Evil for Evil

21

His third visit to the Unswerving Loyalty; Miel Ducas was starting to feel at home there. Mind, he wasn't sure he liked what the Mezentines had done with the place. Rows of hastily built sheds crowded the paddock behind the original stable block, and the yard was churned and rutted from extreme use. Stacks of crates and barrels masked the frontage; it hadn't been a thing of beauty, but the supply dumps hadn't improved it. Mezentine soldiers everywhere, of course; definitely an eyesore. He wondered if he ought to point out to someone in charge that the inn was, properly speaking, his property, and he hadn't authorized the changes.

They let him out into the yard for half an hour, for exercise. They were punctilious about it-probably because they were cavalrymen, used to the need to exercise horses. The degree of joy he felt at being allowed into the open air disturbed him. Something so trivial shouldn't matter, now that his life was rushing to its end. He'd wanted to achieve a level of tranquility; how could it possibly matter whether or not he saw the sun one last time before he died? But the light nearly overwhelmed him, after a sleepless night in a stone pigsty. Perhaps it wasn't the light so much as the noise. Out here, people were talking to each other. Not a word had been spoken in the dark; his fellow prisoners' silence had been harder to bear than anything they could have said to him. As soon as they'd left the pigsty, Framain and his daughter had walked away from him, crossed to the other side of the yard. He could see them talking to each other, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. Probably just as well.

He watched a Mezentine groom leading a horse across the top of the yard, passing a man sharpening a bill-hook on a big wheel grindstone. The horse tried to shy as it passed the shower of orange sparks, but the groom twitched its headstall and it followed him, resigned rather than calm. Someone else was forking hay out of a cart into a hayloft. A sack of grain rose into the air on the end of a rope, as a winch creaked. A boy, not Mezentine, raked up horse dung into a barrow. Nobody seemed interested in Miel Ducas, apart from the two guards who watched him as though he was the only thing in the world. He felt mildly ashamed that he hadn't given any serious thought to trying to escape; properly speaking, it was his duty, but he simply couldn't be bothered. If he tried to get away, they'd only kill him. It was less effort to stay where he'd been put, and he was enjoying watching the people.

They brought in a cart-he was treating it as a show put on for his benefit-and took off one of the wheels. Enter a wheelwright, with tools and helpers; they struck off the iron tire with cold chisels and cut out a damaged spoke. Miel wondered how they were going to fit the replacement; would they have to dismantle the whole wheel, and if so, how were they going to get the rim off? They were bringing out strong wooden benches. Miel tried to remember; he'd seen wheels made and mended before but hadn't bothered to observe, assuming in his arrogance that it wasn't any of his business. Now, he realized, he urgently wanted to know how it was done. If they took him back inside, and he missed the exciting part, it'd be like listening to most of a story and being cheated of the ending. Felloes, he suddenly remembered; the rim of a wheel is made up of six curved sections, called felloes, dowelled together, held rigid by the spokes, restrained by the tire. Where had he learned that; or had he been born knowing it?

"Are you going to move?" one of his guards said.

That struck Miel as a very odd question. "I'm sorry?"

"You're supposed to be exercising," the guard explained. They'd put the wheel on its side on top of a large barrel. It had taken three men to lift it into place. "But you're just standing still."

Fair enough. "I was watching them mend the wheel," he explained. "Is that all right?"

The guard shrugged. "You're supposed to be walking about," he said.

"Have I got to?"

"You please yourself," the guard replied. Clearly he didn't approve. "It's just some men fixing a wheel."

"I know," Miel said.

The wheelwright was tapping carefully on the inside of the rim, easing the felloe off the dowels. Obviously you'd have to be careful doing that. Too much force and you'd snap off a dowel. How would you cope if that happened? Drill it out, presumably; not the end of the world, but a nuisance. "I wish I could do that," Miel said. The guard didn't reply. They'd got the felloe off; now the wheelwright was flexing the damaged spoke in its socket, the way you waggle a loose tooth. Were all the spokes on Mezentine carts interchangeable, so that you could simply take out a broken one and replace it with a brand-new spare from the stores? But perhaps it wasn't a Mezentine cart.

"That's enough," the guard said. "You've got to go back inside now."

Miel didn't argue, though he couldn't really see why a few minutes more would make such a difference. But it wouldn't do to get stroppy with the guard, who was only doing his duty. Miel realized that he felt sorry for him, because he still had duty to do.

She didn't look at him as they were herded back into the pigsty. Framain gave him a blank stare, then looked away. The door closed, shutting out all but a few splinters of light. Miel found the corner he'd sat in before. The wall he leaned his back on was damp and crusted with white powder, like fine salt. There was a strong smell of mold, wet and pig.

"I'm sorry," he said aloud.

He might as well have been alone. He could barely see them in the dark. Nevertheless, he felt he ought to apologize. He hadn't done so before, and it was an obligation, possibly the last one he'd ever have to discharge. He wasn't particularly bothered whether they accepted his apology or not. Still; if it was his last duty, he might as well do it properly.

"It was my fault," he said. "Obviously that Mezentine I rescued led them to us. I knew at the time it was a bloody silly thing to do. I guess it was self-indulgence, me wanting to do the right thing." He smiled, though of course they wouldn't see. "Really, I should've learned by now, as often as not doing the right thing makes matters worse. Mind you," he added, "you were just as bad as me in that respect. You should've left me in the bog where you found me, it wouldn't have made any real difference in the long run."

Silence. Perhaps they'd both fallen asleep-exhausted, maybe, by their exercise session.

"Anyway," he went on (now that he'd started talking, he found that he was afraid to stop, because of the silence that would follow), "I'm very sorry it turned out like this. I hope you can make a deal with the Mezentines and get away. Of course, all that work you did will be wasted, as far as you're concerned." He stopped himself. There was a fair chance they didn't need to be told that. "If it means anything, I really am sorry you got caught up in the bloody mess I've made of my life. I wish there was something I could do, but there isn't."

If they'd been asleep, he'd have heard them breathing. To stay that quiet, they had to be awake. There, he thought, duty done. The rest of my life's my own.

He breathed out and relaxed his back and neck, letting his head droop forward. Irony: at last he was free to do what he chose, except there wasn't anything to do. He wished they'd let him back out in the yard, so he could watch the wheelwright for a little longer. He contemplated crawling up next to the door, in case there was a crack or a knothole big enough for him to see through, but he dismissed the idea as requiring too much energy. Later, perhaps, when he started to feel bored. Instead, he considered the rapier-blades of light and the dust specks, like stars, that glittered in them for a while before floating away into the shadows. It turned out to be a pleasure, sitting still and letting his mind slip out of focus. That was all wrong, of course. A condemned man awaiting execution in a pigsty shouldn't be enjoying himself. That thought made him smile. He had a duty to feel miserable, but he was neglecting it. No more duty. Often in the past, when he'd heard that someone had killed himself, he wondered how anybody could possibly choose to die; such a strange choice to make, the prey failing in its obligation to evade the hounds for as long as possible. But sometimes the deer did just that; they stopped, not from exhaustion or injury or because there wasn't anywhere for them to go. Not often, but it happened; and Miel wondered if they came to this same place, the point where the obligations of instinct become weak enough to be put aside. An animal lives to serve a function, its duty to survive long enough to procreate and so maintain and propagate the species. Apart from that obligation, its life is mere tiresome necessity, the need to find enough to eat every day, the need to escape from predators. He thought about love, which was just a sophistication of that duty; something you were required to believe in, like a state religion, but only so that you'd do your otherwise unpalatable and irksome duty of acquiring and raising children. Of course, the deer has its duty to the wolves and hounds, who depend on it for their existence (obligation of the prey to the predator; obligation of the individual to society; of the beloved to the lover). In that case, the willing surrender after going through the obligatory motions of pursuit made perfect sense. The deer must run in order to keep the wolves fit, to give them a criterion by which to choose their pack leaders; the wolves must hunt in order to keep the numbers of deer in balance, so that they don't overpopulate their habitat and wipe themselves out through starvation and epidemic disease. Balance; as in the relationship between a great lord and his people. Miel wondered if this was the lesson he should've been learning-the hints dropped all round him had been heavy enough: that duty to friends and lovers is solemn enough, but no more valid than duty to enemies; quite possibly the most sacred duty of all. Or perhaps the distinctions were artificial and there was only one duty, and dependents, lovers and predators were really all the same thing.

He noticed that the blades of light had almost faded away, like the last melt of snow; so much for being bored, lying in the dark with no work to do. He felt no inclination at all to sleep, and his only regret was that his presence stopped Framain and his daughter from talking to each other. Something scuttled over his foot, but to his surprise he felt no shock of revulsion. Have I forgotten how to be afraid? he wondered. Normally I'd be halfway up the wall by now if a rat ran over me.

He found that as the light died away, his vision actually improved; he found it easier to make out shapes in the gloom without the distraction of the bright glare. His two fellow prisoners were slumped heaps in the opposite corner; there was also a barrel, four or five sacks and something that puzzled him for quite a while until he worked out that it was a small log-pile. Odd, because he'd always been disappointed with his poor night vision. The obvious conclusion was that he'd been trying too hard all these years. He let his mind drift through a range of reflections and sudden perceptions; he felt both relaxed and wonderfully sharp, as though he could solve any problem just by thinking it through from first principles. It's not supposed to be like this, he scolded himself. A man facing death should be wretched, sobbing, screaming with misery and fear, or frantically trying to divert his mind with pointless trivia. He'd heard of kind-hearted jailers who sat up with their prisoners through the last night, playing chess or cards, making a point of losing. He admired the principle, but what a wasted opportunity to be alone with the thoughts that really matter, all irrelevant distractions cleared away.

At some point, they must have fallen asleep. He heard the rhythm of their breathing change. He forgave them, since they were probably going to make a deal with the Mezentines and survive. He bore them no ill will on those grounds. It would have been nice to know if the experiment to make vermilion had worked, just as he'd have enjoyed watching the men repair the wheel. If they had the vermilion formula, they'd be better placed to bargain with the Mezentines. He hoped so. In the state they were in, death would be wasted on them.

In spite of himself, he began to wander, sliding into the debatable region between asleep and awake. He was writing poetry and composing music. He had the verse and half the refrain of a wonderful song-he wasn't sure what it was about but he knew it was there, as though he had it on his lap wrapped in a sack. He knew it would evaporate as soon as he woke up. It always did. Perhaps life slips away like that at the moment of death, and the few fragments he'd manage to catch as it faded would turn out to be garbled nonsense, a dreamer's false impression of poetry and music, incomprehensible in the context of being awake again.

In his dream, something was tapping at the door. At first it was an old woman in a shawl, wanting to come in out of the cold; it was the Ducas' duty to provide hospitality, and he considered getting up to let her in. Then it was just the guard bringing them something to eat. Then he heard the unmistakable sound of a nail being wrenched out of wood.

He opened his eyes. Needless to say, that fine night vision was blurry and thick, and for several seconds he couldn't make out anything. A board creaked under great stress. It sounded strangely like one of the slats of the door being prized off with a crowbar, but that made no sense at all.

"Hello," he called out in a muffled, croaky voice (not at his best when he first woke up, the Ducas). "Who's there?"

Somebody made a shushing noise. He felt properly remorseful. Maybe the guards had come to fetch him, but they didn't want to wake up Framain and his daughter. No, that didn't make sense either.

Another sort of creak; a hinge-hoop turning around a rusty, undersized pintle. In which case, someone was coming through the door, trying to be stealthy and quiet, but failing. That was completely beyond him, because why would the guards…

"Framain?"

Not a voice he knew, but whoever it was sounded painfully tense. It was the sort of whisper that comes out louder than a normal tone of voice. "Framain, are you there?"

Long silence. Miel was about to point out that Framain was asleep when he realized that the regular breathing had stopped. Framain must be awake, but he wasn't answering. The door creaked a little more, and Miel could see a rectangle of the dark blue of the night sky. Whoever it was had opened the door.

If the door was open, maybe he could get out.

Immediately, he felt that he didn't want to. It was dangerous (yes, but not nearly as dangerous as staying put). It was inconvenient. It was the middle of the night. He felt the shameful resentment that comes with getting an unwanted present. He wanted to stay where he was.

"Daurenja?"

Framain's voice; and he couldn't interpret the tone of it at all.

"Come on, for crying out loud," the unknown man in the doorway growled back. Daurenja; not a name he knew, but clearly it meant a lot to Framain, because Miel saw his shape move; he was standing up; they both were. They were leaving. In which case…

"Don't just sit there, you idiot." Framain's voice, addressing him. They wanted him to leave with them. But…

But he'd got to his feet anyway; instinct, or simply that he didn't want to give offense by declining the invitation. He wondered if the enigmatic Daurenja would mind him coming too. Shocking bad manners to gatecrash somebody else's jailbreak.

"Who the hell…?" Daurenja started to say. Framain muttered, "Later." Nothing more said by either of them. Presumably that constituted a formal invitation. Hell of a time to discover that he'd got cramp in his leg.

From sitting still for so long, presumably. He wanted to laugh, mostly because Framain and this Daurenja sounded so serious; as if they thought they stood a chance of getting away with it-somehow evading the guards, crossing the inn yard without being seen, retrieving or stealing horses, mounting up, riding away (and where to? He knew for a stone-cold-certain fact that the Loyalty was the only habitable dwelling within feasible reach, unless you counted Framain's house). All that, and an unscheduled, hobbling freeloader. He decided to go with them simply to see how far they managed to get.

It was like an arrowhead stuck in his calf muscle, but he made it as far as the doorway. The other three were already outside, standing perfectly still, waiting for him. Any moment now, and the guards…

He saw the guards. One lay on his face, the other on his side. Lamplight from somewhere twinkled a reflection in a dark pool that probably wasn't water. Not one but both of them; and done so quietly that he'd dozed through it. If that was Daurenja's unaided work, he must be a talented man. He tried to feel pity for the guards, but couldn't quite do it. Perhaps they really were going to escape, after all.

Stepping out of the pigsty into the yard was a bit like jumping into water without knowing how deep it is. He wasn't sure he could have done it, if he'd cared about staying alive. As it was, he felt his stomach muscles tighten into a knot as painful as his cramped leg. He wished he knew what the plan was, assuming there was one.

They were heading for the stables-the original block, not the new ones the Mezentines had built. It occurred to him that, since Daurenja hadn't known about him, he couldn't have provided a horse for him to ride. Was he supposed to run alongside them, like a dog, or were they proposing to turn him loose at the courtyard gate and leave him to fend for himself? If it hadn't been for the two dead guards, he'd have stopped by the mounting block and waited for the Mezentines to find him and take him back to the pigsty. He thought about them again, and about the two scavengers he'd killed with the hunting sword, when he escaped from their camp; and, for good measure, about the desperate flight of Ziani Vaatzes, who'd also killed two men in order to get out of prison.

Daurenja had stopped. A moment later, someone started to say something, but didn't get far enough for Miel to make out what he was saying. He saw Daurenja move; he seemed to have pulled a black shape out of the shadows, a man, and they were fighting. No, that was overstating the case. Daurenja had caught hold of him round the neck and was forcing him down on his knees, smoothly and effortlessly, like a man wrestling with a child. It was a remarkable display of physical strength, and Miel wished he could admire it. Daurenja's opponent must have done something to loosen that appalling grip on his neck; he wriggled and got loose for a moment. Then Miel saw Daurenja's arm outlined against the dark blue sky. It curled round the side of the man's head; it was like watching twenty years' growth of ivy in less than a second. Then there was a loud, sharp crack; the shape in Daurenja's embrace jerked and wriggled for a very short moment and was let fall, flopping on the ground like grain from a split sack.

Miel had seen so many men killed in his life-some by others, some by himself-that the sight had gradually lost its meaning, to the extent that he could no longer remember the first one he'd seen, though he'd been sure at the time he'd see it in his mind every time he shut his eyes for the rest of his life. Now it was just a process, like threshing wheat or dressing game. But the sound-a crack like a thick dry branch breaking, carrying implications of such a terrible strength exerted with such purpose-shocked him so much that he felt his guts spasm; he'd have been sick if the Mezentines had bothered to feed him, but his stomach was empty. Instead, he felt acid fluxing in his throat and into his mouth, so that he nearly choked. He couldn't have moved if someone (not Daurenja, obviously; not Framain) hadn't grabbed a handful of his shirt and tugged him so hard he overbalanced, and had to take a step forward to keep from falling. Once he was moving, he kept going, except that he shied like a horse when his toe thudded into a soft heap on the ground, and he had to be dragged again, standing on something that yielded at first to his weight and then resisted; springy, like green branches, or ribs. "What's the matter with you?" her voice hissed accusingly in the darkness. Fortunately, he could safely assume she didn't want a reply.

Daurenja was pulling the stable door open. There was light inside; it gushed out and stained the yard yellow for a moment, so Miel could see a tall, thin man who must be Daurenja slipping inside. A muffled voice, cut off short, as Framain followed him in.

Three horses stood saddled and bridled, feeding placidly from a long manger of barley and oats. They didn't seem bothered about the man's body slumped on the ground in front of them, like a drunk's clothes on the floor. In the pale lamplight, Miel could see a bizarre creature, long and thin and bony, more of an insect than a man apart from the absurd pony tail of black hair dangling down his back. He was in the act of lifting a saddle off its peg.

"Bridle," he said, and Miel realized he was being spoken to. "There, look. You do know how to bridle a horse, don't you?"

Strange voice; educated, you'd begin to say it was cultured but then think better of it. Hardly the voice you'd expect to hear from the long, thin insect. Hardly the voice of the man who'd just killed four strangers with his bare hands for the crime of getting in the way. Miel looked round for the bridle, and saw her holding it, looping the reins over her forearm. Daurenja had lowered the saddle onto the back of a nondescript bay gelding. In the middle of a desperate and bloody escape, for some reason they were stopping to tack up a horse.

For me, Miel realized. But I don't want help from the likes of him…

The horse lifted its head to avoid the bridle; he saw Daurenja's arm snake out, just like the last time, and for a moment he firmly expected to see the horse strangled. Instead, Daurenja took the bridle and gently eased the bit into the horse's mouth. As soon as he touched it, the horse became completely calm and lowered its head to the optimum height for fitting a bridle. Miel had seen grooms who could do that. A rare gift, apparently, vouchsafed to only a few.

Daurenja was handing him the reins. He took them and watched the other three mount up. Daurenja mounted like water poured from a bottle, seen in reverse. It was, Miel couldn't help thinking, the way you'd imagine the hero of the story would do it-assured, graceful, quick, and once he was mounted he seemed to merge with the horse, controlling it with the same thoughtless ease you use when moving your own leg or arm. He'd be the perfect hero, if only he wasn't a monster.

"Come on," she said, as if chiding him for using up all the hot water. He grabbed the reins and the cantle of the saddle, and made a complete botch of mounting, losing both stirrups and flopping forward onto the horse's neck.

Back in the yard again; there were men with lanterns; somebody shouted at them as they rode past. Miel's horse broke into a canter before he was ready, and the saddle hammered the base of his spine. Twenty years of riding; he couldn't remember what to do. It was just as well that the horse was inclined to follow the tail in front.

Only a complete idiot or a hero gallops in the dark. After a few strides, Miel lost his nerve completely. Instead of standing to the pace, he sat and flumped painfully, gripping the pommel of the saddle like a scared child. Escaping from the Mezentines was washed completely from his mind. All he could think was, I'm going to fall off, help. He could feel the horse extending its stride to keep up. All the fear he'd so skillfully reasoned away in the pigsty flooded back, drowning his mind. He was going to be killed, and he didn't want to be.

How long the ride lasted he had no idea, but after a lifetime the gallop decayed into a trot, then a walk; they were climbing, but he had no strength left in his knees or back to lean forward. He heard the horse wheeze, and apologized to it under his breath. Every movement it made jarred his pulled muscles. He just wanted the journey to end; a little pain was all it took, apparently, to shake him out of his high-minded resolve. Not even proper torture; discomfort. He was pathetic.

The first smear of lighter blue in the sky took him by surprise. It must've got there while his attention was distracted. Daylight, though; they'd have to stop when the sun came up. Hunted fugitives lay up during the day to avoid being seen, it was the rule.

They didn't stop. The sun came up, a red mess on the horizon. They were climbing a heather-covered moor, pimpled with white stones about the size you'd use for wall-building. The outline of Sharra directly behind him told him all he needed to know about where he was. In the middle of nowhere, precision is a waste of effort.

"We'll stop here." Daurenja's voice, so unexpected as to be arbitrary. Actually, the choice was good. They were high enough up to have a good view all round, but hidden by a little saucer of dead ground under the top of the ridge. With the bulk of the rise behind them, they could sneak out unobtrusively as soon as they saw pursuers approaching, and the direction of their escape would be masked by the gradient. Clever, resourceful Daurenja; a proper old-fashioned sort of hero, not like the tortured, ineffective types you got in all the modern romances.

"Get off," he went on, "we'll rest the horses for an hour."

Miel realized he'd forgotten how to get off a horse. He kicked his feet out of the stirrups and tried swinging his leg over the animal's back. He must have done something wrong, because he slithered and ended up breaking his fall with his kneecap.

"Would somebody mind telling me who the hell that is?" Daurenja said.

"He's nobody." Her voice. "You bastard."

"Don't start," Daurenja snapped. "This really isn't the time."

Miel lifted his head, mostly to see if Daurenja looked as weird in daylight as he had under the lamp. He saw him facing her, a let's-all-be-reasonable look on his extraordinary face. Behind him, Framain was coming up slowly; the exaggerated strides of someone who's not used to it trying to move without making a noise. He had a rock in his hands.

"How dare you…" she was saying; then she caught sight of her father. There was a split second before she realized she had to keep Daurenja's attention distracted; he must have picked up on it, because he swung round, reached out his ludicrously long arm and punched Framain on the side of the head. Framain collapsed like a shoddily built rick. Daurenja turned back as though he'd just swatted a fly. She sprang past him and threw herself on top of Framain; clearly she was afraid Daurenja had killed him, but he groaned and pushed her away.

"Excuse me," Miel said.

Framain looked up and saw him. His expression showed that he'd forgotten about Miel. He wiped a dribble of blood off his chin.

"I'd like you to meet my business partner," Framain said. "Daurenja, this is Miel Ducas. He's going to hold your arms while I smash your head in."

Daurenja glanced quickly at Miel; he was judging distances, doing mental geometry. He took two long strides, sideways and back, placing himself out of distance of all three of them.

"You," he said, looking at Miel for the briefest time required to make eye contact, then returning the focus of his attention to Framain, "get lost. Nothing to do with you. Get on your horse and go away."

It would've been very easy to obey. Daurenja had a foreman's voice, the kind that makes you do as you're told without stopping to think. Besides, he was right: none of the Ducas' business, therefore no obligation to intervene. Since it seemed pretty evident that the three of them together would be no game at all for Daurenja in a fight, there didn't seem to be anything Miel could usefully do.

"If it's all the same to you," he said, "I'll hang around for a bit. I mean, I haven't got a clue where we are, for a start, and-"

"Do what he says," Framain growled at him. "I don't need you."

"I know. I just-"

"Go away." So she didn't want him there either. It was just as well, Miel decided, that he wasn't a democrat.

"Fine." Miel stood up. "Can I keep the horse?"

No reply; he no longer existed. He gathered the reins and led the horse away. It didn't want to move, so he twitched its head sideways; at least that still worked. "I'll head this way," he called back without looking round. "And thank you for rescuing me."

Once he was over the lip of the saucer, he stopped and glanced back; then he found the heaviest rock he could lift, put the reins under it to keep the horse there, and walked as quietly as he could manage back the way he'd just come. Just under the cover of the lip he stopped, crouched down and listened.

He could hear Framain's voice, shouting, but couldn't make out the words. After a while she joined in, shrill, practically hysterical. Framain interrupted briefly, and then she resumed. He'd never heard so much anger, so much passion in any voice, male or female. Then there was a sound like a handclap, but extremely loud, and her voice stopped abruptly. Framain roared, and then he heard Daurenja say, "No"-not shouting, just speaking extremely clearly. At some point while he was eavesdropping, a stone had found its way into his hand. It fitted just right into his palm and nestled there comfortably, like a dog curled up at your feet. He crawled up to the top of the lip and looked down.

She was lying on her face. Framain was kneeling beside her, hugging his ribs, finding it hard to breathe. Daurenja stood a long stride away from him-long distance, in fencing terms. He had his arms folded too; he looked impatient and mildly annoyed. The knuckles of his right hand, gripping his left elbow, were scuffed and bleeding slightly.

Absolutely none of my business, Miel thought, taking aim.

The stone hit Daurenja just above the ear; not hard enough to knock him down but sufficient to make him stagger. Not the right time for sophistication, Miel decided. He ran down the lip, just managing to keep his balance, and crashed into him. The two of them fell together, and before they hit the ground, Miel could feel fingernails digging into his neck.

His weight helped. Landing on Daurenja was like falling into the brash of a fallen tree; his ribs, like branches, gave and then flexed. The grip on Miel's neck didn't slacken and he felt panic surging through him. The palm of his hand was on Daurenja's face, he was pushing away as hard as he could, but all that achieved was to tighten the grip. At that moment, death lost all its serenity and grace. He was the prey in the predator's jaws, wriggling and kicking a futile protest against the natural order of things. In his mind, dispassionately, like a neutral observer, he realized that he was losing the fight-not over yet, but he certainly wouldn't bet money on himself. It was, he decided, a pity but no tragedy. Mostly he felt resentful, because in the final analysis this thin freak was beating him, which inevitably made him the better man.

He didn't hear anything, but Daurenja's grip suddenly loosened and he stopped moving; then his body was hauled out of the way and Miel saw Framain looking down, though not at him. He realized that he was exhausted, too physically weary to move. Death, he decided, simply didn't want him, like the fat boy who never gets asked to join the gang.

"My business partner," Framain said. "It's all right, he's not dead. We need him, unfortunately. He's going to take us to join the Vadani duke. It's his way of making it up to us." Framain stopped, made a sucking noise and spat, very carefully, on Daurenja's upturned face. "I suppose I ought to thank you, but you should've done as you were told. This is a family matter, nothing to do with you."

"Would you help me up, please?" Miel said.

Framain frowned, as if he didn't understand, then reached out, caught hold of Miel's wrist and hauled him upright. He nearly fell down again, but managed to find his feet.

"Are you all right?" Framain didn't sound particularly interested.

"I think so. Just winded."

"We need some rope, or something we can tie his hands with," Framain said. "Got to be careful with him, it's like tying up a snake." That made it sound like he'd done it before; regularly, even. "He hit my daughter, you know," he added. "Punched her face. She's all right, but…" He sighed. "We need him, at least until we reach the Vadani. It'll be awkward killing him there, but you know what they say. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy."

No rope on the horses' saddles; they had to take Daurenja's shirt off and plait strips of it. Framain was fussy and impatient at the job, fretting in case Daurenja came round before they were ready. She helped at the end. Her mouth was swollen and purple, and her left eye was closed. Daurenja was in scarcely better shape. Whatever Framain had hit him with had left a long gash on his bald scalp. It had bled copiously, as scalp wounds do, so that his neck and ponytail were caked in blood. They propped him against the slope and Framain tied his hands and feet together, working edgily, at arm's length. "I'm surprised we managed it, actually," Framain observed casually, as they stood up and looked at him. "Just the three of us. Of course, it helped that he was taking care not to damage us. In some respects he's quite predictable."

"You should kill him now." She was using the tone of voice in which she chided him about details of mixing the colors. "Forget about joining up with the Vadani. That was his idea, presumably. Anyway, we don't need them. They're losers, or they wouldn't be running."

Framain scowled at her. "We haven't got anywhere else to go."

"Thanks to him." A different him this time.

"Be that as it may. Besides, what he said makes sense. The Vadani can't mine silver anymore; they need money. They'll be glad to help us, if we tell them we can make them a fortune."

"But the clay-"

"It's the Vadani, or going back home and waiting for the Mezentines to arrest us for killing those soldiers, or wandering aimlessly till we run out of food or a patrol gets us. Use your common sense for once."

The same argument, just a different topic. Presumably it would last as long as they did. Framain turned to Miel like a man looking for an escape route. "I suppose you're curious to find out why we're planning to kill the man who just rescued us all," he said.

"I was wondering, yes," Miel said mildly. "I'd got the impression you hadn't parted on good terms."

"Don't tell him," she interrupted, a hint of panic in her voice. "He's nothing to do with us. And we don't need the Vadani, let's do it now and get it over with, before the bastard escapes."

Framain raised his hand. Remarkably, this had the effect of silencing her. She turned her back on them both, though Miel was prepared to bet she was watching Daurenja, like a terrier on a leash at the mouth of a rat-hole. "My daughter's quite right, actually," he said, in a strangely calm, almost pleasant voice. "But from what I know about you, I get the feeling that if I don't tell you, it's quite likely you'll carry on interfering. The easiest way to get rid of you is to tell you. Of course, I'll need your assurance that you won't ever tell anybody what you're about to hear. On your word of honor," he added, with a faintly mocking smile, "as the Ducas."

Miel shrugged. "If you like," he said.

"In that case…" Framain sighed, and sat down on the ground, gesturing for Miel to do the same. "It's a long story," he said.

You already know about me (Framain said). We used to be a fairly dull, respectable family, nobility of the middling sort, in Eremia. We were tenants-in-chief of the Bardanes, with just short of a thousand acres of low-grade pasture on either side of East Reach. When all our land and money was gone, I promised myself I'd get it back, somehow or other; for her sake as much as mine, because I loved her and I felt it was my duty. With hindsight it'd have been kinder to cut her throat, but it didn't seem that way at the time.

Now, Daurenja here; he's quite a character. Most of what I know about him is what he told me himself, so I can't vouch for the truth of it. I'd be inclined to assume anything he ever said was a lie, but bits of information I picked up over the years from more reliable sources bear some of it out, so I've had to give him the benefit of the doubt, at least in part. You'll have to judge for yourself, I think.

Gace Daurenja was born about forty years ago in a large manor house at Combe Vellein; it's a smallish place just across the border from Tollin. That's right; by birth he's Cure Doce, though he'll tell you his mother was Eremian, of good family. He mentioned her name once, but it's slipped my mind. Not a family I'd ever heard of, but I'm hardly an authority.

He says he left home when he was fourteen to go to the university at Lonazep. That's partly true, from what I gather. He was fourteen when he left, and he did go to the university. That wasn't his main reason for leaving, though. The details are a bit hazy, understandably. It was something to do with an attack, one of his family's tenants. I haven't been able to find out if it was a girl or a boy he attacked, or whether it was rape or just his normal vicious temper. I don't think the child died, but it was a wretched business; anyway, he was packed off to Lonazep with books and money. I imagine the intention was that he'd stay away for good.

I've got no problem with conceding that Daurenja's a brilliant man, in his way. He can learn anything, in a fraction of the time it'd take a normal man. He's exceptionally intelligent, an outstanding craftsman, remarkably strong and agile, and I've never seen him get tired. When he first came to live with us, we didn't have any water; we had to carry it half a mile from the nearest stream. Daurenja dug a well; his own idea, we didn't ask him to do it. To be honest, the thought hadn't even occurred to me. I came out into the yard one morning and there he was; or at least, there was his head, sticking up out of a hole in the ground. He had to go down over seventy feet before he struck water, and he only stopped working when it got too dark to see. I wish I could show you that well. It's faced inside with stone-not mortared, just shaped and fitted together. He picked the stones out of the river and carted them back all by himself, and the winch he made for drawing up the bucket is a wonderful piece of work. You can lift a ten-gallon bucket with your little finger. So you see, he had the potential to do anything he wanted. His appearance was always against him, of course, but he made up for it with charm; he could lay it on when he wanted to, but perfectly judged, not too heavy-handed with it. His main problem, I believe, has always been his temper; or rather, his lack of self-restraint.

At first, he was a model student at Lonazep. He studied everything they were prepared to teach him, four or five courses simultaneously, which was unheard of, needless to say. He had plenty of friends, and when he wasn't studying he was a little on the rowdy side, but certainly no worse than most. Students at Lonazep are supposed to be a little bit boisterous, it's their tradition. But something happened. Again, I don't know the facts, but this time there definitely was a death; either a fellow student or an innkeeper's daughter. Luckily for him, the university has jurisdiction over its students, and they couldn't bring themselves to do anything too much to someone with such a brilliant mind. The story was that he transferred to Corlona to continue his researches there.

The name doesn't ring a bell, I take it. Corlona's on the other side of the sea; I believe it's one of the places where the Mezentines recruit their mercenaries. In any event, it was held to be far enough away, and by all accounts it's a very fine university, far better than Lonazep for mathematics and the sciences. When he got into trouble there, he moved on to another university a long way inland, and I believe he managed to stay there for several years. When he had to leave there, however, he was pretty much at the end of his resources. It was simply too far away for money to reach him from home, and his reputation was starting to precede him. Understandable: he was probably the only white face on the continent, outside of the coastal towns, so he was somewhat conspicuous. Really, he had no choice but to risk it and come back over here. Not that home had much to offer him. He didn't want to be recognized in Lonazep or the Cure Doce country; he was cut off from his family's money, because of course all the bankers and commercial agents were on notice to look out for him. If he came back he'd be on his own, no money, ill-advised to stay in any one place for very long, I imagine it took a certain degree of courage to make the decision; but courage is a quality he's never lacked.

As luck would have it, he wound up in Eremia just about the time I discovered the clay deposits, which I recognized as being suitable for making porcelain. My problem at that time was that I had no money at all. I needed to pay the premium for a lease on the land itself, not to mention buying all the equipment. The irony was that the man who owned the head lease only wanted a stupid little bit of money for it; my father would cheerfully have spent that much on a good hawk, or a book. But at the time I was making my living as a copyist; oddly enough, that was where I came across the book that helped me recognize the clay for what it was. You know the sort of money a copyist gets. I was cursing my bad luck and thinking I might as well forget all about it, when Daurenja came in to our shop to sell a book.

When I say sell, what I mean is, he'd lend us the book to copy, and we'd pay him a few thalers. It was the usual arrangement. Apparently, Daurenja had hung on to a few of his books from his university days. The book we borrowed from him was an artist's color-book, of all things. Come to think of it, you've seen it often enough. Of course, as soon as I saw it I was fascinated. I knew that if I was going to make porcelain I'd have to learn how to make the colors to decorate it with; so I made a secret copy of it for myself. Unfortunately, I didn't stop there. I assumed that anybody who owned a book like that must know a thing or two about the subject. That's how I got to know Daurenja.

I told him about my plans for making porcelain. At first I didn't let on about the clay, but it was stupid to think that someone like that wouldn't put two and two together. He quickly figured out that I must have found a supply of suitable material, and one evening he asked me straight where my clay deposit was.

Well, I'd more or less given up hope of being able to get my hands on that clay seam, so I reckoned I had nothing to lose. I told him, yes, I knew where to find the right clay, but I didn't have the money to buy the land. He went all thoughtful for a while, then said that money shouldn't be a problem, if I was interested in forming a partnership.

I console myself with the thought that it's not just stupid people who do stupid things. I agreed; he said he'd go away and raise the money. I imagined that'd be the last I saw of him. What he did, though, was go home, all the way back to the Cure Doce. It was a terrible risk, in the circumstances. Things had changed since he went away. Rumors of his various adventures had filtered through, and nobody was willing to cover up for him or risk themselves to keep him out of trouble. But he got home somehow, and persuaded his family to give him at least part of his inheritance. I think it was done through land exchanges and letters of credit; basically, they bought him an estate in either Eremia or the Vadani country, all done in the names of secret trustees, with cunning ways of routing the income through to him without anybody finding out. A lot of merchants were involved at various stages, so I imagine a fair proportion of the money got used up in commissions and expenses. Even so, all the time I knew him he had more than enough for his needs-books, tools, materials, and all the funding I required for my work. He never spent more than he could possibly avoid on food or clothes or anything like that. As far as I can tell, that sort of thing's never mattered to him. Everybody's idea of the unworldly scholar, in fact.

He stopped and looked round. Daurenja, trussed like a bull calf for castration, was stirring. His eyes were closed but his lips were moving around the gag, and his throat quivered slightly.

"Dreaming," Framain said. "If it wasn't for the gag, he'd be talking in his sleep. He does that. I'm told it's quite normal-talking in your sleep, I mean. Loads of people do it. My son did, and my father, too." He frowned, as though annoyed with himself. "When I was a kid, it used to scare me. Most nights he'd fall asleep in his chair, and after a while he'd start talking-quite normal tone of voice, like he was having a pleasant conversation, but none of it made sense. It wasn't gibberish. It came out as real words, proper sentences, but completely meaningless. He's not like that, though," he added, and the frown tightened into a scowl. "He always says the same thing. Probably he's saying it now. It's all the sort of stuff you'd say to your girl when you're seventeen and in love. Soppy, that's the only word for it. You mean all the world to me, I'll always love you, you're the meaning of my life, you're my sun and moon and stars; it's enough to make you want to throw up. Then after a bit he starts calling out a name; Majeria, Majeria, over and over again. Then he either stops and sleeps peacefully or else he sits bolt upright and screams. High-pitched screaming like a girl, you wouldn't think he was capable of making a noise like that. Anyway, he screams three or four times and wakes up. But by then, of course if you've got any sense you're not there to see it, because when he wakes up from a screaming fit, he starts lashing out. He'll still have his eyes shut, and he punches and kicks like a maniac for about a minute; then his eyes open, and he sits there, blinking, mouth wide open. Oh, he's a charmer, Daurenja."

"What was that name again?" Miel asked. "The one he shouts out."

"Majeria. And no, I haven't got a clue who she's supposed to be. I've asked him a couple of times, during the day, when he's awake. He reckons he's never heard of anybody called that."

Anyhow (Framain went on), that's how we came to be partners. His money paid for everything: the clay beds, the house and buildings, equipment and supplies. His trustees opened a line of credit for us, in both our names, so I could buy things without having to ask him first. That's another of his good points. He's really very generous with money.

To start with, we all worked very well together. It was me, him, my son Framea and my daughter there. We got off to an excellent start. He was the one who figured out how to fire the clay to make the porcelain without cracking or distortion. He built the kilns practically single-handed; hell of a job, and you've seen them for yourself, it's beautiful work. I've got to say, all the success we had in the early stages was basically him, not me.

Anyhow; once we'd got the mix and the firing right, we thought we were on the home stretch. All we had left to do was work out how to do the colors for decorating the finished pieces. Nothing to it, we thought. We'd got his book, and there're pages and pages in it about making and applying different colors. We were impatient to get the last details sorted out and go into production.

(Framain was silent for a long time, as though he'd forgotten Miel was there. He was frowning, like someone trying to remember something that's on the tip of his tongue; a name or a date or exactly the right word. Miel cleared his throat a couple of times, but Framain didn't seem to have noticed. Then he looked up sharply…)

All through the early stages (Framain continued), Daurenja had led the way. The truth is, I'm not much good at alchemy, or whatever the word is. I haven't got the mind for it. I can follow instructions, verbal or in a book; I can do as I'm told, better than most. But-well, it's like music. Some people can compose tunes, others can't. I'm a musician who can play someone else's tune on a flute or a harp, but I can't make them up for myself. Daurenja's the creative one. He looks at a problem an ordinary man can't begin to understand, and it's as though he can see things that the rest of us can't. When we were trying to get the consistency of the clay, for example; I was all for working away at it gradually, trial and error. He thought about it for a while, and suddenly came up with the answer. It made sense to him, he'd figured out how it worked. He tried to explain it to me, but I couldn't follow it at all. Not that I minded in the least. On the contrary, I was delighted.

But when we came to the colors, I started to get the feeling that his mind wasn't on it in quite the same way. It started, I think, after an accident. He'd been mixing some things over a fire and there was a bang like thunder and a great spurt of flame-nobody was hurt, luckily, no real harm done, though obviously we were all shaken. At first I thought it was preying on his mind, which was why he seemed so preoccupied all the time. But it wasn't that. If he was worrying about the same thing happening again, afraid he'd get hurt, you'd have expected him to have lost his enthusiasm. But it was the other way about. If anything, he was keener-dedicated, single-minded, almost obsessive-but not in the same way. He went quiet. There were days he'd hardly speak to us, which was pretty unusual. He'd be all day mixing things and boiling things up in big iron kettles, but nothing ever seemed to come of it, and when I asked him how he was getting on, he'd be evasive, guilty almost, like he was doing something wrong. All I could think of was that he'd figured out how to do the colors but didn't want to share with us-which didn't make sense, because even if he'd got the colors, they were no good to him without the clay, and I owned that, it was my name in the lease, so he couldn't go behind my back or anything like that. Even so, it made me suspicious and edgy. My son picked up on the changed atmosphere, and the fact that we weren't making any progress. Pretty soon we were all snapping at each other, quarreling over stupid little things, taking offense and getting on each other's nerves. It was pretty miserable for a week or so; and it didn't help that we were all living on top of each other. It was winter, desperately cold outside. We always get snow earlier than most places, and that year it was particularly bad. You didn't go outside unless you had to, and you tried to stay close to the fire. But Daurenja always had something heating or simmering; he yelled at us if we got close to his stuff, we'd yell back that we were cold, he'd fly into a temper-I suppose I should've been trying to keep the peace, but I was cold and fed up too, so I didn't make the effort. What made it so bad was the feeling that we were so close to finishing. I kept telling myself it wouldn't be for very long, and then somehow we'd be rid of him. We'd start production, there'd be money rolling in, and either he'd move on or we would. I made myself put up with the anger and bad feeling, because I was sure it was only for a little while longer. Also, by then I was sure Daurenja had given up working on the colors, and I knew that without him I wouldn't be able to solve the problem on my own. I needed him but he wasn't trying. That just made me angry. But I didn't say anything or ask him straight out. I went on my own slow, painstaking, futile way-following the book, trial and error, getting nowhere at all. My son and daughter had precious little to do except sit around shivering in the cold, because Daurenja wouldn't let them get near the fire. I don't suppose that helped, exactly.

It was the end of one of those days. Because it was so cold, we'd taken to sleeping in the workshop, so we wouldn't have to cross the yard to the house. I had my pillow and blankets at the far end, next to a little charcoal stove that Daurenja used for his work. He slept the other end, by the fire. My son and daughter usually went up into the old hayloft, but it was getting colder, so they'd come down to be closer to the fire. Anyway, that night I was worn out, I'd been splitting and stacking logs for most of the afternoon; I lay down and went straight to sleep.

I was woken up by a scream. I was on my feet before I was awake, if you see what I mean; I think I'd assumed the roof had caught fire, or something like that. It was dark, of course, apart from the glow from the fire. I couldn't see anything unusual; I think I called out, asked what the matter was, but nobody answered me. I started forward, walked into the corner of the bench; and then someone charged into me and knocked me off my feet. I went down, got my hand trodden on; I yelled, and then I heard the door-latch clatter.

I couldn't make out what was happening. I started calling out names, but nobody replied; so I fumbled around till I found the lamp and the tinderbox. Obviously, lighting a lamp by feel in the dark takes a fair bit of time, and while I was doing it I was calling out, wondering why the hell nobody was answering. The stupid tinder wouldn't catch, damp or something. In the end I gave up and followed the edge of the bench up toward the fire, where there was light to see by. About halfway-I put my hand on the bench vise, which told me where I was-I tripped on something that shouldn't have been there and went sprawling again. It felt like something in a sack. I got up and carried on to the fire, where I saw Mahaud.

She was lying by the hearth; on her back, but wide awake, both eyes open, with her dress up around her waist. I shouted to her but she didn't move at all. I thought she was dead for a moment, but then she blinked. I yelled for Framea, but I guess I'd already figured out what had happened; without putting it into words or anything, just the shape of an idea in my mind.

I got a taper lit and then a couple of lamps. I knew as I was doing it that I was taking my time, as though I was putting off the moment when I'd be able to see and my guess would be proved right. Framea, my son, was lying face down. When I turned him over, I found the little hook-bladed knife. I think it was Daurenja's originally, but we all used it for all kinds of things. He'd been slashed from the collarbone diagonally up to his right ear. Everything was sodden with blood; he'd been lying in a black sticky pool of it, and his shirt and hair were soaked. There was blood on the surface of his eyes, would you believe; actually on the whites of them. I suppose that meant he died immediately, without even a chance to close his eyes instinctively. That sort of thing's supposed to be a comfort-it was so quick he can't have felt anything. I can't say it's ever made me feel better.

I'm ashamed to say I dropped him; he flumped down like a sack, I heard the thump as his head hit the floorboards. The feel of his blood all over my hands was disgusting; I stood there with my hands in the air so I wouldn't touch anything, get blood everywhere. I couldn't think at all. It was as though what I was seeing was too big to fit inside my head. I'd clean forgotten about Mahaud, Daurenja, anything that might have happened. I wasn't even looking at Framea; all I could see was death, in all its revolting enormity. I wasn't angry or afraid or horrified or grief-stricken-I'd not really grasped the fact that the dead thing on the ground there was my son. Could've been a stranger, and I think I'd have reacted the same way. It was as though death was some kind of religious faith that I'd always been skeptical about, and suddenly I believed in it, for the first time. Death existed, it was real, and that realization was so big it forced everything else out of me.

I can't remember snapping out of it, but obviously I must've done. I can remember standing there, trying to decide what to do next: go to my daughter, or run outside and try and catch Daurenja before he got away. I simply couldn't make up my mind. I stood there like an idiot, jammed like a bit of seized machinery. In the end, I made my decision. It was like I heard a little voice in my head, infuriatingly calm, telling me it was dark and freezing cold outside, so it'd be more sensible to do the indoor job. Ridiculous reason for making a choice like that, but there had to be something to break the jam, start my mechanism going again.

I tried to wake her up, but of course she wasn't asleep. I shouted, I tried shaking her, but it didn't make any difference. Her body moved when I shook her, but her eyes stayed wide open and fixed. Even when I stared directly into them, I knew she wasn't looking at me. It was as though I was invisible, like a ghost. But I kept trying to make her hear me or see me, over and over again. I was still trying when the dawn came. I only noticed because the fire had burned out and it was starting to get cold; that made me realize there was daylight coming in through the open door, because I could see even though the fire and the lamps had gone out.

Around the middle of the afternoon I couldn't bear it anymore. I went outside-I was shaking all over from the cold, but putting a coat on was just too much trouble. Snow was falling, so his tracks were nearly covered. All the horses were still there. As far as I could tell, he hadn't taken anything at all. I told myself he'd surely freeze to death, in that weather, on foot without a coat or a blanket. I knew I was supposed to want justice or revenge or whatever you like to call it, but the fact is, I couldn't make myself feel even slightly interested in Daurenja, not right then.

I lit a fire that evening, mostly because I realized she'd die of cold if I didn't. I sat up all night just looking at her. I know I didn't sleep at all. I wanted to look away, but I simply couldn't take my eyes off her face. I got all the blankets and coats and sheets and piled them up on top of her. I was so cold I couldn't feel my hands or feet, even with the fire banked right up, but that didn't seem even remotely important. The next morning I carried Framea out to the woodshed. I put him over my shoulder-the blood was drying but still tacky-and when I got him there I laid him down on the ground, like he was some piece of cargo, and shut the door. I had no feelings about his body other than what was left of that initial disgust. When I got back I took off the shirt I was wearing, so I wouldn't have to feel the blood soaking through it. I sat there bare-chested in the freezing cold, and couldn't be bothered to put any clothes on.

The next day I realized I had to make some sort of effort to feed her. I made porridge in a big old iron pot, and stuffed it down her throat with a wooden spoon. Several times I was sure she was going to choke rather than swallow. It was three days before she moved, even; she was lying in her own piss and shit, dried porridge crusted all over her face, and her hair on the left side singed from the heat of the fire. All I'd done was keep her alive, just about. I was so weak I kept falling over, but it was a while before I realized it'd be a good idea if I ate something too. I hadn't noticed feeling hungry. I think I drank some water, but I don't remember doing it.

Well, it got better eventually. One day she got up off the floor, crawled to the wall and slumped against it. A day or so later, I came back from getting in logs to find her sweeping the floor. That's all she did for a long time: cleaning, tidying, housework. Ridiculous; but I just left her to it. I didn't even try talking to her. She got down on her hands and knees and scrubbed all the bloodstains away with a bucket of water and a bit of rag.

The food ran out. I didn't want to leave her, but I had to go. I took the cart and went out to the nearest farm; I knew I could get there and back in a day. It was dark when I got home, and when I came through the door she asked me where I'd been. I told her. We didn't talk anymore that night. She's never said what happened; at least, not to me. But I found a piece of paper; she wrote it all down, about four sentences. Just the facts.

I know what she wrote is true, by the way. It was the cut that proved it; the fact that it ran from right to left. Framea and my daughter are right-handed, like me; we all are, in our family. But Daurenja's left-handed-at least, he favors the left hand, though he's practically ambidextrous. They say it's a sign of great intelligence, don't they?