Part 5 (1/2)

Nearest landmark to the Basquiata”stuck up on a nice little hill of its own, neat as you pleasea”was the aVersity Stretch. That was where good boys and girls went to drain their mamas and papas of their hard-earned cash in order to learn how to speak all proper and read things in dusty books that happened to no one left alive today. Not nothing or no one useful ever came out of the aVersity Stretch, and our sensitive new p.i.s.s-pot professor was only further proof of it.

aYouare clenching the reins,a said Havemercy.

I was. Just thinking about that little wh.o.r.eson and his plans and his research made me want to spit, so I did, since there was no one to give me black looks in the air.

aVersity students didnat have much money, of course, after spending it all on books and whatever the f.u.c.k, so if you followed the Stretch itad run you right into the Rue. The Rue daSt. Differencea”where you could buy anything except slaves and s.e.xa”was where the merchants established themselves and vied for customers every sunup to sundown. Foreigners coming to the city from elsewhere had a real problem with the Rue, since it was the only place where the roads ran straight instead of all crabbing crooked in the same direction. Niall, who spent more time on the ground and in the city than any self-respecting airman should, said that this year the Rue was crowded with milliners, and women in fancy wide-brimmed hats with feathers and ribbons. I tried to get him to bring me one back so we could stick it on Balfour, but he went on whining about the price until I wanted to punch him in the face; and then he said he was never going to do me any favors, ever.

Whatever. Adamo would only have torn me a new one for it, anyway.

The roads went crooked again sure as rain as soon as they bent off into Charlotte. The middle sister was where most men found their sport. Grouped together were the unmistakable red roofs and pointed, storied buildings marking the Amazement, Volstovas entertainment district, filled with opera and theatre and a bit of whoring just to keep things interesting afterward. aCourse there were restaurants, if coffee after was more your bag, but you were like to be laughed straight back into Miranda with a priss att.i.tude like that. Charlotte didnat coddle, and it made no bones about someoneas ideas of segregation. If they wanted you out, theyad let you know. It was only a madman whoad want to live in Charlotte after Miranda, but you had to respect her att.i.tude.

Through the center, just to one side of the Amazement, ran a road that was sharp and jagged as a lightning bolt. This was man-made. Wolf as Run, where the Provostas men made their digs, and they didnat have time for meandering around slow, sloping curves. The Run was located special in the center of things, so the wolves could duck into upper or lower as neat as they pleased whenever they had to keep the peace. I donat know why they didnat just stick the whole thing on the Mollyedge and keep the troubles out that way, but thereas no accounting for what some people think is sensible.

I didnat have any desire to fly over Mollya”Hapenny Lane, Tuesday Street, and an over-f.u.c.king-abundance of dirty, diseased urchins being its only commodities and sole export of the lowest maiden with her skirts soaking in ocean brine. No, I didnat want to get near it, and not even to get to the ocean.

I said so sudden and firm to Havemercy as she twisted and climbed, fickle in the wind.

af.u.c.k that,a she said. aI wanted to see the boats.a aNo time,a I replied, though honestly I didnat know whether it had been twenty minutes or forty since wead took off.

She made a wheezy sound, like a cranky bellows, and flicked her tail in a way that meant she knew I was lying.

Twenty-five, I decided impartially, and only for the harbor. We continued on.

The harbor was a deceptive place, clean and bustling as it was. Thremedon City wasnat a port town in that we needed the trade or nothing, but boats came and left just as often as they pleased since the Ke-Han had no use for the seas. Theyad been f.u.c.ked over more than once trying to cross them, which was why itad been such a big surprise when theyad snuck up and took the Kiril Islands right out from under thaEsaras nose. Took aem a good few years to manage that one, and not from their fighting skills or nothinga”because it took them that long to get across the water without capsizing in the storms.

Thremedonas harbor was filled with s.h.i.+ps built by people who knew what they were doing, else I didnat think theyad have made it to us at all. Caelian barges with their dark orange sails like buildings on fire; little merchant vessels from Arlemagne; the fis.h.i.+ng boats of the Molly-dwellers that were almost too small and insignificant to make out, like everything else that made up part and parcel of Molly.

I only felt sorry for the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who didnat realize where theyad landed, smack in the middle of the cityas poorest and filthiest.

I was so f.u.c.king glad to be out of there.

Havemercy was humming a tune Iad taught her myself, picked up in one of the bars and memorized acause I knew shead eat it up with a spoon. The bawdy songs were her favorite, and I could tell when she was in high spirits because of when she broke out with one. Anyone who says the dragons canat have emotions acause theyare made of metalas never flown one, see, though that sort of talk never bothered me. Have and I understood each other.

aFeeling better?a I asked before she could get to the line about the earl with a girl on each knee.

aAre you?a Havemercy beat her wings extra-hard, like she was jumping in the air, and evened out again.

I thought about it. aAlways better when weare off the ground,a I answered, at length.

aBastionas own truth,a she said, and went back to her song.

THOM.

aSo,a Marius asked that evening. aHow was it?a He was being kind about everythinga”treating me to dinner in Reliquaryas finesta”because he pitied me. And though I didnat relish being pitied for prolonged periods of time, I knew that the more I spoke to him, the more I could postpone heading back to be given the grand tour. Anything to avoid that, I thought; and, because Marius was paying and had a.s.sured me it was all right, I ordered the duck.

aYouare asking after the grand offender himself, arenat you,a I said, suddenly very interested in the design of my salad fork.

aWell, I was going to wait for a while to bring it up. But since you mention it . . . Indeed, I am.a aI think he might have been raised by wolves,a I replied. aOr at least by the Ke-Han themselves.a aHa,a said Marius, though somewhat humorlessly. aHilarious. That dreadful?a aWe already know heas an abuser of women,a I said darkly. aThe first exercise I had planneda”a aIntroductions, yes; I thought that was very clever.a aThank you.a Marius always knew what to saya”and, surrounded by the friendly candlelight of the Amory Rose, I felt comforted, less fatalistic. aWhen it was his turn, he spoke at great length about the joys of forcing his way between a ladyas legs.a aItas said he comes from Molly,a Marius pointed out. aSo of course, heas bound to be vulgar, isnat he? Itas common enough. Heall be a nuisance, but at the least you can always remind yourself how much smarter you are.a aI donat know,a I said. aWhether or not he can write his own name seems to have very little impact on his ability to be an a.s.s.a aSo heas the heart of the trouble, do you think? The ringleader?a As much as I wanted to ask Marius how he managed the most troublesome of students, I was nearly certain that much of it had to do with his age, his experience, and his own confidence. I had none of these three tools, and was rather certain of my imminent doom. aYes.a I sighed.

aI have no advice for you, Thomas,a said Marius, though he did look rueful. Perhaps I wasnat so averse to pity as Iad thought. aYou must weather ita”and you mustnat let him win.a I thought of the stark gray lines of the Airman, where the pilots slept close by to their dragons. It was a new building, an ugly intrusion on the landscape of Miranda. And, like its inhabitants, it was made too many allowances.

aI know,a I said, firmly. aI wonat.a HAL.

If Iad known getting myself almost drowned by the rain would help improve the Margraveas spirits so enormously, I would have done it sooner.

Well, that mightnat have been entirely true, and at least, if Iad been clever enough to plan it beforehand, I wouldnat have involved poor William.

After the chatelain recovered from his short-lived period of relief, the boy was confined to the indoors for the rest of the month, and by no more than the second day of his punishment he was nearly climbing the walls with boredom. I myself was suffering from something of a cold and was also cautioned to remain inside the castle, so I tried to entertain him with a few storybooks, but soon we ran out of stories he hadnat already heard. If we were left to our own devices much longer, I feared he might run away and really be lost to us for good.

Yet Margrave Royston was like unto a different man, and so we werenat left to our own devices at all.

Iad given up on the storybooks entirely and thought to try a bit of the lesson plan I was forever amending to please Williamas ever-changing interests. It began with an explanation of Volstovas war with Xiaan, its history and the reasons for ita”though Iad never been able to find two textbooks that agreed on the lattera”but to my dismay, there wasnat anything more recent than fifty years ago, and it had none of the detailed descriptions about famous battles that William was so enthusiastic about.

aI donat understand,a he said, peering at the book over my shoulder as though he was angry with it.

aWhat donat you understand?a I asked, in a calm voice that Iad been perfecting for just this purpose. I thought that if I at least sounded like a proper tutor, it wouldnat matter so much that I didnat feel like one at all.

aYou keep talking about the war,a William said, aand about the mountains and those others, the Ramanthines. But I donat understand. Who are the villains?a aI . . . well,a I said, turning to the table of contents in the front of the book and stalling for time. aIam not sure. Itas not exactly that simple.a aOh but there must be villains,a William insisted. aIt isnat a proper story without them. Papa always does the villains with a scary voice, but Mama says it hurts her throat, and she pretends like there arenat any in the stories she reads me. Does it hurt your throat too?a aNo,a I said, reaching for another book that might have the answer I was looking for. aItas not that. I only think that there may really not be any villains in this story in particular. It all depends on what side youare coming from.a aOr whose side of the table youare sitting on,a said the Margrave Royston from where he was standing in the doorway.

aOh,a I said, and stood, brus.h.i.+ng dust off the backs of my trousers and fighting away the urge to rub my nose with the back of my sleeve. (Such behavior was countrified, vulgar, and unacceptable, said the Mme; only sometimes I forgot myself, and there was no kerchief handy.) aIam afraid I donat quite follow.a I thought at first that the Margrave must have caught a fever from being out so long in the downpour the same way Iad caught a cold, but on that second day, as he showed no particularly feverish symptoms, I realized that what head actually caught was the memory of a purpose.

It changed him, chased the darkness from his eyes. He shook his head as though head only just remembered. aIam sorry, I forgot. It happened before you were born. The last time we attempted diplomacy with Xiaan, William, our amba.s.sador had some bad eel, which caused him to be ill all over the Ke-Han warlordas favored niece.a aHe threw up?a William asked, with scandalized delight.

aYes,a the Margrave said, looking very serious. aShe thought it was an attack, poor creature, and defended herself with a knife.a William was now looking at the Margrave Royston as if he were the last slice of chocolate cake at dinner.

He was not so absent a man that he did not notice the attention. aHave you run out of stories already, William?a aYes, wella”a I couldnat help speaking up, since I was feeling somewhat responsible in the first place. aYou see, weave read most of them before.a aYes,a William said sullenly, awe have,a as if it were the worst fate in all the world. Part of me very much agreed with him.

aWhat, even the one about Slipfinger the Penniless?a the Margrave asked.

aAnd his fifteen different adventures,a I confirmed.

William scuffed his toe against the carpet, and added under his breath, aWhich werenat so different, not really.a aWell, after the tenth they do tend to get a bit similar,a the Margrave agreed. He took a moment to look around the room, half of its shelves miserably empty and the dusky sunlight sinking low just outside the lone, squat window. For a moment I thought he would reject it and be lost to his fog just from the sight, but then, to my surprise, he stepped inside and clasped his hands before him. aIf youad like, William, I could always tell you about Cobalt Range.a That was the most famous battle in the past fifteen years, and Williamas eyes widened enormously. aWere you there, Uncle Roy?a he asked, all his sullenness forgotten.

aMore or less,a the Margrave said.

aWould you like a seat?a I asked, admittedly eager to hear the story myself.

aIf itas no trouble,a said the Margrave, who seemed to have only just realized there was but one comfortable chair in the entire room.

aPapa broke the other one,a William said sagely. aHe was very angry.a aHead lost his favorite horse,a I explained, then drew up the chair for the Margrave. I caught him looking at me with a curious expressiona”I couldnat understand ita”but by the time Iad thought to look again for any clues to the puzzle, he wasnat looking at me at all, turning instead to helping William scramble up beside him on the chair. I sat at his feet, knees drawn up to my chest.

aAre you quite all right down there?a the Margrave inquired. aSurelya”though this is the countrya”there are other chairs to be had somewhere about the place.a aHal enjoys sitting in strange places,a William confided.

I felt my ears grow hot, and knew without having to see them for myself that they were as pink as my cheeks.

The Margrave cleared his throat; not entirely in disapproval, I thought, but it hardly mattered, as I was still blus.h.i.+ng. aIs that so?a he said. aTo each his own, it would seem.a aTell the story, Uncle Roy,a William pleaded, and I was grateful for the distraction.

aWhich story was that? Oh, yes, Cobalt Range.a The Margrave closed his eyes for a moment, and sigheda”not entirely happily, but with a certain pleasure in remembering. aYes. Ten years ago, almost eleven. It was only my second campaign, and the first had hardly given me any experience at all. Now, a curiosity of the mountains is that no one wants to fight there for long. Though the higher ground is what counts, of course, in a battle, itas a lot of mean, close-in fighting. You canat get any s.p.a.ce to fight, trapped like that, and s.p.a.ce becomes very important when, wellaa”he paused, with a glance at Williama”awhen there are a frightful amount of explosions going off all at once.a aBrilliant,a said William happily, and the Margrave looked relieved. If head been worrying over Williamas appet.i.te for violence, he neednat have done. Mme was often chasing him away from Cooke when he told his stories of terrible riding injuries and horses with broken bones.

aOn the other side of the Cobalts,a he went on, athere is a valley. Imagine it like this: The Ke-Han city closest to our mountains is like a blue bowl, carved deep and smooth into the earth.a He spoke of it like a beautiful thing, respect lighting his eyes and touching his voice, though I thought that where the Ke-Han were concerned every man was a barbarian and in no position to be concerning himself with beauty.