K Parker: The Escapement

A million savages under arms; well, that was what everybody was saying. The intelligence reports put the figure at a mere eight hundred thousand, including the Vadani cavalry and the Eremians. Psellus closed his eyes and tried to imagine eight hundred thousand of anything, but he couldn't. How many bees were there in a hive, or leaves in a forest? He believed in big numbers, that there could exist a million silver thalers, in the context of a budget deficit, or eight hundred thousand rivets, packed in barrels COD at Lonazep. But men, human beings, with weapons, on their way here to burn down the City… What strategic advantage did eight hundred thousand have to offer over, say, six hundred thousand? Or were numbers of that order of magnitude as much a liability as an asset? He didn't know, of course, but he knew that there were answers to that kind of question, and without that knowledge he'd soon be presiding over the fall of the Republic and the annihilation of its people.

He opened the door and said, "Hello?"

Immediately (he couldn't get used to it; like an echo, only faster) a clerk materialised, like a genie out of a bottle. Psellus took a moment to look at him, because it was like looking in a mirror. The clerk was in his fifties, bald, with wispy grey clouds over his ears, soft-chinned and stout, like a pig being fattened for bacon. It was always my ambition, Psellus reflected, to be a senior clerk in the administration office. Instead…

"Go to the library," he said, "and get out all the books you can find about military logistics."

Silent pause, long enough to count up to two. "Military…"

"Logistics." Psellus scrambled for words, gave up. "Anything called The Art of War or The Soldier's Mirror or anything with war or soldiers in the title."

The clerk looked at him as though he was mad. But Psellus was getting used to that. "And then," he went on, "I want you to read them."

The clerk said nothing. It was the sort of silence you could have built houses on.

"You may want to get someone to help you with that," Psellus continued. "Anyway, read them, and I want you to make an epitome with references, anything to do with supplying an army-food and hay and boots and so on-how much of everything you need per day, and how much it costs, and how you get it to the soldiers in the field; carts and roads and changes of draught horses-I'm sure you've got the idea. On my desk by tomorrow evening, please."

The clerk gave him a horrified stare, as though he'd just been ordered to eat his grandfather. Psellus knew that look, too. He'd worn it often enough himself. "Get as many people on it as you need," he added, because he knew the clerk would like that. Being allowed to order his fellow clerks around would go some way towards making up for the bizarre and unnatural nature of the assignment. Which reminded him. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't think I know your name."

The clerk hesitated, then said, "Catorzes. Simuo Catorzes."

Psellus nodded, as if to signify that that was indeed the answer he'd been looking for. "I'm appointing you as my research assistant. My chief research assistant. Do you think you'll be up to the job?"

Catorzes hesitated again, then nodded grimly. "Of course," he said; then, almost reluctantly, "Thank you. I'll, um, do my best."

"I'm sure you will."

There, he thought, as he sat down again at his desk, I've done something. Quite possibly something useful, although that remains to be seen. Have we actually got any books about fighting wars? Yes, we must have, because the Copyists' Guild copies and binds all the books in the known world for export, though we never actually read them ourselves, and I'm sure we must keep copies, if only out of habit. Of course, there's no guarantee that any of the books is any good; probably they're just collections of bits copied out of other books copied out of other books by men who've never been in a battle in their lives. But real princes buy them from us, so they must have something in them, if only…

He looked down at his hands; ten soft brown worms attached to two flat cakes of putty. I must cope, he told himself. I must find a way of coping, because there's nobody else but me. I know I'm not fit to be in charge of a war, I know I'm hopelessly ignorant and not particularly clever. But unless I find a way of coping, a million savages will come and break open the city like a crabshell and pick us all out like shreds of meat; and war can't be all that difficult if a lot of bone-headed princes can do it, surely.

He glanced up at the opposite wall, where the clock stood. It was a Pattern Fifty-Seven, the best specification of all, guaranteed accurate to within an hour a year if properly sited and maintained. If the City fell, of course, there would be no more clocks, because nobody else in the whole wide world knew how to make them. How long, he wondered, would it take for the clock to be reinvented, and how long after that before anybody was skilled enough to build a clock up to the standards of a Pattern Fifty-Seven? A thousand years, possibly; or never. If we die, everything dies with us…

No, he reflected, not quite. If Valens and the savages come and the walls are breached and we're slaughtered like ants in a crack between flagstones, there'll still be one of us left. Ziani Vaatzes could build a clock, if he wanted to and he set his mind to it. Ziani Vaatzes, the abominator, our greatest enemy and civilisation's only hope.

He thought about Vaatzes; studying him so intensely for so long, finally meeting him in the empty streets of Civitas Vadanis. To the best of his knowledge, Psellus had never been in love; but if he had to imagine what love must be like, his nearest reference would be how he felt about Ziani Vaatzes, the supreme enemy. Which was strange, and more than a little disturbing, since Vaatzes was to blame for everything. He'd brought the war here, like a man carrying the plague-infected, a victim and also a predator, a weapon, an enemy. Under other circumstances, Psellus liked to believe, they'd have been friends, good friends (which was, of course, absurd, since a ranking Guild official would never condescend to mix with manual workers, outside of circumstances that in themselves precluded any possibility of friendship). Perhaps it's because I'm so isolated from ordinary people that the only one I ever bothered to try and understand fascinates me so. In which case, I'm even more pathetic than I ever imagined.

Be that as it may; the clock told him it was a few minutes to noon, at which time he was due to meet with the Strategy and Tactics Committee to discuss the progress of the war…

"I can't help thinking," he told them, and they just looked at him, as they always did, "that we might as well be logs meeting in the grate to discuss the fire." He paused. They were waiting for him to say something-anything-they could possibly construe as coherent. "Siano, you're in charge of intelligence. Where are they now?"

Siano Bossas, Drapers' Guild; a closed box of a man, with the biggest feet Psellus had ever seen in his life. "According to our contacts in Jasca, they crossed the Redwater two days ago, which puts them somewhere between Lopa and Boc Polizan." He paused, well aware that Psellus didn't have a clue where the Redwater, Lopa or Boc Polizan were. Neither, Psellus suspected, did Siano Bossas.

Psellus nodded gravely. "Gould somebody please go out to the front office and fetch in the map? I had one drawn," he explained. "There didn't seem to be one that showed all the places you've been telling me about, I suppose they hadn't been built yet when the specifications for the maps were drawn up, so they couldn't officially exist. Strictly speaking, I suppose that means I've committed an abomination, but never mind. We really ought to know where all these places are, don't you think?"