The Belly of the Bow Read online

  ‘I can see that,’ the old man said with a smile. ‘If you ask me, you’re beginning to mellow.’

  ‘I’d rather call it seasoning, like that wood up there. Which is just a way of saying I’m beginning to act my age. One thing about killing people for a living, it kept me from getting middle-aged. This is a different way of life entirely.’

  ‘Better?’

  The craftsman gave that some serious thought before answering. ‘It’s bloody hard work,’ he replied. ‘But yes, much better. I wouldn’t go back now, not if they made me the Emperor and gave me the whole upper city to live in. It’s possible that this is what I’ve always wanted to do; in which case, I must remember to buy young Temrai a large drink next time I see him.’

  The old man laughed. ‘I’m sure he had your well-being at heart all along,’ he said.

  ‘What’s a burnt city among friends so long as you’re happy? Quite.’ The craftsman lifted the plane and slid it across the face of the billet, producing a clean slicing noise. ‘I tend not to think about that side of things very much,’ he said. ‘It’s amazing how much better life can be if you manage to lay off the thinking.’

  The old man drank some more, put the cup down and covered it with his hat to stop the sawdust getting in it. ‘Business is good?’ he asked.

  ‘Can’t complain,’ the craftsman replied. ‘It’s quite remarkable how little these people know about bow-making. I could get technical and bore you rigid, but that’d be unkind, so let’s just say that for a nation who’re supposed to depend for their survival on their skill as archers, the people of Scona don’t know spit about the tools of their trade. The idea that there’s more to a bow than a bent stick and some string has come to them like some divine revelation. In fact,’ he added, stopping to wipe his forehead on his arm, ‘business is a bit too good, as you’d be able to work out for yourself if you took a walk around here looking for a reasonably straight ash tree. Which you won’t,’ he added, ‘because they’re all up there.’ He pointed up at the billets stacked between the rafters. ‘That lot won’t keep me going for very long,’ he continued, ‘and I’ve got an order for six dozen sinew-backed recurves for the military that I’d loose sleep over if I stopped to think about it. If ever you meet anybody whose doctor’s ordered him six weeks of total and utter boredom, send him to me and I’ll put him on carding sinew.’

  The old man smiled. ‘That’s a very good sign,’ he said. ‘You must be doing well if you’re grumbling like that. You sound like a farmer complaining of too much rain.’

  ‘I think they call it reverting to type. There now,’ he said, putting the plane to one side and picking up a pair of calipers, ‘that’s not looking too bad. Let’s see whether we’ve got that . . .’ he stood up and turned, and just as Machaera was about to see his face, she lifted her head and blinked, and saw Scona across the lagoon, and herring-gulls circling in the snowy air, and a single ship with a blue sail dragging itself across the wind into the arms of Scona harbour.

  Now what was all that about? She tried to imagine the library table again, but when she found the image in her mind, all she could see was an untidy heap of brass tubes, some empty, some with the ends of badly rolled books squashed into them. She shut her eyes and did her best to think, but a savage headache had taken hold about an inch behind her eyes, and thinking was like trying to see through thick fog and driving rain. Which of them was I supposed to see? The old man or the man he was talking to? She made an effort to force the pictures back into her mind, but there weren’t enough of them left to get a grip on. Rationalising, it ought to be the old man. When she’d looked into his eyes, it was as if she’d recognised something there; it was like looking at your friend’s grandfather and saying to yourself, Ah, yes, that’s where the nose comes from. She guessed that what she’d seen was some kind of mark or scar left behind after looking at the Principle, just as she’d been doing, the same kind of flare or burn as if she’d looked too long at the sun and it had left a permanent mark visible whenever she closed her eyes. But he hadn’t said anything; he’d just sat there asking questions, so surely it was the other one who was important, the one she’d been given this special privilege of seeing. But he was just some kind of artisan, a worker in wood like her father. How could anything concerning a man like that be of any relevance to the Principle, or the survival of Shastel and the Foundation? A great warrior might just possibly have some significance; conceivably a mighty engineer, destined to design some fabulous new engine of war that could overthrow the enemy at a stroke. But a tradesman - a small-time tradesman, one who was struggling to meet an order for six dozen (six dozen, that’s five twelves are sixty plus twelve makes seventy-two) seventy-two bows - why, the Foundation’s arsenal probably made that many in a single day. If she didn’t know better, she’d be tempted to think that the Principle was making fun of her.

  Remember, Doctor Gannadius had told them last year, just before the written exam, don’t look for what you want to see, or you think you should see, or even what you expect to see. Don’t look for anything. Look at what’s there, and mark it well. What you see is always the truth; the distortions and errors come afterwards, when you think about what you’ve seen.

  She frowned. Nobody in the whole world knew more about the Principle than Doctor Gannadius; after all, he was the last surviving member of the Foundation of Perimadeia, designated to succeed the old Patriarch if only the City hadn’t fallen. The mere fact of his coming to Shastel had done more for the morale of the Foundation than a hundred victories against the enemy could have achieved. It was Doctor Gannadius, after all, who’d recognised her special gifts and brought her here to the Cloister, among the top ten per cent of the novices, and taught her the very technique she’d just been using. In which case, she realised, the sensible thing would be to stop trying to puzzle it out for herself - all she’d do would be to muddy the image in her mind and corrupt it - and take it to him for interpretation, so that he could make proper use of this important piece of intelligence, maybe something so important it could win them the war . . .

  And maybe that was going a bit too far. The whole point was, she didn’t know. For all she knew, embedded in the conversation somewhere was some tiny detail that gave the key to understanding some major intelligence issue - invasion plans, a fatal problem with material procurement, an opportunity to recruit a spy who would come across with the vital secret of something or other she simply couldn’t imagine. But wasn’t history crammed with recorded instances of morsels of apparent trivia, overheard in dockside caverns or mumbled by lovers in their sleep, that had resulted in the fall of great empires and the deaths of untold thousands? One thing was for sure; if she kept it to herself and tried to figure it out all on her own, the momentous turning point in history could be the failure of Shastel to pick up on the vital clue that might just have saved them from the deadly and hitherto unforseen danger . . . She jumped up, slammed the shutters closed and had to make a great effort to stop herself running along the corridor and down the spiral staircase to Doctor Gannadius’ office; which, when she reached it, turned out to be empty.

  ‘Apparently,’ muttered the sergeant, ‘she’s the Director’s niece.’

  The corporal stooped and took another peep through the hole in the door. ‘I heard tell she was her daughter,’ he replied.

  ‘You don’t want to go hearing things like that,’ the sergeant said. ‘Stunts your growth, listening to that kind of talk.’ He drew his hand across his throat. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘she’s some sort of family, which means she’s none of our business. Just watch her when you take in her food. She can only scratch left-handed, but she knows how to kick.’

  The corporal nodded gravely. True, the girl in the cell didn’t look like she was capable of hurting anybody, not with that mangled hand; it was as much as she could do to get the food into her mouth and change her clothes. But it was different when she started cursing and screaming; having to listen to that was enough to sour a ma
n’s beer, even through two inches of oak door, and there wasn’t much anyone dared do to shut her up, what with her being some kind of family of the Director’s. You never knew whether she’d be out the next day and sitting behind a desk in an office putting her seal to transfer orders that’d send a poor soldier to his death. Best to be on the safe side, and keep well clear.

  ‘Makes you wonder, though,’ the sergeant said. ‘Carved up like that and shoved away in a cell, and she’s one of them. Gods only know what they do to their enemies.’

  Away down the passage a key scraped in a lock; someone was giving orders. The sergeant twisted the cover back over the peephole and gestured to the corporal to get back to his station quickly. When the newcomers reached the end of the line of cells, the sergeant stood to attention, saluted and crunched the heels of his boots down with parade-ground precision. The newcomers didn’t notice.

  ‘She’s in here,’ said a captain of the guard, a rare and exotic creature to find in the cellars. ‘We’ve kept her apart from the other prisoners, just as you said.’

  The other visitor, a big bald man in a dark non-regulation coat, grunted. ‘She’s not a prisoner, she’s a detainee. You want to learn the difference. Right, open it up. I’ll bang on the door when I’m done.’

  The sergeant jumped forward like the automaton in a mechanical clock and turned the key; then he stood well back from the door, as if there was a risk of infection. The captain gave him a sour look and sat down in his chair.

  ‘Uncle Gorgas,’ the girl said.

  ‘Don’t start, Iseutz,’ Gorgas Loredan sighed. He slumped down on the bed and slouched forward, his elbows on his knees.

  ‘You look worn out,’ Iseutz went on, sitting on the floor beside him. He moved a few inches away.

  ‘I’m tired,’ Gorgas said. ‘And I’m not in a very good mood. And as far as I’m concerned, you can damn well stay here until you learn how to behave yourself. But your mother—’ Iseutz made a hissing noise, like an angry cat. Gorgas sighed. ‘Your mother,’ he repeated, ‘keeps insisting that I reason with you. Which is all very well for her to say,’ he added, ‘since she doesn’t have to come down here to this shithole and put up with your performances. Obviously she believes I’ve got nothing better to occupy my time with.’

  ‘Well,’ muttered Iseutz. ‘And have you?’

  Gorgas scowled at her. ‘I’ve got plenty that needs doing, thank you very much,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a wife and children I don’t see for weeks at a time. I’ve got a sister who treats me like an errand boy, I’ve got a brother up in the hills making grand gestures at me, and in my spare time I’ve got a war to run. And of course I’ve got you. Gods, it must be wonderful to have a really dull, boring life. I’d love to be bored just once, just to say I’ve tried it.’

  Iseutz looked at him. ‘Save it,’ she said. ‘In fact, why don’t you just go away? You’re wasting your precious time here.’

  Gorgas yawned and stretched out on the bed, his fingers laced behind his head. ‘Other people,’ he said, ‘have nieces who’re pleased to see them. Favourite nieces they spoil with little presents, who ask to stay up late when their uncles come to dinner.’

  ‘Other people don’t murder their brothers,’ Iseutz replied sweetly. ‘You could have had lots of nieces if you hadn’t killed off most of your family.’

  Gorgas breathed out heavily through his nose. ‘Very true,’ he said. ‘Although as a matter of cold fact, I’ve never murdered any of my brothers, just my father and my brother-in-law. As it is, I have to make the best of what I’ve got. For gods’ sakes, what’s the point of doing this to yourself? Aren’t there enough martyrs in this family already?’

  Iseutz smiled at him. ‘You should know, Uncle Gorgas. And please don’t say I’m doing this to myself. I didn’t exactly drag myself down here and turn the key, you know.’

  ‘And you know you could be out of here in two minutes flat, if only you’d give up this ridiculous posturing. If there’s one thing that’s the curse of this family, it’s melodrama.’

  She studied him, her head slightly on one side. ‘Are you sure about that, Uncle?’ she said. ‘I always thought the curse on this family was you.’

  Gorgas sighed. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll say it again. When I was young I did some terrible things, and so did your mother. We behaved appallingly. We were bad. But now we’re different, we’re trying to make up for what we did. We’re trying to help a whole lot of people who’ve had a really bad deal, and we’re trying really hard to make it up to the rest of the family. And before you start again, please remember that you’re the one who’s sworn to kill your Uncle Bardas, and he’s probably the only half-decent one out of the whole lot of us.’

  ‘Half decent?’ Iseutz squawked. ‘He made his living killing people. People he didn’t even know.’

  ‘True,’ Gorgas replied. ‘But compared with the rest of us . . .’

  The girl was about to reply; then suddenly she giggled. ‘You know,’ she said, resting her elbows on the foot of the bed, ‘when you come to think of it, we’re a pretty sick bunch. I think that’s probably why I hate Mother more than you or even Uncle Bardas. At least you two are just murderers. What I can’t forgive her for is making me the way I am.’

  ‘Oh, please yourself,’ Gorgas grunted, sliding off the bed and standing up. ‘Maybe you’re right, at that. But that’s not the way I see things; I don’t believe in this idea that evil people are evil and can’t ever be anything else. I mean, do you confine that to individuals, or does it go for whole nations as well? Just because our ancestors massacred some other city or tribe a thousand years ago, does that mean we’re going to carry on being bastards for the rest of time? There wouldn’t be anybody left. And think about it: doesn’t it work both ways? Take Temrai and the plainsmen. They sacked the City and killed all the people; all right, they’re evil, they’re bastards. But they did it because the City people used to go around killing them—’

  ‘My Uncle Bardas used to go around killing them.’

  For the first time, there was something in Gorgas’ expression that suggested he might be getting angry. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and he also saved your life. He spared your life when you were trying to kill him, and then he got you out of the City when he should have been thinking about himself. And you still say no, he’s got to die. All right, so if you’d killed him, what’d that have made you?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘A chip off the old block, presumably.’ She held up her truncated hand. ‘Look at me, for pity’s sake. I’m as bad as the rest of you, and I’m incompetent. I’m a murderer who can’t even get the job done. You’ve no idea how proud it makes me feel, knowing I’m useless as well as rotten.’

  Gorgas reached out and banged twice on the door with his fist. ‘Melodrama,’ he repeated. ‘High tragedy. Family curses, poisoned blood and the downfall of the gods. Give me a shout when you’ve had enough and maybe I’ll show you round the real world some time. In the meantime you can stay here and write your lines. I’ll just make sure that nobody else gets to hear them.’

  The key turned in the lock and he barged the door open, pushing the sergeant out of the way. The door rolled shut and the key turned again.

  ‘All right,’ Gorgas said, ‘get me out of here. And for pity’s sake get that cell cleaned up. I wouldn’t keep a pig in that state. I don’t care how it got that way, but there’s no excuse for not clearing up a mess.’

  He felt better as soon as he was above ground again, and by the time he was clear of the guard house and out into the fresh air of the courtyard, the feelings of frustration and anger were back to manageable levels, which was just as well. Gorgas Loredan had built his life around the principle that positive thinking gets things done; he found monolithic negatives impossible to understand and therefore hard to deal with, and so he’d always managed to find a way to go round the immovable object. One of his favourite stories was about two generals in command of an army who found themselves faced wit
h the prospect of laying siege to an impregnable city. As they sat in their tent, staring wretchedly at the massive walls before them, the old general sighed and declared, ‘We’ll never find a way of taking that city.’ The younger general smiled at him and said, ‘In that case, we’d better find a way of not having to take that city.’ Whereupon he explained how it might be possible to lead the army round another way, bypassing the city entirely, and fall upon the enemy’s unprotected homeland, thereby winning the war and rendering the insurmountable obstacle irrelevant. For the moment, he couldn’t yet see how to apply this lesson to dealing with his intransigent niece, or his equally intransigent brother; but he knew there must be a way, simply because there always is.

  Another gift that had helped him greatly over the years was the ability to put a difficult problem out of his mind entirely, leaving him free to tackle something he could manage. Solving the soluble problem, he’d generally found, often gave him the confidence and the sheer momentum to overwhelm the apparently insoluble one. Fortunately, the next job on his list was eminently soluble, and he found that he was looking forward to it.

  He walked briskly down the hill to the Quay and took the boat to the small island at the mouth of the harbour where the refugees from Shastel were housed in a large sprawl of wood and canvas structures, a sort of hybrid of huts and tents, while they were waiting to be permanently resettled. To someone without Gorgas’ attitude to problem-solving, the Camp would have been a depressing place, full of uncomfortable reminders of failure. Here, after all, was the place where people ended up when the Bank had failed to make good its promise to protect them from the vindictiveness of the Foundation. The families crowded in here had all seen their houses burnt down, their cattle driven off, their crops trampled; by definition, they were here because they had nowhere else to go, and the people who’d said it was all going to be all right had let them down and were now faced with the burden of looking after them and finding them somewhere else to live and work.