Evil for Evil by K. J. Parker Page B

finally, and looked at him. Exasperation? Maybe. "It'd be easier if you weren't so damned accommodating. Aristocratic good manners, I suppose." She shrugged. "And for pity's sake stop fiddling with that stuff. You're no good at it, and the Ducas isn't supposed to be able to work for his living. Leave it. One of the men can do it tonight, when they get back."
    She walked away and left him; nothing decided, and he wasn't even allowed to try and make himself useful. He thought: she doesn't love her husband, or not particularly, but that's not an important issue in her life. It's probably a good thing to be beyond the reach of love. And then he thought of Ziani Vaatzes, and the things he'd done for love, and the things he'd done with love, and with lovers. Ziani Vaatzes could mend chainmail, and nobody would think twice about it; he could probably sew, too. He could certainly bring down cities, and ruin the lives of other people; and all for love, and with it, using it as a tool, as was fitting for a skilled artisan. Use or be used, he thought. These people can use me, as Ziani used me; it's the Ducas' function in society to be useful. (He wondered: if Vaatzes were standing in front of me right now, would I try to kill him? Answer, yes; instinctively, without thinking, like a dog with a bird.)
    Nobody likes being bored, especially when their life is also hanging in the balance. But the Ducas learns boredom, just as he learns the rapier, the lute and the management of horse, hound and falcon. Miel leaned back against the wall and put his hands behind his head.
    3
    Partly because he was bored and had nothing better to do, Ziani Vaatzes crossed the yard, left the castle by the middle gate, and walked slowly down the slight hill toward the huddle of buildings that snuggled against the outside of the curtain wall like chicks under the wings of a broody hen. He was looking for smoke; not just the wisps of an ordinary household fire, but the intermittent gusts of gray cloud from a well-worked bellows. Once he'd found what he was looking for, he followed it until he heard the ring of a hammer, and then he followed that.
    Inevitably, there was a small crowd in the doorway of the smithy. There always is: a customer waiting for his job to be finished, poor and frugal types who'd rather keep warm by someone else's fire, old men wanting to be listened to, chancers waiting for a good moment to ask a favor. One of the old men was talking when he got there. Nobody could hear a word he said over the sound of the hammer, but he didn't seem to care, or to have noticed. One or two heads turned to look as Ziani joined the back of the group. A month or so ago they'd all have stared at him, but the Duke's pet black-faced Mezentine had stopped being news some time back. Now he was just one more straggler from the castle, an aristocrat by association, a somebody but nobody important. They probably all knew that he was an engineer, which would in itself explain why he was hanging round the forge; an assumption, and perfectly true.
    He watched the smith drawing down a round bar into a tapered square section, and allowed his mind to drift; the chime of the hammer and the rasping breath of the bellows soothed him like the most expensive music, and the warmth of the fire made him yawn. None of these people would have heard the news yet; they didn't know about the plan to abandon the city and strike out into the plains. Probably just as well, or there'd be panic, anger, moaning, reluctance. Valens wouldn't break the news until all the arrangements for the evacuation had been made, right down to what each of them would be allowed to take with him and which cart it'd be stowed in. There'd be an announcement, and just enough time for the evacuation to be carried out smoothly and efficiently, not enough time for anybody to have a chance to think about it. The Vadani didn't strike him as the sort of people who worried too much about the decisions their duke made on