Evil for Evil Read Online Free PDF Page A

triggers the snare; the cage drops down around him and he is caught. An allegory, the sort of thing that was considered the height of sophistication two hundred years ago; just in case the reader fails to make the obvious interpretation, there are brightly colored vignettes of men and women in the margin to point him in the right direction.
    The point being: the falcon cannot deny its nature, even though it can see the cage hanging from the branches on a rope. The poet is too busy with his stylish double entendres to develop the theme properly, but it's there nevertheless, like a large rock in the middle of a road.
    Valens read it (he knew it by heart already), and found that he'd picked up a sheet of paper and his pen without knowing it. He frowned, then began to write. Suppose that, as the cage fell, it broke the falcon's wing. It'd be worthless then, and if the austringers were humane men, they'd break its neck. The heron is of value because it can be eaten, but a dead falcon is just bones and feathers. The hunters want to catch it so that it can hunt; it needs to hunt (and therefore destroys itself in their trap, and becomes worthless) because that is its nature. Since the heron is the only element in the story that is valuable in itself, wouldn't it have been more sensible to catch and eat the heron and leave the falcon in peace?
    Besides, the falcon wouldn't stoop to a tethered bird. It'd be invisible. A falcon can't strike a stationary target, they can only see movement.
    He closed the book, folded the paper and dropped it in the pile of spills beside the fireplace (because when you come to rely on the written word, it's time to light the fire with it). He glanced out of the window again, and pulled his collar up round his ears before leaving the room. It had started raining again.
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    He opened his eyes expecting to see the kingdom of Heaven, but instead it was a dirty, gray-haired man with a big mustache, who frowned.
    "Live one here," the man said. Miel assumed the man wasn't talking to him. Still, it was reassuring to have an impartial opinion on the subject, even though the man's tone of voice suggested that it was a largely academic issue.
    Miel tried to remember where his sword had fallen, but he couldn't. The man was kneeling down, and there was a knife in his hand. Oh well, Miel thought.
    "Easy," the man said. "Where's it hurt?"
    He put the knife away in a sheath on his belt. Next to him, Miel noticed a large sack on the ground. It was full of boots. There was one particularly fine specimen sticking out of the top. Miel recognized it. That explained why his feet were cold.
    "Well?" the man said. "Can't you talk?"
    "I don't know," Miel said. His head was splitting, which made it hard to sort out awkward, uncooperative things like words. "What's wrong with me, I mean."
    "Can't hurt too bad, then," the man said. "Try getting up." Behind the man, Miel could see more like him. They were plodding slowly up and down, heads bent, like workers in a cabbage field. Some of them had sacks too; others held swords, spears, bows, bundled up with string like faggots of wood, or sheaves of corn. Harvesters, he thought. Of a kind.
    "I can't," he discovered. "Knee doesn't work."
    "Right." The man bent over him and unbuckled the straps of his chausse. "No bloody wonder," he said. "Swelled up like a puff-ball. Got a right old scat on it, didn't you?"
    He made it sound like deliberate mischief, and Miel felt an urge to apologize. "I can't remember," he said. "I was in the fighting…" He paused. Something had just occurred to him. "Did we win?"
    The man shrugged. "Search me," he said. "Get a hold of my arm, come on." The man hoisted him up and caught him before he could fall down again. "This way," he said. "Get you on a cart, you'll be all right."
    "Thank you," Miel said. The man grinned.
    It was only a dozen yards or so to the cart, which was heavily laden with more stuffed sacks and sheaves of weapons. The man helped Miel to sit