The Two of Swords: Part 9 (6 page)

The man on the other side of her was a soldier, a senior staff officer just returned from patrolling in the desert. She asked him if he’d engaged the enemy; no, thank God, he replied with feeling, he’d been assigned the eastern side of the road, which had been dead quiet ever since Forza Belot slaughtered the enemy’s main army. It was on the western side that they’d had all the trouble with the insurgents, who by all accounts had learned the lesson General Belot had taught them, and were concentrating on picking off villages and towns. There was something very different going on out there, he told her, you might almost call it a different attitude to war, a new way of defining victory –
sophisticated
was the only word he could think of, which was an odd way to describe hit-and-run attacks by savages, but there it was. So long as he wasn’t called on to do anything about it, he was delighted to leave it to other, better strategists, who were welcome to slog up and down the sand dunes while he was back here, in civilisation, eating, listening to good music and maybe even meeting the legendary Oida—

She left as early as she could and went back to her room, to find that nobody had been in to light the lamps. She found the tinderbox by feel and discovered there was no tinder. So she sat in the dark for a while, then groped her way out on to the balcony; she misjudged the distances, bumped into the rail and nearly went over. A perfect end to a perfect day, in fact.

There was a seat on the balcony; cold, hard stone, but better than standing up (her feet were hurting; the incessant underfloor heat had made them swell, and her boots were uncomfortably small). It was a clear night and the moon was nearly full. She amused herself for a while by figuring out the geography of the courtyard below her, then fell asleep.

A prod on the shoulder woke her up, and there was Oida standing over her with a sort of cloth bundle in one hand and a lamp in the other. “Inside,” he said. “Before you catch your death.”

The bundle proved to be a linen antimacassar – there had been one on the back of every chair in the dining room – and when Oida unfolded it she saw that it contained bread rolls, five different sorts of cheese, apples, pears, honey and cinnamon cakes and six cubes of that amazing pink sweet soft stuff that was the only real justification for the existence of Blemya. “I thought you might be hungry,” he said, “so I grabbed a few bits on the way out.”

She gazed into his eyes for maybe two heartbeats, then lunged at the food like a jackal. He perched on the end of the bed while she ate, occasionally picking out something for himself. She ate solidly for quite some time. Then she looked at him again. “I don’t suppose you thought to bring anything to drink,” she said.

“Depends.” From the baggy sleeve of his gown he produced a small stone bottle. “I know you don’t usually touch the hard stuff,” he said. “But there aren’t any pockets in this rag, so I had to make do with what I could fit in.”

She frowned at him. “There’s water in the jug.”

“Fine.” He stood up, found the jug and brought it to her. “No cup, glass or beaker,” he said. “Same in my room, oddly enough. I don’t think the Blemyans drink in their rooms.”

“Doesn’t matter.” She grabbed the jug and tried to drink from the side of the spout. Some of the water found its way into her mouth; the rest ran down her chin and then her neck. She pulled a face. “Tastes funny.”

“I think it’s for washing in,” Oida said mildly. “My understanding is, drinking water comes from the well, or the rainwater tank on the roof. That stuff’s probably been six times round the heating system, in lead pipes. Still, I don’t suppose a few mouthfuls will kill you.”

“I’ve had worse,” she mumbled through a mouthful of bread.

“I know you have,” he said mildly, and dabbed at his forehead with the hem of the antimacassar. “You’re right, it gets quite stifling after a bit. I think I’ll go out on the balcony and cool down.”

She ate what was left, then went out to join him. “I wish there was some way of making it stop,” she said.

“Ah.” He smiled. “I asked one of the palace nobs about it, actually it’s quite interesting. On the ground floor, the hot air from the furnace rises and passes through corridors of bitumen-coated brick under the flooring slabs. To get heat to the upper storeys, they run boiling water through miles of thick lead pipe laid alongside the rafters of the floors. They’ve got this system of pumps, with two dozen men working them all day and all night. Apparently, it takes five tons of charcoal—”

“In other words, you can’t make it stop.”

“No. Hell of an undertaking, though. The whole building is honeycombed with pipes and flues and hypocausts, which is why everything looks so chunky and solid. This chap was telling me, they had exactly the same system in the Old Palace in Rasch, except that it stopped working about ninety years ago, and now nobody remembers that it’s there.”

“Good,” she said. “It’s a menace. Did you bring the water jug?”

“No. Have a pull of this instead.”

“What is it?”

“Local speciality. Distilled from peach stones.”

“No, thank you.” She started to get up but he was quicker than her; he came back a moment later with the jug. She held it awkwardly with the handle at the back and poured water into her mouth. “What kind of lunatic installs round-the-clock heating in a town built on the edge of the desert?”

“Ah.” He grinned. “The empire had it, so the Blemyans had to have it, too.” He cracked the wax round the spout of the bottle, drew the stopper and took a small swig. “Not bad,” he said. “You can get it in Rasch occasionally, but it’s not as good. Sure?”

She nodded. No way was she going to drink strong drink with Oida in her bedroom. “Have you found out any arrangements yet?”

“For the concert?”

“For getting me out of here.”

“I’m working on it, I promise. Meanwhile, the concert’s tomorrow evening, and then the presentation’s the afternoon after that.”

“I can’t stay in this oven two whole days. I’ll fry.”

He nodded. “Do as I suggested and sleep out here,” he said. “Apparently, that’s what the locals do when they can’t stand it any more. If you haven’t got enough cushions, there’s plenty in my room.”

In the early hours of the morning, she had occasion to remember the first thing they tell you about the desert; boiling hot during the day, freezing cold at night. She went back inside, stayed there until the sweat was dripping off the end of her nose, went back outside and shivered. A bit like the fancy public baths in Rasch, with the difference that you could leave the baths if you wanted to.

“I want you to be honest with me,” she said.

The sun was shining in the formal garden at the back of the Baths of Uxin, and Oida was drinking white wine flavoured with honey and mint. He had a straw hat tilted over his eyes. “I’m always honest with you,” he said. “Nearly always.”

The new veil was an improvement on the cheesecloth in that it didn’t smell of cheese, but it made her want to scream. Through it she could see her big, strong hands folded demurely in her lap. Her mother had hated them, declared that she’d never get a husband with paws like that. Keep them behind your back, she used to say, or pull your sleeves down over them. “I want you to tell me why you were at the castle.”

“To rescue you,” Oida said. She couldn’t see his face, because of the hat.

“There are good reasons, plausible reasons and the real reason,” she said. “I want the real reason.”

“You just had it.”

She sighed. “There’s a bit in one of my favourite books,” she said. “A man is drowning. Someone pulls him out. The man starts to thank his rescuer, but then the rescuer’s hood falls off and he sees his face. You’re Death, the man says. That’s right, says Death. Then why did you save me, asks the man, and Death says, for later.” The veil was tickling her neck; she scratched. “Well?”

Oida yawned. “I liked his earlier stuff better,” he said.

“That instrumental piece you played,” she said, picking at a hangnail. “The Procopius variations. Yours?”

He nodded. “Something I threw together for a concert I did the time before last I was here. The garrison commander heard it the first time and asked me to do it again. It didn’t go down very well, but what can you expect?”

He’d answered her question. “Real reason?”

“Good reason. Did you like it?”

“Actually, yes.”

He nodded. “More your sort of thing. I know you don’t think much of my songs.”

“I wouldn’t be a true friend if I wasn’t savagely honest. No, I don’t.”

“Ah, well. Most people do.”

“And most people pay more money, right. You know, you could write good music if you—”

He laughed. “Of course I could,” he said. “You want to know a secret? Writing what you call good music is easy, piece of cake. You’re writing for intelligent, educated people who are prepared to meet you halfway. It’s the army songs and the romantic ballads that made me sweat blood.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Because they’re simple and accessible? You don’t know anything about writing music. Simple and accessible is the hardest thing there is. It’s like designing a clock mechanism with only two moving parts. It’s working with both hands tied behind your back. You’re limited to a simple melodic line, which has to conform to strict form. You’ve got the voice and one instrument and that’s it, no orchestra, no counterpoint, nothing. It’s like explaining Saloninus’ theory of the Eternal Recurrence to a six-year-old rather than a tenured professor of Ethics.” He tilted the hat back and sat up a little. “And that’s why I earn good money,” he said. “Because I can give people what they want. Not just the smart ones. Everybody.” Suddenly he grinned. “I do actually work for a living,” he said.

“All right,” she said grudgingly. “If money is all that matters—”

“It’s the only reliable way of keeping score,” he said. “A thousand cultured folk will tell you they love your symphony, but can you believe them? But if a hundred thousand poor people decide they can afford two stuivers to hear you sing, that probably means you’re actually getting something right.” He shrugged. “Not that I mind the money,” he added. “One of these days I might get to spend some of it. Who knows?”

“Fine,” she said. “But Procopius could write a symphony everybody would enjoy.”

“Maybe. So why hasn’t he?”

“Because he writes what he must. He’s not desperate to please everybody on earth. And Procopius will still be listened to when your stuff’s long forgotten. And I think that means that Procopius is the one who gets it right.”

He smiled. “Listened to by whom? No, forget it, I’m sure you’re right. I’m just a whore, selling my soul for money. Suits me. And, yes, I do like people to like me. It makes life so much easier.” He tilted the hat back over his eyes and relaxed. “One thing I will say for Procopius,” he said. “He’s a hell of a card player.”

When she got back to her room, she found a dress laid out on the bed. She spent a whole minute just staring at it. Then she tried it on.

There was a full-length mirror on the far wall; an amazing thing, Mezentine, probably five hundred years old, a few black clouds at the edges but the tone still absolutely perfect. She looked at herself and saw a thin, striking woman in a dress made for a fairy princess. It made her hands look like sides of pork. A sweet thought, she decided, but completely wrong. Therefore, Oida must have sent it.

She took it off and laid it out carefully so it wouldn’t crease. He’d only done it so she’d have something respectable to wear to his concert, so she wouldn’t show him up. Weird, though, that he’d imagined she’d look anything other than strange in a dress like that; as if he didn’t see her the way the mirror did. She tried to remember just how long she’d known him, but couldn’t. He’d always been there, somehow. Not that it mattered a damn.

The concert was held in what had once been a temple, though so long ago that nobody knew for sure who or what had been worshipped there; the old frescos had all been painted over (with Blemya receiving the tribute of all nations, in a rather garish Triumphalist style that made her teeth ache) but a few worn bas-reliefs could still be seen in the upper galleries if you craned your neck; whether they were meant to be human, animal, divine or abstract was anybody’s guess. But the acoustic wasn’t bad at all.

Oida was trembling so much before the show that she was sure he wouldn’t be able to do it; ten minutes later he bounced on with a grin on his face and a violin, and began to play; a series of sonatas and fugues – Procopius, Alimbal, Lanaphe, if she’d chosen the programme it wouldn’t have been much different. At first she was stunned, then enraptured, then angry. Their conversation that morning; was he making fun of her? Or had he engineered it, to make her feel small and stupid? Somehow the anger didn’t spoil the music one bit.

There was a brief intermission, during which footmen brought round water and iced tea in silver jugs, which reminded her just how hot and thirsty she was (but the horrible veil meant she couldn’t drink). Then Oida came back and sang; arias from
Truth
and
The Abdication of Rhixus
, the Invocation from
Luzir Soleth
, that sort of thing. She was sure he wasn’t going to make the high notes in the Invocation, but he did, effortlessly. For an encore he gave them “Lord of Tempests”, which he sang at breakneck speed, the way Saiva is reputed to have done, though nobody believes it. He did it perfectly, and when he’d finished she realised she was on her feet along with everyone else, and her hands were sore.

Mercifully, there was no reception afterwards. She waited patiently for the crush to file out, then headed for the grand staircase. To get there, she had to pass a colonnade. A hand appeared from behind a column, grabbed her by the elbow and hauled her into the shadows.

“Quiet,” Oida said. He was still in his stage robe, but he had a small bundle wrapped in cloth. She recognised it. He pushed it into her hands. “Job for you.”

She stared at him. “What?”

He drew her further into the colonnade, out of sight. “But first, a conjuring trick.” His pack of cards appeared as if by magic in his hand. He fanned them (smooth as any professional) and held them under her nose. “Pick a card,” he said. “Any card.”