The Two of Swords, Volume 2

by K. J. Parker

  Needless to say, Oida knew all the approaches to Rasch like the back of his hand. It was bizarre, therefore, to have the road entirely to himself, at noon on a bright, clear day. He passed the Five Pillars of Faith and saw that the door was shut—he hadn’t ever seen its door before, didn’t know it had one; he was tempted to sneak inside and see if there was anything left to eat, but decided against it.

  Beyond the Five Pillars is salad country, the market gardens and orchards that supply the city. Being heavy loam on top of clay, the ground is firm, and Senza had let his column leave the road and spread out without fear of getting bogged down. It looked to Oida for all the world like spoiled paper, as though someone had written a landscape, thought better of it and scratched it out until the nib broke. Purely as a mental exercise he tried to calculate the cost of the damage and came up with a figure of two million angels.

  The patrol captain recognised him at once, so that was all right. He quickly ran through the story he’d prepared—on his way here to do a concert, heard about the forthcoming change of management, decided to do the gig anyway (pause for laugh); the kid driving the coach got scared and refused to bring him any closer, so he’d had to footslog it all the way from the Grace: any chance of a beer and just possibly something to eat?

  The captain swallowed it whole and said he’d send ahead and let the general know he was here. Please, don’t bother him, he’s got far more important things to do. No, really, he’ll want to see you, more than my commission’s worth if he finds out Oida was here and nobody told him. Oh, all right then. Easy as that.

  Senza had pitched his camp on the Ascension Flats race track. It was a logical choice—flat, more than enough grazing, water from two rivers, excellent visibility, and the covered stands offered plenty of seasoned timber, just what you need when you’re about to embark on a siege. By the time Oida got there, they’d already torn up the rails and were halfway through dismantling the Imperial Stand; a pity, Oida thought, and where will the ruler of the newly united Restored Empire sit when he’s opening the End of Year Games? It was at that point that he remembered something the shopkeeper had said; it hit him like the low branch whose height you guess wrong when you’re out riding, and for quite some time he felt too stupid to think.

  Someone in a gilded breastplate and a red cloak came bustling out to meet him. Fortunately he had plenty to say, so Oida didn’t have to make conversation. He followed the red and gold gleam to the guest tent, where there was water and a clean towel, and then to the officers’ mess, where they brought him a rather good sweet white wine and a big plate of honeycakes, Eastern-style, with syrup.

  “This is all rather sudden,” he heard himself say. “I’m here to give a recital in the Victory Hall. I’m guessing that won’t be possible.”

  The man in the pretty breastplate grinned at him. “We’ll give you a safe passage through the lines, if that’s what you want. But I’m guessing they won’t be in the mood right now. Why don’t you stay out here and sing for our troops instead? They’d love it.”

  “I’d be glad to,” Oida replied. “So, how long have you been here?”

  “Four days,” the breastplate replied. “Just long enough to dig the latrines and organise the sittings in the mess tent, the really important stuff. Storming the city comes later, when we can get round to it.”

  They were very good honeycakes. “You brought a good cook with you.”

  “Senza’s own personal man,” the breastplate said. “Earns more than I do, and you can see why.”

  Oida smiled. “You expect to be here some time, then.”

  “Who can say?” the breastplate said with his mouth full. “Not too long, I hope, but there’s no sense in pigging it if you don’t have to.” He swallowed and went on, “I know what you’re getting at. Where’s the food coming from to feed all this lot?”

  “Military secret?”

  “Oh, I don’t mind telling you. All right, how many men do you think Senza’s got? To the nearest thousand.”

  Oida hadn’t given it any thought. “Sixty?”

  “Thirty. All the rest is baggage train, mostly supplies.”

  Not what he’d been expecting to hear. “What about the artillery? I’d assumed—”

  “No.” The breastplate smiled. “We’ve got a bit, but only enough to bash down the odd cowshed. No, we brought everything with us, like a picnic.”

  Oida nodded slowly. “Forza’s still alive, isn’t he?” he said.

  The breastplate gave him a blank stare for a moment, then suddenly grinned. “Not for long, we hope. But, yes, he is.”

  “And all this is just—”

  “To winkle him out, yes.” The breastplate poured them both more wine. “You know, it’s a real privilege working for Senza; you don’t know how exciting it is for a military man, actually being here on the spot and watching it happen. It’s all about risks, you see; that’s how it’s always been between them, ever since they were kids. How far dare you go in order to beat the other one? Will you fight me if I have one hand tied behind my back? One hand behind my back and blindfold? All right then, if I have one hand behind my back, blindfold and unarmed, will you fight me then? Really, it’s all just the three-card trick. When do you reach the point where the other man can’t resist having a go at you, even though he knows in his heart of hearts that he’s bound to lose? That’s where Senza’s so brilliant. I think it’s because he’s the younger brother. It’s all about self-confidence, really. Senza knows he’s the best, therefore he is. It’s a sort of metaphysical thing, if you know what I mean.”

  Oida wanted to laugh out loud. “You really shouldn’t be telling me all this,” he said.

  “Oh, why not? Everybody knows you’re neutral. You know, you really ought to stick around, and then you can sing at the victory celebrations. The biggest party in the history of the world—you wouldn’t want to miss that, now, would you?”

  “Certainly not,” Oida said, “and, yes, I’d love to, if I won’t be under your feet. I won’t ask how long you expect to be here for, because obviously—”

  “Quite,” the breastplate said firmly. “But actually we can make you quite comfortable, if you don’t mind tents. There’s plenty of the good stuff left. This came from the old Grace and Austerity, out on the west road. Know it?”

  Oida smiled. “I thought it tasted familiar. You didn’t happen to find their private stock of Aelian red, did you? From memory, it was right at the back of the cellar, under a pile of old coats.”

  “I’ll save you a bottle,” the breastplate said gravely. “My word as an officer.”

  The shopkeeper had seemed confident that the Lodge had someone close to Senza, and Oida was prepared to share that confidence. Figuring out who it could be and establishing contact, however, wouldn’t be easy. Logical; if Oida the musician could work out who it was, so could Senza’s intelligence people. It had to be someone unlikely—and once you started playing that game, you were simply begging to make catastrophic mistakes. It was infuriating to think that there was someone close at hand he could report to, get a message out by, hand responsibility over to, and no way to get at him; but life is full of intense frustrations and painful ironies, and yet here the human race still is, clinging grimly on and managing somehow.

  His meeting with Senza was brief and rather uncomfortable. At first he wondered if Senza somehow knew that, right up to that dramatic last-minute reprieve, Oida had intended to kill him—no, surely not, Senza was smart and had almost superhuman intuition, especially where anything to do with violence was concerned, but the fact that Oida was still alive strongly suggested that the thought had never crossed Senza’s mind. Then he realised what it was, and the revelation struck him like a bolt of lightning; Senza simply didn’t like him very much. Oida hadn’t been expecting that. It wasn’t the first time they’d met, and as far as he could gather Senza hadn’t manifested any antipathy at any of their previous meetings; but on those occasions Senza hadn’t been quite so preoccu
pied with other things, and had therefore presumably made more of an effort to mask his feelings. This time he wasn’t actively rude or hostile or anything like that; on the contrary, he welcomed Oida to the camp, thanked him for agreeing to entertain the troops and told him he was welcome to stay as long as he liked: anything he wanted, just ask. But anyone with any degree of sensitivity can tell. Senza didn’t like him. Why not, for God’s sake? Everybody likes Oida: what’s not to like? But there it was; and what can’t be explained must be accepted.

  So he filled his time with making himself useful, something he was good at. He sang ballads for the troops (and the garrison inside Rasch must’ve wondered what all that cheering was about) and scurrilous topical songs for the junior officers and arias from the classics for the senior officers and the general staff; he made himself generally available at certain specified times so that men could come up and tell him how wonderful he was and how much their female relatives adored him; he hung around the officers’ mess so that captains and majors could write home saying how they’d spent a whole half-hour talking to the celebrated Oida, and, actually he was a really nice man, quite ordinary, once you got to know him. He signed things and added sentences to the ends of letters home, assessed the merits of cherished musical instruments and played a bar or two on them, then wrote his name on the back, thereby rendering them exquisitely saleable. It was the sort of thing he was used to doing wherever he went and he did it particularly well, but he found himself feeling increasingly depressed. For one thing, there was the possibility that Senza was wrong and Forza really was dead, in which case—He tried not to think about that.

  “Oh, he’s alive all right,” his friend the breastplate (his real name was Frontizo) assured him over a bowl of tea in the mess. “I can’t tell you how we know, but we know. He’s just biding his time. It doesn’t matter. We’ve got foraging parties out all over the place fetching in supplies, so we won’t starve, and you simply don’t get camp fever and dysentery and all that nonsense in one of Senza’s camps. We can stay here practically indefinitely and wait the bugger out. He’ll blink first, you can bet on it.”

  Oida nodded. “What if he’s out there raising armies?” he said. “Have we got reinforcements on the way?”

  Frontizo shook his head. “Don’t need them,” he said. “Senza’s got it all worked out. The more troops Forza brings, the more trouble he’ll find himself in. We’re counting on seventy thousand: any more would be a bonus. If they come to us, we won’t have to go out and find them. It’s been one of the great ambitions of Senza’s life to fight a battle here at Rasch; he reckons there’s a unique combination of landscape features that make this the perfect killing bottle.”

  Oida didn’t try and hide his shudder; he was the sensitive artist, after all.

  “It’s for the best,” Frontizo reassured him. “The more of them we kill, the sooner the war will be over. I know it’s hard, but buying peace is like buying anything. You’ve got to pay through the nose for quality. The main thing is to make sure the other chap ends up getting stuck with the bill.”

  Oida usually made a point of not staying too long in one place. He recognised that there was something about him (he had no idea what it was) that got on people’s nerves after three days. Under normal circumstances this wasn’t a problem, since his schedule was so hectic that three days in one place didn’t happen very often. For those occasions where he found himself stranded for longer periods, he’d worked out various ways of being elusive without any risk of giving offence. The best excuse was work; he could claim to be in the throes of composition, and everyone was perfectly happy to give him a wide berth. Further or in the alternative he could be ill; as a result of long and diligent practice, he could make himself sneeze for extended periods more or less at will, and he knew the symptoms of half a dozen minor but tiresome ailments better than most doctors.

  After eight days in Senza’s camp, he was both ill and working. It was vitally important, he realised, not to get on these people’s nerves. In particular, he couldn’t do anything that might possibly alienate Senza himself.

  So far, the highly efficient and far-ranging scout network had seen no sign at all of an approaching army. Fair enough; if Forza was coming, he’d make an effort not to be seen, and he was as good at that sort of thing as his brother, if not better. But time was passing; if Forza was out there, why hadn’t he come to the defence of Rasch? He’d discussed this topic endlessly with Frontizo, whom he’d identified as a high-ranking nonentity, someone he could irritate with complete immunity; in fact, it appeared that Frontizo genuinely liked him and looked forward to their conversations. Frontizo’s hypothesis was that Forza was calling Senza’s bluff. He’d figured out that Senza didn’t have the manpower or the heavy plant to pose a real threat to Rasch, and could therefore be ignored. Oida told him he was missing the point. Forza wouldn’t be lured into the trap by the danger to Rasch. He was wise enough and icy-hearted enough to let Rasch be taken and burned, if he thought there was any risk of losing a battle against his brother if he tried to relieve it. No, the lure had to be the relatively small size of the Eastern army and the distance Senza had put between himself and any source of resupply or reinforcement. On which score, Oida reckoned, he’d done more than enough—he had a tiny army, he was surrounded and hopelessly exposed. So where was Forza?

  Frontizo replied that Forza was far too smart to go for something that was so obviously too good to be true. It had TRAP written all over it in letters of burnished bronze, and Forza could read. No, what Forza was doing was really quite subtle. Instead of taking the bait when he was supposed to, namely right away, before Senza got smart and changed his mind, he was deliberately biding his time. He’d guessed or learned that Senza had brought all his provisions with him, instead of depending on a traditional line of supply; he was waiting till Senza had eaten his very last biscuit and had no option but to give up and go home, and then he’d strike.

  “Which is where he’s gone wrong, of course,” Frontizo went on. “Thanks to everybody in the West being scared stiff of us, the countryside’s deserted for miles around: we can send out our foragers and help ourselves to the standing corn. We’ve got two thousand men out right now, harvesting wheat. Also, the local peasantry bolted so quick, they neglected to empty their larders first. We can sit here in comfort till Forza’s realised he’s made a mistake, and by then Rasch will be starving and he’ll have to do something; or else we actually take Rasch, and then Forza won’t be a general any more.”

  Oida looked at him. “You don’t suppose Forza really is dead, do you?”

  Frontizo shook his head. “He’s alive,” he said. “Trust me.” He yawned, and lifted the lid off the teapot. “That’s enough shop talk for one day,” he said. “How about a game of cards?”

  “If you like.”

  “Do you know a game called Cartwheels?”

  Oida thought quickly. Ever since he’d given away all his money, only to find he probably wasn’t going to die after all, he’d been wondering how to raise his travelling expenses back to civilisation without having to beg or steal. The way Frontizo dressed when off duty had tagged him as a viable mark, but Oida hadn’t wanted to make the suggestion himself for fear of looking predatory. “I used to play it when I was a kid,” he said truthfully. “But that was many years ago.”

  “It’ll come back to you,” Frontizo said cheerfully, producing a worn-looking pack painted on thin lime board. “Basically it’s just Catch-Me, but prides beat straights and sevens are wild.”

  Oida did his apologetic smile. “I’m afraid I haven’t got any money,” he said. “But we can play for olives or something.”

  “I think I can risk taking your marker,” Frontizo said. “I’ll deal, shall I?”

  Oida played it classical, losing the first four hands and exhibiting a weakness for over-cautious bidding. Frontizo, he observed, was a twitcher, but it seemed certain he hadn’t realised. Oida did a quick calculation of how much a senior
staff officer could afford to lose without feeling aggrieved.

  Frontizo dealt the fifth hand, and Oida frowned. Almost too good to be true. He played cautiously to start with, until all four sevens were accounted for and there remained nothing at all that could beat his pride of red kings and jacks. “Double that,” he said. “It is all right to double now, isn’t it?”

  Frontizo laughed. “You can if you like,” he said. “I’m sure you’re good for the money.”

  Oida was enormously tempted to enjoy himself for a bit, but decided not to. “In that case,” he said, “I’ll double and raise ten.”

  “Fifty.”

  Twitch, twitch. Much more of this and the fool would wipe himself out, which could lead to bad feeling. “I think I’ll see you,” he said, and turned over his last covered card. “King of Spears.”

  But Frontizo nodded, as though they’d rehearsed all this before, and flipped his card over.

  It was the Seven of Swords.

  There is no suit of Swords in the regulation pack.

  Frontizo grinned. “And sevens are wild, so that’s my trick, making five, so I win. You owe me one hundred and sixty-one angels.”

  Oida stared at the card, then at the fool sitting opposite. “You’re Lodge,” he said.

  Frontizo flipped the seven face downwards, then tucked it up his sleeve. “Don’t want to leave something like that lying about,” he said, “just in case. Yes, I am.”

  “You bastard. Why didn’t you—?”

  Frontizo frowned. “Oh come on,” he said. “Actually, I was fairly sure you were Lodge from the start, but I couldn’t be certain. So I figured, if he’s Lodge I bet I know what he’s here for; in which case, he’s had a wasted trip and he could probably do with some money to go home on. Hence the game.”

  Oida looked at him. “You knew about me?”

  “Oh, I’m not supposed to, obviously,” he said. “But I happened to meet your brother a while back, and he sort of hinted. Don’t pull faces,” he added. “I know he’s the skeleton in your cupboard. But I’m good at keeping my mouth shut, believe it or not.”