Stephen Hunt - The Court of the Air

‘Lucky jigger,’ someone muttered.

Fladdock nodded, feeling the scrubby beard on his cheeks. About time. The blood code was no more real than his name, no more real than his face — which still felt distorted and swollen when he touched it. He was constantly amazed that the other convicts could not see through the results of his visit to the back-street worldsinger. The farmer picking up his paper could conceivably be his second cousin twice removed, though. Royalists had been finding the wide-open plains and deep forests of Concorzia more than accommodating for generations.

Did Commodore Black’s face still feel like this after all the years since his own trip to the worldsinger? Fladdock might have asked if he had known what the effects were going to be like. The cunning old sea dog had been right on the money about one thing. With the forces of the old country still unrelentingly shaking trees to try and turn up Prince Alpheus, the easiest way out of Jackals was with a bona fide prison record turning on the drums of a transaction engine at Greenhall and a free transportation under the crushers’ noses courtesy of the office of the colonies. They had declared the former king dead. They could never afford to be proved wrong.

The guard turned to the old craynarbian. ‘And how many hands will you be requiring today, Mister Ka’oard?’

‘Just the ones in this chamber,’ said Ka’oard.

The guard groaned. ‘Not again. You can’t keep on doing this, sir. It is causing tensions among the other landowners. These jacks are meant to be serving labour, not rolling for fish in the waters of one of your streams. Someone in town told me you’ve even engaged a couple of tutors for these scruffs out at Vauxtion Valley. My lovely boys need to be taught how to harvest and cut down lumber, not master their letters. You realize there’s a shortage of labour here now? Just how much money have you got to be spending, driving up the price of convict contracts?’

‘Oh, there’s a few of your very fine Jackelian pennies left yet, I think,’ replied Ka’oard.

The guard sighed in exasperation and waved Fladdock out, passing him over to the cart driver that had been sent to collect the young man.

Fladdock stepped forward, handing the battered news sheet down to Gallon. ‘Keep it, Gallon. Keep it for when you’ve mastered your letters.’

The colonial guard pocketed the customary tip sent by Fladdock’s new master and looked over at the craynarbian. ‘It’s not like the old days anymore, Mister Ka’oard, when you could ride for months without bumping into one of your neighbours. You could breathe back then, you could really feel alive. Those are the times I was born with and they were damn good years too. But those days are gone out here.’

Blinking in the sunlight, Fladdock glanced back at the remaining convicts, flexed his two perfect arms and grinned. Then he was gone.

‘Yes,’ said Ka’oard. ‘You are quite correct. I don’t believe these are the old days any more. But they will do.’