Memory

Chapter Ten

'You know her, then?' the driver was asking.

Pulling himself back out of his complicated train of thought, Poldarn shook his head; fat raindrops scattered from the sodden brim of his hat. 'Met her a couple of times on the road, that's all. Crazy old bat, but fairly harmless.'

The driver shrugged. 'She didn't seem to know you.'

'Hadn't seen her since I got myself all burned up,' he replied. 'Don't suppose many people would recognise me after that.'

'That'd be it, then.' The driver was silent for a while, thinking; a slow process but not without a certain grandeur, like the turning of a giant waterwheel. 'So why'd you help her out, then, if she's just some old nutcase you met on the road?'

Good question. Poldarn's turn to think for a moment. 'I have this odd feeling she's good luck,' he replied. 'Like a mascot or something. If I help her out, at some point I'll get a slice of good luck myself when I need it, later on down the line.'

'Fair enough,' said the driver, in the manner of one humouring an armed lunatic. 'Has it worked like that, then?'

It hadn't actually occurred to him to consider the point, so he considered it. First time he'd met the daffy old woman with the little wicker cage, he'd also met Gain Aciava. Second time, he'd taken part in that ghastly botched robbery shortly afterwards, when he'd had to kill the vicious teenager. 'No,' he admitted. 'Quite the opposite, in fact. Only goes to show, intuition's an arsehole.'

That went over the driver's head like a skein of migrating geese, but he didn't seem to mind. The driver was one of those people who seem to treat the intelligent and articulate as speakers of a foreign language; if he understood one word in twenty, he was happy. 'Doesn't seem much point to it, then,' the driver went on. 'I mean, if you get bad luck for helping her out instead of good, why help her out? Anyhow, that's how I see it.'

'You're probably right,' Poldarn sighed. 'But she was headed for Torcea, so I don't suppose I'll ever see her again.'

'Just as well, really.'

'Just as well,' he agreed.

It had happened on his last night in Falcata. He'd been there a whole week, instead of one night and one morning as he'd planned, but some river or other had flooded and washed away the causeway on which the main east road crossed some bog, or at least that was what he'd been told next morning at the stage office; the taproom of the Benevolence Rewarded had been thick with rumours about rebel armies, bandits, the Amathy house on the prowl again, the Mad Monk and all sorts. So he'd wandered up and down the damp grey city's uninspiring main thoroughfare, wondering why half the shops were shut and the other half were empty; he'd spent money he couldn't afford on needled beer he didn't want; he'd stood looking over the parapet of the covered bridge, watching the fat brown river licking the doorsteps and windowsills of the bankside houses; he'd tried to sell Muno Silsny's ring, but the goldsmiths were either closed and shuttered or weren't buying in off the street. Finally, in desperation, he'd taken shelter from the rain in a grim, dusty building that had turned out to be the law courts and, having nothing better to do, had sat down in the back row of the public gallery while the three resident magistrates worked their way through the morning's crop of drunks, debtors, vagrants, lunatics and inept thieves. Sleep was pressing down on him hard and he'd folded his arms and closed his eyes when he'd heard a voice he recognised-her, the mad woman, sounding dreadfully flustered and upset at being described as a vagrant; more concerned about her unidentified pets in their wicker basket than about her own fate as an indicted criminal. (The watch sergeant had taken the cage from her; she'd tried to grab it back and most unfortunately her elbow had gone in the poor man's eye; of course it was an accident and she was most dreadfully sorry, nothing like this had ever happened to her before, and did their worships think she could possibly have the cage back, because her babies would be so dreadfully hungry after missing two feeds-) And, at some point in this wretched performance, he'd realised he was standing on his hind legs exchanging words with the clerk of the court 'No, sir,' he'd said, 'I'm not a relative, but I do know her.'

The clerk looked mildly disappointed. 'And can you vouch for the truth of her account?'

Poldarn hesitated. 'Well,' he said, 'what she just said is pretty much what she told me the first time I met her, on the carrier's cart out near Tin Chirra.' (He changed the locale at the last moment; saying he'd been near Dui Chirra probably wasn't a good idea.) 'And I can't see why she'd have wanted to lie to me back then; I mean, she wasn't asking for money or anything.'

The magistrates were muttering to each other, and you didn't have to be a lip-reader to make out the gist of it: if he wants to take responsibility for her, let him. After that, it was all nice and straightforward. He'd paid her fine (ten quarters for sleeping in a doorway; another ten for assaulting an officer of the watch) and hustled her out of the courthouse into the rain before she did or said anything that'd get them both arrested.

'Thank you so much,' she kept on saying over and over again. 'You've been so kind and I don't know how I can possibly ever repay you, but do you think you could possibly just nip back inside and see if you can find that watch sergeant and ask if he could let me have my poor darlings back? They'll be so dreadfully frightened, not to mention hungry-'

Fuck, Poldarn thought. But she had enough strength of will to tame wild horses, and eventually he'd begged her to stay there, not move an inch, while he went back in and found the sergeant; recognising him wasn't hard, he was the one with the spectacular black eye. The sergeant had been only too glad to give him the cage, which smelled disgustingly of rodent pee and was distinctly moist on the underside.

'Now listen,' he'd said to her over her grateful chirpings. 'I haven't got any money to give you this time-'

('That's quite all right… Far too generous already…')

'But,' he'd continued, raising his voice a little to make himself heard over her unwanted gratitude, 'I'm going to give you this badge. No, listen please, this is very important. This is an army courier's badge, they're very rare and valuable, and if you ever get in trouble again or run out of money or anything like that, you're to show this badge to a sergeant or an officer-don't for pity's sake try explaining anything, or he'll think you've stolen it or picked it up in the street. Just show it to him, like this, and tell him what you want, and it'll do the trick. Now, do you understand me, or do you want me to explain it again?'

Remarkably, she'd understood straight away; more useless thanks and not-worth-the-breath-they-were-uttered-with promises of recompense at some indefinite future date, and then he'd marched her over to the stage office and put down seven quarters of good Torcea money to buy her a seat on the carrier's cart to Fort Cheir and the Torcea ferry. Which was why Poldarn was currently sitting outside on the box of the Tela Ixwa stage in the driving rain, when he could've been sitting inside, in the dry.

Almost as hard to account for as the act itself was the urge to tell the driver all about it. All the driver had done to unstopper this flood of reminiscence was to say it was a pity Poldarn couldn't have paid the extra quarter and a half, since it was pissing it down and there was a perfectly good empty seat inside the stage; but for some reason, Poldarn had been moved to justify himself by telling this story. Maybe he was proud of what he'd done (though he'd left out the really generous bit, the gift of the courier's badge, to save having to invent some tale about how he'd come by it in the first place); or perhaps it was something about barbers and carters that made you tell them stuff you wouldn't normally tell your best friend; or maybe he was just getting chatty in his old age 'Pretty decent thing to have done, though,' the driver said with less than absolute sincerity, 'looking after a poor old mad woman like that. Just hope you don't catch your death being out here, is all.'

– Or perhaps he'd done it in hopes that the driver would exercise his discretion and let him have the empty seat in the dry as far as the next stop; in which case he'd wasted his time.

'Oh well,' he heard himself say, bravely cheerful, 'she's probably somebody's mother, bless her daft old heart.'

The driver shook his head. 'Doubt it,' he said. 'Like, if she was my old mum I wouldn't let her go wandering about like that, getting herself arrested and all.'

The subject was getting boring very fast. 'Maybe her son died and that's what drove her off her head,' Poldarn said with a yawn. 'Anyway, with any luck that's the last time she'll cross my path. How long before we reach the-what did you say its name was?'

'The Piety amp; Fortitude,' the driver grunted. 'Maybe three hours, could be four if the ford's up and we got to go round by the bridge. Assuming the bridge isn't down.'

'Fine,' Poldarn said. 'Tell me, why do all these inns have such god-awful self-righteous names?'

The driver frowned. 'How do you mean?' he said.

They arrived at the Piety an hour after dark, by which point Poldarn was so wet it hadn't mattered for hours. Since he had very little money (apart from the magnificent gold-and-gemstone ring purportedly worth twenty times more than the inn and its contents) he had his dinner out of the kitchen stewpot and dossed down in the hayloft directly over a very noisy, flatulent horse. Sleep proving elusive in this context, he lay in the dark staring upwards, wondering if the mad woman was sleeping cosily in the guest quarters of the Fort Cheir prefecture; wondering also why he'd done such a bloody stupid thing.

He must have dropped off at some point, because the next thing he was aware of was a boot nudging him in the ribs. He opened his eyes and saw the head of a spear, mostly out of focus because it was so close to his face. Someone was telling him to get up.

The soldiers took him into the taproom; it was empty, and the fire was dying out. The man sitting behind the table told one of the soldiers to throw a scoop of charcoal on it before taking notice that Poldarn was in the room.

'Bloody hell,' he said. 'You been swimming?'

Poldarn decided that the question didn't need an answer. 'What's going on?' he asked.

'Shut up and sit down,' the man replied, by way of an explanation; then he caught sight of Poldarn's face and shuddered, as though someone had just poured cold water down his neck. 'Turn out your pockets on that table there. Sergeant, have you got his baggage there?'

'Just the blanket roll, sir,' the sergeant said. He put something down with a thump, just out of Poldarn's line of sight. Poldarn did as he was told and emptied his pockets.

The man appeared to have recovered from his nasty turn. 'Right,' he said, with a predatory smile, 'let's see what we've got here. Bring that thing over here, sergeant, I want a good look at it.'

Not good; that thing was the nearly finished backsabre, possession of which was going to be very hard to explain away. The man studied it carefully, turning it over in his hands as if reading invisible writing, then laid it down next to him, well out of Poldarn's reach. 'Fine,' he said. 'Now let's see that book.'

Concerning Various Matters didn't interest the man nearly as much as the sword had done; he opened it at random a few times, shrugged and put it down. He also examined the blanket, the water bottle and the rest of Poldarn's meagre kit before signalling to the sergeant to bring him the contents of Poldarn's pockets: a small knife, an insignificant sum of money, and a gold ring.

From the expression on the man's face, he'd been expecting to see the ring from the outset. 'That's all, is it?' he said. 'No, I'm talking to you, not Sergeant Illuta. Is this all of it, or have you got any more, squirrelled away somewhere?'

'I'm sorry,' Poldarn said. 'I don't quite follow.'

The man smirked and shook his head. 'Makes no odds to me,' he said. 'It's not the trinkets I'm after.' He sighed. 'All right,' he said, 'here we go. My name is Lock Xanipolo, colonel, officer commanding Falcata garrison. Day before yesterday I get a report that some scruff with a burnt-off face's been trawling round all the goldsmiths' houses trying to sell an extremely valuable candidature ring with a Faculty of Arms crest. Stage office tells me a man answering the description caught the common stage for Tela Ixwa; so here I am. Now, do you need me to tell you how a tramp like yourself comes to have a ring that used to belong to General Muno Silsny, who was murdered by bandits on this very same road four months ago, or can we cut all that and get on to some of the stuff I don't already know?'

Poldarn looked at him steadily. 'Such as?'

'Ah. Such as, was it also you who murdered Prince Mazentius during the course of a robbery on the Falcata to Ang Ghirra road; how the Mad Monk and his motley crew are involved in all this, and when they're planning to attack the foundry at Dui Chirra; and what exactly is your connection with the people who make and use this particular pattern of sword.' The colonel sighed. 'I'm sorry to have to say that if you say the right thing in answer to these questions, you'll at least live long enough for a trip to Torcea. If it was up to me you wouldn't be leaving this room alive, but I have to do what I'm told, more's the pity.'

The driver was right, Poldarn thought; the next old woman I meet on the road can rot in hell. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'but I don't understand.'

Colonel Lock shook his head sadly. 'Oh, come on,' he said. 'Do we really have to go through the whole sorry pantomime? Go on, then, let's be having you. Name.'

'Actually-' Poldarn hesitated. It's worth a try, he thought; this man's an idiot, just as well he doesn't know it. 'My name's Poldarn,' he said. 'I'm a foundry worker at Dui Chirra.'

'Is that so?' Colonel Lock drummed his fingers on the table. 'And what are you doing here? Last I heard, all leave at the foundry was cancelled.'

Poldarn shrugged. 'I ran away,' he said. 'But if you send me back there, anybody can tell you that's who I am. And they'll tell you I can't have done any murders or robberies, because nobody's been allowed out of the place since the project started. You do know about that, don't you?'

He could see Colonel Lock thinking about it; not quite as monolithic as the stage driver, but very similar. 'So how come you've got the late General Muno's personal candidature ring? Find it in the slack tub, did we?'

Poldarn shook his head. 'He gave it to me,' he replied. 'He came to Dui Chirra specially to see me. Ask Brigadier Muno at the foundry if you like; he's the general's uncle.'

'I know that.' Colonel Lock was obviously the sort of man who gets irritable when he knows he's out of his depth. Weak; easy mark. 'All right, then,' he said. 'Suppose you tell me about the wiggly sword? Or did Muno Silsny give you that as well?'

'No,' Poldarn said patiently, 'I made that myself; you can see, it's not quite finished yet. I'm a blacksmith, I was making it in my spare time. Copy of one I saw once.'

'Really.' The colonel was getting flustered. 'And this book. I suppose it's just some light reading for the long winter evenings.'

'Yes,' Poldarn replied. 'A friend gave it to me.'

'Did he, now. Your friend was a sword-monk, then?'

Poldarn shrugged. 'I don't know,' he said. 'He didn't say where he got it from.'

Apparently he'd said something wrong, because Colonel Lock was smiling. But he didn't seem to be in any hurry to share the joke. 'Well,' he said, 'that's fine. Care to tell me why you left Dui Chirra, when you knew perfectly well you weren't allowed to?'

'I was bored.'

Colonel Lock looked at him for what seemed like a very long time. 'You were bored,' he repeated.

'That's right. There's nothing to do there except sit about waiting for Spenno and Galand Dev to stop arguing. They're sort of in charge,' he explained. 'And they can't make up their minds how to go about things; and while they're yelling at each other, the rest of us just have to hang around. I'd had enough, so I reckoned I might as well move on. I mean, I'm nobody important, they don't need me for anything.'

The colonel raised an eyebrow. 'That's so crass I could believe it,' he said, 'except that I get the feeling there's more to it than that. I heard all about General Muno Silsny finally tracking down his secret rescuer,' he went on. 'It was going to be a big story, and then it was killed dead. And then, shortly afterwards, so was General Muno. And here you are, the mystery hero, with Muno's candidature ring and a raider backsabre, roaming about the countryside making an exhibition of yourself in the Falcata magistrates' court.' Suddenly he clapped his hands together. 'Well,' he said, 'the good bit is, I can hand you over to Brigadier Muno and let him deal with you. I've seen your sort before, every officer in the service has; trouble follows you about like flies round a horse's arse. Sergeant,' he called out, 'get our guest a nice room on the top floor. I want two guards outside his door and another two under his window, in case he gets bored again. We want to be on the road at daybreak, back to Falcata and then on to Dui Chirra.'

It was an improvement on the hayloft; in fact, it was the best bed Poldarn could remember having come across, soft yet firm, with clean linen sheets. There was even a basinful of water for washing in, and a decent fire in the hearth.

'Thanks,' he said, as the guard opened the door and gestured him into the room. 'If you get cold standing out there in the passage, feel free to pop in and warm yourself up.'

The guard gave him a look that would've cleaned rust off an abandoned ploughshare, and shut the door behind him. Poldarn kicked off his boots, lay down on the bed and looked up at the roof timbers, which were carved and gilded. He guessed (not that it mattered) that, like most inns, this one had started off as a monastic house, an outlying priory, and this had once been the prior's or abbot's lodgings. Nice of the government to put him up in the best room in the house.

Such a soft, restful bed; all he had to do was lie down on it, and all the aches, pains and nagging little injuries he was so acutely aware of would vanish, like water splashed on the hearth. Instead, he perched on a wooden stool in the corner. Just as well the colonel had confiscated his book. A man could slip off to sleep so easily reading that. But going to sleep would be a very bad thing, wouldn't it? Sleep into dreams, dreams into memories, finding out the next part of the story. He wriggled about, looking for the most uncomfortable position to sit in. All those times when he'd wanted to go to sleep but hadn't been able to, because of some minor discomfort. It wasn't too much to ask, a few hours of being awake until the soldiers came back and took him away; and nobody could fall asleep in the saddle on the road back to Dui Chirra, all that rain and mud, seeping through into the bone He could see quite clearly, but he also knew his eyes were closed; which could only mean Old crow sitting in a tall thin tree.

It started up as he rode past, yelling reproachfully at him as it battled its way into the headwind, which was pulling it in a direction it didn't want to go. For a long moment it hung still in the air, its wings beating hard. Then it was moving sideways, unable to resist; then it gave in and tried to tack a course back onto the line it wanted to follow.

You and me both, Ciartan thought, shifting his reins into his left hand, flexing the fingers of his right, which were beginning to get numb. Ahead, over the shoulder of the rider in front, he could see a small round building that could only be a gatehouse: too small to be practical, too ornate to be a poor man's house. Some rich bastard, someone who took a perverse delight in manipulating his environment, had had it put there as a conspicuous display of wasted money. He'd arrived, then.

From the gatehouse to the house itself, best part of half an hour, along a pointlessly winding road that weaved its way like a drunk between blatantly obvious landscape features: a raised lake, a grove of flowering cherries, a toy vineyard, a bog garden, a larch avenue. All the daintily engineered exhibits had been chosen so they'd look their best, be in flower or fruit or silver leaf during precisely the same two weeks each year; the two weeks, presumably, that Prince Tazencius deigned to spend at this quaint little sixty-bedroom cottage while Court was in recess for the midsummer half-term. Ciartan found the rest of the ride up to the front door rather annoying. He'd grasped the point quite some time ago, thank you very much, and didn't need it rammed home with a sledgehammer.

So here he was, the Prince's prospective son-in-law, finally dropping by to meet the folks. She'd be there, of course, the beautiful Lysalis, his bride-to-be; he thought about her, wondering what would be passing through her mind right now. Was she excited at the thought of seeing him again? Would she be sitting at the top of that tower over there, watching the drive? He doubted that, unless Prince Tazencius considered it a necessary detail. If she was excited, it'd be because Daddy had ordered her a special new dress for the occasion. He had an idea that Lysalis's life was mostly a series of short intervals between pretexts for special new dresses. Which was fine, if you liked that sort of thing.

Prince Tazencius's landscape architect hadn't finished with him yet, not by a long way. True, the main house was now only about five hundred yards away as the old black crow flew; but first he had to be forced to admire the carp ponds, the castellated granite dovecote, the belvedere, the ivy garden, the sunken lawn and the peacock enclosure. There had to be a short cut, for when Tazencius was in a hurry to get somewhere. Probably you could be on the main road in five minutes flat if only you knew the way.

Poor Lysalis, he thought; she was just as much an exhibit as the mulberry plantation or the rose garden, and about as necessary. Whatever it was Tazencius wanted him for was undoubtedly some straightforward piece of business, something that could be sorted out in ten minutes of straight talking in the back room of an inn somewhere, without all this tedious and wasteful business of marrying into the family. But that wasn't how things got done around here, apparently. There was probably a perfectly sound reason for it, something to do with the delicate balance of power at Court, which of course he'd never understand no matter how long he studied it in Expediencies. In the end, all the protocols and forms and procedures came down to a three-handed arm-wrestling bout between the main factions inside the royal family, and all these bits and pieces-castles and daughters and lavender-edged south-facing knot gardens-were just rather ornate chess pieces. Back home at Haldersness, of course, none of this would even be possible, and if it was it'd be resolved in an afternoon on the moor with spears and axes. He couldn't help feeling that was a more efficient approach, but it was easy to be all superior when you couldn't see the full picture.

Now then, he told himself, concentrate. You're letting your contempt for all this decadence distract you from your basic preparations, which is probably the purpose of the exercise. Strip away all the junk, and let's have a look at what's going on.

He cleared his mind, until all he could see was two circles, his own and Prince Tazencius's, gradually preparing to coincide.

A while back, Tazencius's daughter visits her brother at school. While she's there, she happens to meet one of his circle of acquaintances, a promising student but as ineligible as it's possible to be-no money, no family, nothing. A few months and several visits later, the promising student finds himself engaged to be married to the Prince's daughter, and now here is the promising student, working his way like a chessboard knight through the Prince's interminable grounds, on his way to find out exactly what it was that the Prince wanted him for in the first place.

(And it only goes to show, Ciartan thought; because I do believe that she is really quite fond of me, insofar as she's capable of liking anything she can't wear. But there; I'll believe anything, me.)

The welcoming tableau was inch-perfect: Tazencius precisely in the centre of the group; his wife, a thin, gaunt-looking woman in an outfit that must've cost almost as much as the house (but unless you'd been taught in Expediencies to notice trivia, you'd quite easily fail to see her there at all); assorted stewards, chamberlains, personnel both functional and decorative, human salad. No sign of Lysalis, because she'd be making her entrance in just a few moments, probably down a long spiral staircase. She'd look stunningly lovely, of course, or heads would roll.

Gradually nearer; and then the moment came, and the circles coincided. Ciartan stood quite still; no sword in his sash today, of course, which was probably just as well, since it'd have taken a tremendous effort not to give in to that hard-gained instinct and draw, the sense of confrontation being so overwhelming.

'Hello, Ciartan.' Prince Tazencius was smiling. Charming smile. 'It's so good to meet you at last. Lysalis has told me so much about you.'

(Has she? What, exactly? Or did she just read out the summary of the reports?)

'It's really kind of you to invite me,' Ciartan replied.

'Not at all. You're practically family already. Come in and have something to eat-you must be starving.'

Amazing dining hall: long oak table, like the ones back at Haldersness, except that it was polished immaculately smooth, like a mirror (no mirrors at Haldersness ever reflected that clearly). Twenty places set: twenty silver plates, cups, knives and napkin rings, and each setting identical to the one next to it, like crows in a flock. Bizarre people, quiet and grave and respectful, all following the Prince's lead (like the household at Haldersness, but they weren't mind-readers, they were obeying orders, orders so fundamental that they didn't need to be spoken out loud; so it was like Haldersness and also its exact opposite, a mirror image). And amazing food, things he'd never eaten before, things he'd never have believed were edible. Actually it tasted horrible, but it was amazing nonetheless.

'Ciartan,' the Prince was saying, from his place at the head of the table, through a mouthful of what Ciartan had an uncomfortable feeling were probably snails. 'Lysatis tells me you aren't from a religious family. Is that right?'

He remembered just in time: specialist vocabulary. What Tazencius meant was, he didn't come from a long line of supposedly celibate career monks. 'Quite right, sir,' he said.

'She tells me,' the prince went on, sounding quietly amused, 'that you really only got into religion because of a chance meeting. Can that really be true? The most promising student in your year?'

Which he wasn't, of course. 'It's true I really only joined up on a whim, yes,' he said. 'I met a boy about my own age, and he told me he was on his way back for the start of the new term. He told me about Deymeson, and it sounded interesting. And that's all there was to it, really.'

'Remarkable.' Tazencius's smile was warm and friendly, like your own fireside after a long day in the winter fields. All lies, of course. 'You must have an exceptional degree of natural aptitude, to have caught up so quickly.'

'I had a lot of help,' Ciartan lied. 'Extra coaching and so on.'

'Even so.' Tazencius had finished his snails; now he was scrabbling about with a long, thin silver hook inside the shell of some revolting-looking crustacean. Did the high nobility only eat armoured food? 'I also gather that you're quite the linguist.'

As he said it, the prince looked him full in the eye, and his expression clearly said, agree with me. 'I'm not too bad at languages,' Ciartan said hesitantly. 'I mean, I can pick them up fairly quickly, at a basic level.'

'Excellent. Only,' Tazencius went on, pausing to remove a tiny shard of shell from the tip of his tongue, 'I have some documents in my study which are written in some language that none of us can understand-we don't even know what it is. If you wouldn't mind taking a look at them, perhaps you could cast some light on the mystery.'

'Sure,' Ciartan said.

The next course was soup-soup with shellfish and whole small crabs bobbing up and down in it. The drill was to fish them out with your fingers and use the butt of your knife to smash the shells. It might have made a degree of sense if they weren't three days' ride from the nearest bit of sea. During the soup course, Tazencius ignored Ciartan completely, preferring to talk to a thin bald man on the other side of the table; Lysatis's mother, on the other hand, suddenly seemed to become aware of his existence, and chattered away for the duration of the course about the latest Torcea fashions in soft furnishings. Odd; although she never once appeared to draw breath, she finished her soup (shell-smashing and all) while Ciartan was still struggling to disembowel his second crab. Also, her fingers remained perfectly clean, while his were soon all coated in creamy white slime.

The next course-Poldarn help us, thought Ciartan-was hedgehogs, quills still on, in butter sauce.

Tazencius, on the other hand, was talking to him again. 'Am I right in thinking,' he was saying, 'that when you were a boy you were taught, um, blacksmithing?' He made it sound like a filthy habit.

'That's right, sir,' Ciartan said. 'It's traditional, back home; the head of the household is the smith, you see, so I was brought up to the trade ever since I was little.'

'How very sensible,' Tazencius replied, 'learning a practical skill, and at the same time keeping control of the most essential craft safely in the family. I suppose you could say that we do roughly the same sort of thing, except that instead of metalwork we teach our sons the martial arts. But the principle's very much the same, I dare say.'

'Absolutely,' Ciartan said distractedly. He'd just figured out what the style of eating favoured by these wonderfully refined gentry reminded him of: crows, pecking daintily at carrion with their long, precise beaks. 'We see it as both a privilege and a responsibility; much, I suppose, as you do with the fighting skills.'

And other rubbish like that. Lysatis, he couldn't help noticing, hardly said a word to anyone all through the meal.

As soon as it was over, however, he saw her join her mother in shepherding the guests out of the hall, swift and totally efficient, until the only people left were Tazencius and himself.

He wondered if he ought to say something; but while he was considering the matter, Tazencius spoke first.

'You're him, then.'

Ciartan couldn't think of a reply to that. He tried smiling politely, but he was pretty sure it came out as an idiotic smirk.

Just a moment, he thought. Something strange about the way Tazencius had said it; suddenly he realised what it was. He remembered that disconcerting lie he'd participated in earlier: I also gather that you're quite the linguist. Tazencius had been talking to him in his own language, the one he hadn't heard since he'd left Haldersness; the one that nobody on this side of the ocean was supposed to know about.

He had to think quite hard to remember how to say it. 'That's right,' he said. 'How do you know-?'

Tazencius's grin showed that he was genuinely, absurdly pleased about something. 'You make it sound like you hadn't guessed. Hadn't you? It's why you're here, boy. Do you know who I am?'

What a question. He hesitated.

'I know who you are,' Tazencius went on. 'You're Ciartan Torstenson of Haldersness. And I know why you're here. And may I say, I'm delighted to meet you at last.'

'Likewise,' Ciartan replied cautiously. 'Look; excuse me and I'm not meaning to be rude, but…' And then it suddenly dropped into focus: a memory, of a conversation he'd had on the ship, shortly before he'd landed on this side of the world You wait till they make contact with you. They'll find you, don't worry about that. Just bide your time, there's no hurry.

Who should I be looking out for? he'd asked.

Haven't the faintest idea. Somebody pretty important, that's all we know. When they find you, remember, you're to do exactly what they say: they've got it all worked out.

How will I know it's the right one?

Oh, that's easy. He'll be the only man in the whole Empire who can talk our language.

'Yes,' he said, 'that's me.'

Prince Tazencius was looking at him. The amused contempt was still there, but also a little caution, a little disappointment. He felt the urge to explain, to justify himself, to restore the Prince's faith in him. He had no idea why this should be important to him, since the rest of him reckoned Tazencius was a creep.

'When I was on the boat,' he said, 'coming over here; I came across with a raiding party, and stayed behind-' He hesitated. Tazencius nodded very slightly.

'I know why,' he said. 'No need to embarrass yourself explaining.'

Ciartan could feel himself colouring, but he ignored the sensation. 'On the boat,' he said, 'they explained. Grandfather-that's Halder, he brought me up when my dad died-he made all the arrangements. Since I was going to be living over here permanently, or at least for a good long time, it was only reasonable for me to do something to help. Well, I couldn't argue with that-everybody should have a job to do, otherwise they're just outsiders, offcomers. Anyway, my job was to meet up with some people on this side who'd pass on useful information: stuff about where the garrisons are and how many soldiers are billeted at each camp, the roads, how a raiding party could get from one place to another without being noticed, the defences of the cities, which ones were worth taking out, all that sort of thing. Then, when the raiding parties landed, I'd pass all this on, and they'd find life ever so much easier-after all, it's been a couple of hundred years since our lot were thrown out of the Empire, and we don't have any maps or anything like that, so when we land we're just blundering about.' He paused, feeling nervous about something; but the look on Tazencius's face made him carry on. 'Anyhow,' he said, 'when I arrived I waited around-I suppose I was expecting whoever it was to come and find me. But after a week or so I didn't have any food or anywhere to sleep, no money-I didn't even know about money, because we don't use it back home, I had to figure it out for myself as I went along. Had to learn the language, too, but it turns out our people are pretty good at that sort of thing, because of the mind-reading stuff: if you can see people's thoughts, it's not hard to relate them to the sounds they make with their mouths. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I'd more or less come to the conclusion that the grand plan had gone all wrong and nobody was going to make contact with me, so I'd better start looking out for myself, earn a living, settle down. And that's when I bumped into this other kid, Gain Aciava; and when he said, right out of the blue, why didn't I come along and try out for this school he was at, of course I thought he must be him, the contact, or else why would a perfect stranger suggest something as dumb as that? So I went along, and they gave me a place at Deymeson, but of course I'd got it all wrong, it was nothing to do with spying for raiding parties-' He hesitated. Tazencius was slowly shaking his head. 'It was?'

'Of course,' Tazencius said. 'You don't seriously believe something like that would just happen, out of the blue? The governors of Deymeson aren't in the habit of enrolling street urchins who happen to be able to wave a sword around without cutting off their own toes.'

'Oh,' Ciartan said.

'On the contrary.' Tazencius suddenly grinned; very disconcerting. 'You're right about one thing; we were planning to meet you off the boat, but it didn't make landfall where it was supposed to, and we missed you. It took us weeks to track you down. Fortunately, you were so crass, you behaved so conspicuously oddly that we managed to pick up your trail. Then young Aciava-his family have worked for my family for generations, I'm sponsoring him through Deymeson-he staged the little comedy you referred to, and to our amazement you appeared to take it at face value. Needless to say, we'd arranged for a place for you at Deymeson. I made out you were some by-blow of our family, a little dark secret who had to be provided for. It's happened often enough over the years, so there was no difficulty there. Since then, we've been keeping our eye on you, helping you along where necessary, getting you ready against the day when it suits us for you to start doing the job you were sent here to do.' He paused, suddenly thoughtful. 'It's just occurred to me,' he said, 'that you don't know about the connection between myself and your people. Correct?'

Ciartan nodded.

'Dear me.' Tazencius sighed. 'Then I suppose I'd better tell you.' He pulled a jug of wine towards him, filled two silver cups and pushed one across the table. 'For reasons that don't concern you, but in which a certain General Cronan features significantly, it suits me for your extremely destructive kinsmen to cause a certain degree of havoc inside the Empire. The problem that faced me when I was framing my long-term plans, however, was that nobody, myself included, had any idea who you people are, where you come from-or, indeed, why you keep picking on us and doing so much damage. I had to find out; and then I had a stroke of luck. Three members of one of your pirate bands somehow managed to get themselves captured, by a junior officer loyal to myself: young lieutenant Muno-I'm telling you his name because you'll be doing business with him sooner or later. Muno had the wit to keep quiet about his prisoners and hand them over directly to me.' Tazencius sipped his wine, then went on: 'It took a year, with the best linguists in Torcea working on the project, to reconstruct your people's language from what we got out of the prisoners. Tough customers, all three; but unfortunately two of them didn't survive the process. The third one, when at last we were able to talk to him in his own language, was absolutely stunned to learn that instead of wanting to find out where he came from so we could send an armada and exterminate the lot of you, we wanted to join forces and actually help your people against our own. A not unreasonable reaction, I suppose; but in any event, we finally managed to get through to him, just in time to reunite him with another raiding party that took him back home. There he eventually passed on my request to your grandfather, who in turn chose you.'

'I see,' Ciartan said.

Tazencius smiled. 'You don't, actually,' he said. 'There's a lot more to it. It was only through my good graces and unstinting support that you ever saw your precious homeland in the first place. You are, of course, only half an Islander. Your mother was born a few miles from Mael Bohec. She was raped by your father, a raider, and she killed him. I found out what had happened as a favour to Halder-he was the overlord or whatever you call it of the man I'd captured: Scaptey, his name was. Halder wanted to know the circumstances of his son's death, and he sent Scaptey back to ask me to investigate, as a mark of good faith. So, as I said, I found out the whole sorry story, found the woman who'd killed his son-your mother, of course-and discovered that in the meantime she'd had you. I let Halder know that you existed; he begged me to find you and send you back, which I duly did. About that time, things over here took a turn that I hadn't predicted, which prompted me to shelve for the medium term my plans for disrupting the Empire. In the end, I had to wait sixteen years-by which time, of course, you'd grown up and contrived to get yourself into mortal trouble (I wasn't in the least surprised, considering how you'd come into the world) and both Halder and I agreed that you'd be ideally suited for the purpose. As indeed,' Tazencius continued, almost fondly, 'you are-As a half-caste, your appearance is sufficiently nondescript that you can pass for a native both over here and over there. You have to a certain limited extent your people's bizarre ability to read other people's thoughts; but it's incomplete, which means you can't read minds well enough to see what I'm thinking right now-which is undoubtedly just as well; in other words, you'll never be a danger to me because of it, only an asset. You can never go back home; you can never be at home here. Accordingly, your loyalties will inevitably lie with the only man who'll ever be on your side, effectively your creator-myself. I'm the only person in the world you'll ever be any use to, and in a short space of time you'll make yourself practically indispensable to me, which is why I'm marrying you to my own daughter-who, I should point out, I love devotedly. I trust that by now you understand,' Tazencius continued, leaning forward a little, 'exactly how close are the bonds that tie us together. Consider the extent to which you are indebted to me. I found you; I saved you from the life of a mad, penniless whore's brat in a stinking little village in the Bohec valley. Because of me, you were reunited with your family, your people, you were brought up in your own country. Through no fault of mine, you chose to shit in your own nest; thanks to me, instead of becoming an offcomer-that's your word for it, isn't it?-and spending the rest of your life as a vagrant day-labourer hated by everybody you came into contact with, you were able to come here and start a new life-as a sword-monk, no less, just as if you were a nobleman's son, receiving the finest education that money can buy anywhere in the world. Now, because of my continuing benevolence, you're about to marry a beautiful girl and join the Imperial family; you're looking forward to a life of wealth, privilege and power, to a degree that your poor grandfather could never begin to understand. You see, don't you, that entirely because of me you're absolutely the darling of heaven, the luckiest, jammiest, most blessed man who ever lived-it's as though I'm God and you're the first-ever human being, created by me in my image for our mutual grace.'

He stopped, and looked at Ciartan, clearly expecting an answer. 'I guess so,' Ciartan said.

'You guess so,' Tazencius repeated. 'How beautifully put. But never mind; now you know who you are, and how you came to be that way. Now it's time for you to be acquainted with the obligations that make up your part of the contract. You do agree, I trust, that you owe me your duty, absolute and wholehearted?'

'I suppose I do,' Ciartan said; then-'Sorry, that sounds pretty ungracious too. But it's come as rather a shock, all this. I mean, I was always told my dad fell nobly in battle and my mum died of a broken heart-'

Tazencius nodded slowly. 'I'm not completely insensitive,' he said. 'To be honest, I'd always assumed-foolishly-that you'd know at least part of the story already. It never occurred to me-but, of course, it should have, and I apologise.' He grinned again. 'A gentleman always assumes the blame for the shortcomings of his inferiors, always provided that they know as well as he does that in doing so, he's lying.'

That sounded uncomfortably like an Expediencies essay title. Ciartan wondered if Tazencius had been educated at Deymeson too; the best education, hadn't he said, in the whole world? In which case, presumably he had. And as for the rest of the stuff-the obligations, he'd called it, the being a spy, helping his people conquer and murder and burn-well, he hadn't thought twice about agreeing when he'd been asked about it on the boat, because back then he didn't know a damn thing about the Empire: as far as he was concerned they were nothing but malevolent pests to be destroyed where necessary, just like crows on the pea field. He asked himself if anything had really changed since then.

Not really, he decided.

'Right,' he said. 'Please tell me what you'd like me to do.'

He sat up in bed, his eyes suddenly open, his mouth open to shout, yell a warning to himself, no, don't do that A bit late, unfortunately; however many years ago it'd been, there was nothing he could do about it now. A pity-assuming, of course, that the Tazencius in his dream had been telling the truth. Having met the flesh-and-blood Tazencius on two occasions, he decided that this was a fairly major assumption; if anybody was capable of telling lies even though he wasn't actually there, it'd be Tazencius. Or himself. Whichever.

He realised that what had woken him up wasn't in fact the dramatic revelations of his dream, but the guard, banging on the door. He remembered: today they'd be going to Falcata, and from there on to Dui Chirra, where he'd have the embarrassing job of explaining his unauthorised holiday to Brigadier Muno (who was, presumably, the same as the Lieutenant Muno who'd been on Tazencius's payroll back when he first got off the boat; was that useful information, or just another potential danger? Past caring…) He pulled on his boots, grabbed his hat and called out that he was ready.

The guards must've heard something about him overnight, because they treated him as if he could kill with a glance, like the character in the fairy tale he couldn't quite remember; they made a point of staying well outside his circle, watching his every move in case he took it into his mind to grab a spear from someone's hand and start slaughtering everyone in sight. Thinking about it, they had a point; but today his shoulder was playing him up and his left knee ached, and he felt a bit too fragile to live up to their dire expectations. Furthermore, it was beginning to dawn on him, in the light of what memories he'd been able to salvage from his dreams, that the palisade and sentries around Dui Chirra weren't just there to keep him in, but also to keep the rest of the distinctly hostile world out; in which case, maybe he ought never to have left in the first place.

Colonel Lock, it turned out, wasn't going with him after all. No doubt there was some pressing reason, work to be done, meetings that couldn't be cancelled; instead, he was handed over to an escort led by a burly middle-aged sergeant with a deep scar running slantwise across his face, from just under the right eye to the middle of the top lip.

'You,' he said, as soon as he saw Poldarn. 'Well, bugger me. It is you, isn't it?'

I shouldn't really, Poldarn said to himself, but what the hell? 'You have no idea how good a question that is,' he said.

The sergeant didn't know what to make of that. 'It's you, all right,' he said. 'Wasn't sure just now, not with your face all fucked up like that, but I never ever forget a voice. So, they caught up with you at last, did they? Bloody good job, too.'

Poldarn shrugged. 'I'm a foundryman from Dui Chirra, I went AWOL and I'm being taken back. As far as I know, that's all there is to it.'

The sergeant laughed. 'And the bloody rest,' he said. 'Maybe you kidded Tadger Lock and the rest of 'em but you damn well don't fool me. I know you.'

Oh, for pity's sake, Poldarn thought, as he hauled himself clumsily into a rickety four-wheeled cart. 'Really,' he said. 'I don't know you from a hole in the ground, but there's a good reason for that.'

The sergeant glared at him. 'Don't suppose you do recognise me,' he said. 'Expect you've lost count of the poor bastards you've cut about over the years. But I know you,' he said, pressing a fingertip to his scar. 'Gave me this, didn't you?'

Fuck, Poldarn thought. 'I have no idea,' he replied. 'Truth is, I lost my memory a couple of years ago, and I can't remember a damn thing from before then. So what I'm saying is, if we have met before, me not remembering you is nothing personal-'

'Lost your memory?' The sergeant grinned. 'That'd be right. Dead handy, that'd be.'

'Not really,' Poldarn said mildly. 'In fact, it's a bit of a nuisance.'

Long silence. In front of them, the road was a thin ridge of mud and rock between the deep, water-filled ruts. Behind them, the troopers talked in lowered voices, like people at a funeral.

'Is that right, then?' the sergeant said eventually. 'You lost your memory?'

'Yes,' Poldarn said. 'As far back as a couple of years ago. I found out a few things about myself since, but there's still some pretty huge gaps.'

'That must be-strange,' the sergeant said slowly. 'Not knowing the things you've done. Like being lost in a fog, not knowing if you've come on a way or you're just going round in circles.'

'You get used to it,' Poldarn said. 'But you say I gave you that scar. What happened?'

When he replied, the sergeant sounded thoughtful; embarrassed, even. 'It was a long time ago, mind,' he said. 'And in this game, well, everything's always right up to the edge, right? I mean, if you and me's fighting, either I'm going to get you or the other way about, someone's going to get hurt. Doesn't really mean anything-like, it doesn't mean I'm better'n you, or you're better than me. Just luck, half the time, or one of you's got a headache or a pulled muscle, gives the other bloke an edge.'

'I fought you,' Poldarn said.

The sergeant nodded. 'General Allectus's rebellion, now, how long ago would that've been?' he said. 'Must be sixteen years, give or take. I'd just put up my second stripe, so that's about right. Anyhow, I was posted at Josequin, over in the Bohec valley. Our outfit was attached to the old Seventeenth, under Colonel Scaff; and you know how it is in a civil war, you go with your unit, whichever way your CO decides. Scaff was one of the first to go over to Allectus. Not saying that was right,' he added quickly. 'Basically, it was nothing to do with us, we just did as we were told. Anyhow, there was only really the one battle, not far from a poxy little village by the name of Cric; Allectus had got between the government bloke, General Cronan, and his supply lines, pretty well forced him to fight, because Cronan didn't want to, you know, commit himself. Didn't know which side the others'd drop in on, see; the irregulars, Amathy house and the other free companies. It was all to do with Tazencius-Prince Tazencius as he was then, and he was always a tricky bastard: which way was he going to jump, was he behind Allectus or not? No way of telling, one minute he was and the next he wasn't. Anyhow,' the sergeant went on, 'we knew whose side we were on, it was everybody else who was mucking about. Then come the battle, your lot-' He paused, frowning. 'Your lot was with the Amathy house, he'd rounded up a whole lot of freelances, bits-and-pieces men, more bandits than soldiers. I remember, our lot'd been sent out wide round a bit of a wood, sort of like a pincer movement. But we came in late, or someone else was early; anyhow, it'd all fucked up, and we weren't where we were supposed to be. So we push on into this clearing, find there's nobody there to meet us, and we're stood about like a bunch of arseholes, no idea what we're supposed to be doing; and then your lot show up, and we don't even know at this stage if you're on our side or theirs, because that bastard Feron Amathy, he hadn't made his mind up yet, see? So your lot come on in nice and slow and we're stood there; and we're just thinking, fine, they must be with us, then, when suddenly your lot start yelling like mad and come at us. Hell of a fight; and you were this officer, don't know if you were actually commanding the Amathy house outfit or second in command or what, but you were out front, giving the order to charge; and you came straight at me like an arrow from a bow, like you were crazy or something, and you rode right up and swung at me with this big inside-out curved sword, like I'd never seen before. Next thing I know, I'm sat on my arse in the mud, and there's blood all over me, and you're charging on carving up my mate the standard-bearer. You've got your back to me, right; and I'm thinking, I'll have you, you bastard; and there's a dead bloke lying next to me, one of ours, with his spear under him. So I roll him over, get the spear-and I never could throw a javelin worth shit, but just this once I get it absolutely right, smack between your shoulder blades. Only of course you've got armour on; the spear bounces out, but you lose your balance and fall off. I run over just as you're getting up, and there's a hell of a scrap. Anyway, long story short, I knock that fancy sword of yours out of your hand and give you a smack round the head, and you're out of it. Thought you were dead, and then some other bugger has a go at me; and then some more of the Amathy house comes up out of the wood and suddenly it's all over and we're running like buggery, and that's about it. Anyhow,' the sergeant said, 'that was the battle; and like I told you, I was damned sure I'd killed you, till the next time I ran across you.'

'Next time,' Poldarn repeated.

'That's right,' the sergeant said. 'About eighteen months after, it must've been, because the amnesty wasn't for a year. I got caught, along with most of Allectus's men who weren't killed on the spot or directly afterwards, ended up in prison camp-miserable bloody place, more of us died there than in the war-and then the amnesty came through and we had the option, stay there or join up with the regular army. Well, we couldn't sign up fast enough. Anyhow, practically the first job we're put on doing is clearing out all the free company blokes and bits-and-piecers, the ones who'd come to the Bohec valley with Feron Amathy for the war, then stayed on after to hang around looting and suchlike. Easy job it was, our lot weren't front-line, we were on escort duty, fetching prisoners back to Josequin. And bugger me if the second batch of prisoners we took on, there you were. Recognised you at once.'

'Oh,' Poldarn said.

'That's right. Of course,' the sergeant went on, looking past him, over his shoulder, 'it's human nature, really. Getting even, I mean. Like, this scar, it didn't heal up for a long time, went bad on me, had a hell of a time with it. And it's not pretty now; back then it was a right mess. Long and the short of it was, first chance I got, me and some of my lads-if an officer hadn't come by and made us stop, we'd have killed you for sure. I mean,' he added, 'we reckoned you were good as dead anyway, we might as well save the government the price of a rope. The officer said leave you where you were, it'd waste too much time carrying you; and that's the last I saw of you, sat up under a tree, all bloody. Like I said,' he added, 'no hard feelings. I mean, you were just another bloody bandit; and the stuff you'd been doing-'

'Quite,' Poldarn said. 'Just doing your duty, I suppose.'

'Exactly. Funny, though,' the sergeant went on. 'I mean, that first time, I was with the rebels and you-well, whatever way you look at it, you were on the government side. And then the next time, I'm the government and you're the outlaw. And both times, I end up leaving you for dead. Makes you think, really-you know, third time lucky and all.'

Poldarn smiled bleakly. 'You mean this time you really are going to kill me?'

The sergeant had the grace to look uncomfortable. 'My orders are, fetch you back to Dui Chirra. And in one piece.' He hesitated. 'Got any idea what's going to happen to you when you get there?'

'Not really. Best guess is, I'll get shouted at for a bit, and then it'll be back to shovelling mud out of the river bed. Nothing horrible, at any rate.'

The sergeant seemed relieved. 'Well,' he said, 'that's all right, then. I can't remember: did you tell me why you went AWOL in the first place?'

'I got bored,' Poldarn said. 'It's a very boring place.'

The sergeant looked at him. 'You get bored real easy,' he said.

The road was still a mess; the knee-deep ruts were full of mud, and the carts bottomed out and stuck fast with depressing regularity. When it wasn't raining, the sun shone spitefully hot-typical Tulice summer, someone said, and Poldarn assumed he knew what he was talking about. They were taking a short cut, following a road Poldarn hadn't been on before; it was a colliers' road, bypassing Falcata to the south, skirting a large patch of forest where there were several large charcoal camps. By the time they stopped for the night, he was filthy and shattered. It would've been far less trouble to have walked. At least he was so tired that he slept without dreaming.

They started early next morning, to try and make up some of the time they'd lost the previous day, but most of the day was wasted in trying to haul the carts out of a particularly deep and tenacious mud hole. In the end, the sergeant decided the mission was more important than the hardware, and gave the order to leave the carts behind, sending a rider back to camp for a team of oxen to drag them free and unblock the road, while the rest of them continued on foot. Though nobody said anything, it was painfully obvious that every man in the escort blamed Poldarn for what was turning into a horribly memorable assignment. He could see their point. If only he'd stayed put in Dui Chirra in the first place, they'd all have been spared the unpleasantness.

That evening, they called a halt at the first building they'd seen all day. Farms were few and far between in those parts; this one gave every indication of having been deserted for many years. Quite common, someone said; the smaller farms were failing, being bought up by the big proprietors, who took the land and let the houses fall down. Tulice, apparently, didn't have much of a future. It cost more to get local produce to market than to ship corn and dried food across the bay and float it down the rivers to the larger towns; meanwhile, anybody who had the option was leaving the land, heading for the cities or the colliers' camps. The more trees that were felled for charcoal, the worse (apparently) the flooding became. Pretty soon, Tulice would be nothing but a wilderness of derelict farms and rotting tree stumps, linked by a network of impassable roads. It was all somebody's fault, but nobody seemed to know whose.

They'd just about managed to scrape together enough dry wood for a fire and were fixing something to eat when the sentry called out: a small party coming in up the road toward them. It turned out to be three men, regular army, by the look of them more dead than alive. They were surprised, and relieved, to meet anybody on the road; they hadn't eaten for two days, and they'd been on the point of leaving the road and trying to find the colliers before they starved to death. The sergeant asked them where they'd come from.

'Falcata,' one of them answered. 'What's left of it.' The sergeant asked him what that was supposed to mean; by his reckoning Falcata was due north, on the other side of the forest.

The soldier shook his head. Not any more, he said. No Falcata any more; just burned wood and cracked stone. The raiders had finally come to Tulice.