by K. J. Parker
'But-' Muno Silsny looked like a small boy who's just been told as he's pulling his boots on that they aren't going to the fair after all. 'Oh, come on,' he said. 'Money. A country estate, big house and loads of land. Are you married? No? Look, if you wanted me to, I might even be able to get you Tazencius's daughter. Seriously.'
No, thanks, Poldarn thought. I make it a rule not to marry the same woman twice if I can help it. 'How about the woman with the cart?' he said. 'The one who goes around with the Mad Monk. Could you get me her?'
A look of horror crossed Muno Silsny's face; but he removed it immediately and said, 'Well, I can try, certainly.'
'Only joking,' Poldarn said. 'Look, it's incredibly generous of you, but really, I can't think of a single thing I want that I haven't got right here.'
'You can't mean that.'
Yes, I can, Poldarn thought; because what I've got here is nothing at all, and that's just the way I want it to be. A big house and loads of land-I had that, at Haldersness and Ciartansdale, and I was glad to leave it behind. And the emperor's daughter, too (He hadn't forgotten the terms on which he'd parted from Tazencius the last time they'd met; Tazencius had called him 'my punishment', among other things, and had made a number of threats which hadn't meant anything to him at the time and still didn't. Far better to keep it that way.)
So he leaned forward (a gross intrusion into Muno Silsny's circle, but he didn't even seem to realise that) and said quietly: 'Can I talk to you in private, just for a moment or so? Won't take a minute, and then you'll understand.'
Muno Silsny looked up at him with surprise all over his face, like froth in a drinker's beard; but he nodded, got up and led the way out of the inn into the stable yard. It had started to rain, and he started to take off his cloak, to offer it to Poldarn who refused it with a slight shake of his head.
'Listen,' Poldarn said, before Silsny could say anything. 'It's very kind of you and all, and I appreciate it, but could you please leave me alone?'
The look in the general's eyes was heartbreaking; kicked dogs and slapped children weren't even in the running. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'But after what you did-'
'Fine.' For some reason, Poldarn could feel himself getting angry. He made an effort to resist the impulse. 'It's that old gag about no good deed going unpunished. Do you know why I'm here?'
It was clear that Silsny hadn't given that any thought. 'I assumed this is-well, where you come from. What you do.'
Poldarn shook his head. 'This is where I am now,' he said. 'And yes, this is what I do, at the moment, for as long as I can. It suits me just fine. I like sleeping in a rabbit hutch and digging clay all day in the pouring rain. I like it better than being a farmer, or a blacksmith, or a courier for the Falx house; and it beats being a god into a cocked hat.' Silsny looked at him, but Poldarn went on: 'You're under the impression that I've got my memory back. I haven't. I still don't know who I am. The only thing that's changed is, I've reached the conclusion that I don't want to know. And that means I want to stay clear of anybody who might tell me. Does that make any sense at all to you?'
Silsny frowned, but nodded. 'I guess so,' he said. 'But all I wanted to do was-well, make things better for you.'
Poldarn smiled. 'I had a go at that, too-making things better for people, I mean. Some of them are dead now, and the rest won't forget me in a hurry. The point is,' he went on, before Silsny could interrupt, 'sometimes it feels like I'm walking blindfold in a small room stuffed full of fragile things, and any moment now I'm going to bump into something and break it. Everything I do, there's a risk I'll meet someone who knows me or I'll jog someone's memory and they'll think, who does he remind me of? Oh, there's a few things I've remembered, or found out about myself. For instance, it seems pretty likely that I did something-well, very bad to Prince Tazencius, many years ago; I ran into him a while back, and he didn't seem very well disposed toward me. At the moment, I think he believes I'm either dead or a long way away. I'd rather he carried on believing that. And anybody you do a favour for-particularly if it means dashing away from Court, galloping a hundred miles over bad roads, a man in your position-it does rather tend to draw attention to the object of your bounty. Do you see what I'm getting at?'
'I suppose so,' Silsny replied, rather grudgingly. 'I hadn't really thought about it. I'm sorry.'
Poldarn shrugged. 'Don't worry about it. Does you credit, I'm sure. Only, now I'm going to have to leave here. I guess that's something you can do for me; I'm not allowed to leave without permission, because of this special project.'
'Leave?' Silsny looked shocked. 'Why do you have to do that? You just said that you like it here.'
'I do,' Poldarn replied. 'It's great, I'm just an extra pair of hands around here, it's all I could possibly wish for. But now we've had all this excitement, and the special presentation ceremony and everything-'
'You don't have to leave,' Silsny said firmly. 'You leave it to me, I'll make everything all right. And truly, I'm sorry. I had no idea I'd be making things hard for you. After all, I owe you my life-'
'Not any more,' Poldarn said. 'Forget about it, like it never happened. Make that my special favour.'
'All right.' Silsny pulled a wry face. 'If that's what you want. But here.' Impulsively, he pulled a heavy gold ring off his finger. 'I don't know how much this is worth, but I'd guess it'd buy a house and enough land to keep someone comfortable. And nobody needs to know you've got it, or where it came from. Please, take it. It's not enough, but at least it's something.'
It matters to him, Poldarn thought; it matters enough that he probably won't go away unless I accept. 'Thanks,' he said. 'That makes us square.'
'Almost.' Silsny smiled. 'Personally, though, I'd value my life at slightly more than that. I mean, if I was killed on the road by robbers and all they stole was that ring, I'd figure it was rotten value for money. So I want you to take this, as well.'
Poldarn looked at the object he was being offered. He felt he ought to recognise it, but he didn't; some kind of small badge or brooch, with a pin and a keeper on the back. 'What's that?' he said.
Silsny nodded. 'Army stuff,' he said with a grin. 'Basically, it's a combination safe passage and get-out-of-trouble token; show it to a watch sergeant or a guard commander and unless he's got specific orders to the contrary from the Emperor or myself, he'll say sorry for troubling you and forget he ever saw you. Or if you need to get someone's attention in a hurry, something of that sort, it's good for that, too.' His grin spread a little. 'They tell me that the going rate for these things among the gang bosses in Torcea is up around the five thousand mark; not that I'd want to put ideas in your head, of course.'
'Of course.' Poldarn thought for a moment, then took the badge and pinned it to the inside of his collar, out of sight. 'Reminds me of a story I must've heard once, about a hat or a cloak or something that made you invisible.'
'I know the one you mean,' Silsny said. 'Poldarn's hood, from the time when he defeated the spirit of the fire-mountain. I always wanted one of them for my birthday when I was a kid, but all I ever got was socks.'
It didn't take long to clear up the misunderstanding. Somehow, a rumour had got about that General Muno Silsny, commander-in-chief of the Imperial forces, had come all the way to Dui Chirra (breaking off from a crowded schedule and riding through the night along flooded roads) to visit with an old friend or something of the sort. Not so. General Silsny had, in fact, come to the foundry to make a personal inspection of the Poldarn's Tube project-prompted, it had to be said, by the alarming lack of progress that his uncle had felt obliged to report directly to him. What more telling indication could there be of the importance that Torcea placed on the project than an impromptu inspection by the second most powerful man in the Empire (and so on). Silsny left the next day, having put the fear of several pantheons of gods into Spenno and Galand Dev. (He'd smiled at them, been extremely polite, and assured them that he didn't blame either of them personally: rumour had it that Galand Dev didn't
stop quivering until late the next morning.) Assurances had been made by everybody concerned that work-actual sawing of wood and pounding of metal-would start the very next day, or the day after that at the very latest.
As far as Poldarn was concerned he was delighted to see the back of Silsny, even though he was the first person Poldarn could remember who actually had cause to be grateful for having met him; perhaps for that reason. For the next few days he had to put up with an insufferable amount of curiosity from everybody he met-what had all that been in aid of, had he really saved the general's life or was it mistaken identity, and what exactly had he said to the great man, all alone out there in the yard with nobody listening-which he dealt with by pretending to be deaf. Fortunately, there were plenty of other issues to occupy people's minds, and so the matter drifted and faded, with no worse effects for Poldarn himself than a useful reputation for being a miserable bastard.
The tremendous distraction was the sudden and unexpected announcement by Spenno and Galand Dev of their startling new plan of campaign. Since nothing could induce them to agree on which way up the core was to be, they'd decided to do without a core altogether. Instead, they declared, they were going to cast the tubes as solid bronze cylinders, and make the holes down the middle by drilling.
This was, of course, insane; and the foundrymen lost no time in pointing it out. In order to drill a hole down a solid lump of bronze that size, they said, you'd need to build a special lathe. Not just an ordinary lathe: it'd need to be the biggest, strongest, most precise lathe ever built. And then there were the cranes, gantries, steadies-in fact, you'd need to build a special shop for the bloody thing if you were going to do it properly; and even if it could be done at all, which was pretty unlikely, you'd be asking a hell of lot to have it up and running within a year, more like eighteen months. The headstock alone Spenno and Galand Dev replied that they'd thought of that. Furthermore, there were plans and detailed directions for building just such a lathe in Spenno's estimable book, Concerning Various Matters, which, if followed to the letter, would answer their needs perfectly. Brigadier Muno (they went on) had already sent to Torcea for specialist engineers who'd do the skilled work; while they were waiting for them to arrive, the foundry crew could get on with building the shed which, as they'd correctly assumed, would be needed to house the new machinery. By the time the engineers reached Dui Chirra, the Imperial lumber-yards at Sirupat should already have provided the necessary raw materials, including the enormous blocks of the very finest seasoned oak from which the headstock, tailstock and ways were to be fashioned. Nor, they added, would the blacksmith's shop be idle during this time: plans and sketches for the racks, pinions, cranks, spindles, bearings, lead screws and other necessary hardware would be ready in the morning, by which time bloom iron and steel billets would be at hand from Falcata. The time allocated for getting the lathe built and functional (Galand Dev added, with a broad grin) was thirty days.
Did anybody have a problem with that?
In the event, Galand Dev's time estimate proved to be hopelessly inaccurate. Instead of thirty days, the job was done in two weeks. It wasn't a pleasant time at Dui Chirra. Four overlapping shifts worked day and night, so arranged that there was no down time at all-when it was your turn to go to bed, you passed your hammer or your plane to the man standing waiting behind you, who carried on without missing a stroke. The specialist engineers turned out to be foreigners from Morevich; they were being paid for the job rather than by the day or the week, and they were clearly in a hurry to get finished and away from the filthy cold and wet as quickly as they possibly could. Most of the major components had been partly shaped in Sirupat, where they had huge water-powered sawmills that could cut a ten-foot length of thirty-by-forty heart of oak to within the thickness of a scribed line. Inside every shed and house in the compound, the air was thick and brown with sawdust-apart from in the forge, where the dust was black instead of brown and where Poldarn slept on the floor when he wasn't working, so tired that even the crashing of the three hundredweight trip-hammer that Galand Dev had had sent down from the Torcea arsenal wasn't enough to keep him awake. (It took twelve men to work the windlass, and when it dropped they could feel the ground shake right across the yard; it'd had to come in through the smithy wall since the doors were far too narrow, and there hadn't been time to make good or even rig a canvas sheet over the hole. But the extra ventilation turned out to be a life-saver, when the wind changed and blew the smoke from the enormous fire back into the shop.)
There came a moment when the trip-hammer fell and nobody winched it up again; when the fire was allowed to die down and go out. There was still work to be done-bolts to shank, a long thread to recut so it would turn freely, a cracked brace to weld-but it could wait, because the job was very nearly finished. (No job is ever finished; see the precept of religion that states that there is no end and no beginning, only the time that separates them.) The lathe was as nearly ready as it'd ever be, but nobody quite had the courage to throw the brake and set it running.
Poldarn celebrated the sudden outbreak of silence in the forge by sitting down hard against the wall, closing his eyes and going straight to sleep. When he woke up an unspecified time later, the building at first seemed empty; but then he heard what sounded like a soft, expressionless chanting, like some religious ceremony: an early-morning litany performed by sleepy monks. But it couldn't be that, so he climbed to his feet (pins and needles in his feet and hands) and staggered in the direction the noise was coming from.
The source of the chanting turned out to be Spenno. He was sitting on the big anvil with his precious book open on his knees, swearing in his sleep. Poldarn remembered what that meant, and grinned; if Spenno was cursing a blue streak, all was right with the world. The complex mechanism that moved the stars and the planets about their axis was balanced, oiled and running true; soon the pinions would engage with their ratchets and rotate the dial on which day was painted light blue with a golden sun, night dark blue with silver stars (cut out of sheet iron with heavy shears and riveted in place). The entire movement and escapement of the world was in order, and therefore Spenno could afford to sleep, still mumbling his mechanical obscenities (like charms to scare away evil spirits). Poldarn grinned-and then he caught sight of the book, open and unguarded.
If, as alleged, Galand Dev had been allowed to study the lathe plans set out in Concerning Various Matters, he was the only mortal in living memory apart from Spenno himself who'd seen inside the book and lived to tell the tale. As far as Spenno was concerned, the matter was perfectly simple. If anybody even tried to sneak a look at the book without his permission (which would never be granted), he'd kill them. He'd told the foundrymen so on many occasions, and they believed him.
And here it was, the repository of all known wisdom-one or two sceptics had cast doubts on its infallibility in the past, but not any more, not after the matter of the lathe plans-left negligently open for anybody to see, while its custodian nodded, snored and swore into space. It was tempting; very tempting indeed. Just a quick glance, not even a whole page, just to get a taste of it. Couldn't do any harm, and Spenno'd never know. The words would still be there on the page, undamaged by the intrusion.
Poldarn crept forward, then hesitated; and as he paused, Spenno opened both eyes, stared at him for a moment, mumbled 'Fucking arseholes', closed his eyes and snorted like a pig. Dead to the world.
Even so. The plain fact was, Spenno was a brilliant but completely unstable individual, who happened to be obsessive about this book of his; if he did wake up for real while Poldarn was violating its pages, there'd be trouble for sure, quite possibly violence. Just for a sneaked glimpse of some mouldy old book, more than likely written in a language he didn't even understand. Not worth it.
But by this time Poldarn was so close that he could feel the soft draught from Spenno's foul-mouthed mumblings-too late to be sensible, he told himself cheerfully, what a pity, never mind. He craned his neck, and saw -If any ki
nd of glass vessel gets broken, this is how to mend it. Take ashes, carefully sifted, and soak them in water. Fill the broken vessel with them, and place in the sun to dry. Fit the broken bits together, keeping the join clean of dirt and grit. Then take some blue glass, the kind that melts easily Ultimate wisdom, Poldarn thought. Fine. Handy to know, of course, but hardly worth risking a jawful of broken teeth for. Did ultimate wisdom really cater for cheapskates, the sort of miserable tight buggers who'd bother patching up a broken bottle rather than buying a new one? Even if the gods were omniscient, could they be bothered to remember something like that?
He frowned. Maybe it was just a book, after all, and maybe Spenno was so uptight about it because he was afraid that if other people read all the smart stuff in it, he wouldn't be the cleverest any more. Rather more likely (just as it was rather more likely that rain was moisture sucked up into the sky by the heat of the sun and then precipitated by mountains, rather than being the gods pissing through colanders; but if you have faith, you know better than to be fooled by the speciously probable). Even so.
Even so, Poldarn realised; the pins and needles in his feet were now so bad that he wasn't going anywhere for several minutes at least. In which case, if Spenno woke up he was going to be in deep trouble anyway, caught standing over the sleeping pattern-maker with his nose inches from the holy pages, whether he was actually reading the confounded thing or not. In which case, there was no point in not reading it, surely?
All very true; but Poldarn didn't really want to know how to mend broken bottles, so he cautiously reached out a forefinger and slid his fingernail under the edge of the page, lifting it until it turned and fell. At that Spenno squirmed in his seat and muttered something extremely vulgar, even by his standards; a scary moment, but he didn't wake up. Still safe, then, so far.
To make a Poldarn's Flute, such as the Rai and Chinly people of Morevich used to employ in war, first cast a solid round bar of good-quality bronze, of the sort used in bell-founding (see below, under bells). Mount the bar in a Morevish lathe (see below, under lathes) and bore out the hole while simultaneously turning down the exterior until it's smooth and even. To make the pins around which the flute pivots, to enable it to be aimed accurately, take a thick wheel tyre and swage the pins by folding a hand's breadth of the tyre into a cylinder on each side; then heat the tyre, slide it over the tube, and shrink it in place firmly by cooling.