The Two of Swords, Volume 2

by K. J. Parker

  ’Na Seutz wasn’t nearly as fierce as ’Na Herec, but she was much harder to please. She didn’t like the primitive style, she told him. What’s that? It’s what you do, she explained. She preferred Classical and Mannerist, though she didn’t mind Formalism. The idea of art, she explained, is not to show things as they are, but as they could be. Only the Great Smith could make something perfect—everything he made was perfect—but surely it was the duty of his servants to come as close to perfection as they could. Therefore, let every man be handsome, every woman beautiful, every tree and flower gracefully formed, every mountain symmetrical, every dog and squirrel as close to the ideal as possible. Portraits, in her opinion, were an abomination; a deliberate record of human inferiority and divergence from the ideal form. However, she recognised that Chanso had been sent to Beal to learn to be the best possible primitive-style carver he could become, so it wasn’t her place to try and influence him in any way. But if he could possibly make his people’s faces just a bit less ugly, she would take it as a personal favour.

  Chanso reckoned she was probably mad. But she taught him a lot of very useful stuff about using the new, strange tools, and once he’d got used to them he found them quite helpful—if nothing else, they were quicker than gnawing away a flake at a time with a knife, and you could do straight lines and square edges, assuming you wanted to. And she could get an edge on a blade better than anyone he’d ever known, including his Uncle Vastida.

  “You might want to take a look at this,” she said, on the day he finished his first large piece for her. He was proud of it—a stag pulled down by dogs, with the huntsmen closing in; she said it was a bit too busy for her taste, but she was pleased that he’d finally grasped the concept of proportion, and the dogs’ heads were the right size for their bodies.

  He looked at the thing she’d put on the bench in front of him. “It’s a book,” she explained. “You read it.”

  “All of it?”

  She looked at him. “Yes.”

  He picked the book up and opened it. “Both sides?”

  “Give it here.” She took it from him and turned the pages. “All of them,” she said. “Both sides.”

  “My God.”

  He took the book back to his cell that evening, lit the lamp, put the book down on the floor and lay on his stomach, his head propped on his hands. Extraordinary thing; the black letters on the smooth, flat white page were so much easier to make out than the scratches in the beeswax—a clever bit of design, he had to admit—and after a while he found he didn’t have to say the words aloud. They seemed to talk to him inside his head; they sounded rather like ’Na Herec, but without the seething impatience. He couldn’t actually follow any of it—lots of names of people he hadn’t heard of and words he didn’t know; it was supposed to be about carving, but there was nothing about work-holding or following the grain, or how to get the last little flakes and fibres out of a corner—but that hardly seemed to matter. It was like a vision, or eavesdropping on angels. Sobering thought, that the people who lived in this unbelievable place read books all the time. He carried on until all the oil in his lamp was burned up; then he rolled on to his back (one thing he hadn’t mastered yet was beds; there was nothing to stop him rolling off while he was asleep, and he had bruises he hoped he’d never have to explain) and dreamed of a great voice from heaven denouncing neo-formalism, while the sea rose up and lashed at the white encircling walls.

  He was quite used to eating alone. The kitchens served two meals a day, but ’Na Herec and ’Na Seutz didn’t approve of eating and wouldn’t let him leave while there was still light in the sky just because of food. So when it was dark and they reluctantly let him go, he counted doors to the buttery and looked pathetic and sad until one of the bakers took pity on him. Pity usually took the form of that morning’s bread (officially stale and only for pigswill; it was the most wonderfully soft bread he’d ever tasted) and whatever the bakers were having for dinner. They kept trying to get him to drink beer; he took it away in a brown jug and poured it down the drain outside his chapter house. Apart from the bakers and his teachers, he hadn’t spoken to anyone since he arrived, but it didn’t seem to bother him. The streets were usually deserted when he walked through them, and the people in the neighbouring rooms were all still asleep when he got up in the morning and out when he got back at night. He no longer winced when he heard Imperial spoken; he was beginning to think in it, and it was disconcerting sometimes when there was something he wanted to say and he realised there was no way of saying it. “Quite,” ’Na Herec said, when he told her about the problem. “Imperial isn’t a very good language. No Vei’s much better for thinking big thoughts in, and Aelian is so much better for logical arguments. Imperial’s good for laws and legal documents, and that’s about all. But we’re stuck with it, and there it is.” She gave him that look. “I never could understand why a bunch of savages like your lot should have produced a language ideally suited for metaphysical debate, it seems such a waste.”

  Then ’Na Herec said she didn’t want to see him again; he was fluent in Imperial, he could read adequately and his handwriting, though dreadful, was no worse than that of the Dean of Humanities. Instead, he was to report to Domna Lysao for his Ordinary Catechism—

  “But I’ve done that,” he said. “We did it together. You said I was—”

  “Yes, and you are. But that’s the Simple Catechism. Now you’re going to do the Ordinary Catechism, which is different. Fairly different,” she amended. “It covers the same basic core material, but this time you’ve got to show you understand it.”

  He looked at her. “Couldn’t you—?”

  Maybe just a tiny movement at the corner of her mouth, using the muscle other people used for smiling. “Yes, but I’m sick to death of the sight of you. Also, believe it or not, you’re not the only student at Beal Defoir. I, however, am the only teacher who knows Erech Nichar. So Lysao gets you, and I wish her the very best of luck.”

  Two days before ’Na Lysao wanted to see him. An opportunity to lie in in the morning. But Lonjamen came and hammered on his door at the crack of dawn and dragged him down to breakfast.

  “Are all the teachers here women?” he asked.

  “What? No, of course not. About half and half, actually. You haven’t got a problem with that, have you? They speak very highly of you.”

  That made no sense. “What, you mean ’Na Seutz and ’Na Herec? They both think I’m a disaster.”

  Lonjamen grinned. “Shows exceptional promise, unusual aptitude, rare to find such a combination of ability and diligence.”

  “’Na Seutz said that?”

  “No,” Lonjamen said. “She said you’re naturally gifted but open-minded and eager to learn.” He poured Chanso some tea. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I had ’Na Herec when I first got here. She made me feel like something you wipe off your shoe, but she taught me Imperial in no time flat. Marvellous woman. Her husband was sixth in line to the throne.” He made that gesture with forefinger and throat. “That was fifty years ago. She’s been here ever since.”

  “She likes me?”

  Lonjamen laughed. “She’s got a soft spot for all us no Vei,” he said. “But what impresses her is talent. And if she’s impressed, so am I. Try the pancakes, they’re not bad.”

  A bit like saying the sea is perceptibly moist. “I thought she couldn’t wait to see the back of me,” he said with his mouth full.

  “Well, there you go. Anyway, you get full marks and a gold star. Doesn’t mean anything, but it’s nice to know. You’ll continue with ’Na Seutz, of course. Did she make you read Herennius on style and form?”

  “Yes. I think so. I mean, I’m only about a quarter of the way through.”

  “It comes with practice,” Lonjamen said. “Like everything. And ’Na Lysao for catechism.” He paused, a scrap of pancake frozen in the air between mouth and plate. “You mustn’t mind her,” he said. “She’s got a slightly unfortunate manner.”


  Chanso stared at him. “Like ’Na Herec?”

  “Oh, Herec’s a pussycat, everybody knows that. But Lysao can be—” He shrugged. “She’s had a hard life. Make allowances.”

  The rule was that letters, notes, memoranda and the like should be written on wax tablets rather than paper or parchment, and everywhere you went there were bins and buckets to dump used tablets in; they were collected up at the end of the day, the wax was melted and refreshed, ready for reuse. On his way to his first lesson with ’Na Lysao, Chanso dutifully binned the tablet on which she’d written the time and the place, an action he regretted for the rest of his life.

  The New Building (one of the oldest structures on Beal, needless to say) was part of the west wing of the main citadel. To get there, you had to thread your way through the narrowest streets on the island, steadily climbing until your heels were raw and your calves felt they were about to burst, until you came to a massive gateway flanked by two enormous stylised alabaster lions. Two armed guards were on duty at the gate; they smiled at Chanso as he passed, then carried on their conversation about the cock-fighting. From the gateway, a long stair rose up between tall buildings until he reached another gate, guarded by two more armed men. Behind them was a pair of doors, with six hinges on each side and four locks. Beyond the door was another stair, at the top of which stood two guards in gilded parade-ground armour. One of them asked his name, calling him “sir.” He told them; they replied that he was expected, go on up. At the top of the stairs, outside a simple wooden door, an archer sat on the top step, bow drawn, arrow on the string; a no Vei. He stood up, smiling, and said something Chanso didn’t understand. The archer repeated it, and Chanso realised he was speaking no Vei; “Are you here for the lesson?” Yes, he replied in Imperial, and gave his name. The archer nodded, rapped on the door and opened it for him.

  She was standing by an open window, her back to him; all he saw was a slight, short woman with reddish-brown hair in a long braid. She turned and faced him.

  She was neither beautiful nor pretty; a small, quite plain face and a thin body. She was probably ten years older than him. His mouth was suddenly dry and he’d forgotten his own name.

  “Are you Chanso?” she said.

  He nodded. She gave him a slight frown. “Sit down,” she said.

  Chanso looked round desperately for a chair, then realised his leg was touching one. He sat in it. She perched on a window seat, one foot resting on a pile of books, the other on the floor. “You’re no Vei, aren’t you?” she said. “One of Senza Belot’s men.”

  He could never describe the way she said the name, though afterwards he did his best many times, when called on to do so. But as soon as she said it, he remembered where he’d heard her name before. It had been all over the camp. Lysao: the woman Senza Belot loved to the point of insanity, who’d left him.

  She was waiting for an answer. He nodded.

  “Were you in the battle?” she said. “Oh, for God’s sake say something, instead of just waggling your head.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Don’t call me that. Did you see General Belot? Did you see him die?”

  “No, my—No, I didn’t.”

  She held him with her eyes for what felt like a very long time, then let him go. “I didn’t say which General Belot,” she said. “I meant the younger brother, Senza.”

  “No. I didn’t see him, but that was three days earlier.”

  She picked up a book and opened it. “We’re going to be doing the Ordinary Catechism. Have you read it?”

  “No.”

  She frowned. “You can read.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s all right, then.” She threw the book to him; he caught it, just about, before it hit his head. “Start at the beginning,” she said. “If there’s any words you don’t understand, ask me.”

  He thought; well, that explains the guards, and why she’s in the most inaccessible place on the island. Rumour had it that Senza had made a standing offer of a million gold angels to anyone who brought her to him. He opened the book, cleared his throat –

  “You’ve got it upside down.”

  —turned it the right way up and started to read. “The Ordinary Catechism of the United Company of Smiths, in which—”

  “You can skip all that. Start on page one. It’s got the figure one at the bottom.”

  He found it. His hands were shaking so much he tore the paper slightly as he turned the leaves. Of course, she had to know about the bounty. How could you live with something like that hanging over you?

  “I believe,” he read, “that in the beginning was the fire. And—”

  “Hold it there,” she said. “Well, do you?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Do you believe?” She waited, then said, “Go on. It’s a simple question.”

  “No,” he said.

  “Mphm.” She looked up at the ceiling and for the first time he noticed that it was painted; a fresco of what he took to be the damned, in some version of an afterlife. They were being speared by dog-headed demons. Melodrama. “Let’s see, now. The no Vei believe that the Skyfather created the earth out of the bones of the Primal Cow. Isn’t that right?”

  He hesitated, then said quickly, “That’s what they taught us. But we—” He swallowed. “Most people think it’s just a story. Only the old people believe in Skyfather any more.”

  She looked at him. “Skyfather, not the Skyfather. Thank you, I didn’t know that. So you don’t believe in anything.”

  He thought before he spoke. “I believe in what I can see and feel,” he said.

  She nodded, a very small movement. “You can see the sky.”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t Skyfather just a way of talking about the sky, what we call personification? Like you might say, my boots are killing me. But your boots are dead, they can’t do anything, they certainly can’t exercise malice. I put it to you, you believe in the sky, therefore you believe in Skyfather.”

  “I don’t believe he made the world out of a dead cow.”

  She laughed, and he’d never felt happier in his entire life. “Yes, well. Do you know what a metaphor is?”

  ’Na Herec had told him about all that. “Yes.”

  “Fine. Isn’t Skyfather and the cow just a metaphor, for the wind and the rain grinding out the valleys and rounding off the tops of the hills?”

  He thought about that, too. “No,” he said.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Most people say yes,” she said. “But I’ll accept your answer. You don’t believe in the Great Smith.”

  “No.”

  “Me neither.” She grinned slightly at his reaction. “What I mean is, I don’t believe in Old Wisdom out there, with his hammer and apron. Have you noticed, by the way, that Old Wisdom has bare feet? And did you ever meet a smith who didn’t wear the strongest, thickest boots he could get?” She took a bit of linen from her sleeve and touched her nose with it, then sniffed. “I’m like you: I believe in what I can see. What can you see?”

  There was only one answer to that, but he didn’t dare give it. “Um. Things around me. The sky, the ground, buildings—”

  “Things around you,” she said. “Haven’t you done this bit already?”

  He nodded. “The world works,” he said. “It gives us everything we want, and it doesn’t need to. I mean, the sun could be too cold to make the grass grow, but it isn’t. That sort of thing.”

  She looked at him. “You’re not convinced. Don’t worry, you don’t have to believe to pass this module, you just have to understand what the rest of us believe in.”

  “Do you?” he said, before he could stop himself.

  “I’m not important,” she said briskly. “Read on. You’d got as far as the fire.”

  Whether he’d learned anything he had no idea. He walked slowly down the endless stairs, hardly noticing the guards or the doors. Outside it was overcast and cold. He turned the wrong way out on to the street and
quickly lost count of doorways. He couldn’t remember if he had any other classes.

  Senza Belot had put a value on her, for all the world to know: one million angels. In Aelia, where they bought and sold people like livestock, he’d heard that a good field hand was worth half an angel, while a pretty girl was sixty-five stuivers. Back home, if you killed a man in a fight, you paid compensation to his family—the starting point was thirty ewes and a ram, and the council met to hear evidence to raise or lower the tariff. Under Imperial law, Myrtus had told him, all people except the emperor were nominally of equal value, though needless to say their possessions weren’t; and hadn’t he said something about an emperor who was captured by the Scrael and ransomed for half a million?

  What I couldn’t do, he thought, with a million angels.

  “I know what you’re thinking.”

  Lonjamen’s voice made him jump out of his skin. He hadn’t seen him standing in the doorway. He was wearing a purple gown with gold braid on the sleeves.

  “You’ve just met ’Na Lysao,” Lonjamen said. “Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. But just think of the difficulties. Getting up there would be easy; then you’d have to punch out the archer at the top of the stairs and take his bow, then shoot the guards on the way down while dragging a screaming woman. You could knock her out and carry her on your shoulder but then how are you going to draw your bow? All right, you could leave the bow and just take one arrow, use it as a very short spear; if you stayed up in the tower till it was dark, then knocked her out and carried her—suddenly taken ill, you’d tell the guards, and they’d believe you just long enough for you to stab them—then through the deserted streets to the main gate, which would be shut; just suppose you could kill the porter, it’d be down that horrible path in the dark with her on your shoulder, then find a boat—how do you sail a boat? I wouldn’t have a clue, how about you? And it’s days across open water to the mainland.” He paused. “That’s what you were thinking, isn’t it?”