Devices and Desires (87 page)

Big assumption. Still, he wasn’t busy. A yard at a time, nice and slow, conserving his meager strength and not startling the
horse with sudden movements (an elegant economy of motivations), he approached it, until he was close enough to bend forward
— that hurt surprisingly much — and tweak at the reins. Obligingly, the horse lifted its foot, releasing the tangle. Of course,
it hadn’t known to do it for itself. A fellow slave of duty.

He looked up at the saddle. Might as well ask him to climb a mountain on his knees. What he needed, of course, was a mounting
block. He thought about that. He was in the Horsefair, which was called that for a reason. Over on the far east side there
was a row of three dozen mounting blocks. If he could get there, he might be able to scramble up onto this horse’s back and
ride away, possibly even to the nebulous and unimaginable environment known as Safety. At the very least he could try. After
all, if the world had wanted him to die here, it wouldn’t have issued him with the horse.

A third of the way there his knees gave up. He hung for a quarter of a minute from the reins and a handful of the horse’s
mane, grabbed together in his right hand. He was too weak to pull himself upright by them, too contrary to let go and slide
to the ground. In theory, he could call on rugged determination and force of character to spur him on to that last spurt of
effort. Not in practice, though. The mane hairs were cutting into the side of his hand, and his bodyweight was pulling the
curl out of his fingers. He knew that if he slumped to the ground, he wouldn’t be able to get up again. It was a quiet, low-key
way for the Ducas to fail. He was almost prepared to accept it.

At the last possible moment, the horse grunted, raised its head a few degrees and started to amble forward. It was only a
very slight movement, but it was enough. The horse dragged him along, the toes of his slippers trailing on the ground; it
had spotted the hay-nets that hung on the east wall, behind the row of mounting blocks.

On the neck of the pass that overlooked the road to Civitas Eremiae, Valens halted his men and looked back. Smoke was drifting
up into the still air. It was mid-morning on a bright, warm day.

“What’s happening?” asked one of his captains.

Valens narrowed his eyes against the glare. “They’re burning the city,” he said.

The captain thought about that. “Didn’t take them long to evacuate the civilians,” he said.

“I don’t think they bothered with that,” Valens replied.

It took the captain a moment to grasp what he’d heard. “So what are we going to do?” he said.

“Us?” Valens sighed. “We’re going to go home, of course. We’ve done what we came for.”

“I thought we came to save the Eremians.”

“No.” Valens shortened his reins into his left hand. “No, that’d be a mistake. Let’s get moving.”

He was glad to get over the pass, back onto the road that led to the border, where he couldn’t see the smoke. He was pleased
when they brought him the casualty report — twelve dead, seventeen injured, mostly minor cuts and grazes; his men had acquitted
themselves extremely well under difficult circumstances. He could be proud of them. In fact, the only man who’d done badly
in his small army, failed in his duty and brought disaster down on his comrades-in-arms and the entire Vadani people was himself.
My prerogative,
he thought; and he cast his mind back to when he’d first heard about Duke Orsea’s insane idea of a preemptive strike against
the Mezentines. Deliberately picking a fight with the most powerful, most ruthless nation on earth, people who never forgave,
never forgot, took quiet pride in the total extermination of their enemies… Ordinary stupidity wouldn’t be enough, you’d have
to be actually deranged to do something like that.

Quite, he thought.

She was riding alongside the hastily improvised travois they’d rigged up for Orsea and his ferocious bodyguard whose name
Valens had already forgotten. A travois was better than tying him onto a horse’s back, but that was the best you could say
for it. Every rut and pothole jarred him; he winced, cried, yelled with pain, while she watched and said nothing. The other
one, the big, tall man, had passed out as soon as his head touched the cloth. He bumped and shifted and carried on sleeping,
still and quiet as dead game carried home on a pole from the hunt. Behind the travois the little Mezentine trotted, clinging
with both hands to the pommel of his saddle while a compassionate sergeant led his horse on a leading-rein. How exactly he’d
come to acquire this oddity, Valens wasn’t entirely sure. He’d trailed after Veatriz like a stray dog following you home from
the market, and Valens couldn’t see any particular reason to send him away. Besides, he was the man who’d built all those
clever war engines, the ones that had slaughtered the Mezentines by the tens of thousands and still failed to preserve the
city. Someone like that might come in useful if things went badly with the Perpetual Republic, as Valens was fairly sure they
would.

There was an old story about a great conqueror who laid siege to a mighty city for ten years. Finally he took it by some cunning
stratagem, burst in, looted everything worth taking, set fire to the buildings and withdrew. He had an army of fifty thousand
men as he started the journey home; less than two hundred eventually crawled across the border, the only survivors of the
plague they’d contracted from the rotting corpses of their enemies, unburied because their starved and emaciated countrymen
lacked the strength. He’d remembered the story as a fine allegory of the hateful futility of war, destructive to losers and
victors alike.
Wouldn’t catch me doing something stupid like that,
the pompous voice of his thirteen-year-old self brayed inside his memory;
it can’t really be a true story, because nobody’d be that clueless.

She hadn’t said more than a few words to him since they rode out of the gateway, but he’d made a point of keeping his distance
(and besides, he had an army to lead, and they weren’t out of danger yet, not by a long way); he was afraid of what she’d
say to him, now that they were face to face at last and in this ghastly, impossible situation of his own making. Everything
between them would be ruined, he knew that — that was another thing about the old stories, the ones where the knight-errant
rescued the beautiful princess from the dragon or the ogre or the murderous stepfather; there was always a bland presumption
of love, happiness-ever-after, which was plainly absurd if you had even the slightest understanding of human nature. The next
time Veatriz looked him in the eyes, she’d see the man who’d risked his life and the lives of his entire people to save her;
if he hadn’t done this stupid, insane thing, she’d be dead; she’d see his love for her, and in it the ruin of his duchy and
the disastrous end of their friendship, which had been the best thing in her life.
I’ve spoiled everything,
Valens realized,
because I was too weak to bear the thought of losing her; and now, of course, I’ve done exactly that.
He smiled; ride out to confront your worst fear, as Orsea had done against the Mezentines, and you can be sure you’ll make
it come true.

So; he wouldn’t talk to her yet. Instead, he nudged his horse along and fell in beside the Mezentine, who was still clinging
desperately to his saddle and muttering. Valens took the leading-rein from the sergeant and nodded to him to rejoin his troop.

“You’re Vaatzes, right?” he said.

The Mezentine opened his eyes, saw the ground (too far away), let go, wobbled alarmingly, nearly fell off, grabbed the saddle
again and said, “Yes.”

Valens grinned. “The knack,” he said, “is to sit up straight and grip with your knees. All you’re doing at the moment is loosening
the saddle. Carry on like that, it’ll slip over one side and you’ll land on your head.”

The Mezentine whimpered, but he knew how to follow instructions. “Like this?” he said.

“Better,” Valens replied. “Try and keep the ball of your foot on the stirrup-iron, with your heels pointing down. And stop
jerking on the reins, they’re not handles for clinging on to.”

“Right,” the Mezentine said doubtfully. “Where I come from, we don’t go in for horses much. Sometimes we ride in carts, but
mostly we walk.”

Valens looked at him. “Maybe you should’ve stayed there,” he said.

“You know, I think you’re right. Still, too late now. I’m sorry,” he went on, “but I don’t know who you are.”

“I guessed that. My name’s Valens.”

“Ah.” The Mezentine nodded. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Ziani Vaatzes.”

“I know.” In spite of himself, Valens was grinning. “I get the impression you don’t go in much for formality in Mezentia either.”

Vaatzes shrugged. “Forgive me,” he said. “If you mean deferential language and conventional expressions of respect, no we
don’t. In theory, every Guildsman’s as good as every other; so we don’t learn all the right words, and foreigners think we’re
revoltingly arrogant. Which we are, but not the way you think. Maybe somebody could teach me the right things to say, and
then I won’t give offense.”

“The Eremians didn’t mind, then?”

“I expect they did, but nobody said anything, so I never got the opportunity to learn.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Valens said. “Stuff like that annoys me, actually, it tends to get in the way, and that wastes time and
effort and leads to confusion. By the sound of it, you plan on coming home with us.”

Vaatzes dipped his head. “I was hoping to talk to somebody about that. Simple fact is, I haven’t got anywhere else to go.”

“You’re straightforward, I’ll say that for you. But you’re bad luck, aren’t you? Look what happened to the last lot who took
you in.”

Again, Vaatzes shrugged. “If you care to look at it from my point of view, I nearly saved them from the consequences of their
own stupidity; I built war engines for them, and when I went to bed last night, we’d just won the war. Obviously something
happened that I don’t know about.”

“Don’t ask me,” Valens replied. “We set out as soon as we heard the city was being assaulted. If you won the war —”

“We beat them back,” Vaatzes said. “We killed thousands of them, mostly thanks to my engines, if the truth be known. How they
got in and unblocked the gate I have no idea. That doesn’t alter the fact that we beat the shit out of them.”

Valens smiled. “Thanks to you.”

“Thanks to me,” Vaatzes said. “And if the Duke had listened to me when I first met him, and we’d started building war engines
straight away instead of having to do it all in a desperate rush at the last minute, I’m prepared to bet we’d have seen them
off for good. Still, it’s too late now. You ask the Duchess, or Duke Orsea. They’ll tell you.”

“I will,” Valens said. “So, you’re a valuable asset. How much will you cost me?”

“That’s up to you,” Vaatzes said. “Assuming you can use me. But I believe you’ll decide you can, after what’s happened.”

“After what’s happened.” Valens yawned; it was all starting to catch up with him. “After what I’ve gone and done, you mean.”

“Yes. I won’t ask you what you did it for…”

“Very sensible.” Valens frowned. “Tell you what,” he said. “When we get home and I’ve had a chance to calm down and get a
grip on things, you come and tell me what you think you’ve got to offer, and I’ll hear you out. Reasonable?”

“Entirely,” Vaatzes said. “And I promise you, you won’t regret it.”

In due course, General Melancton presented himself before an extraordinary session of the Guilds council. In a prepared statement,
which he read out in a clear, steady voice, he officially notified the assembly of the capture and destruction of Civitas
Eremiae and the elimination of its inhabitants, pursuant to the requirements of council resolution composite 50773.

Before starting his account of the war, he drew the assembly’s attention to the fact that he was deliberately omitting a certain
amount of detail, since such matters would be heard separately in committee. He outlined the early stages of the campaign,
including the unfortunate ambush of the artillery column that resulted in a substantial number of scorpion-class mobile war
engines falling into the hands of the enemy. It was to these captured engines that he chiefly attributed the unexpectedly
successful resistance mounted by the Eremians; however, there were other factors, in particular his own failure to make proper
use of the long-range war engines with which he had been supplied, for which failure he was prepared to take full responsibility.

In the event, however, the setback had proved temporary. Factional strife inside the city had led one party to betray to him
a means of entering the city by stealth. This approach proved entirely successful; the infiltration party were able to unblock
the gateway and admit the bulk of the army, and the defenders were taken entirely by surprise and quickly suppressed. At the
last moment, the conclusion of the assault was hindered by an unexpected and unprovoked attack by cavalry forces identified
as belonging to Duke Valens of the Vadani. These aggressors were, however, quickly driven off and the final stage of the operation,
the securing and burning of the city and the execution of surviving enemy military and civilian personnel, was successfully
carried out without further hindrance.

Having thus achieved all the primary objectives set out in composite 50773, General Melancton had the honor to surrender his
commission and return command of the armed forces of the Republic to the council, pending demobilization and repatriation.

Later, in a closed session of the select committee on security and defense, the general put his overall losses at twenty-three
thousand killed, eleven thousand wounded to the point of permanent or temporary incapacitation. He had retrieved all the captured
scorpions, together with almost three hundred of the copies made by the Eremians; the former had been restored to the Guilds,
the latter destroyed.

With the city demolished and its people dead — questioned, he gave his opinion that the number of Eremians who were able to
escape from the city before its destruction did not, at the worst possible estimate, exceed one hundred — the central district
of Eremia was secure. In fact, it was deserted. The country people had left their homes before the city fell and had escaped
into the mountains. Some of them remained there, carrying out a vigorous campaign of guerrilla activity against the Republic’s
forces of occupation; the rest had crossed the border, mostly into Vadani territory. Strenuous efforts would be required to
dislodge them, and accordingly the general recommended that not only should the current army be retained, but substantial
reinforcements recruited to supplement them. As to the whereabouts of Duke Orsea and the abominator Vaatzes, the general had
no reliable information. Their bodies had not been recovered before the city was burned down; a search had been made, but
given the situation, it had necessarily been perfunctory. A number of eye-witnesses reported that the Vadani cavalry had taken
a number of Eremians with them, and it was entirely possible that Orsea and Vaatzes had been among them. Accordingly, Melancton
concluded, the main objectives of the exercise had not been met, and for this shortcoming he held himself entirely responsible.
Asked for his recommendations for further action, he advised that the first priority should be to secure the mountain regions
and the Vadani border, since unless this was done it would be impossible to control the country in any meaningful sense. However,
he noted, it was entirely possible that this would prove to be a lengthy and expensive process.