The Folding Knife (59 page)

"They could still try him if they could get him out of the war room," Sentio pointed out.

"They'd need soldiers for that," Cinio replied. "So far, the military's squarely behind us." He paused, then added: "This might not be the case if anything happened to Aelius, of course. It's him they're loyal to, not us."

"What about Basso? Are they loyal to him?"

"I have absolutely no idea." Cinio leaned back in his chair, looking tired. He hadn't shaved for three days, and the stubble on his chin made him look like a tramp, in spite of his elegant gown. "It all depends on this fucking war," he said. "If we win something in the next ten days, none of this will ever have happened. If Aelius gets killed, even if we win something, we're probably all dead. If we lose something but Aelius survives, it'll all depend on the general staff, and I for one haven't a clue what they think about anything." He grinned painfully. "I've put some of my people in there as caterers and servants, but whenever someone enters a room in headquarters, they all start talking in Cazar. I'm trying to find a Cazar-speaker who can pass for a barmaid, but so far, no joy."

A messenger arrived in the early hours of the morning, nine days after the departure of the fleet. He was stopped at the front gate of the House; understandably so, since he was dirty, wild-looking and armed. He gave his name as Velleio Ripilio, and claimed to be a commander in the navy.

An hour later, a guard captain arrived and was taken to see him in the cells at the back of the guardhouse. Ripilio produced his commission, signed by General Aelius and bearing the seal of the adjutant-commander of the Navy. The captain had never seen anything like it before and had no idea if Aelius' signature was genuine, so he sent to the Navy Office for confirmation. It was shut, of course; the nightwatchman found a piece of paper with the name of the officer who kept the duty rosters, who'd be able to say who was the right person to wake up.

Two hours later, the duty officer arrived at the guardhouse and was able to confirm that the commission was genuine. Ripilio was immediately taken back to the House, where the First Citizen agreed to receive him.

From Gnatho:

...
Able to report that the enemy fleet has turned back and was last seen heading south-east, on a course that would take it directly to its home port at Flobis.

As yet, we have not been able to quantify either our losses or theirs with any degree of accuracy. I believe (but cannot confirm) that we have lost twenty-one ships sunk, seven more damaged beyond recovery; extensive damage to a further thirty-seven. Of the remaining thirty-five ships, thirty-two are probably fit for active service without requiring immediate repair. As to casualties, the figure would seem to be somewhere between six and eight thousand dead or unaccounted for; at least three thousand whose wounds render them unfit for duty.

Enemy losses are even harder to assess. At this point, I believe that we sank nineteen of their ships, and a further three are believed to have been so extensively damaged that they are no longer seaworthy and will sink or be scuttled before they reach Flobis. I can state with a degree of confidence that we have captured twenty-six enemy ships: twelve intact, the rest damaged to a greater or lesser degree. We have no way of knowing the scale of enemy casualties, beyond the assumption that among the crews of the nineteen sunk ships, amounting to some seven thousand men, survival rates were low; we hold something of the order of four thousand prisoners rescued from the sea. Imperial policy is not to pick up enemy survivors, so we cannot assume that they hold an equivalent number of our missing.

To summarise: we have driven off the enemy, and Voroe is secure. My belief is that the enemy fleet is in as bad a state as our own, possibly worse, and therefore poses no immediate threat; the Empire, of course, has an estimated nineteen further squadrons at its disposal, although these forces are mostly stationed a great distance away and have other responsibilities to attend to. Our losses, in ships and men, have been considerable, and at this time I consider that we have only one and a half squadrons available for immediate deployment. We also lack supplies, materials for repair, and ammunition for our artillery.

Although I do not intend to describe the conduct of the action in any detail, pending my full report, which should reach you within the next three days, I should perhaps stress the last point. Our victory, if it can be described as such, was largely due to the superiority of our ship-mounted artillery, in particular the light mangonels and scorpions. Had it not been for the advantage these gave us, I do not doubt that the result would have been very different. In terms of tactical ability and general seamanship, the Imperial navy is more than a match for us--a fact which you may perhaps wish to consider further.

"The impression I got," Sentio said, "was that he was disappointed. Not the letter he was hoping for. Still," he went on, "at least he's talking to us again."

The general consensus of opinion was that it was the most dramatic session of the House in living memory. The prolonged absence of the First Citizen, Stabularius' attempts to get rid of him, his extraordinary entry, unannounced, in the middle of a debate; the way he stalked (several witnesses used the word independently) across the Chamber to his seat, in dead silence, with everybody staring: it was theatre or melodrama, depending on affiliation and point of view, but nobody could deny it was memorable.

No preamble. The Vesani navy, he said, in a loud, steady voice, had defeated a substantial Imperial fleet off Voroe. Had the Empire taken Voroe, the consequences would have been disastrous for the Republic; however, thanks to the decisive action of Admiral Gnatho and the skill and courage of the fleet, the threat had been averted. It was no exaggeration, he said, to say that they had saved the Republic.

Exact casualty figures, he went on (total silence), were not yet available. Losses had, however, been heavy on both sides. However, he was assured by the admiral that, out of a total in excess of one hundred, twenty-two enemy ships had been sunk and a further twenty-eight captured. The Vesani fleet would, of course, remain at Voroe until it could be confirmed that the remnants of the Imperial armada had returned to their home port.

A longer pause, and the intensity of the silence made the members nervous. Then he resumed his address. It had come to his attention, he said, that over the last few days, when he had been concentrating all his time and energy on the Voroe crisis and had therefore (much to his regret) not been able to attend sessions of the House, there had been a number of misguided attempts to pass illegal legislation. He found this difficult to believe. His isolation, made necessary by the requirements of absolute security, had not been of his choosing; it would sadden and disappoint him if he thought that members of the House had tried to exploit a national emergency for party political ends. The Attorney General had advised him that it was his duty to take legal action against those members who had proposed the illegal motions; the law on such breaches of privilege, he was informed, was very clear and gave him no choice but to pursue the offenders and press for the maximum penalty, death by hanging. However, he believed (if he was in error, no doubt the House would put him straight) that his prerogative powers allowed him to pardon those responsible; accordingly, before attending the current session, he had done so. Signing the necessary warrants had made him late for the session, and he apologised to the House for this discourtesy.

Finally (he went on), it was his unpleasant duty to inform the House that, in order to pay for the Voroe expedition, he would be obliged to levy a subsidy tax, in order to raise the sum of two million nomismata. This sum he had personally advanced to pay the costs of the expedition, there being no time to raise the money from the Treasury through the proper channels. As always, it was his privilege and honour to serve the state in any way he could; however, the loan of such a sum had put a degree of pressure on the legally required reserves of the Bank of Charity & Social Justice, whose stability was of vital importance to the Republic at this time. Accordingly, the tax would be levied in the first instance through the banking system, the sums due being taken direct from the accounts of all corporations and individuals with a registered net worth in excess of fifty thousand nomismata. The necessary mandates had already been drawn up, and were being executed even as he spoke. There would, of course, be an appeals procedure, should any person or corporation believe he had been excessively taxed, all appeals to be heard once the emergency powers relating to the Mavortine emergency had expired.

It only remained (he said) for him to propose a vote of thanks to Gnatho and the officers and men of the fleet in recognition of the value of their service to the Republic, and accordingly he commended the motion to the House.

"Well?" she asked him. "Did we actually win, or...?"

"Just about." He was having trouble unbuckling his left shoe; he was using his left hand, which didn't work, because he was too tired to move so he could use his right. "I haven't had time to read the report properly, but it looks like they'd have taken us apart if it wasn't for the artillery. I don't know how long it'll take the Imperials to upgrade theirs, but when they do, we're in trouble." He shook the shoe off his foot. It shot under the bed, and she retrieved it.

"That's bad," she said.

"Tomorrow's disaster," he said. "Don't have to think about it today. If the Empire was all I had to worry about, I'd be a happy man."

She frowned. "But everything's sorted out, isn't it? You'll get the money back, from the tax."

Basso laughed. "You know what," he said, "that's just a drop in the ocean. There's no money, not anywhere." He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. "Fact is," he said, "the Empire's beaten us just by launching its bloody fleet. I was relying on a two-million tax as a last reserve. Now I've had to use it to cover a naval battle I didn't want and can't afford, which hasn't done anybody the slightest bit of good, and my last-ditch rainy-day money's gone for ever. There's an enormous hole in the Treasury, the Bank's this close to going under; if they start production in the mines a couple of days later than scheduled, we're quite probably screwed. And Aelius is in the forest, costing me a fortune, probably going to get himself killed, and then what?" He breathed out, long and slow. "Truth is, I've been stealing from myself for months, just to keep things going. It'll be all right, I kept telling myself, the mines'll cover it, all I need to do is fool people for a few weeks until the ore starts flowing."

"But what's gone wrong with the Bank?" she asked.

"Oh, that. Simple. I ran out of public money--that's real money, not pretend--so I started spending my own. Well, the Bank's. Of course, most of the Bank's money isn't mine, it belongs to the investors. But it was there, and I needed it, and I was writing myself little bits of paper promising to pay myself back. My brilliant idea about paper money was the point where it got out of control. Fifty thousand to pay the corn merchants? Easy, just give them a bit of paper. We can't be bankrupt, I told myself, we've still got reams and reams of paper and gallons of ink." He coughed and caught his breath. "I blame Antigonus," he said. "He had no call to die just when I needed him."

He could feel her looking at him, but avoided her eye. "It can't be that bad," she said.

"Don't you believe it." He stretched out his legs, until he felt strain in his kneecaps. "I've never been one to let lack of money keep me from buying something I want, even in the best of times. Something always happens, and it sorts itself out. I used to think I had drive and vision and a big perspective, and details were for the little people to deal with. Maybe this time I've gone just a little bit too far."

She was still looking at him. "You can't go on like that," she said. "You've got to do something about it."

"Too late." He grinned. "Just got to hang on tight and hope it'll clear itself. In theory, it should. Mavortis is one great big stockpile of valuable materials: metals, timber. If we could have wrapped this war up in half the time, like I thought we would, there'd have been no problem. But as it is, we're stuck."

"If Aelius wins..."

"If," Basso repeated. "But yes, if he wins, and the insurgency's sufficiently squashed so we can mine in peace, I can probably lie and fiddle and bugger around long enough to see us right, more or less; we'll be no better off than if we'd never heard of Mavortis, but at least we won't be completely ruined. If Aelius loses..."

"You're not really worried about the money, are you?"

"No, of course not." He sat up slowly, like someone who's just woken up and doesn't want to go to work. "The thing is, under normal circumstances I'd be
concentrating
. I'd be taking a bloody interest. As it is, I can't really be bothered with the Republic and the Bank, my mind's not on the job. Which is the real reason it's all got into such a mess. My fault."

"He'll be all right," she said. "You'll see."

That just made Basso angry. He twisted off the bed, stalked to the door, stopped and turned back; a lion in a cage, in majestic possession of seven paces, ridiculous and sad. "The crazy part of it is," he said, "I chose to do it. I made a conscious decision to put the only human being I love on this earth in mortal danger. Seemed like a good idea at the time. For all I know, he's already dead, in the forest somewhere, with crows picking at his eyes. Of all the bloody stupid things."