by K. J. Parker
“So he is who he says he is,” Chauzida said. “Or how would he know all the secrets from the spies?”
Joiauz shook his head wearily. “Also,” he said, “he’s not such an idiot as I first thought. I really don’t know what to make of him, though an archery target springs to mind. Anyway, he’s told us what we really needed to know. They’re the Selbst, or their country’s called that, and they live on the other side of the big woods. So, first thing in the morning—”
In the event, what with one thing and another, Semplan and his three sons didn’t leave the camp on their diplomatic mission until just before midday. Consequently, they were still out on the open moor, rather than down in the more sheltered valley, when the rain started. Not that it bothered them. They had goatskin capes and waxed leather hats, and the Aram Cosseilhatz pride themselves on not being made of salt, liable to dissolve at the first touch of water. It was sheer bad luck that Semplan’s horse stumbled, threw him into a bog pool and bolted; by the time the boys had caught it and brought it back, Semplan was soaked to the skin. He dried himself off as best he could and put his dry clothes on, but they didn’t stay dry for long. It was one of those rare late autumn downpours, when a month’s worth of rain falls in an hour, and it lasted the rest of the day and well into the night. The delay because of the bolted horse meant that they were still out in the open at sunset, so they had to sit the night out with rainwater pooling in the creases of their sodden clothes. By noon the next day it was fairly obvious that Semplan had caught a chill. Garsio, his eldest son, said they ought to turn back, but Semplan wouldn’t hear of it. The job he’d been given to do was important; if it wasn’t, someone else would’ve been sent instead. Also, if he went creeping home just because of a few sniffles, the entire Cosseilhatz nation would laugh at him, and quite right too.
The rain stopped just before they reached the forest. Garsio insisted that as soon as they made the cover of the woods they should stop, light a fire and dry out properly. The fact that his father agreed put him on notice that something wasn’t right; normally the old man would’ve rejected his suggestion on principle. It wasn’t long before Garsio realised his father was genuinely ill, and that if something wasn’t done, it could get very bad. Unfortunately, Garsio didn’t have a clue what you did when someone was sweating and shaking like that. The brains and experience of the party was his father, and he wasn’t making any sense.
Under these difficult circumstances, Garsio made the first decision of his life. He told his brothers to ride back to the camp, as quick as they possibly could, and fetch someone. He’d stay right there with Dad, keep the fire going, try and get him to eat something. He was fairly sure it was a bad decision, but his brothers couldn’t think of anything better. They galloped away, leaving Garsio with his appalling responsibility.
There can, therefore, have been few happier men anywhere than Garsio when he looked up, at some point during the next morning, and saw five elegant horsemen in long red cloaks with grey fur hoods coming towards him along the forest road. The hooded cloaks meant imperial cavalry; the wheel-hub-sized gold brooch one of them was wearing meant general staff. Everybody knew the imperials were extraordinarily wise and learned in all the arts and sciences, especially medicine, even if they were lousy soldiers who couldn’t fight their way out of a wet cloth bag.
Better still; the leader of the party, a man called Ruaric, had been in the war and knew all about fevers and what you do. As soon as he’d been made aware that the sick man was an important dignitary of the Aram Cosseilhatz, he couldn’t have been nicer, or more efficient. These marvellous people carried basic medicines with them wherever they went. It wasn’t long before Semplan was sitting up and taking notice—
“Hello, Semplan,” Ruaric said. “Fancy meeting you out here in the middle of nowhere.”
Semplan didn’t groan, though he wanted to. “You’re—”
“Ruaric. You remember me, don’t you?”
Oh yes. Try as he might, Semplan would never forget the four days they’d spent together as prisoners of the Sashan, after a minor setback in the Nuvi valley campaign. They’d been well treated, housed quite comfortably in a dry shed with plenty of legroom, looked after rather than guarded by five Sashan troopers who’d shared their own food with them because the rations provided for the prisoners weren’t up to their exacting standards of hospitality. What had made those four days into a horror that made Semplan wake up in the night sweating five years later was Ruaric. He was the most boring man in the history of the world, and he wouldn’t stop talking.
For his part, Ruaric was clearly overjoyed at the opportunity to renew his acquaintance with his Cosseilhatz friend. He’d often thought, he said (several times), about the days they’d spent together, getting to know one another, cutting through all the superficial differences of race and culture and discovering that under all that they were really just the same (Semplan would never forgive him for that; not ever). It had been, Ruaric confessed, Semplan’s calm, quiet stoicism and dry nomad wit that had helped him cope with the nightmare of captivity; how wonderful, therefore, that he should now have a chance to repay the debt he owed to his dear friend by saving his life.
It’s not as bad as that, it’s just a chill, Semplan had tried to tell him, but unfortunately his teeth were chattering too much. Luckily, at that stage in the fever, he kept passing out, which saved him a certain amount of torment. But the imperial medicines worked annoyingly well, and quite soon he was denied even that relief, while still being too weak to get up and run away.
“Sheer chance,” Ruaric went on, “that we happened to be passing this way—lucky for you, of course, or you’d be dead by now, most likely. And just think. Of all the people you could’ve run into on this road, it turned out to be me.”
Semplan grinned weakly. It was most incredibly lucky, and he was so grateful. But now the worst of it had passed, thanks to Ruaric’s wonderful care, and it’d be sheer wickedness to waste any more of Ruaric’s valuable time, when undoubtedly he had vital matters to attend to somewhere else—
“Not a bit of it,” Ruaric replied happily. “All the time in the world, as it happens. Now if we’d met up a few days ago, it’d have been different. But we’ve done our job and we’re on our way home, so there’s absolutely no hurry, no hurry at all. I can stay with you till you’re completely better.”
Semplan started to say he was completely better now, but a coughing fit spoiled all that. Somehow, Ruaric interpreted the noises he made as an enquiry about what he’d been doing.
“We’ve been on an important diplomatic mission,” he said proudly. “Real feather in my cap, and you wouldn’t believe how I got it. You remember me telling you about my idiot younger brother, the one who was never going to amount to anything? Well, was I wrong. Our Bathanaric is suddenly the hero of the hour. He was officer commanding a little fort somewhere, and the enemy—” He stopped suddenly, remembering too late who the enemy had been. “Anyhow,” he said, “he’s safely back in the City now and everybody says he’s a great hero, and just being his brother meant I got chosen to be the emperor’s personal envoy to the King of Selbst. You won’t have heard of them,” Ruaric added with a smile, “they’re savages, on the other side of this forest. I say savages, actually they’re the most charming people, a bit odd in some respects but very genuine, very hospitable once you really get to know them. We got on terribly well.”
“That’s nice,” Semplan croaked.
“It’s how you talk to people that makes all the difference,” Ruaric said, helping him to a sip of water. “I’ve always found that if you can look past the differences to the similarities, you can get on with practically anyone. And really, these Selbst aren’t all that different from us; I mean, they eat and sleep, love their children, worry about the future, just like we do, even if they do live in sheds instead of stone houses. And they’re not so red hot when it comes to washing, either, but you have to rise above that sort of thing, don’t you?”
Semplan would cheerfully have risen above Ruaric, the better to crush his skull with a stone, but he was still too weak. “How right you are,” he said. “So, I take it your mission was a success.”
“Oh yes,” Ruaric replied; then he hesitated, perhaps aware that the man he was talking to was nominally his enemy. “Yes, we’re all the best of friends now, I’m pleased to say. It’s always good to bring a bit more friendship into the world if you possibly can, especially in these difficult times, with all the misunderstandings we seem to be having at the moment. So,” he added, looking away, “what brings you out here?”
“Trading expedition,” Semplan said. “King Chauzida wants to see if we can trade furs and hides with the charcoal burners.”
“Well, best of luck.” Ruaric frowned, pursed his lips. He was nerving himself to say something difficult. “You know,” he said, “it nearly broke my heart when I heard about the trouble there’s been, between your people and us. I mean, it only seems like yesterday that we were brothers in arms, fighting side by side against the common enemy. And now, apparently, they’re even talking about war, though I really don’t see how it could possibly ever come to that.” He hesitated again, then went on, “Semplan, we’re old friends, we understand each other. Just how bad is it, really?”
Ruaric’s four guards, who’d been listening to all of that, were looking at him with unreadable faces. “Oh, just a storm in a bottle,” Semplan said. “Something and nothing, really. It’s a shame it’s got out of hand, but Prince Chauzida’s doing everything he possibly can to sort it out. After all, he’s not a fool. And he’s got the best interests of his people at heart.”
“Of course.” Ruaric smiled. “It’s like I was saying to King Raffen, only the other day. In war, nobody really wins except the crows. Which is why friendships like ours are so important, don’t you think? I truly believe that as long as people like you and me can talk to each other, like we’re doing now, there’s no problem so bad that it can’t be sorted out just by trying to understand the other man’s point of view.”
“Quite,” Semplan said. “And this King Raffen. He’s the sort of man you can talk to.”
“Oh, most definitely. Odd chap, doesn’t say much, but you can tell his heart’s in the right place. We had a really long talk, and I think I can safely say that he understands us and we understand him. And that’s what really counts, isn’t it?”
Semplan was doing mental arithmetic; two days minimum to the Selbst royal hall, and they’d been stuck here, what, another two days, possibly three. It was like some horrible dream. Still, he could salvage something from the mess if only he could get the exact terms of the treaty, or agreement in principle, or whatever King Raffen had agreed to simply in order to get this impossible man to shut up. “I don’t suppose you can tell me any details,” he said, trying to sound sad. “I mean, if you tell me you’re not allowed to, I’ll quite understand. Only,” he went on, as Ruaric drew breath to interrupt, “it occurs to me that if I were to tell our king that the empire’s just forged an alliance with powerful new allies, it might be enough to give him the ammunition he needs to stop all this nonsense and put the war faction in their place.”
Ruaric studied him for a moment, and he thought; I’ve overdone it, even Ruaric’s not that stupid. But then Ruaric said, “You know what, that’s not a bad idea. And it’ll be common knowledge soon enough. I don’t doubt. If you think it’d help keep the peace—”
“It can’t hurt,” Semplan said, wishing he could see his own face. “At times like this, I think it’s up to men like you and me to take a few chances, with so much at stake. But of course, if you’ve got orders—”
Ruaric glanced over his shoulder, possibly the most sinister gesture Semplan had ever seen, then leant forward and whispered noisily in Semplan’s ear, “I think what we’ve just agreed with King Raffen ought to be enough to put an end to any thoughts your people might have about starting a war with us. King Raffen has agreed to send us twenty thousand fighting men, to be despatched as soon as the agreement is formally ratified by Sechimer. We’re paying through the nose for them, as it happens, but since it should mean that nobody’s going to want to pick a fight with us for the foreseeable future, I honestly think it’s a small price to pay for peace.”
Semplan’s mouth was suddenly dry. “Twenty thousand.”
“To begin with,” Ruaric said. “With an option on twenty thousand more, if needed. So there you are,” he added happily. “The genius of general Calojan and forty thousand fearless barbarian warriors. Only a lunatic would want a war with odds like that against him.”
Ten days to raise an army of twenty thousand men.
“It can be done,” Sitry said, after the long silence that followed his announcement. “It’ll be difficult, but we can do it.”
The rest of the council stared at her. She ignored them. “You’ll have to raise the levy, of course. That’ll mean lighting the beacons, so there’ll be panic to start with, but if we send messengers out to the villages to explain—”
Raffen shook his head. “The levy’s only for when we’re being invaded,” he said. “And it’s compulsory. I don’t want anyone to join up for this unless they want to go.”
“In that case,” Einar said, “it’s impossible. Simple as that.”
Raffen smiled at him. “My grandmother used to say, there’s no such word as can’t. It always annoyed me, because it was obviously not true. But I think we can do it.”
“That’s all right, then,” Cari said. “How, exactly?”
Raffen hadn’t given it any thought at all. “Here’s what we’ll do,” he said.
Suddenly, everyone who lived or worked at the royal hall and could ride a horse was a duly accredited royal herald. Raffen and Sitry worked out the most efficient itineraries, so that the sixty or so riders could reach as many villages and large farms as possible in the shortest time, without backtracking. The plan relied on the riders being able to deputise at least two men at each port of call to carry the word to outlying settlements; but there’d be a bonus for messenger duty, so that shouldn’t be a problem. “Of course,” Raffen had said, “we’ll only make it in time if the people we recruit can ride to the rendezvous, there isn’t time for them to walk. So the first twenty thousand will have to be cavalry. It’s just as well there’s so many people with horses.”
Which gave rise to another problem; if twenty thousand horses suddenly converged on the royal hall, what were they all going to eat? A quick inventory of the royal barns confirmed that there would be enough hay, just about; it was meant to feed the king’s cattle all through the winter, but that was a difficulty that could be postponed.
“Just a thought,” Eyvind said to him quietly, the day after the messengers had departed. “You promised the imperials twenty thousand infantry. They may not want that many horsemen.”
“It’ll be fine,” Raffen said. “You’ll see.”
The first detachments began to arrive on the sixth day. The heralds had said; don’t bring anything, clothes, weapons, stuff like that; when we get there, the emperor will give you clothes and weapons and armour fit for a king. What about boots, some of the more cautious had asked. Boots too, the heralds had been instructed to reply. Boots like you’ve heard of in song and story but never dreamed you’d ever be in the same house with, let alone own. By the ninth day, they were having to send men home. But don’t worry, Raffen told them. As soon as the emperor sees he’s getting the best fighting men in the world, there’ll be jobs for everyone. Guaranteed.
(“Is it true about the boots?” Einar asked him quietly, as they walked back from the meadow where the army was camped. “Or was that just—?”
By way of reply, Raffen pulled his trouser leg up five inches or so. “Bought these in the City,” he said. “Off a second-hand stall in the junk market.”
Einar glanced down, then up again. His eyes were practically shining, and his voice was suddenly hoarse. “Do you think you could get me a
pair like that?”
“No problem.” Raffen gave him an alarming grin. “Boots for everyone.”)
There was just about enough food, but Raffen was relieved when the imperial delegation returned, bringing with them a huge roll of parchment. Unfurled, it was over seven feet long, nearly all covered in fine writing. Eyvind wanted to know where the emperor had got a sheep that big from. Cari said it had to be two skins joined together; Eyvind invited him to point out the seam, because he couldn’t see one. They all crowded round, trying to feel a bump with their fingertips, until Raffen suggested taking it outside and holding it up to the light; whereupon a splice could just be made out.
“It’s a lovely piece of work,” Raffen said to the ambassadors. “What does it say?”
“Oh, just the usual terms and conditions,” the chief ambassador replied. “It’s the empire’s standard offensive and defensive treaty. We’ve used it for over three hundred years, and nobody’s complained so far.”
