Evil for Evil (42 page)

"Is there a problem?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm pleased to be able to tell you, we've considered all the facts and, in view of the circumstances—"

"I mean," she interrupted, "he's as good as dead, isn't he? In the eyes of the law he's dead, because he was condemned to death. For all anybody knows, he
is
dead. So—"

A cue; deliberate, or fortuitous? "As a matter of fact," he said quietly, "Ziani Vaatzes is still very much alive. We have intelligence that places him at the court of Duke Valens of the Vadani. He's just completed the sabotage of the Vadani silver mines; a very neat piece of work, I should add, thanks to him the mines will be completely useless to us once we've conquered the country."

She shrugged. "He's still making a nuisance of himself, then." Psellus had read the reports. Dry, needless to say, and doing their best to gloss over the things that had caught his imagination. In his mind's eye, nevertheless, he'd seen them: thousands of dead men, killed as they advanced in perfect formation, without even the time to break rank and start to run. Making a nuisance of himself.

"That's none of your concern now," he said. "Just in case you've been worrying, nobody holds you in any way responsible for his actions, either before his escape or since. The findings of the board of inquiry were absolutely explicit on that point." The words
board of inquiry
made her flinch, as well they might. No bad thing to remind her of how close she'd come to sharing her husband's disaster.

"So that's all right, then," she said. "Falier and I can get married."

"Indeed you can, I'm delighted to say." None of that delight seemed to be reflected in her face. "You'll be able to get on with the arrangements, let your family know the date and so forth. I'm sure there'll be a great deal to do."

"We're keeping it quiet and simple," she said. "We don't want lots of fuss. And besides, we can't afford a big do."

"Really." Careful frown. "Now that your fiancé's the foreman of the ordnance factory, I wouldn't have thought money would be a problem."

"We've got better things to spend our money on."

"I'm sure." She was trying to shake him off, like something nasty stuck to the sole of her shoe. That was a flaw in her guard. He leaned back a little in his chair.

"Is that it, then?" she said. "Can I go now?"

"In just a few minutes," he said firmly. "It's been a while since we had an opportunity to talk."

"What do you need to talk to me about?" she said. "I thought you said you're giving us permission…"

Psellus congratulated himself on his timing. Letting her think she was almost free, giving her a sight of the door, so to speak; now she was in a hurry to get away, which meant that the longer he kept her there, the stronger his advantage would be.

"Would you like something to eat or drink?" he said. "I usually have a glass of something and a biscuit around now."

"No thank you."

He shrugged. "If you change your mind later on, just say so." He rang the little silver bell that stood just by his elbow. He'd had all sorts of trouble getting hold of one, but it looked as though the effort would be justified. The door opened, and the clerk (on loan for the day from the records office) nodded a polite little bow, as though he'd been a footman all his life. "Mulled wine with honey and nutmeg for me, and one of those delightful cinnamon cakes," he said. "Are you sure I can't get you anything?"

"Have I done something wrong?"

Psellus raised both eyebrows. "Not that I'm aware of."

"If I haven't done anything wrong, why can't I go home?"

"Of course you can go home, as soon as we've finished."

Her scowl only lasted a very short time, a tiny sliver of a second, before her face reverted to dull, wary vacancy. Psellus picked up a sheet of paper—minutes of some meeting, to which he hadn't been asked—and reflected that, however close the play and however smoothly the participants work together, anticipating each other's thoughts, sharing an intimacy otherwise experienced only by lovers, there must always be a gulf between predator and prey; because if the predator loses, he stays hungry for a day, whereas the prey loses forever. Such a disparity gives the advantage in motivation to the defense, provided it's backed up by sufficient skill. The predator, by contrast, must be more outgoing, more extreme.

The clerk arrived, with a cup and a plate. Psellus took a sip—water, as he'd specified—and nibbled the rim of the biscuit, like a mouse.

"Is that why you're keeping me here," she asked, "to watch you eat?" He laughed, as though she'd made a good joke. "I'm sorry," he said. "I missed breakfast. Well now," he went on, settling himself comfortably in his chair, "there're just one or two points I'd like to clear up, while you're here."

"About my husband."

"Of course. Why else could anybody possibly be interested in you?" Her eyes widened, just a little, then closed down again. "Go on, then." Psellus stroked his chin thoughtfully. "As you know," he said, "I used to be attached to the commission that investigated the circumstances of your husband's offense. That investigation is now complete, overtaken by events, somewhat; the file's closed, to all intents and purposes, I've moved on, and so have you. But in spite of that, I can't help worrying away at loose ends, it's in my nature. The more I try not to think about something, the more it weighs on my mind. When it got to the stage where it was getting in the way of the work I'm supposed to be doing, I decided I'd better deal with it once and for all. For that, I need your help." He paused and looked at her. Nobody there. Fine.

"Your husband," he went on, making his voice low and even, "built the mechanical doll. So far, we've concentrated—reasonably enough—on
how
he built it. Nobody seems to have stopped to consider
why
he built it. I think that's where my problem lies. It seems," he added with a smile, "such a curious thing for anybody to do."

She shrugged. "He made it for our daughter," she said.

"Quite so, yes. That much was admitted from the outset." Psellus nodded gravely. "That doesn't answer the question. Why a mechanical doll?" Another shrug. "No idea."

"That's curious too. Did your daughter tell him she wanted one, very much? Had she seen one somewhere and admired it especially?"

"She could have done, I don't know."

"Well, why should you?" Psellus smiled. "Perhaps your daughter told him, but not you. Perhaps it was their secret. Daughters are often closer to their fathers than their mothers, in some respects. Isn't that right?"

"Maybe."

"Well, that's what people keep telling me," Psellus said pleasantly. "I'm not a family man myself. But anyway; he decided to build her the doll, for whatever reason. Now we come to another mystery. Your husband…" He paused again.

"He's not by nature the rebellious type, is he?"

"I don't understand what you mean."

Psellus dipped his head. "Some people," he said, "have a problem with authority. Breaking rules, to them, is almost an end in itself; doesn't matter what the rule happens to be, the fact that it's a rule makes it fair game, if you follow me. It's a sort of independence of spirit, usually combined with high self-esteem and a low opinion of the system and society in general. But Ziani wasn't like that, was he?" She shrugged.

"I don't think he was," Psellus said. "I think he understood the merits of the system pretty well. He was ambitious, of course; but his ambition was entirely orthodox, if you see what I mean. He wanted to succeed in the proper manner, by climbing the ladder of promotion. That was what gave success its value, I guess. He'd want to win, but cheating would spoil it for him. He assessed his own value in conventional terms."

"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."