Colours in the Steel f-1

by K. J. Parker

  And yet it would be fair enough, all things considered. It wasn’t a matter of right and wrong; even if such things existed, they had nothing to do with the life cycle of cities and nations. The city’s dealings with the people of the plain were no more reprehensible than the lion’s relationship with the deer, but that worked both ways. If it was the clan’s turn to be the lion, that was the way it was meant to go. You couldn’t disagree with something like that. All you could sensibly do was leave and find somewhere else to live.

  More footsteps outside, coming this way, stopping outside the door, A slim blade of light slit the darkness, then turned into a flood. There were two outlines in the doorway.

  ‘Just give me a shout when you’re done, Father,’ said a voice Loredan recognised as the warder’s. ‘I’ll be right outside.’

  The door closed, but the light stayed inside; yellow and warm from a small lamp. It turned the other outline into Patriarch Alexius. Taken aback, Loredan swung his legs off the bench and stood up.

  ‘Here,’ he said, ‘sit down.’

  ‘Thank you. I will,’ Alexius replied. In the melodramatic light of the oil lamp he looked like a corpse, and it took him a while to hobble the length of the small cell. ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Just let me catch my breath, will you? Stairs,’ he added.

  Loredan sat on the floor, his back to the wall, waiting for the Patriarch to say something. He didn’t want to be rude, but he was in no mood for small talk.

  ‘You’ll be out of here fairly soon,’ Alexius went on after a minute or so. ‘We’ve just had a rather annoying meeting, lots of foolish people saying stupid things; the gist of it is that I’m to address the crowd and tell them to calm down and go home, and they’re letting you go. You’ll have a chance to have a bath and a shave before the next meeting.’

  Loredan’s mouth dropped open. ‘Next meeting?’ he repeated. ‘What, you mean I’m still-?’

  Alexius nodded. ‘I had an idea at the time you wouldn’t be overjoyed about it. It’s all a matter of expediency, you see. We need scapegoats for the defeat, but we also need a hero for the people to trust.’ He sighed; the marks of fatigue on his face were as clear as the portrait on a newly minted coin. ‘That’ll be you,’ he continued. ‘I shall tell my fellow citizens that the five generals responsible for the disaster were the ones who died in the battle; Bardas Loredan, on the other hand, saved the day, snatched four-fifths of the army out of the jaws of death, turned a humiliating defeat into a moral victory-’

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’

  ‘Don’t be so ungrateful,’ Alexius replied. ‘And besides, it’s near enough to the truth. And if you’re determined to be a martyr, you might yet get your chance. You haven’t heard the funny bit yet.’

  ‘Tell me the funny bit,’ Loredan said.

  Alexius stiffened as a cramp came and went. ‘This is our illustrious Prefect’s idea of a compromise,’ he said. ‘At an unspecified date in the future, you’re to stand trial in a court of law.’ He paused, then continued: ‘Until then, you’re appointed Deputy Lord Lieutenant, with responsibility for organising the defence of the walls and the lower city. Don’t say it,’ he added quickly, ‘I think everyone thinks so too. It only goes to show: who needs an Emperor when we can be imbeciles all by ourselves?’

  ‘I think that’s the most glorious piece of idiocy I’ve ever heard in all my life,’ Loredan said, his eyes closed. ‘What if I refuse?’

  Alexius shook his head. ‘I don’t think that’s allowed,’ he said. ‘Put another way, if you don’t do it, it won’t get done. They didn’t like my idea,’ he added. ‘A pity. It was a good one.’

  ‘Really? What as that?’

  ‘I wanted you made Commander-in-Chief,’ Alexius replied. ‘I may not know anything about tactics and battles, but I can recognise a natural leader when I hear of one.’

  Loredan didn’t say anything to that. ‘So when do I get out of here?’ he asked. ‘Not that I’m in any hurry.’

  ‘Once the crowds have been told you’re a hero. Until then, you’re better off here. There’s a mob several thousand strong demanding your head on a pole at the lower-city gate. If they get through and break in here-’

  ‘I see.’ Loredan nodded. ‘Your idea also?’

  Alexius shook his head. ‘One of the pointy-faced types from the Office of Supply,’ he replied. ‘They’re all fools, but some of them are surprisingly cunning.’ He leant back and rested his head against the wall. ‘If I may,’ he said, ‘I’d like to stay here until it’s time for me to go and make my speech. It’s agreeably peaceful. How up to date are you with the news?’

  ‘Not very. What’s the situation outside?’

  ‘Quiet,’ Alexius said. ‘There hasn’t been any activity upriver; as far as we can tell, they’re carrying on with building engines and rafting them down the river. All they’ve done is put a cavalry escort – three or four thousand, no more – on the downstream camp where they’re landing the engines.’

  ‘That puts them no more than five miles from the city,’ Loredan said thoughtfully. ‘Gods, I wish we hadn’t mounted that stupid expedition. Now’s the time we should be making sorties, and of course we won’t, for fear of another good hiding.’ He looked up. ‘I assume the Lord Lieutenant’s in command of external operations.’ Alexius nodded. ‘What about what’s left of the task force? With four thousand men, provided we think about what we’re doing this time, we could still cut out those engines at the landing point without too much trouble-’

  ‘He won’t hear of it,’ Alexius replied. ‘And he has got a point. If we were to suffer another defeat, particularly one so close to home, the city’d be ungovernable. You can’t imagine what it’s like down there.’

  ‘So we sit tight and wait for a siege. What about supplies and the like? It won’t be long before the news crosses the sea, and then we’ll have the harbour crammed with people come to sell us grain at sky-high prices.’

  ‘Sky-high or not, we’ve authorised the Prefect to buy everything he can lay his hands on. Not that food and supplies will be a problem; there’s nothing the clan can do to interfere with shipping, so there’s no reason we can’t have business as usual. But it’ll reassure the people if they see us stockpiling, and then maybe they’ll stop looting the bakeries.’

  Loredan shook his head. ‘They like looting bakeries,’ he said, ‘It’s only afterwards they start complaining, when they can’t get their usual orders because the place has burnt down.’ He smiled. ‘It’s times like these that bring out the best in people. What are they doing about recruitment? Has anything been organised yet?’

  ‘Not really,’ the Patriarch replied. ‘At the moment, we’ve got old men and boys by the thousand demanding to be allowed to volunteer, while most of the able-bodied men are busy smashing the city and beating up the guard. And of course everyone wants to know why the Patriarch isn’t using his arcane powers to avert the danger. I anticipate quite a lot of that when I go out to make my speech.’

  ‘Well, quite.’ Loredan grinned. ‘What’s the point in having all these wizards if they can’t even launch a few fireballs and turn the enemy into frogs? Makes you wonder whose side they’re on.’

  ‘I think the Prefect and the Lord Lieutenant are going to ask me that quite soon,’ Alexius said mournfully. ‘I’ve even started thinking that way myself, may I be forgiven. Thanks to my recent researches, I now know rather more about curses and the way they work. It occurs to me that if we had that girl from the Island here, the one we think might be a natural…’

  Loredan held up his hands. ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Not if you want me to leave this nice safe cell.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in all that.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Loredan replied. ‘But there’s healthy agnosticism and there’s sitting up and begging for trouble. Not for the city, I mean. For you, personally. You look as if you died a week ago and they gave you to the apprentice embalmer to practise on.’

  Alexius l
aughed; more appreciatively than the joke deserved. ‘That’s the nicest thing anybody’s said about me in a long time,’ he replied. ‘I must confess, I’ve felt better. But it’s all right,’ he added, with a slight grin, ‘because it’s just honest-to-goodness ordinary illness, not any more of those confounded side effects from – let’s say – our little adventure into the unknown. Ordinary illness doesn’t worry me so much.’

  Loredan nodded. ‘The enemy you can see is the least of your problems. That was a favourite saying of my old commander, rest his vicious soul. It’s like the joke about the two men in the middle of the battlefield; one of them gets hit by an arrow and falls to the ground moaning. The other one takes a look at the fletchings on the arrow and says, ‘It’s all right, mate, it was one of ours.’ What’s that expression they have for it these days? Friendly fire?’

  Alexius nodded. ‘That’s more or less the way I feel,’ he said. ‘Physical illness might not be much fun, but at least you don’t feel it’s out to get you, in the same way the other stuff did.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose you’d say it was a self-inflicted wound, and I should stop imagining things.’

  ‘No,’ Loredan replied, ‘because we’re going to be working together and I do still have a modicum of tact.’ He rubbed his chin thoughtfully before continuing. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I did give the matter a certain amount of thought, back when you first told me about it all. I still don’t believe in this all-pervading Principle of nature you people talk about – or at least I don’t disbelieve in it either, it just seems too wishy-washy to be of any importance…’

  ‘It is, usually,’ Alexius interrupted, smiling sadly. ‘Most of the time, in fact. All this business with curses and benedictions is just a minor and irrelevant by-product, like oak-apples on oak trees.’

  Loredan nodded. ‘I’ll have to take your word on that,’ he said. ‘Another thing I don’t believe in, though, is coincidence; not on the grandiose scale we were getting back-along. I’m prepared to concede that something was going on; I just don’t reckon any of us had the faintest idea what it was.’

  Alexius nodded his head. ‘There, my sceptical friend, I agree with you entirely,’ he said.

  ‘But why can’t I see him?’ Athli demanded for the sixth time. ‘I’m his clerk, he’s got a business to run. I’ve got students asking for their money back. If you’d care to explain to them why they can’t have the instruction they’ve paid for…’

  The clerk frowned. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but there are important matters of state involved; rather more important,’ he added unpleasantly, ‘than your colleague’s coaching practice. In fact, I would suggest that you refund any money you may be holding on account without further delay. I would think it highly unlikely that Colonel Loredan will be free to resume his private work for the foreseeable future.’ He stood up, to indicate that the audience was ended. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘if you’d be good enough to excuse me.’

  ‘All right,’ Athli said, not moving from her seat. ‘Could you pass on a letter for me, and forward the reply? I know he’s in the city,’ she added. ‘I saw him come back myself. And he wouldn’t have left again without letting me know.’

  The clerk studied her objectively through dead-fish eyes, noting that she was young and attractive and exhibiting more concern for her principal than a normal business relationship would warrant. Athli read the interpretation in his face, made a mental note to have him horribly murdered at some convenient future date, and played up to what he was thinking. She simpered a little. ‘Please,’ she added. ‘It’d mean so much to me if you could.’

  ‘I might be able to send a message,’ he said, his voice lightly spiced with contempt and a little self-conscious compassion. ‘I’m not sure about a letter, though; it would have to be passed by the Committee for National Security, and there would inevitably be a delay. Any reply from Colonel Loredan would be similarly subject to-’ He paused, and smiled bleakly. ‘To review,’ he concluded. ‘If that’s not acceptable-’

  ‘That’ll be fine,’ Athli replied firmly. ‘Can I borrow your pen?’

  The clerk sighed and sat down again. ‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘But please, if you could hurry it up a little. I have to attend a meeting which will be starting very soon.’

  ‘Won’t keep you a minute,’ Athli said.

  This is just to see if you’re all right, and if there’s anything you want me to do. We’ve got enough punters for two full classes now, presumably thanks to your recent publicity stunts, so I’m putting the charges up by a third. I’ve been to your apartment and made sure everything’s all right there; and I had a man put a lock on the door, so don’t be surprised if you can’t get in. I’ll send you the key if they’ll let me. Cheer up. It must be fun to be famous.

  She hesitated. Should she add anything else? She wanted to say something to let him know that she understood how he must be feeling. (Not that she did, and they’d both know it.) No, she’d only embarrass him. Instead, she scribbled her name, folded the scrap of parchment and handed it to the clerk. ‘You’re sure you’ve got my address?’ she added.

  ‘We know where to find you,’ the clerk replied with a slight emphasis she was supposed not to like. ‘And now, I really must-’

  She allowed herself to be shooed out of the office, and watched the clerk scuttle off at a dignified half-trot towards the main cloister; then she made her way slowly back towards the gatehouse. Nothing to do, and all day to do it in. Again.

  Rather than mope about at home, she decided to go down to the stationers’ quarter and buy something. It was traditional that clerks should have something of a stationery fetish; good for business as well, since the tools of a clerk’s trade lent themselves to elegant splendour, and clients tended to assume that the costlier and more magnificent the pen and inkwell, the higher the quality of the words that issued from them. Athli was only too happy to conform to the stereotype. When she stopped to think about it, the amount of money she’d frittered away on such things appalled her (though, she reassured herself, since she’d only ever bought quality she could probably get her money back on them with no trouble at all if she had to.) Which reminded her of something else.

  Odd, she mused as she strolled through the chairmakers’ quarter towards the Chandlers’ Gate, the fact that he never seems to have any money. The mathematics of it simply don’t make sense. I get twenty-five per cent of what he makes, and I can live in a nice part of town and afford to waste money on marquetry writing boards and solid-silver counters. He lives in the slums and owns nothing. I know he goes out drinking quite a lot and that must cost a bit, except he seems to go to places where you can drink yourself to death for the price of a glass of wine in a decent inn; what does he do with all his money?

  Strange, to work with someone so closely for so long and now know the first thing about him. We get along all right; better than all right, in fact, it’s always been great fun. I’ve never known a man who I can talk to so easily, one who doesn’t make any difficulties… But what do I actually know about him? He was in the army – well, everybody knows that now, of course; in fact, everybody knows rather more than I did before all this started – and he was brought up on a farm and he’s got an unspecified number of brothers and at least one sister. He doesn’t talk about his parents, so maybe they’re dead; or maybe he just doesn’t talk about them. And he had lots of acquaintances, in the trade of course, but I’ve no idea if he has any friends. Of course, he knows all about me – not that there’s too much to know. He always seems quite interested when I tell him about things, can’t quite seem to understand why I haven’t got married and don’t see anybody. I don’t suppose he’s really interested, though. Why should he be, after all?

  She frowned, remembering the clerk’s knowing leer. He’d been wrong, of course, though she’d be lying if she said the thought hadn’t crossed her mind once or twice. But never seriously; not much future in a relationship with a man in that line of work. Worse than loving a sailor;
at least they come back sometimes. Not that he’s in that line of work any more; except he’s Colonel Loredan now, and that’s scarcely an improvement.

  She stopped opposite a stall selling rather garish painted wooden bowls. If he’s going to be Colonel Loredan for any length of time, she thought, he won’t be teaching people how to fence; and then what am I supposed to do for a living? That’s odd, too; when he was working in the courts, I always had my contingency plans ready, just in case anything happened. Now I’m at a loss to think what I’m going to do next. I can’t carry on the school on my own and I don’t think I could bear to go back to clerking for advocates. Oh, damn and blast, what is wrong with me?

  Slowly and deliberately, Athli calmed herself down; and as she did so, a small but persistent voice in the back of her head began chanting, When all seems lost, buy stationery! It seemed like the best advice she was likely to get. She took it.

  The atmosphere in the stationers’ quarter varied between picturesque bustle and hell on earth, depending on the time of day and year, supply and demand, the health of the economy and the mood of the city. The feverish intensity of the activity under the rich awnings reflected the influence of the last factor on the list; the clerks of Perimadeia had decided that the end was probably nigh, in which case they might as well indulge themselves while they still had money and their money was still worth something; and if it wasn’t the end of the world, they had cause for celebration, best effected by buying things. The stationery trade had risen to the occasion; Athli had never seen so much good stuff, or such high prices.

  There were lignum vitae and rosewood writing boards and accounting boards, lavishly carved and inlaid with ivory, mother of pearl and polished lapis lazuli. There were inkwells; gods, the inkwells – silver inkwells, gold inkwells, inkwells with jewelled lids and little jewelled feet, patent inkwells with little ribs for knocking off the excess ink after you’d dipped your pen, inkwells hollowed out of elephant tusks and walrus tusks, inkwells in the shape of roses, pigs, kneeling figures, skulls, horses, the backsides of women and boys, the Patriarch’s ceremonial crown.