Evil for Evil

by K. J. Parker

  “If you say so.”

  “Quite.” He stopped talking and stared at a mark on the ceiling for a moment. “I can understand Ziani wanting to make a toy for his daughter, something she wanted very much that he could make for her. What I have trouble with is the fact that he saw fit to change the specifications. What do you think?”

  “It was against the law,” she said. “He shouldn’t have done it.”

  Psellus clicked his tongue slightly. “That’s not at issue. What I’m asking myself is this. Let’s leave the issue of risk out of it for a moment; let’s suppose that he firmly believed that he wasn’t going to be found out. A reasonable enough belief, by the way,” he added, “but we’ll come back to that. One thing at a time.” He leaned forward a little, crowding her. “At his trial, it was sort of assumed by default that he did it out of arrogance, just because he could; he thought he knew better than Specification, and that’s a mortal sin. Now, what kind of man do you reckon would think that way?”

  She didn’t say anything. He kept quiet, making it clear that she was required to answer.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Someone cocky.”

  “That’s what I’d have said, too,” Psellus replied. “Let’s see; someone who sees a better way of doing something — what he believes is a better way of doing something, at any rate — and can’t abide to do it the approved way instead, just because of some rule. Is that how you’d see it?”

  “I suppose so.”

  Psellus nodded firmly. “That’s not Ziani, though, is it?” he said. “I mean to say, he worked in the factory all those years, and he didn’t go around criticizing the way things were done.”

  “Of course not. It’s against the law.”

  Psellus smiled. “Not in the ordnance factory,” he said. “As you well know, it’s an exception to the rule. He had the scope, working where he did; and yes, he did propose a number of innovations — quite correctly, through the proper channels — but not in such a way as to rock the boat or put anybody’s back up. Most of the time, as far as I can tell, he was perfectly happy to follow Specification, because he acknowledged that it’s perfect as it is. Not the behavior, in other words, of the malcontent or the compulsive rebel.”

  She made a show of stifling a yawn. Psellus couldn’t help approving of that.

  “Here’s our paradox, then,” he said. “For some reason, he decides to make the doll. Eccentric, yes, but perfectly legal; he was entirely within his rights, breaking no laws. He’ll have gone to the specifications register and copied out the drawings and the commentary, gone home and planned out how he was going to tackle the job — the tools he’d need, the materials; and then he takes it into his head to make changes, improvements. Can you explain that, do you think?”

  “No.”

  “Neither can I,” Psellus said, “which is why you’re here, and why you can’t go home until I have an answer that makes sense. All right, let’s break it down into little bits and see if that helps. Let’s start with the sequence of events.”

  “The what?”

  “The order he did things in. Do you think he made the changes while he was reviewing the plans, or did they occur to him once he’d started?”

  She shrugged, a very small movement. “I don’t know.”

  Psellus acted as though he hadn’t heard her. “I think,” he said, “he made them before he actually began to cut metal; I don’t see him as the sort of man who improvises in midstream, not unless something goes wrong. If I’m right, do you see the implications?”

  She shook her head.

  “It means,” Psellus said, “that he started out with the view of — I don’t know, of making the best mechanical doll he could possibly make, and to hell with rules and laws. That’s different, don’t you agree, to making a change on the spur of the moment. More deliberate. A stronger intention.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Of course, I’m only guessing,” Psellus went on. “Perhaps the changes were spur-of-the-moment decisions after all. But here’s another thing.” He straightened his legs under the desk. “If I was a very skillful craftsman, as Ziani was —”

  “You keep talking like he’s dead or something.”

  “So I am,” Psellus said. “As he is, then; if I built something very clever and difficult, like a mechanical doll — well, I’m making it for my daughter, we know that. But I think I’d also want to show it off, just a little: to friends at work, other craftsmen, people who’d know and appreciate the quality of my work. I couldn’t resist that, it’s only natural, don’t you think?”

  She said nothing.

  “I think so. But by changing Specification, I’m making that impossible. I’m building this very clever machine, and nobody else will ever see it, apart from a kid who won’t understand. Now, we’re saying that a man who changes Specification must be guilty of the sin of pride; but if he was proud of the work, he’d want to show it off, wouldn’t he? There’s the paradox. You can see it, can’t you?”

  Still nothing. She was looking just past his head.

  “Maybe now you can see why I’m in such a tangle,” Psellus went on sadly. “None of it makes any sense, does it? There’s no sense in building it at all — if your daughter had wanted a mechanical doll more than anything in the world, I’m sure you’d have known about it, her mother. She’d have nagged and begged and wheedled and made a pest of herself. And if she didn’t want it so desperately, the only other motive for building it would be pride, and we’ve just agreed it couldn’t have been that. What a muddle,” he added. “It really doesn’t add up.”

  “I suppose it doesn’t,” she said quietly. “And I’m sorry if it bothers you, but I can’t understand it either. Not when you put it like that.”

  Psellus smiled. “Ah,” he said, “but that’s only the little mystery. That’s nothing at all compared to the big mystery. You wait till we get onto that, and you’ll see why I simply can’t leave it alone.” He took a deep breath, and sighed. “But we won’t bother about that now. Let’s talk about something a bit less gloomy. How about true love?”

  Her eyes gleamed angrily. “What are you on about now?”

  “Falier,” he replied, “the man you’re going to marry, now that you’ve got your dispensation. Your true love. At least, I’m assuming …” He grinned. “I take it you two are in love; why else would you be getting married, after all?”

  “Yes,” she said, and her voice was like the grating of the two ends of a broken bone. “Yes, we love each other. All right?”

  He nodded. “I thought as much,” he said. “After all, it’s a big step, for both of you. He’ll be taking on another man’s child, for one thing; not to mention the wife of the Republic’s most wanted man. It stands to reason he must love you very much.”

  “He does. You can ask him, if you like.”

  “I might, now you suggest it.” Psellus nibbled a bit more off the rim of his biscuit. “And then there’s you. Intriguing, let’s say. A lot of trouble was gone to so that you could stay in your house and get your pension from the Guild — I almost said widow’s pension, but of course, Ziani’s still alive. Someone really put himself out to arrange all that. You wouldn’t happen to know who, would you? I seem to be having a certain amount of difficulty finding out through approved channels.”

  That got her attention. “Sorry,” she said, “no idea.”

  “Some anonymous benefactor, then,” he replied. “My first thought was your father; and yes, he made representations, through his head of chapel. I saw the file; the application was dismissed. The other file — the one that was approved — seems terribly difficult to find, however. I’ve had archivists scurrying around the records office looking for it, but it doesn’t appear to be there. They think the mice may have eaten it, though apparently they didn’t manage to get their teeth into the approval certificate. I had a good look at that, and it says quite clearly: by order of the Guild benevolent association, you get to stay in the house and draw
the pension for life or until remarriage. All perfectly in order. Not signed, of course. Being a certificate, it’s got a seal rather than a signature; which is annoying, because a signature would’ve given me a name, someone I could’ve pestered for some background. But a seal simply means it was sent down to the clerks’ office with the other approved documents.” He shook his head slightly. “Not to worry. We were talking about love, not office procedures. The point I’m making is, thanks to this unknown altruist, you were nicely placed for life: a home and an income — not a fortune, but as much as any Guild widow gets. More, actually, because of Ziani’s status. I think that, in your position, most people would’ve been very grateful for that.”

  “I was. What are you getting at?”

  He waved his hand vaguely. “I’m not getting at anything. I’m just saying: your marriage to Falier can’t just be a single mother’s entirely understandable desire for security, a roof over her head, food and clothes for the kid. No, you’re giving all that up — for life or until remarriage, remember? Yes, I’m sure you do. So you’re making sacrifices, just as Falier is. Therefore, logically, you must be in love, or why do it?”

  “We’re in love,” she snapped, “I just told you that.”

  He nodded. “And I’m explaining why I believe you,” he said soothingly. “It’s not as if I don’t approve of love; on the contrary, I think it’s a splendid thing, and so does the Guild. Official policy; love is a benefit to the community at large, and should be encouraged.” He chuckled. “They did a study once, did you know? They did a survey, and they found that happily married men, and men who were either engaged or going steady, had a sixteen percent higher productivity rating, adjusted over time, than bachelors and men who didn’t get on with their wives. So, you see, love is good for business as well as everything else.”

  “That’s really interesting,” she said flatly.

  “Isn’t it? Of course,” he went on, “that’s good news for the ordnance factory. When Ziani was foreman, productivity was excellent; if the survey’s to be believed, presumably it’s because he loved his wife and was happy at home. Since he left and Falier took over, productivity — measured in output per man-hour — has dropped by seven percent. But now Falier’s getting married to someone who loves him very much, so with any luck we ought to be able to claw back that seven percent and who knows, maybe even notch up an extra point or two. Coincidence, of course, that he’ll be marrying Ziani’s wife; but the view the committee took is that if you made Ziani happy, it’s likely you’ll make Falier happy too. A proven track record, as you might say.”

  She gave him a poisonous look, and said nothing. He drank the rest of his water. Siege warfare, he thought; the attacking army lines up its siege engines, its catapults and mangonels and trebuchets and onagers, and lets fly a horrendous bombardment against the city walls, until the air is thick with the dust from pounded masonry, but the walls are thick enough to shrug it off. But the bombardment is just a decoy, because while it’s going on, the sappers are digging under the walls, laying their camouflets, lighting their fires; and when the walls fail, it’s not the direct attack that’s done the trick, it’s the undermining.

  “Anyway,” he said, lifting his empty cup. “Here’s to love.” He mimed a sip and put the cup down. “Now, I think, it’s about the right moment to go back to that big mystery I was talking about a while ago. Are you ready for it, do you think?”

  She made a soft, disdainful noise in her throat.

  “Splendid,” he said. “Here goes, then. I told you just now that the mice ate the records of the board’s decision on your pension application. Well, it seems we’ve got quite a serious vermin problem down there in the vaults, because they aren’t the only records that appear to have got all chewed up — assuming that’s what happened to them, of course. Another batch of papers that seems to be very difficult to get hold of is the early part of the file on Ziani’s investigation; you know, the inquiries that led to his arrest. The interesting stuff, not the bits they read out at the trial. The bits that’d tell me how they found him out in the first place.”

  He looked at her. Blank, sheer, closed, like a city wall.

  “Well,” he went on, “I couldn’t get hold of the papers, but I thought, that’s all right, all I need to do is find the investigating officers and ask them; simple as that. And here’s where it starts to get a little disturbing, because those officers seem to have become confoundedly elusive. I wrote to them and got no answer; I wrote to their superiors, and all I got was an acknowledgment. I got my superiors to write to their superiors, and they told me my inquiry had been noted and they’d see what they could do about arranging interviews, but I waited and nothing happened. I went to the paymaster’s office and checked, just to make sure the officers were still alive and in the service; no worries on that score, they’re still on the books and drawing their pay. That set my mind at rest; I was worried they might have got lost down in the archives and eaten by the mice. But I still haven’t been able to talk to them, or get a letter from them, or anything resembling answers to my questions. And then I thought of you.”

  “Me,” she repeated.

  He shrugged. “It’s worth a try, I thought. Maybe you might know. You see,” he went on, “logically, there’re only a limited number of ways that anybody could’ve found out about what Ziani was doing. He could have shown the doll to someone and told them; or someone could have visited the house and seen the doll, or drawings and sketches; either that, or someone else must have mentioned it — informed on him direct to the Guild, or told someone who did the actual informing. One of those three possibilities, unless you remember different, or you can think of any other way. No? Fine.”

  “It came as a complete shock,” she said. “They just turned up on the doorstep one day, said they were from the Guild, and where was his workshop? Then they started measuring things with calipers and rules and stuff, and when Ziani came home, they arrested him.”

  Psellus nodded slowly. “That’s interesting,” he said. “Interesting, I mean, that they seemed to know what they were looking for. Of course it’s all a bit technical — I can explain it for you if you like, or you can take my word for it — but the thing is, the actual changes he made, the abominations; they weren’t the sort of thing you’d notice just by looking. You’d need to measure everything very carefully, do all sorts of tests before you found them. You mentioned calipers and rules, by the way; can you remember anything else they used? Any other kinds of equipment?”

  “There could have been other things,” she said. “I wouldn’t know what they were. I don’t know about technical stuff.”

  “Of course not. But they’d have needed resistance gauges — that means gadgets you use to measure the strength of a spring; other tools like that. They’re quite bulky, not the sort of thing you can cart around in a pocket or a tool-roll. Were they carrying heavy bags, or cases?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Ah well.” Psellus looked down at his hands for a moment. “Maybe we can get rid of the second alternative — if you remember, that was someone, a visitor, catching sight of the doll while it was being made, and noticing something was wrong. I’d figured out a perfectly plausible way it could’ve happened; a dinner guest wandering into the wrong room, or going to get a coat he’d left. But this notional visitor would have to be someone who knew that particular specification intimately — rather narrows the field, I’d say — and who just happened to have calipers and a resistance gauge handy at the time … And then I thought, perhaps what he saw wasn’t the doll itself, but drawings and schematics, and he noticed the changes. But that’d still mean he’d need to be an expert on the specification. No, I think we can sideline that possibility. In which case, we’re left with the other two. Either Ziani told someone, or someone else knew what Ziani was up to and informed on him.” He looked up and smiled brilliantly. “And, of course, both of those are impossible too. Aren’t they?”

  She loo
ked past him. “You’ve lost me,” she said.

  “Really?” He raised his eyebrows. “It’s not exactly difficult to follow. Ziani wouldn’t have told anybody, because we agreed, it’s not in his nature. And there can’t have been anybody else who told on him, because who else would’ve known about it? Only someone who knew he was making the doll, and who knew he was including the abominations — someone he’d told about the changes he was planning on making. And, frankly, who could that possibly have been? Nobody.” He looked up, at a spot on the ceiling directly above her head. “Well, you, possibly. Just conceivably he might have told you. But that makes no sense, because why on earth would you betray him to disgrace and death? After all, you stood to lose everything. And,” he added, “you loved him, of course. True love.”

  “That’s right,” she said, quietly and icily. “I didn’t know, and if I’d known I wouldn’t have told.”

  “Of course not,” Psellus said. “Of course you wouldn’t. But then who does that leave? No one at all. Except …” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “There’s Falier, of course. His direct subordinate at the factory, the man you’re about to marry. He’d understand the technical stuff. I don’t suppose for one minute that he’d be carrying the mechanical doll specification around in his head, but he’d know where to look it up. Even so; that still needs someone to have tipped him off, so he could go and inform on Ziani to the Guild. And who could’ve done that? Someone who wanted to, and someone who knew about it. That rules you out,” Psellus said, smiling, “on at least one count. So, now you understand why I’ve taken to thinking of this as the big mystery. It’s not just big, it’s huge, don’t you think? Not that it’d matter a damn,” he went on, “if Ziani hadn’t managed to escape from the Guildhall the way he did. Because, all said and done, it’s irrelevant exactly how he was found out. What matters, in the end, is the fact that he did actually commit the crime. He was guilty. We know that, because he said so. No, it’s only worth going over all this old stuff because Ziani’s still very much alive and on the loose. You know, don’t you, that he betrayed Civitas Eremiae to us?”