Devices and Desires

Chapter Twenty-One

The debate that followed the attack on Melancton's expeditionary force was unexpectedly subdued, as if neither major faction was sure what to make of it. Tactically, as the Drapers were quick to point out, it had been a disaster. Melancton had walked into a trap and been utterly humiliated; the enemy had come and gone with hardly a scratch. Strategically, as the Foundrymen immediately replied, it was something and nothing; the fact that the Eremians had committed so few men to the attack and had withdrawn so quickly, neglecting opportunities for slaughter that could have been exploited at affordable cost, argued that they had no stomach for the war and a deep-seated timidity that more or less guaranteed success to the invasion. The body-count could be taken either way. The Drapers said that Melancton had wasted three thousand lives through sheer fecklessness. The Foundrymen said that three thousand was still well within budget, given that the harrying attacks they'd anticipated as the army advanced through the hostile terrain of Eremia hadn't materialised; indeed, if the pre-invasion casualty estimates were compared with actual reported losses, the invasion was comfortably in credit. Furthermore, the expeditionary force had been left in full possession of the field, and had resumed its march on Civitas Eremiae. By virtue of forced marches, Melancton had made up the lost time and was currently slightly ahead of schedule. Both sides were perfectly correct in their assertions, and neither faction even tried to dispute the other's arguments or statistics. A motion from the Clockmakers to dismiss Melancton wasn't even put to a vote, since (as Chairman Boioannes had pointed out in his opening remarks) there was no alternative candidate for overall command of the expedition who would be acceptable to the men themselves. A motion of censure was passed by a narrow majority, but it was agreed that it would be counterproductive and damaging to morale to publish it until the war was over and safely won, at which point it would be irrelevant; accordingly, it was agreed that it should lie on the file indefinitely.

Eventually she found him in a small room near the top of the old clock tower. When she burst in he was sitting facing the narrow window, a pile of papers on a small table beside him, a book open on his lap. She noticed that it was upside down.

'Orsea, you've got to do something,' she said breathlessly, wondering as she said it why he hadn't turned his head to look at her. 'There's this crazy rumour going around that Miel's been arrested and he's going to be executed or something. If people start believing that, there'll be panic and chaos and God knows what. You've got to tell them it's not true. Maybe the two of you could go out on the balcony and make a joint statement or something.'

Still he didn't turn towards her. 'Who says it's just a rumour?' she heard him say.

That didn't make sense. 'Orsea,' she said.

'Actually, the part about having him executed is a bit premature,' he continued, in a voice that sounded like his, but very far away. 'There'd have to be a trial first, and we can't allow that; at least, not till the war's over, assuming we survive it, and maybe not even then. In fact, definitely not. So no, we won't do that. Have to think up something else instead.'

That was more cryptic gibberish than she could take. She lunged forward and grabbed at his shoulder; he avoided her, like a good fencer. 'Are you completely out of your mind?' she said. 'He's just won a battle, for pity's sake. He's your best friend. You can't-'

Now he turned and looked at her, and she took a step back. He searched for something on the table, found it; a small square of closely folded parchment. He pointed it at her as though it was a weapon.

Oh, she thought.

'He had it,' Orsea said. 'At least, it was hidden in a room in the Ducas house, in a place only he knew about. And it so happens I can verify that myself, because when we were kids he stole my lucky penknife and hid it there-a little sort of crack in the wall, behind a tapestry; but I was watching through the keyhole, though he didn't know. It was his secret place. If he put it there, it was because he didn't want it found.'

'How did you-?' Veatriz started to say. She cut the question short, but the damage was done.

'How did I find out?' Orsea laughed. There was something frightening in his voice. 'Extraordinary thing. That Mezentine, Vaatzes, the one who builds the war engines; he scheduled a meeting with me, I thought it was just about production schedules, but as soon as we were alone he took it out of his pocket and handed it to me. I was stunned; I sat there staring at it, trying to figure out what the hell it was. I could read the words; but for ages I simply couldn't figure out what it could possibly mean. And also I kept thinking, why the hell would Miel be hiding a letter, written to you by the Duke of the bloody Vadani? How in God's name did you come into it? And then-'

'Orsea, don't,' she heard herself say; but she might as well have been in the audience at a play, watching a drama written two hundred years ago. She could protest all she liked, but there was nothing she could do to alter the words that were due to come next.

'And then,' Orsea went on, 'I remembered that extraordinary speech of yours, about how we should run away and throw ourselves on the mercy of Duke Valens.' He shook his head. 'Really Triz, I don't know; have I been really stupid, not seeing the bloody obvious when it's right under my nose, or what? I didn't know you'd ever met him, even, let alone-'

'Once,' she shouted. 'Once, when we were kids, practically. I talked to him for five minutes at some horrible boring reception.'

He looked at her and said nothing; his silence killed something inside her. 'And Miel fits in, of course, I can see that now,' he went on eventually. 'He was always in love with you. You and he would've been married, only you had to marry me instead, because of politics. So of course he'd help you. The one thing I still can't figure out is who he's been betraying me to. I mean, this proves he's been working for the Vadani; then he goes and throws the battle, lets the bastards escape when he could've finished them off, so is he working for the Mezentines as well? Or is it just anything to screw me, because I took you off him?' He shrugged; big, melodramatic gesture. 'I suppose I should care, because it matters politically, but I can't even be bothered to work it out. All I want is for the Mezentines to come quickly and finish us all off, before I find out anything else about what's been going on here.'

She realised that her legs were giving way; she took two wobbly steps back and leaned against the wall. 'It's not like that at all,' she said. 'Will you just listen to me?'

He looked at her. 'I don't think so,' he said. 'It'll just make me feel worse if you lie to me.'

That just made her feel murderously angry; if she'd had a knife, she'd have wanted to cut him with it. 'Orsea,' she said, 'it was just letters. He wrote to me about something, or I wrote to him, I can't bloody remember which; and we just carried on, like friends. That's absolutely all it was, I swear. And God knows how Miel got hold of that letter, but he was nothing at all to do with it, I promise.'

'You swear and you promise,' Orsea said gravely. 'There, now.'

'Orsea, don't be-'

'Stop it, Triz,' he said. 'It's obvious. It's so obvious a bloody Mezentine who's only been in the country five minutes knows all about it; I suppose everybody knew but me. It's so horrible.' He clenched his fists; it was a weak, petulant gesture, something a little boy might have done. 'Would you please go away now,' he went on. 'I really don't want to talk to you any more right now.'

She tried to take a step towards him, but her feet wouldn't take her weight. 'Orsea,' she said. 'Read the bloody letter. It's just harmless stuff, it's just chat. It doesn't-'

He laughed, and her mind was suddenly full of poison. 'Just chat,' he repeated. 'Do you really think I'm so stupid? Well yes, apparently you do. Fine. I must be. Now would you please go away? I've got a war to run.'

'Orsea. Will you please just listen?'

He shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'Right now, if you told me my name I wouldn't believe you.'

She wanted to fall on her knees and beg. She wanted to smash his face in. She couldn't do either. 'At least talk to Miel,' she said.

'No.' He turned his back on her, sat down, picked up the book. It was King Fashion and Queen Reason. She could have burst out laughing. Instead, she leant against the wall for balance and left the room.

The Mezentine army duly presented itself at the foot of the mountain road. Scouts reported that they numbered thirty thousand infantry, five hundred scorpions and a small garnish of light cavalry. They sat down and waited, like an actor waiting for his cue. Two days; nothing happened.

On the third morning, the baggage train arrived. It was suitably long and impressive; enough food and materiel for a long, thorough siege, enough plant and equipment for a devastating assault. Most of the machinery visible from the scouts' viewing point was so unfamiliar that they could only guess what it was supposed to be for; some reckoned it was heavy artillery for bashing down the walls, others were certain it was lifts and cranes for scaling ladders and siege towers, while a vocal minority insisted it was earth-moving equipment for undermining the main gate.

Just for the hell of it, Orsea sent an embassy under a flag of truce to ask why he was being invaded, and if there was anything he could do by way of reparation or apology. The embassy didn't come back. That, it was generally agreed inside the city, wasn't promising. On a more positive note, the Mezentine Vaatzes reported that all the scorpions were installed on the wall, fully operational, with good supplies of ammunition. If the enemy were stupid enough to come within range, he said, he could lay down a barrage that'd take out ten thousand of them before they had time to set up and load a single scorpion.

Certain death at the hands of an implacable and invincible enemy on the one hand; a stone-cold certain guarantee of victory on the other. Forced to choose between them, the Eremians in general made the obvious compromise and believed in both equally. It was easy enough to do; look down the valley at the enemy and abandon all hope, look up at the rows of war engines on the battlements and feel nothing but pity for the poor Mezentines, lambs to the pointless slaughter. Presumably the same ambivalence was what was keeping the enemy at a safe distance down in the valley; and there seemed to be no reason why they shouldn't stay there for ever and ever.

As was only proper for such a noble and ancient house, there were plenty of precedents for the treatment and privileges of a Ducas arrested for high treason. It had been established over two centuries ago that he should be held in the East Tower of the inner keep, a substantial and self-contained space where he could enjoy the view out over the long cover, and the sun sparkling on the distant water of the Ribbon Lake. It was held that this would afford him peace and tranquillity in his darkest hour; further or in the alternative, it would remind him of the start of the falconry season, and by implication everything he'd forfeited by his foolish and presumptuous behaviour. He should be brought food and fresh clothing three times a day direct from the Ducas house (tasting the food to make sure it wasn't poisoned was a special perquisite of the guard captain) together with books, writing materials, playing cards, chess sets and other basic necessities of civilised life. Each day two of his hounds should be brought to see him, so that the pack wouldn't pine for their master, and in the season he should be permitted to fly a peregrine falcon from his window at the doves roosting in the eaves of the bell-tower. His daily exercise should consist of a walk along the battlement of the curtain wall morning and evening, and shortly before noon either twelve ends of archery (with a child's bow and blunts) or sparring with wooden wasters in the courtyard behind the main guardhouse at the top of the tower. His valet should come to shave him at sunrise and sunset, under supervision of the guard captain. The Ducas steward, bailiff, treasurer, head chamberlain, private secretary, housekeeper, head keeper and huntsman were permitted to call at any time during the hours of daylight, or after dark when urgent business required the Ducas' attention; other visitors were at the guard captain's discretion and subject to review by a supervisor appointed directly by the Duke. In the event that the Ducas was unmarried, he should be permitted after thirty-eight consecutive months' detention, or if condemned to death, to marry a woman of good family nominated by the Duke solely for the purpose of begetting an heir. During any one calendar year, his personal expenditure was limited to sixty thousand thalers, and he was not permitted to buy land in excess of three hundred acres (except in completion of contracts entered into prior to his arrest) or participate in a mercantile venture to the value of more than two hundred and fifty thousand thalers (except for contracts for the supply of food, textiles or lumber to the army or the ducal household). He was permitted to stage a masque at midsummer and midwinter, employing no more than sixteen paid actors and thirty-six musicians, and to be staged in the main guardhouse; and to hold a banquet for no more than a hundred and twenty guests on the occasion of his birthday, the Duke's birthday and the anniversary of the Battle of Cantelac. He could have his portrait painted once very six months.

From the southern balcony of the East Tower, Miel could just see the extreme edge of the Mezentine camp: a section of the perimeter ditch, which they'd dug on the first night and second morning, a corner of the enclosure they'd built to pen up the wagon horses, and, if he leaned out and twisted his neck as far as it would go, the arms of the tallest of the giant long-range war engines that were being assembled from prefabricated components in a specially fortified stockade. Beyond that, he had to rely on observations made for him by members of his household; they told him about the arrival of the supply train, various comings and goings of auxiliaries and engineers, and the lack of any other significant activity.

In a curious way, much of the time he didn't feel like a prisoner. Running the everyday affairs of the Ducas-rent reviews, planting schedules, repairs and renovations to tenanted properties, adjudicating in tenants' disputes, all the duties he'd carried out all his adult life without a second thought-felt more or less the same, regardless of the fact that he was doing them in a slightly different setting. They'd brought up some of the tapestries and smaller paintings from the rent-room at the Ducas house, since it would've been unreasonable to expect the Ducas to receive his dependents and tenants in anything less than the proper surroundings; his sitting-room in the East Tower was, if anything, slightly larger than the rent-room, and not quite as draughty. Once I've been acquitted, he told his visitors, I've got a good mind to ask Orsea if I can stay here. Most of them smiled the first few times he said it.

He wrote to Orsea four times a day: once before breakfast, usually a quick, personal note asking for a meeting as soon as possible; a longer, more formal appeal composed during the morning; another similar during the afternoon; an expanded but more informal summary of all three, usually written in the early hours of the morning. All were delivered personally by his private secretary, all were read, none were answered. At least once a day he wrote to Veatriz, between three and ten pages, all of which he burned once he'd finished them. People brought him presents; mostly books (Jarnac gave him a brand-new copy of King Fashion, profusely illuminated and illustrated by a leading artist) and fruit, as though he was ill.

He didn't know what he was supposed to have done, or who had accused him, or what evidence, if any, there was against him. The general consensus of opinion among his visitors was that it was something to do with the cavalry raid; it was cowardice or incompetence, or else deliberate collusion with the enemy, because he could have killed far more of them from the position he'd been in but had instead chosen to withdraw. His steward, a gloomy man called Evech, reckoned it was all the Mezentine Vaatzes' fault; he'd never forgotten how Miel had wanted to have him executed as a spy, and now he was in a position of power and influence, he was getting his revenge. Cousin Jarnac refused to offer any opinion whatsoever. He simply couldn't understand it, but Orsea had refused to see him or answer his letters, so he could shed no light on the matter. Miel's valet reckoned the Duke was after the family wealth, to help pay for the war. Nobody said anything about Veatriz being involved in any way, but she hadn't been to see him or written a letter. His housekeeper reckoned it was all a nasty plot by the Phocas, whom she always blamed for everything.

'If you ask me,' she said vehemently, 'it's them bloody Phocas who started this whole stupid war, just so they could do us down and get the command. Nothing they wouldn't do to push us out and be on top, only they know so long as you're around there's no chance of that, so they start spreading their filthy lies, and of course the Duke believes them, he'd believe any bloody thing-'

'You mustn't talk like that about the Duke,' Miel said firmly.

She looked at him as if he was a martyred saint. 'But look at how he's treating you,' she said, 'his best friend and all. If I could only get my hands on him-'

'That's enough,' Miel said sharply; then he went on: 'I mean, it'd be no good if I got out of here to find my own housekeeper, who's the only woman in the city who can run our house properly, is in jail for high treason. Fact is, you're far more important to the Ducas house than I am.'

There were fat, soggy tears in her eyes; not just admiration and doglike devotion, but guilt as well. 'You're making me feel dreadful,' she said. 'I wasn't going to tell you, not till you got out of here, but I can't keep it to myself any more, it's like I'm betraying you when you need me most. For two pins I'd tell him to forget it, only everything's arranged now and I don't know if we'd be able to get the money back, and he's set his heart-'

'Hang on,' Miel interrupted. 'I think you may have missed a bit out. What can't you keep to yourself, and how are you betraying me?'

'Well,' she said with a sniff, 'me and Geratz-he's my husband, you know-'

'I've known him since I was six,' Miel pointed out.

'Of course you have, I'm sorry. Anyway, we've come into a bit of money, a nice bit of money actually, and Geratz has always had his heart set on a farm, ever since he was a kid, his uncle being a smallholder out in the Crane valley and Geratz going there such a lot when he was a small boy-'

'You're buying a farm, then,' Miel interrupted.

She nodded three times quickly. 'Cousin of a friend of Geratz's aunt,' she said, 'got no kids of his own and he's getting on, the place is too big for him, but it's a good farm, there's sixty acres of pasture, a good vineyard, nice big plot for growing a bit of corn down by the river-that's the Mare's Tail, I expect you know it well, out west on the border, which would've put us off, of course, but now we're all friends with the Vadani there's really nothing to worry about-and there's a good road for taking the flock to market, and he wants next to nothing for it really, I think he just wants someone to look after it, make sure it doesn't all go to seed and ruin-well, you can understand that, after working all his life-'

'I'm delighted for you,' Miel said firmly. 'Truly I am. You deserve some luck, both of you.'

She gazed at him as though her heart was breaking. 'Yes, but leaving you, at a time like this, it just doesn't seem right.'

'Rubbish,' Miel said. 'The most important thing is to take your chances when you can. Now, as a token of my appreciation for all your hard work over the years I'd like to do something to help you set up. How about the live and dead stock? Is that included, or are you just buying the land?'

That had the effect of reducing her to tears, which was rather more than Miel could take. Besides, it was all completely fatuous; the Mezentines were camped at the foot of the mountain, and pretty soon all contracts, agreements, promises and plans would be null and void for ever. It occurred to him to wonder whether she appreciated that. Absurd irony: to cherish an unthinkable ambition for a lifetime, to attain it through a small miracle (she hadn't said where the money had come from; a legacy, presumably) only to have it swept away by a huge, unexpected, illogical, ridiculous monstrosity of a war. Of course, he couldn't help thinking, here's my chance to be a hero; I could promise her any damn thing-five hundred prime dairy cows, a brand-new barn, a new plough and a team of twenty milk-white horses-and of course I'll never have to pay up, because in a very short time we'll all be dead. Oh, the temptation!

He spent the rest of her visit dealing with strictly domestic matters. Because of the siege, it wasn't possible for the steward of the home farm to send the usual supplies of provisions for the household up to the town house; it was therefore necessary to buy food for the staff, something that the Ducas hadn't done for generations. He authorised the extravagance with all due solemnity, and also agreed to a general washing and airing of curtains and bedlinen. ('Might as well get it all done while you're not at home,' she'd said, 'so it won't be a nuisance to you.' He appreciated the thought, at any rate.) After a slight hesitation, she asked if she could take down the big tapestry, which she knew she shouldn't touch without express permission, but it had got in a dreadful state, with dust and all. There was a slight catch in her voice when she asked him that, but she was, after all, a rather emotional woman.

When she'd gone, he took a fresh sheet of paper (she'd brought a ream with her up from the house, since he was running low) and wrote his usual letters: to Orsea, conversational and slightly desperate; to Jarnac, asking him if he'd mind taking the riding horses to his stables for the time being, since he was concerned that they weren't getting enough exercise; to Veatriz, six pages, which he read over slowly before tearing them into small pieces and feeding them methodically into the fire. Not long after he'd finished that task, a guard told him he had another visitor: Vaatzes, the Mezentine, if he could spare a moment to see him.

'I think I might be able to fit him in,' Miel replied gravely. The guard went away, and Miel got up to pour some wine from the jug into a decanter. There was a bowl of fresh apples, a new loaf and some seed-cakes, which the housekeeper had brought. The Ducas recipe for seed-cake was as old as the city itself and even more closely guarded; Miel had never liked it much.

Vaatzes looked tired, which was hardly surprising; he was thinner, and he grunted softly when he sat down. Then he yawned, and apologised.

'That's all right,' Miel said. 'I imagine they're keeping you busy right now.'

Vaatzes nodded. 'It sounds bad saying it,' he replied, 'but I'll almost be glad when the attack comes, and there's nothing else I can do. At the moment I keep thinking of slight modifications and improvements, which means breaking down four hundred sets of mountings just to put on an extra washer or slip in another shim. I know for a fact that all the artillery crews hate me. Don't blame them, either.'

Miel shook his head. 'You just wait,' he said. 'Once they attack, you'll have your work cut out.'

'Not really,' Vaatzes said. 'I'm not a soldier, I'm just a mechanic. As soon as the bolts start flying I intend, to find a deep, dark cellar and barricade myself in.'

'Very wise,' Miel said. 'And you've done your bit already, God knows. But I suppose it's your war as much as ours, given the way they treated you. You want to get back at them, naturally.'

Vaatzes frowned. 'Not at all,' he said. 'I've got one hell of a grudge against a small number of officials in the Foundrymen's Guild and Compliance, but I love my city. What I want most in the whole world is to go home and carry on with my old life. That's not going to be possible, but it still doesn't mean I suddenly hate everybody I used to love, and that I've stopped believing in everything that I used to live by. No, I'm helping you because it's my duty, because you people rescued me when I was dying and gave me a home and a job to do; and because nobody else has a use for me. I'd have thought you of all people would've understood about duty'

'That old thing.' Miel laughed. 'It's actually one of our family's titles: the Ducas, Lord of the Mesogaea, Baron Hereditary of the Swan River, Master of the East Marches, Slave of Duty. Always made me laugh, that, but in fact it's true; the Ducas is the second most powerful man in this country, but everything he does every day, from getting up in the morning to going to bed at night, is pretty well dictated to him by duty. It's not something I ever think about, the way fish don't think about water.'

Vaatzes studied him for a moment, as though making an assessment. 'Duke Orsea's taken over running the war himself,' he said. 'Someone called the lesser Phocas is in charge of supplies and administration, and your cousin Jarnac's in command of the defence of the walls. There's a man called something Amyntas supposedly commanding the artillery, but I haven't met him yet. I think he's quite happy for me to get on with it; which is stupid, since I don't know the first thing about military science.'

Miel grinned. 'Neither does Tarsa Amyntas,' he said. 'He was famous for a week or so about fifteen years ago, when he killed a lot of Vadani in the war; hand-to-hand fighting in a forest, if I'm thinking about the right man. Since then, he's mostly spent his time composing flute-music and trying to grow strawberries in winter. Military command in this country goes according to birth, rank and position. It's a miracle we're still here.'

'It seems to have worked,' Vaatzes said mildly. 'Take you, for instance. You won a battle.'

'That seems to be a matter of opinion,' Miel said.

'No, it's a fact. You were outnumbered-what, ten to one? It was something ridiculous like that. You outplanned and outfought the best professional commander money can buy. And I don't suppose it was just natural talent or beginner's luck,' he added, with a small grin. 'It's because you were born and brought up to do a particular job, just like sons follow their fathers in the Guilds. I'll bet you were learning about logistics and reading up old battles at an age when most kids are learning their times tables.'

'Sort of,' Miel said. 'But I'm nothing special, believe me. It was just luck; and besides, I threw it all away by pulling back too early. At any rate, that seems to be what Orsea thinks, and the opinion of the Duke is the only thing that matters to the Ducas. Says so somewhere in the book of rules.'

Vaatzes frowned at him. 'Your family has a rule-book?' he said.

Miel laughed. 'No, it's a figure of speech. Though, since you mention it, there is a Ducas code of honour, all properly written down and everything. The Five Transcendent Precepts, it's called. My great-great-'-he paused and counted on his fingers-'great-great-grandfather made it up and had it carved on a wall, on the left by the main hall door as you go in. I had to learn it by heart when I was eight.'

'Really? What does it say?'

'Can't remember, to be honest with you. Not all of it, anyhow. Let's see: do your duty to your Duke, your family, your tenants and servants, your people and your country. That's one. Never question an order or give an order that deserves to be questioned, that's two. Three…' He closed his eyes, trying to visualise the chisel-cuts in the yellow stone. 'Three is something like true courtesy dignifies the receiver and the giver. Four is, remember always that the acts of the Ducas live for ever. Five-well, you get the general idea. Pretty intimidating stuff to force on an eight-year-old.' He frowned slightly. 'You're laughing,' he said. 'Which is fair enough, it's all pretty ridiculous stuff, but-'

'Actually,' Vaatzes said, 'I was thinking, that's something you and me have in common. Except when I was eight years old, I was learning the specifications of the Foundrymen and Machinists' Guild. At least all your rules of conduct make some sort of sense. The specifications are just a whole list of measurements and dimensions. But really they amount to the same thing; stuff you've got to live by, like it or not, because that's what we stand for. I can still remember them all, believe it or not. On my ninth birthday I had to go to the Guildhall along with all the other kids in my class and stand on a platform in the Long Gallery, and three scary old men tested us; it felt like hours, and we'd been told beforehand that if we got anything even slightly wrong, that'd be it-out of the Guild for ever, which would've been the next best thing to a death sentence. Were we nervous? I can feel the sweat now, running down inside my shirt. And I was desperate for a pee-I'd gone about a dozen times while we were waiting in the lodge-but of course there was nothing I could do except stand with my legs crossed hoping nobody'd notice.'

Miel laughed. 'When I was that age I had to go up in front of everybody when we had company for dinner and recite poetry-Mannerist stuff, mostly, which I never could be doing with. If I did all right and remembered it all and didn't gabble, Father'd give me a present, like a new hood for my sparrowhawk or a new pair of riding gloves; but if I got it wrong and showed him up he'd be absolutely livid for days; wouldn't speak to me, just looked past me as though I didn't exist. I never could see the point of it, because the guests must've been bored stiff-who wants to hear a snot-nosed kid reciting sonnets about dew-spattered ferns?-and he'd be mortified if I wasn't absolutely perfect, and I hated it, of course. But apparently it was one of those things you had to do, so we all did it. Like you and your measurements, I suppose.'

Vaatzes nodded. 'There's a difference, though,' he said. 'To you it was all just a waste of time; a stupid, pointless chore but you did it out of duty. For me-I can honestly say, when I got off the platform and I realised I'd passed, it was the proudest moment of my life. I felt I belonged, you see; I'd earned my place.'

'That's good,' Miel said, after a light pause. 'You were quite right to feel that way'

'I thought so,' Vaatzes said. 'It's like the story we were all told at school, about the man whose name was put forward for membership of General Council; there were twenty vacancies, and he'd been nominated by his co-workers, so he went along to the interview, feeling nervous as hell. Anyhow, that evening he comes home, and he's grinning like an idiot; so his wife looks at him and says, "You got it, then," and he grins a bit more and says, "No." "So why're you smirking like that?" she says. "I'm happy," he replies. "Happy? What're you happy about, you didn't make it." And he beams at her and says, "I'm happy for the City, because if I didn't get it, it means there's twenty men in Mezentia who're even more loyal and wise and clever than I am; isn't that fantastic?'"

Miel frowned. 'That's supposed to be ironic, presumably.'

'No,' Vaatzes said.

Ah.' Miel shrugged. 'Sorry. No disrespect. But even the Ducas never came up with anything as sappy as that.'

'I think it's a good story,' Vaatzes said. 'Please, don't ever get me wrong. I haven't changed who I am, just because I'm in exile.'

Miel sighed. 'It's all very well you saying that,' he said. 'I mean, I'm the same as you. Orsea may have had me arrested and locked up in here, but he's still the Duke and my best friend, and if he honestly thinks this is where I should be, then fine. I happen to believe he's wrong, and once things are sorted out, we can go back to how we were. But in your case…' He shook his head. 'What you did was absolutely harmless, there was nothing wrong about it, you hadn't hurt anybody, and they were going to kill you for it. You can't accept that, and you can't still have any faith in the society that was going to do that to you.'

Vaatzes looked at him for a moment. 'I was guilty,' he said. 'And they caught me, and I deserved to be punished. But there were other considerations, which meant I couldn't hold still and die. It wasn't up to me, the choice of whether or not to hold still and take what was coming to me. If I'd been a free agent…' He shook his head slowly. 'If there hadn't been those other considerations, of course, I'd never have broken the law in the first place, so really it's a circular argument.'

Miel, not surprisingly, didn't understand. 'If that's really how you feel,' he said, 'what on earth prompted you to design and build all those war engines that're going to mow down your people in droves? No, don't interrupt; it's not like we came to you and asked you, let alone threatened you with torture if you refused. You offered. What's more, you offered and we refused, so you had to go to all the trouble of getting a private investor to put up the money and everything. That simply doesn't make any sense, does it?'

'Like I said,' Vaatzes said quietly, 'there are other considerations.' He broke eye contact, looked out of the window. 'If you're standing on a ledge and someone pushes you, it's not your fault that you fall. The whole thing has been out of my hands for a very long time now. It's a great shame, but there it is. You'd be doing the same as me, in my shoes.'

Miel decided not to reply to that; when someone insists on wilfully being wrong, it's bad manners to persist in correcting him. 'Thank you for coming to see me,' he said.

Vaatzes looked at him and grinned. 'No problem,' he said. 'For what little it's worth, I'm absolutely positive you haven't done anything wrong. Also for what it's worth, I'd like to thank you for everything you've done to help me. Without you, I don't know what I'd have done. I wish I could repay you somehow, but I can't.' He stood up. 'I wish there was something I could do.'

'Don't worry about it,' Miel said.

Don't worry about it, he'd said; Ziani thought about that as he walked home. Technically, it was absolution, which was probably what he'd gone there to obtain. Query, however: is absolution valid if it's obtained through deceit, fraud and treachery?

Irrelevant; he didn't need the Ducas' forgiveness, any more than he'd have needed it if he'd been pushed off a ledge and fallen on him, breaking his arm or leg. In that case, he'd have been no more than a projectile, a weapon in the hand of whoever had pushed him. There are all sorts of ways in which people are made into weapons; what they do once they've been put to that use is not their fault. A man can't work in an arms factory unless he believes in the innocence of weapons.

As he cleared the lower suburbs and approached the wall, he became aware of a great deal of activity; a great many people walking fast or running, not aimlessly or in panic but with an obvious, serious purpose. Some of them were hurrying up the hill, towards the centre of town and the palace. Most of them, however, were coming down the hill, heading for the wall or the gate. Fine, he thought; something's about to happen, we're about to get under way at last. He allowed himself a moment (there might not be another opportunity) to consider his feelings, which he'd learned to trust over the years. He realised that he felt, on balance, content. A great deal was wrong about what had happened and what was about to happen, but he was satisfied that he bore no blame for any of it. His part had been carried out with proper, in some respects elegant, efficiency; and he was reasonably confident that it would all come out right, barring the unforeseen and the unforeseeable. He checked progress achieved against the overall schematic. There was still a long way to go, but he'd come a long way already. Most of all, everything was more or less under control. Suddenly, without expecting to, he laughed. The Eremian workers at the factory had an expression, good enough for government work, meaning something like, by no means perfect, but who cares, it'll do. It had always annoyed him when he'd heard them using it; right now, however, it was entirely appropriate. Very soon now, by the sound of it, there'd be plenty of government work on both sides of the city wall. He, of course, preferred to see things in terms of tolerances; what could and could not be tolerated in the context of the job that needed to be done. By those criteria, he'd passed the test and could go home with a quiet mind.

Orsea arrived at the wall expecting to see one of his nightmares. Instead, he found the seventh infantry drawn up in parade order, and the captain saluting him.

'What's happening?' he asked.

'They've started to climb the road,' the captain told him. 'Come and see for yourself.'

Jarnac Ducas joined him on top of the gatehouse tower. Preoccupied as Orsea was with thoughts of the end of the world, he couldn't help noticing that Jarnac's unerring dress sense had chosen exactly the right outfit for the occasion: a coat of plates backed in blue velvet over a shirt of flat, riveted mail; plain blued-steel arm and leg harness; an open-face bascinet with a mail aventail; simple mail chausses over strong shoes; workmanlike Type Fifteen sword in a plain leather scabbard. Is there, Orsea wondered, a book where you can look these things up: Arms and Armour for Formal Occasions: a guide for the well-dressed warrior. He wouldn't be the least surprised, he decided, if there was.

'Nothing either way as yet,' Jarnac told him. 'See down there, you can just make them out.' (Jarnac pointed; Orsea couldn't see anything.) 'That's their heavy artillery, the stuff we really don't know anything about. According to the Mezentine fellow, Vaatzes, they could have engines that could drop five-hundredweight shot on the walls from about halfway up the road; which'd be a disaster, obviously, we'd have to send out a sortie to deal with them and that'd be simply asking for trouble. But, apparently, the platforms and carriages for that kind of engine are too wide or too fragile or something to be set up on the road-because of the gradient, presumably-so it's possible they won't be able to use them at all unless they stop halfway up and spend several days building a special platform. Nothing to stop them doing that, of course, unless we're brave enough or cocky enough to send out a night sortie. Alternatively, they could drag the heavy artillery round the back of the city and set it up roughly where the advance party of scorpions was supposed to be-where it would've been if we hadn't intercepted it, I mean. In fact, that's the only scenario we can think of which'd explain why they wanted to station scorpions there in the first place: to lay down a suppressing barrage to cover them while they get the heavy engines set up. Of course, you'd expect them to change the plan because of what happened, but you never know, they may decide to press on regardless. Basically, it's too early to say anything for certain.'

That seemed to cover the situation pretty well, though Orsea felt he ought to be asking penetrating questions to display his perfect grasp of it. But the only thing he really wanted to know was whether, at some point between now and the start of the actual assault, Jarnac would be slipping off home to change into something else; or whether he'd got a full wardrobe of different armours laid out ready in the guard tower. He wished he didn't dislike Jarnac so much, particularly since he was going to have to rely on him; that made him think of Miel, which had the effect of freezing his mind. 'Carry on,' he heard himself say.

He toured the walls, of course, and anxious-looking officers whose names tended to elude him jumped up and saluted him wherever he went. They pointed things out to him, things he couldn't quite make out in the distance-high points where the enemy might put observers or long-range engines, patches of dead ground where a whole division could lurk unseen, secret mountain trails that could be useful for raids and sorties-and he knew that he ought to be taking it all in, building each component into a mechanism that would serve as a weapon against the enemy. But there was too much of everything for his mind to grasp. The only thing he knew for certain was that he was slowly seizing up, as fear, shock and pain coagulated and set inside him. The enemy would build their platform and their engines would grind down the walls at their leisure, smashing Vaatzes' hard-earned, expensive scorpions into rubbish before they'd had a chance to loose a single shot. When that task had been completed to their perfect satisfaction, the enemy would advance, entirely safe, to the foot of the wall; their scorpions would clear away the last of Jarnac's defenders, the ladders would be raised, the enemy would surge in like a mighty white-fringed wave; and all the while, Miel (who could have saved the city) would watch from his tower window, and Veatriz would watch from hers; maybe they'd be watching when he was killed, maybe they'd see him fall and be unable to do anything…

Part of the torment was knowing that there was still enough time. He could send a runner to the captain of the East Tower; Miel could be here beside him in a few minutes, to forgive him and take over and make everything all right again. But he couldn't do that; because Miel had betrayed him, Miel and Veatriz-the truth was that he didn't know what it was they'd done, or how Duke Valens came into it; all he knew was that he could never trust either of them again, and without them he was completely useless, a fool in charge of the battle of life against death. It was like the nightmares he had now and again, where he was a doctor about to perform surgery, and he suddenly realised he didn't have the faintest idea what he was supposed to do; or he'd agreed to act in a play but he hadn't got round to learning his lines, and now he was due to go on in front of a hundred people. The officers carried on telling him things he ought to know, but it was as though they were speaking a foreign language. We've had it, he thought; and his mind started to fill up with images of the last time, the field of dead men and scorpion bolts. It's all my fault, he told himself, I'm to blame for all of it; nobody else but me.

Once the tour of inspection was over, he went back to Jarnac's tower and asked him what was happening. Jarnac pointed out the heavy engines-he could see them for himself now-being dragged up the slope by long trains of mules. Ahead of them trudged a dense mass of men; the work details, Jarnac explained, who'd be building the platform for the engines.

'I see,' Orsea said. 'So what should we be doing?' He could see a flicker of concern in Jarnac's eyes, as if to say what're you asking me for? 'Well,' he said, 'as I mentioned earlier, we have the option of launching a sortie. We can try and drive off the work details, or kill them, or capture or destroy the heavy engines. It's our only way of putting the engines out of action before they neutralise our defences-assuming, of course, that they're capable of doing that. We've never seen them in action, or heard any accounts of what they can do, so we're guessing, basically. But if we launch the sortie, we'll be taking quite a risk. To put it bluntly, I don't think we'd stand any more of a chance than we did the last time we took on the Mezentines in the open. Our scorpions can't give us cover down there, and we'd be walking right up to theirs; and even if you leave the scorpions out of it completely, we'd be taking on their army in a pitched battle. I don't think that'd be a good idea.'

Jarnac stopped talking and looked at him; so did a dozen or so other officers, waiting for him to decide. He could feel fear coming to life inside them (the Duke hasn't got a plan, he can't make up his mind, he's useless, we're screwed). He knew he had to say something, and that if he said the wrong thing it could easily mean the destruction of the city.

'Fine,' he said. 'No sortie. We'll just sit it out and wait and see.'

The silence was uncomfortable, as though he'd just said something crass and tactless, or spouted gibberish at them. I've lost them, he thought, but they'll obey my orders because I'm the Duke. Their excellent loyalty would keep them from ignoring him and doing what they thought should be done, what they knew was the right course of action; they'd fail him by loyalty, just as Miel had failed him by treachery. Ah, symmetry!

But he'd given the order now; fatal to change his mind and trample down what little confidence in him they had left. Amusing thought: here was the entire Mezentine army coming up the mountain specially to kill him, well over thirty thousand men all hungering for his blood; even so, in spite of their multitudes, he was still his own worst enemy.

Jarnac cleared his throat. 'If it's all right with you, I'd like to run the scorpion crews through a few more drills,' he said. 'We've got time, I'm fairly sure, and-'

'Yes, do that,' Orsea snapped at him. 'I'll get out of your way, you've got-' He didn't bother to finish the sentence. He headed for the stairs. People followed him; he ought to know who they all were, but he didn't. He had no clear idea of where he was going, or what he was going to do next.

In response to his urgent request for technical advice, they brought him a man called Falier, who was apparently the chief engineer of the state arms factory. It seemed logical enough. This Falier was in charge of building the machines, so presumably he'd know how they worked and what they were capable of doing.

Falier turned out to be younger than he'd expected; a nervous, good-looking, weak sort of man who'd probably agree with everything he said. General Melancton sighed, told him to sit down and offered him a drink.

'The heavy engines,' he said. 'The-what are they, the Mark Sixes. How far will they shoot?'

The man called Falier looked at him as if he didn't understand the question. 'Well,' he said slowly, 'it all depends. I mean, for a start, how heavy a ball are you using?'

Expect the worst of people and you won't be disappointed. 'I don't know,' Melancton said with studied patience. 'You tell me. What weight of ball will give me maximum range?'

Falier was doing sums in his head. 'A two-hundredweight ball will carry six hundred yards,' he said, 'at optimum elevation, assuming the wind's not against you. But,' he went on, 'I can't guarantee it'd be effective against that sort of masonry; not at extreme range.'

'I see.' Melancton sighed. 'So what weight of ball do I need to use?'

'Well,' Falier said, 'a five hundredweight'll go through pretty much anything.'

'Excellent. And what's the extreme range of a five hundredweight?'

Falier shrugged. 'Two hundred yards,' he said. 'More if you've got a following wind, of course.'

'That would be well inside scorpion range, from the city wall.'

'Oh yes.' Falier nodded enthusiastically. 'Especially shot from the top of the wall there. Actually, it's quite a sophisticated calculation, where the point of release is higher up than the point of impact. It's all to do with the rate of decay of the bolt's trajectory, and the acceleration it builds up on its way down. The variables can make a hell of a difference, mind.'

Falier, in other words, didn't know the answer to his question; so he thanked him and got rid of him, and resolved to build his siege platform at four hundred and fifty yards. If the balls dropped short at that range, they'd just have to move up a bit closer and build another platform. Embarrassing; but with any luck, all the witnesses to his embarrassment-the hostile ones at least-would be dead quite soon, and so it wouldn't really matter terribly much. He gave the order, then left his tent and walked a little way up the road so he could watch the building detail at work.

The mercenary infantry were, of course, too well trained and high-class to dig earth and carry it back and forth in baskets; so he'd sent to Mezentia for brute labour, and they'd sent him five hundred assorted Cure Doce, Paulisper, Cranace and Lonazep dockside miscellaneous, at three groschen a day. Twenty groschen to the Mezentine foreign thaler, and it's a sad fact of life that you get what you pay for. The Cure Doce dug and spitted with a kind of steadfast indifference; the Paulisper didn't mind heavy lifting, but were generally drunk by mid-afternoon; the Cranace picked fights with the Paulisper over matters of religion and spectator sport; the Lonazeppians worked hard but complained about everything (the food, the tents, the Cranace's singing). In the event, it took them four days and nights on a three-shift rotation to build the platform. Melancton's most optimistic forecast had been six. The Eremians made no effort to interfere in any way, which he found strange and faintly disturbing. In their position he'd have launched sorties; even if capturing or wrecking the engines proved too difficult, scaririg the labour force into mass desertion would've been no trouble at all. An enemy who neglected such an obvious opportunity was either supremely confident or utterly resigned to defeat.

On the fifth morning, he went up to the platform with Syracoelus, his captain of artillery, the engineer Falier and a couple of pain-in-the-bum liaison officers from the Mezentine Guilds, who'd been sent up to find out why the war hadn't been won yet. The early mists had burned away in bright, harsh sunlight; the heavy engines had been hauled up overnight and were already dug in, aligned and crewed for action. Four hundred and fifty yards away, the enemy looked like roosting rooks behind their turrets and battlements, the noses of scorpions poking out from behind each crenellation.

Melancton and his party stood in silence for a while, looking up at the walls. Nobody seemed in any hurry to say anything, not even the usually unsilenceable Mezentines. Finally, Melancton said, 'Well, I suppose we'd better get on with it.' The engine crews hesitated, trying to figure out if that constituted a valid order to open fire. Melancton frowned, then nodded to Captain Syracoelus, who looked at the nearest engine-master and said, 'Loose.'

He was being somewhat premature, of course; first they had to span the huge windlass that dragged down the engine's throwing-arm against the tension of the nested, inch-thick leaf springs that powered it. In the silence the smooth snicks of the ratchet sounded horribly loud (it was as though the city was asleep, and Melancton was worried they'd wake it up). A louder, meatier snick told him the sear was engaged and the engine was ready to be loaded; a wheeled dolly was rolled under a derrick which lifted a three-hundredweight stone ball off a pile; the dolly ran on tracks that stopped under a short crane, which lifted the ball into the spoon on the end of the throwing-arm. Men with levers rolled it into place and jumped clear. Syracoelus repeated his order; someone pulled back a lever, and the arm reared up, sudden and violent as a punch. Melancton could hear the throbbing whistle the ball made as it spun; at first it climbed, almost straight, so far that he was sure they'd overshoot the city completely. At the top of its trajectory it hung for a split second, the sunlight choosing that moment to flare off it, like an unofficial moon. Then it began to fall, the decay of the cast seeming to draw it in as if there were chains attached to it. He lost sight of it against the backdrop of the walls; heard the dull thump as it bashed into the masonry, saw a puff of dust and steam lift into the air and drift for a moment before dispersing. 'Elevation good,' he heard someone say, 'windage two minutes left'; another lever clicked and a sear rang like a bell, and that oscillating whistle again, followed by the thump and the round white ball of dust. The clicking of ratchets all round him was as busy as crickets in meadow-grass; men were straining at their windlasses, every last scrap of strength brought to bear on the long handles; voices were calling out numbers, six up, five left, two right; the distant thumps came so close together they melted into each other, and the whistles merged into a constant hum.

Compassion wasn't one of Melancton's weaknesses, but he couldn't help wondering what it must be like on the wall, as the shots landed; if the thumps were so heavy he could feel them through the soles of his feet four and a half hundred yards away, what did they feel like close to, as they butted into the stones of the wall? Melancton had never been on the wrong end of a bombardment like this; an earthquake, maybe, he thought, or the eruption of a volcano. 'Keep it going for half an hour,' he heard himself shouting over the extraordinary blend of noises, 'and then we can see if we're doing any good.' (Half an hour, he thought as he said it; how long would half an hour seem under the onslaught of the whistling stone predators, swooping in like a falcon on a partridge? He knew the fluffy white balls of cloud were steam because someone had explained it to him long ago; when the ball lands, the energy behind it is so great that for a split second it's burning hot, and any traces of moisture in the target are instantly boiled away into vapour. How could you be on the receiving end of something like that and not drop dead at once from sheer terror?)

The barrage didn't last half an hour; ten minutes at the very most, because by then all the shot had been used up, and it'd take at least an hour to replenish the stocks from the reserve supply. Syracoelus was quick to apologise; Melancton shrugged, having to make an effort not to admit that he was overjoyed that it was over; the clicking and ringing and the air full of that terrible humming noise, and the thuds of impacting shot a quarter-mile away as constant as the drumming of rain on a roof. He realised he'd been looking away, deliberately averting his eyes from the target. He looked up; and, to his considerable surprise, Civitas Eremiae was still there.

'Shit,' someone said.

Syracoelus gave orders to his crews to stand by. 'What's happening?' bleated one of the Mezentine liaisons. 'I can't see from here.' Someone else said, 'Maybe we're just dropping them in the wrong place; how about if we concentrated the whole lot on the left-hand gatehouse tower?' Three people contradicted him simultaneously, drowning out each other's arguments as they competed for attention. 'Hardly bloody scratched it,' someone else said. 'Fuck me, those walls must be solid.'

Failure, then. Melancton felt like laughing out loud at the absurdity of it. The Mezentine heavy engines had been beaten, they weren't up to the job. Melancton caught himself on the verge of a grin; could it possibly be, he wondered, that he was beginning to want the Eremians to win?

'Wonderful,' Syracoelus was saying. 'Well, we can't possibly go in any closer, we'd be right under the noses of those scorpions on the wall. I suppose we could up the elevation to full and try the four-hundredweight balls, but I really don't think they'll get there, even.'

'If we had a load of really strong pavises,' someone else began to say; nobody contradicted him or shouted him down, but he didn't finish the suggestion.

It hadn't worked, then; or at least, not yet. There was still plenty of ammunition back at the supply train. He caught sight of Falier, the man from the ordnance factory, who hadn't contributed to the post-bombardment debate. He looked like he might throw up at any moment. 'Is there any way to beef up the springs?' Melancton asked. He had to repeat the question a couple of times before he could get an answer, which was no, there wasn't. They were already on their highest setting, Falier explained, all the tensioners were done up tight.

'Any suggestions?' Melancton asked. 'Come on, you produce the bloody things. Is there any kind of modification we could make?' Falier shuddered and shook his head. 'Not allowed,' he said.

Melancton looked at him. 'Not allowed?'

'That's right,' Falier replied. 'Not without a dispensation from the Specifications directorate at the factory. Otherwise it'd be… I'd get into trouble.'

Melancton smiled at him. 'I'm giving you a direct order as commander in chief of the army,' he said. 'Now-'

'Sorry' Falier looked away. 'I'm a civilian. You can't order me. If you threaten me, I'll have to report it. Anyhow,' he went on, 'it's all beside the point. We'd need to make new springs, and beef up the frames as well. Even if we got all the calculations right first time, it'd take weeks to have the springs made at the factory and sent up here. Have you got that much time?'

He's lying, Melancton realised. Of course he knew about Specifications, how they were sacrosanct and couldn't be altered on pain of death; he also knew that the arms factory was the one exception. As to the other argument (so neatly offered in the alternative), he had to take Falier's word for it, since he knew nothing about engineering or production times. He was fairly certain that Falier was exaggerating the timescale, but of course he couldn't prove it.

'Weeks,' he repeated.

'And that's supposing we don't have setbacks,' Falier said quickly. 'We can calculate the size and shape the spring'd have to be, up to a point, but in the end it'd be simple trial and error. Could be months, if we're unlucky'

Not so much a warning as a promise, Melancton suspected. For some reason, Falier didn't want to make any modifications to the engines. If forced to, he'd probably sabotage them, in some subtle, undetectable way. Melancton couldn't begin to understand why anybody would want to do that, but he'd been dealing with the Mezentines long enough to know that inscrutability was practically their defining characteristic. He might not be able to figure out what the reason was, but he had no trouble believing that there was a reason. He gave up; simple as that.

'Fine,' he said. 'So the long-range engines are useless, is that it?'

Falier shrugged. 'If you could get them in closer,' he said, 'that'd be different. At this range, though…' He looked down at his hands. For crying out loud, Melancton thought.

'They're useless,' he said. 'Understood. Right, we'll have to find another way. Thank you so much for your help.'