by K. J. Parker
“But you didn’t.”
“No. I didn’t have that option. And if I could’ve foreseen what was going to happen … If I’d had a vision of this moment, so I could’ve seen exactly what a complete and utter fuck-up I was going to make, with dead civilians heaped up like cords for the winter log-pile and basically no chance at all of getting out of this in one piece, I’d still have done it. I’d do it again tomorrow.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Would you care to hazard a guess why? And you sit there, cold as last night’s roast mutton, and tell me you love Orsea, final, nonnegotiable.”
“I do.”
“Well, fine.” Valens jumped up and turned his back on her. “That’s your privilege. I take it you’re like me, don’t suffer fools gladly. And since we’re both agreed that I’m the biggest idiot still living, I quite understand your choice. Orsea may be a clown and a source of trouble and sorrow for everybody in the known world, but he’s a harmless genius compared to me. You haven’t got a spare copy of Pasier with you, by any chance? I feel in the mood for reading him again, but I left my copy back in the city, along with everything else I used to own.”
“I’m sorry.” He couldn’t see the expression on her face, and her tone of voice was flat, almost dead. “You were the only real friend I ever had. I used to live for your letters. I think you’re the only person I’ve ever known who’s tried to understand me.”
“But you love Orsea.”
“Yes.”
“There you are, then. Tell you what, why not get him to write to you? Dear Veatriz: how are you? The weather has been nice again today, though tomorrow it might rain. He could probably manage that, if he stuck at it for a while.”
“I really am very sorry,” she said, and, for the first time since his father died, Valens allowed himself to admit defeat; to recognize it, as if it was some foreign government whose existence he could no longer credibly ignore. “It’s all right,” he said. “Funny, really. I used to think you brought out the best in me, and now it turns out you have the opposite effect. Shows how much I really know you. After all, it’s different in letters: you can be who you wish you were, instead of who you actually are.”
“That’s not true,” she said. “I know who you really are. It’s — well, it’s a waste, really.”
“Did you know my wife’s dead?” he asked suddenly, almost spitting the information out. “The Mezentines killed her. I really wish I could feel heartbroken about it, or sorry, or even angry. Instead — you know how I feel? Like when I was a kid, and my father had arranged a big hunt, and then it pissed down with rain and we couldn’t go out. But when he died, I felt so bad about that. He loved it so much, and I hated it. I started going out with the hounds again to punish myself, I guess. Now, when I go out, it’s the only time I feel at peace with myself. Even reading your letters never made me feel that way. You know what I used to do? As soon as I got a letter from you, I’d cancel all my appointments, I’d read it over and over again — taking notes, for crying out loud — and then I’d spend a whole day, two or three sometimes, writing the reply. You can’t begin to imagine how hard I worked, how I concentrated; there’d be books heaped up everywhere so I could chase up obscure facts and apposite quotations. First I’d write a general outline, in note form, with headings; then a separate sheet of paper for each heading, little diagrams to help me figure out the structure. Then I’d copy out a first draft, leaving plenty of space between the lines so I could write bits in over the top; then a second and third draft, often a fourth. If I’d have worked a tenth as hard on politics, I’d have conquered the Mezentines by now and be getting ready to invade the Cure Hardy.” He laughed. “Bet you thought I just scribbled down the first thing that came into my head. I wrote them so that’s what you’d think — like we were talking, and everything came spontaneously from my vast erudition and sparkling, quicksilver mind. I spent a whole day on one sentence once. I couldn’t decide whether it’d sound more natural and impromptu if the relative clause came at the beginning or the end. Actually, it was a bloody masterpiece of precision engineering, though I do say so myself. And the irony is, you never realized. If you’d realized, it’d have meant I’d failed.”
He stopped talking and turned round sharply; he’d heard the tent flap rustle. A sergeant was hovering in the doorway, looking worried and trying to apologize for interrupting.
“It’s all right,” she said, “I was just going.”
He couldn’t bear to see her go, so he looked down at the ground until he saw her shadow pass out into the light and break up. Then he turned on the sergeant like a boar rounding on the pack.
“What the fuck do you want?” he said.
The sergeant looked terrified. “It’s Vaatzes, sir,” he said. “That Mezentine. He’s come back.”
24
Until he left the city, Ziani had never thought much about food. Like all Mezentines, he’d taken it for granted. He’d had a vague idea that vegetables somehow came up out of the ground, and meat was the bodies of dead animals; anyhow, it was crude, primitive and mildly distasteful, and he really wasn’t interested. The Republic’s attitude to eating was that it was just another bodily function, to be performed as quickly and efficiently as possible, in private. A long time ago there had been grain mills in the city, but now their races and wheels were more profitably employed powering the driveshafts of machine shops. Mezentia bought its flour from the savages ready-ground and handed it over to the Bakers’ Guild, to be converted into manufactured wares as swiftly as possible. The bakers produced three types of loaf (small, medium, large); each loaf identical to others in its category, its weight and dimensions strictly in accordance with the prescribed specification.
Because nobody in the city ever went hungry, it was hard for Ziani to grasp the idea of there being no food; a whole population with nothing to eat. It was impossible, because in the city the bakers had a carefully agreed rota system that governed their opening hours, making sure there was always a bakery open for business at any hour of the day or night. Trust the savages to be different. Their food came from farms; it traveled from the farms to markets — big open spaces crammed with heaps and bins of raw, untreated,inchoate food, which people bought and took away to process themselves. And that was when the system was functioning perfectly. When something went wrong — in a war, for example — even that pathetic excuse for organization broke down, and there was a very real danger of people not having anything to eat. Extraordinary, but that’s how some people manage to live; like cottages perched on the rim of a volcano.
Not that he objected; quite the reverse, since it had given him the opportunity to make a hero’s entrance when he arrived in Valens’ camp at the head of a short column of carts laden with flour, root vegetables, salted and preserved meat, cheese and a load of other stuff he didn’t even recognize, but which the general manager of the miners’ camp at Boatta assured him was both edible and wholesome.
The food had actually been an afterthought, a by-product of his detour to Boatta, which in turn had been nothing but camouflage, to explain away his long absence. The fact that it meant that everybody in Valens’ column was pleased to see him was an unexpected but very welcome bonus.
“Before we left, we thought it’d be a good idea to empty out the stores and bring the stuff on with us,” he explained truthfully. “To stop the Mezentines getting hold of it, as much as anything. It was only when the manager went through the inventory that we realized just how much food they’d got stockpiled there. My guess is that there was a standing order for so much flour and whatever each month, which was more than the miners needed, but nobody ever thought to reduce the amount; so the unused supplies were just squirreled away in the stores.”
Valens shrugged. “Three cheers for inefficiency and waste, in that case,” he said. “They’ve just saved all our lives.”
They were unloading the flour barrels, rolling them down improvised ramps from the tailgates of the miners’ carts. Crowds of civili
ans were watching, with the wary but rapt attention of dogs watching their owners eat. It’s just flour, Ziani thought; even if they’re starving hungry, it’s just an inert white powder with no moving parts.
“Nobody told me what you were doing,” Valens was saying, “or where you’d got to. I don’t remember telling you to go and bring in the miners from Boatta.”
“Don’t you?” Ziani looked at him blankly. “I thought we discussed it; or maybe it was Carausius who gave me the order, I can’t remember offhand. Anyway, it seemed logical enough; I had to go over there anyway to make sure they’d made a proper job of sabotaging the silver workings, so while I was there, why not get the evacuation organized at the same time? I’m just glad it worked out so well.”
Valens nodded. “It’s just as well you were able to find us,” he said pleasantly. “I hadn’t actually decided on the itinerary when we left the city, so you can’t have known we were headed this way. I hate to think what might have happened if you’d missed us.”
“Oh.” Ziani raised his eyebrows. “I’m surprised to hear you say that. I knew you’d be on this road, because the first supply dump’s at Choris Andrope — you showed me the list of depots, or I saw it somewhere, and I knew you’d be following the mountain roads, but obviously keeping as much distance as you could between yourself and the Eremian border. So, this was the only possible road you could’ve taken.”
“I see,” Valens said. “You figured it out from first principles.”
“Well, it’s hardly applied trigonometry.” Ziani shrugged. “Besides, we were able to confirm your position when we picked up a couple of Mezentine stragglers on the way. Which reminds me,” he added, looking away for a moment, “there’s something I need to talk to you about, when you can spare a moment.”
“Now?”
“It’ll keep,” Ziani replied, slightly awkwardly. “It’s a delicate matter for discussing in the open like this.”
“That sounds a bit dramatic.”
“Does it? I’m sorry. Oh, I nearly forgot. I gather you had some trouble with some of the carts, but Daurenja managed a temporary fix. I’d better have a word with him about that. Do you happen to know where he is?”
Before he went looking for Daurenja, Ziani returned to the cart he’d ridden in on and opened the lid of the link box. Inside was a weatherbeaten canvas satchel. He looped the strap round his neck and shut the lid.
Daurenja was where Valens had said he’d be. They’d set up a makeshift forge, and half a dozen smiths were beating nails out of scraps of cart-armor offcut; Daurenja was drilling holes in a rectangular piece, to make up a heading plate. The drill-bit was getting hot and binding, so he paused every now and then to spit into the hole. Ziani waited until he’d finished before interrupting.
“You’re back.” Daurenja seemed overjoyed to see him. “Nobody knew where you were, I was worried.”
“Never mind about me. Where were you?”
Daurenja frowned. “Absent without leave, I’m sorry to say. There was a bit of private business I wanted to clear up; I thought it’d only take a day, at most, and it was pretty urgent, it wouldn’t wait. You’ve probably heard, I jeopardized the whole column by not being on hand when I was needed. I’m sorry: error of judgment on my part.”
Ziani grinned. “I heard about it,” he said. “And I gather Miel Ducas is under guard somewhere as a result. Is that right?”
Daurenja nodded. “Not that I’m worried, he won’t do anything while I’m —”
“That’s not the point.” Ziani scowled. “I’m just anxious not to run into him unexpectedly, that’s all. He and I don’t get on.”
“I see. Well, you’re all right for the moment.” Daurenja smiled. “They brought in a bunch of the scavengers; you know, the gang that’s been stripping all the dead bodies. Apparently he knows one of them, I’m not sure of the details. Anyhow, he’s in with them at the moment, so he’ll be out of your way and mine for a while.” He wrinkled his forehead. “I didn’t know you and —”
“Nothing to do with you. What’s all this about the plate mountings on the small carts?”
When he’d finished with Daurenja, he wandered about for a while until he was fairly sure he wouldn’t be interrupted, then found an empty cart on the edge of the camp. There he opened his satchel and took out a dog-eared, much-folded piece of parchment. It was a map. He looked at it for a while, then took a pair of dog-leg calipers from his pocket and measured some distances, muttering calculations under his breath. When he’d finished, he folded the map carefully and put it away again before climbing down out of the cart.
It took him a minute or so to find a Vadani officer with nothing to do.
“Go and find Duke Orsea,” he said, “and then come and tell me where he is.”
The officer looked at him. “On whose authority?”
“Mine. Oh, and round up half a platoon for guard duty.”
The officer didn’t know what to make of that; still, he decided, better orders from a Mezentine civilian of dubious status than no orders at all. “Where will I find you?”
“Either around here somewhere or with Duke Valens.”
The officer nodded. “How long will you be needing the men for?”
“Indefinitely.”
So much to do, Ziani thought, as the officer hurried away, so little time and no help. It was so much easier back at the ordnance factory. Better organized, and reliable, civilized people to deal with. Never mind, he consoled himself. Getting there. Halfway there, at least, and most of the hard work done already.
(Briefly he considered the clerk, Psellus. He’d been a stroke of luck, though whether the luck was good or bad he wasn’t quite sure yet. And something else to think about, as if he hadn’t got enough on his mind already.)
There were a few other documents in the satchel; he checked they were still there, but didn’t bother getting them out or reading them. Then the mine superintendent from Boatta found him, with a query about billeting arrangements. Vexing; but he’d taken a lot of trouble to make sure that the Boatta contingent answered directly to him. A small private army, just in case he needed it.
“Oh, and that other business.” The superintendent looked round as he spoke, deplorably conspicuous, as many straightforward people are when they’re trying to act furtive. “My boys found her all right; they’ve just got back.”
Ziani nodded calmly. “They brought the body?”
“It’s in the small chaise,” the superintendent replied, “under a pile of sacks. I told one of the lads to keep an eye on it, make sure nobody goes poking about.”
“Fine, thanks.” Ziani yawned, a feigned gesture that became genuine as his weariness asserted itself. He hated having to concentrate when he was tired. “I’ll need you in a little while,” he said. “Where will you be?”
The superintendent shrugged. “I’ve got duty rosters to fill out,” he said. “I was going back to our wagons.”
“All right, just so long as I know where you are.”
“You’re sure this is all … ?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
When he was alone again, he made a conscious effort and emptied his mind of everything except the map. The other business could all fall through and no real harm done, if the worst came to the worst. The map — especially now that the Cure Hardy princess was dead. More luck (good or bad).
He could hear hammers: Daurenja’s blacksmiths, doggedly making nails to mend the damaged carts with. It seemed like a lifetime ago, when he’d spent his days quietly, efficiently making things, while wise men, properly qualified in such matters, shaped policy far away in the Guildhall. Now, though, he knew that the policy-makers were men like Psellus the clerk; his inferior in every conceivable respect, an implement. Too late now to settle down somewhere and get a job. Still, the sound of hammers hurt him, like birdsong heard in the early morning, on the way to the gallows. A day’s useful work and a quiet evening at home was all he’d ever asked for. And love, w
hich had spoiled everything.
(The Cure Hardy, he thought. How much had that stupid woman in the ridiculous red outfit really known about the Cure Hardy? The map; his ludicrous venture into the salt trade. The map. And having to rely for so much on the detailed cooperation of the enemy … )
He glanced up and noted the position of the sun. Time to go and find Duke Valens.
He found him sitting on the ground, his back to a cartwheel, making notes on a wad of scrap paper and doing calculations one-handed on a portable counting-board. He looked up, squinting into the sun, then said, “There was something you wanted to talk to me about?”
“If you’ve got a moment. I can see you’re busy.”
Valens laughed. “Wasting my time,” he said. “I’m trying to work out how long we’ve got, even with what you brought in, before we starve to death. I figure we might just make it to the supply dump, provided the Mezentines haven’t found it already. And assuming you can fix up the carts.”
Ziani shook his head. “You don’t need me for that, it’s just basic joinery. Besides, Daurenja’s appointed himself chief engineer; I saw him at that forge he’s rigged up, making nails. I’d only be in the way.”
“If you say so.” Valens picked up one of the casting counters and fiddled with it. “But you can see why I said it’s a waste of time doing all these stupid calculations. I’m afraid we aren’t going to get there. The margin’s too tight.” He flipped the counter like a coin and caught it backhanded, without even looking. “Oh, I’ve thought it through. I’ve considered sending the fast wagons ahead to get the supplies and fetch them back here, but that’s just begging the Mezentines to have another go at us. They’re bound to have scouts out watching every move we make. I might as well draw them a map, with the depot marked on it in red ink.”
Talking of maps … “This may sound stupid,” Ziani said, “but do we have to go to Choris Andrope? Yes, I know that’s where the depot is; but even if we make it and the food’s still there, it won’t have solved anything, just postponed it. Excuse me if I’m speaking out of turn, but I get the impression you haven’t got anywhere in particular in mind as a destination; you’re just planning to wander about until the Mezentines go away.”
