Sharps (7 page)

The abbot smiled, and closed the book. It was Phrantzes’ copy of
Mysteries of the Bedchamber
, the one Corbulo had given him. “It’s been years since I saw a copy of that,” the abbot said. “My late father had one. I remember walking in on him once when he was reading it. He went bright red in the face and yelled at me for entering a room without knocking first. It was ages before I figured out what that was all about.” He pushed the book into the middle of the table with his forefinger. “Actually, I’d forgotten what mild stuff it is, compared with what passes for literature these days. Half of it’s a closely reasoned debate about the indivisibility of the three aspects of the Invincible Sun – rather good, actually, I’ve got half a mind to quote it in a homily one of these days and not say where the text comes from. It’d be interesting to see how many of my learned brethren recognise it. Of course, they used to put great slabs of theology in everything in those days.”

He stopped talking. Phrantzes guessed he was doing a fairly realistic impression of a dithering old man. He kept quiet, and eventually the abbot looked at him.

“Unfortunately,” the abbot went on, “by some ridiculous oversight, it’s still on the forbidden publications list. Which is quite ludicrous,” he added with a smile, “because practically everybody in the City who can read has owned a copy at some point in their lives, though I imagine it comes as a bitter disappointment to most of them. We couldn’t possibly prosecute you just for having one, we’d be laughed out of court. It’d be a complete waste of time and an embarrassment for the Prefect’s office.”

Another silence. Phrantzes was sure he was supposed to say something at this point. He kept his mouth shut and waited.

“So really,” the abbot went on, “you’d have been all right if you hadn’t lied to the Watch captain, in front of two witnesses. Now
that
is a genuine offence, for which I believe the penalty is an unlimited fine, up to three years in prison, or both. Also, the prosecution doesn’t have to give details of the original investigation in open court. All they have to do is satisfy the judge, in camera. So you can be tried and found guilty of obstruction, and nobody need ever know that the original offence you were being questioned about was, well, a bit of a joke, really. If you ask me, it’s a bad law and wide open to abuse, but there, I’m not a legislator, so it’s not up to me. I’m dreadfully sorry,” he said, “but you would appear to be in a bit of a fix.”

Phrantzes looked at him. He felt a great surge of anger, which dissipated as quickly as it had come, followed by a deep, lingering terror. He couldn’t have said a word if he’d wanted to.

“Before you ask,” the abbot went on apologetically, “your wife, obviously, had nothing to do with it at all. I gather she’s being held at the convent of the Sublime Revelation. It’s a pretty dreary place but they’re quite decent women there, for nuns. She’ll be fine, though I imagine she’ll be most dreadfully worried about you. The main thing,” the abbot went on, as Phrantzes’ hands clenched on the arms of his chair, “is to get you out of this as quickly as possible. Don’t you agree?”

“What the hell,” Phrantzes said slowly, “could anybody possibly want from me?”

The abbot sat up a little straighter in his chair. “During the War,” he said, “I believe you served on the staff of General Carnufex. My cousin,” he added, and there was something; not pride, but a sort of warmth. “He speaks very highly of you, as an administrator.”

“I was a clerk.”

“Oh, a bit more than that. You don’t get to be a major if you’re just a clerk.”

“I organised supply convoys,” Phrantzes protested. “Itineraries, estimated travel times, that sort of thing. Just paperwork, that’s all.”

“And you did it very well, according to cousin Herec. And he’s not easily impressed, as I’m sure you know.”

“He always gave me the impression he thought I was an idiot.”

The abbot smiled. “That’s just his way. He was an extraordinarily pompous boy, I remember. He used to lecture the gardeners until they chased him away, and then he hid in the rose bushes. Don’t tell anyone that, by the way. He’d be furious, and he’d know it was me that told on him. Now then,” the abbot went on, “after the war, you won four gold medals in the national championships.”

“Three.”

“Sorry, three. Still, a remarkable achievement. I believe the record stood until quite recently, though I have to confess, I don’t follow fencing. We’re not supposed to, in an enclosed order, though that doesn’t seem to stop the younger men taking an interest. When I first took over as prior at Monsacer, there used to be a regular sweep on the winter League. I made myself very unpopular when I put a stop to it.”

Phrantzes stared at him. “What’s fencing got to do with anything?”

“Please bear with me,” the abbot said kindly, “I’m coming to that. The business you run with your friend Corbulo. How’s it doing?”

“Not too badly, I suppose.”

The abbot scratched his head. “You export raw wool to the Western Empire, and you import finished goods. You’ll have to excuse me,” he went on, “I’m just a priest, I really don’t know the first thing about international trade or any of that sort of thing. Am I right in thinking you inherited your share in the firm from your father?”

“Yes.” Phrantzes suddenly felt an urge to talk, as if that might somehow help, though he was fairly sure it wouldn’t. “He and Corbulo’s father founded the business, back before the War. My father died and Corbulo’s retired, and we took over. We’d worked in the business all our lives, of course, except when we were away at the War.”

“So you’ve known Corbulo …?”

“Since we were kids.”

“You’ve always got on with him?”

“He’s like a brother, I guess. Things changed a bit when he married Xanthe, naturally, but not all that much.”

“Ah yes.” The abbot nodded, as though they’d reached some fascinating crux in the argument. “She’s a Rhangabe, isn’t she? Benart Rhangabe’s youngest daughter.”

“That’s right.”

“Rather a good marriage for a merchant.”

Phrantzes shrugged. “They lost a lot of money in the War. I sort of got the impression that they were glad to get her off their hands. Of course, Corbulo and Xanthe are devoted to each other.”

“You know Rhangabe’s brother, the Senator, was killed recently.”

Phrantzes nodded. “It was quite a shock,” he said. “Not that Xanthe and her uncle were particularly close. But a man like that, getting stabbed to death in his own home …”

“Defending his daughter’s honour.” The abbot frowned. “What do you think should happen to the young man responsible?”

Phrantzes shrugged. “I really couldn’t say,” he said. “Hanging him wouldn’t bring the Senator back.”

“You surprise me. I’d have thought you’d want to see justice done.”

“Well, he’s been caught.” For some reason, Phrantzes felt he should choose his words carefully. “I’m sure he’ll get a fair trial, and the court will do what’s best.”

“You have a touching faith in our justice system.”

“Well, yes. Or I used to. Look, I’m sorry, but what’s all this got to do with me? Please, tell me what you want and I’ll do it. I just want to get out of here.”

But the abbot didn’t seem to be listening, or maybe he was a bit deaf. “Mihel Rhangabe was a radical,” he said. “Do you agree with what he was trying to do?”

Phrantzes pulled a confused face. How could he be expected to remember details of points of current affairs that didn’t really concern him very much, when he’d just been arrested on a spurious charge and interrogated by an elderly lunatic? “By and large, I suppose,” he said. “I mean, banning slavery, that makes sense.”

“Go on.”

Phrantzes considered for a moment, collecting his thoughts like a general rallying his surviving troops after a massacre. “You’ve got two dozen or so aristocrats owning huge factories producing high-volume, low-quality woollen cloth,” he said. “They’ve got a thousand or so slaves working hand looms; practically no overheads, they produce the raw material themselves, so they can trim their profit margin and make their money by selling in bulk to the Western Empire. But in the Empire, they don’t have slaves, instead they’ve got machines that’ll do the work of a hundred men and only need one man to work them. What we should be doing is buying in those machines. But we can’t, because there’s no money in it, because the big landlords have their slave factories. Get rid of slavery, you can take the woollen cloth trade away from the aristocrats, which is the only way you’ll be able to keep it in this country in the face of Imperial competition. Carry on the way things are now and we’ll be reduced to selling raw wool instead of finished cloth, and that won’t last long, believe me. We’ll be in exactly the same mess as Permia, or maybe even worse.”

“Interesting,” the abbot murmured. “Go on.”

Phrantzes wanted to stop and consider what the question really was, but by now he couldn’t help himself, just as a drowning man can’t help thrashing his arms. “Also,” he said, “you’ve got thousands, tens of thousands of slaves, all getting fed barley bread, which we’ve got to import from the West, which just makes the balance of payments problem worse. Free those men, put them on farms of their own in the Demilitarised Zone, where they can feed themselves and produce a saleable surplus, and you’re a big step closer to solving the foreign exchange deficit. Also, once we’ve got people living in the Demilitarised Zone, with a damn good reason for defending it, maybe the Permians won’t be so keen to invade it again. At the moment, it’s just empty, practically a desert. We can’t send our own people there, we lost so many men in the War we can’t farm our own country, let alone colonise the DMZ. Get rid of slavery, you solve two problems in one go, and it won’t cost the Exchequer a bent trachy.”

The abbot pursed his lips. “It’s refreshing,” he said, “the way you address the issue without any recourse to arguments based on morality. In my line of work, I hear so much about right and wrong, I sometimes lose sight of the real issues. Thank you.” He stood up, staggered a little, put a hand on the table to steady himself. “Cramp,” he said. “I find sitting still for too long very trying.” He walked slowly and painfully to the door, and opened it. “I think that’s everything,” he said. “For now.”

Phrantzes opened his mouth, closed it again, said, “I can go?”

“Not quite,” the abbot replied. “But you can wait out here in the corridor instead of in a cell. Progress of a sort, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

A guard came in and stood over Phrantzes; he took the hint and stood up. His left foot had gone to sleep, and the pins and needles made him wince. He walked to the door, suffering agonies because he daren’t hobble. Then he paused, because there was one question he had to ask, come what may.

“How did you know to search my house?” he asked.

The abbot beamed at him. “Now that,” he said, “is a really good question. Goodbye.”

They’d been given a different room to sit in. This one had at one stage been a salle d’armes. It still had the polished oak floor, scuffed and shining, the pale oak-panelled walls and the high windows, placed to catch the early light. But someone had filled it with chairs and put in a fireplace, a huge grey stone affair rather ineptly carved with the arms of the Guild. At the far end was a large board, inscribed with dozens of columns of names in small gold script. Giraut guessed they were the past winners of some prize or other, but he couldn’t be bothered to look.

At least their shared misery had got them past the sulking stage, though they still weren’t talking much. The girl had lent Addo her book (he recognised the title; a two-hundred-year-old verse epic of forbidden love and high-minded anguish among the ruling elite of the Eastern Empire, written by someone who’d never been there), and he was sitting in the far corner reading it. The girl had found a stack of blank writing paper, and was carefully folding each sheet into the shape of some stylised animal, before slowly tearing it to pieces. Suidas was doing his midday exercises, a revolting sight. Not for the first time, Giraut considered the probability of there being a guard outside the door; but even if there wasn’t, where would he go, and what on earth would he do for money?

Suidas completed his course of fifty one-arm press-ups and started doing star jumps. This, apparently, was more than Iseutz could bear. “Do you have to do that?” she snapped, and he stopped, scowled at her and then suddenly grinned.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just, when I’m feeling like shit, I exercise.”

“That would explain why you’re so healthy,” Iseutz said. “I vote we go out into the corridor, find someone and demand to know what’s going on. Well?”

“You can if you like,” Suidas said.

“Fine. How about you?” She hadn’t aimed the question at anybody in particular. “You,” she said, turning in Addo’s direction. “Mister Born-in-the-Purple. Well?”

Addo looked up from the book. “We could do,” he said. “If you think it’d help.”

Iseutz clicked her tongue. “How about you? Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Giraut. And no, I don’t think it’d serve any useful purpose.”

“Fine. We’ll all just sit here till we die of old age.”

“Or starvation,” Giraut said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”

“Well, there you are, then.” Iseutz stood up. “Let’s go and find young Mister Giraut something to eat, before he fades away. There’s got to be a kitchen or something in this place.”

Addo said, “I’m not sure we ought to just help ourselves without asking.”

“Who’s going to stop us?” Iseutz laughed, rather high and scratchy. “We’re the finest swords in all the Republic. We’ll cut our way through to the kitchen if we have to.”

“It’s not midday yet,” Suidas said. “The angle of the sun through the window,” he explained. “I’ve been watching it, and I make it about an hour before noon.”

“Please yourself, then.” Iseutz sat down, folded her arms and scowled at the floor. “At least they could’ve given us a chessboard or something like that.”

Addo looked up. “Excuse me,” he said. “Do you play chess?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I’ve got a chess set in my pocket. You know, the little travelling ones.”