by K. J. Parker
‘I think the word is “parasite”,’ Vetriz interrupted. ‘You’re a parasite on naturals.’
‘Very well put,’ replied Niessa, smiling. ‘I wanted to find out about Alexius and that other man, Gannadius; I gather that they learnt or worked out for themselves how to do some of the things I can do without any natural ability at all, just acquired skill and knowledge. As far as they could tell, it was purely an accident in their case, something they stumbled on in the course of their academic research.’ She made the pursuit sound utterly futile. ‘Obviously I’d like to know what they know, which is why I brought Alexius here. Gannadius is a teacher with the Foundation, which is rather unfortunate, but I’ll deal with that when I’ve got the time. Anyway, that’s all beside the point. The point is your interest in my brother, and the fact that you seem to be able to - well, control him.’
‘Oh, that’s not true,’ Vetriz protested. ‘You make it sound like I can make him do things. And I’m sure I can’t. I’ve never tried, but I’m sure—’
‘You averted his death,’ Niessa interrupted. ‘Or you were used to achieve that end. Shall I let you into a secret? Yes, why not? Since you’re not completely stupid, you’ll work it out for yourself eventually. Your friend Alexius is a natural too, and the comic thing is, he didn’t know. All those years reading books and yattering to old men in his stupid Academy, and all the time he had the ability to twist the Principle round his little finger. I don’t suppose it ever occurred to him. Maybe he really wasn’t interested. It’s possible, isn’t it? He told me that the practical use of the Principle - I was calling it ‘magic’ at the time, to annoy him - is just an irrelevant side-effect of the true pursuit of philosophy. Can you imagine an attitude like that? All right, think of a charcoal-burner hundreds of years ago, devoting his whole life is getting the art of charcoal-burning just right. And one day he notices little bright shiny flecks in the ashes of his fire. He picks them up, decides they’re not interesting and throws them away, and the next time he sees them, he takes no notice. Now, that man has just invented the smelting of iron, but since he’s only interested in charcoal, he ignores it. Anyway, enough of that. Alexius is a natural, as sure as we’re both here.’
Vetriz looked at her, but it was like looking at an arrow-slit high up in a castle wall. ‘So what is it you want from us?’ she said. ‘You’re in business, and so am I. What’s the deal?’
‘Ah,’ Niessa said approvingly, ‘you’re beginning to sound like me. Actually, you’ve got a fine trader’s mind, much more so than that buffoon of a brother of yours. It seems to be the way of things that women like us, with a keen commercial instinct, are hampered by our ne’er-do-well brothers. Count yourself lucky you’ve only got one. There, I knew I’d find the similarity between us if I looked hard enough. Well, I’ll be absolutely straight with you. Sometimes I see a future, a moment in the future, where everything’s gone wrong and everything I’ve worked for and built up has been wrecked, and in that moment I always see my brother Bardas; and don’t ask me how I know but I just do, that if he wanted to he could step in and stop it happening. But he doesn’t.’ She paused for a moment, frowning, as if contemplating a ledger that was perversely refusing to balance. ‘Obviously I’ve tried to avert it, but I can’t. You see, I’m not actually there in that moment; it’s part of some other strand of the rope that I can’t get into, however hard I try. I think that strand has to do with my brother Bardas, and Alexius, and maybe even you as well.’ She sighed. ‘I won’t hide it from you, it’s becoming something of an obsession with me, getting in the way of the real work I ought to be doing. I don’t like it; it niggles, if you know what I mean.’
‘I can imagine,’ Vetriz said, without expression.
‘Can you really? How fascinating. Logically, I’ve got two courses of action open to me. I can make Alexius try and intervene, the way he did on behalf of my wretched daughter when she asked him to curse Bardas; but I haven’t got much confidence in him for that. I suspect it was sheer luck that curse really worked, and setting it aside wasn’t too hard. Alternatively, there’s you. After all, you’re also a natural, and my guess is a fairly substantial one. You’re caught up in the strand yourself. And,’ Niessa added quietly, ‘you’ll be so much easier to coerce than an old man who strikes me as tired of life. After all, you’re young and attractive, you have a brother you care deeply about, you also care about Alexius, and Bardas too. there are so many ways to make you do what you’re told, the only slight problem is deciding which string to pull first.’ She folded her arms. ‘Have I made myself clear?’ she said.
—And Vetriz opened her mouth to reply, but Venart was still talking, finishing the sentence he’d just started when the strange interview began. Niessa Loredan let him finish, and then clicked her tongue. ‘If you can’t lie better than that,’ she said abruptly, ‘I suggest you quit commerce and find some other way of making a living. Anyway,’ she went on, with a dismissive gesture, ‘that’s all very well. I think you, Master Venart Auzeil, would be well advised to get off this island within - oh, let’s see, I don’t want to make life too difficult for you, let’s say forty-eight hours. Your sister will stay here, with me. We have other matters to discuss.’
For a moment, Vetriz was afraid that Venart would do something stupid, such as grab her and make a run for it, or hit Niessa. Instinctively she grabbed his arm. He shook it free.
‘That’s not acceptable,’ he said, trying valiantly to sound firm. ‘If you’re trying to detain a citizen of the Island against her will—’
‘It’s all right,’ Vetriz heard herself saying, ‘I’ll be fine. You go. Don’t worry.’
Venart looked as if he’d just been bitten by a chair. ‘No, it’s not fine,’ he said petulantly, struggling vainly with his bewilderment. ‘You don’t want to stay here, with her—’
‘Yes, I do,’ Vetriz said.
‘You don’t—’
‘You can go,’ Niessa interrupted, ‘or you can both stay. But if you stay, Master Auzeil, you won’t enjoy it. Now stop bickering with your sister, and go and conclude your business.’
Venart looked at her, then at Vetriz; he felt as if he was staring at two strange monsters in human disguise. He tried to think of something to say, but couldn’t.
‘Please,’ Vetriz said. ‘Really, I will be all right. There’ll only be a problem if you make a fuss.’
Venart took a deep breath. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said, with feeling.
‘You amaze me,’ Niessa said. ‘The officer will show you out.’
What Gorgas really wanted to do was go home. Instead, he trudged through the corridors and up and down the stairs, and finally found himself in the hall with the hammer-beam roof and the tasteless pink pillars. He buttonholed a clerk, who told him that the Director was busy.
‘No, she’s not,’ Gorgas replied. ‘If there’s anyone in there with her, tell her to get rid of them. This is important.’
The clerk gave him a long, hateful look and went into the Director’s office. He came out again a moment later with an expression on his face that only just avoided being a smirk.
‘I’m afraid the Director isn’t here,’ he said.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Gorgas replied. ‘The Director lives here. If she isn’t in her office she must be in her lodgings. Go and tell her - oh, the hell with that, I’ll go myself. It’s all right,’ he added, as the horrified clerk tried to stop him, ‘I know the way.’
He barged past the clerk, shouldering him out of the way, and closed the office door firmly behind him, then crossed the room to a small, almost invisible door in the wall. He banged on it once with his closed fist, then shoved. The door swung open sharply and Gorgas strode through.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘Hello, Niessa,’ Gorgas replied.
It was a tiny room, smaller than the cell her daughter was locked up in; cleaner, but rather more sparsely furnished. There was a stone shelf in the far corner which served as a bed, and a
plain oak chest in the other corner, its lid padlocked shut. In a small crevice in the wall above the bed, an oil-lamp flickered on a short wick. There was no fireplace and no window, just a small grille under the low ceiling to provide ventilation. Niessa Loredan lay on the shelf, stark naked, darning the heel of a threadbare stocking that was already mostly composed of darning wool.
‘Get out.’
‘All right,’ Gorgas said. ‘I’ll see you in the office in five minutes.’
Rather less than five minutes later, Niessa bundled out of her room. She was wearing a purple silk robe, and her feet were bare. ‘If you ever do that again—’ she started to say, but Gorgas interrupted her.
‘There’s a problem,’ he said.
‘Well?’
He sat down in the visitor’s chair and drew one knee up onto the other. ‘The hostages are dead,’ he said, in a flat, expressionless voice. ‘While I was here nattering with you, my men tried to smoke them out. They burnt down the village and,’ he added, with a grimace, ‘the Albiac plantation, which is a real blow. I thought you ought to know at once, so I came here straight away.’
Niessa stared at him for a moment as if she hadn’t understood what he’d been saying, then started to swear. She swore well and fluently, like a man. When she’d finished, she swilled down what was left in her cider-mug and crammed a small cake in her mouth.
‘Well?’ Gorgas asked.
‘You tell me,’ Niessa replied with her mouth full. ‘You were the one who wanted to kill them.’
Gorgas scowled impatiently. ‘That’s right, I did,’ he said. ‘And then you explained why it’d be a really stupid thing to do. Come on, pull yourself together. I really need to get some sleep soon,’ he went on, reinforcing the point with a huge yawn.
Niessa rubbed her face briskly with the cupped palms of her hands. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘let’s try and think this through logically. First, what do you think the chances are of keeping it quiet? After all, there’s no rule says we’ve got to tell them the hostages are dead; we can say they surrendered and we’ve put them somewhere safe in case of further rescue attempts. We could even say we’ve shipped them off Scona, quietly and without any fuss. It’d get us off the hook in the short term.’
Gorgas shook his head. ‘First, we’d have to come clean sooner or later,’ he said. ‘Second, I don’t reckon it’d be possible. The gods only know how many agents the Foundation’s got among our people; I can name you thirty without even looking at my notes, and you can bet your life there’s three we don’t know about for every one we do. I say forget that option.’
‘All right,’ Niessa replied. ‘Let’s have another look at your original idea. As I see it, there’s two ways we can play it. First, we could make a big thing of it - so perish all invaders - and hope the factions’ll do the rest. But I don’t think that’s how these things work. The factions that were against the original expedition will be the ones calling for all-out retaliation, and the ones who were for it won’t dare oppose that. My guess is, the factions’ll end up holding an auction, and the side who proposes the biggest and most powerful expeditionary force will win.’
Gorgas nodded. ‘That makes sense,’ he said. ‘So what’s the other option?’
‘Well,’ Niessa said, pulling at the tip of her nose, ‘there’s your idea. The pro-raid factions really don’t have anywhere to go. If they call for reprisals they’re agreeing with the enemy. If they oppose them, they’ve lost their nerve and are weak and spineless. The question is whether they’d still be strong enough to ride it out, or whether we really could panic them into making a deal with us. What do you think?’
Gorgas thought for a moment. ‘My instinct, bearing in mind what you said yesterday - gods, was it only yesterday? - is no, forget it. True enough, there’s a few in the factions crazy enough to open the gates just to keep the enemy from winning, but not enough. I think we have to look longer term. They’re going to have to go along with the retaliations, yes? So in that case, their only real hope is for the new expedition to do even worse than the original one; and that’s where I see scope for talking to them.’
Niessa nodded. ‘It’s still a very big step for them to take,’ she said. ‘I grant you, it’s covert treason rather than open treason, but they’re still dead if they get caught and it doesn’t work.’
‘Fair point,’ Gorgas conceded. ‘But consider this. For the opening-the-gates thing, we’d need pretty well the whole of two factions to come in with us. For the revised version, we only need a handful of individuals - the real faction crazies, if you like - to pass us useful information and help out with sabotage on the supply and strategic fronts. I can almost guarantee you ten or so of those.’
Niessa shook her head. ‘We’re still both assuming there’s got to be an invasion, and the best we can hope for is faction support to help us defeat it. I don’t like those odds. I believe that even with inside information and our supporters doing their best to sabotage the raid, we’re still just too damn small and weak to stand up to a full mobilisation of Shastel. In the end, numbers would win. And even suppose we did manage to defeat them heavily enough, short of wiping them out to the last man, isn’t that just inviting an even bigger and better army the next time round?’
Gorgas yawned again. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘what about trying the same thing from the other direction? Posit this. The hectemores suddenly realise that the Foundation’s not invincible after all. The legendary Shastel halberdiers humiliated by the archers of Scona—’
Niessa laughed harshly. ‘Romance,’ she said dismissively. ‘They’re peasants, they aren’t suddenly going to rise up and rebel. Or at least they might, but it’d be a fluke, a special combination of events that snowballs and gets everybody caught up in the excitement, until they’re all a bit crazy and ready to do anything. These things happen, but you can’t rely on it happening, and you can’t make it happen. No, I was thinking of trying to make a deal.’
Gorgas raised his eyebrows. ‘I can’t see it myself,’ he replied. ‘We aren’t talking about rational people, remember, basically we’re dealing with faction members, hooligans. Even talking to us visibly would be suicide.’
‘Maybe,’ Niessa said. ‘Unless we can put together a deal they can’t resist. Try this. First, we say the deaths of the hostages was a tragic accident, the result of a forest fire. We sincerely and deeply regret the loss of life. Now obviously,’ she went on, as Gorgas tried to interrupt, ‘they won’t go for that unless we make it worth their while. What we’ve got to do is think of what it’d take in the way of incentives to make them stop and think. And that’s where we’ve got to be completely realistic. Let’s face it: we’re looking at complete annihilation here, unless we can come up with some way of avoiding a war.’
‘I agree,’ Gorgas said. ‘So where do we pitch the offer.’
Niessa picked up a pen and fiddled with it. It was, Gorgas noticed, a typical Niessa object - a plain trimmed white goose quill fitted with a small gold nib. ‘We can’t start off too low,’ she said, ‘but we don’t want to give them more than we have to, naturally.’
‘Just plain money won’t do it,’ Gorgas said. ‘Their capital reserves are so vast, money doesn’t matter to them. It’s got to be land, and probably something else on top.’
‘Fine. I say we offer them all the mortgages we hold on the mainland. Every last one. After all, that’s what they’ve really wanted all along, so why not give it to them? If they can have that without a fight, what the hell else could they possibly want from us?’
‘Fine,’ Gorgas replied calmly. ‘And what do we do for a living after that?’
‘Oh, we’ll think of something. And I’ll tell you this for nothing, we won’t be doing anything for a living if we’re dead.’
Gorgas nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘What you’re saying makes sense. And as far as I’m concerned, the hectemore business wasn’t getting us anywhere in the long run anyway. You know that for a long time now, I’ve b
een saying we should be looking at trade and manufacturing rather than just running the old racket. Mind you, I’m not saying we’re ready, but—’
Niessa grinned. ‘It’s your big Scona-the-new-Perimadeia thing, isn’t it?’ she said. And I’m not trying to put that down, believe me; it’s something we’ve been working towards and putting a lot of effort into. So, just as well, really.’
‘That’s right,’ Gorgas said. ‘And of course, we’ll still have the ships.’
Niessa shook her head. ‘Not so fast,’ she said. ‘I said land and something on top, remember. Look at it from their side: they can take the land for themselves if they take us out, and have all the fun of wiping out the shame of the defeat - and I reckon it’ll take something quite special to make them pass up on that. Bear in mind, their whole culture’s based on the notion that it’s good to fight. We’re asking them to pass up the chance of a good war, with a guaranteed victory at the end of it. If we’re asking them to do that, we’ve go to make it worth their while.’
‘So?’ Gorgas shrugged. ‘What’s your idea?’
‘We give them the fleet,’ Niessa replied. ‘It’s the one thing they badly need which we’ve got and they haven’t, which they can’t just take by force of arms. We give them the ships, and we supply men to train their people and sail the ships in the meanwhile. Look at it from their point of view, and it makes sense. Of course, we’d have to make them force it out of us as a last desperate concession; but I think that’s the way we should be looking to go.
Gorgas scowled at her. ‘It’s also goodbye to any hope of making a living on this rock,’ he said angrily. ‘All right, perhaps some ships, some men. But why the hell should they want them all?’
‘You’re missing the point,’ Niessa replied. ‘It wasn’t Perimadeian ships that built up City trade; it was quality goods at the best prices. The way I see us going is along the lines of those workshops of yours, where you make all the stuff for the army. Get all the people you’ve got making arrow-nocks and put them on making buttons. The same with your armourers; if they can make helmets and swords they can make brass pots and shovels and any damn thing, cheap and quick. Just think; if every button in the world is made on Scona, we’ll bless the day we got out of the mortgage business. And we won’t need an army and we won’t have to fight any wars. We’ll have Shastel to do that for us.’