by K. J. Parker
My fault, he thought. It’s anathema for a deformed man to presume to sit on Florian’s throne, and no good will come of it. He rubbed the scar on his left hand. That was why, when a new emperor was crowned, they rounded up all the other possible claimants to the throne and blinded them, castrated them, cut off their ears or noses. I was only trying to help, he told himself, I never thought they’d make me be emperor; and then, when it turned out there was nobody else left, I somehow assumed—He’d had the Patriarch write him a special confession, and the Patriarch had assured him it’d do the trick, but obviously not. Besseric had had a prosthetic nose made by the finest goldsmith in the empire; pure gold, painted flesh-colour, said to be so convincing that even his wife never knew. Cordumer had made them sew the old emperor’s ear onto his head—preserved in myrrh and honey, and he’d started the fashion of shoulder-length hair. Atho and Florian VI had simply sat defiantly on the throne, not even bothering with glass eyes or eyepatches. And Sechimer; how many times, they’ll ask in years to come, do we have to go through all this before they finally get the message? A deformed man can’t be emperor. Break the rule and you’re asking for a disaster. Simple as that.
He grinned, in spite of himself. It was obvious what should happen now, to save the day and make everything all right. Calojan; Calojan wins the battle, comes storming home at the head of his victorious army, has himself proclaimed emperor (the old tradition of being lifted up on a shield), kills the unworthy occupant of the throne and takes it for himself. More than enough precedents, God knows, and Calojan would be a good emperor. And I could live with that. Well, so to speak. It’d solve everything.
He looked hopefully up at the icon, then looked away again. No dice.
Besides, the omens had been clear; the empire will be irreparably damaged, and if Calojan was in charge, he wouldn’t let that happen. So; back to my fault, no clever way of sidestepping it. Let’s just hope that, when He’s finished kicking the shit out of His chosen people for their own good, there’ll be some pieces left for somebody to pick up.
It wasn’t, they said later, one of Calojan’s best battles. The odds against him were enormous but not overwhelming. The enemy commander wasn’t a master tactician—a bit of a plodder, in fact; a deputy, a safe pair of hands given charge of the Southern Army, because it’d be the Eastern Army that caught up with the Imperials and brought them to battle; so, some marks to Calojan there for doing what nobody had anticipated. But the battle itself was commonplace, dull even, and the Sashan had broken off early, as soon as they’d realised they were in for a drubbing if they stuck around. There hadn’t been a sudden swooping envelopment, fish in a barrel, the rivers running red; no masterful deployment of the Aram Cosseilhatz, who spent most of the battle watching from a nearby wood; just a businesslike rout, hardly followed up at all. The Eastern Army, suddenly aware that Calojan was between them and their only source of supply, broke off their triumphant march on the City and scuttled back to Dura Ceniotis, relinquishing the whole of the Mair valley, so dearly bought the year before last, but more or less intact, with their morale still reasonably good and their best general undisgraced and therefore permitted by the Great King to keep his head on his shoulders. Of course the Empire didn’t have men to spare to garrison the Mair valley towns, so presumably at some point the Sashan would come quietly back and dig in, again.
A bit of a disappointment, really. Something and nothing.
“Well,” Sechimer said. “You won, didn’t you?”
“Oh yes, I won. That wasn’t the point.” Calojan arched his back against the chair. He was still wearing the same clothes he’d fought the battle in. “The point is, I could’ve exterminated the Eastern Army. Only I couldn’t, if you see what I mean.”
“Not really.”
Calojan made an effort. He didn’t want to have to explain. He wanted a hot bath, white bread and cheese and clean sheets. He was, however, talking to the emperor. “The Easterners were too far advanced,” he said. “What I’d have liked to have done was draw them in even further, cut their supply lines and force them to come to me, somewhere in the Mesoge. It’s lovely and open there, and I’d have had the chance to play games with them, get them all strung out and open, and then send in the Cosseilhatz.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.” Calojan pressed his fist to his mouth for a moment. “The Cosseilhatz aren’t happy. They don’t feel sufficiently loved and wanted, I guess. I need to do something for them, to show them I respect and value them as they deserve. Until I can do that, I can’t expect them to perform a hundred per cent. They’ll follow orders, but they won’t—”
“I know what you mean,” Sechimer said. “So instead—”
“Instead,” Calojan replied, “I sneaked past the Easterners, beat up on the Southerners, basically just persuaded them all to go home and sort themselves out, try again later. I haven’t actually achieved—”
“The Eastern Army was three days’ march from the City and we’re in no fit state to withstand a siege. You accomplished something.”
Calojan shrugged. “It’s the wasted opportunity, really,” he said. “Take out the Easterners, end the war. I can picture future historians saying, this was where Calojan made his mistake. It’s frustrating.”
Sechimer’s face didn’t change. “Or you could have engaged the enemy when you weren’t at your very best, lost the battle and brought about the end of the empire. On balance, I think you made the right decision. Besides, even if you’d wiped out the Eastern Army, we know what would’ve happened next. They’d pull back to the Summer Line and start recruiting, we’d have four years to catch our breath, and then the whole miserable job to do again. Things aren’t going to be any better around here in four years’ time, I can promise you that. Quite the opposite.”
Calojan grinned. “Thank you so much for that. It’s reassuring to know that even miracles won’t quite cut it any more.”
“One big miracle,” Sechimer said seriously. “One very big miracle indeed. So,” he went on, moving the hem of the lorus so it didn’t cut into his neck. He had a sore patch there, Calojan noticed; the stupid thing must chafe like hell. A hundred and twenty-seven emperors since Florian, all uncomfortable all of the time. “What do you need to do for these savages of yours, to make them happy?”
“Says here you’re a cooper,” the gangmaster said. “Well?”
“No.”
The gangmaster gave him a sour look. “You’re not a cooper.”
“No,” Raffen said. “I pretended I was a wheelwright, but I never said anything about being a cooper.”
“Pretended—”
Raffen nodded. “At the border. You had to have a skill or they wouldn’t let you through.”
The gangmaster was an elderly man, bald on top, bushy clumps of white hair over his ears, as though he’d split and the stuffing was coming out. “Bloody hell,” he said. “So what can you do?”
“I don’t know,” Raffen replied. “Most things, I should imagine.”
“I ought to have you sent back.” The gangmaster scratched his ear. “Still, you’re here now. Listen, do you think you could drill holes in bits of wood?”
“Could you do it?”
“What? Yes, I suppose so.”
“In that case, so could I.”
The gangmaster looked over Raffen’s shoulder and counted under his breath. “Sod it,” he said, “we need to get the numbers up. You’re in. But if anyone asks, you swore blind you’re a cooper, all right?”
“Wheelwright,” Raffen corrected him gently.
“Cooper,” the gangmaster said firmly. “Bloody savages. All right, next.”
Grinning, Raffen turned his back on him and walked slowly across the yard to join the others who’d already been enlisted. They were standing, or sitting on barrels, in front of the tall double doors of a long wooden shed. It made a change to see a proper wooden building again, after all the strange, faintly unnatural stone and brick. Although the sky
was clear and the sun was shining, stone buildings made him feel cold and faintly uneasy.
“All right?” he asked the group. A few of them looked at him.
Uneasy, probably, because the only stonework he’d seen before he came to this strange place had been the ruins, which the giants had built, before they were wiped out by the gods in the Great War. Raffen wasn’t sure he believed in gods or giants, though it had always seemed perfectly reasonable to accept that only creatures of superhuman size and strength could have hauled the yard-long stone blocks of the ruined towers up in the air and slotted them neatly into place. But the people here were, on average, a head shorter than him, and if they were that strong, why did they need to hire foreign workers? So, he told himself, they’re not giants, therefore there never were any giants; no giants, no gods. The conclusion troubled him far less than he’d have imagined.
“What happens now, then?” he asked.
Someone shrugged. “We stay here and someone comes and tells us what to do, I guess.”
“Fine.” He found a low barrel, pulled it across and sat down on it. “My name’s Raffen,” he said. “I used to be a ropemaker, but then I went charcoal burning. Where are you from?”
The man frowned slightly. “Laxriver,” he replied. “What’s it to you?”
“Laxriver,” Raffen repeated. “That’s over the West Dales, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“You know a man called Sighvat?”
The man thought for a moment. “Can’t say I do. Why?”
“Good grazing in Laxriverdale, I heard.”
“Not bad. Where are you from?”
“Eastmarch.”
“Never heard of it.”
Raffen nodded. “It’s a small place,” he said. “You go up the Skell road from Belmouth and bear east. What do you do, then?”
“Wainwright.”
“That’s an interesting trade.”
“Is it?”
“We had a wainwright in Eastmarch. Torbert, his name was. Heard of him?”
“No.”
“Ah well. Old chap, about five two, squint in one eye.”
“No, sorry.”
Raffen smiled, tapped his fingers on his knees. “The food here’s not bad.”
“It’s all right.”
“I was worried the food would be all different and funny, but it’s quite like home.”
“It’s whatever’s cheapest,” the man replied. “So I guess it would be.”
“No beer, though. Not that I’m all that bothered. I’m not a great drinker.”
“Chance’d be a fine thing, round here.”
“And at least the water’s clean. Amazing how they do that, clean water, just comes out of a bit of pipe in a wall. They’re clever people here, all right.”
“Talk a lot, don’t you?”
Raffen laughed. “My dad used to say that,” he said. “You married? I’m not. Never have been.”
“Is that right?”
“Never found time. Always moving about, nothing to keep me in one place. There’s been women, of course there has, but nothing—well, you know. If there’s nothing keeping you nailed down, you can do anything, really. That’s always been my philosophy, anyway.”
The man got up and walked away. Raffen shrugged, and sat on the barrel he’d just vacated. It was wider, therefore more comfortable. Lesson learned, he noted; the tiresome man gets the best seats.
Some time later, a man in a leather apron turned up, muttered, “This way,” and headed off without looking back. Raffen jumped up and followed him. Gradually, the rest of the group fell in behind. This way proved to be a narrow path between two of the long sheds, eventually leading to a third shed. Inside there was a workbench running the entire length of the building, with a toolrack up the middle.
“All right,” the man in the leather apron said wearily, “listen carefully. I’m going to tell you what you have to do. If you get it wrong, you don’t get paid. If you aren’t quick enough, you don’t get paid. If you steal tools or materials or you make trouble in any way, you’re out of here and back where you came from, is that clear?”
Silence, so presumably it was. The man in the leather apron reached into the toolrack. “This,” he said, holding up a wooden triangle, “is your pattern. You trace round it—” he mimed, to explain the difficult new word “—with your stick of charcoal—” He showed them a stick of charcoal “—onto a length of plank, then you cut it out of the plank with the saw.” He lifted up a saw, so they’d know what he was talking about. “The triangle you’ve just made will be exactly the same as the pattern, or you don’t get paid. Now then, in the dead centre of the pattern you’ll see there’s a hole. Mark through this hole with your stick of charcoal onto the triangle you’ve just made, making sure the two are exactly lined up. Then you put the triangle you’ve made on the side here, until someone comes round and collects it. The you do it again, and so on, till I tell you to stop.” He paused. “That’s it, any questions?”
Raffen wouldn’t have minded asking why are we doing this, what are the triangles for, but the look on the man’s face suggested that that wouldn’t be a good idea. Nobody spoke. The man nodded.
“Right,” he said. “Space out down the bench, an arm’s length apart. They’ll be along with the planks shortly. No talking,” he added and walked away.
Raffen picked up the saw and examined it. At home, a saw was a great big thing for planking logs, or else six inches of thin steel tape in a boxwood frame, tensioned with wedges or (more usually) bits of twine wound tight with a stick. These saws were two feet long, wide as a handspan at the handle, tapering; who on earth had so much steel that they could afford to use it so extravagantly? He remembered that he couldn’t saw a straight line to save his life. Well, maybe that had changed too.
They brought the planks. The man on his left set to straight away, drawing with the charcoal, then bracing the plank against the bench with his left hand, carefully aligning the saw with his right. Raffen watched him for a while. It was very impressive.
“Excuse me,” he said.
The man looked at him. “What?”
“I don’t know how to do this. Can you show me?”
The man stared at him for a moment as though he was something horrible and offensive. Then he moved into Raffen’s space (he stepped back so as not to get trodden on) and picked up the pattern and the charcoal. “Like this, all right?” he said, extending his hand so that Raffen could see how the charcoal was to be gripped, in a sort of collar formed by the thumb and two fingertips. “You draw your lines,” he went on, “nice and steady. See? Right, now you do it.”
Raffen concentrated. “Like that?”
The man nodded. “That’ll do. Take it slow to start with, you’ll speed up when you get the hang of it. Now.” He took the saw; hand through the elongated hole in the wooden handle. “Hold it like this,” he said. “Then, you press down with your left, like I’m showing you. Got that?”
“I think so.”
“Marvellous. Now, you look at the back of your saw, you’ll see it’s a straight line, right? That’s if you’re holding it properly. So, you line up the back of your saw with your charcoal line, and you push on your saw so you can feel it’s cutting clean, don’t force it, don’t try and cut on the pull stroke, and that’s it. Do it like I just told you, it’s so simple even you can manage. Got that?”
“Yes,” Raffen said. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Any questions, problems, anything at all, ask somebody else.” He moved back to his own space, hesitated, looked back. “How’d you get in here, then? They’re only supposed to be taking skilled men.”
“I lied,” Raffen said.
He turned the plank over, so as not to cheat by using the triangle his neighbour had drawn, and picked up the charcoal. Here begins the great lesson, he thought; simplicity, which makes the rough places plain and levels the mountains and the sea. Everything yearns to be simple. Th
e trick is, to let it.
Some time later, there wasn’t enough plank left for another triangle, and he had a stack of freshly-cut copies sitting on the edge of the bench, each exactly superimposed on the one below; he ran a finger down the side and felt no ledge. The man on his right, his mentor, still had two triangles’ worth of plank to go. Well, Raffen thought. Nobody’s perfect.
He looked round for someone to bring him another plank, but there wasn’t anybody about. Hypothesis; I can cut straighter and quicker than they can, because there’s nothing in my life except the charcoal line; nothing in the way. The other one, the man I used to be, wasn’t like that. When his father tried to teach him to saw a straight line, there were all sorts of things; expectation, wanting to excel, not wanting to fail, fear of failing, disappointment, irritation, resentment; the other one never stood a chance. Now me, all I wanted to know was how to saw a straight line. Nothing in the way. Easy. Piece of cake.
They brought him another plank, and another one, and another one after that. He could feel himself getting tired, so he slowed down a little, applied a little less strength to the saw, which cut faster and easier as a result. He thought that was rather funny, and laughed; the man next to him on his left stared, and he made himself stop. But it was distinctly amusing; the less effort you put in, the easier it gets. He wanted to tell someone, but decided he’d better not.
He wasn’t particularly conscious of the passage of time, but at some point the light coming in through the unshuttered windows changed its slant, falling on his right instead of his left. They kept taking away his triangles. Tomorrow, he promised himself, he’d try and keep score. His feet ached a little from standing. He wondered what they’d be given to eat that night, and if they’d be sleeping in the same shed.
It was getting dark; soon it’d be too dark to see the charcoal line clearly, and then he’d stop, because he didn’t want to spoil things by doing bad work. He realised that a man had been watching him for a while, though he couldn’t say how long. A while, though. Someone with nothing better to do. He decided he didn’t mind.
