Colours in the Steel f-1

by K. J. Parker

  ‘You know,’ Athli said, pouring wine out of the pewter jug, ‘for a moment there I really thought you meant it.’

  ‘I did,’ Loredan replied. ‘And I do.’ He shifted his hand on the pad of wool he was pressing against his side. The bleeding had stopped long since, thanks to a smear of brandy and a few winds of cobweb from the rafters of the tavern, but for some reason he didn’t want to stop the pressure on the cut, as if he felt it ought to be far worse than it was. ‘Too old and not enough natural ability. I think it’s high time I did something else.’

  Athli looked at him over the rim of her cup. ‘Such as what?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Loredan carefully nipped a small fly out of his wine. ‘The obvious thing would be to start up a school.’

  ‘You could do that, certainly,’ Athli replied. ‘Mind you, there’s a difference between knowing the moves and being able to teach them to other people.’

  ‘Well, it’s that or setting up as a clerk. Would I make a good clerk, do you think?’

  Athli shook her head. ‘You’d be hopeless at it,’ she said. ‘You’d insult all the clients, for one thing. Also, you don’t realise how much hard work’s involved. Take me, for instance. I was up an hour before dawn, dictated twelve letters before breakfast, then out to meetings till it was time to come and collect you. And this afternoon I’ve got more letters to write, accounts to do, pleadings to draft-’

  ‘All right, you’ve convinced me. All that reading and writing’d drive me mad, not to mention the getting up early in the morning. If I’d wanted to get up early in the morning, I’d never have left the-’

  He broke off, clearly embarrassed. Athli was intrigued.

  ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘If you’d wanted to get up early you’d never have left the farm. Am I right?’

  Loredan grimaced and nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Horrible life, glad to be rid of it. So-’

  ‘Well, well,’ Athli purred, amused. ‘So you’re a farm boy really, are you? Honestly, I’d never have thought it. I’d have been prepared to bet money you’d never been outside the walls in your life.’

  Loredan kept his face completely blank. ‘Once or twice,’ he said. ‘My father had a small manor in the Mesoge. He was only a tenant, of course. Do you mind if we change the subject?’

  Athli shrugged, slightly offended. ‘If you like,’ she said. ‘I was just interested, that’s all.’

  Deliberately, Loredan refilled his cup and drained it, letting a few red tears trickle down his chin. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘that’s enough about that. So if you reckon I couldn’t make a living as a clerk, it looks like it’ll have to be teaching.’ He sighed. ‘It’d have been nice to have had an option or two which weren’t something to do with this loathsome profession,’ he said. ‘Trouble is, I can’t do anything else.’

  ‘Open a tavern?’

  ‘Too much like hard work.’ He smiled. ‘Plus I don’t actually know how you go about innkeeping. Isn’t that what old time-served soldiers are supposed to do when they retire from the wars?’

  ‘In theory, yes, though generally it’s their wives and daughters that do the work.’ Athli grinned. ‘My uncle ran an inn for a while after he retired from the sea. He did very well, got bored, sold the place at a profit and bought another ship.’

  ‘Is that a hint? I’ll have you know I can’t swim.’

  ‘Neither could my uncle. The general idea is to avoid putting yourself in a position where you have to.’

  Loredan shook his head. ‘Too dangerous,’ he said. ‘You’d have to be out of your mind to spend your life entirely surrounded by water.’

  Athli wasn’t listening, being too busy eavesdropping on the conversation at the table behind them. Loredan scowled, then tried to listen too.

  ‘Don’t be so obvious,’ Athli hissed at him. ‘It’s embarrassing. ’

  ‘Look who’s talking. Go on, then, what’re they talking about that’s so interesting?’

  ‘You, actually. They’ve just come from the court.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Foreigners.’

  ‘Ah. That would explain it.’

  Loredan craned his neck and took a closer look. He saw a long, skinny man with a thin face and high cheekbones, and a girl who was almost certainly his twin sister. On her, the shared features looked rather better.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ the man was saying. ‘If his sword hadn’t snapped like that he’d have carved your man up like a roast hare. Never seen a bigger fluke in all my born days.’

  ‘Venart-’

  ‘Not to mention a miscarriage of justice,’ the man continued. ‘He was totally outclassed in every department. The other man was just playing with him, could’ve finished it long before if he’d wanted to. Serves him right for taking pity on the old buffer, I suppose.’

  ‘Venart-’

  ‘Amazing, really, that he’s still fighting at his age. I mean, it’s supposed to be a highly competitive business, only the best survive and all that. Dammit, I could’ve made a better job of it than he did with one hand tied behind my-’

  ‘Venart, he’s sitting behind you.’

  The man froze as if he’d just put his foot in a trap. Loredan found that he was looking the girl straight in the eyes. He turned away.

  ‘Shit, Vetriz, why the devil didn’t you say-’

  ‘I tried to, idiot. You’d better apologise quick.’

  ‘He can’t have heard me.’

  ‘Of course he did. You were braying like a donkey.’

  ‘I do not bray like-’

  ‘Well, if you won’t, I suppose I’ll have to.’

  ‘Vetriz! For pity’s sake, what d’you think you’re-’

  The girl stood up and walked over to Loredan’s table. Athli put her face in her hands, trying desperately not to giggle, while Loredan suddenly found the toes of his boots irresistibly fascinating.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  Loredan looked up. ‘Yes?’ he said.

  The girl smiled sweetly and Loredan, who up till then had found the whole business mildly amusing, started to feel irritated, as he always did in the presence of deliberate charm. ‘I’d just like to apologise for my brother,’ she said. ‘You see, we’re strangers here, and-’

  ‘Forget it,’ Loredan said. ‘Besides, he was quite right.’ He made a show of turning away and pouring more wine, and effect that was spoilt by the jug being empty. But the girl didn’t seem to have noticed. Foreigners, he thought, and shot a rescue-me glance at Athli, who ignored it.

  ‘He had no idea he was being so tactless,’ the girl went on. ‘Honestly, I’m ashamed of him sometimes. He’s always doing things like that.’

  Loredan gave her an unfriendly smile. Her accent was beginning to grate on him. ‘Really,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t matter. Athli, what time did you say that appointment was?’

  ‘What appointment?’

  ‘You know, the appointment on the other side of town.’

  Athli made a faint snorting noise and shook her head. ‘News to me,’ she managed to say.

  ‘The least he can do is buy you a drink,’ the girl said, and waved to her brother, who was doing his best to be completely invisible behind an empty cider jug. ‘Venart,’ she called out, ‘buy these people a drink.’

  Venart got slowly to his feet, privately swearing his best commercial oath that this was the last time he took his sister anywhere. She’d never dream of behaving like this at home; the sooner they got back to the Island the better. He shuffled away, ordered a large jug of wine and reluctantly joined his sister.

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ Athli was saying. ‘Do please join us.’

  Loredan glowered at her and tried to kick her under the table, but she moved her feet out of the way. ‘Yes, sit down, please,’ he grinned in as hostile a tone as he could manage at short notice. ‘My name’s Loredan and this is my clerk, Athli.’

  The girl looked slightly surprised. ‘Your clerk?’ she repeated.

  ‘That’s right. I�
��m an advocate and she’s my clerk.’ He realised that the girl had assumed Athli was his wife. He wished both of them would go away.

  ‘I see,’ the girl said, settling herself down opposite him. ‘My name’s Vetriz and my brother’s Venart. We’re from the Island.’

  ‘Here on business?’

  Vetriz nodded. ‘Venart’s showing me the ropes,’ she said. ‘It’s my first time abroad. Our father left the ship and the stock to both of us equally, and I said I thought it was time I started pulling my weight.’

  ‘Really.’ Loredan did his best to sound bored. He did it very well. ‘I suppose you’ve been doing the rounds of all the sights while you’ve been here.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ the girl replied cheerfully. ‘That’s why we were in the court today. Venart said I couldn’t think of coming to Perimadeia and not seeing the courts.’

  ‘I hope you enjoyed the show,’ Loredan said grimly. The girl’s ability to miss undertones was obviously outstanding, because she nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘Very much indeed,’ she said. ‘Quite thrilling. Actually, that’s what we were arguing about just now. Venart thinks he knows all about everything, you see, and I was telling him I knew you were going to win from the very start.’

  ‘You were wrong,’ Loredan said. ‘Like he said, it was a fluke.’

  ‘Really?’ The girl looked surprised. ‘I’m sure you’re just being modest.’

  ‘I have a great deal to be modest about.’

  Vetriz thought about that for a moment, then laughed. ‘You do surprise me,’ she said. ‘I thought you made it all look very easy, though I don’t suppose it is really.’ She hesitated for a moment, then went on. ‘So the other man’s sword breaking like that was pure chance, then?’

  Loredan caught Athli’s eyes; she wasn’t giggling any more. He decided to make her suffer a little by carrying on with the conversation.

  ‘Pure chance,’ he said. ‘Although it’s something that does happen from time to time with the swords we use in court. The blades are much thinner than ordinary swords – sorry, I’m being technical, but it’s all to do with how the core is tempered and joined to the edges. If the core gets cooked up too much in the brazing, you can get brittle spots. Hit one of those and the blade just snaps off.’

  ‘I see,’ Vetriz replied. ‘I only asked because just a second or so before it broke I had the strangest sort of feeling that something like that would happen. Odd, don’t you think?’

  Loredan shook his head. ‘Like I said, it happens now and again. It’s something you have to learn to expect. Like death,’ he added melodramatically. Athli gave him a come-off-it look, of which he took no notice.

  Vetriz’s eyes widened. ‘Are all these duels to the death, then?’ she asked.

  ‘All except wills and divorce. Strictly speaking they come under a different jurisdiction, though in practice they’re heard in the same court in front of the same judge. Goes back to the time when the priests had their own courts, and probate and family actions were heard there.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t have any gods,’ Vetriz objected.

  ‘We don’t. But we used to.’

  ‘I see. Did you get rid of them, or did people just stop believing?’

  Loredan shrugged. ‘A bit of both, I think,’ he said. ‘Religion gradually started being less popular, and that allowed the emperors to step in and confiscate ecclesiastical property when they needed money. And even when they didn’t, as I understand it. Anyway, once they’d lost all their gold and silver and land, there wasn’t much point in being priests any more, so the whole thing just ground to a halt.’

  Venart, who had been sitting still and quiet, thought of a way to end the ordeal. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but didn’t you get hit during the fight?’

  Loredan nodded. ‘Nothing much,’ he said. ‘As you pointed out, I was very lucky.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you get it seen to?’ Venart asked earnestly.

  As he spoke, Loredan realised the cut was bleeding again. He looked up sharply, then nodded. ‘You may be right,’ he said. ‘If you’ll excuse us…’

  The girl looked disappointed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it was lovely meeting you. When I get home I shall tell everyone we had a drink with a real Perimadeian fencer.’

  Loredan smiled through his cringe. ‘You do that,’ he said. ‘Have a safe journey.’

  When Loredan and Athli had gone, Venart took a deep breath. Vetriz forestalled him.

  ‘It was your fault,’ she said. ‘I tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘I might have known it was all my fault,’ her brother sighed. ‘Let’s get safely back to the inn before you can do any more damage. And don’t you ever-’

  ‘It’s strange,’ Vetriz interrupted. ‘I did know he was going to win, honestly. He was quite an ordinary man once we started talking to him.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Venart replied. ‘I heard him get at least three words in edgeways. By my reckoning that makes him some kind of hero.’

  Vetriz ignored that. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Let’s go down to the cutlery market, and you can teach me how to buy copperware. I thought you said we had a lot to get through today.’

  Alexius looked up from his book. ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘He won.’

  The Patriarch nodded briefly, closed the book and laid it endways on the lectern shelf. ‘That’s all right, then,’ he said. ‘Come in and have a cup of cider.’

  At the word cider, Gannadius’ lip curled slightly. ‘Not for me,’ he replied. ‘It was a strange business,’ he went on, sitting down on the cell’s one plain chair. ‘Sheer luck, at the finish. Alvise had him at his mercy, and then his sword just snapped.’

  ‘We made a good defence,’ the Patriarch replied. ‘I just hope we weren’t too obvious about it.’

  Gannadius shook his head. ‘That’s the point,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it was us. Or at least,’ he added, stroking his short beard, ‘not just us. I’ll swear I could feel another signature-’

  ‘Oh, come now,’ Alexius interrupted. ‘You know what I think about that sort of thing.’

  His colleague furrowed his brow. ‘It’s a matter of opinion,’ he conceded. ‘For myself, I’m morally certain I could detect something else there apart from our defences. And before you lecture me about gratuitous mysticism and the doctrine of economy of effect, I’m basing this purely on observation. I think our defences were working on him alone, and as a result he was able to keep hopping about warding off good strokes with bad ones. Alvise’s sword breaking was something quite other.’

  Alexius nodded. ‘Well, of course. It affected Alvise, presumably quite drastically.’ He considered for a moment. ‘Somebody else’s curse on Alvise, perhaps?’ he suggested.

  ‘It’s possible. But maybe curse is putting it too strongly. My sense of it was that it was just a little touch; not because it was a little power, more that it was a trivial application of it. A gentle nudge rather than a sharp blow, if you follow me.’

  Alexius leant back against the wall and stared at the mosaics on the ceiling. Without realising, he began to count the stars. ‘That would be a highly unusual phenomenon,’ he said. ‘If this power was as great as you’re suggesting, the reaction must be terrible. Who would risk that for the sake of a gentle nudge, as you put it? If I was letting myself in for a high-level reaction, I think I’d want to slam down on the victim like a sledgehammer.’

  ‘That occurred to me too. But what if it’s a natural?’

  Alexius’ eyes narrowed. ‘An unconscious action,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It’s possible, I suppose, though the phenomenon is mercifully rare. My ex-student, perhaps.’

  Gannadius shook his head. ‘You’d have noticed it in her, surely. You’d never have overlooked a power like that.’

  ‘It could be very deeply rooted,’ Alexius ventured, rubbing his shin to clear the pins and needles. The bed in his cell was uncomfortable enough when used for its ordained purpose. Using
it as a chair was a foolhardy act. ‘But no, I think I’d have noticed. And besides,’ he added as a thought struck him, ‘if she’d had any real power of her own, she’d have stopped me before I got the curse wrong. And there’d have been little telltale traces of her malice already present when I got there. I think we can rule her out. But the idea of a natural at the court today is a sound one. I can just imagine someone in the crowd rooting for the underdog, visualising the sword breaking, the underdog saved and exalted; it would be purely instinctive-’

  ‘Quite.’ Gannadius stood up, walked a few paces in a circle, and sat down again. ‘In which case,’ he went on, ‘doesn’t it complicate things even more? If we have to go back into your visualisation again, who knows what we’ll find when we get there?’

  Alexius lay back on the bed and closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind. Above all, keep a sense of proportion. ‘The consequences,’ he said. ‘Let’s think it through, shall we, before we lose our sense of proportion. The worst that can happen-’

  ‘Is that the curse will come back directly on you,’ Gannadius interrupted peevishly, ‘with dire consequences for you and, by implication, your colleagues. The Patriarch of Perimadeia, killed by one of his own curses-’

  ‘How would anyone know that?’ Alexius objected.

  ‘My dear fellow, perfectly healthy, well-fed men don’t just curl up and die for no reason.’

  ‘Tell them I’d been ill for some time. Natural causes. A merciful release, in fact.’ He opened his eyes. ‘You really think it might come to that?’

  ‘My dear fellow-’

  Alexius sat up and swung his legs to the floor. ‘I think it’s time I was perfectly frank with you, Gannadius. I don’t understand this.’

  ‘Alexius, you’re the Patriarch of-’

  ‘Yes, I am. By definition I know more about the operation of the Principle than any man living. And I don’t understand how the wretched thing works. And neither do you,’ he added, before Gannadius could speak. ‘The sum of our knowledge – our combined knowledge, mind you – is that it does work. It’s taken us our joint lifetimes studying the work of thousands of philosophers and scholars over hundreds of years, but we know that it works. That’s it, the extent of our knowledge. Controlling it’s another matter entirely.’