Devices and Desires e-1

by K. J. Parker

  His cousin had got married seven years ago, but the shop was exactly as he remembered it. The front part was given over to stationery, both export and domestic quality. There were ink-wells in gold, silver, silver plate, brass and pewter; writing-sets, plain, fancy and presentation grade, loose or boxed. There was paper in staggering quantities, all types and qualities, from pads of four-times scraped scraps sewn up with sacking twine, to virgin linen-pulp contract-and-conveyance paper, to the very best mutton and calf vellum. He counted thirty different inks before he lost interest and gave up; and if you didn't like any of them you could buy loose ingredients to make your own: oak-apple gall ready dried and powdered; finest quality soot, candle not chimney, and any number of specialist pigments for emphasising the operative words in legal documents or illuminating capitals. There were trays of twenty different cuts of pen nib (types one to six export only; seven to thirteen restricted to copyists only, on proof of good standing; the rest available to the public at large); goose-quills in grey, black, barred or white and dainty little bronze knives to cut them with; sand-shakers, seals, wax-holders, seal-edge-smoothers (to round off splodged edges), bookmarks, erasing pumice in three grades and four handy sizes, binding needles and the finest flax thread, roll-covers in solid brass or tinplate with brass escutcheons for engraving book titles on. A few surreptitious glances at the price-tickets showed that nearly all this stuff was not for domestic consumption, but then, very little of what the Guilds produced was.

  And in the back quarter of the shop there were books. Last time there had been five bookcases, but one of them had been taken out to make way for a display of chains and hasps for chained libraries. Three of the shelves were Guild publications, carefully divided up into numbered and coded categories. The fourth was marked Clearance, and half its shelves were empty.

  A quick look round just in case somebody he knew was watching him; then Psellus began to browse. The Mirror of Fair Ladies, newly and copiously illustrated; tempting, but how would he explain it away if someone caught him with it? A Dialogue of King Fashion and Queen Reason caught his attention, mostly because of the pictures of animals being slaughtered in various improbable ways, but the text was in a language he didn't understand. A Garland of Violets turned out to be an anthology of inspirational verse by or about great Guildsmen from history; so did A Calendar of Heroes and Line, Rule and Callipers, but without illuminations or pictures. He was tempted by Early Mannerist Lyric Poetry, a parallel text in Mezentine and Luzanesc, but a previous owner had paved the Mezentine side of each page with clouds of notes and extracts from the commentaries, presumably for some exam, so that it was barely legible. He was considering the practicalities of re-covering The Mirror of Fair Ladies in plain brown paper when he caught sight of a name, and held his breath.

  Elements of Chess, by Galazo Vaatzes.

  It was an ancient, tatty book, perhaps as much as thirty years old. The lettering on the spine wasn't Guild cursive or italic, and the binding was rough and uneven: pitched canvas stuck on to thin wood (packing-crate lath, maybe) with rabbitskin size, the sort they used in the plaster works. A home-made book, rather like one he'd seen recently. It fell open at the flyleaf: Elements of Chess: being a memorial of various innovations and strategies collected or invented by Me, Galazo Vaatzes; herein recorded for the benefit of my son Ziani, on the occasion of his fourth birthday. Followed by a date; he'd been out by a year. The book was thirty-one years old.

  Back in his office he laid the two books on his desk, side by side: two acts of love, one by a father to his son, the other (he assumed) by a husband to his wife. Between them they were trying to tell him something (the purpose of a book is to communicate) but he wasn't quite sure what it was.

  One of them, the abominator's awkward and laboured love poetry, had a nice, clean provenance, but how had the other one got here? Someone had brought it in, on its own or together with other books, and sold it. His first thought was the liquidator of confiscated assets; but there had been a specific order against confiscation in the Vaatzes case (why was that?), and all the chattels at the Vaatzes house had reverted to the wife as her unencumbered property. So; maybe Ziani Vaatzes had sold it himself at some point, when he needed money, as so many people did from time to time. Entirely plausible, but he doubted it (unless Ziani hadn't got on with his father, and therefore had no qualms about getting rid of the book). He could have given it to a friend as a present, and the friend disposed of it.

  He looked again. The younger Vaatzes was a better craftsman than his father, but at least the old man hadn't purported to write poetry. Just for curiosity's sake, he played out one or two of Galazo Vaatzes' gambits in his mind (memories of playing chess with his own father, who never managed to grasp the simple fact that children need to win occasionally) and found them unexpectedly ingenious. After the first four or so, they became too complicated for him to follow without a board and a set of pieces in front of him, but he was prepared to take their merits on trust. The seventh gambit was annotated, in handwriting he knew. At some point, Ziani had found a flaw in his father's strategy and made a note of it to remind himself.

  Do engineers usually make good chess-players? He thought about that. He could think of one or two-his father, his uncle-but he'd never been any great shakes at the game himself; the data was inconclusive. The effort involved in making the book; there was something in that, he felt sure. Was it a family tradition, the making of books out of scrounged and liberated materials? Interesting if it was (and had the person who sold this one also disposed of further generations of the tradition; only one shop in Mezentia, but perhaps all the rest had already been bought by the time he got there). He found himself back at that strange moment of disposal. Who had sold the book, and why?

  Wherever I go, he thought, he follows me; like a ghost haunting me, trying to tell me something. As to why he would choose me to confide in; mystifying, but perhaps simply because there's nobody else with the inclination-and, of course, the leisure-to listen. He closed his eyes, and found himself watching a chess game, father against son; father winning, unable to defy his principles and lose on purpose, angry that his son is such a weak opponent; he wants his son to beat him, but refuses to give anything away. The father is, of course, Matao Psellus, and the son is poor disappointing Lucao, who never really liked the game anyway (and so he applied himself to a different but similar game, whose gambits and ploys have brought him here).

  Matao Psellus never wrote a book for his son. It would never have occurred to him to do anything of the sort. Yet here were two books, two acts of stifled love, like water bursting through a cracked pipe and soaking away into the dirt. As he studied them, Psellus felt sure he could sense the presence of a third, whereby the chess-book had come into his hands, but he couldn't quite make it out-he could see the end result, but not the workings of the mechanism by which that result was achieved.

  Ariessa Vaatzes; she needed money, and she knows he's never coming back. Even so, he thought, even so. She might have sold his clothes, which were replaceable, or the furniture, or anything else. What would she have got for it? He'd paid two doubles and a turner, the price of three spring cabbages; suppose she'd got half of that, or a third. You can eat cabbages but not a book, said a small, starved voice in his mind. It had a point, he was prepared to concede, but he was sure there was more to it than that.

  It was all beside the point, since Vaatzes would be dead soon, along with all the Eremians and quite a few of those invisible soldiers he wasn't allowed to see. He put one book away, opened the other, put his feet up on the desk (holiday, remember) and tried to visualise a chessboard.

  'Lucao.' The voice came from above and behind. 'I'm glad to see we're not working you to death.'

  He sat up sharply, dragging his feet off the desk. The book shot on to the floor, and the spine burst. 'Zanipulo,' he said. 'There you are at last. I've been trying to talk to you for ages.'

  'Quite,' Staurachus replied. 'Well, here I am. Meeting
in ten minutes, in the cloister. Perhaps you didn't get the memo.'

  'Memo?' Psellus looked up at him stupidly, as though he'd never heard the expression before. 'No, I haven't seen any memos.' As he said it, he caught sight of a piece of paper on the desk that hadn't been there when he left to go shopping. It said MEMORANDUM at the top in big square letters. 'Sorry, I-'

  'Just as well I checked,' Staurachus said, and left.

  Psellus snatched at the paper; his sleeve fanned up a breeze that wafted it just beyond the reach of his fingers, off the desk on to the floor. He sighed, stooped and retrieved it.

  The war had woken up, apparently. No explanation, just as there'd been none when it was cancelled, or adjourned. He read the memo again, just in case he'd missed something. Ten minutes; he could just about reach the cloister if he ran.

  'Splendid,' said Jarnac Ducas. A big smile split his handsome, suntanned face, curling the ends of his moustache down over the corners of his mouth. He tapped the lower plate of a gorget with his knuckle; it sounded like someone knocking at a door.

  'There's still two sets of cuisses to do,' Ziani said, watching him, 'but they'll be ready in plenty of time. I'll bring them with me on the day, shall I?'

  Just the faintest of frowns, until Jarnac remembered that Ziani was invited to the hunt. 'Yes, why not? That'll be fine. Excellent work. You must let me know how much I owe you.'

  Behind him, Cantacusene was standing awkwardly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, as though being in the presence of a scion of the Ducas was more honour than he could endure. Extraordinary, the attitude of these people. What puzzled Ziani was the fact that he himself had never shown the slightest degree of deference or respect to any of them, not even Miel Ducas or the Duke, and nobody had seemed to notice. Because he was a foreigner, presumably.

  'I've been reading the books you lent me,' Ziani went on-another slight frown; Jarnac had forgotten he'd sent round copies of King Fashion and the Mirror. 'Fascinating stuff. I'm looking forward to it.'

  'Splendid.' Jarnac's smile widened. It was entirely possible that he genuinely enjoyed giving pleasure to others less fortunate than himself, provided it was one of his own pleasures, and he wouldn't have to go without in order to do so. 'So we may make a huntsman of you yet, then.' He looked away, back at the sets of newly buffed and polished armour laid out on the long table. He really did seem pleased (why am I surprised? Ziani thought).

  'I'll have it sent round this evening, if that's convenient,' he said. 'Obviously there may need to be a few adjustments for fit and so forth.'

  Jarnac nodded; probably he wasn't listening. It was difficult being in the presence of somebody this large. He wasn't just taller and broader than anyone Ziani had ever seen before; it was as though he used space in a different way, as though he was used to a much bigger world and hadn't quite adjusted to living among midgets. 'Excellent work,' he said, 'first rate. And I'll be seeing you on the day, of course. Can't promise anything-you never can, in hunting-but I've been setting aside the beeches up above the long lake, we haven't been in there with the lymers or the wolfhounds, and the farmers reckon there's been at least one big boar rootling about round there. I'll be sending someone up to feed the outer covers, see if we can't draw a hog or two out from the thick stuff in the middle. They won't stick around during the day, of course, but at least there'll be a trail for the dogs to follow.'

  Ziani smiled pleasantly. He had an idea that Jarnac talked mostly to himself, through the medium of his listeners. It would be nice, however, if he could make him go away, so he could get on with his work. 'Would you like to see round the factory?' he said. 'We've just finished putting in a new treadle saw; I believe it's the only one of its kind outside Mezentia.'

  Infallible. It's a curious fact that boring people seem to have a mortal fear of being bored by others. Jarnac thanked and congratulated him once again, reminded him to send in his bill as soon as possible, and strode away, ducking to avoid the beams and the doorframe.

  'Pleasant enough man,' Ziani observed. 'But I prefer his cousin, the other Ducas. Doesn't talk quite so much.'

  Cantacusene looked at him. 'He's the cadet branch,' he said. 'Jarnac Ducas, I mean.'

  'Ah,' Ziani said. 'Is that a good thing? I don't understand about nobility.'

  'Means Jarnac won't ever be in line to be head of the family, not unless all the other branch get wiped out before he does.'

  'I see. So really, Jarnac isn't anyone special.'

  A look of disgust and horror flitted across Cantacusene's face, and Ziani realised he'd committed yet another abomination. He wasn't all that interested, anyway. He wanted to get the last few bits of leather cut out, so he could go and look at the scorpion locks. Cantacusene walked away, clearly not trusting himself to speak.

  In the main shop, they were cutting quarter-inch plate on the big shear. It was, if anything, worse than the leather shear he'd been using himself. It wasn't even Mezentine-made, and the handle was a broken-off stub with a length of bent iron pipe peened over it. Luckily, the tolerances for the lock plates were broad. He didn't recognise any of the faces around him, but they'd all know who he was, the only brown-skinned man in Eremia. Some of them looked up, others looked in the opposite direction. All in all, he'd met with far less resentment and hatred than he'd expected, given that his people had only recently massacred the flower of the Eremian army. An Eremian wouldn't last a day in the ordnance factory at home.

  He left them to it and wandered over to the filing bench, where two men were cutting teeth into gear-wheels. They were better at it than he'd expected. They were standing right, weight on both feet equally, square to the bench, holding the file level and true. He'd marked out the pattern piece himself; all they had to do was scribe round it on to each wheel, then follow the scribed lines as closely as they could. Back home, of course, a machine would be doing this job, a hundred times faster and much more accurately.

  One of the men was old. His thin, wiry forearms ended in broad, clenched hands with huge knuckles, and he bent close over his work to be able to see the scratched line. Ziani saw that he'd rubbed the piece over with candle-soot mixed with spit, to make the line show up better. At home they used a special dark blue paste.

  'How's it going?' he asked. He noticed that he was speaking a bit louder than usual; either because he assumed the old man must be deaf, or because subconsciously he was imitating Jarnac Ducas.

  The man didn't look up. 'This file's no good,' he said. 'Blunt.'

  'Chalk it,' Ziani said.

  'Done that,' the old man said. 'And carded it. No good. It's not clogged, it's blunt.'

  'Let me see,' Ziani said. It was a Mezentine three-square file, with a Guild mark; the letter next to the stamped lion's head told him it was no more than a year old. He ran the pad of his forefinger over the teeth. 'You're right,' he said. 'Funny. Have you been cutting hardening steel with it?'

  The old man shook his head. 'My best file,' he said. 'Only ever used it for brass and latten.'

  For some reason, Ziani couldn't help taking it personally; his Guild had made the file, to Specification, so it ought to be perfect; but it had failed before its time, and that was wrong. The foreman of the tool works ought to be on charges for something like that. 'I'll get you a new one,' Ziani said and went to go, but the old man grabbed his arm.

  'Where are you going with my file?' he said.

  'But it's no good,' Ziani said. 'You said so yourself.'

  'It's my file. Give it back.'

  Ziani put it down on the bench, went to the tool chest in the corner and found a three-square file, brand new, still in its grease. 'Here,' he said to the old man. 'Yours to keep.'

  The old man scowled at it, took it, rubbed his fingertip over the base of the tang, where the Guild marks were. 'Needs a handle,' he said.

  Ziani picked a file at random off the bench, knocked the handle off against the bench-leg and handed it to him. He tapped it into place, then put the file carefully away
in his apron pocket.

  'Fine,' Ziani said. 'Apart from the blunt file, how's it going?'

  The old man shrugged. 'Foreman said file out the notches in these wheels, so that's what I'm doing. Don't ask me what they're for, I don't know.'

  'How many have you managed to get done today?' Ziani asked; but either the old man hadn't heard him, or the question was too offensive to be answered. 'Carry on,' Ziani said, and moved away.

  On the next bench they were bending ratchet sears over formers in a vice. Nice simple work (at home, the sears would be machined from solid and case-hardened in bonemeal and leather dust) and the three men who were doing it had filled one box with finished pieces and half-filled another. He watched them open the vice, clamp a strip of shear-cut plate between the former and the jaw, tighten up the vice and bend the piece with thumps from a hide mallet until it lay flat against the former. At the end of the bench, another man worked a long-lever punch, drifting out the pivot holes. The punch was pretty deplorable too, but he had only himself to blame for it; he'd made it himself, in a tearing hurry, and he knew it'd break soon and the hinge-pin would need replacing. It wounded him to think that something he'd made himself would inevitably fail.