Devices and Desires

by K. J. Parker

  “Pleasant enough man,” Ziani observed. “But I prefer his cousin, the other Ducas. Doesn’t talk quite so much.”

  Cantacusene looked at him. “He’s the cadet branch,” he said. “Jarnac Ducas, I mean.”

  “Ah,” Ziani said. “Is that a good thing? I don’t understand about nobility.”

  “Means Jarnac won’t ever be in line to be head of the family, not unless all the other branch get wiped out before he does.”

  “I see. So really, Jarnac isn’t anyone special.”

  A look of disgust and horror flitted across Cantacusene’s face, and Ziani realized he’d committed yet another abomination. He wasn’t all that interested, anyway. He wanted to get the last few bits of leather cut out, so he could go and look at the scorpion locks. Cantacusene walked away, clearly not trusting himself to speak.

  In the main shop, they were cutting quarter-inch plate on the big shear. It was, if anything, worse than the leather shear he’d been using himself. It wasn’t even Mezentine-made, and the handle was a broken-off stub with a length of bent iron pipe peened over it. Luckily, the tolerances for the lock plates were broad. He didn’t recognize any of the faces around him, but they’d all know who he was, the only brown-skinned man in Eremia. Some of them looked up, others looked in the opposite direction. All in all, he’d met with far less resentment and hatred than he’d expected, given that his people had only recently massacred the flower of the Eremian army. An Eremian wouldn’t last a day in the ordnance factory at home.

  He left them to it and wandered over to the filing bench, where two men were cutting teeth into gear-wheels. They were better at it than he’d expected. They were standing right, weight on both feet equally, square to the bench, holding the file level and true. He’d marked out the pattern piece himself; all they had to do was scribe round it onto each wheel, then follow the scribed lines as closely as they could. Back home, of course, a machine would be doing this job, a hundred times faster and much more accurately.

  One of the men was old. His thin, wiry forearms ended in broad, clenched hands with huge knuckles, and he bent close over his work to be able to see the scratched line. Ziani saw that he’d rubbed the piece over with candle-soot mixed with spit, to make the line show up better. At home they used a special dark blue paste.

  “How’s it going?” he asked. He noticed that he was speaking a bit louder than usual; either because he assumed the old man must be deaf, or because subconsciously he was imitating Jarnac Ducas.

  The man didn’t look up. “This file’s no good,” he said. “Blunt.”

  “Chalk it,” Ziani said.

  “Done that,” the old man said. “And carded it. No good. It’s not clogged, it’s blunt.”

  “Let me see,” Ziani said. It was a Mezentine three-square file, with a Guild mark; the letter next to the stamped lion’s head told him it was no more than a year old. He ran the pad of his forefinger over the teeth. “You’re right,” he said. “Funny. Have you been cutting hardening steel with it?”

  The old man shook his head. “My best file,” he said. “Only ever used it for brass and latten.”

  For some reason, Ziani couldn’t help taking it personally; his Guild had made the file, to Specification, so it ought to be perfect; but it had failed before its time, and that was wrong. The foreman of the tool works ought to be on charges for something like that. “I’ll get you a new one,” Ziani said and went to go, but the old man grabbed his arm.

  “Where are you going with my file?” he said.

  “But it’s no good,” Ziani said. “You said so yourself.”

  “It’s my file. Give it back.”

  Ziani put it down on the bench, went to the tool chest in the corner and found a three-square file, brand new, still in its grease. “Here,” he said to the old man. “Yours to keep.”

  The old man scowled at it, took it, rubbed his fingertip over the base of the tang, where the Guild marks were. “Needs a handle,” he said.

  Ziani picked a file at random off the bench, knocked the handle off against the bench-leg and handed it to him. He tapped it into place, then put the file carefully away in his apron pocket.

  “Fine,” Ziani said. “Apart from the blunt file, how’s it going?”

  The old man shrugged. “Foreman said file out the notches in these wheels, so that’s what I’m doing. Don’t ask me what they’re for, I don’t know.”

  “How many have you managed to get done today?” Ziani asked; but either the old man hadn’t heard him, or the question was too offensive to be answered. “Carry on,” Ziani said, and moved away.

  On the next bench they were bending ratchet sears over formers in a vice. Nice simple work (at home, the sears would be machined from solid and case-hardened in bonemeal and leather dust) and the three men who were doing it had filled one box with finished pieces and half-filled another. He watched them open the vice, clamp a strip of shear-cut plate between the former and the jaw, tighten up the vice and bend the piece with thumps from a hide mallet until it lay flat against the former. At the end of the bench, another man worked a long-lever punch, drifting out the pivot holes. The punch was pretty deplorable too, but he had only himself to blame for it; he’d made it himself, in a tearing hurry, and he knew it’d break soon and the hinge-pin would need replacing. It wounded him to think that something he’d made himself would inevitably fail.

  The day wore on. For the first time since he’d escaped from Mezentia, Ziani was aware of being very tired. Everything he did cost him effort, and he couldn’t settle to anything. He remembered, just as the men were leaving for the day, that he hadn’t made arrangements for taking the finished pieces of armor to Jarnac’s house. By then, he and Cantacusene were the only people left in the building. Fine.

  “Do me a favor,” he said, leaning against the doorpost of the small foundry, where Cantacusene had set up his leather-boiling cauldron.

  Cantacusene was sitting cross-legged on the floor, a chunky oak log gripped between his knees. Over it he was hammering a cuisse, stretching the leather back into shape where it had crinkled slightly in the boiling water. “What?” he said.

  “Give me a hand delivering this lot,” Ziani replied.

  He hadn’t been expecting it, but Cantacusene nodded without argument, or even face-pulling. “All right,” he said. “Just let me finish this before it cools down.”

  So Ziani watched for a while as Cantacusene tapped and poked and wheedled, then dunked the cuisse into a bucket of cold water to set it. It came out dripping; he wiped it over with his sleeve and stood it against the wall to dry off. “Nearly all done,” he said. “Should finish off tomorrow.”

  Together they packed the armor in straw and loaded it into six barrels, which they lugged out into the yard and dumped in the cart they used for fetching iron stock and charcoal. Cantacusene harnessed up the two mules while Ziani locked up; then they set out. They had to go a very long way round, because the straight way was too narrow for the cart and there were stairs and bridges. They rode in silence most of the way, but Ziani could sense that Cantacusene was winding himself up to ask something. When it came, it came in a rush.

  “You didn’t tell me you were going on this hunt.”

  “Yes I did,” Ziani replied. “You remember, when this Jarnac character came round to order the stuff.”

  Cantacusene frowned. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Ziani said. “I guess I thought it’d be good to see how it’s done. If there’s a market for hunting gear, it’s a good idea to see for myself what goes on. And I’m curious,” he added. “There’s nothing like it at home.”

  “Did he invite you?”

  “Sort of.” Ziani grinned. “I dropped some heavy hints. You ever been?”

  Cantacusene shook his head. “Strictly for the gentry,” he said. “Except if you’re beating or carrying or picking up and stuff. Mostly, though, the household does all that, they only hire in casuals for the really big meets. And it’s country p
eople that tend to get hired, not anyone from the city.”

  “Right,” Ziani said. “I think this is going to be a big occasion, with the Duke going.”

  “You can be sure of that,” Cantacusene said. “Orsea’s not a great one for hunting, mind; he likes it, but they reckon he never finds the time. His father Orseola was big on the falcons but not riding to hounds, but of course they never had the money for a decent pack, or good horses. Costs a fair bit, see.”

  Ziani nodded. “But Jarnac can afford it, obviously.”

  “Well, the Ducas,” Cantacusene said, with a subtle mixture of respect and contempt, “they got all the money you can think of, even the cadet line. Though they reckon that with what Jarnac spends, he cuts it a bit close sometimes.”

  It was amusing, Ziani thought, how Cantacusene the dour and silent became so animated when he got onto the subject of the nobility. It wasn’t anything like the attitude he’d have expected. Resentment, he’d have thought, maybe even downright hatred — after all, the nobles did no work and lived off the sweated labor of others, wasting enough on their idle and vicious pleasures in a month to feed fifty working families for a year. He’d have expected someone like Cantacusene to froth at the mouth when talking about such people. Apparently not. The closest thing in his experience was the way people back home talked about the dog-racing or handball teams they supported. Get a Mezentine Guildsman started on his team and he’d tell you every minute detail — life histories and career statistics of every player, arcane details of rules and form, which tracks favored which pitchers, more than any rational man could possibly want to know about anything. In the same way Cantacusene seemed to come alive talking about the Ducas, with whom he had nothing in common except occasional commissions and a wedge of unpaid invoices for work delivered. It was touching and revolting at the same time, this vicarious enjoyment of the gentry’s lifestyle. For some reason Cantacusene supported the Ducas (and the Phocas and the Stratiotes, and up to a point the Callinicas), which somehow gave him the right to refer to them by their first names, as though they were his own family, and to preen himself on their ridiculous achievements (hunting, politicking, marrying and giving in marriage, bickering over land and dabbling disdainfully and half-competently in trade). For a long time, all the way from Lantern Street to Wallgate via Shave Cross, he gabbled about genealogies and lawsuits, trophy stags and champion destriers, with a counterpoint of scandals, infidelities and indiscretions in which he seemed to take an equal pride. By the time they came out into Fountain Street and started to climb the long, cobbled ride up to the old lists, where the cadet Ducas had their town house, Ziani reckoned he’d learned enough about the family to fill two epic poems and nine books of commentaries.

  “The only other one of them I’ve actually met,” he broke in, during a brief lull, “is Miel Ducas. He’s the head of the family, isn’t he?”

  Cantacusene nodded vigorously. “Ever since his uncle died, old Acer Ducas. Mind, he was only head because his first cousin Celat died young — bust his neck riding in the forest, the bloody fool. If it hadn’t been for that, Acer wouldn’t have been nobody. ’Course, he was seventy if he was a day when he came into the honor; up till then he’d just been collateral in the main line, and everybody expected him to peg out and Celat to take over when Jiraut died. But Celat died, what, seven years back; Jiraut went on the year after that, which meant Acer took over, and he only lasted six months, and then it was Miel. Youngest Ducas this century.”

  Ziani frowned. “So Miel wasn’t really anybody important till six years ago.”

  “Oh, he was important,” Cantacusene snapped, as though Ziani had just insulted his mother. “Leading collateral heir, he’d have copped for the minor honor in the main line when Acer died. But actually being the Ducas, that’s something else entirely. I don’t suppose you can understand that, not being from here.”

  Ziani shrugged. “He’s always come across to me as a pleasant enough man,” he said. “Quite quiet, very polite. I’m starting to see that that’s what I should have expected, but I’d been assuming the head of the family would be more like Jarnac, and the also-ran would’ve been like Miel. But really, it’s got to be the other way round, hasn’t it?”

  Cantacusene was torn, he could see, between two powerful forces: on the one hand, extreme discomfort at Ziani’s disrespectful attitude; on the other, the glorious opportunity to tell an ignorant foreigner all about the Ducas. Luckily, the opportunity won the day. “It’s something you got to understand about the good families,” Cantacusene said. “What they live by is duty. Duty to the family, traditions and stuff; duty to the Duke and the country. Nothing means more to them than that. So, the higher up they are, the more the duty sort of weighs on them, if you see what I mean. Really, all Jarnac’s got to do is keep up to what’s expected of him; like, he’s got to dress well, he’s got to hold big fancy banquets and dinners, he’s got to have the best stables and hounds and hawks — this is in peace-time, of course — and generally have the best of everything and be the best at everything, if you get me. It’s not his place to be getting into politics and government and all, or being a counselor or a minister or anything. Cadet branch, see. But Miel, it’s different for him. If he was to go putting on a big show, talking loud and that stuff, it wouldn’t be suitable, it’d be out of place. Not the right way for a senior man in the state to go on. He’s got to be a serious man, you see. Polite, quiet, all that, like you said.”

  “I see,” Ziani said. “Part of the job, then. Well, he’s very good at it.”

  Cantacusene laughed. “Didn’t use to be,” he said. “Of course, he got that scat in the face, which spoiled his looks. But before he got the honor, when he was more like Jarnac is now, if you follow me, he was a real bright spark. Specially with the girls.”

  Ziani frowned. “Because it was expected of him.”

  “Got to be the best at everything,” Cantacusene said. “And I suppose you could say he was, back then. Oh, I could tell you stories.”

  “I’m sure,” Ziani said.

  It was dark by the time they arrived at the list gate. They were directly under the shadow of the highest point of the keep wall. Being the cadet branch, the lesser Ducas lived outside the inner castle; being Ducas, they lived as close to it as they could possibly get. Cantacusene turned off the paved highway down a narrow alley — the wheel-hubs fouled the brickwork on both sides simultaneously as they turned a corner — that twisted to and fro up a slope between high walls until it came to a small door in a dark stone frontage. If it hadn’t been a dead end, Ziani wouldn’t have noticed it. Cantacusene jumped down and clubbed on the planking with the heel of his fist.

  “You’ve been here before, then?” Ziani said.

  “Been here delivering. Never gone inside, of course.”

  The door opened, just enough to give them sight of a pale blue eye and a wisp of gray hair. “Ziani Vaatzes,” Ziani said. “Delivery.”

  The owner of the eye and the hair came out and looked at him for a moment. “You’re to fetch it into the Great Hall,” he said. “He’s in his bath, but he’ll be down soon as he’s ready.”

  For a moment Ziani was sure Cantacusene would refuse to pass the door, like a horse shying at a jump. Curiosity must’ve got the better of awe for once; he shuffled along after Ziani, holding up one end of the first barrel and muttering something under his breath.

  The courtyard that separated them from the inner gate was laid out as a formal garden, with neatly trimmed knee-high hedges of lavender and box surrounding square or diamond-shaped beds, where closely mustered ranks of roses quartered with lilies and some kind of blue flower they didn’t have in Mezentia filled out the shape of the Ducas family arms. The effect wasn’t immediately obvious from the ground, but if a god happened to look down from the clouds, he’d be left in no doubt as to who lived there. A fountain dribbled quietly and unheeded in the exact center of the arrangement, feeding a small pond that probably housed small, inedible fi
sh.

  While Ziani and Cantacusene were manhandling the barrel along the gravel path, someone had opened the inner gate, which led into a cloister; a roofed-over hollow square enclosing a larger garden, with a lawn and an almond tree. The cloister itself was paved with polished limestone slabs; the walls were painted with scenes of Ducas family history, including one involving a small, pig-like dragon (up against a huge, bearded Ducas cap-à-pie in armor, it didn’t stand a chance). Ziani and Cantacusene toiled round three sides of the cloister, and arrived at a set of broad, shallow steps leading up to a massive studded oak door, which opened inward as they approached it.

  The hall they found themselves in was smaller than the Guildhall, or the main gallery of the ordnance factory; it was the height of the roof that set Ziani’s head swimming. He couldn’t begin to guess how far up the sheer walls went, until they sprouted a jungle of beams, plates and purlins (all painted and gilded, carved and embossed with flowers, animals, birds, gargoyles, severely frowning heads of the ancient Ducas, stars, suns and moons). He might have been able to cope with the sheer size, if it hadn’t been for the fact that every available square foot of wall was adorned with trophies of the hunt. There were forests of antlers, dense as an orchard; heads, skulls, escutcheons of boar-tusks, bear-claws and wolf-fangs arranged in circles, half-circles and spirals; claws, paws, tails, hoofs, enough spare parts to build a herd of composite monsters. Stuffed herons, partridges, rock-grouse, pigeons swung overhead on wires suspended from rafters, frozen in perpetuity in desperate flight from stuffed peregrines, goshawks, merlins and buzzards, their shadows huge and dramatic in the yellow glare of twelve-hundred-candle chandeliers. At the far end of the hall, flanking the high table on its raised platform, stood two enormous bears reared up on their hind legs, their forepaws raised to strike. Directly behind the massive, high-backed chair in the dead center of the table hung a wooden shield, on which the skull of an absurdly large wolf bared its fangs at all comers. Underneath each trophy, in lettering too small to read, was an inscription, painted on a billowing scroll.