Devices and Desires e-1

by K. J. Parker

  Miel groaned. 'Next time you're inclined to yield to a generous impulse, resist,' he said. 'I'm not made of ankles, you know.'

  Veatriz laughed; he wasn't looking at her, deliberately, but he could picture her face. Instead, he saw Orsea grin. Jarnac clicked his tongue and said: 'I don't know what you're complaining about. You know the old saying: pain's temporary, glory is for ever, and the girls dig the scars. You'll be fighting them off with a pitchfork once word gets around. Honestly,' he said to Veatriz, ignoring Miel's miserable protests, 'you should have seen him. He comes charging out of the bushes, sword in hand; he sees the foreigner lying there on the deck wetting himself, frozen stiff with fear; he sees the boar. He knows the dogs are getting tired, they can't hold it back much longer. He's still running flat out; he jumps, lands on the boar's back if you please, launches himself off again, and in passing, damn near chops the boar's head off with a downwards backhand slash-'

  'And lands in a clump of fuzz that turns out to be a coppiced stump and twists his stupid ankle,' Miel said. 'Actually, Triz, you should've seen it. Must've been the most comical sight since the farmer chucked his dog down the well and threw a stick for the bucket.'

  'You be quiet,' Jarnac said ferociously. 'By your own admission you couldn't see what was going on round you, so clearly you're the last person to comment. Also, the self-deprecating modesty is just fishing for compliments. This isn't the first time, you see,' he added, as Veatriz giggled. 'When he was younger, with some girl in tow-there was always a girl in tow-'

  'Look,' Miel protested.

  'Used to be a positive menace,' Jarnac went on. 'Very disruptive to the smooth running of the hunt, having someone forever committing acts of gratuitous valour every time the girl happened to be looking in his direction. I had to stop taking him along in the end. I should have known better, but I'd assumed he'd grown out of it.'

  'True,' Orsea put in (traitor, Miel thought). 'It got so that you couldn't take a quiet stroll in the park if he'd got a girl along with him. I remember, there was a goat in a paddock. I swear he used to sneak out and kick this goat whenever he had the chance, just so it'd hate him and go for him on sight; and it was quite an elderly goat, not much of a threat to life and limb, but of course the girl wouldn't know that-'

  'Complete and utter lies,' Miel growled, though of course Orsea was telling the truth. Miel tried to remember if he'd ever taken Veatriz for a stroll past the goat's paddock.

  'I remember,' Jarnac butted in. 'It was on a chain, so it couldn't actually get at him if he judged the distance right; but then one day the goat charged him so ferociously that the chain broke-'

  Veatriz burst out laughing; Miel winced, jarred his ankle, and yelped with pain. He wished they'd shut up now. The joke was wearing thin, as far as he was concerned.

  'Anyway,' Veatriz said, 'it was very brave of you, Miel, and I'm sure that this time your motives were impeccable.' She was teasing him, he didn't like that. He almost wanted to explain what his true motive had been; to get there, at all costs, before Orsea could do what he was being accused of, because if Orsea had tried a stunt like that he'd have been killed, and then there wouldn't be all this merriment. He managed to keep that sentiment where it belonged, though.

  'I think it's time you all pushed off and let me get some rest,' he said. 'It's not fair, picking on me when I can't move.'

  Jarnac frowned, and Miel realised there was something bothering him, which he hadn't told them about. Knowing Jarnac, it'd be some aspect of the hunt, some transgression of the rules on his part that he felt bad about, though nobody else would be inclined to make a fuss about it. 'Let's leave him alone with his glory, then,' Jarnac said, and he stood up to leave. 'I suppose I'd better look in on the foreigner before I go.'

  'I wouldn't bother,' Miel said, with a touch of bitterness. 'Unless you want to yell at him for managing to prick the boar in the back leg like that. But I don't suppose he'd understand the significance of it, so there wouldn't be much point.'

  'Actually,' Orsea said, 'I need to talk to him myself-not about this,' he added, with a slight nod in Miel's direction. 'Business.'

  Miel remembered. He'd been thinking of the foreigner as simply an embarrassing fool who'd done a stupid thing; he'd forgotten who the man actually was. He nodded back. 'That's right,' he said. 'Don't worry, he's not really damaged, just a bit shaken. He'll be up and about again in the morning.'

  'Good,' Orsea said. 'But I still need to talk to him. Don't worry about that now, Miel. You keep still and let that ankle heal. I'll deal with the other business.'

  'What other business?' Jarnac asked, as he and Orsea climbed the stairs. 'I hadn't realised you knew the man.'

  Orsea pulled a wry grin. 'Oh yes,' he said. 'He's the Mezentine we picked up on the way back from-well, you remember, I'm sure.'

  Jarnac frowned. 'The one who wanted to turn us all into little pseudo-Mezentines, working in factories,' he said. 'I thought you'd said no to all that.'

  'I did. But he talked the Calaphates into putting up the money for this factory.'

  'Ah, right. They make good armour, I'll say that for them, and sensibly priced, too.'

  'It's not just armour,' Orsea said quietly. 'Anyhow, I don't want to be rude or anything, but-is this the room here?'

  'The Oak Room.' Jarnac nodded. 'Would you like me to wait outside?'

  'I'll find my own way back,' Orsea replied.

  Jarnac nodded and went away; Orsea could hear the firm clump of his boots on the stairs. Nobody could call Jarnac clumsy, but his enormous size made the staircase shake all the way up to the landing. He raised his hand to knock, then remembered who he was and lifted the latch.

  The foreigner was lying on the bed, arms by his side, staring up at the ceiling; he sat up as Orsea walked in. 'It's all right,' Orsea said, as he started to get to his feet. 'You stay where you are. How are you feeling?'

  'Stupid,' Vaatzes replied.

  Orsea nodded. 'Quite right,' he said. 'But of course, you didn't know. Or else you're a rotten shot. Neither of them's a criminal offence in this country'

  Vaatzes shook his head. 'I shouldn't even have been there,' he said. 'I suppose I hadn't realised what sort of occasion it'd be. Did I ruin everything?'

  Orsea thought before answering. 'Depends,' he said. 'You caused a very nasty incident which could've got somebody killed. On the other hand, you gave Miel Ducas an opportunity to be terribly brave and clever, so he's happy; propped up on pillows downstairs pretending he's not loving every bit of the attention, he's like that. So he's happy, and he's my oldest friend, so I'm happy too. Jarnac Ducas is going to have the boar's tusks mounted in a gorget for him, with a little silver plate inscribed, For saving the life of another. In a year's time, everybody'll remember it as the hunt where the Ducas pulled off the most amazing flying cut, and you'll be bored sick of telling people the story when they ask you. Jarnac's the only one who's really upset, because three of his dogs were killed. He wouldn't dream of showing it, but he's heartbroken. Still, all in all, not a complete disaster.'

  Vaatzes drew in a deep breath. 'You're all being extremely kind,' he said. 'Which makes me feel terrible. I'm sorry'

  'Forget it,' Orsea said. 'And promise me, if anybody invites you to go hunting again, refuse.'

  'I promise.'

  'Fine. Now,' Orsea went on, 'I need to talk to you about the scorpions.'

  Chapter Seventeen

  On the morning after the Duke's hunt, a tall stocky middle-aged woman whose florid complexion matched her loud red dress left Civitas Eremiae by the east gate, riding a light-boned skewbald horse in the middle of a caravan. With her were her escort, nine riders in armour who doubtless made up for in experience what they lacked in youth; three muleteers on elderly dog's-meat palfreys; a pale, thin young woman with a bad cold, and twenty-seven well-laden mules.

  It was necessarily slow going down the mountain. The thin young woman looked nervous as she leaned back in the saddle, as if she expected to vanish backwards ov
er the horse's tail at any moment. Her aunt, the woman in the red dress, spread her ample seat comfortably, as though her knees were stitched tight to the girths. She yawned once or twice, not bothering to cover her mouth.

  At the crossroads the party turned east along the rutted, dusty track that followed the top of the ridge until it joined the Edgeway, which in turn led to the Butter Pass. The guards, riding in front and somewhat close together, talked for a while about cock-fighting, horse-racing and the chances of war with Mezentia, which they decided was most unlikely. The muleteers were busy keeping the mules moving. The merchant and her niece rode side by side most of the time, but didn't talk to each other. They rested for an hour at noon, in the shade of a knot of canted, scrubby thorn trees that marked the point where the Butter Pass began. They picked the pace up gradually in the afternoon, and by nightfall they were close enough to the border to see the lights of the Vadani frontier post. Shortly after midnight they crossed into Vadani territory, following a narrow path along the bed of a steep-sided gully that kept them well out of sight of the border guards. It would have been an awkward ride in the dark, except that they and their horses knew the way very well indeed, and didn't need to see the hazards in order to avoid them.

  At some point in the small hours they rejoined the road, a little way beyond a village by the name of Gueritz, and spent the rest of the night there, recovering from the stresses of their prosaic little adventure. At first light they rode on as far as Schantz, where they stopped at the inn for breakfast, and to have one of the guards' horses reshod. Two of the muleteers entertained the Schantz ostlers and grooms with an account of Duke Orsea's hunt, which they'd heard from one of Jarnac's men in an inn in Civitas Eremiae the night before they left. Such parts of the account as were not invented were greatly exaggerated: Miel Ducas had been savagely mauled by the boar and it was uncertain whether he'd recover; the Mezentine exile Vaatzes was also hovering at death's door, having been picked up bodily on the boar's snout and hurled down a rock-lined goyle into a riverbed; the Ducas had killed the boar that mangled him, after wrestling it to the ground and cutting its throat with his short knife.

  The road from Schantz to Pasador was broad, flat and easy; they had the river on their right all the way, and they stopped several times to water the horses. Even so, they made Pasador by noon and sat in out of the heat in a ruined barn, while two muleteers who wanted to stretch their legs walked into the village and bought bread, cheese, figs and white wheat beer for the midday meal. When the edge had gone off the sun, they carried on briskly and peacefully as far as the crossroads, where they picked up the Silver Pass, leading direct to Civitas Vadanis. It was only the delay caused by having the guard's horse shod that stopped them reaching the city gate before dark; as it was, they had to ride the last hour and a half by moonlight, which was no great hardship. In fact, they were happy to enter the city in the dark, since it made them less conspicuous. Since the sheep-driving season was over for the year, they were able to pen the mules in a small paddock in the main stockyard, handy for the inns. The guards and the muleteers limped off to go drinking; the merchant and her niece washed up in the back yard of the Convention before setting off for Duke Valens' castle, in the north-east corner of the city.

  The story of Orsea's hunt was told many times that evening in the stockyard inns, each containing a slight development on its predecessor. By the time it was recited in the Gold Silvermen's Hall, a large and popular inn on the edge of the assay court, both the Ducas and Vaatzes had been killed, though not before the Ducas had given the boar its death-wound with the shattered truncheon of his spear.

  One of Valens' austringers left the Gold Silver shortly after that and headed up the hill to the castle. He was aware that he'd had rather more to drink than he'd have liked, since his duty was to seek an immediate audience with the Duke himself. The news of the Mezentine exile's death, however, shouldn't really be left till morning, and besides, he knew a couple of other people who'd want to hear about it straight away. He had to tell the Duke first, of course, he realised that; but afterwards, time would be of the essence with his other customers, who wouldn't want to pay him if they'd already heard the news from someone else.

  'He's dead,' Psellus announced at the general staff meeting. He paused, then added: 'Apparently, he was killed by a pig.'

  There was an element of shock in the silence that followed; also the tension of strong, serious men trying not to laugh. Eventually, a senior officer of the Coppersmiths' said, 'A pig?'

  'A wild pig,' Psellus said. 'It appears that he was invited to go hunting with the Duke and his courtiers. A wild pig killed him-apparently they are quite ferocious animals, capable of inflicting serious injury. One of the courtiers was killed also.'

  A different kind of silence; thoughtful, reticent. The Coppersmith broke it to say: 'This changes nothing. But I am surprised to hear that he was invited to hunt with the Duke and his court. My understanding is that only persons of high social standing attend on these occasions.'

  Psellus nodded. 'As participants,' he said. 'But please bear in mind that the hunters are accompanied by a substantial number of assistants. There are men who look after the dogs, others who drive the animals out of hiding by making a noise, and of course there are porters, to carry equipment and the carcasses. My understanding is that the hunters usually hire casual labour for some of these tasks. It's highly possible that he was there in that capacity, rather than as a guest.' Psellus hesitated. 'Unfortunately, my sources-I must stress, these are preliminary reports only-my sources weren't able to furnish any details, so the theory remains uncorroborated. Nevertheless…' He hesitated again. 'If these reports are accurate, Vaatzes is dead. I think we can safely assume that, contrary to what my colleague has just said, the position has changed significantly. In fact, I would ask the commission to consider whether the war is still necessary.'

  'On what grounds?' Tropaeus, needless to say, defending the infant war as though it was his cub. 'If there has been a change,' he went on, 'it's for the worse. Let us put your theory on one side for a moment and assume that Vaatzes was there as a guest. In that case, logic suggests that he was on good terms with the Eremian aristocracy-a Mezentine, a representative of the nation that wiped out the flower of their army. There can only be one explanation, just as Vaatzes had only one commodity to sell in order to buy their favour. In other words, we must conclude that Vaatzes had already betrayed the technical secrets entrusted to him by virtue of his position at the ordnance factory, or was preparing to do so.'

  Psellus coughed mildly. 'Assuming,' he said, 'the wretched man was there as a guest. If not, if he was simply a day-labourer, surely it implies the opposite; that he was destitute, or at least forced by necessity to take any work he could get, and therefore that either he made no attempt to sell our secrets, or he had tried and failed. I should add,' he went on before Tropaeus could interrupt, 'that I have seen minutes of a meeting of the Eremian council at which an offer to introduce new skills and methods of metalworking were offered to the Duke by an unnamed Mezentine, and refused. Unless our security is even worse than we've been supposing, I can only assume that the man refused by the council must be Vaatzes.'

  'We've all seen that report,' someone objected-he was sitting too far back for Psellus to see his face; he thought the voice was familiar but he couldn't put a name to it. 'But you're missing the point, both of you. It doesn't matter. So Vaatzes is dead; so we have evidence to suggest that the Eremians refused to listen to him. What are you suggesting? Are you trying to argue that we shouldn't go on with the invasion?'

  Psellus stiffened. 'I don't recall proposing that,' he said. 'And I fully accept the argument that we need to make sure there's no possibility of leakage of restricted Guild knowledge.'

  'Which means the Eremians must be wiped out,' the unseen man broke in. 'We've discussed all this. So, unless you're saying we should reopen that decision-which, personally, I'm not inclined to do unless you can produce some pret
ty strong new arguments that we haven't considered previously-I don't see what difference Vaatzes' death makes to anything. We've got the soldiers, right here, kicking their heels and waiting to go. I won't remind you how much they're costing us per day. I'm not aware of any significant strategic or tactical considerations which would keep us from launching the invasion immediately. Gentlemen, we're wasting time and money. Let's get on and do what we've already agreed has to be done.'

  Loud rumble of approval. Very unwillingly, Psellus got to his feet once more. 'I'm not opposing that view,' he said, 'or arguing against the invasion. All I'm trying to ask is whether it's quite so urgent now that Vaatzes himself is dead-'

  'If he is dead,' someone else put in. 'A moment ago you said it was unconfirmed.'

  'It is,' Psellus said raggedly. 'But let's assume it's right. If Vaatzes is dead, he won't be giving away any more secrets. We know from the Eremian council minutes that they turned him down. So we're left with any secrets he passed on to someone else, private citizens rather than the Eremian government, before his death. And I can't help wondering-'

  'It changes nothing,' said another voice, off to his left. 'Even if Vaatzes said nothing, or nobody listened to him, it's all beside the point. We've got to be sure; and the only way we can be sure is to invade. It's how-we've managed to keep our total monopoly for well over a hundred years; and if it means we have to go to war, then we've got to do it. I propose that Commissioner Psellus receive our thanks for updating us on these new developments; I further propose that we set a definite date for the launch of the invasion, namely ten days from now. Do I have a seconder for that?'