Devices and Desires (50 page)

“How many have you managed to get done today?” Ziani asked; but either the old man hadn’t heard him, or the question was too
offensive to be answered. “Carry on,” Ziani said, and moved away.

On the next bench they were bending ratchet sears over formers in a vice. Nice simple work (at home, the sears would be machined
from solid and case-hardened in bonemeal and leather dust) and the three men who were doing it had filled one box with finished
pieces and half-filled another. He watched them open the vice, clamp a strip of shear-cut plate between the former and the
jaw, tighten up the vice and bend the piece with thumps from a hide mallet until it lay flat against the former. At the end
of the bench, another man worked a long-lever punch, drifting out the pivot holes. The punch was pretty deplorable too, but
he had only himself to blame for it; he’d made it himself, in a tearing hurry, and he knew it’d break soon and the hinge-pin
would need replacing. It wounded him to think that something he’d made himself would inevitably fail.

The day wore on. For the first time since he’d escaped from Mezentia, Ziani was aware of being very tired. Everything he did
cost him effort, and he couldn’t settle to anything. He remembered, just as the men were leaving for the day, that he hadn’t
made arrangements for taking the finished pieces of armor to Jarnac’s house. By then, he and Cantacusene were the only people
left in the building. Fine.

“Do me a favor,” he said, leaning against the doorpost of the small foundry, where Cantacusene had set up his leather-boiling
cauldron.

Cantacusene was sitting cross-legged on the floor, a chunky oak log gripped between his knees. Over it he was hammering a
cuisse, stretching the leather back into shape where it had crinkled slightly in the boiling water. “What?” he said.

“Give me a hand delivering this lot,” Ziani replied.

He hadn’t been expecting it, but Cantacusene nodded without argument, or even face-pulling. “All right,” he said. “Just let
me finish this before it cools down.”

So Ziani watched for a while as Cantacusene tapped and poked and wheedled, then dunked the cuisse into a bucket of cold water
to set it. It came out dripping; he wiped it over with his sleeve and stood it against the wall to dry off. “Nearly all done,”
he said. “Should finish off tomorrow.”

Together they packed the armor in straw and loaded it into six barrels, which they lugged out into the yard and dumped in
the cart they used for fetching iron stock and charcoal. Cantacusene harnessed up the two mules while Ziani locked up; then
they set out. They had to go a very long way round, because the straight way was too narrow for the cart and there were stairs
and bridges. They rode in silence most of the way, but Ziani could sense that Cantacusene was winding himself up to ask something.
When it came, it came in a rush.

“You didn’t tell me you were going on this hunt.”

“Yes I did,” Ziani replied. “You remember, when this Jarnac character came round to order the stuff.”

Cantacusene frowned. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Ziani said. “I guess I thought it’d be good to see how it’s done. If there’s a market for hunting gear, it’s
a good idea to see for myself what goes on. And I’m curious,” he added. “There’s nothing like it at home.”

“Did he invite you?”

“Sort of.” Ziani grinned. “I dropped some heavy hints. You ever been?”

Cantacusene shook his head. “Strictly for the gentry,” he said. “Except if you’re beating or carrying or picking up and stuff.
Mostly, though, the household does all that, they only hire in casuals for the really big meets. And it’s country people that
tend to get hired, not anyone from the city.”

“Right,” Ziani said. “I think this is going to be a big occasion, with the Duke going.”

“You can be sure of that,” Cantacusene said. “Orsea’s not a great one for hunting, mind; he likes it, but they reckon he never
finds the time. His father Orseola was big on the falcons but not riding to hounds, but of course they never had the money
for a decent pack, or good horses. Costs a fair bit, see.”

Ziani nodded. “But Jarnac can afford it, obviously.”

“Well, the Ducas,” Cantacusene said, with a subtle mixture of respect and contempt, “they got all the money you can think
of, even the cadet line. Though they reckon that with what Jarnac spends, he cuts it a bit close sometimes.”

It was amusing, Ziani thought, how Cantacusene the dour and silent became so animated when he got onto the subject of the
nobility. It wasn’t anything like the attitude he’d have expected. Resentment, he’d have thought, maybe even downright hatred
— after all, the nobles did no work and lived off the sweated labor of others, wasting enough on their idle and vicious pleasures
in a month to feed fifty working families for a year. He’d have expected someone like Cantacusene to froth at the mouth when
talking about such people. Apparently not. The closest thing in his experience was the way people back home talked about the
dog-racing or handball teams they supported. Get a Mezentine Guildsman started on his team and he’d tell you every minute
detail — life histories and career statistics of every player, arcane details of rules and form, which tracks favored which
pitchers, more than any rational man could possibly want to know about anything. In the same way Cantacusene seemed to come
alive talking about the Ducas, with whom he had nothing in common except occasional commissions and a wedge of unpaid invoices
for work delivered. It was touching and revolting at the same time, this vicarious enjoyment of the gentry’s lifestyle. For
some reason Cantacusene supported the Ducas (and the Phocas and the Stratiotes, and up to a point the Callinicas), which somehow
gave him the right to refer to them by their first names, as though they were his own family, and to preen himself on their
ridiculous achievements (hunting, politicking, marrying and giving in marriage, bickering over land and dabbling disdainfully
and half-competently in trade). For a long time, all the way from Lantern Street to Wallgate via Shave Cross, he gabbled about
genealogies and lawsuits, trophy stags and champion destriers, with a counterpoint of scandals, infidelities and indiscretions
in which he seemed to take an equal pride. By the time they came out into Fountain Street and started to climb the long, cobbled
ride up to the old lists, where the cadet Ducas had their town house, Ziani reckoned he’d learned enough about the family
to fill two epic poems and nine books of commentaries.

“The only other one of them I’ve actually met,” he broke in, during a brief lull, “is Miel Ducas. He’s the head of the family,
isn’t he?”

Cantacusene nodded vigorously. “Ever since his uncle died, old Acer Ducas. Mind, he was only head because his first cousin
Celat died young — bust his neck riding in the forest, the bloody fool. If it hadn’t been for that, Acer wouldn’t have been
nobody. ’Course, he was seventy if he was a day when he came into the honor; up till then he’d just been collateral in the
main line, and everybody expected him to peg out and Celat to take over when Jiraut died. But Celat died, what, seven years
back; Jiraut went on the year after that, which meant Acer took over, and he only lasted six months, and then it was Miel.
Youngest Ducas this century.”

Ziani frowned. “So Miel wasn’t really anybody important till six years ago.”

“Oh, he was
important,
” Cantacusene snapped, as though Ziani had just insulted his mother. “Leading collateral heir, he’d have copped for the minor
honor in the main line when Acer died. But actually being the Ducas, that’s something else entirely. I don’t suppose you can
understand that, not being from here.”

Ziani shrugged. “He’s always come across to me as a pleasant enough man,” he said. “Quite quiet, very polite. I’m starting
to see that that’s what I should have expected, but I’d been assuming the head of the family would be more like Jarnac, and
the also-ran would’ve been like Miel. But really, it’s got to be the other way round, hasn’t it?”

Cantacusene was torn, he could see, between two powerful forces: on the one hand, extreme discomfort at Ziani’s disrespectful
attitude; on the other, the glorious opportunity to tell an ignorant foreigner all about the Ducas. Luckily, the opportunity
won the day. “It’s something you got to understand about the good families,” Cantacusene said. “What they live by is duty.
Duty to the family, traditions and stuff; duty to the Duke and the country. Nothing means more to them than that. So, the
higher up they are, the more the duty sort of weighs on them, if you see what I mean. Really, all Jarnac’s got to do is keep
up to what’s expected of him; like, he’s got to dress well, he’s got to hold big fancy banquets and dinners, he’s got to have
the best stables and hounds and hawks — this is in peace-time, of course — and generally have the best of everything and be
the best at everything, if you get me. It’s not his place to be getting into politics and government and all, or being a counselor
or a minister or anything. Cadet branch, see. But Miel, it’s different for him. If he was to go putting on a big show, talking
loud and that stuff, it wouldn’t be suitable, it’d be out of place. Not the right way for a senior man in the state to go
on. He’s got to be a serious man, you see. Polite, quiet, all that, like you said.”

“I see,” Ziani said. “Part of the job, then. Well, he’s very good at it.”

Cantacusene laughed. “Didn’t use to be,” he said. “Of course, he got that scat in the face, which spoiled his looks. But before
he got the honor, when he was more like Jarnac is now, if you follow me, he was a real bright spark. Specially with the girls.”

Ziani frowned. “Because it was expected of him.”

“Got to be the best at everything,” Cantacusene said. “And I suppose you could say he was, back then. Oh, I could tell you
stories.”

“I’m sure,” Ziani said.

It was dark by the time they arrived at the list gate. They were directly under the shadow of the highest point of the keep
wall. Being the cadet branch, the lesser Ducas lived outside the inner castle; being Ducas, they lived as close to it as they
could possibly get. Cantacusene turned off the paved highway down a narrow alley — the wheel-hubs fouled the brickwork on
both sides simultaneously as they turned a corner — that twisted to and fro up a slope between high walls until it came to
a small door in a dark stone frontage. If it hadn’t been a dead end, Ziani wouldn’t have noticed it. Cantacusene jumped down
and clubbed on the planking with the heel of his fist.

“You’ve been here before, then?” Ziani said.

“Been here delivering. Never gone inside, of course.”

The door opened, just enough to give them sight of a pale blue eye and a wisp of gray hair. “Ziani Vaatzes,” Ziani said. “Delivery.”

The owner of the eye and the hair came out and looked at him for a moment. “You’re to fetch it into the Great Hall,” he said.
“He’s in his bath, but he’ll be down soon as he’s ready.”

For a moment Ziani was sure Cantacusene would refuse to pass the door, like a horse shying at a jump. Curiosity must’ve got
the better of awe for once; he shuffled along after Ziani, holding up one end of the first barrel and muttering something
under his breath.

The courtyard that separated them from the inner gate was laid out as a formal garden, with neatly trimmed knee-high hedges
of lavender and box surrounding square or diamond-shaped beds, where closely mustered ranks of roses quartered with lilies
and some kind of blue flower they didn’t have in Mezentia filled out the shape of the Ducas family arms. The effect wasn’t
immediately obvious from the ground, but if a god happened to look down from the clouds, he’d be left in no doubt as to who
lived there. A fountain dribbled quietly and unheeded in the exact center of the arrangement, feeding a small pond that probably
housed small, inedible fish.

While Ziani and Cantacusene were manhandling the barrel along the gravel path, someone had opened the inner gate, which led
into a cloister; a roofed-over hollow square enclosing a larger garden, with a lawn and an almond tree. The cloister itself
was paved with polished limestone slabs; the walls were painted with scenes of Ducas family history, including one involving
a small, pig-like dragon (up against a huge, bearded Ducas cap-à-pie in armor, it didn’t stand a chance). Ziani and Cantacusene
toiled round three sides of the cloister, and arrived at a set of broad, shallow steps leading up to a massive studded oak
door, which opened inward as they approached it.

The hall they found themselves in was smaller than the Guildhall, or the main gallery of the ordnance factory; it was the
height of the roof that set Ziani’s head swimming. He couldn’t begin to guess how far up the sheer walls went, until they
sprouted a jungle of beams, plates and purlins (all painted and gilded, carved and embossed with flowers, animals, birds,
gargoyles, severely frowning heads of the ancient Ducas, stars, suns and moons). He might have been able to cope with the
sheer size, if it hadn’t been for the fact that every available square foot of wall was adorned with trophies of the hunt.
There were forests of antlers, dense as an orchard; heads, skulls, escutcheons of boar-tusks, bear-claws and wolf-fangs arranged
in circles, half-circles and spirals; claws, paws, tails, hoofs, enough spare parts to build a herd of composite monsters.
Stuffed herons, partridges, rock-grouse, pigeons swung overhead on wires suspended from rafters, frozen in perpetuity in desperate
flight from stuffed peregrines, goshawks, merlins and buzzards, their shadows huge and dramatic in the yellow glare of twelve-hundred-candle
chandeliers. At the far end of the hall, flanking the high table on its raised platform, stood two enormous bears reared up
on their hind legs, their forepaws raised to strike. Directly behind the massive, high-backed chair in the dead center of
the table hung a wooden shield, on which the skull of an absurdly large wolf bared its fangs at all comers. Underneath each
trophy, in lettering too small to read, was an inscription, painted on a billowing scroll.