by K. J. Parker
She dipped her head. "I just want to forget he ever existed," she said.
"Well." Psellus suddenly felt very tired; he wondered if she did too. "You've listened very patiently, and it seems there's not a great deal of light you can shed on any of my problems. I was hoping you might be able to point me in the right direction; but what you don't know you can't tell me, I guess. Pity, but there it is."
He realized that she was looking straight at him. "Do you really think there's a chance he might come home?" she said. "Any chance at all?"
Wonderful how she'd said that; no clue as to which answer she'd prefer to hear. Since he couldn't glean it from context, Psellus decided, why not ask her straight out? "Do you want him back?" he said.
"Me? No, of course not. Not when I'm just about to marry someone else."
"Ah yes, true love. It had slipped my mind for a moment. Well, I don't think you need have any worries on that score. As I think I told you, he's just finished helping Valens to decommission the Vadani silver mines, to keep us from getting them. That means Ziani isn't the most popular man in the world, as far as the Guilds are concerned. They might just be prepared to overlook the deaths of five thousand or so mercenaries, but cheating them of the richest silver deposits in the world-I don't see them deciding to forgive and forget that in a hurry."
She was back to looking past him as though he wasn't there. "Can I go now, please?" she said. Not quite a whine, but with the same level of urgency; like a child on a long journey asking Are we nearly there yet? Looking at her, Psellus could quite see how she'd been able to wind Ziani round her little finger. Not for the first time, he thanked providence that he'd never been in love himself.
"Yes, thank you," he said, and she stood up immediately.
"The dispensation," she said.
"What? Oh yes, of course. It'll be issued straightaway. You ought to have it in, I don't know, three weeks. Four at the very most."
"Four weeks? Can't you hurry it up a bit?"
You had to admire her. Single-minded as an arrow, self-centered as a gyroscope, and nice-looking into the bargain. Ziani would never have stood a chance; nor, apparently, Falier. "That depends," he said. "If you happened to remember anything that might help me with my puzzles, any time over the next five weeks…"
"You said four."
He made a vague gesture. "You know what the clerks are like. They will insist on that big, flowing, joined-up writing, not to mention taking their time over illuminating all the capital letters. Taking pride in their work, you see, even when it's nothing but a routine dispensation. All it takes is one spelling mistake, and they tear it up and start all over again. It's a wonder anything ever gets done in this city, really."
She was standing in the doorway, right up close to the door, like a goat on a chain straining for a mouthful of grass just out of reach. "We'll just have to be patient, then," she said, "because there isn't anything else I can tell you."
"Of course." He nodded sharply. "Thank you for your time. You can go now."
She went. It was all over in a flicker; door opened, door closed. Anybody who could move that efficiently, Psellus reckoned, must be an excellent dancer. Would there be dancing at the wedding, he wondered, when she married Supervisor Falier? Somehow, he was inclined to doubt it.
He lifted a stack of papers on his desk; under them was the dispensation. He flipped open the lid of his inkwell, dipped a pen and wrote his initials, just underneath the signature of the deputy chief registrar. Ziani, he decided, must've had his reasons, when he gave Civitas Eremiae to the Republic without bargaining first. Although he couldn't understand what those reasons were, he'd come to respect his opponent enough to trust his tactical and strategic abilities. Imitating him, therefore, was probably a good way to proceed. He sprinkled the paper with a little sand, and rang the bell.
"What?" The borrowed clerk wasn't nearly so obsequious now he was alone.
"Could you do me a favor and run this up to the dispatcher's office?" Psellus asked.
"What's your problem, cramp?"
"Bad knee," Psellus said. "Rheumatism."
The clerk frowned. "I'm going that way anyhow," he said, moving forward and taking the paper.
"That's lucky," Psellus said. "Thanks. If they could see to it that it gets there as soon as…"
The clerk nodded, and left. Psellus sat back. With luck, it'd be there waiting for her by the time she got home; a pleasant surprise, he hoped, and totally disconcerting.
Left alone, Psellus took a book from his shelf, sat down, put his feet up on the desk and started to read. As a senior member of the executive, he had access to a much richer choice of literature than the ordinary Mezentine; instead, he'd chosen to read garbage. No other word for it. Lately, though, he'd found himself dipping into it over and over again, so that the inept similes and graceless phrases had seeped into his vocabulary, private quotations that served as part of his mental shorthand. Even as a physical object, the book was ludicrous, having been crudely made by an amateur out of scrounged materials-packing-case wood for the covers, sacking thread for the binding. Its fascination lay in the fact that it was a collection of love poetry written by Ziani Vaatzes to his wife; the small, pretty, rat-like woman he'd just been talking to. Throughout their conversation, it had been at the back of his mind to haul the book out and read bits to her-except that she wouldn't have understood the significance, since he was quite certain Ziani had never shown or read her any of his painful compositions. It remained, therefore, a secret that he shared directly and exclusively with his opponent, the arch-abominator and the Republic's deadliest enemy, who had once written: I saw her walking down the street. She has such small, such pretty feet. And when she turns and smiles at me I'm happy as a man can be.
A puzzle. He turned the page. Here was one he hadn't seen before. I know she loves me, but she just can't say it. It's not the sort of thing we talk about. No words or looks of hers can yet betray it But still her love for me is not in doubt.
He winced. If Vaatzes had been only twice as good at engineering as he'd been at poetry, he'd never have had to leave the city.
Someone coughed. He looked up sharply, reflexively dragging his feet off the desk before he noticed that it was only another clerk. "Well?" he grunted.
"Message for you," the clerk said, squinting sideways to read what was written on the spine of the book. Psellus closed it and dropped it in his lap. "Let's have it, then."
The clerk handed him a folded piece of paper and went away. It was an ordinary sheet of thin rag paper, universally used for internal memos, but it was folded twice and closed with the official seal of Necessary Evil. That made it important. He sat up to read it. Boioannes to his colleagues, greetings.
The abominator Vaatzes has contacted the Guild. Herewith a transcript of a letter delivered through intermediaries; Commissioner Psellus to report to me at his earliest convenience to examine the original and verify the handwriting against other documents currently in his keeping.
Text as follows…
14
It had been, everybody agreed, an efficient wedding. The necessary steps had been taken in the proper manner, the prescribed forms of words had been used in the presence of the appropriate witnesses, the register had been signed and sealed by all the parties to the transaction, and the young couple were now thoroughly married, fixed together as tightly as a brazed joint.
Unfortunate, perhaps, that neither of them had seemed particularly happy about it. More unfortunate still that both of them had made so little effort to dissemble their feelings. The Vadani people were, on the whole, fond of their duke and didn't like to see him looking miserable. Accordingly, there had been a rather strained, thoughtful atmosphere at the ceremony itself, and the scenes of public joy that greeted the departure from the chapel had been distinctly subdued. Never mind; the mortise doesn't have to love the tenon, just so long as they fit snugly together and accept the dowel.
"It's only politics, after all," s
omeone he didn't know said to Orsea, as they filed in to the wedding breakfast. "Now that's all over they can stay out of each other's way and get on with their lives. Well, not entirely out of each other's way, there's the succession to think of. That aside, it's a pretty civilized arrangement."
Orsea smiled weakly. When he'd married the Countess Sirupati, heiress to the duchy of Eremia, he had only seen her two or three times, in crowds, at functions and the like. On his wedding day, he hadn't recognized her at first-he'd known that he was going to be marrying the girl dressed in the big white gauzy tent thing, but when she lifted back the veil, it hadn't been the face he'd been expecting to see. He'd got her confused in his mind with her second sister, Baute. A few days later, of course, he'd found himself more deeply in love than any man had ever been before or since…
"No reason why they shouldn't get along quite amicably," the man was saying. "By all accounts she likes the same sort of thing he does-hawking, hunting, the great outdoors. So long as she's got the common sense not to disagree with him about which hawk to fly or whether to drive the long covert before lunch, they ought at least to be able to be friends; and that matters so much more than love, doesn't it, in a marriage."
Something to do with roads, Orsea thought; deputy commissioner of highways, or something of the kind. Whatever he was, the man was extremely annoying; but the line was tightly packed and slow-moving, and he had no hope of getting away from him without a severe breach of protocol. Even so…
"Do you think so?" he said, as mildly as he could manage. "I think love's the only thing that matters in a marriage."
"You're a bachelor, then."
"No."
"Oh." A shrug. "In that case, congratulations and I'm delighted for you. In my case…" The annoying man looked sad for a moment. "Pretty straightforward," he said. "My father had the upland grazing but virtually no water, her father had the river valley but no summer pasture. At the time I was head over heels for the local notary's daughter. Carried on seeing her for a bit after the wedding-wife didn't make a fuss, pretended she didn't know, though it was obvious she did really. I don't know what happened after that. I just sort of realized that love is basically for teenagers, and when it comes to real life for grown-ups, you're far better off with someone who's moderately pleased to see you when you're around, but who leaves you in peace when you've got things to do. When you're trying to run a major estate as well as holding down an important government appointment, you simply haven't got time to go for long hand-holding walks in the meadows or look sheepish for an hour while she yells at you for forgetting her aunt's birthday. Nowadays we get on famously: I've got my work, she messes about with tapestries and flowers and stuff, and she's got her own friends; we meet up once a day for breakfast and generally have a good old natter about things…"
They reached the table. Mercifully, the annoying man was sitting right down the other end. So, apparently, was Veatriz. He could see the top of her head over a short man's shoulder.
"You're Duke Orsea, aren't you?" There was a female sitting on his left; a nondescript middle-aged woman in green, wearing a massive necklace of rubies.
"That's right," Orsea said, as though confessing to a misdemeanor. "I'm sorry, I-"
"Lollia Caustina," the woman replied promptly. "My husband's the colonel of the household cavalry. So, what did you think?"
About what? Orsea thought; then he realized she must mean the wedding. "Very nice," he mumbled.
She started to laugh, then straightened her face immediately as a hand reached past her shoulder and put down a bowl of soup. "Game broth," she said sadly. "I might have known. Something the Duke killed for us specially, I assume, but as far as I'm concerned he needn't have bothered. I thought it was absolutely fascinating."
"I'm sorry?" Orsea said.
"The wedding. Fascinating. Politically, I mean."
"Oh," Orsea said.
"I mean, take the exchange of rings," the woman went on. "You saw who was carrying the tray with the bride's ring on it. Calvus Falx, of all people. If that's not a smack in the face for the moderates-"
"I see," Orsea lied. A bowl of soup materialized in front of him, and he reached for his spoon. The woman, he noticed, slurped when eating soup.
"And don't get me started on the presents," she was saying. "Talk about making a statement; they might as well have built a stage in the market square and read out speeches. Chancellor Carausius' gift to the bride's uncles; you saw it, of course."
Orsea tried frantically to remember what he'd given to who. "Well, no, I-"
"Hunting knives," the woman said bitterly, "silver inlay, Mezentine. I had a good look when nobody was looking, the makers' marks were there plain as anything. Of course, it's pretty obvious what all that was about; but if he thinks he's going to convince them that easily, I'd say he's in for a nasty surprise. They may be savages, but they aren't stupid. They know as well as we do, trading at fourth hand through intermediaries for finished manufactured goods is going to cost us an absolute fortune, and with the mines all closed up…"
Luckily, she didn't seem to expect anything from him apart from the occasional interested-sounding grunt, and he was good at those. Accordingly he was able to turn his mind out to graze on the implications of something the annoying man had said. They ought at least to be able to befriends; and that matters so much more than love in a marriage. He thought about that, and wondered if it was true. Veatriz-he loved her, or he had loved her very much, but they'd never been friends, not as he understood the word. He hadn't needed her for that; he'd always had Miel Ducas.
(Who'd always loved her, ever since they were children, and who should have married her, except that that would've meant the Ducas getting the throne, which would have been a disaster politically; and who loved her enough to conceal the letter from Valens, who loved her as a friend, because to him there was no difference; and for that Miel had been disgraced, and Valens had come to save her, thereby bringing down ruin on his people, just as Orsea had ruined Eremia. He imagined a map, with great big areas on it hatched in red: these regions laid waste for love…)
To his unspeakable relief, as soon as the soup was taken away and replaced with a cured venison salad, the woman turned away sharply, like a well-drilled soldier, and started talking to the man on her other side. Free, Orsea ate some lettuce and a bit of meat (felt and tasted like honey-cured rawhide) until the woman on his right said, "Excuse me, but aren't you Duke Orsea?"
He hadn't even noticed her. She was wearing a dress of deep red velvet, down the front of which she'd spilled at least one full spoon's worth of soup. She was round-faced, steel-haired, with eyes that bulged slightly, like a dead rabbit.
"That's me," Orsea said. "Who're you?"
"Calenda Maea, at your service," she replied, with a short, vigorous nod. "Specializing in heavy materials. Iron ore, lumber, best prices anywhere." She grinned. "So you're the genius who thinks we should all nail sheets of tin to our carts and take to the hills."
Orsea blinked. "I'm sorry," he said. "I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."
"It's all right, I know it's supposed to be hush-hush, I won't embarrass you. Let's talk about something else. Your pet Mezentine, the one who's giving all the juicy orders to the Falcata sisters. Is money changing hands somewhere I don't know about, or does he actually enjoy being ripped off?"
Orsea sighed. "I think you may have got me mixed up with someone else," he said. "I haven't got anything to do with Vaatzes these days. In fact, I don't really do anything."
She frowned. "You're on the emergency council, aren't you?"
"That's true," Orsea said. "But they've stopped telling me when the meetings are, so I don't go anymore."
"Oh. So you aren't really involved with purchasing."
"Me? No."
"Ah." She shrugged. "My mistake. So, who should I be talking to about bulk consignments of quality scrap iron?"
Orsea shrugged. "No idea," he said.
; "Fine." The woman frowned at him, as if to say that he had no right to be there if he wasn't any use to her. "So what do you make of it all, then?"
"I don't."
"What? Oh, I see. No comment at this time, is that it?"
"If you like."
She nodded. "Sounds like the administration's got something up its sleeve it doesn't want anybody knowing about, in that case," she said. "Playing its cards close to its chest, in case word gets out and sends materials prices rocketing. Fine, we'll find out anyway, we've got other sources of information, you know. No, what I meant was, the marriage. What do you reckon?"
"None of my business," Orsea said.
She laughed. "Politicians," she said. "Well, please yourself. Me, I think it's an absolute disaster. Good for business, of course, because all those soldiers, they're going to need feeding and clothes and boots and tents and all that. We do a lot of business with the Cure Doce-carriage is a nightmare, of course, but we manage; no such word as can't, my mother used to say-so I think we'll be getting our slice sooner or later, even if your chief of procurement is sleeping with the Falcatas. But otherwise…" She shrugged, and the contents of her dress rolled like the ocean in fury. "I hope I'm wrong, of course, but I know I'm right. Fair enough, I'm no great authority on happy marriages. You've just got to look at the idiot I ended up with to see that. But I reckon, if you're going to get married at all, it ought to be for the right reason, and well, there's only one reason for getting married, isn't there?"