The Proof House Part 24

As the shouting match quickly gathered momentum, Venart slipped away as un.o.btrusively as he could. He was sorely tempted to run after the delegates and apologise; but that wouldn't help, either. In fact, he couldn't think of any sensible action except going straight home, so he did that.

'Well?' Vetriz called out from the counting house as he walked in through the front door. 'How did it go?'

'Terrible,' Venart replied, dropping into a chair. 'Couldn't have gone worse if we'd really tried.'

'Oh.' Vetriz appeared in the doorway and leaned against the frame. 'That well,' she said. 'Why aren't I surprised?'

Venart stretched out his legs and stacked his feet on a small, low table. 'I think now would be a good time to go abroad,' he said, 'until this whole mess has been sorted out. Unfortunately, we can't, of course, on account of not having a ship. Well, if ever I happen to meet Cens Lauzeta in a dark alley-'

'What happened?'

Venart told her. 'So,' he summarised, 'one way and another we've contrived to put their backs up something rotten. You should have seen the look of contempt on that man's face as he walked out. Never seen anything quite like it.'

'Oh, well,' Vetriz replied. 'They'll just have to sort it all out again, won't they? Look on the bright side; if they decide the deal's off, we'll still have the ship and the money we've already got out of them. If the worst comes to the worst, we'll just have to send Cens round in a hair shirt and make him do a bit of grovelling.'

Venart sighed. 'I suppose so,' he said. 'But I ask you, for so-called representatives of a commercial nation, we do know how to make ourselves look ignorant.' He reached over and pulled a handful of grapes off the bunch that lay in a shallow wooden bowl on the table. 'Getting things wrong is one thing,' he said as he munched. 'Getting everything wrong all at the same time, though; now that's a cla.s.s act.'

Vetriz smiled. 'Well,' she said, 'if it's any consolation I've just been doing the books for this quarter, and we're down twelve per cent on this time last year, so I guess Cens did have a point, of sorts. Of course, last year things were unusually busy, so strictly speaking it's not a fair comparison. In any event, I reckon we should go out for dinner to celebrate.'

'Celebrate what? Doing worse than last year? Offending the Empire?'

'Why not? Who says you can only celebrate something nice?'

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

'Cinnamon,' said the prefect of Ap' Escatoy, after a long, tense silence. 'Cinnamon, but probably not the domestic variety. In fact, I'd say probably Cuir Halla. Am I right?'

'Close enough,' replied the chief administrator, with his mouth full. 'In fact, it's a new variety. My man on the Island sent me a box with the dispatches. I believe it comes from the south-west, but that's as much as he could tell me.'

'A new variety,' the prefect repeated, brushing crumbs off his fingertips. 'I have to admit, you surprise me. What are the prospects for securing a regular supply?'

The chief administrator nodded to the cooks, indicating that they could go. 'I'm not sure,' he said. 'The way the Islanders do business is so erratic, I can't tell whether it was a one-off purchase or part of a long-standing arrangement. They will insist on treating everything to do with business as a game. It's part of the childish streak that permeates everything they do.'

The prefect looked up. 'That sounds faintly endearing, ' he said.

'Maybe. I just find it irritating, to be honest with you. Childishness is endearing in children. In grown-ups, it's annoying.'

'I suppose so,' the prefect said, putting down his plate. 'Still, it's refreshing to come across people who so obviously enjoy what they do. I imagine this is by way of introducing your report.'

'It's a good ill.u.s.tration, certainly.' The administrator sat down opposite his superior, his elbows on his knees. 'Personally, I don't find delaying the invasion and thereby possibly jeopardising our forces in the interior to be even remotely endearing. We should have seventy thousand men in Perimadeia by now, and instead they're lolling about in the camp here, forgetting why they're there and what they're meant to be doing. To be frank, it's playing havoc with my budget and making the Empire look ridiculous.'

The prefect sighed. 'That's intolerable, I agree.'

'And that's by no means the worst part of it,' the administrator went on, fidgeting with a small bra.s.s dish he'd picked up off the table. 'Temrai's marching this way; what if he somehow manages to defeat our field army? How are we going to explain that?'

'Ah.' The prefect smiled. 'It's not as bad as that. Apparently he's stopped dead in his tracks and is building a fortress. Remarkably impressive rate of progress, I have to admit. Really, they're such an energetic people; quite unlike most nomadic tribes I've encountered. When this is over, I think I'd like to study them a little more closely. Part of the reason for having an Empire in the first place is to enjoy the strange people you come across, surely.'

'With respect,' said the administrator severely, 'I think the wine-tasting can wait till after the vintage. I agree, if Temrai's halted his advance it takes the pressure off us to a certain extent. But even so; if we'd been able to proceed according to the original schedule, they wouldn't have got that far and we wouldn't be facing the prospect of digging them out of this new model anthill they're building. The plain fact is, these Islanders are going to cost us lives, money and time. We can't afford to let that go by.'

The prefect sighed. 'I suppose not,' he said. 'Something has to be done, I agree.' He closed his eyes as an aid to concentration. 'It's a nuisance that we can't crew the ships ourselves. Relying on their crews is going to slow things down even further. Can't we recruit sailors somewhere else?'

'I've considered that,' the adminstrator said. 'Unfortunately, it's not that simple. We might be able to find enough men to make up the numbers, but I couldn't guarantee the quality. Typically, those Island ships are difficult to handle unless you know what you're doing. I wouldn't want to take the risk of using inexperienced crews.'

'Really?' The prefect opened his eyes. 'It's not a long journey, is it?'

'I don't profess to know anything at all about ships and sailing,' the administrator said. 'I can only go on what my experts tell me; and of course, they aren't experts in this field, because the only people who really know about sailing Island-pattern ships are the Islanders. However-'

'I take your point.' The prefect stood up and looked out of the window. They were pruning the orange trees in the cloister below, and the symmetry of the pruners' work intrigued him. 'I think we may have to resign ourselves to a certain degree of delay,' he said. 'Or even a rea.s.sessment of our strategy. Fortunately, Temrai seems intent on making it possible for us to do just that.' He steepled his fingers, like a chess-player contemplating the move after the move after next. 'For now,' he said, 'I'll a.s.sign the sixth and ninth battalions to Captain Loredan's army; that'll give him another thirty thousand men. How many do you suppose you'll need?'

The administrator thought for a moment. 'One battalion ought to be more than enough. In fact, five thousand men should be plenty. It won't be a difficult job, provided you can let me have a half-decent commander.'

They were shaping the trees so that the pattern of branches formed a perfect sphere; quite an undertaking, considering the natural tendency of the trees to push out sideways. Art is the subversion of nature; discuss. 'I was thinking of Colonel Ispel,' the prefect said.

'He'd be ideal. In fact, he'd be wasted on a job like this.' The administrator frowned. 'I know,' he said, 'if Ispel's available, why don't you give him the army against Temrai and a.s.sign this Loredan to me? It seems faintly ridiculous to have one of our best officers conducting a routine police action, while a major field army's under the command of an outlander.'

The prefect shook his head. 'Normally, I'd agree,' he said. 'But the plain fact is, Temrai wouldn't be being so obliging if it wasn't for Captain Loredan. It was Estar's death and Loredan replacing him that frightened him so badly he abandoned his really quite sensible strategy of taking the war to us and made him start burrowing into the dirt like a groundhog. As a result, I need Loredan to stay where he is, and that means you can have Ispel. a.s.suming you do want him, that is. If you'd rather have someone else, please say so.'

'On the contrary.' The administrator seemed distinctly annoyed; probably, thought the prefect with a certain degree of malicious pleasure, because Ispel outranks him socially and he'll have to treat him as equal-and-above when they appear in public together. That'll be an interesting spectacle in itself.

'That's settled, then.' The prefect turned his head and consulted the large, exquisite gla.s.s water-clock that stood in the corner of the room. As transparent as the water it contained, the fabric of the walls was the next best thing to invisible, with only the calibrations etched on the two vessels betraying the fact that it was there at all. A gift from a wealthy manufacturer, angling after a contract to supply the army; he hadn't got the contract, but he hadn't asked for his clock back, so presumably he didn't mind. 'Shall we walk down to the Arcades?' he said. 'We can talk on the way. I make a point of going down myself these days; there's nothing like a controlled distraction to help maintain the concentration.'

The administrator smiled - genuine pleasure, the prefect noted, and was glad to see it. 'I was hoping I'd be able to find the time to drop by when the fresh stuff comes in,' the administrator said. 'But I've been so busy lately-'

'Really,' the prefect admonished him, 'n.o.body's too busy for really fresh bread. I make it a rule never to trust a man who can't make time to do his own shopping.'

The portico was busy, as was to be expected at this time of day. The booksellers and stationers had already set up their stalls, and the number of people walking along reading and therefore not looking where they were going made for slow, cautious progress. 'Remind me,' the prefect said, 'to call in at the flower market on the way back. I'm not at all satisfied with the roses they've been sending up lately, and there's few things as dismal to look at as half-dead roses.'

The administrator made a sympathetic noise. 'I've been saying for some time that we ought to look into buying the flowers for all the departments centrally, from just the one reliable supplier. As it is, quality's pretty much hit-and-miss. A few days ago our consignment at the State Office was white with mildew, and by then it was far too late in the day to get anything to replace them with.'

'That's a very sensible suggestion,' the prefect said, in a tone of voice the administrator couldn't quite interpret. 'You go ahead and let me know how you get on.'

Once they were past the portico itself, the crowds thinned out and it was possible to walk at a more comfortable pace. 'You'd never think that most of this was only ten years old,' the administrator went on. 'Tell me, has there been any word from the marshal's office about their plans for redevelopment? As far as I know, they haven't even confirmed that they're going to keep the administration here, now that the siege is over.'

The prefect smiled, acknowledging the skill (fairly minimal, in his opinion) with which the administrator had angled the conversation round to the topic he really wanted to discuss. 'I can confirm that the bulk of the administration for this prefecture will be staying here,' he said, watching his colleague out of the corner of his eye to see if he'd react. 'It was felt that since during the course of the siege we'd effectively built a small town of our own here - and done it pretty well, too - it'd be wasteful to up sticks and move away. As to whether they're going to rebuild Ap' Escatoy itself, they've referred that decision back to me.' He looked straight in front and waited for the administrator to respond; but he'd underestimated the man's patience. They were almost at the gate of the Arcades before the administrator spoke again.

'And have you reached a decision yet? I don't suppose you have, or you'd have mentioned it.'

The prefect stopped to examine a pa.s.sing cart with an unusual arrangement for attaching the brake to the axle. Most of the time the administrator found his superior's ability to take an interest in virtually anything a harmless, even praiseworthy attribute; there were occasions, however, when it made him want to hit him.

'It all depends, doesn't it,' the prefect said, 'on what happens with Temrai and the war. If we can take possession of the old Perimadeia site fairly soon, with a view to getting major construction under way before the beginning of winter, then obviously I'd prefer to build there; it's a far better position and much better situated for communications and the like for when we begin the westward expansion. On the other hand, if we can't get in there in time to make a start in this fiscal year, I shall have to build here in Ap' Escatoy or else lose the provincial office funding I had to work so hard to get in the first place; it's a term of the grant that I commit to a scheme of works before the year end, and there's absolutely nothing I can do about that. If I lose the grant - quite apart from the frustration, after all I had to go through to get it in the first place - I'll have to finance the building work out of revenue income and plunder, which means I'll end up having to make a lot of compromises I'd really rather avoid if I can. You can see how awkward my position is.'

A glimmer of light began to shine in the administrator's mind. 'Of course,' he said, 'if you had a fairly cast-iron expectation of a substantial lump-sum receipt from revenues and plunder, it'd give you a degree more flexibility in your planning.'

'Indeed,' the prefect replied, his expression unchanged. 'In which case, I think I'd be even more likely to rebuild Perimadeia. After all, traditionally it's been the centre of gravity for this entire region; people naturally look to the City as their economic and cultural point of reference. It'll make the job of restructuring in the west that degree smoother if we can make it seem as if we're carrying on where they left off; restoring things to how they were, even.' He bent down, still apparently fascinated by the cart. 'But it'd still be preferable, I feel, if we could find a way to get the war back on schedule. This possible cash windfall is all very well, but wouldn't it be better to have the grant and the windfall as well?' He straightened up. 'In a sense,' he went on, 'Captain Loredan's already done what I needed him to do; we can have Perimadeia, with vacant possession, just as soon as we can land enough men there to hold it. Which makes this Island business,' he added, frowning a little, 'even more annoying. I do hope you'll be able to get it sorted out quickly. It'd be infuriating to miss a rather splendid opportunity because of some trivial obstruction.'

The smell of fresh bread, exquisite and unique, loaded the air with value, and the two men instinctively looked up. 'Our fault for dawdling,' said the prefect. 'And I refuse to be seen trotting through the streets like a runaway donkey. We'll just have to accept that we've missed the best of the day.'

They quickened their pace; but by the time they reached the bakers' arcade, the pyramids of warm, pristine loaves were already looking battered and worn, like the walls of a city bombarded by heavy engines. 'When we rebuild Perimadeia,' muttered the administrator, scowling, 'we'll have at least five bakers' arcades, all baking at different times. That way, we won't have to be so very critical in our timing.'

The prefect grinned. 'But if you do that,' he said, 'you'll spoil the whole experience. If you guarantee satisfaction, you deprive yourself of the joy of uncertain attainment.'

'If you say so,' the administrator said, sounding less than convinced. 'Personally, all I want is to be sure of getting really fresh bread.'

'Of course. What on earth could be more important than that?'

The post-coach was running late; an extraordinary thing, only partly accounted for by the increased volume of traffic on the road caused by the war. In the back among the luggage, and feeling remarkably like a sack of turnips, Niessa Loredan nursed a bad headache.

She neither knew nor cared where she was. It was far too hot, the coach had managed to find every last pothole and rut with a diligence that would have been admirable in some other context, and her bladder was making her feel distinctly uncomfortable. As if that wasn't bad enough, she was cursed with a travelling companion who simply wouldn't stop talking, or rather shouting. It was enough to make her wish she'd stayed in Scona and taken her chances with the halberdiers.

The annoying woman had managed to get the impression, G.o.ds know where from, that Niessa wanted to know her name. 'You may find this rather complicated, ' she was saying, 'being an outlander. Let me see, now. If I was a man I'd be Iasbar Hulyan Ap' Daic - Iasbar for me, Hulyan for my father, Ap' Daic for where my mother was born. Because I'm a woman, I'm plain Iasbar Ap' Cander; the same idea, but Ap' Cander because that's where my husband was born. If I'd never been married, I'd still be Hulyan Iasbar Ap' Escatoy, which was where I was born. Don't worry if it sounds confusing,' she added, 'it takes foreigners a lifetime to get used to the nuances.'

Niessa grunted and turned her head, trying to give the impression that she found the view (sandhills topped wth scruffy tussocks of dry white gra.s.s) unbearably fascinating. The annoying woman didn't seem to have noticed.

'Now I expect you're wondering,' she went on, 'what I'm doing hitching a ride on the post-coach; well, it's the last thing I ever imagined I'd do, but ever since my son - that's my middle son; my eldest is at home, of course, he inherited the estate when my husband died and he's a musician, people are beginning to think quite highly of him, and my youngest son's in the army, still quite junior, of course, he's aide de camp to this Colonel Ispel everybody's talking about as the new commander-in-chief in the west; but my middle son, Poriset, he's the chief administrator of the arms factory at Ap' Calick - not a particularly interesting job, as he's the first to admit, but he's the youngest man ever to be appointed to a position of such seniority so I suppose it's quite a feather in his cap, and if he does well there, increases output or cuts costs or whatever you're supposed to do if you run a factory, he did explain it to me once but I'm such a scatterbrain - and so of course he can arrange for me to ride on the post-coach whenever I go to visit him and his wife - did I mention he's only just got married? Quite a nice girl, though I don't really think he's ideally suited to someone that quiet; still, it was his choice and he's such a serious young man, I'm sure he gave it an awful lot of thought and weighed up the pros and cons-'

Niessa closed her eyes and tried to block out the noise. It was all wasted on her, of course; she'd been in the banking business long enough to recognise a spy when she saw one. The duty spy, presumably; doomed to bounce up and down this hateful road day after day, year after year, as a matter of standard operating procedure. She really wasn't very good at it; somebody's aunt, at a guess, for whom a job had to be found. For want of anything better to do, Niessa spent a few minutes a.s.sessing the feasibility of pushing her off the coach under the wheels - she ought to have enough physical strength to manage it, but making it look like an accident was problematical, at best. Telling her to shut up would be more straightforward, but she'd learned enough recently about the Sons of Heaven to know that offending any of them was a bad idea. When I was afraid they'd torture me, I had no idea they could be so insidious. Or so d.a.m.ned thorough.

'I need a p.i.s.s,' she growled. 'Do you know how to make them stop the coach? Otherwise I'm just going to have to pee all over the floor.'

That shut her up, the miserable b.i.t.c.h. Niessa felt better already. If only they could have discussed things openly at the start, she could have pointed out that the homely woman-to-woman-chat approach was going to be counterproductive in her case; they could have chosen something far less tiresome from the woman's repertoire of personas, and it might even have been mildly entertaining.

'I'm afraid not,' the spy replied in a little muted voice that barely rose above a shriek. 'It's dreadful, the way they just don't think about such things. I mean, it wouldn't kill them to have a jerry or even just an old jar or something. I think I'll get my son to do something about it.'

In spite of herself, Niessa couldn't help admiring the fluency of her recovery. Maybe they did have something in common, professional to professional. Now if only they could talk on that level, one woman of the world to another, it might be quite interesting.

'So tell me,' Niessa said. 'How long have you been a spy?'

The woman stared at her, then shook her head. 'What an extraordinary thing to say-' she began, but Niessa was gazing straight into her eyes. 'You must be Niessa Loredan,' she said. 'I was told you'd be coming through at some stage.'

'You know about me, then.'

The woman laughed. 'The notorious witch of the outlands? I should say so. Not that I believe in all that stuff myself, but there are plenty who do. Outlanders, of course,' she added quickly. 'You're much older than I'd expected; I suppose that's what put me off.'

'Thank you very much,' Niessa replied. 'And for the record, I'm not a witch, I'm a banker. There's no such thing as witchcraft, as you well know.'

The coach went over a particularly deep pothole, and Niessa felt her teeth crash together. 'You must have offended somebody, to be given this job,' she said. 'Getting shaken to bits like this has got to be some kind of punishment.'

The woman shrugged. 'You're not that far off the mark, actually,' she said. 'Promoted sideways, at any rate. And to answer your question, five years. Before that I was an office manager in the prefecture at Ap' Escatoy. That was a good job, I didn't mind it at all, but I'd been in it too long; wouldn't do for a Daughter of Heaven with my seniority to be in a job where I might have an outlander for a superior. So here I am.'

'My sympathy,' Niessa replied. 'Now then, since you've been straight with me, was there anything specific you wanted to know? I don't suppose there was, since you say you didn't know who I was until just now. Or were you given a set of mission objectives for as and when you came across Niessa Loredan?'

'Only very vague ones,' the spy answered. 'And they're mostly to do with your daughter's escape - was it prearranged, did she have any help from any of our people, that sort of thing. If you'd care to tell me anything about that, I'd be grateful.'

Niessa wriggled her back into a crack between two barrels. 'By all means,' she said, 'but there isn't anything much I can tell you, or at least there's nothing you can corroborate, which is much the same thing. No, it wasn't prearranged - at least, not that I'm aware. You see, my daughter and I aren't exactly friends. In fact, we hate each other. Really and truly. Do you have any children?'

The spy shook her head.

'You're better off,' Niessa said. 'Anyway, it's just possible that Iseutz knew what was going on and cooked up some scheme behind my back, but I doubt it. Have you caught her yet?'

'I don't believe we have. The last I heard was that she was with her uncle in the Mesoge; but you'll appreciate that I haven't got any special clearances for restricted information; that's just the rumour that's going around.'

'I understand,' Niessa said. 'How's the war going, do you know? Where I've been they haven't told me anything. '

The woman narrowed her eyes. 'Presumably you know about your brother Bardas being in command of the field army.'

Niessa shook her head. 'Joint command,' she said. 'Meaning he's only there for show.'

'Not any more. Colonel Estar was killed; your brother's really in charge now. It's a strange thought, an outlander in command of four battalions. No offence, but I'm not sure I like the idea.'

'Given his track record, neither would I,' Niessa grunted. 'They've beaten him once; twice, really, since all he managed to do when he took over from Uncle Maxen was get the army out of there and back home again. He's a competent enough subordinate, our Bardas, but I wouldn't say he had what it takes to be a leader. The same's true of my brother Gorgas, to a lesser extent; he's a good soldier, but he has problems dealing with the larger issues. Basically that's what went wrong on Scona; he couldn't see that the game had stopped being worth the candle. Mind you, Gorgas has never known when to quit; it's his biggest problem, really.'

The coach lurched again, even more fiercely this time, and came to a sudden halt. A barrel of fancy biscuits was dislodged from the top of the stack and fell down, nearly hitting Niessa on the head. 'If I were you, I'd get this driver replaced,' she said; and then noticed that the spy was dead. There was an arrow right through the exact middle of her throat, pinning her to the barrel she'd been sitting against. As Niessa watched, the spy's head toppled sideways and flopped down on her right shoulder, eyes still open.

Now what? Niessa thought angrily, and she looked round to see where the arrow had come from. And what's the point of having an Empire if you can't keep the roads safe? Nothing seemed to be happening; but wherever they were, it was depressingly open and exposed. Trying to run would be suicide, if the bandits were inclined to kill witnesses, whereas staying put wasn't any better. No point trying to hide if they were going to steal the cargo; they'd find her sooner or later while they were unloading. So that's it, then, she thought. All this way for nothing. What a waste of time and energy.

A helmet appeared above the side-rail. Here at least was something she could vent her anger on; she picked up the barrel of biscuits and slammed it down on the apex of the helmet, where the straps that held the plates together met. The result was satisfying, if not downright comic; there was a sigh, and the helmet vanished in a shower of broken slats and biscuits. That's what you get for tangling with one of the Fighting Loredans, Niessa said to herself, grinning. Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't play rough games too.

'Niessa Loredan?' The voice was behind her, and as she spun round she caught her ankle in a niche between two boxes. It hurt.

'Ouch,' she said. 'Yes, who wants to know?'

'We're here to rescue you.' Another d.a.m.ned helmet, with some sort of visor contraption that covered the man's face completely. Was it too much to ask to be allowed to talk to a human being, instead of all this ironmongery?

'What are you talking about?' Niessa said.

'Your brother's orders,' the helmet said. 'We've come to rescue you and take you home.'

Niessa scowled. 'Which brother?' she said.

The helmet looked bewildered; a difficult trick for a piece of iron. 'Gorgas Loredan,' it replied.

'Oh.' Niessa sighed. 'Well, you can jolly well go back and tell Gorgas that I don't need to be rescued, I don't want to be rescued and, if I did, the last person I'd want rescuing me is him. Have you got that, or shall I write it down for you?'

Now the helmet was looking utterly wretched. 'You don't understand,' it said. 'We're taking you back to the Mesoge. There's a ship waiting for us. But we've got to hurry, because there'll be a cavalry column along here in an hour, and-'

'It's all right,' Niessa said, 'I won't tell them which way you went, provided you leave now. Just do me a favour and steal some of this junk; try to make it look like an ordinary hold-up.'

Poor helmet, she thought as she said this. She could hear other voices of other helmets - they all had a booming, resonant quality, like a man down a well, or the way her late husband Gallas had sounded once when he got his head stuck in the whey bucket. The other helmets sounded agitated, which was reasonable enough. 'I'm sorry,' the helmet said, 'but I've got my orders. You're coming with me. Anything between you and your brother is no concern-'

'Hang on,' Niessa said. 'You're a Scona man, aren't you? Well, of course you are. Are you really going to use force to kidnap me? You do know who I am, don't you? Apart from being Gorgas' sister, I mean.'

'Yes,' said the helmet, rather panic-stricken, 'but it's not up to me. I've got to do what I'm told. Now stand up and I'll help you down off the cart.'