Sharps

by K. J. Parker

  Addo nodded. “Did they win?”

  “I suppose so. Or if they didn’t win that day, they won later on.”

  “And your brother was all right? He survived the war.”

  “Oh yes. He’s always been lucky, Hamo. He’s married to a very distant poor relation of a junior branch of the Phocas, so you can see, he’s really made something of himself.”

  Addo grinned. “Unlike you,” he said.

  “Quite. What about you? Shouldn’t you have been married off by now?”

  “I’m my father’s mobile reserve,” Addo replied. “That’s not strictly true, I’m more his defence in depth. He’s keeping me for an emergency, where he needs to make a marriage alliance quickly. Always keep a reserve, he says.”

  “So.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “No emergency yet, then.”

  “None he hasn’t been able to cover without committing his heavy cavalry.” He took a breath, and said, “I thought you were going to say my father got your brother killed. I hear that quite often.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I suppose you do.” She shrugged. “Hamo was sure he was going to get court-martialled and hanged for abandoning his position, but nobody ever mentioned it again. He couldn’t stay there, though. He said he owed it to his men to get them back safe.”

  “He was a good officer,” Addo replied. “He did the right thing.”

  “But it was all pointless. The trick didn’t work.”

  “That wasn’t his fault. And he used his head, and probably saved a squadron of cavalry. I’m sure my father approved of what he did. In fact, I know for certain. Your brother would’ve heard about it if my father wasn’t pleased.”

  She clicked her tongue. “It’d be far better for everyone if people stuck to chess,” she said.

  “My father’s a rotten chess player.”

  She grinned at that. “Worse than me?”

  “You’d slaughter him.”

  She laughed – not an attractive sound in itself, but it gave Addo more pleasure than a clean and acknowledged hit – and Giraut woke up. He blinked and said, “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” Iseutz said. “Why?”

  “I thought I heard a scream.”

  Addo managed not to laugh. Iseutz shot Giraut a poisonous look and stuck her head back into Principles of Political Theory, where it stayed until the chaise stopped for the night.

  “Explain to me,” Abbot Symbatus said icily, “why C9 was abandoned and the road blocked. I’ll be fascinated to hear what you have to say.”

  Fulco Phocas opened his mouth and closed it again. He wasn’t quite sure why he was there, or on what authority this ferocious old priest was cross-examining him, but he knew from his experiences in the war that you recognise the enemy by the look in his eye, not where you find him or what he happens to be wearing. Besides, a priest wouldn’t dare to treat a member of the joint chiefs of staff with such obvious disdain if he wasn’t sure he had the backing of overwhelming strength. Just because Phocas didn’t know what that strength consisted of didn’t mean it didn’t exist.

  “What can I say?” He tried charm, in the form of a smile. Didn’t work. “One of those ridiculous misunderstandings. They happen. It’s just unfortunate that it had to happen at such a particularly inconvenient time.”

  He waited for a reply, but the abbot didn’t speak, or move. To break the silence before it crushed him flat, Phocas went on, “The standard operating procedure is for way-station garrisons to serve a three-month tour, after which they’re relieved and assigned to other duties for six months, and then sent back again. Basically, we’ve got three shifts of experienced way-station guards, and we rotate them. It was time for the duty shift to be relieved, but for some reason we’re still looking into, the relief shift wasn’t mobilised. The duty shift waited for the relief shift to show up, but they didn’t, so they closed up their post and marched back to their home camp. They shouldn’t have done that, of course,” Phocas added quickly, “they should’ve stayed put till they were relieved, but they didn’t. Naturally, there’s going to be a regimental enquiry.”

  The abbot was looking at him, keenly, motionless, as if concerned that the slightest movement would cause his rare and timid quarry to take flight. After a long pause he said, “I’m rather surprised to learn that something like that can happen. I thought the entire ethos of the military was founded on rigid discipline and orders passed along the chain of command.”

  “Ah, well.” Phocas tried a vague hand gesture, and immediately regretted it. “In wartime, yes. But a peacetime army’s a rather different animal. Not quite the same sense of urgency, if you follow me. And, to be absolutely frank with you, not quite the same calibre of men as we had in the War.”

  No reaction. Phocas discovered he’d started speaking again. In fact, he was gabbling.

  “Back then, you see,” he was apparently saying, “we had the best and brightest at our disposal, whether they liked it or not. These days, we have to make do with volunteers. And there’s no money, so we can’t afford the sort of people we’d like to have, they can make five times as much working for the Bank. And the old families, with their sense of duty and public service, were pretty well wiped out in the War. What’s left of them is needed back home, to manage their estates.” It wasn’t what he’d wanted to say; indeed, it was something of an overstatement of the case for the prosecution. But he had an idea it was what the terrifying old gentleman wanted to hear, so he felt himself constrained to say it. “Anyhow,” he added lamely, “they’re all right now and safely on the way to Permia, so no harm done.”

  Shortly after that, Abbot Symbatus allowed General Phocas to escape, and poured himself a drink of water, to ease his sore throat. He was fairly sure that Phocas had told him what he believed to be the truth. That, if anything, was rather more disturbing than a pack of lies.

  The next day was the Feast of the Redemption. He got through it with gritted teeth, managing to complete the procession to the high altar without stumbling or having to hold on to anyone, though each step was agony. Between the ceremony and his customary address to the novitiates (a chair was provided, which he grimly refused to sit in), he sat on the floor of his cell with his back to the wall and prayed for the pain to stop. It didn’t, which suggested his prayers weren’t finding favour for the time being. He couldn’t sleep that night, so he crawled out of bed, called for his fire to be built up until it was hot enough to peel skin at two paces, and sat in his chair in front of it. Heat didn’t seem to work any more, so he resolved to accept the pain as a form of divine communication, and put it out of his mind. It wasn’t, after all, as bad as the kidney stone had been, and he’d lived with that for a month before his prayers were answered and it stopped, quite suddenly, in the middle of Chapter.

  Since he was awake, and in his chair with his desk in front of him, and since there was absolutely no chance that he’d be able to get to sleep that night, he decided that he might as well make himself useful. There was a small stack of letters (thin, crisp parchment; they reminded him of the flatbread his mother used to order for his birthday), and he picked up the one on the top. It was from the Prior of Conessus, asking permission for one of his monks to take stylitic vows for five years, with a gentle hint that should the request be granted, Monsacer might find itself moved to contribute towards the not inconsiderable expense of raising the necessary pillar.

  In spite of the pain, Symbatus grinned. He’d always found the stylites faintly ridiculous, but that was probably because of his own family history: his great-great-grandfather had fallen victim to the ornamental-hermit craze of the late Regency, and had spent a huge sum of money the family couldn’t really afford on a folly pillar, complete with a lavishly paid pretend stylite to sit on top of it. The ruins of the pillar were still there, on the hill overlooking what was now the Irrigator’s country seat. He’d been to look at it when he was twelve years old. It was a wonderful thing. It had been built hollow, like a chimney. Mostly this
was on grounds of hygiene; under the base of the column was a seven-foot-deep sump and soakaway (the hill was chalk); but it also meant that the stylite’s food, water and other supplies could be sent up via a basket and winch without the operation being visible from the footpath (which was as close as anyone ever got). The remains of an iron ladder still clung to the inside of the chimney, so it was perfectly possible for the stylite to sneak down at night, or when nobody was looking, to stretch his legs. His cousin’s eldest boy, Sphacterius, had told him once that he’d actually climbed the column, and discovered a little alcove cunningly built into the top of it, large enough for a man to sit comfortably; presumably the stylite ducked in there out of the rain. All in all, it sounded like a fairly pleasant existence, and he couldn’t help wondering whether the terrifying saints of the past had had similar creature comforts built into their own pillars; if, in fact, they’d cheated. He hoped they hadn’t.

  He read the petition again and scribbled on the back of it: petition granted, but gentle hint firmly ignored. He put it on the other side of his desk, then reached across and picked it up again. Under his previous annotation he added: Height of pillar not to exceed twenty-five feet. The closer you were to the ground, the easier it was for people to see, the harder it was to cheat. It would be a beautiful irony of the Faith, he told himself, for someone to achieve salvation by doing honestly what those he sought to emulate had achieved by fraud.

  The next letter was a furious rebuttal by a subcommittee on doctrinal orthodoxy of a trivial, tiny heresy that had broken out somewhere he’d never heard of in the far west of the Western Empire. It was probably the answer to his prayers, because in spite of the pain, it sent him straight to sleep.

  Giraut woke up and looked out of the window.

  “My God,” he said. “What happened here?”

  “Nothing,” Suidas said. “We’re in Permia.”

  It looked a bit like a quarry, except that it was huge; in fact, it was everything, as far as the eye could see. The road ran down the middle of a valley, with bare-stone mountains rising sharply out of a wilderness of shale. There was a little yellow grass, a few grey ferns, no trees of any sort anywhere. Here and there boulders as big as houses stuck up out of the ground. Otherwise, it was featureless and utterly bleak.

  “It’s supposed to look like this?” Giraut asked.

  “Please don’t say anything like that in front of our hosts,” Tzimisces murmured. “They’re fiercely proud of their country.”

  Giraut looked at him. “Why?”

  Tzimisces smiled and didn’t answer.

  They stopped around mid morning, beside the first thing vaguely resembling a watercourse Giraut had so far seen in Permia. It was a little brown trickle running in an absurdly deep gully. Dead weeds about five feet high lined the banks. One of Totila’s men ran a bucket down on a rope, for water for the horses.

  “Is it all like this?” Addo asked.

  “No.” Phrantzes opened the chaise door. “The east of the country is rather more like what we’re used to at home, only it’s quite high, and flat. In summer the grass comes up to your waist.” He climbed out, and they followed him, realising for the first time how stiff and cramped they were. “This region has never quite recovered from its time under the Eastern Empire,” Phrantzes went on. “It was parcelled out among absentee landlords, who thought it’d be a good idea to graze large herds of goats here. For the wool, so I gather. It was particularly fine, suitable for luxury-grade cloth. After they’d eaten off all the grass, the wind blew the topsoil away. Before that, apparently, this was first-class arable land, but it got depopulated during the Fifty Years War.”

  Giraut frowned. “The what?”

  “Five hundred years ago,” Addo said. “Though it wasn’t really a war. More a series of border skirmishes.”

  “It’s horrible,” Iseutz said solemnly. “Let’s get back in the coach.”

  They sat in silence for a long time. Then Iseutz looked at Phrantzes and said, “You know a lot about Permian history.”

  “I read a book,” Phrantzes said mildly.

  “So what’s this town like that we’re going to first?”

  “Joiauz,” Tzimisces interrupted smoothly. “It’s the third largest city in Permia. It’s a mining town, of course. Most of it’s still being rebuilt.” He smiled. “We were rather rough with it during the War, weren’t we, Deutzel?”

  Suidas frowned at him. After a moment Addo said, “It was a major base for Aram Chantat raids into Scheria. My father decided—” He stopped.

  “Indeed,” Tzimisces said. “We took Joiauz by storm. It was General Carnufex’s first substantial command and one of the first real successes of the war. However, I can assure you that the place where you’ll be staying has four walls and a roof.”

  The chaise stopped sharply, the inertia lifting Giraut several inches out of his seat. “Now what?” Iseutz snapped, then saw the look on Suidas’ face. He was staring out of the window, and the look on his face was somewhere between terror and a kind of hunger. Giraut craned his neck to see past his shoulder.

  He saw a man on a horse, possibly one of a group. The horse was small, barely larger than a child’s pony. Its rider was small too, and he looked very young, no more than sixteen, with a few wisps of golden hair on his upper lip and chin. He was wearing a fur cap that covered his ears and neck, and a long blue woollen gown down to his ankles. His feet were bare. He was riding bare-back, but he had a quiver slung over his horse’s neck, with a short, unstrung bow sticking out of it. His fingers were long and delicate, like a girl’s. He was smiling, listening to something someone was saying; then he laughed, and his face lit up. His nose was long and straight, and he had pale blue eyes. He reminded Giraut of the icons of the firstborn of the Invincible Sun.

  “That’s them, isn’t it?” he whispered to Suidas, who nodded.

  “What is it?” Iseutz said. “I can’t see from where I’m sitting.”

  “Aram Chantat,” Tzimisces said quietly. “Would you please all sit still and stay quiet. There’s absolutely no cause for alarm.”

  Giraut carried on staring. The last thing he’d expected was that the Aram Chantat would be beautiful. It made no sense: beautiful as an angel, but next to him Suidas was as taut as a bowstring, and he could see Tzimisces’ left hand shaking very slightly, until he closed his right firmly around it. He could hear Totila’s voice, higher than before, with a distinctly nervous edge to it. Even the Blueskins are terrified of them, and they’re on the same side. But he was sure Totila could snap the young horseman’s delicate neck like the stem of a flower.

  He heard several men laughing; then Totila said something else, and the horseman abruptly moved out of sight. The chaise rolled forward and rapidly picked up speed.

  “What’s the matter with you two?” Iseutz was demanding. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”

  Suidas gave her such a ferocious scowl that she shrank back an inch or so. “Just a routine patrol, I should imagine,” Tzimisces said softly. “Nothing to worry about.” He turned his head a little and looked at Suidas. “Chauzida?”

  Suidas nodded. “I think so,” he said. “Either that or Rosinholet. Northerners, at any rate.”

  “You’re sure?” The point seemed to matter.

  “Oh yes.” Suidas breathed out slowly. “Trust me, I know my Aram Chantat sects. Some of the easterners wear blue, but they don’t go barefoot. And the bone structure’s northern.”

  “Ah well,” Tzimisces said. “Small mercies.”

  Iseutz’s eyes opened wide. “Did he just say Aram Chantat?”

  “That’s right,” Phrantzes said, and his voice was tense but quiet. “You couldn’t see them from where you’re sitting, Iseutz, but we were just stopped by half a dozen Aram Chantat horsemen. However, Lieutenant Totila showed them some papers, and they let us pass.”

  “Papers?” Suidas objected. “They can’t read.”

  “They can recognise a seal,” Tzim
isces said. “Besides, we’re being escorted by a squadron of Permian cavalry.”

  “Then why’d they stop us?” Iseutz said.

  “Because they can,” Suidas said. “They like scaring people. Especially the Blueskins.” He smiled. “They’ve been fighting the Empire for centuries, on and off. Very occasionally, the Blueskins win.”

  “Please don’t use that expression now we’re on this side of the border,” Tzimisces said pleasantly.

  Suidas pulled a sad, angry face. “I don’t know what else to call them.”

  Tzimisces laughed. “Imperials will do just fine. Best of all, don’t call them anything. That way, nobody can take offence, and we might actually achieve something.”

  “The first thing I’m going to do when we get to this Joiauz place,” Iseutz told nobody in particular, “is have a bath. I haven’t washed properly for days. I smell.”

  Suidas lifted his head. “Yes,” he said.

  She scowled at him. “So do you.”

  Suidas shrugged. “I was in the army.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “It’s my fault,” Phrantzes muttered. “I’m supposed to have organised this trip, and it’s all been a complete disaster.”

  He was expecting to be contradicted, but nobody said anything. After a while Tzimisces said, “Don’t beat yourself up over it. There’s obviously some problem with the way-station garrison rotations. It can’t be helped.”

  “I should’ve made sure everything was in place,” Phrantzes insisted. “Checked and double-checked. I’m sorry.”

  “Well now,” Tzimisces said, “if you feel that strongly about it, when we get to Joiauz I can write home and ask them to send out someone else. That’s if you feel you’ve failed in some way.”