K Parker - Devices and Desires

Ever since the victory (everyone he'd talked to had called it that) he'd been hoping things would sort themselves out. If the Mezentines had really taken a beating, and the siege was on the point of being lifted, maybe Orsea would be able to find the time to come and see him, or at least answer his letters. A few minutes would be all it'd take; Orsea, what on earth is all this in aid of? he'd say; and Orsea would tell him, and then he'd explain, and that'd be that.

But in the dark, he tended to think about the letter, and the terrible things the guard captain had told him, and the possibility that Orsea wasn't ever going to come and let him out. That was as good a reason as any for burning a candle. It'd be nice, though, to have something to read, apart from the three books he'd read so often that he practically knew them by heart. Jarnac had promised to bring him some more books from home, but if what the guards had told him was true, Jarnac wouldn't be coming to visit for quite some time. Of course, Jarnac could have told his servant to bring them, but presumably the promise had slipped his mind, what with one thing and another.

It was ironic, therefore, that when he had finally managed to drift off to sleep, some fool should come along and wake him up. It turned out to be the night captain; a pleasant enough man, though not much of a conversationalist. He was standing in the doorway holding a lantern.

'Sorry to disturb you,' he said. 'But there's someone who wants to see you. Says it's very urgent.'

'Really?' Miel sat up and yawned. 'That doesn't sound likely. Who the hell is it?'

'It's the Mezentine,' the captain said, frowning. 'Engineer Vaatzes. I didn't like to tell him he'd have to come back in the morning.'

Miel shrugged. 'I suppose not,' he said. 'Well, you'd better show him in, and then we'll know what all this is about.'

Vaatzes looked tired; more tired, Miel thought, than anyone he'd ever seen before in his life. He moved as if all his joints ached, and he grunted as he sat down. His clothes were filthy with brick-dust, sawdust and iron filings.

'You too?' Miel said.'

'What?'

'You can't sleep either,' Miel replied. 'So you thought you'd come over here, and I could bore you to sleep with stories of the Ducas family through the ages.'

Vaatzes grinned. 'Oh, I could sleep all right,' he said. 'I could shut my eyes and fall over, and hitting the floor wouldn't wake me up. Too much to do, though.'

'And here's me sitting idle all day,' Miel said reproachfully. 'I'd love to come and help you, even if it was just carrying your tools for you, only I don't think they'd let me.'

'No.' Vaatzes let his head loll forward on to his chest for a moment, then lifted it again. 'I'll come to the point,' he said. 'Frankly I'm too tired to dress it up, even if I wanted to. The fact is, I suppose I'm here to say I'm sorry.'

Miel looked at him. 'Sorry? What for?'

'For this.' Vaatzes made a vague encircling gesture. 'For being responsible for you ending up here. I suppose you could call it betrayal.'

Strange feeling; like walking into a tree, or putting your foot in a rabbit hole. 'You?' Miel said stupidly.

'Me.' Vaatzes nodded. 'I got hold of Duke Valens' letter to the Duchess and I gave it to Duke Orsea. And I told him where it came from.'

'Oh.' Miel was too amazed to be angry. He thought about getting up, but found he couldn't. 'Why?'

'Long story'

Miel frowned. 'Was it because I told Orsea I thought you were a spy, back when we found you?'

'No, certainly not,' Vaatzes said. 'Though in a way, I suppose, that was partly the cause of all your troubles. It showed you had good instincts.' He grinned, like some kind of predator. 'Your master is a dangerous fool, but you've always made up for that. And he trusted you far more than he trusted himself. Would you like me to tell you the long story, or at least the part of it that concerns you?'

'I suppose so,' Miel said.

'Fine.' Vaatzes yawned again. 'Please excuse me,' he said, 'I'm dreadfully tired. We've been working on patching up the defences for-what, seventy-two hours without a break. When I decided to make myself indispensable around here, I didn't realise how much hard work I'd be letting myself in for. Can I push my luck just a little further and beg a mouthful of whatever you've got in that jug?'

Miel smiled bleakly. 'Help yourself,' he said. 'It's a rather pleasant sweet white wine from my estate in the Northfold.'

'Very good,' Vaatzes said, after he'd swallowed a cupful. 'Though I have to say, I've got no taste in wine. We drink beer and cider in Mezentia, or water. Now then, I'm not quite sure where to start. There's a lot of background stuff that doesn't concern you, and it's quite personal, but you probably won't be able to follow the logic of the story unless I tell it to you.'

Miel shrugged.

'Right,' Vaatzes said. He poured out half a cup of wine and put it down on the floor by his feet. 'You know why I was condemned to death back home?'

Miel pulled a face. 'Sort of,' he said. 'Something about making changes to a design.'

'Essentially, yes. It was a stupid thing to do. I knew it was wrong, but I thought I could get away with it. I didn't; someone betrayed me. I have no idea who it was, but it doesn't really matter. I committed a terrible crime, for which I should have been punished. Instead, I killed some innocent men and ran away-',

'Hang on,' Miel interrupted-he was still feeling completely numb and vague from the astonishment Vaatzes' announcement had caused; he could hear himself talking calmly and pleasantly to this man, and he wondered why.

Probably, he decided, because he didn't really believe him. 'You make it sound like you-well, like you approve of what they were planning to do to you.'

'You could put it like that.'

'Fine. So why did you escape?'

Vaatzes smiled. 'For a very basic, stupid reason. I'm in love with my wife, you see. If I die, I'll never see her again. So I had to stay alive. It's that simple.'

Miel frowned. 'But-sorry if I'm being a bit blunt-running away, coming here, and then building all the war engines so we could beat off the invasion. There's no way you'll ever be able to go home.'

'We'll see about that,' Vaatzes said mildly. 'I rather believe I will, some day. But we're drifting away from the point. When I came here, it didn't take me long to realise how this country works. Basically, it's all rather haphazard. The people who rule this place aren't chosen because they're wise or talented, it goes entirely by what I believe is called the accident of birth. To make up for that, you noblemen are trained from birth to do the jobs you're born to; and you grow up having a code of duty and honour drilled into you, to the point where you aren't really in charge of your own actions. You do the right thing, instinctively' Vaatzes shrugged. 'There are worse ways of running things,' he said. 'But I saw, straight away, that you're the man who the Duke listens to. And that's because he knows he's a bad leader and you're a better one; he's a fool, but clever enough to recognise a better man and let him run things. That's why I had to get rid of you; part of it, anyway, but the rest of it's a bit complicated. Anyway; I asked questions. I was sure that you must have a weak spot somewhere, a point where you'd be vulnerable, and it didn't take me long to find it. It's common knowledge that you were always supposed to marry Duchess Veatriz, because that was the best possible match for both of you, politically and socially. Also, you were more or less in love with her-not that it mattered, since the whole thing was a foregone conclusion.'

Miel shifted uncomfortably and said nothing.

'Well,' Vaatzes went on, 'as soon as love came into it, I knew I'd found the weak point, something I could hammer a wedge into. Love's always the most dangerous thing; so much of the unhappiness and quite a lot of the evil in the world comes directly out of it. I guessed that you'd played the good loser, ever since Orsea married her, and that there'd never actually been anything between you and her after he won and you lost. Also, I reckoned it was extremely likely that, deep inside somewhere, Orsea would never really believe that she loves him and not you. Logical enough; he's a fool and you're a good man, everything he wishes he could be but can't. That was perfect, as far as I was concerned. Because you're innocent, you never had anything to hide, you never imagined you'd be vulnerable to attack on that front. All I had to do was find something wrong that I could involve the two of you in-you and her.'