As we crossed the harbor our ships fell under the lee of the mountain. The lagoon’s surface was mirror-still; it reflected Petrel and Melowne’s images from waterline to masthead. Their sails went slack and they coasted in very slowly indeed, on the last of their momentum. Fulmer ordered the last sails furled and I looked up to see clear blue sky between the masts for the first time in three months.
Trisian men, women and children poured out of the town’s façade and rushed to form a crowd on the sea wall and all along the corniche. The men’s clothes looked quite plain-white or beige linen or silk tunics with colored borders, and loose trousers underneath. Some of the girls wore pastel-dyed stoles over their double-layer dresses but none of their garments looked embroidered or rich.
Men pushed out dark wood canoes and jumped in, paddling toward us. The canoes had outriggers; blue and white eyes were painted on their prows. They moved very swiftly and were soon clustered around our hull. The Trisians shouted and pointed, held up all kinds of food and objects. Dozens of hands reached to the portholes, waving spiny fruit, enormous seeds, stoppered jars, dead fish on skewers, silver flasks. Our sailors hung over the railings eagerly offering anything to hand on the deck. They passed or threw down belaying pins, hatchets and belt buckles, the plumb line from the bow.
Fulmer’s composure broke. He yelled, “No trading! Stop it, fools, before you give them your vests and pants! No barter, till Mist gives the word! Hacilith law and punishment applies from now on.”
He glanced at me. “The rash bastards will swap anything for curios. They’d pull the nails from the futtocks and even trade our instruments away if I don’t watch them. We must beware of thieves, yes/no? Even a fishhook from Tris is a novelty that will fetch money in the Fourlands now. Still, at least Capharnai are friendly.”
The Petrel, in front of us, glided through the reflections of Capharnaum’s first houses, came alongside the harbor wall and docked. Our ship’s salt-stained prow stopped just a meter behind the ornate windows of Petrel’s stern. Then two gangways slipped down and simultaneously locked into place. Wrenn immediately ran to the quay, where he stood smiling and waving, the first of our company to set foot on Tris. Native men and women approached him, asking questions that of course he couldn’t understand so he just kept nodding in cheerful agreement.
There were no mooring loops on the wharf so Mist made her crew unload the stern and bow anchors of both ships and place them on the pavement with the ropes drawn taut.
Mist and Fulmer descended the gangways of their respective ships and met on the quayside. They shook hands politely in front of the astonished townspeople. “We did it!” she said.
“I had every confidence in you, Eszai,” said Fulmer. He smoothed a couple of invisible wrinkles out of his suit sleeve with a spotless hand. The breeze opened his jacket and I saw a dagger swinging from his belt.
I descended to dry land at the same time as Lightning disembarked from the Petrel. He carried his strung longbow over his shoulder; arrow nocks protruded from the quiver at his waist. He glanced at the windows of every villa fronting the quay.
Wrenn bounded to a halt, panted, “Have you noticed that none of the Capharnai have any weapons? Some of the fishermen have knives in their sashes but they look a bit odd.”
“It’s true,” said Lightning. “Jant, do you see?”
I said, “I think the blades are bronze.”
Lightning said, “But obviously there’s no reason for Capharnai to know of swords. The Fourlands had no swords before the Insects arrived.”
“And then they were invented pretty quickly!” I grinned. I was loving the attention.
Mist gave me an expectant look. “Make your introductions, Jant.”
I spread my arms and began to address the townspeople with a speech I had carefully prepared: “Governors, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for receiving us from the Fourlands. We have brought some gifts as a sign of goodwill: casks of wine and silver ingots-”
The large crowd of people giggled as if I was mad. Mist and I glanced at each other. “Keep going,” she said.
“We would like to meet the governors of Capharnaum to tell them of the Em-”
The crowd parted to let a man through. He walked forward until he faced us alone. I assumed he was the Capharnai’s own representative. He was a tall old man, every aspect of his comportment upright and efficient. His eyes were the same dark brown as beer-bottle glass, hair every shade of gray, once so windblown it would never lie flat. He was dry as a ship’s rib. His face was pinched; his mouth slotted in under his cheekbones. It looked like he was smiling wryly all the time, with a wicked grin that enticed me to smile with him, like a collaborator.
He wore a short cloak over a tunic with a deep hem border. His laced boots with open toes were so unusual Fulmer especially couldn’t stop staring at them. No doubt Fulmer was wondering if he could start a fashion in the Fourlands for toeless boots.
The Trisian spoke slowly, giving me time to translate. The terms that I could not decipher, I left as he gave them. “My name is Vendace. I was a fisherman, now elected to the Senate. They have sent me to thank you for coming here. Are you the same as the boat that appeared nine months ago?”
“Yes, from the Fourlands. Call me Jant. I can speak Trisian but please talk slowly; I don’t know many words. My friends can’t speak it at all; I’ll translate for them.”
“What’s he saying?” asked Mist, who was becoming very frustrated.
“He’s welcoming us,” I said in Awian.
“Tell him I’m in charge and ask him to give his word that my ships will be safe here tonight,” said Mist.
I told Vendace, and added, “We’re here on peaceful terms.”
Vendace said, “We saw your sails this morning-the Senate has convened in an emergency session to discuss our course of action. The Senate is still in progress and they have asked me to bring you to the House. Our constitution warns against contact with another land; our constitution is important to us.”
Mist tugged my arm. “What’s he saying?”
“I’ve no idea. He seems to be going on about their fitness.” I paused for a second to stop my mind whirling. “He’s offered to take us to the governors’ house.”
Mist said, “Well, at least ask a guarantee for our safety on land. I see some victuals being brought out. Thank him for giving me the opportunity to buy provisions and offer to pay with the bar silver.”
I stumbled over a translation to Vendace. The Trisians surrounding us all began laughing again. Even the fisherman couldn’t keep a straight face-he smirked.
“Why are they sniggering?” Lightning inquired.
Mist asked, “Are you actually saying what I tell you to say?”
I wished that she would stop hassling me. I hadn’t had any chance to practice. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Well, I think so! Or I could have asked him to serve us a warm dog.”
Lightning said, “They laugh when you speak of-of what?”
“The wine and silver,” I said.
Lightning said, “Hmm. I should think they have wine of their own. And more than enough gold, if you remember the priceless lighthouse mirrors.”
I looked more closely at the crowd. “You know, none of the Capharnai are wearing jewelry. But gold’s available here; in fact it’s abundant. Do you think it could be that Capharnai don’t care for it?”
Lightning indicated a small girl who was sucking her thumb. A gold band held back her dark hair. “That puts us on a level with their children. And I will wager that her crown is pure, refined gold.” He removed the circlet from his head.
Mist rubbed her eyes. “But…Well, if precious metals are worthless we’ve no valuables to trade with. This island seems to lack nothing; what do we have that they could possibly want?”
“Steel,” said Wrenn.
Fulmer said, “You clever, clever man! Yes, we can give them nails, tacks and chain links. Knife blades and hatchets were in demand; I saw the canoeists admiring them. How about halberds from the Melowne? The Trisians must use axes so they’ll recognize halberds that are superior to bronze. They should be willing to accept what is better, yes?”
“It’s possible,” Mist said guardedly.
Vendace remained unflappable but kept glancing at my eyes. He showed us a stone cistern on the quayside and Mist organized two squads of sailors to fill barrels with fresh water. She arranged another team to buy fruit, meat and vegetables from Capharnai merchants who were already approaching us out of the town, but she forbade them to barter for any other goods, or to buy items for their own keeping. Then she turned to her second-in-command. “Viridian, tell Melowne’s bosun to obey my orders and follow them yourselves if you love me and your place in my fleet. Don’t leave the ships unprotected. Move them only if you’re threatened…And if we don’t come back tonight, you know what to do.”
“Certainly, Mist,” she said. “And good luck, Mum.”
Mist was dissatisfied with Vendace’s appearance. She said, “The Circle doesn’t need a fisherman.”
“I was unaware we have the authority to recruit for the Circle,” Lightning commented.
Mist gave him a venomous look. I suppose she was right; it would be a stroke of luck if a leader of Tris excelled at some occupation and could join the Circle. She said quietly, “This man is elderly enough to be very grateful for immortality.”
“Wisdom comes with age,” said Wrenn, vaguely.
“Maybe it does, here,” said Lightning.
“Aye, well no matter what venerable age he has reached, he’s still a baby compared to us.”
Vendace had listened to their exchange without understanding a word. He smiled and pointed a direction through the crowd; we followed him.
The heat was like a barrier, and every rare midday gust of wind just blew hot air at us, into our skin, and offered no relief. It seemed to come in waves, each more stifling and cloying than the last. I unlaced my shirtsleeves, slipped them off and tucked them in my belt. The heat made the five of us walk slowly, with smooth, languid movements.
Fulmer said, “I could quite happily live here. See the promenade, it’s splendid, yes?”
“Yeah,” said Wrenn. “I’ve never seen such sexy girls. Check out that honey with the short skirt.”
Fulmer selected a cigarette from a whale’s-tooth ivory case and screwed it into a holder. He rubbed his short beard. “I plan to come back and never leave at all, at all. I have no ties and our huntress Queen will gladly grant me permission. This is much better than Awia, which copies the Castle. We turn everything into a bloody competition, from maths to pottery, and we wear ourselves out. Here no one’s the best and no one cares. See how happy they are?”
We were led from the harbor into a long, straight main boulevard bordered by white marble columns. Steles stood at regular intervals, topped with statues of men and women draped in cloth. I counted them, and noticed that after every ten statues an archway spanned the street. Smaller alleys led into the road-grid on either side of us, between the two-story buildings. Small shops opened onto the pavement, with striped canvas porticoes: a confectioner selling pasties and pastries; sausages hung above smoked viands and a mess of octopus in a butcher’s; a barber swept his shop.
Everybody was pointing things out and bursting with questions, far too many for me to translate. “Look at the vines,” Mist said, enthralled. They twined up a trellis on the last quayside house, heavy with black grapes, tendrils reaching to the terracotta chimney.
I surreptitiously peered over the green window boxes as we passed, seeing that the furniture in the lower room was slight and elegant. A small dog lay curled on a chair cushion. The cool walls were painted with a stylized frieze of pearl divers in an underwater garden. Trisian art seemed to cover everyday items rather than being framed.
“The knives,” Wrenn said. “Ask him about the bronze daggers.”
“I certainly will not!”
Fulmer indicated a workshop where a canoe was being carved. Vendace said, “We travel for hundreds of kilometers around Tris and the unoccupied islands.”
“Hundreds?” I asked.
Vendace nodded with enthusiasm for his profession. “Easily, past the Motley Isles into the open ocean! Why do you question it? I’ll speak slower if you want.”
Next we saw a large paved piazza surrounded by colonnades. Mist said, “This must be a marketplace. Isn’t it cute?”
A restaurant occupied the open, airy ground floor of the nearest block. About twenty Capharnai tumbled out and joined those lining the street to stare at us. A stout café proprietor wore a loose tunic, a single piece of material gathered at the waist by a sash. He beckoned. “Come in, come and dine.”
Vendace raised his brown hands apologetically. “Excuse me, Derbio, I must take our visitors to the Amarot.”
The round man giggled. “Of course, but they’re invited to drink tea with us afterward.”
I was thrilled that I could understand a dialogue between two native speakers; my ear for the language was improving. I said, “It would be a pleasure. What’s tea?”
He seemed staggered. “By Alyss, you are in for a treat!”
I listened to my friends’ conversation. Mist was enthusing, “The shops are so clean. No smoke, no grime…”
“No litter,” said Fulmer approvingly. “You don’t get that in Hacilith.”
I agreed: “I thought something was wrong. No one’s standing at street corners or porches. When I lived in Hacilith I never wanted to walk past threatening groups of lads.”
I translated for Vendace, who said, “Youths don’t wish to loiter. They are occupied learning the trade of their choice.”
“Not all the time, surely.”
Vendace said, “In the evenings they discourse in the tea shops.”
“Wow. Tea must be powerful stuff. Doesn’t Capharnaum have any crime at all?”
There was a hint of smugness in Vendace’s voice. “Of course there is, occasionally, but why should people break the law when they all decide on the laws?”
Wrenn whispered, “That waiter was wearing a tablecloth.”
Lightning said laconically, “What’s odd about that? It’s much more practical than the clothes we have now; you can put your wings through the back.”
“How do you know?”
“My mortal years were not so long ago that I don’t remember them, Serein.”
As we walked through town, I noticed that the houses really were similar; apart from superficial variations in paint and plaster their furnishings were all equal. I wondered aloud, “No one is poor.”
I elaborated for Vendace, who didn’t understand me. He said, “Our currency is based on labor. Every trade is paid the same, in days and hours. You can get more if you work longer, but people tend to work the same length of time. Time is the most valuable thing that exists, surely?” He unfolded some banknotes from his purse and showed us. “That one is five hours. This one’s the smallest-thirty minutes. What do you have?”
“Coins. Notes are small change for us. See here? Where we come from is similar because everyone in the Castle’s given the same yearly handout-just a pittance. We can only ask for more money for appropriate projects.” I thought if we give the Capharnai steel, it would be worth hundreds and hundreds of hours in their currency, as precious as months of lifetime.
Mist pressed me with more questions to translate. I waved my hands and glanced at the sky, trying to find words quickly, but Vendace stopped me: “Please save your queries for the Senate. Then we can all hear and you won’t have to repeat yourself.”
In the center of town the road passed through a rotunda. The surfaces of its columns were covered with gaudy mosaics, squares of gold, blue sapphire and deep garnet; illustrated panels decorated the edges of its conical roof.
We approached the crag, and the street began to ascend a slope. The gradient became steeper with a series of long steps. We were heading for the columned halls high above. I pointed up to them. “Lightning, aren’t the buildings beautiful? Your pad looks a bit like that.”
He scanned them eagerly. “The Tealean north front of my house emulates the style. It was a fashionable revival in the latter half of the sixth century.”
“A revival! Then how old could this be?”
“Sometime in the early four hundreds the Insects put an end to the people who originally built like this. That was before my time, but I’m sure I recollect my history lessons.”
Mist glanced at us. “Yes, but we don’t need one now! We are making history, gentlemen. Will you pay attention, please?”
Vendace led us along the magnificent boulevard, between the shuttered dwellings. Suddenly we emerged from the town, the red riot of roofs below us. The panorama extended to the ocean beyond the massive harbor walls which enclosed the lagoon and narrowed together either side of the beacon islet. The Trisians’ canoes sheltered within it, secure from the breaking surf. Here and there between the sharp corners of the buildings I caught glimpses of a clean narrow river glittering until it merged with the ocean just south of the harbor.
“The Architect must see this,” I said.
Mist combed her pearly hair out with her fingers, pulled at the front of her strappy T-shirt and stared at the incredible view. “We could easily get trapped up here,” she said. I was an unarmed emissary, but Lightning and Serein carried their customary bow and broadsword as respective signs of their status. Mist walked between them, knowing that with Lightning’s lethality at a distance and Wrenn’s invincibility at close quarters she was as safe as in a fortress.
I was wilting badly; I wasn’t born for a temperature of forty degrees. My clothes clung to the backs of my knees, my armpits, chest. I was more uncomfortable even than Fulmer in his designer suit; I was desperate to stretch my wings. Mist had decreed that their strength would raise too many questions among the Trisians. I had folded them under my baggy shirt, which gave me an unattractive hump running the length of my back. The wings’ elbows brushed behind my thighs and the wrists hugged at the level of my shoulders. My wings’ leading edges were damp; from the wrist of each one to the small of my back the feathery patagium webbing cleaved together with sweat. The flight feathers stuck out from under my shirt.
“Don’t spread,” Mist muttered.
“You don’t know what this is like. I’m boiling!”
“Come now, it’s no hotter than a Micawater summer,” Lightning said cheerfully.
The crowd of Trisians were not at all bothered by the sun. They kept pace with our party at a respectful distance and chattered together inquisitively, with curious and affable expressions. Children ran among them, peering from behind their parents’ legs. A flock of white doves burst from a roof, wings whistling. I strained for refreshment from the faintest breeze, and I envied them. They didn’t have to hide their ability to fly.
The street started to zigzag up, its steps closer together; it turned hairpin bends as the gradient steepened. It was immaculate with low walls on either side beyond which was open ground strewn with boulders under craggy outcrops. Blooms of butterflies rose and fell on lavender, wavered over planted hibiscus, lemon trees and bougainvillea, honey-drunk.
Then we reached the flat hilltop and entered the open courtyard of two dazzling white granite buildings. At the far end was the massive columned square edifice we had seen from the quayside, set edge-on to the sheer side of the crag’s cliff. A second, longer hall of the same two-story height adjoined it on our left. It had pilasters with scroll capitals set flat against its walls, a roof made of red pantiles. I was awestruck by the vibrant buildings; they were only the size of the Throne Room but somehow as impressive as the entire Castle.
The crowd trotted in behind us, and when we stopped they gathered around, watching Fulmer exhale smoke and stub out his cigarette in its amber holder.
“This is the Amarot,” Vendace proclaimed. “From here, the Senate cares for Tris. Please follow me…”
“It’s the hall of the governors,” I said in Awian. “Come on.”
We crossed the courtyard that was one hundred meters square, paved with mosaics in copper, blue glass and black ceramic. Geometrical designs ran around its edge, and in its four quarters there were pictures: galleys, a weighing scale, a dolphin and Insects. Insects?
The mosaic showed a young woman with brown flowing hair, standing in a swarm of Insect heads and huge antlike bodies. She held a wine-colored pennant that streamed out behind her and the folds of her dress molded closely around her breasts and thighs. She had flowers in her hair and an expression that looked more pained than noble.
Lightning recognized it at once; his eyes opened wide. “I’m right,” he said. “It’s Alyss of the Pentadrica.”
“It must be a coincidence. How in the Empire could they know that story?”
“I don’t know, Jant. I really don’t know.”
Vendace led us through an open door into the long building. The air was cool and still, and we all stood blinking for a second until our eyes adjusted.
“If this is a church,” said Wrenn, “then thank god’s coffee break.”
Vendace said, “This connects with the Senate House. I will show you the way. It is the library of Tris. A quarter of a million books have been collected here. Danio is the Senate member who takes special charge of it.”
“It’s a library,” I translated.
“Then thank the librarians!” Fulmer took a cambric kerchief from his pocket and dabbed his forehead with it.
A library! I trailed my fingers along the cedar shelves as we passed, and my heart beat faster than in the Moren double marathon. A quarter of a million books! It may not be as extensive as the royal collection in Rachiswater, or the archives of Hacilith University, but I had been through most of those.
Vendace saw my rapt expression and chuckled. Every single book was unknown to the Empire and brimful with new information I could spend the next century piecing together. Some of the larger tomes were attached to their shelves with brass chains. They were bound in leather and their pages were paper or vellum. There were coffers full of codices and square baskets packed with papers.
The lower stacks were divided into pigeonholes storing scroll cylinders made of bronze. Some were green with verdigris and others polished by use. There were ledgers of loose leaves; slim volumes bound in boards, in violet and dark red buckram. There were folded maps and plans of every town on the island.
A few books lay open on a table where a reader had left them. One was actually hand-copied and beautifully illustrated with colored ink. The rest were woodcut-block-printed, which again showed how far behind the times Tris was.
We passed bay after bay; each shelf had yellowing posters listing its contents but Vendace was leading too quickly for me to translate. All the same, I was beside myself with joy; I had found my treasure.
As we were led through the long room I began to grasp the enormous extent of the repository-it was floor-to-ceiling full of recorded knowledge. A few solitary scholars occupied chairs and tables in the bays. Fluid music drifted in from outside, a stringed instrument, but the windows were too high for me to see who was playing.
I tried to glimpse words on the covers and I lingered until I was trailing behind the group. Wrenn and Fulmer gave the books not one glance. Fulmer swung his walking stick as if he was taking a lunchtime stroll in Rachiswater Grand Place. Wrenn’s astonished gaze scanned everything without perceiving it. Mist was trying to communicate with Vendace and took no notice of the books. Lightning, however, had the gleam of fascination in his eye.
“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” I said.
He nodded with the ardor of a collector. “What an excellent discovery! I must have copies made and shipped back to my library. Of course it won’t generate the profit Awia so badly needs, but the knowledge might help us. I think I can afford the payload room for one or two shelves.”
I wondered if Lightning could see any work of beauty without wanting to own it. Sculptors and painters in the Fourlands vied for his patronage, knowing he would preserve their creations and provide the means to support them for life. “We must curate this for the Empire,” he continued.
“It looks like the Trisians have done a good job of that already.”
“Jant,” Mist called back over her shoulder. “Stop dawdling. Are you under the influence? Shall we maroon you here and pick you up in a couple of hundred years?”
The books on the nearest shelf seemed to be works of philosophy and natural science: The Germ Theory of Medicine, Manifesto of Equality, Optics and the Behavior of Light, The Atomic Nature of Matter and other Theories by Pompano of Gallimaufry, Zander of Pasticcio’s “The Explication of Dreams,” An Inquiry into the Uses of Saltpeter, Worlds Beyond Worlds: Transformed Consciousness, Some Descriptions of the Afterlife, Tris Istorio-A History of Tris.
Superb. I whipped Tris Istorio from the shelf and behind my back. I shoved the little book under my wings into my waistband and pulled my shirt down over it. No one had seen me. Vendace was still talking to Mist.
We went along an open corridor that joined the library to the taller square building. Its entrance was an alabaster arch with an inscription engraved above it. Mist stretched up and swept her finger over the words. “What does this say?”
I considered it. “You’re reading it the wrong way. They write left to right. Um…It says, ‘All men are the same.’”
“You bet they are,” said Mist.
We found ourselves in a semicircular open area like a floor-level stage. In front and stretching up above us were rows of stepped seats on which around fifteen men and women sat, watching us. Some were young, some elderly. To our left, the columns were open to the air, the sheer side of the crag. The hall seemed to extend into space. We stood on the proscenium and felt the weight of the audience’s scrutiny.
“What is this arrangement?” Lightning frowned.
I asked Vendace, who said, “This is the Senate. Elected democratically-”
I waved a hand to slow him. “I don’t know that word.”
Vendace stopped and stared at me.
Mist said, “What did he say?”
I struggled: “There’s no Awian analogue. It’s-it’s like the voting that takes place for mayors in Diw and Vertigo townships in Morenzia, or to choose a governor for Hacilith. But not just between influential families, for everybody. Um…rule by the people…That’s what Vendace said.”
Lightning unslung his longbow and unstrung it. He bowed and whispered to me, “This will do nothing but fray tempers and affect our judgment. We’re depending on you to loose words as swiftly as arrows. Who’s in charge of this court?”
“I think they all are,” I said.
Lightning concentrated on Vendace. For all the old man’s gravity, he looked unsettled under Lightning’s gray assured gaze. By now my throat was so dry it was sore. “Can I have a drink?” I asked Vendace. After a while I was handed a green glass of water, cool and so pure it tasted of nothing.
A boy with a tray provided us all with glasses while Vendace continued to tell the Senate about our ships. I listened but was dimly aware of Wrenn sneaking out behind me, the way we had come, toward the library. I didn’t know where he was going; I was concentrating too hard to worry about him. Our prestigious arrival was not proceeding the way I had hoped.
Vendace said, “We are debating if we should let you stay, and whether or not we assent to any contact with the Fourlands. Our constitution advises against it, because we do not want your culture to damage ours, of which we are proud. Ours is a perfect society built on reason. There are myths that tell of others, very undesirable in comparison.
“The Senate is obliged to discuss every issue for three days before voting. So matters are considered thoroughly and no spurious motions are ever raised. We will let you know our decision in two days’ time.”
I translated word for word. Fulmer almost laughed. “Really, three days, the sluggards,” he spluttered. “Imagine if on the battlefield you had to wait that long!”
“It sounds inefficient,” Lightning agreed. “If we followed such a tradition the Insects would overrun us all the way to Cape Brattice before we made up our minds to fight.”
I grinned. “Look, you two, be quiet!”
The senators murmured with curiosity, trying to figure out what we were saying. Mist hushed us, angered by her dependence on me. I marshaled my scanty knowledge of Trisian and introduced our company, ending with myself: “Comet Jant Shira, the Emperor’s Messenger, and you can call me Jant. We’ve come to tell you the fortunate news: you all have the chance to join the Circle and have eternal life, as we do. Time does not age us…Although I can’t really prove it unless we sit here for ten years…Anyway, we want to remind Tris of its place in the Empire; we’ve come at the behest of the Emperor San, that your island and the mainland may no longer be adrift but firm allies-” I halted because at the mention of San the senators leaned to each other and started talking.
Vendace turned to the fifteen men and women; they conferred together, speaking in complicated terms at a natural speed, much faster than I could hope to follow. They came to a consensus and informed Vendace, who motioned for me to continue.
“San makes us, and will make the best of you, immortal. We fight the Insects, but-” Another buzz passed between them, and I knew I had hit a chord. “Insects, yes, like the picture in your courtyard.”
A young lady rose from the center of the audience. She wore a short dress and a patterned stole wrapped around her body. Her sandal thongs crisscrossed her slender legs to the knee. Her features were light, her hair close-cropped. Unlike Vendace, she had wings; they were small, brunette and very pert. “Danio, Bibliophylax,” Vendace announced. The library’s keeper, if I understood him correctly.
Danio said, “Insects are just a story; there’s no evidence whatsoever. And how can people be eternal? You’ve taken old tales and you expect us to believe them? The threat of death defines humanity; nothing is as unnatural as an immortal.”
I translated, saying, “Mist, they don’t believe in Insects. I think it’s your turn now.”
Through me, Mist spoke to Vendace, but everyone in the Senate assumed her words were also addressed to them. “Sir, we brought an Insect to show you Capharnai-I mean Trisians. It’s imprisoned on our ship, so if you come to the harbor I’ll give you a tour of the caravels.”
Vendace said, “What do you think, Professor?”
Danio paused, reluctant, then answered smoothly, “Our visitors’ colossal boats themselves suggest this isn’t a hoax. Yes, this is truly a historic occasion. If they really have an Insect and if the myths I’ve spent my life discrediting are true, I want to see it.” She stepped down over the stone benches to the stage, approached me closely and looked at my face. A bitten-nailed finger brushed over my Wheel scar and then down to rest on my feathers, questioningly. We gazed at each other. She leaned forward; humor danced in her strikingly intelligent hazel eyes.
Mist announced, “Jant, tell them that anyone who desires can return with us to see the Castle. I’ll show them the glory of the Fourlands; give them a great welcome and lavish ambassadorial treatment.”
Danio roused herself and turned away from me. Damn.
I closely translated Mist’s offer but none of the Senate seemed impressed. Much of the island’s adventurous spirit must be lost, because the few individuals who possess it in abundance could not be frozen forever at their optimum age. I resumed my speech: “You don’t understand. The Empire’s hundreds of times larger than Tris. Our city of Hacilith could swallow Capharnaum ten times. Our fyrd’s half a million men, our fleet of caravels like those two in the harbor is-”
Vendace cut me short: “We are not interested. The Senate must consider for no less than three days, and you cannot influence our debate because you are not an inhabitant of Tris.”
I ran a hand over my hair in exasperation.
From the corner of my eye I saw Wrenn scuttle out under the archway, holding a shiny object in both hands. He dashed rudely over to me and tapped me on the wing, “Jant!”
I could stand no more. “That’s Comet to you! Can’t you be quiet? This is a crucial moment, our first meeting with the Senate and you interrupt me! What do you think you’re…? Oh, what are you carrying?”
For a second I thought it was a Tine artifact and my reality slipped; I felt dizzy and disconnected. Wrenn held a chamber pot. It was identical to every other chamber pot in the Fourlands, except that it was shining metal: gold. It must have been very heavy.
Wrenn showed me. “All the fittings in their privies are gold!”
“Bring it here,” I said. But the senators’ stunned silence was breaking into embarrassed or inquisitive chuckles. Wrenn looked around at them and pointed to it, “Have you any idea what this is worth?” he said in Awian, loudly and slowly.
The Senate may have worried that we were dangerous, or that we expected to be treated with obeisance. Instead, they saw we were amazed by a simple chamber pot brought for some reason out of their bathroom. They thought we looked ridiculous. All the senators started laughing, and the tension in the air completely lifted. The ladies in cotton smocks or robes put aside their paper fans. The gentlemen unclasped their cloaks and craned forward to see us. Genial hilarity echoed around the spacious auditorium.
Wrenn thrust it at me, “I can’t believe it. Can you believe it? It’s worth a caravel and it’s a piss-pot of all things!”
“Put it down!” I said. “Bringing the privy into the governors’ hall! You’re making us look really stupid!”
“Why are you interested in that?” said Danio.
I said coolly, “Oh, it’s nothing. I’ve seen pots before. We have them in our culture too. We are civilized, not simple…Oh, god.” I tapped it, and wisely understated, “But we like this metal; we can use it. We would quite like to buy more.”
“Well,” Danio said. “Jant, tell your delegation: if you love this…object so much, if you want this base material, please take it. It can be a gift from Tris, our first offering of goodwill.” Applause broke out from the senators on the stepped benches; appreciative exclamations supported her words. Danio laughed and offered the chamber pot to Wrenn.
“They’re giving it to you as a present,” I explained.
Wrenn took it gratefully and said in awe, “Shouldn’t I give something in return? Oh, obviously.” He unbuckled the fyrd-issue broadsword and scabbard from his belt. He held it flat in both hands and presented it to Danio.
“Thank you,” she said. She accepted the sword and pulled the scabbard to bare a little of the blade, which she examined closely.
“Please be careful,” I said. “It’s extremely sharp.”
She gazed minutely at me again and asked the inevitable question, “What are you, anyway?”
I shuffled one wing out of my shirt and opened it. Duck you suckers was painted in red on the inside but, shrewd as she was, Danio couldn’t transliterate. “I’m winged, see, just like you, well nearly.” I pointed to my face and took a sheaf of thick hair in the other hand. “My mother was Rhydanne; they’re a mountain people who look like this. I know that’s new and strange but please don’t worry-I’m not dangerous. My long limbs are from my Rhydanne side too. My good looks, I get from both sides.”
All fifteen senators accompanied us to the harbor with a surprising lack of pomp and ceremony. They walked without any attendants and just chatted to each other, waved at the townspeople with a familiarity that was nothing like Fourlands governors. The senators were dressed as plainly as the folk in the piazza and tea shops; they did not seem to be very far removed from them.
The Sailor conducted the senators onto the Melowne. I held the hatchway open and helped the ladies descend to the hold. I didn’t see their expressions, but I heard their shrieks, and from Danio I learned a whole ream of Trisian words that I won’t be putting in any guidebook.
We tried to hide the state of the crews from the senators. The sailors had clearly contravened Mist’s orders and discipline on board Petrel and Melowne had started to crumble. They had traded and squirreled away every Trisian commodity they could lay their hands on, especially agate statuettes and the gold beads, chaplets and tiaras that the children wore. Only a few halberds were left unsold and the men had broken open the caskets of broadswords and started trading them. Every single man was completely drunk, some so legless they lolled as they sat dribbling the juice of exotic fruits, sloshing wine into cups or crunching on overcooked sardines. The carpenter retched and farted as Mist’s boatswain sons dragged him down to be locked in the brig. He prattled, “Capharnai might not want us-but their kids have made me rich!”
A bottle rolled around in the scuppers and bumped against my foot. I picked it up and sniffed it. “Brandy, or something similar. The merchants are selling spirits to our men!”
“This is dangerous,” Fulmer confided. “I must keep discipline. Lightning and Mist will stow a fortune in Melowne, under the noses of all our deckhands. I doubt I’ll reach home without a mutiny.”
Throughout the second day, Mist and Lightning employed me to translate their deals with the merchants who waited in long queues. Capharnai carried books in their pockets and either read or stood in groups debating rarefied philosophical points. I yearned to spend the rest of our landfall in the library but the Sailor and Archer kept me hard at work with filthy lucre. My fluency improved, and I made friends with Danio, who taught me many new expressions before she was called away to the Senate, where they discussed us nonstop.
In return for the broadswords the Capharnai filled the Melowne with bales of cloves, tea leaves, sacks of peppercorns; we bought a cask of ambergris and one of frankincense. Our sister ship became a spice ship-I could smell it on the other side of town.
“Gold for steel, weight for weight,” Mist said smugly, examining the pale metal chamber pot. “But that last silversmith-manufacturer of children’s toys-kept the location of the mines a secret.”
Lightning said, “No matter. I have gained a return of seven hundred percent on the initial investment. This tea is too watery for my taste but, seeing as it will inevitably come to the Fourlands, it might as well come with me. And I’ve also discovered some excellent brandy.”
Wrenn used me to question every islander he met about sword fighting, and although I kept telling him it wasn’t a Trisian tradition he was astounded to find that no one knew anything about the art.
“It seems to me they fight by talking,” I said.
Wrenn huffed. “Yeah. But if Capharnaum becomes a manor the Castle will ask for its quota of fyrd for the Front. I’ll be given hundreds of people to train from bloody scratch and I’ve a sneaking feeling they’re not going to like it.” He disappeared into town with a party of midshipmen who were searching for a wine shop. The Senate permitted our men to leave the harbor only in small groups under the charge of Eszai. They didn’t want the boulevard to be swamped with hell-raising sailors.
By evening I was sick of translating; confused with words swarming around my head until they lost their meanings. I was exhausted, but all in all it had been a fantastic day. As the sun set over the horizon where the Fourlands lay, Trisian canoes paddled in through the strait. After dusk the Capharnai entrepreneurs began to disperse and supper was served on board. The Senate retired and Danio came aboard to make notes and sketch the Insect. She was hypnotized by it, loitering in the hold, flinching every time it threw itself against the bars. When at ten P.M. Mist asked her to leave the ship, she stood on the quayside and stared as if insane at the exterior of the hull.
I told Mist that I intended to sleep on the mountainside. I walked out of sight of dainty Danio, who insisted on keeping vigil till tomorrow when Mist would let her back aboard. I took off and flew up, nap-of-the-earth in the pitch-black night, just a few meters above the mountain’s contour. The lower slopes were olive groves, then dim rocky ground streaked along beneath me. I found a low cliff with an overhang and sheltered under it on the rough bare stone.
By lamplight, the Stormy Petrel’s crew lowered a spare mainsail and lashed the edges to two poles projecting from the portholes. The sail drooped into the warm water, which filled it, and the men started swimming in it. Men stood on the railing and dived in. I was too far to hear the splashes but I saw spray fly up in the flickering light of the yellow lanterns as Petrel rocked at her mooring.
Everything was delightful, and I lay alone. I have rarely been so happy. The air was cooler than at sea level; the rock conducted warmth away from my skin. It was a close night, so hot and humid that your balls stick to the inside of your thigh.
A light breeze cut through the cocoon of heat that molded around me. It blew the smells of salt and peppermint into the rock shelter and carried occasional sounds from the town. Lamps were lit in the windows of Capharnaum’s bizarre houses. I loved this scented island. I smiled and snuggled against the stone. I could think clearly now, for the first time in weeks. I no longer worried about the caravels, or Mist who wanted a hold on Tris that she could never be allowed to have.
I knew every road and air current of the Fourlands; now Tris was mine to explore. I could learn to discover like a mortal again and not a jaded Eszai. My sense of wonder was as strong as the first time I saw Hacilith city, when I was a foundling from Darkling with aching wings. In my first decade of life I had seen a total of just ten people, all Rhydanne. The city pulsed humans around its streets in a stream that terrified me. I could fly no farther so I hid, amazed, among the mayhem for a year.
I suddenly realized that I hadn’t been thinking about scolopendium. If I was on the ship, my body would be crying out for it by now. I laughed with surprise and relief. If I could spend a few more nights alone on the mountain, in the tranquil rock shelter, I could do withdrawal. If I could spend a few more days in this serene and secure place, I contemplated, my mind would never turn to scolopendium again. No more sliding down the OD ravine. No more cat. No need for coffee, ephedrine or myristica. Or whiskey, papaver, harmine, veronal or datura. Thujone, digitalis or psilocybin; not anymore.
I breathed the island deeply into myself. I wanted to take it in, inhale it, drink it, the whole island, until it became part of me. I felt organized and in control. Alone on the mountain I lost all sense of self, and the troubles that drove me to use cat went too. The Castle was an ocean away. How brilliant, I was still immortal with none of the risks. I wanted to stay alone on the mountainside forever, until eventually with no self left and no thoughts at all I would merge with the landscape. In my haven there was no need for language or communication. For a few hours I was free from the sickly need to identify, classify and name with words every single thing.