Sharps

by K. J. Parker

  “Not a problem,” Tzimisces said cheerfully. “After all, that’s what we’re here for, to promote friendship and understanding.”

  “Absolutely,” said a small man, some kind of town clerk. “And it’s so kind of you to take time out of your busy schedule to visit our community. It’s the biggest thing that’s happened here ever.”

  “Hence the crowds,” the mayor added with a rueful grin. “The whole town’s out on the streets already. As soon as they heard you were coming …”

  There followed a long council of war. The mayor drew a map, and Totila and Tzimisces worked out a plan of campaign. They would wait here until just before nightfall, then ride round in a semicircle, entering Luzir Soleth from the south, the direction they’d be least expected to come from. “That’ll give us the element of surprise,” Totila said, “but as soon as word gets out, there’ll be chaos, everybody trying to get from here to here.”

  The mayor nodded. “The flashpoint’s likely to be here.” He prodded the map. “The corn exchange. The only way through is Coppergate, which is pretty narrow. If your men can block it here, by the fire altar, they’ll have no choice but to go the long way round, past the tannery and up Sheep Street. A detachment of the Aram Chantat here …”

  Tzimisces shook his head. “We can’t rule out the possibility that some of them at least will go outside the wall and try and come in by this gate here.” He rested a fingertip on the map. “Reluctant as I am to divide our forces, I feel it would be wise to cover this area here with a skirmish line, two or three companies. We can’t stop them, but we can slow them up, buy ourselves time to get the coach inside the walls.”

  Totila nodded enthusiastically. “Then, if we leave the coach and cut across this alley here on foot …”

  “Risky,” Tzimisces murmured.

  “It should be all right,” Totila said. “If we send the coach on, as if it was going up this street here …”

  “Linen Yard,” the mayor said.

  “Yes, right. They’ll see the coach and assume the fencers are still in it, so they’ll follow while I lead the fencers through these alleys here, and come out here, practically opposite the Guildhall. If we’re quick, we’ll be safe inside before they realise what we’re up to.”

  Tzimisces frowned. “There’s a problem with that,” he said. “Assuming you can get them inside and close the door, you’ll still have several thousand hysterical people outside, and only a door and a lock and a bar to keep them out. Your men will still be up at the corn exchange, the Aram Chantat will be on the other side of town. Who’s going to keep the crowd from storming the Guild house?”

  The councillors looked at each other. “We are,” the mayor said. “And the Watch, of course. It’ll look less suspicious, the Watch forming up outside the Guild. They’ll be expecting them to do that. So, when the lieutenant here brings the fencers up from the alleys, the Watch’ll be there to get them inside and hold the doors until your Imperials can get back from Cornmarket.”

  Suidas could see that Addo was itching to join in. He put a hand on his arm.

  “Leave them to it,” he whispered. “Not your war.”

  Addo hesitated, then laughed. “Fair enough,” he said. “But it’s funny, isn’t it? We’re planning a military operation against people who really like us.”

  “It’s just tactics,” Suidas replied. “Isn’t that what you told me your father always says? Everything is tactics.”

  Addo nodded. “An old friend of the family told me once how my father set about courting my mother. Straight out of the Art of War. Trouble was, her father had read it too. Uncle Loic said in the end it was one of my father’s hardest-fought campaigns.”

  Suidas looked at him. “But he won.”

  “Oh yes. An inspired outflanking movement followed by a determined siege. There was another man involved, apparently. I gather he ended up getting posted to the northern front. I don’t know if he made it or not.” He laughed, a little nervously. “Hence the proverb, I suppose. All’s fair in love and war.”

  “No,” Suidas said. “Not really.”

  It worked, after a fashion. The mayor assured Tzimisces that the riot was nobody’s fault. It was asking too much of Totila’s men to hold off a crowd estimated at seven thousand without using the sharp ends of their weapons, and young Tzazo had made the right decision in falling back rather than draw blood. By the same token, they couldn’t blame the Aram Chantat for charging the mob as they came surging up the Broadway. They probably hadn’t appreciated what was going on, most of them didn’t even speak the language; so, when faced with a huge body of apparently angry people coming straight at them, their reaction was perfectly understandable. Fortunately, there had been only a handful of deaths and mercifully few injuries – which in itself demonstrated that the Aram Chantat had acted out of self-preservation rather than malice. In any event, the fencers were now safe inside the Guild house, with both the Watch and Totila’s men guarding the entrance, and the crowd, although it showed no sign of breaking up, was relatively calm. It would, though, make a tremendous difference if the fencers could just see their way to putting on a bit of a show. Not a formal match, naturally, that would be too much to ask, but something in the way of an exhibition bout; after all, Tzimisces had said, they could do with the practice.

  “No,” Iseutz said, when Phrantzes passed on the request. “Absolutely not.”

  “I’d rather not,” Giraut said. “I’d like to help out, naturally, but …”

  “How about a few bouts with foils?” Addo suggested. “That couldn’t hurt, could it?”

  Phrantzes’ face fell. “I don’t think that’s what they want to see.”

  “They’ll never know the difference,” Suidas said. “Well, maybe a few of them, up at the front. But the vast majority’d be too far away to see if there’s little buttons on the ends of the swords.”

  “What about the messers, though? And the longswords?”

  “Same thing. More than five yards away, you can’t tell if a sword’s got a blunted edge or not. You can fill the front rows with the tame ones, the local bigwigs, they won’t make trouble. And the rest of them won’t be able to see. Tell ’em it’s that or nothing. Well?”

  “It sounds like a good idea to me,” Giraut said.

  “Better than real swords, anyway,” Iseutz conceded. “Though I’m not wild about the idea of fencing without a jacket and a mask, even with foils, if I don’t absolutely have to.”

  The mayor and the Guild officers agreed, reluctantly, though they refused point blank to countenance the use of purpose-made foils, which (they said) wouldn’t fool anyone. Instead, the fight would be with proper weapons, the points and edges to be ground off as unobtrusively as possible. Iseutz complained bitterly, pointing out that a ground-off smallsword was only marginally safer than a fully sharp one, but Phrantzes smiled sadly and ignored her. (“It’s a pity,” Addo said later to Suidas. “A lot of what Iseutz says is bang on the nail, but because it’s her saying it, people assume it’s just moaning and don’t listen. Of course, it’d help if she didn’t shout all the time.”) She looked round for Tzimisces, with a view to lodging an appeal, but he’d disappeared again.

  “Has it occurred to any of you to wonder,” Iseutz asked, while they were waiting for the swords to be blunted, “what happens to the money?”

  Giraut looked up. “Money?”

  Suidas smiled. “The gate receipts, you mean? I must admit, the thought had crossed my mind.”

  “Presumably the Guild keeps it,” Addo said. “As payment for the use of the building.”

  “Then they’re doing pretty bloody well out of it,” Suidas replied sharply. “How many people were there at Joiauz? Nine hundred? A thousand? That’s got to be a fair bit of money.”

  “More than that. I counted the rows of seats. You know about that stuff,” Giraut said. “What’s the usual arrangement, back home?”

  “Mostly you get a flat fee,” Suidas said. “Guaranteed even i
f nobody shows up. Occasionally people fight for a share of the take, but we don’t favour that. We like to know what we’re getting.”

  “It must be costing the government a lot of money to run this tour,” Addo said, though it was obvious his heart wasn’t in it. “Maybe they’re using some of the takings to offset the expenses.”

  Suidas laughed. “Let’s see,” he said. “Board, lodgings, cavalry escort and coach provided by the Permians. None of you lot’s getting anything. Tzimisces is a military officer, so he’s being paid already. No, I don’t see it myself.”

  “You’re being paid,” Iseutz pointed out; and if she noticed the sudden drop in temperature, she showed no sign. “Quite a lot.”

  “Sure, I admit it,” Suidas said angrily. “Nothing else on earth would’ve induced me—”

  “So maybe,” Iseutz went on, “our share of the takings is going to pay your wages.”

  “We don’t know if the Permians are giving our government anything,” Addo put in quickly. “So I don’t think there’s any point in speculating.”

  “I’m going to ask Phrantzes,” Iseutz said. “Because if money’s changing hands and he’s getting all of it, that’s not fair. Well, is it?”

  Suidas gave her a poisonous look. “Look at it this way,” he said. “I’m the only one who needs paying. The rest of you they could get for free, for various reasons.”

  Giraut winced. Iseutz opened her mouth to say something, but maybe the right words hadn’t been invented yet, and she felt that the language as it stood wouldn’t do justice to the strength of her feelings. Addo said, “This isn’t helping. Well, is it?”

  “It’s all right for you,” Suidas replied. “You don’t need the money, any of you. It’s just something that’s naturally there, like air every time you breathe. Some of us—”

  “Are risking their lives so you can get a nice fat payout,” Iseutz said. “And you aren’t even doing what you were hired for. You’re supposed to be the one fighting with those disgusting meat-cleaver things.”

  “Look,” Addo said – it was the first time he’d raised his voice, and it shut the others up instantly. “We don’t even know for a fact they’re charging money at the door. Well, do we? So it’s pointless making a stupid fuss about it. And like he said, we don’t need the money. We should be grateful for that, instead of picking on each other.”

  Iseutz glared at him. “Don’t you have any principles?”

  There was a short, stunned silence; then Suidas laughed. “Sorry,” he said, “but I think you’re fighting a losing battle there. From what I’ve seen, young Master Carnufex here has principles the way a dog’s got worms. They’re just not quite the same as yours, that’s all.”

  “Leave it,” Addo snapped. “Please,” he added gently. “If we’ve got to have a blazing row about this, let’s wait till we’re safely on our way home again. It’ll keep till then, I’m quite sure.”

  Iseutz shrugged. Suidas grinned. “Remarkable thing,” he said. “Here we’ve got the son of the Irrigator, and all he wants to do is make peace. That’s hardly the Carnufex way, is it?”

  Addo turned and looked at him for several seconds. Then he said, “On the contrary, it’s all my family’s ever tried to do. Of course,” he added, as Suidas looked away, “we’ve always sought to achieve it by slaughtering the enemy to the last man, but it’s the thought that counts.”

  There was no fencing match. Giraut and Iseutz, who were billed to go on first and second, were waiting in the small anteroom at the top of the Guild house main hall when Phrantzes burst in looking terrified. He explained that something dreadful had happened, the streets were full of rioters, the building had been evacuated and they were on no account to go outside.

  “What the hell do you mean, something dreadful?” Iseutz said.

  “I really don’t know,” Phrantzes said, “but it must be something serious. Totila gave me the news, and he looked scared out of his wits. And I don’t suppose much has that effect on that young man.”

  Giraut said: “You said there’s a riot. Is it about us?”

  “Again, I really don’t know. Totila was about to line his men up outside the building, to stop anybody getting in, so we ought to be relatively safe, just so long as we don’t go wandering about.” He looked round, as though he’d just noticed something. “Where are the others?”

  “Addo said something about grabbing ten minutes’ practice,” Giraut said. “To get used to the sword he’d be fencing with. God only knows where Suidas is.”

  Phrantzes closed his eyes, then opened them again. “If they come in here,” he said, “don’t let them leave. Why the hell people can’t just stay put, I really don’t know.”

  Suidas came in a few minutes later. “There’s a mob in the street,” he said.

  “We know,” Iseutz said. “And the match is off.”

  “Excellent,” Suidas said. “Why?”

  “Because of the mob,” Giraut said. “Phrantzes was here. There’s been some unspecified disaster, and we’re not to leave this room.”

  “The hell with that,” Suidas said. “I’m going to find out what’s going on.”

  By the time he came back, Addo had drifted in, looking nervous and shaken. “I looked out the window,” he explained, “and someone threw a slab of paving stone at my head. It’s pretty lively down there, I can tell you. I thought they liked us.”

  “It’s not us specifically,” Suidas said. “I slipped out into the street by the back way, nobody’s thought to put a guard there and the door’s unbolted. Brilliant security. Anyhow, it seems that the local mine boss got himself murdered. Never heard of him, but I get the impression he was the next best thing to God in these parts. Hence the riot.”

  “Wonderful,” Iseutz said. “Is anybody doing anything about it, do you suppose?”

  Suidas shrugged. “I think the watch is out there smashing statues and burning houses with the rest of them,” he said. “Totila’s men are out front, nobody seems in a hurry to pick a fight with them, so we’re all right. What I’m wondering is where those Aram Chantat have got to. If they decide to weigh in to the crowd, there’s going to be a massacre.”

  Giraut shivered. “Is that likely?” Addo asked.

  “No way of telling. They may decide it’s a political matter, none of their business, or they may take the view that their duties include keeping the peace, in which case God help any living thing on the street. The danger is if they get carried away, or if anybody’s stupid enough to fight back. If that happens, they could do anything. I’m not entirely sure they know the difference between Permians, Imperials and Scherians. We all look alike to them.”

  Giraut shifted uncomfortably. “When you say burning houses …”

  “I saw an orange glow in the sky not far from here, and I don’t suppose it was the sunset,” Suidas said. “I can’t see why a nation of fencing fanatics would want to burn down the Fencers’ Guild, but fire has a tricky way of spreading. We really ought to think about moving closer to the back door, just in case.”

  Which they did, laying claim to a document store just down the passage from the doorway. When Phrantzes finally found them, he was not amused. “I’ve been looking everywhere,” he said. “I told you to stay in the waiting room.”

  “We thought it might be wise to plan an escape route,” Addo said. “What’s going on? Have you found out?”

  Phrantzes nodded and sat down on a packing case. “A senator by the name of Ashok has been assassinated,” he said. “Tzimisces told me just now. He was a very important man, apparently, a senior member of the cabinet, and very popular locally. As soon as the news got out, people just went mad. They’ve had to send in the Aram Chantat to restore order.”

  Nobody spoke. After a moment, the door opened and Tzimisces came in. “We’re going to have to leave the building,” he said briskly. “It’ll be all right, Totila’s sent a dozen good men to look after us, and the back streets are relatively quiet.”

  Phran
tzes’ eyes grew very round. “Are you sure that’s a …?”

  “Better than staying here,” Tzimisces said. “Things aren’t going too well. Basically, the mayor’s lost control of the town. The Aram Chantat are killing people in Fountain Square, and the crowds falling back from that area are so angry they don’t really care what they smash up or set fire to. Also,” he added quietly, “the crowd seem to be blaming the peace faction for killing Ashok. No idea if there’s any truth in it, but that’s what they’ve got into their heads, in which case mob logic makes us a subsection of the enemy. Totila says if we stay in town he can’t guarantee our safety. Coming from an Imperial, that’s quite an admission. So, we’re leaving. Don’t think about trying to collect your stuff,” he added, glancing sideways at Suidas. “They’ll try and find us some transport once we get outside the walls.”

  The alley was quiet. Tzimisces held up a lantern, and Giraut saw Tzazo and five Imperials lined up waiting for them. Tzazo had a cut lip and blood on his right hand, and the right shoulder-piece of one of the soldiers’ armour had been torn loose and was hanging over his stomach. All of them looked terrified.

  “Where’s Totila?” Tzimisces asked.

  “He’s not coming,” Tzazo replied. “I’m sorry, that’s all I know. I think I’m in command now.

  Tzimisces frowned; then Giraut watched as he dismissed the news from his mind. “Which way are you taking us?”

  Tzazo rattled off a list of street names. Tzimisces seemed to approve; he nodded, and the six Imperials moved to form a square, with the fencers inside. “Hang on,” Suidas said. “We’re unarmed. If it’s as bad as that …”

  Tzimisces shook his head. “We’re on foreign soil,” he said. “We don’t fight. That’s what the soldiers are for. If one of you were to kill a Permian, even in self-defence, it’d be a disaster.”