Evil for Evil

by K. J. Parker

  “I can understand,” Orsea said.

  You more than anybody. “In fact,” Valens said, “we’re not going to do anything of the sort. Which is stupid, because I have an unpleasant feeling it’s the right thing to do; but I’m too weak to make the decision, so we aren’t going to do it.” He looked past Orsea, at the line of carts. “I’m going to send on the carts that don’t have the problem, and keep the damaged ones here until they can be fixed properly, by cutting out the broken bits and fitting in new ones. I’m told it could take a day or so to find suitable timber and as long again to do the job, but that can’t be helped. We can’t afford to abandon that many wagons, so they’ll have to be fixed, and we’ll have to try and protect them in the meantime.” He breathed in, as though he was making a speech. “It’ll mean dividing the army, and there’s not enough to defend both units, so I’ll split the archers and foot soldiers up between the two parts of the convoy, and send the cavalry out to look for the enemy. If they come for us, the cavalry can engage them in the open, try and stop them getting here. If we get away with it, we’ll all meet up somewhere and carry on as before. How does that sound?”

  “Excellent,” Orsea said; and the sad thing was, he meant it. Just the sort of thing he’d have done himself, which was why the maps of Eremia weren’t accurate anymore, showing a city that had ceased to exist. I’ve made the wrong choice, Valens told himself; I know it, and I don’t seem to care. I think we’ve lost this war.

  As soon as Valens let him go, Orsea hurried away to continue his search for a bush. Not an easy thing to find on a barren, rocky hillside; but his rank and his natural diffidence made it impossible for him to pee with the whole Vadani nation watching him.

  No bushes, as far as the eye could see. A few stunted thorn trees, but their trunks were too thin to stand behind. In the end, he had to settle for a large rock, which only screened his lower half. His relief was spoiled by the fact that a sharp wind had got up while he was talking to Valens. It blew piss back onto his trouser leg. One of those days.

  Alfresco urination was one of the things he hated most about traveling with a large number of people. It had bothered him when he led the Eremian army, casting a huge, disproportionate shadow over each day. He knew why: he was sure the men would laugh at him. Pathetic.

  He’d finished, and was lacing up the front of his trousers, when he heard voices behind him. He panicked until he was quite sure it was nothing to do with him.

  A small, two-wheeled cart — a chaise, he decided, mildly ashamed of his precision in trivia — was rolling down the slope, passing along the line of the halted convoy as though such sights were too commonplace to be worth noticing. A ridiculous, fussy little cart, with thin, spindly wheel-spokes like crane-fly legs, and a brightly colored parasol perched over the box; on which sat a huge man and a tiny blond woman in a red dress. Orsea stared for the best part of two minutes, the ends of his trouser-laces still in his hands. It wasn’t just the incongruity that stunned him. Somehow, perhaps by the confident way she perched, with a large carpet bag clutched in her lap, she gave the impression that she was normal, and it was the Vadani nation who were making a spectacle of themselves. He couldn’t begin to understand why the stupid little cart’s wheels didn’t crumple up and blow away in the wind like chaff every time they rolled into a pothole.

  A cavalry officer in full armor, red campaign cloak, tall black boots gray with dust, shuffled forward to meet her. Too far away to see the look on his face, but Orsea could guess. The sort of look a twelve-year-old boy would wear if his mother showed up while he was playing with his friends. The woman in the red dress leaned down to ask him something. He looked round for a while, then suddenly pointed. It was a moment before Orsea realized the man was pointing at him.

  He remembered, and dropped the laces. Probably too late. The woman was climbing down from her seat — the officer’s arm was stretched out for her to steady herself by; you can’t beat the cavalry for manners, no matter how bizarre or desperate the situation. Orsea watched as she came bustling straight at him; he looked over his shoulder, but there was nobody standing behind him.

  “Are you Duke Orsea?” Her voice was high and sharp; someone who never needed to shout, even in a high wind.

  “That’s right. I’m sorry, I don’t think I —”

  She reached in her bag and pulled out a small linen pouch, about the size of an apple. “Your wife ordered some potpourri,” she said, pointing the pouch at him as if it was some kind of weapon. “It’s all right,” she added, “it’s paid for.”

  He stared at her for a count of five before saying, “You came all the way out here to deliver that?”

  She laughed; a sound like a fox barking. “No, of course not. I’m on my way from Calva to the sheep-fair at White Cross. But they told me at the Unswerving Loyalty that the Vadani court was on a progress, or going camping or something. I guessed you’d be with them, so here I am.”

  Potpourri. Dried flowers and leaves and bits of lavender and stuff. As he dug in his pocket for money for a tip, he could hardly believe what he was hearing. Surely, when the world came to an end, and the Vadani were facing certain death, things like that simply ceased to exist. It wasn’t possible for the world to contain war and potpourri at the same time.

  “Thanks,” he heard himself say. “She’ll be really pleased.”

  “No trouble,” she chirruped back. “Do you think they’ll be able to spare me some hay and a bucket of oats for my horse? I’ve probably got enough to get me as far as the Modesty and Prudence, but better safe than sorry.”

  “Try the ostlers,” he was saying, when the significance of what she’d told him hit him like a hammer. “Excuse me,” he muttered, and broke into a run. She called out something, but he didn’t catch what she was saying.

  There are times when it’s better to run frantically, headless-chicken fashion, than to arrive. When finally he found Valens’ carriage — he felt like he’d run five miles, up and down the middle of the convoy — he pulled up and froze, realizing as he panted like a thirsty dog that he was in no fit state to tell anybody about anything, not if he expected to be taken seriously. He dragged air into his burning lungs and tried to find a form of words. Then he balled his left fist and rapped it against the carriage door.

  No answer. His mind blanked. Clearly, the carriage was empty; in which case, Valens wasn’t here; consequently, he could be anywhere. Orsea felt his chest tighten again, this time with panic rather than fatigue. His discovery was obviously so important that it couldn’t wait, but searching the entire convoy … Just in case, he knocked again, much harder. This time, the door opened.

  “Who are you?”

  He recognized her, of course; the only female Cure Hardy he’d ever seen. “I’m Orsea,” he said, realizing as he said it how inadequate his reply was. “I need to see Valens, urgently. Do you know where … ?”

  “No.” She was looking at him as though she’d just noticed him on the sole of a brand-new shoe. “What do you want?”

  “It’s very important,” Orsea said. She made him feel about nine years old; but while he was standing there babbling, the Mezentines could be moving into position, ready to attack. “Can you give me any idea where he’s likely to be? The whole convoy’s in danger.”

  She frowned. “Have you told the duty officer?”

  Pop, like a bubble bursting. “No,” Orsea admitted. “No, that’s a good idea. I’ll do that.”

  She closed the carriage door; not actually in his face, but close enough for him to feel the breeze on his cheek. Something told him he hadn’t made a good impression. The least of his problems.

  Even Orsea knew how to find the duty officer; dead center of the convoy, look for a tented wagon with plenty of staff officers coming and going. Mercifully, one of them was an Eremian, who escorted him, in the manner of a respectful child put in charge of an elderly, senile relative, up the foldaway steps into the wagon.

  Orsea had nearly finished telling h
is story when he realized that the duty officer, a small, neat, bald Vadani, didn’t believe him. It was the lack of expression on his face; not bewilderment or shock, but a face kept deliberately blank to conceal what he was thinking. “I see,” he said, when Orsea had finished. “I’ll make sure the Duke gets your message.”

  “Will you?”

  “Of course.” Orsea could see him getting tense, afraid there’d be a scene, that he’d be forced into being rude to the known idiot who technically ranked equal with Valens himself. “As soon as I see him.”

  “When’s that likely to be?”

  “Soon.” Pause. The officer was trying to hold out behind his blank face, like a city under siege. “I expect he’ll send for me at some point today, and when he does —”

  “Don’t you think you should send someone to find him?”

  Orsea couldn’t help being reminded of a fight he’d seen once, in the streets of Civitas Eremiae. A huge, broad-shouldered man was being trailed by a tiny, elderly drunk, who kept trying to hit him with a stick. Over and over again the big man swatted the stick away, like a fly, but eventually the drunk slipped a blow past his guard and hit him in the middle of the forehead. A lucky strike; the big man staggered, and while he was off guard, the drunk hit him again, three or four times on the side of the head. Realizing that he could be killed if he didn’t do something, the big man tried to grab the stick, and got slashed across the knuckles and then beaten hard just above the ear. He swung his arm wildly but with force; the back of his hand hit the drunk in the mouth, dislocating his jaw and slamming him against a wall; he slid down and lay in a heap. With that picture in his mind’s eye, Orsea looked down at the duty officer, sitting very upright in his straight-backed chair. If I goad this man again, he thought, he’s going to have to strike back; but I’ve got no choice.

  “I’m not sure that’d be appropriate,” the duty officer said. “But I assure you, as soon as I see him —”

  “Haven’t you been listening to me?” Orsea could hear the shrill, petulant anger in his own voice; it revolted him. “As soon as you see him could be too late. If the innkeeper at Sharra knows we’re here and there’s a Mezentine patrol stationed there —”

  “Assuming,” the duty officer interrupted quietly, “that what this woman told you is true.”

  I must try and make him understand. “She found me, didn’t she?” he said. “She heard we were here from someone; she told me it was the innkeeper who told her. I can’t imagine why she’d want to lie about it. Think about it, can’t you? There’s this merchant with a delivery for my wife. Here, look.” He thrust the little cloth sack at the officer’s face, like a fencer testing the distance. “Now, if she wasn’t told where I was likely to be, how do you think she found me? Just wandering around at random on the off chance she’d run into me?”

  The officer leaned back a little, putting space between himself and the smell of the bag. “You may like to bear in mind that we’re on a road,” he said, voice flat and featureless. “People travel up and down roads, on their way to wherever they happen to be going. It seems more likely to me that she fortuitously came across this column while following the road than that she heard about us at Sharra and made her way here across country, in a ladies’ chaise, just to deliver a bag of dried flowers.”

  Orsea pulled in a deep breath. “I don’t agree,” he said. “And I’m asking you to send someone to find Valens, right now. Are you going to do it?”

  The officer’s eyes were sad as well as hostile. “I’m afraid I can’t,” he said.

  “Fine.” Orsea swung round, traversing like a siege engine on its carriage, to face the Eremian officer who’d led him there. “All right,” he said, “you do it.”

  The Eremian was only a young man, embarrassed and ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he began to say.

  “You heard what I just told him?”

  The Eremian nodded wretchedly.

  “Good. I’m telling you to find Duke Valens and pass the message on.”

  Such a reproachful look in the young man’s eyes. “Actually, I’m supposed to be taking a note to —”

  “Never mind about that.” Orsea couldn’t help thinking about the drunk with the stick. “It can wait. Do you understand what I want you to do?”

  The young man was looking past him, at the duty officer. Orsea couldn’t see what he saw, but the young man nodded slightly. “Of course,” he said. “Straightaway.” He left quickly, grateful to get away, leaving Orsea and the duty officer facing each other, like the big man and the little drunk. I won, Orsea thought, I got my way. Shouldn’t that make me the big man, not the other way round?

  The carpenters weren’t happy. Valens found that hard to take, since he was merely telling them to do what they’d told him was the only way. But apparently there wasn’t enough good seasoned timber to do the job; they could use green wood, but —

  “I know,” Valens snapped. “You told me.”

  Dignified silence. They were good at dignified silence. “Do the best you can,” he growled at them, and left with what little remained of his temper.

  Heading back to his coach, he met a sad-looking ensign; an Eremian, he noticed from his insignia. He looked weary and ground down, as though he’d been given an important job he didn’t know how to do.

  “I’ve got a message for you,” the sad ensign said. “From Duke Orsea.”

  One damn thing after another. “Go on, I’m listening.”

  He listened, and when the ensign had finished, he said, “Orsea told you that? Himself?”

  The ensign nodded. “He reported it to the duty officer —”

  Valens wasn’t interested in any of that. “All right,” he said, “here’s what I want you to do.”

  He fired off a list of instructions, detailed and in order of priority. He could see the ensign forcing himself to remember each step, his eyes terrified. Fear of failure; must be an Eremian characteristic. “Have you got that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Repeat it all back to me and then get on with it.”

  It all came back at him like an echo; it sounded very impressive, as though Duke Valens was on top of the situation. It’d be nice if he was, since the lives of everybody in the column depended on him. If only the warning hadn’t come from Orsea; anybody else, a soldier, a half-blind crippled shepherd, a twelve-year-old boy, and he’d be comfortable with it. But no, it had to be Orsea. Still, the risk was too great. If he ignored it, and the Mezentines came …

  The ensign darted away, swift as a deer pursued by hounds, born to be hunted, inured to it. Valens stopped to take a deep breath and clear his mind, then went to find the duty officer.

  21

  His third visit to the Unswerving Loyalty; Miel Ducas was starting to feel at home there. Mind, he wasn’t sure he liked what the Mezentines had done with the place. Rows of hastily built sheds crowded the paddock behind the original stable block, and the yard was churned and rutted from extreme use. Stacks of crates and barrels masked the frontage; it hadn’t been a thing of beauty, but the supply dumps hadn’t improved it. Mezentine soldiers everywhere, of course; definitely an eyesore. He wondered if he ought to point out to someone in charge that the inn was, properly speaking, his property, and he hadn’t authorized the changes.

  They let him out into the yard for half an hour, for exercise. They were punctilious about it — probably because they were cavalrymen, used to the need to exercise horses. The degree of joy he felt at being allowed into the open air disturbed him. Something so trivial shouldn’t matter, now that his life was rushing to its end. He’d wanted to achieve a level of tranquility; how could it possibly matter whether or not he saw the sun one last time before he died? But the light nearly overwhelmed him, after a sleepless night in a stone pigsty. Perhaps it wasn’t the light so much as the noise. Out here, people were talking to each other. Not a word had been spoken in the dark; his fellow prisoners’ silence had been harder to bear than anything they could have said to him.
As soon as they’d left the pigsty, Framain and his daughter had walked away from him, crossed to the other side of the yard. He could see them talking to each other, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying. Probably just as well.

  He watched a Mezentine groom leading a horse across the top of the yard, passing a man sharpening a bill-hook on a big wheel grindstone. The horse tried to shy as it passed the shower of orange sparks, but the groom twitched its headstall and it followed him, resigned rather than calm. Someone else was forking hay out of a cart into a hayloft. A sack of grain rose into the air on the end of a rope, as a winch creaked. A boy, not Mezentine, raked up horse dung into a barrow. Nobody seemed interested in Miel Ducas, apart from the two guards who watched him as though he was the only thing in the world. He felt mildly ashamed that he hadn’t given any serious thought to trying to escape; properly speaking, it was his duty, but he simply couldn’t be bothered. If he tried to get away, they’d only kill him. It was less effort to stay where he’d been put, and he was enjoying watching the people.

  They brought in a cart — he was treating it as a show put on for his benefit — and took off one of the wheels. Enter a wheelwright, with tools and helpers; they struck off the iron tire with cold chisels and cut out a damaged spoke. Miel wondered how they were going to fit the replacement; would they have to dismantle the whole wheel, and if so, how were they going to get the rim off? They were bringing out strong wooden benches. Miel tried to remember; he’d seen wheels made and mended before but hadn’t bothered to observe, assuming in his arrogance that it wasn’t any of his business. Now, he realized, he urgently wanted to know how it was done. If they took him back inside, and he missed the exciting part, it’d be like listening to most of a story and being cheated of the ending. Felloes, he suddenly remembered; the rim of a wheel is made up of six curved sections, called felloes, dowelled together, held rigid by the spokes, restrained by the tire. Where had he learned that; or had he been born knowing it?