K Parker - Evil for Evil

She raised an eyebrow. "Twenty-Ninth Street?"

"At the bottom of Eighth Street and turn left. I know," he added, "I tried to work it out too. I tried prime numbers, square roots and dividing by Conselher's Constant, but I still can't make any sense of how the numbers run."

"And you an engineer," she said. "I'd have thought you'd have worked it out by now."

"Too deep for me. There must be a logical sequence, though. You'll have to ask Duke Valens. He must know, if anyone does."

"I'm sure." Not the slightest flicker of an eyelid, and the voice perfectly controlled, like a guardsman's horse in a parade. "I gather it's just the sort of thing that would interest him."

She nodded very slightly to the maid on her left, and she and her escort began to move at precisely the same moment, down the hill, toward the Eighth Street gate. At a guess, the little square off Twenty-Ninth Street was a good eight hundred and fifty yards from the palace. It reminded him of the section in King Fashion, the unspeakably dull hunting manual that everybody was so keen on in these parts, about the early stages of training a falcon; how much further you let it fly each day, when you're training it to come back to the lure.

They didn't speak to each other all the way down Eighth Street; but at the narrow turning off the main thoroughfare she looked at him and asked, "So what are you doing? Are you managing to keep yourself occupied?"

As he answered her (he was politely and unobtrusively evasive, and told her nothing), he thought: between any other two people, this could easily sound like flirtation, or at the very least a preliminary engagement of skirmishers as two armies converge. But I don't suppose she's ever flirted in her life, and (he had to make an effort not to smile) of course, I'm the Mezentine, so different I'm not quite human. Flirting with me would be like trying to burn water; couldn't be done even if anyone wanted to. I think she's got nobody to talk to; nobody at all.

"You should set up in business," she was saying. "I'm sure you'd do very well. After all, you got that factory going in Eremia very quickly, and if it hadn't been for the war…"

"The thought had crossed my mind," he replied gravely. "But I get the feeling that manufacturing isn't the Vadani's strongest suit, and I haven't got the patience to spend a year training anybody to saw a straight line. Besides, I quite like a change of direction. I was thinking about setting up as a trader."

She laughed. "You think you'd look good in red?"

"I forgot," he said, as lightly as he could manage. "Your sister's a Merchant Adventurer, isn't she?"

"That's right." Just a trace of chill in her voice.

"I wonder if she'd be prepared to help me," he said, increasing the level of enthusiasm but not piling it on too thick. "A bit of advice, really. I imagine she knows pretty well everybody in the trade. It seems like a fairly small world, after all."

"You want to meet her so she can teach you how to be her business rival? I'm not sure it works like that."

An adversarial side to her nature he hadn't noticed or appreciated before. She liked verbal fencing. He hadn't thought it was in her nature; perhaps she'd picked the habit up somewhere, from someone. "I was thinking more in terms of a partnership," he said.

"Oh." She blinked. Arch didn't suit her. "And what would you bring to it, I wonder?"

"I heard about a business opportunity the other day," he replied. "It sounds promising, but I'm not a trader."

She nodded. "Well," she said, "I owe you a favor, don't I?" She paused. Something about her body language put her maids and equerries on notice that they'd suddenly been struck blind and dumb. Impressive how she could do that. "I haven't had a chance to thank you," she went on, somewhat awkwardly.

"What for?"

She frowned. "For getting me out of Civitas Eremiae alive," she said.

He nodded. "What you mean is, why did I do that?"

"I had wondered."

He looked away. It could quite easily have been embarrassment, the logical reaction of a reticent man faced with unexpected gratitude. "Chance," he said. "Pure chance. Oh, I knew who you were, of course. But I happened to run into you as I was making my own escape. It was just instinct, really."

"I see." She was frowning. "So if you'd happened to run into someone else first…"

"I didn't, though," he said. "So that's all right."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I think I made it sound like I was afraid-I don't know, that you were calling in a debt or something."

"It's all right," he said. "Let's talk about something else."

"Fine." She lifted her head, like a horse sniffing for rain. "Such as?"

"Oh, I don't know. How are you settling in?"

"What?"

"Well, you asked me."

She hesitated, then shrugged. "There are days when I forget where I am," she said. "I wake up, and it's a sunny morning, and I sit in the window-seat and pick up my embroidery; and the view from the window is different, and I remember, we're not in Eremia, we're in Civitas Vadanis. So I guess you could say I've settled in quite well. I mean," she added, "one place is very much like another when you stay in your room embroidering cushion covers. It's a very nice room," she went on. "They always have been. I suppose I've been very lucky, all my life."

The unfair question would be, So you enjoy embroidery, then? If he asked it, either she'd have to lie to him, or else put herself in his power, forever. "What are you making at the moment?" he asked.

"A saddle-cloth," she answered brightly. "For Orsea, for special occasions. You see, all the other things I made for him, everything I ever made…" She stopped. Burned in the sack of Civitas Eremiae, or else looted by the Mezentines, rejected as inferior, amateur work, and dumped. He thought of a piece of tapestry he'd seen in Orsea's palace before it was destroyed; he had no idea whether she'd made it, or some other noblewoman with time to fill. It hardly mattered; ten to one, her work was no better and no worse. The difference between her and me, Vaatzes thought, is that she's not a particularly good artisan. I don't suppose they'd let her work in Mezentia.

"It must take hours to do something like that," he said.

She looked past him. "Yes," she said.

"Let me guess." (He didn't want to be cruel, but it was necessary.) "Hunting scenes."

She actually laughed. "Well, of course. Falconry on the left, deer-hunting on the right. I've been trying really hard to make the huntsman look like Orsea, but I don't know; all the men in my embroideries always end up looking exactly the same. Sort of square-faced, with straight mouths. And my horses are always walking forward, with their front near leg raised."

He nodded. "You could take up music instead."

"Certainly not." She gave him a mock scowl. "Stringed instruments chafe the fingers, and no gentlewoman would ever play something she had to blow down. Which just leaves the triangle, and-"

"Quite." He looked up. "Here we are," he said. "Twenty-Ninth Street. The square's just under that archway there."

She nodded. "Thank you for showing me the way," she said.

"I hope you find what you're looking for."

"Vermilion," she replied. "And some very pale green, for doing light-and-shade effects on grass and leaves."

"Best of luck, then." He stood aside to let her pass.

"I expect I'll see you at the palace," she said. "And yes, I'll write to my sister."

He shook his head. "Don't go to any trouble."

"I won't. But I write to her once a week anyway."

She walked on, and he lost sight of her behind the shoulders of her maids. Once she was out of sight, he leaned against the wall and breathed out, as though he'd just been doing something strenuous and delicate. There goes a very dangerous woman, he thought. She could be just what I need, or she could spoil everything. I'll have to think quite carefully about using her again.