Devices and Desires e-1

by K. J. Parker

  Ladence has been much better lately; whether it's anything to do with the new doctor I don't know, he's tried to explain what he's doing but none of it makes any sense to me. It starts off sounding perfectly reasonable-the human body is like a clock, or a newly sown field, or some such thing-but after a bit he says things that sound like they're perfectly logical and reasonable, but when you stop and think it's like a couple of steps have been missed out, so you can't see the connection between what he says the problem is, and what he's proposing to do about it. At any rate, it seems to be working, or else Ladence is getting better in spite of it. I don't care, so long as it carries on like this. I really don't think I could stand another winter like the last one.

  When you reply, be sure to tell me some more about the sparrowhawks; did the new one fit in like you hoped, or did the others gang up on her and peck her on the roosting-perch? They remind me of my eldest sister and her friends-Maiaut sends her best wishes, by the way; I suppose that means they want something else, from one of us, or both. I do hope it won't cause you any problems (I feel very guilty about it all). I suppose I'm lucky; there's not really very much I can do for them, so they don't usually ask anything of me. I know it must be different for you; are they an awful nuisance? Sometimes I wonder if all this is necessary. After all, you're Orsea's cousin, so you're family, why shouldn't we write to each other? But it's better not to risk it, just in case Orsea did get upset. I don't imagine for one moment that he would, but you never know.

  That's about all I can get on this silly bit of parchment. I have to beg bits of off cut from the clerks (I pretend I want them for household accounts, or patching windows). I wish I could write very small, like the men who draw maps and write in the place-names.

  Please tell me something interesting when you write. I love the way you explain things. It seems to me that you must see the whole world as a fascinating puzzle, you're dying to observe it and take it apart to see how it works; you always seem to know the details of everything. When we saw the pigeons I had this picture of you in my mind; you stood therefor hours watching them, trying to figure out if there was a pattern to the way they landed and walked about. You seem to have the knack of noticing things the rest of us miss (how do you ever find time to rule a country?). So please, think of something fascinating, and tell me what I should be looking out for. Must stop now-no more room.

  True enough; the last seven words tapered away into the edge of the parchment, using up all the remaining space; a top-flight calligrapher might just have been able to squeeze in two more letters, but no more.

  This isn't love, Valens told himself. He knew about love, having seen it at work among his friends and people around him. Love was altogether more predatory. It was concerned with pursuit, capture, enjoyment; it was caused by beauty, the way raw red skin is caused by the sun; it was an appetite, like hunger or thirst, a physical discomfort that tortured you until it was satisfied. That, he knew from her letters, was how she felt about Orsea-how they felt about each other-and so this couldn't be love, in which case it could only be friendship; shared interests, an instructive comparison of perspectives, a meeting of minds, a pooling of resources.

  (She'd said in a letter that he seemed to go through life like one of the agents sent by the trading.companies to observe foreign countries and report back, with details of manners and customs, geography and society, that might come in handy for future operations; who did he report to? she wondered. He'd been surprised at that. Surely she would have guessed.) Not love, obviously. Different. Better…

  He read the letter through three more times; on the second and third readings he made notes on a piece of paper. That in itself was more evidence, because who makes notes for a love letter? He'd seen plenty of them and they were all the same, all earth, air, fire and water; was it his imagination, or could nobody, no matter how clever, write a love letter without coming across as slightly ridiculous? No, you made notes for a meeting, a lecture, an essay, a sermon, a dissertation. That was more like it; he and she were the only two members of a learned society, a college of philosophers and scientists observing the world, publishing their results to each other, occasionally discussing a disputed conclusion in the interests of pure truth. He'd met people like that; they wrote letters to colleagues they'd never met, or once only for a few minutes at some function, and often their shared correspondence would last for years, a lifetime, until one day some acquaintance mentioned that so-and-so had died (in his sleep, advanced old age), thereby explaining a longer than usual interval between letter and reply. If it was love, he'd long ago have sent for his marshals and generals, invaded Eremia, stuck Orsea's head up on a pike and brought her back home as a great and marvellous prize; or he'd have climbed the castle wall in the middle of the night and stolen her away with rope, ladders and relays of horses ready and waiting at carefully planned stages; or, having considered the strategic position and reached the conclusion that the venture was impractical, he'd have given it up and fallen in love with someone else.

  He stood up, crossed the room, pulled a book off the shelf and opened it. The book was rather a shameful possession, because it was only a collection of drawings of various animals and birds, with a rather unreliable commentary under each one, and it had cost as much as eight good horses or a small farm. He'd had it made after he received the third letter; he'd sent his three best clerks over the mountain to the Cure Doce, whose holy men collected books of all kinds; they'd gone from monastery to monastery looking for the sort of thing he wanted; found this one and copied the whole thing in a week, working three shifts round the clock (and, because the Cure Doce didn't share their scriptures, they'd had to smuggle the copied pages out of the country packed in a crate between layers of dried apricots; the smell still lingered, and he was sick of it). He turned the pages slowly, searching for a half-remembered paragraph about the feeding patterns of geese. This wasn't, he told himself, something a lover would do.

  He found what he was after (geese turn their heads into the wind to feed; was that right? He didn't think so, and he'd be prepared to bet he'd seen more geese than whoever wrote the book), put the book away and made his note. He was thinking about his cousin, that clown Orsea. If he was in love, he'd know precisely what he ought to do right now. He'd sit down at the desk and write an order to the chiefs of staff. They'd be ready in six hours; by the time they reached the Butter Pass, they'd be in perfect position to bottle Orsea's convoy of stragglers up in Horn Canyon. Losses would be five per cent, seven at most; there would be no enemy survivors. He would then write an official complaint to the Mezentines, chiding them for pursuing the Eremians into his territory and massacring them there; the Mezentines would deny responsibility, nobody would believe them; she would never know, or even suspect (he'd have to sacrifice the chiefs of staff, some of the senior officers too, so that if word ever did leak out, it could be their crime, excessive zeal in the pursuit of duty). That was what a true lover would do. Instead, he took a fresh sheet of paper and wrote to the officer commanding the relief column he'd already sent, increasing his authority to indent for food, clothing, blankets, transport, personnel, medical supplies. His first priority, Valens wrote, was to put the Eremians in a position to get home without further loss of life. Also (added as an afterthought, under the seal) would he please convey to Duke Orsea Duke Valens' personal sympathy and good wishes at this most difficult time.

  How stupid could Orsea be, anyway? (He took down another book, Patellus' Concerning Animals; nothing in the index under geese, so he checked under waterfowl.) If his advisers came to him suggesting he launch a pre-emptive strike against Mezentia, the first thing he'd do would be put them under house arrest until he'd figured out how many of them were in on the conspiracy; if it turned out there wasn't one, he'd sack the whole lot of them for gross incompetence; he'd have them paraded through the streets of the capital sitting back-to-front on donkeys, with IDIOT branded on their foreheads. Needless to say, the contingency would never a
rise. He opened the door and called for a page to take the letter to the commander of the relief column.

  It was just as well he and the Eremian Duchess were just good friends, when you thought of all the damage a lover could do in the world.

  When at last the letter was finished (written, written out and fit to send; Valens had beautiful handwriting, learnt on his father's insistence at the rod's end), he sent for the president of the Merchant Adventurers, with instructions to show her into the smaller audience room and keep her waiting twenty minutes. The commission cost him two small but annoying concessions on revenue procedure; he'd been expecting worse, and perhaps gave in a little too easily. Just as she was about to leave, he stopped her.

  'Writing paper,' he said.

  She looked at him.' Yes?'

  'I want some.' He frowned. 'First-quality parchment; sheepskin, not goat. Say twenty sheets, about so big.' He indicated with his hands. 'Can you get some for me?'

  'Of course.' Behind her smile he could see a web of future transactions being frantically woven; a maze, with a ream of writing paper at the centre. 'When would you be-?'

  'Straight away,' Valens said. 'To go with the letter.'

  'Ah.' The web dissolved and a new one formed in its place. 'That oughtn't to be a problem. Yes, I think we can-'

  'How much?'

  'Let me see.' She could do long multiplication in her head without moving her lips. In spite of himself, Valens was impressed. 'Of course, if it's for immediate delivery…'

  'That's right. How much?'

  She quoted a figure which would have outfitted a squadron of cavalry, including horses and harness. She was good at her job and put it over well; unfortunately for her, Valens could do mental long multiplication too. They agreed on a third of the original quote-still way over the odds, but he wasn't just buying parchment. 'Would you like to see a sample first?' she asked.

  'Yes.'

  'I'll have it sent over in an hour.'

  'Bring it yourself,' Valens replied. He noticed she was wearing a new diamond on the third finger of her right hand; I paid for that, he thought resentfully. Of course it should have been a ruby, to match her dress, but diamonds were worth twice as much, scruple for scruple, and she had appearances to think of. Thank God for the silver mines, he thought.

  'Certainly,' she said. 'Now, while I'm here, there was just one other tiny thing.'

  They were a force of nature, these traders. Even his father had had to give them best, more than once. This time he put up a bit more of a fight (the hunter likes quarry with a bit of devil in it) and she met him halfway; most likely she was only trying it on for wickedness' sake, and never expected to get anything. Of course, he told himself, it's good business all round for them to have a way of manipulating me; otherwise they'd push me too far and I'd have to slap them down, and that'd be bad for the economy. He was delighted to see the blood-red back of her.

  Once she'd gone, however, the world changed. The brief flurry of activity, the tremendous draining effort of concentration, the feeling of being alive, all faded away so quickly that he wondered if it had been a dream. But he knew the feeling too well for that. It was the same at bow-and-stable, or the lowly off-season hunts, where you sit and wait, and nothing happens; where you perch in your high-seat or cower in your hide, waiting for the wild and elusive quarry that is under no obligation to come to you, until it's too dark or too wet, and you go home. While you wait there, impatient and resigned as a lover waiting for a letter, your mind detaches, you can for a little while be someone completely different, and believe that the stranger is really you. It's only when you see the flicker of movement or hear the muffled, inhuman cough that the real you comes skittering back, panicked and eager and suddenly wide awake, and at once the bow is back in your hands, the arrow is notched, cockfeather out, and the world is small and sharp once again.

  (Hunters will tell you that patience is their greatest virtue, but it's the other way about. If they were capable of true patience, they could never be hunters, because the desire for the capture wouldn't be enough to motivate them through the boredom, the suffering and the cramp. They would be content without the capture, and so would stay at home. The hunter's virtue lies in being able to endure the desperate, agonising impatience for the sake of the moment when it comes, if it comes, like an unreliable letter smuggled by a greedy trader in a crate of nectarines.)

  One of the doctors, his tour of duty completed, reported in on his return. The Eremians, he said, were a mess. It was a miracle they'd lost as few people as they had, what with exhaustion and exposure and neglect of the wounded, and starvation. For a while the second-in-command, Miel Ducas, had managed to hold things together by sheer tenacity, but he was shattered, on his knees with fatigue and worry, and with him out of action there wasn't anybody else fit to be trusted with a pony-chaise, let alone an army. Duke Orsea? The doctor smiled grimly. It had been a real stroke of luck for the Eremians, he said, Orsea getting carved up in the battle and put out of action during the crisis that followed. If he'd been in command on the way up the Butter Pass… The doctor remembered who he was talking to and apologised. No disrespect intended; but since Ducas' collapse, Duke Orsea had taken back command; one had to make allowances for a sick man, but even so.

  Now, though; now, the doctor was pleased to report, things were practically under control. The Eremians had been fed, they had tents and blankets and firewood. As for the wounded, they were safe in an improvised mobile hospital (twenty huge tents requisitioned from markets, the military, and travelling actors) and nine-tenths of them would probably make some sort of recovery. It was all, of course, thanks to Valens; if he hadn't intervened, if he'd been content to let the Eremians stumble by on their side of the border, it was more than likely that they'd all be dead by now. It had been, the doctor said in bewildered admiration, a magnificent humanitarian act.

  'Is that right?' Valens interrupted. 'They'd really have died? All of them?'

  The doctor shrugged. 'Maybe a few dozen might've made it home, no more than that,' he said. 'Duke Orsea would've been dead for sure. One of my colleagues got to him just in time, before blood-poisoning set in.' The doctor frowned. 'Excuse me for asking,' he went on, 'but they're saying that they didn't even ask us for help. You authorised the relief entirely off your own bat. Is that really true?'

  Valens nodded.

  'I see,' the doctor said. 'Because there's terms in the treaty that mean we've got to go to each other's assistance if formally asked to do so; I'd sort of assumed they'd sent an official request, and so we had no choice. I didn't realise…'

  Valens shrugged. 'To start with, all I was concerned about was the frontier. I thought that if they were in a bad way for food, they might start raiding our territory, which, would've meant war whether we wanted it or not. I didn't want to risk that, obviously'

  'Ah,' the doctor said. 'Because I was wondering. After all, it's not so long ago we were fighting them, and if they hadn't made a request and we'd just let well alone…' He sighed. 'My son fought in the war, you know. He was killed. But if it was to safeguard our border, of course, that's a different matter entirely.'

  Valens shook his head. 'Just, what's the phrase, enlightened self-interest. I haven't gone soft in my old age, or anything like that.'

  The doctor smiled weakly. 'That's all right, then,' he said.

  Other reports came in. The Eremians were on the move again; Valens' scouts had put them back on the right road, and they were well clear of the border. The mobile hospital had been disbanded, the serious cases taken down the mountain to a good Vadani hospital, the rest judged fit to rejoin the column and go home. Miel Ducas was back in charge; the Vadani doctors had warned Duke Orsea in the strongest possible terms of the ghastly consequences that would follow if he stirred from his litter at all before they reached the capital-not strictly true, but essential to keep him out of mischief. Details of what had actually happened in the battle were proving hard to come by. Some of the Eremia
ns were tight-lipped in the company of their old enemy; the vast majority would've told the Vadani anything they wanted but simply didn't have any idea what had hit them out of a clear blue sky. They hadn't known about the scorpions, still didn't; but (said a few of them) that'll all change soon enough, now that we've got the defector.

  The what?

  Well, it was supposed to be a dark and deadly secret; still, obviously we're all friends together now, so it can't do any harm. The defector was a Mezentine-some said he was an important government official, others said he was just a blacksmith-and he was going to teach them all the Mezentines' diabolical tricks, especially the scorpions, because he used to be something to do with making them. He was either a prisoner taken during the battle or a refugee claiming political asylum, or both; the main thing was, he was why the whole expedition had been worthwhile after all; getting their hands on him was as good as if they'd won the battle, or at least that was what they were going to tell the people back home, to keep from getting lynched.

  Valens, meticulous with details and blessed with a good memory, turned up the relevant letter in the files and deduced that the defector was the Ziani Vaatzes whom he was required to send to Mezentia. The old resentment flared up again when he saw that fatal word; but he thought about it and saw the slight potential advantage. He wrote to the Mezentine authorities, telling them that the man they were looking for was now a guest of their new best enemy, should they wish to take the matter further; he wished to remain, and so forth.

  And then there were the hunt days; days when he drove the woods and coverts, reading the subtle verses written on the woodland floor by the feet of his quarry better than any paid huntsman, always diligent, always searching for the buck, the doe, the boar, the bear, the wolf that for an hour or two suddenly became the most important thing in the world. Once it was caught and killed it was meat for the larder or one less hazard to agriculture, no more or less-but there; the fact that he'd caught it proved that it couldn't have been the one he was really looking for. He'd been brought up on the folk tales; a prince out hunting comes across a milk-white doe with silver hoofs, and a gold collar around its neck, which leads him to the castle hidden in the depths of the greenwood, where the princess is held captive; or he flies his peregrine at a white dove that carries in its beak a golden flower, and follows it to the seashore, where the enchanted, crewless ship waits to carry him to the Beautiful Island. He'd been in no doubt at all when he was a boy; the white doe and the white dove were somewhere close at hand, in the long covert or the rough moor between the big wood and the hog's back, and it was just a matter of finding them. But his father had never found them and neither had he, yet. Each time the lymers put up a doe or the spaniels found in the reeds he raised his head to look, and many times he'd been quite certain he'd seen it, the flash of white, the glow of the gold. Sometimes he wondered if it was all a vast conspiracy of willing martyrs; each time he came close to the one true quarry, some humble volunteer would dart out across the ride to run interference, while the genuine article slipped away unobserved.