Read Online Evil for Evil by K. J. Parker - Free Book Online Page B

was a boy. He retraced the step he'd just taken and folded his arms.
    "I'm not a courtier," he said, "and I haven't got any money, and I'm not hiring. You don't seem able to understand that."
    "Payment wouldn't be essential." The thin man was watching him closely, as if inspecting him for cracks and flaws. "At least, not until something presented itself in which I might be of use. I have…" This time the hesitation was genuine. "I have certain resources," the thin man said warily, "enough to provide for my needs, for a while. In the meantime, perhaps you might care to set me some task, by way of a trial. It would be foolish of me to expect you to take me on trust without a demonstration of my abilities."
    Too easy, Ziani thought. It must be some kind of trap. On the other hand… "All right," he said. "Here's what I'll do. I'll give you a test-piece to make, and if it's up to scratch, if ever I do need anybody, I'll bear you in mind. Will that do?" The thin man nodded, prompt and responsive as a mechanism. "What more could I ask?" he said.
    Ziani nodded, and applied his mind. To be sure of getting rid of him it'd have to be something unusual in these parts, not something he could just go out and buy, or get someone to make for him and then pass off as his own. "Fine," he said. "Do you know what a ratchet is?"
    The thin man's eyebrows rose. "Of course."
    "All right, then," Ziani said. "At the factory where I used to work, we had a small portable winch for lifting heavy sections of steel bar, things like that. It hung by a chain off a hook bolted into a rafter, and you could lift a quarter-ton with it, just working the handle backward and forward with two fingers. Do you think you could make me something like that?"
    "I guarantee it," the thin man said. "Will six weeks be soon enough?" Ziani grinned. "Take as long as you like," he said.
    "Six weeks." The thin man nodded decisively. "As soon as it's finished, I'll send word to you at the Duke's palace. I promise you won't be disappointed." Ziani nodded; then he asked, "All those degrees and things you mentioned. Where did you say they were from?"
    "The city university at Lonazep," the thin man replied. "I have the charters right here…"
    "No, that's fine." Was there a university at Lonazep? Now he came to think of it, he had a feeling there was, unless he was thinking of some other place beginning with L. Not that it mattered in the slightest. "Well, I'll be hearing from you, then."
    "You most certainly will." The thin man beamed at him again, bowed, then started to walk away backward up the hill. "And thank you, very much indeed, for your time. I absolutely guarantee that you won't be disappointed."
    Whatever other gifts and skills the thin man had, he could walk backward without looking or bumping into things. Just when Ziani was convinced he was going to keep on bowing and smiling all the way up to the citadel, he backed round a corner and vanished. Ziani counted to ten under his breath, then headed back down the hill toward the town, making an effort not to break into a run.
    Back where he'd started from, more or less. This time, he walked past the smithy and down an alleyway he'd noticed in passing a day or so earlier. It looked just like all the others, but he'd recognized the name painted on the blue tile: Seventeenth Street. Past the Temperance and Tolerance, he recalled, second door on the left. He found it—a plain wooden door, weathered gray, with a wooden latch. You'll have to knock quite hard, they'd told him, she's rather deaf.
    He knocked, counted fifty under his breath, and knocked again. Nothing doing. He shrugged and was about to walk away when the latch rattled, the door opened and an enormously fat woman in a faded red dress came out into the street.
    "Was that you making all the noise?" she said.
    "Sorry." Ziani frowned. "Are you Henida Zeuxis?"
    "That's right."
    He wanted to ask, Are you sure ?, but he managed not to. "My name's Ziani Vaatzes. I'd like to