The Escapement e-3

by K. J. Parker

  Ziani leaned back, thinking of what the duchess had told him. "Oh," he said. "That."

  "That."

  Deep breath. "You know my assistant, Gace Daurenja?"

  "Oh, I know him."

  Ziani couldn't help smiling at that. "Quite," he said. "He's a nasty piece of work. But that didn't stop you listening to him when he offered you his new weapon."

  Valens nodded. "Does it work?"

  "He hasn't even built it yet. There's…"

  "Technical problems?"

  "Yes." Ziani ran his finger down the spine of the book; rough, starting to crumble in places. "Imagine a man-made volcano. Very useful, but only if you've got a container to put it in. Daurenja thinks a metal pot will do the trick, but he doesn't know how to make one strong enough. He's tried, but the volcano tears them apart and throws the bits hard enough to take your head off. He thinks I can figure out how to make a stronger pot."

  Valens' eyebrow rose. "Can you?"

  "Stronger, yes. Strong enough… That's not the point, though." He scowled for a moment. "Daurenja's a very clever man. Brilliant, really, a genius. But he's set his heart on getting his idea to work, and that limits him. Now me…" He shrugged. "It's not my idea, I'm not in love with it like he is. I'm quite happy to explore the possibilities of what his idea can do if it doesn't work."

  Valens sighed. "You're not making sense," he said.

  "Oh, I think it's perfectly simple," Ziani replied. "To make the volcano, you mix stuff together to make a powder, and when you set light to it, you get an eruption. According to Daurenja, it's like what happens when water falls on a crucible full of molten metal, only much, much stronger."

  "I see." Valens sighed again. "What does happen?"

  "Lots." Ziani smiled. "The crucible cracks, burning hot liquid metal flies everywhere. It can crack walls, punch holes in roofs. The water turns to steam, you see, in a tearing hurry. The steam sort of pushes everything else out of the way. I imagine Daurenja's powder works the same way, except it makes smoke instead of steam. But the principle's the same. It's strong enough to smash a brass pot with sides an inch thick. Daurenja wants the pot to trap the smoke so it's only pushing one way, pushing against a stone lying on top of the powder, so the stone goes flying through the air. He reckons it'd have many times the force of the biggest siege engine ever built."

  Valens' eyes had opened wide. "Would it?"

  "I don't see why not." Ziani shook his head. "But even if it does, that's not much use to you. Suppose I could make a strong enough pot. To set up a forge to make a hundred of the things would take six months to a year. We haven't got that much time."

  "That's true enough." Valens drummed his fingers on the table. "But you…"

  "I can't help thinking," Ziani said. "Dig a hole under the City wall and stuff it full of barrels of Daurenja's powder. Stop up the hole with rocks, but leave a little gap, just enough to poke a burning rope into." He drew a little closer, knowing he had Valens' undivided attention. "The problem with sapping under the City walls is that they're built on foundations of solid rock. You remember how we sabotaged the silver mines, to stop the Republic getting them. We packed the mine shafts with brushwood and set it alight, to burn through the pit props and cave in the roof. But even if you had the time to cut a tunnel through solid rock, how are you going to collapse it? Oh, there's ways, according to your miners. There have been accidents in the past, where sloppy practice left gallery ceilings weak and they've caved in. But it'd need a lot of time and effort to do it on purpose. When they built the City, they thought about sappers, you can count on it. They built the walls where they are because they reckoned it wouldn't be practical for an enemy to undermine them. And without some new ingredient, like Daurenja's volcano dust, they'd have been right. That's what I had in mind when we were talking to that old man."

  Valens thought for a long time; then he said, "Nice of you to tell me about it, finally. I'd have been really quite upset if you'd kept it to yourself all this time."

  Ziani looked at him. "You've met Daurenja," he said, and left it at that.

  Valens nodded very slightly, as though he didn't want anybody watching to see. "He's your man, though," he said. "You can handle him. I don't see a problem."

  "No." Valens looked up as he said it. "I can't handle him. He scares me. I'd have had him killed, except I don't know the recipe for the volcano powder."

  Valens turned away, as though suffering from cramp. When he turned back, he said, "Make him tell you. If you need help; soldiers…"

  "He'd die first," Ziani said with conviction. "He knows, he's dead anyway without the secret. No, the deal is that I help him make his stronger pot. When I'm doing that, he'll have to share the secret with me, I'll tell him I can't help him unless I know it too. Once I know, of course, the situation changes. We may even succeed. The stupid thing is, all Daurenja wants is the stronger pot; not money or power or anything like that. He just wants to make a pot that can throw big heavy stones. I guess you could call him a visionary." Saying the word forced him to smile. "So, let him have his pot. It'd come in very useful, I'm sure, in future wars, assuming there's anybody left alive to fight once we're finished here. But there's always someone to fight, isn't there? Anyway, that's nothing to do with me. I just want fifty standard-size apple barrels full of his magic powder, and then I can get my job done and go home."

  Valens picked up a goose quill and sharpened it, slowly and precisely. I could have trained him to be a useful engineer, Ziani thought; he doesn't hurry, and his hands don't shake, even when he's shocked or disgusted. "Fine," he said. "If what you say is true, it makes sense, and I'm very pleased to hear we've got a secret weapon that can crack the City wall, because without one we'd be completely screwed." He looked down at the point he'd shaved on the quill. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

  Oh well, Ziani thought, and said: "Because Daurenja knows something about me that'd get me killed."

  "I see." The pad of his index finger, pressed gently on the point; just enough pressure to prove its sharpness without causing damage. "Who by?"

  "You," Ziani said. "Among others."

  "It must be a very bad thing, then."

  "It is."

  "Not something you'd care to tell me about."

  "No."

  Valens looked up. His eyes were bright, as though he'd just been crying, but his face was completely blank. "But I can't have you killed," he said. "I need you to take the City for me."

  "You'd just have to find another way," Ziani said. "You'd have no choice."

  A shrug; graceful, as if he was dismissing trivia. "And Daurenja knows this dark secret of yours, but he won't tell me because he needs you to make him a stronger pot. I need you to crack the City wall. You need him to tell you how to make the magic dust. I know Daurenja's a rapist and a murderer; in fact, I had the devil of a job getting out of doing something about it, but fortunately I have resourceful people on my side who can do wonderful things with legal technicalities. So here we are," he went on calmly, "all of us turning a blind eye to every form of evil under the sun, because we don't have any choice in the matter. Take me," he added, looking down at his hands. "I killed my cousin Orsea so I could marry his widow. I knew Orsea wasn't guilty of treason. The evidence against him was far too glib, if you see what I mean. I knew you were lying. But I had him killed, all the same. And now Veatriz and I are married, and we love each other, and as soon as this bloody stupid war's over…" He looked up. "I suppose everybody asks himself at some time or other, what wouldn't I do to get what I want? And the answer is, when I find out, I'll let you know. The depressing part is, I really don't care any more."

  But Ziani shook his head. "If you found out the truth about me, you'd have me killed," he said. "After you've taken the City."

  Valens smiled. "Do you really think so?" he said. "Of course, I'm in no position to offer an opinion, since I don't know what you've done. But you're a clever man, you haven't made this extraordinary confession just to
cleanse your soul. You want to make a deal, presumably. Well?"

  Ziani nodded. His mouth was dry, but he felt calm. The art of designing a mechanism lies in enclosing the components so that they can only move one way. "Very simple," he said. "If you find out… my dark secret… you won't have me killed until the siege is over and we've either taken Mezentia or given up in despair. In return, I'll build your siege engines and do everything else I possibly can. That's all. A stay of execution, not a pardon."

  Valens stared at him for the time it takes to peel an apple. "That's it?" he said. "It's practically reasonable."

  "I don't ask for something unless I know it's possible," Ziani said. "You can't promise me a pardon, because you couldn't keep the promise. But you can give me the time, because you need me alive and working, until the City falls. And," he added casually, "because you're a man of your word. Well? Is it a deal?"

  Valens' eyes were very wide; he hadn't blinked for a long time. "I suppose it is," he said. "Because it's feasible, like you said. And because I don't have a choice."

  Ziani dipped his head in formal acknowledgement. "Life's so much simpler without choices," he said. "Thinking about it, I'm glad I never had to make one. I'm not sure I'd have been able to." He nodded sharply. "Can I go now? There's nothing else I wanted to talk about, if you've finished."

  "No, that's fine." Valens was still looking at him as though he was somehow impossible, the result of a conjuring trick. "I'd like a detailed report on the book in the next three days, if you think that's going to be enough time."

  "Plenty." Ziani stood up. His knees were quite firm, but his feet felt as though he had lead blocks in his shoes. "I'm glad we've sorted that out, it was bothering me. Now I can help Daurenja make his pot. I've been putting him off, and he's getting impatient. It's strange, him and me: the more I grow to hate him, the more I admire his good qualities. He's like you, you know, a man of principle. It's just that he has different priorities."

  "I'd rather not talk about him any more," Valens replied. "I don't like the fact that I don't care about what he's done as much as I should. Anyway, you'd better go. I've got a mountain of work to get through."

  "Of course." Ziani was at the tent door when he turned back. "You weren't telling the truth," he said.

  "Wasn't I?"

  "No. You didn't know Duke Orsea was innocent when you ordered his execution."

  Valens sat very still. "I knew later," he said, "when I asked Veatriz to marry me."

  "That's different," Ziani said.

  "Yes." Valens frowned. "It's the difference between shooting a doe in the close season and eating it once you've gone home and checked the calendar. The latter is better in some ways and worse in others, but it all balances out, more or less."

  When Vaatzes had gone, Valens opened the letter. He read it three times, as he'd always done when she wrote to him. After the third reading, he held it for a moment over the lamp, so close that a smudge of soot formed on the bottom edge. He could think of no more appropriate way of punishing himself than to burn her letter and not reply to it. No, not strictly true (he pulled the letter away sharply and put it on the table). He could ignore the guilt of Ziani Vaatzes, the man who'd enabled him to kill Orsea and achieve his heart's desire. The thought made him grin. In his father's day, the punishment for forgery was disfigurement; the forger's nose was slit lengthways, his ears and lips were cut away, his cheeks sliced, his hair shaved and his forehead branded. He'd put a stop to that, of course, because he was a humane man, and the self-righteousness inherent in the punishment disturbed him. It wasn't good for people to be able to see justice gloating in another man's wrecked face. In which case, there was a fine poetic justice at work. Being a humane man, a good duke, he silently condemned himself to punishment by a disfiguration that only he could see.

  He had a ridiculously large amount of work to do, all of it urgent and important. Instead, he answered her letter, indulging himself in every word he wrote, crossed out, rephrased. He knew how much it would mean to her; and if pleasing her meant allowing himself equal pleasure, he couldn't be blamed for it. After all, he had no choice.

  As he wrote, he couldn't keep a small part of his mind from trying to guess what Vaatzes had done that could be so very terrible. That, he decided, was a bit like looking for one particular coin in a treasury. The next day should have been a hunting day, according to his mental calendar. Instead, he started the war.

  In theory, of course, the Mezentines had done that, by sending their half-witted Cure Doce to burn the nonexistent engine sheds. But that affair had been so pathetically ill-conceived that it didn't really count; the joke alone had been more than enough compensation for a shed full of flour. A war like this one had to be started properly, and since the enemy didn't seem capable of doing it, he'd have to deal with it himself.

  The objective was to be the Mezentia-Lonazep road. Twelve miles from the City, according to his more reliable maps and the reports of his scouts, the Republic had built a customs house. Presumably they'd been trying to impress someone or other. By all accounts, it was the size of a small town, conveniently sited next to a river and all done in the pseudo-military style of architecture that the Republic seemed to favour-thin but grandiose walls, trompe l'oeil arrow slits, crenellated pepperpot towers, and a portcullis that didn't actually work, Tempting providence, really, since if you pulled all that rubbish down and replaced it with real defences, you'd have a castle that'd cut the road completely. Playing at soldiers, Valens decided, wasn't something he approved of.

  The assault party was one hundred Vadani heavy cavalry supported by three hundred Aram Chantat. Assuming all went well, the Vadani would stay behind afterwards as a garrison until the masons and carpenters arrived to do the makeover. The Aram Chantat had to be involved because they were restless and starting to be a nuisance. They didn't like the fact that the Mezentines were still able to bring in food and supplies, and they wanted something done about it. Valens had tried to explain-only once-that it didn't matter because starving the enemy out had never been an option, and he wanted the City to have good stocks of food in hand, since he'd need them himself, once the City had fallen, to feed the army and his own people while they were being resettled. They hadn't listened, and he wasn't in the habit of repeating himself. By his calculations, there was now enough food in the City for his purposes. Time to start the war.

  The raid was an open secret around the camp; nevertheless, Valens was more than a little disconcerted when he was told, the night before the raiding party was due to set off, that Daurenja the engineer wanted to talk to him about it.

  "I thought you were back at the city, looking after things while Vaatzes is away," he said.

  Daurenja stood over him like a spider up on its back legs; intimidating, but he was damned if he was going to let him sit down. "That's where I should be," Daurenja replied. "But actually it's quite quiet there at the moment. There's been a hold-up with the lumber supply-I've seen to it, and we'll make up the lost time, and to be honest with you, we can do with a rest. The men aren't used to working flat out like they've been doing, work's getting sloppy and there's been a lot of waste in materials. A few days off will put that right."

  Valens shrugged. "Sounds fair enough," he said. "That doesn't explain why you're here. By your own argument, you should be resting too."

  Daurenja grinned. "I don't need rest," he said. "Not good for me. Too much energy, my father used to say. Which is why I'd like to ask a big favour."

  "Something to do with the cavalry raid-how the hell did you find out about it, by the way?"

  "I hear things." Big smile. Charm, Valens thought. But he does charm the way an illiterate craftsman copies letters; everything perfectly replicated, but he doesn't know the meaning. "I gather you're sending an expeditionary force to cut the Lonazep road. I'd like to go along, if that's all right."

  Valens' eyebrows shot up. "You?"

  Eager nod. "I'm a good horseman," he said. "My father bred h
orses, we used to send five destriers and two palfreys a year to the fair at Goyon and I helped break them in. And I'm not a complete novice at soldiering, either. I spent six months with the Tascon scouts, though I don't suppose I ought to tell you that."

  He's not lying, Valens thought. He doesn't lie much, that's the extraordinary thing. And the Tascon heavy cavalry were at least as good as the Vadani, as he knew to his cost. "Really? When?"

  "About eleven years ago," Daurenja replied. "In your father's time, and I'm sorry to say we did have one or two unfortunate episodes with your people. Nothing serious, but…" The smile broadened. "Good experience, anyway. Mostly we were annoying the Eremians, if that's any consolation."

  Valens leaned back in his chair. "You do like to keep busy, I can see that. But no, you can't go. I need you here."

  "But it's only for a few days. I'll come back with the Aram Chantat after the-"

  "What I mean is," Valens said slowly, "I can't afford to risk you getting yourself carved up or killed. I've been thinking about the weapon you told me about. The brass pot that throws stones."

  If he'd been a cat, his ears would've gone back. "You've spoken to Ziani about it, then."

  Valens nodded. All this openness was making him dizzy. "He said the idea's worth developing. In fact, he's quite impressed."

  "Really." For a moment, Daurenja's eyes shone. He's pleased, Valens thought; like when a mutual friend tells you the girl you're after really likes you. "So we can make a start, as soon as the siege engines are finished?"

  "That's between the two of you," Valens said quickly. "But you can see why I don't want you galloping around the countryside playing at knights in armour. Vaatzes said he can't build this weapon without you."

  "That's true." Faint smile. "But you don't want to worry about me, I'll be fine. My mother used to say I slip in and out of trouble like an eel in a net. And I really do want to go. I need to… well, stretch my legs a bit, before we start building the weapon."