There was something he'd forgotten to do. What was it, now? Ah yes. Pack.
The Duke, of course, wasn't bound by his own orders and could therefore take with him whatever the hell he liked, even if it meant filling up half the carts in the convoy with superfluous junk. He could be absolutely certain that nobody would object. They'd naturally assume that whatever the Duke chose to take with him had, by definition, to be essential-velvet gowns, porcelain dinner services, stuffed bears' heads, whatever. With that in mind, Valens rammed two clean shirts, a pair of trousers, two pairs of boots and a scarf into a satchel, and filled another small bag with books. He opened the closet where his armor was stored, and saw that his business harness wasn't there; someone else had packed it for him, so that was all right. He looked round the tower room at his possessions; he knew each of them so well that he could close his eyes and picture them, or describe them in detail from memory, down to the last chip and scratch. Not to worry. The Mezentines could have them, and welcome. As a very last afterthought, he grabbed the cheap and nasty hanger the stallholder in the market had given him, and tucked it under his arm. He supposed it had brought him luck when the Mezentine raiding party had attacked; either the hanger, or something else. Anyway, he took it.
On the threshold, he paused. It was a rule of his life that, every time he packed to go away, he forgot something. He wondered, with a sort of detached interest, what it'd turn out to be this time. All of it, said a voice in his head, and that was entirely possible. He'd known all his life but never admitted that his claim that he'd never been in love had always been a lie. There were things in this room, possessions, that he loved far more than any human he'd ever known. He loved the silver niello of his Mezentine falchion for its startling beauty; the comfort and loyalty of his favorite hat, the company of his favorite books, every memory he shared with the things that had been his companions when people were too uncertain and dangerous to allow himself to become attached to them. Suddenly he realized that he'd never see or hold or use them again, and the pain staggered him, freezing his legs and loosening his knees. His breath caught and his eyes blurred-you idiot, crying over things-and for a moment he didn't dare move, because if he turned his back they'd all be lost, forever. Wasn't there an old story about the man who went down to hell to rescue his girl from death; and the lord of the dead told him he could take her, so long as he never took his eyes off her until they were both safely back in the light? Turning away from them now would be the end of them; just things, wood and metal, cloth, leather, paint, ink, artifacts and manufactures, irreplaceable, precious, inert, dead. I'd give my life for them if it'd help, he realized, with surprise and shame, but unfortunately that option isn't available. For some reason he thought of Vaatzes, the Mezentine. He remembered him telling how he'd escaped by jumping through a window and running, taking nothing with him but the clothes he was wearing. Curious how he'd never appreciated the implications of that before: to leave behind every familiar thing-your shoes, your hat, the spoon you ate with, your belt, your hairbrush, everything. A man gathers a life around him like a hedgehog collecting leaves on its spines; what sticks to you defines you, and without them you're bare, defenseless, a yolk without a shell. To leave home, and take nothing with him except people. I guess that means I've never really liked people very much. Sad to think that that was quite probably true.
He turned and walked away, leaving the door open; no point in shutting it, the Mezentines could press a thumb on a latch and push. Turning your back on love is the only freedom.
Mezentius was waiting in the courtyard, holding his horse for him, while the escort sat motionless in their saddles. As he reached up for the reins, his horse pushed back its hind legs and arched its back to piss, clearly not aware that this was a solemn and momentous occasion. He stepped back just in time to avoid being splashed, and nobody laughed.
He mounted, checked the girth and the stirrup leathers. The Mezentines would probably burn and raze the palace to rubble; he knew every inch of it by heart, but the day would come, if he lived so long, when he'd find he couldn't picture it anymore in his mind; he'd forget the covered alley that led from the stable yard to the well court, the half-moon balcony at the top of the back stairs, the alcove in the laundry, the attic room where the big spider had scared him half to death when he was five. The pain of love is how slowly it dies. "Well," he said. "We'd better be going."
As evacuations go, it was virtually flawless. Everybody did as they were told, and the plan turned out to have been a good one, efficient and practical as a well-designed machine. By twilight, the last cart had rumbled under the gatehouse, echoing for a couple of seconds. The rearguard of three hundred riders stayed behind, to put the required distance between themselves and the convoy; they left an hour after sunset, making out the road by memory and contrast in the shadows. They left lamps and fires burning, as canny householders do to make thieves think somebody's at home.
The last man to leave Civitas Vadanis was Mezentius. When the evacuation was first planned, he'd made a point of asking to be duty officer, with the task of locking the palace gates at sunset and bringing the Duke the key. Instead of doing that, however, he went to the throne room and left a letter on Valens' chair. It was addressed to a minor Mezentine official by the name of Lucao Psellus. When he rejoined the rearguard, Valens didn't ask him for the key, which saved him the effort of pretending he'd dropped it.
18
The fifth time she asked him, he answered.
He was exhausted, after a morning shifting sacks of charcoal up from the fuel cellar. Each sack weighed close on a hundredweight, and he'd had to wrestle them one at a time up the winding spiral stairs. He'd asked Framain why he'd chosen such a hopelessly impractical place to store bulk fuel, and how on earth he'd managed to get it down there. No explanation.
Twenty-six sacks. Sweat had cut white canals through the thick black crust of grime on his forehead and face. Everything smelled and tasted of the stuff; his nose was blocked with it, and his eyes were streaming. So, naturally, she chose that time to come and sit next to him, as he slumped against the wall, too weary to move a yard to get to the water jug.
"Tell me what happened at Civitas Eremiae," she asked.
He sighed; not for effect. "What happened to the city, or-"
"I know what happened to the city. What about you?"
He shook his head. "That's a good question," he said. "I'm not quite sure myself. The short answer is, I was in prison when the city fell."
"Oh."
"Charged with treason," Miel went on. "I think," he added. "Nobody ever got around to telling me; and it's a fair bet that if you're locked up and nobody'll tell you why, it's treason of some sort. It's a pretty vaguely denned term," he added. "It can mean more or less what you want it to."
"I see." Either no emotion, or something kept firmly under control. "What had you done?"
"Ah." Miel smiled. "I concealed evidence of a possible threat to national security. Which probably is treason, when all's said and done. Or if it isn't, it ought to be."
She was frowning at him, as if to say that it wasn't something to make jokes about. Quite right, too.
"It's a long story," he said.
"Go on."
He leaned forward, elbows on knees, to ease the ache in his back. "When I was a boy," he said, "my family sort of arranged that I'd marry this girl, daughter of another noble family. The usual thing: land came into it somewhere, and grazing rights, and equities of redemption on old mortgages. The silly thing was, I really liked her; ever since I could remember. I think she liked me too."