WITHIN MOMENTS of Isandor and Jevaithi having entered the tent, Simo started ordering people about. Some men dragged a mat into the middle. Two other men placed a crate on top, which they covered with furs.
Simo bowed. “Here you are, Your Highness. We don’t have much, but we give you the best we have.”
The crate made a cosy little bench. Jevaithi sat down, and Isandor followed, with the weight of many stares on him, as if the people questioned his right to sit next to her. He took her hand, cold and clammy. His heart beat like crazy in her chest.
Her gaze darted over the seated audience, as if she expected Rider Cornatan to emerge from the crowd any moment.
Several people dressed in black stood out in the audience, the men with beards. They were, like Simo, Brotherhood of the Light.
It felt absurd, sitting here while he could hear fights going on in the rest of the camp.
She went on in Chevakian. “Who are these people in black?”
“The Brotherhood of the Light. They run schools and orphanages in the Outer City. They are known to support the old royal family. They often sell and collect old things from the palace.”
She frowned. “Is Tandor one of them?” Still in Chevakian.
Isandor shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. He didn’t know for certain either, and disliked to be reminded of Tandor. What did the Brotherhood do, other than teach poor orphans things that the Knights didn’t think they should learn? He’d considered them to be a quaint relic of the old royal family in a quiet, unassuming sort of way.
Meanwhile, people streamed into the tent. Simo yelled at them to sit down around the makeshift throne. Jevaithi sat with her back straight. Isandor wondered where Milleus was. People raised their eyebrows at him, whispered to each other while looking at him. Simo gave him annoyed glances.
Soon, the questions came.
How had Jevaithi escaped, since the palace itself had been completely destroyed?
Did she know the whereabouts of Rider Cornatan and the senior command of the Knights?
Were there any other southern refugees with the Chevakian convoy?
“Quiet!” Simo yelled over the cacophony. “Her Highness will answer questions one by one.”
Isandor wondered what gave Simo the right to boss everyone around. It seemed like everyone in the camp accepted him as leader. Was it because he was loud, and no one else had volunteered, or for some other reason?
“I would like to ask you some questions first,” Jevaithi said, and although she hadn’t spoken loudly, talk stopped immediately, and all those people fell into an expectant silence. Many faces displayed bright expressions of hope.
Simo bowed. “By all means, Your Highness.”
But Simo’s voice betrayed a measure of annoyance. Maybe Simo hadn’t expected Jevaithi to return at all, and he was irritated at her for taking his leadership position.
Jevaithi asked, “Are there any Knights in the camp?”
“We don’t think so, Your Highness,” a woman said. “The guards are all Chevakians.”
“There was a Knight at the station,” a man said. “We chased him off.”
Some people laughed.
When it was quiet again, Jevaithi said, “Some Knights have survived. I’ve seen them; they’ve been following us. A group of hunters tried to kill me.”
Several people in the audience gasped.
Isandor wanted to say, But not all Knights are like that. I was a Knight, and most of them are honourable. Instead he jammed his hands between his knees and said nothing as the ex-citizens of the City of Glass recounted wrongs done by the Knights. He thought of Carro, who would probably be dead by now, and was sure Carro was honourable, or had been honourable, under his veneer of despair to be liked by others.
The perimeter of the tent had filled up with people, and extra onlookers were trying to cram into the tent entrance, but there was no room for anyone to move and still more people were trying to get in. People lifted children onto their shoulders, held lovers on their laps, and leaned on others while standing on tiptoe at the back. Everyone looked at Jevaithi. By the frowns on their faces, everyone wondered who Isandor was, and why a cripple ex-Knight should be with their queen. Isandor wanted to run. All this Your Highness business was starting to get on his nerves.
It was time for Jevaithi to tell her story. In that clear-voiced way of hers, she told the people how the Knights had been worried about something afoot in the palace on the morning of the explosion, of secret dialogue between Rider Cornatan and his senior-ranked officers. She told them how she was sure that the Knights were doing something unusual. That was because she could feel icefire, but she didn’t tell anyone that. She told them how none of the Knights would tell her what was going on, and that Rider Cornatan hadn’t wanted her to go to the Newlight festival.
That was because the Knights had wanted Jevaithi to be killed, someone in the audience yelled. Because they knew the explosion would happen and they expected Jevaithi to be one of the victims. There was much cheering after this, and Isandor grew angrier. That was just not true. The Knights adored Jevaithi.
Next she talked about her life. How she lived practically in a prison, of turning sixteen and of how she’d been wanting to escape from the palace to dance with normal boys during the Newlight Festival. She showed them her missing hand. That earned some gasps, but many others said that they had always known. Those people were mostly Brothers in black.
Simo said, “We have saved many children. There is not one family in the Outer City that isn’t secretly mourning an Imperfect-born child.” After some cheers, he concluded, “This idiocy has to stop.”
Several people shushed him and urged Jevaithi to keep talking.
She told them of Rider Cornatan’s refusal to hand over power and to let her sit on the Knights’ Council. Of his insistence that she wear stupid, gauze-thin clothes that made the Junior Knights drool over her body. Of his constant threats to rape her.
Everyone went very quiet when she said all these things.
A woman at the front cried and said they’d never known. She would have done something had she known.
“No one could do anything,” Jevaithi said. “I was surrounded by Knights all day.”
Then she told them how she’d wrangled the trip to the Newlight Festival out of Rider Cornatan, of attending the races and of that confusing night in the Outer City, when, after choosing the champion and the escape of the Legless Lion Isandor was meant to kill, she couldn’t go back to the palace because the bears and the driver of her sled had been murdered. She told them how an unseen form, a blue-skinned servitor, had tried to kill her, and how she had escaped, with the young apprentice Knight whom she had chosen as champion and his servitor Legless Lion. At this point everyone looked at Isandor and their expressions showed that they had added up the facts.
There was no icefire here to hide the fact that he was Imperfect. They stared at his leg, and increased the size of the circle around him. He was sleeping with their queen. They didn’t want him. It was acceptable for the Queen to be Imperfect, but a random boy—no. But to his surprise, someone said, “Hurray for Isandor.”
A number of people cheered, and some clapped, and a man behind him put a meaty hand on Isandor’s shoulder. Isandor turned and saw that the man was a Brother, dressed in black. His eyes twinkled with mirth. “Anyone but that shrivelled prune will do as father for the next queen. I hope you gave it your best.”
He laughed, but Isandor felt angry. So that was it, now? That was his function? As Outer City boy, they probably thought he was not smart enough for anything else. He wanted to tell them that he knew how to read and speak Chevakian, but that would make him look stupid.
While Jevaithi told the listeners how they had come here with Milleus and what had happened on the way, he drew his knees up to his chest and looped his arms around them, feeling the wood of his missing leg bite into his buttocks.
The people, mostly citizens of the Outer City or Bordertown, told their stories, of a massive explosion in the City of Glass, of a ring of icefire expanding outwards, of the shattering of the Chevakian barrier, of the forest fires, and the harrowing trip in the train.
People held conflicting opinions about what had caused the explosion.
“It was the Knights,” one said.
“No, it was a servitor,” someone said, and others argued and suggested that cycles of icefire happened by themselves.
“There were many servitors,” a woman said. “Big shapes made from icefire, destroying everything in their path.”
“Those were not servitors,” a man said, and people argued about what exactly servitors were, which no one seemed to know, apart from the fact that they had no hearts and obeyed their masters blindly.
“The city is a mess,” one man said. “Most of the buildings were destroyed that I could see. No one will be going back there in a hurry.”
“But why were you not safe even in Bordertown?” Jevaithi asked.
“After the explosion, these . . . people, servitors, things, whatever you want to call them, made of icefire came out of the ground. They formed a bubble of icefire that expanded outwards.”
A woman said, “Yes, and those things were still following us off the plateau. Setting fire to the forest.”
Jevaithi looked at Isandor, her eyes wide. “I don’t even understand what they’re talking about. Shapes of icefire?”
Isandor shrugged. His knowledge from books failed him. He’d never read about anything like that.
Simo took up a stance with his hands behind his back and his legs slightly apart, as if he was teaching. He said, “We’re fighting icefire itself. Through the Knights’ trying to stifle it, it has become so strong that it has burst from the ground and has taken possession of people’s bodies. Somebody did something to those people and they’re angry with us.”
The woman said, “And these monsters have taken possession of our city? Are they ever going to leave?”
“We may have to fight,” Brother Simo said, spreading his hands in a grandiose gesture, as if fighting was something glorious.
A man said, “How would you fight beings of icefire anyway? You can’t.”
Isandor was tempted to jump up and tell them that all knowledge on icefire held in the City of Glass was based on myth and that there was no proof for any of the things in Simo’s conclusions, but he had no proof to the contrary either, and he was sure most of these people here would support Simo. Who’d listen to a boy whose only task was to fuck the queen and get her pregnant?
The debate carried on around him.
Simo said, “Someone unleashed this power, so there must be a way it can be defeated. Icefire can be collected. Sinks do that. We need sinks. Lots of them.”
Then there was debate about what sinks were. It was all so futile. They didn’t have sinks, and if icefire was strong enough to blow up buildings, no number of sinks of the type the Eagle Knights had was going to have any influence.
Isandor glowered over his drawn-up knees at Simo’s back and the people seated around the makeshift throne. Faint sounds of shouting and crashes came from outside. He wondered where Milleus was.
Jevaithi’s eyes met his briefly. Her expression looked resigned, and that made him even angrier.
“What he says is all rubbish,” he said to her in a low voice, in Chevakian. “Milleus’ brother knows more about how icefire works than these people.”
“These Brothers have a lot of support,” Jevaithi said, her eyes wide.
“Yes, these people believe anything. Just because a Brother says so doesn’t mean it’s true. We should say something.”
“Please, let’s make sure we are safe first—”
“We can’t be safe until this type of idiocy ends. We have to speak out or they will be just as bad as the king was, or the Knights—” All of a sudden, his voice was the only one in the tent.
Brother Simo had turned around and everyone watched Isandor. Their looks were suspicious. A worthless Outer City boy was one thing, but a worthless Outer City boy who spoke Chevakian to their Queen? Outrageous.
Yes, he got the message.
He unlooped his arms from his knees and rose, awkward because he placed his wooden leg on someone’s boot and he nearly tripped.
In the silence, he said, “We should not make up our minds while no one knows what is going on and what caused the explosion. I think there is someone who may know more about it. The master of the blue servitor that killed the bears and the driver is a middle-aged man named Tandor. He does not live in the City of Glass, but he poses as a travelling merchant.” Tandor, his mother’s lover. He saw a sudden flash of his mother coming out of the door to the inner room of the limpet. The expression on her face was one of worry. Emotion threatened to overwhelm him. He finished with a lame, “Has anyone seen him in the camp?”
An older Brother near the entrance said, “I think I know the one you mean. Wasn’t he the fellow collecting old stuff in the Outer City?”
“That would be him,” Isandor said. “Have you seen him since leaving the Outer City?”
“No, sorry.”
“I think he was on the train,” a woman said.
Another said, “No, I know the one you mean, but I didn’t see him.”
“Yes, he was here,” the original woman said. “But he was badly burned. He was with a family, and they got taken away to some medical place, I heard.”
“That can’t be him. Tandor doesn’t have a family,” Isandor said.
Simo sniffed. “How can one man make such a difference?”
“He asked me to be his apprentice.” People gave him odd glances. Some expressions were clearly annoyed. Feeling the situation slip from his control, Isandor continued, “Before all this happened, he came into the Outer City with a servitor, and tried to recruit me for his plans.”
“Why you?” Simo asked, in a who-do-you-think-you-are kind of way.
“Because he saved the lives of many Imperfect children put out on the ice floes. I’m one of those he saved.”
Simo held his gaze briefly, and those eyes were full of pity, before turning away to talk to Jevaithi about people in the camp, and how her wish was his command.
Jevaithi answered him politely. Why didn’t she see that Simo had no intention of giving up his position?
What did she know, having been locked up in the palace all that time? Knights or Brothers were all the same: they only wanted power. Failing power, they’d suck up to someone who had status, just so that they could grovel their way up.
He pushed himself off the bench. Why ever had he introduced Jevaithi to these people? Why had he even agreed to come with Milleus? There was no need for them to flee advancing icefire. They should have let Milleus go alone. Offered to look after his farm, so that they could learn to be farmers.
“Where are you going?” Jevaithi asked.
“Out,” Isandor said, and he knew he sounded angry and Chevakian was an excellent language for being angry.
“What’s going on? I thought you agreed with these people?”
“These people are idealists, and they won’t stop poking the Knights until they hit back.”
“I thought you’d been betrayed by the Knights.”
“I was betrayed by one Knight.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying this, after Knights tried to kill us. The Brotherhood is for the people.”
“And who is to say they won’t form another group that will end up just as evil as the others? I want to know what they stand for. What do they believe in? What do they want?”
“Who cares? All of those ideals are useless if we can’t go back to the City of Glass. The Brotherhood wants to help us.”
“They don’t. They want power. They’re annoyed that we’ve turned up.”
“That’s nonsense. They’re helpful and courteous.”
“You’re too trusting. The Knights aren’t the only ones with dicks to rape you.”
Her eyes widened and Isandor cringed. That was a tactless remark, but her naivety was so infuriating.
“You are so suspicious.”
“That comes with living on the streets. You should try it once.”
Her nostrils flared. “Are you saying that I am dumb?” Her eyes flashed with true anger that made him feel chilled inside.
“No, I’m not. I’m just—” Although in a way, that was the translation of what he’d implied. She was so innocent as to be a danger to herself. Knights had always protected her.
“Yes you are. Don’t you think that living with the threat of being raped every day does nothing to you? Do you think that I have been living an easy life?”
“I never said that.” But she’d known no hunger, no worry of disease.
“Yes, you did. What do you want us to do then? We can’t be farmers. We can’t hide. These people need our help. They are our people.”
“I never said they weren’t and that we shouldn’t help.”
“Then what? What is your problem?” She spread her hands in a frustrated gesture.
People watched. There was sure to be someone who understood some Chevakian.
Isandor started to say I don’t like being treated as a nobody or, I’m not just a dick with a pair of eyes but that sounded stupid and selfish, and it wasn’t really that. It was that he didn’t like all the men in black, and didn’t like their mysterious organisation. They had the crowd just as much under control as the Knights had, only the people seemed to subject themselves willingly; and he was angry about that, because he’d thought people would be smarter after so many years of repression by the king or the Knights.
Jevaithi repeated, louder now, “Come on, tell me, what is your problem?”
“Shhh, calm down,” he said.
She whirled to him. “No. I’ve had enough of being treated like I’m a toddler.”
“All right, all right, I’m going.” He gave a mock bow. “Your Highness.” He left the tent, but his legs were trembling and his heart—her heart—was beating like crazy. Why couldn’t she understand him?