The Belly of the Bow

CHAPTER TEN

‘I think it’s broken,’ said Venart sorrowfully, dabbing at his nose with a scrap of bloodstained cloth he’d torn off his sleeve. ‘In fact, I’m sure of it.’

‘Don’t be such a baby,’ Vetriz replied scornfully. ‘You’d know it all right if it really was broken. And anyway, it’s all your own fault.’

Realising that he couldn’t expect any sympathy from his sister, Venart turned away and looked round the room. It wasn’t a dungeon cell or anything like that; as far as he’d been able to gather, they were in some kind of waiting room at the end of a couple of miles of corridors, somewhere in the head office of the Bank of Scona. But a room with four bleak stone walls, no window and a heavy closed door can call itself what it likes; if you happen to be in it, it’s a cell.

‘You really are an idiot, Ven,’ Vetriz went on. ‘What on earth possessed you to talk to that man like that?’

‘How was I to know?’ Venart protested bitterly. ‘Ever since we arrived on this horrible island, all everybody’s been telling me is, “Don’t take any notice of what the scuffers say, they’re just trying it on to get money.” So, quite understandably-’

Vetriz sighed. ‘If you can’t tell the difference between a customs official and a palace guard, I’m amazed you’ve lasted this long in commerce. It was obvious he wasn’t just an ordinary – what was that word you just used?’

‘They all look the same to me,’ Venart replied bitterly. ‘Great big useless idiots in a uniform. And there was no need for him to hit me; all I did was say I wasn’t coming.’

‘That’s not quite true,’ Vetriz pointed out. ‘You said – rather rudely – that you weren’t coming, he tried to grab your arm, you shoved him-’

‘I didn’t shove him. He just sort of collided with my arm.’

Vetriz made a rude noise and folded her arms tightly around her chest. ‘Have you been in places like this before?’ she said. ‘I mean, do you know what happens next?’

Venart shrugged. ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘I suppose they’ll have us up in front of a judge and we’ll be fined a lot of money. That’s what it’s all about, I imagine, getting money out of us.’

Vetriz shuddered slightly. ‘I only hope you’re right,’ she said. ‘Assault on an officer of the state in the execution of his duties… You don’t think they’ll hang us, do you? Or lock us up for years and years?’

Venart scowled. ‘This is a bank,’ he replied, trying to sound confident. ‘How much business do you think they’d do if every time there was a misunderstanding with a foreign trader they slung him in jail? You just don’t do that sort of thing if you want to deal with people.’

‘There’s that,’ Vetriz replied, sounding thoroughly unconvinced. ‘But of course, we don’t know what it was they were arresting us for in the first place. That could be something awful.’

‘Why? Have you done something awful without telling me?’

‘No, of course not, but it could be something they think is awful.’ Vetriz stared gloomily at the door. ‘This is so stupid,’ she said, ‘being locked up like this and not knowing what’s going on. How long have we been here?’

Venart shrugged. ‘Three hours? I don’t know. Too long, anyway. For one thing, I need to see a doctor.’

‘Oh, shut up about your stupid nose. Don’t you ever think about anybody beside yourself?’

‘Well, if you hadn’t kept on about how gullible I’d been giving that warehouseman all that money-’

Vetriz sighed. ‘Oh, yes, do let’s have a big argument and start calling each other names, it’ll help pass the time. I’m frightened.’

‘I’m not exactly having a wonderful time myself,’ Venart admitted. ‘If only we knew someone who could help us out of this.’

Vetriz opened her mouth and then closed it again; and a moment or so later, the door opened and a soldier appeared.

‘Follow me,’ he said.

So they followed him, along an endless corridor, up a flight of steps, down a flight of steps, up another flight of steps, along an endless corridor. There was nobody else to be seen, and the clopping of the soldier’s boots echoed loudly off the stone walls and ceilings. Just when Venart was wondering if they were in fact going round in circles, the soldier stopped abruptly and pulled open a door. ‘In there,’ he said.

In there turned out to be another small, bare, windowless room, containing an almost identical set of two chairs and a table. Venart and Vetriz were bundled in, and the door closed.

‘Wonderful,’ Venart sighed. ‘Maybe this is a special sort of punishment they reserve for people who do awful things. We could spend the rest of our lives-’

‘Shut up, Ven.’

Ten minutes later, the door opened again and a different soldier led them out, down an endless corridor, up a flight of stairs and into another bare, miserable-looking room; but this one was wide and high, with a hammer-beam roof and thick granite pillars. That was it, apart from a wooden bench. They sat down and the door closed, but before they had a chance to get used to their relatively improved environment the door opened again and a clerk came in.

‘The Director’s ready for you,’ he said. ‘This way.’

Venart looked at his sister; she shrugged. They followed the clerk into the adjoining room, which was almost identical to the one they’d just left, except that in the very centre of it was a desk, and behind the desk was a woman. She was short, dumpy even, with a broad face and large eyes, greying brown hair pulled sharply back onto a bun, and she wore a dark-green grown that was little more than a peasant’s smock, with a plain cord belt. She sat in a large, old wooden chair without arms. There were no other chairs in the room.

The woman looked at them for a moment. ‘Venart and Vetriz Auzeil,’ she said, stating a fact.

‘That’s right,’ Venart replied. The woman had a rather deep voice, with just a trace of an unfamiliar accent underneath the sing-song cadences of Received Perimadeian. ‘Excuse me,’ he went on, ‘but why are we here?’

The woman looked at him.

‘I mean,’ Venart went on, ‘I admit I did sort of shove that soldier back when he shoved me, but it was really just a reflex action, and he did shove first, and anyway, there was no call for him to go hitting me, so…’ He tailed off. The woman was still looking at him.

‘So you assaulted an officer,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know that.’ Venart opened his mouth and then closed it again. She stopped looking at him and turned her attention to Vetriz.

‘You arranged the rescue of Patriarch Alexius from Perimadeia, ’ she said. Vetriz nodded. ‘And then he lived with you for some considerable time before he came here.’ Again it was a recapitulation of facts not in dispute, rather than an enquiry.

‘That’s right,’ Vetriz said nevertheless; anything to break the silence. ‘We got to know him when we were in the City just before the fall, and we became friends. He’s a nice old man. We liked him.’

‘I am Niessa Loredan,’ the woman said. ‘You know my brothers Gorgas and Bardas.’

Vetriz nodded.

‘And you’ve heard of me.’

‘Yes.’ What Vetriz wanted to say was, Yes, and haven’t we met? Not here, but, well, somewhere else? And I’m frightened of you, but not nearly as much as you think I am.

Niessa Loredan’s mouth twitched a little at one corner. ‘Do you know where Alexius is now?’ she asked. ‘Have you seen him at all since you’ve been on Scona?’

‘No,’ said Venart. ‘We haven’t seen him since he left the Island to come here. Didn’t you invite him-?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Niessa Loredan. ‘I think he came to see you and asked you to take him back to the Island with you. I think you know perfectly well where he is.’

Venart started off on a passionate denial, to which neither of the women listened. In fact, he wasn’t there any more; Niessa and Vetriz faced each other across a hazy representation of a desk in a line drawing of a room.

‘You know we haven’t seen him,’ Vetriz said.

‘I know,’ Niessa replied. ‘Or at least, I do now. That’s a pity, because I want to use him if I can to do something about this dreadful mess. Do you know about it?’

‘Not really,’ Vetriz replied. ‘I’ve heard rumours, about a riding party-’

Niessa shrugged away the rest of the answer. ‘But that’s not why I wanted to see you. You’re in love with my brother.’

‘No!’ Vetriz replied angrily. ‘It was just one time, and I felt awful the next-’

Niessa smiled. ‘Not Gorgas,’ she said. ‘Bardas. Well, aren’t you?’

Vetriz frowned. ‘Not that I’m aware of. And I think I’d have noticed something like that, don’t you?

‘Not necessarily. All right, let’s say he fascinates you. You felt a strong attraction towards him the first time you saw him – fighting the lawcourts, wasn’t it? And then by pure chance you met him again in a tavern immediately afterwards and talked to him, and you were – interested. Yes?’

Vetriz thought for a moment. There was obviously no point in lying.

‘It’s possible,’ she said. ‘But I often see men I like the look of, but for one reason or another I don’t follow it up. It’s not – nice.’

Niessa smiled again. her smiles didn’t mean the same thing as most people’s. ‘But you saved his life, didn’t you? By using your gifts as a natural, using the Principle; you saw a moment in the future where he was killed, and you changed it. That’s right, isn’t it?’

Vetriz spread her hands. ‘Honestly,’ she said, ‘I don’t know. Gorgas said – well, I think somehow that Gorgas communicated to me that that’s what happened, but if it did I wasn’t aware of it. Isn’t that the point about being a natural? I mean, apparently you should know that as well as I do.’

‘Not quite,’ Niessa replied, lacing her fingers together. ‘I’m not a natural like you are, I found a way to use the Principle deliberately. I don’t think anybody’s ever been able to do that before. It means my abilities are limited, but I can use them, such as they are, whenever I want. I may not be a natural myself, but I can – now then, what would be the right word? Think of a cuckoo laying its eggs in another bird’s nest, or a leech, even.’

‘I think the word is “parasite”,’ Vetriz interrupted. ‘You’re a parasite on naturals.’

‘Very well put,’ replied Niessa, smiling. ‘I wanted to find out about Alexius and that other man, Gannadius; I gather that they learnt or worked out for themselves how to do some of the things I can do without any natural ability at all, just acquired skill and knowledge. As far as they could tell, it was purely an accident in their case, something they stumbled on in the course of their academic research.’ She made the pursuit sound utterly futile. ‘Obviously I’d like to know what they know, which is why I brought Alexius here. Gannadius is a teacher with the Foundation, which is rather unfortunate, but I’ll deal with that when I’ve got the time. Anyway, that’s all beside the point. The point is your interest in my brother, and the fact that you seem to be able to – well, control him.’

‘Oh, that’s not true,’ Vetriz protested. ‘You make it sound like I can make him do things. And I’m sure I can’t. I’ve never tried, but I’m sure-’

‘You averted his death,’ Niessa interrupted. ‘Or you were used to achieve that end. Shall I let you into a secret? Yes, why not? Since you’re not completely stupid, you’ll work it out for yourself eventually. Your friend Alexius is a natural too, and the comic thing is, he didn’t know. All those years reading books and yattering to old men in his stupid Academy, and all the time he had the ability to twist the Principle round his little finger. I don’t suppose it ever occurred to him. Maybe he really wasn’t interested. It’s possible, isn’t it? He told me that the practical use of the Principle – I was calling it ‘magic’ at the time, to annoy him – is just an irrelevant side-effect of the true pursuit of philosophy. Can you imagine an attitude like that? All right, think of a charcoal-burner hundreds of years ago, devoting his whole life is getting the art of charcoal-burning just right. And one day he notices little bright shiny flecks in the ashes of his fire. He picks them up, decides they’re not interesting and throws them away, and the next time he sees them, he takes no notice. Now, that man has just invented the smelting of iron, but since he’s only interested in charcoal, he ignores it. Anyway, enough of that. Alexius is a natural, as sure as we’re both here.’

Vetriz looked at her, but it was like looking at an arrow-slit high up in a castle wall. ‘So what is it you want from us?’ she said. ‘You’re in business, and so am I. What’s the deal?’

‘Ah,’ Niessa said approvingly, ‘you’re beginning to sound like me. Actually, you’ve got a fine trader’s mind, much more so than that buffoon of a brother of yours. It seems to be the way of things that women like us, with a keen commercial instinct, are hampered by our ne’er-do-well brothers. Count yourself lucky you’ve only got one. There, I knew I’d find the similarity between us if I looked hard enough. Well, I’ll be absolutely straight with you. Sometimes I see a future, a moment in the future, where everything’s gone wrong and everything I’ve worked for and built up has been wrecked, and in that moment I always see my brother Bardas; and don’t ask me how I know but I just do, that if he wanted to he could step in and stop it happening. But he doesn’t.’ She paused for a moment, frowning, as if contemplating a ledger that was perversely refusing to balance. ‘Obviously I’ve tried to avert it, but I can’t. You see, I’m not actually there in that moment; it’s part of some other strand of the rope that I can’t get into, however hard I try. I think that strand has to do with my brother Bardas, and Alexius, and maybe even you as well.’ She sighed. ‘I won’t hide it from you, it’s becoming something of an obsession with me, getting in the way of the real work I ought to be doing. I don’t like it; it niggles, if you know what I mean.’

‘I can imagine,’ Vetriz said, without expression.

‘Can you really? How fascinating. Logically, I’ve got two courses of action open to me. I can make Alexius try and intervene, the way he did on behalf of my wretched daughter when she asked him to curse Bardas; but I haven’t got much confidence in him for that. I suspect it was sheer luck that curse really worked, and setting it aside wasn’t too hard. Alternatively, there’s you. After all, you’re also a natural, and my guess is a fairly substantial one. You’re caught up in the strand yourself. And,’ Niessa added quietly, ‘you’ll be so much easier to coerce than an old man who strikes me as tired of life. After all, you’re young and attractive, you have a brother you care deeply about, you also care about Alexius, and Bardas too. there are so many ways to make you do what you’re told, the only slight problem is deciding which string to pull first.’ She folded her arms. ‘Have I made myself clear?’ she said.

– And Vetriz opened her mouth to reply, but Venart was still talking, finishing the sentence he’d just started when the strange interview began. Niessa Loredan let him finish, and then clicked her tongue. ‘If you can’t lie better than that,’ she said abruptly, ‘I suggest you quit commerce and find some other way of making a living. Anyway,’ she went on, with a dismissive gesture, ‘that’s all very well. I think you, Master Venart Auzeil, would be well advised to get off this island within – oh, let’s see, I don’t want to make life too difficult for you, let’s say forty-eight hours. Your sister will stay here, with me. We have other matters to discuss.’

For a moment, Vetriz was afraid that Venart would do something stupid, such as grab her and make a run for it, or hit Niessa. Instinctively she grabbed his arm. He shook it free.

‘That’s not acceptable,’ he said, trying valiantly to sound firm. ‘If you’re trying to detain a citizen of the Island against her will-’

‘It’s all right,’ Vetriz heard herself saying, ‘I’ll be fine. You go. Don’t worry.’

Venart looked as if he’d just been bitten by a chair. ‘No, it’s not fine,’ he said petulantly, struggling vainly with his bewilderment. ‘You don’t want to stay here, with her-’

‘Yes, I do,’ Vetriz said.

‘You don’t-’

‘You can go,’ Niessa interrupted, ‘or you can both stay. But if you stay, Master Auzeil, you won’t enjoy it. Now stop bickering with your sister, and go and conclude your business.’

Venart looked at her, then at Vetriz; he felt as if he was staring at two strange monsters in human disguise. He tried to think of something to say, but couldn’t.

‘Please,’ Vetriz said. ‘Really, I will be all right. There’ll only be a problem if you make a fuss.’

Venart took a deep breath. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said, with feeling.

‘You amaze me,’ Niessa said. ‘The officer will show you out.’

What Gorgas really wanted to do was go home. Instead, he trudged through the corridors and up and down the stairs, and finally found himself in the hall with the hammer-beam roof and the tasteless pink pillars. He buttonholed a clerk, who told him that the Director was busy.

‘No, she’s not,’ Gorgas replied. ‘If there’s anyone in there with her, tell her to get rid of them. This is important.’

The clerk gave him a long, hateful look and went into the Director’s office. He came out again a moment later with an expression on his face that only just avoided being a smirk.

‘I’m afraid the Director isn’t here,’ he said.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Gorgas replied. ‘The Director lives here. If she isn’t in her office she must be in her lodgings. Go and tell her – oh, the hell with that, I’ll go myself. It’s all right,’ he added, as the horrified clerk tried to stop him, ‘I know the way.’

He barged past the clerk, shouldering him out of the way, and closed the office door firmly behind him, then crossed the room to a small, almost invisible door in the wall. He banged on it once with his closed fist, then shoved. The door swung open sharply and Gorgas strode through.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

‘Hello, Niessa,’ Gorgas replied.

It was a tiny room, smaller than the cell her daughter was locked up in; cleaner, but rather more sparsely furnished. There was a stone shelf in the far corner which served as a bed, and a plain oak chest in the other corner, its lid padlocked shut. In a small crevice in the wall above the bed, an oil-lamp flickered on a short wick. There was no fireplace and no window, just a small grille under the low ceiling to provide ventilation. Niessa Loredan lay on the shelf, stark naked, darning the heel of a threadbare stocking that was already mostly composed of darning wool.

‘Get out.’

‘All right,’ Gorgas said. ‘I’ll see you in the office in five minutes.’

Rather less than five minutes later, Niessa bundled out of her room. She was wearing a purple silk robe, and her feet were bare. ‘If you ever do that again-’ she started to say, but Gorgas interrupted her.

‘There’s a problem,’ he said.

‘Well?’

He sat down in the visitor’s chair and drew one knee up onto the other. ‘The hostages are dead,’ he said, in a flat, expressionless voice. ‘While I was here nattering with you, my men tried to smoke them out. They burnt down the village and,’ he added, with a grimace, ‘the Albiac plantation, which is a real blow. I thought you ought to know at once, so I came here straight away.’

Niessa stared at him for a moment as if she hadn’t understood what he’d been saying, then started to swear. She swore well and fluently, like a man. When she’d finished, she swilled down what was left in her cider-mug and crammed a small cake in her mouth.

‘Well?’ Gorgas asked.

‘You tell me,’ Niessa replied with her mouth full. ‘You were the one who wanted to kill them.’

Gorgas scowled impatiently. ‘That’s right, I did,’ he said. ‘And then you explained why it’d be a really stupid thing to do. Come on, pull yourself together. I really need to get some sleep soon,’ he went on, reinforcing the point with a huge yawn.

Niessa rubbed her face briskly with the cupped palms of her hands. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘let’s try and think this through logically. First, what do you think the chances are of keeping it quiet? After all, there’s no rule says we’ve got to tell them the hostages are dead; we can say they surrendered and we’ve put them somewhere safe in case of further rescue attempts. We could even say we’ve shipped them off Scona, quietly and without any fuss. It’d get us off the hook in the short term.’

Gorgas shook his head. ‘First, we’d have to come clean sooner or later,’ he said. ‘Second, I don’t reckon it’d be possible. The gods only know how many agents the Foundation’s got among our people; I can name you thirty without even looking at my notes, and you can bet your life there’s three we don’t know about for every one we do. I say forget that option.’

‘All right,’ Niessa replied. ‘Let’s have another look at your original idea. As I see it, there’s two ways we can play it. First, we could make a big thing of it – so perish all invaders – and hope the factions’ll do the rest. But I don’t think that’s how these things work. The factions that were against the original expedition will be the ones calling for all-out retaliation, and the ones who were for it won’t dare oppose that. My guess is, the factions’ll end up holding an auction, and the side who proposes the biggest and most powerful expeditionary force will win.’

Gorgas nodded. ‘That makes sense,’ he said. ‘So what’s the other option?’

‘Well,’ Niessa said, pulling at the tip of her nose, ‘there’s your idea. The pro-raid factions really don’t have anywhere to go. If they call for reprisals they’re agreeing with the enemy. If they oppose them, they’ve lost their nerve and are weak and spineless. The question is whether they’d still be strong enough to ride it out, or whether we really could panic them into making a deal with us. What do you think?’

Gorgas thought for a moment. ‘My instinct, bearing in mind what you said yesterday – gods, was it only yesterday? – is no, forget it. True enough, there’s a few in the factions crazy enough to open the gates just to keep the enemy from winning, but not enough. I think we have to look longer term. They’re going to have to go along with the retaliations, yes? So in that case, their only real hope is for the new expedition to do even worse than the original one; and that’s where I see scope for talking to them.’

Niessa nodded. ‘It’s still a very big step for them to take,’ she said. ‘I grant you, it’s covert treason rather than open treason, but they’re still dead if they get caught and it doesn’t work.’

‘Fair point,’ Gorgas conceded. ‘But consider this. For the opening-the-gates thing, we’d need pretty well the whole of two factions to come in with us. For the revised version, we only need a handful of individuals – the real faction crazies, if you like – to pass us useful information and help out with sabotage on the supply and strategic fronts. I can almost guarantee you ten or so of those.’

Niessa shook her head. ‘We’re still both assuming there’s got to be an invasion, and the best we can hope for is faction support to help us defeat it. I don’t like those odds. I believe that even with inside information and our supporters doing their best to sabotage the raid, we’re still just too damn small and weak to stand up to a full mobilisation of Shastel. In the end, numbers would win. And even suppose we did manage to defeat them heavily enough, short of wiping them out to the last man, isn’t that just inviting an even bigger and better army the next time round?’

Gorgas yawned again. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘what about trying the same thing from the other direction? Posit this. The hectemores suddenly realise that the Foundation’s not invincible after all. The legendary Shastel halberdiers humiliated by the archers of Scona-’

Niessa laughed harshly. ‘Romance,’ she said dismissively. ‘They’re peasants, they aren’t suddenly going to rise up and rebel. Or at least they might, but it’d be a fluke, a special combination of events that snowballs and gets everybody caught up in the excitement, until they’re all a bit crazy and ready to do anything. These things happen, but you can’t rely on it happening, and you can’t make it happen. No, I was thinking of trying to make a deal.’

Gorgas raised his eyebrows. ‘I can’t see it myself,’ he replied. ‘We aren’t talking about rational people, remember, basically we’re dealing with faction members, hooligans. Even talking to us visibly would be suicide.’

‘Maybe,’ Niessa said. ‘Unless we can put together a deal they can’t resist. Try this. First, we say the deaths of the hostages was a tragic accident, the result of a forest fire. We sincerely and deeply regret the loss of life. Now obviously,’ she went on, as Gorgas tried to interrupt, ‘they won’t go for that unless we make it worth their while. What we’ve got to do is think of what it’d take in the way of incentives to make them stop and think. And that’s where we’ve got to be completely realistic. Let’s face it: we’re looking at complete annihilation here, unless we can come up with some way of avoiding a war.’

‘I agree,’ Gorgas said. ‘So where do we pitch the offer.’

Niessa picked up a pen and fiddled with it. It was, Gorgas noticed, a typical Niessa object – a plain trimmed white goose quill fitted with a small gold nib. ‘We can’t start off too low,’ she said, ‘but we don’t want to give them more than we have to, naturally.’

‘Just plain money won’t do it,’ Gorgas said. ‘Their capital reserves are so vast, money doesn’t matter to them. It’s got to be land, and probably something else on top.’

‘Fine. I say we offer them all the mortgages we hold on the mainland. Every last one. After all, that’s what they’ve really wanted all along, so why not give it to them? If they can have that without a fight, what the hell else could they possibly want from us?’

‘Fine,’ Gorgas replied calmly. ‘And what do we do for a living after that?’

‘Oh, we’ll think of something. And I’ll tell you this for nothing, we won’t be doing anything for a living if we’re dead.’

Gorgas nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘What you’re saying makes sense. And as far as I’m concerned, the hectemore business wasn’t getting us anywhere in the long run anyway. You know that for a long time now, I’ve been saying we should be looking at trade and manufacturing rather than just running the old racket. Mind you, I’m not saying we’re ready, but-’

Niessa grinned. ‘It’s your big Scona-the-new-Perimadeia thing, isn’t it?’ she said. And I’m not trying to put that down, believe me; it’s something we’ve been working towards and putting a lot of effort into. So, just as well, really.’

‘That’s right,’ Gorgas said. ‘And of course, we’ll still have the ships.’

Niessa shook her head. ‘Not so fast,’ she said. ‘I said land and something on top, remember. Look at it from their side: they can take the land for themselves if they take us out, and have all the fun of wiping out the shame of the defeat – and I reckon it’ll take something quite special to make them pass up on that. Bear in mind, their whole culture’s based on the notion that it’s good to fight. We’re asking them to pass up the chance of a good war, with a guaranteed victory at the end of it. If we’re asking them to do that, we’ve go to make it worth their while.’

‘So?’ Gorgas shrugged. ‘What’s your idea?’

‘We give them the fleet,’ Niessa replied. ‘It’s the one thing they badly need which we’ve got and they haven’t, which they can’t just take by force of arms. We give them the ships, and we supply men to train their people and sail the ships in the meanwhile. Look at it from their point of view, and it makes sense. Of course, we’d have to make them force it out of us as a last desperate concession; but I think that’s the way we should be looking to go.

Gorgas scowled at her. ‘It’s also goodbye to any hope of making a living on this rock,’ he said angrily. ‘All right, perhaps some ships, some men. But why the hell should they want them all?’

‘You’re missing the point,’ Niessa replied. ‘It wasn’t Perimadeian ships that built up City trade; it was quality goods at the best prices. The way I see us going is along the lines of those workshops of yours, where you make all the stuff for the army. Get all the people you’ve got making arrow-nocks and put them on making buttons. The same with your armourers; if they can make helmets and swords they can make brass pots and shovels and any damn thing, cheap and quick. Just think; if every button in the world is made on Scona, we’ll bless the day we got out of the mortgage business. And we won’t need an army and we won’t have to fight any wars. We’ll have Shastel to do that for us.’

Gorgas looked at her. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You lost me.’

‘Think,’ his sister replied. ‘Shastel has a fleet of ships. Shastel has nothing to sell. So they carry our goods on their ships. Suddenly they need us, they start to rely on us for a lot of easy money.’ She smiled broadly. ‘We might just end up running Shastel, and without loosing a single arrow.’

Gorgas thought for a moment. ‘It’s a hell of a big step,’ he said.

‘So was coming here in the first place,’ Niessa said equably. ‘Compared with what we’ve already done, it’s nothing; it’s what you’ve been saying we should be looking towards doing anyway. And we don’t fight a war and we don’t get killed. That’s the main thing. There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, like a war for destroying money. Even if we had a signed contract with Death saying we’d win hands down I’d do anything rather than get us into a proper war. A little war for you to enjoy as a hobby is something I can put up with, but if you expect me to indulge you in a great big war, you’re sadly mistaken.’

Gorgas sat still and quiet for a long time, thinking. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘And suppose they just won’t play? No deal, under any circumstances-’

‘Which is a very real possibility,’ Niessa interrupted, ‘given the sort of people we’re dealing with.’

‘Well, quite. So what do we do then?’

Niessa pulled a wry face. ‘Simple,’ she said. ‘We load as much of the capital as we can on a couple of decent ships, go to the Island and let them get on with it, let them have their stupid invasion. After all,’ she added with a sad smile, ‘we’ve both cut our losses and run away from home in our time, we can handle it. And we’ll be a damn sight better off than we were the last time.’

Gorgas stood up. ‘I’m going home to bed,’ he said. ‘You think it over and let me know what you’ve decided in the morning. One thing, though.’

‘What?’

‘Bardas. How does he fit into all of this?’

Niessa shrugged. ‘We take him with us, of course. Which reminds me, that job I gave you. I don’t suppose you’ve even started it.’

‘Niessa.’ Gorgas frowned. ‘I’ve been busy.’

‘I’d noticed,’ Niessa replied. ‘Well, damn well make sure you get on with it, or I’ll have to do it myself. And remember,’ she added, ‘I won’t mess about trying to be like you.’

Gannadius?

No answer. Nothing. It was almost like being a small boy again, and standing in front of a door being towered over by someone’s mother; No, Gannadius can’t come out to play today, he’s helping his father with the chickens. He sighed and opened his eyes. In theory, the headache should signify contact with the Principle. In reality, Alexius felt that it probably had more to do with sitting with his eyes screwed shut and his head at a funny angle. Natural? Call yourself a natural? And the rest.

It had been a long day, what with his first magic lesson with the Director and his complete and utter failure to get his newly acquired techniques to work. According to the Director, sitting cross-legged on the floor with your eyes shut and your head lolling on your shoulder like a dead man swinging from a gibbet was supposed to focus the mind, turn it into a sort of burning-glass to concentrate the stray wisps of Principle that (apparently) waft around the place like dandelion seeds. So far, however, he hadn’t seen one shred of ev-

– He was sitting on a barrel on the deck of a ship, in the middle of a calm, flat sea. Judging by the light and the position of the sun, it was very early in the morning; there were red streaks in the sky, and a pleasant fresh smell, but he felt extremely tired, as if he’d sat up all night to see the dawn. He appeared to be alone on the deck of this ship, which suggested that the crew were all still asleep.

He lifted his head and looked towards land. He recognised the island in front of him; it was the same view of Scona he’d had from the ship that brought him here. Seen from this angle, there was a passing resemblance to Perimadeia, except that there was no upper city and no dramatic backdrop; the mainland was a grey and green blur daubed across the skyline in a hurry, and not allowed to dry properly. Something was different, though. Not hard to work out what it was.

Scona Town was in ruins. Smoke was rising from the mess where the buildings had been. The harbour was empty, and the warehouses that lined the quay weren’t there any more. Something prompted him to stand up and peer over the side of the ship, and in the water a few yards away he saw a dead body, floating on its face. There were quite a few of them, in fact; too sodden and deep in the water for him to be able to tell what nationality they were, or even if they were men or women. Just bodies; blood, bone and meat, with everything else taken away. It’s not often that we get to see our fellow humans as things rather than people, as nothing more than the sum of their organic parts. Even when they’re dead, humans are generally recognisable as having once been individuals, but hide the face and the indications of gender and the clothing and belongings that serve to classify and distinguish, and all that’s left is so much blood, bone and meat, so much raw material.

There’s been a battle, then, Alexius rationalised. Bodies in the water ought to mean a sea-battle, or a bad storm. The burnt town suggests a battle, and the lack of ships in the harbour suggests they were launched to fight an enemy fleet or evacuate the town. Either there was a catastrophic fire followed by a terrible storm – and surely the storm would have put out the fire – or else there was a sea-battle followed by a successful attack on the Town. If that’s the case, though, you’d think the attackers must have been Shastel, but Shastel doesn’t have any ships.

‘Alexius,’ said a voice behind him. ‘What’s going on?’

Gannadius. I’ve been trying to find you.

‘Have you? I wasn’t aware…’

Oh, thank you very much. So what’s all this about you knowing more about the Principle than any man alive?

‘You mean what Machaera said? She’s just young, that’s all. A bad case of hero-worship.’

I should say. And what’s all this? And what are you doing here?

Gannadius sat down on the barrel and grinned feebly. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I come here quite a lot. I find it soothing.’

Soothing? A burnt city and dead bodies? Are you out of your mind?

‘Certainly not,’ Gannadius replied, nettled. ‘And compared with what I’ve been getting lately, it’s wonderfully soothing. The end of the war, and all that. When you’ve been forced to live through graphic scenes of hand-to-hand combat and the massacre of unarmed civilians, a bit of calm sea and sunshine makes a pleasant change.’

You’ve seen the rest of the war?

Gannadius smiled sadly. ‘Seen it? I’ve been writing it. Or whatever you do when you make up a different future out of your head. And before you ask why in blazes I should want to do such a thing, it isn’t really me. Oh, I’ve orchestrated and choreographed it, but that’s just me being professional. No, it’s that confounded student of mine who dreamt all this up, in the rough, so to speak.’

That girl? She’s managed to curse an entire island?

‘It looks depressingly like it,’ Gannadius replied. ‘Quite unprompted, and certainly without any help from me. In fact, without being too obvious about it I’ve been trying to sabotage it, or at least tone down the nastiest bits. I don’t think she’s noticed, or at least not yet.’ He scowled. ‘You wouldn’t want to see what it was like before; just scrambling and chopping and blood spurting everywhere. I suppose that’s how someone that age who’s read books and heard songs and never seen real fighting must visualise a battle; swords cleaving and men run through and heads rolling in the gutters or bounding down the streets like those stuffed leather balls we used to make when we were children. Quite ghastly, the whole thing.’

And you want this to happen, do you?

Gannadius shook his head vigorously. ‘But what can I do about it?’ he said. ‘On my own, not a great deal. That’s why I’ve been trying to find you.’

Sorry, but you’ll have to leave me out of it. Taking a curse off just one man nearly killed me, if you remember. Taking a curse off a whole island would finish me off for sure. Gods, though, this Machaera must be a bloodthirsty little thing, something like that awful girl we had to deal with back home.

‘Not a bit of it,’ Gannadius sighed. ‘Timid, meek, polite, mousy creature, the sort that gets panic attacks trying to summon up the courage to ask a question after a lecture. If anything, that makes it even scarier, don’t you think?’

Alexius nodded slowly. So tell me what happens, he said. Then we can start at the beginning and work out if there’s any practicable way of stopping it.

‘Quite straightforward,’ Gannadius said. ‘The Shastel fleet sails round the blind side of Scona island-’

Just a moment, slow down. What Shastel fleet?

‘My sentiments entirely. But apparently there’s going to be one, and while it’s ferrying the army across the straits, out come the Scona ships and the fun starts. They sink fifteen Shastel ships, all of them crammed with soldiers, all drowned, and they set fire to another six. That’s before they’re all sunk.’

Sunk. I see. Carry on.

‘It’s sheer weight of numbers, you see. It doesn’t matter how vastly superior the Scona ships are, because at the end of the day there’s just twenty-two of them, and any number of ours. Anyway, then the Shastel fleet forces a landing on the Strangers’ Quay – horrible business, that, we lose a lot of men there, but again we push through because we outnumber them so much. The rest of it’s just a great deal of killing. You can see the result over there.’

Gannadius, this is horrible. We’ve got to make sure it doesn’t happen.

Gannadius gazed at him wearily. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘And how do we do that, exactly? You just spell it out in easy-to-follow stages and I’ll help as much as I possibly can. Well?’

All right then, stop the girl. Make her see it’s wrong. Tell her to stop doing it. You’re her tutor, aren’t you? You ought to be able to control one young, timid student.

‘Oh, quite,’ Gannadius replied angrily. ‘Nothing simpler. And then she goes to the Dean and says, Doctor Gannadius saw I’d made up a victory for us in the war and told me to take it down again. They’d string me up from a lemon-tree and use me for javelin practice. No,’ he went on, ‘all I can think of that might work – and this is just guessing, mind – is killing her, and I can’t do that. Sorry.’

Scona destroyed. Thousands dead on both sides. The Town burnt. Is there something in the life-cycle of towns and cities that makes a fiery death inevitable? Or is it more narrow than that? Say, just towns and cities I have anything to do with?

‘Besides,’ Gannadius went on, ‘I don’t think killing her would solve anything. No, if we want to head this off, it’s not her we should be talking to, it’s someone quite other.’

Such as?

‘Such as the man behind the invasion, the man who leads the army and directs the fleet. And that’s where you come in, I think.’

Me? Why?

A wild grin spread over Gannadius’ face. ‘You,’ he said, ‘because the general’s name is Bardas Loredan.’