The Proof House Part 25

'Go to h.e.l.l,' Niessa replied. 'In fact, you go back to Gorgas and you tell him I said to stop being such a b.l.o.o.d.y fool, because I've had enough of him and his ridiculous heroics. Go on, he won't bite you. Not if you tell him I said-'

At which point, the man who'd climbed up silently behind her dropped a sack over her head, flipped her carefully off her feet and knelt down beside her to do up the rope. 'About time,' the helmet said. 'Get all this junk off the cart, we'll use it to lay a false trail.' Inside the sack, Niessa was making the most extraordinary noises. Between them, they hoisted her off the cart without banging her about too much, while another man looked after the soldier Niessa had brained with the biscuit-barrel, and another finished off the driver, who'd been trying to crawl away in spite of two arrows in almost the same hole through his chest. They cut the guy-ropes and pulled off the barrels and boxes, letting them smash and roll; spices and perfumes and herbs and fine wine and scented oils for dressing salad - all mixed together, the smell was extraordinary, abstruse and exotic enough that even a Son of Heaven would have been hard put to it to identify all the ingredients.

'That'll do,' said the helmet, pulling up his visor to wipe his forehead. Under the metal he was a round-faced man with a little bobble for a nose. 'You two, take the coach, we'll meet you back at the s.h.i.+p.'

An hour or so after they'd gone, the cavalry column came through, just as the helmet had said. They found two bodies, one male and one female, stripped naked, and a large heap of smashed biscuits. No barrels or boxes - a bunch of opportunists had appeared out of the sand-dunes and dismantled them in a matter of minutes, prising out the nails to be straightened later, carefully lifting off the steel bands from the barrels and collecting the staves (unbroken ones in one bundle, to be used again; broken ones separate, for firewood) - and all the cargo had been looted, apart from the cinnamon and wild rose honey biscuits so highly prized by the prefect of Ap' Escatoy. Apparently the looters had tried a few of them, spat them out and jumped up and down on the rest, just in case any foolhardy souls might be tempted to eat them.

'That's the lot,' sighed Habsurai, gang-boss of the logging contingent, as the last lumber wagon rolled to a halt. 'I hereby certify that there's nothing bigger than a dandelion left standing between here and the Pigeon River. And if you want us to go further out than that,' he added, before Temrai could say anything, 'you're going to have to give us an armed escort, because from where we were felling yesterday we could see Loredan's scouts fooling about on the other side of North Reach ford. If you want any more timber, you're going to have to fight for it.'

Another hot day; there was a constant relay of weary-looking children struggling up and down the steep path with buckets, and the stonemasons had all but given up. Not that they were proper stonemasons; the clans didn't have any, never having had a use for large blocks of stone before now. Anybody who didn't have a hat was improvising furiously - a sack draped over the head and shoulders, secured with a piece of twine around the temples; the broad, flat wicker baskets the bakers carried their bread in; the gonfalon standard of the late City Prefect of Perimadeia, looted on general principles at the Fall and now at last coming in handy for something, wrapped round its new owner's head like a turban. Temrai was wearing his arming cap, the detachable liner that had come with the fine and completely unwearable barbute helmet he'd bought from an Island merchant before the civil war. The cap was made of thick, matted grey felt and was the only part of the ensemble that even remotely fitted. He wiped sweat out of his eyes and shook his head. 'Which would defeat the object of the exercise,' he said. 'Well, if that's it, that's it; we'll just have to make do with what we've got. Thanks; you've done a good job.'

Habsurai's men had brought in a lot of timber - the stacks of trimmed logs looked like a small city in their own right - but it probably wasn't going to be enough. The lower and middle palisades were finished, the head of each stake dramatically sharpened to a point, and the swing-bridge, causeways and catwalks were nearly done, but the upper stockade wasn't a practical proposition any more, not if they wanted any lumber for all the other works that still had to be done. Temrai sat down on an upturned bucket and tried to think of an alternative. A simple ditch and mound - well, it'd be better than nothing, but not good enough, not if Bardas Loredan had taken to heart the valuable lessons he'd been given in the sustained use of trebuchets against a fortified position. Without timber, they had a choice between turf and stone; both labour-intensive, time-consuming, inefficient. It would take a lot of people a long time to cut enough turves to build a wall high enough and thick enough to be of any defensive value, but at least there was enough turf for the job. Stone - well, there were a few outcrops of weatherbeaten granite dotted about, enough at a pinch for a few towers and gateways, but if they wanted more than that they were going to have to dig for it and quarry it out.

Sitting still wasn't going to solve anything. He stood up (since when did my knees hurt so much? I'm getting old) and hobbled rather self-consciously across to the timber stack, where Habsurai's people were hoisting up the last few logs on the big crane. For all his weary, jaundiced mood he couldn't help stopping and gazing at the spectacle, a hundred-year-old oak trunk whisked up and flown through the air like a child's toy. We can do this sort of thing now; how did we ever learn to do this? If only we had a future, what a future we'd have . . .

Then the crane broke. Later, when the engineers examined it, they found that the strut that supported the beam that the counterweight hung from had been cut from wet, star-shaken wood, and the stresses of the crane had torn it apart; a real novice's mistake, if ever there was one. As the counterweight plummeted to the ground, the magnificent flying oak that Temrai had been admiring dropped sharply, slipped one of the two loops of its cradle and swung wildly, out of control on the remaining loop. It was coming straight at him and for some reason he was too astonished to move - - Until someone jumped at him, like a cat pouncing, and pushed him off his feet just as the b.u.t.t end of the log whirled above him, pus.h.i.+ng aside the air in more or less the exact spot where he'd been standing. He tried to lift his head, but a hand thrust it down, grinding his nose into the dirt while the log lurched back again on its return swing; it crashed into the side of the crane, expending the last of its force.

'Are you all right?' The voice sounded anxious, and familiar. 'Temrai? Are you all right?'

'Mmm.' Using his arms, Temrai pushed himself up off the ground. His mouth was full of mud. 'Thank you,' he said, just as he was in the act of remembering who the man was. 'Da.s.sascai? Is that you?'

'Yes,' Da.s.sascai replied. 'I think I've put my shoulder out. That'd be a real nuisance; I've got a couple of hunded ducks to kill and pluck.'

Very cautiously, Temrai stood up. There were people running towards him from all directions. 'It's all right,' he told them, 'no real harm done-'

'Speak for yourself,' Da.s.sascai muttered.

Temrai held out a hand and helped him up. 'That's twice,' he said. 'You seem to have a knack of showing up just when I'm about to get myself killed.'

'Really?' Da.s.sascai wriggled his shoulders and cried out in pain. 'Well, you can show your appreciation by sending along a couple of men to kill my ducks. And a doctor wouldn't come amiss, either. Sorry, did I just say something funny?'

Temrai shook his head. 'You lived in Ap' Escatoy for years, didn't you?'

'That's right,' Da.s.sascai replied. 'Most of my adult life, as it happens.'

'Thought so. I think you might find your idea of a doctor isn't the same as ours. I thought I'd better warn you, that's all.'

Da.s.sascai grunted. 'Even your pig-ignorant medicine men ought to know how to put back a wrenched shoulder, ' he said. 'If they want to slit open a few ducks while they're at it, it won't bother me.'

'That's all right, then. Just so long as you know what you're letting yourself in for.'

In the event, all it took was a sharp, controlled twist, enough to make Da.s.sascai yell with pain but over in a moment. 'You'll live,' the sawbones said cheerfully. 'Get some rest if you can,' and, to Temrai, 'See to it he's excused duty for a day or two. What does he do?'

'Kills ducks,' Temrai replied.

The doctor nodded. 'Repet.i.tive arm and shoulder movements, not a good idea. Put someone else on it, give this one a break.'

'Certainly,' Temrai replied. 'It's the least I can do.'

For some reason he found it difficult to raise a volunteer for duck-slaying duty; in the end he had to take a work detail off ditch-digging, and even then they complained about it. Then he went back to his tent, where he'd left Da.s.sascai lying on the bed. (Tilden was away supervising the felt-makers). 'How's it now?' he asked.

'Evil,' Da.s.sascai replied with a grin. 'Well, you wouldn't expect me to say, it's fine, really; not when I've got a chance of a lifetime to milk a genuine obligation on the part of the head of state.'

Temrai smiled. 'Be my guest,' he said. 'Like I said, that's twice now. Anybody'd think you were my guardian angel.'

'Enlightened self-interest. How else was I going to get out of doing those G.o.dd.a.m.n ducks?'

It was cool and pleasant in the tent, and hot and unpleasant outside; and Temrai remembered that he hadn't stopped for a rest for almost thirty-six hours. 'Have a drink with me,' he said. 'There's something I've been meaning to ask you.'

'Oh yes?'

Temrai nodded as he unstoppered the jug. 'Pancakes, ' he said. 'You haven't inherited your uncle's recipe, by any chance?'

Da.s.sascai laughed. 'Oh, the recipe's plain enough - eggs, flour, water and a little goose-fat to lubricate the pan. He told me so himself, many times. Problem is, he never actually followed it himself.'

'Oh.'

'He was that sort of man,' Da.s.sascai went on, taking the cup from Temrai's hand. 'He never could bear the thought of anybody being able to do the one thing he was better at than anybody else. Can't say I blame him, really; if you're the undisputed master of a popular skill, what reason would you ever have for teaching people how to replace you?'

'I suppose so,' Temrai said. 'But if I'd been him, I wouldn't have wanted my discovery to die with me.'

'That's because you're not my uncle,' Da.s.sascai replied. 'I'm sure that's exactly what he wanted, so that in years to come people would shake their heads and say, n.o.body makes pancakes like the ones Dondai the fletcher used to make. People tend to remember things like that, you see; it's a shot at immortality, like being a great poet, only more so. After all, how many people really care about poetry, as against the number who really care about pancakes?'

'I see,' Temrai said gravely. 'So if I want to be remembered for ever, instead of conquering Perimadeia I should have learned to fry batter.'

Da.s.sascai yawned. 'Quite possibly. For one thing, it's far less uncertain. No offence, but it's quite possible that you'll be remembered as the man who got comprehensively beaten by Bardas Loredan and the Empire; that's immortality, but not a very nice sort. Whereas if they remember you for your pancakes, it'll only be because they were the best there ever were.' He frowned slightly. 'Is that what you want?' he asked. 'To be immortal? '

'Not really,' Temrai replied. 'Oh, I'm not saying the thought hasn't crossed my mind; like it did just now, when I was watching people working. If a hundred years from now people remember me as the man who turned our nation into craftsmen and engineers, that'd be quite pleasing, if I were here to see it. But I won't be, of course. I'll be dead, and past caring.'

Da.s.sascai yawned again, and winced. 'Very sensible att.i.tude,' he said, 'in the circ.u.mstances. I wonder if Bardas Loredan thinks the same way. At the moment, he's down as the man who lost Perimadeia; do you think he's h.e.l.l-bent on fixing that, or doesn't he care, either?'

'That's twice you've mentioned him,' Temrai said calmly. 'Why?'

'No reason.'

Temrai scratched the back of his neck. 'You're not trying to needle me, or anything like that?'

'Why should I want to do that?'

'No idea,' Temrai replied. 'Well, I suppose you could be probing me for weak spots, or trying to find out if I turn pale and s.h.i.+ver at the mention of his name - that's the sort of thing a spy might be interested in.'

'Not really.' Da.s.sascai held out his cup for a refill. 'As far as I know, and I'm speculating here, all spies want are hard facts - you know, troop movements, disposition of forces, ground plans of the city defences, where the blind spots are in the field of fire. I can't see that the getting-to-know-you stuff ever won any battles.'

'That's all right, then. Are you a spy, by the way? Really?'

'No.'> 'Fair enough. I'll take your word for it.'

Da.s.sascai dipped his head. 'Thank you,' he said. 'Just out of interest, have you got any spies in the enemy army?'

'Not really,' Temrai replied.

'And if you did, you wouldn't tell me. In case I mention it in my next report.'

'Precisely. My turn: what made you come here, after Ap' Escatoy? It's obvious you don't fit in here.'

'Only because people won't accept me, because they think I'm a spy.'

Temrai pursed his lips. 'That's partly it,' he said. 'But it's true, you don't act like you belong here. You could have gone anywhere - the Island, Colleon, Ausira; you could've gone east, or stayed around Ap' Escatoy until they rebuild it. Wouldn't you have found a city a bit more congenial?'

Da.s.sascai laughed. 'I don't know where you get this could-have-gone-anywhere notion from. For a start, I lost everything in the fall of Ap' Escatoy. I spent my last few quarters getting here, and even then I had a long walk because I couldn't afford the fare for the last leg of the journey.'

'All right,' Temrai conceded. 'But since by your reckoning getting anywhere at all was a real achievement, couldn't you have made your way - overcoming difficulties of heroic proportions, granted - to a city; somewhere you could get a bath and a shave without having had to carry the water in a goatskin bag for two days' march across the wilderness? What I mean is, you had to pa.s.s by several perfectly good cities to get from there to here. What was the big attraction?'

'Ducks,' Da.s.sascai replied. 'All my life I've secretly yearned to spend my days up to the elbows in ducks.h.i.+t and blood.'

Temrai nodded gravely. 'That I can understand,' he said. 'This is no good. I should be out there working, setting an example. But it's too hot.'

'Take it easy while you've got the chance,' Da.s.sascai agreed. 'But since you raised the subject, you should understand, because you made the same choice.'

'Did I?'

'Of course. You lived and worked in Perimadeia for a while; don't tell me you hated every minute of it and couldn't wait to finish the job and get out of there, because I don't believe you. I mean, if you'd hated it, how come you've spent so much time and effort since then trying to turn our people into replica Perimadeians?'

Temrai sat still and quiet for a while before answering. 'Do you know,' he said, 'I'm not sure. To begin with, it was just a side-effect - we had to learn how to build siege engines in order to take the City, so we taught ourselves the basics. Once we'd done that, though, it seemed a pity to stop there and go back to chivvying goats across the plains. And no, you're right; I didn't hate my time in the City, far from it. I enjoyed it, and by and large I liked the City people a lot.'

'And then you wiped them out? No offence, just asking.'

'It's a fair point. I suppose it's inevitable; if you want to harm your enemies, you'll always end up harming your friends as well. You can't keep war and destruction stoppered up in a little bottle, like vitriol or nitre; if you want to use them, you've got to slop them about.'

Da.s.sascai s.h.i.+fted slightly and lay on his back. 'True enough,' he said. 'But this business of imitating the people you destroyed, what about that? Is it guilt, do you think? Or did you supplant them because you wanted to take their place?'

Temrai frowned. 'I don't think it was anything so deliberate,' he said. 'I think it's just the way things are; the more you hate an enemy, the more you come to resemble him. It's an extremely intimate relations.h.i.+p, hatred; it makes you very close to the person you hate. I sometimes think you can't really hate somebody unless you really understand them. Harming, yes; killing, even - you can do that with detachment, cold-bloodedly. But you don't hate ducks, quite likely you don't understand them.'

Da.s.sascai smiled. 'What's to understand?'

'Ah, well, there you are. Now, when I was a kid and my father and uncle took me out hunting the first time, they told me that a true hunter has to understand what he kills; and I honestly believe that they loved the deer and the boar we used to hunt. When they used to talk about them, it was all affection, as if they were talking about family. I suppose it's because they'd studied and observed them for so long they'd grown attached to them. They always made a point of saying thank you to anything we killed. Once when I was quite small, I asked my father if it bothered him, killing animals like that; and he said yes, it bothered him a lot, because every time he felt he'd just lost a friend. Now I never could make any sense out of that until I went to live in the City; I still can't explain it, but now at least I know what he meant.'

'It doesn't make sense,' Da.s.sascai said. 'But then, neither does friends.h.i.+p, or love for that matter. I suppose it must be like those terrible family feuds that you hear about from time to time; they couldn't hate each other so much if they didn't love each other too. Like the Loredan brothers, for example.'

'Three times.'

'What? Oh, yes, sorry. But it's a good example.'

'You're right,' Temrai said, 'it is. Now there was a time when I hated Bardas Loredan, more than anybody else in the world. I can't say the same now. Maybe that's because he's hunting me, rather than the other way round.'

Da.s.sascai looked at him. 'If he does kill you, will you forgive him?'

Temrai smiled. 'I already have.'

The first they knew of it was after breakfast, when they went out to do business; and even then, it took some time for them to notice.

There were Imperial soldiers in the streets; half-platoons standing about on street corners looking embarra.s.sed more than anything else, like young men stood up by their girls. Venart was aware that something was different, but it was too early in the morning for him to consider the implications. Besides, groups of people standing aimlessly on street corners were a common enough sight on the Island. There was bound to be a simple, rational explanation; at least, Venart was prepared to take it on trust that there was one.

It was when they reached the Market Square that they all started to feel uncomfortable, because there was a full company of soldiers there when they arrived, drawn up in parade order but with their weapons uncovered and drawn.

'Don't say somebody's tried to break into their treasury,' Eseutz said. 'Not tactful.'

'That man's pinning a notice on the Market Hall door,' Athli pointed out. 'Is he one of them?'

'No idea. Well, come on. Let's go and see what it says.'

The provincial office house style was brief, clear and businesslike; as from dawn on the seventeenth day of Butrepidon ('When's that?' Eseutz asked. 'Today,' Venart replied. 'Quiet.') the prefect of Ap' Escatoy, by the powers vested in him et cetera, had annexed the Island to the outer western province of the Empire. All property belonging to citizens of the Island would henceforth legally vest in the said prefect, in accordance with the practice of the Empire. There followed a list of regulations governing the transitional period leading up to full incorporation: n.o.body to enter or leave the territory without permission; no citizen to purport to make a binding contract with a foreigner; no public a.s.sembly or gathering to exceed ten people without previous consent; all arms and munitions of war to be surrendered immediately; all non-citizens to report to the commissioner for aliens forthwith; all buildings to be left unlocked to facilitate entry and inventory; sundry public order provisions; announcements of a census and interim taxation - 'But they can't,' Eseutz said. n.o.body else spoke. The man who'd pinned up the notice put his hammer back in his satchel and walked away, exchanging a few words with the captain of the guard.

'It's all right,' said Venart, after a quick count. 'There's only four of us.'

'Shut up, Ven.' Vetriz was reading the notice for the third time. 'That's it, then. You and your b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+pOwners' a.s.sociation.'

'What?'

'That's what's done it,' she said, quietly and angrily. 'You thought you could pull their tails and stiff them for more money, and now look.'

Eseutz was pulling at her sleeve. 'Come on,' she said, 'let's move away. Those soldiers look very tense, if you ask me.'

'What? Oh.' Vetriz and the others followed her to one of the small colonnades behind the Market Hall, where there were already quite a few groups of up to nine agitated-looking citizens.

'Here's what we do,' Eseutz was saying, in a loud whisper. 'We go home, pack up as much money and valuable stuff as we can comfortably carry, and try and get to the s.h.i.+ps. If only we can get off the Island, they can't follow us or anything, they haven't got any s.h.i.+ps of their own. That's why they can never make this thing stick.'

Venart scowled at her. 'And how do you propose we deal with all the soldiers who're already on the d.a.m.n s.h.i.+ps? Or had you forgotten, they're going to invade Perimadeia with them. Athli, what about you? I can't remember, are you a citizen or a foreigner?'

Athli thought for a moment. 'That's a good point,' she said. 'Yes, I'm a citizen, because I own property here; but I might be able to kid them into thinking I'm Shastel. But how's that going to help you?'

'Well, somebody's got to go and get help,' Venart said. 'Raise an army, throw these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds into the sea. That's why you've got to go and raise the alarm-'

Athli looked at him. 'Don't be silly,' she said. 'Who on earth is going to come and rescue us?'

Venart hadn't thought of that, obviously. 'Mercenaries,' said Eseutz. 'We could hire mercenaries - the h.e.l.l with how much it costs, we've got to get them off the Island. Once we've done that, we'll be safe.'

Athli shook her head. 'You're dreaming,' she said. 'There must be - what, fifty thousand men in the expeditionary force? You'd need at least three times that for a disputed landing. Where are we going to find-?'

'No,' Eseutz interrupted, 'you're wrong. Right now there's fifty thousand; but when they've gone off to attack Temrai there'll only be a little garrison. That's when we get them.'

Athli closed her eyes and opened them again. 'When they've got our s.h.i.+ps,' she said. 'Not a very sensible suggestion, is it? As soon as they hear what we've done, they'll come storming back and we won't stand a chance. Have you any idea what they do to rebels?'

'There has to be something -' Eseutz stopped in mid-sentence; five soldiers and an NCO were heading towards them. Venart looked as if he was about to run away, but his sister grabbed his arm. 'If you run, they'll kill you,' she whispered.

The soldiers came nearer, stopped. 'Venart Auzeil,' the NCO said. 'Eseutz Mesatges.'

Venart took a deep breath. 'I'm Venart Auzeil,' he said. 'What-?'