saying: I did something really bad and terrible, but I realized I simply didn't have a choice. So: fine, I say, case dismissed. Is that how it should be?'
'I don't know,' she replied. 'I've never done anything like that.'
He breathed out slowly. 'Really?' he said. 'What about writing to me? Wasn't that bad enough, considering how it ended?'
'No.' Her eyes were cold and bright. 'I can't be blamed because somebody turned me into a weapon.' She studied him for a moment, then said: 'You can't blame me for the war.'
Valens winced, as though she'd hit him. 'Well, no,' he said. 'Personally, I tend to think the Mezentines-'
'You know what I mean.'
'So I should just have sat quietly at home and let them kill you?' He shook his head, as though conceding that he was deliberately dodging the point. 'That's what Orsea would have done, of course.'
'Yes,' she said. 'Because Orsea would never be in love with someone else's wife.'
He shook his head again. 'Come on,' he said, 'you can do better than that. What did you say just now? The world well lost for love? Actually,' he added, 'I do know that one. Pasier, the fifth Eclogue. But only because they made me read it when I was a kid.'
'You don't like Pasier?'
'Too soppy. His heroines sit around waiting to be rescued, you can practically see them tapping their feet impatiently, wondering where the hero's got to. And then the hero dies tragically, and they're all upset and miserable. Anybody with half a brain could've seen it'd all end in tears; and all the heroine need have done was pack a few things in a bag, wait till dark and slip out through the back door, instead of making some poor fool of a hero come and fetch her. Besides, how could a hero give a damn about somebody so completely insipid?'
She looked at him. 'You don't like Pasier.'
'No. I think his heroines are bitches and his heroes deserve everything they get. Which explains,' he added, 'why I don't go in much for self-pity, either. I have no sympathy for stupid people.'
What was she thinking? The writer of the letters whose words he knew by heart had told him everything about herself. He had explored her mind like a scholar, like a pilgrim. The girl he'd spoken to once when he was seventeen was so well known to him that he could have told you without having to think what she would be likely to do or say in any possible circumstance. The woman sitting in front of him was different. He hardly knew her.
'You're wrong,' she said. 'It's from the seventh Eclogue, and the line is the world well lost for her sake. Your version couldn't possibly be right, it wouldn't scan. Whatever you think about Pasier's heroes and heroines, his scansion's always impeccable.'
He scowled. 'Agreed. He obeys all the rules. I think that's why he's a bit dull for my liking. He always does the right thing; makes him sort of predictable. Same with his characters; they always do the right thing. It means you can always figure out well in advance what's going to happen in the end. They always die horribly, but with their honor intact, leaving the world a better place. Which is pretty much true to life, if you think about it. I mean, the world can't help but be a better place if there's one less dick-headed idealist cluttering it up.'
She took a deep breath. 'I know I haven't said this before,' she said, 'but what you did-saving Orsea and me when the city fell-it was the most wonderful-'
'Mistake,' he interrupted. 'Stupidest thing I ever did. It was a Pasier moment; exactly the sort of thing one of his boneheads in shining armor would've done. Probably, subconsciously, that's what I was thinking of when I made the decision. Self-image, I think that's the expression I'm looking for. I got this mental picture of myself as a romance hero, and it appealed to me. The world well lost for love. No, I should've stayed at home and read a good book.'
'But you didn't.'
'No. I didn't have that option. And if I could've foreseen what was going to happen… If I'd had a vision of this moment, so I could've seen exactly what a complete and utter fuck-up I was going to make, with dead civilians heaped up like cords for the winter log-pile and basically no chance at all of getting out of this in one piece, I'd still have done it. I'd do it again tomorrow.' He closed his eyes for a moment. 'Would you care to hazard a guess why? And you sit there, cold as last night's roast mutton, and tell me you love Orsea, final, nonnegotiable.'
'I do.'
'Well, fine.' Valens jumped up and turned his back on her. 'That's your privilege. I take it you're like me, don't suffer fools gladly. And since we're both agreed that I'm the biggest idiot still living, I quite understand your choice. Orsea may be a clown and a source of trouble and sorrow for everybody in the known world, but he's a harmless genius compared to me. You haven't got a spare copy of Pasier with you, by any chance? I feel in the mood for reading him again, but I left my copy back in the city, along with everything else I used to own.'
'I'm sorry.' He couldn't see the expression on her face, and her tone of voice was flat, almost dead. 'You were the only real friend I ever had. I used to live for your letters. I think you're the only person I've ever known who's tried to understand me.'
'But you love Orsea.'
'Yes.'
'There you are, then. Tell you what, why not get him to write to you? Dear Veatriz: how are you? The weather has been nice again today, though tomorrow it might rain. He could probably manage that, if he stuck at it for a while.'
'I really am very sorry,' she said, and, for the first time since his father died, Valens allowed himself to admit defeat; to recognize it, as if it was some foreign government whose existence he could no longer credibly ignore. 'It's all right,' he said. 'Funny, really. I used to think you brought out the best in me, and now it turns out you have the opposite effect. Shows how much I really know you. After all, it's different in letters: you can be who you wish you were, instead of who you actually are.'
'That's not true,' she said. 'I know who you really are. It's-well, it's a waste, really.'
'Did you know my wife's dead?' he asked suddenly, almost spitting the information out. 'The Mezentines killed her. I really wish I could feel heartbroken about it, or sorry, or even angry. Instead-you know how I feel? Like when I was a kid, and my father had arranged a big hunt, and then it pissed down with rain and we couldn't go out. But when he died, I felt so bad about that. He loved it so much, and I hated it. I started going out with the hounds again to punish myself, I guess. Now, when I go out, it's the only time I feel at peace with myself. Even reading your letters never made me feel that way. You know what I used to do? As soon as I got a letter from you, I'd cancel all my appointments, I'd read it over and over again-taking notes, for crying out loud-and then I'd spend a whole day, two or three sometimes, writing the reply. You can't begin to imagine how hard I worked, how I concentrated; there'd be books heaped up everywhere so I could chase up obscure facts and apposite quotations. First I'd write a general outline, in note form, with headings; then a separate sheet of paper for each heading, little diagrams to help me figure out the structure. Then I'd copy out a first draft, leaving plenty of space between the lines so I could write bits in over the top; then a second and third draft, often a fourth. If I'd have worked a tenth as hard on politics, I'd have conquered the Mezentines by now and be getting ready to invade the Cure Hardy.' He laughed. 'Bet you thought I just scribbled down the first thing that came into my head. I wrote them so that's what you'd think-like we were talking, and everything came spontaneously from my vast erudition and sparkling, quicksilver mind. I spent a whole day on one sentence once. I couldn't decide whether it'd sound more natural and impromptu if the relative clause came at the beginning or the end. Actually, it was a bloody masterpiece of precision engineering, though I do say so myself. And the irony is, you never realized. If you'd realized, it'd have meant I'd failed.'
He stopped talking and turned round sharply; he'd heard the tent flap rustle. A sergeant was hovering in the doorway, looking worried and trying to apologize for interrupting.
'It's all right,' she said, 'I was just going.'
He couldn't bear to see her go, so he looked down at the ground until he saw her shadow pass out into the light and break up. Then he turned on the sergeant like a boar rounding on the pack.
'What the fuck do you want?' he said.
The sergeant looked terrified. 'It's Vaatzes, sir,' he said. 'That Mezentine. He's come back.'
24
