The wine sparkled and glugged as Azekazo poured it into their glasses. “Do please try the Valdonne?”
“Thank you, no.” He wanted a clear head. He hoped Azekazo would drink too much.
“Your patriotism does you credit, Lieutenant-Marshal. But—and pardon me if I am wrong—but you, yourself, are not personally loyal to the Queen? You do not feel a—a heart-deep”—his hand thrust out from the breast of his uniform, fumbling in the air, as if he were struggling to convey something there were no words for in Ferupian—“an individual connection with her?”
“Listen—no offense, Officier—” Come to the point! “I can’t answer that until I understand whether you’re questioning me as a representative of Ferupe, or as an officer of the QAF. As a matter of fact, the answer is no. But I’m not a full-blood, and so I’d be ill qualified to speak for the man in the street even if I hadn’t only come to this country for the first time a month and a half ago. And as for the QAF, just because I have access to certain theaters of the court doesn’t mean I am privy to the secrets of my own superiors—or that I would see eye to eye with them, if I was.” Avoiding anywhere they might be as if it had the contamination, in case they spot me, is more like it!
Azekazo took out his handkerchief. He folded and unfolded it slowly between his hands, staring at Burns as if only now seeing him for the first time. “You demand... bluntness. To be frank, I suppose I have been stalling.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute,” Bums said baldly. “Not if you’re a friend of Kuraddero’s. I have never, ever, ever seen a man come to the point as fast as he did—I walked into that camp with a hazy idea of deserting, and ten minutes after I was shown to him he’d turned me around 180 degrees and bloody well bought me.” He laid the attaché case on the table, on top of his half-eaten sandwich. “And here’s his price.” A rawhide rectangle containing the death sentences of dozens: crude, real. It delighted him when Azekazo reached out to finger it as if he couldn’t resist. But pleasure quickly gave way to impatience. Ten miles south, thousands of troops were cooling their heels and a whole city was starving, waiting for—waiting—
Out with it, man! He clamped his lips shut on the words. He mustn’t seem desperate because he wasn’t desperate, he was just calling Azekazo out into the open because he couldn’t take this anymore, he couldn’t fucking take it
Azekazo turned his head and smiled at the ground: a tiny, girlish smile of admission. It lingered on his lips as he looked back at Burns. “Very well, what we are interested in is you, Lieutenant-Marshal.” He brushed his fingers again across the rawhide. “Your success in this matter opens up the possibility that there is something else you could do for us. It is dangerous. I will make no bones of that. We have allies within the court, as you know—and even they, even men who would have unequaled opportunity to do this, will not. At the very suggestion they curl up and change from cold-blooded collaborationists into children who have been told a shocking thing. Yet it is far from impossible. At a loss for explanations, Kuraddero and I have speculated that it is simply because they are full-blooded Ferupians, and that perhaps your reaction to the proposition would be different: as we already guessed from your appearance and—ah—your general willingness to pursue your own aggrandizement at the expense of your country’s, you are not full-blooded. That, we thought, could make all the difference. And there are other signs that you may be the man for the job. You have nerve. It is few men who would land their aircraft behind the enemy’s lines, in plain view of thousands, and walk boldly, unarmed and alone, into the enemy’s camp, saying, What can you do for me? as if they were walking into a tailor’s shop!” Azekazo laughed in disbelief as he recapitulated Burns’s audacity. “ ‘Take me to whoever’s in charge!’ Suffice it to say we were impressed?”
Unarmed? Fat lot you know! And Burns’s confidence went up a notch then because he’d felt sure, even without proof, that while he sat in Kuraddero’s tent that first evening he’d been subjected to some kind of expert pickpocketry, he’d felt sure the lizards had learned about the knife in each boot and the stiletto taped to the inside of his forearm and the old Volcanic repeating pistol (for which Burns had that very morning bartered his own daemon sidearm and his father’s silver amulet) in his underwear. Of Slux make, the Volcanic fired seven rounds, and they were for him and whichever six lizards stood closest, seven safeguards, seven solutions. He’d been going to use them if no more attractive alternative had offered itself.
But one had.
Now, however-
They aren’t going to go back on their word how can they can’t they’re LIZARDS dammit * * * but what if they haven’t brought me anything what if it’s a double cross? But they can’t, I held up my end they—
He leaned forward. “It had been my understanding that we’d finalized the terms of our collaboration.” He ticked off on his fingers, holding Azekazo’s gaze, smiling a little as if in contempt because it had been so easy, what they asked him to do. “I was to bring all the personal documents I could purloin written by, or mentioning, Christina Lady Gregisson; Sidarius Earl Smythe-Bellinger; Edward Lord Cerelon; Francis Count Saint-Jerome; and Cyril Lord Rutland; and the others, I forget the names, I’ve got them written down. I’ve got their signatures. And even to me, even though I don’t know the whole story of this alleged conspiracy with the—Kirekuni culties, some of what I’ve got looks pretty incriminating. Of course, the offense is against Significance, not against the Queen, but this Prince Iguchi was still the enemy, and Christina and the rest were still supporting his organization, during the war, when there wasn’t supposed to be any cooperation at all going on, so it’s technically treason. Of course, I expect a Ferupian court would find in their favor, because it was Okimako, not Kingsburg, that got burned down as a result—wasn’t it?”
That was a spur-of-the-moment insight, and it gratified him when Azekazo nodded. “It was ascertained after the Fire of 1212,” the lizard said at length, “that the cult of the Children of the Glorious Dynasty—although they were the targets; not the perpetrators, of the arson—had provoked the fire by their flagrant infiltration of Significance, an infiltration intended to sabotage the impending victory. Our investigation’s purpose is to expose the far-flung web of support for the cult, and to avenge the outrage that was done Significance by bringing everyone involved to justice, once we are in a position to do so.”
His mouth went hard as he finished speaking, and Burns thought, And your wife and kids, too, huh? Careful, lizard. Better men than you have stumbled when they let personal vendettas cloud their judgment!
It was another piece of ammunition to store up against Azekazo and, by extension, against all the lizards.
He HATES Ferupe. Hates us with a passion. Queen knows who was really responsible for that fire, but it’s pretty obvious he thinks he knows who it is and since he can’t hate them—maybe it was an inside job?—he’s redirected his lust for vengeance into this “investigation,” which might well be a cover-up instigated by whoever it was, Kirekunis for sure, who targeted the Okimakoan culties (damn, who’d be an intelligence agent? It’s too fucking complex by half)—but any vengeance is better than no vengeance, right, Adjutant Major? All those questions—so scholarly, but not really, he just wants more reasons to despise Ferupe, and more... no matter how irrelevant...
He took a breath. “Well, as I said, a Ferupian court would probably find Christina and friends innocent by way of the ends justifying the means, because as far as I can see from these letters”—he tapped the attaché case and watched Azekazo’s eyes drawn again to it, watched the thin fingers twitch, glad now he’d bothered to read the documents he’d stolen—“they were having a last go at arranging a compromise peace. I suppose that was what getting their cultie friends to infiltrate Significance was all about. And there appears to be another conspiracy at court, headed by the comptroller of Waterworks, Boone Skinner, who intends to do away with the institution of the Royalty once the Queen dies. Christina�
�s friends were more hidebound, or maybe opportunity just pointed them in a different direction—they wanted to keep the Royals alive. Knowing Christina,” (strong perfume) “I wouldn’t put it past her to have had aspirations to power behind the throne. They were both more and less realistic than the other lot, they knew they couldn’t win the war but instead they were trying to head it off at the eleventh hour. Conspiracy Skinner, on the other hand, thought it could win the war and then set its own agenda into motion. I suppose they’ve had to modify their plans a bit.” He chuckled. “How the mighty are fallen, huh?”
“Indeed,” Azekazo agreed, and again he glanced around at the beeches. What symbolic meaning does he see in a load of trees? Burns wondered again. The pinkened tip of the lizard’s nose made him look cold, or miserable. But when he spoke, he looked Burns in the eyes. “We are familiar with the facts you have laid out. What we required was the proof, and you have procured that for us.”
So you can convict Christina and the others once you get your hands on them without offending the tender sensibilities of your home constituents, Burns thought with weary revulsion. So you can keep on deluding yourselves that this is a just war against corruption, and no matter how powerful Significance becomes, the requirements of justice still have to be satisfied. So you can satisfy your personal vendetta, Adjutant Major, without having to admit that you could have the head of whoever you wanted, whenever you wanted, without making any excuses to anyone; so your allies, your Ferupian pawns, can go on feeling safe until the very day you poison their tea!
Longing to end the conversation, he glanced toward the jeep. He’d always hated politics, and this was no different. It was politics just as much as if he and Azekazo had been sitting around a briefing table, and he was as impatient as he’d ever been at Cerelon QAF HQ.
Azekazo followed his gaze. “I hope you are not wondering what I think you are?” he said with straight-faced innocence, “General Kuraddero said to me, do not forget to bring Lieutenant-Marshal Burns his payment?”
Burns started to get up, to go look in the jeep.
“No, no!” Azekazo gestured him back. Neither of them had touched the dried fruits; Azekazo dusted his fingers delicately on his napkin and lifted out apricots and apple slices, sticky prunes, dates, muscats. Now a leather pouch the color of a dried fig dangled from his fingers. “Our evaluators say this is the exact sum you required.”
“You open it!”
Azekazo lifted an eyebrow in his turn and spilled hard glittering droplets first, at Burns’s request, into his own palm, then into the other’s. Rain pattered on the umbrella, hissed in Burns’s ears, reminding him of his continuing need to stay alert. A fortune, a small fortune. Diamonds, most of them removed from their settings, a few still attached to rings or pendants. He knew a genuine stone when he saw it, and although there were a couple of not-very-obvious fakes, which he handed wordlessly back to Azekazo, 90 percent were the real deal. He trickled them back into the pouch and put it in the breast pocket of his uniform, then rose to his feet.
Azekazo gaped for a moment, obviously taken aback; then he scrambled to his feet, actually knocking over his chair, got in front of Burns. “But will you leave with a mere fortune, when you could have ten times as much? You have not yet heard our second proposition!”
Burns looked down at him, the roaring still in his ears, looked over the black-tailored shoulder at the twitching naked tail. He’d never before noticed how fat it was at the base: at least four inches in diameter where it sprouted out of the top of the buttocks through the specially designed vent in the uniform. “What the fuck more do you want? You’re happy, I’m happy.” He cleared his throat. The standard of courtesy he’d set himself was slipping: he could feel it. “I’m gonna break out, and you should, too, if you know what’s good for you. We’ve been here far too long as it is—”
“You have a prior engagement?”
“Hell, no!”
He should have said yes.
“Then I beg a few more moments of your time! Hear me at least before making your decision. I have already said the job is dangerous, far more dangerous than what you have already risked for us, but it is a thing of paramount importance to Significance, and the remuneration would be—”
“Look, Significance can go fuck itself on the far side of the moon for all I care. Its problems aren’t my problems. I am no longer involved. I don’t need any more fucking remuneration because right now, unless the bottom falls out of the black market, I’m set up for life.” Just saying it gave him a rush, and he fought back the slipstream itch of avarice, knowing himself well enough to know it could never be satisfied. “Tell Kuraddero I’m sorry, but I’m not interested in risking my ass again.”
Azekazo obviously needed to blow his nose, but he didn’t take his eyes off Burns, and as Burns advanced, he backed up, snuffling. They reached the edge of the copse. The sparser tree cover allowed the rain to drift down on the grass around the smooth, snakelike, tangled roots of the beeches. And after it’s over I’ll change my name—
“Let me be utterly open, Lieutenant-Marshal! From your one visit to our encampment, you probably concluded that we are well supplied, that we are digging in for a long siege. Well, so we are, yet not by choice. We have not got this far without sustaining losses! Equipment, vehicles—our ground transport is not designed to cope with your Significant-damned mud—and most importantly, men! The Disciples are nervous: they are in the heart of the old world, in a foreign land, waiting to fight. Their fate is out of their hands. The element of free choice each man exercised when he chose to join up has been taken away, here where a step outside camp would mean death. We long ago outstripped our supply lines. We can provide for the army by ransacking the countryside around Kingsburg, for a few more months at least, but given that we are the enemy in situ, every foray is hazardous, and we sustain more losses. These are not significant in terms of numbers, but they are appallingly bad for morale. The men feel as if it is we, not Kingsburg, who are under siege. We cannot afford to wage a war of attrition!”
Burns stopped trying to move forward.
“On top of all this, questions have arisen about what the nature of our victory will be, when we finalize it. We cannot occupy Ferupe as an enemy forever. Yet according to our allies in the Queen’s court, too much damage has already been done—the war has torn too many rifts in the infrastructure of the bureaucracy—for Ferupe to stand on its own feet again anytime in the near future. Especially not after it has made the economic and political concessions we mean to exact. Not after it has paid the price for Kirekune’s war. And I expect that as a result of the information you have brought me, the cost of the rebuilding of Okimako will be added to the bill.
“Yet Kirekune cannot, as a civilized empire and one which will after all have to live with Ferupe as a neighbor forever, walk away and leave Ferupe raped and broken. And so—forgive me for speaking with what may seem to you like arrogance, but it has been decided—after, may I assure you, much careful deliberation on the part of Significance which-in-any-case-is-ineffable”—Azekazo wiped his nose, wrung his hands, wiped his nose—“it has been decided that Ferupe must be utterly defeated, so that it will accept Kirekuni occupation without a murmur. It must be pounded into absolute, stupid submission. Only then will the Kirekuni governor be able to rest easy at night.”
Burns grinned. Inside he was as tense as if he were flying a hostile strike. He shrugged, trying to loosen his shoulders. “Well, why go to war in the first place if not to wipe the floor with the other fellows’ faces? Hang, draw, and quarter everyone in the Heart of Kingsburg if you want; don’t worry, I won’t take it personally.”
Azekazo smiled with a trace of distaste. “Significance does not propose to ‘wipe the floor’ with the Ferupian court! They are necessary—at least, our allies will be necessary—to the governance of Ferupe. They will be the ones doing the governing after we pull out, whenever that is.”
“I had a little doll / And I pull
ed its little string / And whenever I did / It sang ‘Ting-a-ling-ling!’” Burns said loudly.
“Indeed not! The future rulers of Ferupe will be Ferupians—governing in accordance with the principles of proper, bottom-up lawmaking, in absolute compliance with the demands of justice, with an overarching, unifying belief in the principles of civilization embodied by Significance.” Azekazo gabbled out his lies. “What must be done away with is the monarchical mode, in which laws are made at the top, but not enforced, because the police force—which we intend to downsize by 50 percent—has nearly unlimited power to do what it wishes, in blatant disregard of the law if it so wishes, as long as it is done in the name of the Queen! That is the main argument we have with Ferupe, if you like. The people’s belief in the Queen is miserably absolute, but it requires adherence to no principles!”
“Religionationalism,” Burns said.
“Only—if you will—adherence to the principle of daemonology. It is a corrupt, even evil, sort of fanaticism because it produces nothing but superstition. What, when there are no more daemons? Ferupe’s essence is its reliance on daemons. On the Queen. That must be changed before it is too late. It must be changed in order for Kirekune to consolidate our victory—in order for that victory to do Ferupe good—in order for the last hundred years to have been justified. The absolute defeat must be psychological. It must touch every man, woman, and child in the nation.”
The Daemon in the Machine Page 44