‘I heard they were brawling barbarians, always drunk and fighting everyone.’
‘They were, but in their eyes the book justified their supremacist war against Cythe. And their right to this land.’
A layer of ice formed on the back of Rix’s neck.
‘That’s where the word hero comes from,’ Tobry added. ‘The Five Heroes who led the war were originally called the Five Herovians.’
‘What happened to them?’
‘The Immortal Text disappeared in the Ten Day War. That — was — a — thousand — years — ago,’ said Tobry as if talking to a slow child.
Rix ground his teeth. ‘I know!’
Tobry chuckled. ‘After that, the Herovians faded from view, though there are still plenty of them in Hightspall. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised …’ He stared at Rix for a moment.
‘What?’ said Rix.
‘Nothing.’ Tobry rode ahead.
Rix called out, ‘Why is everyone against the Herovians anyway?’
‘Arrogance and deceit,’ Tobry said over his shoulder.
Rix spurred up to him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘When they landed here and discovered how numerous and strong the Cythians were, the Herovians pretended friendship, but sent a ship racing back to Thanneron, calling thousands of settlers here with the lie that the land was empty. As soon as the Second Fleet landed, they went to war against the Cythians. The people on the Second Fleet had come in peace but they had no choice other than to fight beside the Herovians. And we’ve never forgotten how they lied to us and manipulated us.’
Rix rode on, thoughtfully. It did not answer the main question — how House Ricinus had ended up with the sword.
Directly, they emerged from the slot and headed down. It wasn’t snowing here but a drifting mist obscured the way ahead and covered every surface in tiny droplets. The clammy cold made Rix’s bones ache.
Out in the Seethings, they would be riding over the mines and tunnels of Cython. ‘Why does the chancellor let the filthy rock rats come up onto our land, anyway?’ he said irritably. ‘If I were him, I’d tumble their shaft down on them.’
‘You do know where heatstones come from — like the gigantic one that warms your chambers?’
‘I hate them. I don’t understand why we trade with the enemy for the wretched things.’
Tobry gave him a sideways glance. ‘Don’t you?’
‘The trade should be banned.’
‘Rix,’ said Tobry patiently, ‘House Ricinus holds a third of the heatstone monopoly. Your family has made a fortune from the trade.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ Rix cried.
‘Where do you think your wealth comes from?’
Lady Ricinus was constantly harping on about preparing him for the time when he would be lord, yet kept every detail of House Ricinus’s affairs from him. ‘Our estates, mines and manufactories, of course.’
‘With the ash falls, the creeping cold, the shifter raids and crop failures, your estates lose money one year in two. All the profit is in trade.’
‘We lose money?’ Things must be even worse than Rix had thought.
‘The estates lose money, but most of the losses are made up in trade … and I’ve heard that House Ricinus has other sources of income.’
The track sloped down steeply here, with a sheer drop only two feet to the left and an equally steep rise on the right. Rix held his breath as Leather picked his way around a fallen boulder shaped like his father’s head, complete with the misshapen drunkard’s nose and sagging jaw. A beret of snow crusted its flat top.
‘Like what?’ Rix didn’t much like the way Tobry had said other. ‘What are you hinting at?’
‘You’ll have to ask your parents.’
Rix imagined how that conversation would go. Mother, would you care to tell me about the shady ways House Ricinus makes its money? He would sooner be strapped to the toenail puller in the fourth basement.
‘We survived without heatstones in the olden days. We can do without again.’
‘It was a lot warmer in the olden days.’
‘When I’m lord, we’ll abandon the filthy trade. And … and I’ll personally tumble the Rat Hole down on the enemy.’
‘If you mean the shaft where the Pale carry the sunstones up — ’
‘Filthy white slugs!’ Rix snapped. ‘Mother is right about them. The Pale should be put down. When I think about them going over to the enemy, willingly living with them for the past thousand years — ugh! They sicken me.’
‘Everything is black and white to you, isn’t it? There’s no middle ground.’
‘Everything is black and white,’ said Rix. ‘The Cythonians have always been our enemies, and they always will be. Since the Pale choose to serve them, they should suffer the punishment due to traitors.’
They rode out of the fog. Ahead, the rocky path wound down through forest hung with tendrils of mist.
‘Be that as it may,’ said Tobry, ‘any attack on the Rat Hole would be a declaration of war.’
‘We should declare war on the mushroom eaters,’ said Rix. ‘Why pay their usurious prices for heatstones when we can take them for ourselves? We should wipe them out once and for all.’
‘We fought a two-hundred-and-fifty-year war against them, if you remember your history lessons, and they’re still around.’
‘We drove them out of Hightspall. Sent the bastards creeping underground.’
‘But they got the better of us in the Ten Day War — and in the Secret War two hundred years ago.’
‘I’ve never heard of a Secret War.’
Tobry smirked. ‘It was a secret. Hightspall tried to poison their water, among other dirty ways to wage war. But it failed.’
‘Next time it’ll be different,’ said Rix, raising his sword as if commanding a company of Hightspall’s finest. He cried, ‘To fight for my country — ’
‘Watch the cliff!’
Rix swerved Leather to the centre of the track then rose up in his stirrups, cutting and parrying at an imaginary foe. ‘When I come of age in two weeks, I’m going to raise an army.’
Tobry’s horse shied sideways. ‘And pay for it how?’
‘Um … I’ll train the best of our serfs.’
Tobry rolled his eyes. ‘Armies are expensive, wars ruinously so. You’ll need all the profits from your heatstone monopoly to pay for it.’
‘Er …’
‘And once your war begins, there won’t be any heatstone trade. Where will you get the money then?’
‘If everyone was like you,’ Rix snapped, ‘we’d never go to war.’
‘Now you’re talking like a brawling barbarian.’ Tobry sighed. ‘Rix, there are no good wars.’
‘Nonsense. Defending one’s country is the highest calling of all. I don’t understand you, Tobe.’
Tobry rode on. ‘No, you never have.’
‘Sooner or later we’ll have to fight them.’
‘I don’t see why.’
‘If the land is rising up against us, I reckon they’re behind it.’
‘Behind what, specifically?’
‘The winters that get colder every year. The wet summers where our crops struggle to ripen — ’
‘We can hardly blame the enemy for the weather.’
‘We have weather wizards,’ said Rix. ‘Why can’t they?’
‘Cythonians hate and despise all forms of magery.’
‘So they say!’ Rix sneered.
‘No, it’s a matter of faith to them. Besides, even our best weather magians can’t do more than cause a cloudburst here, a local frost or gust of wind there. To change the very climate of Hightspall is beyond all their spells put together.’
‘What about all the new plagues and poxes, then? And the shifters — ’ Rix reined in again, trying to pull his jumble of worries together.
‘What’s the matter now?’ said Tobry.
‘The caitsthe. The packs of jackal shifters. The breeding pens in the wrythen’s cavern. Tobe — they’re getting ready for war.’