‘Really?’ Tamin Votz smiled as he emptied the last few drops from the jug into his cup. ‘You know, the thing that’s come out of all this that I find most interesting is how little we actually know about the Empire. Oh, we think we know, but that’s not the same thing at all. It’s like looking at the sky. I mean, we all see it every day, it’s just there. But we don’t know how it works, or what it’s really for, or even what it actually is. Same with the Empire, if you ask me.’
Eseutz had found a discarded bowl of olives on a neighbouring table. ‘I was reading a book,’ she said with her mouth full, ‘and it said the sky’s really just this enormous piece of blue cloth, and the stars are little holes where the light comes through. And the rain, too, although that bit strikes me as rather far-fetched. Because if that was the case, every time it rains you’d expect there to be dirty great big puddles right under the Pole Star. I wonder if anybody’s actually checked to see if they line up. The rain, I mean, and the stars.’
Tamin raised an eyebrow. ‘I didn’t know you read books, Eseutz,’ he said. ‘Come wrapped round something, did it?’
‘Oh, very funny,’ Eseutz replied, spitting out an olive stone. ‘I’ll have you know I’ve got a whole box of books in my warehouse. This big, it is. And even now I can’t shift them,’ she added wistfully. ‘Hey, Ven, I don’t suppose you’d be interested-’
‘No.’ Venart swirled the last of his wine round the bottom of his cup. ‘But I suppose you’re right,’ he went on. ‘No, not you, him. About the Empire. I haven’t got a clue how big it is. I just know it’s – well, big.’
‘It’s that all right,’ Tamin said. ‘Too big, if you ask me. I’ve been hearing stories about a civil war, even.’
‘Really?’ Eseutz lifted her head. ‘Oh, wait. Do you mean the Partek rumours? Because I happen to know for a fact…’
Tamin shook his head. ‘I mean a real civil war,’ he said, ‘not just random acts of meaningless violence by a bunch of pirates. No, this is supposed to be a show-down between the Imperial family and some warlord or other, far away to the south-east. The whole thing’s probably been exaggerated way out of proportion, but I do believe there’s at least a small grain of truth in it. And that’s my point, you see,’ he went on. ‘I simply don’t know how these things work. If there’s a civil war, a real one, will they suddenly put everything else on hold and hurry back home to take part? Or do things like that happen every day?’
Venart shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’ he asked. ‘One thing we can all be sure of, the Empire’s never bothered us. And I don’t believe it ever will.’
‘Oh, yes?’ Tamin enquired. ‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Well,’ Venart said, ‘for one thing they don’t have a fleet, and this is an island after all. Or had you always assumed we were on a mountaintop and it’d been raining a lot?’
‘They do have a fleet, though,’ Eseutz put in. ‘Ours.’
‘All right, but they’re hardly likely to use our own fleet against us.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. More to the point, they don’t need a fleet to use against us if ours is out of the running.’
‘And how are they going to get here without any ships? Walk?’ Venart shook his head. ‘The point is, I can’t see the Empire ever attacking us. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not how they go about things.’
‘As far as you know. And, as I think we’ve all agreed, we know spit about the Empire.’
Venart sighed patiently. ‘They’re only interested in securing their borders,’ he said. ‘We’re in the middle of the sea. End of story.’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ Tamin said. ‘I just feel we ought to know more about them, that’s all. For example, the amount of business we do with them is pretty well negligible – and that does concern us all right. We could be missing out on some amazing opportunities.’
Venart scratched his ear. ‘My guess is, they don’t need anything we sell. They can get everything they want from inside the Empire. And I’m not sure I’d be all that keen to trade with them anyway. I don’t know what it is, but they give me the creeps.’
‘Ah,’ Tamin said, ‘that’s more like it. We don’t do business with them because we’re afraid of them. Or we just don’t like them, whatever. That’s a pretty juvenile attitude for a trading nation, don’t you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ Venart replied. ‘Maybe it’s just me. But they’re so big, and-’
‘Scary?’
Venart nodded. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘scary, yes. I feel on edge dealing with them. I can’t help it, it’s just the way I feel.’
‘Because you don’t know about them,’ Tamin said, smiling. ‘I’m sure if you understood them better, you wouldn’t be so apprehensive.’
‘Quite,’ muttered Eseutz. ‘I bet they’re really sweet once you get to know them.’
Gannadius?
Gannadius sat up. It was dark; he was faintly aware of Theudas, stirring in his sleep in the bed next to him. Someone had called his name.
Gannadius. It’s me.
‘Oh,’ he said aloud; then he closed his eyes.
He was back in the City (oh, not again), in the ropewalks this time; on either side of the enormously wide street, houses and warehouses were burning, brightly enough for him to be able to see as if it was daylight. He was standing in the middle of the road, which was fortunate; all the fighting and killing was taking place on the edges, under the eaves of the burning buildings.
‘Sorry,’ Alexius was saying. ‘I don’t like it here much, either; it’s just where I happened to be.’
Gannadius shivered; he couldn’t feel the heat from the fire all around him, although he knew he ought to. ‘Charming place you’ve got here,’ he said. ‘Actually, I haven’t been here before, I don’t think. And I’ve been to most parts of the Fall at one time or another.’
Alexius pointed, though Gannadius couldn’t quite make out what he was supposed to be looking at. ‘Over there,’ Alexius was saying. ‘See that man there, the plainsman with the long hair? Any moment now the roof of that shed’s going to slide off, and he’ll be trapped under it and killed. That’s the point of all this, why it’s important. There it goes, look,’ he added, as a small building collapsed in a shower of sparks, and someone Gannadius couldn’t see screamed. ‘It took me ages to work out what was important about this, but finally I tracked it down. If he’d lived, he’d have taken part in an archery contest; he’d have shot an arrow that bounced off the edge of the target frame – real million-to-one stuff – and hit Temrai’s wife in the eye. Well, not his wife then, and she never would have been his wife; instead he’d have married someone else, and things would have been a whole lot different.’
‘I see,’ Gannadius said, inaccurately. ‘And that’s what you wanted to tell me, was it?’
Alexius shook his head. ‘Good gods, no. Like I said, this is just where I’ve been spending time lately. No, it’s much more important – for you, that is. I need to warn you-’
‘Excuse me,’ Gannadius said. He’d just noticed that he’d trodden on a dying man. He knew, of course, that there was nothing he could do to help, since all this had already happened and besides, he wasn’t really there. But it went against the grain just to walk on.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, kneeling down, but the man didn’t show any signs of having heard him. His wounds were spectacular – a deep slicing cut running diagonally from the junction of the neck and shoulders, following the line of the collar-bone, and a massive stab-wound, as broad as Gannadius’ hand, just under the arch of the ribs.
‘Halberd wounds,’ Alexius remarked, above him and out of sight.
‘Halberds? I didn’t know the plainsmen used them.’
‘They don’t,’ Alexius replied; and when Gannadius looked up, he realised that he wasn’t in Perimadeia any more. ‘Scona?’ he asked.
‘That’s right,’ Alexius confirmed. ‘What you’re seeing is the sack of Scona by the Shastel Order.’
Gannadius frowned. Behind him, though he couldn’t see it, all the warehouses that lined the Strangers’ Quay were on fire, and people were fighting each other to get to the head of the line to board ships that had already left, and been sunk in the harbour by the catapults mounted on the decks of the Shastel barges. ‘But that never happened,’ he said.