Evil for Evil (60 page)

"You think?"

He shrugged. "Didn't seem important," he confessed. "We were going to get married, come what may. I assumed she liked me; the point is, she knew the score as well as I did. We were born to it. In our families, you didn't even think of choosing who you were going to marry. It'd be like trying to choose who you wanted to be your uncle."

"I see. And did you marry her?"

Miel shook his head. "She was in line to succeed to the duchy," he said. "I knew that, of course, but it was all very remote and unlikely. A lot of people had to die in a very precise order before it could be her turn. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened. Suddenly, she was the heiress to the duchy. Obviously she couldn't be the duke herself, but whoever she married would get the throne. Which is why I couldn't marry her after all. Lots of political stuff; basically, all hell would break loose if a Ducas got to be duke; it'd scare the living daylights out of half a dozen other great houses who we'd been feuding with on and off for centuries. So they married her to the Orseoli family instead—sufficiently noble, but political nonentities, the perfect compromise candidate. Coincidentally, Orsea and I had been friends practically from birth." He grinned. "My family used to ask me why I bothered hanging out with riff-raff like the Orseoli, who'd never amount to anything. They were absolutely livid when Orsea succeeded to the title."

She nodded. "What's this got to do with treason?" she asked.

"Ah." Miel rubbed his forehead, feeling the charcoal dust grinding his skin like cabinet-maker's sand. "I guess you could say I was Orsea's chief minister and closest adviser. The truth is, Orsea's a lovely man but he was a useless duke. Always trying to do the right thing, always getting it wrong and making a ghastly mess. I did my best to straighten things out. When the war came, and the Mezentine showed up and started building the war-engines for us, I was pretty much in charge of the defense of the city. I'm no great shakes as a general, but the Mezentine's catapult things really had given us a sporting chance. I honestly thought we might get away with it."

"And?"

Miel hadn't realized he'd paused. "Then it turned out that Orsea's wife—the girl I was supposed to have married, but didn't—she was…" He hesitated. Words were too clumsy, sometimes; treacherous, too, always trying to twist around and mean something slightly different. "I came across a letter," he said, "which proved that she'd been writing to Valens, the Vadani duke, and he'd been writing back; for quite some time, by the look of it. Well, you know our history with the Vadani. There was other stuff in this letter, too; I didn't really know what to make of it, but it was obvious enough that it'd cause a hell of a lot of trouble for her if Orsea ever saw it. And it wasn't just her I was thinking of," he added briskly. "I knew Orsea would be shattered; he really did love her, you see, and he'd never quite believed she loved him—which she did, I'm sure of it, but Orsea's got such a low opinion of himself. Anyhow, it was as much for his sake as hers. I put the letter away somewhere safe, where nobody would ever find it. Why I didn't burn the stupid thing I'll never know, but there you are. My fault, for being an idiot."

"What happened?" she asked quietly.

"This is the bit I'm not sure about," Miel said. "What I think happened is that the Mezentine somehow found out about the letter; what's more, he figured out where I'd hidden it and bribed one of my servants to take it to him. Then he gave it to Orsea, who had me arrested. Anyway, that's what the Mezentine told me he did, and I can't see why he'd make something like that up."

"Oh. Why did he want to get you in trouble?"

Miel shrugged. "You tell me," he said. "Sucking up to Orsea, presumably; though why he should want to do that, I have no idea. He was the national hero and our blessed savior already, because of the war-engines. Not that it did him a lot of good, because not long afterward the city was betrayed and that was the end of Eremia. I got out of prison in the confusion at the end and sort of strolled into the fighting, presumably with some half-witted idea about dying a hero's death just to spite the lot of them. I got a bump on the head and when I woke up it was all over. I wandered away and tried to get up some sort of resistance against the occupation. When that failed—well, here I am." He looked away. "The simple fact is, I like it here better than I ever liked being the Ducas, back in Civitas Eremiae."

She clicked her tongue, as if she'd caught him stealing biscuits from the jar.

"That's not true," she said.

"Actually, it is." He was staring at a mark on the wall. "Which isn't to say that this is the earthly paradise, or that all I've ever wanted to do with my life is carry sacks of charcoal up a dark, winding staircase. It's just better than being who I used to be, that's all."

"I don't believe that."

"You have the right not to." He sighed, shifted a little. "Not that it matters a hell of a lot. Actually, I think that's the key to it—to this whole industrial-idyll business, I mean. For the first time in my life, what I do doesn't matter to anybody except me. You can't possibly imagine what a weight that is off my shoulders." She thought for a moment. "Responsibility makes you feel uncomfortable." Her tone of voice annoyed him. "Yes," he said. "But putting it like that's like saying an arrow through your forehead can sometimes cause slight discomfort. Back home, I was…" He groped for a word. "I was this strange creature called the Ducas. I owned half the country, for pity's sake. When you think about that, you can see just how ridiculous it is. I owned this place, and I'd never even been here. I didn't know it existed. How can a man own a place? It's not possible. It's only since I came here that I realized it was really the other way about. The Ducas owned me. And a lot of other people as well," he added, surprised at his own bitterness. "The truth is, I never liked the Ducas much. Now he's gone away, it's really much more pleasant."

She grunted; a mocking, disapproving noise. "My heart bleeds," she said.

"You asked." He realized he was grinning. "I know, it sounds pretty lame. Maybe it's just something really trite, like everybody wants to be the opposite of what they are."

"That's true," she said. "For example, I'd like to be someone who doesn't live in a hovel and spend her life grinding up bits of rock in a mortar. Unfortunately, I don't think the world's going to turn itself upside down just so I can get out of here and discover my true identity. I think the world only does handstands for you if you're rich and famous."

Miel laughed at that. "You mean I'm just shallow and self-centered; the original human gyroscope, in fact. You could be right, at that. If the city hadn't fallen, and the Mezentines hadn't slaughtered us like sheep, I'd probably still be in my cell in the prison, waiting for some bastard to tell me what I was being charged with."

"You knew what you'd done," she said.

"Yes, but I wanted someone to tell me." Again, the intensity of his feelings took him by surprise. "You're quite right," he said, "shallow and self-centered. It was my own stupid fault; not Vaatzes', or the Perpetual Republic's, or Orsea's. Burning down a city just so I can get out of jail is excessive no matter how you look at it."

"You didn't do that, though."

"No, but…" Miel sighed. "If I hadn't got myself locked up in the first place, I'd have been there to conduct the defense of the city, instead of leaving Orsea to make a hash of it, and maybe things would've come out all right, maybe the city wouldn't have fallen after all. I don't know."

"The city was betrayed, wasn't it? Someone opened the gates and let them in. That wasn't your fault."

"No, but that was…" He lifted his head. "I was just about to say, that was just lucky; like whoever opened the gates somehow saved me from bearing the guilt of losing us the war. Your case proved by admission, I think."

This time, she laughed. "You're an idiot," she said. "Carrying sacks of charcoal's about all you're fit for."

He smiled. "Thank you," he said politely. "I think so too."

"Good." She tutted again. "But if you think you're some kind of disaster—you know, carrying death and destruction about with you wherever you go, like a snail with its shell—I'm sorry, but I'm not convinced. I think the world can go to rack and ruin quite well enough without you."

"You don't…" Again, the right word had strayed from his mind, like the cow that insists on getting out through the gap in the bank. "You don't approve of me, do you?"

That amused her, at any rate. "No, I don't," she said.

"Why?"

Pause. She was giving his question serious thought. "We came here when I was sixteen," she said. "I was just getting ready to have the time of my life—well, you know what upper-class women's lives are like. The first sixteen years are strict training; you're taught to be fascinating, beautiful, accomplished, desirable, like it's a trade. I was good at it. I studied really hard, it's my nature to want to do well at things. Then, after you've learned all that stuff—you know, deportment, accomplishments, literature, singing, playing at least two fashionable musical instruments—you've got three years of being frantically pursued by eligible suitors, like you're the most desirable thing in the world, and they'll die of broken hearts if they can't have you; then you're married, and it's a lifetime of being pregnant and doing needlework, while your husband's out running the estate or hunting or fighting wars. I was all set for my three years. I knew the score. Those three years were going to have to last me the rest of my life, so I was going to do them very well indeed. And then, out of the blue, my father told me we'd lost all our money and my three years were canceled. Or," she added, frowning, "postponed. That was actually worse, I think. He said it'd be all right, because he knew a way to make us rich again, much richer than we'd ever been before. I'd be a great heiress, so it wouldn't matter that I was a year or so older than the other girls in the cattle market. The handsome young lovers make allowances if you're as rich as we were going to be. Meanwhile, he said, there'd be a slight delay, and we were going to have to move to a rather boring place out in the sticks; and he was going to have to work very hard at the project, and I'd have to help him, because he couldn't trust anybody, except his business partner and me." She was still and quiet for a while. "And here I am," she said. "I know more about ceramics and industrial chemistry than any woman in the history of the world, and I can carry one of those hundredweight sacks up those stairs as easily as you can, or easier. I tell myself it's been a better life than embroidering cushion covers and gossiping about the latest scandals; and it has, I suppose. That's the sad thing, if you stop and think about it. But you come here and tell me that the life I used to dream about, all the things we've worked so hard for, isn't worth having anyway, and you're happier here lugging fuel and scraping out furnaces… No, I don't approve of you at all. Just think," she added, and her voice was sharp enough to shave with.

"Back then, you're the suitor I'd have dreamed of: the Ducas. I'd have worked so hard…" She laughed, a sound like grating steel. "Some people just don't like work, but not me. My father says I can't relax, I haven't got the knack, I've always got to be working, and it's got to be just right or I get miserable. You can imagine what it's been like, getting it wrong year after year, not being able to find the right stuff to make the pots turn exactly the right color." She stood up. "So there you are," she said, her voice a little shriller. "Obviously, this is the place where all our dreams come true. You've found the true peace of menial labor, and Fate has brought me the Ducas. That probably explains why we're all so bloody happy."

He watched her go, wondering what he'd said.

Next morning, they made a start on true vermilion.

Framain had brought the book in from the house. He carried it in both hands, as if it'd shatter if he dropped it. He swept a patch clear of dust and ash with his sleeve and laid it down, like someone carrying an injured child.

"We tried it before," she told Miel, as they waited for Framain to find the right place, "about five years ago, with the bog sulfur. Didn't work. But Father thinks that sulfur you brought us might be different. No reason to think it'll work where the other stuff didn't, but I suppose it's worth trying. Of course," she added, "it was useless for making sweet spirits of vitriol with, so it'll probably be useless for this too. But you never know."

"There are actually three kinds of sulfur," Framain said, not looking up from the book. "As well as the yellow variety, there's the black and the white. Unfortunately," he lifted his head and looked at them, "the wretched book doesn't say how you tell them apart, or which one's suitable for the job. Presumably you're just meant to know, by light of nature. I'll need the scales."