by K. J. Parker
“Neither are swords,” Addo said gently. “Please, Suidas. And don’t pull the stroke. The Permian I’ll be fighting in Beaute won’t be faking it.”
Suidas looked as though he was about to make a run for it, but he pulled himself together and said, “Please yourself, then. I’ll go and fetch the messer.”
“Use mine.” Addo opened his coat. There was a messer hilt sticking out from under his belt. He drew it and handed it to Suidas, who took it as though he was handling something disgusting. Then he looped his forefinger round the guard and took a step back. “Ready?”
“When you are.”
Suidas swung. He gave it everything, turning his wrist a little to align the cutting edge just right, snapping with his shoulder, elbow and wrist in sequence, as if the messer was a whip. He attacked at a forty-five-degree angle, for maximum shear. Addo stood quite still, and at the very last moment, clapped his hands. He stopped the edge about three-eighths of an inch from his neck, twisted it sideways and took it crisply out of Suidas’ hand, as if picking an apple.
“Thank you,” Addo said. Suidas was staring at him. “That’s going to be very useful indeed. You’ve probably saved my life, in fact.”
Suidas took a step back, as though Addo was about to attack him. His eyes were glued to the messer. He was trembling.
“Can we try it again?” Addo asked; and for some reason, Giraut thought, That was cruel, that was the cruellest thing I ever heard. “Oh for God’s sake,” Iseutz wailed. “Will you please put that thing away, before someone does somebody an injury?”
Giraut realised he was waiting for Tzimisces to come forward and put a stop to it; but Tzimisces wasn’t there, he’d vanished again. So he found himself stepping forward, gently pulling the messer out of Addo’s hand. He heard himself say something like, “That was amazing, the way you just caught it in the air. You two are going to have to teach me how to do that, as soon as we can get hold of a blunt one to practise with.”
Addo smiled vaguely. Suidas was still looking completely blank, like a dead man pulled out of a lake. Giraut realised he was holding the messer in his hand. It felt unnatural, and he was frighteningly conscious of it. He wanted to open his fingers and let it fall to the floor, but he was scared that it would gash his leg on the way down. Nobody else seemed to want it. He looked round, then handed it to Captain Baudila, who put it on a table.
Addo was fast asleep when Iseutz came and banged on his door.
“It’s Suidas,” she said. “You’d better come.”
“What’s going on?”
“Now,” Iseutz said.
He climbed out of bed, and noticed that the sheath on his bedside table was empty. He thought for a moment, and could distinctly remember Baudila giving the messer back to him. “Just a moment,” he said. “I can’t find my boots. Oh, here they are.”
Suidas was in the post room. He was standing in the middle of the floor, holding Addo’s messer in a low middle guard. He’d been busy. A statue, life-size, presumably some pre-Imperial goddess or other, was lying on the floor with its head knocked off. A table had been cut to pieces, and there were deep gashes in several of the door frames.
“I think he’s asleep,” Iseutz whispered. “But his eyes are wide open.”
Addo nodded, put his finger to his lips and walked forward, taking great care not to make any noise. Even so, Suidas appeared to have heard something; he spun round on his heels to face the direction Addo was coming from and transitioned from low middle to high back. Addo froze, watching him carefully, then started forward again. Suidas was looking just past him, as if watching someone standing shoulder to shoulder with him. Iseutz jammed her fist in her mouth.
Addo stopped, just short of long measure. “Captain Deutzel.”
Suidas looked puzzled. Addo waited for a moment, then said, “Sergeant.”
“Sir.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Sergeant?”
Suidas looked at him – straight at him, but couldn’t see him. Iseutz could tell by the look on his face that he was trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. “Sir?”
“Stand down, Sergeant. Now. That’s an order.”
Suidas didn’t move. Addo frowned, then walked round him in a tight semicircle. Then, so fast that Iseutz couldn’t follow the movement, he stepped in and punched Suidas on the side of the head. There was a clatter as the messer hit the floor, but Suidas was still standing. Addo punched him again, and this time he fell. He twitched once, then lay still.
“Iseutz.” His voice was high and shaky. “Get a doctor.”
“I don’t know—”
“Get a doctor,” he repeated. “Quickly.”
The Blueskin doctor was binding Addo’s knuckles. “No harm done, luckily,” he was saying. “You could easily have broken something.”
“I’m fine,” Addo repeated. “Really.”
“Of course you are,” the doctor said wearily. “Right, that ought to do. Try not to use that hand for a day or so. You ought to take more care,” he added. “We need you to be fit for the big match. I tried to get tickets, but I was too late.”
Addo gave him a poisonous look, and he went away. “How is he?” he asked.
Phrantzes looked up and scowled at him. “Did you really have to hit him quite so hard?”
“He had to punch him twice,” Iseutz said. “He wouldn’t fall over.”
“What the hell was all that about?” Giraut asked. “Was he asleep, or what?”
Phrantzes sighed. “Apparently it’s not the first time,” he said. “His – well, the woman he lives with, she told us he’s done this sort of thing before. But she said he was over it, and there hadn’t been an episode for six months.”
“There was a man in my father’s regiment,” Addo said. “And by all accounts he was a model soldier, the bravest man in the corps, my father said. But sometimes he’d get up in the middle of the night, walk across the camp and start killing horses. He had no idea what he was doing. When he woke up and they told him, he couldn’t believe it. I think he killed himself, in the end.”
“Thank you so much,” Iseutz snapped. “That’s exactly what we needed to hear.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest—”
Phrantzes coughed loudly. “The doctor believes it’s an imbalance in his choleric humour. He’s prescribed some medicine to put it right. He told me these cases are entirely treatable. It’s all a question of diet, apparently. Too much salty food and not enough fruit.”
When Suidas woke up, he stared at them as though he’d never seen them before. Then he asked, “What happened?”
Phrantzes opened his mouth but Addo got in first. “You were walking in your sleep,” he said. “You had a blow to the head. The doctor says you’ll be fine.”
Suidas frowned. “Did I do anything?”
Addo smiled. “Nothing terrible,” he said.
“Thank God for that,” Suidas said. “Sontha told me once I threatened her with a sword, thought she was Aram Chantat. She nearly left me because of it.” He breathed out and lay back on the pillows. “I’m glad it wasn’t anything like that.”
Addo grinned. “Nothing like that,” he said. “Do you remember anything?”
“Not a lot. I was dreaming.” Suidas scratched his head, then winced. “I was taking a bath, as a matter of fact, in that amazing bath house they’ve got here. And the dried-up river started flowing again, and water came shooting down on me from the cistern. I thought I was going to drown.”
“The doctor says you’ve been eating too much salt.”
Suidas laughed. “They always say that, the Blueskins. Too much salt or not enough greens. That and bowel movements, they’re obsessed. Bloody good doctors, though.”
“We’ll let you get some rest,” Phrantzes said. “There’s still a day before our escort gets here, so stay in bed and try to sleep.”
Suidas gave him a thin smile. “In the circumstances,” he said, “are you sure
that’s a good idea?”
Tzimisces reappeared late in the afternoon. He’d picked up a slight cold since they’d seen him last, which probably explained why he didn’t seem to hear Iseutz when she asked him where he’d been. Instead, he blew his nose in a huge green silk handkerchief.
“The bad news,” he said, “is that the trouble is definitely spreading. There’s been rioting in several large towns and at least three important mines, and that’s just in this area. The good news is, the Aram Chantat have stayed loyal to the government and they’ve dealt with the riots in their own charming way. Which is fine by us,” he added, with a sideways glance at Suidas. “It means our own little spot of trouble back in Luzir Soleth will just sort of merge seamlessly into the general carnage, and nobody’ll give it a second thought.”
Phrantzes had a vaguely hopeful look on his face. He said, “With all this trouble going on, I can’t believe the Permians will want to carry on with the tour.”
“Really?” Tzimisces smiled at him. “What makes you say that?”
“I’d have thought the last thing they’d want would be large, volatile gatherings of people. A fencing match would be just the sort of flashpoint that could lead to a riot. They’ll have to call the whole thing off, it’s the only possible course of action.”
“I don’t think so,” Tzimisces said, sounding like an indulgent parent dismissing his child’s particularly far-fetched suggestion. “You’ve seen how crazy these people are about fencing. In fact, cancelling the matches would be the surest way of starting a riot anyone could think of. No, by the time we get to Beaute all this nonsense will have burnt itself out, and we can get on with the job we came here to do. You can be absolutely sure about that.”
Their new escort commander was called Major Cuniva. He was about forty years old, bald – completely hairless, in fact, like a freshly scalded hide – and enormous, as though he belonged to a completely different species. He was the first Imperial they’d met who didn’t seem to be permanently frozen to the bone; he wore a fur-lined coat and a scarf, but no hat or gloves. He was missing the top two joints from the index finger of his left hand.
“We shouldn’t have too much difficulty making up time to Beaute,” he said cheerfully, in a voice so deep that Giraut was sure he felt the floor shake under his feet. “We can leave the main road at Chauzida and cut through the mountains. There’s a pass I know that’ll bring us back on the road just outside Dosor.” He paused, waiting to see if anyone dared contradict him, then went on, “You must be Adulescentulus Carnufex, the general’s son. It’s an honour to meet you.”
Addo gave him a weak smile. “I take it you were in the War.”
“Ten years,” Cuniva replied. “I started as a young second lieutenant, and ended up as a captain attached to the general staff. Of course, I’ve studied all your father’s campaigns. In fact,” he added, with just a touch of diffidence, which suited him like a straw hat on a dragon, “I’ve written a short essay on the Belcors campaign. As it happens, I have a copy with me. I’d be extremely grateful if you could glance through it and give me your opinion.”
There was a faint but unmistakable leaden weariness in Addo’s voice as he said, “Of course, I’d be delighted.” But Cuniva’s face lit up with joy, suddenly and unexpectedly transformed into a thing of beauty.
“I have absolutely no idea if this is any good or not,” Addo announced later, as the coach bounced along the main road. “I’ve never even heard of half the things he’s talking about.”
“Just say it’s marvellous and wonderful,” Suidas said. “He’ll be your slave for life.”
“Yes, but what if he asks me specific questions? He’ll realise straight away that I don’t know the first thing about the rotten Belcors campaign.”
“Really?” Tzimisces was looking at him.
“Really and truly,” Addo replied. “My father’s never talked about it much.”
“It was a great victory, wasn’t it?” Giraut said.
Addo shrugged. “I guess so. But I don’t think it was one of his favourites, if you see what I mean.”
Giraut noticed that Phrantzes was looking out of the window; something he didn’t usually do, because he said it made him travel sick. Tzimisces said, “I know a bit about that campaign. If you like, I’ll skim through it and give you a few notes.”
It sounded for all the world like the offer of a minor act of kindness, but Addo hesitated. “You really don’t want to wade through all this,” he said, pleasantly enough. “For one thing, it’s vilely written.”
“Ah.” Tzimisces smiled. “Let me guess. Flowery periphrases, back-to-back literary allusions and quotations from thousand-year-old authors. A marked reluctance to use one word when twelve can be jammed in if you sit on the lid.”
Addo smiled. “Something like that.”
“All the hallmarks of the approved Imperial military literary style,” Tzimisces said. “It’s used for everything they write, from dispatches to supply requisitions. They teach it at the staff college. You can’t get promotion unless you can churn it out by the yard.”
“That’s stupid,” Iseutz said.
“Not at all,” Tzimisces replied earnestly. “It’s one of the subtle filters the Imperial military uses to keep riff-raff out of the higher echelons of the military hierarchy.”
“That’s stupid, too.”
“You clearly don’t know your Imperial history,” Tzimisces said. “Several hundred years ago, they had nearly a century of on-and-off civil wars. Seventy-four emperors in ninety-one years, of whom precisely two died of natural causes. All because of talented, ambitious men rising through the ranks to command large provincial armies, which they then used to seize power. It was very nearly the end of the Empire.” He paused to blow his nose. “But nowadays it doesn’t matter a damn how talented and ambitious you are. If you can’t balance a pair of antitheses while using the appropriate quote from Post-Realist poetry, you’ll never make it above major. Which would probably account for our new friend out there. He’s clearly an efficient and experienced officer, but he’s got an Eastern accent you could cut with a knife. Which is good luck for us,” he added cheerfully. “This is his big chance to impress someone and maybe get called back home, after seventeen years in this place. He’ll be trying his hardest, you can bet on that.”
“Wonderful,” Suidas said sourly. “Assuming he’s on our side.”
Giraut was still watching Phrantzes. Ever since Tzimisces had asked to look at the stupid essay, he’d been staring out of the window, perfectly still, like an animal trying to escape the notice of a predator it knows it can’t outrun. He reminded himself that he wasn’t there to look after anybody but himself; even so, he hoped Addo or Iseutz would notice, and do something about it. Maybe Addo had got the message after all. He lifted his book level with his nose and started reading again. Tzimisces’ kind offer had clearly been refused. Not that Tzimisces seemed put out in any way; he wiped his nose with the monster handkerchief, closed his eyes, snuggled his chin on his chest and appeared to go to sleep. Addo carried on reading, but from time to time he lifted his head and peeped over the top of the book, as if it was a battlement, in Tzimisces’ general direction.
When the news of the riots in Luzir Soleth reached Scheria, the chairman of the Bank called an emergency cabinet meeting.
The situation, he told the Board, was bad. As far as he could tell, the explosion of public anger following the assassination of Minister Ashok had been entirely spontaneous, and was spread across the full spectrum of Permian society. By its very nature, a spontaneous outburst lacked focus and direction; the people were very angry, but as yet they didn’t really know who they were angry with, let alone what it would take to appease their wrath. That, he pointed out, was both good and bad. Bad, because until they made their minds up, or had them made up for them, it was impossible to formulate a coherent reaction or to know which side to be on; good, because they had a little bit of time in which to try and make
sense of the situation.
“Getting down to cases,” he went on, “I’m not sure there’s a great deal we can do. It’s not like the rioters in the streets are going to be particularly interested in what we think about anything. In fact, I’d say the worst thing we could do is interfere visibly at this stage. The latest reports say the army’s stayed loyal to the government, and obviously, as long as they’ve got the military on their side, sooner or later they’ll put down the riots and things will get back to normal.”
“Quite,” someone interrupted. “But we’ve got to bear in mind the nature of the Permian military. They’re practically all mercenaries.”
“Indeed,” the chairman said. “And at the moment, the only entity in Permia with the money to pay their wages is the government, so of course they’re staying loyal. And if the disorder can be put down while it’s still just a mob throwing stones, before it crystallises into an organised opposition, that’ll be the end of the matter and we can go back to where we were. But if the mob finds leaders, and the leaders get money, you can more or less guarantee what’ll come next. There’ll be a brisk auction, and whoever wins gets Permia.” He paused to drink a little water. “Really,” he went on, “on one level it’s pretty simple. If we want to get ahead of events and put together a set of useful contingency plans, we need to look at where the money is.”
“Excuse me,” said somebody else, “but wouldn’t it help to know who killed this Minister Ashok, and why?”
The chairman shook his head. “Interesting to future historians, maybe. Right now, we need to know who’s going to win, and I can see three possible outcomes. One, no coherent opposition arises, the government wins, we’re back to where we started from. Two, there’s an opposition, it outbids the government and takes over. Three, there’s an opposition, but the government wins the auction and stays in power, the opposition goes on the defensive and digs in – strikes in the mines, that sort of thing – and there’s a nasty stalemate until something changes and the balance of power shifts.”
