‘Never given it any thought, to be honest with you,’ Bardas replied. ‘Once you’ve spent time with these people, you start assessing value in a different way, if you see what I mean.’
Theudas didn’t see at all, but he nodded anyway. ‘If you’re sure,’ he said. ‘It’s a pleasure to use them.’
Bardas smiled. ‘I think that’s the general idea,’ he said. ‘Look, we’re getting ready to move on – we’ve been stuck here for far longer than we’d expected, and we’re horribly behind schedule. I’ve got to go and see to a few things. Will you be all right here on your own for a bit?’
‘I should think so,’ Theudas replied, setting out counters on the lines. ‘I’ve got plenty here to keep me busy for a while.’
For an hour or so the work more or less filled his mind, as he wrestled with divisors, quotients and multiplicands, traced misplaced entries, struggled to make sense of Bardas’ handwriting. It was enough to feel the textile-soft texture of the counters between the tips of his fingers, or hear the gentle click they made as he dropped one back into the bag. But as he was drawn deeper into the calculations, so the images embossed on the counters began to assert themselves in the back of his mind, like splinters of metal thrown off the grindstone embedding themselves in your hand. There was an army marching to war; in the foreground a Son of Heaven on a tall, thin horse, behind him a sea of heads and bodies, each one no more than a few cursory strokes of the die-engraver’s cutter. There was a trophy of captured arms, set up on a battlefield to celebrate a victory – swords and spears, helmets and breastplates and arms and legs heaped up, and at the summit, like a beacon on a mountain, the radiate-sun standard of the Empire. There was a city under siege; high towers and bastions in the background, and at the front of the field, engineers digging the mouth of a sap, sheltered from the arrows and missiles of the defenders by tall wicker shields. There was an armoury, where two men raised a helmet over a stake while a third watched. Because he couldn’t understand the words, Theudas didn’t know which wars and sieges and cities were being commemorated here, but it didn’t really matter; they could be any war, any siege or city you wanted them to be (since all wars and sieges and cities are pretty much alike, seen from a distance, from outside the field). For all Theudas knew, it might have been deliberate; since the Empire is eternally at war, eternally celebrating some new victory, it was sound practical sense to keep the celebrations of victory vague and generic, whether they be the images on counters or the marching-songs of the army.
He remembered that he’d forgotten something; on the floor, where he’d dumped it, was his luggage – one small kitbag and a long parcel wrapped in oiled cloth. Fortuitously, that was when Bardas walked in.
‘I’ve just remembered something,’ Theudas said. ‘I’m sorry, it slipped my mind. I’ve brought something for you.’
Bardas raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? That’s nice. What is it?’
Theudas knelt down, picked up the parcel and handed it to him. Maybe his face changed a little while he was picking at the knots in the twine; it was completely free of any sort of expression when he pulled out the Guelan broadsword.
‘I see,’ was all he said; then he put it back. ‘How are the books coming along? Made any sense of them yet?’
‘Of course you’re perfectly at liberty to leave at any time,’ the man in the department of aliens had told him. ‘As a citizen of Shastel, you’re unaffected by what’s happened here.’ Then he’d gone on to point out that there weren’t any ships leaving for Shastel, now or in the foreseeable future – in other words, if he wanted to exercise his undisputed right to leave the Island, he was going to have to walk home across the sea to Shastel.
So he went back to Athli’s house, which was empty. They’d come and collected all the files and papers, not to mention the ten massive cast-iron strongboxes in which she kept the Bank deposits; they’d cut the chains and bolts with cold chisels and big hammers, leaving behind them scars in the walls and floors like the cavities left behind when teeth have been pulled. They hadn’t touched anything else, however; this was an annexation, not a fall or a sack. Much more polite than either of those, and for obvious reasons; after all, where’s the point of stealing your own property?
But they hadn’t taken the food; so he cut himself a thick slice out of the new loaf, and a big square of cheese, and took them over to the window where it was pleasantly cool but he could still see the sunlight. From where he was sitting he could just make out the tops of the masts of ships, riding at anchor in the Drutz. Any day now, they’d be going where he’d just come from, to take the war to Temrai and avenge Perimadeia. Or something of the kind.
He closed his eyes; and then he was somehow underneath the town, directly under Athli’s house, in a tunnel, the usual tunnel, that reeked of coriander and wet clay. ‘Look, is this really…? he started to protest, but the floor of the tunnel was giving way under his feet, and he was falling -
– Down into another tunnel (the usual tunnel), where they were scooping up the spoil and loading it on to the dolly-trucks; and mixed in with the spoil he could see all manner of artefacts and curios from a time several hundred years ago. Some of the pieces were familiar; others weren’t, and some of the unfamiliar ones were a very strange shape indeed – parts of suits of armour for creatures that were far from human, or part human, part something else.
You again.
Gannadius looked round. There wasn’t anybody there that he could see, just helmets and pieces of armour -
Over here. That’s it, you’re looking straight at me.
An elegant, if somewhat battered, barbute sallet, the sort of helmet that covers the face completely apart from narrow slits for the eyes and mouth. ‘Is that you?’ Gannadius asked. ‘You remind me of someone I used to work with, but I can’t quite…’
Well, of course I do. It’s me. Here inside this blasted tin hat.
No great mystery; they’d run the tunnel through the middle of a burial ground, a mass grave for the losers of some battle long ago; or else they’d reopened a tunnel from some previous siege, where a cave-in had buried an assault party. ‘Just a minute,’ Gannadius said, ‘you aren’t Alexius, you don’t sound a bit like him. Who are you?’
Does it matter?
‘It matters to me,’ Gannadius replied, turning the helmet over. It was empty.
Alexius couldn’t make it, so he sent me instead. I’m a friend of Bardas Loredan’s, if it actually matters at all. And you’re Gannadius, right? The wizard?
‘No, I… Yes, the wizard.’ Gannadius couldn’t sit down, there wasn’t room, so he leaned his back against the curved, damp wall of the tunnel. ‘Is there actually a point to this, or is it just that big hunk of cheese I ate?’
You wound me.
‘I’m sorry,’ Gannadius replied, feeling rather self-conscious about apologising to a hallucination. ‘So I take it there is a reason for this?’
Of course. Welcome to the proof house.
Gannadius frowned. ‘The what house?’
This is where you come to be bashed and buried, though it’s considered good form to die first. Still, you weren’t to know that; we can make allowances. Now then, let’s see. If asked to identify the Principle with one of the following, a river or a wheel, which would you choose?
‘I’m not sure,’ Gannadius replied. ‘To be honest with you, I don’t think either comparison is a perfect fit. Besides, why are you asking me this?’
Answer the question. River, wheel; which?
‘Oh…’ Gannadius shrugged. ‘All right, on balance I’d say the Principle is more like a river than a wheel. Satisfied?’
Explain your reasoning.