The Belly of the Bow f-2 Read online

  It’s more than that, though; I feel positively cheerful, as if it were the first day of a month’s leave. It’s because this is making me leave Scona, which is what I’ve been wanting to do ever since I got here. This is just an excuse. Well, at least it’s a good excuse.

  The sun was well up now, and he decided to leave the main road. There was a chance that the Scona army would be bustling down this way fairly soon, and he had no desire to meet them. He took a track he knew – little more than the bed of a stream, now in spate and slippery under the soles of his badly worn boots – that bypassed Briora and brought him out on the cart-track between Ustel and the Town. It was a steep climb, rather more exertion than he’d have chosen after no sleep in a hayloft; but by the time he’d slipped and scrambled along it for about an hour, he was glad he’d chosen it, because as he pulled himself up a steep rise and skidded down the other side, he nearly trod on the dead body of a man, a Shastel soldier with an arrow in his back. He prised the body out of the mud and turned it over; a straggler from one of the various comings and goings there’d been over the last few days, not an ordinary halberdier but an officer, wearing a fine mailshirt and a belt with a gold buckle. There was a ring on one of the man’s fingers with a stone in it, and underneath where the man had fallen, nearly submerged in the mud, Loredan found a good-quality sword with a decorated hilt, worth thirty quarters of anybody’s money. He had no less than twenty quarters cash in his purse, and his boots were nearly new and, once padded with a few strips of cloth, a passable fit.

  He stripped off the mailshirt and packed it up in the dead man’s satchel, which turned out to contain half a loaf of bread, an inch of sausage and an onion. Loredan sat down beside his benefactor and solemnly thanked him, with his mouth full, as he did some mental arithmetic – thirty quarters for the sword, twenty cash, say thirty for the mailshirt since it’s damaged, ten more for the ring, another ten for the belt-buckle makes a hundred, and he was home and dry, as good as on board ship, not counting another three for the satchel and one for his old boots, maybe even one for the arrow if the blade’s not bent; then he went back over the body in case there was anything he’d missed. The padded jacket under the mailshirt (not military issue) was still perfectly serviceable and the shirt was better than his own, despite the blood and the hole in the back, so he had them. He pulled off the trousers and held them up; they were torn at the knee and covered in mud, and a Shastel greatcoat probably wasn’t a sensible thing to wear in the streets of Scona Town, but in the coat pockets he found a small folding knife and a book – Pacellus on Ethical Theory. The owner’s name was scrawled on the flyleaf – Renvaut Soef, whoever he’d been before he became an exploitable resource. The book was crumpled and illegible in places where rain and blood had got at it, but there was space for it in the satchel, so he took that too. In fact, he realised as he left the naked body behind him, virtually nothing was wasted except the meat.

  Machaera woke up with a scream, and opened her eyes.

  The dream started to fade, and she was glad to see the back of it; there had been fighting, and men being trampled in the mud; her cousin Remo, thin and dirty, leaning against a gate with a halberd couched in his arms, a burning house with men running out and then dropping to the ground, a sky full of arrows hanging in the air and then falling towards her, a man stripping a corpse and many other unpleasant things she didn’t want to think about. She got out of bed quickly, as if she was afraid some of the horrible things might still be lurking under the pillow, and splashed cold water from the jug onto her face. That seemed to help; her mind was clearing, and when she looked out of the window she saw that the sun was already up. She sighed; twice in a row now she’d overslept and missed breakfast.

  She scrambled into a gown and one sandal; the other one had vanished, and it took her several minutes to run it to ground behind the book-press. She was just fumbling with the straps when the bell went – definitely no breakfast, and only a minute or so to get down the stairs, across the courtyard, up the stairs of the Old Library and into the small lecture hall. She darted out and slammed the door behind her, realised she’d forgotten her wax tablets, went back for them, remembered to check for the stylus, found it wasn’t in the loop on the back of the tablets, hunted frantically for it, found it under the bed and this time made it down the stairs and into the yard, just in time to collide with the junior warden who was staggering along under a heaped armful of books, all of which inevitably ended up on the ground. Without daring to look him in the eye, she knelt down and started scooping them up and shovelling them back into his arms. When she’d gathered up the last errant scroll, she embarked on her apology, but the junior warden (who was eighty-two, as opposed to the senior warden, who was forty-one) scowled at her and said, ‘What?’ She decided to cut her losses and get out of the way as quickly as she could, before she did any more damage.

  There wasn’t any point going to the lecture hall now; once the lecture started the door was bolted and nobody was allowed in. Nobody knew why this was done, though the favourite explanation was that, years ago, people who weren’t members of the Foundation used to sneak in once the lecture was under way and sit at the back, learning things they weren’t allowed to know. Machaera started to walk back to her staircase, her mind preoccupied with shame and guilt, and she nearly walked straight into the young woman who had already coughed and said, ‘Excuse me,’ at her. Fortunately, she avoided a second collision just in time.

  ‘Excuse me,’ the young woman repeated.

  Machaera stared at her in awe. Creatures like this were never seen on the premises of the Foundation. She was dressed in a dark-blue buckram coat and matching breeches, with shiny black boots and a broad-brimmed black hat. Round her waist was a silk belt, with a purse and a pouch for a set of tablets, both in fine embroidered silk; and over her shoulder was a dark-blue baldrick from which hung a slim silver-hilted sword in a blue silk scabbard. To an Islander, it was just the runaway-princess-disguised-as-a-man-look, practically a uniform in the mercantile community (Vetriz had two such outfits in green, which Venart had forbidden her to wear on this trip), but to Machaera it was the most startlingly exotic thing she’d ever seen and she wasn’t quite sure whether she could cope with it.

  ‘Can you help me?’ the young woman asked. ‘I’m looking for a man called Gannadius.’ Her voice was faintly exotic too, although the City accent was familiar; but there was a faint overlay of something else. The Island, possibly? Machaera had never met anybody from there, but she’d heard somewhere that some Island women wore trousers and carried swords, just like the men. Then she remembered that the women who did that were generally pirates, so presumably this strange person was a pirate too. If so, the pirate life hadn’t had much effect on her fingernails.

  ‘You mean Doctor Gannadius,’ Machaera said, wondering what on earth Doctor Gannadius had to do with pirates. Perhaps they brought him rare manuscripts plundered from Southern argosies, or fragments of ancient inscriptions stolen from abandoned temples in the jungles of the West. ‘He might just be in his lodgings, if he isn’t lecturing. I’ll take you there.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the young woman gravely, and followed as Machaera led the way, looking round nervously from time to time as if checking that the lady pirate was still there and hadn’t slipped away to loot the buttery.

  ‘Have you been here before?’ Machaera asked.

  ‘No,’ the young woman replied. ‘Which is unusual for someone in my line of work, I know.’

  ‘Oh?’ Machaera replied, and then wished she hadn’t. If the Foundation had intimate links with pirates, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. ‘Well,’ she recovered, ‘I hope you’re enjoying your visit.’

  The young woman smiled. ‘There’s certainly a lot to see,’ she replied. ‘Some of it makes me quite nostalgic.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘It reminds me a lot of Perimadeia,’ the lady pirate translated. ‘All these courtyards, one opening into the next. And
the fountains, too. There were ever so many fountains in the City.’

  Machaera nodded. ‘Ah,’ she said, as if she’d just understood a great mystery. ‘Well, Doctor Gannadius’ lodgings are through here, turn left at the top of the staircase, the first door you come to.’ She hesitated for a moment, torn between fascination and a general desire to get away before somebody saw her in such bizarre company. ‘I can show you if you like,’ she said.

  ‘Please, don’t bother,’ the lady pirate said with a smile. ‘I’m sure I’ll find the way. Thank you for your help.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ Machaera replied, trying to give the impression that she conducted heavily armed girls in trousers round the Cloister grounds every day of her life. ‘It was nice meeting you.’

  I wonder how she manages not to knock things over with her sword, she mused as she made her way back to her room. It sort of sticks out when she walks. It must be a real nuisance in a crowded street.

  The young woman found the first door on the left at the top of the staircase, knocked and waited. A familiar voice called out, ‘Come in,’ and she pressed down the latch and walked inside.

  ‘Hello, Gannadius,’ she said.

  He was fatter than he’d been the last time she’d seen him, manhandling a heavy trunk up the gangplank of a twin-castle freighter called the Squirrel beside the Strand on the Island. His hair was shorter too, which probably explained why more of it seemed grey than she remembered. The long grey gown was presumably what Doctors wore in these parts; it wasn’t so different from the long brown robe he’d worn when they first met, in Perimadeia, a place that now existed only in a few people’s memories.

  ‘Athli,’ Gannadius replied. ‘Good gods, what are you doing here?’

  Athli grinned, took off her sword and baldrick, and dropped into a chair. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, ‘I haven’t come for my money. You look well.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Gannadius replied, unstoppering the wine jug. ‘I’m ashamed to say this dreadful place suits me. And I’ll pay you back the money immediately. I’d have done so earlier, but finding someone reliable who was going that way-’

  Athli waved the rest of the speech aside. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘Keep it for me, in case I need it some day. How’s business?’

  Gannadius laughed. ‘I’m better at this than at the soft-furnishings trade,’ he replied. ‘Mind you, that’s not saying much. What about you? You look prosperous enough, but usually the more prosperous an Island trader looks, the more likely he is to be up to his eyes in debt. I hope that’s not the case.’

  Athli shook her head and accepted the cup of wine. ‘And when she says, couldn’t be better, business is booming, you know she’s about to try and borrow money. But seriously, everything’s going very well indeed. I’ve got my own ship now,’ she added, ‘and it’s paid for, too. And I’ve branched out from soft furnishings; I’m now the Island agent for the Grand Foundation of Poverty and Learning; or I will be once I’ve sorted out some details, which is why I’m here. Who’d have thought it, Gannadius, a fencer’s clerk from Perimadeia, running a bank.’

  Gannadius looked at her. ‘Congratulations,’ he said severely.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said. ‘But whatever else they may be, they’re also a highly successful international banking corporation, and getting their agency is rather better than finding large sums of money in the street. Besides,’ she added with a frown, ‘you work for them too, so you can’t talk.’

  Gannadius shrugged. ‘There was a job for me here, and I couldn’t go on imposing on your good nature indefinitely. Admit it, I was a fairly incompetent clerk.’

  ‘True.’ Athli finished her wine. ‘Which isn’t to say that your old job isn’t still there for you if ever you do decide-It’s all right,’ she added, with a grin, ‘I’m only joking. What’s it like here, really?’

  ‘Very much like being back in the City,’ Gannadius replied. ‘I teach my own special brand of nonsense to innocent young things who still insist on believing that really it’s all about magic, and if they do their homework and pay attention in class they’ll end up being able to turn their enemies into frogs. I still play at research when I’m in the mood, but more for the sake of appearances than out of any desire to increase the sum of human knowledge. As far as I’m concerned, the less people actually know about that subject, the happier we’ll all be.’

  Athli nodded a few times. ‘I tend to agree with you there,’ she said. ‘And if you ask me, you’d be better off back at your old desk in the counting-house; well, you know what I think about all that stuff. Still, that’s your business and not mine, I’m delighted to say. No, I won’t thanks,’ she said, as Gannadius offered to refill her cup. ‘I’ve got to go and talk business with hard-nosed businessmen in an hour or so, and it won’t create a very good impression if I slur my words and breathe fumes in their faces.’

  Gannadius nodded. ‘It’s all dry bread and pure spring water with that lot,’ he said. ‘Miserable people, most of them; and this latest crisis hasn’t exactly improved their humour – oh, I don’t suppose you know,’ he added. ‘About the military situation, I mean.’

  Athli shook her head. ‘You mean the Scona business,’ she said. ‘Why, has there been a flare-up or something?’

  ‘You might say that,’ Gannadius replied. ‘Without boring you with details, we’ve got several hundred soldiers and a few high-ranking members of the Poor either dead or trapped on Scona, and everybody’s going around with very grim faces. As far as I can tell, it counts as a pretty serious setback, and there are all sorts of gloomy predictions about mass defections among the hectemores, reprisals, naval blockades, even invasions. It’s fairly fresh news and they’re doing their best to keep it quiet, but obviously it’s not going to do confidence in the Foundation any good at all, so bear that in mind when you’re discussing commission rates and franchise agreements; you’re probably in a much stronger bargaining position than you think.’

  Athli raised an eyebrow. ‘Assuming I still want the agency,’ she said. ‘Is it serious? I mean, really? The last thing I want is for the Foundation to go under and leave me holding a fistful of outstanding letters of credit.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry too much about it,’ Gannadius replied. ‘In the long run, it must come down to a battle of resources; and the Foundation’s a great big bank and Scona’s a little one. I’m not saying the Foundation could lose three hundred halberdiers and not feel anything, but if the worst came to the worst, they’ve got fifty men for every one of the Scona people. The main headache has always been the fact that they’ve got quite a few ships and we haven’t got any. In fact, thinking about it, perhaps that might have something to do with their wanting to set up an agency on the Island. Where else would you go if you wanted to hire a fleet of say fifty warships, cash in hand and no questions asked?’

  Athli smiled. ‘The same thought had crossed my mind,’ she said. ‘Some considerable time after it crossed the mind of every ship-owner on the Island. They’ve been talking to each other for years, but the long and the short of it is, it’d cost too much compared with the actual amount of aggravation the Foundation gets from Scona. I don’t imagine that’s really changed all that much, no matter what your friends in the sackcloth tunics are saying. But thanks for the advice,’ she added, with a smile. ‘At the very least, it’ll leave them wondering how I ever managed to find out. From what I gather, they’re quite paranoid about secrecy and security.’

  Gannadius pursed his lips. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. ‘But it wouldn’t be the first time a mob of ill-mannered upstarts managed to bring down a proud and mighty nation, as we both know. Anyway,’ he went on, ‘that’s enough about affairs of state and high finance. How are Venart and Vetriz? And the Buezon sisters? And did you ever manage to get rid of all that magenta lace I managed to lumber you with?’

  Absent friends and old times on the Island filled in Athli’s spare hour quite comfortably and
pleasantly, and she was feeling happy and relaxed when she got up to go off to her meeting. But as she turned to leave, Gannadius said, ‘There’s just one other thing,’ and the tone of his voice was somehow disturbing.

  ‘Yes?’ she said.

  Gannadius looked down at his feet, and then at the wall. ‘I know what you think about, well, what I do-’

  ‘The expressions “mystical claptrap” and “charlatan” do tend to spring to mind, but please go on.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Gannadius said. ‘But I have a young student who seems to have a depressingly advanced level of natural ability as far as mystical claptrap and charlatanry are concerned-’

  ‘The key word,’ Athli said quietly, ‘being “natural”. Carry on.’

  ‘Quite. And the other day she had one of her extremely tiresome visions, and as usual came to me with it, and I saw it too. And before you ask, it wasn’t something useful like the winners of a horse race. It was more to do with an acquaintance of mine and your former employer.’

  ‘Loredan,’ Athli said without expression. Gannadius grimaced.

  ‘That’s not a name to go saying too loudly in these parts,’ he said, ‘as you well know. But yes, this vision did have something to do with Bardas Loredan, which is why I decided to brave your overdeveloped sense of humour and tell you about it. Do you want to-?’

  Athli nodded. ‘So what was it?’

  Gannadius closed his eyes for a moment. ‘The girl has a cousin, Ramo or some such name, who was with the raiding party on Scona. She saw him leaning over a gate, apparently on sentry duty or something like that; it was early in the morning, and he was looking tired and bored. That’s all she saw – I get the impression she’s seen the same thing more than once, which technically speaking is quite significant. But when she showed the vision to me, I saw something else. I saw this cousin Ramo leaning on his gate, but I also saw Bardas coming up behind this man, hitting him over the head with something, scrambling over the gate and hurrying away down a track. And that’s not the end of it,’ Gannadius went on. ‘She – my student – also saw a man on a hillside taking armour and clothes from the dead body of a Shastel soldier, and when I saw that part of it, the man was Bardas Loredan. And that’s about it,’ he finished lamely. ‘I thought I’d tell you, just in case-’