Heirs of the Blade by Adrian Tchaikovsky Page A

both more rugged and more heavily forested than Prince Felipe’s southern holdings, and Gaved’s chosen path meandered wherever the clearest land went, avoiding the deep woodland. Those trees extended easily over the border of Leose province, he explained, and then into the lawless lands to the south which they had just escaped from. Those thick woods were known as ‘bandits’ roads’ by the local peasants. Sometimes, when the brigands were bold, they played deadly hide-and-seek games between the trees with the Salmae’s Mercers. At other times the woods were left for the peasants to herd their aphids through, or for the hunting excursions of nobles.
    They were obviously nearing the province’s heart, but they had seen few others travelling, and none following the same route as they did. There was none of the traffic Tynisa would expect, when approaching a town. ‘So how far to this Leose?’ she pressed.
    ‘Depends what you mean by Leose,’ Gaved replied. ‘Every part of Elas Mar within a few miles of the castle is Leose. There’s no town as such, just villages dotted about the place. Remember, Suon Ren’s almost the closest to a proper city the Commonweal has – after the capital. Most of the Commonwealers live spread out like this, making the best use of the land. What you’re looking for is Leose castle , and we’ll see that by tomorrow. That’s where the Salmae live, but their people are spread all over.’
    The castle, when they had sight of it, did not disappoint. They had been following the course of a canal for some hours before the edifice came into view, and Tynisa saw that it had been placed to command the watercourse where it had cut a deep valley between two hills. It was a broad, squat mass of stone surmounted by tapering battlements, held in place against the land by a half-dozen spidery buttresses, seeming as though it might at any moment pick itself up and walk away. Two of the arching buttresses spanned the river itself, forming narrow bridges leading from the far side to the castle’s very door.
    ‘So that’s where you live, is it? Very grand,’ Tynisa remarked.
    ‘Me?’ Gaved shook his head. ‘They wouldn’t let me past the door, believe me, but I’m useful enough that they found Sef and me a little abandoned place not too far away, and we do all right there. There’s a little lake you can see from the door. That’s important . . .’ He made an awkward face.
    ‘So what now . . .?’
    ‘Now I report to my betters,’ Gaved explained. ‘I’ll tell them how Siriell’s in a restless mood, anyway. Then perhaps some peace and quiet over winter? That would be nice.’
    The castle seemed to grow and grow as they approached, so that what had seemed a mere fort, at a distance, became a great architectural sprawl. Even the slender buttresses were revealed as a marvel, suspended impossibly against the universal pull of the ground. This arching stonework seemed to spring from utterly different hands to the light wooden walls of Suon Ren
    The great double doors were barred, and apparently unguarded, but there must have been watchers above, for Tynisa had a glimpse of flurried movement within, at a higher storey. Then again there was nothing, and little enough sign that the place was occupied at all.
    ‘So who lives here?’ she asked.
    ‘The Salmae and their retainers and, yes, they rattle about in there like dried peas when some other noble hasn’t come to guest with them. These castles, all of them, they’re built like they’re for people nine feet tall with a thousand servants each. Very few of them are even half used: the same way as half the land in the Commonweal seems like it’s given over to outlaws or beasts because there aren’t enough law-abiding folk to till the soil. Place isn’t what it was.’
    The doors opened then, before Gaved could expand on his theory. A pair of Dragonfly-kinden warriors, in full scintillating armour, scrutinized them uncharitably, before a