Jordan smoothed the lapels of his vest nervously. He had never worn clothes like this. Their strange fit and discomfort in the oddest places was a constant reminder of his role tonight as apprentice to Calandria May. The stiffness of the fabric and the cut of the shirt and pants made him constantly arch his back, and drew his shoulders up. All the other men stood and walked the same, in an almost exaggerated, prideful posture. He had always assumed that went with their station. The idea that their clothes were made to hold their noses up amazed him. He couldn’t look at them with quite the same awe as he’d used to.
He stood just outside the dining hall in a swirl of young men, who mostly spoke among themselves. He knew the language, but had no idea what they were talking about—rights, obligations, and fine points of the pecking order, it seemed. As far as possible Jordan tried to stay out of any dialogue, only nodding and smiling when it was needed. He knew his accent was guild-class, and although Calandria claimed to be able to fix that, she hadn’t yet. He gave his name when it was required of him, but nothing more.
“Ah, there you are!” boomed a familiar voice. Axel Chan’s hand descended on his shoulder like a vice. “Where’s the lady?”
“Changing,” Jordan said tersely. Axel had spoken so loudly that heads turned all over the chamber. Jordan wanted to shrink into the floor to avoid all those high-class gazes.
“Good. If she’s not about, I’ll borrow you for a moment.” Axel steered him away from the men, past the ladies, who were preening and talking behind their feather fans, and out of the antechamber. He led Jordan halfway down the lower, stone-floored corridor that ran between the antechamber and the stairways, then stopped under a high window. Evening light suffused the corridor, gilding the stones that Axel leaned against. He grinned, slouching, and put his hands in his pockets.
“How are you doing, lad?” he asked.
“I don’t like this,” said Jordan, pulling at his jacket.
“It’s a fine uniform. Red and gold—your choice?” Jordan nodded guardedly. “Very nice. Tasteful. We’ll make an inspector out of you yet.”
“Calandria says she can teach me to talk like them.”
“It’s no trick. You just speak slowly and flap your lips a bit, as if,” he switched into an overdone upper-crust accent, “you could barely care to speak at all.” Despite himself, Jordan grinned at the imitation.
Axel leaned close. “Don’t worry. We’re all pretending; that’s what events like this are all about.”
“Why are we doing it at all?”
“To fit in. Better that we be there to be spoken to than absent to be spoken about.” Axel stood away from the wall and smiled archly as two ladies walked past. They ignored him. He slouched back again and said, “Now, I promised to show you the letter from your sister. Can you read?”
“A bit. I can do figures and architectural terms, and a little more.”
“I’ll read it to you. Your sister dictated it to me.” Axel pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket. He flipped it open and began to read.
“Oh, Jordan, I miss you so much. I wish you were here right now, but Sir Chan says you have to finish a job for him first. Then you’ll be back and bring lots of money.
“I’m sorry I ran away. Mom and Dad are really mad at us, though they won’t say it. They just don’t talk about that night. And they pray for you to come back all the time. I can’t talk to them! I wish you were here so I would have somebody to talk to.
“Sir Chan told me to write something so you would know it was me. Remember that turn on the stairs in the manor, where we found the crack? Remember the note we hid there before Dad mortared it up? I know what the note says—only me and you know. The first word is ‘Boo!’. Remember that?”
Jordan let his tension out with a big breath, and leaned heavily against the wall next to Axel. He smiled at Axel.
“So, it’s really her, is it?” asked Axel.
He nodded. “After Sir Chan found me, he gave me letters of appointment to the king of Ravenon. I can’t believe it—neither could anybody else, but Castor did. And Turcaret—you should have seen his face when Sir Chan showed him the letters. He wanted to kill Chan, I could tell, but he was afraid to. But Castor—he almost smiled, I think. Anyway, he told Turcaret not to argue, and he signed the letters, and Sir Chan lent me money to move in with the Sanglers which is where I am now. Waiting for dispatches from Ravenon, who will come to me before they come to Castor. I’m so proud, and scared at the same time. And lonely. I hope you come home soon. Sir Chan says you are okay and having an adventure. Please write me and tell me all about it.”
“Can I?” Jordan asked.
Axel nodded. “But you can’t talk about what we’re doing, or say anything about Armiger.” He looked over Jordan’s shoulder at something, and smiled. “And speaking of ladies, here she is! You’re a vision, my dear.”
“Than you, Axel,” Calandria said, smiling. She wore a long, emerald-green skirt, a bodice worked with beads of gold, and a white loose-sleeved blouse. Her hair was piled up and held in place with pearl-tipped pins. A gold necklace completed the ensemble. Her face glowed with an inhuman perfection that Jordan had guessed at but which had hitherto been hidden under a layer of grime and disarrayed hair. Surely she wore makeup, but he could see no sign of it. Despite all that she’d done to him, in that moment Jordan thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
He stammered something, and blushed. Calandria lowered long lashes and made a near-smile. “You look the proper gentleman, Jordan. Shall we join the dinner party?” She cocked her elbows; Axel immediately stepped out to take one of her arms, and Jordan hurried to place himself on the other. He felt a burst of pride as they entered the antechamber and conversations died left and right. Calandria’s smile grew even more subtle, and Axel’s face had hardened into an imperious mask. Jordan had no idea what he himself looked like, but strongly suspected he was ruining the effect. He tried to draw himself up as Axel had done and don a suitable air of contempt.
The hall was brightly lit by gas lamps. Jordan could see all the way to the blond stone groin vaults of the ceiling a good fifteen meters overhead. The hall was as wide as it was high, and twice as long. Tapestries hung between the narrow buttresses, depicting scenes from the long, industrious history of the Boros inspector generals: collection and taxation figured prominently, but instead of glorious victories, as true nobility would boast, the few battle scenes showed Boros’ militia sweeping away mobs of rioting citizens. A huge fireplace roared at one end of the hall, silhouetting the raised chairs and table of Yuri Boros and his family and filling the room with the smell of woodsmoke. Long tables had been laid out down the sides of the hall, each length overhung by wrought-iron arches holding a lamp and trailing flowers. People were seating themselves now with the aid of black-coated servants, who paced up and down in the clear runway that stretched from the main doors at the foot of the room to the raised table and fireplace at the head. A low murmur of voices lofted up and echoed down from the arches.
When Jordan was very young, he had once watched a gathering like this through a crack in the kitchen doors at Castor’s hall. He remembered none of the logic of the occasion, only the brightness and laughter, and the amazing variety of food that was carried past him. All adults had been like gods to him, the controllers and inspectors more so. He longed to find some door to hide behind, some safe vantage from which to watch the tables. At the same time, he wanted to be here, seated with his betters as if he had the right—for at least tonight, Calandria’s aura protected him. So, as they took their seats at an obscure table at the back of the room, Jordan sat at his place in wonder and delight, and wished fervently he could also be peering through the crack in the kitchen door, his Self there pulling the strings of his Self here.
He glanced at Calandria’s perfect face, and had a flash of insight: were she and Axel standing somewhere aloof from themselves at moments like this, pulling the strings of their public faces?
His contemplative spell was broken by the bray of a horn. Everyone was seated now; Axel and Calandria had put themselves to either side of Jordan, effectively isolating him from conversation, which was fine with him. It came to him just where he was, and he had one of those moments that is later permanently impressed on memory; his finger traced the edge of a blue-china plate such as he had seen but never touched back home, and the sleeve of his arm was red and beautiful in the white light which flashed off the knife and forks by the plate. He looked up, and as he did the main doors to his right opened, and a procession entered.
They had done this at Castor’s too, he remembered, and the familiarity mixed with strangeness sent a shiver down his back. Servants dressed as highborn men and women entered the hall, walking sedately in pairs. Each wore a finely crafted mask—the death masks of the Boros ancestors. These masks probably resided in a room of their own, somewhere near the front of the manor. The ones at Castor’s manor were racked on the wall in pairs, with lines painted on the wall between the hooks, plainly showing the family tree.
At festival occasions they were taken out and worn, as now. The Boros ancestors had come to visit their descendents.
The horn sounded again. Everyone stood. The masked procession proceeded up the hall within the space between the tables, and each figure bowed or curtsied politely to the head table before it turned to walk back. Polite guests were expected to have already learned the names and histories behind these masks; Jordan had never thought to do so, but then, he had never been any highborn person’s guest before. He resolved to visit the mask room and learn the Boros pedigree as soon as he could.
Lady Marice stood. “On behalf of my husband, I welcome you. We have much that is serious to discuss amongst ourselves, but I pray you first enjoy this fine meal we’ve brought you, and forget your cares for a space.”
“What does she mean about serious stuff?” Jordan whispered to Calandria.
“Something’s up,” Axel responded cryptically. Almost imperceptibly, he gestured at the table opposite. Jordan looked, but didn’t see anything odd or unusual—just two family groups seated near one another, each attentive to Marice. Now and then glances were exchanged within each group, but not between them.
Axel nodded to the patriarch of the family closer to the head table. “That’s Linden,” he whispered. “Direct heir to Boros. Not by blood, apparently, but some kind of tradition.” Linden was a thin, whippish man with pale hair drawn back in a pony tail. His eyes were fixed on Marice as she spoke. “And that,” Axel indicated the square-faced head of the other family, “is Brendan Sheia, bastard son of Yuri and a lady from Iapysia. By the laws of Iapysia, he is the heir.”
“Isn’t there a civil war in Iapysia?” Jordan whispered back. Axel nodded.
Calandria touched his arm. “Can you tell me who here is a royalist, and who is a parliamentarian?”
Jordan looked from one family to the other, then down the rows of the tables, where many more sat. Marice had finished her short speech and as she sat down, the buzz of conversation started again. Now Jordan was eager to see who spoke with whom, but there was no easy dividing line.
“Bright lad,” Axel said behind his head. “He’s looking for the battle lines already.” Calandria nodded.
Waiters swirled up carrying trays of food. A very complicated service began; Jordan knew vaguely that there was a protocol to which dishes one took and in what order, but had no idea what that was. In a fit of inspiration, he decided to watch the apprentices of two households opposite, and choose what they chose. Once a plate came to him before either of them, and he felt a moment’s panic. He appealed silently to the waiter, who smiled and gave a slight nod. Relieved, he took the dish.
And so it proceeded, through a gruelling two hours of careful eating, followed by a gruelling hour of ambiguous speeches and circumlocutions. Jordan alternated between relaxed enjoyment and extreme discomfort. Despite himself he began to fight back yawns, and to keep himself awake he let his thoughts drift to his sister. He didn’t want to think about his parents beyond acknowledging to himself that he was still angry with them. But as Postmistress, would Emmy attend banquets like this one? He would have to tell her about the evening, and reassure her that she could do the same at Castor’s.
Except that Castor had not approved of her posting…
He shut his eyes, weary and worried again about Emmy. Her official position was a thin shield, he knew. Somehow he must accomplish what Calandria demanded of him, and return to her. Tonight, or tomorrow; soon.
Suddenly dizzy, he opened his eyes. To sunlight.
Jordan blinked, and again saw the tables and the guests, under lamplight. He craned his neck back. Shafts of evening light still shone through the oculi high overhead, but it hadn’t been those he’d seen. For a mere instant, he’d seen forest light, leaves and sky.
He shook his head and sat up a little straighter. Must be the wine, he thought hopefully. With an effort, he returned his attention to the banquet.
Linden and Sheia still ate stone-faced, though their wives seemed animated enough. At the head table, Yuri seemed most relaxed, his slackjawed pale face shining in the gas light. But, Jordan noticed, his hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, and it wasn’t hot in here. Of course, Yuri was right next to the fire.
In more ways than one, Jordan thought, and smiled. “You wouldn’t wish to have the troubles of the highborn,” Jordan’s father had told him more than once. Just now he agreed.
Jordan leaned back and closed his eyes.
His ruined hand brushed aside twigs, revealing a forest path. With a sigh he stepped down to it. For a moment he swayed, and put one hand out to steady himself against a tree. Then he sat down.
Armiger looked up at the sky. Night was coming. He had been walking for two days now without pause; night merely slowed him down. At first it had been mechanical, aimless activity. Gradually as he walked, though, the bright air and thrum of life all around him awakened something in him—a kind of recognition, an identification with the things that grew and struggled all around. If he squinted at the sky, his healing eyes could perceive the faint threads of the Diadem swans wavering in their high seats. The Winds still did not know he was here. But while the sight of them filled him with a deep pang of loss—for they were his own kind, if distantly related—it was the buzzing insects and the gaudy flowers that he drew strength from. The swans, like his greater Self, were inaccessible.
As he walked, Armiger for the first time contemplated what it meant to be mortal.
Now as he paused on this tenuous path, he forced himself to take stock of his body. Hitherto the body had been just a vessel, rugged but ultimately disposable. Today as he walked he had begun to come to grips with the idea that this was his only body now—that his resources were finite and concentrated in this ruined husk.
His wounds were healing. If he tried he could articulate words with his split tongue, and his fingers could grip again. The terrible wound in his chest had closed, and great sloughs of skin had fallen away to reveal flesh new and pink. As he walked he had stuffed leaves into his mouth to make up the mass he’d lost, dimly aware as he did so that the human biology of his body protested. He overrode it to command digestion and assimilation. After all he was not human; he was Armiger, agent of a god.
Or he had been. What he examined now in the failing daylight was a badly wounded man, dehydrated and staggering on blistered feet. In his experience in the field, he had seen men like this weeping as they collapsed by the side of his marching columns. They tended not to rise again.
When he closed his eyes and listened to this human body, Armiger knew why. Yesterday as he walked he had wondered how the small lives around him experienced existence, unaware that he need only pay attention to his own body to know.
As long as he thought of himself as Armiger the demigod, this body’s problems seemed trivial, as he had treated those dying men’s tears as trivial. After all, they were so stupidly unaware of themselves as parts of the systems of army, ecology and planetary action which Armiger felt in his deepest being. What was a body, or even a mind? Get rid of it, there were more, the important thing was the system. Armiger had been the systems’ awareness; they had been it also, but never knew.
While he had his tie to the omniscient power that had created him, Armiger had rarely used the brain of this human body he was in, except when he needed to understand the irrational actions of his soldiers. This body thought, and felt, like any human, but he didn’t need to use that mind, for he had access to the far greater mind of his master, whose own thoughts could themselves be conscious entities.
Previously Armiger had existed as god and mind, with the body merely a tool. Now he was only mind and body. He ran his hands over this body, finding the strains and infections. He stank, he realized. The human instincts he had ignored so long quailed at the damage, the humiliation of his state. For the first time, Armiger opened himself to those instincts.
This was what his men had felt, fighting and dying. This was the essential experience of the deer and foxes he had sighted as he walked: pain and loneliness.
Armiger no longer had the god to center him, make him complete. Humans and the animals of this world had existed without such a god. How? Who are you? he asked his human side.
In wonder, Armiger realized he had sunk to his knees, was clutching himself, and crying in wrenching gusts. And now he knew the feeling of the human misery he had heard so much on this world.
“Calandria!” Jordan clutched at her shoulder.
“Shh!” She put a hand on his lips angrily.
He started to protest—he needed help, the visions were back—then noticed the silence.
Jordan turned his head. A few people were staring at him. The rest had their eyes on the head table, and only one voice in the whole hall was speaking. It was Yuri, who had risen and now stood with his arms crossed, staring at nothing while he spoke. Jordan had not heard him speak before; his voice was a high tenor, very mannered and hard to hear, even in this attentive silence.
“…Are aware of the Iapysian tragedy. The Boros clan has an obligation, as nobility in that state, to not stand aside and allow it to continue. We also have an obligation, as nobility in other states, to avoid any action that might seem to be foreign interference. That is the reason I have not acted before now. It is the reason you were called here. All three nations know the Boros’ are meeting, and that we are meeting at our ancestral home because it is our home, and for no other political reason.
“Now, there are many stories circulating about the nature of the catastrophe in Iapysia. It is popularly held to be a punishment by the Winds, who are popularly held to have installed Queen Galas to begin with. Firstly, though, she was the legal heir, so she would have inherited without their help. And second, she has been committing all manner of atrocities in the name of ‘reform’, many of which have struck at the very heart of our social order.”
Brendan Sheia glared at Yuri. “Is reform a bad word around here?” he boomed.
Yuri held up a hand, cocking his head, and said, “Not at all. But we have to face the prospect of a nation ruled only by the rabble, in the form of the Iapysian parliament. Regardless of Queen Galas’ crimes, no right-minded man or woman would want to see the state headless. We would all have to deal with the consequences and, I believe, the Winds would not look favorably upon Iapysia. And we, the Boros, are part of Iapysia.”
Calandria put her hand on Jordan’s sleeve. “Are you all right?” she asked in a whisper.
He wanted to tell her about the visions—but that would end the evening for sure. It wasn’t that Jordan was enjoying this assembly, but it was a very big thing to be here at all. He wanted to stay until the end.
He shook his head. “I’m fine.” But he was beginning to sweat.
Yuri continued: “The Queen earned the wrath of the parliament, and much of the nobility, by creating a number of `experimental villages’ in which the laws of the land were replaced by mock laws of her own devising. In one such, every citizen was entitled to both a husband and a wife—male and female.” Yuri nodded sagely at the shocked expressions of his audience. “In another she repealed law entirely, replacing it with crass public opinion. And in yet another, she inverted all the laws of the land, so that no one was punishable for any act—instead of being punished for acting unjustly, people were rewarded for acting justly. In short, she flung a challenge into the face of decency in all its forms. All in the name of some nebulous `reform’.” Yuri looked down his nose at Brendan Sheia. “We are all ashamed of the actions of this Queen, and no amount of condemnation would be sufficient.
“But she is Queen, and if she is to be dealt with, it should be by the land owners, not the rabble. So, my dear family, we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma, for the army raised and ruled by parliament is winning the war against the Queen.”
Who cared? He had to get out of here. Jordan made to stand, only to feel Axel’s hand clamp onto his shoulder, forcing him down again. He turned to snap at the man, but a wave of dizziness overcame him.
Strange, how reassuring tears were. They were right for this body, a healing action. Armiger had never known that about tears before, had always taken them to be some reflex reaction of his men to pain. But they freed up sorrow, and this body of his, now his only one, thanked him for allowing them.
Now he stood, wiped his eyes, and gazed up and down the path. What else did this body need? It seemed he should take it into account now that his greater Self was gone. He required proper food, yes, and shelter, warmth and rest. Rest…
He had not known that his body was so weary. All the energy he had poured into it over the past day had poured right out again as he walked. He was healing despite his great expenditure of energy, not because of it. If he wasn’t careful, the body would give out again, this time permanently. He would have to find another, or exist only as the ghostly net of threads that had first come to this world. While he could survive that way, Armiger feared the loss of his human body—it was his anchor. Without it he would drift into the madness of his own sense of loss.
His body wanted the comfort of its own kind to heal it. He would see where this path led to.
Axel took his hand off Jordan’s shoulder. The kid had settled down. He now appeared to be concentrating on Yuri’s speech. Good; couldn’t have him running off to the latrine right now. Yuri was obviously about to announce which ship he was backing, the parliament or the Queen. It would not do to be conspicuous right now.
Jordan couldn’t move. His perceptions seemed doubled: he knew he was sitting at the table in the banquet hall, even felt Axel take his hand from his shoulder. But at the same time, he was far away, watching through another set of eyes. His other hand brushed leaves aside; he stumbled, and Jordan tried to put his right hand out to steady himself. It worked!—he grabbed a branch. But then the hand let go again, before he willed it. No, he was not controlling this body, only reacting in synchrony with it.
“So it is with reluctance and in full awareness that this decision will please no one, that I have to tell you the official position of the house of Boros.” Yuri frowned around at the assembled family members. “In the interest of eventually returning a true monarchy to Iapysia, we must support parliament at this time.”
The path wound down a hillside, and there on a shoulder of the hill, under tall trees, sat a cabin. Extensive gardens were carved out of the brambles at the bottom of the hill, where a small stream wound through this wooded ravine.
Armiger paused, breath heaving. He felt conflicting impulses—to avoid this place, since he was not strong and his body might not survive a hostile encounter—or to seek help for it now. He was desperately ill, tired and wounded.
He stood shifting from foot to foot, aware of jabs of pain every time he moved. Where else could he go? Would he walk to the edge of the world? Or until the Winds found him and wrapped him in their own unwanted embrace? That prospect was daunting.
A gasp from behind him caught Armiger by surprise, and he tried to turn, only to lose his footing. With a raw shout he tumbled down the slope, quite helpless. At the bottom he lay wondering at his weakness. Never, even in the tomb, had he felt this way. His energies were failing from the effort it took to restore his body to life. Coughing, he blinked at the pale leaves high above.
“Goddess!” The voice was a woman’s. “Are you all right?”
A shadow bent over him. He heard another intake of breath. “Goddess, you are not!”
Armiger tried to lift his hand. “Please,” he croaked. “Help me.” His black fingers closed in fine hair.
“No!” Jordan was barely aware that his plate was skittering across the table, and off to shatter on the floor. He had fallen forward, fighting to hold back Armiger’s distant body. “Run! Get away from him!”
No one was paying any attention to him. Brendan Sheia was on his feet, shaking his finger at Yuri. “This is a calumny!” he shouted. “We all know the real reason you’re supporting parliament, father. It’s to cut me out of my birthright!”
A gasp went around the room. Then everyone was shouting at once.
No one could hear Jordan—not those in the banquet hall, transfixed as they were by the drama unfolding here, nor the distant woman, too close to Armiger. Jordan felt her hands on him—or were they Calandria’s?
A torrent of outraged voices enveloped him—“Your anger does you no credit, Brendan!” “Quiet, Linden, you traitor.” Chairs toppled; ladies scurried for cover as the two Boros heirs confronted one another below the head table.
None of this mattered to Jordan. He tried with all his will to take control of Armiger’s body, but it was futile. That hand in her hair… He dimly knew that Axel had him in an armlock and together with Calandria, was marching him from the banquet hall.
He fought the wrong bodies, and even as they resisted, in that distant place the one who should resist, should flee, did not. Instead, her gentle arms gathered him up.