The Belly of the Bow (61 page)

Two valid points against risking a pitched battle; and Scona, as far as his sister was concerned, meant the Town, or to be exact, the Bank. The rest of the island was just the view from an office window. No doubt at all about what Niessa would want him to do. She’d been resigned to a siege since this escalation of the war began; he’d virtually had to plead with her for permission to engage the enemy in the field. And that, in Gorgas’ opinion, was wrong. The islanders were their people, they owed them a defence; he’d seen the mess the halberdiers had made at Briora. The thought of that sort of thing happening in every village on Scona was more than he could live with. If he retreated back into the Town now, he’d feel like a father shutting his door on his own children. No; the Loredan name stood for something in these parts, it had led these people to stand up against the Foundation and try for something better than the life of serfs and slaves. It was a matter of obligation.

The scouts confirmed his guess: Sten Mogre was making camp just inside the wood. There was a substantial clearing where a generation of straight-growing pines had been felled recently, and the army was there. Mogre wasn’t taking any chances. He’d placed pickets on the edges of the wood and a ring of sentries fifty yards or so out from the perimeter of the clearing, so there was precious little chance of sneaking up in the night to attack the camp. A battle inside the wood would suit Mogre well, since the archers would have no substantial advantage of distance in the thick undergrowth; at best, it would be another confused mess. His original idea of looping round the wood and barring Mogre’s way on the downs was still his best option, in spite of the disastrous odds. He gave the necessary orders, which were accepted with resignation, as if sleep and rest were politicians’ promises, often mentioned and never realised.

 

Sten Mogre was usually the sort of man who could sleep anywhere, but for once he found he couldn’t quite let go. After a couple of hours of lying in the dark in his tent with his eyes wide open, he gave up the struggle, lit the lamp and called a council of war. There wasn’t really anything left to discuss, but if he was going to be awake all night, he might as well have company.

‘We haven’t seen anything of Hain Eir’s relief party,’ someone reported. ‘Looks like we’re going to have to do without them.’

Mogre shrugged. If Eir had lost all four hundred of his men, it was worth it to keep the rebel home army occupied while he made his assault; besides, Eir was a Separatist, not to mention Avid Soef’s brother-in-law, which was why he’d been chosen for the job in the first place. Sixteen hundred men were more than enough for the task in hand. His only real worry was that Gorgas might not get there in time. It would be galling to have to kick his heels outside Scona Town waiting for him to catch up.

‘That’s enough shop for one night,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk about something else, for pity’s sake. I know - has anyone hear read that thing Elard Doce wrote last month?’

Someone laughed; two or three others murmured. ‘Actually, ’ someone said, ‘I liked it. Especially that bit about the forked roots of consequence. The man should have been a poet, not a philosopher.’

Mogre smiled. ‘I remember that bit,’ he said. ‘And to give him credit, there’s just a trace of a valid point in there somewhere, tucked away in a dark corner.’

Various people made sceptical noises. ‘You reckon?’ someone said. ‘I thought it was just the old Obscurist line in a new hat.’

‘Oh, it was, no question,’ Mogre replied. ‘But the Obscurists had a point - no, don’t laugh, they were all as mad as a barrel of rats, but that doesn’t alter the fact they’d come up with the Law of Conservation of Alternatives when Dormand was still learning two-and-two-is-four.’

‘From entirely false premises,’ someone else pointed out. ‘And arse-about-face and back-to-front. If Dormand hadn’t taken it and turned it on its head, nobody would ever have given it a second thought.’

‘Actually,’ a thin man sitting near the tent-flap interrupted. ‘I heard that City man, Gannadius, say something interesting about that no so long ago. He was basically agreeing with Dormand—’

‘Big of him,’ someone broke in.

‘But he made the point that Dormand didn’t take it to its logical conclusion. Think about it,’ the thin man went on. ‘Let’s say you’ve got a number of alternatives contingent on one moment of choice; all right, for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re Gorgas, right now, sitting in your tent trying to figure out what to do. You can scuttle into Town and lock the gates, you can take your chances in the field, you can slink off into the hills. Three alternatives. Now, Dormand says that the consequences resultant on those choices are not truly infinite. For a start, he says, all three options could result in Scona falling.’

‘The word
could
,’ someone interrupted, ‘in this context . . .’

‘Quiet, Marin,’ Mogre said. ‘This is interesting.’

‘Likewise,’ the thin man went on, ‘the pitched battle and siege options share a large number of possible outcomes; in other words, the lines of possibility diverge at the point of choice, but then try and join up again as if the choice had never existed. The Obscurists - all right, we know about them, but let’s give them their say - the Obscurists would have us believe in the Obscure Design that overrides the choice; Destiny, all that crap. Dormand says there’s no destiny, just a natural law that keeps the number of real alternatives to a minimum. What Gannadius was saying, and coming from him it’s worth considering, is that there’s also a human element - human interference with the natural development of alternatives through the medium of interference with the Principle.’

‘In other words,’ someone said, ‘magic. Sure thing. And then Doctor Gannadius pulls a toad out of his ear and vanishes up his own pointy hat. Somehow I’m not convinced.’

‘It’s a leap of faith, I agree,’ Mogre intervened, ‘but not an insurmountable one.’

‘A hop of faith, you mean.’

‘Yes, I like that, a hop of faith. Let’s just suppose for argument’s sake that there is this thing called magic, and the likes of Gannadius and his toad-abusing cronies can sometimes bend the Principle at will. Dormand would say it’s still random, it’s just individuals making choices, only carrying them out through a different medium - doesn’t matter whether I exercise the choice by walking through the door myself or influencing you to walk through it, the door still gets walked through, the choice happens.’

‘Ah,’ said the thin man, ‘but Gannadius would say that the sort of event that attracts magical interference follows a pattern. Battles, the fate of cities, blood curses and family feuds, that’s when magic gets used; and that in itself creates a trend, which in turn corrupts the purely random development of choice. In other words, there is an obscure design. It may not be Destiny, Obscurist-style; it’s purely artificial. But it’s a trend nonetheless, and unlike Dormand’s law, it’s not natural. Then consider the knock-on effect, and you can see where it’s leading.’

‘Obscurist crap,’ someone replied. ‘All this talk about something being corrupted implies there’s something to corrupt, an Obscure Design. If there’s a trend, it’s just part of the ordinary trend of human nature, just like Sten said a moment ago.’

‘Ah, yes,’ someone else objected, ‘but a
supervening
trend, a trend that’s bigger and stronger than just ordinary motivation, because it pushes people around, makes them do what they otherwise wouldn’t have done.’

‘In other words,’ Mogre said, ‘further economising on the number of possible alternatives. Pure Dormand. The State rests.’

‘Talking of which,’ said one of the council, standing up and stifling a yawn, ‘what’s good enough for the State’s good enough for me. You lot may be able to stay up all night and fight a battle next day, but I need my eight hours. Oh, and a word of advice: make sure Sten wins the argument, unless you want to find yourself posted in the front rank tomorrow.’

‘Funny you should mention that,’ Mogre said.

The departing councillor stared at him; there was a little twinkle of pure fear in his eyes. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ said he. ‘Sten, that’s not funny.’

There was a long moment of silence; then Mogre smiled and said, ‘Of course I’m joking, Hain. This time, at any rate. See you in the morning.’ The circle around the small brass brazier had gone rather quiet, but Mogre didn’t appear to have noticed any change in mood. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘where he’d got to? Ah, yes—’

 

Machaera looked up at the guttering candle, then back at the page in front of her. Sometimes a momentary break in eye contact with the book helped jolt her out of drowsiness. This time it didn’t look like it had worked. She’d read the same twenty lines at least five times now, and still it didn’t mean anything to her.

She tried again.

Machaera’s head nodded forward onto her chest. She snored—

—And was sitting in darkness, looking down into a circle of light. To be more precise, she was balanced on a rickety folding stool that wobbled as she shifted her weight slightly. The canvas top sagged at one corner, and as she tried to get away from the sag she felt the material tear a little more. She sat perfectly still, and tried to make out her surroundings.

There seemed to be two circles; an inner circle of men sitting round a glowing brazier, whose light and heat scarcely leaked past them; and an outer circle, dim silhouettes of heads and shoulders at the back of the tent (
I’m in a tent
, she realised.
I haven’t been in a tent since I was seven, and it wasn’t this kind of tent
), of whom she was apparently one. Directly opposite her in the inner circle, just visible between the heads of two other men with their backs to her, was a face she recognised. Everybody who’d been to see the army off would recognise that face. General Mogre. Presumably she was eavesdropping on a council of war. Fascinated, she craned her neck as far forward as she could without further provoking her derelict stool, and tried to catch what the great man was saying.

‘It’s all in Dormand,’ said General Mogre. ‘Everything you ever need to know about anything; you look in Dormand long enough, you’ll find the answer.’

(
Rubbish
, Machaera said; but here, the words only sounded inside her own head.
And I should know; I’m reading the horrid thing, right now.
)

‘Let’s hope Gorgas hasn’t got a copy,’ said one of the men with his back to her. ‘Assuming he can read, that is.’

‘I’ll bet you Niessa’s read it,’ someone she couldn’t quite see chimed in. ‘Though I see her more as a disciple of the sainted Maddianus. The complete witch, in fact.’

Sten Mogre grinned. ‘Maybe that’s why she had Patriarch Alexius kidnapped,’ he said. ‘To explain the long words to her.’

‘It’s a nice picture,’ someone else said. ‘You can just see her, flicking through trying to find the recipes for love potions and raising-storms-at-sea-made-simple.’

‘Probably reckons it’s written in code,’ said another. ‘You know the sort of thing, pick out every sixth word and it’ll spell out the true message.’

(
I must try that
, Machaera said.

It’s been tried
, replied the person next to her.
Doesn’t work. At least, it makes as much sense as reading the whole thing, but that’s not saying much.

Who are you?
Machaera asked.

I
- Machaera couldn’t think what to say.
It’s an honour to meet you
, she mumbled.

Hello yourself. And hello, Machaera. Shouldn’t you be revising Dormand? Though I suppose this almost counts. Alexius, what in the gods’ names are we doing here? I don’t understand. This can’t be a crucial turning point, they’re just talking horse manure about abstract philosophy
.)

‘To get back to what we were talking about,’ said a thin man. ‘You should read what this fellow Gannadius wrote. It really does make a lot of sense.’

(
Horse manure?
Alexius said.

Oh, be quiet. Actually, it was. Pure drivel, from start to finish. You wouldn’t want me to tell these lunatics the
truth,
would you?

Hush
, someone said.)

‘The heart of the problem as I see it,’ one of the inner circle said, ‘is identifying your crucial moment. Well, how
do
you recognise the things? All right, let’s suppose that Huic over there stays here another half hour, then goes back to his tent. On his way he trips over a guy-rope and pulls a muscle. In the battle tomorrow, that pulled muscle slows him up just a fraction at a crucial moment, his unit just fails to make its ground in time, and in consequence we lose a battle we’d have won if he’d gone to his tent five minutes earlier or five minutes later. Suppose one of us says something about the operation of the Principle that burrows its way into the back of Sten’s mind and influences him in some minor way when he’s making a decision tomorrow. Suppose if I leave here in two minutes’ time for a piss, I’ll be outside at precisely the moment Gorgas and his army try to sneak past us, and I’ll just catch the faint echo of someone coughing, or see the moonlight on a belt buckle. All right so far? Very good. Now, suppose I’m a wizard or a witch, trying to find the crucial moment so I can prise it open and make things happen differently. How’m I going to know that was the crucial moment? Chances are I’ll be snooping round Gorgas while he’s trying to figure out what he should do, or else I’ll be at the battle itself. And of course, I’ll find heaps and heaps of crucial moments there, because every damn moment’s a crucial moment, or it could be. At this precise moment, maybe there’s a crucial moment going on wherever Gorgas is, and there’s a whole mob of wizards and witches crowding round him playing tug-o’-war. Now they can’t be there
and
here; but if they change his critical moment, who’s to say my crucial moment’s still going to be crucial? Like, if they make Gorgas go a different way round the wood, then when I leave this tent he won’t be there for me to see.’