Sharps (36 page)

An awkward silence; then Iseutz said, “Splendid. So now all we’ve got to worry about are the people with sharp weapons who’re
allowed
to try and kill us. Thank you. You’ve really set my mind at rest.”

Cuniva looked faintly shocked, which made Suidas laugh. “Anyway,” Tzimisces said quickly, “the internal political situation is really none of our business. Thank you, Captain. How soon can we get under way?”

Cuniva frowned. “There’s a slight problem,” he said. “While we were waiting for the new horse, I had my men look over the carriage, just to make sure everything’s in order, and apparently a bolt’s sheared in the offside front spring bracket. Just as well we found out now,” he added, “it could have been messy if it had given way while we were travelling at any speed. I’d hoped we’d have got it fixed by now, but apparently not. It won’t be long, though.”

Iseutz sighed heavily. Even Tzimisces allowed himself the indulgence of a frown before saying, “Ah well, it can’t be helped, and I’m sure your people are doing their best. And, as you say, just as well …”

“I was wondering.” Cuniva turned his head through ten degrees, disengaging from Tzimisces and focusing on Addo. “I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to glance through my Belcors commentary.”

Addo gave him a sheepish look. “I was meaning to talk to you about that,” he said. “I really must apologise, I can’t think how I can have been so stupid, but I seem to have lost it. I’ve been through all my pockets, down the back of the seat, everywhere, and I simply can’t find it. I’m dreadfully sorry.”

“That’s perfectly all right,” Cuniva said, “I’ve got several other copies. But did you …?”

“I read it, yes. Perfectly splendid, and beautifully written. I almost felt like I was there.” He gave Cuniva a broad, open smile. “You know, I’d never really quite understood the dynamics of the campaign before – and that’s with my father explaining it to me. Now, though, I’ve got a much clearer picture in my mind of how it all worked out. Yes, thank you. I thoroughly enjoyed it.”

A fierce joy, inextricably mixed with apprehension, burnt in Cuniva’s eyes. “Would it be all right if I quoted you on that,” he asked, rather too quickly. “I mean, if you wouldn’t mind. I’ll quite understand if you don’t …”

“Oh, by all means,” Addo said. “You can say I’d recommend it to anyone who really wants to understand the Belcors campaign.”

Later, Tzimisces told him: “You know what you’ve done. You’ve just given him his ticket back to the Empire. An endorsement from the son of the Irrigator.”

“Yes,” Addo said pleasantly. “I thought it might be an idea to get him on our side, if we can.”

“You’ve done that all right. That man would lay down his life for you in an instant.”

“Really?” Addo frowned. “Then he’d never get home, so surely that’d be missing the point entirely. But I rather think it might give him an added incentive to keep us alive. And it never hurts to make friends with the enemy.”

Tzimisces grinned. “One of your father’s?”

“Mine, actually. But I think it’s still probably true.” He yawned, and covered his mouth with the back of his hand. “I remember my father once told me about how he came across a priceless archive of six-hundred-year-old pornographic books in a fire-altar library, I think it was during the Conort River campaign. He immediately sent them to the Imperial commanding the Permian heavy cavalry, who he knew collected that sort of thing; apparently it was the guiding passion of his life. Three months later he had the Permians bottled up in the Mesatges Valley and was trying really hard to negotiate a surrender so he wouldn’t have to go in there and flush them out. He got in touch secretly with the dirty-books man, and was able to work out a very advantageous deal using him as his inside contact.” Addo smiled. “I think he neglected to mention it in his official commentary on the campaign, but I dare say it’s true. He kept one of the books, you see, and I found it, when I was nine. He said: always remember the enemy is human too. It’s something you can almost invariably exploit to your advantage.”

Tzimisces looked straight at him. “I collect Cerian porcelain,” he said mildly. “Particularly the late Expressionist period.”

“I’ll remember that,” Addo said. “In case I come across any somewhere. I mean, you never know.”

Tzimisces turned to walk away, then paused and looked back. “Did you tell your mother?” he asked. “About the book?”

“Good heavens, no,” Addo replied. “My father, yes, but not my mother. I’m what passes in our family for a peacemaker. Is it expensive, by the way? Cerian pottery, I mean.”

“Porcelain,” Tzimisces said. “And yes, very.”

“That’s all right,” Addo said cheerfully. “Our family’s got plenty of money.”

Giraut, who’d fallen asleep in the coach, was woken by the sound of singing. At first he assumed it must be angels, but when he opened his eyes and looked out of the window, he realised it was a large body of Aram Chantat, riding in close formation around the coach, escorting it into Beaute. He’d never heard anything as beautiful in all his life.

They had to wait for the city gates to be opened. Then they rode through deserted streets, broad and lined with huge, tall buildings made from grey stone. On every intersection of major roads they saw soldiers: Imperials, mostly, but a few Aram Chantat – on foot, they looked like small groups of children playing at soldiers, smiling and laughing and jostling each other. Occasionally they saw bodies lying on the sidewalk, twos and threes, dragged there and laid neatly, face up, side by side. Mostly they were young men, but Giraut particularly noticed an old woman with thin grey hair and a hole in her throat he could’ve stuck his hand into. As they passed under some sort of triumphal arch (but so old and weathered that the bas-relief figures carved into it were just vague shapes with soft, round, featureless faces and no hands or feet), he saw a red banner stretched across it, on which were the words WELCOME SCHERIAN FENCING TEAM.

They climbed a hill and came into a square that was actually a rectangle. The far end was dominated by an enormous building like a castle, with a gate in the middle that was bigger than the city gate they’d just come in by. In through that gate they drove, and found themselves in a vast cobbled courtyard in the middle of the castle. A small group of old men in green velvet robes were waiting for them. There was a table, and a group of musicians in green livery, and some children holding garlands. The coach stopped. “Fencers’ Guild,” Tzimisces explained, as he reached across to open the door. “Best behaviour.”

They had to stand still while the old men made speeches. Giraut tried to listen, but the words were absurd in the context of what he’d just seen – peace and understanding between our two great nations, going forward together in a spirit of brotherhood and trust. Four of them said more or less the same thing. The fifth, gazing at a point in the air about eight inches over the top of Addo’s head, talked about the need for reconciliation and the moral beauty of forgiving our enemies, even though they’d done the most abominable things imaginable. The children then presented them with the garlands – the leaves prickled against Giraut’s neck and made him itch all over – and the musicians played something very long and slow, while the old men held perfectly still. Giraut never did find out what the table was for.

Predictably, Tzimisces somehow contrived to disappear at some point in the ceremony. Iseutz said later that she’d been watching him like a hawk all through the performance, but one moment he was there, the next he wasn’t, and how anybody could’ve got across that huge yard in a fraction of a second without using some form of magic she couldn’t begin to imagine. “And there’s strict laws against witchcraft in Permia,” she added, “I remember reading about them, and they’re still in force. Maybe we could get him arrested and burnt at the stake.”

A long, thin old man with a head like a skull showed them silently to their rooms, which were at the very top of one of the towers that flanked the gate. His room reminded Giraut of the cell he’d woken up in, after he’d killed the Senator, except that the window was smaller and higher up the wall, and the bed wasn’t quite as comfortable. Leaning up against the wall, he found a long, narrow rosewood box, with silver catch and hinges. Inside it was the most beautiful rapier he’d ever seen: cup rather than swept hilt, with a fluted ivory grip and a ball pommel the size of a crab apple. It seemed to float in his hand, barely making contact with his skin, and the point appeared to pull him, like an excited dog on a lead. He looked all over it for a maker’s mark but couldn’t find one. He put it back in its box and prayed to the Invincible Sun that his opponent wouldn’t have one like it.

That evening, there was a reception in one of the side rooms off the main hall. Iseutz, who’d never felt less like meeting new people in her life, set off in search of the food, which she eventually found, spread out on a table the size of a cornfield, in the corner furthest from the door. There she found Addo, looking sad and chewing his way through a mouthful of pickled cabbage.

“I can only conclude they like the stuff,” he said. “There’s no other possible explanation.”

There were seven –
seven
– different varieties of pickled cabbage, served in beautiful silver bowls engraved with the arms of past masters of the Guild. There was also a stack of brittle-looking bread rolls, and a yard-across wheel of cheese, armoured in snow-white plaster. “It’s all right,” Addo said quietly, as Iseutz stood wordlessly staring. “I had a word with Captain Cuniva, and he’s sending us up something from the guardhouse later. Apparently they’re having lamb in a sort of mustard and pepper sauce.”

Iseutz nodded gratefully. “Like the old fart said,” she muttered. “Reconciliation and the moral beauty of forgiving our enemies. I’d forgive a
lot
for a plate of roast lamb.”

“However,” Addo said, “it’d be indescribably rude if we didn’t eat something now.” He took a plate and dumped pickled cabbage on it out of a silver-gilt ladle in the shape of a preening swan. “Pretend to chew it, then swallow it whole. That way, you barely taste it.”

“What about the bread rolls?”

“I wouldn’t,” Addo said gravely. “I dropped one on the floor just now. It shattered. You could cut your tongue to ribbons on something like that.”

She gave him a mournful look, took the plate, separated two strands of sand-coloured cabbage from the general mass, and put them in her mouth. Addo nodded approvingly. “According to Phrantzes,” he said, “the fight’ll be in the main hall, tomorrow evening. Three thousand in the audience, and they’ll leave the big casement window open so someone can describe the action to the crowd in the courtyard. As far as I can gather, they’re expecting practically the whole city to show up.”

“Fine,” Iseutz said. “So far, I think I’ve seen about four people, apart from soldiers. Do you think anybody lives here?”

“Curfew.” Tzimisces had appeared out of nowhere, a few inches from Iseutz’s elbow. She jumped and nearly dropped her plate. “Nobody’s allowed on the streets before dawn or after noon. They’re lifting it tomorrow, so people can come and see the match. In the meantime, anybody caught out of doors faces having to explain themselves to the soldiers. It appears to be working,” he went on, “there’s been no trouble since they imposed it. They’re hoping the worst is over now.”

“So who are all these people?” Addo asked.

“Half of them are Fencers’ Guild, so they live here. The rest have got passes – local worthies, town councillors, nobody particularly special. The really important people, government ministers, mine owners, that sort of thing, won’t get here till tomorrow.” He took a plate and piled it with pickled cabbage. “Have either of you seen Suidas Deutzel since we got here?”

“Yes.” Iseutz frowned. “I think so. Actually, I’m not sure. I thought I saw him talking to some old man in a blue gown over by the door when I came in, but—”

“I haven’t seen him,” Addo interrupted. “Why, is there a problem?”

“With Deutzel? Yes, usually. Tell me,” he went on, lowering his voice, “have either of you seen him take a drink since we came on this jaunt? You know, wine, spirits, anything like that.”

Addo thought for a moment, then looked at Iseutz, who shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Nor me,” Tzimisces said. “That’s why I’m worried about him.”

“Because he’s
not
…?”

“Yes.” Tzimisces put down his plate. “We had a long talk with his girl, once we’d recruited him. Very interesting woman, quite intelligent. Anyhow, she said he did two kinds of drinking. One was basically just to take the edge off things, and she’d more or less cured him of it. The other was when something really got to him, or brought back a certain sort of memory. When that came on, she always made sure there was a bottle in the house. Lesser of two evils, you might say. Really, I can’t see how on earth she puts up with him.” He moved away; they could see him aiming himself at the door, like an arrow. Then he turned back and said, “If you do see him, you’ll let me know, won’t you?”

Subtle
had been Suidas’ reaction when they showed him to his room,
really subtle
. He had no doubt whatsoever that Tzimisces had seen to it that his accommodation was ninety feet up in the air, accessible only by way of a winding single-track staircase, easily guarded by one sentry. It was just as well, he decided, that he relished a challenge, and was fairly buzzing with energy that needed to be got rid of.

He’d lost weight since he’d been with the fencing team, and that was fortunate, too. Three weeks ago he wouldn’t have been able to squeeze through the narrow window without losing a significant amount of skin.

Once outside, hanging on to the slightest of crevices with his fingertips as he balanced on the knife-edge sill, he considered his options and decided to go up. If he remembered right, from the quick glance that had been all he’d had time for, there was a square turret at the top of the tower. It could quite easily be ornamental, with no way down except the way he’d just come, or it might be functional, with access to the battlement (which might or might not have a catwalk leading to the opposite tower). He’d just have to find out when he got there. To make things more interesting, it was raining.