Memory

Chapter One

Precepts of religion. Every victory is a defeat. Every cut made is a wound received. Every strength is a weakness. Every time you kill, you die.

In which case, he thought, clawing briars away from in front of his face as he ran, the enemy must be taking a right pounding, the poor buggers. A dry branch snapped under his foot, startling him and throwing him off balance for a split second. Slow down, he urged himself; haste breeds delay. Another of those wonderful precepts.

Behind him, he could hear them, a confused noise, like a huge blind animal crashing through the brittle dead trees. Not a good place for a battle; not a good place for anything much, but certainly not for a battle, where you need to be able to see what's happening. Only the idiot son of a congenital idiot would pick a fight in a wood-can't see, can't move, can't hold the line, can't communicate, can't swing, can't do any bloody thing. Slow down, before you fall over and do yourself an injury.

Precepts of religion, he thought. Every strength is a weakness; well, quite, and by the same token every bloody stupid idea is a stroke of genius. Such as attacking a larger, better armed, better led enemy in the heart of a dark, boggy, overgrown forest-dumbest idea in the history of mankind; stroke of genius.

Twenty-five yards; that far he could see, at best, and no further (all these goddamned trees in the way), so he didn't have a clue what was going on, other than that he and what was left of his command were doing their best to run away from the enemy, last seen over there somewhere, unless (as he secretly suspected) they'd mislaid their sense of direction along with their courage and their brains, and were going round in circles-in which case, any moment now, they were due to crash into the back end of the enemy line. Fat lot of good it'd do them, heavy infantry in dense scrub. The finest spearmen in the Empire, trained to the utmost pitch of perfection to fight shoulder to shoulder (each man sheltered by his neighbour's shield, each man's shield sheltering his neighbour; what more perfect metaphor could there be?)-only that was precisely what they couldn't do, not with all this fucking lumber in the way. So instead they were puffing and stumbling from briar-tangle to sog-pit, either chasing or being chased, and a thousand years hence historians would pinpoint this moment as the decisive battle that changed the world for ever, and it'd all be his fault He saw them in the shadows, the debatable shades of grey between the black and green stripes, and for an agonised moment he couldn't make up his mind: our men or theirs? Then a little logical voice chimed in somewhere at the back of his mind: axes, they've got axes, none of our lot have got axes, they've got to be the enemy. He swung round, to see how many of his men were still at least vaguely with him, then wheeled back, waved with his sword and yelled, 'Charge!' Probably not a good thing to do, since they were already running as fast as they could go (under the misapprehension that they were running away; easy mistake to make); but they were broad-minded, they forgave him and carried on running, and a few seconds later he could hear shouts and the clatter of ironmongery as battle was joined. Great, he thought, I love it when things work out; and then he noticed that he was right up where the fighting was, and the man in front of him wasn't on his side. The last thought that crossed his mind before he diverted all his attention to not being killed was, Hang on, though, what about the Seventh Light Infantry? They're on our side and they've got axes. Every careless mistake is in fact the right answer. Precepts of fucking religion.

The man in front of him was just a man. A big, long, skinny bastard with a turkey neck, huge nose and knuckles, slashing at his head double-handed with an axe; he sidestepped, only to find there was a tree standing where a lifetime of diligent study and training dictated he ought to be, and he couldn't go there. So he ducked behind the tree instead. It did just as well as the low backhand parry in the fourth degree; in fact considerably better, since the skinny bastard's axe lodged itself in the soft, rotten wood and stayed there, defying the skinny bastard's best efforts to get it free. Nothing simpler, meanwhile, than to nip out round the other side of the tree and stick him under the armpit-not a true lunge from the middle ward, nothing like it at all, but it got the job done, and the poor dead bastard slid obligingly off the sword blade and flopped in a heap on the soft ground.

If that was supposed to prove a point or something, he thought, I'm far from convinced. He looked round, both ways and then behind, but for the moment at least he was mercifully alone. Remarkably so, in fact. Last time he'd looked there had been people everywhere, but now there wasn't a living soul (important distinction) to be seen. The battle, presumably, had got tired of waiting for him and gone on without him. Annoying, to say the least, since he had no way of knowing whether it was a winning battle going away in front of him, or a losing one that had swept past him while his attention was engaged elsewhere. I hate forests, he thought.

Precepts of religion, he muttered to himself; but just for once, there wasn't one that seemed even remotely relevant, so he pressed on forward to see what would happen. Silly, to be chasing after the war-his war-panting and yelling 'Wait for me!' like a fat man after the carrier's cart. Luckily, it hadn't got far. The battle was still there, just over a little stony hump and through a clump of holly bushes; it had contrived to get itself caught up in a tangle of brambles, like an old unshorn ewe.

Which wasn't how the historians would describe it, a thousand years hence. They would feel obliged to mention the wide, black, boggy rhine lurking under the mess of waist-high brambles (like it was somehow intentional, a clever idea on somebody's part) into which the enemy, retreating, had obligingly stumbled and got hopelessly stuck. And there they were, poor unfortunate bastards, mired in the smelly, wet black shit up to their thighs; it'd take a lot of clever men a long time and probably a couple of miles of rope to get them out of there, but that wasn't the job that needed doing. If only. But no, instead of that comparatively simple task, he had to do something really clever. He had to kill them.

By some miracle, his men hadn't charged down on them screaming battle-cries and got hopelessly stuck as well. They'd held back on the top of the rise-not common sense, he'd never accuse them of that, it was probably just that they were too pernickety to push through the briars and risk a scratch or two-and were waiting for someone to tell them what to do. Someone; anyone; him.

On the other side of the rhine (it was an old drain, he observed; dug a hundred years ago in a vain attempt to draw off the surface water from the hillside, but all it had done was silt up and make things infinitely worse) he could see a dozen or so of the enemy, also standing about listlessly, also trying to figure out what they were supposed to be doing. Best guess was, they'd somehow managed to scramble through the mud, maybe treading on their comrades' shoulders to get across, and now they were thinking that maybe it was their duty to go back and try and help get them out, except that then they'd get stuck too, and everybody would end up dead. Safe to ignore them, he thought, they'll get scared and bugger off as soon as I've thought up a way of slaughtering their friends. Meanwhile the main part of the enemy forces (as the historians will describe them) were still floundering in the stinking mud, every frantic effort to get loose pulling them in deeper.

It crossed his mind that if only he waited a little longer, they'd all go in over their heads and be swallowed up, and he wouldn't have to do anything at all. But apparently not; the slough was waist-deep but no more, and there they all were, hundreds of them, enemy soldiers from the waist up, conscientiously clutching their axes and spears and halberds as though there was still a battle, as opposed to a horrendous disaster resulting from a confluence of bad luck and stupidity. Problem, he thought. Going in after them was clearly out of the question. Standing here watching wasn't going to help, either. The obvious thing would be to call up three companies of archers and shoot the bastards down where they stood, but he didn't have any archers with him, only the finest spearmen in the Empire.

Then he started to grin. Precepts of religion, he thought: the best course of action is no action. They weren't going anywhere in a hurry. There was, of course, the problem of the others, the dozen or so on the other side, but he couldn't help that. If he was lucky, really lucky, the poor fools would go down into the bog to try and fish out their mates, and get stuck too. There was, after all, nothing they could do without rope (which they hadn't got), or at least if there was, then the finest military mind in the Empire was buggered if he could figure out what it was. At least some of them would try it, however; and eventually there would come a point when there weren't enough of them left unmired to get out those who were helplessly stuck, and then it'd all be over.

He frowned, doing mental arithmetic. Suppose the survivors went for help; nearest place would be the village on the far western edge of the forest, and the very earliest they could get there and get back (assuming the villagers downed tools, left their dinners on the table and ran straight out to help as soon as they arrived) was five days, more likely six. But it wasn't as straightforward as that; in order to do any good they'd need to bring tools and ropes and poles and planks, that'd mean carts or packhorses at the very least. Six days or more likely seven.

Fine, thought Feron Amathy. No further action required. Time to go home.

'Battle Slough, it's called,' said the old man, 'on account of there was a battle here once.'

Poldarn nodded. The logic was impeccable.

'Hell of a battle too, it was,' the old man said. 'One lot, they chased the other lot into the slough, they got stuck-midwinter it was, slough's mortal sticky in winter, and that's nowadays, with all the drains they dug over Winterhay taking off the worse of it-and the first lot, they just walked away and left 'em there. You can still find bones, if you look.'

Poldarn looked at him. 'What happened?' he said.

The old man shrugged. 'Oh, they all died,' he said. 'Stuck in the mud, couldn't get out. Nothing their mates could do for 'em. Oh, they went for help, but by the time they came back, they'd all died. Just stood there-well, not standing, they were all slumped over like stooks of reed, strangest thing you ever saw in your life. Makes you wonder, though, what it must've been like.'

Poldarn decided he'd like to change the subject. 'It's mostly oak here, then.'

The old man nodded. 'Some oak,' he said, 'some chestnut, but mostly oak. Damn good charcoal wood, oak. There's some as prefers beech, but it's too hot for our line of work. Oak holds the fire longer, see.'

'Seems a waste, though,' Poldarn said, without thinking. Back home (of course, he'd never once thought of it as that while he'd been there) he'd seen maybe half a dozen oak trees, no more; and even the spruces and firs were precious, as he'd found out to his cost. Curious; he'd had to leave the islands because he'd accidentally burned down a small stand of immature firs, and now here he was on his way to a charcoal camp, where on average they burned a dozen fully grown oaks a day.

The old man was looking at him. 'Why?' he asked.

'Oh, nothing,' Poldarn answered awkwardly. 'But aren't you worried you'll run out, the rate you're felling at?'

This time the old man stared at him for a moment before laughing. 'I keep forgetting,' he said, 'you're not from round here. Odd, though, you sound like you're a local boy. Leastways, most of the time you do-and I can tell an offcomer soon as he opens his mouth,' he added, with pride. Poldarn had worked out that 'offcomer' (which was probably the most offensive term in the old man's vocabulary) meant someone born out of earshot of where they were standing. 'Plenty more where these came from,' the old man went on, 'plenty more. I been felling in these woods since I was a kid, and we ain't hardly started yet.'

He made it sound like he was a man with a mission, to rid the world of the lurking threat of deciduous timber once and for all. Good luck to him, Poldarn thought, though he couldn't really bring himself to share the old fool's passion. Chopping down very big trees was too much like hard work, in his opinion. 'Well, that's all right, then,' he said. 'Is it much further? Only-'

'Nearly there,' said the old man. 'Just up over the steep and down along through.'

Poldarn nodded, wishing he hadn't asked; the old man had given him exactly the same answer a good hour ago, and his left heel was beginning to blister. 'Are there many of you up at the camp?' he asked, by way of making conversation.

'Dozen,' the old man said vaguely, 'couple of dozen. Folks come and go, see. Some of 'em stay a couple weeks or a month, some of 'em's been there twenty years, and nothing to say they won't be up and gone come the morning. Always work in the burning for them as wants it, but some folks can't settle to it, and then they move on.' The old man shook his head sadly, as if to say that humankind was a sadly unsatisfactory breed. That at least was something Poldarn could agree with, though he'd probably arrived at that conclusion by a different route.

No way in a forest of knowing how long they stumbled on for; no way of seeing the sun, to gauge the passage of time. It felt like hours and hours and hours, probably because they were mostly going uphill, and where it wasn't boggy and wet, the way ahead was blocked with curtains of brambles and low branches. Poldarn had already learned to walk bent over like an elderly cripple, his left hand pushed out in front to ward off flailing twigs and briars. He had, of course, not the faintest idea of where he was or which direction he'd come from. If there was a path, he couldn't see it, and all the trees looked identical.

Then, without warning, he shouldered through a screen of holly leaves and found himself on top of a steep rise, looking down into a clearing. For maybe five hundred yards in front, there were no trees, only stumps. In roughly the middle of the cleared space stood four huge round domes. How they'd been made and what they'd been made from he couldn't tell at this distance; in fact, they hardly looked artificial at all, and if the old man had told him they were some kind of massive woodland fungus he'd probably have believed him.

'Here we are,' the old man said.

As they climbed down the slope, Poldarn got a better look at the domes; in particular, the furthest dome away on his left, which was only half-built. Fifteen yards across and five yards high; inside, it was composed of stacks of neatly split logs about four feet long, stood on end like books on a shelf; these, the old man told him, were the shanklings, whatever that signified. Covering the wood was a six-inch layer of bracken, straw and dry leaves, which in turn was covered with a skin of fine soil. ('We call that the sammel', the old man told Poldarn, who nodded seriously, as though he could care less.) Here and there, men were fooling about with rakes, hooks and odd-looking arched ladders. They were moving slowly, as though they'd been doing this job for a hundred years and had another hundred still to go.

'Got to be careful, see,' the old man was saying. 'Hearth's got to be dead flat, and you've got to be careful there's no stones or anything. Leave a stone and like as not it'll shatter in the burn and poke a bloody hole out the sammel, and then you'd be buggered.'

Poldarn learned a great deal more about the art and science of burning charcoal before they reached the bottom of the slope. He learned that the slabs of turf that the slow little men were fitting carefully round the apex of the dome made up the cope; that the thick log stuck in the very centre was called the mote peg; that the gap between the bottom skirt of the sammel and the ground was the flipe. He heard about how the rate at which the fire burned was governed by the amount of air it drew in through the flipe, and how the burn was controlled by packing sand round the base, and how the sand had to be dug out and moved each time the wind changed direction, to make sure the burn was even all the way through. There was something about the old man's voice, probably its pitch, that made it impossible to ignore, no matter how hard Poldarn tried.

'To start the burn off,' the old fool was saying, 'you pull out the mote peg and drop in a bucket of hot coals, then fill up flush with clean charcoal-lumps, mind, not fines or dust; then you cap off with fresh turf and there you go. To start with you get a lot of white smoke and steam, that's the roast drawing the wet out, see. Then it goes blue, and you know it's time to shut down the burn. That's when it gets tricky, mind.'

'I see,' Poldarn lied. 'It's obviously a very skilled trade. I never knew there was so much to it.'

The old man grinned. 'Oh, that's not the half of it,' he said. Poldarn was sure he was right, at that; fortunately, before the old man could educate him further, Poldarn caught sight of a familiar face-Basano, the man they'd done the deal with, back in the relative sophistication of the stable yard of the Virtue Triumphant in Scieza.

He waved hard, and Basano waved back, slowly. Poldarn frowned. Back in Scieza, Basano had come across as almost normal, apart from the length of his beard and the powerful stench of smoke that clung to everything he wore. At any rate, Poldarn hadn't noticed any particular sloth about the way the man moved. Here in the woods, though, he seemed to have slowed down like everyone else; he was trudging up the rise to meet them as though he was one of the unfortunate soldiers trapped in the mud of Battle Slough, all those years ago. Maybe it was something to do with prolonged exposure to extreme heat roasting the nerve endings; or perhaps it was what happened to you if you breathed in too much smoke.

'You got here all right, then,' Basano said. Poldarn nodded, figuring a little white lie was permissible in the circumstances. 'Olvo's been looking after you, I hope.'

'Oh yes,' Poldarn said, with a nice smile. 'He's been telling me all about how you do things.'

'Splendid,' Basano replied. 'Actually, you couldn't have come at a better time. We'll be lighting up number four later on this evening, so you'll be able to watch.'

'Wonderful,' Poldarn muttered. 'I'll look forward to that.'

After the lighting ceremony, which turned out to be almost exactly the way Poldarn had imagined it would be, the small crowd of charcoal burners ('only be sure to call them colliers,' Basano told him in a loud whisper, 'it's very important to get it right') quickly thinned out and drifted away, leaving Poldarn and Basano alone in front of the newly lit dome, which was gushing out fat plumes of white smoke from top and sides. The colliers mostly lived in tiny low hutches the size of an army tent, built of slabs of turf laid on rickety frames of green sticks. As burn-master, however, Basano enjoyed the privilege of sleeping in the watchman's lodge, which proved to be a slightly bigger version of the same thing. Once Poldarn had got used to the thin light of the single oil lamp, and the rather unnerving sight of wriggling worms poking out through the ceiling, he found it wasn't too bad, if you didn't mind damp and smoke.

'Hungry?' Basano asked; and before Poldarn could answer, he'd pulled the lid off a large stone crock and fished out an elderly loaf and a slab of pale, glazed-looking cheese.

'There's beer in the jug,' he added, pointing at what Poldarn had taken to be the jerry. The taste of its contents didn't do much to persuade him that he hadn't been right all along. 'We're a bit rough and ready,' Basano added, as Poldarn's teeth grated on the crust of the cheese, 'but we do all right for ourselves.'

'So I see,' Poldarn said, spitting out a small piece of grit, or tooth enamel. 'How's business?'

'Bloody wonderful,' Basano replied. 'Can't make enough of the stuff. They're desperate for it in the towns, like it's gold dust or something.'

'That's good,' Poldarn said. 'But you reckon you can guarantee us a regular supply?'

'Oh, that won't be a problem,' Basano said decisively. 'You just tell me how much you people need, and we'll see you get it.'

'Fine,' Poldarn said. Something dropped from the turf roof onto his head and squirmed. 'And there won't be any difficulty about the grade? The sort of work we're doing, we have to be sure the fuel's consistent to get exactly the right temperature. If it burns too hot or too cool, it can screw a job up completely. You get cracked moulds, cold shuts, air bubbles-'

Basano shook his head. 'Don't worry about it,' he said. 'I'll pick your supplies out myself. First-grade lump, from the top centre of the stack, where it gets raked off first. That way there's no danger of it getting overcooked, or coming up brown in the middle. You can bet your life on that.'

Poldarn wasn't sure he was prepared to go that far; but Basano seemed confident enough, and in spite of the old man's intensive coaching Poldarn didn't know enough about the trade to contradict him. 'In that case,' he said, 'that ought to suit us just fine.'

Basano nodded and poured out more beer; and that, apparently, was all there was to it. So simple; a pity, Poldarn couldn't help thinking, it couldn't all have been settled back at the Virtue Triumphant, where the beds were dry and you couldn't stand a spoon upright in the beer. On the other hand, if he'd done the deal in Scieza, he'd have missed a two-day trudge through the woods and all that fascinating stuff about mote-pegs and flipes. He drank some of the beer. It tasted disgusting. He drank a little more, nevertheless.

'Nice drop of beer, though I say it myself,' Basano said. 'It's a traditional colliers' recipe,' he added, with more than a hint of pride. 'Bracken instead of hops, gives it that sort of nutty tang.'

For a moment, Poldarn hoped he was kidding. 'Distinctive,' he said. 'So, you do your own brewing here?'

'And baking,' Basano replied. (Well, that accounted for the bread.) 'Not that we can't afford stuff from town; like I told you, business is damn good. But it helps pass the time, you know?'

'I'm sure,' Poldarn replied.

Basano drained his cup and poured out some more. 'Essential supplies,' he said. 'Dry work, see, and then there's all the sitting around. Got to stay close to the fire all the time, see, keep an eye on it in case the wind changes. A good burn'll take you, what, sixteen, seventeen days till the core's cooled down and you can rake out. Doesn't seem nearly so long if you've got a drop to drink.'

Poldarn smiled thinly. 'I'll bet,' he said.

'Mind you.' Basano pulled a face, then blew his nose loudly into the palm of his hand. 'There's some up north as prefers cider. Well, they burn a lot of fruitwood, and apple's as good as any,' he added, with the air of someone making a flimsy excuse for an unspeakable perversion. 'You like cider?'

'No.'

'Nor me.' Basano belched suddenly. 'Gives me wind, cider. Want some more cheese?'

'No, thanks. I'm fine.'

'Have some more beer.'

'Thanks.'

Basano passed the jug, and Poldarn filled his cup. It was still horrible, but there were worse things in life than the taste of dead yeast and stale eggs. 'So,' Basano went on, 'you been in the foundry business long?'

Poldarn thought for a moment. Absolutely no reason why he should share his life story with a stranger; lots of excellent reasons why he shouldn't. Nevertheless. 'Just over two years,' he said. 'Really?' Basano squinted at him, as if the hut was full of smoke. 'No offence, but you're a bit old to go taking up a new trade.'

'Long story.'

Basano grinned. 'Best kind, hanging round a charcoal camp.'

'I guess so,' Poldarn said.

Short pause. 'So,' Basano said, 'you from round here?'

Poldarn shook his head. 'I don't think so.'

'You aren't sure?'

'That's right.' Poldarn could feel cramp coming on in his left leg. He tried to stretch out, but there wasn't room. 'Truth is,' he said, 'I don't really know much about myself.'

Basano looked at him.

'Really,' Poldarn felt compelled to add. 'Actually, the first thing I can remember, apart from a few little scrappy bits, is waking up lying in the mud beside a river; and that was just under four years ago.'

'Get away.'

'Honestly.' Poldarn swallowed a yawn, and went on: 'I guess I must've had-well, an accident or something, because I woke up and suddenly I realised I couldn't remember anything. Not my name, or where I was from, or what I did for a living, whether I had any family, nothing at all.'

'Fuck,' Basano said, with feeling. 'So how long did that last?'

Poldarn smiled weakly. 'It's still lasting,' he said, tilting the jug over his cup and handing it back. 'To start with, I kept expecting it all to come back to me, but it didn't, or at least it hasn't yet. Anyhow, while I still thought there'd be a chance of remembering, or running into somebody who could tell me who I was, I just sort of wandered about, not settling to anything-well, where'd be the point, if at any moment I'd be going home? But time went on, and nothing came back to me, so I thought, screw this, I'd better get on and make a new life for myself.'

'So you joined up at the foundry?'

Poldarn hesitated. There'd been a lot more to it than that, of course, but he was damned if he was going to tell anybody about it, even if the beer was starting to taste almost palatable. 'That's right,' he said.

Basano's face crumpled into a thoughtful scowl. 'Yes,' he said, 'but surely there's some thing you've been able to figure out. Like, your accent, the way you talk. That ought to place you pretty well. I mean, round here they can tell which village you were born in just from the way you fart.'

'Not in my case,' Poldarn said. 'At least, nobody I've met so far's recognised my accent and said, "Ah, you're from such and such a place." Actually, I don't even know how many languages I can speak. It's half a dozen at least, maybe more.'

'Bloody hell,' Basano said, clearly impressed.

Poldarn shook his head. The hut wobbled a little. 'Oh, it's not like it's anything clever,' he said. 'Don't even know I'm doing it half the time. Sometimes I'll be talking to someone and they'll start looking at me all funny, and it's because I've suddenly switched to a different language without realising it. I just hear my own voice in my head, you see.'

'Oh. And what about when other people talk to you?'

'Same thing. I just hear what they're saying, not the words they use. I think-' He checked himself. He'd been about to say that it could be something to do with his people back home on the islands in the western sea being natural telepaths; but if he said that, Basano would only stare at him even more fiercely, since nobody in the Empire knew that the western islands existed, let alone that their inhabitants were the merciless, invincible raiders who'd burned so many cities and done so much damage over the years. Saying something that'd identify him with them probably wasn't a good idea. 'I think I must be from the capital or something, where there's people from all over the Empire. You'd probably pick up several languages if you lived somewhere like that, maybe even get so used to switching from one to the other without thinking that you wouldn't notice.'

'Or maybe you were in the army,' Basano said. 'Been posted all over the place, learned a bit of this and that every place you've spent time in. I knew a man once, he'd been in the services, and he could do that. Knew twenty-six different words for beer.'

'Useful,' Poldarn said with a grin, whereupon Basano passed the jug. Nothing would ever make him like the stuff, of course, but he was feeling rather dry, he couldn't help noticing. The heat, or something to do with the hut being built of turf. Something like that, anyhow.

'Still,' Basano was saying, 'must be bloody odd. I mean, the thought that once you had a completely different life, and any minute it could all come back, like a roof falling in. I mean, any second now, maybe you're going to turn to me and say, "Bloody hell, I just remembered, I used to be a rich merchant," or "My dad used to run the biggest brewery in Tulice.'" He shook his head. 'That'd get to me, the thought that I could be, you know, really stinking rich or a nobleman or something, and yet here you are wasting your life pounding sand in the foundry. All that money just waiting for you to come back home and spend it. Or women, maybe. Or you could be the son and heir of a district magistrate, even.'

Poldarn looked away. 'Sure,' he said. 'Or maybe I was something really horrible, like a day labourer in a tannery. Or an escaped convict, maybe, or like you said, I was in the army and I deserted. That's why I stopped trying to find out, actually, for fear that I wouldn't like what I discovered. Think about it: what if I turned out to be somebody really evil and disgusting, someone that everybody hates?'

Basano thought for a moment. 'Well, if everybody hated you, surely you'd have been recognised before now. And if you were on the run from the gallows or the stone-yards, they'd have been looking for you and someone would've caught you. And if you were like a dangerous nutcase or whatever, sooner or later you'd murder someone or set fire to a temple or whatever it might be, and then you'd know that way. And if you found out you'd only ever been a milkman, or the bloke who cleans the blood off the slaughterhouse floor, well, that'd be all right, you wouldn't have to go back to your rotten old life if you didn't want to, and that way at least you'd know-'

Poldarn pulled a face. Partly it was the foul taste of the beer. 'There's other bad things it could be,' he said. 'Like, suppose I was married and there was trouble at home, something like that. My theory is, you see, that deep down I don't want to remember, which is why my memory hasn't come back long since. I reckon you'd have to be stupid to take a risk like that.'

Basano pursed his lips. 'I guess so,' he said. 'It'd depend on how good life was where I am now. I mean, do you really, really like working in the foundry?'

Poldarn shrugged. 'It's all right, I suppose.'

'You're settled in just the way you like it? Got yourself a really tasty bird, nice house, all that stuff?'

'Well, no.' Poldarn frowned. 'But that sort of thing comes with time. I mean, you find somewhere you want to be and settle down, and happiness just sort of grows on you, like moss on rocks.'

Basano nodded. 'And you don't think any happiness had grown on you before you had your accident and forgot it all? I mean, a man of your age, you'd expect to be settled and doing well. So maybe you were.'

'Like you are, you mean?'

'Oh, I'm not doing so bad,' Basano answered, wriggling sideways as a handful of dirt dropped from the roof onto his head. 'I told you, we're doing a hell of a trade, I'm putting a lot of good money by. Another ten years or so, I'll be able to retire, buy a place, spend the rest of my life playing at being a gentleman.' He grinned. 'I got it all worked out, don't you worry. See, I know where I'm from, so I can make up my mind where it is I want to go. You don't, so you can't. See what I'm getting at?'

'Sort of.'

'Well, there you go.' Basano suddenly froze, and said, 'Shit.'

'What's the matter?'

'Beer jug's empty. Excuse me, I have to go to the outhouse and fill it up again.'

That, Poldarn felt, was open to misinterpretation; but when Basano came back and refilled both their cups, the beer tasted no worse than before. 'I was thinking,' Basano said.

'Hm?'

'About what you were saying. You not wanting to know, in case you turned out to be the nastiest man in the world. Well, you can set your mind at rest there.'

'Can I? Oh, good.'

'Sure.' Basano grabbed two handfuls of wood and threw them on the fire. 'It's like this. You go anywhere, ask anybody you like who's the nastiest man in the world, they'll all give you the same answer. Well,' he added, after a pause for thought, 'maybe not, because we've just had the taxes round here, so a lot of folks would say the Emperor. Bastard,' he added, with feeling.

'He's not popular?'

'You can say that again.'

Poldarn nodded. 'I don't even know who the Emperor is,' he confessed.

'Really? Well, we had a change recently, just over a year ago. The old Emperor died. Throat cut. Terrible business, even if he was a complete arsehole.'

'I'm sure. So who's Emperor now?'

Basano yawned. 'A man called Tazencius,' he replied. 'Cousin or second cousin of the last bloke.'

'And he cut the last man's throat, did he?'

Basano shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'In fact, he was hundreds of miles away when it happened. Oh, he was in on the plot all right, he just wasn't around for the actual killing. Anyhow, everybody was mighty pleased when the old bastard got cut up, but by all accounts, this Tazencius is even worse. Well, that goes without saying: taxes up by a fifth. And what's worse, they actually collect them, even out here.'

'That's unusual, is it?'

'Too right. First tax collector some of the younger blokes had ever seen, caused quite a stir. Anyhow, we cracked him over the head and stuck his body in number three, and reckoned that ought to be the end of it.'

'And was it?'

'No way.' Basano pulled a wry face. 'Couple of months later, a whole army shows up. Well, several dozen, anyhow, all in armour and stuff, asking had we seen this man, because he'd gone missing, and he'd been headed out our way. So we said, no, we'd never set eyes on anybody like that; and of course they couldn't prove anything. But they made us hand over the money. Two thousand gross-quarters. Worse than robbery, if you ask me, because with robbers at least you can fight back. But if you scrag two dozen soldiers, all that happens is that next time they send two hundred, and then you're screwed.'

Poldarn dipped his head by way of acknowledgement. 'Well,' he said, 'I'm definitely not the Emperor Tazencius,' he said. No earthly point in mentioning that he had good reason to believe that Tazencius, assuming they were talking about the same man, had at one stage been his father-in-law. 'How about the second nastiest?'

Basano grinned. 'If you ask me, Tazencius is a pussycat compared to five or six other people. No, if you'd asked the question any time when we hadn't just had the taxes, what everybody'd have said was Feron Amathy. General Feron Amathy, he is now, or probably Marshal or Protector, because it's practically a known fact that it was him as had the old Emperor killed. Pretty much running things, especially since he married Tazencius's daughter. Makes him next in line to the throne, see, if anything happens to Tazencius. Which it will,' Basano added, 'or I'm an earwig.'

Poldarn dipped his head again. 'So that's two nasty men I'm definitely not,' he said.

'Three,' Basano said, pouring beer and getting a respectable proportion of it into the cup. 'Third nastiest by anybody's reckoning is this priest bastard, the one who's running around with all the sword-monks and that sort.'

'Sword-monks,' Poldarn repeated. 'Weren't they all killed by the raiders?'

'Most of them,' Basano confirmed. 'But not nearly enough. Actually, that made things a whole lot worse; because before the raiders burned down the monks' castle, place called Deymeson, the monks mostly stayed home and didn't bother anybody, apart from princes and rich merchants and the like. But now they've got no home, so they're just sort of wandering about the place, stealing and killing anything that moves. And a lot of other scumbags have joined up with them. Supposed to be all about religion-the end of the world is nigh and all that shit-but if you ask me it's just an excuse for riding round the home provinces in this huge caravan of carts and slaughtering people. Anyhow, their boss is some ex-monk who goes by the name of Monach-which is just some foreign word for "monk", so nobody knows what his real name is. Could care less; he's just some evil shit who likes killing people. Wouldn't be you, though, since he only started off doing it a couple of years ago, and only last month he was in Iapetta.'

'I see,' Poldarn said. 'Well, that's a great comfort, I must say.'

'And then there's number four,' Basano continued. 'General Muno Silsny, there's another really unpleasant man for you.' He frowned. 'Not in the same league as Feron Amathy or this Monach character, and of course he's not the Emperor, but you'd have to be a total arsehole to be anything like as nasty as he is. And he only popped up a few years back. Hell of a taleteller, Silsny; that's how he's got on so fast. Came out of nowhere; he started off as nothing but a poxy little captain in some outfit of second-rate horsefuckers, but then there was this battle and he got his leg broke, and he went around telling everybody he was snatched out of the jaws of death by the divine Poldarn himself, no less. For some crazy reason folks believed him, and since then he's every place you look. Fought alongside General Cronan, rest his soul, when he beat the raiders; then he was off fighting the rebels, really making a name for himself. But he must be smart, because he changed sides at just the right time, joined up with the Amathy lot right after he'd kicked shit out of them in some battle, and now he's commander-in-chief of the home provinces, no less. And you can't be him, either.'

Poldarn's smile had glazed over, like a properly fired pot. Muno Silsny was the name of the wounded soldier he'd saved from being murdered by looters after some battle in a river; he'd practically tripped over the man, and for some reason had wasted time and effort getting him back to his camp instead of leaving him to die.

'Number five, now,' Basano was saying. 'Now that's a dead cert, no way you could be the fifth evilest bastard in the Empire, because she's a woman, and you're not.'

Poldarn had an uncomfortable feeling that he knew who Basano was talking about. 'Who's number five?' he asked.

Basano grinned. 'Good question,' he said. 'Nobody knows shit about her. Her regular name's supposed to be something in one of those crackjaw southern languages, Xipho Dornosomething, and what she calls herself is the Holy Mother of Death or some such shit, but everybody knows her as Copis the Whore. On account of she used to be one, so people tell me. Anyway, she's with this Monach character, rattling round with him in the steel-plated carts. Religious nut, apparently; telling everybody she screwed the divine Poldarn and had his kid. I don't understand religion much, but by all accounts this gives her the right to go around burning down villages.' He sighed. 'I liked it better when religion was about not coveting your neighbour's ox, and whether true angels have wings. Anyhow,' Basano said, 'there's five really, really nasty people for you, and you aren't any of them, so what are you worried about?'

The next morning, Poldarn had a headache, probably due to the smoke or the smell of rotten leaf-mould. Basano woke him to say that breakfast was ready, but Poldarn wasn't hungry. 'I think I ought to be getting back,' he said. 'They'll be wanting to know about the charcoal.'

But Basano shook his head. 'Can't spare anybody to go with you, sorry,' he said, 'not with number four starting to burn through, and the wind being about to change any bloody minute. You can head off on your own if you like, but I wouldn't recommend it.'

Poldarn thought about Battle Slough, and decided he didn't like the idea of wandering into it because he'd lost his way in the woods. 'How soon do you think you can spare someone?' he asked.

'Difficult to say,' Basano replied. 'Four should be burnt out to blue in four or five days' time, but by then we'll have fired up two again, unless it rains, in which case we'll need all hands to rake out four before the whole lot spoils; and three'll be ready for sifting and bagging up some time in the next week.'

'Oh,' Poldarn said. 'No offence, but you make it sound like I'm going to be here for the rest of my life.'

Basano frowned at him. 'Don't talk soft,' he said. 'For a start, we'll be sending three wagons down the road before the end of the month. You could hitch a ride with them, then get the post back to Scieza, it's only a couple of days.' He looked up, sniffed, and disappeared back into the lodge, emerging a moment later with a frying pan in his hand. 'Sure you don't want some?' he said. 'Fried oatcakes and wood mushrooms. Speciality of the camp.'

Poldarn was about to ask what wood mushrooms were; but then he caught sight of the strange black objects in the pan, carbonised versions of the repulsive-looking growths he'd seen on the boles of rotten ash trees. 'Really,' he said. 'I don't usually eat breakfast. Indigestion.'

'Ah,' Basano replied. 'Know what you mean.' He stabbed one of the charred fungi with the point of his rusty knife, and Poldarn looked away. 'Alternatively,' Basano continued, 'you could stay here till the new moon and catch the Chestnut Day party. Well worth hanging on for, that is.'

'Oh? What's Chestnut Day?'

Basano shrugged. 'Once a year, we all give each other a bag of chestnuts. It's a tradition,' he explained, 'very old, very important in the collier community. Actually, it's just an excuse for a really good piss-up. And at midnight, we roast the chestnuts in the embers of Number Two and sing songs and stuff.'

Poldarn invented a smile from somewhere. 'Sounds really good,' he said. 'But I really had better be getting back, or else they'll start getting antsy and sign up for their charcoal with someone else.'

Basano pulled a face. 'Impatient lot, you are,' he said. 'Well, in that case you'd better go off with the wagons.' He paused, as if he'd just remembered something. 'Or,' he said, 'tell you what. It'd be quicker, if you don't mind roughing it a bit.'

Roughing it a bit, Poldarn repeated to himself, looking at the contents of the frying pan. No, I don't think I'd mind that terribly much. 'No problem,' he said.

'Well, in that case,' Basano said with his mouth full, 'Corvolo-you know, the old geezer you came in with-he's going up to collect the mail; straight over the top, mind, it's a pig of a walk, but you'll come out on the road halfway between Iacchosia and Veiny, and you can hitch a ride with the mail right into Scieza. How'd that be?'

Poldarn nodded enthusiastically. 'Sounds good to me,' he said. 'When's he leaving?'

Basano thought for a moment. 'Now, probably,' he said, 'or else he's already gone. Come on, we'll see if he's still here.'

It turned out that Poldarn wasn't the only one going with Corvolo to get the mail; they were joined at the last moment by a tall, thin young man with short, spiky hair and an enormous burn scar on the left side of his face. He hadn't said why he was coming with them, and Corvolo hadn't asked. The young man hardly said a word all the way, though it could have been the steepness of the climb, which didn't leave much spare breath for talking, or the difficulty of getting a word in edgeways. (Shortness of breath didn't seem to be a problem with Corvolo, unfortunately.) It was only when they'd cleared the top of the hills and come to the edge of the tree line, with the road clearly visible a mile or so below them, that the young man said anything.

'You,' he said suddenly, stopping and looking Poldarn straight in the eye. 'I know you from somewhere, don't I?'

Poldarn nodded. 'Quite possibly,' he said. 'I don't know you, though.'

The young man frowned. 'Well, that's as may be. Were you ever in Torcea?'

'I don't know.'

'What d'you mean? If you'd ever been there, you'd know about it.'

Poldarn shook his head. 'Long story,' he said. 'But yes, I may have been to Torcea, and no, I wouldn't expect to remember if I had. Also,' he went on, 'I wouldn't want to remember. No offence,' he added. 'It's a personal thing.'

The young man looked mildly startled. 'Oh, right,' he said. 'Only, I'm sure I saw you once, long time ago. You were in a procession or a parade or something.'

'Really.' Poldarn shrugged. 'Thanks, but I'd rather you didn't tell me any more.'

The young man started walking again. 'Be like that,' he said. 'No skin off my nose. Only, I'm sure I remember you, because you were riding along down the street on a great big white horse, and people were cheering like you were somebody important.'

Poldarn grinned. 'Do I look important?'

'No,' the young man said. 'But neither do a lot of important people.'

'There you go, then,' Poldarn said. 'If you really did see me and I looked important, then obviously I wasn't, by your own admission. Glad to have cleared that up for you,' he added kindly.

The young man didn't seem to know what to make of that, but at least it shut him up for the rest of the journey.

They reached the road just before sunset. According to Corvolo, the mail coach would pass the two hundred and seventh milestone ('That big lump of rock you're sat on,' he explained) three hours after sunrise the next morning; meanwhile, they could camp out by the road and be sure of catching the coach, or they could kip down for the night in a spinney two hundred yards down the slope, and hope they woke up in time. Poldarn said that where they were would do him just fine, and the young man didn't seem to have an opinion on the matter, so they unrolled their blankets and built a fire, using some of the charcoal samples Basano had given Poldarn to take back with him. It was good charcoal, no doubt about it, but he didn't say anything for fear of another lecture from Corvolo. Nobody seemed to have brought along anything to eat, but Corvolo had a leather bottle full of beer. If anything, it tasted worse than the stuff Basano had given him; it also gave him heartburn, which kept him awake long after the other two had dropped off and begun to snore.

Poldarn lay on his back and thought about names: Tazencius, Copis, Monach, Muno Silsny, Feron Amathy. The last time he'd seen Copis, she'd tried to kill him and he'd had to hit her, so hard that he'd broken her jaw. He still wasn't clear in his mind about why she'd picked him up in her cart the day he'd woken up and found his memory gone. From what he'd been able to gather-she hadn't told him, of course, that'd have been too simple-the sword-monks of Deymeson had ordered her to accompany him, as a spy or a bodyguard, or just possibly because he was really the Divine Poldarn returned to earth to bring about the end of the world, and Poldarn needed to have a priestess with him in order to make the prophecies come out right. At one time he'd imagined he loved her-no, not quite that, but they'd been close enough that she'd apparently been carrying his child-when she'd pulled a sword on him in the ruins of Deymeson, at which point he was back with his grandfather's people, the raiders, burning the place and slaughtering the monks. He thought about that. For a man who never deliberately did any harm, who had no reason to hurt anybody in the world, fire and death did tend to cling to him rather, like the smell on a pig farmer's boots. Then he thought about the reason why he'd left the islands in the far west: because he'd started a bloody feud, murdered a man called Cary in cold blood, burned his best friend to death in his own house-and there had been good reasons for all of that, anybody else would've done exactly the same in his place, probably.

Precepts of religion, he thought (and his eyes closed, and he drifted towards sleep like a carelessly moored boat); the guilty are innocent, only the innocent can commit crimes. The god in the cart is foretold, preordained, inevitable, and therefore not to be blamed for what he does. The only crime is to try and interfere with the working out of the pattern. But that A man was speaking; a big, fine-looking man with a bushy black beard, standing in a pulpit at the front of a huge, high-roofed stone building full of people. But that, he was saying, conflicts with another essential precept, whereby Poldarn returns in wrath to punish the evildoers and avenge the sins of men. Think (said the big, fine man, whose name was Cleapho) about the logic behind that. Poldarn's coming is foretold, inevitable, it must happen; yet it is the deadly consequence of free choice, the choice on the part of the people to commit sins. See the fallacy. If the people's choice was free, then Poldarn is not inevitable; the people might decide not to sin, and the punishment might not be incurred. But if Poldarn is inevitable, then the choice cannot be free, the people are doomed to sin, whether they want to or not-and if they don't want to sin, how can they be wicked enough to merit punishment, since it is not the act alone that makes a crime, but the evil intention as well. Accordingly (said the big man, and Poldarn wondered where he, Poldarn, was all this time: in the audience, listening, or in the pulpit, preaching?) religion has another precept to cover the discrepancy. Only the innocent are punished.

Something settled on Poldarn's nose, making him jump up; a moth, or possibly a big mosquito. The sky was lighter now. Time had passed, so presumably he'd fallen asleep after all. He discovered that he'd been lying on his left arm, and his hand was cramped up and painful. If that was dawn coming up in the corner of the sky, the coach would be here in three hours-reasonable enough, if it stopped overnight in Iacchosia and started out again at first light. He could remember Iacchosia quite clearly, having been through there a couple of months previously. A poxy little town, no big deal, entirely unmemorable. He propped himself up on his right elbow and looked round. The old man, Corvolo, was still fast asleep. There was no sign of the young man.

He woke Corvolo up and told him. Corvolo offered no explanation, but didn't seem unduly concerned. Colliers were like that, he said, especially the young ones; suddenly they'd take it into their heads to move on, and off they'd go, without collecting their stuff, as often as not, or even their pay. Probably he'd decided to try his luck at one of the other camps further down the line-not that it'd do him any good, all the camps were pretty much alike, but that was colliers for you. Why, when he'd been a kid…

The mail coach arrived before Corvolo had a chance to tell Poldarn the complete history of his life, which was probably just as well. Corvolo had an amazing memory and could recall trivial conversations from thirty years ago, apparently word for word. If the coach had been even a quarter of an hour late, Poldarn was sure he'd have murdered the old man.

The coach only stopped for a few moments; just long enough for the postillion to hurl a cloth bag off the box, and for Poldarn to grab the running-rail and hoist himself aboard. As for it being a coach, that was an exaggeration; it was nothing but an ordinary cart, slightly longer and broader than the basic farm or carrier's pattern but just as bare and uncomfortable. Apparently, the Empire didn't believe in wasting good hardening steel on cart springs, Poldarn concluded, when it could be used for making spear blades; there were two soldiers to guard the mail, just in case.

'In case of what?' Poldarn asked the driver, who appeared not to hear him this time.

Fine, Poldarn thought. Not so long ago, he'd had a short but exciting career as a courier, working for the Falx house back in the Bohec valley. Two trips; and on both occasions he'd made it back alive but the driver hadn't. He gave up trying to make conversation with the mail driver. If past experience was anything to go by, there wouldn't be much point trying to get to know him.

Instead, he exchanged a few words with the other passengers. One of them was just a crazy old woman; she was dressed in a man's shabby coat several sizes too big for her, and her lanky grey hair was mostly crammed under a cracked old leather travelling hat. On her lap she nursed a small wicker basket as if it was a newborn baby. She started to tell Poldarn a very involved-sounding story about her younger son's progress in the district excise office in Falcata, but fortunately she fell asleep in the middle of a sentence.

The other passenger was a man. He was wrapped up in more coat than the slightly chilly air-called for, with the collar drawn tight round his chin and the hood down over his eyes. This gave him an almost comically furtive look, like a caricature of a spy, or of the young prince in exile on the run from the usurper's guards. When Poldarn asked him who he was, however, he replied that he was a travelling salesman on his way to Scieza. His particular line of business, he added, was dental prosthetics.

'What?'

The salesman grinned under his hood. 'False teeth,' he said.

Poldarn frowned, puzzled. 'How do you mean, false?' he asked.

For a moment the salesman wilted, as if the thought of explaining it all again was too much for him. But he pulled himself together and launched into what was clearly a well-worn sales pitch. Are you missing a tooth or two? he asked dramatically. Are you one ivory chorister short of a full choir? Do you find excuses not to smile, because of the ugly secret your lips protect? If so, help is at hand, because 'No, actually,' Poldarn said. 'I've got pretty good teeth, as it happens. Look.' And he smiled.

'Fine,' said the salesman tetchily. 'Good for you. Now, if it so happened that you weren't so almighty fortunate in that respect, our company would undoubtedly be able to help you out and improve your quality of life to a degree you wouldn't have thought possible. Our individually made, twenty-four-carat fine replacement gold teeth can be fitted painlessly in minutes, and are guaranteed to last you a lifetime of normal and reasonable use. For only thirty-five quarters, we undertake to replace any standard-size front or back tooth-'

'Oh,' Poldarn said, 'I see. Hang on, though-thirty-five quarters for a little stub of gold? That's a lot of money.'

The salesman scowled at him. 'Cheap at half the price,' he grunted. 'I mean, twice. Well, anyway, there's no point telling you any more because, like you said, you don't need one. Though,' he added half-heartedly, 'that's no reason why you shouldn't join the long list of satisfied customers who've discovered that a Collendis Brothers gold tooth is an outstandingly impressive fashion statement.' He stopped, and leaned forward a little in his seat. 'I know you from somewhere, don't I?'

This time, it was Poldarn's turn to feel weary. 'Maybe,' he said. 'I don't recognise you, but that's nothing to go by.'

'Oh?'

Poldarn shook his head. 'I have a truly appalling memory,' he said. 'Straight up, I do. Basically, I can't remember anything that's happened to me since about three years ago.'

Instead of pulling a sceptical face at him, the salesman nodded. 'Accident, was it? Bump on the head, something like that?'

'More or less,' said Poldarn, mildly impressed.

'Same thing happened to a cousin of mine,' the salesman said. 'Got kicked in the head by an ox. This was before I was born, mind,' he added, as if to assure Poldarn that he had an alibi. 'Anyhow, he couldn't remember spit, not even his name or where he lived, and then quite suddenly, twenty years later, he was walking up the street in the village where he used to live, and someone bumped into him and without thinking he said, "Mind where you're going, can't you, Blepsio, you idiot"-something like that, anyway, I'm making the name up, of course-and then, wham! It all came back to him in a flood.'

'Really,' Poldarn said. 'That's encouraging.'

The salesman grinned. 'You'd think so,' he replied. 'But my cousin wasn't too pleased. He rushed home, found his wife had declared him legally dead, married someone else, and the new bloke had mortgaged the farm fifteen ways to buggery and then run off to Torcea with the money. Still hadn't sorted out all the legal bullshit when he died. Whereas before he started remembering stuff, he was nicely settled as a wheelwright and was doing quite well.'

Poldarn looked away. 'Funny you should say that,' he said. 'You see, it's crossed my mind that maybe, if I did get my memory back, I'd find out that my old life wasn't really worth going back to; and, like your cousin, I'm just starting to get settled, I'm quite happy as I am. So-'

The salesman nodded. 'So if I suddenly remember where I've seen you before, and tell you who you used to be, you'd rather I kept my gob shut and didn't tell you.' He pulled a face. 'Just goes to show, really, what you'd assume people want and what they really want aren't necessarily the same. Actually,' he added, looking sideways at Poldarn under his hood. 'I seem to recall there's a precept of religion that says the same thing, only neater.'

Poldarn nodded. 'Kindness is for enemies,' he said; and then looked up sharply. 'Precepts of religion,' he repeated.

The salesman was still looking at him. 'Proverbs,' he said. 'Little snippets of popular wisdom, made up by the monks for the most part, like the maxims of defence and stuff like that, only they're usually even more useless than the maxims. Don't worry,' he added, 'loads of people beside the sword-monks know them, so you haven't inadvertently tripped over a slice of your past. It doesn't prove you were once a monk, or anything like that.'

Poldarn looked away. 'That's all right, then,' he said. 'Just out of interest, have you figured out where you know me from?'

'No,' the salesman replied.

'Good.' Poldarn looked up as the salesman rolled back his hood to reveal a round, clean-shaven face with cropped black hair. 'Did you say you were headed for Scieza?' he asked.

'That's right,' the salesman replied. 'Actually, just for once I'm not really going there on business. That is, if I can possibly get a few orders along the way, so much the better, though to be honest there's a fat chance of that out here in the sticks. But mostly I'm going there for-well, personal reasons, if you follow me.'

'Of course. None of my business, in other words.'

The salesman grinned. 'Precisely,' he said. 'So, what line of work are you in? Haven't been to Scieza before, but isn't it all metalworking down that way?'

'That's right,' Poldarn said. 'Biggest foundry in the district, which is where I work.'

'Got you,' the salesman said. 'The bell-foundry at Dui Chirra, right? Well, maybe that's how I know you, then. Before I got into this gold-tooth lark, I was a pattern-maker. Well, I say that; mostly I just sanded and painted. Very boring, so I packed it in. So, what do you make at this foundry? Just general casting, or do you specialise?'

Poldarn smiled. 'We make bells,' he said.

'Bells.' The salesman looked slightly bewildered, as if he'd always assumed they grew on tall brass trees. 'Well, that's probably a good line to be in-must be a fair old demand, and I've never heard of anywhere else that makes them.' He shrugged, dismissing the topic like a wet dog shaking itself. 'My name's Gain Aciava, by the way.'

Poldarn smiled. 'Pleased to meet you,' he said. 'I'd tell you my name if I knew what it was-well, that's another long story-but recently I've been answering to Poldarn. Like the god in the cart,' he added before Aciava could say anything, 'I know; but I sort of picked it up before I knew any better.'

Aciava looked at him for a moment. 'Fair enough,' he said. 'Anyhow, pleased to meet you too. Welcome to Tulice.'

'Thank you,' Poldarn replied solemnly. 'Just out of interest,' he went on, lowering his voice a little, 'what're they in aid of?'

'What, the soldiers?' Aciava looked grave. 'You haven't been in these parts long, then, or else you've been out of the flow. Bandits.'

'Oh,' Poldarn said.

Aciava grinned ruefully. 'They call them that,' he said, 'because it doesn't sound so bad. You know, bandits, sort of thing that can happen anywhere. Actually, they're nothing of the sort. Civil war's more like it, only it's not as simple as that. All you need to know really is, don't bother them and they probably won't bother you. Unless you're a bandit, of course.'

A slight sideways glance came with that last remark. Poldarn ignored it. As far as he could tell, Master Aciava just enjoyed making himself seem mysterious to strangers met on the road. No harm in that, coming from a gold-tooth salesman. 'Thanks,' he said, and changed the subject to the merits of the inns along the road between Falcata and the coast, on which topic Aciava proved to be erudite, passionate and fairly amusing. He was in the middle of a tirade against the Light In Darkness at Galbetta Cross when Poldarn looked up and realised that he knew where he was. 'Scieza,' he said.

'Ah,' said Aciava, 'here we are, then. Just as well, I've never been here before, and they don't always call out the names of the stops.'

The wagon rolled to a halt outside the Virtue Triumphant (which had received a vote of qualified approval in Aciava's catalogue, its effect slightly tarnished by the assessor's admission that he'd never been there). Poldarn jumped down while Aciava started unloading his baggage, of which there seemed to be an unexpectedly large amount.

'Right,' Aciava said, straightening his back and grimacing. 'Are you staying here overnight or heading straight back home? Only, if you're stopping, I think I owe you a drink and a meal for keeping me entertained on the road.'

Strange way of putting it, Poldarn thought; but it was almost dark, and he didn't fancy three hours' stumbling on the boggy, rutted track to the foundry. 'Go on, then,' he said. 'After all, I'm on expenses.'

Aciava smiled. 'In that case,' he said, 'you can buy the drinks.'

'No,' Poldarn replied, and led the way to the taproom.

Like most of the inns on the coast road, the Virtue had originally been built as a religious structure, complete with dorters, refectory, great house, library, chapter house and several small chapels. The stables and kitchens were a hundred yards away from the main buildings, tucked out of sight among the barns and stores. With the decline of public religion, the great house had evolved into the taproom and common room; the crypt was now full of barrels rather than desiccated monks, and the potmen scampered to and from the transept carrying sticky jugs full of beer. To get something to eat, you had to traipse through the cloisters and climb the refectory stairs; or you could make do with bread and cheese from the baskets in the nave, all you could eat for two quarters; or, for six quarters, you could have the roast brought to you in the Lady chapel, with enough beer to poison a garrison town. Aciava, who was on expenses too, opted for the Lady chapel. This surprised Poldarn slightly, since he couldn't imagine that the tooth merchant wanted that much more of his exclusive company after a day on the road; then again, perhaps Aciava simply wanted to finish his witty remarks about the cockroaches in the Light In Darkness. Since Poldarn stood to get a hot meal out of it, without costing the foundry anything, he didn't mind particularly.

'Well,' Aciava said, while they were waiting for the food to arrive, 'here I am. It's been a long trip, but I'm hoping it'll turn out to have been worth it.'

Poldarn sipped his beer. It was considerably better than Basano's home-brew. The same could have been said about sea water. 'You said you'd come here to meet someone,' he said politely.

'That's right.' Aciava steepled his fingers over his nose. 'An old friend, actually. Someone I haven't seen in years. Come to think of it, not since we were at school together.'

Poldarn stifled a yawn. 'Really?'

'Yes.' Aciava tilted the jug over his cup. 'Took me awhile to find him, but I got there eventually.'

'I don't know many people in these parts,' Poldarn said, 'apart from the guys at the foundry, of course, so I don't suppose I know who you mean.'

Aciava was looking at him. 'Oh, I expect you do,' he said.

'Oh? Who is it, then?'

'You.'