by K. J. Parker
‘No,’ the bald man said when he asked. ‘There’s water. What d’you want oil for?’
‘Oil,’ Temrai repeated. ‘If you have any. Or lard or butter if you don’t.’
The man shrugged and walked away, returning a few seconds later with a tall jar full of rancid butter. ‘Sure we use it for tempering,’ he said. ‘But water’s for cooling.’
‘No,’ Temrai replied, as kindly as he could. ‘Oil is best, but butter will do. Otherwise the blade cools too quick, and the joint is weak.’
The blade slid into the butter with a hiss and a curl of foul smoke. He left it there for the space of three invocations to the fire-genie, pulled it out and let it rest in the water bucket.
‘Done,’ he said.
‘That’s it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh.’ The bald man shrugged. ‘I thought there was more to it than that. I thought you people did magic and stuff.’
Temrai shook his head. ‘No magic,’ he replied. ‘Silver. And flux. And oil or lard is better than butter, if you could get some.’
He lifted the blade onto the anvil, praying that he’d done it right and that when he knocked the crust off there’d be a beautiful, straight, golden line with no holes or pockets. He wasn’t disappointed; it was a good job. He nipped off the wires, took a small file from the rack and wiped away the few little knobs of flash that stood up proud of the blade. Now all that remained was to heat the blade gently until it turned a dark straw colour and quench it in water (not oil, lard or butter, as the man had said; how come they didn’t know these things?), then polish it and grind the edges; simple work that anybody can do, a chore the master can safely leave to the boy. Strange, though, that here in the City of the Sword, where everything was decided by swords and good blades were valued above all else, they didn’t know the proper way to make things. And yet on the plains, where they had the skill and the knowledge, swords were largely an afterthought, little valued by a nation of archers. If you came close enough to the enemy to be able to use the sword, the chances were that someone had made a serious mistake.
The man looked at the blade, rubbing his chin. He inspected both sides, ran his fingertip up and down the seam a few times, then quite suddenly swung his arm over and brought the blade down with all his might on the beak of the anvil. There was a dreadful clang, the sword cut a gash the thickness of a bowstring in the metal of the anvil, bounced off, twisted out of the bald man’s hand and fell on the floor with a clatter.
‘You’re hired,’ the man said. ‘Five gold quarters a month. Be here an hour after dawn tomorrow.’ He rubbed the palm of his right hand with the thumb of his left. ‘I’ll get some oil,’ he added. ‘Olive do you?’
Temrai shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said ‘Where I come from we have purified fat. I expect your sort will do just as well.’
Five silver pennies bought him a corner of a room in an inn round the corner; the old, thin woman who ran the place had grumbled about something-or-other foreigners in her nice clean house (except that it wasn’t clean, and a man and a woman were making love noisily in the far corner and an old man was apparently dying in the bedspace next to his, and nobody but Temrai seemed to notice) and took pains to make sure he understood about no animals in the room and meals being extra. If the half-eaten messes on the various plates that lay about on the tables in the common room were anything to go by, Temrai reckoned he’d far rather get his own food. As for animals, he sold his horse later that evening and got two gold quarters for it. At home you could buy a string of good horses for two of the Emperor’s gold quarters, and have somewhere to ride them into the bargain.
So here he was, he reflected, as he squirmed his way into a comfortable part of the straw and pulled his coat under his head for a pillow. So far he’d done everything right, greatly to his own surprise. He would be able to learn what his father needed to know; where the walls were weak and how the sentries were organised, how many people lived here and who held the keys to the gate; how many arrowheads and spear blades the arsenal could produce in a day; at what times of day the tides were low in the estuary and whether the bridges could be cut in time to prevent an assault party gaining control of them.
If he did his work well, he might make it possible for his father to fulfil his oath and find peace when his time came to ride into the sky; and that would all be well and good. Nevertheless, he couldn’t help but wonder exactly why his father wanted this place. To burn it to the ground would be a waste, hateful to the gods. To sack it – but all the wagons of his clan couldn’t hold the wealth of this city, and none of it was anything anybody actually needed. And to drive the city people out and live here themselves; that was truly unthinkable, an abomination. There had to be some other reason why his father would shed so much of the blood of his archers in order to buy this strange thing; but for the life of him he couldn’t work out what it might be.
Which (he reflected, as he fell into a doze) is why I’m still not ready to be a clan chief. So that’s all right.
At the last moment, Loredan stepped into the other man’s lunge, turning his body sideways, and thrust out his right arm as far as he could. The other man’s blade scored a line across his chest an inch above his nipples; his own sword stuck neatly in the other man’s eye, killing him before he even had a chance to take the smug grin off his face. The usual dead-weight flump! as the body hit the floor; judgement for the plaintiff.
The usher waved languidly to the court surgeon, but Loredan shook his head; contrary to popular belief the official doctors didn’t kill quite as many people as the lawyers did, though not for want of trying. It didn’t hurt yet, though the blood was coming freely. Gingerly, Loredan picked the sodden cloth of his shirt away from the cut and shivered.
‘Come on,’ said Athli at his elbow. ‘That needs cleaning up. I really thought you’d had it then, you know.’
‘So did I,’ Loredan replied quietly. ‘I hate divorce work.’
‘You should have quit,’ Athli said, leading him by the sleeve. He was still holding his sword, and it was awkward threading a way through the milling crowd of spectators without accidently laying someone’s knee open. ‘He had you beaten from the start.’
Loredan shook his head. ‘Quitting’s for losers.’
‘That is the general idea, yes. But you’re allowed to lose in divorce, that’s the whole point. Gambling your life on a split-second reflex and winning by a thousandth of an inch – well, in this context it’s just plain silly.’
‘Thank you so much.’ Once they were outside, Loredan handed the sword over to Athli, who wiped it and put it away in the case. He felt weak, and sick, and rather as if he was the one who’d been killed but nobody else had noticed. ‘Drink?’
‘Forget it. Home.’
Loredan decided not to protest. ‘Your place or mine?’
‘I knew you’d say that to me one of these days. I think yours is nearer.’
Of course, Athli had never been to Loredan’s home; no reason to, after all. She knew roughly where it was, and guessed from the address that he lived in one of the ‘islands’, the tall, jerry-built apartment blocks that had sprung up in the circus district after the great fire a hundred years or so ago. Some of them, she knew, were better than others; some of them had clean water in the courtyard, hypocausts to provide heating in winter, walls that stayed put because of sound engineering rather than force of habit.
The block Loredan lived in was not one of these.
‘Seventh floor,’ Loredan said, leaning against the door-frame to catch his breath.
‘Right,’ Athli replied through gritted teeth. The weight of his arm was crushing her shoulder, and he kept treading on her feet.
The stairwell was dark – some ‘islands’ had lamps burning on the stairs at all hours of the day and night; not this one – and the stairs were narrow and slippery. It was a long climb.
‘Key?’
‘There isn’t one,’ he replied. ‘Kick the door, it
sticks.’
Loredan’s home turned out to be bare, cold and immaculately clean. There was a bed and a table, a finely carved chair with dragons’ heads for arms, a once-valuable threadbare tapestry on the far wall; one cup, one pewter plate, one spoon, a large book box with a heavy padlock, a clothes-press, a chopping block with a knife lying across it, the blade worn foil-thin with careful sharpening; a spare pair of shoes and a leather hat hanging from a nail driven into the wall; a pottery lamp; a jar with the monogram of some wine shop embossed in the side; one spare blanket.
‘All right,’ Athli asked. ‘What do you spend your money on?’
Loredan groaned and flopped onto the bed. ‘There should be some wine in the jug,’ he said. ‘And bandages in the press.’
Athli watched while he bathed the wound, swabbed it out with wine from the jug and wound himself up in bandages with a skill that clearly came from practice. ‘What about something to eat?’ she asked.
Loredan turned his head towards the chopping block. ‘Apparently not,’ he said. ‘I’ll go down to the bakery a bit later on. Thanks for the help.’
Athli shrugged and said nothing. She had blood all over her clerk’s gown. Loredan was making it clear he expected her to leave now. ‘Can I get you something?’ she asked awkwardly. Loredan shook his head.
‘When’s the next one?’ he asked.
‘Three weeks.’
‘The charcoal people?’
Athli nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Doesn’t matter. Any idea who they’ve got yet?’
‘I haven’t heard anything definite,’ Athli lied.
‘Indefinitely, then.’
She pulled a face. ‘Alvise,’ she said. ‘Perhaps. Like I said, it’s not confirmed.’
‘Alvise. I see,’ Loredan sighed; he looked very, very tired. ‘Looks like our boys offended the opposition good and proper, if they’re prepared to lay out that sort of money.’
What a dismal epitaph, Athli reflected. What she said was, ‘Probably just a rumour, to make our boys settle out of court. He’d cost them twice the sum in issue.’
Loredan shrugged painfully. ‘Matter of principle, quite probably. Ah, well, we’ll see.’
Athli opened the door. ‘If you like, I can drop by later on, make sure you’re all right.’
‘I’ll be fine. Thanks again.’
Athli could feel the blood seeping through her gown onto her skin; cold and clammy, like sweat. ‘Be seeing you, then,’ she said, and closed the door behind her.
Loredan listened to the clicking of her footsteps on the stairs; then he rolled uncomfortably onto his back and lay staring at the long crack in the ceiling. In three weeks, with this messy cut just starting to knit together properly (if he was lucky and it stayed fresh) he’d have to stand up in court against Ziani Alvise, the Advocate General and Imperial Champion. There was better fencers; four of them, maybe five, none of whom was Bardas Loredan. Strange, he reflected, how calmly I’ve accepted advance notice of my own death. A nod of the head, a wry face, as if to say, Well, that’s that, then; two lines of script cut on a plain headstone-
BARDAS LOREDAN
He Gave His Life For The Charcoal People
There were, Loredan knew perfectly well, no gods; and if there were any, they lived far away in less enlightened lands, well out of earshot. Nevertheless, he prayed; If I get out of this, I’ll pack it in for good, retire, set up a school or something. And if there were gods, he knew they wouldn’t believe him, because they’d heard it all before. And here he still was, an advocate of ten years’ call, a man who showed promise while still young but failed to live up to it, and then simply failed to live.
Perhaps the charcoal people would settle, after all. Men like Alvise only fight one in ten of the cases they’re retained for, because no litigant likes to go into court when there’s money at stake knowing for certain he’s going to lose. But the charcoal cartel weren’t the settling kind; he’d met them, recognised them at once. They were the sort of men who get themselves tangled up in the most desperate messes through their own pig-headed greed, and then react with astonishment and fury when the inevitable disaster follows. He could picture them, striding out of the court with their heavy gowns flapping round their ankles, muttering bitterly about the incompetence of their late advocate and the unfairness of the legal system, and swearing great oaths that they’d rather be skinned alive than pay one penny of the bill for such a badly handled case.
I could always back out, he thought. There is always that possibility. It would make perfectly good sense; I’d be finished in the profession, but so what? I’d still be alive. I could do something else.
He grinned, and rolled over onto his side. Of course, he could never withdraw from a case just because he was afraid, or even because he knew he was going to die. It was one of those things that just don’t happen; if it did, the whole system would collapse and then where would everyone be? It was, after all, the solidity of its commercial law that had made Perimadeia the greatest trading city in the world. And besides, you didn’t become an advocate in order to live for ever.
He had decided, many years ago, that the last thing he wanted to do was live for ever. Twelve years later, here he was; and if he hadn’t done much, he’d done enough. Traditionally, a fencer’s coffin is borne by six of his colleagues in the profession, wearing their collegiate robes and with empty scabbards on their belts, while on the coffin lid rides the deceased’s second-best sword – his best sword, of course, having reverted to the winner – and a single white rose, symbolic of Justice. In practice it was rather different, of course; the coffin rode on the shoulders of six men who’d had the sense to leave the profession early and take up pallbearing instead, the sword was hired from the undertaker and, somehow, it always seemed to rain. He’d stood beside a lot of muddy graves when he was younger. These days he didn’t bother to go.
Just my luck that the Guelan should break right when I need it most.
A thought occurred to him and he leant over, groaning, and groped under the bed until his fingers made contact with a coarse woolen bundle. He pulled it out. It was garlanded with cobwebs and grey with dust, but the knot fell away easily, leaving him holding a battered black scabbard with a plain brown steel hilt projecting out of it. Now here’s a thing, he said to himself; I haven’t given it a thought in ten years. But why not? It can’t make any difference, after all.
Twelve years ago, a young man already old after three years in the foreign wars had joined the fencing school by the Protector’s Gate, paying his fees in ready money from a fat purse and bringing with him a cheap, plain sword with no maker’s name on the ricasso. Once he’d finished the course, there was enough coin left in the purse to buy a genuine Guelan, and the cheap, plain sword had been consigned to second best, third best, emergency use only and finally a blanket under a bed on the seventh floor of Island Thirty-nine. It wasn’t, properly speaking, a lawyer’s sword at all; just a military blade from the arsenal ground down to reduce the weight, roughly re-tempered and fitted with a plain turned grip. It had killed a lot of men before it lost weight, but since then it had been used for school work and practice, never once being called upon to carry the weight of a man’s life. It was worth a quarter and a half, if that. He’d never liked it much. It didn’t owe him anything. It would do.
He closed his eyes and went to sleep. His dreams were not pleasant.
Temrai looked down into his cup and saw that it was still almost half-full of the stuff. He wished it wasn’t. He was tempted to pour it away while nobody was looking; but his new friends had bought it for him and to pour away a gift would be an insult as well as waste. Even so; it tasted horrible and it was making him feel ill.
‘And is it true,’ one of them was asking, ‘that when you get old they take you out into the desert and leave you there to die? Only I heard somewhere…’
They had stopped by his bench earlier that evening; four broad-shouldered middle-aged men who worked on
the furnaces, cheerful, loud-voiced and sociable. When he’d seen them bearing down on him, Temrai had felt a little apprehensive. It’d only be natural if they resented a foreigner (and a plainsman, at that) walking into the arsenal and taking a job that would normally have gone to one of their own. From what he’d overheard, many of the more skilled workers in the arsenal belonged to some sort of secret clan reserved for masters in the craft; perhaps these men belonged to it and had come to chase him away. It was something of a relief to find out that all they wanted was to invite him to drink with them.
‘No,’ he replied, shaking his head (and for some reason that was enough to make him feel dizzy). ‘That’s not right at all. We have great respect for old people, who are so wise and know so much. They make all our decisions and tell us how things ought to be done. My father…’
He caught himself just in time, and covered the mistake by pretending to choke on his drink. The men thought that was highly entertaining and pounded him on the back with their enormous hands. Strange, that; he had a vague impression that they were sharing some hidden joke, almost as if someone had tied a rat to another man’s pigtail without him noticing.
‘What you’re probably thinking of,’ he went on, ‘is when a man grows very sick, so that he knows he’s going to die. When that happens, quite often he’ll go off into the plains on his own, so as to spare his clan the distress of watching him die. And it saves on rations too, of course. Among my people, waste is a terrible thing.’