by K. J. Parker
‘That’d be nice,’ Gorgas said. ‘You’re excused.’
Niessa scampered off, and Gorgas lifted up on one elbow.
‘What about you, Iseutz?’ he said. ‘Settling in?’
His niece looked at him, and one corner of her lip twitched. ‘Absolutely, Uncle Gorgas,’ she said. ‘Yesterday we did my teeth, and today we’ve been doing my hair. And tomorrow we’re going to do my fingernails, though I don’t suppose there’s really a full day’s work to be done there. Can I have the afternoon off if we finish early?’
Gorgas breathed out through his nose. ‘I take it that means you haven’t been to see your mother yet,’ he said. ‘You know, the sooner you do it, the sooner it’ll be done.’
‘But Uncle,’ she replied, with a nice touch of horror in her voice, ‘you can’t expect me to go and see Mother until I’m finished. It wouldn’t be right.’
Gorgas shrugged. ‘You do what you like,’ he said. ‘Just don’t expect me to keep the peace between you indefinitely, that’s all. You know you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like, but-’
‘We’ll just have to try and get my toenails done ahead of schedule, then,’ she said. ‘Maybe we should get in a night shift.’
Heris turned her head and looked at Isentz sharply, but didn’t say anything. The girl looked uncomfortable for a moment, then said, ‘For what it’s worth, I really am doing my best. If I could sew, I’d sew. But I can’t. And I don’t want to go and see my mother. I can’t imagine saying anything to her that wouldn’t make things ten times worse.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ Gorgas said.
‘And besides,’ she went one, ignoring him, ‘what on earth makes you think she wants to see me? If she was that keen on the idea, why hasn’t she come here? Or at least sent a message or something?‘
‘She’s a busy-’ Gorgas started.
‘Yes,’ the girl interrupted, ‘I know. And that’s fine. She can be busy, and I can sit here being put back together again, like something the cat’s knocked over, and everybody can be happy. Come on, Uncle, what exactly is it that makes you believe we all want to love each other?’
There was a moment of complete silence; then Heris quickly gathered up her sewing and wasn’t there any more, and Gorgas got slowly to his feet, walked across and sat beside her. She kept the rest of her body still, but couldn’t keep her head from flinching away just a little.
‘That’s all right,’ Gorgas said, so quietly that she could hardly hear him. ‘That’s fine. You go ahead and give up. After all, you proved your point while you were in the prison, and before that in the City. You had this fine life all lined up for you, you were going to get married and live the way people are meant to, and then a man called Bardas Loredan came along and he killed the man you were going to marry, and that life wasn’t there any more. So you decided, right there on the spot, you decided: no compromise, no giving an inch, you wanted justice, or revenge, or whatever you want to call it, not that it matters a great deal. And you know what? You failed. Total waste of time and blood, and all for melodrama.’ He was right up close to her ear now, like an awkward boy edging nervously along a bench at a wedding towards the girl he’s afraid to talk to. ‘Look at you. You’re a mess. There are bits of you missing. But here I am, and here’s your mother, and we never give up on anything; not because it’s impossible, not for armies or storms at sea or plagues or fires or the earth opening up and swallowing whole cities, and certainly not for melodrama. Now I don’t care what you want or what you’re feeling or even what a complete and utter mess and waste of good food and water you happen to be; nobody gives up in this family, because there’s a lot of enemies out there, more than Shastel and Temrai put together, and on our side, there’s just us. Understood?’
‘That’s it, is it? We’ve got to love each other because nobody else ever could?’
A wide smile spread gradually over Gorgas’ face. ‘You’ve got it,’ he said. ‘There’s me; well, that doesn’t need explaining. There’s your Uncle Bardas, who killed people for a living and brought the plainspeople down on Perimadeia. There’s you. And there’s your mother.’
Iseutz nodded slowly. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Just out of interest, what did she do?’
‘Oh, she’s the pick of us,’ Gorgas said softly. ‘I kill in self-defence, Bardas killed for other people, you want to kill for revenge, or whatever it is that’s eating those holes in your poor little brain. But your mother killed a whole damn city, and you want to know why? Nor for revenge, though the gods know she had cause. Not because she had to. She killed Perimadeia to save money.’ He grinned suddenly, as if remembering a marvellous joke. ‘Not to make money, you understand, to save it. She was sick and tired of paying interest on the money she borrowed in Perimadeia to set up this stupid bloody bank – money down the drain, she said, and nothing to show for it – so she sent me to open the gates and kill the whole damned city. Isn’t that wonderful? Well, I think so. She may be an evil bitch, but you’ve got to admire her single-mindedness.’
Iseutz moved her head a little and looked him in the eye. ‘It was you who opened the gates,’ she said.
‘It was me. Your mother’s idea, and I did it.’
‘I see,’ Iseutz nodded. ‘And you did it.’
‘It happened to coincide with my own interests,’ Gorgas said, ‘but I’m not the one who takes the initiative. She suggested it, and I agreed.’
Iseutz looked at him for a long time. ‘Uncle Gorgas,’ she said, ‘why do you pretend to love your family when you hate them more than I do?’
Gorgas thought for a moment. ‘You’re confusing the issue,’ he said. ‘You’re mixing up hating and recognising evil.’ He looked away for a moment, a man at home enjoying his garden. ‘Do you really think it’s not possible to love someone when you know they’ve got this bit of evil inside them? You surprise me, I thought you were more grown-up than that. You think my wife doesn’t love me, in some part of her mind? You think I don’t love Bardas, my brother? Or Niessa, or you? This is strange,’ he added, leaning back in his chair, ‘being able to talk freely like this; I suppose it’s because I’ve got so much in common with you.’
‘You think so?’
‘Don’t be offended. I like you. You’re helping me put into words a lot of stuff that’s just been churning round in my mind for years and years. Come on,’ he said, sitting up again, ‘tell me what you think of me. I don’t mind.’
Iseutz considered her reply, thoughtful, like a student in a tutorial. ‘What you’ve just told me,’ she said. ‘It’s not something I can begin to understand. I mean, I can see it’s possible; one man can open a gate, it’s just a matter of sliding back some bolts, lifting a bar, and because that gate’s open, a city can fall and thousands of people can die. It’s the idea that someone could do that deliberately that I’m having trouble with.’ She ran the stumps of her fingers across her lower lip. ‘Is it something you enjoyed?’ she asked. ‘Did you like doing it?’
‘Do I need to answer that?’ Gorgas replied.
She shook her head. ‘No, it was a silly question. It’d be too easy to write it down to some sort of madness, on a par with the crazy people who kill small children in the woods. What’s the answer, then? Their rules don’t apply to us, is that it?’
Gorgas pursed his lips. ‘I think you’re getting there,’ he said. ‘I see our family as being small group of soldiers, like those Shastel raiders; we’re deep in enemy territory, outnumbered, every man’s hand against us, can’t expect help or relief from outside; so we do whatever we have to do, and we make it all right with ourselves because there’s so many of them and so few of us, they’re the enemy and we have some sort of right to survive. So the raiding party takes what it needs, does what it has to do, it keeps on going, and when you know they don’t take prisoners, you forget all about giving yourself up. I like to think of it as being like a different species of animals. It’s all right to kill animals to eat, or to wear, or because the
y’ve built a nest in your roof and they sting you whenever you go in or out. No, that’s not it, not that we’re better than them, just different. There’s some people you’re allowed to kill, and some you’re not. That’s why I can forgive Bardas; and why you should, too.’
Iseutz shrugged. ‘I’ll grant you, he’s probably the best of us. But he’s also the one who’s harmed me. So he’s the only one I hate. I really don’t want to think about the rest of it.’
Gorgas nodded. ‘No reason why you should,’ he said. ‘It may sound like I go around agonising about all this, but I don’t really. It’s that word evil, it’s not the right one. Would it be better to say it’s a different perspective on the value of human life, in absolute as opposed to subjective terms?’ He stood up. ‘You know, I’m really glad we’ve had this talk. It’s cleared the air, don’t you think?’
Iseutz made a vague gesture. ‘You really did that?’ she said. ‘Opened the gates of the City and let the enemy in?’
Gorgas spread his hands. ‘One lot of enemies killed another lot,’ he said. ‘I didn’t start that fight. I didn’t kill a single Perimadeian. Like you said, I pulled back a bolt or two and lifted a bar. Uncle Bardas didn’t start the war. Temrai didn’t start the war. Your Great-Uncle Maxen didn’t start the war.’
‘Oh, gods,’ Iseutz. ‘I’d forgotten him.’
‘And I’ll tell you another thing,’ Gorgas said, stooping to pick up an empty plate. ‘Your father didn’t rape your mother; it was just good business, at the time. There now,’ he said, frowning, ‘I don’t think I’ve left anything out, have I? At least I’ve been straight with you, and that’s one thing I do pride myself on, being straight with people. It’s like the proverb says, you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family.’
‘Doctor Gannadius!’
Now if only I was as old as I feel, I’d be deaf and not be able to hear you. Gannadius quickened his pace a little.
‘Doctor Gannadius! Wait!’
No chance, Gannadius thought sadly. He couldn’t have failed to hear a voice that loud if he’d been stone deaf, or even dead. He looked round and saw Volco Bovert bearing down on him like a fashionable prophecy. ‘Master Bovert,’ he said politely.
‘You’re a hard man to find, Doctor,’ Bovert said, catching his breath. There was an awful lot of Volco Bovert, probably more than would ever be necessary except in the direst of emergencies; ironic, in a way, since his official post was Tribune of the Poor. ‘I think it’s time we talked seriously about the Scona problem.’
‘My pleasure,’ Gannadius sighed. He’d only spoken to Tribune Volco a handful of times, at this or that faculty reception, but he knew him well enough to anticipate that insufferable habit of his of reducing the world and everything that happened in it to an order of business; thus, everything to do with Scona and the war became ‘the Scona problem’, just as anything connected with the Foundation’s commercial activities was swept into ‘the balance of payments issue’, while the sum of human knowledge and all attempts to expand or clarify it was lumped together under ‘the syllabus debate’. It went without saying that the quality that had earned him such a high position in the Shastel hierarchy (apart from being fifth in line to be head of the Bovert family) was his exceptional clarity of thinking and ability to pare away all the fat and concentrate on the meat. Where I come from, Gannadius reflected, we had a word for people like that. It was five letters long and rhymed with ‘midiot’.
The enormous presense of Tribune Volco backed him into a ledge in the Cloister wall, and he perched on the head of a low-level carved lion while Volco settled comfortably on a wide stone seat. ‘Thank you for sparing the time,’ Volco said. ‘Now then, about Scona. We need you to do something.’
For a moment, Gannadius was completely confused. All he could think of was that Volco, for some reason to do with the bizarre complexities of faction politics, wanted him to lead the next raiding party; and he didn’t really want to do that. He was still swimming in circles round the idea when Volco went on ‘You see,’ he said, in a low whisper that was probably inaudible a mile away, ‘we believe that the military option – the conventional military option – is not the ideal solution for us at this time. We therefore believe that the time has come to explore other approaches.’
Gods, Gannadius realised with a mixture of amusement and horror, the fat fool’s talking about magic. He wants me to hex the rebels into oblivion. He actually thinks-
The vision, or whatever you choose to call it. The great armada, with the ruins of Scona in the background. And Bardas Loredan leading the army.
He shook himself, like a dog climbing out of a river. ‘With respect,’ he said, ‘I don’t see how an abstract philosopher like myself can really presume to advise a practical man of affairs such as yourself-’
‘Other approaches,’ Volco repeated. ‘Oh, I’ve heard all about the sterling efforts made by yourself and Patriarch Alexius on behalf of Perimadeia. Now it’s true that in the long run, those efforts were conspicuously lacking in success; but we feel that in the context of the Perimadeian war, any such efforts, however well conceived and ably executed, were doomed to failure from the start. Whereas in the matter of the Scona problem-’
Gannadius looked into the Tribune’s eyes. No doubt about it, the man sincerely believed in magic – of course he did, because magic was such a perfect solution to the problems besetting his faction and the Bovert family, in which case it had to work. It would work, if only because Volco Bovert needed it to.
So what are you going to do? Refuse? Not advisable, since your position here is based on a whole series of misleading hints designed to give the impression that magic really does work, and that you know how to do it. Serves you right for trying to make a living selling snake-oil.
‘I see what you mean,’ Gannadius interrupted; and then inspiration struck. ‘And of course, I’ve been actively investigating the possibilities for quite some time. But I’m sorry to say I’ve run up against a difficulty.’
‘A difficulty,’ Volco said, as if referring to some abstruse type of mythical or heraldic beast. ‘I see. What kind of difficulty? ’
‘It’s very simple,’ Gannadius said. ‘You have me, but Scona has the Patriarch Alexius. I’m afraid we cancel each other out. Which means,’ he persevered, doggy-paddling frantically in a sea of self-contempt, ‘that I’m fending off his curses, and he’s fending off mine. The end result is that neither of us can actually achieve anything, other than making sure that magic can’t be used as a weapon by either side.’
Volco’s nostrils twitched as Gannadius spoke the fatal word magic, a word he wouldn’t have used if he wasn’t more or less at the end of his rope with the enormous Tribune and therefore tending to be dangerously sloppy in his choice of vocabulary. But as soon as the word was out, Volco’s whole demeanour changed; suddenly he was like a pig that’s heard the sty gate creaking on its hinges.
‘Fascinating,’ he said, ‘But really, we mustn’t despair of the, um, metaphysical approach so lightly. If it’s simply a matter of resources-’
Ah yes, here we go. Build more ships. Enlist more soldiers. Buy bigger and stronger magic. ‘Resources, yes,’ Gannadius said, ‘but sadly, not resources that are readily available. To put it in its simplest terms, to beat their magic we need more and better magicians, and I’m afraid that as far as our resources of magicians go, you’re looking at them.
Volco blinked, as if a horse had just galloped through a puddle at his feet, spraying him with muddy water. ‘I understand, ’ he said. ‘And what about the rebels? Do they have further and better magicians?’
‘Not as far as I’m aware,’ Gannadius replied cautiously. ‘Though to be honest with you, I’ve really got no foolproof way of knowing. I’m afraid that’s the nature of the beast, Tribune, we won’t know what they’ve got till they hit us with it.’
Volco thought for a moment; he looked like a volcano trying to remember the words of a song ‘This Alexius,’ he
said. ‘Would you be able to neutralise him, render him harmless to us?’ Unfortunate tone of voice. ‘In which case, surely, you would then be able to-’
‘Tribune,’ Gannadius broke in with what he hoped was a disarming smile, ‘I would if I could but I can’t. I’m sorry to have to say this, but really, there’s nothing doing. I’d hate for you to waste your energies on a dead end.’
Volco stood up. ‘Thank you for your opinion, Doctor,’ he said. ‘No doubt you’ll let me know as soon as the situation changes.’
Wonderful, Gannadius reflected, as he watched the Tribune barrelling off down the Cloister, now I’ve made an enemy of the sort of man who never forgives his hammer if he knocks a nail in crooked. He got up, thought for a moment, and headed back up the Cloister in the direction of the Clerk of Works’ office.
The post of Clerk of Works, like every job on Shastel that could be done with manicured nails, was purely formal; that is, the Clerk was a busy man with an important and responsible position, but not the one his title implied. The responsibility for making sure the buildings didn’t fall down resided with the Refurbishments Steward, who was nominally in charge of supplying fresh flowers for the war memorials.
What the Clerk did was infinitely more important. Because, once upon a time, the Clerk had been in charge of allocating meeting rooms to the various groups who wanted to hold regular discussions, the post had gradually mutated into that of semi-official referee of all faction activity. In formal debates in Chapter, the Clerk made sure that all appropriate protocols were observed, and outside Chapter he was the only man who could be seen to act as a mediator in faction disputes. Since the post had to be held by a man of unimpeachable neutrality, all the factions fought like tigers to secure it for one of their leading partisans, and for the time being the Separatists held the prize, in the shape of Jaufrez Mogre.
‘Hello, Doctor,’ Mogre said, looking up from whatever it was he’d been reading. ‘This is a rare treat. Come to get your feet dirty in the political sewers?’
