K Parker: The Escapement

"That's good, then."

He shrugged. "Can't see there's enough of them to make any difference," he said. "All I know is, we're sending them eighteen thousand suits of three-quarter-length mail and sixteen thousand helmets, which is rather more than we've got in stock. Which is why I'm having to sit up doing these bloody costings instead of getting some sleep." He sighed. "It seems to me that any soldiers who haven't got their own equipment already can't be much good. I mean, you can't just turn a man into a soldier by sticking an iron hat on his head, or else we wouldn't need the Cure Doce. But if they want to go out and get killed on our behalf, let them. I suppose it'll keep the savages off our backs for a little while longer."

She waited for a moment or so, then said: "Is that all we're doing, then? Hiring these…"

"Cure Doce. No." He wrote something down. "I get the impression they're planning something a bit more positive than that."

"Go on, then."

He sat back in his chair. He had his back to her, but she could see the weariness. "They've told me I've got to find seventy thousand twelve-inch billets of hardening steel, out of what we've got in stock," he said. "And when I asked what for, they told me spades and shovels, pickaxes, sledgehammers, that sort of thing. Sounds like they're getting ready to start building up the fortifications. And they must have something pretty big in mind, because I know for a fact we've got close on a million shovels sat in the warehouse; I was after some of them myself, for the steel, to make into arrowheads. So, if they've already got a million shovels and they want seventy thousand more, they must be planning on moving a lot of dirt, though who they're going to get to use all these tools I have no idea. Still, at least it looks like someone's trying to do something."

He paused, then frowned. "Of course, you know who we've got to thank for that," he added. "Your old friend Lucao Psellus."

The name hurt her. "Him," she said.

"I know. But you can't deny it, he's doing a good job, in the circumstances."

"He's horrible. I should know. And think of all the difficulties he made for us over our wedding."

"Yes, sure. All I'm saying is, he's doing something about the war. God only knows what sort of a state we'd be in if we still had that arsehole Boioannes running things."

In that moment, she realised, she'd never hated him so much in all the time they'd been together. "Like your opinion matters," she said. "You don't know anything about it."

He turned and looked at her, and she thought: one of these days, I'll go just a little bit too far, and then I'll lose him. But not today. "Fine," he said, "let's not talk about it. I'll just get on and finish these figures."

She turned her back on him, picked up the coat and sewed for a while, although there wasn't really enough light; he'd taken the good lamp to read his papers by, and the other lamp needed a new wick. She didn't want to do sloppy work on a coat she was going to give to him; not that he'd notice, but she'd know, and feel ashamed. She'd have to get up early and take it over to the window, to catch the first light. "I'm going to bed now," she announced. "You'll have to get your own lunch tomorrow, I haven't had time to make anything."

"Mphm." He didn't look at her. "I can get something from a market stall on my way in."

For some reason, she was offended by that; he'd made it sound as if she was so unimportant that even a gross dereliction of duty on her part couldn't possibly matter. But of course, that wasn't what he'd meant, he was just trying to be considerate. On balance, though, she preferred to take offence. "Fine," she snapped, as she crossed the room to the bed and dragged the curtain across so savagely she nearly pulled it off the wall.

Falier waited until he heard her snore, then put down his pen and carefully swept the counters off the board into his cupped hand, making sure they didn't clink together. It had been a dreadful, hateful evening. He had no idea why, but it seemed like there didn't have to be a reason any more. Ever since… He stopped what he was doing and concentrated, trying to pin down the moment with all due precision. Ever since the Vadani duke had evacuated his capital city, not long before the savages got involved. He thought about it some more, trying to correlate the vast events of the war with the most significant turning-points in their marriage. The correlation gave him a coherent chronology and verified his conclusion, but offered no explanation. Perhaps, he thought, it's like astrology; the movements of stars and planets bearing on the tiny lives of men and women. Perhaps the war's got so huge and heavy now that it's pulling our lives along with it, the same way the moon draws the tides. There were other explanations, of course. Since the war got so busy-ever since Vaatzes betrayed the Eremians; he'd been directly involved in that-he'd had so much work on, been so wrapped up in production targets and productivity ratings, felt so tired in the evenings when he finally got home… Obviously he'd been neglecting her, and wouldn't any woman resent that? He felt properly guilty about it, of course, but unfortunately there was nothing he could do to set it right. He couldn't even resign, they wouldn't let him, and as for delegating, that'd only make things worse; they'd make a mess of everything, and he'd have to work even longer and harder trying to get it all straight again. To begin with he'd hoped she'd understand, because of the national emergency and the threat to the City, but apparently not. He couldn't blame her for that. Just because the savages are coming, why should that mean you don't love me any more? She didn't need to say it out loud, and he could tell her it wasn't true until they were both sick of the sound of his voice. She'd never believe him.

And for this, he thought, I betrayed my friend. It really shouldn't have turned out this way. If you're going to do some unspeakably evil thing to gain your heart's desire, you should at least have the basic good manners to take proper care of your heart's desire once you've got it, instead of leaving it lying around neglected, like a spoilt child's toys.

But that was far too easy to rationalise. The crime contains its own punishment; wasn't that a quotation, or a proverb or something? His betrayal had led directly to Ziani escaping and defecting to the Eremians; that in turn led to the war, which was ruining their marriage. In other words, he could never have won her without making losing her inevitable; not to mention bringing destruction down on the entire Republic, like someone carrying home the plague in a shipment of tainted grain. To bring the world to ruin, for love; put like that it sounded wonderfully romantic-be mine, and let the whole world burn; another quotation, most likely. But he couldn't twist his mind far enough round to see it in that light, somehow. Rather, he'd done it because he really had no choice in the matter. He had to have her, and it had been the only way to make it happen; the consequences were irrelevant, regardless of how many strangers died because of it. It wasn't his fault; love was nobody's fault, just like nobody was to blame for hurricanes, or lightning setting fire to the thatch. It's not the apple's fault that it falls from the tree, because it has no choice, if the branch can't hold it any longer. He'd had no choice, because there had been no other way.

Even so… He looked at the calculations he'd just finished making, so much hardening steel, apportioned between shovel blades and arrowheads. Arrows to kill men with, shovels to bury them with; add together the inventory of arrowheads already in stock and the requisition for arrowheads ordered to be made, and then imagine them, ten million arrows, each one cutting through flesh, into bone. A mercenary captain he'd talked to in Eremia had told him that in an average battle, one arrow in twenty hits something. He didn't need his counters to do the calculation. Half a million hits; say a fifth of those manage to pierce armour and reach the flesh inside. Fifty thousand wounds (think of how much a splinter in your finger can hurt; think of an arrow as a huge barbed splinter). He shook his head, remembering the stacks of dead men he'd seen at Civitas Eremiae; stared at them in blank horror, and never even realised that what he was looking at was the true meaning of love.