Our troops will be so inspired by their cause that they will fight in their shirts and their socks, and will use swords and stones if they cannot have guns.” “Perhaps,” said the guild heads. “But in the meantime even you will have no tea or marmalade for your breakfast tables, and no tailors to darn your robes of office when they tear.” And so the leaders of the Parliament went pale and asked for time to think about it.

‘Meanwhile, on their own lands, the Royalist supporters prepared to march on the Capital. But each and every one found themselves, one day, talking to a group of quietly insistent men in very clean but well-used overalls who explained to them that they would do nothing of the sort. “You will promise loyalty to the Parliament,” said the guild heads, “or your cityfolk will have no flour for their bread or slate for their roofs.”

‘“Our cause is so just,” said the Royalist leaders, “that our people will hold out against a siege even if they are hungry and the snow piles up in their beds.” “Perhaps,” said the guild heads. “But in the meantime no one will set your wives’ hair into ringlets, and your horses will be ungroomed.” And so the Royalist leaders trembled, and said they would give an answer next day.

‘The next day, the Parliament said that a monarch would be no bad thing, and set up a Committee in the Capital to look into it. One by one, the Royalist leaders came to join the Parliament, and waited to find out who was destined to take up the crown and return the nation to its remembered glory.

‘That,’ said Quillam Mye to his daughter, ‘was seven years ago. Today the Realm still awaits the Committee’s Decision. Shall I tell you what has happened since then? I will show you our nation. It is…’ He reached for his supper plate. ‘It is this biscuit .’

The Housefly stared at the biscuit obediently, perhaps trying to imagine that the ground beneath her was crunchy and full of almonds.

‘Our “kingdom” is like this .’ Mye brought his fist down sharply on the biscuit, fracturing it. ‘See? It still looks like a whole biscuit, but it is cracked beyond repair. Every fragment flies a flag to a different king or queen. You see this?’ He picked out a butter-browned fragment. ‘ This chunk is the Capital and its lands. And this piece -’ a piece crested with a large nut – ‘is Galdspar. This is Mandelion, and this is the counties of Amblevetch. But there is no biscuit any more. The biscuit where we once lived is dying…’

Familiar pains were throbbing behind his eyes, and he paused to let them pass. Little pale points came and went before his sight, as if a giant cat were kneading the tapestry of the world and letting its claw tips show through the cloth. He sighed, swept away the crumbs and dipped his quill to continue with his writing, then looked up at the baby one last time, as if she had said something to interrupt him.

‘Well, if you are to help me with my work, you had better get used to stories without endings. True stories seldom have endings.’

Quillam Mye’s great treatise on The Shattered Realm was never given an ending. Eight years later the historian Quillam Mye was dead, and his books had been burned. Twelve years after the night she was named, his daughter could be found hiding inside a dovecote, with a goose tucked under one arm.

It was often said that only divine flame could persuade anything to burn in Chough. Many joked that the villagers cooked their dinners over marsh-lights.

Chough could be found by straying as far as possible from anywhere comfortable or significant, and following the smell of damp. The village had long since surrendered to a seeping, creeping rot. The buildings rotted from the bottom upwards. The trees rotted from the inside out. The carrots and turnips rotted from the outside in, and were pale and pulpy when they were dug out.

Around and through the village, water seethed down the breakneck hillside in a thousand winding streamlets. They hissed and gleamed through dark miles of pine forest above the village, chafing the white rocks and learning a strange milkiness. Chough itself was more a tumble than a town, the houses scattered down the incline as if stranded there after a violent flood.

By day the villagers fought a losing battle against the damp. By night they slept and dreamed sodden, unimaginative dreams. On this particular night their dreams were a little ruffled by the unusual excitement of the day, but already the water that seeped into every soul was smoothing their minds back to placidity, like a duck’s bill glossing its plumage.

One mind, however, was wakeful and nursing the black flame of rebellion. At midnight the owner of that mind could be found hiding in the local magistrate’s dovecote.

This dovecote was large, and from the outside its conical roof bore a remarkable resemblance to a castle turret. At the moment, the dovecote was remarkably free of doves and remarkably full of twelve-year-old girl and oversized goose.