by K. J. Parker
Daurenja shouldered past him, thrust his face, his bright eyes and his stupid little button nose, so close to the yellow iron that his eyelashes shrivelled. "Where?" he yelled. "Where is it? I can't see anything."
Funny joke. Ziani could barely see at all, only round the edges of the terrible white hole. He wondered how he could possibly explain. "It's there," he said. "I felt it."
Daurenja was huddled over the glowing tube like a mother over a cradle. He was bathed in the steam from his drenched clothes, the wet sheepskin he'd draped round his head and shoulders. The light from the bright iron shone in the cloud. "There's nothing there," he said. "It's all right, you're imagining it. It worked, you did it. I knew you could do it. It worked."
Two men were trying to pull him away now, before he scorched his face and ruined his eyes, but his skin hadn't burnt and he wasn't even blinking. Only a hero or a monster could get that close to yellow iron and not burn. (Wasn't that what the savages believed, that you could try a man with hot iron? If he burned, it meant he was guilty, or was it the other way round?) "You bloody genius, Ziani," he was yelling, his voice high and shrill, "I knew you'd be able to do it, I knew all along, right from the first time I saw you, and I was right, wasn't I? I knew there had to be a reason, I knew it was the right thing to do." They were trying to make him move, hauling at his shoulders and arms, but they couldn't shift him, and as the iron gradually cooled, he seemed to grow even stronger, as if the heat was leaving the tube and draining away into him (but he didn't burn, only sweated).
"Right." Ziani heard his own voice, barely recognised it. "Get the hoops in the fire, I want this job finished. Wait till the tube's gone dull red and then quench it; oil, not water. I need to sit down for a bit and close my eyes."
"Yes, of course." Daurenja was still staring into the light, cooling it with his eyes. "Get the first hoop up to white, and for crying out loud keep them in order." At last he turned his head away, looking at Ziani. "There wasn't a cold spot, was there? I looked, but I couldn't see anything."
"I don't know," Ziani replied. "I could've been wrong. I thought I saw it, but…"
"There wasn't one," Daurenja said. "You imagined it. Hardly surprising, staring into the weld all that time, it's enough to screw up anybody. Look, we can finish now, shrinking the hoops on is no big deal. Why don't you go and lie down or something? You must be wrecked."
"I'll just go outside for a while," Ziani replied. "It's a bit too warm in here."
The night was dark and cold, and the stars were just sparks from the weld, he knew that now, just as the moon was hot iron and the clouds were steam. He stared into the darkness until the white rip began to heal, gradually shrinking until all that was left of it was a scar, a blemish, like a fault in a seam. It was still there when he closed his eyes. It was her, then. She told them.
Well, then. The City would still have to fall, he couldn't prevent that; no choice now. He'd condemned it to death a long time ago, in the bright white light of his lamp, when he changed the specification. By the illuminating glow of the cold spot-how much would he be able to see before its light faded?-he saw her standing in the doorway of his workshop, a silhouette with the firelight behind her, her head a little on one side as she watched him.
"What are you doing?" she said.
"Just drawing."
She came a step closer. "Work?"
"No. Actually, it's for Moritsa. Something I'm thinking of making for her."
A step closer still, and her body was between him and the yellow glow, so that he could only just see the paper in front of him on the table. "That's nice. What is it?"
Carefully he put the pen back in the ink bottle. "You remember when we went to the Guild fair, and they had those dancing mechanical dolls?"
A pause; then, "Oh yes. They were funny. She really liked them."
"I know." He looked for her face, but it was in shadow. "I thought I'd make her one."
"Really? Do you think you could?"
The surprise in her voice delighted him. He'd always known she admired him, was proud of having such a clever husband. It'd be a present for them both, in a way. "I don't see why not," he said. "Basically it's just clockwork, with some cams and levers. I got the specification from the library this afternoon, I was just drawing it out. Here, take a look if you like. Don't suppose it'll mean much to you, though."
He felt her hair on his shoulder as she leaned over him. "It's all just lines and squiggles," she said. He laughed. "Will it dance like the ones at the fair?"
"Well, no. They were Type Sevens, this is a Type Four. Type Seven is a restricted pattern."
"Oh." It wasn't much. A little inflection, probably not even intended. A cold spot. "Well, never mind. Will it be able to turn its head and move its arms?"
"Of course. Here, look, this is the linkage mechanism. This arm here bears on this cam, which raises this pawl here…"
She giggled. "If you say so," she said. "But it looks really difficult and fiddly, all those bits and pieces. It'll be a lot of work, won't it?"
"I'll just do a bit at a time, when I've got a spare moment. I'll enjoy it. It's been ages since I did any small work."
"I know she'd really like it," she said. "But you work so hard as it is, at the factory. You'll wear yourself out, you will."
He smiled. "You know me," he said. "I hate just sitting still. Anyway, I like making things. That's why I became an engineer, right?"
He wasn't looking at her face, but he could feel the warmth of her smile, like the heat of a fire making his cheek glow. "It'd mean a lot to her," she said. "Specially if you made it for her. She's very proud of her clever daddy."
"Well, then."
She neither moved nor spoke, but she didn't need to. The moment's hesitation, a cold spot, said it for her: it's a shame it won't dance, though, like the ones at the fair. And at that moment (the white rip was fading from his vision, he could barely see) it occurred to him that it would be better if it could dance, even though it was a Type Four. Why couldn't a Type Four dance? Well, because it wasn't a Type Seven. Sevens dance, Fours turn their heads and move their arms, that's why we have types. Dumb question. You might as well ask why the sun doesn't shine at night.
She left him, and when she'd gone the light came in through the doorway and he could see the machine again, lines on paper. Why couldn't a Type Four dance? But it could, if you duplicated the pivot-and-socket assembly, driving it off the main spindle with an auxiliary train…
He froze in his seat, suddenly cold all over. Just thinking about it was enough to make him shudder. Type Four was the kind that didn't dance; for dancing, there was the Type Seven, and that pattern was restricted. It wasn't hard to understand, for crying out loud. He could almost feel pain from the guilty thought, lodged in his head like an arrowhead in a wound; as if they could cut the top off his skull and find it there in his brain. He screwed his eyes tight shut, as if concentrating could crush the malignant thought like gallstones.
But it could be done. Worse than that; if it was done, the result would be better, an improvement, just like the modifications to scorpion mechanisms he'd submitted to the governors of the ordnance factory. Yes, he told himself, but that's permitted, one specific exception to the otherwise inviolable rule.
It would mean so much to her. He thought about that. To deviate from Specification was forbidden; but just because a thing's forbidden doesn't mean it's not possible. Quite the opposite. Murder, for example. Murder was forbidden, but it was possible and it happened. There was no need to prohibit walking in fire or flying through the air. Murder happened all the time. It was possible to do it, and possible to get away with it, provided that nobody ever found out.
"Dinner's ready": her voice from the other room. It would be as bad as murder; worse, in the eyes of the Guild, since it was a crime against the whole Republic rather than just one man. Very well, he thought; I've been tempted, just as I've been tempted to kill people, and of course I've resisted the temptation;
because I know right from wrong; because I daren't run the risk of getting caught.
It would mean…
He blinked. The great white glare was closing up, and he couldn't see through it any more. Suddenly he realised it was raining. His hair was dripping wet, and water was running in streams down his forehead into his eyes. Only an idiot stands out in the rain when he doesn't have to. He opened the door, and heard the dull, heavy sound of hammers on hot metal.
They were shrinking on the strengthening bands. He watched as someone lifted a white-hot hoop out of the fire, carried it gripped in tongs to the mandrel and slid it tentatively on to the tube. Someone else teased it quickly down the tube with a length of brass rod, until it rested up against the previous band; straight away, someone else stepped forward and poured water on to it from a brass jug, quenching it so that it shrank, gripping the tube so hard it could only be removed by cutting. It would be a long job, since every inch of the tube had to be reinforced, but it was straightforward enough, just a slight variant on the technique used for fitting an iron tyre to a wheel. Another hoop went in the fire; further back, two men were welding hoops over the horns of the anvil, scattering white sparks as they patted the glowing iron. But he didn't want to watch. Simple welds, they didn't need him for that. He yawned.
Someone walked past him, stopped. "Are you all right?" He thought about that and realised that no, he wasn't. Every square inch of his exposed skin was scorched, and the muscles and tendons of his arms were aching horribly. He looked down at the palm of his right hand, then at his forearm, where the welding sparks had pitched and raised fat white blisters. "No," he said.
"You want to get those burns seen to," whoever it was said. He sounded concerned, which was strange. "And then you want to get some rest. You've earned it."
He recognised the voice. It was Daurenja. "You look terrible," he said.
Daurenja laughed. "Quite likely," he said. "But who give a damn? It worked, that's all that matters. You did it."
Ziani shook his head. "There's a cold spot," he said.
The words melted against Daurenja's smile like drops of water falling on the hot iron. "No there isn't," he said. "And if there is, it'll be all right, the bands'll hold it. Tube and bands together, that's three inches of forged wrought iron. Nothing on earth's going to get through that."
"Maybe not," Ziani replied. "But there's a cold spot."
Daurenja turned away and walked past him without another word. That pleased him, and he thought about something Duke Valens had tried to teach him, about the way to a man's heart. Through the eye, into the brain, deep into the mind until you reached the place where the staves didn't join and the seam was weak. Valens hadn't seen fit to mention that the entry channel of the wound closed up once the sword was pulled out, like an underground shaft caving in, leaving the damage buried deep inside, stoppered like a bottle with a scar until something, a bright light perhaps, opened it up again, and for a moment or so you could look into the wounded man's eye and see the damage looking back at you from the mirror.
8
Sixty siege engines, dismantled, left Civitas Vadanis, heading for the war. They rode, like princesses sent off to be married, in great canopied wagons borrowed for the occasion from the Aram Chantat, escorted by a troop of Vadani cavalry with polished breastplates and banners. At the head of the convoy rode Gace Daurenja, seconded from the factory to supervise their reassembly and installation. Somehow he'd managed to get hold of a nobleman's blue cloak, extravagantly embroidered with gold thread and seed pearls. At his side he wore an ivory-handled sword in a scabbard covered in red velvet, while on his left wrist he carried a hooded goshawk, a present from the duchess to the duke. The inhabitants of the few remote villages the convoy passed through turned out to stare and cheer; and if some of them mistook the strange, magnificent creature leading the column for the duke himself, there was probably no harm done.
Because of the size of the wagons and the weight of their loads, it would have been foolhardy to try and force the pace on the soft, rutted roads. Progress was accordingly slow, and Daurenja (a captain was nominally in charge of the cavalry escort, but he had the common sense not to press the point) sent out scouts and outriders to watch for any signs of hostile activity. On the evening of the third day, one scouting party reported having seen horsemen in the distance, keeping pace with the convoy. They were too far away to identify, but there was no reason why Vadani or Aram Chantat riders should act in such a fashion, and the convoy was significantly close to the Cure Doce border.
Daurenja held a brief council of war, making a point of seeking the captain's approval before issuing his final orders. The next day the convoy moved on as usual, but conscientious spies should have noticed that the escort was riding in rather more open order than before, without taking up any more space on the road.
Shortly before mid-morning, the convoy approached a sharp bend in the road, where it followed the bottom of a steep-sided combe. Without warning, two parties of armed horsemen appeared on the crests of the combe and rode frantically down the slopes to take the column in front and rear. The escort halted immediately, dismounted, turned the front and rear wagons side on to form barricades, and opened up from cover with their bows. At least a dozen attackers were killed; the rest wheeled to withdraw along the road, only to be taken in flank and rear by a detached squadron of the escort, who'd left camp in the middle of the night and looped round, following the contours of the combe. Caught between arrows and lances, the attackers crumpled in a few minutes. The few survivors were interrogated by Daurenja in person and told him they were Cure Doce, in the service of the Perpetual Republic, and that they'd been sent to capture or destroy the siege engines before they could be brought to bear on the City. After a brief consultation with the captain and his staff, Daurenja gave the order to kill the prisoners, since it would be irresponsible to burden themselves with encumbrances on such a hazardous road. Only one survivor was sent back, his nose and ears slit, to advise the Cure Doce of the dangers involved in carrying out unprovoked acts of war against the Alliance. "For God's sake," Valens said angrily. "You're not defending him, are you?"
On his wrist, the goshawk bated, startled by the tone of his voice. Thoughtless of him. He remembered King Fashion; never shout in the presence of the hawks, or display strong emotion. A calm and quiet demeanour soothes the hawks and befits the huntsman.
"Maybe it isn't what I'd have done," Colonel Nennius replied cautiously. Valens noticed that he was watching the hawk nervously. He suppressed a smile. Unless you'd been brought up with them, they could be rather alarming. "But in the circumstances it's understandable. For all he knew, there were more raiding parties waiting for him on the road; he couldn't really spare the men for a prisoner escort. And we did try being nice to the Cure Doce, after that farce when they burned the flour shed, and it doesn't seem to have worked. A more robust approach…"
Valens sighed. All perfectly true; and if Nennius had done it, or one of the regular-army captains, he probably wouldn't be working himself up into such a state. He'd done worse things himself, of course. "What the hell was he doing giving orders in the first place?" he said irritably. "He's really only a jumped-up blacksmith in any case, not a commissioned officer."
Nennius dipped his head in acknowledgement. "Mind you," he said meekly, "it was a textbook response, neatly carried out. He didn't lose a single man, he made a real mess of the enemy, and the cargo was never in any danger. But you're right, he shouldn't have done it. Strictly speaking, though, it was Captain Brennus' fault for letting him. So, if there's going to be any charges…"
Valens shook his head. "We can't go punishing people for winning victories," he said. "All right, formal reprimand for Brennus but buy him a drink afterwards, and I expect some idle bugger in the clerks' office will forget to put it on his record." The goshawk shifted, tightening and relaxing its grip. "And we'd better have more patrols, just in case the Cure Doce are really bad at taking hints. I'm a b
it concerned that they were able to get that many men across the border without us knowing about it." He yawned. It was a fine day, bright and fresh after the rain, and he had a new hawk he hadn't flown yet. He'd seen pigeons in the forest, feeding on the first of the acorns and beech mast, and the day before yesterday he'd fancied he'd heard a cock pheasant calling as it flew up to roost. Instead, he was going to have to talk to Daurenja about deploying the siege engines.
But not yet. With the goshawk had come a letter:
… Saw the doctor again today. He said…
Valens frowned, folded the scrap (she still wrote very small on tiny bits of parchment) and put it in the rosewood box on his desk, then turned the key and took it out. It was a long time before he managed to divert his attention back to the war. Later, after he'd seen Daurenja, he sent out five scouts. They were Eremians, from the cavalry squadron he'd assigned to Miel Ducas. He tried not to let the word expendable into his head as he gave them their orders.
They rode along the Eremian-Vadani border as far as the Butter Pass, then branched off, following a succession of droves and sheep tracks until they reached the plain. No cover there, so they put on speed, crossing the battlefield where Duke Orsea's men had once been cut to pieces by the Mezentine artillery. The bodies had gone, but there were still thickets of steel scorpion bolts, brown with flaking rust, all leaning at their angle of impact, so that they looked like a cornfield in the wind. The scouts had to slow to a walk and thread their way through them.
After that, a fast gallop until they came to the Lonazep road. If the Mezentines were sending out cavalry patrols, they were in trouble. But the straight, flat road was empty in both directions for as far as they could see. They crossed it, heading over the downs for the long, slowly rising hog's back separating them from the broad plain and the City.