Psellus to Vaatzes, greetings.
He froze. He'd had his opening paragraph all ready in his head, but now that he was ready to start making irrevocable marks on the parchment, he wasn't sure of it at all. He reached to the side, picked up the top sheet of the minutes of some meeting, turned it over and quickly scribbled:
So you've got Boioannes. Fine. You can have him. It'd have been a nightmare bringing him to trial, we'd have been facing civil war. If you cut his throat, you'll be doing us a favour.
Talking of favours…
Quite wrong, of course. He drew a line through it, and tried again.
Thank you for letting me know that you have Secretary Boioannes. We have, of course, been looking for him. I assume you have interrogated him and learned everything he knows about the defences of the City. I should warn you, however, that any such information is probably completely out of date by now. May I remind you of your duty to keep him safe and well. Please also regard this letter as formal application for extradition.
Wrong again. He crossed it out, turned the page sideways to make space, and wrote:
How pleasant to hear from you again. First: Ariessa and Moritsa are both well. Thank you for letting me know about Boioannes. I confess I have no idea what his motives were for coming to you, beyond his obvious need to get out of the City before we caught him. I suppose I ought to ask you to send him back to us, but I know you can't do that. Personally speaking, if I never set eyes on the wretched man ever again, I shall be only too pleased. We don't actually need him for anything; he can be tried in his absence, which is fine because it means I won't have to listen to his insufferably pompous voice.
Turning to your request…
He paused, and laid the pen down carefully on the edge of the desk, so any dribbles of ink would land on the floor rather than the desktop.
His request.
He remembered, a long time ago: he was sixteen and she (what was her name? Well, perhaps it would come back to him some day) was fifteen, and they weren't even supposed to know each other. Her family were factory people, his were clerks, and so he met her by accident every day on his way home from school. Sometimes she wanted actual money, other times it was just food or clothes. Her father drank, apparently; so did her brothers, and her mother. There was never anything to eat or put on the fire. Sometimes, she and her sister cried themselves to sleep because it hurt so much being hungry.
He wasn't inclined to believe her, because surely someone who was starving would be very thin, but that, like the bruises on her arms and neck, was none of his business. When it was money, that was all right; it was never more than a few coppers, which he could steal from his father's dressing table without him even noticing. Clothes were fairly straightforward, too, since anything a little bit old or faded went in the charity box and was promptly forgotten. Food was another matter, though. His mother was one of those women who planned out the month's meals in advance; she wrote it all down with a nail on a slate fixed to the kitchen wall-three columns: date, meals, ingredients required. If an egg or a dried apricot went missing, she knew about it, and once the crime had been discovered, the list of suspects was extremely short.
So that time he'd told her, "No. I can't. I'm sorry, but she'll know, and then I'll be in trouble again."
Silence. No words. She never said anything when she was displeased.
"Look," he said, "why don't I just give you the money, and you can buy it yourself? It's not dear. Fivepence a quarter. I can get you fivepence by the day after tomorrow."
Still no words. He didn't like her voice much anyhow. It always troubled him that someone so beautiful spoke in such a harsh, common voice, flat vowels and sloppy, elided consonants. In the daydreams, where he rescued her from her nightmare of poverty and they got married and lived happily ever after, the first thing he always did after he'd got her home was have her taught to speak properly.
"It's getting really hard," he pleaded. "She's starting to wonder what I want all this stuff for. I mean, if it was cakes or biscuits or fruit, she'd just think it was me stuffing my face, but flour and bacon and things like that…"
She said: "I see." That was all. Anything more he could have resented and resisted. His mother always said far too much when she was accusing him of something, so his anger was able to get the better of his guilt. His father, on the rare occasions when he was dragged into mere domestic bickering, never said anything at all. But "I see", in just that tone of voice, was unbearable, because the voice in his own head said all the rest for her: you don't really love me, you're just using me, if you cared at all about me you'd do this one stupid little thing…
"Fine," he replied, and he knew he sounded ridiculous, a sullen little boy. "Day after tomorrow. She's doing that lamb and pearl barley thing then. It's disgusting," he added, "looks like puke and tastes like goo. Anyhow, I'll be able to get it for you then. Maybe," he said without hope, "she won't notice this time."
She didn't say anything; and when she kissed him, it was like the scary stories his grandmother used to tell, about the foxes who could turn into women and who stole men's souls through their mouths. And he remembered thinking at that moment: this is what love is, it's the constant demands (give me money, give me food, give me happiness, keep me alive) and the incessant taking, taking and taking away until there's nothing left, but you keep on because there's no alternative; because you have no choice.
His request. Now, if he'd asked for money; nothing easier. If he'd asked for the City; well, that could be arranged, he felt sure. Surrender the City to me, and I'll keep the savages from slaughtering everybody, I'll be their military governor, I'll double the taxes to pay their tribute, we'll double production to compensate and everything will be fine. If he'd asked for revenge; what could be simpler than to sign a sheaf of death warrants, every official who'd been involved in his accusation, arrest, trial and punishment. Instead…
He could write, Regarding your request, I'm sorry, but it's not possible. No more than the truth; but in his mind's eye he saw her face and heard her say (in that unpleasant voice), "I see", and knew he couldn't do it.
(And why? He knew why. And it was absurd. All he'd done was investigate a mystery with his typical bureaucratic thoroughness. But in doing so he'd taken himself into every part of the man's life, to the point where he knew him better than anyone else he'd ever met, to the point where he was beginning to understand him, the way he'd never understood or been understood by anybody else. The City, he forced himself to admit, was neither here nor there. Ziani wanted this, the same way that girl whose name had slipped his mind had wanted money, clothes and food, and so he had no choice.)
As for your request, he wrote, I'll see what I can do. Then he took the piece of scrap paper, screwed it up and threw it on the fire. He watched it turn black and disintegrate. There were savages, he'd heard, who wrote prayers to their gods on bits of paper and burnt them, believing that fire took the words direct to the divine ear.
He thought about the other letter he'd burned. In return, there's one little thing I want you to do for me. I need to talk to Falier. I promise you can have him back afterwards; or if necessary, I'll come to the City. I know I can trust you if you guarantee my safety.
(Well, yes. He could do that. But…)
And I need to see her, as well.
Which was impossible; because one way or another, it would break his heart, and that was something Psellus couldn't allow. For entirely valid reasons of state: Vaatzes heartbroken and in despair would take no further part in the war, couldn't care less what happened to anybody, and Vaatzes was the City's only hope. And for the real reason.