Evil for Evil (80 page)

He ignored her, drew the hanger from the wound and placed its tip delicately in the dead man’s ear. There would be a crunching
sound as he put his weight on it.

She was pulling at him again; reluctantly, he allowed himself to be dragged to his feet. He left the hanger and stumbled after
her, clumsy as a drunk.

She didn’t say anything to him until sunrise, by which time they’d been trudging uphill for hours. He’d quickly lost track
of time. In his mind, over and over again, he was running through the killing of the sentry (the rock, the hanger, the two
penetrations; the sounds, the feel. They were moments that he was comfortable living in; they nourished him, like supplies
sensibly rationed, and he savored them).

“Where are we?” she said.

Good point. He stopped and looked round to get his bearings.

Easy enough. There was Sharra, too far away for them to see smoke rising from the chimneys of the Unswerving Loyalty, but
he knew it was there, just below the horizon on the other side. Falling away from it, the long combe in which Framain’s house
lay hidden like an embarrassing secret. He considered the merit of heading for it; they might just get there before collapsing
from hunger and fatigue, or they might not. There’d be water and shelter there, but probably no food — had the Mezentines
set fire to the place when they rounded them up? He couldn’t remember that far back. “I know where we are,” he said.

She nodded. He looked at her, properly, for the first time. She was dirty, ragged, painfully thin; there was caked blood on
her forehead and in her fringe, probably from one of those scalp wounds that bleed like a fountain. “All right,” she said,
“which way?”

That was just a little more than he could take. He sat down awkwardly on the rocks and burst out laughing. When she began
swearing at him, he explained (quite patiently, he thought, in the circumstances) that there wasn’t a way, because there was
nowhere for them to go.

It was, ran the general consensus, one mystery too many. Why the Ducas, magnanimously reprieved by special order of the Duke
himself (the messenger had been questioned and had vowed repeatedly that he’d delivered the reprieve to the Ducas personally),
had seen fit to break out of the stockade, murdering a sentry in the process, nobody could say for sure. It stood to reason,
however, that it must be something to do with the treason for which he had originally been condemned. It was remembered that,
on the fall of Civitas Eremiae, he hadn’t immediately joined his duke in exile, as was his duty, but had used the resistance
as an excuse to stay away, safely out of the reach of justice. It could hardly be a coincidence that he had shown up immediately
after the failed Mezentine attack, particularly since, by his own admission, he’d been with the Mezentine garrison at Sharra
shortly before the raid took place. There was also the bizarre way in which he’d tried to have Daurenja, the savior of the
rear echelon, arrested and condemned for some mysterious crime he was supposed to have committed years earlier. Duke Orsea’s
refusal to comment was simply aristocratic rank-closing. It did him credit, to a degree, that he was prepared to cover up
for his friend, even though that friend had already betrayed him at least once (and wasn’t there supposed to be something
going on between the Ducas and Orsea’s wife? Some business with a letter); in the circumstances, however, his attitude came
across as a stubborn attempt to obstruct Valens’ quite legitimate inquiries, and won Orsea no friends among the Vadani. The
details were irrelevant, in any case. The Ducas had murdered a Vadani soldier in cold blood. Complex issues of jurisdiction
no longer mattered. He was a criminal in the eyes of Vadani law, and would pay the penalty if and when he was caught — though
that seemed unlikely if, as was generally believed, he’d returned to the safety of his Mezentine friends at Sharra. Meanwhile,
the Vadani had other, more pressing concerns, and delaying the march on account of one fugitive renegade was, naturally, out
of the question.

Four days after the change of course, he found the courage to talk to her.

They’d stopped for the night in a little combe, not much more than a dent in the hillside. He assumed it had been chosen because
of the stand of tall, spindly birch trees, which masked them from sight. It was a dark, cold place; he was sure nothing lived
there. She had climbed down from the coach, pleading cramp after a long day. Of course, they couldn’t have a fire, for fear
that the smoke would give away their position. She was sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, squinting at her embroidery
in the thin red light of sunset.

“Are you still doing that?” he asked.

She looked up. “Of course,” she said. “It’s nearly finished. I’ve put so much work into it, I couldn’t bear the thought of
leaving it behind.”

He looked at it: a baldrick, the sort you hang a hunting horn from. A goshawk and a heron; the hawking livery of the Orseoli.
She was making it for him, of course.

“It’s very good,” he said awkwardly. “Can I see?”

She held it up. “You’ve seen it before,” she said. “I’ve been working on it for three months.”

Implication: he should’ve recognized it. But one piece of cloth with patterns stitched on it looked very much like all the
others; apart from their wedding day, he couldn’t remember seeing her without some rag or other on her knees. It was, after
all, what women did.

“Of course,” he said, “I remember it now. It’s coming on really well.”

She sighed. “I’ve run out of green silk,” she said. “So I can’t finish the background — here, look, the patch of reeds the
heron’s supposed to be flying up out of. I’ve got some other green, but it’s the wrong shade.”

He frowned. “Couldn’t you turn that bit into a bush or something?”

“I suppose so. But then it wouldn’t look right.”

“I won’t mind.”

She looked up at him, and he realized she wasn’t making it for him. He was the pretext, at best; she had to embroider, and
decency required that the fruit of her needle should be some useful object for her husband. Now, because of the Mezentines
and the war, she couldn’t finish the work, and it wouldn’t be fitting for her to start something new until the baldrick was
completed.Accordingly, here she sat, the workbasket on her knees, the baldrick spread out, but no needle in her hand; like
a cow in a crush, waiting patiently because it had nowhere it could go.

“It’d look wrong,” she said. “I’d have to put something else in the opposite corner to balance it, and that’d mean unpicking
what’s there already. Besides, I haven’t got enough brown left.”

He wanted to say: so fucking what? I’ll never go hunting again, so I’ll never use it. Put the stupid thing away and talk to
me instead. What he said was, “Perhaps we’ll run into one of those merchant women on the road. They sell embroidery silks.
I remember, we met one a few days ago.” (No; longer ago than that. But each day seemed to fuse with the others, like a good
fire-weld.) “If I’d known, I could have asked her.”

She shrugged. “I don’t suppose she’d have had the right green,” she said. “It’s not a particularly common one. I got what
I’ve been using from that woman who used to call at the palace, back in Civitas Eremiae. I don’t know what the chances are
of running into her again.”

Orsea couldn’t think of anything safe to say. He knew the merchant she was talking about. She must’ve been the one who delivered
the letters — the letters Valens had written her, and her replies. Presumably the price of her couriership had been substantial
sales of overpriced haberdashery. But there wouldn’t be any more letters, just as there’d be no more cold, bright autumn days
after partridges with the falcons. It occurred to him that everything he’d known all his life was gone forever, apart from
her; and the irony was, he didn’t know her at all.

In which case, he might as well say it.

“I need to talk to you,” he said.

“Talk away.” She sighed, turned the embroidery over and took a small blue-bladed knife with an ivory handle out of her basket.
“You know, I think I will unpick this corner after all. I’ve still got plenty of light blue and white. I could do the sky
reflected in a pool or something.”

She was nicking the tiny loops of the stitches, like a giant cutting the throats of dwarves.

“I need to ask you …” He stopped. He’d never been particularly good with words anyway. Ideas that were sharp and clear in
his mind disintegrated like sodden paper when he tried to express them. The only person he’d ever really been able to talk
to was Miel Ducas.

“Sorry,” she said, “I missed that. What did you want to speak to me about?”

“I need to know, Veatriz,” he said, and stopped again. It sounded too pompous and melodramatic for words. “You and Valens.
The letters.”

She looked at him so blankly that for a moment it crossed his mind that the whole thing was a mistake; he’d completely misunderstood,
and there never were any letters. “What about them?” she asked.

“Are you in love with him?”

“No.” She was concentrating on the tip of the knife; a small, dainty thing, presumably Mezentine.

“Then why did you write to him?”

She shrugged. It wasn’t an answer. He waited, but she didn’t say anything.

“Can’t you see how it looked?” he said. “You must have realized.”

“I suppose so,” she said, and between them there was a wall of iron, like the defenses bolted to the sides of the carts.

“Then why did you do it?”

“Does it matter anymore?” She lifted her head and looked at him.

“Do you still love me?”

“Yes,” she said. “Do you still love me?”

“Yes, of course I do.” He said the words like a mother answering a child’s annoying question.

“Well, then.” She sighed. “What do you think’s happened to Miel?”

“Don’t change the subject,” he said, but he knew she hadn’t done any such thing. That Miel Ducas should have taken away their
sins, like some sacrificial animal, was somehow inevitable: the Ducas lives only to serve the state, and the state is the
Duke. That, at least, had never been more true. Orsea had seen to that. He was all that was left of Eremia now; an irrelevant
survival. Once, years ago, someone digging in the palace grounds had unearthed a big, crude-looking gold cup. He’d brought
it, quite properly, to the Duke, who’d rewarded him suitably with twice its value by weight. Orsea could remember sitting
holding it: an ugly thing, badly made, bent and slightly crumpled, valuable only as a curiosity, and because of the material
it was made from. Presumably it was very old, made by someone who’d lived there a long time ago, for a rich patron whose name
had been forgotten centuries before. There had been a city, with a ruler who employed craftsmen; probably he had a suitable
household, faithful courtiers who lived only to serve, a code of honor. Presumably he’d tried to be a good duke, always do
the right thing. Inevitably, he would have made mistakes. Now, all that was left of all that was one awkward, stupid-looking
gold thing, precious only because of the universal convention by which gold is valuable. If the duke who commissioned the
cup had had a wife who loved him once, that was irrelevant now as well. Orsea had given orders for the cup to be put in a
safe place where he wouldn’t have to look at it. He imagined the Mezentines had it now, or the fire had melted it.

The cup had survived, but that wasn’t enough. So with love; even if it survives, it’s not enough, shorn of context.

“I do love you,” she said. An accusation; a reproach. He believed her. If he hadn’t; if she’d said she loved Valens, he’d
have given her up without a moment’s hesitation (because he loved her; it would’ve been the right thing to do). He’d been
prepared for that, even hoping for it, as a condemned man looks forward to execution as a final end to his misery. No such
luck. Love still held them in their places, like the traces that bind the donkey to the treadmill. Love is duty. Miel Ducas
could have confirmed that, if only he’d still been there.

As it was; she could say that to him, and all it did was brace the iron plate between them, tighter than Daurenja’s three-quarter
bolts. The fact was that he didn’t deserve her. Valens, swooping down with his cavalry into the ruins of Civitas Eremiae,
had snatched her away to safety, like the hawk striking the heron, and it was wrong, against nature, to deny the supremacy
of the stronger, the absolute right of conquest. Keeping her (being allowed to keep her) was therefore an abomination; his
fault and hers, for which they must inevitably pay a price.

I could explain all this so clearly, Orsea thought, if there was anybody in the world I could talk to.

“I love you too,” he said, casually as a sleepy monk making his responses in the middle of the night. “I’m sorry I mentioned
—”

“It’s all right,” she said. “Just, don’t talk about it again. It’s all my fault, all of this.”

No, he couldn’t have that. “Oh, right,” he said. “It’s your fault we’re both here, alive, instead of being killed when they
took the city. Well, that’s what would’ve happened, if Valens hadn’t rescued us, because of the letters.” He smiled, cold
as breath condensing on steel. “I really wish there was some way I could thank him, given I owe him my life, but I can’t;
how could I? You know what? I should’ve stayed in the city and been killed; I’d have been out of the way then. You and Valens
—”

“Please don’t.” She was right, of course. Just melodrama, a big speech, with no audience. Even a duke can’t make speeches
if there’s nobody left to listen to them. “I’m sorry,” he said, and pulled a face that was almost comic in its intensity.
“I shouldn’t —”

He stopped short; someone was coming. An officer and two soldiers, walking briskly, on their way somewhere, with important
business to see to. He stepped aside to let them go past, but they stopped. Apparently they had something to say to him.

“Duke Orsea.” A statement rather than an inquiry.

“That’s right.”

“My name is Major Nennius. I have to tell you that you’re under arrest.”