Devices and Desires

Chapter Nine

Commissioner Lucao Psellus had seen many strange sights in his time, and it was a tribute to his flawless orthodoxy that he had survived each disturbing experience without allowing a single one of them to damage him in any way. He had, reluctantly, read heresy and listened to abomination, both the forced confessions of the man broken up by torture and the proud ranting of the unrepentant martyr. He had seen things that nobody ought to have to seen, every imaginable permutation of the aberrant and the false. He had endured.

The spectacle he was presented with on this occasion was different, if no less taxing, and he found it extremely difficult to cope with. It took the form of a very large foreign woman, dressed in painfully bright patterned red velvet, with pearls in her hair and rings on all ten fingers. Even her boots were red, he noticed. Compared to the woman herself, the news she brought was trivial.

'Of course,' she was saying, 'they haven't made a formal decision yet. It'll have to go before the council. They'll call for reports and evidence and what have you, and then there'll be a meeting, and then the Duke will finally make up what he pleases to call his mind. They're like that in Eremia, since that young Orsea took over. He's the worst thing that ever happened to the Duchy; can't take a decision on his own, always terrified he'll do the wrong thing, no confidence in his own judgement.'

Psellus made an effort to pull himself together. 'You're not Eremian, are you?'

She laughed. It was an extraordinary noise. 'I suppose we all look alike to you,' she said. 'No, I'm Vadani, I'm delighted to say.'

'No offence,' Psellus said weakly.

'None taken.' She laughed again. 'I know that you people in the City don't get to see foreigners very often. Besides, it's actually quite an easy mistake to make. The Adventurers are pretty much a breed apart on both sides of the border; we're more merchant than Vadani or Eremian. I suppose I've got more in common with my colleagues in Eremia than with the silver-miners or the horse-breeders back home. It comes with travel, I always think; you can't be parochial if you're constantly moving about. And you don't get more parochial than back-country Vadani.'

Psellus frowned. 'Since we're talking about that sort of thing,' he said, 'I might as well ask you now. Why is it that all you merchants are women?'

She raised both eyebrows. 'Blunt, aren't you?' she said. 'But it's a fair question, I suppose, and if you don't ask, you won't ever know. It's a social thing, I suppose you could say. You see, where I come from-I know it's different here, but so's everything-we don't like waste. Mountains, you see; you don't waste anything if you live in the mountains, because anything you can't actually grow up there, or catch, or dig out of the ground, has got to come all the way up the mountain, usually on someone's back. So we have this mindset, I guess you could say: make best use of everything you've got, and don't squander your resources. And if there's something you can't use, you apply your mind and find a use for it.'

'That makes sense,' Psellus conceded.

'Well,' she continued, 'people are a resource, just like everything else. And mostly, it's obvious what use most people should be put to. Men work outside, in the pastures or mining; men of good family run things, naturally. Women work inside, running the home, bringing up children. But there's one group of people who don't immediately seem to be much good for anything. People like me.'

She paused, clearly waiting for a rebuttal or at least a protest. Psellus wasn't minded to indulge her, so she went on: 'Unmarried middle-aged women of good family. Completely useless, wouldn't you say? No homes to run or families to look after; obviously we can't go out herding goats or spinning wool. All we've got is a bit of capital of our own and a bit of education. So, when you think about it, it's obvious, isn't it?'

'I suppose so,' Psellus replied. That made her laugh again.

'You don't see it, I can tell. And that's understandable, you don't have the problem. You've got people at the top-all men, of course-and people at the bottom, and nothing in between. I imagine you think it's perfect, like everything else here.'

Psellus tried not to frown. He wished he hadn't raised the subject. Some of his colleagues claimed that they actually enjoyed foreigners, their appallingly quaint lack of civilisation, but he couldn't see it himself. 'As you say,' he replied, 'we don't have the problem. Please forgive me if the question was offensive.'

She shook her head. 'It's pretty hard to offend an Adventurer,' she said. 'You get to learn quite quickly, people are different wherever you go. Wouldn't do if we were all the same.'

'Ziani Vaatzes,' Psellus said.

'Ah yes. Him. Well, I think I've told you everything I know. Seems to me,' she added cheerfully, like all your nightmares have come true. One of your top people has got away and taken all your secrets with him, and he's offered to give the whole lot to your deadly enemies, who you just stomped on hard in a war. Couldn't really be any worse, from your point of view. Of course,' she added, 'there's not a lot to worry about really. The Eremians are poor as dirt, it'd take them a hundred years to get to the point where they could be a threat to you, even if you left them alone and let them get on with it. It'd be different if this Vaatzes of yours had gone to the Vadani, of course, because we may be ignorant hill folk just like the Eremians, but we've got all that lovely silver, not to mention a duke who knows his own mind and gets things done. And I wouldn't be surprised if this Vaatzes isn't wishing he'd gone the other way up the mountain, if you follow me.'

It took him another quarter of an hour and a certain sum of money to get rid of her; then he crawled away to his office at the top of the Foundrymen's tower, to pick the meat off what he'd just heard. A cup of strong willowbark tea helped him clear his head, and as the fog dispersed and he was able to give his full mind to the facts, he started to worry.

No doubt the woman was right. The Perpetual Republic wasn't scared of Eremia Montis. The whole Eremian army, hellbent on razing the city to the ground, hadn't constituted enough of a threat to warrant a meeting of the full executive council; and where was that army now? If you took the broad view, there really wasn't anything to worry about.

But he didn't have that luxury. Another thing the wretched woman had been right about: from the point of view of the commissioner of the compliance directorate, this was the worst day in the history of the world. A convicted abominator had escaped justice, killed two jailers, seriously injured an officer of the tribunal, walked out of the Guildhall in broad daylight, fled the country and run straight to the court of an actively hostile enemy, begging them to accept all the most closely guarded secrets of the Foundrymen's and Machinists' Guild. Yes, Eremia was negligible. So, come to that, were the Vadani, for all their wealth. But that wasn't the point. Once the secrets were outside the Guild's control, there was no way of knowing who would get hold of them, or where they'd end up. Geography wasn't his strong suit, but he knew there was an inhabited world beyond the Cure Doce and the Cure Hardy, not to mention beyond the sea (his colleagues in the Cartographers' Guild would know about that; except, of course, he daren't ask them, because they'd want to know the reason for his unusual curiosity). And besides; even if there was no risk at all, that was entirely beside the point. His directorate had been created on the assumption that there was a risk, and the sole justification for his existence was that that risk had to be guarded against at any expense. In those terms, which were all that mattered, he'd failed.

He thought about it for a while, just in case he'd overlooked something, but he knew there was nothing to overlook. It was perfectly clear and perfectly simple. Crisestem and his assassination squad weren't relevant any more. Killing Vaatzes would be a desirable end in itself, of course, but it would no longer be enough. The whole of Eremia-

He wanted to laugh, because it was absurd. Here he sat, one man, chairman of a committee, in a tower above a small formal garden, and he'd just taken the decision to wipe out an entire nation. Ludicrous; because even if Vaatzes had already betrayed the secrets; even if he'd written them all out in a book, with notes and explanatory diagrams and a glossary and index in the back, there wasn't a single soul in Eremia, or Vadanis, or among the Cure Doce or (God help us all) the Cure Hardy who could understand a word of it. But he was going to have to go down the stairs, through the cloister, across the small formal garden into the Great Hall and recommend that the army of the Perpetual Republic be mobilised and sent to kill every man, woman and child in a place he knew virtually nothing about, just in case; better safe than sorry, after all. It was stupid; and of course his recommendation would be accepted, and once the resolution had been passed in Guild chapter and the order had been given to the military, it would happen, and nothing on earth could stop it. Even if, by some extraordinary freak of chance, the army was resisted, defeated, massacred in a narrow mountain pass or drowned by a river in spate, another army would be raised and dispatched, and another, and another after that (because the Republic daren't ever say it was going to do something and then back down; gods must be seen to be omnipotent, or the sky will fall). Even if the world was emptied of expendable people and the Mezentines themselves had to be conscripted, they'd keep sending armies, until the job was done. As soon as he left this room, the machine would be set in motion and the outcome would inevitably follow.

Not that he cared about savages; not that it mattered particularly if the whole lot of them were wiped out-there was a body of opinion among the more radical Consolidationist factions that held that the Eremians and the Vadani formed a necessary buffer between the Republic and the human ocean of the Cure Hardy, but that was fatuous. The real barrier was the desert, and there was no way an army could cross it. Therefore the Eremians and the Vadani were irrelevant, and it wouldn't matter if they all died tomorrow.

But for hundreds of thousands of people, even savages, to die simply because he got up out of this chair and walked across that stretch of floor to that door and opened it… The reluctance was like a weight on his shoulders, pinning him to his seat. It was simply too big an act for one man. It was (he grinned as the thought crossed his mind; why? It wasn't funny) an abomination.

But if it was that, how could it be happening? This act, this extraordinary thing, was nothing more than the Republic conducting business in the prescribed manner. It wasn't as though he was some king or duke among the savages, acting on a whim. He was a component, an operation of a machine. That was more like it, he thought. The Republic is a vast and complex machine, powered by constitution and specification, with hundreds of thousands of human cogs, gears, cams, spindles, shafts, beams, arms, pawls, hands, keys, axles, cotters, manifolds, bearings, sears, pins, latches, flies, pistons, links, quills, leads, screws, drums and escapements, each performing in turn its specific operation. He was the last operation before the army was engaged, but he was a component of the whole; ordinances and directives drove him, his office and his duties were the keyway he travelled in. It wasn't as though he had any choice in the matter.

But if he stood up, he would walk to the door and open it, and the Eremians would all be killed. It occurred to him that although sooner or later he would have to stand up, he didn't have to do it quite yet. He could pour himself another cup of the willowbark tea (it was cold now, but there), pick up a letter or a memorandum, answer some correspondence, sharpen his pen. If he really tried, using every trick of prevarication he could think of, maybe he could buy the Eremians a whole half-hour-

He stood up.

'I'm sorry,' Ducas said.

Ziani lifted his head and looked at him. 'That's all right,' he said. 'It was just a suggestion.' He waited for the Eremian to leave, but he didn't 'seem to be in any hurry. Ziani wondered if he was going to apologise; maybe he'd confess he was the one who talked the Duke out of accepting his offer-he was sure that was what had happened. A strange man, Ducas. But that made him complex, and a complex component can be made to perform several operations at once. Over the last few days, Ziani had come to value him.

'So,' he said, 'have they decided what's going to happen to me?'

Ducas left the doorway, came in; he stood over the chair but hesitated before sitting down. The instinctive good manners of the aristocrat (it's more important to be polite to your inferiors than your equals). Ziani nodded, and Ducas sat down.

'That's pretty much up to you,' he said. 'Well, strictly speaking it's up to me, since you've been bailed into my charge; but that's just a formality, since in theory you're an enemy alien and all that.'

'I see.'

Ducas shook his head. 'Don't worry about that,' he said. 'You're free to go, if that's what you want. You can go wherever you like. Or,' he added with a slight frown; probably he didn't realise he was betraying himself with that frown, 'you can stay here, whichever you like. You don't need me to tell you, you could set up shop as a smith or an armourer or pretty much anything you like, and you'd be guaranteed a damn good living.'

Ziani raised an eyebrow. 'People would be prepared to have dealings with a Mezentine?'

'Of course.' Ducas grinned. 'Even if you were no good, they'd flock to you for the novelty value. But according to Gantacusene, you're the best craftsman who ever set foot in the Duchy, so…'

Ziani nodded. 'I'd need capital,' he said. 'A workshop, tools, materials…'

'That wouldn't be a problem, I'm sure. You'll have no trouble finding a backer.The whole city's talking about you, you know.'

'I'd have thought they'd have other things on their minds right now.'

'Yes,' Ducas admitted. 'But life goes on. We're a resilient lot. A great many people died in the Vadani war; it's not the first time we've had to cope with a national disaster. And as far as you're concerned, they won't blame you just because of where you're from or the colour of your skin. We aren't like that here. And everybody knows you've suffered just as much at the hands of the Republic as they have.'

Everybody knows that, do they? What exactly do they know, Ziani wondered, about anything? He kept his face blank. 'Well,' he said, 'at first sight that'd seem like the logical thing to do. At least until I find my feet and decide what's the best use I can put my life to. It's a strange feeling, you know,' he went on, watching Ducas out of the corner of his eye. 'Suddenly finding yourself in a new place, with nothing at all except yourself. I mean, from what you've just told me, it could be the making of me.'

'Perfectly true,' Ducas said. 'A man like you, with your skills and talents. How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?'

'Thirty-four.'

'Well, there you are, then.' Ducas was smiling. 'You've got plenty of time to start again. Settle down, build up a business, start a family. You can do anything you like.'

I could so easily hate you for saying that, Ziani thought; but you're too valuable to hate. 'Clouds and silver linings,' he said. 'Or I could move on. If I were to do that, where could I go?'

Ducas shrugged. 'Well,' he said, 'if you're dead set on this business of teaching people the Mezentine way, you'd probably be better off across the border, in Vadanis. They'd be more likely to listen to you there. Of course,' he added quickly, 'there's no hurry, you can take your time and decide. Really, in spite of everything, I guess you're in a good position-I know that's hard to believe, seeing what you've been through, but…' He paused, rebuking himself for crassness. Really, it would be easy to like this man. 'What I mean is, you're a free agent; no ties, no responsibilities. You can make a fresh start, wherever you want.'

Ducas went away shortly after that. There was, he'd stressed again before he left, no hurry at all. Vaatzes could stay here in the castle for a bit, it was entirely up to him. No pressure. Everything very relaxed, very tranquil. Quite.

Ziani looked round the room to see if there was anything that might come in handy, but there wasn't. They'd given him clothes, respectable, what passed for good quality among these tribesmen; clothes and shoes were all he'd take when he left in the morning, and that would do fine. He'd got over the sudden spurt of violent anger that had made him want to grab Ducas by the throat and dig his thumbs into the hollow between the collar-bones, thus quickly and efficiently stopping the mechanism. He thought about that impulse for a moment, and wondered what was happening to him. He'd been alive for thirty-four blameless years, he could remember, and count on the fingers of one hand, all the times when he'd lost his temper and committed or even contemplated violence. It was, he'd always prided himself, completely foreign to his nature. He'd seen fights at the factory, once or twice in the street (drunks, of course), and he'd acknowledged the existence of the violent impulse without being able or wanting to understand it. There were bad things in the world, and that was one of them. Since then, he'd killed two men, possibly three, but he'd been forced to it. The acts had been neutral, since they'd been imposed on him by forces outside his control. This time, though…

He analysed the moment. Ducas had said something unbearable, and it had provoked him; he couldn't stand the idea that the words would go unanswered, as though unless they were challenged and avenged, they'd be minuted for ever in some sort of metaphysical transcript, the proceedings of his life. But he knew perfectly well that Ducas hadn't meant to torture him, or even give offence. He'd been trying to be helpful. True, he had his own clumsy motivations. Ducas, he knew, was afraid of him, which was understandable. He wanted him to go away. Because of his breeding and upbringing and the mess of jumbled principles and ethics his poor brain was stuffed with, he'd found himself urging this foreigner whose presence disturbed him so much to do the opposite of what he wanted him to; because he was ashamed of his fear, presumably, and because he felt he was offending his duty of hospitality. Accordingly, because he wanted Ziani to go away, he'd made a great song and dance about how easy and profitable it'd be for him to stay. It would be dangerously easy to like these people.

That was beside the point. There had been a moment when he'd wanted to kill Ducas, or at least hurt him very badly, just for a tactless word. He wondered: have I been quiet and harmless all my life because that's who I am, or just because I've never before run into anything more than trivial provocation? It was, he recognised, an important issue. It was essential that he should know his own properties, tensile strength and breaking strain, before he started work.

A little later they brought him up some food (it was a depressing thought that the garbage on his plate probably counted as the best this country could offer); he ate it, lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling until he fell asleep. Veatriz Sirupati to Valens Valentinianus; greetings.

Trying to understand people is like trying to catch flies in a net; just when you think you've got them and you pounce, they flit out through the holes in the mesh and leave you feeling baffled and stupid.

When Orsea got back from the war, I thought everything was going to be dreadful; and so it has been, but not in anything like the way I thought. I was sure everybody would be angry and bitter and hysterical, there'd be riots and mobs throwing stones and ferocious speeches in the streets, everybody blaming Orsea and the court, everything out in the open. But it hasn't been like that at all. It's been quiet; and I think that's much, much worse. It's like a married couple, I suppose. If they quarrel and shout at each other and throw things, obviously it's pretty bad; but when they just don't talk at all, you know it's hopeless. That's the sort of quiet there's been here, ever since the news broke about the disaster; except I don't get the feeling anybody blames us for what happened (which is ridiculous, isn't it? Surely it was all our fault, when you come right down to it). They don't hate us; I don't even think they particularly hate the Mezentines, either. It's like there's no point getting angry with what's happened, the way you don't get angry with death. It's something that happens and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. All I can think of is that people here are so used to war and slaughter and armies not coming back that they don't get angry any more. Do you know that, over the last two hundred years, among men over the age of twenty-five, one in three has been killed in wars? No wonder they all marry young here. I can't understand how people can live like this.

(I'm not thinking, of course. Since most of that time we've been at war with you, presumably it's pretty much the same with your people; so you understand it better than I can. I hate the fact that I spent so much time living away from here when I was young. This might as well be a foreign country, for all I understand it.)

The biggest thing that's been happening lately is the business with the Mezentine exile. It's all been a complete mystery to me, I'm afraid. As far as I was concerned, there simply wasn't an issue. He was offering to teach us how to be just like the Republic: all working in factories, making things to sell abroad with those amazing Mezentine machines and so forth. But it would've been completely impossible; we're nothing like the Mezentines-by their standards, I suppose we're unspeakably primitive; and besides, if we were to start making all these things to sell, who on earth are we supposed to sell them to? But Orsea and the court had a long debate about it. I think Orsea really liked the idea; it would've been a new future for the Duchy, he thought, at a time when he'd just brought about a total disaster; it would've been a way of putting things right, and he's so completely heartbroken and torn up with guilt. But Miel Ducas talked him out of it, and of course he listened to Miel. He listens to everybody except himself. It's stupid, really; it's not just that Orsea's his own worst enemy, he's his only enemy. But he puts so much work into it, to make up the shortfall.

This is turning into a very bad letter. It's full of politics and news and personal stuff and all the things we agreed we wouldn't write to each other about; I'm being very boring and no fun. I really don't mean to dump all my problems on you like this. Let's talk about something interesting instead.

I've left some lines blank to indicate me sitting here trying to think of something interesting to say. If I could draw, I'd put in a little sketch of me, baffled (but I can't, as you know; all my faces end up long and thin and pointy, like goblins). The truth is, I'm so worried about Orsea and there's absolutely nothing I can do to help him. He's wandering about the place all numb-it's the way he is first thing in the morning, when he blunders about still asleep for an hour, except that it lasts all day. He's not trying to be horrible or anything like that. I think he's trying so hard not to think about the disaster and everything, and the only way he can manage it is not to think about anything. It's like when you've got a little scrap of a tune going round and round in your head, and the only way you can make it shut up is to think a kind of low, monotonous hum.

I've left some more lines blank, because I really am trying to think of something cheerful and interesting, because I imagine you need cheering up, too. Your last letter-here I go again-it was so intensely bright and clever and full of fascinating things that I got the distinct feeling you've got an annoying tune in your head as well; but you don't hum, you sing something else to get rid of it. Which is not to say that it wasn't a wonderful letter, and it kept me going for ages; I rationed it, a paragraph a day for a week, like a besieged city. Look, I can't leave any more lines, because this is all the paper I've got, and it's got to fit inside a little carved soapstone box that that dreadful Adventurer woman is taking to sell in Avadoce, so I can't waste any more space; but I've got to tell you something interesting, or you won't want to bother with me any more.

Here's something I've just thought of. It's not new, I'm afraid. I've been saving it up. Apparently-this is from one of the merchant women, so believe it or not as you like-somewhere in the desert there's an underground river. It's a long way down under the sand, and the only way they know it's there is because there's a certain kind of flower that puts down incredibly long roots, and it can tap into the river and that's how it survives. Apparently there was this man lost in the desert one time, and he was wandering around convinced he was going to die, and suddenly he saw the most amazing thing: a long, straight line of bright red flowers, like a fence beside a road. At first he thought it was some kind of vision, and if he followed the flowers it'd lead him to Paradise; so, he thought, I might as well, just in case; and he followed the line, and just when he couldn't go a step further, he literally stepped into a pool of water and very nearly drowned. Anyway, he was all right after that; the thing is (according to this merchant woman) that these flowers only bloom for one week a year, and then they die off completely and shrink back into their roots, and you could tread on them and never know they were there.

Thinking about it, I'm pretty much positive it isn't true; but it's a bit more cheerful than me moaning on about how sad everything is. You never know; tomorrow Orsea might tread on an unexpected flower, and we'll find our way out of here.

Write soon. Walking out of the castle felt strangely familiar. It took Ziani a moment or so to work out what it reminded him of; passing under the gateway arch and into the narrow street, he remembered leaving the Guildhall in Mezentia. He tried to think how long ago that had been, but he couldn't. It was a notable failure in calibration. Perhaps he was losing his fine judgement.

There was one distinct difference from the last time. Then, he'd walked out alone and nobody had seen him. This time, there was someone waiting for him.

A tall man in a long cloak had been leaning against the gatepost; he straightened up and hurried after Ziani. 'Excuse me,' he called out. Obviously Ziani didn't recognise him, but the voice was easily classified; another feature of the nobility is how similar they all sound. Since it was unlikely that an Eremian aristocrat would be acting as a paid assassin for the Republic, Ziani allowed himself to breathe again.

Ziani stopped and waited for him.

'You're the Mezentine,' the man said.

No point trying to deny it, even if he wanted to. 'That's right,' he said.

'Vaatzes,' the man said. He pronounced it slightly wrong; one long A instead of two short ones. 'The Ducas told me about you. My name is Sorit Calaphates.'

He paused, as if waiting for some reaction; then he realised he was talking to someone who couldn't be expected to know who he was. 'Pleased to meet you,' Ziani said.

Calaphates seemed a little nervous, but most likely only because he was talking to someone he hadn't been formally introduced to. 'I understand from the Ducas,' he went on, 'that you may be considering setting up in business here in the city. Would that be correct?'

'I'm not sure,' Ziani said. 'I haven't made up my mind, to be honest with you.'

Calaphates shifted a little; he didn't seem happy standing still in public. 'If you've got nothing better to do,' he said, 'I wonder if you'd care to come and share a glass of wine with me, and perhaps we could talk about that.'

Ziani considered him, as a commodity. He was somewhere between forty and sixty; a long man, thin arms and legs, a slight pot belly and the makings of a spare chin under a patchy beard. He had very small hands, Ziani noticed, with short fingers. He didn't look like he was any use for anything, but Ziani knew you couldn't judge the nobility by appearances. His shoes were badly blocked and stitched, but they had heavy silver buckles.

'Thank you,' Ziani said.

Calaphates led him across the square to a small doorway in a bare, crumbling wall; he produced a large key and opened it. 'Follow me,' he said quietly (there was something rather comic about the way he said it).

The door opened into a garden. Apart from the Guildhall grounds and a few similar spaces in the cloisters of other Guild buildings, there were no gardens in Mezentia. Ziani certainly hadn't expected to find one here, not in a city perched on top of a mountain. His knowledge of the subject was more or less exactly matched by his interest in it, but he knew gardens needed a lot of water, and he still hadn't quite figured out how the city's water supply worked. It stood to reason that, however it got there, water wasn't something that could be wasted. But here was this garden; a lush green lawn, beautifully even, edged with terraced beds blazing with extremes of colour. There were green and brown and silver and purple trees, cut and restrained into unnaturally symmetrical shapes. The beds were edged with low hedges of green and blue-grey shrubs-he recognised lavender by its smell, though he'd never seen it growing; the whole place stank of flowers, like the soap factory in Mezentia. There were tall, smooth stone pillars with flowering vines trained up them, and huge stone urns with still more flowers spilling over the edges, like overfilled tankards. Ziani looked round but he couldn't see anything he recognised as edible; the obvious conclusion was that all this effort and ingenuity and expense was simply to look nice. Strange people, Ziani thought.

In the middle of the lawn was a round stone table, with two small throne-like chairs. Calaphates gestured to him to sit in one of them, and took the other for himself. By the time he'd lowered himself into the thing (it was designed for appearance rather than comfort) a woman had appeared from nowhere holding a silver tray with a jug and two silver cups. She poured him a drink. It tasted horrible.

'Your good health,' Calaphates said.

Ziani smiled awkwardly at him. 'What can I do for you?' he said.

Calaphates took a moment before answering. (Is he afraid of me in some way, Ziani wondered; or is it just diffidence, or embarrassment?) 'I should tell you,' he said, 'that I'm a member of the Duke's council. Yesterday we debated your offer-'

'Turned me down, yes,' Ziani interrupted.

'That was the Duke's decision,' Calaphates said. 'It's not what I'd have chosen to do myself. However, the decision has been taken, and, to put it bluntly, that leaves you at rather a loose end.'

Ziani nodded.

'If you intend to stay here and set up in business'-Ziani could feel the effort it was costing Calaphates to talk to him; is it because I'm Mezentine, Ziani wondered, or just because he doesn't know what to make of me?-'you will obviously need capital; a workshop, tools, supplies. I won't pretend I understand the technical aspects. But I flatter myself I know a good investment when I see one.'

Ziani allowed himself to smile. 'You want to invest in me?'

'Exactly.'

'Doing what?'

Calaphates shrugged. 'That's not for me to say,' he said. 'All I know is that the Armourer Royal has given you the most extraordinary endorsement. According to him-and I know the man well, of course-there's practically nothing you can't do, in the way of making things. I wouldn't presume to tell you what to make, because I don't know the first thing about such matters. What I've got in mind is a partnership. Quite straightforward.'

Ziani nodded. 'Equal shares.'

Calaphates looked at him, and Ziani realised he'd have settled for rather less. Not that it mattered. 'Quite,' he said. 'All profits split straight down the middle, and that way we both know exactly where we stand.'

'Fine,' Ziani said. 'I'll be quite happy with that.'

'Excellent.' He could feel a distinct release of tension; for some reason, Calaphates hadn't been expecting things to go so smoothly. No doubt he assumed all Mezentines were ruthless chisellers, cunning and subtle in matters of business. 'Now, it's entirely up to you, of course, but as it happens I own a site here in the city that might suit you; it used to be a tanner's yard, but the man who used to rent it from me died-actually, he was killed in the war-and since he was relatively young, he had no children or apprentices to carry on the business, so the place is standing empty, apart from his vats and some stock in hand, which of course belongs to his family. Naturally, it'll be up to you entirely, how you want the place done up. You must do it properly, of course: forges and furnaces and sheds and anything else in the way of permanent fixtures.'

'It'll be expensive,' Ziani said.

He caught a faint flicker in Calaphates' eyes. 'Well, I'm sure it'll be worth it. The main thing is to get started as soon as possible. The sooner we start, the sooner we'll be ready'

'It'll take some time, I'm afraid,' Ziani replied. 'Mostly I'm thinking about housing for the heavy machinery'

'I…' Now the poor man was looking worried. 'That's your side of things,' he said.

'Yes,' Ziani went on, 'but the point is, there are some pieces of equipment that I'll have to build first before we can raise the sheds to house them. A proper cupola foundry, for instance, for casting in iron; a machine shop, for the lathe and the mill'

Calaphates was being terribly brave. 'Whatever it takes,' he said. 'If you think the premises will be suitable-we'll go there right now so you can see for yourself-I'll tell my overseer to take his orders direct from you, and you can get on with it exactly as you wish. Don't worry,' he added with a very slight effort, 'about the money side. I'll handle that.'

Ziani shrugged. 'Good,' he said. 'It'd be difficult for me to cost the whole thing out from scratch, because I don't know how much things cost here, or what'll need to be brought in from outside and what I'll have to build for myself. Also,' he added, 'I'll need men. Otherwise, if I've got to do everything myself, it'll take a lot longer.'

Calaphates looked at him. 'Certainly,' he said. 'Of course, there may be difficulty finding enough sufficiently skilled labour-'

'I was thinking of your friend Cantacusene,' Ziani said. 'I expect he could be persuaded. Really, what I need is people who'll do as they're told and don't need to be supervised all the time. And teaching apprentices the basics wouldn't leave me much time to do the more complicated work.'

(He's wondering what the hell he's got himself into, Ziani thought; but it'll be all right. He's strong enough to take the load. I think I've got my second component.)

The tannery was in the lower city, out on the east side, where the prevailing wind could be relied on to carry the stench away from the houses. 'Handy for the gate,' Calaphates pointed out. 'You won't have so much trouble getting carts in and out through the streets.'

Ziani had been wondering about that. In Mezentia, all the streets were the same width, everywhere; wide enough for two standard wagons to pass axle to axle without touching. Civitas Eremiae wasn't like that at all. A wide boulevard would pass under an arch and suddenly dwindle into a narrow snicket, where the eaves of the houses on either side almost touched. A hundred yards further down, there'd be a flight of narrow stairs, leading to a street as broad as a rope-walk; two hundred yards further on, a wall and a sharp right-hand turn, and a maze of little winding alleys culminating in a dead end. Because of the gradient, the buildings were often five storeys high on one side and two on the other, and most of them sported a turret or a tower; it was like being in an old, neglected forest where the trees are too close together and have grown up tall and spindly, fighting to get at the light. In places, the thoroughfares jumped over the tangle of buildings on narrow, high-arched bridges, like a deer leaping in dense cover. Every hundred yards or so there was an arch, a gateway, a covered portico, a cloister. The people he saw in the streets had a knack of scuttling sideways like crabs, so as not to crash into each other with their shoulders in the bottlenecks. It took a long time to get anywhere, what with steps up and steps down, waiting to let other people pass (good manners would be essential in a place like this, if you didn't want to spend your whole life fighting impromptu duels); even when the way was relatively straight and flat, it wound backwards and forwards up the steep incline, so that a hundred yards up the slope cost you a mile in actual distance covered. It would be a nightmare to get a steel-cart from the gate to the' castle square. You'd probably have to have a system of portages, like carrying barges round waterfalls-stop, unload the cart, carry the stuff through the obstruction, load it on to another cart on the other side. No wonder these people had rejected his offer. It amazed him that humans could live under such conditions.

'Something that's been puzzling me,' he said to Calaphates, as they passed through a tunnel. 'I'm sure you can tell me the answer. What on earth do you do for water here?'

Calaphates smiled. 'We manage,' he said. 'In fact, we manage quite well. We're rather proud of our arrangement, actually. We have a network of underground cisterns, a long way down inside the mountain. Originally, I believe, they were natural caves. Every roof and gutter and downpipe feeds into them, so basically not a single drop of rain that falls here is wasted. We get quite ferocious storms in the late winter and early spring; it rains for days at a time, sometimes weeks. The cisterns fill up, and we have our year's supply. To draw it up again we have a large number of public wells-there's one, look.' He pointed at a door on the opposite side of the street. As far as Ziani could tell, it was just a small door in a long, blank wall; you had to know where they were, presumably. 'Anyone can go in, let down the bucket, take as much as he can carry home. We don't waste the stuff, obviously; it costs too much effort to carry it about. But there's more than enough for everyone. In fact, once every ten years or so the cisterns get so full we have to drain off the surplus.'

'Impressive,' Ziani said. 'Has anyone ever done a proper survey of these cisterns?'

'How do you mean?' Calaphates asked.

'A survey,' Ziani repeated. 'Like a map.'

'I don't think so.'

Ziani nodded. 'Well,' he said, 'thank you. I was wondering how you coped.'

'The project was begun by the fourth Duke, about two hundred years ago,' Calaphates said; and he talked about history for a quarter of an hour, while Ziani pretended to listen. A survey would've been too much to hope for, he realised, but it shouldn't present too much of a problem to make one of his own. Simply plotting the well-houses on a map would be a good start.

'Here we are.' Calaphates sounded relieved. They'd stopped outside another plain door in another blank wall. 'Now, so you can get your bearings; the city gate is about three hundred yards over there, behind that tower. The castle is north-west, straight up the slope. The yard has its own well, of course.'

The door opened into a wide, bare, sloping yard with five rows of big, low-sided stone tanks. Beyond them was a long two-storey stone shed. The yard walls were high, with a catwalk running round the top, and two watchtowers. It felt more like a military camp than a factory.

'What are those for?' Ziani asked.

'The towers?' Calaphates smiled. 'It's an eccentricity of Eremian architecture. We like towers. Most of the buildings have them. I suppose it comes from being on top of the mountain; we like a good view. I think the tanner used one as his office and counting-house, and the men liked to go up into the other for their meals, to get away from the smell.'

Ziani frowned. 'I'd have thought they'd be used to it after a few months.'

'Possibly. Now, through this arch here, we've got another yard.'

The same as the first one, but a bit smaller. No shed.

'These tanks,' Ziani said. 'Is there any reason we can't use them as footings for buildings?'

Calaphates shrugged. 'Don't ask me,' he said. 'I'm not a builder. My overseer would be able to tell you about how they were built. He's been with me a long time.'

'Show me the well-house,' Ziani said.

As he'd hoped, it was on the higher side of the slope; not much of a gradient to work with, but anything would be better than nothing. 'You said you're allowed to draw as much water as you want from these wells,' he said. 'Is that right, or are there limits?'

The question seemed to puzzle Calaphates. 'Not that I'm aware of,' he said. 'It's not a problem that's ever arisen, if you see what I mean.'

'Fine.' Ziani looked round; shapes were starting to form in his mind. 'Is that it?'

Calaphates nodded. 'There are cellars, of course, under the main shed. Another feature of Civitas Eremiae. Because we're short on space for building sideways, we've become very inventive about going up and down. Hence, towers and cellars.'

The toolmarks on the cellar walls showed that it had been excavated the hard way, chip by chip with straight drills and hammers. 'There'd be no objection to extending this?' Ziani asked.

'I don't see why not,' Calaphates said. 'If necessary.'

'And we can use the spoil for building above ground,' Ziani went on, 'instead of having to lug blocks of stone through the streets.'

For the first time, Calaphates allowed his anxiety to show in his face. 'You've got something quite extensive in mind, then.'

Ziani turned and looked at him. 'There's an old saying in the Guild,' he said. 'The quickest, easiest and cheapest way to do a thing is properly the first time. If you're having second thoughts about this…'

Calaphates assured him that he wasn't. He was almost convincing.

'I'll have to spend a few days here,' Ziani said, as they climbed the cellar steps into the light, 'drawing up plans, taking measurements. I'll need a few things for that, but I'm sure your overseer can deal with it. I might as well camp out in the shed for the time being.'

Calaphates looked at him. 'It'll do, then?'

'It'll do fine,' Ziani replied. 'I feel at home here already.' When Calaphates had gone and he had the place to himself, Ziani made a proper inspection, pacing out distances, getting a feel for the space and how it worked. The biggest problem, water, might not be such an insurmountable obstacle after all (but if he sidestepped the water issue, it would make the fuel problem worse; if only you could burn stone…). Time would be difficult, because this Calaphates would have to be managed carefully; he was flexible and fairly resilient, like a good spring, but if bent too far he'd probably prove brittle. He would need to be allowed for, but such allowance wouldn't necessarily compromise the tolerances Ziani was hoping to achieve.

He was concentrating so intensely on the shape of the mechanism slowly consolidating in his mind that he didn't notice the passing of the day, until the sun set and it was too dark to see. He lay down on a pile of half-tanned hides in the long shed, but he couldn't settle; so, after one final tour of the site (he found his way in the dark mostly by memory, like a blind man; already he knew most of it by heart, not by what was there already but by what would be there, when the work was done) he climbed up one of the towers and looked down over the city. There were few lights to be seen, because of the angle, but lamps burned in some of the towers that perked up over the rooftops like the heads of fledgling birds in a nest, enough of them that he could make out a pattern, a first rough working sketch for a city. He felt-he paused to analyse what he felt, since the properties of materials change according to the stresses imposed on them by each operation. There was guilt, inevitably, and generic sorrow, the unavoidable compassion of one human for others. There was a place for such feelings. In an ideal world, a machine running smoothly, they were the coolants and lubricants that stopped the components from jamming and seizing under load; it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, for a functional society to work without them. At this stage, however, they were swarf and waste, and he needed to control them. The top of a tower was a good place for perspectives, particularly at night, when you're spared the sight of the greater context. He didn't need to see it, since its outline was drawn out clearly in his mind. The detail, yet to be resolved, could wait until the time was right.