by K. J. Parker
Some bow. Seven shots, six confirmed hits, one possible.
At that moment, Gorgas noticed Avid Soef.
That man. he thought. That man looks like Gorgas Loredan.
There was an old story in the Soef family, about one Mihan Soef who’d won a famous victory for the Foundation by charging the enemy at a crucial turning point, a fulcrum or pivot of the war, and killing the enemy general with his own hands. Up till then, so said Soef family history, it had been a hiding to nothing - the Foundation army was being led by some nullity from an opposing faction, so it was inevitable that they should be losing. According to the story, Mihan Soef saved the day and went on to become Dean of Military Geometry, the first of the family to head a sub-faculty. That part of the story was a lie - look at the great inscribed stone in Shastel Hall, see the dozen or so Soefs listed there above Mihan, up among the dust-clogged cobwebs - but nobody cared, because it was the Soef family version of history, relevant only to themselves, and they had every right to do what they liked in it.
Ridiculous notion, of course; and anybody who tried anything of the sort under his command would answer for it at a court martial, whether it won the battle or not.
I wish I knew how we were doing, Avid Soef said to himself as he stepped over a dead man. It’s only a few yards more, but we’re hardly moving. It feels like everything’s stopped, as if we’re waiting to see what’s going to happen.
The arrow hit him on the right side of his body, two inches or so below the nipple. He knew it would be all right, because his breastplate would have turned the arrow, or at least stopped it penetrating. He took one hand off the shaft of his halberd and tried to tug the thing loose, but it wouldn’t come; also, there was suddenly a great deal of pain, which made him stop concentrating on where he was going. His foot caught in something and suddenly he was watching grass coming straight at him; his forehead hit the ground hard, painfully, and the arrow jarred agonisingly inside him. Someone trod on his back, squeezing all the air out of his chest. He heard it whistle out, and knew then that the arrow had punctured his lung. Quite soon, but not all that soon, the lung would flood with blood (Military Medicine, foundation course, year two of Tripos) and that would be the end of him. Another boot clouted against the side of his head and a great weight landed on his back; there were feet in front of his eyes, but his eyes were growing dark, like the sun setting very quickly. Just a moment, he thought.
Shot, Gorgas thought, and chose another target.
He had six arrows left; he’d be lucky to have time to loose two of them. He felt like a boy in an exam who’s left the easy question till last and suddenly finds he won’t have time to answer it. Four wasted arrows, four opportunities gone by; the twisted-gut string rasped the bloody flesh of his fingers, burning and tearing them as the bone kicked back the desperate load of compression, as the sinew jerked in contraction like an arm punching. He didn’t watch the arrow on its way (at thirty yards, no point; foregone conclusion., This close, he could see their faces, their eyes - they were hardly moving now, they were standing waiting to see what would happen) and instead concentrated on a clean nock for the next arrow, a good fast draw, bustling the bow open to exert that terrible force on bone and sinew - his wrenched muscles and jarred bones, still drawing the monstrous, overpowered hundred-pound composite recurve that was wrecking his body, flaying his fingers.
He reached down to his quiver. It was empty.
Slowly, Gorgas lowered the bow, relaxed sinew and bone, stood and waited to see what would happen.
They broke and ran at fifteen yards’ distance from the line of archers. Between seventeen and fifteen yards’ distance, two hundred and seventy-four of them were killed, in just over three seconds.
‘I think we won,’ muttered the sergeant. ‘Again.’
Gorgas opened his eyes. ‘Good,’ he said.
Nobody was moving. They were watching a little wisp of a line, a hundred or so men, walking gingerly backwards and away from them. ‘Bugger me,’ someone said, ‘there’s more of us than there are of them. We outnumber the bastards.’
‘Makes a pleasant change,’ someone else replied. ‘Can we go home now?’
Someone laughed. ‘You’ll be lucky. First Gorgas’ll make us bury the buggers.’
‘The hell with that. Let some other poor sod do it. I’m sick of burying bloody halberdiers.’
Apart from the conversation, it was very quiet. There wasn’t much noise coming from the thick wedge of bodies - a few moans, some sobbing, but less than they’d come to expect. ‘Shame there’s no use we can put them to,’ someone observed. ‘If anybody could think of something we could make out of dead soldiers, we’d all be rich.’
Someone else laughed nervously. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘it still doesn’t feel like we’ve fought a battle. I mean, you can’t call this proper fighting, can you?’
Gorgas realised that he was on his knees and stood up. It wasn’t easy to do; his back was tensed up into a knot of wrenched, twisted muscle, and he could hardly breathe for the pain. Thirty shots rapid with a hundred-pound bow makes a mess of the human body.
The fact that he felt pain strongly suggested that he was still alive. Pain is as reliable a test for the presence of life as any.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Break camp, form burial details. Once we’ve tidied up, we’re going home.’
He thought about what he had done.
He had committed violent acts against members of his own family; wounding and killing. He had shed blood of his own blood to save his own life, to resolve a difficulty. There had been a time when he’d loved his family; he had come to evil through love. He had used his own kin, flesh and blood, for an evil purpose. He hadn’t wanted to do evil.
As a soldier he had killed - what, hundreds? As a commander of soldiers, he’d arranged the deaths of thousands. He had caused a war that brought an insatiable enemy down on his people, and he’d fought in that war, responsible for the deaths of thousands. He had committed an act of betrayal for his own personal ends, regardless of the consequences for a whole nation.
Mostly, he’d done what he thought was right.
Mostly, he thought of himself as a good man, a decent human being. Apart from the violence against his family (and he claimed mitigation even in that) he’d done violence doing his duty, meaning to help and protect his people.
He had devoted most of his life to trying to help the flesh of his flesh, and in the end all his effort had been wasted, thrown away. He had tried to be a good man, and somehow through good he always came to evil.
Always, at the crucial moment, the fulcrum, the turning point, the moment of loose, the result had been evil, or something that led to evil. It was, to use familiar imagery, like the bending of a bow. Force was applied; on the outside he stretched, seeking to accommodate, while on the inside he was crushed, compressed, compacted in on himself. The old proverb says that a full-drawn bow is nine-tenths broken; a bow is made so that it does best what it does best just before the point is reached at which it must destroy itself and collapse.
He had believed in his family. He had left his home and gone to another country, accepted responsibility for a whole nation. He had come to believe in that nation. Through belief, he had come to evil.
Hitherto, he hadn’t regretted what he’d done. Mostly, he’d done what he thought was right.
He was the belly of the bow.
It had been a long day, and he hurt all over. He wanted to go home, see his wife and children, see his long-lost niece; but first there was something that had to be done. He had to say thank you.
He hadn’t seen Bardas alone since that night at the cottage, and he felt nervous, like a young man hesitating before knocking at his beloved’s door. But Bardas had made him the bow, which implied, if not forgiveness, then at least a willingness to establish diplomatic relations. He would visit his brother, thank him for the bow, say a few words and then leave. He would tell Bardas that Niessa had gone, that Bardas wa
s free to go if he wanted, that anything he could give him or do for him was his for the asking, that he wanted nothing in return. And then he would go home.
‘Come in,’ Bardas said.
The smell inside the room was nauseating. Bardas, noticing Gorgas’ involuntary reaction, grinned and said, ‘That’s the glue. Making bows can be a pretty disgusting business. But we get used to it.’
‘Right,’ Gorgas said. ‘Listen, I just came to thank you. I—’
‘That’s all right,’ Bardas replied. ‘It was the least I could do, considering what you’ve done for me.’
Gorgas didn’t know what to say. ‘Sit down, make yourself at home,’ Bardas was saying. ‘You don’t have to rush off straight away, do you?’
‘No,’ Gorgas said. ‘By the way, we won. The battle. Probably the war.’
‘That’s good,’ Bardas said. ‘I won a war once, against the plainspeople. In fact, I won it so thoroughly and well, they came back and burnt my city to the ground. With help, of course.’
Gorgas waited for him to add something, but he didn’t seem inclined to. ‘It’s a wonderful bow,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like it. What’s it made of?’
‘I’ll tell you in a moment,’ Bardas replied. ‘I’m glad you found it useful. I was worried for a while that it might be a bit stiff.’
Gorgas grinned ruefully. ‘Stiff’s putting it mildly,’ he replied. ‘As witness my back, hands and arms. At the time, though, it didn’t seem to worry me.’
Bardas nodded. ‘Plenty of power?’ he said. ‘Penetration?’
‘No question about that. Looked to me that it sent arrows through armour like it wasn’t there.’
‘That’s good,’ Bardas said. ‘Well, it was only a small contribution to the war effort - I made it, but you were the one who shot it. You always shot well with the bows I made you.’
‘Very true.’
Bardas shrugged. ‘And I always made ‘em better than I could shoot ‘em. Ironic, really. Take the bow you shot Dad with, for instance.’ Gorgas tensed up, the muscles in his belly tightening, but Bardas went on as before. ‘Originally I made that one for myself, but try as I might I could never hit a barn door with it; and the new one - well, I can only just draw the horrid thing.’
‘It’s a knack,’ Gorgas replied quietly.
‘Ironic, though; if I’d had that old bow that day, I’d never have hit all those long-range moving targets, if I’d been in your shoes.’
‘You weren’t.’
‘But I could have been. Damn it, we were both young, we hadn’t started being the people we are now. I can imagine a set of circumstances that’d have put me where you were, that day. I could have been the one who did what you did. Only,’ he added with a smile, ‘I’d have missed.’
Gorgas was silent for a moment. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you turned out to be better with the sword than I ever was with the bow.’
‘It’s kind of you to say so,’ Bardas replied gravely. ‘Coming from you, that’s an accolade. Can I ask you something?’
Gorgas didn’t like the sound of his voice, but he said, ‘Sure, ask away.’
Bardas nodded and relaxed a little more into his chair. ‘When you opened the gates of Perimadeia,’ he said, ‘what was the real reason? Iseutz said it was because Niessa told you to, but I have my doubts.’
‘I was there because Niessa sent me,’ he said. ‘And her reasons benefited me too, remember.’
Bardas acknowledged that with a gesture of his hand. ‘But I bet I know the real reason,’ he said. ‘Well, the two real reasons. First, you’d always hated Perimadeia, because that’s where young Hedin and the other boy came from; if they hadn’t come to visit, the landlords’ sons with their money and position, being better than us, you’d never have done it. In that respect, Perimadeia ruined your life, just like it ruined Temrai’s. That’s the first reason. What do you think?’
‘There’s truth in what you say, Bardas.’
‘Thought so. But the other reason,’ he went on, ‘that was something of your own. Now I’m not saying you’d ever have done it of your own hook just for this reason; Niessa gave you the order, and you thought of this and it was this that made you agree, so it’s not all your responsibility. But I think you engineered the fall of Perimadeia because I lived there, and you wanted me out into the big wide world again, where you could take care of me, see me right, make it all up for me for what you’d done. You brought me the Guelan sword, you as good as warned me about what was going to happen, you came looking for me in the fighting; you had a ship waiting to pick me up and bring me on. All that trouble you went to, just to make up with your brother. You know, in a way that’s really sweet.’
Gorgas looked at him, but there was nothing to see.
‘In a way,’ Bardas went on, ‘that was real brotherly love. I can’t think of anybody else who’d do something like that, someone so obsessively - loving. Really, making you the bow is hardly a fitting recompense.’
‘It was all I ever wanted from you,’ Gorgas replied.
‘Think nothing of it, please. But I thought I’d mention it; you see, if it was just what you’d done to Dad and the rest of us all those years ago, I’d never have made you the bow. But when I found out about the City, it set me thinking; I was thinking about it just now, a few minutes before you arrived. Gorgas, you know what? Your actions have always caused mine; in a sense, you made me, just like I made the bow. The only difference is, I made the bow out of dead tissue; you used me while I was still alive.’
Gorgas looked up. ‘What do you mean?’ he said.
Bardas stood up and walked to the door that separated the main room from the small bedchamber. ‘You were asking me about what the bow was made of,’ he said.
‘That can wait,’ Gorgas interrupted. ‘Bardas, what do you mean, my actions caused yours?’
Bardas leant against the doorpost. ‘I met your son a short while ago,’ he said. ‘What was his name? Luha? A good boy, I thought. I liked him.’
‘He’s all right,’ Gorgas said.
‘I mentioned that I was going to make you a bow,’ Bardas went on, ‘and he said he’d like to help. In fact, he helped a whole lot. Have you been home lately?’
Gorgas got to his feet. ‘Bardas,’ he said, ‘what’s all this about?’
Bardas stood out of the doorway, gesturing Gorgas to come across. ‘You asked me what I made the bow out of,’ he said. ‘Come and see.’
In the bedchamber was a low wooden bed. On the bed were the remains of a body. About half the skin had been flayed off the flesh, which was in an advanced state of decay. The ribcage was exposed; all the front ribs had been neatly sawn out, and the intestines were missing. There were long, neat slits up the sides of the arms and legs, across the chest, up the sides of the neck, where every last fibre of sinew had been carefully removed. Half the scalp was shaved. There was no sign of any blood apart from a brown residue in the bottom of a brass dish on the floor.
‘It’s wonderful,’ Bardas said. ‘Everything you need to make the perfect bow’s in there somewhere, except for a little strip of wood. I’d heard about making bows from ribs years ago. I even tried it once but it never worked; I used buffalo ribs, and I guess they just can’t take it the way human bone can. Human sinew, too; it’s marvellous stuff, far better than deer or beef tendon. Then there’s the skin, for rawhide and glue; blood, for glue again; guts for the bowstring - some waste, obviously, but not too much. There’s even fat for waterproofing and fine hair to make into serving thread; I read somewhere that human hair makes good bowstrings, but I thought I’d stick with tried and tested gut.’ He put a hand on Gorgas’ shoulder. ‘And I bet there were times you thought Luha’d never amount to much. Instead, look, he’s helped you win the war.’
Gorgas was still and quiet for a long time, thinking. Bardas sat down at the foot of the bed, waiting for him to speak. ‘Good tactics, don’t you think?’ he went on, as Gorgas stayed quiet. ‘Your wife thinks
her son’s here with me, staying with Uncle Bardas. Which he is, of course, though in a sense he also went with his father to the wars. That’s neat, really; he’s learnt soldiering with you and bow-making with me. Really, the best of both of us.’
‘It’s all right,’ Gorgas said.
Bardas looked at him. ‘What did you say?’ he asked.
‘It’s all right,’ Gorgas repeated slowly. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
Bardas jumped up and grabbed him; he didn’t resist. ‘What the hell do you mean, it doesn’t matter, it’s all right? Gorgas, I just killed your son! I killed your son and I made him into a bow, and you’re telling me it’s all right. What is wrong with you?’
Gorgas had his eyes shut. ‘What’s done is done,’ he said firmly. ‘Luha is dead, we can’t bring him back. I’ve lost a son, but I can always have another one, I can make sons, I can’t make brothers. If I - if anything happened to you, you’d be gone for ever, and there’d be no point in that, it’d be a waste.’
Bardas let go of him and slumped against the wall. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘You’re forgiving me. Gorgas, I always knew you were evil, but I never thought you were as bad as this.’
