Evil for Evil by K. J. Parker

Author:K. J. Parker
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-07-22T21:00:00+00:00

16

"It was a success, I grant you," Boioannes was saying, in that loud, carrying voice of his. "Twenty-seven confirmed dead, including the Chancellor. I concede that it was well planned and efficiently executed. What I'm asking, however, is whether it was a good idea or a bad one."

The meeting had already overrun by an hour. By the look of it, someone else had booked the cloister garden for a meeting or a reception; Psellus had seen a man's head bobbing round a pillar with a look of desperate impatience on his face—the establishments clerk, probably, too timid to dare interrupt Necessary Evil, but petrified that he'd be blamed for double-booking. The Republic's bureaucracy ran on the principle of symmetry; for every blunder, one responsible official. He sympathized, but found it hard to spare much compassion for someone else. Never wise to be too liberal with a scarce commodity you may well need for yourself.

"In order to assess success or failure," Boioannes went on, "it's always helpful to know what the object of the exercise actually was. Fortuitous incidental benefits are all very well, but it's my experience that every time you stoop to pick up a quarter in the street, a thaler falls out of your pocket. Bearing in mind what we stand to lose by this action, I feel we have a right to know what the precise objective was. If the intention was to assassinate Duke Valens, for example, we failed."

"That wasn't the primary target," someone said; Psellus couldn't see who, because Steuthes, the loaf-headed director of resources, was blocking his view.

"The purpose of the mission was to kill the abominator, Vaatzes."

Boioannes hesitated, just for a moment. It was like watching a waterfall freeze for a split second. "Now we're getting somewhere," he went on. "And did we get him?"

"The reports are inconclusive." Whoever the speaker was, he didn't sound in the least intimidated by the full force of Boioannes' personality. Probably he could juggle white-hot ingots with his bare hands, too. "We're investigating, naturally, but our lines of communication are necessarily quite fragile, it doesn't do to push too hard.

As soon as we get an answer, I promise you'll be the first to know."

Psellus frowned. He knew for a fact that that hadn't been the reason for the cavalry raid, because he'd been told about it, well in advance. It was inconceivable that he knew something Maris Boioannes didn't. And if he did, then why? The answer to that, he was sure, wouldn't be anything good.

"In any event," the hidden speaker continued, "as you said yourself just now, the exercise has fully justified the expenditure of resources. Just as we're about to launch a major offensive, the Vadani are confused, terrified, practically leaderless. They know we can strike them at will, in the very heart of their territory. They know that they have no friends. Thanks to their own acts of sabotage, they've lost their principal source of funding. The fact is, we're poised to win a victory that will end this war, quickly, cheaply, ostentatiously.

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