Savages Page 8

  “Socketed,” Aimeric repeated.

  “Exactly. They’re made with a socket that fits over the end of the arrowshaft. The Aram Cosseilhatz prefer them tanged. That means,” he went on with a smile, “they’re made with a tang instead of a socket—like a nail sticking out the back, which fits in a hole drilled in the end of the shaft. It’s a bit naughty, actually. The Aram Cosseilhatz don’t glue the tang into the shaft, they just press it in. Then, when some poor devil’s got an arrow stuck in him and his mates try and pull it out, the arrowhead parts company from the shaft and stays in the wound. Since the Aram Cosseilhatz soak their arrows overnight before a battle, their arrowheads are always rusty. Death by blood poisoning, even from a relatively minor wound. Horrible way to go, believe me, I’ve seen it often enough. Since the Sashan pride themselves, quite rightly, on their military medical service, it means they’ve got a huge amount of manpower and resources tied up in treating wounded men in agonising pain who’ll die anyway. I calculate it reduces the efficiency of their army by at least sixteen per cent. Hence, you see, tanged rather than socketed.”

  Aimeric felt sick, but he made a show of ignoring it. “I understand.”

  “Our suppliers,” Calojan went on, “won’t make tanged dogwood arrows. Partly, they say, on ethical grounds, which may actually be partly true. Mostly because it’s more expensive. Actually, it shouldn’t be, it should be cheaper, but they won’t listen when I explain. Now, the only real difference between us and the Sashan is, we’ve got the Aram Cosseilhatz and they haven’t. If I’m to win this war, I need to use them to maximum effect, which means I need to keep them happy. They’ve been moaning at me about arrows ever since we started. They’re having to use their own personal arrows, because they won’t use the standard issue, which costs them time and money. If I could give them a supply of the sort they like to use, they’d be happy and I’d be happy. That happiness would be worth a lot to me.” He paused, then added, “Well, you did ask.”

  “One million,” Aimeric said.

  “Yes. An Aram Cosseilhatz horse archer can loose twelve aimed shots a minute from the saddle. Twenty thousand archers will loose off a million arrows in four minutes. That, approximately, is how long it takes to win a battle. Two million would be nice, but I’m a realist. Well?”

  Aimeric took a deep breath. “No problem.”

  It pleased him to see that he’d managed to disturb the great man’s composure. “What?”

  “No problem. When do you need them by?”

  “Six weeks?”

  “Eight.” He had, of course, absolutely no idea. But that didn’t matter right now.

  “All right, eight weeks. How can you possibly—?”

  “That’s my business. Now, let’s talk about money.”

  Calojan looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “All right. What did you have in mind?”

  Nothing, to be honest, because I never thought I’d get this far. “I’d like to renegotiate all our existing contracts with the government,” he heard a voice say, and was surprised and amused to recognise it as his own. It seemed to have some plan in mind, so he let it have its head. “All liabilities for supplies of raw materials, past, present and future, to pass from us to the Treasury. In effect, you pay our suppliers direct.”

  “What a novel approach. Go on.”

  “Including outstanding bills which we should already have paid but haven’t.”

  Calojan gave him a happy smile. “You’re insane,” he said.

  “Quite possibly. Next, we’d like payment in advance. Fifty per cent,” he amended quickly. “We need it to pay our workforce what we owe them.”

  Calojan nodded. “I see. And?”

  “The unit price for a—” He floundered and stalled.

  “The standard is per barrel of ten dozen arrows.”

  “Per barrel,” Aimeric said gratefully. “The actual cost of labour and overheads, plus five per cent.”

  Calojan laughed; a joyful sound. Possibly the first time he’d been genuinely amused in years. “To recap,” he said, when he’d finished laughing. “We pay for the steel, wood, feathers and glue. We pay for the labour. You get five per cent of the labour cost. Or have I missed something?”

  “No, I think that’s about it.”

  “And we pay off all your outstanding debts.”

  “Yes, thank you, I’d forgotten that. Yes, you do.”

  Calojan’s face changed a little. Serious. “And you’ll make me a million tanged arrows in eight weeks.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you want to me to do all this for you just because your father was an arsehole too.”

  “Partly,” Aimeric said (and he felt like he was on the very end of a slender branch, reaching for an apple). “But mostly because I’ll make you what you need, not what the Armoury Board thinks you ought to have. And then you’ll win the war.”

  “Eight weeks.”

  “That bit,” Aimeric said pleasantly, “isn’t the part that I’m concerned about.”

  “Fine.” Calojan ran his fingertips down the edge of his jaw. “I’d sort of got the impression you’re a pacifist. Against war in general, that kind of thing.”

  “I am. I guess.”

  Calojan nodded. “Me too. But it’s an imperfect world, and I take the view that the best thing to do with wars is get them over with as quickly as possible. Doesn’t Saloninus say that somewhere?”

  The clerk told him what I was reading. “Art of War, book one, chapter six. But he wasn’t a pacifist.”

  “Nobody’s perfect,” Calojan replied. “All right, I’ll see what I can do. Mostly I’m doing this because it’ll have those turds on the Armoury Board in tears. I’d like that.”

  “Splendid,” Aimeric said. “Thank you for your time.”

  “Thank you,” Calojan replied. “For the book.”

  Aimeric left the building, walked round the corner into Clothiers’ Yard, and threw up violently against a wall. The convulsions were so bad he could barely stand. He only just managed to pull himself together and get moving again before the watch arrived.

  He went home. The house was empty, bare, even the threadbare rug in the kitchen gone. There was a note on the door.

  His mother had been wrong about one thing. The debtors’ prison wasn’t quite so bad as the regular prisons, or at least not the ones in the Vesani Republic, where he’d had to go occasionally to visit fellow students arrested for various public order offences. There was a wall with battlements and a gatehouse, making it a walled city inside a city; the impression was that at any moment, some enemy might assault it with siege engines and battering rams. If so, it’d be ready. It was a small masterpiece of military architecture. You’d feel really safe in there.

  But bored. There was a large central courtyard, swept perfectly clean, surrounded by buildings where people lived. The resemblance to the University was too striking to ignore; the prison was slightly more modern, and the sloping slate roofs were interrupted by chimneys at regular intervals, suggesting that the place was heated in winter, to some extent. Another difference. And that was all; courtyard, buildings. No hall, chapel, refectory or master’s lodgings. The yard was deserted when he walked in through the main gate, which was perplexingly wide open.

  He tried the porter’s lodge, where a broad, bald man looked down a list of names and gave him directions; staircase seventeen, room nine.

  “I can just go up there, can I?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  Also, no smell of cheese and boiled cabbage; therefore, no kitchens. He crossed the yard, found where the staircase numbers were painted on the arches, located number seventeen and climbed the stairs. In due course he was confronted by a big grey oak door with the number 9 carved on it in Mezentine cursive. He knocked, and waited. The door opened, and there was Gesel, staring at him.

  “There you are,” he said cheerfully. “Can I come in?”

  “You’ve got a—” she said; he slid carefully past her and int
o the room. It was rather like the one he’d just left, at home; empty, not a single man-made object to be seen. No table or chairs, no bed. Just his mother, sitting on the floor.

  “Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”

  Under other circumstances, it was a picture he’d have liked to contemplate, just for a moment or so. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’ve fixed everything.”

  His mother gave him a look that would have sterilised yoghurt. “You know, I doubt that.”

  “Suit yourself. But I went to see Calojan. We’ve got an order for two million arrows, they’ll write off the old contracts and pay all the suppliers. I’ve saved the company.”

  “You idiot.”

  Not the first time she’d said that, but this time it didn’t seem appropriate. “What did you say?”

  “I called you an idiot, because you are one. You stupid, stupid fool. The company doesn’t make arrows.”

  He frowned. “You’re joking.”

  “Your father always kept us out of the arrow trade. He said it was impossible to make money at it. Therefore, we have no machinery, no skilled tradesmen—”

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear any of this. “Not to worry,” he said. “We’ve got eight weeks.”

  “Eight weeks.”

  “Exactly. Plenty of time.”

  He’d managed to shut her up, which was remarkable. He took the opportunity to make a show of looking round. “Could be worse,” he said. “It’s clean and dry, at any rate.”

  “Aimeric.”

  He smiled at her. “I imagine that once Calojan’s people have drawn up the new agreements and paid off the suppliers, we’ll be able to get you out of here. Until then, just sit tight. What’s the arrangement about food?”

  Gesel’s voice, behind him. “We were going to ask you that.”

  “It’s the responsibility of prisoners’ families,” his mother said bitterly. “So I suppose that means your sister and I will starve.”

  “Don’t be silly,” he said. “I’ll have something sent round.”

  “How? You haven’t got any money.”

  No, but Hosculd did; and at some point he’d pay Hosculd back, and everything would be fine. “Leave everything to me,” he said. “You’ll be out of here in no time, trust me. Though I can’t see why the people in here don’t just walk out through the door. It’s not locked.”

  “And go where?”

  He shrugged. “It’ll all be sorted out before you know it,” he said. “Meanwhile, cheer up. We’re back in business.”

  “You moron. Two million arrows in eight weeks.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I know exactly what I’m going to do.”

  Hosculd gave him a bed for the night. It was the first time any member of the de Peguilhan family had set foot in his house. His wife (surprisingly young and pretty; he realised he didn’t know her name) looked terrified as she dished up some sort of grey semi-liquid in pewter dishes. When she’d escaped into the back, he told Hosculd what he’d done. Hosculd looked at him.

  “Well?” Aimeric demanded.

  “We don’t make arrows.”

  “I know. Doesn’t matter.”

  “I think it does, actually.”

  “No it doesn’t.” As he said the words, the first glimmer of an idea formed in his mind, and suddenly he knew what he was going to do. Simple. Problem solved. “You leave the grand strategy to me, and everything will be just fine.”

  “Well.” Hosculd straightened his back against his chair—rather a nice old piece, quite valuable; but when Hosculd’s great-great-great grandfather had bought it, it had been just a chair. “Normally I’d say no, you haven’t got a clue about the business and I wouldn’t be inclined to trust you an inch.” Aimeric froze. He’d never imagined Hosculd would talk to him like this. “On the other hand,” he went on, “this time yesterday, De Peguilhan Brothers was dead. Now—” He shrugged. “Listen, Aimeric. I worked all my life for your father, and the old man before him. Your dad was almost as smart as he thought he was, and look where it got us. You I don’t know about.”

  Aimeric found it hard to speak. “Come on, Hosculd,” he said. “You’ve known me all my life.”

  Hosculd nodded. “I knew a stuck-up kid who thought he was a cut above trade and reckoned the arms business was dirty and disgusting. I thought, so what? When his dad goes on, they’ll sell the business and I’ll be working for someone with half a brain, someone who values it enough to pay good money for it. Never thought I’d be working for you, so never bothered to take any notice; just stayed polite and kept out of your way, so to speak. Truth is, I don’t know you from a hole in the ground.”

  Aimeric actually thought about that, for a moment. “You know what,” he said, “neither do I.” He smiled, but only a reflex. “It’s when Mother said, there’s no money. I was terrified, Hosculd.”

  “Fair enough. Who wouldn’t be?”

  “No.” Aimeric shook his head. “Not sad, or angry or miserable. I was so damn scared. Having no money would be like not being able to breathe. I couldn’t be poor, Hosculd, I don’t know how it’s done, I don’t know the rules. I wouldn’t last two minutes. I realised I’d do anything, anything at all, to save myself from that. And then—” He hesitated; he wasn’t quite sure for a moment what came next. “Then it was almost like someone I didn’t know barged into my head, elbowed me out of the way and said, leave this to me, I’ll fix it. I don’t know who he is, Hosculd, and I don’t think I like him very much, but he does seem to know what he’s doing.”

  Hosculd laughed. “Being poor’s easy,” he said. “You think, if it was hard, all those millions of people out there would be able to do it?” He made a small, vague gesture with his hands. “I don’t know,” he said. “There’s some people who can only think straight when they’re scared. Had a cousin like that. Small time thief, burglar. Couldn’t he ever think on his feet, when the kettlehats were after him.”

  “An appropriate example,” Aimeric said. “I feel like that right now, actually; like the watch is kicking down the door and I’ve got one leg out of the window. You’re right. It refines the mental processes better than second-year formal logic ever did.”

  Hosculd shrugged at that and wished him goodnight. Much to his surprise he slept well, and just after dawn set off to walk to East Town.

  He could have afforded a cab or a chair, just about, but he decided to walk instead, so as to be able to look about at the right pace. He arrived at his destination just as the men were filing in to work; a slow brown and grey stream, like floodwater, men who saw each other all day every day talking quietly while they could still hear themselves think. Anything you wanted to say once you were inside the gates would have to be worth the effort of shouting.

  Someone told him where the office was; a small, square grey stone building in the corner of a yard formed by three long, low wooden sheds. There was no door, for some reason. He went in, and a young, round-faced clerk gave him a professional smile. He told him his name. The clerk had heard of him, no doubt about that. He was quite certain that Mister Huneric would be able to spare him a minute or so.

  Aimeric sat down on a stool to wait, but didn’t have time to settle comfortably. The clerk was back. Would he care to step this way?

  He’d never met Huneric, but he knew what he’d look like; a solid man, running comfortably to fat after a slim, lean youth. He was a head shorter than Aimeric but probably weighed a little more. Good teeth.

  “So you’re Gaiseric de Peguilhan’s son,” he said, rocking back slightly in a huge, ornately carved chair. “Sorry to hear about your father. He’ll be missed.”

  “Thanks,” Aimeric said crisply. “Now, then. I expect you’ve heard about the trouble we’re in.”

  “Some of it.”

  “Oh, there’s not much to it, really. Anyway, all that’s changed. I have a confirmed order from general Calojan for arrows, and I want to talk to you about sub-contracting some of it out to you.”
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  Huneric frowned. “You don’t make arrows.”

  “We do now. Anyway, the good thing about it is, from your point of view, I won’t be trying to squeeze you on price, and there’s no risk on your part, because you’re guaranteed payment by the government.”

  There was a long pause; presumably, Huneric was deciding whether to have him thrown out or not. “Go on.”

  He explained, briefly and selectively, the deal he’d made with Calojan and what was so special about tanged arrowheads. Huneric’s face didn’t move at all. Eventually, Huneric said, “He agreed to that?”

  Aimeric shrugged. “He’s a soldier, not a businessman. Or a politician, come to that. He knows what he wants, and he’s not the one who has to find the money.”

  “They won’t let him.”

  Aimeric shook his head slowly. “This is general Calojan,” he said. “But for whom, right now this city would be nothing but rubble and cold cinders. Instead, he’s about to win the war. Do you honestly think, if he asks for something, anybody in his right mind’s going to turn round and tell him, No, you can’t have it? Except, of course,” he added, “the Armoury Board. Which is precisely why he needs me. Us.”

  Huneric gave him a faintly wounded look. It was saying; but that’s so simple and obvious, when you put it like that. Just go direct to the general, don’t bother pissing around with the bureaucrats. Yes, Aimeric thought, simple and obvious. You could’ve thought of it yourself. But you didn’t, and I did. “We can’t make two million shafts in six weeks,” Huneric said. “We don’t have the capacity.”

  “Fine,” Aimeric replied. Guessing time. He had a mental image of the size of the sheds, from when he’d walked through them just now. “But you could do half a million. We both know that.”