Adrian Tchaikovsky - Heirs of the Blade

‘Come to gloat?’ he asked, and the walls of the pit took the soft words and conveyed them up to her easily.

‘To see justice done,’ she retorted, and he nodded philosophically.

‘That time is it, then? Are you the executioner?’

‘You have a few days more to brood on your defeat,’ she declared, noting the shadows of anger and despair that passed across their faces. In truth, Salme Elass was saving them for something suitably public. She had sent messengers to cordially invite Felipe Shah to witness the death of these enemies of the Monarch’s peace, and Tynisa knew that the woman would then press for the retaking of Rhael, so as to finish off the extermination of all the scum that had gathered there in defiance of the rightful authority of the princes. Still, the brigand’s suggestion had some merit in it. ‘I shall ask to be appointed as your executioner, and why not? For who else has that right, more than I?’

The Dragonfly looked up at her, almost smiling, with eyes narrowed like a man looking into the sun. ‘Since you’re in a talkative mood, what’s all of this to you, girl? They paying you well, are they?’

‘I’m no mercenary,’ she told him. ‘I just know what’s right. You’re lawbreakers and rebels against the Monarch.’

‘Well, that makes us sound grand,’ Dal Arche replied wryly. ‘I hadn’t realized you’d met the Monarch. I never saw her myself.’

‘You know what I mean.’

He shrugged. ‘I won’t deny that the laws of princes don’t sit happily on my shoulders. I travelled a long way to get out from under them but, wherever you go, it seems there’s always someone trying to tell you what to do, whether they call themselves prince or emperor. I thought I might as well come home, in that case.’

Tynisa shook her head, crouching by the edge of the grille to see him better. ‘Oh, that won’t carry weight, brigand. I’ve seen the Empire, and you can’t equate Imperial rule with the Commonweal.’

‘Lived there, have you? And lived a life here, to compare?’ Dal challenged her.

‘ His people killed my father,’ she hissed, jabbing a finger at the Wasp, who flinched back, startled.

‘Don’t drag me into this. I quit,’ he muttered, but Dal was already shaking his head.

‘If you want to play that game, then one prince or another has killed pretty much everyone I ever knew,’ he said. ‘Oh, certainly it was the Wasps who held the sword, but it was my own kinden, my glorious betters, who threw the victims onto it. It’s been some prince or other who’s taxed my kin so that we could only live hand to mouth, and never build anything more on what we had. It’s been your darling prince and his mother here who knocked us down when we tried to set ourselves up like decent folk in Siriell’s Town.’

‘I saw Siriell’s Town,’ Tynisa snapped. ‘There was nothing “decent” there.’

‘Well, I’m sorry we didn’t all live in the castle,’ Dal Arche retorted, a little more fire in his voice now. ‘Perhaps then we’d have fitted your idea of how decent folk live? Tell me, who are you to judge us, living here without care as a guest of the Salmae?’

Tynisa leant closer, feeling obscurely gratified that she had made him angry at last. ‘I’ve seen more of the world than you, old man. I’ve seen the Empire and I know what they value there: tyranny and slavery. I’ve seen Helleron and I know half the Lowlands is just greed running riot, or places like Collegium where good intentions are never quite enough. But I know… I know the Commonweal. The Commonweal makes good people, who fight for the right things: heroes. I know what the Monarch believes in. I recognize truth and honour and honesty when I see it. A friend taught me about the Commonweal, by the example of everything he ever did. He was the best man I ever knew, and he knew what was right and what was wrong. That’s how I can judge you, thief and murderer that you are. You have rebelled against your rightful rulers, and for that you’ll die.’

She waited for an explosion of wrath, of counter-accusation, even of pleading, but it did not come.

Instead Dal Arche leant back against the wall of the pit. ‘Oh, that does sound grand. If you ever find this mythical place you’re talking about, let me know, I’d like to see it. Until then, I suppose I’ll have to live with the merely human nobility who got so many of us killed in the war. At least I won’t have to live with them very long.’

Something nagged at her briefly, some echo of Lowre Cean’s words before the battle, but she shrugged it away. ‘I can judge,’ she repeated. ‘And I can be the one to wield the blade, when your time comes. Better that than suffer the crossed pikes of the Empire, no?’

‘And in your Lowlands?’ he asked her.

‘They were always too soft in Collegium,’ she replied, getting up and turning to go. A thought struck her, and she gave voice to it: ‘You can hardly deny that you’ve earned this, having robbed and pillaged your way across half of the province?’

‘Oh, no, not at all,’ was his reply. ‘We took what we wanted and went wherever we would. But more joined us than fled from us, and for a while at least, we were free of princes. And I will maintain, to death and beyond, that those who condemn us are themselves murderers and thieves greater than we are, and no amount of law and heritage will change that.’

She opened her mouth for a scathing rebuke, but the words did not come to her. They are criminals going to their just punishment, she assured herself, but abruptly she had no stomach left for taunting them.

‘When the time comes, I’ll look for a sharp blade and a quick end,’ Dal Arche stated. ‘We’re owed that much, I think.’

She nodded, thrown off balance but not sure why. Inside her head, her mantra whirled: I love Alain. Alain is a prince. Alain is virtuous, as a prince should be. And always at the back of that was the knowledge that Alain must be virtuous, because Salma had been virtuous. But Salma had been removed from her grasp by his Butterfly lover, and then by death, and so Alain was what she had, and he must be as much the man as Salma was. She would not countenance any other option.

The brigands were all staring at her, and she was aware of having stood in silence at the pit’s edge for too long. She turned quickly and stalked away, hoping that such an exit would seem part of her disdain for them, yet all the while wondering what part of her thoughts had been readable in her face.

Castle Leose was busier now than she had ever seen it, for Princess Salme Elass was about to hold some grand piece of festivity, calling all and sundry of noble blood to congratulate her on putting down Dal Arche’s little insurrection. There seemed to be twice as many servants as was usual, a general summons for itinerant entertainers to amuse the anticipated guests. In the castle’s courtyard, Tynisa watched Grasshopper musicians tuning up, whilst their long-legged acrobats leapt and balanced. A troupe of Roach-kinden had appeared, presenting themselves as jugglers and magicians, although it seemed more likely that they were opportunistic wayfarers looking for a free meal. Most disturbing to Tynisa was the trio of dancers apparently brought here at the princess’s express command. They did not practise out in public view, nor did they mingle with their peers, instead clustering together out of the way in a corner that would be shadowed if they had not brought their own light to it. Tynisa had only ever seen one Butterfly in her life, but the woman had been a dancer too, and stirred no fond memories. The mere sight of these shimmering, glowing girls, with their ethereal grace and beauty radiating from every pose and motion, stirred ugly thoughts within her.