The Year of Our War by Steph Swainston Page B

that no artist in the last few hundred years has had any taste. The room’s furniture was a record of exclusive trends, from the turn of the first millennium. It was mostly baroque and tortoiseshell but a polished shield with a blue mascle on argent hung on the far wall, with arrows splayed behind. On either side there were ancient oil-painted portraits. Below, a variegated marble fireplace took up most of the wall, winged statues supporting an inlaid mantelpiece. An elegant glass wine decanter stood on a table with a pedestal of polished Carniss granite. Smoked salmon was arranged on a silver tray. Other seafood had legs and shells and looked too much like Insects for comfort. I skirted round it and touched Swallow’s green devoré shoulder to wake her from her reverie. The last chord hung in the air for a long, sweet time before dying.
    “Hello, Jant,” she said. “Great makeup.”
    I could grow to love some people. “Governor Awndyn, it’s good to see you and I wish the situation was different. Do either of you know what the fuck is happening in Rachis?”
    “No,” said Swallow cheerfully. She folded her sheet music, pulled a pencil from behind her ear, and began to write more music on the back. In a drunken conversation I once heard Lightning admit it was a shame Swallow keeps her hair short; it was a coppery red like sparks, like strands of silk. She also had thick eyebrows, and freckles all over her face and even down her arms.
    Swallow preferred to spend her days practicing the piano rather than going riding, and as a result was plump but unfortunately without having big breasts which many well-built women are blessed with. She sat cross-legged on the harpsichord stool, wearing a jacket made of different-colored squares of velvet. She also wore a dark green beret, which sat at a dapper angle on her ginger hair—such a jaunty angle, in fact, that I found myself braced to catch it, starting forward nervously every time she moved. She wore other stuff as well but it was the motley coat I really noticed, because it was so outrageous.
    Lightning stretched his muscular arms and sighed. “Take a seat,” he advised. I sank into an armchair which all but smothered me. “The Emperor asked for you this morning. I don’t know how you dare stretch his patience. I received a letter from Harrier, my steward, who attended the crowning ceremony. Staniel was so anxious to get into the throne that he couldn’t wait for any Eszai to be present, damn him—it’s the first coronation I’ve missed in fifteen hundred years!
    “Anyway, naturally Harrier was frightened for Micawater. If Rachis is surrounded by troops to protect it against Insects, what about my house which is only fifty kilometers away? Harrier wanted to know whether an invasion is likely. I have reassured him. I have sent everyone I can find to the front, and further arms to the fortress.”
    “You don’t want to follow the trend and protect Micawater?” Swallow asked.
    “Of course not! If we can’t hold the front then the whole thing will fall apart.”
    “Staniel wants Rachiswater to be a safe haven,” she added.
    “It will be safe all right. It will be a starving island in a sea of Insects. How long will even the best troops hold out with Staniel in command?” Lightning sighed. “Swallow, I wish I could keep my fyrd for myself but you know we have to work together to save northern Awia from being overrun.”
    “I came with two thousand men as reinforcements, I don’t see why you can’t let me go to the front.”
    “No. Not until you become Eszai.”
    I took a glass that had evidently been laid out for me, and poured some refreshing white wine. “The Insects will stay behind their Wall, Saker. There can’t be so many.”
    “Yes, and they’ll push the Wall out and build new Walls and more Walls until we will have lost all Awia. I remember how quickly they used to expand, at the beginning.”
    Better change the subject before Lightning starts