Evil for Evil

18

The fifth time she asked him, he answered.

He was exhausted, after a morning shifting sacks of charcoal up from the fuel cellar. Each sack weighed close on a hundredweight, and he'd had to wrestle them one at a time up the winding spiral stairs. He'd asked Framain why he'd chosen such a hopelessly impractical place to store bulk fuel, and how on earth he'd managed to get it down there. No explanation.

Twenty-six sacks. Sweat had cut white canals through the thick black crust of grime on his forehead and face. Everything smelled and tasted of the stuff; his nose was blocked with it, and his eyes were streaming. So, naturally, she chose that time to come and sit next to him, as he slumped against the wall, too weary to move a yard to get to the water jug.

"Tell me what happened at Civitas Eremiae," she asked.

He sighed; not for effect. "What happened to the city, or-"

"I know what happened to the city. What about you?"

He shook his head. "That's a good question," he said. "I'm not quite sure myself. The short answer is, I was in prison when the city fell."

"Oh."

"Charged with treason," Miel went on. "I think," he added. "Nobody ever got around to telling me; and it's a fair bet that if you're locked up and nobody'll tell you why, it's treason of some sort. It's a pretty vaguely denned term," he added. "It can mean more or less what you want it to."

"I see." Either no emotion, or something kept firmly under control. "What had you done?"

"Ah." Miel smiled. "I concealed evidence of a possible threat to national security. Which probably is treason, when all's said and done. Or if it isn't, it ought to be."

She was frowning at him, as if to say that it wasn't something to make jokes about. Quite right, too.

"It's a long story," he said.

"Go on."

He leaned forward, elbows on knees, to ease the ache in his back. "When I was a boy," he said, "my family sort of arranged that I'd marry this girl, daughter of another noble family. The usual thing: land came into it somewhere, and grazing rights, and equities of redemption on old mortgages. The silly thing was, I really liked her; ever since I could remember. I think she liked me too."

"You think?"

He shrugged. "Didn't seem important," he confessed. "We were going to get married, come what may. I assumed she liked me; the point is, she knew the score as well as I did. We were born to it. In our families, you didn't even think of choosing who you were going to marry. It'd be like trying to choose who you wanted to be your uncle."

"I see. And did you marry her?"

Miel shook his head. "She was in line to succeed to the duchy," he said. "I knew that, of course, but it was all very remote and unlikely. A lot of people had to die in a very precise order before it could be her turn. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened. Suddenly, she was the heiress to the duchy. Obviously she couldn't be the duke herself, but whoever she married would get the throne. Which is why I couldn't marry her after all. Lots of political stuff; basically, all hell would break loose if a Ducas got to be duke; it'd scare the living daylights out of half a dozen other great houses who we'd been feuding with on and off for centuries. So they married her to the Orseoli family instead-sufficiently noble, but political nonentities, the perfect compromise candidate. Coincidentally, Orsea and I had been friends practically from birth." He grinned. "My family used to ask me why I bothered hanging out with riff-raff like the Orseoli, who'd never amount to anything. They were absolutely livid when Orsea succeeded to the title."

She nodded. "What's this got to do with treason?" she asked.

"Ah." Miel rubbed his forehead, feeling the charcoal dust grinding his skin like cabinet-maker's sand. "I guess you could say I was Orsea's chief minister and closest adviser. The truth is, Orsea's a lovely man but he was a useless duke. Always trying to do the right thing, always getting it wrong and making a ghastly mess. I did my best to straighten things out. When the war came, and the Mezentine showed up and started building the war-engines for us, I was pretty much in charge of the defense of the city. I'm no great shakes as a general, but the Mezentine's catapult things really had given us a sporting chance. I honestly thought we might get away with it."

"And?"

Miel hadn't realized he'd paused. "Then it turned out that Orsea's wife-the girl I was supposed to have married, but didn't-she was…" He hesitated. Words were too clumsy, sometimes; treacherous, too, always trying to twist around and mean something slightly different. "I came across a letter," he said, "which proved that she'd been writing to Valens, the Vadani duke, and he'd been writing back; for quite some time, by the look of it. Well, you know our history with the Vadani. There was other stuff in this letter, too; I didn't really know what to make of it, but it was obvious enough that it'd cause a hell of a lot of trouble for her if Orsea ever saw it. And it wasn't just her I was thinking of," he added briskly. "I knew Orsea would be shattered; he really did love her, you see, and he'd never quite believed she loved him-which she did, I'm sure of it, but Orsea's got such a low opinion of himself. Anyhow, it was as much for his sake as hers. I put the letter away somewhere safe, where nobody would ever find it. Why I didn't burn the stupid thing I'll never know, but there you are. My fault, for being an idiot."

"What happened?" she asked quietly.

"This is the bit I'm not sure about," Miel said. "What I think happened is that the Mezentine somehow found out about the letter; what's more, he figured out where I'd hidden it and bribed one of my servants to take it to him. Then he gave it to Orsea, who had me arrested. Anyway, that's what the Mezentine told me he did, and I can't see why he'd make something like that up."

"Oh. Why did he want to get you in trouble?"

Miel shrugged. "You tell me," he said. "Sucking up to Orsea, presumably; though why he should want to do that, I have no idea. He was the national hero and our blessed savior already, because of the war-engines. Not that it did him a lot of good, because not long afterward the city was betrayed and that was the end of Eremia. I got out of prison in the confusion at the end and sort of strolled into the fighting, presumably with some half-witted idea about dying a hero's death just to spite the lot of them. I got a bump on the head and when I woke up it was all over. I wandered away and tried to get up some sort of resistance against the occupation. When that failed-well, here I am." He looked away. "The simple fact is, I like it here better than I ever liked being the Ducas, back in Civitas Eremiae."

She clicked her tongue, as if she'd caught him stealing biscuits from the jar. "That's not true," she said.

"Actually, it is." He was staring at a mark on the wall. "Which isn't to say that this is the earthly paradise, or that all I've ever wanted to do with my life is carry sacks of charcoal up a dark, winding staircase. It's just better than being who I used to be, that's all."

"I don't believe that."

"You have the right not to." He sighed, shifted a little. "Not that it matters a hell of a lot. Actually, I think that's the key to it-to this whole industrial-idyll business, I mean. For the first time in my life, what I do doesn't matter to anybody except me. You can't possibly imagine what a weight that is off my shoulders."

She thought for a moment. "Responsibility makes you feel uncomfortable."

Her tone of voice annoyed him. "Yes," he said. "But putting it like that's like saying an arrow through your forehead can sometimes cause slight discomfort. Back home, I was…" He groped for a word. "I was this strange creature called the Ducas. I owned half the country, for pity's sake. When you think about that, you can see just how ridiculous it is. I owned this place, and I'd never even been here. I didn't know it existed. How can a man own a place? It's not possible. It's only since I came here that I realized it was really the other way about. The Ducas owned me. And a lot of other people as well," he added, surprised at his own bitterness. "The truth is, I never liked the Ducas much. Now he's gone away, it's really much more pleasant."

She grunted; a mocking, disapproving noise. "My heart bleeds," she said.

"You asked." He realized he was grinning. "I know, it sounds pretty lame. Maybe it's just something really trite, like everybody wants to be the opposite of what they are."

"That's true," she said. "For example, I'd like to be someone who doesn't live in a hovel and spend her life grinding up bits of rock in a mortar. Unfortunately, I don't think the world's going to turn itself upside down just so I can get out of here and discover my true identity. I think the world only does handstands for you if you're rich and famous."

Miel laughed at that. "You mean I'm just shallow and self-centered; the original human gyroscope, in fact. You could be right, at that. If the city hadn't fallen, and the Mezentines hadn't slaughtered us like sheep, I'd probably still be in my cell in the prison, waiting for some bastard to tell me what I was being charged with."

"You knew what you'd done," she said.

"Yes, but I wanted someone to tell me." Again, the intensity of his feelings took him by surprise. "You're quite right," he said, "shallow and self-centered. It was my own stupid fault; not Vaatzes', or the Perpetual Republic's, or Orsea's. Burning down a city just so I can get out of jail is excessive no matter how you look at it."

"You didn't do that, though."

"No, but…" Miel sighed. "If I hadn't got myself locked up in the first place, I'd have been there to conduct the defense of the city, instead of leaving Orsea to make a hash of it, and maybe things would've come out all right, maybe the city wouldn't have fallen after all. I don't know."

"The city was betrayed, wasn't it? Someone opened the gates and let them in. That wasn't your fault."

"No, but that was…" He lifted his head. "I was just about to say, that was just lucky; like whoever opened the gates somehow saved me from bearing the guilt of losing us the war. Your case proved by admission, I think."

This time, she laughed. "You're an idiot," she said. "Carrying sacks of charcoal's about all you're fit for."

He smiled. "Thank you," he said politely. "I think so too."

"Good." She tutted again. "But if you think you're some kind of disaster-you know, carrying death and destruction about with you wherever you go, like a snail with its shell-I'm sorry, but I'm not convinced. I think the world can go to rack and ruin quite well enough without you."

"You don't…" Again, the right word had strayed from his mind, like the cow that insists on getting out through the gap in the bank. "You don't approve of me, do you?"

That amused her, at any rate. "No, I don't," she said.

"Why?"

Pause. She was giving his question serious thought. "We came here when I was sixteen," she said. "I was just getting ready to have the time of my life-well, you know what upper-class women's lives are like. The first sixteen years are strict training; you're taught to be fascinating, beautiful, accomplished, desirable, like it's a trade. I was good at it. I studied really hard, it's my nature to want to do well at things. Then, after you've learned all that stuff-you know, deportment, accomplishments, literature, singing, playing at least two fashionable musical instruments-you've got three years of being frantically pursued by eligible suitors, like you're the most desirable thing in the world, and they'll die of broken hearts if they can't have you; then you're married, and it's a lifetime of being pregnant and doing needlework, while your husband's out running the estate or hunting or fighting wars. I was all set for my three years. I knew the score. Those three years were going to have to last me the rest of my life, so I was going to do them very well indeed. And then, out of the blue, my father told me we'd lost all our money and my three years were canceled. Or," she added, frowning, "postponed. That was actually worse, I think. He said it'd be all right, because he knew a way to make us rich again, much richer than we'd ever been before. I'd be a great heiress, so it wouldn't matter that I was a year or so older than the other girls in the cattle market. The handsome young lovers make allowances if you're as rich as we were going to be. Meanwhile, he said, there'd be a slight delay, and we were going to have to move to a rather boring place out in the sticks; and he was going to have to work very hard at the project, and I'd have to help him, because he couldn't trust anybody, except his business partner and me." She was still and quiet for a while. "And here I am," she said. "I know more about ceramics and industrial chemistry than any woman in the history of the world, and I can carry one of those hundredweight sacks up those stairs as easily as you can, or easier. I tell myself it's been a better life than embroidering cushion covers and gossiping about the latest scandals; and it has, I suppose. That's the sad thing, if you stop and think about it. But you come here and tell me that the life I used to dream about, all the things we've worked so hard for, isn't worth having anyway, and you're happier here lugging fuel and scraping out furnaces… No, I don't approve of you at all. Just think," she added, and her voice was sharp enough to shave with.

"Back then, you're the suitor I'd have dreamed of: the Ducas. I'd have worked so hard…" She laughed, a sound like grating steel. "Some people just don't like work, but not me. My father says I can't relax, I haven't got the knack, I've always got to be working, and it's got to be just right or I get miserable. You can imagine what it's been like, getting it wrong year after year, not being able to find the right stuff to make the pots turn exactly the right color." She stood up. "So there you are," she said, her voice a little shriller. "Obviously, this is the place where all our dreams come true. You've found the true peace of menial labor, and Fate has brought me the Ducas. That probably explains why we're all so bloody happy."

He watched her go, wondering what he'd said.

Next morning, they made a start on true vermilion.

Framain had brought the book in from the house. He carried it in both hands, as if it'd shatter if he dropped it. He swept a patch clear of dust and ash with his sleeve and laid it down, like someone carrying an injured child.

"We tried it before," she told Miel, as they waited for Framain to find the right place, "about five years ago, with the bog sulfur. Didn't work. But Father thinks that sulfur you brought us might be different. No reason to think it'll work where the other stuff didn't, but I suppose it's worth trying. Of course," she added, "it was useless for making sweet spirits of vitriol with, so it'll probably be useless for this too. But you never know."

"There are actually three kinds of sulfur," Framain said, not looking up from the book. "As well as the yellow variety, there's the black and the white. Unfortunately," he lifted his head and looked at them, "the wretched book doesn't say how you tell them apart, or which one's suitable for the job. Presumably you're just meant to know, by light of nature. I'll need the scales."

Miel knew where they lived; he darted forward to fetch them, a bit too eagerly. He heard her tutting as he took the rosewood box out of the drawer under the bench. She was bashing something in the big stone mortar; a vicious chipping noise, like a thrush pounding a snail against a stone.

"Quicksilver," Framain said, with distaste. "Have we got any left?"

"Yes," she replied, not stopping her onslaught. "Wear your gloves, it's filthy stuff."

Framain didn't put his gloves on, but he handled the thick-walled glass bottle as though it was a live snake or a huge poisonous spider. "Hold the scales," she told Miel, as she scooped a spoonful of yellow dust out of the mortar into the left-hand scale pan.

"Two parts of quicksilver, by weight." Framain said. "Hold the spoon, would you?"

She held the spoon steady while he tilted the bottle. The stuff that came out was a silvery-gray liquid, the color of polished and burnished steel. Both of them winced a little at the sight of it. He trickled it from the spoon into the right scale pan, a shining silver droplet at a time, until the beam stopped swaying and the little needle above the pivot was dead center. Very carefully, he lifted the right-hand pan, as she hurried to put a clay saucer underneath it; he tipped the pan out, and she put the saucer down on the bench.

"Fine," Framain said. "And the same again."

They repeated the procedure, and Framain emptied the saucer into a different thick-sided glass bottle. "Get that stuff tidied away before we spill it," he said, to nobody in particular. Before Miel could move, she'd stoppered the quicksilver bottle and put it back on the long shelf. "Now we need fresh clay. I dug some this morning, you'll find it in the bucket by the door."

Like a sculptor with an important commission, Framain scooped and molded the wet brown clay all round the bottle-trickles of brown water squeezed back over the webs between his fingers, and down the back of his hands to his wrists-until it was completely covered. "Mustn't let any of the vapor get out," he explained. "The book doesn't say why, but for all I know it could be deadly poison. It's wise to assume that anything with quicksilver in it is out to get you. Blow the fire, would you?"

Miel worked the bellows until Framain said, "Fine, that's enough"; then he put the clay-covered mess down on the steel grille over the fire. "Once the clay's dry, we've got to blow up a good heat. Apparently we've got to listen out for a cracking noise, which means the sulfur's combining with the quicksilver. When the noise stops, it should be ready." He pulled a face. "Let's hope so, anyway."

"The last time we did this, it came out a disgusting brown sludge," she said. "And the bottle cracked."

"We let it get too hot," Framain said mildly.

(Outside, it had started to rain, a tapping on the thatch, blending with the hiss of the fire; every few seconds a soft plink, as a drip from the roof hit a tin plate on the bench. Miel had to make an effort not to wait for the next one.)

"It was the wrong sulfur," she replied. "It says in the book there're three kinds, doesn't it?"

"The book isn't always reliable," Framain said with a sigh. "But it's the only one we've got, so we just soldier on." He bent down to peer at the clay mess. "Open the vent a touch, will you? The fire's starting to run away a bit."

Nothing much could be done while the clay was drying. Framain went back to the bench, leafed through the book, fetched a couple of jars but didn't open them, went back and checked the fire, put one of the jars back and got out two more, looked something else up in the book, scraped rust off a spoon with the back of a chisel. "He's always nervous," she said, as though he wasn't standing only a few yards away, "ever since he let a crucible get too hot and it shattered. Burning pitch everywhere. I got burned-look, you can still see, on the back of my arm here-and some embers got in the underside of the thatch, we nearly lost the roof and-"

"Accidents happen," Framain said to a sealed jar. "Only to be expected, since we don't really have a clue what we're doing. Because, of course, if anybody'd done it before, there'd be no point doing it again. That's what discovery means."

Miel took a step back out of instinct. He had a feeling this conversation, or others just like it, had been going on for many, many years. Two people talking at each other with intent to wound, like overcautious fencers probing each other's flawless guards. Just another manifestation of love, he decided. He'd seen the same sort of thing with married couples. For something to do, he went and looked at the fire.

"If we can produce a true vermilion," Framain told the jar, as if explaining his scheme to a crowd of skeptical investors, "we stand a chance of being able to make the soft white for backgrounds; it's a mix of the white lead tarnish cooked yellow, vermilion and ordinary flake-white, with green-earth to balance out impurities. We need to get the background right before we can start on the colors themselves, of course, because otherwise we won't know how the colors will react with the background. For example, viridian-"

"It's ready," she interrupted.

"Are you sure? If we give it the full heat before it's thoroughly dried-"

"Look for yourself."

And yet, what closer bond of love could there be than between a father and his daughter? Miel had been watching closely for some time now; everything one of them did seemed to irritate the other beyond measure. There'd been days when both of them had talked to him, as if to an interpreter, rather than acknowledge the other one was actually there in the room. He wondered about the mysterious business partner, the one who'd absconded or been thrown out. Had they talked through him this way? If so, no wonder the poor man left.

"Ready." Framain's voice was unusually tense. "Blow up the fire a bit, will you? More coal."

A drip hit the tin plate, making Miel jump. Was it his imagination, or was something about to happen? Probably just the atmosphere between Framain and his daughter, making him nervous. He dug the scoop into the charcoal scuttle.

"We're running low on fuel," she said. "And when that's gone, with the war and everything…"

Framain didn't bother to reply; he shushed her. They were supposed to be listening out for a cracking noise, Miel remembered. He could smell damp, a hint of moldy straw. I'm just in the way here, he thought, they don't need me for anything. For no real reason, he drifted over to the bench and glanced down at the book, remembering the first time he'd seen it.

…To make flake-white, place sheets of lead beaten thin in a wooden box, cover with vinegar mixed equally with urine, leave for a month. To convert flake-white to red lead, grind fine and heat in a new pot. To make Mezentine green, place thin copper foil…

"The book," he heard himself say. "Where did you get it from?"

"It belonged to my former partner," Framain said, not looking round. "He had quite a library."

"Half the things in that book simply don't work," she put in. "Whoever wrote it must've made them up and stuck them in just to fill it out."

"It's the only book we've got," Framain said wearily. "And some of it-"

"There's a perfectly ridiculous thing in there," she went on, ignoring him, "about hardening chisels by quenching them in the urine of a red-headed boy; or, if you don't happen to have one handy, goats' wee filtered through dry bracken will do almost as well. For all we know, the whole book could be a spoof; you know, a parody, in-jokes for colormen and engineers. And here we are, following it religiously as if it's gospel."

"Quiet." Miel had heard it too, a sharp click, like twigs snapping.

"In fact…" She'd raised her voice, and it was higher, too. "In fact, whoever wrote it seems to have had a thing about urine, because he tells you to use it in practically everything, the way the Vadani use parsley in cooking. Makes you wonder what-"

"Quiet." Framain lifted his hand. More cracking, syncopated with the patter of the rain, the growl of the fire and the tap of the drip on the tin plate. It was getting dark; rain-clouds outside,

Miel supposed, covering up the sun. But it was hard, somehow, to believe in the existence of the outside world, as he stood by the bench waiting for the cracking noise to stop. It seemed unnecessary elaboration, like crowded detail in the background of a painting that distracts your attention from what's going on in the foreground; sloppy composition.

"I think it's stopped," Framain said, just before the loudest crack so far.

"Are you sure that's not just the bottle getting too hot?"

Framain was counting under his breath.

"All it'd take would be one drip from the roof onto the bottle, and it'd shatter right in our faces, like that other time." Her voice sounded absurdly loud. "We really ought to do something about the leaks, but he's afraid of ladders."

"It's ready." Framain had a pair of tongs in his hand; he took a long stride forward and closed them around the clay-caked bottle. "Right," he said, in a tight, cramped voice. "Let's open it up and see what we've got. Chisel."

"Let it cool down first. He's always in such a hurry, it leads to mistakes."

At the end of the bench was a two-inch-thick slab of polished slate. Framain put the bottle down on it, carefully opening the tongs with both hands. "Chisel, please," he repeated, and Miel realized he was being spoken to. There was a rack of chisels on the wall, two dozen of them, all different shapes and sizes and contours. He chose one at random, hoping it'd do. At least he had the sense not to ask which one Framain wanted.

"Thank you." Framain took it from him without looking. He had a beech mallet in the other hand, and tapped the chisel lightly against the clay.

"Careful," she said, as he tapped again, flaking off a shard of clay.

He breathed hard through his nose but said nothing. Another tap, and the clay webbed with cracks. He paused to flick off a few loose flakes.

"There's somebody outside," she said.

Framain looked up, frowning.

"There is," she said urgently. "Listen."

Muttering, Framain carefully put the bottle down and stood up, looking round. Miel guessed he was searching for something he could use as a weapon-the adze, perhaps, or the sledgehammer. "Shall I go and take a look?" Miel suggested. Both of them thought about that for a moment, then Framain nodded.

"Are you sure you heard…?" Framain mumbled.

"Yes."

Miel noticed that the door was bolted on the inside. He slid the bolt back, slow and careful; took a step back from the door before opening it, to give himself distance just in case there was trouble outside. Not that there would be…

The door swung open. He waited a couple of heartbeats and slid through, not opening it further than he needed to.

Outside the air was sweet with the smell of rain. He stood at the top of the steps and looked up and down the yard. Nobody there, of course. She'd imagined everything…

Except the gate at the top was always shut, tied with a bit of old hemp rope because the latch and keeper were no longer on speaking terms; but now it stood a yard open, the rope hanging limp from one of the bars. Of course, old rope half rotted through could easily break of its own accord, if a high wind got behind the gate and pushed. But there'd been no wind, only rain.

Staying exactly where he was, he concentrated furiously on what he could see of the rope. It hadn't been untied, because he could see the knot still in it. More than anything in the world, he wanted to know whether the dangling end of the rope was ragged and frayed or squarely cut through. To find that out, however, he'd have to go down the steps and walk at least ten paces up the yard. The Ducas is no coward, but neither is he recklessly stupid. He stayed where he was, looking for secondary evidence.

"Well?" her voice hissed from behind the door.

Yes, when he'd last looked at it the rope had been rotten and slimy. But it was also thick; if three strands had worn and moldered through, that still left two or three more, plenty to hold the gate shut, particularly in no wind. A stranger wanting to get into the yard might not have the patience to wrestle with the slippery, nail-tearing knot. He'd cut the rope.

"Is there anybody there or isn't-"

"Ssh." The house windows were shuttered tight, as always, but he couldn't see the back door from where he was standing. A stranger would try the house first; a harmless traveler, lost on the moors, desperate for a drink and a bit of food; or someone else. He heard a horse, that unmistakable sound they make by blowing through closed lips. Framain's horses were out in the paddock, weren't they? Or had he brought them in, in case it rained?

One thing he could be absolutely sure of: standing motionless at the top of the barn steps was hardly sound tactics. An archer stooped down behind the pigsty wall, or lurking under the woodshed eaves, would have a beautifully clear shot. Even if there was no archer, he was advertising his position and his apprehension with alarming clarity, and getting no useful information in return. "Stay inside," he hissed, then jumped down off the steps and walked briskly toward the house.

First, see if there was anybody there. If there wasn't, nip inside and get the hunting sword, the one he'd stolen from the looters. Probably not much use, if the place really was under attack, but holding it in his hand would make him feel slightly better.

He'd forgotten that the back door creaked. Inside the house was perfectly still and quiet, but it didn't feel right. Stupid, he told himself, that's just you being nervous. He went straight to the pile of rugs where he'd last seen the sword; there it was, just where he'd left it. He grabbed at it like a drowning man reaching for the hand of a rescuer.

Ridiculous, he thought. There's nobody here.

The house didn't take long to search. Nobody there, no unaccountable marks in the dust, no door open that he'd left shut. Looking out through the front door at the curtain of rain, he felt himself relax. Just possibly, a man, maybe even two, could be hiding in the yard somewhere. But if unwelcome guests had come to visit, they'd have come on horseback; from where he was standing, he had a clear view of everywhere a horse could be tethered. No horse; no intruder. Therefore, the breeze or simple entropy must've broken the gate rope, and there was nothing to be afraid of.

To prove it to himself once and for all, he strode briskly up the yard and inspected the ends of the rope. Cut through.

Well, that cleared things up. No more dithering; he had to get back to the barn, warn them, organize a safe, swift evacuation to a defensible stronghold. By now, stealth was pointless. He ran.

Up the steps, through the door; he drew a breath to deliver his warning. Then something slammed between his shoulder blades. He stumbled, heard the sword go bump on the floor, saw the floorboards rushing up at him. He landed on his elbows, and saw a pair of boots.

"That him?" someone said.

He was grabbed and hauled upright. "Well?" the voice said.

"Yes."

Her voice. He turned his head and saw a dark brown face just behind his shoulder; then his left arm was wrenched behind his back and twisted.

There were two more Mezentines, besides the one holding him. One of them stepped out from the shadows behind the bench. The other was the owner of the boots. He said, "Miel Ducas."

"That's me," Miel said.

The Mezentine didn't seem interested in talking to him. "Bring the other two as well," he said. He was wrapping a bit of rag round a stick. Why would he be doing that?

"All right, you've got your man," Framain was saying. "Now why don't you…?"

The Mezentine shoved his wrapped stick in the furnace fire, waited for it to catch. Framain was saying something, but Miel didn't get a chance to hear it; he was being hauled out of the barn and down the steps. He heard a shriek; possibly a man's voice, probably a woman's. Dutifully he considered trying to fight, but a twist on his forearm excused him.

Two more Mezentines appeared in the yard. One was holding a horse. The other put a loop of rope round his neck, then held his stirrup for him as he mounted. That let him off trying to ride them down and escape; just as well, because he'd have had to come back and try to rescue Framain and the girl, which would almost certainly have been suicide. He saw smoke filtering out in plumes from under the eaves of the barn, but no sign of Framain or his daughter being led out. One of the Mezentines had grabbed his hands and was tying them behind his back. Redundant, since they had the noose round his neck to dissuade him from being annoying. Presumably they'd be left inside the barn while it burned down. Excessively harsh, he thought, until he remembered that that was standard operating procedure when mopping up Eremian settlements. Part of him wanted to feel furiously angry about that; the rest of him felt the shame of no longer being capable of anger, only the quiet acceptance of the unspeakably weary, the dreadful acknowledgment of the truth that it really doesn't matter, at the very end.

(Once he'd seen condemned prisoners digging their own graves; and at the time he'd thought, that's ridiculous, you wouldn't do that, not when you knew they were going to kill you anyway. You'd drop the spade and stand there, tell them, You dig the bloody hole. Now, though; if they pulled him off the horse and handed him a shovel, he'd start digging, wouldn't even need to be told. At the very end, nothing matters enough to be worth making a fuss about.)

They hadn't come out; but neither had the other two Mezentines. Suddenly, it mattered a lot.

"What's going on?" he heard himself say. Apparently, nobody heard him.

He started thinking, making calculations. The rope round his neck; if he could grab it with his tied-together hands and keep a hold of it as the horse started forward, might he be able to pull it out of the man's grip before it strangled him? He'd be prepared to risk it if the odds were, say, four to one; but how did you calculate risk in a situation like this?

The thatch was burning on the outside, so inside it must be thick with smoke; still the Mezentines hadn't come out. The others didn't seem concerned. They were standing patiently, like well-trained tethered horses, as though they ceased to exist between orders. Keeping still while the last minute or so wasted away; clearly it was the Ducas' responsibility to do something. It all turned on the timing of catching hold of the rope…

The barn door flew open. Framain led the way, his arms full of bottles and jars. She followed him, clutching the book, and the glass bottle still caked in its clay. The Mezentines brought up the rear, not in any particular hurry. One of them carried a large wooden box, familiar; Framain kept it under the bench, got anxious if Miel took too much interest in it.

"Get the horses," the boss Mezentine said. "And two more for these. Stable's round the back."

So that was all right, Miel told himself. No action needed. He let the calculations-timings, angles, distances-slip from his mind. I don't care what happens to me so long as it happens later.

There was just one Mezentine now, standing back from him, holding the rope. The others had gone off to get the horses, presumably. Now that he had the time, he speculated: Framain had told them he had a secret, something that'd be worth a fortune, an opportunity the Mezentines couldn't risk ignoring just for the sake of a quiet life. In which case, it was unlikely that they'd betrayed him, so it had to be the courier, the man he'd pulled out of the bog. That disappointed him, but he couldn't bring himself to feel angry about it. He couldn't have left a man, enemy or not, to sink into the black mud. You could fill a book-someone probably had-with the selflessly heroic deaths of the Ducas. Dying of thirst in the mountains, the Ducas gives the last mouthful of water to the rebel leader he's captured and is taking back to face justice; awestruck by the example, the rebel carries on to the city and meekly surrenders to his executioners. Fighting a duel to the death with the enemy captain, the Ducas gets an unfair advantage when the enemy slips and falls; to forbear to strike is to give the enemy a clear shot, which he's obligated to accept since he too is fighting for the lives of his people; the Ducas holds back and allows himself to be killed, since duty to an enemy overrides his duty to his own kind. In such a book, there'd be pages of notes and commentaries at the end, explaining the complex nuances of the degrees of obligation-nuances which the Ducas understood and calculated in a split second, needless to say. If there had been such a book, it would have curled and turned to ash in the burning of Civitas Eremiae, and nobody would add a supplement recording Miel Ducas and the Mezentine in the quagmire. Did that matter? If not for the paradox, it should have been the perfect exemplar to round off the lesson: the Ducas makes the sacrifice, knowing there will be no page for him in the book…

"What're you laughing at?" the Mezentine said.

Miel looked down at him. Even betrayed and captive, the Ducas looks down at his enemies. "Nothing," he said. "Private joke."

The Mezentine stared at him for a full second, then gave the rope a short, sharp tug. The effect wasn't pleasant. No more private jokes from now on.

"Was it the courier?" Miel asked.

"What courier?"

No reason to suppose the soldier knew the background story, or even why he was here. "Doesn't matter," Miel said. "I'll be quiet now."

They brought horses for Framain and the girl; also ropes to tie their hands, and nooses for their necks. Standard operating procedure; clearly it came easily with practice, since the leader didn't need to tell his men what to do. Trained soldiers know their duty, just as well as the Ducas knows his. Duty is obligation, the bastard child of loyalty and the will to serve; when you think about it, just another roundabout way of saying love. No wonder it causes so much pointless damage.

The Mezentines mounted their horses, the leader gave a sign to get under way. For a short while, Framain rode beside Miel. "Serves me right," Framain said (more in sorrow). "I should have left you in the quagmire."

"Did it work?" Miel replied.

"What?"

"The vermilion. Did it work?"

Framain didn't answer; a tug on his rope drew him ahead of Miel, too far for a shouted conversation. She was riding behind him somewhere. He fancied he could feel her staring balefully at the back of his head (weren't you supposed to be some sort of hero? You should've rescued us, killed them all with a screwdriver or something, repaid us for our kindness, won my undying love; it was your opportunity, couldn't have been more convenient if we'd all sat down and planned it together; so why didn't you do something?). He wished he could explain that to her, at least; that it all turned on his possession of a two-foot-six strip of sharpened metal at the critical moment, and when that moment came, the metal was on the floor, not in his hand. Simple mechanics.

A pity, but there it was. Not that it mattered, with no book. If there'd been a book, there'd have been a reason to die trying, instead of meekly at the hands of an executioner. With no book, it was just pointless activity; if they give you a shovel, might as well dig a hole as not. All the slaves of duty dig their own graves sooner or later.

The ride to the Unswerving Loyalty was long, hot and boring. There were possibilities, of course. A lone peasant could have jumped up from the cover of a pile of rocks and shot the Mezentines dead with a longbow; your father paid for the medicine that saved my little girl's life, he'd have explained, as he cut the ropes and set them free, it was my duty to help the Ducas. But that didn't happen; neither did the scattered remnants of Miel's resistance army sweep down through a narrow pass. Jarnac failed to arrive with fifty Vadani light cavalry. The innkeeper of the Loyalty didn't sneak out to the stables and cut them loose in recognition of the generous tip Miel had left him the last time he was there. So many splendid opportunities for Fate to indulge itself in satisfying, heartwarming symmetry; all wasted.

But as they were led across the yard to the stables, Miel caught sight of the old carter and his grandson, the pair who'd carried the load of sulfur. They were sitting on the mounting block in the yard, staring. At last, he thought, and for some reason he felt the faint quickening of hope. Odd that it should be them, rather than Jarnac or the rebels or the grateful peasant with his bow, but that just adds piquancy. They can't be here merely by coincidence.

"Who've you got there?" the old man called out.

"Rebel leader," a Mezentine replied. "What's it to you?"

The old man shook his head. "You're welcome to him," he said, "bloody troublemaker."

The Mezentine leaned forward a little in his saddle. "You two Eremians?"

"Not likely. Vadani."

A shrug. "You'll be next, don't you worry."

So much for symmetry; also loyalty, duty and poetic justice. Out of the corner of his eye, Miel caught sight of the scowl on the boy's face as he passed. Just one kick, he thought; right now I'd cheerfully sign over the whole Ducas estate north of the Blackwater just for the privilege of booting that brat's arse.

It was dark in the stables; too dark to see the expression on their faces, once the door slammed shut behind them. Miel sat with his back to the wall, his eyes closed, hoping for sleep with the same degree of pessimistic realism as he'd waited for the peasant sniper, or Jarnac and the cavalry. Outside it had started raining again. Somewhere, there was a leak in the roof. He counted the interval between drips: nine seconds.