by K. J. Parker
“Don’t they practice fencing where you come from, then?” Orudino asked. Ziani shook his head.
“We aren’t allowed to have weapons,” he replied. “It’s against the law.”
The sergeant looked at him with contempt. “Doesn’t stop you picking on the likes of us, though,” he said. “Well, you aren’t at home now. Concentrate. Fix your eyes on where you want to hit, and it should just come naturally.”
Did it hell. After a long time and a great many attempts, the sergeant stopped him, took down the hoop and said, “Let’s stick to the basic defenses for now. Right, high guard, sword-hand in First, watch what I’m doing and step in to block and push away.”
The defenses were slightly better than the attacks, but they still weren’t easy. At last, however, he grasped the idea of taking a step back or to the side to keep his distance. Try as he might, however, he couldn’t organize himself well enough to counter each attack with a simultaneous attack of his own. One thing at a time, his brain insisted, defend and then attack; but by the time he’d blocked, deflected or avoided, there wasn’t time to hit back. There was always another attack on the way, and pretty soon he found himself backed into a corner with nowhere to go.
“We’re just not getting anywhere,” the sergeant said. “I’ve been teaching fencing for twenty years, I’ve taught kids of ten and old men of sixty, and I’ve never had a complete failure, not till now. Sorry, but I don’t think I can help you. Best thing you can do is buy yourself a thick padded coat or a breastplate, and try and stay out of trouble.”
Ziani leaned against the wall. His legs were weak and shaky from the effort, his elbows and forearms hurt and he had a blinding headache. He hated the sergeant more than anybody he’d ever met. “Let’s give it one more go,” he said. “Don’t try and teach me the whole lot. Let’s just concentrate on one or two things.”
The sergeant shrugged. “I’ve got nothing better to do,” he said. “But I think you’re wasting your time. All right, then, let’s have a middle guard in Third. No, bring your back foot round more, and don’t stick your right hand so far out, not unless you’re trying to draw me in on purpose.”
Slowly, bitterly, with extraordinary effort, Ziani learned to defend from the middle guard. “It’s better than nothing,” the sergeant told him. “Forget about countering for now, just concentrate on distance. If you aren’t there, you can’t be hit. Simple as that.”
The sergeant wanted to leave it at that, but Ziani refused. “I want just one thing I can use,” he said. “Like the hedgehog in the proverb.”
“I don’t know any proverbs about hedgehogs.” The sergeant shrugged. “All right,” he said, “we’ll try the back-twist. Actually it’s a pretty advanced move, but for anybody sparring with you, it’d come as a complete surprise. Now; middle guard in Third, like normal; and when I thrust at you on the straight line, you bring your back foot a long step behind your front foot, till you’ve almost turned away from me. That takes you right out of the way of my attack, and you can stab me where you like as I go past.”
To the complete surprise of both of them, Ziani got it almost right on the third attempt. “It’s like I always say,” the sergeant told him, “if someone can’t learn the easy stuff, teach him something difficult instead. You’d be surprised how often it works.”
So they practiced the back-twist many, many times, until Ziani was doing it without thinking. “It’s actually a good one to learn,” the sergeant said, “because if you get it right, that’s the fight over before it starts. It’s half a circle instead of a straight line. All right, a couple more times and then I’m calling it a day.”
It was a glorious relief to get away from him, out of his bare brick box into the open air. Ziani only had a very vague idea of where in the city he was, but he didn’t care. He was content to wander, choosing turnings almost at random to see where they led. Almost perversely, he had no trouble finding a way home.
Cantacusene was in the main gallery, shouting at someone for ruining a whole batch of springs. He waited till he’d finished, then called him over.
“You know about swords and things,” he said. “Where’s the best place to buy one?”
Cantacusene frowned. “Depends,” he said, predictably. “What do you want?”
“A side-sword,” Ziani replied, “or a short rapier, preferably with a bit of an edge. Imported,” he added quickly. “Nothing flashy, just something simple and sturdy.”
Cantacusene told him a name, and where to find a particular stall in the market. “You can say I sent you if you like,” he added. “She’s my second cousin, actually.”
“Thanks. What was that about a batch of springs, then?”
The next day, early, he went to the market and found Cantacusene’s cousin; a tall, fat woman with a pleated shawl over her red bodice and gown. For some reason, she seemed to think he wanted something very expensive with a swept hilt, fluted pommel and ivory grip; it took him quite some time to convince her otherwise, but he managed it in the end and came away with a short rapier, slightly browned with age, in a battered scabbard. He left it propped against the wall of his tower room and went back to work.
Not long after midday, a messenger arrived, from Miel Ducas: could Vaatzes come immediately, please. He followed the messenger (he was getting tired of having to be led everywhere, like a blind man) to the Ducas house. Miel Ducas was waiting for him in a small room off the main cloister. He was sitting behind a table covered with maps, letters, lists and schedules, and he looked exhausted.
“Bad news,” the Ducas said straight away. “They’ve bypassed the Barbuda gate — that’s here,” he added, jabbing his forefinger at some squiggle on a map, “and at the rate they’re going, they’ll be down there in the valley this time day after tomorrow. I’m taking three squadrons of cavalry to give them a bit of a hard time at a place I know, but really that’s just to show willing. Fact is, the war’s about to start. How ready can you be by then?”
Ziani shrugged. “I’m ready now,” he said. “We’ve run out of hardening steel and we’re nearly out of ordinary iron. I’m still making machines by bodging bits together, but I don’t suppose I’ve got enough material for another full day’s production. Really, we’re as ready as we’ll ever be. I’ve already got four hundred and fifty scorpions installed and ready; actually, it’d be a bit of a struggle to fit any more in on the wall.”
“I see,” the Ducas said. “Is that going to be enough?”
Ziani smiled. “No idea,” he said. “When you’re dealing with the Republic, there’s no such thing as enough. It’s like saying, how many buckets will I need to empty the sea? But,” he went on, as the Ducas scowled at him, “they’re going to need a bloody big army if they don’t want to run out of men before we run out of scorpion bolts.”
That seemed to cheer the Ducas up a little. He sighed, and nodded his head. “You’ve done very well,” he said. “I’m grateful, believe me. If we get out of this ghastly mess in one piece, I’ll see to it that you’re not forgotten.” He shrugged. “You know,” he said, “there’s a part of me that still doesn’t really believe that all this can be happening. Try as I might, I can’t understand why they’re doing it. Doesn’t make sense, somehow.”
Ziani smiled wryly. “That’s because you think it’s about you,” he said. “It isn’t. It’s really an internal matter; Guild politics, that sort of thing. I don’t suppose that’s any consolation.”
The Ducas shook his head. “I don’t imagine it’ll be much comfort to the poor bastards on the wrong end of your scorpion bolts,” he said. “Tell me, what on earth possesses them to sign up, anyway? Isn’t there any work for them back wherever they come from?”
“No idea,” Ziani said. “All I know about the old country is that we came here to get away from them, a long time ago, and now we do a lot of business with them, mostly textiles, farm tools and domestic hardware. The general impression I’ve got over the years is that they’re a practically inexha
ustible supply of manpower, but I can’t remember them ever getting slaughtered like sheep before. It’s possible they may not want to keep coming if that happens.”
“Well, quite.” The Ducas grinned. “It’s getting so difficult to find good help these days.”
He didn’t seem to want anything else, so Ziani made his excuses and took his leave. He felt a strong urge to look back over his shoulder, but he resisted it. Thanks to the Ducas, he’d learned a valuable lesson about compassion, and its deceptive relationship to love. With every step he took away from the place, he found it easier to bring to mind the fact that it was Duke Orsea who’d taken pity on him, on the day when he’d been dying in the mountains, and that the Ducas had been all in favor of having him quietly killed, or left to die. Not that it mattered, as things had turned out. The Ducas had paid him back many times over. Besides, compassion at first sight is generally like love at first sight; both of them are dangerous instincts, often leading to disaster.
He turned up the long, wide street whose name he could never remember (it was something to do with horses, not that that helped much) and followed it uphill toward the center of the city. At the lower crossroads he paused. If he turned right, he could go to his patron Calaphates’ house. He hadn’t spoken to his benefactor for a long time, let alone sent him any accounts, or a statement of his share of the profits. Calaphates had been kind to him, though largely out of self-interest; he owed him some consideration, the bare minimum required by good manners. Or he could turn left and take the wide boulevard lined with stunted cherry trees that led to the inner wall, and beyond that, the Duke’s palace. If he owed a duty to his patrons, he certainly ought to make time to report to Duke Orsea, who’d shown him kindness even though he was an enemy, at a time when anybody would have forgiven him for doing the exact opposite. The thought made him smile, though part of him still regretted all of it, deeply and with true compassion. He went left. At the palace gatehouse he asked to see the chamberlain. After a shorter wait than he’d anticipated, he was seen and granted an interview with the Duke, at noon precisely, the day after tomorrow. It occurred to Ziani that if the Ducas was right, that would be the day before the Mezentine army was due to arrive. Couldn’t be better, he decided.
After he’d seen Vaatzes, Miel Ducas spent an hour going over the plans for the cavalry raid one last agonizing time. He was sure there was at least one fatal flaw in his design, probably two or three, and that anybody with a faint trace of residual common sense would be able to spot it, or them, in a heartbeat. It was as though he could hear voices in the next room and knew they were discussing the disastrous failure of the coming raid, and how it had ultimately led to the fall of Eremia, but he couldn’t quite make out what they were saying.
The same voices haunted him all evening. He took them with him when he went to bed (very early, since he had to be up well before dawn the next day) and they kept him awake until he was at the point where sleep would do him more harm than good. When the footman woke him up with hot water and a light breakfast he felt muzzy and cramped, with a tight feeling at the sides of his head that wanted to be a really nasty headache when it grew up.
It wasn’t a good day for headaches; nor for stomach upsets, but he had one of them too. When he clambered awkwardly onto his horse, well behind schedule, he felt as though some malicious person was twisting his intestines tightly round a stick. Nerves, he promised himself; also he knew for a fact that there couldn’t possibly be anything inside him left to come out.
As was only proper for the Ducas going to war, he wore a middleweight gambeson with mail gussets under a heavyweight coat of plates with full plate arm and leg defenses, right down to steel-soled sabatons on his feet. Because he was the commander in chief and therefore under an obligation to keep in touch with what was going on around him, he’d substituted an open sallet for the full great-helm, but someone had failed to check to see whether the Ducas crest (which was essential as a means of identification in the field) would fit the sallet’s crest-holder. It didn’t, so the sallet had to go back and the great-helm came out instead. Inside it, of course, he could barely see, hear or breathe; so he compromised by giving it to his squire to carry and going bare-headed.
He rode with only his squire for company as far as the Horse-fair, where he was joined by half a dozen mounted men in full armor, hurrying because they were running late. They slowed down when they saw it was him; one of them joked that he must’ve got the time wrong, because he was sure the muster had been set for half an hour earlier.
At the gate he found everybody else waiting for him. Cousin Jarnac had apparently assumed temporary command in his absence. Jarnac, of course, looked the part so much more than he did. The battle harness of the lesser Ducas was blued spring steel, with a single-piece placket instead of the coat of plates, and a bevored sallet with an eighteen-inch boiled leather crest in the form of a crouching boar. If he hadn’t known better he’d have followed Jarnac unquestioningly; so, he suspected, would everybody else.
All told, the armored contingent numbered over four hundred; the rest of his army was made up of five hundred mounted archers and eight hundred lancers, middleweight-heavy cavalry in munition-grade black-and-white half-armor. Dawn was soaking through the dark blue sky, and a trace of mist hung round the main gate as, feeling horribly self-conscious about his appearance, horsemanship and perceived lack of any leadership ability whatsoever, Miel Ducas led the way out of the city and down the long road to the valley floor.
Because they were late starting, there was nothing for it but to take the old carters’ road, Castle Lane, round the side of the hog’s back crossed by the main road. That would save an hour, assuming it wasn’t blocked by a landslide or fallen trees, and they’d come out five hundred yards from the fork where the Packhorse Drove branched off. The drove would take them down into the wooded combe that ran parallel to the road; at the Merebarton (assuming it wasn’t a swamp after the late rain) they’d split into two and try and bottle the enemy up in the Blackwater Pass. Even if everything went perfectly they’d only be able to hold the two ends of the pass for a short while, but every Mezentine they killed today was one they wouldn’t have to deal with later. At the council of war where the plan had been discussed, someone had described this approach as trying to empty a river with a tablespoon. Thinking about it, it had been Miel himself who said that, and nobody had contradicted him.
Castle Lane proved to be reasonably clear, and they made good time. Halfway down Packhorse Drove, however, they came almost within long bowshot of an enemy scouting party, who took one look at them and galloped away. Disaster; if the scouts got back to the main army, the whole plan would be ruined. Miel’s first instinct was to send a half-squadron of lancers after them, but fortunately he didn’t give in to it. God only knew how the enemy were managing to raise a gallop on the rock-and-mud surface of the drove; their horses must have iron hoofs and no bones in their legs. Trying to catch them or match their pace would be impossible for mere mortal horses, and the fewer men he sent charging around the landscape at this stage, the better. The only thing for it was to cut up diagonally across the rough to the road instead of taking the deer-trails he’d planned on using. That way, with luck, his men would stay between the scouts and their army, so they wouldn’t be able to deliver their message. They’d come up a quarter-mile away from the gates of the canyon on the south side, but (with more luck) they’d be able to close that distance before the enemy got there. The northern wing would have to take its time getting into position. First screw-up of the day, Miel acknowledged sourly, and highly unlikely to be the last.
Cutting across the rough sounded fine when you said it, briskly and confidently, to your cool, eager staff officers. Putting the order into practice was something else entirely. Even the perfectly trained and schooled horses of the Ducas house weren’t happy about leaving the path and crashing about through holly and briars; for the most part, the archers’ and lancers’ horses followed where the k
nights led, but it could only have been out of bewildered curiosity. Above all, they made a racket that surely could’ve been heard in the city. Only one man actually fell off and hurt himself, but he was the lesser Nicephorus, an enormous man in full plate, and the crash bounced about among the trees like a small bird trapped in a barn.
Coming out of the forest onto the road and into the light was a terrifying experience. Very reluctantly, but with duty forcing him on like a jailer, Miel led the way and was the first to break cover. He expected yells, movement, a flurry of arrows, but he had the road to himself. He reined in his horse and stood quite still for a moment or so, feeling as though he was the last man on earth. He could hear no birds singing, not even a bee or a horsefly, and it occurred to him that the enemy had already been and gone. But a glance at the road set his mind at rest; no hoofmarks, footprints, wheel-tracks to be seen.
Which reminded him. He turned in the saddle and waved his men on, then rode back to intercept one of the line officers, a man he trusted.
“Have the rearguard remembered to cut some branches?” he asked. He realized while he was saying it that the branch-cutting detail weren’t this officer’s responsibility; but he nodded and said yes, he’d watched them doing it, and did the Ducas want him to go back and make sure it was all done right?
Miel had absolute confidence in his subordinates, but even so he hung back and watched as the rearguard tied cut branches to the pommels of their saddles and dragged them behind as they rode on, sweeping away the column’s hoofprints. The result didn’t look right, but it was less obvious than the tracks of a thousand horses.
He remembered the canyon, though it was several years since the last time he’d been there, hunting late-season wolves with Jarnac and the Sphax twins. On that occasion the place had played cruelly on his nerves, because he hadn’t yet got the hang of not being at war with the Vadani and therefore constantly at risk from maverick raiding parties, and because anybody with more imagination than a small rock could see it was a perfect place for an ambush. He started worrying; the enemy commander was by definition a professional soldier, trained from childhood to spot dangerous terrain. Surely he’d have recognized the risk from his scouts’ reports. Either he wouldn’t show up at all, which would be horribly embarrassing, or else he’d figured out an ingenious counter-ambush of his own that’d leave the Eremians trapped in their own snare. The more he thought about it, the more obvious it was that that was precisely what was about to happen. At any moment, archers would appear on the skyline, or the sun would disappear behind a curtain of falling scorpion bolts. Maybe he’d be lucky and die in the first volley, thereby spared the humiliating pain of knowing he’d led the flower of Eremian chivalry to a pointless, shameful death…