Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City

by K. J. Parker

  “Don’t you remember? My God. You must remember.”

  “Remember what, for crying out loud?”

  At which point, I remembered.

  Picture me, nine years old, huddled by a dying fire, wet through, beside a road somewhere between what used to be home and the coast. Ten days’ forced march in the Sherden slave caravan; we’d had a couple of bowls of filthy porridge and a few slurps of muddy water out of puddles, our feet were bare and raw, the ropes round our necks and wrists had chafed the skin off—to be honest, all that hardly registered. Nine days’ march, I’d been so numb I wasn’t taking it in. Just numb, that was all. I hadn’t shed a single tear—not sure I ever got round to it, now I come to think of it. Too wrapped up in my strange, confused thoughts, which were basically: this can’t be happening, none of this is true, sooner or later they’ll let us in on the joke and we can all go home. Tenth day, the penny dropped. My life was going to be different from now on. I wasn’t angry or frightened. I’m not sure I gave a damn. As an experiment, I tried to remember what my father and mother looked like. Is that them, I asked myself, and I wasn’t sure. The pictures in my head were like the portraits on the coins; exaggerated, idealised, crude, could be more or less anybody, and you only know who it’s supposed to be by the letters round the edge; Siyyah, father, or Erstam, mother. I remember thinking what a callous, worthless little shit I must be, to feel so very little.

  But Ogus, next to me, was crying his eyes out. Now that was really weird. Ogus didn’t cry; not when he fell and cut himself to the bone, not when he was caught stealing and whipped, not when his sister was carried away by the river and drowned. Not that he was callous and unfeeling, like me (apparently). If anyone else was sad or frightened, Ogus would be there, saying exactly the right thing or not saying anything at all, strong, wise, dependable, master of every situation and vicissitude, invincible. Never could figure out why someone like him chose to hang out with someone like me; but that was Ogus for you. He didn’t need a reason to be your friend, he didn’t need anything in return—what could anybody give him that he hadn’t already got?

  And there he was, broken at last; it shocked me more than I could believe possible. And, goes without saying, I hadn’t the faintest idea what to do or say. All I knew was, I had to stop those tears, before I lost all faith in everything. It was like seeing your father cry, or God. So I said the first thing that came into my head, something like, “Don’t worry, it’ll be all right, we’re better than them, one day we’ll get them for this, you’ll see.” I think I said that because Ogus was a great one for honour, in those days; if someone got you, you had to get them back, or the balance of nature would be disturbed. And once he’d exacted vengeance a few times, nobody wanted to mess with him, and so of course he was proved right. Not that I ever doubted him for a minute.

  Well, he stopped crying, at any rate, but he went all quiet, not like him at all. Then, the next day or the day after that, he stumbled and fell on the march, stood up and got back in line, and he had something crushed in his hand, a mushroom. I whispered to him, you don’t want to eat that, it’s poisonous. He looked straight ahead and hissed back, I know. And the day after that, when it was our turn to take the guards their food, I think (couldn’t swear to it) I saw him drop something in one of the bowls; and that night one of the guards woke us up with his screaming, and was dead by morning.

  I didn’t say anything. But, as we walked past the body, he sort of nudged me and said, Thanks. I pretended I hadn’t heard.

  “Oh, that,” I said. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “I thought about it,” he said, offering me a plate of honeycakes; my favourite. “Years later, when I was in Lepcis. I realised, it wasn’t the Sherden’s fault. Might as well blame the arrow for the archer. And I thought of what you said to me, and how it had given me the strength to go on, to prevail—” He smiled. Just like his old man when he smiles. “You know that saying, may the best man win? It doesn’t make sense, when you stop and think about it, it’s nonsense. The best man always wins, because the winner’s always the better man. By definition. It’s that simple. If you beat me, you’re the better man. If I come out on top, I am. That night, on the road, I proved it. I was just a little kid, no weapons, all trussed up with ropes and kicked around, but I beat that bastard, I won, I was better than him. That was what you meant, when you pulled me through my bad patch.”

  “Actually—” I said. He wasn’t listening.

  “Then,” he went on, “when I was settled nicely in Lepcis I heard about you. You’d just been made a captain, and you’d come up with some clever improvement for building pontoon bridges, and some trader or other had got wind of it and brought the idea to Lepcis and was trying to sell it to some people I knew. Youngest ever captain in the Engineers, he said, and him a milkface; only goes to show what a man can do if he sets his mind to it. And I remember thinking, Orhan would be so ashamed of me if he could see me now, all comfortable and settled, making money, not getting on with the job. So that night I got talking to some people, and between us we figured the whole thing out.” He beamed at me. “And now, here we are, you and me, and it’s all about to happen. Isn’t that grand?”

  I took a deep breath. He was—is—my oldest friend, and I don’t suppose anyone’s ever known me better. “Ogus,” I said, “I’m on the other side.”

  He laughed. Good joke. “Doesn’t that just make it perfect?” he said. “Almost like it was meant. All along I figured, when things start happening, you’d be called back to the City for the defence, there’ll be someone there on the inside I can count on, so long as I can figure a crafty way of getting in touch. But to find you in charge of the whole thing—I ask you. Can you think of any better proof that this was meant to happen? You, of all people. You and me, in at the kill.”

  I needed time to think, so I said, “Who are all those men out there? Where did they come from?”

  “My army, I just said.” He snapped his fingers. More honeycakes came, just like that. “About two-thirds of it, anyway. The rest are busy right now, but they’ll be along directly.”

  “Was it you?” I said. “At Classis. The Sherden.”

  He looked troubled, not exactly guilty, but I think he felt he owed me an explanation. “The way I see it,” he said, “they’re like a weapon. When the fight starts, the other man’s got it. So you knock it out of his hand, and then it’s your knife, it’s gone from bad to good, just like that. The Sherden are victims every bit as much as we are, Orhan. It took me a long time to understand that, but once I’d got it, everything just sort of fell into place. It’s us against them now. You remember that old saying back home, the worms of the earth against the lions, who would win? It’s our turn now.”

  My breath caught in my throat and it took me a moment before I could say anything. “I was at Classis,” I said. “They nearly killed me.”

  That bothered him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Obviously, if I’d known—” He shrugged. “But you’re all right, so that’s fine. Have another cake. You haven’t been eating properly.”

  That made me laugh. Then I realised, it was supposed to. “Let’s talk peace,” I said.

  25

  I’d said the wrong thing.

  “Sorry,” he said, “I don’t quite follow.”

  Suddenly I was desperate for a way back. “Surrender,” I said. “Terms. I’m sure between us we can sort something—”

  “Terms?” He was staring at me, as if he’d realised he’d been talking to a stranger under the misapprehension that he was an old friend. “What are you suggesting?”

  “Oh, come on,” I said, with a sort of ghastly forced cheerfulness I feel ashamed of to this day. “Whatever you want, to lift the siege. You name it.”

  You know those silences where you find yourself saying any damn stupid thing, just to fill them. I managed to keep my face shut, but only just.

  “All right,” he said, as if he could barely keep his temper. “Pil
e up all your weapons and open the gates.”

  “And then?”

  “We march in and slaughter the lot of them.” A long pause, and then he added, “Not you, of course. We’re friends.”

  He’d said them, not you. But he was looking at me in a way I didn’t like at all. He always had a bit of a temper, Ogus. And he hated anything he could possibly manage to construe as disloyalty. “Why?” I asked.

  “Because they’ve got to go, that’s why,” he snapped. Then he realised he’d been shouting. “You understand, don’t you? You of all people. We can’t just let them go, forgive them. It’s got to be done properly or not at all.”

  My turn to be silent. He stuck it out for a couple of heartbeats, then went on; “Besides, it’s out of my hands now. I promised them, every last Robur. If I tried to go back on that now, they’d tear me to pieces. For God’s sake, Orhan, what’s the matter with you? You haven’t grown attached to these people?”

  “A bit,” I said.

  “You can’t,” he said, hard as stone. “It’s not like trapping a spider under a cup and putting it outside instead of squashing it. They’re blueskins. We’ve got to start the world all over again without them.”

  I took a deep breath and let it go slowly. “What exactly do you mean, “ I said, “they won’t let you?”

  He stared at me, then broke into a big wide grin. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? Who my men are? They’re two-thirds of the bloody Imperial army. Not the blueskins, of course. Auxiliaries. Poor fools from the conquered nations, given the alternative; come and fight for us or we’ll burn down your villages. It’s how the empire garrisons its territories, now they’re so big there’s not enough Robur to go round. Well, it worked for a long time, until some clever soul—I think it was me—realised that these days there’s a lot more milkfaces than blueskins in the Imperial army. Trained by the Robur, supplied and kitted out from the same stores, every bit as good at soldiering, and when there’s actual fighting, who gets stuck in harm’s way in the front line while your precious Robur stand by in reserve? So, once it was explained to them—Doesn’t apply to the navy, worse luck, they never could quite bring themselves to trust savages with their beloved ships, so I had to do a deal with the fucking Sherden. Worth it, though. Right now, all that’s left of the blueskin regulars are cooped up in fortified cities all across the empire, with my boys sitting under their walls making sure they don’t get out. So, that’s one third of the army kettled up safe, another third keeping them there, and the third third is right here, to stamp on the snake’s head. So that’s what I was talking about. Do you really think those men are going to let the Robur walk out of here alive? Of course not. They want blood. And so, come to think of it, do I.”

  I drank some of the excellent tea. I’d let it go cold. “You’ve given me a lot to think about,” I said.

  He gazed at me as though I’d gone mad. Then he burst out laughing. “There’s nothing to think about,” he said. “Dear God. This isn’t a situation where you carefully weigh up the pros and cons. You just know. Or don’t you? What’s come over you, Orhan? You’ve changed.”

  It suddenly struck me that he was right. I remembered the boy he’d known. That wasn’t me any more. Curious thing. You don’t notice yourself changing, because it’s so gradual. Then one day you catch sight of your reflection in a pool or a puddle, and you wonder, who’s that? But talking to Ogus again—I’d mistaken him for his father. Easy mistake to make, he’d grown into his father’s image. Maybe I had, too, don’t know, can’t honestly say I remember what my old man looked like. I have a lot of memories with him in them, but his face is always turned away, or he’s in shadow; like the icons and triptychs, where the artist’s been paid to add in his patron as a minor saint or a bystander, but the convention demands that he’s somehow obscured, barely noticeable. They say that if you can smuggle yourself that way into a great icon, by a truly inspired master, all your sins are forgiven. That’s cheating. Robur thinking.

  Now the question: had I changed for the better?

  Well, not for me to say. Ogus clearly thought not. “I build bridges,” I heard myself say, thinking aloud. “I’m not a soldier. All I ever wanted to prevail over was a few rivers.”

  “It’s not about what you want,” he said. “And we’re all soldiers. We didn’t start the war, but we’re all in it.”

  “If it wasn’t for the Robur—”

  “Sure.” He spat the word at me. “They found you useful. And it’s good business to look after your tools, and your livestock. After all, they cost money. Be honest with yourself, Orhan. Are you really grateful to them because they sharpened you, and gave you your own hook on the rack?”

  “I’m my own man. I’m the colonel of the fucking regiment.”

  He nodded. “Yes, that’s true. You’re so good at your trade and you’ve done such good, valuable work for them, sometimes they actually condescend to treat you like a human being. Some of them even pretend not to notice there’s something wrong with your skin. Such good manners. And for that you love them. Good dog. Well-trained dog.” He knew he was getting on my nerves. He knows me so well. “Come on, Orhan. It wouldn’t hurt if you hadn’t already thought it yourself.”

  “Getting your own back,” I said. “It was always so important to you.”

  “Yes.”

  I waited. He took his time. “And to you, too,” he said.

  Which was true. Is true. I get my own back on the empire, the army, the established institutions, the arrogant blueskin masters of the earth, by cheating. I forge seals, I embezzle money, I pay with false coin. I keep my self-respect with countless small acts of dishonesty. I do it to get my own way in spite of them, and to prove to myself that I’m so much cleverer than they are. The worms declared war on the lions, and all the animals in the forest were sure the lions would win. But the lions couldn’t catch the worms, because they dug down into the ground and wouldn’t come out and fight. But at night, when the lions were asleep, the worms crawled in through their ears and ate their brains and killed them, every one. It’s a popular story where I come from, though the Robur have never heard of it. And when I tell it to my Imperial friends, I always ask them first, which would you rather be, a worm or a lion? And they all say, lion, of course—except Artavasdus, of all people. Why? Because, he said, I’m an engineer, and worms dig really good tunnels. Mind you, he only said that because he knew it was a trick question.

  “I know what you do,” he said. “You cheat them, every chance you get. You steal from them because you want to get back at them, and you make it all right with your conscience by lavishing the spoils on your engineers. You prey on them. You wouldn’t do that if you loved them.”

  “I never said I—”

  “Good. You didn’t tell a lie.” He looked at me, straight in the eye, point-blank range. “I can understand why you fought for them when you thought it was just nameless savages. I can understand why you invented those horrible bouncing stones and slaughtered the enemy. But we’re not the enemy. We’re your people. We’re me. Do you want to crush me to death with one of your bouncing stones, Orhan? Do you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Every one of those boys you kill is me. Can’t you see that? Your own kind. People just like you. More like you than those blue monkeys can ever be.”

  Blue monkeys. I don’t let my friends, my milkface friends, talk about the Robur like that. Maybe because I’m afraid that if they do, I might catch myself agreeing with them.

  He looked at me with his head on one side, like dogs do when they can’t figure out what you’re doing. “Maybe you’re sorry for them,” he said. “Is that it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Fine. There was a doctor like you once. He had a chance to wipe out the plague, once and for all. But he didn’t. He felt sorry for it.” He pursed his lips. “Three guesses what he died of.”

  “Maybe I think that what you’re planning to do to them isn’t much better than wha
t they did to us.”

  Fake yawn. “I don’t know about better,” he said. “I’d say it was the same thing, more or less. You’ve been around these people too long, Orhan, you’re starting to think like them.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe”, in a mock-childish voice. “Definitely. You know how the Robur think? If they win, it’s manifest destiny; spare the conquered, grind down the proud with war. Recognise that?”

  “I do read books.”

  “Delighted to hear it. So, if they win, it’s that. If they lose, it’s fighting is wrong. It’s there has to be a better way for rational human beings to settle their differences. No, trust me, Orhan, there’s nothing wrong with fighting, nothing at all. It’s how you tell the better man from the worse.”

  I cracked a grin. “But the Robur always win.”

  He wasn’t smiling. “Not this time.”

  “That still doesn’t make it right. You know that, don’t you?”

  And then Ogus turned his head to the side and cupped his hand round his right ear. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t quite catch that.”

  Now I think of it, there’s one thing I neglected to mention.

  Don’t know if you remember the story I told you, about Ogus poisoning the Sherden slave-driver. Well, it was a few days after that. There was one of those Sherden who’d made up his mind he didn’t like me. Don’t know why; it happens, people take a dislike to you, doesn’t have to be a reason. This man couldn’t stand me, never missed an opportunity to kick me or smack me round the head. Well, I thought about what Ogus had done; but I’m no killer. My talents lie in other directions. So, when we stopped that night I worked away like fun to get the rope round my wrists and ankles loose. Then, when the guards were asleep, I sneaked over to where my enemy was lying. I’d noticed he had a little whalebone carving of a dolphin that he wore round his neck on a bit of leather string for a lucky-piece; a dolphin, presumably, as a charm against drowning. Nice and slow and easy, I took the knife from his belt, cut the string, took the dolphin, put the knife back where I’d got it from—razor-sharp edge about an eighth of an inch from his throat while I was doing it, never even crossed my mind to do anything except rob him. A nice thing like that, I told myself, will be worth something to someone at some point in the future, and in the meantime I’ve got my own back on the bully, I’ve prevailed, I’ve won.