Iain Banks: A Song Of Stone

Morning finds the lieutenant returned to the castle; the mists disperse like a crowd, dew hangs heavy on the forest and the sun, late rising above the southerly hills, shines with a wintery weariness, tentative and provisional as a politician's promise.

The good lieutenant takes her breakfast in our chambers; an old flag I imagine she does not know it is our family's own arms has been thrown across the oak table to provide a cloth. She looks tired yet animated, her eyes red and her face flushed. She smells a little of smoke and intends to sleep for a few hours once she has eaten. Her roasted, toasted fare is served on our finest silver; she holds and uses the sharp and glittering pieces of cutlery with a weaponly dexterity. The gold and ruby ring upon her little finger duly sparkles too.

“We found a few things,” the lieutenant replies when I enquire how went the night. “What we did not find was as important.” She gulps down her milk, sitting back and kicking off her boots. She puts her plate on her lap and her grubbily stockinged feet on the table, selecting and spearing morsels from on high.

“What was it you did not find?” I ask her.

“Many other people,” the lieutenant tells us. “There were a few refugees, camped out, but nobody… threatening; nobody armed, nobody organised.” She picks a few more mouthfuls from her plate of meats and eggs. She gazes ceiling wards, as if to admire the painted wood panels and embossed heraldic shields. “We think there may be another group around. Somewhere,” she says, then narrows her eyes as she looks at me. “Competition,” she says, smiling that cold smile of hers. “Not friends of ours.”

A soft egg yolk, surgically isolated from its surrounding white and the bed of toast it lay upon by previous incisions, is lifted intact, yellowly wobbling ~ on the lieutenant's fork and directed towards her mouth. Her thin lips close around the golden curve. She slips the fork out and holds it vertically, twirling it as her jaw moves and her eyes close. She swallows. “Hmm,” she says, collecting herself and smacking her lips. “The last we heard of that happy band they were in the hills, north of here.” She shrugs. “We couldn't find any sign of them; it may be they've headed cast with everybody else.”

“You still intend to remain here?”

“Oh, yes.” She puts the plate down, wipes her lips on a napkin, throws it on the table. “I like your home very well; I think the boys and I can be happy here.”

“Do you intend to stay long?”

She frowns, takes a deep breath. “How long,” she asks, “have your family lived here?”

I hesitate. “A few hundred years.”

She spreads her arms, “Well then, what difference can it make if we stay a few days, or weeks, or months?” She digs between two teeth with a ragged fingernail, smiling slyly at you. “Even years?”

“That depends on how you treat this place,” I say. “This castle has stood for over four hundred years, but it has been vulnerable to cannon for most of that time and, nowadays, could be destroyed in an hour by a large gun and in a moment with a wellplaced bomb or rocket; from inside, all one might need would be a match in the right place. The effects of our tenure here as a family unfortunately has no bearing on yours as occupiers, especially given the circumstances prevailing outside these walls.”

The lieutenant nods wisely. “You're right, Abel.” she says, rubbing one index finger beneath her nose and staring at her smudge grey socks. “We are here as occupiers, not your guests, and you are our prisoners, not our hosts. And this place suits our purposes; it's comfortable, defendable. but it means no more to us.” She picks up her fork again, inspects it minutely. “But these men aren't vandals. I've told them not to break anything and if they do it will assuredly be clumsiness rather than insubordination. Oh, there are a few extra bullet holes about the place, but most of any damage you might see was probably caused by your looters.” She wipes something from the tines of the fork, then licks her fingers. “And we made them pay quite dearly for such… despicable desecration.” She smiles at me.

I glance at you, my dear, but your eyes are averted now, your gaze cast down. “And us?” I ask our lieutenant. “How do you intend to treat us?”

“You and your wife?” she says, then watches keenly. I display, I hope, no reaction. You look away, towards the window. “Oh, with respect,” the lieutenant continues, nodding, expression serious. “Why, with honour.”

“But not to the extent of honouring our desire to leave.”

“Correct!” she says. “You're my local knowledge, Abel. You know your way around these parts.” She gestures upwards and around. “And I've always had a thing about castles; you can give me a guided tour of the place, if you like. Well, let's be honest; if I like. And I do like. You wouldn't mind, though, would you, Abel? No, of course not. I'm sure it would he a treat for you as well. I'm sure you have lots of interesting stories you can tell me about the place; fascinating ancestors, famous visitors, exciting incidents, exotic heirlooms from faraway lands… Ha! For all I know the place even has a ghost!” She sits forward, the fork waved in her fingers like a wand. “Does it, Abel? Does the place have a ghost?”

I sit back. “Not yet.”

This makes her laugh. “There you are. Your real treasures are things the looters weren't interested in; the place itself, its history, the library, the tapestries, ancient chests, old clothes, statues, great gloomy paintings… all still intact, pretty much. Perhaps while we're here you can educate my men; give them a taste for culture. I'm sure my own aesthetic senses have been heightened already, just talking to you and sitting here.” She clatters the fork down on the salver. “That's the thing, you see; people like me get so few opportunities to talk to people like you and stay in places like this.”

I nod slowly. “Yes, and you know who I am, who we are; there are books in the library listing the generations of our family, and portraits of most of our ancestors on every wall, but we don't know who you are. Might we inquire?” I glance at you; your gaze has returned to the lieutenant. “Just a name would do,” I tell her.

She scrapes her seat back, flexing her shoulders, arching her back, and stifling the greater part of a yawn. “Of course,” she says, linking her hands and stretching them against each other. “What you don't realise, until you become part of one, is the way that units in the front line the grunts, the squaddies take on nicknames. They leave their civilian names behind with their civilised personalities; they become another person, after training. Maybe it's a sort of shamanistic thing, like a lucky charm.” She grins. “You know; the bullet with your name on it will have your non com handle printed thereon, not the real one, the one your buddies call you.” She snorts. “You know I've forgotten the real name of every man in this squad? Been with some of them two years, too, and that seems like a very long time, in the circumstances?” She nods. “But, their names… Well, there's Mr Cuts “

“He alive?” I suggest.

She looks at me oddly, then continues. “He's kind of my deputy; a sergeant in his old unit. Then there's Airlock,

Deathwish, Victim, Karma, Tootight, Kneecap, Verbal, Ghost Ah!” she smiles suddenly. “See; we have a ghost already!” She sits. forward, flicking the names off, finger by finger. “…Ghost, Lovegod, Fender, Dropzone, Grunt, Broadleaf, Poppy, Onetrack, Dopple, Psycho… and… that's all,” she says, sitting back, closing up, crossing her arms and legs. “There was Half caste, but he's dead now',

“Was he the young man on the road yesterday?”