Stephen Hunt - The Court of the Air

‘He always was a fool. Brave as a sand lion, of course, but a fool,’ said the count. ‘Had a lovely wife just as fearless as he was. She had a few choice words for the crowd when they took her to the Gideon’s Collar, as I recall. Stood on that platform and cursed the mob for ten minutes before the Carlists dragged her into the bolter.’

‘At least the colonel was spared the sight of that, sir,’ said the craynarbian.

‘Yes,’ sighed the count. ‘What a pair we make, old shell. We should be sitting by a river in Vauxtion, drowning worms with a rod and a cast, watching our grandchildren throw stones at each other.’

‘As I recall it was mostly you who threw stones at me, sir,’ said the retainer.

‘I was a curious lad,’ said the count. ‘I liked the sound they made as they pinged off your back. Besides, you used to poke me with your damn sword arm when I was given the bunk above yours in the regiment. Pretended you were sleep-walking as I remember it.’

‘My sword arm is rather blunt now, sir.’

The count picked up the package he had been brought and began to unwrap the paper. ‘It is still sharp enough, I think. This was delivered by a private courier, I presume?’

‘Like the others, sir.’ The craynarbian took the unwrapped mirror and stepped back. As he did, the surface of the mirror began to shimmer, as if the glass plane was melting in a fire. A shadowed face appeared.

‘You have an update for me?’ asked the silhouette. ‘News of the girl?’

‘I tracked her down,’ said the count. ‘But your requirement that she be delivered alive proved problematic. Dead is so much easier. She was in my custody, but she was liberated by some rivals.’

‘Rivals?’ said the shadow. ‘Old man, I have had no mug-hunters come to the valuer to claim my bounty.’

‘Somehow I did not think they would,’ said the count. ‘It will help me track the girl’s new hiding place down if you could explain why you want her. I need to understand the motiv ations of her rescuers if I am to bring her to ground again.’

‘That is not your concern,’ echoed the voice. ‘You need only find her, then deliver her to the valuer.’

Count Vauxtion shook his head. ‘She is just a Sun Gate waif. If you want her dead, simply let her grow up. In three years her liver will be a jinn-raddled mess, in five she will be on her death bed with match-girl lungs or some similar mill-cursed sickness.’

‘I retain you solely for your skill as a hunter,’ said the shadow. ‘I do not require your philosophical musings on the state of Jackelian society. Where in Middlesteel did she escape from your custody?’

‘Not in Middlesteel,’ said the count. ‘Beneath it. She was hiding in Grimhope — quite the quarry, young Molly Templar. Rather admirable. She’s showed more spirit and ingenuity than the grudges I am normally called to pay off among the merchants and flash mob lords.’

‘Grimhope!’ roared the figure in the mirror. ‘She was in the city below? Why did you not tell me this?’

‘As you so kindly pointed out,’ said the count, ‘your largesse is dependent solely on the successful capture of the girl. I am not paid to deliver daily notes on my progress to you. Your two-shilling whippers were of no help to me in Sun Gate. When I require a trail of poorhouse corpses for Ham Yard to follow back to me, I will tip off your thugs. Until then, I will follow my usual practice and work alone.’

‘Test my patience too far, old soldier, and those men will come for you .’

‘I was not merely a marshal in the old regime,’ said the count. ‘I was also first duellist of the court. You would not be the first patron to attempt to renegotiate the terms of our agreement during an engagement. If you have a yearning to send any of your bullyboys to visit me, you had better make sure they are not anyone you wish to see again. I will be returning their ashes to your valuer cremated inside one of my old wine bottles.’

‘Bring me the girl,’ commanded the shadow. ‘Do not let Molly Templar slip away from you again.’

Steam was rising off the surface of the mirror; the worldsinger hex had nearly worked its course. Soon the artefact would be fit only for the scrap heap.

‘One last thing,’ said the count. ‘You are not by any chance the girl’s father?’

A deep cackling laughter like a log being consumed by flames sounded from the mirror. Then the glass twisted and sizzled into silence.

‘I did not think so,’ said the count.

‘May I put the mirror down, sir?’ asked the craynarbian.

‘Of course, old shell. Toss it out the back with the others.’

‘You would think the gentleman would have learnt to communicate using this country’s excellent crystalgrid network.’

The count picked up the book he had been reading. TheStrategy of the Wars of Unification by one of the lesser known Kikkosicoan nobles. ‘Our patron might have more wealth than a Jackelian mine owner, Ka’oard, but a gentleman I suspect he is not.’

‘As you say, sir, as you say.’

‘I am so very tired of listening to the locals sing “Lion of Jackals” at the end of every damn play, every damn prom. It is far past time these people lost a war and gained a little humility. I think when we have collected the money from our current patron, we should take a trip out to the colonies. See what the shores of Concorzia have to offer.’

‘A little late for a new start, sir?’ pointed out the craynarbian. ‘I don’t know, Ka’oard. Land is cheap out there. Maybe we could buy a manor with a stream. Free the contracts on some young pickpockets and horse thieves who’ve been given the boat. Watching them farm the land and roll for fish in the water, it might be like the old days.’

‘We did not make war on children in the old days, sir,’ the craynarbian pointed out. ‘We did not hunt young girls.’

‘Don’t confuse our present reduced circumstances with the field of honour, old friend,’ said the count. ‘Here in Jackals we are refugees in a land of shopkeepers. This is not war we make here. It is business .’

The retainer put the brandy bottle back in the cabinet and locked the glass door. When he turned around he found the old aristocrat was asleep in his chair. Ka’oard placed a blanket over his employer’s legs.

‘All things considered, sir, I think I preferred war,’ he whispered and left.

It had been a week since Oliver and the disreputable Stave had traded the warmth of the narrowboat for the damp ferns and wind-whipped moors that ran across Angelset, from the town of Ewehead to the outskirts of Shadowclock. To avoid the blood machines and the county constabulary they kept off the crown roads and away from the toll cottages, trekking across open countryside.

Little of the land seemed to be under cultivation; the border with Quatershift was only a few miles to the east. The presence of the cursewall — and the continual eerie whistling as that dark product of the worldsinger arts absorbed the wind — had been enough to empty any of the villages that had not been laid to waste during the Two-Year War. Now at last it felt to Oliver like he was really an outlaw. They avoided human company, keeping to the wilds, always with an eye to the nearest copse, wood or gully — in case the shadow of one of the RAN’s small border patrol scouts appeared on the skyline. Even in summer the moorland they crossed seemed like a desolate, blasted place. Freezing nights, soggy mornings and only the occasional wild pony or tail-hawk for company.

When they found streams, they would replenish their canteens and Harry would boil up water to make a stew from the dried meats and bacon that Damson Loade had crammed into their travel packs. She had also given them an earthenware jug of her favourite jinn, corked with a silver stopper in the shape of a bull’s head. The most that could be said for the sharp-tasting firewater was that it warmed them briefly, before they turned in at night under the tent that filled up most of Oliver’s bag.