Evil for Evil (33 page)

"Tell you what," he said. "Would you like to hear the truth?" She looked at him.

"Fine. Look, can we sit down for a moment?"

She nodded. "The pain from your injury is fatiguing you," she said.

"Yes." He sat down on the arm of a stone bench. She settled next to him like a bird pitching on a branch.

"The goshawk didn't attack you, did it?" she said.

He laughed. "No. I made that up, sorry. No disrespect intended to your hawk." Her mouth tightened a little; if we were already married, he thought, I don't suppose I'd be getting off so lightly. "Very well," she said. "What did happen?"

"I got carved up a little by a jealous husband."

"I see. I take it the man in question will be punished."

"Not necessary."

She scowled. "He drew the blood of his ruler," she said firmly. "There can be no clemency in such a case."

"Let's not talk about it," Valens said.

"If you wish. You were about to answer my questions."

"So I was." He looked away, took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "When I was seventeen, I saw a girl. She was a guest here. I fell in love with her, but not long afterward she married someone else. After that—I don't know, there wasn't anything conscious about it. I stopped thinking about her as soon as I heard about her marriage. My father had just died, I had a lot of other things on my mind. I suppose I was glad of an excuse not to have to concern myself with all that stuff."

"That seems plausible enough," she acknowledged. "My second question…"

"Why now, you mean? Well, various reasons, really. Mostly, to be frank, we need this alliance. We've—I'm sorry,
I've
got the country into a pretty awful mess, and it looks as though you're our way out. Also…" He shivered. "It's been a long time since I was a seventeen-year-old kid. Everybody grows up eventually." She was looking at him again. "I don't think I understand what you mean," she said.

"Don't you? Well." He smiled. "Not entirely sure I know myself. Let's just say it's taken me a long time to come to terms with it, but I got there in the end." She shrugged. "And the war?" she said.

"A mistake," he replied. "A very big, bad, stupid mistake. I thought it'd make the Republic leave us alone, but it had the exact opposite effect. Silly me." The frown was back. "That seems rather unlikely," she said. "We've been studying your career, and the major decisions you've taken since you became duke. Before your intervention at Civitas Eremiae, your political judgment was flawless. I find it hard to believe that such a wise and resourceful man as yourself would have done something so rash and dangerous without a very good reason."

"There you go," Valens said with a grin (which pulled on the stitches and squeezed out a large drop of blood). "It just goes to show, nobody's perfect. There are times when I surprise myself."

She clicked her tongue. "I gather you're not prepared to answer that question," she said.

"No."

"I see." Her voice was cold; polite anger. "Obviously you're entirely at liberty to keep secrets from me, but I trust you understand the nature of the relationship you're proposing to enter into with my family. A marriage alliance is a very serious business, as far as we're concerned."

"I'll bear that in mind," Valens said gravely. "And you don't need to remind me what a serious business this all is." He sucked the blood and spit into the back of his mouth and spat it out onto the grass, then wiped his mouth gingerly on the back of his hand. "Well, this has been quite delightful, but I think we ought to be getting back to the others, or they'll think we've eloped."

As soon as he'd handed her back to her uncles (the bald man wasn't there; off discussing the minutiae of the contract with Carausius, presumably), he hurried back to his tower room and threw up violently into the washbasin. He felt better for it, but not much. That set his lip bleeding again, which didn't help. He sat down at his desk, staring out of the window, then drew a sheet of paper toward him, dipped a pen in ink and started to write.

Valens Valentinianus to Veatriz Sirupati, greetings.

This is stupid. My whole life has gone septic; everything hurts at the slightest pressure.

Isn't love supposed to be the most wonderful thing that can happen to you? I don't think so. I think it's a nasty, miserable thing that brings out the worst in people; if you don't believe me, ask Orsea how he got all those cuts and bruises. Losing you to Orsea all those years ago was bad enough. Now, apparently, I've got to lose myself as well. I've got no choice: we need the alliance if we're going to stand any sort of chance of scaring off the Mezentines; otherwise we're all dead. Have you met her? No, I don't suppose you have. She's inhuman. She might as well be one of Ziani Vaatzes' mechanical statues. Her loathsome family have taken her apart and made her into an artifact. I'd be desperately sorry for her if I thought she could still feel anything. Anyway, that's what I've got to marry. Count yourself lucky; you got an idiot who goes around wrecking everything he touches and then tearing himself to bits out of guilt. I'm getting a machine. What the hell did either of us ever do to deserve this?

When my father died, I knew my life was over too. I realized I could never be myself again. To begin with, I tried to be him, but I couldn't do it. Strange how sometimes you only get to know someone once they're not there anymore. I couldn't be him because I can't bring myself to be deliberately stupid. He was a stupid man. Instead, I became what he should have been. The best joke about me is that everything I hate doing I do really well. At least I could be proud of what I'd done for this country. I kept the peace, nobody was starving, people could leave their houses and families in the morning and be fairly sure they'd still be there when they came back at night. Then Orsea started his war, you were in danger and I threw it all away.

I have to have something to live for. It used to be your letters. Now you don't write to me anymore, and I'm going to be married to that thing. I've been thinking about my options. I thought about getting up very early one morning, taking a horse from the stable and riding until I reached somewhere nobody's ever heard of me. I wish it was that simple.

I can't do it, Veatriz. My father used to say, there's no such word as can't. If you can't do it, all it means is you aren't trying hard enough. That used to make me so angry—quiet, speechless-with-resentment anger—that I'd find a way to do any damn thing, just so as not to give him the satisfaction of being disappointed in me—and then he'd nod and say, told you so, I knew you could do it if you just applied yourself. I know that deep down he believed I wasn't up to the job of running this country. I showed him, didn't I? But that doesn't work anymore. I can't make myself do what I've got to do just so I can score points off my stupid, dead father. Maybe he was right all along. Take away the hate I used to feel for him, and what've I got left?

I think love and hate are really the same thing. They're what you feel when someone matters more to you than anything else; more than yourself, even. I know you can love someone and hate them at the same time. My father was always the most important person in my life. I loved him and hated him, and there wasn't room for anybody or anything else. Then he cheated by dying. He left before I could get the better of him, and I've been trapped by his death ever since. I think what's shaped my life is the fact that I lost you and him so close together. Now I think about it, I realize I'm still the seventeen-year-old boy whose father died unexpectedly. I'm pinned to that moment, like a man whose horse has fallen on him. Well, that's me about finished. For the first time since he died I don't know what to say, I don't know what to do. I shall be very grateful indeed for any suggestions. He put the pen back in the inkwell, knowing that if he started to read what he'd just written, he'd tear it up and burn the pieces.

Instead, he folded the paper up small into a packet, melted wax and sealed it, tucked it up his sleeve and left the room.

It took him a long time to find the person he needed: a woman in a red dress, who curtseyed very politely, offered him some mead spiced with cinnamon and pepper (he refused) and asked him to sit down.

"It's been quite a while since you needed me," she said. "I was beginning to think—"

"Please," he interrupted, "don't waste my time or try my patience. You're to deliver this to her personally when she's alone. I suggest you do exactly as I say, because if you don't I'll have you killed. You know me well enough to realize I don't make empty threats."

She blinked. "I see," she said. "Can I refuse?"

"I'm afraid not, no."

"Very well then." She took a deep breath, and smiled. "Can we talk about money now, please?"

"A hundred silver thalers when you come back and tell me you've delivered it," Valens said. "All right?"

She thought about that for a moment. "That'll be fine," she said. "Also, I'd quite like a border pass, open, no dates, and there's a silly misunderstanding about an excise license which I'd like sorted out, if that's no trouble." Valens sighed. "It's a point of honor with you people, isn't it? Taking a mile." She laughed. "My mother told me, never accept anything you're offered, always insist on one little thing more. Of course, I'm in no position to bargain."

"Deal," Valens said. "If you can get it done today, there'll be an extra fifty thalers."

"So sorry." She shook her head. "Can't be done. Not even for fifty thalers. I have to apply to the senior lady-in-waiting for an appointment. A bribe will get me one, but she always makes me wait a full day. If I insist on seeing the Duchess today, it'd look suspicious, the lady-in-waiting will get frightened and tell Duke Orsea, and—well, I don't need to tell you what that'd lead to."

Valens frowned. "Double the bribe," he suggested. "I'll pay."

"That'd just make things worse," she replied sadly. "There's a very strict protocol about bribing court officers. If you mess about with it, there'll be trouble. And please don't tell me how to conduct my business. I happen to be very good at it." Valens held up his hands. "Heaven forbid," he said. "Thanks. I'll see myself out." After leaving her he walked down through the town to the river. People stopped and stared but nobody spoke to him or came near him. It was well known in Givitas Vadanis that when the Duke came into town on his own, without guards or secretaries, he wanted to be left alone. It was, of course, a tribute to the way he ran his country that he could walk about the city on his own whenever he wanted to. Like all the best privileges, of course, it had to be used sparingly. He stopped at a saddler's stall down by the west gate; a rather fine set of jesses and a hood, in dark tan leather, embossed with ivy leaves. A nice, considerate present for his wife-to-be, whose name he couldn't pronounce even if he could remember it. The stallholder noticed him looking at them and moved across.

"How much?" he asked.

"One thaler the set," the stallholder replied. "Genuine Mezentine." That was a lie, of course; about the only thing the Mezentines didn't make was falconry accessories. "You mean Cure Doce," Valens said.

"All right, genuine Cure Doce. You want them, or what?"

Valens nodded, looked round for someone who wasn't there. He frowned, and felt in his pockets, which were, of course, empty.

"No money," he said.

The stallholder looked at him. "Is that right?"

"It's all right," Valens said. "Hold on to them for me, I'll send someone."

"Will you now?"

A little spurt of anger fired in Valens' mind. "You don't know who I am." The corners of the stallholder's mouth tightened a little. "That's very true, I don't."

"Forget it." Valens walked away. He could feel the stallholder's eyes on the back of his head. Of course, in a few weeks that man would be out of business for good, on the decision of his duke, who he hadn't even recognized. There was something wrong with the way the world was run, Valens thought. He had half a mind to write to somebody about it.

Four stalls down from the saddler there was a cutler. As Valens passed, the man looked up and saw him; his eyes seemed to double in size and his mouth dropped open. He gave the boy standing next to him a vicious nudge in the ribs, and pointed with his chin. The boy grunted and carried on polishing something.

Oh well, Valens thought. "Good morning," he said.

The cutler seemed to flicker, like a candle-flame in a draft. "Your majesty," he said. "Yes, what beautiful weather, for the time of year." Depends on your idea of beauty, Valens thought. Nothing on the man's stall had caught his eye, but he was snared now, as though he'd put his foot in a wire. He stepped up to the cutler's table and looked round for something to admire. There was a hanger; a plain thing, two feet of curved blade, lightly and crudely fullered, with a brass knuckle-bow and back-strap and a stagshorn grip. Valens picked it up, one hand on the hilt, the other near the tip, and flexed the blade. It felt adequate.

"Nice piece," he exaggerated.