by K. J. Parker
'Over here,' Potto Ilec went on, clumping along the duck-board towards the far wall, 'we've got the saw benches, where we cut the bone into narrow sheets. Absolutely wonderful, these new saws. All it takes to run them is three men: one turns the handle, one feeds the bones into the hopper, and the third one runs them through against the fence. There, see.'
Some show of interest was obviously called for, so Poldarn took a step or so closer to the nearest saw bench. In spite of himself, he found it rather fascinating. A tall, bony child was turning a crank (he had to stand on tiptoe to bring it up to top dead centre), which powered a complicated-looking nest of gearwheels, which in turn spun the round sawblade at an astonishingly high speed. The blade was two-thirds buried in a massive wooden bench, and parallel to it was a deep keyway running the length of the benchtop, in which rode a shuttle, fitted with wooden screws and clamps artfully designed to grip various shapes and sizes of bone. A bald man in a frayed red shirt pushed the shuttle forward into the sawblade, which shot out a jet of fine white dust, like a fountain-Poldarn noticed that he was missing half the thumb of his left hand and most of the middle finger of his right-while behind him a short, fat child clamped another bone into another shuttle. The smell of friction-burned bone was sickening.
'Over here,' Potto Dec said, 'we've got the drilling benches. Another wonderful innovation; you won't see anything like this anywhere in the world, I'm convinced of it.'
The first thing Poldarn noticed about the drilling bench was the row of what looked like miniature gallows-an upright post, about as long as his forearm, with two bars sticking out at right angles, one a hand's span above the other. There was a hole bored in the end of each of these bars, in which rode a wooden spindle with a brass collet holding a tiny flat-bladed drill mounted on the end. Five or six turns of cord were wrapped round the middle of the spindle; the ends of the cord were fastened to the nocks of a wooden bow, which a worker pushed and pulled backwards and forwards, spinning the drill in its bearings. The second man on each drill pressed down on the top of the spindle with a pad of rag or, as often as not, the bare palm of his hand, thereby pushing the drill down into the workpiece-a square of bone pared off one of the long, thin slices produced by the saw bench, held in position by two wooden clamps tightened by thumbscrews. After each hole had been drilled, the presser-down slacked off the thumbscrews and turned the bone square in its jig, ready to drill the next hole, the result being four holes in a precise square, in the very centre of the piece of bone.
'I can see your colleague shares my passion for fine machinery,' Potto Ilec told Copis happily. 'I'm just like him, I could stand for hours on end just watching.'
Poldarn, looking at the drill bench, had his back to Copis and therefore couldn't see the expression on her face, but the little grunting noise she made was enough to give him a fairly unambiguous idea of what she thought about that.
'The next process is really clever,' Potto Ilec declared, leading the way rather too quickly for comfort across the unstable duckboards. 'Our chief engineer's idea, though I must confess that some of the refinements are mine. See if you can guess which.'
Poldarn had no intention of doing anything of the sort; but the machine-for making the square blanks round-was clever enough, in its way. Mostly it was a lathe; a boy cranked a flywheel, transmitting power by means of belts and flywheels to a spindle in a sturdy oak headstock, in the centre of which was a boss with four pins sticking out of it in a square. These went through the holes in the button and located into matching holes in a revolving faceplate mounted in the tailstock. As the boy turned the handle the spindle spun round at a quite incredible rate, and the turner applied the edge of a chisel rested on a toolpost to the corners of the bone square until they'd been chipped away, leaving a perfectly circular button. This only took a few moments, after which the tailstock was drawn back, the rounded button dropped into a jar, and a new blank fitted. When the jar was full, Poldarn supposed, it was taken away and put in front of one of the polishers squatting on the damp floor. He asked Potto Ilec why he hadn't built a machine to do that job as well.
Potto Ilec looked very sad. 'God knows, I've tried,' he said. 'But the problem's holding the button. We tried modifying the pin-chucks on the lathes, but even when we found a system that worked, we could only polish the edges, and the insides still had to be done by hand, so it wasn't worth it.' He sighed. 'I mean,' he went on, 'if you can think of a way of mounting the button on the spindle I'd love to hear about it. But I don't think there is one.'
Poldarn could see one obvious solution-a shallow collet in the headstock that would grip the edges of the button, allowing the abrasive reed to be applied to the face-but somehow he wasn't inclined to mention it. 'Well,' he said, trying to sound enthusiastic, 'thanks for showing us round. Knowing how they're made makes me look at them in a whole new light.'
'Delighted,' Potto Ilec replied, then added, 'My pleasure. Now you know that when I say we can turn out literally hundreds of buttons a day and all of them identical, I'm telling the absolute truth. There's not many men in any trade, let alone the bone trade, who can say that.'
As he spoke there was a loud bang from the back of the shop, accompanied by a piercing scream and followed by some confused shouting. Poldarn spun round and saw that the long leather drivebelt of one of the lathes had snapped; the crank, suddenly freed of its load, had pulled out of the boy's hands, spun round at furious speed and cracked him under the chin, knocking him off his feet. Potto Ilec gasped with acute distress and thundered back down the duckboard, wading through the workers who'd gathered round the boy, past them to the lathe.
'It's all right,' he reported, somewhat out of breath, as he rejoined them a few moments later. 'The belt's past salvaging and the crank handle's bent, but that's all. I was afraid the changewheels might have seized and stripped their teeth.'
They'd got the boy sat up and were trying to drag his hand away from his face. There was a lot of blood, but Poldarn couldn't see the damage because of all the heads and backs in the way. 'That's all right, then,' he muttered. 'What about the kid? Is he badly hurt?'
'What? Oh, I see what you mean.' Potto Ilec sighed. 'I suppose it depends on where the crank handle hit him. Can't have been the forehead or he'd be out cold, or even dead.' A thought occurred to him that seemed to cheer him up. 'I must have a word with our chief engineer and see if he can't come up with something to dampen the crank axle, just in case something like this happens again. It'd be a pleasing challenge, I think; something with a parallel belt and two drums in suspension on either side of the axis.' He smiled beautifully. 'You know,' he said, 'with a bit of thought we might be able to come up with something we could modify to fit on to the saws as well.'
Getting out of the shop, away from the gloom and the overwhelming smell, was sheer joy. Poldarn made a fairly creditable job of hiding it. Copis didn't even try, but fortunately she was three steps behind Potto Ilec and he didn't see her. 'And now you know everything there is to know about making buttons,' Potto Ilec said. 'Now be honest, it's not a bit like how you imagined it, is it?'
'No,' Poldarn said, and left it at that.
It was dark by the time he and Copis got back to the house. 'I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted,' Copis announced as soon as the door was shut behind them. 'I think I'll go on up to bed, and tomorrow I'm going to the bathhouse. God knows if I'll ever be able to get that stench out of my hair, but I intend to try. Otherwise I'm going to have to cut it all off.'
She disappeared up the stairs, leaving Poldarn sitting in a chair beside the cold hearth. The silence suited him, after the noise of the factory and Copis' statement of what she thought about Potto Ilec and his wonderful machines, which had continued without interruption from the factory gate right up to her own door. Copis thought the button factory was an abomination. He could see her point, though he'd prefer to arrive at it by way of different reasons (she didn't hold with it because of the smell and the damp air, which made her feel dir
ty and scruffy); on the other hand, there was something about the machines-capable, powerful, inhuman-that appealed to a part of him he wasn't sure he was familiar with. To be able to make thousands of something so that each one of them was exactly the way you wanted it, your idea made real, and with no effort on your part, as the machines and the people who served them did all the work according to your design-thinking about it and trying to imagine what it must feel like gave him just a hint of an idea of what it must be like to be a god. A god, after all, wouldn't squat on the floor, cutting and filing and grinding each life in isolation. A god would have rows and rows of machines, shaping lives by the hundreds of thousands simultaneously (and each machine would be part of him, and no single machine would be the whole), and the essence of his divinity would be the power to build and set up the machines, work out the sequence of processes, fit together the drives and gear trains, so that the strength of a boy's hand on the crank would be amplified into enough power to shear through bone at a touch, and the holes in the work would fit the pins of the chuck exactly, every time, with no thought required, so that once set in motion (by one turn of the crank, one moment of force applied at top dead centre) the sequence of actions and processes would lead to a certain and absolutely predictable end, all while the master's back was turned and he was busy with something else. Gods, he felt, would have that same fierce, absurdly misdirected pride that Potto Ilec had displayed, a passionate love for the process and the product taken for granted, of no interest except for its value in bulk, its place in the chain of processes that moved the buttons from Sansory to the rest of the world and landed them, at the end of one sequence of functions and at the start of another, where they were meant to be, on someone's coat.
He closed his eyes. What if there are some gods who only turn the crank, operating a machine they don't understand or have forgotten about? What if someone were to build a machine and lose his memory, so that he couldn't remember how the machine worked or what it was for? But at least he'd know to turn the crank handle and set the gears and pulleys racing, and probably he'd try and figure out the workings and purpose of the machine by observing it in action, until logic and basic principles made it obvious what the process and objectives were. He worried away at this question for some time, both awake and in brief, obscure dreams, some of them involving crows and battles and men he didn't know, some of them merely mechanical, the pure machine without human hands or faces. It had been a long day and he'd had enough of it, but it didn't seem to want to let go. Bits of it were embedded in his mind, like a splinter of steel from a grindstone lodged in an eye, or the head of a tick that stays in the flesh after you've pulled off its body.
Chapter Eighteen
They dragged him, bleeding and dizzy, from the cart to the tent flap (and as his feet trailed behind him, each bump and jolt jarring the broken bone, flooding his body and mind with pain, two crows got up out of a dead spruce tree and flew away; one of them had something gripped in its beak, but he wasn't sufficiently interested to lift his head and see what it was). The sentry outside the tent blocked their way with his spear.
'What's the hurry?' he asked suspiciously. 'And what's that?'
'Top priority is what it is,' snapped the trooper on his left. 'Urgent. You know what urgent means?'
'It's all right.' The voice came from inside the tent. 'Let them through, I'm expecting them.' A hand pulled back the tent flap, and they hauled him through and lowered him to the ground like a sack of grain, gently enough to stop him splitting open, but beyond that not too bothered.
'Lift his head.' A hand gathered enough hair for a grip and pulled upwards, lifting his head enough for him to see the man in the tent. 'That's him. Fine, good work. Now, you two go and get something to eat, catch a few hours' sleep. We're moving out just before dawn.'
He couldn't see the two troopers now, so he assumed they were saluting or whatever cavalrymen did; all he could see was six square inches of threadbare carpet. But he could hear the rustling of canvas, which led him to believe they'd left the tent.
'Do you know who I am?' the voice said. A pause-he didn't reply, mostly because that would involve moving his jaw, which would be very painful. 'Hello, can you hear me? I asked you a question.'
Something hit him just above the waist, confirming his impression that at least one rib on that side was broken. He rode out the pain like a man in a small boat in a gale; so long as his connection with this body was minimal, he could stay above the breakers, not get swamped by them.
'I said, do you know who I am?' If he'd been feeling a little better, he'd have laughed. Possibly he'd have made a witty reply-something along the lines of, I don't even know who I am, or, Sorry, but my mother told me never to talk to strange men. He didn't know who he was, of course; or if he did, the knowledge had been crammed into an inaccessible corner of his mind by the pain, and he couldn't reach it. Didn't really want to, either.
'Well,' the man said, 'in case you don't know, though I'm pretty certain you do, my name is Feron Amathy. What's yours?'
Good question, and it occurred to him that if he didn't answer the man might kick him in the ribs again. He didn't want that. He couldn't remember his name, but he knew a name he'd called himself once or twice, when on a mission using a persona. He opened his mouth-his jaw hurt like hell-and managed to make a noise that sounded like 'Monach'.
'Yes,' the man replied. 'I know. Just wanted to see if you'd tell me the truth. It's what we call a control; ask questions you know the answer to, it helps you get a feel for whether the subject's likely to lie or not. So,' he went on, sitting down in the chair whose feet Monach could just make out in line with his nose, 'you're the famous Monach, are you? Bloody hell, you're a mess. What on earth did they do to you?'
He hoped that was a rhetorical question, because he couldn't remember. Generally speaking, if you want an accurate description of a fight, don't ask the man lying on the ground getting kicked and stamped on. All he can see is boots and ankles, and his concentration is apt to wander.
'Looks like you must've put up a hell of a fight,' the man went on. 'Which did neither of us any favours, of course. You got beaten into mush, I can't get a sensible word out of you. If you'd given up and come quietly, think how much better it'd have been for both of us.' He heard the chair creak, and the feet in front of his eyes moved. 'Let's get you sitting up,' he said. 'We might have better luck if you're not sprawled all over the floor like a heap of old washing.'
The man was strong, and not fussed about what hurt and what didn't. When he opened his eyes again, his mind washed clean by the waves of pain, he was sitting in a chair. Opposite him was the man who'd been talking.
'Better?' the man asked. 'All right, now, you're going to have to make an effort and answer my questions, because it's very important and there's not much time. If you don't, I'll take this stick and find out which of your bones are broken. If you understand, nod once.'
Nodding wasn't too hard. He managed it. That seemed to please the man, because he nodded back and sat down in his chair, a three-foot thumb-thick rod of ashwood across his knees. He was younger than Monach had expected, no more than forty, with plenty of curly brown hair and a slightly patchy brown beard, thick on the cheeks and jaws but a little frayed-looking on the chin itself. He had a pointed nose, a heart-shaped face and bright, friendly brown eyes.
'Splendid,' the man said. 'All right, pay attention. Do you know where General Cronan is?'
Apparently he did, because his head lifted up and then flopped back, jarring his jaw and making him shudder. The name Cronan didn't ring a bell at all.
'Yes? And?'
He felt himself trying to say something. 'At the Faith and Fortitude,' he heard himself say, 'on the road from Josequin to Selce.' That didn't make any sense. He'd never heard of any inn called the Faith and Fortitude, or a place called Selce. The man was nodding, though, as if the answer made perfect sense to him. Then he remembered the two crows, one with something in its beak. Than
k God for that, he thought, it's just another dream. A real pity it's so vivid, though. A dream kick to a dream broken rib only causes dream pain, but dream pain hurts just as much as the real thing, apparently.
'I know where you mean,' the man said. 'Very good, now we're getting somewhere. Next question: have you sent some of your people to kill him?'
Just a dip of the head this time, to indicate Yes.
'Buggery. When?'
The answer, apparently, was that morning, two hours before noon.
'Which means… How were they going? On foot, horseback, wagon?'
He opened his mouth to reply but started coughing instead. Coughing was a very bad idea. The man didn't approve, either, because he repeated his question, loudly.
'Riding,' he managed to say. 'Not hurrying. Can't risk.'
'Were they taking the main road?'
A nod.
'That's something, I suppose. All right, stay there, don't go away.'
The man left the tent, shouting a name, and left him alone. That was wonderful, he'd have a chance to relax, to catch up with the pain, which was racing ahead of his thoughts and blocking their way. He closed his eyes-it was better with them shut, in spite of the dizziness. At the back of his mind something was protesting: no, you mustn't close your eyes, you'll fall asleep or pass out. This is your only chance; look, there's a knife on the map table, you can reach it if you tilt the legs of the chair. You can hide it under your arm, and when he comes back you can stab him or cut his throat, and that'll make up for the rest. Must do it, can't afford not to. You've done very badly, but you still have one chance. Won't get another. Must He stayed still, put the voice out of his mind. Maybe if he knew what was going on it'd be different; if he knew why it was so important to kill this man-Feron something, Feron Amathy, and didn't that name sound familiar from somewhere?-then maybe he might just have made the effort. As it was, no incentive. Nothing outside his body mattered, outside his body and the invisible circle of pain that surrounded it. The pain defined everything.
