Evil for Evil e-2

by K. J. Parker

  Valens yawned. "I see," he said. "In that case, we'll hold up on the beheadings until we can be absolutely sure whose fault this is. Meanwhile, would it help if we sent some more men down to the yard, to clear the backlog?"

  The young man sighed. "Not really," he said. "I offered earlier, but the creepy bloke said that extra bodies would just be in the way. Apparently, the problem is, they've only got a limited number of those drill things-sorry, I don't know the right word. Curly steel thing like a pig's tail, and you turn a handle like a wheel spoke."

  "Augers," Valens said.

  "That's them," the young man said cheerfully. "They've only got two dozen of the things, so Mister Creepy told me, and drilling the holes is the bit that takes all the time. Once that's done, offering up the plates and bolting them down is a piece of cake. That Mezentine's rigged up cranes and winches and things to move the plates about, and wooden frame things to show them where to drill the holes-"

  "Jigs," Valens said.

  "Is that the word? Anyway, all highly ingenious stuff, but I guess he's used to this sort of thing."

  Valens shrugged. "We'll get there in the end," he said. "But I want Orchard Street cleared and kept open; we need one way in and out of the town, even if all the rest are blocked solid."

  Someone nodded, accepting the commission, and disappeared down the spiral staircase. Valens groped for his name; an Eremian, from one of the leading families. Surprisingly knowledgeable about falconry, for an Eremian. "Who just left?" he asked.

  "Jarnac Ducas," someone said. "You put him in charge of the day watch, remember?"

  "Did I?" Valens shrugged. "I've lost track of who's doing what these days."

  "He volunteered," someone said, and someone else sniggered. "Very keen, the Eremians. Some of them, at any rate."

  "I remember him now," Valens said. "Annoying but highly competent. Well, at any rate he'll get the traffic moving again, if he has to kill every carter in the city with his bare hands." He frowned. "I shouldn't joke about that," he added. "I saw him fighting at the siege of Civitas Eremiae. Quite glad he's on our side, really." He looked up at the sky: well past noon. "I suppose I'd better go and do some work," he said sadly. "Does anybody know where Mezentius has got to?"

  He found him in the exchequer office, sitting at the great checkered counting table, his head in his hands and a heap of silver counters scattered in front of him. "Bad time?" he asked.

  Mezentius looked up. "I've got a confession to make," he said angrily. "I don't know how to work this stupid bloody thing."

  Valens frowned. "It's not exactly straightforward," he said. "I spent hours trying to learn when I was a kid, and I still have trouble."

  Mezentius spun a counter on its rim, then flicked it across the tabletop. "No you don't," he said. "You can make it come out every time."

  "True." Valens picked up the counter and put it back with the rest of the pile. "I have trouble, but I overcome it, slowly and painfully. I find the key to success is not losing my temper."

  Mezentius sighed. "Point taken," he said. "But I shouldn't be having to do this, there should be clerks."

  "There were. But I had to promote them all, remember? So, for the time being, we all do our own tiresome and menial chores. I'm sorry, but there it is. Duty must be done, and all that."

  "Quite. How's married life, by the way?"

  "Delightful, thank you," Valens snapped. "Now, when you've finished whatever it is you're doing, I need to talk to you about who's going to command the light cavalry decoy detachments. I did ask you for some names about a week ago, but I'm assuming you've been busy."

  "I'll see to it," Mezentius said. "You know, I liked it better when we were soldiers."

  "We still are," Valens replied. "Unfortunately." He turned to leave, then remembered something and paused. "While I think of it," he said. "Have we heard back about the demands yet?"

  "Nothing."

  "Ah well. I.thought we could play for time, but obviously they aren't that stupid. Happy figuring."

  Crossing the yard, he could hear the forges, the shrill, distant clank and bash of the trip-hammers and sledges beating out hot iron blooms into plate. What it must be like for people in the city, he didn't like to think. They were working three shifts now. He hoped for his fellow citizens' sake that after a while they got so used to it that they stopped noticing it; hoped, but doubted. It wasn't a sound you could ignore.

  Next chore: he unlocked the little sally port that gave access through the back wall of the palace into the narrow lane that led down into the flower market. The steep gradient and pinched, winding alleys made it impossible for carts to get this far, and the congestion was keeping the traders from getting through, so the market was deserted. From the corner of the square, a long flight of steps took him down to a derelict block where the big tanners' yard used to be, and from there he followed a spider's web of snickets and entries until he arrived at the side gate of the old covered market where Vaatzes had set up his small-assemblies workshop.

  The noise was different there. The screeching and graunching of files was loud enough to blur out the beat of the hammers; it reminded him of grasshoppers, but there was a tension about the place that made him feel uneasy. He was getting used to it, however; he experienced it wherever Vaatzes had made his presence felt, a kind of sad, determined anger.

  Where the old market stalls had been, there were now rows of long, narrow benches, to which stout wooden vises were bolted at intervals of six feet or so. Behind each vise stood a man, his neck bent, his feet a shoulder's width apart, his arms reciprocating backward and forward as he guided his file; each man just slightly out of time with his neighbor, so that the movements appeared sequential rather than concerted, like the escapement of a vast mechanism. Valens walked the length of one aisle and came to the drilling benches, set at right angles to the rest of the shop. He vaguely remembered Vaatzes complaining about something or other to do with drilling; there weren't enough proper pedestal drills in the duchy, so he was having to waste valuable time and skilled manpower building them, badly, with wooden frames instead of cast iron. Presumably that was what the men were doing; they worked in teams of three, one man working a treadle, one man feeding a squared beam along a bed of rollers, the third man slowly drawing down a lever to guide a fast-spinning chuck. They stood up to their ankles in yellow dust; it spilled out of the holes they drilled like blood from wounds, and from time to time a spurt would belch up into the air, blinding them and making them cough. There was a clogging smell of dust, sap and burning, and the air was painfully dry. Beyond the drills were more benches, more processes, different shapes but the same shared movement, as though the whole building was powered from one shaft driven by one flywheel, hidden and turning imperceptibly slowly.

  A worried-looking man with a bundle of notched tallies cradled in his arms tried to step round him; a supervisor, presumably.

  Valens moved just enough to block him, and shouted, "Where's Vaatzes?"

  The supervisor frowned, shrugged, said something Valens couldn't make out through the noise.

  "Vaatzes," he repeated, louder. The man tried to point, lost his hold on his tallies, and watched them slither out under his elbows onto the floor. It was probably just as well that Valens couldn't make out what he had to say about that, as he stooped to gather them.

  "Vaatzes," he said a third time, putting his foot on a tally so the man couldn't retrieve it. That got him a ferocious scowl and a vague indication, somewhere beyond the banks of buffing wheels. "Thank you so much," he said, and walked on.

  In the end, he found Vaatzes standing at a bench, cutting a slot in a steel plate with a file. He tapped him on the shoulder; Vaatzes turned, hesitated for a moment and put the file down, saying something Valens couldn't hear.

  "Is there somewhere we can hear ourselves think?" Valens shouted.

  Vaatzes nodded and led the way, down the aisle to what looked like a square hole in the floor, with the top rungs of a ladder stic
king up out of it. "Down here," Vaatzes yelled, and vanished down the hole before Valens could object.

  Strange place for the Duke of the Vadani to be; certainly somewhere he'd never been before. After a moment's thought he decided it was probably the market's old meat cellar, somewhere cool to keep the unsold stock overnight. It had the feel of a tomb about it, a stone-faced chamber carefully designed for storing dead flesh. There was a plain, cheap table in the middle of it, on which stood a single lamp, a sheaf of papers and an inkwell.

  "My office," Vaatzes explained. "The real one, where I actually do some work. About the only place in this town you can hear yourself think."

  True enough; no distant thumping of hammers, even the squeal of files was missing. "Excellent," Valens said. "I might just commandeer it for myself, until all this is over."

  Flat joke; so flat you could have played bowls on it. "You wanted to see me," Vaatzes said. "I could have come to the palace."

  Valens waved that aside. "You're busier than I am," he said, "your time's worth more. And I was curious, I wanted to take a look for myself. I've never seen anything like it before."

  Vaatzes gestured toward the single chair. Valens raised his palm in polite refusal. "It's not a pretty sight, I'm afraid," Vaatzes said. "If you want to see the real thing, go and visit the ordnance factory, or any of the Guild shops in the city. The best you can say for this lot is, we're getting the job done, more or less."

  "Not up to the standard you're used to?"

  Vaatzes laughed. "Not really."

  "Pity," Valens replied. "I'd have liked to think you were making yourself at home. Or at least, as close to home as you can make it. I get the feeling you aren't comfortable out of your proper surroundings."

  "Curious thing to say," Vaatzes replied. "I can't say I'd thought of it like that before. You think I'm trying to turn all the places I go to into little replicas of the city, just because I'm homesick."

  Valens shrugged. "Something like that. Not that it bothers me if you are. We need your help, simple as that. None of our people could've set up something like this."

  "True," Vaatzes said. "It's just as well we aren't trying anything ambitious. It was different in Eremia. Yes, they were primitive by Mezentine standards, but in the event it didn't take long to get the local artisans up to speed. Here…" He pulled a sad face. "You've got no real tradition of making things," he said. "Understandable, no need, when you could buy anything you wanted in trade. But we're coping. This time tomorrow, it should all be finished."

  "Really?"

  Vaatzes nodded. "It may look like a shambles, but actually it's going well. The only problem I'm anticipating is getting the finished carts out of the way, once they've been armored."

  "I've got someone taking care of all that," Valens replied. "Anyhow, I'm relieved to hear you say we'll be ready more or less on time, because I've decided to bring the evacuation forward by two days. If we leave early, people won't have time for their last-minute packing, they'll have to grab what they can and run. That way, we can keep the wagons from getting laden down with unnecessary junk." He hesitated. He was finding it hard to concentrate. A conclusion was trying to form in his mind, but as yet he couldn't find the shape of it. "Anyway, that's all I wanted to ask you. I'll let you get back to work."

  But Vaatzes was looking at him. "You came a long way just to get a progress report. You could've sent someone."

  That was true, but it hadn't occurred to Valens to send a messenger. "I haven't had a chance to talk to you," he said, "not since the attack." He frowned. "I guess I ought to thank you, for raising the alarm."

  "Self-interest," Vaatzes replied shortly.

  "Maybe, but if you hadn't…" The conclusion? Only the leading edge of it. "I'll admit," he said, "it scared me. I don't think I'd realized just how close they are."

  "Hence the hurry to get the evacuation under way?"

  "Partly." No, he realized. It's not the Mezentines that frighten me. "That man of yours, Daurenja. Where did you get him from? He came in handy."

  A slight reaction, as though he'd grazed a sore place. "He just turned up one day, wanting a job," Vaatzes replied. "To be honest with you, I don't know what to make of him either. But he works hard, and he's been very useful."

  They were just making conversation; acquaintances spinning out a tenuous discussion to plaster over a silence. "Let me know as soon as the last cart's been done," Valens said briskly. "And I'm obliged to you. It can't have been easy, but you've done a good job."

  The praise seemed to glance off, like a file off hardened steel; hardly what you'd expect from a refugee artisan praised by his noble patron. I don't matter particularly to him, Valens realized; and maybe that's the conclusion, or another of its projections. "I'll let you get on now."

  "There's one other thing." The tone of Vaatzes' voice stopped him in his tracks.

  "Go on."

  Vaatzes was looking straight at him, as though aiming. "Did you ever find out what the object of the attack was?"

  "Fairly obvious, surely."

  "To get you, you mean?"

  It had seemed obvious, not so long ago. "You don't think so."

  "I was wondering," Vaatzes said, "if it was me they were after."

  "What makes you think that?"

  "Well, this whole war's about me, more or less." He said it as though it was something so generally accepted as to be trite and not worth emphasizing. "They invaded Eremia because I was there. Now I'm here. Maybe, if they haven't got the stomach for another full-scale war, they reckoned they could get out of it by going straight to the heart of the problem, so to speak."

  Valens decided his other commitments could wait. "I'm not sure I agree," he said. "They're upset with me because I made an unprovoked attack on them, at Civitas Eremiae. Can't say I blame them for that."

  "Maybe." Vaatzes was still looking straight at him. "But suppose I'm right. Suppose it's me they really want, and that's what the attack was all about. If you thought that, what would you do?"

  "That's easy," Valens said quietly. "I'd let them have you."

  "Of course. Has the thought crossed your mind at all?"

  "Yes." He hadn't intended to say that. "I consider all the options. I decided against it."

  Vaatzes nodded, a mute acknowledgment. "Why?" he asked.

  "I don't believe it'd get them off my back," Valens said. "And you're very useful to me. And I don't think the war's about you, or at least, not anymore. It's all about Mezentine internal politics now. Sending you back might get me a truce, but they'd be back again before too long."

  "My fault again." Vaatzes smiled. "If I hadn't built the scorpions for Duke Orsea, they'd have had a quick, easy victory in Eremia. Instead they were humiliated, and they've got to get their self-respect back. They need me for that."

  "You make it sound like you want to be sent back. Do you like yourself as a martyr or something?"

  "Of course not. I just want to know where I stand."

  "Reasonable enough." Valens wanted to look away, but that wouldn't be a good idea. "You've got nothing to worry about on that score," he said. "It's against my nature to give up anything I can use as a weapon, when my enemies are breathing down my neck. If they'd asked me politely, at the beginning…" He paused, and shook his head. "I wouldn't have trusted them, even then. If the war's anybody's fault, it's mine. I attacked them, it's very straightforward."

  (Later, it occurred to Valens that Vaatzes didn't ask him why he'd taken his cavalry to Civitas Eremiae. Perhaps it was diffidence, or simple politeness.)

  "Well, that's all right then," Vaatzes said, and Valens felt as though he'd been released, on bail. "You'll excuse me for asking, but you'll understand my concern. Especially after the attack."

  After he'd shown the Duke out, Vaatzes came back to his cellar and sat down at his table. For a while he didn't move, almost as though he was bracing himself for something unpleasant. Eventually, he reached for a sheaf of drawings, picked them up and put them
neatly on one side. Under them was a small sheet of parchment, marked by fold-lines. I enclose a notarized copy of the marriage certificate. You know as well as I do that a Mezentine notary wouldn't falsify a certificate…

  He frowned. Notaries; he'd never given them much thought before, but now their code of professional ethics had suddenly become the most important issue in the world. He cast his mind back, trying to remember everything he could about notaries.

  …a Mezentine notary wouldn't falsify a certificate for anybody, not even the Guilds in supreme convocation. But if that's not good enough for you, ask for whatever proof you need and I'll try and get it for you.

  He had, of course, already sent his reply.

  But so what; so what if the certificate was genuine, and she really had married Falier? It didn't necessarily mean anything. If they'd told her he was dead… She had their daughter to think of; maybe they'd told her he was dead and they were going to throw her out of the house, she'd need somewhere to go, someone to look after them both. Falier had been taking care of them, he'd have felt the obligation. If she thought he was dead, marrying Falier would be the practical, sensible thing to do; and on his part, no more than the logical extension of his duty to care for his friend's wife and child. There was a raid on the Vadani capital, they'd have told them; we sent a squadron of cavalry to kill him, and we succeeded. Oh, the savages won't admit it, they'll probably make out he's still alive; but you can believe it, he's dead, he's not coming back. So she married Falier; why not? She's got to take care of herself, of them both. Think about what you've already lost, permanently and beyond hope of recovery, and what you may still be able to salvage from the wreckage.

  He smiled at that. Where everybody went wrong was in assuming that he was some kind of complex, unfathomable creature, full of deep, subtle motives and enigmatic desires, when all the time he was the simplest man who ever lived.

  But supposing… He winced at the thought. Supposing she really had married Falier, and that with him she'd found some sort of quiet, comfortable resolution. Wife of the foreman of the ordnance factory… All he wanted to do was get back what had been lost; for her, for himself, for the three of them. Supposing she'd already done that (believing he was dead, of course)-quietly, without needing to slaughter tens of thousands, throw down cities, rearrange the whole world just to put back one small piece where it belonged. Suppose, just suppose, that the mechanism was complete, functional, all except for one component that suddenly was no longer necessary to its operation…