The Two of Swords, Volume 2

by K. J. Parker

  He therefore gave the Cassites an extra five general confessions to get into place, then lifted his arm and waved Orderic and the first two companies of infantry into motion. They scrambled down the slope, and as soon as they’d reached the bottom, he followed with the third company.

  The combe was a beautiful place; green in winter, with thorn and wild plum trees lining a straight, fast-running stream. The whole of one bank was carpeted with sheep; a thousand, easily. As he’d anticipated, the sides were too steep for a man to climb without ropes and hooks; even the sheep had to turn back halfway, as their hooves lost grip on the thin, easily uprooted heather and moss. He’d overestimated the enemy numbers by a factor of three. There were a dozen shepherds, mostly boys, two old men and an even older woman. They stood up and stayed perfectly still, which suggested they knew the rules only too well.

  “Now what?” Orderic said, wiping his forehead. “Sorry, but my mother didn’t raise me to be a shepherd. You know all about this stuff, don’t you?”

  Genseric frowned. “In theory,” he said. “My father owned twenty thousand sheep, among other livestock. But we left the more technical side of it to the professionals. Sergeant,” he called out. “Any farm boys in your platoon? I need this lot rounded up and driven back the way we just came.”

  The infantry, Genseric quickly discovered, were men of many skills and talents—fishermen, quarrymen, brickmakers, sawmill hands, dockers, porters, roadmenders, even a few refugees from proper trades such as weavers, coopers, tanners, wheelwrights, chandlers, foundrymen, stonemasons, cartwrights, fullers and one bankrupt coppersmith. No shepherds. The Cassites, of course, knew livestock better than anyone—they lived by driving their vast flocks across dune and desert—but, they objected, they’d been hired as soldiers, not stockmen; besides, any fool knows you round up stock on horseback, not on foot. And you have dogs. Without dogs—They shrugged regretfully and sat down on the grass, shivering.

  “It’s ridiculous,” Genseric said angrily, “they shouldn’t be in the army, they’re tradesmen, they should be in a factory somewhere, making munitions. The regulations specifically say—”

  “Major.”

  Orderic was pointing at something. He followed the line of his outstretched arm, and on the skyline he saw a man, several men, a row of them, evenly spaced like fence posts. They were archers. He swung round; they were lined out on the other side of the combe, too. That’s it, then, he thought.

  “They’ve blocked both ends,” Orderic said. His voice was low and remarkably steady, in the circumstances. “I thought—”

  “Shut up,” Genseric snapped. “Let me think.”

  “What about? They’ve got us. We’re dead.”

  They weren’t the only ones to have noticed. Captains and sergeants were yelling orders, ranks were forming, the men were kneeling, lifting their shields. Pointless. They couldn’t climb the sides, and a dozen men could hold either end of the combe against a thousand. He started counting the archers, but gave up when he reached treble figures.

  “There’s always the reserve,” Orderic said. “We’ve still got the men we left with the horses.”

  “Want to bet?” He looked round one more time. Whoever had set the trap and lined out the archers clearly knew what he was doing, there was no point even trying to fight. But they weren’t shooting; not yet. “I think we’d better surrender,” he said quietly. “Stand the men down. I’ll go and see if I can find someone to talk to.”

  They found him; two of them, a slight, grey-haired man and a red-headed giant. There was some way down through the rocks that they knew, though there was nothing to see; they appeared suddenly, walking across the grass, unarmed and looking as though they’d come to buy the sheep. He walked over towards them, with Orderic just behind him; ten yards away, the older man gestured for them to stop. “Just you, Major,” he called out. “Not the captain.”

  Genseric hesitated. He wasn’t wearing any badge of rank, and neither was Orderic. “Better do what they want,” he said. “Wait here.”

  He followed them up the slope and talked to them for a while. Then he came down again. Orderic was waiting exactly where he’d left him. He took a moment to catch his breath, then said, “It’s all right.”

  “Major?”

  “They’re letting you go. Tell the men to pile up their weapons and dump their armour, helmets, too. When they’ve done that, you can lead them out on the north side, where we came in. I’m afraid the rest of the battalion wasn’t so lucky: they tried to put up a fight. Oh, and they’re keeping the horses, so you’re going to have to walk. But apart from that, you should be fine.”

  Orderic had noticed the pronouns. “You’re not coming with us.”

  “You’ve got to deliver a message to regional command. Basically, it’s this. There’s now a third party in this war. They aren’t bothered if East and West stick to killing each other, but if we carry on burning out farms and forcibly enlisting the country people, we shouldn’t expect them to be so kind-hearted in future. Apparently they did the same thing to an Eastern division last week, away up in the Rhus country; the Easterners chose to make a fight of it, and they won’t be going home. They appreciate that it’ll take quite a few demonstrations of this sort before anyone takes them seriously, but they’ve got to start somewhere. Just deliver the message,” Genseric added. “That’s all they want from you. All right?”

  “Who are they?”

  Genseric looked at him for a moment. “I get the impression this deal is conditional on me not answering that question,” he said. “I think I know, but I’m only guessing.”

  “You’re not coming.”

  “No.” Genseric looked away. “No, I’ve got to go with them, and I can’t tell you why. It’s all right,” he added quickly. “I’ve known all along, ever since Beal Defoir, that someone was going to get stuck with the tab eventually. It’s like she said, it was just a matter of time. But that’s none of your business. Get on and do what they want, before they change their minds.”

  Orderic started to say something, but he turned his back on him and walked away, up the slope.

  The Cherry Tree

  They’d been issued with a jar of honey. “I think you’re supposed to wrap it in cheesecloth first,” Teucer said, but Myrtus didn’t think so. “Just stick it in,” he said, “bung the lid on and melt some beeswax round it. I really don’t want to look at it any more than I can help.”

  It was a tight fit. Whoever issued the jar had probably been thinking of a smaller man. The ears wedged against the rim, and Teucer had to use considerable force to get it inside; honey welled up all round it and slopped out on to his hands. Even then, the hair wouldn’t go in at all. “Cut it off, then,” Myrtus ordered.

  “You sure that’s all right?”

  “It’ll have to be, won’t it?” Myrtus drew his knife and sawed through the thick braids; finally, the lid fitted, just about. “I’ll hold it shut,” Myrtus said. “Get the beeswax.”

  Teucer came back with a block of wax and a small copper pan. He heated the pan over the fire till the wax went clear; it smelt of honey, a scent Myrtus was rapidly growing sick of. He held the jar up and turned it slowly while Teucer poured. The result was a mess, but airtight.

  “What do you suppose they want it for?” Teucer asked.

  Myrtus shivered a little. “Proof, mostly. And they’ll stick it up on a spike on a gate somewhere. Ironic,” he added. “The poor devil’s father ended up the same way. Runs in families, evidently.”

  Teucer was frowning. “Well, he asked for it, didn’t he?”

  “He was a brave soldier,” Myrtus said, “who died to save his men.” He put the jar down, then wiped his hands vigorously on the grass. “That’s the thing,” he said. “Your soldierly virtues, like courage and self-sacrifice. It’s bloody disconcerting when you see the enemy has them, too. Life would be much easier if they were all treacherous cowards, but they aren’t. You’re right, though,” he added. “He had it coming.�
��

  “Happiest days of my life, Beal Defoir.” Teucer picked up the jar and loaded it carefully into a strong hessian sack. “What about the body?” he asked.

  “Leave it. Must be a few crows around here somewhere.”

  Myrtus picked up the axe and took it down to the stream; he washed it off, then pulled a clump of reeds and scrubbed his hands until they hurt. He’d got honey on his sleeves, too, but he didn’t have a spare shirt; the corpse had one, but it was sodden with blood. There wasn’t much to choose between them, but on balance he preferred the honey. I get all the rotten jobs, he told himself, and rinsed his hands one more time in the cold, swift water.

  “Scouts are back,” Teucer reported on his return. “They say the column’s reached the road and they’re making good time.”

  Myrtus nodded his approval. “I don’t think we’ll have any trouble from them,” he said, “I think he had them pretty well trained. But you’d better have the scouts keep an eye on them till we’re safely back in the mountains.” He looked up and indicated the pile of weapons and armour with a slight tilt of his head. “What do you reckon we should do with that lot?” he said.

  Teucer thought about it. “Worth money,” he said.

  “Yes, but it’s a hell of a lot of junk to cart up all those hills. The hell with it, we’ll leave it. The locals can sell it to Ocnisant, if they can be bothered.” He looked round, and was satisfied. “In which case,” he said, “I think we’re about done here. All turned out fairly well, if you ask me.”

  Teucer took the axe from him and slung it on the packhorse, with the rest of the tools. “I’m glad we didn’t have to fight,” he said.

  Myrtus grinned. “Balls,” he said, “you were itching to show off, I could tell. You like to impress your students.”

  “On targets, yes,” Teucer said. “It still doesn’t feel right, shooting at people.” He gathered the reins of the packhorse. “The first thing they tell you back home, when you pick up a bow, don’t point it at anyone. It goes against the grain. I keep expecting someone to smack me round the face and tell me not to be so bloody stupid.”

  Myrtus laughed. “That’s war for you,” he said. “All the things that used to be forbidden are suddenly compulsory, but it’s all right because the government says so. No, I agree with you, it’s a very strange way to behave, when you stop and think about it.”

  Halfway through the morning after next, Teucer asked, “Who runs the Lodge?”

  Myrtus gave him a sideways look. “Well,” he said, “there’s the Council of Privileges, who do the day-to-day administration, and they answer to the commissioners. Why?”

  “I know that,” Teucer said. “But who chooses them? Someone must, but nobody seems to know who.”

  “The commissioners choose the council.”

  “All right. How about the commissioners?”

  “That I don’t know,” Myrtus said. “Nor do I want to. Logic dictates that there must be someone higher up than the commissioners, but logic isn’t everything. I don’t know. Maybe the Great Smith comes to them in visions. Why? Thinking of running for office?”

  Teucer laughed. “Sergeant’s plenty good enough for me,” he said. “How about you? What’s the next step up from major?”

  “There isn’t one,” Myrtus replied. “From major you get shoved back into the civilian grades, and I don’t fancy that at all. They make you a field agent and you can get sent anywhere and told to do anything. One week you could be ambassador to the Jazygite Alliance; next week they could send you to be the cook in a tea house, with all the Lodge business for half a province to do in your spare time. We dread promotion. It’s why the Lodge works.”

  “There must be someone right at the top, though,” Teucer said. “Must be. Like the emperors, or kings, or high priests. You need someone like that. Like a body needs a brain.”

  “You seem to manage just fine without.”

  The question stayed in Myrtus’ mind, and he thought about it on the long ride back to Central, and again when he presented himself for debriefing, until he happened to look through the window and something altogether more compelling drove it out—

  “That’s new,” he said.

  “Yes.” She pursed her lips. “You don’t like it.”

  He poured them both some tea. “It’s not a question of liking it,” he said, unable to tear his eyes away. “It’s a perfectly nice tree, what’s not to like? It’s just a bit—”

  “Inappropriate? Blasphemous? An abomination?”

  “Obvious.” He sipped the tea, acknowledging the grace notes of pepper and jasmine. “A cherry tree, for crying out loud, in the middle of the main square. I mean, why not a thirty-foot black obelisk with The End Is Nigh picked out in gold lettering?”

  “Cost too much, for one thing. You have no idea how far over budget we are. Anyway, it’s there, most people seem to like it, and if it gets chopped down in the middle of the night I’ll know who to suspect. How was lovely pastoral Rhus?”

  “That wasn’t me,” he said. “I went the other way, remember?”

  “So you did,” she corrected. “Well? How did you get on?”

  So he told her about it, in proper military terminology, interceptions and ravelins and extractions. She didn’t seem to be listening. She was gazing out of the window, in the direction of that horrible tree. He skipped the last trivial incidents of their journey home, and waited till she remembered he was there.

  “So,” she said. “Do you think it’s going to work?”

  “That’s not for me to—”

  “An opinion, Major.” She smiled at him. “Go on. What do you think?”

  He frowned. “I’m not sure,” he replied. “I think, as soon as news gets back to Rasch and Choris, all hell’s going to break loose.”

  “We’ve been through all that. They can’t spare the men.”

  “How many men does it take?” He shrugged. “Let’s think about it. I ambushed a battalion and two squadrons of Cassites. Suppose they send two battalions to teach those villages a lesson. With local knowledge and help from the villagers, I could probably—I say probably—see them off with five hundred archers. That’s two-thirds of our military capability here at Central. Of course, they don’t know that; they think this is an uprising by the villagers themselves, and by now they really don’t know how many people are left up here; almost certainly they think there’s more than there really are. Even so, what happens after that? Do you really think they’re going to go meekly away and write off the north as a dead loss?”

  “You’ve seen the casualty reports from the Belot brothers’ latest reunion. They’ll have no choice. They haven’t got the manpower.”

  “So you say.” He picked up his teacup, then put it down again. “Just for once,” he said, “level with me. I know there’s another agenda behind this. I’d really like it if you’d tell me what it is.”

  He was sure she’d deny it, or refuse. Instead, she shrugged her wonderful slim shoulders. “Not an agenda, as such. More the hope of useful consequences.”

  “Ah.”

  She paused, then went on. “We anticipate that there will be reprisals,” she said, “and we won’t be able to protect all the villages, though we’ll do everything we can. The people won’t just sit still and let themselves get burned out and their flocks stolen. They’ll clear out.”

  “Like they’re doing now. And their homes are trashed, and their crops are ruined—”

  She shrugged. “They’ll clear out,” she said, “and we’ll be there to tell them, come north. Come over the mountains and the moors, they won’t follow you there. Come and live with us. We’ve got plenty of land, we’ll tell them, and we’ll protect you.”

  Myrtus opened his mouth, paused, thought for a moment. “We’re going to recruit an army from these people.”

  “More than that.” He couldn’t miss the new tone in her voice. “Not just an army, a country. A new nation. That’s what Central’s all about. What we’ve built h
ere isn’t just a new headquarters for the Lodge, we don’t need one, we’ve managed splendidly without one for a thousand years. No, what we’re building is the capital city of a new nation. First all the empty land in the Rhus country, then gradually we work our way south, taking over all the land they’ve emptied with their ridiculous war, resettling all the refugees hiding in swamps and mountains; it’s the obvious solution, don’t you see? We’re never going to reunite the old empire, it’s too divided and too damaged for that. The only chance is to start all over again—get rid of the empires and the emperors, take charge ourselves; give the power to the only people on earth who can be trusted with it: us. Think about it. We’ve got all the best people, from artisans to administrators to soldiers. We’ve got all the knowledge, we’ve been thinking about exactly these problems for centuries. We can start with a clean slate. That’s the amazing thing, which has never happened before, ever. We don’t have to keep on making the same old mistakes. We can start from a point where there’s nothing settled, nothing established; no vested interests, no power blocs, nobody to interfere with doing it right, for a change. What’s the biggest slogan in the Lodge? Revaluation of all values. He made everything, and therefore everything is good. It’s our time, Myrtus. This war is our chance. We’ve kept it going so long that both sides are completely worn out and the world is sick of them. Now—”