Devices and Desires (13 page)

“When you say throwing our weight about…”

Miel stood up. “We’d better be getting along, or they’ll be wondering where we’ve got to. Throwing your weight about; well,
it started with little things, the way it always does. For instance: when your traders arrived — they came to us back then,
we didn’t have to go traipsing down the mountain to get ripped off by middlemen — the first thing they had a big success with
was cloth. Beautiful stuff you people make, got to hand it to you; anyhow, we’d say, That’s nice, I’ll take twelve yards,
and the bloke would measure it off with his stick, and we’d go home and find we hadn’t got twelve yards, only eleven and a
bit. Really screws it up when you’re making clothes and there’s not quite enough fabric. So we’d go storming back next day
in a fine old temper, and the trader would explain that the Mezentine yard is in fact two and a smidge inches shorter than
the Eremian yard, on account of a yard being a man’s stride, and the Eremians have got longer legs. Put like that, you can’t
object, it’s entirely reasonable. Then the trader says, Tell you what, to avoid misunderstandings in the future, how’d it
be if you people started using our measurements? We’d say we weren’t sure about that, and the trader would explain that he
buys and sells all over the place, and it’d make life really tiresome if he had to keep adapting each time he came to a place
that had its own weights and measures; so, being completely practical, it’d be far easier for us to change than it’d be for
him; also, if he’s got to spend time consulting conversion charts or cutting a special stick for Eremian yards, that time’d
have to be paid for, meaning a five or ten percent rise in prices to cover additional costs and overheads. Naturally we said,
Fine, we’ll use your yard instead of ours; and next it was weights, because there’s eighteen ounces in the Eremian pound,
and then it was the gallon. Next it was the calendar, because a couple of our months are a few days shorter, so we’d arrange
to meet your people on such-and-such a day, and you wouldn’t show up. You get the idea, I’m sure.

“Didn’t take long before everything was being weighed and measured in Mezentine units, which meant a whole lot of us didn’t
have a clue how much of anything we were buying, or how much it was really costing us, or even what day of the week it was.
Sure, all just little things, one step at a time, like a man walking to the gallows. But the time came when we stopped making
our own cloth because yours was cheaper and better; same for all the things we got from you. Then out of the blue the price
has shot right up; we complain, and then it’s take it or leave it, we’ve got plenty of customers but you’ve only got one supplier.
So we gave in, started paying the new prices; but when we tried to even things up by asking more for what we had to sell,
butter and wool and so forth, it’s a whole different story. Next step, your people are interfering in every damn thing. The
Duke appoints someone to do a job; your traders turn round and say, We can’t work with him, he doesn’t like us, choose someone
else; and by the way, here’s a list of other things you do which we don’t approve of, if you want to carry on doing business
with us, you’d better change your ways. We’re about to tell you where you can stick your manufactured goods when suddenly
we realize that your people have been quietly buying up chunks of our country; land, live and dead stock, water rights, you
name it. Investment, I believe it’s called, and by a bizarre coincidence you use the same word for besieging a castle. So
there we were, invested on all sides; we can’t tell you to go and screw yourselves without getting your permission first.
Throwing your weight around.”

Vaatzes frowned. “I see,” he said. “Honestly, I had no idea. Come to that, before I ran away from the City, I didn’t even
know you existed.”

“Oh, your lot know we exist all right.” Miel sighed. “Give you an example. My family, the Ducas, have been landowners and
big fish in little ponds and selfless servants of the commonwealth for longer than even we can remember. We’ve done our bit
for our fellow citizens, believe me. About a third of the men in the Ducas over the last five hundred years have died in war,
either killed in a battle or gone down with dysentery or infected wounds. We pay more in tax than any other family. In our
corner of the country we run the justice system, we’re the land and probate registry; we say the magic words at the weddings
of our tenants, we’re godfathers to their children, we run schools and pay for doctors. We take the view that a tenant deserves
to get more for his rent than just a strip of land and a side to be on when there’s a feud. That’s what I was talking about
when I said we do our bit for our fellow citizens; and that’s over and above stuff like fighting in wars and being chancellors
and ambassadors and commissioners. Do you see what I’m driving at?”

Vaatzes nodded. “You’re the government,” he said. “But it’s different in the City, of course. The big men who do all the top
jobs in the Guilds are our government; but they get to make policy, not just carry it out. They can decide what’s going to
be done, and of course that means they have loads of opportunities to look out for their own Guilds, or their neighbors and
families, or themselves. You can only do what the Duke tells you. You’ve got all the work, but without the privileges and
perks.”

“That’s right,” Miel said. “You’ve certainly got a grasp of politics.”

“Like I said, I know how things work. A city or a country is just a kind of machine. It’s got a mechanism. I can see mechanisms
at a glance, like people who can dowse for water.”

“That’s quite a gift,” Miel said, frowning slightly. “Anyway, the way we’ve always done things is for the landowning families
to be the government, as you call it. But then along come your City people, investors, buying up land and flocks and slices
of our lives; and of course, they don’t take responsibility, the way we’ve been brought up to do. They don’t think, how will
such and such a decision affect the tenants and their shepherds, or the people of the village? They don’t live here, and when
they make a decision they’re guided by what’s best for their investment, what’ll produce the best profit, or whatever it is
that motivates them. So, when two tenants fall out over a boundary or grazing rights on a common or anything like that, they
can’t do what they’ve always done, go and see the boss up at the big house and make him sort it out for them. The boss isn’t
there; and even if they were to go all the way to Mezentia and ask to see the directors of the company, or whatever such people
call themselves, and even if those directors could be bothered to see them and listen to them, it wouldn’t do any good, because
they wouldn’t understand a thing about the situation. Not like we would, the Ducas or the Orphanotrophi or the Phocas. See,
we’re their boss, but we’re also their neighbor. They can go out of their front door and look up the mountain and see our
houses. You can’t see Mezentia’s Guildhall from anywhere in Eremia.”

Vaatzes nodded. He seemed to be an intelligent man, and quite reasonable. Perhaps that was why they’d put him in prison, Miel
decided. “I guess it’s a question of attitude,” he said. “Perspective. We’re concerned mostly with things — making them, selling
them. You’re concerned with people.”

Miel smiled. “That puts it very well,” he said. “And maybe you can see why I don’t like your City.”

“I’ve gone off it rather myself,” Vaatzes said.

“Fine.” Miel nodded. “So perhaps you’d care to explain to me why you think it’d be a good idea to turn my country into a copy
of it.”

It was a neat piece of strategy, Miel couldn’t help thinking. He’d have derived more satisfaction from it if he found it easier
to dislike the Mezentine; but that was hard going, like running uphill, and the further he went, the harder it got. But he’d
laid his trap and sprung it — there was one mechanism the Mezentine hadn’t figured out at a glance — and sure enough, for
a while Vaatzes seemed to be lost for words.

“It’s not quite like that,” he said eventually. “Like I told you, I’m an engineer. I know about machines, things.” He frowned
thoughtfully. “Let’s see,” he said. “Suppose you come to me and ask me to build you a machine — a loom, say, so you can weave
your wool into cloth instead of sending it down the mountain.”

“Right,” Miel said.

“So I build the machine,” Vaatzes went on, “and I deliver it and I get paid. That’s my side of the bargain. What you do with
it, how you use it and how the use you put it to affects your life and your neighbors’; that’s your business. Not my business,
and not my fault. It’d be the same if you asked me to build you a scorpion, an arrow-thrower. Once you’ve taken it from me,
it’s up to you who you point it at. You can use it to defend your country and your way of life against your worst enemy, or
you can set it up on the turret of your castle and shoot your neighbors. All I want to do,” he went on, “is make a new life
for myself, now the old one’s been taken away from me. Now I’m lucky, because I know a secret. It’s like I can turn lead into
gold. If I can do that, it’d be pretty silly of me to get a job mucking out pigs. From your point of view, I can give you
the secrets that make the Mezentines stronger than you are. With that power, you’ve got a chance of making sure you don’t
have to go through another horrible disaster, like the one you’ve just suffered. Now,” he went on, stopping for a moment to
catch his breath, “if I were to sell you a scorpion without telling you how it works, or how to use it safely without hurting
yourself, that’d be no good. But that’s not the case. You seem to understand just fine what’s wrong with the City and how
it works. I can give you the secret, and you know enough not to hurt yourself with it, or spoil all the good things about
your way of life. Does that make any sense to you?”

It was a long time before Miel answered. “Yes, actually, it does,” he said. “And that’s why I’m glad it’s not my decision
whether we take you up on your offer. If it was up to me, I’d probably say yes, now we’ve had this conversation, and I have
a feeling that’d be a bad thing.”

“Oh,” Vaatzes said. “Why?”

“Ah, now, if I knew that I’d be all right.” Miel smiled suddenly. “I’d be safe, see. But it’s all academic, since it’s not
up to me.”

Vaatzes scratched his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “You’re a senior officer of state, if you went to the Duke and said,
for God’s sake don’t let that Mezentine start teaching us his diabolical tricks, he’d listen to you, wouldn’t he?”

“You were there when I told him to have you hanged,” Miel replied cheerfully. “And here you still are.”

“Yes, but you didn’t press the point. I was there, remember. It’s not like you made any effort to use your influence; and
when he said no, let’s not, you didn’t argue.” He lifted his eyes and looked at Miel. “Are you sorry you didn’t?”

“Like I said, it wasn’t my decision. It never is.”

“Would you like it to be?”

Miel shivered, as though he’d just touched a plate he hadn’t realized was hot. “We’re falling behind,” he said. “Come on,
don’t dawdle.”

They walked quickly, past men supporting their wounded friends on their shoulders, others hauling ropes or pushing the wheels
of carts over the rims of potholes. “Of course,” Miel said abruptly, “if he decides to let you teach us, common courtesy requires
that we teach you something in return.”

“Does it?”

“Oh yes. Reciprocity is courtesy, that’s an old family rule of the Ducas. We pay our debts in kind.”

“Really. We’ve got money for that.”

Miel shook his head. “That’s wages,” he said. “And wages are a political statement. If I pay you, that makes you my servant,
it’s a different sort of relationship. Between gentlemen, it’s a gift for a gift and a favor for a favor.”

“I see,” Vaatzes said. “So if you teach me something in return, that’s instead of money.”

“Of course not, you’re missing the point. I’m a nobleman and you’re a whatever you said, foreman. Therefore, courtesy demands
that I give more than I get.”

Vaatzes thought about that. “To show you’re better than me.”

“That’s it. That’s what nobility’s all about. If you want to be better than someone socially, you’ve got to be better than
them in real terms too; more generous, more forbearing, whatever. Otherwise all the transaction between us proves is that
I’m more powerful than you, and that wouldn’t say anything about me. Hence the need for me to give more than I get. Simple,
really.”

There was a pause while Vaatzes thought that one through. “So I get the money and something else?”

“Yes.”

“In that case, fine. You have to teach me something.”

“That’s right.”

“Thanks,” Vaatzes said. “Thanks very much. So, what do you know that you could teach me?”

“Ah.” Miel grinned. “That’s a slight problem. Let’s see, what do I know? Another thing about nobility,” he continued, “is
that you don’t actually know many things, you just know a few things very well indeed. I could teach you statesmanship.”

“Meaning what?”

“How to debate in High Council,” Miel said. “How to budget, and cost a project, how to forecast future revenues. Negotiation
with foreign ambassadors. Court protocol. That sort of thing.”

Vaatzes frowned. “Not a lot of use to me, really.”

“I suppose not. So what does that leave? Estate management; no, not particularly relevant. I think we’re just left with horsemanship,
falconry and fencing.”

“Right,” Vaatzes said. “All three of which I know nothing about. Which would you say is easiest?”

“None of them.”

“In that case, falconry or fencing. Horses give me a rash.”

Miel laughed. “Maybe I’ll teach you both,” he said. “But it’ll all depend on what Orsea decides.”

Vaatzes nodded. “You’ve known him a long time, I think.”

“All my life. We grew up together, twenty or so of us, hanging round the court. Back then, of course, he was just the Orseoli
and I was the Ducas, but we always got on well nonetheless — surprising, since my father was right up the top of the tree
and the Orseoli were sort of clinging frantically to the lower branches. But then Orsea married the Countess Sirupati, and
she’s got no brothers and her sisters aren’t eligible for some technical reason, so they got married off outside the duchy;
as a result, Orsea was suddenly the heir apparent. Count Sirupat dies, Orsea becomes Duke. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer
fellow, either.”