Evil for Evil (68 page)

"Not all of them," Valens said. "Which means there'll be a great big weak patch somewhere in the wall, which we'll have to defend some other way. We could concentrate the cavalry and men-at-arms—"

"To some extent." In other words, forget it. He wondered if she was enjoying his failure, but it didn't seem likely. Any sort of pleasure seemed beyond her completely.

"You would be better advised to move out as quickly as possible, and head directly for my people's territory. At least you can be sure that the Mezentines won't follow you into the desert."

"We aren't going anywhere near the desert."

"You have no choice."

He left without replying. Outside, he stood for a moment and looked at the line of halted wagons. People were standing about in groups, talking quietly or not at all. Horsemen rode up and down the line, carrying messages, inspecting, relaying orders. They were worried, but it was all under control; they knew he could be trusted to sort things out. To be trusted, relied on, even loved; he felt the pain of it deep inside, the way a man with an arrowhead buried too deep inside to be extracted feels it every time he moves. I've killed them, he thought, just like Orsea killed the Eremians: for duty, for love.

"Is there anything I can do?"

He turned his head, and just then, in his mind, it was like looking into a mirror.

"Orsea," he said. "I'm sorry, I was miles away."

"I gather there's some problem with the carts," Orsea said. He had that stupid, sad look on his face, that preemptive admission of guilt that made Valens want to say,
It's all right, this time it's not your fault
. That would be a lie, of course, since it
was
Orsea's fault they were here; Orsea's sense of duty, compounded by Valens'

love. "Can't Vaatzes suggest anything? It should be right up his street, this sort of thing."

"Vaatzes isn't here." Valens didn't want to snap, but he couldn't help it. Orsea had been born to be shouted at. He was wearing the fashionable long-toed riding boots that were useless for walking in; they made him look like some rare breed of marshland bird. "He's disappeared, and so's his assistant. But we're working on it." He scowled. "You don't happen to know anything about woodwork, do you?"

"No."

"Of course not. Me neither. Useless, aren't we?" He laughed. "Oh, we know lots of stuff: how to train hawks, how to run a council meeting, the correct way to address an ambassador, how to use archers to cover an infantry advance. Pity that a few bits of broken wood can screw us up completely. I don't know." He turned away; the sight of Orsea's face made him want to lash out. "Maybe we should just jump on our horses and ride away, leave the rest of them to sort it all out for themselves. They couldn't be worse off without us than they are already."

"That's not true," Orsea said; he sounded bewildered, like a child who sees his parents arguing. "You're good at this. You can deal with it." If it had come from anybody else, he might have tried to believe it. "My wife thinks we should dump the armor and make a run for it, head for her territory, the Cure Hardy." He stopped, as though there was something wrong with his mouth.

"She thinks we'd be safe there. A lot of us would die trying to cross the desert, but not nearly as many as we'd lose if we carried on with the original plan." He turned sharply and looked Orsea in the eye. "What do you think? Is that what you'd do, in my place?"

Orsea seemed to shrink back, as though Valens had hit him. "I'm the last person—"

"Yes, but I'm asking you. What do you think?"

"I don't know."

Valens felt the energy seep out of himself. "Well of course you don't, you haven't got all the facts. I'm sorry. I just don't feel like making a decision like that."

"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 his 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.