The Margrave

10

Starmen are curious about our friendship with the owls. It is more than friendship. The Silent Ones and the Sekoi speak one tongue and have one concern. There is little else I can say without betraying secrets, but this much is true— that when Anara is cleansed, they and we shall rule together.

Words of a Sekoi Karamax,

recorded by Kallebran

SCALA SLEPT CURLED UP, her hair loose on the pillow. There was something childlike about her like that, Carys thought, taking another step back, feeling for the door handle. And it was the strangest of the moons, Atterix, that was shining on her, through the bare window of the cottage, the pale light falling over the small collection of cracked cups and plates on the dresser.

Her fingers touched the bolt. She drew it back, wincing at the faint squeak. The inner curtain to the storeroom stayed closed. Quist was in there on a mattress, squeezed between sacks of grain and hanging, overripe cheeses.

Scala slept without moving.

Gently Carys pushed the door open and slipped through. The night was brilliant with moonlight. Atterix and Agramon, Pyra and Lar were all full, and far to the west beyond the jagged hills, another of the sisters must be rising, her ghostly glow lighting the dim clouds.

The sisters. Carys grinned, moving into the shadow of the house. She’d been around keepers too long. Raffi had filled her head with all those old folktales; things old Jellie had never taught, or only mentioned with scorn.

The cottage had been deserted when they’d ridden in, but the ashes of the fire were barely cold and some milk in a jug on the windowsill still fresh. Whoever lived here had abandoned the place in a hurry; they might well be hiding up there in the hills, thinking Scala had been leading a patrol, or maybe they’d already been taken for the castle or the Wall. Or they might be closer than that, watching.

There were some outbuildings. An empty stable that would do. Rats rustled in the straw. Carys stepped inside without a sound, into a shadowy, dung-smelling corner, and listened. Then she unscrewed the relic. The small lights seemed brighter than before; maybe it was the moonlight that affected them. They were tiny points of blue; as she held down the button they instantly went red. It never ceased to fascinate her.

She had to keep it operating for the right amount of time. Galen had said that the relic still had power, that if he was close enough he would feel it, and even if he was too far it would leave a trace of its presence here, a faint glimmer of energy he could detect when he came.

Thumb tight on the button, Carys counted anxious seconds. The Sekoi was alive—one good thing. She’d seen it jump on the bridge. And Raffi—they would have hauled Raffi up through the trapdoor. Of course they would. The whiteness of his face came back to her, the sudden terror of that plunging fall.

Her thumb slipped. The lights went blue. “Blast,” she hissed. She pressed again—it was tiny and awkward, and then a movement up in the rafters brought the sweat out on her back. Hastily she screwed the relic tight, whipped a knife out of her belt, and turned.

“All right,” she said firmly. “I know you’re there. Come out and you won’t get hurt.” The darkness of the barn was utterly silent. Even the rats seemed to have gone. Through a rectangular opening in the roof she could see stars, and moonlight falling onto the hay loft, the last tumbled bales, their long stalks spilling, gnawed, dragged out by birds. Then something answered her.

It was a low, churring noise, high up, so eerie, it made the hairs on her neck prickle.

She stared through the dark. “We’re the Watch,” she hissed, breathless. “Give yourself up.”

A narrow gray object drifted past her shoulder, down through the moonlight. Her heart gave a great leap; she grabbed at the thing and caught it left-handed. It was a feather. She turned instantly, her whole body alert.

The owl was enormous. It had perched on the crossbar above her, a species she had never seen before, its face smooth and pale, the small beak hooked. Maybe it was a ghost-owl, or one of the Great Blacks that had gathered and mourned over the fields of the dead after the Sekoi battles.

Its eyes unnerved her. They were perfectly round pools of faceted darkness; she imagined how she must look to it—an upturned white face, shifting planes of light, unprotected. She stepped back.

The owl’s stare was unblinking. She saw, with a thrill of surprise, that it wore around its neck a thin, jeweled collar. Carys swallowed. “Can you understand me?” she whispered.

The owl made no movement, no sound. Its huge stillness made her feel foolish and threatened, but she went on quickly. “I know you can understand the Sekoi. One of them is coming, a gray striped one, with two Starmen. In a few days, maybe. Tell them I was here. Tell them we’re heading for the Wall at a place called Flor’s Tower, west of here. Remember that. The Wall.”

The owl made a small churr. It stared at her and blinked once, swiveled its head and watched a spider run speedily into a crack, then swiveled back.

Carys frowned. “I must be crazy,” she breathed.

The door creaked. The owl opened vast wings. Without the slightest sound it flew, brushing so close to her face she felt its draft, up out of the roof-hole and away, blotting out the stars.

She turned. Quist was in the doorway. He glanced quickly at the knife. “What are you doing out here? Not trying to run off, I hope.”

Carys smiled sourly. “I heard something. Thought maybe the owners had come back.”

He glanced around. “Have they?”

“It was an owl. Ugly great thing.”

He stared at her for a moment as the owl had stared, so she put the knife away and said, “What about you?”

“Call of nature.”

“Then I’ll get out.”

He stood aside, and she went out into the moonlight and slammed the door. Then she breathed deep, folded her arms, and looked out at the stars. She believed him just as much as he believed her.

THEY RODE WEST. It was a damp morning; the faintest of drizzles that they could hardly see, but it clouded the tops of the trees and clung like mist in hollows, turning the path into a muddy slough. They were three days out of the castle. Last night had been the first chance Carys had had to get a signal out, but she was sure it had been too brief. Her horse plunged into a puddle, and she swore, clutching tight. Still. At least Raffi would have had his warning.

“So why the Tower of Song?” Scala asked suddenly.

“What?”

“The Tower of Song. You asked for rooms there.”

Carys tried to remember her demands. “I stayed there last year. An amazing place.”

Scala shrugged gracefully. “I’ve never been. Quist used to work there.” She glanced at him, over the horse’s ears. “Didn’t you, lover.”

He had been quiet all morning. Now he pushed back his hood and let the branches drip on his hair. “Once.”

“In what department?” Carys asked casually.

“Records. In the Overpalace.”

“I thought that was classified.”

“It is.”

She looked at him thoughtfully. She had nothing to lose, so she said, “When I was there I tried to find out about myself. Where I came from. Against the Rule, I know, but the Rule isn’t everything, is it?”

Scala’s red lips smiled. “No indeed. And what did you find out?”

“Nothing.”

Quist’s horse brushed through a bush of springmallow that released clouds of white seed. “What year were you?” he asked.

She shrugged. “One forty-six WE.”

“What house?”

“Marn Mountain.”

Maybe his horse stumbled. He twisted, for a second seemed off balance, caught by surprise. More than that. Shock. Carys looked away. In that instant she sensed, without doubt, that he knew something. So being around keepers had some use. “Ring any bells?” She kept the anxiety out of her voice.

It took him a moment to answer, and when he did, his face was set. “Only that that was the house where they took the children of Mathravale.”

The name echoed vaguely. “Where?”

But Scala had stopped her horse across the path. She gave Quist a swift, angry look. “That’s classified,” she snapped. “And we don’t discuss it with renegades. Now speed up. And stop talking.” She turned.

Quist looked after her, a strange, half-resentful stare. Then he caught Carys’s eye and laughed sourly. “You heard the castellan. If the castellan commands, we must obey.”

“Even you?”

He looked away, into the misty trees. “Especially me.”

ALL DAY SHE HELD THE NAME steady in her mind. Mathravale. She had heard it before—or no, not heard it. Seen it. On some written page. Maybe in one of Galen’s books, or in the library on Sarres. But it took her all that day, the long ride down from the misty hills, the drizzling rain, the sparse supper in the tiny Watch outpost at Depra, the two women there flustered and Scala being gracious and sardonic, a whole day of mental struggle till she lay in a cold bed just about to fall asleep, for the memory, suddenly and completely, to come back.

She sat up in the dark. Watch history. Second lesson. Wednesday mornings. The thick yellow pages of clumsy print, four pages a week, to be learned by heart. Tactics, battles, the Sekoi revolt, the piecemeal destruction of the filthy and sorcerous Order. And on page 654 the word. Mathravale. The sentence came back to her; with all her training, she made herself remember it.

The supreme tactical triumph of the Watch, it had said, came at Mathravale, where . . . and they had turned over, bored and cold and weary, and every book in the class had had the next four pages torn out. Every book. No one had dared to ask why. Old Jeltok had mumbled and sworn in the dim classroom, then had creaked down between the rows of desks and muttered, “Get on. Get on!” and the boy reading had done just that, and the history had jumped a year, as if whatever happened at Mathravale had been blotted out.

It had just been one mystery among many. She remembered how she had rubbed the torn edges with her finger. And as far as she knew she’d never come across the word again. Until today. She lay back on the hard pillow. It made sense. If the children at Marn had been from this place, it made sense that whatever happened there wouldn’t be mentioned. It must have been important.

Galen would know. But Galen was far away. It was Quist she’d have to work on. Turning over, she closed her eyes. Was she one of the children of Mathravale? Was that home?

THEY LEFT EARLY IN THE MORNING, much to the Watchwomen’s relief, climbing again, high into woods. It was warm, and Carys took her damp jacket off, tying it to the saddle. These were sheshorn trees; they murmured and susurrated in the high winds, a gentle sound. Carys wondered what they were saying.

Near the top of the ridge Scala turned. “We’ll have to do something about you, Carys.”

“Do something?” For a moment she was chilled, but Scala only smiled coyly and held out a bronze insignia chain. “Wear this. I’m afraid it demotes you, but it’s the only substitute we have.”

Carys took it. The number was 2778. The name, Greta Rothesy. “Who was she?”

“An adjutant. She died.” The castellan turned and gathered up the horse’s reins in her small, gloved grip. “We’ll need to keep your identity secret from now on. The camp commander at Flor’s Tower is a very astute man; if he found out who you were, Quist and I would instantly be imprisoned for abetting a spy.” She smiled. “And you’d be hard put to make deals with him. Believe me. He always goes by the book.”

“Not like you. Or Braylwin.” Carys changed the insignia quickly.

“Arno Braylwin?” Scala laughed, amused. “Oh, you won’t come across him. He had to be ransomed from some petty warlord. Last time I heard, he’d been demoted to a supply clerk in some whaling station on the Ice Coast.”

Ducking under a branch, Carys grinned. “He’ll be back. He had a whole network of bribery and blackmail.”

The trees were thick now, the path dwindling to a thread of fallen leaves.

“How far are we from this place, anyway?”

Ahead, Scala came to the top of the ridge, and a stiff wind blew out her hair. “Not far at all,” she said.

Carys’s horse stopped; she swung herself off, pushed past Quist, who was standing on a rock, and stared down into the valley. It was like something out of one of the Sekoi stories.

Black, immense, unbelievable, crawling with men, littered with cranes and gantries and scaffolding, engines of wood hauling huge blocks, mountains of mortar and sand and viaducts of water, the noise and stink and squalor and splendor of it rising, even to here. It stretched into the distance, complete, towered, bristling with weapons. It had no end, as far as she could see.

It was the Wall.