by K. J. Parker
Almost certainly you’re smarter than me, so you’ve already figured it out. I hadn’t, and neither did Nico and his three buddies, or if they did they didn’t mention it. Bear in mind that we were bone-tired and shit scared, not at our best; and give me some credit, because I woke up about an hour later, and it was blindingly obvious.
Thirteen thousand dead men stripped bare. Therefore, imagine you’re the sentry on the City wall. In the distance you see the sunlight flashing on helmets and spearpoints. Splendid, you say to yourself, here’s General Priscus, back already from teaching those savages a lesson. And you yell down to the duty sergeant to open the gates.
How close would they get before someone saw that their faces and hands were the wrong colour? What I’d have done, of course, was get my men in their captured armour to rub dirt on their exposed skin. Just how smart was the very smart man who was doing all this? And who the hell could he possibly be?
It was that special time of night when you wake up, start fretting and know you won’t be getting any more sleep. I got the lamp lit and went over my notes for the morning.
Before we set off, I did something I rarely do. I ordered the men on parade.
I think it must’ve frightened them, made them realise they were now fighting soldiers; they lined up, stone-cold quiet and still as death. I walked up and down looking at them. God help us, I thought.
In the green corner, a minimum of thirteen thousand superbly equipped warriors, fresh from slaughtering an entire Imperial army in a flawlessly executed ambush. In the blue corner, four thousand terrified carpenters. Nearly everyone had a sword, because you’ve got to have one. The quartermaster hands it to you, wrapped in oily cloth, with the inspector’s seal holding the string together. What’s that for, you inevitably ask, and the quartermaster makes one of five tradition-hallowed replies, like he’s done a thousand times. Later you break the seal, because it’s your responsibility to clean off all the packing grease, sharpen and polish the bugger, ready for inspection—so that’s what it’s really for, to be inspected. Marvellous. What you get if you’re an engineer is a Type Thirteen A. Not a Fifteen, that masterpiece of ergonomic design. Not a Fourteen, honest, dependable workhorse of the Imperial military for forty years. You get a Thirteen A; parallel sides, point heavy, lozenge-shaped pommel that rubs your wrist raw, rounded point, steel quality and temper not all it might be, because the Thirteen A was made to a price, found to be no good and withdrawn from service seventy years ago. But they made a quarter of a million of the things, and waste not, want not. They’ll do for cooks, bandsmen, clerks, stretcher-bearers, engineers; anyone who’s never going to use the useless thing but needs to have a sword for inspections.
I said nearly all, because there’s always the clown who loses it, breaks it, trades it for a quart of cider. To them I’d issued axes. We had plenty of axes, three-pound head, straight ash shaft, very well suited for cutting and shaping timber, lethally useless for fighting with. About a hundred men had bows, non-regulation, not supposed to bring privately owned kit with you, but a bit of fresh meat makes a change from rations. You could kill a deer with one, at twenty paces. No chance whatsoever of piercing armour.
Talking of which; no, we didn’t have any of that. No call for it. What we do get given is the issue jack; twenty thicknesses of linen quilted together around cotton waste. Actually, it’ll turn any sword, most spears, some arrows; it’s hot as hell and hinders your movements, but it’s considerably better than nothing. Real soldiers wear them under their armour. We all had them. We’d left them, goes without saying, at home. No helmets or shields, no body armour, no greaves, cuisses, rerebraces or vambraces, gauntlets, gorgets or knee or elbow cops. Wonderful.
An old man I met in the slave camp told me once, always be positive. He died of gangrene, something it’s hard to be positive about, and he spent his last week on earth whimpering, but I’ve always tried to follow his advice, even so. Accordingly: we know what we haven’t got, we don’t need reminding about what we haven’t got, but what do we have? Think about that.
I thought, or tried to, only some fool kept interrupting me. “Artavasdus is still livid,” Nico told me mournfully, as we trudged up the fells at Tarent Cross. “He’s talking about bringing you up on charges.”
“And why not?” I said. “He’s got every right. And if we get home and there’s someone to bring me up on charges to, nobody will be happier than me, believe it. Meanwhile, I’d like your opinion.”
Nico did his wise face. “Fire away.”
“Who do you think these bastards are?”
Oh dear. Picture of a big man trying to think. “The Sherden?”
I shook my head. “All told,” I said, “in the incredibly unlikely event you could get them all in one place without them murdering each other, there’s maybe eighteen thousand adult Sherden males, total. And they’re thieves, not soldiers.”
“But they attacked Classis. And the other stuff.”
Walking uphill and talking leaves me short of breath. “They’re good with ships,” I said. “They’re like us, specialists.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said, “geography’s not my thing. What about those people you told me about? The Hus?”
Nico, of course, can walk uphill all day long while singing arias from Teudel’s oratorios. Nevertheless, given the choice, I’d still rather be smart than fit. “The Hus are shepherds,” I said. “They herd huge flocks of sheep on the high downs, always on the move. They wouldn’t go anywhere without their sheep and their women and kids. The most you tend to see is a hundred or so crazy young braves looking to steal enough valuable stuff to raise a bride-price. And most of the time they thieve off each other. They only go bothering other people when times are very hard. Also, they’re petrified of the Robur. They cremate their dead, so they think you’re ghosts, charred brown by the flames. Not the Hus.”
I was getting on his nerves. He doesn’t like to be reminded that he doesn’t know everything. “I don’t know,” he said. “There’s hundreds of tribes up away north and east, always moving about and beating up on each other. Could be some lot we’ve never even heard of.”
“Indeed,” I said. “Like the Alba or the Maldit or the Sanc Fui or the Sebelot Alliance or the Flos de Glaya or the Prezadha.” He gave me a blank, worried stare. I shouldn’t tease him. “But then it’d be like waves on the seashore. There’s a big storm out in the middle of the ocean, and you get tidal waves at the coast. The Alba drive out the Maldit, the Maldit drive out the Sanc Fui, and, at the very end of the line, the Seventh Army has to cope with hordes of marauding Bassanegs trying to cross the frozen Astar. And these things don’t happen overnight. We’d have heard about it.” I remembered a few Council meetings and amended; “I’d have heard about it.”
He looked at me. “Nothing like that?”
I shook my head. “We go to a lot of places and I meet a lot of people. Not the sort you’d be seen dead with. They tell me things. Anything as big as a mass migration, someone would have heard something.”
“Nobody has.”
“Nobody’s told me anything.”
I was bothering him. Nobody’s happy out of their depth. “So who do you think it is?”
I’d done enough harm for one conversation, so I didn’t reply.
From Phainomai Einai to the City is prime growing country. It’s where the deer and wild pigs from His Majesty’s inviolable forest come out to graze on honest men’s cabbages, safe in the knowledge that it’s five years’ hard labour for anyone not born in the purple to shoot them. Stand on top of any of the plump little hills and you won’t see less than a dozen farms, whitewashed and golden-thatched, rich green fields quilted with arrow-straight hedges. In my wildest dreams, I’ve quit the service and bought one of those farms. Away to the north the land gradually rises, and that’s where you get the wonderful vineyards. The point being, a lot of people live there, and they’re out and about all day, they notice things. They noticed us. They stopped working and stared.
One old boy came to his yard gate and scowled at us as we tramped past down the road. I stopped and gave him a friendly smile. “Excuse me,” I said. “Did the army pass this way, a few days back?”
“Who wants to know?”
I gave Nico a gentle shove. He’s good with people. “Captain Bautzes, Imperial Engineers,” he said.
Oh, that accent of his. It impressed the farmer. “Three days ago, sir.” Sir, mark you. “In a right old hurry. Came through in the middle of the night.”
I remember a friend of mine, got himself gutshot in a bit of a scrimmage. We hauled him to the surgeon, who pulled the arrow out and looked at it; all rusty. Oh dear. A bit like that.
“Forced marches,” Nico said, keeping his voice down as we moved on. “We’ve been stopping every night. They’re not even bothering to forage.”
“No need,” I told him. “They’ll have plenty of food, courtesy of General Priscus. And the last thing they want is to raise the alarm.”
Nico went all quiet after that. Splendid. I was able to think.
So, at the White Bear crossroads, we turned right. Left is the main road, to the City. Right takes you down beside the Silverlight to the coast. It’s a deep valley, wooded—a bit like the road through Spendone forest, a resemblance that wasn’t lost on my brave men—and it comes out at Bel Semplan. Just before Bel, of course, is Watersmeet, where the Isnel joins the Silverlight.
Maybe you don’t think a lot about shit. Why should you? But it’s an interesting subject. Let me take you back five centuries, to the Great Plague. After it was over, His Majesty Euric III got it into his head that it had been caused by dirt, and nobody had the nerve to contradict him. So he founded the shit patrol, which still operates to this day. They’re the band of miserable-looking souls who go round the streets in the still, small hours before dawn emptying the shit-pans and piss-pots and scarfing up all the stinking food and mouldy bedlinen, dead dogs, broken junk, all the rubbish that Euric was convinced brought on the Great Death. The shit goes out on carts to the farms to grow delicious cabbages, the fullers get the piss, but the rest of it is loaded onto big, flat barges and punted out of the Watergate down the Isnel to Watersmeet, then via the Silverlight to Bel. Then they row it out about four miles, past the point where the currents would sweep it all back into the City harbour, and dump it. Then they sail the barges back up the coast to the City. They do it that way so the river has all the hard work of moving the fully laden barges downstream, and the tide does the same for the empty barges on the return trip. Smart. I believe it was a colonel of Engineers who thought of it, though nobody remembers his name.
It was a gamble, or do I mean an augury? I think that’s the word; where you basically give God a choice—if you’re on my side, let this happen, if not, do what you like. If we figured in His plans, the shit fleet would be on the river or in dock at Bel. If it was on its way back to town, He clearly didn’t want us to save the City, and we’d be free to take whatever shipping we could lay our hands on and sail away—up to the Armpit was my favourite option, because everybody knows the Robur founded a mighty colony at Olbia, though whether it’s still there and where the hell Olbia might be are open to conjecture.
I still believe in Olbia, at least I believe in it rather more than I believe in Him, but I never got the chance to find out. The barges were tied up at the quay at Bel. No crews; because they’d done the daily run and were three-quarters of the way home when they met a gaggle of small boats, rowing like hell up the coast. The people in these boats yelled at them to turn back. Don’t go to the City, they said, it’s under siege. There’s about a million savages all round the Land Walls and no soldiers to fight them off. We got out in time. Whatever you do, don’t go back. You’ll be killed.
So the barge crews turned round and rowed to Bel, held a quick meeting and melted away. Most of them were in the bars, drinking what was left of their money, on the grounds that since there would be no tomorrow, why the hell not? I had my boys round them up, and gave them a talking to.
We, I told them, were proper soldiers, and we’d come to relieve the City and defend it until the rest of the army showed up. Guessing we wouldn’t be able to get past the siege lines in time, we’d come to Bel hoping to commandeer the shit fleet and sail it into the City harbour. The question was, had they seen any warships when they were there? No, they hadn’t. Fine. My biggest fear was that the Sherden had been brought in to give naval support to the land forces—it’s what I’d have done, or anyone with half a brain; if they hadn’t done it, there had to be a compelling reason (and there was, as I found out later: big storm off the Needle, Sherden fleet scattered in all directions; probably an augury, though I still don’t believe in Him). Anyhow, we could sail into the harbour and there’d be no pirates to sink us.
Being, in my own small way, a part of Authority, it never ceases to amaze me how much people believe in it and trust it. I see it from the inside, of course—inefficiencies, stupidities, corruption, bloody-minded ignorance and simple lack of resources to cope with the magnitude of the endless, ever-multiplying problems. But other people see it from the outside. They see the Land Walls. They see the emperor’s head on the coins, with Victory on the reverse. They see the temples. They see soldiers in shining armour. They see, and they believe, that the empire is big, strong, wise, unbeatable. They know they can’t fight it or outsmart it (though some of my friends in the Old Flower Market have spent a lifetime trying and haven’t been caught yet) so they assume nobody else can, either. As witness those poor fools of barge crews. When I told them we were the army, it was as though they’d just woken up and discovered it was all a bad dream. Here we were, so everything was going to be all right after all. The fact that we were wearing felt hats, tunics and Type Thirteen As and there weren’t actually very many of us seemed to escape their notice. That’s all right, then, they said to themselves, and set about doing as they’d been told. It probably helped that they were drunk, but even if they’d been sober I don’t suppose it’d have made much difference. A man in a uniform gave them an order, and they rejoiced. I felt bad about that, of course, but I was on a schedule.
One stroke of entirely unexpected luck. While Stilico’s men were rousting drunken sailors out of the dockside bars, he happened to find out that one of the big lumber freighters that make the run from Weal Eleis to Naufragia had been forced into Bel by bad weather. It was carrying two hundred and seventy tons of seasoned Elymaean cedar.
“We’re having that,” I told him. “Bound to come in useful.”
Stilico went away, came back a bit later. The captain, he said, refused to allow our men to commandeer the ship or its cargo without compensation. I sighed, tore a page out of my notebook, and wrote a draft on the treasury for ten thousand stamena—
“You can’t do that.” Stilico was shocked to the core. “That’s ten times what it’s worth.”
“So?”
“It’s public money.”
I considered explaining, but there wasn’t time and I didn’t have the energy. “Do as you’re told,” I said and gave him the bit of paper. He walked away, looking deeply offended. I called him back.
“Better put a couple of dozen of the lads on the ship,” I said. “Just in case.”
8
For the record, I’m not at my best on boats. I tell myself it’s because I’m an engineer. I live in a world of straight lines, fixed points, things that stay where they’re put, the exact opposite of the sea. She reckons it’s because of where I was born, two weeks’ painful trudge inland, up mountains and across rivers. Nico smiles indulgently and points out that the Robur have always been a seafaring nation, and that’s the source of their superiority. In any event, I spent the short trip from Bel to the City hanging over the side regretting everything I’d eaten for the past week, which was very good; I was too preoccupied to think about anything else. If I hadn’t been, I’d have scared myself to death imagining what we’d find when we arrived.
Once you’re in the Bay, the wind and the currents calm down a lot, and I realised that I was going to live after all. On this occasion, once we were past the Spearhead, we sort of glided home, as smooth as a bolt down the slide of a crossbow. Small mercies. I stopped groaning and started panicking. But there wasn’t a ship to be seen in all of that vast blue semicircle.
One good thing about the shit barges—they’re distinctive, no other boats like them on the water. Even so. I was a bit worried about the reception we’d get. For one thing, we didn’t look like Imperial soldiers. For another, whoever was in charge in the City had probably figured out by now that appearances can be deceptive. Further or in the alternative, the shit fleet isn’t exactly a state secret, so our mysterious genius enemy could easily have heard about it, commandeered it and packed it to the gunwales with armed men. They’d only know it was us when we were close enough for the watchmen on shore to see the brown of our faces; seventy yards, say. Effective archery range is a hundred and fifty yards. But if I told everyone to get their heads down, our reception committee wouldn’t see brown faces and would have every reason to start shooting.
Awkward; except there was no reception committee. The quays were deserted; no ships tied up, no dockers, nobody lounging about or selling things. I felt like I’d swallowed a block of ice.
I was in the lead barge. We nosed up against the quay, someone jumped across with a rope and tied up. The gangplank hit the stone with a clatter. I’m not a brave man. “Nico,” I said, “just run ahead and see if you can find anybody.”
He gave me that look, but off he went, and nobody was in any hurry to follow him. He walked up the quay about a hundred yards, stopped, looked round; then I saw him wave at someone we couldn’t see. Then he yelled to whoever it was, and we heard a voice calling back. Beside me on the barge, the sailors were all on edge, ready to cast off and jump to the oars in a heartbeat. Then Nico nodded, and trotted back to us.
