Free Colours in the Steel by K. J. Parker

beginning to wonder if you were coming.’
    The Archimandrite’s lodging was about five times the size of Alexius’ own cell. There were valuable tapestries on the walls, five extremely fine carved and gilded chairs, a curtained bed on a low dais, several quite beautiful chests and coffers of well-figured walnut, a high desk inlaid with hunting scenes in mother of pearl, a footstool of highly polished whalebone and a handsome silver-gilt wine service; all quite new and smelling strongly of camphor and beeswax. Alexius had no doubt that his colleague would have been able to give an accurate up-to-date valuation, sale price or replacement cost, for each individual item or the whole as a job lot.
    ‘You disapprove,’ Gannadius said equably.
    Alexius shook his head. ‘Not in the least,’ he replied. ‘You live in the style appropriate to a great temporal lord, which of course you are. Myself, I’d find it all too distracting, but only a savage disapproves of beauty per se . And I’m sure you appreciate it all far more than the dried-fruit merchants and anchovy barons who need to fill their houses with such things simply to prove to themselves that they’re now men of stature.’
    ‘You disapprove, nonetheless. Personally, I’d gladly trade all of this clutter for the mosaics on your ceiling. But I doubt whether they’re for sale.’
    Alexius smiled. ‘One day you may well be sleeping under them as a matter of course,’ he replied. ‘Or do you still maintain that you have no ambitions in that direction?’
    Gannadius shrugged. ‘It’s more a question of whether I’m fitted to do the job,’ he replied. ‘And the fact is that I’m not. Not yet, at any rate.’
    ‘That’s a very honest reply to a rather snide remark. Mind you, I’m not saying for a moment that I believe you.’
    ‘Just because a remark is honest doesn’t necessarily mean it’s sincere,’ Gannadius replied with a grin. ‘Shall we stop fencing round each other and get to business?’
    ‘That would be best,’ Alexius said, and he told Gannadius what had happened, leaving nothing out. When he’d finished, the Archimandrite sat for a while in his rather magnificent chair, rubbing the bridge of his small, blunt nose with the forefinger of his left hand.
    ‘I think I see what’s happened,’ he said. ‘In the event, the curse you laid was not the right one.’
    ‘It wasn’t the curse the girl intended. Since it was her curse, and I was just the instrument by which she laid it, it could well be significant that I got it wrong. The result will have been an error in the Principle.’
    ‘Quite.’ Gannadius nodded. ‘In essence, you’ve taken a gap in nature and put into it something that doesn’t fit. You are now having to contend with the effects of the disruption.’
    Alexius nodded slowly. ‘It makes sense, I agree. What I’m not sure about is how to put it right.’
    ‘Oh, but that’s simple,’ his colleague interrupted. ‘You must return to the moment and put it right. If you take off the wrong curse and replace it with the right one—’
    Alexius held up his hand. ‘Naturally, I’ve tried that,’ he said. ‘The only problem is that I can’t. After all, it’s not my curse, so I can’t lift it. All I can do is put a shield around the confounded man to prevent the curse working; and even that’s proving difficult. Every time I’ve tried, I’ve found it gone again by the next day. I really don’t relish the prospect of having to raise new shields around this fellow every day for the rest of my life.’
    ‘It’s a difficult problem,’ Gannadius said. ‘All I can suggest is that we try it together. And before you say anything, I quite agree that there’s no evidence for assuming that our joint efforts will be any more successful than your solitary attempts. What we really need, of course, is the girl.’
    Alexius sighed. ‘I’m inclined to agree with you there,’ he said. ‘Still, if you’re willing to join