Mightier than the Sword

by K. J. Parker

  A wise man once said; the best way to fight is not to fight. It sounds really profound (most statements that scrape the paint of nonsense tend to, I find) but there’s a germ of wisdom in it. My job was to find a way of not fighting that would achieve the objective. Luckily, practically everything has been done before at some stage, and I’ve read an awful lot of books.

  Only a lunatic would divide a small army into two and attack the enemy at the extreme edges of his formation, particularly with inferior numbers. To do so would be to invite his opponent to envelop his two wings and wipe them out to the last man. The Emperor doesn’t give command of his armies to lunatics; they must know that, even in the Fleyja Islands, or wherever these people were from. Thus it would be logical to assume that the two detachment of lightly-armed archers advancing on the raiders were simply an advance guard, skirmishers; and the apparent tactical error was part of some typically fiendish Imperial stratagem, which would inevitably lead to the total annihilation of the enemy.

  The raiders weren’t born yesterday. Long before the first archers were in range, they dumped their ram and drew back, in no particular order; when the archers kept on coming, they turned on their heels and ran. That was exactly what happened at Sanga Cuona, and isn’t it nice when history repeats itself?

  Well, almost. My fault, I guess, for not having paid more attention to the map. If I had, I’d have known that the vector of their probable flight was directly into a dense wood, just over the skyline. Now put yourself in the raiders’ position. An Imperial army takes you by surprise. Wisely you withdraw, only to find you’re being shepherded into that classic killing ground, the dark forest, in which you can bet your life the crackerjack Imperial general has previously stationed a huge detachment of his dreaded heavy infantry. What can you do? You shy away like a startled animal, double back on your tracks and run like hell for the rapidly narrowing gap between you and the advancing Imperials. If you’re lucky, you might just make it; and if you almost get there in time but not quite, desperation leaves you no alternative but to try and punch your way through.

  I remember yelling “Get out of the way!”, just before one of the bastards ran into me and knocked me spinning. I don’t know if he hit me with his shield or I was simply in its way; the iron rim smacked into my eye-socket and I felt the rivets drag across my eyeball.

  I had, and still have, a very fine helmet, with a broad steel brim. I wasn’t wearing it, of course. Commanders don’t, when they’re leading from the front. The men have to be able to see it’s you, out there being recklessly brave.

  I was still on my feet when some other bastard stabbed me, in passing, like an afterthought. The swordpoint skidded off my expensive breastplate and down into my thigh. I was still on my feet. Someone else cannoned into me and sent me down. With my working eye I saw a boot, complete with hobnails—one was missing; top left, from memory—bearing down and blotting out the light. Turning my head away was sheer instinct. The boot and its owner’s weight landed on my ear, and for a moment I thought my head was going to burst. Then I was out of things for a bit.

  What happened next, so I’m told, is that the tribune Bagoas (who never liked me much) threw himself in front of me and took the spear that should’ve finished me off. He fell across me—it was his blood, not mine, that I woke up soaked to the skin with, though I didn’t know that at the time—and immediately the standard-bearer Leuxis took his place; he cut down four of five of the bastards before they did for him, and by then Teutomer and Gontharius, two of the coach-escort steelnecks, had hacked their way across and stood over me chopping and stabbing like maniacs until the danger was past. They got badly cut up for their pains. Teutomer lost his left hand, and they cut off Gontharius’ chin and a slice of his jaw. I can’t begin to find words for how I feel about that. I’m sorry, but I can’t imagine doing that for anyone, let alone someone I barely know.

  I CAME ROUND in the monastery, with a little old man leaning over me dabbing at my face with a tuft of bog cotton. I knocked his hand away (because the last man I’d seen had been trying to kill me) and he tutted and tried again. I grabbed his wrist. He took the cotton from his trapped hand with his free hand and went on dabbing. The effort was too much for me and I went back to sleep.

  When I came round again I was alone. Above me was a gorgeous fresco of the punishment of the damned, and for a moment I wondered if I’d died and was in real trouble. There was something really big and sharp and painful in my left eye, a grain of sand or something like that, and I couldn’t see through it because some fool had trussed it up with bandages. My cheekbones ached, right down into my chest. Past experience identified the other pain as a cracked rib. Here we go again.

  Then a thought occurred to me, and I started to panic. I tried to get up, but some fool had taped me to the bed with bandages. I tried yelling, but my voice came out as a little froglike croak, so I drummed my feet up and down like a little kid; it sounded very odd, and I realised I was stone deaf in one ear. But it must’ve worked, because the door opened and she came in, and there was no need to panic any more.

  “You’re all right,” I said (and it sounded very far away). “I was worried.”

  She knelt down beside me. “I’m fine,” she said. “You’re not.”

  Another of those moments. “How bad?”

  “They don’t know yet,” she said. “They may have saved the eye, or they may not.”

  She was sitting on my left side, which was fortuitous, since I couldn’t seem to hear with my right ear, the one that got trodden on. Then; oh.

  “The deafness will be permanent, apparently,” she said. “Actually, you were very lucky. An inch to the right—”

  I couldn’t help myself. I burst out laughing.

  THEY SORT OF saved the eye, more or less. I can’t see much through it, just blurry shapes, and bright light gives me a splitting headache. Actually, I really ought to have died. The crushed ear went bad and the fever set in, and I was a real mess for four days. The little old tutting man pulled me through, apparently; turns out he was the best doctor in the North, with fifty years of experience, all of which he needed to keep me from quietly drifting away. So many people went to so much trouble over me. I can’t understand it, but I’m grateful.

  As soon as the news reached him, Count Trabea sent his personal physician to look after me. He arrived while I was still out of my head with the fever. My wife and newly-promoted tribune Scaeva intercepted him, told him I was out of danger and sleeping peacefully, and entertained him with fortified wine and honeycakes while Brother Cellarer and Brother Herbalist went through his medicine-chest, opening and sniffing all the bottles and feeding samples of anything they didn’t like to a dozen or so caged rats. Disappointingly, the rats came through completely unscathed, and the good brothers couldn’t find anything they could possibly take exception to. In due course, Trabea’s quack examined me, concurred with everything the little old man had done and told me how lucky I’d been to have such an outstanding doctor when I needed one most. Scaeva was all for planting some poison on him, chopping his head off and having Trabea arrested for conspiracy. I like Scaeva and I’m glad he’s done so well for himself, but sometimes he gets a bit carried away.

  AT LAST WE had some dead bodies to look at. They were a bit ripe by the time I was well enough to see them, swollen and purple and no use for anything, but the general consensus was that they weren’t the Fleyja people, who are short and dark, not tall and fair. Captain Eleocarta of the Cassites reckoned they could be Elorians or Cure Doce, while tribune Segimer fancied they might be Aram Chantat from way beyond the Eastern frontier, or possibly no Vei or Rosinholet. Their clothes were crude homespun linen dyed with blueberry juice and their swords and spearheads were the most amazing pattern-welded work, the sort of thing only a handful of smiths in the whole empire know how to do. They caught one live one, but he died of gangrene two days later without saying anything helpful. No amulets, charms or identifiable religious talismans, no ri
ngs, earrings or personal items of any kind. Oh, and they were wearing stout, well-made boots. Well, yes, I already knew that.

  ERYS, HOWEVER, HAD been saved, so that was all right. And I’m glad about that, because it’s a beautiful house; one of the small ones, but with fantastic artwork and a complete set of early Grotesque communion plate, and the best collection of early Robur history and drama anywhere.

  The abbot had, he told me, been there practically his whole life; he joined as an eight-year-old novice and turned down four other abbots’ mitres and an Eastern see because he couldn’t imagine working anywhere else. He was a short, chubby man with a broad face and not many teeth; his speciality, he admitted rather nervously, was the dual procession of the Holy Spirit, which I’ve never understood and still don’t, though he did his best to explain it to me. When not contemplating the awful complexity of the Divine, he ran a cheerful, efficient house that copied more texts per head than anywhere in the North apart from Cort Doce and actually paid its lay brothers for their labours in real money. Anyone in the five surrounding villages could use the mill and the shearing-pens for free, or have their horses shod at the monks’ forge at cost, or load their surplus goods on the monks’ ship, which made one trip a month down the coast to Aubad. When the raiders came, they’d kept them at bay for two hours by pouring boiling water on their heads—just as well they had ten huge coppers for brewing—and pushing the ladders off the walls with hayforks and winnowing-fans. They braced the gate against the ram with benches from the chapel and beams from the stonemason’s crane. Smart people, who didn’t lose their heads in a crisis.

  “THIS IS NO good,” she told me, sitting at my bedside. “First I’m all cut up and then you are.”

  The same thought had occurred to me. One of the five grounds for annulment is non-consummation. And beforehand doesn’t count; I’d checked. “Sorry,” I said. “Put it on the big list of things to do later.”

  She told me that the scouts had tracked the enemy’s retreat back to the coast, where they’d been met by six large ships; they were well out to sea by the time our people got there, so no idea where they were from. Meanwhile, Trabea had taken delivery of his new warships and sent them to cruise off the Fleyja islands; if the raiders showed up there, the fleet would be ready to intercept them.

  Stachel came up from Sambic in a rickety old cart, which was all he could lay his hands on at short notice. “God, you’re in a state,” he said to me. “You want to go easy on that sort of thing. If you’re not careful you’ll ruin your health.”

  “Noted,” I told him. “Actually, it was supposed to be a bloodless victory. I’ve always wanted one of those.”

  “Showing off,” he said scornfully. “Serves you right for trying to be clever.”

  I told him about Trabea’s doctor. He seemed surprised. “I still wouldn’t trust that creep as far as I could sneeze him,” he said. “You must be mad, letting him get his hands on warships.” He sat down on the end of my bed, took an apple from his sleeve and bit into it noisily. “Want to know what I think? I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Trabea turned out to be behind all this. Think about it. Everything seems to suggest these pirates or raiders or whatever you want to call them are people we’ve never encountered before. So you tell me, how do they know where the monasteries are?”

  “There’s such things as books,” I pointed out. “And the monasteries aren’t exactly a state secret.”

  “Yes, but they seem to know their way around the country pretty damn well. Don’t tell me they’ve got detailed maps as well. We haven’t got detailed maps. You know how I found this place? Followed the map until I was halfway up the wrong mountain, backtracked to the nearest village, had to ask a dozen people before I found one who’d even heard of it. But they know the best way in, the best way out, how to steer through the rocks and shoals, what time of day the fog comes down. Which means,” he said, “somebody’s telling them.”

  “Then it can’t be one of us,” I said. “As you just pointed out, we don’t know these things.”

  He gave me a sour look; don’t be flippant. “Trabea’s been here a long time,” he said. “He’s in charge of the taxes and the census. He’s got surveyors and mapmakers, plus access to all the best libraries. Also he’s got connections in the City to get rid of the stuff. Think about it. The value’s in the artwork, not the bullion. If you just melt it all down into ingots, it’s not exactly a significant return on the sort of money you’d have to have invested.”

  Interesting point, but I wasn’t immediately convinced. “Not if it’s being organised by one of us,” I conceded. “But if they’re savages from across the sea, who knows how much our stuff’s worth where they come from?”

  He gave me his patient look. “I think we just established it’s not savages,” he said, “because of the degree of local knowledge. Which I take to be proven fact,” he added. “Look, this isn’t like the City, where there’s foreigners everywhere you look, or the East. If you were planning something like this out there, sure, you’d send a couple of your people over here to spy out the land, nobody would pay them any mind, they’d assume they were just sightseers. Round here, anybody like that would stick out a mile. Therefore, whoever they are and wherever they come from, it’s one of us who’s organising it all and, presumably, reaping the rewards. Now ask yourself, who has access to that kind of local knowledge?”

  STACHEL WAS STILL there when the news came in. Cort Maerus, sacked and burned, no survivors, no witnesses; they’d killed the lay brothers and the villagers as well.

  “Maerus,” she said, “I get confused. Which one was that? Was that the toffee-nosed tart with the bottle hair? If so—”

  I shook my head. “Maerus was where they grew all their own food and the roads were clogged with brambles,” I said. “I can’t make it out. What did they have worth stealing?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t tell you about it. Maybe it was something they didn’t know they had.”

  I pulled a face. “But Trabea did, right? You’ve been talking to Stachel.”

  “Actually, Stachel’s been talking to me. I think Trabea’s far and away your best suspect. I know his sort, believe me.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe you’re both wrong, and it really is just savages, and they don’t know what’s there until they’re inside. This time they were unlucky, you win some, you lose some.”

  “Oh come on,” she said. “Remember what a hard time we had finding the place? It’s in a valley, you can’t see it from the sea. You’d have to know precisely where to look.”

  The road ahead of us lay under a natural arch of trees, cut perfectly half-round by the tops of passing wagons. A fine place for an ambush; but the four steelnecks had been through before us and pronounced it safe. We were heading up the long, steep escarpment to Cort Igant, the northernmost of the northern monasteries, a mere twenty miles from the Permian border. The trees were holm-oaks, short and twisted, slow-growing, thriving on steep slopes where carts can’t go, no good for planking and miserable to split for firewood, so nobody came to chop them down; you can survive by being contrary and useless. But the road was regularly used, the trees proved that, and someone came along from time to time and filled the ruts and the potholes with gravel from the riverbed, a very long way away, and nobody I’d spoken to seemed to know who. I don’t like it when people do essential public works for free, without being asked. It means they’re up to something.

  Cort Igant practically jumped out at us from among the trees; we turned a corner and there it was, blocking our way like a bandit. The road led straight up to a massive grey gate, which I later learned was three cross-plies of oak. It turned out that there was a back gate and the road carried on out of it, as straight and broad as ever. So; everything that moved along the road went in one gate and out the other. I began to see daylight.

  The abbot met us at the gate; he was very friendly, a solemn-looking man just under medium height, with a close-cropped grey beard and neat
, short hair. It was an honour to receive such a distinguished guest, and all that sort of thing. He was the first abbot I’d met with inkstains on his fingers, rather out of keeping with the smart, well-groomed rest of him. You can’t help getting inky if you do a lot of writing. The foul stuff gets sucked up into the pen and oozes through the thin wall, and next thing you know you’re smudging the paper.

  “Igant is a relatively recent foundation,” he told me, “which means it’s only been here four hundred years. In monastic terms, that means the paint’s barely dry. But we’ve been quite fortunate with donors and patrons, and of course we have the revenue from the tolls.”

  Odd to find an abbot who admits to being well-off. Mostly they plead desperate poverty, so they won’t be asked to contribute to one of those strictly voluntary loans my aunt is so fond of. I didn’t ask if his people saw to the road-mending. Strictly the business in hand.

  “We’ve heard all about it, of course. Maerus too, such a tragedy. A great house in its day, though I gather it had fallen on hard times. Do you have any idea who these people are?”

  No, I didn’t say, but maybe you do. “Our best lead at the moment is the Fleyja Islands,” I told him. “Only we don’t know a great deal about them.”

  “I think I can help you there,” he said quickly. “Our choirmaster was a sailor on a trading ship before he left the world. I believe he went there once.”