Devices and Desires e-1

by K. J. Parker

  The day wore on. For the first time since he'd escaped from Mezentia, Ziani was aware of being very tired. Everything he did cost him effort, and he couldn't settle to anything. He remembered, just as the men were leaving for the day, that he hadn't made arrangements for taking the finished pieces of armour to Jarnac's house. By then, he and Cantacusene were the only people left in the building. Fine.

  'Do me a favour,' he said, leaning against the doorpost of the small foundry, where Cantacusene had set up his leather-boiling cauldron.

  Cantacusene was sitting cross-legged on the floor, a chunky oak log gripped between his knees. Over it he was hammering a cuisse, stretching the leather back into shape where it had crinkled slightly in the boiling water. 'What?' he said.

  'Give me a hand delivering this lot,' Ziani replied.

  He hadn't been expecting it, but Cantacusene nodded without argument, or even face-pulling. 'All right,' he said. 'Just let me finish this before it cools down.'

  So Ziani watched for a while as Cantacusene tapped and poked and wheedled, then dunked the cuisse into a bucket of cold water to set it. It came out dripping; he wiped it over with his sleeve and stood it against the wall to dry off. 'Nearly all done,' he said. 'Should finish off tomorrow.'

  Together they packed the armour in straw and loaded it into six barrels, which they lugged out into the yard and dumped in the cart they used for fetching iron stock and charcoal. Cantacusene harnessed up the two mules while Ziani locked up; then they set out. They had to go a very long way round, because the straight way was too narrow for the cart and there were stairs and bridges. They rode in silence most of the way, but Ziani could sense that Cantacusene was winding himself up to ask something. When it came, it came in a rush.

  'You didn't tell me you were going on this hunt.'

  'Yes I did,' Ziani replied. 'You remember, when this Jarnac character came round to order the stuff.'

  Cantacusene frowned. 'Why?'

  'I don't know,' Ziani said. 'I guess I thought it'd be good to see how it's done. If there's a market for hunting gear, it's a good idea to see for myself what goes on. And I'm curious,' he added. 'There's nothing like it at home.'

  'Did he invite you?'

  'Sort of.' Ziani grinned. 'I dropped some heavy hints. You ever been?'

  Cantacusene shook his head. 'Strictly for the gentry' he said. 'Except if you're beating or carrying or picking up and stuff. Mostly, though, the household does all that, they only hire in casuals for the really big meets. And it's country people that tend to get hired, not anyone from the city.'

  'Right,' Ziani said. 'I think this is going to be a big occasion, with the Duke going.'

  'You can be sure of that,' Cantacusene said. 'Orsea's not a great one for hunting, mind; he likes it, but they reckon he never finds the time. His father Orseola was big on the falcons but not riding to hounds, but of course they never had the money for a decent pack, or good horses. Costs a fair bit, see.'

  Ziani nodded. 'But Jarnac can afford it, obviously'

  'Well, the Ducas,' Cantacusene said, with a subtle mixture of respect and contempt, 'they got all the money you can think of, even the cadet line. Though they reckon that with what Jarnac spends, he cuts it a bit close sometimes.'

  It was amusing, Ziani thought, how Cantacusene the dour and silent became so animated when he got on to the subject of the nobility. It wasn't anything like the attitude he'd have expected. Resentment, he'd have thought, maybe even downright hatred-after all, the nobles did no work and lived off the sweated labour of others, wasting enough on their idle and vicious pleasures in a month to feed fifty working families for a year. He'd have expected someone like Cantacusene to froth at the mouth when talking about such people. Apparently not. The closest thing in his experience was the way people back home talked about the dog-racing or handball teams they supported. Get a Mezentine Guildsman started on his team and he'd tell you every minute detail-life histories and career statistics of every player, arcane details of rules and form, which tracks favoured which pitchers, more than any rational man could possibly want to know about anything. In the same way Cantacusene seemed to come alive talking about the Ducas, with whom he had nothing in common except occasional commissions and a wedge of unpaid invoices for work delivered. It was touching and revolting at the same time, this vicarious enjoyment of the gentry's lifestyle. For some reason Cantacusene supported the Ducas (and the Phocas and the Stratiotes, and up to a point the Callinicas), which somehow gave him the right to refer to them by their first names, as though they were his own family, and to preen himself on their ridiculous achievements (hunting, politicking, marrying and giving in marriage, bickering over land and dabbling disdainfully and half-competently in trade). For a long time, all the way from Lantern Street to Wallgate via Shave Cross, he gabbled about genealogies and lawsuits, trophy stags and champion destriers, with a counterpoint of scandals, infidelities and indiscretions in which he seemed to take an equal pride. By the time they came out into Fountain Street and started to climb the long, cobbled ride up to the old lists, where the cadet Ducas had their town house, Ziani reckoned he'd learned enough about the family to fill two epic poems and nine books of commentaries.

  'The only other one of them I've actually met,' he broke in, during a brief lull, 'is Miel Ducas. He's the head of the family, isn't he?'

  Cantacusene nodded vigorously. 'Ever since his uncle died, old Acer Ducas. Mind, he was only head because his first cousin Celat died young-bust his neck riding in the forest, the bloody fool. If it hadn't been for that, Acer wouldn't have been nobody. 'Course, he was seventy if he was a day when he came into the honour; up till then he'd just been collateral in the main line, and everybody expected him to peg out and Celat to take over when Jiraut died. But Celat died, what, seven years back; Jiraut went on the year after that, which meant Acer took over, and he only lasted six months, and then it was Miel. Youngest Ducas this century.'

  Ziani frowned. 'So Miel wasn't really anybody important till six years ago.'

  'Oh, he was important,' Cantacusene snapped, as though Ziani had just insulted his mother. 'Leading collateral heir, he'd have copped for the minor honour in the main line when Acer died. But actually being the Ducas, that's something else entirely. I don't suppose you can understand that, not being from here.'

  Ziani shrugged. 'He's always come across to me as a pleasant enough man,' he said. 'Quite quiet, very polite. I'm starting to see that that's what I should have expected, but I'd been assuming the head of the family would be more like Jarnac, and the also-ran would've been like Miel. But really, it's got to be the other way round, hasn't it?'

  Cantacusene was torn, he could see, between two powerful forces: on the one hand, extreme discomfort at Ziani's disrespectful attitude; on the other, the glorious opportunity to tell an ignorant foreigner all about the Ducas. Luckily, the opportunity won the day. 'It's something you got to understand about the good families,' Cantacusene said. 'What they live by is duty. Duty to the family, traditions and stuff; duty to the Duke and the country. Nothing means more to them than that. So, the higher up they are, the more the duty sort of weighs on them, if you see what I mean. Really, all Jarnac's got to do is keep up to what's expected of him; like, he's got to dress well, he's got to hold big fancy banquets and dinners, he's got to have the best stables and hounds and hawks-this is in peace-time, of course-and generally have the best of everything and be the best at everything, if you get me. It's not his place to be getting into politics and government and all, or being a counsellor or a minister or anything. Cadet branch, see. But Miel, it's different for him. If he was to go putting on a big show, talking loud and that stuff, it wouldn't be suitable, it'd be out of place. Not the right way for a senior man in the state to go on. He's got to be a serious man, you see. Polite, quiet, all that, like you said.'

  'I see,' Ziani said. 'Part of the job, then. Well, he's very good at it.'

  Cantacusene laughed. 'Didn't use to be,' he said. 'Of course, he g
ot that scat in the face, which spoilt his looks. But before he got the honour, when he was more like Jarnac is now, if you follow me, he was a real bright spark. Specially with the girls.'

  Ziani frowned. 'Because it was expected of him.'

  'Got to be the best at everything,' Cantacusene said. 'And I suppose you could say he was, back then. Oh, I could tell you stories.'

  'I'm sure,' Ziani said.

  It was dark by the time they arrived at the list gate. They were directly under the shadow of the highest point of the keep wall. Being the cadet branch, the lesser Ducas lived outside the inner castle; being Ducas, they lived as close to it as they could possibly get. Cantacusene turned off the paved highway down a narrow alley-the wheel-hubs fouled the brickwork on both sides simultaneously as they turned a corner-that twisted to and fro up a slope between high walls until it came to a small door in a dark stone frontage. If it hadn't been a dead end, Ziani wouldn't have noticed it. Cantacusene jumped down and clubbed on the planking with the heel of his fist.

  'You've been here before, then?' Ziani said.

  'Been here delivering. Never gone inside, of course.'

  The door opened, just enough to give them sight of a pale blue eye and a wisp of grey hair. 'Ziani Vaatzes,' Ziani said. 'Delivery.'

  The owner of the eye and the hair came out and looked at him for a moment. 'You're to fetch it in to the Great Hall,' he said. 'He's in his bath, but he'll be down soon as he's ready.'

  For a moment Ziani was sure Cantacusene would refuse to pass the door, like a horse shying at a jump. Curiosity must've got the better of awe for once; he shuffled along after Ziani, holding up one end of the first barrel and muttering something under his breath.

  The courtyard that separated them from the inner gate was laid out as a formal garden, with neatly trimmed knee high hedges of lavender and box surrounding square or diamond-shaped beds, where closely mustered ranks of roses quartered with lilies and some kind of blue flower they didn't have in Mezentia filled out the shape of the Ducas family arms. The effect wasn't immediately obvious from the ground, but if a god happened to look down from the clouds, he'd be left in no doubt as to who lived there. A fountain dribbled quietly and unheeded in the exact centre of the arrangement, feeding a small pond that probably housed small, inedible fish.

  While Ziani and Cantacusene were manhandling the barrel along the gravel' path, someone had opened the inner gate, which led into a cloister; a roofed-over hollow square enclosing a larger garden, with a lawn and an almond tree. The cloister itself was paved with polished limestone slabs; the walls were painted with scenes of Ducas family history, including one involving a small, pig-like dragon (up against a huge, bearded Ducas cap-a-pie in armour, it didn't stand a chance). Ziani and Cantacusene toiled round three sides of the cloister, and arrived at a set of broad, shallow steps leading up to a massive studded oak door, which opened inwards as they approached it.

  The hall they found themselves in was smaller than the Guildhall, or the main gallery of the ordnance factory; it was the height of the roof that set Ziani's head swimming. He couldn't begin to guess how far up the sheer walls went, until they sprouted a jungle of beams, plates and purlins (all painted and gilded, carved and embossed with flowers, animals, birds, gargoyles, severely frowning heads of the ancient Ducas, stars, suns and moons). He might have been able to cope with the sheer size, if it hadn't been for the fact that every available square foot of wall was adorned with trophies of the hunt. There were forests of antlers, dense as an orchard; heads, skulls, escutcheons of boar-tusks, bear-claws and wolf-fangs arranged in circles, half-circles and spirals; claws, paws, tails, hoofs, enough spare parts to build a herd of composite monsters. Stuffed herons, partridges, rock-grouse, pigeons swung overhead on wires suspended from rafters, frozen in perpetuity in desperate flight from stuffed peregrines, goshawks, merlins and buzzards, their shadows huge and dramatic in the yellow glare of twelve hundred-candle chandeliers. At the far end of the hall, flanking the high table on its raised platform, stood two enormous bears reared up on their hind legs, their forepaws raised to strike. Directly behind the massive, high-backed chair in the dead centre of the table hung a wooden shield, on which the skull of an absurdly large wolf bared its fangs at all comers. Underneath each trophy, in lettering too small to read, was an inscription, painted on a billowing scroll.

  'Leave it here,' someone said; a short, bald man with a gold chain round his neck, some kind of steward. 'More to come?'

  Ziani nodded. 'Five more,' he replied. The steward nodded, as if to say he'd feared as much. 'No, you stay there,' he added, as Ziani turned to go back out the way he'd just come. 'I'll send a couple of the men to get them. You sit down, I'll get someone to fetch you a drink.'

  He went away (hospitality, service, disdain; the Ducas for you). Cantacusene sat down on the nearest bench, but Ziani strolled across the floor to get a better look at some of the trophies. Closest to him was a group of roebuck skulls, and he noticed that their antlers were all malformed; one horn normal, the other looking as if it had been melted, squashed or worn away. King Fashion had prepared him for that; abnormals, the King called them, and they were far more highly prized as trophies than larger, regular specimens. The Ducas clearly had an outstanding collection; every conceivable irregularity, deformation and variation from the orthodox was represented, from great splayed fans of horn to pathetic little needles. He grinned in spite of himself, because here (honoured and treasured in death) was a glorious gallery of abominations, enough to make the whole Compliance directorate die of revulsion. It reminded him of the fairy-stories about lovely women pursued by amorous gods, rescued and set among the stars as constellations; just as dead as any other mortal, but on show for ever, trophies of the hunt. That in turn made him think of Miel Ducas (a great chaser of women in his day, according to what he'd heard).

  He owed that mental leap, he knew, to King Fashion's insufferably arch consort, Queen Reason, whose job it was to point up each of the King's pithy hints with a parallel from the world of courtly love. To Queen Reason, the fleeing doe was the coy maiden, glancing back over her shoulder as she fled, no doubt, and the hunter was the amorous youth, armed with sighs and tears and vows everlasting, his nets and snares and arrows. Ziani had skipped most of her side of the dialogue, on the grounds that life was too short, but occasionally the Queen had succeeded in ambushing him; the hunter lying in wait in bow-and-stable is the young lover lurking in the rose arbour, sonnet properly braced, its blade smeared with honey; the boar at bay among the hounds is the nymph beset by eligible suitors (reaching somewhat there, he felt); the partridge circling to avoid the swooping goshawk is the minx playing hard to get; and so on, interminably, while her husband the King politely ignores her and lectures earnestly on the shape of droppings. The only explanation Ziani could think of was that Reason was a mistranslation of the wretched woman's name.

  Sullen-looking men lugged in the other barrels, and there was no longer any reason for Ziani to stay. He stood up-the drink had never arrived, but he hadn't been expecting it to; in a week's time, he imagined, a footman would approach the bench with two cups on a tray, and find nobody there to take them-and nodded to Cantacusene to follow him like a dog.

  'So,' he said, as they got back into the cart, 'what did you make of it?'

  'What?'

  Ziani frowned. 'Jarnac's house. Was it as magnificent as you'd imagined?'

  Cantacusene shrugged. 'It was very nice,' he said.

  He dropped Cantacusene off on the way, and drove home alone; he was starting to get the hang of managing horses, and luckily they knew the way. He managed to get the harness off them without drawing blood, threw them some hay, and went back to his cellar. He didn't feel so tired now. Maybe it was the fresh air, or the melodrama of the lesser Ducas. The steel bow was leaning against the wall where he'd left it, and he practised for over an hour, until the scars on his fingers were raw again. Then he climbed the stairs to the tower and put in a session with
The Mirror of the Chase, which was slightly less turgid than King Fashion, but which also had a love interest. It put him to sleep until just before first light. He woke up with a crick in his neck, and went down the stairs to look at the scorpions.

  A day and a half, and the first batch would be finished. They were drawn up in rows, like vines in a vineyard, and he walked up and down between them. All that was left was basic assembly and fitting, and although he hated them for being crude, he loved them for being there at all, against the odds; like a farmer who's raised a thin crop in dry stony soil where by rights nothing should grow at all.

  The night before the hunt, after he'd tried on the leather armour made by the foreigner, looked in on the kennels and the stables, given a final briefing to the huntsmen, heard the most recent reports from the harbourers concerning the last known movements of the quarry, Jarnac Ducas left the main hall by a small door in the top left corner of the room, climbed a long circular stair, walked down a narrow corridor and eventually came out on the rampart of the castle wall. When he was a boy, he'd loved the thrill of this genuine secret passage (only male Ducas over the age of twelve knew about it) that linked the house with the castle itself. He'd imagined himself escaping down it while savage enemies looted below, fighting every step of the way until he reached the narrow sally-port and safety. He must've killed a dozen imaginary goblins or Vadani for every yard. Now he was older and the house belonged to him, he valued it as a means of getting some air, peace and quiet without the risk of meeting anybody.