Shadow

Chapter Ten

Poldarn woke up out of a bad dream. There were crows in it, and a god who'd talked to him, and a lot of frightening stuff he was glad to see the back of. He opened his eyes and saw something familiar: the back wheel of a cart, turning steadily.

'You're awake, then,' muttered the carter. 'That's good. You know, for a top-of-the-line security guard, you spend a lot of time sleeping. Maybe the gods send you warnings in dreams.'

Poldarn sighed. It was a pity that the carter had taken against him so early, given that they were going to be spending the next four days together. The resentment was understandable, he supposed; he was being paid three times as much as the carter, and the carter was doing all the work (he'd offered to do a share of the driving, but the carter had just scowled suspiciously at him and not replied).

'I'm sorry,' he said mildly. 'It's very boring, sitting here with nothing to do. Sleeping helps pass the time.'

The carter flicked away a wasp with his left hand. 'You snore,' he said. 'And you talk in your sleep. Never knew anybody like it for rabbiting on. Crazy stuff, a lot of it.'

'Really?' Poldarn sat up a little. 'What sort of thing?'

'Don't ask me. I got better things to do than listen.'

Tactical error, Poldarn realised; by expressing an interest, he'd made the carter unwilling to tell him. Still, it wasn't too late to change tack.

'I don't believe you,' he said. 'I've never noticed that I talk in my sleep.'

'Well of course you haven't,' the carter said. 'Think about it.'

Poldarn shook his head. 'Somebody would have mentioned it by now,' he maintained. 'Especially if I really said lots of crazy stuff.'

'Oh, it was crazy all right,' the carter replied. 'Bloody weird, sometimes. All about wars and battles and dead bodies lying around the place; that's when you aren't talking to the gods. What you need is a double dose of rhubarb, clean you out a bit.'

'I thought you said you weren't listening.'

'I wasn't. But you talk so loud I couldn't help hearing bits of it. No choice of mine, I promise you.'

'Give me an example,' Poldarn said. 'Otherwise I'll know you're just bullshitting me.'

The carter laughed. 'You asked for it,' he said. 'What about just now, when you were jabbering away; first it was somebody called Ciartan, next it was General Cronan, then it was the bloody emperor, if you please-I got an idea that's probably treason, dreaming nutty dreams about the emperor-and then, like that wasn't bad enough, you started talking to the gods. "No, I won't do it," you were saying-yelling, more like it, I didn't know where to look. Kept on saying the same thing over and over again, "I won't do it, I won't do it." I'd have woken you up, only they say if you wake someone up when they're having nutty dreams, sometimes they stick like it. I'm telling you, it was better fun than the pantomime.'

Poldarn nodded. 'Glad you enjoyed it,' he said. 'I really wish I could remember some of it. After all, why should you have all the fun?'

The carter shook his head. 'And before that,' he said, 'when you were being Feron Amathy-though why you'd want to be a vicious little creep like that, God only knows. There you were, giving orders-"Burn the houses," you were shouting, "burn the houses, don't let any of them escape." Turned me up just listening to you.'

'Who's Fern Amathy?'

The carter scowled again. 'That's not funny,' he said. 'There's some things you shouldn't make jokes about. People can get offended.'

Poldarn sighed. It was just starting to get dark, and a big flock of rooks were streaming by high overhead, making for a stand of thin larches. 'I wasn't trying to be funny,' he said. 'Seriously, I'm not from around here. Not even from this side of the bay. And I don't recognise the name.'

'You're kidding.'

'No.'

'Oh.' The carter looked at him sideways, as if checking to see if he had an extra finger on either hand now that he knew he was an offcomer. 'Should've known, I suppose, by your voice.'

'My voice?'

'Yeah, your voice. You talk funny. Well, maybe not funny where you come from, but you know what I mean. You don't talk right.'

Poldarn shrugged. He'd made a resolution, he reminded himself; not interested any more. 'Be that as it may,' he said. 'Who's Fern Amathy?'

'Not Fern,' the carter said. 'Feron. Feron Amathy. Runs the biggest free company this side of the bay. Real bastard.'

Free company; ah yes, a euphemism for a band of mercenaries. He'd already gathered that they weren't popular. 'In what way?' he asked.

'Any way you care to name, really. Like, there's a lot of people who reckon it's not the raiders who go around burning down towns and cities, it's the Amathy house, and they kill all the people to make sure there's no witnesses to give the game away. Not all the towns and cities,' the carter added, after a moment's reflection. 'It's when they're between jobs with nothing to do, they go around doing that sort of stuff and blaming it on the raiders. Real bastards, like I said.'

'I agree with you,' Poldarn said, 'if it's really them.'

'Stands to reason,' the carter replied, though he didn't enlarge on it. 'And then there's how he treated General Allectus. There's a lot of people had time for General Allectus, he wasn't half as bad as he's been made out. And even if he was no better than the others, there wasn't any call for Feron Amathy to go changing sides like he did, right in the middle of the battle. That's unprofessional, that is. I mean, before that, if you hired a free company, all right, it's usually a bad move regardless of how things go in the war, but at least you could be pretty sure they wouldn't stab you in the back. Now, though, they're all doing it, and the upshot is, instead of being over nice and quick and clean, these bloody little wars keep dragging on and on, with one lot changing sides, then another lot going over to the other side, backwards and forwards like two mules ploughing. Chaos.'

'I can imagine that it would be,' Poldarn replied. 'And it sounds like you're right about this Feron Amathy. God knows what he was doing in my dream, though.'

The sun was setting fast, and they were just coming under a thick patch of fog (or mist, or low cloud); the effect of the sunset through the mist was fine and slightly disturbing, like drops of blood falling in still, muddy water. Poldarn started to feel anxious, though he couldn't think why.

It must have shown in his face, because the carter noticed it. What are you getting all twitchy about?' he asked suspiciously. 'Is it trouble?'

'I don't know,' Poldarn replied.

'You bloody well ought to, you're the one with the finely honed instincts you're getting paid all that money for. Should we stop here, or go back, or what?'

'I said, I don't know,' Poldarn said. 'I can't see anything that looks wrong. Mind you, I can't really see anything at all. Maybe that's all it is.'

'You mean you're afraid of the dark.' The carter made a clicking noise with his teeth, one of his many annoying habits. 'That's not good enough, is it?' he said reproachfully. 'You're supposed to be able to smell trouble before it happens, that's what you're here for. Well, is it trouble or isn't it?'

'I just told you, I don't know,' Poldarn said impatiently.

The carter stood up and pulled on the reins. 'That's it,' he said, 'I'm stopping right here. You can go on ahead and see what the matter is.'

Poldarn couldn't help grinning. 'What, and leave you here all alone and unprotected? That's not what I'm paid for.'

'Yes, but you're the one carrying the bloody letter.'

'Yes, but they don't know that.'

'Who doesn't know that?'

'Search me.' Poldarn jumped down from the cart and pulled his hat out from under the cover. 'I could do with stretching my legs, I suppose. You want my advice? If I were you, I'd get down off there, climb under the cart and keep still and quiet. That way, they'll think you've gone off too.'

'Who, for God's sake?'

Poldarn shrugged. 'Suit yourself,' he said. 'Don't say I didn't warn you.'

Muttering hurtful things under his breath, the carter hopped down and vanished under the bed of the cart. 'Don't hang around,' he hissed in a very loud whisper. 'See what's out there and come straight back, you hear me?'

'Shh,' Poldarn replied, and walked into the mist.

It was the very last of the sunset, the last glow of heat left in the cooling embers of the day, just enough orange and red light to see a few yards by until the glow rolled back on the wall of cloud. It wasn't fear, Poldarn decided, more a sense of unease, as if he was missing something important, relevant and useful. He tripped over a stone and scampered a few steps before regaining his balance.

'Hello?' a man's voice called out from somewhere in the cloud.

'Hello yourself,' Poldarn called back. 'Where are you?'

'Over here,' the voice said, uselessly. 'Can you help me? I think I've broken my leg.'

It was an interesting, attractive voice, high-pitched, full of character, the accent probably denoting high birth and refinement, though that was just a guess. 'How did you manage that?' Poldarn called back, straining to get a fix on where the voice was coming from.

'Bloody pheasant got up right under my feet, startled my horse, the miserable thing threw me. I think I landed badly or something.' Deliberate cheerfulness laid over repressed panic: either genuine or a good actor. Poldarn reassured himself that his sword was in his belt, and headed off the road towards where he reckoned the voice was coming from. When he figured he was close, he turned a right angle, walked fifteen paces, turned another right angle and hoped he hadn't missed his mark. The idea, of course, was to come up behind whoever it was, in case it was an ambush, but if he'd got it wrong he could find himself in even worse trouble than if he hadn't bothered at all.

But he was vindicated, eventually; in front of him he could make out the shape of a man, sitting with his back to him, his legs spread out in a thoroughly uncomfortable-looking position that couldn't have been voluntary. A few steps closer and he could just see a horse grazing a few yards further on. So far, so good. He waited, wondering where all these instincts had come from, looking and listening for anything that might suggest that he and the man with the broken leg weren't the only people there. When he was as near satisfied as he could reasonably expect, he closed in a step or two, keeping the trunk of a tall, thin tree between himself and the man (so he'd be able to see the man's face while remaining hidden himself), and cleared his throat.

The other man started, did something unfortunate to his leg, and yelped with pain. 'Bloody hell,' he said, twisting his head round, 'where did you come from?'

'I was talking to you just now,' Poldarn said.

'Yes, but you were-oh, I see. Cautious beggar, aren't you? Come over here, where I can see you.'

Poldarn took another look round the tree. The man was older than he'd thought, middle to late forties by the grey hair over his ears; strikingly good-looking all the same, in a boyish kind of way, with sharp, distinct features and large brown eyes. He was also liberally splattered with mud. He looked harmless enough, and Poldarn was fairly sure he was alone, so he came out from behind the tree and moved forward.

'Oh bloody hell,' the stranger said, staring at him, his face changing completely. 'For pity's sake, what are you doing here? Are you out of your mind, or what?'

On balance, Poldarn decided, he'd have preferred it if the man had jumped up and pulled a knife. He was surprised by his own reaction. What he really wanted to do was turn around and walk away, and he couldn't quite understand why, but the urge was so strong he found it hard to resist.

'You know me,' he said.

'I thought I did,' the stranger replied. 'I mean, I'm used to you pulling some bloody stupid stunts but this is going too far, even by your standards. Have you got the faintest idea what they'll do to me if we're seen together? If you've got a death-wish, that's absolutely fine. Just leave me out of it. I'm sick and tired of rescuing you every time you get it into your head to do something crazy.'

'No, really,' Poldarn said (and he felt like there was an enormous weight on his chest, so heavy he could hardly breathe). 'You don't understand.'

The stranger was looking round. 'This is the last time, got it?' he said angrily. 'Absolutely the last time. For God's sake, anybody with half a brain would've taken the hint by now. I don't know,' he went on, shaking his head eloquently, 'somebody up there must hate me. It all goes round and round, like a windmill. First I'm in the shit up to my elbows, under guard, on my way to Torcea for a long chat with my dear cousin. Then suddenly it all gets better; a little money changes hands, I give them the slip and I'm on my way home; then the bloody pheasant, and I'm lying there in a heap with a bust leg. And if that wasn't enough, you have to show up.' A thought seemed to occur to him. 'Big coincidence, that,' he added, 'though I suppose even you couldn't have arranged the pheasant. No, I'm probably just being paranoid, though where you're concerned, normal criteria don't seem to apply, for some reason. What she sees in you, I have no idea.' He rubbed his chin, thinking something over, and appeared to reach a decision. 'Look, I can get you past the soldiers, so long as you keep your face shut; that's assuming none of them know you by sight, but we may just get lucky. You're alone?'

'No,' Poldarn said. Simply keeping still was an almost unbearable effort; he'd just realised exactly how frightened he was. Up till then he'd been too preoccupied to notice. But the fear was there, no doubt about it, just starting to well up and flow (it's the same way with a deep cut: there's a second or so after the impact when the flesh is numb and nothing seems to be happening; then the bleeding starts, and suddenly you get a much clearer idea of where your priorities lie).

Let's get out of this alive first, Poldarn decided. The other stuff can wait. 'Listen,' he said, 'I'm only a delivery man, we're taking a load of stuff to the city' (Of course, he could just leave the man lying and walk away, as his instincts urged him to. That would be the simplest thing, and the safest, if there was danger. A sensible man would do that, without hesitation. But that begged the question of who was supposed to be being rescued, and there appeared to be some doubt on that score.) 'Can you please tell me what this is all about?'

'Oh, give it a rest, can't you?' The stranger stared at him as if he was mad. 'I've had it with you,' he said. 'God only knows what possessed me to get mixed up with a lunatic like you in the first place. If it was just me, I'd have the soldiers kill you now, tell them you're a footpad or something, simply to be shot of you.' He sighed. 'Still, can't really do that, she'd never forgive me. All right; now keep quiet and I'll get us out of this, somehow. Who's the man with you?'

Poldarn shrugged. 'He's a carter, from the Falx house. His name's Gotto. That's all I know about him.'

'The Falx house.' The stranger closed his eyes. 'Oh, it just gets better and better. Can't you simply cut his throat and dump him somewhere? No, forget it, that'd be too risky, Falx Roisin would be bound to figure out what's going on.'

Poldarn doubted that, from what he'd seen of his employer, but then what did he know about anything?

'You're sure he doesn't know who you are?' the stranger went on. 'Hey, did I just say something funny?'

Poldarn shook his head. 'Sorry,' he said. 'If you'd just listen-'

'Oh no. I listened to you the last time, and now look at me. Did you say you've got a cart?'

'Yes.'

The stranger frowned. 'Not so bad, after all. You know, maybe there's actually a way out of this. If we could only slide past the soldiers without them seeing me-you know, that could work out rather well. You're still a dangerous lunatic who ought to be put down, but we might just get away with it. You're sure the carter doesn't know?' He lifted his head sharply. 'Shut up,' he whispered, 'someone's coming. Sorry,' he continued, his voice changing effortlessly back to the charming drawl he'd used earlier, 'that's not a very friendly way to say hello to your saviour. Please forgive me; I'm not used to misfortune, it makes me edgy.'

Poldarn glanced round, and saw that the carter was peering at them from behind a tree. He hadn't heard him approaching, so either bewilderment was turning him deaf or the stranger had exceptional hearing.

'Who's this?' the carter asked. He wasn't quite close enough to see the stranger's face; he was holding off, just out of range, like a canny rook circling a feed trough.

'Fell off my horse,' the stranger said, 'and broke my stupid leg. I was wondering, do you think you could possibly give me a lift as far as Mael? If you're headed that way, that is.'

The carter came out from behind his tree, radiating curiosity like a watchman's brazier. 'I don't know about that,' he said. 'We're not supposed-'

'Of course,' the stranger said, 'I can make it worth your while.'

The carter stopped dead in his tracks. 'I don't know,' he repeated. 'Got my job to think about.'

'It'd be no fun at all riding all that way with a broken leg,' Poldarn said, mostly just to break the silence before it choked him. 'I suppose you'd better hitch a ride with us.'

The man's face was a study in relief. 'That's very kind of you,' he said.

Poldarn shrugged. 'We're headed that way anyway,' he said, walking round the back of him so the man couldn't turn and look at his face without hurting himself badly. He wondered if he was doing the right thing, but he simply didn't have enough facts to go on. Soldiers, the stranger had said, and a lot of stuff about danger and risk. For his part, Poldarn decided, he mostly wished he was somewhere else. Here was the past come to visit, like one's least favourite relatives calling unannounced at the worst possible time. He envied the stranger the fluency with which he'd changed faces, and wondered if it was something that could be acquired with practice, like skill at arms, or whether you had to be born with it, like being able to divine water with a twig or read minds. He wished he could do something like that; walk over the top of complexity, like a fly skittering across a pool.

He reached down and pulled the stranger up by the hand on to his good leg and caught him before he could topple over. He put his shoulder under the man's arm. 'Nice and steady,' he said. 'It's not far to the cart. Here, Gotto, give me a hand.'

The mist cleared as soon as they got down off the high ground, but it was dark and the road was rutted and soft, and the carter's temper wasn't improving. 'The hell with this,' he said, after a jolt nearly broke the axle and made the stranger yelp with pain. 'I say we stop here for the night. It's at least two more hours to Vauc Dosime, and I've had enough.'

There didn't seem to be much point in arguing, although, as Poldarn pointed out (just to be difficult), they didn't have any food with them, and nothing to build a fire with. The carter didn't bother to reply, so presumably he didn't think much of either argument. Poldarn could also have pointed out that there was only one blanket, namely the one the carter was sitting on, but he felt that that could lead to unpleasantness and bad feeling, so he let the matter slide. There was always the cart cover (though it still had about half a gallon of water collected in its folds after the late afternoon rain) and his coat; on the other hand, he felt obliged to offer that to the stranger.

'No, it's all right, really,' the stranger replied. 'I've caused you enough trouble as it is.'

Poldarn shook his head. 'Take the damn coat,' he said.

The stranger grinned and accepted. 'If you're sure,' he replied.

'I offered, didn't I?' He fished in his satchel for the small flask of strong spirits that Eolla had advised him never to travel without and offered it to the stranger. As he did so he caught sight of the carter looking sideways at them both. He felt painfully exposed; the silence was unnatural, not appropriate for a rescue, a good deed. Some small talk was called for.

'Have you got friends in Mael who'll look after you?' he asked.

'No; but it's all right, my-' The stranger paused, searching for the right word. 'The people I'm with have an office there, lodgings for couriers and travellers, that sort of thing. I'll be all right.'

'Sounds like a fairly big concern,' Poldarn said. 'Mercantile? Banking?'

'That sort of thing,' the man replied calmly. 'How about you?'

'We're in the dried fish and sausage business,' Poldarn said. 'Just our luck that we get held up on the way there, of course. If we were on the way home, we'd be fully loaded with dried tuna and blood sausage, not to mention a couple of jars of Mael beer.'

'Just my luck,' the stranger said, 'I missed a treat. But there you go, you don't always make your own luck.'

'I suppose not,' Poldarn said. 'Well, get some sleep if you can. We're going to have to try to make up time tomorrow, so it won't be very comfortable.'

Judging by the sound of his breathing, the stranger had no trouble at all getting to sleep; remarkable, if there was any truth in what he'd said about the danger they were both in. Poldarn, on the other hand, was wide awake. He pulled his collar up around his chin and drew his sleeves down as far as they'd go, but it didn't help much. It was a cold night, even if it wasn't raining, and there seemed to be rather more of it than was actually necessary.

About three hours before dawn, by Poldarn's reckoning, he was startled out of a train of thought concerning his unusually broad knowledge of languages and dialects and the implications that went with it by what he thought might have been the sound of someone coughing quite some way away in the direction they'd come from. He listened carefully for a while, but there was nothing else to hear, and it could just as easily have been a fox as a human. Nevertheless he sat up enough so that he could get to his sword if he had to. Perversely, he was now starting to feel drowsy; although he couldn't see the back of his own hand, he knew that if he closed his eyes, even for a moment, he'd be fast asleep in no time. He lifted and shook his head; that helped, though only for a short while.

He'd come to the conclusion that it was all his imagination, egged on by Falx Roisin's colourful account of what had happened to his predecessors, combined with the stranger's dark mutterings about soldiers (whom they were supposed to be slipping past without being seen, with the implication that their lives depended on it), when he heard what was without doubt the sound of two pieces of metal grating together, as it might be the rim of a shield against a tasset or a sword chape against a greave. He caught his breath and dug his elbow into the carter's back.

'Wake up,' he hissed.

'Piss off,' the carter mumbled.

He dug rather harder this time, and the carter sat up with a shudder. 'What the bloody-?'

'Quiet.' There must have been something in his voice that impressed the carter, who did as he was told for the first time since they'd started working together. 'There's someone coming.'

'So what?' the carter muttered. 'It's a road. You get people on roads, it's life.'

'Shh.' This time, it was a creak; a stiff boot, perhaps, or shifting weight on a belt. The carter heard it too; Poldarn could feel the cart move slightly as he jumped in his seat and started rummaging on the floor for the sack he kept his sword in. That gave him an idea. As quietly as he could, so the carter wouldn't know he'd gone, he slipped over the side of the cart and dropped to the ground, reaching out with his toes to ease himself down. On the sides of his feet (the quietest way; how come he knew that?) he walked round to where he figured the tailgate must be, feeling his way with the back of his outstretched left hand, then stopped and worked out a mental diagram, marking the strategic points and relevant distances. He'd almost completed this task when he remembered the stranger's horse, which for some reason the carter had tethered separately from their own, behind the cart. He added it to the schematic in his mind, just in case it proved important later.

There were two of them, at least; he heard a muffled cough somewhere in front of him, and a rustle of cloth away to his right. Aggravating; why weren't they keeping to the road? The only reason he could think of was that they knew where the cart was and wanted to sneak up and surround it, which implied that they probably weren't going to turn out to be friendly. Was the whole world like this, he wondered; and if so, how the hell was it still inhabited at all?

Someone walked past him, only a foot or so away, breaking into his circle. He kept his hand away from his sword hilt with an effort, confining himself to placing his toe behind the back of the other man's knee and pushing. He heard the man go down, took an educated guess as to where his neck would be, and trod lightly there with the side of his foot. Judging by feel, he'd guessed about right.

'Shh,' he whispered. Then he waited to find out what would happen.

'Gian,' someone called out. 'Are you all right?'

Gian, wisely, didn't answer. His friend repeated the enquiry, and some other faint noises suggested to Poldarn that one-or more-of the invisible strangers was heading in his direction. That was what he'd wanted to happen, but it occurred to him that he hadn't really thought it through; the idea of leaving the cart in the first place was to avoid being in a place where anybody could find him, to be a free agent in the darkness. Now he'd effectively told them where he was and invited them to come to him. He had the advantage of a hostage, of course, but they didn't know that.

'Stay where you are,' he called out, 'or I'll break his neck.'

(Fine. If they do as they're told, all we have to do is stay perfectly still till dawn. Piece of cake.)

'Who's there?' another voice shouted back.

'You first,' Poldarn replied. 'Who are you, how many, and what are you doing sneaking about in the dark?'

Gian squirmed slightly under his foot; a little additional pressure soon fixed that.

'I'm Captain Olens of the domestic cavalry,' the voice said confidently, 'second regiment, fifth detachment, seventeenth squadron, forty-third platoon. Who the hell are you?'

Poldarn grinned. 'Nobody important,' he replied, 'except that I'm standing on your friend's neck, and if anybody does anything I don't like, I'll kill him. Understood?'

'Understood,' Captain Olens said nervously.

'Splendid.' Poldarn turned his head towards where he figured the cart should be. 'Gotto,' he yelled, hoping the carter was still there, alive and awake. 'Gotto, are you there?'

'Yes,' the carter replied. 'What the hell's going on?'

Poldarn paused to listen, then replied, 'No idea. Get the lantern lit and we'll find out.'

Now came the awkward part. He stooped down, taking care not to compromise his balance and give Gian an opportunity to escape or attack, slid his sword quietly from the scabbard with his right hand and felt for Gian's hair with his left. He connected and wound a loop of it round his fingers, to serve as a handle. 'Shh,' he repeated, as quietly as he could, shifted his foot off Gian's neck and pulled on the hair at the same time as he straightened up. Gian came up with him, and as soon as they were both upright he let him feel the edge of the sword against his neck. Then he pushed him forward. Disaster would be bumping into someone. Success would be getting to the tailgate of the cart without letting go of Gian or killing him. Rather to his surprise, he achieved success without any serious complications.

The key, he figured, was the stranger's horse, which they'd picked up on the way. He located it by colliding with it softly, and drew himself and his prisoner into the gap between the horse and the back of the cart, shielding them both. About two seconds after he was in position, Gotto's lantern flared up.

'Not on me, you idiot,' he hissed. 'Get down off the cart and walk forward in a straight line.' For once the carter did as he was told without even arguing the toss. 'All right,' he said, 'stop there. Right, the rest of you, head for the lantern and stop where I can see you.'

(Allegory, he thought; in the dark you aren't anybody, or you're who you say you are; with all the practice I've had lately, I should be good at this.)

A face appeared in the glow of the lantern; it was young and round, topped with curly dark hair. 'I'm Captain Olens,' it said. 'We mean you no harm,' it added, rather too obviously as an afterthought for Poldarn's liking. 'Now, who in buggery are you?'

'Olens,' said another voice, 'is that you?'

(And that voice, Poldarn realised, was the stranger, the man with the broken leg. That was either good or bad, depending on context and general world view.)

'Sir?'

'Olens, you bloody clown.' (Ah. Now we're getting somewhere.) 'Will you stop prancing about and leave these people alone? They're on our side.'

Sir,' Captain Olens replied bitterly. 'All right, fall out, over here. Sir,' he went on, 'Sergeant Gian-'

'What? Oh, yes. Excuse me, but would you mind letting him go? These people are-' A very long pause, as if the stranger was making up his mind about something. 'Well, I know them, they won't hurt us.'

Poldarn thought about that. Trouble is, people don't have their designation written on their foreheads-friend, good guy, ambusher, assassin, rescuer. Depending on what decision the stranger had come to, releasing the hostage might prove to be a bad, and final, mistake. On the other hand, he was getting cramp in his sword arm. He let go of Gian's hair, laid his left hand flat between the man's shoulder blades, and shoved. Then he followed, heading towards the light.

There was Gotto, on one side of the lantern; on the other side, four faces, almost immediately joined by a fifth. 'Excuse me,' called out the stranger with the broken leg, 'but if you could bring the light over here, Captain Olens can see it's me and maybe we can all calm down a bit.'

Even Gotto could see the sense in that. Poldarn followed, taking care to stay out of the yellow circle, determined to be nobody and nowhere for as long as he could.

'Olens,' the man with the broken leg was saying, 'where the devil did you get to? I was lying in a ditch in the fog for an hour with a broken leg. If it hadn't been for these people-'

'Sir,' Captain Olens replied. He had the knack of investing that one word with a whole language's worth of meanings. 'I think we went past you in the fog, after we got separated. Then we realised you weren't with us and went back; then I gave the order to search the ground on either side of the road inch by inch, in case you'd fallen and been knocked out, or-' Slight pause. 'Or something like that.'

'Idiot.' The man with the broken leg didn't strike Poldarn as the forgiving sort. 'Right, we can't do anything till morning. I suppose you and your men had better get some sleep. I suggest underneath the cart.'

'Sir.'

He turned his head, looking for Poldarn. 'I say,' he called out, 'you can come back in now, it's all right.'

Poldarn thought before replying. 'In a moment,' he said. 'First, suppose you tell me what the hell this is all about, and who these clowns are.'

The other man grinned. 'About time, I suppose,' he said. 'All right. My name is Tazencius-Prince Tazencius if you want to be all formal about it, which I don't. These men are supposed to be my bodyguard; which should mean,' he added, raising his voice a little, 'that they rescue me from the jaws of death, and not the other way round. But that's by the by.'

Poldarn sighed. All right,' he said, 'that's your name. Now, who are you?'

'Oh, for crying out loud.' Tazencius looked Poldarn in the eye and shook his head slowly, the very image of a man whose patience ran out long ago, leaving him with only a faded memory of what it was like to deal with rational, normal people. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'I shouldn't have assumed you'd know who I am. I'm the emperor's third cousin; rather more to the point, I'm the imperial prefect of Mael Bohec-hence the splendid but utterly useless honour guard.'

Poldarn turned his head away. 'Gotto,' he said, 'have you heard of anybody called-what was that name again?'

'Tazencius.'

'Of course I have, you moron,' Gotto replied. 'But how do we know it's really you? I mean, I could put a saucepan on my head and call myself the God of Boiled Dumplings; wouldn't mean I was telling the truth.'

Tazencius smiled, rather more warmly than the joke merited. 'Quite right,' he said. 'Still, since you were willing to help me when I was just some fool who'd fallen off his horse, I hope you won't change your mind now there's at least a possibility that I'm rich and famous.'

Gotto scowled. 'I don't know,' he said. 'I reckon if you were really Tazencius, your guards would've commandeered the cart by now.'

'Oh, I think even Captain Olens knows when he's done enough damage for one night,' Tazencius replied. 'After all, this cart's not going to move any faster even if it were to become government property for a day or so; the only difference would be that I'd have annoyed two strangers who've gone out of their way to help me.'

The carter furrowed his brows. 'I still reckon-' he began.

'Gotto,' Poldarn interrupted, 'shut up. As for you,' he went on, 'what about your men? I heard the officer say something about being cavalry. So where are their horses?'

This time, Tazencius frowned. 'You know,' he said, 'that's a very good point. I hadn't thought of that. They had them last time I saw them. Captain Olens,' he called out, 'did you hear that?'

'Sir,' replied a voice, muffled by the boards of the cart. 'I left them with Corporal Vestens back where we first noticed you were missing, so we could comb the area for you. Too dark to go searching for someone on horseback.'

'That makes sense,' Poldarn admitted. 'All right, let's all get some sleep. The main thing is,' he went on, staring hard at Tazencius, 'I can't think of any reason why you or your people would want to cut our throats, so I'll trust you not to. Agreed?'

Of course, Poldarn had no intention of sleeping, even if there had been any chance that he might. As far as he could judge from the sound of their breathing, Tazencius and his escort (and Gotto, for what little that mattered) all fell asleep quite quickly and easily, but he wasn't prepared to trust his judgement on that point, or many others. It'd all be easier, he reckoned, when daylight came and gave the world back its memory. Dealing in anonymity and trust in the pitch dark was no way for grown men to do business.

He couldn't help wondering, all the same (and it was that time in the early hours of the morning when perspectives are generally different): first Chaplain Cleapho, escaping (presumably he'd escaped) an ambush by the skin of his teeth; now the man Tazencius, whom Cleapho had mentioned (and who'd turned out to be prefect of Mael Bohec, whatever that signified), wandering about in the mist with a rather small escort, surely, for an important man (guessing that prefects were as important as they sounded); add a variety of different types of soldier, the burning of Josequin, all manner of alarms, excitements and coincidences following him round like a tripe butcher's dog (This man who called himself Prince Tazencius, some off-relation of the emperor himself, who reckoned that the two of them were hopelessly shackled together by some secret bond of guilt and fear… First the emperor's chaplain, now the emperor's cousin, claiming to be his fellow conspirators in some desperate venture. Poldarn squeezed his nails into the palm of his hand. He'd tried explaining, and asking; perhaps it was time to take the hint. The pig doesn't stop to ask the slaughterman why the abattoir gate's been left unexpectedly open.)

He yawned. All in all, he'd been happier alone in the dark, with his boot on a stranger's neck. That way, at least, he'd had some measure of control, and he'd been invisible. There was clearly a lot to be said for being nobody nowhere, at least in the short term.

Then, in spite of himself and everything, he fell asleep. If he dreamed, he didn't remember any of it when he woke up, or any splinters of memory sticking into his mind were quickly dislodged by what he saw when he opened his eyes -Gotto, still sitting squarely on the box but with his head leaning right back on to his shoulder blades, his throat cut to the bone, blood still glistening black in the fibres of his coat. No sign of anybody else, no horses, just himself, a dead man and-inevitably, inevitably-two crows opening their wings in exasperation as he interrupted them in their work.