The Lord Protector muttered something, squeezed his fist upon the rail. Coya could only sympathize with the man, though he sensed that they were still skirting the heart of their meeting, the full reason why Creed was here.
‘We could have corresponded on this,’ he ventured. ‘You hardly needed to come all this way in person.’
‘No.’
They fell to silence, each buffeted by the wind. Let him settle his temper first, Coya decided.
The skyship was turning to windward, bringing the world around with it, so that Minos drifted away to the left and the striking cobalt of the sea filled their eyes. Coya could see a hint of an island chain to the far east, little more than hummocks of rock extending south-east in the direction of Salina. He imagined the loose collection of islands beyond Salina, stretching all the way to distant Khos at its easternmost point over six hundred laqs from where they were now; the archipelago of the Free Ports and of the democras, people without rulers.
Along with the egalitarian participos of Minos and Coros and Salina, if you took the time to travel the Mercian Isles, you could come across islands that elected councils by lottery and believed in no personal possessions at all, or were based on administrative matriarchies of the old tradition, with simple cottage industries and tightly controlled tariffs on trade, or were free-for-all enclaves like those of Coraxa, fierce individualists living in loose tribes and scattered communities. Even distant mighty Khos was represented in the League, where the last vestige of Mercian nobility, the Michine, had somehow held onto power following the sweeping years of revolution over a century before – albeit aided by many concessions to the people, and by endless centuries of sieges and invasions that had made the Khosians, as a nation, mutually reliant on those who paid and maintained much of their defences.
The varied democras of the Free Ports, based on the dreams of a political prisoner who had died centuries previously – a philosopher whose blood was running through Coya’s veins even as he thought of him now – were the same only in that they shared the common ideals of the League constitution, at least in principle if not always in action, and that they were all part of this unique experiment in rule by the people. It was hardly a utopia they had created here. No one and nothing was ever going to be perfect. But perfect or not, they had fought for a free and fair way of living, without slavery or exploitation of others, and on most islands they had achieved some working approximations of it.
And now this speculation of invasion, ringing in his mind day and night, a jangly disjointed series of anxieties and teetering hopes. It was hard to think of anything else just now. Only last night, Coya had experienced a dream that had caused him to awake in a shaking, sweaty panic.
In his dream, he had imagined the imperial capital of Q’os as a monstrous quivering thing pulsating at the absolute heart of Mann. Its tendrils had flowed outwards across the world of humans in the form of self-fulfilling credence, reaching deep into the minds of people as they slept, and even more so when they were awake; whispers upon whispers that told how life was a vicious competition and nothing more, how human worth was to be found only in those measurable effects of status and materials either gained or given, how man must prey always on man, how those who would be free must first of all enslave. In his dream, the whispers had flowed never-ending until it was all the listeners could do but believe in the words and follow them, and their neighbours the same, and their neighbour’s neighbours, so that the needs of the monstrosity were pulsing through them all, and they were inflating with the ugly power of it, becoming the words themselves and making of them a reality – and all the while the monster gorged, and the world itself grew crazed and barren.
All his life, Coya had loathed and feared the tyranny of Mann. And now this impending invasion, these Mannian fleets heading straight for the people of the League with their intentions of conquest; causing him nightmares in the coldest hours of the night.
‘There’s another matter I must raise with you,’ Creed announced, stirring from his own musings. ‘Something I can only discuss in person.’
‘Oh?’
‘If I’m right, and the Mannians invade Khos rather than Minos, then full martial law and all its powers will fall into my hands. I want your people in the Few to know that I will use that power only as intended, in the defence of Khos. Nothing more.’
‘Really, Marsalas. Not here.’
‘Then where else? Time is short. I need the Few to know that I harbour no plans of becoming a dictator.’
Coya shook his head. ‘I would not have supposed it, anyway. Still-’ Coya faltered, his mouth open.
Marsh had caught his eye. Something had changed in the stance of the man, a sudden alertness that would have gone unnoticed had Coya not know known him for the better part of his life.
‘I’m certain your words will be well received,’ he continued as Creed followed his gaze: both of them looking at Marsh, at the bodyguard’s hands now reaching beneath his brown leather longcoat for something in the small of his back. ‘You have nothing to fear from us, believe me. You are wise enough not to allow such power to ruin you entirely… Besides, you know too well the consequences, should that ever occur…’
Coya blinked in surprise as Marsh lifted a pistol in his hand and aimed it towards the crew.
The crack of the shot went right through him. He stared in shock at his bodyguard, standing there like some duellist with his right leg extended forwards, his other hand still beneath his coat, a puff of smoke dispelling in the wind from the end of the raised gun. Coya followed the line of the shot and spotted a man toppling backwards onto the deck, while crewmen around him shouted out in surprise or dived for cover. The victim was a monk, he saw, one of the pair of monks who had come aboard to bless this august occasion of their meeting.
Another bang went off nearby, loud enough to burst his heart. Creed shouted something by his side as chunks of debris whistled past them.
A wash of black smoke blew across their position by the rail. He had time enough to see a second monk leaping towards them, something round and black in his hand, and Marsh pulling another pistol from his coat, then firing it, before the smoke engulfed them entirely; and then Coya was sprawled on the deck with a great weight pressing down on him, and another bang tried to squeeze the insides out from him.
When the smoke cleared, Marsh was still standing there with his hands now empty save for a knife. He was turning to track the monk vaulting over the rail to his death.
Coya gasped as the man vanished over the side.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Creed, patting him down before helping him to his feet.
Coya found his voice again. ‘I’m fine, I think,’ he said as he stooped awkwardly for his cane. ‘And you?’ he asked, as he leaned on it for support and looked up at the general. ‘You seem to be bleeding, on your head, there.’
Creed dabbed at his head where a shallow wound ran crimson. The general frowned then turned to look over the rail. Coya was curious too.
Below, a great distance below, a canopy of white drifted down towards the surface of the sea. As the wind carried it in the direction of the coast, he saw a man dangling beneath it, the burned orange of his robes unmistakable.
Creed shook his head in obvious fascination.
‘These Diplomats. They grow crazier every year.’
CHAPTER FOUR
The House on Tempo Street
In sweat, they lay with their lungs heaving and their cries still ringing in their ears, both of them splayed like martyrs on the sodden bed, their bodies glistening in the daylight cast through the tattered, mouldy curtains of gala lace that hung across the open window.