Stephen Hunt - The Kingdom Beyond the Waves

‘Your accent, if you don’t mind me saying so, sounds more rural Shapshire than Quatershiftian,’ said Quest.

‘I married into the family,’ said Cornelius. ‘I was born in Jackals.’

‘And now you are back. That can’t have been an easy journey.’

‘No,’ said Cornelius, ‘that it was not.’

‘Well, the only Carlists we have in the capital are the ones we’ve elected along with the Levellers to parliament. They seem a fairly harmless bunch in comparison to your revolutionaries in Quatershift.’

Cornelius gnawed greedily on a chick leg as if he was a hound. ‘I trust that they will stay that way.’

‘I trust they will, also. A little change is always good for the system.’

‘While a lot of change is better described as a cancer,’ said Cornelius, ‘something to be dug out with a surgeon’s blade.’

‘Or a trowel, perhaps?’ said Quest. ‘Someone with your name published a paper in the Horticultural Journal many years ago on the care of trees struck by Ferniethian willow disease.’

‘You have a good memory.’

‘I have a freakishly unique one,’ said Quest, ‘although truth to tell, I find it a curse as much as it is a blessing. I can tell you the colour of the apron of the serving boy in the first drinking house I went into at the age of six. I can describe the conversations I heard there. I could tell you all of the drinks we consumed and in what order and how many pennies each of us paid for them. But, alas, all memory is dust without the wisdom to apply it. I haven’t noticed any papers published by yourself for quite a while.’

‘I like to spend my time in my garden on the Skerries on more practical pursuits,’ said Cornelius. ‘I still read the Journal , but I am afraid I haven’t had the inclination to pick up a pen since I departed Quatershift.’

‘Capital,’ said Quest. ‘Most of the people I meet at my functions think that gardening is what you do when you order the head groundsman to take the lawn roller out of the shed.’

‘You are telling me that the richest man in Jackals spends his Circleday afternoons in the rose beds behind this fortress?’ Cornelius was amused.

‘More or less,’ said Quest. ‘I have a conservatory on the roof and a collection of rare orchids up there. Their maintenance and care helps me relax. I am surprised you haven’t seen the cartoons lampooning my pastime in the Dock Street news sheets.’

‘I prefer the Quatershiftian press,’ said Cornelius.

‘Really?’ Quest raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m astonished there’s anything still coming over the border. I thought it was closed.’

‘Oh, you might be surprised at what makes it over the cursewall. One way or another.’

‘I’m sure I would be surprised by nothing where human nature is involved,’ smiled Quest. If he had been unsettled by Cornelius’s comment, he did not show it. ‘Are you familiar with orchids, Compte de Speeler?’

‘I was raised on a farm,’ said Cornelius. ‘My upbringing gave itself over to more practical horticulture. Manure and irrigation; the nurture of apple orchards, pearl barley, pear trees …’

‘I was raised in the alleys of Middlesteel myself,’ said Quest. ‘Cheap jinn and sleeping in the gutter with the other urchins. I was running with a bad crowd when I was younger. But I used to love the plants at Driselwell Market, the small flash of colour in the smoke, the traders from countries with names I couldn’t even pronounce, let alone locate in an atlas. It was one of those traders who gave me my first break — gave me an honest job and taught me to read, gave me the numbers I needed to help keep his ledger.’

‘From market-stall boy to all this,’ said Cornelius, indicating the ballroom. ‘That can’t have been an easy journey, either.’

‘Surprisingly easy,’ said Quest, ‘and diverting enough along the way. In fact, I rather think I enjoyed the journey more than the destination. When I was homeless on the streets, I couldn’t have afforded the price of the pot my orchids came to market in to piss in, let alone one of the flowers. Now I possess the rarest collection in Jackals. Perhaps I can convert you to my cause.’

‘Me?’

‘To a fancier of orchids, Compte de Speeler.’ Quest pointed up to the roof. ‘I am sure I can find time for a tour, for a fellow Horticultural Journal subscriber.’

Rare orchids and a chance to nose around for evidence of an even rarer trade in vintage steamman components. How could Cornelius refuse?

While the other drivers, footmen and assorted cabbies tossed a set of dice in the illumination of their coach lamps around the rear of Whittington Manor, Septimoth had moved to the inside of the old mail coach rather than perching on the step. He had tied up the horses inside the manor’s stables, all four of them used enough to the lashlite that they were not unsettled by his presence, not worried that he might swoop down from a height and bury his talons into their backs. This was slow work, following the precognitions of the seers of the crimson feather, trailing across Middlesteel after the corpses of steammen. How much purer was his vengeance. How much simpler to swoop out of the skies of Quatershift and pay their murderers back the blood debt he owed his clan. Killing revolutionaries and dropping the devil of Furnace-breath Nick into their midst to stir up terror and fear. That was satisfying. Almost as fine as flying on the wing of a hunt with his people.

Septimoth had thought that the hatred he felt for his people’s executioners would have faded over time. But it was only the memories of his family that seemed to diminish. He could no longer conjure up the remembrance of his mother’s face, or the features of his life-mate and their four children. He could recall events he had shared with them — his children’s first moulting ritual, the joy he had felt at their birth, their pride when he was appointed ambassador to the court of the Sun King, teaching his children the monkey-throat language so they might have an advantage in trade or service to the flight. He could recall their hatchling voices singing the tone teachings, but not their faces as they sung. How strange were these malicious games of memory. As his recollections faded, his longing for his family had increased, his hatred becoming harder, purer each week, a shining diamond seeded in the blasted wreckage of his soul. The blood of his foe no longer eased his pain, but at least vengeance distracted him from the memories. And the lack of them.

Septimoth’s trance was interrupted by voices outside, including one that he recognized. His hunter’s mind moved through the thousands of tones he had heard this year and matched them to its owner. The short thug who had led the team responsible for the kidnapping of Bunzal Coalmelter. A coach not dissimilar to the Guardian Fleetfoot was being pulled out of a passage cut into the angular walls of the manor, the original utility of the thick concrete barely concealed by the veneer of brickwork cladding. On the driver’s step sat the bludger who had led Septimoth and Cornelius to the flash mob’s riverboat in the Gambleflowers, holding the reins next to a second man he didn’t recognize. Septimoth’s ears trembled. The two were bickering.

‘Did you see the quality of the bawdy in that place?’

‘Those women were Catosian, man. They’d rip your jewels out of your trousers for staring at ’em sideways.’

‘Well, we missed out on the food tonight, too. Dragging these cargoes across half of Jackals. If I’d wanted to run a bleeding coaching business …’

‘What, you thick or something? They aren’t going to trust this lot to the penny post, are they? We’re being paid.’

‘Not enough, mate, not enough.’