Evil for Evil

24

Until he left the city, Ziani had never thought much about food. Like all Mezentines, he'd taken it for granted. He'd had a vague idea that vegetables somehow came up out of the ground, and meat was the bodies of dead animals; anyhow, it was crude, primitive and mildly distasteful, and he really wasn't interested. The Republic's attitude to eating was that it was just another bodily function, to be performed as quickly and efficiently as possible, in private. A long time ago there had been grain mills in the city, but now their races and wheels were more profitably employed powering the driveshafts of machine shops. Mezentia bought its flour from the savages ready-ground and handed it over to the Bakers' Guild, to be converted into manufactured wares as swiftly as possible. The bakers produced three types of loaf (small, medium, large); each loaf identical to others in its category, its weight and dimensions strictly in accordance with the prescribed specification.

Because nobody in the city ever went hungry, it was hard for Ziani to grasp the idea of there being no food; a whole population with nothing to eat. It was impossible, because in the city the bakers had a carefully agreed rota system that governed their opening hours, making sure there was always a bakery open for business at any hour of the day or night. Trust the savages to be different. Their food came from farms; it traveled from the farms to markets-big open spaces crammed with heaps and bins of raw, untreated, inchoate food, which people bought and took away to process themselves. And that was when the system was functioning perfectly. When something went wrong-in a war, for example-even that pathetic excuse for organization broke down, and there was a very real danger of people not having anything to eat. Extraordinary, but that's how some people manage to live; like cottages perched on the rim of a volcano.

Not that he objected; quite the reverse, since it had given him the opportunity to make a hero's entrance when he arrived in Valens' camp at the head of a short column of carts laden with flour, root vegetables, salted and preserved meat, cheese and a load of other stuff he didn't even recognize, but which the general manager of the miners' camp at Boatta assured him was both edible and wholesome.

The food had actually been an afterthought, a by-product of his detour to Boatta, which in turn had been nothing but camouflage, to explain away his long absence. The fact that it meant that everybody in Valens' column was pleased to see him was an unexpected but very welcome bonus.

"Before we left, we thought it'd be a good idea to empty out the stores and bring the stuff on with us," he explained truthfully. "To stop the Mezentines getting hold of it, as much as anything. It was only when the manager went through the inventory that we realized just how much food they'd got stockpiled there. My guess is that there was a standing order for so much flour and whatever each month, which was more than the miners needed, but nobody ever thought to reduce the amount; so the unused supplies were just squirreled away in the stores."

Valens shrugged. "Three cheers for inefficiency and waste, in that case," he said. "They've just saved all our lives."

They were unloading the flour barrels, rolling them down improvised ramps from the tailgates of the miners' carts. Crowds of civilians were watching, with the wary but rapt attention of dogs watching their owners eat. It's just flour, Ziani thought; even if they're starving hungry, it's just an inert white powder with no moving parts.

"Nobody told me what you were doing," Valens was saying, "or where you'd got to. I don't remember telling you to go and bring in the miners from Boatta."

"Don't you?" Ziani looked at him blankly. "I thought we discussed it; or maybe it was Carausius who gave me the order, I can't remember offhand. Anyway, it seemed logical enough; I had to go over there anyway to make sure they'd made a proper job of sabotaging the silver workings, so while I was there, why not get the evacuation organized at the same time? I'm just glad it worked out so well."

Valens nodded. "It's just as well you were able to find us," he said pleasantly. "I hadn't actually decided on the itinerary when we left the city, so you can't have known we were headed this way. I hate to think what might have happened if you'd missed us."

"Oh." Ziani raised his eyebrows. "I'm surprised to hear you say that. I knew you'd be on this road, because the first supply dump's at Choris Andrope-you showed me the list of depots, or I saw it somewhere, and I knew you'd be following the mountain roads, but obviously keeping as much distance as you could between yourself and the Eremian border. So, this was the only possible road you could've taken."

"I see," Valens said. "You figured it out from first principles."

"Well, it's hardly applied trigonometry." Ziani shrugged. "Besides, we were able to confirm your position when we picked up a couple of Mezentine stragglers on the way. Which reminds me," he added, looking away for a moment, "there's something I need to talk to you about, when you can spare a moment."

"Now?"

"It'll keep," Ziani replied, slightly awkwardly. "It's a delicate matter for discussing in the open like this."

"That sounds a bit dramatic."

"Does it? I'm sorry. Oh, I nearly forgot. I gather you had some trouble with some of the carts, but Daurenja managed a temporary fix. I'd better have a word with him about that. Do you happen to know where he is?"

Before he went looking for Daurenja, Ziani returned to the cart he'd ridden in on and opened the lid of the link box. Inside was a weatherbeaten canvas satchel. He looped the strap round his neck and shut the lid.

Daurenja was where Valens had said he'd be. They'd set up a makeshift forge, and half a dozen smiths were beating nails out of scraps of cart-armor offcut; Daurenja was drilling holes in a rectangular piece, to make up a heading plate. The drill-bit was getting hot and binding, so he paused every now and then to spit into the hole. Ziani waited until he'd finished before interrupting.

"You're back." Daurenja seemed overjoyed to see him. "Nobody knew where you were, I was worried."

"Never mind about me. Where were you?"

Daurenja frowned. "Absent without leave, I'm sorry to say. There was a bit of private business I wanted to clear up; I thought it'd only take a day, at most, and it was pretty urgent, it wouldn't wait. You've probably heard, I jeopardized the whole column by not being on hand when I was needed. I'm sorry: error of judgment on my part."

Ziani grinned. "I heard about it," he said. "And I gather Miel Ducas is under guard somewhere as a result. Is that right?"

Daurenja nodded. "Not that I'm worried, he won't do anything while I'm-"

"That's not the point." Ziani scowled. "I'm just anxious not to run into him unexpectedly, that's all. He and I don't get on."

"I see. Well, you're all right for the moment." Daurenja smiled. "They brought in a bunch of the scavengers; you know, the gang that's been stripping all the dead bodies. Apparently he knows one of them, I'm not sure of the details. Anyhow, he's in with them at the moment, so he'll be out of your way and mine for a while." He wrinkled his forehead. "I didn't know you and-"

"Nothing to do with you. What's all this about the plate mountings on the small carts?"

When he'd finished with Daurenja, he wandered about for a while until he was fairly sure he wouldn't be interrupted, then found an empty cart on the edge of the camp. There he opened his satchel and took out a dog-eared, much-folded piece of parchment. It was a map. He looked at it for a while, then took a pair of dog-leg calipers from his pocket and measured some distances, muttering calculations under his breath. When he'd finished, he folded the map carefully and put it away again before climbing down out of the cart.

It took him a minute or so to find a Vadani officer with nothing to do.

"Go and find Duke Orsea," he said, "and then come and tell me where he is."

The officer looked at him. "On whose authority?"

"Mine. Oh, and round up half a platoon for guard duty."

The officer didn't know what to make of that; still, he decided, better orders from a Mezentine civilian of dubious status than no orders at all. "Where will I find you?"

"Either around here somewhere or with Duke Valens."

The officer nodded. "How long will you be needing the men for?"

"Indefinitely."

So much to do, Ziani thought, as the officer hurried away, so little time and no help. It was so much easier back at the ordnance factory. Better organized, and reliable, civilized people to deal with. Never mind, he consoled himself. Getting there. Halfway there, at least, and most of the hard work done already.

(Briefly he considered the clerk, Psellus. He'd been a stroke of luck, though whether the luck was good or bad he wasn't quite sure yet. And something else to think about, as if he hadn't got enough on his mind already.)

There were a few other documents in the satchel; he checked they were still there, but didn't bother getting them out or reading them. Then the mine superintendent from Boatta found him, with a query about billeting arrangements. Vexing; but he'd taken a lot of trouble to make sure that the Boatta contingent answered directly to him. A small private army, just in case he needed it.

"Oh, and that other business." The superintendent looked round as he spoke, deplorably conspicuous, as many straightforward people are when they're trying to act furtive. "My boys found her all right; they've just got back."

Ziani nodded calmly. "They brought the body?"

"It's in the small chaise," the superintendent replied, "under a pile of sacks. I told one of the lads to keep an eye on it, make sure nobody goes poking about."

"Fine, thanks." Ziani yawned, a feigned gesture that became genuine as his weariness asserted itself. He hated having to concentrate when he was tired. "I'll need you in a little while," he said. "Where will you be?"

The superintendent shrugged. "I've got duty rosters to fill out," he said. "I was going back to our wagons."

"All right, just so long as I know where you are."

"You're sure this is all…?"

"Don't worry about it."

When he was alone again, he made a conscious effort and emptied his mind of everything except the map. The other business could all fall through and no real harm done, if the worst came to the worst. The map-especially now that the Cure Hardy princess was dead. More luck (good or bad).

He could hear hammers: Daurenja's blacksmiths, doggedly making nails to mend the damaged carts with. It seemed like a lifetime ago, when he'd spent his days quietly, efficiently making things, while wise men, properly qualified in such matters, shaped policy far away in the Guildhall. Now, though, he knew that the policy-makers were men like Psellus the clerk; his inferior in every conceivable respect, an implement. Too late now to settle down somewhere and get a job. Still, the sound of hammers hurt him, like birdsong heard in the early morning, on the way to the gallows. A day's useful work and a quiet evening at home was all he'd ever asked for. And love, which had spoiled everything.

(The Cure Hardy, he thought. How much had that stupid woman in the ridiculous red outfit really known about the Cure Hardy? The map; his ludicrous venture into the salt trade. The map. And having to rely for so much on the detailed cooperation of the enemy…)

He glanced up and noted the position of the sun. Time to go and find Duke Valens.

He found him sitting on the ground, his back to a cartwheel, making notes on a wad of scrap paper and doing calculations one-handed on a portable counting-board. He looked up, squinting into the sun, then said, "There was something you wanted to talk tome about?"

"If you've got a moment. I can see you're busy."

Valens laughed. "Wasting my time," he said. "I'm trying to work out how long we've got, even with what you brought in, before we starve to death. I figure we might just make it to the supply dump, provided the Mezentines haven't found it already. And assuming you can fix up the carts."

Ziani shook his head. "You don't need me for that, it's just basic joinery. Besides, Daurenja's appointed himself chief engineer; I saw him at that forge he's rigged up, making nails. I'd only be in the way."

"If you say so." Valens picked up one of the casting counters and fiddled with it. "But you can see why I said it's a waste of time doing all these stupid calculations. I'm afraid we aren't going to get there. The margin's too tight." He flipped the counter like a coin and caught it backhanded, without even looking. "Oh, I've thought it through. I've considered sending the fast wagons ahead to get the supplies and fetch them back here, but that's just begging the Mezentines to have another go at us. They're bound to have scouts out watching every move we make. I might as well draw them a map, with the depot marked on it in red ink."

Talking of maps… "This may sound stupid," Ziani said, "but do we have to go to Choris Andrope? Yes, I know that's where the depot is; but even if we make it and the food's still there, it won't have solved anything, just postponed it. Excuse me if I'm speaking out of turn, but I get the impression you haven't got anywhere in particular in mind as a destination; you're just planning to wander about until the Mezentines go away."

"That's right." A slight frown on Valens' face. He opened his hand and stared at the counter, then glanced away, as if he'd been looking into the sun. "Just like you told me to."

Ziani shrugged. "If I said that, I can't have been expressing myself clearly; in which case, I apologize. But anyway, things have changed since then. I don't think wandering about is a viable option."

"Agreed." Valens winced. "But what choice is there?"

"Withdrawal to a place of safety."

"No such thing."

"Yes there is." Ziani dropped down on his knees beside Valens and lowered his voice. "With the Cure Hardy; the Aram Chantat. You remember, they suggested it themselves."

Valens pulled a face. "So did my dear wife," he said. "She told me I should take my people across the desert. Acceptable losses, she said. With hindsight, we'd have been better off doing that. But we can't do it now. We've lost too many people already."

"We can cross the desert," Ziani said.

Valens scowled at him. "That's it, is it? Your brilliant idea?"

"We can cross the desert," Ziani repeated evenly, "because there's a way. A string of oases, each of them no more than two days on from the last one." He pulled the map out of his satchel and laid it flat on the ground, weighing the corners down with small stones. "I learned about it from a merchant, the widow of a man who used to trade salt. You can cross the desert in three days."

Valens smiled. "She sold you this map."

"It wasn't like that." Ziani heard fear in his own voice. "We were going to go into partnership, to revive her husband's old salt run. This was our secret weapon, if you like."

"I see. And you were going to put up the money. Did she try and sell you any public buildings while she was at it?"

Just at the last minute, when you've built a machine, there's one crucial component, and it won't fit; or it binds and the wheel won't turn or the key jams halfway down the keyway. You tell yourself it only needs a few moments of fettling with files and stones. The essential thing is not to try and force it. "I know it's there," he said.

"You've been there? Tried it out for yourself?"

Ziani shook his head. "I read the dead husband's journals," he said. "Logs and daybooks, schedules of expenses. He used the route for seven years."

"Really. And then he just stopped."

"Yes. But for a very good reason. He died."

Valens flipped the counter again. This time he dropped it. "How sad. So, why didn't his widow sell the secret to someone else, if she didn't like running the route herself?"

Ziani grinned. "Nobody would've bought it. Not safe, you see."

"Not safe. You're doing a wonderful job of persuading me."

"Not safe," Ziani said doggedly, "because one of his contacts had given away the secret to a Cure Hardy bandit chief. That's how the husband died; the Cure Hardy ambushed him. Once they'd started infesting the route, who'd want to buy it?"

Valens sighed. "Sorry if I'm being unreasonably skeptical," he said, "but if the Cure Hardy knew about a short cut across the desert, why did my dear wife and her party come the long way round, with half of them dropping dead along the way?"

But when the component finally fits, there's a soft, firm click and the wheel begins to run. "I believe the secret was lost when the bandit chief and his raiding party got themselves wiped out. They'd kept it to themselves, for obvious reasons. Nobody else knew about it, apart from my merchant's husband."

"You're speculating."

"Not really," Ziani said. "The bandit's name was Skeddanlothi, and you killed him."

Valens picked another counter off the board, gripping its rim between thumb and forefinger. "The name rings a bell," he said.

"Skeddanlothi and his gang were raiding quite deep in Vadani territory; near here, in fact. Just over those mountains, and-"

"Thank you, yes, I remember." Valens frowned. "It's true, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how they'd managed to get this deep into our space without being picked up on the border; come to that, why it was worth their while coming all the way out here, across the desert, just to steal a few goats." He switched the counter from his left hand to his right. "Have you got all these papers; the journals, and all that stuff?"

Ziani shook his head. "But I did see them. I read them, every word. They bear out the map. I can describe each of the oases for you, if you like. At the first one, there's a row of wooden sheds, where the merchant's husband kept a stockpile of salt. There's a pen for the horses, and a stone silo for grain and forage. The roof blew off it in a sandstorm, so it's patched up in places. He had to take two mules loaded with slates to make good the damage. There's probably still some grain left in the bins, though it'll be six years old at the very least. I don't know if grain keeps that long."

"If it's dry and dark," Valens said absently, "and the rats haven't got in. But of course I can't check any of this unless I actually go there."

Ziani shrugged. "It was in the journals."

"Presumably this merchant of yours had employees," Valens went on. "They'd have known the route. Why haven't any of them tried to use the secret? Can you produce one of them to back up your claim?"

"No, of course not." Ziani scowled. "There were four of them. Two died in the ambush. One died about six months later. The other one borrowed money from the widow to set up a grain mill at Gannae Flevis. He was still making payments, the last time I spoke to the widow."

Valens nodded. "What about her?" he said. "If she was living in the city, she ought to be somewhere in the convoy."

Ziani shook his head. "She didn't like the idea," he said. "She told me she was going to join her niece's mule-train, trading fabrics with the Cure Doce. I'm sorry, I didn't ask for any details, so I've got no idea where she's likely to be."

"That's a nuisance," Valens said. He yawned. "Sorry, I'm a bit weary. It's been a long day. And you'll have to excuse my skepticism," he went on. "But-well, let's suppose somebody wanted to hand me over to the Mezentines, on a silver dish with an apple in my mouth. It'd help enormously if I could be persuaded to take a specified route, so they'd know exactly where to wait for me."

"There is that." Ziani had caught his breath. "Assuming you think I'd want to do such a thing. And that the Republic would negotiate with me. But I guess you don't think that."

Valens snuggled his back against the hub of the wheel, as though scratching an itch. "Anything's possible," he said. "I could build up a fairly convincing case if I wanted to. For a start, where did you get to when the rest of us left the city? Yes, I know you went to Boatta and picked up the miners. But maybe you didn't go straight there. Maybe you took a detour to meet someone; a Mezentine, maybe, with an interesting offer to put to you. Help us end the war and you can come home, no hard feelings. Maybe even your old job back, in the weapons factory. A man could be tempted."

"You think so?"

"I would be, for sure." Valens shrugged. "Assuming I could believe they really meant it. It can be a real bitch sometimes, can't it, knowing who you can believe in."

"If you say so."

"For example," Valens said, "there's this Miel Ducas, and his cousin; the one who got killed just now. They were convinced, both of them, that you were up to no good. The Ducas was sure that you were responsible for him getting arrested for treason. He even went as far as to tell his cousin you'd admitted it, to his face. And Jarnac Ducas told one of his senior officers, who told someone else… Maybe the story got stretched a bit in the retelling, I don't know. It all strikes me as a little bit far-fetched."

"Actually," Ziani said, "it's perfectly true. I found out about-well, the letter. I thought I could do myself some good with Duke Orsea by telling him. I wanted to get sole command of the defense of Civitas Eremiae."

"Really? Why?"

"Because my scorpions were the defense, mostly," Ziani replied with a shrug. "I didn't want some amateur nobleman interfering. Also, I wanted Miel Ducas' job. And his land, and his money. Didn't do me much good in the end, of course. But he was guilty, remember. It's not like I forged the letter."

Valens smiled. "That's true," he said. "You didn't write the letter, I did. You just carried out your duty as a loyal subject. Not that you were one, of course." He yawned again, though this time it was forced. "My father had a saying," he continued. "I love treachery, he used to say, but I can't stand traitors. He was full of stuff like that. Other people's lines, mostly, but he passed them off as his own. Never fooled anybody. Credibility, you see. He told so many lies, people tended not to believe him even when he was telling the truth. Personally, I've always tried to be the opposite: tell the truth, and people know where they stand with you." He frowned, then said, "Let me have a look at that map."

Ziani handed it to him. Valens glanced at it.

"There has been a traitor working for the Mezentines," he went on. "That's how come there was a full regiment of Mezentine cavalry waiting for us at Cor Evenis, down on the main east road. For all I know they're still there, wondering why we haven't shown up yet. I told the traitor that's where we were headed, just before we left the city; then I sent some fast scouts, to see if there was an ambush laid for us. They reported back just before the attack on the column here; too late for me to do anything about it, because the traitor got killed in the battle. You may have come across him; General Mezentius."

"He was a-"

Valens nodded. "Rather a shock to me. Still, I suppose he figured we didn't stand a chance in the war, and wanted to get in with the winning side. Can't blame him. Loyalty's a wonderful thing, but any virtue taken to excess turns into stupidity in the end. The silly part of it is, it was a Mezentine who told me about him; inadvertently, of course. Anyway, that's beside the point. The question is, do I believe in you and your map? And if I believe in you, do I also believe there really is a road across the desert?" He sighed. "It'd be lovely if I could," he said. "Even if the Mezentines managed to follow us, I don't suppose they'd want to risk upsetting the Cure Hardy. I get the impression that they're the only force on earth your lot are genuinely scared of; not that it's ever lost them any sleep, because there's that wonderful desert in the way, keeping them penned in like a bull in a paddock. If ever they got the idea that the desert could be crossed after all, I reckon they might make some serious changes to their entire foreign policy." He closed his eyes. "I'm not entirely sure how the Aram Chantat will react if I turn up without their crown princess. They're likely to be upset, but whether with me or the Perpetual Republic I couldn't safely predict. There's also the fact that I've sent out a lot of scouts-good men, my own personal intelligence corps-and they assure me there aren't any Mezentine forces I don't already know about lurking behind rocks this side of the city. If you really were leading me into an ambush, they'd probably have found the assault party by now. A regiment of heavy cavalry's not an easy thing to hide in open country."

Ziani reminded himself to breathe. "And the map?" he said.

"Oh heavens, the map." Valens nodded. "Well now, let's see. Take away your motive for lying, and we're more or less forced to accept that you're telling the truth. In which case, you sincerely believe in the map. I don't think you're the sort of man who buys treasure maps from people you meet in the street. In which case, it's likely that the salt woman-her name's Henida Zeuxis, and she used to live next door to the Temperance and Tolerance in the Horsefair, right? See? I know all sorts of things about people, including where they go on their days off-most likely the salt woman believes in the map as well. So the gamble is, was her husband lying to her, or exaggerating? I don't know. You've met her, I haven't. What do you think?"

Easy as that, apparently; at the end, after all the filing and shaping and fettling and fitting. "I don't think she'd got the imagination to lie, or the skill to forge the journals. And if her old man was as half-witted as her, he must've hit on something really good, or he'd have gone out of business. He strikes me as a plodder, your ideal employee. I had men just like him working for me at the ordnance factory. If he'd been a horse, you could've stuck him on a treadmill and forgotten about him till his next feed was due. Yes, I believe in her, and the map, and the short cut across the desert. For what my opinion's worth."

Valens breathed out, like a man putting down a heavy sack. "That's what it comes to," he said. "Little scraps of trivia about unremarkable people swaying the fate of the whole Vadani nation. My father'd be livid if he could see me now. He always reckoned that making history was strictly the preserve of the upper classes." He shook his head. "You'd never have thought it to look at him, especially when he'd been drinking, but he was an idealist. There was an old boy on the council who used to say to him, you act like we're living in the upstairs rooms when in fact we're camping out on the midden. My father could never figure out what he meant by that, but he was right." Ziani watched him pull himself together. "All right, then, we'll give it a try. Oh, and thanks." He grinned wearily. "Consider yourself provisionally awarded the rank of Hero of the Vadani People and public benefactor, first class. There's no salary, but if we end up anywhere half civilized, I'll get a medal struck or something."

"Thank you," Ziani said gravely. "That makes it all worthwhile."

Which left only one chore to be got out of the way. It could wait a little longer.

Meanwhile, there was plenty to do. Fixing up the carts was the priority. The arrival of the miners helped; the armor plates could be cannibalized off the worst-damaged wagons and fitted onto the miners' carts; the rejects could then be stripped for parts to fix up the salvageable vehicles. Once the armor had been moved over, he let Daurenja take charge of bullying and cajoling the Vadani carpenters, while he concentrated on fabricating and fitting parts that had to be specially made: braces, brackets, reinforcing plates and the inevitable infinity of nails. Anything requiring even a little skill he did himself; partly because experience had greatly increased his contempt for Vadani metalwork, partly because it was a sweet pleasure to be bashing and filing metal again; as though he was back in the factory; as though nothing had happened. Working with iron and steel was a holiday after so long spent forging and shaping human beings; unlike people, rods and billets responded predictably to fire and hammer, and when you cut into them you got filings, not blood.

Valens' scouts started coming back with thoughtful looks on their faces. They hadn't seen an army, or outriders, or any trace that a large body of soldiers had been on the move. Instead, they muttered about finding abandoned farmhouses, barns that were empty when they should have been packed with hay; a merchant convoy glimpsed in the distance that left the road as soon as it saw them; a newly built bridge across a small river in the middle of nowhere.

No interference from the Duke, at any rate. Instead of being everywhere all the time, nosing about, asking maddeningly good questions, he'd become increasingly hard to find. The consensus of opinion was that he was lying low in order to avoid Duke Orsea, who was on his case because of the Eremian nobleman, Ducas, who was still being held confined in a small, stinking corral with the other prisoners.

There were other excitements, eagerly discussed in raised voices over the incessant thump of hammers. A large party of the scavengers who'd done so well out of trotting along at the heels of the running battle, like a sausage-maker's dog, had been rounded up and brought in. They were penned up in a hollow square of empty lamp-oil jars and vinegar barrels, tied up, ignored by everyone except their guards, grudgingly and sporadically fed, mostly on soup made out of slightly spoiled barley which the horses were too picky to touch. What Valens wanted them for was a complete and perfect mystery. Better to wring their necks straightaway and save their food, even if it was just condemned horse-fodder.

Predictably, the weather took a turn for the worse. It started as fine, light rain, the kind that saturates your clothes before you realize you're getting wet. Then it poured. The dust turned instantly into thick, sticky mud, weighing down boots and gumming up hands, messing up tools, swallowing a dropped nail or pin, spoiling tolerances, souring tempers. It's hard to cut to the thickness of a nail-scribed line when your eyes are full of water, and every time you shift your feet, the ground under them tries to suck off your footwear. Forced into the cramped shelter of the wagons, the civilians suffered noisily, wringing hearts and wasting time. Rainwater seeped into sloppily sealed flour barrels, dripped through tears in wagon canopies, swelled timbers and coated bolts and spindles with a sheen of tacky orange rust. Soon there were no dry clothes to change into, and men's boots squelched in the morning when they crammed their feet into them. Valens sat under an awning and gazed wretchedly at the road, wondering if it was impassable yet. A rill off the side of the mountain swelled into a river in spate and washed two carts (two fully refurbished, perfectly roadworthy carts) off the road and down the slope, where they rolled onto the rocks and were scrunched into kindling. The forge fires bogged down into black sooty ooze and couldn't be relit. The work, nearly complete, was now clearly doomed to take forever. If the Mezentines didn't get them first, they were all going to drown; swallowed in their sleep by the mud.

The end of the work took Ziani by surprise. Quite suddenly (late one afternoon, an hour before the lamps were due to be lit), in spite of the rain and the mud, the spoiled food and the sodden timber, they finished off the last of the smashed-up carts, and the column was officially ready to set off. Someone found Valens and told him; he ruled that they might as well stay where they were until morning and get everything ready for an early start. In the meantime, they could deal with the leftovers of unfinished business-shoeing horses, making an inventory of supplies and munitions, drawing up watch rotas and executing the prisoners.

It was a long, wretched and tedious job. Originally the idea was to hang them in a civilized fashion, but it didn't take long for Major Nennius, officer in charge, to realize that that wasn't going to work. There were no trees sturdy enough to serve as makeshift gallows, and he was only able to scrounge up enough four-inch-square-section long timbers to build two sets of scaffolds. Even hurrying things along at maximum speed, he could only turn off two men every fifteen minutes; eight an hour, and he had sixty-seven to deal with, or sixty-eight if the Ducas was going to join them (apparently that hadn't been decided yet). In addition to which, the rain had soaked into the ropes, which meant the knots didn't slide properly. Someone suggested waxing them with beeswax, a smart-sounding idea that turned out to be useless in practice. Two hours into the job, after five of the first eight executions had gone unpleasantly wrong, Nennius decided that hanging was a refinement he couldn't afford. They were already working by torchlight, and his men had spent the day working on the carts; they were tired, wet, hungry and miserable, and he had the impression that their patience wasn't unlimited.

Unwilling to take the decision himself, he balloted his junior officers. Three of them were ardently in favor of beheading and argued their case with a fervor he found more than a little disturbing. The other four voted for strangling. Hooray, Nennius told himself, for democracy.

Once the decision had been taken, however, it turned out that nobody could be found with a good working knowledge of practical strangulation. It was simple, someone said, you just put a bit of rope round a chap's neck and pull it tight until-well, until it's all over. Nennius, however, wasn't convinced. He'd never seen a man strangled to death but he had an idea that there was rather more to it than that. Someone suggested having a prisoner in and doing a trial run. Nennius shuddered and sent out for chopping blocks and axes.

Not, he had to concede, that he'd ever seen a man decapitated in cold blood before, either. But he felt rather more confident about it than about strangling. Provided they could find a way to make the prisoner keep still, how hard could it be? A bit like chopping through tree-roots, he told himself. He gave orders for the axes to be carefully sharpened.

Perhaps it was because it was late and wet and dark; it didn't go well. The first prisoner presented himself with admirable resignation, as if he could sense that everybody was fairly close to the end of their rope, and he didn't want to make things any more fraught than they already were. But the headsman muffed the stroke, cutting into the poor man's shoulder blade instead of his neck. The prisoner jumped in the air and squirmed about uncontrollably-not his fault, Nennius had to concede, it was pure instinct and muscle spasm-and finally had to be put out of his misery with spear-thrusts and a heavy rock to the back of the head. The spectacle had a very bad effect on the rest of the prisoners, who turned uncooperative; the next victim needed four men to hold him down, and the headsman refused to swing for fear of hitting one of the helpers. Further delay, while some men botched up a sort of a crush-a heavy oak beam with a strong leather strap to secure the head, and a thick, wide plank to lay over the body, on which three men could sit. The arrangement worked, more or less, although the headsman's nerves were shot and he needed three cuts to clear his third victim, who yelled like a bullock being dehorned throughout. The next six went through all right, and then the headsman's hands slipped on the wet axe-handle, so that the blade glanced off the back of the victim's skull and sank two inches into the headsman's left foot.

After that, nobody seemed to want the job, until a smarmy young ensign who Nennius particularly disliked volunteered and, in default of other applicants, was appointed. He'd been one of the fervent pro-decapitators in the debate earlier, and he went at it with three parts enthusiasm to one part skill. It'd have been all right if he'd been a big, brawny man with plenty of upper body strength; instead, he was short and scrawny, too weak to control his swing, and he was quickly demoted on appeal from the helpers, who feared for their lives. At this point it dawned on Nennius that if he wanted to have any credibility left come morning, he was going to have to do the filthy job himself.

It wasn't like chopping tree-roots, or splitting logs. It wasn't like anything else he'd ever done before. It was exhausting, difficult, disgusting and very, very precise. But if you concentrated furiously all the time and held the axe at just the right angle and hit very hard indeed, you could sort of chip the head off the neck with one cut; whereupon it slid through the restraining strap and flipped up in the air, while the trunk jerked and spasmed, upsetting the men perched grimly on the board into the sticky red mud. An eighth of an inch either way and you'd screwed it, and that meant fifteen seconds or so of frantic hacking, which more often than not broke the neck rather than cutting it. All in all, Nennius decided, this wasn't what he'd joined the service for. In fact, it was a thoroughly unsatisfactory way of doing things, and there was still a very long way to go.

Midnight came and went. There were complaints from the rest of the camp, particularly from civilians, about the noise, which was disturbing people's sleep. There was also a message from Duke Valens, reprieving Miel Ducas, who shouldn't have been included in the general warrant in the first place.

It was understandable, perhaps, that nobody told Miel Ducas that he'd been spared; the execution party had plenty of other things to do, and it was easy for details to get overlooked. Accordingly, Miel spent the night huddled in a corner of the biscuit-barrel stockade. He'd wormed himself against the barrels as if he was trying to squeeze himself through the tiny crack that separated them, and if anybody came within two feet of him he lashed out with his hands and feet.

In spite of everything, there was still a part of his mind that was perfectly, cruelly clear; and it very much wanted to know where the sudden panic, the overpowering fear of death, had come from. He wasn't sure. The best explanation he could come up with was that he was well aware that he'd been included in the warrant by mistake-kill the prisoners, they'd said, meaning the captured scavengers; but the sergeant in charge of the guard had assumed the order referred to everybody currently under restraint. Miel had tried to explain; first quietly and reasonably, then at the top of his voice, so everybody in the camp could hear him. While he was yelling and screaming, he was bitterly ashamed of himself, and he knew perfectly well, deep inside his mind's sound core, that he was only objecting because it was a mistake, because it was unfair. Childish reasoning, giving rise to childish behavior; the Ducas doesn't throw tantrums, particularly in the hearing of seventy-odd poor unfortunates who are doing their best to compose themselves as they wait for the end. Lack of consideration for others had always been the greatest sin, after disloyalty. Every time he paused for breath, he could hear them muttering and swearing at him telling him to shut up, put a sock in it, get a grip. He realized that at the end he'd lost everything, and he tried to use that to pull himself together. But each time he heard the axe fall-the clean shearing hiss, the soft thump followed by a shriek that marked a botched cut, the deep bite of the edge going through into the oak of the block-the panic surged up and spurted into his brain, overruling all his objections and setting him off again, like a baby woken up in the night.

Each time the guards came and grabbed someone, he thought, I wish they'd take me, and then it'd be over with; then, as the hurdles that served the pen as a makeshift gate were slammed and chained, he snuggled harder still against the barrels, shivering like a man with a high fever, desperate with relief because they'd taken someone else, not him. Then the pause; then the axe-fall, and off he'd go again, explaining in a yell that slurred the words together about the mistake in the warrant; then the hurdle-chain would rattle and he'd think, They'll take me next, just to stop me making this horrible disgusting noise; and so back to the beginning, top dead center of the flywheel, and the wish that they'd take him next.

He counted, of course: fifty left, forty-five, forty, thirty-five, thirty, twenty-five, twenty, nineteen. At times he was sure the terror would kill him before they finally condescended to come for him; then he'd slump, just as scared but too exhausted to move at all. His trousers were wet with piss and he'd skinned his throat with shouting, and he hated the scavengers for sitting still and quiet in the dark, while he made such a pathetic exhibition of himself. He realized he'd been yelling for Orsea, for Veatriz, for Jarnac (but he was dead already; thoughtless shit, to be dead when he was needed for a typical swashbuckling Ducas rescue); for Valens, for the sergeant of the guard, for the adjutant-general, for Daurenja, whose worthless life he'd saved from the just fury of Framain. Apparently, none of these was minded to help him; embarrassed, probably, by the appalling fuss he was making. Little wonder nobody wanted to know him, at the end.

Nine. He could hear someone crying; a feeble, bubbling noise. He realized he was listening to himself.

Eight; and the guards had paused in the gateway, looking round. When they left, the I-wish-they'd-taken-me-instead feeling made a feeble surge before drowning in terror.

Someone else was talking, but the hammering in his ears blotted out the words. He knew he was waiting for the fall of the axe; a voice in his head was saying, When they come for me I'll fight, I know how to fight, I'm good at fighting, I'll kill them all and escape. He wished the voice would shut up; but instead it changed. It was someone else, talking to him. He discovered that his eyes were tight shut, and he didn't seem able to open them again.

Something touched him, and he felt his leg kick out. Impact, and a shout; pain and anger. There, you see, I'm fighting them, I've got one already, that just leaves-

"Keep still, for crying out loud, I want to talk to you."

Strangely enough, the voice was familiar. In another time and place, it had belonged to a woman; the woman at the scavengers' camp, who'd tried to teach him to sew. With a jolt, he remembered who the other prisoners were.

"I'm sorry," he heard himself say. "Did I hurt you?"

"Yes. Stupid question, of course you did. Now listen." She lowered her voice. "There's not a lot of time left. We need to get out of here before it's our turn and they come and get us. Do you understand me?"

"You mean…?" Was she really talking about escaping? Didn't she realize the guards would be back any moment, as soon as the axe fell? She made it sound as though they had to hurry and get down to the market before all the fresh coriander had been sold. "We can't," he said. "They'll stop us."

"Be quiet and listen. I've been watching them." She was talking so quietly he could barely hear; quick, businesslike. "When they come in to fetch the next one, they leave the gate open, in case they've got their hands full with someone struggling. There's a moment when the gate's open and their backs are turned. They're worn out, you can tell just by looking at them. We'd have to be quick, but we could slip past and they wouldn't see us. If we got just outside the gate and waited till they came out again, we could get away. Really," she added furiously. "I've watched the last four times, and it's always the same. If we got away, we could head for Eremia. They wouldn't follow, they're about to move out, I've heard them talking about it. We could find your friends in the resistance, or even the Mezentines; they'd be interested in knowing what's been going on here. Well?"

Well, he thought. Absolutely nothing to lose; so how was he going to explain to her that he was too scared to move? It would sound ridiculous, but he knew he wouldn't be able to make it. "You go," he said.

"On my own? I can't. I don't know how to saddle a horse, or which direction to go in. Listen: my husband was the third one they took. I tried to get my uncle to go with me, but he's wrenched his knee, he couldn't walk. I've tried everyone I could think of, but they were too scared or they'd given up. If I can't find someone to go with me, I'll die. I know about you now; you're good with horses and finding your way about, they say you're a great war hero and everything. You've got to help me, there's nobody else left. Please."

It was really only because he was too tired to make the effort to refuse; and because he couldn't keep still anymore, and anything was better than being kept waiting until all the others had been used up. Besides, it wouldn't work, and they'd be caught and killed on the spot, so at least there was a chance he wouldn't be led out there to the chopping block. But mostly it was because he felt so weak, and doing what you're told is always easier than fighting. If he refused she'd probably get angry with him, and he hadn't got the strength to face a scene.

The sound of the axe falling; someone swearing in exasperation; a shout, three parts weariness to one part fury. She was standing up, grabbing his arm and yanking on it. He had to get up, or she'd have dislocated his shoulder.

His legs buckled twice on the way to the gate. As they passed, someone said, "Where are you going?"; his heart froze, but she dragged him past and into what he supposed was position for the maneuver they were about to attempt. He'd forgotten the details of the plan already.

The gate opened. The guard's shoulder brushed his face, but the guard didn't stop or look round. They'd passed him, and she was hauling at his sleeve. The gate had been left open.

He wasn't aware of taking the six or seven steps; the thunder in his head was too loud, and he couldn't feel his legs. But they were on the other side of the gate, and the guards came bustling past, hauling a man by his wrists; his back was arched and he was digging his heels in, so that they plowed ruts in the mud as he was dragged past; his head was as far back as it would go. All told, he was in a bad way, but he made tolerable cover. Perhaps, if he'd known what a service he was performing for the Ducas, it would've made it easier for him to bear. Perhaps not.

She was pulling at him again, like a lazy horse. He followed, ambling. It was, of course, ridiculous; they wouldn't get twenty yards. In between waves of terror, he occupied his mind with wondering why she'd taken him with her. She seemed so efficient, so self-possessed; not the sort who needed a man to look after her. The most he'd be able to achieve would be to get them both caught. The thought crossed his mind that she fancied him. He managed not to laugh out loud.

Well, they'd made twenty yards. Perhaps she was telling the truth, and she really couldn't tack up a horse on her own. Some women were afraid of horses, the way some big, strong men were scared of spiders. Perhaps she thought that as soon as they were across the border, the Ducas' loyal retainers would come scuttling out of their hidey-holes in among the rocks to fight over the privilege of sheltering them. Perhaps she'd seen how very, very frightened he was, and had taken pity on him. (Well, quite. Nothing like looting the dead for a living for honing the delicate sensibilities.) In any event, they were in the open. Behind them, the biscuit-barrel stockade was a vague, looming shape, lit by a fuzzy yellow glow from the hurricane lanterns. Ahead of them, pale shadows that had to be tents. She steered him away from them-for someone who needed him along because only he knew the way, she had a superb sense of direction-toward a dark open space on their right. Closer; he could make out the dark gray outline of rails. The horse-fold, surrounded by a ring of gate hurdles. Was she really thinking of stealing a horse? Not a good idea, in his professional opinion as the duty big, strong man. Highly unlikely that the Vadani kept their tack in a neat pile in the corner of the fold. Bareback and without a bridle, a horse would be a liability rather than an asset. Not his place to argue, though. She led; he followed.

Up to the hurdle fence; over it (the middle rail was brittle and snapped under his weight with a noise like a tournament), through the fold-horses raised their heads and stared sleepily at them as they passed-and over the other side. Now that was smart: a short cut, to avoid going through the middle of the camp. Suddenly it occurred to Miel that they might get away with it, after all. But it seemed so pathetic… why hold still and be killed, when you can just walk away with only a little luck and determination? Could you really opt out of death so easily, like skipping a tiresome social engagement by pretending you had a cold?

She was talking to him.

"… All we've got to do is get across this flat bit of ground and we're on the uphill slope. They won't even-"

She stopped dead. A shape was thickening out of the darkness; a man, blocking their way. Oh well, Miel thought; and then, The hell with giving in. We've got this far.

"Hold it," the man was saying. "No civilians past this point without authority, so unless you've got a pass…"

She was talking to him: "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. We were just taking a walk, we hadn't realized we'd come so far. We'll head straight back."

"That's all right," the sentry was saying, when Miel hit him with a rock. He wasn't sure how it had got into his hand. He must have stooped and felt for it, but it had come to him like a properly trained dog; he could just get his fingers around it comfortably. The sentry's head was turned toward her-had he even noticed she wasn't alone? — and he wasn't wearing a helmet.

The trick was to throw the stone without actually letting go of it. Judge it just right and you can crack a man's head like a nutshell. Miel saw him drop; he let go of the stone and jumped on him, his knees landing on his chest and forcing the air out like a blast from a bellows. What the hell are you doing? she was saying somewhere above him, as he scrabbled about looking for the sentry's sidearm-he was half lying on it, which made it horribly awkward to get it out of the scabbard; lucky the poor fool was either already dead or thoroughly stunned. After two or three massive tugs he got it free; she was nagging, Come on, leave it, we don't need it, you'll ruin everything.

Women, he thought, as he carefully located the hanger-tip over the hollow between the sentry's collarbones, and leaned on the handle. Miel felt the sentry's legs kick out and his back squirm, but that was usual, like a chicken beating its wings after its neck's been broken. The humane dispatch of game is the first duty of the honorable predator.

"What the hell," she was hissing at him, "do you think you're doing?"

"Killing the prisoners," he replied.

"Leave it." (Like he was a dog with a dead bird he'd picked up; the spaniel, the brachet and the lymer are bred soft-mouthed, to release retrieved game without spoiling it.) "Come on. Now."

He ignored her, drew the hanger from the wound and placed its tip delicately in the dead man's ear. There would be a crunching sound as he put his weight on it.

She was pulling at him again; reluctantly, he allowed himself to be dragged to his feet. He left the hanger and stumbled after her, clumsy as a drunk.

She didn't say anything to him until sunrise, by which time they'd been trudging uphill for hours. He'd quickly lost track of time. In his mind, over and over again, he was running through the killing of the sentry (the rock, the hanger, the two penetrations; the sounds, the feel. They were moments that he was comfortable living in; they nourished him, like supplies sensibly rationed, and he savored them).

"Where are we?" she said.

Good point. He stopped and looked round to get his bearings.

Easy enough. There was Sharra, too far away for them to see smoke rising from the chimneys of the Unswerving Loyalty, but he knew it was there, just below the horizon on the other side. Falling away from it, the long combe in which Framain's house lay hidden like an embarrassing secret. He considered the merit of heading for it; they might just get there before collapsing from hunger and fatigue, or they might not. There'd be water and shelter there, but probably no food-had the Mezentines set fire to the place when they rounded them up? He couldn't remember that far back. "I know where we are," he said.

She nodded. He looked at her, properly, for the first time. She was dirty, ragged, painfully thin; there was caked blood on her forehead and in her fringe, probably from one of those scalp wounds that bleed like a fountain. "All right," she said, "which way?"

That was just a little more than he could take. He sat down awkwardly on the rocks and burst out laughing. When she began swearing at him, he explained (quite patiently, he thought, in the circumstances) that there wasn't a way, because there was nowhere for them to go.