The Modern World by Steph Swainston Read Free Book Online

more details of her magnificent achievement.’
    I waved her up extravagantly and went to sit down. As we passed each other I clapped her shoulder and leant to mutter in her ear, ‘Don’t bog them down with technicalities.’
    Frost stood behind her table, using it as a barrier between her and the audience, speaking over the top of her papers. She smiled, and a lifetime of looking uptight disappeared from her face. She held her hands apart and expanded the distance between them as she expounded her thoughts. ‘I have built the dam where the Insect Wall crossed the river. Its wall is two kilometres long and thirty metres high. It holds back a lake twenty kilometres in length. The dam is an embankment, an earth mound with a core of rubble, faced with protective stone. It is an economical construction – the fyrd are used to building earthworks for our defences and this is no different. It is constructed around piers set into the former river bed.’
    Oh god, I thought; here she goes.
    ‘The headwaters – I mean, the lake – is intended to be wide rather than deep to flood the largest possible area. You see, the valley is shallow so the lake spreads out.
    ‘A team of horses will be harnessed to wind a capstan and hoist up the sluice gate. It is so heavy I have used ship’s rope for the winch rather than chain, or else the horses won’t be able to lift it. However, rope doesn’t last for ever in the damp environment and will need to be replaced, so a maintenance shaft accesses the top of the gate.
    ‘The capstan’s gears are a new invention and they’re fascinating, you see –’
    I caught Frost’s eye. She dropped her notes, picked them up and shuffled them. ‘Um. Well … Two hundred million cubic metres of water will be released at a hundred and ten kilometres an hour. The waterfall into the stilling basin and the gabionned and canalised reaches of the river will indeed be impressive.’
    I let her drone on while I appraised Kestrel. He was the son of the reeve of Altergate. Kestrel always managed to be the first reporter on the scene of any trouble and he was far too astute a commentator for my liking.
    I kept half an ear on Frost’s speech but I had heard it all before and my attention began to drift. I speak every one of the Fourlands’ six current and seven dead languages but I will never be fluent in Frost’s engineering jargon. She once tempted me to learn mathematics by telling me it was a language, but I soon found it was only used to describe things that were really dull. Frost was losing the rest of the audience too. Reporters don’t thank you for too much information because newspapers are never more than three printed sheets.
    I thought about my place on the Castle’s tennis ladder. About ways to avoid Eleonora as much as possible. And about the fact that Frost could actually be rather attractive if she made the effort.
    Eleonora strode in, waking me from my reverie. The brassy firelight starred her shoulder and waist. Lightning was close behind her, scraping his boots. I leapt to my feet and called, ‘Please stand for the Queen of Awia!’
    She seated herself on the bench beside me, placed her helm on the floor and tucked her 1910 Sword behind her on the seat. She sat with her hand on the fabulous opal hilt of that finely-tempered blade.
    Frost waited for the audience to settle, then continued, ‘I believe at long last we have a means of winning the war. I am determined not to stop here. The dam will allow us to control the river for decades tocome. We can flood adjoining sectors, from which the Insects will also retreat. I can redirect the river and use additional dams to inundate more and more land. Canals will keep Insects out of cleared areas. Over the next half-millennium we can push them further and further back, until we reclaim the entire Paperlands … Then my work, and the work of the Castle, will be complete … Um … I’ve finished, I think.’
    I said, ‘Thank you, Frost. Are