Colours in the Steel f-1

by K. J. Parker

  He landed painfully, jarring his shoulder and snapping his two remaining arrows. If he’d had time he’d have been in pain; as it was, he only managed to hop on to the tailgate and drop down out of sight because his attacker reined up and brought the wagon to a stop.

  This is all Bardas’ fault, he couldn’t help thinking; I try to look after him, and this is what happens. But he knew the accusation was unjust. Properly speaking, it was all of his own making, and one thing he’d always taken pride in was accepting the responsibility for his actions.

  Even so; all this scrapping with strangers and running about… And me a respected member of the international banking community.

  The cart-thief, whoever he was, had jumped down and gone back to the alleyway he’d first appeared from. Gorgas grinned; a fine athlete, his assailant, but an idiot. He crept forward, sat himself down on the bench and took up the reins.

  Just a minute-

  There had been something familiar about the way the man had got down off the wagon. It had reminded him of another wagon, a creaky old haywain with a warped front axle; Clefas, Zonaras, Sis and himself underneath pitching up the stooks, Father and Bardas up on the wagon catching them and packing them down, cramming in more than the wain was ever built to carry to save having to make another trip-

  ‘Bardas?’ he called out. ‘Is that you?’

  The man had been on the point of hurling himself at the wagon, all set for an energetic free-for-all on the moving box. He stopped as if he’d run into a wall.

  ‘Gorgas?’

  He grinned, so widely that the glow of the fire on the opposite side of the street shone on his bared teeth. ‘Now that’s lucky,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

  ‘Gorgas? ’

  ‘Well, don’t just stand there, get on the damn wagon.’

  Bardas Loredan seemed to collapse, like a punctured grain sack as its contents flow out onto the ground. Everything else he’d managed to cope with, even the bizarre shock of tripping over his ex-pupil sworn-enemy in a pitch-dark alley. But this wasn’t something he could take in his stride; not on top of everything else. The headache was a fairly obvious clue, of course; similarly the suspicious ease with which he’d managed to get this far.

  He was beginning to wish he hadn’t. Likewise, the fish who suddenly comes across a fat lugworm floating motionless in the water changes its mind about the quality of its luck once it feels the hook draw through its lip.

  ‘Bardas,’ said the man on the wagon, ‘we haven’t got time. Get your bum on this seat and let’s be going, while there’s still a chance of getting through.’

  Bardas had almost made up his mind as to the right thing to do when he suddenly remembered the girl, lying bleeding in the alleyway behind him. He closed his eyes and mouthed a curse. Gorgas’ letter had mentioned a ship; the ship could carry the girl out, if she lived and Gorgas really could get through and he did have a ship waiting, and about a dozen other provisos. Once again, he had no choice in the matter. Once, just once, it’d be nice to be able to decide for himself. One day, maybe.

  ‘You’ve really got a ship waiting?’ he said. ‘No lies?’

  ‘If it’s still there, which is getting less certain by the minute.’

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘There’s a badly wounded girl in the alley back there. You help me get her up on the wagon, and you see to it that she gets away. Understood?’

  ‘Do we have to? No offence, Bardas, but is this really the time or the place?’

  Anything, anything to be able to make him pay, for the sheer satisfaction of ramming my fist into his face and hearing something crack. But I can’t. ‘Shut up,’ he said. ‘Over here.’

  Fortunately it was too dark in the shadow of the tall buildings behind him to see Gorgas’ face clearly. He was sure he couldn’t have taken that. As it was, there was an indistinct male shape who took the girl’s feet while he scooped her up under the shoulders. They staggered as far as the tailgate and slid her onto the bed of the wagon. Then her face came under the light of the lantern, and Gorgas said, ‘Gods, Bardas, this is unreal.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was looking for her, too.’ He lifted his head, and the light revealed him. ‘Of course, you don’t know who she is, do you? Bardas, this is your niece.’

  No. What did he say? Isn’t it ever going to stop?

  ‘I’m not kidding, you know,’ Gorgas said. ‘This is your niece, Iseutz. Niessa’s daughter.’

  Bardas started to back away, trod in a pothole, staggered and fell over, landing on his backside and jarring his spine. ‘Sorry to have to break it to you like this,’ Gorgas was saying. ‘Obviously, what with one thing and another, it must be a bit of a shock. But we haven’t got time, Bardas. If you want to have a fit, do it when we’re on the goddamn ship.’

  Bardas Loredan shook his head, about the only part of him he could still move. ‘I’m not coming on any ship with you, Gorgas. I’m going to stay here and get killed, just to spite you. Now get out of my sight, you and your…’

  ‘Niece,’ Gorgas said. ‘And you’re getting on this wagon, if I have to pick you up and carry you.’

  Bardas smiled; at least, he opened his lips and showed his teeth. ‘You’ve got to catch me first,’ he said; then he turned and started to run.

  He’d gone about fifteen yards when the stone hit him.

  From the second-city gatehouse, the Lord Lieutenant had a splendid view of the fire; probably the best in the city. It was the sort of spectacle that had to be admired, regardless of the circumstances. The sheer impersonal beauty of the flickering red light was breathtaking. One thing was certain: there wasn’t another man alive who’d ever seen the like.

  Fire in the lower city was a nightmare that haunted everybody who held office in Perimadeia. Quite simply, there was nothing anybody could do about it. The place was and always had been a hell of a good bonfire poised and ready to happen. Once a fire managed to get established, it moved faster than a man could run, jumping from roof to roof across the thatched eaves that overhung the narrow streets, surging and swelling as it lit upon oil stores, pitch refineries, distilleries, sulphur bins, grain bins, cloth warehouses, timberyards; it was as if the people of the city had deliberately gone out of their way to provide a relay of inflammable materials, like a string of signal beacons spanning a country.

  The critical point was past now; nothing to do but let it burn itself out. Tradition had it that the risk of fire in the lower city was the reason the second city had been founded; a high wall to keep the flames away from the important buildings, the houses of substantial citizens, the libraries of the Order, the offices where vital records were kept. The wall would do its job again, even with the fire-oil lashing up an inferno beyond all precedent. Whether that made him feel better or worse, the Lord Lieutenant wasn’t sure. It meant that in spite of the fire they’d started, the enemy would inherit the second city – and the upper city too, of course, with all its empty wealth of decoration and embellishment – completely intact. The best part of Perimadeia, its beauty and opulence, would survive. Its people wouldn’t.

  Two hours ago, the enemy had forced the second-city gate. They’d improvised a highly efficient battering ram out of the driveshaft of the glorious new publicly funded municipal water mill. Three years of diligent searching it had taken to find a single tree trunk long and thick enough to make the driveshaft; then they’d had to pay an exorbitant price for it to the loathsome merchant cartel of Scona, and then a special ship had had to be built up to transport it, the Grand Avenue had been widened (at ruinous expense) to bring it up; special wagons, special cranes – the trouble and expense had been enough to chill the blood. In fact, the administrative part of the Lord Lieutenant’s mind had marvelled at the ease and efficiency with which the enemy had torn the thing out and dragged it, by unassisted manpower, up the hill and against the gate, which had given way like a paper window.

  A shout from below told him that the enemy were attacking aga
in. The first attack had pushed them back onto a stretch of wall four towers in each direction on either side of the gate. The second attempt had failed; what remained of the city forces had thrown them back with substantial losses, had even recaptured a further five towers. The third – well, they’d lost fewer than a hundred men at a cost to the enemy of at least a thousand; but here they were, cooped up in the gatehouse and fifty yards of wall on either side, all of the city that remained under the control of the Perimadeian government. It was a realm you could cross in fifteen paces, and the Lord Lieutenant was in sole charge of it. For now, anyway.

  On the wall to both the right and the left, the enemy line shuffled forward. The Lord Lieutenant noticed something different, and realised that they’d somehow managed to dig out the old archers’ shields, big wickerwork screens behind which two bowmen could shelter, which had been mothballed at least twenty years ago. They seemed to work just fine; the few arrows left to the city archers were chunking into the wicker as if they were targets in the butts, and the line was advancing steadily. And below-

  Below, they appeared to be setting up a couple of torsion engines – ah, yes, the two additional mangonels he’d ordered to fill gaps on the wall, which they’d been due to crane into position tomorrow afternoon. Now the enemy had them, and they appeared to be loading them with medium-sized barrels

  … The Lord Lieutenant nodded as he resolved the problem. The barrels were obviously full of fire-oil. A bit risky (drop one short and you’d risk causing damage to the buildings immediately above the wall) but a quick and thoroughly economical way of solving the tactical problem.

  The Lord Lieutenant indulged himself with a last view of the city. From this high point he could see the docks – even at this distance he could clearly make out the crowds milling round the docks area, wedged solid in all the streets and roads that led to the harbour district. Everybody must have decided to head for the docks and take their chances; and now the fire was spreading that way, helped slightly by a gentle breeze. It was already licking around the edges of the crowd, and the mere thought of what it must be like down there, trapped between fire and water, crowding in tighter still as the flames advanced, was enough to reconcile him somewhat to the prospect of dying up here in relative peace and quiet.

  In the event, the first barrel was a failure. As it flew upward the fuse blew out, and the barrel smashed harmlessly against the top battlements. Well, relatively harmlessly. A fair number of people, including the Lord Lieutenant, were soaked in the fire-oil, which was going to make life interesting as soon as one firebomb did what it was supposed to do.

  The second barrel worked just fine, and the engineers watched with dumb fascination as the defenders, their hair and beards suddenly full of fire, streamed out of the choking smoke and melting heat inside the tower, straight into massed volleys of arrows from the archery contingents behind their shields on the wall.

  ‘All done,’ a captain reported, when it was over. ‘What now?’

  Uncle Anakai, who had never seen the like before in all his many years, had regret in his voice when he gave him Temrai’s order. ‘Burn the lot,’ he said, ‘everything that’ll take. But not till we’re through that gate up there – what’s it called? Upper city? Whatever. Shouldn’t take you long to get through there; apparently it isn’t even garrisoned. So, torch the upper city first, then this. And then,’ he added quietly, ‘get yourselves up on this wall before it catches up with you, unless you want to play candles too.’

  When he came round, Loredan was lying on his back on the bed of a moving wagon. For a moment he thought he was somewhere else entirely (maybe he’d been dreaming); then he remembered, all too clearly.

  He turned his head and saw the outline of Gorgas’ back, silhouetted against an alarmingly red sky. The thing he could feel lying under his left leg was the body of a girl, apparently his niece or what was left of her. He knew without having to check that she was still alive. That’s one of the infuriating things about natural-born pests, the really tiresome and pernicious variety. Knock them about, cut their fingers off, stick them with arrows, hurl them about like stooks of hay; no chance at all of killing them. They’re the ones that always survive, somehow or other. Probably, Loredan realised, why there’s so many of them and so few of us.

  Gorgas wasn’t looking at him; his eyes were on the road ahead, a burning house that was starting to slide into the street, a platoon of the clan being herded onto a similar wagon for transport out of danger now that the job was over and the mopping-up could be left to the fire. And that’s what Gorgas is going to do, damn his hatefully intelligent soul; he’s going to creep out of the city in a convoy of enemy wagons. Then all he’s got to do is slip away, find a boat or a small raft, and paddle out to meet this ship of his. The part that really burns me is, I’d never have had the wit to think of that.

  The hell with it. Taking care to keep his head down, Loredan edged his way backwards along the bed of the wagon until his feet were hanging over the edge of the open tailgate. Then he pushed away with the palms of his hands until he slid off and landed, face down, on the hard ground.

  You may be clever but you don’t catch me, he said to himself as he scraped himself up and somehow found the strength to scramble to his feet. As he ducked down behind the pillar of an archway, he caught sight of his brother’s head, outlined against a backdrop of fire, as if he was wearing the flames. If only that could be the last he ever saw of Gorgas Loredan, he’d be a happy man.

  And the rest of your life’s your own. The city was beyond saving, so his obligations in that direction had obviously lapsed. His chances of getting out alive were negligible, which released him from his obligations to his family. Athli was safe. Alexius – well, it would have been nice to have made an effort, but the old man was surely dead by now. He could choose what to do with his last half-hour or so with nobody to please but himself. If he wanted to, he could rush up to the first enemy unit he came across and die fighting. Or he could kick down a tavern door and get as drunk as time permitted. Or he could sit cross-legged in the street and meditate on the infinite. Wouldn’t matter a toss what he did.

  Or he could try and escape.

  Futile, of course. He had no chance, none whatsoever. On the other hand he was starting from a point of accepting his own death (and taking it pretty damn well, at that). The intellectual challenge would be stimulating, if nothing else. He decided to have a go.

  Putting aside what he thought of brother Gorgas as a man, his idea wasn’t a bad one. By now, the docks were out of the question; burning people jumping into the sea and drowning, not the sort of thing you want to have going on around you during your final moments. But if he could get back along the Drovers’ Bridge, possibly even find a horse, once he was safely over the river he could go anywhere, west, east or south by land, north if he could hitch a ride on a ship-

  (No money; damn. If I see any it’d be worth picking it up, for food and clothes and fares).

  – Anywhere but here, in fact. Maybe he wouldn’t exactly be popular, but nobody would bother to chase him, surely. And he’d still be free, able to do what the hell he liked. It was an intriguing prospect, almost worth staying alive for.

  Assuming, of course, that he could make it as far as the bridge and then across the river somehow. Instinct suggested that he should hurry, and he rationalised the urge by arguing that Temrai’s next logical move would be to pull out his remaining men, take up the drawbridge and let the people left inside the city fry. In which case, it’d make sense to get to the bridge before closing time.

  It’d be quicker by the backstreets, but that might prove to be a false economy. The fire would make the high-walled alleyways impassable, so he’d do best to stick to the wide streets. The best way, in fact, would be along the ropewalks, which were the nearest thing the city had to natural firebreaks. True, the warehouses on either side would be full of inflammable material, under ordinary circumstances. But ever since the now-discredited Colone
l Loredan had bought up all the rope, the stock level in the warehouses had been well below normal. Loredan thought for a moment of the merchant Venart and his rope; now there was a man who had no cares and no worries beyond the trivial aggravations of the commercial life. It would be nice to be someone like that.

  To reach the ropewalks from here without using the back lanes meant following this highway down as far as the potters’ district, doubling back up the hill along the bowyers’ avenue as far as the pipemakers’ quarter, then taking the downhill fork through the sack-weavers’ district. Nice wide roads all the way, but quite a lot of distance to cover. Running might be a good idea, except that a running man is never inconspicuous. He’d have to do it by walking fast.

  It was all clear until he reached the pipemakers’ arch. Then, as he came round a bend into the main square, he found he’d walked into some kind of last-minute battle; the pipemakers’ company defending their homes and families to the last, that sort of thing. But he didn’t have the time…

  Walked into it, quite literally; as he rounded the corner he collided with a man clutching a pike backing away from another man wielding a poleaxe, albeit with more enthusiasm than science. Loredan tried to get out from under the warriors’ feet; but the jolt had broken the pikeman’s concentration, giving the poleaxe man his chance. It wasn’t neglected. The pikeman had been city. Embarrassing.