Academic Exercises (66 page)

Astyages, my old college chum, is a writer. He writes stuff. He’ll write you a bill of lading, a chancery pleading, a letter home enclosing two angels, a letter to a rich uncle begging for money, a deed of partnership, a will, a pretty good sonnet (five bits extra if he has to make one up from scratch). The joke is, he has lousy handwriting. But he does really pretty initial capital letters, with loops and scrolls and even gold leaf, if you’ve got the money. He says he only does scrivening to keep himself fed and clothed while he’s finishing off his great thesis,
Some Aspects of the Caesura in Late Mannerist Minor Lyric Poetry
. Really, he’s a spy for the government. At least, that’s what he tells everybody.

“You,” he said, twisting round in his chair and glowering at me over his spectacles (his dearest and only valuable possession; inherited from his father, a senior lecturer at Elpis before the War. Astyages actually has perfect eyesight, in spite of his trade, but he wears the things because they make him feel scholarly). “Actually, I’m not surprised. You lunatic.”

I smiled. “Mind if I sit down?”

He shrugged. “What do you want?”

“Message to Phocas,” I said, and he sighed.

“Tell him yourself,” he said wearily. “I had the scuttlehats here, earlier.”

“Of course you did,” I said. “Sorry about that.”

“That’s all right,” he said. “There’s beer in the jug, probably some cheese in the cupboard.” Astyages practically lives on cheese; he gets it cheap from the dairy on Ropewalk, but you’ve got to scrape the green bits off. “And I suppose you’ll be wanting money as well.”

I felt guilty. “I still owe you from last time,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “I can let you have two angels, but that’s it.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Will you—?”

He shook his head. “Go and see him, no,” he said. “Write him a note, yes. What do you want me to say?”

I thought for a moment. “Well, sorry’d be a good place to start,” I said. “And then, please don’t come after me. And it doesn’t work.”

Astyages frowned and adjusted the position of the glasses on his nose. They’ve worn a sort of slot half-way down. “Is that true?” he asked.

“Of course it is,” I said. “Come on, nobody can turn base metal into gold. It’s not possible.”

“That’s not what—”

“It can’t be done,” I said. “All my assurances to the contrary notwithstanding. So tell him, really sorry about the lies and the false hopes, and I’m going abroad, indefinitely. Usual best wishes, Saloninus.”

Astyages laid down his pen and looked at me. “You’ve cracked it, haven’t you?”

“I just said, it can’t be—”

“Don’t bullshit me, please. You’ve cracked it, and now you’re running away with the secret, before Phocas has you locked up in a tower somewhere for the rest of your life making gold. I know you,” he went on, overriding my attempts at protest. “You know, I always had this tiny sneaking suspicion at the back of my mind that one day you’d do it.”

“Really, I—”

He shook his head irritably. “So,” he said, “what was it? Sal draconis? Virtus aurei in a suspension of quick-silver?”

“Not sal draconis,” I said, with feeling.

“All right, then. It’s in the method, isn’t it? Something really obvious in the way you distil the—”

“It can’t be done, Astyages. Everybody knows that.”

“Fine,” he snapped, “don’t tell me. But when you’re obscenely rich and living in your palace in the Blue Hills, for once in your life do the decent thing and send me money. All right?”

“If it ever comes to that,” I said, “I promise. On my word of honour.”

He gave me a cracked grin, scrabbled for a fresh sheet of paper, and started writing.

I sat down. He wrote about a dozen words—he’s left-handed, and it always amazes me, the way he writes—then paused and chewed the end of his pen. “How’s the thesis coming along?” I asked.

“Oh, fine,” he said. “Another month and it’ll be finished.”

I believe him. I always have. Which month he’s referring to is another matter. He wrote another dozen words, then turned round slowly and looked at me. “The scuttlehats said Eudoxia’s dead,” he said.

“That’s right.”

“They told me—”

“That’s right too.”

He stared at me; forgot to look over the top of his glasses. “God, Saloninus,” he said. “That’s—”

“It was an accident,” I said.

“Well of course it was a bloody accident,” he snapped at me, “even you wouldn’t deliberately poison your wife.” He paused. He’d run into that terrible impassable barrier we all come up against when trying to express sincere sympathy to a friend. “I’m sorry,” was the best he could do. Actually, it’s not bad.

“Me too,” I said.

“I always liked her.”

I grinned. “You were nuts about her,” I said. “When I think of the exhibition you always made of yourself whenever she came to visit, back at Elpis—”

“Yes, all right.” He was actually blushing. “I knew I didn’t have a hope in hell.”

“No,” I said, “you didn’t.”

“She never liked you much either,” he said, and then realised what had just slipped past the gate of his teeth, and looked wretched. I smiled, to show it was all right. It wasn’t, but he was doing me a favour.

“She liked you, though,” I lied. “Not that way, but she liked you. Told me so, several times.”

A light came on in his eyes. “Really?”

I nodded. “Thought you looked sensitive,” I said. “Misunderstood.”

“Is that right?” he said, in a sort of stupid voice, and I nodded again. Actually, the only time I ever mentioned him to her, she said, “Who?”

I spent most of the night drifting around Coppergate, too scared to go in a bar out of the cold or crawl in a doorway. I walked up and down, trying to look like I was on my way somewhere. Fortunately, the people in that part of town can practically smell trouble and keep well out of the way of anybody who looks like he’s in it. I think I ended up on the steps of the Nika Fountain, along with a couple of crying drunks and an elderly streetwalker who’d given up trying for the night. At one point, I tried to remember all thirty-six of Zeuxis’ propositions of paradigmatic symmetry, but I only got twenty-eight of them, and knowing I couldn’t simply drop in to the library in the morning and look up the other eight made me burst into tears. One of the drunks offered me his bottle, which I’m ashamed to say I accepted. It was empty, of course.

Round about dawn, I knew from experience, the watch makes a tour of Nika Square and arrests anyone who can’t get out of the way, so I got up and headed back to Astyages’ place, taking my time. No sign of any scuttlehats but plenty of watch. I was sure they were going to pull me in, but they walked right past me, which made me wonder if Phocas had spoken to the City Prefect. One less thing to worry about if he had, but I couldn’t know that for sure. I made myself slow down, dawdle, the way I’d seen drunks and beggars do every day of my life, but suddenly I couldn’t quite call to mind the fine nuances of how they walk, how they stand, how their heads droop from their shoulders.

Astyages was already up and working when I got there. He likes to do his fancy penmanship in the early morning, when the light comes in through his window just so. He was hard at work on a W when I got there. Amazing what you can do with a simple everyday consonant if you’ve got the skill and imagination. He’d turned it into an amazing double-crested wave, with a little ship bobbing desperately on the middle peak. If you wanted to, you could see that as transmuting base material into gold, though if you ask me, it’s pushing it.

“Green,” I said. “Since when is the sea green?”

He gave me a filthy look. “For three bits,” he said, “the sea’s green.”

I grinned at him. Blue is, after all, impossible. Can’t be done. To get blue, you have to go all the way to Ges Eschatoi, buy a thumb-sized slab of lapis lazuli for the price of a good farm, trudge all the way back here, over the mountains and across the desert, grind it up in a pestle and mortar and add spirits of earth and gum. People I know in the painting trade reckon blue is proof positive of Nature’s nasty sense of humour. Blue sky, blue sea, and who the hell can afford to pay for realism? And even if you’ve got a ridiculously wealthy customer who’s prepared to fork out for the best, it’s still only background.

“Letter for you,” he said.

I was stunned. “Already?”

“Royal courier,” Astyages replied, pretending to concentrate on his W. “About an hour ago. It’s on the table, there, next to the glue-pot.”

Phocas to Saloninus, greetings.

It’s all right. It was an accident. Well of course it was. I’ve known you for what, ten years? I know you wouldn’t murder my sister.

And you know me. It’s all right. Really.

We can sort it all out, I promise; but not if the Watch catches you. You know how things are with me and the Prefect’s office. Pescennius would just love to put you on trial, to get at me. Don’t overestimate what I can do. There will eventually come a point where I can’t protect you any more.

The best thing would be if you stay put at Sty’s place and have him write me you’re there. I’ll send scuttlehats to bring you out nice and quiet.

What the hell were you thinking about, running away like that? For crying out loud, Nino.

“Plain paper,” I said. “His own hand.” Astyages was doing his letter, really concentrating on gold-leafing a loopy-scrolly bit. I folded the letter and put it inside my jacket, safe. Used just right, that letter could be a neat weapon.
I picked up a sheet of blank paper from the table. “Do you mind?” I said.

He looked up. “What?”

“Better get rid of this,” I said, holding up the sheet.

“What? Oh, yes, good idea.” He bent his head over the page in front of him. One smudge or ink-blob and he could screw up two days’ work
.
I went over to the fireplace, made a show of screwing up the paper into a ball and throwing
it into the fire
.
Phocas had always had a genius for details; he’d make sure his men asked;
what did he do with the letter once he’d read it?

“What did it say?” Astyages asked.

“Come home, all is forgiven.” I sat down on the edge of the table. He scowled at me, and I stood up again. “What do you think?” I asked.

He took time off to consider his reply. “I honestly couldn’t say,” he said. “Give him his due, he’s a fair-minded man. If he believes it was an accident, he’s capable of forgiving you. Also, I don’t think they ever got on, not even as kids. Especially as kids. And there’s always politics, which I know absolutely nothing about. Could be you’ve done him a favour, for all I know.”

“Or he could be trying to lure me back so he can have me slowly tortured to death.”

“That’s possible, yes.” Helpful as ever. “So,” he said, pausing to tweak the hairs of his brush into a sharp point, “what’re you going to do?”

It’d depend on whom you asked. Ask, say, the Dean of Philosophy at Elpis, and he’d say my crowning achievement was the
Dialogues
, in which I expound the theory of correlative forms. Ask the master of the Temple, he’d say the
Essay on Ethical Theory
. Ask the president of the Mystery, he’d tell you it was vis mercuriae, or possibly combining mel fortis with strong acids on a block of ice to make ichor tonans. The chairman of the Literary Association would go for
Aspis
, though I’d be inclined to doubt he’s ever managed to read all forty-seven cantos; privately he’d tell you he much prefers the sonnets, or
Fulvia and Luso
. Down at the patents registry, they wouldn’t have to think about it; the Vesani wheel, for forming curves in sheet metal, and if only I’d held on to the patent, instead of selling it for the price of a good pair of boots, I’d have been a rich man at twenty and none of this would ever have happened. If it was the chief of the watch, he’d have no hesitation in going for the Lystra Bank job; I believe it’s still required reading for fast-trackers in the Criminal Investigations division. Ask me what the best thing I’ve ever done is, I’d have to reply; I don’t know, I haven’t done it yet.

Ask me what I’m proudest of; no problem. None of it.

Well, hell. There’s a fundamental flaw in the logic of the
Dialogues
that nobody’s figured out yet, but they will, one day, and then my reputation will be landfill. Ichor tonans was, admittedly, a stroke of genius, but what’s it good for? Blowing things up. I believe they’re allowed to use it in the mines, and for blasting roads through the mountains, but even so. You can’t really glory in the invention of something when getting caught with a thimbleful of it carries the death penalty.
Aspis
I wrote for money, and they still owe me most of it;
Fulvia
is derivative, and I didn’t write the sonnets for publication. A lot of bastards got rich from the Vesani wheel, but I didn’t. I take no pride whatsoever in my criminal past. I was moderately pleased with
The Madonna with Open Hands
(her head is actually too big for her body, but nobody’s ever commented) but that was confiscated when I was arrested the first time, and some toad bought it cheap off the bailiffs, and it hasn’t been seen since.

Saloninus to Phocas, greetings.

All right, then, and thanks. But not in daylight. You think you’re scared of the Watch catching me. Try being me.

Send scuttlehats, in a closed carriage, one hour after sunset. I’ll be here.

Thanks again. You’re a true friend.

I left Astyages’ place as soon as he’d sent the letter.
I was nervous, but buzzing with energy. Getting the scuttlehats off my back for a while was the nudge I needed to snap me out of my horror-induced lethargy
and get me moving again. I still didn’t know how I was going to
get out of town, but I knew from experience that when I’m fizzing, I come up with stuff that never ceases to amaze me. Meanwhile, until inspiration struck, I could usefully fill up the time with various necessary chores.

First, I needed premises. Nothing grand; just an enclosed private space with a hearth and a chimney, at least one window, affordable, discreet landlord. With uncharacteristic foresight, I’d investigated a few possibilities a few weeks earlier. The first was already let, but the man who owned the next on my list (disused storage out back of a tannery; perfect) duly took the two angels Astyages had given me as three months’ rent in advance, handed me the key and forgot he’d ever met me (I got the impression he’d had plenty of practice).