by K. J. Parker
I tend to keep my thoughts to myself, which is why I scowl a lot, but sometimes it’s nice to have someone to think out loud at, and when I’m with the Corps it’s generally Captain Bautzes who draws the short straw. I have a lot of time for him, though I’d never dream of saying so. As far as he’s concerned, I regard him as an inoffensive halfwit who can be trained, with patience, to perform simple tasks. He’s not, of course. Nicephorus Bautzes is an off-relation of the incredibly ancient and illustrious Phocas family. His sideshoot or tendril—you couldn’t in all honesty call it a branch—of the family fell on hard times about seventy years ago; they’ve still got a little village and a falling-down old manor house in the Paralia, with discoloured patches on the walls where the priceless icons and tapestries used to hang before they got sold off, and a library of fine old books which make your hands all sticky, because of the mould, because of the damp. Nico makes you realise what the Phocas must’ve been like five hundred years ago, in their heyday, because he’s—well, if you’d never met an Imperial but had read all the romances, Nico is what you’d expect. He’s six feet nine, shoulders like an ox, bald as an egg apart from a silly little beard (but no moustache, naturally); he can lift the back wheels of a Type Six supply cart off the ground, jump his own height from a standstill, all that sort of stuff, makes me feel tired just watching him. He’s read all the best books and understood about a fifth of them, which isn’t bad going at all. He’s hard-working, conscientious, respectful, orthodox, eager to learn, beautiful manners, brave as a lion—everything I’m not, in other words—and one of these days he might turn out to be a competent engineer. He’d be a typical example of his race and class, except that he seems to like me and has problems with his vision (can’t always distinguish between brown and pink)—I don’t know what to make of him, really, but until I see evidence to the contrary I’m forced to the conclusion that he’s all right.
Nico has this knack of knowing when something’s bugging me. Naturally he’s too polite to say anything, but he takes to standing around looking down at his feet. Since he takes up a lot of space, it’s hard to ignore or work round him, so we talk.
On this occasion, we’d just finished packing up all the gear after fixing the busted aqueduct. It’s Nico’s job to traipse round all the wagons, make sure everything’s tied down safely and properly stowed, and then he reports to me. Bugging out after a job is always a stressful business, and while he’s doing the final checks I like to sneak off to my tent, put my feet up, close my eyes and not think about anything for at least an hour, on my own, no interruptions. The one thing I really don’t like about my job is having people all round me all the time, from the moment I wake up until I close my eyes and fall asleep. It’s not natural. So, on bugging-out days, Nico puts his head round the tent flap, says All done, or just nods, and goes away. This time, though, he came in and stood there like one of those ornamental pillars in the desert; if he’d been wearing an ascetic philosopher on top of his head instead of a hat, he’d have looked just right. I sighed. “What?” I said.
He gave me his cow-eyed look. “Something’s the matter,” he said. Statement of fact, not a question.
“What makes you say that?”
“Oh, things. Like the jobs we’ve just been doing. All this low-priority stuff, bridges and aqueducts. We’ve had generals howling at us for months to do work round the City, and you drag us off to the middle of nowhere to build a bridge for a damn subaltern.”
I rested my cheek on my fist and gazed at him. “Is that right?”
He nodded. “How bad is it?” he said.
Nico is huge; when we’re together I look like his kid brother or his pet monkey. Regardless, there are times when I feel an overpowering urge to protect him, from all the bad things that are perfectly capable of happening to the innocent and well-meaning. But he’s a captain in the Imperial army, therefore deemed to be tough enough to cope with most things. “Not wonderful,” I said.
“You went to a Council meeting in town.”
I nodded. “General Priscus and the full dog show.”
“And then we do this job a long way away.”
“Possibly not far enough,” I said. “Tell me,” I went on, “when you were at the Academy, did they teach you about General Allectus?”
He nodded. “Seventh-century AUC. When the empire was invaded by the Bel Semplan, Allectus commanded the Third Army in Bessagene. He proclaimed himself emperor and ran Bessagene as an independent state for twenty-six years until the empire recovered and drove out the Semplan, whereupon he surrendered, handed back control of his province and was executed for treason. Why?”
“Interesting man,” I said. “One theory is, Allectus figured that the empire had had it, and he took over Bessagene so that a little bit of Robur civilisation would be preserved somewhere, albeit in the arsehole of the universe, while everywhere else all the lights slowly went out. It’s not true, of course, but it would be nice to think it was.”
He looked at me. “That bad.”
From where I was sitting I had a view out over the bleak, wind-scoured moor towards the horrible pointy mountains. I hated it because it reminded me of home. “We could stay here,” I said. “You saw those men back at the fort, where we built the bridge. They’re not soldiers any more, they’re farmers. We could join them. There’s, what, three thousand of us. We could buy or steal three thousand women, build a bloody great big wall across the Odontis Pass. Farming can’t be hard, or farmers couldn’t do it. And then we wouldn’t have to get involved, and if something really bad is just about to happen, then at least there’ll be one corner of a foreign field that’ll be forever Robur. Which would be nice,” I added, “I’m sure you’d agree. Well?”
He grabbed the spare camp stool and sat down. It creaked under his weight. “That bad,” he repeated.
“If we go back,” I said, “there’s a good chance we’ll be pulled back to the City to repair the walls. Once we’re there, I don’t suppose we’ll get another chance to slip away. If something bad is coming, we’ll be right there in the bullseye.”
Typical of Nico not to ask me what the bad thing might be. I believed in it, therefore it existed. “On balance,” he said, after a moment’s solemn thought, “I’d rather be Gennaeus than Allectus.”
I smiled. Gennaeus, of course, founded the Robur nation after fleeing with one ship from the burning ruins of Moa; he stayed on the wall until the very last moment, and even then stopped to scoop up his elderly parents and the holy icons. Myself, I read the myth slightly differently. I think Gennaeus only got out alive because he saw that Moa was doomed, and spent his evenings digging an escape tunnel, the existence of which he neglected to share with anyone outside his family and immediate friends. But that’s not the version Nico heard at his grandmother’s knee. Duty and hope. Oh dear.
“Would your answer be different,” I said, “if this place wasn’t the arsehole of the universe?”
He grinned. “Possibly yes. But it is, isn’t it?”
I sighed. “Nobody wanted a bridge built in Baionia,” I said. “Fair enough. Let’s go home and be brave. Dismissed.”
He gave me a vague smile, picked up his helmet (very bright and shiny, but he bought it second hand from the Colias brothers), saluted and slung his hook. I suppose I’d wanted his permission. I hadn’t for one moment expected him to say yes. He is, after all, a friend, and remember what I told you about my friends.
Here’s a case in point. My best friend when I was growing up, Ogus. Marvellous boy Ogus was. He could run the fastest, throw the furthest, he could shear a sheep all on his own when he was six, and everybody liked him, but he chose to hang about with me, small, scruffy, generally held to be good for nothing much. But I’ve always had a tendency towards the quiet life and the avoidance of trouble. Not so Ogus. He loved to make a fuss. Also, he’s what they call a born leader—learned a lot from him in that regard. Even now when I don’t know how I’m going to get people to do what I want, I ask
myself, what would Ogus do? Anyway, there was this exceptionally fine apple tree, growing on its own in what I guess was once a garden, though the house was long since rotted away. It was exactly on the boundary between his dad’s place and their neighbour’s, and that neighbour was a miserable bugger. There had been many a falling-out over the fruit of that tree. They even got the village council involved, to decide whose tree it was; and the council, being a political body, reached a decision that pleased nobody and made everything worse; the tree should be cut down and burned, to prevent further discord. So then Ogus’s dad and the neighbour had a fresh falling-out over who was going to do the felling, and come apple season there the tree still was. Magnificent crop that year; actually the apples were sour and only fit for cooking, but Ogus resolved to have the lot and decide what to do with them later. He planned a neatly coordinated commando operation, which of course involved me. No, Ogus, I said, I’ve been in enough trouble lately and I don’t want to come between your old man and that bastard. Absolutely not. So, long story short, off we went with his mother’s big wicker basket to rob the apple tree. I was to be lookout while he climbed up and did the robbing. We’d half filled the basket when the miserable old neighbour showed up, with his three horribly savage dogs. Ogus was down out of the tree and three fields away before you could say strategic withdrawal. I, of course, got my sleeve caught up in a patch of evil briars, and by the time I’d got it free the dogs had got me surrounded, softly growling, with their hackles up; if I so much as blinked, they’d have me. And then up came the neighbour, and he had a curious look on his face. He whistled, and the dogs fell back, clearly feeling that they should’ve been allowed to finish the job and make the world a better place.
“You Orhan?” he said.
“That’s right.”
“Everyone’s out looking for you, son. You want to get back home, right now. Your sister’s had an accident.”
Have I mentioned my sister? Probably not, since she’s of no importance to the story; she died when I was six, fell off a wall and smashed her head when I was out scrumping apples when I should have been keeping an eye on her. Anyhow, Ogus’s dad’s miserable neighbour walked back with me to our place; didn’t say anything until we were almost at the door, then he looked me in the eye, said, “Don’t blame yourself, son, these things happen”, and walked away. I found out later his kid brother had fallen through the ice, many years ago, when they were fishing for eels, and he hadn’t been able to do anything. Friends and enemies.
5
We returned to Cacodemon after seven weeks away. During our absence, the situation had changed.
I underestimated Admiral Zonaras. I never thought he’d manage to find the pirates. But he did. He scraped together enough stores to launch three out of the five squadrons of the Third Fleet and headed for the Pillars. Slight amendment; he didn’t find the pirates, they found him. They must’ve gathered every ship in the north; even so, Zonaras outnumbered them two to one, and his galleots should have smashed through them like a fist through a biscuit. Instead, they turned and ran like hares, and Zonaras sailed after them straight into the narrows between the Pillars, where his ships were bunched up so close you could’ve walked from one side of the Fleet to the other—at which point, the pirates set fire to a dozen worthless old hulks, loaded with cotton waste, lamp oil and flour, and launched them directly at them. The wind was behind them, so there was no way to stop them, and that same wind spread the flames back through the Fleet faster than a man could run. The flagship and three others managed to pull out and get clear. The rest were burned down to the waterline in just under half an hour. The currents are nasty round the Pillars, not a good place to go swimming. The pirates picked up a couple of hundred survivors, but that was all.
Very bad. We still had plenty of ships, but no sails, no ropes, anchors, nothing. The greatest sea power the world has ever seen was now in the position where it couldn’t launch anything bigger than a dinghy until the Stair Point light was mended and the First Fleet could be brought back from the wrong side of the straits. Talking of which: the Sherden had been back to Stair Point, slaughtered the repair crew and broken up the enormous wrought-iron cradle that supports the light, making it possible to swivel it and illuminate the safe passage through the straits. An interesting development—barely enough charcoal left in the City depots to build the monstrous fire needed to found a new cradle; not enough skilled engineers to install it and get it lined up and calibrated, on account of some fool of a colonel-in-chief leading the entire Corps off into the wilderness to build some fatuous bridge.
Yes, I did feel bad about that. Also, it didn’t feel right, somehow. We set off as soon as we could, but since we didn’t dare go by sea, we had a very long march ahead of us, Stair Point being on the far side of the straits… I was starting to feel the way I do when I play chess against someone who actually knows the game. Genuine intelligence was at work here, and that’s simply not something you’re accustomed to facing when dealing with—
Milkfaces. Quite.
So off we went to fix the lighthouse. Needless to say, we never got there.
We were trailing up the long climb to Melias Beacon when we saw a horseman charging down the slope towards us. I could see him swaying about in the saddle; I thought he must be drunk. He was wearing a navy pillbox felt hat, but you can buy one in any bar. When he came close, I saw that his right hand was clamped to his stomach.
He was navy all right, and he was clutching his guts to keep them from falling out. He had that grey look. We tried to help him off his horse, but he yelled, keep away, get away from me. Calm down, I said to him, we can help you, we’ve got doctors. He shook his head; no time, he said. So we let him talk.
There had been a storm brewing, so the Fleet put in at Ricasa and the captains sent the men ashore, since they’d been at sea for weeks. Just after sun-up, our man was woken up by loud yells and people running. He opened the door of whatever grog-shop he’d passed out in, and looked out at the harbour. It was driving rain and the sky was red. The Fleet was burning. He had no idea who’d done it and didn’t have a chance to find out; someone whose face he didn’t see stabbed him and left him for dead. He passed out, and when he came round there were dead bodies everywhere. Somehow he scrambled to his feet and got moving, and by some weird stroke of luck walked straight into a horse, saddled and bridled, nibbling moss off the low eaves of a house. The strain of getting on the horse made bits of his insides pop out, but he thought, the hell with it, and headed out of town as fast as he could get the horse to go. He had no idea how long he’d been riding—And then he died.
Brave man. Not sure I’d have bothered, in his shoes. We were all stunned, as you can imagine. Nobody spoke for a long time, then Nico started babbling about fire ships. I told him to shut up and act like nothing had happened—the boys were watching us, and one thing you don’t want is men under your command hearing bad news from anyone except you.
We buried the navy man under a pile of stones, and then I sent a couple of my brighter young lieutenants ahead on horses. Find out what you can, I told them, but whatever you do, don’t be seen. Then I ordered full stop, fall out and a kit inspection, to take everyone’s mind off anything anyone might have heard.
The two boys came back in the middle of the night. They looked scared stiff. They’d gone along the coast road as far as—I forget where, exactly, but they had a good view down into the valley and there was a hell of a lot of smoke coming up from the direction of Ricasa. They were trying to decide the best way to get down there when they saw a party of horsemen break the skyline about seventy yards away. So they got off the road double quick, leading their horses through the gorse and bracken, picked the road up about half a mile down and rode like lunatics back to the column. They didn’t get much of a look at the horsemen, they said, but they both agreed on two points. They were milkfaces, and they were wearing armour.
The Corps of Engineers is part of the Imperial army, but we don�
�t kid ourselves, we aren’t soldiers, not in the fighting-people sense. We carry weapons, which we mostly use for prying open crates and frightening civilians, but it’s widely accepted in the Corps that we aren’t paid enough to stand around and let men of violence try and hurt us. We packed up and hit the road so fast you’d have blinked and missed us, back the way we came.
When Engineers do it, it isn’t running away; it’s withdrawing in good order, or simply relocating. We relocated like hares, down the long straight and back up to the lip of the Spendone escarpment, at which point I had one of my bright ideas.
“Tell you what,” I said to Nico, who’d just come back from hurrying up the rearguard, “let’s take a short cut through the woods. We can knock fifteen miles off.”
He gave me that look. “That’s illegal.”
Well, of course it was. The Spendone forest was the emperor’s private hunting reserve. “Fine,” I said. “Let’s break the law. Better still, we can lure the enemy in after us, and then arrest them for trespassing.”
He doesn’t like it when I make fun of him. “You’re the one who’ll get in trouble,” he said. “Besides, tactically speaking—”
I sighed. Spendone forest, for crying out loud. It’s practically the suburbs. “We go through the woods,” I told him. “Pass it along.”
He nodded stiffly. “In that case, permission to form the men into defended column and send out scouts.”