The Folding Knife (52 page)

"I think it's a deliberate ploy to embarrass us," Cinio said. "They must know--"

"Oh, I doubt it," Basso said. "To impress us, maybe, but I don't suppose they're that well informed. Everything the Empire knows about us will be at least two hundred years out of date." He thought for a moment, then said, "Where are they now?"

Frontino, the cabinet secretary, said, "In a sort of tented city, out back of the Westgate."

Basso narrowed his eyes. "You mean they're camping out on the racetrack."

Frontino nodded. "It's the only open space big enough."

"Fine," Basso said. "They can stay there, and let's hope it doesn't rain. By the way," he added, "is there any particular reason why all this came as a sudden shock? We've known they were coming for a week."

"They didn't see fit to mention their accommodation requirements," Furio mumbled. "We assumed..."

"Yes," Basso said. "Anyway, that's what we'll do. Make up some story." He scowled at the desk, then said, "We consulted the auguries, and it would be inauspicious for them to enter the City at this time. They think we're barbarians, so they'll believe it if we imply we're hopelessly superstitious."

Furio nodded gratefully. Sentio said: "If they can't come inside the City..."

"Hire all the posh tents you can find," Basso said. "We'll have our own tented city right next to theirs. Call them pavilions, it sounds better. Suggest that it's a quaint throwback to our nomadic past."

"We haven't got a nomadic--"

"They won't know that. Right," Basso went on, "what else did you get out of their protocol officer?"

"Food," Furio said. "They're extremely fussy about what they eat."

"You amaze me. Go on."

"Basically," Furio said, "it's lightly steamed white fish, lentils, carrots, bread and green tea."

"And?"

"That's it." Furio shrugged. "Apparently, the higher up the social scale you go, the plainer and more miserable the food you eat. The Emperor lives on coarse wheat bread, unpeeled fruit and water."

"Water."

Furio nodded. "Water brought a thousand miles from one spring in the foothills of the Carausius Mountains, yes. Anything else you want to know, or is that it?"

There was a lot more. Later, when he repeated as much of it as he could remember to Melsuntha (in her official capacity as director of protocol)--

"What are they doing here?" she interrupted.

Basso grinned, and twitched the covers his way. "It's a threat," he said. "Which is very encouraging."

She snatched the sheet back before he could stop her. "Why?"

"It's because of Voroe," he said. "We stole their island. But, instead of sending an army, they've sent an ambassador, an elephant and a bunch of expensive toys. Diplomacy's always been the Empire's last resort. They'd far rather launch a massive pre-emptive attack, burn our fleet in the dock and burn down the City. If they haven't, it strongly suggests they can't. Not at the moment, anyway."

She nodded gravely. "You believe they intend to attack," she said.

"Goes without saying," Basso replied. "As far as they're concerned, we're rebels. Everything they've lost over the last three hundred years they fully intend to get back, just as soon as they've sorted out their internal problems. That's why..." He shrugged. "You've heard all that. The good thing about this performance is the scale of it. The full works, laying it on a foot thick. I've been reading ancient history. Full-scale Imperial embassies tended to get written up in detail, because they were so impressive and quaint, and the model hasn't changed much in five hundred years. This is practically the full presentation. And, judging by the precedents, it's what they do when they know they won't be in a position to make war for quite some time. In which case, overawe them, put them in their place, make them realise the Empire's infinitely bigger and stronger. Actually, it's the best vote of confidence we could possibly ask for."

"I understand," she said. "What do you intend to do?"

Basso smiled. "Show them what they expect to see," he replied. "As far as they're concerned, we're semi-barbarian upstarts with a thin wash of civilisation. We need to be gauche, nouveau and deeply impressed. They'll want evidence that we've seriously underestimated them and overestimated ourselves."

"Such as?"

Basso moulded the pillow with the back of his head. "I was thinking, a guided tour of the shipyards. Not the Severus yard, of course, the government yard. They'll already have counted the number of ships in the docks, so they'll know we're serious about sea power. Ah yes, they'll be able to say when they get home, they may have a lot of ships now, but their construction facilities are rubbish. Orthodox Imperial doctrine is that thirty per cent of naval shipping gets sunk or put out of action in the first six weeks of a war."

"That's not--"

"No," Basso said. "But presumably it was true five hundred years ago, and they haven't got around to updating the textbooks. While we're at it, we'll let them see some trials at the artillery ground. We'll dig out some old Type Nines and pretend they're the cutting edge."

She frowned. "If they think we're less powerful than we are, won't that make them more likely to attack?"

Basso lifted his head off the pillow and shook it. "The reason they're taking an interest in us now is because of the war," he said. "There's a lot of other ground they've got to take back before they get round to us; under normal circumstances, we'd just have to be patient and wait our turn. But they know about the war, they've seen that we're aggressive and full of ourselves, and they need to know if we're likely to grow into a serious threat before they get to us. If so, they'll reschedule and deal with us now. I need to reassure them that we're nothing to worry about."

"I see." She thought for a moment, then said, "Will they have observers watching the war?"

"Of course," Basso said. "I gave a passport to one of them just the other day. They'll be getting first-class intelligence, probably quicker than I am."

She looked startled. "Segimerus the philosopher? He's a..."

Basso grinned at her. "You hadn't figured that out for yourself?"

"Why do you think he's an Imperial agent?"

Basso pulled his share of sheet up under his chin. "He said he's a Blemmyan. He's not. Blemmya's a good place to say you came from if you don't want to be traced. But he was born in the Empire, and Segimerus isn't his real name. He did go to Gopessus. They have excellent records there, and I've got friends in the faculty, remember. While he was pretending to learn Mavortine--"

"He does know Mavortine. He's very fluent."

"Sure," Basso said. "I expect he learnt it before he came here. He certainly didn't learn it while he was here, because I had him watched, and he didn't go anywhere near a teacher or buy a Mavortine grammar."

"He could have brought a book with him."

"Could have," Basso said; "didn't. I had his luggage searched. So, if a man lies to you, what's his reason?"

"And you let him go."

"Of course," Basso replied. "First, he's a top-grade investigator, must be or the Empire wouldn't have assigned him. So he'll write really good, accurate, independent reports, which I shall no doubt find useful and informative. Second, he can be fed war news, and news from here, that may not be entirely true. Once you know a man's a spy, he's much more use to you than his employer."

"But he's a genius," Melsuntha said. "Bassano thinks so."

"Quite probably he is," Basso replied. "No reason he can't be a great philosopher and a spy at the same time. Oh, and he said he was in prison in Scleria."

"He wasn't, then."

"Oh, he was. But not for disseminating heresy. The Empire got him released in a prisoner exchange." He smiled. "One of
my
spies told me that. Of course, I employ professionals, not talented dilettantes."

The ambassador stayed for a week. On the last day of his visit, he summoned the world-famous philosopher Segimerus for an audience. He was disappointed--Segimerus was laid low by a particularly vicious bout of food poisoning, and had to decline. On the day that the ambassador set sail, a messenger arrived at the philosopher's lodgings bearing a token of Imperial esteem: a pair of jewelled slippers and a jar of cucumbers preserved in honey.

The letter was sewn into the slippers, between the sole and the upper. From his extensive knowledge of the Vesani, the ambassador asked, could Segimerus confirm or contradict the following assertions and implications, made by the Vesani during the ambassador's stay: that the Vesani were descended from a tribe of nomadic horsemen; that they were a superstitious people, much influenced by astrology, augury and similar practices; that they tolerated gross inefficiency in their state-run factories; that the state had a monopoly of the manufacture of weapons and military hardware, including warships; that the First Citizen was deaf in one ear; that the attack on Voroe was the result of the Vesani's inability to control their Hus allies?

Basso had the slippers carefully repaired, and delivered to Segimerus. Then he had the City's most celebrated forger paroled from jail, showed him examples of Segimerus' handwriting, and had him write "All perfectly true" on the flyleaf of a copy of
The Mist of Reason
, which he sent by commercial courier to await the ambassador's ship's arrival at Glycis, its next scheduled call.

From Bassano--

...
After the battle, when they promised me it was safe, I rode out to have a look. I have no idea why. Guess I felt I ought to, for some reason.

I'd never grasped before exactly how much there is to do after a battle. I guess I assumed that the victors retired wearily to their tents and drank, squabbled over the spoils or went to sleep. No chance. The battle's a piece of cake. Afterwards is when the hard physical slog begins.

First, you've got to find your wounded and get them to the surgeons, or stack them up out of the way to die; round up enemy wounded who'll survive without medical treatment, and kill the rest; identify your own dead, strip off their armour and salvageable kit, lug the bodies off for burial; if you've got carts it's not so bad, if not, it's back-breaking work, and you know you've only just started. Next, you've got to dig graves--great big pits, six or eight feet deep, so you're down through the topsoil into the clay, which means you've got to chip it out in small chunks with picks and crowbars. Then you put the bodies in. You're supposed to handle your dead comrades with reverence and respect, but by now you're worn out, it's getting late, maybe you're working by lantern-light, or it's raining, and the grave is filling up with water (or you've dug down into the water-table, so you're splashing about over your ankles in mud); so when nobody's looking you just pitch them in any old how, and you get a faceful of muddy splash each time one goes in; the whole bodies aren't so bad, but there's bound to be a load of bits you haven't been able or couldn't be bothered to match up, arms and legs, heads; you bung them in too, and then you've got all the spoil to shovel back into the hole. At least you don't have to strip the enemy dead; the battlefield plunder contractors do that for you, and part of the deal is they dispose of the bodies. But time is money, so they don't bother digging big holes, they heap them up, sluice them down with the cheapest possible grade of lamp oil, and set them on fire. So, while you're digging and lifting and shovelling, all the air around you is full of smoke and the stink of burning meat. People I've talked to say the roasting smell gives them a real appetite; well, chances are they haven't eaten for twenty-four hours, quite likely longer than that.

Job done? Not a bit of it. Quite possibly the general's in a hurry to move on, so as soon as you're done, it's get fell in and march off. If you're lucky and you're staying put for the night, and if there's no immediate risk of the enemy sneaking back to hit you when you're not expecting it, then it's back to camp, where you build a stockade for the prisoners (digging post-holes, ramming in posts, laying and stapling wire, lining up hinges); then two hours' getting your kit cleaned up, minor repairs to armour (big repairs mean you've got to stand in line at the armourers' tent all night), scrape the mud off your boots and polish them till they shine, or go and queue up at the quartermasters' for a replacement pair (assuming they've got any: big assumption); it's much less fuss just to drag a serviceable boot off the foot of some poor dead bastard, but if they catch you doing it, you're on a charge. Kit inspection, and God help you if you're not up to scratch. Then you've got the routine everyday chores--slopping out, KP, trudging half a mile to the nearest water, staggering back with a bucket in each hand (a full bucket of water weighs thirty-five pounds); sentry duty, building or repairing camp defences; if you're transport corps or cavalry, of course, you've got your horse to see to before you can even think about yourself. By now you're far too tired to eat, but you've got to, by order, to keep your strength up, so you queue for your bowl of slop and force it down, clean out your mess kit, clean out and pack up the cooking gear. After that, in theory, the rest of the night's your own. More likely, by now it's time for your sentry detail or your turn to guard the prisoners, fetch and carry their food and blankets, gather busted spear-shafts for their campfire; or some clown's thought up something else that needs doing and can't wait till morning. If you're really lucky, you get to your tent, and maybe you're not so tired you haven't got a hope of getting to sleep; in which case, you might get three hours before reveille, but don't bet the rent on that. Just your luck to get assigned to digging another bloody great hole, mounding up the earth and building a cairn of stones to mark the site of your famous victory.