Devices and Desires (36 page)

I’ve changed,
he recognized.
Something has happened to me. I never used to be like this. On the other hand, I was never in this situation before. Maybe
I’ve simply grown to fit, rather than changed.

Nevertheless; the machine, the overthrow of nations, the deaths of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, just so I can
scratch my itching back; I have to ask myself whether it’s justified.

He thought about it, and the little thing he wanted to achieve; and he realized that the debate was irrelevant. He had no
choice, as far as the little thing was concerned. He could no more turn his back on it than a stone dropped from a tower could
refrain from falling. Most men, desiring this thing, wouldn’t build the machine, but only because they wouldn’t know how to.
He knew; so he had to build it. He couldn’t pretend it was beyond him, because he knew it wasn’t. The little thing — the most
powerful, destructive force in the world, the cause of all true suffering, the one thing everybody wants most of all — was
pulling on him like the force that pulls the falling stone, and there was nothing he could do to resist it.

Debate adjourned.

He stood up; his back was slightly stiff, from leaning up against the wall as he squatted on the tower floor. He narrowed
the focus of his mind, crowding out the bigger picture until all he could see was the frame, cycle parts and mechanism of
a scorpion. First, he said to himself, I’ll need thirty-two feet of half-inch square section steel bar…

Valens Valentinianus to Veatriz Sirupati, greetings.

I have read your letter.

I know what you want; you want me to tell you how sympathetic I feel, how I know how difficult it must be for you, how brave
you’re being, how awful it is, you poor thing. I’d really like to be able to oblige, but that’s not how my mind works, unfortunately.
I read your letter, and at once I start thinking about ways and means; things you could do, things I could do, things to be
taken account of in deciding what’s the best thing to be done. Only a few lines in, and already I have a mind full of things.

Which is the difference between you and me. You live in a world of people, I live in a world of things. To you, what matters
is thoughts, feelings, love and hurt and pain and distress, with joy squeezing in wherever it can, in little cracks, like
light; in small observations, which you are kind enough to share with me. I, on the other hand, was brought up by my vicious
bastard of a father to play chess with my life; a piece, a thing, manipulated here and there to bring about a desired result;
an action taken, a move made, and I get what I want — the wolf driven into the net, the boar enfiladed by archers in covert,
the enemy driven off with heavy losses, the famine averted, the nation saved. When I was a boy — when all men were boys, they
lived from one toy to the next, their lives were charted out by a relay of things longed for (a new bow, a new horse, a new
doublet, a new girl, an education, enlightenment, a crown), laid out alongside the desert road like way-stations to get you
home at last to wherever it is you’re supposed to be going.

I’ve always lived for things; some of them I can touch, some of them are abstracts (glory, honor, justice, prosperity, peace);
all of them are beads on a wire with which to tally the score. I have, of course, never married; and it’s a very long time
now since I was last in love. Accordingly, I’ve never brutalized myself by turning love into another thing-to-be-acquired
(I’ve brutalized myself in lots of other ways, mind you, but not that one); so there’s a sort of virginal innocence about
me when I read your letter, and instantly start translating your feelings into my list-of-things-to-be-done, the way bankers
convert one currency into another.

Put it another way. Having read your letter, I’m bursting like a cracked dam with suggestions about how to make things better.
But, because I am more than the sum of my upbringing and environment, I am managing, just about, not to. Congratulate me.

You poor thing. It sounds absolutely awful. I feel for you.

The trouble is, when I write that, I mean it; buggered if I know how to say it so it sounds sincere. When I was a boy I learned
hunting, fencing and how to rule a small country. Self-expression was optional, and I took self-pity instead. It was more
boring, but I liked the teacher better.

Poor Orsea. I wish he and I weren’t enemies; in fact, I have an idea that we’d have got on well together, if we’d met many
years ago, and all the things had been different. He and I are very different; opposites, in most respects. I think I would
have liked him. I believe he can see beyond things to people; it’s a blessing to him, and a curse. If he plays chess and sacrifices
a knight to gain a winning advantage, I expect he can hear the knight scream as it dies. There are many wonderful uses in
this world for a man like him; it’s a pity he was forced into the wrong one.

We took out the new lymers today; we found in the long cover, ran the boar out onto the downs, finally killed in a little
spinney, where he turned at bay. I ran in as soon as he stopped running and turned his head; I was so concerned about the
dogs not getting hurt (because I’ve only just got them; they’re my newest things, you see) that I went at the boar front-on,
just me; staring into his eyes, with nothing between us except eight feet of ash pole with a spike on the end. As he charged,
he hated me; because he hated me, he charged; because he charged, he lost. I’m not strong enough to drive a spearblade through
all that hide, muscle and bone, but he is. His hate was his undoing, so it served him right. The hunter never hates his quarry;
it’s a thing which he wants to get, to reduce into possession, so how could he hate it? The boar only hated me because he
recognized he’d been manipulated into an impossible situation, where he couldn’t win or survive. I can understand that. I
made him hate me; but hate is unforgivable, so it served him right. It was my fault that he was brought to bay, but he was
responsible for his own undoing. I think. It’s hard to be sure. I think it’s the gray areas that I find most satisfying.

(Molyttus, too, used the hunt as an allegory for human passions and feelings. Strictly speaking, he was more a neo-Mannerist
than a Romantic, I feel, but that’s a largely subjective judgment.)

Poor Orsea. I feel for him, too. If there’s anything you’d like me to do, just say.

That made the tenth time he’d read it, and it still said the same.

Miel folded the letter up again and put it back in the chest; he turned the key, took it out, put it away. There, now; nobody
but he knew where it was, or even that it existed (but he could feel it, through an inch of oak, as though it was watching
him and grinning).

A sensible man would burn it, he told himself. Get rid of it, pretend he’d never seen it, wipe it out of his life and hope
it’d go away forever. That was what a sensible man would do.

He went down the stairs and walked briskly to the long solar, where Orsea would be waiting for him. His clothes felt clammy
against his skin, and his hands itched where he’d touched the parchment.

“Miel.” Orsea was sitting in a big chair with broad, flat arms; he had his feet up on a table, and he was reading a book.

“Sorry I’m late.”

“You aren’t.” Orsea put the book face down on his knee. “Against an unarmored opponent, the common pitchfork is a more effective
weapon than a conventional spear; discuss.”

Miel raised both eyebrows. “Good heavens,” he said, “let me think. Well, you’ve got the advantage of the bit in the middle,
I suppose, where the two arms of the fork join; you can use it for blocking against a sword or an axe, or binding and jamming
a spear or a halberd. Or you could use it to trap the other man by the neck without injuring him.” He paused; Orsea was still
looking at him. “You can’t overpenetrate, because the fork stops you going too far in, so you can disengage quicker. How’m
I doing?”

Orsea nodded. “This man here,” he said, waggling the book, “reckons the pitchfork is the ideal weapon for hastily levied troops
in time of emergency. Actually, he’s full of bright ideas; for instance, there’s the triple-armed man.”

“A man with three arms?”

“No.” Orsea shook his head. “It’s like this. You’ve got your bow and arrow, right? Strapped to your left wrist — which is
extended holding the bow — you’ve got your pike. Finally, you’ve got your sword at your side, if all else fails. Or there’s
a really good one here; you’ve got your heavy siege catapults drawn up behind your infantry line, and instead of rocks you
load them with poisonous snakes. As soon as the enemy charge, you let go, and down come the snakes like a heavy shower.”

Miel frowned. “Who is this clown?”

Orsea lifted the book so Miel could see the spine. “His name,” Orsea said, “isn’t actually recorded; it just says,
A Treatise on the National Defense, by a Patriot.
” He held the book out at arm’s length and let it fall to the floor. “The snake idea is particularly silly,” he said. “I can
see it now; you spend a year poking round under rocks to find all these snakes, you pack them up in jars or wicker baskets
or whatever you keep snakes in; you’ve got special snake-wardens, hired at fabulous expense, and a separate wagon train to
carry them, plus all their food and fresh water and God knows what else; somehow or other you get them to the battle, along
with two dozen huge great catapults, which you’ve somehow contrived to lug through the mountain passes without smashing them
to splinters; you wind back the catapults and you’re all ready, the enemy’s about to charge, so you give the order, break
out the snakes; so they open up the jars, and find all the snakes have died in the night, just to spite you.” He sighed. “I
won’t tell you what he said about the military uses of honey. It’s one of those things that gets inside your head and lies
dormant for a while, and then you go mad.”

Miel shrugged. “Why are you wasting your time with this stuff?” he said.

“Desperation, I think,” Orsea replied. “I asked the librarian to look out anything he could find that looked like a military
manual or textbook. So far, that was the pick of the bunch.”

Miel frowned. “The spy business,” he said. “You’re worried they’re planning to invade.”

“Yes,” Orsea said. “It’s the only explanation that makes any sense. Say what you like about the Republic, they don’t waste
money. If they’re spying on us, it must mean they’re planning an attack. And when it comes, we don’t stand a chance.”

Miel shifted slightly. “There are other explanations,” he said. “We’ve been through all this.”

Orsea slid his face between his hands. “There ought to be something we could do,” he said. “I know this sounds really stupid,
but I’ve got this horrible picture in my mind; one of those fancy illuminated histories, where you get charts of kings and
queens; and there’s one that says, ‘The Dukes of Eremia,’ and there’s all the names, with dates and who they married, and
right at the bottom, there’s me: Orsea Orseolus, and nothing to follow. I hate the thought that it’s all going to end with
me, and all because —”

“Pull yourself together, for God’s sake,” Miel said. He hadn’t meant to say it so loud. Orsea looked up at him. “I’m sorry,”
he said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Orsea said wearily. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we can still get out of this in one piece. But if we
don’t, whose fault will it be? I can’t seem to get past that, somehow.”

Miel took a deep breath, and let it go slowly. “Think about it, will you?” he said. “Like you said yourself, the Mezentines
don’t waste money. We aren’t a threat to them, not now; it’d take a fortune in money and God knows how many lives to take
the city. They aren’t going to do it. What would it achieve for them, apart from wiping out thousands of customers for all
that useless junk they churn out?”

But Orsea shook his head. “This isn’t what we were going to talk about,” he said.

“No, it isn’t.” Miel tried to recall what the meeting was supposed to deal with. “Ambassadors from the Cure Hardy,” he remembered.
“Arriving some time next week.”

“Yes,” Orsea replied. “Well, they’re early. Turned up this morning. Suddenly appeared out of nowhere, according to Cerba.”

“Who?”

Slight frown. “Cerba Phocas, the warden of the southern zone. Your second cousin.”

Miel shrugged. Practically everybody above the rank of captain was his second cousin. “Right,” he said. “Sorry, you were saying.
Hang on, though —”

“In fact,” Orsea continued, “one of his patrols took them for bandits and arrested them, which is a great way to start a diplomatic
relationship.”

Don’t laugh, Miel ordered himself. “Well, at least it shows our border security’s up to scratch,” he said. “But what were
they doing on Cerba’s patch? I thought they’d be coming up the Lonazep road.”

“Don’t ask me,” Orsea said, standing up. “I suppose they must’ve wandered off the road and got lost. I don’t think it’d be
tactful to ask them. Anyhow, I’ve rescheduled the meeting for just after early vespers; we can go straight in to dinner as
soon as it’s over. God knows what we’re going to give them to eat.”

They discussed the agenda for the meeting for a while. Miel did his best without being too obvious about it, but Orsea refused
to cheer up. A pity; establishing proper grown-up diplomatic relations with the Cure Hardy was easily the biggest success
of Orsea’s reign so far, and he’d mostly brought it about by his own efforts; choosing and sending presents, writing letters,
refusing to be put off by the lack of a reply or even the disappearance of his messengers. Also, Miel couldn’t help thinking
(though he’d made himself promise not to entertain such thoughts), if the Republic actually was considering an invasion of
Eremia, a rapprochement with their barbarous southern neighbors couldn’t come at a better time. Given the Mezentines’ paranoia
about the Cure Hardy, it wouldn’t take much in the way of dark hints and artful suggestion to persuade them that Orsea had
concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with the savages, and that war with Eremia would open the door to limitless
hordes of Cure Hardy tribesmen, poised to flood down out of the mountains like volcanic lava. That alone might be enough to
avert an invasion, provided that the Mezentines didn’t think too long or too hard about how such hordes might be expected
to cross the uncrossable desert.