The Escapement

9

A woman was howling. She'd been doing it for over an hour (no consideration for people trying to sleep). He couldn't help listening, with a sort of revolted fascination. From time to time she'd subside, just long enough to catch her breath and rest her lungs and throat, and then she'd be off again, building up to a hysterical peak that was both embarrassing and disturbing to hear. Apparently she'd been told that her husband had been killed by the savages, out on the downs, so presumably he'd belonged to one of the levy units. He'd heard the neighbours talking, raising their voices to make themselves heard over the godawful racket: how she'd never seemed particularly fond of him while he was alive, how they'd quarrelled all the time, said all kinds of things behind each other's backs. The shock, someone said. Being left alone in the world with two small kids, someone else suggested; and that made more sense, in his opinion. He could see how she could work herself up to that pitch of frenzy if she was mourning for herself, rather than him.

When she finally arrived, the woman was still bellowing away, but he had no trouble hearing the grating sound of her fingernails on the doorpost. He stayed where he was, and waited. Her head appeared round the door, squinting in the dark he'd long since grown used to. "Where are you?" she said.

"You're late."

She nodded. "There's a crowd in the street, I had to be careful. What's going on up there?"

"A war widow, I believe," he said. "Did you bring the food?"

She handed over a basket, covered with a cloth. He grabbed at it, snatched the cloth away, tried not to pull a face. She must have seen something, though, because she said, "It was all I could get."

"It's fine," he said.

"Everything's so expensive now, with the war."

"I said it's fine, thank you." The ends of two loaves, some scraps of cold chicken, white with congealed grease. He knew she could do better than that, but it wasn't worth making an issue out of it and provoking a sulking war. "I know how hard it must be," he said carefully. "It's wrong of me to impose on you like this."

Something in his voice had snagged her suspicions. Her eyes were tighter, and her mouth was hardening. "It's all right," she said. "Tomorrow I'll try and bring some cold beef. That's what we're having tonight. A friend of Falier's brought some in to the factory, he's got a friend who works on the carts. He thinks he might be able to get other stuff, too, but what with the savages blocking the roads…"

He withdrew, letting her babble; it gave him time to think. When she paused for breath, he said: "Did you go and see the man I told you about?"

Briefly, guilt; then the shield came up. "I'm sorry," she said, "I haven't had time. It's difficult."

That told him she hadn't tried. "Do you think you could go and see him tomorrow?"

"I'll try."

Meaning no. "Please do," he said. "It's quite important. They're saying the savages have reached the downs; that's what that woman's making that noise for, her husband was killed in the fighting." He let the fact of a death hang in the air for a moment. Death by association. "It won't be long before they shut the gates," he said. "I've got to get out before then. You do see that, don't you?"

She didn't reply. She had that advantage. Silence was her way of falling back behind an unapproachable guard, forcing her opponent into an inadvisable attack.

"If I'm trapped in the City," he explained patiently, though of course she knew it all already, "sooner or later they'll find me. And when they find me, I'll be killed. Psellus will have me locked up in a cell, and then one morning, early, they'll come and take me out into the small courtyard behind the chapterhouse, and they'll put a rope round my neck, and that'll be that." He paused, but she was still in a posture of defence. "You don't want that to happen, do you?"

Or he could have hit her; the effect would have been the same. "They won't find you. They must think you've already gone. I haven't heard anybody say they've been looking."

He didn't bother to reply to that. "The man I told you about can get me out, quietly and safely," he said. "Once I'm outside, I can go where I'll be protected. It won't be for long," he added quickly, following up. "In fact, the sooner I leave, the sooner this whole stupid mess can be sorted out, the sooner I can come back, and then we can be together at last. Really together." He was able to say it as though he meant it, because he could remember the tone of voice he'd used when it did mean something, the precise level of controlled feeling. It worked; he'd got through. He followed up again. "That is what you want, isn't it?"

"Of course it is." Her voice betrayed her, finally. "Are you sure it's what you want? Really?"

Really? He was hungry. He was dirty, wearing filthy clothes, raw where he'd scratched at flea-bites; he was cold, wet, scared, furiously angry; he was ready to explode with rage and frustration, too frightened to poke his nose out of this unspeakable hovel in case someone recognised him under the dirt and filth. Was screwing her one more time what he really wanted? The question was, could he make her believe it was? Luckily, under all that cunning, she wasn't terribly bright.

"Of course," he said, and she believed him. Only because she wanted to.

"All right, then," she said. "I'll try and see him in the morning, after I've taken Moritsa to school. Will he want money? Only…"

He shook his head, careful not to let her see the relief. "That's all taken care of," he said. "Just say exactly what I told you; he'll tell you what to do. Really, it's for the best. It's the only way we can ever be together."

Her eyes narrowed again. He wondered if Psellus had cottoned on to that particular signal yet. He'd interrogated her often enough, by all accounts. He'd have to be blind not to have noticed it. No, belay that. What possible experience could Lucao Psellus have had with women? He knew what it meant, though: she'd seen something she wanted, and was wondering what would be the best way to get it. Her rodent look, was how he tended to think of it.

"Can I come with you?" she said.

His own fault, he told himself; should've seen that one coming and prepared for it. Instead, his answer came out half raw, unrehearsed, awkward. "God, I wish you could," he said (overdone; had she noticed? She noticed everything, those dark, twinkling rat eyes, unless it was something she didn't want to see). "Don't think I haven't thought about it," he went on. "Just you and me, getting as far away from here as possible, starting a new life. It wouldn't matter what we did or where we went, we could forget all this…" He broke off, trying to keep his eyes and face soft while he scanned her for signs of suspicion. No; all clear so far. "But we can't," he said. "You'd be missed. You know Psellus has got his eye on you. If you disappeared one day, just like that, we'd have no chance. It's wretched, but…"

"You think they'd come after us?"

No words; just a grim nod.

"But if they close the gates," she said slowly, "seal off the city like you said…"

It was an uncomfortable moment. He was sensible enough, pragmatic enough, to admit straight away that this stupid, common woman had beaten him, tripped up his heels and knocked him down. Stubborn pride and underestimating an opponent wasn't going to break him a second time. "It doesn't work like that," he said, finding a patronising smile from somewhere. "That's what the little gates in the wall are for, the sally-ports; so that scouts and spies and messengers can slip out at night without the enemy seeing."

"Oh," she said, "I see." She was thinking, you could practically see the wheels going round. "But would they bother? I mean, with the war and the siege and everything? Surely it simply doesn't matter that much any more."

He made an effort to moderate his response. "That's not how they'd see it," he said. "Think about it. Vaatzes' wife sneaks out of the City just before the gates close. Obviously they're going to assume you've gone to him, taking plans of the defences with you. There's nowhere on earth you'd be safe. Trust me, I know how they do things. They'd find you, find us, and then…"

She frowned, her head a little on one side, like a dog. "They haven't found you, though," she said. "They looked, for a bit, and then they gave up."

"Because they think I'm with the enemy," he replied, perhaps a shade too quickly. "If they thought I was still here in the City…"

"In that case"-maddening, like arguing with a child's limited, impeccable logic-"in that case, wouldn't you be safer here, inside, if they think you're out there, and they're so good at tracking people down? If you leave, surely that'd be much more dangerous."

He felt as though he was wading in mud: the more you tug to free one foot, the harder you press on the other, the deeper in you sink. So he laughed instead. "It's all right," he said. "It's all arranged. The man you're going to see will get me out safe, and once I'm out I'll go where they can't reach me. But I can't take you as well, because it'd put both of us at risk. And I can't tell you what the arrangements are, just in case Psellus or his people trick you or force you into telling them. If you don't know, you can't tell. I'm sorry if it sounds like I don't trust you, but you know that's not true, I've trusted you with my life all this time, haven't I?" Pause; regroup, redeploy, counterattack. "I'm doing all this for us," he said. "Otherwise… well, I'd just let them catch me and have done with it, save myself the grief and the aggravation of staying alive. You're all I've got, but that's all right, you're all I want, so long as we can keep our nerve, do this right. And then we'll be together and it'll all be over; just as long as you do what I say." Pause; smile. "All right?"

"All right. I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't make difficulties. It's just, I'm so worried."

"Of course you are. Me too. We'd be crazy if we weren't." Easily into his flow now, catching his breath. "But we're more than a match for Psellus and his cronies, so long as we stick together. We'll be free and clear, and then to hell with the lot of them. As far as I'm concerned, they can burn the City down. All I care about is you."

The newly widowed woman had finally shut up, and he could hear himself think. She nodded quickly, took back the basket, and the cloth; the scrupulous attention to detail of a born deceiver. "I'll go and see the man tomorrow, I promise," she said. "I love you."

"I love you too."

As she scuttled away, he wondered: what did I ever see in her? No idea, unless, just possibly, it was his own reflection in a distorting mirror. No, too complex. He'd seen a pretty face and nice tits, a pair of legs he could open like a padlock. Love was just something nasty he'd caught in the process, and he was better now.

He heard the clatter of iron tyres on the cobbles, and instinctively drew back into the shadows, his eye to the crack in the wall through which he could watch the street. He saw a carriage, recognised it, scowled. It had been his carriage once. He inflated with anger as it rattled past, sounding like a quarry, four white horses drawing a gilded box that swayed like a dancer on four slender curved springs. Guild officials' official transport; they built just one Type Sixteen a year, in the sheds south of the main coachworks in Tyregate Yard. He could just make out the shape of a man inside it: hunched, head forward, round shoulders. He didn't need to see the face. Psellus still wasn't used to travelling in carts (to him, all wheeled, horse-drawn vehicles were carts); he knew about them only because he'd spent so many years as a young man scheduling deliveries. He knew practically to the ounce what weight of freight each of the twenty-six types could carry. He hadn't actually ridden in one until he was thirty-eight. Even now, when his duties required him to be bounced about in carts from one end of the City to the other, he always felt sick going round corners or over bumps in the road.

Glancing out of the window, he caught sight of a familiar face: Ariessa, the former wife of Ziani Vaatzes, now married to Falier, the foreman of the ordnance factory. She'd pulled her shawl up over her head to keep the drizzle off her hair, and she was carrying a basket. He saw her in the act of stepping gingerly over a puddle-why, he wondered, do women have such a morbid fear of getting their feet wet? Women and, he believed, cats-and as the cart passed her, she looked up and their eyes met. It was pure, unprovoked, uncharacteristic malice that made him smile and waggle his fingers in a cheery wave.

Well, he thought. Coincidence. Everybody has to be somewhere. The basket implied shopping, though she didn't seem hampered by its weight, suggesting it was empty. Coming back from shopping at this hour he could understand, but setting out just when the shops were shutting? He smiled to himself. No doubt she'd gone out to buy something and changed her mind, or they were sold out (shortages; don't you know there's a war on?). Something like that.

Ariessa; he couldn't help thinking of her as Ariessa Vaatzes. The facile but apt comparison was with an onion: peel away one layer to reveal another, and any contact with her ended in tears. He just had time to note the fear and hate in her eyes as she saw his little wave, and then she was behind him and out of sight. A fortuitous encounter, which pleased him. Quite soon now he'd be ordering her arrest, but certain things had to be done first.

She was still on his mind as the cart passed through the City gates and stopped to join up with its cavalry escort. They were a dreary sight: a dozen civilians perched on the backs of horses, dressed in the best Type Six armour and looking very sad. At the first sign of an attack, of course, they'd turn tail and gallop for home, assuming they managed to keep from falling off.

Surprisingly, he didn't feel afraid as they left the City behind, even though he was well aware that enemy cavalry-real soldiers-were lurking somewhere on the slopes of the downs, a mere two miles away. If they saw the cart, guessed what its ornate splendour signified and came thundering out to get him, he knew he'd be in a tight spot, very tight indeed. So he should be frightened, it was simple common sense, but he wasn't. He had no idea why not.

Half a mile from the outer defensive earthworks, the cart and escort fell in with a party of horsemen (the term used loosely). One of them dismounted awkwardly and limped over to talk to him. He opened the coach door, and the man climbed in, bumped his head on the door frame and sat down heavily on a cushion. Udo Streuthes of the Painters and Engravers'; formerly chairman of the mercenary recruitment oversight committee, now the extremely reluctant commander-in-chief of the Mezentine army; a short, fat man in his late sixties, round cheeks, curly black and grey hair.

"You look worn out," Psellus said.

"Yes," Streuthes replied. "I've been up since six, bouncing my balls on that damned hard saddle. I think horseback riding isn't something you should take up late in life. The body's too old to adapt."

Psellus nodded. "They say the savages are proficient horsemen at four years of age," he said. "Apparently it leads to permanent disfigurement, bow legs and curved spines. Is there any truth in that, or is it just propaganda?"

"No idea." Streuthes shrugged. "Chances are you'll be in a position to see for yourself soon enough. We haven't noticed any Aram Chantat up there on the downs, though; Eremians, mostly, with a few Vadani heavy dragoons arrived around mid-morning." He sighed, and dabbed at the rainwater running around the edges of his eye sockets and on to his cheeks. "They don't seem to be massing for an attack. My belief is that they're an advance party sent to secure the ridge before the main force arrives."

"I see," Psellus said. "Thank you. Can we get any closer?"

Streuthes shook his head. "The danger zone starts roughly a hundred and fifty yards ahead of here, but we can't be precise about it. Just as well, really; this rain's helped, of course, damped down the earth so it's not immediately obvious where the traps are planted. They'll know we've been digging, of course, but what we've buried and where is something they'll have to find out the hard way."

Psellus dipped his head in acknowledgement. "How effective…?"

"A nuisance, at best." Streuthes smiled thinly. "What it'll do, though, is slow up their advance, make them nervous and wary just knowing there's traps in there. The more time we can make them waste, the better our chances. And if we break a few axles and lame a horse or two, that's an added bonus."

Optimistic desperation; an acceptance of the inevitability of defeat, while doing everything he could possibly think of to avoid it. Well, Psellus thought; I've chosen the right man for the job, if my aim is to kill and maim as many savages as possible before they wipe us off the face of the earth. The thought made him feel ill, and he changed the subject.

"I've been meaning to ask you," he said. "Boioannes. Have you got any new leads yet?"

That made Streuthes frown. "We're fairly certain he's left the City," he said. "No sightings or reliable reports, but the general consensus is, it's just not possible for him to have gone to ground in the City this long without being found unless someone's helping him. We've identified and traced everybody who knows him and might have even the faintest motive for helping him, they're all being watched round the clock…" He made a vague gesture with his arms, weary and resigned. "He's not in the City, you can count on that. So, all we can do is wait till he turns up. By then, I imagine, it'll be academic anyway."

"I suppose so," Psellus said. "He's a luxury we can't afford any more, and being realistic, there's not a great deal he could do to harm us. Even if he was minded to betray the City, all the major defences we're going to be relying on have been built since he escaped, he won't know any more about them than the enemy does." He smiled. "Listen to me," he said, "trying to convince myself. I guess it's because I lived in awe and dread of him for so long, I can't believe he's simply stopped mattering. That's a very strange concept, you know; a state of affairs where I'm more important than Maris Boioannes. The world turned upside down, in fact. Not sure it's a place I feel comfortable in."

Streuthes made a valiant but unsuccessful attempt to hide the fact that he had no idea what Psellus was talking about. "He was a bit of a joke in the recruitment office," he said. "Everybody knew, of course, but he thought it was a deadly secret. Odd, really, because whatever else he was, he wasn't stupid."

Now it was Psellus' turn. "Knew about what?"

For a moment, Streuthes looked blankly at him, trying to decide if he was being sardonic or funny, or whether it was some kind of cunning trap. "About Boioannes having it off with… I'm sorry, I assumed you knew about it. I mean, everybody-"

"Everybody knew, yes. Everybody except me; but that was par for the course, I never knew any of the things everyone knew." He shrugged. "Boioannes was having an affair, then."

"Yes. Since before the war. We never found out who the woman was. Which told us it had to be somebody fairly unimportant; I mean, not the wife or daughter of anybody at the Guildhall, or we'd have found out who she was straight away; you know what a rumour-mill that place is."

Psellus raised an eyebrow but didn't comment. Something was out of place. He shuffled the facts in his mind until he found it.

"Everyone knew," he said, "but not who the woman was. That's odd. What I mean is, knowing Boioannes, if he'd wanted to keep it secret that he was having an affair, he'd have seen to it, but you say it was common knowledge. So he didn't care that people knew, and why should he? A man in his position indulging himself, it's practically expected of him." He paused, thought about the implications of that statement, and felt himself blush: embarrassing. "But clearly he took pains to keep her identity secret. Therefore, her identity must be important." He shook his head. "I think I'm losing my judgement," he said sadly. "The more I'm obliged to think about cities and armies and sieges, the more I feel the urge to immerse myself in little mysteries about people's private lives. I can't help it, though. It's attention to detail taken to a counterproductive extreme. Comes of putting a junior clerk in charge of a war."

Streuthes was silent for a while. Then he said: "Is it true you're learning fencing? Fancy swordfighting, I mean."

"Perfectly true." Psellus pulled a face. "I'm very bad at it, though. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, just idle curiosity."

"You're quite right," Psellus replied gravely. "I am wasting my time on pointless frivolities when I should be giving my full attention to the war. But I'm finding it helpful, even so."

Streuthes frowned. "Good healthy exercise?" he hazarded.

"Strategy and tactics," Psellus said. "Applied in microcosm. I've learned two important things so far," he went on. "First, you can't be hit if you aren't there. Second, if someone's close enough to hurt you, he's close enough to be hurt back. Either of those lessons is enough to justify the tutor's fee, don't you think?" Slowly he looked round: first at the line of the downs ahead, then over his shoulder at the newly dug bastions. "If we stay inside the defences, we're safe from a pitched battle, which we'd inevitably lose. And if their artillery can reach us, ours can reach them. We have plenty of food for a siege, which is more than can be said of the savages. I think we're wasting our time out here. Let them have the downs if they want them. I've lived here all my life and never felt the need of them." Suddenly he smiled; not the sort of expression you'd have expected from a fainthearted clerk. "Let's just hope it rains," he said. The next morning, the artillery (now entitled to call themselves the Artillerymen's Guild; military, therefore the innovation was permissible) staged a full-scale drill. The exercise began with ten rounds from the heavy long-distance mangonels, followed by the onagers, springalds, catapults, perriers and scorpions. Both rate of fire and accuracy were assessed by the newly appointed Guild inspectors and judged to be adequate. For some reason, the section commanders were under orders not to shoot at maximum range. Instead, they were told to pitch short, but no shorter than three-quarter range. The emplacements on the bastions were then inspected, to see if repeated loading and firing of the engines had shaken the fixtures loose. Some slight damage was detected, and orders were given to strengthen them accordingly.

Not surprisingly, the display was carefully observed by the Eremian scouts on the hog's back. They drew their meticulously detailed sketches, took some measurements with strange-looking shiny brass boxes on four spindly legs, and withdrew to report back to Duke Valens, who thanked them and sent for his mapmakers. They drew him a new map, with a dotted red line clearly marked. Veatriz to Valens, greetings.

Confirmed. No doubt about it, he said, several times. I can only assume he thought I wasn't paying attention.

I wish you were here. I need to know what you think. What you really think. Oh, I know you'll write back straight away, saying how pleased and happy you are, how wonderful, everything I need to be told. You've always written me such beautiful letters, taken so much care over them. When we were apart, I used to wonder if our love could possibly survive us being together. That sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? But I knew it'd be different. Letters were our way of making love; secret, the pleasure of giving and receiving each other's thoughts. I used to ask myself if you'd still find me interesting if I was there all the time.

Now, though; I want to see your face when you tell me it's good news, In your letters, you took such trouble to tell me things you knew I'd want to hear. Now, that's the last thing I want.

I sit here, staring out of the window. I tell myself, of course he's pleased. He's the duke, a very conscientious man. He knows it's the duke's primary responsibility to provide an heir and secure the succession. Then I think, he's the duke, leading the Alliance in a huge, terrible war. His allies are only there to avenge the murder of his wife, they can't be happy that he's married again; and now this. How inconvenient. Then I argue that his dead princess was the last of the royal line, so when the old man dies, Duke Valens will become king of the Aram Chantat as well; so isn't it even more important that there's an heir? So they'll be pleased, won't they?

The worst part of it is when I catch myself wondering what Orsea would have thought about it. Dear, stupid, disastrous Orsea; always so desperate to do the right thing. He was so painfully aware that the succession was his duty, and of course he failed, just like he failed at everything. But, since the succession passes through the Sirupati line, it doesn't actually matter who the father is. So I can almost hear him saying, That's all right, then. Eremia's got its heir after all, though it'd have been even better if there still was an Eremia. Really; I think he'd have been pleased.

I know you did what had to be done; about Orsea, I mean. When he found out about the letters, I think it killed him inside. He knew that he'd lost me; and the wretched thing was, he couldn't ever put it out of his mind that he was only the duke because he was married to me. So, he thought, if ever he lost me to somebody else, he lost the dukedom too; he felt he wasn't entitled to it any more. Then you came, when the city was in flames and we were all going to die. He'd tried to die fighting-his duty-and made a mess of that as well as everything else. He survived, rescued by you, the man who'd taken me from him, and the dukedom as well, after he'd ruined it. His entire life was a wreck, because he'd tried to do his duty and failed. Then, suddenly, he was in Civitas Vadanis, a duke with no duchy, a married man with no wife, the slave of duty with no duty asked of him, just a stupid nuisance in everybody's way.

I know he didn't try and betray us to the Mezentines. He'd never have done that. Impossible, like breathing underwater. I think the Mezentines arranged it all, to make him look guilty, so you'd have to kill him, and that should have turned the Eremians against the Vadani, put us right back to where we were before the peace my father made. I think you knew that too. I think you killed him so we could be together. And I let you do it, for the same reason: because I love you, and because I loved Orsea. I wanted him to die; because he was in the way, between us, and because his life was such a misery to him, and nothing could ever put it right. Orsea had one good quality. He always knew when he was beaten, when he wasn't wanted, when it was time to leave, when he was more of a hindrance than a help. I'm thinking so much about him now because this has happened. Eremia will get its heir, Mezentia will be destroyed, what's left of the duchy will get a good, wise duke who'll do all the right things, bring peace, make it so the fields can be planted again. Everything he couldn't do; everything important, that couldn't happen as long as he was alive. Most of all, he wanted me to be happy. And-this is such a terrible thing, but I can't hate myself for it-I am.

I know; you can't leave the war just to come and talk to me for ten minutes. I know you'll write me the most beautiful letter instead. It'll have to do.

I love you.

Valens to Veatriz.

I've never lied to you. I could never lie to you.Like breathing underwater.

The news is wonderful. It's what I wanted. When I killed Orsea, I believed he was guilty. Afterwards, I changed my mind. I believe that what I did was wrong. If I had the same choice to make now, I couldn't give the order. I don't regret having given it.

There's a meeting tomorrow I can't get out of; I'll leave as soon as it's over, and I'll be with you as soon as I can. It probably will be only ten minutes, though.

I love you too. The courier who took Valens' letter was a lieutenant in the messenger corps. He was shaken out of sleep by a sergeant of the guard, handed a dispatch case and given his orders: quickly as possible, urgent, vitally important, be on the road in half an hour. After the sergeant had gone, he swore, massaged his eyelids with the tips of his index fingers, and dragged on his clothes and boots, still sodden from a long day's ride in the rain. No time to eat or drink anything. To save weight and thereby increase speed, he didn't bother with a mailshirt or a helmet. A horse was waiting for him when he blundered out of the bunkhouse into the damp, dark night. A groom raised a lantern.

"Is that for me?" the messenger asked.

The groom grinned at him. "Duke's orders," he said. "His very own second-best hunter. You're honoured."

And stunned, too. Nobody rode Valens' horses except Valens. It was a beautiful animal, with the small head and long, tapered neck of the old Vadani bloodline. "I'm to tell you she'll take you all the way, no need to stop and change, if you take the old drove road."

The courier frowned. "On that?" he said doubtfully, thinking of the horse's slim, delicate-looking legs on the steep, rutted surface of the drove. At this time of year, it'd be more watercourse than road, as the run-off from the hills that formed the Vadani-Cure Doce border poured down to meet the Redwater: mud, stones loosened by the water. "That can't be right."

"Only passing on the message," the groom replied cheerfully.

The duke's own saddle and tack, too. It was almost worth being hauled out of bed for. "She been ridden lately?" he asked.

Short nod. "Half an hour a day, and she's been fed on oats and barley. She'll be glad of a chance to stretch her legs properly."

He'd been riding all his life, but this was quite different. As soon as the sun came up, he pushed her into a steady working gallop. Her pace was smooth and incredibly consistent, and he'd never ridden such a sure-footed horse. Even when he'd crossed the river and started the long climb up to the hole-in-the-wall where the cart road joined the drove, he was able to maintain the sort of speed an army horse could only manage on the flat. He wondered what the hell was in the letter that made it so important.

He let her rest and drink at Iselloen Top, where the cattle trail to the Cure Doce border branched off. From there, mostly downhill. He would have liked to know what the record was for this run. Every chance he could beat it, whatever it was.

From Iselloen down Cylinder Hill to the Hunting Gate, where the road cut a notch between two outcropped hilltops before descending into the wooded combe where he'd pick up the forest road that'd take him the rest of the way to Civitas Vadanis. The Hunting Gate marked the start of familiar country, and he allowed himself to relax a little. Even at this time of year, with the going soft, he could accurately predict how long each of the remaining stages would take. He looked up at the sun and congratulated himself on making such good time.

The sun was the last thing he saw. A twelve-inch crossbow bolt hit the back of his head, hard enough that the tip of the point broke through his cheekbone just below his left eye. He dropped off the horse like a sack.

The shot had been loosed by a captain of the Cure Doce rangers, a forester by trade, and an expert at shooting moving targets. He'd been aiming for the junction at the base of the shoulderblades, but he wasn't about to tell anyone that. He straightened out of his crouch and waited till the horse slowed down and came to a stop, dimly aware that the weight had gone from its back and something wasn't right. The captain sent two of his men to catch it, while he and the rest of his platoon went to see what they'd got.

"Vadani," someone said. "Military shirt and boots."

The captain stooped and eased the strap of the dispatch case over the dead man's head. "Duke's messenger," he said, smiling broadly. "Not something you see every day." His fingers were on the buckle of the case, but he hesitated. The satchel could well be worth a great deal of money if he could get it to Mezentia, but the seal would have to be intact; the officers of the Republic got upset if they thought someone else had read captured enemy dispatches before they did. But the City was a long way away; dangerous, too, now that the Lonazep road had been cut and allied cavalry patrols were moving about on the downs. He cleared his mind and did some calculations. He was assured of the ten-florin bounty for a Vadani messenger's badge in any event; the horse was a good one, say forty florins for a quick sale, add another ten for the tack and the dead man's boots, another five for his sword. If he took the satchel unopened to the City, that would probably bring the total up to the round hundred, but was the extra forty-five florins enough to justify the risk, or should he settle for what he'd already got?

"Now what?" one of his men asked.

"Shut up, I'm thinking."

Forty-five florins; a nice bit of money, which took some earning, but he really didn't fancy the ride down to the City. In which case, it'd do no harm to read the dispatches. Orders, troop movements, requisitions, whatever; the Mezentine agents would be bound to pay something for the information, even if the seal was broken. Not forty-five florins, perhaps, but at least ten. That cut the profit in braving the dangers of the City road down to thirty-five. No, screw that. He broke the seal, took out the single small packet and read it.

At first he couldn't make sense of it. Then he burst out laughing.

"What's the joke?" someone asked.

He nodded at the dead man. "It's on him, poor bugger. He died delivering the duke's love letter." He frowned a little. "Hell of a way to go. Here, get a look at this. His Royal Highness' own handwriting, most likely."

They crowded round, peering over his shoulder. "I love you too," one of them crooned in a comic falsetto, while another speculated as to what the Duke planned to do in ten minutes flat when he got home. The captain grinned; then, abruptly, he realised the implications.

I'll leave as soon as it's over, and I'll be with you as soon as I can.

The captain swore under his breath. A duke's messenger on the drove; not one of the usual routes, because it was rough going-also, these days, dangerous, as the poor sod had found out the hard way. But quick; on a good horse (a very good horse; too good for a mere army courier), and if you were prepared to take the risk, you could halve your journey time. I'll be with you as soon as I can.

He felt cold all over. Some opportunities are so good they're terrifying. If he was right about this, Duke Valens himself was about to leave the army camp and hurry back to Civitas Vadanis, taking the shortest, quickest route, the same one his messenger had taken. Ten florins' bounty for a messenger; so how much would the Mezentine agent pay for the commander-in-chief of the Alliance? There was an expression, the sort people used every day: worth a king's ransom. It'd be interesting to ask the Mezentines if they cared to put a figure on that.

They'd taken the letter to show to the two men who'd caught the horse. He dashed after them and snatched it back.

There's a meeting tomorrow I can't get out of; I'll leave as soon as it's over. He forced himself to clear his head and think. From here to the camp; assume the messenger left at dawn or thereabouts, because only a lunatic would try and climb the hill in the dark. Valens, inconsiderate bastard, hadn't specified when his meeting was due to start or how long it'd take. It was possible he could be here in as little as four hours. And would he have an escort with him, or was he in such a mad, desperate hurry that he'd come alone? Maybe, but he had to assume otherwise. If he planned for four hours and a minimum of a twelve-man escort, with any luck he wouldn't be facing too many unpleasant surprises.

A lot of work to do in four hours, most of it on the far edges of his experience. He wished, for the first time in his life, that his brother-in-law was there with him-a useless, idle, stupid excuse for a man, but at one time he'd been a huntsman in Eremia, working for one of the noble families there. He knew about hunting dangerous game at bow and stable, which was more or less the job he now faced. He tried to recall details from the idiot's interminable hunting stories: the driving zone, the killing ground (why hadn't he listened more carefully?). The trick, as far as he could remember, was to funnel the game into a drive by the skilful placement of obstacles, coupled with measures to induce panic, so that the quarry would seek to escape by the only route left open, mistakenly believing it had no other option. He thought about it, trying to press out the essence from the detail, like someone treading grapes.

First, he had to choose his place. Ideally (his brother-in-law's voice was bleating away in his head) you wanted something like a road through a wooded valley, a high-sided combe. Beaters up on the steep sides, to prevent the quarry from leaving the combe bottom; stops in plain view, to guard any rides or deer-paths that branched off the main road. The stable itself should be a bottleneck on the road, so that the quarry had to pass within comfortable range of the waiting archers; or you chose a sharp blind corner, and hung out nets. For choice, you wanted a long, straight stretch of road before the bottleneck (the elrick; the technical term floated into his mind out of some miserable boring evening at his sister's house; he grabbed at it thankfully, since it gave him the illusion of knowing what he was doing); the idea being that if the quarry was running flat out, he wouldn't have time to study the ground ahead for hazards, incongruities that would spook him under normal circumstances. Well, that was clear enough, made good sense. The problem was that he wasn't just hunting deer or boar in general. He had to take one specific quarry on one specific road; the wide range of choices available to the self-indulgent aristocrat wasn't open to him.

Choices: it all came down to that. If he'd understood the letter right, the duke was in a hurry. His own urgency would do the job of the hounds, which was just as well, since there weren't any. As for the road, there was only one, and the duke would be on it. A wooded, high-sided combe; now there he was in luck. He smiled, and relaxed a little.

He looked round for his men. They were standing round the dead messenger, stripping the body, quarrelling over a belt and a brooch like hounds over a carcass. "Leave it," he shouted, and they looked up at him, very much like hounds, he couldn't help thinking. "Clear that off the road," he said, "I want it out of sight." A net, he thought. Valens opened his eyes.

He could see through one of them. The other was blurred, some kind of liquid; not water, too thick. He could see grey sky through the thin branches of tall, spindly trees.

Then the pain came rushing back, and he heard himself whimpering. That surprised him, disappointed him, because he never made noises like that, and he'd been hurt often enough before. Not, he decided, like this. Calmly and objectively, he considered the possibility that this time, he wasn't going to survive. His mental commission of enquiry found that it had insufficient evidence on which to base any valid findings, and adjourned, allowing the pain to fill up the space it had been occupying.

On the edges of the pain, where he still had room to think (it was like an army of occupation; a strong garrison in the centre, but elsewhere its control was patchy), he felt for a sense of danger, but his instincts told him there was no immediate threat beyond the wound. That was all right, then. He didn't have to move or do anything right now. He let his eyes slide shut.

The pain came, he remembered, from an arrowhead. It was lodged, as far as he could tell, in the bottom edge of his left cheekbone. He was still a bit vague as to how it had got there; all he could remember was the astonishing force of the blow. At first he thought he must have galloped into a low branch. He remembered leaving the saddle, a dizzying moment in the air, landing flat on his back in the leaf-mould; two seconds, something like that, of simple empty-headed confusion, and then the pain flooding into him, like water into a jug.

He went back further. He'd been galloping because some men had jumped up beside the road and started shooting at him, no, them, there'd been others with him: Colonel Nennius and six dragoon troopers, his escort. He'd seen Nennius hit in the chest and arm, four arrows almost simultaneously, his eyes were already dead as he flopped off his horse. One of the troopers hit in the neck and elbow; he hadn't seen what happened to the rest of them, behind him. So, naturally, he'd kicked on into a gallop. The road ahead was straight downhill, into the trees. He'd heard shouting, the enemy in pursuit. He remembered his intention to get into the forest and lose them there. It had worked, apparently, until the arrow hit him.

He opened his eyes again and tried to sit up. Pursuit: but he remembered, and calmed down a little. He remembered opening his eyes as he lay on the soft rotten leaves, peering through the pain like fog, and seeing (of all things) a net stretched across the road, a few yards away. His horse was tangled in it, rolling on the ground, a leg clearly broken. A net; a hunting net. He remembered thinking he must have ridden into somebody's hunt-bloody careless fools, hunting on the highway, no wonder there'd been an accident-except that didn't fit the ambush (he identified it as such for the first time) back at the top of the hill. Then he'd heard voices, someone angrily shouting; someone had done something wrong, spoiled the hunt (he sympathised; there's always some idiot), and now there was confusion, things scrambling out of control, gaps in the line, the quarry able to escape. He'd realised the quarry was him.

A man had come running up the road towards him, a crossbow (unspanned) in his left hand, a hanger on his belt. He'd been fumbling with the hanger as he stopped and bent down; it was still half in the sheath when he'd noticed Valens' eye twitch, but he'd been careless, come a yard too close. Valens could remember the sound, like a thick twig snapping, as he lifted his leg and stabbed his boot-heel in the man's mouth, and the stupid expression on the suddenly bloody face as he staggered and fell backwards.

He remembered how he'd found out about the arrow. He'd jumped up, snatched the man's hand away from the hilt of the hanger, drawn it; then the man kicked him on the kneecap and he'd fallen on top of him. He'd realised about the arrow when the impact of the fall snapped off its shaft.

An arrow, he'd told himself, and then the pain was everything. It drained off, eventually, and he'd remembered about the man he was lying on top of, the predator, his enemy. The hanger was stuck right through his ribs, the pommel wedged into his own midriff; pure luck, or accident. He'd had no choice about the direction of his fall.

But that was all right. The enemy was dead, but (he remembered) there was an arrow in his face, the blood obscuring his left eye. The pain came back and closed him down. Before it wiped him out completely, he remembered, he'd moved, putting a little space between himself and the dead man, as though an accidental stab wound might prove contagious. His legs failed; he contrived to fall in a neat, convenient way, and remembered turning his head to look up at the sky, so that if the rest of the hunters found him, they'd see the stub of the arrow shaft sticking out of his face and assume he was dead. That was a small animal's trick, not worthy of noble quarry, but he couldn't care less. After that, it was all too much trouble.

And now, here he was; alive, for now, though that might well change. Pain and danger form layers of immediacy, like the core of an onion; they may come back but they aren't here now; I may die of this, but not yet. He looked round, and saw the man he'd killed. The body hadn't been moved. In passing, he scolded the dead man for ignorance and stupidity, getting too close to dangerous game without first making quite sure it was dead. He wasn't a soldier. His clothes and weapons weren't military. Obviously not a Mezentine; beyond that, his nationality had died with him. Who he'd been did have some bearing on the nature and immediacy of the threat, but Valens didn't have the energy to make a proper assessment. Just some dead man.

His horse was now hopelessly tangled in the net, worn out with struggling and the pain from its broken leg. He remembered that the dead man had been carrying a crossbow. Wearily-how expensive a simple thing had suddenly become, like bread in a mining camp-he hauled and stumbled to his feet, swayed like a drunk, waited for the pain to clear a little, looked round for the bow; the first duty of the hunter is to put a wounded animal out of its misery. Just as well his hunters weren't as conscientious as he was.

He found the bow, and there were two bolts left in the dead man's belt; but he was too weak to span the bloody thing. That surprised him. It wasn't much of a bow, not the kind that needed a winch or a cranequin or a goat's-foot, but today it got the better of him. He felt bad about leaving the horse, but he had no choice.

That reminded him. Danger; he didn't know what had happened, why he was still alive, why the rest of the hunters hadn't come to finish him off, or what the net had been for, but that sort of thing would keep. The next thing to do (he resented it; chores, before he could rest) was get away from here. Where to? Deal with that later. Walking, not really an option. He could think of two horses that might still be free and in the area; could he face walking back up the hill to where Nennius and the trooper had died, and would he be putting himself in worse danger? Question too difficult. He sat down on a fallen tree, and the pain took over for a while. It quietened down eventually, but it took rather too much of his remaining strength with it. Finding, catching, getting up on a horse now too expensive; in which case, he was stuck here, and the only issue to be settled was whether the wound or the remaining hunters would get him first.

He accepted the verdict calmly; it takes strength to panic, and he was too poor, couldn't afford it. He felt his body slip out of his control, muscles too weak to hold him still. He slithered sideways off the log. He knew what that meant, of course. He'd seen this sort of thing before: a pigeon struck by a falcon manages to get away, makes it as far as a tall tree, roosts motionless for ten, twenty minutes, then just topples off the branch. He thought about that. When he was a boy, he'd been terrified of the pictures in the margin of his father's copy of King Fashion; an old copy, heavily decorated, for show as much as for reading, made at a time when there was a brief revival of the Lonazep school. Accordingly, the capitals, margins and colophons were crammed with small, exaggerated, colourful scenes and sketches; the world turned upside down, the feast of all fools, the dance of death, all the standard themes of the Oblique movement. To a small boy they were rather disturbing; far and away the worst were the marginals and vignettes in which animals dressed as humans hunted small, naked men and women, illustrating the text in a kind of lunatic counterpoint. Even now he could close his eyes and see the tall, grinning hare, dressed in forester's green, ears lying back on its shoulders as it poked a hindpaw through the stirrup of a crossbow to span it; under a tree another hare crouched like a pointer, its head turned to stare up into the branches where a tiny man cowered in fear. On the opposite page, the same hare carried away its prey, trussed, head down, ankles hocked over a pole on the hare's shoulder. Elsewhere in the book deer and boar and wolves chased men and women parforce, or drove them into the elrick where the hares and foxes lurked with bows drawn, or dragged them struggling out of nets spanned between the trunks of trees. Of course it wasn't like that in the real world, it was just make-believe, intended to be amusing… But what if it came true, he used to wonder, lying awake at night staring at the darkness; what if something went wrong, and suddenly the animals changed somehow, got strong and clever and came to get us?

The pain was back again. It was like being in the presence of a king or a duke; everything stopped and went quiet while it was there. This time, however, it faded slowly and gradually, King Pain sharing his throne with Queen Weakness (and in the margins of their book, the hares and foxes hunted, and the doves swooped, and they solemnly portioned out the carcass between the rabbits and the partridges under the stern eye of the heron and the bear), until he slipped away into a kind of sleep, halfway between life and death, where he paused for a moment to consider his options. No choice, said the hare, with its flat ears, grin, and easily spanned crossbow. Even if the arrowhead didn't make it to the brain (and if you want to get into a man's brain, you should really aim for the eye socket), that's only the beginning. Just a little rust or dirt on the blade would be enough to poison the blood; and the longer it stays in there, the better the chances of the wound going bad, even if the hunters don't come back. A wounded man alone in a hostile place doesn't stand a chance. He has no choice; all he can do is suffer and hurt until at last he dies. A responsible hare should follow up the wounded game and dispatch it, clean and quick. Besides, added the dove (in the allegory of the hunt, the dove is the beautiful beloved, pursued by the amorous hawk; love is the predator swooping down on outstretched wings, love is the bent bow in the elrick, and all pursuit is the headlong chase after joy), this quarry is dangerous game, not food to be eaten but vermin to be controlled and wiped out; this killer of men and sacker of cities. A predator deserves predator's justice, a quick death if he ran well, the short, solemn nod to do him honour, the sprig of green foliage laid on his mouth before he's skinned, his teeth and claws pulled to mount as a trophy. He would have liked to argue the point with her, but the case she'd made was unanswerable. Respect for the dangerous animal, but no pity.

None of that need concern us, said King Pain, and the animals fell silent. All that matters now is that he should endure me in the same spirit in which he inflicted me, recognising the jurisdiction of the necessary evil. If he can manage that, we will forgive him for all those things for which he could never forgive himself, as he forgave those that roared and bared their teeth at him, killed his sheep and uprooted his fruit trees, trampled his standing corn and slaughtered his chickens in their pen. We will forgive him for the war, for killing her husband, for scrabbling with his claws on the gates of Mezentia, just so long as he admits the sovereignty of King Pain, by divine right the patron of the strong, fount of all justice, defender of the faith, chamberlain of life and death.

At which all the hares and doves and roe deer shouted; but Queen Weakness only smiled, and said: he endures you only because he has no choice, being too weak to struggle any more. You had better finish him now, because if he lives, I promise you he'll betray you, just as he betrayed your loyal servant his father. You must kill him or let me have him, one or the other. The choice, she added, smiling, is yours.

The animals groaned and stopped their ears, but the King grinned. No, he said. Let him choose. He opened his eyes and saw them looking down at him. He recognised their faces straight away.

"He's waking up," the King said. "Can you hear me?" The Queen said nothing. Her eyes were red and wet.

Her, he tried to say, not you. His lips moved, but he couldn't hear words. Then he thought: what's he doing here? He's supposed to be back at the camp, assembling the siege engines.

"It's all right," he heard Daurenja say. "You're in the palace at Civitas Vadanis. You've been badly hurt, but you're out of danger." Her face told him he was lying. "They've given you something for the pain; it's probably making you feel a bit light-headed. You should go back to sleep now."

It was an order, from a superior officer, and he had no choice but to obey. He tried to smile, because they'd made the choice for him. Something for the pain, to drive the King away. In which case, why was he still there, staring down with that infuriatingly compassionate look on his face? He felt sleep coming in, filling the space where the pain had been, but before he gave in to it he made himself say, "I got your letter. It's all right. I wanted you to know."

He'd have liked to stay and see her reaction, but apparently it wasn't allowed.