Devices and Desires

by K. J. Parker

  The candidate [he read] is not expected to understand the theoretical basis of perfection; nor is he encouraged to consider such matters in any further detail than that included in the syllabus. It is sufficient for him to be aware that, in a necessarily imperfect world, perfection is most immediately and tangibly represented in the various established specifications ordained by each Guild for its members.

  However, some observations on the basic principles of this subject will prove useful to the candidate, and should be committed to memory. First, perfection can be expressed as the smallest degree of tolerance of error or divergence from Specification that can be obtained in the circumstances prevailing in each instance. Thus, a standard tolerance of one thousandth of an inch is allowed for in specifications of lathe work and most milling operations. In casting, a tolerance of ten thousandths is permitted; in general carpentry, twenty thousandths, although in fine joinery and cabinet-making this is reduced to ten thousandths.

  None of these divergences can be taken to express perfection; a perfect artifact must conform to Specification exactly. Given the inevitability of error, however, the Guild recognizes the need for strictly regulated tolerance, and such tolerance is therefore included in the specification. The question arises, therefore, whether an artifact that is perfect, i.e. one that contains no error whatsoever, can be in accordance with Specification; since it differs from the prescribed form by omitting the permissible degree of error, is it not therefore out of Specification, and therefore an abomination?

  This issue was addressed by the seventh extraordinary assembly of the united Guilds, who declared that a perfect artifact is permitted provided that in its creation there was no inherent intent to improve upon Specification by reducing error beyond permitted tolerance. Evidence of such intent would be, among other things, modification of other components to allow for or take advantage of perfection in any one component. Thus, if a mechanism is found to have only one perfect component, intent is not found; whereas if more than one component is perfect, and if the perfection of one component is ancillary to or dependent upon the perfection of another (for example, where two parts fit together), there is a rebuttable presumption of such intent, and the accused must prove beyond reasonable doubt that no such intent was in his mind when he produced the components.

  He rested the book on his knees for a moment, then turned the page.

  Perfection is most often attained, or, more usually, aspired to, through the destruction or removal of material. Such destroyed or discarded material is referred to as waste. Waste can be created by separation (for instance, by sawing off surplus material) or by attrition (e.g. filing, turning). The creation of waste can therefore be partly or wholly destructive. It is policy that wherever possible, partial destruction is preferred to total destruction, since surplus material that is only partially destroyed — offcuts, for example — can often be put to good use. However, this preference should not be allowed to interfere with the imperatives of precision. Thus, where a more exact result can be obtained by a wholly destructive process, e.g. filing or milling, than by a partially destructive one such as sawing or chain-drilling, total destruction is preferred. Acceptable levels of waste are, of course, allowed for in all Specifications, and any attempt to reduce waste beyond the specified levels is prohibited. As the report of the ninth general review committee puts it, waste is part and parcel of any properly conducted procedure; material is there to be cut and destroyed in the furtherance of the design.

  He closed his eyes for a moment. There wasn’t, as far as he was aware, a specification for the cutting and piercing of flesh, the bending and breaking of bone and sinew; there was no established tolerance through which perfection in this sphere could be expressed. In the absence of anything of the sort, it was impossible to establish what represented a permissible degree of waste. However, the basic rule must still apply: where a more exact result can be obtained by total destruction, it is preferred. He closed his hands around his face, and tried to find the absolution those words ought to bring. It was only logical. The mechanism he’d built wasn’t some whim of his own. It was the only possible device that could be capable of achieving his only objective, and that objective had been forced on him by the men who’d taken him away from his house, his family, the only things in the world that mattered to him. So he’d followed the design to its logical end, accepting the inevitability of a high level of wholly destructive waste; in effect, he’d been following the design specified by the actions of his betters in the Guild, and it was the imperatives of precision that had destroyed Miel Ducas and Duchess Veatriz and Duke Orsea, and were even now threading their nervous way through the tunnels in the rock under his feet, heading for a gate that shouldn’t have been blocked, with a view to the laying waste, by cutting and attrition, of an entire city.

  He was glad that it was all outside his control for a while.

  They had no idea what to expect as they lifted the heavy trapdoor. They weren’t supposed to know that the whole plan was the work of the traitor-abominator Vaatzes, but the deputy chief of staff had felt obliged to tell them, just in case it was all a trap. It wasn’t the sort of information that inspires confidence, particularly when taken together with the obvious mistake about the gate.

  Nevertheless, a color-sergeant by the name of Pasargades lifted the trapdoor, took a deep breath and scrambled out of the tunnel into the sweet night air. He may have ducked his head involuntarily, as though anticipating a cut or a blow, but nothing like that happened. He jumped out, looked round quickly and dropped to his knees to help the next man out.

  The first thing they noticed was how quiet it was. No voices, which was encouraging; no boots grinding on the cobbles, no scrape of heels or spear-butts. There was a certain degree of light, from a lantern hanging off a bracket five yards or so away. So far, the abominator had done them proud.

  Thirty-six men followed Color-Sergeant Pasargades out of the tunnel: two infantry platoons, one squad of engineers and the commanding officer, Captain Boustrophedon. They were light enough on their feet — minimum armor, sidearms only, and the engineers’ tools. All they had to do was breach the rubble blocking the gate. The army would do the rest.

  The captain led the way, as was only right and proper. One platoon of infantry followed him, then the engineers, then the second infantry unit. They had a fair idea of where to go. The last Mezentine diplomat to visit the city had briefed them on the layout of the gatehouse, not that there was much to tell. Through the archway into a large empty room, and there was the gate.

  Or there it wasn’t. Instead, blocking a ragged-sided hole in the wall, there was a heap of wicker baskets, piled on top of each other, each one filled with rubble. In front of the heap someone had made a start on a brick wall, but as yet it was only three courses high. You could step over that without any bother. Propping up the heap of baskets were half a dozen beams — they looked like rafters, or something of the sort. Presumably the idea was that if there was another battering-ram attack, the beams would to some extent brace the baskets against the impact; either that, or the bricklayers were afraid that the heap was unsteady and might come crashing down on them at any moment. All in all, it was a fairly unconvincing piece of fortification. Once the brick wall was finished, of course, it’d be better, though not much. Not that it mattered. Even if the gate was wide open, the Mezentines didn’t have the manpower for a direct assault, not if their entry was resisted.

  Simple, thought Captain Boustrophedon: knock away the beams, get a grappling-hook into a few of those baskets, and pull. Of course, you wouldn’t live to enjoy being a hero. The rubble would come down on you like a rockslide in the mountains, you’d be a bag full of splintered bones when you died.

  Someone was calling out; an inquiry rather than a challenge, but it had to go unanswered. More voices, which meant choosing a course of action quickly and hoping it’d work. Well, the captain thought, if we can’t have the rubble collapsing inward, we’ll have to try
pushing instead. He wasn’t particularly happy about it, but there wasn’t time to draw diagrams and calculate angles.

  “Get hold of those beams and push,” he ordered.

  The back platoon were already engaged. He heard a shout or two, then a yell as someone got hurt — them or us, hardly matters. So long as this gateway’s opened up in the next fifteen seconds.

  They pushed. A couple of arrows skittered off the side wall, someone was yelling, “In there!” They pushed again, and in the split second it took for Boustrophedon to realize he’d made the wrong decision, the Eremian guards swept away the nine men of the back platoon who were still standing, and charged into the gatehouse.

  Boustrophedon lived long enough to see the first gleam of light through the breach. He hardly noticed it, although it meant he’d succeeded; there was surprisingly little pain, but his sight was being squeezed into a narrow ring by encroaching darkness. The air was full of dust. He died, and a Mezentine soldier stumbling through the breach trod on his head before an Eremian shot him. That hardly mattered, in the grand scheme of things. There were plenty more where he’d just come from. What was left of the defenders was shoved out of the way as the assault party burst through. The Eremian night patrol, who might have made a difference if they’d arrived twenty seconds earlier, hardly slowed the attack up at all. The first objective, the square behind the main gate, was secured within a minute of the opening of the breach; five minutes, and the Mezentines were on the wall, racing along the ramparts to secure access to the whole city.

  24

  Miel Ducas had, remarkably enough, fallen asleep. He hadn’t thought he’d be able to sleep, with Vaatzes’ words rattling round inside his head like stones in a bucket. Nevertheless, when the guard captain burst in, he was flopped in his chair, eyes closed.

  The captain was yelling at him. At first he thought, he’s come to kill me, but it soon occurred to him that that wouldn’t call for panic-stricken shouting, so he listened to what the man was saying.

  “They’re on the wall,” he said, which didn’t make sense. “We can’t hold them. Come on, get out.”

  Get out he understood. “Hold on,” he mumbled, “I’ll get my things.” But the captain grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him toward the door. He was too sleepy to resist.

  “Head for the palace,” the captain was saying, and that didn’t make sense either.

  “What’s going on?” Miel asked.

  “The Mezentines,” the captain snapped back at him. “They’re inside the city, and up on the wall. They’ll be here any moment now. Head for the palace.”

  Still didn’t make sense. We’ve won the war, how come there’s Mezentines in the city? Miel knew better than to argue, however. The captain let go of his elbow and ran off, leaving him standing in the little courtyard. Well, Miel thought, I suppose I’m free.

  If there really were Mezentines… He found it impossible to believe. How could they have got in? Surely there’d have been an alert, trumpets blasting and men shouting, war noises. Ridiculous. Even so; head for the palace. He could do that.

  Someone jumped out in front of him. At first he thought it must be Vaatzes, because of his dark skin. Then he realized: Mezentine. Immediately he felt bloated with panic. The Mezentine soldier was coming at him, holding some kind of polearm, and he himself was empty-handed and defenseless. Oh well, he thought, but he sidestepped anyway, at the very last moment, and was pleasantly surprised as the soldier blundered past him, lunging ferociously at the patch of empty air he’d just left behind.

  The drill he’d learned when he was twelve said that the sidestep is combined with a counterattack in time, either both hands round the throat or a stamping kick to the back of the knee. Miel, however, turned and ran.

  Head for the palace. The courtyard archway opened into Coopers’ Street; uphill, second left was Fourways, leading to Drapers’ Lane, leading to Middle Walk. There he met the guards, running flat out; he flattened himself against a wall to let them pass. Up Middle Walk (he’d been cooped up in small rooms far too long, his legs were stiff and painful) to the Review Grounds, across the Horsefair and down the little alley that led to Fivesprings. Halfway down the alley was a narrow stair up the side of a house, which led to a passageway inside the palace wall, which let you into the Ducas’ private entrance; assuming you had the key, which he didn’t.

  But the door was open; and the reason for that unexpected stroke of luck was Jarnac Ducas, struggling to do up the buckles on his brigandine coat left-handed as he pulled the key out of the lock with his right.

  “Miel?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  Stupid question, as both of them realized as soon as he’d said it. “What’s going on, Jarnac?” Miel asked. “They said the Mezentines are in the city, and I met —”

  But Jarnac nodded. “Don’t ask me how,” he said. “Seems like they came in through the gate, and now they’ve secured the walls, by the sound of it. We’re falling back on the palace and the inner yards; if we can regroup, maybe we can push them back, I don’t know. You coming?”

  Another stupid question. Up onto the palace wall — they arrived at the same time as the guards, who told them that Duke Orsea was down below trying to drive the invaders out of the Horsefair. “Not going well when we left,” one of the guards said. “He made a good start, but they came in from Long Lane and Halfacre, took him in flank. That’s all I know.”

  Jarnac swore, and scrambled down the stairs into the palace. Miel followed; but by the time he made it to the long gallery that ran the length of the top floor, Jarnac had disappeared down one of the side passages. Miel stopped, leaned against the wall and caught his breath. This was ridiculous, he decided; I won’t be any good to anybody, lost and out of breath.

  He closed his eyes for a moment and thought. Something to fight with would be a good start, and then he supposed he ought to go and look for Orsea. There weren’t any armories or guard stations on this floor, but there was a trophy of arms on the wall of the small reception chamber, fancy decorative stuff tastefully arranged in a sort of seashell pattern. He couldn’t reach any of the swords or shields, but by standing on a chair he was able to pull down a finely engraved gilded halberd, which was going to have to do. Armor was out of the question, of course, and besides, he didn’t have time to put it on.

  Down five flights of stairs; people coming in both directions. Most of them gave him a startled look as he passed them, but nobody stopped or said anything. The front gate of the palace was open, though there was a platoon of guards standing by to close it as soon as the Duke managed to disengage and pull back. Assuming he was still alive.

  As Miel ran through the gateway, the significance of what Jarnac had told him began to sink in. If Orsea had initially pushed through into the Horsefair, and then enemy units had come out from the alleys on either side, it was more than likely he’d been cut off, quite possibly encircled, depending on the numbers. It was exactly the sort of mess Orsea would get himself into (impulsive, brave, very stupid Orsea), and of course it was the hereditary duty of the Ducas to get him out of it.

  That’s right, he thought bitterly — the cobbles hurt his feet through his thin-soled slippers as he ran — me in my shirtsleeves, with this stupid toy halberd. This would be a good time to be excused duty, on grounds of having been imprisoned for high treason (can’t get more excused than that). But he remembered, he was innocent. So that was no use.

  North Parade was crowded with soldiers, some running forward toward the arch that led into the Horsefair, others scrambling through them, headed for the palace. The men coming back in had a dazed, bewildered look about them. Many were bloody, some were dragging wounded men along with them. One of them tried to grab his arm; he was shouting, go back, get away, they’re coming through. Miel dodged him and kept going, but it didn’t sound encouraging. All in all, it was a bad situation, he felt. Death in the defense of Duke and city was, naturally, a fitting and entirely acceptable end for the Ducas,
but it was understood that somebody would be watching, taking notes, appreciating what he was doing with a view to making an appropriate entry in the family history. Death by massacre, blunder and shambles wasn’t quite the same thing, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

  North Parade Arch was blocked by a crush of soldiers, filling the opening with their compressed bodies and limbs for want of anything better. No chance of getting through that; so he ran back along the wall, kicked open a doorway (side door of the Nicephorus house; he was sure they wouldn’t mind) into a garden. The Nicephorus had their own private door opening into Horsefair — handy for the kitchenmaids going to market for spices and walnut oil. Assuming the enemy didn’t know about it (they didn’t, because the Nicephorus garden wasn’t full of soldiers) he could use it to nip out into the battle, privileged to the last.

  They’d bolted it, as they always did at night, but they hadn’t locked it with the key. He shot the bolt, opened the door a crack and looked out. He could see people running, a bit of open space, and a big crowd on the north side, which presumably was the battle. Taking care to close the gate behind him, he slipped through.

  Nobody took any notice of him, unless they were running and he got in their way, in which case they dodged round him or shoved him aside. It was still too dark to make out anything more than silhouettes and moving shadows in the distance, over on the north side of the Horsefair, where the fighting appeared to be. He walked rather than ran — why run to your death? he asked himself, it’ll probably still be there in a minute or two. For the first time in a long while he was fully alert and focused. He knew what his job was — to save Orsea — and that it was most likely impossible, and that he’d die trying. Under other circumstances he’d be out of his mind with panic, but there didn’t seem any call for that. As far as he could judge, the city was lost. Even if they managed to save it, his life as the Ducas was ruined, gone forever. Orsea, his best friend and his Duke, hated him as a traitor. There didn’t seem to be much point in a life where everything he was had been taken away from him. If he couldn’t be Miel Ducas anymore, he didn’t want to play.