K. Parker: The Proof House

Ah, well, he thought; it’ll probably be back to work again tomorrow, when the trebuchets start up again, but we might as well get some sleep tonight, we’ve earned it. It occurred to him that he was starving hungry – chances were he wasn’t the only one – but that was going to have to wait too. Had anybody thought to get Temrai something to eat?

The tent-flap was pulled back, and light was soaking out. He knocked against the post, but nobody answered. Asleep, maybe. He ducked and walked in.

Temrai was in his chair, or at least his body was. But his neck had been cut through square, and his head was missing.

‘Please try not to think of it as a retrograde step in your career,’ the Son of Heaven said, his eyes focused an inch or so above the top of Bardas’ head. ‘It’s nothing of the sort. As I said earlier, we’re quite satisfied with your performance. In the final analysis, the war has proved successful; you may have lost a battle, but you’ve negotiated peace on the same terms I’d have found acceptable if you’d won. After all,’ he went on, ‘nobody was expecting you to kill them all. ’

Bardas nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘My pleasure. We do recognise that you took over command under adverse circumstances, that you couldn’t be expected to handle troops to the same level of competency as an experienced general, and that these plainsmen proved to be an unexpectedly resourceful, tenacious and difficult enemy. You weren’t the only commander they beat. In fact, you did considerably better than we expected.’

‘It’s very kind of you to say so.’

‘Not at all. Which is why,’ he went on, ‘I had no hesitation whatsoever in recommending you for your new position. After all, men with your depth of experience in siege mining operations are few and far between. Not that we expect the situation at Hommyra to last anything like as long as the Ap’ Escatoy business,’ he added. ‘Once the main galleries are completed we anticipate a conclusion in a matter of months.’

Bardas nodded. ‘That’s good,’ he said.

‘And after that – well.’ The Son of Heaven actually smiled. ‘There will, I feel sure, always be a need in the service for a first-class sapper. I can see the possibility of great things in your future, provided you fulfil your side of the bargain.’

(It had been a strange meeting, almost comic; both men treating each other with exaggerated courtesy, as if the slightest false nuance would immediately result in a hail of arrows answered by a desperate cavalry charge. Captain Loredan had greeted King Sildocai with all due and proper respect, precisely quantified in provincial office protocols (an enemy general ranks above one’s own immediate subordinate, equal with oneself, but is deemed to be equal-and-below for diplomatic purposes with one’s immediate superior) and had offered formal condolences on the death of King Temrai. King Sildocai had thanked Captain Loredan for his most welcome sentiments, and expressed the wish that henceforth their two nations could work together in a spirit of co-operation towards finding a mutually acceptable settlement. The deal – that the clans would leave the plains, go north into officially designated wilderness and never come back – was concluded so quickly and easily that at times both of them suspected that they were reading from the same set of notes. When they parted, they were almost friends.)

‘Of course,’ continued the Son of Heaven, ‘we never had the slightest intention of sending you to the Island.’

‘Really?’ Bardas said. He sounded as if the subject was of academic interest only.

‘Absolutely. It would have represented a concession, almost an act of weakness. No, the Island needs – forgive me – strong, uncompromising leadership to see it through the difficult process of transition. The territory itself is, of course, hardly worth bothering with (in due course I expect we’ll amalgamate it with one of the other sub-prefectures, adjust the population balance, make it a viable proposition as a designated naval base); but at this particular juncture, the first priority must be to secure the fleet. If our various unfortunate experiences in this theatre of operations has taught us anything, it’s that we can no longer afford to neglect seapower.’

He’s talking to me, Bardas realised, entirely as one of us – a subordinate, naturally, but us includes us all, even me. ‘I can see that,’ he said. ‘As you say, it’s a matter of priorities.’

Magnanimously, the Son of Heaven offered to pour him some more wine. He’d noticed that they liked to do this, either because it made some point about their relationship as servants of the Empire, or because they couldn’t trust outlanders not to disturb the sediment. He nodded thank you politely.

‘As a matter of fact,’ the Son of Heaven went on, ‘during my discussions with him, I found the rebel leader rather more shrewd than I’d anticipated – a bad lapse of judgement on my part, I confess. Well,’ he added, pursing his thin lips, ‘not shrewd, exactly; it was more that curious blend of cunning and stupidity that characterises mercantile nations. In my experience they tend to have an uncanny knack of being able to understand motivations on the individual human level, whereas larger issues that would be perfectly obvious to you and me seem to pass them by entirely. Hence,’ he added, with a trace of a smile, ‘the aptness of the personal approach, the misguidance – is there such a word? I wonder – that we would be sending you, somebody they could both trust and manipulate. Of course he was a fool to base his entire strategy on a wholly unsupported assurance, a vague statement of probable future intent. The remarkable weakness I’ve found among traders is their apparent desire, in spite of their facade of cynicism, to trust someone. Making him trust me was easy; people like that can’t help trusting people they’re afraid of.’

Bardas smiled, as if sharing the joke. ‘What’s going to happen to him?’ he asked. ‘The rebel leader, I mean.’

The Son of Heaven was watching him out of the corner of his eye. ‘Oh, he’ll be extradited, tried and sentenced; we have to balance the books, after all. Fortunately, our system of audit allows one man to bear the blame for his country’s defaults; it’s efficient and humane, and it simplifies performance reviews. Thus King Temrai’s paid for his people, Master Auzeil and his cohorts will pay for theirs; we can draw a line under both columns and rule the page off. Similarly,’ he went on, his voice so gentle that it almost degenerated into a drawl (except that no Son of Heaven would ever sink so low), ‘we can conclude our rather pointless entanglement in the Mesoge with one simple act of accounting.’

Bardas kept perfectly still.

They had, of course, been reading his letters. It was standard operating procedure when an officer was under review following an unsatisfactory or questionable action.

The letter in question had reached him at a bad time, when he was in the middle of trying to sort out a mess he’d made with the duty rosters. ‘Not now,’ he’d said, and then seen the expression on the face of the man who’d brought it. He looked as if he wanted to be sick.

‘What’ve you got there?’ he asked.

‘Letter for you,’ the man replied. ‘And that.’ He pointed to a large earthenware jar, which was being held by another distressed-looking soldier. ‘We’ve got the man who brought them in the guardhouse.’

Bardas nodded. ‘Fair enough,’ he said, wondering what was going on. ‘Give me the letter and put the jar in my tent. I’ll be along in a minute’

In the event it took him nearly half an hour to straighten out the rosters, by which time he’d clean forgotten about the letter. It wasn’t until that evening, when he managed to scrape up an hour for a rest and a sit-down, that he saw the jar beside his chair and remembered.