by K. J. Parker
It wouldn’t have mattered if the book had been the usual sort of thing they churn out at the Golden Spire: missals; psalters; manuals of hours; nice, safe selections from the User’s Guide that nobody bothers with very much, because they know the words by heart and have stopped thinking about them, the way a married man eventually stops listening to his wife. Ekkehard is a devout enough man after his own fashion. The harsh facts of his life mean he very much needs someone to pray to, and he’s been told since childhood, this is what you do, and he’s done it and he’s still alive, so if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. A pretty psalter would’ve been water off his spiritual back.
But this book isn’t a psalter, or even a bestiary or The Lives of the Saints. It’s Saloninus’s On the Genealogy of Morals, which happens to be the favorite reading of a dissolute and rebellious monk at the Golden Spire. Called on to produce six luxury-grade illuminated codices at ridiculously short notice by the abbot, he grinds out five copies of Bononus’s City of God and then falls into a sort of brown study. If he has to illuminate one more City of God or Very Rich Hours or anything like that, chances are he’s going to lose all vestige of control and start stabbing people with his penknife. So instead, he retrieves his contraband one-volume edition of the Genealogy from under the loose floorboard in the scriptorium and sets about copying that instead. Inspired by the subject matter, he does a really bang-up job, finishing it off with sheets and sheets of gold leaf and extra sparklies on the cover. It doesn’t matter, he tells himself. Nobody will ever know, because nobody ever actually reads these things.
So Ekkehard reads On the Genealogy of Morals, and strange things begin to happen to him—
* * *
(As it so happens, I met Saloninus once, not long after his death. Once he’d got his bearings and realized where he was and what had happened to him, and who I was, he gave me an enormous grin.
“You were wrong,” I told him. “April fool.”
He laughed. “Oh, that’s all right,” he said. “I was pretty sure I was wrong. Nice to have that confirmed, though.”
I frowned. “You believed?”
“Unshakably,” he said. “Ever since I was a kid.”
“So why did you write—?”
“Money,” said Saloninus. “I mean, nobody was going to pay to read about how He exists—there’s a million books about that already. But a really convincing argument that He doesn’t exist would be an instant bestseller. And it was. Flew off the shelves, scribes copying round the clock. Unfortunately, I was down on my luck when I was writing it, so I sold the rights to a man in Boc Bohec for twenty gulden. Pity about that.”
I nodded. “A great pity,” I said. “That book means there’s a great many people round here who don’t like you very much.”
He looked horrified. “That’s not fair,” he said. “It’s only a book.”
“Quite,” I said, lifting him up on the tines of my fork and pitching him into the everlasting bonfire.
Only a book. Me, I’d give anything to have written something like that, but that would be creation, which in my circles is a rigidly controlled monopoly. You may ask, incidentally, why the Genealogy is permitted to exist, since it’s such a thorn in the Divine flesh. That would be missing the point. We aren’t, after all, barbarians. We respect the mortal human urge to examine, analyze, and scrutinize the universe, and to express the findings. Contrary to what some ill-informed people would have you believe, we’re passionately committed to freedom of speech. We don’t burn books. Only the people who write them.)
* * *
Anyway, there’s Ekkehard, closing the book, the tip of his forefinger sore from tracing so many lines of text. He feels rather like someone who’s been reliably informed about a huge stash of treasure buried in a plague pit. On the one hand, he’s seen the light. There are no gods, and religion is simply an artifact of human morality, which in turn is a blend of mental expediency and fashion, with about as much validity as a pewter nomisma. On the other hand, the only thing that unites his wretched people and gives them the strength to carry on living in their lethally marginal homeland surrounded by enemies is their faith. It doesn’t occur to him to lie or dissemble. He knows his limitations: he’s not a particularly good actor. He knows that if he tries to carry out his duties as chief priest and head of the church, it won’t take people long to realize that he’s just going through the motions, that he no longer believes. In that case, wouldn’t it be better to tell everyone straight out? There is no God, we’re on our own and always have been, and all temples and monasteries are closed with immediate effect and their substantial treasuries forfeit to the National Poor Relief Fund. . . .
Yes, he thinks, people would like that. The Antecyrenes believe, and their faith is the pillar that supports the roof of their world. But it hasn’t escaped their notice that while they’re struggling to survive in bad years, eating nettles and selling their firstborn children so they can afford to feed the younger ones and pay the temple tax, the priests swan about in purple vestments and eat three square, delicately seasoned meals a day. Make it all the priests’ fault, and divert their enormous wealth (some of their enormous wealth; let’s not get carried away) to feed the starving and the homeless, and we might just get away with it. The new message would be: we’ve survived against impossible odds, and all this time, when we thought it was because He was looking after us, we were looking after ourselves; therefore, we must be really special people, and even if there were any gods, which there aren’t, we wouldn’t need them. Hard to imagine anyone in Antecyra who wouldn’t find that line of argument attractive.
He is, he realizes, trying to rationalize a choice he’s already made, not for pragmatic reasons of statecraft but because he is who he is, he’s seen what he’s seen, and he can do no other. He cannot tell a lie—not one this big, anyway. Because the treasure’s there, he has to dig it up, even if it means catching the plague—even if it means spreading it. Over the doorway of the throne room, his grandfather had an inscription carved in huge letters: ABOVE ALL, THE TRUTH. He’s seen it at least once a day, every day of his life. Now, for the first time, he thinks he knows what it means.
He sends for the Grand Vizier. You’re not going to like this, he says.
* * *
I stare at him. “This is terrible,” I say.
“Who gives a shit what you think?” he replies, but doesn’t hit me. He’s preoccupied. If I didn’t know him better, I’d say he’s worried.
“This wasn’t in the Plan, was it?”
“Shut your face.”
“The Plan’s all screwed up. This wasn’t meant to happen.”
“I told you to—”
“Oh, be quiet.”
He doesn’t hit me. I’d braced myself for the impact, which doesn’t come, and I topple forward. He gives me a look that would’ve stripped rust off a shipwreck anchor, but no actual metaphorical fist in the face or boot to the kneecap. “I need to think,” I say.
He doesn’t reply. He’s far away, trapped in the implications of the story he’s just told.
“The hell with this,” I say. “I need to talk to Divisional Command.”
“You’re seconded to me.”
“I need to talk to Division.”
He looks at me, bewildered. “There’s no need to shout.”
“Be right back,” I say, and I’m out of there.
* * *
“All right, yes,” Division concedes. Below us, all the kingdoms of the earth go about their dreary business. The pigs we’ve temporarily appropriated for our impromptu conference get on with the daily round of nosing up taproots. “There’s been an aberration in the Grand Scheme.”
“You mean it wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“No.”
“But it did.”
“Yes.”
Getting a straight answer out of Division is a bit like mining lead. It’s possible, but it’s long, hard, noisy, dirty, dangerous, difficult work, and the result is g
enerally poisonous and not worth having. “That’s not possible,” I say.
“True,” he says with a sigh. “But it’s a very old universe, and it’s still got a very long way to go. And we run it, on His behalf. And He’s infallible, but we’re—” He smiles weakly. “Not Him.”
I close my eyes and count to five. “So how could this impossible thing happen?”
“Oh, easily enough.” Now that the saber-tooth tiger is out of the bag, he’s rather more relaxed than usual. “After all, we deal with mass effects, most of the time. We have to. We haven’t got the staff for a truly tailored service.”
I nod. My pig unearths a truffle and treads on it.
“Antecyra,” he goes on, “was supposed to be inevitable. From the moment of Creation. By putting it there, He set in motion a sequence of events that could only have one possible outcome.”
I can more or less see what he means. Antecyra, remember, was made on the sixth day. He’d already made the vast, alluvium-rich river that would ensure Blemmya would always be a superpower; the northern steppes, where the conditions of life must someday breed a nation like the Robur; the mighty twin rivers that ensured that Sashan would inevitably be the cradle of civilization. And then he plonked Antecyra down at the place where the three soon-to-be crucial nations must eventually collide and, for good measure, he made it very horrible to live in. Then all He had to do was step back and let human nature take its course.
“Antecyra is the whole point of the exercise,” Division goes on. “The Antecyrenes are His chosen people, though perhaps ‘picked-on people’ might be more appropriate. Anyway, they’re what you might call the anvil of the Plan, on which He will forge the elements of the True Way.”
Made sense. The anvil of his Plan—and what happens to anvils? They get bashed on. Getting bashed on is what they’re for.
“And the same goes,” he says, “for Antecyra. Think about it. What’s the common experience of ninety-nine percent of human mortals throughout the full extent of sequential linear time? Answer: doing the best they can to survive in a hostile, unforgiving world; continually threatened and brutalized by forces they can neither control nor resist; born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards; inured to defeat, loss, and humiliation; dragging through their nasty, short, brutish lives with KICK ME painted indelibly on their backs. I mean, what would be the point of choosing the Robur or the Sashan? They’re natural winners, they’d have entirely the wrong expectations, they’d be bitterly disappointed, and Faith would go down the toilet. And if you gave ten commandments to the Blemmyans, they’d obey them to the letter at all times without question, which would prove nothing. So, when drawing up the Plan, He organizes everything so as to lead to the Antecyrenes’ existence, because they’re serial victims and perpetual losers, the epitome, the archetype of human life on earth. Accordingly, to them He will in due course reveal the Way, and they of all people will understand.”
I nod again. “Good plan.”
“Yes, it is. It’s just a pity it should all go tits up on my watch.”
We sit in silence for a moment, contemplating the enormity of it all. “You’re going to be in so much trouble,” I point out.
“Yes.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any way you can misrepresent the facts so as to make it look like it’s somebody else’s fault?”
“I thought about that,” he replies, “but sadly, no.”
“Have you considered going to your superior officer, telling him everything, and trying to find a constructive way forward?”
“Are you out of your tiny mind? Of course not. We’ve got to fix this ourselves, it’s the only way. Otherwise, it’s just going to get worse and worse, until when eventually it hits the fan, we’re all going to wish we’d never been created. You included.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“Having nothing to do with it is no excuse, you know that. Anyway, now you know, and I’ll be very much obliged if you’ll keep all of this strictly to yourself.”
“Of course.”
“Thank you.”
I hesitate, then ask: “Where does he come in?”
“Ah. That’s the supreme buggerment. Your pal was the one who spotted the problem first and reported it to Regional. Regional told me, and here we all are. He’s involved, unfortunately, and if we want to keep his mouth shut, he’s got to be involved. Or should I say implicated? And if he’s involved, then so are you. Sorry about that,” he adds.
I take a deep breath. “I understand,” I say.
* * *
I pause on the threshold of his ear, amazed that he isn’t aware of me. I clear my throat. “Honey, I’m home,” I say.
Nothing. So in I go.
I find him slumped against his skull wall, metaphorical elbows on metaphorical knees, metaphorical head in metaphorical hands. I’ve never known him like this.
“I’m back,” I say.
He looks up at me. The loathing is still there, but the look is different. I’m no longer the worst thing in the world. Something even ghastlier has supervened.
Outside, a ship is cutting the still blue water of Beloisa Bay. We’re on it, en route from Beloisa to the ancient, fabulously wealthy merchant island of Scona, for two thousand years the commercial bridge between East and West. Our cargo is ivory, apes, peacocks, sandalwood, cedarwood, sweet white wine, and all that kind of stuff. From Scona, at this time of year, it’s just over a day’s sail to Amphipolis on the Anticyrene coast. There, the ship will off-load its ballast, seventy tons of last year’s barley, turfed out to make way for the new harvest but a valuable commodity in Antecyra, and take on two hundred jars of sub-prime olive oil and forty bales of coarse wool, before continuing on its stately coast-hugging way to its real destination, the Blemmyan port of Naucratis.
“Oh,” he says. “It’s you.”
“I had a useful talk with my people at Divisional HQ,” I tell him, “and you’ll be pleased to know that they’re right behind your proposed course of action a hundred and ten percent, and we’re all officially working together for the duration of the emergency and singing,” I can’t resist adding, “from the same hymn sheet. Division recognizes,” I add, as he stirs ominously, “that this is an unprecedented development for both of us, and you must be feeling apprehensive about it, to say the least, just like we are. However, they wanted me to highlight the uniqueness of the circumstances and the importance to both of us of getting this thing sorted out, and to thank you once again for your willingness to put your personal feelings on hold for the good of the mission.”
He springs to his metaphorical feet, smashes me to the ground, and grinds his metaphorical heel in my metaphorical ear until something breaks. So that’s all right. He’s feeling better now.
* * *
In theory, it’s very difficult to get an audience with the Duke of Antecyra. You have to apply to the Lord Chamberlain, and you can’t just walk up to him in the street and say, How about it? In order to get an audience with the Lord Chamberlain, you need to apply to the Deputy Equerry, whose diary is managed by the Lesser Comptroller of the Bedchamber, who can be contacted through the Office of the Count of the Stables, who employs seven clerks, each of whom has to be approached in turn. In practice, there’s a handy one-bribe-pays-all fast-track system, essential in a mercantile nation where overseas bribes are a major source of desperately needed hard currency.
As we pass through the streets of Beal Regard, I can’t help noticing a change since the last time I was there. The bazaars are still uncomfortably crowded, the pavements still too narrow, the buildings too tall and badly in need of repair and maintenance, and the smell is as bad as ever, but the people have changed. They’re quieter. They don’t shout. They mutter. I get the impression of thirty thousand people cooped up in a confined space, waiting for something to happen—bad or good, they don’t know, but they’re realists with functional memories.
A poor mad beggar lurches in front of us, takes one look at my pal, and sc
uttles away up an alley. In that one look, whom do I see but my old comrade in arms, Lofty, last seen possessing the outskirts of the mind of Brother Hildebrand, back in the Third Horn monastery. I can’t do more than wave and mouth Hello, Lofty, what are you doing here? for fear that he might notice, see Lofty inside the beggar and waste valuable time and energy tearing my esteemed colleague limb from metaphorical limb; for his part, Lofty gives me a ferocious scowl, signifying You don’t know me, you didn’t see me, I’m not here. Interesting. Has Lofty been assigned to be—Saints and ministers of grace defend us—my backup? Desperate times indeed.
The palace gate is at the end of a street indistinguishable from any of the other streets in Beal Regard: too narrow, the buildings too tall, the pavements lined with too many ramshackle stalls selling underdeveloped vegetables and assorted stolen goods. It suddenly looms up at you, like it’s going to hit you. It’s about a thousand years older than the street below it, and a thousand years ago, the Dukes of Antecyra either had a bit more spending money or were less conscientious about paying stonemasons, because the gate is flanked by two colossal figures: bodies of lions; legs of eagles; heads of crowned, bearded humans. The paint has all flaked off and they’re a bit the worse for wear these days, and they were never exactly wonderful, being one-third-scale knockoffs of the appallingly vast Gates of Acbadan in the Sashan Highlands. In context, however, they’re quite effective. Someone important lives here, they intend to convey, and they do it pretty well. They’re defended against all comers by two soldiers, recently up from the country. They glare at us.
“I’m expected,” my pal says.
They give him a suspicious look. One of them opens a sally port in the main gate, nips through, comes back a few moments later with a fat man in a grubby quilted vest covered in rust stains; he’s the officer of the day, and can read. “Documents,” he says.
My pal shows him a bit of broken pot—paper is expensive in Antecyra—on which the Deputy Equerry has written our safe conduct. He scowls at it and tells the soldiers to let us through. The easy part.
