The Belly of the Bow f-2

by K. J. Parker

  He paused to draw breath, then leant forward a little and looked straight at Avid Soef. ‘And what I’d like from you, Avid,’ he continued, taking no notice at all of the expression on his colleague’s face, ‘since you raised the issue, is a rundown on what kind of ships we’ll need, how many of them, where we can hire them from and how much it’s likely to cost. Keep in touch with Hiors, he’ll be able to tell you what the rebels have got in the way of fighting ships so you’ll be able to make provision for keeping them off our backs while we’re trying to land troops. Now then, anybody, have I forgotten anything?’ He waited for two seconds, then went on, ‘Nobody? Well, if anything occurs to anybody after the meeting, let me know. Meanwhile, I’d like to suggest that we meet up in two days’ time and see where we’ve reached. Agreed? Splendid.’ He stood up. ‘I think we’ve actually managed to get some valuable work done here today, so thank you, all of you. If we keep on at this rate, who knows, we might just all still be alive this time next year.’

  The committee filed out, except for Avid Soef and Mihel Bovert.

  ‘I know,’ Bovert said, before Soef could speak, ‘it’s a disaster.’

  ‘You reckon?’ Soef smiled cheerfully. ‘I don’t think so. In fact, I think it’s all going wonderfully well.’

  Bovert stared at him. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘That Redemptionist pig hijacks the meeting, hijacks the whole damn war, makes us look like idiot children-’

  ‘Relax.’ Avid Soef perched on the edge of the table and pulled a discarded map towards him. ‘Use your brains. So Sten’s taken charge; if you remember, we aren’t exactly here by choice. Now, if it all goes wrong, we can turn round and say, Nothing to do with us, you want to talk to Sten Mogre.’

  Bovert conceded the point with a brisk nod. ‘And if all goes well?’

  ‘In that case, we share the credit and nobody’s any worse off. And besides, there’s still a long way to go. But my guess is, since Sten would insist on taking everything on himself, he’s going to be so busy running the damn war that he won’t have time to remember why we’re fighting the wretched thing in the first place.’

  ‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ Zonaras said over breakfast, ‘but just how long are you planning on staying?’

  Breakfast consisted of the remains of the previous day’s loaf, a slab of cheese aged to translucence and a jug of cider in urgent need of using up. Nobody seemed particularly hungry.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Bardas replied. ‘To be honest, I hadn’t given it any thought. Why? Do you want to get rid of me?’

  Zonaras and Clefas looked at each other. ‘This is your home too, you know that,’ Clefas said. ‘But we’ve got to be realistic.’

  Bardas raised an eyebrow. ‘Realistic,’ he repeated.

  ‘That’s right,’ Zonaras said. ‘Face facts, Bardas. We produce enough to keep the two of us, just about. Three would make it tight.’

  Bardas stirred in his seat. ‘That depends,’ he said. ‘Three useless losers like you, perhaps. Shut up, Clefas, when I want to hear from you I’ll let you know. This is a good farm, or it was in Father’s day. All right, we were never rich; but it provided for all of us and paid the rent as well, and nobody ever went hungry or barefoot that I can remember.’

  Zonaras was bright red in the face. ‘We work damned hard, Bardas,’ he said. ‘We were up and seeing to the herd while you were still asleep in your pit. Don’t you come here telling us how to do our job.’

  ‘Someone’s got to,’ Bardas replied calmly. ‘Oh, I’m not saying you’re idle,’ he went on. ‘Nobody could accuse you of that. You’re just useless. Stupid. Everything you touch goes hopelessly wrong. If there’s ninety-nine right ways of doing a thing and one wrong way, you’ll choose the wrong way every time. And you know why?’

  Clefas got to his feet, hesitated, then sat down again. ‘I suppose you’re going to tell us,’ he said.

  ‘You bet. It’s because you’re losers, simple as that. It’s not your fault,’ he went on. ‘You’re younger sons, you weren’t brought up to think. In the ordinary way of things, you’d have spent all your lives having someone to tell you what to do, how and when to do it; Father, then Gorgas or me, then Gorgas’ sons or my sons. You’d have been looked after, working hard would have been enough, all that anyone’d ever have expected of you. As it is, you’ve had to shift for yourselves, and you just aren’t up to it. Well? You aren’t going to try and tell me I’m wrong, are you?’

  There was a long, heavy silence.

  ‘All right,’ Zonaras said. ‘But whose fault is that? Who went prancing off because he just couldn’t stick it round here any more? Now, if you’d stuck around, if you’d had the guts to stay here where you belonged instead of running off and leaving us-’

  ‘For gods’ sakes, I did my best for you,’ Bardas replied angrily. ‘All those years I spent risking my life, living in places you wouldn’t stall a pig, just so you’d be looked after-’

  Clefas jumped up again. ‘Oh, yes, that was fine,’ he shouted. ‘All you had to do was send us money and that was supposed to make everything all right, like we were cripples or wrong in the head or something. All we wanted was one lucky break, so we could turn round and tell you where to stuff your damned money. Well, if you think you can come poncing back after all these years and start in being head of the family like nothing’s happened, you’re stupider than you look.’

  Bardas gave him a cold stare. ‘Sit down, you idiot,’ he said. ‘And stop bobbing up and down, the both of you, you’re giving me a headache. The fact remains, I can take over the running of this farm and within a year we’ll all be comfortable and have more than enough for the three of us. You carry on the way you’re doing and you’ll still be breaking your backs to scrape a living when you’re old men. And for why? Stupid pride. You’re like sulking kids, the two of you.’

  ‘Really?’ Zonaras said. ‘All right, big brother, you go ahead and tell us how you’re going to make such a hell of a difference.’

  Bardas shrugged. ‘Where do I start?’ he said. ‘All right, here’s ten things you’re doing wrong, taken completely at random. One to five inclusive: you take a look out of the window there, you’ll see ten rows of vines, all leaf and no bloody grapes. You want to know why? Because you’ve overpruned, overwatered, overfed, overtrellised and overthinned. Next to that you’ve got ten rows of beans you’ve burnt alive by smothering them in manure. Moving on from the withered beans, we come to the dead plum trees, which you managed to kill by girdling ’em right down to the quick, and just beyond that, your pride and joy, the new olive stands. Must have taken weeks of backbreaking work to lay them out like that, all neat and tidy; but they’re all going to die, because slap bang in the middle there’s two great big oak trees, and any fool knows that oak roots poison olives. Now then, your onions-’

  ‘All right,’ Zonaras growled, ‘you made your point. Everybody makes mistakes.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bardas sighed, ‘but not in every single bloody thing they do. It takes real talent to spoil everything. And you know the really sad thing about it?’ He closed his eyes, rubbed them, and opened them again. ‘Most of these disasters are because you’re trying too hard. Really, if you’d just done the bare minimum and spent the rest of the day sitting on your backsides under a tree chewing blades of grass, you’d have ended up far better off. And that’s ridiculous.’

  ‘All right.’ Zonaras was beside himself with anger now; Bardas could recognise the symptoms of the man who’s going to come out swinging at any moment, and braced himself. ‘So we’re no good at it,’ Zonaras continued. ‘So what? Nobody ever told us. Father never told us how to do things – oh, he told you and Gorgas all right, made sure you knew all there was to know about every bloody thing. If we stopped and asked, we got a clip round the ear and told to get on with our work. It was always, you don’t need to know that, Bardas knows. You do as you’re told and leave the thinking to your elders and betters. So all right, we did as we were told, and where did it get
us? All we ever learnt was hard work, not what the hell you’re supposed to use it for. And all that time, where in the gods’ names were you? You were up in that bloody City, killing people.’

  Bardas could feel his breath shortening; anger, bad temper, not problems he usually had to cope with. A man who fights and kills for money almost never has occasion to get angry. ‘I’d leave off that line of argument if I were you,’ he said. His brothers stared at him contemptuously.

  ‘That’s a threat, isn’t it?’ Clefas said. ‘I knew that’s how it’d be, sooner or later. Bardas the big fighting man, Bardas the mighty fencer, do as I say or I’ll bash your face in. Well then, is that what you’re going to do? Going to bash my face in if I say what you don’t like?’ He relaxed, and grinned viciously. ‘I tell you, Bardas, I always reckoned you and Gorgas were out of the same pod.’

  ‘That’s-’ Bardas said, and got no further. Instead, he made himself calm down. ‘That’s not a very nice thing to say, Clefas. All right, I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, but comparing me to him-’

  Clefas looked at him curiously. ‘Everyone else round here does,’ he said. ‘Why shouldn’t we?’

  Bardas stared at him. ‘What do you mean, everyone else?’

  ‘We’re ashamed of you, brother,’ Zonaras interrupted. ‘Both of you. Like when you used to send the money; decent people wouldn’t have anything to do with it, not even when we were offering to pay over the odds. We all know where that’s come from, they’d say. All three of ’em, they’re as bad as each other – that’s what they said, but what they meant was, the whole damn family, as if we were like you two and her. And what did we ever do except stay home and try and make a living?’ He laughed. ‘Well, we tried that and we weren’t any good at that either, and now we’re just here and we aren’t rightly bothered any more. So understand this, will you, Bardas? We don’t want you coming back here, not if you were to double and triple all the yields and gods know what else, because we’re through with you, all three of you. Why don’t you just push off and leave us alone?’

  ‘Zonaras?’ Bardas looked up at his other brother.

  ‘Like Clefas just said,’ he replied, ‘we don’t want you here. This isn’t your home any more. Go back wherever the hell it is you belong and don’t come bothering us any more.’

  Bardas nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I certainly can’t see any point in staying here. So where do you suggest I go?’

  Neither of his brothers said anything. He waited, then went on, ‘I can’t go back to the City because some bastard burnt it down. I’m too old to go fooling about soldiering any more, even if anybody’d have me. Come on, you tell me, where am I supposed to go?’

  Clefas shrugged. ‘None of our business,’ he said. ‘Why not back where you just came from? You’ve been there two years, it can’t have been that bad. Besides,’ he added, ‘if you want to be all cosy and homely, why don’t you make up with Gorgas and Niessa? You’re all made for each other, if you ask me.’

  Bardas looked at him for a long time. ‘You say that like you mean it,’ he said quietly. ‘In which case, you’re right. I don’t belong here any more. And that’s a shame.’

  Zonaras shook his head. ‘You may be a big fighting man, Bardas,’ he said, ‘but you don’t know spit about your own family. You face it, brother, we’re the Loredan boys, no good to anybody, no good for anything. Everybody round here says so.’

  ‘Do they?’ Bardas smiled. ‘Well, if everybody says it, I guess it must be so.’ He stood up and walked to the door. ‘If you had any idea how I used to dream about this place, back when I was in the cavalry, and then afterwards, when I was fencing. I used to think, all right, my life’s never going to be worth anything, but at least I’m making good for my family, looking after them, doing my bit as the eldest. For gods’ sakes, that’s all I’ve ever cared about. That’s why I stayed away, because I was never going to be any good for you here, only if I was away, making money to send home. It was all just for family.’

  Clefas looked him in the eyes. ‘I reckon you were wasting your time, then,’ he said.

  Bardas nodded, and walked out. It was warm in the yard, the sun just beginning to mull the air, and the previous night’s rain smelt sweet. On an impulse, Bardas stooped, picked up a small stone and let fly at the old sheep’s skull; the stone hit it squarely in the middle with a crack that echoed off the back wall of the house, but it didn’t budge. He shrugged his shoulders and lounged slowly towards the gate that led into the back orchard. He was untying the scrap of cord that made do in place of the long-since-rusted-up latch when he heard the sound of boots behind him and turned back.

  Standing between him and the house were four men, four Scona archers; a sergeant and three troopers. ‘Bardas Loredan?’ the sergeant said.

  Bardas nodded. ‘That’s me.’

  The sergeant hesitated for just a split second, then took a single step forward. ‘You’ve got to come with us,’ he said. There was real fear in his eyes, and Bardas could see it was a stranger there.

  ‘All right,’ he said.

  ‘Now,’ the sergeant went on. ‘That’s my orders.’

  ‘All right,’ Bardas repeated. ‘I haven’t got anything to bring. We might as well go.’

  The soldiers stepped back as he walked between them – they’re terrified of me, he realised, with a flicker of amusement, is that because they’re afraid I’ll hurt them or afraid they’ll have to hurt me? Come to think of it, they’d have had cause if they’d shown up an hour earlier. I’d have killed all four of them then, if I’d had to.

  He wondered if he ought to mention it to them, just so that they’d know how well they stood with fortune, but decided against it. Instead he reached over and pulled the bow out of the hand of the man nearest to him, a quick snatch the man could do nothing about.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said, before his wretched escort had time to react, ‘it’s just professional interest. Is this the sort of kit they’re issuing you lads with now, then?’

  The archer nodded and reached out for his bow. Loredan held it out of his reach and studied it. Then he slid his thumbnail under a tiny split in the wood of the back, where a splinter was just starting to pull away. ‘Just as well you haven’t tried drawing this piece of shit recently,’ he said, ‘or first thing you know, you’d have got the top limb in your face and the bottom limb between your legs, and your mates’d have had to take you home on a door. Garbage,’ he added, sticking one end in the soft ground, putting his weight against the splintered limb and leaning till it snapped – a long, messy, diagonal fracture, full of splinters and needles. The soldier watched him in silent agony. Oh, gods, I suppose he’ll have it stopped out of his pay, I didn’t think. Oh, but wouldn’t that be Niessa all over? ‘So I’ve just done you a favour, son, haven’t I?’

  The archer looked at him. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said.

  ‘And you don’t have to sir me, I’m just a civilian.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Whatever.’ He handed the two bits back to the archer; it felt like he was a general giving out medals. ‘I used to make them, you see,’ he went on. ‘Bows. For a living. Fortunately, that wasn’t one of mine.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Not that mine didn’t break sometimes,’ he went on, just so he could listen to his own voice, ‘but not like that. That’s where some clown shaved down through the growth rings; do that and the whole thing pulls to pieces, past all saving.’ He started to turn his head for a last look, but didn’t. ‘One little slip with something sharp, you see, and you’d be amazed the number of things you can comprehensively ruin without even trying.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The war was born prematurely and, as is often the case with infants who come into the world before their time, to begin with it was touch and go whether it would survive.

  The first blow was struck on the deck of a Colleon freighter riding at anchor in Leucas Bay, two hundred miles from Scona, and none
of the men involved in the fighting were from either Scona or Shastel. The freighter’s master, whose name is not recorded, was on his way to Shastel in the hope of hiring his ship to the Foundation as a troop-carrier. So as not to make the journey with an empty hold, he’d taken on a cargo of one hundred and six barrels of prime Colleon raisins, always a profitable commodity in the market at Shastel. The captain of a Leucas coaster happened to overhear him talking in a dockside inn about what he had on board and resolved to help himself to it. In order to justify this action, he decided to take advantage of Leucas’ famous neutrality decree, which stated that the Senate and people absolutely declined to intervene in any military action fought on their land or in their home waters, by declaring himself to be a Scona privateer and running up the ensign of the Loredan Bank, which he had taken the precaution of buying from the Bank’s agent a few hours earlier. In order to make absolutely sure that the coastguard wouldn’t intervene, he also gave formal notice of his intentions to the nearest available state officer, who happened to be the customs inspector; who, having been given a generous token of respect by the master of the Colleon freighter in return for a fairly cursory inspection of his ship’s hold (declared as empty in the landing manifest), decided it would only be fair and reasonable to send a customs clerk after the freighter to warn them what to expect. In consequence, when the coaster pulled alongside and declared the raisins legally seized in furtherance of legitimate harassment of enemy shipping, it found the sides fenced in with loosely gathered tarpaulins to foil grappling-hooks, and the crew lined up on deck with such weapons as they possessed, ready for a fight.