Free Evil for Evil by K. J. Parker

responsive as a mechanism. “What more could I ask?” he said.
    Ziani nodded, and applied his mind. To be sure of getting rid of him it’d have to be something unusual in these parts, not
     something he could just go out and buy, or get someone to make for him and then pass off as his own. “Fine,” he said. “Do
     you know what a ratchet is?”
    The thin man’s eyebrows rose. “Of course.”
    “All right, then,” Ziani said. “At the factory where I used to work, we had a small portable winch for lifting heavy sections
     of steel bar, things like that. It hung by a chain off a hook bolted into a rafter, and you could lift a quarter-ton with
     it, just working the handle backward and forward with two fingers. Do you think you could make me something like that?”
    “I guarantee it,” the thin man said. “Will six weeks be soon enough?”
    Ziani grinned. “Take as long as you like,” he said.
    “Six weeks.” The thin man nodded decisively. “As soon as it’s finished, I’ll send word to you at the Duke’s palace. I promise
     you won’t be disappointed.”
    Ziani nodded; then he asked, “All those degrees and things you mentioned. Where did you say they were from?”
    “The city university at Lonazep,” the thin man replied. “I have the charters right here …”
    “No, that’s fine.” Was there a university at Lonazep? Now he came to think of it, he had a feeling there was, unless he was
     thinking of some other place beginning with L. Not that it mattered in the slightest. “Well, I’ll be hearing from you, then.”
    “You most certainly will.” The thin man beamed at him again, bowed, then started to walk away backward up the hill. “And thank
     you, very much indeed, for your time. I absolutely guarantee that you won’t be disappointed.”
    Whatever other gifts and skills the thin man had, he could walk backward without looking or bumping into things. Just when
     Ziani was convinced he was going to keep on bowing and smiling all the way up to the citadel, he backed round a corner and
     vanished. Ziani counted to ten under his breath, then headed back down the hill toward the town, making an effort not to break
     into a run.
    Back where he’d started from, more or less. This time, he walked past the smithy and down an alleyway he’d noticed in passing
     a day or so earlier. It looked just like all the others, but he’d recognized the name painted on the blue tile: Seventeenth
     Street. Past the Temperance and Tolerance, he recalled, second door on the left. He found it — a plain wooden door, weathered
     gray, with a wooden latch. You’ll have to knock quite hard, they’d told him, she’s rather deaf.
    He knocked, counted fifty under his breath, and knocked again. Nothing doing. He shrugged and was about to walk away when
     the latch rattled, the door opened and an enormously fat woman in a faded red dress came out into the street.
    “Was that you making all the noise?” she said.
    “Sorry.” Ziani frowned. “Are you Henida Zeuxis?”
    “That’s right.”
    He wanted to ask,
Are you sure?,
but he managed not to. “My name’s Ziani Vaatzes. I’d like to talk to you for a moment, if you can spare the time.”
    “Been expecting you,” the fat woman replied. “Marcellinus at the Poverty said you’d been asking round after me.” She looked
     at him as if she was thinking of buying him, then added, “Come in if you want.”
    He followed her through the door into a small paved courtyard. There was a porch on one side, its timbers bowed under the
     weight of an enormous overgrown vine, in front of which stood two plain wooden chairs and a round table, with two cups and
     a wine bottle on it.
    “Drink,” she said; not a suggestion or an offer, just a statement of fact. She tilted the bottle, pushed one cup across the
     table at him, and sat down.
    “Thanks,” he said, leaving the cup where it was. “Did — what did you say his name was?”
    “Marcellinus. And no, he