Savages

by K. J. Parker

  “Which means,” the archdeacon went on, “it wasn’t concocted in the last year or so to meet the demands of the current diplomatic situation. We all know the Mezentines like to play the long game, but even they can’t plan that far ahead. If you think what the state of play was fifteen years ago—”

  “Fine,” the Prefect snapped. “It’s an old piece of Mezentine paper. I’ve got a shelf full of them. What makes you think this one’s the real deal and not just some parcel of nonsense some clown thought up so his grandson could sell it to a gullible emperor?”

  “That,” the archdeacon said with a certain degree of dignity, “is what we’re here to find out. Edgelath, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  This is all wrong, Aimeric thought; you wouldn’t get away with it at the University (he’d originally thought, where I come from, but of course he wasn’t a student any more, so made the mental substitution). I distinctly remember Orsella telling me, Mezentine blue’s not a problem any more, and isn’t there that stuff you can put over sal draconis that’ll dry it out just fine in a week? Then he reminded himself that he’d just recommended Orsella to the archdeacon, who might not be quite as naive as he wanted to appear to be.

  “I’ll skip the introduction, if you don’t mind,” Edgelath was saying. “Briefly, it’s a dedication by a scholar, Orseo Chrysodemus, to someone called Bonones, presumably his patron; he’s pleased to present him with a true translation of the celebrated Imperial prophesies known as the Codex Synergius; then a long account of how the manuscript was obtained; a corrupt official at the Golden Spire—dear me—and something about smuggling it out of the country in the coffin of a deceased Mezentine diplomat. I have to say it all reads plausibly enough.”

  “What about the prophesy?” the Commissioner said.

  “Ah yes. Now, before I came here this morning, I took the opportunity to cast an eye over the Fifth Orthodox Sylloge—that’s a summary, carried out a hundred and twenty years ago, under Genseric II, of everything known at that time about the Codex. It’s still our most reliable guide. Obviously it’s restricted, but—”

  “And?”

  Edgelath nodded. “The Sylloge refers to five specific predictions that would appear to have come true in the two centuries prior to its compilation; the Battle of Enneacrunos, two well-documented earthquakes, the First Permian war and the assassination of Florian VI. We only have what purports to be original text of about five verses concerning the Permian war. As far as I can tell,—let’s see, here,” (he stabbed a spot on the parchment with his fingertip) “those verses are translated here word for word. It’s conceivable that whoever wrote this manuscript had access to the Epitome, or the sources on which the Epitome draws, and which are of course now lost. However, since all materials relating to the Codex have been restricted for well over—”

  “That won’t wash,” the Prefect said. “If this thing’s genuine, it’s based on a copy that got stolen from Golden Spire. Therefore, Imperial security isn’t watertight. Therefore, this thing could equally well be a fake.”

  Edgelath smiled. “Perfectly true.”

  “So?”

  “Yes,” the archdeacon snapped, “but is it likely? Think about it, for crying out loud. You’re suggesting that fifty years ago some Mezentine decided, purely on spec, to fake the Codex, knowing it’d be a couple of generations before it could pass as genuine and be worth money to anybody. So he went to all the trouble of bribing someone in the Inner Studium to give him a genuine quote from the Sylloge—”

  “More probably,” Edgelath went on, “a copy of the Sylloge itself. The correlations between this manuscript and the Sylloge are very extensive.”

  “Well,” the archdeacon said, “there you go. Think how much it’d cost in bribes to make an illegal copy of a restricted text and get it out of the country. Ask yourself; who the hell would bother? If you had access to those sort of resources, there’s dozens of better things to fake, and you wouldn’t have to wait fifty years before you could collect.”

  The Prefect shrugged. “Be that as it may.”

  “Objection noted,” the archdeacon said impatiently. “Go on, Edgelath. What else does it say?”

  The worried man gave him a sad little smile. “I think the gentleman who gave you this wished to draw your attention to this passage here,” he said, pointing. “You’ll see these lines here, drawn in the margin with a soapstone pencil. Quite recent, I’d say within the last month. The smudging here, look—”

  “Yes, fine. Go on.”

  “Very well.” He frowned, as if he was about to dive off a high place into a deep pool. “The chapter is headed, ‘Concerning the ascendency of the six six-fingered men.’”

  Suddenly, he had everybody’s undivided attention. There was a long pause. Then the Prefect said, “Six six-fingered—?”

  “That’s what it says. There will come six men with six fingers on their—olethrie, that’s an awkward word to translate; something between wonderful and terrible, with connotations of unnaturalness and abomination—their olethrie hands. They will all wear the lorus and divitision. The first six-fingered man—” He paused for a long time. “I’m sorry, this is a bit obscure, I think the text may be corrupt at this point. I think we may be dealing with a third or even fourth generation copy of the original translation, in which case the original may be several centuries older than this manuscript—”

  The Commissioner was keeping his temper, but only just. “What about the first six-fingered man?”

  “I think,” Edgelath said, “it says that the first six-fingered man will put down the red pig—”

  “I think we can guess who that was,” the archdeacon said.

  “It goes on, he will elevate the son of a pimp and a whore, who will break the back of the dragon and harness it and plough the red earth between the last olive tree and the sea. But the plough will break open the something spring—I’m sorry, the text is quite obviously corrupt here—and the whole land will be flooded.”

  Dead silence. Then the archdeacon said, “The Great King’s family crest is a dragon, that’s plain enough. Am I right in thinking, olives don’t grow east of the Olbos?”

  Suddenly, the Prefect grinned. “Calojan’s going to be so angry when he reads this.”

  “Not strictly accurate.” The archdeacon was grinning too. “His father drew dirty books, he wasn’t a pimp as such. As far as his mother’s concerned—”

  “Excuse me,” Aimeric put in. “There was a word you left out. The something spring.”

  “Ah yes.” Edgelath was pressing his fingers to the sides of his nose. “The word is oionoisin. Literally, it means dirty, muddy, soiled with earth, that sort of thing. It’s also used as a poetic synonym for anything to do with farming, agriculture in general; by association, it can refer to peasants, slaves, the lower classes generally. There’s also another meaning, smoky or sooty, without the pejorative connotations. If this text is as old as I think it is, it could also mean hard-working, aspiring, ambitious, though that usage was already fairly archaic by about AUC 1270. It’s a feature of Mezentine poetry of this time, of course, to use words so that all their different meanings are present at the same time, so to speak.”

  “It could mean anything you want it to, in fact,” muttered the Prefect.

  “In a sense—”

  “Wonderful. Thank you so much, professor.”

  “Please, Hunfort,” said the archdeacon. “He’s doing his best.”

  Edgelath smirked just a little. “The term red pig is interesting,” he said. “I believe that in his native dialect, Hodda means wild boar.”

  “If they’re all wearing the lorus and divitision,” the Commissioner said, “that rules out Sechimer’s father. He had six fingers, but he was never crowned.”

  “They reckon it runs in the family,” the Prefect said. “In which case—”

  “Quite,” said the archdeacon. “Go on, Edgelath.”

  They’re taking it seriously, Aimeric thought; but it’s a fak
e, obviously, it has to be. You can’t predict the future. He looked at the archdeacon, trying to figure out what sort of a game he was playing. As he understood it, the idea had been to substitute a fake of their own. He’d already written the letter to his friend at the University, sending for Orsella. When she got here, she’d explain to them how you got round the Mezentine blue and sal draconis problems. So, why let them make fools of themselves? Unless, of course, the archdeacon himself actually believed—

  “The second six-fingered man,” Edgelath went on, “will be shut up in a little golden cage. He will drive a cart drawn by four white dogs, and only his daughter will be able to calm him. In his time, the flood-waters will rise until they wash the blood from the clouds, and there will be a day with no sun or moon. He will—oh, for heaven’s sake, sphoe theoin, I do apologise, I really should have thought to bring a dictionary. I’ll look it up as soon as I get back to the library.”

  “It’s all right,” growled the archdeacon. “Skip that bit. What’s after that?”

  “He will meet his end,” Edgelath went on nervously, “now, this is quite ambivalent. It could either be at Iachello, a place, or at the hands of Iachello, a person, or possibly because of Iachello. I’m sorry, I can’t be more certain than that without more context.”

  “If it’s a place it’ll be in the Gazetteer,” said the Prefect. “We can look it up.”

  “Unless it’s a town or a castle that hasn’t been built yet,” the Commissioner objected. “Doesn’t ring any bells with me, that’s for sure.”

  “It could also be a common noun,” Edgelath said sadly. “A loan-word, possibly. It’s not Mezentine, which is why I assumed it was a name. But it could be a thing, a iachel. I’m sorry,” he added, “I’m not being much help here.”

  “You’re doing just fine,” the archdeacon said grimly. “Moving on—”

  “There’s a worker at the factory called Atkel,” Aimeric suddenly remembered. “One of the north-westerners. Could it be something like that?”

  “It’s possible, philologically speaking,” Edgelath replied. “The initial I in Middle Imperial is a remnant of the lost letter Digamma, which was common to most of the family of languages from which Imperial derives. In north-western, it’d have been a w sound. It fell into general disuse across the whole group about nine hundred years ago, as far as we can tell. So an Imperial of, say, seven hundred years ago seeking to transcribe Watkel might well come up with Iatkel. The shift from the k to the ch sound, however, is marginally more problematic—”

  “Can we please get on?” the Prefect said dangerously.

  “I’m sorry. Where was I? Ah yes. The third six-fingered man will be pure gold. He will love the people and be loved by everybody except one, and it would have been better if he had never been born. The fourth six-fingered man will be the most beautiful and the ugliest; he will drown himself and the city and in himself; when he is ugliest he will be most beautiful; he will hold back the red and blue flood but he will not turn the tide. His son will have five fingers. The fifth six-fingered man will be copper washed with gold. He will live in the desert and eat peas, and his children will be afraid of him, because of his ugliness. When he is buried, the copper will be eaten away, and he will be the most beautiful of them all. He will plant an olive tree where olive trees should not grow. Its fruit will be so heavy that it breaks the branch, which will fall on him and kill him, and the empire will be stolen and hidden in the heel of a boot. The sixth six-fingered man will be copper washed with silver. He will eat poison in the desert and grow strong. He will sleep during the day and work hard at night. The empire will fall through a hole in a good man’s pocket, and the sixth six-fingered man will pick it up and bring it home; it will be swallowed by a fish, and he will catch the fish and find the empire in its stomach. He will be the best of all bad men, and by his goodness and loving kindness he will do the most harm. He will live too long, and not long enough. After him, pigs will dig up the roots of Florian’s tree, and sheep and goats will graze in the Perfect Square, but the walls he will build will not fall for three hundred years. After him, Florian will return, wearing a blue woollen shirt, and he will live in the forest and eat toadstools.” Edgelath paused, rather breathless, and looked up. “There’s a lot more. Would you like me to go on?”

  “I think that’s quite enough,” the Prefect said. “Vorsiger, you didn’t pay good money for this garbage, did you?”

  “Certainly not,” the archdeacon replied. “It was a gift, from the Mezentine Scriveners’ Guild. And I’d be careful before I dismissed it as garbage, if I was you.”

  “It’s meaningless,” the Prefect said. “Goats and fish and olive trees. Are you seriously suggesting we should base policy on this drivel?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything of the sort,” the archdeacon said. “I thought it’d be interesting to hear what it had to say, that’s all. Also, you have to admit, it’s uncannily accurate about Sechimer and Calojan.”

  “The son of a pimp and a whore,” the Commissioner said. “Quite. I think what Hunforth is trying to say is, we can’t use this. And even if it’s a true prophesy, most of it’s to do with stuff that’ll happen long after we’re all dead and gone. Also, if it is a true prophesy, what’ll happen will happen and there isn’t a damn thing we can do about it.”

  “Arguably,” interrupted Edgelath. “Although the ancients believed that it was possible, within the inevitable ambiguities of a prediction, so to engineer events that one possible interpretation could be made to replace another. To take the classic example; if you cross the river, a great empire will be destroyed. If you interpret that as a warning, you can revise your strategy, not make the mistake you were about to make, and thereby arrange it so that the empire destroyed is the enemy’s rather than your own. The prophesy still comes true, but in a different way.”

  There was a short silence. Then the archdeacon said, “The proposal, as you all know, is to commission a fake version of this manuscript that says what we want it to say, and use it to stabilise our position until such time as Sechimer is well enough to take over. That’s all. Obviously there’s a certain element of risk, but I believe it’s acceptable. The worst that can happen is that people treat the whole thing as a joke, and I suggest we plant the fake manuscript in such a way that we can plausibly deny any involvement. Probably the best thing would be to arrange a lapse in security and let the City rumour mill do its job. As for this—” He pointed at the roll of parchment. “Well, as far as our immediate concerns go, if it’s true, mostly it only tells us what we know already, and beyond that it’s too vague to be much concrete help, as the prefect has so kindly pointed out. It may be true or it may be sheer nonsense, but it’s not purporting to tell us when to lower interest rates or sign a trade agreement with the Vesani. My view is that it’s an interesting curiosity which will provide a fruitful field of endeavour for the few select scholars we allow to see it. For myself, I don’t think I’ll be losing much sleep over the muddy spring, or whatever Edgelath finally decides it’s supposed to mean, and I recommend that we all take a similarly robust view.”

  The Prefect was frowning. “I’m inclined to think that Florian the Fifth had his head screwed on right. I say burn the wretched thing, before it falls into the hands of idiots.”

  The Commissioner smiled at him. “Arguably,” he said, “that has already happened. No, it’d be vandalism to destroy it; and besides, we’ve all heard what it has to say, so the harm’s already done, unless Hunforth believes we should all go home and slash our wrists. Personally, I think it’s fascinating. But I’ll go along with Vorsiger. Put it away somewhere safe, and get a good fake made.”

  The archdeacon smiled and turned to Aimeric. “You’ve been very quiet,” he said. “What do you think?”

  Aimeric shrugged. “The fake was my idea,” he said. “So, yes, let’s do that. As far as this is concerned—” He paused and squinted at the manuscript. Just squiggly lines on parchment to him. “I don’t see
that it’s particularly important. I don’t think we should get rid of it. I mean, it’s old and unique and presumably quite valuable. But, like Vorsiger said, it’s no use for anything.”

  “Agreed, then,” the archdeacon said, and clapped his hands. “Edgelath, the council has great pleasure in presenting this manuscript to the Studium, on condition that access be restricted on the usual terms. Aimeric, this master forger of yours. How soon can he get here?”

  “She, actually. About a week, if we get a move on.”

  “A lady forger,” the archdeacon said, “how very Vesani. Splendid, see to it, there’s a good fellow. Meanwhile, I’ll see if I can put together a rough draft of what we want the fake prophesy to say; Edgelath, I’ll need you to help me with the words, to make sure it sounds thoroughly authentic. Also, I’d be grateful if you could work closely with our forgeress when she gets here, make sure she gets the right paper and ink and so forth. I’m sure there must be plenty of useless old charters and things in the library that she can scrape down. Well, gentlemen, unless there’s any other business—”

  When he was sure they’d gone, Raffen slowly stood up and stretched his legs, which were horribly cramped from crouching. Atkel, he thought. Well.

  He’d heard a key turn in a lock, so presumably he was still shut in. It was, however, a fairly safe assumption that he was now alone in the building, though how long that would remain the case he couldn’t say. So; no time to lose.