by K. J. Parker
He’d forgotten that the brick needed a lever to get it out. He sneaked into the kitchen of the Integrity and borrowed a spoon, which he somehow neglected to put back.
The reception was held in the Royal Gallery, that awkward and unprofitable space that runs the entire length of the west wing of the palace. For a thousand years, the heirs of Florian haven’t really known what to do with it. Florian III commissioned a series of narrative frescos for it, which were paid for but never finished. Gratian I had them panelled over and used the gallery to display his celebrated collection of erotic sculpture. Venseric sent the sculptures to the limekilns and turned the gallery into an indoor archery range. Mardimer simply dustsheeted it and closed it down. Heriman housed the Studium library in it for a while, until the New Building was completed. Florian VI kept his private menagerie there, until a tiger got loose and mauled the Mezentine ambassador. Clensimer lined it with portraits of himself. Hodda had it emptied, cleaned up and redecorated, then left it empty. So far, Sechimer hadn’t set foot in it, though he’d talked about getting some icons and making it into a sort of fully-enclosed cloister, for meditation and silent prayer. Nobody else seemed particularly keen on the idea, and as yet no formal proposals had gone to the Works Committee.
For the victory reception, however, it was ideal. The guests came up the grand front staircase, past the portraits of the emperors and the death-masks of defeated kings, while the domestic staff had a clear run up and down the privy stair to the kitchens and the wine cellars. The weather was still pleasantly warm, so the nightmare issue of heating the dreadful place didn’t arise. There were just enough tables in the whole palace to line the inside wall, allowing guests to stroll up and down the gallery or walk out onto the balconies for a breath of air and the undiscriminating adulation of the huge crowd gathered in Deacon’s Yard.
As a member of the regency council, Aimeric had to be there half an hour before the start; he was rushed back from the sea-battle in a covered coach, scrambled to get changed into his robes of state—invented specially for the occasion, a tribute to rather than an imitation of the imperial regalia; a massive black wool dressing-gown embroidered with a thousand baroque seed-pearls, a white ermine mantle and a cloth-of-gold sort-of-scarf-thing that had to be pinned ruthlessly to the mantle to keep it from escaping and winding itself round his feet. Then just enough time for a quart of water (essential not to get dehydrated on these occasions) before the stewards came to escort him to the gallery.
He met his fellow councillors in the Ivory ante-room. They looked up as he was shown in, then went on talking to each other. Aimeric leaned against a statue and tried to adjust his shoes, which were worth at least 500 solidi in materials alone and which didn’t fit. Chancellor Maerving detached himself from the group, came over and smiled at him. “How do you like the fancy dress?” he asked.
“It’s horrible.”
“Quite,” Maerving said. “Mind you, count yourself lucky, I had to wear the real thing. I now have a new theory.”
“Oh yes?”
Maerving nodded. “The imperial regalia is expressly designed to deter people from becoming emperor. Trust me, it wouldn’t be worth it.” He ran a finger between his scarf and his neck. “This pale imitation’s bad enough. We were just discussing how you’re supposed to pee without taking the whole lot off.”
“Did you reach a conclusion?”
“Not yet. We decided to appoint a sub-committee. Talking of which, would you like a drink before we go down?”
Aimeric shook his head. “You’re the chancellor,” he said. “I thought the empire was essentially bankrupt.”
Maerving nodded cheerfully. “It is.”
“Right. Then how can we afford all this junk?”
Maerving smiled. “No choice. All this junk is to give foreigners the impression we’re not bankrupt. You wait till you see the dinner service. All solid gold, and everyone gets to keep his cup and plate and take it home with him. I had to close down the Ordnance Survey to pay for it, but it’ll be worth it, I promise you.”
Aimeric shrugged. “What about all the war loot? I read in despatches we’d captured the Great King’s treasury.”
“We did. Calojan gave it to his savages. I got the impression that if he hadn’t, they’d have taken it anyway Believe me,” he added with a smile, “whatever rumours you may have heard about the financial situation, the truth is much, much worse. Come and have a honeycake, before the ravening hordes descend on them.”
Hordes was about right. Aimeric was in the front rank as the guests advanced; he wondered how the hell people like Calojan did it, stand and watch a wall of hostile strangers advancing. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that he’d squirm his way out and run for it, so fast that not even the Aram Cosseilhatz on their tall, slim warhorses would be able to catch him. In the gallery, however, there was nowhere to run to except a balcony, ten stories up. He anchored his feet to the floor and raised a smile, like a mighty shield.
Actually, it wasn’t that bad, after a while. First chance he got, he drifted sideways towards the food (Carchedonius in his Art of War recommends a similar manoeuvre using marshland, broken scrub or scree; the principle was exactly the same). It wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t death by bastinado either. He hunkered down under the lee of the cold roast chicken and slugged it out like a man.
“Aimeric.” The Archdeacon had crept up behind him. “Someone I’d like you to meet.” He turned and found himself practically nose to nose with a small, slim, bald man, brown skin and eyes, dressed in a white gown with a raised gilded collar. “Aimeric de Peguilhan, Orseo Spatharius. Dr Spatharius is the Mezentine charge d’affaires. He knew your father quite well.”
Which was more than I did. “Pleased to meet you,” Aimeric said. “Presumably—”
“Your father and I did business together on a number of occasions,” the Mezentine said. “I remember him fondly. I was most distressed to hear that he had passed away.”
Aimeric had no idea what to say to that. “So you must be in the arms business.”
The wrong thing. “Not really,” the Mezentine said, while the Archdeacon frowned slightly. “As well as my diplomatic post, I hold the agency for the sheet metal workers’ guild. We supplied your father with best quality brass and latten embossing stock, for decorative work. My country doesn’t sell arms to foreigners, you see.”
“No, you keep them all for yourselves,” the Archbishop interrupted cheerfully. “Which is probably why his late majesty the Great King left you in peace and came pestering us; thank you so much. Not that we could afford any of your stuff anyway. It’s way over-specified for the modern battlefield. I keep telling you, the days of small, highly-trained standing armies are long gone. I mean, look at this last scrap. The Great King had the best regular infantry in the world, marvellous chaps, brave as lions and do exactly what they’re told. And what happened? Calojan’s savages rode up behind them and shot them to hell. All that training, effort, discipline, esprit de corps, all that stuff, not worth a light. Three solidi; that’s how much it cost to equip one Sashan heavy infantryman. Sixty thousand solidi in kit and weapons alone. Fat lot of good it did them.”
The Mezentine smiled bleakly. “I would tend to agree that the armoured footsoldier has probably had his day. In Mezentia, we’re very interested in exploring the potential of mobile field artillery.”
The Archdeacon laughed. Could it possibly be that he wasn’t quite as steady on his feet as he usually was? “Oh, that old chestnut. Why send a man where you can send catapult shot instead? They were saying that back in the Third Kingdom, and look what happened to them.”
The Mezentine took a small but ostentatious step backwards, to just outside the range of the Archdeacon’s breath. Aimeric smiled widely and tried to think of something else to talk about. “Doctor Spatharius,” he said. “You’re a medical man, then.”
Weary smirk from the Mezentine. “Doctor of divinity,” he said. “I have the honour to be a minister of
the Central United Congregation. I also lecture on ethical theory and predictive science at the guild seminary. All of which means I couldn’t set a broken arm if you paid me.”
“Predictive science?” Aimeric asked.
“Fortune telling.” The Archdeacon had a wonderful way with tolerant contempt. “The Mezentines still believe in all that stuff, but these days they have to dress it up in geometry and algebra. They draw these extraordinary charts—”
“It goes without saying,” the Mezentine said firmly, “we do not purport to tell fortunes, predict the future, anything of the kind. It amuses our friends in the Studium to pretend that we do, but that’s just their humour. What we actually do is use proven mathematical models to analyse patterns in human behaviour, looking for archetypes that might conceivably repeat under certain rigidly defined circumstances.”
“Fortune telling,” the Archdeacon muttered. “Bobbing for apples and cross my palm with silver. Still, we used to do it, six hundred years ago, so I guess we’re in no position to criticise.”
It was rather splendid to watch the Mezentine keeping his temper; like seeing a first-class sheepdog at work. “Funny you should mention that,” he said. “A month or so ago we found some really quite fascinating manuscripts in the Congregation archives. I had them copied for you. I think you might find them amusing.”
A waiter was hovering with a tray of canapes. Aimeric smiled at him and took a selection. For a moment he was sure he recognised the man’s face. When he looked back, he was surprised to see the look on the Archdeacon’s face. “You wouldn’t happen to be talking about the Codex Synergicus, by any chance?”
“You heard about it, then.” The Mezentine was enjoying himself.
“Rumours,” the Archdeacon said. “But surely—”
“A complete copy,” said the Mezentine. “Of the second collected rescension. We have a respectable provenance, before you ask.”
“The second rescension—”
“Quite.” Very smug. “At least seventy-five years earlier than any other recorded manuscript.” Suddenly he smiled, or at least he opened his mouth and showed his teeth. An ambiguous gesture. “Such a shame that there are no surviving manuscripts inside the empire. Tell me, is possession of a copy still a criminal offence? If so, I wouldn’t dream of compromising you with such an unwelcome gift.”
“I have a special dispensation,” the Archdeacon said, quickly and urgently.
“But no actual manuscripts?”
“No.”
Aimeric could resist no longer. “Excuse me,” he said. “What exactly are you talking about?”
He’d obviously made the Mezentine’s day. “Perhaps you’d better tell him,” he said to the Archdeacon. “One sceptic to another.”
The archdeacon glowered briefly, then turned to Aimeric. “The Codex Synergeticus is a Second Kingdom collection of prophetic texts—”
“Fortune telling,” murmured the Mezentine under his breath.
“Purporting,” the archdeacon went on, “to predict a number of key events in the history of the empire. According to the sources, some of them were alleged to have proved uncannily accurate.”
“Speculation and reconstruction,” the Mezentine interrupted. “Your scholars don’t actually know what was in the texts, because your emperor Florian V had them all called in and burned.”
“Ah,” Aimeric said.
“Apparently,” the Mezentine went on, “he took the view that an obsessive level of interest and belief in the prophesies wasn’t conducive to public order and good governance. Whenever there was a crisis, all anybody was interested in was, what do the prophecies say? Also, according to some commentators, most of them were so ambiguous and vague, they could be twisted to mean whatever you wanted them to. Florian V decided the empire would be better off without them.” He paused and smiled. “Fortuitously, a number of copies, obtained by scholars and spies over the years, are believed to exist in other parts of the world. The Great King, for example, was rumoured to have a set, though as I understand it, general Calojan was unable to locate it.”
“They burned it before he could get to it.”
“Indeed. Most unfortunate. Our discovery is, therefore, quite a find. So, on the strict understanding that we aren’t breaking any laws, or inadvertently encouraging His Majesty’s loyal subjects to break them, we’re delighted to be able to make a copy available to you. Free of charge,” he added, “as a gesture of goodwill. Purely as a historical curiosity, of course, since we all know that predicting the future is impossible.”
The Archdeacon had gone bright red in the face. He lowered his voice. “You’ve got to tell me,” he said. “Does it really say—?”
“All in good time,” the Mezentine replied briskly. “You can read it for yourself and see. Talking of which,” he added smoothly, “how is the emperor?”
As if he’d slapped the Archdeacon across the face. “Recovering,” he said. “Excellent progress.”
“Ah.” The Mezentine nodded. “I’m afraid I find the daily bulletins somewhat confusing, although,” he continued with a smile, “I’m not a doctor of medicine. But I do have some slight acquaintance with the subject, and I have to say, his progress doesn’t appear to conform to any recognised model of cranial injury or post-operative infection. One day he’s nearly well and walking in his garden, the next he’s recovering peacefully after a severe bout of fever. The danger, I can’t help noticing, is always in the past, in the interval between bulletins. Perhaps if they were read out in the evening instead of the morning, we’d get a better idea.”
“Excellent progress,” the archdeacon repeated stiffly. “He’s being attended by the Great King’s personal physician, probably the finest doctor in the world.”
“Whose late master’s head you cut off only the other day.” The Mezentine nodded. “I’m not sure our doctors would be so forgiving. But the Sashan are—sorry, were—such curious people. We never did get around to understanding them.” He smiled. “Fortunately, we no longer need to try.”
“The truth is,” the Archdeacon hissed in Aimeric’s ear, a bit later, when the Mezentine was talking to somebody else, “the emperor’s perfectly fit now, but—” He lowered his voice even further. “The trouble’s up here.” He tapped his forehead. “Nobody home, as the saying goes. He doesn’t recognise anybody, doesn’t know who he is, just sits there all day staring out of the window. He’ll talk to you perfectly rationally for an hour about some bird he’s been watching or the different shapes of cloud, but if you tell him he’s the emperor, he just laughs at you. The Sashan says it’s a recognised condition and he should just snap out of it at some point; trouble is, there’s no guarantee of that, and there’s nothing anybody can do for him. It could be a week, or he could stay like it for the rest of his life. Terrible thing; to have won the war and saved civilisation, and not to be able to understand what you’ve achieved.”
“I can imagine,” Aimeric said.
“Can you? I can’t. And of course, none of us has the faintest idea what to do. Maerving’s all for putting him out of his misery and choosing a new emperor, but at the moment that’s out of the question. The only candidate everyone would follow is Calojan, who’s made it perfectly clear he doesn’t want the job; furthermore, if anything happens to Sechimer—accident, illness, whatever—he’ll personally see to it that the entire regency council will meet with similar misfortune. So, you see, we’re in a dreadful mess.”
Aimeric wasn’t feeling well. “He is all right, isn’t he? Sechimer.”
“Like I said, fit as a flea, physically. Just—” He made a vague gesture. “Couldn’t have picked a worse time, really. There’s so much that needs to be done, and who’s got to do it?” he pulled a face. “Us, God help us. It’s an unprecedented state of affairs. Not even like a proper regency. At least then, you know that on a certain hour of a certain day, the little horror will come of age and from then on everything will be his fault, not yours. This—it’s so open-ended,
it’s impossible to formulate a coherent policy. Nobody’s really in charge, everyone’s principally motivated by fear of the repercussions if they propose something risky or unpopular, you’ve no way of knowing if you’ll be in office long enough to see anything through, and you’ve got twelve friends and colleagues desperate to see to it that you take the blame if anything goes wrong. It’s hopeless. We might as well be a republic.”
Aimeric frowned. “The Vesani manage.”
“No, they don’t. They lurch from one crisis to another, bribe their own people to stay quiet with constant handouts and stave off disaster by borrowing obscene amounts of money from gullible foreigners, which they then neglect to pay back. And the Mezentines—well, would you want to live like that?”
“No,” Aimeric admitted.
“Nor me. So, we’ve got to think of a way of coping with this mess before anyone finds out what’s going on. If you come up with anything, be sure to tell me.”
Aimeric’s mind was, of course, a complete blank. So he said, “These prophesies.”
“Quite. Do you really believe it’s a coincidence, a complete set turning up at this precise moment?”
Aimeric did, until the Archdeacon put it like that. “No, of course not.” His brain was starting to work. “Presumably Calojan destroyed the Great King’s copy.”
“That’s what he told us. Whether or not he did remains to be seen. Well, would you, in his shoes?”
“We can use them,” Aimeric said.
“Thanks, but one thing we’re not short of is toilet paper.”
“We can use them,” Aimeric repeated. “We can reveal that the Codex—”
“Synergicus.”
“The Codex predicted the course and outcome of the war,” Aimeric went on, “with quite uncanny accuracy, and goes on to say—what would we like it to say, do you think?”
The Archdeacon frowned. “Good question.”
“I think,” Aimeric said, “the Codex predicts that on the eve of battle, the Invincible Sun will appear to Sechimer in a dream and promise him victory in the place where the red and blue flowers grow, provided that once the Sashan are defeated, he’ll retire to a contemplative order and live the life of a simple monk. For an unspecified period. In his absence, the empire should be governed jointly by the most senior representatives of the House and the Studium.”