It was like putting something in his mouth and finding it was too hot to swallow; just having the connection inside his head was an unbearable burning, a torment of dotted lines. Somebody else, he felt (the thought burned itself in, like heating the tang of a file to make it fit into a handle), there was somebody else involved. He fought, resisting the sudden understanding like a woman trying to stop herself giving birth. This changes everything.
No; it was a conscious decision. Changes nothing. Not as long as it's just intuition. Besides, it's probably just some stupid stuff-guilt, frustration, a long, hard day, the sort of horrible self-tormenting shit that keeps you awake in the early hours of the morning. And even if there's something there and it's true, it still doesn't change anything. Just one more bit to be fixed, at the very end of the job.
That didn't help him sleep. He'd never felt more wide awake in his whole life.
It didn't bloody well fit. It was hopeless. It was never going to fit. The holes were all in the wrong places, and drilling them out two whole sizes wouldn't be enough to cure it. Neither would any amount of bashing with hammers, bending, drawing out, pissing around…
'All right,' he heard someone say, 'try it now.'
He put his weight on the bar, knowing it wouldn't line up enough for the rivet to go through. It was all hopelessly screwed up, and would have to be done again…
'There. Perfect. Piece of cake.'
He looked down, stunned. The rivet was in the hole. He relaxed, gradually letting the bar go. It flexed a small amount, then stopped. It was in fitted.
In which case, the whole ridiculous contraption fitted together, and they'd won, however unlikely that seemed. He could feel his face drawing into a huge, stupid grin.
'Good,' he said, very low-key and matter-of-fact, though his heart was bursting with relief and joy. 'Now get that last rivet set and we can all go home.'
10
'Sulfur,' Valens said with a scowl, dropping the paper on his desk and watching it roll itself back up into a scroll. 'He'll be lucky. Where the hell am I supposed to get sulfur from in the middle of a war?'
Carausius didn't reply, which was sensible of him, and Valens took his silence in the spirit in which it was intended, as a mild and respectful rebuke. He made an effort and took a long, deep breath. 'If by some miracle you can find a few barrels,' he said, 'get them shipped off, with my compliments. After all, we're stabbing the poor sod in the back, cutting off aid to the resistance. The least we can do is give him a nice retirement present.'
'Sulfur,' Carausius repeated, his voice carefully neutral. 'I wonder if the salt woman might know where to find some. You know,' he added, 'the merchant Ziani Vaatzes teamed up with a while back.'
Valens held still and quiet for a moment. Rather a leap, he thought, from salt to sulfur; not the sort of connection he'd have made himself. But someone who knew rather more about the salt woman's business affairs than he'd disclosed to his duke might be in a position to make that connection. He noted the possibility in his mind and moved on.
'Bad timing, really,' Carausius was saying. 'A week or so back, he could've had the stuff by the cartload; it's one of the by-products of the silver mines. But now Vaatzes has shut them all down, I guess he's out of luck.'
The subject, Valens gathered, had been officially changed. 'He's all done, is he?'
Carausius nodded. 'The last shaft was sealed up two days ago, apparently, so that's that part of the job done. Whether the other part's come out all right we won't know till we try and open them up again.'
Valens pulled a face. 'Quite,' he said. 'Still, on balance I'd rather be remembered as the idiot who trashed his own mines for no reason than the idiot who let them fall into enemy hands. Ziani's on his way home again, presumably.'
'Last I heard,' Carausius confirmed. 'Of course, it'll take him a while, with all that salvaged plant and equipment he's bringing back with him. Practically looted the place before he left, according to Superintendent Carnufex.' He smiled. 'Are you worried he won't get back in time for the wedding?'
'Absolutely,' Valens said. 'It wouldn't feel right, getting married without my senior engineering adviser there at my side. Actually, I was thinking about the move. It's not long now before we have to get that under way, and I've got some ideas which I think he might be able to help with. Don't look so sad,' he added, 'you haven't missed anything, they're just ideas, quite probably completely impractical. If anything comes of them, you'll be the first to know.'
'No doubt.' Carausius didn't want to talk about the move. 'While we're on the subject of the wedding…'
Valens made a helpless gesture. 'Now what, for crying out loud? Anybody'd think you're my mother.'
'Fine, if you're determined not to take an interest. In which case, I'd be grateful if you'll refrain from yelling at me if it doesn't turn out the way you want.'
Valens half rose from his chair, then sat down again. 'I'm sure you're doing a marvelous job,' he said, 'and I wouldn't dream of interfering. Just let me know where I've got to be and when. If you could possibly arrange for it to be in the morning, that'd be good, because then I'd have the afternoon free to take the hawks out. Joke,' he added quickly. 'Honest.'
With the baffled air of a predator cheated of its prey, Carausius gathered up his bits of paper and went away. After he'd gone, Valens sat perfectly still for a minute or so; then he opened the ivory casket on his desk and took out a small square of tightly folded parchment.
Well, he thought.
Holding it with the tips of his fingers, he turned it over a couple of times. Duke Orsea's seal, but not his handwriting. He took a closer look. Orsea's seal was a running stag glancing back over its shoulder. This impression had a small bump on the stag's neck, made by a tiny chip in the seal-stone. That bump was the only way you could tell Orsea's second-best seal, the one he used for private correspondence, from the official one he used for state business. Somehow, both of them had survived the fall of Civitas Eremiae; but it was the slightly chipped one that lived in Orsea's own writing desk, which he kept in his private chambers, unlocked. He'd seen that little bump many times before.
Courage was one of those virtues that Valens had but set little store by. As far as he was concerned, he was brave in the same way he was right-handed. By the same token, he treated fear like indigestion or a headache, just another annoyance that had to be overcome. He slid his finger under the flap and pressed gently upwards, until the wax cracked, splitting off the stag's head and crumbling its neck into fine red powder, like blood. Veatriz Sirupati to Valens Valentinianus, greetings.
Only myself to blame, he thought. Getting engaged to be married to someone else could only be construed as a hostile thing, an act of war. Besides, it's not as though we were ever…
Just letters. Nothing more.
And here was a letter, its integrity guaranteed by the flawed stag he'd just snapped in half. He thought, unexpectedly, of Miel Ducas, the sulfur enthusiast, disgraced by another of these small packets of thought and feeling. Our fault; my fault. If Miel Ducas had commanded the defense of Civitas Eremiae… Wouldn't have made any difference, since the city fell by treachery, and I'd still have done that one bloody stupid thing, which in turn led inevitably to the war, my desperate need for allies and manpower, a political marriage, this letter.
Courage is a virtue best not taken to excessive extremes; someone brave enough to stick his hand in a fire is an idiot by any criteria. I could leave this letter unread. Wouldn't have to destroy it; just put it back in the ivory box and turn the little silver key.
(She's got no right, in any event. She was the one who got married in the first place, not me. I, on the other hand, am paying the price for saving her life.) Veatriz Sirupati to Valens Valentinianus, greetings.
I guess congratulations are in order.
It's none of my business, in any case. Orsea explained it all to me; apparently, it's mostly to do with light cavalry, and the Mezentines being scared stiff of the Cure Hardy, because there're so many of them. He feels guilty, by the way, because he says he told you they're all vegetarians, and they turned out not to be. It was, of course, exactly the sort of mistake he would make. The ones he met were, you see, so he was sure that what he told you was true. He was trying to be helpful. He told me once, there's nothing causes more harm in the world than men
