Guns of the Dawn (15 page)

The young Warlock was not in the room, and she guessed the newly anointed wizards had been taken somewhere else to rest. Deerlings was a sprawling mansion, but she decided he could not be far
away, so while the King took the guests’ attention with another fine speech, she slipped unobtrusively from the room.

Heavy with memory, the cold quiet of Deerlings enveloped her. As the ballroom doors closed, so the sound of human joy was shut off behind them. The chamber beyond was empty of
life, dominated only by the dead. Portraits of the family glowered down on her: warriors dressed in military garb or armour; women laced and whaleboned into aristocratic poses; men in the dark
robes of the King’s Warlocks, many sporting proudly the handprint brand of their office. A huge bear menaced one corner vacantly, tall enough that the flat crown of its head brushed the
ceiling, bared teeth and hooked claws raised to threaten the man who had slain it, himself now generations dead. Perhaps his likeness was somewhere on the wall, staring down at his great prize, the
two of them locked in an endless rivalry.

She passed down a long hallway, the windows of which faced onto a walled courtyard long untended. The overgrown vines and weeds and bushes reached up as if to ensnare dark statues of winged
angels taking flight. To Emily it seemed that they were striving to escape the foliage, and that it was dragging them down, seeking to bind them to the earth. She could see no door opening onto
that garden, as though the house itself had closed it off and forgotten it, angels and all.

She paused at the doorway of the next dim chamber she came upon. From the darkness within, armour glinted on the walls: breastplates dulled with age, crossed sabres and antique broadswords
beneath them; the bygone tools of the soldier’s trade arrayed now as heirlooms and prizes. Pikes and axes, she saw; helms and flags of all the nations that Lascanne had warred against.
Perhaps there would be a Denlander flag here soon; at least she hoped so. Emily moved forward, brushing against a pike beside the door, which scraped across the face of a scarred shield.

There was a strangled cry and something lunged at her, slicing the air. She had taken only a single step into the room, and now reeled against the wall with a clatter of armour, sending a curved
scimitar bounding angrily across the floor. She flinched, arms up to protect her face – and her eyes met those of Lord Deerling.

He had his drawn sabre halfway towards her, but the hand of one of his savages had stayed him from delivering the blow. The man’s old face was drawn and pale, aghast at himself. In the
gloom she had not spotted him or his attendants, or had taken them for mere exhibits.

‘My lord, please, I apologize, I did not mean to . . .’

‘I’m so sorry,’ the old man said, his voice almost a whisper. With a heaving breath he lowered the sword, let it follow the long-familiar path back into its scabbard.
‘Please forgive me, young lady.’

‘My lord . . .’ she began, but did not know what to say. The two savages stared at her with eyes as round and orange as the orbs of owls. Their hair was feathery, brown and white and
grey, blending with their cloaks. Their muscular corded bodies were dark and lean, with nails like talons. Close to, they did not look so human as she had thought. ‘My lord, is something
wrong? I did not mean to intrude.’

His tension-drawn face essayed a smile, which made him look infinitely older and more fragile. ‘I came away from it all – the music and the crowds – because I cannot live
amongst such things any more. I am unfit for company, young lady. I . . . have been at war such a long time. One can only witness so many terrible things before one becomes . . . unsuited for
polite society.’

She saw he was trembling like a child. ‘My lord, will you sit?’

Gratefully he folded himself into a chair, tilting his head back until it touched the flat of an axeblade hanging behind him. ‘I wish you had not seen me like this, young lady. I have . .
. spells where it all comes back to me, the fighting and the war, and then I must leave them all. I am not safe company in those moments. I see the enemy, then . . .’

She eyed the two savages. ‘I wonder that you keep such company, my lord, if you do not wish to be reminded.’

He laughed weakly. ‘I need no help in the reminding. I keep my friends here because they understand. They know what I have gone through . . . what I am still going through. They make sure
that I do no harm. Please, young lady, you have strayed onto a sight you should not have seen, and I am sorry for that.’

*

Early the next morning, Grant was waiting for them with the carriage when the time came to leave. Alice was being secretive and mysterious, but Emily understood that she had not
attracted the King’s attention. For her own part, Emily had seen no further sign of either Giles Scavian or Mr Northway.

No sooner had his name crossed her mind than Alice’s prattle moved on. ‘And I shall tell Mary that you danced with that loathsome creature Northway, and no doubt she will have a lot
to say about that.’

‘Let her say what she will,’ Emily retorted sternly.

‘I do not understand how you could do that.’

‘You do not understand a great many things, Alice.’

The buggy shifted forward a little, then stopped as Grant reined in the horses.

‘Is there a problem, Grant?’ asked Emily, peering into the pre-dawn gloom.

‘I need to wait for the road ahead to clear, ma’am. Also there’s a gentleman here I think wishes to speak to you.’

Emily leant out, caught her breath in surprise, and opened the door as quickly as she could. The hand that helped her down was that of Giles Scavian.

‘Miss Marshwic,’ he said, ‘I had hoped to speak to you before you left.’

She almost told him then and there how she had gone in search of him, but it would not have been seemly. She confined herself to, ‘Mr Scavian, you seem well recovered from your
ordeal.’

‘To be touched by the King’s fires is something not lightly undertaken.’ He looked about him awkwardly. There were a few lines on his face that she thought had not been there
when they last spoke. ‘Miss Marshwic, I. . . in truth I found our talk together refreshing. You are quite unlike other ladies I have met here.’ He stopped then, colouring slightly.
‘I did not quite mean to . . . I hope you understand me.’

‘I do,’ she said, very conscious of Alice eavesdropping close behind her. ‘I enjoyed our conversation, Mr Scavian – very much so.’

His face lit up. ‘Miss Marshwic, I . . . I suppose you head now for your family home.’

‘Grammaine, yes. You are welcome to visit us there at any time. It would be good to have guests, especially one as eminent as a wizard of the King.’

Behind his eyes, something dropped, locking her out. ‘Alas, I . . . go to the war tomorrow. The King bestows no gifts idly, but would see them used. I just wanted . . . In truth I wanted
to say goodbye. I would that we had met before, Miss Marshwic.’ He bit his lip. ‘May I take some message, or do some favour for you? Have you friends or relatives at the
fighting?’

‘Where do you travel?’

‘The Levant front. The swamp country.’

Without thinking, Emily took his hand in hers and held it there, hot and dry from the King’s fire. ‘My brother Rodric serves there. Please see that he is safe. He is very
young.’

‘I shall do all I can.’

‘And I have a brother-in-law, Lieutenant Tubal Salander. Perhaps he can help you there when you arrive. It will all be unfamiliar to you.’

‘It will,’ he agreed. ‘I had never thought there would be war during my lifetime. I had not looked for it, in truth.’

‘Will you do a third favour for me?’ she asked.

‘Only name it, Miss Marshwic.’

‘Will you keep yourself safe, Mr Scavian?’

He gave a little laugh at that. ‘I must needs do my duty but, beyond that, I shall protect myself as best I can – for you, since you ask it.’

‘Please do.’ She saw that the path away from Deerlings was clear now for them to travel, and he saw it too.

‘I wish you the very best of journeys,’ he said. Then, just as she turned to go: ‘Miss Marshwic?’

She looked back, and saw he had held out one hand. Briefly, a light flared up in the palm: a dancing, flickering ball of ghostly flame that lit up his face for her. He smiled uncertainly.
‘The gifts of the King are for more than just war.’ With his other hand he took her wrist, gently pulled it towards him, then decanted some of the pale fire onto her own palm.

She gasped in shock, but there was only the faintest heat from it, and the flame skittered between her fingers, and danced there for long moments before it died. ‘Beautiful,’ she
said in awe, and his shy smile grew. ‘We shall see you at Grammaine some day, Mr Scavian.’

‘It shall not be my fault if you do not.’ He helped her back into her seat and gave a courteous nod to Alice.

Looking through the back window of the buggy, she saw that he remained standing there before Deerlings House, looking after them until she could not see him, and perhaps longer.

She would liked to have seen Northway’s face when it was announced, ‘A Miss Marshwic to see you.’ That would have helped what was about to come.

As she entered his office, the first thing she saw was that damnable smile, cold and sardonic. His head was cocked a little on one side and his hands clasped before him on his desktop, amongst
the ledgers and stacks of parchments.

‘Why, Miss Marshwic, what a pleasant surprise – not to mention unexpected. Have I or the King done something to displease you? Nothing else seems able to lure you to my chambers
lately.’

‘Mr Northway,’ she acknowledged, but all the words she had prepared while waiting had remained outside the room as she stepped in. She fought to recapture them in the sudden silence
that followed.

‘Please sit, if you will, Miss Marshwic. I have pains in my neck and back enough, from sitting at this desk all day, without straining myself looking up at you.’

Grateful for this time to think, she took a seat across the desk from him, like an applicant for some menial position.

‘I was surprised to see you at Deerlings, Mr Northway,’ she said.

‘As the governor of Chalcaster, it would have been an unpardonable affront for them not to invite me,’ he said. ‘I daresay it was hoped that some pressing business would keep
me away. Indeed, I regretted the venture as soon as I set out for the place. A man can take a dislike to being snubbed by so many all at once.’

‘You regret attending, then?’

He looked at her for longer than she was comfortable with, before he said, ‘As it happens, there were consolations.’

She broke eye contact and looked down at the wooden surface of the desk.
Here it comes. Deep breath now.
‘Mr Northway, I fear I have been quite churlish towards you of
late.’

‘If so, you are in good company,’ he replied wryly.

‘You did save my life, and that of my sister, and it is unfair of me to lose that fact amidst the . . . real reason that you were there.’

She did not look up, but there was an encouraging silence from him, and no further snide remarks.

‘And,’ she added, ‘you were the first man to offer to dance with me at Deerlings, before the King took my hand, after which I had to . . . to beat men away with a stick, is how
my sister decorously put it. So perhaps our experiences at that house were not so different, all told.’

‘I don’t know. The King didn’t dance with
me
,’ he remarked, and she looked up sharply. His smile was still there, but perhaps it was less cold and impersonal
than before.

‘You do not make this easy for me,’ she chided him.

‘I am not in the business of making things easy,’ he told her without apology. ‘And, besides, you are at your best when things are far from easy, Miss Marshwic. You are a
fighter.’

She took the compliment, if it was one, uncertainly. ‘I asked you, that night, if you were offering a truce.’

‘I remember.’

‘I offer you one now. We have been enemies, and for good reason. No doubt we shall be again. For now, while both our lives are complicated by war, I will be civil and try not to hate you
any more, if the same is offered in return.’

‘My, what a carefully worded treaty,’ he said. He had his pipe ready in one hand, but it remained unlit. ‘You hated me, truly?’

‘My family’s memory is long and clear.’

‘Ah, your family? So it was as a Marshwic that you hated me.’ He regarded the pipe intensely. ‘I never hated you, Miss Marshwic. And if I have not always been civil, it is
because I feel you thrive on adversity. What would you crusade against, if not men like me?’ He smiled at her. ‘How unlike we are, you and I, but at the same time how much common ground
there is.’

‘I do not see it,’ she said.

‘We question, Miss Marshwic, and we fight, and we are not prepared to accept the status quo. If you did, you would not pit yourself against me so frequently, and if I did, I would be a
petty crook and not a great one.’

‘You are a civic-minded villain,’ Emily observed. ‘You do your duty by the King well enough.’

‘And better than an honest man could,’ he agreed. ‘If they won, the Denlanders would take by force what I would steal. It is in my interest.’

‘You are a truthful villain.’

‘To you, always.’

‘Do you accept my truce?’

His composure cracked just for a second, and something hungry and hopeful looked out at her. She thought it made him grotesque, but then she thought it made him human.

‘Willingly gratefully,’ he confirmed. ‘And should you wonder if I’m keeping to it, you may check on me here at any time. After all, who else do you talk to as openly as
this?’