The Left Hand of God

16

Once Lord Vipond had finished talking to Vague Henri and Kleist, he made his way over to the palazzo of Marshal Materazzi, Doge of Memphis.

The Doge had many advisors because he was a man who loved to consult, to talk things over and at great length. The fact that he seldom took the advice was just a peculiarity of the kind that often afflicts those born into positions of enormous power. The one exception to this rule of talking without listening was Lord Vipond, who was himself immensely powerful by virtue of his own network of spies and informers and a hard-to-defy talent for being right. As the popular rhyme had it:

Chancellor Vipond is either reaping or sowing,

And what he doesn’t know it isn’t worth knowing.

It wasn’t much of a rhyme, but it wasn’t far wrong either. Marshal Materazzi was a man of considerable ruthlessness who had come to rule the largest empire the world had ever known. To have maintained control of it without challenge for twenty years required great military prowess, a talent for politics and considerable intelligence. But having had Vipond as his chancellor through nearly all of this, he had never quite managed to understand how Vipond had himself become almost as powerful. One day, about three years into his reign, he began to realize, to his horror, that Vipond had become indispensable. At first he became deeply hostile to Vipond-such a thing was intolerable and left him exposed to assassination or, even worse, to his becoming some sort of puppet. But Vipond had made it clear to the Marshal that he would always be a loyal servant as long as he did not interfere with his role as chancellor or continue to be a damned nuisance. Their relationship since then had been not uneasy exactly, but, as the peasants around Memphis say, more frit.

Shown into Materazzi’s presence, Vipond nodded and was invited to sit.

“How are you feeling, Vipond?”

“Very well, my lord. And yourself?”

“Oh, fine.”

There was an awkward pause; awkward for the Marshal because Vipond simply sat there smiling benevolently.

“I understand you met with the Embassy from the Norwegians today.”

“Indeed.”

One of the border races conquered by Materazzi more than fifteen years before, the Norwegians had enthusiastically seized upon the advantages offered by occupation-roads, centrally heated palazzos and luxurious imports-without abandoning their ferocious appetite for fighting. Five years ago the now war-weary Marshal, increasingly irritated by the expense of maintaining his vast empire, had decided that it should expand no more. The Norwegians, while touchingly loyal to their conqueror, were always stirring up trouble and trying to expand their own territory northward whenever they could and despite repeated orders to do no such thing. Endlessly devious, the Norwegians provoked their neighbors and generally used every trick they could to claim they were being attacked and that they had no choice but to protect themselves by invading their aggressors. As Vipond well knew, these attacks were in reality made by Norwegian soldiers disguised as the forces of such of their neighbors as they were keen on plundering.

“What did they have to say for themselves?”

“Oh,” replied Vipond, “the usual claim to be the victims-peaceloving victims, merely defending themselves and the empire of which they are such loyal subjects.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told them that I wasn’t born yesterday and if they didn’t return their army to barracks, we might consider offering them independence.”

“And how did they take that?”

“All six of them went white with horror and promised the army would withdraw within the week.”

Materazzi looked carefully at Vipond.

“Perhaps we should offer them independence anyway, and to a fair few others as well. The cost of governing and policing is bloody ravenous. More than we get in taxes, am I right?”

“Very nearly-but then you’d have to either reduce our army and have a great many bad-tempered soldiers wandering about the place looking for mischief, or pay for them yourself.”

Materazzi grunted.

“Between the devil and a hard place.”

“Quite so, my lord. But of course, if you’d like me to do a proper study…”

“Why did you take the boy who broke my sword?”

These sudden changes of tack were an old tactic of the Marshal’s to unsettle anyone who annoyed him.

“I am responsible for security in the city.”

“You’re responsible for matters dealing with sedition-you’re not a policeman. This is nothing to do with you. He broke my sword-it’s priceless-and he seriously wounded my nephew and the sons of four members of the court. They want his blood and, I’ll tell you this for nothing, so do I.”

Vipond looked thoughtful.

“It may be possible to repair The Edge.”

“You don’t know anything about it. Don’t pretend you do.”

“Indeed not-but I know a man who does. Prefect Walter Gurney has returned from his embassy in Riben.”

“Why hasn’t he reported to me?”

“He is unwell-not likely to last the year, I’d say.”

“What’s it got to do with my sword?”

“Gurney’s report included a long section on the Ribens’ mastery of metal. He says that he has never seen such work. I talked to him briefly, and he said that if The Edge could be repaired, the Riben sword makers could be the ones to do it.” He paused. “This would, of course, be under my guarantee of its safety and at my expense.”

“Why?” asked Materazzi. “What’s this boy to you that you’d go to all this trouble and cost?”

“In your perfectly understandable annoyance at what has happened to a prized possession and the injuries to your nephew, you have, if I may be frank, overlooked the fact that a boy of fourteen managed to beat the living daylights out of five of the Materazzi’s most promising soldiers, including one who’s supposed to be the greatest in a generation. This isn’t a matter of concern for you?”

“All the more reason to get rid of him.”

“You’re not interested in how he acquired his extraordinary talent?”

“How, then?”

“This young man, Cale, was trained by the Redeemers at the Sanctuary.”

“They’ve never given us any problems.”

“Not in the past-but what this boy tells me is that in the last seven years there’s been a great change in the life and training at the Sanctuary. They are training more soldiers, and more ruthlessly.”

“You’re afraid they’re going to attack us? They’d be very foolish if they did.”

“Firstly, it is my duty to be afraid of such things. Secondly, how many kings and emperors thought the same about you thirty years ago?”

Materazzi sighed, irritated and uncomfortable: a bloodthirsty holy terror while he was building his great empire, the truth was that in ten years of peace he had lost his appetite for war. The ruthless soldier who was once a byword for rapacious conquest had became a man in late middle age who wanted a quiet life where he would never have to be freezing cold one week, dying of thirst the next, or dreading, as he once had drunkenly admitted to Vipond, having his guts waved about on a billhook by some spavined peasant who managed to get in a lucky blow. He had never confessed as much to anyone, but his real distaste for war had set in after a winter spent starving in the ice fields of Stetl, where he had been reduced to eating the remains of his much-loved regimental sergeant major.

“So, what’s your plan? I’m sure you have one-and it had better include some way of getting my brother off my back about Conn.”

Vipond put a letter on the table. It was from Conn Materazzi. The Marshal opened it and began reading. When he finished, he put the letter back on the table.

“Conn Materazzi has many admirable qualities; I didn’t realize a willingness to be the bigger man was one of them.”

“Your good judge of character, Marshal, is a lesson to us all. How would vanity do? I had a word with Conn and pointed out that having Cale punished for defeating him would make him look ridiculous. He agreed.”

“You can’t have this boy of yours wandering about Memphis. The city fathers won’t tolerate it and neither will I. I can’t be seen to overlook this, Vipond.”

“Of course not. But everyone knows he’s in my custody. If he escapes, the criticism will fall on me.”

“You want to let him go?”

“Indeed I do not. This boy has unique skills-besides, he and his friends are the only real sources of knowledge we have about the Redeemers and their intentions. We need to know much more. I’ve set this in train, but I need them to verify the information I receive. They are too valuable-more important than any sword or the bruised heads of a collection of spoiled bullies who got what they so richly deserved.”

“Are you defying me, by God?”

“If I have displeased you, my lord, I will resign immediately.”

There was a gasp of irritation from Materazzi.

“There you go! You’re doing it again. No one can say boo to you without you going off like a firework. The older you get, Vipond, the more irritable.”

“My apologies, Marshal,” said Vipond with an insincere air of regret. “My injuries have perhaps made me more ill-tempered than I would like.”

“Exactly! My dear Vipond, you must be careful. It was a terrible ordeal, terrible. I have kept you for too long-unforgivably selfish of me. You must rest.”

Vipond stood up, nodded his acceptance of the Marshal’s concern and then went to leave. But as he approached the door, Materazzi called out pleasantly.

“So you’ll arrange for the repair of the sword at your expense and see to this other matter.”