hear.
'Is there somewhere we can hear ourselves think?' Valens shouted.
Vaatzes nodded and led the way, down the aisle to what looked like a square hole in the floor, with the top rungs of a ladder sticking up out of it. 'Down here,' Vaatzes yelled, and vanished down the hole before Valens could object.
Strange place for the Duke of the Vadani to be; certainly somewhere he'd never been before. After a moment's thought he decided it was probably the market's old meat cellar, somewhere cool to keep the unsold stock overnight. It had the feel of a tomb about it, a stone-faced chamber carefully designed for storing dead flesh. There was a plain, cheap table in the middle of it, on which stood a single lamp, a sheaf of papers and an inkwell.
'My office,' Vaatzes explained. 'The real one, where I actually do some work. About the only place in this town you can hear yourself think.'
True enough; no distant thumping of hammers, even the squeal of files was missing. 'Excellent,' Valens said. 'I might just commandeer it for myself, until all this is over.'
Flat joke; so flat you could have played bowls on it. 'You wanted to see me,' Vaatzes said. 'I could have come to the palace.'
Valens waved that aside. 'You're busier than I am,' he said, 'your time's worth more. And I was curious, I wanted to take a look for myself. I've never seen anything like it before.'
Vaatzes gestured toward the single chair. Valens raised his palm in polite refusal. 'It's not a pretty sight, I'm afraid,' Vaatzes said. 'If you want to see the real thing, go and visit the ordnance factory, or any of the Guild shops in the city. The best you can say for this lot is, we're getting the job done, more or less.'
'Not up to the standard you're used to?'
Vaatzes laughed. 'Not really.'
'Pity,' Valens replied. 'I'd have liked to think you were making yourself at home. Or at least, as close to home as you can make it. I get the feeling you aren't comfortable out of your proper surroundings.'
'Curious thing to say,' Vaatzes replied. 'I can't say I'd thought of it like that before. You think I'm trying to turn all the places I go to into little replicas of the city, just because I'm homesick.'
Valens shrugged. 'Something like that. Not that it bothers me if you are. We need your help, simple as that. None of our people could've set up something like this.'
'True,' Vaatzes said. 'It's just as well we aren't trying anything ambitious. It was different in Eremia. Yes, they were primitive by Mezentine standards, but in the event it didn't take long to get the local artisans up to speed. Here…' He pulled a sad face. 'You've got no real tradition of making things,' he said. 'Understandable, no need, when you could buy anything you wanted in trade. But we're coping. This time tomorrow, it should all be finished.'
'Really?'
Vaatzes nodded. 'It may look like a shambles, but actually it's going well. The only problem I'm anticipating is getting the finished carts out of the way, once they've been armored.'
'I've got someone taking care of all that,' Valens replied. 'Anyhow, I'm relieved to hear you say we'll be ready more or less on time, because I've decided to bring the evacuation forward by two days. If we leave early, people won't have time for their last-minute packing, they'll have to grab what they can and run. That way, we can keep the wagons from getting laden down with unnecessary junk.' He hesitated. He was finding it hard to concentrate. A conclusion was trying to form in his mind, but as yet he couldn't find the shape of it. 'Anyway, that's all I wanted to ask you. I'll let you get back to work.'
But Vaatzes was looking at him. 'You came a long way just to get a progress report. You could've sent someone.'
That was true, but it hadn't occurred to Valens to send a messenger. 'I haven't had a chance to talk to you,' he said, 'not since the attack.' He frowned. 'I guess I ought to thank you, for raising the alarm.'
'Self-interest,' Vaatzes replied shortly.
'Maybe, but if you hadn't…' The conclusion? Only the leading edge of it. 'I'll admit,' he said, 'it scared me. I don't think I'd realized just how close they are.'
'Hence the hurry to get the evacuation under way?'
'Partly.' No, he realized. It's not the Mezentines that frighten me. 'That man of yours, Daurenja. Where did you get him from? He came in handy.'
A slight reaction, as though he'd grazed a sore place. 'He just turned up one day, wanting a job,' Vaatzes replied. 'To be honest with you, I don't know what to make of him either. But he works hard, and he's been very useful.'
They were just making conversation; acquaintances spinning out a tenuous discussion to plaster over a silence. 'Let me know as soon as the last cart's been done,' Valens said briskly. 'And I'm obliged to you. It can't have been easy, but you've done a good job.'
The praise seemed to glance off, like a file off hardened steel; hardly what you'd expect from a refugee artisan praised by his noble patron. I don't matter particularly to him, Valens realized; and maybe that's the conclusion, or another of its projections. 'I'll let you get on now.'
'There's one other thing.' The tone of Vaatzes' voice stopped him in his tracks.
'Go on.'
Vaatzes was looking straight at him, as though aiming. 'Did you ever find out what the object of the attack was?'
'Fairly obvious, surely.'
'To get you, you mean?'
It had seemed obvious, not so long ago. 'You don't think so.'
'I was wondering,' Vaatzes said, 'if it was me they were after.'
'What makes you think that?'
'Well, this whole war's about me, more or less.' He said it as though it was something so generally accepted as to be trite and not worth emphasizing. 'They invaded Eremia because I was there. Now I'm here. Maybe, if they haven't got the stomach for another full-scale war, they reckoned they could get out of it by going straight to the heart of the problem, so to speak.'
Valens decided his other commitments could wait. 'I'm not sure I agree,' he said. 'They're upset with me because I made an unprovoked attack on them, at Civitas Eremiae. Can't say I blame them for that.'
'Maybe.' Vaatzes was still looking straight at him. 'But suppose I'm right. Suppose it's me they really want, and that's what the attack was all about. If you thought that, what would you do?'
'That's easy,' Valens said quietly. 'I'd let them have you.'
'Of course. Has the thought crossed your mind at all?'
'Yes.' He hadn't intended to say that. 'I consider all the options. I decided against it.'
Vaatzes nodded, a mute acknowledgment. 'Why?' he asked.
'I don't believe it'd get them off my back,' Valens said. 'And you're very useful to me. And I don't think the war's about you, or at least, not anymore. It's all about Mezentine internal politics now. Sending you back might get me a truce, but they'd be back again before too long.'
'My fault again.' Vaatzes smiled. 'If I hadn't built the scorpions for Duke Orsea, they'd have had a quick, easy victory in Eremia. Instead they were humiliated, and they've got to get their self-respect back. They need me for that.'
'You make it sound like you want to be sent back. Do you like yourself as a martyr or something?'
'Of course not. I just want to know where I stand.'
'Reasonable enough.' Valens wanted to look away, but that wouldn't be a good idea. 'You've got nothing to worry about on that score,' he said. 'It's against my nature to give up anything I can use as a weapon, when my enemies are breathing down my neck. If they'd asked me politely, at the beginning…' He paused, and shook his head. 'I wouldn't have trusted them, even then. If the war's anybody's fault, it's mine. I attacked them, it's very straightforward.'
(Later, it occurred to Valens that Vaatzes didn't ask him why he'd taken his cavalry to Civitas Eremiae. Perhaps it was diffidence, or simple politeness.)
'Well, that's all right then,' Vaatzes said, and Valens felt as though he'd been released, on bail. 'You'll excuse
