Frost is, without doubt, a genius. The traits of genius often coincide with madness, but that isn’t strange, because if genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains, then you tell me what madness is.
I flew out of the dawn, into the Castle, my heart racing. I soared in over the curtain wall, bleeding off my downwind speed, and all the Castle’s quadrangles opened up as I passed over. Hidden inside and between its buildings, they revealed themselves to me.
I ignored the confusing levels of the roofs slipping away under me; the shallow lead cones of the six Dace Gate towers ascending in size from the bastions in the moat to the enormous barbican. I focused on the spire of the Throne Room as I glided over the Berm Lawns. The spire filled my vision – I flared my wings, swept up close to its wall and landed on a gargoyle projecting from halfway up.
The wind gusted; I steadied myself against the stone, turned around on my narrow perch and braced myself with one foot either side of the drainage channel. It was blocked with moss, pigeon shit and the grit weathered out of the stone. I kicked it clear with my toe and the black water spattered down onto the Throne Room’s sheet lead roof. I looked out down its length towards the North Façade; pinnacles and the tops of flying buttresses emerged at intervals around its edges.
Every gargoyle was different, arcing out to my left and right in a ring around the spire, with bulbous human faces and lolling tongues. The one I was standing on had a round, white pigeon’s egg in a nest of twigs amassed in the joint of its wing swept back to the wall. I always felt as if their flamboyant features had been carved for me. It seems too much effort to craft such inventive expressions, when the only people who will ever see them are me and the steeplejacks. Still, if a stone mason with carte blanche can’t have fun, who can?
I shook out my wings, hopped off the gargoyle and spiralled steeply down to the Berm Lawns.
The door at the end of the Simurgh Wing was locked. Typical. I can’t be expected to carry keys to all of the damn doors. I hammered on it but no one was within corridors’ distance.
I sprinted around the side of the building, on the grass between it and the Harcourt Barracks, past the armoury, the hospital and its herb garden. I sped onto the avenue bordered with tall poplars and ran down it, automatically avoiding the few uneven flagstones. The magnificent fronts of the Breckan and Simurgh Wings grew before me, with cool, modern open arches. I hastened through the space between them, taking the formal entrance through the Starglass Quadrangle.
I rushed past astronomical and horological instruments, on the main path between their large, square enclosures. The dew made the flint cobbles set in concrete at the edge of the path as shiny and slippery as ice.
The gleaming Starglass Clock struck ten as I passed. I counted its chimes almost subconsciously. The last one remained hovering in the air and seemed to grow louder, with a note of defiance, before fading.
Kings and governors and their retinues sometimes process along this route to the Throne Room when seeking the Emperor’s counsel. I hurtled through the massive portal. Its deeply carved tympanum panel showed San entering the Castle to stay for all perpetuity. I crossed into the narrow passage around the Throne Room.
Two guards with halberds stood always by its entrance. They took one look at me, unshaven and panting manically, ‘The Messenger!’
‘The Messenger!’
‘Let me through!’ I cried.
They pushed the doors wide across their polished arcs of stone.
The Emperor was sitting in the sunburst throne, and all was quiet behind the screen. He has resided in the Castle, seeing no more of the outside world than is visible from the walls, for fifteen hundred years.
I paused for breath, insignificant in size beside the column of the first arch. I leant forward, hands on knees, to catch my breath, and I was still trying to formulate what to say.
Diagonal shafts of sunlight so bright they looked solid, shone down from the east wall’s Gothic windows, high above the arcade of arches and the balcony where ten Imperial Fyrd bowmen stood in silence. Motes of dust and old incense in the air enjoyed brief fame, transformed to flecks of gold as they floated through the beams.
Without looking up or giving any indication that he had noticed my presence, the Emperor said, ‘Come here, Comet.’
I shuddered. I strode down the scarlet carpet to the dais, so quickly
through strips of light and shade that they flickered red in my eyes. I passed haughty Awian eagles, rearing Plainslands horses and Hacilith fists between the arches. All the Fourlands’ heraldry was bold in the stained-glass windows behind the Emperor.
The sunburst, a solid electrum screen behind the marble throne, was polished to a mirror radiance and its rays haloed the throne for a metre on all sides. It rested on its lowest two points and, since the Emperor was sitting, his head was in the exact centre of the sun disc. Every beam extending out around him reflected me indistinctly as I approached.
‘My lord Emperor!’ I knelt at the foot of the dais, peppered with yellow light from the rose window. I was panting too much to continue.
The Emperor said calmly, ‘The Circle broke. Hayl, Thunder and Gayle are dead. Do you know what killed them?’
‘My lord, something awful’s happening. They were all at Slake Cross – and Insects are
flying
!’
‘Flying?’
‘Yes, my lord. A gigantic mating flight, over the lake and the town.’
I looked up, but the light was in my eyes and I couldn’t see the Emperor’s face. He sat in the shade under an octagonal marble vault that stretched high above him into the traceried interior of the spire, like the inside of a gigantic lantern. The white marble throne was imposing, but not so big that it diminished his form. His ancient broadsword and shield hung on its back. I was very glad I couldn’t read his expression.
His knurled hands, raised bone covered with ancient thin skin like batwings, uncurled from the scrolled armrests as he stood up. He came to the edge of the dais. ‘Tell me all.’
I recounted everything, and ended, ‘If the flight has stopped, the others will have cleared the town by now. There must be millions of Insect eggs in the lake …’ I hesitated, nervously. ‘Have I made sense, my lord? Have I been completely clear?’
‘This is unprecedented,’ the Emperor said.
I bowed my head, frightened. Could this be new even to San?
The Emperor said nothing. He stood in thought, tall and gaunt, with perfect stature, his hands clasped behind his back. His white hair hung straight to the level of his shoulders, his sarcenet robes hung straight to the floor. His clothes were the style of the time he founded the First Circle and was proclaimed Emperor. He wore no crown, never anything but plain white, apart from the robe’s wide embroidered collar with panels of colourless jewels.
*
San looked up to the gallery and called, ‘Summon the captain of the Imperial Fyrd!’
He unfastened his cloak at the shoulder, took it off and placed it on the cushion of the throne. He lifted the broadsword from the back of the throne and wrapped its belt around his waist.
I gasped – my hand covered my mouth – I couldn’t believe I was seeing this. He had never so much as touched the sword before, and now he really was buckling it on. He tucked the strap end through and the sword hung at his side, in the folds of his robe.
The Imperial Fyrd captain ran in, down the side aisle. I waited in stunned silence, hearing his footsteps approach behind the piers of the arches. He knelt beside me. He was shaking, staring, and so pale I thought he was going to faint.
The Emperor took his round sunburst shield from the back of the throne and slipped his arm through it. He stood with the shield held fittingly. ‘Is my horse ready?’
The captain was too terrified to speak, but he gave an obeisant nod.
The Emperor said, ‘The people need my direction. Assemble all the Imperial Fyrd on the Berm Lawns. Fetch my armour and the locked chest from the treasury. Make haste! I will lead you to the front. Bring the fastest horses; for speed we will overnight at manor houses and we ride without pause. Comet?’
‘My lord?’ I managed, dry-mouthed.
‘Call up the fyrds. All of them, from every manor. Every battalion, every division, every company, every squad. Signal Slake Cross to warn them of our arrival. Then you will meet us at the town.’
San stepped down from the dais, passed us, walked through the first arch to the small door to his private apartments. He shut the door behind him.
Noises began to resound from up on the balcony; a crash as one of the archers fainted. The others dropped their bows and turned to each other open-mouthed, seeking an explanation – as if they could ever begin to explain San’s actions.
My insides seemed to liquefy. I risked a glance sideways; the captain’s eyes were shut, his jowly face hung forwards. He whispered, ‘San is leaving the Castle. It’s the end of the world.’
Commotion on the balcony as the archers started gabbling hysterically, mouthing reassurances, anticipating the imminent arrival of god. They rattled down the turret stairs and sped out to spread the news.
I slowly rose to my feet. The captain turned dark blue eyes up to me. ‘Why Slake Cross? Is that where god –?’
I was brusque, since I was just as scared. ‘You have your orders. Put nonsensical myths out of your mind and do what the Emperor said.’
‘Is it the end of the world?’
‘We can’t change what’s happening. Do your job and I’ll do mine; it’s all we’ll be remembered for.’
The Castle suddenly seemed very empty; the archers had gone and the Throne Room was deserted for the first time since the Pentadrica fell. I glanced at the five columns in the apse behind the throne: an azurite column for Awia, jade for the Plainslands, porphyry for Morenzia, haematite for Darkling, and a new, solid gold column for Tris.
I ran to Lisade, the Castle’s library. It takes all the books and journals of the Fourlands – the Emperor is believed to read every one. I ran past the Lawyer’s vacant rooms, up to the semaphore tower recently built for me on the roof. I had brought the idea of the semaphore back from Tris, figuring that if I didn’t then someone else would Challenge me with it later. I had employed several Trisians to handle the network which is being installed across the Fourlands. Its instant communication posed no real threat to my position since the Messenger must be at least as much a diplomat as an errand runner.
I left my messages with the Trisian semaphore operator, and he began pulling the levers which would swing the white planks on their post to send the news out across the Empire. I sped to the other side of the Castle and grabbed some food from the kitchens, called in at the treasury in Carillon Court building and picked up a bag of coin.
The Starglass struck eleven as I sped out to the Berm Lawns, to take off. Had it only been an hour since I landed? The Castle had broken into a whirlwind of activity. Servants raced from building to building, hollering the news before them. The gaudy-liveried Imperial Fyrd were lugging saddle bags out of Harcourt Barracks; halberds and armour gleamed as they were jostled out of the armoury behind it. Stable hands were leading horses in through the Dace Gate five at a time. A few grey-haired Imperial Fyrd guardsmen were piling up equipment between the Throne Room’s buttresses.
The preparation gave me a vivid image of the Pentadrican Queen a millennium ago, leading her court to view the newly arrived Insects; a flower-decked procession out of the Throne Room’s very building straight into their jaws.
A trainer dashed past, dashed back and valiantly tried to attract my
attention. ‘Messenger! I brought Alezane.’ He indicated a flawless black warhorse. I cast an eye over its splendid tack. I had always seen Alezane kept in the stables or out exercising, always ready for the Emperor, but I never had the slightest inkling I would see San riding it.
The boy put a finger in his mouth. ‘I saddled Alezane for the Emperor
himself
! Is he really leaving?’
I said, ‘The Emperor isn’t abandoning us. He’s leading. To Slake Cross – where every one of us is going.’
The boy tried to fit all his fingers into his mouth. ‘Is god coming back?’
‘I don’t know. But within the hour the Emperor will lead the Imperial Fyrd out of the Castle –’ I pointed at the Dace Gate. I spoke with growing confidence and a sense of surprise at the back of my mind that I did not need to act. My own self-belief overcame me and gave my voice strength. The grooms began to gather around me, warming themselves on my reassurance. ‘– Help them to leave as fast as they can. Then all of you, follow on behind to Slake Cross. We’ll need you at the other end.’
The semaphore doesn’t yet extend to the outposts of the Empire, so I would have to fly to the most distant manors and to those with the most obstructive governors. Brandoch was my first stop. I clapped my hands briskly. ‘Right! Let’s be
organised
about this!’
I took to the air. As I flew I recalled San going through the nondescript little door of his private apartments. I itched to know what was in there. No one has ever been inside; no servants are allowed to enter. The Cook told me he brings the Emperor’s meal to the door every night, after the closing of the Throne Room session. As far as we know, the Emperor only eats one simple meal a day.