The Proof House (45 page)

Young and in charge, like Temrai against Perimadeia. Young and supremely confident, like Bollo starting to swing his hammer. Young and with a lifetime of opportunity ahead of him, like Bardas Loredan leading Maxen’s army home from the wars. He thought for a moment about the young lad who’d briefly been his apprentice on Scona, when he’d been trying to make his living as a bowyer. He remembered what it had felt like, on the night of the Sack, twisting Temrai’s arm behind his back with one hand, holding the cutting edge to his throat with the other. That had been one of the most intimate moments of his life.

As they worked, the soldiers of the Sons of Heaven sang the appropriate working songs, taking them on trust, as always. It must be wonderful, Bardas thought, to have that kind of faith; so comforting, so much easier, like a log running on rollers instead of being dragged along the ground. Trust, believe, and it’ll make you young again - that’s what a sense of purpose can do for you. If only there wasn’t always some older, wiser man to hold a sharp edge to your throat and take the faith away, like Bardas Loredan during the Sack.

 

‘Asking for trouble, I reckon,’ Venart protested, yet again. He’d said it so many times that it was rapidly turning into a joke.

‘We’ll see,’ someone replied. ‘We’ve got them over the proverbial barrel. They need us; it’s business, pure and simple.’

‘They’re late,’ someone else commented. ‘They’ve never been late before.’

In the Long Room of the Island’s Chamber of Commerce, fifty or so representatives of the Island’s Ship-Owners’ Association (founded a week previously) were waiting to meet with a delegation from the provincial office, on a matter (as the invitation to the meeting had phrased it) of some urgency and delicacy.

‘It’s hustling, that’s what it is,’ Venart persevered, ‘and you know it as well as I do. You can call it what you like, but that’s what it is.’

Runo Lavador, owner of seven ships, sat on the edge of the President’s desk, swinging his legs like a small boy. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘it’s hustling. Perfectly legitimate business practice. We’ve got what they need - ships. They’ve got what we want - money. It’s for the parties to the deal to make their own bargain.’

‘We made a deal, though,’ said one of the few people in the room who agreed with Venart. ‘Going back on it - well, it doesn’t seem too clever to me. We’ve got a pretty good deal already, if you ask me.’

Runo Lavador shrugged. ‘If you don’t want to be here,’ he said, ‘then by all means bugger off. Nobody’s forcing you to do anything. Besides, you simply don’t understand the nature of the charter business. All along, they’ve been entirely at liberty to call it a day and walk away if they found a better deal somewhere else. They chose not to. Now we’re making a choice; we want more money. They can still walk away, any time they want. To listen to you, anybody’d think we were holding a knife to their throats.’

The tall, heavy doors at the other end of the hall swung open, and the Sons of Heaven made their entrance. Hard not to think in terms of pageantry and theatre when a party of them entered a room; first, an honour guard of halberdiers in half-armour, then a secretary or two and a couple of lesser clerks carrying desks and chairs and ink-horns; then the delegates themselves, both of them a head taller than anybody else in their party, and scurrying behind them, three or four unspecified attandants, cooks or valets or personal librarians.
Look out
, Venart thought,
here come the grown-ups
. He hoped they weren’t going to mind too much. They wouldn’t, would they? After all, it was only money that was at stake here, and so far the Sons of Heaven had given the impression of valuing money the way sailors value seawater.

Cens Lauzeta, the fish-oil baron, was sitting in the President’s chair. Nobody could remember electing him chairman, but nobody minded very much if he wanted the job. He stood up and nodded politely as the delegates processed (no other word for it) down the hall and sat down at the far end of the long table.

‘Good of you to spare the time to see us,’ said Cens Lauzeta, sounding even more cocky than usual (what was it about the fish-oil trade that brought out the boisterousness in people?). ‘We represent the Island Ship-Owners’ Association‚’

‘Excuse me,’ interrupted one of the delegates. ‘I don’t seem to recall having heard of your organisation before.’

‘I don’t suppose you have,’ Lauzeta replied cheerfully. ‘We haven’t been in existence for terribly long. Up till now, there hasn’t been a need. But here we are; so, if it’s all right with you, we might as well get on with the negotiations.’

‘By all means,’ replied the Son of Heaven. ‘Perhaps you’d care to tell me what we’re here to negotiate.’

Lauzeta smiled indulgently. ‘Money,’ he replied. ‘So far, you’ve chartered ships belonging to our members - no complaints on that score, by the way, you’ve been perfectly straight with us and we’ve been straight with you. But now,’ he went on, sitting on the arm of the President’s chair, ‘things are about to change. You’re going to take our ships off to a war; we don’t know how long this war’s going to last - well, how could anybody know that? - we don’t know when we’re likely to get our ships back, or whether we’ll get them back at all. No offence, my friend, but we’re businessmen, and we’ve been hearing reports about the way this war’s going that put a whole new perspective on the deal.’

‘Is that so?’ replied the delegate coolly. ‘Please enlighten me.’

‘If you like,’ Lauzeta said. ‘One column effectively wiped out; the colonel in command of another column killed in action; the enemy have mobilised and are on the move, taking the offensive - this isn’t what we all had in mind when the deal was struck. Those invincible armies don’t seem quite so invincible any more, and we think that changes things quite a bit.’

‘I see,’ said the Son of Heaven. ‘But you’re not disputing the fact that we have binding agreements with the members of your Association?’

Lauzeta shook his head. ‘Not the way we see it,’ he said. ‘What we’re saying is, one of the assumptions on which the contracts were based has changed. I’ve spoken to some of our leading commercial lawyers and they all tell me the same thing. A contract’s like a house; if the foundations collapse, the whole thing falls to the ground. As we see it, the contracts are null and void.’

The delegate raised an eyebrow. ‘Really,’ he said. ‘As far as my layman’s understanding of Imperial law goes—’

‘Imperial law, maybe,’ Lauzeta interrupted. ‘But the charters were all signed here on the Island, so they’re under the jurisdiction of Island law and Island courts; and I’m telling you, as of now the contracts are dead and buried. Fact.’

‘An interesting line of argument,’ said the delegate. ‘In which case, assuming your interpretation is valid, I suppose you want us to withdraw our men and return the ships.’

Lauzeta shook his head. ‘By no means,’ he said. ‘That’d put a serious crimp in your plans, and none of us want that. No, we’re quite happy to carry on with the agreement just so long as the agreed levels of payment are revised to take into account the likely additional time and risk. After all,’ he went on in a rather more conciliatory tone, ‘the last thing we want to do is fall out over this; the Island and the Empire have always been close—’

(‘No they haven’t,’ Eseutz Mesatges whispered in Venart’s ear. ‘Even with a following wind, it’s a two-day journey.’>

‘Shh,’ Venart replied.)

The delegate frowned and smiled at the same time. ‘You want to proceed with the existing agreement, but you want more money. Is that what you’re saying?’

Lauzeta nodded. ‘Bluntly, yes,’ he said. ‘I think it’s entirely reasonable to factor in an allowance for depreciation of goodwill and loss of business opportunities. For one thing, what do you think is happening to our regular business while our ships have been standing idle? We do have competitors, you know.’

The delegate conferred briefly with his colleague. ‘How much more money do you want?’ he asked.

Apparently, Cens Lauzeta hadn’t been expecting that particular question; he opened his mouth and closed it again, and said nothing. The delegate raised an eyebrow.

‘What we need to do,’ Lauzeta said at last, ‘is agree some sort of formula that’ll allow us to work this out scientifically. I mean, I wouldn’t want you to think we’re just pulling a figure out of the air.’

‘You mean,’ the delegate replied, ‘you want more money, but you don’t know how much more money.’ He stood up, and the rest of his entourage immediately did the same. ‘Perhaps when you’ve thought of a figure you’d be kind enough to let me know. In the meantime, I’d be grateful if you could tell me whether we should continue loading our ships, or whether you want them unloaded again.’

‘I—’ Lauzeta didn’t appear to have anything to say. There was a moment of embarrassed silence; then Runo Lavador, who’d been sitting still and cringing quietly for most of the meeting, jumped to his feet. ‘Probably it’d be best if you unloaded,’ he said. ‘I mean, until we’ve finalised this payment business—’

‘Excuse me.’ The delegate had spoken quite softly, but everybody in the room was looking at him. With a tone of voice like that, there wasn’t really any need to shout. ‘May I ask who you are, and what standing you have within the Association?’

A faint mist of panic clouded Lavador’s face; he dispelled it with a visible effort. ‘I’m Runo Lavador,’ he said. ‘And I’m just an ordinary ship-owner, that’s all. But I’m pretty sure I’m speaking for all of us. Isn’t that right?’ He looked round at his colleagues, none of whom moved an inch. ‘I’m sure you understand,’ he said.

The delegate looked at him for a count of three. ‘Very well,’ he said, and walked briskly out of the room, followed in no particular order by the rest of the party. Lauzeta waited till the doors closed behind them.

‘Well, how was I supposed to know?’ he said, before anyone else could say anything. ‘And you weren’t helping,’ he added, glowering at Lavador. ‘A right bunch of fools you made us look.’

‘
I
made us look?’

As the shouting match quickly gathered momentum, Venart slipped away as unobtrusively as he could. He was sorely tempted to run after the delegates and apologise; but that wouldn’t help, either. In fact, he couldn’t think of any sensible action except going straight home, so he did that.

‘Well?’ Vetriz called out from the counting house as he walked in through the front door. ‘How did it go?’

‘Terrible,’ Venart replied, dropping into a chair. ‘Couldn’t have gone worse if we’d really tried.’

‘Oh.’ Vetriz appeared in the doorway and leaned against the frame. ‘That well,’ she said. ‘Why aren’t I surprised?’

Venart stretched out his legs and stacked his feet on a small, low table. ‘I think now would be a good time to go abroad,’ he said, ‘until this whole mess has been sorted out. Unfortunately, we can’t, of course, on account of not having a ship. Well, if ever I happen to meet Cens Lauzeta in a dark alley—’

‘What happened?’

Venart told her. ‘So,’ he summarised, ‘one way and another we’ve contrived to put their backs up something rotten. You should have seen the look of contempt on that man’s face as he walked out. Never seen anything quite like it.’

‘Oh, well,’ Vetriz replied. ‘They’ll just have to sort it all out again, won’t they? Look on the bright side; if they decide the deal’s off, we’ll still have the ship and the money we’ve already got out of them. If the worst comes to the worst, we’ll just have to send Cens round in a hair shirt and make him do a bit of grovelling.’

Venart sighed. ‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘But I ask you, for so-called representatives of a commercial nation, we do know how to make ourselves look ignorant.’ He reached over and pulled a handful of grapes off the bunch that lay in a shallow wooden bowl on the table. ‘Getting things wrong is one thing,’ he said as he munched. ‘Getting everything wrong all at the same time, though; now that’s a class act.’

Vetriz smiled. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘if it’s any consolation I’ve just been doing the books for this quarter, and we’re down twelve per cent on this time last year, so I guess Cens did have a point, of sorts. Of course, last year things were unusually busy, so strictly speaking it’s not a fair comparison. In any event, I reckon we should go out for dinner to celebrate.’

‘Celebrate what? Doing worse than last year? Offending the Empire?’

‘Why not? Who says you can only celebrate something nice?’

‘Cinnamon,’ said the prefect of Ap’ Escatoy, after a long, tense silence. ‘Cinnamon, but probably not the domestic variety. In fact, I’d say probably Cuir Halla. Am I right?’

‘Close enough,’ replied the chief administrator, with his mouth full. ‘In fact, it’s a new variety. My man on the Island sent me a box with the dispatches. I believe it comes from the south-west, but that’s as much as he could tell me.’

‘A new variety,’ the prefect repeated, brushing crumbs off his fingertips. ‘I have to admit, you surprise me. What are the prospects for securing a regular supply?’

The chief administrator nodded to the cooks, indicating that they could go. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘The way the Islanders do business is so erratic, I can’t tell whether it was a one-off purchase or part of a long-standing arrangement. They will insist on treating everything to do with business as a game. It’s part of the childish streak that permeates everything they do.’

The prefect looked up. ‘That sounds faintly endearing, ’ he said.

‘Maybe. I just find it irritating, to be honest with you. Childishness is endearing in children. In grown-ups, it’s annoying.’

‘I suppose so,’ the prefect said, putting down his plate. ‘Still, it’s refreshing to come across people who so obviously enjoy what they do. I imagine this is by way of introducing your report.’

‘It’s a good illustration, certainly.’ The administrator sat down opposite his superior, his elbows on his knees. ‘Personally, I don’t find delaying the invasion and thereby possibly jeopardising our forces in the interior to be even remotely endearing. We should have seventy thousand men in Perimadeia by now, and instead they’re lolling about in the camp here, forgetting why they’re there and what they’re meant to be doing. To be frank, it’s playing havoc with my budget and making the Empire look ridiculous.’