Evil for Evil (94 page)

“I wish I’d died in the desert,” he said. “The only good thing about still being here is knowing you’re safe. I don’t really
care about anything else anymore.”

She looked away. “Define safe,” she replied.

“No thank you.” He yawned again. “Sorry,” he added. “I guess the last few weeks are catching up with me. Oh, I forgot. The
king of the savages is extremely old, and when he dies, I’m supposed to succeed him.”

She frowned. “Do you want to?”

“No.”

“Have you got a choice?”

“Not really.” He shook his head like a wet dog. “Do you know what I really want most of all right now, more than anything
else in the whole wide world?”

“No. Tell me.”

He grinned. “I want a pack of dogs and a bloody great big spear, and I want to find something edible with four legs and kill
it.”

It was in the place he’d told her it would be; in the top of the broken crock where the poultryman left the eggs, under the
cracked roof tile. It was a little square packet of parchment. Any of her neighbors would have assumed it was a dose of powdered
willow-bark from the woman who sold medicines.

She’d noticed it early in the morning, when she collected the eggs; but he was there, so she didn’t dare pick it up. She left
it, hoping he’d go out, but for some reason he didn’t go in to work. Instead he sat in the study all day, staring at a big
sheaf of drawings. When she came in to ask if he wanted anything, he tried to hide them with his sleeve.

All day she waited. Three or four times she almost managed to persuade herself that it’d be safe to get the letter and read
it, but she resisted the temptation. As it happened, she would’ve been quite safe. Falier only left the study once all morning,
to go to the outhouse …

Of course. How stupid of her.

As she hurried toward the front door, he came out of the study. “Where are you off to?” he asked her.

“To put the money out for the egg man,” she replied.

He frowned. “What money? You haven’t asked me for any money.”

Stupid; careless. “No,” she replied.

He sighed. “How much?”

“Three turners.”

He fumbled in his pocket. “Three turners for a dozen eggs,” he said. “Couldn’t you get them cheaper in the market?”

“His eggs are always fresh.”

He gave her three small coins. “There’s a man at work whose mother keeps hens,” he said. “I’ll ask him if there’s ever any
spare. We’re not made of money, you know.”

“That’s a good idea,” she said meekly. “Can I get you anything?”

“What? No. Have you seen my small penknife? The little one with the black handle?”

She nodded. “In the kitchen,” she said. “I used it to dress the fish.”

“Oh for —” She could see him making an effort not to be annoyed. “Next time, couldn’t you use something else? That’s my special
knife for sharpening pens.”

“All the kitchen knives are blunt. You said you’d sharpen them.”

“Yes, all right, when I’ve got five minutes.”

You said that last week,
she didn’t reply. “It’s in the drawer,” she said. “I washed it up carefully.”

“Right, yes, thanks.” He stomped out into the kitchen; she bolted through the front door and shut it behind her.

First, she put the money in the bottom of the crock. Only then did she look to see if it was still there. Seeing it was like
a miracle. She palmed it quickly, squeezing her hand around it without closing her fingers. Then she crossed the yard, opened
the outhouse door, sat down on the edge of the earthenware pot, shut the door and bolted it. Today, the bolt had to be stiff
(he’d promised he’d see to that, too). She broke a nail working it into its keeper.

My darling …

She shut her eyes as the muscles of her stomach tightened.

My darling,

I know you must be very worried and upset. It hurts me terribly to think of you, not knowing what’s going on, or whether you’re
in danger. I think about you all the time.

I’m safe. That’s all I can tell you for now. I’ll come for you as soon as I can, but that may not be for a while. The people
I’m with are going to look after me, but …

She skipped a couple of lines.

I’m sorry I can’t tell you any more, but I’ve got to be so careful. Trust me, my darling. I promise you, everything’s under
control. I’ll be coming home, and it’ll be soon. I don’t care what it takes or what I have to do. The only thing that matters
to me is being with you.

I love you.

She folded the parchment up again, putting him back into his little packet.

“What the hell happened to you?” Valens hissed, as they brushed through the tent flap together into the darkness. “You look
like you’ve been in a fight or something.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ziani muttered back. “What’s … ?”

“Ziani Vaatzes.” The thin, fragile voice startled him. He couldn’t see where it was coming from. “I am delighted and honored
to meet you. The hero of Civitas Eremiae; and the armored wagons. Such a simple yet ingenious idea, but of course it was overtaken
by circumstances. And a Mezentine; I think I shall indulge my curiosity and have some light.”

Only a brief flicker, lasting hardly longer than a flash of lightning; a very old man, completely bald.

“Thank you,” said the voice. “So it really is true; there are men in the world with brown faces. Remarkable. My apologies
for staring at you so blatantly; but at my age, to see something new is such a rare thing. And the man who discovered the
way across the desert. What a long way you’ve come, Foreman Vaatzes.”

“Thank you,” Ziani said, for want of anything else to say.

He could hear Valens breathing beside him; fast, nervous, like a man waiting for his bride’s veil to be lifted. As for himself,
he could almost have wished that this moment would last forever. Almost.

“Duke Valens thinks most highly of you,” the voice went on. “He believes that you might be able to find a way to bring down
the walls of Mezentia. With the very greatest respect; do you really think you could do that?”

(And Daurenja’s hand on his shoulder, forcing him to his knees … )

“Yes,” Ziani said.

K. J. P
ARKER
is a pseudonym. Find more about the author at
www.kjparker.com
.

Introducing

If you enjoyed

EVIL FOR EVIL,

look out for

Book Three of the Engineer Trilogy

by K. J. Parker

The Cure Doce ambassador was a small, wiry man with short white hair, enormous hands and a nose like a wedge. As soon as Psellus
walked into the room he jumped up, as though the door was a sear that tripped the catch that held him in his seat. He spoke
in snips, like a man cutting foil.

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” he said. “Time, obviously —”

Psellus nodded vaguely. “Quite,” he said. “They tell me — please, sit down — they tell me the savages are nine days’ ride
from here. Time is therefore very much on my mind at the moment.” He sat down and wondered, as he always did when he had to
conduct a meeting with important people, what the hell he was supposed to do with his hands. He could fold them in front of
him on the table, but that implied a level of briskness that he didn’t really feel capable of. And the only alternative was
just to let them hang from his wrists, like coats in a cupboard. “If you have any suggestions to make, I’d be delighted to
hear them.”

The ambassador nodded, and folded his hands on the table. “My understanding,” he said, “is that at the moment you have no
effective field army. Is that correct?”

Psellus smiled. “Yes.”

Perhaps the ambassador hadn’t been expecting a one-word answer. He flinched, as though Psellus had just said a rude word.
“We can offer you twelve thousand archers, eight thousand men-at-arms and eleven hundred heavy cavalry,” he said. “We’ve already
taken the precaution of mustering them at Liancor —”

“Where’s that?”

Another rude word, apparently. The ambassador took a moment to recover, then said, “It’s the closest point on our side to
the road the savages are likely to take. We’ve mobilized simply as a precaution, to discourage them from trespassing on our
territory.” He smiled. “We have no quarrel of our own with either the Vadani or the savages. However —” He snatched a little
breath, and Psellus thought: Ah. He’s about to lie to me. “However, we feel that it would be impossible, ethically speaking,
for us to stand idly by and watch while the savages overrun and destroy a great city crammed with helpless civilians, women
and children. We are prepared to help you —”

“Thank you.”

The ambassador looked like a man trying to wrestle with an opponent made entirely out of water; there was nothing to get hold
of, and it kept slipping away unexpectedly. “Provided,” he went on, “that you in turn recognize the nature of the commitment
we’re making to you, and undertake to bear it in mind when the post-war balance of power comes to be reassessed. For a long
time now, we’ve been actively seeking a closer relationship with the Republic, a relationship which you have hitherto seemed
less than eager to pursue. We feel —”

“Excuse me.” Psellus held up his hand (nice to find a use for it at last). “I’m very new at this, and I’m afraid I don’t speak
the language very well. You’ve probably heard I didn’t want the job, I’m really not capable of doing it, by any stretch of
the imagination, and I still don’t quite understand how I came to be given it. One minute they were going to execute me, the
next — well, here I am.” He shook his head sadly. “But there we are, it’s done and can’t be helped, and now it’s all on my
shoulders, whether I like it or not.” He looked up. “You don’t mind me telling you all that, do you?”

The ambassador was staring at him. “No, of course not. Your frankness is —”

“The thing is,” Psellus went on, looking over the ambassador’s shoulder at a mark on the wall, “I really do have to find a
way of saving the City, because nobody else is willing or able, and so if I don’t do it — well, it’s not something that bears
thinking about. So, I’ve got to manage it somehow, but I don’t know the first thing about diplomacy, so I’m not even going
to try. I’m going to ask you to bear with me while I do the best I can. Is that all right?”

The ambassador nodded. He seemed to be having trouble finding any words.

“Thank you,” Psellus said. “This is how I think matters stand, and perhaps you’ll be kind enough to tell me if I’ve got it
all disastrously wrong. Now, then. Like me, you can’t really bring yourself to believe that the savages will be able to take
the City, even though there’s a quite ridiculously huge number of them, and they’ve got the abominator Vaatzes helping them,
which means if they haven’t already built siege engines as good as the ones we make, they’ll do so pretty soon. No, you look
at our walls and the city gates, and you think — just as I used to do — there’s no power on earth that could ever crack that
particular nut, engines or no engines.” He paused to draw breath, then went on. “But you know that we haven’t got any proper
soldiers anymore; we have no army of our own, and so many mercenaries got killed fighting the Eremians and the Vadani that
they simply don’t want to work for us anymore, especially now the savages have found a way of crossing the desert and have
joined up with our enemies. You believe — quite rightly, of course — that we’re terrified, feeling helpless, we don’t know
what to do, and so we’d be willing to pay anything and make any concessions you’d care to name in return for the loan of your
army, just to make us feel a little bit safer until we’ve had a chance to pull ourselves together and figure out how we’re
going to defend our city.” He paused again, smiled meekly and asked, “Is that about right, or have I misunderstood you entirely?”

“That’s about right,” the ambassador said.

“Splendid, I’m glad about that. It’s so important that people tell me when I make mistakes, or how will I ever learn better?
Anyway, I’m sure you know much more about fighting wars than any of us do, so you must’ve assessed the position and decided
that the advantages — the concessions you can screw out of us while we’re on our knees like this — outweigh the rather dreadful
risk you’re running, picking a fight with a million savages. Oh, did you know that, by the way? Actually, it’s closer to eight
hundred thousand soldiers, when you leave out the carters and drovers and all the people in the army who don’t actually fight,
but that’s still an awful lot. You do know; excellent. Well, of course you do, now I come to think of it; I imagine you’re
who gave us the figures in the first place, because we haven’t got any scouts, and who else would be out there counting?”
Psellus smiled again, and continued. “Now I’m the last person to tell you that you’ve made a bad decision, and it’s very encouraging
to know you’ve got so much faith in us, since you know so much more about these things than we do. I still can’t help thinking
that in your shoes, the last thing I’d want to do is let myself get dragged into a war that’s none of my business, fighting
against a vast army of savages who’ll wipe me off the face of the earth if they win. Still, if that’s a risk you’re happy
to take, far be it from me to argue with you. We need you desperately and in return you can have anything you want.”