Academic Exercises (18 page)

I’m not sure if I’m a geographer or a historian, or whether geography’s a humanity or a science. What I do know is that, if I really am smart enough to deserve a chair at the Studium, I should’ve asked myself what a senator’s young trophy wife ever saw in me, long before that casual mention of the duke. Still, better late than too late.

I walked home slowly through the back alleys, and every turning and doorway was crawling with the duke’s men, watching me, taking notes, except that I couldn’t quite see them. By the time I reached the lodge I was exhausted. The porter got up from his nice warm fireside and handed me a note.

Must see you at once. My rooms.

Carchedonius

That’s not his real name, of course. Before he came to the Studium he was Liutprand Thiostulfsen. It cost me twelve angels to find that out, and I never could think of a good way of using it against him. Just knowing it made me feel better, though.

I should explain about Carchedonius. He’s a fine scholar. He’s painstaking, insightful, clear-headed, occasionally brilliant, always worth listening to. His work on the manuscript tradition of Thraso’s
Dialogues
was what started me on the road to my finest hour, the deciphering of the Sunao Codex. Between us, we know everything there is to know about Aeneas, and Essecuivo. All in all, it’s a shame we hate each other the way we do.

But that can’t be helped, any more than you can get an injunction to stop the winter. The stupid thing is, neither of us can account for it. I’ve never done him any real harm, though not for want of trying, and all his wild schemes to encompass my downfall have failed or backfired on him. Apparently he has some kind of grudge based on some relative of his losing a lot of money when the Company went under. If that’s really the case, he must’ve nursed it like a shepherd’s wife with an orphan lamb. I think I hate him so much because he hates me, though I’m not sure I didn’t hate him first. In any case, it’s been going on since we were both seventeen-year-old freshmen. I guess it’s an interest for both of us; cheaper than collecting pre-Mannerist miniatures, slightly more exciting than watching the donkey-cart races.

Must see you in my rooms at once
presumably meant the latest in a long line of laboured, over-elaborate stratagems; presumably it hadn’t occurred to him that I might simply decide not to turn up. He’d make a lousy spider; the patience and dedication to spin a good web, but not a clue about luring flies. His idea of subtlety would be a big notice; WEB THIS WAY. He’d starve.

I nearly didn’t go. Nearly. If I was a fly, I’d be dead by now.

Here I go, rattling on about myself and my own inconsequential history. I’m ashamed of myself, as a historian. My part in the sequence of events is significant but limited. I shouldn’t have talked about myself or even acknowledged my own existence for at least another ten pages.

The Company; the Eastern Ocean Company; actually, the correct name is the College of Merchant Adventurers for the Promotion and Regulation of Trade with the Nations of the Eastern Ocean. It was founded, coincidentally, in the year of my birth—here I am, intruding again—by three clockmakers and a goldsmith, affluent men with a taste for abstruse literature who’d been brought up on secondary accounts of Aeneas Peregrinus, and who could afford to indulge their scientific pretensions by chartering and outfitting a small ship (the
Squirrel
, 90 tons) to look for Essecuivo. That was all. But, being businessmen, they thought it would be common sense to spread the risk a little. Accordingly, they issued a prospectus, which they hired a couple of layabouts to give away free in the tea-houses around the Golden Carp.

The year I was born was also the year of the great gold strike in Eroine. For the first time in centuries, the City was awash with money; newly-coined gold angels, tumbling like raindrops, looking for channels, gutters and conduits to drain off the flood. Men who’d been wise enough to take an early stake at Eroine and then sell before the strike worked out were looking around for the next good thing; preferably something a bit more substantial than gold-mining, up and down like a peacock’s tail, as my father used to say. Essecuivo was exactly the sort of thing they were after; a solid, long-term venture yielding rich dividends for ever and ever. In a matter of days, copies of the free prospectus (the clockmakers had only printed two hundred) were changing hands for an angel each.

At this point, something strange and wonderful happened. The clockmakers, in order to keep track of who was investing what, had some more papers printed; not prospectuses this time, but shares. It wasn’t a brand new idea, but it had never really caught on before. That all changed. The first subscription, at one angel a share, sold out in a week. The second subscription, three angels, went in a single morning; meanwhile, in the tea-houses, the disappointed investors who’d missed out on the subscriptions were cheerfully paying six angels apiece for second-hand shares. Twelve subscriptions later, Company stock stood at a hundred and six, and only the clockmakers had any idea how many shares were in circulation. At this point, they quietly sold out their own interests and retired to vast country estates in the Naquite, leaving the Company in the hands of its newly-elected Board, one member of which was my poor father.

What nobody realised at that moment was that just under a third of the entire value of the Republic was now invested in the Company; whose assets, apart from money, consisted of a fine neo-Archaic mansion house in Widegate, a fair collection of maps and books put together by the clockmakers, four remaining years of a six-year charter of the
Squirrel
and some second-hand barrels. I think it was this that led my father to decide that someone really ought to find Essecuivo as quickly as possible.

I walked in and he didn’t look up. “Tea?” he asked.

“Yes, why not?” I looked around. I hadn’t been in his rooms for some time. Mind you, nothing had changed; the same heaps of junk everywhere. I decided to assume that the offer of tea implied an invitation to sit down, so I moved a stack of books and perched on a chair. He swung the kettle arm over the fire and peered back at me over his shoulder.

“I saw that thing you did in the
Proceedings
,” he said.

“Did you now.”

“Very good.” He pawed the lid off the tea caddy and measured out three spoonfuls. Black tea, the cheap sort. I could smell the bergamot oil they use to mask the poor flavour. “I think you’re right about Psammetichus. It makes sense of the western tradition, and it fits in with Hiero in the
Summary
.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course, you were wrong about Arcea,” he went on, with his back to me. “The foundation date is fixed by the Lelantine War.”

I frowned. He had a point. “That’s a terminus post quem.”

He shook his head. “Hiero lists Arceus among the dead at Limma,” he said. “If he died at Limma, he couldn’t have founded Arcea the year after, could he?”

Six months of agonisingly hard work gone up in smoke. I could have cried. Instead, I said, “If you’re prepared to follow Hiero.”

“You were,” he replied. “Can’t have it both ways.” He turned round, holding a teapot and two small wooden cups. He loves to make a show of poverty, although his family owns half the Neada valley. “Lemon?”

I shook my head. “That’s what you wanted to see me about.”

“No.” He sat down, not bothering to shift the books first; he sort of settled in beside and on top of them, like cement. “No, I’ve already written a note for the
Review
.” He smiled. “Sorry.”

I made a show of shrugging. “Just as well you spotted my careless oversight,” I said. “The human race should be properly grateful.”

He leaned forward to pour the tea. “Oh, the hell with that,” he said. “I never could be doing with slipshod scholarship, is all.” He frowned. “Did you say you wanted lemon?”

“Not for me, no.”

He sipped his tea and pulled a face. “No,” he went on (he starts most of his sentences with
no
), “it was something quite other. How are things with you, by the way? It’s been a while since we had a chance for a civilised conversation. How’s your father getting on?”

“He died,” I said. “Last spring.”

“That’s a shame, I’m sorry. He can’t have been out for long.”

“Six months.”

He shook his head. “Well,” he said, “at least he didn’t die in prison. That must be a terrible thing, don’t you think?”

Sometimes, the best way of fighting is not to fight. I sat still and quiet. He drank his tea.

“No,” he said eventually, “what I wanted to see you about was—” He stopped, put his cup down and folded his hands neatly in his lap. “You heard that Count Dorcellus is dead.”

“No, actually.”

He nodded. “The family’s deep in debt, so they had to sell up. The whole place, including the library.”

In spite of myself, I was mildly interested. The Dorcelli are one of those old families who used to be everywhere a few hundred years ago, and haven’t done a damn thing since. Also, they were always notoriously mean-minded about allowing scholars to use their library. As a result, nobody had any idea what they’d got in there.

“It just so happens,” he went on, looking over my shoulder, “that my uncle bought a few cases of books at the sale.” He grinned, still not looking at me. “When I say cases, that’s quite accurate. He bought four large crates, sight unseen. He’s a clown, my uncle. Still.”

I had a feeling of being taken on a guided tour of the torture chamber. They do that, apparently, to make people confess. This is the rack, that’s the iron maiden, and over here we have the thumbscrews. “Anything interesting?” I asked.

“Some bits and pieces.” He frowned again, then lifted his head and looked at me. “Oh, before I forget. They sent me your latest on Aeneas Peregrinus. They want to know if it’s any good.”

I felt cold all over. They, in this context, meant the faculty board, to whom I had submitted an outline of my researches in the hope of getting funding for another five years. Through ignorance or malice they’d given it to Carchedonius for peer review. I swallowed. “What did you think?”

“Splendid.”

Oh, but you can’t tell, really you can’t. He always says
splendid
or
excellent
, just before he wields the knife. I waited. He made the moment last.

“No,” he said, “I went through it all very carefully, and I’m forced to admit, I do believe you’re right. And I’ve been wrong all these years. You convinced me. Congratulations.”

Still I waited. These are the red-hot irons, that cage thing over there is for bending your arms backwards until your elbows burst. “And?”

“And nothing.” The smile faded. “You know I can’t stand you,” he went on. “You’re arrogant, sloppy, careless and full of shit, and the way you carry on with married women is a disgrace to the Studium. But, on this occasion, you’ve produced a piece of work of real quality. And put me in my place in the process.” He picked up his teacup and put it down again, his fingertips still surrounding the rim. “I know now that you were right about the latitude of Essecuivo, and I was wrong. I’m trying to be graceful about it, but I’m probably not succeeding. It’s not really in my nature.”