The Escapement

by K. J. Parker

  To get the posts into the holes, the sappers had to stand upright, giving the Archery Club something to aim at. Most of the arrows that connected with the target skittered off the heavy helmets (someone had consulted a dictionary; the proper technical term was cabassets), but eight kills were later confirmed, another three claimed but disputed. The posts reared up and dropped into the holes, with guy-ropes to hold them up straight. One scorpion crew managed to shoot the winch-and-ratchet arrangement off one of them; it took sixteen shots, and they were officially reprimanded for wasting ammunition. The next morning, they saw that the mechanism had been replaced during the night.

  “It was a wonderful bonus when they started shooting at us,” said General Daurenja, sharpening a pen with a little blue-bladed knife. “I thought they had more sense, but apparently not. Now we know exactly how many scorpions and mangonels they’ve got up there, and precisely where they are.” He tested the point of the pen with his finger; just right, apparently. “It doesn’t matter for the next stage, of course, but it’ll be a great help when we come to take the embankment.”

  The Aram Chantat liaison nodded gravely. “Most satisfactory,” he said. He was trying not to stare, but he couldn’t help watching Daurenja fiddling with the pen. Such small, delicate movements, such precision in such a trivial cause; and (he wasn’t at all sure what to make of it, though it made him feel slightly queasy) such complete confidence each time he cut. He wondered if surgery was yet another of the general’s accomplishments. “However, I didn’t come here to talk about that.”

  “No.” Daurenja looked up at him; his eyes were pale, almost empty. “You want to know what I’m going to do now that Valens has come back.”

  “Yes.”

  Daurenja dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Surely that’s up to you,” he said. “You make the decisions, after all. If you feel Duke Valens is better at this than I am, naturally you’ll want the best man for the job. If you want me to stay on, I’ll stay on.”

  The liaison kept his face straight and blank. “If I decide otherwise?” he said.

  “Then I hope you’ll let me carry on making myself useful,” Daurenja replied. “That’s all I ask.”

  “That’s all,” the liaison said.

  “Well, yes, of course.” The glow of sincerity in his eyes was as perfect as his cutting. “If you’re interested in what motivates me, it’s quite simple. I’m a man of various talents, and my aim is to use them as advantageously as possible. After years of wandering around indulging my intellectual curiosity, I want to make something of myself. I flatter myself that I have a certain amount to offer, and I’m prepared to work hard to earn whatever I’m given. That’s it, essentially. Please don’t think I’m complicated, because I’m not.”

  The liaison found that he didn’t want to look at the general’s face. “I was led to believe that you’re rather more than what you say,” he said quietly. “I have it on good authority that you have developed a new weapon, and it was this weapon that Engineer Vaatzes had in mind when he recommended you to us so vehemently. I gather he believes it’s crucial to the success of the entire venture. Is that true?”

  “Absolutely,” Daurenja replied. “But I don’t need to be in command to deploy it. In fact, doing this job means I haven’t been able to spend as much time as I’d have liked getting it ready. But I was asked to do this job, and I accepted, so…” The liaison heard the creak of a chair but didn’t look round. “Like I said, it’s entirely up to you whether I carry on here or not. Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it.”

  The liaison stood up. He really didn’t want to be in a confined space with this man any more. “We would be grateful if you would continue to lead the army for the time being,” he said. “We feel that Duke Valens is still weak from his injury, and should not be required to exert himself unduly until his recovery is complete. However, we will require further information about this weapon, so that we can decide how best to use it. You will be so good as to arrange a demonstration as soon as reasonably possible.”

  “With respect.” There was an edge to his voice now; no, not quite that. It put the liaison in mind of the way the fine feather of a cutting edge curls over on itself when it’s inadvertently struck against something hard; still sharp, but distorted. “I’ve avoided conducting tests so far because I want to make sure the enemy don’t find out anything about the weapon until we actually use it against them in earnest. With the best will in the world, if we test it, they’ll find out. The same goes – no offence – for telling you any more about it. I know you wouldn’t tell anybody, but you can’t control the information once you’ve passed it on to your superiors. I’m sorry, but I really must insist. At the moment, the only people besides myself who know what it is or what it does are the duke and Ziani Vaatzes. And if it means you don’t want me to stay on as general, well, like I just told you, I could use the extra time.”

  “I understand.” The urge to leave was too strong. He stumbled towards the tent-flap, like a diver trying to reach the surface before he lost control of his breath. “I need to confer with my superiors. I’ll let you know what they decide.”

  Outside in the fresh air, he took a moment to pull himself together. Try as he might, he couldn’t account for the panic (no other word for it) he’d just experienced. He knew there were people who went to pieces in closed spaces. He wasn’t one of them, but now he reckoned he could understand how they felt.. Quite ridiculous, of course, and he was properly ashamed of himself, but the feeling had been too strong to ignore. As he walked away (and each step he took eased the pressure in his mind), he tried to analyse it. Not anger; not fear. The nearest he could get to it was disgust, but there wasn’t anything about the general that could have provoked him so violently. He knew Daurenja had an unsavoury reputation: he was violent and licentious, like so many of these city-dwellers; there was talk of murders and violence towards women. Not that; he was certain of it. He disapproved of such conduct, naturally, but he knew he was capable of putting it out of his mind when he was dealing with foreign leaders. Consider Duke Valens, for example. He’d killed Duke Orsea just so he could take his wife. Even if what they said about Daurenja was true, it could hardly be worse than that.

  About a hundred yards away to his left, they were dragging tarpaulins over the machines the duke had brought with him from Civitas Vadanis, which he assumed were the famous worms (strange name) he’d heard so much about. Partly from curiosity and duty, partly to help clear his head, he changed direction and headed towards them.

  Heavy carriages, made of big square oak beams, fitted with solid wheels; the sides boarded in to head height with oak planks two inches thick. As a result he couldn’t see inside to examine the mechanism. Ten yards away, the machines looked like ordinary conventional battering rams, except that the ram wasn’t tipped with a spike or a beak. Instead, he saw four rounded steel blades sticking out of a central boss like the petals of a flower. Their shape made him think of windmills, except that the blades were twisted, and reminded him of the claws of a bird.

  He had no idea what they were supposed to do.

  Neither (small consolation) did the general, if he’d been telling the truth; at least, the general said he’d never seen one, since they were Engineer Vaatzes’ invention, completely new, and that they’d been designed specifically to breach the banks of the flooded ditch, so the water could drain away along the trenches. All well and good; but, quite apart from how they worked, he couldn’t see how they were going to get them into position. They were big – smaller than a trebuchet but bigger than a mangonel or an onager – and it’d take a team of twelve oxen to draw them. You’d never get oxen down in the trench; and besides, he couldn’t see any fixings to attach booms and yokes to, just one massive steel ring riveted to the front at axle height. Surely Vaatzes wasn’t expecting the sappers to haul it down there with ropes?

  He reminded himself that the engineer was an inventive, resourceful man with an eye for detail. It
was inconceivable that he could have overlooked something as crudely fundamental as how the machines were to be moved about. He considered Engineer Vaatzes for a moment, taking the machines he’d designed and built as a model. On the outside, plain and closed; on the inside, systems so complex that he would never be able to understand them properly, let alone aspire to emulate them. Admirable; but it should nevertheless be borne in mind that the purpose for which they’d been created was violence – in his case, violence directed against his own kind for the benefit of strangers, which was something the liaison was very glad he couldn’t begin to understand. A mind that could create something like that must be so utterly hateful that looking into it would surely damage you for ever.

  As he approached his own tent, he saw a crowd of people standing about outside it. Their clothes told him they were Vadani soldiers (cavalrymen, to be precise, wearing the thick, comical-looking horsehair-stuffed jerkins that went under the heavy Vadani armour); there was also a woman with them, and a man in what looked like a nightgown, sitting in a chair. They stopped talking before he could get close enough to hear what they were saying, and stared at him. But it was the woman who spoke.

  “Are you the Aram Chantat liaison officer?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I’m afraid I don’t—”

  “My name is Veatriz Sirupati,” the woman said. “I’d have thought you’d have recognised my husband.”

  The man in the chair turned his head, and he saw the wound, which he’d heard and read so much about. The man behind the wound – it was the only possible way to think of him – smiled bleakly and said, “I need to see General Daurenja.”

  “That’s not possible right now,” he heard himself reply. “If I’d known—”

  “That’s what the duty officer said,” the duke interrupted. “And the guard captain, and the sentries. Not possible. I find that hard to believe.”

  The liaison was suddenly aware that the Vadani soldiers had moved. They were standing round him, closing in a step at a time when he wasn’t looking, like inquisitive bullocks mobbing a stranger. “I’ll tell the general you’d like to see him,” he said. “Perhaps tomorrow, if there’s—”

  “I think I’d rather see him straight away,” the duke said quietly. “You’ll come with us, and then there won’t be any fuss.”

  Well, he thought; the general wants to be useful, so he can start with sorting out this situation before there’s any bloodshed. But he couldn’t put his duty out of his mind, so he said: “I think you should know that we have decided to retain the general as commander-in-chief until the end of the present campaign. We feel that in the interests of continuity and…”

  He tailed off. The silence was far worse than any shouting would have been. Duty done, he told himself. Now it’s up to the general. “I’ll take you to him straight away,” he said, his voice strained but brisk. “If you’d care to follow me.”

  “We know the way,” said one of the soldiers.

  They’d folded in on him; he had to be careful where he put his feet to avoid treading on the heels of the man walking in front of him, and all he could see was shoulders and necks. Then they stopped, and he was gently squeezed through the group until he emerged to find himself back outside the general’s tent, face to face with two extremely worried guards.

  “It’s all right,” he said (clearly it was very far from all right, but the truth was the last thing any of them needed right now). “These gentlemen have urgent business with the general, so if you’d just step aside…”

  “Very sorry, sir.” The guard’s voice was so high it was almost funny. “The general’s not to be disturbed right now. Direct orders.”

  “I’m relieving the general of command.” Valens: he moved through the group like the prow of a ship. “It’s only polite to tell him, don’t you think?”

  The guards had had enough. They looked at each other, and then they simply weren’t there any more. Valens’ hand attached itself to the liaison’s wrist, and he felt himself being drawn forward, into the tent.

  Daurenja was sitting in his chair with his feet up on the small charcoal stove. He had a cup in one hand and a book in the other. Spharizus’ Eclogues, Valens couldn’t help noticing; typical Mannerist pastoral poetry, the amorous shepherd to his love. He’d been told to read it when he was fifteen, but had never managed to get further than the author’s preface. Without thinking, he said, “You read Spharizus?”

  “Yes.” Daurenja frowned at him. “I maintain you can’t begin to appreciate the later Mannerist movement unless you’re fully grounded in its neo-classical origins. What the hell do you mean, you’re relieving me of command?” He turned his head very slightly, like an artilleryman adjusting for windage, and stared at the liaison. “I assume he’s brought you here by force,” he said. “I take it you’d like him restrained and placed under arrest.”

  Valens grinned. “Well?” he said, relaxing his grip. “Is that what you’d like?”

  “I have no authority,” the liaison said. It came out as somewhere between a bark and a whimper. Daurenja frowned, and Valens laughed. “I need to consult the war council and get their instructions. This is not—”

  “Let’s not bother them right now.” Daurenja stood up; it was like watching liquid being poured into a glass vessel. He’s got no joints, Valens thought, he just extends, like a worm crawling. He remembered a legend he’d heard many years ago, about the fox demons: country people believed that once they left their bodies, they took on whatever shape the person looking at them expected to see. “I have a commission from the Aram Chantat high council to conduct this war on their behalf. As I understand it, that commission was confirmed a short while ago by this officer here.” (Maybe the liaison was a fox demon too; he was trying very hard to look like someone who wasn’t even there.) “But you’re the Vadani duke, and you’re going to tell me you don’t recognise the high council’s authority, because you’re the leader of this alliance. Well?”

  “Yes,” Valens said.

  “You realise what’ll happen?” Daurenja was growing taller before his very eyes, he was sure of it. Not broader; if anything, he was losing breadth as he gained height. “The Aram Chantat will stand by their appointment, because to back down would shame them. Your people, who don’t like the savages – that’s what you call them, isn’t it? – they’ll back you, and pretty soon we’ll be treating the Mezentines to the pretty spectacle of their enemies fighting each other; it’ll confuse them half to death, but I’m sure they’ll enjoy it, even so. Is that what you want?”

  Valens shook his head. “I don’t see any need for that,” he said. Veatriz was beside him, tugging at his sleeve. He ignored her. “The way I see it, I got myself shot, and you very kindly took over running the siege while I was sick. I’m better now, and I’m relieving you of command. I’m sure you’ll be happier without the responsibility. You’ll be able to get back to your pet project, which Vaatzes tells me is very important to the war effort. After all, you’re not a soldier, are you? In fact, I’m not really sure what you are.”

  For a moment, Daurenja stared at him, his face white with anger. Then he smiled. “I’m a gentleman,” he said. “I’m a man of good birth and breeding, a scholar, a soldier and a scientist. I flatter myself that everything I do, I do extremely well. I imagine you’d describe yourself in the same terms, so really, there’s not a great deal to choose between us, as far as qualifications go. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  I know what he’s going to do, Valens thought suddenly; I know what he is. He’s a fox demon with a mirror. “Not really,” he replied pleasantly. “I think you’re a sinister, dangerous creature who lives in a world of his own and believes that none of the rules applies to him. Everywhere you go, you hurt people and make trouble; you’d have been put down years ago, except you’re cunning and talented enough to escape.” (This is what he wants me to say, Valens realised, but I have no choice.) “I think it’s high time you were put in your place, and I suppose it’s
up to me to do it. I wish it didn’t have to be now, but that’s my own stupid fault for letting you burrow your way in deep, like a maggot.”

  Daurenja’s smile told him everything he needed to know. “I have to disagree,” Daurenja said. “And really, you’ve gone too far, saying all that in front of these people. It’s ridiculous, but you brought it on both of us. You do see, don’t you, there’s only one way we can resolve this. Otherwise…” He looked round, and the liaison seemed to reappear, like a genie summoned by a charm. “I’m very sorry,” he said. “You must be wondering what sort of people you’ve allied yourselves with. But this gentleman and I have got to fight each other now. He’s insulted me, so either I challenge him or else I insult him right back, which means he’ll have to challenge me.” He frowned. “No, wait, I’m forgetting. He’s a duke, and you aren’t supposed to challenge your social inferiors, you’ve got to make them challenge you.” He looked back at Valens; the smile on his face was practically friendly. “Isn’t that right?” he said. “You’re the expert, of course, but…”

  “You do what you like,” Valens replied.

  As Daurenja’s smile split open into a grin, Veatriz pushed in front of Valens, so he couldn’t see past her. “This is stupid,” she said, angry and pleading at the same time. “For a start, you’re in no fit state—”

  “I’m the best fencer in the duchy.” It was a weary statement of fact, practically an admission of a shameful and inconvenient truth. “He thinks he’s being clever and manipulating me, but he’s made a mistake. I’d be stupid not to take advantage of it.” He reached out and, gently but very firmly, moved her out of the way. She stared at him in horror, then looked away.