“It sounds a marvellous project, Master Sulfur, but… an expensive one.” Orso began to turn away. “I fear my treasury is not up to the challenge.”
“The Banking House of Valint and Balk has already offered to advance the capital.”
Orso frowned. It was largely due to the crippling interest on Valint and Balk’s loans that the treasury was in such a lamentable state. “That is… uncharacteristically generous of them.”
“The bank would take the necessary land in trust and own the tracks, charging a trifling stipend for their use. I was hoping you would consent to my making the arrangements with the lord chancellor.”
“That sounds rather like the first step in selling you my kingdom piece by piece.”
Sufur smiled wider yet. “Hardly the first step.”
“Your Majesties!” Curnsbick hurried up to the royal box, whisking off his hat and dabbing his sweaty forehead with a handkerchief. “I hope we haven’t kept you waiting.”
“Not at all,” said Orso. “Converting expansive force to rotational is… no easy business… I suppose—”
The Queen Dowager issued a thunderous snort of contempt, but Curnsbick was already facing the crowds, thumping his broad fists down on the rail. The band sputtered out. The eager conversation died away. The audience turned from the engine to its creator. The great machinist began to speak.
“We have made astonishing progress in a few brief years, my friends!” Depending on who you asked, of course, Orso still heard plenty of complaints. “With the right techniques and machinery, one man can now do the work that once took ten! Took twenty!” Though what became of the other nineteen was not made clear.
“I firmly believe that this, my latest invention…” And Curnsbick wafted a hand towards the engine with the flourish of a pimp introducing his prostitutes. “Our latest invention, for it belongs to posterity, will not simply carry a few of us from Adua to Valbeck in more comfort and less time than ever before. It will carry all of us… into the future!”
“The one undeniable thing about the future,” murmured Orso’s mother in Styrian, “is that it comes to you, ready or not, without need for a conveyance.”
It certainly seemed a rather overcomplicated way of crossing two fields. But Orso could only shrug and smile, which, after all, were his main contributions to any of the many events he attended. If he’d had all the answers then he supposed he could have been the great machinist, instead of merely a king.
“There are those at both ends of the social scale who would have us change direction!” Curnsbick was shouting. “Those who would not only try to dam the river of progress but have it flow uphill! Who would break, burn and murder in the name of dragging us back into a glorious past that never truly was. A place of ignorance, superstition, squalor and fear. A place of darkness! But there will be no going back! I promise you that!” He raised his arm and turned to Orso. “Your Majesty, with your kind permission?”
It always worried Orso when someone wanted to involve him in a decision, however superficially. But decisions still had to be made. However superficially. “Carry us into the future, Master Curnsbick!” he called, grinning to the crowd.
Curnsbick turned to the engine and portentously chopped down his arm. The engineer, his smile a curve of white in his oil-smeared face, hauled upon one of the levers, and the entire world exploded.
“We have made astonishing progress in a few brief years, my friends!” bellowed Curnsbick.
“Hear, hear!” Verunice piped, and was at once rather embarrassed. One wanted to stand out from the crowd, especially after so many years in the most distant background, but one did not want to make an exhibition of oneself. Only look at Savine dan Glokta, now Brock, of course. Everyone did, after all. So audacious. Yet so feminine. The spirit of the new age! Verunice had joined all the forward-looking societies. The Fellowship for Civic Advancement, the Association for Improving the Condition of the Working Classes, the Solar Society, of course. She had already made what she considered an excellent investment with that young man Arinhorm. So polite. So attentive. He had looked at her in a way no young man had for years. Verunice felt a flush and wished she had brought her fan. But though it was summer, it was not quite fanning weather.
“With the right techniques and machinery,” Curnsbick was explaining, “one man can now do the work that once took ten! Took twenty!”
Verunice nodded eagerly, then realised she might nod her wig loose, put a nervous hand to it and nearly knocked off her hat. She was not at all used to the headgear yet. Nor the dress. If she had been removed from it, the damn thing would probably have stood up by itself, but the dressmaker had told her this was what all the forward-looking ladies were wearing. She now found herself scarcely able to breathe, turn or move her arms, but she had acquired, as if by magic, quite an impressive bust. Her mother had always insisted that a bust was half the battle. Verunice had always wondered what the rest of the battle might be but never had the nerve to ask.
“I firmly believe that this, my latest invention…” And Curnsbick gestured towards his smouldering engine with the presence of a great actor upon the stage. Such a powerful man, those strong hands. Such a generous man, those impressive side whiskers. Such a visionary, piercing eyes behind his flashing lenses. The spirit of the age! “Will carry all of us… into the future!”
Verunice applauded as eagerly as her corsetry allowed. One could see the future coming on the carriage ride out of Adua. The chimneys, the cranes, the endless building, endless creation, endless opportunity.
“There will be no going back!” shouted Curnsbick. “I promise you that!”
Verunice applauded again, painfully this time but she didn’t care. There would be no going back. Not to her smothering marriage or the suffocating house in the country or the stifling conversation at the village meetings. Her husband was dead and she had the money now and she’d buy herself a fucking life. She blushed, then realised she hadn’t said the word, only thought it, so where was the crime? It was a new world. She could think what she liked. Could she even say what she liked?
“Fuck,” she whispered, and felt herself blushing even more deeply. She wished she had brought her fan.
The young king smiled, so carefree, so debonair, such lovely glossy hair, his golden circlet glittering in the sun. The spirit of the age! “Carry us into the future, Master Curnsbick!”
Curnsbick chopped one broad hand down and Verunice closed her eyes, feeling the wind of freedom on her cheeks. Now she would be—
“We have made astonishing progress in a few brief years, my friends!” It was true the Union was much changed in the two decades since Muslan arrived but mostly, in his opinion, for the worse. He felt the stares when he walked the streets in his own neighbourhood. He felt the stares now. Less curiosity than there once had been, and more fear. More dislike. Insults were sometimes thrown. Objects, too, on occasion. A very pleasant young man of his acquaintance had been hit by a slate thrown from a roof and nearly killed. And he had been born in Adua! To Kadiri parents! When people are fixed on hatred they do not discriminate. But Muslan refused be cowed. He had not hidden from the priests. He would not hide from these damn fool pinks, either.
“With the right techniques and machinery,” Curnsbick blathered on, “one man can now do the work that once took ten! Took twenty!”
Muslan gave a curt nod at that. There was much to detest about the Union. They prated on freedom but the women who toiled in the fields and the kitchens, the men who toiled in the mills and the mines, were as trapped in their lives of drudgery as any slave. A man was at least free to think here, though. To have ideas. To change things.
In Ul-Suffayn the priests had declared him a heretic. His wife had begged him to stop, but to Muslan his work was a holy duty. Others saw their holy duties differently. His workshop had been burned by people he had once called friends and neighbours, the fires of belief in their eyes. They say belief is righteous, but to Muslan only doubt was divine. F
rom doubt flows curiosity, and knowledge, and progress. From belief flows only ignorance and decay.
“I firmly believe that this, my latest invention…” And Curnsbick wafted a hand towards the engine in the manner of a carpet-seller hoping to palm off substandard wares. “Will carry all of us… into the future!”
We all are carried into the future, always. What greets us when we arrive, that is the pressing question. When the Prophet vanished, Muslan and those of his mind—the thinkers, philosophers, engineers—had hoped for a new age of reason. Instead had come an age of madness. The priests had said his work was against the laws of God. Ignorant cowards. Who made the minds of men, if not God? What was the desire to create, if not a humble imitation of His example? What was the grand idea, the great vision, the profound revelation, if not a glimpse of the divine?
“There are those at both ends of the social scale who would have us change direction!” Muslan had heard from those few friends in Ul-Saffayn who still dared write to him that the Eaters had come. They had taken his apprentices and his assistants and had burned his prototypes in the town square. He shuddered to think of it. The Eaters were belief distilled, belief without reason, mercy, compromise or regret. What could you call that, but evil?
“But there will be no going back!” roared Curnsbick. “I promise you that!”
“No going back,” whispered Muslan, in his own tongue. He closed his eyes, feeling tears prickling at the lids, and spoke the words to his wife, or at least to her ashes, wishing she could hear them. “I promise you that.”
“Carry us into the future, Master Curnsbick!” brayed their dunce of a king.
The priests supposed scriptural and scientific truth were opposed because their tightly strapped little minds had only room for one or the other. They did not realise they were one and the same. Muslan’s grandfather had been a locksmith. Muslan’s father had been a clockmaker. Muslan was an engineer. And so was God. So was—
“I firmly believe that this, my latest invention…” And Curnsbick pointed to his smoking machine like a sideshow-operator to his favourite freak, “will carry all of us… into the future!”
Morilee frowned at that Gurkish bastard. Was that the future of the Union? Overrun by brown bastards, not even with the decency to come with drum and flag and sword so they could be properly fought and beaten, but just welcomed in at the back door by treacherous fucks wanting to sell their country for a few marks.
Thirty years ago, when this was all woods she’d come to for picnics with her grandad, King Jezal had told the people to rise up for their country. Morilee had got her father’s old pike out of the shed, and put a new staff on it ’cause the old one was rotten, and she’d risen up, damn it, like the womenfolk always did when they had to. She’d fought those Gurkish bastards in the fire-blasted ruins of the streets she’d grown up in. She rubbed at the stump of her arm. Thirty years on and it still ached. But maybe the ache weren’t in her arm really, but in her heart. She frowned again at that Gurkish bastard, standing proud with his little black beard like this was his country. Had she fought for this? Lost her arm for this? Lost her fucking home for this?
“There are those at both ends of the social scale who would have us change direction!” Morilee knew how the ones at the bottom o’ the scale felt, that was sure, with their houses knocked down to make way for the mills and their gardens built over to make way for the temples and their families crowded into smaller and smaller rooms to make way for all the bastards flooding in from outside, the Gurkish and the Styrians and the Northmen and who knew what, all babbling in their own dirty tongues and forcing down the wages and forcing up the rents and choking the air with their horrible cook-smells, filth you wouldn’t feed a dog, the gutters swarming with their mongrel brats.
“A place of ignorance, superstition, squalor and fear. A place of darkness!” She snorted. Curnsbick should come to the place she’d been living the past year, she’d show him squalor and darkness. She turned her head and spat. Tried to spit as far as that Gurkish bastard, but it fell short and spattered on some woman’s hat. Curnsbick raised his arm and turned to Orso. “Your Majesty, with your kind permission?”
Morilee put the one hand she still had on her heart. Maybe this new king was a clueless fucker but he was king still, and when she saw the golden sun flashing on the flags above, it still tickled the tears out. The country might be brought low, but it was still her country, in her blood, in her bones. If she was called on again, she’d fight again. Even if it meant her other arm. That was who she was.
“Carry us into the future, Master Curnsbick!” bellowed His Majesty. A fine, strong voice, and folk started to cheer and, in spite of her hurts, Morilee cheered loudest of all. Might be he was a shit king. But it’s the shit kings need most cheering for.
The engineer pulled his lever and—
Blah, blah, progress, invention. High Justice Bruckel was hardly listening. He was thinking about that case yesterday. Terrible case. Regrettable business. The way the woman wept in the dock. Bruckel had wanted to weep himself. You cry so easily, his father used to say, you have to present a hard front. What would become of the children, though? It felt as if every verdict took a piece of him. Every sentence bled him. But his hands had been tied, as always. Arch Lector Glokta would demand harsh penalties. Lessons taught. Examples made.
One had to present a hard front to sit on the Closed Council. Any weakness and the vultures would be circling. Not a friend anywhere. Couldn’t afford ’em. Bruckel glanced sideways. Only look at Her Majesty. Magnificent figure of a woman. Magnificent example. All the hatred flung at her. Simply bounced off, like arrows off a gatehouse. But so lonely. Like a single white tower on a blasted heath. Few truly realised how… difficult her position had been. Regrettable business. But Bruckel knew. And admired her hugely. Would never say so. Would be a kind of betrayal to acknowledge it. But he knew it. And she knew he knew. Was that some comfort to her? Probably not.
Curnsbick was working up to the crescendo. Blah, blah, me, me, me, change the world. Bruckel sagged back into his chair. The world did not change. Not in the ways that mattered. He was presiding over another case later today. Millworkers dead of the white lung. Not to be confused with the black lung. That was the one the miners died of. Regrettable business. But there was nothing Bruckel could do. Not with the interests lined up on the other side. Towering interests. Terrible case.
“Carry us into the future, Master Curnsbick!” called His Majesty. Bruckel wondered if Orso would make a good king. Wondered if any change could be effected. It hardly seemed likely. Not with all the interests lined up. The biggest interests of all. Valint and Balk, of course. Look at that bastard Sulfur, already easing his hooks into the king. Hooks that would rip him apart, as they had ripped apart his father. Always the vultures, circling. But the world was the world. Bruckel’s hands were tied. They called him the high justice. But he was low, and there was no justice.
Curnsbick chopped down his arm with the greatest portentous self-satisfaction. Bruckel glanced sideways at Queen Terez, so endlessly impressive. He ventured the tiniest smile. She could not return it, of course. A regrettable—
“It will carry all of us…” screeched Curnsbick, a pygmy pretending to be a giant, the sort of man who passed for a hero in this petty age, “into the future!”
Terez restrained a snort of contempt. Whose future? The one she had longed for had been crushed long ago. How could her fragile hopes ever have held up the weight of her father’s smothering expectations, her husband’s well-meaning ignorance, his subjects’ mindless prejudice, the cripple Glokta’s unspeakable threats?
She had sent Shalere away. Even now, Terez felt the pain of tears at the thought of her face, her smile, her warmth, the way she sang, danced, kissed. Terez kept a bottle of her scent still. Among all the gaudy trash they heap upon a queen, the one thing that was truly precious to her. Just the faintest whiff of that perfume brought it all tumbling back. That mad, romantic girl who wou
ld have fought the world for love was still trapped somewhere in this stern old body. Terez felt the pain of tears, but she had trained her eyes not to weep. She had sent her true love to safety. One must take consolation in the small things, when one has nothing else. A nearly empty scent bottle, and a few sweet memories.
She took a deep breath, used it to force herself straighter. She lived now to hold up Orso’s hopes. To be his unflinching pillar. His dauntless shield against the barbs of the leering public. She had remade herself from stone and steel, an unbending, unsmiling, unfeeling sculpture of a woman, for his sake.
She could have played the game. She could have smiled, and lied, and struck deals. But her father had taught her that compromise was weakness, and weakness, death. Only far too late had she begun to wonder whether her father might not have been a giant, but a fool. Strange, how long a shadow one’s parents cast. All she wanted now was to see Orso married to some fearsomely sensible woman. A woman with a strong enough grip to squeeze him into the great man she knew he could be. Then, perhaps, she could finally stop squeezing herself. Take the trip to Styria. See Shalere again, one last time…
“Carry us into the future, Master Curnsbick!” shouted Orso, with that infinitely good-humoured smile Terez’s own mouth always longed to imitate.
High Justice Bruckel was looking at her, she realised, and with a deeply sad expression. Like a man watching a tragic play that, to his surprise, had struck some deep-buried nerve. As though he somehow guessed at the endless spring of sadness that welled inside her. As though—
There was a flash, Terez thought. A burst of fire. She opened her mouth to gasp in shock.
The Trouble with Peace Page 30