The Devil You Know (3 page)

“What you do with the benefits is entirely up to you,” I said. “You can’t make things worse for yourself by indulging your very basest desires, and you don’t get credit for good works. In your shoes, I’d really let go, have as good a time as possible.”

“I intend to.” His eyes were cold and clear. “Do we need a witness?”

“That’s me.”

“Ah.” I spread out the parchment, and in doing so knocked the cap of my inkwell off the desk onto the floor. “I wonder, could you possibly get that for me? I don’t bend as easily as I used to.”

By the time he’d straightened up I’d already signed. “There,” I said. “All done.”

He looked surprised, even shocked. “Splendid,” he said.

* * *

I took the parchment from him, rolled it up, and stuffed it back in its tube. As easy as that.

“Right.” He was smiling. “First the rejuvenation, and then do you think I could trouble you to show me all the kingdoms of the Earth?”

“No bother at all,” I said, and rejuvenated him. His back straightened. His face sort of bubbled for a moment, as the surplus under his chin flowed upward to fill the sunken cheeks and the hollows under his eyes, stretching and smoothing the skin. Involuntarily he flexed his fingers as the arthritis and rheumatism dissipated; they lost that clawlike look, and the knuckles seemed to subside. His hair changed colour and sprouted back. He winced, as his missing teeth burst back up through their long-healed gums. “You might have warned me it’d hurt,” he grumbled.

“So sorry,” I said, and eased the pain away.

He was looking at his hands; first the backs, then the palms. “I never realised it had got so bad,” he said.

“People don’t. It’s too gradual. And when a mortal looks in the glass, he never really sees what’s there.”

He acknowledged that with a slight tilt of the head. “The extraordinary thing,” he said, “is how not-different it feels. More comfortable, but that’s all. A bit like sleeping in your own bed again after a long time staying in inns.” He looked at me. “You have done it properly, haven’t you?”

I didn’t bother to answer that. He stood up—lost his balance and wobbled for a moment, had to grab the edge of the desk—and peeled his clothes off. They were either too loose or too tight, depending on where they touched. “Good heavens,” he said. “I haven’t seen
that
in ages.” He laughed. “Mind you, I’ve never let it rule my head. Still. I feel like turning somersaults.”

“Be my guest.”

He shook his head, grinning. “Out of practice,” he said. “I might slip, land badly, and break my neck. Not that I need to worry about that anymore.”

Yes, he’d read and understood the contract. Absolute immunity from any form of disease, injury, sudden death by homicide, accident, or misadventure. Paragraph 16 subclause (4) says that if he chooses to fight in battle I have to hold my invisible shield over him and protect him from the slightest scratch. If he cuts his own head off, I have to put it back on again. Every eventuality covered in absolutely unambiguous phrasing. Of course, we have all the best lawyers.

I conjured him raiment out of the air; he was entitled to one free outfit, like you get when you leave the army, or prison. I’d studied his tastes carefully, but there wasn’t much of a common denominator. Most of his life he’d dressed in what he could afford, or steal, or had been given as a going-away present (see above), or had had bought for him by gullible patrons. I settled on a customary suit of solemn black, which favours most men of his (restored) age and build, particularly intellectuals, and is never out of style. He glanced down at the cuffs, then crossed his arms over his chest. “It fits,” he said.

“Well, of course.”

“I never had clothes that fitted when I was this age.”

“Well, now you can afford the best. Anything else in the menswear line you have to pay for yourself, but I will of course issue you with infinite money on demand. I know,” I added, as he raised an eyebrow. “That’s bureaucracy for you. Never follow a straight line when a spiral will get you there eventually.”

He cleared his throat and looked at me. Then he said, “All the kingdoms of the Earth, remember?”

“What? Oh, right, sorry. I was miles away.”

* * *

In the absence of specific instructions from the customer I follow a standard itinerary; from the Republic to Scheria, Aelia, then Mezentia, the Mesoge, Perimadeia, follow the line of mountains to the Rhus, then due south to Blemya, quick tour of the Rosinholet and Cure Hardy khanates, up the River and back where we started from. It takes about four hours, unless the customer wants to stop and see anything in particular.

I was impressed by how well travelled he was. Every now and again he’d point down and say, “I was in prison there once” or “I slept rough in those woods for a fortnight.” Over Scona he wanted to hover for a moment while he looked to see if the old
Grace &
Endurance
was still there. It was.
Am I still barred from there?
he wondered.
Yes
, I told him,
you are
.

“You visit a lot of places when you’re one jump ahead of the law,” he told me. “Most of them don’t hold particularly happy memories, I confess. Over there, look, that’s where I got lynched by the investors in that fake silver mine thing. If the branch hadn’t broken under my weight, I wouldn’t be here now.”

We were sailing high over the Dragon’s Nest. I suggested lunch. He looked surprised. “Is it that time already?”

I pointed up at the noon sun. “I know a good place in Choris Anthropou,” I said. “They do a passable spicy lamb with aromatic rice.”

I don’t eat, of course. I experience food, like I experience every other transitory thing, but I don’t consume it and I can’t taste it. The smell, however, creates tantalising shapes in my mind. It shouldn’t do, but it does. Perhaps I’ve been down here too long.

“You’re right,” he said, stirring in a little plain yoghurt. “It’s really very good. We must come here again.”

“Any time.”

He frowned, a chunk of flatbread poised an inch from his mouth. “You’re being really helpful,” he said. “And considerate.”

“Well, yes.”

“You don’t have to choose nice clothes for me and point out nice places to eat. It doesn’t say you have to in the contract. It just says, you have to do what I tell you, within certain defined parameters.”

I shrugged. “I try to make life pleasant for my customers,” I said. “For the short period of time at their disposal.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I like to.”

He nodded. “There is no absolute right or wrong, good or evil, but there are good manners and common decency. Discuss.”

“Have I got to?”

He waved his hand. “Figure of speech,” he said with his mouth full. “Not a direct order. But I’d value your opinion, if you’d care to share it.”

I thought for a moment. “There is no good or evil,” I said. “There are only sides; the side you’re on, and the other side.” I paused. “You taught me that.”

“So I did.” He swallowed his chunk of bread. “I don’t think I ever believed that, but it was fun to argue and see if I could prove it. A lot of people think I did.”

“Me included.”

“Ah well.”

“You’re on one side,” I said, “and I’m on another. At the moment, however, we aren’t in conflict. Quite the reverse, we’re in a contractual relationship, based on a mutual agreement, based on a shared wish to see a specific outcome. Therefore, at this stage, we’re on the same side. Therefore, why shouldn’t I be as helpful as I can?”

“You don’t have to be.”

I could see what he was getting at. “It’s easier,” I said. “It builds a smooth working relationship between us, making it easier for me to do my job.”

“You don’t have to be thoughtful. Or kind. You don’t have to be good company.”

I shrugged. “Most of my customers treat me with fear and loathing,” I said. “I try and put them at their ease, but usually it’s an uphill battle. You don’t seem to be afraid of me or particularly disgusted by what I am. Why is that?”

“Don’t change the subject,” he said, “that’s an order. You see, I don’t think you understand the doctrine of sides one little bit. That, or you don’t believe in it, but you’re pretending you do, to flatter me.”

I didn’t say anything.

“The doctrine of sides,” he went on, “states that there is no right or wrong, only different perspectives. From where I stand, such and such a thing looks like a tree; from where you stand, it looks like a rock. For tree and rock, read sin and virtue.”

“Yes, I got that part.”

“Fine. But you’re not judging me by the side I’m on. I’m the other side, but you’re treating me like I were yours. The good man helps his friends and hurts his enemies. You aren’t doing that. And the contract stuff is just sophistry. A contract’s like that form of trial by combat in Scheria, where the two fighters are linked at the wrist with a chain. You should be trying to do me down.”

“Why should I? Time will do it for me.”

He was silent, and ate an olive. “You’re making my allotted span as pleasant as possible so I won’t notice how quickly it passes, thereby cheating me of time.”

“If you care to look at it that way. If you’d prefer me to be aloof and nasty, I can do that for you.”

He sighed, and threw his napkin on the table. “Take me to the Great Library of Mezentia,” he said. “Philosophy section.”

* * *

He was in there for about nine hours.

I offered to help him—fetch books, find places, look things up—but he gave me a rather hostile look and said he could manage just fine, so I left him to it and tried to find something to amuse myself with.

In Mezentia, that’s not so easy. Essentially it’s a shoppers’ town. If you want to buy things, there are no finer things to buy anywhere, often at sensible prices. The great streets—the Chandlery, Sheepfair, Tallowmarket, Stoneyards—are lined with establishments as well or better furnished and decorated than many a nobleman’s house, in Aelia or the Republic. Insofar as there’s beauty in useful, portable artefacts, Mezentia is the gallery of the world. Glassware, fabrics, metalwork useful and ornamental, porcelain, silverware—but their public art, although spectacular in scale, I find rather unsatisfactory. They’re heavy on allegory, and the only patrons of the arts are the people who run the city, so you tend to get rather a lot of
Mezentia
Wedded to the Sea
or
The Goddess Prosperity Embraces the
Pewterers’
Guild,
in marble, stuck up high so you have to crane your neck to see it. Since they’re a proudly godless lot, the only religious art is strictly for export. They do excellent reproductions of all the great masterpieces; there are huge sheds down by the Wharf where hundreds of trained artisans crouch over benches, churning out the White Goddess of Beloisa all day every day. But it’s art to buy and own, not to look at. You know what it looks like already.

You quickly become attuned to the customer. I felt him close his book and stand up, and sped back to the library steps, just as he was coming out. I smiled. “Useful session?”

“Very,” he said. “Conjure me an army. I want to invade Mysia.”

“I can do that for you,” I said. “Out of interest, why?”

He didn’t answer; that was me told. “To invade Mysia,” I said, “the best starting point is the Butter Pass. Alternatively, you can follow the precedent of Calojan the Great and sail them up the Tonar on flat-bottomed barges. It takes longer, but you’re more likely to get the element of surprise.”

He scowled at me. “Let’s do that, then.”

* * *

Mysia is a dreary place, all forests and mud huts, though they do wonderful things with seafood. That’s hardly a surprise, since the Tonar Delta has the finest oyster beds in the world, and the north coast is warmed by one of those big underwater currents. Mostly, though, people conquer Mysia because they’re afraid someone else will conquer it first. Beating the Mysians isn’t exactly difficult. The problem lies with recouping the cost of the invasion and occupation from an economy based on subsistence agriculture and nomadic livestock herding. Everybody who’s anybody has invaded, stayed a year or so, and then gone resentfully home, wondering whose bright idea that was. It has more historic battlefield sites per square mile than anywhere else on Earth, apart from the Mesoge. The farmers plough up bones and sell them to the millers, for bonemeal; widely used in the metal-finishing industry.

We have our own armed forces, of course, but I assumed he wanted humans; so I enlisted the famous
condottier
,
Alban of Bealfoir. I’d worked with him before; he’s a good man.

“Of course I know Mysia,” he said, over sea bass and sweet white wine in a palm-leaf-roofed teashop on the coast. “I led the annexation, four years ago. Two weeks’ work, three in the rainy season. Have you got the money?”

Saloninus looked at me and I said, “Absolutely. My principals are footing all the bills.”

Alban nodded. “That’s all right, then,” he said. “Your word’s as good as cash in the bank.” He turned back to Saloninus and said, “When would you like to start?”

“Immediately.”

“That’s not a problem.” That’s what I like about Alban, that can-do attitude. “I’ll need seventy thousand nomismata up front, plus weekly instalments of forty thousand.” He paused, then said, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you want to conquer Mysia?”

Saloninus sipped his wine, savouring the flowery aftertaste. “If you don’t want the job, we can go elsewhere.”

Alban held up both hands. “Sorry, sorry. Once we’ve taken the place, do you want to leave garrisons?”

Saloninus nodded. “I shall need a full army of occupation for at least forty years.”

I frowned at that, but didn’t say anything; not in front of the help. “I can arrange that,” Alban said. “Obviously, you only need a fraction of the manpower for an occupation, unless you get an insurgency problem, which isn’t likely here. That said—”

“They need to be paid, and the locals can’t afford it,” Saloninus interrupted. “Yes, I know that. We’ll pay them, naturally.”

“Say—” Alban took a moment for the dreams of avarice. “Thirty thousand nomismata a year?”