by K. J. Parker
What I really hated about the plan was the way everything depended on the Cassites. If the enemy believed the message I’d allowed them to intercept, saying that the Cassites had deserted en bloc, they’d look to outflank me by going through the woods. If they didn’t believe it, they’d assume that I had my archers hidden in the woods, and launch a frontal assault on my paper-thin militia. All I knew for sure about the enemy was that they’d been seen riding in column two days earlier; whether they were cavalry or infantry who preferred not to walk remained to be seen. I had a backup plan, of course, but I didn’t like it much.
The mist cleared early that morning, which was a bit of a blow; we’d have the sun in our eyes until noon, and you’d be surprised what a difference that can make on a sunshiny day, which was what that day turned out to be.
Trabea was commanding the steelnecks, so we said our awkward goodbyes quite early. “For what it’s worth,” I told him, “if by some miracle we win this, I want you to know the slate’ll be clean, as far as you and I are concerned. You can keep the money you’ve been creaming off the poll tax and the harbour dues, and anything else I don’t know about, and I’ll give you a province out East, where you can really fill your boots.”
He laughed. “Thanks, but no thanks,” he said. “I’ve made my pile. That was the idea all along, do ten years in the sticks, then retire somewhere warm and live like a civilised human being. My trouble is, I’m lazy. Fleecing Aelia would be too much like hard work.”
I shrugged. “The offer stands,” I said. “Good luck. And thanks for standing by me.”
“I never really had a choice,” he said, and I never saw him again.
Tribune Tarsena made me put my armour on, even though it hurt. “You’re mad,” he said. “You shouldn’t be on the field at all, the state you’re in.”
“I lead from the front,” I told him. “You know that. I wish I didn’t have to, but I do.” He lifted the helmet off the table. I shook my head.
“You’ve got to wear it,” Tarsena said. “The doctor says—”
“Don’t nag, you’re worse than my wife.”
“The doctor says—”
I backed away, putting the table between him and me. Utterly ludicrous. “If I wear the helmet,” I said, “I’ll get a splitting headache. If I get a headache, I won’t be able to think. If I can’t think, we’re all going to die. I’ll wear the stupid breastplate, and that’s it.”
“And the greaves.”
“Definitely not the greaves. I can’t run worth spit with those things on.”
He gave me that look. “Honestly,” he said, “you’re like a little kid.”
I scowled at him. “Remember who you’re talking to. Like a little kid, sir.”
We compromised. I wore the breastplate and the left greave, because you lead with your left leg, and I was excused the helmet. Of course the first thing I did when his back was turned was pull off the greave and hide it under some blankets. Bloody fool I’d look, hobbling around with one greave.
I’d chosen tribune Rabanus to be my chief of staff. That’s a fancy way of describing the man who stands next to me so I can have someone to think aloud to; a general who talks to himself doesn’t inspire confidence. “Out of interest,” I asked him, as the sun caught the enemy spearpoints in the valley below, “what’s your real name?”
“Sir?”
“Rabanus isn’t a Mesoge name. What do they call you back home?”
He grinned. “I’m Hrafn son of Sighvat son of Thiudrek from Gjaudarsond in Laxeydardal.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll call you Rabanus.” I peered into the sun. “I can’t see a damn thing.”
He shaded his eyes with his hand. “They’ve stopped. They’re dismounting.”
“Nuts,” I said. I’d chosen the field chiefly on the assumption they were cavalry. “What’s their order like?”
“Slovenly,” said the twenty-year steelneck. “They’re just milling about, like a crowd at the races.”
“First good news I’ve heard all day.”
That must’ve puzzled him, but he didn’t comment. Good news, because I’d been doing my reading. If, as seemed likely, they were one of the tribes in the far north, it was a reasonable bet that their society was structured round the clan—big chief, his immediate household, then the off-relations and poor relations. In a setup like that, the whole point of war isn’t capturing territory or securing lines of communication. You fight to prove how good you are, how many heads you can cut off, with the chief watching; and you can’t do that if you’re stuck at the back waiting your turn. So they charge; it’s a race to see who can get to the killing-ground first, and only the bravest men in the world can withstand a charge like that. Good news? I must’ve been out of my mind.
I hate the standing-about-waiting stage, but on this occasion it didn’t last long. The brown blur in the valley surged forward and started to swarm up the hill toward us. It wasn’t long before we could hear them, and I’m ashamed to say the yelling and the howling got to me. I felt that old familiar tugging sensation, the urge to run—I’d have done it if it hadn’t been for Rabanus, still as a statue, relaxed, breathing deeply. I started to edge away; he caught hold of my elbow, low down so nobody could see. He didn’t say a word. I’d have given a thousand hyperpyra for my helmet and five hundred each for my greaves; better still, a solid iron box with ten padlocks to hide in until it was safe to come out.
“Look,” Rabanus said. I was watching the steelnecks. I glanced down the valley, and saw that the brown surge was veering left, to avoid the phalanx and hit the militia. Which was what I’d have done; smash through the weak part of the line, then swing round and take the regulars in flank and rear.
“We’re on,” I said quietly. “Ah well. Here we go.”
The militia had sworn me a solemn oath to stand their ground, no matter what. When the enemy were two hundred yards away, they turned and ran like deer; one moment they were there, the next they weren’t, and who can blame them? The only thing that held them up was the trench I’d had dug during the night—sorry, did I forget to mention that?—in which stood my Cassite archers; but it wasn’t very wide and most of them were able to jump clean over it, and the rest of them sank to the ground in terror and lay there when the Cassites stood up and started shooting.
It’s a cliché to talk about men in a battle falling like grass under the scythe, but I can’t think of a better image. The front runners stop in their tracks and drop in a heap; the ones behind stumble over them and pile up as they change from a moving to a stationary target; they fall in windrows, like cut, raked hay, the interval between the rows being the time it takes an archer to take an arrow from his quiver, nock and draw. It’s a horrible sight, because those are human beings in those heaps and stacks, living and not-quite-dead buried under the corpses, bleeding to death or buried alive and suffocating. You want the wind to be in the other direction, because it carries away the noise. But it can’t last forever. Sooner or later, the men further back figure out what’s happening and have the common sense to swerve out of the way. The swarm veers round the tangled mess; the archers adjust their aim and a new windrow forms, but it’s a dozen or so yards closer to where they’re standing, which means they don’t have quite enough time to nock and draw. Most of them realise this; they drop their bows and scramble up out of the ditch, just as the enemy reach them. A few moments later, half of them are dead; the other half are running, and so aren’t aware of the solid wall of steelneck shields slamming into the savages’ right flank; it’s only when they can’t run any further and have to stop that they realise there’s nobody chasing them, because the phalanx has rolled right over the enemy like a cartwheel over a stray cat.
Steelnecks are pleasant enough people most of the time, but they do like killing, when they get the chance. We shouldn’t really encourage them, but we do.
The idea had been that, at the crucial moment when the savages overwhelmed the archers’ position, I would
charge at the head of my hundred picked men, to give the phalanx time to reform and deploy. In the event, they got there before we did, probably because I’d promised ten tremisses a man and the Bronze Crown to whichever unit contacted the enemy first. It was a cheap incentive, because of the hundred men of D company, only seventeen survived. I don’t have any figures fore the enemy dead, because we didn’t bother counting. We heaved bodies into the ditch until it was full, and left the rest for the crows.
Trabea was killed, leading D company from the front. Tribune Tarsena was killed when we got in the way of a bunch of terrified savages trying to escape the slaughter; he shoved me aside and let them crash into him, and they trod him into the dirt. Tribune Rabanus was luckier; he only lost two fingers, when he parried a sword-cut aimed at my head with his hand, because his shield had been hacked away. I can’t remember if I hurt anyone, on purpose or accidentally; it was all over very quickly, and then those of us who were left just stood there for a while, like we’d just woken up and were wondering what the hell was going on.
We still have no idea who those people were, or where they came from. They were tall, with high cheek-bones and long black hair in braids. They went barefoot, and fastened their cloaks with bronze pins shaped like grasshoppers. That’s all I know about them, and I couldn’t care less.
AS SOON AS he saw what had happened, the enemy commander jumped on his horse and rode away. We caught up with him the next evening, in a hayloft. He scrambled out when the soldiers started jabbing the hay with their spears, jumped through the loft door and broke his leg.
They dumped him in a cart and brought him to me. He stank of his own piss. He started to plead. He was pathetic.
“Sorry,” I told him. “Not this time.” Then I looked past him to the tribune, who nodded, took a long step forward and cut off his head.
So died my good friend Stachel, who used to help me with my Logic essays, and the blood from his neck spurted all over my sleeve, and I had to change my shirt. He died for what he’d always believed in, a better world free from tyranny and oppression, and we buried him in a dunghill. I feel sure he’d have done the same for me.
I QUITE LIKE a lot of the old traditions, but not the one where soldiers on the battlefield acclaim the new emperor by raising him on a shield. I was scared stiff I’d fall off and hurt myself and look a fool. Rabanus suggested gluing the soles of my boots to the shield. I think he was joking, but it’s hard to tell.
When I reached the City, there were declarations of undying loyalty from thirteen of the fifteen regional commanders-in-chief waiting for me. The other two arrived the next morning, because the courier from the East takes that much longer. I found it really hard to accept. I never wanted to be emperor, and I’d always assumed it’d land on my cousin Scaurus, except that he inexplicably fell out of a high window ten minutes before my uncle died. I’d always thought my aunt liked him much more than me. I don’t know, maybe she did. After that, she never once mentioned his name to her dying day, and neither did I.
When I was five yards from the Lion Gate, it opened—not just the wicket, the whole twelve-foot-high embossed bronze monstrosity, and the kettlehats stepped back smartly and presented arms, instead of peering in my face to see if my beard was stuck on with gum.
“IT'S NOT SO bad,” my aunt said, after a careful examination and a long pause. “And you were never a thing of beauty at the best of times.”
“That’s all right, then,” I said.
“Can you see anything at all on that side?”
“Light, colours, vague shapes. Lucky it’s not my master eye, or I’d have to learn archery all over again.”
She’d actually stood up when I walked into the room. I’d been horrified. She was head to foot in red homespun, which threw me until I remembered that red was the proper colour for mourning where she came from. Sorry, where we came from. A very long way away. “He was a good man, in his way,” she said. “He had a chip on his shoulder all his life, about who he was and what he used to be. He was one of those men whose faults make them strong. I won’t miss his temper, but I’ll say this for him, sooner or later he always listened.”
We sat still and quiet for a moment. Then I said, “Why me?”
She didn’t smile. “Not for your personal magnetism and giant brain,” she said, “that’s for sure.” She gave me the exasperated look; sit up straight, can’t you, don’t slouch. “Continuity,” she said. “Stability.”
“Because I’m family.”
She shrugged. “Thousands of unsuitable men inherit valuable property every day for that very reason,” she said. “Also, the pool of candidates is restricted; you or one of the generals. If it’s one of them, we get a civil war.”
“Out of interest,” I said, “why haven’t we got a civil war? Why have they all rolled over and accepted it? I can’t make it out.”
She handed me the needle and thread; I licked the end and twisted it into a point so it’d slip through the eye. Long practice. “I think, because none of them want to be emperor badly enough to go through all that again. Your uncle chose them, remember.”
“You chose them.”
“I gave him the benefit of my opinion. And he chose well. They’re none of them military geniuses, God knows, but that’s all right, who are we going to have to fight?”
“Let me see. Oh yes, the Sashan.”
“Who choose their generals in exactly the same way; not the brightest, not the best, because that only makes trouble.” She concentrated on her stitches for a moment. “Will you lead the army yourself?”
“What do you think?”
“Probably you should. You have a knack of being liked by the men, and so long as the army’s behind you, you’re relatively safe. Besides, it’ll give you something to do. Men should have jobs. It keeps them focussed. A man of leisure starts thinking about things, and that leads to trouble.”
Ah well, I thought; no peace for the wicked. “But not right away,” I said. “I think the treaty will hold for a while yet. I think I’ll send a new ambassador. Tellecho’s been out there too long, and he’s never liked them much.”
“What you should do,” she said, “except that now you can’t, is marry the Great King’s sister.”
I made an unintended noise. “I don’t think so,” I said. “She’s eleven.”
“Your son would have ruled the world. Still,” she added, snipping the thread with a tiny pair of gold scissors, “I know it’s no use trying to convince you of anything once you’re mind’s made up.”
News to me. “He may yet,” I said. “You never know.”
She put down the fabric and looked straight at me. “You won’t ever have a son,” she said, “or a daughter. Not unless you marry again.”
I couldn’t understand what she was saying for a moment. Then I remembered. What did the doctor say? I’d asked her, and she’d hesitated just for a fraction of a second. An inch to the left—
“How many people know?” I asked.
She nodded her approval; it was the right question. “By now,” she said, “probably everybody. The generals certainly, and the Great King, and the Vesani senate.” She frowned. “She should have told you before she married you.”
“It’d have made no difference.”
That got me a look. “Well, there you are, then. No point telling the news to a deaf man.” Then she put her hand on mine and actually smiled. “I like her,” she said, “she reminds me of my friend Svangerd. You know, you met her, the abbess of Cort Doce. How is she, by the way?”
My heart turned to stone. “Actually,” I said, “I wanted to talk to you about her.”
She was still smiling. “I miss her, you know. Obviously she had to be out of the way while your uncle was alive, but now, I’m thinking of letting her come back. I do so miss having someone my own age to talk to.”
Some things you just have to do. “I’m sorry, aunt,” I said. “I don’t think that’s going to be possible.”
She st
ared at me as though I’d hit her. “What did you say?”
I wanted to run away, and there was no tribune to stop me. But; “I’m sorry,” I said, “but abbess Svangerd is under arrest. I issued the warrant before I came south.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Deep breath. There are times when I loathe the sound of my own voice. “Abbess Svangerd is directly responsible for the destruction of the monasteries and the deaths of thousands of people. She’s behind the whole thing. She hired the raiders and told them what to do.”
“You’re mad.”
I shook my head. “She wanted the books,” I said. “She couldn’t bear the thought of all the rare, unique books in the other monasteries being at risk, with people who didn’t care about them and weren’t looking after them properly. She wanted them all safe at Doce, where she could protect them. I imagine she tried asking nicely first, but when she couldn’t get what she wanted that way, she took matters into her own hands. I really am sorry. I know she was your friend.”
She was staring at me. “You’ve got no proof.”
“Actually, by now I probably do. I sent a couple of tribunes to Doce with orders to search the place. They know what to look for, the books where only one copy exists, that used to be in the other houses. I’ve also got the Permian traders who made the contacts with the savages. Quite by chance, we caught a couple of their business partners while we were rounding up Stachel’s general staff, and they gave us the names. But that’s just the icing on the cake, the books are all the proof we need. And I imagine she’ll confess. She didn’t strike me as the type who wriggles on the hook.” Then a door opened in my mind, and a crack of light gleamed through. “You knew.”
She looked at me. “It didn’t take a genius to figure it out.”