No Present Like Time (18 page)

“The Senate is obliged to discuss every issue for three days before voting. So matters are considered thoroughly and no spurious motions are ever raised. We will let you know our decision in two days’ time.”

I translated word for word. Fulmer almost laughed. “Really, three days, the sluggards,” he spluttered. “Imagine if on the battlefield you had to wait that long!”

“It sounds inefficient,” Lightning agreed. “If we followed such a tradition the Insects would overrun us all the way to Cape Brattice before we made up our minds to fight.”

I grinned. “Look, you two, be quiet!”

The senators murmured with curiosity, trying to figure out what we were saying. Mist hushed us, angered by her dependence on me. I marshaled my scanty knowledge of Trisian and introduced our company, ending with myself: “Comet Jant Shira, the Emperor’s Messenger, and you can call me Jant. We’ve come to tell you the fortunate news: you all have the chance to join the Circle and have eternal life, as we do. Time does not age us…Although I can’t really prove it unless we sit here for ten years…Anyway, we want to remind Tris of its place in the Empire; we’ve come at the behest of the Emperor San, that your island and the mainland may no longer be adrift but firm allies—” I halted because at the mention of San the senators leaned to each other and started talking.

Vendace turned to the fifteen men and women; they conferred together, speaking in complicated terms at a natural speed, much faster than I could hope to follow. They came to a consensus and informed Vendace, who motioned for me to continue.

“San makes us, and will make the best of you, immortal. We fight the Insects, but—” Another buzz passed between them, and I knew I had hit a chord. “Insects, yes, like the picture in your courtyard.”

A young lady rose from the center of the audience. She wore a short dress and a patterned stole wrapped around her body. Her sandal thongs crisscrossed her slender legs to the knee. Her features were light, her hair close-cropped. Unlike Vendace, she had wings; they were small, brunette and very pert. “Danio, Bibliophylax,” Vendace announced. The library’s keeper, if I understood him correctly.

Danio said, “Insects are just a story; there’s no evidence whatsoever. And how can people be eternal? You’ve taken old tales and you expect us to believe them? The threat of death defines humanity; nothing is as unnatural as an immortal.”

I translated, saying, “Mist, they don’t believe in Insects. I think it’s your turn now.”

Through me, Mist spoke to Vendace, but everyone in the Senate assumed her words were also addressed to them. “Sir, we brought an Insect to show you Capharnai—I mean Trisians. It’s imprisoned on our ship, so if you come to the harbor I’ll give you a tour of the caravels.”

Vendace said, “What do you think, Professor?”

Danio paused, reluctant, then answered smoothly, “Our visitors’ colossal boats themselves suggest this isn’t a hoax. Yes, this is truly a historic occasion. If they really have an Insect and if the myths I’ve spent my life discrediting are true, I want to see it.” She stepped down over the stone benches to the stage, approached me closely and looked at my face. A bitten-nailed finger brushed over my Wheel scar and then down to rest on my feathers, questioningly. We gazed at each other. She leaned forward; humor danced in her strikingly intelligent hazel eyes.

Mist announced, “Jant, tell them that anyone who desires can return with us to see the Castle. I’ll show them the glory of the Fourlands; give them a great welcome and lavish ambassadorial treatment.”

Danio roused herself and turned away from me. Damn.

I closely translated Mist’s offer but none of the Senate seemed impressed. Much of the island’s adventurous spirit must be lost, because the few individuals who possess it in abundance could not be frozen forever at their optimum age. I resumed my speech: “You don’t understand. The Empire’s hundreds of times larger than Tris. Our city of Hacilith could swallow Capharnaum ten times. Our fyrd’s half a million men, our fleet of caravels like those two in the harbor is—”

Vendace cut me short: “We are not interested. The Senate must consider for no less than three days, and you cannot influence our debate because you are not an inhabitant of Tris.”

I ran a hand over my hair in exasperation.

From the corner of my eye I saw Wrenn scuttle out under the archway, holding a shiny object in both hands. He dashed rudely over to me and tapped me on the wing, “Jant!”

I could stand no more. “That’s Comet to you! Can’t you be quiet? This is a crucial moment, our first meeting with the Senate and you interrupt me! What do you think you’re…? Oh, what are you carrying?”

For a second I thought it was a Tine artifact and my reality slipped; I felt dizzy and disconnected. Wrenn held a chamber pot. It was identical to every other chamber pot in the Fourlands, except that it was shining metal: gold. It must have been very heavy.

Wrenn showed me. “All the fittings in their privies are gold!”

“Bring it here,” I said. But the senators’ stunned silence was breaking into embarrassed or inquisitive chuckles. Wrenn looked around at them and pointed to it, “Have you any idea what this is
worth
?” he said in Awian, loudly and slowly.

The Senate may have worried that we were dangerous, or that we expected to be treated with obeisance. Instead, they saw we were amazed by a simple chamber pot brought for some reason out of their bathroom. They thought we looked ridiculous. All the senators started laughing, and the tension in the air completely lifted. The ladies in cotton smocks or robes put aside their paper fans. The gentlemen unclasped their cloaks and craned forward to see us. Genial hilarity echoed around the spacious auditorium.

Wrenn thrust it at me, “I can’t believe it. Can
you
believe it? It’s worth a caravel and it’s a piss-pot of all things!”

“Put it down!” I said. “Bringing the privy into the governors’ hall! You’re making us look really stupid!”

“Why are you interested in that?” said Danio.

I said coolly, “Oh, it’s nothing. I’ve seen pots before. We have them in our culture too. We are civilized, not simple…Oh, god.” I tapped it, and wisely understated, “But we like this metal; we can use it. We would quite like to buy more.”

“Well,” Danio said. “Jant, tell your delegation: if you love this…object so much, if you want this base material, please take it. It can be a gift from Tris, our first offering of goodwill.” Applause broke out from the senators on the stepped benches; appreciative exclamations supported her words. Danio laughed and offered the chamber pot to Wrenn.

“They’re giving it to you as a present,” I explained.

Wrenn took it gratefully and said in awe, “Shouldn’t I give something in return? Oh, obviously.” He unbuckled the fyrd-issue broadsword and scabbard from his belt. He held it flat in both hands and presented it to Danio.

“Thank you,” she said. She accepted the sword and pulled the scabbard to bare a little of the blade, which she examined closely.

“Please be careful,” I said. “It’s extremely sharp.”

She gazed minutely at me again and asked the inevitable question, “What are you, anyway?”

I shuffled one wing out of my shirt and opened it.
Duck you suckers
was painted in red on the inside but, shrewd as she was, Danio couldn’t transliterate. “I’m winged, see, just like you, well nearly.” I pointed to my face and took a sheaf of thick hair in the other hand. “My mother was Rhydanne; they’re a mountain people who look like this. I know that’s new and strange but please don’t worry—I’m not dangerous. My long limbs are from my Rhydanne side too. My good looks, I get from both sides.”

A
ll fifteen senators accompanied us to the harbor with a surprising lack of pomp and ceremony. They walked without any attendants and just chatted to each other, waved at the townspeople with a familiarity that was nothing like Fourlands governors. The senators were dressed as plainly as the folk in the piazza and tea shops; they did not seem to be very far removed from them.

The Sailor conducted the senators onto the
Melowne.
I held the hatchway open and helped the ladies descend to the hold. I didn’t see their expressions, but I heard their shrieks, and from Danio I learned a whole ream of Trisian words that I won’t be putting in any guidebook.

We tried to hide the state of the crews from the senators. The sailors had clearly contravened Mist’s orders and discipline on board
Petrel
and
Melowne
had started to crumble. They had traded and squirreled away every Trisian commodity they could lay their hands on, especially agate statuettes and the gold beads, chaplets and tiaras that the children wore. Only a few halberds were left unsold and the men had broken open the caskets of broadswords and started trading them. Every single man was completely drunk, some so legless they lolled as they sat dribbling the juice of exotic fruits, sloshing wine into cups or crunching on overcooked sardines. The carpenter retched and farted as Mist’s boatswain sons dragged him down to be locked in the brig. He prattled, “Capharnai might not want us—but their kids have made me rich!”

A bottle rolled around in the scuppers and bumped against my foot. I picked it up and sniffed it. “Brandy, or something similar. The merchants are selling spirits to our men!”

“This is dangerous,” Fulmer confided. “I must keep discipline. Lightning and Mist will stow a fortune in
Melowne,
under the noses of all our deckhands. I doubt I’ll reach home without a mutiny.”

T
hroughout the second day, Mist and Lightning employed me to translate their deals with the merchants who waited in long queues. Capharnai carried books in their pockets and either read or stood in groups debating rarefied philosophical points. I yearned to spend the rest of our landfall in the library but the Sailor and Archer kept me hard at work with filthy lucre. My fluency improved, and I made friends with Danio, who taught me many new expressions before she was called away to the Senate, where they discussed us nonstop.

In return for the broadswords the Capharnai filled the
Melowne
with bales of cloves, tea leaves, sacks of peppercorns; we bought a cask of ambergris and one of frankincense. Our sister ship became a spice ship—I could smell it on the other side of town.

“Gold for steel, weight for weight,” Mist said smugly, examining the pale metal chamber pot. “But that last silversmith—manufacturer of children’s toys—kept the location of the mines a secret.”

Lightning said, “No matter. I have gained a return of seven hundred percent on the initial investment. This tea is too watery for my taste but, seeing as it will inevitably come to the Fourlands, it might as well come with me. And I’ve also discovered some excellent brandy.”

Wrenn used me to question every islander he met about sword fighting, and although I kept telling him it wasn’t a Trisian tradition he was astounded to find that no one knew anything about the art.

“It seems to me they fight by talking,” I said.

Wrenn huffed. “Yeah. But if Capharnaum becomes a manor the Castle will ask for its quota of fyrd for the Front. I’ll be given hundreds of people to train from bloody scratch and I’ve a sneaking feeling they’re not going to like it.” He disappeared into town with a party of midshipmen who were searching for a wine shop. The Senate permitted our men to leave the harbor only in small groups under the charge of Eszai. They didn’t want the boulevard to be swamped with hell-raising sailors.

B
y evening I was sick of translating; confused with words swarming around my head until they lost their meanings. I was exhausted, but all in all it had been a fantastic day. As the sun set over the horizon where the Fourlands lay, Trisian canoes paddled in through the strait. After dusk the Capharnai entrepreneurs began to disperse and supper was served on board. The Senate retired and Danio came aboard to make notes and sketch the Insect. She was hypnotized by it, loitering in the hold, flinching every time it threw itself against the bars. When at ten
P.M
. Mist asked her to leave the ship, she stood on the quayside and stared as if insane at the exterior of the hull.

I told Mist that I intended to sleep on the mountainside. I walked out of sight of dainty Danio, who insisted on keeping vigil till tomorrow when Mist would let her back aboard. I took off and flew up, nap-of-the-earth in the pitch-black night, just a few meters above the mountain’s contour. The lower slopes were olive groves, then dim rocky ground streaked along beneath me. I found a low cliff with an overhang and sheltered under it on the rough bare stone.

By lamplight, the
Stormy Petrel
’s crew lowered a spare mainsail and lashed the edges to two poles projecting from the portholes. The sail drooped into the warm water, which filled it, and the men started swimming in it. Men stood on the railing and dived in. I was too far to hear the splashes but I saw spray fly up in the flickering light of the yellow lanterns as
Petrel
rocked at her mooring.

Everything was delightful, and I lay alone. I have rarely been so happy. The air was cooler than at sea level; the rock conducted warmth away from my skin. It was a close night, so hot and humid that your balls stick to the inside of your thigh.

A light breeze cut through the cocoon of heat that molded around me. It blew the smells of salt and peppermint into the rock shelter and carried occasional sounds from the town. Lamps were lit in the windows of Capharnaum’s bizarre houses. I loved this scented island. I smiled and snuggled against the stone. I could think clearly now, for the first time in weeks. I no longer worried about the caravels, or Mist who wanted a hold on Tris that she could never be allowed to have.