Evil for Evil

8

"They're here, for crying out loud," Carausius snapped, hanging in the doorway. "Valens, this is ridiculous. You're acting like a child who's too shy to come down to the party."

Valens kept his back turned. "Nonsense," he replied sternly. "I just can't decide on which shoes to wear, that's all."

"Now you sound like my wife." Carausius clicked his tongue, loud as a bone breaking. "I'm not going to plead with you. Come down or stay up here hiding, it's your bloody dukedom."

"All right." Valens grabbed a shoe, stuffed his foot into it, stumbled and grabbed the side of the wardrobe. "Wrong shoe," he explained, taking it off and transferring it to his other foot. "That kind of day, really. Hardly auspicious for meeting my future bride."

"Two more minutes and it'll constitute a diplomatic incident."

"I'm coming." Valens pulled on the other shoe, fumbled the buckle and stood up. "So, lamb to the slaughter. I feel like I'm about to lead a cavalry charge against overwhelming odds."

"No you don't, actually," Carausius said with a grin. "You'd be a damn sight more cheerful if you were."

"True. Dying only takes a moment or so and then it's over, but marriage is forever. Promise me she isn't wearing feathers."

"Promise."

"Animal bones?"

"Do you include ivory in that category?"

"Shrunken organs taken from the bodies of men she's personally killed in battle?"

"Valens."

He sighed, let his shoulders slump, like a boy on his way to a music lesson. "Coming," he said.

Vadani court protocol was unambiguously clear about the manner in which the Duke should receive representatives of a richer, more powerful but less civilized and enlightened nation. It was a matter of carefully balancing gravity, recognition and affable condescension. The only possible venue was the Great Hall; however, instead of being in position when they arrived and rising politely to greet them, Valens was required to time his entrance so that it coincided precisely with theirs. That way, assuming he didn't run or dawdle, he'd meet them in the exact center of the room, and the issue of precedence could be neatly sidestepped. They would then withdraw from the Great Hall into the formal solar; he would graciously ask them to sit first, and the ambassadors would then introduce them to him, it being permissible to assume that they already knew who he was. It was the sort of performance that tended to give him a headache; but, as with most things he hated doing, he was very good at it.

He'd chosen the wrong shoes, after all. They pinched, and after a couple of dozen steps he could feel a blister growing on the back of his left heel.

As the footman opened the hall door and stood aside to let him pass, he tried to clear his mind. He'd been reading about the Cure Hardy, of course, everything up to and including the reports he'd had compiled after Skeddanlothi's raid. He knew that there were at least seventeen different nations in the loose confederacy of tribes, each of them radically different from the others in several important respects. He knew that the Aram Chantat-this lot-drove immense herds of cattle from summer to winter pasture in a complex nine-year transhumance cycle, but ate only cheese, butter, yogurt, cream, wild fruit and berries and the occasional green vegetable bartered with more settled neighbors; that they believed that human life was a dream dreamed by one's equivalent in the higher world, and death was the equivalent's waking from sleep, and that birds, quadrupeds and some species of lizard were real, but all snakes, fish and insects were illusory shapes assumed by spirits of violence when they chose to wander the earth; that Aram Chantat carpets, knitwear and leatherwork (they were stroppy about eating their cattle but perfectly happy wearing them) were of high quality and widely exported, but that they were backward in the use of both wood and metal, and relied on imported goods obtained through a complex chain of intermediaries from the Mezentines. He knew that Aram Chantat women who wore their hair long were either unmarried or widowed, whereas if a man was clean-shaven, he was either disgraced or had sworn an oath as yet unfulfilled; that seven, blue and three ravens were unlucky, five, white and an eagle with something in its talons were good omens; that the women held their horses' reins in both hands but the men held theirs with the left hand only. About the only thing he didn't know was why they were there and what they really wanted from him.

The door was open. He took a deep breath and advanced, like a fencer gaining his enemy's distance.

Four of them; easy enough to recognize, because they stood a head taller than his own people. There were two men in early middle age, bearded, wearing long quilted red gowns trimmed with black fur; an old man, bald, with a mustache but no beard (what the hell did that signify?), dressed in a plain brown robe tied at the waist with a rope belt, barefoot; a girl.

Well, he thought. No animal bones.

She was wearing a variant of the quilted gown; red, with puffed sleeves, edged with white Mezentine lace. Her hair was straight, black, glossy, and reached almost to her waist; she wore a net cap of gold thread and seed-pearls, also Mezentine. Her face was triangular, sharp; not pretty, he'd have to think about whether it was beautiful or not. Her hands were clasped in front of her waist-high, and on her left wrist she carried a hooded goshawk. Her mouth…

(As he walked toward her, he caught sight of Orsea in the left-hand reception line, and next to him Veatriz. She was watching him, but looked away.)

Her mouth was thin, very red against her pale complexion-at this range he couldn't tell if it was powder or natural; the Aram Ghantat prized pale women, on the grounds that pallor comes from staying in the shade, therefore not having to work. She had long hands, and, he noticed, big feet. He realized that he'd been holding his breath for rather longer than was good for him, and he had to make an effort to let it out slowly and not gasp or pant. She was…

They were now the proper distance apart; if they both reached out their hands, their fingers would touch. Protocol demanded a bow; apparently she knew that. He lost sight of her for a moment, caught a fleeting glimpse of his ludicrous shoes before lifting his head again. She wasn't smiling, or frowning, but she was looking at him. Suddenly he wanted to laugh. She was looking at him as though committing the salient points to memory, so she could describe them to someone in a letter. Realizing that, he knew immediately what he must look like himself, because already in his mind he was phrasing descriptions, comparisons, all the main points of interest, for a letter he would never be able to write. For him, that was sheer force of habit. To see the same look in someone else's face was remarkable. He felt (he hesitated, checked and confirmed)-he felt like a stranger walking in a foreign town who sees a fellow-craftsman, a practitioner of his own trade, easily recognized by his stained hands or his leather apron, or a folding rule sticking out of his jacket pocket.

"Shall we withdraw?" Someone was talking, and he wanted to yell at him to be quiet; but it was Carausius, saying the words needed to get them out of there and into the next room. He saw the bald man nod, and they took a step forward; for a moment, he couldn't think what to do with his feet-should he retreat, still facing them, or turn his back on them and lead the way, or what the hell was he meant to do now? By the time he'd thought all that, she was next to him, and he could see that it was powder, and the red of her mouth was something put on with a brush, and her eyes were small and dark, set with a perpetual slight frown, like a hawk's. It occurred to him that he was now supposed to half turn and walk beside her to the formal solar (he had no idea why it was called that, so she'd better not ask). She looked at him now, and dipped her head in a small, private nod, as if acknowledging the presence of someone she already knew.

It felt like a long walk to the side door of the hall. He made a point of keeping his head up slightly, looking just over the tops of the heads of the people lined up on either side. There were eyes he didn't want to catch; guilt, a little, such as you might feel remembering a small promise forgotten, or a letter neglected and overdue.

As they walked together through the doorway, the goshawk shifted its wings a little. He couldn't remember offhand if that was supposed to be an omen of any sort.

In the solar; he'd forgotten that the tapestries on the walls were all scenes of the kill and the unmaking, the deer paunched, skinned and jointed; not, therefore, really suitable for a race of vegetarians. She stopped. He remembered that he had to take a few steps more, then turn and face her (but no salute or assumption of a guard).

"Duke Valens." He wondered who was talking, realized it was the bald old man. Perfect Mezentine accent, made his own sound positively rustic. "May I introduce the Princess-" And then he made some sort of uncouth noise, which went on for some time and contained sounds Valens was sure he'd never heard a human being make before. Her name, presumably. "And these are-" More noises; the two bearded men, who turned out to be her maternal uncles; and the bald man had a name too.

He remembered, just in time. "Please," he said, and waved airily at the chairs, as though he'd only just noticed them. They sat; his people sat; he sat. That was as far as protocol was going to take him. From now on, he was on his own.

He tried to think of something to say; fortunately, Carausius was better prepared, or more articulate, than he was. "I trust you had a reasonable journey." The bald man assured him that they had. A brief silence; Carausius appeared to have forgotten his lines, or was waiting for a cue that hadn't come. "The roads are generally quiet at this time of year. I hope the desert crossing wasn't too arduous."

Valens was expecting a reply, a polite reassurance. Instead, there was dead silence, as though someone had just said something indiscreet or vulgar. Then the bald man (beautiful speaking voice) said, "The Princess hopes that this gift will be acceptable to you."

He means the goshawk, Valens realized with a slight flare of shock. She was holding it impeccably; King Fashion would've clapped his hands and called people over to see. It was an outstanding bird; a hen, not a tiercel, with its full second-season plumage; bigger and darker than the passagers the merchants brought from northern Eremia. It stood perfectly still on her wrist, and her fingers were lightly closed over the ends of the jesses.

People were looking at him. "Thank you," he said. That wasn't going to be enough. What he wanted to say was, How come you've got such good taste in hawks when you don't even eat meat? but he was here to agree a marriage, not start a war. "It's a magnificent specimen," he said.

"The Princess chose it herself," the bald man said. "She also…" He hesitated, leaned across to one of the uncles, who whispered something in his ear that made him frown. "Excuse me," he said. "I believe the term is manning a hawk, meaning to train it."

"Quite correct," Carausius said.

"The Princess manned it herself," the bald man went on. "She is a highly accomplished falconer; I believe it is an interest you also share."

"Yes, very much so," Valens heard himself say. All lies, of course; she couldn't have trained a hawk, it took days and nights of agonizing patience and fatigue. I couldn't do it, so obviously she couldn't, she'd mess up her hair or break a fingernail-

(He noticed that her fingernails were all cut short.)

"Perhaps, if time permits, we might find an opportunity to fly the bird," the bald man was saying. He looked as though he'd expected rather more enthusiasm for the gift-I know why, Valens realized; they've been told that the only thing I'm interested in is hunting, which is why this poor girl's been forced to take a crash course in advanced falconry.

"I'm sure that can be arranged," Carausius was saying.

Valens was embarrassed; they're like parents who've taken their children to play with each other, but the children have taken an instant dislike to each other, and are sulking and refusing to make friends. In which case, what he really ought to say now was, Don't want the stupid hawk.

Instead, he took a deep breath. "There's a particularly fine heron down on the marshes," he said. "I've been watching it for the past week. Perhaps-"

"Heron?" It was the first word she'd said. Her voice was as sharp as her face.

"A pair of them, actually," Valens said (he could always find something to say about hunting, even when all the other words had dried up), "but the hen's not up to much. I was planning to leave her and go after the cock-bird."

"Do you hunt herons?" She frowned. "I suppose they steal fish," she added.

Diplomatic nightmare. He couldn't very well say that roast heron was a delicacy; and weren't fish supposed to be incarnations of the Evil One, in which case a bird that killed them might well be sacred. Carausius was staring at something on the opposite wall. Valens couldn't remember who else from his side was in the room.

"Herons are very rare in our country." One of the uncles was speaking. "I'm told they taste a little like partridge, only a bit stronger. Is that right?"

Fine, Valens thought; the hell with diplomacy, and if it means starting a war, so be it. "Please forgive me if this is an awkward question," he said, "but aren't you people vegetarians?"

The bald man, the girl and one of the uncles looked at him blankly; the other uncle whispered a translation. The bald man looked mildly surprised. The girl raised both eyebrows.

"No," the bald man said, "certainly not. Whatever gave you that idea?"

For a moment, all Valens could think about was the huge amount of cheese, yogurt, sour cream, curds, watercress and biscuits currently stockpiled in the kitchens. Bloody hell, what are we going to give them to eat? He also wished very much that he could remember who'd told him these people didn't eat meat, so he could console himself by planning a sufficiently elaborate form of retribution. "Fine," he said, "that's all right, then. Some fool told me you eat nothing but cheese."

"Cheese." The girl was frowning.

"But you don't," Valens said quickly, "so that's-Carausius, you'd better…"

Carausius already had; one of the minor courtiers was halfway to the door, moving well.

"I take it dinner will be late," said one of the uncles. "Pity. We missed breakfast."

"I'm sure we can find something," Carausius said, his voice brittle, as if he could already feel the rasp of hemp fiber on his neck.

"We're not fussy," the other uncle said. "Something cold will do fine."

The girl laughed, and Valens realized he wanted to laugh too. "I know where there's a rack of smoked venison," he said, "if anybody's interested. I sent it for curing about a week ago, so it ought to be just right."

"Perfect," said an uncle, with the sort of heartfelt sincerity Valens had never expected to hear in a diplomatic exchange. "There wouldn't happen to be any pickled cabbage to go with that, would there?"

"Don't be silly, Uncle." She was looking straight at him; in fencing it would be the imbrocata, the thrust angled down from a high guard. "These people aren't savages, of course there's pickled cabbage. Please excuse him," she went on, "he forgets his manners when he's hungry."

"Carausius," Valens said, and another courtier took off for the doorway. "Well," he went on, "so far we don't seem to have covered ourselves in glory."

The bald man shrugged. "It's understandable that we know so little about each other," he said. "Fortunately, ignorance is easily cured."

"In that case," Valens said, steepling his fingers in front of him, "is it really true that you believe fish are the devil incarnate?"

One thing the intelligence reports had got right. It wasn't the business about long hair and beards (that, the bald man explained, was the Rosinholet) or the stuff about being someone else's dream (a minority belief among the Flos Glaia, the girl explained, who also believed that the earth orbited the sun, rather than the other way about) or the carpets-the Aram Chantat bought all their carpets from the Lauzeta, during rare truces in their otherwise incessant wars-or ravens being unlucky or women holding their reins in both hands. But it was absolutely true that the Aram Chantat weren't much good at metalwork or carpentry, and that in consequence they had to buy anything made of metal or wood from the Perpetual Republic.

"It wouldn't be so bad," one of the uncles was saying, "if we could trade with them direct, but we can't, none of their traders will come out that far, obviously, because of the impossibility of crossing the desert with wagons. So we have to get what we need from the Flos Glaia, who get it from the Rosinholet, who get it from someone else; it all comes through Lonazep, and we think that some of it's carried by sea at some point, because we're sick of opening barrels and finding everything inside's been spoiled by soaking in salt water. Anyhow, the whole thing's ridiculous, and of course by the time it reaches us, the price…" He sighed passionately. "It's lucky we've got something that people want," he said, "or I don't know how we'd manage."

"Salt," the other uncle explained, before Valens could ask. "Which we dig out of the ground every fourth year when we cross the salt flats on our way back from summer pasture. Unfortunately, though, the Lauzeta have taken to mining the same deposits; there're a lot more of them than there are of us, and they've got more transport, so the surface deposits are pretty well all worked out. Obviously, that means we're going to have to go down deeper, but if we do that, it'll change everything; it'd mean leaving a permanent presence there, not to mention fighting off the Lauzeta when they go by that way every third year. And it goes without saying, we don't know the first thing about underground mining."

"We do," Valens said crisply. "In fact, we're very good at it." Someone he didn't recognize was standing next to him, pouring wine into a glass. "But I'm sure you know all about that."

"The silver mines, yes," the bald man said. "And we would, of course, be grateful for any advice or help you may care to offer us." He paused, and Valens guessed he was trying to judge whether the time was right to ask for something else; something, presumably, that he wanted rather more. Maybe he decided against it, because he shrugged his shoulders and went on, "But we're getting ahead of ourselves. We haven't decided yet whether increasing our salt production and continuing to depend on trading with the Republic is the right course for us to follow. There are other options we could explore."

"Like leaving where you are now and settling somewhere else." Valens nodded. "Which is why you're here, I suppose."

The bald man and the uncles exchanged glances. "Indeed," the bald man said. "Though I should stress that we're still keeping an open mind about it. But yes, Eremia would suit us very well."

"I've been thinking about that," Valens said, "ever since Carausius told me what you had in mind, and there are a couple of things-I'm sure you've already considered them, but…"

The bald man nodded slightly. "Go on, please."

"All right. First, if you occupy Eremia, you risk starting a fight with the Mezentines; second, will Eremia be big enough? Moving around all the time as you do-"

"You're right," the girl interrupted him. The bald man lifted his head but said nothing. One of the uncles looked away. "We have considered both of them," she went on, "and we don't see a problem. If the Mezentines want to mess with us, let them try. And yes; Eremia on its own would be too small. But there's plenty of empty space here, in your country, where nobody lives. And then there's the plain that separates you from the Mezentines-"

Sharp intake of breath; Valens couldn't tell whether it came from the bald man or an uncle. She frowned. "Anyway," she said, "there are possibilities. And we're planning for the long term, after all."

Valens leaned back a little in his chair. "You do realize," he said, "that my country is at war with the Republic. If you're dependent on them for all your manufactured goods, like you say, maybe you ought to be a bit circumspect about forming an alliance with us."

"We don't trade with them, though," she replied crisply. "Not directly. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they only had a very sketchy idea of who we are or where we live. The impression I get is that they can't be bothered to differentiate between savages."

The word made Valens want to smile. Time, he decided, to change the subject. "At any rate," he said, "I'm glad we managed to sort out the business about the fish. Talking of which, it's about time we had something to eat. Carausius, can you possibly find out what's taking them so long?"

During the meal (smoked venison, cold roast lamb; acceptable) he sat between the bald man and an uncle. The bald man wanted to talk about Mezentine Guild politics, and the uncle seemed fascinated by the technicalities of deep-level mine-working.

"I'm not the man you should be asking," Valens said, during a brief lull in the barrage of artfully phrased questions. "It just so happens we've got a topflight Mezentine engineer with us, he'd know all about that sort of thing. Carausius," he said, leaning across the table, "where's Ziani Vaatzes? I haven't seen him for a day or so."

"He's not here," Carausius replied with his mouth full (and him a diplomat; for shame). "If you remember, he's away at the mines, looking into that thing we were discussing."

"Ah." Valens caught himself before he frowned. Probably not a good idea to let their guests know that the celebrated Vadani mines, in which they were clearly deeply interested, were just about to be sabotaged to stop them falling into Mezentine hands. "Any idea when he'll be back?"

So much for showing off his rare and valuable possessions; he wondered whether he should keep Vaatzes in a glass cabinet, mounted on a little rosewood stand, for visitors to admire.

"Excuse me," the uncle said. "If you're at war with the Mezentines, why have they sent you a mining engineer? I hadn't realized they were so altruistic."

"Defector," Carausius explained.

"The only specimen in captivity," Valens added, realizing as he said it that the joke wasn't very good. "He came to us after the fall of Civitas Eremiae."

The bald man was very interested in that. "I wasn't aware that the Mezentines allowed defection," he said. "In fact-"

"They don't," Carausius said. "It was the Eremians' decision to grant this Vaatzes asylum that led to the war."

"And you've allowed this man to come here." It was the first thing she'd said for some time. She was wedged in between Carausius and a fat soldier whose name Valens could never remember, and she'd been eating with a single-minded ferocity that Valens couldn't help finding impressive. "Not a good idea, surely."

"We'd already declared war by the time we picked him up," Valens explained, "so we had nothing to lose by it. He's worth having, I'm sure of it. He organized the defense of Civitas Eremiae, made one hell of a good job of it. For a while, it looked like they were going to win."

"You declared war." She was looking at him past Carausius' arm and shoulder. "I thought they attacked you."

Valens froze. The unspoken question wasn't one he wanted to answer to anybody, but her least of all. "It was only a matter of time," he said briskly. "A preemptive strike seemed worth trying; they were weak after the losses they took during the siege, the political will seemed to be failing. I miscalculated. I don't think it made much difference, one way or another."

That was a cue for the bald man to resume his interrogation about Guild politics, and this time Valens was only too happy to talk. She carried on looking at him for some time, then went back to savaging the smoked venison.

She eats like a dog, she thought. She holds the meat still with her claws, grips it with her teeth and tears it.

It was hard to see the top table from where she was sitting; harder still to observe her in a proper, scientific fashion without being caught staring. Orsea's head was in the way, and the man next to her, some buffoon, kept trying to talk to her about music. Watching out of the corner of her eye was giving her a headache.

Stupid, she thought. "Orsea," she said, "is there any bread?"

He looked round, moving his head just enough so that she could see. "It's migrated up the other end of the table," he said. "Hang on, I'll try and catch someone's eye."

It was stupid, of course, because she wasn't the one who should be making these observations. He was up there with the subject; it should be his job to observe, and report back to her in a long, detailed letter. Instead, she was down here, among the other ornamental courtiers, having to crane her neck and grab fleeting glimpses. Not scientific.

At least she wasn't wearing authentic tribal costume. Actually, they'd done a pretty good job of dressing her up as a human being, and to her credit she carried off the imposture well. Training, probably, hours of patient coaching, like the manning of a hawk; teaching her to sit still, to keep quiet, not to jump up and run about the room. Someone had told her that they'd sent her away to somewhere quite grand and exotic to be schooled in civilized behavior-reasonable enough, when you thought about it, and considering what they had to gain from the deal. But they hadn't managed to stop her ripping up her food like an animal.

Veatriz smiled at that, and made a point of cutting the last of her cold roast lamb with the utmost precision; thumb and two fingers only on the back of the knife, just as she'd been taught when she was little. A young lady doesn't saw, your grace, she slices. Not that perfect table manners had done her much good in the long run.

Orsea had shifted in his seat again, and now all she could see was the wretched woman's shoulder. Red; the color suited her fishbelly complexion, but hadn't anybody thought to tell her what a red dress meant in these parts? She smiled, thinking of women in red dresses; women in red dresses who brought letters, once upon a time. I would give good money, she said deliberately to herself, to know if that face came out of a pot. Must have, she decided. If it was her natural color, they must've been keeping her in a dark cellar for the last six months, like blanching chicory. Nice metaphor, if only she had a use for it; the forcing, blanching and bringing on of vegetables for the table.

She frowned, and the boring man sitting next to her must've wondered what he'd said wrong. All very unfair, of course. Probably she was a very nice person, if you got to know her. Someone had told her (she could never remember people's names at these stupid receptions) that she'd been carrying that big hawk when they first arrived. How much would a bird like that weigh? You'd need forearms like a farrier to support that much weight. No; cousin Jarnac had told her once (at just such a reception, sitting next to her and being boring when she really didn't want to listen) that hawks were surprisingly light, something to do with aerodynamics and hollow bones. She'd had to carry hawks herself, of course, on formal days, but she hadn't really noticed how heavy they were. She'd been too busy worrying about whether they were going to huff their wings unexpectedly in her face or bite her.

All politics, of course. They'd dressed her in the hawk, just as they'd dressed her in the red outfit, and the polite conversation and the musical appreciation and the civil and mercantile law, until she was practically an artifact rather than a human being; a mechanical toy, like the clockwork dolls the Mezentines make, but instead of a spring to make her go, deep inside there was a little sharp-clawed predator who tore at her food…

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

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

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

He could be so infuriating; but she kept her temper. "Oh come on," she said. "Don't you know who those people are?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Orsea, what are you talking about?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Different tribe, presumably," she said.

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

"He reads a lot," Veatriz said.

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

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

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

"Fine. I'm going back to our room now, if that's all right with you."

(She called it their room, as if it was just a bed and a chair and a small mirror on the wall; in fact it was a whole floor of the North Tower, not much smaller than their apartments back in the palace at Civitas Eremiae. Too much space, not too little.)

"Oh." He stood there, directly under the flat, snarling dogs and the bustling huntsmen; cluelessness personified. "Right. I'll see you later, then."

She left him. Too busy, she thought, as she trudged across the courtyard toward the North Tower, far too busy; too much important needlework screaming out for my attention. Presumably the savage girl had been taught needlework, along with all the other civilized accomplishments. In which case, she decided, there was some justice in the world, after all.

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

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

"Well," Valens said, straightening his back a little, "how was your journey?"

She looked up at him. She was sitting on the stone bench in the middle of the knot garden. She'd been examining the rosemary bush as though she was planning to write a report on it.

"Not bad," she said.

"A bit of an ordeal, I imagine."

"I'm used to traveling about." She frowned. "Can we go to your mews, please? I'd like to make sure my hawk's being properly looked after."

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

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

A slow smile crept over Valens' face, like evening shadows climbing a hillside. "Why indeed?" he said. "We'll go and see how your hawk's settling in, shall we?"

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

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

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

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

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

Her frown tightened into a bewildered scowl. "Why did you do that?" she said.

Valens blinked. "Do you know, I'm not sure after all this time. Maybe we thought it'd look better green."

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

"That's right, I remember now." He looked away and pointed. "That squat, ugly thing over there is the clock tower. At noon every day two little men come out, they're part of the mechanism, and one of them belts the other one over the head with a poleaxe. The Mezentines gave it to my father shortly after I was born. Unfortunately it keeps perfect time, so we've never had an excuse to get rid of it."

The frown had settled in to stay on her forehead, and she made no comment, not even when Valens pointed out the obscene weather-vane on top of the East Tower. It's a gag, he told himself, a practical joke or something; and if I ever find out who's responsible, I solemnly undertake to decorate the Great Hall with their entrails come midsummer festival. "That's the kennels over there," he heard himself say, "and the stables next to it, and that gateway there leads to the mews." She was looking ahead; seen from the side, her neck was long, slender and delicate, her shoulders slim. "Did you really train that goshawk yourself?" he asked.

"Yes."

He nodded. "I tried it myself once, but I failed. I kept it awake for three days and nights, and then I fell asleep. I knew it was going to beat me in the end. Then I turned it over to the austringer, and he had it coming in to the lure in less than a week. I think they can tell if you've got the strength of will or not."

"I followed the directions in a book," she replied. "I didn't find it particularly difficult."

Plausible, Valens thought. Perhaps the hawk was stupid enough to try telling a joke, and she looked at it. Fifty years of this, or let the Mezentines have the duchy. Too close to call, really.

They'd put her wretched bird in the dark room at the end of the mews. She approved; after the trauma of the journey, a day in complete darkness and silence would settle it down. It should not be fed until midday tomorrow, she said; then it should be flown to the lure for no more than five minutes, and after that it should be given two-thirds of its usual ration. She would feed it herself tomorrow evening. Now, perhaps he'd be kind enough to show her the other hawks.

Even so; as they walked back to the main building, he couldn't help wondering how she'd felt, when they came to her and told her she'd be marrying the Vadani duke. Unless it had been her idea in the first place, of course; but assuming it hadn't. (Come to that, how had Veatriz felt when they told her she was to marry Orsea? But she loved him, so it was quite different.) Had she frowned and asked, who? Had she made a scene, or just nodded her head? Had she asked questions, or waited for the briefing? She must have known she was going to marry someone foreign and strange, or else why had they sent her away to be educated and refined? Had she complained about that, or welcomed it? As part of your training, you will be required to tame a hawk. He thought of himself, shuffling and stretching up and down the chalk line in the stables, learning to fence like a gentleman, his fingertips still raw after an hour's rebec practice. His education had taught him to excel at those things he hated most; at some point, he'd struck the balance between detesting them for their own sake and taking pleasure in his hard-won skill and accomplishments, to the point where what he did no longer mattered, so long as he did it well. They'd trained him, and then been surprised because he'd never fallen in love.

(Or that was what they thought. Likewise, they'd never found out that, all the time he was learning to fence elegantly with the rapier, the smallsword and the estock, he was paying a guardsman with his own money to teach him how to fight properly with a Type Fourteen infantry sword. When they'd sent her away to the university, had she asked, How will learning civil and mercantile law help me make the Vadani duke fall in love with me? She could probably fence, too. At least, he wouldn't put it past her. The question was, had someone had to sit up with her three days and nights in a row before she mastered the basics of the high, low and hanging guards?)

For want of anywhere else to go, Valens led them back to the formal solar. As he opened the door, he surprised half a dozen servants busy cleaning. They froze and stared at him for a moment, like crows taken unaware on carrion, or thieves caught robbing the dead; then they retreated backward, clinging fiercely to their brooms and dusters, and let themselves out through the side door.

"If it's convenient," the bald man said, "now might be a good time to discuss exchange rates."