by K. J. Parker
Macer shook his head. "Requisitions, mostly," he said. "And you're authorizing payments to a couple of merchants-hay, oats, stuff for the carthorses-and there's a warrant for some character called Jarnac Ducas."
"Oh, him." Valens nodded. "Wasn't life so much simpler when the Eremians were our enemies? You'd think that now there're so many fewer of them, they'd be less of a nuisance. Other way about, apparently." He signed a letter and Macer took it from him for sanding and blotting. "While I think of it," he went on, "the Mezentine, Ziani Vaatzes. I want you to go and see him, directly after dinner."
"Right," Macer said. "What about?"
Suddenly, Valens grinned. "Good question," he replied. "You're either going to make sure he gets anything he wants in the whole wide world, or you're going to have him arrested. Maybe both, and in no particular order, I haven't decided yet." He noticed Macer noticing the used wine glass; that obvious, then. He pulled himself together a little. "Vaatzes will hand you a list," he said. "All sorts of expensive things we haven't got; most of them you won't even have heard of, probably. Find out what they are, where you get them from and how much they cost. Then see me. If Vaatzes tells you to do anything for him, tell him yes, you'll see to it right away, then report back to me. Also, I want details of everywhere he goes and everyone he talks to."
"Understood," Macer said. "Actually, I've been doing that for the last couple of weeks. I've got a list right here, if it's of any use to you."
"Really?" Valens frowned. "Well done. All right, let's see it."
Macer never went anywhere without a battered pigskin folder stuffed with tatty scraps of paper. He opened it, leafed through, took out a scruffy little corner of four-times-erased parchment. Macer's family had been government clerks for six generations.
"Thanks," Valens said, as he glanced at the list. "Who the hell is Henida Eiconodoulus?"
"Merchant Adventurer," Macer replied immediately. "Big woman, wears a red dress. Used to be in the salt business. There's nothing against her."
Valens shrugged. "Maybe he just likes big women," he replied. "This is quite a list. Macer, you annoying bastard, why do you have to write everything so bloody small?"
"Saves on paper."
"Of course." Valens squinted. "Let me guess," he said. "Milo Calceus and Naeus Faber are blacksmiths, right?"
"He's been to see all the blacksmiths in the city," Macer replied. "Most of them before I started making the list."
"Figures. Hello." Valens' frown deepened. "Some familiar names here."
"Quite. And before you ask, he met with them outside the castle, on their own time. Of course, he could just have been finding out about protocol and etiquette and so forth; which knife to use for which course, and who you're supposed to stand up for when they walk into a room."
"That's possible, certainly." Valens stopped. "This one here," he said. "You sure?"
"Yes," Macer said, his tone of voice perfectly neutral. "Actually, that's why I started keeping the list."
Valens put the paper down. "It says here he's met her several times."
"That's right. First time was in the street, about six weeks ago; he walked with her across town, apparently showing her the way to a draper's shop. After that, twice in the castle, the other time in the park."
"You thought I ought to know about that?"
"Yes."
Valens sighed. "Macer," he said, "you're a clever man. Also very brave."
"Do you want me to pour you another drink?"
"Actually, that's the last thing I want. Does Orsea know?"
"I don't think so, no."
"Try and see to it that it stays that way." He scowled. "Is there anything in it?"
"My opinion?" Macer shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. "I think she's bored and he's an interesting man. She seems to like the company of interesting people."
Valens looked at him in silence for a long time. "I think that's everything for now," he said.
6
Ziani had, of course, lied to the Duke. He'd written out the list of things and people he needed a long time ago; just after he'd first met the salt-dealer's widow, in fact. The four closely written sides of charter paper curled into a roll and hidden in the sleeve of the gown hanging up behind his bedroom door was in fact the third revision of that particular document. Accordingly, he was in no particular hurry as he left the Duke's tower. He walked slowly down the stairs into the east cloister, and sat down on a bench opposite the arch that led to the mews. After a minute or so, he stood up again and retraced his steps as far as the rather splendid marble memorial to Valentius IV, Valens' great-grandfather. Needless to say, the seventeenth duke was commemorated with a fine equestrian statue, about two-thirds lifesize, showing him in the act of leveling his spear against an enormous boar. Ziani knelt down beside the boar's flank and coughed politely.
"Breathing," he said.
Slowly, a man uncoiled himself from the small nook between the boar and the horse's legs.
"I could hear you from right over there," Ziani explained. "Worse than my uncle Ziepe's snoring."
The man stood up straight and scowled at him. "Right," he said. "I'll know better next time."
Ziani shook his head. "There won't be a next time," he said.
"Because if I see you skulking about after me again, I'll assume you're an assassin hired by the Republic to kill me. I'll feel really bad when I find out you were actually one of the Duke's men, but that won't help you very much. Or I may never find out," he added with a mild grin. "I don't suppose the Duke'll be in any hurry to admit he set one of his men to spy on a guest under his roof."
The man took a step back, but the marble flank of Valentius' horse was blocking his retreat. "Just doing my job," he said.
"Of course." Ziani nodded. "You carry on. Just stay in plain sight, where I can see you. Understood?"
"Understood." The man looked at him, then turned his head away. "No problem," he said.
"Splendid." Ziani smiled. "Now," he went on, "I'm just going to sit here peacefully for a while. I promise I won't wander off or do anything treasonable. And since I'll be staying put for a bit, it seems to me you might well want to take this opportunity to get something to eat or take a leak. Come back in half an hour and I'll know it's you, not a Mezentine spy."
The man hesitated for a moment, then turned and walked quickly away. Ziani watched him leave the cloister by the west door, then marched briskly to the arch that led to the mews. Instead of carrying on as far as the mews green, however, he turned right down the tiny snicket that led to the steps that came out on top of the inner keep wall. His luck was in: no sentry, so he was able to slip into the guardhouse and use its staircase to come out in the far corner of the middle keep yard, next to the back door of the kennels. For a man with a generally poor sense of direction, he told himself, he'd got the geography of the place pretty well fixed in his mind.
From the middle keep to the guest wing, where his room was, piece of cake. He ran up the last staircase two steps at a time, wondering how long it would take his shadow to figure out where he'd gone and resume his miserable task. He was, therefore, more than a little disconcerted when he opened his bedroom door and found someone sitting in the chair in front of the fireplace.
It wasn't his shadow, however. Instead, it was a thin man, with a flat face and a slightly pointed head, like an onion.
"You again," Ziani said.
The thin man smiled. "Yes indeed," he said.
"How the hell did you get in here?"
The thin man's smile didn't fade at all. "I told the porter I had an appointment to see you, and it was secret government business. He didn't believe me to begin with," the man added with a frown, "but when I showed him this, he changed his tune pretty quickly."
This was a plain wooden box, slightly larger than a man's head. "Oh," Ziani said. "You made it, then."
"Of course. And I knew you'd want to see it right away; hence my rather unorthodox approach to getting an
appointment with you."
Ziani smiled. "It's a good approach," he said. "I use it myself." He sat down on the bed, breathed in slowly and out again. "All right," he said, "let's see it."
The thin man rose and put the box down beside him, rather in the manner of a midwife introducing a mother to her newborn child. "The box is lemonwood," he said, "with brass hinges and a six-lever lock."
Ziani knew that tone of voice. "All made by you, of course."
"I'd finished the main job and I had some time on my hands," the thin man replied, wearing his modesty as a knight wears full plate armor. "Did I mention that cabinet-making-"
"Yes." Ziani held out his hand for the key. He had to admit, it was a beautiful piece of work in itself; stoned and buffed to a deep gloss, and decorated with neatly filed curlicues. He opened the box, trying to remember what it was he'd set the thin man to make for him.
"A small portable winch," the thin man said, right on cue. "To be suspended from a hook in a rafter, capable of lifting heavy sections of material, operated by the pressure of two fingers on the reciprocating crank here."
Ziani reached into the box and lifted it out. For a moment, he was confused; stunned, even. He'd spent his life making machines, designing them to do the jobs they were meant for as efficiently as possible. He understood function as well as a human being can understand anything. Beauty, however, tended to unsettle him. It was something he could recognize; he could even create it, if he had to. But he'd never understood it, maybe because he'd never been quite sure how it worked, and he'd never been able to bring himself to trust it, except once.
The machine he took out of the box was beautiful. That was an absolute fact, not a matter of opinion or taste. The struts that held together the top and bottom plates of the frame had been turned to the most graceful contours imaginable. Each component was immaculately finished and decorated with restrained, elegant file-carving or shallow-relief engraving. The whole thing had been fire-colored a deep sea blue, from which a few twists of perfectly chaste gold inlay shone like watch-fires in the dark. Almost afraid to touch it, Ziani rested a finger on the crank and pressed, until he heard the smooth, soft, crisp click of the sear engaging the ratchet.
"You made this?" he said.
"Yes."
He closed his eyes and opened them again; it was still there. "Does it work?"
"Yes."
He didn't know what to do with it. The heads of the screws and pins, he noticed, were engraved with floral designs, alternating roses and cardoons, each pin-hole and slot surrounded by a border of acanthus-and-scroll work. He didn't want to let go of it, not until he'd examined every component, figured out how it had been made and what it did, but somehow touching it made his flesh crawl. "You made this," he repeated.
"Most certainly," he heard the thin man's voice say. "With respect, it's not the sort of thing I could simply have bought in the market; not even in Mezentia. And you specified the work yourself, so it can't be something I bought somewhere else a long time ago. I also took the precaution of having a notary watch me file the ratchet teeth; I have a duly signed and sworn deposition to that effect here, which of course you are most welcome to have authenticated."
He couldn't resist it; he had to lift it up to the light, so he could see the detail of the spindle bushes. "All right," he said. "So where did you find a lathe in this godforsaken place?"
"I didn't. So I made one."
"You made one. And the milling?"
"No milling. All hand work."
"All-" Ziani had to think how to breathe for a moment. "What, the flats on the spindles and everything? The dividing of the teeth on the main gear?"
"Well…" The thin man sounded as though he was making a shameful confession. "I had to build a jig for that; a simple pair of centers, with a handle. But the flat work was just done by eye, checked against a square. I hadn't got a square, so I-"
"Made one." It was as though he'd turned a corner in a busy street in broad daylight and met a unicorn, or a basilisk or a chimera, some mythical animal that quite definitely didn't exist. He could just about believe that work like this-hand work, for crying out loud-was theoretically possible. But that this strange, bizarre clown could have made it…
"I don't know what you want from me, then," he said. "I couldn't do anything like this."
"I know." The thin man's voice cut him like a jagged edge. "But," he went on, his voice reverting to its usual tone, "when all is said and done, it's just drilling and filing, primitive stuff. The Perpetual Republic knows better ways of doing things that make hand work irrelevant; better techniques, secrets." He made the word sound obscene. "That's what you can teach me; and in return, if my poor services…" He paused, obviously waiting for some expected reply. Ziani wasn't in the mood.
"All right," he said; and as soon as he'd said it, he felt the little spurt of anger that comes with knowing you've walked into an obvious trap or fallen for the oldest trick in the book. But the machine in his hands was perfect.
"Thank you," the thin man said. "I promise you, you won't regret it. Anything I can do for you, anything at all."
"Fine," Ziani snapped. Talking to him was like stroking the fine hairs on the legs of a spider. "As it happens, I can use someone like you. I still can't really see what you expect to get out of it, but if you really want a job, I can give you one." He hesitated; the thin man either wasn't listening, or else he wasn't interested, to the extent that what he was saying was glancing off him, like arrows off fluted armor. "Obviously we need to discuss money-"
"With respect." The thin man cut him off. "As I think I may have mentioned at our first meeting, I have my own resources, and my position is tolerably comfortable. What I want…" He'd raised his voice, and immediately regretted it. "If and when you have the time to consider it," he continued smoothly, "I'd be most grateful for any advice you may care to give me about a small project of my own. However," he added quickly, "there is absolutely no hurry in that regard, it can wait for as long as necessary, until it's entirely convenient."
"Really?" Ziani pulled a face. "You may have a pretty long wait, in that case, because the job the Duke's given me is going to take up all my time; yours too, if you're serious about wanting to work for me. If you've got a project of your own and the money to develop it with, you'd be far better off just getting on with it yourself. Still, it's up to you. Don't say I didn't warn you."
If that was supposed to get rid of the thin man, it had failed. He was still there, tense and eager as a dog watching its master, so that Ziani felt an overpowering urge to throw a stick for him to fetch. He made an effort and resolved not to worry about him anymore. If he wanted to work for nothing, that was his problem.
"Your first assignment," Ziani said briskly, as he stood up and crossed to the door, where his coat hung from the coathook. He felt in the sleeve and pulled out a roll of paper. "This is a list of everything I think we'll need to recruit and train fifty exiled Eremian craftsmen to do work to an acceptable standard. I want you to read it through, let me know if you think there's anything I've missed out, then copy it out neatly and give it to the Duke's secretary after dinner tonight." He paused. "Where do you live?"
"I have rooms in the ropewalk," the thin man replied instantly. "A workshop; I sleep and eat there as well. I can be ready to move in less than an hour, if-"
"No, that's fine, I just need to know where to find you."
For some reason, the thin man frowned. "The best way is to leave a message for me with the innkeeper at the Patient Virtue. I have an arrangement with him," he added awkwardly. "Any message you leave there will reach me within minutes."
"All right." Ziani shrugged. "Meet me here in the morning, two hours after dawn."
"Certainly. I can get here earlier if you wish."
Ziani couldn't be bothered to reply to that.
The attack came during the salad course, and it took Valens completely by surprise. Thinking about it later, he could only assume it was bec
ause he was still preoccupied with what Vaatzes had said to him earlier. That didn't make it any better.
"Oh for crying out loud," he complained hopelessly. "We've been into all this already."
"With respect." There was no respect at all in Chancellor Carausius' face; fear, yes, because all the high officers of state were afraid of him, with good reason. "We haven't actually discussed the matter properly, as you well know. Not," he added with feeling, "for want of trying. But you either change the subject or lose your temper; your prerogative, it goes without saying, but no substitute for a rational discussion." Carausius paused and wiped butter off his chin. "If you have a good, reasoned argument against it, naturally I'll be delighted to hear it."
Valens sighed. "Well," he said, "for one thing, this is hardly the time. We're at war with the Mezentines, we're about to evacuate the city and go lumbering round the countryside in wagons, we're going to collapse all the silver mines, so we won't have any money at all for the foreseeable future. Be reasonable, will you? This really isn't the best moment to be thinking about weddings."
Carausius shook his head slowly, and the napkin tucked into his collar billowed a little as he moved. "On the contrary," he said. "At a time of national emergency such as this, what could possibly be more important than the succession? I mean it," he added, with a faint quaver in his voice that caught Valens' attention. "Face the facts. As you say, we're at war. You have no heir. If you die, if you're killed in the fighting or-I don't know, if you're swept away while crossing a river with the wagons, or if you fall off your horse when you're out hunting and break your stubborn neck, nobody knows who's to be the next duke. You don't need to be told why this is an unacceptable state of affairs."
Valens looked at him. It wasn't like Carausius to be brave unless he was in severe danger of being found out about something, and for once he had every right to a clear conscience. The only explanation, therefore, was that he was sincere. "All right," he said gently, "maybe you've got a point. But you know the reason as well as I do. There's no suitable candidates. I can't just go marrying some girl with a nice smile. We've got to find someone who's got something we need. Right now, that's either money or high-quality heavy infantry. If you can give me three names right now, I promise I'll listen."