Evil for Evil (71 page)

Suddenly, he realized that four dots he’d been staring at for the last five minutes were, in fact, moving. They were coming
down the slope — not following his projected optimum route, but maybe they weren’t as good at tactics as he was — eleven or
maybe twelve hundred yards away. Deer; no, because deer saunter. Only horses plod.

Having perceived the enemy approach, proceed immediately to place your command in a posture of defense. He stood up (his back
twinged from careless sitting) and looked around. A few of the men had seen the specks already; they were motionless and staring,
as though they’d heard tales about horses but never imagined they’d actually get to see one. The rest of them were drifting
slowly through the motions of their appointed futile tasks, resigned, bored and deep-down convinced that the enemy wouldn’t
come and they’d all get out of this mess in one piece. Maybe they aren’t the enemy after all, Nennius told himself. They could
just be travelers (in a war zone, in the middle of nowhere), or shepherds, or messengers from Valens come to tell him that
the rest of the army had just won an overwhelming victory, and the war was over.

Maybe. He called over a sergeant and told him to take a dozen men and either bring the four mystery horsemen in or drive them
away. The sergeant set off looking like a man who’s just been ordered to jump into a volcano, and came back remarkably soon
after-ward, nervously escorting three men and a woman. They were riding horses with Mezentine-issue saddles, but they were
pale-skinned and dressed in dirty civilian clothes. One of them was tied up so securely he could barely move, and Nennius
realized, in a moment of agonizing hope, that he recognized him.

“For crying out loud get that man untied and over here,” he shouted. One of the other prisoners was yelling something, but
it couldn’t be important. The sergeant hauled the trussed-up man off his horse and got busy with a knife.

“You’re that engineer,” Nennius said, before the gag was out of the man’s mouth. “The Mezentine’s sidekick.”

The sergeant loosened the gag, and the strange-looking man flexed his jaw a few times before saying, “Gace Daurenja. And yes,
I work for Ziani Vaatzes.”

Hope is really just a variety of fear, all the more painful because it twitches a chance of escape in front of your nose as
it slides by. “We’ve got a problem,” Nennius said breathlessly, “with the carts. Can you fix it?”

Daurenja looked at him and blinked. “I can try,” he said.

Nennius explained, the words tumbling out of his mouth. Then he said, “Well?”

Daurenja nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I think I can fix that. We’ll need a big, hot fire, something we can use for anvils, and
five of the armor plates off the wagons. How soon … ?”

“Now,” Nennius replied with feeling.

“All right.” Daurenja seemed bizarrely calm, and for the first time it occurred to Nennius to wonder why he’d been tied up,
in company with two men and a woman, in the middle of the wilderness. Wondering, however, was an inappropriate luxury, like
satin cushions and goose-liver pâté. “Anvils,” Daurenja prompted him.

“What? Yes, we’ve got anvils.” Nennius looked round for someone to shout at; a sergeant, experienced in the ways of stressed-out
officers, was already walking fast in the right direction. “And you want a fire.”

“Charcoal,” Daurenja said, stretching his fingers; cramp, presumably. “Find two large, flat stones; they’ll do for a hearth.”
He wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, but a couple of troopers set off to look for flat stones. I wish I could do that,
Nennius thought; he can make people do things without rank or the chain of command, without even knowing he’s doing it. A
born foreman, which is just another word for officer. “I don’t suppose there’s such a thing as a double-action bellows anywhere.”

Nennius had no idea what he was talking about, but someone else — one of the farriers, he remembered — had dropped into motion,
like some mechanical component. Daurenja yawned and wriggled his back. “The first thing I’ll need to do is make up the mandrels,
so I’ll want three strong men with sledgehammers to strike for me.” (They materialized out of the crowd of soldiers, which
had been clotting around him since he’d started to speak; he drew assistants to him like a magnet draws filings.) “What’ve
we got in the way of wrought-iron stock?”

There’s something wonderful about handing over a burden of worry; a glorious relief, like shedding chains. The process didn’t
take very long and it was delightfully smooth. Half an hour later, as the bellows blew tongues of flame up through the mounded
charcoal and Daurenja touched a pair of calipers to a spare cart-axle and nodded his approval, Nennius realized that this
strange man, this freak who’d just ridden in bound hand and foot, was now in complete command of the column, and he was overwhelmed
with the sudden dissipation of anxiety. Relieved of command; exactly that.

“What I’m doing,” Daurenja was telling the world in a calm, splendid voice, “is making an iron bar exactly the same size as
the timber we’ve got to fix. Then we’re going to cut strips off a sheet of the armor plate, get them good and hot so they’ll
work easily, and fold them round three sides of the bar to form a sort of jacket, if you see what I mean. That’ll hold the
timber together on three sides, and the armor plate’ll brace the fourth side; then, even if the timber breaks, it can’t go
anywhere.” He lifted his head and smiled. “A bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but it’ll get the job done. Once we’ve
got going, assuming we keep at it nice and steady, we should be ready to move out this time tomorrow.” He turned his head
and looked at Nennius. “Will that be soon enough? What’s the tactical position? I’m assuming the threat’s coming from the
garrison at the inn on Sharra.”

“That’s right,” Nennius said.

Daurenja nodded. “In that case it’s not so bad,” he said. “I’ve just come from there. I didn’t have a chance to count heads
or anything, but there’re not enough of them to mount a serious attack in force. If they want to take us, they’ll have to
get help from the next post down the line. Mind you,” he added with a slight frown, “there’s a good chance they’ll have scouts
out; looking for me, actually, sorry about that. But, all things being equal, we should be well out of here by the time they’re
in any position to bother us.”

Which reminded him. “Those people you came in with,”Nennius started to say.

“My guests,” Daurenja said firmly, and his authority was beyond question as the glowing charcoal flared to the bellows. “Please
make sure they’re looked after properly; they’ve had a pretty rough time. I’d appreciate it if you’d see to it yourself.”

(But they had you all tied up, like a dangerous criminal.) “Of course,” Nennius said.

“I imagine they’ll be staying with us,” Daurenja went on, scrutinizing the fire, “but if they want to move on, perhaps you
could let them have fresh horses and supplies, anything they want. They’re my friends,” he added with quiet emphasis, “so
I’d be grateful if you could …”

“Right away.” Nennius had to make a conscious effort not to salute. “Is there anything else you need here?”

Pointless question, like telling a man in his own house to make himself at home. “No thank you,” Daurenja replied gravely.
“I think I can manage for now. I’ll let you know how we get on.”

In other words, dismissed. Nennius dipped his head in the approved manner, and turned his back. As he walked briskly away,
the first blows of a hammer chimed behind him like a wedding bell.

They’d put the three of them (only now he had to think of them as the honored guests) in a tent; sat on the ground, with a
guard outside. Nennius winced: time for diplomacy. “It’s all right,” he snapped at the guard, who made himself scarce. At
least they hadn’t been tied up. He shouldered through the tent flap and smiled.

“Have you had anything to eat?” he said.

All three of them looked at him as if he was mad. Then the older of the two men said, “We want to see the officer in charge.”

Nennius broadened his smile. It felt uncomfortable on his face, like an ill-fitting boot galling his heel. “That’s me,” he
said. “Can I get you anything?”

“That man, the one we brought in —”

“Daurenja,” Nennius said. It seemed important to show that he knew the name.

“He’s a murderer,” the man said. “You’ve got to put him under arrest until we can get him before a court.”

On balance, Nennius would have preferred it if the man had punched him in the face. The dazed, wretched feeling would’ve been
the same, and it’d have been over quickly. “I’m sorry,” he heard himself say. “I don’t —”

“He murdered my son,” the man went on. “He’s admitted it, in front of a witness. Presumably you can deal with it yourself,
if you’re the commanding officer. I’m not quite sure about how the jurisdictions would work out, but in the circumstances
—”

“I’m sorry.” An understatement. “I can’t do that. You see —”

The older man tried to jump up; the younger one grabbed his arm and yanked him back, not gently. “Don’t give me that,” the
older man said. “He’s —”

“It’s all right,” the younger one interrupted. Clearly the wrong thing to say.

“He killed my son and raped my daughter.” A loud, clear voice; probably they could hear him right across the camp, even in
spite of the hammering. “He’s admitted it. I want him tried and hanged.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Look, if you don’t believe me —”

“It’s true,” the other man said. The woman had her head turned away, fastidiously, as though ignoring a couple of drunks.
“My name’s Miel Ducas. I heard him confess.”

Miel Ducas; wasn’t he a guerrilla leader? Unimportant.Nennius couldn’t spare any mental capacity for heroes of the Eremian
resistance; he’d just thought of something. “Daurenja’s one of the Duke’s engineers, he answers directly to Valens. I haven’t
got any authority.”

For a moment, the older man’s anger seemed to hover in the air like a falcon; then it slumped into the most ferocious resentment
Nennius could ever remember witnessing. “Where is the Duke?” he asked quietly. “We’ll have to take Daurenja to him.”

Which meant the moment had passed. “We’ll be joining up with him,” Nennius said, “as soon as this column is mobile again.
We’ve had to stop to repair the carts.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll make sure Daurenja doesn’t leave the column until we
meet up with Valens’ party. I’m afraid that’s all I can do.”

“We understand.” Ducas, trying to keep the peace, the way well-meaning idiots do. “Thank you. But it really is very important.”
Now he’s going to try and change the subject. “Can you tell us what’s going on here, please?”

Nennius explained as succinctly as he could manage while being silently hated to death by the other man; then he summoned
a young ensign who had the misfortune to be too close, left him in charge of looking after the guests, and escaped. Outside,
he stood for a moment and listened to the ringing of hammers. So simple; wrap a bit of iron round it; so obvious. Of course,
it would never have occurred to the carpenters, and it definitely hadn’t occurred to him, or anybody else for that matter.
As for Daurenja being a rapist and a murderer; well, Nennius had no problem at all believing that. The appalling thing was,
he really couldn’t care less, so long as the carts got fixed. That, he decided, was why countries had to have dukes and kings
and governments; someone who could pin a medal on a man like that for saving the column, and then string him up as a criminal.

In spite of the hammering from the night shift, he slept well, and an ensign had to shake him awake in the morning, to tell
him that the work had been finished well ahead of schedule, and the carters were backing the horses into the shafts, ready
to start. Meanwhile, the three guests who’d come in with the engineer had apparently found a notary and sworn out depositions
about something or other. They’d insisted that he should have them as soon as he woke up, and since he’d given orders that
they should have anything they wanted …

Well. He could read them later, at some point.

The column was under way by mid-morning. Nennius sent outriders on ahead to see if they could pick up Valens’ trail, or find
anybody who knew which way he’d gone.
Catch us up
had been all very well when he was convinced he’d never get the carts going again; now he had a whole new set of problems
to fret over. Water; food; fodder for the horses; finding the right road; making up time; fending off Mezentine sorties. It’s
a rule of human life that when a soldier successfully deals with an apparently insuperable difficulty, he gets rewarded with
something twice as bad. The new concerns kept him happily occupied for the rest of the morning, and at noon he halted the
column to see how the repairs were holding up.

“Fine,” Daurenja announced, crawling out from under a cart. His back and sleeves were white with dust, but he made no effort
to brush himself off. “Don’t look as though they’ve shifted at all. Provided we take it reasonably steady, we shouldn’t have
any bother.”

Not quite what he wanted to hear. “When you say reasonably steady …”

Daurenja thought for a moment. “Brisk walking pace,” he said. “You don’t want to go any faster than that on these roads, even
if the carts were new from the workshop.” He pulled a face. “I know you want to make up time and join up with the Duke, but
we’ve got to be realistic. Leave it to the outriders to catch him up and tell him to wait for us. If you push the pace and
bust up the carts, we’ll never get there.” He looked away, and added: “How are my friends getting along? I haven’t seen them.”

“Fine,” Nennius replied awkwardly. “I shifted some people around so they could have a wagon to themselves, and I’ve seen to
it they’ve all got fresh clothes and plenty to eat.” He hesitated. Did Daurenja know about the sworn depositions? Probably.
Since he’d mended the wagons, he had become the hero of the column, the man who’d saved the day. Whoever gave the order to
place him under arrest wouldn’t be popular with the troops. As for his accusers, they weren’t even Vadani. Miel Ducas he’d
heard of, vaguely; the other two — had he been told their names? If so, he’d forgotten them. He’d assumed they were telling
the truth, mostly because of Daurenja’s unfortunate appearance; he looked like someone who was capable of rape and murder,
but that was sheer unfounded prejudice. For all Nennius knew, they were compulsive liars, delusional; Mezentine agents paid
to discredit the miracle-working engineer. Anybody could swear an affidavit, but what about corroborative proof ? (And would
he be entertaining these high-minded doubts if Daurenja hadn’t just saved the column?)