The Escapement (61 page)

As it happened, Ziani Vaatzes was in the quartermasters' store when the confirmation came through. He grinned when he heard it.

"Flour," the quartermaster repeated. "Twelve tons of flour. What's he planning to do with it, feed the buggers to death?"

"Is it in sacks or barrels?" Ziani asked.

"Both," the quartermaster replied. "We've got fifty tons in barrels and a hundred and seventy-five tons in sacks. What's that got to do with anything?"

"Send the barrels," Ziani said. "And they'll want lamp oil, say thirty gallons. Did they ask for that?"

"No."

"Ah." Ziani looked smug. "Just as well I'm here." The quartermaster looked at him blankly. "You know what he's up to, then?"

"Yes," Ziani said.

"It makes no sense," Psellus repeated furiously, dismissing the bearers who'd brought him back from the Guildhall. They were glad to go, pushing a way through the crowd of soldiers and artillarymen crowding towards the line of craters where the palisade had once been. "It'd take them a week to dig in far enough to undermine this position effectively. And he must know that as soon as the sun comes up and we can see to aim…"

He realised he was shouting, and he didn't even recognise the man he was shouting at: some junior infantry officer, reporting the arrival of his unit. But he
wanted
to shout; because his whole view of the assault was founded on the assumption that General Daurenja was a good commander who'd do the right thing, sensibly and predictably; and yet here he was, making an obvious mistake. If you can't trust your enemy…

"Ignore me," he said calmly, and that seemed to alarm the poor young man more than the yelling. "I'm just thinking aloud. You go ahead and get your men in position. But be prepared for a long wait. I really can't see what he thinks he's playing at." The young man bounded away, clearly relieved to have escaped from the leader of his people, who'd finally broken his spring and was raving. Not, Psellus had to admit, an entirely inaccurate assessment. I'm doing no good at all up here, he realised, I'm just getting in the way and upsetting people. I'm being self-indulgent, playing at being a king or a duke. And not making a very good job of it, he added. A king or a duke wouldn't be crouched in a shot-crater in a muddy nightgown and slippers.

Besides, he knew what was going to happen here, sooner or later. Nothing he could do about it; and he had a war to win, in his office at the Guildhall. A slab of rock about the size of a horse's head had turned the hated sedan chair into kindling. Not to worry, he thought cheerfully, I'll walk back. People I pass in the street can stare at me, it'll take their minds off the war.

On his way down, he stopped a half-platoon of soldiers en route to the front.

"Excuse me," he said, "do you know who I am?"

Embarrassed horror; I've done it again, he thought. "What I mean is," he went on,

"do you recognise me?"

"Of course. You're Chairman Psellus."

He smiled. "Excellent," he said. "I'm sorry, I'm still not used to being able to order people about. I keep expecting them to ask me who the hell I am, issuing orders. Very well. Come with me." He wiped the smirk off his face and added, "This is very important, do you understand me?"

He was relieved to find that the streets were empty. He'd sent someone to issue a proclamation that everybody not on active service should go home and stay there, but he hadn't really expected it to be obeyed. He made it as far as the Guildhall gates, but then his knee gave way and he couldn't walk any further.

"I'm very sorry," he said, "but you'll have to carry me." He'd been quietly dreading something like this, but the soldiers didn't seem at all put out. Two of them held a spear at approximately knee height, and he sat on it like a child on a swing, his arms round their shoulders to stop him falling off backwards. The stairs were rather tricky, but eventually they got him to his office and into his chair. The familiar feel of it revived him to a remarkable extent, and he gave them the names and locations of the people he wanted them to go and fetch. "And do please be quick," he added. "I know it seems unlikely, but this is the most important thing in the City right now."

They left; and for five minutes or so he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He'd never thought of himself as an old man, as so many of his colleagues and contemporaries did, as soon as they passed fifty. In fact, he realised with a jolt, he had no real idea of himself at all. If he was anything, he was simply an observer, a point of view drifting through events great or trivial, hardly able to distinguish between them from his off-centre, ill-informed standpoint.

Until now, he thought. If it's true that you're as old as you feel, I'm well over ninety.

The soldiers must have believed him, because they assembled the prisoners (he called them that in his mind for want of a better word; "witnesses" wasn't quite right,

"guests" was absurd) in no time at all. Psellus couldn't resist opening the door a crack and peering at them, sitting in a row on a bench in the corridor. She was in her nightdress; the two investigators were wearing the heavy padded jerkins that went under armour (he could never remember the technical term), so they must have been pulled in from the embankment. The politicians were still in their formal daywear, as if reluctant to get undressed just in case someone came by in the middle of the night wanting them to form a government. He closed the door carefully, so as not to make a noise.

Now he was waiting for just one more… witness? He felt comfortable with the word in this context. The delay chafed him, of course, but it was only to be expected: the witness would inevitably be hard to find. Until then, it'd do the rest of them no harm to sit in a draught on a cold bench.

A messenger burst in about half an hour later. He'd come from the embankment. As far as anybody could tell, the enemy were still digging. All the surviving siege engines were now manned and operational, shooting round shot at the last known position of the enemy artillery, whose rate and quantity of fire was materially though not substantially (Psellus liked that distinction) reduced. There were now seven divisions of general infantry in place on the embankment to resist an assault in force. It was still too dark to see what the enemy were doing, but there were no reports of the movement of lights except in the main trench; however, the machines that had breached the ditch had been moved up, and so presumably were back in service undermining the embankment. There was, the messenger concluded reluctantly, no other news.

"Thank you," Psellus replied gravely. "How long till it gets light?" He smiled, and added, "There aren't any windows here, as you can see."

"Three hours, more or less," the messenger replied.

"Three hours," Psellus repeated. "That's about right. You couldn't just ask my chief clerk to come in for a moment, could you?"

He sent the clerk to chivvy the men who were searching for the witness; then, since he had nothing else to do that really mattered very much, he picked up the book he'd been reading—how long ago, exactly? He found it hard to remember. He'd been immersed in Stamnus'
Lives of the Great Administrators
, an old favourite, and someone had interrupted him with some important business; he'd marked the place with a scrap of paper and put it down, expecting to pick it up again in a moment or so. Three days ago, he realised; and yet it felt as though it was only minutes, and he could remember the last line he'd read. I don't actually believe in any of this, he suddenly thought. I don't really believe I'm the head of state of the Perpetual Republic, or that there's a war going on twelve minutes' walk away, or that the savages are about to burst through the defences we all thought were impenetrable. He frowned. Not the right attitude, he told himself. But it didn't matter. Any minute now, as soon as the missing witness was brought in, he'd do the only thing he could to save the City; and if it failed, everything would then be out of his control, and in any case, he'd be dead. He found that thought almost comforting.

"You came," Daurenja said.

He's pleased to see me, Ziani thought, genuinely pleased that I'm here. "That's all right, isn't it?" he asked. "Only I've finished my work now, there's nothing left for me to do. So I thought I'd come and watch."

Daurenja smiled, nodded enthusiastically. He was covered in mud from head to foot; in the lanternlight he looked like some curious mythical creature, shaped like a man but with a cracked grey skin, unfinished face and strange pink eyes. He'd been digging when Ziani found him, kicking the blade of a shovel into the fine dirt of the embankment like a man cutting up a whale. There'd been something about him that made Ziani stare for a long time, trying to figure out what it might be: the energy, the purpose, but it wasn't a hero in battle or a great king leading his people to victory. Daurenja reminded him, he realised with astonishment, of a small boy playing in a sandpit, and the strange aura that surrounded him, incongruous and bizarre, was happiness.

"Delighted that you're here," Daurenja said. "After all, this is your victory, not mine."

True, Ziani thought; but you don't know that. You're just trying to be
nice
.

"They're bringing up the flour," he said. "Should be here any minute. And you forgot the lamp oil."

Daurenja winced, then grinned. "But you didn't."

"No."

"Thanks." Such warmth in his voice. How often do you meet someone who's truly, sublimely happy? "I knew I could rely on you. I want to say it right now, before we go any further, how grateful I am. I couldn't have done it without you."

"Don't say that till it's over," Ziani replied. "We aren't home yet."

"Doesn't matter. If we fail, it'll be my fault, because I've got something wrong. Everything you've done has been perfect."

"But it wasn't me," Ziani said, smiling. "All along, ever since you first came sniffing round me asking for a job. You've been using me, like you use everybody who could conceivably be useful."

Daurenja laughed. "Well, of course," he said. "You're trying to make it sound negative for some reason, but that's exactly right. I see the potential in people, just like I see it in things. I bring together, I plan ahead, I
expedite
—that's a good word, don't you think?—but that doesn't make the individual components' contributions any less valuable. Really, Ziani, I'm very, very grateful for everything you've done for me. For the cause. And I know you didn't do it for my reasons, but who cares about motives, really? Who'll care a hundred years from now, when every army in the world will be using my invention, and all this stuff, all the digging and mining and hand-to-hand fighting's a thing of the past? And it's not just war that's going to change." His eyes were glowing like coals. "That's what's so special about it.
Everything's
going to change, that's why it's so important. There'll be no more walled cities, so no more great city states, no more empires, no more
war
. Hadn't you worked that out for yourself? If you can't defend a secure place, you can't fight a war, not the way we think of it. And pitched battles—impossible. My weapon will sweep all those massed armies, all the pikemen and cavalry and infantry formations right off the field; who'd be crazy enough to stand out in the open and be smashed to a pulp by rocks thrown from a mile away? No more war, Ziani; and no war, no nations, no governments, because all authority relies ultimately on force of arms; we'll do away with all the evil, corrupt systems that crush people like you and me, people who just want to be different. My weapon will do all that. Oh Ziani, I thought you understood, I was sure of it. I was convinced you must've seen it for yourself, when you got them to give me the command." He looked sad, but only for a moment. "It doesn't matter," he said. "We're here now, and everything's going well, it won't be much longer now. They'll bring it up as soon as we've dealt with the embankment. You will promise me, though; you'll be there when we use it the first time."

Ziani had to make an effort to speak. "Of course," he said. "After all, it's going to get us into the City, isn't it?" A man pushed past him, rolling a barrel. "And that's all I've ever wanted."

She looked at him.

He'd thought he understood her; the argument being, if you know everything that's inside someone, nothing that looks out through the eyes can surprise you. Not so, apparently.

"I know what you're thinking," he said. "Haven't I got anything better to do? The City's being attacked, they've drained the ditch, they're digging under the embankment like rats in a corn bin, shouldn't I be out there leading something, instead of harassing poor harmless civilians. Well?"

Shrug, nod. Well, her words had always been precious, bought at great cost.

"Listen to me." He leaned forward across the desk. "The enemy are coming. They're savages. We don't understand them; we
think
they want to kill us all and burn down the City so they can turn this country into pasture for their animals, but we don't even know that. But I'm fairly certain that if I don't do something very soon, hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people will die in pain and fear. Do you understand me?"