Evil for Evil e-2

by K. J. Parker

  "Payment wouldn't be essential." The thin man was watching him closely, as if inspecting him for cracks and flaws. "At least, not until something presented itself in which I might be of use. I have…" This time the hesitation was genuine. "I have certain resources," the thin man said warily, "enough to provide for my needs, for a while. In the meantime, perhaps you might care to set me some task, by way of a trial. It would be foolish of me to expect you to take me on trust without a demonstration of my abilities."

  Too easy, Ziani thought. It must be some kind of trap. On the other hand… "All right," he said. "Here's what I'll do. I'll give you a test-piece to make, and if it's up to scratch, if ever I do need anybody, I'll bear you in mind. Will that do?"

  The thin man nodded, prompt and responsive as a mechanism. "What more could I ask?" he said.

  Ziani nodded, and applied his mind. To be sure of getting rid of him it'd have to be something unusual in these parts, not something he could just go out and buy, or get someone to make for him and then pass off as his own. "Fine," he said. "Do you know what a ratchet is?"

  The thin man's eyebrows rose. "Of course."

  "All right, then," Ziani said. "At the factory where I used to work, we had a small portable winch for lifting heavy sections of steel bar, things like that. It hung by a chain off a hook bolted into a rafter, and you could lift a quarter-ton with it, just working the handle backward and forward with two fingers. Do you think you could make me something like that?"

  "I guarantee it," the thin man said. "Will six weeks be soon enough?"

  Ziani grinned. "Take as long as you like," he said.

  "Six weeks." The thin man nodded decisively. "As soon as it's finished, I'll send word to you at the Duke's palace. I promise you won't be disappointed."

  Ziani nodded; then he asked, "All those degrees and things you mentioned. Where did you say they were from?"

  "The city university at Lonazep," the thin man replied. "I have the charters right here…"

  "No, that's fine." Was there a university at Lonazep? Now he came to think of it, he had a feeling there was, unless he was thinking of some other place beginning with L. Not that it mattered in the slightest. "Well, I'll be hearing from you, then."

  "You most certainly will." The thin man beamed at him again, bowed, then started to walk away backward up the hill. "And thank you, very much indeed, for your time. I absolutely guarantee that you won't be disappointed."

  Whatever other gifts and skills the thin man had, he could walk backward without looking or bumping into things. Just when Ziani was convinced he was going to keep on bowing and smiling all the way up to the citadel, he backed round a corner and vanished. Ziani counted to ten under his breath, then headed back down the hill toward the town, making an effort not to break into a run.

  Back where he'd started from, more or less. This time, he walked past the smithy and down an alleyway he'd noticed in passing a day or so earlier. It looked just like all the others, but he'd recognized the name painted on the blue tile: Seventeenth Street. Past the Temperance and Tolerance, he recalled, second door on the left. He found it-a plain wooden door, weathered gray, with a wooden latch. You'll have to knock quite hard, they'd told him, she's rather deaf.

  He knocked, counted fifty under his breath, and knocked again. Nothing doing. He shrugged and was about to walk away when the latch rattled, the door opened and an enormously fat woman in a faded red dress came out into the street.

  "Was that you making all the noise?" she said.

  "Sorry." Ziani frowned. "Are you Henida Zeuxis?"

  "That's right."

  He wanted to ask, Are you sure? but he managed not to. "My name's Ziani Vaatzes. I'd like to talk to you for a moment, if you can spare the time."

  "Been expecting you," the fat woman replied. "Marcellinus at the Poverty said you'd been asking round after me." She looked at him as if she was thinking of buying him, then added, "Come in if you want."

  He followed her through the door into a small paved courtyard. There was a porch on one side, its timbers bowed under the weight of an enormous overgrown vine, in front of which stood two plain wooden chairs and a round table, with two cups and a wine bottle on it.

  "Drink," she said; not a suggestion or an offer, just a statement of fact. She tilted the bottle, pushed one cup across the table at him, and sat down.

  "Thanks," he said, leaving the cup where it was. "Did-what did you say his name was?"

  "Marcellinus. And no, he didn't say what you wanted to see me about. I can guess, though."

  Vaatzes nodded. "Go on, then," he said.

  "You're an engineer, aren't you?" she said, wiping her mouth on her left forefinger. "Blacksmith, metalworker, whatever. You need materials. Someone told you I used to be in business, trading east with the Cure Doce." She shook her head. "Whoever told you that's way behind the times. I retired. Bad knee," she added, squeezing her right kneecap. "So, sorry, can't help you."

  "Actually," Vaatzes smiled, "the man at the Poverty and Justice did tell me you'd retired, but it wasn't business I wanted to talk to you about. At least," he added, "not directly."

  "Oh." She looked at him as though he'd just slithered out of check and taken her queen. "Well, in that case, what can I do for you?"

  Vaatzes edged a little closer. "Your late husband," he said.

  "Oh. Him."

  "Yes." He picked up the wine cup but didn't drink anything. "I understand that he used to lead a mule-train out along the southern border occasionally. Is that right?"

  She pulled a face, as though trying to remember something unimportant from a long time ago. It was a reasonable performance, but she held it just a fraction too long. "Salt," she said. "There's some place in the desert where they dig it out of the ground. A couple of times he went down there to the market, where they take the stuff to sell it off. Thought he could make a profit but the margins were too tight. Mind you," she added, "that's got to be, what, twenty years ago, and we weren't living here then, it was while we were still in Chora. Lost a fair bit of money, one way and another."

  Vaatzes nodded. "That's more or less what I'd heard," he said.

  She looked up at him. "Why?" she asked. "You thinking of going into the salt business?"

  "It had crossed my mind."

  "Forget it." She waved her hand, as though swatting a fat, blind fly. "The salt trade's all tied up, has been for years. Your lot, mostly, the Mezentines. They run everything now."

  "But not twenty years ago," Vaatzes said quietly, and that made her look at him again. "And besides, even now they mostly buy through intermediaries. Cure Doce, as I understand."

  "Could be." She yawned, revealing an unexpectedly pristine set of teeth. "I never got into that particular venture very much. Knew from the outset it was a dead end. If he'd listened to me, maybe things'd be very different now." She tilted the bottle over her cup, but Vaatzes could see it was already three-quarters full. "When we were living in Chora-"

  "I expect you had something to do with it," he said mildly. "Presumably you were buying the stock he took with him to trade for the salt."

  "Could be. Can't remember." She yawned again, but she was picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. "That was my side of the business back then, yes. I'd buy the stuff in Chora, he'd take it out to wherever he was trading that year. Never worked out. Any margin I managed to make at home, he'd blow it all out in the wilderness somewhere. That's what made me throw him out, eventually."

  "I can see it must've been frustrating for you," Vaatzes said. "But to get back to the salt. Can you remember who it was he used to buy it from? The miners, I mean, the people who dug it out of the ground."

  She looked at him, and she most certainly wasn't drunk or rambling. "I don't think he ever mentioned it," she said. "Just salt-miners, that's all."

  "Are you sure?" Vaatzes raised his eyebrows. "I'd have thought that if you were trading with them, you'd have known a bit about them. So as to know what they'd be likely to want, in e
xchange for the salt."

  "You'd have thought." She shrugged. "I guess that's how come we lost so much money."

  Vaatzes smiled. "I see," he said. "Well, that explains that. It's a shame, though."

  He leaned back in his chair and sipped a little of the wine. It was actually quite good. She waited for rather a long time, then scowled.

  "Are you really thinking about going into the salt business?"

  He nodded. "And of course," he went on, "I wouldn't expect an experienced businesswoman to go around giving valuable trade secrets away for nothing." She nodded, very slightly. He went on, "Unfortunately, until I've got finance of my own, backers, I haven't got anything to offer up front, in exchange for valuable information."

  "Ah."

  "But." He waited for a moment, then continued. "It occurred to me, however, that you might be interested in a partnership. Of sorts," he added quickly, as she looked up at him sharply. "I'm sure you know far more about this sort of thing than I do; but the way I see it is, I can't get any serious funding for the idea unless I've got something hard to convince a potential backer with. Once I've got the money, of course…"

  "I see," she said, with a sour little smile. "I tell you what I know, you take that and get your funding with it, and we settle up afterward, when the business is up and running." She sighed. "No disrespect, but what are you bringing to the deal?"

  He smiled. "Energy," he said. "Youth. Boundless enthusiasm. And the information isn't doing you any good as it is," he added. "It's just cluttering up your mind, like inherited furniture."

  Her scowl deepened. "There'd have to be a contract," she said.

  "Of course," Vaatzes said, smiling. "All properly written up and sealed and everything."

  "Ten percent."

  "Five."

  She made a vague grunting noise, shook her head. "Fair enough," she said. "It's a waste of your time and effort, mind, there never was a margin in it."

  "Times have changed," Vaatzes said. "The war, for one thing."

  "What's the war got to do with it?"

  He gave her a fancy-you-not-guessing look. "All those soldiers," he said, "on both sides, living off field rations. You know the sort of thing: salt beef, salt pork, bacon…"

  She blinked. "That's true," she said. She hesitated, then added, "The Mezentines always used to buy off the Cure Doce, at Mundus Vergens. Don't suppose the Cure Doce go there much anymore, what with the guerrillas and all." She scratched her nose; the first unselfconscious gesture he'd seen her make. "I wonder how they're getting salt nowadays," she said.

  "From Lonazep," Vaatzes said briskly. "I have done a little bit of research, you see. It's coming in there from somewhere, but nobody's sure where. But it's rock salt; Valens' men have found enough of it in the ration bags of dead Mezentines to know that. So it must ultimately be coming from the desert; and no army can keep going without salt, not if they're far from home, at the long end of their supply line. So if someone could find the producers and buy up the entire supply-well, that'd be a worthwhile contribution to the war effort, in my opinion. What do you think?"

  She was scowling at him again. "I should've known you'd be political," she said.

  "Me?" He shook his head. "Not in my nature. But I think that if I had solid information to go on, I could get some money out of the Duke. I've got a living to earn, after all. It looks like I'm going to be stuck here for a long time, maybe the rest of my life. It's about time I settled down and got a job."

  She breathed out slowly. "Like I said," she replied, "there'd have to be a written agreement. You come back with that and I might have something for you."

  Vaatzes tried not to be too obvious about taking a breath. "A map?"

  "Who said anything about a map?"

  "The Duke would want there to be a map," Vaatzes said. "A genuine one," he added sternly, "not one that smudges as soon as he opens it."

  "There might be one," she said slowly. "I'd have to look. There's loads of his old junk up in the roof. Maybe not a map, but there could be a journal. Bearings, number of days traveled, names of places and people. Better than a map, really."

  Vaatzes dipped his head. "As you say." He stood up. "If you happen to come across it, don't throw it away."

  She looked up at him, like a dog at table. "You'll see about a contract?"

  "Straightaway."

  She thought for a moment, then smiled. It wasn't much, but it was the only smile she had. "Sorry if I came across as a bit distant," she said. "But you've got to be careful."

  "Of course. Thank you for the wine."

  She looked at his cup. "You hardly touched it."

  "I don't drink."

  He left her without looking round and closed the door behind him. As he walked up the hill, he tried to think about money. He didn't have any, of course, and he had no way of getting any, except by asking for it. Were he to do so, assuming he asked the right people, he was sure he could have as much as he wanted; but that would be missing the point. Obviously Valens was the one man he couldn't ask (later, of course; but not now); that still left him a wide range of choices. Better, though, if he could get money from somewhere else. Under other circumstances, that wouldn't be a problem. But with time pressing…

  He stopped. He hadn't seen her (hadn't been expecting to see her, so hadn't been on his guard) and now they were face to face, only a yard or so apart. She was coming out of a linen-draper's shop, flanked on either side by a maid and an equerry. She'd seen him, and there was no chance of her not recognizing him, or taking him for someone else.

  "Hello," she said.

  He couldn't think what to say. For one thing, there was the horrendous business of protocol and the proper form of address. How do you reply to a greeting from the duchess of a duchy that no longer exists (but whose destruction has not been officially recognized by the regime whose hospitality you are enjoying)? There was probably a page and a half on the subject in one of Duke Valens' comprehensive books of manners, but so far he hadn't managed to stay awake long enough to get past the prefaces and dedications. Other protocols, too: how do you address the wife of a man you betrayed by telling him half the truth about his wife and his best friend? How do you respond to a friendly greeting from someone whose city gates you opened to the enemy? There was bound to be a proper formula, and if only he knew it there wouldn't be any awkwardness or embarrassment at this meeting. As it was, he was going to have to figure something out for himself, from first principles.

  "Hello," he replied, and bowed; a small, clumsy, comic nod, faulty in execution but clear enough in its meaning. Cheating, of course.

  "I haven't seen you for a long time," she said. "How are you settling in here?"

  He smiled. "It's one of the advantages of being an exile," he said. "Everywhere you go is strange to you, so getting used to somewhere new isn't such a problem."

  She frowned very slightly. There were people behind her in the shop, wanting to leave but too polite to push past her, her ladies-in-waiting and her armed guard. "In that case, it ought to be like that for me too, surely."

  He shook his head. "Not really," he said. "You're not an exile, you're a refugee."

  "Same thing, surely."

  "No." Should he have qualified that, or toned it down? No, my lady? "There's quite a difference. You left because your country was taken away from you. I left because my country wanted rid of me. I suppose it's like the difference between a widow and someone whose husband leaves her for somebody else." He shrugged. "It's not so much of a difference after all, really. Are you going back to the palace?"

  She pulled a face. "I've only just managed to escape," she replied. "It's a wonderful building and everybody's very kind, but…" She nodded at the basket one of the maids was carrying. "Embroidery silk. Vitally important that I choose it for myself."

  "I can see that," Vaatzes replied. "Hence the cavalry escort. Which way are you going?"

  She thought for a moment. "Downhill," she said. "So far I haven't manage
d to get more than six hundred yards from the palace gates, but I'm taking it slowly, by degrees."

  The shopkeeper was standing behind her, looking respectfully tense, with her bottled-up customers shifting from foot to foot all round her. "In that case," Vaatzes said, "might I recommend the fabric stall in the little square off Twenty-Ninth Street? I seem to remember seeing a couple of rolls of genuine Mezentine silk brocade which might interest you."

  She raised an eyebrow. "Twenty-Ninth Street?"

  "At the bottom of Eighth Street and turn left. I know," he added, "I tried to work it out too. I tried prime numbers, square roots and dividing by Conselher's Constant, but I still can't make any sense of how the numbers run."

  "And you an engineer," she said. "I'd have thought you'd have worked it out by now."

  "Too deep for me. There must be a logical sequence, though. You'll have to ask Duke Valens. He must know, if anyone does."

  "I'm sure." Not the slightest flicker of an eyelid, and the voice perfectly controlled, like a guardsman's horse in a parade. "I gather it's just the sort of thing that would interest him."

  She nodded very slightly to the maid on her left, and she and her escort began to move at precisely the same moment, down the hill, toward the Eighth Street gate. At a guess, the little square off Twenty-Ninth Street was a good eight hundred and fifty yards from the palace. It reminded him of the section in King Fashion, the unspeakably dull hunting manual that everybody was so keen on in these parts, about the early stages of training a falcon; how much further you let it fly each day, when you're training it to come back to the lure.

  They didn't speak to each other all the way down Eighth Street; but at the narrow turning off the main thoroughfare she looked at him and asked, "So what are you doing? Are you managing to keep yourself occupied?"

  As he answered her (he was politely and unobtrusively evasive, and told her nothing), he thought: between any other two people, this could easily sound like flirtation, or at the very least a preliminary engagement of skirmishers as two armies converge. But I don't suppose she's ever flirted in her life, and (he had to make an effort not to smile) of course, I'm the Mezentine, so different I'm not quite human. Flirting with me would be like trying to burn water; couldn't be done even if anyone wanted to. I think she's got nobody to talk to; nobody at all.