The Proof House

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘It only goes to prove what I’ve always maintained about us,’ said Eseutz Mesatges, watching the tenders loading up beside the City Wharf. ‘We aren’t really businessmen, we’re romantics. We play at commerce because it’s fun, the same way other countries play at war. We aren’t in business to make money; it’s just an excuse for a good time and exciting adventures.’

‘Now that’s not-’

‘Ignore her, Ven, she’s just being perverse,’ Athli interrupted, before Venart Auzeil could reply. ‘Aren’t you, dear?’

‘Certainly not.’ Eseutz perched on the edge of a large bale of Ap’ Imaz wool and rested her elbows on her knees. ‘I meant every word of it. If we really cared about money, we’d be sad right now, because it means this wonderful deal is drawing to a close; but I can feel the waves of relief wafting over from you lot like cooking-smells on a hot afternoon. You were bored just sitting still and taking the prefect’s money for nothing. Now something’s happening, you’re all looking forward to watching a cracking good war, then getting your ships back so you can get off this poxy little island and out into the big wide world again. Admit it,’ she said with a grin, ‘I’m right. Probably,’ she added, ‘sheer force of habit.’

‘Yes, Eseutz,’ Athli said severely, ‘anything you say.’ But she had to admit, there was a certain degree of truth in what Eseutz had just said. As a non-Islander she could see it; they, of course, couldn’t, as was only to be expected.

City Wharf derived its name from the traffic it had been built to serve, the regular exchange of goods between the Island and Perimadeia. When the wharf was built, there hadn’t been any need to specify which city, just as when you talked about the sky, you didn’t have to identify which sky you were referring to. Since the Fall (on the Island, the word Fall was equally unambiguous), business on the Wharf had dropped by over a third. Only Colleon freighters called there now; the Islanders’ ships sailing for Shastel, the Empire and the west started their journeys from the Sea Dock or the Drutz. It was like old times, people were saying, to see the Wharf crowded again; a sign of things to come, they added hopefully, as and when the provincial office rebuilt Perimadeia and reopened her countless factories and workshops.

‘It’s about time they dug out the Cut,’ said Venart, who’d been following this line of thought. ‘Ever since the Fall it’s been silting up. If people are going to start using the Wharf again-’

Athli smiled. ‘Rather a big if, don’t you think?’ she said. ‘The fleet hasn’t even sailed yet, and already you’re dreaming about new business opportunities.’

‘You’re putting words in my mouth,’ Venart replied grumpily. ‘I’m just saying, the Cut needs some work doing on it, and the longer we leave it, the worse it’ll get.’

The Cut had been a thing of wonder in its day, a canal dug across the Island from the Wharf to the Drutz in a dead straight line, right through the low hills just above Town and (thanks to the team of Perimadeian engineers who’d built the thing two hundred years earlier) under the White Mountain by way of a mile-long tunnel chipped out of solid rock. Compared to the Cut, the small man-made harbour on the other side was a fairly ordinary achievement; but it was the harbour that bore the name of Renvaut Drutz, the chief engineer, not the canal that was undoubtedly his greatest achievement, both in terms of magnitude and utility. That was the Island for you.

‘Well,’ said Vetriz Auzeil, who’d been sitting quietly in the shade of her small painted parasol, ‘I agree with Eseutz; at least, I think I do. The sooner they’ve had their blasted war and we get our ships back again, the sooner Ven can get back to work and I can have a little peace around the house. He’s been insufferable these past weeks with nothing to do. The day before yesterday, he spent three hours making a written inventory of the linen-closet-’

‘Only because you never-’

Vetriz ignored him. ‘You should have seen him, it was comical. “Item, one sheet, worn, sewn sides to middle, white, discoloured. Item-”’

Eseutz giggled. Athli smiled and said, ‘How very practical of you, Ven. Now if ever there’s a fire, you’ll have a record for the insurance.’

‘No, he won’t,’ Vetriz objected. ‘When he’d finished it he put it in the document cupboard in the counting house. It’ll get burned to a crisp along with everything else.’

‘My mother used to do that,’ Eseutz said. ‘Patch up old sheets, I mean. By the time she died, pretty well every scrap of cloth in the house had been mended so many times it was more twine than cloth. The whole lot ended up going to the paper mill. And it wasn’t that we couldn’t afford to buy new; she was just compulsive-’

‘Just as you are,’ Athli observed, ‘only the other way round. All the times I’ve been to your house, I’ll swear I’ve never seen the same wall-hangings twice.’

‘That’s business,’ Eseutz retorted. ‘Stock in trade. Anything I haven’t got room for in the warehouse I hang on the wall. Then when people come by and say, My dear, where did you get those divine hangings? I make a sale.’

The tenders were the traditional Island pattern, not found anywhere else; long, clinker-built barges with impractically high keels that served no known function and added days to the time it took to build one. From the front, they looked for all the world like a black swan landing on the water. Now they rode low in the water, wallowing under the weight of the bales of supplies and provisions that were appearing as if by magic from the lofts and doorways of the warehouses that faced the Wharf. The warehouses were probably the most beautiful and imposing buildings on the Island; built in imitation of a hundred different architectural styles from a hundred different places, no two of them were the same. Merchants who were happy to live in small, cramped apartments and drafty attics behind inconspicuous doors in the ramshackle streets and alley-ways of Town had spent fortunes on decorating the facades and metopes of their warehouses, arguing that they spent more time there than they did at home and met their customers there. The Great House of the Semplan family was seven storeys high, had solid brass doors twelve feet tall and three inches thick, and was faced with Colleon marble decorated with bas-reliefs depicting ancient sea battles; a hundred years ago, every detail of the sculptures had been carefully picked out in red, blue and gold paint, which the salt sea air stripped away within a matter of a few months. Nobody had the faintest idea whose the ships were, or what battle was recorded; Mehaut Semplan had taken them in settlement of a bad debt from a customer in the City, and spent as much as she’d originally lost on the deal getting them home and putting them up. The Semplan House, in the lower end of South Town, was hidden away behind a bonemeal store.

‘Where did all this stuff come from?’ Venart asked. ‘Presumably they bought it from us, but I don’t recognise any of it.’

‘Wretched, isn’t it?’ Eseutz agreed. ‘If you look closely, you’ll see provincial office batch numbers and store tallies stencilled all over everything. It’s all stuff from abroad; they’ve been taking delivery here and storing it for free in our warehouses, and now they’re sending it home on our ships. They don’t need us for anything.’

Athli grinned. ‘They may have been using your warehouse for free,’ she said. ‘But that’s your fault for not paying attention. You were too busy daydreaming about what you were going to do when you got your ship back.’

Eseutz scowled, then relaxed again. ‘Oh, well,’ she said. ‘But I still say they’ve got a nerve, doing their buying and selling and storing here as if they owned the place, while we’ve been sitting on our hands all this time with nothing to do. It makes one feel useless, somehow. I’ll be glad when this is all over and they’ve gone home, and the hell with the money.’

‘I’m with you there,’ Venart said. ‘To be honest with you, they give me the creeps. Anybody who’s so cold-blooded about starting a war-’

‘Best way to be, surely,’ Athli said, expressionless. ‘Most efficient, anyway; make your preparations early, be sure you’ve got all your supplies and equipment in hand before you start, think out your plan of campaign well in advance. Look how well it worked for Temrai, after all. Don’t suppose I’d be here now if he’d just blundered up to the City gates and waited for someone to let him in.’

Understandably enough, there was an awkward silence. When it was starting to get embarrassing, Eseutz smiled brightly and said, ‘While I think of it, Athli, have you reached a decision about going into the armour business? I know you were thinking about it a while back.’

Athli sighed. ‘Not going into it myself,’ she said. ‘Just investing in someone else’s concern. And yes, it all checked out. Gods know, there’s enough demand for the stuff.’

Venart frowned. ‘I wouldn’t if I were you,’ he said. ‘As soon as this war’s over the market’s going to be flooded with war surplus and loot; it always is, after a war. I remember a few years back after the Scona thing – and that was only a little war, mind – there was so much looted and stripped chain-mail floating about, you couldn’t give it away. And halberds – they were cutting them down for bill-hooks or selling them by weight for scrap. And as for arrows-’

‘Ah,’ Athli interrupted, bright red in the face, ‘but that was different. The Empire’s going to win this war, and they never sell off equipment, they just put it into store. And once they’ve won and got control of the City – sorry, the place where the City used to be – everybody west of the straits is going to start wondering who’ll be next, and there’ll be a demand for armour and weapons like you can’t imagine; not that it’ll do them any good, but that’s none of my business. Next to shipbuilding, armour’s the best possible area to invest in at the moment.’

Venart lifted his head slightly. ‘Shipbuilding?’ he said.

‘That’s right,’ Athli replied, looking out over the Wharf. ‘For when they realise the armour won’t help and they start evacuating.’

Dassascai the spy (so called to distinguish him from another man with the same name who repaired tents) sat beside his fire next to the duck pen and sharpened a knife. It had a long, thin blade with a clipped back, the sort used for cutting meat off the bone. He’d finished with the oilstone and the waterstone and was stropping it slowly on the untanned side of a leather belt.

He was possibly the only man sitting still in the whole camp; Temrai had decided to move the clans south-east, towards the Imperial army approaching from the direction of Ap’ Escatoy. After nearly seven years in one place, the plainsmen were moving stiffly, like someone getting up in the morning after too little sleep.

Half the workforce had left at first light to begin the awkward job of rounding up the herd. After seven years of continual grazing, there was barely a blade of grass left in the immediate vicinity of the camp. Instead of being close at hand, therefore, as it always used to be in the old wandering days, the herd was split up and scattered across thousands of acres of the eastern plain. Many of the boys riding with the herding party had never seen a full-scale roundup and weren’t quite sure what to do; for the most part, they were sensibly treating the whole thing as an adventure, and their enthusiasm was enough to stop the men from thinking too hard about the implications of Temrai’s decision. Each rider had his goatskin provisions bag over his shoulder, a bow and quiver on either side of his saddle, his coat and blanket rolled up and stowed behind the crupper. A few of the men wore helmets and mailshirts, or carried them wrapped in waxed cloth covers or wicker panniers; nobody knew for certain where the enemy might suddenly appear – they’d already taken on many of the attributes of fairy-tale sprites and demons, who lurk in dark woods and pounce unexpectedly from the shadow of tall rocks.

The other half of the clan were busy breaking the camp; uprooting tent-poles, folding felts and carpets, trying to stow seven years’ worth of sedentary life into panniers and travoises designed to hold only the essentials. Many people were discarding the wondrous but useless treasures they’d looted from the sack of the City – up and down the rapidly vanishing streets of the camp there were bronze tripods and ivory tables, huge bronze cooking-pots, an incongruous assortment of bits of bronze and marble statue (a head here, an arm or a colossal booted foot there; not a single complete piece anywhere, so that the camp field looked like the aftermath of a battle between two tribes of giants). Wherever possible, they were dismantling the machines and tools they’d built over the years, sawbenches and lathes and water-powered grindstones, trebuchets and mangonels, presses and winches and treadmills and watermills, dismembered like carcasses in a butcher’s store and loaded on to flat-bed carts, but far too much would have to be left behind, either for lack of transport or for sheer size and weight. The enormous butter-churn, for example, that Temrai himself had helped design and build, was set in brick foundations to keep it from toppling over. They had already stripped the giant looms and dismantled the shed they’d stood in for the lumber; now the frames stuck up from the ground like the bones of dead men buried in thin soil, while women cut up the huge carpets that had been woven on them into small, practical squares. They’d tried to salvage the fish-weirs, but most of the main timbers were already too badly rotted to be worth taking; and on the high bank where they’d built permanent butts for archery practice, the great round woven-straw target-bosses lay on their faces, too big to carry, their frames broken up and used to make improvised rails for the carts. Already, the camp looked as if it had been overrun by an enemy; on all sides lay spoil and waste, disregarded wealth and broken equipment, while the banked-up fires where they’d burned off the surplus hay and provender added an evocative stench of smoke.

‘You’re not going, then,’ someone said, as Dassascai flicked his blade backwards and forwards across the strop.

‘Of course I’m going,’ Dassascai replied. ‘But my stuff won’t take long to get ready. No point rushing to pack everything away and then sitting on my hands for a couple of days waiting for the rest of you.’

‘Won’t be a couple of days, if Temrai’s got anything to do with it,’ the man replied. ‘We’re out of here at dawn tomorrow; anybody and anything that isn’t ready, stays.’

Dassascai smiled. ‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘I think he’s forgotten exactly what’s involved in moving this camp. It’s not like we’ve only been here a week; you can’t just bundle seven years in a bag and sling it over your shoulder.’

‘That’s what he said,’ the man answered. ‘You want to take the matter up with him, you go ahead.’

‘No need,’ Dassascai said. ‘All I’ve got to do is fold the tent, catch up the ducks and I’m ready to go. You get practice moving on at a moment’s notice when you’re a refugee.’

The man grinned. ‘I’m sure,’ he said. ‘Here, is it true what they say? About you being a spy?’

Dassascai inclined his head. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Pulling feathers off ducks is just a hobby.’

The man frowned, then shrugged. ‘Ah, well,’ he said. ‘If you really are a spy, stands to reason you wouldn’t admit it.’

‘Do you think I’m a spy?’ Dassascai asked.

‘Me?’ The man thought for a moment. ‘Well, people say you are.’

‘I see. So who am I spying for? The provincial office? Bardas Loredan? The Bad Tooth pixies?’

‘How should I know?’ the man replied, irritated. ‘Anyway, whoever it is, won’t do them any good. Temrai’ll keep one step ahead, just you see.’

‘So I should hope, if he’s supposed to be leading the way.’

When the man had gone, Dassascai carefully wrapped the knife in an oiled cloth and put it away in his satchel. Then he pulled out a little brass tube, tapped the roll of paper out of it and spread it over his knee. There was nothing written on it. Having first looked about him to make sure nobody was paying him any attention, he reached down and fished a thin piece of charred wood out of the dead edge of the fire. He tested it on a corner of the paper. It wrote well.

He didn’t start off with the name of the person he was writing to; only one person would ever see it, and that person didn’t need to be told his own name. Instead, he wrote, For gods’ sakes, tell me what you want me to do, rolled the paper up again and stuffed it into the tube. Then he reached into the duck pen, pulled out a large, fat drake and broke its neck by gripping it just below the head and whirling the body round fast, like a man with a slingshot. When it was dead he picked a little folding knife out of his sash, opened it and slit the duck from just under the ribs down to the vent. With a sharp turn of his wrist, almost gracefully easy from long practice, he flicked the stomach and intestines out through the slit, slipped the message tube in their place, and quickly stitched the slit up with horsehair and a steel needle that lived buried in the fabric of his coat collar. That done, he walked away from the camp towards the mouth of the river, where a single ship was tied up to the remains of the old Perimadeia wharf. He was just in time to intercept the two people he wanted to see.

‘Excuse me,’ he said.

Gannadius looked up. ‘Yes?’

‘Sorry to trouble you,’ Dassascai said, ‘but I need to send someone a duck. Would you be kind enough to take it to the Island for me?’

Gannadius looked at him. ‘You’re sending somebody a duck?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Alive or dead?’

‘Oh, dead.’

Gannadius frowned. ‘But that’s silly. You can buy a duck from any poulterer’s stall.’

‘Not like this duck you can’t. It’s a sample. Special order.’ He smiled. ‘Got the delivery instructions today. If he likes the sample, he’ll take them a thousand at a time. You’d be doing me a real favour.’ Dassascai smiled pleasantly and pulled the duck out from inside his shirt. ‘See?’ he said. ‘Now admit it, that’s a real honey of a duck.’

‘I suppose so,’ Gannadius said doubtfully. ‘But won’t it have gone – well, you know, bad?’

Dassascai shook his head. ‘Don’t you believe it,’ he said. ‘Four days is just about perfect to bring out the flavour. My friend’ll see you right for your trouble, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

‘Oh, no, that’s all right,’ Gannadius replied quickly. It was a matter of honour with Islanders that they always carried and delivered letters if they possibly could; an essential ethic for a commercial nation. Expecting a reward for doing so was considered extremely bad form, like asking a drowning man for cash in advance before rescuing him. ‘It’s just – well, all right.’

‘Thanks,’ Dassascai said, beaming. ‘That’s a great weight off my mind. I’ve been trying to close this deal for ages, but there’ve been so few ships going your way I was worried sick my man’d lose interest and the whole thing would fall through.’

He handed Gannadius the duck, head upright. Gannadius looked at it with faint disgust. ‘No offence,’ he said, ‘but it looks just like an ordinary duck to me.’

Dassascai nodded. ‘Exactly. But it’s a cheap duck. They’re the rarest and most sought-after variety there is.’›

‘Fair enough,’ Gannadius replied dubiously. ‘But wouldn’t it be better to send him a live one? Then he could kill it himself and there’d be no risk of it going bad.’

‘Ah.’ Dassascai furrowed his brow and grinned. ‘And suppose somebody else gets hold of it and starts breeding from it; that’d be the end of my business opportunity, for sure. If you knew ducks, you’d realise what you’ve got there.’

‘If you say so,’ Gannadius said, wishing he hadn’t got involved in the first place. ‘All right, who’s it to go to?’

‘I’ve written it down,’ Dassascai answered. ‘Don’t look so surprised,’ he added with a smile. ‘Some of us can read and write, you know.’

‘Of course. I didn’t mean to imply-’

‘That’s all right then.’ Dassascai pushed a little scrap of parchment into his hand and curled his fingers over it, squeezing so hard that Gannadius flinched. ‘I really appreciate this,’ he said. ‘Something like this could be good news for both our countries.’

Nation shall send ducks unto nation, Gannadius thought. ‘Splendid,’ he said. ‘Well, I’d better be getting on board; I don’t want to miss the boat.’

‘What was all that about?’ Theudas asked as his uncle joined him on deck. Theudas had reserved a place for them both among the coils of anchor-rope at the stern. ‘And what are you carrying a dead duck around for?’

‘Don’t ask,’ Gannadius replied. ‘I’m delivering it. Apparently it marks the dawn of a new era.’

‘Really? By the time we get there it’s going to smell awful.’

Gannadius dropped the duck into the hollow middle of a pile of rope and dumped his satchel down on top of it. ‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘Four days old is the prime of life for a dead duck. Well, prime of death. Whatever. Stop looking at me like that, will you? It’s just a perfectly ordinary commercial sample. If it was a bit of carpet or a bag of nails, you wouldn’t think twice about it.’

Theudas sighed and squatted down on top of the rope. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Only this strikes me as a funny time to be sending trade samples from here to the Island, what with this war and striking camp and everything. You’d think they’d have other things on their minds.’

‘Apparently not.’ Gannadius leaned his back against the rail. He knew he was going to be seasick sooner or later, so being as close to the side as possible was a necessary precaution. ‘Nothing wrong with optimism,’ he continued, provided nobody expects me to invest money in it. It’s almost uplifting in a way, this faith in the future of his people.’

Theudas shook his head. ‘Either your man’s as mad as a hare,’ he said, ‘or they’re playing a funny joke on you. Either way, if I were you I’d chuck the thing over the side now, before it stinks the whole ship out and we’re the ones who get put over the side.’

‘Don’t be such a misery,’ Gannadius told him. ‘We’re finally getting out of here, aren’t we? I’d gladly festoon myself from head to foot with putrescent ducks if it meant getting away from here and back to civilisation. Not,’ he added, ‘that it was anything like I expected – well, for one thing we’re still alive, which is considerably more than I expected when we were squelching about in that foul muddy swamp, being chased by the provincial office. Actually, they’ve been extremely decent to us, according to their lights. Lugging about the odd dead waterfowl is probably the least we can do in return.’

‘Decent?’ Theudas looked at him with disgust. ‘You really don’t care any more, do you?’

Gannadius was silent for a long time. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure that I do. Probably it’s because I wasn’t actually there – for the Fall, I mean; I didn’t see the same things you did. Oh, I know what I’ve been told; I believe it too, in a way. But all that happened to me, personally, was that I moved from the City to the Island, then from the Island to Shastel – where I’ve got a good job, people treat me with respect, and damn it, yes, I’m happy. I thought seeing all this again -’ He waved his arm in the direction of the ruined City, without turning his head ‘- would make it all different, make me start hating them again. But it didn’t, somehow. When I look at them now, all I can see is a bunch of people who are so worried by the threat of being invaded that they’re packing up their lives in barrels and sacks and moving on. Exactly what I did. Somehow, I can’t hate people who’re so like me.’

Theudas smiled grimly. ‘I can,’ he said.

‘Yes, but you’re young and full of energy.’ Gannadius shifted slightly; his back was getting uncomfortable, pressed against the rail. ‘When you get to my age, you’ll find it’s fatally easy to forget to hate all your enemies all the time; and once you’ve slipped up and not hated one of them, it makes it almost impossibly hard to hate the rest of them. You allow yourself to start thinking things like, The ordinary people are all right, it’s their leaders who’re responsible for all the evil stuff they do; and then one day you meet one of their leaders and he turns out to be almost human, and that’s a cruel blow, like a broken finger would be to someone who plays the harp for a living.’ He shifted his back again. ‘It was odd seeing Temrai,’ he said. ‘Reminded me of once when I was young and I saw a shark that had got itself caught up in some mackerel-fishers’ nets; they had it strung up by its tail, all stiff and dead, and they were cutting it up. It looked a whole lot smaller than I expected it to be.’

Theudas closed his eyes. ‘Odd you should say that,’ he said. ‘I thought the same thing, seeing him again. Of course, when you see someone when you’re a kid and again when you’ve grown up, that’s often the way. Still, I wouldn’t mind seeing Temrai strung up. I think I could get to like him hanging by his feet.’

‘Your privilege,’ Gannadius replied, muffling a yawn. ‘I never said you should stop hating him; after all, you’ve got cause. All I’m saying is, I’m not so sure as I was that I have.’

‘You could hate him for my sake. Isn’t that what we’re taught, love your friends’ friends and hate their enemies?’

‘Oh, all right,’ Gannadius said. ‘For your sake I hate him and I hope his pet lizard dies.’

(A curse, Gannadius realised; I’m laying a curse on someone I don’t hate for the sake of someone young and soaked through with the lust for revenge. That’s what Alexius did once, and look what happened. Gods, I hope this headache I’m getting is just a headache -

– And he saw behind his eyes the shark, the fat and flesh flayed away from the framework of its bones, like the frames of a ship before they start planking up the sides. A fine feast they were preparing, these cooks he could see; shark and bear steaks, and eagles cooked whole on spits like chickens, slowly turning in front of the heat of the fire, wolves roasted and stuffed with apple and chestnut, great snakes gutted and made into the skins of blood sausages, a flitch of smoked lion hanging from a hook in the ceiling, a whole dinner of predators – he could see them laying strips of tender-loin of leopard in the bottom of the pie-dish, and bottling giant Colleon spiders like fat plums -)

‘What do you mean?’ Theudas said. ‘Temrai hasn’t got a pet lizard.’

‘You see?’ Gannadius replied. ‘It’s starting to work already.’

Bardas Loredan was sure he’d watched the arrow all the way, from the moment it appeared as a tiny speck in the sky until it actually hit him; an unbearably long time, but not long enough for him to move a foot to his right and get out of its way, although he did his best. Curious, he thought, at the moment of impact, how time can work like that. It’s enough to make a man believe in the Principle.

When the shock of the arrow on the cheekpiece of his helmet pushed his head round – it was like being slapped hard across the face – he was sure he must have died (it’s customary to die first) but apparently he’d made a mistake (in your case we’ll make an exception). Instead, he could feel a sharp pain in his temples; and if he understood the rules correctly, the dead are excused pain, as a sort of consolation prize. As he turned his head back again, he was aware of the jagged edges of the small hole the arrow had punched in the steel slicing painlessly along the line of his jaw to the edge of his lip, and the hot trickle of blood inside the padded helmet, quite remarkably like the warm, wet feel of piss running down his leg when he was a little boy. Delayed shock; he staggered briefly, found his feet and stood up straight again.

They’d attacked without warning; a distant hiss, like oil in a hot frying pan, and a quite lovely pattern of arrows rising against the noon sun, like a large flock of doves put up off a stubble field. It had taken him a few moments to work out where the arrows were coming from – a fold of dead ground between the column and the opposite ridge of the valley. This was advanced archery, shooting extreme-range volleys at a target they couldn’t even see, something the provincial office’s auxiliary bowmen didn’t have the skill or the confidence to do. For the rest of the column it had been terrifying, heartstopping, this business of being killed by an enemy you hadn’t even seen. In Bardas’ case, it only made him slightly nostalgic for the mines.

He looked around for Estar but couldn’t see him. Nobody seemed to be giving orders, and the patient, disciplined ranks of Imperial infantry were standing still, like carthorses in heavy rain. Damn, Bardas thought. He stepped forward out of line and started shouting military stuff like Left wheel and Dress to your front, the sort of thing he’d learned in Maxen’s army and thought he’d forgotten. The Imperials weren’t like Maxen’s men, though; they were a joy to drill, smart and precise, men who didn’t just obey the words of command but actually believed in them, as if they were the holy words of some religion. It was unnerving, this total and unthinking obedience, with all its connotations of responsibility and trust. Don’t say I’m getting involved again, Bardas thought resentfully; but unless somebody got these men out of the line of fire, there would be avoidable deaths and injuries; Estar nowhere to be seen, the other officers standing by as faithfully as the men. The blood had reached his collar-bone; the lapel of his habergeon was soaking it up like a sponge, and the sharp edges were cutting more deep, thin slices, precise as the leaf-thin blades of the cooks’ knives as they dressed out the sheep. Almost proof, but not quite; a small puncture hole on the outside, a series of bloody gashes within.

He’d brought the army out of column into line, and gave the order to advance. For this sort of situation the Imperial writers on the art of war recommended a manoeuvre they called the ‘hammer and anvil’: invite the enemy to concentrate their fire on an apparently suicidal infantry advance, the main body of the army apparently walking directly into the hail of arrows (but that’s what armour’s for) while wings of cavalry and light infantry hook round the back and drive the enemy headlong on to the men-at-arms’ pikes. It was a sound enough tactic provided you could rely on your cavalry officers to do their job. Bardas had seen them move off as soon as he started to turn the line, riding away from the enemy before describing a wide arc and appearing unexpectedly behind them. On this ground they’d have to ride all the way round to the other side of the far ridge if they wanted to stay out of sight. It’d be a long time before they were in position, which meant the armoured infantry were going to have to stay out in the rain getting soaked. It was a wager, the lives of thousands of men riding on a bet, their archers against our armourers. Welcome back to the proof house, Bardas Loredan; we knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away.

What the hell had become of Colonel Estar? Common sense suggested that he’d gone down in the first volley of arrows, though Bardas hadn’t seen him fall. It was inconceivable that he’d run away. He was, after all, a Son of Heaven, and even Bardas Loredan needed to believe in something. If Estar was dead – things like that don’t happen, commanders-in-chief of mighty armies don’t die in the first volley of the first battle they fight in. But if he was dead (and Maxen died, remember) command of the army would pass to Sergeant Loredan, until such time as another Son of Heaven arrived from Ap’ Escatoy. The thought made Bardas shudder.

Here was an interesting problem, an examination question in the art of command. To reach the enemy they were having to march down a steep slope. It was essential that they keep in line; but the sheer weight of the armour on which everything depended was making them tend to hurry, almost to the point of breaking into a run. Bardas was having to drive his heels into the dry, crumbling turf just to keep his balance. In his mind he could clearly see the ludicrous image of an army in full plate tobogganing down the slope on their backsides, skidding and crashing into each other, tumbling head over heels into a tangled heap of steel and flesh – that was just the sort of thing that happened in a war, it was the way disasters came about and wars were lost. In a moment of great clarity he could see it, as if it had already happened; a mighty trash-heap, like the pile of pieces that had failed proof (men as well as armour that had failed proof; welcome home), with the plainsmen standing on the top of the little rise shooting at will into the mess and laughing so hard they could scarcely draw their bows. The image was so strong that it was almost impossible for him to distinguish between it and what he could actually see. He shouted back to his officers, invisible behind him, to keep the line, to slow down the advance – well, anybody could say the words, but turning the words into action, making the words come true, was a job for a real commander; he could only hope that there were a few of those in the ranks behind him. The arrows weren’t helping, either; they were on the skyline now, shooting down at almost their maximum reverse elevation; the arrows were glancing off the artfully angled surfaces of the plate and skidding away in all directions, smacking sideways into the faces and bodies of the fourth and fifth ranks. There was nothing to be done about them, they had to be ignored, as if they were horseflies on a hot day. The one thing the line couldn’t do now was stop and go back; if they tried that, they’d be tumbling down the slope in no time.

There was nothing for it but to trot the last few yards. A few men did go down, and each man that fell took two or three with him, with a thump and a crash like an accident in a smithy. No time to see to the fallen, they’d have to sort themselves out if they were still capable of doing so; there were living men pinned down under dead men, he knew, like miners trapped by a cave-in, and there they’d have to wait, depending on the general, on Sergeant Loredan, to win the battle and survive; otherwise they’d stay there till they died, or until the scrap-metal people came with their sharp knives to collect the spoil and skin the carcasses. Never should have let command fall into the hands of an outlander. Obvious recipe for disaster. He could hear them saying it now.

They’d managed to get down the slope; now came the tricky part. They didn’t have far to climb, but the gradient was steep and there were enemy soldiers at the top of it. This isn’t on; if I’d wanted to work this hard I could have stayed on the bloody farm. It was worse than carrying the grain-sacks up the ladder to the loft, or manhandling heavy timbers up scaffolding. With every step he was sure his knees would burst or the muscle would break out through the back of his calf; he could feel his muscles taking damage (this isn’t very clever, Bardas, you’ll do yourself an injury) and the thought of having to fight someone if he did manage to scramble up to the top was enough to make him laugh out loud. If they wanted to fight him, they’d have to help him up the last few yards, as if he was an old man, getting tottery on his pins.

The sound the arrows made as they deflected off the plate was extraordinary, a whistling scream of frustration. Not that all of them were being turned; because they were being shot at from above, the angles were all wrong, there were flat spots where an arrow could strike fair and square. Every man shot took two or three more with him as he toppled backwards and rolled down the hill (if the enemy had any sense they’d be rolling rocks and logs) and that wasn’t helping either. The pace had slowed right down, it was as if time had stopped (the arrow coming towards him) and there was still nothing he could do except force himself to climb another step, then another. Just breathing was next to impossible now. This is how battles are lost, this is how disasters happen; the trash-heap, the pile of parts that failed proof.

He was staring directly at a pair of boots. They were old boots, scuffed, one toe mended. I had a pair of boots like that once, he thought; and just as he remembered the dead man he’d taken them from after a battle on the plains, the owner of the boots kicked him in the forehead. That was a mistake, too; boots not sturdy enough to go kicking steel with. In spite of everything, Bardas couldn’t help grinning – no breath to laugh with, can only grin – as he heard the howl of pain. Then (he could still only see as far as the man’s knees) he lunged upwards with his pike, the bloody heavy piece of kit he’d lugged all this way and might as well use, and cut the howling short.

Fighting. Well, we know where we are with that. At least it’s something I know how to do. Following up the slight momentum of the thrust he hauled himself the last step or so on to the crest of the rise, managing to step over the dead man who’d pulled the pike out of his hands with his stomach. As he lurched forward someone hit him across the shoulders (wasting his strength, trying to bash on the junction of pauldrons, backplate, gorget) but Bardas didn’t have the time or the energy to deal with him; he walked past as if ignoring a drunk in the street, and his whole body heaved as he drew in a breath – it caught in his throat, it was like trying to swallow a whole apple. Some fool was bouncing an axe off the top of his helmet; that one didn’t last long – all Bardas had to do was lift his arm and let it fall in its own weight, allow the mass of vambrace, cop, pauldron and gauntlet to force the sword blade down through bone and flesh, the armour doing all the work, the man inside having little to do with it. It’s happened, Bardas thought, as he wrenched his sword free from the severed collar-bone, the armour’s grown round me and sealed me in, like the rings of a tree; only the outside, the steel part of me, is alive.

They tried various tests – swords, spears, axes, even big stones and heavy clubs, but they couldn’t make the armour fail proof. They weren’t in the same league as Bollo and his big hammer when it came to crushing and bashing sheet metal. Their flesh and bone, on the other hand, was no good at all; the whole batch failed to pass, apart from a few pieces that were withdrawn from the test at the last moment. When the session was over, there was the big trash-heap he’d been seeing all along, the pile of arms and legs and heads and trunks and feet and hands that hadn’t succeeded in passing proof. Little wonder, now that he saw them close to; they were made of some material other than steel, which was crazy.

When the cavalry finally deigned to show up there was nothing left for them to do. It was clear they weren’t pleased about it, or about finding that they were now under the command of an outlander infantry sergeant. Their captain turned out to be a Perimadeian by the name of Olethrias Saravin. Bardas tried to turn over command to him, but to no avail. ‘Not bloody likely,’ Saravin said. ‘You made a hash of it the last time you fought these people, now’s your chance to put things right.’ There didn’t seem to be any point arguing with him, so Bardas let the matter drop and ordered him to take out three companies and scout ahead, this time (if at all possible) keeping an eye out for any substantial numbers of enemy archers that might be roaming about the place. Saravin galloped off with a very bad grace, and Bardas gave the order to pitch camp for the night.

They found Estar’s body and brought it to him. There wasn’t a mark on it, apart from a few footprints. By the looks of it he’d fallen off his horse and given himself a heart attack trying to get back up again, unassisted, in full armour.

‘We could try the Honour and Glory, I suppose,’ Eseutz Mesatges suggested. ‘Shouldn’t be too crowded at this time of day, and they do a passable fish soup.’

Vetriz nodded. She wasn’t particularly bothered where they sat down so long as they sat down; she’d made the mistake of wearing her new sandals (hard leather straps and two-inch heels, as required for the nomad-caravan look) before breaking them in properly, and the straps were cutting into her like a bowsaw.

The fish soup turned out to be mediocre, not helped by the fact that the cooks had left the mussels and oysters in their shells -

‘Which is supposed to denote freshness and back-to-essentials simplicity,’ Eseutz commented, ducking a floating mussel under the surface of her soup and watching it bob up again, ‘but as far as I’m concerned it means the cook thinks scraping shellfish out of their armour is a rotten job – a view I wholeheartedly share, let me tell you. The really sordid part is, you end up with a great big trash-heap of bits of discarded shell on the edge of your plate, which really isn’t the sort of thing you want to be looking at while you’re eating.’

Vetriz smiled distractedly; she had something of a headache, and she wasn’t really in the mood for Eseutz Mesatges. ‘Leave them, then,’ she said. ‘Just eat the soup.’

‘What, and waste stuff I’ve paid good money for? Not likely.’ Eseutz grimaced and ripped apart a mussel. ‘Worst of all is those little pink beetle-things, all curled up in a ball like a dead woodlouse. I defy anybody to prise one of those things open without a crowbar and a big hammer.’

Somebody Vetriz thought she knew had just walked in; she caught sight of the back of a bald head, a pair of broad shoulders. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I’m really not hungry. I think I’ll go home now.’

‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ Eseutz said. ‘Look, if you really don’t like the fish soup, we’ll order something else. What about the curried mutton?’

‘Really,’ Vetriz said, rather more loudly than she’d intended to, ‘I’m not hungry.’

Several people looked round, including the man with the bald head and the broad shoulders. He looked at her for a moment, grinned, and walked away towards the table under the window. Vetriz sat back in her chair, feeling rather sick.

‘It’s not the fish soup, is it?’ Eseutz said.

‘No,’ Vetriz replied. ‘It’s not the fish soup.’

Eseutz studied the retreating back for a moment. ‘It’s none of my business, right?’

‘You’re right,’ Vetriz said. ‘It’s none of your business.’

‘Fair enough. If you’re really not hungry, do you mind if I pinch your bread?’

Gorgas Loredan stopped and looked round until he saw what he was looking for. No mistaking those thin, hunched shoulders. He stepped up close and put his arm round them.

Iseutz Loredan squirmed like a fish, then saw who it was and relaxed a little, though not completely. ‘Uncle Gorgas,’ she said.

‘I got your letter,’ he said, straddling the bench and sitting down beside her. He looked too big in such an ordinary place. ‘In fact, it reached me just as I was setting off for a meeting here. So naturally, I thought I’d offer you a lift.’

Iseutz smiled at him. ‘That’s wonderful,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

‘My pleasure,’ he replied. ‘Really, I ought to have invited you over long before this, but I wasn’t sure how things stand with your mother and me. That soup looks good.’

‘You have it, then,’ Iseutz said. ‘It’s disgusting.’

Gorgas shrugged. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘is it true you nearly killed that soldier? Left-handed, too. You really do have a gift for this swordfighting stuff, don’t you?’

‘Must run in the family,’ she said, expressionless. ‘So you know all about that, do you?’

‘Mphm.’ Gorgas had his mouth full of soup. He opened his lips and fished out two mussel shells, which he dropped on to the table. ‘Dirty trick, if you ask me. You see, I’ve got something they want, but they don’t want to pay my price – stupid if you ask me, because they really need what I’ve got and what I want will cost them nothing, but there you are. I imagine you and your mother were going to be their counter-offer. It’s a sad thing when you can’t try to do business with people like the provincial office without having your family kidnapped and held to ransom. If it wasn’t for the fact that they’ve still got your mother, I’d scrub round the whole deal and let them go to hell.’ He picked up the soup-plate and tipped the rest of the soup into his mouth.

‘I know about the deal,’ Iseutz said. ‘I wasn’t sure we’d be worth that much to you.’

Gorgas frowned. He chewed for a moment, making a loud crunching noise, then swallowed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, ’ he said, ‘you’re family. Nothing’s more important than family. But I got the better of them in the end – or I thought I did. I gave them the Mesoge.’

Iseutz opened her eyes wide. ‘You did what?’

‘I handed it over to them, free, gratis and for nothing.’ He grinned. ‘The look on that oily bastard of an envoy’s face – well, he looked just like you look now, like he’d swallowed a doughnut and found it was a hedgehog. On reflection,’ he added, ‘it may be that they tried to grab you as security for the deal, in case I changed my mind. Anyway, whatever they did it for, it isn’t on. If they want their damned pirate they’ll have to give me Niessa and what I originally asked for. In fact,’ he added, frowning a little, ‘you’ve just given me an idea. This trip might turn out to be more useful than I’d thought.’

Iseutz smiled. ‘Glad to have inspired you,’ she said. ‘Look, I don’t want to rush you or anything, but is this business of yours going to take awfully long, because I’d really like to be on my way as soon as possible. I’m sure all these soldiers have much more important things on their minds than stray prisoners, but they make me nervous.’

Gorgas nodded. ‘You’d be surprised,’ he said. ‘If there’s one thing the provincial office truly despises, it’s losing a prisoner. No, you’re right to be worried. The best thing would be to get you safely on board my ship and off this island. I’ll tell them to come back for me.’

‘Are you sure? I don’t want to be a nuisance or anything. ’

Gorgas looked at her. ‘There’s no need to overdo it,’ he said. ‘Come on, you can be straight with me, I’m your uncle. I’m the one you spat at when you were in that prison on Scona. That’s why we get on so well together; we haven’t got any illusions about each other. It’s how it should be, between family.’

Iseutz scowled at him, then shook her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to be insulting.’

‘Ah well, I’m insult-proof,’ Gorgas replied with a smile. ‘Look, I’ll be straight with you, the way I want you to be with me. I want you somewhere safe where the prefect’s bogies can’t get to you, because I don’t want to let them have another hostage. If that means I’ve got to spend five days here instead of two, that’s no big deal; it’ll give me time for this other little job I’ve just thought up for myself. You’re doing me a favour – two, actually, because you gave me that idea – and I’m doing you one in return. And we’re both happy, and that’s good. Now then, you’ve had your dinner, so let’s get you down to the dock. If there anything you want to take with you, or are you ready now?’

‘Ready as I’ll ever be,’ Iseutz replied. ‘I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what this great idea is, are you?’

‘No, I’m not. Come on, let’s be on our way. Actually, the soup wasn’t half bad, I must remember this place. We’ll go out the back way.’

As they passed the table where Vetriz was sitting, Gorgas stopped, nodded politely and went on.

‘Who was that?’ Iseutz asked.

‘Friend of your uncle Bardas.’

‘Oh,’ Iseutz said.

Meanwhile, Eseutz Mesatges was leaning forward and asking, ‘Come on, who is he?’

‘Like I said,’ Vetriz replied angrily, ‘none of your-’

‘You’re upset,’ Eseutz went on, ‘because he had a girl with him. Young enough to be his daughter, too. You’re well rid, if you ask me.’

‘I don’t,’ Vetriz said, ‘so shut up.’

‘Not another word. But I thought you were still hung up on this Bardas Loredan character; you know, the one who made a hero of himself at Ap’ Escatoy-’

‘Eseutz.’

‘Sorry.’ Eseutz grinned and held up her hands. ‘Change subject. Didn’t mean to pry. Only you’re no fun at all in that direction, you’re never interested in anybody, so you can hardly blame me if – all right,’ she added, as Vetriz glared at her. ‘Completely different subject. Did you buy those shoes you were telling me about? Only I tried a pair of them myself and they cut my heels to ribbons. Talk about an instrument of torture – forget your red-hot irons and your thumbscrews, five minutes in those sandals and I’d tell you anything.’

When she finally managed to get rid of Eseutz, Vetriz went straight home and put the bolt on the door. It was a pointless gesture, and Venart would be furious when he got home and found he was locked out, but it went a little way towards making her feel better. She went up to the first-floor balcony and sat behind the curtain, watching the street, until it was too dark to see.

For her part, Eseutz dropped in at the wool exchange, where there was nothing doing, called on Cens Lauzeta, the fish-oil baron, who wasn’t at home, bought a sea-bass and an inkstone in the Salvage Market and stopped off at the jeweller’s to see if they’d mended her grasshopper brooch yet, which they hadn’t. Then she went home.

There were two men sitting in the porch when she got there. One, annoyingly, was Cens Lauzeta. The other one she recognised, though she didn’t know his name.

That, however, was quickly remedied, because as soon as he’d chided her for staying out late, Cens introduced him. His name, apparently, was Gorgas Loredan, and he had a business proposition.