by K. J. Parker
“I think the general would prefer some wine,” the woman said.
“No, really, I’m fine.” The Aram Cosseilhatz classified strong liquor as the Third Great Abomination, the First and Second being homosexuality and shellfish. Why shellfish, he wondered, they live six hundred miles from the sea. Presumably there had been a time when they’d lived somewhere else. “Actually,” he went on, “I don’t touch the stuff, myself.”
“Ah.”
True, as a matter of fact, but he’d managed to make it sound like a lie to curry favour. Well done. “Yes, as I was saying,” he went on, “once again we left all the hard work to your people, and once again they did an outstanding job. It makes my life so much easier having allies I can rely on to do as they’re told.”
That had come out all wrong, of course, but the woman didn’t seem to have noticed. The boy was standing perfectly still. Presumably his duty was to stand there until the teacup was empty, and then take it away. Calojan smiled and glugged down the rest of it in two heroic swallows. “Thanks,” he said, and handed back the cup. The boy took it, nodded and went away, leaving Calojan alone with the woman. He felt a fierce need to keep the conversation going, but couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Excuse my asking,” he heard himself saying, “but I’ve often wondered. The felt you make these tents from—”
His gambit got him a brief, clear and comprehensive lecture on felt-making, a complex and horribly labour-intensive process that sounded as if it occupied most of the waking hours of the entire community. He smiled and made listening noises until the talk was over. “Thank you,” he said gravely. “That was fascinating. Well, I won’t hold you up any longer—”
“My son should be here any minute.”
“Sorry.” Calojan smiled, deliberately stretching his mouth. “But if I’m away for more than a few minutes, everything goes to pieces. Tell the king I’m really grateful, and I’ll catch up with him later.”
Outside it was raining. Calojan looked up at the sky, not wincing as the raindrops hit him squarely on the face. An hour or so earlier, the rain would have changed everything, deprived him of his only manoeuvre, lost him the battle and the war. But it made the air smell wonderfully fresh. He thought of the clogged river, and the danger of flooding; if the river came up over its banks, they’d catch it hard in Moesatz, and it’d be his fault. There was a remote possibility that the danger might have occurred to someone else, someone in a position to do something; far too remote to rely on. He sighed, and broke into a run.
The thing about being perfectly free, he’d discovered in the forest—the keynote, the dominant quality of freedom—is that you’re always hungry. Getting food is all you think about and all you do, and it’s never ever enough.
He’d discovered a sort of fungus. It was milky white with a faint yellow tinge, and it grew on the trunks of dead trees. It was big, like a shelf, and crumbly, like new cheese. It had no discernable taste, which was probably just as well. If you ate it all day—start at dawn and keep on stuffing it into your face until it’s too dark to see—it kept you alive, just about. Luckily, there was a lot of it. He’d been eating the stuff for—what, four, five, six, seven, ninety days now—and there was still plenty (maybe it grew back) in this still, quiet hollow in the bottom of the forest, where it was never particularly hot or cold, and the high canopy kept the rain off, and there seemed to be no other living creatures except him. The leaf mould was soft to lie on, almost as good as a bed, and it didn’t seem to get damp. His jaws ached from chewing.
Yes, he thought, but I was a human being once. I was a (unfamiliar concepts made him frown, the effort of handling them, heavy and sharp edges) farmer, a landowner, I was a husband and a father, I was chieftain of my district. He smiled, and crumbs of half-chewed fungus spilled out of his mouth. Yes, of course you were. Fairy stories.
He broke off another slab of fungus and stuffed it into his mouth, which was still three quarters full. When he was a boy he’d occasionally gone and just sat in the field where the cows were grazing. If you kept perfectly still and you didn’t look at them, because eye contact spooks them, they’d come right up to you (eventually; one step a minute), sniff at you, lick you to see if you were edible. But you weren’t, so they’d go back to eating grass, which they had to do all day long, to get enough.
He sat up. Just sitting among the cows had got him yelled at; his father for idleness, his mother for sitting on the wet grass, which would undoubtedly lead to fevers, consumption and death. He’d given it up at some point between his ninth and tenth birthdays, though he’d always claimed it had made him a better stockman. He scowled, trying to remember, as though a memory is something you can force out by muscular exertion. I was a good stockman. I was calm, patient and decisive and I didn’t stand for any nonsense. I controlled animals, I made them do what I wanted. He looked up at the leaves overhead, over which, very occasionally, a rook or a pigeon soared in a purposeful hurry. Just think of that, he thought, and went on chewing.
He heard a twig snap. He didn’t move, but suddenly every part of him was alive. Twigs don’t just break themselves. Anything big enough and careless enough to break a twig as it moves about is to be considered dangerous until proven otherwise. He didn’t move, because movement is what a predator sees. He sat perfectly still, not chewing, listened, sniffed.
Voices, as in people, talking out loud in the forest, where nothing makes a noise if it can possibly help it. He froze, mouth still half full, only his eyes moving as he assessed possible escape routes. Would they come down the path? If so—no, bad, because the short holly was thick on three sides and the fourth was the wet ground, up to his knees, stuck. Climb the tree. Brilliant, except he wasn’t a squirrel. Sit tight and don’t get seen. Yes, let’s do that.
The voices were close. He could hear the words. He understood what they were saying—well, something of an exaggeration; they were talking about the differences in prices of some commodity at various markets, which was ridiculous, almost as though the old world hadn’t ended and people still did that sort of thing. He closed his eyes, because the only white thing in a wood is an eye.
The voices stopped. Then someone said, “Hello?”
Oh, he thought.
He opened his eyes, spat out the fungus and turned to look. Two men; one about his age, one younger. They wore clean, plain clothes and good boots. Chances were, therefore, they weren’t here to steal his fungus.
“Hello?” the older man repeated. “Are you all right?”
The cornered prey pretends it’s something else—a stone, twig, log. He decided to pretend to be a man. “Fine,” he said.
The older man frowned, as if his answer hadn’t been quite right. He thinks I’m not all right, but is reluctant to call me a liar to my face. Accordingly, he doesn’t know what to say, but still feels compelled to say something. “Excuse me, but are we on the right road for Eucris?”
Where? “Yes,” he said. “Just keep on following the track and you’ll come out on the old cart road. Just on my way back from there myself, as a matter of fact.”
“Ah, right.” The older man seemed relieved. He was unarmed; the younger man had an axe in his belt (but then again, he remembered, so do I). He was also carrying a bag that might contain food. “Never been this far before, see.”
“Ah,” he replied, and smiled.
“Mind if we join you?”
He thought; my fungus. But they had their own food. Indeed, they might be inclined to share. “Be my guest,” he said, and managed not to laugh at his own joke.
They sat down. The younger man shivered; not a spontaneous action, he was exaggerating, to persuade the older man that he was cold. Any minute now he’ll suggest they light a fire. Why? It’s warm enough.
“I’m Donda and this is my nephew Otkel,” the older man said. He waited, expecting some reciprocal response. “Sorry, you’re—?”
Name. He wants to know my name. Just then, a black bird sailed the sma
ll blue ocean between two continents of branches. A raven. “Raffen,” he lied. “I’m a charcoal burner.”
“Ah.” Good answer. Charcoal burners sit around in woods; it’s what they do. “We’re on our way to the levy, Otkel and me.”
Levy. A meeting, organised by the district chieftains, to raise an army. But these two had no weapons. “Is that right?” said Raffen. “We at war with someone, then?”
The young man laughed. His uncle grinned. “Not that I know of,” he said. “Not that sort of a levy.”
“Is there any other sort?”
“Hiring levy,” Donda explained. “Men wanted to go and work in the Big City, making swords for the Emperor. Good pay for skilled men.” He smiled. “Well, the boy and me, we thought we’d give it a go. Cousin of ours went to the City, what, seven years ago, came back and you never saw the like. Blue coat with a fur collar, felt hat, red shoes, and a gut on him like he was expecting. And he was just what they call a day labourer, hauling logs in some machine place. They got a huge round saw powered by a wheel driven by water. Cuts a tree that size—” he pointed; some tree or other “—into planks in three minutes. Marvellous people they must be, thinking of things like that. So we thought, good pay, fat of the land, so to speak, and see some rare old sights while we’re at it. And we’re skilled men, blacksmiths, so we ought to do all right, wouldn’t you say?”
The Big City. Raffen had heard of it, but—“Skilled men,” he repeated.
“That’s right. Men with a trade.” Clearly, Donda reckoned he could guess what he was thinking. “Not sure they’d want charcoal burners, mind.”
“Oh, I’m a skilled man,” Raffen replied easily. “I haven’t always done this, you know. Before that, I was a fletcher.” First thing that had come into his head; still, he’d watched a fletcher once. “Do you think there’d be any call for that?”
Donda was managing not to laugh. “With the war on? Oh, I should think so.”
War. Come to think of it, someone had said something about a war, a long time ago, somewhere else. None of his business, of course. “Good pay, you said.”
“Cousin Bollo said he was getting eighty trachy a day,” the young man said.
“That’s not bad.” Trachy. What in God’s name is a trachy? “Got to be better than this game, anyhow.” He realised he was copying them, accent, phrases, way of putting words together. They hadn’t noticed. Of course, all he wanted was for them to go away and leave him in peace with his fungus. “Been piss-poor lately,” he went on. “No call for charcoal, this time of year.”
Donda looked at him oddly, but didn’t comment. “You thinking of going, then?”
“I might be.” He sat up a little. He could feel himself changing, from prey to predator. He decided to ride with it. “Trouble is, getting there. Like I said, trade’s been pretty bad. A man’s got to eat on the road.”
Awkward silence. “It’s, what, three days to Eucris?” Donda said.
Raffen remembered hearing himself say, I’m just on my way back from there. “Thereabouts,” he said.
They were looking at each other. “We got a bit to spare,” Donda said. “Not a lot, mind.”
“Oh, I’ll pay you back, of course,” Raffen said quickly. “Once we get to the City. You’ve got my word on that.”
Young Otkel wasn’t happy. That just made his uncle more determined. “Fletcher, you say.”
“Damn good one, too. But there was trouble. A man called Sighvat. Heard of him?”
“Vaguely.”
“Sighvat,” Raffen repeated. It felt very strange saying the name. “He had a quarrel with our lot, there was a bit of trouble. Time to move on.”
“Ah.”
“But it’d be good to go back fletching again,” Raffen said. “I always say, if a man’s got a trade, he ought to use it. You’d say the same, I’m sure.”
Another silence. Raffen tried not to stare at the satchel that almost certainly contained food. Bread, quite likely; a fist-sized chunk of that keeps you going for a whole morning. Just think of all the things you could do in that time. Then Otkel said, “Isn’t Sighvat’s place that big spread down in the Mere valley?”
“No, that’s Segibert,” Donda replied. “Sighvat’s up over Whitestones, surely. Easthanger district.”
“That’s right,” Raffen said, though they were both quite wrong. But he felt Donda would like to be proved more knowledgeable than his nephew. “Other side of the moors from here.”
Donda nodded. For some reason, his small victory had helped him make up his mind. “You can come with us if you like,” he said. “I’ve heard they’re more likely to take men in groups rather than ones and twos, so it’d be good for all of us.”
The City, Raffen thought. Who’d have ever imagined I’d go there? Still, why not? Or, better still, walk along with them a little way, then when they’re asleep, steal their food. I’m not a thief, that man had said, like it was some big grand thing. But everything steals; the hawk from the fox, the cow from her calf, the old dog from the young dogs, it’s how you can tell who’s the best. And they’d have stolen my fungus, if I’d let them.
“I’ve never been to the City,” he said, meanwhile. “What’s it like?”
Aimeric loved new places, but hated getting to them. Particularly by road; ships were cramped, terrifying, nauseating and wet, but you were on them for a matter of hours, after which they either arrived or sank. Coaches, however, take days.
Going home was, therefore, the worst possible thing; three days in a small wooden box, every rut in the road a punch or a kick; can’t possibly sleep while you’re being beaten up, ditto reading—the book dances about in front of your eyes, catching a word’s like trying to catch flies one-handed. Can’t even talk, because you have to yell to make yourself heard over the groaning of the springs, rattle of the wheels, thumps, bangs. Nights in the coach, or the fleabag Quality of Mercy at Phio, always jam-packed with smelly couriers, graziers, soldiers, so you have to sleep on nine inches’ width of a communal mattress, serenaded by drunks, trodden on by midnight urinators. The reward for enduring all this; to end up back home, his least favourite place in the whole world.
The main road was blocked off, for some reason, so they had to drag into Town through the eastern suburbs, where the river runs fat and slow beside the Eastway; mile after mile of long wooden sheds, whose waterwheels drove mills and drophammers; horrible noise, foul bitter smoke from a thousand charcoal forges and furnaces. The family business had started here, one shed among hundreds, but Father had moved it up West, to be close to the docks. At least they had the sea breeze there, to clear away the stink and smooth out the noise. We ought to do something about all these small independents, he caught himself thinking, as the lines of sheds rolled past the coach window; buy them up or undercut them out of business. They’re killing profitability.
Not that that was any concern of his, because the one thing he would never do was dirty his hands with the business. So far, all he’d managed to drag out of Hosculd was that things weren’t going well, and that his mother needed to talk to him about the future; she wanted to explain it to him herself, so Hosculd wouldn’t say any more. Fine; he could extrapolate. His father had built the business up from nothing, he was a legend in the arms trade, and it was well known that his son had no taste for commerce, particularly in instruments of death. A woman couldn’t run a business empire, obviously. Therefore, the whole thing would have to be sold, simple as that. No problem. Even if, as he suspected, the death of his father had wiped out a substantial percentage of the value of the business, there would still be enough for all of them to be ridiculously wealthy, from now until the end of time. All in all, a very satisfactory outcome. He could see why he’d be needed, in person, for quite a while. As sole male heir, he’d have to sign all the documents, swear the oaths and the indemnities, register the transfer of undertakings; meetings with buyers, suppliers, all the different government agencies; Senate committees, most likely, since ever
ything they made these days was restricted war supplies. He had no idea how long it would all take—six months, a year, longer. But at least when it was all over he’d be rid of all that. Free.
Traffic gridlocked at the Undergate; munitions carts going down, a column of soldiers coming up. He leaned out of the window and swore.
“The hell with this,” he told Hosculd. “I’ll walk from here.”
“Better not.”
Hosculd was right, of course. The streets around Undergate were no place for a civilian pedestrian these days. If you weren’t robbed, stabbed or run over, you’d still have to face an hour queuing at the checkpoint on New Bridge (and, he remembered, he didn’t have current papers, so he couldn’t leave the coach in the City, not even to piss against a wall). He sighed, pressed his back into the seat and closed his eyes. At least the pummelling had stopped, and he could converse without shouting.
“Hosculd,” he said. “What’s going on?”
Hosculd gave him that sad, shifty look. “Your mother—”
“I want to hear it from you first.”
“I’m sorry.”
He felt a little spike of irritation; after all, he was now the head of the family, therefore head of the company, therefore Hosculd’s lord and master. In theory. “I know,” he said. “She wants to explain it to me herself. Fine.” He smiled. “Little hint?”
Hosculd looked away. “It’s bad, Aimeric. That’s all I can say.”
“Fine.” He reached into his coat pocket and found his copy of Clovian’s Triumph of Peace. Maybe it wasn’t the ideal book for sitting in traffic; Clovian was a passionate and committed pacifist but a somewhat turgid poet; he’d put the book in his pocket as a sort of statement to the world, but on balance something like the Private Histories would’ve been better for passing the time. Hosculd just sat and stared out of the window, which he found disconcerting.