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
