Memory

C.

On balance, Monach thought, I'd have preferred a dragon in the grain sheds. Less disconcerting, less trouble to deal with.

It was Cordo all right; nobody else he'd ever come across could ever achieve that same effortless, cheerful arrogance. Typical. Not content with not being dead after twenty-whatever years, he comes swanning back into the world ordering people about, promising explanations, nonchalantly letting you know he's been running things behind your back for God knows how long… Cordo. Cordo, for crying out loud. My friend, from the old days, is still alive. And all this time All this time, I've hated Ciartan to death for killing him. But he's not killed, he's sitting out there just outside my circle, pulling my strings. With Xipho. With Xipho Jealousy? It was all the Order's fault, come to last; what the hell could they possibly have been thinking of, sticking one girl in with a class of nineteen adolescent boys-monks, for the gods' sake. Of all the crazy, thoughtless things to do; Spenno's volcano dust had nothing on it for a disaster waiting to happen. Of course he was jealous, of anybody who spoke to her or looked at her, right through grades one to seven, right through to here and now. (Ciartan; his bloody kid, and she even named it Ciartan after him.) He wanted to get a rock and smash Cordo's skull for that, just for being with her, taking her away from him Brings back fond memories, Monach thought; of lectures and classes, when he'd sat in the back row gazing at the back of her head, not hearing a word Father Tutor was saying, his whole mind focused on her-and Xipho, totally, absolutely constant, impregnable as the citadel of Torcea, hard as a file blade, never the slightest encouragement, which only made it worse, turned up the heat in the furnace to where it'd have melted stone into glass. And all this time, this last year when he'd finally had her all to himself-nothing doing, of course, still the unattainable steel goddess, but at least he'd been with her every day, him and nobody else, none of the others; he'd taken her away from Ciartan; finally, after all these years, he'd won-And now Cordo was back, inexplicably alive, and she was off with him like a rat up a culvert.

And on top of that, he has the nerve Monach unrolled the letter again. If the worst comes to the worst, get rid of the bloody things, destroy them. Oh, fine. Yes, of course. And how the hell exactly am I supposed to go about destroying a bloody great big bronze tube weighing the best part of a ton, just like that? Eat it?

(Cordo's alive. I suppose I knew, because he talked to me, I heard his voice; but it could just have been a dream. But now he's definitely alive-he's written me a letter, he's coming. My friend, who I thought was dead and lost, and so much of me with him. My past. A refugee from the old days, coming back, coming alive. My friend.)

Coming back how, exactly? Monach frowned, furious with himself for not being able to figure it out. Cordo was with Xipho, they were coming to meet him, here; he was minding the store for them, as a good friend should, holding the fort (very funny, Earwig, you should go round the villages with a cart, you could earn a living); they could rely on him, of course, he'd be loyal to the last drop of blood, because friends matter the way countries and causes and religion never possibly could. It was like the arm you had cut off when you were ten years old suddenly growing back in the night.

(I suppose if we were to cram the tube full of the volcano dust stuff and stopper up the hole in the end and then set it off, it'd blow itself to bits; or would it just shoot out the stopper? Or we could saw it in two with the big reciprocating saw they built for trimming off the sprue; but that'd take days, according to Spenno. Ditto melting it down. Cordo, you bastard, why me?)

He went to the door of the office and yelled for Runting, who came scurrying up remarkably quickly, almost as if he'd been lurking about, waiting… 'Well?' Runting said.

'Listen,' Monach said. 'At some point in the next few days, some friends of mine are going to arrive. I don't know when, and I don't know how many, and God only knows how they're figuring on getting past Muno's patrols, if they're using the roads. I want you to make sure that the officers of the day are looking out for them, and they're to be let in and brought straight to me. There'll be at least one man, and a woman; probably a young kid as well. Do you understand?'

Runting frowned. 'Yes,' he said, 'all right. Was that all?'

Monach nodded. He was overreacting quite appallingly, losing his grip. 'That's all for now,' he snapped, in his best imitation regular-army voice.

'Right you are,' Runting said. 'Are you going to tell me what was in the letter, then?'

'No.'

Runting's face fell, just a very little. 'Please yourself, then,' he said; and a moment later, the rain had closed around him like a curtain.

He woke up out of a dream in which he'd been back in the cart with Copis, rattling along horrible bumpy roads between burned-out cities. A jolt had woken him up, a wheel catching in a deeper-than-usual pothole.

'Mind what you're doing,' Copis snapped. 'You could've broken the axle.'

'Sure, whatever.' Gain didn't sound particularly concerned, but he'd always been reckless-stupid, not really bothered about the consequences of his actions… How did I know that, Poldarn wondered? Or was that just the way Gain had been in the dream? 'If you'd rather drive, be my guest.'

'Just be careful, that's all.' Copis sounded too preoccupied to be properly critical. 'Oh. You've woken up, have you?'

Poldarn yawned. 'Apparently,' he said. 'Are we nearly there yet?'

'Yes.'

'How nearly?'

'Nearly.' She was picking at her fingernails. Had she always done that? And if so, had she always done it when they were students together, or had she only always done it when they'd been together in the cart, when she'd been lying (and therefore nothing she did could be relied on to be the truth?)

'I'm hungry,' Poldarn said.

'Tough,' Gain replied. 'So'm I. But there's nothing to eat. Deal with it.'

Poldarn scowled at him. 'Will there be anything to eat where we're going?'

'Yes,' Copis told him. But they were riding together in a cart, so he wasn't sure he could believe her.

He wasn't really hungry at all, just bored, so really it was something of a trick question, to see whether she'd tell the truth or lie to him. Unfortunately, he didn't know what the real answer was, so the experiment was basically a waste of time. Something he had plenty of. He picked at the edge of the box, teasing a splinter out of the grain of the wood.

'Why won't you tell me who we're going to see?' he asked.

'Because,' Copis replied.

'Leave her alone, for pity's sake,' Gain said. 'If you keep on at her she'll get really snotty, and we've got a long way to go.'

Ah, Poldarn said to himself, absurdly pleased, so she was lying. He felt as though he'd just achieved a victory, as if he'd contrived to fool a crow into coming in to the decoys.

But he was deceiving himself, as usual. Just because she was lying about how far they still had to go-all sorts of reasons why she should lie about that; to shut him up, stop him complaining. All parents tell that sort of lie to their children. Or maybe Gain was the one who wasn't telling the truth. Wouldn't be the first time.

'When we get there,' he said, 'what have I got to do?'

'You'll see.'

No, Poldarn wanted to say, that was a genuine question, not a chess move. 'You must have something in mind for me,' he said mildly. 'You didn't go to all this trouble just so that we could have a class reunion.'

She looked at him. 'Really? Don't you think it's just possible that we'd be prepared to put ourselves out a bit to rescue one of our own? You have a very poor opinion of people, Ciartan.'

Rescue? Where did that concept come from, all of a sudden? 'No,' he said. 'You need me for something. Come on, give me a clue. You're both so mad keen to tell me all about my past, when I don't want to know. How about giving me a few clues about my future? I care about my future,' he added, grinning. 'Assuming I've got one.'

Copis sighed. 'I lied to you,' she said.

'Oh.' Poldarn looked at her.

'Yes,' she said. 'There is a bit of food left; well, biscuits. Thurm corn-dodgers. The traveller's friend-eat 'em or sharpen knives on 'em. Gain, give him a biscuit. Maybe breaking all his teeth'll shut him up.'

Poldarn shook his head. 'I'm not hungry any more,' he said.

'You said-'

'I was lying.'

Shortly after midday they stopped, for no apparent reason. The road had emerged very briefly from the forest, into a wilderness of tree stumps overgrown with bracken, spindly willow saplings and ground elder-typical charcoal burners' devastation, dating back maybe twenty or twenty-five years. The rain had lapsed into a fine drizzle (Tulice's idea of a sunny day, Poldarn reckoned), which obscured the sharp edges of the sawn-off stumps. Through the wet haze, Poldarn could see a shape that could be a small house, a collier's turf cabin.

'We're here,' Copis said quietly.

'Oh.' It wasn't what Poldarn had been expecting. 'Are you sure?'

'Of course I'm bloody sure-' But she sounded almost nervous, too tense to be properly bad-tempered. 'We're here,' she repeated. 'He'll be along in a minute.'

No sound, except the rain pattering on the cart's canopy. The air smelled fresh, of washed leaves. He remembered the smell from somewhere; not home, obviously, because there weren't any trees. Had he been here before?

'Where's he got to?' Gain muttered. He'd been on edge ever since the cart had stopped. 'He should've been here, to meet us.'

Poldarn smiled. 'Maybe he's waiting for the rain to stop.'

That seemed to annoy Gain; a worthwhile objective in itself. 'I'm going over to the shack, see if he's there,' he said.

'No, stay still.' That was more like the old Copis. (How would I know that?) 'Keep still and try and be patient for once in your life.'

'Yes, but what if anything's-?' Gain caught sight of the expression on her face and subsided. 'Well, he should've been here to meet us,' he muttered. 'I mean, this is the right place, and-'

'Shut up, Gain,' Copis said softly. Poldarn looked across at the blurry shape that was probably a shack (unless Gain had been lying), but he couldn't see any movement in that direction. But Copis was pointing, like a bird-dog.

'Told you he'd be. here,' she said, apparently to herself, and as she spoke a shape pushed through the curtain of fine rain: a big man with broad shoulders, exaggerated by a bulky coat and hood. He wasn't in any hurry; he wasn't walking so much as processing, like someone used to having to be dignified in public. Even at that distance, fifty yards or more away, he looked familiar 'I know him,' Poldarn whispered. 'Copis, he's that man we ran into in Sansory, at that inn, where we got separated. He's the man who-'

She didn't say anything. Poldarn searched his mind, looking for the name, which he'd put in a safe place. It was only when the man walked calmly up to the cart and pulled back his hood that Poldarn remembered it. Cleapho; Chaplain Cleapho. Second most important man in the empire, or something like that 'Hello, Xipho,' he said, with a benign smile, 'Gain.' The smile didn't change when he shifted his head very slightly and added, 'Hello, Ciartan. Thanks for coming.'

When he'd spoken, Xipho had closed her eyes just for a tiny moment: relief, pure joy at having completed the task and handed over to her superior officer. Then she pulled herself together, tightened back up.

'Hello, Cordo,' she said.