The Proof House

CHAPTER TWENTY

‘For pity’s sake,’ Venart shouted, ‘will you stop that godawful noise?’

The hammering stopped. ‘What did you say?’

Venart took a step forward. It was dark and gloomy inside the workshop, the only light coming from the shrouded furnace. ‘I said, will you stop-Can’t you keep the noise down? I’m trying to work.’

Posc Dousor, the Auzeils’ next-door neighbour, stepped out from behind the furnace door. He was wearing a leather apron and holding a big hammer. ‘So am I,’ he said.

‘What?’

Dousor nodded towards the furnace and the anvil that stood near it. ‘You don’t think I’m doing this for fun, do you?’ he said.

Venart took a step inside and peered round. ‘Excuse me asking,’ he said, ‘but just what are you doing? Last time I was in here, this was a cheese store.’

‘Well, now it’s an armour factory.’ Dousor wiped his forehead with the back of his gloved hand. ‘On account of I can’t get any cheese to sell, but I do have this stock of steel billets I got landed with twelve years ago for a bad debt, and suddenly everybody wants to buy armour. So,’ he added, ‘I’m going to make some. All right?’

‘I see,’ Venart replied. ‘I didn’t know you knew how to make armour.’

Dousor frowned. ‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘But soon I will. After all, it can’t be difficult, can it? You get the metal red hot, you bash it with a hammer till it’s thin, then you bash it some more till it’s the shape you want. And anyway,’ he added, ‘I bought a book. If you’ve got a book, you can learn anything.’

‘Well-’ Venart wasn’t quite sure what to say. It was a very big hammer, and Dousor was rather short-tempered. ‘That’s very enterprising of you, Posc, but do you think you could possibly do it somewhere else? Only I was up all night doing Council minutes, and-’

‘Where?’

‘Sorry?’

Dousor waggled the hammer impatiently. ‘Where do you suggest?’ he said. ‘Out in the street, maybe? Or perhaps I should sling out all my furniture, lug this bloody anvil indoors and turn my front room into a smithy. Well?’

Venart’s head wasn’t getting any better. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I really don’t mind what you do so long as you keep the noise down a bit. I do have a lot of rather important-’

‘Keep the noise down a bit,’ Dousor repeated. ‘You mean, bash a bit more gently? Just sort of pat the bloody great iron bars into flat sheets? Don’t be a prawn, Ven. Besides, you ought to be grateful.’

‘Sorry?’

‘War effort,’ Dousor said. ‘Munitions. Doing my bit for freedom and our unique cultural heritage. Doesn’t look particularly brilliant, does it, the First Citizen obstructing the war effort because of some trifling personal inconvenience?’

Venart thought for a moment. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘What if I were to find you a nice workshop you could use – down on the Drutz, say, in one of the old bonded warehouses? You could bash away to your heart’s content down there and I don’t suppose anybody’d even notice.’

Dousor frowned. ‘What, and pay you buggers rent when I’ve got a perfectly good shop of my own? Do I look like I’m stupid?’

‘All right then, rent-free. Come on, Posc, it’s driving Triz up the wall.’

Dousor shook his head. ‘I can’t help that,’ he said. ‘It’s taken me days to lick this place into shape, put in all these fixtures and stuff. And now you want me to rip them all out again, hump all this heavy gear halfway across the Island-’

‘’I’ll send someone to help you,’ Venart sighed. ‘At my expense, naturally,’ he added.

‘But there’s still inconvenience,’ Dousor persisted. ‘Time lost travelling to and fro, haulage charges-’

‘How much?’

‘What was that?’

‘How much do you want me to pay you,’ Venart said slowly, ‘to move all your gear over to the Drutz and leave us in peace? That’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it?’

Dousor’s brow furrowed. ‘That’s actually a rather offensive thing to say, Ven,’ he replied. ‘We’ve been neighbours for years, since your father was alive. Actually, I always thought we were friends. But now you’re First Citizen, of course, you think you can come barging in here giving orders-’

‘Twenty-five? Fifty?’

Dousor laughed. ‘Do me a favour,’ he said. ‘There’s also lost production time to consider. This window of opportunity isn’t going to last for ever, you know. Pretty soon this soldiering craze is going to wear off, and if I don’t get up and running pretty damn quick, I’m going to look round and see I’ve missed the boat. And now you’re telling me to drop everything-’

‘A hundred and seventy-five.’

‘No way,’ Dousor said. ‘No way I’m even going to consider it for less than three-two-five.’

‘Three-two-five? You must be-’

By way of replying, Dousor picked up the hammer and started laying into the bloom of iron on the anvil; it had long since gone cold, but he didn’t seem to have noticed that. Before Venart had a chance to make himself heard again over the noise, his sister pushed past him, swept into the shop and grabbed Dousor by the wrist.

‘You,’ she said. ‘Pack it in.’

Dousor looked at her.

‘Don’t start,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a splitting headache thanks to you and your incessant banging. It’s got to stop, understood?’

Presumably Dousor intended to explain, as he’d explained to Venart, about the war effort and his patriotic duty. But he didn’t, possibly because with her other hand Vetriz had picked up the pincers, the jaws of which were red hot on account of being carelessly left in the fire, and was holding them about an inch under Dousor’s beard.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Just as soon as your brother and I work out the compensation.’

Vetriz stared him in the eye. ‘It’s all right,’ she said quietly, ‘we don’t want any compensation. Now start packing up all your silly tools and things, while Ven sends out for the carrier’s cart.’

After that, there were no more loud noises from next door, and Venart was able to get back to work. Even without the ring of hammer on steel, it wasn’t easy to keep his concentration; the revised heads of agreement from the provincial office were couched in such ambivalent terms that they could mean anything, nothing, or both simultaneously.

‘You’re going to have to tell someone about this,’ Vetriz said. ‘Tell him, Athli. You can’t make a peace treaty with the enemy and not tell anybody.’

‘I’ve told the Council,’ Venart replied irritably. ‘And the Ship-Owners’, and the Guild. Who does that leave, really?’

‘You’ve told the bigwigs,’ Athli pointed out, ‘and made them promise to keep it to themselves. That’s not the same thing at all.’

‘You think they can keep a secret? Come off it.’ Venart allowed himself a small, weary smile. ‘Telling Ranvaut Votz something and making him promise not to repeat it is the most efficient means of disseminating information the world has ever seen. I expect they know about it in Colleon by now.’

‘All right,’ Athli said. ‘But you haven’t told us. Which means that everybody’s rushing around in a panic, not knowing what’s going on. You know what Eseutz Mesatges did when she heard the news? She went out and bought up fifteen crates of swords and a dozen barrels of armour parts, on the basis that when all the swords and armour are confiscated, the government’s going to have to pay compensation, and she’s figuring that the difference between market value and assessed value’s going to be a substantial profit. You can’t let people carry on like that, there’ll be chaos.’

Venart blinked, then said, ‘I’m not responsible for the way people like your friend Eseutz choose to behave. I just want to keep the lid on things till we’ve had a chance to lick these bloody terms and conditions into shape; and I don’t want to do that yet, for obvious reasons.’

‘Obvious to you perhaps,’ Vetriz said. ‘Enlighten me.’

‘Simple.’ Venart put the parchment down, and it rolled itself back up into a tube. ‘If I can spin things out till Bardas Loredan finishes with Temrai, then we’ll be talking to him and not some devious bastard of a Son of Heaven. Well? Can you think of a better way of handling it, because if so I’d love to hear it. Playing diplomatic chess with these people is way above my head, but unless we can put up some sort of a show, we’re in deep, deep trouble. Or didn’t you read that extradition clause?’

Neither Vetriz nor Athli seemed to have anything to say; the name Bardas Loredan had somehow put them off their stride.

‘I’ll take that as agreement then, shall I?’ Venart said. ‘Although since when I had to get your approval for acts of state I’m not entirely sure. It’s bad enough trying to keep Votz and that lunatic from the Guild off the premises without you two ganging up on me as well.’

Athli seemed to pull herself back from an entirely different train of thought. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But really, Ven, trying to win a cleverness match with the provincial office isn’t very – well, clever. You’re playing on their side of the court.’

Venart nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but at least I know that. Remember what Father used to tell us, Triz? Properly handled, the other man’s strength can be his greatest weakness? They know perfectly well they’ve got me completely muddled and confused; what I’ve got to do is find a way of staying muddled and confused long enough for Bardas Loredan to win his damned war. Look at it from that perspective, and I think you’ll see what I mean.’

Athli stood up. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ she said. ‘Remember, this is politics, not a sardine deal.’

Venart groaned. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘And I’m well aware that I’m out of my depth, haven’t got a clue what I’m doing and shouldn’t be trusted with running a whelk stall, let alone a government. Just because something’s true doesn’t always mean it’s helpful.’

Athli put a hand on his shoulder, then walked out across the courtyard to the small room she was using as an office. Not that there was much to do; business was at a standstill, she had no means of communicating with head office in Shastel, and nothing to tell them even if she had been able to get a message through. It was all rather depressing; everything she’d achieved by luck, hard work and native ability had somehow managed to melt and drip out between her fingers.

Maybe-People were leaving the Island, she knew that. At first they’d been circumspect about it; they’d announced their intentions of going off to buy food, loaded everything they could aboard their ships, slipped out of the Drutz in the early morning and not come back. Now they weren’t even bothering to lie. Looked at from a more rational perspective, it was remarkable that so few, relatively speaking, had done the sensible thing – of course it had been the same in Perimadeia, except that only a few hopeless pessimists had really believed the City would fall. She’d been one of them; and now it was time to go again, without shame or regret, taking with her any of her friends who chose to come with her, as calmly and sensibly as (say) Niessa Loredan abandoning Scona…

It was true to say (she decided, reviewing the facts like a historian) that once upon a time she’d cared about Bardas Loredan; cared a lot. Loved? Sloppy, imprecise term. She’d worked with him, done what she could to keep him in one piece when the horrors of his trade started to get to him, been there for him, worried herself sick every time he’d stepped out on to the courtroom floor but never once shown it – always so confident that she knew and understood him, the way nobody else did. Now it was true to say that she didn’t love him, although that didn’t stop her thinking about him all the time – but that had been then and there, this was now and here, and she’d carried his luck this far, to this conclusion. She’d always known, somehow, that as long as she cared for him he would survive. It was as if she’d been keeping his life safe for him, in a stout steel-banded locked wooden box, while his body went out and did violent, irrevocable things to the world. After all, she was a banker; he’d deposited his life, his luck with her, made it her responsibility. She’d carried it safely out of Perimadeia, guarded it for him while he tried to make something of his life on Scona, been entrusted with his apprentice and his sword; she’d taken it from him again when he’d lost his last hopes and dreams in the Mesoge, and sent her away. Well; and now he was coming to the Island, where she’d set up in business on her own account as a taker of deposits and creator of opportunities. Time to hand it back, to render her accounts and be discharged; to leave it for him here, in the condition he would expect to find it, paid up, balanced and signed off, and then to go away.

Some clients are more trouble than they’re worth.

Which only left the question: what should she take with her? To which question, the answer was simple. Her writing-desk and counting-board, a few changes of clothes, a small case of books and all the ready cash she could put together in the time available.

Vetriz soon got bored watching her brother fretting over his paperwork and went to her room.

It was a nice room. She had a comfortable bed, a rather grand and melodramatic chair with big carved arms and legs, a rosewood dressing table inlaid with lapis and mother of pearl (she’d bought it in Colleon and made Venart find space for it on the ship, much to his disgust; it meant throwing a whole barrel of sun-dried herrings over the side to make room), an ivory and brass mirror that gave her skin a wonderfully flattering golden tone, three chests full of clothes, a silver lamp on a turned sycamore stand that was as tall as she was, a rack for her seven pairs of shoes, a book-box, with padlock, a small stool with an embroidered seat, two genuine Shastel tapestries (one of them thought to be a School-of-Mavaut, but the other one was much nicer to look at), a writing desk and a chequer-board that doubled as a chessboard, with a set of attractively carved chessmen (horn and bone), an embossed brass water jug all the way from Ap’ Elipha (a present from her father when she was six and really wanted a doll’s house) – all nice things, solid things to define her life with. She had a polished marble floor (cold underfoot on winter mornings but beautifully cool in summer; sometimes she slept on it when it was really hot) and a view over the courtyard.

And that was about it.

She lay down on the bed. There was a headache gathering behind her eyes which a short nap might dissipate. She snuggled her head into the pillow and -

– ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect to see you so soon.’

‘I’m not here yet,’ he replied.

‘Ah.’ She looked at him carefully. He looked older – well, that was only to be expected, he was older – but otherwise pretty much the same. For some reason he was dressed as a fencer, the way he’d been when she first set eyes on him in the courtroom in Perimadeia; in fact, that’s exactly where he was, standing in the middle of the black and white tiled floor, like a counter on a counting-board, a reckoning piece. She wondered how much he stood for.

‘How are things with you, anyway?’ he asked.

‘Oh, not so bad,’ she replied automatically. She realised that she was standing in the middle too; she was standing a sword’s length away from him, and the needle-sharp point of his vintage Spe Bref law-sword was just under her chin. If the black lines are whole units, she thought idly, then I’m a ten and he’s only a five. No, that can’t be right. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

‘A trial,’ he replied; and they were standing on opposite sides of a workbench, in a dark, rather damp-smelling thatched workshop. On the bench between them was a bow – what they called a composite, if she’d got that right, the sort that’s made out of sinew and horn and bone and things like that, held together with glue boiled down from skin and blood. It was fixed in some sort of wooden clamp, with a notched bar set in the middle at right angles.

‘It’s called a tiller,’ he explained. ‘It’s for applying stress and tension. Now then, let’s see how far this beggar’ll bend before it breaks.’

– And they were in a cellar, with a high ceiling and stone floors, standing beside a pile of pieces of armour, body parts. ‘A trial,’ he went on, ‘which is another way of saying, a putting to proof.’ Gently, almost tenderly, he took her hand in his and laid it softly on the anvil. ‘This may sting a bit,’ he warned her, as he raised the big hammer.

‘Just a moment,’ she interrupted him. ‘I’m sure this is all quite important and necessary, but why me?’

He smiled. ‘How should I know?’ he replied. ‘I only work here; you want to ask the Sons of Heaven, they probably know.’

That struck her as odd. ‘What’ve they got to do with it?’ she asked. ‘I mean, they weren’t there in the beginning.’

He frowned. ‘True,’ he said. ‘Hold this for me, would you? It’s important you keep it steady.’ He turned her hand over and put into her palm a head, a young man’s head, about her age. ‘King Temrai,’ he explained. ‘He’s the plaintiff.’

‘Really? And you’re for the defendant, I suppose.’

He frowned. ‘I’m not sure any more,’ he replied. ‘Still, that’s all out of my hands now, thank goodness.’ He brought the hammer down, using his back and shoulders to get the maximum force. The head rang, as clear and crisp as an anvil. ‘Oh, well,’ he said. ‘All right, we’ll pass that. Now let’s see.’ He reached down behind the anvil and produced another head. ‘Of course,’ he added, ‘you know him, don’t you?’

She nodded, as he put Gorgas Loredan’s head on to the palm of her hand. ‘He takes after our father,’ he was saying. ‘I took after Mother. They say I’ve got her nose.’

Under the hammerfall the head split and disintegrated, like a rotten log; but he’d been slightly off his aim and knocked the head off the hammer. ‘Decapitated the blasted thing,’ he said irritably. ‘Not to worry, though. I have a spare.’

– And drew his sword, the beautiful antique Guelan broadsword that Athli had kept for him for a time. Vetriz could feel the needle-sharp point just pricking the middle of her neck. ‘Well, go on, then,’ he said; and she was aware that everybody in the courtroom was staring at her, all the thousands of people packed into the spectators’ galleries – plainsmen, Perimadeians, Scona, Shastel, people from Ap’ Escatoy, Islanders who he’d killed over the years, all come to watch him fight. She could see herself, and Ven, up in the back gallery where they’d been sitting all those years ago. She felt the urge to wave to herself, but didn’t.

‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked.

‘How should I know?’ he replied. ‘You’re the plaintiff.’

She shook her head and felt the sword-point nick her. ‘I don’t see why,’ she said. ‘In fact, I really don’t see why I got mixed up in all this in the first place. Is it just because I can – well, see all this stuff, which other people can’t? I know Alexius thought I was somehow making things happen, but-’

‘You don’t want to believe in all that Principle stuff,’ he replied. ‘If you ask me, that’s making it unnecessarily complicated. You ask Gannadius, next time you see him. No, it’s a question of cause; we can leave the blame and guilt out of it too, that’s just lubricant. What I really want to know is, did I start it, or was it him?’

‘Him?’

‘Gorgas.’ He lowered the sword and laid it on the anvil, next to the bow. ‘Let’s go through it step by step. If Gorgas hadn’t killed my father, would I have left home when I did, joined up with Uncle Maxen and caused the fall of Perimadeia? (We’ll leave all the other cities out of it for now – Scona, Ap’ Escatoy, the Island, that pretty little model Perimadeia Temrai’s built himself; they all follow on). If Gorgas hadn’t done what he did, would we both still be back on the farm, mending gates and ploughing the six-acre? Or would I have left anyway? Surely that’s what it all comes down to. That’s probably the most important question in all history.’

She nodded. ‘If Gorgas caused it, then it’s his fault-’

‘Not fault,’ he interrupted. ‘I used to think fault, but since I’ve been in with these people,’ (he nodded towards the Sons of Heaven in their reserved seats in the front row), ‘I only think cause. If Gorgas started it, then he’s the cause. If I started it, then I am. What do you think?’

‘I don’t know,’ Vetriz admitted. ‘Sorry.’

‘Personally, I think it was him,’ he said. ‘Stands to reason; he’s the doer in our family, the one with the drive and the energy. On the other hand, I’m the one who brings about the consequences of his actions. Now if there really was such a thing as the Principle, that’d make sense.’

She looked at him. ‘What’s going to happen?’ she asked.

‘You don’t need me to tell you that,’ he said, and vanished into her pillow.

She sat up sharply and opened her eyes. She felt very uncomfortable. It was like the time she’d allowed Gorgas Loredan into her room; there was the same sense of it not being hers any more. If there was any sense to be made of it, perhaps that was where she should look; except that she couldn’t see how her mistake with Gorgas Loredan had caused anything or made anything happen. She thought about Niessa Loredan, who’d reckoned that she could control the Principle with the help of a natural or two, and had scooped her up and tucked her away in Scona for a while. Nothing much ever seemed to have come of that. She had the feeling that he’d been right, and the Principle was nothing but a folk-tale explanation, like the far-fetched reasons you hear in stories for why the sun rises in the east, or why the moon wanes. If there really was such a thing, it was like a big machine, something like the huge rolling-mill she’d been to see in the City the first time they’d gone there, a huge, slowly turning roller that dragged in the blooms of iron, flattened them into plate and fed them out the other side; and if you weren’t careful, if you leaned over the rollers, your sleeve could catch and you’d be pulled in too.

And that wasn’t right, either, far too simplistic.

She got up, realising as she did so that her left foot had gone to sleep, and stumbled to the dressing table. Her face in the mirror was soft and golden, like a fond and unreliable memory.

Late in the afternoon, Bardas Loredan had a visitor. Once the stranger had convinced Bardas that he was who he claimed to be, they sat and talked in Bardas’ tent for over an hour.

‘You don’t seem surprised,’ the visitor said, after they’d talked business.

‘I’m not,’ Bardas replied. ‘Which is odd, because I should be. But no, this seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable development.’

‘Really? Well, that’s your business, not mine. Anyway, you’re happy with the timetable?’

Bardas nodded. ‘Entirely. If I were to ask you why you’re doing this, would you tell me?’

‘No.’›

The visitor left, and Bardas made his preparations. He called a staff meeting, explained the situation, ignored the protests and issued his orders. Then he went back to his tent.

Leaning against the bed, still in its oiled buckskin case, was the Guelan broadsword, the one Gorgas had left for him as a present, just before Perimadeia fell. Now Perimadeia fell because Gorgas opened the gates; but that didn’t alter the fact that the Guelan was still a good sword (shorter in the blade than most two-handers, with a heavy pommel and the best balance he’d ever come across). He untied the strings and pulled it out of the case.

If anything, it felt lighter in his hands than ever; possibly because three years of digging in the mines had strengthened his arms and wrists, and he’d got used to the top-heavy Imperial glaives, halberds and bardiches for two-handed work. He tested the edge with his thumb, and closed his eyes.

Some time later, he put on his armour (he no longer noticed the weight), pushed the Guelan down into the belt-frog and secured it with the buckle. Then he sat for an hour in the darkness, expecting to hear voices that for once were silent; but from somewhere in the camp came the smell of garlic and coriander, flavourings often used by cooks to mask the taste of tainted meat.

(At the same moment, on the other side of the stockade, Temrai held out his plate; and a man laid on it a thin white pancake filled with spiced meat, and smiled, and went back to slicing meat with a long, thin-bladed knife.)

They came for him when it was time. As he’d ordered, the pikemen and halberdiers had smeared mud on their weapons and armour, in case the steel glittered in the starlight. He hadn’t needed to obey his own order; the armour Anax the Son of Heaven had made for him was lightly browned with rust and didn’t catch the light any more. Once they marched outside the circle of their own firelight it was too dark to see, but by now they knew the way with their eyes closed.

(Temrai finished his meal, got up and wandered across to the warm glow of the welding-fires, where his armourers were repairing damaged mailshirts. First they heated the new rings to a dull red, then flattened the ends, punched little holes in them, knitted them into place, closed them up with the tongs, pushed in a rivet and hammered it round over a sett. It was the warmest place in the fortress now that the nights were getting cold. There wasn’t much skill in the job, not to someone who’d once earned his living making sword blades in the state arsenal of Perimadeia; the steel simply went from dull grey to blood-red. But he stood for a while watching them, not thinking of anything much – one thought that did occur to him was how convenient it would be if skin and flesh could be mended as easily as armour, by heating, softening and bashing, but it wasn’t an idea worth following through.)

The swing-bridge was tied back and guarded by sentries; but in the dark Bardas’ men swam across the river without making a sound (after a while it gets easy, finding your way in the dark) and cut their throats, working by feel and smell. Bardas hoped that they thanked them afterwards. Then they swung out the bridge, careful and quiet.

(Temrai went back to his tent, where Lempecai the bowyer was waiting for him; he’d glued another layer of sinew on the back of Temrai’s bow to stiffen it a little more, pull it back into tiller. The glue had taken its own sweet time drying, as it always did, but it had been worth the wait. Temrai drew the bow, observing that it seemed to take less effort to draw it even though it had been made stronger, and complimented Lempecai on his work.)

Bardas led the first company over the bridge himself. It wasn’t vainglory or pride that made him want to be the first man inside the fortress, more a sense of continuity, given that he and Theudas (who was beside him, in a borrowed helmet and jack-of-plates that were both a little on the small side) had been the last Perimadeians to leave the City. He’d prepared himself for the tension of waiting; but he’d scarcely set foot on the shore when a slit of light, thin and pointed as the blade of a jointing-knife, appeared down the side of the gate. He closed his eyes against the glare -

(Bardas Loredan, Sacker of Cities.)

– and when he opened them again, the gate was open too. He dipped his head as a sign to the men behind him, and walked into the fortress.

‘As promised,’ said the man standing beside the door.

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’

It wasn’t long before the alarm was raised, but by then Bardas was leading three companies of halberdiers up the path, while the rest of the army poured in and filled up the lower level of the fortress. The plainsmen there were caught entirely by surprise – someone had taken care of the sentries on the gate – and didn’t know what to do. Some of them ran towards the weapons stacks, others ran in the opposite direction, but the line of soiled black spearheads herded them like sheep, and they had no armour.

Bardas’ men had made it to the top of the path unopposed by the time the shouts and screams from below attracted attention. They knew what to do and where to go; one company toward the main encampment, the other two round the sides, following the stockade, to push back the enemy as they ran. As they broke into the firelight the enemy lashed out at them, like a wave breaking on rocks and falling back.

As was only appropriate, Bardas Loredan was the first man to draw blood. His opponent was a long, thin man, wearing nothing but a helmet and waving a scimitar as if it was a charm against witchcraft. First, Bardas took off the hand holding the sword; then he rolled his wrists and brought the Guelan back for a rather showy cut across the side of the neck. The man staggered and fell over backwards, and Bardas thanked him. The next man he killed came at him with a spear and the lid of a kettle. Bardas feinted high and swept low, feeling the shock as his sword jarred on the man’s shin, then drew the sword through and thrust into the ribcage. A slight twist freed it, and he was ready for the next man, who bounced a scimitar off Bardas’ left pauldron before the Guelan sheared through his neck and collar-bone. The man dropped and Bardas stepped over him, muttering perfunctory thanks as he sized up the next one, a boy with a looted Imperial halberd. Bardas knew enough to respect the weapon no matter who was behind it; he watched the blade while taking a couple of short sideways steps, then lunged at the boy’s heart through the crook of his elbow. He thanked him as he slid off the blade on to the ground, then ducked his head a little to the right to avoid a swing from a big hammer in the hands of a heavily built bald man who looked like a blacksmith. He watched the swing go astray, exposing the man’s armpit (the way to a man’s heart is through his armpit) but instead of lowering the sword to let the body slide off, he jerked it sharply to the right, so that it impeded the man with the long-handled axe who was next in the pile waiting for proof. Startled, the man pulled his blow and so threw himself out of position. Leaning back, Bardas swung a short cut that slit open his stomach; while he was frozen with terror and pain, Bardas put him down with a head-shot that split his skull, and thanked him.

They were loosing arrows now, close enough to test Imperial plate. But Bardas had anticipated that; on top of the plateau, hedged around by the stockade, cluttered with tents and dead men, there wasn’t the room for hit-and-run tactics. He signalled the charge and his halberdiers pressed home; some of them fell, but not enough to throw out the accounts. The first archer Bardas killed held up his bow to block the thrust; the Guelan bounced off the sinewed back but Bardas turned the blade and guided it down across the man’s knees, leaving his head at a convenient height. An arrow punched through his right vambrace but stopped before it reached his skin. He paused to jerk it out, then held out his sword for a man to run on to, the way he used to hold the dustpan ready for the brush when sweeping the shavings off his workbench. The next man had drawn his scimitar and was holding it in a semblance of a guard, but Bardas was too many years past fencing to bother with that sort of thing and swung down directly on the top of his head, crushing the helmet and driving him to his knees; then he kicked him in the face and finished him off with the point. Victory to Bollo and the big hammer, he thought as his lips shaped the words of thanks, and then he was ready for the next man, and the next, and the one after that.

Then he saw Temrai, huddled in a small crowd of half-dressed men; he’d jammed on a helmet and a pair of knee-cops, but the cop-straps weren’t tight enough and they were sliding down his legs. Bardas smiled and walked towards them, but before he could start work someone ran past him, a tall man in a helmet and jack-of-plates, swinging a halberd and yelling at the top of his voice.

‘Theudas,’ he called out, but the boy wasn’t listening; he ran straight at Temrai like an arrow, and when one of the men lunged at him with a spear, he didn’t notice he’d been hit until he stopped moving, wedged up against the spear’s cross-bar. He tried to turn and slash at the spearman, but the spear-shaft was too long and he couldn’t quite reach, though he tried twice before he fell down. One of the other men jabbed him through the ear – the helmet had fallen off, being too small for him – and he stopped moving.

That’s not right, Bardas thought, and he tried to open his eyes, but they were already open.

Temrai’s party was backing away, trying to get deeper into the encampment, where there were more bodies to put between their King and the Guelan. Bardas followed them for a few yards, until something that had been chafing at the back of his mind became clear. There were, he realised, fewer people here than he’d have expected to find. Wasn’t this supposed to be the entire plains nation, every last one of them? True, it was dark; but he hadn’t seen more than a few hundred men -

He understood. Very clever, he thought. But I should have seen it coming.

By then it was too late. Someone down below gave some kind of signal, and the plains army broke out of cover, from tents and wagons, from supply pits and trenches; they had spears and halberds (copied from the Imperial pattern, the sincerest form of flattery) and they kept together in dense formation, pushing the Imperials away from the path and any prospect of escape. As the last of the decoys scampered out of the way (had they known that it was a trap and they were the bait? Bardas wondered; if it had been my plan, I wouldn’t have told them), the lines wheeled and extended – Imperial drill-sergeants couldn’t have done much better – to complete the encirclement. Meanwhile, reinforcements were coming up the path, led by Iordecai, the man who’d so helpfully opened the gates… That didn’t bode well; it implied that the pikemen who’d poured into the lower level had been driven off or killed. Me and my sense of historical symmetry, Bardas thought ruefully, looks like I’m going to get what I wished for. His wrists and forearms ached from the strain of handling the sword, all the jarring shock travelling down the blade from bone to bone (in a sense, the armour serves to prove the hammer) and the sweat, dripping down his forehead under the bevor of his helmet, was getting in his eyes. He closed them – Now what do I do? - but there was nobody home. From an abandoned cooking-fire nearby came the smell of coriander.

I hadn’t thought it’d be as bad as this, Temrai thought, as they hustled him away. I thought winning might be enough. But just knowing he’s there -

He forced himself to dismiss the image from his mind; Bardas Loredan walking towards him, armed. He wasn’t sure how he’d known who it was – a man in armour, with his bevor up; but he’d known all right. It was all he could do to keep from wetting himself.

‘Where’s Sildocai?’ he asked.

‘With the reserve,’ somebody answered. ‘Iordecai’s bringing up the main attack. Once we commit the reserve, it’ll be the hammer and the anvil.’

Whatever, Temrai thought. His mind didn’t seem able to hold on to a coherent train of thought; it slipped off, like a chisel point on tool steel. ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘What about the lower level? Any word from Gollocai and his people?’

‘Last I heard, it was all under control.’ He couldn’t see who was talking to him, and he couldn’t recognise the voice. ‘The rest of the army’s fallen back on the camp, and there’s absolutely no way this lot are going anywhere. It’s only a matter of time now.’

Temrai shivered. ‘Make it as quick as you can,’ he said. ‘And whatever else you do, make sure you get him, understood?’

‘Sure. Alive?’

‘Good gods, no. As dead as possible. I want to know his head’s been cut off before I go anywhere near him.’

Someone laughed, assuming Temrai had meant it as a joke.

‘By the way,’ someone else said. ‘That kid who made the suicide run just now; you know who that was?’ Nobody said anything, and the voice continued, ‘I recognised him; it was Loredan’s nephew. You know, the one who showed up a while back with the wizard.’

‘He wasn’t Loredan’s nephew,’ someone else pointed out. ‘I don’t think they were related at all, actually.’

‘Theudas Morosin,’ Temrai said.

‘That’s him. Anyway, that was him.’

‘Fine,’ Temrai said. ‘Now get me out of here.’

The line of spearpoints crowded in close, probing and groping for the joints and gaps in the Imperials’ armour – the inside of the elbow joint, the gap between breastplate and gorget, gorget and helmet, the inside of the thigh, the armpit. For their part, the halberdiers were fighting hard (the anvil proves the hammer), crushing helmets and smashing bones and blood vessels under the proof skin of mail. But the line had momentum, impetus; and as they advanced over the dead and fallen, like the sea washing round rocks on the sea-shore, the axemen and hammermen cracked open helmets and armour like thrushes knocking open snails, or a man at a good dinner-party prising open oysters. If Anax had been alive to hear them he could have told the story of the battle from the sounds alone; the clear ringing of the blade on sound armour, the duller clack on compromised armour, the wet crunch when there was no armour left. The battle was mostly in the dark now; Bardas’ men fought with their backs to the camp-fires, masking the light. There wasn’t much need to see when the enemy was all around, precisely a spear-length away.

As the enemy closed around him like a gallery collapsing, Bardas swung and cut to dig himself out. His helmet was long gone, the rivets of his gorget and pauldrons cut through by deflected axe-blows glancing off the convex surfaces, so that the plates sagged from the points and straps like overripe fruit bending the branches of a tree. His right gauntlet had become so distorted with the shock of the blows he delivered that its lames had bent and jammed, so he’d discarded it at the first opportunity. Behind him and on either side the bodies and parts of bodies fell; he was carving and jointing, as skilful and quick with his blade as a cook preparing for a banquet, and the blows of his enemies planished his steel skin. It was almost like old times, fighting in the dark; this was dull, hard work, like kicking clay, the cutting out of waste and spoil from the wall in front of him. The sounds and smells, though, were so rich and varied that they bewildered him, a banquet for the senses; sweet blood and piquant steel, heady sweat, garlic and coriander on the last breath of a man falling across him, and all the Imperial music of the proof house.

There was a man who was wearing an old-fashioned four-panel helmet, crossed with straps; having parried his spear, Bardas took the obvious shot, an over-the-shoulder cut to the man’s temples. But the noise as the man dropped was wrong, there was a tiny flaw in the crisp ring of the Guelan. He noticed it, but then he had to step across and parry a halberd-cut, which left an opening across the side of a captured Imperial kettle-hat. He made the blow, and the sword snapped in two, a handspan and a half up from the quillons. Not again, he thought, as he dropped the hilt; then a man came at him with a spear, and he had nothing to parry the blow with. Instead he turned sideways, using the contour of his breastplate to deflect the blow, reached out with his left hand and drove his gauntleted fist into the man’s face. He saw blood well up along the lines scored by the edges of the lames, straight as a well-ploughed field (Clefas was best at ploughing, but lazy; Gorgas was almost as good, and always willing to do his share) but the man didn’t drop; he drew the spear back for another lunge, which would’ve gone home if Bardas hadn’t managed to grab the spearhead around the socket and pull it clear. He tried to hold on, but the man jerked back hard, drawing the sharp edges of the spearblade across Bardas’ palm and the base of his fingers -

(Well; there’s no such thing as proof, just an infinite variety of ways of failing.)

He let go, and just had time to stamp on the man’s kneecap. Down he went this time, and all Bardas could do was grind his heel in the man’s face, there simply wasn’t time to pick up the spear and do a proper job. There were more of them pressing in on him, and he was unarmed. A pity; he’d dug three quarters of the way through the enemy line, the seam, to the point where he could see still darkness above the moving shadows. Without something to fight with, however, he was only an anvil. He backed away until he could turn round, and started to run -

Which wasn’t as easy as it should have been. His greaves and cuisses were mangled and jammed, and the hinge-pin of his left knee-cop was curved so wide that he knew he’d have to cut the thing off piecemeal, if ever he got out of this. Even without the armour, he wouldn’t have got far before tripping and falling.

He landed badly, cracking the side of his head. When he opened his eyes again, he saw what he’d fallen against – a supply wagon with a high bed and not much in the way of suspension. He knew without needing to prove the matter that he wasn’t going to be able to pull himself upright for a while, so he flattened himself on his belly and crawled painfully under the cart.

He was so tired he shut his eyes for a moment -

– And he was back in the mines, as usual; but he could see (it was pitch dark) an abandoned dolly-truck; and underneath it, staring up at him with all the fear there ever had been, was a boy’s face. Sure enough it was Temrai who was staring at him, but it was also Theudas, whom he’d pulled out from under a cart during the Fall. Why are you frightened of me, Theudas? he asked, but the boy didn’t move or say a word -

– ‘There he is.’ Bardas’ eyes snapped open; and there, across twenty yards or so of the battle, was Temrai’s face again. ‘Over there,’ Temrai was screaming, ‘under the wagon, see? Kill him, for gods’ sakes. Kill him now!’

They came for him; three plainsmen with pikes and scimitars, men of Temrai’s personal guard. When they were right up close to the cart, fishing for him under the bed with their spears like a man trying to reach a coin that’s rolled under a table, he convulsed away; a spear-blade stroked his cheek, slitting the skin, as he shuffled backwards (he’d learned how to do it in the mines) and then he was out the other side, with the cart between him and them. He pulled himself up against the cart’s rear wheel and started to run. When he looked over his shoulder he could see them clambering over the cart, following him up with a degree of professional zeal that he’d not come across since Maxen’s war, when the young man who’d eventually grown into this snake’s second skin had followed up a group of running plainsmen into the dire and noisy nightmare of the dark, while all around the firelight roared and smelled at him like the gatekeepers of paradise.

Time to do something clever. He slowed right down, waited till the first of his pursuers was almost on top of him, then dropped down into a crouch. The plainsman crashed into him and went tumbling over his shoulder in a tangle of arms and legs, as Bardas stood up and smacked the second man smartly across the face with his remaining gauntlet. He could feel the man’s nose crack, the failure of the bone transmitted to his own bones through the steel; the look on the poor man’s face was priceless, a sort of dumbstruck horror. Then he took away the man’s scimitar and chopped open his neck with it.

Now that he had a weapon again, he wasn’t bothered about the third man, whose pike he parried in a preoccupied sort of way before slashing off his left ear and bringing the scimitar back horizontal to cut his throat. It wasn’t a class of weapon he was terribly familiar with – the curved blade wasn’t meant for thrusting, the hilt was too small for his hand and the large flat pommel chafed his wrist – but it had all sorts of advantages over nothing at all. He took half a second to decide what to do, then headed back towards Temrai at a comfortable trot.

A couple of optimists got in his way, but not for very long. Temrai looked as if he’d taken root; even in the red glow of the camp-fires, his face was as pale as death and his eyes were wide open, like a rabbit’s. Bardas was only a few yards away by now; a guards-man blunted a scimitar on his left rerebrace and earned his thanks, leaving only two men between him and the enemy king. Of course, killing Temrai wouldn’t solve anything (it’d probably win the war, but that was the last thing on his mind) but at least he’d restore the symmetry of the situation a bit. He had nothing better to do. A high right parry, wrist turned, blade down, followed by a flicked cut just under the chin; that was one less. Thank you, he muttered; and then he saw something that made him forget all about Temrai, the war and patterns in history. He saw a gap.

It was only a very little gap, between the tail end of one line and the front of another, and it was closing fast; but if he was very quick, he might just be able to slip through and get down the path without having to fight for every step.

‘After him,’ someone was screaming (Temrai, probably). An arrow glanced off his left elbow-cop and jagged sideways into the advancing line. He nearly lost his balance twice – once when he trod on a dead man’s head he hadn’t noticed was there, once when he stumbled on the lip of a trebuchet-shot crater – but the weight of his armour gave him so much momentum that he was able to correct the errors and keep going, almost bouncing off the ground (like a hammer on an anvil). In the event, he had to push one man out of his way and carve a chunk off the shoulder of another, but he made it. He was on the path -

– Which was, of course, in a deplorable state after days on end of constant bombardment. The crumbling dirt gave way under his weight and suddenly he was sliding on his backside down the slope. He managed to slow himself down by digging into the piled-up spoil with his heels before he veered off the verge and over the drop, and used the momentum to bounce himself back on to his feet and on to the path. After that he took it rather more slowly; his pursuers were doing the same, so it didn’t matter much. He crashed into one fool of a plainsman who didn’t get out of the way in time, sending him sprawling over the edge. Clumsy, he thought, as he wobbled himself back upright. A menace to traffic, that’s what I am.

At the bottom of the path there was a confused mess of bodies, like sandbags piled up to keep the rainwater out of the house; he had to stop and lift his legs over with his hand. That gave the two men chasing him time to catch up, an opportunity they didn’t live long enough to regret. They were still fighting down in the lower circle. There were too many bodies lying about to allow for organised manoeuvres (it reminded Bardas of the parts of the plains where the tussocks of couch-grass made it nearly impossible to walk) and the combatants were picking their way through the litter towards each other and then trading blows from a standstill. The gate, of course, was shut and barred; but he could see a clear path to the ramp that led up to the catwalk running around the inside of the stockade. He shuffled his way towards it, fending off a few half-hearted attacks, and dragged himself wearily up the ramp. He couldn’t see anybody else up there with him, so he leaned the scimitar against the log wall and set about unbuckling his armour.

A full set of plate is far easier to get out of than into, and where a buckle was jammed or twisted, he simply cut the strap. He’d just discarded the breastplate and was sawing through the vambrace hanger when he heard shouts not far away. There were a dozen plainsmen on the ramp, pointing at him and yelling to another group threading their way through the battle. Bardas swore under his breath and carried on sawing, cutting himself as the blade slid off a rivet. By the time they reached him he was free of all his burdens.

They stopped abruptly and stared at him down the length of their spears. He could almost taste the fear they brought with them, and he was sure that if he’d clapped his hands and shouted, at least two of them would have run away. He didn’t blame them; in the middle of what was possibly the greatest victory in their nation’s history, they’d been detailed to chase after defeat, humiliation and certain death. ‘It’s all right,’ he called out cheerfully, ‘I’m not stopping,’ then he jumped up from a standstill, got his fingers over the edge of the stockade, hauled himself up and sat astride the fence for a moment before swinging his leg over and pushing off. He landed in the river in a sitting position and hit the water with a comically loud splash and a great plume of spray.

Shock and exhaustion caught up with him halfway between the fortress and the camp, and he dropped down in the dirt, unable to move. The extreme elation he’d felt at getting out of the trap was wearing thin. All he could think about was the weight of his legs and the pain in his knees. He lay still for half an hour, his eyes shut (if anybody stumbled over him they’d assume he was dead). There was nothing to see behind his eyelids any more, and nothing existed outside his painful, overworked body.

Then it began to rain, and when he was soaked to the skin and hardly able to see for the water running down his forehead and into his eyes, it occurred to him that there were tents back at the camp, and rather more comfortable places to rest. Standing up proved to be a major operation, involving the co-ordination of a number of complex manoeuvres that his body no longer seemed capable of. Because the rain was particularly wet and cold, however, he found a way to pull things together, and limped back to the camp dragging his left foot, which had suddenly decided that it had got itself sprained at some unspecified stage.

The bed looked wonderfully comfortable but it was too far away, so he dropped into his chair and let his head roll forward on to his chest. Nobody seemed to have noticed that he was back, which was a relief; there would be an unendurable amount of work to be done (and no Theudas to help him) and he couldn’t face doing it now. He closed his eyes, glad of the dark, but the ache in his muscles and joints was far too dominant in his mind to allow him to fall asleep. Nonetheless he was just starting to slip away into an intermediate doze when he felt something pricking the back of his neck. It might have been a thorn, or a sliver of steel from his mangled armour, but he didn’t think so. ‘Hello?’ he said.

‘Hello yourself.’

The voice was familiar. ‘Who is it?’ he asked.

‘Me. Iseutz Hedin, Niessa’s daughter. Remember me?’

‘Of course,’ Bardas replied without moving. ‘How did you get here?’

‘The usual way, by ship,’ she replied. ‘We had the wind behind us all the way, which made for a quick but exciting trip. But I can see you’re not really interested, so I’ll kill you and be done with it.’

‘Hang on a minute,’ Bardas said, and the fear made him slur his words slightly, the way a man does when he’s not drunk but not sober either. ‘I can’t remember, did we ever talk about this? I’d like to know why you hate me so much.’

‘Easy. You ruined my life.’

‘All right,’ Bardas said, ‘but it was a fair fight, you’d have killed me if I hadn’t-’

‘I’m not talking about that,’ Iseutz interrupted. ‘Sure, cutting off my fingers didn’t exactly make me love you, but as you say, it was a fair fight; that’s not the reason, as well you know.’

Bardas could feel his hands aching, weak with both exertion and terror. ‘So you’re still angry with me because I killed your uncle-’ He couldn’t remember the man’s name. Something Hedin. Tactless to betray the fact he’d forgotten it. ‘Really? After all this time?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh. But that was a fair fight too; come on, you were a law-fencer yourself for a while. Really, I don’t see the difference.’

He heard Iseutz breathe out through her nose (all terribly familiar, this; knives in the dark, not being able to see the enemy, having to rely on sounds and smells – and yes, she’d recently eaten something flavoured with coriander). ‘You don’t,’ she said. ‘I’m not surprised. You should try listening to people when they tell you things. I said I’m going to kill you because you ruined my life. And you did.’

One thing about fear he’d forgotten: the way it saturates everything else in your mind, like lamp-oil spilt on a pile of papers. ‘But really, that doesn’t follow,’ he said. ‘The City would still have fallen whether I’d killed him or not; your life would still have been messed up. Dammit, if you want to play logic games, try this: if I hadn’t killed your uncle, would you have been in that alleyway the night the City fell? Because if the answer’s no, you’d have been killed. I saved your bloody life, remember? Doesn’t that count for anything?’

‘You didn’t do me any favours.’

The fear was getting worse, not better. There are hysterical women with knives who say they’re going to kill you and then talk at you instead; they don’t inspire fear in the hearts of men who can carve a path through an enemy army while thinking about something else. But he was definitely scared of Iseutz, almost to the point of speechlessness and loss of bladder control. After all, she was his niece; if there was anything in heredity, he was in serious trouble.

‘You’ve lost me,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you explain, instead of making me guess?’

‘All right, I’ll explain.’ She was leaning on the knife a little harder. ‘It’s quite simple, really. You made me into this.’ (Listen to the disgust she managed to load into that one little word.) ‘You made me what I am today, Uncle Bardas. I’ll say this for you, you’re a hell of a craftsman. You made my cousin Luha into a bow, and you’ve made me into another sort of weapon, you made me into a Loredan. Thank you very much.’

Bardas’ mouth was full of something that tasted foul. He swallowed it. ‘Be fair,’ he said. ‘Your mother did that, not me.’

‘Oh, she started it, which is why she’s definitely not a good insurance risk. But I got away from her, I was going to be a Hedin instead, until you interfered. That’s why I’m going to kill you.’

‘I see,’ Bardas said. ‘And won’t killing me just make you more of what you don’t want to be?’

‘No,’ Iseutz said. ‘Loredans don’t kill family. Uncle Gorgas, now; you murdered his son and he forgave you. You had a chance to kill me, but you didn’t. Mother could’ve had me put down any time she chose, but she didn’t. It’s not our way.’ She laughed. ‘The more I think about it, the more I get the impression I’ll be doing you a kindness. Come on, Uncle Bardas, what possible reason could you have for wanting to stay alive? If I’d done half the things you’ve done, I’d die of exhaustion through never being able to sleep. Your life must be really horrible; I mean, mine’s bad enough and I’ve hardly even started.’

‘What a thing to say,’ Bardas replied. ‘Consequences aside, I can’t think of a single thing I’ve done that I didn’t do for the best.’

‘That wasn’t a very sensible thing to say, in the circumstances. ’

‘Really?’ Bardas was just about able to keep himself from shaking like a dog that’s just climbed out of a pond, but it was hard work. ‘I don’t think so. You aren’t really going to kill me. If you were I’d be dead by now.’

‘You reckon?’ Iseutz said, and jammed the knife home.

Later, Bardas decided that it made up for all the mistakes he’d made that day, that one deftly planned tactical success. By provoking her so skilfully, he’d at least known exactly when the thrust was going to happen. This made it possible for him to jerk his head forward and sideways – he still got a horrendous gash across the base of his scalp, but it wasn’t enough to die of – while simultaneously shoving hard with both feet to slam the back of the chair into where he hoped her solar plexus was likely to be. With the same impetus he threw himself to the ground, rolled and grabbed at the place where (provided nobody had moved it) Theudas’ penknife ought to be, in his writing-tray on the floor. After three years in the mines it was second nature, easier to do in the dark by feel and memory than if he were in the light and able to see. The knife-hilt found his hand and the act of throwing it was a continuation of the retrieve – economy of movement, an essential in the mines. He heard the impact and the gasp of pain – bad, because if she could cry out, he’d missed – but he was already reaching for the scimitar he’d left lying on the map-table.

She said, ‘Uncle Bardas, no…’ Then he heard the wet crunch of steel cutting flesh and sinew, the sharp edge compressing the fibres and shearing them. ‘Thank you,’ he said instinctively, and waited (always count to ten before moving; another valuable lesson he’d learned in the mines) before lowering the scimitar, getting up and groping for the tinder-box and the lamp.

She was dead by the time he had a light; cutting the neck vein is messy but quick. There was fear in her eyes too, probably that last-second realisation that she had wanted to live after all (he’d seen it so often). Her mouth was open and she’d thrown the knife away; but in the dark, of course, he couldn’t have been expected to see that. Theudas’ penknife had slit her cheek open, a gaudy but trivial flesh-wound like the one she’d given him. He stood and looked at her for a while. One less Loredan. Well.

So it goes on, he thought, so it goes on. And now I’ve got a dead girl in my tent. She’d fallen, needless to say, across the bed, which was now fairly comprehensively saturated with blood. So he slept in the chair instead.

Away from the fighting, in peace and quiet; he felt like he couldn’t remember a time when there hadn’t been dust and the constant pounding of the trebuchets.

He remembered this place from years before. He’d been about ten years old, the whole family had gone off for the day after a distant, unconfirmed rumour of geese on the flooded levels; there weren’t any geese, of course, but they did find wild strawberries and some mushrooms that Uncle maintained were edible. As was usually the way on these occasions, they brought more food with them than they took back, but that wasn’t really the point. Though nobody would have put it in quite those terms, it was about getting away from the rest of the clan for a while, a token act of separation. They were the only family he knew who did such things; it was regarded as a rather quaint eccentricity, and nobody ever asked if they could come too.

He remembered the cave; well, cave was an overstatement, the scrape under a rock where there’d been plenty of room for a ten-year-old to crawl in and imagine he was living in a house, one of those strange, non-mobile dwellings the Enemy lived in, when they weren’t being the enemy.

He remembered it because of the strange feeling of security it gave him; walls that were rock and clay, not felt. One day, he thought, I’d like to live in a house. And so he had, years later, until the Enemy (another Enemy, but the same one) came to Ap’ Escatoy and pulled his house down into their cave.

He remembered it also because while they were away from the clan, the Enemy had raided the camp; it was the day they killed Temrai’s mother and rode off most of the herd, causing the famine that killed off so many people that winter. He remembered what it had been like riding back into the camp, seeing the scraps of burned felt flapping from the charred poles, the bodies left lying because there were so many of them it would take a whole day to clear up – he frowned, superimposing that memory on what he’d just seen.

(He’d seen a lot over the years, and remembered more of it than he’d have chosen; but that’s what a spy does. He sees, and remembers; and then does what he’s told.)

The scrape was still there (no reason why it shouldn’t be); it was smaller than he remembered, but plenty big enough to shelter him for the rest of the night and give him somewhere to work. He tied his horse to the thorn-tree (still there too; but it was nearly dead now), unslung his saddlebag and crawled into the dark tunnel.

The tinder flared at the third attempt (outside it had started to rain). He lit his lamp, then the little oil-stove that had belonged to his uncle. It flickered rather alarmingly, but he had light and enough warmth to keep his hands steady. That was enough.

He took the meat out of the bag and looked at it; then fished in the saddlebag for the little wooden box that held his uncle’s most prized and mysterious treasure, the thin-bladed jointing and filleting knife. Think twice, cut once, he thought, then chose his spot for the first incision.

It was important to pace the work, easing the skin back with the forefinger of his left hand, working it off the bone with the flexible, razor-sharp blade in his right. He’d done similar work before, seen similar work done many times, and of course a certain degree of natural aptitude was in the blood. This was, however, an exceptional case, and it would be infinitely easier to avoid mistakes than to make them good later.

It was an awkward joint to skin, because of the curves and angles. Uncle had done harder jobs over the years – he was so good at this sort of thing that people brought him their special trophies of the hunt, their prize bucks and wolves and foxes, to be made into cloaks and rugs and blankets (though how anybody could want a blanket with the head still on he’d never been able to understand). He’d always found the sight fascinating, to see how the skin came off the bone, looking the same but completely different; and in his unformed mind he’d often speculated about that close relationship between the skin and what it covered, how the skin could be part of the whole and yet so easily separated. These reflections had led on to others – the nature of external and internal reality, the way that what lies underneath shapes the surface, the way the surface protects and contains and masks what’s inside. One paradox that had always amused him was the cuir-bouilli, thick, supple oxhide stripped off, boiled in wax and moulded to make armour that was nearly as effective as steel plate (because unlike the skin of steel, the cuir-bouilli had a memory; crush it and it flexed and returned to shape). He’d had a fantasy about a man boiled in wax until his skin became armour and no blade could bite him – impractical, of course, to make a defence for the outside that killed the inside. Nobody would ever try an experiment like that, and so the theory went unproven.

He carried on peeling and shaving until the last pinch of skin came away whole, and he was left with two separate objects; skin and bone. He looked up. The water was simmering in the pot, so he dropped the bone in, to boil out the meat and tissue (the final step would be to bleach the bone and burnish it), then he laid out the skin and reached in his saddlebag for the things he needed: salt, herbs and the pot of honey. The salt he smeared in a thick layer over the raw side of the skin; then he sprinkled on the herbs and rolled the skin up tightly, like a letter. Finally he cut the wax around the neck of the honey-jar, prised off the lid and submerged the roll in the honey. The lid went back, and he melted a little knob of wax with the lamp to seal it up again.

He rested for a minute or so, as much from the effort of concentration as the actual physical work, though that had been hard enough, calling for exceptional strength and dexterity of the fingers. To wash his hands, he crawled to the mouth of the scrape and held them out in the rain, then wiped them dry on a tussock of couch-grass. The last task was cleaning off the knife (Uncle had made him promise faithfully never to let it get rusty; once that happens, he’d said, you might as well chuck it away – you’ll never get it clean again).

For a while, he thought about the work he’d done. Then he lay back, stretched out his legs and went to sleep.

Gannadius.

He sat up, his head dizzy with sleep. The room was so dark that he couldn’t tell whether or not his eyes were open.

‘Alexius?’ he said.

– and Alexius stepped out of the darkness and sat down beside the bed. ‘Sorry, did I wake you?’

‘Presumably,’ Gannadius replied. ‘But that’s all right. How are you?’

Alexius frowned at him. ‘Dead,’ he replied.

‘Sorry, it was just a reflex question, I know you’re… I’m sorry,’ Gannadius added lamely.

‘That’s all right,’ Alexius replied. ‘I always thought philosophy’s gain was diplomacy’s loss. Think, if you’d joined the diplomatic corps instead of the Order, how many interesting wars you could have started.’

Gannadius clicked his tongue. ‘That’s something I’ve noticed, actually,’ he said. ‘You’ve got ever so much more sarcastic and waspish since you’ve been dead.’

‘Have I?’ Alexius looked concerned. ‘Yes, come to think of it I suppose I have, though I hadn’t noticed till you mentioned it. I can only assume it’s the result of being filtered through your delightful personality and sunny disposition every time I need to talk to you. Hence also, no doubt, the increased levels of flippancy. Not that I’m complaining; I always felt I was a trifle too dry and bland in my conversation.’

‘Glad to be of service,’ Gannadius said. ‘Now then-’

‘The message, yes.’ Alexius thought for a moment. ‘I’m not sure how to put this without sounding deplorably melodramatic. Goodbye for ever.’

‘Oh,’ Gannadius replied. ‘What’s happened?’

‘The mess we made has finally put itself right,’ Alexius replied. ‘Although right isn’t perhaps the most appropriate word. Iseutz Hedin is dead. Bardas killed her a few minutes ago.’

‘Oh,’ Gannadius repeated. ‘And that changes things how, exactly? I’m sorry, I don’t quite follow.’

Alexius sighed. ‘Vegetating here among the intellectual elite of the Shastel Order hasn’t done much for your inductive reasoning, I see,’ he said. ‘Let’s see. I suppose you could say that the Principle has asserted itself, or returned to its proper course – that’s if we’re using the river analogy, which I never liked much. If we’re using the wheel analogy, I’d say it’s completed a revolution and returned to top dead centre, though that conveniently ignores the fact that it was off-line for a while. Thanks, I’m sorry to say, to you and me.’

‘The curse.’

‘Oh dear, that word again. That diversion, or that deflection – or should it be eccentricity? Although on balance I’d settle for that bloody stupid mistake.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s been resolved, in any event. In a sense, we’re now back to where we would have been if we hadn’t interfered – except, of course, that we’re nowhere near, because the city that hasn’t fallen isn’t Perimadeia, it’s a fortress out on the plains somewhere that Bardas has failed to capture; and it’s Iseutz, not Bardas, who’s been killed; and of course, because the wheel’s turned an extra turn and covered that much more ground, any number of people have been involved who needn’t have been. But it’s over, which is the main thing. Now all that’s left is for you to write up the experiment as a paper. Not meaning this unkindly,’ he went on, ‘but I’d get someone to work on it with you, just to add that objective angle that makes all the difference. What about that confounded gifted student of yours, the girl-’

‘Machaera?’ Gannadius shook his head. ‘She changed course last year. She’s in Commercial Strategy now, doing rather well.’

‘Really? Shame.’ Alexius sighed. ‘Well, you’ll find someone, I expect. And you won’t be in a position to start work until everything’s calmed down anyway, so-’

‘What do you mean exactly,’ Gannadius interrupted, ‘by “calmed down”?’

Alexius made a vague gesture with his hands. ‘Worked itself out, found its own level. You’ll see.’ He stood up. ‘Well, old friend, this is one of those acutely embarrassing moments we try so hard to avoid; it’s been a pleasure working with you, and I’ve enjoyed our friendship very much (even if the consequences for hundreds of thousands of people were fairly catastrophic). It’d be nice to think we might meet again some day, though I have to say that in my interpretation of the Principle, that’s extremely unlikely.’ He pulled a face. ‘I know that sounds dismally formal, but you and I aren’t the sort to make big emotional speeches. More’s the pity, probably.’

Gannadius nodded. ‘I shall miss you,’ he said. ‘But I suppose I’m glad, if it really is over; except that I’m not, because things have turned out so terribly badly, and it was our fault-’

‘Partly our fault. We didn’t make people the way they are, or cause the problems that started it all. In a sense, all this would have happened anyway; because it has happened-’ He broke off, scratched his head, and smiled ruefully. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I had hoped that death would clarify my thinking in this area, but I’m afraid it hasn’t. I never did understand the Principle, and I don’t now.’

‘There were two alternative courses, each equally valid,’ Gannadius said slowly. ‘We chose. But what happened, happened.’

‘If you use the river analogy,’ Alexius said, ‘which I’ve never been happy with. But I don’t see how you can fit all this into the wheel analogy-’

‘Unless,’ Gannadius put in, ‘you see the Principle not as a wheel but as a camshaft.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Just something I heard. I don’t think much of it, either.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Can we shake hands, or hug, or something? I feel some sort of physical expression of leavetaking-’

Alexius thought about it. ‘I can leave you with an impression that there was physical contact,’ he said, ‘but it would constitute an unreliable memory. However, it would be impossible to prove otherwise.’

‘And equally impossible to prove,’ Gannadius replied with a smile. ‘And remember, we’re philosophers. Scientists. To us, proof is everything.’

‘Very well then. Goodbye, Gannadius.’

– Who realised he was awake, and had been dreaming.

It was like the aftermath of a big feast, a birthday or a wedding; they felt exhilarated and exhausted, and the last thing they wanted to do was start clearing up the mess. Unfortunately, a certain amount would have to be done before they could go to bed; a careful search for enemy survivors, for instance, not to mention their own wounded.

‘Iordecai, you organise some work details,’ Sildocai said. ‘Lissai, Ullacai, check the defences, just in case they do attack – I can’t imagine they will, but it’d be a brilliant tactical move, hitting us when we’re at our most relaxed. Pajai, I want you to take twenty men and make sure Loredan’s body isn’t bobbing up and down in the river somewhere. You never know your luck.’

‘All right,’ someone replied. ‘And what are you going to do?’

‘Report to Temrai, of course,’ Sildocai replied with a grin. ‘By the way, has anybody seen him? Last I saw him he was heading back to his tent, but that was when we were still mopping up by the cattle pens.’ Nobody had anything to contribute, so he shrugged and said, ‘I expect he’s in his tent with his feet up; after all, he’s not really fit again after that bashing he took when he got buried.’

There were fires burning everywhere he looked as he crossed the camp; the neatly stacked cords of firewood had got soaked in the rain, so they were using halberd-shafts and Imperial-issue boots for fuel. Everybody he saw was moving at the slow, grim pace of the bone-weary, the dogged trudge, shoes heavy with clinging mud. He knew how they felt; but he was still slightly buzzed with victory. A pity that a victory took even longer to clear up after than a defeat.

The women and children had come out and were doing their best to help; pulling shirts and boots off dead halberdiers, gathering up armfuls of arrows, bustling about the harvest of the dead, the unexpected wind-falls of good things that shouldn’t go to waste. There were children rolling helmets along the ground and laughing (excited to be up so late, burning off energy after being cooped up in the tents for so long); he saw a small girl stop and stare thoughtfully at the body of another child, one who’d run out during the fighting and got in the way; it was half trampled into the mud, and the small girl was studying it without any apparent emotion. Over on the other side, a few men were darting and sliding wildly about, trying to round up some horses that had got loose. One of the men had a saturated-red bandage round his head – but someone had to catch the horses; they were his living, after all. He looked down and realised that he’d just put his foot on a hand.

Ah, well, he thought; it’ll probably be back to work again tomorrow, when the trebuchets start up again, but we might as well get some sleep tonight, we’ve earned it. It occurred to him that he was starving hungry – chances were he wasn’t the only one – but that was going to have to wait too. Had anybody thought to get Temrai something to eat?

The tent-flap was pulled back, and light was soaking out. He knocked against the post, but nobody answered. Asleep, maybe. He ducked and walked in.

Temrai was in his chair, or at least his body was. But his neck had been cut through square, and his head was missing.