by K. J. Parker
“If he’s alive.”
“Quite.”
“These friends of yours,” Senza said.
“I’m a very lucky man. I have all sorts of friends.”
“Talkative ones.”
“Total bloody chatterboxes, some of them.”
“If I knew where Forza’s men are,” Senza said slowly, “you’re right, I could tell a lot from the way they behave. Generally speaking, I can read my brother’s movements like a book. Actually, it’s more like looking in a mirror. Or I could simply throw two squadrons of good fast cavalry at them and see what happens.”
Oida raised a hand. “You’re the soldier,” he said. “I only came here to sing and play the mandolin. Thanks for the drink, by the way. If by some bizarre chance there happened to be a case of this stuff lying around, just gathering dust—”
Senza laughed. “You’re a cheap date.”
“My one redeeming quality,” Oida said, standing up. “Oh, by the way, I nearly forgot. I ran into an old friend of yours the other day. Charming girl, name’s on the tip of my tongue. Asked me, if I happened to bump into you, to give you her love.” He paused, looking Senza straight in the eye. “Name beginning with L.”
No point in trying to play chess. “Lysao.”
“That’s it, yes. She said, if ever you’re in Araf, to look her up.”
“Araf.”
“Small town just south-east of Lath Escatoy. Right,” Oida said, “this is all very nice but I’m sure you’re busy. I was thinking of using the main courtyard, unless we’d be in the way.”
“You go right ahead and do whatever you like,” Senza said.
“I hoped you’d say that,” Oida replied. “After all, nothing’s too good for the men, is it?”
Senza smiled. “Not even you. Your friends.” He was between Oida and the door. “Do you think they could be my friends too?”
Oida stayed exactly where he was. “You know what they say,” he said. “With friends like them—” With a move as yet unknown to the science of fencing, Oida slipped past him to the door and shot the bolt. “I’ll get them to save you a seat near the front,” he said. “Thanks again for the drink.”
Araf wasn’t on any of the maps in Senza’s enormous collection, but after an exhaustive search they found Lath Escatoy. Eventually, after he’d stared at the map for a long time, Senza said, “Well, that’s that, then.”
Colonel Avelro, the new commander of the guards, said quietly, “It’s possible. It could be done.”
Senza sighed. “It’s three hundred and seventy miles behind enemy lines. Also, for all we know, he’s lying through his teeth.”
“Possible, I suppose.”
“No.” Senza closed his eyes and opened them again. Maybe he’d hoped that the two words might have miraculously disappeared from the parchment while he wasn’t looking. “Two hundred and fifty miles, I might just have considered it. Three-seventy is too far.”
“But if Forza—”
Senza looked at him, and he fell silent. Avelro rolled the map up and put it back in its brass tube. Senza poured himself a drink of water. Then he said, “But only eighty miles from the northern border. Now there’s a thought.”
Avelro knew him too well. “It’s a pity we can’t go there,” he said firmly. “But you know what they’re like in those parts. If we tried to take an army through their territory, there’d be hell to pay. It’d be far easier to cut our way through from this side. Far easier.”
Senza laughed. “You should see your face,” he said. “Oh come on, even I’m not that crazy. I’m not suggesting we should go there. God, no.”
“Ah.” Avelro looked wonderfully relieved. Then he said, “Someone else?”
Senza nodded. “Friend of a friend, you might say.” He pointed to one of the folding chairs, and sat in the other one. “Changing the subject entirely, what do you make of Citizen Oida?”
Avelro hesitated for a moment. “Wonderful diction,” he said. “I think maybe a bit suspect on the really high notes.”
“Do you trust him?”
“If he told me I had ten fingers, I’d count my fingers.”
Senza pointed to the rosewood box on the table. Avelro opened it, took out a silver flask and two small silver cups. Senza shook his head, and Avelro poured himself a drink. “What do we actually know about him? Well,” he went on, before Avelro could say anything, “he’s the most famous civilian in the two empires, fine. About a million people who’ve never even seen him think he’s wonderful, and, to be strictly fair, he writes a good tune.”
“Agreed.”
Senza took his little silver box from his sleeve, opened it and put one of the tiny ivory counters down on the table. “All right, that’s point one. Point two.” He slid another counter out of the box. “He’s something quite high up in the lodge.”
“Is he?”
“Oh, I reckon so. Must be, don’t you think?”
Avelro pulled a face. “He doesn’t strike me as a very spiritual man, somehow.”
Senza laughed. “Quite. But he makes friends easily, which is quite an achievement for someone so bloody annoying. Lots and lots of friends, and the most unlikely people.” He laid down the second counter. “That’s got to be because of the lodge. Well?”
“I guess,” Avelro said. “Not that I know very much about that stuff.”
“You never joined,” Senza said. “Why’s that?”
Avelro’s face darkened just for a moment. “Against my religion,” he said briskly, and Senza lifted his hand in a brief gesture of apology. “Sorry,” he said, “I forgot.”
“That’s all right. Actually, it’s good; it says a lot about the service. I mean, where else in the empire would you be able to forget something like that?”
Senza nodded. “Though I wouldn’t count on it lasting,” he said. “With this business in Blemya, I have an idea that sun-worshippers are going to be in for a hard time. Not in my army,” he added quickly, “but you take my point, I’m sure.”
“Noted.”
“Very good. Now, where were we? Oh yes.” He took out a third counter. “He’s neutral.”
“Is he now?”
“Told me so himself.” Senza laid down the third counter. “So neutral, he gives me the location of Forza’s army, free, gratis and for nothing.”
“We haven’t confirmed—”
Senza waved a hand. “It’ll check out, you’ll see. Actually, a part of me’s hoping it won’t, but it will. So, what’s all that about?”
Avelro stirred uncomfortably. “Maybe he knows something we don’t,” he said.
“Confirmation that Forza’s dead? Possible. I’m assuming that was the impression he was trying to give. Well, impression, he actually said as much in so many words; if Forza’s dead, he wants to make friends with the winning side as soon as possible.”
“Or he wants us to go racing off into the blue and get ambushed.”
“Or that, yes. If Forza’s alive, obviously he’d like to make me believe he’s dead, so I’ll go rushing off to wipe out what’s left of his army and walk into a nice trap.”
“And Oida—”
“Would be best friends with the winning side, quite.” Senza picked up a counter and looked at it; slight chip on one edge. “On the third, no, make that the fourth hand, if Forza were to set such an obvious trap, I’d be delighted to play ball, on the grounds that I can predict what form Forza’s traps will take with ninety-nine per cent accuracy. Put it another way, I think Oida’s far too smart to put himself in the middle between me and my dear brother when we’re having a row. Hence my previous statement, it’ll check out.”
“And the other business?”
“Ah.” Senza stood up and walked a step or two. “Now there’s a thing. Practically the last words my brother said to me were, he knew where she was. Want me to tell you, he said, and I know how his mind works; he wouldn’t have said that if he hadn’t known. So, if Forza knew—”
Avelro reached a
cross and moved one counter to his side of the table. “If Oida knows,” he said, “who told him?”
“Very good,” Senza said, “you got there in the end. Who the bloody hell told him? That’s the bit of broken pot that won’t fit. Forza? His good friend Forza? I can’t see that somehow.”
“Other way round, maybe. Who told Forza?”
Senza nodded. “Quite,” he said. “His very good friend Oida, or so we’re expected to assume. Dear God, this sort of thing makes my head hurt. Because if that’s the case, and Oida was extending the sticky paw of friendship, what reason would he have had to believe that Forza was going to be the winning side, and therefore worth cuddling up to? Doesn’t bloody fit, does it?” He slid the counters into his hand and dropped them back in the box. “All right, here we go again. Forza tells Oida, so that Oida can tell me, so that I can go to this Araf place and get killed. A bit crude, but Forza knows I’m not entirely rational where a certain person is concerned. If she’s really there, he reckons, I’ll go, and screw the risk. Now that fits.”
“But not if Forza’s dead,” Avelro said.
“No, and that’s the buggery of it. Unless Oida wants us both out of the way.” He stopped dead, and his eyes were wide open. “Now there’s a thought,” he said.
Avelro shook his head. “And then the war just goes on and on for ever,” he said. “Nobody wins, and nobody is Oida’s very good friend. No, there’s nothing in that for anybody, except the crows.”
Senza frowned, then shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. “It all depends on who Oida’s very best friend is, and that we don’t know.” He paused. “Do we?”
“Don’t ask me, I’m just a cavalryman.”
Senza sighed and sat down again. “At times like this I wish I drank,” he said. “I’d love to pour myself a big stiff drink and go and hide in it until everything had gone away. That’s what my father used to do. Not a good idea, but I can see why he did it. And he was only marginally less stupid when he was sober, so why not?”
Avelro grinned. “You, on the other hand—”
“Quite. Being stupid’s a luxury I can’t afford. Look, what are we going to do?”
“What we always do,” Avelro said. “Send cavalry.”
“Attack their army and find out if it’s Forza leading it?”
“Absolutely. Even if we get a bloody nose, who gives a damn? We’ll find out if Forza’s alive and still in business. What could be more important than that?”
Senza nodded firmly. “Yes,” he said, “let’s do that. Have a safe trip, and I’ll see you when you get back.”
One of the disadvantages of being a general is that you almost never get to see the look on your enemy’s face at the exact moment when he realises he’s been comprehensively outflanked. “Me,” Avelro said, but by then it was far too late.
“Of course,” Senza said. “There’s nobody I trust more to do a good job. Your speciality, I think: long-range cavalry raiding. Cast your mind back.”
Twelve years earlier, when Avelro had been a captain and Senza his lieutenant, Avelro had made his name with a particularly daring surgical strike deep into enemy territory. Never again, he’d confided, just before he walked up to General Moisa to collect his medal. No more heroics for me, Senza my boy. You only get so much luck this side of the Very Bad Place. But he was a first-rate cavalry commander.
He was also a realist. “Fine,” he said, and Senza couldn’t help admire the grace with which he accepted defeat, though in his view grace was somewhat overrated as a military virtue. “Leave it to me.”
“Thank you,” Senza said with feeling. “And when you’ve done that—”
It’s axiomatic in the torture industry that fear of pain, anticipation of pain, is far more powerful, therefore far more effective, than pain itself. Ninety-five subjects out of a hundred, they say, when shown the instruments of torture, will break down and start talking, if properly handled.
She looked at the machine and sniffed. “You do know,” she said, “you’ve got that bit in upside down.”
Five out of a hundred had to be different, of course. “And there’s a camshaft missing there,” she went on, “without which the stupid thing just doesn’t work. When they sold it to you, wasn’t there a manual or something?”
Senza decided he liked her. “We didn’t buy it,” he said. “We found it in with a lot of other junk we took from the enemy at Beal Ritor.”
“Ah,” she said. “That figures. The word decommissioned springs to mind. Your brother didn’t approve of torture.”
Note the choice of tense. “Is that right?”
“I believe so. For the same reason you don’t drink. Sensible people tend to steer away from things they may end up liking too much.”
She had his attention. “You know Forza, then.”
“I’ve never met him, if that’s what you mean. But the service likes to know about important people, naturally.”
Senza allowed the broad grin to spread across his face. “The service,” he said. “I meant to ask you about that.”
She looked at him, then lifted her hands. “Could you please take these off now?” she said. “They’re hurting my wrists.”
“Not really,” he replied. “For that, we’d need a blacksmith, or at least a file or a cold chisel to cut the rivets. Besides, I haven’t finished with you yet.”
“You’re not going to torture me, though. Are you?”
“No,” Senza admitted. “Not with this lot, anyway.” He craned his neck to peer through the dungeon’s tiny window. “Nearly midday,” he said. “How about an early lunch?”
Ten minutes later they were sitting on the terrace under the North tower. The garrison commander’s wife had had a lawn laid out and flowerbeds planted, and there was a table and two benches. Senza had ordered cold chicken and salad. “I’m waiting,” she said.
“Sorry?”
“For my apology.” She paused. He didn’t say anything. She went on: “An apology for abducting and falsely imprisoning a government officer. I know, you’re General Senza, you can do no wrong, but the least you can do is say you’re sorry.”
He inclined his head a little. “No apology,” he said. “You’re not a government officer, I checked. They’ve never heard of you. It interests me why Oida should pretend you’re one. If you tell me that, we can dispense with the ironmongery.”
She looked at him. “You checked.”
“I check everything,” he said. “Particularly where Oida’s concerned, particularly right now. Pretty much everything else he told me appears to have been true—well, I’m waiting for confirmation on one point, but that may take a while. But I did catch him out in one lie. You’re not a political officer assigned to spy on him, but he said you were. On the off chance that it was significant, I had you pulled in and brought here. Answer my question and you can go.”
She looked down at the manacles. There were red weals where they’d chafed her skin. “Fine,” she said. “I’m not a political officer. I’m Oida’s personal assistant. All right?”
“How personal?”
She gave him a tired look. He held up his hand. “All right, fine,” he said. “For that you do get an apology. Though, given his reputation—”
She gave him a sweet smile. “Oh, that,” she said. “You know what they’re saying about him in Bohec? They say that while she’s asleep, he plucks two hairs from the bush of each successive conquest. His long-term aim, they say, is to stuff a mattress. Not true, of course.”
“No?”
She shook her head. “Two medium-sized cushions, if that. As for me,” she went on, “one good thing I’ll say about him, he understands that no means no, and he doesn’t bear grudges. Plenty more fish in the vast, unlimited ocean, is his view. So, no, that’s not what I’m there for.”
Senza ate a scrap of lettuce. “So what do you do?”
“Take notes,” she replied. “Find things out. Carry messages, talk to people, keep my eyes and ears open. Political o
fficer’s a good cover because everyone knows what a pain in the bum they can be, spying on your every move. People who don’t like him tell me things to get him in trouble, so he knows what his enemies are thinking.”
Senza smiled. “Oida has enemies.”
“Of course he does.” She hesitated, as if afraid she may have said something she shouldn’t. The hesitation was just a little bit too long, maybe. “You do know—”
He broadened the smile. “Know what?”
“Oh God.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “Obviously you don’t, and I assumed— Hell,” she said. “He’s going to be so angry.”
“Know what?”
She let out a long, sad sigh. “Oida is the go-between,” she said. “Between the two empires. There aren’t any official lines of communication, no recognised diplomatic channels beyond the absolute bare minimum, but from time to time there are some things they’ve simply got to talk about; but obviously nobody can know about it. Oida’s more or less the only man alive who’s free to come and go, loved and respected in both empires, known to be completely impartial, never takes sides, he’s the obvious choice. He spends his life shuttling backwards and forwards delivering messages, conducting negotiations, that sort of thing. He’s got a permanent staff of ten assistants, and I’m one of them. Oh, come on, you must have known. You know everything, everyone says so.”
Senza pursed his lips. “Apparently not.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “Why the hell not? I mean, I’d have thought that you— Oh, the hell with it.” She paused, then added: “Forza knew.”
“You’re not eating your salad.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“But it’s your favourite.”
She shot him a startled look. He went on: “Cold roast chicken, lettuce, cucumber, dill pickle, red and green peppers, honey, white wine and vinegar dressing. Your favourite. At least, it’s what you always have when you eat alone at the Two Stars at Bohec, so I’m assuming you like it. Or maybe there’s some special ingredient we’ve missed out. In which case, I apologise. No excuse for sloppy intelligence work, after all.”