Devices and Desires

by K. J. Parker

  He read the rest of the letter. It felt cold, because it was all based on error. It irritated him, as though he’d corrected her mistake but she carried on regardless, missing the point, refusing to listen to him. That was wrong; in fact, she was saying things he’d never thought she’d ever say, things that changed the world forever, but he found it very difficult to get past the frustration. He made an effort and cleared his mind of it; but the damage had been done. A letter from her had been wasted because of a misunderstanding, and all the things she could have said in it would have to wait till next time, or the time after that. He felt cheated, and had to remind himself that it wasn’t her fault.

  Someone was standing in the doorway. “Go away,” he snapped, then pulled a face. “No,” he said, “it’s all right, take no notice. What is it?”

  Stellachus, his chief of intelligence. “You sent for me,” he said apologetically.

  “Did I? Yes, I did. Come in and close the door.”

  Valens put his hand over the letter. If Stellachus noticed, he didn’t show it.

  “The Mezentine defector,” Valens said. “The one who went to Eremia. Apparently he’s dead.”

  Stellachus frowned. “I see,” he said. “May I ask… ?”

  Valens told him about the austringer’s report of what he’d heard in the inn. “Find out if it’s true,” Valens went on. “It sounds a bit unlikely, but I expect there’s something behind it. Also, I don’t seem to have seen anything recently about what’s going on in Mezentia. Last I heard, they’d got a bloody great big army sitting around doing nothing, and that’s not the way they like to do business. If you can get me accurate numbers, that’d be very good; also, they must be feeding them on something, and I want to know where all those supplies are coming from. And when you’ve done that,” he added with a grin, “I’d better see the chiefs of staff. Get someone to round them up for mid-afternoon, all right?”

  Stellachus bowed formally and went away, leaving him with the letter. His mind was clogged up with distractions (troop movements, supply routes, frontiers and lines on maps) and he felt as though the field had gone on ahead and left him behind. The world was tightening around him, he could feel it; it was a bad time not to be able to concentrate.

  He straightened his mind. He had the rest of the morning and the first half of the afternoon to reply to her letter — not long enough, but the first priority was to get a reply on its way as soon as possible, to make sure she wasn’t fretting. It’s all right; my previous letter didn’t reach you would probably be enough, but he couldn’t quite leave it at that, though perhaps he should. Then he’d need to think hard about the Mezentines — he’d let that slip, worrying about not having heard from her — but he needed the intelligence reports first, so it could wait a little while. Then there were other considerations, basic housekeeping: money, for one thing, and stocks of flour and oil and honey and the like, duty rosters and mobilization times, musters and resources. It’d be nice if he didn’t have to see to every last detail himself…

  Rain again, and he couldn’t help smiling as he remembered what she’d written.

  For some reason, summer rain falling on oak leaves always makes me think of you. I have no idea why, since the one time I saw you (that I can remember), we were both indoors and it was quite unbearably hot. Maybe I went out with the hunt one time, and we sheltered from the rain under an oak tree, but if so, I can’t remember that, either. To put this observation in context, the sound of horses on a hot day puts me in mind of my father, and I can’t smell onions without thinking of my mother. The last example can have no possible significance whatsoever. My mother hated onions, except when cooked for a long time in a stew.

  There was going to be a war, and she was going to be caught up in it. The realization made him stop dead, as though he’d walked into a wall. If the Mezentines laid siege to Civitas Eremiae there’d be no more women in red dresses bringing him letters; and she… He scowled. The Mezentines were strange, cold people but they weren’t savages. They didn’t butcher civilians, or sell them into slavery. Nevertheless, there was going to be a war, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. What he could do (had to do) was keep the war from seeping through into his own territory, because it was a simple fact of life that nobody ever beat the Mezentines at anything. If half of what he’d heard about the army mustering outside Mezentia was true, this was more than a punitive expedition or a judicious redefining of buffer zones and frontiers. The one aspect of the matter he wasn’t quite clear about was the reason behind it; but the Mezentines were under no obligation to explain to anybody, before or after the fact.

  Even so…

  Predictably, Stellachus was in the old library. He’d annexed the two small rooms at the back — nobody could remember what they’d been built for, and Valens’ father had used them to store and display his collection of hoods and jesses — and he spent most of his time there, when he wasn’t out trying to look busy. He glanced up in surprise as Valens walked in, and just possibly (his reactions were quick, as befitted a fencer) he pushed a small book he’d been reading under a sheaf of worthy-looking papers.

  “Sorry to barge in,” Valens said, with a slight grin. “Just a quick thought, before the meeting. You passed the word round, I take it.”

  Stellachus nodded twice. “They’re all on notice to attend,” he said.

  “Splendid.” Valens sat down, reached across the table, lifted the papers. The Garden of Love in Idleness, according to the small book’s spine. He covered it up again. “The Mezentines,” he said. “We both know that army’s headed for Eremia. What’s bothering me rather is why.”

  Stellachus did his best to look wise. “Retribution, presumably. Duke Orsea’s unprovoked attack.”

  Valens shrugged. “Hardly necessary,” he said. “It was a massacre, and if the Mezentines lost any men, I haven’t heard about it. That army they’ve put together must be costing them a fortune. They don’t spend money for fun.”

  “To make sure nothing of the sort ever happens again,” Stellachus said. “Last time, the Mezentines won an easy victory because of their war machines. They had plenty of time to deploy them, and the machines came as a complete surprise to Orsea and his people. Next time, they won’t walk so obligingly into the trap.”

  “Possibly,” Valens said, rubbing his palms together slowly. “And from their point of view, the Eremians are irrational, stupid; it’s only been five minutes since they got out of that crippling war with us, and what do they do? They pick on the most powerful nation in the world. People that stupid are capable of anything, and next time they might get incredibly lucky.” He frowned. “They might be thinking that way if they were us,” he said. “I mean, if they had a king or a duke who could make decisions on a whim. But they aren’t like that. Everything’s got to be debated in committees and sub-committees and special assemblies and general assemblies. For which we should be eternally grateful, since it means they move slowly and cautiously. Everything’s political with them, unless it goes right down deep under the politics to something really fundamental. If it was just a good-idea-at-the-time thing, it’d never get through. One party’d be in favor, all the other parties would be against, and you’d be able to hear them debating it from halfway across the desert.” He shrugged. “Don’t you agree?”

  “I hear what you’re saying,” Stellachus replied cautiously. “But it’s the party politics that makes them do a lot of apparently pointless or inexplicable things — inexplicable to outsiders, who don’t know the finer points of their infighting.”

  There was a degree of truth in that, Valens conceded. “Still,” he went on, “it seems a strange way to carry on, because surely it’s to their disadvantage to stamp on the Eremians too hard.”

  “You mean the Cure Hardy,” Stellachus said.

  “Exactly. They need Eremia as a buffer. That’s why they helped broker the peace between us and the Eremians, because they need both of us as a first line of defense. Weaken th
e Eremians too much, or wipe them out completely, and that just leaves us between them and the people they’re most afraid of. Now, how can that possibly make any sense?”

  Stellachus got up, poured two cups of wine, put one in front of Valens, sat down again. Valens sipped his cup, to be polite. “I don’t know,” Stellachus said. “All I can do is theorize. Would that help?”

  Valens lifted his hands. “Go ahead.”

  “Well.” Stellachus took a long pull at his wine (I must watch that, Valens thought; I guess he’s been under pressure recently). “Two possibilities come to mind. First, it’s like you say, something to do with Mezentine politics. Actually,” he added with a slight frown, “make that three possibilities. As I was saying; Mezentine politics. There’s a power struggle between two factions, and for some reason one of them wants a big war, to help with whatever their agenda may be. They’re looking round for someone to hit; Eremia’s the best target, because they’re unpunished aggressors and they’re small. That’s the first possibility. Number two. Let’s consider the size of this army of theirs.” He hesitated. “Now we can’t do that properly, because I haven’t got you the full data yet; but we’ll forgive me for that and move on. It’s a very large army, costing them a lot of money, causing them all sorts of logistical problems which presumably they’ve figured out how to handle. Query: is this the biggest army Mezentia’s ever put in the field? Don’t know, but we’ll find out. Anyway, it’s big; and the Mezentine policy’s always been to defend themselves with clever machines rather than big armies. A defensive strategy, in other words.”

  Valens dipped his head in acknowledgment of a valid point. “They’ve changed, then,” he said. “From machines to men; from defensive to offensive.”

  “It’s a hypothesis,” Stellachus said, “but no proof. Possibility two is that they’ve been taking a long-term approach to the Cure Hardy problem, and this invasion of Eremia’s just a prelude to them taking the offensive against the Cure Hardy. Now why they’d want to do that is another issue; the Cure Hardy live a long way away and have never caused the Mezentines any bother — which isn’t to say they wouldn’t if they could, and through sheer force of numbers they’re the only power we know of that could give the Mezentines a bad time. The way they think — if I’m right about that — a threat in being simply isn’t acceptable. As long as the Cure Hardy exist, the Mezentines can’t sleep at night. You’d have to look at all sorts of factors — economics, cash reserves, manpower levels — and see if there’s a pattern that’d suggest that the Mezentines have been working toward this point for some time, where they’re strong enough to go on the offensive against the Cure Hardy. If so, crushing Eremia might make sense as a preparatory move. Personally, in their shoes, I’d want them as allies — us, too — if I was considering something like that, but the Mezentines’ minds work differently to ours. Quite possibly they’d see wiping out the Eremians as a necessary preliminary chore; clearing away the brushwood, if you like, before you start felling.”

  Valens nodded again. “And number three?”

  “Number three,” Stellachus repeated. “You said earlier that sometimes they do things because of reasons that go right down under the politics to something absolutely basic, something that’s so deeply ingrained in their mindset that even they won’t bicker and bitch about it. In which case,” he went on, “I don’t suppose they’d stop to consider the effects on the balance of power or regional stability; not if it’s — well, a matter of principle. Actually, of the three this one fits best what we know about this business.”

  “Which isn’t as much as we should,” Valens said quietly.

  “Granted.” Stellachus looked away. “But we’ll put that right, I promise. It seems to me, though, that the Mezentines have moved very quickly, very decisively, on this; by their standards, I mean. And what I’m getting at isn’t what we’ve heard but what we haven’t heard. I mean, normally we’d expect to be hearing reports and rumors about major ructions and debates in the Guilds long before any armies landed. Instead, practically the first thing we know about it is soldiers getting off ships. Therefore, I suggest, we’ve got a cause of war that doesn’t need to be endlessly argued over and politicked about; and I think I know what it might be.”

  Valens smiled. “The defector,” he said.

  Really, it was a shame to disappoint him, after he’d worked toward his grand finale so artfully. “Yes,” Stellachus said, “the one they wanted information about.”

  “The one who’s just died,” Valens pointed out.

  “Indeed. Now we know how the Republic thinks about defectors; it’s legendary, they’re hunted down and killed, no messing. But this particular one, who was not only a defector but a murderer and possibly a political dissident as well; and a big wheel at one of their factories, so he must’ve known a lot of sensitive stuff about engineering —”

  “Foreman at the ordnance factory,” Valens said. “You should read your own reports.”

  Stellachus didn’t wince visibly; he was growing a thick hide, Valens noted with approval. “This one’s obviously worse than usual,” he said. “And as soon as he escaped he headed straight for Eremia and Duke Orsea. Like, let’s say, a homing pigeon.”

  Valens smiled. “Nicely put,” he said. “So Orsea’s implicated, in their minds at least. Hence open war rather than the usual covert assassination.”

  “Mezentine defectors traditionally don’t get very far,” Stellachus said. “The price on their heads is too tempting, and of course a brown face is pretty hard to overlook. Nobody wants anything to do with them, because it’s too dangerous. But this one —”

  “Ziani Vaatzes.”

  “Vaatzes,” Stellachus said, “makes a clean getaway and goes straight to Duke Orsea, who takes him back to Eremia on his way home from having the shit kicked out of him by the Mezentine war engines. Vaatzes used to work in the factory where those engines were made. Now, some of it may be coincidence, but —”

  Valens held up a hand. “The Eremians couldn’t make copies of the war engines,” he said. “You’d have to start from scratch, build the machines that make the machines that make the special steel, and all that. It’d mean years of expensive investment. And besides,” he added, “I happen to know, Vaatzes suggested it and Orsea turned him down. And if I know that, the Mezentines do too.”

  “Doesn’t signify,” Stellachus said emphatically. “It creates a possibility, you see; something else besides the Cure Hardy for the Mezentines to lie awake worrying about. If I’m right, the moment Orsea and Vaatzes met, under those rather special circumstances, this invasion was inevitable. In which case,” he went on, “it won’t just be an invasion.”

  For a moment, Valens was silent. “That’s a rather large undertaking,” he said.

  “Hence,” Stellachus replied, “the rather large army. We know they don’t do things by halves. No skin off their noses, of course; that’s the charm of using mercenaries. Every casualty’s a saving on the wage bill rather than a dead citizen.”

  It was Valens’ turn to look away. “Have you ever been to Civitas Eremiae? Me neither. But by all accounts it’s the perfect defensive position, massively fortified —”

  “War engines,” Stellachus said. “Why send a man where you can send a large rock, or a big steel spike? Probably just the sort of technical challenge your red-blooded Mezentine engineer relishes.”

  The Mezentines aren’t savages, Valens reminded himself, but it didn’t sound so reassuring this time. “Storming Civitas Eremiae,” he said slowly, “would be an impressive achievement.”

  “The Cure Hardy.”

  “Quite.” Valens frowned. “Assuming it’s possible to impress them, or that they care. But I can see how the Mezentines would view it as a pleasant fringe benefit, to scare the wits out of the Cure Hardy.”

  “And it’d make a first-class frontier post,” Stellachus added, “assuming they don’t level it to the ground in the process. Anyway,” he said briskly, “that’s thr
ee possibilities. There could well be others; those were just the first things that came to mind.”

  Valens grinned. It’d be wise to keep an eye on Stellachus’ drinking, and he was as lazy as a fat dog, but he was still most likely the best man for his job. “Think about it some more,” he said. “Meanwhile, I’ll let you get back to your paperwork.”

  Stellachus inclined his head, like a fencer admitting a touch. “I’ll have the stuff you need about the Mezentine army as soon as possible,” he said.

  “Good. See you later, at the meeting.”

  As he retraced his steps back to his reading room, Valens wondered how on earth he was going to reply to her letter now, with his mind full of what Stellachus had suggested. Perhaps she didn’t know there was going to be a war; perhaps Orsea didn’t know… He lifted his head and stared blankly out of the window, at the billowing curtain of thin, slanted rain. If the defector was dead, surely the problem had solved itself; no Vaatzes, no risk to the Republic, no war. Somehow, he knew it wouldn’t work like that.

  I’m not in control of this situation, he told himself suddenly. I wonder who is.

  He sat down, laid his sheet of parchment flat on the tabletop, looked at it. At that moment it put him in mind of the very best tempered steel armor; warranted impossible to make a mark on it, no matter how hard you tried.

  Valens Valentinianus to Veatriz Sirupati, greetings.

  He put the pen down, lined it up carefully with the edge of the desk. Precision in all things, like a Mezentine.

  (I’ll have to tell her, he thought. Maybe, if I can make her understand, I can get her to promise; as soon as the Mezentines get too close, she’ll come here — she can bring him too, if she likes, just so long as she’s safe, here, with me…)