Evil for Evil e-2

by K. J. Parker

  "Is that all you've done?"

  He looked up at her. "Yes," he said.

  "You're very slow."

  "I'll get quicker," he replied. "I expect you get into a rhythm after a bit." He picked up a rivet and promptly dropped it. It vanished forever among the heaped-up links on his lap. "What happens to all this stuff, then?"

  "We sell it," she said. "Juifrez'll pick it up on the cart and take it up the mountain to the Stringer pass. That's where he meets the buyers. Of course," she added, "we've got you to thank."

  "For what?"

  "For our living," she said gravely. "For fighting your war. We've been tidying up after you ever since you started it. If it wasn't for you and your friends, I don't know what we'd have done."

  "Oh," Miel said.

  "It was Juifrez's idea," she went on. "Our village was one of the first to be burned out, it was soon after you attacked the supply train for the first time. Aigel; don't suppose you've ever heard of it. We ran away as soon as we saw the dust from the cavalry column, and when we came back…" She shrugged. "The idea was to walk down to Rax-that's the next village along the valley-and see if they'd take us in. But on the way we came across the place where you'd done the ambush. Nobody had been back there; well, I suppose a few scouts, to find out what had happened, but nobody'd buried the bodies or cleared away the mess. You'd burned all the food and the supplies, of course, but we found one cart we could patch up, and we reckoned that'd be better than walking. Then Juifrez said, 'Surely all this stuff's got to be worth some money to someone,' and that was that. Ever since then, we've been following you around, living off your leftovers. You're very popular with us, actually. Juifrez says you provide for us, like a good lord should. The founder of the feast, he calls you." She laughed. "I hope you've got someone to take your place while you're away," she said. "If the resistance packs up, we're really in trouble."

  While you're away; the implication being that sooner or later he'd go back. "He's your leader, then," he said, "this Juifrez?"

  "I suppose so," she replied. "Actually, he's my husband. And while I think of it, it'd probably be just as well if you didn't let him find out who you are. Like I said, he thinks very highly of you, but all the same…" She clicked her tongue. "I suppose he'd argue that the lord's job is to provide for his people, and the best way he could do that is fetching a high price from the Mezentines. He's not an insensitive man, but he's very conscious of his duty to his people. The greatest good for the greatest number, and so forth."

  "Juifrez Stratiotes," Miel said suddenly.

  "You've heard of him." She sounded genuinely surprised. "Fancy that. He'd be so flattered. After all, he's just a little local squire, not a proper gentleman. You've met him, of course, when he goes to the city to pay the rents. But I assumed he'd just be one face in a line."

  "He breeds sparrowhawks," Miel remembered. "I bought one from him once. Quick little thing, with rather narrow wings."

  She was grinning again. "I expect you remember the hawk," she said. "Don't let me keep you from your work."

  She was walking away. "When will he be back?" Miel asked. "I mean, the rest of them."

  "Tonight, after they've buried the bodies." She stopped. "Of course," she said slowly, "there's a very good chance he might recognize you, even all scruffy and dirty. And you're the only live one they found this time, so he'll probably want to see you."

  "Probably," Miel said.

  She took a few more steps, then hesitated. "Can you think of anybody else who might want you?" she said. "For money, I mean."

  "No."

  "What about the Vadani? They've been helping you, haven't they?"

  "Yes," Miel said, "but the Mezentines would pay more."

  "And they're closer." She hadn't turned round. "But you're good friends with Duke Orsea, aren't you? And he's with the Vadani now. Juifrez isn't a greedy man. If he could get enough for our people… Or better still, if you could arrange for us to go there. The Vadani aren't allowing any of us across the border, they're afraid it'll make the Mezentines more determined to carry on with the war. If you could get Duke Orsea to persuade the Vadani, we'd be safe. Juifrez would see the sense in that. Well?"

  Miel shook his head, though of course she wasn't looking at him. He wasn't quite sure when or why, but the balance between them had changed. "Orsea doesn't like me much anymore," he said. "And I don't know Duke Valens, there's no reason why he'd put himself out for me."

  "Don't you care?" She sounded angry, almost. "You sound like you aren't really interested."

  "I'm not," he heard himself say. He'd pinpointed the shift; it had been the moment when he'd remembered her husband's name. "At least…" He sighed. "The best thing would be if your husband didn't see me," he said. "But I can't ask you to lie to him, or anything like that."

  "No, you can't." Snapped back at him, as if she was afraid of the very thought. "I've never lied to Juifrez."

  No, he thought; but you probably would, if I worked on you a little. But I'm not going to do that. I'm in enough trouble already on account of another man's wife. "Good," he said. "Look, if you think it's worth trying to get help from the Vadani, I'm hardly going to argue. I'm just not sure it'll come to anything, that's all."

  "You sound like you want us to sell you to the Mezentines."

  "No, not really."

  The air felt brittle; he felt as though he could ball his fist and smash it, and the inside of the barn would split into hundreds of facets, like a splintered mirror. Just the effect he had on people, he assumed. "I'm not in any position to tell you what to do, am I?" he said, and it came out sounding peevish and bitter, which wasn't what he'd intended. "I'm sorry," he added quickly, but she didn't seem to have heard. "If it wasn't for your people, I'd probably have died on the battlefield, or been picked up by the enemy, which amounts to the same thing."

  She sighed. "You're the Ducas," she said. "You can't help being valuable, to someone or other. Finding you was like finding someone else's purse in the street. We aren't thieves, but we do need the money." She turned, finally, and looked at him. Exasperation? Maybe. "It'd be easier if you weren't so damned accommodating. Aristocratic good manners, I suppose." She shrugged. "And for pity's sake stop fiddling with that stuff. You're no good at it, and the Ducas isn't supposed to be able to work for his living. Leave it. One of the men can do it tonight, when they get back."

  She walked away and left him; nothing decided, and he wasn't even allowed to try and make himself useful. He thought: she doesn't love her husband, or not particularly, but that's not an important issue in her life. It's probably a good thing to be beyond the reach of love. And then he thought of Ziani Vaatzes, and the things he'd done for love, and the things he'd done with love, and with lovers. Ziani Vaatzes could mend chainmail, and nobody would think twice about it; he could probably sew, too. He could certainly bring down cities, and ruin the lives of other people; and all for love, and with it, using it as a tool, as was fitting for a skilled artisan.

  Use or be used, he thought. These people can use me, as Ziani used me; it's the Ducas' function in society to be useful. (He wondered: if Vaatzes were standing in front of me right now, would I try to kill him? Answer, yes; instinctively, without thinking, like a dog with a bird.)

  Nobody likes being bored, especially when their life is also hanging in the balance. But the Ducas learns boredom, just as he learns the rapier, the lute and the management of horse, hound and falcon. Miel leaned back against the wall and put his hands behind his head.

  3

  Partly because he was bored and had nothing better to do, Ziani Vaatzes crossed the yard, left the castle by the middle gate, and walked slowly down the slight hill toward the huddle of buildings that snuggled against the outside of the curtain wall like chicks under the wings of a broody hen. He was looking for smoke; not just the wisps of an ordinary household fire, but the intermittent gusts of gray cloud from a well-worked bellows. Once he'd found what he was looking for, he followed it u
ntil he heard the ring of a hammer, and then he followed that.

  Inevitably, there was a small crowd in the doorway of the smithy. There always is: a customer waiting for his job to be finished, poor and frugal types who'd rather keep warm by someone else's fire, old men wanting to be listened to, chancers waiting for a good moment to ask a favor. One of the old men was talking when he got there. Nobody could hear a word he said over the sound of the hammer, but he didn't seem to care, or to have noticed. One or two heads turned to look as Ziani joined the back of the group. A month or so ago they'd all have stared at him, but the Duke's pet black-faced Mezentine had stopped being news some time back. Now he was just one more straggler from the castle, an aristocrat by association, a somebody but nobody important. They probably all knew that he was an engineer, which would in itself explain why he was hanging round the forge; an assumption, and perfectly true.

  He watched the smith drawing down a round bar into a tapered square section, and allowed his mind to drift; the chime of the hammer and the rasping breath of the bellows soothed him like the most expensive music, and the warmth of the fire made him yawn. None of these people would have heard the news yet; they didn't know about the plan to abandon the city and strike out into the plains. Probably just as well, or there'd be panic, anger, moaning, reluctance. Valens wouldn't break the news until all the arrangements for the evacuation had been made, right down to what each of them would be allowed to take with him and which cart it'd be stowed in. There'd be an announcement, and just enough time for the evacuation to be carried out smoothly and efficiently, not enough time for anybody to have a chance to think about it. The Vadani didn't strike him as the sort of people who worried too much about the decisions their duke made on their behalf, such as abandoning their home, or starting a war with the Perpetual Republic. He wondered about that. You could evacuate Mezentia in a day; everybody would do as he was told, because that was what they'd been brought up to do. The Vadani would do it because they believed that Valens knew best. In this case, of course, he did. The policy was irreproachably sensible and practical. Ziani smiled at the thought, as a god might smile at the enlightened self-interest of his creation.

  The smith paused to quench the top half of his work and swill down a mug of water before leaning into the bellows handle. The old man was still talking. Someone else cut across him to ask the smith a question, which was answered with a shrug and a shake of the head. Reasonable enough; why bother with words when you know nobody can ever hear what you say. The bellows wheezed like a giant snoring, as though the old man's interminable droning had put it to sleep.

  He's working the steel too cold, Ziani thought; but of course it wasn't his place to say so, not in someone else's shop, when his opinion hadn't been asked for. The slovenliness annoyed him a little, just enough to spoil the pleasure of watching metal being worked. As unobtrusively as possible, he disengaged and left the forge. I must find myself some work to do, he told himself, I need to be busy. I wash my hands three times a day here, but they never get dirty.

  Back through the gate in the curtain wall; as he walked through it, he felt someone following him. He frowned. Duke Valens was far too well-mannered to have his guests shadowed, and far too sensible to waste an employee's time on such a pointless exercise. He quickened his step a little. There were plenty of people about, no reason to be concerned.

  "Excuse me."

  He hesitated, then carried on, walking a little faster. "Excuse me," the voice said again; then a shadow fell across his face, and someone was standing in front of him, blocking his path.

  Not the strangest-looking human being Ziani had ever seen, but not far off it. He was absurdly tall, not much under seven feet, and his sleeveless jerkin and plain hose did nothing to disguise how extraordinarily thin he was. Probably not starvation, because the clothes themselves looked new and fairly expensive, and he didn't have the concave cheeks and sunken eyes of a starving man. Instead, his face was almost perfectly flat-minute stump for a nose, stupid little slit for a mouth, and tiny ears-though the rest of his head was round and slightly pointed, like an onion. He had a little crest of black hair on the very top (at first glance Ziani had taken it for a cap) and small, round eyes. The best guess Ziani could make at his age was somewhere between twenty-five and fifty.

  "Sorry if I startled you," he said. "Are you Ziani Vaatzes, the Mezentine?"

  "That's me," Ziani replied. "Who're you?"

  The thin man smiled, and his face changed completely. He looked like an allegorical representation of Joy, painted by an enthusiastic but half-trained apprentice. "My name is Gace Raimbaut Elemosyn Daurenja," he replied. "May I say what a pleasure and an honor it is to meet you."

  Oh, Ziani thought. He made a sort of half-polite grunting noise.

  "Allow me to introduce myself," the thin man went on, and Ziani noticed that there were dark red scars on both his earlobes. "Like yourself I am an engineer and student of natural philosophy and the physical world. I have been an admirer of your work for some time, and feel that there's a great deal I could learn from you."

  He's learned that speech by heart, Ziani thought; but why bother? "I see," he said. "Well, that's very…" He ran out of words, and couldn't be bothered to look for any more.

  The thin man shifted a little, and Ziani could just about have squeezed through the gap between him and the wall without committing an assault. But he stayed where he was.

  "I must apologize for accosting you like this," the thin man went on. "It is, of course, a deplorable breach of good manners, and not the sort of thing I would normally dream of doing. However…" He hesitated, but Ziani was fairly sure the pause was part of the script. Stage direction; look thoughtful. "We move in rather different social circles," the thin man went on, and Ziani wished he knew a little bit more about Vadani accents. He was fairly sure the man had one, but he couldn't place it well enough to grasp its significance. "You enjoy the well-deserved favor of the Duke. I am only a poor student. It's hardly likely our paths would have crossed in the normal course of events."

  "Student," Ziani said, repeating the only word in the speech he'd been able to get any sort of grip on. "At a university, you. mean?"

  "Indeed." The thin man's smile widened like sunrise on the open plains. "I have honors degrees in philosophy, music, literature, astronomy, law, medicine and architecture. I have also completed apprenticeships in many crafts and trades, including carpentry, gold, silver, copper, foundry and blacksmith work, building and masonry, coopering, tanning, farriery and charcoal-burning. I am qualified to act as a public scrivener and notary in four jurisdictions, and I can play the lute, the rebec and the recorder. People have asked me from time to time if there's anything I can't do; usually I answer that only time will tell." The smile was beginning to slop over into a smirk; he restrained it and pulled it back into a look of modest pride. "I was wondering," he went on, "if you would care to give me a job."

  Ziani's imagination had been busy while the thin man was talking, but even so he hadn't been expecting that. "A job," he repeated.

  "That's right. Terms and conditions fully negotiable."

  Ziani made an effort and pulled himself together. "Sorry," he said. "I don't have any jobs that need doing."

  A tiny wisp of a frown floated across the thin man's face, but not for long. "Please don't get the idea that I'm too delicate and refined for hard manual labor," he went on. "Quite the contrary. At various times I've worked in the fields and the mines. I can dig ditches and lay a straight hedge. I can also cook, sew and clean; in fact, I was for five months senior footman to the Diomenes house in Eremia."

  Try as he might, Ziani couldn't think of anything to say to that; so he said, "I see. So why did you leave?"

  Every trace of expression drained out of the thin man's face. "There was a misunderstanding," he said. "However, we parted on good terms in the end, and I have references."

  Ziani almost had to shake himself to break the spell. "Look," he said, "that's
all very impressive, but I'm not hiring right now, and if I did give you a job, I couldn't pay you. I'm just…" He ran out of words again. "I'm just a guest here, not much better than a refugee. God only knows why the Duke lets me hang around, but he does. I'm very sorry, and it's very flattering to be asked, but I haven't got anything for you."

  "I'm sorry to hear that," the thin man said. "Very sorry indeed. I'm afraid I'd allowed myself to hope." He seemed to fold inwards, then almost immediately reflated. "If you'd like to see my certificates and references, I have them here, in this bag." He pulled a small goatskin satchel off his shoulder and began undoing the buckles. "Some of them may be a little creased, but-"

  "No," Ziani said, rather more forcefully than he'd intended. "Thank you," he added. "But there's no need, really. I don't need any workers, and that's all there is to it."

  "A private secretary," the thin man said. "I can take dictation and copy letters in formal, cursive and demotic script…"

  Ziani took a step forward. The thin man didn't move. Ziani stopped. "No," he said.

  "A valet, maybe," the thin man said. "As a gentleman of the court-"

  Because he was so thin, he'd be no problem to push aside. But Ziani felt an overwhelming reluctance to touch him, the sort of instinctive loathing he'd had for spiders when he was a boy. He retraced the step he'd just taken and folded his arms. "I'm not a courtier," he said, "and I haven't got any money, and I'm not hiring. You don't seem able to understand that."