Pattern

Chapter Twenty-Eight

They walked back over the mountain to Poldarn's Forge. Two crows followed them all the way. By the time they got their first view of the house, Poldarn knew he'd lost the ability to see the others' thoughts. He'd hardly noticed it coming or going, and he was left with the conclusion that it was no big deal. Most of what he'd seen on the night of the burning was the sort of thing he'd have been able to guess quite easily anyway-I'm cold, I'm scared, I don't like what we're doing, maybe this wasn't such a good idea-and none of it was important. In a way, he felt cheated because gaining and losing the knack had both been such an anticlimax; it had come and gone and he'd hardly noticed, being preoccupied with other concerns.

They reached home in the middle of the afternoon, and the rest of them went straight back to work, pausing only to dump their knapsacks and change their boots. Poldarn sat down on the porch and sat for a while, staring at the sky over the mountain, but that wasn't really achieving anything; so he hauled himself up out of the chair and crossed the yard to the forge.

Asburn had already laid in the fire; he had a long double-edged spearhead in the coals, which Poldarn couldn't remember having seen in the scrap, so he asked where it had come from.

'Oh, I picked it up at Ciartanstead,' Asburn replied, his gaze fixed on his work. 'I saw it there when I went over to their forge for charcoal, and I knew we needed something to make a long-handled bean-hook out of. So I brought it on.'

Poldarn shrugged. 'Good idea,' he said. 'What else needs doing? I'm at a loose end.'

Asburn pulled out the steel, but it was only just starting to blush, so he put it back. 'Well,' he said, 'we're pretty much up to date, really. Saying that, it wouldn't hurt to draw down some more wire. Or there's always nails.'

'Fine,' Poldarn replied. 'I'll make some nails, then.'

He made a show of prowling round the workshop floor looking for splinters and offcuts that couldn't be used for anything else, but he wasn't in the mood for nail-making. Instead, he leaned up against the west wall and watched Asburn as he pulled out the orange-hot spearhead with the inside tongs, laid it over the anvil beak and started bending it round with a succession of quick, hard blows from the four-pound sledge. Once he'd got the curve he wanted, he slapped it down on the face and straightened out the crinkles and twists with six mighty smacks, then nudged it back under the coals and hauled on the bellows handle until the fire began to flare. He took another good heat, waiting till the metal was bright orange, almost ready to burn; then he thickened the convex edge into a spine by slamming it against the anvil face, stopping every now and then to straighten and square it with deft nips from the hammer. The whole job only took him five heats; then one more to get the whole thing up to cherry red (patience and diligence, passing the curved blade to and fro through the fire, turning it over to spread the heat evenly) before dumping it into the slack tub. The thin oil caught fire, but he put out the flames by dunking the hook an inch deeper; then he held it still until the oil had stopped bubbling, pulled it out and laid it on the anvil to cool. Under the broken skin of burnt oil the blade was a dull slate-grey, a sure sign that it had hardened properly. Asburn took a few moments to rake up the fire and damp down the backplate with a splash of water from the ladle; then, gripping the socket of the hook with the tongs and supporting the spine on the head of the hammer, he held it up to the light to see if it had warped. The expression on his face suggested that it hadn't. He nodded to himself, put the hook down again, and took down a coarse grey stone from a rack on the wall.

(So that was that, Poldarn said to himself; from an abandoned weapon to a useful farm tool in six heats-seven, to include the tempering. Once he'd done that, drawn out the brittle hardness and left it springy and tough, it'd be a hook. Anybody looking at it would assume it had always been a hook, there was nothing to show that it had once been a spear. It had been purged of its old memory and supplied with a new one. There was no risk that it would ever remember its old life and suddenly uncurl back into a spear, like a shoot standing up out of the earth in spring, and there was no reason to suppose it would be likely to suffer from unpleasant dreams.)

'Sorry,' Asburn said, noticing him, 'did you want to get to the fire?'

'Thanks.' Poldarn gripped his silly little shaving of iron in the small tongs and snuggled it into the coals, while Asburn ground off the scale and burnt oil from his hook. 'Just the job, that spear,' he said, 'as it turned out.'

Asburn nodded. 'Nice bit of hardening steel,' he said. 'It'd have been a pity to waste it.'

How true, Poldarn thought. His scrap took no time at all to heat up, and he transferred it to the other anvil and started to draw it into a taper. Almost at once the wedge flew out of his hammer. He swore and looked round for it, but it could have been anywhere. 'Might as well make a new one,' he grumbled. 'Quicker in the long run.'

He found a piece of thick iron strap in the trash and drew it down in two heats into a fan; then he closed in the sides and cut it off with the hot sett. It wasn't much to look at, but it was what he needed, and it went in smoothly enough. He rapped the bottom of the handle sharply on the anvil to settle the head, and dunked the hammer in the water tank to swell. It'd have to stay there overnight before it was fit to use, so at least he wouldn't have to make any nails that day.

He managed to get an hour or two of sleep that night, which left him wide awake in the early hours of the morning, at the time of day when even small worries cast long shadows. He lay in the dark, staring at the shadow where the roof ought to be, and wondered what it would feel like to be a bean-hook that suddenly woke up remembering what it had been like to be a spear. It was a ridiculous notion, not the sort of thing you could contemplate without grinning at any other time of day, but it clamoured for his attention like an obstreperous child, and wouldn't go away until he played with it. What would it be like to be a farmer who suddenly realised that he'd once been a soldier, a leader of armies, a deviser of strategies, figuring out the best way to achieve an objective through the use of violent force? An academic question if ever there was one, but interesting, as a case study in human temperament.

As he lay there, he felt the stuffed-straw mattress under his back soften into the churned mud beside the Bohec; and somewhere nearby, two people were talking.

You again, said one voice. How many times have I got to tell you, we don't want you here.

We, the other voice repeated, that's a new one. Since when have you been we? Oh, I forgot, you're married. You're in love. Two hearts, one mind, one flesh. Excuse me while I do the figures; is this the third time, or the fourth?

It's the last time, the first voice said firmly. This is the time that matters. She's having my baby, and we're going to stay here and grow old together. And three's a crowd. Go away.

Sure, replied the other voice, that's what you always say, there's a definite pattern to it. Every time, before you snap out of it and come back to me, you find some girl, father a kid, it's some kind of gesture you feel the need to make so I'll know you don't need me. Then you realise that you do need me after all, and off we go together. Actually, I'm glad. I'm patient, but not that patient. It's about time.

You just don't listen, the first voice said angrily. You're out of the picture, you don't exist any more, you're buried and cremated and gone. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better for both of us.

The other voice laughed; a cold, patronising laugh that made Poldarn shiver. That's what you always say, it said, around about this stage in the proceedings. I love it when you're predictable.

The first voice tried to object, but the second voice overrode it. Imagine what it'd be like, the second voice said, if you were a farmer who woke up and remembered he'd once been a soldier, a master of a free company. Think how you'd feel, bending down to prod cabbage plants into the dirt, knowing that once upon a time, all you had to do was say the word and cities would burn. Think of the shame Exactly, the first voice put in. Shame, guilt I didn't mean it like that, said the other voice calmly. You know perfectly well what I meant. I'm talking about the shame you'd feel at how low you'd fallen, how little and pathetic and grubby you'd become-it could break your heart, knowing that. But we don't have to do it that way. All you've got to do is come with me, and it can be smooth and easy and enjoyable Never, the first voice said. That's where you completely fail to understand me, because deep down, we're totally opposite, no common ground between us whatsoever. Which is why I pushed you out of my life, and why I won't ever let you back. What's so difficult to understand about that?

It's a lie, the other voice said simply. It's not true. So there's nothing to understand. It's just you playing hard to get, as usual. Or are you trying to pretend you don't remember us having exactly this conversation about ten years ago, in Mael? Or five years before that, in Deymeson?

Of course I don't remember, the first voice said. Obviously. That wasn't me back then, it was you. Really, what kind of an idiot do you take me for?

It's the other way round, the second voice replied, as if explaining something simple to a backwards child. You're trying to make me believe something that's patently untrue. I could take offence at that, if I didn't love you so much.

You don't love me. You never loved anybody.

That's a lie. The second voice flared into anger, then slipped easily back into its quiet, superior tone. Don't be ridiculous, of course I love you. For pity's sake, just look at the things I've done for you. I've burned cities to the ground, churned up a whole empire, killed thousands of people. You can try and bury my love, but that just makes things worse; you can pile a whole mountain on top of it, and it'll still burst through and come streaming down the mountainside in fire. I've moved heaven and earth for you, literally, so don't you ever say I don't love you. And I'll tell you another thing, the voice went on, quieter and more urgent; if you care a damn about that woman of yours, or about any of these people, you won't let them come between us. You know what happens to people who come between us. If you're capable of any kind of affection-well, I won't spell it out, you're not that dense. But you need to think about stuff like that before you go plunging into things. You've got obligations, you ought to remember that.

I hate you, the first voice said.

Really? The second voice sounded insufferably amused. That's something else you always say, just before we get back together again. Come on, don't be a pain. Give in easily for a change, it'll be better for everybody, you'll see. All you've got to do is close your eyes.

I don't care what you do, the first voice said, you do what the hell you like, because it'll be your fault, not mine. This time I really mean it. We're finished. I'm going to stay here, even if you turn the whole place into a desert.

I can do that, the second voice said pleasantly. You've seen how I can do that: all I've got to do is push a little harder, and the next time you won't be able to deflect me so easily. Oh, for crying out loud, you don't think you did that? You don't honestly believe you pushed me aside, do you? You didn't push me, I got out of the way, to please you-and because I could see where it'd lead, of course, where you'd have me believe you couldn't. You know me, I'm the dog you throw sticks for. You tell me to go right instead of left, I can do that, for sure. You tell me to make a loud noise so the bad guys will look the other way, I'll do that too. And when you ask me to come and huff and puff and burn a little house down, that's not a problem, I come running-and exactly on time, I hope you noticed, I was in position to the minute. I hope you noticed that.

I was busy, the other voice whispered. I didn't see.

No? Pity. Never mind, I held up my side of the bargain. Now you're obligated. And don't pretend you didn't know-you knew perfectly well, the moment you started it all.

I didn't start it, the first voice said, almost pleading.

The hell you didn't. Let's see, where exactly did it all start? Was it when you cut that man's throat, out by the washing pool? Or when you diverted the fire-stream, or when you hid the beef barrel, or when you took in your killer waif off the mountainside? Or was it earlier than that, even-you know, I lose track sometimes, you're so busy when you're on your own, always getting up to mischief. That's why you need me, to keep you on the straight and narrow, not dissipating your energy on silly little jobs. Anyway, it was definitely you, each and every step of the way. It could only have been you, because of course I wasn't there. I've got the perfect alibi, you see. I wasn't there, because you turned me away, told me to get lost. You do understand that, don't you? Because it's absolutely crucial. You can't blame me for anything, because it was all you.

All right! the first voice shouted. It was me, it was me. But it's all your fault, because you made me like this. Even without you, I still do these horrible things. That's why I can never go back to you. Because if I do, it'll be worse No. There was a smile in the second voice, an audible grin of triumph. The only difference between what you do on your own and what you did when we were together is that your solo efforts are meaningless, they don't achieve anything, they're just random chaos and destruction. All right, when we're together we do the same sort of stuff, but just think for a moment about what we've achieved. That's the difference. You know, the voice went on, you seem to believe that I'm the bad side and you're the good side; but that's horseshit, it's the other way around. You and I together, we were getting somewhere. On your own, you're just a fox running through a cornfield with a burning switch tied to its tail. Besides, by any standards, what you do on your own is worse. It doesn't mean anything. It's just blind malevolence, like the volcano.

There was a long silence. Then the first voice said, No. All right, so maybe some of what you're saying is true. But that doesn't change anything, it really doesn't matter. I don't care if I'm as evil as you are, or worse, even. I don't care if I'm the devil incarnate and you're an angel. I hate you, and I'm never going back. Not ever Poldarn sat up. His face and chest were dripping wet with sweat. Beside him, Elja grunted irritably and clawed at the blanket. 'Go to sleep,' she mumbled. 'It's the middle of the night.'

'I heard something,' he replied. 'Stay there, I'm going to look.'

He slid out of bed and crept across the floor in his bare feet, out through the partition door into the hall and onto the porch. At once he looked up towards the mountain, expecting to see a river of orange fire; but there was nothing, just a smear of dawn. He sat down on the chair Raffen had made and started to shake, though he hadn't a clue why.

After a while, the shakes wore off; he relaxed, told himself it was just a bad dream, nothing unusual about that. He watched the red seep into the clouds on the skyline and tried to remember the rhyme: red sky in the morning-it was either good or bad, but he couldn't recall which.

'Shepherd's warning,' said a voice to his left. He recognised it.

'That's it,' he said, 'it means rain later or something like that. What are you doing here? I thought I heard somewhere that you died.'

'I did. And it was a nasty way to go, too. Blood poisoning, after I gave birth to our daughter. To be honest with you, I can't really say it was worth it. I mean, she's a nice enough kid, quite pretty in a washed-out, everyday sort of a way, but not a patch on me.'

'True,' Poldarn replied. 'But that's a pretty high standard you're setting her. There's not many that could measure up to it. And she's kind and understanding and loyal, and she's got a great sense of humour.'

And I bet she's mustard at embroidery and brewing, too, but who gives a shit about all that sort of thing?' Whoever she was, she laughed. 'Listen to me, I'm jealous of my own daughter now. No, I'm not, because I know for a fact that she can't compare to me. If it came down to a straight choice, right now, you'd dump her and come away with me without even having to think about it.'

'Yes,' Poldarn said, 'I would. But you're dead, so the question doesn't arise. It never did. You were married, to that moron Colsceg, and you wouldn't leave him.'

She laughed again. 'Oh, I'd have left him like a stone from a sling, if the right man had come along. But he didn't. Instead, I got you. And it killed me. I suppose you could say it served me right, but I'm not convinced. I deserved better, a whole lot better than either of you. Instead-' She sighed. 'Instead, by the time I was her age, I'd been dead six years. Not much of a fair go, was it? Eighteen years, that's all I had, and in that time I was wonderful. Oh, he didn't appreciate me, my useless turd of a husband. I think you did, a bit, but you were just a kid, you'd only just learned how to tie your bootlaces. No, you always were inclined to think with your dick, especially back in those days.'

'That's not fair,' Poldarn said equably. 'If things had been different, if we could've got married and settled down, things would have been so much better for everyone-'

'Oh, please.' She was laughing at him. 'What on earth makes you think I'd ever have married you,'

'Well, you married Colsceg. This suggests that you weren't inclined to be picky.'

'Shows what you know. I married him to get out of my father's house, simple as that. He was exactly what I needed at that time: he had his own house, he wasn't living under the shadow of his father or his grandfather or anybody else, so I'd be in charge at home, no raddled old cow telling me what to do or how things should be run. He had two sons already, so he didn't have any call to use me as a brood mare. And since we're being honest, which I don't remember ever happening back when I was alive, he might have been stodgy and middle-aged but he was twice the man you were. There was never anything much to you. In fact, God only knows what all your other women ever saw in you.'

'Thank you so much,' Poldarn said. 'It's so kind of you to tell me that.'

'Well, for pity's sake,' the voice said contemptuously. 'Just look at them, will you? There's been so many of them, and every single one of them about as interesting as last night's porridge. I mean, take that mimsy little blonde bitch, the prince's daughter-'

'I loved her,' Poldarn objected.

'Did you hell. You only married her so you'd have her father by the balls.'

'Oh sure, to begin with,' Poldarn admitted readily. 'That was the original idea; but then I fell in love with her. She was so giving, so-'

'Weak and pathetic,' the voice cut in. 'A doormat, a little plaster doll. How you managed to stay awake when you were seeing to that beats me, really it does. And what about the last one-sorry, the one before last, it gets so confusing. You know, the one who never washed, with the hairy armpits. You're not seriously asking me to believe you were ever even fond of her.'

'Yes, as a matter of fact,' Poldarn replied. 'Actually, she reminds me a lot of you.'

For a moment, the other voice was too angry to speak. 'That's sick,' it said. 'I know you only said that to annoy me, but you shouldn't say things like that, even in spite. And so, all right, maybe you were fond of her. You were absolutely besotted with me.'

'Very true,' Poldarn said, 'I was. But as you yourself said just now, I was only a kid at the time. Shallow, immature, only interested in one thing. You can't have it both ways, you know'

She giggled. 'Very true,' she said. 'You know, you've somehow managed to get a bit of an edge since the last time I saw you.'

'Really. Next you'll be saying, haven't I grown?'

She ignored that. 'About time, too,' she said. 'God, you were so damn soppy back then, it turns my stomach just thinking about it. Giving me flowers all the time. I don't want to sound hard or anything, but what earthly use is a bunch of dead vegetation? If I'd wanted flowers, I'd have picked my own. As it was, soon as you were gone, I buried them in the compost heap. Oh, now I've hurt your feelings; but be reasonable, I couldn't very well have gone back home with them. First thing he'd have said, where did you get those?'

'Sorry,' Poldarn said. 'I thought you liked them. You always said you liked them.'

'Dear Ciartan,' she said, 'I was just trying to be nice. You know, pretending. I always did a lot of pretending when I was with you. After all, you were so terribly brittle, one word out of place and you were no good for anything. Of course I pretended, it's what we all do. Or did you really think I was melting at your every touch?'

'Fine,' Poldarn replied. 'You know, if I was so useless, I don't know why you bothered.'

She thought for a moment. 'It was something to do, I suppose.'

'Something to do,' Poldarn repeated. 'Have you got any idea how much trouble you've caused?'

This time, she sounded genuinely shocked. 'Me? For heaven's sake, if anybody's the victim, it's me. You're not the one who died in childbirth, remember.'

'You,' Poldarn said firmly. 'If it hadn't been for you, I'd never have left here, I'd have stayed here and been a good little farmer, I'd never have gone abroad; and hundreds of thousands of dead people would be alive today.'

A moment of silence. 'I hadn't actually thought of it in those terms,' she said. 'But no, I think you're wrong there. Yes, I'm sure of it. After all, if it hadn't been me there'd have been some other reason, you'd have got yourself into trouble one way or the other. You were born to it, for pity's sake. You were born because your father raped your mother, and then she killed him. You're nothing but trouble, you know that perfectly well. Someone whose idea of fun is killing crows isn't exactly normal, you must admit. For all we know, if it hadn't been for me, and getting thrown off the Island when you did, you might've ended up doing something even worse.'

Poldarn was extremely angry. 'Worse? What could I possibly have done that could've been worse? I've had cities burned down and innocent people massacred. Everybody I've known has come to a bad end. Everybody I've loved, either they're dead or they're so screwed up that they'd be better off dead. And now, as if that wasn't enough, I've come home, started a blood-feud and got my own daughter pregnant. And it's your fault.'

Her reply was as cold as ice. 'Don't be ridiculous,' she said. 'At every turn you had a choice. You were the one who did all those things. Oh, at the time it was always the right thing to do-for your people, for the cause, to save your skin, whatever. And don't try pretending that this losing your memory thing excuses anything. When you came back here, you had a perfect fresh start, a whole new life, everything anybody could possibly want-and now look at what you've done. You've got us fighting among ourselves, killing each other. Nobody else could've done that, only you. So leave me out of it, thank you very much. I'm just another one of your victims, and don't you ever try and pretend otherwise.'

'I did it because I loved you,' he said quietly. 'And I thought you loved me.'

'Like you hid the barrel of salt beef? Well, quite. You thought that what you were doing was right. But don't you see, that's exactly the sort of person you are. You know what, Ciartan? You're like a mother polecat in a chicken run. You believe that the right thing to do is feed your babies, so you kill all the chickens. And yes, in a way it is the right thing to do, but you can bet your life nobody else is going to see it that way. You're like a weapon, Ciartan, an axe or a spear. The right thing for a weapon to do is to kill people and hurt people, and at the right time in the right place, that's very good. But the rest of the time-What I'm trying to tell you is, it's in your nature to wreck everything you touch. Maybe you can't help it, I don't know. Now, if you were in the right place at the right time, you could be very useful, you could do a lot of good, even. But when you're out of context you're a menace, and you ought to be knocked on the head and buried in quicklime.' She sighed. 'Nobody would think it to look at you,' she went on. 'You come across as dumb and sweet, a bit vulnerable, maybe not the sharpest chisel in the rack but quite endearing, in a passive sort of way. And people see that, and they overlook this simple talent you've got for breaking things, and the fact that when you lash out there's usually something sharp in your hand and people tend to fall down dead. Oh yes, and you have a sneaking suspicion that you're a god, and it's your destiny to bring about the end of the world. That really helps things, of course. You know, if you really wanted to help other people and make the world a better place, you'd find a nice strong tree, a milking stool and ten feet of good quality rope.'

He didn't answer for a very long time. 'I'm sorry you feel that way,' he said at last. 'But that's definitely not going to happen.'

'Please yourself. But you wanted my advice and now you've got it. If you're just going to ignore it, don't ask me again. And now, if it's all the same to you, I think I'd like to carry on being dead, please. It doesn't have a lot to recommend it, but at least it means I don't have to associate with the likes of you.'

He opened his eyes; and his first thought was, it's all right, I never remember my dreams. In a second or so it'll have gone, and I'll never know. But for once he was wrong. It was still there in his mind, the whole thing; and he knew it was true. He could remember it all.

Herda, Colsceg's second wife: young and very beautiful, but wild and dangerous. That was how he'd thought of her when he'd been eighteen and had seen her for the first time. She was everything he'd dreamed of, and he fell in love like a dead crow tumbling out of the air. Whether she'd loved him or whether she was just amusing herself and pretending, he never knew and didn't care. The adventure was the main thing, and the tiny brief escape from the unrelenting certainty of Haldersness, where everybody knew what everybody else was thinking, all the time. It hadn't been Herda's sweeping red hair or glowing green eyes or the breathtaking softness of her slim body; what he'd fallen in love with had been the opaqueness of her mind, which she could hide from him whenever she wanted (and she wanted, all the time). It was from her that he had somehow picked up the trick of shutting the door on everyone else, keeping them out of the part of his mind where he was really himself. It had been a useful knack, because even he couldn't prise open that door; whenever he chose he could stop being himself and be somebody quite different, separated and protected from who he really was. But it hadn't gone well. Suddenly she'd told him she was going to have a baby, and he was the father, and she wasn't going to see him any more. For a while he'd moped about the place, and nobody had known the reason, though a few people seemed to have had their suspicions-her brother Egil, for one. He found out quite early, somehow or other, but he'd had his own reasons to keep his mouth shut. There had been a morning, he remembered, shortly before the affair ended, when he'd got up just before dawn to go out and decoy crows and he'd met Egil in the yard, with blood all over his face and clothes. Nobody else was up and about and he'd wondered where the boy had been, how he'd managed to get himself in such a dreadful state, so he'd stopped and asked him. Egil didn't want to say, which made him all the more curious; finally the boy broke down and told him what had happened. He'd been up on the mountainside, exercising his dogs, and two strangers, offcomers from the other side of the island, had come on him unexpectedly. One of the dogs bit one of the men; both men seemed to get very angry and said that they were taking the dogs as their settlement for the bite. Egil was furious and when the men tried to take the dogs he hit one of the would-be thieves on the side of the head with his stick. That was the wrong thing to do. They were big, strong men, and one of them held his arms while the other one slapped and punched him-not hard enough to do any damage, he was most careful about that, but just enough to make him burst into tears and beg the man to stop. Then they'd laughed at him and taken the dogs anyway and Egil had come home; and all he wanted in the whole world was to see them punished. He told him that, and then a strange expression came over his face, and he said, 'You ought to help me. After all, you're a friend of the family.'

'I suppose so,' he'd replied. 'But it's none of my business, really.'

'I think you ought to do something about it,' Egil had said. 'Like I ought to tell Dad a thing or two, only I haven't. Not yet, at any rate.'

That had been enough; so he'd gone into the barn and found a small axe. Then he told Egil to take him to the place where he'd last seen the two men. They were easy enough to track down, and when he confronted them, they didn't seem the least bit worried-not until he pulled the axe out from under his coat and pecked it into the sides of their heads, one after the other, as neat and quick as a bird with a worm.

Egil was scared stiff, but he'd told him, 'It'll be all right, they're only offcomers. Nobody's going to miss them, and if they do, they won't care.' So they dragged the bodies up the mountain-it took a long time and wore them out-and pitched them into the big crack where the hot springs burst out. Then they went home, and he'd told everyone a story about having a bad feeling about something and going up the mountain and finding Egil lying there all bloody, after being chased and batted about by a bear. Everyone thanked him and told him how well he'd done; and later on, he took the little axe and tossed it into a ditch, in that same field where he'd killed all those crows a short while before he diverted the fire-stream.

And that was how Egil had known, and why he couldn't tell anybody; it was lucky that he'd got a touch of the same knack of hiding his thoughts, because nobody ever seemed to have found out the truth from him. (Though, looking back, there had been that off-relation who'd come to visit, and who'd been so pleased when he'd heard he'd lost his memory; and Hart too. Maybe they'd seen a little of it in Egil's mind, enough to let them know there was something wrong.)

Shortly after he'd killed the two men, Herda had told him about the baby; he'd gone to stay with one of Halder's friends, hoping he'd get over it, but there wasn't much chance of that. Then some men had called at the farm, talking about going raiding come the autumn, and he'd asked to go with them. They'd said yes, and nobody'd seemed to mind; and on the way there, they'd started talking about how useful it would be to have a spy inside the Empire, someone who'd stay there and find out about the place, stuff that'd be useful to the raiding parties. That seemed like the best possible idea: a new start in a new country where nobody at all knew him, where he'd have a second chance at his life, all the mistakes wiped away.

He remembered all that; and now he'd come home and married Colsceg and Herda's daughter, to please his grandfather by beginning a clean new life, his second fresh start. In a way, it was ludicrous, as if the only reason he'd been allowed to forget what had happened for a while was so that he'd stroll blithely into his own trap, do something so unbearably wrong that even he would never have done it if only he'd known. Tactically, it was inspired. Whoever it was who'd thought of it deserved to be congratulated for their imagination, economy of force and painstaking attention to detail.

Well, he thought; time I wasn't here.

It was still early. If he took a horse and rode quickly, he could be on the other side of the mountain before they'd even noticed he was gone. A few days at a good pace, assuming he didn't get lost and start going the wrong way, would get him to the coast, and it wasn't long till the start of the raiding season, a few weeks at most before the first ships left for the Empire. Till then, he'd have to find work, doing the sort of thing offcomers and outsiders were allowed to do, but something told him he'd manage somehow or other. One thing he couldn't do was stay here another day; even if he could still mask his thoughts from the others (from Elja? Little chance of that), it couldn't be long before Geir's son got back from telling Colsceg about Elja being pregnant-and what if Egil came back with him? But if he went away immediately, there was a chance that nobody else would ever know; and what nobody knew didn't exist, for all practical purposes. And one had to be practical, or else how the hell could anybody expect to survive?

That wasn't the only reason why he ought to leave; but it would do as well as any other. He stood up, wincing at the cramp in his legs, and went over to the stable.

When he opened the door, he realised he wasn't alone. Someone else was in there, he could hear movement. Whoever it was, he was acting as though he had a right to be there; Poldarn heard the sound of a bridle jingling as it was lifted onto a hook. That told him that the stranger had stabled his horse and was putting the harness away neatly, in the proper methodical fashion. Look after your horse before you look after yourself (someone had told him that, years ago, and he knew it was the right thing to do). Taking pains to walk silently, he headed for the sound, and presently he discovered the source. It was Egil.

Either Egil knew he was there, or it was pure coincidence that he turned round at exactly that moment, leaving Poldarn no time to get out of sight. They stared at each other for a moment; then Egil said, 'I heard the news.' He had his saddle in one hand, and a rusty, pitted old axe in the other. Poldarn recognised it as the one he'd found in the ditch.

'What news?' Poldarn said.

'About Elja, of course,' Egil replied. Without breaking eye contact, he let the saddle fall off his forearm onto the ground. 'Judging by the way you're looking at me, I think you know why I hurried over here as soon as I heard.'

Poldarn nodded.

'Fine,' Egil said, 'because I didn't want to have to explain it to you, and I reckoned you had a right to know, before we settled things.'

'You think there's something to settle, then,' Poldarn said.

'Yes. Don't you?'

'I suppose so. And you look like you've made your mind up already, so there's no point arguing. What sort of settlement had you in mind?'

Egil shook his head. 'Seems to me there isn't much choice,' he replied. 'You know what I mean.'

The axe head was still black, crusted with flakes of rust, but the cutting edge had been worked up recently with a stone. 'It doesn't take a mind-reader to know that,' Poldarn replied. 'Have you told anybody else?'

'Are you out of your mind? No, of course not. And I'm not planning to, either. The way I see it, there's only two of us that know, and that's one too many.'

Out of the corner of his eye, Poldarn could see a hayfork, just out of arm's reach to his left. 'I'll go along with that,' he said. 'So, what are you going to do?'

Egil twitched, as if he'd been about to move but had decided not to, or had found that he couldn't. 'I'm not sure,' he said. 'I hadn't thought that far ahead. I suppose that if I'd got here and you'd been still asleep, I was going to cut your throat as you lay there. But you're here now, which is much better. At least we can be straightforward about it.'

Poldarn took a deep breath, then let it go. 'You're going to kill me, then.'

'I don't really see any other way, do you?'

'Go on, then,' Poldarn told him.

Egil stood perfectly still for a moment or so; then he took a long stride forward and swung the axe over his head. As soon as his arm started to move, Poldarn knew that it wasn't going to be difficult or dangerous, or anything like that. Even as he sidestepped the cut and reached for the hay-fork, it seemed to him as though he was remembering something from long ago, a scene he'd witnessed, maybe something from a recurring dream. The fork handle snuggled comfortably into his right hand; he took a short step diagonally, passing behind Egil's right shoulder, and as his foot touched the floor the top half of the handle dropped into his left hand. The thrust itself must have happened, because the results were plainly obvious a fraction of a second later, but afterwards Poldarn never could remember what he did. All he remembered was the instant when the tips of the fork's four slim tines showed through the back of Egil's coat, like the growing season's first green shoots.

Egil slumped off the fork and dropped to the ground in a messy heap. Well then, Poldarn said to himself, there was nothing to that. He stooped down, retrieved the axe and stood up again. It was a pity, of course, a great shame that something like this had to happen, but it was over and done with, so there was no point fretting about it. As luck would have it, Egil had fallen face down, so Poldarn didn't have to look him in the eye afterwards. By anybody's standards it was self-defence, though of course Egil had been right in trying to do what he did, just as what Poldarn himself had done was entirely proper and justifiable. After all, they'd agreed beforehand among themselves what the outcome had to be, and that was precisely what had happened. The secret had been contained, and now it only existed in one mind. From now on, Poldarn was the only person who knew; and his word, uncorroborated, was opinion, not fact. Henceforth it would exist only in his memory, and as the years passed he'd begin to doubt it, wondering if perhaps he could have been wrong, and what he thought was a memory of reality was only a fragment of an undigested dream, taken out of context, vivid enough, perhaps, but entirely false. And what if the circle went round again, and he woke up a second time beside a river, unable to remember his name or anything else? If that were to happen, then none of it would ever have happened, and everything would have been put right.

He shook his head sadly. It was a great pity that Egil had had to die in order to correct his bad memory, but at least it wasn't his fault now. The outcome was the main thing. It could have been far worse. It could have taken the mountain blowing wide open and drowning the whole island in molten rock to cover up that false version of history, but luckily it hadn't come to that. Thank the divine Poldarn for small mercies.

He chose the small grey mare, as being the least useful and valuable horse to steal; for the moment at least he was still head of this household, so he had a duty to minimise its losses where he could. His hands didn't shake or anything like that as he saddled and bridled the horse, which gave him a certain degree of satisfaction. It made him feel that he could at least control his own body, and that was always a good feeling to have.

At the top of the ridge he stopped and wondered if he should look back, take a last sight of Poldarn's Forge. But the sun was rising, and the whole valley was blotted out in a flare of bright red light, so there wouldn't really be anything to see.