Devices and Desires

by K. J. Parker

  “Birds.”

  She nodded. “I don’t know how we got on to the subject. I wasn’t particularly interested in birds, nor was he.”

  “But you’d already fallen in love at first sight.”

  “Yes.”

  More gashed knuckles. “And presumably he decided you would fit the bill.”

  “Yes.”

  “So everybody was happy.”

  “Yes. We were all happy.”

  The hell with this, Psellus thought; there was a time, long ago, when I used to be a decent human being. “I see,” he said. “Well, I don’t think I need detain you further. You may go.”

  She stood up; no hurry, no delay. “Your discretion,” she said. She made it sound like an illness or something.

  “Provided you undertake to let us know immediately if you hear anything from him, if he tries to get in touch with you in any way. Do you understand?”

  She nodded. “Hardly likely, though, is it?”

  “Nonetheless.” He made his face stern and fierce. “Make no mistake,” he said. “You’re being discharged under license, which we can revoke at any time. The obligation is on you to come to us with any information which might be of use to us. If you fail to do so…”

  “I understand.”

  “Very well, then. You may leave.” He thought of something; too little too late, but it would be a small victory, he’d at least have drawn blood, even if it was just a scratch. “You may return to the matrimonial home for the time being,” he said. “Long enough to collect your possessions, the things that belong to you exclusively — clothing and the like. After that, you’ll be returned to your father’s house.”

  She rode the strike well, but he’d touched home. There was a degree of satisfaction in the hit, rather less than he’d anticipated. “I see,” she said.

  “An offender’s property,” he went on, “reverts to his Guild. An official confiscator will be appointed shortly; until he’s made his inspection and compiled an inventory, you may not remove anything from the house.”

  “Fine. Can I empty the chamber-pot?”

  (Interesting; that’s the first sign of anger she’s shown.)

  “The confiscator,” he went on, “will issue a certificate specifying which items are your exclusive property; that means the things you’ll be allowed to take away with you. If you disagree with his decision, you may make representations to him in writing. Is that clear?”

  She nodded. “How about my daughter’s things?” she said. “Can she keep them, or does the Guild want them too?”

  “The same rules apply,” Psellus said. “The confiscator will decide what she can keep. The adjudication process usually takes about six weeks.”

  “I see,” she said. “Can I leave now, please?”

  Psellus raised his hand in a vague gesture of manumission. “Thank you for your time,” he said. “And remember, if you hear anything at all from your husband…”

  After she’d gone, Psellus sat for a while, watching the lamp burn down. Had he achieved what he’d set out to do, or anything at all? He had no idea. The objective was to catch Ziani Vaatzes and bring him home to die, or kill him wherever he happened to be; that job had been given to Manuo Crisestem, and was therefore effectively out of Psellus’ hands, for the time being. The purpose of this interview — he tried to remember what it was. Something about motivation, trying to understand; he’d been intrigued by the marriage, the difference in ages. Well, he had an explanation, of sorts: Vaatzes had wanted a wife, the man Connenus had wanted to get his stroppy daughter off his hands, and apparently the daughter had been obliging enough to fall in love with Vaatzes, who was in a position to square the deal with promotions for his new in-laws. There; everything accounted for neat and tidy; and he, Lucao Psellus, was sitting in the dark as the point flew high over his head like a skein of geese going home for the winter.

  No. He’d learned something important today, and he had no idea what it was.

  When the lamp finally failed, he stood up and tracked his way to the door by feel. Outside it was still broad daylight; as he stood in the corridor facing the open window, the light stunned him, like an unexpected punch. It’d be vexing, he told himself, if Crisestem succeeded; as for Vaatzes, Psellus found it very hard to recapture the cold, pure burn of anger against him for his however-many-it-was offenses against Specification. But he stood facing the light and made a wish, like he used to do on the first of the month when he was a boy, that Crisestem would bring Vaatzes’ head home in a bag, soon, and that this case would very quickly be over.

  7

  The road to Civitas Eremiae, capital and only city of Eremia Montis, encircles the stony peg of mountain on which it sits in long, slow, regular loops, like a screw-thread. From the river valley, it looks as if the city can be reached in two hours at the very most; but it’s a long day’s climb, assuming you start at dawn; if not, you face the unattractive choice of camping overnight on the narrow ledge of road or walking up it in the dark. At the crown of the mountain, the road funnels through a low, narrow gate in the curtain-wall; three more turns of the thread brings it to the city wall proper, where it ducks through a gateway under two high, thin towers built on massive spurs of rock. From the city gate to the citadel is another eight turns, through streets wide enough for a donkey or an economically fed horse. Chastra Eremiae, the Duke’s castle, was chiseled and scooped out of the yellow stone four hundred years ago, and is protected by an encircling ditch twenty-six feet deep and a thirty-foot wall studded with squat round towers; a third of the interior is derelict through neglect. The Eremians proudly boast that nobody has ever taken the citadel by storm. It’s hard to imagine why anybody should want to.

  Most of the population of the city turned out in the morning to see the remains of the army come home; by nightfall, however, when Orsea rode his weary horse through the gate, the crowd had long since given up and drifted away. That in itself was encouraging; maybe they weren’t going to lynch him after all.

  Miel Ducas was looking after all the important stuff; accommodation for the wounded and so forth. There was no good reason why Orsea shouldn’t just go home and go to bed. It was what he wanted to do, more than anything else in the world. Tomorrow, of course, he’d have to do the things he’d been dreading all the way up the Butter Pass. At the very least, he’d have to convene the general council, tell them about the battle and everything that had happened — the extraordinary kindness of the Vadani; the Mezentine defector and his offer. Probably he ought to stand out on the balcony that overlooked the market square and address the people. That was only reasonable, and he knew he had to do it. Tomorrow.

  He clattered through the citadel gate, and there was a group of people waiting for him: a doctor whom he recognized, some people whose names he knew, some strangers. The doctor pounced on him as soon as his feet hit the cobbles. He’d had a detailed letter from one of the Vadani medics, he explained, full details of the injury, description of treatment to date, prognosis, recommendations. It was imperative that the Duke get some rest as soon as possible. For once, Orsea didn’t argue.

  Remarkably soon he was in his bedroom on the fourth floor of the South Tower. He sat on the bed and tugged at his boots (if they were this tight, how had he ever managed to get them on?), gave up and flopped on his back with his hands behind his head. He was home; that made him one of the lucky ones. Tomorrow…

  Tomorrow, he told himself, I’ll deal with everything. First I’ll have a meeting with Miel, he’ll brief me on everything he’s done, getting the army home, and everything that happened on the way. Then I’ll have to go to the council, and make my speech on the balcony (he made a mental note: think of something to say). Right; I’ll do that, and the rest of the day’s your own.

  Veatriz, he thought. I’ll see her tomorrow. She’s not here tonight because she knows I need to be alone, but tomorrow I’ll see them both again, and that’ll make things better. It occurred to him that he hadn’t thought much about
her over the last few days; he felt ashamed, because really she was everything, the whole world. But there’d be time for her tomorrow, and things could slowly start to get back to normal.

  Things would never be normal again, he knew that really. But he was tired, and there wasn’t anything he could do tonight; and besides, the doctor had told him, rest…

  He fell asleep. Below in the castle yard, Miel Ducas was still trying to find billets for wounded men, water and fuel for cooking, hay and oats for horses, somewhere for the carts to turn so the road wouldn’t get jammed, somewhere to put the Mezentine until he had time to deal with him. He didn’t resent the fact that Orsea had left him with all the arrangements; he was too busy, standing out of the way by the stable door so that the stretcher-bearers could get in and out, and women with bedding. He was trying to carry on four conversations at once — the garrison captain, the chief steward, Orsea’s doctor and a representative of the Merchant Adventurers, who was trying to gouge him over the price of twenty gross of plain wool bandages. He kept going because there wasn’t anybody else. It would, of course, be just as bad tomorrow.

  Ziani Vaatzes sat in a stationary cart for an hour, and then some men came. They didn’t seem to know whether they were welcoming a guest or guarding a prisoner, but they made a fair job of hedging their bets. They took him up a long spiral staircase with no handrail — it was dark and the steps were worn smooth — to a landing with a thick black door. If there was anything he wanted, they said, all he had to do was ask. Then they opened the door for him and vanished, leaving him completely alone.

  There was a candle burning in the room — one candle — and a jug of water and a plate of bread and cheese on a table. It was a large room, though the darkness around the candle-flame made it look bigger than it really was. He found the fireplace; a basket of logs, some twigs and moss for kindling. He laid a fire, lit a spill (very carefully, so as not to snuff the candle out), found a small hand-bellows hanging on a nail in the wall. It hadn’t occurred to him that the mountains would be so cold. The bed was huge, musty, slightly damp. He took his boots off but kept his clothes on. He couldn’t sleep, needless to say; so he lay on his back staring at the extraordinarily high ceiling (he could just make out shapes of vaulting on the extreme edge of the disk of candlelight), and soon his mind was full of details as he worked on the mechanism that was gradually beginning to take shape. Somewhere below, a dog was barking, and he could hear heavily shod cartwheels grinding the cobbles, like a mill crushing wheat. For some reason it comforted him, like rain on the roof or the soft swish of the sea.

  “This Mezentine.”

  Zanferenc Iraclido (Orsea had always felt overawed by him; not by his intellect or his commanding presence or his strength of purpose, but by the sonorous beauty of his name) reached across the table and took the last honey-cake from the plate. He’d had six already. None of the other members of the council appeared to have noticed.

  “His name’s Vaatzes,” Miel Ducas said. “I had a long talk with him on the way home, and I’m fairly sure he’s genuine — not a spy or anything. But that’s just my intuition.”

  Iraclido made a gesture, a quick opening and closing of the hand. “Let’s say for the sake of argument that he is. Let’s also assume he can actually deliver on this promise to teach us all the stuff he claims he knows. The question is, would it actually do us any good?”

  Heads nodded, turned to look down the table. “I think so,” Orsea said. “But it’d be a huge step. What do you reckon, Ferenc?”

  “Me?” Iraclido raised his eyebrows. “Not up to me.”

  “Yes, but suppose it was. What would you do?”

  Iraclido paused before answering. “On balance,” he said, “I think I’d have his head cut off and stuck up on a pike in the market square, and I’ll tell you why. Yes, it’d be just grand if we could learn how to build these spear-throwing machines — though I don’t suppose you’d approve of the direction I’d be inclined to point them in once they were finished. But we won’t go into that.”

  “Good,” someone else said; mild ripple of laughter.

  “It’d be just grand,” Iraclido repeated. “And when this Mezentine says he knows how to build them, I believe him. But it’s no good giving a shepherd a box of tools and a drawing and telling him to build you a clock, or a threshing machine. My point is, we can’t make use of this knowledge, we aren’t…” He waved his hands again. “We aren’t set up to start building machines. Might as well give a ninety-pound bow to a kid. It works, it’s a bloody good weapon, but he’s simply not strong enough to draw it. And you know what happens next. The kid can’t use it so he puts it somewhere; then along comes his big brother, picks it up and shoots you with it. Not smart.”

  “Slow down,” someone said. “You just lost me.”

  “Then use your brain,” Iraclido said. “I said I’d have the Mezentine executed. Here’s why. We can’t afford to let him live, not with all that stuff in his head; because we can’t use it, we aren’t strong enough. But we all know who is.”

  Brief silence; then Miel said, “Let me translate, since Ferenc here’s decided to be all elliptical. He’s afraid the Mezentine’s knowledge would fall into the hands of the Vadani. They’re no smarter than us, but they’ve got pots more money; they might be able to use the knowledge, presumably against us. Right?”

  “More or less,” Iraclido said. “So the only safe thing to do is get rid of the information. Now, while it’s still in the box, so to speak.”

  “It’s a point of view,” Orsea said after a moment. “Anyone like to comment?”

  “Under normal circumstances,” (the voice came from the other end of the table; a thin elderly man Orsea didn’t know particularly well; Simbulo or some name like that) “I’d agree with the senator; we can’t easily use this knowledge, and there’s times when a head on a pike is worth two in the bush; we could make out he’s a spy — which could be true, for all we know — and it’d go down well with the market crowd. But we have a problem. We’ve just had our guts ripped out by the Republic, like a cat on a fence; people need to see a miracle cure, or they’re going to get nervous. Basically, we need a secret weapon.”

  Iraclido leaned forward and glared down the table. “So you want to build these machines?”

  The thin man shook his head. “I want to tell the people we’re going to build these machines,” he said, “and I want to parade this Mezentine in front of them and say, here, look what we’ve found, here’s a Mezentine traitor who’s going to show us how to build them, and a whole lot of other stuff too. Now,” he went on with a shrug, “whether we actually build any machines, now or at some indeterminate point in the future, is a subject for another day. What concerns me is what we’re going to do tomorrow.” He paused, as though inviting interruptions. There were none, so he went on: “Same goes for our friends and allies over the mountain. We won’t get started on all that now; but I don’t suppose I’m the only one who’d love to know what all that loving-kindness stuff was really in aid of. I’d also like to know who the genius was who thought it’d be a good idea to take the army home over the Butter Pass, right under Valens’ nose. The fact we got away with it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a bloody stupid thing to do.”

  Orsea saw Miel take a deep breath and say nothing. He was proud of his friend.

  “But anyway,” the thin man went on. “Valens has made his point; he had us in the palm of his hand, and for reasons best known to himself he let us go. Fact remains, we’ve just lost a big slice of our military capability; if Valens wants to break the treaty, as things stand we can’t give him a good game. In other words, we’re at his mercy; and I don’t know about you gentlemen, but that makes my teeth ache. I’d feel a whole lot happier if Valens was under the impression we had the secret of the spear-throwing machines.”

  “It’d give him something to think about,” someone said.

  “Too right,” Iraclido said. “And if I was in his shoes and I heard that we were
planning on arming ourselves with those things, I know what I’d do. I’d invade straight away, before we had a chance to build them.”

  “What about that, though?” A short, round man with curly hair; Bassamontis, from the west valleys. “What do you think he’s playing at?”

  “Good question,” Miel said. “And I don’t think we can reasonably make any decisions about this or anything else until we know the answer.”

  “You were there,” the thin man said. “What did you make of it?”

  “Beats me,” Miel admitted. “They just appeared out of nowhere and started helping. No explanations, they weren’t even patronizing about it. Just got on with it, and a bloody good job they made of it too.” He frowned. “One thing that did strike me,” he said, “was how very well prepared they were: food, blankets, medical stuff, it all just sort of materialized, like it was magic. Either Valens has got them very well organized indeed, or they had some idea what’d be needed well in advance.” He shook his head. “Which still doesn’t make any sense,” he added. “It’s a puzzle all right.”

  “Like the Ducas says,” said the thin man, “it’s a puzzle. And, like he says, I don’t think we can make a decision until we’ve got some idea what actually happened there. The problem is, how do we find out?”

  Silence. Then Miel said: “We could ask them.”

  Puzzled frowns. “I don’t follow,” someone said.

  “I suggest we send a delegation,” Miel said. “To say thank you very much for helping us. Only polite, after all. While they’re there, if they keep their ears open and their mouths shut —”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Bassamontis said. “The Ducas is right, we owe them a bread-and-butter letter; we might as well combine it with a fishing trip.”

  “And what do we tell them,” Iraclido interrupted, “about the Mezentine? We’ve got to assume they know about him already.”

  “Nothing,” the thin man said firmly. “Let them fret about it for a while, it’ll do them good.”