by K. J. Parker
He sagged. “I’m Miel,” he said.
She nodded. “Actually, I’m impressed,” she said. “I’ve been watching you. It’s clever, how you figured it all out. But you need to fold back a couple of inches when you thread the needle,” she added. “Otherwise it just pulls out.”
“Is that right?” Miel said. “Well, now I know.” He sighed, and let the shirt drop from his hands. “So what are you going to do?” he said.
She shrugged. “Obviously,” she said, “either I teach you how to sew properly, or I’ll have to do all those clothes myself. Why did you pretend to be someone else?”
“I was afraid that if you knew who I was, you’d sell me to the Mezentines,” he said. “Isn’t that what you do?”
She didn’t move or say anything for a moment. “No,” she said. “They’re the enemy. If it wasn’t for them, we’d still be at home on our farms.” She frowned. “We don’t do this out of choice.”
“I’m sorry.” He wasn’t sure he believed her, but he still felt ashamed. “Do you know what happened in the battle?” he asked (but now it was just a way of changing the subject).
“No. I expect we’ll hear sooner or later. Why, don’t you?”
“I got knocked out halfway through,” he explained.
“Ah.” She smiled, crushing the scar up like crumpled paper. “I can see that’d be frustrating for you. Not that it matters. You’re bound to lose eventually. You never stood a chance, and at your best you were nothing but a nuisance.”
“I suppose so,” Miel said quietly.
“Aren’t you going to argue with me?” She was grinning at him. “You’re supposed to be the leader of the resistance.”
“Yes.” He knew he was telling the truth, but it felt like lying. “So I’m in a good position to know, I suppose.”
“Well.” She frowned. “All right, you can’t sew. Is there anything you can do? Anything useful, I mean.”
He smiled. “No.”
“And you’re hardly ornamental. Do you think the Mezentines really would give us money for you?”
She walked away and came back with a cloth bag that clinked and jingled. As he took it from her, it felt heavy in his hand. “Tools,” she said. “Two pairs of pliers, wirecutters, rings, rivets, two small hammers. Do you know what they’re for?”
He thought for a moment, then nodded. “I think so,” he said.
“I thought it’d be more likely to be in your line than sewing, and it’s easier. It must be, men can do it. Figure it out as you go along, like you did with the sewing. When you’re ready to start …” she nodded into the corner of the barn, “I’ll help you over there.”
“Might as well be now,” he said.
She bent down and he put his arm round her neck. Not the first time he’d done that, of course; not the first time with a redhead. The most he could claim was, she was the first one-eyed woman he’d ever been cheek to cheek with. Her hair brushed his face and he moved his head away.
“You’re standing on my foot,” she said.
He apologized, perhaps a little more vehemently than necessary. Her hair smelled of stale cooking oil, and her skin was very pale. When they reached the corner, he let go and slithered to the floor, catching his knee on the way down. That took his mind off other things quite effectively.
“It’s all right,” he gasped (she hadn’t actually asked). “I just …”
“Be more careful,” she said. “Right, I’ll leave you to it. I’ve got work to do.”
When she’d gone, he pulled open the nearest sack and peered inside. It looked like a sack full of small steel rings, as though they were a crop you grew, harvested, threshed and put in store to see you through the winter. He dipped his hands in, took hold and lifted. At once, the tendons of his elbows protested. A full-length, heavy-duty mail shirt weighs forty pounds, and it’s unwise to try and lift it from a sitting position.
He hauled it out nevertheless, spread it out on the floor and examined it. Mezentine, not a top-of-the-range pattern. The links were flat-sectioned, about three-eighths of an inch in diameter, each one closed with a single rivet. A good-quality shirt, like the ones he was used to wearing, would have smaller, lighter links, weigh less and protect better. This one had a hole in the back, just below where the shoulder blade would be, and the area round it was shiny and sticky with jellying blood. The puncture had burst the rivets on five of the links; must’ve been a cavalryman’s lance, with the full impetus of a charging horse behind it, to have done that. He looked a little closer, contemplating the twisted ends of the damaged links. So much force, applied in such a small space. He’d seen wounds before, felt them himself; but there was more violence in the silent witness of the twisted metal than his own actual experiences. That’s no way to behave, he thought.
She’d been right; it was much easier to understand than sewing, though it was harder work. He needed both hands on the ends of the wirecutter handles to snip through the damaged links, and after he’d bent a few replacement links to fit (one twist to open them, one to close them up again), the plier handles had started blisters at the base of both his thumbs. The only really awkward part was closing up the rivet. For an anvil he used the face of one of his two hammers. The only way he could think of to hold it was to sit cross-legged and grip it between his feet, face up, his calf jamming the handle into the floor. He tried it, but the pain from his injured knee quickly persuaded him to try a different approach; he ended up sitting on the hammer handle and leaning sideways to work, which probably wasn’t the way they did it in the ordnance factory at Mezentia. Hauling the shirt into position over the hammer was bad enough; lining up the tiny holes in the ends of the links and getting the rivet in without dropping it was torture. He remembered someone telling him once that there were fifty thousand links in a really high-class mail shirt. He also remembered what he’d paid for such an item. It didn’t seem quite so expensive, somehow.
“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 s
ooner 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 until 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 chan
ce 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.