Devices and Desires

by K. J. Parker

  Melancton raised an eyebrow. Melodrama. “Can’t it wait?” he muttered.

  “I know how to break into the city without a full assault.”

  That was almost worth sitting up for. “Is that right?” Melancton said.

  “Yes. We can get in without them noticing, until it’s too late.”

  It happened sometimes, after a serious disaster. You got people who suddenly declared they’d been visited by angels, or who’d just realized they were the Son of God. Usually the voices told them how to achieve total victory without further bloodshed. Occasionally, they decided they were some ancient warrior saint reincarnated, and they’d trot off on their own, sword drawn, yelling, toward the enemy, and be shot down by outlying archers. “You’ve found this out just now, I suppose,” Melancton said wearily. “In a dream, or something.”

  “No.” The little man was getting angry. “Look, it’s all in here.” He was holding out a silly little scrap of parchment, much folded. “It’s a letter from Vaatzes, the traitor.”

  First, Melancton told the day-officer to get out, then, painfully, he raised himself just enough so he could reach the paper gripped in Falier’s outstretched hand. “Give me that,” he said. “What are you doing, getting letters from him?”

  He remembered the answer before Falier gave it; there had been a footnote in his personnel file. “I knew him,” Falier was saying. “I worked with him. We were friends.”

  The man’s handwriting was atrocious; small, cramped, full of dots and needles. That made it frustrating, because there were several key words he couldn’t make out. In the end he had to hand it back. “Read it to me,” he said.

  Falier cleared his throat, like a boy about to make a speech on Founder’s Day.

  Ziani Vaatzes to Falier Zenonis.

  I hope you’ll read this, Falier, rather than be all high-minded and burn it without breaking the seal — though if that’s what you’ve done, I can’t really blame you. After all, I’m entirely responsible for the terrible things that have happened over the last day or so.

  Will you believe me, I wonder, when I say that I want to try and make amends? You’ll have to form your own opinion. I hope you decide in my favor. It’ll go badly with what’s left of my conscience if you don’t.

  What I want you to do is take this letter to the military authorities, as high up the chain of command as you can possibly get. What follows are detailed instructions for capturing the city, easily, quickly and with minimal loss of life. I guess you could say I’ve had a change of heart; or maybe what I saw from the ramparts yesterday was more than even I could bear.

  The key to it all is the city’s water supply system. It’s actually quite a remarkable thing. The mountain is honeycombed — I think that’s the right word — with caves, tunnels and natural lakes. The Eremians have spent the last couple of centuries judiciously improving on nature. They can now store a year’s supply of clean water, using nothing but the runoff from the eaves of their houses. Extraordinary piece of design; but it’s also a glaring weak spot in the defenses. You see, in order to move around inside the mountain, so as to maintain and repair, they’ve enlarged or added to the cave network; there’s a maze of tunnels and corridors under the mountain, wide enough to drive a cart along. And — this is where they were too smart by half — there’s an entrance at the foot of the mountain, on the north side, one hundred and eighty degrees from the main gate. In fact, it’s a drain plug. If there’s unusually heavy rainfall and the cisterns get full up and there’s a risk of backup and overflow, they open this plug and drain off the surplus water. Naturally it’s a deadly secret, but these people aren’t very good at secrecy.

  You’ll find the outside entrance to the drain directly under an outcrop of rock shaped like a parsnip. You’ll know you’ve got the right place, because if you stand under it and look straight up, you’ll see a watch-tower on the wall with a definite lean to it — six degrees or thereabouts.

  Once you’re inside, you’ll find yourself in a long, straight tunnel. There are loads of turnings off it, but you need to keep going straight for six hundred yards, until you reach a fork. Take the left turning, and you’ll be in a wide gallery, curving very slightly to the right all the time. You’re actually following the line of the wall. Every fifty yards or so, you’ll find a stairwell; the stairs go up to landings and then on again, right up to the level of the city floor, so to speak. Each stairwell is numbered; you keep going till you come to number 548. Go up the stairs, you’ll find yourself on a landing or mezzanine, and then there’ll be more stairs, another landing, and so on, till you’ve gone up eleven levels to a circular platform under a high stone ceiling. At that point, you’re directly under the cistern for the guardhouse of the main gate. At roughly a hundred and ten degrees, you’ll find a small passageway that leads to a heavy oak door. You’ll need to smash your way through that; it’s the failsafe plug, in case the cistern leaks. Get through that and you’re in the cistern overflow, which is a sort of wellshaft leading right up into the guardhouse itself; there’s an iron ladder bolted to the wall. You go up that, and you’re no more than fifteen yards from the gate. After that, it’s up to you.

  You’ll have noticed, I’m sure, that I’m giving you the information before I ask for something in return. Well, I never did have a head for business, and bargaining isn’t my strong suit. What I’m asking for — well, let’s be realistic. I know I can never go home. I’ve accepted that. I know if I struck a deal to give away this information in return for a pardon or whatever, they’d go back on their side of it as soon as they’d taken the city. The Perpetual Republic doesn’t bargain with traitors and abominators, and isn’t bound by its word when negotiating with them. Nor should it be. So, let’s be realistic. This isn’t an attempt to bargain, it’s a simple plea for mercy. Please ask them to let Ariessa and Moritsa go; they’ve done nothing wrong, everything was my fault. I can’t insist, I know; I can only beg, and try and set the score straight. I’m doing this because, in the final analysis, I’ve only ever loved my family and the Republic, and I’ve caused terrible harm to both of them. I can’t go on living with that on my conscience, and simply killing myself without trying to make amends would only be another form of running away.

  Well, Falier my dear old friend, that’s all I’ve got to say for myself. If I survive the assault, I expect I’ll be captured, taken home and killed in some flamboyant manner or other. That’d be no more than I deserve. I’m not brave enough to cut my own throat. I don’t suppose I’ll see you again. Please, please take care of Ariessa and Moritsa. I love them more than anything else. I’ve just got a lousy way of showing it, that’s all.

  * * *

  Melancton looked up.

  “That’s his handwriting?” he said.

  Falier nodded. “I can guarantee it,” he said.

  “You think he’s telling the truth?”

  “Yes,” Falier said.

  Melancton thought for a long time. “If he’s lying,” he said, “what would it achieve? At best, he’d have lured a couple of dozen of our men into a trap. Big deal, he’s already killed seventeen thousand —” He broke off and grinned. “Hadn’t you heard? That’s the number, as far as we can make out. That’s what your friend’s got to answer for.”

  “I didn’t know,” Falier said quietly.

  “Don’t take it to heart.” Melancton shrugged. “It’s not like it’s your fault. Doesn’t make any odds, though. Whether or not the Guilds do as he asks and let the family go is political, nothing to do with me.” He paused and frowned. “I believe him,” he said. “Mostly because there’s nothing to be gained by lying, in the position he’s in. Tell me, you know him; is he screwed up enough to do something like this?”

  Falier hesitated. “Yes,” he said.

  “Splendid.” Melancton sighed, and let his head sink back onto the pillow. “It seems like he caused the mess and now he’s going to put it right for us. Nobody need ever know, of course. As far as the folks ba
ck home are concerned, we found it out for ourselves. What about the family, by the way? What happened to them?”

  “Nothing,” Falier said. “The Republic doesn’t do things like that, taking it out on innocent women and children. They’re fine.”

  “Well then, that’s all right,” Melancton said bitterly. “He gets what he wants, and so do we. I may even be able to salvage my career from this godawful mess. Wouldn’t that be nice? We’ll give it a try; things can’t get any worse if it doesn’t work.” He paused, scowling. “There’s one thing, though. He talks about opening the gate, but that’s out of the question. We smashed the gate in, and they’ve blocked the gateway up with rubble. Even if we get men inside, there’s nothing much they can do.”

  Evidently Falier hadn’t thought of that. “No,” he said, “I see your point.”

  “It’s a strange mistake to make,” Melancton said. “He must know about the gate; I don’t understand. But…” He closed his eyes. “I suppose that if we sent in, say, three dozen men, they might be able to make a breach before they’re cut down. They must have beams and so forth shoring the blockage up from the inside; someone told me it’s just bricks and rubble, they haven’t had time to do a proper job. It’s not as though I’ve got anything to lose, and what’s three dozen men more or less?” He laughed out loud, for some reason. “Fine,” he said. “Do me a favor, go and find my general staff, and we’ll see what we can do about this. I wish I could see the point of this gate business, but there’s always something. The bizarrely inexplicable is generally a factor in great events of world history — you know, the bridge unaccountably left unbroken, the sentry not posted because someone thought it was someone else’s job.” He yawned. “I’m rambling. I’ve had enough of this war.”

  Falier was glad to get out of the tent. He had the impression that whoever it was that the general had been talking to, it hadn’t been him.

  Find the general staff, he’d said. Of course, Falier had no idea how to go about something like that; so he stopped the first officer he came aross and told him to do it. The officer looked startled and bolted away like a rabbit.

  Seventeen thousand, Falier thought. Of course, it didn’t really matter, since they were only mercenaries, and there were proverbially plenty more where they’d come from. Nevertheless. He’d done exactly what Ziani had told him to do in his covering letter; it came naturally, doing what Ziani said, and he hadn’t really thought about what the consequences might be. If he’d taken the letter to someone in authority straight away, as soon as he’d received it, things would be very different now. Before, he’d seen the situation only in terms of inevitabilities; it was inevitable that Civitas Eremiae would fall and that the Republic would prevail, that Ziani would be killed, and that he would be promoted to chief supervisor of the ordnance factory, in recognition of the part he’d played in bringing the war to a successful conclusion. He’d seen it all as one complex mechanism, designed by someone with a clearer eye than his, as complete and remote as a Guild Specification. Accordingly, he hadn’t interfered (to alter Specification is an act of abomination, after all) and had relied instead on faith, as a good engineer should. In which case, his conscience was clear. Besides, they were all only foreigners.

  He went back to his tent. Until yesterday he’d had to share it with an artillery captain, a loathsome man who snored, smelled of onions and stole things from his trunk. Now, however, he had it all to himself. His immediate reaction when they’d told him had been joy at the prospect of getting a good night’s sleep; that wasn’t good, he knew, but he really couldn’t help it. There was, of course, a vast divide between failing to mourn the death of a nuisance and doing the sort of things Ziani had done, but even a vast divide is made up of small subdivisions of space, which add up to the whole.

  They hadn’t come for the artilleryman’s things yet. Understandable; they were busy. The clutter of dirty clothes and boots was still there, but now at least he could brush them out of his way without any risk of being shouted at or hit. He cleared a space on the top of his trunk, opened it and took out his writing-set. The artilleryman had plundered six of his nine sheets of parchment; if he’d lived, he’d probably have had the other three before too long, so maybe everything had turned out for the best. He flipped the lid of the inkwell, dribbled in a few drops of water, stirred, and thought about what he was going to say.

  My darling

  Words on paper had never come easily to him. I miss you, it’s terrible being here without you, I don’t know how much longer I can go on; all perfectly true, but if he wrote that and sent it to her, she’d think he was cracking up, and he wasn’t. He was unhappy, and being separated from her had a lot to do with that, but it wasn’t the only thing. This horrible war… Would they censor that? He didn’t want to attract further attention to himself, given his links to the traitor, and the part he’d played in passing on his message. He knew what he wanted to say, but words were always difficult (he thought of Ziani, and his dreadful bad poetry; what had she made of it? he wondered. She’d never struck him as the poetic sort, somehow).

  My darling, I wish I was back home with you instead of stuck here in this miserable place. I can’t really say too much in a letter about how the war’s going, but at present there’s no real way of knowing how long it’s likely to take.

  He scowled. If the artilleryman hadn’t been so free with his paper, he’d have screwed the sheet up and started again. He was, he knew, at a disadvantage in a situation like this, because he loved her so much more than she loved him. It was something he’d come to terms with, but it made him feel uncomfortably vulnerable when it came to expressing how he felt. Unfortunate; but there’s no accounting for love.

  If all goes well [he could say that; he wasn’t specifying how things might go well] I may be home again fairly soon; I just don’t know. You mustn’t worry about money or anything like that, I’ve taken care of everything. If anything happens to me, I’ve seen to it you’ll be all right. Not that I’m in any danger, I hasten to add. I’m just an engineer, after all, not a soldier.

  When I get home, I’ve got a surprise for you. I won’t spoil it, but I think you’ll like it.

  Anyway, that’ll have to do for now, they’re keeping me pretty busy. All my love, Falier.

  Being used to a fairly active life, Miel Ducas found it hard to get to sleep after a day spent sitting around. Previously, before his arrest, his main problem had been staying awake; now he tended to spend the night lying on his back staring at the shadows cast on the ceiling by a single flickering candle. That was another recent development. He’d never been afraid of the dark when he was young, but lately — it wasn’t fear, as such, but he felt uncomfortable unless there was light in the room. Maybe it was just the noise; his bedroom at home was perfectly, superbly quiet, but the wind sighed round the tower he was confined in, and he found it very hard not to notice it. The intrusion was worse in the dark, somehow; it made him feel as though people were whispering somewhere nearby, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  Ever since the victory (everyone he’d talked to had called it that) he’d been hoping things would sort themselves out. If the Mezentines had really taken a beating, and the siege was on the point of being lifted, maybe Orsea would be able to find the time to come and see him, or at least answer his letters. A few minutes would be all it’d take; Orsea, what on earth is all this in aid of? he’d say; and Orsea would tell him, and then he’d explain, and that’d be that.

  But in the dark, he tended to think about the letter, and the terrible things the guard captain had told him, and the possibility that Orsea wasn’t ever going to come and let him out. That was as good a reason as any for burning a candle. It’d be nice, though, to have something to read, apart from the three books he’d read so often that he practically knew them by heart. Jarnac had promised to bring him some more books from home, but if what the guards had told him was true, Jarnac wouldn’t be coming to visit for quite some time.
Of course, Jarnac could have told his servant to bring them, but presumably the promise had slipped his mind, what with one thing and another.

  It was ironic, therefore, that when he had finally managed to drift off to sleep, some fool should come along and wake him up. It turned out to be the night captain; a pleasant enough man, though not much of a conversationalist. He was standing in the doorway holding a lantern.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” he said. “But there’s someone who wants to see you. Says it’s very urgent.”

  “Really?” Miel sat up and yawned. “That doesn’t sound likely. Who the hell is it?”

  “It’s the Mezentine,” the captain said, frowning. “Engineer Vaatzes. I didn’t like to tell him he’d have to come back in the morning.”

  Miel shrugged. “I suppose not,” he said. “Well, you’d better show him in, and then we’ll know what all this is about.”

  Vaatzes looked tired; more tired, Miel thought, than anyone he’d ever seen before in his life. He moved as if all his joints ached, and he grunted as he sat down. His clothes were filthy with brick-dust, sawdust and iron filings.

  “You too?” Miel said.

  “What?”

  “You can’t sleep either,” Miel replied. “So you thought you’d come over here, and I could bore you to sleep with stories of the Ducas family through the ages.”

  Vaatzes grinned. “Oh, I could sleep all right,” he said. “I could shut my eyes and fall over, and hitting the floor wouldn’t wake me up. Too much to do, though.”

  “And here’s me sitting idle all day,” Miel said reproachfully. “I’d love to come and help you, even if it was just carrying your tools for you, only I don’t think they’d let me.”

  “No.” Vaatzes let his head loll forward onto his chest for a moment, then lifted it again. “I’ll come to the point,” he said. “Frankly, I’m too tired to dress it up, even if I wanted to. The fact is, I suppose I’m here to say I’m sorry.”