Evil for Evil (41 page)

“I was. What are you getting at?”

He waved his hand vaguely. “I’m not getting at anything. I’m just saying: your marriage to Falier can’t just be a single mother’s
entirely understandable desire for security, a roof over her head, food and clothes for the kid. No, you’re giving all that
up — for life or until remarriage, remember? Yes, I’m sure you do. So you’re making sacrifices, just as Falier is. Therefore,
logically, you must be in love, or why do it?”

“We’re in love,” she snapped, “I just told you that.”

He nodded. “And I’m explaining why I believe you,” he said soothingly. “It’s not as if I don’t approve of love; on the contrary,
I think it’s a splendid thing, and so does the Guild. Official policy; love is a benefit to the community at large, and should
be encouraged.” He chuckled. “They did a study once, did you know? They did a survey, and they found that happily married
men, and men who were either engaged or going steady, had a sixteen percent higher productivity rating, adjusted over time,
than bachelors and men who didn’t get on with their wives. So, you see, love is good for business as well as everything else.”

“That’s really interesting,” she said flatly.

“Isn’t it? Of course,” he went on, “that’s good news for the ordnance factory. When Ziani was foreman, productivity was excellent;
if the survey’s to be believed, presumably it’s because he loved his wife and was happy at home. Since he left and Falier
took over, productivity — measured in output per man-hour — has dropped by seven percent. But now Falier’s getting married
to someone who loves him very much, so with any luck we ought to be able to claw back that seven percent and who knows, maybe
even notch up an extra point or two. Coincidence, of course, that he’ll be marrying Ziani’s wife; but the view the committee
took is that if you made Ziani happy, it’s likely you’ll make Falier happy too. A proven track record, as you might say.”

She gave him a poisonous look, and said nothing. He drank the rest of his water. Siege warfare, he thought; the attacking
army lines up its siege engines, its catapults and mangonels and trebuchets and onagers, and lets fly a horrendous bombardment
against the city walls, until the air is thick with the dust from pounded masonry, but the walls are thick enough to shrug
it off. But the bombardment is just a decoy, because while it’s going on, the sappers are digging under the walls, laying
their camouflets, lighting their fires; and when the walls fail, it’s not the direct attack that’s done the trick, it’s the
undermining.

“Anyway,” he said, lifting his empty cup. “Here’s to love.” He mimed a sip and put the cup down. “Now, I think, it’s about
the right moment to go back to that big mystery I was talking about a while ago. Are you ready for it, do you think?”

She made a soft, disdainful noise in her throat.

“Splendid,” he said. “Here goes, then. I told you just now that the mice ate the records of the board’s decision on your pension
application. Well, it seems we’ve got quite a serious vermin problem down there in the vaults, because they aren’t the only
records that appear to have got all chewed up — assuming that’s what happened to them, of course. Another batch of papers
that seems to be very difficult to get hold of is the early part of the file on Ziani’s investigation; you know, the inquiries
that led to his arrest. The interesting stuff, not the bits they read out at the trial. The bits that’d tell me how they found
him out in the first place.”

He looked at her. Blank, sheer, closed, like a city wall.

“Well,” he went on, “I couldn’t get hold of the papers, but I thought, that’s all right, all I need to do is find the investigating
officers and ask them; simple as that. And here’s where it starts to get a little disturbing, because those officers seem
to have become confoundedly elusive. I wrote to them and got no answer; I wrote to their superiors, and all I got was an acknowledgment.
I got my superiors to write to their superiors, and they told me my inquiry had been noted and they’d see what they could
do about arranging interviews, but I waited and nothing happened. I went to the paymaster’s office and checked, just to make
sure the officers were still alive and in the service; no worries on that score, they’re still on the books and drawing their
pay. That set my mind at rest; I was worried they might have got lost down in the archives and eaten by the mice. But I still
haven’t been able to talk to them, or get a letter from them, or anything resembling answers to my questions. And then I thought
of you.”

“Me,” she repeated.

He shrugged. “It’s worth a try, I thought. Maybe you might know. You see,” he went on, “logically, there’re only a limited
number of ways that anybody could’ve found out about what Ziani was doing. He could have shown the doll to someone and told
them; or someone could have visited the house and seen the doll, or drawings and sketches; either that, or someone else must
have mentioned it — informed on him direct to the Guild, or told someone who did the actual informing. One of those three
possibilities, unless you remember different, or you can think of any other way. No? Fine.”

“It came as a complete shock,” she said. “They just turned up on the doorstep one day, said they were from the Guild, and
where was his workshop? Then they started measuring things with calipers and rules and stuff, and when Ziani came home, they
arrested him.”

Psellus nodded slowly. “That’s interesting,” he said. “Interesting, I mean, that they seemed to know what they were looking
for. Of course it’s all a bit technical — I can explain it for you if you like, or you can take my word for it — but the thing
is, the actual changes he made, the abominations; they weren’t the sort of thing you’d notice just by looking. You’d need
to measure everything very carefully, do all sorts of tests before you found them. You mentioned calipers and rules, by the
way; can you remember anything else they used? Any other kinds of equipment?”

“There could have been other things,” she said. “I wouldn’t know what they were. I don’t know about technical stuff.”

“Of course not. But they’d have needed resistance gauges — that means gadgets you use to measure the strength of a spring;
other tools like that. They’re quite bulky, not the sort of thing you can cart around in a pocket or a tool-roll. Were they
carrying heavy bags, or cases?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Ah well.” Psellus looked down at his hands for a moment. “Maybe we can get rid of the second alternative — if you remember,
that was someone, a visitor, catching sight of the doll while it was being made, and noticing something was wrong. I’d figured
out a perfectly plausible way it could’ve happened; a dinner guest wandering into the wrong room, or going to get a coat he’d
left. But this notional visitor would have to be someone who knew that particular specification intimately — rather narrows
the field, I’d say — and who just happened to have calipers and a resistance gauge handy at the time … And then I thought,
perhaps what he saw wasn’t the doll itself, but drawings and schematics, and he noticed the changes. But that’d still mean
he’d need to be an expert on the specification. No, I think we can sideline that possibility. In which case, we’re left with
the other two. Either Ziani told someone, or someone else knew what Ziani was up to and informed on him.” He looked up and
smiled brilliantly. “And, of course, both of those are impossible too. Aren’t they?”

She looked past him. “You’ve lost me,” she said.

“Really?” He raised his eyebrows. “It’s not exactly difficult to follow. Ziani wouldn’t have told anybody, because we agreed,
it’s not in his nature. And there can’t have been anybody else who told on him, because who else would’ve known about it?
Only someone who knew he was making the doll, and who knew he was including the abominations — someone he’d
told
about the changes he was planning on making. And, frankly, who could that possibly have been? Nobody.” He looked up, at a
spot on the ceiling directly above her head. “Well, you, possibly. Just conceivably he might have told you. But that makes
no sense, because why on earth would you betray him to disgrace and death? After all, you stood to lose everything. And,”
he added, “you loved him, of course. True love.”

“That’s right,” she said, quietly and icily. “I didn’t know, and if I’d known I wouldn’t have told.”

“Of course not,” Psellus said. “Of course you wouldn’t. But then who does that leave? No one at all. Except …” He rubbed the
bridge of his nose. “There’s Falier, of course. His direct subordinate at the factory, the man you’re about to marry. He’d
understand the technical stuff. I don’t suppose for one minute that he’d be carrying the mechanical doll specification around
in his head, but he’d know where to look it up. Even so; that still needs someone to have tipped him off, so he could go and
inform on Ziani to the Guild. And who could’ve done that? Someone who wanted to, and someone who knew about it. That rules
you out,” Psellus said, smiling, “on at least one count. So, now you understand why I’ve taken to thinking of this as the
big mystery. It’s not just big, it’s huge, don’t you think? Not that it’d matter a damn,” he went on, “if Ziani hadn’t managed
to escape from the Guildhall the way he did. Because, all said and done, it’s irrelevant exactly how he was found out. What
matters, in the end, is the fact that he did actually commit the crime. He was guilty. We know that, because he said so. No,
it’s only worth going over all this old stuff because Ziani’s still very much alive and on the loose. You know, don’t you,
that he betrayed Civitas Eremiae to us?”

(There, he thought; the camouflet sprung, the props burned out, the walls undermined.)

She looked at him for three heartbeats. “No,” she said, “I didn’t know that.”

“Perfectly true.” Psellus smiled. “Odd thing to do, don’t you think, given that he’d built the scorpions that slaughtered
our army. Because of him, in fact, we were that close to giving up and going away. Then, after causing us all that trouble,
he turns round and hands us the city. Would you care to suggest why he might’ve done that?”

“No idea.”

“Well.” Psellus ate the last of the biscuit, brushed crumbs off his chest. “He wrote a letter to a friend; the one man in
Mezentia he reckoned he could still trust. I’m surprised, actually, that you don’t know. I’d have thought Falier might have
told you.”

“What’s he got to do with it?”

“It was Falier he wrote to.”

She couldn’t stop her eyes widening; and it was like seeing a crack appearing in masonry. “He didn’t tell me, no. I suppose
he was ordered not to.”

“Oh, quite so. But still; when you’re as much in love as he is …” He shrugged. “But that fits in with what we know about Falier;
a very trustworthy man, reliable. Anyway, to go back to what we were saying. Why would Ziani have done such a thing, do you
think?”

“Didn’t he say why? In the letter?”

Psellus smiled. “As a matter of fact, he did. He said it was because he was filled with remorse and wanted to make things
right. Do you think that’s likely to be the real reason?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“It occurred to me,” Psellus went on, “that he was hoping we might forgive him, and let him come home. Of course, that would
be impossible.” She looked up when he said that. “Out of the question, naturally. First he creates a crisis, by arming the
enemy with scorpions; then he hopes to get his free pardon by solving it. No, we wouldn’t do business under those conditions.”
He paused, waited for a moment, then went on: “Actually, we would. In order to save face, after a disaster like the defeat
the Eremians inflicted on us — if he’d come to us with an offer like that, we’d have listened, for sure. I think we’d probably
have agreed. But he wasn’t to know that, of course; certainly, he’d have to be out of his mind to formulate a plan on the
assumption that we’d give in to him. And anyway, he didn’t even try to negotiate. He simply gave us the information, with
no conditions, no demands. Now
that,
” he said wearily, “is a puzzle. On its own, it’s enough to give you indigestion. Taken with the other puzzles …” He shrugged.
“There now,” he said. “Did you realize you’re married to such an enigmatic character?”

Something was bothering her; he hadn’t had her full attention for the last moment or so. “Would you really have let him come
home?” she said. “If he’d tried to do a deal?”

Psellus put on a serious face. “Hard to say,” he said. “If he’d been able to convince us beforehand that he could give us
a way into the city, then I’d have to say yes. Or at least, that’s what we’d have told him. I don’t think the Guilds believe
they’d be bound by a promise to a convicted abominator. But then,” he went on, “I’m not sure how he’d have got us to believe
he was sincere; we’d have assumed it was a trap of some sort, leading us into an ambush. It’s crossed our minds, of course,”
he continued, “that giving us Civitas Eremiae could’ve been by way of a free sample.” She looked up at him; now, apparently,
she was interested in what he had to say. Quite a change. “What I mean is,” he said, “he betrayed the city to us just to prove
that he could be trusted, so that next time —” He stopped, as though he’d shocked himself with the implications of what he
was saying. “So that,” he went on, “if he sent us another message like that on another occasion — offering us Civitas Vadanis,
say, but with conditions attached this time — we’d know that he meant it, and could deliver. Of course, that’d imply that
he thinks a very long way ahead, and has complete confidence in his own ability to manipulate people. A bit far-fetched, now
I come to think about it. Also, he’d have had to have some pretty surefire way out of Civitas Eremiae lined up before making
us the offer. Otherwise he’d be running a terrible risk of either being recognized and arrested when the city fell, or getting
himself killed in the wholesale massacre. Now, we know that he did in fact escape; but only because Duke Valens suddenly turned
up at the last minute. Did he know about that? I wonder. Had he actually booked himself a ride with the Vadani before he approached
us with the offer? No, impossible; because in order to do that, in order to tip Valens off to come to the rescue at precisely
the right time, he’d have had to make it clear to them that he knew exactly when the city was going to fall, and that’d have
made it obvious that he was the traitor. Even so,” he continued, after a pause for breath, “we’ve kept that option open by
not letting the Vadani know that it was Ziani who sold out the Eremians; just in case he’s got it in mind to hand them to
us on a plate as well. When I say
we,
” he added, “I mean my colleagues on the war commission. I voted to let Valens know straightaway, send him some hard evidence
to back the claim up, so he’d have Ziani arrested and strung up. But the rest of the commission disagreed, and …” He shook
his head. “By the way,” he added, “not a word about this to anybody. If Valens finds out what Ziani did and has him killed,
it’ll be obvious that there’s been an unauthorized disclosure, and since I voted against keeping it a secret …” He smiled.
“I’d make it a point of honor to see to it that my last official act before being thrown off the commission and charged with
treason would be having you arrested for complicity in Ziani’s crimes. A friendly warning. Understood?”