K Parker - Devices and Desires

She looked at him.' Yes?'

'I want some.' He frowned. 'First-quality parchment; sheepskin, not goat. Say twenty sheets, about so big.' He indicated with his hands. 'Can you get some for me?'

'Of course.' Behind her smile he could see a web of future transactions being frantically woven; a maze, with a ream of writing paper at the centre. 'When would you be-?'

'Straight away,' Valens said. 'To go with the letter.'

'Ah.' The web dissolved and a new one formed in its place. 'That oughtn't to be a problem. Yes, I think we can-'

'How much?'

'Let me see.' She could do long multiplication in her head without moving her lips. In spite of himself, Valens was impressed. 'Of course, if it's for immediate delivery…'

'That's right. How much?'

She quoted a figure which would have outfitted a squadron of cavalry, including horses and harness. She was good at her job and put it over well; unfortunately for her, Valens could do mental long multiplication too. They agreed on a third of the original quote-still way over the odds, but he wasn't just buying parchment. 'Would you like to see a sample first?' she asked.

'Yes.'

'I'll have it sent over in an hour.'

'Bring it yourself,' Valens replied. He noticed she was wearing a new diamond on the third finger of her right hand; I paid for that, he thought resentfully. Of course it should have been a ruby, to match her dress, but diamonds were worth twice as much, scruple for scruple, and she had appearances to think of. Thank God for the silver mines, he thought.

'Certainly,' she said. 'Now, while I'm here, there was just one other tiny thing.'

They were a force of nature, these traders. Even his father had had to give them best, more than once. This time he put up a bit more of a fight (the hunter likes quarry with a bit of devil in it) and she met him halfway; most likely she was only trying it on for wickedness' sake, and never expected to get anything. Of course, he told himself, it's good business all round for them to have a way of manipulating me; otherwise they'd push me too far and I'd have to slap them down, and that'd be bad for the economy. He was delighted to see the blood-red back of her.

Once she'd gone, however, the world changed. The brief flurry of activity, the tremendous draining effort of concentration, the feeling of being alive, all faded away so quickly that he wondered if it had been a dream. But he knew the feeling too well for that. It was the same at bow-and-stable, or the lowly off-season hunts, where you sit and wait, and nothing happens; where you perch in your high-seat or cower in your hide, waiting for the wild and elusive quarry that is under no obligation to come to you, until it's too dark or too wet, and you go home. While you wait there, impatient and resigned as a lover waiting for a letter, your mind detaches, you can for a little while be someone completely different, and believe that the stranger is really you. It's only when you see the flicker of movement or hear the muffled, inhuman cough that the real you comes skittering back, panicked and eager and suddenly wide awake, and at once the bow is back in your hands, the arrow is notched, cockfeather out, and the world is small and sharp once again.

(Hunters will tell you that patience is their greatest virtue, but it's the other way about. If they were capable of true patience, they could never be hunters, because the desire for the capture wouldn't be enough to motivate them through the boredom, the suffering and the cramp. They would be content without the capture, and so would stay at home. The hunter's virtue lies in being able to endure the desperate, agonising impatience for the sake of the moment when it comes, if it comes, like an unreliable letter smuggled by a greedy trader in a crate of nectarines.)

One of the doctors, his tour of duty completed, reported in on his return. The Eremians, he said, were a mess. It was a miracle they'd lost as few people as they had, what with exhaustion and exposure and neglect of the wounded, and starvation. For a while the second-in-command, Miel Ducas, had managed to hold things together by sheer tenacity, but he was shattered, on his knees with fatigue and worry, and with him out of action there wasn't anybody else fit to be trusted with a pony-chaise, let alone an army. Duke Orsea? The doctor smiled grimly. It had been a real stroke of luck for the Eremians, he said, Orsea getting carved up in the battle and put out of action during the crisis that followed. If he'd been in command on the way up the Butter Pass… The doctor remembered who he was talking to and apologised. No disrespect intended; but since Ducas' collapse, Duke Orsea had taken back command; one had to make allowances for a sick man, but even so.

Now, though; now, the doctor was pleased to report, things were practically under control. The Eremians had been fed, they had tents and blankets and firewood. As for the wounded, they were safe in an improvised mobile hospital (twenty huge tents requisitioned from markets, the military, and travelling actors) and nine-tenths of them would probably make some sort of recovery. It was all, of course, thanks to Valens; if he hadn't intervened, if he'd been content to let the Eremians stumble by on their side of the border, it was more than likely that they'd all be dead by now. It had been, the doctor said in bewildered admiration, a magnificent humanitarian act.

'Is that right?' Valens interrupted. 'They'd really have died? All of them?'

The doctor shrugged. 'Maybe a few dozen might've made it home, no more than that,' he said. 'Duke Orsea would've been dead for sure. One of my colleagues got to him just in time, before blood-poisoning set in.' The doctor frowned. 'Excuse me for asking,' he went on, 'but they're saying that they didn't even ask us for help. You authorised the relief entirely off your own bat. Is that really true?'

Valens nodded.

'I see,' the doctor said. 'Because there's terms in the treaty that mean we've got to go to each other's assistance if formally asked to do so; I'd sort of assumed they'd sent an official request, and so we had no choice. I didn't realise…'

Valens shrugged. 'To start with, all I was concerned about was the frontier. I thought that if they were in a bad way for food, they might start raiding our territory, which, would've meant war whether we wanted it or not. I didn't want to risk that, obviously'

'Ah,' the doctor said. 'Because I was wondering. After all, it's not so long ago we were fighting them, and if they hadn't made a request and we'd just let well alone…' He sighed. 'My son fought in the war, you know. He was killed. But if it was to safeguard our border, of course, that's a different matter entirely.'

Valens shook his head. 'Just, what's the phrase, enlightened self-interest. I haven't gone soft in my old age, or anything like that.'

The doctor smiled weakly. 'That's all right, then,' he said.

Other reports came in. The Eremians were on the move again; Valens' scouts had put them back on the right road, and they were well clear of the border. The mobile hospital had been disbanded, the serious cases taken down the mountain to a good Vadani hospital, the rest judged fit to rejoin the column and go home. Miel Ducas was back in charge; the Vadani doctors had warned Duke Orsea in the strongest possible terms of the ghastly consequences that would follow if he stirred from his litter at all before they reached the capital-not strictly true, but essential to keep him out of mischief. Details of what had actually happened in the battle were proving hard to come by. Some of the Eremians were tight-lipped in the company of their old enemy; the vast majority would've told the Vadani anything they wanted but simply didn't have any idea what had hit them out of a clear blue sky. They hadn't known about the scorpions, still didn't; but (said a few of them) that'll all change soon enough, now that we've got the defector.