ASPIAN
by
Peter Robert Scott
SMASHWORDS EDITION
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Peter Robert Scott on Smashwords
Aspian
Copyright © 2010 by Peter Robert Scott
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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* * * * *
ASPIAN
being the final part of
TALES OF HONOUR
As told by Aspian Savakin in his youth and age,
arranged in four books, entitled:
Nicovar
Castan
Valeric
Aspian
Book Four
The Tales of Aspian
*
Oh, the innocency of youth! It is practically two hundred years since I wrote the preceding tales, and how simple things must have appeared to me then. Yet, despite their ingenuousness, they stand well enough as a preface to my own tale. They illustrate, more amply than my current writings can, the great fountain of honour which I perceived in our race and the convictions which engendered my later deeds. For if their simplicity is sometimes ridiculous it is also sublime, and I have employed a similar style for this final tale.
The action of my life has left little time for its written appraisal by me, and while the official historians scratch on for the next century or so chronicling my every tiny deed, let this brief outline serve as my own testament. Indeed, if I could pen the giant times of Nicovar, Castan and Valeric in such slender detail, it would be wrong of me to dwell more fully on myself.
*
I dedicate this final book to my wife
Corussa
without whose dear devotion in the wandering years
I might never have achieved my destiny
*
Concerning first impressions
‘Hecols, pecols and buckets of blood!’ cried Gannoby. ‘What sort of stuff are they teaching you?’
I was eleven years old. He was the high father of my nest and I was alone with him. He terrified me and I thought him wonderful. ‘I don’t know, sir.’
‘I’m not surprised.’ He gloomily perused my schoolbooks as I stood anxiously by, feeling somehow to blame for whatever it was that had so incensed him. He sighed deeply and shook his reverend head. ‘Do you understand any of this?’
‘Some of it, sir,’ I said. ‘At least I think I do.’
His mane was still as pink as in the stories, and his nostrils flared as angrily. ‘How old are you? Eleven? And they give you this to read? I can barely understand it myself, and I’m damned sure I couldn’t have at your age.’ He turned the pages, looking for a particular passage, and when he found it he jabbed at it angrily before declaiming:
‘“So came Valeric home again to Ylls,
The Solitary Conqueror of Night,
New-harrowed and new-hallowed by the Sun,
To meet again his Faithful Warriors.
Let us remark their State! those firm of Eye
But wanting in Perception, and the Blind
All-Seeing Visionary of the Sun.
Will they Follow where he Unsighted Leads?
And can the Solid Witness of their Eyes
Give way to Dark Enlightenment?... ’”
He snapped the book shut. ‘Now, what’s all that about? It’s as if we spent all our time talking in capitals! Why not say: ‘Valeric returned’? Because that’s what he did. I was there.’ He looked peevishly at the book, then threw it aside and said, ‘Do you know all Valeric’s names?’
‘Why, yes sir,’ I replied.
‘All twenty of them?’
‘Of course.’ And I began to recite them as I had done so often for my tutor: ‘Valeric the Wise, the Brand of Pennor, Saviour of the Faith... ’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Gannoby, ‘I’ve heard it a thousand times. But let me tell you this: those names weren’t even thought of when he was alive, and he’d have spurned every blessed one of them. Shall I tell you how it was, young dragg? And how we really spoke? Would you like to hear?’
And so I heard for the first time a living tale, and its simplicity astounded me. Valeric breathed, as I did, and he spoke words I could understand, He had hopes and sorrows and despairs, and his Sun-given wisdom seemed so natural, so real. I remember the telling of that tale to this very day and I still marvel at its vitality.
When he finished it was as if a sparkling ember that had brightened the room was suddenly extinguished, and though it lived on as an echo in my brain I longed for its warmth again. Gannoby looked at me in great solemnity. ‘Those were days,’ he said. ‘Then we were dragons and we did dragon’s deeds. Then there was faith enough for all the world. I thought those days would last for ever, and while Valeric lived it almost seemed they might. Now... ’ he broke off and turned away. ‘You’re young, too young yet to understand. I’ve seen a new world rise from the ashes of the old like a radiant flame, and I’ve seen it burn bright and clear until it could be seen across the world, and I’ve lived to see the first signs of its guttering. I’ve lived too long.’ He was silent for a moment and then gave me a wan smile. ‘You’ll forget too,’ he said. ‘Everyone forgets. They dress it up in nice words, pin pretty names to it and call it history. But I was there, and a shout was worth a dozen fine speeches. You’re here now listening to me, but you’ll forget how it really was.’
‘I won’t,’ I cried, ‘I promise.’
He smiled again, more warmly, tousled my mane for me and then wandered away. I was never alone with him again.
*
I didn’t forget. That meeting gave birth in me to an inquisitiveness which has lasted me a lifetime, and which blinded me to all else for many years. I read as if my life depended on it and I tried to see beyond the cloak of words to the real people within. I lived in history at that time, and the real world passed me by unnoticed. By the time I thought to look at it, it was already history itself.
I was born in 1268, a princeling of the Nest of Savakin. We were the second family of the land, and our estates were wide and bountiful. In the two centuries since Ilnaso’s overthrow Pennor had risen once more in magnificence, and though Korval was now Bryggne’s holy city, Pennor was again its true metropolis. It was a city much as we know it today, and I was born in one of its finest palaces, the home of Gannoby, last living of the Pilgrims of Ylls. I was stinted nothing and I shared in the glory of my great high father. Luxury was normal to me and I never questioned it. Indeed I questioned nothing in the world, content instead to bury my snout in history. And history for me ended with Valeric and his triumph in the Sun, and all that followed after was outshone by it. Let me recount now what then I missed, for though these events seemed unrelated to me at the time they held in fact the germ of my own future.
*
Valeric ruled until his death in 1171, having lived longer than any darig before him and having enjoyed more love from his people than any since Aldragon. He lived in strict simplicity and never wandered so far from Korval as even to visit Pennor. Yet nordragons now flew beyond Bryggne again, new-forging the links with the other tribes that Ilnaso had severed, and they brought many foreigners home with them to swear their fealty. The king of Miggria was first of the world leaders to kneel to Valeric, and Valeric allowed it for the Sun’s grace. Miggria was still a mighty nation, and ildragons were pleased to join once more in love with nordragons.
The king of Fagran too swore loyalty, but the smallness of his retinue and the poorness of their garments bore witness to the sad decline of that great people. Since Rucor’s death and the destruction of his army there had been strife and enmity among afdragons, and their numbers had shrunk during more than two centuries of bloody civil war.
And while the might of Fagran waned that of their western neighbour waxed. Syppia was now a strong and united nation where it had once been a scattering of petty city states. While Fagran had learnt disunity from the wendragons, they had learnt strength from Fagran, and their kingdom was now as powerful as Miggria. They too sent ambassadors to Korval to offer tribute to the darig, and their king journeyed there in magnificence.
Last came the king of Jacho. This was the dark land in the utter east, where the jadragons had grown hardy in the bitter chill of the plains. They too were now forging the bonds of nationhood, and already their power had grown to rival Miggria’s. Such was the state of the world in those brilliant days when the power of night lay broken for ever.
And while the world watched Valeric grew great in wisdom, for all the wisdoms of the world were mixed in him. He retained the vision of the Sun throughout his days, and he dispensed His justice unerringly. Not only the five tribes of the dragon but wyverns, griffins, dywiverns and egyrn and all the families of the witted kind returned to the worship of the Sun. It took many years to accomplish, for the evil of wrongworship was deeply ingrained in the world, but once the pivot of their evil was destroyed the wrongworshippers lost heart. The armies of the righteous marched across the land and many great generals spread the light and the word. Greatest of them all in his time was Gannoby, who stamped on the idolators of Rougn in all the forest lands surrounding Ylls. Soon Bryggne had regained its place as the first of the five nations.
When the world was safe again, and while the balm of his light shone on undimmed, Valeric chose a dragon to succeed him and bear the Sun’s justice on into the future. This dragon was called Beridot, and Valeric chose him for the strength of his love, which embraced not only all the kyn but all the flowering of the Sun’s nature upon Earth, and for his love of peace. He was acclaimed in 1147 when he was sixty years old, and he succeeded twenty-four years later.
Dragons have always celebrated the going of their great ones to Argironel, but when Valeric left us for the stars their joy was boundless. There were tears, of course, but no unhappiness, for his star appeared above like the opening of a new eye upon the world. That was nearly a hundred years before I was born, but during my youth dragons still spoke of his funeral with sighs of ecstasy, and my tutor told me of it a thousand times.
Now Beridot was darig, and nordragons bore him an equal love for he was the best beloved of Valeric. For forty years he spoke the justice of the Sun, and the Sun shone in blessing on him. But then came a ruction in the world which cast a fleeting shadow upon the dragon.
*
Where Fagran borders Syppia lies the land of Teren-Sya, which the wendragons claimed the afdragons had stolen from them in the early days. There were many such border areas throughout the world, where in the days following the division of realms the dragons had bustled one against the other. Whether there was truth in the claim or not it would’ve taken an army of tireless historians to uncover, but the Syppians believed it, and though the land was barren and foul with the stench of sulphurous pools they coveted it, and in the year 1211 their armies invaded. The afdragons might hardly have noticed, for they were still sapped by disunity, but in a sudden fit of concerted rage they mustered an army to outface the wendragons and force them back to Syppia. The fighting never amounted to much, and both sides quickly agreed to ask the darig for his arbitration. Later that same year they arrived as supplicants at Korval and sought the wisdom of Beridot.
He pondered long and carefully and sought the opinion of many wise counsellors, and when he summoned the parties to hear his judgement they were all more than ready to accede to his word. But his word was unwise for all the wisdom that went into it, and neither party returned home satisfied; for in seeking to promote amity between them Beridot made Teren-Sya sovereign to both nations, and he planted division amongst them where he had intended to plant peace. Neither afdragon nor wendragon would’ve much resented the loss of such a place, but they were bitterly opposed to sharing it. Their resentments bore fruit in frequent skirmishes over the years, which was a sore itch to the peace of the world.
In 1242 the wendragons struck again, and the forces which marched into Fagran this time were twenty-fold stronger than in 1211. They occupied about a third of Fagran, establishing their base at Pibole, the city which gave its name to all that province. This time Beridot was less circumspect, for he had seen the folly of his first judgement, and he ordered the Syppian king to withdraw, threatening to throw all the weight of Bryggne into support of the afdragons. The king of Syppia flew to Korval to plead his case, and again Beridot pondered what was for the best. He summoned the king of Fagran to hear his judgement, which was called the Peace of Pibole, and he said that as the Syppians were willing to withdraw peacefully in return for full sovereignty over Teren-Sya he would revoke his earlier judgement - unwise in any case - and that henceforth that land would be part of Syppia. The afdragon king was astonished, and though he was pleased to see the wendragons withdraw from Pibole he was much aggrieved at the loss of Teren-Sya. There was anger throughout Fagran at it, and many groups of afdragons arose dedicated to the reconquest of Teren-Sya and to the overthrow of Syppia. Some groups even made open threats against Beridot himself, and held him as a traitor among dragons. Such was the feeling against him that Beridot sent a force of nordragons under the young general Tabbas to help keep the peace in Fagran and to suppress the activities of these hostile groups. Tabbas succeeded brilliantly, and managed to get the written promise of all the afdragon rebel leaders not to break the peace with Syppia in return for a firm pledge of Bryggish support in the event of further trouble. This was the Treaty of Berel, and it earned for Tabbas his acclamation as Beridot’s heir in the year 1250. Thereafter, though minor frictions still occurred, the general peace seemed safe. This was the world into which I was born, and which so puzzled my high father.
Then, when I was ten years old, Syppia struck again at Fagran, so suddenly and with such power that they had conquered all but a fifth of it before Beridot could bring an army in support. He was now an old dragon, old before his time, and bitterly regretful of his past unwiseness. All he had done had been done for a love of peace, and now his life promised to end itself in war. He led an army as great as Castan’s straight to Berel, and no wendragon forces dared oppose him for fear of the full wrath of Bryggne; but again Beridot forsook his wrath, and the Peace of Berel which he imposed was the greatest mistake of his life, for with the short aim of the avoidance of blood he signed away a third of Fagran to the invaders without any pretence of justification. The Syppians were given sovereignty over the entire province of Pibole, to which they cheerfully withdrew, and afdragons became a subject race in their own lands. The squeal of rage which they sent up hastened the Bryggish armies out of Berel, and before Beridot reached the coast and safe passage home there had been three separate attempts on his life. He sensed the scope of this last disaster well enough, justify it as he might, for it was the child of his first error and he had no choice but to acknowledge it. He returned to Bryggne broken in spirit and in health, a dragon who had loved his own kind so much that he abhorred bloodshed more than injustice. He lived on, still reverenced by his own people, but unloved by them.
This was the root of Gannoby’s despair, and the guttering which he had seen in the world’s light. At the very moment he had first inspired me the inspiration was going out of him. I saw him last at Beridot’s two-hundredth birthday feast, when I was nineteen years old. He was still strong, with few showings of his great age, but he was grave of manner and unmindful of the festivities. He must’ve drunk his fill though, for he rose and made a stupid speech which clearly embarrassed him as much as the assembly, and then he staggered off into the night. I was too far removed to hear clearly what he said, but I heard later that he’d spoken about Valeric, quoting all his twenty names as if in mockery and adding one of his own: ‘Bringer of Beridot’. The feast was subdued for a while, but then Beridot made a kind and understanding speech, and bade us all pray for Gannoby.
A few days later Gannoby returned to Ylls, seeking the companionship of the reverend dragons who still worshipped in that place. Apparently he gave himself over to prayer for three full years, but then fell silent and sat day after day on the cliff-tops overlooking the western ocean, as if trying to peer beyond the world. Then, in the autumn of the year just before the great gales, he was seen winging towards the far horizon, over a hundred treetops high, bright red in the splash of the new-dipped Sun. What he found above the great, wild sea we cannot dream of. He was two-hundred and fifty-nine years old and as strong as a warrior. I rejoiced when I heard the great manner of his going, but I wept most bitterly at it too.
*
I withdrew more and more from life, finding my friends in the pages of great books, and I began what was to become a thirty year work for me. I thought first of writing Gannoby’s own tale, as a homage to him and to prove that the past could live for others as he had made it live for me. But in trying to bring one small part of our past to life I found that all the ages that had preceded it sprang to life also, and my eye was caught by the main march of the world. How could one tell Gannoby’s tale without telling the tale of Valeric? And how Valeric’s without Castan’s? How Castan’s without the making of the world’s? So piece by piece my burrowings led me back to the age of Aldragon and beyond, and I strove to invest those dry chronicles with life, even to the first living of the Sun. I wrote erratically, reading once for eleven years without penning an original line, and on one occasion writing seven tales straight off without a pause. I hardly noticed what went on in the world of everyday horizons, and I was called Fumblewit by my family because of my seeming inability to concentrate.
Beridot died soon after Gannoby and was succeeded by Tabbas. I attended the general celebrations, but they meld in my memory into a sort of backdrop to my main thoughts. The great matters of policy and state which should properly have occupied one of my nest passed me by unpondered, and I was thought a feeble thing at court. I remember well enough Tabbas proclaiming Pennor as our capital again, and the mighty fuss of all its citizens at the honour of it, and I remember him declaring his implacable opposition to all lawlessness, whether in Bryggne or beyond, and reiterating his assurances to all the foreign kings. But this passing evidence of the darig’s power was nothing to me compared to the distilled grandeur of our covenant with the Sun. I marvelled at it and it brought a smile to my mind. I cared not how inanely that smile appeared to the world.
*
Then, almost as I penned the last words of my stories, the world shook so violently that even I took notice of it. For the fourth time in little more than a century Syppia invaded Fagran, and with such unmerciful ferocity that practically the whole country was in their hands before news of the outrage reached Pennor. They fortified the northern coast against us, and it was clear that there would be much blood shed in the shifting of them. The attack surprised Tabbas and his generals almost as much as it did me, and there was deadening despair in his court. He sent emissaries to Miggria and Jacho, and arranged a conference in Pennor of the three kingdoms. It was at the time that the two eastern kings arrived in Bryggne, in early 1322, that I completed the tales.
I searched half-heartedly for a scribing-neat to publish them for me, and faint interest was shown by one or two; but what were tales of the past at such a time, when the world was reeling again? People wanted to hear about the present and the future, and even I saw how suddenly out of tune my stories were. I read them through, sentimentally, and then bound them tightly together and placed them in safe storage. Then I marched out into the proper world. I was fifty-four years old and a little out of touch.
*
I will say this for myself: when I decide to do a thing I do it with a will. I suddenly found the everyday world every bit as exciting as the past had been, and I was amazed at how I’d let it all slip by me. The conference of the three kingdoms which culminated in the Holy Alliance of 1322 was fascinating, and I not only observed its every session but I was active on many of its sub-committees. My sudden change of ways astounded my family, who soon forgot the nickname Fumblewit. I became known for my penetrating speech and envied for the wealth of my historical knowledge. Even the darig himself heard of it, and I had a pleasant interview with him during the conference when he commended my dealings with my eastern counterparts. I won’t say that I felt as early as that any special stirrings of destiny within me, but I did experience a decided satisfaction. After the declaration of the Alliance, while the ildragons and jadragons returned to muster armies, I was given command of a special detachment of recruiting officers who were charged with finding nordragons suitable for posts in a future provisional civil administration, for it was the aim of the Alliance after the Syppians had been repelled to establish a firm government in Fagran along Bryggish lines that would be able to deter any further adventurism on the part of the wendragons.
Oh, those were tumultuous days for me! For the first time in my life I travelled beyond Pennor and saw so many of those places I had long written about. I met nordragons of every region and formed a liking for them all, even the terse Skeerls to whom my Pennish manners did not at first commend me, and I fancy many of them took a liking to me too, for I was galvanized by a new directness, and directness is irresistible.
During the remainder of that year we established a corps of about three thousand nordragons of suitable ability, who in addition to their fighting skills would form a creditable administration overseas. Few of us had firsthand knowledge of Fagran, but as we intended to transmogrify that country our ignorance was no disadvantage to us. The year ended with devout celebrations in Pennor and Korval, and how the Syppians must have quaked at the thought of our coming invasion. There were to be one hundred thousand dragons from each country, and they would crush the miscreants.
In the winter of the early year Tabbas again sent for me and congratulated me on the quality of my assembled corps. ‘Their time will come,’ he said, ‘but first we’ve a little fighting to do.’ And he gave me command of a full drechel of nordragons, mainly from my own corps, and charged me with their provisioning. I was amazed and, frankly, more than a little alarmed. I’d never been forward in martial studies and I was unsure of exactly what show I would make. But I’m glad to say that I proved popular with my troops, and I fed on their cheery optimism as they fed on my frankness. I don’t know what picture we made in purely military terms, but we thought we were fine.
And then it was spring and the campaign was set to begin. The armies flew in from Miggria and Jacho and assembled with us on our southern shore. There followed seemingly endless days of final preparation, and we made any number of spirited addresses to our troops. Our blood was hot, mine for the first time in my life, and death lost half its terrors. The world was opening all its wonders to me and I was suddenly alive.
And alive in many ways. I was fifty-five years old now and still unmarried, and moreover more than usually innocent for my age. I had paid the occasional visit to a slutty nest, but tumpelry was never much to write home about, and quite frankly I got a lot more out of reading. Now, suddenly, all that changed. While our armies formed on the south coast and our high generals feasted with the nobility of that region, I and my peers were often invited to take meat with the middle-kyn. There were many fine and prosperous nests, and it was in one such that I made the liaison that was to so change my later life and to bring such blessings to my future. Admittedly the liaison brought anything but blessing to me at the time, which I shall account to you now in all acceptable detail.
We were supping in a delightful nest on the evening before departure, and there I saw a tender young draheen who instantly ensnared my deepest heart. She was only eighteen years old, hardly yet marriageable, but I knew at once that I longed to share my life with her and make her my bride. I must have stared at her immoderately for it elicited a quip from my host, her father; I tried to amend my gaze, but as the meal progressed I became entranced by her more and more.
Afterwards, as the others chatted together, I sat by her and asked her name.
‘Corussa.’
She might have said Dysa, Esia, Athresa, so potent was her name at once to me, so vibrant the music it produced in me.
That was the beginning of delight for me, and she shared my delight to the full. Too soon came the end of that evening, and I asked her in a whisper how I might meet her again. She whispered in return that I should wait in the street beyond her nest, and I managed to slip my companions and do so. Soon I heard her calling to me from above, and I flew silently in through her window.
There was the very innocentest of loves, and if it was wrong of us to meet in that way it was infinitely right that we met. Our snouts had barely nuzzled before we heard noises below. Lights went up, and we heard servants running outside. Princeling or no I saw the delicacy of my case, and not wishing to compromise my new beloved I flew swiftly from her window. There was no more but so, and what was said of it afterwards was merest calumny. Her father demanded to see me next day, but my troops denied him, and to be honest I was thankful when the orders to fly arrived. Oh, what a vexture of elation and despair.
And we flew. The same flight as Castan made, and Rolah too. But not in gentle sequence to land unopposed upon the shore. We flew in a giant cloud of retribution to smother the shadow on the Earth’s face. Behind was Bryggne and the past, all parcelled neatly in a little cupboard; ahead was all the wonder of the world; and there below was dragon’s work to do.
The end of the Tale of Fumblewit.
* * * * *
Concerning action and consequence
That first day of the war is now a blur to me. Until then I had seen battles only in my mind’s eye and with deceptive clarity. I had seen Castan lead his warlike hordes at Lowt, Clabile and on our eastern shores; I had flown with Rolah across the narrow seas and fought with him in rescue of Opotamo; I had marched with him from Miggria to do final battle against the tyrant, and I had seen his spear sail into Ogin’s heart; I had seen the Sack of Glour and the great Pyre of Pennor with a vision akin to Valeric’s as he witnessed the damnation of Ilnaso; I had seen all, and I thought this battle would be just the same.
But one does not see with such a clarity at all, for when the blood is up and death claws at the gizzard the eyes turn from the main battle to their own fearful little scan. Then there’s no mighty ebb and flow, only a jostling of feet and claws and a writhing of tails. I’d never smelt blood before, nor seen a lance enter a dragon’s hide. I wanted to say - ‘This is wrong, this is not how it’s meant to be!’ - but the world wasn’t listening. Death was on the march and I was being swept along by him.
We’d all been self-deceived: the Syppians did not fly as we expected, but withstood the shock of us like the walls of a living citadel. Wave upon wave of us dashed ourselves against their stout defences and rebounded in confusion. All along the margin of the land the battle spread, and the surf was reddened with the blood and bodies of our nordragons. At the end of the day we had but a small beachhead to call our own, and we slept crowded one upon the other.
What should have been a glorious victory was a dismal tale of loss, and the tide of blood which ran from the sand into the sea new-named that place: the Bay of Blood we called it, and the stain of our loss was slow to rinse away.
No sudden victory then, no vaunting clarion; only the first of many doleful days as the Syppians strove to push us back towards the sea, and we held hard. It was a small return for such high hopes, and of three hundred thousand of our dragons a fifth of them were lost in seven days. But the Syppians too bore losses, and they were far from home. We had three nations to draw on, and as our forces were slowly replenished our weight began to tell on their defences. We drove a mighty wedge into their lines and eventually they broke.
That stage of the war was later called the Slow Beginning, and if any of us thought it was but a prelude to a swifter end our hopes were soon dashed. Even in disarray the Syppians were tenacious, and they turned what should have been a rout into a reformation. The summer was dead before we broke their lines, and before the fall of winter they had regrouped in strength.
*
But this is not a book of battles, though there were battles enough then to fill a dozen books with the mere naming of them. Blood was in flow throughout the world, and there was too great a tide of it for me to shadow it here in ink. Even my own small doings of those days would overstretch my pen. I shall deal only with incidents and with impressions.
I began the war as an ardrech-ensign and in the summer of 1324 I was promoted general with four full drechels under my command. There was much rapid promotion in those days, but mine was signally so; I shall not recount the deeds which earned it for me, for they are as much a source of sorrow to me as pride. I learned killing in a bitter school, and would’ve happily exchanged my fame in arms for a desk in a humble scribing nest. Indeed, I was inwardly still more a clerk than a soldier, and my own audacity astounded me. My troops referred to me then as the ‘Storybook General’, as much for the depth of my learning as for the splendour of my actions.
By that autumn we had pushed the Syppians within the borders of Pibole province and had laid siege to the city of Pibole itself. Hostilities were suspended early that dreadful year, and units of all the armies were given home-leave turn by turn so as to rid their nostrils of the smell of blood. Our turn came late and the first snows of winter were in the air as we flew back to Bryggne. I was fifty-six years old, youngest of the Bryggish generals, soon to be dubbed Knight Arrogant.
There was a council of the allies in Pennor that winter, and there were many feasts and many investitures. Our victories seemed suddenly more wonderful from that safe distance, and the work yet waiting to be done less awesome. I threw myself with a will into the soldiers’ pleasures and found new friends a-thousand.
I was to receive my accolade on the last day of the conference, an honour reserved for the most notable recipients. There were to be seven of us all told made Arrogant, and we dined together on the evening before our triumph. I remember all their names and can even recall some of their faces. They were mostly much older than myself: three jadragons, two ildragons and one other nordragon. The nordragon was nearest my own age, and of all the friendships that I made that winter his proved the most compulsive. His name was Kym, he was seventy-six years old, and his snub face bore the marks of battle with fine cheerfulness. He was loud and brash, short of stature but stocky and strong. We had both been promoted general in the same campaign and we opened our hands and hearts to one another at once. By comparison the other Arrogants seemed dull and tame, and the dinner was a dry affair.
Pennor was rife with rumour that evening concerning a division in the alliance. The conference had been in session for six weeks and there had been few of the usual interim declarations. There was much to be agreed upon before the resumption of war, and little sign of any such agreement. Security was tight around the inner council, but the occasional snippet emerged, and it was by now widely acknowledged that the division went deep. It seemed the eastern kings had had enough of the war and wished to re-impose the Peace of Berel, whereby the Syppians had been granted sovereignty of Pibole. Such a move would have ended the war at once, for the Syppians were already besieged within that province. But Tabbas was standing firm to their original intentions, and he refused to contemplate yet another unjust peace; better the flow of much blood now than the continued threat of it. These differences of opinion were echoed at our table, though most civilly, and the five eastern Arrogants put forward many eloquent arguments for a sudden peace. Kym and myself were quick to counter these, and I was particularly amused to see that fiery little nordragon tempering his bluntness with decorum. I wondered if they were still being as polite as this around the council table.
After the dinner Kym led me to an inn he knew where he fairly exploded with pent-up wrath. ‘What a dismal bunch!’ he cried. ‘Clotheads and cowards, the lot of them.’
‘Not cowards exactly,’ I said.
‘Not in themselves, perhaps, but cowardly in aim. They think that way because their kings think that way. If I thought Tabbas was wrong I’d not be afraid to say so; but he’s right; any clothead can see that.’ Then he faced me sharply. ‘Am I right?’ I laughed in answer, and the he laughed too. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but they get up my nostrils, these old dodderers.’
We exchanged many tales that night and found many common aspirations. We talked and drank until nearly dawn, and wine fogs my proper memory of it, but I remember being thrilled by the frankness of his love and surprised by the vehemence of his hatreds. ‘Do you truly hate the Syppians, then?’ I asked.
‘Of course. Don’t you?’
‘Only for what they’ve done to the world. I hope I shouldn’t hate them otherwise.’
‘More fool you then. They’ve spoiled the world for over a hundred years, and if these easterners get their way they’ll have licence to spoil it for another hundred. I hate them all right, and I’ll go on hating them until we’ve whipped every last one of them back where he belongs. Then maybe I’ll stop hating them. Maybe.’
‘I’ve killed them,’ I said, ‘sometimes without remorse; and I’ve taken them prisoner. Most I’ve met have seemed polite. Exquisitely so, some of them.’
‘They’re exquisite all right,’ scorned Kym.
‘They must have families,’ I said, ‘children, friends, hopes and fears, just like us.’
Kym shook his head decisively. ‘Nothing like us,’ he said, ‘nothing at all like us. Little better than griffins if you ask me. Their blood’s as yellow as their backs. We should wipe them out and start again.’
‘And ildragons?’ I asked, ‘and jadragons? Do you hate them too?’
‘Not as much as I do wendragons, nor as much as afdragons neither.’
‘But we’re fighting to liberate the afdragons.’
‘You may be if you like. I know what I’m fighting for.’ I looked at him quizzically, but he changed tack. ‘Ever know any griffins?’
‘Not intimately.’
‘Wendragons are like griffins. They’ve got the same mentality. They’ve caught it from them. Your wyverns are beneath contempt, and all your other dragons have their faults, but if you’re looking for sheer cunning, sheer hecolry, you’ll always find it in a griffin.’ He looked at me, and the pinched lines around his muzzle smoothed over suddenly into a friendly grin. ‘I like your mug,’ he said. ‘It’s red and podgy. Your eyes are clear, they look straight out of your head. I know what makes you up. I can see the dragon in you.’
‘There’s dragon enough in you too,’ I said.
‘Certainly is,’ he said with a smile, ‘certainly is.’ Then he laughed in great happiness. ‘Knights Arrogant, eh? Not too bad, is it?’
‘Not too bad,’ I agreed.
He pierced his eyes at me, suddenly serious. ‘I’m a knight already,’ he said.
‘Really?’
‘I have some fellows,’ he mumbled, ‘grey fellows, all in honour... ’ Then he looked away and shook his head as if in drunkenness. ‘Is that dawn coming up?’
*
He was better experienced in drink than me, and he ambled with me back to my lodgings. It was light by the time we reached my nest and already the streets were coming to life. Kym breakfasted with me and then we lay back and dozed into the morning.
My servant woke me in some agitation, and I had no time to summon my wits before my quiet stupor was invaded suddenly by loud and irate voices. I blinked back the sleep and staggered to my feet. It must’ve been a full minute before I realized what was going on.
I remembered her lovely face at once, and the tender beauty of her figure now imminent with child brought intimations of delight to me. I heard not a word of her father’s harangue, and I heeded still less the violence of his manner. None of the great victories I had seen were comparable to this reconquest of my heart. She looked at me with brave uncertainty, and I felt the bitter stomach of regret for my long parting from her.
I stilled her father’s blustering with a wafture of my arm, and quietly took his daughter’s claw in mine. ‘What is your will with me?’ I asked.
‘Nothing but the cost of this dishonour,’ said her father.
‘What dishonour?’ I exclaimed.
‘That proud dishonour in her belly there. You’ll make that good or I’ll throw a like dishonour onto you. The darig shall know of this before he makes you Arrogant, and he’ll strew your head with ashes, not with feathers.’
I glared at him in icy contempt. ‘You dare suppose me to be so base? Why, I should wive with your daughter if this were the hecol’s own seed she bore. I loved her completely, and but for the great necessity of war I should’ve wed with her at once. I take her happily now, her and this child of hers.’
‘This child of yours!’ stormed her indignant father.
‘That cannot be,’ I said. ‘I was alone with her but for a moment, and we exchanged only the chasest of loves. A kiss, no more; but a kiss that gave my heart.’
‘And more besides. If it was but a kiss, whence came this? She’s not gone unchaperoned since that hour, yet she’s grown duly great.’
I gazed into my beloved’s eyes. ‘It seemed but a kiss to me, a kiss of utter joy. Behold, I’ll kiss her now, and wed her now; not for fear of your base threatening, for I would forgo any honour for this joy, but simply because I love her and always shall.’ With that I kissed her, and she cried, ‘Oh, Aspian!’ with such a gentleness that I heard in those two brief words the coming echo of all my joy.
Thus was I wed to my adored Corussa. It was a simple ceremony that went by almost unobserved on that historic day. Kym was my first witness, and after the wedding luncheon we hastened to the council nest for our investiture. My wife and all her family accompanied me to share my honour.
*
We were dubbed Arrogant in the great square, and after the ceremony Tabbas made his famous speech. He outlined the impasse that had been reached in the council, and then he told us of his own decision. ‘We joined forces to expel the invaders from the sovereign land of Fagran, and though some say this is now achieved I cannot be of their opinion. It was a darig’s voice that wrong-gave the land of Pibole to the wendragons, and it is a darig’s voice that shall deny it to them now. Pibole is part of Fagran and must be returned. Teren-Sya, which was open to dispute, I now award to Fagran as their own. They never sought it by force, and they achieve it now through innocent deserving. The wendragons of Syppia shall smart for the bruises they have made upon the world, and if none but nordragons will serve this justice on them then nordragons alone shall be enough. I pledge our utmost effort to the final prosecution of this cause, and I ask no help of any other dragon. We shall prevail alone or fail alone, and if we fail it shall not be for want of justice. There are great wrongs in the world, but none so wrong as the reluctance to perform a right.’
As a direct result of this speech there was formed the army of International Volunteers which lent such mighty weight to the Bryggish forces in the ensuing campaign. The eastern kings scuttled home and set about the demobilization of their armies. It was a weird time, both of sadness and of ecstasy.
*
My own private ecstasy was profound. Dicot, my son, was born before the end of the year, and I was able to delight in his early days. I was given extended leave to furnish my family a nest, and when they were settled in proper comfort I flew overseas once more to prepare for the spring offensive.
As the ildragons and jadragons departed for home the first of the International Volunteers began to assemble. There were never enough of them to restore us to our old strength, but their enthusiasm and dedication was worth a hundred reluctant armies. As spring advanced so we advanced too, leaving the city of Pibole to endure its siege. The fighting was bloody, bloodier than at any time before, but our advance was inexorable. We drove the wendragons first into Teren-Sya and then within their own proper borders. And still Tabbas advanced, laying waste to Syppia as the Syppians had laid waste to Fagran. Only when the Syppian king capitulated did he call off the attack. In the autumn of 1325, when the city of Pibole fell, the war was finally over. Before he left Syppia Tabbas spoke his justice on the lives of the king and all his princes, and he left as king over Syppia a devout and holy wendragon named Rez. Then he journeyed in triumph to Berel.
I was there before him, charged with the establishment of a civil administration in that city, and I well remember the tumultuous scenes of his arrival. The afdragons idolized him, and offered him the throne of their country. He declined of course, saying that he wanted nothing from Fagran but that it should flourish in peace. Their royal house was restored in dignity if not yet in power, and Tabbas was formally honoured by their new king, Ollo, as Saviour of Fagran. At the ceremony Tabbas decreed that his armies would protect Fagran until the Syppian menace was deemed beyond resurrection, and would return to Bryggne at the earliest opportunity thereafter. In the meantime the civil administration of the country would be run by nordragons and afdragons together, so that those two great nations could learn strength of one another and put the dangers of such another war beyond all contemplation. Then Tabbas journeyed home in jubilant magnificence, and there began those post-war years which were in many ways the happiest of my life.
I had spacious quarters in the royal palace, and once the world was secure again I sent for my family to join me in Berel. They were greeted by King Ollo himself and feasted mightily. We began a private life of perfect bliss, and although the state affairs kept me long hours from my nest, ever when I could I would hasten there to my simple, homely joy. Often King Ollo would be there before me, eager to share in our domestic paradise. My son grew strong and handsome, proud and brave, and I had a daughter born to me as well, and we took a young half-caste hatchling into our nest as if he’d been one of us.
But as a counterpoint to all this joy the clear skies of Fagran began to grow troubled and dark.
*
I was a good soldier but a better administrator. The work was more natural to me, for my great reading had given me an insight into the minds of all dragons, and I was able to cherish what was fine and reject what was dross in everyone I met. In the ten years during which I headed the government of Berel I did more to establish that city on a settled footing than any other dragon before or since. My methods became the model for all the other civil administrators in Fagran, and were the source of many enduring benefits for that country. In the early years after the war I strove tirelessly to return Berel to her wonted peace and prosperity. The laws I formulated were sensible and just and caused no resentment except among the most recalcitrant of wrongdoers. I worked alongside any dragon, red or black, not fearing to scuff my own claw in the task of rebuilding. I found great love among the afdragons, and although the nature of that race is perhaps more indolent than our own, I found also a great willingness there. But willingness to undertake a task is not the same as an ability to complete it.
The Bryggish armies left Fagran in early 1326, less than a year after the war. King Rez of Syppia had established a firm and benevolent control over his ravaged country with the assistance of a small body of nordragon advisers, and Tabbas felt it safe to bring his forces home from Syppia too. With the exception of the four drechels under my own command who were new-designated the Visiting Militia all nordragon forces took flight once more for Bryggne.
When it was that our relations began to sour I cannot tell. The afdragons are a people of great warmth and love, but there is a certain slyness in them too, and although they had cheered us well enough as their liberators, they cheered more wildly still as we left for home. I suddenly felt somewhat isolated there, despite the affection that was displayed to me by one and all, and although I cheerfully made my due obeisance to King Ollo I found it hard to bow to his princes too.
*
I always like to look for the best in people, and when I find it I reward it; but however hard I looked into afdragon eyes I was never really sure of what I saw there. More than half my officials were afdragon, and some showed abilities comparable to those of my nordragon colleagues; but always, when considering which official to promote above another, doubts would offend me, for although the afdragons could be amusing, jovial and kind I never found in any of them that austere sense of responsibility which so distinguishes the nordragon. (It is perhaps not surprising that the honoronymic Knight Austere is a purely Bryggish accolade). It was a natural development, though perhaps an unhappy one, that over the years the administration of afdragon affairs fell more and more into nordragon hands. If it was that which led in part to the bitterness that was to come I make no apology for it, regret it as I might.
There is always an unstable element in any society which will take offence where none was ever intended, and in the dizzying heat of Fagran such elements can easily run amok. At first the thing was farcical: impudent groups of protesters would forgather each morning before my office to make this or that complaint against myself or my officials. It never seemed to occur to them that if it weren’t for us they’d still have been suffering under the Syppian yoke. We had brought them a return to order and prosperity, and we stood as guarantors of their future liberty. In return we were met with niggling yarns of this fellow being passed over for promotion and that fellow being turned out of his nest - we, who had relieved them of the task of running their own affairs - which had they been true would still have been petty and mean, but which were so obviously false that they became a tiresome irritant between our peoples. I sought to discourage them by imposing heavy fines on any complainant bearing false witness, but as the years passed the number of complaints increased rather than diminished. The resultant ill-feeling became so widespread that I was reluctantly forced to dismiss all my afdragon officials because of their persistent interest in such absurd affairs.
Matters came to a head in 1335. A group of self-styled ‘liberationists’ staged a march through Berel in which more than seventy thousand afdragons were foolishly persuaded to join. This was in the autumn of a year that had already seen the death of two of my most senior officials by assassination, frequent skirmishes between the Visiting Militia and bands of hysterical afdragon youths, marches and demonstrations falling little short of riots in other afdragon cities, attempts on the lives of both the Governor-General and myself, and numerous cases of arson against government offices. There were also vicious rumours circulating which sought to impugn my dear wife’s honour and link her name in depravity with King Ollo’s. In such an atmosphere it was impossible that so large a march could pass off peacefully, and I therefore issued an order banning it. The order was wilfully ignored and I ordered the Visiting Militia to intercept the marchers and disperse them. This was done, and in a manner which does great credit to the coolness and efficiency of our Bryggish troops. Unfortunately a small number of afdragons lost their lives as a result of their foolhardy action, and as is often the case among peoples of light brain this gave rise to a quite unjustified sense of martyrdom. Ollo, whom I had thought above such pettiness, saw fit to upbraid me before the entire court. Full scale rioting broke out all over Fagran, and in Berel especially there was much loss of life. The Visiting Militia acquitted itself creditably however, and was still in good order by the time reinforcements arrived from Bryggne.
There was no alternative to the imposition of direct Bryggish rule, and our armies remained in Fagran to give it backing. Ollo was forced to abdicate and the Governor-General assumed viceregal powers. I became minister of afdragon affairs in the new government, in recognition of my handling of the crisis, and at the age of sixty-seven I was virtually first minister of all that land.
*
I never lost my love of the afdragon people, though for a while they lost theirs of me. But when things had returned to normal, and those malignants among them had been rooted out, they returned soon enough to their sense of proportion. Their revolt had been bloody and had been bloodily put down, but the benefits of their defeat far outweighed any they’d have had from victory. They were not born to rule themselves. Even in the great days of Rucor they were no match for a determined band of nordragons. Eventually peace was restored more firmly than before, and although bands of wild afdragons skulked in the desert places, all the great cities enjoyed a calm prosperity.
But this was not how things were viewed abroad. The kings of Miggria and Jacho, who had fled the fight when the war was bloodiest, now sent notes of protest when they should have sent messages of congratulation. They demanded Bryggish withdrawal from Fagran, and Miggria gave sanctuary to the deposed and ludicrous King Ollo. How they could so wrong-see events I cannot understand. Their notes were properly ignored by Tabbas, and he set about formalizing Bryggish rule in Fagran. Then, in 1336, in a move which was to prove as calamitous later as it appeared ridiculous then, the kingdoms of Miggria and Jacho declared union under the joint rule of their two kings. It was as if a wall were being built across the world, and Tabbas was bitterly distressed at it. He proposed a conference of all the nations, where Miggria, Jacho and Syppia would each have equal voices and where Bryggne would speak for Fagran and herself. His proposal was spurned, and for a while the world seemed to teeter on the brink of an immense and bloody gulf.
*
But the clouds of war seemed to clear as quickly as they had gathered, and although the peace was a hostile one there was little bloodshed for near on seven years. Fagran was calm and settled; Syppia had healed its wounds; Miggria and Jacho fretted more at their own close company than at their enemies; and in the middle there sat Bryggne, smallest yet strongest of the nations, at peace with herself and at ease with the rigours of the world.
*
But in 1343 that peace was troubled, and although it was not enough to shake the world at large it was enough to shake my world for good. The malcontents of Syppia rose in rebellion against good King Rez, and that same day Berel was stormed by hordes of desert afdragons. I moved swiftly to crush the rebellious afdragons, and their uprising never spread to the civil population. Those who were not chopped down by the Bryggish forces were rounded up and hanged, and their deaths were approved as much by their own countryfolk as by the authorities. The timing of their rebellion had been as poor as their judgement of the country’s mood.