Read Evil for Evil for Free Online Page B

voice like that, even if it wasn't anywhere you'd ever want to be.
    There was a hayloft, and a ladder. She came down slowly; a tall, red-haired woman in a plain, clean gown, tied at the waist with plaited straw rope. She was much younger than her voice, maybe his own age, a year or two older; nice-looking, too—no, revise that.
    The Ducas is trained in good manners from infancy, like a soldier is trained to obey orders. He's almost incapable of inappropriate or boorish behavior. He instinctively knows how to put people at their ease, and he never, ever reacts to physical ugliness or deformity. He keeps a straight face, and he never stares. Which was just as well. At some point in the last year or so, the woman had lost her left eye. The scar started an inch above the middle of her eyebrow and reached down to the corner of her mouth. If he'd had to give an opinion, Miel would have said it was probably a sword-cut. It hadn't been stitched at the time, and had grown out broad. Her eye socket was empty. In order to learn that aspect of his trade, Miel had been taken when he was twelve years old to see the lepers at Northwood. For the first time, he felt grateful for having had such a thorough education.
    "What's the matter with you?" she said.
    It took Miel a second to realize what she meant. "My knee," he said. "I got hit there in…" He hesitated. Presumably she was part of the business: doctor, nurse, jailer, all three? "In the fighting," he said. "I don't know if—"
    "Hold still." She knelt down and prodded his knee sharply with her index finger. Miel yowled like a cat and nearly fell over. "That seems all right," she said. "The swelling and stiffness won't last long, a few days. You'll have to stay here till it's right again, we can't spare transport to take you back to your outfit. Have you got any money?"
    "Excuse me?"
    "Have you got any money?"
    "Yes. I mean, not very much."
    She frowned at him. "How much?"
    "Eighteen turners, I think."
    "Oh." She sighed. "It's six turners a day for food and shelter, so you'll just have to mend quickly. Not much chance of you working for your keep, is there? What do you do, anyway?"
    Now there was a good question. "I'm a falconer," Miel said.
    "Are you really?" She looked at him. "Which family?"
    "The Ducas."
    "Oh, them." She shrugged. "Well, try and keep out of my way." She frowned, creasing and stretching the scar. "What did that to you? One of your birds?" For a moment he couldn't think what she was talking about. Then he remembered that he had a scar of his own; not as flamboyant as hers, because skillful men with needles had done something about it while there was still time. It had been so long since anybody had appeared to notice it that he'd forgotten it was there.
    "A goshawk in a bate," he replied. "I unhooded it too early. My own fault." She turned away, the set of her shoulders telling him he no longer mattered, and picked up a sack of boots. Then she stopped.
    "My brother used to say you should keep them hooded for three days before you start manning them," she said, not turning round.
    "Was he a falconer?"
    "No." She paused, as though weighing up the issues for an important decision.
    "You can sew, then."
    Of course he couldn't; but a falconer could. "Yes," he said.
    "Fine. Something useful you can do. Stay there."
    She went out, and came back a little later with a sack full of clothes. Miel had rested his head on it during the cart-ride. From the pocket of her gown she took a thread-bobbin; there was a bone needle stuck into the thread. "Darn the holes as best you can," she said. "Anything that's past repair you can tear up for patches. Don't break the needle."
    Bloody hell, Miel thought; then, Well, how hard can it be? "All right," he said. Apparently, unloading the cart was her job. She came and went with the sacks and the bundled-up weapons, sorting them and stacking them against the walls; no sign of the carter. He tried not to watch her. Instead, he tried desperately