by K. J. Parker
Loredan considered the implications of that. Yes, but I retired. Or I tried to. I made an effort to get out of that line of business, and here I am with the lives of all the city and all the clans in the palm of my hand. Gods, if I still had a sense of humour I’d find that amusing.
He heard someone behind him; big, clumping boots. He recognised the sound.
‘Nearly done,’ said the engineer, Garantzes, puffing from the climb up the stairs from ground level. Too much cider and sitting at a drawing board. Loredan reflected smugly that he’d run up the steps two at a time and not even broken into a sweat.
‘Good,’ he replied. ‘I don’t think it’s a moment too soon, either.’ He pointed to the horizon, where a light was flashing. ‘How long before all the new engines are in place?’
Garantzes shrugged. ‘The day after tomorrow, at the latest. They’re all put together and ready to go – we’re turning them out at a rate of two a day in the arsenal; the big problem’s going to be finding enough wall to fit them all onto. The other problem is that we’ve only got two cranes big enough to lift them into position.’ He grinned sheepishly. ‘Forgot about that, in all the excitement. We’re building another two cranes, they’ll be ready tomorrow, with any luck.’
Loredan nodded. ‘The day after tomorrow will do fine,’ he replied. ‘The same goes for the fences.’
The fences had been his idea; or, rather, something he’d read about in a book, many years ago. According to the book, just before a sea battle a century and a half ago, the pirates of the Island had prevented the Perimadeian marines from boarding their ships by rigging up an arrangement of posts, projecting some way from the sides of each vessel, along which heavy-duty cables were strung like the bars of a post-and-rail fence. The result was that the marines’ boarding ladders had come to rest on the cables, not the sides of the ships, and all attempts at boarding had failed. Loredan figured the same technique might serve to protect the walls against scaling ladders. There was now a line of six-inch-diameter posts, each post seven feet long, projecting out of the wall all along the vulnerable zone where ladders might be set up. Over the next few days an iron chain would be strung along the line, and the workmen from the Office of Works were arguing fiercely among themselves as to who should, and shouldn’t, have the dubious privilege of shinning along a seven-foot pole like a monkey to hang upside down over a sheer drop into the river to attach the chain to the staples.
‘We’ll do our best,’ Garantzes sighed. ‘Oh, and while I think of it, I’ve got a message for you from Filepas Nilot, from the Quartermaster’s Office.’ He frowned. ‘I don’t know if I’ve got this right, but what I think he said was, he’s managed to get hold of the two million bees you wanted and he’s seeing the joiners about making the chutes tomorrow.’
Loredan smiled. ‘Splendid,’ he said. ‘Well, then, I think we’re more or less there. Now all we need is an enemy.’ He turned back towards the point where the light had been. ‘And I might just know where I can lay my hands on one of those.’
After the Chief Engineer had gone away, Loredan made a circuit of the top of the tower, trying one more time to see the city as his enemy would see it. It was an exercise he’d put himself through every day since this wretched business had begun; a productive one, but he still couldn’t help feeling he must have missed something. As far as he could see, there wasn’t a weak spot; all he’d done was strengthen the existing strengths. And yet there must be something he’d missed but the other man hadn’t, or else why was the other man coming at him with such exuberant confidence? Deep down he wanted the attack to begin, to have the enemy under his eye (because the enemy you can see is the least of your problems); but until that happened he knew he had to keep nagging away, searching and speculating until he saw that one missing factor that would make him curse himself and say, Of course! How could I have been so stupid! He wanted so much to say that before the enemy were under his walls…
But he couldn’t see it. What he could see, from the highest point of the defences, was the sweep of the land walls, forming the two arms of a V whose point was the gatehouse tower he was standing on, and which faced the mouth of the river, the point at which it forked to flow round the island on which the city stood. Directly below the tower was the drawbridge of the Drovers’ Bridge, which spanned the eastern branch of the river a hundred yards or so from the point of divergence, where the river was narrowest and deepest. The causeway on the other side extended into the water to within fifteen yards of the tower (the length of the drawbridge itself), but long before the enemy were in position that causeway would be a tangle of broken planks; the big trebuchet whose frame he was leaning on was sighted in on it, and it was reckoned to be the most accurate engine on the wall. Given the strength of the gatehouse tower and the depth of the river at that point, he could rule that out as a likely pressure point.
On either side of the river-fork, the river gradually widened; a hundred yards at the fork, a hundred and thirty at the apexes of the two bastions, over two hundred where the two branches met the sea. The bastions were so placed that their three-hundred-yard arc of fire covered the whole of the area where the river was less than a hundred and seventy yards wide, and before any attack began he planned to cram as many engines as he could, long-range trebuchets if he could get them, onto the bastion ramparts. Thanks to his one major innovation, the secret that he hadn’t shared with the council or even most of the engineers (and the engineers were people he trusted), he felt he had control of that three-hundred-yard semicircle on either side, and that was the only logical place from which to launch an attack. As for the rest of the wall, he had towers every hundred and fifty yards, each one soon to have two torsion engines and a trebuchet backed by a fifty-man garrison plus engineers; and below the towers, a minor engine every twenty-five yards, on a tilting carriage that would enable it to throw its stone as much as two hundred yards or as little as fifty. He could see no weak point along the whole length of the land wall; either the river was too wide, or else he could lay down a barrage for at least fifty yards inland that nothing could survive.
He’d even considered the ludicrous options. Suppose the enemy were capable of digging a tunnel right under the bed of the river, to come up beneath a tower and undermine the wall; it was impossible, but he’d provided for it nonetheless. Suppose they could bring enough long-range firepower to bear on the walls that they knocked out all his engines in one sector; with the arsenal turning out engines at the rate of two a day and long cranes almost as fast, he could replace a smashed engine within the hour, just about giving the engineers time to shore up the wall using the convenient stockpiles of materials assembled at the foot of each tower. If they managed to lob in fireballs, he’d have his firefighters standing by. He’d even entertained the notion of enemy soldiers catapulted alive out of trebuchets and floating down into the city with artificial wings strapped to their arms, and made plans accordingly. Now that would be a sight to see…
Or suppose they simply intended to wear him down; massed engines battering the walls day and night, until there was no firm place left to shore onto, nothing left to shore with; well, they could try it, but they’d be disappointed. Before the dust had settled, his masons would have thrown up dry-stone pocket walls on the inside of the breach, backed by scaffoldings on which engines could be deployed; and as for materials, the whole world lay on the other side of the sea, waiting to rush in timber and mortar and ready-dressed ashlar blocks in return for universally respected Perimadeian ready cash.
A child of ten could direct this defence; and women and children could hold these walls for ever, provided there were enough of them to work the windlasses. The whole thing’s so tight, not even smoke could get through.
Which is probably why I’m so worried; there’s nothing obvious to worry about. Something obvious would be the least of my problems.
Yes. Well. Very good.
So why is the bastard still coming?
Ironically, it was wh
ile Loredan was making his inspection that a man presented himself to the sentries at Temrai’s camp, bringing with him the final confirmation Temrai needed; not that he’d been worried, but it was nice to be absolutely sure.
It’ll be there, the man assured him. On time. As specified. Just the way we discussed it, that day we first met in the city.
Never doubted it for a minute, Temrai replied truthfully. And you can leave the rest to us.
The man looked doubtful. Temrai didn’t bother explaining. He didn’t much like these people, for all that the whole venture depended on them. But he trusted them. Doubt the gods, or the love of wife, mother and daughter, or the loyalty of friends; but always trust the profit motive. A lever based on that one firm place was about to move the world.
‘Admit it,’ Gannadius said, his voice only just audible over the hum of conversation in the main room of the tavern, ‘you’re regressing. This is the sort of prank I’d expect from a second-year student rather than the Patriarch of the Order.’
The Patriarch of the Order who’s also seriously ill and horrendously overworked, he could have added but didn’t. No need to say what they both knew.
‘That’s why,’ Alexius replied, addressing the unspoken part of the rebuke, ‘I needed a change. This is a change.’ He grinned under the floppy overhang of his broad-brimmed hat. ‘I’m enjoying myself. It’s a distraction.’
‘I thought you always said you were too easily distracted,’ Gannadius replied, sipping the rough, unpalatable wine. ‘Why go to all this trouble to invite it?’
Alexius shrugged. ‘Indulge me,’ he said. ‘I haven’t been in a place like this for over twenty years. Besides,’ he added, in what he hoped was a rather more grown-up voice, ‘it enables me to monitor at first hand the mood of the city.’
Gannadius didn’t dignify that obvious piece of nonsense with a reply. ‘If anybody recognises you-’
‘They’ll point and say, “There’s a tramp in that corner who looks just like the Patriarch.” And their friend’ll say, “Don’t be ridiculous, the Patriarch’s ears don’t stick out like that.” People only see what they can cope with.’ He finished off his wine and put down the cup. ‘One more,’ he said, ‘and that’ll have to do. The days when I could put down five of these and still recite the thirty-two cardinal suppositions are long gone, I fear.’
‘Stay there,’ Gannadius sighed, getting up from the table. ‘If anybody tries to talk to you, pretend you’re a leper.’
Perhaps Gannadius is right, Alexius said to himself; perhaps this is second-childishness brought on by stress and an excess of responsibility. For the Patriarch suddenly to yield to an urge to dress up in scruffy clothes and go drinking in the lower city, even in a reasonably salubrious tavern such as this, is more or less unthinkable. I should be in my cell, lying on my back calculating extrapolations of pure theory and staring at those confounded mosaics. But this is a much better place to come and clear my head.
It needed clearing. The wine or the noise or something of the sort was making the sides of his head throb; but he had grown used to headaches recently, since he’d been hustled onto the Security Council and made to spend his days keeping the Prefect and the Deputy Lord Lieutenant from each other’s throats. Correction; keeping the Prefect occupied while the Deputy Lord Lieutenant did his job. That was, he knew, the best thing he could do for his city, and he’d worked more diligently at it than anything he’d done before in his life. Thank goodness he had Gannadius to run the Order for him in the meantime. Or thank enlightened self-interest. Now he’d been officially declared Vice-Patriarch, his succession was assured. Somehow, though, he doubted whether Gannadius cared too much about that. It was a curious thing, but he genuinely believed that Gannadius, whose company he’d actively avoided not all that long ago, was now the nearest thing he’d had to a friend since he’d been appointed Patriarch.
Another correction; Bardas Loredan, the man he’d cursed, was a friend too, someone he could talk to freely, admit his fears and aggravations to. Remarkable, that so near the end of his life he should suddenly and quite unexpectedly discover friendship. It was like being able to see for the first time at an age when everyone else is starting to go blind.
‘Here you are, and I hope it chokes you,’ Gannadius muttered, plonking down a cup and sliding awkwardly back onto the bench. ‘I might point out that if you wanted to drink excessive quantities of cheap wine, we could have gone to the Academy buttery and done so for free.’
‘Yes, and where’d be the fun in that?’ Alexius objected mildly. ‘And, as I told you just now, we’re here on business. Note the apparent air of normality, the lack of brittleness and panic. Clearly the morale of the city remains encouragingly high.’
Gannadius sniffed. ‘The fools haven’t yet realised what a desperate mess we’re in. Or they’ve forgotten, or assumed it’s gone away. It’s not that long since they were rioting in the streets.’
‘We had a riot when I was in my third year,’ Alexius said dreamily. ‘A group of freshmen had stolen a pig from the cattlemarket, painted it blue with raddle from the auctioneers’ yard and dressed it up in the robes of the Commissioner of Fair Trading. Then they chased the poor creature down the city promenade until they came up against a detachment of the watch. That should have been the end of the matter, only we – I mean, a contingent of reprobate students who’d been drinking heavily to celebrate the end of their third-year examinations – happened to pass by, saw their comrades in the hands of a hostile agency and immediately hurried to the rescue. Nobody was seriously hurt,’ he added defensively, ‘and the Order paid for the damages. And it taught the watch a lesson in the tactful exercise of their powers when dealing with over-privileged young drunks.’
‘I see,’ Gannadius said drily. ‘And what’d you do if a gang of our first years did the same thing? Declare a day’s holiday and treat them to a dinner in Hall?’
‘Certainly not,’ Alexius replied. ‘I’d throw them out of the Order and hand them over to the civil authorities. We can’t be doing with that sort of thoughtless behaviour.’
‘I’m delighted to hear it.’ Gannadius took a sip of wine and made a face. ‘You can have mine, too, if you like. I’ve got a bad enough head already without drinking myself another one.’
Alexius looked at him. ‘You too?’
‘Why? Have you…?’
‘Ever since we came in here. I put it down to rough wine and the ambience, but if you’ve got one as well-’
‘Our Island friends? Oh, not again, please. Haven’t we got enough to contend with already?’
‘Apparently not.’
Surreptitiously, Gannadius peered round the room. ‘I can’t see them,’ he said. ‘It must be the wine. Headaches can occur from natural causes, you know,’ he added, ‘and I’m flattering this sheep-dip by calling it natural. I think honest grapes and yeast had very little to do with its manufacture.’
He saw Alexius relax. ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ he said. ‘Bad wine, too much of it and an over-active imagination. Perhaps we should go home now.’
They got up, as unobtrusively as they could; in their anxiety to be thoroughly disguised, they’d turned themselves into the class of person not usually welcome in this class of establishment. Getting slung out into the street was scarcely the best way of staying inconspicuous.
It would probably have been all right if Alexius hadn’t tripped over a small leather bag that someone had left lying between two tables, sending him lurching into the back of a customer just returning with a full jug of hot mulled cider. As the contents of the jug slopped down his leg, the customer yowled with pain and swirled round.
‘You idiot,’ he snapped. ‘Look what you’ve done.’
Alexius stammered an apology, but not quite loud enough to be audible. The customer attached a broad hand to his collar. ‘You realise these breeches are ruined,’ he went on. ‘And someone’s going to pay for them.’
‘Of course,’ Gannadius said, in his m
ost conciliatory tone, battle-tested in a hundred faculty meetings. Unfortunately, he’d forgotten that his best diplomatic voice didn’t quite accord with his disguise. The customer could hardly fail to notice the discrepancy, which Gannadius made worse by oozing more soothing assurances and reaching for the purse in his sleeve. Before his hand was halfway there, the customer had grabbed it and twisted it painfully aside.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he demanded. Heads began to turn.
‘Does it matter?’
Alexius looked round to see who’d said that, and saw a burly figure directly behind the customer; big, tall and bald, with a foreign but familiar accent. Very familiar, somehow.
‘The gentleman’s said he’ll pay,’ the stranger continued. ‘Now mind your manners.’
The customer released Gannadius’ arm and pressed the side of his own head, as if in pain. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘there’s no need for anybody else to stick their nose in. So long as I get my money-’
Gannadius produced a sum that would have clothed the man in ermine from head to foot, grabbed Alexius by the elbow and hustled him out into the cool night air. ‘Damn it, Alexius, I knew this nonsense would land us in serious trouble. We could so easily have been recognised-’
‘We were,’ Alexius replied wearily. ‘Oh, don’t worry, we won’t be the laughing stock of the city by this time tomorrow, if that’s what you’re thinking. But we were definitely recognised, be sure of that.’ He realised he was standing in a puddle of something that wasn’t just water, and stepped out of it. ‘Come on, let’s go home before we find something even more stupid to do.’
He set off down the street, his pace quicker and steadier than Gannadius would have thought possible, as if he were too preoccupied to remember his own infirmity. Gannadius scuttled after him.
‘It’s all very well saying we were recognised,’ he hissed, ‘but you can’t just leave it at that. Who the hell by?’