by K. J. Parker
Oida put the bowl carefully on the floor; his hand was shaking and he didn’t want to spill tea on the rug, which was Aelian and quite valuable. “We can kill Senza,” he said.
“That’s right. Take him out of the situation and the traitors in Rasch will forget about it and melt quietly away, the Easterners will go back home and everything will be just fine. Trouble is—” he lifted his cup, looked at it, picked out a dead fly “—easier said than done.”
Oida nodded. “We haven’t got anybody in close?”
“I don’t know,” the shopkeeper said irritably, “it was ordained that I didn’t need to know that. I’m guessing yes, because it’d be the most appalling dereliction of duty on someone’s part if we didn’t, but of course I’ve got no way of getting orders to him, if he exists, even if I knew who he is. You see the problem? Nobody’s going to be able to get close enough to Senza to kill him except an insider, but even if we’ve got one we can’t use him, or I can’t, anyway, and I’m the poor sod who’s got to give the order.” He turned his head and looked straight at Oida; his eyes were small and deep soft brown. “Can you think of anything?”
Oida felt a lump in his throat, and it was hard to speak naturally. “Sorry, no.”
“I think you can,” the shopkeeper said quietly. “Providential, really, you turning up like this. Name me one other craftsman in the whole of both empires who could roll up at Senza’s camp unannounced and be shown straight into the presence, no questions asked. Well?”
Oida’s mouth was bone-dry. “I see your point,” he said. “But if I stroll into Senza’s camp and kill him, how am I going to get out of there in one piece?”
The shopkeeper didn’t speak for a long time, until it wasn’t necessary to say anything. “It’s the only solution I can come up with,” he said. “Unless you can think of something. I’m open to suggestions.”
“Not really, no.”
“Well, then.” The shopkeeper looked away. “Hell of a thing to have to ask of anybody, but there it is, we didn’t make this mess, damn bloody shame we’ve got to sort it out. I know for a fact they were relying on you for this Blemyan thing, so you’ll have to tell me who you think would be best to take that one over when you’re—” He stopped, picked up his teacup, put it down again. “Any recommendations?”
Oida heard himself propose a couple of names.
“Yes, they’ll do, I suppose,” the shopkeeper said gloomily. “Anyway, that one’s not my problem, thank God. While we’re on the subject, are there any arrangements—?” He tailed off and looked at the toes of his slippers.
Oida cleared his throat. “I never got round to making a will,” he said.
“What? Oh, well, that’s easy enough, just let me have a note of the names and I’ll get it done straight away.”
“I can tell you now,” Oida said. “There’s a woman in operations, Telamon. Did you ever come across her?”
“No. Name rings a bell.”
“She might as well have the lot,” Oida said. “Apart from that—” He shrugged. “I can’t say I care terribly much. I suppose my brother Axeo had better have our father’s sword, assuming he’s still alive. Oh, and I’d like Director Procopius of the Music School to have my score of his Third Symphony. It’s the original manuscript, so he’d probably like it back. It’s at the White Cross Temple in Choris under my name. If you could see to that, it’d be appreciated.”
The shopkeeper was making a note on a wax tablet with his fingernail. “Procopius, Third Symphony, got that.” He put the tablet on the table. “Anything you think you might need for the job itself?”
“I don’t think so. As I understand it, the plan is, I walk up to him and stick him in the side of the neck. I wouldn’t have thought that called for specialist equipment.”
“Keep it simple, I always say,” the shopkeeper said vaguely. He was writing something down on his wax tablet. “Now, as far as the timetable’s concerned—”
“I suppose I’d better be going,” Oida said. “I’d have liked a good night’s sleep, but I guess that’s out of the question.”
“Catch a nap in the coach,” the shopkeeper said. “You may as well take my chaise,” he added mournfully. “It’s quick and it doesn’t look military, which is an advantage in the circumstances. Cost me two angels fifteen, but I suppose that’s neither here nor there. I’ll get Aisimon’s boy to drive for you.”
Oida grinned. “He’s expendable, too, I take it.”
“He’s a good, reliable driver and he doesn’t charge stupid money.” For the first time, something like sympathy flitted into the shopkeeper’s face, though not for long. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to go shouting anything from the rooftops,” he said, “but the people who matter will know, I can promise you that.”
“Screw them,” Oida said. “If they’d been doing their jobs properly, this wouldn’t be necessary.” He shrugged. “It’s all Forza Belot’s fault,” he said. “Thoughtlessly getting himself killed. I’ll give him a piece of my mind when I see him.”
Clearly the shopkeeper didn’t think that was funny. “You’d better go,” he said. “I don’t want to be seen with you, you know how it is.”
Oida understood. He got to his feet – he was surprised at how steady his legs were – and walked out into the shop. “I need to pay you for this stuff,” he said.
“What? Oh, right.” The shopkeeper picked up the knife and looked at it. “I think we can do better than that,” he said, and pulled a dagger in a silver-chased sheath off a hook on the wall. Oida glanced at it; it was a good choice. “That’s on the house,” the shopkeeper said. “Least I can do.”
Oida felt in his pocket for coins. “No, really,” he said, “I insist. I think money’s the least of my worries now.”
The shopkeeper looked unhappy but held out his hand; Oida tipped coins into it without looking at them. “Be at the stables round the back of the Poverty and Patience in an hour,” the shopkeeper said. “I’ll have the will ready for you to sign.”
An hour; the last hour of free time in a civilised place he’d ever have. He considered various conventional ways of passing it, but decided he wasn’t in the mood. Instead he sat down on a low wall under a tree, opened his beautiful new writing set, unfolded a half-sheet of new milk-white parchment and unscrewed the top of the ink bottle.
Oida to Telamon, greetings –
He sat looking at what he’d written for a while, then crossed it out and turned the page over.
Oida to Director Procopius, greetings;
When I say that I have always valued your friendship more than your music, I would not wish you to imply—
He pulled a face, screwed the page into a ball and dropped it on the ground. Then he put the writing things back in their box and closed it, stuck his hand in his pocket, pulled out all the rest of his money and counted it. Twenty-seven angels seventy.
He went into the Poverty and Patience and ordered a beer with a brandy chaser, found a seat in the corner next to the fire, took out Bardiya’s Garden of Entrancing Images and started to read. A little later, one of the kitchen maids walked past carrying a brace of white ducks, their heads swinging and bumping against her knees. Oida smiled at her. “May I?” he asked, and pulled out a wing feather to use as a bookmark.
The driver was maybe seventeen years old, with a tuft of fluff on his upper lip and chin and an Eastern army mail shirt. “You’d better not let them catch you wearing that when we’re on the road,” Oida advised him; he looked worried, stopped the chaise and wriggled out of it, like an unhooked fish escaping from the angler’s fingers.
“Are you that singer?” the boy asked, when they’d been driving for an hour or so.
“No,” Oida said.
He finished the Garden at noon the next day and asked the boy if he wanted it. The boy said thanks, but he couldn’t read; Oida pointed out that he didn’t need to, he could just look at the pictures. The boy gave him a horrified look and accepted gratefully.
&n
bsp; On the morning of the fourth day they started to come across dead bodies lying in the road; soldiers mostly, but not exclusively. The boy didn’t seem unduly concerned about them. His ambition, he said, was to join Ocnisant’s; it was a really good way to get ahead, so he’d heard, and he didn’t want to stay a carter all his life, thank you very much. A couple of the kids from his neighbourhood had got in with Ocnisant and when they came home to visit they always had plenty of money. Oida looked away and asked him if he thought the war would last that long. The boy laughed, and asked him if he’d ever been to Rasch. A few times, Oida said. It’s great there, isn’t it, the boy said, there’s always so much going on, and of course there’s nowhere like it for making money. It was his dream to live there one day, he said, and Oida replied gravely that he hoped he’d get the chance.
“Strictly speaking,” Oida told the boy, “as far as they’re concerned, you’re the enemy. Now, because you’re with me and I’ve got dual citizenship, in theory you ought to be all right. Depends how well up the soldiers are in international law.”
The boy lowered the reins. “They wouldn’t do anything, would they?”
“Physical violence?” Oida shook his head. “On balance, I’d say no. But they’d be within their rights to requisition the horses, and the food. I suggest you stop here and let me walk the rest of the way.”
The boy hesitated. “Are you sure? Macrobius told me to take you right up to the camp gates.”
I bet he did, Oida thought. “Like I said, I’m sure you’ll be all right. But is it worth taking the risk, for the sake of saving me half an hour’s walk? Up to you.”
The chaise came to a gentle halt. “Thanks,” the boy said.
Oida jumped down, winced as his stiff ankles took his weight. “No problem,” he said, and hauled down his bag. “Here.” He dug his hand in his pocket and scooped out the remaining money, clamped his fist tight around it. “Cup your hands,” he ordered. The boy did as he was told. Oida poured the money into them, then crimped the boy’s hands tight around it, so he couldn’t see what he’d been given. “So long,” he called out, as he walked quickly away. “Safe journey back.”
He heard the boy call out after him but didn’t turn round.
The first thing you see, when you approach Rasch from the east, is the spire of the Red Temple. It’s easily the tallest building in the city, and some people love it and some people think it’s an eyesore and an affront to the Deity and should be pulled down. Your first glimpse of it will probably be through the gap in the hills just past the fifth Government milestone, about halfway between the Sun in Splendour and the Grace and Austerity; you only get to see it as more than a vaguely unnatural spike when the road takes you round the lower slopes of the Four Sisters; and that was where Oida got out and began to walk.
Cavalry moving along roads in inhabited areas can be hard to track. They shouldn’t be. But it’s remarkable how, even in time of war, people can’t seem to resist the sight of steaming pyramids of horseshit on a metalled road. As soon as the soldiers disappear over the horizon, out the people come, with their buckets and pails, and before long there’s nothing left to show that the military have ever been there.
The road to Rasch, however, was no place to walk in new, expensive boots. The only consolation, from Oida’s perspective, was proof positive that Senza’s army was entirely made up of cavalry. There were no human footprints in the dung piles; which told him, among other things, that Senza wasn’t impeding his own mobility with prisoners.
Needless to say, Oida knew all the approaches to Rasch like the back of his hand. It was bizarre, therefore, to have the road entirely to himself, at noon on a bright, clear day. He passed the Five Pillars of Faith and saw that the door was shut – he hadn’t ever seen its door before, didn’t know it had one; he was tempted to sneak inside and see if there was anything left to eat, but decided against it.
Beyond the Five Pillars is salad country, the market gardens and orchards that supply the city. Being heavy loam on top of clay, the ground is firm, and Senza had let his column leave the road and spread out without fear of getting bogged down. It looked to Oida for all the world like spoiled paper, as though someone had written a landscape, thought better of it and scratched it out until the nib broke. Purely as a mental exercise he tried to calculate the cost of the damage and came up with a figure of two million angels.
The patrol captain recognised him at once, so that was all right. He quickly ran through the story he’d prepared – on his way here to do a concert, heard about the forthcoming change of management, decided to do the gig anyway (pause for laugh); the kid driving the coach got scared and refused to bring him any closer, so he’d had to footslog it all the way from the Grace, any chance of a beer and just possibly something to eat?
The captain swallowed it whole and said he’d send ahead and let the general know he was here. Please, don’t bother him, he’s got far more important things to do. No, really, he’ll want to see you, more than my commission’s worth if he finds out Oida was here and nobody told him. Oh, all right then. Easy as that.
Senza had pitched his camp on the Ascension Flats race track. It was a logical choice – flat, more than enough grazing, water from two rivers, excellent visibility, and the covered stands offered plenty of seasoned timber, just what you need when you’re about to embark on a siege. By the time Oida got there, they’d already torn up the rails and were halfway through dismantling the Imperial Stand; a pity, Oida thought, and where will the ruler of the newly united Restored Empire sit when he’s opening the End of Year Games? It was at that point that he remembered something the shopkeeper had said; it hit him like the low branch whose height you guess wrong when you’re out riding, and for quite some time he felt too stupid to think.
Someone in a gilded breastplate and a red cloak came bustling out to meet him. Fortunately he had plenty to say, so Oida didn’t have to make conversation. He followed the red and gold gleam to the guest tent, where there was water and a clean towel, and then to the officers’ mess, where they brought him a rather good sweet white wine and a big plate of honeycakes, Eastern-style, with syrup.
“This is all rather sudden,” he heard himself say. “I’m here to give a recital in the Victory Hall. I’m guessing that won’t be possible.”
The man in the pretty breastplate grinned at him. “We’ll give you a safe passage through the lines, if that’s what you want. But I’m guessing they won’t be in the mood right now. Why don’t you stay out here and sing for our troops instead? They’d love it.”
“I’d be glad to,” Oida replied. “So, how long have you been here?”
“Four days,” the breastplate replied. “Just long enough to dig the latrines and organise the sittings in the mess tent, the really important stuff. Storming the city comes later, when we can get round to it.”
They were very good honeycakes. “You brought a good cook with you.”
“Senza’s own personal man,” the breastplate said. “Earns more than I do, and you can see why.”
Oida smiled. “You expect to be here some time, then.”
“Who can say?” the breastplate said with his mouth full. “Not too long, I hope, but there’s no sense in pigging it if you don’t have to.” He swallowed and went on, “I know what you’re getting at. Where’s the food coming from to feed all this lot?”
“Military secret?”
“Oh, I don’t mind telling you. All right, how many men do you think Senza’s got? To the nearest thousand.”
Oida hadn’t given it any thought. “Sixty?”
“Thirty. All the rest is baggage train, mostly supplies.”
Not what he’d been expecting to hear. “What about the artillery? I’d assumed—”
“No.” The breastplate smiled. “We’ve got a bit, but only enough to bash down the odd cowshed. No, we brought everything with us, like a picnic.”
Oida nodded slowly. “Forza’s still alive, isn’t he?” he said.
The breastplate gave him a blank stare for a moment, then suddenly grinned. “Not for long, we hope. But, yes, he is.”
“And all this is just—”
“To winkle him out, yes.” The breastplate poured them both more wine. “You know, it’s a real privilege working for Senza, you don’t know how exciting it is for a military man, actually being here on the spot and watching it happen. It’s all about risks, you see; that’s how it’s always been between them, ever since they were kids. How far dare you go in order to beat the other one? Will you fight me if I have one hand tied behind my back? One hand behind my back and blindfold? All right then, if I have one hand behind my back, blindfold and unarmed, will you fight me then? Really, it’s all just the three-card trick. When do you reach the point where the other man can’t resist having a go at you, even though he knows in his heart of hearts that he’s bound to lose? That’s where Senza’s so brilliant. I think it’s because he’s the younger brother. It’s all about self-confidence, really. Senza knows he’s the best, therefore he is. It’s a sort of metaphysical thing, if you know what I mean.”
