by K. J. Parker
And was suddenly somewhere else – rather disconcerting, until she subconsciously registered that it was a dream. The confusing part of it was that she was also still in the dining room of the inn, sitting at a table covered in crumbs and little morsels of escaped food; and there were Ven and her new friend Athli, still busily chatting about rope and oblivious to anything else. But there were other people sitting round the table as well, and she recognised them easily, as if they were people she knew well. The tall, worried-looking man was Bardas Loredan; well, she did know him, and also, regrettably, his brother Gorgas. Now that she could see them both together the family resemblance was obvious; she hadn’t seen it in Gorgas before, but they both had the same nose and the same heavy muscle in the jaw, and, most noticeable of all, the same alert, observant eyes. Nothing romantic or even particularly attractive about the Loredan eyes. They were hard but not cold, a rather dark brown (Athli had green eyes, curse her; some girls have all the luck) and neither of the two brothers seemed to blink as often as most people did. Another curious thing: Gorgas had told her he wasn’t on speaking terms with his younger brother, and yet here they were talking quite easily, just the way you’d expect two brothers to talk to each other. It was a pity that she couldn’t make out what they were saying. Whatever it was, it was bound to be more interesting than rope.
And there was a woman sitting on Gorgas’ left, between him and Ven; she was a Loredan too, the same nose and jaw (it doesn’t suit her) and unmistakably the same eyes. She was older than both of them but too young to be their mother, so Vetriz deduced she was either an older sister or a youngish aunt. Probably a sister; the resemblance was too marked for it to be anything but a direct blood line. She wasn’t saying anything, and when Vetriz decided to talk to her, she suddenly wasn’t there any more. Instead she saw a young man she didn’t recognize at all. He was no more than eighteen, shorter, fairer and slighter than the rest of them, and his features were small and a little pudgy, making him look younger still. For some reason she knew he was one of the plainspeople, and she decided he was here in the dream because they’d been talking about them and she’d fallen asleep after a heavy meal.
She studied him with interest, never having come across a genuine barbarian before. He wasn’t much to look at, certainly not very barbarous; his hair was a little greasy but neatly combed – maybe the grease was some kind of dressing; not being able to smell anything in this dream she couldn’t tell if it was some variety of scented oil or pomade – and he was wearing a rather plain-looking shirt with full sleeves, which closer inspection revealed to be made of very fine buckskin. She couldn’t see what he was wearing on his legs because the table was in the way. At any rate, his manners seemed acceptable enough; he was sitting quite still, hadn’t even got his elbows on the table, and appeared to be listening to the great rope debate with every sign of polite interest. He looks like somebody’s apprentice, Vetriz decided, who’s been allowed to come to dinner as a special treat.
Since she had nobody else to talk to, she decided to strike up a conversation with the young barbarian. She smiled and caught his eye. He smiled back, rather pleasantly.
‘Don’t say you’re a rope fancier too,’ she heard herself saying.
‘Most of it’s going over my head,’ he admitted. ‘But it’s always worth listening when people are discussing something they know about. You can learn things that way, and knowledge is never wasted.’
Vetriz grinned. ‘You sound just like my brother,’ she said. ‘That’s a favourite saying of his. In fact, that’s probably why I just dreamed you saying it.’
‘You may well be right,’ the barbarian replied. ‘As it happens, rope’s something I need to learn about. You see, we’re building a whole lot of torsion engines – catapults, that sort of thing – and it’s the rope that powers the arm and makes them go. None of us have the faintest idea what sort of rope’s best for the purpose. I imagine we want something tough and springy.’
‘Ah.’ Vetriz nodded. ‘I might be able to help you there, because just before I lost interest in what they were saying, that girl there told my brother that horsehair’s best for elasticity – does that make any sense to you?’
‘Very much so.’
‘Oh, good, because it’s wasted on me. Anyway, horsehair’s the stuff, and if you can’t get that, pure flax is meant to be almost as good, though apparently you should avoid sailmaker’s twine like the plague.’
‘Oh.’ The barbarian’s brow creased a little. ‘That’s odd, because a man I talked to at the arsenal said sailmaker’s twine was what he used himself. That didn’t mean an awful lot to me, because I wouldn’t recognise sailmaker’s twine if you wove it into a noose and strung me up with it.’
Vetriz giggled. ‘Perish the thought,’ she said. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, let’s put the subject of rope firmly on one side and talk about something else, shall we? In fact, I’d like to ask you a question, if it won’t offend you.’
The barbarian shrugged. ‘Be my guest,’ he said.
‘All right. I was just wondering: what is it about this city that you don’t like? I mean, you must hate it an awful lot if you’re going to all this trouble to destroy it. Or is that what you people do, sort of a fundamental part of your cultural identity?’
‘Not really,’ the barbarian replied. ‘I mean, we do fight among ourselves sometimes, but on the whole we’re quite peaceful. Certainly we aren’t ones for plunder and loot, like your ancestors were; all that gold and silver and furniture and stuff’d be just so much dead weight to lug around with us. No, the thing with the city’s personal. It’s something that’s got to be done, that’s all.’
‘Really?’ Vetriz raised an eyebrow. ‘And why’s that?’
The barbarian pulled a face. ‘I’d rather not say,’ he replied. ‘If you really must know, why don’t you ask those two?’
And before Vetriz could ask him which two he meant, he wasn’t there either, and Venart was prodding her shoulder with his forefinger (exactly the way he did when they were children, and she’d hated it then) and telling her to wake up because it was late.
‘Don’t want to wake up,’ she mumbled sleepily, aware that the Loredan brothers had gone too. ‘Sleep when it’s late. Wake up when it’s early.’
Venart sighed. ‘Like I said before,’ he said to Athli, who was grinning, ‘you really must excuse my sister. I can’t take her anywhere.’
Temrai, who’d been dozing by the fire, suddenly woke up. ‘Horsehair,’ he said.
Uncle Anakai looked at him over his cup. ‘What did you just say?’ he asked.
‘For the catapults,’ Temrai explained. He shook his head, felt dizzy; too much to drink, he decided. ‘I’ve just remembered, I think. Anyway, that’s what we should be using.’
Anakai shrugged his shoulders. ‘You’re the boss,’ he replied. ‘And it’s something we’ve got plenty of, though people are going to take some persuading before they’ll let you take a pair of shears to their prize bloodstock.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘We’ll have to start a fashion for bobbed manes and tails. They’ll agree to anything if it’s fashionable.’
‘Good idea,’ Temrai said. He was dimly aware that he’d been dreaming; but he never remembered his dreams for more than a split second after he’d woken up. ‘We’ll get onto it first thing in the morning,’ he yawned. ‘Right now, I think I’ll go to bed. I seem to have woken up with something of a headache.’
Uncle Anakai smiled. ‘You sleep it off, then,’ he replied. ‘You’ve earned a good night’s rest. Oh, by the way, who’s Loriden?’
‘I don’t know,’ Temrai replied with a frown. ‘Should I?’
‘You kept muttering the name while you were asleep. Some girl, obviously,’ Uncle Anakai added with a grin. ‘It’s a girl’s name, after all.’
Temrai thought for a moment, then shook his head.
‘Never heard of her,’ he said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Next morning, his head buzzin
g and his belt heavy with money, Venart set off for the ropewalks.
It was one of the sights of Perimadeia; a spacious district with wide streets, one of the few places in the city where you could see the buildings without an endless procession of carts and wagons getting in the way. Because there was so little traffic, it had a peaceful, almost park-like atmosphere, spoilt only by the disgusting smell of tar. Although the streets were broad you couldn’t walk down the middle; you had to creep along the sides, trying not to get in the way of the ropemakers as they twisted their skeins of cord, stretched on short wooden pillars from one side of the street to the other, winding ten, twelve, often as many as thirty strands of fine line together to make one strong, pliable rope. At first sight it looked like the web of a huge and slovenly spider.
In the light of his new-found expertise, Venart had decided to place his order with one Vital Ortenan, who he remembered as having boasted of his skill in making long rope from horsehair. He found Ortenan sitting outside his shop, his feet up on one of the wooden pillars and a mug of cider in his hand.
‘Good morning,’ Venart said briskly. ‘I expect you remember me. I’d like to buy some rope.’
Ortenan looked at him. ‘You’ll be lucky,’ he said.
‘Excuse me?’
‘I said, you’ll be lucky,’ Ortenan repeated, scratching his ear. ‘No rope today, sorry.’
Venart frowned. He knew most of the standard bargaining gambits, but this one was new to him. ‘How do you mean, no rope?’ he asked. ‘You had tons of the stuff in there yesterday.’
‘I did,’ Ortenan said. ‘Yesterday. Then, round about an hour before closing up, a bunch of government men came by and took the lot. Every last bloody inch.’ He scowled at the thought. ‘Gave me a bit of paper saying I’d be paid according to the official tariff in due course. In other words, I’ve been requisitioned. Marvellous, isn’t it?’
‘But…’ Venart let his hands fall to his sides. ‘What about everybody else?’ he said. ‘Surely there must be somebody…’
Ortenan shook his head. ‘Went through this district like a cloud of locusts,’ he said darkly. ‘Cleaned the lot of us out. Said it was for catapult ropes,’ he added, as if that was the most idiotic notion he’d ever heard. ‘So I’m afraid you’re out of luck, mate. Should’ve done a deal yesterday, like I told you. Then you’d have your rope and I’d have my money.’
Venart thought for a moment. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you make some more rope, instead of just sitting there? Did they take all the raw materials as well?’
‘No,’ Ortenan replied. ‘But why the hell should I bother? Anything I make’s got to be sold to the government, otherwise they’ll sling me in the coop and fine me to buggery, because of this so-called state of emergency.’ He curled his lips and spat. ‘Well, they know what they can do. When I see some money – real money, not this paper stuff – then I might just consider making some more stock. Till then, they can go play with themselves. My materials won’t go off for sitting in the bins for a week.’
A brief tour of the district confirmed what Ortenan had said. There was nothing to be had, except a few hundred yards of soggy and mildewed mess which the government buyers had rejected, and Venart decided he didn’t really want that. Dejected, he went back to the inn.
‘That’s a nuisance,’ Vetriz said when he told her. ‘And after you spent all that time and energy researching the subject. Whereas if you’d just blundered into it and bought the first stuff that came your way, you’d now have the next best thing to a world monopoly of the rope trade and be able to name your own price.’
Venart scowled at her, which made her giggle. ‘I’m glad you think it’s so amusing,’ he snapped. ‘I hope you’ll still be laughing your silly head off when we sail home with an empty hold.’
‘But we won’t do that, will we?’ Vetriz replied. ‘Because all we’ve got to do is buy something else. Or hadn’t that occurred to you?’
Venart sat down and took off his left boot; he’d got something sharp in it on the way back from the ropewalks. ‘Oh, yes, and what exactly did you have in mind? Or have you been secretly studying the markets while I’ve been out frivolously working my fingers to the bone to keep you in-’
‘There’s plenty of things we can buy,’ Vetriz said, with a truly aggravating air of patience. ‘So long as we get the right price.’
‘Right, then. Suggest something.’
Vetriz nodded. ‘Carpet,’ she said promptly.
‘Carpet?’
‘Carpet.’ She studied her fingernails for a moment, then continued, ‘Where does all the carpet on the Island come from?’
Venart thought about it. ‘Blemmyra,’ he said. ‘Direct,’ he added.
‘Very good. But what you haven’t noticed, because you’ve been too busy mugging up on twelve-ply pure flax this-that-and-the-other is that the Blemmyra carpet they’re selling here is better than the stuff we get at home and about a third of the price.’
‘Oh.’ Venart scratched his head. ‘You sure?’ he added.
‘Sure I’m sure. I was looking for some yesterday to replace that mouldy bit of rag I’ve got on the wall of my bedroom. I happened to notice the price and mentioned it to Athli and she explained it to me. You see, the Blemmyrans buy all their wine in the Mesoge, but they ship it in their own barrels to save money, and barrel staves are so much cheaper than at home because the Hesichians bring them in as ballast on their big bulk freighters. So the barrel staves cost the Perimadeians next to nothing, which means they can sell the carpets they get in exchange from the Blemmyrans much cheaper than we can; and they’re much more fussy than we are, so they insist on the good stuff, and we get all the carpet the Perimadeians don’t want.’ She yawned. ‘It’s called international commerce,’ she added insufferably. ‘You should find out about it when you’ve finished studying rope.’
‘Carpet,’ Venart said. ‘Fine. And have you thought about how much carpet we can actually get rid of in our quaint little backwater home? It’s not exactly a high-volume seller, is it?’
‘It could be,’ Vetriz replied, ‘if it was nice stuff and the price was right. I don’t blame us for not wanting to be robbed blind for second-rate rubbish. Proper carpet, on the other hand-’
Venart shook his head. ‘I’m not gambling our working capital on some theory you and your new chum cooked up while you were out shopping,’ he growled. ‘What I am going to do is go and see this man Loredan, if I can.’
‘Loredan?’ Vetriz looked up sharply. ‘Why?’
‘He’s the only person we know in the government,’ he replied. ‘Think about it, will you? They’re buying up all the rope in the city; but a lot of that rope’s no good for catapults, so presumably they’ll sell off the stuff they can’t use on the surplus market. Unless,’ he went on with a smug grin, ‘someone makes them an offer for it first. Cheap government surplus rope, best quality, one careful owner? The secret of international commerce is being able to see the opportunity that lurks inside every disaster. Plus,’ he added, ‘knowing something about the commodities you deal in. In my case, rope. See you later, don’t wander off.’
It had seemed a conclusive argument when he’d been explaining it to Vetriz. It was still a good argument by the time he reached the council buildings. After he’d spent an hour waiting outside a clerk’s office only to be given a chit that would allow him to see another clerk at the opposite end of the building, it was nothing more than a hare-brained scheme, and he’d reached the point where he would gladly have traded all his notional future earnings from the rope business in exchange for a floor plan of the building with the exits clearly marked when he nearly walked into someone he thought he recognised.
‘Sorry,’ the man said. ‘Wasn’t looking where I was going.’
‘You’re Bardas Loredan,’ Venart replied. ‘I was just coming to see you.’
‘Well, here I am,’ Loredan replied. ‘I think I know you from somewhere, but I can’t say exactly-�
�
‘We met in a tavern,’ Venart said. ‘I was with my sister. You’d just fought a case against a man called Alvise.’
Loredan smiled. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘I had an idea it was something to do with a tavern, but most people I meet in taverns I deliberately try and forget. What can I do for you?’
Suddenly, Venart’s tigerish trading urge wilted. What he was going to suggest was probably illegal; certainly bad form and morally repugnant. Terribly short-sighted, too; here he had a contact at the highest level of the city government, and he was proposing to alienate him on the offchance of making a quick quarter on a load of rope. It was too late to back out now, however. He took a deep breath and started into his sales pitch, doing his best to lard it solid with if you think it’d be all rights and so long as it’d be in orders. Eventually he ground to a halt and stood nervously on one leg, waiting for Loredan to summon the guard.
‘Well,’ Loredan said after a moment, ‘it’d certainly help me out of an awkward position. The clowns in the Quartermaster’s Office were only supposed to take an inventory, not bring the stuff back with them by the cartload; so we were facing the prospect of either giving back the stuff we can’t use, which wouldn’t be easy since they didn’t bother to mark on the barrels where each lot came from, or else pay up on the assignats when the ropemakers present them for payment. Either way it’s a bit of a shambles, so selling the stuff on seems a fairly good idea.’ He paused. ‘Did you say you wanted the lot or only part of it? To be frank with you, I’d be rather more inclined to agree if I could get rid of all the unwanted stuff in one go.’
Venart licked his lips, which had become rather dry. ‘Certainly I’d be interested in taking the lot,’ he said, ignoring the frantic protests from the back of his mind. ‘It would of course depend on the, er, price.’
Loredan nodded. ‘That’d have to be strictly by valuation,’ he said. ‘Quartermaster’s valuer puts a price on what we’re going to have to pay. You give us that and we can balance our books and forget it ever happened. I understand that standard practice for government purchasing is to split the difference between cost price and what the seller would have got for the stuff selling to the trade. I hope that’s all right, because I daren’t go any lower.’