by K. J. Parker
Oida breathed out slowly. “And you reckon you know why I’m here.”
“I don’t think you’d have to be Saloninus to work that one out,” Frontizo said gravely. “Anyway, you don’t need to worry about that any more. If it turns out that Senza needs killing, I’ll do it myself. Tastefully,” he added, “without undue fuss. Poison, or maybe an accident, even. I can get away with it: you can’t. In fact, I’ve got a choice of personal enemies lined up to take the blame, if it becomes necessary, which it won’t, I’m morally certain. So you can stop fretting yourself to death and relax.”
Oida grinned weakly. “How did you—?”
“One of these days, buy a mirror and take a look at yourself. Ever since you got here, you’ve been as jumpy as a rat in a kennel. People have been commenting on it. I tell them it’s because you’re a damn sight closer to the front lines than you’re used to being. You really ought to get a grip, though. You’re about as inscrutable as an inn sign.”
Oida was deeply shocked by that, but this wasn’t the time or the place. “Well, that’s a relief,” he said. “I’d have done it if I had to, but I’m ever so glad to be let off the hook.”
“Of course you are,” Frontizo said. “Show me a man walking calmly and resolutely towards certain death and I’ll show you an idiot. Though I’m guessing you had something up your sleeve, a clever boy like you.”
“Actually, no.”
“Really? I’m disappointed. Assuming you’re telling the truth. Still, it’s all academic now, the burden’s been lifted off your shoulders and you can breathe again.” He smiled warmly and poured the last of the tea. “Did you really not guess who I was?”
“Absolutely not. I thought you were a loyal officer of the Eastern army.”
That got him a dirty look. “I am,” Frontizo said, “none more so, except where there’s a conflict of interests with the Lodge. Anyway, you surprise me. Didn’t it occur to you to wonder what an inveterate low-flier like me is doing attached to Senza’s elite strike force?”
Oida shrugged. “I assumed you’re someone’s brother-in-law.”
“As a matter of fact, I am.” Frontizo laughed. “That’s why Senza thinks he’s saddled with me. At least, I don’t think he suspects, but you never know with that one. It’s not a comfortable posting, believe me. There are thousands of acres across two empires fertilised with the remains of people who thought they knew what Senza Belot was thinking. Still, that’s not your worry. I imagine you’ll be buggering off now. Nothing to keep you here.”
Oida looked startled. “I can leave?”
“No offence, but we’d be glad to see you go. Not that it hasn’t been a privilege and a pleasure, but you know what they say about guests and fish. I’ll file a favourable report about you with Division if I live that long. Now then, would you like a pen and some paper? You’ve got some writing to do.”
Oida wrote him a note for a hundred and sixty-one angels. Frontizo glanced at it and handed it back. “Better make that three hundred,” he said: “you’ll need some travelling money. Must be nice to be able to afford to troll round the place like the King of Permia, dining at all the best places.”
Oida took another sheet of parchment. “Are you sure it’s all right for me to go? After what I’ve seen and heard, I mean.”
Frontizo shook his head. “What you think you’ve seen,” he said. “We aren’t quite as stupid as you think we are. And what you’ve heard from me, and if anyone asks, all we talked about was the truth behind your reputation as the empire’s premier sex pest. Once you’d got started, I shall tell them, the problem was getting you to shut up. So, no, don’t worry about that, it’ll be fine.”
Oida stood up. The tea had gone cold and he felt like he’d been in a fight. “One thing,” he said. “Do you know Forza’s not dead? I mean, has someone actually seen him?”
“I’ll have the money for you in an hour.” Frontizo tapped the side of his nose. “Stick to singing your songs and running errands,” he said. “It’s what you’re good at. No offence.”
The money was in an old sock, military-issue, carefully darned. “You sure you can spare it?” Oida asked.
“It’s not like I’ll have anything to spend it on any time soon.”
“I meant the sock.”
That got him a smile. “Where to now, then?”
Oida put the sock in his pocket and folded down the flap. “Actually,” he said, “for the first time in a long while, I don’t really know. Never thought I’d get out of here alive, so—” He shrugged. “I think I can safely assume my tour of the Western home provinces is cancelled.”
“Yes. Sorry about that.”
“Oh, don’t be,” Oida said. He checked the horse’s girth, then shortened the stirrup leathers. “Saves me having to sing the same ten songs another fifteen times. I’ll head back to Division, I guess, assuming I can get there, see if they’ve got anything for me. I was supposed to be going to Blemya at some point, but for all I know that’s off, too. I suppose I could wander up to Central and see a few old friends.”
Frontizo held the stirrup for him while he mounted. “I’ll say this for you,” he said: “you’re a brave man, in your own way. Did you really not have a back-up plan for getting out?”
Oida shook his head. “How could I? I didn’t know anything about the setup here when I arrived.”
Frontizo frowned, then grinned. “I’m an idiot,” he said. “Of course. You were going to pin it on me.”
“I didn’t know you properly then,” Oida said, gathering the reins. “And anyway, by that stage I was fairly sure I wasn’t going to have to do it myself. Nothing personal.”
“Indeed. While I think of it, I don’t like your music very much. All froth and no substance.” Frontizo looked at him for a moment. “Giving your life for the Cause,” he said. “I guess it depends on the quality of the life. In your case, I can see how you’d be prepared to do it. Not sure I could. Have a good trip.”
Oida hesitated. The camp gate was open, and the sentries on the gate said there was nothing on the road as far as the eye could see. “My brother.”
“What? Oh, yes. What about him?”
“When you saw him, was he all right?”
Frontizo shrugged. “Seemed to be. Nice chap, under all the swagger and bluster. I guess they run in the family.”
“On my mother’s side,” Oida said, nudging the horse with his heels. “Thanks for everything you’ve done for me.”
“It wasn’t for you,” Frontizo said. “Safe journey.”
When Oida was out of sight, Frontizo went back to his tent, sat down at the low pile of boxes he used as a writing desk, pushed aside a mound of paperwork until he found a return-of-requisitions form he’d neglected for so long that it no longer mattered. He trimmed off the lower margin, the width of his thumb, then put an impossibly fine nib on his pen. Next he picked up a leather satchel off the floor; on the flap it had the insignia of the military mail, in thick paint just beginning to crack. He studied the strap for a moment: whoever had made the satchels for the mail had thoughtfully inserted a bit of cotton waste between the two halves of the strap before they were stitched together, as padding for the despatch rider’s neck. With the tip of his penknife, he slit the stitches and prised the seam open, just enough so that he could tease out the cotton. Then he went back to his scrap of salvaged parchment, and began to write.
Four of Stars
Frontizo to Axio, greetings.
You’ll never guess who I’ve just had the pleasure of entertaining. Your idiot brother showed up here. I’ve only just this minute managed to get rid of him. You’ll be relieved to hear that he’s safe and well, and Providence in its unfathomable wisdom seems to be taking special care of him. Well, make that one part Providence and three parts me. You never told me what a terrible card player he is. Special love to our special friends. Wrap up warm and don’t forget you owe me six angels thirty.
Axio shrugged, screwed up the scrap of parch
ment into a ball and went to throw it on the fire, only to find it had gone out. He sighed, stood up and grabbed two handfuls of kindling from the sack by the hearth, then felt in his pocket for his tinderbox. Then he scowled.
“Musen,” he shouted. “Get in here.”
A few moments later an impossibly tall, flat-faced young man pushed aside the sacking curtain. “What?”
Axio held out his hand. “Give it back. My tinderbox.”
“I haven’t got it.”
“Oh, come on.” Axio gave him a grim smile. “I’ll say this for you, you’re getting better. The first time you stole it, I felt you. For crying out loud, son, it’s freezing in here.”
“I haven’t got it.”
Axio nodded and turned away, immediately turned back. Musen saw him coming and took a long step to the rear but not quickly enough; Axio was behind him, and trod down hard on the inside of his knee. Musen dropped to the ground. Axio stooped and put his hand round his windpipe, bearable but firm pressure from thumb and forefinger. “Pockets,” he said.
Musen turned out his pockets; then, unasked, took off his boots and shook them out. Axio sighed. “You’ve sold it,” he said. “Marvellous. So now we both sit here and freeze.”
“I can light a fire.”
Axio let go of him. “The point about tinderboxes is,” he said, “they make lighting a fire easier. That’s why it’d be nice if one or the other of us had got one.” He sat down again, while Musen squatted by the hearth and picked through the kindling. “Who’d you sell it to?”
No answer. Musen broke a piece of dry bark off a log, gathered some withered moss from another.
“Presumably that horrible old woman who hangs round the stables,” Axio said. “I think I’ll have her arrested and strung up. Then I might get to keep some of my stuff.”
“It wasn’t—” Musen checked himself. “She hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“Ah.” Axio nodded. “In that case it was that fat groom on the night shift. If he tries to sell it back to me, I’ll break his arm.” Musen was twirling a bit of stick. That’ll never work, Axio thought, then saw a tiny feather of smoke. “That tinderbox happened to be a present from my brother.”
“I thought you couldn’t stand him.”
“I can’t.” Axio closed his eyes and tried to get comfortable in his chair. Physically impossible. “How do you do that, exactly? Whenever I try, it doesn’t work.”
“I don’t know,” Musen said. “I’ve always done it this way, and it always works for me.”
He blew on the dry moss and it glowed red. He tipped it into the grate and started laying kindling over it, rafters-fashion. Axio got up, unhooked the remains of a side of bacon from the wall, took out his folding knife and cut four thick, ragged slices, which he stuck on the tines of a home-made toasting fork, four strands of the heavy-grade fence wire twisted together. Musen tipped charcoal from the bucket on to the fire, crouched down on his hands and knees and blew on it until the first tentative flames appeared.
“It’s dumb stealing things from people you live with,” Axio said. “Doesn’t matter how well you cover your tracks: they know it’s you because they know stuff’s missing and you’re a thief. True, there’s not a shred of evidence, but who needs evidence when you know? Like the Craft, really, I can’t prove the Transmutation by Fire, but I know it happens. I’m surprised you do it, actually, because in other respects you’re not completely stupid.”
Musen took the toasting fork from him and held it in front of the fire. After a while, drops of fat dripped into the flames and ignited in a brief yellow flare.
“Some of them reckon you can’t help it,” Axio went on, yawning. “They say you’re ill, it’s something loose up here. I don’t think so.” He paused. “Out of interest, why do you do it? I’m interested, that’s all.”
Musen didn’t turn round. “It’s my gift.”
“Mphm.” Axio closed his eyes. “The Great Smith made you a thief, and it’s the Lodge’s duty to find a good use for you. I know that’s what they taught you at Beal Defoir. Do you believe it?”
“Yes.”
“Fair enough. But if I catch you perfecting your gift around my stuff ever again, I’ll break all your fingers. Understood?”
He knew he’d phrased that wrong, since he wouldn’t catch Musen, not now. But it was too late to rephrase: that would just be weak. Besides, they both knew it was an empty threat. Thou shalt not damage the property of the Lodge. Ribs were different, though. Musen didn’t use his ribs to steal.
“I don’t know why you annoy me so much,” he said, almost as an admission of his error. “My guess is that you’re smart and you act stupid. Growing up with my brother, I’m used to the other way round, so you confuse me. Tell you what,” he went on, “stop doing it and I’ll stop giving you a hard time. How about it?”
Musen went on toasting the bacon. Axio rather admired him for that. It takes a degree of integrity, as well as intelligence, not to give in to an offer of friendship. He was beginning to see why Beal Defoir had thought so highly of the boy. Even so. It was irksome, not being able to talk. The prospect of the job he was about to do was making him nervous, and the sound of his own voice soothed him like nothing else.
They had no special privilege on the southbound mail, which was crowded, and ending up riding on the roof, squashed in between two merchants’ couriers and a government official. Axio wedged his back against the rail, closed his eyes and eavesdropped.
It was all going really badly, the government man said; he was on his way to take up his new appointment as Clerk of Tolls at Saphes, but whether there’d be a job for him when he got there he simply didn’t know. Everything was done through Rasch, and it was quite possible that the letter confirming his appointment hadn’t got out before the siege started, in which case he’d get to Saphes and nobody would have the faintest idea who he was. Furthermore, even if there was a job for him there, it was anybody’s guess how he was supposed to do it. The main function of the Clerk of Tolls at a provincial capital is to send the returns compiled by the sheriffs to Rasch, and then receive a reply and pass it on to the governor’s office, who passed it on to the sheriffs, who did whatever they did. With Rasch cut off, what was he supposed to do all day?
The merchants’ couriers weren’t impressed. Their employers had tens of thousands of angels’ worth of scrip signed off against deposits with the Knights and the Temple Trustees and a dozen or so private banks; they’d handed out hard cash against this paper, to the point where they had nothing left but a few boxes of old green copper change, and now nobody was interested in taking their notes, because everybody knew their money was the wrong side of Senza Belot’s army and quite possibly only a few days away from a cart ride to Choris. Meanwhile, honest, hard-working couriers were expected to rush around the countryside with letters of credit and bills of exchange that were probably only good for mending shoes and wiping arses. It wouldn’t be so bad (one of the couriers added) if Rasch would only get a move on and surrender. Then the war would be over, and presumably some sort of arrangement could be made with the new administration to overwrite existing deposits at so many stuivers in the angel—life would go on, after all, once the war was over, and whoever won they’d need banks and merchant venturers, and all that money couldn’t simply evaporate, like rainwater on a sunny day—
“How about you?” Axio realised the government man was talking to him. “You heard anything?”
Axio shook his head. “We’ve been up in Rhus, the boy and me,” he said. “Last I knew about it, the siege was still on and nothing much was happening.”
“You mean you haven’t heard about the battle?”
Axio caught his breath but covered it. “What battle?”
The battle. Apparently, four of the remaining Western field armies, comprising at least a hundred thousand men, had converged on Rasch. Senza Belot, with thirty thousand cavalry, had met them in a wheatfield to the north of the city. Casualties—well, th
e rumours flying around were obviously nonsense, there was no way they could be that high, but apparently a big man with the Gasca brothers, who were joint-venturing with Ocnisant on a strictly one-off basis for this job, reckoned they’d buried forty thousand, at least, and precious few of them had been cavalrymen. Where what was left of the Western army had got to and what sort of state it was in, nobody knew. What was certain was that Senza was back standing guard outside Rasch, with the plunder from the Western supply trains to keep his men happy; and it was simple arithmetic, say ninety-five thousand civilians in Rasch plus the garrison, eating a pint and a half of flour a day.
“Rasch can’t fall,” said one of the couriers. “It’s the capital city of half the world. They’ll just have to raise more armies, that’s all.”
“It’s time the Blemyans did something,” the government man said. “Everybody knows they’re on our side. They’re civilised people; they’re not just going to stand by and see the West go to hell. If it wasn’t for the bloody diplomats—”
“What about Forza Belot?” Axio asked.
All three of them looked at him. Hadn’t you heard, one of the couriers said. Forza’s dead. Been dead for months.
Iden Astea was originally built by refugees from the Third Political War. They chose the site well, or were extremely lucky to stumble across it. The old town occupies a substantial island in the middle of the lake formed by the run-off from the mountains that surround it on three sides. The suburbs crowd the eastern and southern shores of the lake; you can get to the island by an artificial causeway (which can be breached in the middle in half an hour, if needs be) or by boat; the regional myth that the Identines are born web-footed is untrue, but they are beyond question the best freshwater boatmen in both empires. There are submerged rocks and shoals in Lake Iden that you can’t begin to understand unless you were born there, they say, and navigating the narrow lanes between the rows of buoys is a mystery not lightly revealed to outsiders.
