Savages

by K. J. Parker

  On the way back, Calojan said to Sechimer, “That man missed his calling.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He’s wasted as a king. He should be on the stage. I don’t think I’ve seen a better actor since Carausio played Florian in The Ascent.”

  Sechimer frowned. “You think he’s an impostor.”

  “No, he’s their king all right. You could tell, from how their people looked at him. But he was definitely putting on a performance. Very good one, too. I’d guess he’s one of those actors who really thinks himself into a part. The best way, if you ask me.”

  “He seemed perfectly sincere to me,” Sechimer said. “Listen, if you think there’s something wrong—”

  “It’s not that.” Calojan rubbed his eyes, as though he’d got grit in them. “It’s just that I’ve got used to being able to read people, and this one—” Suddenly he laughed. “This one’s in a foreign language. But his people fight like lunatics and they’re all we’ve got, so it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

  “If you want, I’ll come with you,” Sechimer said. “I promise I’ll do as I’m told and not get in any trouble.”

  “No. You stay here. Please.”

  That evening, the imperial orchestra staged Maestulf’s Masque of the Sun. The performance was in honour of the Selbst, who were unable to attend. Queen Gesel thoroughly enjoyed the show; afterwards, she happened to meet her brother, Aimeric de Peguilhan, at the reception. At first they both seemed rather awkward, but after a while the coolness seemed to thaw, particularly once Aimeric’s companion had gone home, and they talked for over an hour in the palace arboretum, until it was time for the evening service in the chapel.

  “You don’t have to come,” Gesel said. “I know you think it’s all nonsense.”

  “I’d like to,” Aimeric said.

  “Why?”

  “I’ve never heard the palace choir. I believe they’re very good.”

  She gave him a despairing look. “Go home,” she said, “or wherever it is you go, you don’t have to pretend with me. It’s all right, really.”

  Aimeric looked so sad that she smiled. “It wasn’t me,” he said. “Really.”

  “I understand that now,” Gesel said. “In fact, your innocence has been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. Sechimer’s had the finest scholars in the empire working on the manuscript, and they all swear blind it’s genuine. So, the prophesy’s genuine too, and therefore it can’t have been a devious plot to get Sechimer to marry me and install you as the imperial brother-in-law. You’re in the clear. I haven’t forgiven you, because there’s nothing to forgive.”

  Aimeric didn’t say anything, which was probably just as well.

  “Also,” Gesel went on, “it’d be monstrously unfair of me to be angry with you, even if you had arranged it all, bearing in mind that I’m happier now than I’ve ever been. The simple fact is, Sechimer and I love each other very much. I really can’t imagine what he sees in me, but there it is. There comes a point when you’ve just got to stop fighting and let happiness win. Heaven knows, nobody could’ve fought harder over the years than I have, but I think even Calojan would have to admit defeat, in my shoes. You do see that, don’t you?”

  Aimeric nodded. “I’m so pleased,” he said. “It wasn’t just for me, you know. Not any of it.”

  She laughed. “Actually,” she said, “your Orsella’s not nearly as bad as I thought she’d be. She’s very clever, and I’ve never met a woman who’s so well-informed.”

  “She’s certainly that.”

  “I had someone talk to her about religion,” Gesel said. “Apparently, she genuinely understands the arguments in the Revelationist heresy, which is more than the Abbot of the Studium does. You should bring her to the palace some day, she can explain it to him.”

  Aimeric’s eyes became very wide and round, but he said, “All right, if you’re serious.”

  “I’m always serious, Aimeric. You know me.”

  She went to the service; Aimeric went to the Supervening Necessity in Longwall Street and won seventy-three solidi betting on a cock-fight, his first win since he’d left the University. All in all, he couldn’t help thinking, things were looking up.

  Calojan had issued general orders to the commanders of all units; avoid battle wherever possible, evacuate and withdraw rather than engage the enemy. The imperial messenger network, though nothing like as efficient as it had once been, was still the fastest and most reliable system of communications in the world. The orders reached all of the main field armies except for the Seventeenth Mobile Reserve, a defence-in-depth unit comprising two battalions of lancers and one battalion of auxiliary mounted archers. Hearing that the enemy were about to move down into the Sorus valley, thereby directly threatening two large and unfortified towns, the commander of the Seventeenth advanced against the Cosseilhatz.

  They weren’t hard to find. Colonel Mastheric had fought in seventeen engagements in the Sashan war, nine of them as battalion commander. He’d seen the Cosseilhatz at close quarters, and made a detailed study of all general Calojan’s campaigns. He had excellent scouts and a full set of the latest military maps. When his intelligence officer reported that the enemy were heading up the main cart road to Lanthano, he decided that the opportunity was too good to miss. Five miles from Lanthano, according to his maps and local information, the road passed through some notorious marshes. The causeway that carried the road was no more than thirty yards wide. If he could block the road in front of and behind the advancing enemy and bottle them up on the causeway, their speed and manoeuvrability would be useless and they would present a stationary target for his archers and his substantial detachment of field artillery.

  He needed to move quickly. He sent half a battalion of lancers to skirt the edge of the marshes and come out behind the Cosseilhatz, to close the far end of the causeway. They did everything he asked of them, riding through the night to avoid detection and using the early morning mist to cover themselves as they made their final deployment. Mastheric gave them until mid-morning, when the mists began to clear, then advanced with the rest of the lancers to occupy the near end of the causeway. He held back his horse archers as a reserve, keeping them out on the right flank in case they were needed to hurry to the relief of the units at the far end.

  The Cosseilhatz commander brought up his main force to charge Mastheric’s lancers, only to be beaten back in confusion by volleys of rocks and scorpion-bolts from the imperial artillery, positioned in rear of the lancers and shooting over their heads. The Cosseilhatz wheeled, passed swiftly through their wagon train and launched a ferocious attack on the lancers at the far end. Anticipating the usual Cosseilhatz arrow-storm, the lancers dismounted and formed a five-rank shield-wall; the first rank kneeling, the second standing, the third holding their shields over the second rank’s heads. So powerful were the Cosseilhatz bows that even this formation suffered casualties, but not enough to weaken it sufficiently to permit the Cosseilhatz to attack; as soon as a man in the front three ranks fell, another stepped forward from the fourth rank to take his place. Thanks to his insights into the Cosseilhatz’ method of operations, Mastheric knew that they only carried enough arrows for half an hour’s continuous barrage. He’d gambled that if the shield-wall could hold for roughly that length of time, the Cosseilhatz would stop shooting and try a charge with swords and lances. He was proved right; the Cosseilhatz charged, and the shield-wall braced itself to withstand them. As soon as the onslaught began, Mastheric despatched his horse archers to the far side, while moving his field artillery in closer so that they could resume their bombardment of the enemy wagons, a move which he hoped would prompt their commander to withdraw forces from the fighting at the far end.

  Everything was going to plan—the dismounted lancers were holding out against considerably superior numbers and the reinforcements were making good time around the marshes—when a substantial unidentified force was observed heading across the plains, apparently directly at the h
orse archers. Mastheric quickly reconsidered his position. It was possible that the new arrivals were a Cosseilhatz rearguard or flying column; it made sense that they should have separated a substantial part of their forces before advancing into such a potentially dangerous position as the causeway, to deal with just such a situation as they now faced. If this was indeed the case, both the horse archers and the lancers would be exposed to attacks in flank and rear; without the horse archers, he knew he would have little chance of surviving an encounter with the enemy in the open. Relectantly, therefore, he sent word to the far end to disengage in good order and allow the Cosseilhatz to pass through, while taking up the best defensive position they could achieve in the circumstances.

  It was embarrassing, to say the least, when the unidentified unit turned out to be imperial light cavalry—six squadrons of Permian auxiliaries, sent by sheer coincidence as a routine troop rotation, word of whose arrival had somehow failed to reach him before the battle. Nevertheless, the engagement could be regarded as a genuine victory; once the far end of the causeway was unblocked, the Cosseilhatz withdrew the way they’d come without making any attempt to engage or harass the imperial forces, Mastheric was left in possession of the field, Lanthano was saved (Mastheric immediately ordered its evacuation, and the civilian population eventually found shelter inside the walls of Beal Blemye) and the enemy suffered casualties in excess of four hundred men and a substantial, though not quantified, number of civilians.

  At this point, Calojan’s orders not to engage the enemy reached him, and Mastheric felt they left him with no alternative but to withdraw. This he did, evacuating the remaining towns and avoiding any further contact with the Cosseilhatz, until he reached Beal and added his forces to the garrison. Although his victory at Lanthano ultimately achieved nothing in purely strategic terms, it had a significant effect on imperial morale; the Cosseilhatz were, after all, mortal and fallible, and could be defeated by an intelligent commander in the right place at the right time.

  “It was a disaster,” Joiauz shouted. “It was a complete disaster, and it’s all my fault, and don’t any of you dare say otherwise.”

  There was a long silence. Then Luzir said, “You weren’t to know.”

  “We should have known,” Joiauz replied bitterly. “We should have found out. I should have—”

  “Anyway,” Autet said sharply, “it’s over, we got away relatively lightly, and we’ve learned a lesson. Now I suggest we stop beating ourselves up about it, and make the arrangements for the appeasement service.”

  After a defeat, the first priority was to apologise to the dead. There was a ceremony—there was always a ceremony, for every occasion and contingency. Nothing was ever the first time, or the last.

  Although he’d taken no part in the action, it was Chauzida’s job to make the apology. For the occasion he was dressed in the appropriate regalia; the iron crown, a wolfskin, a necklace made of the finger-bones of dead enemies. In his hand he had to carry the royal bow of the Cosseilhatz, which was now so old that nobody dared string it. Nearly all the dead had been abandoned in the retreat, but the few bodies they’d been able to recover were laid out on trestles. Properly speaking they should have been covered in meadow flowers, but because of the time of year—nothing was in flower apart from silkweed and purple hyssop—they had to make do with a few symbolic blooms arranged to cover their wounds. Chauzida rode up to the rows of trestles, dismounted about ten yards away and shuffled the rest of the way on his knees. He repeated, “I’m sorry,” three times. That was it.

  With that out of the way, the Cosseilhatz were free to start coping with the damage. The worst of it had come from the stone balls thrown by the artillery. They’d broken the backs of at least fifty wagons, mostly Blue Flower, smashed the strakes of three dozen more, stoved in the bows and tongues, killed or crippled the oxen. The men worked on them in a sort of dull silence, while the women sobbed; the children stood about, unable to play, knowing something was wrong but not what it was. Chauzida saw a little boy screaming and thrashing as his mother tried to drag him back to the wagon; he was clearly terrified of it, so presumably he’d been on board when a stone hit it. He saw a girl, about nine, sitting on the tailboard. She was very pretty, with long, straight hair and a perfect oval face, but when he walked a step further, he saw that her right arm was missing except for a red-bandaged stump. He saw an old woman lying on her back on the grass, her eyes closed, her mouth moving without making words. A man was sitting patiently on a wheel while his ten-year old son tried to pull a foot-long splinter of wood out of his back. There was no provision in the ceremony for Chauzida to apologise to them, so he said the words under his breath.

  He expected to see Joiauz leading the repairs, but there was no sign of him, so he asked and was told he was in his tent, with the council. Rather than disturb him, Chauzida looked around for some way of making himself useful; he ended up carrying buckets of water from the spring, which made his back and arms hurt. He didn’t mind that; it helped to have some physical pain, to share with the wounded and to go with the terrible aching feeling inside. Some time in the middle of the afternoon, he saw men leaving Joiauz’ tent and concluded that the council was over. He walked over and found Joiauz sitting in front of a chessboard. There were seven pieces on it; four red, three white. Joiauz looked up and acknowledged him with a nod.

  “They say Calojan does this,” Joiauz said. “Each piece stands for a squadron or a battalion, and it’s supposed to help you see the broader picture. I can’t say it helps me very much.”

  Chauzida stood without saying anything. Joiauz moved a white knight, then put it back where he’d taken it from. “Was there something?”

  “If you’re not going to let me decide things,” Chauzida said, “there’s not much point in me being king. Why don’t you take over instead?”

  Joiauz gave him a look that hurt him worse than all the pulled muscles. “Can’t,” he said. “Can’t be done. A king can’t just hand over to somebody else. You’re it, till the day you die.”

  “But you won’t let me do what I’m supposed to. So where’s the point?”

  “They attacked us,” Joiauz said violently. “We were riding along a road. They blocked the road and attacked the wagons with rocks. They never gave us a chance to get the wagons out of the way, or get the women and kids off the wagons. They just started shooting rocks.”

  It hadn’t happened that way, but there was no point in telling him; he’d chosen to speak a lie, well aware that both of them knew it wasn’t true. Why would anyone do that? “Do we really have to go any further?” Chauzida said. “Can’t we just stop here? Then we can send people to talk to Calojan about a truce or something. We can sort something out.”

  Joiauz shook his head. “Sorry,” he said.

  Chauzida thought for a moment. Then he said, “It’s you doing all this, but it’s me that has to apologise, because it’s my fault. I don’t think that’s fair.”

  “No,” Joiauz said, “it isn’t.”

  “Uncle—”

  “I’m busy,” Joiauz said firmly. “I don’t have time right now. Later, you can whine all you like, all right?”

  Chauzida knew that was meant to hurt him, but for some reason it didn’t, like an arrow that lodges in your shield. “If I was to go to the chieftains, Luzir and Semplan and Autet, and said I want to stop the war, would they listen to me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Because I’m just a kid.”

  “Because the war can’t be stopped now. It’s too late. There’s nothing anyone can do about it. If you weren’t so stupid, you’d have understood that by now.”

  He could see Joiauz was upset, and he didn’t want to make things harder for him than they already were. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It was just seeing all those people—”

  “Of course. It’s only natural. It’s the first time you’ve lived through anything like this.” Joiauz still sounded angry, which didn’t make much sense. Chauzida
turned to leave, then heard Joiauz say, “I’m sorry. Really.” For a moment he didn’t understand that either; then it sank in, and he walked out without looking round.

  Semplan had had a bad day. His middle son (sixteen, brave as a lion, stupid as a rock) had contrived to get himself shot in the early stages of the battle. The arrow had hit him on the right thigh. The heavy quilting of his chausses had taken most of the sting out of it, and as far as anyone could tell, the wound was clean; the arrowhead had come out like a cork out of a bottle, and there hadn’t been too much bleeding, but the sight of his son’s blood had bothered him far more than his own. For his part, he’d been smacked on the head by a splinter from one of the stone balls. He’d been out of it for a while, and now he had a murderous headache, which really didn’t help; also, being a scalp wound, the cut on his head had bled ridiculously, and all his clothes were damp and sticky and smelt of raw iron. Then he’d had a long and difficult council meeting, with Joiauz going all to pieces; he’d kept trying to blame Semplan for not going on to king Raffen and talking him out of the imperial treaty, while at the same time trying very hard to pretend that the empire’s new alliance didn’t really matter and hadn’t actually changed anything; also, there was some sort of undercurrent he couldn’t quite grasp, as though he’d arrived late and missed something important, without knowing what sort of thing it was. Just to make everything perfect, a scorpion bolt had pierced the side of his wagon and buried itself in the cedarwood trunk he kept his spare clothes in, effectively nailing it shut. He had no idea how he was going to get into it ever again.

  He was sitting in his tent, staring sadly at his best boots (full of blood, and the seam of the left one had split half its length; the leather, not the thread) when his wife appeared in the doorway. She was all over blood, too, from changing the boy’s bandages.

  “The king wants to see you,” she said.