by K. J. Parker
It was said of the imperial court, not without a certain degree of perverse pride, that there was a prescribed ritual for everything; for locking and unlocking the gates of the palace cistern; for accepting delivery of the day’s vegetables; for watering the imperial hanging baskets; for changing the towels in the emperor’s private latrine. The chamberlain was stunned, therefore, to find that there was no established ceremony for the investiture of guardianship of an infant emperor, let alone an unborn one.
“Marvellous,” Gesel snapped. “Well, you’ll just have to make one up.”
The chamberlain tried to explain that court ceremonial wasn’t simply invented. It had to grow, like coral, the practices and observances of successive generations gradually becoming stylised over centuries, precedents accumulating a fraction at a time—an extra step here, a further obeisance there—like the formation of stalactites. Only from this gradual organic growth could court ceremonial draw its authenticity and meaning. An entirely synthetic ritual would be worthless, a forgery, a fake.
“Rubbish,” Gesel said. “Look, if you won’t do it, I’ll send for the archdeacon. He’ll do anything.”
The chamberlain agreed that perhaps it would be best if the drafting was left to the proper religious authorities. Aimeric spoke to the archdeacon after Council, and a completed draft was on his desk the next morning.
“Just what the empire needs at this critical stage in its history,” Gesel said, when he showed it to her. “More play-acting.” But she read the draft, insisted on four or five major changes, and had the ceremony put into the court almanac for the day after next. “The sooner we get it done,” she said, “the more chance we’ve got of beating Calojan. After all, that’s the important thing.”
Aimeric agreed. He’d given strict orders that the preparations for the ceremony should be kept secret from the military (hence no guard of honour, no march-past saluting the imperial balcony; a donation of two solidi a man for the entire army, yes, but they could learn about that on the day) and just for once, Imperial security managed to keep a secret. Of course, it helped that Calojan was nowhere to be found.
“That’s impossible,” Aimeric said. “He can’t just have disappeared.”
But he had. A succession of enemies had learnt the hard way that Calojan was never more dangerous than when you couldn’t see him, and Aimeric assigned forty officers of the Household to tracking his last known movements. They reported back that he’d last been seen working late on overdue paperwork at the garrison barracks. That was four days ago.
“Well,” Gesel said, “at least now we know for sure he’s up to something. Get that clown of a chamberlain in here and tell him to bring the ceremony forward to tomorrow.”
They had to cut it down a bit. They dispensed with the proclamation from the bell-towers of the seven temples, to make sure Calojan’s agents learnt of the fait accompli as late as possible. They did without the presentation of twelve garlands by the daughters of the twelve thematic prefects. Much to the relief of the chancellor, they cut the scattering of specially-minted silver coins to the people in the Perfect Square. In the event, the ceremony involved a total of twenty people, was held in the palace cloister, and lasted half an hour.
“But at least it’s done,” Gesel said, “with a ceremony, so it’s official. Now let’s see him worm his way round that.”
The investiture was announced by the tribunes’ heralds, impromptu street parties were organised in wards right across the City, the soldiers got their money and were glad. Still no sign, however, of Calojan.
“That’s bad,” Aimeric said. He had dark rings under his eyes. “Quite apart from everything else, we desperately need him here for when the peace talks start. If we can’t show them Calojan, we’ll have nothing at all to bargain with.”
The council agreed. It wasn’t like him, the prefect said, say what you like about the man, duty always came first with him. Maybe, the chancellor said, he’d been murdered or abducted by the enemy. That reduced the meeting to horrified silence, as they contemplated the effect on the peace negotiations of the Selbst ambassador pulling Calojan’s severed head from a goatskin bag. Or maybe he’s changed sides, the prefect said. That’d be even worse.
Further enquiries and investigations; still no confirmed sighting of Calojan after he went to his office to work through the supply requisitions. Someone had a rush of inspiration, and checked the clerks’ room; the requisitions had been completed and filed, and the handwriting was Calojan’s unmistakeably tight, elegant script.
“Well, that’s something,” the prefect said. “It means he hasn’t defected. I mean, if you were planning to go over to the enemy, you wouldn’t stop and do your grain requisitions first.”
“I don’t know,” Aimeric said. “I think that’s exactly the sort of thing he’d do.”
The Cosseilhatz arrived for the peace talks. Their column—ox-drawn carts escorted by cavalry and flanked on both sides by a white sea of sheep—was six miles long. They were a day late.
King Raffen arrived a day later, with five thousand soldiers; he’d left the rest of his army surrounding Moisin, four shifts of three concentric circles of armed men standing an arm’s length apart, to make absolutely sure Calojan couldn’t slip through and escape. As a mark of respect to Sechimer, Raffen and his men all wore a sprig of holly, the stem poked between the rings of their mailshirts just above the heart. Holly, Raffen explained to Chauzida when he asked, stays green in midwinter, when all the other trees have lost their leaves; it therefore stood for the immortal life of the soul, which never dies.
“Doesn’t it?” Chauzida said. “I never knew that.”
Raffen felt awkward. “Well,” he said, “that’s what we believe, traditionally. We believe that the souls of the dead live on. If you die in battle, you go and feast with Warfather in the Rainbow Hall. If you’ve lived a wicked and evil life, you spend eternity trapped inside the ice floes in the Great Northern Sea.”
“Oh.” Chauzida said. “What about if you lived a good life but didn’t die in battle?”
“That’s a bit of a grey area,” Raffen conceded. “We think there’s a country you go to. It’s better than here, but that’s all we know about it.”
“I see,” Chauzida said. “And that’s what you believe.”
“Well, not me personally,” Raffen said.
The people of the City chose to regard the Cosseilhatz encampment as a vast and wonderful circus laid on for their entertainment. Because, from the designated viewing areas on the battlements, they could see women hanging out washing and children playing ring-a-roses and tag in between the lines of wagons, they seemed to reject the possibility that the Cosseilhatz were a hostile army. A committee of noblemens’ wives started a subscription to buy blankets for the children, until it was pointed out to them that, first, until a treaty was signed the Cosseilhatz were the enemy; second, they had plenty of blankets already. Even then, the sentries intercepted at least two dozen attempts by well-meaning citizens to sneak out through the posterns with presents of food and religious pamphlets. Aimeric, meanwhile, was frantically busy at the factory, where he’d ordered the construction of a new range of mangonels and catapults, strong enough to reach the Cosseilhatz camp from the City walls.
“Take a look at this,” Ermanaric said. He was the new chief steward, replacing Hosculd, who’d been arrested trying to defect to the enemy. “We think this may just be what we’ve been looking for.”
They were standing in the gateway of the main yard of Number Seven, which had been cleared of goods and wagons. Ermanaric had brought with him a glass jar three-quarters full of yellow liquid and stopped with old rag, and a horn lantern. “If you wouldn’t mind standing over there,” he said. “We aren’t quite sure about the next bit.”
Aimeric moved quickly until he was a good ten yards away. “Is this all right?”
“Probably,” Ermanaric replied cheerfully. “Well, here goes.”
He opened the lantern and ap
plied its flame to the cloth, which refused to light. Ermanaric swore at it and stuffed the cloth into the lantern, which put the flame out. “Sorry,” Ermanaric called out, and fiddled with his tinder-box for a while trying to relight it; then he discarded the lantern, wound the tinder-box furiously, dumped the smouldering moss directly onto the cloth and blew on it until he’d managed to produce a feeble orange glow. Then he threw the jar across the yard.
It hit the ground and smashed . There was a loud rushing noise, like a lot of people running, and a black and orange flower of fire as tall as a man swelled and blossomed where it had fallen. Aimeric felt a wave of hot air brush his face. “Well,” Ermanaric yelled happily, “what do you think?”
Aimeric was staring at the fire. It was burning furiously, though there was no wood or charcoal; essence of fire, divorced from any trace of combustible material. He couldn’t help thinking of professor Carchedon’s lectures on the quintessential nature of the soul, which exists separate from the body. A thick roll of black smoke curled off the apex of the flames. “What the hell,” he demanded, “is that?”
Ermanaric joined him under the arch. The black smoke had dissipated, and the fire was now pure flame. “It’s a sort of tarry stuff that oozes out of the ground in Scona,” he said. “Distilled, of course, and we’ve mixed in pine sap and sulphur, and a few other bits and bobs. I was thinking, pour it into thick-walled pots and shoot it from catapults. A jar doesn’t weigh much, so we could probably reach their camp from here with the catapults we’ve already got.”
Ermanaric was only twenty-four; a long, thin man with ears that stuck out and severe burn scars on his hands and forearms; enough meat on him for one meal, as Gesel would’ve said. Quite brilliant, of course, in his way. “It doesn’t seem to need any fuel to burn,” Aimeric said. The fire was still roaring in the gentle breeze.
“It doesn’t,” Ermanaric said, “all it needs is itself, that’s the joy of it. And,” he added with a grin, “that’s not all. Watch this.”
He turned around and waved, and six men appeared, a bucket of water in each hand. Somewhat reluctantly they approached the fire and threw the water on it. Rolls of steam, but no other perceptible effect.
“You can’t put it out,” Ermanaric said happily. “Not with water, anyhow. You can smother it with sand, but it takes ever such a lot. Otherwise it keeps burning until it’s all gone. Oh, and it lights on water, too.”
That didn’t make any sense. “It does what?”
“Pour the stuff on water and it floats on the surface. Set light to it, it burns. Just think of what that’d mean for the Navy.”
Aimeric didn’t want to think about it at all. “Where are you making this stuff?” he asked nervously.
“Back of Number Five. We’re being ever so careful with how we handle it.” Ermanaric had a new pink scar Aimeric hadn’t noticed before, on the side of his face, just next to his left ear. Of course, he hadn’t seen him for a fortnight. “After all, we don’t want to burn down the City, do we?”
“Exactly what do you mean by careful?”
Ermanaric’s list of precautions reassured him to a certain extent (though he couldn’t help thinking of the Great Fire, in the sixth year of Botheric II, which started with a night-watchman’s brazier and took out the entire commercial district). “All right,” he conceded. “But how much of it have you made?”
“About forty gallons,” Ermanaric said casually. “That’s all the Scona oil we could get. They use it in perfume-making, of all things. I’ve ordered some more from the Vesani Republic, but it’ll be six weeks at least.”
Forty gallons. The glass jar had held, what, maybe a quart? Aimeric thought of the Cosseilhatz camp, wagons and tents laid out like stalls at a fair. A gallon would weigh around ten pounds, and the catapults on the walls threw a hundredweight stone two hundred yards. The camp was four hundred yards away. He felt sick. He asked himself (as he’d taken to doing lately); what would Calojan do? Well, that was easy.
“Good work,” he said, in a rather high voice. “Now, I want you to find a supply of suitable gallon jars. Don’t decant the stuff into the jars, don’t do any tests for how far you can shoot them, don’t tell a living soul about any of this. Do you understand?”
“Sure,” Ermanaric said. “And when the Scona oil arrives—”
“Store it somewhere safe. Don’t make any more of this stuff, for God’s sake, not until I tell you. Got that?”
Ermanaric shrugged. “Understood. I’d quite like to do a bit more work on actually getting it lit, though. As you saw, we’re still a bit primitive in that department.”
“No,” Aimeric said.
“That’s fine,” Ermanaric replied, apparently unconcerned. “So, do you want us to get back to the catapult project? We’re working on a reinforced throwing arm, but the extra weight—”
“Forget about that for now,” Aimeric said. “Let’s just concentrate on spears and arrowheads for now.” He paused, then asked, “A few other bits and bobs, you said. What, exactly?”
“Ah.” Ermanaric grinned. “Well, there’s sal draconis—the pure stuff, not the pink crystals—and Scherian vitriol, and flowers of petra eremia, just a smidgeon or it gets a bit unstable—”
Aimeric hadn’t heard of most of the things, and the names just slid past him. Ermanaric stopped and laughed. “I know,” he said, “it’s a bit complicated; and the proportions have got to be just right, or it can get a bit funny. I’ll write it all down for you.”
“No,” Aimeric said. “Don’t do that. I don’t want it written down anywhere, ever. That’s very important.”
Ermanaric frowned. Then he nodded and said, “Security, got you, yes. All right, how would it be if I wrote it down in code? Got to have a record of it somewhere,” he added, “just in case something happens to me.”
The red patches on his skin made it clear that a lot of things had already happened to Ermanaric; not so much a possibility, more a matter of time. “All right,” Aimeric said. “But just one copy of the formula, and two copies of the key to the code; one for me, one for my sister.” The fire was just starting to die down. “That’s it. Understood?”
“It’s your chess-set.” Aimeric wasn’t quite sure what that meant. “But you’ve got to admit, this changes pretty well everything, doesn’t it? I mean, with this, if the savages try anything, we can mess them up real good.”
Yes, Aimeric thought, so we can. And I was once a pacifist, in another place, at another time. “Until they figure out the range of our catapults,” he said. “Then they’ll just blockade us from a bit further away.”
“Oh, I don’t think there’s any reason why it shouldn’t be used in the field as well. I mean, just think what Calojan could do with a weapon like this.”
Essence of empire, Aimeric thought, as he walked back to the palace. It destroys everything it touches, it can’t be put out, even with water, and all it needs is itself (that’s the joy of it). Gesel would approve, he had no doubt of that; she’d give the order herself, if the peace talks failed. It’s a gift from the Invincible Sun, she’d say, it means we don’t need Calojan any more, we can defend ourselves and take back the empire with this wonderful new thing—
He stopped, on the corner of Woodgate and Sheepfair, as if there was a barrier preventing him from going on. The thing was done now; it existed, and his duty to the City—no, no more lies, his duty to Gesel and her unborn child meant that he’d have to let it be used, if it came to it. Two copies of the formula, plus the contents of Ermanaric’s head. The thing was alive, and couldn’t be legally killed.
If it comes to it, he repeated to himself. Pray God it doesn’t.
The imperial regency council proposed holding the peace talks in the great hall of the old wing of the palace. The Coalition refused. Instead, they proposed meeting in the open air, three hundred yards from the Bronze Gate. After two days of tight-lipped negotiation between the heralds of both sides, a compromise was reached, and the chamberlain was ordered t
o get the big tent out of storage again, and put it up two hundred yards (precisely) from the Gate. There was a further brief flurry of dispute when the Coalition heralds measured the distance and demanded that the tent be moved; it turned out that the imperial yard was three inches longer than the Aram yard, presumably because the Aram have shorter legs. The imperials refused to compromise, because imperial weights and measures had been ordained by the Invincible Sun Himself, and use of any other system would be sacrilege. Raffen then pointed out to Chauzida that the two-hundred yard stipulation was to make sure the meeting took place within long bowshot of the walls; he’d wanted to make it three hundred yards because that’d be out of range. The discrepancy between imperial and Aram units meant that if they insisted on Aram yards, they’d end up meeting sixteen yards closer to the wall, making life marginally easier for the imperial marksmen. The Coalition accordingly conceded the use of imperial measurements, conditional on the tent having four entrances instead of the two proposed by the empire. The chamberlain sent out for emergency seamstresses, the tent was duly modified, the Coalition observers grudgingly passed the entrances as acceptable. The peace talks were on.
It was naturally assumed that the archdeacon and the City prefect would be the main spokesmen for the empire. They were seasoned negotiators, universally regarded, even by their enemies, as the finest orators of their generation; they had all the facts and figures at their fingertips; their regalia and robes of office would dazzle and overawe the simple savages, who were known to be easily impressed by that sort of thing.
No, Gesel objected, absolutely not. The archdeacon and the prefect were pompous fools and not to be trusted; instead, she would lead the imperial delegation. The archdeacon pointed out that she was, with all due respect, a woman. She replied that she was also the outer casing of the emperor, whose unspoken thoughts and opinions could only find expression through her. The chancellor said that yes, strictly speaking, under imperial law that was perfectly true; however, the savages wouldn’t talk to a woman, and that was that. Eventually, a compromise was reached. Gesel would lead the delegation, but wouldn’t say anything directly to the other side. She would tell Aimeric what to say, and he would talk to the other side. The other members of the regency council would be present, but would take no part in the actual discussions.