'Yes.' No, of course he didn't.
'Are you married?' Ziani asked.
'What? Oh, yes.' Psellus frowned. 'Well, after a fashion. We're separated. Have been for years. Most of our married life, actually.' He said it lightly.
'Why?' Ziani asked.
'We can't stand living in the same house,' Psellus replied. 'As I recall, it took us a whole month to realize. I haven't set eyes on her for…' He frowned.
'As long as that.' Ziani nodded. 'Why didn't you simply get a divorce?'
'Not an option,' Psellus replied, looking away. 'I guess you could call it a political marriage. To be honest with you, I can't actually remember the details; it was pretty complicated, and of course everything's changed since then, the whole balance of power between the Guilds. I suppose I could get rid of her now, but where'd be the point? I'm far too set in my ways to bother about such things.'
Ziani nodded, as if to say he understood. He didn't, of course. It was as though Psellus had said he was too old and cranky to be interested in breathing. 'That's your business,' he said, trying to keep the disapproval out of his voice. 'It seems a bit of a waste of a life, though.'
'The least of my worries,' Psellus said.
Strange, Ziani thought. Such a very different attitude to the business of being human. But he said, 'I suppose you're lucky, being without love.'
Psellus looked uncomfortable. 'You know what they say,' he replied. 'What you've never had…'
'I suppose so. I can't pretend I've had any luck with it myself. After all,' he added with a humorless chuckle, 'if it wasn't for love, I'd still be working in the factory, and the Eremians would still have their city.' He decided not to go there. 'But that's like saying the cure for death is not being born. I still believe in it, you know. Love.'
Just hearing him say the word seemed to embarrass Psellus. 'Do you? I'd have thought…'
'Yes?'
'In your shoes,' Psellus said slowly, 'I'd look on it as an escape. Like a runaway slave.'
Ziani thought for a moment. 'There's a bit of poetry I heard once,' he said. 'About falling out of love. It's not just escaping from the game, it's taking the dice with you. I used to wonder what that meant.'
Psellus pursed his lips. 'You mean it, then? About not wanting to come home anymore.'
'What is there for me to come home to?'
'Doesn't that mean…?' Psellus was looking at him. 'Well, it's admitting that you've lost, isn't it?'
Ziani couldn't help laughing at that. 'Who cares?' he said. 'As far as I'm concerned, it's as if they'd both died. Nothing left to go home to. I might as well find something to do with the rest of my life.' He smiled. 'One thing's for sure, I've found out a lot of things about myself I'd never have dreamed of before. The things I've achieved…' He paused. 'I could make a great deal of money,' he said. 'I could be a nobleman, a great lord, like all these ridiculous Eremians and Vadani I've been spending so much time with. Great big houses, country estates; I could go hawking and hunting. I could marry a nobleman's beautiful, accomplished daughter, have a whole brood of aristocratic children who'd never have to work for a living. Well? Can you see any reason why not? I've proved what I can do, more or less without trying. If I could make my peace with the Guilds, so I wouldn't have to be looking over my shoulder all the time for a Compliance assassin, there's no reason at all why I shouldn't. And…' He shrugged. 'It's not as though I've got anything better to do.' He raised an eyebrow. 'Or are you going to tell me about my duty to my country; my duty not to steal her secrets and hand them over to the savages?'
Psellus shifted in his seat. 'None of my business,' he said. 'I'm not in Compliance anymore.'
Ziani laughed. 'Nicely put,' he said. 'Tell me, why did you come here?'
'To negotiate with you.'
'Nonsense. You've as good as told me that the Guilds have no intention of honoring any agreement we may make.'
'True.' Psellus' shoulders slumped a little. 'To ask you questions,' he said.
'To see if they'd confirm your theory?'
'I guess so, yes.'
'Because that'd explain why you were transferred from Compliance to Defense.'
'I suppose so.'
'Well, then.' Ziani yawned. 'Did you know that Duke Valens' closest adviser is spying for the Republic?'
Awkward silence. 'No,' Psellus said, 'I didn't know that.'
'His name's Mezentius and he reports back directly to Councillor Boioannes,' Ziani said. 'I take it he hasn't been sharing what he's learned with the rest of the committee.'
Psellus didn't answer that. 'How do you know?' he asked.
Ziani shrugged. 'Luck,' he replied. 'As you know, I use the women traders to carry messages for me, find things out, that sort of thing. I was talking to one of them a while back, and I must have said something that gave her the impression that I was in on the secret, maybe part of the setup. She told me things that left me in no doubt.' He paused to marshal his thoughts before continuing. 'You can see why it concerns me,' he said. 'To put it simply, if Boioannes already has a pet traitor, someone much better placed than me, he doesn't need me as well. He can get this Mezentius to give him the Vadani. So, obviously, any deal he offers me is bound to be a trap.' He smiled. 'I can also see how it affects you. If Boioannes could have the Vadani any time he wanted, why's the war still going on? He must be up to something, and his plan must turn on the war carrying on. Well, if he likes the war so much, maybe it's a fair guess that he was the one who started it.'
Psellus nodded. 'By using you.'
'Flattering, I suppose, though I could have done without the honor. Anyway,' he added, 'something for you to think about on your long ride home. Consider it a thank-you from me.' He tapped the packet of papers on the table. 'In return for this.'
Psellus appeared to think for quite a while. 'Do you mean it?' he said, avoiding Ziani's eyes. 'About not wanting to come home anymore.'
'Of course. Like I've been telling you, there wouldn't be any point.'
'Where can you go? To start your new life, I mean.'
'Oh, anywhere.' He was pretty sure Psellus hadn't been taken in by that. 'The Cure Doce seem a reasonable bet. I never realized how huge their territory is. In fact…' He stopped and clicked his tongue. 'A year ago I'd never heard of them, except as a name. If you'd have asked me then, I wouldn't have been able to tell you if they were real, or something out of a fairy tale.'
'You wouldn't like it there,' Psellus said. 'They're primitives.'
'Worse than these people?' Ziani laughed. 'And even if they are, they won't be for long, if I go there. I could go right the other side of their country, off the edge of the Guild maps, and in six months I'd be building my first factory. It seems I've got a talent for it. It turns out that the world's a fairly big place, and no matter where they live or what color their skin is or what language they speak, they're going to want nails, plowshares and cheap tin buckets. It's a law of nature.'
Psellus nodded slowly. 'I'm glad I'm not in Compliance anymore,' he said, with feeling. 'You're exactly what we used to have nightmares about: the monster…'
'If I'm the monster, you made me into it,' Ziani replied casually. 'But of course, it all depends on this deal you've come here to arrange.'
'Oh,' Psellus said. 'That.'
'Yes. Here's my offer.' Ziani paused for a moment. The silence bothered him, as silence always did. Twenty years in machine shops, tenement houses, the streets of the city; he needed noise just as much as air. 'Arrange it so that…' He'd almost said my wife. 'So that she'll be all right, so that they won't take it out on her, and Moritsa. In return, I'll go away, and nobody will ever hear my name again. They can say I'm dead; that they've seen my body, hung up on a hook. You can be the witness; they'll trust you, because you're too small to lie. That'll solve their political crisis for them. Oh, and I'll throw in the Vadani, for good measure, if that's what Boioannes really wants. I'll deliver them just like I did with the Eremians; I know how to do it, incidentally. I've arranged it so it'll be a piece of cake. Yes, I know,' he added, turning away. 'The Guilds don't negotiate with abominators, and any deal they strike won't be binding on them. But I'm lucky; I've got you to sell it to them. You can explain. Will it really matter if I'm dead or not, so long as I'm officially dead, and everybody believes it? We can manufacture some proof. We could get a head, smash its face in so nobody could recognize it; they can nail it to a gateway somewhere, and have a
