Evil for Evil

13

"You again," she said.

Psellus nodded, and sat down in the chair across the table from her. Politeness, he told himself. In the face of a resentful, angry witness, good manners are a shield. "Thank you for coming in," he said. "I hope it's not too inconvenient."

Her eyes were bright, and completely out of place in her mild, beautiful, insipid face. "It's not as though I had any choice," she said. "Soldiers on my doorstep at five in the morning…"

"They weren't soldiers," Psellus said pleasantly. "Guild security officers. I thought you might appreciate a lift, instead of having to walk."

She folded her thin arms across her chest. "I like walking," she said.

He copied her gesture, except that he kept his back straight in his chair. "That's fortunate," he said, "now that you live so far out of the center of town. Your old house was much more convenient."

She shrugged. She seemed to be trying to look behind her left shoulder. "There's nothing I need to go into town for," she said. "I can get all my shopping in the Eastgate market, and it's cheaper."

Psellus nodded. "That's true," he said. "Personally, though, I don't think I'd like living in the suburbs. I've lived my whole life in the center of the city."

It was intended as a rest, an empty moment. She kept still and let it pass.

"Do you like your new house?" Psellus asked.

"It's all right."

"Just all right?" He smiled indulgently, like a kind old uncle. "It seems a lot of trouble to go to, all the aggravation of moving, if the new place isn't any better than all right."

"I hated living in the old house," she said coldly. "After everything that happened there."

"I can understand that," Psellus said soothingly. "A lot of painful memories, I'm sure."

She turned her head a little. A small chin, rounded, but not weak. "I didn't like living there by grace and favor, either," she said.

"You were allowed to stay there for as long as you needed to," Psellus reminded her. "True, it was a dispensation rather than a right-"

"Grace and favor," she repeated.

"I understand. And how's your daughter liking her new home? Settling in? Making new friends?"

She shrugged, as though she wasn't really interested.

"It must help," Psellus went on, "that she's living in a different neighborhood, where the other children don't necessarily know about what her father did. It must have been very hard on her, at the old house."

"Not really." She was, he conceded, superb in defense, using every aspect of her weakness to the full. Sympathy glided off her, like arrows off the best proof armor. "We never mixed much with the neighbors anyway."

"Apart from your own family, of course." No response to that. "It must be hard on you, living so far from them."

"It's not all that far," she corrected him, almost scornfully. "Half an hour's walk."

"Indeed." Big smile. "Half an hour's walk is a very long way for me, but I'm old and fat." Pause; in his head, he counted to four. "All in all, then, things are working out well for you."

"I suppose so, yes."

"You suppose so." He raised an eyebrow, but she wasn't looking at him. "I'd say you've been quite fortunate-no, that's not quite the word, it does rather imply that you don't really deserve your good fortune. In your case, it's more like a just reward, or compensation at the very least."

That made her look at him. "What?"

He smiled broadly. "Finding true love," he said. "And in such difficult circumstances."

Her look should have punctured him like a bubble, but he'd been ready for it; invited it, like a fencer tempting his opponent with a feigned weakness. "That's right," she said.

"Actually, that's why I asked you here," he went on, as smoothly as he could in the presence of such brittleness. "Your application for a dispensation to remarry, even though your husband is still alive."

"Oh," she said. The same maneuver, mirrored; a feigned relaxation of her guard. "Is there a problem?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm pleased to be able to tell you, we've considered all the facts and, in view of the circumstances-"

"I mean," she interrupted, "he's as good as dead, isn't he? In the eyes of the law he's dead, because he was condemned to death. For all anybody knows, he is dead. So-"

A cue; deliberate, or fortuitous? "As a matter of fact," he said quietly, "Ziani Vaatzes is still very much alive. We have intelligence that places him at the court of Duke Valens of the Vadani. He's just completed the sabotage of the Vadani silver mines; a very neat piece of work, I should add, thanks to him the mines will be completely useless to us once we've conquered the country."

She shrugged. "He's still making a nuisance of himself, then."

Psellus had read the reports. Dry, needless to say, and doing their best to gloss over the things that had caught his imagination. In his mind's eye, nevertheless, he'd seen them: thousands of dead men, killed as they advanced in perfect formation, without even the time to break rank and start to run. Making a nuisance of himself. "That's none of your concern now," he said. "Just in case you've been worrying, nobody holds you in any way responsible for his actions, either before his escape or since. The findings of the board of inquiry were absolutely explicit on that point."

The words board of inquiry made her flinch, as well they might. No bad thing to remind her of how close she'd come to sharing her husband's disaster.

"So that's all right, then," she said. "Falier and I can get married."

"Indeed you can, I'm delighted to say." None of that delight seemed to be reflected in her face. "You'll be able to get on with the arrangements, let your family know the date and so forth. I'm sure there'll be a great deal to do."

"We're keeping it quiet and simple," she said. "We don't want lots of fuss. And besides, we can't afford a big do."

"Really." Careful frown. "Now that your fiance's the foreman of the ordnance factory, I wouldn't have thought money would be a problem."

"We've got better things to spend our money on."

"I'm sure." She was trying to shake him off, like something nasty stuck to the sole of her shoe. That was a flaw in her guard. He leaned back a little in his chair.

"Is that it, then?" she said. "Can I go now?"

"In just a few minutes," he said firmly. "It's been a while since we had an opportunity to talk."

"What do you need to talk to me about?" she said. "I thought you said you're giving us permission…"

Psellus congratulated himself on his timing. Letting her think she was almost free, giving her a sight of the door, so to speak; now she was in a hurry to get away, which meant that the longer he kept her there, the stronger his advantage would be. "Would you like something to eat or drink?" he said. "I usually have a glass of something and a biscuit around now."

"No thank you."

He shrugged. "If you change your mind later on, just say so."

He rang the little silver bell that stood just by his elbow. He'd had all sorts of trouble getting hold of one, but it looked as though the effort would be justified. The door opened, and the clerk (on loan for the day from the records office) nodded a polite little bow, as though he'd been a footman all his life. "Mulled wine with honey and nutmeg for me, and one of those delightful cinnamon cakes," he said. "Are you sure I can't get you anything?"

"Have I done something wrong?"

Psellus raised both eyebrows. "Not that I'm aware of."

"If I haven't done anything wrong, why can't I go home?"

"Of course you can go home, as soon as we've finished."

Her scowl only lasted a very short time, a tiny sliver of a second, before her face reverted to dull, wary vacancy. Psellus picked up a sheet of paper-minutes of some meeting, to which he hadn't been asked-and reflected that, however close the play and however smoothly the participants work together, anticipating each other's thoughts, sharing an intimacy otherwise experienced only by lovers, there must always be a gulf between predator and prey; because if the predator loses, he stays hungry for a day, whereas the prey loses forever. Such a disparity gives the advantage in motivation to the defense, provided it's backed up by sufficient skill. The predator, by contrast, must be more outgoing, more extreme.

The clerk arrived, with a cup and a plate. Psellus took a sip-water, as he'd specified-and nibbled the rim of the biscuit, like a mouse.

"Is that why you're keeping me here," she asked, "to watch you eat?"

He laughed, as though she'd made a good joke. "I'm sorry," he said. "I missed breakfast. Well now," he went on, settling himself comfortably in his chair, "there're just one or two points I'd like to clear up, while you're here."

"About my husband."

"Of course. Why else could anybody possibly be interested in you?"

Her eyes widened, just a little, then closed down again. "Go on, then."

Psellus stroked his chin thoughtfully. "As you know," he said, "I used to be attached to the commission that investigated the circumstances of your husband's offense. That investigation is now complete, overtaken by events, somewhat; the file's closed, to all intents and purposes, I've moved on, and so have you. But in spite of that, I can't help worrying away at loose ends, it's in my nature. The more I try not to think about something, the more it weighs on my mind. When it got to the stage where it was getting in the way of the work I'm supposed to be doing, I decided I'd better deal with it once and for all. For that, I need your help."

He paused and looked at her. Nobody there. Fine.

"Your husband," he went on, making his voice low and even, "built the mechanical doll. So far, we've concentrated-reasonably enough-on how he built it. Nobody seems to have stopped to consider why he built it. I think that's where my problem lies. It seems," he added with a smile, "such a curious thing for anybody to do."

She shrugged. "He made it for our daughter," she said.

"Quite so, yes. That much was admitted from the outset." Psellus nodded gravely. "That doesn't answer the question. Why a mechanical doll?"

Another shrug. "No idea."

"That's curious too. Did your daughter tell him she wanted one, very much? Had she seen one somewhere and admired it especially?"

"She could have done, I don't know."

"Well, why should you?" Psellus smiled. "Perhaps your daughter told him, but not you. Perhaps it was their secret. Daughters are often closer to their fathers than their mothers, in some respects. Isn't that right?"

"Maybe."

"Well, that's what people keep telling me," Psellus said pleasantly. "I'm not a family man myself. But anyway; he decided to build her the doll, for whatever reason. Now we come to another mystery. Your husband…" He paused again. "He's not by nature the rebellious type, is he?"

"I don't understand what you mean."

Psellus dipped his head. "Some people," he said, "have a problem with authority. Breaking rules, to them, is almost an end in itself; doesn't matter what the rule happens to be, the fact that it's a rule makes it fair game, if you follow me. It's a sort of independence of spirit, usually combined with high self-esteem and a low opinion of the system and society in general. But Ziani wasn't like that, was he?"

She shrugged.

"I don't think he was," Psellus said. "I think he understood the merits of the system pretty well. He was ambitious, of course; but his ambition was entirely orthodox, if you see what I mean. He wanted to succeed in the proper manner, by climbing the ladder of promotion. That was what gave success its value, I guess. He'd want to win, but cheating would spoil it for him. He assessed his own value in conventional terms."

"If you say so."

"Quite." He stopped talking and stared at a mark on the ceiling for a moment. "I can understand Ziani wanting to make a toy for his daughter, something she wanted very much that he could make for her. What I have trouble with is the fact that he saw fit to change the specifications. What do you think?"

"It was against the law," she said. "He shouldn't have done it."

Psellus clicked his tongue slightly. "That's not at issue. What I'm asking myself is this. Let's leave the issue of risk out of it for a moment; let's suppose that he firmly believed that he wasn't going to be found out. A reasonable enough belief, by the way," he added, "but we'll come back to that. One thing at a time." He leaned forward a little, crowding her. "At his trial, it was sort of assumed by default that he did it out of arrogance, just because he could; he thought he knew better than Specification, and that's a mortal sin. Now, what kind of man do you reckon would think that way?"

She didn't say anything. He kept quiet, making it clear that she was required to answer.

"I don't know," she said. "Someone cocky."

"That's what I'd have said, too," Psellus replied. "Let's see; someone who sees a better way of doing something-what he believes is a better way of doing something, at any rate-and can't abide to do it the approved way instead, just because of some rule. Is that how you'd see it?"

"I suppose so."

Psellus nodded firmly. "That's not Ziani, though, is it?" he said. "I mean to say, he worked in the factory all those years, and he didn't go around criticizing the way things were done."

"Of course not. It's against the law."

Psellus smiled. "Not in the ordnance factory," he said. "As you well know, it's an exception to the rule. He had the scope, working where he did; and yes, he did propose a number of innovations-quite correctly, through the proper channels-but not in such a way as to rock the boat or put anybody's back up. Most of the time, as far as I can tell, he was perfectly happy to follow Specification, because he acknowledged that it's perfect as it is. Not the behavior, in other words, of the malcontent or the compulsive rebel."

She made a show of stifling a yawn. Psellus couldn't help approving of that.

"Here's our paradox, then," he said. "For some reason, he decides to make the doll. Eccentric, yes, but perfectly legal; he was entirely within his rights, breaking no laws. He'll have gone to the specifications register and copied out the drawings and the commentary, gone home and planned out how he was going to tackle the job-the tools he'd need, the materials; and then he takes it into his head to make changes, improvements. Can you explain that, do you think?"

"No."

"Neither can I," Psellus said, "which is why you're here, and why you can't go home until I have an answer that makes sense. All right, let's break it down into little bits and see if that helps. Let's start with the sequence of events."

"The what?"

"The order he did things in. Do you think he made the changes while he was reviewing the plans, or did they occur to him once he'd started?"

She shrugged, a very small movement. "I don't know."

Psellus acted as though he hadn't heard her. "I think," he said, "he made them before he actually began to cut metal; I don't see him as the sort of man who improvises in midstream, not unless something goes wrong. If I'm right, do you see the implications?"

She shook her head.

"It means," Psellus said, "that he started out with the view of-I don't know, of making the best mechanical doll he could possibly make, and to hell with rules and laws. That's different, don't you agree, to making a change on the spur of the moment. More deliberate. A stronger intention."

"I suppose so."

"Of course, I'm only guessing," Psellus went on. "Perhaps the changes were spur-of-the-moment decisions after all. But here's another thing." He straightened his legs under the desk. "If I was a very skillful craftsman, as Ziani was-"

"You keep talking like he's dead or something."

"So I am," Psellus said. "As he is, then; if I built something very clever and difficult, like a mechanical doll-well, I'm making it for my daughter, we know that. But I think I'd also want to show it off, just a little: to friends at work, other craftsmen, people who'd know and appreciate the quality of my work. I couldn't resist that, it's only natural, don't you think?"

She said nothing.

"I think so. But by changing Specification, I'm making that impossible. I'm building this very clever machine, and nobody else will ever see it, apart from a kid who won't understand. Now, we're saying that a man who changes Specification must be guilty of the sin of pride; but if he was proud of the work, he'd want to show it off, wouldn't he? There's the paradox. You can see it, can't you?"

Still nothing. She was looking just past his head.

"Maybe now you can see why I'm in such a tangle," Psellus went on sadly. "None of it makes any sense, does it? There's no sense in building it at all-if your daughter had wanted a mechanical doll more than anything in the world, I'm sure you'd have known about it, her mother. She'd have nagged and begged and wheedled and made a pest of herself. And if she didn't want it so desperately, the only other motive for building it would be pride, and we've just agreed it couldn't have been that. What a muddle," he added. "It really doesn't add up."

"I suppose it doesn't," she said quietly. "And I'm sorry if it bothers you, but I can't understand it either. Not when you put it like that."

Psellus smiled. "Ah," he said, "but that's only the little mystery. That's nothing at all compared to the big mystery. You wait till we get onto that, and you'll see why I simply can't leave it alone." He took a deep breath, and sighed. "But we won't bother about that now. Let's talk about something a bit less gloomy. How about true love?"

Her eyes gleamed angrily. "What are you on about now?"

"Falier," he replied, "the man you're going to marry, now that you've got your dispensation. Your true love. At least, I'm assuming…" He grinned. "I take it you two are in love; why else would you be getting married, after all?"

"Yes," she said, and her voice was like the grating of the two ends of a broken bone. "Yes, we love each other. All right?"

He nodded. "I thought as much," he said. "After all, it's a big step, for both of you. He'll be taking on another man's child, for one thing; not to mention the wife of the Republic's most wanted man. It stands to reason he must love you very much."

"He does. You can ask him, if you like."

"I might, now you suggest it." Psellus nibbled a bit more off the rim of his biscuit. "And then there's you. Intriguing, let's say. A lot of trouble was gone to so that you could stay in your house and get your pension from the Guild-I almost said widow's pension, but of course, Ziani's still alive. Someone really put himself out to arrange all that. You wouldn't happen to know who, would you? I seem to be having a certain amount of difficulty finding out through approved channels."

That got her attention. "Sorry," she said, "no idea."

"Some anonymous benefactor, then," he replied. "My first thought was your father; and yes, he made representations, through his head of chapel. I saw the file; the application was dismissed. The other file-the one that was approved-seems terribly difficult to find, however. I've had archivists scurrying around the records office looking for it, but it doesn't appear to be there. They think the mice may have eaten it, though apparently they didn't manage to get their teeth into the approval certificate. I had a good look at that, and it says quite clearly: by order of the Guild benevolent association, you get to stay in the house and draw the pension for life or until remarriage. All perfectly in order. Not signed, of course. Being a certificate, it's got a seal rather than a signature; which is annoying, because a signature would've given me a name, someone I could've pestered for some background. But a seal simply means it was sent down to the clerks' office with the other approved documents." He shook his head slightly. "Not to worry. We were talking about love, not office procedures. The point I'm making is, thanks to this unknown altruist, you were nicely placed for life: a home and an income-not a fortune, but as much as any Guild widow gets. More, actually, because of Ziani's status. I think that, in your position, most people would've been very grateful for that."

"I was. What are you getting at?"

He waved his hand vaguely. "I'm not getting at anything. I'm just saying: your marriage to Falier can't just be a single mother's entirely understandable desire for security, a roof over her head, food and clothes for the kid. No, you're giving all that up-for life or until remarriage, remember? Yes, I'm sure you do. So you're making sacrifices, just as Falier is. Therefore, logically, you must be in love, or why do it?"

"We're in love," she snapped, "I just told you that."

He nodded. "And I'm explaining why I believe you," he said soothingly. "It's not as if I don't approve of love; on the contrary, I think it's a splendid thing, and so does the Guild. Official policy; love is a benefit to the community at large, and should be encouraged." He chuckled. "They did a study once, did you know? They did a survey, and they found that happily married men, and men who were either engaged or going steady, had a sixteen percent higher productivity rating, adjusted over time, than bachelors and men who didn't get on with their wives. So, you see, love is good for business as well as everything else."

"That's really interesting," she said flatly.

"Isn't it? Of course," he went on, "that's good news for the ordnance factory. When Ziani was foreman, productivity was excellent; if the survey's to be believed, presumably it's because he loved his wife and was happy at home. Since he left and Falier took over, productivity-measured in output per man-hour-has dropped by seven percent. But now Falier's getting married to someone who loves him very much, so with any luck we ought to be able to claw back that seven percent and who knows, maybe even notch up an extra point or two. Coincidence, of course, that he'll be marrying Ziani's wife; but the view the committee took is that if you made Ziani happy, it's likely you'll make Falier happy too. A proven track record, as you might say."

She gave him a poisonous look, and said nothing. He drank the rest of his water. Siege warfare, he thought; the attacking army lines up its siege engines, its catapults and mangonels and trebuchets and onagers, and lets fly a horrendous bombardment against the city walls, until the air is thick with the dust from pounded masonry, but the walls are thick enough to shrug it off. But the bombardment is just a decoy, because while it's going on, the sappers are digging under the walls, laying their camouflets, lighting their fires; and when the walls fail, it's not the direct attack that's done the trick, it's the undermining.

"Anyway," he said, lifting his empty cup. "Here's to love." He mimed a sip and put the cup down. "Now, I think, it's about the right moment to go back to that big mystery I was talking about a while ago. Are you ready for it, do you think?"

She made a soft, disdainful noise in her throat.

"Splendid," he said. "Here goes, then. I told you just now that the mice ate the records of the board's decision on your pension application. Well, it seems we've got quite a serious vermin problem down there in the vaults, because they aren't the only records that appear to have got all chewed up-assuming that's what happened to them, of course. Another batch of papers that seems to be very difficult to get hold of is the early part of the file on Ziani's investigation; you know, the inquiries that led to his arrest. The interesting stuff, not the bits they read out at the trial. The bits that'd tell me how they found him out in the first place."

He looked at her. Blank, sheer, closed, like a city wall.

"Well," he went on, "I couldn't get hold of the papers, but I thought, that's all right, all I need to do is find the investigating officers and ask them; simple as that. And here's where it starts to get a little disturbing, because those officers seem to have become confoundedly elusive. I wrote to them and got no answer; I wrote to their superiors, and all I got was an acknowledgment. I got my superiors to write to their superiors, and they told me my inquiry had been noted and they'd see what they could do about arranging interviews, but I waited and nothing happened. I went to the paymaster's office and checked, just to make sure the officers were still alive and in the service; no worries on that score, they're still on the books and drawing their pay. That set my mind at rest; I was worried they might have got lost down in the archives and eaten by the mice. But I still haven't been able to talk to them, or get a letter from them, or anything resembling answers to my questions. And then I thought of you."

"Me," she repeated.

He shrugged. "It's worth a try, I thought. Maybe you might know. You see," he went on, "logically, there're only a limited number of ways that anybody could've found out about what Ziani was doing. He could have shown the doll to someone and told them; or someone could have visited the house and seen the doll, or drawings and sketches; either that, or someone else must have mentioned it-informed on him direct to the Guild, or told someone who did the actual informing. One of those three possibilities, unless you remember different, or you can think of any other way. No? Fine."

"It came as a complete shock," she said. "They just turned up on the doorstep one day, said they were from the Guild, and where was his workshop? Then they started measuring things with calipers and rules and stuff, and when Ziani came home, they arrested him."

Psellus nodded slowly. "That's interesting," he said. "Interesting, I mean, that they seemed to know what they were looking for. Of course it's all a bit technical-I can explain it for you if you like, or you can take my word for it-but the thing is, the actual changes he made, the abominations; they weren't the sort of thing you'd notice just by looking. You'd need to measure everything very carefully, do all sorts of tests before you found them. You mentioned calipers and rules, by the way; can you remember anything else they used? Any other kinds of equipment?"

"There could have been other things," she said. "I wouldn't know what they were. I don't know about technical stuff."

"Of course not. But they'd have needed resistance gauges-that means gadgets you use to measure the strength of a spring; other tools like that. They're quite bulky, not the sort of thing you can cart around in a pocket or a tool-roll. Were they carrying heavy bags, or cases?"

"I don't remember."

"Ah well." Psellus looked down at his hands for a moment. "Maybe we can get rid of the second alternative-if you remember, that was someone, a visitor, catching sight of the doll while it was being made, and noticing something was wrong. I'd figured out a perfectly plausible way it could've happened; a dinner guest wandering into the wrong room, or going to get a coat he'd left. But this notional visitor would have to be someone who knew that particular specification intimately-rather narrows the field, I'd say-and who just happened to have calipers and a resistance gauge handy at the time… And then I thought, perhaps what he saw wasn't the doll itself, but drawings and schematics, and he noticed the changes. But that'd still mean he'd need to be an expert on the specification. No, I think we can sideline that possibility. In which case, we're left with the other two. Either Ziani told someone, or someone else knew what Ziani was up to and informed on him." He looked up and smiled brilliantly. "And, of course, both of those are impossible too. Aren't they?"

She looked past him. "You've lost me," she said.

"Really?" He raised his eyebrows. "It's not exactly difficult to follow. Ziani wouldn't have told anybody, because we agreed, it's not in his nature. And there can't have been anybody else who told on him, because who else would've known about it? Only someone who knew he was making the doll, and who knew he was including the abominations-someone he'd told about the changes he was planning on making. And, frankly, who could that possibly have been? Nobody." He looked up, at a spot on the ceiling directly above her head. "Well, you, possibly. Just conceivably he might have told you. But that makes no sense, because why on earth would you betray him to disgrace and death? After all, you stood to lose everything. And," he added, "you loved him, of course. True love."

"That's right," she said, quietly and icily. "I didn't know, and if I'd known I wouldn't have told."

"Of course not," Psellus said. "Of course you wouldn't. But then who does that leave? No one at all. Except…" He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "There's Falier, of course. His direct subordinate at the factory, the man you're about to marry. He'd understand the technical stuff. I don't suppose for one minute that he'd be carrying the mechanical doll specification around in his head, but he'd know where to look it up. Even so; that still needs someone to have tipped him off, so he could go and inform on Ziani to the Guild. And who could've done that? Someone who wanted to, and someone who knew about it. That rules you out," Psellus said, smiling, "on at least one count. So, now you understand why I've taken to thinking of this as the big mystery. It's not just big, it's huge, don't you think? Not that it'd matter a damn," he went on, "if Ziani hadn't managed to escape from the Guildhall the way he did. Because, all said and done, it's irrelevant exactly how he was found out. What matters, in the end, is the fact that he did actually commit the crime. He was guilty. We know that, because he said so. No, it's only worth going over all this old stuff because Ziani's still very much alive and on the loose. You know, don't you, that he betrayed Civitas Eremiae to us?"

(There, he thought; the camouflet sprung, the props burned out, the walls undermined.)

She looked at him for three heartbeats. "No," she said, "I didn't know that."

"Perfectly true." Psellus smiled. "Odd thing to do, don't you think, given that he'd built the scorpions that slaughtered our army. Because of him, in fact, we were that close to giving up and going away. Then, after causing us all that trouble, he turns round and hands us the city. Would you care to suggest why he might've done that?"

"No idea."

"Well." Psellus ate the last of the biscuit, brushed crumbs off his chest. "He wrote a letter to a friend; the one man in Mezentia he reckoned he could still trust. I'm surprised, actually, that you don't know. I'd have thought Falier might have told you."

"What's he got to do with it?"

"It was Falier he wrote to."

She couldn't stop her eyes widening; and it was like seeing a crack appearing in masonry. "He didn't tell me, no. I suppose he was ordered not to."

"Oh, quite so. But still; when you're as much in love as he is…" He shrugged. "But that fits in with what we know about Falier; a very trustworthy man, reliable. Anyway, to go back to what we were saying. Why would Ziani have done such a thing, do you think?"

"Didn't he say why? In the letter?"

Psellus smiled. "As a matter of fact, he did. He said it was because he was filled with remorse and wanted to make things right. Do you think that's likely to be the real reason?"

She shrugged. "I don't know."

"It occurred to me," Psellus went on, "that he was hoping we might forgive him, and let him come home. Of course, that would be impossible." She looked up when he said that. "Out of the question, naturally. First he creates a crisis, by arming the enemy with scorpions; then he hopes to get his free pardon by solving it. No, we wouldn't do business under those conditions." He paused, waited for a moment, then went on: "Actually, we would. In order to save face, after a disaster like the defeat the Eremians inflicted on us-if he'd come to us with an offer like that, we'd have listened, for sure. I think we'd probably have agreed. But he wasn't to know that, of course; certainly, he'd have to be out of his mind to formulate a plan on the assumption that we'd give in to him. And anyway, he didn't even try to negotiate. He simply gave us the information, with no conditions, no demands. Now that," he said wearily, "is a puzzle. On its own, it's enough to give you indigestion. Taken with the other puzzles…" He shrugged. "There now," he said. "Did you realize you're married to such an enigmatic character?"

Something was bothering her; he hadn't had her full attention for the last moment or so. "Would you really have let him come home?" she said. "If he'd tried to do a deal?"

Psellus put on a serious face. "Hard to say," he said. "If he'd been able to convince us beforehand that he could give us a way into the city, then I'd have to say yes. Or at least, that's what we'd have told him. I don't think the Guilds believe they'd be bound by a promise to a convicted abominator. But then," he went on, "I'm not sure how he'd have got us to believe he was sincere; we'd have assumed it was a trap of some sort, leading us into an ambush. It's crossed our minds, of course," he continued, "that giving us Civitas Eremiae could've been by way of a free sample." She looked up at him; now, apparently, she was interested in what he had to say. Quite a change. "What I mean is," he said, "he betrayed the city to us just to prove that he could be trusted, so that next time-" He stopped, as though he'd shocked himself with the implications of what he was saying. "So that," he went on, "if he sent us another message like that on another occasion-offering us Civitas Vadanis, say, but with conditions attached this time-we'd know that he meant it, and could deliver. Of course, that'd imply that he thinks a very long way ahead, and has complete confidence in his own ability to manipulate people. A bit farfetched, now I come to think about it. Also, he'd have had to have some pretty surefire way out of Civitas Eremiae lined up before making us the offer. Otherwise he'd be running a terrible risk of either being recognized and arrested when the city fell, or getting himself killed in the wholesale massacre. Now, we know that he did in fact escape; but only because Duke Valens suddenly turned up at the last minute. Did he know about that? I wonder. Had he actually booked himself a ride with the Vadani before he approached us with the offer? No, impossible; because in order to do that, in order to tip Valens off to come to the rescue at precisely the right time, he'd have had to make it clear to them that he knew exactly when the city was going to fall, and that'd have made it obvious that he was the traitor. Even so," he continued, after a pause for breath, "we've kept that option open by not letting the Vadani know that it was Ziani who sold out the Eremians; just in case he's got it in mind to hand them to us on a plate as well. When I say we" he added, "I mean my colleagues on the war commission. I voted to let Valens know straightaway, send him some hard evidence to back the claim up, so he'd have Ziani arrested and strung up. But the rest of the commission disagreed, and…" He shook his head. "By the way," he added, "not a word about this to anybody. If Valens finds out what Ziani did and has him killed, it'll be obvious that there's been an unauthorized disclosure, and since I voted against keeping it a secret…" He smiled. "I'd make it a point of honor to see to it that my last official act before being thrown off the commission and charged with treason would be having you arrested for complicity in Ziani's crimes. A friendly warning. Understood?"

She dipped her head. "I just want to forget he ever existed," she said.

"Well." Psellus suddenly felt very tired; he wondered if she did too. "You've listened very patiently, and it seems there's not a great deal of light you can shed on any of my problems. I was hoping you might be able to point me in the right direction; but what you don't know you can't tell me, I guess. Pity, but there it is."

He realized that she was looking straight at him. "Do you really think there's a chance he might come home?" she said. "Any chance at all?"

Wonderful how she'd said that; no clue as to which answer she'd prefer to hear. Since he couldn't glean it from context, Psellus decided, why not ask her straight out? "Do you want him back?" he said.

"Me? No, of course not. Not when I'm just about to marry someone else."

"Ah yes, true love. It had slipped my mind for a moment. Well, I don't think you need have any worries on that score. As I think I told you, he's just finished helping Valens to decommission the Vadani silver mines, to keep us from getting them. That means Ziani isn't the most popular man in the world, as far as the Guilds are concerned. They might just be prepared to overlook the deaths of five thousand or so mercenaries, but cheating them of the richest silver deposits in the world-I don't see them deciding to forgive and forget that in a hurry."

She was back to looking past him as though he wasn't there. "Can I go now, please?" she said. Not quite a whine, but with the same level of urgency; like a child on a long journey asking Are we nearly there yet? Looking at her, Psellus could quite see how she'd been able to wind Ziani round her little finger. Not for the first time, he thanked providence that he'd never been in love himself.

"Yes, thank you," he said, and she stood up immediately.

"The dispensation," she said.

"What? Oh yes, of course. It'll be issued straightaway. You ought to have it in, I don't know, three weeks. Four at the very most."

"Four weeks? Can't you hurry it up a bit?"

You had to admire her. Single-minded as an arrow, self-centered as a gyroscope, and nice-looking into the bargain. Ziani would never have stood a chance; nor, apparently, Falier. "That depends," he said. "If you happened to remember anything that might help me with my puzzles, any time over the next five weeks…"

"You said four."

He made a vague gesture. "You know what the clerks are like. They will insist on that big, flowing, joined-up writing, not to mention taking their time over illuminating all the capital letters. Taking pride in their work, you see, even when it's nothing but a routine dispensation. All it takes is one spelling mistake, and they tear it up and start all over again. It's a wonder anything ever gets done in this city, really."

She was standing in the doorway, right up close to the door, like a goat on a chain straining for a mouthful of grass just out of reach. "We'll just have to be patient, then," she said, "because there isn't anything else I can tell you."

"Of course." He nodded sharply. "Thank you for your time. You can go now."

She went. It was all over in a flicker; door opened, door closed. Anybody who could move that efficiently, Psellus reckoned, must be an excellent dancer. Would there be dancing at the wedding, he wondered, when she married Supervisor Falier? Somehow, he was inclined to doubt it.

He lifted a stack of papers on his desk; under them was the dispensation. He flipped open the lid of his inkwell, dipped a pen and wrote his initials, just underneath the signature of the deputy chief registrar. Ziani, he decided, must've had his reasons, when he gave Civitas Eremiae to the Republic without bargaining first. Although he couldn't understand what those reasons were, he'd come to respect his opponent enough to trust his tactical and strategic abilities. Imitating him, therefore, was probably a good way to proceed. He sprinkled the paper with a little sand, and rang the bell.

"What?" The borrowed clerk wasn't nearly so obsequious now he was alone.

"Could you do me a favor and run this up to the dispatcher's office?" Psellus asked.

"What's your problem, cramp?"

"Bad knee," Psellus said. "Rheumatism."

The clerk frowned. "I'm going that way anyhow," he said, moving forward and taking the paper.

"That's lucky," Psellus said. "Thanks. If they could see to it that it gets there as soon as…"

The clerk nodded, and left. Psellus sat back. With luck, it'd be there waiting for her by the time she got home; a pleasant surprise, he hoped, and totally disconcerting.

Left alone, Psellus took a book from his shelf, sat down, put his feet up on the desk and started to read. As a senior member of the executive, he had access to a much richer choice of literature than the ordinary Mezentine; instead, he'd chosen to read garbage. No other word for it. Lately, though, he'd found himself dipping into it over and over again, so that the inept similes and graceless phrases had seeped into his vocabulary, private quotations that served as part of his mental shorthand. Even as a physical object, the book was ludicrous, having been crudely made by an amateur out of scrounged materials-packing-case wood for the covers, sacking thread for the binding. Its fascination lay in the fact that it was a collection of love poetry written by Ziani Vaatzes to his wife; the small, pretty, rat-like woman he'd just been talking to. Throughout their conversation, it had been at the back of his mind to haul the book out and read bits to her-except that she wouldn't have understood the significance, since he was quite certain Ziani had never shown or read her any of his painful compositions. It remained, therefore, a secret that he shared directly and exclusively with his opponent, the arch-abominator and the Republic's deadliest enemy, who had once written: I saw her walking down the street. She has such small, such pretty feet. And when she turns and smiles at me I'm happy as a man can be.

A puzzle. He turned the page. Here was one he hadn't seen before. I know she loves me, but she just can't say it. It's not the sort of thing we talk about. No words or looks of hers can yet betray it But still her love for me is not in doubt.

He winced. If Vaatzes had been only twice as good at engineering as he'd been at poetry, he'd never have had to leave the city.

Someone coughed. He looked up sharply, reflexively dragging his feet off the desk before he noticed that it was only another clerk. "Well?" he grunted.

"Message for you," the clerk said, squinting sideways to read what was written on the spine of the book. Psellus closed it and dropped it in his lap. "Let's have it, then."

The clerk handed him a folded piece of paper and went away. It was an ordinary sheet of thin rag paper, universally used for internal memos, but it was folded twice and closed with the official seal of Necessary Evil. That made it important. He sat up to read it. Boioannes to his colleagues, greetings.

The abominator Vaatzes has contacted the Guild. Herewith a transcript of a letter delivered through intermediaries; Commissioner Psellus to report to me at his earliest convenience to examine the original and verify the handwriting against other documents currently in his keeping.

Text as follows…