The Two of Swords, Volume 1

by K. J. Parker

At least he’s a man, he meant. “The country wouldn’t stand for it,” Daxin said.

  “Of course not,” the Count agreed. “What’s for afters?”

  The senior librarian from the College of Heralds was typically efficient. Come back in two hours, he’d said, and he was as good as his word. When Daxin returned, he was presented with a proper formal family tree, complete with sources and brief biographical notes, where relevant. It was a huge document; there wasn’t a table big enough, so they had to spread it out on the floor.

  “No, it’s all right, I can manage just fine,” Daxin said quickly, as the old man began the slow and arduous process of kneeling down beside him. “I know how to read these things.”

  A bit of an overstatement, but he was able to get the general idea. Sure enough, Oida (Gennaeus Fraxiles Eurymedon Oida Mazentinus, in full Imperial nomenclature) was there up away in the middle of the right-hand margin. He was in blue, meaning he was still alive. Nearly all the names on the parchment were red, for dead. To his surprise, he also saw himself—Gennaeus Deas Eurymedon Daxin Epignatho—far out on the left-hand outskirts, in black, meaning correlative, or too remote to be family within the meaning of the relevant statutes.

  He stood up. “Could you do me a favour,” he said, “and write in who’s what in line to the throne? I’m not quite clear just from looking at it—”

  The librarian gave him a look. “We’re not supposed to do that,” he said. “Technically, in fact, it’s treason.”

  “Is it? Good heavens. Oh well, don’t, then; sorry I asked. Is it treason if you just tell me?”

  “That would be something of a grey area.”

  “Tell me very quietly.”

  He didn’t have a chance to talk to her for three days, which was infuriating. When finally they were alone in the South cloister and he’d blurted out his discovery, she looked at him and said, “Yes, I know.”

  It took him a second to recover. “You didn’t tell me.”

  “I assumed you—Oh, well, it doesn’t matter particularly, does it? I’ve got twelve cousins, as it happens. I don’t know any of them. I mean, we don’t send each other cakes at Ascension or anything. I bet you’ve got hundreds of cousins, and you couldn’t name half of them.”

  Perfectly true. “Yes, but Oida,” he said, and paused.

  “What about him?”

  “I met him,” Daxin said, “about three years ago, just after the coronation. He was here with the Easterners. I can’t remember how we got talking, but—well, it seemed perfectly natural at the time, he was interested and sympathetic and very well informed, and you know what we were like back then, didn’t know what day of the week it was. I thought he was just being nice, and, anyway, he’s supposed to be neutral and above it all, isn’t he?”

  She was frowning. “What did you tell him?”

  “Oh, nothing he didn’t know already, or at least he seemed like he knew it all, I really can’t be sure. It’s more what he told me.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Everything, basically,” Daxin said. “Sort of, a complete beginner’s guide to politics. Really opened my eyes. Scared the life out of me. Suddenly I realised just how dangerous our position is, how many people are out to get us, all that sort of thing. We sat up all night in the New Gallery, and he more or less explained to me how things stood, what we had to look out for, the sort of problems we’d have to face, what we ought to do about them. Incredibly helpful. I don’t think we’d still be alive today if it hadn’t been for him. To be honest, everything I’ve done this last three years has been based on what he told me.”

  She was gazing at him. “You never said.”

  “No,” he said, “I didn’t. At the time I thought he was just this really clever, helpful man who felt sorry for us and wished us well. And he had nothing to gain that I could see. He was just—”

  “Being helpful. Well,” she said, “maybe he was.” She paused for a moment. “He didn’t say he and I are related?”

  “No, didn’t mention it.”

  “Maybe he thought you knew.”

  Well, he thought, with a sense of anticlimax, that would explain it. He felt stupid for not having thought of that. “Bit of an assumption, surely.”

  “Not really. Maybe he wanted to help us—help me—because we’re family. And anyway,” she went on, “I don’t see what difference it makes to anything. I mean, it’s not like there’s anything sinister. The worst you could read into it is, he wanted to make his number with us in case he ever needs anything from us—money, a safe place to go, something like that.” She grinned at him. “It’s not like he’s deviously and maliciously become my cousin, as part of some vast dark conspiracy.”

  Bad news. It came as a complete surprise. Daxin, whose entire strategy for coping was built around having plenty of notice of everything, realised he had no idea what to do. He felt as though it was all his fault, which was ridiculous.

  The Mavida were a loose confederation of nomadic tribes, living in the vast desert to the south of Blemya. Part of their territory was nominally Imperial land, both East and West; in practice, they roamed at will over an inconceivably large area of sand, mountain and scrub that nobody else had any possible use for whatsoever. They had sheep, or goats, or something of the sort, and traded fleeces at the outpost cities for a range of commodities, mostly flour and weapons. It was vaguely known that, from time to time, they were prone to intense bouts of religious fervour, usually coinciding with the appearance of a self-proclaimed messiah. They were pagans, worshipping the sun as a god. Nobody knew exactly how many of them there were. They were no bother to anyone.

  The reports were incomplete and unhelpful, drawn from refugees and the very few survivors, and it took a while to piece them together into a coherent narrative. What seemed to have happened was that the latest messiah, who went by the name of Goiauz, had taken it into his head to be mortally offended by the fact that the Belot brothers had chosen to fight their appalling waste-of-time battle on the edge of Mavida land; specifically, after the battle one side or other (unknown which) had disposed of some of the dead bodies by dropping them down a well, which by unlucky chance had tremendous spiritual significance to the Mavida sect to which Goiauz belonged. Prompted by Goiauz, who was said to have been speechless with rage for an entire day, the Mavida elders had cried out for vengeance; unfortunately, since both Imperial armies were long gone and the few Imperial outposts had been either stormed or evacuated during the Belots’ campaign, there was nobody left to be revenged on. By now, however, Goiauz had built up such a head of steam among the tribes that something had to be done, if only to keep them from turning on each other. He therefore launched a surprise attack on the nearest walled city, the southern Blemyan regional capital, Seusa.

  The Seusans knew the Mavida as peaceful traders, and were aware that the Imperials had been fighting recently in their territory. When they saw a large nomad caravan approaching the city, therefore, they assumed it was refugees, hastily got together all the food, tents and blankets they could spare and opened the gates to them. A few hundred Seusans survived by hiding in water cisterns and crawling out along an aqueduct; the rest were massacred in the space of a few hours.

  By chance, just possibly something to do with the antics of the Imperials, General Raxilo and the Fifth Army were conducting manoeuvres fifty miles north of Seusa. The army, eight thousand regular infantry and two thousand tribal cavalry, marched day and night and caught up with the retreating raiders just before they crossed through the Split Hoof Pass. Slipping past them under cover of darkness, they took up a strong position in the pass itself. The intelligence they’d received suggested that the Mavida might number something in the region of three thousand combatants. The intelligence was wrong, by at least a factor of ten. The ensuing battle was very short. Afterwards, Goiauz sent four prisoners, with General Raxilo’s head preserved in a jar of wild honey, to inform the queen that a state of war now existed between the Mavida and the Kingdom of Blemya.
He added that the forces deployed at Seusa represented only a tiny fraction of the manpower at his disposal, all of whom would be honoured to fight to the death to avenge the defiling of the holy well. Tell your queen we are coming, he said. Tell her the sky is about to fall.

  You couldn’t really call it a letter. Letters are written on paper or parchment, in ink. They aren’t generally inscribed in the wax seal of a jar of ginger preserved in syrup. Of course, a subject, even a Grand Logothete, never writes personal letters to a queen.

  It’s bitter cold, he wrote, which is stupid, because it’s also unbearably hot. I mean unbearable. Hours at a time, you sit there thinking, I just can’t deal with this any more, I want it to stop now, please. Yes, I’m whining. And, yes, I’ve got it really, really easy, because I’m lolling about in a covered chaise fanning myself with a great big fan, I think it actually did come from a tart’s boudoir, it’s all pink feathers and tastefully drawn erotica, which is an enormous joke for the men. They’re the ones who are really suffering, because we’re marching in full armour, day and night. They have to sleep in full kit because we have no idea when the bastards are going to attack. They haven’t yet, but we can’t take the risk. And then, at night, it’s absolutely freezing, and no wood or anything for a fire, just a few blankets. We have about a hundred thousand gallons of water in oak barrels on pack horses, but the ration for the men is two pints a day; I really want to stick to the same as they’re getting, but sometimes I just give in and beg for more water, which of course they give me; and you know what, they brought ice. Yes, really, ice, just for me, in a huge insulated packing case. I was so angry when I found out, I made them smash it all up and distribute it to the men—well, there wasn’t nearly enough, there’s forty thousand of them, but everyone in C company, first battalion Life Guards got a tiny little splinter. Now I really, really wish I hadn’t done that. Ice, for crying out loud. I’d sell my soul for a fistful of ice, round about noon. Now, of course, I’d sell my soul for an extra blanket. I’m pathetic, aren’t I?

  Still, I’m glad I came. Let me qualify that. I really, really hate myself for being so stupid, I shouldn’t have come, I have no place here, I’m an intolerable nuisance they really could do without and I’m suffering more than I thought humanly possible. But I promise you, if you aren’t here, if you aren’t going through all this hell, there’s no way in a million years you’d ever begin to understand. Not that me understanding matters a damn, of course. But—amazing, and I can’t understand it at all—I’m doing good being here. Honestly, these people are amazing—amazingly brave, amazingly strong and enduring and uncomplaining, amazingly cheerful. And they really do appreciate me being here—the Grand bloody Logothete, out in the desert with them, leading them. I’m doing no such thing, of course, I’m being carried in a covered chair. I’m—well—luggage. It’s the idea of it that matters. It’s always the idea—like you on the stupid throne, ten feet up in the air, like all those bloody stupid ceremonies and rituals, they make the idea, and the idea matters, it genuinely matters and makes a difference. These men are here, suffering all this, because of the idea—of Blemya, of a gold and ivory queen on a gold and ivory throne ten feet up, glorious, wonderful, divine. They love you so much. Honestly, they do. It’s such an easy thing to say, the men love you so much they’re willing to die for you, for you and Blemya. But, so help me, it’s actually really true. Because of the idea. Because the idea is so much more real to them than the heat and the sweat and the thirst and the pain, and don’t get me started on scorpions. Those things are just temporary, commonplace. Blink, and you miss them. One man in an army this size is so small you can’t see him. But the idea is vast, eternal, hugely eternally true. I understand that now, like I never could back home. You and I, doing it every day, mistake it for a lie and a sham. You have to see it from a distance, like the frescoes on the ceiling of the White temple. Seen from a long way away, from here, you suddenly realise it’s all true.

  No space left. Look after yourself. Back as soon as I can. Dax.

  He put the nail away carefully in the hole in the little folding table, so that only the head was visible. Then he replaced the cloth cover on the jar and bound it as tightly as he could with the original hemp string. It wasn’t perfect. The string was too short to get a firm grip on, and tying the knot was incredibly fiddly. He did the best he could.

  He opened the tent flap and called for a messenger. There was always one on duty, day or night, ready to saddle up and ride. He handed him six brass rolls of official despatches, a silver roll for the Council, two gilded rolls for the lodge. Then, as the messenger was about to leave, he called him back. “Do me a favour,” he said. “This jar. It’s just ginger in syrup, but I happen to know it’s the queen’s favourite. Mind you give it to her senior lady-in-waiting, tell her it’s got to be tasted before it goes through to Her Majesty. You got that? Splendid, thank you.”

  He sprawled on the camp bed and tried to sleep, but he was freezing cold and his clothes were still wringing wet with the day’s sweat. He lay on his back and tried to think of something useful, but no luck.

  He was therefore wide awake an hour before first light, when some gorgeous creature in a gilded breastplate and helmet twitched back the tent flap and said that, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, the general would be grateful for a moment of his time. Oh God, Daxin thought; he stuffed his feet in his sopping wet shoes and stumbled awkwardly out of the tent into the pale blue darkness.

  It was the only time of day when it was neither freezing nor roasting; the only time when anybody’s brain worked worth a damn. The general was sitting outside his tent, in an old tunic with a faded regulation cloak over his shoulders. There were a dozen gilded men standing round him. There was also the usual folding table, covered in maps weighted down with stones and small glass bottles.

  The general waited until the man who’d summoned Daxin had gone. Then he waved his hand, and one of the gilded men unfolded a chair. Daxin sat on it.

  “Nobody here but us grown-ups,” said General Ixion. Daxin liked him. He didn’t look like a general, although he had a reputation as a diehard steelneck. But he was long and thin, bald, with a huge forehead; long, thin fingers, weedy clerk’s forearms. You’d have said he was a book-keeper or at best an academic. He was notoriously short-sighted, and deaf in one ear. “I thought we could talk about a few things.”

  Daxin nodded. “Whatever you like,” he said.

  “Don’t mind them,” Ixion said, nodding at the gilded men. “My personal staff. You can pretend they aren’t there. Obviously they’re totally discreet, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Would you like some breakfast, while you’re here?”

  Breakfast ration was a fist-sized chunk of munitions bread and a small cup of water. “Bit early for me.”

  “You sure? We’re having pancakes and peach tea.”

  “That’d be lovely, thank you.”

  Ixion nodded, and one of the gilded men sort of melted away into the night. “Now then,” he said. “Excuse me speaking frankly, but we’ve only got half an hour before it gets hot and my brains boil. Why are you here?”

  Speaking frankly. Oh well. “I thought I ought to be here.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “To see what war’s really like,” Daxin said, “and because the queen can’t lead her men into battle, but I believe it’s good for morale to have some sort of figurehead—”

  “Yes,” the general interrupted, “it is. The boys like it. They like it that you’re mucking in, more or less. They know I don’t do that stuff, but that’s all right because they know and trust me. They say, Ixion likes his partridge soup and roast quail with onions, he needs to keep his strength up for all the thinking he does.” He grinned. “If I mucked in and ate bread and water, they’d reckon I was no good. Do you understand that?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good. You’re smart. Now then, we’re here.” He placed a delicate fingertip on the map, in the middle o
f what looked like blank space. “The main Imperial road is here, of course.” A pale red line. “Needless to say, we can’t use it, because that’s where they expect us to come from. So we’re cutting down across the flat here, with a view to getting between them and the water at—” the fingertip moved to a tiny blue spot “—here, quite a major oasis. No name on the map but the locals call it Long Side. We don’t actually know where the enemy is, out here somewhere, but as far as we can tell they’ve gambled on getting to the water before we do. That’s what it’s all about out here, getting to water. You have a certain amount of time to reach a certain place, or you’re dead. Interesting rules to play by, I must say.”

  He paused for breath. Daxin thought about the huge oak barrels on the heavy carts. Lots of water, but not nearly enough. “How about us?” he said. “Are we gambling?”

  “Of course,” Ixion said. “But we have an advantage. They don’t think very highly of us. They think we move more slowly than we actually do, and they think we don’t know the desert. Which we don’t, but, thank God, we can read books, and we can bully prisoners. They therefore believe that by the time we reach Long Side, trundling slowly down the road, they’ll be there waiting for us, and we’ll have to attack their prepared positions or else die of thirst. So, my idea is, we get there first, we prepare positions, they have to attack us or die of thirst. It’s horribly simple, but it was all I could think of. Well?” he said. “What do you think?”

  Daxin was mildly stunned. “You want my opinion?”

  Ixion nodded. “You’re a clever man,” he said. “I’ve been watching you, the way you run things, the way you manage people. The fact you’re here shows you’re smart but also fairly—” He smiled. “I was going to say green or inexperienced, but I think the word I’m looking for is young. Anyway, if I’m to call the whole thing off and march back to Carna, I want to be able to say I was only obeying orders.”

  Daxin thought for a moment. “This is the point of no return, I take it,” he said. “If we go any further, we won’t have enough water to get back.”