Evil for Evil

22

"Quite right," a voice said behind them. "Or that's what I've always told myself."

Daurenja was awake. He'd tried to wriggle himself into a tolerable sitting position, but instead had flopped over on his side, so that he seemed as though he was talking to the ground. The gag, which he'd somehow contrived to work loose, hung round his neck like a stockman's muffler, and he looked like a clown; but Miel had to grab hold of Framain's arm to stop him charging over and beating him unconscious.

"My father didn't like me being left-handed," Daurenja went on conversationally. "He thought it was some kind of defect. I got tired of getting bashed every time I picked up a spoon, so I learned how to use my right hand too. I think he did me a favor. Having to do everything cack-handed all those years taught me dexterity."

Miel couldn't look at him; he was too busy restraining Framain. "Is it true?" he asked. "What he just…?"

"Every word." Nothing in his tone of voice except whole-hearted corroboration. "The boy caught me raping his sister. I was holding the knife to her throat so she'd stay quiet; it was bad luck he woke up when he did. I jumped up and swiped at him; like a fool, I'd forgotten I still had the knife in my hand. But that's not an excuse. If I hadn't been holding it, I expect I'd have killed him bare-handed."

Miel hesitated, then asked, "Why?"

"Why kill him? To shorten the odds." An explanation of the obvious to a slow-witted person. "I had to escape. I knew I could handle either of the men on his own, but both together might've been a problem. One from two leaves one. A great strength of mine is the ability to see straight to the crux of the problem."

Miel could feel Framain's grip tighten on his arm, but now he was holding him up rather than back.

"If you meant to ask, why did I rape the girl…" A laugh, dry as sand. "Story of my life, really. Just when I think I've found the right place to be, the right work to do, my heart lets me down. Always the same. Love has always been my undoing."

Miel glanced over his shoulder. She wasn't there.

Framain caught his eye and shook his head. "She'll be all right," he said. "Just leave her alone."

It occurred to Miel that this probably wasn't true, but he made a conscious decision not to do anything about it.

"We need him to get us to the Vadani," Framain said quietly. Miel assumed he was talking to himself.

"That's right," Daurenja said. "You need me. For which," he added, "I'm grateful. I've got no illusions about myself, there's an unpleasant side to my nature and I can't help it. But I always find a way to put things right. It's my rule that I live by. Mostly, all I can do is send money; which is fine when you're dealing with peasants and innkeepers, but this time I wanted to go that extra step further. That's why it's taken me so long, in your case. It's taken me a while to find something valuable enough to give you." He sounded like an indulgent uncle. "As soon as I got it, I came here as fast as I could. You being captured by the Mezentines was sheer luck; it meant I could save you; added bonus. I went to the house, you see, and as soon as I got there and saw the place had been turned over I figured out what'd happened. It was obvious they'd bring you to the Loyalty. Anyway, it'll be a weight off my mind. All this time it's been bothering me to death. Really, I had no choice about killing the boy; it had to be done, but I'm sorry. Soon we'll be all square again, and I can move on."

Miel had closed his eyes for a moment. He opened them again. "We've got to take him to Duke Valens," he told Framain. "We can't just kill him, out here in the wilderness. He should be tried and executed. Killing him ourselves would be no better than murder, it's what he'd do. You do see that, don't you?"

"If they were going to kill me, they'd have done it by now." Daurenja sounded weary, almost bored. "But if you take me to the Vadani, I can put things right. That's all I ask."

"I'll gag him," Miel said.

"Wait a moment." Framain sounded different. "What do you mean, you've found something valuable?"

"Just that." A pleasant voice. "Surely you've grasped by now, the porcelain idea's no good anymore, it's been overtaken by events. Even if we cracked the colors problem tomorrow, we couldn't use it. You can't run a successful factory in the middle of a war, in occupied territory, with the enemy promising to kill every Eremian they can find. No, what I've got is bigger than porcelain, and it couldn't have come at a better time. Valens will give every last thaler he's got for it; and if that's not enough, we can sell it to the Mezentines. It's a weapon, you see. It'll make all their scorpions and mangonels and onagers and siege engines obsolete overnight. There's just one step more I need to fix and I'm ready. We'll be partners again, just like before. Finally, we'll both get what we wanted when we started out. Come on, Framain, you know me. I do a lot of very bad things from time to time, but I'm not a liar. I needn't have come for you at all. I could've left you there. But you know I always pay my debts." Daurenja paused for a moment, and Miel couldn't help marveling at the spectacle: a man bound and hobbled like a colt for gelding, talking to the ground, but sounding like a kind-hearted lord cajoling a proud, stubborn tenant into accepting charity. He could see now how a weak man like Framain wouldn't have the audacity to kill him. "Or you could cut my throat right now," Daurenja went on, "and for all I know you might make it safely into Vadani territory; you might find Valens' column, and he might take you in. He might even let you earn your keep as a clerk; you can write legibly, after all, and where there's an army there's always bookkeepers. Or you could join the Vadani court as my honored guest. Did I mention I'm the second most important man in the duchy these days? Well, maybe third most important right now. But I'm expecting a promotion very soon." He sighed. "You owe it to her, you know," he said. "She deserves some kind of a life, and what's she got to look forward to, now the porcelain idea's fallen through? She's too old to marry, no dowry, no family. Wasn't the whole point of the exercise to give her the kind of future she deserves? I know you by now, Framain, you're a dreamer and a realist at the same time. Nothing's going to bring your son back, but quite unexpectedly you've got a real chance to get what you wanted all along. Or you could kill me in a fit of pique and carry on fending for yourself. But that's never been your strongest suit, has it?"

Framain was silent for a long time. When he eventually spoke, he said, "Tell me about this weapon."

Daurenja laughed. "With pleasure. It'll be a simple thing, like an iron log with a hole down the middle, but it'll smash down walls and kill men by the thousand; oh, and an idiot or a cripple could work it just as well as the strongest man alive. I'm an engineer; I'm the best there is, it's a gift I was born with. I'm a genius maker-of-things who's spent his life looking for something worth making. When I've finished, it'll be perfect. Everybody in the world will want it, more than anything else; more than love. And I risked my life to find you and beg you to accept a half-share in it, as a gift. Just for once, Framain, do something intelligent."

Before Miel could react, Framain had jumped to his feet. As he marched across the hollow he stooped to pick something up-a stone, presumably, there wasn't anything else it could be. He crouched, swung his arm and bashed the side of Daurenja's head; there was a solid noise, like a maul striking an oak wedge.

"I hate the sound of his voice," Framain said distantly. "Could you possibly find me a bit of rag? I'm going to gag him properly this time."

Miel looked but couldn't find anything. Framain got impatient; he tore another strip off Daurenja's shirt and used that.

"What are you going to do?" Miel asked quietly.

Framain sagged, like a man who's just put down a load that was too heavy for him to carry. "He'll take us to the Vadani," he said.

"Do you believe what he said? About this weapon?"

"Yes." Slowly, Framain sat down again. "Yes, it makes a lot of sense, actually. I think I told you how preoccupied he was, for a while before it happened. I had an idea his mind was on something else. Presumably, this weapon of his."

"And you think he'll share it with you?"

Framain nodded. "I believe the offer's genuine. That's quite in character. He thinks people are like machines. If they break down, they can be fixed." He sighed. "If he's taught me one thing, it's that there's no such thing as evil." He laughed. "Doesn't that seem like an odd conclusion to draw, from my dealings with something like that? But it's true, I'm sure of it. What I mean is, it's possible for someone to do the sort of things he's done and still regard himself as a more or less normal human being; he thinks to himself, I've done something wrong, but it's fine, I can put it right. If there really was such a thing as evil, he couldn't think like that. No, it's not that easy-some people are monsters, they're evil through and through; you tell yourself that so you can make sense of the world. It's like believing in a religion, a god and a devil, all good on one side, all bad on the other. But that's not how it is. Instead, you've got people who are capable of doing things that you can't even bear to think about; for bloody certain you can't ever forgive them. But they can still feel guilt and shame, they can still fall in love, try and do the right thing, appreciate what the right thing is-and then they cheerfully go and do the next unbelievably bad thing, and it all goes round again. So you tell yourself, it's because they're not right in the head, it's an illness, they aren't in control of what they do. That's another easy way round it, and of course it isn't true. And then you get people like me; and people like you, as well. It should be up to us to kill men like him on sight, like wolves, but we don't. We talk ourselves into believing that it'd be wrong, which is just that same old belief again, an excuse for not facing something we can't understand. I don't know," he added, slumping forward. "You heard what he said? My heart lets me down, love's always been my undoing. I knew he was in love with her-you can call it obsessed or besotted if you like, but that's just flavors of words. I'd been aware of it for some time. I knew she'd never have anything to do with him, because of how he looks, because he's a freak. I thought sooner or later he'd say something and she'd bite his head off; I was worried his work would suffer, or he'd up and leave, and I needed him to mix the colors for the porcelain. I didn't realize I was supposed to kill him, murder him in his sleep or put mercury in his beer, because if I let him live something terrible would happen." He was crouched forward, his head in his hands. "And when you came, it was just the same. When you came back with the sulfur, because of her; I should've smashed your head in with a hammer, instead of pulling you out of the bog. You've done almost as much harm as he did, and all for love. What am I supposed to do, sit up on the roof with a bow and arrow and shoot everybody who comes within bowshot? All I ever wanted was to have some money, like I was born to."

Miel thought for a long time. "Seems like you might get it after all."

Framain laughed again; practically a sob. "That's why I maintain there's no evil," he said. "Because I'm not an evil monster, am I? But I'm no different to him. I'm going to take his offer, because-well, like he said, my son's dead, that can't be helped now, and I do want the money."

In order to earn his commission in the Duke's household cavalry, Nennius Nennianus had mortgaged the sixty-seven acres of apple and pear orchards his dead uncle had left him, spent nine years as a garrison lieutenant in the coldest, remotest station on the frontier and done nothing while his childhood sweetheart despaired of waiting for him and married a middle-aged lumber contractor. Three months after achieving his lifelong ambition, he found himself in charge of, responsible for and to blame for a scene from any officer's nightmare: a column of wagons with their wheels off and their guts hanging out, stranded in plain view on a hillside with the enemy expected any moment.

The problem was his training. Nine years on the frontier had taught him how to deploy soldiers as easily as he moved his own fingers, but nothing he'd learned in theory or from bitter experience had prepared him for dealing with carpenters. Plead with them; they assume you're weak. Yell at them; they look shocked and walk away. Can't bribe them; you've got nothing they want. They reminded him of the old gray sow on his uncle's farm; lure it with apples, drag on it with a rope, break sticks across its back, and all you'd do was make it more stubborn.

The chief carpenter (not that they had a coherent hierarchy or chain of command; each time he tried to talk to them, he found himself facing someone new) was explaining it to him. They'd done as the Duke ordered and cut and shaped new timbers for the knackered carts out of green wood. As they'd predicted all along, green wood simply wouldn't take the load; it splintered, or it split, or the heads of the nails pulled through. They'd wasted their time, and the carts were just as busted as they'd been when they started, if not more so. Suggestions? The carpenter paused for thought and internal debate. It might be possible to cut timbers out of half the carts and use them to bodge up the other half, but he was fairly sure it wouldn't work. He'd try it, if so ordered, but he didn't hold out much hope; and by then, of course, half the carts would be fucked up beyond all possibility of salvage. Other than that, he had nothing constructive to offer.

There must be something you can do. Nennius considered saying it, but decided to save his breath. Instead, he thanked the carpenter with the stately politeness peculiar to soldiers talking to thoroughly obnoxious civilians, and walked away before he lost his temper completely.

Sitting on a stone, staring up at the crest of the mountain ridge where the enemy would be most likely to come from, he tried to figure out where he'd gone wrong and was forced to the conclusion that he hadn't. He found the thought profoundly disturbing. An error on his part could probably be put right-if not by him, by someone cleverer and more capable. An impossible situation, on the other hand, was beyond fixing, therefore desperate and quite likely fatal. The infuriating thing was that on the frontier, he'd have known exactly what to do next. Fall the men in, load as much as they could carry on their backs and start walking to wherever it was they were supposed to go to. The only sensible course; but that wasn't what he'd been told to do. His orders were simple and clear; as soon as the wagons have been mended, bring them on and catch us up. It was like being thrown in the sea with weights tied to your feet, with orders to save yourself but on no account to swim.

Below in the valley, he could just make out a group of deer, coming down out of a small copse to drink in the river. Eight hundred yards? Nine? Not so easy to judge distance in this terrain. Visibility, on the other hand, wasn't a problem. He could see, and be seen, for miles. He felt an obligation to be busy with something military; he should be scanning the slopes above him, figuring out the route the attacking enemy would be most likely to take, planning the details of his hopeless, pointless final defense. Manhandle the derelict wagons into the shuttered-square formation he'd been told about in the briefing, to force the enemy to storm an iron-plated fortress under withering volleys from the archers. He could do that. If he fought the defense with determination, ingenuity and passion, he could probably hold out for two days, by which time the water would run out and make his efforts irrelevant. There was a riverful of water in the valley, but he only had a finite quantity of barrels. Then again, a skillful negotiator could wrangle favorable terms of surrender, if he wasn't facing an enemy you couldn't trust as far as you could spit. On the frontier he'd have made the effort. Here, he simply couldn't see the point.

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 afterward, 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 pate. "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?)

"That's fine," Daurenja said. "Thanks, I'm obliged to you." He smiled reassuringly. "I expect it all seems pretty odd to you, but I want you to trust me. I know who my friends are, even if they don't. It'll all smooth out, and everything'll be fine. There's nothing in it for you to worry about."

Again; dismissed. Nennius nodded. After all, said the quiet voice of logic in his mind, if there really was anything in their wild claims, would Daurenja be acting like this toward them, when he could have them tied up and dumped by the roadside if he wanted to? Serves me right, Nennius decided, for judging by appearances. And as soon as we meet up with the Duke, it won't be my problem anymore.

The next day and night were delightfully uneventful: no problems with the carts, no dust-cloud behind them marking the approach of a Mezentine army, and the river shown on the map was exactly where it was supposed to be, so they could fill up with enough water to last them at least three days. Food and fodder for the horses weren't yet a matter of desperate urgency, so if they could only make contact with Valens' contingent in the next forty-eight hours…

Which they did.

The crows had found them, and begun the long, patient work of rendering them down into raw materials. They flew off angrily as the column came over the rise, reluctantly abandoning their quarry to the superior claims of a better class of scavenger.

A quick inspection showed that the crows hadn't been the only ones who'd come there to feed. The bodies had been stripped of their clothes, weapons, boots and possessions, then stacked up in neat piles like cordwood. At first glance, the ratio of Mezentines to Vadani seemed to be something in the order of three to one. The stacks lined the road verge at intervals of roughly fifteen yards, up to the brow of the next rise and presumably over it.

Daurenja was the first to break the silence. "I'm guessing they were going to come back and bury them," he said. "It's what they usually do. Looks like something drove them off before they could get around to it."

Nennius had seen dead bodies before, of course: on the frontier, and when he'd ridden with Duke Valens to the relief of Civitas Eremiae. He was no expert, but he knew a bit about the subject: the waxy look of the skin, the degree to which the flesh had shrunk, the beginnings of a stench. A lot depended on how hot it had been, whether it had rained or not, how heavy the dew had been. An informed guess: no more than three days.

"No carts," said one of the junior officers. "But they'd have taken them along with the clothes and armor and stuff, so that's nothing to go on."

A long silence; then someone else asked, "So, do you think we won?"

"Took some of the bastards with them, at any rate," the junior officer replied. "Some of them," he repeated.

The ratio of men to women and children among the Vadani dead: maybe four to one. So far, nobody had recognized anybody they knew among the log-piles. Their faces, Nennius noticed, looked rather like apples that had been stored in the barn a little bit too long.

"I gather it's something of an industry these days, looting the dead," someone else said. "Well organized, a lot of people involved. Makes you wonder where they're planning on selling the stuff, though. I wouldn't have thought there's any customers left."

The man at Nennius' feet had a grave, wise expression on his face, spoiled rather by the damage a crow had done to his left eye. Mezentine. Cause of death a puncture wound in the chest, too big for an arrow. A horseman's lance, possibly a boar-spear with a crossbar, by the way it had caved in the ribs on its way through. "Have any of the outriders come back yet?" he asked, well aware that the answer would be no; not in the five minutes since he'd last asked the question. For all he knew, his scouts were right there, in one of the neat stacks. "Send out another dozen; and I want the looters found, they may know what happened." He paused, then added: "Bring in half a dozen. If you find any more, I don't need to know what's become of them."

Someone dismounted close by. "It carries on quite a way," he reported. "It's like this for a good half-mile up ahead, and that's as far as I went."

"Suggesting a running battle rather than an ambush," someone commented. "Which is more or less how the Duke had got it planned, isn't it?" Nobody said, That could have been us; I'm so glad we weren't there. No need.

Someone else joined the discussion. "Hoofprints and cart tracks," he said. "Of course they're all scraped up, and there's no way of knowing which are the looters. A lot of horses, though."

"Do you think it was the garrison from the inn?" someone asked.

"Too many for that. We were told there was only one squadron."

"That's what I saw," Daurenja said. "In which case, this must be a different unit. It'd be helpful to know which direction they came from, but I expect that's too much to ask."

"Makes you wonder how they found us," someone said. All very calm and reasonable; like men contemplating the root harvest, or the outcome of a race meeting. "Mind you, if their scouts saw us, it wouldn't take a giant leap of imagination to figure out we'd been left behind for some reason and the main body was up ahead. They'd go after the Duke first, and then come back for us."

"Assuming they've won," someone else pointed out. "We don't even know that for sure."

In the pile was a Vadani man with blood caked under his fingernails, lying on top of a Mezentine with both arms missing. Both arms. An arm's a bitch to cut through at the best of times, tough as dry wood and springy as willow brash. The angle needs to be just right, and even then it takes a lot of strength and an uncluttered swing. Both arms…

"The looters won't have gone far," the junior officer was saying. "It'll have taken them a good while to strip all this lot, then stacking the bodies; and they won't be moving too fast with so much stuff to carry. If we had any idea of which direction they went in…"

Intelligent questions; good, helpful, intelligent observations. We are, above all, professionals. "We can't stop to bury them," Nennius said. "I don't know whether to press on or go back. If they've won…"

If they've won, then it follows that we're all that's left. Suddenly, we're the sum total of the Vadani people, under the command of Captain (acting duke) Nennius Nennianus. He swung round, looking for somewhere to hide. Pointless, of course. What if the Mezentines were coming, and they really were all that was left? Would anybody survive to tell future generations that it had all been Captain Nennius' fault?

"We'd better keep going," Daurenja said quietly beside him. "If the Mezentines are on their way back to get us, they'll find us easily enough even if we turn round. If Valens is still out there, we need to join up with him as quickly as possible. We'd better get ready for a fight, though. No point in making it easy for them."

They were waiting for him to say something. "Yes," he said, "we'll do that. And I want those looters found. The sooner we find out what's happened, the sooner we'll know what we've got to do."

That seemed to be enough. Suddenly, everybody seemed to know what they were supposed to be doing (apart from himself, of course). He envied them. His life so far had hardly been easy, but its lines had been straight and its signposts legible. Apparently, a few naked dead men piled up in orderly ricks beside a road had been enough to change all that. The implication was unwelcome but perfectly clear. Up to now, he'd been missing the point entirely.

Walking back to find his horse, he ran into the Eremian: Miel Ducas, the resistance leader. His instinct was to quicken his pace and turn his head, to avoid pointless conversation. Instead, he slowed down, long enough for the Eremian to catch his eye.

"Excuse me," Ducas said. "Can you tell me what's going on?"

"There's been a battle." Not, when he thought about it, the best way of saying it. "We've found bodies; ours and theirs. It's not clear who won. We're pressing on, same plan as before."

"Oh." Ducas nodded. "Thank you," he added; reflexive politeness of the nobility, meaningless. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"No. Thank you," Nennius added quickly. "All under control."

"Thanks to Daurenja." Ducas was looking at him as though pleading for something. "I gather he's pretty well saved you from disaster."

"Yes." Damn all monosyllables. "Yes, we'd have been sunk without him." Nennius hesitated, then made himself go on. "Is it true? What the other man said."

"I don't know," Miel replied. "But I heard him admit it. And I don't see any reason why they'd lie about something like that." Hesitation. "I can see what a difficult position it puts you in."

For some reason, Nennius found the sympathy infuriating; his own reaction surprised him. "Not at all," he said. "Like I told you before, it's not my jurisdiction. I'm not even sure the Duke's got any authority in the case, since it's crimes committed by an Eremian against Eremians in Eremia."

"He's not even Eremian," Ducas said. "Daurenja, I mean. He's Cure Doce by birth, apparently." He frowned. "So who would be the competent authority?"

"Don't ask me, I'm not a lawyer. Your own duke, I suppose. He's with the Vadani, last I heard. But it'd be complicated by the fact that Daurenja's an officer in Vadani service; you'd have to get Valens' permission to proceed against him, even if you could find the proper Eremian official to hear the case; and that's unlikely, since-"

"Since so many of the Eremians are dead now." Ducas nodded reasonably. "But in this case, I suppose the proper authority would be me. Theoretically, I mean. All that side of Eremia used to be my land, and strictly speaking Framain and his household were my tenants." Suddenly he smiled, a nervous, frightened expression. "Which makes me judge and chief prosecution witness. As though it wasn't complicated enough already. I don't suppose you're the slightest bit interested, are you?"

Nennius looked away. "I've got rather a lot to do right now," he said. "And I need Daurenja, at least until we meet up with Valens' party, assuming they're still alive. I can take formal notice of what you've just told me, but that's about it, I'm afraid. And I'd be obliged if you wouldn't make an issue out of it. At least, not till things have sorted themselves out."

"When the Mezentines have been wiped out to the last man, you mean." Ducas nodded again. "Of course. Thank you for your time. I'm sorry for wasting it." He started to walk away.

"I'll make sure Daurenja doesn't leave the column until we meet up with the others," Nennius said.

"Of course; he's a very useful man, and we owe him our lives." Ducas grinned; not the sad smile of a moment ago. "Pity, that. If he could just desert and go away, it'd make life so much easier. I'll do what I can to keep Framain from cutting his throat in the night."

Nennius' horse wasn't where he'd left it. Someone had moved it, no doubt trying to be helpful. He stood completely still for several minutes, entirely unable to decide what to do. Then they found him again.

There had been, they told him, a development. Come with us, we'll show you.

It turned out to be just another stack of dead people, naked and cut about. "Pure fluke," some excitable young officer was saying.

"Someone happened to barge into this pile with a cart, and I was at the wedding, I saw her quite close up, so I recognized her. And then I saw him, too." He was standing over two bodies that had been separated from the others; he looked like a dog standing over a toy it wants you to play with. Such cheerful enthusiasm.

Nennius looked at the bodies. A man he recognized; a strange-looking young woman. She'd been hit with a spear through the ribs; her head had been half split, like a stringy log with a knot in it.

"That's General Mezentius," Nennius said. "Who's she?"

Don't you know? the young officer's face was shouting. "That's the Duchess," he said. "Valens' wife."