Sharps (11 page)

“It was a condition of the tour,” Phrantzes said, and everybody else turned and looked at him. “Any official delegation going into Permia has to be accompanied by a political officer. That’s what they told me,” he added defensively. “I wasn’t told anything about him, just that he’d be joining us.”

“He makes my skin crawl,” Iseutz said. “He just sits there reading his stupid book and smiling, and he doesn’t feel the cold. Can’t we leave him behind somewhere, or something?”

The light went out, and Giraut felt a surge of panic.
Why
had the light gone out? Its absence made the world a much darker place than it had been when they’d been moving. “Now where’s he got to?” Iseutz said. “I vote we put him on a lead, like a dog.”

There was a long silence. Giraut had to wipe rainwater out of his eyes so he could see, though it was too dark for him to make out anything except very subtle gradations of black and dark blue.

“If you’d all care to follow me.” It was the political officer’s voice, though Giraut couldn’t place where it was coming from. “This way.”

“Where are you?” Suidas said.

“Head directly away from the coach. That’s right, keep going. Follow that line, and you’ll come to a stone wall. I suggest we camp there for the rest of the night, it’ll provide a degree of shelter from the weather.”

“And he can see in the dark,” Iseutz said bitterly. “That’s not natural.”

They found the wall by bumping into it. The political officer was there before them. “I’d prefer not to light the lamp again,” he said. “I’d recommend keeping the noise down, if you wouldn’t mind. Nothing to worry about,” he added, cheerful and in no way convincing. “I think we might all try and get some sleep.”

“Look, what the
hell
—”

“Shh,” the political officer said gently; and it worked, because Iseutz didn’t speak again.

Giraut wedged his back against the wall, pulled his completely sodden lapels round his running-wet face, and sat staring into the impenetrable darkness. He didn’t know who was on either side of him. He’d have given two hundred nomismata for a weapon, if he’d had two hundred nomismata.

But, somehow or other, he must’ve fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing he did was open his eyes. He saw pale red light, the first stain of dawn. He could hear Iseutz talking.

“… complete bloody shambles, and we haven’t even reached the border yet. What’s going to happen when we’re in Permia, assuming we manage to get that far, I dread to think. That man Phrantzes is obviously completely useless, the political man is most definitely not on our side, Deutzel’s decided he’s in charge but he’s an idiot. I was under the impression this jaunt was supposed to be
important
, but …”

From context, therefore, she was talking to Addo, and the rest of them weren’t there. He looked round and saw the two of them, tucked under the wall like a handkerchief in a woman’s sleeve. He stood up, winced as the cramp announced itself, and looked round.

He could see the coach, about thirty yards away. Beyond it there was a large grey square building, which had to be C9. So that was all right; except, if that was the way station, why were Iseutz and Addo still out in the open, still in their wet clothes, sitting on the ground?

“Excuse me,” he said.

Iseutz broke off in mid sentence. “Oh look, he’s back from the dead. Sleep well?”

“What’s happened?”

“There’s nobody here,” Iseutz said crisply. “The place is deserted, doors locked, shutters down. Deutzel reckons the way-station people put the plank of wood there before they left, though why he thinks he’s such an expert I really couldn’t say. Phrantzes was absolutely useless. I said to him, perhaps you’d care to explain why a bunch of government servants suddenly take it into their heads to abandon their post, without a word to anybody, and take off into the night …”

Giraut could think of a reason. How stupid would it be, how grossly in keeping with his life so far, if between their departure from the City and their arrival here, war had been declared and the way stations closed, leaving them to wander cheerfully in their dainty little coach into the first tidal wave of Blueskins and Aram Chantat? Clearly the same thought had occurred to the political officer, which was why the lantern had gone out so abruptly, and why they’d spent the night hiding behind a wall. “Excuse me,” he said, “I think I’ll go over and see what’s happening.”

“Suit yourself,” Iseutz said angrily (he had no idea what he’d done). “Don’t expect to get any sense out of those morons, though.”

He passed the coach, and saw that the horses had been taken out of the shafts; he couldn’t see them, and wondered if anybody else had noticed they weren’t there. As he got closer to it, the building depressed him. It was grey stone, giving an impression of monstrously thick walls and tiny, grudging windows behind sheet-iron shutters. Iron? The door was sheet iron too, closed with two broad, flat bars secured by padlocks as big as his hand.

Phrantzes was sitting on an upturned box beside the door. He lifted his head as Giraut approached, and nodded politely.

“What’s going on?” Giraut asked.

“I’m sorry to say I have no idea,” Phrantzes replied. “According to what I was told, this station is open and functioning. Unless this isn’t C9, of course. But Suidas Deutzel says it is, and he was here in the War.”

“Where is Suidas?”

“Seeing to the horses,” Phrantzes replied. “There’s a stable out back. It was locked up, but he was able to break the lock off. Luckily there was some hay in the loft, because there’s no grazing around here to speak of.” Phrantzes smiled bleakly at him. “I’m afraid I’m not making a very good job of being your team manager,” he said. “It’s fortunate Suidas Deutzel seems to know what to do. I asked him if there was any way I could help, but he didn’t seem to think there was.”

Giraut looked away. He wasn’t really in the mood for granting absolutions. “So what do we do now?”

“I really don’t know,” Phrantzes said. “Suidas doesn’t think the improvised axle will get us back to the City, and we can’t stay here, we’ve got no food, we can’t get into the building. I suppose we could sleep in the stable, but what would that solve? We don’t even know if the authorities are aware this station’s been abandoned, so we can’t rely on them sending anybody to find us. The next station is thirty miles further down the road, on the border of the DMZ. But if this one’s been closed, we can’t rely on the next one being open. And it’s twenty-seven miles back to the City.”

None of which, Giraut reflected, answered the original question. “Where’s the political officer?”

Phrantzes frowned. “He went off with the coachman, didn’t say where they were going. I asked him if he knew any reason why the station would be closed, but …” He shrugged. “The thing is,” he said, “they’ve got my wife in a convent. I don’t suppose they’d actually do anything to her, but you really don’t know with these people, they’re capable of anything.”

Giraut pretended he hadn’t heard any of that. “So you think we should walk back to the City?”

“I don’t know,” Phrantzes snapped, as though the question was totally unreasonable. “I have no idea why we’re here or what we’re supposed to be doing, or why everything is suddenly my fault. I’m a wool merchant. What do they expect me to do, grow wings and fly them all to Permia?”

Giraut decided that none of this was helping. “I think I’ll go and look at the coach,” he said, and walked away.

The stable was just the main blockhouse in miniature, except with no windows and a wooden door. It was open, and Giraut saw a closed padlock dangling from the mangled wreck of a hasp still bolted to the frame. Suidas Deutzel, he guessed, had found something to take his feelings out on. He went inside, and found Suidas forking hay out of the loft.

“Which suggests they left in a hurry,” Suidas said. “Standard procedure on evacuating a military facility, you remove all materials likely to be of use to an enemy. Which specifically includes animal fodder. Also, there’s a tin plate with a chunk of bread and a bit of cheese on the ledge over there, by the door. Someone didn’t stop to finish his dinner.”

“Suidas,” Giraut said. “Do you think war has started?”

Suidas considered his reply. “The thought crossed my mind,” he said. “Especially when I saw the bar in the road. But no, I don’t think so. If they’d declared war, they’d reinforce a strong-point like this, not just abandon it. I mean, two padlocks aren’t going to keep out the Aram Chantat. On the other hand, why the hell lock up a way station and just leave? I’ve thought about it and I can’t imagine why they’d do that.”

“You don’t think so.”

That made Suidas angry, though he made an effort to keep his temper. “I’m guessing, I could be wrong. Maybe some lunatic’s started a new war, I don’t know. I’m this close to getting on one of these horses and riding like hell for the City.” That seemed to have exhausted his anger; now he just looked worn out. “What do you think? Do you reckon that’s what’s happened?”

Giraut shrugged. “I don’t know the first thing about it.” It occurred to him to confess, although he had no idea why. But it seemed important. “I should’ve been in the War,” he said. “I turned fifteen two months before the peace. But my dad knew someone who knew someone, and I got deferred. And then it was all over.”

Suidas grinned at him. “You weren’t the only one, believe me. You know what? Nobody wanted kids that age. I should know, I was drafted at fifteen. At that age, you’re far more trouble than you’re worth. It screws up the whole platoon. You can’t keep up, you haven’t got a clue, you get on the guys’ nerves. Then someone starts yelling at you, someone else sticks up for you, leave the kid alone, and next thing you’ve got bad feeling, fighting, everything goes to hell. Everyone’s scared stiff that if there’s a scrap you’ll get yourself in trouble and they’ll feel obligated to look out for you, which means someone’ll get killed on your account. It’s bad enough in a fight, God knows, without having to look after some useless kid. The sergeants and the officers knew it, so did the brass. The politicians hated it, because for some reason the voters objected to having their fifteen-year-old children sent to the front. But the nobility insisted, talked about manpower shortages and having to make up their quotas somehow. Then again, all conscripts are basically useless in a war. That was a great advantage the Permians had, using mercenaries. We only got peace because they ran out of money. So,” Suidas said, turning aside to stick his pitchfork into the hay, “don’t beat yourself up about it, all right? It’s no big deal, really. I just wish my dad had known somebody.”

Giraut nodded; he wished he hadn’t said anything. But he didn’t seem to be in control of what came out of his mouth. “But if there’s a war now, I’ll have to go.”

Suidas lifted a load of hay on the fork. “In my day, cutting off your little toe was the favourite,” he said. “Of course, they put you on a compulsory labour detail, and you spend the war in a supply depot hauling sacks around. Another good one was criminal blasphemy. You piss on the steps of the altar, that’s five years. They tell me you get a better class of person in prison during a war, because all the hard cases take enlistment parole, so it’s only draft-dodgers and a few old men. And for criminal blasphemy they won’t even consider you for enlistment, because it might bring down the wrath of the Invincible Sun on your unit. I knew a kid who chopped his balls off with a pair of shears. They wouldn’t even take him for compulsory labour, reckoned he was too weird. So no, you don’t have to go. It’s up to you what you think it’s worth. Me, I didn’t argue. Got me out of the house and away from my mother. We didn’t get on.” He leant the fork against the wall and sat down on the edge of the loft floor. “There’s worse things than war,” he said. “If you’re lucky, you’ll be all right.”

An hour or so after sunrise, the political officer reappeared, though without the coachman; he’d sent him back to the City, he explained, to get another coach. In the meantime, they’d have to stay where they were.

“But there’s no food,” Iseutz said slowly, as though to an imbecile. “We haven’t had anything to eat since we left home.”

The political officer pulled a sad face. “Rest assured,” he said, “there’ll be plenty of food when we reach C11.”

“We’re going on, then.” Addo had spoken. “I thought—”

“Of course,” the political officer said. “There’s absolutely no reason why we should alter our plans because of this. It’s unfortunate, of course, but I expect we can make up time once the new coach gets here.”

“Excuse me.” Iseutz took a step forward. She was a head taller than him. “I’d like to know precisely who you are and what you’re doing on this stupid trip. Well?”

“Certainly,” the political officer said. “My name is Yvo Tzimisces, I’m a facilitator working for the diplomatic service, and I’m here to smooth over any difficulties we may encounter once we get to Permia. That’s all,” he added, with a smile. “Really.”

“Excuse me.” Addo looked as if talking was hurting him worse than a broken arm. “Are you any relation of Mihel Tzimisces, the Bank director?”

“My second cousin,” the political officer said. “It’s a large family. Well, I think that’s more or less everything. I suggest we all make ourselves as comfortable as possible until the coach gets here.”

*

Giraut went back to the hay loft. It was dry there. He took off his coat – with difficulty; the sodden wool was starting to turn into felt, and it was as stiff as leather – and hung it over a rafter. There was no realistic possibility of it drying out, but he felt obliged to try. He buried himself in the hay, which was dusty and made his eyes itch. He was colder now than when he’d been sitting out in the rain, and he wondered if that was the first sign of a fever.

After a while, Iseutz came in and sat down on a feed bin. She hadn’t seen him and he didn’t announce his presence. She took a book from her pocket and opened it, found that the pages were soaked through and dropped it on the floor. A little later, Giraut heard a strange noise, which he couldn’t immediately identify. At first he thought it was mice, but realised it was Iseutz, crying.