Many students left to try their skill at the Games, but as far as I could tell, they all came back in the following weeks, and very chastened. Life at the guild went on as normal.

Until, that is, Heron disappeared. On my morning visit I found his rooms vacated and I panicked. His landlord told me he'd gone to the front. Heron had been in communication with the Messenger and had suggested that the Circle needed a doctor. San agreed and asked him to come to Rachiswater to be tested by treating the casualties of the ongoing ma.s.sacre. Everything I had worked for vanished instantaneouslywhat good was a rich student's famulus without the student? Devastated, I returned to darning socks.

Less than a month later a letter arrived from the front, from my 'grandson'. Its ink had run where Heron's tears had hit the page. He begged me to come and help him. He was completely out of his depth with the number of men slashed and disembowelled. We had never seen an Insect up close and the injuries they caused horrified him. He had never dirtied his hands in the operating theatre and hadn't the first idea how to organise a hospital. The a.s.sistants were afraid, he had lost his authority over them, and the Messenger was too busy to listen to his excuses.

Heron had included enough money in the scroll for me to bribe a fyrd captain to ride pillion on his cart when the next draft left town. So I came to the grimy field hospitals of Rachiswater and I soon had them under control. I know when a floor hasn't been cleaned properly and I was not above showing the a.s.sistants how to do it. I improved or made comfortable the majority of the patients, organised supply chains of medicine from the capital, and upbraided Heron as if I really was his grandmother.

San noticed the progress and visited the infirmary. Heron greeted him and showed him in, bowing low and explaining the enhancements he had made, whilst blocking San's view of me. The Emperor looked past him and saw me bloodied up to the elbows, trying to stabilise the condition of a maimed soldier. He came to question me and quickly understood that the improvements had coincided with my arrival so, as I worked, he joined me to the Circle and made me one of the immortals. It was my dream, what I was made for! At last I was in the right place!

That night, I was shown to a pavilion that would temporarily serve as my scriptorium. I sat down to write. Heron burst in, stinking of brandy.

He disentangled himself from the tent ropes and slurred, 'I know the rules, you old bag. I've always learned the rules so I can work the system.'

I said, 'Yes, and that's all you do.'

He sneered. 'San wants the best specialists. I suggested the Circle have a Doctor, and you walked in. That's not fair. Well, I'm the next best doctor, so if you were to die I'd take your place.' He drew his dagger and dived at me. I tried to dodge but his fist on the hilt caught my eye such a crack that I fell off the stool, onto my back on the gra.s.s.

In a trice he was on me. He raised the dagger above my throat. I had a vivid image of myself as a cadaver on the dissecting table. Female, aged seventy-eight, note cause of death; a single deep puncture. Carotid cut, thyroid and oesophagus pierced, sixth cervical vertebra shattered, spinal cord severed. I'd make a fine lesson! I braced myself to feel my blood spray.

The point arced down. A shout made Heron flinch. His dagger deflected and tore through my hood.

'f.u.c.k!' he said, and glanced behind him. Then he turned as pale as if he'd been bleached.

The Castle's Archer was standing at the entrance, bow flexed and an arrow unerringly trained on Heron. He said, 'I only have to let go. And believe me, nothing would give me greater pleasure.'

Heron collapsed into a kneeling position.

Seeing his face, the Archer looked surprised, but only for a second. 'Heron Foin?'

'I'm sorry, my lord prince, I'm sorry.' To my astonishment Heron began to grovel at the Archer's feet. He changed to High Awian and wept apologies into the gra.s.s.

The Archer lowered his bow. 'I know of you, Heron Foin. I know your father. Go home to the backwater little manors.h.i.+p you crawled from. If you harm our genius surgeon or even show your face here again, my brothers and I will take your hall apart until it is nothing but a field with stones in. Do I make myself clear?'

'Yes! Yes!'

'Get yourself out of my tent.'

Heron kissed the ground, jumped up and sped out. I never saw him again. I unpinned myself from the gra.s.s and dabbed my black eye with a handkerchief. I had never before heard a voice with such natural authority; it made even the professors sound strained. The Archer helped me to my feet, then bowed low and kissed my hand. 'Now,' he said, 'I would be honoured if you would call me Saker. What is your name?'

So, Cyan, you see how much I owe your father. Imagine how overwhelming life must have been for him in the early days of the Circle. Before the Games, the First Circle were no more than boastful mortal warriors leading a ma.s.s of untrained fyrd with swords and spears. The First Circle had lasted for two hundred and five years since San first drew them from three countries, but they gradually gave ground to the Insects all that time and left northern Awia to the Paperlands.

There was no effective way of fighting Insects then. The n.o.bility and peasant levies simply fed the hordes and although the First Circle fought, manor after manor fell. We thought we were doomed. Your tutor may have taught you this, but don't forget it really happened, and Lightning was there. A million corpses is not some story you tell children at bedtime!

The blizzard winter of six nineteen put an end to the First Circle. Those who weren't eaten died of starvation, disease and exposure in snow holes by the Rachis river. Deep drifts covered the ruins of Murrelet.

San realised that the First Circle's brave but stupid warriors weren't enough. He needed the best to train fyrds. He needed an infrastructure to keep supplies flowingcooks and doctors; and to keep knowledge from being lostagriculturalists and armourers. He needed an administration to take decisions on his behalf on many battlefields simultaneously. In short, he needed people who could think in the long term, as he did.

When San revealed he could make other people immortal, everyone suddenly saw him in a new light. Before, he had relied on the goodwill of the governors to raise and lead fyrds; now everyone clamoured to join the Circle.

San also knew that the celebrations and ceremony of the Games would raise our hopes. He let us see our own capabilities. Our fighting spirit soared.

San kept his personal symbol, the Imperial Sunburst, and extrapolated it to invent all our Eszai names. With the First Circle gone, the Castle's Breckan and Simurgh Wings stood empty, waiting for the victors of the Games. It was an exhilarating time. It threw us together, people from every stratum of society across the world and some with naught but the clothes they stood up in. I heard that Lightning arrived with a retinue of eight carriages of belongings and attendants, to discover that the rooms he was allocated by ballot were tiny compared with those he was used to. He divided his treasures among the new Eszai and filled all their rooms.

In the seventh century I discovered that s.e.xism was not a gla.s.s ceiling but is present at all levels, in all cla.s.ses. It was a gla.s.s web, and I threaded my way through it, cut by the strands I broke. San was the first to see my merit and your father was the first man truly to see me as an equal.

Since he has confided in me on many occasions, I suppose I am even more indebted to him for his friends.h.i.+p. It is impossible for you to understand a friends.h.i.+p of fourteen hundred years. You discover things about a person that you might not like, but it makes their virtues all the more admirable. I have the measure of Lightning and he has the measure of me.

I hope I have given you food for thought.

Send word with Comet if you need anything.

Love, Ella Rayne That is food for thought. I folded the letter and placed it on the table. Cyan was putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches to hers. 'Will you deliver this?' she asked. 'I don't have any sealing wax. Actually I don't have b.l.o.o.d.y anything here.'

'It's all right, just fold it. I can take it to Rayne unsealed.' I slipped her letter into my coat pocket and said, 'But she might be too busy to reply. I haven't seen anything like the crowds down there in my whole life before.'

'Will you be able to come back at least?'

'I'll try to.'

'You're the only person who's noticed me.'

I patted her shoulder but she shrugged away. She smelt of soap and birch bark chewing gum, reminding me how young she was for her years. Other seventeen-year-olds don't make idiots of themselves by Challenging Lightning.

I went to the window and opened the shutters. In the still night I could hear the clucking of the hens kept by the guards in their room downstairs. Very ba.s.s in the distance, the ba.s.s toll of the town's gatehouse bell rolled out over the moorland, thinning as it filled the expanse.

'Midnight. I have to go.'

Cyan tried again, 'This is a prison.'

'Honestly, it's for your own good. You should thank Lightning.'

'I'll kill him!'

'Shame. Thought cage birds sang more sweetly than that.'

'Well, if you won't free me, then b.u.g.g.e.r off!'

'I'll send you up some bread and water ha ha.'

I climbed onto the plank, ran along it and launched myself off. I flapped to the town with broad, uneven strokes, and landed on the hall's roof. I sat down on the ridge, wings drooping, and shook my hair down my back.

Below me the square was bustling with people. Around fifty of Rayne's orderlies with their white sashes were pulling tables out of the tavern and constructing beds. Fyrd squads were sitting on the tables, a.s.sembling arrows from piles of shafts and glittering points. The hall was packed with governors, wardens and captains as Lightning briefed them on the advance.

All the oil lamps and spotlights burned fiercely. The stars were dim in comparison, while the thick clouds at the edge of the sky seemed banked up above the town walls, hemming us in.

I unfolded Cyan's letter and read it.

Peel Tower Ten Thursday Dear Rayne, Please will you help me get out of here? It's not fair that i'm locked upit's just not fair. Daddy is cold & distantlike he always has beenand Jant says Daddy is like that most of the time. Will you ask him for me?

Apart from you and Jant everybody is ignoring me. I try to be independent, and i'm punished. Typical. Even Jant says i made a fool of myself. But i have put it behind me & i'm not thinking of it any more.

I don't want to be stranded in here during the battlei'm not afraid of what may happen. I want to see the advancei can come to help you at the infirmary. I'm sick of trying to be a good girl, i just want to be freeplease, if you're really my friend, send a note to the guards and cancel Daddy's orders. Thank you for writingplease write again.

Yours, Cyan x.x.x (Lady Governor Cyan Peregrine) Slake Cross Hospital 18th May 2.30 a.m.

Dear Cyan, I'm sorry but neither Jant nor myself can let you out of the peel tower, given what is happening down here at the moment. But please do not despair, my dear. Bear out your imprisonment patiently and in time the awful things that are happening will bring you wisdom.

You are intelligent but you are not yet wise. Do not blind yourself with opinions drawn from your own intelligence, because even the cleverest people can be wrong if they do not examine solid facts.

Wisdom never comes from staying at home and avoiding unhappiness. In order to become wise you must go out into the world and be tossed about in its storms, stripped bare by terrible experiences and confused by good ones. After a long time you learn to see and control the effect those circ.u.mstances have on yourself. Then it will never matter one bit where you find yourself in the world, because you will be able to cope with it. The top of a peel tower or a Hacilith bar will be all the same to you if you are comfortably at home with yourself.

Now you are a little uncomfortable you are crying out for help. But you are a Challenger! You can't be Eszai material at all if you are disturbed by a little inconvenience. Every Challenger is prepared to forgo pleasure and comfort in the pursuit of success. You are now a Challenger, so what are you complaining about? Hadn't you better prepare yourself for the compet.i.tion instead? In a sense it's already underway, your father made the first move and now you are in check.

I thought you wanted to rebel, to put distance between yourself and Lightning. Then why on earth have you Challenged him as if you are yet another good archer? Everyone expects Lightning's daughter to have a modic.u.m of archery. I thought you were trying to re-create yourself. You must know that if you follow the career of a great man like your father, you will have to accomplish twice as much to s.h.i.+ne. You won't be able to s.h.i.+ne in your own right if you're known as another archer, because everybody knows Lightning is the best archer.

I doubt you have even thought about itbut of course, you don't really want to compete with Lightning, you just want to escape from his shadow. Consider thisevery Eszai and Challenger must submit to a much greater authority: that of the Emperor. None of us can escape San: not even Lightning. You rebel against your father and come under the power of a more authoritative man. Oh, Cyan, when you become wise you'll realise that freedom is a teenager's aspiration and illusion, and the world actually consists of varying degrees of compromise.

You say that Lightning is cold and distant. My dear, nothing could be further from the truth! He is pa.s.sionate in the extreme! He must hide from his pa.s.sions because they're so strong. I could give plenty of examples, but I only have time to tell one, a secret to which Lightning never refers, and the other Eszai are too politeor afraidto mention.

Eighteen nineteen was a year in which everything changed. It was the year after Jant joined the Circle. Lightning was married and widowed in the same night, and his grief for Savory threw him into an almost catatonic state.

There had been no letters from Micawater. I taught doctors in the university. I sat in my room and read books. I did my daily rounds of the general hospital and came home tired but only in body; I was wondering how Lightning was. He was missed in court and at the front, at the King's table and in the hunting stables. He had sequestered himself, to the exclusion of the real world. I am very much of the real world and, as his closest friend, I decided to pay him a visit.

Eighteen nineteen pa.s.sed into eighteen twenty. On a freezing January night I arrived at your father's palace to find the Lake Gate locked. The stone winged hounds stood rampant on the gateposts, rain dripping from their paws. I peered through the fine drizzle, but saw no lights s.h.i.+ning in the bulk of the palace beyond the river.

I left my coach and followed the estate wall in the dark, until I came to the tradesmen's little arched entrance. I hurried through and across the soaking lawns. I pa.s.sed the grand staircase and instead knocked on the door of the kitchens in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Lightning's steward brought me in and gave me supper. As well as his white ap.r.o.n, he wore a black crepe armband. He gathered a candelabra from the dresser and took a taper from the stove, talking all the while. He bent close to light the candles and whispered, 'M'lord scares us. He sits alone for days, no meals, no sleep. He doesn't bother to open the curtains and we don't dare light the lamps in Main. Doctor, he's wound up in himself and the manor go hang. Thought it best to warn you.'

He guided me, up out of the Covey cellars and through the silent, unlit palace. I think even you would find it discouraging, the building so majestic I felt it extending on both sides of me as we ascended to the main floor. The steward pressed on, past the drawing rooms.

Mourning cloths covered all the statues in the niches, reducing them to featureless, barely human shapes. The portraits had been turned to the wall; their blank backs faced us. I wondered at them, when there had never been any changes in your father's house before; now I believe he wanted to rid himself of the mute, accusing glare of his ancestors.

The rooms leading off from the corridor were in impermeable darkness, but when light from the candelabra flickered in I glimpsed the furniture and objects of virtu standing in shades of grey. Dust sheets had been thrown over them, as when the servants expect Lightning to be absent for years on business. The chandeliers hung in thick wraps. Black linen masked the deep-framed mirror in the salon. The great gold clock had been deliberately stopped.

The ceilings may have been painted by the world's greatest masters, but we walked past like thieves without looking up. A glimmer of candlelight shone under the door to the dining hall. The steward hesitated and looked at me anxiously. I nodded to rea.s.sure him; he gave me the candelabra and showed me through, then bowed and made a hasty retreat.

Lightning sat at the very end of the long table, halfway down the hall. He was leaning forward with his head down, resting in the crook of his arm. His reflection was blurred in the polished marble.

He was not aware of my presence. He picked an orange desultorily out of a bowl with his free hand and rolled it down the table without looking up. It rolled through the small gap between the legs of the silver centrepiece, out the other side and on for another five metres until it dropped off the end of the table beside me.

I put the candelabra down but Lightning did not acknowledge me. He picked another orange and sent it trundling straight down the middle of the table, through the centrepiece.

He was wearing a silk dressing gown and, over it, a very dirty and bloodstained Cathee plaid. He had wound it around his waist and over one shoulder with an automatic gesture from back when he used to wear a toga.

The rear of the hall was invisible in the gloom. I looked past Lightning, and at the edge of the darkness stood his grand piano, wreathed in paper music. Its keys were smeared thickly with dried blood.

The centrepiece was the same then as now, the small statue of a girl reclining on a couch. Lightning rolled another orange between its legs with an accuracy that was both considerable talent and long, long practice. The orange fell off the end of the table and joined several others on the carpet.

'Talk to me,' I said, but the room was so sombre it came out as a murmur. I pulled up a chair and sat down. His breath misted the table top. I touched his arm. 'Come on, Saker. Speak to me.'

'That chair...is two hundred years old.'

'I'm not going to break your chair.'

He said nothing else.

'What happened?'

'I was married...'

'I can see that.'

'I was...'

'Saker...'

'...Married.'

'I really think'

'Do you really? Leave me, Ella, please.'

He was still looking away from me. I put my hand to his cheek and turned his head. He complied, though his eyes were blank.

I said, 'I'm'

'Going to leave me alone?'

'Saker, please tell me the matter.'

'Savory was killed. I tried to shoot the man but I...I missed my shot...I missed.'

'It's been three months,' I said gently.

'Three months is nothing. Nothing.'

'Long enough for Challengers to p.r.i.c.k up their ears.'

'Challengers,' Lightning sighed. 'How you worry me. My heart is torn from my body and I'll never heal. Ever. No matter how long I live. I weep every day. Savory was real, she was strong. In an ugly, unworthy world I had seen a hundred thousand and found just one to love...And everything I'd been through seemed worth it.'

His washed-out voice continued '...When I close my eyes I see images of her. Smiling in the village. Shooting at the b.u.t.ts. My mind flicks through still pictures shockingly quickly, as if I'm constantly waking from sleep...It seems odd that I was really in Cathee.'

'Yes.'

'How could Savory have come from among such a people? They...I should...well, in a hundred years the birds will have eaten them every one...'

For all my fourteen centuries I hadn't lived long enough to know what to say. I tried, 'You're missed at the Castle.'