Evil for Evil

15

Out of their minds, Valens thought, as he dragged his horse's head round. Completely, suicidally insane, to mount an attack three miles from the city gate. They must know that, as soon as the alarm's raised, they'll be surrounded, outnumbered a hundred to one, annihilated in a matter of seconds. Nobody could be that stupid; therefore it can't be happening.

Without needing to look down, he found the hilt of his sword; then remembered that, since this was a hawking expedition in the safest place in the world, all he had with him was a stupid little hanger, adequate for clearing brambles but not a lot of use against armor. They'll all be killed, yes; but by then they'll have slaughtered the entire Vadani government. Maybe not so crazy after all.

He realized he was looking for her; well, of course. Two of them had seen him; they were slowing down, turning toward him, but he couldn't be bothered with them right now. He caught a glimpse of her-alone, separate from the main party, which was being cut down like nettles round a headland. Stay there, he begged her, and turned his attention to the immediate threat, because he couldn't do anything to help her if he was dead.

The funny little sword was in his hand. He kicked his horse into a canter and forced it straight at the right-hand Mezentine (a lancer, spear couched, coming in fast). At the last moment, when he felt his horse slow up in order to shy away from a direct collision, he pulled over hard to the right. His horse stumbled-he'd expected that-but recovered its stride with its next pace, as the Mezentine, going too fast to stop or swerve, drew level with his left shoulder. Valens threw himself to the left, almost pulling himself out of the saddle, crossing his right arm over his chest and shoulder, the hanger held as firmly as he could grip it; as the Mezentine rushed past him (neither hand free to fend off with), his neck brushed against the last inch and a half of Valens' sword-blade, and that was all there was to it.

Wrenching himself back up straight in the saddle, Valens hauled his horse through a half-circle, in time to see the dead man topple slowly backward over his horse's tail. Looking past him, he watched the second lancer come around, level up and address him, the look in his eyes confirming that the same ploy wouldn't work twice. Tiresome; but he still had the advantage in defense. A lancer trying to spear one particular target in the open is like a man trying to thread a moving needle. He kicked on, riding straight at the lancer; let him underestimate his enemy's imagination. As the distance between them dwindled into a blur, Valens could see him getting ready to anticipate the coming swerve; he'd make a swerve of his own, and hold his lance wide to sideswipe him out of the saddle. Fine. Valens kicked his poor, inoffensive horse as hard as he could, driving him into the Mezentine like a nail. At the moment when he knew the horse would refuse and pull away right, he jerked the left rein savagely, bringing the horse to a desperate standstill. The force of deceleration threw him forward, but he knew the Mezentine's outstretched lance would be there to stop him flying forward over the horse's ears. As he felt himself slam into the lance-shaft, he let go of the reins and grabbed with his left hand, closing his fingers around the shaft. There was a moment of resistance before the lance came away. My lance now, he thought, and sheathed the hanger.

The Mezentine, unarmed and only vaguely aware of what had just happened, was slowing up for his turn, leaving a tiny wedge of opportunity. Valens kicked on; the horse sprang straight into the canter, giving Valens just enough time to grab the reins with his right hand and poke the lance out with his left. The point caught the Mezentine just below the left shoulder blade, shunting him forward onto his horse's neck. Valens let go of the lance just in time, and legged hard right to swerve round him.

That chore out of the way, he reined in and looked to see if she was still where he'd left her. She wasn't. Swearing loudly, Valens stood up in his stirrups, making himself ignore the rich detail of the slaughter going on all around him (people he'd known all his life were being killed everywhere he looked, but he simply hadn't got time to take note of that; it'd have to wait), and eventually caught sight of her. For some reason she was riding straight toward a knot of them, four horsemen or was it five, engaged with some opponent on the ground he couldn't see. Furious because he wasn't being allowed any time to plan ahead, he dropped his painfully won lance, drew the ridiculous hanger and kicked forward. Out of his mind, he thought wryly; must be catching.

By some miracle, the one he reached first hadn't seen or heard him coming. Valens drewcut the back of his neck as he passed him, in the gap between the bottom of his aventail and his shoulders, and hoped he'd done enough, since he had no time to look and make sure. The second one thought he was ready for him, but raised his shield a couple of inches too high in his anxiety to cover his face and chest. Another drawcut, just above the knee; useful arteries there. Even so, he managed to land a cut before Valens was clear of him; he felt the contact, and something like a very severe wasp-sting, which could be anything from a flesh wound to death in a matter of seconds. Nothing he could do about it, so he didn't waste valuable time looking to see where he'd been cut. Ducking low as the third Mezentine swung at him, he punched his sword arm forward as he passed. He felt the point grate and turn on bone, dragged his horse round to address the fourth, and found he wasn't there anymore. Small mercies.

The luxury of a moment to pause and take in the situation. One Mezentine was still in the saddle, but he was leaking blood from his leg like a holed barrel, and could be safely ignored. Two riderless horses; one Mezentine riding away: one man, at least, with a bit of common sense. She was sitting motionless on her pretty little horse. Her dress was soaked with blood, but not hers; the Mezentine 's. She was staring at the dying man, watching the spurt and flow ebb as he quickly ran dry. Quite likely the most horrible thing she's ever seen in her life, Valens reflected; and true love did that, riding yet again to her rescue.

There was someone else involved, he realized: a man, someone he recognized. Reasonably enough-once seen, never forgotten, the bizarre, spider-like character, Vaatzes' assistant. What the hell was he doing here, anyway?

Answer: he was standing astride a dead horse, holding the front half of a broken lance, which he'd just pulled out of a dead Mezentine. He too was bloody to the elbows; his eyes were impossibly wide and he was gasping for breath as though he'd just been dragged out from under the water. That was impossible, because he had no call to be there, certainly he had no business fighting, heroically… Valens forced him out of his mind and looked round a second time. Three Mezentines were heading for him, lances couched. One damn thing after another.

The ugly, spidery man had seen them too; he swung round from the hip to face them, holding out his half-a-spear as though bracing himself to receive a charging boar. Immediately, Valens understood; it was all in King Fashion, after all. He turned his horse's head and rode away, forcing himself not to look back.

The lancer who detached himself from the pack of three to come after him hadn't seen the breakaway maneuver he'd used on the first Mezentine he'd killed, so the ploy was worth risking again, and succeeded quickly and efficiently. Even so, time was very tight. Valens wheeled round, almost too scared to look, but it was all right, just about. One lancer had charged Vaatzes' man, who'd dropped on one knee, spear-butt braced against his foot (pure King Fashion), and allowed the lancer's horse to skewer itself through the chest. That left one Mezentine to be the boar engaged with the pack. Valens rode in on him from the side and cut half through his neck before he'd figured out what was going on. Then there was just the unhorsed Mezentine on the ground; he was dazed from the fall, and probably never knew what hit him.

But it was all a waste of time, Valens realized, as he looked up again and took in the shape of the engagement. Hardly anybody left alive, apart from a full dozen Mezentines, taking a moment or so to form up and surround them. A little spurt of anger at the unfairness of it flashed through Valens' mind. He'd done his best-done pretty well, in the circumstances-but he was going to lose anyway, in spite of his efforts. If only there'd been time, he'd have complained to somebody about it.

The Mezentines had completed their ring; all they had to do was close it up in good order and they could finish the job without further loss or fuss. Instead, they seemed to be hesitant about something. What, though? One man with a toy sword and a freak with a sharp stick? Maybe he was missing something. He glanced over his shoulder, and saw the most beautiful sight.

(Perhaps, he thought later, that was how she felt, when the Vadani cavalry swooped down through the fire and slaughter at Civitas Eremiae to carry her to safety. He doubted it, somehow. She'd only have seen the disgusting spectacle of killing, too horrible for her to differentiate between heroes and villains. He, on the other hand, could feel ecstatic joy at such a sight, because he knew it meant that his enemies were going to die and he wasn't.)

One platoon of the household cavalry; only thirty men, but enough to make all the difference in the world. They were standing to a furious gallop; Valens sketched it all out in his mind, and found that there would be time for the Mezentines to close in and kill her, and him, but only if they couldn't care less about being slaughtered a moment or so later. The fact that they were hesitating told him what decision they were going to make, whole seconds before they made it. They wheeled and galloped away. All over.

Valens felt the strength empty out of his body as the pain broke through. He struggled to draw a breath; he thought, I've been cut up before now, this is something else, but he couldn't think what. His mind was clogging up, with pain, with repressed fear, shock, all manner of nuisances and all of them the more intense for having been kept waiting, like petitioners left for too long in an anteroom. He looked at her, and the blank horror in her face was too much to bear. She's disgusted just looking at me, he realized, and he could see why. It was not what he'd done, but how he'd done it-quickly, with the smooth efficiency and minimal effort that comes only from long practice. Whenever she saw him now, she'd see the slaughterman.

The hell with that, he thought resentfully-he could feel himself starting to slide off the horse, but it was too much effort to fight for balance. His mind was almost clotted now, but something was nagging at the back of it, shrill, like the pain of toothache. He remembered: his wife. Was she dead or alive? As if it mattered.

A shift in balance, and the ground was rushing up to meet him. It hit his shoulder and hurt him, but it was too big to fight.

Someone was standing over him, telling him something. His eyes hurt.

"Syra Terentia and her two daughters, Lollius Pertinax, Sillius Vacuo and his wife, and they cut off their daughter's arm at the elbow…"

He struggled to place the voice. All he could see was light, and a blur. "What's the…" he heard himself say, but he didn't know how to finish the question.

"Sir?" Ah, Valens thought, someone who calls me sir. Not many of them whose names I know. "Do I know you?" he asked.

"Nolentius Brennus, sir," the voice said. "Captain of the Seventh Company, Household Cavalry." A short, nervous pause. "Sir, do you know what's just happened? Can you remember?"

The temptation, wicked and seductive, was to lie back and pretend to be asleep; but no, he couldn't do that. The young soldier was scared, on the edge of panic and, very probably, in charge.

He needed his duke's help. "Yes, it's all right," Valens muttered, opening his eyes wide and making an effort to resolve the blur into the soldier's face. Never seen him before: a long, thin nose, weak mouth and a round bobble for a chin. If anybody's having a worse day than me, Valens thought, it'll be this poor devil. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't take any of that in. This is the casualty list, yes?"

"Yes, sir." He saw the young man-Brennus, he knew the family but not this particular specimen-take a deep breath, ready to start the whole painful rigmarole over again. He felt sorry for him, but it had to be done.

"First things first," Valens said. "The Duchess. Is she…?"

"She's fine, sir. At least, as well as can be expected."

"Her uncles?"

The fear in Captain Brennus' eyes made the words superfluous. "Both dead," he said. "They died defending the Duchess, but they had nothing to fight with."

"Yes, all right. Who else?"

The cataract of names. He wasn't counting; the list seemed to go on forever. There'd be two he'd never heard of, then three he'd known since he was a boy, then another stranger, then another old friend or cousin. Carausius was dead; that shocked him so much he missed the next five names.

"Orsea?" he interrupted.

"No, sir. Both he and the Duchess survived."

Valens nodded, and the recital continued. Orsea had survived-well, of course he had, it went without saying. The sky could cave in and flatten the earth, mile-wide fissures could open and gobble up the city, but Orsea would survive, somehow or other. "What about Ziani Vaatzes, the engineer? Did they get him?"

Captain Brennus shook his head. "No, sir, he was the one who raised the alarm. If it hadn't been for him…"

Valens groaned; he hadn't meant to, but the pain popped up suddenly and ambushed him. "What sort of a state am I in?" he asked.

"Well, sir…" Brennus hesitated. "Maybe I should get the doctor, he can tell you more."

Valens felt his chest tighten. "That bad?"

"No, sir. I mean-"

"Oh for crying out loud. Am I going to die, or not?"

It was almost amusing to see Brennus pull himself together. "You got a bad cut to your left arm; they've stitched and dressed it, but there may be some permanent damage. The arrow-"

Valens' eyebrows shot up. "I was hit by an arrow?"

"Yes, sir."

"I never even noticed. Where?"

"In the right thigh," Brennus said, his voice wavering. "The shaft was already snapped off when the surgeons treated you; they had to cut it out, but they don't think there'll be any lasting effect."

Valens smiled. "Is that it?"

"Concussion," Brennus said, "from the fall. They were quite worried, because you were unconscious for so long."

"Was I?" Valens pulled a face. "Well, I wouldn't know about that, I've been asleep." That seemed to bother Brennus a lot; was he supposed to laugh at the Duke's feeble, scrambled-brain jokes, or should he ignore them? Best, Valens decided, if I don't make any more. "So apart from that I'm all right?" he said.

"The doctors said you shouldn't even think about getting up for at least two days," Brennus said apprehensively, obviously anticipating a storm of angry refusal. Valens nodded.

"Suits me," he said. "For one thing, it feels like I've pulled every muscle in my body." He winced, remembering some of the things he'd done. His own worst enemy and all that. "All right, then," he said briskly, "who's in charge? It doesn't sound like there's many of us left."

He didn't like the pause that followed; not one little bit. "It's you, isn't it?" Valens said.

Brennus swallowed something. "I was the duty officer," he said, as though admitting that he'd planned the whole thing, suborned by Mezentine gold. "I've sent messages to the divisional commanders, someone ought to be here before sunset, but until then I suppose, theoretically…"

Valens smiled. "You carry on," he said. "You appear to be doing a fine job." He paused, then added, "Is anybody at all left out of the civil administration? Anybody higher up than, say, a permanent secretary?"

It was meant as one of those jokes he'd resolved he wouldn't make, but then there was another pause. Valens frowned. That wasn't good.

"I see," he said. "In that case, I'm putting the military in charge until we can get everything sorted out. You're it, in other words."

Brennus looked as though he'd just been sentenced to death by bastinado. "Like I said, sir, I've notified the divisional commanders, I'm sure one of them'll be here very soon, and then…" Pause, while he pulled himself together again. "I've given orders to close the gates, and I've sent out patrols; there's no sign of the enemy in a ten-mile radius of the city. What else should I be…?"

Valens closed his eyes. "If I were you," he said, "I'd leave it at that. Just concentrate on keeping everybody calm and quiet until the army gets here. I'm sure you can manage-every confidence."

He could feel himself sliding away into sleep; no reason why he shouldn't. "The Duchess, sir," Brennus was saying. "Should I–I mean, would you like to see her now?"

Valens opened his eyes and smiled. "No," he said, and went back to sleep.

The next time he opened his eyes, it wasn't thin, pale Captain Brennus.

"Mezentius? Is that you?"

The familiar face of his chief of staff grinned down at him: the point of a hose and two small, pale eyes in a shrubbery of beard. "This is a right mess," he said.

Valens tried to raise himself on one elbow. Not his brightest idea ever. "When did you get here? What time is it?"

"About ten o'clock in the morning, and around midnight," Mezentius replied. "Since when I've been chasing round looking for something to do, apart from inspecting dead bodies. That young Guards captain's done a good job, by the way. I'll have him for the Seventh when you've finished with him."

Valens nodded. "Everything's under control, then."

"In the circumstances." Mezentius was frowning. "I told the Seventh and the Fifth to get here as soon as possible, but we've had patrols out, no sign of any more of them. It's looking like a single raiding party who knew exactly who they were after and where to find them. Which," he added quietly, "is rather more disturbing than a full-scale assault, if you care to look at it that way. You've heard the casualty list?"

Valens nodded. "It hasn't really sunk in," he said. "But the impression I got was, nobody's left except me."

"More or less," Mezentius replied, and the way he said it made Valens wince. "I've talked to all the survivors who're up to answering questions; basically, nobody on our side made a fight of it except you and that weird engineer, the one who looks like some kind of insect."

Valens had forgotten about him. "That's right," he said. "Did he make it?"

"A few cuts and bruises," Mezentius replied. "Twisted ankle. Fought like a maniac, so I gather. Amazing, really. He didn't strike me as the type, the one time I met him."

"Go on," Valens said.

"Well," Mezentius continued, "apparently he came charging up just as one of the bad guys was about to take out Duke Orsea; he jumped up, dragged Orsea off his horse at the last moment, grabbed the lance out of the bad guy's hands and stuck him with it; then Orsea's wife came rushing over, apparently she'd seen Orsea go down; four of them close in on her, but this Daurenja holds them off single-handed, does for two of them-did one of them with his teeth, apparently, bit his throat out like a dog. Then more of them join in, and then you showed up, and you know the rest. No, it sounds like the engineering department pretty well saved the day, one way and another. Oh, and the uncles as well, I expect you've heard about that. The rest of the embassy's kicking up one hell of a fuss, as you'd expect."

Valens kept his sigh to himself. "What are they saying?"

"Well, they're still on our side," Mezentius said, with a crooked grin. "The old chap was the one I spoke to. Basically, he wants to wipe the Mezentines off the face of the earth. Man after my own heart, really."

"That's good," Valens said. "It's always good to have something in common with your in-laws. I suppose I'd better see him."

Mezentius shook his head. "I've told him you're fragile as an egg and not to be disturbed for at least a week," he said. "Only way I could keep him from bursting in here and waking you up."

Valens nodded. "Who is he, by the way? I've been talking to him all this time, but nobody's actually told me where he fits in."

"Oh." Mezentius frowned. "He's sort of the grand vizier, prime minister, the head man's chief adviser. He reckons he pretty much runs the show, though I don't know whether the rest of them would agree. Anyway, he's pretty high-powered; and he's really pissed off about the uncles getting killed. Probably some background there I wasn't briefed on."

"It'll keep, I expect," Valens said with a yawn.

They discussed other things-a new civil authority, which posts could be filled by co-option and which would have to wait for formal elections; suitable candidates for offices, the balance of power between the old families and the mining companies; the effect recent events (Valens smiled to himself; call them recent events and you cauterize the wound?) would have on the marriage alliance, plans for the evacuation, the war. Exhaustion came up on him suddenly, like an ambush. He stopped Mezentius in the middle of a sentence and said, "You'd better go now, I'm tired." Mezentius nodded.

"I'll send the doctor in," he said.

"No, I just want to get some sleep," Valens mumbled. His eyes were already closing. He heard the sounds of movement, someone standing up, the legs of a chair grating on a stone floor. He felt cold, but couldn't be bothered to do anything about it. He listened to his own breathing for a moment or so, and realized that he was back on the edge of the marsh, watching the ducks flying in. It had been a disaster, a wretched mess, all because of that fool Orsea. Standing next to him, King Fashion and Queen Reason were talking about the day's hawking. He was surprised to hear the King say that it hadn't been too bad after all: three dozen mallard, a few teal, three brace of moorhens, but it was a shame they hadn't managed to pull down the heron. Perhaps they should have flown lanners instead of sakers. As they talked, they were watching the sky, waiting for the hawks to come back. They didn't seem worried, but Valens knew that the hawks were gone for good; dead or scattered, not that it mattered a great deal. After a long silence, the King shrugged, and called to his master falconer to make up the bag. They were laying them out on the ground, in pairs, a male and a female; Sillius Vacuo and his wife, Lollius Pertinax and Syra Terentia, Carausius and the eldest Fabella girl, a hen to every cock-bird. He counted them: eighteen brace, just as the King had said. He almost expected to see himself among them as the falconers passed loops round their necks and hung them in their pairings from the top rail of the fence; but of course, he wasn't there, the heron had got away.

Queen Reason was talking to him. She was asking him if he was awake.

"Don't be silly," he said. "I'm dreaming, of course I'm not awake."

He realized that he'd spoken the words aloud, and that he wasn't asleep anymore. He opened his eyes.

"Oh," she said. "I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

He blinked, just in case. She was still there.

"I was just dozing," he said. He was struggling to remember which one she was; whose duchess, his or Orsea's. But then it all came back to him; he remembered now. There had been some sort of ghastly mix-up, and he'd married the wrong one, and this was the fool's wife he was talking to: Veatriz, who used to write him letters.

"Are you all right?" he said.

She nodded. "How about you?"

"Oh, I'm fine," he said. "Just skiving, so someone else has got to clear up the mess. Soon as everything's been sorted out, I'll make a miraculous recovery."

She smiled: thin, like lines scribed on brass with a needle. "I thought I ought to thank you," she said. "It's becoming a habit with you."

Something about the way she'd said that. "You wrote to me," he said. "You wanted to talk."

"Yes, but that was before the wedding." She hesitated. Not fair to bully a sick man. "It was very brave of you…" she started to say. She made it sound like an accusation. He didn't want to hear the rest of it.

"It sort of rounded off a perfect day," he grunted.

"Not quite the honeymoon you'd have chosen?"

"I hadn't thought of it like that," he said. "But, since you mention it, better than the one I had planned."

She frowned. "I should go," she said. "Shall I let your wife know you're awake and receiving visitors?"

"I'd rather you didn't," he sighed. The pillow was suddenly uncomfortable, and his arm itched. "I heard about Daurenja," he said.

"Who?"

"The man who saved your life. And Orsea's too," he added maliciously. "How is he, by the way?"

"In bed. They were worried about the bang he got on his head, but they think he'll be all right now."

"Ah. So that's all right, then." He looked away, up at the ceiling. "Daurenja's the long, spindly man with the ponytail who rescued both of you. Maybe you should look in on him too."

"I will. He was very brave." He wasn't looking at her, so he couldn't see the expression on her face. "Isn't he something to do with Vaatzes, the engineer?"

"That's right." His head was starting to hurt, making it a painful effort to think. Nothing came to mind: no bright, interesting observations to found a conversation on. He'd prefer it, in fact, if she went away. (Interesting, he thought; does this mean love is dead? He couldn't decide.)

"I'm sorry Orsea spoiled your hunt," she was saying. "He didn't want to come. I think he was afraid he'd show himself up, one way or another. But he reckoned it'd have been rude to refuse the invitation."

"Oh well," Valens replied. "As things turned out, it wasn't the end of the world."

"The people who were killed." She sounded as though every word was an effort, like lifting heavy blocks of stone. "Were they…?"

"Most of the government," he said. "My friends. People I grew up with. It's going to be very strange getting used to the idea that they won't be around anymore. I mean, so many of them, and so sudden." He paused, reflecting. "But you'd know all about that, of course," he said. "At least they didn't burn down my home."

She laughed, brittle as ice. "I never liked it much anyway," she said.

"Is it better here?"

"No, not much." A pause. It seemed to go on for a ridiculously long time. "The thing is," she said, "I've been shunted about like a chess piece ever since I was fourteen years old; you know, move to this square here, then back, then sideways to cover the white knight. After a while, places just don't matter very much anymore. And it's not like I've ever done anything. At least," she added, "I've caused a lot of trouble for thousands of people, but I never asked anybody to do any of that. Unless you count writing letters about poetry and things I could see from my window."

Valens shrugged. "I think if I'd had to live your life, I'd have gone mad, or run away. Haven't you got a sister who's a merchant?"

"Yes. She's a horrible cow and I haven't seen her for years. Why?"

"Oh, nothing. I never had any brothers or sisters. What's it like?"

"Noisy. There's always someone slamming doors in a huff. Why the sudden interest?"

"I was just making conversation. It's something we never got around to discussing, and it was always on my mind to ask you about it."

She stood up. "Some other time, maybe," she said. "I really ought to go. You look tired."

He yawned. "I was born tired," he said. "Rest just spoils my concentration." She turned and walked away; reached the door and hesitated.

"Should I ask the doctor to come in?" she said.

"I'd rather you didn't."

"Goodbye, then."

"Goodbye. I'm sorry," he added.

"Are you? What for?"

He closed his eyes, just to make her go away.

"Everybody's dead," the woman in the red dress complained bitterly. "Which is hell for business. I've got a hundred yards of silk damask, beautiful sort of bluey-green, and I can't shift it. No customers. All the money in the duchy's tied up in probate, and what there is has all gone on estate sales, all the heirs selling up at the same time. It's a bugger for luxury goods. I should've stuck to bulk commodities, like my old mother told me to. You could kill off every bloody aristocrat this side of the mountains, and people'll still want quality lumber."

Ziani nodded. "For coffins," he said, "if nothing else."

She sighed; not in the mood for comedy. "And what's going to become of the marriage alliance, that's what I'd like to know. If that goes out the window, that's our venture in the salt trade well and truly stuffed." She tilted the jug, but it was empty. "Bastard thing," she said, a trifle unfairly in Ziani's opinion, since she'd been the one who'd emptied it. "And I don't know what you're being so fucking calm and superior about. It's your money as well, remember."

Ziani shook his head. "It's not going to muck up the alliance," he said soothingly. "Quite the opposite. From what I can gather, the Cure Hardy are fighting mad, because of the uncles getting killed. Blood vengeance is a big thing with them, so I've heard."

She shook her head. "You're getting them confused with the Flos Gaia," she told him. "They're the ones who carry on blood feuds for sixteen generations. In fact, it's a miracle there's any of the buggers left. This lot are pretty sensible about that sort of thing, for savages."

"Not where royalty's concerned," Ziani replied. "And don't forget, there's a whole lot of young braves back home who'd love a chance to have a crack at the Republic, as a change from cattle-raiding against the other tribes. It'll be fine, you'll see. Blessing in disguise, even."

She scowled, tried to get up to fetch a bottle from the cupboard, gave that up as too much effort. "That's not going to help me get shot of my silk damask, though, is it? Genuine Mezentine, cost me two thalers a yard and I had to fight like a lunatic to beat them down to that. I'd been hoping to shift it for clothes for the wedding, but it didn't get here in time, what with having to come the long way round to stay out of trouble. This bloody war'll be the ruin of us all, you'll see."

Ziani smiled. "You want to hang on to that cloth," he said. "Take the long-term view. Once the savages are coming here all the time, money in their pockets from the salt deals, there'll be a demand for prestige goods, and who else is going to be carrying any stock to sell them?"

She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again and thought for a moment; slow but sure, like a cart drawn by oxen. "That's a thought," she said. "All the rest of 'em will be getting out of luxuries and buying into staples; and you're right about the savages, they won't want to go home empty-handed."

Ziani stood up. "You've got the idea," he said. "If I were you, once your colleagues start selling out their fine ware at sacrifice, you want to be in there buying. After all," he added, "you know something they don't. Only," he added, "for crying out loud be a bit discreet about it. We don't want anybody putting two and two together."

He left her to her long thoughts and the unopened bottle, and walked back up the hill. People were staring at him as he went by; not just because of the color of his skin, now that he was the hero of the hour, the man who'd raised the alarm and saved the Duke's life. The thought made him smile.

He heard the foundry half a mile before he reached it. There were all sorts of rumors about what was going on there. The favorite, for the time being, was that all that steel sheet was for making armor, to equip the thousands of cavalrymen the Cure Hardy would be sending to help avenge the massacre. The proponents of this theory weren't having it all their own way; they couldn't explain to those awkward-minded cynics who wanted to argue the point how all these notional soldiers were going to get from the Cure Hardy homelands to Civitas Vadanis, given that there was a huge, impassable desert in the way. That uncomfortable fact was very much in people's minds; had been ever since the news of the marriage alliance had broken. It was all very well making friends with a nation that had endless resources of warlike manpower, but what help was that likely to be if it was going to take them six months to get here? (Six months was the figure usually quoted; pure conjecture, since nobody really knew how big the desert was or how you got round it.) The same point had exercised the minds of most of the Duke's court; but Carausius had been quite adamant that the problem was by no means insoluble, and since he hadn't been prepared to discuss the matter, his assurance had been generally taken on trust. Hooray for autocratic government.

That thought made Ziani smile too, as he banged on the massive gates of the foundry and waited for the porter to let him in. It had cost him a good deal of effort and ingenuity to find a way of sharing the secret of the salt road across the desert with Carausius, since the late Chancellor had taken a dislike to him from the start. In the end, he'd had to plant in his business partner's mind the idea of selling Carausius' wife twenty yards of best hard linen at practically cost, and hanging around to chat after the deal had been made. He'd explained that if the marriage alliance went ahead, there'd be a need for regular traffic between the Cure Hardy and the Vadani; which meant convoys of troops, which meant free escorts for the shipments of salt they'd be taking across the desert, and quite possibly free fodder for the horses, someone else to carry the water, all sorts of fringe benefits. Thanks to his gentle, patient suggestions, Carausius had learned about the secret road across the desert, firmly believing he'd found out about it by happy chance rather than being force-fed it by someone he regarded as a threat to national security. In his apparent monopoly of the secret, he'd seen a wonderful opportunity to consolidate and maintain his grip on power. As far as Ziani could find out, he hadn't even shared it with Valens himself; and now, of course, Carausius was dead. The Cure Hardy still believed that in order to get to Civitas Vadanis, they had to struggle across the desert the hard way, and that way was very hard indeed: the bride's escort had consisted of the wedding party, fifty horses to carry water and supplies and their drivers. Twenty men and thirty-seven horses had died in the crossing, quietly and without complaint; these losses were rather lower than had been anticipated when the party set out. The Cure Hardy were serious about the alliance. How pleased they would be, therefore, when they saw the map Ziani had hidden under a floorboard in the cramped back room at the foundry that he used as an office.

"They'll be pleased to see you," the porter told him mournfully as he swung open the gate. "They're having problems with the drop-hammers."

Ziani closed his eyes, but only for a moment. There had been a short, happy interval when he'd actually come to believe that Vadani workmen could be trusted with mechanisms more complicated than a pair of tongs, but that was some time ago. "Where's Daurenja?" he heard himself say. "Couldn't he have sorted it out?"

"They were looking for him," the porter replied, "but he's off somewhere. They're having to do the blooms by hand."

Patience, Ziani ordered himself. The idiots'll be beating the sheets out to any old thickness, and quite probably cracking and splitting them as well; a day's production, only fit to go back in the melt. "Wonderful," he said, and he quickened his pace. He always seemed to be rushing about these days; not good for someone who didn't really like walking, let alone running.

Nothing wrong with the drop-hammers that a blindfolded idiot couldn't have fixed in five minutes; but the Vadani foundrymen were standing around looking sad, still and patient as horses in a paddock. He put the problem right-a chain had jumped a pulley and mangled a couple of gear-wheels, but there were spares in the box-shouted at the men whose names he could remember, and scampered off to get on with some real work.

He was building a punch, to cut mounting holes in the plates, to save having to drill each one. It was nothing more complicated than a long lever bearing on cams, bolted down for stability to a massive oak log, but he was having a little trouble with the alignment of the bottom plate, and the sheets were coming out distorted after the holes had been punched. All it needed was shims, but that meant laboriously hacksawing, drilling and filing each one by hand, since such basic necessities of life as a lathe and a mill were unknown in this godforsaken country. He clamped a stub of two-inch-round bar in the vise, picked up the saw and set to work, pausing after every fifty strokes to spit into the slot for lubrication. He was three-quarters of the way through when he heard footsteps behind him, a pattern he recognized without having to turn and look.

"Daurenja?" he called out.

Immediately he was there: long, tense, attentive, unsatisfactory in every way. Today he had his ponytail tied back with a twist of packing wire, and there was something yellow under his fingernails.

"Where the hell did you wander off to?" Ziani asked.

"I had some errands to run," Daurenja answered. "I'm very sorry. I gather there was some bother with the-"

"Yes. Two hours lost. You should've been here to deal with it."

Being angry with Daurenja was like pouring water into sand; he absorbed it, stifling the healthy flow of emotion.

"You know we're in a hurry," Ziani went on. The default had been trivial enough; two hours' lost production wasn't the end of the world, or even a serious inconvenience. If it hadn't been for Daurenja's energy, initiative and enthusiasm, the whole project would probably have stalled by now and be in jeopardy. "You know you can't leave these clowns on their own for ten minutes, but you bugger off somewhere without a word to me; they could have trashed the place, wrecked all the machinery, blown the furnace…"

"I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

Ziani put the hacksaw down on the bench and wiped sweat and filings from his hands. "It's not bloody well good enough, Daurenja," he said, and the thin man's pale eyes seemed to glow at him as Ziani took a step forward, balling his right fist. "I never asked you for help; you came to me, remember. You came begging me for a job."

"I know. And I'm grateful, believe me."

"Yes, you are." Ziani grabbed the front of Daurenja's shirt with his left hand and pulled, forcing Daurenja to come close. "You're always so very grateful, and then when my back's turned…"

He'd learned how to punch in the ordnance factory; not a scientific philosophy of personal combat, like the rapier fencing Duke Valens had tried to teach him, more a sense of timing refined by desperation into an instinct. You don't have to teach a dog or a bull how to fight; it comes by light of nature and works out through practice. He jabbed his fist into Daurenja's solar plexus, making him fold like a hinge; as his head came down, he let go with his left hand and bashed him on the side of the jaw. It felt hard and thin, like hammering on a closed door. Daurenja staggered sideways, and as his balance faltered, Ziani kicked him hard on the left kneecap, dropping him on the ground in a heap.

"Get up," he said. "Oh come on," he added, "you're a fighting man, you held off the entire Mezentine army the other day, armed with nothing but a bit of stick."

Daurenja struggled to his knees; Ziani kicked him in the ribs and put his foot on his throat.

"Fine," he said. "Don't fight if you don't want to. I'll break your ribs one at a time."

There was something about the way he lay there; it took Ziani a moment to recognize what it was. Practice, because this wasn't the first time, not by a long way. He was enduring the beating the way a chronic invalid endures some painful but necessary treatment he's been subjected to many times, holding still so as not to inconvenience the doctor as he goes about his work, tilting his head sideways or holding out his arm when he's told to. To test the hypothesis, Ziani lifted his foot off Daurenja's throat and swung it back for a kick; sure enough, Daurenja moved his head a little to the side, anticipating the attack, not trying to avoid it but seeking to minimize the damage it would cause without being too obvious about it. Ziani stepped back. "Stand up," he said. "Beating's over."

He held out his hand, caught hold of Daurenja's bony wrist and pulled him to his feet; Daurenja swayed a little and rested his back against the bench. He hadn't even tried to ask what the attack had been for.

"Now we've got that out of the way," Ziani said pleasantly, "maybe you could tell me what it is you want."

"I don't-"

Ziani frowned, and punched him on the side of the head, just above the ear. His skull was just as bony as he'd imagined it would be. "Yes you do," he said. "You understand perfectly well. You want something from me, something really valuable and important, and there's nobody else you can get it from." He took a step back, a unilateral declaration of ceasefire. "I'm not saying you can't have it," he said, reasonably. "I just want to know what it is, that's all."

Daurenja looked at him. "Do you mind if I sit down?"

"Be my guest."

"Thanks." Daurenja slid one buttock onto the top of the bench; he seemed to hang as well as perch.

"Something," Ziani hazarded, "to do with sulfur."

"In a way." Daurenja sighed. It was, Ziani realized, the first indication of weariness he'd ever seen from him. "I'd better begin at the beginning, hadn't I?"

Ziani shrugged. "If it's a long story."

"It is." Daurenja paused for a moment, as if composing himself before giving a performance. "Some years ago," he said, "I met a man who was trying to set up a pottery business. He'd found a seam of a special kind of clay, the sort you need to make the fine wares that people pay a lot of money for. It's always been a Mezentine monopoly, and everybody's always believed they controlled the only sources of this special clay. Well, he convinced me, and it turned out he was right. The stuff he'd got hold of was the right sort of clay, or at least it turned out the same way when you fired it. We thought we'd got it made. After all, making pottery's no big deal, peasants do it in villages. All we needed to do was find out how you decorate it-make the pretty colors you get on the genuine article. We thought that'd be the easy bit."

"But it wasn't."

Daurenja nodded slowly. "We could produce colors all right, reds and greens and blues. You can find out how to do that from books, anybody can do it. But they weren't quite the right colors-very close, but not quite. It was pretty frustrating, you can see that. We worked at it for a long time, experimenting, fine-tuning the mixes, trying everything we could think of, but we could never quite get there. Anyhow, I'll skip all that, it's not relevant. One day, I was messing about with some of the ingredients, grinding some stuff up together in a mortar, and there was an accident." He rolled up his sleeve to reveal a scar, a handspan of smooth, melted skin. "That's where this comes from," he said, with a wry grin. "There's another one like it right across my chest. Burns. The stuff I was mixing suddenly caught fire and went up; it was like when you let a drop of water fall onto molten metal. The mortar I was using-big stone thing the size of a bucket-smashed into a dozen pieces, and the heat was amazing, just like leaning over a forge at welding temperature. All from a few spoonfuls of this stuff I was grinding."

Ziani realized he'd forgotten to breathe for a while. "What stuff would that be?" he asked.

Maybe Daurenja hadn't heard him. "Obviously," he said, "that got me thinking. As soon as I was on my feet again-I told my partner I'd tripped and fallen into the furnace, and that's how I got all burned up; I don't think he believed me, but that couldn't be helped-I set about trying to do it again, on purpose, as it were. It took me a while. Where I went wrong to start with was assuming that it was the pounding that set it off. In fact, it must've been a spark or something, that first time. What actually gets it going is plain ordinary fire; a taper or a spill. Once I'd figured that out, it was just a matter of getting the proportions right. And keeping it to myself, of course."

"You didn't want your partner to find out."

"Well, of course not." Daurenja frowned. "I'd come to realize he wasn't to be trusted. All my life people have cheated me, taken advantage. Once I'd worked out the proportions of the mix, I left him; I didn't need his workshop anymore, and in any case, he was getting on my nerves. I think he believed I'd found the formula for the colors we'd been looking for, and I was keeping it to myself. There were other problems too, but I won't bore you with them. Personal stuff."

He was silent for a moment. "So you left," Ziani prompted.

Daurenja nodded. "I set up a little workshop of my own," he said. "I had money, so it wasn't a problem. What you've got to understand about the mixture I discovered," he went on, "is the extraordinary power it produces when it flares up. The first time it happened, one chunk of the stone mortar was driven an inch deep into a cob wall. It's like a volcano; a little volcano you can set off whenever you want, and if you could only contain it…" He stopped; his voice had risen, and his hands were clenched. "If you could contain it," he said, "in a pot, or a bell, so that all the force went in one direction only…" He looked up; his eyes seemed very wide and round. "You worked in the ordnance factory," he said, "you know about the scorpions and mangonels and torsion engines that can throw a five-hundredweight stone a quarter-mile. If only I could contain this-this thing that happens when the mixture flares up; if I could build a sort of portable volcano, something you could carry about and point at a wall or a tower, it'd make all your Mezentine engines seem like toys. You could crack open cities like walnuts."

Ziani breathed out long and slow. "You've tried, of course," he said.

Daurenja laughed, like a dog barking. "I've tried all right," he said. "I tried stone mortars, but they shatter like glass. I tried casting a mortar shape, only in metal. I used brass first, then bronze, then iron. I think the problem is something to do with the way the metal cools down." His words were coming out in a rush now, a fast, smooth flow like lava. "Because it's got to be thick, to contain the force, I think that by the time the metal on the outside has taken the cold, the inside's still hot, and this causes little flaws and fractures; either that, or there's air bubbles, I don't know. All I do know is that I've tried everything, and every time it either cracks or shatters. I've lost count of how many times it's nearly killed me. In the end, I reached the point where I couldn't think what to do next. Everything I know about casting in metal, everything I could find out, none of it was any good. I tried casting a solid trunk and boring out a hole in the middle; I built a lathe ten feet long, with a three-inch cutting bar. Still no good. I nearly gave up."

He looked away. It was as though he'd just said, I died.

"And then you heard of me," Ziani said.

"Yes." Suddenly Daurenja stood up; and Ziani wondered what on earth had possessed him to attack this man, because he was as full of strength and speed and anger as a wolf or a boar. "I heard about you: a Mezentine, foreman of the ordnance factory-if anybody knew how to do it, you would. It was like a miracle, like something out of a story, when the gods came down from heaven. I knew I had to have you." He stopped. "I knew I had to have you help me, because the Mezentines do the most amazing castings, great big bells and statues, the frames of machines; you've got ways of blowing a furnace so you can pour iron as easy as bronze. I'd even thought of going to the Guilds myself, except I knew they'd take it away from me and make it their own, and I can't have that. But I can trust you; you're an outsider too, like me, you've been thrown out of your home and persecuted."

(He didn't say, Just like I was; he didn't have to.)

"I'm sorry," he went on-Ziani could see the effort that went into calming himself down. "I thought, first I'd prove to you that I'm not just some lunatic who thinks he's figured out how to do magic. I'd prove that I'm what I say I am, an engineer, a craftsman, so you'd take me seriously. I heard all about what you did in the defense of Civitas Eremiae; how you built the scorpions, practically from nothing. I knew you'd need an assistant, someone you could rely on-an apprentice, really. And then, when we'd come to know and trust one another…"

Ziani looked at him. For a moment, he was afraid that it would be like looking into a mirror.

"I know," Daurenja went on. "I'm good with brass and iron, but I've never got the hang of dealing with people. I never seem to be able to make them understand me, and then problems develop. I suppose it's been the same with you, and these people here. I thought when I saved that woman, during the hunt, when the Mezentines attacked… It seemed like such a wonderful opportunity, to get the Duke on my side; and then, when we need to ask him for help-money and materials; and he's got a war to fight, it couldn't be better from that point of view. I don't know; if I'd told you earlier, maybe. But I wanted to make sure."

Ziani was quiet for a long time. He knew Daurenja was hiding something, and that no amount of violence or manipulation would get it out of him; the question was whether it was important, or whether it was just slag on the top of the melt. He wondered too about the serendipity of it all. To crack open cities like walnuts; he already knew how to do that, even if this strange and unpleasant man could show him a more efficient way. He was a refinement, an improvement, but an unnecessary one-a departure from Specification, and in orthodox doctrine, wasn't an unnecessary improvement inevitably an abomination?

On the other hand, he needed a good foreman.

"Casting's not the answer," he said eventually. "All castings are brittle, you'll never get round that." In the corner of the shop, he caught sight of the slack-tub; just an old stave barrel, half full of black, oily water. "You don't want a mortar," he said, "or a bell. You want a barrel."