Finished. Really, he ought to get the tool to the doctors as quickly as possible, but he felt curiously lazy, unwilling to stir himself. He realised it was a desire to prolong the moment, to savour it. Partly it was pride, satisfaction with his work, but those were trivial things, feelings he could easily over-ride. What kept him there was the sense of peace, as the last component of the design he'd begun so long ago slid gently into place, fitted and locked; the mechanism that delivered the power of the drive to the assemblies that would achieve the desired result; the escapement. Foolish (he smiled indulgently at his own stupidity): he'd been searching frantically for it, and here it had been all the time, wedged inside his head like Valens' arrow, only needing a simple mechanism to draw it out, with the attendant necessary fire and pain. The duke, they said, had been wounded by an arrow in an unprovoked attack by the Cure Doce. Following a successful operation by his doctors, he remained in a serious but stable condition, and the prognosis was extremely hopeful. Throughout the long and painful operation, they lied, the duke remained calm and stoical, never once crying out. The success of the operation was due in no small part to special apparatus designed and personally manufactured by the duke's director of military engineering, Ziani Vaatzes. "We got the arrowhead out, eventually," Ziani told them. "It took an hour, just waggling the bloody thing from side to side like a loose tooth until it finally came away. They doped him up with henbane tea and slapped on hemlock poultices, but I guess the pain was too much; he started yelling and thrashing about, and the doctors weren't having that, they said that if he moved while they were working they could nick a major vein and kill him. So they tied him to the bed and got the strongest man they could find in the palace guard to sit on his chest and hold his head absolutely still. When they finally got the arrow out, they washed the mess they'd made with white wine and stuffed up the hole with bog cotton soaked in salt water, which I gather is supposed to make him better. Anyhow, that's all I know. If you want details, you'd better ask the doctors."
There was a long silence. Then the oldest Aram Chantat cleared his throat.
"You should tell your doctor to mix bread sops, barley meal and honey into a smooth paste," he said. "We find it a most effective salve for deep internal wounds. The pain can be eased with a simple infusion of poppies." He gave Ziani a long, disapproving look, and added, "I confess to a certain degree of surprise that you are unaware of these basic remedies. Is this how you treat arrow wounds in Mezentia?"
Ziani smiled. "We don't have the problem," he said. "We pay other people to fight our wars, so Mezentines never get shot."
"That, of course, is no longer the case," the Aram Chantat said severely. "Still, if the duke is likely to survive, it is of no consequence. However, we must face the fact that he is in no condition to supervise the conduct of the siege." Beside him, the other Aram Chantat nodded gravely, while the Vadani representatives suddenly looked thoughtful. "We ourselves have no experience of this kind of warfare. Accordingly, we must have another commander, at least until the duke is well again."
A long, awkward silence. Then a Vadani cleared his throat and said: "Unfortunately, the duke's second in command, Nennius, was killed in the same ambush…"
A different Aram Chantat clicked his tongue. "So we gather," he said. "We would question the wisdom of permitting the commander-in-chief and his second to cross dangerous territory together without sufficient escort."
"What about the Eremian, Miel Ducas?" An elderly Vadani he'd seen before but couldn't put a name to. "He conducted the defence of Civitas Eremiae for a time, so presumably he knows about sieges. And a non-Vadani would mean there'd be no squabbling between factions."
The elder Aram Chantat sighed, as if the Vadani had said something embarrassing. "Major Ducas is not acceptable," he said. "His political record…"
"Excuse me." Ziani paused and looked round. He had their attention. "Sorry to interrupt, but it strikes me, for the siege itself you really need an engineer more than a soldier. I mean, once the army's in position and we start digging trenches…"
The looks they were giving him would have soured fresh milk. "You are proposing yourself, I take it."
Ziani laughed, then shook his head vigorously. "Absolutely not," he said. "I wouldn't have a clue."
"In that case-"
"But," he went on, speaking soft and low so they'd have to be quiet in order to hear him, "I have an assistant, Gace Daurenja. He's a first-rate engineer, and he's had military experience. With the right support…"
The Aram Chantat's eyes widened. "We have heard of Major Daurenja," he said thoughtfully. "We understand he took command of the raid against the Mezentines' communications, after the Vadani commander had allowed himself to be lured into a trap. He displayed great resourcefulness and personal courage." He frowned: a man who thought he knew everything, suddenly confronted with a new idea. "You believe the captain has a sufficient grasp of siege techniques?"
Ziani nodded briskly. "We're none of us experts on this level of siege engineering," he said. "It's a forgotten skill; basically, we're learning it out of books, and we think the Mezentines are doing the same thing. Daurenja's ingenious and imaginative, and a quick learner. Like you said yourself, he's proved he can lead soldiers." Slight pause; then, "He'd need guidance, of course. But that's where you come in. An advisory commission of your best officers, to help him with logistics, administration, basic stuff like that. That way, he'd be free to concentrate on the engineering side, but there'd still be one man in overall command."
Nobody spoke. The Vadani were staring at him as if he'd gone mad. The Aram Chantat were frowning, nodding. A good time, he reckoned, to say nothing.
"We will consider the proposal," the elder Aram Chantat said suddenly. "But we approve of Major Daurenja. From what we know of him, we believe he has the necessary qualities of courage, leadership, resourcefulness and determination; and, in the absence of any obvious alternative, and given that the duke's indisposition is temporary…" He fell silent, scowled, then shook his head. "You may inform the captain that we are giving serious thought to his nomination. We will need to speak to him ourselves, so ensure that he is available."
The meeting broke up. For a moment, Ziani was sure the Vadani were going to lynch him, once the savages were safely out of sight. But after a lot of intense staring, they walked away without saying anything, leaving him alone in the room. He sat down on the nearest chair, resting his face in his cupped hands. Well, he thought; the delivery mechanism, the escapement. It was there all along.
He sat there for a long time; then he got up and walked briskly across the courtyard and climbed the stairs to the duke's apartment. He met one of the doctors in the corridor.
"Well?" he asked.
"Better," the doctor replied. He looked like someone recently rescued from the desert: drawn, brittle and exhausted. "Sat up about an hour ago and drank some water. No sign of infection, thank God."
Ziani nodded. "For what it's worth," he said, and told him the Aram Chantat recipe for wound salve. The doctor shrugged.
"Actually," he said, "they're surprisingly good at treating wounds. Talked to one of their medics a while back; apparently they bank on saving one in three serious cases, which is a damn sight better than we can do. And I've heard stranger suggestions. There was some woman up here, don't know how the guards came to let her through, some Eremian; she said we should pack the wound with mouldy bread, of all things. Traditional remedy in her mother's family, apparently. It's a miracle the Eremians survived as long as they did, if you ask me."