Evil for Evil

by K. J. Parker

  “Please,” Ziani said, with a shudder that was only mildly exaggerated for effect. “I’d only hurt it, or lose it or something.”

  “You don’t like the idea of being an honorary earl, then?”

  “Me? Not likely. I remember looking at that list in King Fashion, and there doesn’t seem to be a species of bird of prey appropriate for a factory supervisor.”

  Orsea pursed his lips. “No,” he said. “Unless a supervisor counts as a clerk, in which case you’re entitled to a male sparrowhawk. You wouldn’t want one, though, they’re useless.”

  “Orsea.” Veatriz tugged very gently at his sleeve. “They’ve arrived.”

  “What? Oh.” Orsea looked round, and saw a party of five,already mounted, on particularly fine matching dapple-gray palfreys. Valens was in front, looking pale and uncomfortable in gray velvet. Next to him, the savage woman — the Duchess, Orsea corrected himself — also in gray; next to her, the two uncles, overdressed in fringed, slashed buckskin over scarlet satin; bringing up the rear, the head austringer. All five carried hawks on their wrists. The Duchess looked solemn to the point of sourness, Valens looked apprehensive, and Orsea had the feeling that neither of the uncles was completely sober. Jarnac should have been here, he caught himself thinking; then he remembered that Jarnac (the frivolous, irresponsible buffoon who lived only for hunting and hawking) was still in Eremia, fighting what little was left of the war for the survival of his people. The question is, Orsea asked himself, what the hell am I doing here? To that, of course, there was no sensible answer.

  Time to mount; he looked round, suddenly realizing that he no longer owned a horse; but there was a groom standing next to him (hadn’t been there a second before, he could have sworn) holding the bridle of a tall chestnut gelding; for him, apparently. He handed the hawk to Veatriz, heaved himself into the saddle, kept still while the groom fussed over the stirrup leathers and the girth, then leaned forward and took the hawk back. It settled comfortably on his wrist, as though there was a socket there for it to snap into. Anybody looking at him would be forgiven for thinking he was somebody important: a duke, say.

  Veatriz was mounted too; they’d given her a small, rounded bay jennet and a pretty little merlin, with a green velvet hood. He looked past her to see what they’d brought for Ziani, and was amused to see him heaped up (no other word for it) on the back of a huge, chunky black cob, with legs like tree trunks. He looked very sad, and was clearly trying not to think of how far off the ground he was. At once, Orsea thought back to the disastrous hunt that Jarnac Ducas had organized, not long before the siege of Civitas Eremiae; Ziani Vaatzes had contrived to get himself in the way of a wounded and very angry boar, and it had taken some pretty spectacular heroics from Miel Ducas to save his hide … But Orsea didn’t want to remember Miel Ducas just then.

  Movement. He legged his horse round to fall in with the rest of the party, looking for Veatriz; but she’d joined the column further up, and was riding next to a fat man on a huge roan mare, just behind the five dapple-grays. He frowned. He wanted to be closer to her, but it’d be a fearful breach of protocol to jump places, now that the party had set off. He glanced over his shoulder. Ziani was bringing up the rear, on his own, a few yards ahead of the hunt servants and the hawks. “Fine day for it,” the man beside Orsea said.

  “Not bad,” he replied. “I’m sorry, I don’t know …”

  “My name’s Daurenja,” the man said; and Orsea looked at him properly. Extraordinary creature, he thought, somewhere between a rat, a toad and a spider, with a long ponytail of dank black hair. But he rode very well, with a fine upright seat, head up and shoulders back, and he wore the sparrowhawk on his wrist like some sort of ornament, the way fine ladies wished they could. “I work for Ziani Vaatzes, the engineer.”

  “I know Ziani,” Orsea said. “He’s just behind us, if you’re looking for him.”

  “I know,” the man replied. “But he’s really not used to this sort of thing, and since I’m his assistant, I don’t want to make him feel self-conscious. He’d feel I was showing him up.”

  Fair enough, Orsea thought; and if Valens saw fit to invite this character, that was entirely up to him.

  “Mind you,” the man went on, “I’m pretty rusty myself. Haven’t been out with the hawks for years, not since I was a kid. My father kept a lanner and a couple of merlins, we used to go out quite often at one time, but …” He shrugged expressively. “Things got in the way since then, you know how it is. So this is quite a treat for me. I must say, I was surprised when I got the invitation. I’m guessing they only asked me because they assumed I’d refuse.”

  Orsea smiled bleakly. “Valens has got quite a reputation as a falconer,” he said. “Chances are we’re in for a good day.”

  “It’s a privilege, I know,” the man said. “Ever since I came here, I’ve been lucky enough to be associated with some exceptional people.”

  Orsea tried to think of something to say, but couldn’t.

  They rode down into the valley, along the river, past the lake toward the marshes. “Looks like we’re starting with heron,” the man said cheerfully. “I hope so,” he went on, “that’d give your peregrine a chance to show what she’s made of. That’s a beautiful bird you’ve got there, by the way.”

  “Thanks,” Orsea said awkwardly. “Actually, she’s not mine. I think she belongs to the Duke.”

  The man nodded. “Conditions should be just right for her; nice warm day, the air rising. I’m not sure what I’ll find for this old thing to fly at, unless we head up through the stubbles later on and put up a partridge or two. I don’t think she’s done much,” he added sadly. “The woman I borrowed her from — merchant, down in the town — I think she only keeps her as a fashion accessory. I just hope I don’t lose her as soon as I let her go. That’d be embarrassing.”

  “That’s sparrowhawks for you,” Orsea heard himself say, in the cheerful, slightly loud voice he used for being polite to people he’d taken an early, irrational dislike to. “They’re as bad as goshawks for straying.”

  “Absolutely,” the man said earnestly. “And so damn picky with their food, die as soon as look at you, out of sheer spite. My father bought one for my mother, but she couldn’t stand the thing, so she passed it on to my elder brother to catch thrushes with. He’d had it six months, just starting to think he’d reached an understanding with it, and then suddenly one morning he comes down and finds it lying on the mews floor, dead as a nail. Put him right off hawks for life.” He sighed, as though reliving the sadness of it all. “What I always wanted,” he went on, “was a saker. Of course, there wasn’t much river work where I grew up: partridges in the autumn, pheasant and woodcock in winter. A saker’s much more of a moorland hawk, I always feel, though of course the best ones come from the south; I expect our new best friends favor them, for desert work.”

  At least, Orsea told himself, he doesn’t seem inclined to talk about the wedding. Small mercies. Even so, it would be very pleasant to get back to his room later on, and bolt the door.

  They were skirting the edge of the marshes, riding slowly, picking their way between tussocks of couch grass along a black, peaty sheep-trail. The sunlight glared off steel-gray pools, and the stink of bog mud was very strong. Through a curtain of reeds Orsea was sure he’d caught sight of ducks, floating in the middle of a broad pool, but apparently they weren’t the quarry Valens had in mind. Orsea could just see him, well ahead of the rest of the party, riding with the master falconer at his side; they spoke to each other occasionally, a few low words. Suddenly Valens held up his hand. The column halted — Orsea had to rein in quite sharply to keep from barging into the tail of the horse in front — and Valens and the falconer went on ahead, moving slowly but with obvious purpose, as though looking for something they knew was there.

  It proved to be a pair of herons, which burst out of a clump of reeds and soared upwards, pumping their wings as they gained height. Valens and the falconer were unhooding t
heir hawks — the Duchess’ goshawk, and a superb white gyrfalcon which the falconer had been carrying. By the time the hoods were off, the herons were black specks smudged by the glare of the sun, but the hawks lifted and followed their line, binding to them straightaway, overtaking them, turning them back and swooping when they were almost directly above Valens’ head. The goshawk struck a second or so before the gyrfalcon, at which the Duchess’ uncles cheered and clapped loudly; nobody else moved or made a sound. Presumably it was either a political point or a good omen. The falconer dismounted to break up the dead herons; he cut them open, twisted and tugged out the wing-bones, cracked them like a thatcher twisting a spar and teased out the marrow as a reward for the hawks. They ate it off the side of his hand, quickly and disdainfully, as though eating was hardly a proper activity for a well-bred hawk.

  “Pretty flight,” Daurenja was saying, “though the goshawk was a bit slow to bind, I thought. Still, she made up for it through the air.”

  Orsea nodded, since it was easier to agree than to think about what he was saying. The falconer was stringing the herons from his saddle by their necks; their heads drooped like wilted flowers. While he was busy, a dozen or so men appeared over the skyline, with four long, thin greyhounds and four spaniels at their heels: beaters, presumably, to drive the reeds.

  “This is more like it,” Daurenja was saying. “I guess they’d marked that pair of herons beforehand, and Valens wanted to start with them to try out the new goshawk, so he held the beaters and dogs back in case they put the ducks up early.”

  (There you are, then, Orsea thought. Another of life’s mysteries solved.)

  Valens, the falconer and the leader of the beating party were deep in conference, each of them pointing in a different direction and looking thoughtful and solemn. Evidently, there had been some unforeseen development that had thrown out their carefully framed strategy. If only we’d taken this much care over our tactical planning during the war, Orsea thought, I’d probably still be in Civitas Eremiae right now; either there or inside Mezentia, interviewing potential garrison commanders. The conference appeared to break up; then Valens must’ve changed his mind, because he waved the head beater back for a second round of negotiations, while three of the dogs lay down in the heather and went to sleep. The falconer came back and joined in, there was quite a bit more pointing; then Valens nodded his head decisively and everybody started to move at the same time. The dogs jumped up, their heads lifted; the beaters slipped the chokes over their necks and led them off, apparently back the way they’d just come.

  “Wind direction,” Daurenja commented sagely. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s changed, coming from the south now, so I guess the beaters are having to sneak round the south edge and come up that way, in case the ducks spook and go back. We’ve just got to bide here till we get the signal that they’re in position. Then he’ll spread us out so we’re surrounding the pond, and we’ll all get a fair crack once the ducks get up.”

  “More than likely,” Orsea muttered. Any pleasure he might have wrung out of the afternoon was being leached out by Daurenja’s insufferable commentary. He wished he could think of some perceptive or erudite comment to make, so he could show Daurenja that he knew much more about the subject than he did. Nothing came to mind, however, and the peregrine was starting to shift about on his wrist. He yawned, and wished he was somewhere else.

  “You’ve got to hand it to Valens, though,” Daurenja was saying, “he definitely — hello, we’re moving.” Sure enough, the master falconer was waving his free arm in a circle, and the rest of the column was breaking formation. Orsea realized he hadn’t been paying proper attention, and didn’t know where he was supposed to go. Of course it’d be just typical if he ruined everything by being out of position …

  He swallowed his pride. “Excuse me,” he asked Daurenja, “but did you happen to notice … ?”

  “Where he wants us?” Daurenja nodded. “Over there, either side of that scrubby little thorn bush. Not a bad spot; we won’t get any action as they’re heading out, but we should get a couple when they start coming back in, if we’re lucky.”

  “Thanks,” Orsea replied, trying not to resent the us part of it. He legged his horse round and followed Daurenja, splashing through a shallow pool of brown water. He looked up; if Daurenja was right about the likely sequence of events, the sun would be in his eyes at the critical moment. Somehow, he wasn’t in the least surprised.

  He reached what he guessed was his assigned position, settled himself in his saddle and looked round to see what was going on. The hunting party was encircling the pool where he’d seen the ducks, standing off from it about twenty yards. He couldn’t see the birds over the curtain of reeds, but he could hear the occasional reassuring quack. The stillness and quiet was familiar, at any rate, and gradually he could feel the excitement build inside him, as suspense and impatience tightened his chest. He found himself anticipating the possible flight lines of ducks leaving the pool, drawing lines and calculating angles in his mind. On these occasions he felt like a component in a machine, some part of a complicated trap, his movements directed and dependent upon the movements of the rest of the mechanism. That made him think of Ziani Vaatzes, who claimed to be able to see complicated designs in his mind; he glanced round for a sight of him, but couldn’t pick him out. He looked down at the hawk on his wrist and saw it properly for the first time. His job was simple enough, though with plenty of scope for error. As soon as the ducks got up, he’d unbuckle the hood-straps and the jesses and throw the hawk, so that by the time it struck its first wingbeat, it would already have the necessary speed and be following the right line. On his day, he knew, he was very good at it. If it wasn’t his day, he was perfectly capable of messing it up beyond all recovery. He hoped very much that nobody would be watching him. Then it occurred to him that he didn’t know where Veatriz was. He looked round for her, and therefore was facing entirely the wrong way when a splash told him that the spaniels were in the water.

  He lifted his head, trying to figure out where the angry quacking was coming from. He could hear the slapping of wingtips on water, someone was shouting angrily at a dog, the sun was blinding him and he was trying to undo the peregrine’s hood-straps by feel, without looking down. One of the other sort of days, he decided, as the first duck shot directly over his head like an arrow.

  Shouting, on all sides. Some of it was anger, some just loud communication. The loop under the buckle of the hood-strap was stuck; he had nothing to lever with, and his carefully trimmed fingernail was too short to pick it out. The falcon was objecting, not unreasonably, to his harsh and clumsy handling of it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Daurenja making his cast — a sparrow-hawk could never bring down a duck; well, a teal, perhaps, or maybe the spaniels had put up some stupid little birds while they were crashing about among the reeds. Ducks were streaming overhead, most of them directly over him, and he was missing them all …

  “Orsea, for crying out loud.” He recognized Valens’ voice; the agonized rage of a man who’s planned a perfect treat for other people, and has to watch them waste it. “What’s the matter with you? Get that bloody hawk in the air, before they all get away.”

  The hood came off — for a single, terrifying moment he thought he’d pulled the falcon’s head off with it — and he fumbled with the jesses. Fortunately, they were more cooperative. Finding itself suddenly in a world of light and movement, the falcon spread its wings and bated, jerking sharply against the half-released jesses. One last furious fumble and he’d freed them. He started to move his arm for the cast, but the falcon had had enough. It hopped off his wrist into the air, struck a powerful beat and began to climb.

  As he watched it disappear into the sky, Orsea felt overwhelming relief, as though he’d just been let out of prison. He looked round, and saw that everybody else was loosing their own hawks. I wasn’t the last, then, he consoled himself, until he realized with a feeling of horror that, since
he was at least nominally still a duke, protocol demanded that everybody else apart from Valens couldn’t fly their hawks until he’d released his. He winced. Two or three ducks were still in the air; the rest were long gone. He’d contrived to spoil it for everyone, yet again.

  Moving his head to look away, he caught Valens’ eye, and winced again. It wasn’t the contempt, so much as the complete lack of surprise. It occurred to him that, when they were assembling in the courtyard, they hadn’t brought him a hawk; the peregrine had been entrusted to Ziani, who’d passed it on. Now he could see why.

  He heard yelping: the dogs, running in to pick up ducks grounded by the falcons. That suggested that, in spite of his best efforts, it hadn’t been a complete washout. He looked up at the sky. One or two ducks were coming back to the water, but he could see precious few hawks. He knew what that meant. Flown after quarry that had already gone too far, the hawks had gone looking for prey on their own account, and were unlikely to come back any time soon. The falconers would be spending the rest of the afternoon looking for them; if they’d killed and roosted, it’d mean someone would have to sit out all night under the roosting-tree, and then climb up at first light to catch the hawk before it woke up. All things considered, he couldn’t have ruined Valens’ wedding-day hunt more efficiently if he’d planned it all in advance.