Tower of Mud and Straw Read online

  “If they did, they sure haven’t told me.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Well… Could you at least help me fetch my luggage?”

  Even when the horse picked up a steady pace, the tower remained immobile, as though forming a whole with the salmon clouds, a painting on an enormous flat canvas.

  In the distance, across the fields, a row of yellow lights floated like will-o’-the-wisps.

  “I hope I’m not imagining things,” Shea said.

  “Wives.” The driver clicked his tongue. “Fiancées. Lanterns for the foremen at the construction site who’re staying for the night.”

  “Don’t they have lanterns inside?”

  “It’s a tradition.”

  In the short breath before sunset, the clouds at the horizon seemed to pick up the glow from the procession—and underneath, a new thing stirred in Shea. Perhaps there was a lantern for him, too. Perhaps something waited to happen behind the tower’s contours.

  He grabbed that lifeline and tried to focus on the sensation. It’s not over. I’m not finished yet.

  At the village’s outskirts, a boy and a girl, a pair of brown dashes for knees, ran in circles, slinging dust at each other.

  “Look at him,” the driver said. “Look at that guy go.”

  A man pulled an empty two-wheeled cart at the road’s opposite side. There was something about him, something unnatural, and a moment later Shea realized what: he was moving too fast, like a marathon runner but without any visible effort. No muscles bulging. He glided.

  “A Drakiri fellow.” The driver spat, without malice, as if paying some weird tribute. “Can pull those things all day. Those aren’t real carriages, though.”

  “Huh?”

  “We call them drikshaws. No place for luggage.”

  “I hate the idea, being carried by another human being,” Shea said. “Or a Drakiri, doesn’t matter. I can’t understand how anyone wouldn’t find it offensive.”

  “Only don’t tell ‘em that, boss. Will smack you on the head with the whole cart. Strong, those fellows. ‘Lot stronger than you and me.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard as much. Still, a job doesn’t become less degrading because it’s easier.”

  “Few other jobs around here, boss. You can work the fields, but they don’t care for that.”

  Eyes on the road, the Drakiri dashed past them.

  “What about the tower?” Shea said. “I bet one of them could replace a couple human builders.”

  “They don’t care for the tower either. Oi!” The driver smacked the horse on the rump. “They don’t care for the tower at all.”

  “Why?”

  The man shrugged.

  They rode past the houses, blind lattice windows caked with dust, past a butcher with a beer belly and a dirty apron, dragging his feet as though time marched at a slower pace for him, kids tumbling around in the dirt, heaps of raked leaves.

  Triangles of the wooden roofs didn’t touch the rising moon but hid the tower, and with it went Shea’s lifeline: he was at the border, in as deep a province as it got, on someone else’s land, without an office, a foreign graft on the local hierarchy. This intendancy system—had Daelyn created it just to give failures a home?

  In a sense, he was back to when he’d left his family estate eight years ago.

  The welcoming cortege waited for him at the castle gates: a gray-haired woman with a hawk nose. In the sunset, the wall behind her could’ve been made of sand.

  “I’m Fiona, the majordomo,” she said—but when he extended his hand, didn’t change her pose, the sticks of arms crossed over stomach, fingers which would’ve made a musician proud had they not been mutilated by arthritis.

  Shea chuckled. “The next fanfare I get will probably be at my funeral, right?”

  She didn’t answer—just quietly paid the driver and led Shea through a side door next to the gates, up a set of stairs, down a narrow path between battlements.

  Through the embrasures, the last of the day dissolved: molten sun dripped along the tower’s edge, a black furnace.

  “We’re going into the oldest part of the castle, Kayleigh’s Wing,” Fiona said without turning or lowering her pace. “Kayleigh was the first duke’s daughter.”

  “I must admit I’ve never been much of a history buff.”

  “Your quarters will be in that wing. Don’t worry, we strive to keep everything in order.”

  “Thank you.”

  “The duke expects you in an hour,” she said.

  “Nice joke.”

  “Do I seem like a joking type to you, my lord?”

  “He wants to see me at, what, ten?”

  “At this castle, we work day and night.”

  “Especially at night, apparently. I’ve just arrived, and it was a long trip—at the very least I’d need to take a bath…”

  “And that’s why I said ‘in an hour’ and not ‘right now.’ “

  Another set of stairs, this time leading downward to an oak door built to survive a battering ram.

  The quarters looked posh at a first glance: living room the size of a country house, two couches under green velvet, an exit to a balcony, six gas lamps under the ceiling, all of them working; through an archway, a royal bed and a tapestry depicting a battle at the castle’s walls, likely caused by baron A seizing a cartload of sheepskin or something similarly important from baron B. An enamel bathtub, reasonably white.

  On closer inspection, the floorboards grunted under Shea’s boots, the first wooden wall panel he touched rocked under his fingers, and moths had taken a good bite out of the couches’ velvet.

  Fiona stood in the doorway, waiting for him to finish his survey.

  In the bathroom, he twisted the hot water valve, but only a sound came out, a lone rustle trailing along the castle’s intestines.

  “Where’s the hot water?”

  “From nine till eleven in the morning,” Fiona said from the entrance. “This isn’t the capital, Lord Ashcroft.”

  It was clear she’d rehearsed the line.

  Hence the urgency, Shea thought. Drag out the new guy, tired, sweaty. Let him learn his place. Well, he could play this game, too.

  He turned the second valve. The water was ice against his fingers.

  “Tell the duke I’ll meet him in two hours, my lady. Please send someone to wake me in one.”

  “The duke has—”

  “I don’t care. I’ll meet him in two hours, or he’ll have to find something else to discuss with his people. I heard weather’s always a safe choice.” He glanced at his own reflection above the sink. “Make sure you rehearse this line, too.”

  3

  The duke didn’t receive him in the council chamber or the great hall or any other place normally reserved for official meetings. A servant led Shea back between the battlements and into the ‘new castle,’ diving into a labyrinth of narrow passages, a succession of U-turns whose main purpose was, most likely, to create an illusion of space.

  No, the duke received him in a drawing room, which, of course, sent a message: Shea was a guest here, an important, but ultimately a passing one.

  The windows were holes into the night, but the walls reflected warm yellow, as though life had dipped everything between them in amber to wait for Shea’s arrival.

  It was a scene from a painting: a thin man in his sixties on a satin couch, already wearing a rehearsed sardonic smile on pursed lips; to his right, a group of five: four fellows—looking like someone had fashioned them from the same piece of wood—and one woman. They couldn’t have been waiting for him more than ten minutes, but because of the yellow glow and the affected poses, it seemed as though they’d been here forever.

  “Welcome to Owenbeg, Ashcroft,” said the duke.

  “My lord, the queen extends her—”

  “Oh yes, how is the old fart Daelyn doing?” The man came alive, re-crossing his legs and leaning on his palm. “Dear all, did you know we had the same teacher of astro
nomy when we were kids? She was smarter than me, I’ll give her that—the only problem is, it’s not the stars she was chiefly interested in but the boys’—”

  Shea blinked. “My lord, I’m not sure it’s appropriate, in the presence of a lady—”

  “Yes, yes, let’s dispense with the pleasantries. Everyone, this is Shea Ashcroft, former Minister of Internal Affairs, former councilor to the queen, and, starting with today, an intendant in our humble domain. Whatever the hell that means. As for this lot…” He waved his hand theatrically. “This is Patrick, my military counselor, Cian, Counselor of Justice.” He recited the other first names, omitting the titles and surnames. “Miss Brielle is our chief engineer at the tower.”

  A red-headed woman of thirty–thirty-five stood closest to the couch, perfect oval of an open face, somewhat heavy figure. The men kept their gaze on their master, actors waiting for a cue—she was the only one who looked Shea in the eye. Smiled.

  “And this,” the duke said, “is Lena, my Counselor of Arts.”

  For a moment, for Shea, the duke disappeared.

  What are the odds?

  Not just the name, but something in the profile, the posture…

  Standing in the corner, looking out the blind window as though not a part of the reception—which was why he hadn’t noticed her before—Lena was half a head above everyone else save for him and the man whom the duke had designated as ‘Patrick’. She wore a long dress the color of her hair, a black wave rolling down her back, framing her face with its sculpture-precise features.

  He’d never heard of an arts counselor, and, anyway, the duke didn’t have a reputation as a patron of arts; most probably, they shared a connection. Lovers, then, Shea thought.

  “How about a drink?” the duke said.

  “I don’t really drink, my lord.”

  “Do I understand it correctly that your primary function as intendant would be sending reports to Daelyn?”

  “Not quite, it’s—”

  “How often?”

  “Queen expects monthly communiques.”

  “Marvelous.” A smile. “Marvelous. Let’s agree on a day, say, first Monday of the month—Fiona will visit you to provide you with notes on the construction effort.”

  So that was how he wanted to play it. His majordomo as a censor, pristine reports stripped of all the details Daelyn ‘doesn’t need to know’, omissions legitimized by Shea’s own signature.

  “Shall we take a step back, my lord?” he said. “Before we agree on any course, I want to fulfill my tourist’s duties.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I’d like to visit the tower.”

  The smile widened, but the duke’s eyes were two ponds on a winter day.

  And now for the real game.

  “Why?” he said.

  “I must assess the progress myself.”

  “We’ll provide you with all the details.”

  “Same as you did with the Drakiri tech?”

  Lena, who, until then, had appeared lost in thought, turned her head exactly enough to meet Shea’s gaze. They held eye contact for a few seconds, and he continued, “The queen heard you’d met with problems.”

  The duke’s face went red. “Fools’ lies, all of them.”

  “My lord, if I may,” the chief engineer said. Brielle. “We’ve used the Drakiri devices to speed up the construction—”

  The duke waved her off. “That’s what we did. Isn’t it what Daelyn wants?”

  “I can’t speak for the queen, but I have a hunch she wants this venture to succeed, not for the tower to crack like an egg. Which will happen if you keep using the technology.” Shea turned to Brielle. “How soon may I visit the site, my lady?”

  She opened her mouth, but the duke broke her off again.

  “Do you have a background in construction?”

  “No.”

  “Exactly, because you’ve what, you’ve led a shoe factory? Before becoming a minister?”

  “I’ve managed an upholstery workshop, my lord. It was a family enterprise. Fairly big, too—we supplied…”

  “Big as my ass.” The duke slapped the arm of his chair. “I don’t care.”

  He could afford profanity. He had at least twenty years of a head start in politics, and this was his turf.

  Everybody in the room stared at Shea, including the tapestry griffins on the wall.

  He could press them, push his status as the queen’s envoy—but wouldn’t that make the situation worse?

  “Listen, I understand you feel I’m intruding upon your authority,” he said. “I’m only here to help. We want the same thing…”

  “There.” The duke propelled himself from the couch. “There. You sit at the Red Hill and you think you know what it’s like out here. Let me tell you: you don’t. For Daelyn, the tower’s a vanity project.”

  “No, it’s an anti-airship stronghold. Same for you, same for her.”

  “All old Daelyn sees is a symbol of pride. We need the bloody thing if we’re to survive.”

  “So it’s about survival now. I’m sorry, my lord, but the fact that you border Duma doesn’t make it—”

  “Oh really?” The duke marched toward Shea, stopping halfway, at the invisible demarcation line where his posse’s space ended. “Have you seen their crown prince? The one who’s been running the country ever since his father had a stroke?”

  “That’s pure warmongering and you know it. Even when I was a kid—someone has always been talking about Duma attacking us.”

  “Go across the border.” The duke stabbed a finger at the black window. “I implore you. Visit Poltava. Their village, but half the people are ours, from before the boundary changed. Or rather, were ours. See what they’ve done to the place, see it for yourself.”

  “Then there’s the question of the sabotage attempts,” Patrick, the military counselor, said in a suddenly clear, resolute baritone. “Who but the crown prince…”

  The duke, who’d been shifting his weight from one foot to another, froze in mid-motion, and a new expression flickered in his eyes. Fear.

  Shea took a step forward. “Sabotage attempts?”

  “We don’t…” Patrick began.

  “Shut up,” the duke said. “Just shut your mouth. Can you shut your mouth for me?”

  “I’m looking forward to you providing all the details,” Shea said.

  Brielle raised her chin. “My lord, I don’t think there’s any harm in showing the tower to Lord Ashcroft. Honestly, I don’t think there’s any harm in showing it to anyone.”

  The duke gave the paper-white Patrick a long stare. Then he shifted his gaze to Brielle, probably considering whether he should continue the sparring match. “Do it, then,” he said and strode out of the drawing room.

  Did I win this round, or was I considered too small a fish?

  The woman in the black dress turned and crossed the room, too—no, she glided through it, sailed-dashed past the befuddled lords whom she didn’t grant a single word, disappeared behind the same door the duke had, and left Shea still trying to hold the gaze which wasn’t there anymore.

  Lena, the duke’s lover, was a Drakiri.

  What are the odds? To meet someone with your name here, the rarest imported name in the country.

  There are other echoes. The way she holds her head, the pride. The eyes.

  She probably sleeps with the duke, though, so we won’t interact much.

  And anyway, Lena, I’ll never talk with anyone the way we talked.

  4

  Morning breathed the coming winter, thin mist that bleached the air, seeped through the embrasures, snaked around the bastions before finally dissolving into sediment on the balcony’s floor.

  Past the battlements, the tower was over-sized theater scenery showing nothing of yesterday’s promise, and the courtyard below him stood empty—as did the balconies to Shea’s left and right.

  He listened: only a ‘caw’ came, which could’ve been someone trying to fix a car
t’s wheel, but was more likely a crow clearing its throat. We work day and night, Fiona had said, yet the old wing didn’t simply suffer from drowsiness—it looked dead.

  He went out into the corridor, crypt-quiet. With the tip of his boot, Shea pushed the closest door, and, to his surprise, it gave way, sweeping a view of a stripped stone cage with the skeleton of a couch. Second door, the same, but without the furniture. He went faster, knocking on some doors and throwing open the others.

  By the time he reached the staircase, he was reasonably sure the only person alive in Kayleigh’s Wing was him.

  At the same moment he put his foot onto the first step, a sound bled in from above, someone dragging their feet, someone heavy.

  “Fiona?” he said and thought, Unless she’s gained a hundred pounds overnight, that’s not her.

  After a hesitation, he pressed himself into the wall. In darkness, a huge figure, stubble on its bald head, shuffled by a few inches away, the scent of sweat mixing with something sweet—how Shea imagined a regurgitated honey mass would smell.

  The figure submerged into the corridor’s shadows, surfacing each time it passed a gas lamp. And each time, Shea’s heart doubled its pace, playing drums on his ribcage by the time the stroll came to a stop at his quarters’ entrance.

  The man pushed the doorknob with sudden gentleness, reminding him of a prize fighter people had taken him to see once, on a diplomatic mission. That one landed his final blows with the same restraint.

  You do that when you know how easily you can break things.

  Shea glanced at the gray light filtering from the staircase: from here, twenty seconds across the battlements, with good chances, too: he was much lighter than the man they’d sent to his quarters. Ten seconds up the stairs, a twenty-second sprint to the new castle. Half a minute.

  He exhaled and tiptoed into the corridor. He would lock the guy in. Being able to snap someone’s neck didn’t help against locks, and Shea knew how talkative certain people got when kept in confined space.

  At the doorstep, he grasped for the key that wasn’t there.

  “Damn.”

  The nightstand. He’d left the keys on the nightstand. He threw a last glance at the staircase, now a bleak spot at the end of a tunnel. Counted another ten seconds.