After midnight, people were gathering at the fencing school in Eske. I landed on the tiled roof, well concealed by a chimney stack, looking down at the wet streets. Below the dripping thatch of the last houses in the town, I could see dark coats underneath bobbing umbrellas. Men carried lanterns hung from hooks on their shields. Some drunken kids on tired nags clattered past on the Hamulus Road from the direction of Hacilith, slowing and relaxing as they traveled the opposite way from the city’s magnetic pull. I perched on the roof, out of sight and watched through the rain.
A cold front was coming in. The clouds scudded across to merge in one mass in the eastern half of the sky. Lightning flickered in the fingers of the bare forest. The rain fell with more intensity and the pitch of its noise increased. I really didn’t think it could rain any harder. The constant hiss of the wind in the trees was indistinguishable from the rain hissing on the roof. Drops pattered on the sagging willow leaves along the river bank.
Dace River wound through the south side of town close to Gio’s hall. I could still see the river but the surrounding countryside was too dark to make out detail. Silver snakes slithered over the river’s surface. I watched them resignedly; Tern had put me in a melancholy mood. I had run out of people to shout at, and was rather regretting storming off in disgust with the world because it was evident by now that the world had no intention of going away and leaving me alone.
Some of the snakes are actually part of the river. Fascinating. I tried to disentangle the snakes’ silver bodies and the reflection on stirred water, before I realized that the whole thing was simply a hallucination. Only take me a couple of weeks to quit. Shouldn’t be any problem. Theoretically. I shrugged, sending all the water that had gathered on my broad-brimmed hat down my back. I swore silently, taking my hat off and wringing out the rain.
I don’t even know if fucking her will be the same now Tawny’s had his big cock in her. I pulled the hip flask out of the top of my thigh boot and took a satisfying swig. It tasted green, like cut grass smells. I felt lighter and tighter every second. Under my long coat, my wings were warm. To cope with the gusts I had had to fly constantly flexing them open and closed at the elbow, and now they were aching.
The fencing school’s steep roof was a sheen of water reflecting the lanterns of people arriving. Rainwater was running in wide rivulets over the tiles, dripping off the guttering. Yellow lamplight beamed out of a high square window just below me. At the far corner of the whitewashed hall Gio’s watchman swung a lantern, illuminating the empty road. He saw there was no one else to come and banged the door closed. I flicked my wings out from the slits in my coat and bounced along the ridge. A couple of slates gave way. I scrabbled madly, slid with them down the roof. I hit the gutter, heels in the trough, my pointed toes over the edge. The tiles shot off, fell and broke on the road ten meters below. I lay with my back against the slope and listened. There was no response from the hall.
I grasped the lead gutter, swung myself over in a controlled drop onto the window ledge. I pressed against the frame, pulled myself into the smallest area possible, inhabiting space slyly as if stealing it, with the concentrated acrobat grace of a Rhydanne. I peered through the window.
Gio’s fencing academy was packed. About eight hundred people were taking off their coats and settling down on the folding chairs. Some were seated on the floor; between them on the floorboards I saw white diagrams painted to teach fencing exercises.
A small stage directly below me was decorated with the coats of arms of Gio’s past pupils from the nobility. The walls were hung with charts and geometrical figures, the rear wall was covered with a mirror. Padded gloves and chain mail gauntlets hung on racks, with rapiers and their corresponding diamond-sectioned daggers, round leather target shields and lead-soled shoes-which Gio used for training lightness of foot. A pendulum clock with a large, clear ceramic dial had run down and stopped, showing the wrong time. Beside it in a polished glass case awards were displayed in tiers-engraved silver cups and plates, tiny posed figurines of swordsmen on black plinths, and hundreds and hundreds of satin rosettes.
Gio stood by the stage, looking at his audience. He was as relaxed and confident as always, perhaps more so now that the anger of being dropped from the Circle had caused him to lose his respect for people.
Veteran Awian soldiers grouped at the back of the hall, probably fresh from fighting Tornado. They carried their reflex longbows in waxed cotton bags on their shoulders, arrows in lidded quivers. The edges of their dark blue cloaks were cut to look like feathers, drawn across each man’s body and pinned at the shoulder with enameled or billon badges. The shell-edged armor on their legs was damp with condensation. Their worn, damp lorica had some chrome scales missing. Their expressions were as grim as the weather; they only spoke among themselves. I guessed they were men disbanded from the General Fyrd who, upon finding their homes and crops destroyed by the Insects, had a very valid reason to harbor grievance against the Castle.
The same was not true for the excited, fractious Hacilith kids, in tooled leather jackets, loose jeans and chain-link belts. Some seamen in oxblood check or orange shirts laced at the neck tucked their wet oilskins under the chairs. Unshaven highwaymen brushed down the arms of their greatcoats that were silvered with rain. They undid the spurs on their side-laced boots and let them hang loose. Gio had no coherent force. He had gathered deserters, poachers, outlaws, smugglers and fugitives.
Twenty fencing masters leaned against the walls, with wryly amused expressions at the defiant party taking place within their hall. They were Gio’s accomplices now, not potential Challengers. They had the swagger of swordsmen who knew the brilliance of their skill.
The cold Insect-wing window was steamed up inside and droplets ran down, channeled along by the black veins. No one could see me at this angle and the hubbub was so loud I was quite safe. I was so intrigued, I became unaware of the chill seeping into my body from the stone. I seized up, wedged into position in the corner of the window with my legs out along the ledge.
A limber young man wearing a beautiful rapier tiptoed to the stage and held up his hands for silence. He was shaking so hard he practically blurred. The crowd fell quiet in patches, and Gio picked out one or two individuals at the back to stare at until the hall was completely silent. I strained to hear the young man introduce his master: “Gio Ami, rightfully Serein.”
Gio nodded, stepped forward, and immediately a hundred voices vied with each other, shouting out questions. A frown line appeared between his eyebrows. He walked beneath my window, so I could no longer see his expression. He still wore the same coat, still open to a bare chest, but he wore the light purple Ghallain armiger ribbon in his buttonhole as if it was a manorship badge. His lank hair was pulled into a little ponytail.
Gio looked at the stage floor as if thinking the elevated position didn’t suit him. He sat down on the edge, with his legs dangling over. He began to talk to the crowd rather than at them. He was a teacher and he knew how to make his voice carry.
“Put up, put up,” he said loudly and then, “All right, I will answer one or two questions. What is it, Cinna?”
A very fat man seated at the front wallowed to his feet. I was astonished to see it was Cinna Bawtere. His cheeks wobbled as he shouted, “You never said we would attack the Castle! You said we would speak to the Emperor. Why is there fighting between the fencing masters and the Circle itself? It’s a simple matter for San to send Tornado to Crush Us All!”
Gio took a deep breath, “I have no argument with the Emperor. I think San knows that-”
“Or we’d be behind bars already!” Cinna’s riposte raised a susurration of agreement from the crowd. They seemed to be thinking in similar fashion-they had trusted Gio to air their grievances with the Emperor, and he had led them into conflict instead, with the Eszai who had always been their protectors. For an instant I thought that the crowd might turn on him.
“The problem lies not with Emperor San but with his deputies, the Eszai, who are corrupt and mislead him. You all know the Emperor doesn’t leave the Castle. To understand and rule the world fairly he needs his immortals, but their own interests are embroiled in what they tell him.”
The crowd fell silent; this was what they wanted to hear. A chill wind stuck my soaked clothes to my skin; the gale whined, high-pitched, through the eaves. I pressed my ear to the pane to hear Gio’s words.
“There is no present like time. San gives the immortals lifetime in return for their service, but few of them deserve such a priceless gift.
“We are lucky to be alive at this point in time. Times are hard for us all, I grant you, but the opportunities are better than any period I have lived through in the last four hundred years. I truly remember the past, and I know that the only cure for despair is action.
“Since I left the Circle I have realized how little the immoral immortals understand us Zascai. They’re all too slow and spoiled by luxury to see the advantage of this great opportunity we have: Tris. It’s up to us to make the most of it.
“None of you worthy people will be able to join the Circle. Cinna, although you’re a good sailor; Mauvein, although you’re an excellent jeweler, the Circle’s too corrupt for either of you to enter in an honest Challenge. And I, the greatest swordsman of all time, am forced to give way to a newcomer because I speak too much truth. The prospect of immortality they hold up is nothing but an illusion to lull you. The Circle would never accept a man who really recognizes the need for change.
“Awia can’t feed itself-they tell us-so they ask us to send our money to what is the richest country in the world. The shortage of workers is caused by bad management. Five hundred men are employed just to clean the Castle, to scrape lichen off its walls and polish its sumptuous treasure when every last drop’s squeezed out of the Plainslands to nurse Awia. Food is short all over the Fourlands except in the Castle because immortals must have their strength. Isn’t that so?”
He looked to the winged soldiers at the back of the hall. “Awians are angry because you feel you’re making the most effort against Insects. It’s your kingdom that disappears under the Paperlands each time they advance. You feel threatened. I can understand why you think that help from Morenzia is not forthcoming. You’re right, but for the wrong reasons.”
Gio glanced at Cinna and the city ruffians on the rows of chairs. “Morenzians and Plainslanders are angry because you’re overtaxed and fed up to the back teeth with money being sucked out of Hacilith. You’re right to feel discontented, but for the wrong reasons. Last time the Insects attacked, the Castle just followed the downright craven policy of the Awian king and it failed to control them. They fed so well on the plenty of Awia that they almost reached the banks of the Moren.
“I have lived in the Castle and been part of the Circle. I have felt San hold time still for me. If I were yet Eszai at least my voice would be heard. I could try to make things better. San is keen to hear us-if Tornado was not bloodthirstily blocking the way we would be standing in the Throne Room now. San would open the Castle’s treasury to aid us. But in respect of your fears I have called my men to retreat. Now I’m mortal again, same as you, I’m free to tell you how the Circle is a web of deceit. San would benefit greatly to be free of the lies of his ministers.”
The crowd sensed his conviction and gave their faith to his terrible mendacity. By god, I thought; he’s not acting, he believes it.
Gio stood and stretched then sat down again, swinging his legs to tap the folded-down bucket tops of his boots against the planks. He swept a hand over his hair, which slipped out of its ponytail and hung around his shoulders. The crowd watched, some uncomfortably, although I imagined Cinna alert for the promise of scandal. Gio did the public speaking equivalent of swapping hands in a fencing match: “Your suffering is the fault of the duplicitous Eszai. Mist Ata Dei’s one of the worst. Ask yourselves how she could be allowed to be immortal at all.”
Gio paced across the stage, around the lowered wrought iron candelabrum and back, his coattails flowing out behind him. He wore the 1969 Sword, a faultless rapier custom-made for him, and the jewels on its scabbard scattered lamplight as only diamonds can. Their adamantine luster threw moving spectra on the walls.
“Zascai don’t know half of what this monster has done, because of course the confessions of new Eszai are customarily kept secret. You already know that Mist once razed your harbors, raided the coast and sank the fleet-out and out piracy from which the coast has hardly recovered! Would we be in such a poor state now if this arch-bitch hadn’t wreaked carnage? How many lives were lost? Well, we don’t know because Comet never told us.”
I tensed at the mention of my name. How was I supposed to know? I had other pressing matters to attend to back then, like Insects besieging Lowespass. But the mortals followed Gio’s every word.
“Ata was a wife who brought her husband down. The Emperor let her Challenge stand legitimately. Why did he make the decision to let her run riot at such a vital time? Was Comet informing San properly? What was going on between the Sailor and the Messenger that that layabout ladykiller should support Ata so much?
“And while Comet misleads the Emperor-either deliberately or through laziness-his wife spends her time living lavishly. Every other governor leads their fyrd. How many parties and fashion shows have been thrown by Tern while Wrought is still smoking rubble?
“And while we consider the misgovernance of manors by those Eszai lucky enough to own land, consider the most corrupt of the Circle whom you may have thought of as the most capable because you are accustomed to lies. Lightning Micawater is the best Archer ever. Nobody can deny that. Of course he is-his family could afford the best tutors in the distant past when he was a student, and he makes sure the skill of archery hasn’t changed since then. What an unfortunate mishap that he chanced to inherit the manor on the glittering river. Lightning embellishes his palace even as your farms and towns lie in ruins. What happened to Awian artisans anyway-those of you who aren’t here?”
A chuckle went around the hall.
“They’re all competing for work in other countries. Lightning the romantic archaist does not spend his money rightly but spends his time having affairs with married women-how chivalrous can you get? He was involved in the destruction of the harbors with his lover, Ata, and when the greedy blue-blood bagged Peregrine manorship in the spoils of war he gave it to his illegitimate daughter!
“The newfound Island of Tris is part of Lightning’s kingdom too, now he’s just returned from playing at explorers with his pirate queen and their drunken lackey.”
Drunken lackey? Who’s that? I puzzled. Oh, no, he means me, doesn’t he?
“Lightning is not venerable but obsolete. He was young in spirit when the world was young but times have moved on. He’s a thing of the past; he holds us back. It’s time we took control and it’s an exciting moment for Awians to make their own decisions and live without him.
“Frost and her River Works Company profiteer from the rebuilding process. Hayl and his immortal husband are both reckless men. Only yesterday, they attacked us without provocation and Tornado joined them soon after with a division of your own brothers in the fyrd. Now I believe that too many people are being drafted. Since Tornado lost his girlfriend five years ago, he’s taken his fury out on the Insects and the draft continues while fields lie unplanted. The Circle should preserve lives but the Messenger flies in to the Plainslands to tear families apart.
“Comet is fond of the bottle. The truth isn’t widely known because he really indulges in the Castle-out of the public eye. I’ve seen him staggering drunk in the Great Hall. He often isn’t spotted for days at a stretch-during which time it’s known he hasn’t left his room. Why does the Emperor keep him when I felt the Circle twitch every time he binges? I don’t know if the alcohol affects his reliability-but is it any wonder there are rumors that his wife sleeps with another man?”
Gio waved his hand against the crowd’s torrent of wicked laughter.
“No, no,” he said. “I go back on that. Far be it from me to slander anyone. Tern manages it very well herself. The rumors are unsupported-just like her!”
How dare he call me a filthy drunk! I nearly flew down and told him-scolopendium is a much better type of substance abuse. And I’m good at it; I have it under control! But at least alcohol is legal. The crowd believed Gio because it matched their caricature of a Rhydanne, and that hurt even more.
I ground my teeth and the blood rushed, red hot, to my face. Oh, Tern, why did you do this to me? In private it’s bad enough, when my prowess in bed is the only reputation I have-but I don’t think I can stand being the capricious and irresistible Messenger cuckolded in front of the world.
Gio strode up and down, his hand resting on his sword hilt. He mused, “The worst thing about these corrupt members of the Circle is that they’ll never die.
“I can offer you a way to live outside their rule. Better still, it comes with riches, a chance to shape your future free of kings, governors and fyrd captains too. Anyone who follows me will be set up for life. I can give you Tris.”
The crowd was silent. Gio saw this and didn’t pause for long. “I’ve spoken to some of the mariners who saw Capharnaum. They say the tiles on the roofs of the houses are embedded with turquoise and tourmaline. Even Trisian infants wear crowns. They esteem gold because of its beauty, not because of its rarity-they think less of it than we do of spelter or brass. They use it for household objects: mangles, boot scrapes and-you’ll love this-chamber pots.”
Gio scanned the aisles of skeptical faces. “You clearly don’t believe me. Well, look; I have one here.” As he spoke, he trotted to the back of the stage and unpacked several items from a canvas bag. He held up the very chamber pot that Danio had given to Wrenn. He had polished it to a brilliance and it dazzled.
Everybody in the hall began to laugh, and Gio smiled too. He was scarcely audible over the tumult. “Mauvein is a practically Eszai-good jeweler. Verify this for me.” He slipped down off the stage and gave the pot to a portly man whom I recognized as one of Ata’s sons-although by now he was much older than his mother.
The gleaming chamber pot was turned around under his big fingers and then he nodded. “It’s enough bullion for a manorship to buy out of providing fyrd for two years. I could find better things to do with this than piss in it.”
“Well, you can’t have it…yet.” Gio flourished it. “You see that Trisians have so much wealth the meanest utensils are solid gold. Yet Mist’s clique are determined to keep it for themselves. I have bought the caravel Pavonine. At this very moment my allies in Awndyn are stocking her, and other ships. From Hacilith University I’ve found it easy to hire a pair of crusty scholars well versed in Old Morenzian inscriptions. They are optimistic of being able to interpret the basics of Trisian for us. The journey will be a challenge, I grant you, but not so difficult now a trail is blazed. There’s safety in a convoy-if you want to commandeer berths in other caravels who’ll stop you?
“I earned wealth enough from the Ghallain School to pay the crews and create an ideal life in Capharnaum without being constantly tested by the Circle. Who knows, in a couple of years, consolidated and stronger, we might return.”
A swordsman called something I couldn’t hear.
“Ah, Tirrick. I’m just skating all over the floor on those pearls of wisdom,” Gio answered sarcastically. He put the chamber pot down, fished in his inside coat pocket and held up a thick notebook that I recognized immediately. “This is Mist’s own rutter. My agents stole it when they took the chamber pot. Here are the coordinates of the island, and a comprehensive description of the route. ‘Twenty-nine degrees south, one hundred and twenty-nine degrees east,’” he read in a respectful tone. “Nearly on line with the Awndyn northing, I’m given to understand. So, how many of you will join me?”
Two or three hundred hands went up immediately; these men had nothing to lose. Gio pushed the priceless piss-pot with his toe. The Awian soldiers conferred among themselves, weighing the risks of the voyage against the rewards. Having fought in Lowespass, they were accustomed to frontiers. They raised their hands.
In fencing, it is very important to be able to change the direction of your thrust the instant you see that it’s going to miss its target. Gio knew now that he could never be strong enough to destroy the Castle, so he turned the thrust to Tris. He was prepared to exile himself to survive.
My lamp-lit window was the only source of light and sound in the whole pitch-black landscape. Everything that existed was in this hall-Eske Forest was a void. Gio raised his voice above the roar as again the rain swelled to a cloudburst. Drops bounced off the brim of my leather hat. Forked lightning bit color into the forest for an instant. Gio paused as a ten-second-long thunder crash rolled around the hollow of the little town. It hypnotized everyone in the hall. Gio stood right foot forward, held the rapier scabbard and drew the 1969 Sword with his right hand. He swung it casually, feeling its balance.
“We start for Awndyn tomorrow morning. By Sunday I’ll be in the harbormaster’s house to meet you adventurers. We will sail next week.” He held the rapier up above the crowd ostentatiously. “The Eszai have outlived morality. I won’t lie back and think of the Fourlands while the Castle screws us, time and again. Come with me!” he exclaimed. “To seek this new world-for gold and brandy!”
Gio ended, and the crowd began to applaud. They stood up, clapped and cheered him. The ovation went on and on. Gio glanced up at the windows; I turned my white face away and shrank back against the frame. Gio bounded off the stage and his friends shook his hand and slapped him on the back all the way down the hall. His eyes were hectic bright and his cheeks were flushed. The doors were thrown wide-light and people spilled out. I looked with hatred. Kill him, god, if I only had my crossbow! Kill him, I’ll jump straight on his head! If he wasn’t surrounded by swordsmen.
Gio’s voice was too low for me to hear as his knot of well-wishers bustled him out of town along the woodland path. Some men fetched their horses, others dawdled in the doorway fiddling with their lanterns.
Gio is impugning my virility and I can do absolutely nothing about it. I banged the heel of my hand against my forehead. Be calm! There will be time for revenge later. I’m not very good at later; I wanted him to suffer now.
God, I was livid. I was going to take this out on someone, and since I couldn’t beat Gio, Cinna Bawtere would have to do. I dived off the roof and flew in very turbulent air just under the low storm cloud’s base. I risked being sucked up into it. A gull battled along underneath me, vivid white against the dark iron gray. The hurricane tussled my hair and coat out behind me. My clothes were light even when waterlogged. My wings cleaved the gale, driving rainwater off their oiled surfaces, but the covert feathers were becoming damp and thinning; I was beating harder to stay up.
I followed Cinna out of Eske along the dark forest track, straining to see him. He was hidden beneath his black umbrella, sploshing toward the nearby Slaughterbridge village pub. Air roared over my wings as I slid down the sky. I struggled to slow my ground speed and maneuvered directly above him. I folded my wings back with a jolt and fell on him.
I hit Cinna with the soles of both boots between his shoulder blades, bowling him over and over into a puddle. I absorbed the impact into my legs and landed in a crouch. Cinna rolled around on his back, knees pulled up, winded. I burst out laughing; falcons must feel this exhilarated when they hit prey. “I take my hat off to you, Mister Bawtere! Never knew you had an acrobatic streak!” He kicked like a struck rabbit. A dagger appeared in his hand. He crawled out of the chalky, rain-pitted puddle and collapsed in a milk-white wet heap on the path. “The gallows waits in Eske; it’s a much shorter drop! I can take my pick of felonies in your catalog of crimes. You’re as good as dead!”
I did want to kill him. I wanted to feel the life go out of him under my hands. He saw my cruel expression-comprised of Tern’s rejection, Gio’s slander and six hours in a rainstorm-and he curled up, sobbing. Cinna’s predictability was consoling-I had thought I was losing the ability to read people. They seemed to be becoming gradually more incomprehensible.
“Ah…” Cinna panted. “Please don’t hurt me. Please…I…”
“How did Gio acquire the logbook?”
“I don’t know!…Ah…I swear! He’s a clever man; he has many agents. Ah…I respect you, Comet. You’re Eszai. You’re a legend in Hacilith.”
“Put the dagger down, then.”
Cinna did no such thing. I kicked his hand and the knife flew out of it. “Put it down!”
Cinna huddled under the remnants of his broken umbrella.
“How did Gio know of Tris?”
“I informed him. I’m sorry! You never said it was a secret!”
I suddenly realized that I had told Cinna everything, six months ago, under the influence of a fingernail full of scolopendium. Shit. It began to dawn on me that this appalling turn of events could be all my fault-caused by my big, stupid mouth.
I bated forward with my wings spread, made as if to kick him and he cowered. “Are you sailing with Gio?”
“Yes…Yes, what of it? I am My Own Man.” He huffed in a breath. “I’m to be captain of the Pavonine. Yes, Comet, I was a sailor by trade; had you forgotten? I’m returning to that trade now. It’s legal!”
“I see.” I drew my sword from under my coat skirts. “Do you believe all that bullshit Gio was spouting in there?”
Cinna knelt up, several acres of ghastly fawn brocade, and started prodding his saggy chest to check for broken ribs. His blond pin curls were plastered to his skull, his fat cheeks were ruddy. The pathetic specimen looked at me carefully through the pouring rain. “No, of course not…Though there’s a seed of truth in everything he said…He thinks you’re an alcoholic.” A knowing, assertive look appeared in his eyes. “I have a reliable source for decent cat, by the way.”
“Blackmail now, is it? That’s just one more reason to kill you!” I snarled, though his words set my mouth watering.
“Come on, Comet. Just because you’re illegitimate doesn’t give you free license to be a bastard. I haven’t told Gio about your love of scolopendium. Why should I? It’d bring me no benefit, and I’m a savvy businessman…Of course I don’t believe that the island is full to bursting with precious metals for the natives to bestow on us. However, I do know that Gio’s As Rich As Rachiswater. He’s paying me five times a merchant captain’s wage. He’s packing coin, plate and banknotes-he has chests full of it! He wants to set himself up on Tris. I’ve just finished conveying it all to Awndyn myself. Look, I still have the letter he gave me. I’ll show you, here.” Cinna fished inside his coat for a crumpled envelope with a broken seal, Ghallain manor’s whale emblem. I took the letter from his gnawed fingertips and raised a wing to shelter it from the rain, while I read:
TO: SITELLA GRACKLE, FIRST BANK OF HACILITH
I hereby instruct you to immediately liquidate all my assets currently in your care and to dispatch the monies to myself at the harbormaster’s office, Awndyn. They are, to whit: i) the proceeds collected to date from the sale of my academies, ii) all ordinary stocks held in the Hacilith bourse, iii) gold and silver plate held in the bank’s safe.
The bearer of this letter, Cinna Bawtere, holds my full confidence in this matter and is to be trusted as the guardian of the money.
GIO AMI
Money, lots of money, I deliberated while I refolded the letter. Cinna was smiling, showing textured teeth. “Comet, are you envious? You know you’ll never be free to escape to Tris yourself. You have to fly around the Fourlands until the inevitable happens-a goddamn Insect eviscerates you-and I don’t mean like at Slake Cross, I mean fatally. You’re cast off the Emperor’s fist like a hawk, to spy, and he lures you back and tethers you with the promise of eternal life.”
I took a squelching step toward him. “But, Bawtere, it’s jail for you! Make haste! We’ll see how far Gio sails without a captain.” I gestured with the sword and Cinna staggered to his feet, protesting and quaking. “Into town, Cariama Eske’s guard will look after you…They’ll throw you in a freezing cell, lock you in fetters and you can fuck your mother for all I care.”
“She’s dead.”
“Should make it easy for you, then. Hurry! I’ve a lot to do tonight. I’m busy because I have to find someone who will keep an eye on Gio and accurately report his plans to me when, for example, I land on the Pavonine’s gallery at dusk.”
Cinna had begun to snivel. “Okay,” he said, miserably; “I’ll do it.”
I said, “Oh, good. Then the noose can wait; tell me a little more about Gio.”
Cinna said: He knows that the Trisians distrust the Castle. He has a silver tongue, that man.
I said: Even if it was gold he couldn’t Challenge me.
Cinna said: Gio’s failed and he knows it. He might have got away with insurrection, but he tried to murder an Eszai. Oh yes, I heard from his own lips how he stabbed Lightning!
Me: He’s running?
Cinna: Yes. He can’t storm the Castle and skewer every Eszai much as he wants to. So he’s making his mark-leaving his name on history is immortality of a sort, seeing as he can’t have The Real Thing. If he holes up at Ghallain or hides out on Addald Isle it’d only be a matter of time before he’s betrayed and captured. But on Tris…
Me: Never!
Cinna: He wants to win over the Trisians. And San would have to leave him there, the King of Tris, because the Castle’s purpose is fighting the Insects. San could never fight people or invade islands.
Me: I’m glad you trust San.
Cinna: Yes, but I’m fed up of being kept in the dark. He keeps everyone hooded like falcons, whether callow Zascai or haggard old Eszai. You don’t know what San’s real quarry is, even though you’re one of his spies, and you will just go back and tell him my every word.
Me: Um…Cinna said that, not me.
San: Yes.
I skipped a few pages in my report, and resumed: “Then I said to Cinna, ‘If I fail to stop Gio setting sail, I will meet you again on the ship.’ I followed him to the tavern, stole-I mean, requisitioned-a fast horse and rode here directly, my lord. I sent a courier to lock every stable at every coaching inn between Eske and Awndyn. That’ll slow the main part of their force down by a couple of hours, and as it takes five days to walk to Awndyn those without horses might miss the Pavonine.”
Drops of rain ran down the shafts of the wet feathers in my hair and dropped off their curled tips behind me onto the carpet. I shook my head, flicking water from the backward-pointing quills. I had ridden out of the storm; my skin was singing. I was covered in the stringy mud thrown from the horse’s hooves. My svelte boots were sheathed in white liquid mud up to the thigh. I smelled of clouds and the thin air. My heart beat hard; cat made me feel too fast and bracing, thermaling on a strange energy burst that I knew I was going to pay for later but really needed now.