The Belly of the Bow

by K. J. Parker

  At that moment, what Athli wanted more than anything else she could think of was for Bardas to pull Zonaras across the table and bash his face in. But he didn’t move. After a long time, he pushed his hair back from his forehead and said, ‘What have you got left? Anything?’

  Clefas nodded. ‘There’s the farm, like I said. And we bought Palas Rafenin’s place when he died, that’s another thirty acres. And there’s the rap up on the moors where the tin mine was going to be, we let the keep on that to Teufas Tron for nine quarters a year. And there’s the rosewood plantation, of course, but that won’t be worth anything for fifty years—’

  ‘Nothing,’ Bardas said. ‘All gone. Wonderful. I’ve kept every swindler and chancer in the Mesoge for all these years and my own brothers are still chasing sheep and hoeing onions.’ He drew his fingertips down his cheeks as far as his chin. ‘You bloody fools, I was trying to look after you, all of us. I wanted it to be so that none of us would ever have to worry about anything ever again; and like you said, Zonaras, here we bloody well are, right back where we started.’

  ‘Heris,’ Gorgas Loredan called out, ‘I’m home.’

  ‘We’re in the cloister,’ his wife replied. He smiled, dumped the heavy bag he’d been carrying and strolled through the dark shade of the hall out into the courtyard.

  An appealing sight, if ever there was one; his wife sitting in her favourite cedarwood chair, sewing. At her feet, his daughter Niessa playing with her little wooden horse on wheels. Behind her, his son Luha lying on his stomach on the grass, propping himself up on his elbows and reading a book; and to his right, perched on a small ebony stool, the latest addition to the family, his niece, who was having her hair combed by the maid. Gratifying how well she’d scrubbed up - oh, for sure she’d never be a beauty or anything more than ordinary with a hint of strange-looking, all bones and eye-sockets. But at least she was clean and respectably dressed in one of Heris’ old linen smocks and a good plain pair of sandals. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘That’s what I like to see, a hive of industry. Any messages?’

  Heris looked down at a wax tablet balanced on the arm of her chair. ‘Vido brought over the excise figures, they’re on your desk. A man called Bemond Grus would like to talk to you about five hundred pairs of boots, FOB the Sea Falcon, whatever that means. She sent someone to see if your were back yet, but there wasn’t a message. Oh, and I’ve done those transfer deeds, all except the long one that needs a coloured plan.’

  ‘You have? That’s splendid,’ Gorgas replied, trying to remember which deeds she was talking about. It seemed a long time since he’d had nothing more urgent to think about than paperwork. How wonderful it must be, he thought, to be bored.

  He grabbed a cushion from the pile, dropped it on the grass and stretched out, like a good dog after a long day herding sheep. ‘So what’s been going on since I’ve been away?’ he asked. ‘Luha, how did you do in your verse-composition test?’

  ‘Nine out of ten, Father,’ the boy replied, without looking up from his book.

  ‘That’s not bad,’ Gorgas said. ‘Did anybody get ten?’

  ‘No. Well, yes. Ruan Acher did, but his dad’s a poet, so—’

  Gorgas frowned. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Nine out of ten’s good, don’t get me wrong, but ten would have been better. If Ruan Acher can do it, then so can you.’

  ‘Yes, but Father, verse composition,’ the boy said. ‘When am I ever going to want to do verse composition? It’s not like it’s any good for anything.’

  The frown condensed into a scrowl. ‘Don’t let me hear you talking like that,’ Gorgas said. ‘And don’t go spoiling good work with a bad attitude. After dinner I want to look at your work, and we’ll go over it and see if we can spot where you went wrong. Niessa,’ he continued, turning his head a precise few degrees towards her, ‘have you been practising your flute like you promised?’

  ‘Yes, Daddy,’ the little girl answered proudly. ‘And Doctor Nearchus says I’m nearly a grade ahead of everyone else in the class. Shall I get my flute and play you my piece, Daddy?’

  ‘That’d be nice,’ Gorgas said. ‘You’re excused.’

  Niessa scampered off, and Gorgas lifted up on one elbow.

  ‘What about you, Iseutz?’ he said. ‘Settling in?’

  His niece looked at him, and one corner of her lip twitched. ‘Absolutely, Uncle Gorgas,’ she said. ‘Yesterday we did my teeth, and today we’ve been doing my hair. And tomorrow we’re going to do my fingernails, though I don’t suppose there’s really a full day’s work to be done there. Can I have the afternoon off if we finish early?’

  Gorgas breathed out through his nose. ‘I take it that means you haven’t been to see your mother yet,’ he said. ‘You know, the sooner you do it, the sooner it’ll be done.’

  ‘But Uncle,’ she replied, with a nice touch of horror in her voice, ‘you can’t expect me to go and see Mother until I’m finished. It wouldn’t be right.’

  Gorgas shrugged. ‘You do what you like,’ he said. ‘Just don’t expect me to keep the peace between you indefinitely, that’s all. You know you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like, but—’

  ‘We’ll just have to try and get my toenails done ahead of schedule, then,’ she said. ‘Maybe we should get in a night shift.’

  Heris turned her head and looked at Isentz sharply, but didn’t say anything. The girl looked uncomfortable for a moment, then said, ‘For what it’s worth, I really am doing my best. If I could sew, I’d sew. But I can’t. And I don’t want to go and see my mother. I can’t imagine saying anything to her that wouldn’t make things ten times worse.’

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ Gorgas said.

  ‘And besides,’ she went one, ignoring him, ‘what on earth makes you think she wants to see me? If she was that keen on the idea, why hasn’t she come here? Or at least sent a message or something?‘

  ‘She’s a busy—’ Gorgas started.

  ‘Yes,’ the girl interrupted, ‘I know. And that’s fine. She can be busy, and I can sit here being put back together again, like something the cat’s knocked over, and everybody can be happy. Come on, Uncle, what exactly is it that makes you believe we all want to love each other?’

  There was a moment of complete silence; then Heris quickly gathered up her sewing and wasn’t there any more, and Gorgas got slowly to his feet, walked across and sat beside her. She kept the rest of her body still, but couldn’t keep her head from flinching away just a little.

  ‘That’s all right,’ Gorgas said, so quietly that she could hardly hear him. ‘That’s fine. You go ahead and give up. After all, you proved your point while you were in the prison, and before that in the City. You had this fine life all lined up for you, you were going to get married and live the way people are meant to, and then a man called Bardas Loredan came along and he killed the man you were going to marry, and that life wasn’t there any more. So you decided, right there on the spot, you decided: no compromise, no giving an inch, you wanted justice, or revenge, or whatever you want to call it, not that it matters a great deal. And you know what? You failed. Total waste of time and blood, and all for melodrama.’ He was right up close to her ear now, like an awkward boy edging nervously along a bench at a wedding towards the girl he’s afraid to talk to. ‘Look at you. You’re a mess. There are bits of you missing. But here I am, and here’s your mother, and we never give up on anything; not because it’s impossible, not for armies or storms at sea or plagues or fires or the earth opening up and swallowing whole cities, and certainly not for melodrama. Now I don’t care what you want or what you’re feeling or even what a complete and utter mess and waste of good food and water you happen to be; nobody gives up in this family, because there’s a lot of enemies out there, more than Shastel and Temrai put together, and on our side, there’s just us. Understood?’

  ‘That’s it, is it? We’ve got to love each other because nobody else ever could?’

  A wide smile spread gradually over Gorgas’
face. ‘You’ve got it,’ he said. ‘There’s me; well, that doesn’t need explaining. There’s your Uncle Bardas, who killed people for a living and brought the plainspeople down on Perimadeia. There’s you. And there’s your mother.’

  Iseutz nodded slowly. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Just out of interest, what did she do?’

  ‘Oh, she’s the pick of us,’ Gorgas said softly. ‘I kill in self-defence, Bardas killed for other people, you want to kill for revenge, or whatever it is that’s eating those holes in your poor little brain. But your mother killed a whole damn city, and you want to know why? Nor for revenge, though the gods know she had cause. Not because she had to. She killed Perimadeia to save money.’ He grinned suddenly, as if remembering a marvellous joke. ‘Not to make money, you understand, to save it. She was sick and tired of paying interest on the money she borrowed in Perimadeia to set up this stupid bloody bank - money down the drain, she said, and nothing to show for it - so she sent me to open the gates and kill the whole damned city. Isn’t that wonderful? Well, I think so. She may be an evil bitch, but you’ve got to admire her single-mindedness.’

  Iseutz moved her head a little and looked him in the eye. ‘It was you who opened the gates,’ she said.

  ‘It was me. Your mother’s idea, and I did it.’

  ‘I see,’ Iseutz nodded. ‘And you did it.’

  ‘It happened to coincide with my own interests,’ Gorgas said, ‘but I’m not the one who takes the initiative. She suggested it, and I agreed.’

  Iseutz looked at him for a long time. ‘Uncle Gorgas,’ she said, ‘why do you pretend to love your family when you hate them more than I do?’

  Gorgas thought for a moment. ‘You’re confusing the issue,’ he said. ‘You’re mixing up hating and recognising evil.’ He looked away for a moment, a man at home enjoying his garden. ‘Do you really think it’s not possible to love someone when you know they’ve got this bit of evil inside them? You surprise me, I thought you were more grown-up than that. You think my wife doesn’t love me, in some part of her mind? You think I don’t love Bardas, my brother? Or Niessa, or you? This is strange,’ he added, leaning back in his chair, ‘being able to talk freely like this; I suppose it’s because I’ve got so much in common with you.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Don’t be offended. I like you. You’re helping me put into words a lot of stuff that’s just been churning round in my mind for years and years. Come on,’ he said, sitting up again, ‘tell me what you think of me. I don’t mind.’

  Iseutz considered her reply, thoughtful, like a student in a tutorial. ‘What you’ve just told me,’ she said. ‘It’s not something I can begin to understand. I mean, I can see it’s possible; one man can open a gate, it’s just a matter of sliding back some bolts, lifting a bar, and because that gate’s open, a city can fall and thousands of people can die. It’s the idea that someone could do that deliberately that I’m having trouble with.’ She ran the stumps of her fingers across her lower lip. ‘Is it something you enjoyed?’ she asked. ‘Did you like doing it?’

  ‘Do I need to answer that?’ Gorgas replied.

  She shook her head. ‘No, it was a silly question. It’d be too easy to write it down to some sort of madness, on a par with the crazy people who kill small children in the woods. What’s the answer, then? Their rules don’t apply to us, is that it?’

  Gorgas pursed his lips. ‘I think you’re getting there,’ he said. ‘I see our family as being small group of soldiers, like those Shastel raiders; we’re deep in enemy territory, outnumbered, every man’s hand against us, can’t expect help or relief from outside; so we do whatever we have to do, and we make it all right with ourselves because there’s so many of them and so few of us, they’re the enemy and we have some sort of right to survive. So the raiding party takes what it needs, does what it has to do, it keeps on going, and when you know they don’t take prisoners, you forget all about giving yourself up. I like to think of it as being like a different species of animals. It’s all right to kill animals to eat, or to wear, or because they’ve built a nest in your roof and they sting you whenever you go in or out. No, that’s not it, not that we’re better than them, just different. There’s some people you’re allowed to kill, and some you’re not. That’s why I can forgive Bardas; and why you should, too.’

  Iseutz shrugged. ‘I’ll grant you, he’s probably the best of us. But he’s also the one who’s harmed me. So he’s the only one I hate. I really don’t want to think about the rest of it.’

  Gorgas nodded. ‘No reason why you should,’ he said. ‘It may sound like I go around agonising about all this, but I don’t really. It’s that word evil, it’s not the right one. Would it be better to say it’s a different perspective on the value of human life, in absolute as opposed to subjective terms?’ He stood up. ‘You know, I’m really glad we’ve had this talk. It’s cleared the air, don’t you think?’

  Iseutz made a vague gesture. ‘You really did that?’ she said. ‘Opened the gates of the City and let the enemy in?’

  Gorgas spread his hands. ‘One lot of enemies killed another lot,’ he said. ‘I didn’t start that fight. I didn’t kill a single Perimadeian. Like you said, I pulled back a bolt or two and lifted a bar. Uncle Bardas didn’t start the war. Temrai didn’t start the war. Your Great-Uncle Maxen didn’t start the war.’

  ‘Oh, gods,’ Iseutz. ‘I’d forgotten him.’

  ‘And I’ll tell you another thing,’ Gorgas said, stooping to pick up an empty plate. ‘Your father didn’t rape your mother; it was just good business, at the time. There now,’ he said, frowning, ‘I don’t think I’ve left anything out, have I? At least I’ve been straight with you, and that’s one thing I do pride myself on, being straight with people. It’s like the proverb says, you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family.’

  ‘Doctor Gannadius!’

  Now if only I was as old as I feel, I’d be deaf and not be able to hear you. Gannadius quickened his pace a little.

  ‘Doctor Gannadius! Wait!’

  No chance, Gannadius thought sadly. He couldn’t have failed to hear a voice that loud if he’d been stone deaf, or even dead. He looked round and saw Volco Bovert bearing down on him like a fashionable prophecy. ‘Master Bovert,’ he said politely.

  ‘You’re a hard man to find, Doctor,’ Bovert said, catching his breath. There was an awful lot of Volco Bovert, probably more than would ever be necessary except in the direst of emergencies; ironic, in a way, since his official post was Tribune of the Poor. ‘I think it’s time we talked seriously about the Scona problem.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ Gannadius sighed. He’d only spoken to Tribune Volco a handful of times, at this or that faculty reception, but he knew him well enough to anticipate that insufferable habit of his of reducing the world and everything that happened in it to an order of business; thus, everything to do with Scona and the war became ‘the Scona problem’, just as anything connected with the Foundation’s commercial activities was swept into ‘the balance of payments issue’, while the sum of human knowledge and all attempts to expand or clarify it was lumped together under ‘the syllabus debate’. It went without saying that the quality that had earned him such a high position in the Shastel hierarchy (apart from being fifth in line to be head of the Bovert family) was his exceptional clarity of thinking and ability to pare away all the fat and concentrate on the meat. Where I come from, Gannadius reflected, we had a word for people like that. It was five letters long and rhymed with ‘midiot’.

  The enormous presense of Tribune Volco backed him into a ledge in the Cloister wall, and he perched on the head of a low-level carved lion while Volco settled comfortably on a wide stone seat. ‘Thank you for sparing the time,’ Volco said. ‘Now then, about Scona. We need you to do something.’

  For a moment, Gannadius was completely confused. All he could think of was that Volco, for some reason to do with the bizarre complexities of faction politics, wanted him to lead the
next raiding party; and he didn’t really want to do that. He was still swimming in circles round the idea when Volco went on ‘You see,’ he said, in a low whisper that was probably inaudible a mile away, ‘we believe that the military option - the conventional military option - is not the ideal solution for us at this time. We therefore believe that the time has come to explore other approaches.’

  Gods, Gannadius realised with a mixture of amusement and horror, the fat fool’s talking about magic. He wants me to hex the rebels into oblivion. He actually thinks—

  The vision, or whatever you choose to call it. The great armada, with the ruins of Scona in the background. And Bardas Loredan leading the army.

  He shook himself, like a dog climbing out of a river. ‘With respect,’ he said, ‘I don’t see how an abstract philosopher like myself can really presume to advise a practical man of affairs such as yourself—’

  ‘Other approaches,’ Volco repeated. ‘Oh, I’ve heard all about the sterling efforts made by yourself and Patriarch Alexius on behalf of Perimadeia. Now it’s true that in the long run, those efforts were conspicuously lacking in success; but we feel that in the context of the Perimadeian war, any such efforts, however well conceived and ably executed, were doomed to failure from the start. Whereas in the matter of the Scona problem—’

  Gannadius looked into the Tribune’s eyes. No doubt about it, the man sincerely believed in magic - of course he did, because magic was such a perfect solution to the problems besetting his faction and the Bovert family, in which case it had to work. It would work, if only because Volco Bovert needed it to.

  So what are you going to do? Refuse? Not advisable, since your position here is based on a whole series of misleading hints designed to give the impression that magic really does work, and that you know how to do it. Serves you right for trying to make a living selling snake-oil.