“We did it, Bill!” said Field Marshall Amberley excitedly, crashing into the committee room and making everyone look up in surprise. “We got ‘em all!”
“The Carrow army?” said King Leothan, a smile bursting across his face. Around the table, the other members of the advisory committee also looked delighted and the business of the allocation of the city's resources was temporarily forgotten.
“All of them, except for a handful who headed for the hills. The majority were killed in the trenches. Most of the rest were in confusion and offered virtually no resistance when our boys went out to round them up. We have five thousand prisoners. We're taking them to Stormwell, the sports stadium. It's the only enclosed space big enough for that many people.”
“Good job, George! Bloody good job!” Leothan jumped up from his chair, ignoring a couple of inventory reports that he knocked onto the floor in the process, and grabbed him by the arms, almost laughing with pleasure and relief. “This time they don't escape! If the Radiants try to spring them, kill them. No-one can condemn us for killing prisoners trying to escape. Make sure the guards are clear that they know what to do. Kill them rather than let them get away. If I'd had the guts to give that order last time, this whole nightmare might have been avoided.”
“That wasn’t your fault, Bill. No-one could have predicted they'd find a way to bring artillery into the country.”
“I’m the King, George. It's on me.” Then he brightened, though. “Do we have enough of an army left to patrol the countryside, find the ones who got away?”
“I'm already on it. They won't get far.”
“Good. No telling what kind of mischief they might get up to. Nilon doesn't know yet?”
“No. Their telegraph line was cut when we blew the trenches up. Our line to Charnox is still intact, but we haven't used it yet. He won't find out until word reaches him via the civilian grapevine. Unfortunately, the people of the city are already celebrating and spreading the news across the country. There’s nothing we can do about that, but I reckon we’ve got a week or so.”
“Good. No telling how he might react, what he might do to Ardria. Have we heard anything about how she’s getting on over there?”
“All we have is what the Carrow propaganda machine is putting out. They're saying she’s been taken to the palace in chains. The chains part may be true. Nilon won’t miss a chance to score a propaganda coup like that, but Ardria's a strong girl. A pair of manacles won't bother her much. She's where she wants to be. She’ll have had a chance to speak directly to Nilon by now. We have to hope that the King was duped and that she and Darniss can make him see sense.”
“And if Nilon’s thrown his lot in with the Radiants? If he knows exactly what they’re doing and is behind them one hundred percent? How do we get her out?”
“The Brigadier's over there. He'll do something.”
Leothan nodded. “Yes, we must place our faith in the Brigadier. He'll do something. In the meantime... I'm going to speak to Nilon by telegraph. Try to negotiate with him as if his army's still out there, as if I'm still willing to surrender, for the right terms. That gives him a reason to keep Ardria alive. Gives the Brigadier time to do something.”
He excused himself to the committee members, then left the room, heading for the new telegraph room that had been set up in the Ministry Building.
☆☆☆
Princess Ardria was strumming a lyre in the west courtyard when the guard came to summon her. The lyre was a good one. A Polansky if she was any judge, worth at least a hundred thousand Helberion crowns, and it produced a crystal clear note that delighted her as she played one of her favourite tunes on it. The Raising of Malarta. A tune from an opera by Desperona the Younger.
Leona was sitting in another chair facing her, her foot tapping to the rhythm and a smile on her face, and that made Ardria smile in return, despite her situation. A person enjoying her music always made her feel good. Only the Radiant floating almost directly above her, dark against the bright, sunlit sky, darkened her mood, but she did her best to ignore it.
“Do you play?” she asked when she came to the end of the piece.
“Not the lyre, Highness. I used to play the harpett a little, before I came to work at the palace.”
“Do you still play it?” asked the Princess, her smile widening.
“Sometimes.”
“Go get it. We'll play a duet. Do you know ‘Lord Dulhurst’s Lament?”
“That was one of my favourite pieces! I can't right now, though. I have duties.”
“You have to guard me.”
The maid looked embarrassed. “Yes, Highness. Perhaps another time.”
“Another time,” agreed the Princess. She strummed the strings thoughtfully. “Will you miss it? When you're a Radiant, I mean. Will you miss playing music?”
“I'm sure they have their own forms of recreation and relaxation, Highness. Things we can’t imagine. Things that make playing music seem trivial and simple.”
“What things?”
“I don’t know, Highness. I'd have to ask it.” She nodded up at the Radiant floating above them.
“Ask it then.”
The maid looked thoughtful for a moment. “He says their forms of recreation are mostly intellectual. Solving mathematical theorems, logic problems. That sort of thing. Contemplating the solution to an intricate mathematical theorem gives them the same pleasure and satisfaction that listening to a piece of music does to us.”
“Fascinating!” said The Princess. “I'm curious, though. Why didn't you know until just now? Why didn't you ask it before? You're going to be a Radiant one day. Aren't you curious to know what it'll be like?”
“I know it'll be wonderful. Far better than being human.”
“Forgive me, but that sounds a little vague. Aren’t you curious about the details? About how it'll be better?”
“I'm told it's impossible for a human to comprehend it. We have to wait to experience it for ourselves.”
“Has anyone not thought it was better? Has anyone ever been raised to Radiant and then regretted it, wished they were human again?”
There was another pause. “Never, Highness.”
“The reason I ask... I was raised from a Kestrel. Sometimes I have dreams. Dreams of being able to fly. Dreams of soaring high above the ground, the wind under my wings... A sense of exhilaration as I dive towards the ground, faster and faster. I wonder sometimes, is it just a dream, or am I actually remembering being a Kestrel?”
“You miss being able to fly?”
“If it's like my dreams, yes. Sometimes.”
“The Radiant says it may be a real memory, but that you’re experiencing it with a human intellect. It says that the Kestrel you used to be was incapable of appreciating the experience the way a human could, if it could fly. It says that's what it's like being a Radiant. Mathematical puzzles may not seem much fun to you now, or to me if I'm honest, but that's because we lack a Radiant’s intellect. We can't imagine the joy and satisfaction that lie ahead of us after we’ve been raised.”
Ardria nodded thoughtfully and started playing a new tune, The Bee and the Butterfly. Half way through it the door opened and the guard came in. She continued playing as the guard strode across the polished granite paving slabs towards her, past the tubs containing decorative plants and the formal pond containing golden fish that came to the surface to beg for food as he strode past.
“King Nilon demands your presence,” he stated as he came to stand before her.
Ardria continued playing, though, continuing to the end of the musical phrase before stopping and looking innocently up at him. “I'm sorry, I was a million miles away. What did you say?”
“King Nilon demands your presence in the telegraph room,” said the guard, and Ardria almost dropped the lyre in excitement. She caught it by the neck just in time to prevent it suffering expensive damage on the ground. “He wants me to talk to my father!” she said, jumping up from the chair.
“He awaits you even now, Your Highness. No doubt with growing impatience.”
“Yes, yes, of course. We mustn't keep the King waiting.” She hurried towards the entrance the guard had come in through, and the guard had to almost run to keep up with her.
The room had been cleared of its usual operators and now contained only King Nilon and another of the adopted guards who was sitting in the operator's chair, no doubt being tutored on how to use the machine by the Radiant he was in telepathic contact with. “Ah, my dear Ardria,” said Nilon, grinning broadly. “Your father is on the line. He wants to make sure you're safe. Perhaps you would be so good as to tell him how well we've been looking after you.”
“I’d be delighted,” said the Princess, taking a seat next to the operator. The man handed her the notebook on which he'd written down the conversation so far, and Ardria scanned her eyes across it. Leothan was willing to surrender, she read. Marboll was coming under fire from Carrow artillery. The wall was close to being breached. Leothan was willing to fight street to street, taking many Carrow lives, if a deal could not be reached. A deal that guaranteed his safety and that of his family, but first he had to know if his daughter was still alive. The last message was a request from King Nilon that Leothan wait while they fetched her.
“Okay,” said Nilon, looking at her. “Send him a message. Something personal so that he knows it’s really you.”
“Aren't you afraid we might be sending coded messages to each other?”
Nilon laughed. “Send all the coded messages you like. My army surrounds him. They may be in the streets of the city already. He only has one choice to make. Whether to surrender now with some measure of dignity or hide somewhere like a toad in a hole until my men ferret him out.”
“You have a point,” said Ardria drily. She picked up a pencil and wrote on the pad. ‘This is Princess Ardria. I am safe and well. I’ve been told that everyone who came with me from Marboll is dead. The day I was confirmed human, you told me how much I reminded you of your mother. You said we had the same eyes. Please do the right thing. I love you.’ She handed the pad to the operator, who showed it to the King for his approval. He read it, nodded, and the operator began tapping it out on the telegraph machine.
“By ‘do the right thing,’ I assume you mean that he should surrender himself to my troops,” said Nilon with a small smile.
“No,” replied Ardria. “I meant that he should escape from the city, remain at large and raise support for an uprising against you. He’ll know that.”
Nilon nodded. Then he took the pad, wrote something else on it and handed it back to the operator. “When you've finished, send this,” he said. The operator nodded without pausing in his work.
Ardria leaned over to read what he'd written. ‘You will allow General Holden or, if he is dead, whoever is in charge of the army attacking your city, access to your telegraph machine so that he can give me a report on the current situation there. If you do not, one of my wizards will curse your daughter half way back to her animal form."
“You don't have your own telegraph connection?” she asked.
“It was lost a little while ago. A lucky shell strike, no doubt.”
“What about the Radiants? Can't they tell you what’s going on over there with their telepathy?”
“Telepathy only has a range of a few hundred yards. We would need a daisy chain of Radiants stretched between here and Marboll. About twenty thousand of them. You know this. You used to have telepathy.”
Ardria nodded. “I’ve tried to block out the memory.”
The guard who had escorted her there, meanwhile, moved closer to her and reached out to take her hand. She shied away from him, breathing heavily with fear, and he grabbed her arm and pulled her against him. He then took her hand in an unbreakable grip, his fingers hot, dry and rough will callouses. Panic rose in the Princess, but then it subsided and she felt a warm peace descending on her. He's parent bonding me, she thought, and there was no fear in the thought. Just a calm acceptance. He’s making himself love me. He could bless me now if he wanted. Send me back on the road to demoncy, or throw me back down the rungs of life. All on the merest whim.