Scholars and Soldiers by Gentle Mary

Author:Gentle, Mary [Gentle, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781857232639
Google: _0pUHQAACAAJ
Amazon: 1857232631
Goodreads: 3000049
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 1989-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

A Sun in the Attic

The Archivist sits in a high room, among preserved (and precisely disabled) relics; sorting through notes, depositions, eye-witness accounts, and memoirs.

Outside the window, the city of Tekne is bright under southern polar light. The room is not guarded. There is not the necessity.

In the somewhat archaic and formal style proper to history scrolls, the Archivist writes: In the Year of Our Lady, Seventeen hundred and Ninety-Six‍‍ –

Then she pauses, laying down the gull’s-quill-pen, staring out of the window.

Beyond the quiet waters of the harbour, the slanted sails of the barbarian fleets have drawn perceptibly nearer.

The Archivist turns back to her material.

Tell it as it happened, she thought. Even if it is not in a single voice, nor that voice your own. Tell it while there is still time for such things…

An airship nosed slowly down towards the port’s flat-roofed buildings. Beyond the harbour arm, the distant sea was white and choppy. Tekne’s pale streets sprawled under the brilliant Pacific sun.

‘It may be a false alarm.’ Roslin Mathury leaned on the rim of the airship-car, protesting defensively. ‘You know what Del’s like, once he’s in his workshops.’

‘That’s why you’ve brought us back from the farm estates a month before harvest, I suppose?’

Roslin busied herself with straightening the lace ruffles at her cuffs and collar. Without meeting Gilvaris Mathury’s gaze, she said, ‘Very well, I admit it, I’m anxious.’

The airship sank down over the Mathury roofs, the sun striking highlights from its dull silver bulk. The crew tossed mooring ropes, and house servants ran to secure them.

‘I should have made him come to the country with us!’ Roslin said.

‘No one ever made Del do what he didn’t want to,’ Gilvaris observed. ‘I should know. He’s my brother.’

‘He’s my husband!’

‘And mine, also.’

‘When I married you, it wasn’t to be told the obvious,’ Roslin said, equally acidly; gaining some comfort from the familiarity of their bickering. ‘Well, husband, shall we go down?’

The mooring gangway being secured, they disembarked onto the roof of the Mathury town house. The airship cast free, rising with slow deliberation. Its shadow fell across them as it went, and Roslin was momentarily chilled. She saw, as she looked past it, the crescent bulk of Daymoon, blotting out a vast arc in the western sky.

‘Se Roslin, Se Gilvaris.’ The house-keeper bowed. ‘We’re glad to have you back safely‍ ‍–’

Roslin cut the small elderly man off in mid-speech. ‘Tell me, what’s so bad that you couldn’t put it in a message to us?’

‘The Se Del Mathury worked while you were gone,’ the shaven-headed servant said. ‘He made some discovery, or thought that he did; he had us bring food to his workrooms, and never left. I think he slept there.’

Roslin nodded impatiently. ‘And?’

‘He saw visitors,’ the housekeeper continued, ‘admitting them privately; and received messages. Three weeks ago we brought his morning meal to the workrooms. He was gone, Se Roslin. We’ve seen and heard nothing from him since.’

Light sparkled from glass tubes and flasks and retorts, from coiled copper tubing and cogwheels.

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