Devices and Desires e-1

by K. J. Parker

  The barrage didn't last half an hour; ten minutes at the very most, because by then all the shot had been used up, and it'd take at least an hour to replenish the stocks from the reserve supply. Syracoelus was quick to apologise; Melancton shrugged, having to make an effort not to admit that he was overjoyed that it was over; the clicking and ringing and the air full of that terrible humming noise, and the thuds of impacting shot a quarter-mile away as constant as the drumming of rain on a roof. He realised he'd been looking away, deliberately averting his eyes from the target. He looked up; and, to his considerable surprise, Civitas Eremiae was still there.

  'Shit,' someone said.

  Syracoelus gave orders to his crews to stand by. 'What's happening?' bleated one of the Mezentine liaisons. 'I can't see from here.' Someone else said, 'Maybe we're just dropping them in the wrong place; how about if we concentrated the whole lot on the left-hand gatehouse tower?' Three people contradicted him simultaneously, drowning out each other's arguments as they competed for attention. 'Hardly bloody scratched it,' someone else said. 'Fuck me, those walls must be solid.'

  Failure, then. Melancton felt like laughing out loud at the absurdity of it. The Mezentine heavy engines had been beaten, they weren't up to the job. Melancton caught himself on the verge of a grin; could it possibly be, he wondered, that he was beginning to want the Eremians to win?

  'Wonderful,' Syracoelus was saying. 'Well, we can't possibly go in any closer, we'd be right under the noses of those scorpions on the wall. I suppose we could up the elevation to full and try the four-hundredweight balls, but I really don't think they'll get there, even.'

  'If we had a load of really strong pavises,' someone else began to say; nobody contradicted him or shouted him down, but he didn't finish the suggestion.

  It hadn't worked, then; or at least, not yet. There was still plenty of ammunition back at the supply train. He caught sight of Falier, the man from the ordnance factory, who hadn't contributed to the post-bombardment debate. He looked like he might throw up at any moment. 'Is there any way to beef up the springs?' Melancton asked. He had to repeat the question a couple of times before he could get an answer, which was no, there wasn't. They were already on their highest setting, Falier explained, all the tensioners were done up tight.

  'Any suggestions?' Melancton asked. 'Come on, you produce the bloody things. Is there any kind of modification we could make?' Falier shuddered and shook his head. 'Not allowed,' he said.

  Melancton looked at him. 'Not allowed?'

  'That's right,' Falier replied. 'Not without a dispensation from the Specifications directorate at the factory. Otherwise it'd be… I'd get into trouble.'

  Melancton smiled at him. 'I'm giving you a direct order as commander in chief of the army,' he said. 'Now-'

  'Sorry' Falier looked away. 'I'm a civilian. You can't order me. If you threaten me, I'll have to report it. Anyhow,' he went on, 'it's all beside the point. We'd need to make new springs, and beef up the frames as well. Even if we got all the calculations right first time, it'd take weeks to have the springs made at the factory and sent up here. Have you got that much time?'

  He's lying, Melancton realised. Of course he knew about Specifications, how they were sacrosanct and couldn't be altered on pain of death; he also knew that the arms factory was the one exception. As to the other argument (so neatly offered in the alternative), he had to take Falier's word for it, since he knew nothing about engineering or production times. He was fairly certain that Falier was exaggerating the timescale, but of course he couldn't prove it.

  'Weeks,' he repeated.

  'And that's supposing we don't have setbacks,' Falier said quickly. 'We can calculate the size and shape the spring'd have to be, up to a point, but in the end it'd be simple trial and error. Could be months, if we're unlucky'

  Not so much a warning as a promise, Melancton suspected. For some reason, Falier didn't want to make any modifications to the engines. If forced to, he'd probably sabotage them, in some subtle, undetectable way. Melancton couldn't begin to understand why anybody would want to do that, but he'd been dealing with the Mezentines long enough to know that inscrutability was practically their defining characteristic. He might not be able to figure out what the reason was, but he had no trouble believing that there was a reason. He gave up; simple as that.

  'Fine,' he said. 'So the long-range engines are useless, is that it?'

  Falier shrugged. 'If you could get them in closer,' he said, 'that'd be different. At this range, though…' He looked down at his hands. For crying out loud, Melancton thought.

  'They're useless,' he said. 'Understood. Right, we'll have to find another way. Thank you so much for your help.'

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Melancton was a realist. He knew that he had no more chance of winning against the Perpetual Republic than the Eremians did. Just for the hell of it, however, he decided to persevere with the long-range engines for a little while. He had, after all, taken a great deal of pains to haul a large supply of ammunition for those engines; might as well use it up as let it go to waste, he thought. Even if it won't bring the walls tumbling down, it'll make life inside the city distinctly uncomfortable for a while. In war, every little helps.

  So the bombardment resumed, as soon as the rest of the three-hundredweight balls had been lugged up from the valley. Melancton didn't hang around to watch, or listen; he left Syracoelus in charge and retired to his command centre in the main camp. In his absence, the engines resumed their patient, unbearable rhythm.

  Syracoelus was a straightforward man, not afflicted with gratuitous imagination. He ordered the engine crews to target four areas on the main gate towers, places where, in his experienced opinion, the structures would be most vulnerable to prolonged violent hammering. At the very least, he reckoned, he ought to be able to crack or weaken something. All it takes is a crack, sometimes.

  It was hard to read anything, because of the dust. Each time one of the engine-stones bashed against the outside wall, a sprinkle floated down from the ceiling, where the two-hundred-year-old plaster mouldings had cracked and were slowly being shaken apart. Dust covered the maps laid out on the long table, the dispatches and summaries and schedules. Orsea's mouth was full of it, and he kept licking his lips, like a cat.

  The first bombardment had been all horror; ten minutes when he couldn't think because of the noise and the terrible shaking. But it had ended, and Jarnac had assured him that the walls had shrugged it off; the Mezentine engines hadn't done their job, he'd said; it was a miracle, he hadn't added, but there was no need. Quite unaccountably and contrary to all expectations, their invincible enemy had failed.

  The second bombardment, he reckoned, was probably mostly just spite. The tempo was quite different. The engines were loosing their shots slowly, taking great pains to be accurate, to land each ball on precisely the same spot as its predecessor. Each time there'd be that unique, extraordinary swishing, humming whistle, followed by the thump you could feel in every part of your body, and then the little cloud of dust would shake out of the plaster and float down through the air. Then the interval, nearly a full minute; then, just when you were beginning to think that they'd given up and stopped, the whistle again.

  'They're spinning it out,' one of the councillors said, 'making it last as long as they can.'

  'Let them,' someone else said. 'The chief mason says they can bash away at the towers till the snows come and they won't hurt anything. He reckons the stone those balls are made of is too soft; they're splitting and breaking up on impact, he says, and that's taking all the sting out of them. If that's the best they can do, we haven't got a lot to be worried about. They can't keep it up for too long, they'll run out of things to throw at us; and they can't sit down there and wait for fresh supplies, they haven't brought enough food with them. The plain fact is, they got it wrong, and they haven't got time to put it right.'

  'Even so,' another voice said mildly, 'it'll be nice when it stops. That row's ma
king my teeth hurt.'

  Some people laughed; Orsea forced a smile, to show solidarity. It wasn't the thump, he'd realised, it was the whistle. He'd timed it by counting; one-two-three-four-five-six. When it came, he had no choice in the matter; his mind went blank and he counted. Anything else was blotted out, and once the thump came he had to start again from scratch. The constant jarring had given him a headache, which wasn't helping, either. He'd have given anything to be able to hit back, but he knew that was impossible. If he launched a sortie, just to shut the bloody things up, it could cost him the war, and the Eremians their lives. It was like being taunted by a bully; it kills you slowly, but you know that as soon as you respond, you've lost. Quite simply, there was nothing to be done. And here he was, doing it.

  'Where's Jarnac?' someone asked.

  'Went out to have a look,' someone else replied. 'I think he gets antsy, just sitting around. You know, man of action.'

  Scattered laughter; everybody knew Jarnac Ducas, of course. By the same token, everybody in the room was determinedly not looking at the vacant space where Miel Ducas should have been. They'd been not looking for hours. The strain was worse than the bombardment.

  'How about a night sortie?' someone said. Silence. It wasn't the first time the suggestion had been made, and there was no reason to suppose that the many valid reasons against it had ceased to apply. 'I was thinking of a small force, no more than a hundred men…'

  Whoever it was bleated on for a minute or so, then shut up. Nobody could be bothered to say anything. They were waiting for the whistle; and when it came, they counted.

  'The Duke's compliments,' the man said, 'and if it's convenient, we've got orders to move you to the ground floor.'

  Miel looked at him as though he was mad. 'The ground floor?' he repeated.

  The man nodded. 'On account of the bombardment,' he said. 'The Duke felt that if they were to bring engines round the side of the city, you might be in danger up here. Much better off on the ground floor.'

  Miel wanted to laugh. 'That's very thoughtful,' he said. 'When would he like me out by?'

  'As soon as you're ready,' the man said. 'No tearing hurry.'

  There were all manner of things that Miel wanted to ask, or say; but the man wouldn't know the answers to the questions, and it wouldn't do for him to hear the comments. 'Send my valet up and we'll start packing,' he said, with a faint smile. 'Thank you.'

  Strange; the tower had become home. At least, it had become his customary environment, like a hawk's mews, a place where he perched and waited, hooded, until he was needed, or until someone came to pull his neck because he was no longer of any use. He wasn't sure he'd be able to cope as well, down at ground level.

  It took a long time to put the proper state of the Ducas into bags and boxes (how can I have gathered so much stuff in such a short time? Miel wondered, as two more men staggered away down the stairs with their arms full). Eventually he was alone in a bare stone room, waiting for his keeper to take him down. Since he was on his honour (he was always on his honour), he hadn't even considered trying to slip away, bolt down the stairs while everyone was preoccupied with moving his possessions, try and run away. There was, after all, nowhere for him to go; he was the Ducas, everybody knew him by sight, and if he ran he'd have to leave being himself behind. That made him think, very briefly, of Ziani Vaatzes, who'd done just that. What on earth would that have felt like; jumping out of a window, he seemed to recall, and running like a doe or a boar flushed out of cover. And didn't he have a wife and children? I couldn't do that, Miel decided, I'd rather have stayed put and let them kill me.

  The captain of the guard came to collect him; stood to one side to let him go first (due deference or a security precaution? Both, Miel decided; a happy coincidence of protocols). The tight coil of the spiral staircase made him feel slightly dizzy-always worse going down-and he had to stop for a moment and put his hand on the wall before they reached the bottom.

  Just briefly they passed out into the open air. Miel stopped and looked up at the sky, then apologised for holding things up. It was time for his afternoon letter to Orsea.

  'Can you tell me what's going on out there?' he asked the guard.

  'Bombardment stopped about an hour ago,' the captain replied. 'We don't know yet if they've got any more stones to chuck at us, but it doesn't matter if they do. They just break up, like clods of dirt.'

  At that moment Miel felt a stab of bewilderment, as though he'd suddenly woken up in a strange place. If the city was being attacked, he ought to be on the wall or in the council room, doing whatever he could to help. It seemed ludicrous that he should be blinking in the sunlight on the wrong side of the city, dull-witted from prolonged idleness, about to settle down in another cosy, enclosed room with nothing useful to do. He tried to remember what it was that he'd done wrong, but he couldn't. This is silly, he thought. I'll write a quick note to Orsea, he'll sort it all out. Then he remembered; he'd already done that, many times, and for some reason it didn't seem to have worked. He turned to the captain, who seemed a decent enough sort.

  'Excuse me,' he said (because the Ducas is always polite). 'Can I ask you something?'

  The captain frowned, then nodded. 'Of course.'

  'This sounds silly,' Miel said, 'but you wouldn't happen to know, would you, what it is I'm supposed to have done?'

  The expression on the captain's face was hard to interpret. Surprise, definitely; incredulity, perhaps, or shock. 'You mean…' he started to say, then hesitated for a moment. 'You mean to say you don't know?'

  'That's right,' Miel said. 'I mean, they arrested me and brought me here, but nobody seemed to want to tell me why, I've written to the Duke and everybody else I can think of, but they haven't seen fit…' He paused. The Ducas doesn't criticise the Duke. 'I just wondered if you'd heard anything,' he said.

  'That's-' Again, the captain stopped himself. 'If you haven't been told,' he said, 'it's got to be because there's a good reason. I'm sorry'

  Miel looked at him. 'So there is a reason?' he said. 'You know what it is, but you won't tell me.'

  'I can't,' the captain said.

  Miel thought for a moment. 'Let me ask you something.' he said. 'You know what it is I'm supposed to have done. Yes?'

  The captain nodded slowly.

  'Fine,' Miel said. 'And I suppose it must be something pretty bloody dreadful, if I've got to be locked up in here for it. So; do you think I'm guilty?'

  The captain looked away. 'It's not-'

  'Do you think I did it or don't you?'

  'Yes,' the captain said. 'Everybody knows about it, there was a letter-'

  'A letter.' Miel closed his eyes, just for an instant. 'Right, thank you. I think I see now.'

  The captain was looking at him. 'So it's true, then?' he said.

  He tried not to, but he couldn't help laughing. 'I don't bloody know, do I?' he said. 'You won't tell me what the charges are.'

  There was an edge of anger to the captain's voice. 'You were conspiring with the Vadani,' he said. 'You were plotting to get the Duke to escape, bugger off and leave us. You and-'

  'That's not true,' Miel said angrily. 'What the hell have the Vadani got to do with it?' he added, because for a moment he'd forgotten who the letter had been from. He remembered as the captain replied.

  'You're saying it's not true?' he said.

  'I'd rather not discuss it,' Miel said. 'But for your information, because you're stuck with me and I don't want you thinking you're guarding some kind of evil monster, I've never had any dealings with the Vadani except as an accredited diplomat; I don't know Duke Valens, I've never talked to him or written him a letter or had a letter from him. If this is about what I think it is, then it's just a private thing between Duke Orsea and me.' He paused. 'Do you believe me?'

  The captain stared at him. 'I don't know,' he said.

  'Oh come on,' Miel said impatiently. 'Either you do or you don't.'

  'You've got to go inside now,' the captain
said.

  Miel breathed out slowly. 'In case you're worried,' he said, 'I won't tell anybody about what you've just told me. If it comes up and they ask me how I knew, I'll say it was just some rumour my barber told me about. All right?'

  The captain nodded gratefully. Evidently he was prepared to take the word of the Ducas. 'All I know is what people have been saying,' he said. 'They found a letter hidden in your house, and apparently it links you to a conspiracy to lure the Duke out of the city; they're saying the idea was to persuade him to escape to the Vadani, and then Valens would hand him over to the Mezentines.'

  Miel nodded. 'I see,' he said. 'Because the Vadani are really still our enemies.'

  'Partly. And partly…' The captain looked past him, as if the stairs they'd just come down were impossibly fascinating. 'They say the Duchess is having an affair with Valens, and this is how they planned on getting Orsea out of the way.'

  Miel was silent for a moment. Then he said: 'I think you'd better lock me up now. If you really believe all that, the least you can do is chain me to the wall. If I were you, I'd cut my throat right now.'

  Not surprisingly, the captain didn't reply. He led the way into the ground-floor apartment, which had already been furnished with the Ducas furniture and effects. The book he'd been reading was on the lectern, open at the right place. The Perfect Mirror of the Chase; Jarnac's choice, from his own library. Right now, Miel decided, he really wasn't in the mood. He flipped it shut and sat down in the window-seat, with his back to the world and the war. On the table there was a stack of paper, his inkwell, pen, penknife, sand-shaker, seal and candle; they knew his routine.