The Proof House (7 page)

Gannadius sighed, and followed.
Alexius
, he thought,
where the hell are you when I need you? Can’t you find me, tell me what to do?
But of course, it didn’t work like that, as he knew perfectly well. He could speculate all he liked about why, three years earlier, he’d seen that short, rather ludicrous battle in the mud-patch in some sort of random, Principle-induced vision. The fact was that the Principle wasn’t a tool, something you could use. It was something that happened to you, like bad luck or rain. He trudged forward, fitting his feet into the boy’s deep footprints.
Too old for this. And at this rate, unlikely to get any older.

‘The path should be here somewhere.’ The boy’s voice, bouncing him out of his enclosed train of thought. ‘We must have missed it.’

‘Quite likely,’ Gannadius replied miserably. ‘It’s getting too dark for this. I say we stop here and wait till morning.’

‘All right.’ The boy flopped down where he stood, dropping the halberd in the mud. ‘I’m hungry,’ he said.

‘Tough. If you want, you can go and see if you can kill something. If there’s anything to kill in this horrible swamp except soldiers, which I doubt.’

The boy shook his head. ‘Haven’t seen any sign of anything,’ he replied.

‘Then we’ll just have to make do without, and try not to think about it.’

‘All right.’

A few minutes later the boy was fast asleep. Gannadius closed his eyes, but it didn’t do him any good, not for a long time. When at last he did fall asleep, he had the dream again, and that was worse.

He was in the dream: burning thatch, falling timbers whipping up clouds of sparks as they crashed to the ground, smoke and confused shouts. ‘Alexius?’ he asked. ‘What are you doing here?’

There he was, standing in front of him.
I don’t know. I haven’t been here for a long time. Where are you?

‘I was hoping you could tell me,’ Gannadius replied. ‘What can you see?’

Well, this
, Alexius replied.
The Fall of Perimadeia. What did you want me to see?

Gannadius frowned. ‘My nephew and I are lost in a swamp somewhere between Ap’ Escatoy and Ap’ Amodi. I was hoping you could tell me what to do.’

Sorry.
Alexius shrugged.
Did you say Ap’ Escatoy? That’s curious. That’s where I keep going lately.

‘Fascinating. I look forward to reading your monograph on the subject. Can’t you make an effort and see if you can find out where we are? It’d be a tremendous help, you know.’

Around him, Perimadeia continued to burn. Gannadius tried not to watch. ‘I hope I still do,’ he said, ‘though if I don’t get back there soon they’ll assume I’m dead and give it to somebody else. No, I went to the Island to see my nephew.’

‘Quite,’ Gannadius said, with a hint of impatience. ‘The idea was, Athli Zeuxis - you remember her?’

‘That’s right. Anyway, she brought the boy with her to the Island when Bardas went through that bad patch a few years ago, around the time she got the Island franchise for the Shastel Bank. Well, she’s done very well for herself since then, to the extent that she needs to open a corresponding office back at head-quarters, on Shastel; and she thought it’d be a good idea all round if young Theudas—’

‘That’s right. Named after me in fact—’

‘Yes. Theudas Morosin.’

‘Athli thought it’d be a good idea,’ Gannadius continued patiently, ‘if young Theudas spent some time in Shastel with her agent there, setting up the office, learning the trade, and spending some time with me, of course, since I’m practically his only living relative - apart from his father, of course, but he’s disappeared again, and he never was any sort of father to the boy.’

Gannadius sighed. ‘It was just my luck,’ he said. ‘A day or so after we left the Island, Shastel picked a fight with the provincial office over some wretched little island or other - really, it’s all to do with this Ap’ Escatoy business; obviously Shastel is scared stiff about what’s going to happen next - and now the provincial fleet’s blockading the Straits of Escati. If we’d had any sense we’d have turned back and gone the long way round - they haven’t closed that off, as far as I know - or at the very least we could have sat tight in Ap’ Amodi until the sabres stopped rattling. But no, we had to be clever and run the blockade. And instead, we ran on to the rocks, and then we ran into a patrol, and here we are. In a swamp.’

‘So do I,’ Gannadius said. ‘But you can’t, so that’s that. Anyway, how are you keeping? All well with you?’

The figure of Alexius (not really him, of course; not in any comprehensible sense, though of course he was there) shrugged its thin shoulders.
Not so bad.
A dying spearman staggered toward him; he stepped sideways to let him through.
I haven’t been sleeping at all well, though. Bad dreams, you know.

‘You as well? This one?’

‘Let’s hope so,’ Gannadius said, trying to sound properly sympathetic. ‘I’m glad to say I haven’t—’

‘Uncle?’

Gannadius opened his eyes. ‘What? Oh, it’s you.’

The boy looked at him. ‘You were talking to somebody, ’ he said.

‘Was I?’ Gannadius looked vague. ‘I must have been dreaming. Um, what was I saying?’

The boy smiled. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ he said. ‘You were mumbling, and I think it was some other language. Do you do that a lot? Talk in your sleep, I mean.’

Gannadius frowned. ‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘You see, even if I do, I’m asleep and don’t know I’m doing it.’

‘So you’re him, are you?’ the clerk said, looking sideways along his nose. ‘The hero.’

There was a scorpion on the window-ledge; a female, with her newly born young clinging to her back. Bardas counted nine of them. She skittered a few steps, stopped and froze, her pincers raised. The clerk either hadn’t noticed or wasn’t bothered.

‘That’s me,’ Bardas said. ‘At least, I’m Bardas Loredan, and I’ve been called a lot worse.’

The clerk raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘A sense of humour, too. You’ll get on all right with the prefect, he’s got a sense of humour. At least,’ he added, ‘he makes jokes. More a producer than a consumer, if you take my meaning.’

Bardas nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

The clerk dismissed the thanks with a small gesture of his long, elegant fingers. ‘We’ve heard all about you,’ he said. ‘Of course, you’re an interesting man.’ He swatted at a fly without looking at it; got it, too. ‘The prefect collects interesting men. He’s a student of human nature.’

‘It’s an interesting thing to study,’ Bardas said.

‘So I’m told.’ The scorpion set off again; but the clerk spotted her out of the corner of his eye, picked up a half-round ebony ruler from the folding desk in front of him, leaned across and dealt her a devastating smack with the flat side, crushing her and her nine children into a sticky, compacted mess. ‘It’s all right,’ the clerk went on, flicking the remains off the ledge, ‘they’re not nearly as dangerous as people make out. Sure, if they sting you, chances are you’ll swell up for a day or so, and it hurts dreadfully. But it’s quite rare for anybody to die.’

‘That’s good to know,’ Bardas said.

The clerk wiped the ruler against the wall-hanging and put it back on his desk. ‘So you used to be a law-fencer, ’ he said. ‘I’ve heard about that. You used to kill people to settle lawsuits.’

‘That’s right,’ Bardas said.

‘Remarkable. Well, I suppose there’s something to be said for it, as a way of dealing with these things. Quicker than our way, probably fairer, undoubtedly less painful and gruelling for the participants. Not how I’d choose to earn a living, though.’

‘It had its moments,’ Bardas replied.

‘Better than digging mines, I expect.’

‘Most things are.’

‘I believe you.’ The clerk picked up a short, thin-bladed knife and started trimming a pen. ‘You’ll find the prefect is a pretty fair-minded sort of man; remarkably unprejudiced, really, for an army officer. You play straight with him and he’ll play straight with you.’

‘I’ll definitely bear that in mind,’ Bardas said.

Through the window came the scent of some strong, sweet flower - a pepper-vine, at a guess; he’d noticed that the walls of the prefecture were covered in them. There was also a lingering smell of perfume, the sticks they burned here to mask out the other strong, sweet smells. A bird of some description squawked on the parapet above the window.

‘Of course, most of the senior officers—’ The clerk never got to finish his sentence, because the door opened and a man in uniform (dark-brown gambeson, steel gorget, dress dummy pauldrons, vambraces and cops) walked past without looking at either of them. ‘He’ll see you now,’ the clerk said, and turned his attention to the papers on his desk. Bardas got up and walked into the office.

The prefect was a big man, even by the standard of the Sons of Heaven; darker than most of those Bardas had come across at Ap’ Escatoy, which suggested he was from the inner provinces, a man of consequence. His head was bald and his beard was cropped short and close. The top joint of his left little finger was missing.

‘Bardas Loredan,’ he said.

Bardas nodded.

‘Sit down, please.’ The prefect studied him for a moment, then nodded towards the empty chair. ‘Presumably you have a certificate from your commanding officer at Ap’ Escatoy.’

Bardas pulled the little brass cylinder out from his sleeve and handed it over. Carefully the prefect popped off the caps and poked the curl of paper out with the tip of his mutilated finger.

‘Please bear with me,’ he said as he unrolled it, and as he read it his face was a study in concentration.

‘A fascinating career,’ he said at last. ‘You were second in command of Maxen’s army.’

Baras nodded.

‘Remarkable,’ the prefect said. ‘And then your years as a law-fencer - a most intriguing occupation - followed by your brief service as colonel-general of Perimadeia.’ He looked up. ‘I’ve read about it, of course,’ he said. ‘A fine defence, under the circumstances. And the final assault really only made possible by treachery, so hardly your fault.’

‘Thank you,’ Bardas said.

‘And after that,’ the prefect went on, ‘a somewhat shadowy role in the war between the Shastel Order and Scona; well, we won’t go into that, it was a most unusual sequence of events by all accounts.’ He paused, but Bardas didn’t say anything, so he continued, ‘After which you enlisted as a private soldier with the provincial office and spent - let’s see - three years, give or take a week, in the saps at Ap’ Escatoy, a most distinguished tour of duty by any standards.’ He looked at Bardas again, with no perceptible expression. ‘Very much the stuff of legends,’ he said.

‘It didn’t seem that way at the time,’ Bardas said.

The prefect considered for a moment, then laughed. ‘No, of course not. Now then, what else have we got here? Ah, yes, your brother Gorgas; the same Gorgas Loredan who staged the military coup in the Mesoge. Clearly soldiering runs in the family. Another remarkable career, by all accounts. And very shrewd, strategically speaking. The importance of the Mesoge as a potential theatre of confrontation has been sorely underestimated, in my opinion.’

Bardas thought for a moment. ‘That’s Gorgas for you,’ he said. ‘Though my sister’s the smart one in our family.’

The prefect smiled again. ‘Do you really think so?’ he said. ‘To build up a thriving business and then lose it so quickly, over such a trifling series of incidents? Well, of course I can’t claim to know all the facts.’ Again he paused, then continued, ‘All in all,’ he said, ‘an impressive résumé for a sergeant of engineers. I confess, I’m curious as to how you came to join the provincial office, a man with your talents and experience. I’d have thought you’d have found something rather more challenging.’

‘Well, you know how it is,’ Bardas said. ‘Wars seem to follow me about, whenever I get myself settled. So I thought this time I’d go and find one, before it found me.’

The prefect looked at him as if he hadn’t quite understood. ‘An interesting perspective,’ he said. ‘In any event, your service in the siege of Ap’ Escatoy certainly merits a tangible reward, and the provincial office knows the importance of looking after its own. It ought to be possible to find a situation that will prove rewarding to you and which makes rather better use of your talents than the mines.’ He glanced back at the paper in front of him. ‘I see you have practical experience in manufacturing,’ he said.

‘I used to make bows,’ Bardas replied.

‘You were good at it?’

‘Fairly good,’ Bardas said. ‘A lot depends on getting the right materials.’

The prefect frowned, then nodded. ‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘Our procurement office takes particular care to ensure that all our specifications are properly met. And of course,’ he went on, ‘we’re equally thorough when it comes to quality control. Which is why the proof house is such an important part of our manufacturing procedure.’