Academic Exercises

by K. J. Parker

  (Accordingly, please have your literary advisers scour the City for every last scrap of antique porn they can lay their hands on, expense no object; must be at least two hundred years old, and the rarer the better. Lamachus isn’t just a sad bastard, he’s a genuine collector. Last night I had to listen to him banging on for two hours about watermarks. But for as long as I can feed him a steady trickle of goodies, he’s mine.)

  Work on the wall progresses. What can I say; it’s a wall. Everybody in these parts thinks I’m out of my tiny mind, but they’re happy enough to sell us stuff or take our wages, now that there’s soldiers everywhere you look to keep them safe. The idea that the government can be a net provider of money, rather than a bottomless pit into which their taxes vanish without trace, is new and intriguing around here, and in consequence we’re rather more popular than we used to be. In fact, I have a suspicion that the Nicephorine Wall will do us more good, hearts-and-minds-wise, as a source of easy money for the local spivs and unemployables than as a piece of military architecture. Nothing wrong with that, needless to say.

  Tell Strato his unerring instinct for quality smut may just have saved the Empire. He’ll be ever so pleased.

  His Divine Majesty Nicephorus V, brother of the invincible Sun, father of his people, defender of the faith, emperor of the Vesani, to Phormio, governor of Upper Tremissis, greetings.

  His Majesty is pleased to enclose the top-priority military materiel requested by Phormio in his last communication.

  You bastard. You owe me. I’ve now acquired a reputation for depravity and unspeakable vice comparable only with that of my father, my brothers and my uncle. Talking of which, there’s a copy of Corydon’s Fragrant Bedchamber from Dad’s own personal travelling-chest. Went with him everywhere, the lascivious old git, from the halls of Hyperpyron to the sands of Miliarense. Tell your pal Lamachus you had your agents steal it for you. He’ll love that.

  You’ve also confirmed my long-held suspicion that I’m as thick as a brick. I used to wonder exactly why Lamachus always stuck by my dad, when he could’ve stabbed him in the back a score of times. Human nature. A man will betray his honour, his country and his friend, but the bond between two people who share a common devotion to hardcore porn is unbreakable.

  Phormio, governor of Upper Tremissis, to His Divine Majesty Nicephorus V, brother of the invincible Sun, father of his people, defender of the faith, emperor of the Vesani, greetings.

  Phormio begs to inform His Majesty that General Lamachus has engaged and defeated the enemy at Choris Andron.

  And there you have it. Proof positive of the enormous social value of dirty books. Primed to bursting point with the finest vintage filth money can buy, our friend Lamachus has sought out and destroyed a respectable chunk of the enemy; and I for one applaud him for it. A fine soldier and a wonderful human being.

  And he made it look so simple, too. When I had my crack at the bastards, you may remember, I went to all kinds of elaborate lengths—cartloads of wire, careful drip-feeding of information through their spy network. Lamachus’ approach is more straightforward, and quite brilliant.

  You want to pay close attention to this, because it’s a master-class in practical tactics. All Lamachus did was pick a fight with one of the guild bosses, something about withholding agreed bonuses, productivity targets not met, which provoked him into calling a two-day strike. The men lay down tools and stomp off in a huff. Lamachus sends in troops to do their work, so as not to hold up progress. The troops he assigns are a unit who’ve been guarding the section of the perimeter closest to the mountain pass we believe they’ve been using to get across the border. Result; a gaping hole in the perimeter, with easy access to the site, and anywhere else they may care to go.

  It looked so convincingly like a genuine balls-up that our friends in the mountains simply couldn’t resist. Very sensibly, Lamachus didn’t try and catch them out in the open. He let them get right up onto the parapet, like they did the last time, and there he was in the ditch, waiting for them. He thinks we got them all; over five hundred dead; better still, fifty-odd very much alive. He’s talking to them now, and I suspect that he’s not confining himself to showing them round clock-towers. But let’s not dwell on that.

  I may be tempting providence a lot; but maybe this is the ideal solution. A proper fighting general doing his stuff as only a true professional can, but kept on a leash by a human being.

  Stesichorus wouldn’t like it, of course. Men like Lamachus are quite definitely an evil means to a good end. I’m writing this in the chief clerk’s office, because my study’s just across the yard from where Lamachus is conducting his interviews; the theory being, if I can’t hear it, it’s not happening. Nice theory, but I fancy there’s a fallacy in there somewhere. Men like Lamachus save lives by taking lives. They prevent cruelty and inhumanity by inflicting it. Men like us let them, because it’s for the greater good, and because we’re afraid that, if it wasn’t done for us, we might find it in our hearts to do it ourselves.

  On which cheerful note, I’ll let you get back to your feasting and your nameless debaucheries. Lamachus loved the copy of The Blacksmith’s Daughter, by the way. Not because of the content, but because it’s the much scarcer third edition by the Smicrines brothers of Ianassa, with the page numbers on the left instead of the right.

  Nicephorus to Phormio

  Gorgias is alive.

  It’s true. No, I haven’t seen him, but I know he’s alive. It’s like this. One of the first things I did when I got the throne was send for the chief clerk of the Military Roll; that’s the department that records stuff like enlistment dates, expiry of tours of duty, and deaths in service. I figured that if it was true that Gorgias got press-ganged at Smicra and died at Thanatta, there’d be a record; the Roll seems to be the one department of the civil service that actually works. Sure enough, they found me his draft notice and enlistment details, which tie in pretty well with what we’d heard from his sister. So, needless to say, I told them to find me the record of his death. They couldn’t.

  Which meant precisely nothing, since a hell of a lot of the dead on both sides at Thanatta were simply shovelled into a mass grave. So I ordered the Engineers to find the mass grave and dig it up.

  I expect you’re way ahead of me, but just in case you aren’t; Gorgias, as you know, was missing his upper front tooth. He was six feet two inches tall, and when he was twelve he broke his left leg. So; I had the Engineers pull out every single body in that pit and prise the jaws open, looking for that missing tooth. In the event that they found more than one (they did, of course), they were to measure the overall length of the skeleton, and check the left femur for signs of a childhood fracture.

  He wasn’t there. Sixty-two corpses were missing the front tooth, but forty-nine of them were missing other teeth that I knew Gorgias still had; ten of the remaining eleven were under six feet tall, and the last two showed no sign of having had a broken leg.

  Which still meant precisely nothing. So I had them go over the battlefield inch by inch, digging out every last body that’d been overlooked at the time; then they worked outwards for a radius of two miles, plus they interviewed all the local farmers, anybody who might’ve found an unrecorded dead body. It took them three months, but they found plenty. None of the skulls was missing the upper front tooth.

  Now, Gorgias’ unit was the 725th Infantry, and we know for a fact exactly where they were all through the battle. Dad kept them in reserve until the last hour of the action, when he managed to smash through the left wing of my brother Philo’s infantry line; at which point, he sent in the 725th to wedge the gap open. But he got it horribly wrong, and (as you know) Philo’s horse-archers cut them off and shot them to pieces where they stood; the handful of survivors surrendered, and were marched off the battlefield by the Aram no Vei auxiliaries while Philo was staging his counter-attack.

  Right; let’s do a logical assessment. The 725th were intact when they advanced towards the gap in the li
ne. We know precisely where the horse-archers bottled them up, and where the vast majority of them died. We know, from unit insignia found on the bodies, that all the dead from that engagement went in pit number 6, and Gorgias isn’t in there with them. Eye-witnesses confirm that there was no way anybody could’ve broken out of the encirclement and made a run for it. Therefore, the only logical possibility is that Gorgias wasn’t killed in the shoot-up; he was one of the survivors who surrendered and got taken away by the savages. We can confirm that beyond reasonable doubt from the fact that he wasn’t one of the stray bodies that never got collected and buried. At the close of the battle, he must still have been alive.

  So, the next thing I did was call in the Aram no Vei liaison, and offer a HS 100,000 reward for relevant information. It’s amazing how helpful and co-operative they can be when there’s a vast amount of money at stake. They found me this sergeant (their equivalent of a sergeant) who remembered a man with a tooth missing and a limp. Naturally, I didn’t believe a word of it, so I had the man arrested and taken down into the cellars for a word with the very bad men who work there. Fortunately for my conscience, he was both willing and able to adduce proof of his assertion; quite by chance, but it’s good evidence. He remembered the missing-tooth man because he’d gone to pull a gold signet-ring off his finger, and instead of being all meek and scared, the man had punched him in the mouth. He was so taken aback he let the man live, but he took the ring, and—

  Phormio, it’s his ring. It’s on the desk in front of me right now. I remember it so well. I remember how we gave him hell about it when he first started wearing it, and how he got all upset because his dying father had made him promise to wear it, because it bore the family crest; and how we said that was very touching, but his father was still very much alive; and how he came clean and admitted that this girl had given it to him and—You remember, don’t you? Of course you do. I’d know it anywhere, Phormio, and it’s here, in my hand. The savage stuck it on his own finger, but it was too tight and he couldn’t get it off again, and there it still was. My people got it off no trouble at all; it can’t have been much fun for the savage, but he’s got HS 100,000 to console him, so I don’t suppose he’s too unhappy, at that.

  After that, it was comparatively straightforward. The prisoners from the 725th were interned in one of the prison ships in Thymnos bay. Obviously, some of them died; the ship’s captain had the bodies dumped over the side, and since the ship never moved all the time it was being used as a prison, it was a fairly simple job for my team of pearl-divers to go down and fish them all up again. Gorgias wasn’t one of them. So, he was alive when the surviving prisoners were released at the end of the war. I talked to the officer in charge, and he told me they were each given a change of clothes, a pair of boots, three days’ rations and HS 10 and sent on their way; I checked, and that’s what actually happened, remarkably enough. I managed to trace a dozen 725th veterans who were on the ship, and they backed up the officer’s story.

  Better than that; much better. I asked each of them in turn if they knew the name, Gorgias Bardanes. One said yes. I talked to him this afternoon, and he described Gorgias exactly. He said they’d been in the same compartment of the hulk; he remembered Gorgias very well because of his posh voice, also he muttered in his sleep (didn’t that make me grin when he said it). To cap it all, he told me a name he used to mutter, over and over again; Eudocia.

  He can’t have known that unless Gorgias was there, and alive. He just can’t.

  This man said Gorgias was very much alive when they all got sprung; that he collected his clothes and his money and walked away, and that was the last he saw of him, headed into town, same as most of the others, but walking alone, not talking to anybody.

  Phormio, if he survived the battle and the march and being in the prison ship, I absolutely refuse to believe he could’ve died of anything after that—pneumonia, knocked down by a cart, slipped on a muddy bridge and fell in the river, no way. Gorgias was alive when he was released from the prison ship, he had money in his pocket, he knew that all he had to do was come here, or write me a letter, or get in touch with any of us, or his sisters, or—There’s all those people he could’ve gone to, but he didn’t. And that was two years ago. His family haven’t moved house, and there’s no way in hell he doesn’t know exactly where to find me, or the rest of us.

  That’s what I simply can’t understand, and it’s tearing me up. He’s alive, he’s on his feet and walking about, and he hasn’t made contact. Why? What the hell is going on?

  Naturally, I’ve got a small army of people on it; trying to pick up the trail in Thymnos. So far, no joy.

  The others are stunned. I didn’t tell them anything until today, just in case the news turned out bad, or it didn’t add up after all. None of us can make head or tail of it. It just doesn’t make sense.

  Anyway, now you know. As soon as there’s any news, I’ll write. The main thing is, he’s still alive. But why—Oh, the hell with it. He’s alive.

  Phormio, governor of Upper Tremissis, to His Divine Majesty Nicephorus V, brother of the invincible Sun, father of his people, defender of the faith, emperor of the Vesani, greetings.

  Phormio begs to inform His Majesty that general Lamachus has successfully engaged the enemy.

  Nico, it’s not true. I’m sorry. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you, or Menestheus, or any of the others. Gorgias is dead. He died just after I got here, at the temple in Parcys. There’s a free hospital there, run by the Order. The doctor who treated him said it was pneumonia. I’ve known for some time.

  He knew I was coming here—must’ve heard the announcement, I don’t know; he wrote to me, but by the time I got here and saw his letter, he was already dead. I went to Parcys straight away, but they’d buried him in the paupers’ ground and nobody could remember where. So, no, I haven’t actually seen the body, but I know for a fact it was him. Quite by chance, they hadn’t got around to getting rid of his stuff, what little there was of it. The drill is, when someone dies in the free hospital, his things are stored in a warehouse along with the other paupers’ stuff, until there’s enough for an auction. I went there and scrabbled about—it’s heartbreaking, Nico, all that junk, the last scraps of so many wasted lives—and in an old arrow-barrel I found Gorgias’ things; his clothes, shoes, penknife, an old kitbag, and his journal.

  That’s how I know it was him, Nico. Proof positive.

  I sat on a biscuit box in that dismal bloody shed, and I read it. It was like he was sitting next to me, talking, moaning, complaining, looking for an argument, soaring off on crazy flights of extrapolation and speculation. He was furious at being ill; of all the bloody stupid things, he said. He was determined he wasn’t going to die. Then he started to wonder; what if I am going to die? Then he was scared stiff, and then he was angry again. He tried to calm himself down—it doesn’t matter, he said, nothing matters, viewed objectively one life is utterly trivial. But he couldn’t accept that. All the memories, the knowledge, the perceptions, the experiences stored inside a man’s head, all wasted in the time it takes a heart to stop beating. It was the waste that appalled him. What a ridiculous way to organise things, he said; a man spends his whole life learning, acquiring information, both on his own and as part of a collective. Just when he’s starting to get somewhere, the bucket’s tipped out and all the good stuff is poured out onto the ground. He had a lot to say about that. He said that of all the evils in the world, of which there were rather too many for his liking, the greatest evil of all was love; it’s sheer spitefulness to allow mortals to love, because everybody dies, but the love they cause to be in others doesn’t die with them. Therefore love is the cause of the greatest sorrow, therefore love is the greatest evil.

  I think I know what he meant.

  I know why he never got in touch with any of us after the war. He was so angry about being conscripted. The last thing he wanted was to be a soldier. He didn’t want to have to march all day in sopping wet clothe
s and sleep on the damp ground and eat garbage and get dysentery and do demeaning physical labour and get ordered about by men who weren’t fit to clean his shoes. He didn’t want to kill anybody, and he most definitely didn’t want to die. But, being Gorgias, when it became obvious that there was no getting out of it, he determined to do his very best, if only to show the ignorant rubbish around him how much better than them he was. He tried really hard. He was determined to get promoted, to make sergeant at least; but he didn’t, and that really hurt him, because he wasn’t good enough, and in the end he knew it. That really depressed him. In the battle, he only survived by pure fluke. He was livid that a savage stole Eudocia’s ring; he tried to fight for it, but the savage punched him in the mouth and (here’s a typical Gorgias phrase) he was left with no alternative but to fall over. While he was in the prison ship, he more or less gave up. He lay there in the dark trying to remember as much as he could of the first book of the Bessaid, but he could only remember the opening thirty lines; so he said them to himself over and over again, until they lost all traces of meaning. When they finally let him go, he made a conscious decision that he was through with everything from his past life. He’d betrayed himself and us, we’d betrayed him, the whole world, everything he’d valued and put his trust in had failed him and let him down. As far as he was concerned, he’d died at Thanatta. He made up his mind to walk to the monastery at Eschate—mostly, I think, because it’s a very long way away; as and when he got there, he’d pull himself together and decide what to do next. He made it four-fifths of the way; and then he got ill.

  That’s how Gorgias died, Nico. And that’s why I couldn’t bring myself to tell you, or send you his journal. That Gorgias, of all people, died angry and afraid and in despair; I had to read that book, Nico. I didn’t see why the rest of you should have to.