The Folding Knife (55 page)

Anyway, these shields need collecting because we just fought a pitched battle, against the last major tribe this side of the Big Pointies. We demolished them, of course; same old drill. They broke and ran before we even reached them, and the rest was just butcher's work. God help me, I was deeply annoyed I wasn't allowed to join in. They're running away, I said, there's no danger, they aren't even trying to fight back; but no, not allowed. I was livid. I might not get another chance, I told them; all the hassle we've had drawing these people into a pitched battle, I don't want to go home and admit I'm the only soldier in the Vesani army who never got to kill even one Mavortine. But you're not a soldier, they pointed out.

There wasn't time to explain. So I sulked instead.

Statistics. By my estimate, there were about seven thousand of them, to start with. Five hundred or so pulled out before the lines were drawn up. They must've taken one look at us and refused to come out to play; just turned round and walked off the battlefield. Killed: two thousand, give or take. We tend to work on the number of shields we recover (another reason for gathering them); of course, more men drop shields than die, but at least a fifth of the poor bastards don't have shields to start with, so it sort of balances out. So, say two thousand dead. We caught and spared another seven hundred. That leaves three and a half thousand still at large. Mind, I'm not saying I'd have killed them all. Just some.

Those three and a half thousand will not, however, escape to the safety of the Big Pointies. We fought with the mountains at our backs. The ones that got away now have nowhere to go except back into territory we've already thoroughly subdued. No villages to feed and harbour them; they'll wander around till they're starving hungry, then they'll turn themselves in and take advantage of our justifiably celebrated clemency. A clean surrender buys a place in a work gang: food, shelter, new shoes, and so much work they're too tired to think about patriotism and the freedom of Mavortis. Six months on the gang and they earn their discharge; they can go home (if it's still standing) to their wives and their thin, cold children and the empty space where their herds and flocks used to be. Then they're back, begging for work so they can feed those hungry, whining mouths. Every chance the forts will be completed way ahead of schedule. We have eager, motivated men working on building them.

All through, Aelius' strategy has been to keep the hostiles from getting into the mountains and the forest. That's all he's been concerned about. So, we've blasted a way through, got here as quickly as we can, and sealed off the loathsome, inaccessible middle of the country. Job done. From now on, it's a matter of building forts. We've had the devil's own job provoking the hostiles into the field; for good reason, they always lose, we always slaughter them. The most we expect out of them from now on is feeble little attacks on the forts, which will fail. At this rate, won't be long before there's one fort for every twenty square miles. Basically, the forts are nails, to pin them to the ground so they can't move.

We're using the new recruits you sent us to garrison the forts. It means most of them haven't yet seen a Mavortine armed with anything more lethal than a shovel or a bucket. If all goes to plan, they never will.

Sure, some of them are going to slip through and make it into the forest. Fine. Let them stay there and eat squirrels. When they get sick of that, they can come out and get a job working for us, in the mines or on the new farms, just like everyone else. Pretty soon, the Mavortines will wonder how the hell they ever managed to survive by the old ways, before we came along to look after them. It'll be as though they'd come to the City and got rubbish-wage jobs on building sites or in sweatshops, which has been the dream of every Mavortine male for generations; only they won't have to leave their motherland or their families to do it. Perfect solution; everybody happy. So nice when things turn out that way.

I used to worry about what being here was doing to me. I don't worry any more. I guess that's what's worrying me. I guess, if the value you put on human beings sinks low enough, you stand a fair chance of establishing universal peace and prosperity. Bring those values down, and everybody can afford to be happy. It's only when you start packing out the shopping basket with luxury goods such as freedom and dignity and the right to self-determination that you price poor folks out of the market.

It makes sense, once you've seen it for yourself. If you've never seen it, of course, it must sound barbaric.

I had a chance to discuss this very issue with Segimerus; Aelius has finished with him, so he's back with us for a while. He agrees with me. He says our traditional views are parochial and limited, the result of cultural influences. But the time he spent in the Empire convinced him that truth depends on where you are. Truths universally acknowledged in the City are meaningless in a place like this, and vice versa. Truth is a product of geography and history; you have to reset your conscience, like resetting your watch when you get off the boat in a foreign port.

Question is: will Mavortine truths still be true once I get home? I'm worried about that.

Cordially,

Bassano

"I hope I'm wrong," Basso said, "but you look depressingly like a deputation. Come in, close the door and for crying out loud stop looking so damn solemn."

If they'd been the enemy, he could have handled them easily--blend good humour and sudden grim determination, informality, bluster, gentle threats and sweet reason; disconcert, worry, confuse. Few better at it in the history of the Republic. But they were supposed to be on his side.

"Let me get this straight," he said, when they'd made their nervous case. "You're proposing that we abandon a war in which we've yet to lose a single battle, in which we've pacified three-quarters of the country, in which we've done all the hard work and are poised to start mining operations that are guaranteed to pay back the large sum of money we've already spent, and which, if you have your way, we'll have to write off. Well?"

"It'll be six months at least before the first ore is ready to be shipped," Cinio said wretchedly. "At this rate, by then we'll have spent--"

"I know how much, thanks," Basso cut him off. "And I'd like to remind you that a not inconsiderable slice of that is my money, so you can believe me when I say I'm only too keenly aware of the costs incurred." He frowned. It would be so easy to turn this into a hostile debate, which he would of course win; but that would be missing the point. "In six months, we dig the first ore. In a year, we're in profit. Don't know if you've been following the markets, but the price of iron and copper is sky-high."

"We noticed," said the trade secretary. "They're high because we're buying it all, for the war."

"Exactly." Basso smiled. "And we can take advantage of that price by selling futures. Sell it now, dig it out later, and we're guaranteed to sell at the top of the market. Even if we don't do that," he went on, softening his voice, letting his face relax, "we're going to do very well out of Mavortis in the not-too-distant future. Labour costs practically nil; infrastructure for haulage and shipping already in place and paid for; we've done all the work and paid out all the money. Giving up now would be crazy."

Sentio, who'd been doing a very good job of hiding behind other people, sat up straight. "The project is thirty per cent over budget," he said. "All our middle- and long-range forecasts are just waste paper. We've got to draw a line somewhere, we can't just go on spending."

Basso grinned. "Why not?"

Awkward silence. "We haven't got the money."

"We've got paper," Basso said. "And ink, and wood to make woodblocks. What've we written so far, since we brought in the paper money? Nine million? On the book value of public assets, we could write ten times that."

"It's making people nervous," Furio said. "They can't see an end to it."

"I can't help it if people are stupid," Basso said. "What we're actually doing is really pretty amazing. We're creating a whole lot of pretend money, putting it into circulation, running a massive war economy on it; paying workers to make things to sell to the army, paying traders to procure food and materials. And you know what? At the end of the process, magically, a good slice of that pretend money's turned into real money, which we'd never have brought into being if we'd played safe and stuck to the rules." He leaned forward a little; Sentio tried to wriggle through the back of his chair. "When I revalued the nomisma you didn't complain, but that was basically the same thing--pretend money giving birth to real money, and a hell of a lot of it. You're just wetting yourself because paper money's still a strange new idea; you want something that chinks when you rattle it, or you get scared. Fine; that's like a small kid needing a night light in the dark. I suggest you pull yourself together and look at the figures. Look at the increase in tax revenues, thanks to the war boom. That's real money we're taking in. Even if there weren't any mines, even if we weren't six months away from the next-best thing to a world monopoly in metals, what we've done would still be all right--the pretend money would breed enough actual gold coins to manage the Treasury debt, and still leave more than enough over for running the country. But it's all right. We've got the mines. Honestly and truthfully, there's nothing at all to worry about. We can't fail, because we've already won."

From Aelius:

...
estimated at between sixteen and twenty thousand, have joined the forces already known to have taken refuge in the forest, bringing the total to something in the region of thirty thousand men.

I have to report that this development concerns me greatly. It is precisely what our strategy was designed to avoid. Unfortunately, we were entirely unaware of the existence of another pass through the mountains. It is not shown on the map, and our scouts happened not to go there. The southern army has now occupied the area and started constructing a fort, so no further leakage into the forest is anticipated. Nor has there been any insurgent activity. Nevertheless, this has upset all our plans, and I can no longer guarantee that the development phase will begin on time, or that it will proceed without interruption to a successful outcome.

Naturally, I take full responsibility.

On the positive side, it is highly doubtful that such a large force will be able to sustain itself in the forest for any length of time; apart from game, nuts and berries there are no food sources, and there are no indications that the tribesmen were able to take any substantial stock of provisions with them. They have, in effect, placed themselves under siege. The fort network was designed with this very situation in mind. Even if they do succeed in breaking through the fort line with a view to foraging for supplies, there are no supplies for them to find. We have impounded all food reserves and secured them inside the forts; this has had the effect of making the village populations entirely dependent on us, and it is therefore highly unlikely that they would jeopardise their access to food by giving the forces in the forest any aid or comfort. Internal clan and tribal feuds and animosities likewise militate against any cooperation between the men in the forest and their countrymen outside it. Consequently, they must either starve, surrender or come out and engage us in the field. The last of these three would be preferable, since we would almost certainly win an overwhelming victory, thereby bringing the problem to a quick and certain conclusion.

Nevertheless, in order to adapt our previous strategy to meet these new circumstances and to guarantee success (in so far as that is possible in war), I strongly recommend that we build additional forts, which will in turn require additional troops to garrison them. With the fort line as presently constituted, there is a remote but troublesome possibility that a highly mobile, motivated and numerous insurgent force might be able to attack and overwhelm one of our forts before assistance could arrive from neighbouring posts. Such a victory would have little tactical or strategic value, but might well have an unwelcome morale effect far in excess of its actual military significance. Thus far, we have shown ourselves to be invincible. One reverse, however trivial, might inspire the enemy to prolong resistance. As I see it, time is our greatest enemy. The longer it takes us to establish total security, the longer it will be before the development programme can begin; the longer the Vesani Treasury will have to continue paying out, without receiving any returns. It is conceivable that the enemy, although politically and economically unsophisticated, may be aware of this weakness, and may be planning to exploit it as best they can. Additional forts, and additional men, would enable me to take all possible measures to prevent a token enemy victory, and thereby ensure a quick and final resolution to the war.

The closest thing to a Cazar ambassador was the resident of the Salt Brotherhood. The Vesani had bought their salt from the Cazars since Imperial times, and the Brotherhood was one of the oldest trading companies in the City. By the terms of its ancient constitution, a third of its executive officers were Cazars, from one particular clan; the most senior Cazar director lived in the City, and spoke for his people on the very few occasions when this was considered necessary.

"Another six thousand," he said, stroking his moustache. "That may not be possible."

He spoke excellent Vesani; the Cazars learnt the language quickly and easily, and when they went home and spoke Cazar again, their neighbours had trouble understanding them. He was almost as tall as Aelius, a few years younger, bald (either naturally or because he shaved his head; you could never tell without looking so closely as to give offence) and several stone overweight. He had enormous hands, which he never seemed to know what to do with.