The Blade Itself

holding you responsible, understand?” He glowered at the sergeant for a moment then stepped through the gate into the tunnel before anything else could go wrong, leaving the old man and the stinking woman behind him. His head was thumping harder even than before. Damn it he was late.

“Why the hell me?” he grumbled to himself.

“I am afraid the armouries are closed for the day,” sneered Major Vallimir, staring down his nose at West as though at a beggar whining for small change. “Our quotas are fulfilled, ahead of schedule, and we will not be lighting the forges again this week. Perhaps if you had arrived on time…” The pounding in West’s head was growing worse than ever. He forced himself to breathe slowly, and keep his voice calm and even. There was nothing to be gained by losing his temper. There was never anything to be gained by that.

“I understand, Major,” said West patiently, “but there is a war on. Many of the levies we have received are scarcely armed, and Lord Marshal Burr has asked that the forges be lit, in order to provide equipment for them.”

This was not entirely true, but since joining the Marshal’s staff West had more or less given up on telling the whole truth to anyone. That was no way to get anything done. He now employed a mixture of wheedling, bluster, and outright lies, humble entreaties and veiled threats, and had become quite expert at judging which tactic would be most effective on what man.

Unfortunately, he had yet to strike the right chord with Major Vallimir, the Master of the King’s Armouries. Somehow, their being equal in rank made matters all the more difficult: he could not quite get away with bullying the man, but could not quite bring himself to beg.

Furthermore, in terms of social standing they were anything but equals. Vallimir was old nobility, from a powerful family, and arrogant beyond belief. He made Jezal dan Luthar seem a humble, selfless type, and his total lack of experience in the field only made matters worse: he behaved doubly like an ass in order to compensate. Instructions from West, though they might come from Marshal Burr himself, were as welcome as they would have been from a reeking swineherd.

Today was no exception. “This month’s quotas are fulfilled, Major West,” Vallimir managed to put a sneering emphasis into the name, “and so the forges are closed. That is all.”

“And this is what you would have me tell the Lord Marshal?”

“The arming of levies is the responsibility of those lords that provide them,” he recited primly. “I cannot be blamed if they fall short on their obligations. It is simply not our problem, Major West, and you may tell that to the Lord Marshal.”

This was always the way of it. Back and forth: from Burr’s offices to the various commissary departments, to the commanders of companies, of battalions, of regiments, to the stores scattered around the Agriont and the city, to the armouries, the barracks, the stables, to the docks where the soldiers and their equipment would begin to embark in just a few short days, to other departments and back to where he began, with miles walked and nothing done. Each night he would drop into bed like a stone, only to start up a few hours later with it all to do again.

As commander of a battalion his trade had been to fight the enemy with steel. As a staff officer, it seemed, his role was to fight his own side with paper, more secretary than soldier. He felt like a man trying to push a huge stone up a hill. Straining and straining, getting nowhere, but unable to stop pushing in case the rock should fall and crush him. Meanwhile, arrogant bastards who were in just the same danger lazed on the slopes beside him saying, “Well, it’s not my rock.”

He understood now why, during the war in Gurkhul, there had sometimes not been enough food for the men to eat, or clothes for them to wear, or wagons to draw the supplies with, or horses to draw the wagons, or all manner of other things that were deeply necessary and easily anticipated.

West would be damned before that happened because of some oversight of his. And he would certainly be damned if he would see men die for want of a weapon to fight with. He tried yet again to calm himself, but each time his head hurt more, and his voice was cracking with the effort. “And what if we find ourselves mired in Angland with a crowd of half-clothed, unarmed peasants to provide for, what then, Major Vallimir? Whose problem will it be? Not yours, I dare say! You’ll still be here, with your cold forges for company!”

West knew as soon as he said it that he had gone too far: the man positively bristled. “How dare you, sir! Are you questioning my personal honour? My family goes back nine generations in the King’s Own!”

West rubbed his eyes, not knowing whether he wanted to laugh or cry. “I have no doubts as to your courage, I assure you, that was not my meaning at all.” He tried to put himself in Vallimir’s position. He did not really know the pressures the man was under: probably he would rather be in command of soldiers than smiths, probably… it was no use. The man was a shit, and West hated him. “This is not a question of your honour, Major, or that of your family. This is a question of our being fit for war!”

Vallimir’s eyes had turned deadly cold. “Just who do you think you’re talking to, you dirty commoner? All the influence you have you owe to Burr, and who is he but an oaf from the provinces, risen to his rank by fortune alone?” West blinked. He guessed what they said about him behind his back of course, but it was another thing to hear it to his face. “And when Burr is gone, what will become of you? Eh? Where will you be without him to hide behind? You’ve no blood, no family!” Vallimir’s lips twisted in a cold sneer. “Apart from that sister of yours of course, and from what I hear—”

West found himself moving forward, fast. “What?” he snarled. “What was that?” His expression must have been dire indeed: he saw the colour draining from Vallimir’s face.

“I… I—”

“You think I need Burr to fight my battles, you fucking gutless worm?” Before he knew it he had moved again, and Vallimir stumbled back towards the wall, flinching sideways and raising one arm as if to ward off an expected blow. It was the most West could do to stop his hands from grabbing hold of the little bastard and shaking him until his head came off. His own skull was throbbing, pounding. He felt as though the pressure would pop his eyes right out of his head. He dragged in long, slow breaths through his nose, clenched his fists until they hurt. The anger slowly subsided, back below the point where it threatened to take sudden control of his body. It only pulsed now, squeezing at his chest.

“If you have something to say on the subject of my sister,” he whispered softly, “then you can say it. Say it now.” He let his left hand drop slowly to sit on the hilt of his sword. “And we can settle this outside the city walls.”

Major Vallimir shrank back still further. “I heard nothing,” he whispered, “nothing at all.”

“Nothing at all.” West looked down into his white face for a moment longer, then stepped away. “Now if you would be so good as to reopen the forges for me? We have a great deal of work to get through.”

Vallimir blinked for a moment. “Of course. I will have them lit at once.”

West turned on his heel and stalked off, knowing the man was glowering daggers at his back, knowing that he had made yet another bad situation worse. One more high-born enemy among the many. The really galling thing was that the man was right. Without Burr, he was as good as finished. He had no family apart from that sister of his. Damn it, his head hurt. “Why me?” he hissed to himself. “Why?”

There was still a lot to do today, enough for a whole day’s work on its own, but West could take no more. His head hurt so badly that he could hardly see. He had to lie down in the dark, with a wet cloth over his face, if only for an hour, if only for a minute. He fumbled in his pocket for his key, his other hand clamped over his aching eyes, his teeth locked together. Then he heard a sound on the other side of the door. A faint clink of glass. Ardee.

“No,” he hissed to himself. Not now! Why the hell had he ever given her a key? Cursing softly, he raised his fist to knock. Knocking on his own door, that was where he was now. His fist never made it to the wood. A most unpleasant image began to form in the back of his mind. Ardee and Luthar, naked and sweaty, writhing around on his carpet. He turned his key swiftly in the lock and shoved the door open.

She was standing by the window, alone and, he was relieved to see, fully dressed. He was less pleased to see her filling a glass right to the brim from the decanter though. She raised an eyebrow at him as he burst through the door.

“Oh, it’s you.”

“Who the hell else would it be?” snapped West. “These are my rooms, aren’t they?”