Shadow

Chapter Thirteen

'It's just as well you happened to be in the area,' the magistrate said, quickening his pace to keep up. 'We've been going through the books trying to figure out which jurisdiction these clowns fall under, and it's starting to look depressingly like they slip down between the cracks. But of course, what we know about ecclesiastical law in this town could be written on the edge of a knife.'

'Don't look at me,' Brother Monach replied over his shoulder. 'I'm not a lawyer.'

'Yes, yes, I appreciate that,' the magistrate panted. 'But you're a priest, a brother of the order, so that must make you an expert, yes?'

'On what?'

Gods,' the magistrate said, 'and stuff like that. You see, this isn't what you'd call a passionately religious town-'

'I'd noticed.'

'Yes, well.' The magistrate was wheezing alarmingly, so Monach slowed down a little. Not too much, though. 'We all serve the Divine in different ways, don't we?'

'Do we?' Monach stopped, his progress impeded by a heavy oak door. The magistrate caught up and paused for breath before knocking on it. A panel shot back, through which Monach could see a nose and a pair of eyes, then the door opened and a guard snapped to attention. For some reason, the magistrate seemed to find that embarrassing.

'This way,' he said. 'Look, I appreciate that you may not think of yourself as an expert in this field, but you're a damn sight more of an expert than anybody else I can think of in this town. Will you help us out? Please?'

Monach, who'd come here with the express intention of getting a chance to interview the prisoners, reluctantly agreed that he would. This seemed to make the magistrate very happy.

'That's wonderful,' the magistrate said, taking a lantern from a sconce on the wall. 'Basically, we need to know if there's a case to answer on the ecclesiastical law charges-blasphemy, incitement to heresy, tempting providence, that sort of thing-because if there is, it'll be quite simple: we can hand them over to you-'

This was, of course, exactly what Monach wanted. 'Me?' he said sharply. 'What the hell am I supposed to do with them?'

'Take them somewhere and, well, try them. Put 'em on trial, lock 'em up, stretch their necks for 'em; you can even let the buggers go, if that's the right thing to do. Just so long as you get them off my slop ticket. I really couldn't care less. If you can't-meaning, if there's no case on the blasphemy counts-we're going to have to try to get them on general fraud and obtaining money by deception, and I have a really bad feeling about that on the basis of the evidence we've got. And if I put 'em on trial on secular charges and they get off, I might as well move into their cell and have the guards drop the key in the melt.'

Monach laughed. 'Which is why you're so keen to get rid of them without bringing them to trial,' he said. 'Not bad. Quite shrewd, in fact.' He altered his tone of voice a little. 'Fact is, though,' he said, 'if the evidence doesn't disclose an apparent blasphemy or other illegal act, I'm not passing false judgement just to get you out of a hole. Understood?'

The magistrate cringed a little. 'Understood,' he said. 'Still, when you hear what the witnesses have to say-'

'I'll assess it for myself, thank you very much, without any helpful pointing in the right direction from you.' Talking to the magistrate like this made him feel a bit guilty; he could see plainly enough that the fix he was in wasn't his fault, and he was pretty sure he'd be doing something very similar if he was in the poor man's position. Nevertheless, it was important to act convincingly.

The magistrate stopped outside another thick, black door. 'Here we are,' he said with fairly obvious relief. 'You want a guard in there with you, in case?'

Monach grinned and pulled back the hem of his robe just an inch or so, enough to reveal the hilt of his sword. The magistrate obviously knew what he was looking at; Monach could sense the fear. 'You shouldn't really be carrying something like that in public,' he said quietly.

'Benefit of clergy,' Monach replied. 'Besides, if they do try and attack me, all your problems will be over.'

The magistrate made a valiant effort to hide his distaste. 'Well,' he said, 'just call out when you're done. We'll be right here.'

The door opened into pitch darkness; the magistrate handed him the lantern, and he went in. He heard the door shut and the bolts go back, and lifted the lantern, extending its circle. At the extreme edge, he caught sight of two faces and took a step forward.

They were sitting on the floor (no furniture in the cell) with their backs to the wall and their legs sticking out straight in front of them. The woman just looked frightened and miserable; the man was frightened too, but some last scrap of self-respect enabled him to scowl. Their faces were mottled with bruises and scabbed-over cuts. Monach settled comfortably on his knees, in the starting position for the third sequence (draw from a kneeling posture to engage an enemy seated opposite; single-handed cut to the throat followed by two-handed overhead cut to the opposite side of the neck; he'd been doing it so often for so long that it was hard to keep his hands still).

'Well, now,' he said. 'Impersonating a god. It may be possible to get in more trouble, but I couldn't tell you offhand how to go about it.'

'It's all a misunderstanding,' the man said. 'We-'

'We didn't mean any harm,' the woman interrupted. 'We were just-'

'We were just spreading the word,' the man cut in, and Monach had to make an effort not to smile; his guess was that they were husband and wife, probably had been for some time. 'Since when is it a crime to preach the Divine?'

'Without a licence from the diocesan office,' Monach replied smoothly. 'Oh, about a hundred and fifty years, though I can't quote you the precise date or section number. Unlicensed preaching; let's see, that's an ecclesiastical felony, five years confined penance to death, depending on the facts; unless you're preaching a god not recognised by statute-basically, that means not listed in Strouthes' Digest-in which case it's incitement to heresy, ten years to death, with mitigation accepted from non-citizens. Failing which,' he went on with a gentle smile, 'there's at least half a dozen secular public order offences that cover the same ground, any one of which'll get you five years or more in the slate quarries. The slate quarries are marginally preferable to confined penance, because the religious orders don't have jails, only prison hulks, mines and galleys. Very few people survive long enough in the galleys to serve five years.' He shook his head. 'It could be worse,' he said. 'You could've been arrested a mile or so nearer to Mael and ended up there. The Guild isn't nearly as humanitarian as we are. Now,' he went on after a pause, during which neither the man nor the woman made a sound, 'since sticking either of you two behind an oar won't achieve anything beyond a minor reduction in the efficiency of the Fleet, here's my suggestion. You stop trying to jerk me around and tell me the truth; I'll see what I can do to get you out of this in one piece. Shall we talk, or would you rather hear about the far more serious offence of impersonating a god?'

He had their undivided attention. Good. 'Let's start with some names, shall we?' he said pleasantly.

'I'm Tiryns,' the woman said, 'he's Louth Ressal.'

Monach nodded. 'And how long have you been married?'

'Twelve years.'

Thought so. 'Where are you from?'

'Ressal's from Josequin,' the woman told him. 'I'm from Morsello-'

'Morsello, in Morevich? You're a long way from home.'

The woman nodded. 'It's a long story,' she said.

'No doubt.' Josequin, Monach said to himself, that's interesting. 'So, what prompted you to start impersonating gods, and how long did you do it for?'

The man and the woman looked at each other. 'It was what happened at Josequin, I guess,' the man said. 'We were lucky' He pulled a face. 'Well, we thought so at the time. We'd gone to Weal; my mother was dying, we left as soon as we heard but we got there too late; when we got back, the city just wasn't there any more. Well, when we found out what had happened, we thought, thank God we weren't there. Then we realised that everything we'd had-the house and my workshop (I was a glassblower)-was all gone, nothing left. We didn't have anything, I couldn't do my work without tools, we didn't know where to turn. Then we happened to meet up with someone on the road who told us about the god in the cart, and we thought-well, why not? Except of course we didn't have a cart; but then, just as we were setting off heading for Sansory, we came across this big old farm cart tucked in under a hedge. Seemed like, you know, an omen; especially when we found a couple of riderless horses feeding nearby. We started from there and headed north-actually, we headed what we thought was north, we couldn't even get that right-and just our rotten bloody luck, the first village we tried was one where these other two had been before-'

'Cric.'

The man looked at him. 'Sorry?'

'Cric. The name of the village.'

'No, I don't think so. It was Scele or Scale, something like that. Can't remember precisely, but it wasn't Cric.'

'Oh.' Monach looked up; that had thrown him. 'And this was after Josequin? You're sure about that? Because God help me if you're telling lies.'

'Positive,' the woman put in. 'And I'm almost certain the name of the place was Scale, because it reminded me so much of my uncle Ascaltus, rest his soul. I don't think I've ever been to a place called Cric.'

Monach took a moment to consider what he'd been told. It sounded entirely plausible; the part about getting caught the first time they tried to pull the scam was particularly convincing, it was just the sort of thing that would happen to the kind of feckless losers he took these two to be. There was only one thing that snagged in the lining of his mind, and it was too insignificant to bother about.

'You're lying,' he said quietly.

For a moment it looked as if they were going to protest, declare that every word was true, maybe shout or burst into tears. He was relieved that they didn't, since he found that sort of thing rather disturbing. 'How did you know?' the man said.

'I'm not stupid,' Monach replied. 'Now, since you aren't going to tell me the truth, I'd better tell you. I don't know about you,' he went on, nodding at the woman, 'you may well be from Morevich for all I know, but you're not from Josequin.'

The man sighed and looked at his feet. 'No,' he said.

'No, My guess is you're either a deserter from the army or a veteran-early discharge for some reason or another-and you joined one of the free companies about twelve years ago-the bit about you being married a long time I do believe, not that it matters a damn. The point is, you're a southerner just like she is.'

The man nodded. 'My dad was a veteran,' he said, 'got resettled in Morsello after his discharge. And that's true.'

Monach shrugged. 'If you say so. What matters is that you come up here, north of the Bohec, deliberately intending to work this scam, and you've been doing it for at least six months. And you're good at it, too. Healing the sick-well, a woman hanging round the free companies learns a bit about setting bones and curing fevers, I guess that was your field of expertise.' The woman nodded. 'As for you,' he went on, turning to the man, 'the imperial corps of sappers and siege engineers is mostly recruited in Morevich; that's how you know about flares and bombards and other things that blow up and make a deafening noise when you set light to them. Very obscure and closely guarded branch of knowledge, that is; which makes deserter rather more likely than discharged veteran.'

'All right,' the man said. 'Yes, I ran away. Do you want the details?'

'No,' Monach replied. 'Anyway, that's what I know; everything bearing directly on your guilt and the kind of sentence you'll get. What I actually want to know is really nothing to do with that side of things, so by telling me the truth there's no way you can make things any worse for yourselves. But you could make them a lot better.'

He left the words between them in the air for a moment or so, before continuing.

'First question,' he said. 'And remember, if I think you're lying, you'll stay in the trouble you're in. All right. Why did you choose to impersonate Poldarn? Why pick a name that doesn't mean anything on this side of the bay?'

The man shrugged. 'I grew up with stories about Poldarn,' he said. 'Besides, I know he doesn't exist. I didn't want to risk pretending to be a god who might exist.'

Monach smiled. 'Nice reasoning,' he said. And why exactly are you so sure Poldarn doesn't exist?'

'How do you mean?'

Monach wasn't quite sure how to answer. 'I mean,' he said, 'given that you're a believer or at least an agnostic-hence the rather charming superstition-why single out Poldarn as a god who quite definitely doesn't exist? You said it like you'd seen proof somewhere.' He stopped, and frowned. 'Did I just say something funny? Must've been very funny indeed if it made you laugh, considering how much trouble you're in.'

The man looked suitably ashamed. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'really. It just seemed so-well, odd; I mean, you're a priest, surely you know…'

The scowl on Monach's face set hard, like concrete. 'Enlighten me,' he said.

'It was the monks,' the woman cut in. 'At Endlupho Mountain. They made him up. They were short of money; people weren't going there any more, so they made up a god to get people to come and worship.'

Monach sighed. 'What's she talking about?'

'It's true,' the man said. 'Well, more or less. It was a long time ago, before Morevich was added to the empire. I don't know the details; it was something about the empire annexing a province, which cut right across the pilgrim trail to a famous shrine somewhere down on the coast. Endlupho was like a staging post for these pilgrims, and when they stopped going that way-started going another way so they wouldn't have to cross the bit the empire had taken over-the monastery at Endlupho was about to die out. So they cooked up a god of their own, started a pilgrim trail. It worked really well. Then about a hundred years ago the abbot of Endlupho got in a fight with the district agent over water rights in the valley or something of the sort, and the agent got so mad he sent his soldiers up the mountain to clear the monks out, and when they got there they found all the old chapter minutes and documents like that, going back hundreds of years, and it was all in there, about the abbot and chapter deciding to invent a god, even the records from the committee they set up to choose a name. As far as I can remember, it came down to a choice between Poldarn and Bettanc, and I think the abbot flipped a coin. In fact, I have an idea they got the name Poldarn off a roof tile-you know, the name of the brickyard that made it. Anyway, the other priests had it all hushed up and I don't suppose many people outside Morevich knew about it. But that's what happened. And there really is no such god as Poldarn.'

Monach really didn't know what to say this time. 'Oh' didn't seem to cover it. It was a while before he could think of anything more impressive.

'Doesn't change a thing,' he said at last. 'Impersonating a god who doesn't exist is even worse than faking one who does; it's idolatry.' He stood up, ducking at the last moment to avoid the low ceiling. 'Still,' he went on, 'as you've probably guessed, you've told me something I didn't know. Now tell me something else. Did you go to Cric?'

The woman shook her head. 'No,' she said. 'I promise.'

'Right.' Monach sighed. 'All right, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell the magistrate that you're being transferred to Deymeson for trial, which'll please him no end, at any rate. As soon as we're out of sight of the city, I'm going to turn you loose. But if I ever hear another report about gods in carts or the second coming of Poldarn-or gods who don't exist because some bloody fool made them up-I'll have a word with my brothers in the martial order, and twenty sword-monks will be sent to find you and bring back your heads, nicely packed in salt and oregano to keep them fresh. You know about the sword-monks, do you?'

The expressions on their faces suggested that they did. 'Thank you,' the man said.

Monach sighed. 'My pleasure,' he replied sourly. 'Oh, and you might as well have this.' He picked twelve gold gross-quarters out of his sleeve and dropped them on the floor. 'That way, you won't have any need to make nuisances of yourselves till you're safely across the bay. You can do what the hell you like in Torcea and it won't cause me any problems. Just remember,' he said, putting his thumb behind the guard of his sword and shifting it out half an inch so they could see it. 'Keep your faces shut, be good, or I promise you, you won't realise you're dead till your heads hit the floor. Understood?'

The magistrate was waiting for him out in the passage. 'Well?' he asked.

Monach ran his sleeve across his forehead. 'Listen to me,' he said. 'I'm taking these two with me. You don't know anything about them. They were never here. Two people might have been arrested on suspicion of blasphemy, but it all turned out to be something and nothing, a bunch of inbred rubes overreacting and wasting everybody's time. Do you understand?'

The magistrate looked very upset. 'I can't do that,' he said. 'It's common knowledge all round the city that they're here, and I'm accountable to the watch committee. If I tell them-'

'You tell them whatever you like,' Monach interrupted. 'Just so long as you do what you've been told everything will be fine and you'll never see them or me again. Mess me about, though, and you won't see me but I'll see you. If you follow me,' he added, resting his left hand on his sash, over the point where the sword hilt lay hidden.

He smiled to himself about it afterwards, of course. If there was one thing he despised as a rule, it was blustering, threatening soldiers and officials. Somehow playing at being one, and a really exaggerated, over-the-top impersonation at that, had been fun. Of course, only a gullible idiot who knew nothing at all about the Deymeson order would've taken all that play-acting at face value; the order didn't make threats, eschewed melodrama of all kinds.

Once he'd parted company from the false god and his priestess (they vanished as if by magic; one moment they were there, the next they'd gone), he turned his horse east, towards the road that led to Deymeson, rest and sanity. ('Just one thing,' the man had asked. 'What was it gave us away, when we told you the first story?' He replied that it had been the bit about glassblowing; true, there were glassworks in Josequin, but he didn't look anything like any glassblower he'd ever met, and as it happened he'd met several. Glassblowing was, however, one of the trades of which Poldarn was supposed to be the patron; hence the mental association, for a southerner. At which the man had shaken his head. 'Actually,' he said, 'that was perfectly true. Not about Josequin, I've never been there in my life. But I was apprenticed to a glassworks when I was a kid, and I passed my trade test, even stuck it there for a year or two, so yes, I'm a glassblower all right.') With any luck he'd be able to turn in his report, kid his way through his debriefing and get back to drawing and cutting practice. All in all, he decided, he wasn't suited to being an investigator: too complicated for his liking, nothing straightforward that split down the grain or cut cleanly. The Poldarn business was worse than any other investigation he'd been involved with, of course; it was a case of the more he thought about it, the more obscure it became.

The trick, as he knew perfectly well, was not to think about it. No need to, after all. He'd make his report; an investigator-somebody else, please God, let it be somebody else-would be sent to Morevich to verify the false god's story, the matter would be reported in passing in closed chapter and put aside as a dead issue. The nasty loose ends, such as who had put on the show at Cric, how he'd been able to foretell the future and raise the dead, how General Allectus had managed to survive this long without being found, who the god in the cart was if he wasn't Poldarn, these fell outside his remit and he didn't have to bother about them. Indeed, if he tried to raise any of these issues, he'd get told off by Father Tutor, and quite right, too. It's not the place of the swordsman to fight shadows. (Who'd said that? Somebody famous.)

For the rest of the day he kept catching sight of two black birds, rooks or crows or ravens, flying slowly alongside him a long way away. Whether they were the same ones or different each time he had no way of knowing, but most of the time he was fairly certain they were ravens, therefore not significant or a coincidence.

He reached the Piety and Poverty an hour before dark and spent the evening playing whittlejack for pleasure and profit with a party of bone merchants en route to Sansory to buy at the ossiary sale. By the time he'd finished with them, the number of cartloads of bones they'd be able to afford had gone down considerably, but they seemed good-humoured about it and even offered to buy him a drink. He refused politely, explaining that he had to be up early and clearheaded in the morning, and went to bed, wondering what on earth he was going to do with the substantial sum of money he'd just acquired. It was no conceivable use to him, and he didn't relish the prospect of explaining how he'd come by it if he turned it over to Brother Treasurer. Giving it back to the four jolly bonemen would probably be construed as an insult, and he was too tired to go back and deliberately lose it to them, even assuming he was capable of such finesse in his play. He could dump it, he supposed, or leave it in his room for the groom or the chambermaid, but the Piety was the kind of place where they might just send on a purse of money found in a guest's room, with an explanatory note ('the serving girl says you left this money on your pillow…', not something he'd like Father Tutor to read if he could help it). There was always the deserving poor, of course, except that brothers of the order weren't authorised to deal in largesse and charity except by special licence of their superiors, for fear of setting awkward precedents, upsetting the balance of existing aid and alms initiatives, and so on, and so on. In the end he spent a whole hour staring resentfully at the purse, wishing he'd had the moral fortitude to resist the chance of playing whittlejack with born losers… But he'd always been exceptionally good at the game, and he enjoyed it, and only got a chance to play once in a blue moon, and everybody knows that it's physically impossible to play it except for money.

Some god or angel must have visited him in a dream, because when he woke up he knew exactly what to do. He found the innkeeper, a man he'd known for years (though the innkeeper didn't know him from a brick in the wall, owing to the fact that each time he'd been there he'd been using a different persona) and reckoned he could trust, at least with something he couldn't give a damn about.

'See this?' he said, emptying a few of the coins on to his palm. 'Belongs to a friend of mine. He left it with me for safekeeping and I was going to meet him here and give it back to him. But he must've got held up somewhere, and I haven't got time to hang around waiting for him. Can you keep an eye out for him, and let him have it?'

He could see the innkeeper looking wistfully at the money and resolving to be good. 'No problem,' he replied. 'So what's he called, your friend?'

Monach shook his head. 'It's not as simple as that,' he replied. 'I promise you there's nothing skew about it, only he won't be travelling under his own name.' Then he gave the innkeeper the description of the god in the cart he'd heard from the man in Cric who might have been General Allectus. He may be travelling in a cart,' he added. 'Possibly he'll have a woman with him, or he may just send her, I can't say for certain.' He then described the priestess. 'You don't mind, do you?' he added. 'I don't think my friend'll begrudge you two gross-quarters for your trouble.'

The innkeeper brightened up considerably, and said no, that wasn't necessary; Monach insisted, the innkeeper insisted back, Monach counterinsisted and the innkeeper tightened his hand round the purse so hard it was a miracle he didn't bend the coins double. 'Oh, one other thing,' Monach added. 'As and when one of them shows up, if you can spare one of your people to run out to the Joy and Sorrow at Deymeson, leave a message for me there. My name's Monach.'

'Of course,' the innkeeper said. 'I'll send one of my boys over. They're always glad of an excuse for a trip out.'

Monach thanked him and ordered a good breakfast. As he ate it, he wondered whether it had been such a good idea after all. Anybody riding east from Sansory would be sure to stay over at the Piety, it was the only half-decent inn on a bleak and miserable road. There was therefore a one in four chance that the other Poldarn, the one who'd been to Cric, would end up there sooner or later; slightly better odds that the innkeeper would recognise him from Monach's description and send the message. If sent, the message was almost certain to reach him, since the Joy was owned by the Order and the people there were used to fielding strange and unintelligible messages and passing them on discreetly. In short, there was a remote but far from negligible chance that he'd end up getting a lead on this other Poldarn, the one he'd been thinking long, awkward thoughts about, and that given such a lead he might feel a moral obligation to do something about it. The god or angel in his dream had reckoned that was a good idea. He wasn't so sure.

He was still prodding at this question like a sore tooth when he reached Deymeson. As always, he had mixed feelings as he dismounted and knocked at the gate, waiting for Brother Porter to open up. It had to be admitted, he enjoyed being out in the world, free for a while from authority and the Rule, living his vicarious lives, eating good food in inns and sleeping between sheets instead of under a single blanket on a stone bench. But the soft beds never did his back any good, the food gave him indigestion after a day or so, and he'd joined the order and submitted to the Rule because this was the only place on earth where he could do what he most wanted to do, what he needed to do in order to make sense of the world. In a week's time, when he'd got back into the routine of offices, services, training, teaching and practice, the thought of going outside wouldn't please him at all; it'd be a chore to be got over with rather than an opportunity for a holiday.

'He wants to see you straight away,' Brother Porter told him, as soon as he was inside the gate. 'Been sending down, asking are you back yet, anybody know where you've got to?' Brother Porter's grin had a definite spike of malice to it. 'Said to tell you, leave your horse for the ostlers to see to, you go straight on up.'

Monach sighed. It was never personal with Brother Porter; he savoured the misfortunes of everybody with equal relish, to the point where it was hard to resent him. 'Wonderful,' he said, 'thank you so much for telling me.'

The reception he received from Father Tutor was most disturbing; no polite enquiry about his health, subtly barbed references to tardiness or ineptitude, graceful derision of his work or results, no torture of any kind. Instead Father Tutor actually seemed pleased to see him, in a preoccupied sort of a way. For his mentor and guide to come so close to acknowledging that he might actually need his services, instead of merely tolerating them, the situation must be close to catastrophic.

It was.

'I'll come straight to the point,' Father Tutor said. 'Tazencius has gone missing.'

Monach tried to stop his jaw swinging open; it was sloppy, undisciplined and sure to be commented on. Father Tutor didn't seem to have noticed.

'As far as we can make out,' Father Tutor went on, 'he was recalled, presumably in disgrace; a troop of cavalry, from one of the household regiments, was sent to bring him back, but he got past them-have you heard any of this?'

Monach shook his head.

'He got past them,' Father Tutor continued, staring past Monach's head at the corner of the ceiling, 'but they caught him up; something odd happened there, and we can't find out what it was, but the upshot was they got him back. Then they lost him again.'

'Oh.'

'Oh indeed,' Father Tutor said, and just for a moment there was a reassuring note of mockery in his voice. 'Furthermore, their bodies were found between Sansory and Mael, carved up, and no trace of Tazencius whatsoever.'

'Excuse me,' Monach interrupted, 'but when you say carved up-'

Father Tutor nodded. 'Massive cuts and slashes to the neck and upper body, consistent with the wounds typically made by backsabres. Which, as you know, could mean any one of a number of things, all of them in this context contradictory. Just the sort of vital clue we could've done without, if you ask me. Anyway,' Father Tutor said, looking away in another direction, 'I need a good eye, a fast hand and above all a sharp mind. I want you to find Tazencius and bring him back here, as quickly as possible.'

Monach realised he'd caught his breath. He let it go, and said, 'Understood. Where do you suggest I should start?'

Father Tutor thought for a moment. 'Sansory,' he replied.

'Right. Actually, I've just come from there.'

A shrug of the shoulders. 'I don't imagine for one moment that Tazencius is there,' he said, 'but I believe that you're more likely to pick up the scent there than anywhere else. I can't give you any better advice than that, I'm afraid; you'll just have to pick it up as you go along. You'll manage, though. You seem to have a flair for the work. Do you want to take anybody with you? As you can imagine, manpower is at something of a premium at the moment, but I could certainly spare you a dozen or so men at arms and half a dozen brothers-'

Just when Monach thought there couldn't be any more surprises… 'Thank you,' he said, 'but I'll be better off recruiting locally, if I need help; it's less awkward that way. I might need money, though,' he added.

'Whatever you think fit,' Father Tutor replied, dismissing the detail with a slight gesture of the left hand. 'And anything else you might need, help yourself. If you'll bear with me a moment, I'll write the requisition now.'

'Thank you,' Monach said in a very small voice. 'When do I leave?'

Father Tutor looked up from his lectern. 'That's up to you too,' he said. 'If you feel up to leaving straight away, that'd obviously save time, but if you want to rest and prepare yourself, I'll quite understand, you can leave in the morning.'

'I think I'll do that,' Monach said, 'if you're sure that's all right. The truth is, I haven't been able to keep up my practice while I've been away, and I'm starting to feel awkward, like my skin's shrunk.'

Father Tutor nodded gravely. 'Very sensible,' he said. 'In which case, may I recommend an hour of solitary meditation, a light meal and an afternoon in one of the private chapels working quietly and steadily through the principal sequences? I don't know about you, but I found it always worked for me.'

The principal sequences: kneeling draw, seated draw, standing draw, the eight cuts and the eight wards, the circle of life and death, the blind fencer, the sheathed sword. As he released control of his body to the memory, the instinct that guided him in the movements, he tried to clear his mind by reciting the paradoxes of defence: Space is time. The circle of life is the circle of death. Sheathed, the sword is drawn back to strike. The fastest draw is not drawing. Only the finest master can match the skill of the novice. Only he who does not think will live for ever.

Like the draw itself, he reflected (and his right hand found the hilt, the sword sliced the air where an enemy's neck would be and the hilt found his left hand for the finishing cut); he knew the paradoxes so well that any shred of meaning they'd once had for him had long since been ground away and they'd become nothing but noises, as instinctive to his mind as the position of the hilt was to his hand. By the time he'd worked through all the sequences it was after evensong, and as his mind came back he realised he was exhausted. He dragged himself back to his quarters, lay down on the stone ledge like a book replaced on its proper shelf, and fell asleep.