The Folding Knife Part 34

Mostly, I suppose, I want to say thanks for sending me here. If I hadn't come, I'd never have learned the truth. I guess that if I'm anything, I'm a philosopher (what do you want to be when you grow up, Ba.s.sano?); cracking the fundamental question of ethics and the purpose of human existence before the age of twenty-one is about as good as you can get, in my line of work. It's also a dead end-nowhere else to go, nothing left to do-so the risk really isn't that great. If I'd stayed in the City, I could've lived to be ninety and never achieved a d.a.m.n thing.

Cordially, and with love, Ba.s.sano "I'm afraid not," the soldier told him patiently. "No matter how quickly we get there, they'll be deep inside the forest by then."

"So?" Ba.s.so snapped. "Something the size of our army can't be hard to find, even with a few trees in the way. Just follow all the footprints."

"A courier," the soldier went on, wisely ignoring him, "would probably be picked off by the insurgents long before he could catch up with the army. If he made it through and found them, it would be extremely unwise for your nephew to leave the army and go back, for the same reason."

"The h.e.l.l with that," Ba.s.so said. "Aelius'll have to send a regiment to escort him. He's got seven, he can spare one, can't he?"

Maybe the soldier was deaf, in both ears. "It's my considered opinion," he said, "that any attempt to retrieve Ba.s.sia.n.u.s Licinius would put him in greater danger than if he stayed with the main army. General Aelius has twenty-eight thousand men, all well armed and well trained. I'm certain that he will regard preserving the life of your nephew as a high priority. Anything we do from here will probably only make things worse."

Ba.s.so shook his head. "I can't accept that," he said. "Go to the forest, find the army and tell Aelius to turn round and come back. We can do that, can't we?"

The soldier didn't reply, which was probably just as well. He was a very patient man, with an inexpressive face. Ba.s.so said, "What do you make of their chances?"

That was different. The soldier was prepared to treat him as a rational human being. "Given what we know about the terrain and the enemy, naturally I'm deeply concerned. On the other hand, Cazar troops aren't exactly strangers to fighting this sort of war. And General Aelius is quite possibly the most resourceful and determined soldier I've ever come across. Most certainly he knows what the dangers are, and he'll have made plans accordingly. The great military disasters of history, where large armies have gone into mountains or forests and never come back, were mainly the fault of inexperienced or overconfident commanders."

Ba.s.so nodded. "Their princ.i.p.al mistake being walking straight into a trap in the first place. Which Aelius has just done." He stood up, turned his head as though looking for something, then sat on the edge of the desk. "Well, we'll just have to wait and see. What else?"

The soldier hesitated, and in that split second Ba.s.so knew he was about to hear something bad. He very nearly interrupted; but what would be the point?

"We're getting reports that the Imperial Second Fleet has left its spring harbour at Flobis and put to sea," the soldier said. "One source, unconfirmed but usually reliable, says that they're making for Voroe."

Just for a moment, Ba.s.so couldn't remember where Voroe was. "The island," he said. "The one we turned the Hus loose on."

The soldier nodded. "As I said, just one report. However, if the Empire is contemplating war, Voroe would be an ideal place to start, and of course, this would be the ideal time. If the Empire has learned that Aelius has gone into the forest..."

"Yes, I see." Ba.s.so was lying. For some reason, he couldn't get his mind to close around the fact he'd just been given. "They've got a claim to Voroe, so it's a legitimate act on their part, and if they take it, they cut our supply line to Mavortis. Nasty thought. What should we do?"

A question, where at any other time he'd have given an order. The soldier replied immediately, "Mobilise the fleet. Send four full squadrons to Voroe and get ready to fight."

"Mobilise the fleet." Ba.s.so frowned. "I can see the sense in that," he said awkwardly. "Trouble is, there's no money to pay for it. To supply, man and launch a squadron: three hundred thousand nomismata. To keep a squadron at sea for a week, sixty thousand. Four squadrons for, say, three weeks: one million, seven hundred and twenty thousand-"

"One million, nine hundred and twenty thousand," the soldier corrected him. Ba.s.so opened his mouth, then closed it again. First time he'd got a sum wrong for as long as he could remember. "We can't afford it," he said. "Not even with pretend money. The most we can do is two squadrons, and that's if the Bank spends its own money." He scowled, as though irritated by someone he couldn't see but knew was there. "Should we do that?"

"The report could be false," the soldier said, "in which case the money would be wasted. If the report is true and we do nothing, the consequences don't bear thinking about." He hesitated, then asked gently, "Is it true about the money, or are you exaggerating?"

"It's true," Ba.s.so said. "It's gone. I've spent it." He pressed his thumbs to the sides of his head. "How long can we wait before launching the s.h.i.+ps?" he said. "In case we get further and better reports."

"A matter of days," the soldier replied, "less than a week. If the Imperial navy gets there first, of course, the job will be twice as hard."

Ba.s.so nodded. "Can we do it with two squadrons?"

"The Second Fleet consists of three full squadrons," the soldier recited. "Since our unit structure was copied from the Empire, in theory our squadrons should be equivalent to theirs. However, we have reason to believe that their new-generation wars.h.i.+ps are bigger and faster than ours and carry considerably more artillery and marines. At a conservative estimate, I would say that three of their squadrons would be equivalent to four of ours."

Ba.s.so had his eyes tight shut. "Then it'll have to be four," he said. "It's all right about the money, I'll think of something. Who's the best man to command?"

"Aelius," the soldier replied sadly. "In his absence, I really couldn't say. There are six or seven possibilities, with very little to choose between them." He smiled grimly. "Command of the navy has always been the reserve of the best Vesani families, and we haven't had to fight at sea for over a generation. We have some excellent theorists, but-"

"I'm sorry," Ba.s.so said abruptly, "I seem to be having trouble concentrating today. Go away and come back with a recommendation for who's going to command the fleet. Maybe by then my head'll have cleared."

"Do you want me to ask the clerks to draw up the mobilisation orders?" the soldier asked. "We need them in place before we can-"

"Yes, thanks, that's fine." The soldier noticed that Ba.s.so was squeezing his left hand extremely hard with his right. "If I can leave all the arrangements to you and your people, that'd be splendid. Thank you." It was a dismissal, and the soldier left.

It took Ba.s.so half an hour not to pour himself a large gla.s.s of brandy. Then he tried paperwork, but it might as well have been in a foreign language. He sent for Tragazes, and did nothing useful in the hour it took him to arrive.

"We need to borrow a million nomismata," Ba.s.so said. "Which of the banks has got that kind of money?"

Tragazes mentioned a few names. "But I doubt whether they'll lend to us," he said.

"Why not?"

"They suspect we're overcommitted," Tragazes said. "Which of course we are. Besides, they're struggling to maintain their own reserves."

Ba.s.so nodded. "What can we sell? Quickly, I mean. How about the s.h.i.+pyard?"

Might as well have asked him the way to the library. "No," he said. "It's a restricted a.s.set. It can only be sold to the government or another Vesani-owned concern. n.o.body who meets those criteria could afford to buy it."

"Sell it cheap," Ba.s.so said. "One million."

"Even at that price."

Ba.s.so drummed his fingers on his knees. "All right, then," he said, "how about our share in the Mavortine mines? We must be able to get a million for that, even in these awkward times."

"It's possible," Tragazes said quietly. "Would you like me to make enquiries?"

"Yes. No," Ba.s.so said quickly. "Enquiries will mean our stock'll crash overnight. Let's start at the beginning. Who's got that kind of money?"

The list was shorter than he'd expected. "And I think we can eliminate the Fair Outcome and the Herennii. They're extremely unlikely to do anything that would help us, even if they stood to make a lot of money."

Ba.s.so scratched his head. "All right," he said. "Sound out the Spiritual Union. Make it sound like we've got some really big thing going, so big we're happy to sell off the family silver to pay for it."

"I'll try," Tragazes said levelly. "Was there anything else?"

"I need a million nomismata in the next forty-eight hours," Ba.s.so said. "I think that's enough for you to be going on with."

Cinio wanted to see him, but he made excuses. There was a war supplies committee meeting; more excuses. He went home, spent a long time in the library looking for a book, then sat down by the window and started reading it. Velleius' n.o.ble History; his mother used to read it to him when he was a boy and ill in bed, in between dosing him with her appalling medicines. He read two chapters, then put it back on the shelf.

Command of the fleet was awarded to Servilius Gnatho. Ba.s.so announced the appointment to the House when he informed them about the naval expedition to Voroe. He was, he said, exercising his prerogative power as First Citizen; therefore, there would be no debate and no vote. For security reasons, he was not at liberty to disclose why the expedition was necessary. He walked out of the chamber in dead silence, and went home again.

Gnatho wanted to see him. He didn't want to see Gnatho, but decided he had to. The new admiral of the fleet was about thirty-two years old, tall and remarkably handsome, a laureate of the Studium and author of several influential monographs on naval tactical theory. He'd been on a s.h.i.+p once, as far as Auxentia; he came home the long way, by land.

"I've got no idea whether you'll have to fight or not," Ba.s.so said. "It could be a false alarm, you could be on your way to the most important sea battle in Vesani history. If I were you, I'd a.s.sume the latter."

Gnatho was still stunned. He said: "Shouldn't we have seen this coming?"

Ba.s.so looked at him. "You're the b.l.o.o.d.y naval expert. Did you?"

"No." Gnatho licked his lips, like a cat. "I confess, the possibility didn't occur to me. However, I'm not in the inner loop for intelligence reports."

"There's just the one report, and you've just seen it," Ba.s.so said sharply. "Now you know just as much as I do. I a.s.sume you can take it from here."

Gnatho looked as though he'd been told it was his turn to muck out the lions. "Naturally you'll want to be consulted about the-"

"No," Ba.s.so said. "I don't know anything about naval warfare. Correction: I know just enough to be dangerous. Go away, get on with it and try not to spend any more money than you can help."

Naturally, Ba.s.so had Gnatho closely watched. As far as he could tell, from the reports and his extensive reading, everything was being done more or less right, and Gnatho certainly wasn't hanging about.

There were fifty thousand names on the naval reserve register; every Vesani with any seafaring experience was obliged to register, and in theory was subject to call-up on thirty-six hours' notice. Four squadrons called for twenty thousand men: ten thousand oarsmen, five thousand deck hands, four thousand artillerymen and marines and a thousand officers of various grades. Aelius had made sure the register was up to date, had stockpiled conscription notices and trained the City Guard for press-gang duty. Of the fifty thousand, twelve were unavailable because they were already at sea, serving on merchant vessels. The gangs had relatively little trouble catching the twenty thousand slowest-running draftees, who were rounded up in Portway Square, issued with three days' rations and basic kit, and marched down to the docks, where a hundred wars.h.i.+ps, built not by the government but by the Severus yards, were ready to be hauled out of their sheds, loaded and launched. It was a long time since the Vesani had had to make good on their boast that they could launch a fleet in forty-eight hours. To everybody's surprise, they were ready with forty minutes to spare.

The first, and best, copy of the great map had been pasted to the top of a table in the cabinet room. The idea had been to have little statues carved to represent the various units, but n.o.body had got around to it. Ba.s.so had therefore sent out for a dozen chess sets. The castles stood (reasonably enough) for castles. The knights were Hus cavalry units. Archpriests, black queens and black kings were infantry divisions, represented according to size and quality. The white king was Aelius. White p.a.w.ns were Vesani auxiliary units. The black p.a.w.ns were the enemy.

It had been a good enough idea at the time, but it didn't work. There simply wasn't enough room on the one road that led into the forest for such a large number of pieces. Someone had suggested removing them all and replacing them with dried beans (each with the name of its unit inscribed on it in tiny letters), a suggestion which made Ba.s.so angry. He'd had all the chess pieces packed away and replaced with small wooden chips.

A great many people wanted to know where he was. A smaller but significant number knew he was in the war room, as it had become known, but n.o.body was being let through without explicit instructions. Gnatho had been in there, for about ten minutes, on his way to the docks. Tragazes had spent an hour in there, and come out looking as though he'd died peacefully and been skilfully embalmed. Various clerks from the Bank had been in and out; n.o.body knew who they were, and they wouldn't speak to anybody. A few servants had gone in with food and drink, or to empty the chamber pot. They were slightly more forthcoming, but not much- "What's he doing in there?"

"Sitting."

"What else?"

"Nothing. Just sitting."

"Where?"

"By that big table with the map on it."

"He must be doing something."

"No."

A secretary was sent for, and came out holding a letter, his hand carefully clamped over the address. Furio, the interior minister, stood in the ante-room doorway and wouldn't let him past.

"Show me the letter," he said.

The secretary apologised. Not allowed. Very sorry. Furio stayed where he was.

"Let the man go," Sentio said. "He's only doing his job."

"I want to know who he's writing to."

The secretary cleared his throat. That, he said, polite and sad, was unfortunately not possible. Furthermore, he had to insist that the minister stand aside and let him through. He was, he pointed out, authorised to use force if obstructed.

"Like h.e.l.l you are," Furio said. "I'm a member of the cabinet and an elected representative of the Vesani people. Lay one finger on me and I'll have you strung up."

The secretary repeated his request twice. Then, moving deceptively quickly, he grabbed Furio's arm, twisted it behind his back, moved him eight inches to the right and left the room through the resulting gap.

There was a long silence after that. Then Sentio said, "I think I'll go back to my office now. If anyone wants me, I'll be there till sixish."

The room emptied quickly. Furio hung on for a while, with only the guards for company, then left the House and went home to draft his resignation.

Three days after the fleet sailed, Melsuntha came. She told the guards she wanted to see her husband. Sincere apologies; not possible.

"Tell him I'm here," she said.

They did. Still not possible. She left immediately.

There were several emergency sessions of the House. Since the First Citizen was not present, and since he had not replied to the members' demand that he appoint a deputy to take his place while he was indisposed, no motions could be officially lodged and no votes taken. This didn't stop the House from debating, lodging motions and voting on them, even though they all knew they were wasting their time. Among the motions pa.s.sed was one to strictly curtail the First Citizen's prerogative powers, with particular regard to the declaration and conduct of war and the right to govern without the House in wartime. Written copies of these motions were taken to the war room, but the guards were under orders not to take in anything from the House in session. The leaders of the Opposition therefore tried stuffing them under the door, but there wasn't quite enough room; they got stuck halfway and stayed there.

The leading experts in const.i.tutional law, two lecturers from the Studium, were sent for. They told the House that no established procedure existed for the removal of a First Citizen who became insane during his term of office. The nearest thing they could come up with was a general bill of impeachment, which would require the a.s.sent of two-thirds of the members of the House, together with certificates from the Patriarch of the Studium and the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. A motion was pa.s.sed by the House amending these provisions-a simple majority would henceforth suffice, and the certificates were dispensed with. When they went to stuff a copy of this under the war-room door, they discovered that their earlier communiques were still there, still stuck, and there wasn't room to get even the corner of the page into the crack.

The Optimate faction, which had grown considerably since the fleet sailed, chose a new leader: Raetius Stabularius, head of the Fair Outcome Mutual Bank, brother-in-law of the chairman of the Spiritual Union, the new owner of the Severus s.h.i.+pyard and a considerable portion of the Charity & Social Justice's stake in the Mavortine mines.

Stabularius, or his advisers, came up with a new approach. A man convicted of a serious criminal offence, such as murder, could not be First Citizen. Should the offence be committed while the First Citizen was in office, he could only be tried for it if he was impeached first. But (Stabularius argued) if the offence had been committed many years before Ba.s.sia.n.u.s Severus was elected to office, the requirement for impeachment would not apply; he could be tried, in absentia if need be, and if convicted would automatically be discharged from office. Furthermore, if a House committee, on taking relevant advice from leading experts, were to declare him insane and therefore unfit to plead, he could be tried in absentia even if he was physically present in the City.

In the event, it was a close-run thing. The only vote needed was to ratify the selection of the committee to hear the medical evidence. The Optimates lost the vote, though only by six wards. Government supporters claimed that even if the vote had gone the other way it would've been invalid, since neither the First Citizen nor his appointed deputy had been present in the Chamber when it was taken; a fact which, though perfectly true, appeared to have slipped the minds of the a.s.sembled members.h.i.+p when the vote was called for.

"They could still try him if they could get him out of the war room," Sentio pointed out.

"They'd need soldiers for that," Cinio replied. "So far, the military's squarely behind us." He paused, then added: "This might not be the case if anything happened to Aelius, of course. It's him they're loyal to, not us."

"What about Ba.s.so? Are they loyal to him?"

"I have absolutely no idea." Cinio leaned back in his chair, looking tired. He hadn't shaved for three days, and the stubble on his chin made him look like a tramp, in spite of his elegant gown. "It all depends on this f.u.c.king war," he said. "If we win something in the next ten days, none of this will ever have happened. If Aelius gets killed, even if we win something, we're probably all dead. If we lose something but Aelius survives, it'll all depend on the general staff, and I for one haven't a clue what they think about anything." He grinned painfully. "I've put some of my people in there as caterers and servants, but whenever someone enters a room in headquarters, they all start talking in Cazar. I'm trying to find a Cazar-speaker who can pa.s.s for a barmaid, but so far, no joy."

A messenger arrived in the early hours of the morning, nine days after the departure of the fleet. He was stopped at the front gate of the House; understandably so, since he was dirty, wild-looking and armed. He gave his name as Velleio Ripilio, and claimed to be a commander in the navy.

An hour later, a guard captain arrived and was taken to see him in the cells at the back of the guardhouse. Ripilio produced his commission, signed by General Aelius and bearing the seal of the adjutant-commander of the Navy. The captain had never seen anything like it before and had no idea if Aelius' signature was genuine, so he sent to the Navy Office for confirmation. It was shut, of course; the night.w.a.tchman found a piece of paper with the name of the officer who kept the duty rosters, who'd be able to say who was the right person to wake up.

Two hours later, the duty officer arrived at the guardhouse and was able to confirm that the commission was genuine. Ripilio was immediately taken back to the House, where the First Citizen agreed to receive him.

From Gnatho: ... Able to report that the enemy fleet has turned back and was last seen heading south-east, on a course that would take it directly to its home port at Flobis.

As yet, we have not been able to quantify either our losses or theirs with any degree of accuracy. I believe (but cannot confirm) that we have lost twenty-one s.h.i.+ps sunk, seven more damaged beyond recovery; extensive damage to a further thirty-seven. Of the remaining thirty-five s.h.i.+ps, thirty-two are probably fit for active service without requiring immediate repair. As to casualties, the figure would seem to be somewhere between six and eight thousand dead or unaccounted for; at least three thousand whose wounds render them unfit for duty.

Enemy losses are even harder to a.s.sess. At this point, I believe that we sank nineteen of their s.h.i.+ps, and a further three are believed to have been so extensively damaged that they are no longer seaworthy and will sink or be scuttled before they reach Flobis. I can state with a degree of confidence that we have captured twenty-six enemy s.h.i.+ps: twelve intact, the rest damaged to a greater or lesser degree. We have no way of knowing the scale of enemy casualties, beyond the a.s.sumption that among the crews of the nineteen sunk s.h.i.+ps, amounting to some seven thousand men, survival rates were low; we hold something of the order of four thousand prisoners rescued from the sea. Imperial policy is not to pick up enemy survivors, so we cannot a.s.sume that they hold an equivalent number of our missing.

To summarise: we have driven off the enemy, and Voroe is secure. My belief is that the enemy fleet is in as bad a state as our own, possibly worse, and therefore poses no immediate threat; the Empire, of course, has an estimated nineteen further squadrons at its disposal, although these forces are mostly stationed a great distance away and have other responsibilities to attend to. Our losses, in s.h.i.+ps and men, have been considerable, and at this time I consider that we have only one and a half squadrons available for immediate deployment. We also lack supplies, materials for repair, and ammunition for our artillery.

Although I do not intend to describe the conduct of the action in any detail, pending my full report, which should reach you within the next three days, I should perhaps stress the last point. Our victory, if it can be described as such, was largely due to the superiority of our s.h.i.+p-mounted artillery, in particular the light mangonels and scorpions. Had it not been for the advantage these gave us, I do not doubt that the result would have been very different. In terms of tactical ability and general seamans.h.i.+p, the Imperial navy is more than a match for us-a fact which you may perhaps wish to consider further.

"The impression I got," Sentio said, "was that he was disappointed. Not the letter he was hoping for. Still," he went on, "at least he's talking to us again."

The general consensus of opinion was that it was the most dramatic session of the House in living memory. The prolonged absence of the First Citizen, Stabularius' attempts to get rid of him, his extraordinary entry, unannounced, in the middle of a debate; the way he stalked (several witnesses used the word independently) across the Chamber to his seat, in dead silence, with everybody staring: it was theatre or melodrama, depending on affiliation and point of view, but n.o.body could deny it was memorable.

No preamble. The Vesani navy, he said, in a loud, steady voice, had defeated a substantial Imperial fleet off Voroe. Had the Empire taken Voroe, the consequences would have been disastrous for the Republic; however, thanks to the decisive action of Admiral Gnatho and the skill and courage of the fleet, the threat had been averted. It was no exaggeration, he said, to say that they had saved the Republic.

Exact casualty figures, he went on (total silence), were not yet available. Losses had, however, been heavy on both sides. However, he was a.s.sured by the admiral that, out of a total in excess of one hundred, twenty-two enemy s.h.i.+ps had been sunk and a further twenty-eight captured. The Vesani fleet would, of course, remain at Voroe until it could be confirmed that the remnants of the Imperial armada had returned to their home port.