Evil for Evil

by K. J. Parker

  The water wasn’t deep, but the pool bottom was spongy and soft. He tried to put his weight on his feet, but instead they sank down; he felt peat mud fill his boots, squidging between his toes. He was up to his waist before he stopped sinking. He laughed. Would being swallowed up in a bog count as drowning, or was it something rarer and unlikelier still? Typical Ducas, got to be different from everyone else. Thorough, too. When the Ducas resolves to die, he’s privileged to be provided with a redundancy of alternative causes. Surplus and excess in all things.

  “Hold on, don’t move.” It was a voice, faint on the edge of his awareness. “No, you clown, I said don’t move, you’ll just go further in.” Move? Come to think of it, the voice was right. He was still trampling aimlessly up and down, and each thrashing kick dragged him further into the mud. But a voice …

  “Now listen to me.” The voice was calm but urgent. He liked it. The voice of a good man. “I’m going to throw you a rope, and I want you to grab hold of it and hang on. Can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” Miel heard himself say. “Where are you? I can’t see you.”

  “Directly behind you.” Ah, that’d account for it. Of course, he couldn’t turn round to look. He felt something flop against his neck, looked down at his chest and saw the knotted end of a thin, scruffy hemp rope drooping over his shoulder like a scarf. “Got it?”

  Miel nodded. He carefully wrapped his right hand round the rope’s end, so that the heel of his hand was jammed against the knot. He had no strength to hold on with, but he might be able to keep his hand gripped shut. As an afterthought he folded his left hand round the rope as well.

  “Good boy. Don’t let go, for crying out loud.”

  A second or two; nothing happened. Then the rope tried to pull away. He felt its fibers rasping into the soft skin of his neck. He was being hauled backward; he couldn’t balance and his knees hinged. He was sure he was going to fall back, but remembered he couldn’t. The rope jerked his hands up until his clenched fists bashed the underside of his chin. It was like being punched by a very strong man; he swayed, his eyes suddenly cloudy, nearly let go of the rope — would’ve let go, except that the knot was jammed against his hand. He could feel himself being gradually, unnaturally pulled, like a bad tooth being drawn. It didn’t feel right at all. At the last moment, he tried to save his boots by curling his toes upwards, but he was wasting his time. His feet were yanked out of the boots like onions being uprooted. Now he fell; his backside and thighs were in the muddy water. He twisted round a half-turn, and a big stone gouged his hip painfully. He realized he was lying on his side on the grass. The rope’s end was still gripped in his right hand; he’d let go with his left when the rope burned it.

  Not drowning or smothering in mud, then. The thought crossed his mind, vivid and shocking as forked lightning, that maybe he wasn’t going to die after all.

  “It’s all right,” the voice was saying, “stay there, I’m coming.” Miel grinned for pure joy and, quite unexpectedly, sneezed. The whole thing reminded him, for some reason, of a time when he’d seen a calf being born, hauled out of its wretched mother’s arse on the end of a rope. So maybe I did die after all, he thought; maybe I died, and was reborn. As a cow.

  The rope was tugging at him again. “Let go,” the voice said, “it’s all right.” Miel wondered about that, realized that the owner of the voice wanted his rope back. Well, indeed; what with the price of rope and everything, why not? He let go.

  “Right, let’s have a look at you.” He’d closed his eyes; he opened them, and saw a pair of boots. Old, fine quality, carefully waxed. He turned his head and looked up.

  The voice’s owner, his savior, was not quite as tall as his cousin Jarnac and not nearly as broad across the shoulders and chest. He was somewhere between forty and fifty years old, if the proportion of gray in his hair was anything to go by; his face was long, intelligent and somehow weak-looking. His hands were small and slender, and there was a big, shiny red scar running the length of his left forefinger; a civilian scar, Miel’s instincts told him, rather than a military one. That came as something of a surprise. As well as the fine boots, he was wearing a short riding-coat (shiny and worn around the shoulders, suggesting that the man was in the habit of carrying heavy loads), breeches to match and long leather gaiters. The clothes could have come from Miel’s own wardrobe. Correction; they were the sort of clothes he used to give to his grooms and his falconers, old but still perfectly good.

  “I’m Tropea Framain,” the man said. “Who’re you?”

  Miel hesitated before speaking. “Thanks,” he said. “You saved my life there.”

  “I know. What did you say your name was?”

  “I’m trying to get to Cotton Cross, but I lost my way. Do you think you could possibly … ?”

  “What?” Framain looked like he’d just remembered something important and obvious. “Oh, right. When did you last have anything to eat and drink?”

  Miel shrugged. “Not sure.”

  “That bad. It’s all right,” Framain went on, “my place isn’t far. If I help you up, do you think you could stay on your horse for half an hour?”

  Framain’s own horse turned out to be a fine-looking bay mare. The other end of the miraculous rope was tied to its girth, which explained how Miel had been pulled from the bog. For some reason he felt painfully guilty about not telling Framain his name when asked to do so. It was a perfectly civil request, and Framain had done the proper thing by disclosing his own identity first. For the Ducas, bad manners are one of the few unforgivable crimes.

  They rode for a little less than the half-hour Framain had specified across an open, stony moor, with no trace of a building of any sort to be seen. The house appeared as though by magic; quite suddenly it was there, as if it had been lying down in the heather and had stood up when it heard its master approaching. In fact, it was concealed in a deceptively shallow saucer of dead ground. There was a big farmhouse, a long barn, a clump of stables, byres and other outbuildings, including one that looked like a giant beehive with a tall brick chimney; a covered well and a sheep-fold, large and empty. No sign of any livestock, unless you counted half a dozen thin-necked chickens pecking about in the yard. This man, Miel realized, isn’t a farmer. In which case, what is he? He noticed that the thatch on the farmhouse roof was gray with age and neglect, but the barn roof was bright gold with new, unweathered reed.

  “You’ll have to excuse the state the place is in,” Framain said (he hadn’t spoken since they’d started to ride). “I’m on my own here, and there’s a lot to do.”

  Miel muttered something polite. They rode down into the yard, which was open and unfenced. Framain dismounted, tied his horse to the fold rail, and helped Miel down. To his shame, Miel found he didn’t have any strength left in his legs; he slithered off his horse, and Framain had to catch him.

  “In here,” Framain said, and helped him to the farmhouse door. It was open. Miel remembered that when they’d passed it, the barn door was shut; he’d noticed three heavy iron bars and padlocks.

  The house was a mess: one long room, mostly filled with an enormous oak table, thick with dust. The windows were unshuttered and empty — no glass or parchment — and as they came in, two crows erupted from the middle of the table, where they’d been picking over a carcass on a broad pewter plate. They flew up and pitched in the rafters for a moment, cawing and shrieking angrily, then swooped low and sailed out through the nearest window. Framain didn’t seem to have noticed them. The walls were paneled in the old style, but the wood was gray and open-grained, and in places the damp had warped and split it away from the masonry, leaving behind nails rusted into the stone like arrowheads snapped off in a wound. The floor was dusty and crunched as they walked on it. There were rat and mouse droppings on practically every surface, and the smell was a confused blend of every imaginable kind of decay. Ashes and clinker from the blackened fireplace had spread onto the floor like lava from a volcano, but a thin, straight plume
of gray smoke rose up out of an extravagant heap of charcoal in the middle, and there was a full charcoal bucket nearby, next to a small table on which stood a fat, fresh loaf and a grimy earthenware jug. So somebody baked here, and kept the fire banked up, and fetched in the water.

  “Like I said,” Framain muttered, “it’s just me. Sit down, I’ll get you something to eat.”

  He hacked a massive plank of bread off the loaf with an edged tool that Miel couldn’t identify but which was never meant for the purpose; then he stood for a moment, frowning and indecisive, before reaching up into the rafters and pulling down the dustiest side of bacon Miel had ever seen. He wiped it with his sleeve before slicing off a chunk the size of his hand. Putting it on top of the bread, he handed it to Miel. “There’s water,” he said, “or wine.” He picked up the jug and peered into it, then poured some into a horn mug he found on the floor. “Better start with water if you’re parched,” he said. The water was gray and muddy with dust. Miel didn’t mind that, or the muddy taste of the bacon, although it was as tough as saddle-leather and he hardly had enough strength in his jaws to chew it. The bread was fine.

  Framain let him eat for a while; then he cleared his throat and said, “You’re Miel Ducas.”

  Miel nodded. “You know me from somewhere.”

  Framain shook his head. “I’ve never seen you before,” he said, “but it’s not hard to figure out. You said you were heading for Cotton Cross when you got lost, but you’d never have heard the name unless you knew the area, and if you knew the area you wouldn’t have got lost. I can tell from your voice that you’re an Eremian of good family. When I asked you who you were you didn’t answer, and you looked sheepish, so you’re anxious to keep your identity a secret but you haven’t had much practice at telling lies or pretending to be someone else. All this area used to be Ducas land, and it’s common knowledge that the Ducas himself is leading the resistance. It wasn’t terribly difficult to put it together.”

  Miel thought about the sword; the hanger he’d stolen from the scavengers and used to kill the two men with. He didn’t have it with him, so either it was hanging by its hilt-bow from his saddle-hook or he must have dropped it somewhere; in any case, even if he had the strength to fight, it was too far away to be any use to him. He couldn’t see any weapons in the room, apart from the cutting thing (a thatcher’s spar-hook, he realized) that Framain had sliced the bread and bacon with. Forget it, he told himself; if Framain wanted to hand him over to the Eremians, there was precious little he could do about it until he’d got his strength back.

  “That’s me, then,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer you earlier, it was very bad manners.”

  “Understandable.” Framain wasn’t eating or drinking. “In case you’re worried, I’m not — let’s say, I’m not political. I like to stay out of everybody’s way myself.”

  “I see,” Miel said.

  Framain laughed. “It’s not what you’re thinking,” he said. “I’m not a criminal or anything, I just like a little privacy. Especially these days, with the Mezentines charging about, and refugees, not to mention your lot, the resistance. No offense, but I tend to regard the whole human race as just a lot of different subspecies of pest.”

  Miel smiled cautiously. “In that case,” he said, “I apologize for intruding. And of course I’m really grateful —”

  Apparently Framain wasn’t interested in gratitude. “Anyway,” he interrupted briskly, “you can stay here and feed yourself up until you’re ready to move on, no problem there. You can call it repayment for arrears of rent, I suppose, since technically I’m a trespasser on your property. If you’ve finished your water, you might like a drop of the wine. You’ll like it, it comes out of sealed bottles.”

  Miel laughed awkwardly, and Framain knelt down and scrabbled about under the table for a while, finally emerging with a glass bottle wound round with swathes of filthy black cobweb. It turned out to be very good wine indeed.

  “Wasted on me,” Framain said. “Actually, it’s stuff my father laid down, about forty years ago. There were a dozen cases or so left when I came here, and I brought them with me. I don’t tend to drink the stuff myself. I don’t like the taste much, and it gives me heartburn.”

  Miel smiled politely, wondering how Framain’s clothes came to be clean and respectable when he lived in such squalor. Then he remembered the barn, newly thatched and carefully locked.

  “Can I ask what you do here?” he said.

  “Can you ask?” Framain laughed. “No, you can’t. Here, have some more of this stuff. They tell me it doesn’t keep once it’s been opened.”

  “I’m sorry,” Miel said. “I didn’t mean to cause offense.”

  “Of course you didn’t, and you haven’t.” He stood up. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, time’s getting on and I’d better get started. Help yourself to anything you want,” he added, gesturing vaguely at the surrounding squalor. “Feel free to roam around the place if you want to stretch your legs. I’d stay put here for a day or so if I were you, but if you’re in a desperate hurry to get somewhere, carry on. I’ll see you this evening, if you’re still here.”

  Miel nodded. “Thank you again,” he said. “If you hadn’t come along when you did —”

  “Well, there you go,” Framain snapped, “generous impulses and so forth. Tell you what: when the Mezentines have been driven out and you get your land and your money back, you can make it up to me. All right?”

  He left, and a little later Miel caught sight of him through the window that looked out onto the yard; he was standing at the top of the barn steps, opening the massive padlocks with keys he carried on a chain round his neck. Miel looked away, in case Framain noticed him watching. The Ducas does his best to avoid information that he shouldn’t have, and forgets it straightaway if he stumbles across it accidentally.

  The food and the wine (he finished off the bottle, as instructed) made him feel sleepy, and he woke up with his head cradled on his arms on the table. As he stirred, he startled a rat, which scuttled away into a castle of abandoned, heaped-up sacks and boxes. To his mild surprise, he felt a little stronger, though his neck hurt and his knees were cramped. Feel free to roam about the place; well, it might ease the cramp.

  He stood up, wobbled and grabbed the edge of the table. When he released it again, his hands were grimy with black dust, which didn’t brush off easily. He made an effort and went exploring.

  In the far corner of the room was a staircase, narrow and twisted into a tight spiral, so that Miel had to climb part of the way on his hands and knees. Upstairs there was only one small room, about the size of a hayloft. Apart from dust, and a carpet of crisp brown beech leaves, it was empty. The only other room in the house was back downstairs, at the opposite end of the main room: a pantry with a stone-flagged sunken floor, presumably used for storing root vegetables in the cool. It was empty too; there was a small pool of black water at the far end, where the floor wasn’t level. Evidently, then, Framain didn’t sleep in the house, unless he curled up under the table like a dog, and Miel couldn’t picture him doing that.

  A mystery, then; but the world is full of mysteries. Generous impulses, Framain had said; someone who pulled strangers out of quagmires and gave them food and water (albeit mixed with dust) couldn’t be a total misanthropist. True, he’d figured out who Miel was with depressing ease, but he wouldn’t have known that when he made the decision to rescue him, so it was unlikely that his actions had been prompted by hope of ransom, as the scavengers’ had been. The bottom line was that Miel was probably safe, for now, provided that he kept to the rules and didn’t go poking about and annoying his host. Small price to pay. That said, he found the place depressing and vaguely revolting. It would be nice to leave and go somewhere else.

  That reminded him; he dragged himself out into the fresh air. It was just starting to get dark. The barn door was shut up and locked again, all three padlocks in place in their hasps. Beyond it, he saw a thick column of bl
ack smoke rising from the chimney of the overgrown-beehive building he’d noticed earlier. Conceivably it could be a smokehouse, for curing hams and bacon and sausage. Perhaps that was what Framain did for a living. Perhaps.

  His horse wasn’t where he’d left it; after a rather draining search (still a very long way from a full recovery, then) he found it in a stable, along with the horse Framain had been riding and two others. The stable was much cleaner and tidier than the house: fresh straw, full mangers, clean water in the drinking troughs. His saddle and bridle had been hung neatly on a rack at the far end. The hanger was there too.

  That was a comfort; he still had transport and defense, which implied that Framain was sincere about letting him go if and when he wanted to. Not, he realized, that he’d be likely to get very far if he saddled up and left immediately. Quite apart from his sad lack of strength, he had no food and nothing to carry water in. Maybe Framain would provide them, too, but that remained to be seen. Until the issue was resolved, their absence would keep him here just as effectively as a shackle and chain.

  Suddenly realizing how weak he was feeling, he stumbled back into the house and flopped awkwardly onto the bench, banging his knee hard on the edge of the table in the process. It took him a while to recover from the strain of his excursion, and when he was alert enough to take an interest in his surroundings, he saw that the light was fading fast. He hadn’t seen anything in the way of lamps, candles or tapers, but more or less anything could be buried in among the trash on the table. Gritting his teeth, he reached out and explored, mostly by feel. To his relief, he found a candle, or at least the stub of one; then he looked at the fireplace and saw that at some point the fire had gone out, so he had no means of lighting it. He sighed wearily, and realized that his right hand was resting on something flat and rectangular that felt as though it could almost be a book.