Authors: Adrian Tchaikovsky
‘I understand.’
‘That’s good. Marshwic, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Marshwic,’ as though committing her name to some deep ancestral memory. ‘Get them moving, Marshwic,’ he told her briskly. ‘Show them how it’s
done.’
He padded off into the camp and she retrieved her musket and looked around at the few women still left at the swamp’s edge.
‘Come on, soldiers,’ she tried, but her voice failed her and she had to say it again, forcing volume into the words. ‘Come on, soldiers! On your feet! Food and beds all waiting
for you. Let’s go!’
There was a memorial service the next day. As the mourners lined up, Emily was surprised how few there were. Most of the soldiers, the men especially, simply glanced up and
went somewhere else, so they did not have to watch.
The burial plot itself was hard up against the cliffs, where the ground was firmest. The whole camp was set within one of the slip-fields: earth and rock that had collapsed down from the cliffs
above. The landslide had formed a highland of dryness that had been colonized by grass rather than the voracious swamp vegetation. The swamp gnawed at it, though, creeping up on it like angry
natives waiting for a chance to take back what was theirs. Emily was surprised at the small number of markers in the field, until she realized that few corpses would have made it out of the swamps.
Most of the casualties of the Levant front remained where they fell, and the swamp consumed them. Three days, Mallen said: that was all it took for the busy mouths of the Levant to strip a corpse
to bones, and another ten would see the bones buried and broken up as well. The swamps of the Levant were the last resting place of a thousand men of Lascanne and Denland both, who would never see
home again, and now eight women had joined them.
The colonel was out of his hut, with Captain Mallarkey dancing his usual meek attendance one step behind, but as yet there was no sign of a priest. Eventually, Mallarkey was forced to enter a
nearby tent and haul the man out. He was a sway-bellied creature, short and dishevelled, with an uncombed beard and a face blotched with red. His robes of black velvet were open halfway to his
navel, stained and torn, and he looked at the colonel with obvious incomprehension. Belatedly, Emily realized that he was drunk.
‘Father Burnloft,’ the colonel said. ‘The service, if you please.’
The priest mumbled something, and turned to face the meagre gathering. ‘List,’ he muttered. ‘Got the list?’
Mallarkey handed him a piece of paper and he nodded myopically at it before focusing on the mourners.
‘Here we gather,’ he intoned, slurring the familiar words only slightly. ‘Here we gather to honour the names of those gone before. Gone before to their judgement. May God look
upon them for their deeds here. They died defending their country. No death is sweeter in the eyes of the Lord. They died defending their land and their divinely appointed sovereign. No death
better assures them of happiness and content in their new home. They shall not fear harm or tyranny; they shall not know pain or weariness. They shall live the life of the blessed until the last
days, when all the world shall be restored unto the paradise once it was.’ This had come out almost as one rambling breath and now he paused. His podgy hands, clutching the list, shook
slightly, and Emily could hear his breath wheeze. A single fat tear ran unnoticed down his hairy cheek.
Now we honour those who fell in righteous battle yesterday, and commit them unto the mercy of God that he may know them. Now we honour Geraldine Braedy and Julia Samphor; Elise Hally and Dina
Garton . . .’ As Elise’s name struggled through the man’s lips, Emily hugged herself hard, just keeping it all in.
Elise, poor Elise, why her?
Of Grammaine’s
daughters, only Mary had ever been anything other than an indifferent churchgoer, and on this morning Emily’s faith was evaporating like the mist off the swamps.
The priest’s voice had now slowed, and he blinked at the list in his hands. In an aside to the colonel, loud enough for everyone to hear, he said, ‘Must be some mistake.
They’re all girls’ names.’
There was a tortured silence then, and Emily felt the grief surge up inside her, ravening through her until her shoulders shook, and each sob battled its way from her by main force.
Dear
God, dear God, please look after her!
Racked with grief she swayed and nearly fell to her knees, as the idiot drunken priest stared at the names, and the colonel ground his teeth and told him
to finish it.
‘Marta Sands,’ the priest intoned. ‘Freya Lincaster, Olive Swach, Lindsey Pailler. We ask you, O God, to take them to you and protect them, and reward them for their bravery.
This we ask.’
Emily could not bring herself to join in the scattered chorus: ‘We ask, O God.’ She simply hunched over her despair as the priest shambled away, and the mourners drifted apart, each
swathed in her own bleak thoughts.
‘Hey, you,’ she heard, but did not look up until a finger prodded her shoulder. The first thing she saw was the rank, the blue and gold wings of a lieutenant on his shoulders.
Mopping angrily at her face she struggled to recover her composure and hash out a salute.
‘Sir,’ she choked, still dabbing at her cheeks.
‘Hell, Em, have I changed so much?’
‘Sir?’ She stared at him stupidly, not seeing beyond the decorations on his sleeves – until he smiled at her and then she knew him.
‘Tubal!’
‘In the flesh,’ he said, but that was less true than it had been. He had always been a little round at the waist, a little soft. Now there was nothing of that. He was as lean and
honed as Mallen, his long dark face turned gaunt, brown locks shaved almost to his skull. He looked a soldier first and Tubal Salander second.
‘Mallen told me you were here,’ he said softly. ‘I’ve been out on patrol or I’d have found you sooner.’ He reached out to tug at her company patch.
‘Thank God,’ he said, and showed her the rearing stag on his own.
‘Was Rodric . . . ?’
‘They put him in Dead . . . in the Leopard Passant,’ he whispered. ‘I couldn’t get him moved. I couldn’t help him. Emily, I’m so sorry.’
She read in his face the pain of seeing his little brother-in-law come fresh from training. Poor Rodric, lost out in the swamps, food for the leeches, graveless and alone. Had Father Burnloft
dragged his way through a meaningless ceremony then, too, with ‘Rodric Marshwic’ dropped in amongst the names of strangers?
She wanted to say something, to tell Tubal it was not his fault, but she still carried the grief like a weight in the pit of her stomach, and it hurt. It hurt her and she could do nothing. When
she collapsed into Tubal’s arms, she did not know whether it was because of Elise, or Rodric, or all the dead, the unnumbered dead of the war, or for herself.
He held her close for a long time, let her tears stain his uniform, and she felt a tremor in him, telling of his own losses and pain.
‘It’s all gone wrong, hasn’t it?’ she said.
‘It’s not how I’d have planned it.’
‘Tubal, what are we going to do?’
He held her at arm’s length. Mary’s cheery, harmless husband looked so stern now, so hard-edged.
‘We’re going to survive,’ he told her. ‘Don’t let them tell you different.’ And then he grinned, with the desperate, carefree expression of a man who has
already lost, and has more to lose. ‘Welcome to Bad Rabbit,’ he told her.
‘Bad . . . what?’
He tapped her on her sleeve, meaning the company badge. ‘Look at it.’
She craned down to peer at the little heraldic design, then up at the company flags that flew above the camp. The black stag reared there, antlers high. ‘Stag Rampant,’ she said
slowly, closed her eyes and then reopened them.
‘Do you see?’ he asked. And she did. It was a terrible thing, with death so close, but she started to laugh. The pompous-looking deer with its malformed antlers could just as easily
have been a rabbit, a very badly made rabbit.
‘Oh, that’s funny . . . no, it shouldn’t be funny.’ But, all the same, she was laughing now. It felt so good to have something to laugh at, no matter how little.
‘What are the others then?’
‘The Leopard is Dead Cat,’ he explained, and she recalled she had seen most of the Leopard Passant troopers with their company badges sewn upside down, the strutting animal’s
legs stiff in the air.
‘And the bear?’ The brown beast sitting on its thick haunches, one forepaw raised as though objecting to something at council.
‘Fat Squirrel,’ said Tubal, and she laughed until she cried.
Later, they sipped warm soup fetched from the kitchens, and she told him about home. Her words conjured up for him the Ghyer, Alice, the ball at Deerlings House, the Draft and,
of course, Gravenfield. Not Mr Northway, never Mr Northway, but Tubal must have sensed the unseen worm that tunnelled through her narrative. He did not interrupt, though. He let her words tumble
out at their own pace and in their own order. Outside, rain that had been a drizzle just after the funeral was a solid downpour now, and showing no signs of stopping.
‘Back home they keep saying it’s all going so well,’ she said. ‘It’s not, is it?’
Not that I’ve noticed,’ he admitted. ‘God, I wish I could see Mary again. I don’t like the fighting and dying part much, but it’s missing her I really object
to.’
‘She’s very cross with you. She says you should write.’
A tight look came across his face. ‘I can’t.’
‘Then I will,’ she said. ‘I need to tell them. I need to tell them about Elise, poor Elise.’
‘Emily . . .’
‘I will write a letter,’ she decided. ‘How do I get it out of here? Do people go to Locke ever? To the trains?’
‘Emily, you can’t . . . Look, every letter has to go through the colonel. He reads them all. Why do you think I never wrote? I’m a printer. I deal in the truth of the written
word. The only stuff that you can write is that drivel Rodric sent you that one time.’
‘But that’s . . . wrong!’
‘Isn’t it? But it’s all there is. I’ve tried, believe me. The colonel’s gotten sick of me badgering him about it.’
‘Well, then, I’ll go and badger him myself,’ she decided.
Tubal weighed her up with a glance, then shrugged. ‘Try,’ he said. ‘Why not? After all, I’m just a Salander that married into money, but you’re a Marshwic. The
colonel’s a Resnic, old family. Hell, maybe he’ll listen to you, when he won’t to me. That sort of thing counts with him.’
*
The rain had been a solid thing for three days and Mallen had declared, with his curious certainty, that it would be a good five-day rain. Nobody made war once the clouds broke
in earnest against the cliffs of the Couchant front and started to shed their load. Somewhere out in the swamps, the Denlanders would sit hunched under the canopy shelter, flicking water out of
their eyes, just as the Lascanne troops did. In this weather they were all victims.
Those that chose to could make the pilgrimage to the acerbic, toad-like quartermaster and demand their regulation-issue rain-cloaks, which in Emily’s recent experience had no
water-repelling qualities whatsoever. Still, she took what shelter she could from it as she hurried across the centre of camp.
The tent city that was the Lascanne base camp had a heart of wood. A half-dozen of what would be mere shacks anywhere else were here the epitome of architecture. Three were company headquarters,
along with one for stores and one for the infirmary. The last, and grandest, was the colonel’s. This she made for, swatting her way through the rain, slipping on the treacherous, churned
grass.
The door opened just as she approached, and she stopped dead, for the figure descending the slatted steps to the ground was swathed in a mantle of dark blue, the hood shrugged up to hide his
head. Twin herons held their heads high across his chest.
She was abruptly taken back to far-off Deerlings House: the ball, the gaiety of the great and good. And, of course, he had been sent to the Levant front. The Women’s Draft, and Mr
Northway, and now Tubal, these things had conspired to force him from her mind. She had never thought to meet him.
‘Mr Scavian!’ she declared, a society lady again for a moment, and no soldier. ‘I had not thought . . .’
But her voice died away, for the face that stared out at her from that hood was not Giles Scavian’s but belonged to a man older by a decade and more, with hair receding from his forehead
and a raptor’s cruelty about the mouth. His eyes were like flint.
‘Scavian, is it?’ he snapped out. ‘So, you’re one of little Giles’s playfellows,’ he snapped out.
‘Forgive me, sir. I merely thought . . . I saw your dress—’
‘Oh, Mr Scavian considers it beneath him to dress according to his station,’ the Warlock snarled. ‘Who are you, then, girl? Where did you dredge Giles Scavian from in your
past?’
‘My name is Emily Marshwic, sir. I met him . . . just before I joined.’
His eyes narrowed to such a sharp edge that she felt they might cut her. ‘Marshwic,’ he echoed. ‘Well, now, we’ve more than scullions and maidservants in the latest load
for the grinder, have we? Marshwic, well, well . . .’
‘Sir, I’d like to see the colonel.’ She made to move past him, but a strong-fingered hand hooked her collar and dragged her back and round to face him. His hand, against her
skin, was hot, shockingly hot, and when he pushed his head forward to look at her, she saw that the King must have been of an odd humour the day he anointed this one. The red weal of the royal hand
was wrapped about the man’s throat like the mark of a strangler.
‘Marshwic?’ the Warlock pronounced. ‘Know me then, Marshwic: Justin Lascari, Warlock to the King, of seniority and power, I am by far the better of that creature
Scavian.’ The rain sprang away from him as steam, although his clothing never smouldered. ‘I am the King here, and no other,’ he told her, and then his hand blessedly released
her. She felt that she, too, must now have a raw red mark about her throat.
His expression changed into something else, equally predatory. She realized belatedly it was a smile. ‘You interest me, Marshwic. That’s a name to conjure with,’ he said, and
then he was gone, stalking off into the rain that barely touched him.