Sharps

by K. J. Parker

  “The best of motives,” someone repeated. “All things considered, I’m inclined to doubt that.”

  “Really?” The abbot gave him a puzzled look. “I believe their motives are simple and straightforward. Having lent tens of millions to the nobility so they could finance the War, the Bank realised that we were losing, and if we lost the War all those loans would default and they’d be ruined. What else could they possibly do except foreclose on the loans, bankrupt the nobility, take over effective political control and end the War as quickly as possible? Oh, it took a great deal of courage and a considerable leap of imagination; but looked at objectively, it was the only thing they could have done. Then, faced with the backlash from a dispossessed former ruling elite, they did the only sensible thing and bought the everlasting love of the common people. They sold them the freeholds of the land they’d hitherto been tenants of, and since there was never any question of the peasantry being able to pay for the land, they took two-hundred-year mortgages with capital repayment deferred for seventy years. In practical terms, the peasants pay their rent to the Bank, not the big house on the hilltop; everything stays the same, but everything’s changed for ever. It’s every politician’s dream, and they contrived to find a way of doing it quietly and without bloodshed. I really do have the greatest respect for Tzimisces and his people, and I wish they were on our side and not our sworn enemies. But there it is. And if you’re waiting for the Phocas and my cousin Herec to rise up and drive the Bankers out of the Golden Spire, I suspect you’ll be waiting for a very long time, during which you could’ve been doing something useful.”

  In the exact centre of the iconostasis above his head, the single silver tear on the cheek of the Lady of the Moon reflected the glow of the twelve brass lamps on the pedestals surrounding the Low Stations. The lamps had been gold once, before the war tax was levied on monastic institutions. The abbot maintained that the brass ones gave a better light, because of the improved reflectors.

  “The government’s weak,” the big canon broke in, “everybody knows that. They can’t command a majority in the House, so they’re doing everything by plebiscites. You can’t run a country that way. All it’d take would be one bad thing happening, and then they’d lose the people, there’d be a vote of no confidence in the House and they’d be out. That’s what happened to the Zonaras three hundred years ago, and it’ll happen again. The question is, how much damage will they do in the meantime?”

  “Define damage,” the abbot said calmly. “Surely the point is, hamstrung politically as they are, they can’t do anything much, beyond what they’ve done already. They’ve made the mistake of thinking that once you’ve got power, you’ll live happily ever after, like princesses in fairy tales. But the essential nature of power is that it’s an ongoing process. And, as I just said, they can’t really do anything.”

  “Which is how they’ll ruin everything,” the big canon maintained. “What we need most of all right now is strong government.” He paused, suddenly aware that he was almost shouting. “If they make a mistake and the City people turn against them …”

  “There you go,” the abbot said sadly, “hoping for a miracle. Much as I recommend prayer in the ordinary course of business, I’m not inclined to rely on it in something as important as this. There’s also the small matter of who you intend to pray to. I can’t help but think that your mat’s pointed in the direction of my cousin Herec. And, as I think I made quite clear, that would be a vain hope. The army isn’t going to clean up this mess for us. It’s the only disaster in recent history that it’s not directly responsible for, and I can assure you, it has no interest whatsoever in getting involved.” He glanced down at his fingernails, which were dirty and ragged; he’d been working in the vineyard that morning, and hadn’t had time to make himself presentable. “I suggest you reserve your prayers for the Invincible Sun. After all, that’s what we’re here for, supposedly.”

  An elderly canon, who hadn’t said anything yet, leaned forward and folded his hands neatly in his lap. “I agree that the condition we’re in is fairly dreadful,” he said. “The question is, surely, are they any better off? I suggest that, since we’ve come so far and lost so much, it’d be a terrible waste not to go the last mile, especially if it’s downhill.”

  The abbot smiled at him. “That’s what so many people are saying, inside the House and outside. Even one or two in the Bank, so I’m told.” That got him their undivided attention, but he raised his hand. “I’m reminded of the story of King Atoches and the oracle.” Blank faces; he nodded. “King Atoches asked the prophetess whether he should risk everything on a final pitched battle with the Tant Fue. She replied that if he took the field, he’d overthrow a mighty kingdom. And so he did; his own. They say that his dying words were a homily on the ambivalence of prophecy, but since his body was never found, I imagine that was a later addition to the story. If we provoke a new war, I’m quite certain we’ll destroy a mighty kingdom, possibly two. That certainty isn’t enough to lead me to endorse a specific course of action.”

  The prior made a show of gathering up his papers. “Someone is going to have to do something,” he said. “On balance, I think I’d rather it was us. I don’t really trust the nobility, I have nothing but contempt for the Bank, and that only leaves the enemy, who are in no fit state to make rational decisions about anything. It’s not an ideal state of affairs by any means, but it’s the one we’re stuck with. As Baventius says in the Rope, if you’re sinking in the sea and you can’t swim, you might as well try and catch a fish on your way down.”

  “Actually, it’s the Two Brothers.” The abbot lifted a finger to signify the formal conclusion of the meeting. Nobody moved. “I propose we adjourn and meet again in two days’ time. I don’t suppose anything will have changed by then, but there’s always prayer.”

  Still nobody moved, so the abbot gathered up his papers and walked out of the room. He crossed the yard, climbed the seventeen stairs to his cell, dropped into his chair and massaged his knees. Every day, a little bit harder, just to do ordinary things, like walk and climb stairs. In comparison, extraordinary things, like gently guiding the destiny of the nation, were child’s play. He reached across his desk for his ink bottle, hesitated, and instead picked up his copy of The Greater Devotions. It was the copy he’d made himself, when he was fourteen years old, and these days the letters were too small for him to read, but he knew the words by heart, so it hardly mattered. He recited the five secondary collects, the singular confession and two of the prayers for indecision. Then he flipped back the hinged lid of the ink pot, picked up his pen and began to write:

  Symbatus, Abbot of Monsacer, confident in salvation, to Senator Brenart Trapezius, greetings.

  He hesitated, lifted his head and craned his neck a little to see out of his window. It was high on the wall (to discourage idleness and distraction) and looked out over the roof of the stables; to see the hills beyond, you had to stand on a chair, something the abbot hadn’t dared try for the last five years. On either side of the window hung ancient icons, blackened by centuries of candle smoke. It would be wrong to clean them. It was enough to know that the holy images were there under the dust and grease; looking at them, a man might be misled by their beauty. The abbot sighed. He’d nagged his parents into letting him join the Order because he loved drawing and painting and looking at beautiful pictures. After nine years in the scriptorium, he’d produced what was still acknowledged to be the most perfect miniature illuminated missal in the world; whereupon he’d been transferred to the Chancery and taught accountancy, before his soul became irrevocably polluted with beauty. It was mere chance that he’d proved to be even better at accountancy than painting. Curiously, saving and making large sums of money for the Order hadn’t been regarded as a mortal temptation to vanity.

  Doubtless you can explain why

  He stopped writing. Senator Trapezius was notoriously devout, but he was still a senator, not likely to take kindly to being lectured
, even by his Father in the Invincible Sun. He put the sheet of paper to one side – it would do for lining a binding in the scriptorium – and started again.

  Delighted as I was to hear that my cousin Herec Carnufex has been able to repay his debt to the Bank in full and is now clear of his mortgages, I must confess that I was slightly puzzled by the news that he is not to be pursued for arrears of interest on late instalments and penalty charges. You know as well as I do – better, of course, since you are a distinguished statesman and I am just a monk, wholly separated from the world – that if we are to have peace, the hawk faction must be kept in check; and the only means at your disposal is control over the warrior nobility through debt and encumbrance. My cousin Herec is a wealthy man. He made a great deal of money out of the War, and spent it on improving his estates (scientific agriculture and all that sort of thing); accordingly, he’s rich in assets but poor in ready cash. He could, and should, be controlled through extended debt. You have now lost this hold over him.

  Of course, I don’t regard my dear cousin as an inherently dangerous man. I am, in fact, rather fond of him. When we were boys together, I regularly used to beat him at fencing, single-stick, archery and wrestling, something which I have never failed to remind him of on the all too rare occasions on which we meet; he was better than me at boxing, but only because of his slightly longer reach. These days, as a conscientious servant of the Invincible Sun, I deplore in general terms his bloody profession, while applauding the role he played in the preservation of the state and true religion. I also beat him regularly at chess, something a tactician of his standing would not wish to be widely known.

  What matters is the general principle. No doubt, when your committee comes to consider similar applications for discharge from other members of the nobility, you will bear what I have just said firmly in mind.

  Now to other, more important matters. The rose you so kindly gave me last year has taken surprisingly well to our harsh and bitter soil, and at his most earnest request I have sent a cutting of it to the patriarch of En Chersin. He is a competent gardener, and I therefore confidently expect that within our lifetimes, the Trapezius rose will be propagated and appreciated throughout the length and breadth of the Western Empire.

  He finished the letter, dusted it with sand, folded it and put it on the pile for sealing. He had other letters to write (there were always letters to write, reports to read, accounts to scrutinise, petitions to approve or dismiss) but he felt exhausted, after such a small effort. He wondered, in a general sort of way, if he was dying – slowly, in a discreet and dignified manner, of some perfectly acceptable condition. The man to ask would be Brother Physician, but of course he couldn’t do that. He could go to the library and consult medical texts, but he decided against it; he’d have to ask the librarians to find the appropriate books and bring them to him, and that would be as good as announcing to General Chapter that there was something wrong with him. The sensible thing, he decided, would be to assume that his time was limited, in the earnest hope of being pleasantly surprised. On balance, in spite of the evidence, he doubted it. The Invincible Sun (that lifelong-familiar but still largely incomprehensible entity) clearly had more work for him to do, but felt it necessary to make that difficult work harder still by burdening him with physical weakness. Blessed be the name, et cetera.

  Although he tried to concentrate on the service, he was preoccupied throughout evening responses, and the prior had to tap him on the shoulder to let him know proceedings had ended. Instead of taking the evening meal in the refectory with the Brothers, he asked for bread, cheese and black tea in his cell. To clarify his mind, he let the fire go out, took off his robe and sat in his shirt, until he was so cold he couldn’t feel his feet. That didn’t help; so he shook the problem off like a wet dog and glanced over some of the routine reports. One item (minutes of the House foreign affairs subcommittee) caught his attention. He ate the bread and cheese, which he’d forgotten about. The tea was cold, so he drank water instead.

  On the second shelf of his bookcase was an old, sad-looking Imitation of the Divine; a home-made wooden board and pigskin binding, repaired several times over the years by men whose principal business hadn’t been bookbinding; on the inside front cover, in peasant fashion, nine generations of his father’s family had recorded births, marriages and deaths. The earliest entries, written in lamp soot and oak gall, were a soft brown colour and barely legible. The most recent additions, far out on the right-hand side of the page, were in his own superb formal-cursive, in black with red capitals. The names were the four sons of Herec Carnufex:

  Sphacterius (b. 1577 AUC)

  Cortemanduus (b. 1579 d. 1598 AUC)

  Stellecho (b. 1581 AUC)

  Adulescentulus (b. 1590 AUC)

  He counted on his fingers. Young Addo would be – what, twenty-four, already? Just about right, he decided, for what he had in mind. It had been twelve years, half Addo’s lifetime, since he’d last seen him. He remembered a thin, sad boy who felt the cold but refused to show it, a good chess player, would probably have been a reasonable musician if he’d been allowed to continue his education; just another aristocratic face, instantly forgettable, the epitome of the younger son.

  Well, he thought; a pity, but it can’t be helped. That would still leave Sphacterius (about whom he knew nothing) and Stellecho (famous in cockfighting and dog-racing circles) to carry on the family name, for what that was worth. If I had a son of my own, he told himself, I’d send him instead; but I don’t, so young Addo will have to do. Besides, once Herec had made up his mind about something …

  (He’d never mentioned it to anyone, naturally, but from time to time the abbot had nightmares about the drowning of Flos Verjan. The water had come down so fast, in such unspeakable volume, that there wouldn’t have been time to evacuate the city, even if it hadn’t been under siege and bottled up tight. Conservative estimates put the death toll at seventy thousand, but the method by which that figure had been calculated made no allowance for the very poor, the homeless, refugees from the surrounding countryside – everyone, basically, who wasn’t on the electoral roll or a member of a guild. In his dream he was standing in the market square – he’d never been to Flos Verjan, but for some reason he could picture it very clearly – and looking up into the mountains, watching clouds that weren’t clouds but great masses of water falling slowly towards him, like shapeless, distorted hands, both menacing and imploring. Whenever he had the dream, he would order a special mass for the dead, with candles and a full procession, both choirs and a double distribution of alms. What if anything that was supposed to achieve he wasn’t entirely sure. He could only hope that the Invincible Sun would find a way of translating so much retrospective effort into some positive outcome)

  High time our family did its bit, the abbot decided, and wrote another letter.

  After three weeks of treatment, Giraut Bryennius was certified as fully healed of his wounds and discharged from the infirmary of the Studium. As ordered, he presented himself at the Fencers’ Guild meeting house, where he was expected. A smartly dressed young man in Guild livery showed him to his room, a small space on the third storey with one long, narrow window, clean white walls and a mattress on the floor. Next to the mattress was a compact heap of clothes, which he recognised as his own. On top of the heap was a brand-new, expensive-looking rapier.

  She meant it, he thought. Just for a moment, he contemplated using the rapier to force an exit, and running away. Wiser counsels prevailed. Only an idiot would consider fighting his way out of the Fencers’ Guild, and besides, where would he go?

  He resisted the temptation, which in spite of everything was quite strong, to draw the blade and examine it. Instead, he picked up his clothes and folded them neatly, then sat on the mattress and waited for something to happen. Nothing did, for a very long time. He really wished he had something to read, even if it was only the Hymnal.

  Quite some time later, a different young man in the same l
ivery turned up and led him back the way he’d come, down two flights of stairs on to a broad marble landing. The young man held a tall panelled door open for him, and he went in.

  The room he found himself in was probably the most beautiful interior he’d ever seen. He guessed it had once been a chapel; the walls were covered from floor to ceiling with religious frescoes – the usual subjects: the Sun in glory, the apotheosis of Man, the Reckoning, the Second Partitionist Council; he could probably have named the artists if he’d been able to concentrate, but at the time it didn’t seem to matter. The ceiling was mosaic on a gold background, the implacably perfect face of the Invincible Sun looking past him at something more interesting. There were five tall, wide windows, curtained in purple brocade embroidered with heraldic motifs. On the polished oak floor lay Mezentine and Eastern Empire carpets, which he couldn’t quite bring himself to step on; any one of them was worth a decent hill farm, including the stock and barn contents. There were also four chairs, with impossibly thin legs and rails, gilded and upholstered in red silk. One was empty. On the other three sat two men and a girl, none of whom he’d ever seen before.

  There was a man of about thirty; a touch above average height, deep-chested, his fine fair hair touching his shoulders, just starting to thin on top, a square, good-looking face and a weak chin. A broad shiny scar stretched an inch inwards from the web between his thumb and forefinger. There was a tall, thin young man, about Giraut’s age, who sat looking down at his hands. He was dark, with a narrow face, a very long, straight nose and big ears. He looked up as Giraut came in, smiled, then looked away. The girl was probably the tallest of the three, long in the body, broad-shouldered, with a sharp, plain face and short sandy hair pulled back behind her ears. She was wearing a man’s riding jacket, a little too small for her; her thin wrists stuck out from the sleeves and her hands were big and long-fingered. She scowled at him as though a great many things were his fault, then folded her arms tightly and looked at a curtained window.