gone over.
As soon as he could see the river through the trees he stopped and made himself calm down. His best chance of a shot would be a drake right on the edge of the water; they liked to sit out after feeding at this time of day, to catch the last warmth of the evening sun. The problem, as usual, would be getting close enough. Twenty yards would be pushing it; fifteen for a proper job. The screen of coppiced willow that edged the bank would cover him, but it would most likely obstruct the shot as well. He ran the odds, and decided that the best bet would be to assume that there'd be at least one pair of ducks on the shingle spit that stuck out into the water a few yards on from where the main path came down to the water's edge. If he left the path and worked his way down to the point where the big oak leaned out from the bank, he could use it as cover and get a clear sight across to the spit; closer to twenty yards than fifteen, but just about in range.
A splash of water, and the unmistakable quack-quack-quack-quack of a drake sounding the general alarm. Valens tensed with anger, because he hadn't made any noise; if the ducks had taken fright and launched out onto the river, they were cheating. He scowled, and realized how ridiculous his reaction was, but that didn't really make it any better. He leaned round the tree trunk and saw a solitary drake, head up, floating on the calm, deep water of the river-bend. Bastard, he thought, and nocked an arrow. The drake looked at him smugly, as if he knew he was a sitting target and therefore safe. Valens whistled, then shouted, but the drake stayed where he was. Fine, Valens thought; he pushed the bow handle away with his left hand and drew the string back with his right until his shoulder blades were jammed together and his right thumbnail brushed against the corner of his mouth. He glanced along the arrow shaft until he could see the duck on the point of the blade, then dropped his aim a hand's span. At that point, the three fingers of his right hand against which the bowstring pressed should have relaxed (you don't let go of the string, they'd told him when he was a boy, you drop it); but nothing seemed to be happening. The countdown was running in his mind: three, four, five, and then it was too late. Still restraining the string, he let it jerk his arm forward; the jolt hurt his shoulder and his elbow, and he dropped the arrow onto the ground. The drake made a rude noise, unfolded its wings and lifted off the water in a flailing haze of spray.
He stooped and picked up the arrow. Obviously not my day for killing things, he thought. He lifted his foot to step into the bow and unstring it, then changed his mind. Nocking the arrow once again, he walked slowly and steadily along the bank, trying to persuade himself that it didn't really matter whether he put up anything to shoot at or not. No sign of any ducks; but that was just as well, since they weren't in season yet. At the point where the coppice was too thick to pass through, he turned away from the river and started to walk back uphill. He'd taken no more than five steps when a young pricket buck stepped out of nowhere, stopped, turned its head and looked at him.
He felt the breath go solid in his throat. Ten yards away, no more, and broadside on; but if he moved at all, he'd lose it; there'd be a flash of motion and the buck would be gone. He forced himself to keep still, as the deer studied him, trying to reconcile the lack of movement with the presentiment of danger. To take his mind off the pressure building in his lungs, he made a dispassionate assessment of the quarry. One stud horn, he noticed, the other broken off about half an inch above the crown; a fairly miserable animal all round, thin and spindly-legged, with a narrow chest and too much neck; a weakling, no use to the herd, no prize for a hunter. It watched him, eyes wide, ears forward. I was you once, Valens thought, but not anymore. Nevertheless, I shall ask your permission. I'll make a mistake, and if you run, so be it. As slowly as he could, he lifted the bow, watching the deer's neck all the time over the arrow tip. When he'd put the point on the spot just above the front shoulder, he dropped his aim to allow for the arrow's jump and trusted his fingers to know what to do. He felt the string pull out, dragging against the pads of his fingertips. For a fraction of a second, he closed his eyes.
The sound was right; both shearing and sucking, as the sharp edges of the arrowhead slit open their channel. He opened his eyes and saw the buck stagger a little against the shove of the penetrating arrow. Inch-perfect in the heart. He saw the moment of death, and watched the fall of the carcass, like an empty sack flopping.
He let go the breath he'd been holding for as long as he could remember, and in his mind he was carefully phrasing a paradox for a letter he'd never write; about how a living animal is a pig, a cow, a sheep or a deer, but a dead one is pork, beef, mutton, venison; the two are so completely different that the same word can no longer be applied. The thing lying on the leaf mold in front of him was venison now, so completely changed that it was almost impossible to believe it had ever been alive. He thought of the battlefields he'd seen-all Jarnac Ducas' fault, for mentioning the corpse-robbers he was planning to deal with; if anybody had a word for it, a trade or technical term, it'd be them. Maybe there was one, but he doubted it; the difference being that the dead meat of human beings is no use to anybody.
He went forward, knelt beside the carcass and forked the fingers of his left hand round the shaft of the arrow at the point where it entered the wound. Drawing slowly with his right hand, he pulled the arrow out, and winced as a spot of blood hopped off the blade onto his cheek. I could still prevent the war, he thought. It would be the right thing to do, and I'd do it, if only…
If only Orsea wasn't her husband. But he is; which means there'll have to be a war, and killing, a wholesale conversion of life into waste, and one of those lives will quite probably be mine. He looked up sharply, as if expecting to see the hunter watching him, surprised in mid-breath, over the blade of his arrow. Nothing to see, of course; but just because he's not visible doesn't mean he's not there, and now it's his turn to ask my permission.
He wiped the arrow and put it back in the quiver, then stood up and unstrung the bow. Ask away, he thought, I've already made that decision; nor do I begrudge you your shot.
He paused, listening. He could hear the river, the creaking of the tall, spindly birches behind him on the slope, the distant miserable voices of crows. Nothing unusual or disturbing, nothing to put him on his guard. Maybe he couldn't see the hunter for the same reason the deer hadn't been able to see him; not that it mattered. So, he told himself, now I know: there'll have to be a war, and I won't survive it. Query, though: if I'd cheated and shot the drake sitting on the water, thereby scaring off the buck, would that have made a difference?
It was only a pricket, no more than thirty-five pounds dressed-out weight, but lugging it back up the hill on his shoulders left him aching and breathless. The warmth of its blood, trickling down under his collar and mixing with his own sweat, made his skin itch, and he had to stop halfway to adjust his grip, to stop the carcass sliding off his back. He startled the life out of the sentry at the sally port, now closed for the night, as he staggered out of the wood covered in blood.
He left the carcass for the guards to carry the rest of the way, and hurried up the back stairs to his tower room for a wash and a clean shirt. Unfortunately, there was someone lying in wait for him on the landing, hidden in the shadows. He was about to tell whoever it was to go away when he recognized the voice saying his name.
'Oh,' he said, 'it's you.'
Ziani Vaatzes; staring at him as though he was some sort of extraordinary monster. 'I'm sorry,' Vaatzes said, 'it's obviously a bad time. I'll come back later.'
Valens grinned. He was exhausted, bloody all over and visibly in no fit state to conduct official business; but Vaatzes was an outsider and didn't count. 'Don't worry about it,' he said. 'Come in and talk to me while I get cleaned up.'
By the time Valens had pulled off his sodden, sticky shirt, three middle-aged women had appeared out of nowhere with hot water and towels. Valens knew who they were-he knew everybody in the castle, naturally-but he had no idea how they'd got there, and it wouldn't have occurred to him to ask. He dipped a towel in the water jug and scrubbed the back of his neck.
'So,' he said, 'what's on your mind?'
Vaatzes was looking away. 'You wrote me a note asking for suggestions about how to block up the silver mines,' he said. 'I've been thinking about it.'
'What? Oh, yes. Excellent. What've you come up with?'
'That depends,' Vaatzes said to the opposite wall, as Valens poured the rest of the water over his head. 'Really, it's a case of how thoroughly you want the job done.'
'I see.' Valens nodded. 'Well, you know the reasoning behind it. First priority's got to be making sure the Mezentines can't open the mines up again in a hurry. If they got hold of them and got them back into production, they'd have all the money they need to pay for the war against us. On the other hand, if and when the war's over and the Mezentines have gone away, we'll need to get the mines going again as soon as we can. Basically, it comes down to cost-effectiveness. Our labor won't cost us anything, because we can use the army or conscripted workers. They've got to pay labor costs and make a profit. Is that any help? It's all right,' he added, toweling his hair and
