K Parker: The Escapement

It wasn't a very good map, by Guild standards. The calligraphy was poor, and it wasn't even coloured in. But it did show Lopa, Boc Polizan and the Redwater, and if it was drawn to anything like scale…

"Nine days," Psellus said, after he'd put down his dividers. "In theory," he added. "But I don't suppose they'll actually be here in nine days, because of lines of supply and things like that. It'd help," he added mildly, "if we knew where they were getting their food and forage from." He bent his head and looked at the map. "Does anybody know anything about this countryside here? I mean, is it farmland or moor or heath or what?" He waited for a moment or so, then added, "Someone must know, surely."

Apparently, nobody did. Psellus straightened his back and looked round at the empty faces surrounding him. "Fine," he said. "Now, I've ordered a study of military logistics, which I hope will tell us what we need to know about how armies are fed and supplied. What I'd like you to do for me is find out everything you can about the country between there"-he prodded at the map-" and the City. I want to know whether they can feed themselves with what they can find and steal as they go along, or whether they need to carry their supplies in carts from somewhere else. Also, it'd be helpful to know something about the roads, that sort of thing. Also, it's really no good at all relying on little bits and pieces of news we get from carters and carriers. We need proper scouts to observe their movements and report back. Can someone see to that, please?" No volunteers; he looked round and chose someone at random. "Feria, that can be your job. Now then, what else?"

Slowly and painfully, like a snail climbing a wall, he led and dragged them through food reserves, materiel procurement, finance, the condition of the City walls, recruitment and basic training; things he'd heard about, mostly, without really knowing what they meant, so that he had to reconstruct them from first principles as he went along. It was like trying to read and understand a book whose pages had all been lost, so that all he had to go on was the list of contents.

"Arms and munitions production," he said at last, and he could sense the relief, since finally they'd reached a subject they all understood. "I'd like one of you to be my permanent liaison with the ordnance factory; Galeazo, you know the setup there as well as anybody. Do you think you could get me copies of the production schedules, so we can be sure they're making the right quantities of the right things. Wall-mounted artillery's an obvious priority, but we're also going to have to kit out a large number of infantry in a hurry, as soon as Lanuo here has recruited them for us. You'll need to talk to the Tailors and Clothiers as well, boots and helmet linings and padded jackets-what's the word, gambesons; those things you wear under your armour to cushion the blows. I know we used to make them for export, it's just a matter of getting everything up together so every helmet we issue's got a lining to go with it. Just common sense, really."

As he spoke, he thought: this is hopeless. We don't know what we're doing, and they're all desperate to leave it up to me; only because they're afraid, but that doesn't really make it any better. The fact is, we can't, I can't fight a war against eight hundred thousand men, any more than I can build a Fifty-Seven clock or a water-mill. We don't have a specification for a war, and there isn't enough time to write one.

The meeting ended and they left, as quickly as possible without being ostentatiously anxious to escape. When they'd gone, Psellus sat for a long time, staring out of the window. He had the best view in the Guildhall: the grounds, with the formal gardens in the middle, surrounded by the cloister gardens, each with its own fountain and arbor. It wasn't beautiful, in any meaningful sense, but there again, it wasn't supposed to be.

Very well, then, he decided. I don't know about war and I can't fight eight hundred thousand men. But I know Ziani Vaatzes and I can fight one man, and maybe that's all I need to do. Simuo Catorzes handed in his summary on time. It covered both sides of twelve sheets of charter paper, was copiously annotated with references to the source material, and would probably have been exactly what Psellus wanted if the handwriting had been legible..

"Excellent," he said. "Now, could you please take it away and get someone else to copy it out again?"

Psellus spent an hour reading a report he didn't understand about proposed reforms of fiscal policy, then left his office, walked down three flights of stairs and several hundred yards of corridor, and eventually found the library.

He'd never been in there before, of course. No need. Ever since he'd passed the professional examinations and qualified for the clerical grade, he'd spent his life reading, but could still count on his fingers the number of actual books he'd had occasion to open in the course of his work. He stood in the doorway for a moment and stared, like a man on a cloudless night looking up at the stars.

He'd checked the regulations. Every book acquired by the Copyists for the purposes of publication reverted to the Guildhall library after they'd finished with it. The room-if it was laid down to grass, it would easily graze two milking cows and their calves for a week-was lined with shelves that reached up from floor to ceiling, and every shelf was full. In accordance with Guild policy, every book was the same height, and identically bound, with the title written in tiny lettering at the base of the spine. The only thing like it that Psellus had ever seen was the review of troops, just before the army left for Eremia.

At the far end, under a long, thin window, was a desk, behind which a small man sat on a tall backless stool. The sunlight glowed on his bald head.

"Excuse me," Psellus asked him. "Are you the librarian?"

The bald man looked at him. "Have you got an appointment?"

"My name is Lucao Psellus."

The librarian's eyes widened a little. "How can I help you?"

"I'm looking for…" A book, he nearly said. "I need to see everything you've got on the fortification of cities against artillery."

The librarian breathed out slowly through his nose. "I'll have to look in the general catalogue," he said. "If you'll bear with me for a moment."

He hopped down off his stool like a sparrow and walked quickly to a table on which rested a single enormous book; each page as wide as an arm, as tall as a leg. "There was a clerk in here a day or so ago," the librarian said. "He was looking for military books." Something in his tone of voice suggested that military books ranked about equal in his estimation with pornography. "With any luck-ah yes. Case 104, shelf twelve. If you'd care to follow me."

Psellus found the click his heels made on the wooden floor embarrassing, and he tried walking on the sides of his feet. It helped, a little. "Case 104," the librarian announced proudly, like an explorer on a mountaintop. "Shelf twelve." He looked up, counting under his breath, then put his foot on the bottom shelf, reached up and started to climb, each shelf a rung. The bookcase trembled under his weight.

"Fortification," he said, and hung for a moment by his left hand as he picked a book off a shelf, clamped it between his teeth and clam-bered down backwards. He wiped a drop of spittle off the cover with his sleeve before handing it over.

"Thank you," Psellus said. "Is that all?"

The librarian looked at him as though he didn't understand the question. "Was there something else you wanted?" he asked.

Psellus shook his head. "Is it all right if I take this with me?" he said. "I may need to hold on to it for quite some time."

The librarian took a moment or so to reply. "Of course," he said, in a rather tight voice. "I'll make a note."