The Proof House

CHAPTER FIVE

The battle was effectively over. It had been short, one-sided and rather bloody, mostly because of the rebels’ distressing reluctance to call it a day, even when it was obvious that they’d lost. Fighting to the last drop of blood sounds all very well in theory, but it’s really only ever worth the effort when you’re winning.

Temrai’s handling of the battle had been textbook perfect, from the initial skirmisher attacks that had drawn the main rebel force out of position and into the killing zone, through the flawless enveloping manoeuvres of the main cavalry wings down to the perfectly conceived and executed pursuit and mopping-up of the enemy survivors. It was a pity, General Kurrai remarked afterwards, that such a masterly battle should be wasted on a bunch of malcontents and losers who’d never stood a chance anyway. A few volleys of arrows and a simple charge would have done the trick in a matter of minutes, and the cavalry could simply have ridden them down as they ran. Simple, efficient and there wouldn’t have been that embarrassing business at the end…

At the death, when the encircling horns of horse-archers and lancers had met up to complete the ring around the zone and it was all over bar the actual killing, one of the enemy ringleaders had caught sight of the pennants of Temrai’s bodyguard and committed what was left of his forces to a suicide attack against that part of the line. Needless to say, only a handful of rebels actually made it through the shield-wall as far as the edge of the guard cordon, and nearly all of them ended up spitted on the pikes and halberds of the guards. No more than four men out of a whole double company came within striking range of Temrai himself; and of those four, just the one man actually managed to land a blow on the king’s person. A thumbnail’s width to the left, and all that effort would have been entirely justified.

Whoever he was, this one man out of so many, he must have been very angry. By the time he barged his way past the inner ring of guards, he’d already taken enough damage to stop a normal human being – two pike-thrusts puncturing his stomach, a glancing blow across the right side of his head that sprayed blood everywhere, as deep scalp wounds tend to do, a cut on the point of his left shoulder that lost him the use of that arm. But he was still on his feet and right-handed; and the backhand scimitar-cut he managed to loose, in the half-second or so before someone split his skull from behind, slammed into Temrai’s neck on the very edge of his gorget, where the lip of the metal had been curled up and back. As it was, the shock of the blow sent Temrai sprawling, the impact enough to crush his windpipe and stop him breathing for long enough to make him believe it was all over. He dropped suddenly to his knees, in time for his head to get in the way of another guard’s backswing which clattered across the front of his helmet like a blow from a smith’s hammer. He landed at a hopelessly contorted angle down among the forest of legs and ankles, and lay curled and choking to death for a very long time, until a couple of guardsmen found out where he’d disappeared to and hauled him back on to his feet before anybody else could tread on him.

By the time he was up and breathing normally again, the meaningful part of the battle was already over, leaving only abattoir chores. Some guardsmen hustled Temrai out of the crowd and back to the calm and quiet of the tents, where an armourer had to cut through the straps of the dented and misshapen gorget before he could get the thing off. A surgeon examined the ugly swollen bruise, dabbed it with witch hazel and assured Temrai that there was no permanent harm done.

‘Just as well you were wearing the thing,’ Tilden said later. She was holding the twisted, mutilated gorget and looking at it thoughtfully. ‘If it wasn’t for that little raised bit round the edge, you’d be dead. I suppose the raised bit’s there for precisely that reason.’

General Kurrai shook his head. ‘Actually, no,’ he said. ‘It’s just to stop the edge rubbing against your neck and cutting you to pieces.’

‘Oh,’ Tilden replied. ‘Well, in that case it was definitely a slice of luck.’ She put the gorget down with a little squeamish shiver, as if it had been covered in blood. ‘Do you really need to do this?’ she asked. ‘Go to all the battles, I mean. Can’t you stay near the back or something and let someone else do the actual charging about? After all, you’re the King, heaven only knows what’d happen if you got yourself killed. And it’s not as if you’re a mighty warrior or a crack shot or anything.’

‘Thank you,’ Temrai said gravely. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

Tilden frowned. ‘Well, you’re not,’ she said. ‘And don’t look at me like that. You know I’m right really.’

‘Of course you are,’ Temrai replied with a sad little smile. ‘You could also point out that every time I get myself into trouble in a battle, it means other people have to risk their lives getting me out again, which is dangerously irresponsible behaviour by any standards. Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about it.’

‘Isn’t there?’ Tilden stood up, her arms filled with the heavy wool blanket she’d been darning. ‘I’m terribly sorry, I mistook you for the King. My mistake.’

Temrai sighed. ‘Yes, I’m the King,’ he said, ‘that’s why I haven’t got any choice in the matter. The people need to see me in there with them, fighting beside them, sharing the same dangers…’

‘But you aren’t,’ Tilden pointed out, the middle of the blanket tucked under her chin as she stretched it out to fold it up. ‘You’re surrounded by bodyguards. You’re dressed head to foot in expensive imported armour. And besides, what makes you think that everybody’s got their eyes glued to you all the time? If I were a soldier, I’d be watching the enemy, not peering over my shoulder to see if I can just make out the top of the King’s head over the crowd. I don’t suppose for a moment that anybody except you gives it a moment’s thought.’

‘That’s not really the-’

‘And anyway,’ Tilden went on, ‘if I were a soldier I wouldn’t want my King and commander-in-chief stuck down in the front line, where he might easily get himself killed and where he hasn’t got a clue what’s going on. I’d want him to be standing on top of a hill somewhere, where he can see the whole of the battle and give the army its orders.’

‘All right,’ Temrai said. ‘Point taken. It’s not a very sensible way of doing things. But it’s the way I do things, and I can’t stop now without giving everybody the wrong message. You think I enjoy being the mark for every suicidal lunatic in the enemy army who wants to be a hero and end the war at a stroke?’

Tilden arched an eyebrow at him. ‘Just because you don’t enjoy it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do it,’ she said. ‘Look, if you’re so worried about what people think, why don’t you get one of the generals to make a public appeal to you, in front of the whole army so everybody can hear, and implore you not to take unnecessary risks? Then you’d say something like it’s terribly sweet of everybody to be concerned, but you feel it’s your duty and all that nonsense; then they’ll all turn round and say, No, the general’s right, you ought to take better care of yourself. And then you’d be off the hook and doing what your people want you to at the same time. Simple.’

Simple, Temrai reflected as he lay awake in bed that night. Simple; and the truth is, I’m so terrified these days that it’s all I can do to keep myself from running away as soon as I set eyes on the enemy. Ever since – well, ever since the burning of Perimadeia, when I was on the wrong end of Bardas Loredan’s sword.

He closed his eyes, and there was the image again; Colonel Bardas Loredan staring at him down the length of a sword blade, his eyes reflected in the brightly polished metal. All that was a long time ago now, and the last he’d heard was that Colonel Loredan was a sergeant in the army of the provincial office, on his way to some administrator’s desk deep inside the Empire. Out of my life for good, he tried to tell himself, but he knew he was wasting his time. I burned Perimadeia just because I was terrified of one man, and he’s still out there, and here I am, waiting for him to come and get me. Temrai couldn’t help smiling at that; rebellions at home, the Empire pressing on the borders of his territory, the sort of threats that were worth losing sleep over, and he was so preoccupied with the phantom of Bardas Loredan that he scarcely had the time or the energy to be frightened of anything else. The silly part of it is, I won; I destroyed the biggest city in the world, and I’m the one who’s too scared to close his eyes. I don’t suppose he’s lying awake obsessing about me -

‘Gannadius,’ the boy whispered, loud enough to be heard in the next valley. ‘Are you awake?’

Gannadius rolled over and opened his eyes. ‘No,’ he said.

The boy glared at him. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

‘Awful,’ Gannadius replied. ‘How’s yourself?’

He looks annoyed, Gannadius thought. I expect I’d have been the same at his age. Flippancy really aggravated me when I was young. The boy’s scowl deepened.

‘You do realise, don’t you?’ he said. ‘These people are plains, they’re the enemy. Just our luck, to be rescued by them.’ He winced and pulled a face, as if a wasp had just stung him. ‘What are we going to do now?’

Gannadius rolled his eyes. ‘Speaking purely for myself, ’ he replied, ‘I’m going to lie here till I’m better. You can do what you like.’

‘Gannadius!’

‘I’m sorry, Theudas.’ Gannadius lifted himself awkwardly on to one elbow. ‘But the fact is, there’s not a lot we can do. I’m in no fit state to get out of this bed. You can try to get home if you like, on your own, but don’t ask me how you’d go about it, because I haven’t a clue. Besides,’ he added, ‘I like it here. Nice women bring me food and ask me if I’m feeling better, and I don’t have to do any work.’

Theudas Morosin turned away sharply; too well brought up to be rude to his elders and betters. Where did he learn such good manners? Gannadius wondered; probably not from Bardas Loredan, so presumably from Athli Zeuxis, on the Island.

‘All right,’ Theudas said, ‘if that’s your attitude. I just hope you still find it all so wonderfully amusing when they realise who we are and stick our heads up on poles in the middle of the camp.’

Gannadius sighed. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘So who are we, exactly? What are these dreadfully secret identities we’ve got to hide from them at all costs?’

Theudas winced. ‘We’re Perimadeian,’ he hissed. ‘Or had you forgotten?’

Gannadius shook his head. ‘You may be,’ he said, ‘I’m not. I’m a citizen of the United Maritime Republic, more usually referred to as the Island, just like you. And last time I heard, relations between the Island and King Temrai have never been better. That’s the lovely thing about belonging to a neutral country, people tend not to kill you just for where you live.’

Theudas opened his mouth and then closed it again; Gannadius could almost see the thought crossing his mind, like a big flock of rooks going home to roost. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘that’s not right. You’re a Shastel citizen, aren’t you? Not that that matters in this instance,’ he added.

‘Wrong. I became an Island citizen the moment I started owning property there. So long as I’ve got a credit balance at Athli’s bank, I’m a genuine, solid-gold citizen. Besides, you don’t think foreign trash like me are allowed to join the Order just like that, do you?’

Theudas shrugged. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘that’s beside the point. And yes, I suppose you’re right. I was panicking. Sorry. It’s just,’ he added, grimacing as if he’d just burned himself, ‘I hate these people. I don’t think anything’ll ever change that, not after what I saw when I was a kid. You weren’t there, Gannadius, you didn’t see…’

‘True,’ Gannadius replied firmly, ‘for which I am duly thankful. And I’m not saying don’t hate them; but as long as we’re their guests, do it quietly. All right? That way, we stand a fair chance of getting put on a ship and sent home.’

Theudas hung his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘And I know, I’m not fit to be out on my own.’ He lifted his head and smiled. ‘Just as well I’ve got you to look after me, really.’

‘Works both ways,’ Gannadius replied, lying back and closing his eyes. ‘I don’t know how far I’d have got after the wreck without you, but you could probably have measured the distance with a very short piece of string.’ He breathed out, making himself relax. ‘If you want to make yourself useful,’ he went on, ‘go and look for that nice lady doctor, see if you can get her to send a message to the coast, find out if any of our ships are expected, and if so, when. Try to be nice, will you? Don’t call her a blood-soaked murderer or anything like that; you know the drill.’

‘Yes, Uncle.’

When the boy had gone, Gannadius closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep. Instead, he found himself back in the awkward part of the scenario, the bit where the plains warrior was climbing in through the window of his room, marking the sill with blood.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ the warrior said.

‘I don’t know,’ Gannadius replied. ‘I don’t want to be here.’

‘Tough.’ He was squeezing his broad shoulders against the window-frame, trying to force it away from the wall so he could get through. He looked strong enough to be able to do it. ‘You belong here,’ he added with a grin.

‘No I don’t.’

‘I beg to differ. You should have been here. And now, here you are. Better late than never.’

Gannadius tried to get out of bed, but his legs weren’t working. ‘I’m not really here,’ he protested. ‘This is just a dream.’

‘We’ll soon see,’ said the warrior, and grunted with the effort. There was a sound of wood cracking. ‘The way I see it, this is where you are, and where you’ll always be. Properly speaking.’

Reaching behind him, Gannadius caught hold of the headboard and tried to pull himself backwards. ‘I’m just making you say that,’ he said, ‘because I feel guilty. You don’t even exist.’

‘You watch your mouth,’ the soldier replied. ‘I exist all right. Give me a minute and I’ll prove it to you.’

With an extreme effort, Gannadius pulled himself up into a sitting position and tried to swing his legs out of the bed, but they were completely numb.

‘And besides,’ the soldier went on, ‘I’m telling you the truth, aren’t I? Here you are, back on Perimadeian soil, where you belong. The truth is you never really left. And you know it.’

‘Go away. I don’t believe in you.’

The soldier laughed. ‘Your prerogative,’ he said. ‘But you’re wrong, and you can’t kid yourself. You know too much about it. Agrianes’ On Shadow and Substance, book three, chapter six, sections four to seven; I only know about it because it’s right here in your mind for anybody to see.’ He heaved and the central pillar of the window-frame tore loose. ‘In which Agrianes postulates that whenever there’s a serious dichotomy between perceived reality and the course of events that best accommodates the workings of the Principle, the latter interpretation is to be preferred in the absence of positive evidence to the contrary. In other words, proof. You prove you’re not here and I might just let you go. Otherwise-’

‘All right,’ Gannadius whispered. ‘What kind of proof do you need?’

‘Proof-’ the soldier repeated; and became Doctor Felden, the nice lady he’d just sent Theudas to find. She had a worried frown on her face.

‘Are you all right?’ she said.

Gannadius looked her in the eyes. ‘Where am I?’ he asked.

‘It never rains,’ said the courier sadly, awkwardly holding a sack over his head with one hand while grasping the reins in the other. ‘Well, once or twice a year, and then it rains, if you see what I mean. Not like this.’

Bardas, who had no sack, pulled his collar round his neck. ‘I’d say this is rain all right,’ he said.

The courier shook his head. ‘No way,’ he said. ‘Well, yes, obviously it’s rain; but it’s not the sort of rain you get here when it’s raining. Comes down in sheets, it does; before you know it, the coach is full of water. Can’t see ten yards in front of your nose. This is just – well, ordinary rain, like we used to have in Colleon.’

Bardas shivered. The ordinary rain was running down his forehead into his eyes. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this is rain like we used to get it in the Mesoge; about a third of the year, all spring and a bit of the late autumn. Bloody good weather for staying indoors in.’

‘We’re here,’ the courier said. ‘Ap’ Calick. Where you’re headed, remember?’

‘What? Oh, yes. Sorry.’ Bardas blinked rain out of his eyes, but all he could see was the vague, rain-blurred shape of a big, square, grey building in the valley below the hill they’d just come round. ‘So that’s Ap’ Calick?’ he said, for no real reason.

‘That?’ The courier laughed. ‘Gods, no. Ap’ Calick proper’s another half-day on up the road. That’s Ap’ Calick armoury. Quite different.’

‘Ah.’ Bardas let go of his collar just long enough to draw a sodden cuff across his eyes. It didn’t make much difference to the way it looked; a dim grey block, precisely square. ‘That’s all right, then,’ he said.

‘Dismal bloody place,’ the courier went on. ‘Mate of mine was posted there once; nothing there, he told me. Nothing to do; miserable little canteen where they water the booze. No women except for the godawful specimens who make the chain-mail, they’ve got hands like farriers’ rasps, and talk about strong-’ He shuddered, tilting rain out of a fold in his sack on to Bardas’ knee. ‘And the dust,’ he went on, ‘the dust’s the real killer. A month in there, you’ll be spitting up enough grit to polish a breastplate. No wonder they all die.’

‘You don’t say,’ Bardas replied.

‘That’s if the noise doesn’t drive you crazy first,’ the courier went on. ‘Three shifts a day, see, clack, clack, clack all the damn time. If you’re really lucky, you’ll go deaf. The heat’s another killer,’ the courier continued. ‘I mean to say, typical provincial office, builds the biggest forge in the west in the middle of a bloody desert. You get blokes going crazy because they drink the brine.’

‘The what?’

‘Brine,’ the courier repeated. ‘Salt water, for tempering in. They get so thirsty in there on a hot day, they drink the salt water out of the tempering vats and go crazy and die. Three or four of them, every year. They know it’ll kill them, but after a bit they just don’t care.’

Bardas decided it was time to change the subject. ‘I didn’t know that,’ he said. ‘About tempering in salt water.’

The courier shook his head. ‘Temper in all sorts of things,’ he said, ‘depending on what they’re making. Salt water, oil, lard, plain water; molten lead they use for some things; or is that annealing? Can’t remember. My mate didn’t talk about it much. Made him depressed even thinking about the place.’

‘Is that so?’ Bardas said.

A few hundred yards further on, Bardas could hear the noise. It was just as the courier had said, the clack-clacking of countless hammers, all out of sync, like massive raindrops on a slate roof. ‘Worse inside,’ the courier informed him. ‘Big rooms, see; the sound bounces off the walls and the ceiling. You can always tell a man who’s worked in one of these places, he doesn’t talk, he shouts.’

Bardas shrugged. ‘I don’t mind a bit of noise,’ he said. ‘Where I was before, it was always a bit too quiet for my liking.’

The courier was quiet for a while. Then, ‘Another thing that happens to them,’ he went on, ‘they lose the use of their left hands – the hand you hold the work in, right? All that constant shock and jarring, it kills the nerves. It gets so you can’t hold anything. Once that happens, they ship ’em out to the desert forts. Be kinder to knock ’em on the head, really.’

The courier dropped him off at the gate (there was only one; high, nail-studded double oak doors, strong enough for a city), turned round and vanished into the rain. Bardas banged on the door with his fist and waited, until he could feel rainwater seeping down the insides of his boots.

‘Name.’ A panel had opened in the door while he’d been looking the other way. ‘Yes, you. Name.’

‘Bardas Loredan. You should be…’

A sally-port in the main door swung open. ‘Adjutant’s expecting you,’ said a voice from under a deep, sodden hood. ‘Across the courtyard, third staircase from the right, fourth floor, left at the head of the stairs then right, sixth left, fourth door down on the left. Ask if you get lost.’

The hood darted away into a niche in the gatehouse wall, and Bardas, who was in no mood to stand about, scuttled across the courtyard, which had been baked earth but was now a thick grey mud the consistency of mortar; it sucked at his boots as he crossed it. In passing he noticed a series of massive timber A-frames, in pairs, linked by crossbars; they could have been anything from component parts of siege engines to production-line gibbets. There was nobody else to be seen, and all the windows overlooking the yard were shuttered.

The building on the other side of the yard was a half-hearted attempt at a tower; it was square, ten storeys tall, with a dozen staircases opening on to the yard. On either side of it were galleries, shuttered windows and no doors, like the galleries that ran along the other three sides; two storeys, or else one highceilinged storey and a loft. He counted off three from the right and started to climb the tightly curled spiral staircase. It was dark, slippery underfoot (how the rain was managing to get through he couldn’t see), the pitch of the stairs was disconcertingly steep and there was no rail or rope to steady himself by; not the sort of stairs you’d want to meet anybody on, unless you relished the prospect of walking backwards down to the floor below. There was a certain similarity to the mines that wasn’t lost on him (except, of course, that about the only way you couldn’t die in the mines was by falling backwards down a flight of stairs).

Left, right, sixth left, fourth door left; he caught himself mumbling it under his breath like some protective spell, such as the hero in a fairy tale uses to get past the gatekeepers of the kingdom of the dead. He chided himself for thinking negative thoughts: Don’t be so silly, he told himself, it’ll probably turn out to be a whole lot of fun once you’re settled.

There were lights in the corridors; little oil-lamps that flickered shyly in deep alcoves in the walls and provided almost enough light to see the way by. It was more reliable, Bardas found, to use the sappers’ method of closing your eyes and finding a turn by waiting for the tickle of a draught on your face. Just one of the many useful skills I’ve learned since I’ve been in the army, he reflected, ducking just in time to avoid an invisible low doorframe.

There was a problem with finding the fourth door on the left: there were only three doors. He knocked on the third door, and waited. Just when he’d reached the conclusion that he’d come the wrong way after all, the door opened and he found himself looking up at a very tall, broad-shouldered, rather round-faced man, a Son of Heaven with wispy white hair on either side of a bald head and a little tuft of beard just under the curl of his lower lip.

‘Sergeant Loredan,’ the man said. ‘Come in. I’m Asman Ila.’

The name was completely unfamiliar, but Bardas didn’t mind that. He followed the man into a narrow, dark room, no wider than the corridor he’d just left. What light there was came from four tiny oil-lamps on a spindly iron frame that stood about as tall as his shoulder; there was a window at the far end of the room, but it was shuttered and barred from the inside. Three of the walls were bare; on the fourth, above the bare plank desk, hung what was probably a breathtakingly lovely Colleon tapestry, if only there’d been enough light to see the colours.

‘From the spoils of Chorazen,’ the man said (Bardas had never heard of Chorazen before). ‘My grandfather commanded the sixth battalion. Daylight fades it, so I keep the shutter closed.’

‘Ah,’ Bardas said, trying to sound as if he’d just been given a full explanation. ‘Reporting for duty,’ he added.

Asman Ila indicated a small three-legged stool with a delicate gesture. It tipped alarmingly when Bardas sat on it; one leg was markedly shorter than the others. ‘From Ap’ Seudel,’ said Asman Ila, ‘before the fire. My first posting. The local rosewood, with a charming niello inlay. Welcome to Ap’ Calick.’

‘Thank you,’ Bardas said.

Asman Ila sat down – his chair looked even more uncomfortable than the stool, but if there was a provenance to it, Bardas didn’t get to hear it. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you’re the hero of Ap’ Escatoy. A remarkable achievement, by all accounts.’

‘Thank you.’

‘A fascinating city,’ Asman Ila went on. ‘I spent some time there – what, thirty years ago. I’ll never forget the quite outstanding carved ivory furniture in the viceroy’s state apartments – quite distinctive, nothing remotely like it anywhere else in the world, though of course they try to copy it in Ilvan. It’s easy enough to tell, though; you can almost feel the clumsiness as soon as you walk into the room. A cousin of mine in the provincial office has promised me one of the triptych audience screens from the main reception chamber; too much to hope for the pair, of course.’

As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, Bardas could make out the shapes of chairs, chests, book-boxes, lecterns, stools and any number of other small, portable items; they were stacked on top of each other up against the walls, covered in dull grey sheets. ‘My duties,’ Bardas prompted him hopefully, but Asman Ila appeared to have forgotten that he was there.

‘Nearly everything in this room,’ he said eventually, ‘comes from fallen cities, places I or my ancestors captured in war. Unique, I should imagine, some of them; the lamp-stand, for example. I believe it’s the only piece of Cnerian wrought iron left in existence. The city is gone, but part of its heritage lives on, here with me. Now then, your duties. It’s all perfectly straightforward. ’

Far away, Bardas could still just about hear the clacking of hammers, faint, only just loud enough to be intrusive. ‘I’m ashamed to admit it,’ Bardas said, ‘but I’ve only got a very general idea of what you do here. I don’t know if it’s possible-’

Asman Ila wasn’t listening; he was looking at the door. ‘Mostly,’ he said, ‘you’re here to supervise, which is where your extensive experience in the trade will prove so useful; of course, I can’t so much as peen over a rivet or knock a nail in straight, and needless to say, they take advantage. Theft from the stores is our worst problem, followed by fluctuations in demand. There are times when I wonder whether the provincial office even knows the meaning of the term phased sourcing.’

Bardas shifted a little in his seat, which was rickety and appeared to have been made for a much smaller man, possibly even a child. He wondered if there would be any point in mentioning that he knew absolutely nothing about armoury work, and decided that there wouldn’t.

‘But,’ the Son of Heaven went on, ‘we cope. We’re fortunate in having so many highly skilled tradesmen here at Ap’ Calick; it means we have the flexibility. Are your quarters adequate for your needs? If you have any problems or queries, feel free to ask me, or the captain of operations. After all, there’s no point being uncomfortable unnecessarily.’

Bardas, who didn’t even know where his quarters were, nodded appreciatively. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and wondered what he could say to make the adjutant let him go. The stool was starting to get excruciatingly painful, and he had the feeling that a sudden movement would probably break it.

‘On the technical side,’ Asman Ila went on, carefully stifling a yawn, ‘you can always consult the foreman, Maj. I can’t say he’s entirely trustworthy, though I dare say he’s no worse than most, but he seems to know what he’s doing. He repaired a set of candlesticks for me; Riciden ware, missing the scrolled finials and the dished base. You can hardly tell the difference, except in a strong light. My great-grandfather took them from the library at Coil, so it’s hardly surprising they were damaged.’

A strong light, Bardas reflected. No danger of that here. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Will that be all?’

Asman Ila sat perfectly still for a few moments, staring at something above and just to the left of Bardas’ head. ‘And remember,’ he said suddenly, ‘my door is always open. Far better to deal with a problem when it arises than to try to hide it away until everything starts going wrong. After all,’ he added, ‘we’re all on the same side, aren’t we?

‘Maj,’ Bardas shouted for the third time. The man shook his head.

‘Never heard of him,’ he shouted back. ‘Why don’t you ask the foreman?’

Bardas shrugged, smiled and walked away. Going to have to find some way of coping with this noise, he thought, as he threaded his way between the benches, doing his best to stay out of the reach of the machines and the swinging hammers. Anyway, it makes a change after the mines.

Eventually he found the foreman (who was called Haj, not Maj); he was curled up in a little niche in the gallery wall, fast asleep. Haj turned out to be a short, stocky man in his early sixties, with long, bony forearms and the largest hands Bardas had ever seen. His right shoulder was higher than his left, and his hair was bristly and white.

‘Bardas Loredan,’ Haj repeated. ‘The hero. Right, follow me.’

Haj moved quickly, taking lots of short steps; he ducked and threaded his way through the crowded workshop without apparently looking where he was going, leaving the more cautious Loredan far behind, so that twice Haj had to stop and wait for him to catch up. Like everybody Bardas had seen in the workshop, Haj wore a long leather apron that started under his chin and ended just above his ankles; he wore big military boots with steel caps over the toes, and the pocket of his apron was stuffed full of small tools and bunches of rag.

‘You coming, then?’

‘Sorry,’ Bardas said.

‘This way,’ said Haj; and a moment later he vanished. Bardas stood for a second or two, trying to work out where he’d gone; then he saw a little, low archway in the gallery wall, nearly invisible in the dim light. He had to bend almost double to get under it.

The archway led to a short, very narrow passageway that ended in another steep, scary staircase that spiralled four turns and emerged on to a plank catwalk, high above the shop floor. There was no handrail. Fancy that, Bardas reflected, glancing down. Presumably I’ve been afraid of heights all my life and never realised it till now. He fixed his eyes on the door at the end of the catwalk, which led into the back wall of the gallery. Unless Haj had fallen to his death or turned into a bird, he was beyond that door somewhere. Bardas sucked in a long, deep breath and followed, his hands clasped behind his back, taking care not to look at his feet.

Beyond the door there was another narrow corridor, which turned a right angle and then stretched on into the darkness. Doors opened off it at frequent intervals; one of them was open, and Bardas went in.

‘There you are,’ said Haj’s voice in the gloom. ‘Well, this is it. Nice room.’

Bardas felt his way along the wall with his hands until something blocked his way. He reached out and felt rough wood; flat planks and a bar. He lifted the bar, which slipped through his fingers and fell on the floor, then groped around until he found a handle, and pulled. The room flooded with light as the shutter swung back, revealing what looked depressingly like a prison cell. There was a shelf projecting out of the wall, with a single folded blanket and a single yellowing pillow; another ledge under the window, on which stood a plain brown pottery jug and a white-enamelled tin bowl. That was it.

‘Thank you,’ Bardas said.

Haj sniffed. ‘You don’t like it, I can tell,’ he said.

‘No, no,’ Bardas said, ‘it’s fine. At least, I’ve lived in worse.’

‘Really?’ Haj said. ‘Most of us sleep on the roof, or under our benches in the shop in the wet season.’ He looked round, as if daring Bardas to criticise further. ‘Has anybody told you what you’re meant to be doing?’ he said.

‘Not really,’ Bardas replied. ‘The adjutant said something about supervising, but-’

Haj smiled. ‘You don’t want to bother too much about anything he says. It’s the foremen who run this place, which is how it should be, of course.’

‘I see,’ Bardas said. ‘And what am I? A foreman?’

Haj shook his head. ‘Really, you haven’t got a job,’ he said. ‘They do this from time to time, send us people they can’t find places for anywhere else. Doesn’t do any harm, usually, so long as they keep out of everybody’s road. Basically, you do what the hell you like, just don’t interfere, that’s all. Let’s see, pay call’s last day of the month; you lose two quarters kit and uniform levy, three quarters wounds and burial club, two quarters retentions, and the rest of it’s yours to spend, though if you’ve got any sense you’ll keep it in the big safe in the back of the stockroom, like the rest of them do. Good rule of thumb: don’t leave anything lying about unless you don’t care if it gets stolen. Lot of light-fingered types here; nothing else to do, see. Right, mess call’s an hour after each shift; you’re entitled to use the officers’ mess in the tower basement, but that comes expensive, a quarter a day not including wine or beer. Otherwise, you can muck in with the rest of us in the canteen; ask anybody and they’ll show you where it is.’

Bardas nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘What’s retentions? ’

‘Retentions,’ Haj repeated. ‘Two quarters a month. Don’t you know what retentions are?’

‘Sorry,’ Bardas said. ‘Not something we had in the sappers, or at any rate we didn’t call it that.’

Haj sighed a little. ‘Retentions is what’s stopped out of everybody’s pay for their demob. You know,’ he added, ‘when you leave the army. It’s for your old age, that sort of thing; you get back what you put in, plus your gratuity, less stoppages, fines, levies, exemptions, stuff like that. Didn’t you have that in the mines?’

‘No,’ Bardas said. ‘I suppose the chance of any of us having an old age was too small to warrant the extra work.’

‘Whatever,’ Haj said. ‘Well, we got it here. Now, is there anything else I’ve got to tell you? Don’t think so. Anything you don’t understand, just ask somebody, all right?’

‘That’s fine,’ Bardas said. ‘Thank you.’

Haj nodded. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Now I’ve got to get back down there, before the whole section grinds to a halt.’

When he’d gone, Bardas sat on the bed for a while, staring at the opposite wall, listening to the sound of hammers. Just the ticket, he told himself cheerfully; no problem at all staying out of trouble. I’m going to like it here. It didn’t work. Above all, he could hear the pecking of the hammers; when he put his hands over his ears, he could feel them just as clearly. It’s higher up than the mines, he tried hopefully. And there’s nobody trying to kill me; now that’s got to be worth something.

After an hour alone in his quarters, Bardas carefully picked his way back along the corridors, over the catwalk and down the stairs into the gallery. He stood for a moment, letting the noise overwhelm him, trying to savour it instead of shut it out. Then he marched over to the nearest workbench, where a man was cutting shapes out of a sheet of steel with a heavy-grade bench shear.

‘I’m Bardas Loredan,’ he shouted. ‘I’m the new-’ He searched his mind frantically for something that would sound authentic. ‘The new deputy inspector. Tell me exactly what you’re doing here.’

The man looked at him as if he was mad. ‘Cutting out,’ he replied. ‘What does it look like?’

Bardas clenched his face into a frown. ‘That’s not the sort of attitude I want to see around here,’ he said. ‘Describe your working method.’

The man shrugged. ‘I get the plates from the layout section,’ he said, ‘with the patterns scribed out and marked up with blue. I cut them out and put them in this tray here. When the tray’s full, someone comes down and takes it over there.’ He indicated the far side of the shop with a nod of his head. ‘That’s it,’ he concluded.

Bardas pursed his lips. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Now let me see you do one.’

‘Why?’

‘I want to see if you’re doing it right.’

‘Suit yourself.’ The man hefted another sheet, laid it face down on the bench and turned it round. Gripping the sheet with one hand and the long lever of the shear in the other, he fed the sheet into the cutting jaws and drew down the handle. The cut seemed to take far less effort than Bardas had imagined; it looked for all the world like cutting cloth, except that one jaw of the scissors was bolted down to the bench. To make the curves, he moved over to another tool mounted on the other side; this one had the same long handle, but instead of the top blade of the scissors there was a circular cutter with serrations round the edge of the blade.

‘All right so far?’ the man asked.

‘It’ll do,’ Bardas grunted. ‘Carry on.’

The man didn’t quite smirk, but he didn’t have to. ‘So you don’t want to see the third step, then?’

‘What? Oh, well, yes, why not?’

The man took the cut-out pieces and clamped them in an enormous bench-vice, lining the edge up carefully along the line of the jaw so that only the edge, left slightly ragged by the shear, was exposed; then he picked a big, wide chisel out of the rack next to the vice, laid it level on the top of the leading jaw, right at the edge and at right angles to the sheet, and started whacking the back of the chisel with a huge square wooden mallet. The ragged edge was sliced away, leaving a smooth, perfect edge.

‘Well?’ he said.

‘Do another one.’

The man did another one; and another, and then two more. ‘There,’ he said, ‘that’s a trayful. Did I pass?’

Bardas made the most noncommittal noise he could manage. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘What else do you do?’

‘Come again?’

‘What else do you do?’ Bardas repeated. ‘Other procedures, stages in the operation.’

Again, the man looked at him as if he was gibbering. ‘That’s all,’ he said. ‘I cut out tasset-lame blanks. Why, am I supposed to be doing something else as well? Nobody’s ever said.’

Bardas picked up the tray. ‘Carry on,’ he said, and headed for the area the man had pointed to.

In the far corner, a man was feeding bits of metal that looked like the bits in the tray into a large contraption that was basically three long, thick rollers laid horizontally in a massive wrought-iron frame. One roller revolved as the man turned a handle; this drew the steel plate under the other two rollers (whose pitch and settings could be adjusted by turning the large set-screws at either end) and fed it out the other side, by which point it had been turned from a straight strip into a shallow, even curve, the shape of one of the small plates that made up an assembly of shoulder armour; which, presumably, was what the term ‘tasset lame’ actually meant. After rolling each piece he held it up to a curved piece of wood on a stand, the idea apparently being that if it fitted snugly against the wood, he added it to the pile of completed pieces; otherwise it went back under the rollers, and the man fiddled with the set-screws until it came out sufficiently curved to fit the wooden pattern.

Taking a deep breath, Bardas walked up to this man, put the tray of steel bits down on the nearest bench and went through the deputy-inspector routine again. This man seemed marginally less sceptical (or else he cared even less); he carried on with his work as if Bardas wasn’t there, until his tray was full.

‘Right,’ Bardas said. ‘Now where do these go?’

The man didn’t say anything, but he nodded his head sideways in the direction of the west end of the gallery. Resting the tray against his chest (it was no lightweight; forty or so curved sections, neatly stacked together in concentric semicircles, like the flaky cross-section flesh of a slice of overcooked salmon) Bardas tottered across the shop, once again hoping he’d recognise someone working with something similar before he’d made a complete and utter fool of himself. Fortunately, the next stage in the process was reasonably easy to spot: a man with a hammer and a small hole-punch, knocking rivet-holes into a batch of sections identical to the ones he was carrying.

‘Easy as pie,’ explained the hole-puncher, who was more than happy to explain every aspect of his job to the deputy inspector. ‘You look for the punch-marks where the layout boys have marked out where the holes’ve got to go; then you take the work in your left hand, like so, and press it against the bench so; then you get your punch in your left hand and your hammer in your right, and -’ (clink, went the hammer) ‘- there you are. Simple, isn’t it?’

Bardas nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, because it was.

‘Another thing; it’s not only simple, it’s fucking boring.’

‘What?’

The man looked at him. ‘You know how long I was supposed to be doing this for? Two weeks, until the new man came and I got moved on to planishing, like I was trained for. And you know how long I’ve been here now? Six years. Six years, dammit, doing this pathetically simple job over and over and over-’ The man took a deep breath. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘you’re the deputy inspector, see if you can’t put a word in for me, all right? I mean, the bloke who had your job before, he promised he’d put in a word for me, but that was two years ago and did anything come of it? Did it hell as like; and if I stay here much longer-’

‘All right,’ Bardas said quickly. ‘Leave it with me, I’ll see what I can do.’

‘You will?’ The man’s face lit up with joy, then clouded over with suspicion. ‘If you remember, is what you mean; if you remember and you can be bothered. Well, all I can say is, I’ve heard that one before and all I can say about that is, I won’t be holding my breath-’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Bardas repeated, taking a step back. ‘Just leave it with-’

‘You haven’t even asked me my name,’ the man called after him, angrily, but Bardas was far enough away by now that he didn’t have to look back; he could pretend not to have heard. He walked away quickly, as if he knew where he was going, until he tripped over a large wooden block and had to grab hold of a workbench to stop himself falling.

‘Watch it,’ said the man behind the bench. ‘I could have smashed my thumb, you doing that.’

Bardas looked up. The man was holding a piece of steel in one hand and a hammer of sorts in the other. It didn’t look like an ordinary hammer; instead of a steel head, it had a tightly wound roll of rawhide jammed into a heavy iron tube, set at right angles to the handle. ‘Sorry,’ Bardas replied. ‘It’s my first day.’

The man shrugged. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But look where you’re going next time.’ On the bench in front of him was another block of wood, maybe a little larger than the one Bardas had just barked his shin on. In the middle of the block – Bardas recognised it as oak – was a square hole, in which sat an iron stake topped by an iron ball slightly smaller than a child’s head. The piece of metal the man was holding over this ball was roughly triangular and looked like a shallow dish; it was a panel for a four-piece conical helmet, the old-fashioned kind that was still issued to some of the auxiliary cavalry units.

The man noticed that Bardas was staring. ‘Do you want something?’ he asked.

‘I’m the new deputy inspector,’ Bardas replied. ‘Tell me about what you’re doing.’

‘Planishing,’ the man replied. ‘You know what planishing means?’

‘You tell me. In your own words,’ Bardas added.

‘All right.’ The man grinned. ‘They send you people out here, don’t they, and you haven’t got a bloody clue. No skin off my nose, though. Right, planishing is where we hammer the outside of the nearly finished article to take out the bumps and dents, get it smooth for the polishers. All the actual shaping, see, that’s done from the inside; so to finish off, we just go over it lightly from the outside, not enough to move any metal, really it’s just to leave it looking nice. I wouldn’t tell you that if you were a real inspector, or else I’d be out of a job. You want to watch how I do this?’

Bardas nodded, and the man carried on with what he’d been doing, angling the work down on to the ball and smoothing the marks out of it with a series of crisp, even taps, letting the hammer fall in its own weight and bounce back off the surface of the metal. ‘The trick is not to bash,’ the man explained. ‘Bashing gets you nowhere fast, you just let the mallet drop and the weight does all the work. That’s why I’m holding it just so, trapped between my middle finger and the base of my thumb, look.’ He held up his right hand to demonstrate. ‘Here, you want a go?’

Bardas hesitated. ‘All right,’ he said, and held out his hand for the hammer. ‘Is that right?’

The man shook his head. ‘You’re gripping,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to grip, you’re not trying to strangle the bloody thing, you just want to hold it firm enough so you can keep control – there, you’re getting it. Pretty simple once you know, but you’ll never get there just by light of nature.’

‘Strange,’ Bardas said. ‘I’d never have guessed a lot of little gentle taps with a bit of rolled-up leather could actually shape a piece of steel.’

The man laughed. ‘That’s the whole point,’ he said. ‘Thousands and thousands of little light taps with the hide mallet make the thing so hard and close-grained that a bloody great hard two-handed bash with a six-pound axe just bounces off.’ He lifted the piece of work off the steel ball and ran a fingertip over it. ‘A bit like life, really,’ he went on. ‘The more you get shit kicked out of you, the harder you are to kill.’