The Two of Swords, Volume 2

by K. J. Parker

  He stared at her. “We’ve kept it going?”

  “Oh, don’t be naïve. Of course. Every step of the way. We’ve kept the balance; no side ever has the advantage. That’s why, when we thought Forza was dead, we had a dozen different plans in hand for killing Senza. That’s what we needed Lysao for. And that’s why you and your boy Teucer have been training all those archers. Look; we’ve got a capital city, we’ve got an army, we’ve got a government, the best possible government in the world. All we need now is a nation. Naturally, it’s going to take time—”

  She stopped and looked at him; imploringly, almost. He took a moment to calm himself down.

  “You shouldn’t have told me all that,” he said.

  “Why not? One of our most pressing needs right now is a really good general. Why do you think you’re here? The commission has asked me—”

  “Dear God.” He jumped up. “That’s just not funny. I couldn’t—”

  “You’ll do as you’re told.” Then she grinned. “Like we all do. That’s the point, isn’t it? We all do this out of love; that’s why we stand a chance when nobody else in history ever stood any chance at all.”

  “For pity’s sake,” he said. “Are you seriously ordering me to go out and conquer the world?”

  She was silent for a moment. Then she smiled and said, “Yes.”

  He saw her again the next day. He asked her, “What if we lose?”

  She smiled. “We can’t.”

  “Don’t you believe it,” he said angrily. “One defeat, that’s all it’d take. If we were to lose a hundred men, even—”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “We’re not going to.”

  He wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice. “What else haven’t you told me?”

  She sat down on the porch. In front of them was the cherry tree. A gardener was raking mulch round its base. “We can’t lose,” she said. “Friends in high places.”

  “For God’s sake don’t be so damned mysterious. What friends?”

  “It’s easy to beat an enemy who doesn’t want to win,” she said.

  She’d given him one more day to make up his mind. He went to look for Teucer.

  He found him in a hayloft above a semi-derelict barn, out on the very edge of town. He was sitting in the loft door, his legs hanging out over the drop.

  “I keep forgetting,” he said. “You were born here.”

  “Not here.” Teucer pointed. “Over there, just behind that hill. I went out there six months ago; there’s nothing left now. They pulled it down and took the stones, for the Temple.” He shrugged. “I don’t mind. I guess they’re my stones now. They’re welcome to them.”

  Myrtus sat beside him and looked out. From where they were, he could see over the new town and the wall. Beyond there was just moorland, and on the skyline the low hill that masked Teucer’s home.

  “That’s where our butts used to be,” Teucer said. “That’s where I shot my first possible. It’s a thing in archery,” he said, “it’s when—”

  Myrtus smiled. “I know,” he said. “You told me, and it’s in your file.”

  “I’ve lost count of how many possibles I’ve done since then,” Teucer said. “You know what? I met someone the other day, and he told me, officially, I’m the best archer in the world. Officially.”

  “Yes,” Myrtus said.

  “How can they possibly know that?”

  “They know everything.”

  Teucer pulled a face. “It’s bullshit,” he said. “There’s got to be loads of archers better than me.”

  “Actually,” Myrtus said gently, “no, there aren’t. The Lodge identified you—actually, I identified you, when you were sixteen. I saw your name in a bunch of reports from field agents, read what they’d written about you; based on my knowledge and experience in such matters, I figured that you were shaping up to be the very best. So, when you were nineteen, I had you rounded up and taken to Beal. After that, I assigned you to field duty to sharpen your skills in the real world, and then I took you on for my own command.” He paused to pick a wisp of straw out of his hair. “Remember Lonjamen, at Beal? He used to be the best, until you came along. One of these days I’d love to see you two shoot a match. Anyhow, he agrees with me. That’s why he got taken off the line and put into Beal, to teach you. He’ll be coming up here quite soon. He’s looking forward to seeing you again.”

  Teucer looked stunned. “Really? Professor Lonjamen? He thinks—” Teucer shook his head. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Did you really—I mean, was it really you who chose me? I thought you were just a—” He stopped short. “Sorry,” he said.

  “That’s perfectly all right. That’s the Lodge for you. All of us get all the rotten jobs, all of the time. Doesn’t matter how grand you are. Generally speaking, the grander, the rottener.” He looked down at his hands. “They want me to be a commissioner,” he said.

  Teucer’s eyes went wide. “That’s amazing,” he said. “I bet you’re pleased.”

  “You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said,” Myrtus snapped. “In the Lodge, the last thing you want is promotion.” He breathed out slowly, letting the anger dissipate. “There’s a vacancy,” he said. “Someone’s got to fill it. Someone I know and trust and thought of as a dear friend told them—” He shrugged. “My wife, as a matter of fact. Dear God, if you’d ever met some of the other commissioners—” He drew his knees up under his chin. “The point is,” he went on, “I’m entitled to a personal assistant. If I choose someone, they don’t have any say in the matter, they’re assigned to me and that’s that. So I thought I’d ask you first.”

  “Me?”

  “What did I ever do to you, you mean?”

  Teucer shook his head. “What I mean is, you sure you want me and not someone else?”

  Myrtus laughed. “I need someone I can rely on,” he said. He turned his head away. “Yesterday, I’d have said there were two of you. Now it’s just you. If I were you, I’d refuse. If you do, chances are that sooner or later you’ll be sent to Beal to take over Lonjamen’s job. You liked Beal, or so you keep telling me. If you go with me, I don’t suppose that’ll happen. Not for a long time, anyway.”

  “I wouldn’t want that job,” Teucer said. “Not being a professor. I wouldn’t know what to say.”

  “Think about it,” Myrtus said; it came out like thunder, a command from God. “At least think about it.” He turned his head back again. “You know that question you asked me. About who runs the Lodge.”

  “You said—”

  “It started me thinking,” Myrtus said. “So I asked someone who ought to know.”

  “What did he say?”

  “She. She said she doesn’t know. I believe her. And if anybody should know, it’s her.”

  “Well,” Teucer said. “Thanks for trying.”

  He still had three hours of his day of indecision left; but he went to see her anyway.

  He found her in one of the small tower rooms in the cartulary, which someone had told him she’d appropriated for her own use. He could believe it; the walls were covered in icons and there were books all over the floor. She was reading at a desk by the window, and didn’t look up when he came in. But she said his name. “Come over here,” she said. “You want to see this.”

  “I wanted to ask you—”

  “Later.” She beckoned him, her eyes still on the roll of parchment. “I don’t know if you’ve made your mind up yet, but just you take a look at this. I think it’s the clincher.”

  He came closer. “What is it?”

  She looked up, handed him the roll. “It’s a copy of Emperor Glauca’s will,” she said. “You really don’t need to know how we got it, but, believe me, it’s the goods.”

  He gazed at her. “Friends in high places?”

  “Oh, yes. The people crossed out in red are dead, incidentally. Oh, and the reason we wanted to see it was, we had a chat with Glauca’s doctor. He figures the old fool is good for another
eight years.”

  He read it.

  A traditionalist to the core, Glauca had left the Eastern empire to his closest living relative, his nephew, the Western emperor, his deadly enemy; in eight years, give or take six months or so, the two empires would be reunited, regardless of what happened in the war. There was a brief note of explanation: the war was necessary and Glauca regarded it as his solemn duty, because he was the lawful ruler of the whole empire and his nephew was a traitor and a usurper. He therefore intended to take back what was rightfully his, regardless of the cost. However, the fact remained that his nephew was his rightful heir, and so long as either of them lived, no one else would ever sit on the Eagle Throne. He also pointed out that Blemya was a province of the empire, currently in revolt; should he die before reconquering it, he laid the sacred charge on his successor.

  In the event that his nephew predeceased him, the throne would pass to the next closest relative. The candidates were listed, in order of priority of entitlement; the first sixteen names had been crossed out in red. The seventeenth—

  Myrtus let go of the paper; it rolled itself back into a scroll. “No,” he said. “That’s unthinkable.”

  “Agreed.”

  He scowled at her. “Oh, come on,” he said. “By your reasoning, he’s the perfect choice.”

  She shook her head slowly and solemnly. “Absolutely not,” she said. “You can’t have been listening. The empire’s got to go, remember? We need to start from scratch, a blank page. No, I agree with you entirely, it’d be a disaster. The worst possible outcome.”

  He took a deep breath. “All right,” he said. “I think I—”

  “Wait,” she said, “there’s more. Little bit of news just in. Three days ago, someone broke into Glauca’s tower in Choris, with a knife. Came this close to killing him, only a servant managed to stop him. The man who does his toenails, would you believe. And—” she went on, before he could speak, “on the same day, at almost exactly the same time, in the royal apartments at Iden Astea—”

  “Dear God.”

  She shook her head. “Also unsuccessful,” she said, “though they managed to stick one in him; nasty flesh wound but he’ll live.” She took the scroll away from him and locked it in a small boxwood chest. “You realise what this means.”

  “You don’t think he—?”

  “Oh, no.” She sounded quite definite. “He wouldn’t know what was in Glauca’s will. But someone does.” She poured cherry brandy into a small horn cup and handed it to him. He loved her for that. “Well? Made your mind up?”

  He swallowed the brandy and looked at her. “Do you seriously believe I’d last one minute against either of the Belot boys? With eight hundred men?”

  She sighed. “I told you. Won’t happen. It’s not that sort of war.”

  “In that case.” He paused. There was no turning back, but he wanted the moment before the world changed forever to last just a little longer. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll conquer the universe for you, if that’s what you want.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek.

  The story continues in …

  The Two of Swords

  Volume Three

  extras

  meet the author

  K. J. PARKER is the pseudonym of Tom Holt, a full-time writer living in the south-west of England. When not writing, Holt is a barely competent stockman, carpenter and metalworker, a two-left-footed fencer, an accomplished textile worker and a crack shot. He is married to a professional cake decorator and has one daughter.

  Find out more about K. J. Parker and other Orbit authors by registering for the free newsletter at www.orbitbooks.net.

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  THE TWO OF SWORDS: VOLUME TWO

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  THE TWO OF SWORDS: VOLUME THREE

  by

  K. J. Parker

  To Saevus Andrapodiza, all human life had value. This revelation came to him in a moment of transcendent clarity as he looked out from the summit of Mount Doson over the fertile arable plains of Cors Shenei in central Permia. Every man, woman and child, regardless of age, ability, nationality, religion, sexual orientation or social class was valuable and must be treated as such. His task, he realised, was finding someone to buy them all.

  As a native of East Permia, he was free from the restrictive laws of the two empires, where slavery had been illegal for a hundred and fifty years, ever since excessive reliance on servile labour had threatened to wipe out the yeoman class, from whom the Imperial army was almost exclusively drawn. In Permia, with the lowest level of population per square mile in the inhabited world, there were no such considerations. When Saevus embarked on his mission, the price of a field hand in Permia was nine oxen, thirty ewes or forty pigs, making good help unaffordable to the hard-working farmers who were the backbone of the nation. He set out to change all that.

  He considered the proposition from the supply end. Because Permia had been at peace with its neighbours for generations, the supply mostly came from breeders, who naturally had to recoup the costs of fifteen years of careful nurture, together with the ongoing expense of the brood stock. But there were wars practically everywhere else; stockades crammed with surrendered prisoners, the women and children of captured cities slaughtered simply because they weren’t worth anything to anybody. Prices at the pithead, so to speak, were ridiculously cheap; the real expense lay in transporting the goods to Permia, across some of the worst roads in the world.

  Perhaps Saevus’ greatest gift was his vision, his ability to see clearly, his sense of perspective. Before he entered the business, slave caravans limped through the high mountain passes between Rhus and Permia in gaggles of ten or twenty, moving at the pace of the slowest lame man or sickly child; and why? Because the traders were small operators, undercapitalised, inefficient. Saevus had a ship built, at that time the biggest merchant vessel ever constructed. With a full load of seven hundred, it could cover the distance between Aelia Major and Permia in ten days, as opposed to the six weeks needed by an overland caravan to cover the same distance. The cost of the ship was staggering, but, from the moment its keel bit the surf, Saevus was saving money. Marching rations of a pound and a half of barley bread per day for six weeks amounted to sixty-one pounds of bread, at a cost of an angel sixteen. Shipboard rations, a generous pound per day for ten days—ten pounds, nineteen stuivers, a saving of eighty-five per cent. Furthermore, the mortality rate overland was between forty and sixty per cent, so half the outlay was liable to be wasted, expensive bones bleaching by the roadside, dead loss. Aboard Saevus’ ship, the death rate was a trivial fifteen per cent.

  War is always with us; even so, it wasn’t long before Saevus Andrapodiza had dried up the pool of young, able-bodied men available for purchase, or at least generated a demand that far outstripped supply. By keeping his prices to the end user as low as he possibly could, he’d stimulated the Permian economy, doubling grain yields in under a decade, with the result that more and more Permians were able to afford a slave, or two, or five. Land which since time immemorial had been dismissed as useless was now coming under the plough, as thousands of reasonably priced hands swung picks and mattocks, shifting millions of tons of stones and hacking out terraces on windswept hillsides. More and better farms called for more and better tools, which someone had to make, from materials that someone had to fell or mine; and more money in circulation meant more people could afford the better things in life, and the craftsmen who supplied them couldn’t cope without help. Permia was crying out for manpower, but all the wars in the world couldn’t keep pace. For a while, Saevus looked set to be the victim of his own success.

  It’s a true measure of the man that he made this setback into an opportunity. Obviously, perfect physical specimens were the ideal; but life, he argued, isn’t like that. Take any small family-run farm or workshop; look at who actually does the work. It’s not just the man and his grown-up son. Everyone is involved—women, children, the old
folks, the feeble, the sick. Saevus often talked about a farm he’d visited as a boy, where the farmer’s aunt, seventy years old and missing an arm, still made a precious contribution keeping an eye on the sheep, collecting the eggs, leading the plough-horses, sorting through the store apples. Everyone is valuable—not necessarily of equal value, it goes without saying, but that’s just a matter of appropriate pricing, and there were smallholders and small-scale artisans who’d be glad of any help they could get, assuming the price was one they could afford to pay. What was more, these hitherto neglected categories of livestock came with hidden benefits. Children grew into adults. Old men had skills and valuable experience. Many women had significant recreational as well as practical value. A one-legged crone might look like she’s not worth her feed, but she’s bound, over the course of a long life, to have learned how to do something useful, and you don’t need two legs to card wool or ret flax or plait straw or sort and bag up nails, all the tedious, repetitive, time-devouring little jobs that somehow have to get done if the householder’s hard work in the field or at the workbench is to be turned into money.

  Saevus built a fleet of new ships, each one capable of transporting twelve hundred head, with a ninety per cent survival rate. The unit cost of getting a potential worker from battlefield or burned-out city to Permia fell by a breathtaking thirty-seven per cent. As his overheads fell, so did his prices. Now, practically everybody could afford to own a functional, useful human being.

  Sadly, Saevus didn’t live to see the outbreak of the East–West war, but his son Saevus II, universally known as Saevolus, was ideally placed to take full advantage when the Eastern emperor Glauca repealed the anti-slavery laws throughout his dominions, shortly followed by his nephew in the West. And only just in time. War losses and economic devastation had led to attrition of manpower on such a scale that it was virtually impossible to make up the losses of the endless sequence of major battles, or keep anything like a serious army in the field. Slave labour, however, would enable the empires to take thousands of men from the plough and the forge, freeing up whole regiments for service, while ensuring uninterrupted supply of equipment and materiel for the war effort from slave-staffed State arsenals.