by K. J. Parker
First, he went over the back with a fine, stiff brush that lived in a pocket under the flap of the case, to remove all the loose dirt, mud and other rubbish. Then he sprinkled on to it a little of the special oil that he’d had specially mixed for this job, just enough to cover the fingernail on his left index finger; oil that kept the wet out and the sinew in. The oil had to be rubbed in until every last trace of it was gone, a job that called for thoroughness and patience. Finally, he waxed the string with a small block of solid beeswax. By then it was dawn; no sooner had he pushed the bow back into its case than the sun came up. Gorgas washed his hands carefully (the oil he’d used for the bow was poisonous), pulled on his boots and went to look for some more work to do.
An hour or two after Gorgas cleaned his bow, a ship limped into Tornoys harbour.
It had taken a pounding from a freak storm, the sort that added an unwelcome degree of uncertainty to navigation at this time of year. The ship had coped pretty well, all things considered; it had taken on rather more water than was good for it, and the wind had damaged the rigging and put a crack in the mainmast that would have caused real havoc if the storm had lasted much longer. But she was still afloat and nobody had been killed or badly hurt. It was as much as anybody had a right to expect, fooling about in those seas at that season.
Because it was still early, there was nobody much about. The fishing fleet had already left, of course, apart from a few lazy oyster-boats, and the bigger ships that were due to leave that day wouldn’t be ready to sail for another hour or so. They’d taken their cargoes on board the night before, so that the men could get a good night’s sleep before catching the tide. One or two of Gorgas’ men were hanging around the quay, but they weren’t on duty; it was still the last knockings of the night before, and they were hanging around waiting until the taverns started breakfast, hoping that the cool dawn breeze would help clear their heads.
Pollas Arteval, the Tornoys harbourmaster – he was the nearest thing to an official that Tornoys had, and even then he was really nothing more than a chandler who kept a register and collected contributions from the waterfront traders’ association – leaned on the gate outside his office and tried to figure out where the ship was from. It was old but soundly made, clinker-built, unlike the majority of the Colleon and Shastel sloops and clippers; certainly not from the Empire, with those sails. From the Island, possibly – they’d use anything that could float and a few that couldn’t – but the rigging wasn’t Island fashion somehow. He stared for a little longer, and realised what was bothering him. It was nothing really, a trivial detail of how the tiller bars of the rudders were socketed into the upper part of the loom, but he had an idea he’d seen something like it before, a long time ago. Still, he’d seen a lot of ships from a lot of places, with every possible contrivance for steering as for every other function. He made a note in his mind and started thinking about warm, fresh bread dunked in bacon fat instead.
The ship nuzzled up to the quay (if it’d had a face it’d have grinned with relief; Pollas fancied he could hear it sighing) and someone jumped down with a line and made her fast while others put out a gangplank. The men were like the ship, unfamiliar but faintly evocative of something he’d seen – what, twenty-five, maybe thirty years ago. Quite possibly, they were from some far-flung place that used to send ships here and then stopped doing so for some reason – war or politics, or just because there wasn’t enough in it to justify such a long haul. Reasonably enough, the men looked tired and fraught – so would anybody after a long night in the squalls off Tornoys – but they didn’t look like men who were expecting a well-earned rest. Rather, they had the resigned look of people who had most of their work still to do.
A crowd of them were ashore now, some fifty-five or sixty of them (a big crew for a ship that size, or maybe they were passengers). Then, in the time it took for Pollas to turn his head to smell the bread in the oven and then look back again, they’d drawn swords and axes and bows, put on helmets, uncovered shields. Suddenly Pollas knew where he’d seen a ship like that before. They were Ap’ Olethry pirates, runaway slaves and deserters from the Imperial army who infested the southern coastline of the Empire, and the chances were that they hadn’t come here for a hearty breakfast.
Pollas Arteval stood with his mouth open, horribly conscious that he hadn’t the faintest idea what to do. The pirates were splitting up into three groups, about twenty in each party; all he could think about was his own house, his wife opening the door of the bread oven, his daughter slicing the bacon. He couldn’t protect them, he didn’t own any weapons and he didn’t know how to fight. It wasn’t a required skill in Tornoys, where there wasn’t anything to fight about. He watched the small knot of soldiers to see what they were prepared to do about it, but they didn’t seem to have realised what was going on. Maybe, he thought, it isn’t really happening; maybe they’re just wearing their swords and shields and helmets, rather than getting ready to use them.
Not wanting to turn away, he stepped backwards into his porch, still watching. Be logical, he told himself: they’re here to steal, they won’t hurt anybody unless anybody tries to fight them, and nobody would be that stupid—
It would have been some misinterpreted nuance of body-language, a movement just too quick, a gesture that reminded someone of something he’d seen before. In all likelihood, it was glimpsed out of the corner of an eye, acted on with instinct rather than thought. It can’t have been an intentional act, for one of Gorgas’ soldiers to draw his bow and shoot an arrow into a pirate, for the simple reason that contingents of six men don’t pick fights with forces ten times their number, not even if they’re heroes. If the arrow had missed, even if it had glanced harmlessly off the angled side of a properly contoured helmet or breastplate, things might have been different. But it didn’t. The pirate was on his knees, screaming in terror, and instead of trying to help him, his friends were closing with the soldiers in a short, predictable mêlée. If they’d managed to kill all six of the soldiers it might not have been so bad, but they hadn’t. One man got away, ran up the hill much faster than anyone would have expected just from looking at him in the direction of the billets where Gorgas had stationed a half-company of men to make his presence felt in Tornoys. Pollas could see how the pirates felt about it all by the way they moved into action. They were unhappy but resigned, as you’d expect from men who’ve just seen a simple job turn into an awkward one. More fighting, they were saying. Oh, well, never mind. They formed their shield-wall like weary hands in a factory who’ve been told they’re having to work late.
They’re coming, Pollas realised; but there still wasn’t anything he could do other than get himself and his family out of the way; and he knew without being able to account for why that he’d left it rather too late for that. It was too difficult to accept the reality of the situation. A few moments ago, less time than it took to boil a pot of water, everything had been normal. He could see people he recognised, shopkeepers and dock hands and quayside loafers, running away from the shield-wall or stumbling and falling; but he’d seen roughly the same sort of thing in dreams before now, when the nameless-familiar enemy or monster was chasing him along an alley or searching for him in the house – there had been this same illogical sense of detachment (it’s all right really, you’re asleep), this feeling of being an uninvolved spectator—
Someone was tugging at his arm. He looked round and saw his wife. She was pointing with one hand, pulling at him with the other, and he couldn’t make out what she was saying. He allowed himself to be pulled, and looked back as she hustled him away; they were using the bench from in front of the Happy Return to bash in the doors of the cheese warehouse. They were inside Dole Baven’s house, because there he was, with no clothes on, scrambling out of the back window, but he hadn’t looked to see what was underneath. He’d dropped down right in front of one of the other parties, and a pirate stuck him under the ribs with a halberd.
‘Come on,’ his wife was shrie
king (basically the same intonation she used for chivvying him in from the barn when dinner was on the table, going cold), and he could see the sense in that; but they were killing his friends, the least he could do was watch. It would be terrible if nobody even knew how they’d died.
‘Mavaut, come back!’ His wife’s voice again; she was watching their daughter sprinting away on her own, terrified, going the wrong way. Belis wanted to go after her, but he grabbed her wrist and wouldn’t let her (she didn’t like that). He watched as Mavaut bundled down the hill in a flurry of skirts, suddenly came up against the shield-wall, spun round and came scampering back.
They were coming up the hill now, this way. If they ran, they might still get out of the road. ‘All right, I’m coming,’ he said, and an arrow appeared in the air above him, hanging for a very brief moment before dipping and falling towards him. He could see it quite distinctly, down to the colour of the fletchings, and he watched it carefully all the way down and into his stomach, where it passed at an angle through him and out the other side, leaving six inches of shaft and the feathers still in him. Belis was screaming but after the slight shock of impact he couldn’t feel very much, except for the strange and disturbing sensation of having something artificial inside his body. ‘All right,’ he snapped, ‘don’t fuss, for gods’ sakes.’ Time to be sensible, he decided, and led his family up the hill, then at right-angles along Pacers’ Alley. As he’d anticipated, the pirates carried on up the hill. They had better things to do than break order to go hunting stray civilians.
He sat down on the front step of Arc Javis’ house and looked at the arrow. There was blood all over his shirt, soaking into the broad weave of the cloth. There would be no point trying to stand up again now; his knees had failed completely, even his elbows and wrists felt weak and he was confused now, distracted, unable to concentrate his mind. The best thing would be to lean his head against the door and close his eyes for a while, just until he felt a little stronger.
His wife and daughter were arguing again – well, they always argued, Mavaut was at that age – and they seemed to be arguing about whether they ought to pull the arrow out or leave it in there. Belis was saying that if they took it out now it’d make the bleeding worse and he would die; Mavaut had to know different, of course, and she was nearly hysterical. With what was left of his consciousness, Pollas hoped his wife wouldn’t give in, the way she usually did when Mavaut worked herself up into a state, because an overindulged child would be an awful thing to die of.
He must have been asleep for a while, though it hadn’t seemed like it; he’d just closed his eyes for a moment. But he could hear different sounds; shouting, men shouting information backwards and forwards, like dock hands loading an awkard cargo. Orders; he could hear a man’s voice telling someone to keep in line, another voice shouting, Dress your ranks, raise your halberds, or something along those lines. He raised his head – it had got very heavy – but there was nobody in the alley except Belis, Mavaut and himself; the battle, if that’s what it was, seemed to be happening fifty yards or so away, on the main street. He applied his mind, trying to work out what was going on just by listening, but without seeing he had no idea which lot of foreigners were the pirates and which were Gorgas Loredan’s men. Of course he knew nothing about the shape of battles, about how they worked; it was like trying to work out where the hands of the town clock were just by listening to it ticking. More orders, a lot of shouting; it hadn’t occurred to him how busy the sergeants must be in a battle, how many things they must have to think about at once; like the captain of a ship, or the master of a work crew. He couldn’t make sense of the orders, though; the technical stuff was outside his experience – port your arms, dress to the front, wheel, make ready at the left there. He could hear feet shuffling, the nailed soles of boots scraping on cobbles, a few grunts of effort, the occasional clatter of a dropped weapon; but not the ring of steel or the screams of the dying, the sort of thing he’d been led to expect. It was remarkably quiet, in fact, so presumably they hadn’t started fighting yet.
He remembered something, and glanced down. The arrow wasn’t there any more, and once he saw that he started to feel an intrusive ache, like the worst kind of bellyache. Damn, he thought, they pulled the arrow out after all. They were sitting quite still beside him, holding on to each other as if they were afraid the other one would blow away in the wind.
Then the noise started; and yes, a battle was pretty loud. It was the sound of a forge, of metal under the hammer, not ringing but dull pecks and clunks and bangs – he could almost feel the force of the blows in the sound they made, unmistakable metal-on-metal, force being applied and resisted, thumping and bashing. They were going at it hard all right, if the noise was anything to judge by. There was effort behind those sounds; it must take an awful lot of effort to cut and crush helmets and breastplates and armour. He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate, isolate sounds so as to interpret them better, something which is of course much easier to do in the dark. It was hard work, though; the shouting of the sergeants got in the way, drowning out the nuances of the metal-on-metal contact, blurring his vision in the darkness. Typical, he thought. First time I’m ever at a battle and I can’t see a bloody thing. Fine story this’ll make to tell my grandchildren.
Quite suddenly, the battle moved on. The likeliest thing Pollas could think of was that one side or the other had given ground or run away, because the noise was muffled and distant, but whether it was up the hill or down he couldn’t make out. Down the hill was what he wanted, presumably, Gorgas’ men driving the pirates back into the sea (unless they’d somehow changed places, so that Gorgas’ men were attacking up the hill – all he knew about tactics was that they were complicated, like chess, and he couldn’t even beat Mavaut at chess these days). Besides, he couldn’t concentrate properly any more, the bellyache got in the way of his hearing and pretty well everything else, and his head was spinning as badly as if he’d just drunk a gallon of cider on an empty stomach. All in all, he didn’t feel very well, so he was probably excused observing battles for now. Oddly enough, though, the pain didn’t get in the way of falling asleep; so he did that –
- And then he was in a bed, his own; the room was dark and there was nobody else there, so he couldn’t ask if he was dead or alive (and he had no way of knowing for himself). It followed, though, that his side had won; so that was all right.
CHAPTER NINE
In the courtyard below the prefect’s office, a madman was reciting scripture. The words were right, as accurate as any scholar could wish, but the madman was howling them at the top of his voice, as if uttering curses. The prefect frowned, disturbed by the inconsistency; here was everything that was beautiful and good, unmarred by error or omission, and yet it was utterly wrong.
The district administrator paused in the middle of his summary, aware that his superior wasn’t paying attention. Being slightly deaf, he hadn’t found the distant noise intrusive, but now he could hear it too. The two men looked at each other.
‘Shall I send the clerk for the guard?’ the administrator asked.
The prefect shook his head. ‘He isn’t doing anything wrong,’ he replied.
The administrator raised an eyebrow. ‘Disturbing the peace,’ he said. ‘Loitering with intent. Blasphemy—’
‘I didn’t say he wasn’t breaking any laws,’ the prefect replied with a smile. ‘But it’s every man’s duty to preach the scriptures. It’s just a pity that he’s choosing to do it at the top of his voice.’
(But it wasn’t that, of course; it was the tone of voice that was so disturbing, the savage anger with which the fellow was reciting those calm, measured, impersonal statements of doctrine, those elegantly balanced maxims, so perfectly phrased that not one single word could be replaced by a synonym without radically altering the sense. It was like listening to a wolf howling Substantialist poetry.)
‘Sooner or later,’ the prefect went on, ‘someone else will call the guard, the wre
tched creature will be taken away and we’ll have some peace again. Until then, I shall pretend I can’t hear it. I’m sorry, you were saying—’
The administrator nodded. ‘The proposed alliance,’ he went on, ‘is of course out of the question; this man Gorgas Loredan is nothing but an adventurer, a small-scale warlord who’s set himself up in a backwater and is desperately trying to enlist powerful friends against the day when his subjects get tired of him and throw him out. Doing anything that would appear to recognise his regime would reflect very badly on us. Quite simply, we don’t do business with that class of person.’
‘Agreed,’ replied the prefect, trying to concentrate. ‘But there’s more to it, I can tell.’
The administrator nodded wearily. ‘Unfortunately,’ he went on, ‘the confounded man has had a quite extraordinary stroke of good luck. Two days ago, the small port that lies on his border – Tornoys, it’s called – was raided by a pirate ship. One ship, fifty or so men; they were after the dispatch clipper from Ap’ Escatoy, which they’d been stalking all the way up the coast until it was driven into Tornoys by a sudden storm on the previous day. They followed it in, got badly knocked about by the storm themselves, and spent the night riding it out before coming into harbour just after dawn. Now I’m not sure what happened after that, but Gorgas Loredan and his men arrived before they could do anything about the clipper and engaged them in battle; half of the pirates were killed, and Gorgas has the survivors locked up in a barn somewhere. He’s also holding on to the clipper, though he hasn’t given any reasons.’
The prefect was scowling. ‘It’s Hain Partek, isn’t it?’ he said.
The administrator nodded. ‘And Gorgas knows precisely who it is he’s got hold of,’ he went on. ‘Well, he’d have to be singularly ill-informed not to; after all, we’ve been offering large sums of money for him and posting his description up all over the province these past ten years; and of course it’s wonderful news that he’s been caught, I suppose. I just wish, though, that it had been somebody else and not this Gorgas person.’