Evil for Evil by K. J. Parker Page A

“It’s not so much of a difference after all, really. Are
     you going back to the palace?”
    She pulled a face. “I’ve only just managed to escape,” she replied. “It’s a wonderful building and everybody’s very kind,
     but …” She nodded at the basket one of the maids was carrying. “Embroidery silk. Vitally important that I choose it for myself.”
    “I can see that,” Vaatzes replied. “Hence the cavalry escort. Which way are you going?”
    She thought for a moment. “Downhill,” she said. “So far I haven’t managed to get more than six hundred yards from the palace
     gates, but I’m taking it slowly, by degrees.”
    The shopkeeper was standing behind her, looking respectfully tense, with her bottled-up customers shifting from foot to foot
     all round her. “In that case,” Vaatzes said, “might I recommend the fabric stall in the little square off Twenty-Ninth Street?
     I seem to remember seeing a couple of rolls of genuine Mezentine silk brocade which might interest you.”
    She raised an eyebrow. “Twenty-Ninth Street?”
    “At the bottom of Eighth Street and turn left. I know,” he added, “I tried to work it out too. I tried prime numbers, square
     roots and dividing by Conselher’s Constant, but I still can’t make any sense of how the numbers run.”
    “And you an engineer,” she said. “I’d have thought you’d have worked it out by now.”
    “Too deep for me. There must be a logical sequence, though. You’ll have to ask Duke Valens. He must know, if anyone does.”
    “I’m sure.” Not the slightest flicker of an eyelid, and the voice perfectly controlled, like a guardsman’s horse in a parade.
     “I gather it’s just the sort of thing that would interest him.”
    She nodded very slightly to the maid on her left, and she and her escort began to move at precisely the same moment, down
     the hill, toward the Eighth Street gate. At a guess, the little square off Twenty-Ninth Street was a good eight hundred and
     fifty yards from the palace. It reminded him of the section in
King Fashion,
the unspeakably dull hunting manual that everybody was so keen on in these parts, about the early stages of training a falcon;
     how much further you let it fly each day, when you’re training it to come back to the lure.
    They didn’t speak to each other all the way down Eighth Street; but at the narrow turning off the main thoroughfare she looked
     at him and asked, “So what are you doing? Are you managing to keep yourself occupied?”
    As he answered her (he was politely and unobtrusively evasive, and told her nothing), he thought: between any other two people,
     this could easily sound like flirtation, or at the very least a preliminary engagement of skirmishers as two armies converge.
     But I don’t suppose she’s ever flirted in her life, and (he had to make an effort not to smile) of course, I’m the Mezentine,
     so different I’m not quite human. Flirting with me would be like trying to burn water; couldn’t be done even if anyone wanted
     to. I think she’s got nobody to talk to; nobody at all.
    “You should set up in business,” she was saying. “I’m sure you’d do very well. After all, you got that factory going in Eremia
     very quickly, and if it hadn’t been for the war …”
    “The thought had crossed my mind,” he replied gravely. “But I get the feeling that manufacturing isn’t the Vadani’s strongest
     suit, and I haven’t got the patience to spend a year training anybody to saw a straight line. Besides, I quite like a change
     of direction. I was thinking about setting up as a trader.”
    She laughed. “You think you’d look good in red?”
    “I forgot,” he said, as lightly as he could manage. “Your sister’s a Merchant Adventurer, isn’t she?”
    “That’s right.” Just a trace of chill in her voice.
    “I wonder if she’d be prepared to help me,” he said, increasing the level of enthusiasm but not piling it on too thick. “A