The Year of Our War (9 page)

I
f the Castle had been built in the shape of a sundial, it couldn’t have been more accurate. Three o’clock in the afternoon exactly, on a late summer day, a shaft of sunlight pierces the slats in the shutter of the Northwest Tower and slides across my desk. It’s done this reliably for hundreds of years; this time it woke me.

I woke with the sun in my eyes, sitting at my desk, my head resting on a stack of smudged papers, post-battle correspondence. That probably meant the wet ink had imprinted in negative across my face. I would have to spend another night writing it out again with the aid of a mirror. I sighed, stretched and yawned.

“You’re burning yourself up,” said a warm voice behind me. A cinnamon voice. A scent of vanilla. Tern.

Without looking round I said, “I didn’t know you had come back.”

“I took the coach from Wrought last night. Arrived midnight. You were already…asleep.”

“And did you have a good time in Wrought, O piquant one?”

Tern was lying on the chocolate-brown velvet chaise longue, a honey-colored silk parasol over one shoulder and a paperback novel open on her breast. “We have to get that fixed,” she said, indicating the broken shutter with a finger spiced with rings and nail varnish. “Then you can sleep all day.”

This may sound strange but her voice is the main reason I love her. She breathes rounded words like the heady steam from mulled wine or cocoa, word fumes glazed with brandy and syrupy accents. I love languages, and my greatest wish is to be sugar-preserved in Tern’s slow voice forever. I gazed at her fondly, warmed by the rogue beam of sunlight. She had a long-sleeved, faded cream dress, mostly lace. Chic, slight, and delicate, she looked like icing on the chocolate divan. This is the lady I chose to make immortal, the girl who, to me, is the best in the world. The sweetest in the world, ever. She started spinning the caramel parasol, proud of my attention, just like a child. Her hair was dark, her skin the color of demerara sugar, soft and warm. Her face was defined by subtle makeup, lips the shade of red that is nearly brown, like sherry; champagne, coffee, and licorice, her eyes. “My love,” I said, “you look good enough to eat.”

She glanced deliberately ceilingward. “You’re still high,” she accused.

“I’m not. I’ve given up.”

“Nonsense,” said Tern succinctly. “My dear, you have more holes in your arms than there are in the roof of Wrought.”

I searched for a way to escape the conversation. Persistence wasn’t one of my wife’s strengths. I knew from experience that if I bluffed for a while her attention would wander to something else. “I’ll be fine.”

“I worry about you, Jant. Your habit hasn’t been this bad since 2006.”

Yes, that was the last time I saw Genya. “It’s the memory of the battle, and Rachiswater’s death that’s made it so bad,” I lied, feeling the pleasant warmth of Tern’s sympathy—I know it does me no good, but I love to bask in her attention or concern. I contemplated which hiding places I could use should Tern decide to throw out my hoard of cat. It was rare for her to be so bothered about the fact I indulge occasionally. I thought I owed myself a little pleasure after all I had been through.

“Can I help you come off it?”

“Ah—I’m not ready to quit just yet.”

Tern sighed, she had heard that one before. Prudently I offered, “I’ll cut down. I really mean to. Really.” Tern heard the strain in my voice and relented. The last overdose when I Shifted had truly frightened me, and I was taking less cat because I didn’t want to risk accidentally tripping to Epsilon. The Worm-Girl’s warning still haunted me—never come back to the Aureate. I didn’t want to think about it any longer. Dwelling on the problem made me want more cat, and I was feeling shaky enough as it was.

“Please do, darling. You’re skin and bone—” She would have continued but I threw myself on the divan, on top of her, and started trying to fit kisses down the front of her dress. She yelped, giggled. “Leave me alone! Mmm…Ow!” I bit her shoulder.

“Come to bed.”

“Mmm. OK. No—there’s a note for you.”

I stared at her. More work? “From whom?”

Tern gestured toward a square of yellow card on the mantelpiece. “The Archer,” she said.

I tried to stand but Tern wrapped her legs around my waist, a rather neat trick. I poked her belly with the parasol until she freed me. “Lightning can wait,” she said sulkily.

“Well, if he wants me I should go,” I replied. She tutted. I read Lightning’s fastidious copperplate:
“Come and see me as soon as you can. Your reinforcements arrived last night: Governor Swallow Awndyn with her retinue, bound for Lowespass. Owing to Staniel’s misfortune she decided to divert to the Castle, for which I am grateful.”
I flipped the card over.
“Although I fully intend to wring your neck for calling Swallow to the Front. LSM.”

Tern regarded me quizzically. “You’re in trouble.” She had an expression of looking at me over the tops of her spectacles, although she never wears glasses.

“Do I care?” I began to lick her legs hungrily, my mouth full of dress hem. Tern stroked my feathers rhythmically, driving me mad with lust. “Will you do that thing with your legs again?”

“Like this? Why?”

“Because then I can do
this
.” Tern gasped. Even her yelps were like helpings of cream gâteaux.

T
ern tugged at my wing, which extended until she rolled off the bed. I pulled the strong muscles back with a snap.

“Come on, come on. You have to go!”

“Only mortals hurry. Give me another kiss.”

“He’s waiting for you!”

“Yes, love. No, wait…”

“Ready?”

“Wait a minute. I’m missing something here. What did Lightning mean ‘Staniel’s misfortune’? What the fuck is he talking about? What day is it anyway?”

“Friday.”

“Can’t be. It was Friday when I last went to court…Oh, shit. Not an entire week.”

Tern sighed. She had definite opinions about drug binges that lasted a whole week. She rooted around on the untidy floor for a folded newspaper and passed it to me:

Shit. No wonder Lightning wants to see me. “It’s impressive,” I said. “I wrote for the
Standard
without knowing about the fight.”

Tern gave me an antique look. “You owe me one.”

I looked in a couple of other broadsheets that were lying on the floor among gory Insect dissection textbooks and my chemistry notes.
The Moren Times
just listed what courtiers wore to the coronation, and had good tits on page three, but the
Moderate Intelligencer
had this to say:

“I’ve got to go,” I said to Tern. I had to find out what Staniel was trying to achieve.

Tern nodded. “One day we’ll have more than a day together,” she said ruefully.

“I’m sorry.” I snorted some more cat, thinking of it as a medicine to stall the onset of my sickness, although it would leave me restless. It’s a stupid delusion, I know, because what I call medicine is really the cause of my sickness.

The stifling world outside was hotter than I had thought possible. The sun was a silver coin burning through a white overcast sky, trapping heat beneath the clouds and suffocating the Castle. I stripped off extra clothes as I walked, and by the time I reached Lightning’s rooms I was carrying my crowskin coat, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and was verging on indecency.

I have had two hundred years to become familiar with this wing of the Castle, but its grandeur would make anybody feel uncomfortable. I feel I shouldn’t be here, but the building also seems gracious—as if the people who do belong here will smile and allow me a little time. In a corridor deep inside the Palace interior of the Castle, black and white tiles were laid to appear three-dimensional. The sides of the Neo-Tealean corridor were open white arches, and I go through one, across an immaculate lawn, into a white building with long, many-paned sash windows.

The brickwork on the lower stories was emphasized, with plain walls above. The windows were set so closely together that the wall was mostly glass, with dark blue velvet drapes. From inside one can see every centimeter of the formal gardens, the square lawns and conical cypress.

Music wandered out onto the lawns. I followed it like a stream to its source, thinking that it was a very pretty harpsichord duet, but when I got to Lightning’s rooms I discovered that it was just Swallow, who had found a way of playing both parts of the duet at once.

Lightning was sitting in a chair as near to her as etiquette allowed, with a distant smile on his face, pleased because Swallow was now not only in the same room as him, but she was thrilled with his latest present, a gilt and blue cloisonné harpsichord, with scroll legs, keys of gold, and lapis lazuli.

The furniture matched, but with a few modern New Art pieces of enamel and silver. Lightning has always been a collector, and refused to stop although he bemoaned the fact that no artist in the last few hundred years has had any taste. The room’s furniture was a record of exclusive trends, from the turn of the first millennium. It was mostly baroque and tortoiseshell but a polished shield with a blue mascle on argent hung on the far wall, with arrows splayed behind. On either side there were ancient oil-painted portraits. Below, a variegated marble fireplace took up most of the wall, winged statues supporting an inlaid mantelpiece. An elegant glass wine decanter stood on a table with a pedestal of polished Carniss granite. Smoked salmon was arranged on a silver tray. Other seafood had legs and shells and looked too much like Insects for comfort. I skirted round it and touched Swallow’s green devoré shoulder to wake her from her reverie. The last chord hung in the air for a long, sweet time before dying.

“Hello, Jant,” she said. “Great makeup.”

I could grow to love some people. “Governor Awndyn, it’s good to see you and I wish the situation was different. Do either of you know what the fuck is happening in Rachis?”

“No,” said Swallow cheerfully. She folded her sheet music, pulled a pencil from behind her ear, and began to write more music on the back. In a drunken conversation I once heard Lightning admit it was a shame Swallow keeps her hair short; it was a coppery red like sparks, like strands of silk. She also had thick eyebrows, and freckles all over her face and even down her arms.

Swallow preferred to spend her days practicing the piano rather than going riding, and as a result was plump but unfortunately without having big breasts which many well-built women are blessed with. She sat cross-legged on the harpsichord stool, wearing a jacket made of different-colored squares of velvet. She also wore a dark green beret, which sat at a dapper angle on her ginger hair—such a jaunty angle, in fact, that I found myself braced to catch it, starting forward nervously every time she moved. She wore other stuff as well but it was the motley coat I really noticed, because it was so outrageous.

Lightning stretched his muscular arms and sighed. “Take a seat,” he advised. I sank into an armchair which all but smothered me. “The Emperor asked for you this morning. I don’t know how you dare stretch his patience. I received a letter from Harrier, my steward, who attended the crowning ceremony. Staniel was so anxious to get into the throne that he couldn’t wait for any Eszai to be present, damn him—it’s the first coronation I’ve missed in fifteen hundred years!

“Anyway, naturally Harrier was frightened for Micawater. If Rachis is surrounded by troops to protect it against Insects, what about my house which is only fifty kilometers away? Harrier wanted to know whether an invasion is likely. I have reassured him. I have sent everyone I can find to the front, and further arms to the fortress.”