Dangerous Offspring Part 33

'I was fine, my love. I saw the flood. I never want to go back to Slake Cross though. Every time we go there we get ma.s.sacred.'

Tern said, 'Some people are talking about an odd phenomenon. My warden says G.o.d appeared to the Emperor on the battlefield.'

'Really?' I said casually. 'In what shape?'

'A very strange one. A tall column of smoke, and trees made of worms.'

'Ma.s.s hysteria.' I shrugged. 'People report all kinds of visions under battle stress. It's terror that causes it. Lowespa.s.s generates more folklore than it can use.'

'Well, I don't see why it should have to export it.'

I said, 'Some fyrdsmen say that you can still hear the winch tower bell, tolling underwater in the river. Fyrdsmen will tell you any old c.r.a.p.'

I was interrupted by three flights of whistling arrows being loosed on the other side of the lake in honour of the victor of the chariot races. Eleonora shook herself. 'Lightning slept through the dam breaking,' she said. Tern and I laughed. It's a joke that Lightning is such a sound sleeper Insects could be eating him and he wouldn't wake up.

'You dare wake him, Jant,' said Tern. 'Why didn't you?'

'Um...I was busy.'

'And the Emperor asked Lightning to have dinner with him. At least, I heard so...Is it true?'

'Yes. That is true.'

'But it's unheard of! For Lightning, for anybody! Well, come on. Tell me. What did they talk about?'

'I asked Lightning, but he wouldn't say.'

'I would never have thought anything like a one-to-one conversation could ever happen.'

'It was in the hall at Slake,' I said. 'No one else was there.'

'Couldn't you have spied? No, stupid question.'

Eleonora spun the key to her suite around her finger on its ribbon. 'This place is quaint. I like the marble bathrooms. But it's not as big as Rachiswater. Or as grand as I've planned Tanager to be. It's odd to think it was the capital once.'

'It's not bad for five four nine!' Tern said.

'Lightning's town was even bigger than Hacilith back then,' I added. 'Hacilith took a hundred years to overtake it. He never wanted to extend it; he wanted to preserve it and the palace too.'

Eleonora spun and spun her key. 'What a shame. Lightning rattling around in the house alone for fourteen hundred years. One hundred and forty bedrooms and no woman to share any of them with. It's enough to turn a man's mind. Why hasn't he ever married? Does he bat for the other team, or what?'

Tern laughed. 'No-oo. He's just looking for the perfect match.'

'Well, we'll have to do something about that.' The two women looked at each other. 'He just needs to relax. Perhaps his Queen could...command him to.'

'I think he wants some kind of red-haired huntress,' Tern said as we settled ourselves in the stands.

'Nonsense. He just needs the attentions of a woman au fait with her desires.'

From here was a much better view uphill to the palace. It was all warm, shortbread-coloured Donaise limestone, from the rusticated stonework on the lower storey to the rich carving in the great pediment; many strips of decorative mouldings surrounded a smooth bas-relief of the winged hounds bearing the lozenge coat of arms. Each column led up to a statue on the roof as if supporting it. Between the columns two levels of windows proclaimed how many rooms could house Lightning's guests. The Eyas and Austringer buildings at the ends of the two wings had enormous windows with round arches giving on to the ballroom and stateroom respectively. It was built in the most regular manner rare in the country today; Awia has gone straight from Micawater's cla.s.sical to neocla.s.sical, and now Rachiswater's art nouveau, without ever having been through a rustic phase like the Plainslands.

'It's all right for some,' I said.

'What do you mean?' said Tern.

'Well, Lightning walked straight in to the Circle. He never had to wander around the world the way I did, before I even found out the Castle existed. He didn't have to plot and scheme like an Awian prince, either, because he had the Castle and his immortality instead. No wonder he can pretend this n.o.ble liege fantasy.'

'It's how he had time to bring us together.' Tern laid her hand on my knee.

'I call that plotting and scheming,' said Eleonora.

Tern said, 'I paid him a routine visit and he mentioned I might be interested in Jant. I remember taking my coach to see Lightning one morning and I told him how Jant's courts.h.i.+p was progressing. "He came to see me last nightI love his appalling timing. And do you knowhis boots were covered in manure!" How we laughed!'

I snorted unhappily. Travelling from the Castle to Wrought to court her had been the start of my drug-taking. I stayed awake for two, three nights at a time, driven to extreme exhaustion by a fear of inadequacy. And apparently Tern had already decided to marry me before I started and there was no reason for me to have used scolopendium at all.

She had flicked open a pamphlet. 'Ha!' she said. 'Lightning has a grotto. He never told me.'

'A what?'

'A grotto. How exciting. I've been coming here for nearly a hundred and twenty years and he never showed me. Listen.' She read from the book: ' "Who would have thought that a cavern of such delightful artifice would lie at the end of the path? A pa.s.sageway leads to a charming rocaille grotto with a small waterfall. Niches in the walls form sh.e.l.l-adorned seats, and above them is the inscription: All time not spent in loving is lost." Ah, isn't he sweet?'

I said, 'The grotto's on the other side of the secret garden. We can visit it later. What's that?'

'It's a programme for the party and a tour of the grounds. All the sculptures and so forth.'

I let her chatter on, dwelling on how beautiful she wasthe gentle contours of her face, her manicured hands. I thought how lucky I was that she found me equally wonderful.

Tern loved the summer sun, though her manor had a much more dismal climate. Wrought is in the rain shadow of Bitterdale; all the clouds that come in from the sea rise over the hills, drop their rain on her manor and leave the inland manors clear.

I looked down to the glistening lake. Far on our right towards its centre an artificial island was covered with trees. The pink marble pediment of the dynasty's mausoleum, its engraved frieze, and the pinnacles of other memorials showed between the tree tops.

The still water reflected them, but further off by the sluice gate bridge, the stirred-up water scintillated as its silica flecks reflected the sunlight. Many people were promenading along the bridge, and I don't blame them because Micawater Bridge is one of Frost's finest legacies.

It spanned a little man-made river flowing out of the tail-end of the almond-shaped lake, once natural but artificially enhanced since Esmerillion's time. The bridge carried the avenue through its roofed and arched arcade, and below it had square windows along its length above the span. Their shutters were closed; all were honey-coloured varnished wood to match the stone. From flagpoles along the length of the parapets, blue pennants draped down almost to the water.

There were rooms inside the bridge: all well-furnished and painted, and there was even a tiny theatre for music recitals. Lightning's friends sometimes use it as a summer house. From the windows they can look out over the lake to watch fleets of swans, dragonflies whizzing over the water's surface beneath them, and sometimes horse hooves clattered overhead along the avenue. So, over the centuries, Lightning has shaped the landscape much as Frost did, but for beauty and convenience. Whenever he had enlisted her help for a feat of engineering it was also a feat of elegance.

'Look!' said Eleonora. 'Here he is.'

Lightning emerged from the gold pavilion, carrying a compound bow so big it looked like a longbow. Cyan was behind him in a black T-s.h.i.+rt, waistcoat, quiver and a bracer on her arm. Lightning strolled up to us and bowed to the Queen. 'I hope you enjoy the tournament.'

'I will,' said Eleonora.

The Challenged Eszai always acts as his own master of ceremonies, conducting the Challenge himself according to his own style. It was a necessary part of the facade of unshakable confidence which is our most effective guard against Challengers. Lightning had asked his five reeves, from his musters of Micawater Town, Bitterdale, Altergate, Tambrine and Foin, to act as functionaries.

Lightning walked to the centre of the area and held out his hands to the crowd. 'This is my standard Challenge, which I set to show I can defeat a Challenger at all kinds of shooting. There will be three rounds. The first is for distance. There will be just one arrow each, unless the bow fails. I wish the Challenger, Cyan Peregrine, to shoot first in each round.'

Cyan stood behind a dark blue pennon on a cane. She looked small next to her father and seemed very aware of the inconsequential figure she cut, with the slivers of her legs and narrow squared shoulders. Her red compound bow looked like a toy in comparison with Lightning's. She took an arrow and nocked it to string and then, with the bow in her hands, she lost her uncertainty and became businesslike. She knew what to do, and I knew how good she was: I had witnessed her skill in the Jacamar Club.

The crowds waited. There was not a breath of wind. Cyan took the string in a pinch grip, the horn draw-ring on her thumb. She drew the string, tilted the bow high for a distance shot, and loosed. Her arrow looped high above the lake, seemed to pause at the top of its arc, turned and came down, easily clearing the gra.s.sy far bank. It clattered on the avenue.

One of the reeves went to place a flag where the arrow had fallen. The crowd gave a polite round of applause, which we joined in while Lightning stepped up to the pennon. He held the arrow across the grip, already nocked. He crafts his tournament arrows himself, for perfection; each has azure fletchings and a gold cresting band.

The crowd fell silent. It is an awesome thing to see Lightning shoot. He raised his bow and tipped it back, drew it fluidly full compa.s.s until it formed a perfect semicircle and the tang-less pile point drew back into a groove cut into the ma.s.sive grip. His powerful shoulders and back muscles took the eighty-two-kilo strain. Eleonora looked avariciously at the angle of his shoulder blade.

He loosedand the arrow sped from his bow, so high it disappeared. It started coming down way past the point where Cyan's arrow had fallen. It pa.s.sed the avenue, the gra.s.s behind it, and fell silently into the beech woods. The crowd applauded and Lightning acknowledged them. Well, he made that look easy.

Minutes pa.s.sed before the official result could be returned. The Bitterdale reeve came running and announced, 'Seven hundred and thirty metres! Three times the Challenger's distance!'

Cyan was pale. I wondered whether her intermittent self-control could stand such a test.

'Now,' Lightning said. 'We have the speed contest. One minute to shoot as many arrows as possible into these targets.' He gestured at some archery b.u.t.ts scarcely a hundred metres away. 'Reeve Tambrine will time the minute.'

He put his great compound bow on a rack and picked up a smaller one, much like Cyan's, faster to draw than a longbow. He stood beside her and they both pushed a row of arrows into the ground in front of them. The Tambrine reeve lowered his arm and Cyan started plucking up the arrows and shooting them as fast as she could.

Lightning dawdled. He picked an arrow, loosed it, looked in its direction, chose another and turned it over, fitted it to string.

There was a great hiss of indrawn breath from the crowd. We rose to our feet, staring at him. Tern touched my shoulder. 'What is he doing? Why is he doing that?'

'I don't know.'

When the minute was up, Cyan had shot fourteen arrows and Lightning had shot ten. Cyan was panting, then she looked at Lightning's target and her eyes and mouth went wide.

There was silence, then a sudden uproar as everyone turned to their neighbours and started asking what it meant. The reeve was looking, concerned and frightened, at his master but Lightning wasn't meeting anybody's eye. He turned to Cyan and said, 'The heft of that bow of yours warps left at a distance. See, your arrows are tending left on the target? You should shoot a little right for the next round.'

He came over to us and took a drink of water. I said, 'What are you playing at? You lost! Deliberately. Obviously deliberately!'

He smiled at me and the ladies. 'Don't worry. I needed to give Cyan some sop to her pride. There's one round left.'

'You're playing with your life!' Tern shrieked.

'I just don't want to show my daughter up too much. I know what I'm doing. I'm unbeatable at accuracy.' He didn't say it as a boast, it was a plain fact.

Lightning gave me the compound bow and took his customary longbow from the rock. He carried it as fluidly as if it was part of him, an extension of his body. An accuracy target was set up at two hundred metres' distancea black ring on the outside, then, white, blue and gold in the centre.

Lightning announced. 'We have five arrows each. Whoever scores most highly on the target will remainI mean, gainthe t.i.tle of Lightning. Cyan Peregrine will shoot first.'

Cyan came forward to stand on a stone slab set into the gra.s.s. She felt for the rea.s.suring ends of the arrows in her quiver, selected one composedly. She sighted and loosed. The arrow appeared in the middle of the cross in the gold, the target's exact centre. She stepped aside and looked at her father defiantly.

Lightning stood on the flagstone. He was the target archer absolute. He made it seem so effortless. He faced the b.u.t.t with a calm expression, confident and determined. His whole att.i.tude was of command and power over the bow, the arrows and the target. He placed his feet apart with the weight equally on them, in a firm but springy stance. He was balanced and relaxeda finger above the nock on the string, and two below. He used no marker, he knew it so well. He drew, and loosed sharply, the string free in an instant, and the arrow flew straight and sure.

There was a crack of wood. Lightning's longer arrow had split Cyan's in two. Its blue flights stood out from her white ones.

A roar from the audience. The reeves and servants sitting on the bales jumped up to applaud. Lightning acknowledged them but the noise seemed to daunt Cyan. She wasn't experienced enough to have expected it. She said nothing, just looking out to the target and down to her own gear. She pulled the string and extended her left arm in one movement, and the arrow point came up. She looked directly to the target.

Her arrow hit the edge of the gold. It was Lightning's turn to shoot. His arms were firm and unwavering, his attention never relaxed. Again he split Cyan's arrow perfectly.

The crowd's applause ceased immediately.

'What is he doing?' I said. 'He could have won then!'

Eleonora murmured, 'By G.o.d, he's brave.'

'What?'

'One day, immortal, in the far future you'll be able to say you saw this, and the rest of the world will look on you with awe. You will be able to say you were there at the beginning.'

'I don't understand.'

'Just watch.'

Tern edged closer to me and put her arm around my waist.

Cyan shot again, and again Lightning hit her arrow directly, splitting it in half.

She raised her arm and wiped her face on her sleeve. She was desperate, but she stood with an elasticity to resist the force and recoil of her tw.a.n.gy little bow. She was the timeless picture of grace as she drew it with a beautiful movement until it filled her whole frame. She hit the gold above the arrowsthey were as snug together as a fistful of sticks, their flights entangled.

Lightning split her arrow.

This was the last one. Cyan was aware of every factor that might make a difference. She shrugged her waistcoat tighter, she adjusted her bracer. She dug a thumb behind her belt buckle. Her little movements were like the wriggles of a worm on a hook.

She raised her bow and shot. The arrow snicked in next to the others on the gold cross.

Lightning's turn: he drew. He loosed.

His arrow went wideinto the black outer ring.

Everyone in the stands was on their feet. He had lost.

He trembled as he lowered his bow. He gulped as if with a dry throat and tears came to his eyes, but with absolute mastery of himself, they weren't shed.

Cyan was walking in a small circle with an expression of confusion. He stopped her, and made her look at him. He kissed her and said something softly. Cyan blinked.

Louder, he added, 'Now I am out, and you are in. Enjoy it.'

He placed the end of his bow against the inside of his shoe, and unstrung it. He wound the string around his hand and slipped it in his pocket. Then he began to walk, past the stands and the dumbstruck audience, leaving Cyan behind. 'But...' she said. 'But who's going to look after me?'

We stared, motionless. My head felt like it was full of cotton wool. I couldn't think: my mind wasn't allowing me to form any thoughts. There was nothing in my head but a wondering s.p.a.ce. I felt light on my feet and nauseous, as if my body wasn't real. Black shadows began to gather at the periphery of my visionI was about to faint. Everything was blurred. San only knows what Lightning must be feeling.

Tern sat down heavily. Her speech stumbled: 'W-What has he done?'

'I don't know.' I answered too quickly.

'Deliberately. He did it deliberately.'

The Queen's voice quivered at a higher pitch as she made an effort to control it. 'What a way to teach Cyan a lesson.'

There was a scuffle at the end of the stands and Rayne rushed out. She grabbed the back of Lightning's s.h.i.+rt and sank to her knees. She was hysterical; the ends of her open mouth were down in her jowls. Tears were running from her eyes channelled into the crevices between her cheeks and the sides of her nose. 'Saker!' Lightning tried to raise her to her feet but she had no strength; she just sank back.