No Present Like Time

“They’re immortals.”

“Then they can wait,” came the woman’s voice.

Lightning lowered his bow slightly and sat on a table. I said, “We’re safe here for the moment.”

“Oh, we’re safe, are we? Splendid. Shall I just make you a cup of coffee, then? This is your fault, Jant! We could have stayed unobserved. I was hidden. I was prepared to steal back to Stormy Petrel, while you could fly. But no; you cry out ‘Run!’ Now the mob knows we’re here-and I’m cornered!” He shook a fist under my nose. His face was indistinct in the darkness but I could see he was pouch-eyed from lack of sleep. “You irresponsible, foundling, Rhydanne-”

“Please don’t use ‘Rhydanne’ as an insult.”

“Drug addict. Well!”

“Well what? If you’d stayed by the columns they would have caught you. Gio saw me, then everything happened too fast to think.”

“Thinking is supposed to be your strong point. So, has he perished?”

Gio was far from dead. I protested, “I don’t understand it. Tolerance to that amount of belladonna isn’t possible; there are no recorded cases of recovery.”

Lightning drummed his powerful fingers on the table, sounding like a small horse race. He held his great longbow in the other hand, finger over the arrow shaft across its grip. I lit an almond-shaped lamp and paced to the window. The outlaws milled about below.

I felt queasy knowing that the aconitum was useless. I might have needed it myself at any time. I have never actually used it because scolopendium is such a fast-acting drug that on the rare occasions I overdose I am not in a condition to remember it or operate the ring. I have carried aconitum since I first learned of its effects, fifty years ago. Ah, damn. I haven’t replaced the tablets for-how long? Twenty years? And how many rainstorms have I flown through since then; how many long soaks in the bathhouse hot tub? It was a mistake that only an immortal could make. I said, “The tablets have been in my ring too long. The potency must have degraded. Gio isn’t suffering the full effect, if any at all.”

“You have never learned to be an Eszai,” Lightning said quietly, which was worse than his shouting. “Let me take stock. Item: Gio will be determined to repay our attempt on his life. Item: it is four A.M., so we have a full hour before Petrel arrives. Item: I only have one hundred arrows. Item: I am in considerable pain, and I will not be able to run for a sustained time.”

“What?”

For answer Lightning wormed his hand under the bandages around his waist. He held it up, red with blood, and wiped his fingers over the old scar on his palm. I hadn’t seen the stain on his shirt. “The exercise agitated my wound; it has not closed completely. I didn’t want to mention it, but it’ll hinder me so you must know. Damn it, don’t look so taken aback; just go and watch the mob.”

Shrunken by guilt, I turned to the nearest window, swung one shutter open. Lightning said, “Do you see any of my fyrd?”

“No. There aren’t many Lakeland or coast Awians rebelling; they know they need the Castle.”

“Good. I’m grateful for that at least.”

A mass of people filled the plaza between us and the Senate House, red-lit by the bonfire. Their noise was incredible: a tumult of gossip, jabbering fragments of conversation and false rumors-I could use those. I looked down on their heads; hoods, caps and woolly hats. I spotted the mesomorphic woman elbowing her way to the top of the boulevard. There was a general slow flow in that direction, like the start of a landslide. The air thrived with anxiety and excitement. I listened carefully, trying to separate phrases from the chaos: “Let’s go. No point in staying now Gio’s snuffed it, is there? You heard what that prat Tirrick said.”

“I would if I could see a bloody thing. If there’s two Eszai there’ll be more, see? The whole Circle might be here.”

“Gio’s not dead! His orders are to stay put.”

“I gave up all that order crap last year. Come on, think what we can pick up on our way to the ship.”

Gio Ami emerged from the Senate House hefting a large rectangular shield which had a metal bracket to hold and a big padded hook for his upper arm to bear the weight while carrying it. He immediately sheltered behind a pillar, sword drawn. He seemed dazed and was hangover-pale; I could not decide whether the poison was working on him with reduced efficacy, or whether he was sick with tension. He bent nearly double to yell, “I’m here! I’m well. Look!”

“Shoot him,” I told Lightning.

Lightning dipped his head, trying to see Gio. I leaned out and shouted at the crowd, “Tornado’s coming. Mist is sailing half the Castle’s fleet into harbor! Thirty caravels full of fyrd and an Eszai on each ship!”

Gio’s adherents drew toward him but the woman beckoned people to join her. “Come on, we must reach the boats before Tornado arrives.” They surged toward the boulevard.

Gio tried again: “Come back! Listen, they’ll hang you as pirates! I’ll pay you an equal share of everything in this town! There are no more ships! Alone, you’ve no chance against Mist!”

I stuck my head out. “Tornado’s fyrd will arrest anyone who stays with Gio! He’ll be brought to justice!” I withdrew rapidly as an axe smashed into the window frame and fell onto the people beneath. I remarked to Lightning, “Gio can’t stop them leaving. I’ve managed to split them up.”

“Good.” He sighed.

A young swordsman gestured up at my window and babbled something vehemently. Gio shook his head but his friend continued to remonstrate. Gio pointed his rapier. “No, Tirrick!”

Tirrick looked at Gio, seeing a dirty and disheveled figure, and he must have realized at the same time as I did that Gio was not poisoned; it was his paranoia making him act as cautiously as if he was really feeling symptoms. I said, “I think Ata’s right-Gio is mad.”

Lightning said, “Maybe, but fortunately Wrenn is even madder.”

Tirrick glanced at the guards standing by the library entrance, and then ran past Gio into the Senate House.

“Now the fencing masters are arguing between themselves.”

Lightning bit his lips together. “I have always disliked Gio Ami because he professes to be a man of honor but he only lives by the codes that suit him-like his damn Ghallain traditions. He was married once, you know; if he still was then perhaps we would be spared this. But he feigned respect for the peninsula custom. They receive a candle as a gift on their wedding day. If they argue in the following years, they must light the candle and leave it burning for a time corresponding to the length of the argument. So, when it is burned down completely, the couple are automatically considered divorced. It happened to Gio. He called his wife a troublemaker, separated her from the Circle, and home she rode to find her friends aged and infirm, or dead and buried. Poor lady.”

I strained to see farther down the boulevard. White puffs of smoke like cotton bolls were rising from the base of the hill, where the harbor wall was hidden behind lines of houses. “I think Mist’s signaling. She must have figured that it’s all gone wrong. I bet she’s burning canoes…I just don’t know if the signal is for me or the Petrel.”

Lightning watched the stairwell sourly. He said, “Like amateurs we chose a stronger bow than we could manage and missed the mark. If I don’t survive, Jant, will you remember to take my message?”

I nodded, dumbstruck. I had never heard a fatalistic word from Lightning before.

The sky above the Senate was pale gray now; I was able to distinguish the features of the people below. A dark coat became burgundy red, drab showed as light blue, a boy’s hair was highlighted with henna. Dawn permeated a pallid, cloudless winter day.

I looked to the sea again and gave a yelp. The beacon islet was now dimly discernible, the surf breaking on its seaward shore. Heeling around it with four masts in full sail was a ship tiny with distance. She headed into harbor at a great rate of knots, her long pennants snaking. “The Petrel! See, the Petrel’s coming in!”

Lightning sighed with relief. A few minutes later, some lads in padded jackets hurtled up the boulevard, pushed eagerly to Gio. Gio listened, then waved them aside and called out, “This is it! We must meet the Castle’s flagship. I tell you, there’s only one caravel. There are two Eszai aboard and we’ll overwhelm them. Let me have the satisfaction of dealing with Wrenn-and your prize is the Stormy Petrel!”