Evil for Evil (26 page)

She frowned, and the boring man sitting next to her must've wondered what he'd said wrong. All very unfair, of course. Probably she was a very nice person, if you got to know her. Someone had told her (she could never remember people's names at these stupid receptions) that she'd been carrying that big hawk when they first arrived. How much would a bird like that weigh? You'd need forearms like a farrier to support that much weight. No; cousin Jarnac had told her once (at just such a reception, sitting next to her and being boring when she really didn't want to listen) that hawks were surprisingly light, something to do with aerodynamics and hollow bones. She'd had to carry hawks herself, of course, on formal days, but she hadn't really noticed how heavy they were. She'd been too busy worrying about whether they were going to huff their wings unexpectedly in her face or bite her. All politics, of course. They'd dressed her in the hawk, just as they'd dressed her in the red outfit, and the polite conversation and the musical appreciation and the civil and mercantile law, until she was practically an artifact rather than a human being; a mechanical toy, like the clockwork dolls the Mezentines make, but instead of a spring to make her go, deep inside there was a little sharp-clawed predator who tore at her food…

She was standing up. Veatriz couldn't see, because of Orsea's stupid chin, but she and the other savages were on their feet; now Valens and his fat chancellor were standing too (rules of precedence to be observed in everything); they were leaving. She lost sight of them behind a thicket of heads, and then there was a tantalizing glimpse of them in the gap between the end of the table and the door; the pack had fallen behind, and she was walking next to Valens as the door opened and they escaped.

Well. It was high time the young couple spent some time together, to get to know each other. They'd probably go for a walk round the knot garden, while the diplomats and the representatives and the whole Vadani government lurked discreetly in the covered cloister, penned in like sheep waiting to be dipped. They would walk round the knot garden, and she would go through her paces like a well-trained four-year-old jennet at a horse fair, and the fate of nations would be decided by how well she made small talk. Meanwhile (everybody else was getting up now) the Duchess Veatriz Sirupati would go back to her room and embroider something.

"Can someone explain to me," Orsea was saying—to her, presumably—"what all that was in aid of?"

He could be so infuriating; but she kept her temper. "Oh come on," she said.

"Don't you know who those people are?"

Orsea shrugged. "Someone told me they're ambassadors from the Cure Hardy, but that's got to be wrong. The Cure Hardy are—"

"Savages." She nodded. "That's them," she said. "And the female is going to marry Valens."

It was a moment before Orsea spoke. "Nobody tells me anything," he said.

"Yes they do, but you don't listen." She sighed, as though the whole thing was quite tedious. "It's all to do with trade agreements and cavalry," she said. "And it's high time he got married and churned out an heir. Presumably they haven't got around to telling the savages that they're marrying into a war; that'll be a nice surprise on their wedding night. Probably they'll be delighted, I gather the Cure Hardy enjoy a nice war."

"It'd be a stroke of luck for us," Orsea said seriously. "Have you any idea how
many
of those people there are? Millions of them. We found that out when—"

"Orsea, what are you talking about?"

"Manpower," Orsea replied, frowning slightly, his mind elsewhere. "What we call the Cure Hardy is actually loads of different tribes; nomads, always on the move. And there's a
lot
of them; hundreds of thousands. If Valens is going to stand a chance against the Republic, what he needs most is a very large army, because as far as I can tell, where the Mezentines hire their mercenaries from, the supply is practically unlimited. If he can tap into the Cure Hardy for reinforcements, he may actually have a chance of making a game of it."

A game of it
. There had been a time when she'd loved him for a reason, rather than merely from force of habit, merely because they'd grown into each other, like briars growing into a tangle. She could still remember it, though: the belief that he was a good man, determined to do the best he could in the impossible situation he'd been thrust into. The trouble was, he'd always done his best and every time he'd failed, his failures leading to disaster and misery on a scale that mere malice could never have achieved. Deep inside somewhere, overgrown by tangled briars, he was still there; but recently she'd begun to feel that reaching him was more effort than it was worth. All sorts of other things had grown up through her love, especially since Eremia fell and they'd come here; there was pity, guilt, a sense of duty; there was Valens…

"And how would that help us exactly?" she said, eager to find something to disagree with him about. "It'd just mean the war going on forever and ever, wouldn't it?"

Orsea frowned. "On the contrary," he said. "If the Mezentines see that Valens has got powerful allies—"

"You're blocking the way," she pointed out. "People are trying to get past."

"What? Oh." He hesitated, trying to decide whether to shrink back and let them pass or to head for the exit. She decided for him by walking away. He followed her; she could hear his voice close behind her saying, "If Valens makes an alliance with these people—"

"You really think the Mezentines see things that way?" she said without looking round. "Don't you realize, if they gave up because Valens made friends with the Cure Hardy, that'd be admitting they were afraid, they'd never ever do that. Really, after all you've been through with them, I'd have thought you'd understand them a little better than that."

He'd caught up with her, bobbing along beside her like a friendly dog, or a small boy in the market trying to sell her baskets. He could be so irritating sometimes, she wanted to shoo him away with a whisk of her mane. "I don't think it's like that anymore," he was bleating, "I really do believe things have changed, with the balance of power in the Guilds shifting toward the Foundrymen again and—"

"Orsea." She stopped, making him stop too. "Don't talk rubbish. You don't know anything about Guild politics, so please don't pretend you're the world's greatest authority—" She broke off, wondering why on earth she was talking to him like this. "Let's drop it, all right?" she said. "It's not a subject I like thinking about, the war and what's going to happen to us."

"All right." At least he hadn't apologized, this time. He seemed to have the idea that an apology fixed everything, as though she wanted a husband who was always in the wrong. He'd apologize for sunset if he thought darkness offended her. "So," he was saying, "what do you think? About them, I mean, the Cure Hardy? They aren't anything like the ones who came to see us."

"Aren't they? I didn't meet them."

"Not a bit like," he said. "For a start, they eat proper food. When they came to Eremia, they were all vegetarians, and they didn't drink booze, either."

"Different tribe, presumably," she said.

"Obviously. But I wouldn't have thought one lot would be so different from the others. Still, Valens seems to be handling them pretty well. There's a man who always does his homework."

"He reads a lot," Veatriz said.

"Really? Well, that'd account for it. Anyhow, I'm assuming it's pretty well done and dusted. It's about time he got married, after all."

When she'd stopped she hadn't really been aware of where she was. Now she looked round; they were in the top lobby of the Great Hall, directly under a huge, slightly faded tapestry (hunting scene, needless to say). "Never met the right girl, presumably," she said.

He laughed. "I don't suppose that's got anything to do with it. I've always assumed it was a case of keeping his options open, politically."

"Fine. I'm going back to our room now, if that's all right with you." (She called it
their room
, as if it was just a bed and a chair and a small mirror on the wall; in fact it was a whole floor of the North Tower, not much smaller than their apartments back in the palace at Civitas Eremiae. Too much space, not too little.)

"Oh." He stood there, directly under the flat, snarling dogs and the bustling huntsmen; cluelessness personified. "Right. I'll see you later, then." She left him. Too busy, she thought, as she trudged across the courtyard toward the North Tower, far too busy; too much important needlework screaming out for my attention. Presumably the savage girl had been taught needlework, along with all the other civilized accomplishments. In which case, she decided, there was some justice in the world, after all.

The room was pretty much as she'd left it. Someone had come in and tidied up, and the curtains were drawn neatly and tied back with those loops of tasseled rope which she hated so much. She sat down in her chair; there, on the window-ledge in front of her, was her embroidery frame, with the silks laid out ready in a row, and her red velvet pincushion. She looked at them in blank confusion, as if she couldn't remember what they were for. Then she stood up again and crossed to the big linen press at the foot of the bed. She lifted the lid and several layers of sheets, pillowcases; hidden—why had she hidden it?—was a rectangular rosewood box, her writing case. She lifted it out and hesitated, as a maid might do if she was thinking about stealing it from her mistress. Then she took it over to the window, brushed the embroidery silks onto the floor, opened the box and picked up a sheet of paper.

The silence had lasted a very long time; long enough for a cook to chop an onion, or a smith to peen over the head of a rivet. Much longer and it'd constitute an act of war. So…

"Well," Valens said, straightening his back a little, "how was your journey?" She looked up at him. She was sitting on the stone bench in the middle of the knot garden. She'd been examining the rosemary bush as though she was planning to write a report on it.

"Not bad," she said.

"A bit of an ordeal, I imagine."

"I'm used to traveling about." She frowned. "Can we go to your mews, please?

I'd like to make sure my hawk's being properly looked after."

Her hawk, then; not a present after all. "Certainly," he said; then he thought of something. "Tell you what," he said. "If we go back through there, the way we came, we're going to have to wade through all your people and all my people, and they'll be staring politely at us to see how it's going, and it'll take forever and be extremely tiresome. But if we go through that doorway over there, we can take a short cut through the back scullery into the kitchens, round the back of the charcoal store and out into the mews. Saves time; also, it'll puzzle that lot out there half to death. Would that be all right, or would you rather go the long way round?"

She frowned. "Why wouldn't I want my uncles to know where I've gone?" she said.

A slow smile crept over Valens' face, like evening shadows climbing a hillside.

"Why indeed?" he said. "We'll go and see how your hawk's settling in, shall we?" Carausius, he noticed with mild amusement, was visibly disconcerted to see him back so soon. The bald man just bowed. The uncles were talking to some people, and didn't seem to have noticed. Valens led the way; she kept pace with him, as though it was a secret race and she was pacing herself for the final sprint. They went the long way round, and Valens kept himself amused by pointing out various features of interest: the long gallery, the avenue of sweet chestnuts, the fountain, the equestrian statue of his grandfather—

"Sculpted by Ambrosianus Bessus," she interrupted, "and cast in only three sections, using a lost-wax technique previously unknown outside the Republic." She nodded, as though awarding herself bonus marks.

"I never knew that," Valens said. "Well, there you go. Can't say I like it much myself. He's sitting too far back in the saddle, and if you ask me, that horse's got colic. Still…"

She frowned. "It's the greatest achievement of classical Vadani sculpture," she said reprovingly. "I went to a lecture about it while I was at the university."

"Did you? Good heavens." Valens shrugged. "When I was twelve, my friend Jovian and I snuck out one night when everybody was at a banquet and painted it bright green. It took half a dozen men a week to scrub all the paint off, and they never did figure out who'd done it."

Her frown tightened into a bewildered scowl. "Why did you do that?" she said. Valens blinked. "Do you know, I'm not sure after all this time. Maybe we thought it'd look better green."

"The action of verdigris on bronze statues produces a green patina," she said hopefully. "Presumably—"

"That's right, I remember now." He looked away and pointed. "That squat, ugly thing over there is the clock tower. At noon every day two little men come out, they're part of the mechanism, and one of them belts the other one over the head with a poleaxe. The Mezentines gave it to my father shortly after I was born. Unfortunately it keeps perfect time, so we've never had an excuse to get rid of it." The frown had settled in to stay on her forehead, and she made no comment, not even when Valens pointed out the obscene weather-vane on top of the East Tower. It's a gag, he told himself, a practical joke or something; and if I ever find out who's responsible, I solemnly undertake to decorate the Great Hall with their entrails come midsummer festival. "That's the kennels over there," he heard himself say, "and the stables next to it, and that gateway there leads to the mews." She was looking ahead; seen from the side, her neck was long, slender and delicate, her shoulders slim. "Did you really train that goshawk yourself?" he asked.