by K. J. Parker
They looked at Aichma, who nodded. Big risk for her, but she didn’t hesitate. Then Arrasc reached out his big bony paw. “Deal,” he said.
I shook it. He had a grip like a dog bite. I looked at Longinus. He was thinking about it. That was when I realised I’d neglected to consider a vital factor. The Blues and the Greens are enemies, they hate each other. Hell, I thought.
“I should have mentioned,” I said, “nobody’s expecting Blues and Greens to work shoulder to shoulder. Perish the thought. But that’s all right, there’s no need. We’ll sort out who does what, and it’ll either be a Green job or a Blue one.”
“And the Blues get all the easy jobs and we get all the shit,” Longinus said. He was looking at Arrasc when he said it, trying to provoke him. “Do I look like I’m stupid?”
If you’ve ever cut down a tree, you’ll know about the first soft little creak that means it’s about to go, and unless you get out of the way really fast, it’ll quash you flat. Like that. But I hadn’t anticipated the problem, so I hadn’t figured out what I was going to say. “Fine,” I said. “If the Greens won’t work with me and the Blues will, I have no choice, it’s not up to me. But I’d rather have both of you.”
Longinus gave me a look that would’ve scared a tiger. But then I thought of all those men on the other side of the wall, and you know what, he wasn’t as terrifying as them. “Well?” I said.
Longinus hesitated. “No shit jobs,” he said.
“Plenty of shit jobs,” I said. “But shared equally.”
That made him laugh. “Deal,” he said, and reached out his hand.
“You did what?”
Faustinus is one of those handsome men; so handsome, you think he must be an idiot. He’s also shorter than me, so tiny for an Imperial. He’s, what, forty-five, hard to tell his age because he’ll look more or less the same when he’s seventy. His wife died the year before the siege. He was devoted to her.
“Calm down,” I said. “We got them cheap. We need manpower.”
Arrasc and Longinus had gone away with long lists of things to do. I’d hung on at the Dogs because I’d told Faustinus to meet me there. He’d taken longer than I’d expected, and it was nearly dark. Aichma had made me a big kettle of tea, and we’d been talking about old times.
Faustinus was beside himself with fury. “You’ve promised a charter to two criminal gangs, plus pay at double what the Guards get, and you expect me to—”
“Faustinus,” I said, “shut up. You’re not helping.”
He stared at me as if I’d slapped him. Then he looked away for a moment, then back at me. “You’ve gone too far,” he said. “You’ll never get it past the House. Then you’ll have to go back to your gladiator friends and tell them it’s all off, and then we’ll have riots. What in God’s name were you thinking of?”
I let him run on. It was easier. Meanwhile, I was doing mental arithmetic. According to Faustinus, in actual cash money we had three million, two hundred and seventy-six thousand stamena, plus gold and silver in hand to strike maybe a million more. Not a great deal, in other words.
“Faustinus,” I interrupted him. “Who’s boss of the Mint these days?”
He stopped and looked at me. “Segimerus,” he said. “You know him?”
“Not any more,” I said. “Find me someone who’ll do what he’s told. Then we melt down three million stamena.”
“What?”
“Devaluation,” I said. “We won’t have enough money, so we need to bulk the gold out with copper. We can use water-pipe, there’s plenty of that.”
“Orhan, what are you talking about? You know the stamenon’s nine hundred parts pure. It has been for centuries.”
I shook my head. “While we’re at it,” I said, “we need smaller coins. We’ll be paying the Theme workers, it’ll take too long for them to earn a stamenon. So when we restrike, we’ll issue a new coin, a quarter of the weight. That way, we have a more useful denomination, and people won’t notice there’s less gold in it.”
He shook his head. “This is all getting out of hand,” he said. “I think you’ve lost your grip. I’m sorry, but I can’t be part of this.”
I yawned. It had been a very long day. “Let’s see,” I said, “a hundred and sixty tornese to the stamenon, so a quarter would be forty. Oh, and we’ll need to water down the silver a bit. Don’t worry about the technicalities. I have friends who’re good at this stuff.”
Meaningful glare. “I know you do.”
“But that’s all right, it can wait till the morning. Right now, I need an inventory of the armouries. I don’t suppose you’ve done that yet.”
He gave me a tragic look. “What’s got into you, Orhan? I’d say you were drunk, except you don’t touch the stuff. You’re behaving very strangely.”
“Go and see to that inventory,” I said. “Please.”
And off he went; and Aichma, who’d been sort of hovering, came and sat down opposite. “He’s right, though,” she said. “What has got into you?”
I didn’t want to talk about it. So instead, I asked her, “How would you like to be Minister of Supply?”
10
I’d have preferred to crash out at the Dogs—a nice heap of straw in the stables would’ve suited me just fine—but sadly I couldn’t afford such luxuries. It was dark by now, and I still had so much to do. I left my new minister still swearing blind she wasn’t going to do it, and set off through the Lanes.
I was thinking about various issues, mostly military equipment, and so maybe I wasn’t paying as much attention as I usually do. No excuse. A man walks in the Lanes after dark at his own risk, and his safety is his own responsibility.
They hit me over the head, probably with an axe handle. I remember it hurting, and then nothing until I woke up. First light in the City is a sort of sea-blue. I had a splitting headache and I was cold and wet. They’d taken my coat, my trousers and my boots. I put my hand to my head and felt caked blood. I guess they thought they’d killed me, which explained why they hadn’t cut my throat. Lucky old me.
I tried to stand up, several times. Then I realised I was much better sitting with my back to the wall, at least until the world stopped spinning. It was while everything was going round and round that it occurred to me that the Great Seal had been in my coat pocket.
“You again,” she said; and then, “God almighty, what have you been doing to yourself?”
I resented that. I sat down on the front step of the Dogs and let my head bump against the door. “You remember Thrasso,” I said.
“Is that blood? You’re all covered in blood. Have you been fighting?”
“Thrasso,” I said. “I need him now. It’s really, really important.”
“Hold still while I get some water and a sponge.”
“No,” I said. “Thrasso. Now.”
So she got water and a sponge and washed away the blood, then scolded me for making a fuss, because it was only a scalp wound. “Thrasso,” I said. “It’s life and death.”
“Who’s Thrasso?”
I sighed. “Thrasso from Lower Town,” I told her. “You remember him. He’s Cordouli, about my age. Big nose and really bad breath.”
“Oh, him. What do you want him for?”
“Find him,” I said. “Bring him here. It’s incredibly important.”
It was so important, she sent the odd-job boy, an evil little toad who hung around the Dogs in the hope of stealing food. By then, I’d more or less given up. I felt dizzy and sick and I wanted to go to sleep, which wasn’t good. Just as well that Nico came barging in looking for me.
“Where the hell have you been?” he said, as soon as he saw me. “We’ve been looking everywhere. They said you might be here. I said, no, he wouldn’t be so irresponsible—” He broke off and gazed at me. “My God,” he said. “What happened? Have you been in a fight?”
I swallowed a couple of times, to keep from vomiting. “Has Faustinus done that inventory yet?”
“Wha
t? No, I don’t think so, I haven’t seen him. Are you all right?”
I grabbed his wrist. “Get that inventory,” I said. “While you’re talking to him, get him to tell you about the Themes.”
“What have the Themes got to do with anything?”
“He’ll tell you. What have we got on the wall, right now?”
“Two hundred of our boys, three hundred Watch and fifty or so gardeners. No developments. The enemy are just sitting there.”
“Waiting for someone.” I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “Allow me to introduce our new Minister of Supply.” I looked round. She wasn’t there. “Oh, for God’s sake. Aichma, get out here.”
She put her head round the door. “What?”
“This is Aichma,” I said. “She’s in charge of sniffing out all the stocks of food in the City, impounding them and setting up rationing. Aichma, this is General Bautzes.” The fool took off his hat, like he always does when there’s a female present. “He’s my second-in-command. If you need soldiers, he’ll give them to you.”
“Hang on,” Nico said. “Did you say general?”
She scowled at me. “First, I won’t do it, it’s ridiculous. Second, why would I want soldiers?”
“In case anyone gives you any trouble,” I told her. “And will you stop pissing around with dusters and get to work? This is important.”
She was about to argue when the boy came back, with Thrasso the Cordouli trailing along behind him like a sheep to slaughter. I gave him a huge smile. “There he is,” I said. “Nico, Aichma, give us a moment, would you? I need to talk to this man.”
I poured him a drink. My hand shook so much I spilled most of it on the table. He sat down opposite, watching me like a cat.
Thrasso is one of the most evil, unpleasant people I’ve ever met. When he’s drunk he’s violent, when he’s sober he’s slippery as an eel. But he’s the best unofficial die-cutter in the City. “I need you,” I said, “to make me a copy of the Great Seal.”
He gawped at me, then burst out laughing. “Fuck you,” he said, and stood up to go.
“Sit down.” I can do it, sometimes. I’d have made a good bully if I’d had the chance. I’ve learned the craft from masters, like an apprentice. “The fee is five hundred stamena, a free pardon and a job cutting dies for the Mint. I need it now. Straight away.”
He shook his head. “It can’t be done,” he said. “Everyone knows that.”
Yes, everyone does. The Great Seal was cut four hundred years ago by Strymon of Leucas, the greatest sculptor of the age. Strymon’s work is unique, which is why he was given the job. Over the centuries, God knows how many clever craftsmen have tried to copy the damn thing, but none of them has ever managed to get it right, so that it’ll fool anybody; not even when they’ve had imprints of the Seal in front of their noses, to copy from. Strymon’s style simply can’t be reproduced. They’ve given up trying. Can’t be done.
I called Nico. “Arrest this man,” I said. “He’s a forger. Cut off his head and stick it on an arch somewhere.”
Thrasso jumped up but Nico was too quick for him. He got him in an arm lock that made him scream.
“General Bautzes will see to it that you have prints of the real thing to work from,” I said. “Now, have you got the materials, or do you need us to get them for you?”
No sooner had Nico and Thrasso left us but Faustinus showed up. We had a reprise of the where-have-you-been-what-happened-to-you routine, and then he handed me a bronze tube with a sheet of paper rolled up inside. “You’d better read it to me,” I said. “My eyes are a bit funny.”
It was worse than I’d thought. Basically, there were no military supplies in the City. Why should there be, after all? We have places like Classis for all that. However, Faustinus surprised me. He’d used his head. In the cellars of the Guards barracks were twenty crates of the miserable Type Thirteen A swords, still in their grease, dumped there and forgotten about. The Speuthes brothers, dealers in scrap metal, had recently bought off the government one thousand suits of regulation armour, classified as unfit for service; luckily, they hadn’t been cut up yet, and we could have them at practically cost. Meanwhile, the Imperial treasury’s list of gifts received by the emperor from foreign dignitaries over the past six centuries included five hundred swords, six hundred helmets, seven hundred and forty suits of armour of various types and patterns—all enamelled and inlaid with gold and garnets and engraved with mythological scenes by artists of world importance; but never mind, at the end of the day, a helmet’s still a helmet. All told, we had swords for seven thousand, armour for two thousand; no spears, no bows, no arrows. To all intents and purposes, we were defenceless.
My head was splitting. I’ll worry about that later, I decided. “Faustinus,” I said, “I’d like you to meet our new Minister of Supply.”
“For crying out loud answer the question,” she said, when finally we were alone for a few minutes. “Why me?”
I sighed. I’d have thought it was obvious. “Because,” I said, “first, it’s a job that calls for brains, resourcefulness, clear thinking and imagination. Second, there’s the opportunities. You’ll have total control over food supplies in a city of a quarter of a million people. Anyone else, I don’t care how noble and selfless and idealistic, sooner or later the temptation would get to him, or else it’d be blackmail, or the faces of the starving kids. But if this is going to work, there can be no exceptions, no special cases, no little favours, no compassion, no graft. It’s got to be done right, by the book. I need someone I can trust absolutely.”
She looked at me. “You’re crazy,” she said.
11
I’d managed to put it off this far, but the horrible job still had to be done. I packed Nico off on an errand to the ropemakers’ quarter, and sent for Artavasdus and Stilico. For two pins I’d have set up my office right there, in the front parlour of the Dogs. But it made Nico and Faustinus uncomfortable, and the Palace is handier for the walls. They had to carry me in a sedan chair, which was embarrassing.
“I want a square of white cloth,” I said, “about so wide and so long. And a stick to tie it to.”
Stilico’s eyes went wide. “We’re going to negotiate.”
I nodded. “I’m not getting my hopes up,” I said, “but I’ve got to try. You two are coming with me.”
By this point I was back on my feet, and we walked the last hundred yards to the North Gate. As the gate opened and we passed through, a guard in gloriously shiny golden armour gave me a grin and a cheery wave: Longinus, pulling a shift on sentry duty. I felt a surge of relief that nearly knocked me over. I hadn’t had time to ask if any Theme men had showed up for duty yet.
Stilico was holding the white flag, on the left. Then me, then Artavasdus. The plain in front of us looked impossibly wide, and, in the distance, the sun flashing on five endless ranks of grounded shields. As I have said, I’m not a brave man. I really didn’t want to be doing this incredibly stupid thing.
“Our offer is,” I told them, “if they’ll let us evacuate the City, they can have it. Maybe they’ll let us take some stuff with us, but if not, so be it.”
Stilico was shocked. “Give them the City?”
I shrugged. “We can’t defend it.”
“But where would we go? All those people—”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
They’d seen us; men were running about. When we were a hundred and fifty yards from the front line, a gap opened. I saw a row of men kneel down. “Run,” I said.
They shot at us. Of course, I tripped and went flat on my face. Stilico and Artavasdus grabbed my arms and dragged me back to the gate. They told me afterwards they thought I’d been shot. So much for negotiations.
When I got back to my new headquarters at the Palace, there was a deputation waiting to see me. They were standing about in the entrance hall, very unhappy to have been kept waiting.
I was all covered in dust, with one boot missi
ng. “I can’t possibly see you all at once,” I said, raising my voice to make myself heard. “Senator Fronto, if you’ll follow me. The rest of you gentlemen, wait here.”
Fronto was Leader of the House. He was ready to explode. A big man in every sense of the word. You could walk a thousand miles, from Rupilia to the Sea, over land he or his family owned. Breeding tells, you know. I felt like if I got within six feet of him, I’d get burned. “Sit down,” I said. “You’ll have to excuse me, I’ve been rather busy.”
He stayed standing up. People who know about these things reckon he was the finest public speaker since Androcles, whose stuff I’ve never got around to reading. He had soft, thin white hair and a chin you could’ve broken rocks with.
It was intolerable, he said. Not only had I assumed command without even notifying the House, let alone receiving its confirmation, I had proceeded to make appointments to posts that were and always had been the prerogative of the House, attempted to negotiate with a foreign power, granted pardons to criminals, appropriated buildings and stores—
I hit him.
I’m not a big puncher. I don’t favour the full swing to the jaw, the powerhouse right-hand cross. I find a short jab just below the ribcage works just as well, and you don’t waste your strength or skin your knuckles. He sat down, like I’d asked him to. For a moment, he was lost for words.
“I’m sorry about that,” I said, looking past him at a spot on the wall. I’d just knocked all the breath out of him, but I still couldn’t bring myself to look straight at him, like the sun. “For what it’s worth, I respect the Robur principle of government, I think it works well. I like the way absolute power is diluted and naturally tempered by delegation to successive levels of command and bureaucracy. I admire the way the House has always stood up for its right to be consulted. As an outsider, coming from a country that has no central government or overall authority, I think I can appreciate the merits of the Imperial system rather more than most Robur.” I paused for breath. I still wasn’t feeling right. “Now, though, is not the time. I’ve got a lot to do, and you aren’t helping. So, please, go home and stay out from under my feet. Is that clear?”