by K. J. Parker
“I’m sorry?” Orsea said.
“The wedding. Fascinating. Politically, I mean.”
“Oh,” Orsea said.
“I mean, take the exchange of rings,” the woman went on. “You saw who was carrying the tray with the bride’s ring on it. Calvus Falx, of all people. If that’s not a smack in the face for the moderates —”
“I see,” Orsea lied. A bowl of soup materialized in front of him, and he reached for his spoon. The woman, he noticed, slurped when eating soup.
“And don’t get me started on the presents,” she was saying. “Talk about making a statement; they might as well have built a stage in the market square and read out speeches. Chancellor Carausius’ gift to the bride’s uncles; you saw it, of course.”
Orsea tried frantically to remember what he’d given to who. “Well, no, I —”
“Hunting knives,” the woman said bitterly, “silver inlay,Mezentine. I had a good look when nobody was looking, the makers’ marks were there plain as anything. Of course, it’s pretty obvious what all that was about; but if he thinks he’s going to convince them that easily, I’d say he’s in for a nasty surprise. They may be savages, but they aren’t stupid. They know as well as we do, trading at fourth hand through intermediaries for finished manufactured goods is going to cost us an absolute fortune, and with the mines all closed up …”
Luckily, she didn’t seem to expect anything from him apart from the occasional interested-sounding grunt, and he was good at those. Accordingly he was able to turn his mind out to graze on the implications of something the annoying man had said. They ought at least to be able to be friends; and that matters so much more than love in a marriage. He thought about that, and wondered if it was true. Veatriz — he loved her, or he had loved her very much, but they’d never been friends, not as he understood the word. He hadn’t needed her for that; he’d always had Miel Ducas.
(Who’d always loved her, ever since they were children, and who should have married her, except that that would’ve meant the Ducas getting the throne, which would have been a disaster politically; and who loved her enough to conceal the letter from Valens, who loved her as a friend, because to him there was no difference; and for that Miel had been disgraced, and Valens had come to save her, thereby bringing down ruin on his people, just as Orsea had ruined Eremia. He imagined a map, with great big areas on it hatched in red: these regions laid waste for love … )
To his unspeakable relief, as soon as the soup was taken away and replaced with a cured venison salad, the woman turned away sharply, like a well-drilled soldier, and started talking to the man on her other side. Free, Orsea ate some lettuce and a bit of meat (felt and tasted like honey-cured rawhide) until the woman on his right said, “Excuse me, but aren’t you Duke Orsea?”
He hadn’t even noticed her. She was wearing a dress of deep red velvet, down the front of which she’d spilled at least one full spoon’s worth of soup. She was round-faced, steel-haired, with eyes that bulged slightly, like a dead rabbit.
“That’s me,” Orsea said. “Who’re you?”
“Calenda Maea, at your service,” she replied, with a short, vigorous nod. “Specializing in heavy materials. Iron ore, lumber, best prices anywhere.” She grinned. “So you’re the genius who thinks we should all nail sheets of tin to our carts and take to the hills.”
Orsea blinked. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
“It’s all right, I know it’s supposed to be hush-hush, I won’t embarrass you. Let’s talk about something else. Your pet Mezentine, the one who’s giving all the juicy orders to the Falcata sisters. Is money changing hands somewhere I don’t know about, or does he actually enjoy being ripped off ?”
Orsea sighed. “I think you may have got me mixed up with someone else,” he said. “I haven’t got anything to do with Vaatzes these days. In fact, I don’t really do anything.”
She frowned. “You’re on the emergency council, aren’t you?”
“That’s true,” Orsea said. “But they’ve stopped telling me when the meetings are, so I don’t go anymore.”
“Oh. So you aren’t really involved with purchasing.”
“Me? No.”
“Ah.” She shrugged. “My mistake. So, who should I be talking to about bulk consignments of quality scrap iron?”
Orsea shrugged. “No idea,” he said.
“Fine.” The woman frowned at him, as if to say that he had no right to be there if he wasn’t any use to her. “So what do you make of it all, then?”
“I don’t.”
“What? Oh, I see. No comment at this time, is that it?”
“If you like.”
She nodded. “Sounds like the administration’s got something up its sleeve it doesn’t want anybody knowing about, in that case,” she said. “Playing its cards close to its chest, in case word gets out and sends materials prices rocketing. Fine, we’ll find out anyway, we’ve got other sources of information, you know. No, what I meant was, the marriage. What do you reckon?”
“None of my business,” Orsea said.
She laughed. “Politicians,” she said. “Well, please yourself. Me, I think it’s an absolute disaster. Good for business, of course, because all those soldiers, they’re going to need feeding and clothes and boots and tents and all that. We do a lot of business with the Cure Doce — carriage is a nightmare, of course, but we manage; no such word as can’t, my mother used to say — so I think we’ll be getting our slice sooner or later, even if your chief of procurement is sleeping with the Falcatas. But otherwise …” She shrugged, and the contents of her dress rolled like the ocean in fury. “I hope I’m wrong, of course, but I know I’m right. Fair enough, I’m no great authority on happy marriages. You’ve just got to look at the idiot I ended up with to see that. But I reckon, if you’re going to get married at all, it ought to be for the right reason, and well, there’s only one reason for getting married, isn’t there?”
“Is there?”
“Are you serious? Of course. If you’re going to marry, marry for love. Not for money, not to please your family, and certainly not for cavalry. I mean,” she went on with a sour expression on her face, “you’ve just got to look at her. Miserable, sharp-faced bitch. Oh sure, they’ve done a fantastic job training her, she can sit on a chair and eat with a knife and a spoon and talk just like people, but that doesn’t change what she is. Still, that’s the price you pay for sitting in the top chair. I guess he’s done well to hold out as long as he has done.”
Orsea frowned. “Valens, you mean?”
She nodded. “They’ve been on at him for years to get married, but he’s dug his heels in and fought them like crazy, every time. Nice girls, too, some of them. They used to say he was, well, you know, but I never believed that. I mean, if that was true, he’d have married the first one they threw at him, just to get them all off his back, and then got on with his own way of doing things, so to speak, and no bother. Trouble with Valens is, though, he’s a romantic.”
Orsea couldn’t help reacting to that. “You think so? I’d have thought he’s the most down-to-earth man I’ve ever —”
She laughed; genuine laughter, but not kind. “You’re kidding, of course,” she said. “No, our dashing, moody young duke is a play-actor. He plays at being himself, if you see what I mean. He’s like an artist, creating one great masterpiece: himself, of course. He’s his life’s work. Mostly he sees himself as Valens the Great, best duke the Vadani ever had. Other times, though, he’s Valens the dark, driven, passionate lover — and that only works, of course, if you can’t have the one you really want. Settle him down with a nice cheerful girl with a sense of humor, he’d pine away and die. That’s what all this is about, of course. If he’s got to marry someone — grand self-sacrifice to save the duchy in its darkest hour — he picks the most impossible girl anybody could imagine: Cure Hardy, dour, miserable, wouldn’t know a joke if it burrowed up her bum. You can’t
help feeling sorry for him, though. Well,” she added thoughtfully, as if she’d just remembered something. “You’d be the exception, of course. I expect you’re breathing a big sigh of relief, now today’s over. Though of course you never had anything to worry about. Not his way.”
The temptation to pour the contents of the oil-cruet down the front of her dress was one of the strongest forces Orsea had ever encountered in his life. He resisted it — epic poems should have been composed about that battle — and instead shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “And I don’t really want to talk about the Duke’s private life, if it’s all the same to you.”
“All right,” she said, with a grin. “Let’s talk about niter.”
For a moment, Orsea was sure he’d misheard her. “What?”
“Niter.” Big smile, revealing many teeth, all different shapes and sizes. “Stuff you get when you boil up a big load of dirt off the floor of a chicken run or a pigsty; when all the water’s steamed off, you’re left with a sort of white powder. They use it for preserving meat.”
Orsea nodded slowly. “And you foresee a demand for preserved meat because of the war. Rations for the soldiers.”
“Stands to reason,” she said. “They’ll be crying out for the stuff, when we evacuate. Not to mention rations for the Duke’s dowry; don’t suppose they eat bread, or porridge, though I suppose they may prefer their meat raw. Pull it off the bone with their teeth, like as not. Anyhow, I’ve got a customer who wants all the niter he can get, and I know for a fact the bloody Falcatas have got all the domestic stocks tied up — contrary to the public interest, I call it, cornering the market in essential supplies when there’s a war on. So I thought, there must be loads of chicken coops in Eremia, and nobody much left to take an interest in them, if you see what I mean. And my lot, the Merchant Adventurers — well, I’m not saying we’ve got a relationship with the Mezentines, that’d be a gross overstatement and not very patriotic, of course; but trade’s got to go on, hasn’t it, or where would we all be? So what I’m saying is, the fact that any possible niter deposits may happen to be in occupied territory wouldn’t be the end of the world, so to speak. Not absolutely fatal to a deal, if everything else falls into place.”
Orsea shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “We probably had chickens in Eremia; in fact, I’m fairly certain of it. But where they lived and who looked after them —”
“Doesn’t have to be chickens,” she said. “Could be pigs. Bats, even. You get a cave where bats have been roosting for a good many years, that’s a real treasure-trove. Anywhere there’s shit,basically, or other sorts of animal stuff rotting down. I heard somewhere you can make niter from the soil of an old graveyard.” She smiled at him. “You must’ve had them in Eremia.”
Orsea sighed. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” he said. “But the answer’s no, I can’t help you. Maybe if you got in touch with someone in the resistance —”
“Them? Oh, they’re ancient history, now Valens has cut off the money. Thought you’d have known that, it being your duchy.”
“So you deal in minerals, then?” Orsea said, polite and brittle as an icicle. “I thought you said you were in lumber and iron ore.”
“Bulk commodities,” she replied. “All the same to me. Of course,” she went on, “the big thing coming up’s going to be salt, thanks to the marriage. Beats me, though. Everybody’s talking about salt, how these savages have got access to the salt pans and how we’re going to get it all and salt’s going to be the new silver. What nobody seems to have thought about, however, is the fact that there’s a bloody great big desert between them and us, and nobody can get across it with a caravan or even half a dozen carts. Have you heard how many of the princess’ entourage died crossing the desert on their way here? Shocking. They just don’t value human life the way we do.” She wiped her lips on her napkin, and picked up a partridge leg. “I mean, I reckon I’m reasonably smart, I like to think I know what’s going on; but if someone’s cracked that particular problem, they haven’t told me about it. So,” she went on, and Orsea took a deep breath, enduring each second as it came and went, “they can have the salt business and much good may it do them. Meanwhile, there’s other stuff in the world that wants buying and selling, and if they want to waste their time on salt, that’s fine by me. You’re sure about the niter, are you? All right, how about sulfur? There’s been a lot of people talking about it lately, so maybe there’s a market coming up …”
Thinking back on it later, Orsea couldn’t say how he survived the rest of the wedding breakfast; but he managed, somehow.Valens and his new bride got up and left the Great Hall; there was a short pause, and then the rest of the high table filed out; once they were gone, there was a general polite push-and-shove for the exits. The horrible woman in the red dress was still talking at him when the currents parted them. He didn’t stop until he was safe, fifty yards down the long cloister. Then he remembered: he was invited to the afternoon hunt, which meant fighting his way back to his rooms to get changed. Praying fervently that he wouldn’t bump into the dreadful woman, he turned back and forced his way upstream until he reached the arch that led to the courtyard. Then he picked up his heels and ran.
“Where did you get to?” Veatriz demanded as he burst through the door. “You’d better get ready, we’ll be late.”
He was already lifting the lid of the clothes press, nosing about for a clean tunic. “You’re coming?”
“Well, yes. Had you forgotten?”
He looked at her. She’d changed already, into a plain, straight green gown and low-heeled red shoes. “What? No, sorry.” He scowled. “I got trapped at the breakfast talking to this appalling woman, she’s jangled my brains so badly I can’t think. Yes, of course you’re coming too. Where the hell is my suede jerkin?”
She sighed. “You won’t want that,” she said, “not for hawking. Besides, you’ll boil. You want a light linen tunic and a silk damask cotehardie.”
“Oh. Have I got … ?”
“Yes. In the trunk.”
He nodded, slammed the press shut and started digging in the trunk like a rooting pig. “Shoes,” he said.
“Boots. You’re riding, remember? Wear the ones you had on yesterday.”
“They’re horrible.”
“They were a present from Valens.”
“He won’t notice if I —”
“He’s just the sort who would,” she snapped. “When are you going to realize, we’ve got to be polite to these people?”
He stood up and looked at her. There was a great deal he wanted to say, more than he’d wanted to say for a very long time. He looked away and pulled off his shirt.
“Come on,” she said. “Think how it’ll look if we keep the whole party waiting.”
In the event, they were neither late nor early, and nobody seemed to have noticed that they’d arrived. The main courtyard was filled with horses and grooms (marry for love, not cavalry, the woman had said), falconers and austringers and the hawks themselves on their wrists, bizarre in their tasseled hoods. Orsea realized that he knew hardly anybody there.
“Who’s that smiling at us?” he hissed in his wife’s ear.
“Pelleus Crux,” she whispered back. “Something to do with …”
He didn’t hear the rest of what she said, because a hawk bated next to him, its wing slapping his face as it shot off the falconer’s wrist and stopped abruptly, restrained by the jesses.
“I’m sorry,” said a familiar voice. “I’m new at this, and I guess I must have …”
Orsea peered round the falcon and saw an unmistakable face; brown. “Hello,” he said.
Ziani Vaatzes grinned sheepishly at him. “Would you do me a great favor,” he said, “and get this stupid bird off me?”
Veatriz giggled. “Go on,” she said. “The poor thing’s scared out of its wits.”
“The same,” Ziani replied gravely, thrusting his wrist in Orsea’s direction, “is proba
bly true of the bird. Not,” he added, “that I care, so long as somebody else takes it.”
Orsea smiled, and nudged his finger under the hawk’s claws. It stepped up onto it, and he said, “Untie the jesses, I can’t take it otherwise.”
“The what?”
“The leather strings round its legs. They’re tied to your arm.”
“Are they? So they are.” Ziani fumbled for a moment, and the jesses dropped. Orsea grabbed them quickly with his left hand and tucked them into his right fist. “I’m very sorry,” Ziani was saying. “Some fool came and shoved this thing at me. I got the impression it’s meant to be a great honor, but —”
“It is,” Orsea said. “What you’ve got here is a peregrine. Nice one, too.”
“Peregrine,” Ziani repeated. “Hang on, I know this. The peregrine is for a count —”
“Earl, actually,” Orsea said. “A count would have a saker. But you’re close.” He frowned. “Have you been reading King Fashion?”
Ziani nodded. “Not that it’s done me much good,” he said. “It’s hard memorizing stuff when you haven’t got a clue what any of it means.” He pulled a face, as though concentrating. “You’re a duke, so you ought to have a falcon of the rock, whatever that’s supposed to be.”
Orsea laughed. “Actually, nobody knows, it’s been the subject of learned debate for centuries. Most people reckon it means either a gyrfalcon or a gyrfalcon tiercel, but there’s another school of thought that reckons it means a goshawk, even though they’re short-winged hawks and not really falcons at all.” He clicked his tongue. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m told that falconry is the second most boring subject in the world, if you don’t happen to be up on it. I can’t remember what the first most boring is. Hunting, probably.”
Ziani shook his head. “Engineering,” he said. “Trust me, I’ve seen the glazed look in people’s eyes when I’ve been talking at them too long.”
“Well, I won’t contradict you,” Orsea said sagely. “Though I reckon fencing’s got to be pretty close to the top of the list, and Mannerist poetry, and estate management. All the stuff I actually know something about,” he added with a grin, “which says something or other about an aristocratic education.” Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Veatriz; she had that fixed smile that meant her attention was elsewhere; the men were talking, her job was to keep still and look respectably decorative. Of course, he told himself, he didn’t think like that; perish the thought. On the other hand, he could have a fairly animated conversation with a relative stranger, but only ever talked to her in questions — where’s my shirt, what time are we supposed to be there, did you remember to bring the keys? Well, he thought, marriage. When you know someone as well as you know your wife, there’s not a great deal that needs saying out loud (he didn’t believe that, but it sounded comfortably plausible). “Anyhow,” he said, a little too loudly, as if he’d just caught himself nodding off to sleep, “I’ll look after this beauty for you, if you don’t want …”
