Evil for Evil (76 page)

“You’re wrong,” she said. “It’s from the seventh Eclogue, and the line is
the world well lost for her sake.
Your version couldn’t possibly be right, it wouldn’t scan. Whatever you think about Pasier’s heroes and heroines, his scansion’s
always impeccable.”

He scowled. “Agreed. He obeys all the rules. I think that’s why he’s a bit dull for my liking. He always does the right thing;
makes him sort of predictable. Same with his characters; they always do the right thing. It means you can always figure out
well in advance what’s going to happen in the end. They always die horribly, but with their honor intact, leaving the world
a better place. Which is pretty much true to life, if you think about it. I mean, the world can’t help but be a better place
if there’s one less dick-headed idealist cluttering it up.”

She took a deep breath. “I know I haven’t said this before,” she said, “but what you did — saving Orsea and me when the city
fell — it was the most wonderful —”

“Mistake,” he interrupted. “Stupidest thing I ever did. It was a Pasier moment; exactly the sort of thing one of his boneheads
in shining armor would’ve done. Probably, subconsciously, that’s what I was thinking of when I made the decision. Self-image,
I think that’s the expression I’m looking for. I got this mental picture of myself as a romance hero, and it appealed to me.
The world well lost for love. No, I should’ve stayed at home and read a good book.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No. I didn’t have that option. And if I could’ve foreseen what was going to happen … If I’d had a vision of this moment,
so I could’ve seen exactly what a complete and utter fuck-up I was going to make, with dead civilians heaped up like cords
for the winter log-pile and basically no chance at all of getting out of this in one piece, I’d still have done it. I’d do
it again tomorrow.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Would you care to hazard a guess why? And you sit there, cold as last
night’s roast mutton, and tell me you love Orsea, final, nonnegotiable.”

“I do.”

“Well, fine.” Valens jumped up and turned his back on her. “That’s your privilege. I take it you’re like me, don’t suffer
fools gladly. And since we’re both agreed that I’m the biggest idiot still living, I quite understand your choice. Orsea may
be a clown and a source of trouble and sorrow for everybody in the known world, but he’s a harmless genius compared to me.
You haven’t got a spare copy of Pasier with you, by any chance? I feel in the mood for reading him again, but I left my copy
back in the city, along with everything else I used to own.”

“I’m sorry.” He couldn’t see the expression on her face, and her tone of voice was flat, almost dead. “You were the only real
friend I ever had. I used to live for your letters. I think you’re the only person I’ve ever known who’s tried to understand
me.”

“But you love Orsea.”

“Yes.”

“There you are, then. Tell you what, why not get him to write to you?
Dear Veatriz: how are you? The weather has been nice again today, though tomorrow it might rain.
He could probably manage that, if he stuck at it for a while.”

“I really am very sorry,” she said, and, for the first time since his father died, Valens allowed himself to admit defeat;
to recognize it, as if it was some foreign government whose existence he could no longer credibly ignore. “It’s all right,”
he said. “Funny, really. I used to think you brought out the best in me, and now it turns out you have the opposite effect.
Shows how much I really know you. After all, it’s different in letters: you can be who you wish you were, instead of who you
actually are.”

“That’s not true,” she said. “I know who you really are. It’s — well, it’s a waste, really.”

“Did you know my wife’s dead?” he asked suddenly, almost spitting the information out. “The Mezentines killed her. I really
wish I could feel heartbroken about it, or sorry, or even angry. Instead — you know how I feel? Like when I was a kid, and
my father had arranged a big hunt, and then it pissed down with rain and we couldn’t go out. But when he died, I felt so bad
about that. He loved it so much, and I hated it. I started going out with the hounds again to punish myself, I guess. Now,
when I go out, it’s the only time I feel at peace with myself. Even reading your letters never made me feel that way. You
know what I used to do? As soon as I got a letter from you, I’d cancel all my appointments, I’d read it over and over again
— taking notes, for crying out loud — and then I’d spend a whole day, two or three sometimes, writing the reply. You can’t
begin to imagine how hard I worked, how I
concentrated;
there’d be books heaped up everywhere so I could chase up obscure facts and apposite quotations. First I’d write a general
outline, in note form, with headings; then a separate sheet of paper for each heading, little diagrams to help me figure out
the structure. Then I’d copy out a first draft, leaving plenty of space between the lines so I could write bits in over the
top; then a second and third draft, often a fourth. If I’d have worked a tenth as hard on politics, I’d have conquered the
Mezentines by now and be getting ready to invade the Cure Hardy.” He laughed. “Bet you thought I just scribbled down the first
thing that came into my head. I wrote them so that’s what you’d think — like we were talking, and everything came spontaneously
from my vast erudition and sparkling, quicksilver mind. I spent a whole day on one sentence once. I couldn’t decide whether
it’d sound more natural and impromptu if the relative clause came at the beginning or the end. Actually, it was a bloody masterpiece
of precision engineering, though I do say so myself. And the irony is, you never realized. If you’d realized, it’d have meant
I’d failed.”

He stopped talking and turned round sharply; he’d heard the tent flap rustle. A sergeant was hovering in the doorway, looking
worried and trying to apologize for interrupting.

“It’s all right,” she said, “I was just going.”

He couldn’t bear to see her go, so he looked down at the ground until he saw her shadow pass out into the light and break
up. Then he turned on the sergeant like a boar rounding on the pack.

“What the fuck do you want?” he said.

The sergeant looked terrified. “It’s Vaatzes, sir,” he said. “That Mezentine. He’s come back.”

Until he left the city, Ziani had never thought much about food. Like all Mezentines, he’d taken it for granted. He’d had
a vague idea that vegetables somehow came up out of the ground, and meat was the bodies of dead animals; anyhow, it was crude,
primitive and mildly distasteful, and he really wasn’t interested. The Republic’s attitude to eating was that it was just
another bodily function, to be performed as quickly and efficiently as possible, in private. A long time ago there had been
grain mills in the city, but now their races and wheels were more profitably employed powering the driveshafts of machine
shops. Mezentia bought its flour from the savages ready-ground and handed it over to the Bakers’ Guild, to be converted into
manufactured wares as swiftly as possible. The bakers produced three types of loaf (small, medium, large); each loaf identical
to others in its category, its weight and dimensions strictly in accordance with the prescribed specification.

Because nobody in the city ever went hungry, it was hard for Ziani to grasp the idea of there being no food; a whole population
with nothing to eat. It was impossible, because in the city the bakers had a carefully agreed rota system that governed their
opening hours, making sure there was always a bakery open for business at any hour of the day or night. Trust the savages
to be different. Their food came from farms; it traveled from the farms to markets — big open spaces crammed with heaps and
bins of raw, untreated,inchoate food, which people bought and took away to process themselves. And that was when the system
was functioning perfectly. When something went wrong — in a war, for example — even that pathetic excuse for organization
broke down, and there was a very real danger of people not having anything to eat. Extraordinary, but that’s how some people
manage to live; like cottages perched on the rim of a volcano.

Not that he objected; quite the reverse, since it had given him the opportunity to make a hero’s entrance when he arrived
in Valens’ camp at the head of a short column of carts laden with flour, root vegetables, salted and preserved meat, cheese
and a load of other stuff he didn’t even recognize, but which the general manager of the miners’ camp at Boatta assured him
was both edible and wholesome.

The food had actually been an afterthought, a by-product of his detour to Boatta, which in turn had been nothing but camouflage,
to explain away his long absence. The fact that it meant that everybody in Valens’ column was pleased to see him was an unexpected
but very welcome bonus.

“Before we left, we thought it’d be a good idea to empty out the stores and bring the stuff on with us,” he explained truthfully.
“To stop the Mezentines getting hold of it, as much as anything. It was only when the manager went through the inventory that
we realized just how much food they’d got stockpiled there. My guess is that there was a standing order for so much flour
and whatever each month, which was more than the miners needed, but nobody ever thought to reduce the amount; so the unused
supplies were just squirreled away in the stores.”

Valens shrugged. “Three cheers for inefficiency and waste, in that case,” he said. “They’ve just saved all our lives.”

They were unloading the flour barrels, rolling them down improvised ramps from the tailgates of the miners’ carts. Crowds
of civilians were watching, with the wary but rapt attention of dogs watching their owners eat. It’s just flour, Ziani thought;
even if they’re starving hungry, it’s just an inert white powder with no moving parts.

“Nobody told me what you were doing,” Valens was saying, “or where you’d got to. I don’t remember telling you to go and bring
in the miners from Boatta.”

“Don’t you?” Ziani looked at him blankly. “I thought we discussed it; or maybe it was Carausius who gave me the order, I can’t
remember offhand. Anyway, it seemed logical enough; I had to go over there anyway to make sure they’d made a proper job of
sabotaging the silver workings, so while I was there, why not get the evacuation organized at the same time? I’m just glad
it worked out so well.”

Valens nodded. “It’s just as well you were able to find us,” he said pleasantly. “I hadn’t actually decided on the itinerary
when we left the city, so you can’t have known we were headed this way. I hate to think what might have happened if you’d
missed us.”

“Oh.” Ziani raised his eyebrows. “I’m surprised to hear you say that. I knew you’d be on this road, because the first supply
dump’s at Choris Andrope — you showed me the list of depots, or I saw it somewhere, and I knew you’d be following the mountain
roads, but obviously keeping as much distance as you could between yourself and the Eremian border. So, this was the only
possible road you could’ve taken.”

“I see,” Valens said. “You figured it out from first principles.”

“Well, it’s hardly applied trigonometry.” Ziani shrugged. “Besides, we were able to confirm your position when we picked up
a couple of Mezentine stragglers on the way. Which reminds me,” he added, looking away for a moment, “there’s something I
need to talk to you about, when you can spare a moment.”

“Now?”

“It’ll keep,” Ziani replied, slightly awkwardly. “It’s a delicate matter for discussing in the open like this.”

“That sounds a bit dramatic.”

“Does it? I’m sorry. Oh, I nearly forgot. I gather you had some trouble with some of the carts, but Daurenja managed a temporary
fix. I’d better have a word with him about that. Do you happen to know where he is?”

Before he went looking for Daurenja, Ziani returned to the cart he’d ridden in on and opened the lid of the link box. Inside
was a weatherbeaten canvas satchel. He looped the strap round his neck and shut the lid.

Daurenja was where Valens had said he’d be. They’d set up a makeshift forge, and half a dozen smiths were beating nails out
of scraps of cart-armor offcut; Daurenja was drilling holes in a rectangular piece, to make up a heading plate. The drill-bit
was getting hot and binding, so he paused every now and then to spit into the hole. Ziani waited until he’d finished before
interrupting.

“You’re back.” Daurenja seemed overjoyed to see him. “Nobody knew where you were, I was worried.”

“Never mind about me. Where were you?”

Daurenja frowned. “Absent without leave, I’m sorry to say. There was a bit of private business I wanted to clear up; I thought
it’d only take a day, at most, and it was pretty urgent, it wouldn’t wait. You’ve probably heard, I jeopardized the whole
column by not being on hand when I was needed. I’m sorry: error of judgment on my part.”

Ziani grinned. “I heard about it,” he said. “And I gather Miel Ducas is under guard somewhere as a result. Is that right?”

Daurenja nodded. “Not that I’m worried, he won’t do anything while I’m —”

“That’s not the point.” Ziani scowled. “I’m just anxious not to run into him unexpectedly, that’s all. He and I don’t get
on.”

“I see. Well, you’re all right for the moment.” Daurenja smiled. “They brought in a bunch of the scavengers; you know, the
gang that’s been stripping all the dead bodies. Apparently he knows one of them, I’m not sure of the details. Anyhow, he’s
in with them at the moment, so he’ll be out of your way and mine for a while.” He wrinkled his forehead. “I didn’t know you
and —”

“Nothing to do with you. What’s all this about the plate mountings on the small carts?”

When he’d finished with Daurenja, he wandered about for a while until he was fairly sure he wouldn’t be interrupted, then
found an empty cart on the edge of the camp. There he opened his satchel and took out a dog-eared, much-folded piece of parchment.
It was a map. He looked at it for a while, then took a pair of dog-leg calipers from his pocket and measured some distances,
muttering calculations under his breath. When he’d finished, he folded the map carefully and put it away again before climbing
down out of the cart.