Chapter 8 #6
I nodded. “They use reed pens,” I said. “They cut them from the reed bed in the Gardens of Florian, just beyond the Bridge of Tears. It’s not a particularly suitable kind of reed for penmaking, but it’s tradition, and you know what people are like.
When you make certain sorts of pen stroke, the wall of the reed gets slightly crushed, because it’s really too thin for the job.
That makes the edge of the nib flatten and drag just a tiny bit, and it shows up in rounded and convex pen strokes.
The O before a consonant’s one of them. There’s a couple more you haven’t noticed yet.
” I sighed. I wasn’t really in the mood for showing off.
“You can fake it easy as pie by shaving the edge of your quill nib a little bit too thin, with a really sharp knife. I didn’t know about the reeds before I went to Choris, but I figured out the general idea years ago.
And there’s at least a dozen other scribes who know about it, but they’re better at it than me so they haven’t been found out yet.
I can see it, of course, but only because I know what I’m looking for. ”
“Amazing.” She looked at me as if she was trying to peer in through my eyes, like someone peeking through the joins of a shutter.
Needless to say, I’d made all that stuff up on the spur of the moment.
The amazing thing was, she’d believed it.
“You’re a clever man, no doubt about it.
I really think you ought to come and work for me.
You’re wasted on that pinhead Simocatta. ”
I smiled. “I did apply to join,” I said. “I got turned down.”
She nodded. “I know,” she said. “I read your file. Lack of moral fibre.”
“You what?”
“That was the reason. They reckoned your skills were outstanding, and you rated very highly for intelligence, resourcefulness and courage in the face of danger, and you got a double commendation for scholarship, erudition and general knowledge. But the moral fibre thing was a killer. We don’t take atheists in the Order of Intercession. ”
“Ah,” I said.
“Not normally. For you, we’ll make an exception. Think about it,” she added. “You don’t have to decide right here and now. But do think about it. You’d enjoy working for us. It’d be fun.”
Courage in the face of danger. No way in hell. “Thanks,” I said, “but I’ve got a job.”
“You mean, you’ve got Svangerd, and if they offered to make you Great King of Sashan and you couldn’t take her with you, you’d turn it down. No big deal. We could use her as well. We could make her your personal assistant.”
In scripture, there’s that bit where He’s tempted by the devil in the wilderness.
Only believe in me, says the devil to God, and I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the earth.
Which is a really stupid offer, trying to bribe someone with what he already owns.
It only has theological value if you argue that the devil is merely an extension of the all-encompassing Divine – the other face of the coin, the flipside – and the temptation is for God to give in to His own dark impulses, which are just as much a part of Him as the light – which is how Anthemian read it, nine hundred years ago, and you really don’t want to know what happened to him as a result.
The point being, some temptations are easily resisted. Others, not quite so easy. “Go on.”
She beamed at me. “Your personal assistant,” she said, maybe overdoing it a little. “Come on, have I got to draw you a picture? Remember, I taught Svangerd right from wrong.”
“Mphm,” I said. “Presumably you ran out of time before you got to Thou shalt not kill.”
“Oh, no, we covered that. In detail. What it actually says, of course, is, Thou shalt do no murder.”
“And goons don’t count.”
“Crudely put, but accurate. There are certain necessary sins. We discussed that at length. She got it straight away, bless her. Necessary sins.” Saying the words made her glow.
“Is darkness a function of light, or the other way round? One thing’s for sure, you can’t have one without the other.
Everything on which light falls casts a shadow.
Is your shadow part of you? When light touches you, an inevitable result is an equal and equivalent quantity of darkness.
We understand that in the Order. We embrace it. ”
A speech beautifully delivered, no doubt from long practice.
I could imagine a roomful of novices being enthralled by it.
“Somehow,” I said, “I don’t see Svangerd agreeing to be my—” Too embarrassed to say the word.
“Personal assistant. I seem to remember she did the last man who tried it with a meat skewer.”
The smile didn’t waver. “The reason Svangerd is such an amazing asset is, she quite likes killing people. She realises it’s very wrong, so she only does it when it’s allowed.
Give her permission to do what she wants and she’s the best in the business.
I don’t think she’d object to doing what she rather wants to do, if I gave her a direct order. ”
It’s not just demons that have the knack of possessing people. Ordinary humans can do it, too, apparently easy as pie. “All this,” I said, “for my handwriting skills.”
“Which are exceptional. And extremely valuable. Like I said, think about it. And meanwhile, do please stop trying to get yourself killed. It’s a bad habit you’ve got yourself into, like picking at scabs or pulling out your hair. In the long run, it could seriously damage your health.”
An old line, culled from one of Notker’s farces.
Of course, ninety-nine per cent of the people she used it on wouldn’t have read Notker.
I decided to ask her the question that was uppermost in my mind, even though she wouldn’t give me an answer, and asking the question was a tactical misstep. “Who are you?” I said.
The smile vanished. “A good and faithful servant,” she replied. “Now get lost.”
They escorted me to the front gate, then closed it behind me. My own stupid fault, for allowing myself to be tempted into believing that a problem like the Order of Intercession could be solved by simple action adventure. Back to the drawing board.
It may have dawned on you by now that I don’t like the Loyal Opposition.
Absolutely true. They make my skin crawl.
I don’t believe, obviously, that they’re the devil’s human mortal myrmidons, because there’s no such thing as the devil, because there’s no Invincible Sun to cast a shadow.
But they’re convinced that that’s what they are, and that bothers me.
Even so. Consider the name, the Loyal Opposition. Which presumably is how come someone felt it necessary to invent the myth of the War in Heaven, when half the angels rebelled and were cast out into the darkness. There has to be an opposition, or nothing works.
Saloninus’ third law: to every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction.
His first and second laws are unfortunately lost. We only have the third law because Liseppius quoted it in a sermon.
To every light there’s a shadow, to every good there’s an evil.
But the forces of darkness are a loyal opposition; they’re on the same side as the light, they answer to the same all-encompassing big boss, but they have a different ideology and a different way of working towards the same ultimate goal.
There has to be an opposition, or else good is simply pushing in a vacuum.
Hence the long game. We sing about it in high mass; God is working His purpose out, as year succeeds to year.
The long game, the unending game, in which player A is absolutely certain to win, but that never happens because the game is never over.
And every single piece on the board is made up of two sides, the one light shines on and the shadow; and the piece itself remains the same, neither light nor shadow but merely itself.
That’s a hell of a lot to take in, especially if you’re an atheist. My argument is that you don’t have to believe in the rules in order to play the game.
In which case – consider Mother Grimhild, a formidable woman. Take it as given that she works for God. But in which department, in which arm of the service?
Accordingly, next morning I was back at the front gate. The duty officer at the porter’s lodge took one look at me and called out the guard. “It’s all right,” I said. “Mother Grimhild’s expecting me.”
“No she bloody well isn’t, or you’d be on the list,” he said, and had me put in chains. I spent a couple of hours in a repurposed charcoal cellar, and then they took the chains off again and marched me up the stairs to the room I’d been in before.
“You’ve decided,” she said.
“Yes,” I replied. “On one condition. I want to see Svangerd.”
She thought about it. “Fair enough,” she said. “It really is all about her, isn’t it? Everything else I’ve said has been in one ear and out the other.”
“Yes,” I said. “Like a demon.”
“Suit yourself. I had you down as a complicated man, but maybe there’s less to you than meets the eye.”
Oh, I’m complicated all right, I didn’t reply. Like a ball of string that’s got itself all tangled up. “That’s me,” I said. “What you see is what you get.”
She led me along a short passage, with no doors or windows, and then up a spiral staircase which seemed to go on for ever.
Then we were out into very cold fresh air, with the most amazing view out over the mostly horrible Kouden valley.
“From here,” she said, “you can see all the kingdoms of the earth. Figuratively speaking, of course.”
Smart-arse, I thought. We were on a platform at the top of the round tower. In the middle was a small room, or cell, round like a beehive, with an old, massive-looking door. Probably the most secure location in the known world. Poor Gerderic wouldn’t have stood a chance. Still, goons don’t count.