by K. J. Parker
Jaufrez shrugged. ‘If we lose, that’s the end of the Grand Order of Poverty and Learning. Very true. But at least we’ll all go down together, and that’s all that matters in the final analysis. Besides,’ he added cheerfully, ‘we aren’t going to lose, it’s impossible.’
Gannadius shook his head doubtfully. ‘I’m not so sure about that,’ he said, ‘really I’m not. Big armies have been humiliated by small ones before now; in fact, there’s a school of opinion that says in wars like this, over a certain level a big army’s a positive disadvantage. So—’
Jaufrez nodded, as if he’d just been told that fire can sometimes be hot. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You’re talking to a Doctor of Military Theory, for gods’ sakes. But we’re not going to lose because we’ve got a secret weapon, one that’s so powerful and effective that we’d win without putting a single soldier in the field.’ He grinned, and clapped a chunky hand on Gannadius’ shoulder. ‘We’ve got you.’
An hour or so after the debate, a senior member of the Foundation stopped at a fishmonger’s stall in Shastel market and, after a few minutes’ negotiation, bought a halibut for two copper quarters. When he’d taken his fish and walked on, the fishmonger’s teenage son left the stall and walked briskly across the market square to a livery stable, where he collected a rather fine chestnut mare and rode at a sharp canter out of Shastel City down the coast road to the sea. There he happened to stop and pass the time of day with an old family friend, a fisherman whom his father and uncles had been doing business with for some thirty years. When he’d ridden on his way, the fisherman whistled to his own three sons, who were mending nets on the quayside. They put the nets down and came over to where he was sitting. Not long afterwards, the two eldest boys took out the family’s smaller, faster boat and set sail, although it was several hours too early for the evening run.
They sailed right round Scona and, just as it was beginning to get dark, they came across an oyster-boat making its way home from its daily trip to the oyster-beds of Blutile Shoal. The two Shastel boys hailed the oysterman and asked if he had anything for them; the oysterman replied that he had, and he hove to. They talked for a while as they transferred the oysters to the boys’ boat; then they parted and went their separate ways, the boys back to Shastel, running in slowly and cautiously through the dark, the oysterman hurrying it up so as to reach Scona before the light failed. As soon as he made it to shore, he tied up on Strangers’ Quay and trotted up the hill with his money to the Bank, where he barged past the guards (who knew him well enough to let him through) and straight as a weasel in a warren through the corridors to the Director’s office.
When Niessa Loredan had heard what he had to say, she thanked him, paid him and shut the door after him. Then she called a clerk and sent him off with a string of messages. He went up the corridor and down a flight of steps to the messengers’ room, where five or six boys, ranging in age between twelve and sixteen, were playing knucklebones. He gave them their assignments and they scampered off down the back stairs out into the city. One of them ran down the hill, weaving in and out of the evening promenaders with remarkable skill and judgement, and arrived, out of breath and sweating, at the door of Gorgas Loredan’s house in Three Lions Street. He banged on the door until the porter came, in bare feet and shirt sleeves, and shot back the bolts. As soon as the porter saw who it was, he left the boy standing there and dashed through the portico and hallway to the dining room, where Gorgas and his family were just about to start dinner.
‘Eudo?’ Gorgas said, looking up. The conversation died away.
‘There’s a message at the door,’ the porter repled, and the way he said it made any further questions unnecessary. Gorgas stood up, put his napkin on his chair and left the room. ‘In my study,’ he said. The porter nodded and scuttled back to the porch, where the boy was sitting on the step, getting his breath back.
‘Thanks,’ the boy said, ‘I know the way.’
Another messenger ran up the hill, past the rainwater tanks and the cattle pen and into the tangled mess of streets known, for fairly obvious reasons, as the Drinking Quarter. He was taking a short cut; someone who didn’t know the city as well as he did would have gone the long way round, following Drovers’ Street around three sides of a square until he reached a cheap but tidy inn called the White Victory. It took him longer than he’d have liked to find the landlord, but as soon as he’d pulled his messenger’s badge out of his pocket and waved it under the man’s nose, things started to happen a bit more quickly. The landlord yelled for his eldest son, who appeared at the kitchen door with a tray of loaves ready to go in the oven for the morning’s bread.
‘Leave that,’ the landlord said, ‘and find the Islander girl and the old foreign git. Message for them from the Bank.’
The landlord’s boy stared at the messenger for a second or so, then shoved the tray into his father’s hands and set off like a runner in a relay race. He tried the foreigners’ rooms, but they weren’t there so he doubled back and looked in the common room, and then the side parlour.
‘There you are,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to come now. There’s a message for you from the Director’s office.’
Vetriz and Alexius were playing chess; Alexius had the white queen in his hand, holding it in mid-air above the table.
‘What do you think she wants?’ Vetriz said.
‘You’re asking the wrong person,’ Alexius replied. He put the chess piece back where it had come from. ‘We’ll call it a draw, shall we?’
‘We most certainly won’t,’ Vetriz answered sharply. ‘Make sure nobody touches the board,’ she told the landlord’s son. ‘Very important game. Issues of national security at stake. Have you got that?’
The boy looked at her as if she was mad, very much as he looked at all foreigners, then led the way down the stairs and across the courtyard to the long kitchen, where the messenger was drinking a cup of hot chicken soup he’d managed to blackmail out of the landlord’s wife.
‘You’re to go and see the Director immediately,’ he recited, putting the cup down and wiping his mouth. ‘I’ll show you the way.’
‘That’s all right,’ Vetriz replied. ‘We’ve been there before.’
‘I’ll show it you anyway,’ the boy said firmly.
Vetriz shook her head. ‘No, you won’t,’ she said. ‘You’ll go away and commandeer, or whatever the right word is, a nice clean, comfortable wagon and a couple of well-behaved horses, and,’ she added firmly, ‘some cushions. You can show them your badge or something, I expect you know what to do. Then you can escort us to the Director’s office. Understood?’
‘But . . .’
Vetriz looked extremely stern. ‘Unless,’ she said, ‘you want to explain to the Director why Patriarch Alexius of Perimadeia died of heart failure trying to keep up with a fifteen-year-old boy running through the Town streets in the dark. I’m sure she’ll understand once she’s heard your side of the story.’
The boy was back in seventeen minutes, with a small cart and a bewildered-looking drover, who was wearing a horse-blanket over his shirt and stockings. ‘Now can we go?’ the boy asked pitifully. Vetriz nodded.
‘Now we can go,’ she replied.
‘Thank you,’ Alexius said, as the cart bumped and rattled down Drovers’ Street. ‘I really couldn’t have faced a forced march this evening.’
Vetriz nodded. ‘Bad headache?’ she said.
‘That’s right.’
‘Me too.’
They looked at each other.
‘So what did you see?’ Vetriz asked.
Alexius frowned. ‘It’s hard to explain, really,’ he said. ‘I was sitting in a large building, like a meeting-hall or a chapter house, and it was empty except for my old friend Gannadius - I’ve mentioned him before, haven’t I? Oh, you know him of course, I forgot. Anyway, he was sitting directly in front of me watching something I couldn’t see, and I kept tapping him on the shoulder, but I couldn’t make him look round. It only l
asted a few seconds, and I can’t make head or tail of it.’
Vetriz shrugged. ‘Beats me too,’ she said. ‘And mine was - well, if I didn’t know better I’d say it was more like a daydream - you know, like normal people have? Except for the headache, of course, and that might just be falling asleep with my head at a funny angle. But I don’t think so.’
‘What was yours about, then?’
Vetriz’ nose twitched. ‘Well, it sounds silly, really. A bit - personal, let’s say. It had Bardas Loredan in it, and whoever I was in it, I certainly wasn’t me, if you see what I mean. Pity, really,’ she added.
Alexius looked grave. ‘It sounds to me,’ he said, ‘as if you’ve been using this wonderful gift that’s been vouchsafed to you for frivolous and unworthy ends. You must tell me how you do that when you’ve got a moment.’
Vetriz shrugged. ‘It wasn’t worth this headache,’ she replied. ‘Dear gods, I hope I don’t have to give a blow-by-blow account to Her. I wouldn’t know where to look.’
‘I expect the general outline will suffice,’ Alexius said. ‘Maybe that explains the secret midnight summons, and the urgency. She demands to know whether your intentions towards her brother are honourable.’
Vetriz sniffed. ‘Next time,’ she said, ‘you can jolly well walk.’
There was also a messenger who ran from the Bank down to Strangers’ Quay and the customs house, where the Deputy Chief of Excise and the duty watch were mulling a gallon of confiscated Colleon mead over the fire and toasting cheese. When the Deputy had heard what the messenger had to say, he pulled on his coat and his boots and stomped off along the quay, muttering under his breath, until he reached the Hope and Determination, a very plain and functional tavern whose idea of overnight accommodation was letting the customers sleep it off where they dropped. There he found the man he wanted, one Patras Icenego, a Perimadeian refugee and master of the Charity, a small, ugly cutter that was always tied up at the far end of the quay, fully rigged and provisioned, but never seemed to go anywhere. The curious thing about Patras Icenego was that, although he spent most of his life in the Hope and Determination, he never paid for anything and was always sober. As soon as he saw the Deputy walk in, he was on his feet. The two men talked together for a minute or so; then the Deputy went away, while Patras Icenego got up and left the tavern, walking quickly up the slope to the centre of town. He called at a variety of inns and taverns, and in a remarkably short space of time had assembled enough men, awake and sober, to crew the Charity. An hour later, the small ship was under way, its running lights fading into the sea-fret that hung around Scona like some form of protection.
‘I’m getting sick and tired of this bench,’ Vetriz said. ‘I’ll swear there’s grooves in it.’
Alexius nodded. ‘I’m tired of our cosy chats with the Lady Director,’ he replied. ‘Nothing ever seems to happen, I always end up with a headache, and I can never seem to remember what we’ve been talking about. I wonder if cows feel the same way after they’ve been milked.’
Vetriz looked at him. ‘We usually seem to be having two conversations at once; you know, one here and one over there, wherever there is. The trouble is, when we’re there it’s no earthly use trying to tell lies or pretend; they just don’t work. But we never seem to talk about anything significant. In fact, now you come to mention it, I haven’t a clue what we do talk about. I wonder if you’re right, about cows being milked.’ She shuddered. ‘Though I’d put it more in terms of flies and a spider.’
Alexius sighed. ‘I think the worst part of it’s the humiliation. Well, it would be,’ he added, ‘for me. After all, I was supposed to know about these things; Daisy the cow, Emeritus Professor of Dairy Studies.’
The door opened (‘Not so bad,’ Vetriz whispered. ‘Under an hour this time.’) and the usual bored-looking clerk collected them and ushered them in. There was a man standing behind the Director’s chair. He looked older and thinner than the last time Vetriz had seen him; but also taller and stronger, as if he’d grown. That was odd.
‘Hello,’ Gorgas said.
Vetriz nodded in reply, then looked at Niessa. She looked awful; her face had somehow collapsed, and even her hair seemed flat and thin. Perhaps she’s ill.
‘No,’ Niessa said, ‘just worry. Sit down, for pity’s sake. Now listen. At Chapter today, the Foundation voted to send six thousand halberdiers to attack Scona. It’s inconceivable that we can withstand an assault on that scale - be quiet, Gorgas - and even if we could, the effort would ruin us. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Alexius nodded. ‘I take it you’re looking for somewhere else to fight this war,’ he said.
‘Of course. Obviously, the only sensible course of action is to change their mind.’ She paused and closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Unfortunately,’ she went on, ‘I seem to have underestimated quite how big their mind is.’
Gorgas took a step forward and sat down on the edge of the desk. ‘What she’s saying is,’ he said, ‘we’d probably have a better chance trying to fight them.’
‘I thought I told you to be quiet,’ Niessa said. ‘In fact, though, what my brother’s just said isn’t so far from the truth. Trying to fend them off in the Principle is going to be much harder than I’d ever imagined. It’s possible, of course, but it’s made much harder by the fact that they know what I’m going to do. I simply hadn’t anticipated that,’ she added. ‘I thought I had the world monopoly on magic, and I was wrong. I think that’s hurt me more than the prospect of losing the Bank, knowing that I’ve made such a stupid mistake.’
‘Excuse me,’ Alexius interrupted. ‘Are you saying that the Foundation can - excuse me, they can do magic?’
Niessa shook her head impatiently. ‘I’m not in the mood for an academic discussion about terminology,’ she said. ‘When I heard the news from Chapter, I used the - damn it, terminology again; call it a link or a conduit, whatever you like, the thing I’ve been building between you and your friend Gannadius. I tried to go through you to him, to make him change their minds. But I couldn’t get in. You remember, you saw him sitting in front of you, but you couldn’t get his attention, or see what he was looking at?’
Alexius stared at her and said nothing.
‘It amazes me that they’ve been able to keep it from me,’ Niessa went on. ‘But they’ve closed it all up. If I can’t even get in, how the hell can I expect to be able to do useful work there? And now,’ she went on, ‘as if that’s not bad enough, they’re attacking me.’ She turned her head and glared at Vetriz. ‘Attacking us, through Bardas.’
Vetriz felt herself go suddenly cold, the way you feel sometimes when you cut yourself deeply. ‘Oh,’ was all she said. Niessa looked at her unpleasantly, and Vetriz remembered Alexius’ joke about honourable intentions.
‘Of course,’ she went on, ‘I’ve taken such steps as I can. Bardas will be back here in a day or so, where he belongs.’ Here she gave Gorgas a filthy look; he turned his head away. ‘And now it seems that you’ve suddenly become terribly important to us all, which I must admit surprises me a great deal; another mistake on my part which no doubt I’ll live to regret. Really,’ she added, ‘I only kept you here for tidiness’ sake. Thank the gods I’ve had the sense to keep a few peasant virtues.’
Gorgas smiled at that. She ignored him. ‘So there we are,’ she sighed. ‘The defence of the realm depends on the three of you. Gorgas can go through the motions of trying to fend off six thousand halberdiers. Alexius - well, we’ll have to see what we can do. I have an unpleasant feeling that you’re going to be needed for defence more than anything more productive, now that they’ve got control of your wretched friend. And you,’ she went on, giving Vetriz her nastiest look yet; it made Vetriz want to giggle but fortunately she managed not to. ‘You’re going to have to look after our gods-damned liability of a brother, and I wish you the very best of luck. It’s something we’ve been trying to do these past twenty years, and you can judge for yourself what sort of a fist we’v
e made of it.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘Sleep,’ said Gorgas Loredan, ‘is wrong. I don’t hold with it. If a tax-collector showed up on your doorstep and demanded a third of everything you own, you’d cut his throat and start a riot. But along comes sleep, demanding a third of your life, and you snuggle your face into the pillow and let him rob you. Well, maybe you do. Not me.’ He yawned, and covered his mouth with his fist. ‘When I was a kid, I made the decision not to let the bastard grind me down; I started cutting back, slowly and gradually, half an hour per year, and now I can get by easily on four hours a night, and go without sleep entirely for three or four days in a row if I have to. Net result is, by the time I’m your age I’ll have lived eight whole years longer than you have - that’s four more hours a day for forty-eight years, you can get out your counters and check the arithmetic if you don’t believe me. Think of it, eight more years of life. It’s like what market traders do with the coinage; you know, the way they clip a tiny bit of silver off the edge of each coin that passes through their hands, and after a while they’ve got a jar full of silver they can take down to the Mint and exchange for new coin.’
The sergeant smiled. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘You Loredans cheat everybody else, so why not Death as well? Sounds only fair to me.’
Gorgas shook his head. ‘Not all us Loredans, just me. Niessa’s got the staying power of a cheap tallow candle. About the time I’m settling down to make a start on a useful night’s work, she’s dead on her feet and sleepwalking back to her bed. Bardas was a bit better than that, but still no night-owl.’ He sighed, and put his hand over the side of the boat, letting his fingers trail in the water. ‘I’m telling you,’ he said, ‘if I were to invent some medicine you could buy in a bottle that guaranteed you an extra eight years of life, guaranteed to work, money back if not, I’d be so rich I could buy Shastel instead of fighting it. But you try and convince people to do without a few hours’ sleep, they look at you as if you were murdering their children. Crazy.’
