The Folding Knife (51 page)

It would've been nice if someone had thought to mention this, and other similar quirks of behaviour, before we got here. But that's another Mavortine thing. They don't tell you things unless you ask. Really. Ask them an unambiguous question and press a red-hot iron to the soles of their feet, and you get a straight answer. But volunteer information? Simply not done. I guess the rationale is: if you're from round here, you already know. If you're not from around here, screw you.

Anyway; we caught some kid who used to live here, and he said the Bilemvasians have gone up the mountain and won't come down again till we've gone. We have no interest whatever in chasing after them. The mountain is not a place you'd want to go. It's all narrow passes and ravines, just right for ambushes; which is basically the Mavortine way of war. On the other hand, there's nothing to eat up there and precious little water, so the idea is to stay here and starve them out. Won't be long, we argue, before their cattle have grazed off what little pasture there is and drunk all the water; and then they'll be back, and we can negotiate a civilised surrender. I can't help thinking it may not be as simple as that. But for now, they're no bother. The army that met us on the beach is nowhere to be seen; we've sent out scouts, mostly Hus (they arrived the day after we did; very efficient), and they haven't come across more than one or two straggling civilians. Something the size of an army's too big to hide, even in the mountains. This fits in with what we've been told: the militia will come together for a day or so, to fight a battle, but then they just wander off, even if they're winning. I guess that's why Mavortine workers back home have such a lousy reputation for being unreliable. The idea that you have to come in to work every single day must be hard for them to get their heads around.

This is a miserable place, the last place on earth, but I have to confess, it's utterly fascinating. Living in the City, you sort of come to believe that everybody's really the same; and they're not. Some people are just so different, it's hard to imagine that we're the same species. Thinking about it, I guess that Mavortines in the City just want to blot it all out, forget all about home, pretend they were never here--

("Quite right," Melsuntha said. "And we do. I'd forgotten about the place names, until I read it here.")

--which is understandable, I suppose. Also, the Mavortines seem to have the knack of deliberately forgetting--when someone dies, for instance, the family just forgets about them, which I guess saves on grief and heartbreak. Is that a trick worth learning, do you think? Not sure. There does seem to be a sort of twisted, Mavortine-specific, survival-oriented logic to everything they do, but they're so different, none of it would be any use anywhere else. Like that country up north somewhere where they use three-foot iron bars for money.

I think that conquering this country will be a piece of cake. Keeping it conquered may well be a different matter entirely. It all depends--this is going to sound strange--it all depends on whether they notice us or not. If we build forts and stay inside them and only come out now and then to rob, burn and kill indiscriminately, it won't be long before we're accepted as just another nasty fact of life (and there are so many of those that one more would be neither here nor there). If we try and change them, on the other hand, there may well be hell to pay. I don't know. We'll have to wait and see.

Aelius is up north, of course; you'll probably have heard from him, we haven't. Brigadier General Glycerius is in charge here, and he's doing a fine job (I promised him I'd tell you that, and it's true). He's a good chess player, but very sad about the total lack of local women. He's understandably reluctant to discuss his plans with me, but I gather he's getting ready to march on Bous, which is the town (for want of a better word) belonging to the next big tribe. It's called Bous on the map; what its name will be when we get there is anybody's guess. Like it matters.

I've read the first three books of the
Dialogues
; enjoying them very much, but it's like a voice from another world. If someone told me that water flows uphill here, and the sun rises in the west, I'd be inclined to believe it.

Cordially,

Bassano.

* * *

Segimerus, the famous philosopher, turned up unexpectedly in the City. He hadn't been heard of for three years (rumour had it that he'd spent the time alone in a cave on a mountain top; Basso, who found his work abstruse and annoying, reckoned it was more likely he'd been in prison somewhere), and once word had got about, the inn where he was staying was besieged by his admirers. One of the stable hands managed to fight his way through the blockade, and arrived at the House with a letter for the First Citizen.

"I suppose I'm honoured," Basso said, scowling at it. "The great man wants to see me. My lucky day."

Cinio, who'd been secretly wondering about the chances of getting his copy of
The Mist of Reason
signed, said: "It'd be fantastic publicity. Segimerus comes all the way here just to consult the First Citizen. You could appear on the balcony together."

Basso mouthed something under his breath. "Well," he said, "Bassano likes his stuff. All right, fit him in somewhere. And find out if he actually wants anything, apart from lunch."

Yes, he did want something, but no, he wasn't going to tell anybody but Bassianus Severus, in person. "Typical," Basso muttered, when they told him. "An overrated hack doing his wizard impersonation. So much more important than simply running the country."

Segimerus didn't look anything like what Basso had expected. He was quite young, maybe thirty-four or five; short-haired, clean-shaven, neatly and conventionally dressed, with rather a long nose and soft, dull grey eyes. Apparently he'd signed Cinio's book without a murmur.

"I'd like a passport," Segimerus said, "so I can go to Mavortis. I gather that since I'm a civilian, I need a travel warrant signed by you personally."

Basso looked at him hard. "Why on earth would you want to go there? There's a war on."

Segimerus nodded. "That's why," he said. "War is the single most significant human activity, and I've never actually seen one. So writing about war would be like writing a guidebook to somewhere you've never been."

"Which is what most guidebook writers do," Basso said. "But I take your point. On the other hand..."

Segimerus smiled. "I know," he said. "You can't guarantee my safety, it'd be a distraction and you'd have to tie up personnel who have more than enough work already."

"Yes."

"Then it's quite simple," Segimerus said. "I'll go entirely at my own risk, and you don't have to provide me with a bodyguard. I can pay my own way, and I'm happy to sleep on a blanket on the ground."

"Not quite as simple as that," Basso replied. "First, it's all very well saying you don't want guards, but if anything happens to you while you're there, I'll get lynched. Second, the only ships going there are Vesani naval vessels, and I know you'll happily sleep in a lifeboat, but I can't let you, or I'll look a fool. Paying your own way is meaningless--Mavortis doesn't have a functioning economy, so there's nobody you could buy anything from. Sorry, but you go as an honoured guest of the Republic or not at all, and the latter would be so much more convenient for us."

Segimerus nodded slowly. "I do understand," he said. "It's an awful lot to ask, I know, and you're a very busy man. But I do believe it's important that I go there. I think I can be of use."

"Really," Basso said. "What as?"

"I imagine you might need interpreters," Segimerus replied.

"You know Mavortine?"

"Not yet. But I should be able to learn it in a fortnight; that's how long it generally takes me. Probably less in this case, since Mavortine is part of the Pelasgian group of languages, and I already know Blemmyate and Hus."

Basso frowned. "You know Blemmyate?"

"I should do. I was born there. Of course," Segimerus went on, "my degree, from the University of Gopessus, was in civil engineering, and I did work for five years on bridge-building projects in Auxentia. I'm sure you have translators, but how many of them can explain to a Mavortine work gang how to build a bridge?"

Basso nodded slowly. "You call yourself a philosopher," he said.

"Actually, I prefer to think of myself as a scientist," Segimerus said. "But the difference is largely semantic."

"Indeed." Basso picked up his inkwell and moved it from one side of the desk to the other. "And you want to go to Mavortis to study the war, and you're prepared to get your hands dirty working for us, if that's what it takes."

"That's right."

"How about observer effect?" Basso said. "As a scientist..."

Segimerus smiled at him--the happy beam of someone meeting a compatriot in a strange land. "Precisely," he said. "I've been worrying about that myself. If I participate, how can I be an impartial observer? You've read Choniates, I take it."

Basso shook his head. "Just a summary," he replied. "In
Mist of Reason
. I guess I should've gone back to the original source, but I couldn't be bothered, so I thought I'd take your word for it."

Segimerus nodded eagerly. "That's why I want to go," he said. "To test the effect on myself, if you like. I think it's important, and nobody's ever done it before. It could have implications for the very foundation of scientific method."

Basso was grinning. "So that's the reason," he said.

"Yes."

"One of the reasons." Basso laughed. "To be perfectly honest with you," he said, "I don't like your books and I don't accept your conclusions. But my nephew thinks highly of you, and he's the brains in our family." He made a show of thinking about it, then said: "Come back in ten days and explain to my wife in Mavortine how you'd go about building a breakwater in Bilemvasia Sound. If she says you can go, you can have your travel warrant. Fair enough?"

Segimerus looked delighted. "Thank you," he said. "I'm extremely grateful." He stood up to leave. Basso let him get as far as the door, then said, "You're really from Blemmya?"

"Yes."

"What's it like?"

"Horrible," Segimerus said. "That's why I left."

"Where have you been, the last three years?"

"In prison," Segimerus replied. "I was arrested for propagating Dobunnius' theory of rotation of the stars in Scleria. I spent eighteen months breaking rocks in a quarry. Fascinating experience, and a unique chance to study stratification in rock formations."

Basso nodded. "A stroke of luck, then, really."

"Quite so. Thank you again, First Citizen."

An ambassador arrived from his divine majesty the Emperor Timoleon, equal of the prophets, viceroy of Heaven. He was five feet tall, with a completely hairless head, a square-cut white beard and skin the colour of rust; all his clothes were purple, with gold-wire embroidery at the cuffs and hems, and everywhere he went he carried a hooded peregrine falcon (whether it was always the same bird or whether he had several of them, nobody liked to ask). He was the first Easterner to appear in the City for seventy years, and the first Imperial diplomat to make an official visit since the Republic broke away from the Empire over two centuries ago. He brought with him a number of gifts, lavish and rather bewildering: an elephant, two white bears, a dozen parakeets ("Thoughtful of him to bring lunch," Basso observed); a life-size clockwork silver-gilt dancing girl; a musical instrument the size of a small shed--you poured fifty gallons of water down a funnel at the top, and it made a sound like trumpets; a gold tiara encrusted with rubies; a mechanical chamber pot with a cistern that flushed its contents away down a pipe when you pushed down on a lever; fifty square yards of tapestries with mildly pornographic designs; a box of brown tubers, a bit like rusty apples, allegedly edible; a rather inferior horn-and-sinew bow and a huge jar of pickled seaweed. The ambassador (he refused to give his name; since he was merely his emperor's spokesman, he didn't need one) was attended by fifty eunuchs, a hundred men-at-arms and twenty-five choristers, who sang his official statements in plainsong.

"I have no idea," Sentio said wretchedly. "There just isn't a building in this town big enough."

Basso rubbed his forehead. "Well," he said, "we can park the secretarial staff in the Goldsmiths' Hall, maybe. And the soldiers'll just have to rough it in barracks."

Furio, the home affairs secretary, cleared his throat. "With respect," he said, "the lowest-ranking bodyguard is a Domestic of the Bedchamber, which is sort of like an earl. He's got estates bigger than the Cazar Peninsula. Asking them to sleep in wooden huts would basically be a declaration of war."

Basso sighed. "What about the choir?"

"Noble families," Furio confirmed. "Knights of Equity or Counts of the Stable. The eunuchs aren't aristocracy as such, but the ambassador won't let them out of his sight." He was keeping a straight face, but his hands were twitching. "There is one building."

Basso scowled at him. "First, it's too small," he said. "Second, what am I supposed to do? Go and stay with my sister for a month?"

"I wasn't thinking of here," Furio said. "What I had in mind was the House."

Basso stared at him; the rest of the cabinet managed to convey, without words, that they had no idea who this strange man was. "You want me to tell the representatives of the Vesani people that we're going to have to meet in some barn somewhere so the Emperor's errand boy's elephant-handlers can doss down in the House. I don't think so."