From this landing stage a series of uneven steps hacked into the chalk led up to a cave entrance above the high- water line-a smugglers’ hideout. Though since Mist knew about it their contraband would be long gone.
Mist paid her crew and told them when to muster at the Puff Inn in Awndyn-on-the-Strand to gain a cut of the profit from the spice ship. She briefed them to hold their tongues about Tris with a promise of future employment, and dismissed them.
I flew into Awndyn feeling that the atmosphere had changed; people were looking up at me suspiciously. I visited the offices of the Black Coach, the postal system of stagecoaches that uses the stables and hostels of coaching inns. It was set up by my predecessors who were reliant on horses. Its mail network was nominally answerable to me as Comet, and despite their palpable disquiet the Awndyn branch seemed to be coping just as well as the last time I visited six years ago. I procured horses from their yard for Mist, Lightning and the Swordsman, and had to sign in triplicate for a carriage-and-pair for our luggage. I joined the others on the main road and directed them to the Remige Road in the direction of Eske manor and the Castle.
The sensation of the waves’ movement still lasted from the ship. I felt as if I was rising and falling although I had both feet on dry land. It was a pleasant feeling that lulled and confused my senses; coupled with the warmth of scolopendium it sent me into a condition of bliss.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Remige Road was one of the main routes built by the Castle for the movement of fyrd to and from the Front. It was wide, for two wagons abreast, and it had worn a deep cutting into the chalk on the downs west of Awndyn where it had not been cobbled. Lightning, Mist and Serein led the coach-and-pair inland across a broom and gorse heath, under a sky of the vivid blue that is the field of the Awian flag. They rode alongside an oak plantation belonging to Mist, then an orchard. Sunlight shone on the horses’ well-groomed flanks. Light reflected from the metal panels on my boots and darted bright patches on the path.
Flying is the most selfish pastime in the world. It’s all I ever want to do. Flying is being alone but not lonely, swept up on the exhaust of the world; my wings and the ground two magnets pushing each other apart. The sky is more gentle than the touch of any lover, and gliding on a hot day is as effortless as sleep. I hold out my wings, supported on rounded air, and change direction with a tiny movement. I traveled at an altitude too great to be seen from the patchwork farmland and toy cottages. I urged myself higher, trying to cram more miniature moated granges and dwindling trees into my field of vision. I sang, “Oh, we met in the Frozen Hound hotel, down on Turbary Road.”
Lightning and Mist seemed to be arguing. I dropped height and circled above them, my backswept sickle wings beating quickly with the wrist joint bent gracefully as a falcon’s. I risked spooking the horses but I wanted to hear the Archer.
“This is far worse than the year fifteen-oh-nine,” he rebuked Mist angrily. “Gio Ami is much more desperate than Eske was then.”
Mist said, “Well, I agree, but the Castle will weather another such revolution, especially when you and I can negotiate.”
“Let us send Comet ahead.”
“No. I want to be present when he gives his report.”
“What was the year fifteen-oh-nine, anyway?” asked Wrenn.
“Oh, don’t get Lightning started or he won’t shut up till nightfall.”
“Your charm never falters. Wrenn, I’ll tell you. Five hundred years ago we pushed the Insects farther out of Lowespass than their Wall had been for centuries. The Insects were less of a threat, so the southern manors decided they were safe. They thought they no longer needed the Castle, so they refused to pay our dues. The governor of Eske manor led the way, and the whole Plainslands followed within the year.”
Mist sniggered. “When the taxes dried up, many Eszai thought their power was being eroded and they panicked; it split the Circle half and half. The Sailor-my predecessor-led those who wanted to use violence, and San nearly expelled him from the Castle. But Lightning’s diplomacy won, as it will again.”
“Oh, yes,” said Wrenn admiringly. He drew nearer to Mist.
Lightning continued: “The wisdom of our Emperor resolved the situation. We’re only his servants, whatever Ata may say. You see, San offered Eske’s only son a place in the Circle. He was a damn good horseman and deserved to be Hayl. Lord Governor Eske died of old age fifteen years later, taxes unpaid. His immortal son inherited the manor and the uprising simply collapsed.”
They reached the edge of the escarpment and looked down; the land fell away like the inside of a bowl, to the flat-or at most gently undulating-Plainslands. From the curved grassy ridge that formed Awndyn’s border they could see to the serrated horizon of Eske forest.
The square fields on the hillside were white with chalk soil; they looked like they were covered in snow. Yellow patches of barley with straggly orange poppies between them contrasted with the sky and hallucinogenic- green grass of the downs. Awndyn was a beautiful manorship.
Eske and Awndyn were the only two Plainslands manors owned by families who originated, centuries ago, in Awia. The Plainslands manors might seem weak and old-fashioned, incessantly bickering over their boundaries, but because the land was decentralized, its cultures were stable, tolerant and as varied as the Plainslands landscapes-peoples of forests, heath, Brandoch marsh and Ghallain pampas.
At the foot of the hill the coach and riders forded the pure water of a trout stream. Dust clouds and chaff blew across the road from a tariff barn where schoolchildren, who holiday at harvesttime, were brushing the paved floor in readiness to store next month’s crop. They peered out from under the barn’s thatched fringe. The older ones bowed their heads when they saw our sunburst insignia-while the teenage girls turned to each other and shrieked with passion.
I descended and said to Lightning, “There are fewer farmers here than usual. If they’ve gone to Gio, more people are involved than I thought.”
“Great. With a shortage of labor and food the last thing we need is the farmers joining a rebellion.”
The air brushing the pits of my wings and the paler silky feathers under them was so erotic I started thinking of Tern again. How she giggled when I pushed my cold face down her bodice lacings. How her touch was so gentle I screamed but she kept stroking. I remembered Tern walking slowly in the snow, a parasol over her shoulder. My flitting footsteps crunch as I sprint around the corner of the black manor house. My body collides with hers. “Caught you!” We fall embraced into the snow, laughing and kissing. She would bend my flight feathers to give me a sensation of speed, and I would encircle her whole body with them. Her wondering face looked up at my smile. And all the time she carried on her affair in secret. I snarled and spat down into a corn field.
I borrowed the horses just over ten hours ago. It had been one hour since we descended from Awndyn heath and entered the arable land. It should take another thirty hours’ travel to reach the Castle. In five hours it will be sunset. One hour after that we will reach the Cygnet Ring Coach Inn in the dense part of the forest. In eight hours I would need another fix.
It was four P.M. when we entered the forest. The road cut through it cleanly; the spaces were open and
