Evil for Evil (49 page)

Ziani breathed out long and slow. “You’ve tried, of course,” he said.

Daurenja laughed, like a dog barking. “I’ve tried all right,” he said. “I tried stone mortars, but they shatter like glass.
I tried casting a mortar shape, only in metal. I used brass first, then bronze, then iron. I think the problem is something
to do with the way the metal cools down.” His words were coming out in a rush now, a fast, smooth flow like lava. “Because
it’s got to be thick, to contain the force, I think that by the time the metal on the outside has taken the cold, the inside’s
still hot, and this causes little flaws and fractures; either that, or there’s air bubbles, I don’t know. All I do know is
that I’ve tried everything, and every time it either cracks or shatters. I’ve lost count of how many times it’s nearly killed
me. In the end, I reached the point where I couldn’t think what to do next. Everything I know about casting in metal, everything
I could find out, none of it was any good. I tried casting a solid trunk and boring out a hole in the middle; I built a lathe
ten feet long, with a three-inch cutting bar. Still no good. I nearly gave up.”

He looked away. It was as though he’d just said,
I died.

“And then you heard of me,” Ziani said.

“
Yes.
” Suddenly Daurenja stood up; and Ziani wondered what on earth had possessed him to attack this man, because he was as full
of strength and speed and anger as a wolf or a boar. “I heard about you: a Mezentine, foreman of the ordnance factory — if
anybody knew how to do it, you would. It was like a miracle, like something out of a story, when the gods came down from heaven.
I knew I had to have you.” He stopped. “I knew I had to have you help me, because the Mezentines do the most amazing castings,
great big bells and statues, the frames of machines; you’ve got ways of blowing a furnace so you can pour iron as easy as
bronze. I’d even thought of going to the Guilds myself, except I knew they’d take it away from me and make it their own, and
I can’t have that. But I can trust you; you’re an outsider too, like me, you’ve been thrown out of your home and persecuted.”

(He didn’t say,
Just like I was;
he didn’t have to.)

“I’m sorry,” he went on — Ziani could see the effort that went into calming himself down. “I thought, first I’d prove to you
that I’m not just some lunatic who thinks he’s figured out how to do magic. I’d prove that I’m what I say I am, an engineer,
a craftsman, so you’d take me seriously. I heard all about what you did in the defense of Civitas Eremiae; how you built the
scorpions, practically from nothing. I knew you’d need an assistant, someone you could rely on — an apprentice, really. And
then, when we’d come to know and trust one another …”

Ziani looked at him. For a moment, he was afraid that it would be like looking into a mirror.

“I know,” Daurenja went on. “I’m good with brass and iron, but I’ve never got the hang of dealing with people. I never seem
to be able to make them understand me, and then problems develop. I suppose it’s been the same with you, and these people
here. I thought when I saved that woman, during the hunt, when the Mezentines attacked … It seemed like such a wonderful opportunity,
to get the Duke on my side; and then, when we need to ask him for help — money and materials; and he’s got a war to fight,
it couldn’t be better from that point of view. I don’t know; if I’d told you earlier, maybe. But I wanted to make sure.”

Ziani was quiet for a long time. He knew Daurenja was hiding something, and that no amount of violence or manipulation would
get it out of him; the question was whether it was important, or whether it was just slag on the top of the melt. He wondered
too about the serendipity of it all. To crack open cities like walnuts; he already knew how to do that, even if this strange
and unpleasant man could show him a more efficient way. He was a refinement, an improvement, but an unnecessary one — a departure
from Specification, and in orthodox doctrine, wasn’t an unnecessary improvement inevitably an abomination?

On the other hand, he needed a good foreman.

“Casting’s not the answer,” he said eventually. “All castings are brittle, you’ll never get round that.” In the corner of
the shop, he caught sight of the slack-tub; just an old stave barrel, half full of black, oily water. “You don’t want a mortar,”
he said, “or a bell. You want a barrel.”

“It was a success, I grant you,” Boioannes was saying, in that loud, carrying voice of his. “Twenty-seven confirmed dead,
including the Chancellor. I concede that it was well planned and efficiently executed. What I’m asking, however, is whether
it was a good idea or a bad one.”

The meeting had already overrun by an hour. By the look of it, someone else had booked the cloister garden for a meeting or
a reception; Psellus had seen a man’s head bobbing round a pillar with a look of desperate impatience on his face — the establishments
clerk, probably, too timid to dare interrupt Necessary Evil, but petrified that he’d be blamed for double-booking. The Republic’s
bureaucracy ran on the principle of symmetry; for every blunder, one responsible official. He sympathized, but found it hard
to spare much compassion for someone else. Never wise to be too liberal with a scarce commodity you may well need for yourself.

“In order to assess success or failure,” Boioannes went on, “it’s always helpful to know what the object of the exercise actually
was. Fortuitous incidental benefits are all very well, but it’s my experience that every time you stoop to pick up a quarter
in the street, a thaler falls out of your pocket. Bearing in mind what we stand to lose by this action, I feel we have a right
to know what the precise objective was. If the intention was to assassinate Duke Valens, for example, we failed.”

“That wasn’t the primary target,” someone said; Psellus couldn’t see who, because Steuthes, the loaf-headed director of resources,
was blocking his view. “The purpose of the mission was to kill the abominator, Vaatzes.”

Boioannes hesitated, just for a moment. It was like watching a waterfall freeze for a split second. “Now we’re getting somewhere,”
he went on. “And did we get him?”

“The reports are inconclusive.” Whoever the speaker was, he didn’t sound in the least intimidated by the full force of Boioannes’
personality. Probably he could juggle white-hot ingots with his bare hands, too. “We’re investigating, naturally, but our
lines of communication are necessarily quite fragile, it doesn’t do to push too hard. As soon as we get an answer, I promise
you’ll be the first to know.”

Psellus frowned. He knew for a fact that that hadn’t been the reason for the cavalry raid, because he’d been told about it,
well in advance. It was inconceivable that he knew something Maris Boioannes didn’t. And if he did, then why? The answer to
that, he was sure, wouldn’t be anything good.

“In any event,” the hidden speaker continued, “as you said yourself just now, the exercise has fully justified the expenditure
of resources. Just as we’re about to launch a major offensive, the Vadani are confused, terrified, practically leaderless.
They know we can strike them at will, in the very heart of their territory. They know that they have no friends. Thanks to
their own acts of sabotage, they’ve lost their principal source of funding. The fact is, we’re poised to win a victory that
will end this war, quickly, cheaply, ostentatiously. Caviling over details is a pretty sterile exercise, in the circumstances.”

Smelling politics, Psellus allowed his attention to drift. Had they really managed to kill Ziani Vaatzes? He doubted it, somehow.
Something told him that if Vaatzes was dead, he’d have felt it by now. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking; because, he
realized, he didn’t want Vaatzes to die in a distant country, with all the answers to all the questions locked inside his
head. The thought made him want to smile, though long practice froze the muscles of his face. Here in the middle of the great
affairs of the Republic — war, peace, increased prosperity or ruinous expense — all he was concerned about was scratching
his own intellectual itches; and all because he was superfluous, a makeweight in Necessary Evil of whom nothing was demanded
or expected. If I dropped dead tomorrow, he thought, it wouldn’t make any difference to anybody. Which, in a very real sense,
is true freedom.

“Assuming Vaatzes is still alive …” The phrase snagged his attention like a fisherman’s lure, but he was too late to catch
the rest of the sentence. Someone else’s voice, but nobody he knew. Nearly a year now as a member of this committee, and still
he only knew a handful of the members by sight. Each time he attended a meeting, most of the people were strangers.

“It’s quite true to say that Vaatzes was the cause of the war,” yet another unknown voice was saying; Psellus managed to locate
its source, an improbably old man with thin, wispy white hair. “To say that he is still the reason for it, or even a significant
factor, would be hopelessly oversimplistic. The war has moved on, as all living, growing things do. What’s it about now? Well,
the answer to that is: many things. It’s about regaining the prestige and respect we squandered when our forces were slaughtered
at Civitas Eremiae. It’s about the silver deposits in Vadani territory; it’s about finding some sort of exit from the miserable,
draining occupation of Eremia; it’s about the delicate balance between outgoings from Consolidated Fund and increased income
for the Foundrymen and the other Guilds engaged in war work, as against those struggling to maintain productivity and output
in general commerce. I put it to you that the main effect of this war is to exalt the Foundrymen at the expense of all the
other Guilds, regardless of the overall effect on the well-being of the Republic; and unless this short-sighted, selfish agenda
is abandoned at the earliest possible …”

More politics. It was almost disconcerting to listen to so much truth presented with so little conviction. Extraordinary,
when you stopped to think about it. All these people knew the truth about the war; but, instead of trying to find some way
to reverse or at least mitigate the disaster, they were cheerfully serving it, like keepers put in charge of some captive
wild animal. There were good reasons for that, of course. To abandon the war, or even suggest that it should be abandoned,
would be political suicide —because everybody in politics had to maintain at all costs the notion that the Republic was invincible,
its resources inexhaustible, its doctrines irreproachable, even though they all knew (everybody knew) that none of these was
true. It was a bit like the doctrine of Specification itself; the denial of any possibility of improvement, even though everybody
knew that any design, however good, can always be bettered; even though the Guilds themselves made an explicit exception where
armaments were concerned. What a wonderful magic politics is, Psellus thought; it can recognize the truth and still override
it, providing you can get consensus among the people who matter.

Lofty stuff; way above his head. Instead, he went back to thinking about Falier, the foreman of the ordnance factory. The
new foreman; except that he wasn’t all that new anymore. By now, he’d be married to Vaatzes’ wife. Would it advance the war
effort, he wondered, to write to Ziani and let him know? By all accounts, by the evidence of the homemade book, Vaatzes had
loved her very much. They had so few weapons that could reach him; love was one they hadn’t tried yet, but it would be relatively
easy, relatively cheap. Why send a squadron of cavalry if you can send a letter instead? For a moment, he pictured a tightly
folded square of parchment being loaded onto the slider of a scorpion and aimed at the walls of Civitas Vadanis.

Careful; he’d almost allowed himself to smile.

“Councillor Psellus.” Nightmare: someone was talking to him, and he hadn’t been listening.

“I’m sorry,” he said, jerking his head up and looking round. “Could you repeat that, please?”

It was Boioannes, and he was smiling. Nobody else he knew had ever reminded him more forcefully that the smile is fundamentally
a baring of teeth. “I hadn’t actually asked you anything yet,” Boioannes said. “I can say it and then repeat it, if that would
help.”

Psellus bowed his head like a submissive dog.

“We were wondering,” Boioannes went on. “You’re our resident expert on Ziani Vaatzes; you’ve made quite a study of him, I
believe.”

“That’s right, yes.”

“Your diligence is noted. Such attention to detail; for example, your repeated visits to his wife.” Short pause, to allow
time fordutiful snickering. “I trust your examinations there have been productive.”

Psellus looked straight ahead, eyes fixed on a chip on the edge of the ornamental fountain. “I do believe I’ve made some progress,
yes. However, I’ve run into some unexpected obstacles, which you might be able to help me with, since you’ve raised the subject.
For instance, the prosecutor —”

“Write to me,” Boioannes snapped; unusual flare of petulance, almost a minor victory. “To return to the topic we’re currently
discussing. Do you believe that Vaatzes would be prepared to negotiate for a free pardon, in return for helping us?”

The things I miss by not paying attention, Psellus thought bitterly. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think it would depend on
what guarantees we’re able to offer.”

Someone laughed. “Obviously, nothing substantial,”Boioannes replied, “since we naturally have no intention of honoring them.
However; we must consider the fact that Vaatzes has already helped us, unasked, requesting no reward; presumably he’s given
us this help as an earnest of good faith, to persuade us to open negotiations. The implication must be that he is prepared
to trust us, under certain circumstances and conditions. If we can use him, he could potentially be of service to us. Do you
agree?”

Psellus nodded.

“Excellent.” Boioannes beamed; all those strong white teeth simultaneously. “In that case, who better to conduct the negotiations
than yourself? Assuming the committee agrees …”