Evil for Evil (62 page)

Ziani nodded, as if to say he understood. He didn’t, of course. It was as though Psellus had said he was too old and cranky
to be interested in breathing. “That’s your business,” he said, trying to keep the disapproval out of his voice. “It seems
a bit of a waste of a life, though.”

“The least of my worries,” Psellus said.

Strange, Ziani thought. Such a very different attitude to the business of being human. But he said, “I suppose you’re lucky,
being without love.”

Psellus looked uncomfortable. “You know what they say,” he replied. “What you’ve never had …”

“I suppose so. I can’t pretend I’ve had any luck with it myself. After all,” he added with a humorless chuckle, “if it wasn’t
for love, I’d still be working in the factory, and the Eremians would still have their city.” He decided not to go there.
“But that’s like saying the cure for death is not being born. I still believe in it, you know. Love.”

Just hearing him say the word seemed to embarrass Psellus. “Do you? I’d have thought …”

“Yes?”

“In your shoes,” Psellus said slowly, “I’d look on it as an escape. Like a runaway slave.”

Ziani thought for a moment. “There’s a bit of poetry I heard once,” he said. “About falling out of love. It’s not just escaping
from the game, it’s taking the dice with you. I used to wonder what that meant.”

Psellus pursed his lips. “You mean it, then? About not wanting to come home anymore.”

“What is there for me to come home to?”

“Doesn’t that mean … ?” Psellus was looking at him. “Well, it’s admitting that you’ve lost, isn’t it?”

Ziani couldn’t help laughing at that. “Who cares?” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s as if they’d both died. Nothing
left to go home to. I might as well find something to do with the rest of my life.” He smiled. “One thing’s for sure, I’ve
found out a lot of things about myself I’d never have dreamed of before. The things I’ve achieved …” He paused. “I could make
a great deal of money,” he said. “I could be a nobleman, a great lord, like all these ridiculous Eremians and Vadani I’ve
been spending so much time with. Great big houses, country estates; I could go hawking and hunting. I could marry a nobleman’s
beautiful, accomplished daughter, have a whole brood of aristocratic children who’d never have to work for a living. Well?
Can you see any reason why not? I’ve proved what I can do, more or less without trying. If I could make my peace with the
Guilds, so I wouldn’t have to be looking over my shoulder all the time for a Compliance assassin, there’s no reason at all
why I shouldn’t. And …” He shrugged. “It’s not as though I’ve got anything better to do.” He raised an eyebrow. “Or are you
going to tell me about my duty to my country; my duty not to steal her secrets and hand them over to the savages?”

Psellus shifted in his seat. “None of my business,” he said. “I’m not in Compliance anymore.”

Ziani laughed. “Nicely put,” he said. “Tell me, why did you come here?”

“To negotiate with you.”

“Nonsense. You’ve as good as told me that the Guilds have no intention of honoring any agreement we may make.”

“True.” Psellus’ shoulders slumped a little. “To ask you questions,” he said.

“To see if they’d confirm your theory?”

“I guess so, yes.”

“Because that’d explain why you were transferred from Compliance to Defense.”

“I suppose so.”

“Well, then.” Ziani yawned. “Did you know that Duke Valens’ closest adviser is spying for the Republic?”

Awkward silence. “No,” Psellus said, “I didn’t know that.”

“His name’s Mezentius and he reports back directly to Councillor Boioannes,” Ziani said. “I take it he hasn’t been sharing
what he’s learned with the rest of the committee.”

Psellus didn’t answer that. “How do you know?” he asked.

Ziani shrugged. “Luck,” he replied. “As you know, I use the women traders to carry messages for me, find things out, that
sort of thing. I was talking to one of them a while back, and I must have said something that gave her the impression that
I was in on the secret, maybe part of the setup. She told me things that left me in no doubt.” He paused to marshal his thoughts
before continuing. “You can see why it concerns me,” he said. “To put it simply, if Boioannes already has a pet traitor, someone
much better placed than me, he doesn’t need me as well. He can get this Mezentius to give him the Vadani. So, obviously, any
deal he offers me is bound to be a trap.” He smiled. “I can also see how it affects you. If Boioannes could have the Vadani
any time he wanted, why’s the war still going on? He must be up to something, and his plan must turn on the war carrying on.
Well, if he likes the war so much, maybe it’s a fair guess that he was the one who started it.”

Psellus nodded. “By using you.”

“Flattering, I suppose, though I could have done without the honor. Anyway,” he added, “something for you to think about on
your long ride home. Consider it a thank-you from me.” He tapped the packet of papers on the table. “In return for this.”

Psellus appeared to think for quite a while. “Do you mean it?” he said, avoiding Ziani’s eyes. “About not wanting to come
home anymore.”

“Of course. Like I’ve been telling you, there wouldn’t be any point.”

“Where can you go? To start your new life, I mean.”

“Oh, anywhere.” He was pretty sure Psellus hadn’t been taken in by that. “The Cure Doce seem a reasonable bet. I never realized
how huge their territory is. In fact …” He stopped and clicked his tongue. “A year ago I’d never heard of them, except as
a name. If you’d have asked me then, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you if they were real, or something out of a fairy
tale.”

“You wouldn’t like it there,” Psellus said. “They’re primitives.”

“Worse than these people?” Ziani laughed. “And even if they are, they won’t be for long, if I go there. I could go right the
other side of their country, off the edge of the Guild maps, and in six months I’d be building my first factory. It seems
I’ve got a talent for it. It turns out that the world’s a fairly big place, and no matter where they live or what color their
skin is or what language they speak, they’re going to want nails, plowshares and cheap tin buckets. It’s a law of nature.”

Psellus nodded slowly. “I’m glad I’m not in Compliance anymore,” he said, with feeling. “You’re exactly what we used to have
nightmares about: the monster …”

“If I’m the monster, you made me into it,” Ziani replied casually. “But of course, it all depends on this deal you’ve come
here to arrange.”

“Oh,” Psellus said. “That.”

“Yes. Here’s my offer.” Ziani paused for a moment. The silence bothered him, as silence always did. Twenty years in machine
shops, tenement houses, the streets of the city; he needed noise just as much as air. “Arrange it so that …” He’d almost said
my wife
. “So that she’ll be all right, so that they won’t take it out on her, and Moritsa. In return, I’ll go away, and nobody will
ever hear my name again. They can say I’m dead; that they’ve seen my body, hung up on a hook. You can be the witness; they’ll
trust you, because you’re too small to lie. That’ll solve their political crisis for them. Oh, and I’ll throw in the Vadani,
for good measure, if that’s what Boioannes really wants. I’ll deliver them just like I did with the Eremians; I know how to
do it, incidentally. I’ve arranged it so it’ll be a piece of cake. Yes, I know,” he added, turning away. “The Guilds don’t
negotiate with abominators, and any deal they strike won’t be binding on them. But I’m lucky; I’ve got you to sell it to them.
You can explain. Will it really matter if I’m dead or not, so long as I’m officially dead, and everybody believes it? We can
manufacture some proof. We could get a head, smash its face in so nobody could recognize it; they can nail it to a gateway
somewhere, and have a public holiday. If I’m officially dead, and the Vadani have been wiped out, then the Republic has prevailed,
the way it always does. Boioannes can stage his discreet coup and be god-on-earth for a bit, until someone gets rid of him.
Everything will be all right; and you’ll be right on top, of course, because you’ll tell them it was all your idea, the result
of your incredibly skillful and delicate negotiations, your painstaking research that gave you the insights you needed into
the mind of the abominator. Well? Isn’t it perfect?”

As he finished his speech — definitely a speech, he admitted to himself, faintly ashamed — he was watching Psellus as though
he was some complex mechanism (too complex; overengineered, built arse-about-face, not something he’d ever be proud to admit
to, but functional, he hoped). It would be interesting to see whether he’d assessed this contemptible little man accurately,
or whether he’d underestimated him, as others had.

“No,” Psellus said. “They’ll pretend to agree, but they won’t let you go.”

“You reckon?”

“I know,” Psellus replied. “You see, there’s nothing in it they couldn’t make for themselves. They could fake your death,
and dismiss any reports of you as rumors and lies. And if you’re right about Boioannes having a spy already, they don’t need
you to give them the Vadani. There’d have to be something else; and what else have you got to offer?”

Ziani smiled. Nice to be right. “As it happens,” he said, “I do have something else. I can give them the silver mines.”

She hadn’t spoken to him for two days; not since they’d climbed to the top of the ridge that overlooked the city. He wondered
if he’d offended her, though he couldn’t imagine how.

As the coach stumbled over the potholes in the road, he looked sideways at her, considering her as though she was some ornament
or work of art he’d bought in a rash moment of enthusiasm. Seen in profile, her nose was long and almost unnaturally straight;
in profile, of course, you didn’t notice how thin it was. There was a slight upward curve to her top lip that he couldn’t
help but find appealing. The weakness of her chin, on the other hand …

Her eyes flicked sideways and he turned away, embarrassed at having been caught staring. No reason, of course, why a man shouldn’t
look at his own wife. Even so; he’d got the impression she didn’t like it. He concentrated on the road ahead, but that was
simply distressing.

Of course, he thought, I could try talking to her, rather than waiting for her to talk to me. A radical enough notion, but
it couldn’t do any harm. Could it?

“I guess you must be used to this sort of thing,” he said.

She turned full-face and looked at him. “Excuse me?”

“Traveling in carts,” he explained. “I mean, your people being nomadic.”

“I see.” She paused, thinking through her answer, like a conscientious witness in court. “Yes, we travel extensively,” she
said. “However, our vehicles are more comfortable, and much better designed for long journeys. For example, I would normally
travel reclining on a three-quarter-length couch, rather than sitting on a bench. Also, because of their superior suspension,
our vehicles travel appreciably faster, which gives us scope for longer and more frequent stops for rest and exercise. Our
horses have been bred specifically for stamina over many centuries.”

“I’m sorry,” Valens mumbled.

“What for?”

“The discomfort. The coach not being up to what you’re used to. We don’t do much of this sort of thing, you see.”

“I know. I’ve made allowances. However, it’s — considerate,” a slight stumble over the word, “of you to be concerned. Besides,
I’ve traveled in worse.”

You could cut shield-leather with those eyes. More than ever she reminded him of a bird of prey; he wished he had a hood he
could fasten over her face, to stop her looking at him. “We had to organize all this at very short notice,” he went on. “Perhaps,
when we’re settled again, you could give our coachbuilders a few tips.”

She frowned. “I’m not really competent to advise on technical matters,” she said. “However, I’m sure I could arrange for some
of our coachbuilders to be seconded to you for a while.”

Valens nodded, and went back to staring at the road ahead. Sooner or later, he told himself, I’m going to have to sleep with
this woman. Won’t that be fun.

Try again. “The reason we’re going so slowly isn’t just because our wagons are a bit primitive,” he said. “Bear in mind, we’re
carrying all this armor plate. We’ve got to be a bit careful, in case the extra weight busts the axles when we go over holes
in the road.”

“Our suspension systems would help in that regard,” she said. “Instead of steel springs, we use a laminate of horn, wood and
sinew, similar to the material we make our bows from. We find that steel tends to fatigue and crack with heavy use; the composite
springs hold up much better. Of course they’re costlier and harder to make, but we find it worth the effort and expense in
the long term. A broken spring can hold up an entire caravan for days.”

“Horn and sinew,” Valens repeated, trying to sound interested. “That’s clever.”

She nodded. “It’s an efficient design,” she said. “The horn is ideally suited to absorb shock, while the sinew offers almost
unlimited flexibility. The wood is simply a core. The weakest component is, of course, the glue that holds the layers together.
We use a compound made up of equal parts of sinew and rawhide offcuts …”

More about making springs than anybody could possibly want to know, ever. At another time, in another context, explained by
someone else, it might have been mildly interesting, to somebody who actually gave a damn. Vaatzes? No, he’d have a fit. the
Mezentines made cart-springs from steel, so anything else would be a (what was the word?) an abomination. He’d probably spend
the rest of the trip trying to convince her steel springs were better.

(Talking of which, where was Vaatzes? Couldn’t remember having seen him for a while.)

She’d stopped talking. “Well,” he said, “that’s fascinating. We’ll definitely have to give these composite springs a try sometime.”

“Advisable,” she said. “The best sinew for the purpose is the back-strap of a cow or horse; ordinary cowhorn suffices for
the inner layer. For wood we prefer maple, though ash makes an acceptable substitute where maple’s not available.”