The Proof House

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘Well,’ said Gorgas Loredan, ‘you’re pretty quiet. What do you reckon?’

Poliorcis thought for a moment. ‘It’s beautiful,’ he said. ‘Very green.’

‘Green,’ Gorgas repeated. ‘You know, I’d never thought of it like that before. Yes, it’s certainly green all right.’

The rain was slowing up; just a summer shower, more or less a daily occurrence at this time of year in the Mesoge. Rain dripped in fat splodges from the thatched eaves of the old linhay they’d taken shelter in; a typical Mesoge building, half derelict, probably been that way for a hundred years, probably be in more or less the same shape a hundred years hence. A little stream of muddy water trickled through the open doorway, across the floor and away into a damp patch in the far corner. Even inside, the walls were green with moss.

‘So,’ Gorgas went on, ‘that’s all there is to it, really. My work on Scona was over, I’d done my best, things hadn’t worked out the way I’d planned, but there was no point going all to pieces over it. So I came home.’

Poliorcis nodded. ‘With an army,’ he said. ‘And seized power. And set yourself up as a – excuse me, I don’t mean to sound rude, but it’s an awkward concept to put the right word to. King’s not right, somehow, and warlord has such dreadful connotations. Military dictator, perhaps-’

Gorgas smiled. ‘Prince,’ he said. ‘That’s how I like to think of myself, anyway. Prince of the Mesoge. You’re right, it’s not big enough for a kingdom. I thought about duke, but that has overtones of being somebody’s subordinate.’ He yawned, then bit off another mouthful of cheese. ‘So I guess that makes this a principality. Seems suitable to me, in terms of scale. Bigger than a county, smaller than a country; what do you think?’

‘Whatever,’ Poliorcis replied. The barrel he’d been sitting on all this time was wet, too (everything was wet in this – this principality). ‘Now, I’ll be straight with you, the thing that I couldn’t understand was why you met with so little resistance. Please, don’t take this the wrong way-’

Gorgas waved away the niceties of diplomatic language. ‘No problem,’ he said with his mouth full.

‘Thank you; but for a – oh dear, vocabulary again – for an adventurer like yourself to come barging in, with only a few hundred soldiers to back him up, and take charge of a country that’s never really had a ruler or a government before: you must admit, it’s enough to make one curious. But now I’ve seen it for myself-’

Gorgas nodded. ‘Apathy,’ he said. ‘Or you could call it being fatalistic, or demoralised (except that suggests there was a time when they were all moralised, and there wasn’t, far as I know); basically, it’s not giving a damn one way or another. You see,’ he went on, breaking up a strip of dried meat with his fingers, ‘all this lot, ever since it was first settled, the whole country was planted out as estates by rich City families – Perimadeians, absentee landlords, naturally – and the poor bloody peasants who actually grew stuff and lived here, we were only ever tenants, or hired men; no tradition of owning the land, you see. I suppose the City bailiffs were the government, which is to say that they’d come round and tell you what to do and you’d do it; not that they bothered us much, we didn’t see them from one year’s end to the next. Apart from that, we just got on with things.’

‘Quite,’ Poliorcis said. ‘And the sort of things governments do – courts of law, for example, justice-’

Gorgas laughed. ‘Weren’t any. Didn’t need any. You’ll have noticed, there’s no towns, no villages even; just farms. And on every farm, a family. If there’s any ruling to be done, the farmer does it, same as he does everything else.’

‘I see.’ A rat scuttled across the floor, stopped, looked at Poliorcis critically, as if he was a picture hung slightly crooked, and vanished behind a barrel. ‘And disputes between neighbours? Feuds, presumably, and long, drawn-out petty bickering.’

‘That sort of thing,’ Gorgas said. ‘Usually quite harmless; and if not, well, nobody else’s business. Besides, mostly there just wasn’t the time or the energy.’

Poliorcis shook his head. ‘So,’ he said, ‘the only question that’s left is, why should anybody want a place like this?’

‘It’s my home,’ Gorgas replied. ‘And when the City fell, there was a gap; no more landlords, no shape to anything. People like to know where they stand. It’s one of the things that makes life possible.’

Poliorcis didn’t feel like replying to that. ‘I think I’ve seen enough,’ he said. ‘And the rain’s eased off. Shall we go back to Tornoys?’

‘I was thinking we might go to my farm,’ Gorgas replied. ‘It’s quite close. We can stay there tonight, and go back to Tornoys in the morning.’

‘Very well,’ Poliorcis said. ‘Is there anything to see there?’

Gorgas shook his head. ‘It’s just a farm,’ he replied. ‘My brothers look after it while I’m away. They’ve always been there, you see.’

There was something that Poliorcis couldn’t quite place, but he saw no point in making an issue of it.

Half an hour’s ride from the linhay they came to a bridge, or the remains of one. The middle of the three spans was missing.

‘Damn,’ Gorgas said. ‘We’ll have to double back to the ford.’ He frowned. ‘It’s a nuisance, this sort of thing. Somebody needed some blocks of masonry, so they broke up the bridge. I’ll have to send someone to fix it.’

At the ford there was a gibbet, with a body hanging from it. Gorgas didn’t comment, and Poliorcis didn’t feel like asking. The body looked as if it had been there for a couple of weeks.

‘One thing I’ve got to do when I have the time,’ Gorgas said, as they rode over the ford, ‘is to have these roads made up. It’s pointless expecting people to do it themselves; all that happens is, they fall out with their neighbours over who’s responsible for which part. I gather you have expert road-makers in the Empire, people who do nothing else. I’d be interested in hiring a few.’

An hour on from the ford, the road petered out in the middle of a crop of barley. It wasn’t much of a crop; the rain had beaten down flat patches, and the pigeons and rooks had come in and trodden down as much again. Gorgas sighed and rode down the middle until he came to a tall thorn hedge. There was a gate, but it was tangled up in thirty years’ growth of thorns and briars.

‘I thought it’d been a while since I last came this way,’ Gorgas said. ‘Now you see what I mean about proper roads.’ He jumped down from his horse and started slashing at the hedge with his sword; but the briars were too springy to cut. ‘Sorry about this,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to head back to the lane and go round through the farmyard. And while we’re there, I’ll give them a piece of my mind about this gate.’

Poliorcis sighed. ‘As you like,’ he said. ‘I think it’s coming on to rain again.’

It was dark by the time they came to what Poliorcis assumed was the farm; too dark to see anything except the silhouette of a roof and a vague smudge of branches against the sky. He heard his horse’s hooves clatter on a paved yard, and Gorgas shouting; a thin wedge of light spilled out as a door opened, very pale, yellow light, the sort that comes from thick lard and sparingly trimmed wicks. Certainly, the place smelt like a farm. As he got off his horse, he felt his feet splash in a puddle. He wiped rain out of his eyes with his sodden cuff and followed Gorgas towards the light.

‘There’s nothing grand about it,’ said Gorgas cheerfully, ‘but it’s home. Come on in, you’ll soon dry off.’

Gorgas was right; there was nothing grand about it at all. The glow from the tallow-lamp was too dim to let Poliorcis see what he was walking on; it felt like old, sodden rushes, and it didn’t smell terribly nice. In the large room he’d been led into there was a large plain board table covered with wooden and pewter dishes, each containing a few scraps of crust or rind. Two men were sitting beside it, each with a big horn cup in front of him. They didn’t seem to have noticed he was there.

‘My brothers,’ Gorgas announced, ‘that’s Clefas on the left and Zonaras on the right.’ The two men didn’t stir, except to move their heads a little to stare at him, and then back at each other. ‘You’ll have to excuse them,’ Gorgas went on, ‘I expect they’re tired out after a hard day. It’s a busy time of year; we’re cutting reed down by the river and making up the cheese for the cider.’

Still no reaction from Clefas and Zonaras. Poliorcis sat down on a three-legged stool and perched his elbows on a clear corner of the table. Gorgas was standing on a chair, getting something down from the rafters. ‘How’s the reed shaping up?’ he asked.

‘Bad,’ Zonaras replied. ‘Too wet. We’ll leave it a week, see if the river goes down, though with all this rain I wouldn’t count on it.’

The thing from the rafters turned out to be a net bag containing a big round cheese coated in plaster. ‘Clefas, is there any fresh bread?’

‘No,’ Clefas replied.

‘Oh. Well, never mind, we’ll have to make do. Any cider in the jug?’

‘No.’›

Gorgas sighed. ‘I’ll get some more from the cellar,’ he said, picking up the jug. ‘Won’t be a moment.’

He seemed to be gone for a very long time, during which neither of his brothers moved perceptibly. When he returned, he had a solid-looking loaf under one arm and the cider-jug in his hand. ‘Fire could do with another log,’ he said, but nobody seemed concerned. It was cold, as well as damp. Gorgas was sawing at the loaf with his knife.

‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘you wanted to see the Mesoge; this is about as typical as you’re likely to get. Here.’ He was holding out a plate with some bread and cheese on it. ‘I’ll get you a mug and you can have some cider.’

‘No, really,’ Poliorcis protested, but he was too late. There wasn’t enough light to see the cider by, but he could make out a little wisp of straw floating on the top. ‘You can sleep in my room,’ Gorgas went on. ‘I’ll muck in with Zonaras.’

Zonaras grunted.

‘Well.’ Gorgas sat down and broke off a piece of bread, which he dipped in his mug. ‘This is home,’ he said. ‘Take it or leave it. Personally, I don’t think you can beat plain, old-fashioned Mesoge hospitality.’

Poliorcis reminded himself that he was a diplomat and said nothing; because he was decidedly hungry, he even nibbled at a corner of the cheese, which was very strong and rather disgusting. Gorgas was asking if there was any bacon left. There wasn’t.

‘Thatch on the trap-house needs looking at,’ Clefas said. ‘Won’t have time now till after we’ve got the hay in. If the reed doesn’t come to anything, we’ll have to buy in. That’s if anybody’s got any.’

‘Oh, well,’ Gorgas said.

‘Got to move the apples out,’ Clefas went on. ‘Damp’s getting in; we’ll lose the whole lot otherwise. I haven’t got time,’ he added.

‘Don’t look at me,’ replied Zonaras. ‘What do you think I’ve been doing all week, sitting on my hands?’

Gorgas sighed. ‘I’ll send some men down,’ he said. ‘You just tell them what needs doing, they’ll see to it.’

‘What we need is someone to push the rooks off the laid barley,’ Clefas said. ‘I counted a hundred and four in there the other day. If it gets any worse it won’t be worth cutting.’

‘Hasn’t come to anything special anyhow,’ Zonaras pointed out. ‘Too damn wet. We need ten days’ clear sun before it’ll be anything like ready. We should have put the beans in there like I said.’

‘We had beans there last year,’ Clefas replied. ‘And we needed them in the top five-acre to put some strength back in the ground. Might as well plough them back in, the way they’re shaping up.’

It was as much as Poliorcis could do to stop himself laughing; but Gorgas Loredan, self-anointed Prince of the Mesoge, was nodding his head sagely and looking grave; he’s playing the part of a farmer, Poliorcis realised, but he hasn’t quite got it right; he tries to think himself into all these various parts – farmer, prince, diplomat, hard-bitten professional soldier – but he never quite manages to get below the surface. I wonder who he really is. I expect he does, too.

Gorgas’ room (the master bedroom, so he’d been informed, where Father used to sleep after Mother died) turned out to be a small loft, up a set of steps that were more like a ladder than a staircase. There was a bed, a mattress stuffed with very old reed, no pillow, one vintage blanket that had been carefully turned sides-to-middle round about the time Poliorcis had just started shaving (that would be back before Gorgas’ mother died, unless it was the handiwork of Niessa Loredan, before she got involved in international finance). Poliorcis peeled off his wet boots, swung himself on to the bed and pinched out the wick of the lamp. He could hear something pattering about on the roof – not rain, because nothing was dropping into the half-filled pans strategically placed around the room to catch the drips. Cats? Squirrels, if they come out at night? It could be rabbits – the eaves of the house backed into the low hill. Whatever it was, it made enough noise to keep Poliorcis awake, even though he was painfully weary.

An alliance between the Empire and these clowns – it was ludicrous to think that he’d even considered it. At best, Gorgas had – what, a thousand men? Probably not that many, and how many of those would he be able to spare, being realistic, from the job of bullying and bashing his fellow peasants into line? It was a sad reflection on his own gullibility; he’d wasted time here, and most of what he’d found out was worthless. At best, he had an insight of sorts into this curious tribe, the Loredans, who’d somehow managed to involve themselves so deeply in matters that were significant enough to affect Imperial policy. As he shifted about, trying to find a level patch of mattress big enough to accommodate his back, he reflected on this strange phenomenon, trying to make sense of it.

Niessa Loredan, for example; no longer relevant, but for a while she’d been dangerous enough to destabilise the Shastel Bank, and the piddling little army that she’d paid for and Gorgas had trained had killed a few thousand of the Order’s halberdiers (and every little helped, potentially). She was out of the picture now; and so, he was certain, was Gorgas; this peculiar little nest of bandits he’d scraped together for himself would keep the Mesoge depressed and unimportant for years to come – keeping it warm, so to speak, just in case it should ever suit the convenience of the provincial office to look this way. That in itself was unlikely – Tornoys might be a useful base for a squadron of galleys, if the Empire ever built up a proper fleet, as opposed to the disorganised clutter of hired and captured ships that was referred to in the supply ledgers as the Imperial Navy, but Gorgas palpably didn’t control Tornoys; if he tried to muscle in there, it would probably be the undoing of him.

Which left Bardas Loredan, once colonel, now sergeant; the hero of Ap’ Escatoy, the last defender of Perimadeia, the angel of death as far as the plainspeople were concerned. Poliorcis frowned in the dark, trying to remember what little he’d understood of basic causality theory. In the end, he gave it up; he was a diplomat, and the Empire had plenty of professional metaphysicians without needing any input from him on the subject. But even he, relying on the scrapings of his memories of a two-week foundation course at the Ap’ Sammas military academy, could tell that there was work to be done in this area before any long-term plans could properly be made; and the data he was gathering here would probably be important at that stage. The thought comforted him; it had been a maxim of his division tutor that the first and most essential stage in doing useful work is finding out what work it is that one is supposed to be doing. Well, now he knew. He was here to study the pathology of Bardas Loredan. So that was all right.

Eventually he fell asleep; and if he had bad dreams sleeping in that bed in that house, it was most likely because of the cheese.

Vetriz Auzeil sat on the front step of her house, watching a small boy in the street below. He’d gathered a substantial hoard of small stones, and he was throwing them, with great deliberation, into a clump of raggety, neglected ornamental shrubs that grew in the front yard of the house opposite. Nobody had lived in that house for years – it was only still empty because Venart, bless him, was trying to buy it (and, being Venart, was going about it in a counterproductively devious way, using phantom intermediaries supposedly undercutting each other’s offers and pulling out just before an agreement was due to be sealed – it was costing him a fortune, but it made him feel cunning, which was the main thing); nevertheless, Vetriz had a feeling that small boys throwing stones were a bad thing on general principles, and that as (gods help her) a grown-up, she was invested with all due authority to tell him to stop – except that she couldn’t make out for the life of her what he was throwing the stones at, with such care and deliberation.

Finally her curiosity reached torture levels, so she went down the steps and asked him.

‘Spiders,’ he answered.

‘Spiders?’

‘That’s right.’ The boy pointed; and, sure enough, just inside the tangle of bushes was a veritable city of spiders’ webs, most of them with a big fat brown spider in the middle; they hung so still and moody that they reminded Vetriz of stallholders in a market on a quiet day, gloomily poised for the onset of any customers who might eventually appear.

‘Any luck?’ Vetriz asked. She detested spiders. When she was a little girl, it had been an entirely passive loathing, but now she was an adult, it had evolved into something more militant.

‘Four so far,’ the boy replied proudly. ‘It only counts if you kill them dead; if they just fall off and run away you don’t score anything.’

That was as much of an invitation (a challenge, even) as she needed; she selected a pebble from the munitions dump, made her best guess at elevation and windage, and let fly -

(- Like the trebuchets at Perimadeia. In a way.)

‘Missed,’ the boy said, perfectly expressing by tone of voice alone the eternal contempt of the male at womankind’s ineptitude at missile warfare. ‘My go.’ He picked up a stone, looked at it between his fingers, looked at the spider of his choice, and launched.

‘Missed,’ said Vetriz.

‘I never said it was easy,’ the boy replied, scowling.

This time, Vetriz tried to be more scientific in her approach. She pictured in her mind the trajectory of the stone, the decay of its arc as its mass overcame the initial momentum of launch. With the picture clear in her mind as if it had been scribed on the back of her eyelids, she cocked back her wrist and let go -

‘We shouldn’t be doing this anyway,’ she said huffily. ‘It’s cruel. Those spiders never did us any harm.’

‘They’re poisonous,’ the boy replied. ‘If they bite you, you swell up and go black and you die.’

‘Really?’ Vetriz said. ‘I never heard that.’

‘It’s true,’ the boy assured her. ‘My friend told me.’ ‘Oh, well then,’ Vetriz said, sneaking another stone. ‘In that case, I suppose it’s our duty – there,’ she added. ‘Direct hit.’

‘Doesn’t count,’ the boy said. ‘It wasn’t even your go.’

Vetriz smiled. ‘And you’re just a rotten loser,’ she said. ‘Now stop doing that at once, before I tell your mother.’

The boy looked at her savagely, his eyes accusing her of treason in the first degree; then he kicked over the pile of stones and slouched away. Vetriz, unaccountably delighted with her prowess, went back to her step, where she’d been supposed to be double-checking the stock ledger. She was trying to puzzle out a double-looped squiggle (Venart was a sucker for fashionable new abbreviations, but he tended to forget what they meant the day after he started using them) when a shadow fell over the page. She looked up.

‘Vetriz Auzeil?’

She nodded and looked away quickly, trying desperately not to stare. But it was hard; too hard for her. After all, she’d never seen a Son of Heaven before.

‘I’m looking for your brother, Venart,’ the man said. ‘Is he at home?’

Vetriz shook her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘he’s away on a business trip. Can I help you?’

The man smiled, as if the offer had come from a six-year-old child. ‘Thank you, but no. It’s business.’

It was well known among her friends that you only ever patronised Vetriz Auzeil once. ‘Then it’s me you need to see,’ she replied, smiling sweetly. ‘Please come in. I can spare you a quarter of an hour.’

The man looked at her, but followed. She led him into the counting house, which she knew would be empty at this time of day, when the clerks were either at the warehouse doing the stock reconciliations or in the tavern. ‘Please excuse the mess,’ she said, indicating the immaculately neat desks with a sweeping gesture. ‘Now then, what can I do for you?’ She sat down behind Venart’s desk, the one he’d been lumbered with as part of a mixed lot of Perimadeian war loot, bought sight unseen; it was huge, ornate and unspeakably vulgar, and Venart hated it. ‘Sit down, please,’ she said, knowing full well that the stool on the other side was so low that you had to sit on a cushion just to see over the desktop. Disconcertingly, the Son of Heaven didn’t seem to have that problem; were they all this damnably tall? she wondered.

‘Thank you.’ She watched the man trying to squirm himself comfortable; impossible on that stool. ‘My name is Moisin Shel, and I represent the provincial office. We’re interested in chartering a number of ships.’

Vetriz nodded, as if this sort of thing happened every day. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘What sort of ship, how many, and how long for?’

Moisin Shel looked at her, raised an eyebrow. ‘You have a ship called the Squirrel,’ he said. ‘We understand it’s a twin-masted square-rigger capable of sustaining six knots with a following wind, and that you’re used to sailing a close-hauled course with the wind abeam, on coastal runs. It should be suitable for our purposes, if the capacity is adequate. Am I right in thinking the Squirrel is at least a hundred and thirty tons?’

‘Oh, easily,’ Vetriz replied, not having the faintest idea what the man was talking about. ‘What cargo do you have in mind?’

Moisin Shel didn’t seem to have heard her. ‘A few technical points, before we go any further – I’m sorry if this sounds fussy, but we have to satisfy ourselves that your ship conforms to the provincial service specifications before we can enter a charter agreement. Are you able to answer such questions, or should I wait until your brother comes home?’

‘No problem,’ Vetriz replied firmly. ‘Ask away.’

‘Very well.’ The man steepled his fingers. ‘Are the garboard strakes mortised to the keel rabbet, do you know?’

To her credit, Vetriz managed to keep a straight face. ‘The Squirrel is a working merchant ship, Mr Shel, not a pleasure yacht. I can assure you, you need have no worries on that score.’

The Son of Heaven nodded again. ‘And presumably the stempost and sternpost are scarfed to the keel,’ he went on. ‘As I said, I’m sorry to have to trouble you with this sort of detail, but we have had some rather unfortunate experiences in the past when dealing with civilian shipowners.’

‘I…’ Vetriz took a deep breath. ‘Offhand,’ she said, ‘I can’t quite recall. I would imagine they are. After all, my father was ferrying bales of cloth from Colleon to Scona in the Squirrel when you were still learning to walk; if she’s stayed in one piece that long, chances are she’s not held together with waxed paper and glue. However,’ she added quickly, as the Son of Heaven drew his breath in sharply, ‘I can get confirmation of that as soon as she gets in; or you’re welcome to look her over for yourself. I suggest we proceed on the assumption that she meets your requirements. What was it you said you wanted her for?’

The corner of Moisin Shel’s lip twitched slightly. ‘I didn’t,’ he replied. ‘Well, I think it would be best if I do as you suggest and inspect the ship myself when she gets back. Can you give me any idea when that might be?’

‘Hard to say,’ Vetriz said. She’d decided that she didn’t like Mr Shel very much. ‘A week, maybe two. It depends on several things, you see-’

‘Of course.’ Moisin Shel stood up. ‘I shall be here for another three weeks at least; as and when the Squirrel gets in, I’ll be in touch again. Thank you so much for your time.’

‘Um.’ Vetriz jumped up too. ‘If you’d just like to let me know where you’re staying, so that when she does get in-’

‘That’s all right,’ Shel said. ‘I’ll know. And I’ll be back then. Good day.’

When he’d gone, Vetriz leaned back in her brother’s chair and swore, something she didn’t often do. As a merchant and a natural daughter of the Island, she knew, she should be thrilled at the thought of a good deal like this (at least, she assumed it would be a good deal; now she thought of it, the subject of money hadn’t actually cropped up); but there was something about Moisin Shel that made her teeth ache. Not, she quickly assured herself, that Venart would have handled things any better – oh, he’d have smiled and fawned like an idiot, but she knew for a fact that her brother wouldn’t know a garboard strake if it bit him on the nose. Well, if the wretched man did call back, Ven could have the pleasure of closing the deal, and welcome. She shook her head, left the counting house and went through into the small room that had been her father’s office. There, if she remembered correctly, fifteen years ago there had been a small, fat, scruffy book with a name like Vesano On Shipbuilding; she might not have a clue right now what a garboard strake was, but by gods she’d know all about the wretched things by the time Ven got home; whereupon she could tell him, as if explaining to a small child – you know, Ven, the garboard strakes. I thought everybody knew that.

And find out she did; and remarkably boring it proved to be. But at least it meant that when Venart got home (the very next day, oddly enough) she was able to say, ‘the long planks on either side of the keel,’ as if she’d known that since before she’d started eating solid food.

‘Oh,’ Venart replied. ‘Then why not call them that, instead of having some bloody stupid fancy name? And what about “mortised to the keel rabbet”? No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. If I really need to find out I can look it up in Dad’s old book, same as you did.’

Vetriz frowned. ‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘What do you think?’

Venart’s look of annoyance faded into a smirk. ‘Money for old rope,’ he replied. ‘Good money for old rope, come to that; if they’re paying a quarter a ton per week, it’d be like finding a silver mine under the kitchen floor.’

Vetriz’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Goodness,’ she said, ‘that sounds like an awful lot. Is it?’

‘The Squirrel’s two hundred and fifteen tons,’ Venart answered gleefully, ‘do the sums. And you can forget about all that complying-with-specifications garbage. They’re taking on anything that can float, down to and including upturned barrels. Why the hell do you think I came scurrying back here in such a hurry?’

It was (he explained) all over everywhere, from Ap’ Imatoy to Colleon: the provincial office was getting ready to make its move against King Temrai, and the main invasion force was going to be carried round the Hook and through the Scona Straits to Perimadeia by sea, thereby avoiding a long and dangerous march overland and denying Temrai the chance of breaking up the attack with hit-and-run tactics. One consequence was that they’d patched up their quarrel with Shastel, whose waters they’d have to go through – aggravating, since he was now stuck with a shipload of overpriced Nagya cornmeal that he’d bought entirely on the assumption that the Shastel chandlers wouldn’t be allowed to ship the stuff to Berlya, but undoubtedly good for business in the medium and long term. ‘I’ll just dump the stuff in the harbour if I can’t offload it in the market,’ he added. ‘After all, with what we’ll be getting from the imperials, the cost of a few sacks of flour is neither here nor there. Although I suppose I could offer it to the brewers on South Quay; they do use the stuff, and-’

‘The Empire’s going to attack Perimadeia?’ Vetriz interrupted. ‘Since when?’

Venart grinned and poured himself another drink, ladling in a second spoonful of honey by way of celebration. ‘You should follow these things if you really want to be a trader,’ he said insufferably. ‘Think about it, will you? It’s all to do with Ap’ Escatoy, as anybody with half a brain ought to have worked out years ago. Thanks to our friend Bardas, bless his heart, the Empire’s finally managed to do what it’s been trying to do ever since we were kids – break through on to the western coast. Now they’re here – well, the sky’s the limit, really. Ironic,’ he went on. ‘Even if Bardas and the City people had managed to beat off Temrai and his lot, now they’d be facing the prospect of a full-scale invasion from the Empire – foregone conclusion, obviously.’

Vetriz frowned. ‘Except,’ she said, ‘if the City hadn’t fallen, Bardas wouldn’t have been there to take Ap’ Escatoy for them.’

‘Oh, well.’ Venart shrugged. ‘Broad as it’s long; if it hadn’t been him, it’d have been someone else. It’s always only been a matter of time. I mean, nobody beats the Empire, that’s a fact of life.’ He drank half his cupful and leaned back in his chair. ‘And now Temrai’s going to get a taste of his own medicine. Can’t say I’m heart-broken; he’s a bloodthirsty little brute, by all accounts. Still, you can’t help feeling just a little bit sorry for anybody who’s got the Empire snapping round their ankles. I guess it must be a bit like knowing you’ve got a fatal disease.’

‘Don’t,’ Vetriz said, with a slight shudder. ‘It’s rather horrid, when you come to think of it. I mean, all those people. And now you’re saying it was all pointless.’

‘I suppose you could see it that way,’ Venart replied. ‘Or you could say they were all for the chop sooner or later, so does it matter whether the plainsmen or the Empire actually do the business? Can’t argue with geography; if you’re mug enough to live on a strategically vital promontory, with the Empire bursting to get through a hundred miles or so to the south of you, it’s wilful blindness to imagine you’re going to live out your time in quiet and peace. I’m just thankful we live on a small rock in the middle of the sea.’

Vetriz looked up. ‘Really?’ she said.

‘Well, of course.’ Venart yawned. ‘The Empire hasn’t got a fleet; hence all this hiring ships business. Whatever happens, they’re never going to come bothering us. So that’s all right.’

‘Oh,’ Vetriz said, and changed the subject.

Alexius? Bardas called out, but he didn’t appear to have heard.

Bardas had been having his usual dream, the one about the mines; and then suddenly, for no reason he could see, when the wall caved in he’d been standing at the back of the main lecture hall in the City Academy back in Perimadeia (a place he’d never set foot in, all the years he’d lived there; but he knew precisely where he was, and that he was actually there). On the rostrum at the front he could see his old friend Patriarch Alexius, wearing his best gown and academic robes; he was delivering a lecture to a huge crowd of students.

‘A case in point,’ Alexius was saying, ‘is the fall of Ap’ Escatoy, an incident with which you are all doubtless familiar. You will recall that in those days, the Empire had not yet penetrated to the western sea, let alone crossed the northern straits; hard to imagine, I know, but worth the effort nonetheless, since it’s vital to bear in mind that the whole world as we know it today was arguably shaped by the actions of one man, at one turning point in history.’

Bardas scowled, trying to understand. He knew beyond a shadow of doubt that this wasn’t a dream. He was standing in the Academy (which was fire-cracked rubble overgrown with bindweed now); but this was some time in the future, and here was Alexius, somehow not yet dead despite all his assumptions to the contrary.

‘One man,’ Alexius went on. ‘One quite unremarkable man, regarded objectively; certainly unremarkable enough to his contemporaries. A man who was never happier than when he was hedging and ditching on his father’s farm in the Mesoge, or building bows on Scona, or planishing breastplates with the other workers in the armoury at Ap’ Calick; hardly a man of destiny, you’d have thought. But consider; if Bardas Loredan hadn’t accidentally broken through into the enemy’s main gallery under Ap’ Escatoy and brought down the city walls, what would have happened then? Let’s imagine that the siege dragged on another year, or two years, even; then a revolt in a far province or a change in administration at the central finance office or a political squabble between factions at court – whatever – led to the siege being abandoned. So, Ap’ Escatoy hasn’t fallen – and the world is utterly different. One man. The different development of one moment in time. This, gentlemen, is the Principle. In that moment, in the darkness of the mines – and they were dark, I can vouch for that – everything changed. Everything was brought down, made small – so small that it fitted comfortably into a tiny cramped spur, hardly high or wide enough for a man to crawl down – and then enlarged again, made to expand like ripples in water. This is the action of the Principle for you; an effect that does away with all dimensions, a place where all places meet, a tiny pinhole at the end and the beginning, into which everything goes and out of which everything comes-’

Bardas found that he couldn’t hear any more; it was as if his ears were blocked up with wax. He could see Alexius still talking, but he couldn’t make out the words. When he stood up to shout out, Speak up, we can’t hear you at the back, he felt his head crack against the low roof of the spur, just as the walls began to buckle and come in on him, like a tin cup being crumpled under the wheels of a cart.

‘Sergeant Loredan?’

His head snapped up. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was miles away.’

‘As I was saying,’ the adjutant went on, giving him an austere look, ‘the situation in that part of the world is deteriorating steadily. Imperial interests are being directly threatened. We can no longer guarantee the safety of our citizens. Accordingly, central command is drawing up contingency plans in case military intervention becomes unavoidable.’

‘I see,’ Bardas said, not having a clue what the adjutant was talking about. ‘That’s – disturbing.’

‘Quite so.’ The adjutant folded his hands on the desktop, leaned forward a little. ‘Now, as you will appreciate, first-hand experience of these people will be of great value in planning our response, both long-term and tactical. Since you have fought in several wars against them-’

Gods. They’re going to attack Temrai. ‘I see,’ he repeated.

The adjutant nodded. ‘At the moment,’ he went on, ‘you’ve been ordered to stand by, pending a detailed debriefing by senior staff; I have little doubt, however, that as the situation develops, you will be reassigned to a more active role in the war. There may,’ he added alluringly, ‘be a further promotion, depending on the nature of the duties you are called on to undertake.’

A promotion. Gosh. ‘In the meantime?’ Bardas asked. ‘As I said, at present you are to await orders and hold yourself in readiness. It would be in order, however, for you to conclude any unfinished business you may have here, and make arrangements for handing over to your replacement in due course.’

Bardas stood up. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’ll get on to it right away.’

Beats me why they don’t sling me out of this army, he reflected as he walked back down the endless corridors. Disrespectful, insubordinate, generally sloppy; ah, but I took Ap’ Escatoy for them. And now I’m going to take Perimadeia.

He stopped.

‘So you’re going to take Perimadeia, are you?’ the man said. Bardas couldn’t see him very well; it was a dark point in the corridor, halfway between two sconces, and he couldn’t make out his face; but he could smell coriander. He realised he’d stopped breathing, for some reason. Instinct, maybe.

‘They want me to,’ he replied. ‘I do what I’m told. If I do a good job, they’ll make me a citizen.’

‘They’ll make you a citizen,’ the man repeated. ‘Wouldn’t that be just fine? Imagine that; you, a citizen. Bardas Loredan, there isn’t a civilised society anywhere in the world that’d have you as a citizen.’

Bardas frowned. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but do I know you?’

‘We’ve met. In fact, we’ve been here before – here or hereabouts. Don’t change the subject. You’re going to take Perimadeia. Why am I not surprised? Enjoy your work, do you?’

Bardas thought for a moment. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Well, it depends. I’ve done a lot of different things in my time. Some were worse than others.’

‘Such as?’

‘The mines,’ Bardas said. ‘I didn’t enjoy them at all. And serving with Maxen, that was pretty grim, most of the time.’

‘Fair enough,’ said the man. He hadn’t moved, and neither had Bardas. ‘What about being in charge of the defence of Perimadeia? Was that nice or nasty?’

‘I didn’t enjoy it,’ Bardas replied. ‘I knew I was the wrong man for the job. I did the best I could, but someone else might have saved the city. And the experience itself was pretty wretched.’

‘I see. And what about your career as a fencer? Was it exciting, thrilling? Did you relish the challenge? Did you feel good each time you won?’

‘Relieved,’ Bardas said. ‘Glad I was still alive. But I did it because it was something I was good enough at to make a living. I needed the sort of money I could earn by fencing, you see, to send home to my brothers.’

‘They frittered it all away, of course,’ the man said, ‘so it was all a waste of time. Well, that only leaves farming, teaching fencing, bowmaking and whatever it is you’re doing now. How do you feel about them? Happier, I suppose.’

‘Yes,’ Bardas said. ‘Farming was a hard life, but it’s what I was born to do. Teaching fencing was better than fencing, and the money was adequate; I could have carried on with that quite happily. The same with making bows – living that sort of life, I didn’t really need much money, and I like working with my hands. Same goes for this, I suppose, if only I could find something I could actually do here. Still, nobody’s trying to kill me, so I’m that much ahead of the game.’

The man laughed. ‘What an uncomplicated fellow you are, deep down,’ he said. ‘All you really want out of life is a hard day’s work and a fair day’s pay; and instead, you grind down tribes, defend and destroy cities, kill men by the hundred. Tell me; in all the fights to the death you’ve been in, all the him-or-me confrontations, why is it, do you think, that they all died and you’re still alive? Is it just your superior skill and hand-speed? I’d be interested to hear what you make of it.’

‘I prefer not to think about it,’ Bardas replied. ‘No offence, but what business is it of yours?’

‘None,’ the man replied. ‘Except that I’m curious, as most people are. I just wanted to know what you were really like. It’s so easy when you’re reading or hearing about a great historical figure to get into the habit of assuming that they were completely different from the rest of us, that they lived by entirely different rules. Talking to you like this, just the two of us, I realise it isn’t like that at all. It’s obvious to me now; most of the time, you simply hadn’t got a clue what you were doing; nothing more to it than that. But I’d never have seen that if I’d stuck to what it says in the books, or what Grandfather told us when we were kids. Well, I think that’s all. Goodbye.’

‘Wait,’ Bardas said; but he was talking to half a shadow.

‘Oh, and one last thing,’ said a voice from the darkness where the man and the smell of coriander had been. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Bardas replied; then his knees folded up and he hit the ground.

When he opened his eyes again the light was horribly bright, and there was a ring of heads peering down at him.

‘The heat, possibly,’ a Son of Heaven was saying. ‘They take time to get used to it. He comes from a cold, wet country.’

‘Or the residual effects of being buried alive,’ said someone else at the bottom edge of his vision. ‘In cases of severe concussion, it can be weeks before the symptoms manifest themselves. That would account for the hallucinations.’

‘So would heatstroke,’ replied the Son of Heaven. ‘In fact, hearing imaginary voices and talking to people who aren’t there is rather more indicative of heatstroke than cranial trauma, although I grant you, it’s common to both conditions.’

‘I think he’s awake,’ said another voice. ‘Sergeant Loredan, can you hear us?’

Bardas opened his mouth; his tongue and throat were stiff and dry, like leather that’s got wet and been allowed to dry without being oiled. ‘I think so,’ he said. ‘Are you real?’

The Son of Heaven seemed offended by the question; but the man who’d spoken to him smiled and said, ‘Yes, we’re real; real enough for your purposes, anyway. Can you remember what happened to you?’

‘I fell over,’ Bardas replied.

‘Cranial trauma,’ muttered the man with the buried-alive theory. ‘Notice the slight aphasia, the obvious memory loss. Typical.’

‘We know that,’ said the man who was talking to him, slowly and gently, as if to a dying man or an idiot. ‘You fell, and you bumped your head; nothing serious. But before that.’

Bardas thought for a moment. ‘I was talking to someone, ’ he said.

That seemed to please the man who was talking to him, because he smiled a little. ‘Aha,’ he said. ‘And can you remember who you were talking to?’

‘My superior officer,’ Bardas croaked. ‘He was telling me I might get a promotion.’

Wrong answer, apparently. ‘I meant after that,’ the man said. ‘After your interview with the adjutant, but before you fell over. Were you talking to anybody? ’

Bardas tried to shake his head but it didn’t want to move, so he spoke instead. ‘No,’ he replied.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes. At least,’ he added, ‘as far as I can remember.’

‘He’s hiding something,’ muttered the Son of Heaven. ‘Evasiveness, slight paranoia. Obviously heatstroke.’

The man who’d been talking to him tried again. ‘We’re doctors,’ he said, ‘we’re here to help you. Are you sure you weren’t talking to anybody else?’

‘Positive,’ Bardas said; then, as the man’s face creased into a disappointed scowl, he added, ‘Of course, I imagined I was talking to someone, but I know it wasn’t real. Just a hallucination or something.’

The man looked more annoyed than ever. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘And how can you be so certain of that?’

‘Easy.’ Bardas’ head began to hurt a lot. ‘First he tried to make me believe he was someone I killed in the mines; then he wanted to make out he was a student of history from hundreds of years into the future. Also he knew too much about me; I must have imagined it.’

‘I see,’ said the cranial-trauma man. ‘And do you talk to imaginary people often?’

‘Yes,’ Bardas replied; and the doctors vanished. When he opened his eyes again, he was still in the same place, but alone; and now it was dark, and he could smell onions and rosemary and blood and sweet marjoram and urine. For a while everything was quiet as the grave; then he heard a man groaning a few yards away. Hospital, he thought.

His head was still splitting, though the pain was rather different now. He savoured it for a while, trying to place it by its texture and intensity (if cranial trauma was medical for a bash on the head, he was ready to plump for cranial trauma; he’d been bashed on the head many times, and this was pretty much what it felt like).

Bardas?

‘Shhh,’ he whispered. ‘You’ll wake people up.’

Sorry.

‘That’s all right. How are you, anyway?’

Can’t complain, Alexius replied. Bardas closed his eyes; he could see Alexius very clearly in the dark behind his eyelids. So what have you been doing to yourself?

‘I don’t know,’ Bardas admitted. ‘One moment I was walking down a corridor in the armoury building, now I’m here. It could be heatstroke, or cranial trauma.’

Cranial trauma?

‘Bash on the head. Not that I’ve been bashed on the head recently, but apparently it can take a while to show up. Anyway, here I am; that’s about all I know.’

What rotten luck, Alexius said sympathetically. I hope you feel better soon.

‘Thank you.’ The pain suddenly got worse, then better again. ‘Was there something you wanted, or did you just drop by for a chat? Only, I don’t want to sound unfriendly, but-’

Of course. I just wondered where you were, that’s all. When I heard about Ap’ Escatoy, I was worried; being buried alive and so forth, it sounds absolutely awful.

Bardas smiled. ‘I can’t remember much about it,’ he replied. ‘I went out like a light, and then they dug me out and I came to in a field hospital. How about you? What are you up to these days?’

Would you believe, I’m teaching again. It’s almost like the old days. But so long as I take things a bit steady, it doesn’t seem to be doing me any harm. And it’s good to be doing something useful, instead of just sitting about.

‘I’m pleased for you,’ Bardas replied. ‘So where are you doing this teaching?’

‘Delirious,’ said a man’s voice, unseen, quite loud. ‘A common enough effect in cranial-trauma cases. What would you suggest?’

Bardas opened his eyes. There was light, the soft flush just after sunrise, when the ground’s still cool. A tall man, a Son of Heaven, was standing over him. A little further away was a group of young men, listening attentively. ‘Rest,’ said one of them. ‘It’s about all you can do, isn’t it?’

‘Good answer,’ replied the Son of Heaven, ‘but I think we can do a little better than that. Anyone?’

One of the young men cleared his throat. ‘A sedative,’ he said diffidently. ‘Poppy juice, to keep the patient calm and let him sleep while he’s healing. And a willow-bark infusion for the pain.’

‘But not both together,’ the Son of Heaven chided. ‘Or else he might go so fast asleep that he’ll never wake up. Besides, if he’s asleep, he won’t need anything for the pain. Very good. Right, let’s move along.’

‘Doctor.’ One of the students had noticed that Bardas was awake, and nodded in his direction. The doctor looked back.

‘He’s awake,’ he said, ‘splendid. But we must keep this short for fear of overtiring him. Well now, how are we feeling today?’

‘Awful,’ Bardas croaked. ‘Where am I?’

But the doctor was leaning over him, pressing his skull with the balls of his thumbs. ‘Does that hurt?’ he asked. ‘And what about that?’

‘Ow,’ Bardas replied with feeling.

‘As I thought,’ the doctor said. ‘The skull’s too soft, and there are a number of dents and ridges that need to be taken out.’ He turned away and looked at one of the students. ‘The number-one planishing hammer,’ he said, ‘and the oval-head stake, if you please.’

Before Bardas could move or object, the doctor had forced his mouth open and shoved something into it; Bardas recognised it as one of the stakes that fitted in the slot on top of the armourer’s anvil, used to beat down on when shaping work from outside. Then the doctor took the hammer from the student – it had two flat faces, one square and one round – and started tapping the top of Bardas’ head with fast, even, pecking strokes.

‘The purpose of this action,’ he announced, ‘which we term planishing, is to smooth out the finished work. In addition to this, it has two other important functions: to compress the metal and to close its surface pores, thereby imparting to the outside a level of work-hardening comparable to that imparted to the inside by the act of doming or raising. It is important not to overdo the planishing process, lest the metal be beaten thin or made too hard, in other words brittle. Should brittleness be imparted by excessive zeal at this juncture, the piece would have to be annealed by fire and worked again, both outside and inside.’ Bardas wanted to shout, but his mouth was full of the oval-head stake; his head vibrated and echoed with the countless rapid blows, each one pinching his skull between the stake inside and the hammer outside. He tried to close his eyes; but the rivets around which the steel lames of his eyelids pivoted were slightly distorted, and the lids wouldn’t shut properly-

He opened his eyes.

He was sitting bolt upright on his bed in his little room in the top back gallery, his mouth open in mid-scream.

‘Steady on,’ said a voice at the foot of the bed. ‘Were you having a bad dream or something?’

Bardas closed his mouth – he felt that his jaw ought to pivot around two hardened steel pins, like the visor of a bascinet; but that was plainly absurd. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘That’s all right.’ The man at the foot of the bed turned out to be the old Son of Heaven, Anax, who worked in the proof house. Just behind his shoulder, inevitably, was the enormous shape of Bollo, his assistant. ‘Though I’ll admit you startled the life out of me, shouting like that. Anyway, how are you feeling?’

Bardas shuddered and lowered himself carefully back on to the mattress. His head hurt.

‘Excuse me if this sounds strange,’ he said, ‘but are you real?’

Anax smiled. ‘You have trouble telling the difference, do you?’ he said. ‘I know the feeling. Yes, we’re real; or as real as it gets around here. It’s that sort of place, though, isn’t it?’

Bardas thought for a moment. ‘What’s been happening to me?’ he said. ‘Last thing I knew, I was walking down a corridor-’

‘And you flaked out, apparently,’ Anax said with a grin. ‘Dead to the world when they found you; couldn’t wake you up. They tried prodding you, slapping you round the face, even emptied a jug of water over you. Then they sent for us. I guess they decided you were our responsibility. Anyway, we brought you up here – or at least Bollo did.’

‘You’re heavy,’ Bollo said. ‘Especially going upstairs.’

‘I see,’ Bardas replied. ‘How long was I out for?’

Anax thought for a moment. ‘Let’s see,’ he said. ‘Half a day, last night and this morning; call it a round twenty-four hours, give or take half an hour. I don’t know,’ he went on, ‘fainting fits, at your age. That sort of stuff’s for old men and young girls who don’t eat properly.’

‘Maybe it was heatstroke,’ Bardas suggested. ‘Or cranial trauma.’

‘Cranial what?’

‘Trauma. A bash on the head.’

‘Oh. So who’s been bashing you on the head?’

Bardas shrugged. ‘Nobody, as far as I know. But it could be a delayed reaction to what happened to me in the mines.’

‘Nah.’ Anax shook his head. ‘That was weeks ago. Anyway, you seem to be all right now, which is the main thing. Tell you what; you stay in bed a day or so till you’re quite sure you’re all right; I’ll send Bollo or one of the lads from the foundry shop to look in on you from time to time – make sure you haven’t died or gone off your head. I’d stay myself, but we’ve got a lot of work on, and we haven’t made much headway with it sitting here watching you sleep.’

When they’d gone, Bardas tried very hard to stay awake. He managed to keep going for an hour; then he woke up in a panic to find Bollo standing over him with a bowl of salt porridge and a wooden spoon.