He was glad to have reached the end of this impromptu speech. He found that sort of thing extremely draining: the physical effort of talking loudly for so long, the mental strain of intense concentration. Men like Boioannes had built up their stamina over a lifetime, but until very recently nobody had ever let Lucao Psellus get a word in edgeways, let alone talk uninterrupted for five minutes.
"This point of no return," somebody said eventually. "Just how long…?"
Psellus shrugged. "Without knowing their precise numbers, the quantity of food that makes up their daily ration, the true extent of their supply reserves, I can't really put a date on it. My calculations are generalised; they tell me what's almost certain to happen, but the margin of error is such as to make any prediction unreliable, verging on misleading. I think, though, that a great deal will depend on how quickly and easily they manage to bypass the flooded ditch, and whether we are able to force a conclusive victory in the artillery battle. Those two actions, I feel, will decide the outcome of this siege; which is why I'm pleased to have postponed the first and brought forward the second."
They had to think about that, which suited Psellus very well; it gave him a few moments' grace in which to consider the issues, rather than keeping control of the debate. Of course, the flooded ditch and artillery supremacy were both side issues; he knew precisely what would win or lose the war, and it had precious little to do with sappers, siege engines or even food reserves. Such a shame he couldn't share it with them; but it was altogether too private, too intimate for discussion in committee.
"I think we'll leave it there for today," he said accordingly. "Same time tomorrow, gentlemen, if you please, and we'll consider trebuchet shot stock levels and production targets. Thank you for your time."
Time was, as it happened, foremost in his mind. The meeting had over-run (because of those confounded interminable speeches he'd ended up having to make), and the two men sitting in the corridor outside his office had already been waiting half an hour, ten minutes longer than he'd anticipated. He wanted them apprehensive, not worried and stressed into a position of defence in depth. He quickened his pace-the chairman of Necessary Evil never runs in corridors, even if the building is on fire-and tried to clear his mind.
Of course, when you're in a hurry, you always meet someone. Psellus saw him approaching in good time, but there wasn't anywhere to hide in the narrow cloister.
"There you are." Livuo Barazus, permanent secretary of the accounts oversight commission. He'd been bombarding Psellus' clerks with urgent requests for a meeting for days, something to do with a discrepancy in the reconciliations of the grain purchasing budget. A vital and necessary issue, of course, but not now. "You're a hard man to find, Chairman. Now, in the provisional unaudited accounts for the week ending the seventh of-"
Psellus held up his hand. "Excuse me," he said, "but I'm late for a meeting. My chief clerk-"
"This won't take a moment, and then it's done and out of the way." Barazus smiled at him, all teeth. Magnificent teeth, they'd look splendid drilled and hung on a necklace. "There's an entry here, five hundred and seven dollars, paid out on the-"
"My chief clerk," Psellus repeated, slightly louder this time, "has the file and all the relevant papers. He can help you. I can't. I don't know any of the detail, and I'm late for a meeting."
"It's just this one entry here." Barazus was standing directly in front of him, a short, round roadblock. It'd only take the gentlest of shoves to move him out of the way, but that wasn't allowed, not for the chairman of Necessary Evil. A junior ledger clerk or a messenger would get away with it, but not the most powerful man in the City.
"Let me see that," Psellus said.
And there it was, curled up and cowering in among the great big numbers like a little nesting baby bird. He knew what it was the moment he saw it.
"Ah yes," he said. "Before my time, of course. Clearly some unlisted project of my predecessor's. It's such a shame he's not here to explain it for us. I don't suppose we'll ever know now." He shook his head sadly for a fact orphaned by time. "I suggest you annotate that as an unknown expenditure, reference Maris Boioannes. If you'd care to send me the finished account before it's presented, I'll sign the entry off, and that'll cover it for you."
Barazus looked at him in horror, as though he'd just been made an accessory to a murder. Which, in a sense, he had. "Very well," he said, in a quiet, subdued little voice. "Thank you for your time."
"That's perfectly all right," Psellus said, and walked away before Barazus' conscience woke up and started barking at him.
Well, he thought, as he walked. In a way, it was rather satisfying; like cleaning an old piece of silver and suddenly finding the mark of a famous silversmith lurking under the tarnish. And so neatly done; the amount just small enough not to be worth the effort of investigating, unless you happened to be an obsessive like poor Barazus. Presumably there were others just like it, tucked away in dark corners of other accounts, like truffles under the leaf-mould. You couldn't help admiring the cool assurance of the man who'd arranged it. Under other circumstances, it'd be a challenge and a pleasure to track them all down; a hunt, the sort of thing the Vadani duke was supposed to be so keen on, and he could see the attraction-knowing where to look, following the trail, flushing them out one by one and bringing them down with the hawks and hounds of scrupulous accountancy. But that would be an indulgence, and he didn't have the time. One was quite enough. He didn't even need to be able to quote the reference. The simple fact that he knew it existed was quite enough; and, of course, it couldn't conceivably have come to his attention at a better time. It was as though he was walking out into an arena to fight bare-handed for his life, and someone had just handed him a knife, hidden in a bunch of flowers.
They were sitting on a bench in the corridor. They looked up as he approached; he smiled at them, apologised for keeping them waiting, asked them to follow him into the office and sit down.