Devices and Desires

by K. J. Parker

  Needless to say, the Ducas was as good as his word. The brigandine coat arrived the next morning, in a straw-filled barrel. The first thing Vaatzes looked for was a maker’s mark, and he found it, in exactly the right place; the fifth rivet-head in from the armpit, right-hand side, second row down, was stamped with a tiny raised letter F, for Foundrymen. That meant it was Guild-made, and therefore complied exactly with the relevant specification.

  The specification for a brigandine coat consists of two thousand, seven hundred and forty-six small, thin plates of best hardening steel, drawn to a spring temper. The plates are sandwiched, overlapping each other, between two layers of strong canvas, held in place by one-sixteenth-inch copper rivets; they’re also wired and riveted to each other to make sure they move perfectly with every action of the wearer’s body, so that at no time is it possible to drive the point of an ordinary sewing needle between the joints. The jacket is covered on the outside with middle-weight hard-wearing velvet, and lined inside with six layers of linen stuffed with lambs-wool and quilted into one-inch diamonds. The finished coat contains ten thousand, nine hundred and eighty-four rivets, weighs six pounds four ounces, will turn a cavalryman’s lance or an arrow from a hundred-and-twenty-pound bow, should be as comfortable as a well-cut gentleman’s doublet and shouldn’t be noticeable when worn under an ordinary day-jacket. The Linen Armorers’ Guild produces a hundred and twelve of them a year, of which ninety-six go for export.

  Vaatzes lifted it out of the barrel, brushed away the straw, and held it out at arm’s length. He’d never actually seen one before, although he knew the specification by heart. It was strange, here in this barbarous and unsatisfactory place, finally to find himself in the presence of perfection; as though a prophet or visionary had spent his whole life searching in the wilderness for enlightenment, only to find it, having abandoned the search, in a grubby market town, sitting on a toilet.

  He laid it flat on the workbench in front of him, and ran his fingertips over the velvet before slowly unfastening the seventeen brass buttons. For one horrible moment, as he drew it across his shoulders, he was afraid it wouldn’t fit. Once he was inside it, however, it closed in around him like water engulfing a diver. He could just feel a slight weight on his shoulders and chest, and a very gentle hug as he buttoned it up; just enough to let him know that he was now as perfectly safe as it’s possible to be in an imperfect world, his body’s security guaranteed by the absolute wisdom and skill of the Perpetual Republic. He’d heard someone say once that a Guild coat would even turn a scorpion bolt; that was, of course, impossible, but there was a part of him deep down that was inclined to believe it. It wasn’t the steel or the skill with which the rivets had been closed; it was the specification, the pattern that drew the thousands of plates together and made them move as one unbroken, unbreakable whole, like the City that had made them. The coat wouldn’t protect him against scorpions, because even though the steel stayed unpierced, the shock would smash his bones to splinters and pulp his internal organs. That didn’t matter, however, because it would be him that had failed rather than the coat. His own frailty in no way invalidated the consummate virtue of Specification; just as the death of one citizen doesn’t kill a city.

  He smiled. The irony was exact, precise, fitting as closely as the coat. His safety guaranteed by the City that was trying to kill him, he could now carry on unhindered with his design to bring that City to ruin, and all perfection with it. All he needed now was to be taught to kill by the Ducas family, and the symmetry would be complete.

  20

  Since the first army had unaccountably been exterminated, it was just as well that the second army arrived earlier than anticipated, thanks to an unusually strong tailwind. If it hadn’t been for the defeat and the massacre, their arrival would have been a logistical disaster. There wouldn’t have been nearly enough food, blankets, tents or equipment for twelve thousand men arriving a week ahead of schedule; there’d have been chaos, and the whole venture would’ve teetered on the edge of failure.

  Thanks, however, to the Eremians and their homemade scorpions, the stores and magazines held ample supplies for seven thousand men who weren’t going to be needing them after all. To the clerks and administrators of the Treasury and Necessary Evil, it was a source of quiet satisfaction that the crisis was averted and all that expensive food, clothing and equipment wouldn’t go to waste after all. In the event, the only problem posed by the early arrival of the second army that didn’t effectively solve itself was transport, and that was no big deal. Unlike other shipments of imported goods, mercenaries can transport themselves. They have legs, and can walk.

  The commanding officer of the new army, Major-General Sthoe Melancton, didn’t see it quite like that. He’d been promised ox-carts to shift his men and their gear from Lonazep to the City. It was in the contract, he pointed out, so it was his right; also, his men were in prime condition, ready for the long march up the mountains. An unscheduled route march to the capital would inevitably result in wear and tear on footwear, vehicles and equipment that had not been allowed for in the original agreement. Further, it would mean an extra four days’ service, for which he wanted time and a half. The Republic replied by pointing out that by arriving early, he was in fundamental breach of contract, time inevitably being of the essence in any contract for services, and that the failure to provide the agreed transport was entirely the result of his own breach, therefore not the Republic’s fault. If anybody had a right to compensation and damages, in fact, it was the Republic; however, they were prepared to waive their claim in the interests of friendly cooperation. General Melancton rejoined by pleading that the tailwind was an unpredictable outside agency, not party to the contract, and therefore not his responsibility or his fault. The Republic countered by citing precedents from mercantile and shipping case-law. Melancton refused to accept Mezentine precedents, arguing that the contract had been finalized in his own country, whose law therefore applied to it. That argument was easily defeated by reference to the document itself, which clearly stated that the agreement was governed by Mezentine law. Melancton gave way with a certain degree of grace. The soldiers marched.

  They were met just outside the City by the artillery train. It was at this point that Melancton found out what had become of his compatriots in the first army. Afterward, it was generally agreed that he took the news better than had been expected. After a long moment of silent reflection, he told the representatives of Necessary Evil who’d broken the news to him that he was a man of his word and a professional, and he would do his job or else (here he was observed to dab a drop of sweat away from the side of his nose) die trying. He then asked a large number of detailed questions about the level of artillery support he could expect to receive, all of which the Mezentines were able to answer to his satisfaction. He thanked them politely and withdrew to confer with his senior staff.

  In accordance with the ancient and honorable traditions of their craft, the merchants stayed in Civitas Eremiae until almost the last moment; and when they left, they took with them substantial quantities of small, high-value goods which the more pessimistic citizens had been only too pleased to exchange at a loss for hard cash. The general feeling was that it was better, on balance, that the merchants had them for a song than to keep them for the looters to prise out of their dead fingers.

  All but one of the merchant caravans headed for the Vadani border by the shortest possible road. The exception, however, turned in a quite unexpected direction, on a course that seemed likely to leave her stranded and dying of thirst in the great desert that formed the civilized world’s only defense against the Cure Hardy. What became of her, nobody knew or cared much. It was assumed that she was headed that way because the Mezentines wouldn’t be taking that road in a hurry. Those sufficiently curious to speculate about the subject guessed that she had a retreat somewhere on the edge of the desert, where she planned to hole up until the war was over and it was safe to come out. The last recorded sig
hting of her was, curiously enough, by a column of Cure Hardy light cavalry, heading north to offer their services to the Mezentines in the coming war. How they came to be there, nobody knew and nobody liked to ask. The official explanation was that they’d come the long way round, enduring months of hardship and privation threading their way through the mountain passes that would have defeated an army of significant size — they were, after all, only one squadron of two hundred men. If it occurred to anybody that if that were the case they’d had to have set off long before the Guild Assembly had even considered the possibility of a war, they kept their hypotheses to themselves.

  * * *

  The arrival of outriders from the Cure Hardy squadron was like rain on parched fields to Melancton and his liaison committee from Necessary Evil. Negotiations had broken down and been patched up over and over again, always foundering on the vexed issue of skirmishers. Melancton hadn’t brought any with him, because the contract hadn’t specified them; there had been an ample contingent with the first army, so there was no need. With the threat of a scorpion ambush hanging over him, he absolutely refused to move across the border without an advance guard of light, fast, expendable scouts, which the Mezentines were not in a position to provide. The Cure Hardy were perfectly suited to the role. They came as the answer to a prayer; which was why asking them how they came to be available at such short notice wasn’t considered, or else was dismissed with pointed references to gift horses’ teeth.

  To those who could be bothered to ask, the newcomers declared that they were a privateer war-band from the Doce Votz, under the command of one Pierh Leal, an obscure off-relation of the ruling family. They were perfectly willing to ride ahead of the advancing army, keeping an eye out for scorpion emplacements (it was highly unlikely they had any idea what a scorpion looked like, but it was assumed they’d find out the hard way soon enough) and declared that their speed and agility would preserve them from anything the war machines could throw at them. Perhaps some of the members of the liaison committee felt a slight degree of unease at the speed with which the outriders returned with the rest of the squadron; it argued that the Cure Hardy were adept at moving very quickly through even the most hostile terrain. But their arrival meant that the second expeditionary force could at last set out, and that came as a relief in the City, particularly to the officials of the Treasury. Melancton gave the Cure Hardy a day’s start, then followed.

  Much to his displeasure, he’d come to the conclusion after exhaustive debate that he had no alternative but to follow the same route as his predecessors, up the Butter Pass and on to the main road as far as Palicuro. After that, he had options, or at least alternatives, but he declared that he intended to keep an open mind until he reached Palicuro. After a slow start, due in part to a brisk and unseasonable cloudburst, he picked up speed in the middle and late afternoon, and was on time for his first scheduled rendezvous with the Cure Hardy at nightfall.

  The scouts had very little to say for themselves. They claimed to have ridden a full day ahead of the edge of the search zone Melancton had assigned them, and to have seen no sign of the enemy, with or without war engines. Melancton was highly skeptical about these assertions, but had no choice but to rely on them and press on. The logistical support he’d insisted on before starting out was all in place, but he nevertheless wasn’t inclined to dawdle and risk running short of supplies, thereby courting the same sort of disasters that had done for Beltista Eiconodoulus. Regrettably, this meant that he couldn’t afford to wait for the artillery, which was making heavy weather of the road up the mountains and was believed to be at least half a day behind schedule. After a certain amount of soul-searching, he resolved to press on regardless. Artillery dismantled and packed on wagons wouldn’t be any use to him if he was ambushed by scorpions in a narrow pass; in fact, they’d compound any disaster by falling into the hands of the Eremians. By keeping the artillery separate and behind him, he hoped to guard against that particular nightmare above all others.

  The next two days proved that the Cure Hardy were reliable informants. For reasons best known to themselves, the enemy had failed to take advantage of two perfect locations for ambushes, both of them narrow bottle canyons through which Melancton had no option but to pass. This omission played on his nerves more than a clear sighting would have done; to an army already lacking in self-confidence, the enemy is never more unnerving than when he’s invisible. Resisting an almost overpowering urge to slow down, wait for the artillery and build redoubts to hide in until he found out exactly what the Eremians were up to, he pressed on. During the course of the next two days the scouts reported two possible sightings of lone Eremian horsemen, apparently watching the army from a distance of several miles. Of an army or scorpions, they’d seen no trace. The next day, they rode right up to the outskirts of Palicuro, and reported back that the village was apparently deserted.

  Once again, they were proved right. In fact, Palicuro was more than deserted; overnight it had been burned to ash and charcoal and the village cistern had been fouled with the proceeds of the village’s muckheaps and middens. Melancton had known better than to rely on being able to find food for his men and forage for his horses there, but he was disappointed nevertheless; as a result he’d have enough to get to Civitas Eremiae, but if the Mezentines wanted him to dig in under the walls for a siege, they’d have to send him a large supply train. Otherwise he risked the indignity of the well-fed defenders throwing their crusts and cabbage waste to his men out of pity.

  Dispatches containing these observations arrived unexpectedly on the desk of Lucao Psellus early one morning, at a stage in his career when he’d pretty much convinced himself that his fellow commissioners believed he was dead, or had retired to the suburbs to grow sunflowers and keep bees. He’d given up trying to find out what was going on, or what they wanted him to do. Nobody was ever available to talk to him, his memos went unanswered, and copies of reports and minutes had stopped coming a long time ago. He nearly wept with joy to know they still remembered who he was.

  With the dispatches was a curt note requiring him to expedite the supply train as requested. That he could do. It would involve a careful balancing of the three basic elements out of which all administration is ultimately formed: time, money and fear. Not many people, even full-time professional Guild officers, really understood the complex and fascinating interplay between these three monumental forces, but Psellus had been experimenting with them in different combinations and ratios for years, like a methodical alchemist. At last they’d given him a job he could do.

  Of the unholy trinity, the most fundamental is money, since nothing can happen without it. Accordingly, he walked across two quadrangles and up and down six flights of stairs, and surprised his old friend Maniacis in the payments room, where he was working at his checkerboard.

  It was, in its way, a beautiful thing; an enormous oak table, the sort that kings and barons in the barbarian countries would sit at to feast and drink, whose surface was inlaid with thousands of juxtaposed bone and ebony plates, all of them exactly the same size, about an inch and a half square. At the end of each row was a number, a multiple of ten. At the narrow end of the table sat Maniacis, a pile of wax tablets in front of him, a wooden pot at his elbow, a miniature rake with a long thin stem in his hand. Whenever he needed to make a calculation, he took small silver disks, like coins, from the pot and started laying them out on the squares of the bottom row to represent units. As soon as four squares were covered, he flicked them back with his rake, scooped them back into the pot and put one counter on the line between the bottom and the second row, to represent five units. The second row was tens, the third hundreds, while counters placed on the line dividing second and third were fifties. Mostly he would start a calculation slowly and carefully and gradually build up speed as he progressed, until his fingers were moving with extraordinary speed and the raked-back counters jingled and tinkled like a man running in scale armor. The counters were good silver, nine
ty parts fine, and stamped with the word TREASURY on one side and an inspiring scene from the history of the Republic on the other. New sets were issued every year, at which point the old sets were recalled and sent to be melted down, though the considerable number that reached the cabinets of avid counter-collectors suggested that the calling-in procedure wasn’t absolutely watertight.

  Psellus waited until his friend had his hand full of swept-up counters, then coughed. Maniacis dropped the counters, looked up and called him something.

  “Now then,” Psellus replied, and grinned. “You can’t say that to me, I’m here in my official capacity.”

  “Is that right.” Maniacis scowled at him. “In that case, triple what I said with spikes on. Your precious Necessary Evil’s been running us ragged for weeks.”

  Psellus frowned. “Lucky you,” he said. “They aren’t even talking to me. I don’t know what I’ve done to upset them, but they’ve cut me right out. I’ve been sitting counting the bricks in the wall.”