Evil for Evil e-2

by K. J. Parker

  "What're you laughing at?" the Mezentine said.

  Miel looked down at him. Even betrayed and captive, the Ducas looks down at his enemies. "Nothing," he said. "Private joke."

  The Mezentine stared at him for a full second, then gave the rope a short, sharp tug. The effect wasn't pleasant. No more private jokes from now on.

  "Was it the courier?" Miel asked.

  "What courier?"

  No reason to suppose the soldier knew the background story, or even why he was here. "Doesn't matter," Miel said. "I'll be quiet now."

  They brought horses for Framain and the girl; also ropes to tie their hands, and nooses for their necks. Standard operating procedure; clearly it came easily with practice, since the leader didn't need to tell his men what to do. Trained soldiers know their duty, just as well as the Ducas knows his. Duty is obligation, the bastard child of loyalty and the will to serve; when you think about it, just another roundabout way of saying love. No wonder it causes so much pointless damage.

  The Mezentines mounted their horses, the leader gave a sign to get under way. For a short while, Framain rode beside Miel. "Serves me right," Framain said (more in sorrow). "I should have left you in the quagmire."

  "Did it work?" Miel replied.

  "What?"

  "The vermilion. Did it work?"

  Framain didn't answer; a tug on his rope drew him ahead of Miel, too far for a shouted conversation. She was riding behind him somewhere. He fancied he could feel her staring balefully at the back of his head (weren't you supposed to be some sort of hero? You should've rescued us, killed them all with a screwdriver or something, repaid us for our kindness, won my undying love; it was your opportunity, couldn't have been more convenient if we'd all sat down and planned it together; so why didn't you do something?). He wished he could explain that to her, at least; that it all turned on his possession of a two-foot-six strip of sharpened metal at the critical moment, and when that moment came, the metal was on the floor, not in his hand. Simple mechanics.

  A pity, but there it was. Not that it mattered, with no book. If there'd been a book, there'd have been a reason to die trying, instead of meekly at the hands of an executioner. With no book, it was just pointless activity; if they give you a shovel, might as well dig a hole as not. All the slaves of duty dig their own graves sooner or later.

  The ride to the Unswerving Loyalty was long, hot and boring. There were possibilities, of course. A lone peasant could have jumped up from the cover of a pile of rocks and shot the Mezentines dead with a longbow; your father paid for the medicine that saved my little girl's life, he'd have explained, as he cut the ropes and set them free, it was my duty to help the Ducas. But that didn't happen; neither did the scattered remnants of Miel's resistance army sweep down through a narrow pass. Jarnac failed to arrive with fifty Vadani light cavalry. The innkeeper of the Loyalty didn't sneak out to the stables and cut them loose in recognition of the generous tip Miel had left him the last time he was there. So many splendid opportunities for Fate to indulge itself in satisfying, heartwarming symmetry; all wasted.

  But as they were led across the yard to the stables, Miel caught sight of the old carter and his grandson, the pair who'd carried the load of sulfur. They were sitting on the mounting block in the yard, staring. At last, he thought, and for some reason he felt the faint quickening of hope. Odd that it should be them, rather than Jarnac or the rebels or the grateful peasant with his bow, but that just adds piquancy. They can't be here merely by coincidence.

  "Who've you got there?" the old man called out.

  "Rebel leader," a Mezentine replied. "What's it to you?"

  The old man shook his head. "You're welcome to him," he said, "bloody troublemaker."

  The Mezentine leaned forward a little in his saddle. "You two Eremians?"

  "Not likely. Vadani."

  A shrug. "You'll be next, don't you worry."

  So much for symmetry; also loyalty, duty and poetic justice. Out of the corner of his eye, Miel caught sight of the scowl on the boy's face as he passed. Just one kick, he thought; right now I'd cheerfully sign over the whole Ducas estate north of the Blackwater just for the privilege of booting that brat's arse.

  It was dark in the stables; too dark to see the expression on their faces, once the door slammed shut behind them. Miel sat with his back to the wall, his eyes closed, hoping for sleep with the same degree of pessimistic realism as he'd waited for the peasant sniper, or Jarnac and the cavalry. Outside it had started raining again. Somewhere, there was a leak in the roof. He counted the interval between drips: nine seconds.

  19

  A tolerably civilized chaise as far as the Lonazep turnpike. A basic but acceptable mail coach from there to the edge of the plain. A night on a plank bed in a rather sparse post-house. A military stage, overcrowded with junior officers, very rudimentary suspension, all day, all night and the next morning with only half a dozen stops up the Butter Pass to the camp in the ruins of Civitas Eremiae. A ride with the quartermaster's clerk on a solid-chassis supply cart as far as the frontier post at Limes Vadanis. Four days away from the Guildhall, Psellus staggered off the box of the cart and stood in a dusty, rutted road under a disturbingly broad sky, staring apprehensively at mountains. If this was the world he'd heard so much about when he was growing up in the suburbs of the city, they could stuff it.

  "I don't know," the garrison captain said in reply to his urgent question. "I got a letter this morning to say you were coming, but that's all. Didn't say who you are or what we're supposed to do for you. Always happy to oblige the central administration," this said with a confidence-diminishing grin, "but you can see for yourself, we're just a border post, not a diplomatic mission." He paused, thought, frowned. "I suppose you might be able to hitch a ride with a trader," he suggested. "Strictly speaking it's a closed border, but we turn a blind eye if it's just ordinary commercial traffic. You may have to wait a week or so, but I expect you could find a corner of the guardhouse to crash in."

  It's all right, Psellus urged himself, I'm equipped to handle this. I have the magic letter. He took it from his pocket, observing that it was rather more dog-eared and crumpled than it had been four days ago. Still, what mattered was the blob of red wax at the bottom, into which was impressed the great corporate seal of Necessary Evil. He smoothed the letter out and handed it to the captain.

  "If you'd just care to read that," he said.

  The captain glanced at it. "Like I told you," he said, "we aren't set up here to do escorts for civilians."

  Psellus clicked his tongue; supposed to be authoritative verging on majestic, came out petulant. "You'll notice," he said, "that it's signed personally by Commissioner Boioannes."

  "Who?"

  In the event, they were quite kind to him; they fed him on bean porridge with bacon and lentils, which was what they ate themselves, and gave him a fairly clean blanket and a reserved-for-officers-only pillow. The guardhouse floor wasn't actually any harder than the bed in the inn at the post-house. He was, he reminded himself, right out on the very edge of the world. If he got up in the night for a pee and wandered a yard too far, he'd be across the frontier and in enemy territory, an accidental one-man invasion. The thought made him cross his legs until morning.

  Breakfast-bean porridge with bacon and lentils-and a stroll round the compound. Six troopers in disconcertingly full armor failed to notice him, presumably for some valid military reason. He found an upturned packing case in the shade of the wall, and sat on it for an hour or so, his back resolutely turned on the view. Too many mountains, not enough tall buildings. My beautiful office, he said to himself, my beautiful small office.

  "Good news." The garrison captain had somehow materialized next to him while he wasn't looking. "Actually, it's something I'd clean forgotten about, until you made me think of it. I've got orders to send a survey team to map the road between here and…" He hesitated, scowling. "Some river," he said, "can't remember the name of it offhand. But if you wa
nt to go with them, they'll take you most of the way to where you want to go. It means walking, of course-they measure distances by counting footsteps, apparently-but at least you won't be on your own. Mind you, there's always the risk that a party of our lot wandering about in Vadani territory's going to attract unwelcome attention from the locals; you may feel you'd stand a better chance of sneaking in unnoticed on your own."

  So that's good news, is it? "Can I think about it?" Psellus asked.

  "Sure." The captain smiled. "No rush, they won't be leaving till this evening. Best to cover the first twenty miles under cover of darkness. Just in case."

  Psellus agonized over his decision for a full five seconds. "You said something about traders," he ventured.

  Another night on the cold, hard floor; but the thought that he could be spending it scampering along mountain tracks in the dark with a company of military surveyors made the stones a little softer. Breakfast next day was a pleasant treat: bean porridge with bacon and lentils. A man could get to like life in a frontier post; as opposed to, say, death a few hundred yards beyond it. The morning passed. Early in the afternoon, one of the soldiers actually spoke to him. Evening ebbed in, trailing its hem across the mountains like a weary child dragging his heels. They hadn't told him what dinner would be, but he was prepared to hazard a guess.

  "You're the Mezentine." A woman's voice, somewhere in the shadow of the guardhouse tower. He looked round sharply, but all he could see was a slightly denser patch of darkness. The voice itself was middle-aged, provincial and coarse.

  "That's right," he said. "Who…?"

  "Lucao Psellus?"

  "Yes."

  She stepped forward into the torchlight ring; a tall, stout woman, fishbelly-white face, Eremian or Vadani, dyed copper-beech hair heaped up on top of her head like a lava flow, clashing horribly with her loudly crimson dress. Her bare forearms were both fat and muscular, the muscle quite possibly built up by the effort of lifting so much monolithic gold jewelry.

  "Well?" she said.

  "I'm sorry," Psellus said cautiously. "I don't think I know you."

  "Quite right, you don't." She made it sound as though only sheer all-conquering magnanimity was keeping her from holding it against him. "You wanted a ride into Vadani territory."

  Merchants; of course. Among the savages, it was quite usual for women to be merchants. "That's right, yes," he said quickly.

  She looked at him, as though she'd bought him sight unseen and was regretting it. "I'm headed for Civitas Vadanis, more or less direct," she said. "Are you carrying diplomatic credentials?"

  Psellus smiled. "I've got a letter…"

  "Let's see."

  After a moment's hesitation he took it out and handed it to her; she rubbed her hands on her thighs before taking it. "Boioannes himself," she said, "impressive. So why isn't the military giving you an escort?"

  Well, why not? "I've been asking myself that," he said.

  She grinned; sympathy and contempt. "Don't take it to heart," she said. "If they weren't completely clueless, they wouldn't have pulled garrison duty. Anyway, isn't the whole big deal about Necessary Evil how shadowy and secret it is? Hardly surprising they've never heard of Boioannes."

  "You have," he pointed out.

  "Yes, but I've got a living to earn. I don't wait for briefings, I find things out before I need to know them. Talking of which: sixty thalers."

  Psellus blinked. "Excuse me?"

  "My fee," she explained. "For getting you across the border and all. Practically cost," she added, with a practiced sigh. "Meaning, the donkey you'll be riding could be carrying merchandise that'd earn me that much. Plus extra food and water to keep you alive, taking up more space. Say yes quickly, before I put it up to a hundred."

  "A donkey."

  "Yes. Well, what do you expect, a carriage and four?"

  Psellus looked at her. "I've never ridden a donkey before."

  "Easy. You just sit. If you can ride a horse, you can ride a donkey."

  "I've never ridden a horse."

  "Look, if you're just going to make difficulties…" But then she paused, made an effort, got the grin working again. "Put it this way," she said. "You're a Mezentine, right? The superior race, masters of the known world? Well, then. If a poor benighted savage like me can do it, so can you."

  Now I understand, Psellus said to himself: she's been sent-and paid-to collect me. If she goes back without me, she'll have to refund the fee. Otherwise, by now she'd have written me off as more trouble than I'm worth and told me to get lost. "A wagon," he said, "or no deal."

  She scowled horribly. "Out of the question. The way we go, you can't take wagons. It's a donkey or walk."

  He shrugged. There'd been a hint of panic in her voice, implying that as far as wagons were concerned she was telling the truth. "Fair enough," he said. "Sixty thalers; half now, half when we get there. When are you leaving?"

  Later, when he thought about that journey, Psellus found it hard to remember it clearly: the sequence of events, the constant terror, the agonizing pain in his backside and thighs. It was, he supposed, the same mental defense mechanism that caused him to forget his worst nightmares as soon as he woke up. The only impressions that lingered were the smell of drenched wool and the sight of the rocks that littered the ground on either side of the miserable tracks they followed, rocks on which he was convinced he would fall and split his head open like a water jug. One thing he knew he would never forget, however, was the first sight of Civitas Vadanis, glimpsed for a moment through a canopy of birch branches as they scrambled up a scree-sided hill. Really, it was nothing more than a gray blur, too big and regular-shaped to be yet another rocky outcrop. To Psellus, however, the mere fact that it was man-made lent it a beauty that no mountain, hillside, combe, gorge or valley could ever aspire to. Buildings; houses; people. It didn't matter that the people were hostile savages, as likely as not to kill him and eat him on sight, and to hell with the fact that he carried universally recognized diplomatic credentials. Two days and a night of spine-jarring across bleak, empty rocks had left him with an overpowering need for human contact, even if it took the form of a lethal assault.

  "That's it all right," the woman in red assured him. "Not much to look at from this distance, but when you get up close it's a bit of a dump, really. You'd never think the Vadani were rich as buggery just from looking at their architecture."

  Psellus didn't reply. Even from three miles away, he'd noticed something that set his teeth on edge.

  "No smoke," he said.

  It took her a moment to figure out what he'd meant by that. "There never is," she replied. "Not by your standards, anyhow. I gather your city looks like it's in permanent fog, because of all the forges and kilns and whatever."

  He shrugged. "That's all right, then," he said.

  But it wasn't. There was more to it than that, and as they got closer the apprehension grew. There should have been specks on the road, carts carrying things to and from the city, riders, people walking; even savages needed to eat, so there should have been constant traffic bringing food to town. On the other hand, plague was a possibility, but surely they'd have heard rumors. Plague aside, how else could a city be empty? The answer was that it couldn't be, and his impressions were false. But the city looked all wrong; it looked dead, like the still, flat corpse of an animal beside the road. While he'd been marooned in the frontier station, had the war come here, been and gone, without anybody bothering to tell him? Possible, he had to acknowledge. After all, he was always the last to know everything.

  A mile out, even the woman in red fell silent and looked worried. They were on the main turnpike now, a straight metaled road that looked down at the city like an archer's eye sighting along an arrow, but they had it entirely to themselves. Furthermore, there was no sign of livestock in the small, bare fields, divided up neatly into squares by low, crude dry-stone walls. Plague wouldn't have killed off all the sheep and cows as well as the people; or if it had, sure
ly there'd be bodies lying about, bookmarked by mobs of crows. Eventually, after not saying a word for nearly half an hour, the woman cleared her throat and said, "This is odd."

  "There's nobody here," Psellus replied.

  She appeared not to have heard him. "I heard your lot sent a cavalry raid not long back," she said. "My guess is, they've cleared everybody out of the outlying villages and farms and barricaded themselves inside the city, to be on the safe side." She made it sound as though Psellus had planned and led the raid himself, and therefore this desolation was all entirely his fault. "Could make it tricky for us getting in. We'll have to play it by ear, that's all."

  It turned into something of a farce. The woman in red insisted on acting inconspicuous, even when it was obvious that there was nobody to see. Her idea of inconspicuous shared several key elements with Psellus' definition of low pantomime-talking in a loud voice about deals she was planning, deals she'd recently made; stopping every fifty yards or so to check the loads on the donkeys; bawling out each muleteer in turn for imaginary offenses; retreating demurely behind every third bush for a mimed pee. The city, meanwhile, grew nearer in total silence and deathly stillness. She was giving the performance of her life in an empty theater.