by K. J. Parker
‘You’re just lazy,’ Athli replied. ‘Right, let’s do some footwork.’
This time Loredan’s complaints were eloquent and sustained, albeit fruitless in the long run. The footwork course consisted of a series of silhouette footprints painted on the floor, each one designated with a number. In the orthodox course, the fencer had to move his feet to cover the numbered footprints as the trainer called them out, starting slowly and working up to a high-speed frenzied dance. The advanced course was the same, but blindfold.
‘Now can I have a rest?’ Loredan panted. ‘I keep telling you I hate practice, but you never listen.’
‘Do that last set again. You missed number twenty-six.’
He had to have three tries at the blindfold course before he managed to do it perfectly. Thirty-one out of forty was held to be a top-class performance.
‘Satisfied?’
‘That wasn’t too bad,’ Athli conceded. ‘Now you’d better have a go with the ring.’
‘Athli…’
‘The ring.’
From a crossbeam in the roof hung a steel ring about the width of an apple. Underneath it was a circle five paces in diameter. For this exercise, the fencer had to work his way round the circle, first forwards and then backwards, half-lunging so as to pass his blade through the ring each time. As a refinement, he had to parry a plumb line suspended from a hoop, which rotated as it was struck so as to follow the fencer round the circle. Of all the exercises in the Schools, this was probably the one Loredan hated most.
‘I’m quite pleased with that,’ he said, raising his voice slightly for the benefit of the crowd of onlookers that had gathered while he made his second perfect circuit against the plumb line. It wasn’t every day that a man scored a clear round on the ring. To manage it twice in a row was rather an exceptional feat.
‘Come on,’ Athli said, ‘while we can still get your head out through the door.’
‘Does that mean I can go home now?’
‘After you’ve done the sack and the sheaves.’
The sack was a leather bag full of wet clay, which made a fair approximation of the consistency of a human body for practising running through. The sack had an understandable but nevertheless alarming tendency to split open after a while, and in winter the School used condemned pigs’ carcasses from the butchers’ market instead. In the heat of summer, however, the fencers had to make do with wet clay. The sheaves were coils of plaited straw wound tightly into a rope about the thickness of a man’s neck. A good fencer with a sharp sword could usually cut through them in two strokes.
‘I’m going to get all muddy,’ Loredan protested as an attendant filled a sack and hung it up from a frame.
‘So?’
‘I’m just saying, that’s all. Mud all over me, head to foot. How many shirts do you think I own?’
He had made about a dozen good thrusts at the sack when the blade of the Boscemar hit something hard – a stone in the clay, or some particularly resilient stitching in the sack – whereupon it bent like a drawn bow and snapped about a foot down from the point. Loredan scowled at the hilt in his hand and swore fluently. For her part, Athli had the common sense not to say anything.
‘That’s that, then,’ Loredan said, dropping the hilt on the floor. ‘Ten days before the fight, and I break my best sword. As messages go, that one’s not too hard to understand.’
He left the hilt where it was and headed for the front door. There was a dense crowd gathered around the popinjay cage. He recognised the man in the cage and stopped to watch.
Inside a high, narrow birdcage stood the celebrated advocate Ziani Alvise, his opponent in the forthcoming suit. All around him on the ground were the bodies of dead hummingbirds, and the attendant was about to put in another boxful. Usually the targets in the popinjay cage were ordinary sparrows; hummingbirds are far harder to hit than sparrows.
As the attendant closed the cage, a fly drifted in through the bars past Alvise’s right shoulder. Without turning his head, he flicked his sword sharply upwards, cut the fly precisely in two and brought the sword back to guard in time to decapitate the first of the new batch of hummingbirds.
Loredan spent the afternoon getting very drunk.
Perimadeia, the Triple City, the bride of the sea and the mistress of the civilised world, was in decline. True, she had been sick before, but never as badly as this. Barely seventy-five years ago, her land empire had stretched from Zimisca in the high plains to Tendria, whose twin mountains bracketed the mouth of the middle sea. Now, the site of Zimisca was discernible only by patterns in the high couch-grass and a few outcrops of fallen masonry, while the two great castles of Tendria were garrisoned by rival warlords, each styling himself the True Emperor and ruling a few rocky islands and a swollen fleet of pirate warships. Canea, the last of the empire’s island possessions, was in practice an autonomous state, and the ships that brought the nominal annual tribute plundered a hundred times as much from Perimadeian merchantmen in what had once been sacrosanct imperial waters. For all her splendour, the bride of the sea owned nothing except what she stood up in, and the Emperor’s empire was bounded by the sea and the freshwater estuaries that lapped the feet of the land and sea walls.
Not that anybody cared. Every citizen knew that the walls were completely impregnable. Five hundred men could hold the city against all the nations of the world, as the Emperor Teogeno had done two and a half centuries ago. That was how it had always been. The external power of Perimadeia ebbed and flowed like the tides; one century saw the empire’s boundaries stretching right across the known world, the next saw the city penned inside its walls like a caged bird, while three generations later there would be Perimadeian governors back in the islands and the great mainland cities. It never seemed to matter. Trade, not land or castles, was all that mattered in Perimadeia, and the city had never been busier, more crowded or more prosperous. That seemed to be the pattern, and there was a sort of logic to it. Conquest and occupation cost money and manpower. With no empire to protect, there were no war levies to pay and no draft commissions to interrupt the business of the markets and factories. Likewise, there was no promise of loot and adventure to lure men away from the glassworks, the foundries, the potteries, tanneries, shipyards, mills, kilns, studios and workshops from which poured an unquantifiably vast stream of goods of every quality and kind. For a thousand years the city had boasted that one in three of all manufactured articles in the world was made in the noise and bad air of the lower city. Now, for the first time, it was quite possibly true.
Having no gods to distort their values and distract their attention, the Perimadeians understood and valued material objects like no other nation. The citizens of the Triple City saw their lives as a brief but enticing opportunity to make and do as much as possible in the short interval between birth and death. And if, from time to time, they saw the need to own land and build castles, the way rich traders have always done, it was probably because there was precious little else to spend their money on, since everything a man could really want they already had.
Provided, of course, that the walls stood; but that was a safe enough assumption. As for pirates; well, they were a nuisance, but nothing more. All it meant was that instead of taking their goods out to the customers on Perimadeian ships, they stayed at home and let the customers take the risk of coming to them. Sooner or later some strong foreign prince would get tired of losing good money on his mercantile interests and sweep the vermin from the sea. No need for the city to waste one gold quarter or one Perimadeian life doing what someone else would be glad to do for them. The same would undoubtedly hold true of enemies to the landward side, if any managed to get close enough to confront the frustrating barrier of the land walls. All it would take would be a few fast galleys dispatched to the islands and the coastal cities, and the sea would be jammed solid with troopships hurrying to protect the one true source of universal prosperity. There was even talk of mothballing the fleet and disbanding what remai
ned of the city guard; why waste money on something that would never be needed, even in the worst conceivable emergency?
In consequence, there was no hysterical panic or rioting in the streets when news reached the city that the Anax valley, the spacious and fertile region that separated the city from the plains and supplied two-thirds of the city’s food, had been overrun by an alliance of the White Bear and Fire Dragon clans under a chief whose unpronouncable name sounded something like Sasurai. So what? the citizens said; their prices were getting too high anyway. Plenty more where that came from. And if the plainsmen living in the city had expected lynch mobs and tar barrels, they had sadly misjudged their cosmopolitan hosts, who were above that sort of thing and always had been. For example, the day after the news broke, young Temrai was greeted with the same friendly nods as he sat down to work at his bench, and the subject was never mentioned. Whether this would have been the case if his colleagues had known he was Sasurai’s son, it is of course impossible to judge.
Alexius the Patriarch and Gannadius the city Archimandrite stood on the floor of the courthouse, watching a man and a girl taking guard.
They had been a day and two nights getting here, and they were exhausted. Ironically, it was their exhaustion that had finally made it possible, for both men lay fast asleep in their chairs in the Archimandrite’s lodgings, and the courthouse was nothing more than the backdrop of their mutual dream.
‘Can you hear me?’ Alexius whispered.
‘Yes, but it seems they can’t,’ Gannadius replied. ‘I arrived a couple of minutes before you did, and I’ve been making a few preliminary experiments. As far as I can see, we aren’t really here.’
Alexius shuddered. ‘Good,’ he replied. ‘I’d hate to think I was standing in front of the whole city in my shirt.’
‘It would appear to be a remarkably good house,’ Gannadius said, glancing round at the packed benches. ‘I wish there was some way of telling how far we are into the future.’
‘The girl is older than when I saw her last,’ Alexius said. ‘Unfortunately, with our rather limited experience of women, I don’t suppose we can accurately judge how much older. She’s definitely improved with age, but that’s all I can safely say on the matter.’
‘What happens now?’
Before Alexius could answer, the judge gave the sign, the courthouse was immediately silent and the two advocates began their performance. Once again, Loredan had his back to the Patriarch; this time, however, Alexius noticed that he was holding a broken sword. He mentioned this to his colleague, who nodded.
‘That’s sure to be significant,’ Gannadius said. ‘I only wish I knew what it meant.’
‘Pay attention. It happens quite early in the fight.’
This time, however, it didn’t. Although he was on the defensive right from the start, Loredan fought with the desperate energy of a man who truly appreciates precisely how much trouble he’s in. Lunges and cuts that should have been the death of him were somehow nudged away at the very last moment, and although his counterattacks met a defence as invincible as the land and sea walls, they bought him the time and space he needed to carry on defending. All in all, it was a breathtaking display of virtuosity by both parties, almost worth waiting up forty-eight hours for.
‘This is all seriously wrong,’ Alexius muttered. ‘When I think that for weeks now I’ve been on the receiving end of this level of mess, it makes my blood run cold.’
‘Serves you right,’ Gannadius replied, his eyes fixed on the contest. He was something of a connoisseur of the art of litigation, and this was very much a collector’s item.
The girl lunged left, and Loredan swerved out of the way; but the lunge had been a feint, and the blade was directly on line for his throat. A last frantic reflex allowed him to get his hand in the way. He deflected the blow, but the girl’s blade hit him squarely in the palm. From where he stood, Alexius could see an inch of the blade sticking out through the back of Loredan’s hand.
Now’s his chance, he told himself, and as Loredan lunged forward at the girl’s unprotected body, Alexius stepped between them and tried to catch the moment.
He felt nothing as Loredan’s sword ran him through – how could he, he wasn’t actually there? – but as he looked down and saw the blade vanishing into his own chest, he knew at once that he had made the worst mistake of his life. A moment later, the girl stepped round him and cut Loredan down where he stood; he collapsed, face down, leaving his sword stuck in the Patriarch’s body. Alexius was just wondering how this was possible when Loredan had been using a broken sword with no point when he woke up.
It was the pain in his chest and arms that had woken him; a heart attack, no question at all about that. Gannadius was still fast asleep, and Alexius couldn’t move or speak to rouse him. It was quite possible, he realised, that he was about to die. More than anything else, he found the idea thoroughly unfair.
Gannadius lifted his head. ‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘don’t worry. You’ll live.’
The pain stopped.
‘Keep still,’ Gannadius went on. ‘And calm down. Try and breathe normally.’ He stood up, stiff and awkward after his cramped sleep, and poured half a cupful of strong black wine. ‘This’ll help,’ he said. ‘Go on, drink it. If you were going to die, you’d be dead by now.’
Alexius made a face as the wine burnt his insides. ‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Was that a heart attack or was I stabbed?’
‘Both. My fault, I’m afraid. Give me the cup, I’ll get you another.’
‘Your fault?’
Gannadius nodded. ‘I had to do something to stop him killing the girl. Shoving you in the way was all I could think of. It’s just as well you weren’t really there, or it could have been very dangerous.’
‘Of all-’ Alexius waved the cup aside feebly. ‘You do realise what you’ve done,’ he said. ‘Now I’m under a curse of my very own. And the girl still killed him, so it was all for nothing.’
Gannadius shook his head. ‘Think,’ he said sternly. ‘You were under that curse already; that’s what’s been wrong with you these past weeks. All I’ve done is bring matters to a head, so to speak. No,’ he continued, ‘if it hadn’t been for me things would have been much worse. Loredan would have killed the girl, and then where would we all be?’
‘You’re not the one who’s going to get run through,’ Alexius pointed out. ‘At the very best, we’re back exactly where we started.’
‘Oh, no,’ Gannadius objected, ‘not at all. For one thing, we’ve done some extremely valuable practical research into an area of the Principle about which deplorably little was hitherto known. I shall write a paper about this.’
The Patriarch closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘That aside,’ he said.
‘That aside, I do believe we’ve made some worthwhile progress. Instead of having a vague idea that you were suffering from an adverse reaction but not knowing what form it’s taken, we now know exactly what you can expect. Likewise, we were in time to prevent the potentially disastrous consequences of this second intervention, no small achievement in itself. Add to that the fact that none of the reaction appears to have attached itself to me, and I believe we can congratulate ourselves on a job well done.’ Gannadius smiled. ‘And now I suggest that you try and sleep for a while. I’ll have a guest room made up for you. Heart trouble isn’t something to be taken lightly, you know.’
Alexius groaned. ‘What really depresses me,’ he said, ‘is that you and I are the world’s leading exponents of this particular skill. If this is the best we can do, perhaps we ought to leave well alone. For pity’s sake, we’re supposed to be able to do this sort of thing for a living.’
Gannadius looked at him for a long time. ‘A living,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you may care to rephrase that.’
The chief trainer was vexed.
‘True,’ he conceded, ‘there have been female advocates before. Some of them lived to be nearly twenty-five. But that was mostly becaus
e nobody wanted to hire them, so they scarcely ever got any work. You don’t want to join this profession. Go away.’
The girl said nothing; instead she held out a squat leather purse on the flat of her hand. The trainer couldn’t help noticing how full it looked.
‘We aren’t really equipped to take female students,’ he said. ‘We’d need separate changing rooms, and we simply haven’t got the space. Not to mention chaperones,’ he added, suddenly inspired. ‘And before you say you don’t need chaperoning, you try telling that to the Public Morals Office. That’s just the sort of thing that could get me closed down, just like that. And what about the costume?’ he went on, wondering why none of this seemed to be having any effect at all. ‘You couldn’t be expected to fight in trousers, and there just isn’t an accepted form of solemn-procedure dress for women in the courts. You’d be a laughing stock.’
The girl said nothing. The purse sat there on her palm. A sense of bewildering frustration swept over the trainer; why couldn’t he get through to this pig-headed girl? Over the years he’d talked literally hundreds of stupid young kids out of joining a profession in which they stood no chance of survival. He was a conscientious man and besides, he had his trainer’s licence to think of. He could just imagine himself trying to explain to a frantic mother and father and a stony faced Public Safety Office official why he allowed a slip of a girl to join up and get herself killed in her first fight. It was a fat purse, but not fat enough to compensate him for the loss of a business he’d been nurturing for nine hard years.
‘Please?’ he said. ‘If you won’t listen to sense, then at least go away and make life miserable for one of my competitors. I can give you a list of places to try.’
‘You’re the best,’ the girl said. ‘I want to learn here.’
Behind them, the long exercise hall echoed to the clatter of blades and the shouts of short-tempered instructors. The floor shook as thirty feet came down hard in unison in the first, second, third steps of the Orthodox guard, the back foot riposte, the fleche, the defensive lunge, the Southern parry, the fencer’s turn, the mandritta. Every day brought a fresh crop of bright, keen, idiotic young faces, of distraught fathers whose only sons had run away from home and family businesses to follow the wild dream of becoming a lawyer. Every week there were funerals to attend, new names to inscribe on the roll of ex-pupils who had given their lives for the profession. One way or another, the chief trainer saw an awful lot of young people with an urge to die, but never one as persistent as this. Mostly, he reckoned, it was the way she wasn’t pleading or cajoling or begging that was getting to him. It was as if she was demanding an inalienable right which he was trying to cheat her of on the flimsiest of pretexts. It’d serve her right, he told himself, if he did let her join.