by K. J. Parker
“Not for me,” Psellus said.
Vaatzes nodded and put the bottle down. “Probably better if we both keep a clear head,” he said. “The water’s a bit murky and brown, but harmless.” He tilted the jug, filled one cup and pushed it across the table before filling the other. Realizing how thirsty he was, Psellus left it where it was.
“The proof,” Vaatzes said.
It took Psellus a moment to figure out what he was talking about. “Of course,” he said, and reached inside his coat for the tightly sewn parchment packet. “You’ll find it’s all there,” he said. “There’s a notarized copy of the register, plus the original applications for dispensation to remarry. I’m sure you’ll recognize her handwriting, and your friend Falier’s.”
Vaatzes looked up sharply, then went back to scowling at the packet. Understandable if he didn’t want to open it. “If you’d rather read it in private,” Psellus went on, “I’ll step outside for a few minutes.” So considerate; such manners.
“No, that’s fine.” Vaatzes put the packet, unopened, on the table. “I don’t need to read them, do I?” he said. “I’ll take your word everything’s in order.”
“As you like.” Psellus forced himself not to frown. He noticed he’d picked up the horn cup and drunk the water without realizing he’d done it. “I’m supposed to ask you to let me have the applications back,” he said. “Because they’re the originals, you see, not copies, and strictly speaking I shouldn’t have taken them out of the archive.”
“I’ll keep them, if it’s all the same to you.”
Psellus nodded. “That won’t be a problem.” He breathed in; now he was afraid. “I’ve got something else you might want to have,” he said, laying the homemade poetry book gently on the table.
He watched Vaatzes look at it; for several seconds he sat perfectly still. “Thanks,” he said eventually. “I assume you’ve read it.”
“In the course of my investigations, yes.”
No word or movement, but for a moment Psellus could feel the heat of his anger. “Not up to much,” Vaatzes said. “Not my line, I’m afraid.” He picked the book up, and it was as though he wasn’t sure what to do with it; he held it in his hand, a gentle but firm grip, soft enough not to crush it but secure enough that it wouldn’t fall and shatter. “Has anybody else read it?”
Apart from the entire Guild assembly? “No,” Psellus said. The lie was sloppy work. He felt ashamed of it.
Vaatzes nodded, unconvinced. “Well, then,” he said, and put the book clumsily in his pocket. “We might as well get down to business, don’t you think?”
Business. Something scuttled on the floor, making Psellus jump out of his skin. How long had it been since the evacuation, and already the rats and mice were getting bold, or hungry and desperate. No guards in the gatehouse meant no crumbs. Business, he’d said, as if they were there to broker shipments of dried fish and roofing nails. Business.
(It occurred to him that Vaatzes might have poisoned the water; some of which Psellus had drunk, while Vaatzes’ horn cup had remained empty. Too late to worry about it now, of course. Besides, why bother to be sophisticated, in an empty city, against a slow, fat clerk?)
“I expect you already know,” Vaatzes was saying to the wall behind his head, “that I gave you Civitas Eremiae. I sent a message telling you how and where to break into the tunnels that serviced the underground cisterns. You know about that?”
Psellus nodded.
“I assumed you knew. And about the cavalry raid, here.”
Psellus looked up. “Yes,” he said. “Some of it.”
Vaatzes nodded. “I sent a letter to your committee,” he said, “telling them about Duke Valens’ wedding, and the grand celebratory bird hunt; I said that practically the whole Vadani establishment would be riding about in open country, unescorted. I gave them as much notice as I possibly could, so they could get a raiding party up here and in position.” He paused. “I’d just like to point out,” he went on, “that on both occasions I asked nothing in return, and on both occasions I put myself at risk. True, the second time I was able to plan things a little better. I sort of gatecrashed my way on to the guest list for the hunting party, as an alibi; I was with them when they set off, and then I turned back almost immediately — just as well I’m who I am, really; I’m an embarrassment, they feel uncomfortable around me, so they didn’t really notice that I wasn’t there. I went straight back and raised the alarm; so far, I don’t think anybody’s thought about that, me raising the alarm before the attack had actually happened.” He paused, smiled thinly. “I think I scheduled it pretty well, time for your men to slaughter the Vadani but not enough time for them to get away. Of course, they only did half a job, but even you must admit that wasn’t my fault.”
He paused, expecting some comment or reply. Psellus couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say.
“Why?” he said.
Vaatzes frowned. “Why did I do it, you mean?”
Psellus nodded. “The first time, I can understand,” he said, “I think. My guess was, you were sickened at the slaughter of our army, frightened when you realized we’d never give up; we could never forgive a defeat, we both know that. You thought: if I die in the assault, so what? If I escape, I’ve given them earnest of good faith; when I make them an offer a second time, they’ll know I’m serious. We were expecting you to bargain. Instead …”
Vaatzes nodded, as though acknowledging an admission of an elementary mistake. “Instead, I give you the Vadani government, free of charge. You’re confused. One free sample is the custom of the trade; two is simply eccentric.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Let me guess for a change,” he said. “You had a meeting, to discuss the contingency. Yes?”
Psellus nodded.
“It was agreed,” Vaatzes went on, “that if I sent an offer, to give you the Vadani, you’d agree. You’d negotiate, make a good show of striking a hard bargain; in the end, you’d give me what I really want — a pardon, permission to come home, my old job back. When you’d got me back to the city, there’d be a show trial, followed by an execution. The moral being: nobody forces a compromise out of the Perpetual Republic, no matter what.” He smiled. “Is that what the meeting decided?”
“Yes,” Psellus said, “more or less.”
“I thought so.” Vaatzes leaned back in his chair, laid his hands on the table. They were perfectly still. “Now I’m going to have to extrapolate from pretty thin data,” he said. “I’m guessing that there’s a great deal of resentment among the committee about the fact that I armed the Eremians, made it possible for them to kill so many of your troops — I keep wanting to say our troops; if I forget, please just take it as a slip of the tongue — just so as to raise my own value, if I can put it like that; to get myself into a position where I could bargain with you from a position of strength. Is that right?”
Psellus frowned. “Actually,” he said, “that’s not how we interpret it. We feel that when you first escaped from the city, you went to our most prominent enemy because it was the only place you felt safe; the Eremians would never hand you over to us, on principle. Particularly not after you’d shown them you could give them the same weapons that had wiped out their army. We assumed you hadn’t thought it through; that giving them the scorpions would make it inevitable that we’d invade and wipe out the Eremians.” He paused. “We underestimated you.”
Vaatzes smiled. “The way you say it,” he said, “I take it you didn’t share the majority opinion.”
It was like the moment when the girl you love but know you’ll never dare talk to comes across and asks you to dance. “I had my doubts,” Psellus said. “That’s why …” All his courage. “That’s what led me to talk to people who knew you. Your work colleagues. Your wife.”
Vaatzes didn’t move, not even a flicker.
“It began as little more than idle curiosity,” Psellus went on, trying to keep his voice from cracking. “I was intrigued to know what mot
ivated you; the great abominator, and so on. Then, after a while, I got the reputation of being the leading Vaatzes expert. I moved from Compliance to Necessary Evil as a result. That’s what set me thinking.”
“Go on,” Vaatzes said.
“Well.” Now that the moment of moments had come, Psellus found he’d lost the ability to think of words. “It seemed to me,” he said, “that there were two explanations for why I’d been promoted like that. The obvious one was that they were expecting you’d be important in the scheme of things, sooner or later; they were expecting that you’d make us an offer, and so they needed to have an expert on you on the staff, so to speak.”
“Reasonable,” Vaatzes said quietly.
“I thought so,” Psellus replied, “until I realized that they’d misunderstood you, the way we were talking about just now. They hadn’t realized, or they didn’t believe, that you’d got your plan of action more or less worked out from the start. That what you wanted — all you wanted — was to come home.” He paused, aware that he’d been talking too fast, tripping over words. “That didn’t make sense, of course,” he went on. “That view of your motivations didn’t fit with the idea that you’d be important, possibly the key to winning the war. Something as crucial as what you actually wanted …” He shook his head, and during the pause remarked to himself on the dead silence; here, at the main gate of a capital city. An abomination, if ever there was one. “If they believed you were just a runaway, scared for your own skin, only interested in staying safe, what did they need a Vaatzes expert for? They didn’t. So, that explanation didn’t work.”
Vaatzes nodded slowly; a little genuine respect. As though she’d looked up at you and smiled.
“Which left the alternative,” Psellus went on. “Namely, that they promoted me from Compliance up to Necessary Evil simply in order to keep me under control. Which is something I should’ve figured out long ago,” he went on, “after I’d been sitting alone in my office with nothing to do for weeks on end; completely out of the loop, isolated — I might as well have been locked up in a cell somewhere. It was because there was something about you they didn’t want me to find out. I was blundering about, talking to your wife, the people at the factory. Sheer aimless curiosity; but they didn’t want me doing it. I knew something was funny when I tried to contact the men who’d investigated the case, the prosecutor, the advocate; and for one reason and another, all quite reasonable, I couldn’t. They didn’t answer my letters, they weren’t available, they’d been reassigned. As far as I know, none of them’ve died or disappeared, but perhaps that’s only because I stopped poking around. I wondered why they hadn’t just got rid of me; I think that was when I started worrying about what the whole business was doing to me. But it’s hard, when you’re cooped up in an office all day long with absolutely nothing at all to do.”
He stopped. Vaatzes was looking at him.
“Which is all I can tell you, really,” he said. “And it’s just a theory, I can’t prove anything. I believe that there’s some unpleasant secret, something about the circumstances of your —” He was about to say offense. “Of what you did. I’m more or less certain that you weren’t aware of it; at least, not at the time. But now I’ve reached the dead end, as far as what I can find out on my own, back home. Basically, if I’m going to solve this puzzle, the only one who might be able to tell me anything useful is the source himself: you. And …” Deep breath. “And I thought,” he went on, his voice shaking just a little in spite of everything, “it also occurred to me that you’d probably be interested in any conclusion I might reach. Which is why I’m here,” he added feebly.
Silence; not even rats or chickens. Just the two of them.
“One thing,” Vaatzes said, eventually, in a voice so tense it hurt Psellus to listen to it. “Is it true? Really? About … ?”
“The wedding?” Psellus nodded. “And no, it’s nothing to do with me, not something we arranged. Probably I was the only one in Necessary Evil who even knew about it.”
“You told them?”
“Yes. By then I was starting to have my suspicions, about why I was there. On reflection, it didn’t seem wise to advertise the fact that I was still — well, taking an interest.”
“I think it matters,” Vaatzes said. “I think it’s really important; if any of them knew, before you told them. Do you agree?”
One expert consulting another. Psellus nodded. “I’m not sure how I can find out,” he added. “Obviously. But I’ll try.”
“Thank you.”
Two words that mean so much. “That’s all right,” Psellus said. “I feel —”
Vaatzes interrupted him. “This is getting strange,” he said, with a slight grin. “Not what I expected. I hadn’t anticipated you having anything to offer that I might actually want.”
“You think I’d come all this way with nothing to sell?” The words came out before Psellus was ready; but they were gone now, too late to worry about it. “I would like to ask you some questions,” he said. “But maybe not straightaway. I want …” He nerved himself. “I want you to be able to trust me. So I’d like to get the other stuff out of the way. The stuff I was sent to do. If I bring it up afterward, you might think …”
“I understand.” Vaatzes’ eyes were cold, but not hostile. “I take it there’s an offer.”
“Yes.”
“I’d be interested in hearing it.”
So Psellus told him. The Vadani, in return for immunity in exile.
“I see,” Vaatzes replied, after a long moment. “Is that the opening bid, or the final offer?”
This was the boundary; he could cross it, or hold back. “They feel it’s important that you trust them,” he said. “They know that you’d be suspicious if they offered you a chance to come home, but that’s what they want you to hold out for. My mission isn’t supposed to succeed. I’m supposed to make you an offer they know you’ll reject. Accordingly, immunity in exile is all I’m authorized to offer you.”
“I see.”
“Which is where the marriage was useful,” Psellus said (bad choice of words; he cringed). “I was supposed to tell you about it — well, it was my idea, they agreed — so you’d realize there’s nothing left for you back home; you might as well accept exile, settle down, find a nice girl, get a job. I was supposed to believe there was a good chance you’d see the sense in that and accept.”
Vaatzes grinned. “They underestimated you.”
“Something I’d have said was impossible,” Psellus replied, “but apparently they managed it. So, there’s the offer. Take it or leave it.”
They looked at each other across the table; two Mezentines in a strange, empty city.
“I accept,” Vaatzes said.
After Psellus had asked his questions and Ziani had answered them, they discussed the implications for a while. Then Ziani said, “I think I understand now.”
“It’s only a theory,” Psellus said nervously. “I couldn’t prove …”
Ziani shook his head. “You don’t have to,” he said. “Not for my benefit. After all, it’s not as though it changes anything.”
It amused him to see Psellus shocked. “It doesn’t?”
“Not now.” To make his point, he rested his hand lightly on the packet of documents lying on the table. “That’s changed everything, you see. You do understand, don’t you?”
“Yes.” No, of course he didn’t.
“Are you married?” Ziani asked.
“What? Oh, yes.” Psellus frowned. “Well, after a fashion. We’re separated. Have been for years. Most of our married life, actually.” He said it lightly.
“Why?” Ziani asked.
“We can’t stand living in the same house,” Psellus replied. “As I recall, it took us a whole month to realize. I haven’t set eyes on her for …” He frowned.
“As long as that.” Ziani nodded. “Why didn’t you simply get a divorce?”
“Not an option,” Psellus replied, looking away.
“I guess you could call it a political marriage. To be honest with you, I can’t actually remember the details; it was pretty complicated, and of course everything’s changed since then, the whole balance of power between the Guilds. I suppose I could get rid of her now, but where’d be the point? I’m far too set in my ways to bother about such things.”
Ziani nodded, as if to say he understood. He didn’t, of course. It was as though Psellus had said he was too old and cranky to be interested in breathing. “That’s your business,” he said, trying to keep the disapproval out of his voice. “It seems a bit of a waste of a life, though.”
“The least of my worries,” Psellus said.
Strange, Ziani thought. Such a very different attitude to the business of being human. But he said, “I suppose you’re lucky, being without love.”
Psellus looked uncomfortable. “You know what they say,” he replied. “What you’ve never had …”
“I suppose so. I can’t pretend I’ve had any luck with it myself. After all,” he added with a humorless chuckle, “if it wasn’t for love, I’d still be working in the factory, and the Eremians would still have their city.” He decided not to go there. “But that’s like saying the cure for death is not being born. I still believe in it, you know. Love.”
Just hearing him say the word seemed to embarrass Psellus. “Do you? I’d have thought …”
“Yes?”
“In your shoes,” Psellus said slowly, “I’d look on it as an escape. Like a runaway slave.”
Ziani thought for a moment. “There’s a bit of poetry I heard once,” he said. “About falling out of love. It’s not just escaping from the game, it’s taking the dice with you. I used to wonder what that meant.”