Senza saw the archers and realised he’d lost. It was a shame, a great shame, but there’d be another day. He backed into the tent and turned, and then the pain hit him. Nothing he’d ever experienced had hurt that much. He reached round and felt the small of his back for an arrow, but there was nothing there, so it had to be from when Forza hit him. Broken rib, he guessed. He gasped, and looked round. Needless to say, the tent didn’t have a back door. They’d be in after him any second. He blundered across the floor, bumped into a small table, knocked it over, maps and papers everywhere. He heard a faint whimpering noise, like a dog; but it was a dark-skinned woman curled up in a ball next to the bed—tried to crawl under it, he guessed, but it was too low. That must be the famous Raico. She lifted her head and stared at him. He heard the tent flap rustle behind him.
His mind filled up with geometry: lines, angles, the shortest distances between points. The trouble was, she was in the way. The geometrical diagrams became a chessboard; he decided he was a knight. “’Scuse me,” he said politely, then jumped over the woman’s legs, hit the tent canvas, stabbed his sword into it and ripped upwards. The hole was almost big enough; his head and body got through, but his foot caught and he tripped and toppled forward into daylight. As he fell, an arrow swished past; if he hadn’t tripped, it’d have hit him. He twitched his feet free, scrambled up and ran like a hare.
The pain stopped him about fifteen yards later, but by then it was all right; a dozen of his guards were running toward him, and they got between him and the archers. A sergeant helped him up. The pain in his chest and back made him feel like a log with wedges driven in it, just before the last blow of the hammer. He grabbed the sergeant’s shoulder to steady himself. “Where’s Dets?” he said.
The sergeant shook his head. Damn, Senza thought. “Jortis? Major Asta?”
“Major’s over there, sir.” The sergeant pointed. There was a battle going on, his guards against too many men with axes, and he hadn’t even noticed. “Hell,” Senza said. “Where did they come from?”
The sergeant plainly didn’t know, and why should he? Once again, Forza had conjured armed men up out of thin air; he really shouldn’t be surprised any more. He didn’t need to look twice to know his men were losing. He detached himself from the sergeant. “Get as many of them as you can out of there,” he said. “Then back the way we came.”
One of the men of his personal screen was down; why hadn’t he brought archers, instead of heavy infantry? “Leave it,” he called out and the guardsmen backed away, not before another one dropped, twitching. “Move!” he yelled; the guardsmen turned and ran. He hesitated; what the hell, he thought. Then he darted forward and knelt down beside the man who’d just fallen. He’d been shot in the stomach but was still alive. Senza managed to get his arm under the man’s armpit and hoist him up; as he did so, the pain from his rib flared up like a barrel of oil catching fire. Bloody fool, he thought. He took a long stride, wrenching the guardsman with him, like pulling a tooth; the weight across his shoulders was going to split him in half any moment. The man’s cheek, next to his, was wet with sweat and tears. “Oh come on,” he said, and moved them another five yards or so. That was it; he was all done. Idiot, he thought; and then two guardsmen appeared out of nowhere, grabbed them both and hustled them away. He stumbled, the guardsman helping him barged into his side, and he screamed. More hands grabbed him, lifted him off the ground; he felt his feet dangling and swinging as they carried him along, and for some reason he thought of when he was a little boy. He tried to call up the maps and diagrams, but they wouldn’t come into focus; there was a mist between them and him, and he couldn’t see through it.
A bump and a jostle; agony like he’d never known before. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?” he roared, then noticed that one of the men carrying him had been shot; the arrow was through his elbow and into his flank, pinning his arm to his body. The man’s face was screwed up tight; he hadn’t said a word, and he was still keeping step. At least the man hadn’t apologised for jostling him; he wasn’t sure he could’ve handled that.
They were climbing now, so they must be on the narrow path. He remembered he was a general. “Stop,” he said. They lowered him a little so he could stand, but didn’t let go, which was just as well. “Help me round.” The view below him came into focus, and he superimposed a chessboard. Then he looked round for someone to give orders to. There was a sergeant, face vaguely familiar; his name was, what, for crying out loud?
“Sergeant,” he said. “Sergeant Lonous. Take ten men, hold this point. Don’t let them through. Got that?”
The sergeant nodded. Maybe he wasn’t bright enough to realise he’d just been condemned to death, but Senza doubted that. Just a nod. “Right,” Senza said. “Onwards.” It was his pet phrase. The men liked it, did impressions: onwards, and an exaggerated flick of the head, like a nervous horse.
A hundred and fifty yards up the path; had he remembered right, or just imagined it? No, there it was: no more than a goat track, for particularly small, agile goats. “Fifty men,” Senza said, hoping very much that he still had fifty men, “down that track. You’ll go out of sight over the rise, then come back on this track thirty yards below where we left Lonous and his lads. By the time you get there, there should be a whole bunch of bastards. Take it nice and quiet, they won’t see you coming. Then back up here along the main path, quick as you like.”
They hurried off and were soon out of sight. Onwards. If Forza was leading the pursuit personally, they were all dead, naturally. But chances were that Forza would be back down below, comforting his wife or wiping out the main army. In which case, it wasn’t over yet. “Get a move on, lads,” he said. “We haven’t got all day.”
On the top of the Hammerhead he let them stop and get their breath while he looked down at the main action below. As he expected; Forza’s men were right into his centre, tearing it apart, while the cavalry were sweeping round to take the Sixteenth and Twenty-Fifth in rear. Senza grinned. Forza definitely wasn’t down there attending to business. “Come on,” he said, “chop-chop.”
It took rather longer than he’d have liked for them to reach the other path, the one that went straight down the east face of the Hammerhead. He glanced at it and knew there was no way he’d get down that, so he called over Sergeant Velsa, who he’d known for years. “Listen very carefully,” he said, and told him exactly what had to be done. Then he added, “Tell Colonel Pauga we’re running a bit late—my fault—so he’ll need to get a wiggle on. He’s got to get the auxiliary archers in place before Forza’s lot smash through the centre. That’s very important.” He paused. It was a lot for anyone to remember. “Got that?”
“Sir.” The fate of the world hung on Sergeant Velsa’s memory, but Senza didn’t tell him that. “Good man,” he said, “off you go.” Then he gestured for his porters to let him sit down. His backside hit the heather and he squealed like a pig. For a moment he couldn’t see for the blur. Then his vision cleared and he got his breath back. He looked round for someone. “That man I brought in,” he said. “Is he all right?”
They looked at him; someone shook his head. Oh.
“Take me a bit closer to the edge,” he said. “I want to watch this.”
Never watch a battle from an elevated position, General Moisa had told him once; you start getting delusions of godhead. Fair enough; but he reckoned the pain in his chest was a sufficient antidote. Another of Moisa’s pet sayings was that when a battle’s going well, it’s like a symphony made visible. Here are the main themes, the variations; the theme passes from one group of instruments to another, but the melody is unmistakable. A bit fanciful, he’d always thought—Moisa said some fine, resonant things in his time but he’d never been much of a general; on this occasion, however, he could see what the old boy had been getting at. A ripple on the strings as the auxiliary cavalry swept down out of nowhere; lots of noise from the brass as the archers came out of the dead ground, stopped and loosed three volleys that more or less disintegrated Forza’s mobile reserve. Then the big theme rolling out right across the orchestra, as Forza’s men turn and discover they’ve been caught like fish in a net.
Well, maybe not. Too many fish, too small a net. Reluctantly he conceded to himself that it wasn’t going to be today; another bloody stalemate, withdraw, regroup, try again later. He tried not to think about how close he’d been, closer than since they were kids, practically. If only one of his hits had gone home—Senza shook his head. Dad had always said Forza had a mean streak, under that sweet surface. Don’t ever get in a fight with him, son, he doesn’t know when to stop.
He’d lost interest in the battle now he knew how it was going to come out. He had to stay and watch, there was still so much he needed to take care of, but he let his mind drift a little. Did Forza really know where Lysao was, or was that just him being spiteful? Forza’s wife seemed like a nice woman. The thought suddenly struck him: the archers didn’t shoot because Forza knew she was in the tent. Hell. If he’d realised that, he could have had ten more seconds; maybe just possibly long enough—
Too late now, no point beating himself up about it. A man like Forza didn’t deserve a nice wife like that. Probably he’d only married her for politics, and the legendary grand romance was all just publicity. She’d find out about him soon enough. They all did eventually, poor devils. Not for the first time, he cursed the wretched fact of his destiny—yes, someone’s got to deal with Forza, otherwise the world’s not safe, but why did it have to be him?
Suddenly he remembered Lysao, that exquisite image of her combing her hair; clever Forza, to have put it into his mind, knowing it’d be there for days, spoiling everything. She always gave the impression of being overwhelmed by her hair, as if it was some monster that lived on top of her head and needed to be contained, lest it escape and cause havoc among the civilian population. He remembered how it got in the way—ouch, you’re pulling my hair—at the most inconvenient moments possible, how she loved and hated it, a glory and a burden and a dreadful tiresome responsibility, as though she was doomed to lug around a life-size statue by Teromachus everywhere she went. Once she’d threatened to give it to the nation, so it’d be up to the government, not her, to maintain it. And the combing ritual—dear God, every night, an hour and a quarter, like some religious ceremony. It’s my duty, she’d say, and he’d think, yes, and Forza’s mine. My duty and my fault.
He watched the last stages of the battle, but it was like reading a book you’ve read six times before. When he’d had as much as he could take, he called over a guardsman and sent him down with a message: that’s enough, fall back, give them room to withdraw; and get a sedan chair or something up here, quick as you like.
The chair came quite quickly, and they were helping him into it when he glanced back one last time at the battle and saw something. “Just a second,” he said and looked again. Something wasn’t quite right about the way Forza’s men were drawing out. He leaned on a guardsman’s shoulder and superimposed the chessboard. Two, maybe three opportunities; if he’d been down there with a full staff of messengers, he could’ve had a world of fun with them, but up here he might as well be on the moon. Forza would never have left him openings like that, so evidently Forza wasn’t down there running things; in which case, where was he? After all that, had Forza outplayed him with some brilliant long-reaching mechanism, a hidden reserve or a really wide outflank? The thought made him shiver all over. He called a runner and sent him down with a message: get out of there fast. Then he looked again, to see if any of Forza’s capital assets were unaccounted for. No, but that didn’t signify; Forza could summon up armies out of thin air. Where the hell was he? He’s up to something, or else he’s—
Surely not. I didn’t hit him that hard. Did I?
The world stopped. What if he’s dead? What if I killed him?
It was that empty feeling again; he knew it so well—the day his father died, the day Lysao went away, those dreams he had sometimes. He couldn’t be, surely; I bashed him on the head a couple of times, but those helmets just shrug it off; he was certainly alive and full of beans when I left—Concussion? Fractured skull, internal bleeding? I couldn’t have, could I?
“Well, don’t just stand there,” he shouted at the porters. “Get me down there, quick.”
There’s always so much mess after a battle: so many bodies, so many damaged men, so much ruined property scattered about. All things being equal (which they rarely are) the priorities are to see to your side’s wounded, then the enemy’s; strip and bury your dead, pile up and count the opposition; retrieve as much equipment as you can, though usually time, supplies and patience run out long before then, and the job is left to the private sector—first on the scene, the locals (if any), until they’re chased off by the professionals, who follow the wars at a safe distance and bring their own carts. Ideally, by the time they’ve finished up and set off back to the nearest town big enough to host an auction, there should be nothing left but graves, ashes, trampled crops and the hoof marks of the cavalry.
When both sides are in a hurry to get away, it’s not like that. A quick skirmish for the wounded, leave the dead; it takes an hour for the crows to figure it’s safe, they’re canny birds with a highly developed system of reconnaissance, more than capable of recognising live humans from half a mile off. To start with, they come in singly, gliding in on the wind, banking and turning into it to brake, dropping with wings outstretched, touching down and waddling; then twos and threes, then by the dozen; they circle, for choice pitch in nearby trees to make a leisurely assessment before committing themselves; when at last they settle, they cover the field like black snow, and you can hear them a thousand yards away. Then the first human scavengers show up, and the crows rise like angry smoke, yelling abuse at the interlopers. It takes a minute or so for the last reluctant stragglers to lift up and flap away—they know their place in the pecking order, but they don’t feel obliged to be gracious about it.
If there are no humans, of course, they can take their time. They don’t do much of a job. Too much meat is inaccessible under steel and leather, mostly they only get faces and hands—hair is useful, of course, during nesting season—and they’re comparatively slow feeders. They don’t get much help from other birds, foxes, the lesser vermin, nor do they do much to keep the flies off. Generally speaking, they leave a worse mess than they find. In those parts where jackals, kites and vultures are the predominant carrion species, it’s a different story, but they’re not often seen north of the Seventy-third Oasis.
Eight days after the battle, Senza came back. He left his escort on the far side of the Hammerhead and climbed the narrow path alone; he knew what he wanted to see, and the picture would be delicate, fragile; one ill-judged movement would spoil it. From the top of the rock he looked down and read the view below him like a book.
From the distribution and feeding patterns of the crows, which he’d taken great pains not to disturb, and from the smell, he gathered that nobody had been there for at least five days. The black stains the crows made on the brown and green would have told him the narrative of the battle as clearly as any despatch, if he hadn’t known it already; the places where men had fallen thickest, the paths traced by stragglers and fugitives cut down by pursuers, the windrows of dead men shot by archers as they charged, or enfiladed as they advanced and retreated—dogs can read the past by smell, Senza could do the same thing by reading crows. It came from long practice.
When he’d seen all he needed, he walked down towards the place where he’d fought his brother. The tents, he saw with surprise, were still there; Forza’s men must have left in a tearing hurry, and it seemed reasonable to assume that nobody had been in charge. Forza would never have left the tents behind unless he’d been driven forcibly from the field, which Senza knew for a fact hadn’t been the case. He retraced his own movements, stepping over the guardsmen who’d died to save him (eyeless now, cheekbones showing through lacerated skin) and poked about in Forza’s tent for a while. The maps and papers had gone, but the table, chair and bed were still there. Under the pillow, where he knew it would be, he found three small painted wooden panels, hinged with leather straps to make a triptych. He unfolded them, and saw for the first time in fifteen years the fire god in glory, attended by the greater and lesser seraphim. It had always stood on a shelf above the hearth; his mother nodded to it every time she passed, the reflexive dip of the head you accord to neighbours you meet in the street. He stood and stared at it for a very long time; fancy meeting you here. Then he took off the scarf he wore to keep his armour from chafing his neck and wound it six times round the boards; then he turfed junk out of his coat pocket until the bundle fitted snug and safe. A voice in his head told him that the battle had been worth it, just for this. He knew that was terribly wrong, but he couldn’t deny his own belief.
She’d left her trunk behind; he went out, picked up a sword from the ground and used it to lever open the lid—the hasp was mighty strong and he bent the sword blade before the hinge pin finally gave way. His sister-in-law had good but expensive taste. At the bottom of the trunk he found a small bundle of letters, in his brother’s handwriting. He grinned and pocketed them, for later.
Now, then. If Forza had been badly hurt, wouldn’t they bring him in here and lay him down on the bed until someone found the doctor? He examined the blanket for traces of blood, but there weren’t any. Likewise, the first thing you’d do for a wounded man would be peel off all that armour—yes, but they’d take that away with them regardless of the outcome, just as they’d taken the maps, though not her trunk; true, but they’d have stripped off the arming coat as well, probably other bits of clothing too, and there was nothing of the sort lying on the ground or on the bed. A dead body, though, you’d just load that up as it was and cart it away, once you were sure there was nothing that could be done. Or maybe he was jumping to conclusions. Maybe he was thinking too much like Forza—organised, efficient, intelligent. Suppose you were some captain or lieutenant, horribly stuck with command as your general lies at your feet groaning and bleeding, and (not being a military genius) you have no idea at all what the military genius leading the opposition has in mind; you’d get the chief and his wife out of there as soon as possible; maybe you’d have the residual trace of wit to grab the maps and papers, but not the personal stuff. You most definitely wouldn’t know what was under the chief’s pillow. All you’d be able to hear would be the voice in your head screaming get out of there, which you would obey implicitly, without hesitation.
Ambiguous, therefore; maybe he’s dead, maybe he isn’t. Fairly safe to assume that, at the moment of the army’s departure, Forza wasn’t in command; potentially fatal to assume that he wasn’t in command now, and racking his brains to figure out what his kid brother would do next. If I was him, he thought, I’d send back a half-squadron, at the very least; tell them to hold off still and quiet so as not to disturb the crows; as soon as the crows get up, go in there fast. Would Forza guess that he’d be here? Yes, because he was here, and Forza knew him so well. In which case—
He ran out of the tent and looked round; half a squadron would kick up dust, unless Forza had ordered them to go on foot for that very reason. He couldn’t see movement of any sort, anywhere. Which proved nothing. Time he wasn’t there.
As he ran back up the path, he realised: come what may, if Forza was alive, he’d have sent someone for the painting, and probably his wife’s letters, if he knew about them (he’d know). The absolute certainty of it hit him like a hammer; he stopped dead, unable to take a single step. Dead, or just possibly in a coma—no, because she’d know what he kept under his pillow, she’d know it had to be retrieved at all costs; no reason to believe she was dead too. He felt utterly weak and helpless, as though he’d just had a stroke. Forza—
Suddenly into his mind came an image of the Basilica at Vetusta, the biggest and most magnificent man-made structure in the world. Four generations of labourers had worked on it, he’d read somewhere; great-grandfather, grandfather, father, son, their whole lives spent on that one extraordinary piece of work—masons, carters, carpenters, smiths, brickmakers, plasterers, architects, painters, sculptors, all of them trades that traditionally run in families, like soldiering or ruling empires—until one day, one clearly defined, absolutely different day, someone took a step back, looked up, down again at the plans; nodded his head, probably, and declared that it was finished, and everyone could go home. A moment of triumph—the greatest achievement of the human race, brought to a magnificently successful conclusion—but also, for the fourth-generations achievers, the end of the world, everything they’d ever known over, done with and gone, their purpose fulfilled, their experiences obsolete; a frontier post on the border between present and past. A week later, they’d all have scattered far and wide, building cowsheds. Hereditary trades; family businesses. Like, say, the Belot brothers, purveyors of fine carrion to discerning crows everywhere.
Self-pity; because if a job’s worth doing, do it yourself.
No confirmation, of course. He led the army back across the border, expecting to find messengers waiting, but there weren’t any. He hadn’t said anything to the men, but he had an idea that the shrewder ones were guessing pretty close to the truth. There was a buzz of excitement on the march and around the camp; we’re going all the way this time, it’ll all be over by midsummer—as though something was about to begin, rather than everything had just ended. The senior staff kept quiet, waiting for an announcement.
They stopped for three days at the old fort at Stroumena, ostensibly to wait for supplies. On the third day, when Senza had given up and was getting ready to move on, a breathless young lieutenant told him five horsemen were approaching the camp, escorting a covered chaise. He didn’t actually use the words Imperial courier service, but he didn’t need to. He was grinning.
Senza watched them from the top of the observation tower. He saw a big man in a blue hooded cloak get out of the chaise; there was something familiar about him, though Senza could only see the top of his head. There was a woman with him; she got out, handed him a satchel with the ends of a couple of brass despatch rolls sticking out, then got back into the chaise. Two of the riders started to follow the blue-cloaked man, but he sent them back and set off across the courtyard. Definitely something familiar about the way he walked; an aggressively long stride, impatient, a man very much aware of the value of his time. So much to do, and only me capable of doing it. He disappeared through a gateway, and Senza drew back from the window. Ridiculous, he thought. What on earth would he be doing here, middle of nowhere, in a war zone?
He heard footsteps running up the spiral stairs, and then there was a guardsman in the doorway, with a look on his face like someone who’s just seen God coming out of the drapers’ on the corner. “It’s him, sir. Oida. Wants to see you.”
“I’ll come down,” Senza said.
Oida was in the small courtyard, sitting on a mounting block. He’d taken off the cloak and draped it over his knees, like an old lady with a carriage rug. He was examining a scuff on the side of his boot. He looked up and smiled. “Hello, Senza,” he said.
Senza felt his left hand clench tight; he relaxed it before it was noticed. “Oida,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to entertain the troops,” he said.
Senza managed not to say the first words that sprang to mind. “It was very clever of you to find us,” he said, “seeing as how we didn’t tell anyone we were coming this way till we reached the border.”
“Pure serendipity.” Oida beamed at him. “I just happened to be in the neighbourhood, and someone told me you’d shown up out of the blue. As luck would have it I don’t have to be anywhere special for a day or so; I thought, why not? Do my good deed for the week and see my old friend Senza. Any chance of a drink, by the way? I’m gasping.”
Senza didn’t say anything for four seconds. Then: “Of course,” and he turned and started to walk. He went fast, trying to make Oida break into a trot, but with those great long legs Oida could keep up with him at a stroll. Senza didn’t like tall people. By some cruel quirk of fate, he’d been surrounded by them all his life; he was exactly average height, but he’d always felt short, and bitterly resented it. Oida was a head taller than Forza had been. There was simply no excuse for something like that.
Four or five hundred years ago, when the fort had been a monastery, the monks had made a walled herb garden. Somehow it had survived, though now it produced fresh salad for the officers’ mess. There was a small free-standing stone building in the north-eastern corner, where the cellarers had once dried and cured medicinal herbs; it was cool even when the sun was high and still smelt faintly of rosemary and cumin, though these days it was mostly used for storing eggs. There were three carved oak chairs, a cupboard and a massive table scored with knife cuts, and a door you could lock from the inside.
Senza opened the cupboard and took out a brown glass bottle and one horn cup, which he filled three-quarters full. Oida took it and drank about half. Senza pulled a face. “I don’t know how you can drink that stuff,” he said.
Oida laughed. “Your loss,” he said. “They try and make it in the West,” he said, “but it’s a poor imitation. Someone told me it’s the wrong sort of bees.”
Senza shrugged. “Bees are bees, surely.”
“You’d have thought so, but apparently not.” He reached across the table for the bottle. “They make a passable imitation in Charattis,” he said, “but it’s a sort of browny treacly colour and rather too sweet for my taste. Cheers.”
Senza watched him drink in silence. He’d never seen Oida drunk, never. Alcohol just made him a more intense version of himself: cunning, ambiguous and so very, very annoying. “So,” he said, “what are you going to give them?”
Oida yawned. “Oh, the usual,” he said. “A fine blend of sentiment and smut, with a few big, loud patriotic numbers at the end so they can all have a good roar. I like singing for soldiers, they’re appreciative and easily pleased.”
Senza remembered some of the reasons why he’d never liked Oida. “Who’s the female?” he asked.
Oida pulled a face. “Political officer,” he said.
“Ah. Ours or theirs?”
“Oh, yours. I’m not allowed to blow my nose without her reporting in triplicate to the Secretary General. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear someone in your government doesn’t trust me. Still, that’s what you get for being neutral, I suppose.”
Senza grinned. “I’ve always meant to ask you about that.” He paused to rub his side; getting better, but it still ached all the damn time. “Later, maybe. Very kind of you to make time for us. Shouldn’t you be somewhere else, earning money?”
“Yes,” Oida said. “But what the hell.” He drained what was left in his cup, looked at the bottle but didn’t move. “To be honest with you, I’m dying of curiosity. There’s this rumour going round.”
“Oh yes?”
Oida nodded. “They say you’ve killed Forza.”
“Do they now.”
“Indeed.” Oida was looking straight at him, and Senza realised he’d be a hard man to lie to. “Anything to it?”
“You know, I’m not sure.” Senza waited; he didn’t actually know why. “I may have killed him, but I can’t confirm it. Actually, when you showed up, I was hoping it was Imperial couriers with something in the way of hard news.”
“Sorry,” Oida said. “They say it was you and him, hand to hand.”
“Well, wouldn’t that make a lovely story,” Senza replied. “But, yes, there was a bit of a scrap, my guards and his. It’s possible that he may have been killed. I nearly was. Complete balls-up, as a matter of fact, everything got completely out of hand. So, in answer to your question, I really don’t know.”
Oida nodded slowly. “That’s interesting,” he said. “Presumably you’d know if he’s out of action from the way his troops are moving.”
“If I knew where they were, quite probably, yes.”
A truly irritating grin. “I might be able to help you there,” Oida said, and from his pocket he took a map, stiff parchment, folded longwise. He laid it on the table and smoothed it out with the heel of his hand. “Some people I know reckon they saw a large body of men here—” He was pointing at a blank space in the middle of the map. “Not your lot, obviously, not the tribesmen or the Blemyans, because we know where they are. So, logically, it’s got to be Forza’s army. Headed north in a great hurry, my friends said.” He pushed the map across the table. “I don’t know if it’s any use to you, but there it is.”
Senza realised he’d stopped breathing. “These friends of yours.”
“Ah.” Oida looked away. “Strictly neutral,” he said, “just like me. But reliable. Obviously, you can’t take my word for it, but you can send some of your people up that way to have a look, if you want to. Here.” He stretched out his arm, rested his index finger on the map and scored a faint line with his fingernail. “There or thereabouts,” he said. “About five days ago, so you should be able to pick up the trail.”
Senza stared at the map. He could see the faint furrow of Oida’s nail. “It’s terribly kind of you to tell me this,” he said, “but it’s not very—”
“Neutral?” Oida beamed at him.
“Not very, no.”
“Mphm.” Oida leaned back in his chair. “My old mother used to say, there’s a time and a place for everything. Neutrality is wonderful when you don’t know which side is going to win. But if Forza’s dead—”
Senza had picked up the map without knowing it. “He may not be, I just said.”
“Indeed.” Oida massaged the side of his head with the tips of two fingers. “But—I’m no strategist, God knows, it’s a closed book to me, I’m just an entertainer. But if Forza’s alive, what the hell is he doing over there? I don’t actually know the region, but surely the only reason you’d be over that way would be if you were trying to get back home as quickly as possible; and I can’t see why Forza would want to do that.”
“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.”
“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 across 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 officer’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.”
She gave him a long look. “You do know,” she said. “About Oida.”
Senza sighed. “Now that,” he said, “is a very good question. Yes, I know a lot of things about Oida. Ever such a lot of things, many of them true. Just not enough, that’s all.”
She’d changed. She even looked quite different. He wondered if, this time next week, he’d recognise her again if he met her in the street. Quite possibly not. “It’s really true that he’s the go-between,” she said. “And you did know that already.”
Senza nodded. “I have full access to government intelligence,” he said. “Which means I know what’s in the dossier, about him and you. I know you killed a man at Beloisa just for a place on a boat—well, I say a man, a political officer, so no harm done. But, yes, I know a little bit about both of you. I know what you really went to Blemya for.” She winced just a little when he said that. “Which is why we’re keeping the chains on for now, given that we’re alone and there’s sharp objects handy. No offence.”
“None taken,” she replied. “Fine, so what do you want me for?”
He smiled; then he grabbed her by the throat, his thumb pressing on a particular vein. It was just as well he knew his own strength. “Tell me who Oida is,” he said. “Please.”
She opened her mouth but couldn’t speak. He kept the pressure up for another three seconds, then let go. She fell back, gasping for air. He counted to twelve, then repeated: “Please.”
“Since you ask so nicely.”
He shook his head. “You’re a clever, attractive woman and you make me laugh,” he said. “In fact, you remind me quite a bit of someone I used to know. I’d hate to have to hurt you, but this is important.” He turned round and made a sign; two soldiers hurried over, carrying a box. They put it down on the table and Senza lifted off the lid. “Go on,” he said.
She looked at him, then into the box. “Oh,” she said.
“Quite. That’s the missing camshaft, and that’s the pinion for the worm drive. You missed that.”
“And, yes,” Senza went on, “we do have the manual.” He nodded, and the soldiers closed the box and took it away. “Please,” he said, “I’m serious. I really do need to know about Oida. I’ve just sent off one of my oldest friends on a cavalry raid, based on what Oida told me, I’m scared stiff he won’t come back and I’m being led into a trap. The lives of my men are at stake, and that means more to me than anything in the world. So you can see—”
“Anything?” she asked quietly.
He didn’t smile. “You’re quite right,” he said. “Killing my brother is the most important thing, assuming he’s not dead already. To that end I’ve sent tens, hundreds, of thousands of good men to their deaths, and I did it because it had to be done. But every single death was one too many, and I’m damned if there’s going to be any more, if I can possibly help it. Compared to them, I’m afraid you just don’t signify. I’m sorry,” he added, “really. But that’s how it is.”
She looked at him. “All right,” she said. “I believe you. You’re cruel and nasty and you’re prepared to hurt me. So, what do you want to know?”
He breathed in slow and deep, out again the same way. “Oida isn’t just the go-between,” he said. “He works for the lodge. Is that right?”
“Yes.” He noticed her hands were quite still and relaxed under the table. “Yes, Oida’s first loyalty is to the lodge. As is mine.”
“What does he do for them?”
“What he’s told,” she replied. “It’s what we all do.”
Senza nodded. “Who does the telling?”
“I don’t know.” She lifted her head and looked at him. “That’s the truth, and if you know anything about the lodge, you’ll know it is. The lodge has a long and complicated chain of command, and at the top end you only know your immediate superior. You don’t know who’s above that, or who the real leaders are. Oida answers to someone, I honestly don’t know who. That someone answers to someone else. Maybe there’s a level above that, I really couldn’t say. It’s how we run things.”
“All right,” Senza said. “I don’t suppose it matters all that much, in real terms. What’s more important is, what does the lodge want? What’s it trying to do?”
He watched her face, but could see nothing he recognised. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s the lodge. We have faith. We do as we’re told.”
“I really am very sorry,” he said. Then he clapped his hands, and the soldiers came back. He nodded, and they took her by the arms and raised her to her feet. “I’m inclined to believe you,” he said, “but that’s not good enough, I have to know. All right,” he said to the soldiers, and they led her away. He didn’t watch to see if she turned back to look at him.
Later, he went to see her in the cells under the guardhouse. It was bright sunlight outside and dark in the cell, and it took his eyes a while to get used to the contrast.
“They broke your arm,” he said.
“Yes.” She was sitting on the floor with her back to the wall, cradling it in her lap.
“I’m sorry.”
“Of course you are.”
He didn’t want to look at her, but he felt he had to. “You didn’t tell them anything.”
“No.”
His mouth felt dry. “The chief examiner says he can’t be sure you’re not holding something back. He’s very experienced in these matters.”
“I’d sort of gathered that.”
“He thinks he should try again, just in case. Better safe than sorry, was what he said.”
She closed her eyes. “I can see his point,” she said quietly. “After all, it’s his reputation at stake.”
He swallowed. It wasn’t easy to do. “Are you sure there’s nothing you can tell me?”
Just the ghost of a grin. “I wish there was, believe me. But unfortunately there isn’t.”
He nodded. “There’s a very good surgeon here,” he said. “He’ll be able to save the arm, I’m sure of it. He patched me up once when I was in a hell of a mess.”
“That’s a comfort,” she said.
“I’m sorry.” He turned away and spoke to the wall. “I just wanted you to know, I understand what it’s like.”
She looked at him as though he was stupid. “No, you don’t.”
“I had a broken leg once. My men took it in turns to carry me. It was four days before we got to the outpost. It hurt like hell and by the time we got there I was hoarse from screaming.” He looked back at her. For some reason, he was angry. “Does that count?”
“No,” she said. “No, it doesn’t.”
Of course it didn’t. Now she’d made him feel ridiculous. All wrong; he was supposed to be torturing her, not the other way round. “You knew the risks,” he said. “When you joined.”
“What the hell has that got to do with anything?”
Nothing at all. “I’ll send the surgeon to set your arm.”
“You can if you like. A bit pointless, though, don’t you think? If they’re going to break the other one tomorrow. Or will it be tonight? Or were you going to do a leg next?”
“Please yourself,” he said.
“Am I being ungrateful?” she said. “Stupid ungrateful bitch. Not a very attractive quality in a woman. Mind you, neither is an arm the wrong way round.” And then she laughed. “You look so stupid when you’re embarrassed,” she said. “Practically half-witted. Please go away now, it hurts when I laugh.”
He banged on the door. The jailer took a long time, and for just a moment he was afraid he’d be stuck there, locked in, with her, indefinitely. The bright light outside hurt his eyes. He went and found the chief examiner. “Are you sure?” he said.
The examiner was eating bread and cheese; he’d worked through and missed lunch. “It’s not a precise business,” he said mildly. “In my professional opinion—”
“Yes?”
He pursed his lips. “Probably she’s not got anything to tell us, but it could be she’s really strong and clever, it’s still too early for me to say. That’s why I recommended—”
“I think we’ll leave it at that,” Senza said.
The examiner shrugged a little. “As you wish,” he said. “It’s your decision, after all.”
Then he went and found the surgeon. “Please do the best you can,” he said.
The surgeon gave him a mild glare. You mean, as opposed to the careless, couldn’t-give-a-damn job I usually do, he didn’t say. “Of course,” he said. “Have they finished with her, by the way? Only if she’s got more coming, I’ll need to brace the splint pretty damn tight. The convulsions—”
“All finished,” Senza said quickly. “And get her moved somewhere decent.”
He climbed the tower and sat alone on the watchman’s seat for a while, but this time it didn’t help. All wrong. He couldn’t help wondering what Forza would have done if he’d got his hands on Lysao—cradling a broken arm in the dark, but she’d never have fought back, and she too would have nothing to buy her release with. Not that Forza would have minded too much about that—
Could he really be dead? If so, that would change everything. Everything, and it’d be over. No need for any more of this. No more anything.
That summer in the country; before—well, before. Forza on the white pony, his legs so long his feet trailed furrows in the tall, wet grass. They’d shot—Forza had shot—a hare, sixty yards (they’d paced it out), and they took it home, and Father laughed and let them both have a quarter of a glass of wine, even though they were far too young; it had tasted foul, but he’d swallowed it because it was a reward, it was actually drinking victory (and how bad it had tasted, and how it had burned inside him), and how Father had told Forza that since he’d shot the hare it was up to him to gut and skin it; but Forza was squeamish, he hated that sort of thing, so when Father wasn’t looking, Senza did it for him; and later, when they were alone, Forza had actually said, Thanks (out loud); and he remembered thinking: come what may, for as long as we live, I know Forza will always be on my side, and I on his, right or wrong, no matter what, and isn’t it a great thing to have the most wonderful brother in the world?
He sat down on the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“You really want to know?”
Pain is not becoming. It had made her face thin, and she had a washed-out look that brought out the pallor of her complexion; she looked like parchment, you could write on her— “No. No, I don’t think so.”
She nodded. “So now you believe me.”
He looked at her. You have to be able to read people if you intend to command armies. “No,” he said.
Not what she’d been expecting to hear. “Is that right.”
“Indeed. You may congratulate yourself. You beat Senza Belot.” He reached into the leather satchel he’d brought with him and took out a small wicker basket. He lifted the lid. “Honeycakes,” he said, “with almonds. Your favourite.”
She looked at them as though she’d never seen anything quite like them before. “I’m surprised she left you,” she said.
Not what he’d been expecting to hear. “What?”
“Your Lysao,” she said. “A man who’s considerate, who finds out what you like. Women go for that sort of thing, you know.”
He laughed. “That’s just attention to detail,” he said. “Which wins wars, but—”
“And who’s prepared to admit he was wrong.”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t wrong, though. At least, the chief examiner wasn’t, and I trust his judgement. And anyway, she wasn’t like that.”
“Oh?”
He frowned. “She hated it when I pulled stunts like that,” he said. “She said I only knew what her favourite cakes and flowers were because I had spies watching her every minute of the day, snooping round asking questions; she said it was horrible, creepy.” He made a very slight gesture with his fingertips. “I can see her point.”
“And who considers the woman’s point of view,” she said. “Why did she leave you, out of interest? Come on, I’ve told you things. Now it’s your turn.”
He looked at her. “Sorry,” he said. “You’ll have to break my arm first.”
She looked right back. “Some day, maybe. Was it something you did?”
He shifted a little. “Several times you referred to Forza in the past tense,” he said. “I tried not to react, because I assumed you were doing it on purpose to see how I took it.” He paused for a moment; it was almost as if he was trying to decide something. “Do you know if he’s alive or dead? Please,” he added.
“I don’t think I like it when you say please,” she said. “Bad things tend to follow. But, yes, I know.”
He nodded. “All right,” he said. “How about a trade? You answer my question, and I’ll answer yours.” She opened her mouth, but didn’t speak. He went on: “Someone once told me the key to negotiating is to give the other fellow something he actually wants—something you don’t want, preferably, but, like everything, it’s a question of proportion. Is my answer worth enough to you to buy your answer? Well?”
She smiled at him. “You’re a clever man,” she said. “If you’d used your brains earlier, you might have spared me all this.” She lifted the splinted arm just a little. “By the way, no, it isn’t.”
“Ah.”
“Because you’d be getting two answers for the price of one,” she said.
He touched his forehead with his middle finger, then lifted it off with a slight flourish; the fencer’s acknowledgement of a true hit. “You’re slightly too old and not quite pretty enough,” he said, “for which I am profoundly grateful.”
“Ah.” She gave him a grave stare. “My grandmother had an expression: she’s prettier than she looks. That’s me. Also, you’re not exactly catching me at my best.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t ever love a woman who was stronger than me,” he said. “That’s why she was perfect, of course. I don’t know how much you know about these things—quite a lot, I should imagine—but there’s a type of armour that’s actually designed to crumple when it gets hit; it absorbs the strength of the blow and stops it churning your insides into dog food. In other words, it succeeds by failing, it’s strong through weakness. That’s her. You’d never think of hitting her, because if you did, she’d have won. So, we never fought.” He stopped. “Well done,” he said. “You got that for free.”
She shrugged. “You gave it away as bait,” she said. “Show an opening, invite an attack.”
“Indeed.” He smiled. “Would you like to come and work for me? I’ll give you command of a regiment.”
With her good hand she moved a few strands of hair away from her face. “The hell with it,” she said, “you’re too sweet to lie to. I’m sorry, I don’t know if Forza is still alive or not. Nobody seems to know, not even Oida and his friends. So I can’t play, because I haven’t got any stake money. There,” she went on, “you got that for nothing, so we’re even.”
He leaned back a little and folded his hands; it was a little-boy gesture, which he usually avoided. “She left me for another man,” he said. “I think. I don’t actually know. And who he is I have no idea.”
Her eyes widened a little. “I don’t know this game,” she said. “How do you play?”
“Easy. We give each other something for nothing. Whoever gets what he or she wants is the winner. I think,” he said gently, “it’s your turn.”
She was looking at him as though he was a badly written letter; she could make out some of the words, but not quite enough. “What I told you about the lodge is basically true,” she said. “Oida answers to someone, I don’t know who. That someone has a superior, but Oida doesn’t know who he is, or whether he’s the top man or not.”
Senza frowned. “You already gave me that.”
“Yes, but this time it’s true.”
That made him laugh. “All right,” he said. “My other question is, what does the lodge want?” He paused, then went on: “How much will that cost me?”
She shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “You can’t afford it.” She was reading his face again. “Does that mean I get my toes crushed in a vise or something?”
The thought had just crossed his mind. “No,” he said, “that counts as cheating.” Suddenly, without quite knowing why, he stood up. “I fold,” he said. “You win. And now it’s your moral duty to have grandchildren, so you can tell them: I made Senza Belot admit defeat, twice. Thank you for your time.”
“My pleasure,” she said. “Do stop by again if you have a moment. We could play chess.”
Senza smiled at her. “Not bloody likely,” he said.
Later, he thought about the celebrated battle of Cereinto, the largest and bloodiest engagement of the Third Solantine War. The Federalists, under Marshal Aistu, were determined to stop the Loyalists, under General Lios, from reaching Astapaloeia. The Loyalists were desperate to get past Aistu’s army and reach the port of Pesymon before the autumn storms cut off all further supplies from home. After a slogging match that lasted from just after dawn until mid-afternoon, General Lios’ heavy dragoons finally burst through Aistu’s pikemen and opened a gap through which nearly the whole of his surviving army was able to pass. The result was that Cereinto was saved and the Loyalists entered Pesymon just as the supply ships were sighted in the bay. Both sides, quite justifiably, claimed a glorious victory, and Cereinto was taught in military academies right across the empire as a classic example of a battle won by both sides, until Acobius, in his commentaries on Aistu’s History of the War, pointed out that Cereinto only happened because both commanders had completely misread the other’s intentions, and the same results would have been achieved, and without the loss of eleven thousand lives, had the battle never taken place at all.
So, Senza told himself as he walked up the steep spiral staircase to the top of the gatehouse tower, the best battle is the one that doesn’t happen; instead, we negotiate, we trade, we give and take. Unfortunately, in the real world, certain formalities tend to supervene: abductions, broken arms. Only when all the clutter is out of the way can the real business be done.
Bullshit, he thought. But Forza would have stayed and watched.
Alone on the turret, he watched the sun set. He tried to project the tactical grid into the blue darkness, but he couldn’t see the lines. It was almost impossible to avoid the conclusion that Oida, Oida’s friends, the lodge, wanted him to win; whether or not Forza was dead, they had more or less given him Forza’s apparently leaderless and shambling army, wandering lost in the wilderness, trying to limp home like a wounded animal. Furthermore, they’d sought to bribe him to accept this amazingly generous gift by telling him where Lysao was.
All right; take it at face value, just for a moment. Why now? Because of Blemya and the mad prophet; a million fanatical nomads unleashed on the civilised world, and only the best soldier alive can stop them, save countless lives, preserve the true Faith from extinction. Forza is dead; or Forza is, in the opinion of the competent experts of the lodge, not quite as good as his brother. It was plausible. You’d probably forgive a young second lieutenant on his first tour of duty for believing it.
Oida answers to someone. That someone answers to someone else. Above that, nobody knows, and that’s how it works. That he was prepared to believe; practically an antidote to politics, a magnificent idea, where applicable. But what did the lodge want? Either she didn’t know or, more likely, she was prepared to risk the torture chamber rather than tell him. But that was crazy. The lodge wasn’t just half a dozen old men in a chapter house; it was huge, vast, the biggest open secret in history. You can’t have an organisation to which ten per cent of the population of the empire belongs, and where only three or four men know what it’s actually for.
He caught his breath. He was suddenly aware of all the soft, ambiguous noises of the twilight: animals, birds, the wind slapping the stays of the flag against the flagpole. Couldn’t you, though; couldn’t that be exactly what the lodge really was? Imagine—purely for argument’s sake—that in a thousand years’ time the empire has fallen and sun-worshipping savages pasture their sheep on what was once the Forum of the Tribunes. Look east from the Forum, and you’ll see the ruins of the Great Baths. Go inside, and there you’ll see shepherds watering their flocks from the natural mineral springs. Ask them about this place, these twelve-foot-thick walls, the shattered shell of the Great Dome; probably they’ll tell you that once upon a time there were giants, and that they built it to water their sheep, which stood fifteen feet high at the shoulder and drank a hundred gallons each a day. That was why the arches were so high and the floors were paved with slabs of basalt, because otherwise the sheer weight of the sheep would have cracked the paving.
Precisely. They’d use the Baths for their own purposes, enjoying the convenience and the readily appreciable benefits, and never need to know what it had really been built for; and the mere size and splendour and glory of it would make them need to believe in the existence of giants, who once lived and knew better than the little people of today—but never mind, no matter, not to worry, because the water here is clean and it’s nice and cool at midday, dry when it rains.
Now suppose that there really were giants, and they built the Baths for some other purpose beside a place for senators to wash their feet, and the senators were as gullible as the shepherds who came after them—
Now suppose that the President of the Senate reports directly to the Master of the Rolls, and the Master reports to the Lord Chamberlain, who reports to an emperor that nobody knows about except him—
A moment later, he’d snapped out of it because, when all was said and done, who were the lodge, anyway? What could they actually do? Most of all, how many divisions could they put in the field? Answer, none. No army? Screw them. Likewise, screw the two Masters of the Rolls, east and west, the Lords Chamberlain, and their majesties the emperors. All power—all real power—in the two empires was actually vested in the army, therefore in the hands of the two Belot boys, who’d been using it for as long as anyone could remember to try and kill each other—
It took two weeks to get the army back to Bohec. Unexpected late rain flooded the estuary and washed away all three bridges north of the mountains, turned the south road into a slow-moving river of mud and made the short cut through the marshes impassable. For the first time in years, Senza Belot was reduced to trudging, a long, weary, sticky trek round three sides of a square, just to get home.
When he got there, having been out of contact for ten days, there was no news; nothing had happened while he’d been isolated from the rest of the world, and, in particular, there was no word as to whether Forza was alive or dead. He sat impatiently through the usual debriefings, was rather ungracious about receiving the Order of the Headless Spear for his part in defeating the nomad threat, and went to the chariot racing at the Hippodrome, where he bet seventy angels on a rank outsider at thirty-three to one. It won, needless to say. He gave the money to the orphans’ fund.
Then a summons; an audience with the emperor. For crying out loud, Senza thought, and sent for his dress uniform.
The New Palace had taken three hundred and eighty-four years to build. Originally planned as a modest ninety-acre site, scheduled for completion in a mere seventy-six years, it had grown in size, scope and ambition with each successive emperor of the Fourth and Fifth dynasties; the civil wars, military coups and foreign occupations that followed the collapse of the Fifth dynasty did little to interrupt the trend, as each new ruler sought to legitimise himself by adding his own personal touch to the palace complex; very few of them lived to see ground broken on their contribution, but, once an addition had been entered on the architects’ Supreme Overall Plan, there appeared to be no official mechanism for removing it. As a result, usurpers and dictators spent fortunes they couldn’t afford building monuments to the glory of the men they had betrayed, assassinated or driven out, while large parts of the original core design, such as the outer walls and gatehouses, remained in abeyance while the newer projects were given priority. Because the outer perimeter was therefore not defined and restricted, it was easy for the next new emperor to decree a further extension, wing or colonnade, often involving the clearance of several blocks of valuable City real estate, and the demolition of other parts of the palace complex already completed or still under construction. Only when Rheo III achieved the throne and decreed that no alteration to the design would be considered until the walls and gates were completely finished did the palace take on its final shape; which proved to be a rambling, ugly and wildly inconvenient assembly of hopelessly heterogeneous styles and forms, in which a man could walk for three hours, climb well over a thousand stairs, and only cover half a mile. Tapheon IV loathed the palace so much that he decided to abandon Bohec completely and relocate the seat of empire to a new site on the southern shores of the Mare’s Head, and it was only his untimely death that prevented the move. Eventually, after nearly four centuries of scaffolding and hoardings, the palace was declared finished by Eucreon II, and there was a magnificent, if slightly ridiculous, opening ceremony. It’s one of history’s prettiest ironies that Eucreon’s death led directly to the civil war, the partition of the empire and the establishment of another capital city, with another New Palace, on the other side of the Gulf of Sinoa.
Legend has it that it was among the blacksmiths employed for generations on the manufacture of hinges, nails, railings and the like for the New Palace project that the Order first came into being. As thousands of decorative-ironwork specialists from all over the empire travelled or were drafted to Bohec, they formed a trade guild—necessarily clandestine, since guilds were outlawed on government works—to protect their interests and safeguard the trade secrets on which their value to the project depended. As senior guildsmen evolved from mere artisans into artists and project managers, so the guild increasingly extended its interests and activities into areas rather more refined and socially acceptable than the shaping of hot iron; in particular (inevitably, during the successive waves of religious fervour that accompanied and followed the troubled Interregnum after the fall of the Fifth dynasty), guild members found themselves attracted to spiritual and philosophical issues, the pursuit of esoteric learning and religious arcana. At this point it became fashionable in Society to be a craftsman, and the lodge achieved the unique place in the established order which it enjoys to this day.
All the guards on the Sixth level knew Senza by sight. They should do; they were all distinguished veterans of his campaigns, assigned to the palace guards on his personal recommendation. Accordingly, there was a bizarre class reunion feel about walking from the Lion Gate to the foot of the Barbican tower. Every face he passed was familiar, someone he’d once known well and not seen for ages; instead of grinning, shaking hands and asking after wives, sons and old comrades, however, he had to march briskly across the endless marble floor (that rather nauseating shade of sunburn pink) without catching any eyes or saying a single word to his old friends, for fear of breaching the most sacred laws of protocol. The guards themselves knew the score, of course. By now, they were masters of silent communication and perfectly capable of conveying, Hello, sir, how are you, great to see you again, best of luck, without making a sound or moving a muscle.
Once he was past the threshold of the Dice Chamber, however, it was all quite different. Beyond that was the territory of the Household, recruited exclusively from the Northern and Eastern savages, whose only loyalty was to the emperor who paid them such a very large amount of money. Even if he’d been allowed to talk to them, it wouldn’t have done him any good, since they wouldn’t have understood a word. It was treason punishable by death to learn their languages or possess a relevant dictionary or grammar book, unless you were a linguistics officer accredited to the Chamberlain, on the grounds that it’s hard to conspire with someone you can’t talk to.
No guards, not even Household, north of the Pearl Chamber; from there on, security was the responsibility of the Gentlemen Doorkeepers, an order of chivalry founded in the Seventh dynasty and confined to twelve ancient families whose loyalty to the emperor was proverbially fanatical. That was the paradox. If you could somehow slip or fight your way past them, get to the emperor, cut his throat and cram the diadem on to your head, you were then the emperor and they would defend you to the death. The only known exception had been the pretender Phormia, who had managed to grab the crown before the Gentlemen reached him, but who, in his haste, put it on back to front. This was deemed to be procedurally incorrect, and he was cut to pieces on the spot.
The Captain of the Gentlemen knew Senza Belot, of course. He opened the Blue Chamber door without a word, and Senza walked in.
“Senza.” The voice, high and frail, came from somewhere in the blinding gold light, but the echo effect made it hard to place. “Dear boy. Thank you so much for coming. Do sit down. What’ll you have to drink?”
The Blue Chamber was so called because Eita II had had it painted blue; to be precise, a perfect reproduction of the night sky over his home town of Gumis on the night he was born, the constellations picked out in diamonds and freshwater pearls. Five years later Eita was stabbed to death hiding in a latrine in the Guards barracks, and Lanceor IV had had the Chamber redone in gold mosaic, hence the bewildering glare when you first walked in; the Blue Chamber, however, it had remained. Although the mosaics were by Perperis and one of the ten finest artistic achievements of the human race, their purpose was coldly tactical. Dazzle an assassin for five seconds, and you have a much better chance of summoning the Gentlemen in time.
During his previous visits Senza had mapped the Chamber in his mind. He could’ve walked to where the chairs and table were with his eyes shut; not that having them open made much difference. His one fear was that he’d blunder into the old man along the way. If the emperor was in a bad mood, colliding with him would be treason, the noose or the block. If he was in a good mood, it’d be, My dear fellow, how clumsy of me.
“Tea, please,” Senza called out into the blaze. It would already be there, of course. There’d be slightly too much jasmine in it for his taste; which would please him, because it would prove that Imperial intelligence didn’t know absolutely everything about him.
He found the back of the chair by feel, waited until his eyes were accustomed to the glare (treason, on a bad day, to sit down while the emperor was still standing). He could make out a golden glow reflected in the smooth top of a bald man’s head. It was all right to sit down.
“Thank you so much for the Paleostrate didrachm,” the old man said. For a split second, Senza hadn’t the faintest idea what he was talking about. Then he guessed it must be the old coin he’d sent him. The emperor collected ancient coins, among many, many other things. “Do you know, there’s only five of them in existence? And your one’s got to be the best specimen yet. You can make out nearly all of the obverse inscription.”
“My pleasure,” Senza replied. The chair was like being eaten by a monster with no teeth. He wriggled as he went in, but the back cushions got him all the same. He could barely move for softness and give. “There’s a what’s-its-name, provenance, that goes with it. I’ll have it sent round.”
“Thank you.” True gratitude: far more so than if he’d just added a new province to the empire. “As you know, provenance is everything with antiquities. It’s criminal the way some dealers blindly ignore it. They’re destroying the past. It’s as bad as burning books.”
There the old man was exaggerating. In his view, nothing was as bad as burning books. Well, almost nothing. With great effort and difficulty, Senza leaned forward, found the little blue and white tea bowl and sipped. Perfect; just right. The thought made him shudder.
“And the same goes for so-called restoration,” the old man went on. “Criminal. Worse than murder. If I had my way, anyone who restores old paintings or cleans the patina off genuine old bronzes would be strung up. Sheer vandalism, but they keep on doing it.”
If I had my way. But he did; that was the point … A good forty per cent of what the emperor said was curses and bloodcurdling promises concerning curators, art dealers, historians and musicians, but he’d never issued a single decree or arrest warrant for the sins he professed to detest so much. Plenty of decrees, ever so many death warrants, but none for offences against aesthetics. That was what he considered being a civilised man. “You wanted to see me, sir,” Senza prompted.
The emperor was a tall man, though these days a slight stoop made him look shorter; but his shoulders were still broad, and there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. He’d been a mighty wrestler in his youth, so they said—classical wrestling, of course, strictly in accordance with the rules set down by the Academicians nearly a thousand years ago. His high cheekbones and long, straight nose looked very well on the backs of coins, though in real life his eyes were small and just a bit too close together. But you wouldn’t know that if all you’d seen was his gold and silver profiles. Still, it was impossible to deny that he was a fine-looking man, very dignified and intellectual. It was hard to believe, just looking at him, that he’d murdered all four of his brothers.
“Now, then.” The old man put down his wine glass. “What’s all this about young Forza? Is he dead or isn’t he?”
The little glow of hope in Senza’s heart sputtered out and died. “Ah,” he said. “I’d been hoping you could tell me.”
Slight frown. “You don’t know.”
“I’m afraid not, sir, no.”
A grunt of disappointment. “Well, we don’t know either. Been trying our damnedest to find out, of course, but none of the usual sources can tell us a damned thing. Mardesian reckons they don’t know themselves, which I suppose is possible.” He paused, and peered at Senza with those sky-blue eyes. “I’d have thought you’d have known. First report that came in had it that you’d killed him yourself, single combat.”
Senza took a moment to reply. “That may quite possibly be true,” he said. “I hit him pretty hard at one point, though he was still very much alive when I ran for it. If he’s dead, it’s my guess that that’s what he died of.”
The old man considered that for a moment—you could almost see his intellect and his instincts in conclave—then nodded briskly. “Quite likely,” he said. “Blunt force trauma to the head, entirely possible for death to follow sometime later. Ursinian, third book of the Medical Commentaries. Sulpicius disagrees, of course, but he was two centuries earlier. Blunt force trauma leading to internal bleeding inside the skull. You could be quite dead and still walking around. Question is, though, is he or isn’t he? Until we know that—”
“Quite,” Senza said quickly, hoping to forestall any further scholarship. “Meanwhile, acting on information received, I’ve sent cavalry to where what’s left of his army might be. If it’s where it’s supposed to be, we’ll soon find out if Forza’s alive and in charge of them. If he is, he’ll have our boys for breakfast, and then we’ll know.”
The old man grinned at that; thought it was funny. “Good idea,” he said. “What information, exactly?”
“I was hoping you weren’t going to ask me that.”
“Ah.” The old man thought about it. Good day or bad day? “Well, we’ll forget about the source, then, for now. How about the quality?”
Good day, evidently. “To be honest with you, sir, I have no idea. That’s why I sent the cavalry.” He paused. More was required. “My best guess is that it’s good information. I could so easily be wrong.”
His Serene Highness Glauca III was a clown but definitely no fool. “You’ll know soon enough, I imagine. It’s the same in my business, of course; intelligence and scholarship, it’s the source that matters. If your source is reliable and sound, you have facts.” He paused to nod approval, as though he was also the audience. “On the other hand, even a doubtful source is still information. If a man’s lying to you, you can learn ever so much from his lie. Why’s he lying, what for, is he lying so as to mislead you or because he doesn’t know? And lies, of course—It’s like astronomy, I always say. Clever fellows, the astronomers, they can tell ever such a lot about something they can’t see by the shadow it casts over something they can. Same with lies. The shape of a lie will often give you the truth.” He stopped for a moment, thinking about something else. “In that case,” he said, “what are you going to do next?”
“Good question,” Senza replied. “In fact, I’d welcome a suggestion.”
He’d said the right thing. The old man went all still and quiet for a while—the Pillar of the Earth, deep in thought—then leaned back a little in his chair. “Here’s how I see it,” he said. “There’s this new trouble in Blemya.”
Senza nodded.
“Blemyans can’t cope. You and Forza go in and save their skins, but they’re still damned weak. Forza, alive or dead? We don’t know. Without Forza—” He made a falling-over gesture with his hand. “Invade Blemya,” he said. “Reclaim the province for the empire, crucial strategic position and rich as fig sauce, so I gather. Men and money. Just what we need for a final push. The nomads—” He closed his eyes, then opened them again. “They’re the problem, aren’t they? Phraxantius, seventh book of the Universal Geography—two hundred years ago, but I don’t imagine anything’s changed very much out there. Fascinating people, very much a force to be reckoned with, underestimate them at your peril. The question is, if we ignore them and spend all our resources taking back the empire, will they pounce on us while we’re weak and overwhelm us? That’s it, isn’t it? Herulius and the Sashan, fall of the Twelfth dynasty. Fifteen years of bitter war wiping out the Sashan so they’d never be a threat ever again, and then realises that it was only the Sashan standing between him and the entire Auzida confederacy. Savages overrun the empire. Result, a dark age lasting ninety years. All there in Phraxantius, and pray God it doesn’t happen again. Well?”
“Quite,” Senza said. “I’m glad you see the problem so clearly.”
The old man grinned. “Not such a fool as they say I am,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve had them all in here, you know, last couple of weeks. Do this, do that, annexe Blemya immediately, ripe for the picking and all that. Half of the damned fools have never opened a book in their lives. No, all they’re interested in is the copper mines and the linen trade and the spot market in charcoal and palm oil futures and God knows what. And then there’s your lot, any excuse for a fight, killing my soldiers and spending my money. For two pins, it’d be the galleys for the lot of ’em. Present company excepted,” he added graciously, “of course.”
“Thank you,” Senza replied. “So, what you’re saying is, we don’t invade Blemya.”
“I don’t know,” Glauca said, rather disarmingly. “On the other hand, you see, what if Forza isn’t dead, and he invades Blemya? Worst of both worlds. Same ghastly mess, only we don’t even have the initiative. Or even if he is dead, if you see what I mean. If my bloody fool of a nephew takes it into his head to invade, by way of showing he’s still a force to be reckoned with even without your damned brother—And so he blunders in there, stirs up the nomads, them at our throats, war on two fronts, exactly what we don’t want. Answer: get in there first. If the bloody stupid thing’s going to be done by one of us, better it’s you than my imbecile nephew. Better still if it’s not done at all, but do we have that option? You can see the problem, I’m sure.”
Senza’s head was beginning to hurt. “Precisely,” he said, and waited. Not for long.
“I think the best thing,” the old man said, “would be for us to agree a diplomatic rapprochement with the nomads, leaving us free to annex Blemya and then take the fight to my nephew. Not sure that’s possible, mind you; the nomads aren’t fools, last thing they want is a united enemy instead of a divided one. Still, you’ve just given them a bloody nose, so they wouldn’t mind a bit of breathing space, and that prophet fellow’s got his own position to think of, major military defeat and the insult to the god still unavenged. Don’t suppose he’d object to a little peace and quiet so he can sort out his domestic enemies. Question is, do we want to give him that? Wouldn’t it be better to make his life as miserable as possible, so that one of his own people cuts his throat for us and saves us all a lot of bother? Plenty of parallels for that in history, and you don’t need to go very far back. You know,” he went on with a sad sigh, “I never could understand why so many people want my job. Hell on earth, sometimes, trying to figure out what to do. What I wouldn’t give for it all to go away, so I could have some peace and concentrate on my work.”
That, from the cause and author of the civil war. But Senza had heard it many times before. “People just don’t understand,” he said sympathetically. “So, going back a bit, we don’t invade Blemya.”
“Not at this time, no.” The old man frowned. “No, I don’t think so. Really, we need to know about your goddamned brother before we can do any damned thing. That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it?”
Out of the mouths of emperors. “I guess you’re right, sir. When you put it like that.”
One of these days he’d go too far; and it’d be a bad day, and that would be the end of Senza Belot. Not today, though. “Stands to reason, really,” the old man said. “Oh, I know what they say about me behind my back, nose always stuck in a book, armchair tactician, doesn’t know a damn thing. Truth is, though, it’s all there in the books, if only you can be bothered to look. Atriovanus of Pila, eight hundred years ago; he said, the ideal form of government is the rule of the king who is also a scholar, a poet and a philosopher. Read that first when I was six years old, always stayed with me. Of course, back then it never occurred to me that one day I’d be in a position to put it into practice, not with three healthy brothers all older than me. Wish it hadn’t been that way, of course. Still, you never know, maybe it was all for the best. When I stop and think what might’ve happened if one of those boneheads had had the running of things, it makes me shiver. Utter disaster, no other word for it.”
As opposed to, say, the civil war. Well. The sad, dreadful thing was that he was probably right, at that. Senza didn’t dare get up, not until given a clear sign to do so, but he did his best to look like a man who was just about to stand up, in case the emperor was inclined to take the hint. Apparently not.
“My didrachm,” the old man said. “You mentioned there was a provenance. Good God, man, you’ve hardly touched your tea, it’ll be stone cold. I’ll send for another pot.”
“Please don’t trouble, sir,” Senza said. “Really.”
“No trouble to me,” the old man said accurately, and rang the little silver bell. “So, where exactly did you come across it?”
Senza told him, and what he couldn’t remember he made up. Then, as flippantly as he could, he added, “Talking of coins.”
“I’d rather like some. Modern ones. For my men.”
Puzzled frown; then a click of the tongue and a grin. Amazing what you could get out of the old man if you could make him laugh. “Pay for the troops, well, of course you must have that. Tricky, though, money’s damned tight. Those idiots troop in here, morning, noon and night; the Treasury is empty, the people won’t stand for more taxation, the money simply isn’t there. Don’t be so stupid, I tell them, go and read Varian on economic theory. All you need is a slight adjustment of the gold-to-silver ratio, suddenly you’ve made two million angels out of thin air. Can’t overdo it, of course. You can only go so far, playing about with the coinage. Take Euthyphro V, for example. Old Coppernose. They called him that because he drank like a fish, but also because he added so much copper to the silver coins, quite soon it wore through, and the nose on his portrait was the first bit to show up red. Cost him his throne, and all because of a nickname. Still, we’ve a fair way to go before we reach that point. Don’t you worry about money, I’ll find it for you. Thank God nobody reads Varian these days except me, so they don’t know what I get up to.”
“I read the copy you sent me,” Senza said, remembering just in time. If the old man sent you a book, God help you if you didn’t read it. “Mind you, I’m not sure I quite follow all the stuff about money of account. I got a bit lost somewhere around Ezentius’ reform of the gold standard.”
The old man’s eyes shone. “Oh, it’s perfectly simple,” he said, and launched into an explanation that (to do him credit) almost made sense, at times. “Basically, it’s just the old, old rule,” he concluded: “bad money drives out good. Really, so long as you remember that, economic theory is child’s play.”
So that was all right. “Thank you, sir,” Senza said, “I’ll bear that in mind. So, if I send a requisition to the Treasury—”
The old man shook his head. “Better let me have it,” he said, just as Senza had hoped. “Can’t trust those idiots with anything important; if they don’t lose it they’ll quibble over it for months while the soldiers starve. Pay them first, find the money later. That’s what Herulius did, during the insolvency crisis. I mean to say, that’s the whole point of having an emperor, it means things can actually get done.”
Sadly true, Senza thought. At least with an emperor things get done, even if they’re catastrophically bad. Last time, or was it last time but one, he’d had one of these summit conferences in the Blue Chamber, the old man had told him all about the rise and fall of the Blue Sky Republic. Much to his regret, he’d had to take the point: autocratic rule by a succession of incompetents and lunatics was bad enough, but government of the people by and for the people had been a disaster, from which only a handful had been lucky enough to escape alive. Moral (the old man had said), government of any sort is the art of putting out fires with lamp oil; the less you do it, the less you make things worse. All there in the books, as His Majesty hadn’t failed to point out—
Senza tried not to relax, now that he’d achieved the one thing he wanted out of the meeting. Victory is, after all, a rose; hard to acquire without getting pricked, harder still to preserve once achieved. Time, therefore, to attack. “There was one other thing.”
The emperor blinked at him. “Oh yes?”
“The savages on the northern frontier,” Senza said. “The Jazygites and the Hus and the Tel Semplan, out in the badlands beyond Beal Escatoy. Doesn’t it strike you that they’ve been quiet for an awfully long time?”
The Imperial hand stroked the Imperial chin, rasping on the Imperial bristles. Glauca was a martyr to razor rash. “They’ve been quiet, certainly. Ever since you gave them that thrashing five years ago.”
“Five years is a long time,” Senza said. “To be honest with you, I’m a bit concerned. You see, if I was Forza, right now I’d be looking round for something extra, some new piece to bring in to the game. Actually, if I was Forza, I’d have brought in the nomads, on my side, nine months ago; luckily, he’s not quite as smart as me in some areas. But the Northerners—well, they’re just sitting there, of no real use to anyone. If I was Forza, I’d think that was a real waste.”
The old man nodded slowly. “Like Meshel and the Bechanecs,” he said.
Who? What the hell. “Exactly. Classic case in point. Now I’m guessing that Forza hasn’t just overlooked them, that’s not him at all. Nor, up till now, did he want to go to all the bother of sweet-talking them on to his side. He was happy for them just to be there, worrying me to death, interfering with my long-term plans. Now, though, with the nomads suddenly involved on nobody’s side, and Blemya the obvious logical next big thing, what better time to open a second, sorry, third front, up there where it’s a real bitch doing anything, just to make my life truly wretched? So—”
“Forestall him,” the old man said.
“Exactly.”
“If he’s still alive.”
Senza nodded swiftly. “And even if he’s dead. After all, what’s it going to cost us, compared with war on three fronts, to see if we can’t patch up some sort of deal, neutralise them if we can’t bring them in on our side? Get there first with more resources; that’s the only way I know of doing business.”
The old man nodded. “Meshel and the Bechanecs,” he repeated. “Seventy years of peace. I couldn’t agree more.” He paused and thought of something. “So why haven’t you done it?”
“Ah.” Senza did his owl impression. “Because they’re not stupid,” he said, “they don’t dare be seen negotiating openly with us or them. If we sent an officially accredited embassy, more likely than not they’d cut their throats and stick their heads up on poles along the frontier.”
“Wouldn’t it ever. Which means,” Senza went on, “we have to find an intermediary, someone who isn’t us, but will do what we want him to.”
The old man looked at him blankly. “I see,” he said. “Who did you have in mind?”
Senza paused and checked the grid he’d superimposed on the old man’s face. “I was thinking,” he said, “of Oida.”