by K. J. Parker
It took Venart a moment to realise that it was up to him to reply. He’d seen Sons of Heaven before, even spoken to a few of them, but never one quite this tall or angular or official-looking. ‘That’s me,’ he squeaked, bitterly regretting the big red hat, which was flopping down over his left eye. ‘Venart Auzeil. First Citizen,’ he added.
The Son of Heaven looked at him. ‘Thank you for being here to greet me,’ he said. ‘Can we make a start, please? We have a lot to get through.’
‘Of course,’ Venart said, and a moment later found himself trotting along in the envoy’s wake like (for example) the sausage-maker’s dog. Fortunately, the envoy seemed to know where he was going. Venart didn’t.
‘Do you speak for the Ship-Owners’ Association?’ asked the envoy over his shoulder.
‘Oh, yes,’ Venart assured him, taking a couple of skips to keep up. He’d never seen legs that long on a human before.
‘And the Merchant Seamen’s Guild?’
‘Um,’ Venart said. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘Good,’ said the envoy. ‘Then we won’t need to have their representatives present during the talks. I assume they’re aware of that?’
‘What? Oh, yes,’ Venart panted, and passed the message on to the relevant parties. Fortunately, since their legs were even shorter than his, he wasn’t able to hang around and listen to their reaction.
He still didn’t know where they were going, but it didn’t really seem appropriate to ask. It was vaguely disquieting to think that the enemy knew their way round the Island better than the First Citizen did, but the sensible way to handle that was to file it under significant information and call it up again the next time he felt the slightest inclination to underestimate these people.
They stopped. To be exact, the envoy stopped (outside the Four Blazons Of Virtue, which Venart hadn’t been in since he was a very young man; in fact, he had an uneasy feeling he’d been banned from there for life – or was he thinking of the Blameless Virtue in the Sheepwalk?) and waited for him to catch up.
‘I took the liberty of hiring a room,’ the envoy said, ‘through an intermediary, of course. I hope you find it acceptable.’
‘Fine,’ Venart replied breathlessly. ‘After you.’
The sight of a Son of Heaven in the public bar of the Four Blazons caused a considerable amount of alarm and despondency, which the presence of the First Citizen didn’t do much to assuage. But Colonel Tejar obviously knew the way; he walked straight through the bar, up a short staircase, across the landing and down a corridor. The door was open, and there was a tray with food and a wine-jug on the table. Impressive, Venart admitted to himself, but a tactical error, surely. Why make a display of your strength unless you want to persuade me it’s greater than it is? ‘This looks fine,’ he said, and sat down in the more comfortable-looking of the two chairs.
‘Now,’ said Coloner Tejar, perching on the other chair and taking a writing tablet out of his sleeve. ‘Do you wish to start with a statement or any questions, or shall we pass straight on to our proposals?’
‘Go ahead,’ Venart replied; and he was thinking, It may just be because he wanted to make sure we lost the other two, because he knows he can outsmart me, but he wasn’t sure about Votz or the Guild. Well, so long as I know that, I should be able to cope.
‘I’ve taken the liberty of drawing up a draft agreement, ’ the colonel continued, pulling a little brass tube out of his other sleeve. ‘If you’d care to spend a moment or so looking it over . . .’
Marvellous handwriting these people had, Venart couldn’t help thinking; and even for a thoroughly utilitarian document like this they’ve been to the trouble of illuminating the initial letter with three colours and just the tiniest touch of gold leaf.
- Item: the Island to be associated with the Empire as a protectorate.
- Item: an Imperial Protector to reside permanently on the Island.
- Item: a permanent honour guard to attend the Protector, such guard not to exceed three hundred men-at-arms.
- Item: the expenses of the Protector and his staff to be divided equally between the Island and the provincial office.
- Item: –
‘Excuse me, ‘ Venart said, ‘but what’s a Protector?’
The Colonel stared at him down his nose. ‘An Imperial official assigned to reside in an Imperial protectorate, ’ he replied.
‘Ah. Thank you.’
- Item: the Protector to be consulted concerning all aspects of public, Association or Guild policy in any way having bearing upon the relationship between the Island and the Empire.
- Item: upon such consultation, the Protector to issue an official endorsement of such policy, such endorsement to be published in the same way as such policy.
- Item: in the event that such endorsement is not issued, the matter to be referred back to a committee composed equally of Imperial staff and officers of all relevant representative bodies of the Island.
(Clever; if they want to stop us doing something, they bring in the other two factions and get them to veto it.)
- Item: the Empire and the Island to join in a pact for mutual defensive and offensive military support.
(They get the fleet.)
- Item: only weights and measures specified by the relevant officer of the provincial office to be used in commercial transactions.
- Item: a full extradition treaty in the standard form issued by the provincial office to be signed between the Island and the Empire.
Well, there were several more items, and taken together it was total and abject surrender, but with honour. What more could a First Citizen ask? ‘Excuse me.’
‘Yes?’
‘Just a small point,’ Venart said, ‘but you haven’t actually said here that the extradition thing won’t be retrospective. Do you want to put that in or shall I?’
The colonel frowned. ‘That’s not a standard term of provincial office extradition treaties,’ he said.
So no prizes for guessing who you’ll be extraditing first. ‘It’s pretty well standard for us,’ Venart said.
‘Really? I wasn’t aware you had any extant extradition agreements.’
Perfectly true. ‘We have arrangements,’ Venart lied. ‘Customary practices built up over the years. You know, precedents and the like.’
(And if he asks me to name one person we’ve extradited in the last six hundred years, I’ll have to admit there wasn’t any.)
‘I see.’ The envoy’s face was expressionless. ‘Perhaps it would be a more efficient use of our time to defer detailed discussion of treaty terms to a later date. It would be a shame to jeopardise the momentum towards an agreement by focusing too closely on individual issues. After all,’ he added, looking just over the top of Venart’s head, ‘we don’t have to finalise the whole thing here and now.’
‘Of course.’ Venart read the rest of the document, but he didn’t really take it in. They had no choice in the matter, after all. ‘One thing,’ he said, as he rolled up the paper. ‘I don’t suppose this has even been considered yet, but it’s worth asking, I suppose. Do you have any idea who they have in mind for the Protector’s job? Just on the off chance that it’s someone we’ve heard of, it could help to set people’s minds at rest—’
‘As a matter of fact,’ the envoy replied, ‘there’s a recommendation in place; and yes, it’s somebody you’re likely to be familiar with. Captain Bardas Loredan.’
Venart did his very best not to react. ‘I know Colonel – I mean, Captain Loredan,’ he said. ‘I met him during the siege of Perimadeia.’
The envoy nodded. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘That was a factor we considered when making the recommendation. Also,’ he went on, ‘Captain Loredan is familiar with the area and the various issues, and he’s certainly earned a promotion by his conduct of the plains war, and the business at Ap’ Escatoy. He’s very highly regarded by the provincial office. You can count on the recommendation going through; assuming,’ he added, ‘that you’re mi
nded to accept these proposals.’
Venart took a deep breath. ‘In principle,’ he said. ‘I mean, as a starting point for negotiations. Obviously there are a few details—’
‘Of course.’ The envoy stood up. ‘For the time being, however,’ he said, ‘perhaps you’d care to sign the copy I just gave you.’
‘Sign it?’ Venart looked startled. ‘But I thought we just agreed there were points of detail—’
The envoy almost smiled. Almost. ‘Indeed. But I think it would be as well to have a signed agreement in existence, if only as a holding measure. Otherwise I couldn’t absolutely guarantee that provincial office policy in this area would necessarily remain static indefinitely.’ He turned his head, looked out of the window. ‘Since the agreement would be subject to formal ratification by the regional co-ordinator, we can safely say that the terms of this draft aren’t necessarily carved in stone, so to speak. For today, however, my primary concern is to protect both our positions.’
Venart hesitated. He knew a threat when he heard one; but surely this offer, these negotiations could only mean that the Imperials felt weak. It was tantamount to desperation on their part, anything to close off one lot of problems so as to be able to concentrate on the others. ‘This extradition business—’ he began.
The envoy turned back and looked him in the eye. It was like staring for too long down a well. ‘I can give you my personal assurance,’ he said, ‘that there will be ample opportunity for discussion at all levels before any actual proceedings are put in hand.’
Bardas Loredan, Venart thought. Well, there comes a point when a man’s got to believe in something. ‘All right,’ he said. His hands shook a little as he took the top off the brass cylinder; he hadn’t put the paper back in quite right, and it was jammed. After he’d fumbled with it for a moment or so, the envoy leaned over him, took it from him and drew out the paper without any difficulty. ‘Have you got something to write with?’ he asked.
‘Hm? Oh, yes.’ Venart felt in his pockets, then the pouch on his belt. ‘At least – yes, here it is.’ He found the little writing-set Athli Zeuxis had given him, years ago; pen, inkstone, small knife, all in a dear little cedarwood box. He moistened the stone with a little wine, rubbed up some ink and signed the paper.
When Temrai felt a little better, he gave orders for a large-scale sortie.
‘You’ve changed your tune,’ they said to him.
‘Yes,’ he replied.
The general staff, who’d almost given up hope of being allowed to do anything, weren’t too bothered to find out his motivation. They couldn’t have cared less if he’d told them he’d changed his mind because he’d been told to do it by special voices that only he could hear; they’d been cleared for action, that was enough.
With both Temrai and Sildocai out of action, overall command passed to Peltecai, whose official designation was cavalry marshal; a good man but a worrier, who worried that he worried. Because he was concerned that his tendency to apprehension might result in dithering leading to disaster, he delegated command to a number of other officers, while reserving the right to override any of their orders if he saw fit. He then held a council of war.
This proved inconclusive; the general staff, it seemed to him, were in a reckless mood as a result of the frustrations of the bombardment, so he resolved to be firm and not allow them to rush him into anything. On the other hand, he had nothing concrete of his own in mind, since he’d wisely delegated planning on the tactical level to his lieutenants. Time, meanwhile, was getting on; unless something was decided soon they’d be too late for a daytime operation and be obliged to mount a night attack; Peltecai saw only too clearly the risks of being hustled into such a risky initiative without proper planning or preparation, and therefore made up his mind to attack at once, with all his available forces.
He then addressed the question of what forces were available, and by the time he’d worked out the true implications of the question it was getting on for mid-morning, and the last thing he wanted was to be bounced into fighting a crucial battle in the midday heat, so he nominated one unit in three for garrison duty and told the rest to fall in for the attack.
At this point, a message arrived from Temrai asking what all the delays were in aid of. Flustered, Peltecai sent back a reply saying that they were just on the point of setting off, and rode to the head of the column. Whatever faults he may have had as a commander, lack of individual courage wasn’t one of them. He was determined to lead from the front, by example.
This turned out to be unfortunate, because, as the grand cavalry charge came into range of the enemy’s weak and uncommitted archers, one of the handful of men shot from the saddle and trampled into an unrecognisable mess by the troop behind was Peltecai. By this point, of course, nobody else had a clue what the plan was or how the chain of command was supposed to work. As the plains cavalry crashed headlong into the wall of the enemy’s pikes, therefore, they were operating on the default principle of kill as many of them as you can, then go home.
Which worked fine, at least to begin with. Temrai had decided at the start of the war that the only way to deal with the formations of massed armoured pikemen they were likely to encounter was a point-blank volley from the horse-archers to break the line, followed by an utterly committed follow-up with scimitars and battle-axes to widen the gaps and cause a panic. Once they’d achieved that, the enemy’s close formation and sheer bulk would be their undoing, if anything could defeat them.
At the hundred-yard mark, therefore, the horse-archers pulled ahead of the heavy cavalry and split their column into two lines, peeling off to ride down the face of the pike formations. The volley went home at thirty-five yards, each archer loosing as he rode past the designated point in the line. The hedge of spearheads crumpled in two places, as the dead and dying pikemen swayed and fell against their comrades in the rows behind, tangling and snagging the men around them. As soon as the archers were clear, the heavy cavalry drove into the wounds in the line, their column splitting down the middle as they rode. Penetration was the key; if they could drive deep enough into the mass of pikemen, they’d be fighting unopposed – at ground level, there simply wasn’t room to lower a pike or draw a sword, and the horsemen would cut the lines like a shear cutting sheet steel, using the tension of the material to make the cut possible. Meanwhile the horse-archers would stand off and shoot from as close as they could get into the rest of the line, trying to prompt them to charge and further disrupt their formation; and if they managed to do that, there were the heavy reserves and, if absolutely necessary, the infantry.
They made a very promising start; the front troops punched two deep holes in the line, like bodkinheads puncturing a breastplate. Once they were in, however, they found they had a problem; there wasn’t much the enemy could do to them, but their light, sharp scimitars weren’t up to the job of shearing Imperial proof. They hammered and bashed until their fine edges were blunt and the muscles of their wrists and forearms were crippled with the shock of resisted force running back up the bone, but it was like bashing with a hammer on an anvil, which is specifically designed to be bashed. Stalemate.
In a battle, however, stalemate never endures; something always happens, usually through nobody’s conscious choice. While the heavy cavalry were pounding ineffectually on the anvil, the enemy cavalry (who’d been held back as a reserve; a mistake, as Bardas Loredan later admitted) sprinted up to engage them and ran into the horse-archers, who were pulling out in order to avoid them but mistimed their manoeuvre. In desperation, the archers loosed as much of a volley as they could put together on the fly; in accordance with standing orders, they shot at the horses rather than the men, and were far more successful than either party had anticipated. The front rank of Imperial troopers went down in a welter of noise and dust, and the next rank couldn’t stop in time; they rode over and through the fallen horses, crashing like a runaway cart hitting a wall. Startled but greatly encouraged, the horse-archers put up the
ir bows, drew their scimitars and charged, only to find they had the same problem as their colleagues in the heavy cavalry when it came to cutting steel. They’d anticipated rolling up the Imperials with the momentum of their charge; instead, they stalled and came to a standstill as they found out the hard way that their chain-mail and cuir-bouilli was enough to stop them getting cut by the four-pound Imperial swords but didn’t do much to prevent smashed bones or concussion. At this point the back three troops of Imperials (who’d lagged behind and only just caught up) swept round their flank, cut off their escape and started hacking them down like an overgrown hedge.
The captain of the sixth reserve troop, a man called Iordecai, saw what was happening and led a charge. Through sheer carelessness the Imperials didn’t see him coming until it was too late for them to get out of the way. Iordecai’s men were one of the few units of lancers in Temrai’s army, and they had no trouble at all punching through heavy plate. Their impact shifted the balance of the engagement; the Imperial captain panicked, imagining that he’d been set up for just such an attack, and tried to pull his men out, but they were too deeply engaged to be able to withdraw; instead, they tried to cut their way out through the horse-archers, and made an impressively good job of it. As they broke through the side of the mêlée, however, they were rammed in flank and rear by another troop of lancers, following up on Iordecai’s lead.
At this point the balance of the rearguard, who could see the victory being won by the lancers but not the mess in the pike formation, decided it was time they had their turn; so they charged the pikemen, who were no longer being worried by archers and had had time to recover a little order. When the rearguard (who weren’t lancers) drove their charge home, they found the levelled heads of the pikes waiting for them, by which point it was too late to slow down.
Bardas Loredan, on a low hill behind the camp, couldn’t see much of the pike formation either, but he had a fine view of the cavalry battle and decided that his only chance of saving the day was to commit his halberdiers against the lancers at the charge and hope they got there in time. They did the best they could, but it was a fairly hopeless venture; by the time they’d skirted the pikemen, the enemy infantrymen had deployed across their line of advance and were manoeuvring to take them in flank. There didn’t seem to be anything to be gained by slowing down at this point, so the captain of halberdiers led his column at the double into the centre of the enemy line. The effect was spectacular: they cut the line in half, routing one wing completely. That helped; they were now at liberty to hook the enemy formation and press home the attack on three sides. Their mistake was not spotting the two troops of heavy cavalry that had failed to get into the pike formation and retired to the side of the battle with nothing to do.