The Escapement

18

There was a man called Cuno Abazes; a Mezentine, about thirty-two years old, a bachelor in a city where nearly everybody over the age of twenty was married. He didn't belong to a Guild, having failed the trade test for the Carpenters'. Instead, he'd earned a sparse living as a porter, drover and general labourer, loading and unloading, holding horses and collecting nightsoil for the Fullers." The war had been remarkably kind to him: he'd joined the army on the first day of recruitment, realising it was his one and only chance of making good, and had done so well that within a matter of weeks he'd been made an officer, a captain of general infantry. He'd been assigned to guard duty on the embankment on the day of the assault, but a splinter of rock from an allied round shot had hit him on the side of the head as he went to report for the start of his shift, and when the embankment was blown up he was lying in bed in the hospital. His injuries proved to be superficial, and next morning he was passed fit for active service and told to report to the Guildhall for sentry duty. There he heard the news that the war was over.

"That's terrible," he blurted out. "What's going to happen to the army?"

"Being disbanded," they told him. "Express term of the peace treaty. You'll be able to go back to your old life, pick up where you left off. Isn't that good news?"

Cuno Abazes didn't reply to that. Instead, he asked, "So who won?" and they said, "You know, that's a very good question." Later that day, Captain Abazes was on duty in the main hall when Chairman Psellus himself passed through, on his way to the small conference suite. Since hearing the bad news about the end of the war, Abazes had had time to calm down and think it over, and he'd reached the conclusion that even if they were doing away with the army as such, they were still going to need guards, sentries, security officers, and this was exactly the time when they'd be choosing who to keep and who to let go. Accordingly, as Psellus went by, he snapped to attention like the swinging arm of an onager slamming against the stop. Abazes had always been good at drill, and he put everything he'd got into it, with the result that the crack of his heels coming together made Psellus shy like a horse and stare at him for a moment. That disconcerted him; he'd assumed the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Republic would be a connoisseur of fine drill, but Psellus had reacted as if he'd stuck his tongue out at him and blown a raspberry.

"Very good, Captain," said the other man (shorter than the chairman, somewhere between thirty and forty-five, oddly dressed but otherwise completely unmemorable). "Carry on."

Instinctively, Abazes saluted, but neither the unmemorable man nor the chairman were watching. They were walking away from him, chatting in low, comfortable voices; old friends, he could tell. Well, he thought, obviously the other man had to be something to do with the military; at least, he sounded right, and he'd known what to say. Cuno Abazes muttered a silent prayer, and went back to doing his imitation of a statue, or one of those lifesize mechanical people that used to be in fashion, many years ago.

"You've got them saluting already," Ziani said. "I'm impressed."

Psellus shrugged. "Did he do it right? I don't know about these things."

"He wouldn't have gone down well with a Vadani drill sergeant," Ziani replied. "Slouching, gut sticking out, hand wobbling around like he was trying to swat flies. You'd never have made soldiers out of them, not if the war had dragged on for twenty years. It's not in our nature."

"I'm delighted to hear you say so," Psellus said. "War is neither a craft nor a trade, and I'm pleased we have an excuse not to meddle with it any more. By all means let's leave it to your precious Vadani. Let them get from it what pleasure they can."

Ziani laughed. "You still don't understand them," he said. "Not that there's any reason why you should. There's rather more to them than you think, but compared to us they're still just savages."

They walked on together in silence as far as the foot of the grand staircase; and Psellus thought: I've come here every day for as long as I can remember, but I've never seen it before, there's always been too many people in the way-my colleagues, my fellow clerks, hurtling up and down the stairs with files and ledgers. It's almost as though they were there to distract attention from the building itself; because we didn't build it, did we? The people who came before us did that, the people who made the padlock. And then he thought: I saved the Republic, but I don't want it any more; even looking at it makes me feel sick. And then he said: "You're really a patriot, aren't you, Ziani?"

Ziani nodded. "Always have been," he said.

"A true believer?"

"Always."

Psellus accepted the statement with a slight movement of head and shoulders. "You never intended to destroy us," he said.

"Of course not." Ziani wasn't looking at him. He was gazing at the staircase, the vaulted ceiling, the carved balustrades, the allegorical frescoes on the walls (Perfection illuminating the assembled crafts and trades; Perfection being a tall, big-bosomed woman in flowing red robes, and each craft and trade represented by a grey-haired man carrying the archetypal tool or instrument of his calling; but why, he couldn't help wondering, had they all been painted with white skins, like they were savages?). "Only a lunatic would burn down his own house; he'd have nothing to come home to."

"And that's really all it was," Psellus said, hesitating, as though he couldn't set foot on the first tread of the stair until he'd had an answer. "You just wanted to come home."

"Of course." Ziani traced the edge of a carved border with the tip of his finger; it was smooth, the sharp edge worn down by a million clerks brushing against it as they made way for each other on the stairs. "If I'd wanted to be rich and powerful, I'd have gone far away, the Old Country or somewhere like that; I'd have settled down and started a factory. Probably I'd have founded a new Mezentia, just like this one only better. That's what big men do, heroic types, idealists, rebels." He shook his head. "I just did what I had to, to put things right. No choice, really."

Psellus climbed the first step. "The death toll…"

"I can't help that," Ziani said briskly. "I can't be held responsible. Nor can you." He turned his face, and Psellus couldn't meet his eyes. "I don't know all the ins and outs of administrative procedure, but if you were chief clerk of Compliance, it was you who gave the order that started the war. Yes?"

"Yes."

"Not me," Ziani said. "Sure, I planned the whole thing. I worked out every step, while I was dying of thirst out on the plain, before Duke Orsea's people found me. By the time they picked me up, I'd planned as far as turning the scorpions on the Aram Chantat-I didn't know they were called that, of course, I just knew there were millions of savages out there beyond the desert, and they were the only force on earth that could bring down the Republic; so of course they were part of the plan from the beginning; like a mainspring, if you like. Orsea and Valens were the gear train-I was lucky there, I admit it. I knew that if I could persuade the Eremian duke to let me build a factory, the Republic would have to declare war. I wanted to bring in the Vadani, to keep the war going, and I knew I'd have to find some mechanism to get the Vadani to bring in the savages beyond the desert. That was quite easy, once I found out the Vadani duke was unmarried, and the stupid courtly-love triangle with Orsea, Valens and the duchess gave me that whole assembly practically complete, I just had to make a few connections. The chain of oases across the desert was a stroke of luck, but I was pretty well sure there had to be something like that once I heard about the raiding parties. If I hadn't had those strokes of luck, I'd have had to manufacture something myself to do the job; it'd have taken longer and needed a lot more effort, but I'd have got there in the end. The real luck was finding Daurenja."

"Oh." Psellus raised his eyebrows. "You surprise me. I'd have thought he was more of an unforeseen difficulty."

"He was, at times." Ziani smiled. "But I knew from quite early on that I'd make him the commander-in-chief of the Alliance. I assumed I'd have to find a way of disgracing him when the moment came, to get him out of the way when it was time for me to take command. But he blew himself up instead, which was far better."

"You knew his weapon wouldn't work?"

"Not at all." Ziani shook his head. "It works perfectly, if you make a tube without a flaw in the weld. But there was a cold spot-I actually did try and warn him about it, but only because I knew he wouldn't listen. And then I saw it all quite clearly, in my mind, exactly the way it eventually happened."

They paused on the landing, and Ziani looked down over the banister at the entrance hall below. "My father always wished he'd been a clerk," he said. "He thought it must be the grandest thing, to work with clean hands all day, in a place like this. Of course, he never saw the inside of this place, but he'd heard stories. He used to tell me about it; got it completely wrong, of course. He said there were gold statues, twice lifesize…"

"There were, once," Psellus said. "About a hundred years ago. But they moved them into the main chapterhouse one time when the roof cracked and the rain got in. They should have gone back after the repairs were completed, but nobody ever got around to it. Actually, I think the council rather liked having them all to themselves."

Ziani nodded. "Get them put back," he said. "Dad would've liked that."

"Very well."

Ziani said: "I'd appreciate that." And then: "I gather you're taking orders from me. I wasn't quite sure where we stood."

Psellus shrugged. "It's my impression that you still command the allied army. And the gates of the City are open, as you insisted. If you want the furniture moved about, I'm hardly going to argue."

Ziani smiled. "Very soon, though," he said, "the army's going to go away, escorting the savages to the border. Then what?"

Psellus walked on, and Ziani took a long stride to keep up with him. "The question doesn't arise," he said. "You don't want to give orders or rule the City. You just wanted to come home. And here you are."

"That's right," Ziani said. "But will you let me?"

"No," Psellus said gently. "After everything you've done, naturally you can't stay here. In due course you'll be declared a public enemy and sentenced to death-in your absence, I sincerely hope; but by then you'll be far away where we can't reach you. I think you mentioned the Old Country just now; I think that would be a very good idea. After what happened in the war, I don't suppose we'll be very popular over there for a great many years. Your idea of starting a factory sounds eminently sensible. You do seem to have a flair for it. And perhaps," he added, with a faint smile, "you'll find another Daurenja to help you. I don't really believe you'll ever be complete without someone like that at your side."

Ziani was silent for a moment. "What exactly do you think of me?" he said.

"Now there's a question." Psellus stopped, frowned, thought for a long time. "I believe you were the victim of the most atrocious cruelty," he said, "from the person you loved most in all the world. I believe the City you love treated you shamefully, that you suffered a monstrous injustice, and that the system that so abused you is worthless, being founded on a lie."

Ziani shook his head, but said, "Go on."

"When I was investigating your case," Psellus continued, "I asked myself from time to time, what would I have done in your position? And the answer, of which I am ashamed, was that I'd have submitted to my fate, furiously angry but far too weak to resist. But you resisted; and since then I've watched you with a sort of horrified fascination, because what you've done has been evil-there's a word whose meaning I don't know any more-and it's what I'd have done if I'd had the strength."

"Would you?" Ziani grinned. "I don't think so."

"Curiously, I do. You gave back evil for evil; well, perhaps. Your callous indifference to the deaths of thousands; that must be evil, surely. Or perhaps you simply used the fundamental evil inside all of us to achieve something that nobody could reasonably object to: the setting right of an injustice, the overthrow of a bad system of government, the breaking of a lie." He sighed, as though he was disappointed with himself. "I can't find it in myself to blame you for anything you've done to the Republic," he said. "I imagine the Eremians and the Vadani would see things differently; but they've been fighting each other for generations, and the peace between them was founded on that poor, weak man Duke Orsea. I don't imagine it'd have lasted very long after Duke Valens' death, or even until then. And then they'd have brought themselves to more or less the state they're in now, or worse. As for the savages, they came here to take the entire country for themselves; they'd have wiped us out, and presumably the Vadani and the Eremians as well, in due course. No," he went on, his voice firmer, "you didn't make the evil, you only used it, and your motives and objectives were understandable, good even; which leads me to the unpleasant conclusion that there is no such thing as good or evil, or else that they're mixed together so completely that you can't have one without the other-like an alloy, I suppose you could say, like bronze is copper and tin, but in order to extract the tin you have to destroy the bronze. I think that what you've done is so horrible that I can't really get my mind around the true scope of it, and it'd have been far better for the world if you'd never been born. But I can't blame you for it."

Ziani shrugged. "Most of that's too deep for me," he said. "And I'm not proud of what I did. But the Republic took my life away and I had to get it back; I did it as little harm as I could to get what I needed; and as for the others, the Eremians and the rest of them, they're only savages anyway; like you said, they'd have slaughtered each other sooner or later, so no harm done."

For some reason, Psellus laughed. "You know," he said, "the way you put it makes my gorge rise, but it's not very different from what I just said. I suppose that proves my point. No, the difference is basically the difference between you and Daurenja."

"Daurenja? What's he got to do with it?"

"Only that he was an evil man who kept trying to do good things, and you were a good man doing evil. As I understand it, Duke Orsea spent his life trying to do the right thing, and by any objective criteria he caused just as much harm as you did. And Duke Valens; I see him as a man made up equally of good and evil who chose the good side believing that you can part copper and tin and still have bronze; and so he did more damage than anybody, in the end. And as for myself… Well," he said, "I can't have you arrested and put to death as long as your army's camped outside the City, which spares me from forcing myself to acknowledge that I wouldn't want to do it if I could. There are times when it's a great relief not to be able to do the right thing, or your duty, or whatever you want to call it."

Ziani was silent for a while. Then he said: "That was a good speech, for something you just made up on the spur of the moment."

Psellus smiled. "I used to read a lot of books," he said, "on days when work was quiet and there wasn't a lot to do. Dizanes on forensic and political oratory. Six fat volumes, I found them wedged under the legs of a wobbly table in the Coopers' library." He stopped; they were standing outside a door. "You think that just because I made it into a speech, I can't really mean it."

"If it was what you really thought, you wouldn't have needed to dress it up."

They were standing outside a door.

"What I think doesn't matter," Psellus said abruptly. "I'm not important. We're here."

Ziani nodded; then he said: "I can't stay here, then?"

"No."

"That's a pity, considering what I've been through to get back here."

"Yes," Psellus said. "But if you really want to stay, you'll have to kill us all. I believe you'd be capable of it, but there'd be no point; it wouldn't be your home any more. And besides, it's not what you really want, is it?"

"I want it to be how it was," Ziani replied angrily. "What the hell is so difficult about that?"

"Accept the compromise," Psellus said gently. "You had to come this far to get it; you could never have trusted any deal we made with you, especially while Boioannes was still in power. Take what you came for and go, while you still can."

Ziani breathed out; it was as though he'd been holding that breath for a very long time. "No choice, then," he said.

"No."

"Oh well, then," Ziani said, and he put his hand to the latch. She said: "So what are you going to do now?"

Valens leaned back in his chair, as though he was melting into it. "I'd like to go home," he said, "to Civitas Vadanis. I'd like to look after my people, try to be a good duke. I'd like to hunt twice a week in the season, business and weather permitting. I'd like to be a good father to our child. I'd like to spend as much time as I can with my wife, though I don't suppose it'll ever be enough." He closed his eyes. "Is that really so unrealistic?"

She looked at him. The wound was healing fast, in spite of what Daurenja had done, though there'd always be the second scar; and the third, on the inside. "Do you love me?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied. "As much as I always have, ever since I first saw you. I've never stopped loving you, and I've never loved anyone else." He opened his eyes and looked at her. "Is that enough?"

"It's all anyone could ask," she replied.

He nodded. "When did I lose you?" he asked.

She hesitated, then said, "When you let that man beat you."

"Oh." He thought about that for a moment, then said: "Was that all? You can't love a man unless he always wins?"

But she shook her head. "It's not that," she said. "I loved Orsea, and he never won anything."

"I see." Valens was massaging the swollen place under the scar. It had become a habit; he probably didn't know he was doing it. "So you can't love me unless I always win, is that it?"

She sighed. "It's a very stupid reason," she said.

"I don't know," he replied. "I don't think there's good or bad reasons for loving someone, or stopping loving them. But it's a little bit hard to understand."

She stood up, turned her back on him. "I think it's because…" She didn't speak for a while. "I think it's because my life kept going wrong, and each time you came and rescued me. From Civitas Eremiae; and before that, when I was stuck in that awful excuse for a life with Orsea, and your letters gave it some kind of meaning." She kept her voice level; it took some doing. "I loved the man who wrote the letters. I loved the man who rode into the battle, just for me, even though it meant the end of everything he cared about. I loved the man who fought the Mezentines to save his people. The thing is, though," she added, "I think that man's only one part of you, and I think Daurenja killed him. The man who's left is the awkward boy who kept staring at me when I was sixteen, and I never really loved him. Not like I loved Orsea."

Valens nodded. "And if I'd won the duel and killed Daurenja? Then it'd all have been all right."

"I did try and stop you, remember."

He grinned. "I thought it was because you were afraid he'd kill me."

"That's right." She couldn't help letting just a little bit of the bitterness through. "One way or another, I thought he'd kill you, and I was right. If you'd listened to me, if you'd put me first instead of doing the right bloody thing, there'd have been no fight and you'd still be…" She shook her head. "You can't expect me to explain something I don't understand myself."

"Oh, I understand," he replied gently. "The man you thought you loved never really existed. I wrote him, like a character in a book; I made him up when I wrote you those letters. It was so hard, it took me a whole day to write one. I guess I always knew you'd never love the man I really am. He'd never have ridden to Civitas Eremiae, and screwed up everything for his people, just to save one woman. I had to invent him, too; just like I invented my father's perfect son, who never really existed. There was a real Valens Valentinianus once; he was a stroppy boy who hated hunting and fencing and hated his father, and loved a girl he saw once. When my father died he had to go, because there was a country to be governed; and I suppose I must've thought, if I can't be me, I might as well be someone perfect-the good duke, the world's best huntsman, the ideal of pure courtly love; and after that, the great leader in adversity, and then the avenger, though I was never really comfortable with him." He laughed again, and went on: "The strange thing is, I've been the imaginary man so long, I don't know how to be anything else. And, as you say, Daurenja killed him, just because he was better at swordfighting. It's a hell of a thing, for your entire conception of good and evil to depend on the outcome of a fencing match. If I won, my ideas of right and wrong are vindicated. If I lose, I must've been wrong all along. And I lost." He closed his eyes again. "So what are you planning to do now?"

"Nothing," she said, as she sat down and picked up her embroidery. "Nothing of any importance. What I've been doing my whole life." A courier rode to Civitas Vadanis with the news that the war was over. No, the City hadn't fallen; in fact, the Mezentines were now friends and trusted allies against the Aram Chantat, who'd turned out to be the real enemy all along. After a certain initial surprise, the news proved to be popular, because the war was over, and surely that was all that mattered. Besides, the duke was very wise, and had their best interests at heart. If that was what he'd decided, it had to be the right thing to do.

After he'd delivered the message, the courier gave another letter to the captain of the citadel guard. He wasn't happy about it. He tried to get out of it on the grounds that he didn't take orders from Engineer Vaatzes. But the courier told him that General Vaatzes was the commander-in-chief now, and they all had to respect the chain of command.

So the captain took six men and went down to the cells, where the Mezentine prisoner Boioannes was being held. First, they gave him a letter. He thanked them and said he'd read it later. No, they said, read it now. So he read it; and when he'd done that, before he could say anything, they threw him down on the floor and the captain stabbed his eyes out with a saddler's needle. Then (carefully following the instructions in the letter; they were very specific) he used the needle to puncture Boioannes' eardrums. That was all he felt he could do, so he left the rest of the orders to his men; they cut off the prisoner's hands, being careful to cauterise the wounds with a hot iron afterwards, and then his tongue. The rest of Vaatzes' letter said: After you've done that, you will give him food and water every day for the rest of his life, which I trust will be very long. I won't be there to enforce this, but you'll have no choice, since he'll be incapable of doing anything for himself, and you won't be able to bring yourself to let a helpless man starve to death. You should bear in mind the fact that he was the sole cause of the war; he started it to further his political ambitions, and he is directly responsible for everything your people have suffered. Keep him safe and well. By the time you read this, I will have promised my wife to spare his life and see to it that he wants for nothing. There was an announcement: by joint declaration of the commander-in-chief and Duke Valens, with the concurrence and goodwill of Chairman Psellus, Miel Ducas had been appointed Duke of Eremia, with immediate effect.

While the announcement was being read out, Duke Miel married some woman nobody had ever heard of, in a perfunctory ceremony conducted by a clerk, promoted to the rank of chief registrar of Eremia for the occasion. The few people who witnessed the ceremony said afterwards that they found the whole business too bizarre to understand. The bride was neither young nor beautiful; in fact, her face was quite hideous because of a scar and a broken nose and jaw that hadn't been properly set. As for her rank and birth, she was nobody at all, the widow of some provincial squire. Afterwards there was no reception, no speeches, no scattering of coins or conspicuous donations of food to the poor (true, there weren't any poor to be found, unless you counted soldiers and camp followers, but it was the look of the thing), and the happy couple walked away unescorted, not even holding hands. It was unworthy of the Ducas, they said, and an insult to the Eremian people, who deserved a little pageantry and splendour to raise their morale after the misery of the war and the occupation.

The new duke's first official act was widely regarded as equally ill-omened. Instead of announcing measures to alleviate conditions for the refugees, or plans to rebuild Civitas Eremiae, or any of the things that were expected of him, Duke Miel chose to inaugurate his reign by granting a monopoly in perpetuity for the manufacture and sale of fine porcelain, along with a grant of land in the mountains somewhere, to some minor nobleman called Framain. No explanation was given, a further proof of arrogance. People with long memories seemed to recall rumours of some kind of liaison between the duke and Framain's daughter. Later it emerged that Framain had been General Daurenja's business partner, and this went some way towards reconciling popular opinion; Daurenja, already much admired by the Eremian people during his lifetime, had won a lasting place in their hearts by his heroic death (if only he'd survived, they said, we'd have taken the City and lived like princes on the spoils for the rest of our lives). Even so, as many influential figures pointed out, it was a most unhealthy precedent. None of the duke's predecessors had ever granted monopolies. Power had clearly gone to his head; hardly surprising, given his family history, and what had the Ducas ever done for the ordinary people? "They're in there," Psellus said.

"Thank you," Ziani replied. He'd known, without having to be told.

Psellus hesitated. "I imagine you'd like me to go now."

"Yes."

"Of course. Will you see me again before you leave?"

Ziani shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. "I was planning to slip away as quietly as possible. I don't suppose it'll take them long to realise their commander-in-chief has gone absent without leave, and in the circumstances I'd be grateful for as much of a head start as I can get."

Psellus nodded, but he seemed reluctant to move. "What about money?" he said. "You'll need some for your journey, and-"

"Taken care of." Ziani cut him off short. "They can add embezzlement of public funds to the list of charges at my court martial. Now, if you'll excuse me."

Psellus took a step away, and saw Ziani put his hand to the latch again; he reached out and caught his wrist. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" he said. "You know what she did to you…"

Ziani took his fingers and prised them gently apart. "My daughter hasn't done anything to anybody," he said, "and I love her very much. And she loves her mother. That's a good enough reason on its own."

Psellus nodded. "That's an eminently reasonable justification," he said. "But it's only half the truth. Less than half, quite possibly."

"Goodbye, Chairman," Ziani said. "And thank you. You're a good man."

"No," Psellus said, and walked away.

Well, Ziani thought, and he pressed the thumbplate of the latch. Then he turned round quickly and called out, "Psellus."

Psellus turned slowly. "Yes?"

"Down there, in the main hall," Ziani said. "Those paintings on the wall. They're…" He struggled for the word. "Allegories," he said. "For the ideals of the Guilds, Specification and things like that."

"That's right," Psellus said.

Ziani nodded. "Then why have they all got white faces?"

Psellus smiled. "It's an old artistic convention," he said. "Many years ago, the walls of public buildings were decorated with carved marble reliefs. Fashions changed, or it was too expensive. But the painters made everybody white to look like marble carvings."

"I see." Ziani dipped his head in acknowledgement. "Thanks. I don't know why, but it seemed important. It'd have bothered me to death if I'd gone away without knowing."

Psellus walked away, and this time no voice called him back, which was just as well. He respected Ziani's intelligence, at least, and it wouldn't be long before it occurred to him to wonder why, if the faces and skins were white to represent marble, the clothes and the objects they held were in colour. He pressed the latch and pushed the door open.

They were sitting by the window. Moritsa was holding a book, and she was leaning over her shoulder, pointing at the page. She was teaching her to read.

"Hello," Ziani said.

She looked up; and Moritsa dropped the book, screamed, looked at him, and ran across the room to hug him. He stayed still for a few seconds, letting her hold him, then gently moved her away. He walked past her to the window, picked the book up and gave it to her.

"Just go outside and look at your book for a minute, honey," he said. "I need to talk to Mummy."

Moritsa looked up at him, then went through the door. He heard the latch snick.

"Is she my daughter?" he asked.

"No," she replied.

"His?"

"You mean Boioannes? No. That was much later."

Ziani nodded. "It doesn't matter," he said.

"Falier," she said. "I'd been seeing him for a long time before Maris came along."

"I see." Her eyes were fixed on him. "Falier's dead, by the way," he said. "He was killed on the embankment."

"Oh," she said.

"I've taken care of Boioannes," he went on (and he watched how she reacted to the ambiguity; just a flicker of the eyes). "I had him sent away. He'll be safe there now, and well provided for." He waited, then smiled. "You were worried for him," he said. "You thought I'd have him killed."

"Yes."

He shook his head. "I'm not a savage," he said. "You don't know me very well if you think I'd do something like that."

"I'm sorry," she said.

"It's all right."

"It was all his fault," she said. "Boioannes. He-"

Ziani raised his hand. "I know," he said. "He fell in love with you, or got obsessed with you, and you didn't dare send him away because he was so powerful. Then it all got out of hand; he forced you to help him get rid of me, with the mechanical doll. That's right, isn't it?"

Her eyes were wide, round, wary, closed, like a fencer watching his opponent, trying to read his next move. "That's right," she said. "He made me do it all, and I was so scared. He said he'd hurt Moritsa if I didn't do as I was told."

He admired her for that, even though he was pretty sure it was a lie. It was strong enough to be the foundation for a reconciliation, and Boioannes could never deny it, not now. "He used you, you know," he said. "He didn't really love you; or if he did, it wasn't the real reason he wanted you. I found out the truth-well, Chairman Psellus…"

"Oh," she said. "Him."

He couldn't allow himself to smile, but that brief cold glare was priceless. "He investigated the whole thing," he said, "which is how I know you're telling the truth." (She hadn't expected that; but she hid it well.) "Boioannes wanted power; he was the chairman of Necessary Evil, but in peacetime it isn't the same. It's only when there's a war on that the chairman has the power to run the City all by himself. Boioannes wanted a war that'd last a long time. It nearly went wrong when the Eremians attacked us and we wiped out their army in a few minutes; he knew that'd happen, which is why he had to go to such extreme lengths. He wanted the sort of war where we'd have to attack them, rather than just defending ourselves; he figured that the only way he'd get that was if someone broke the most sacred rule and defected to another country with Guild secrets. I was the perfect choice. I knew enough to do what I eventually did, but I was unimportant enough not to be able to defend myself or fight back when he framed me. Falier must've been in on it too. They fixed it so I'd have an opportunity to escape-I nearly screwed it up-and after that, it all worked out just how he wanted it to, except he never imagined I'd find a way to bring the savages into the war. But you can't really fault him there. He had no reason to believe I'd be so resourceful. But of course, he was never really in love with you, not the way I was. That meant he couldn't hope to understand me. Anyway," Ziani went on, moving a little nearer, like a fencer closing the distance (coming close enough to hit and be hit; you can never attack without making yourself vulnerable), "let's forget all about him now. I've sorted him out and put everything right, so we can start all over again, just the three of us." He paused, then added, "If that's what you want."

"Of course," she said immediately. "That's all I've ever wanted."

He nodded gently, his movements slow and even, like those of a hunter stalking a deer or a wolf. "We'll have to go away, I'm afraid," he said. "Psellus has made it clear we can't stay in the City. But that's all right," he added, still watching her closely; he'd read all about it in King Fashion while he was staying at Orsea's court. Keep eye contact, and the quarry won't bolt. "We'll go across the sea to the Old Country. I've got money. I'll start a factory there, we'll be rich in no time, far better off than we could ever have been here. And it won't be like it was for me in Eremia and those places" (he let himself speak faster and more urgently), "where everybody could see I was a stranger just by looking at me. It'll all be different there, which means we can start again completely fresh." He paused to pull in a deep breath (the bombardier spanning the mainspring). "All I've ever wanted to do was look after the two of you, make it so you can have a better life, the sort you deserve. It was all my fault really, after all. I was working so hard, we never saw each other, never talked, never made love. No wonder you started seeing Falier, and Boioannes; you must've thought I didn't love you any more."

As if he'd made a mistake and left his guard open. "You were never there. I was so lonely."

"Of course," he said. "So really, I've only got myself to blame. I was trying to do the right thing, but it made everything go wrong. You'd be surprised how often it works out like that. If only I hadn't been so stupid, I'd have seen I was letting you down, losing you. But I didn't, and now it's taken so much pain and trouble to get back to you, and I'll never make that mistake again, I promise you. Just so long…" He felt the mechanism drop into place. "Just so long as we love each other. You do still love me, don't you?"

She looked at him, and her eyes were as cold as stone; and he thought of the carvings that were really paint, and the lies; and he told himself, a lie will be good enough, because I love her, because I have no choice.