Sharps

by K. J. Parker

  “Fine,” someone said. “Which one do we want?”

  The chairman sighed. “Good question,” he said. “We aren’t exactly wild about the current Permian government, but they could be a lot worse. There’s reason to believe that if the mob favours anyone, it’s the war faction. But if this government survives, it’ll only be because of the military. The soldiers and the line officers are Blueskins and savages, but the senior command is still basically Permian military aristocracy; in other words, the war faction. Two sides of the same coin.”

  “So what we want is the stalemate,” someone said.

  “Not really,” the chairman replied sadly. “That just puts off the crisis for a while, allowing it to build up a really good head of steam for when it does eventually explode.”

  There was a tense silence. Then somebody said, “Aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves just a bit? We don’t know if the trouble’s spread, or whether it’s confined to Luzir Soleth. It could turn out to be nothing but a minor local problem. If we overreact, surely that’s the worst thing we could do.”

  “He’s right,” said someone else at the far end of the table. “We can’t put together a policy until we know exactly what’s going on over there. I mean, if the rioting spreads to some of the other mining towns, or the cities, even, that’s definitely a problem for us. But we don’t know that’s what’s going to happen. We’ve just got to hold our water and see how it turns out.”

  Afterwards, Turcuin Boioannes, director of investment policy, tracked the chairman down to the small cloister just off the southern quadrangle, where he was sitting on a stone bench, reading a document and eating bread and cheese. “What was all that about?” he asked.

  The chairman gave him a sad smile. “You don’t want to know,” he said. “Believe me.”

  Boioannes sat down beside him. “Probably not,” he said. “Look, I’m on your side. What’s going on?”

  The chairman sighed and put the papers down on the paved floor. “What the hell,” he said. “You’ll find out soon enough, I’m sure. We’ve got a problem, and it’s my fault.”

  Boioannes grinned at him. “A wise man once said, there’s no problem that can’t be solved by a kind word, a five-figure payment or three inches of sharp metal. What have you done?”

  “I’ve lent forty million nomismata of the Bank’s money to the Permian government,” the chairman said. “And I neglected to tell anybody beforehand.”

  For a while, Boioannes was completely unaware of the passage of time. “We haven’t got forty million nomismata.”

  “Not in actual money, no. Most of it’s a line of credit secured on Bank stock. If we’re called on it, someone, the Empire presumably, is going to end up owning the Bank.”

  Boioannes breathed in and out slowly. “What on earth possessed you to do such a thing?”

  The chairman smiled at him. “Desperation,” he replied. “Turcuin, the Bank’s about to go under. I haven’t told anybody because I couldn’t bring myself to do it, but we’re this close to the edge. We’re massively overcommitted to long-term loans to small farmers, small workshops, practically everybody in the country’s borrowed from us, and we’ve had to borrow the money from the big Imperial banks, secured on future tax revenues we know aren’t going to happen because the country simply can’t afford to pay them. We all know this, deep inside, but nobody’s dared say it out loud. Meanwhile, I’ve got to pay the Stewards of the South Gate Temple a quarter of a million by the end of the month, and then I’ve got to find a hundred and ten thousand for the Caecilius brothers, and so it goes on. There’s nothing like enough coming in from our debtors, and I’ve got to show the Imperials something. And then I had this wild, crazy thought. Why not make up a whole lot of pretend money, lend it to the Permians and pay off our creditors with the interest?”

  Another long silence. Then Boioannes asked: “Why the Permians, for crying out loud?”

  “They asked.” The chairman’s grin widened. “They’re broke too. During the War they sold silver futures to pay their mercenaries. It doesn’t matter how much silver they dig out of the ground in the next twenty years, because none of it’s theirs, it already belongs to the Eastern Empire.” He paused for a moment while what he’d just said sank in, and all the blood drained from Boioannes’ face. “Meanwhile, they’ve got thousands of Blueskins and Aram Chantat right in the heart of their territory who need to be paid or else who knows what they’ll do. They really need the money, trust me.”

  “But …” Boioannes shook his head, as if trying to clear it. “There’s no chance in hell of them ever paying us back. The Empire’s not buying their silver any more. The Regia process—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” the chairman said. “It’s pretend money anyhow, most of it, so if we lose it …” He laughed. “The interest, they’re paying that in Permian government bonds, which the Western Empire banks are quite happy to take from us, as interest payments on our debt. But if the Permian government falls …”

  Boioannes closed his eyes. “Talking to you purely as a friend,” he said, “if I were you, I’d go home and pack. As an officer of the Bank—”

  “It could still be all right,” the chairman said quietly, and a shaft of sunlight, passing through the stained glass of the rose window at the far end of the cloister, drenched him in red fire. “Have you got any idea how much silver, iron, copper, God knows what else, there is lying under the ground in the DMZ? If we can only get a treaty, then the Permians can go in there, formally claim the mineral rights, sell the futures, pay us the capital, the forty million; with that money, I can pay off the Western banks, and suddenly everything will be just fine. Miracle. Magic wand. That’s what I was thinking of, Turcuin, and it’s a stroke of genius, I know it is. We could have it all signed and sealed in a month, if only we could get that stupid bloody treaty.” He sighed. “And I was so close,” he went on, “thanks to my friend, ally and kindred spirit in the Permian cabinet, who’s been pulling strings and twisting arms on this for the last six months.”

  Boioannes winced. “Minister Ashok.”

  “That man was a hero,” the chairman said, “the best, he really understood what had to be done. The thought that anybody could be stupid enough to kill him …” For a moment he seemed to have difficulty finding words. “Stupid,” he repeated. “It’s like picking up a red-hot iron off the fire and poking it in your own eye. Of all the idiotic, suicidal things to do. I can’t begin to imagine …” He paused, then said, “Well, of course I can. Ashok’s main agenda was reconciling the old military aristocracy with the mine owners, with a view to getting the exiles who were thrown out at the end of the War pardoned and recalled. A lot of the people in power helped themselves to the exiles’ land and property, which they’d have had to give back if the exiles were pardoned. I don’t think you need to look further than that for a motive. Unfortunately, those are the people who helped us stitch up the peace, and who we’re having to do business with right now.”

  Boioannes nodded. “The peace party, in other words.”

  “Precisely. It’s a crying shame that the good guys had to be a bunch of thieves and embezzlers, but what can you do? Anyway, that’s what I’ve been carrying around with me for the last three weeks.” He turned his head slowly and looked at Boioannes. “What are you going to do, now I’ve told you?”

  “Me?” Boioannes looked vaguely shocked by the question. “Forget this conversation, for a start.”

  The chairman didn’t look convinced. “Not sure you’ll be able to.”

  “I can try. Also, I can delay the general audit.” The chairman’s eyes opened wide, and Boioannes laughed. “You’d forgotten about that, hadn’t you?”

  “God help me, yes, I had. Look, can you do that? Because if not …”

  “It’ll be my head nailed up next to yours on a gateway somewhere,” Boioannes said, with feeling. “I don’t see that I’ve got a choice. And really, we need to tell a few other people about this. If we want to get the t
reaty expedited—”

  The chairman moved so fast that Boioannes didn’t have time to react. Before he could shrink away, the chairman’s hand was on his collar, pulling it tight around his neck. “You tell them,” he said in a rasping whisper. “Say you’ve found out, you’re utterly appalled and once it’s all over you’re going to have to do something about it, but meanwhile you desperately need their co-operation if the Bank’s to be saved. I can’t do it, they’d be so angry they wouldn’t hear me out. But Goidas and Maniaces, on the foreign affairs committee, they’ll listen to you.”

  Boioannes nodded. “I was thinking of Rimbaut Mezezius. He’d be the man to push the treaty through.”

  “Would he …?”

  “If he wants to marry my niece,” Boioannes replied grimly. “Listen, leave it to me. I still can’t believe you’ve done this appalling thing, but since you have, we’d better try and make the best of it. Meanwhile, you’ll have to use your contacts in Permia.” He paused, and looked worried. “If you’ve still got any, I mean.”

  The chairman nodded slowly. “Two,” he said, “both in the cabinet. Neither of them’s mad keen to get directly involved, but I guess the prospect of the Aram Chantat declaring that they’re open to offers might just make them feel a degree more energetic. I’ll put pressure on them to renew the treaty negotiations, if you can make sure that our side’ll be on board when it happens. If we do this together, and if there’s still a government in Permia we can do business with, we may possibly come out of this in one piece. Otherwise, we might as well send a polite note round to the Irrigator asking him if he feels like forming a government.”

  Boioannes went home and wrote seven letters. Five of them he gave to servants to deliver. The other two he handed to his sons. They weren’t best pleased at being called away from their studies to carry letters across the city, but they knew their father well enough not to argue when he had that particular look on his face.

  With that out of the way, he put on a light coat (the sun was coming out) and walked up the hill to the Longest Day monastery. The porter knew him by now, nodded and opened the door.

  “How is he?” Boioannes asked.

  “He’s wonderful for his age,” the porter replied guardedly. “You know the way.”

  Boioannes found his uncle in the walled garden, on his knees, hand-weeding round the onions. He sat up when he heard footsteps on the gravel path, and looked round.

  “Oh,” he said. “It’s you.”

  “Afraid so,” Boioannes replied. There was something about his uncle in his monastic robe that made him feel about twelve years old. “Have you got a minute? I need to ask you something.”

  The old man shrugged. “I’m just a simple brother of the Order, I’ve got all the time in the world,” he said sourly. “You’re the incredibly busy man of affairs. To what do I owe the honour?”

  Boioannes sighed and slowly lowered himself to his knees, taking care to kneel between the rows and not crush any onions. He reached out, wrapped his fingers round a clump of soft light green weed, and pulled gently. “I’ve just had a very disturbing talk with the chairman,” he said.

  The old man clicked his tongue. “That boy’s a fool,” he said. “I should never have promoted him out of the copying room.”

  Boioannes laughed. “Well, you did,” he said, “so I guess this is as much your fault as anybody else’s. Really, I should make you come out of retirement and sort it out.”

  The old man held up both his hands. “Never,” he said. “Forty years in the Bank was quite enough for me, thank you very much. You have no idea how much happier I am here.”

  “Getting up at three in the morning for early mass?”

  “I have a dispensation from the abbot,” the old man said gravely, “because of my knees. Now, what exactly has the idiot boy done this time?”

  “He’s lent forty million to the Permian government.”

  The old man kept quite still for five, possibly six seconds. Then he began to laugh.

  “I take it back,” he said eventually. “The child has a certain degree of imagination, not to mention courage.”

  “We haven’t got—”

  “Of course we haven’t,” the old man said. “Presumably he’s put up Bank stock to cover it.”

  Boioannes nodded his head. “It’s so the Permians can pay the Eastern Empire for the hire of the Blueskins and the Aram Chantat,” he said. “But there’s been dreadful rioting in Permia, and the government could fall. In which case …”

  “Yes, I heard something about that,” the old man said, with a deliberate vagueness that made Boioannes want to hit him. “So, let me see, the only asset the Permian regime has got left is the hope of the mineral deposits in the Debatable Land. Presumably the idea was to hurry through a treaty, get the Permians to sell the futures, pay back the loan and thereby turn forty million imaginary nomismata into forty million real ones. Yes, I like that. It’s rather a nice idea.”

  Boioannes stared. Fifty-two years he’d known his uncle, and still the old monster could surprise him. “You like it?”

  The old man shrugged. “It’s probably what I’d have done if I was still at the Bank,” he said. “After all, there’s absolutely nothing else that could be done. There’s nothing left. The War’s taken it all. This way, we get assured peace and genuine solvency, both of which are otherwise hopelessly beyond our reach. Bless the child, I was right about him after all. I’m never wrong about people,” he added. “It’s my one talent.”

  “But Uncle …”

  “What’s the alternative?” the old man demanded sternly. “As things are now, the Bank will collapse within the year. The military barons will then stage a coup, repudiate our foreign debt, and get us in a war with the Western Empire and Permia simultaneously. We’ll beat the Permians, the Westerners will beat us, we’ll appeal to the East for help and be annexed to the Eastern Empire. That’s what Carnufex and his people have wanted all along; he trusts the Easterners, they absolutely worship him, he can see himself as commander-in-chief of the Imperial army in ten years’ time. And there’s no question but that the Easterners will run this country far better than we ever could. They’ve got the resources, after all.” He smiled, and teased out a nettle, gripping its stem hard between forefinger and thumb so it couldn’t sting him. “I’ve been resigned to that for some time,” he said. “In fact, I’ve been reading up extensively on fire worship. I should be reluctant to have to convert at my time of life, but it’s always sensible to be prepared.”

  Boioannes blinked, as if he’d been staring into a bright light. “You might have told me,” he said. “I’m supposed to be governing this country. How can I do that if people won’t tell me anything?”

  “If you can’t be bothered to find things out for yourself,” the old man said mildly, “then I have absolutely no sympathy. If I can figure it out kneeling in an onion patch …” He shrugged. “Well, there it is. And really, I don’t see a problem, provided the treaty can be forced through.”

  “But these riots …”

  “In five towns,” the old man said, “in the north-west mining belt. And I believe the savages have the situation well in hand. Just so long as nothing else happens, I don’t see that there’s an insurmountable problem. After all, you’ve still got the Permian chancellor and the interior minister in your pockets.”

  Boioannes managed to catch his breath, just enough to ask the question he’d been wanting to ask for the best part of fifty years. “Uncle,” he said, “how the hell do you know all this?”

  The old man pulled a sad face. “Turcuin, you idiot,” he said. “You’re a good boy, but you never did master elementary arithmetic. We know more or less how many mercenaries there are in Permia.”

  “Do we?”

  “Yes,” the old man said firmly. “And we know how much they’re paid. Forty million isn’t enough.”

  Boioannes frowned. “It isn’t?”

  “Good heavens, no. It’s about two-thirds,
if that.” He flicked out a dock root, noted with a scowl that he’d taken an onion with it, and carefully pressed it back into the loosened soil. “And who do you think lent the Permians the other twenty million?”

  Before Boioannes had recovered sufficiently to think about the implications of that, the old man nudged him in the ribs and slowly hauled himself to his feet. A young monk was standing on the path, looking more than a little scared.

  “Well?” the old man said.

  “Father Abbot would like to see you,” the monk said. “In his study. If it’s convenient.”

  “I think it’ll have to be,” the old man said. “You can find your own way out, can’t you, Turcuin? My nephew,” he explained to the young monk, who smiled nervously. “He’s just leaving.”

  Boioannes walked slowly on the way home, as though he didn’t really want to get there. It was late, and the Watch were clearing the streets so that the food carts from the country could come in and make their deliveries. In a couple of hours’ time, Westgate and Coppermarket would be jammed with every type of wheeled vehicle imaginable, all part of the vast and horribly overengineered mechanism that brought food to a huge assemblage of people who had no land and no livestock to feed themselves from. Years ago, as a small boy during the War, he’d asked his father what would happen if, for some reason, the carts stopped coming. No need to worry, his father had told him, we have three public granaries, as well as a dozen private corn chandlers; there’s enough food in the city to last a month, easily. Yes, he’d replied, but what if the carts stopped coming for a month? What’d happen then? Well, they won’t, his father told him irritably, and that was the end of the conversation; mostly as a result of which, he’d reached the conclusion that the old government had to go and someone – the Bank, as it turned out – had to get control and start taking these things seriously.

  Well, he thought. They’d had three years’ supply of grain left in the city granary at Flos Verjan when the Irrigator opened the sluices, and a lot of good it did them. War had to be avoided, at all costs, no matter what, because war killed men and burnt cities, evaporated money, drained resources, ruined everything. The chairman understood about war, which was why he’d made the decision to take Scheria away from the military aristocracy – and, presumably, why he’d been prepared to lend forty million to the enemy, even though the Bank didn’t have forty million, or four million, or four hundred thousand. When the enemy is swinging at your head, you raise your arm to block the cut, even though it means losing your right hand.