Shadow

Chapter Eight

The horse had done him a favour. It was already starting to get light, and when he opened the door a little and peered through the crack he could see people moving about in the streets, carts and wagons and barrows complicating the flow of traffic. Wherever he was going to go today, he'd have to go slowly. There were too many people in the way to make sudden headlong flight a viable option.

He saddled up and led the horse out into the alley. The rising sun obligingly told him which way was east, the direction he'd decided to follow, but unfortunately the alley ran north-south, and he couldn't remember offhand which way he'd come the night before. He didn't really want to find himself back in the vicinity of the Charity and Diligence if he could help it. Most of the traffic in the alley was heading south, and at this time of day it seemed likely that they'd be going towards the centre of town; from there, he reckoned, he ought to be able to find the main east road. Of course, if the enemy were even slightly interested in him and if they knew what he looked like (he had no idea, of course, whether they did or not), they would almost certainly be watching all the gates, and probably the market district as well. On the other hand, if Cleapho and his people were his friends and if they'd secured reinforcements, they'd still be watching the gates for him too.

Obviously I don't want to be caught. Maybe I don't want to be rescued either. The more tiny scraps of his past he accumulated, the less he liked the smell and taste of it. He thought about that as he threaded his way through the streets, following the general tendency of the traffic. He thought about the gods he'd seen painted on the refectory walls; perhaps one of them had taken pity on him and snatched him out of the hands of his enemies, painting over his past and knocking a window through his future. Maybe he ought to take the hint.

Leaving town, he decided, probably wasn't worth the risk, at least for now. That simplified things. The alley joined a main thoroughfare, and he followed that for a long time, until he caught sight of a large open-air ring off to his left. It was crowded with men and horses, and money was changing hands. That gave him an idea.

It was, of course, a stolen horse, but in any market in a city this size, it stood to reason that there'd be plenty of people who specialised exclusively in stolen horses. He wandered round the ring for a while observing faces and eavesdropping on negotiations, until he was satisfied he'd found one.

'I want to sell my horse,' he told him.

The man looked at him, then at the horse, and rubbed his chin. 'Not sure,' he said. 'What are you asking?'

Poldarn smiled. 'Make me an offer,' he said.

The man frowned. 'Just a moment,' he replied, then, without looking round, he bellowed, 'Acka!' at the top of his voice. A few seconds later, he did it again.

Acka turned out to be the name of a woman, his wife or just possibly his mother. She trudged back from the rail, where she'd been talking to another woman, and scowled at him. 'What d'you want?' she asked.

'Man wants to sell his horse.'

Acka shrugged, as if to say that with people like that, what can you expect? She gave the horse a very quick glance and said, 'How much?'

'Won't say. Says I should make him an offer.'

Acka rubbed a sore-looking patch on her ear with the palm of her hand. 'I don't know,' she said. 'We're overspent as it is.' She walked round the horse a couple of times, looking very sad. 'If it was a skewbald,' she said, 'that'd be different. That man from the cavalry was back yesterday, wanting skewbalds. I'm not sure,' she concluded. 'It depends how much he wants for it.'

'Make me an offer,' Poldarn repeated.

The woman pulled up one of the horse's front hooves and glanced at it. 'Wants shoeing, too,' she said. 'It's all money. Tell him we can't go above thirty.'

From what he'd gathered during his scouting tour of the market, thirty wasn't bad. 'Thirty-five,' he said. 'And I keep the saddle and tack.'

The man looked at Acka; Acka shook her head. 'Thirty-five all in,' she said, 'and we're not doing ourselves any favours. Girth's nearly rubbed through, look, and the snaffle's not worth having.'

Poldarn nodded. 'All right,' he said, holding out his hand for the money. 'You're a tight-fisted bunch in these parts, though.'

Acka fumbled in her apron pocket and produced seven silver coins. 'Ought to count himself lucky, instead of complaining,' she said, taking a firm grip of the reins. 'We'll be lucky if we see our money back on this one inside of a month.'

Poldarn took the money, nodded politely and walked away, taking care not to look round. He wasn't sure how much money thirty-five quarters was, but it was thirty-five quarters more than he'd had the night before, and he'd got rid of a piece of potentially incriminating evidence against himself, all without killing anybody, or even drawing blood. Already he was finding his new life rather more congenial than his old one.

The next thing to do was get out of sight, or at least off the streets, where there might be a risk of running into his enemies or his friends. Where there's a livestock market there's always at least one inn; in Sansory, it was called the Integrity and Honour, and of course it was full of farmers and horse traders and other similar people with loud voices and a good deal of personality. He bought a small jug of beer and some bread and cheese for two quarters, found an empty corner of the settle, just big enough for a crow to perch on, and sat down.

The men next to him were talking about some war or other. One of them, a small, thin man with very bony wrists, was saying that General Cronan had beaten Allectus, he'd beaten General Taino, and if anybody could beat the raiders, it was him. The old man to his right didn't agree; Cronan wasn't bad for a southerner, but nobody could beat the raiders; Allectus might have done it if he hadn't gone to the bad, he'd had imagination, not like the rest of them. Cronan, in the old man's opinion, didn't have imagination, and the raiders would chop him up and feed him to their children.

A round-faced man with a short beard and a new-looking blue wool shirt figured that Cronan might be able to beat the raiders if he ever got the chance, but that was hardly likely; with two major victories to his name, with the confidence and loyalty of the army and the love of the people, he was clearly too much of a security risk to be let loose in the provinces. Even if he didn't want to seize the throne and become emperor, nobody would ever believe that he didn't; in fact, as far as the man in the blue shirt was concerned, Cronan's days were numbered, and he'd been living on borrowed time ever since he won against General Taino.

The thin-wristed man and a number of the others in the group agreed with that, and even the old man nodded a couple of times. It was a tragedy, the blue-shirted man went on, but it was inevitable given the state the empire was in. Meanwhile, if anybody was going to take on the raiders and stand a chance of beating them, it would almost certainly be Feron Amathy.

A moment later, it became apparent that the blue-shirted man had said something controversial, if not downright offensive. The old man scowled and shook his head; someone else just out of Poldarn's line of sight made a rude noise and called Feron Amathy a bastard and a couple of other things Poldarn didn't catch. Nobody seemed inclined to disagree, or if they did they weren't about to risk saying so in a public place. The blue-shirted man held up his hands; all right, he said, he could understand how they felt, he felt pretty much the same way; and no, of course he didn't hold with some of the things the Amathy house had done over the years, nobody in their right mind could. The fact remained: Feron Amathy was at best a freelance, at worst a bandit chieftain and mass murderer, but he was also a first-class soldier, and since the empire had a habit of locking up its own first-class soldiers or making sure they met with accidents, who else was there? Besides, he went on, having quietened down his audience, to fight the raiders you didn't want a decent, honourable type who followed the rules of war, you wanted an evil bastard; and nobody fitted those specifications better than Feron Amathy. Of course, he added after a short pause, whether a victorious Amathy house would prove any easier to live with than the raiders was another matter entirely, the only ray of hope in the gloom being that if he did win, he'd be that much more likely to turn his thoughts towards the rich, fat cities across the bay, and with any luck he'd bugger off over there and leave the northern provinces in peace.

The old man pointed out that Feron Amathy was an evil, murdering something or other that Poldarn didn't quite catch, and furthermore he had it on good authority that a fair few of the burnings and mass slaughters blamed on the raiders were the work of the Amathy house, who thought nothing of butchering women and children to make sure there weren't any witnesses. A young man with big ears said he wasn't sure he believed that, but Feron Amathy was definitely a nasty piece of work, and entrusting the safety of the province to him would be like setting a wolf to guard the chicken shed. The man in the blue shirt said he wouldn't put anything past the Amathy house, and that all the free companies were pretty well as bad as each other, though the Amathy house was probably the worst of the lot, but take away the imperial army and the free companies and who did that leave to fight off the raiders? Well?

There was a short, resentful silence. Then the old man said that it was Feron Amathy who did for Allectus by changing sides halfway through the battle, though nobody could tell him he hadn't fixed it with Cronan well in advance; it was a tragedy for the empire, what had happened to Allectus-nobody had ever really proved that he'd decided to try and seize the throne, and even if he had he'd surely have made a better fist of the job than the halfwit they had doing it now. Allectus, he maintained, wouldn't have been afraid of the raiders, or the free companies, or anybody.

A big man in a soot-blackened leather apron coughed nervously and suggested that the reason why nobody could stop the raiders was that they were a judgement visited on the empire by the gods. That remark had the effect of killing the conversation stone dead for quite some time as the rest of the company tried to make up its mind whether they should ignore him or refute his line of argument. Before they could reach a decision, the nervous man added that it was all very well them laughing and saying it was all a parcel of kids' stories, but what about the god in the cart who turned up at that village and predicted the fall of Josequin, exactly the way it turned out to have happened?

The man in the blue shirt replied that it was a coincidence, nothing more. The nervous man didn't agree; not only had the god foretold the destruction of the city, he'd also healed the sick and raised the dead, and they didn't have to take his word for it, they could go and ask Bigal the drover, whose nephew had gone through that village a fortnight later and heard all about it from the villagers themselves.

Apparently Bigal the drover's credibility was good with some of the company, because they looked thoughtful and didn't say anything. The blue-shirted man, however, shook his head and chuckled; as it happened, he said, a neighbour of his had been talking to a carter who'd seen this so-called god not once but twice; once at the village outside Josequin, and once about six weeks earlier, in a town whose name he couldn't remember offhand on the other side of the Mahec; and the curious thing was, the god in the village outside Josequin hadn't looked anything like the god he'd seen up north; so it stood to reason that one of them was a fake, and as far as the blue-shirted man was concerned, it was the one who was supposed to have predicted the fall of the city. Furthermore, he added, the fake god hadn't healed all the sick and raised the dead; according to his neighbour's friend the carter, it was just a couple of dead people and a dozen or so of the sick, and their friends and families had paid the priestess pretty well for the privilege.

The nervous man looked shocked and sad, and didn't say anything; the rest of the company kept quiet too, weighing their natural scepticism against the undoubted authority of Bigal the drover. After a while the bony-wristed man stood up and said that he had a living to earn even if the rest of them didn't, and if Perico could spare an hour from speculating about the gods and the end of the world, maybe he'd get on and shoe his black mare, like he'd promised to do that morning. The nervous man nodded guiltily and left with him; the man in the blue shirt finished his drink and went away; and it wasn't long before Poldarn had the settle to himself.

Without the conversation to distract him, he found himself thinking about Copis, though it wasn't a train of thought he was happy with. Sure, he couldn't blame her in the least for clearing out as soon as she smelled trouble-she'd been absolutely right, and she'd done her level best to warn him, too, and of course she didn't know about the lump of fused gold in the back of the cart because he hadn't trusted her enough to mention it, so that was his fault, too. Nevertheless, he was sorry she'd gone, particularly in such a hurry; if they had to part company, he'd have liked a few moments just to thank her, since she'd practically saved his life that night when he met her, and in spite of all the trouble he'd caused her she'd never let him down or even really complained. More to the point, she was the only friend he had, but he couldn't help but reflect that she'd certainly be a good deal safer away from him, given his habit of attracting trouble like a fresh honeycomb drawing wasps. On the positive side, at least he wasn't going to have to pretend to be the god in the cart again. That was an experience he was in no hurry to repeat.

The inn wasn't nearly as crowded as it had been when he came in, and the taproom was empty enough now to make a man sitting on his own after everyone else had gone back to work look conspicuous. It was time he was going as well.

This time he carried on past the livestock market and headed for the centre of town. There were a lot of people in the streets now, far more than he'd seen before, and they all seemed to have a definite destination in mind. He allowed himself to be swept along with them, and eventually found himself in what he recognised as the main square of the city.

It was so crowded that after a while he couldn't go any further, so he scrambled up on the back of a big stone lion, like a man standing on a stepping stone in the middle of a river, and tried to make out what was going on.

The central third of the square was divided up with posts and railings into a series of stalls, rather like the livestock market had been, but these stalls were full of men and women, all crammed in together, and a walkway had been roped off right the way round the edge. There he saw some other people, not nearly so tightly packed, and they were looking over the people in the pens-mostly just glancing, but occasionally stopping for a closer look, and now and again shouting and beckoning to attract attention. Poldarn watched as one of the penned-up people, after talking to a man on the outside for a while, scrambled over the rail and followed the man he'd been talking to down the walkway and out of sight. At once two or three men from the crowd tried to climb into the pen, whereupon a couple of harassed-looking men with long sticks appeared out of the crowd and pushed all but one of them back.

This was so curious that he had to ask someone. He didn't have long to wait; a young man of about nineteen jumped up on the lion's back beside him, rubbing his shin and pulling a face. He asked the young man what was going on.

The young man didn't understand the question.

'I'm new in town, you see,' Poldarn said. 'Actually, I'm from Thurm.' (He dredged the name up from the cellars of his mind just in time.) 'Whatever this is, we don't have anything like it back home.'

'Really?' The young man clearly found that hard to believe. 'Then how do you people find work if you don't have hiring fairs?'

Ah, he thought, right. 'Oh, we've got them all right,' he replied confidently. 'We just don't do it like this, that's all.'

'Oh,' the young man said, and went back to examining his shin. Meanwhile, two more men had been chosen from the pens, and a dozen or so others had tried to take their places and been herded back by the men with sticks. Poldarn got the impression that in Sansory there were more people needing work to do than there was work to go round; he remembered what Copis had told him, about this being a place you ended up in. Depressing thought.

All the same, he was going to have to start earning a living soon, and if this was how you went about finding work in Sansory it'd probably be a good idea to get in line. First, though, he did a little more reconnaissance, and fairly soon worked out that each stall represented a trade. That complicated the issue, since he didn't have one. 'Excuse me,' he said.

The young man looked at him.

'Sorry to bother you again,' he said, 'but what do you do if you don't have a trade? Where do you go to find someone to take you on?'

The young man grinned. 'No trade? At your age? In that case, you might as well forget it.'

Poldarn frowned. 'Maybe,' he said. 'But assuming I'm mad enough to try, what's the drill?'

'Suit yourself,' the young man replied equably. 'Look, you see that big pen there, right at the back? You go there. I'll tell you, though; if you get in the line now, and if you're really lucky, you might just get in the pen by the time the fair closes.'

'I see. And when's that?'

'Day after tomorrow.'

'Fine.' Poldarn frowned. 'All right,' he said, 'which trade's in most demand these days?'

The young man thought for a moment. 'That's a tough one,' he said. 'Clerks, probably. Not just copy clerks, mind; I'm talking about counting-house clerks, the sort who can do figuring and accounts and stuff.'

That didn't sound promising. Nevertheless, Poldarn asked which pen the clerks were in. The young man pointed; it was only slightly less crowded than the others.

'Of course,' the young man went on, 'what they're really crying out for these days is drill instructors-you know, for the companies. Only they've got their own fair, end of the month. And it's not here, it's in Mael.'

'Not much help to me, then,' Poldarn replied. 'Is there anything in that line around here?'

The young man shook his head. 'Not unless you could do bodyguarding,' he added. 'Mind you, there's a line of work where there's always more jobs than bloody fools wanting to do them. There's a reason for that, though.'

Poldarn had the feeling he was being set up as a straight man. But that didn't matter. 'Oh? What's that?'

'They keep getting killed, of course,' the young man replied with a grin. 'You'd have to be mad or bloody desperate to go in for that game.'

Poldarn nodded. 'I expect you're right,' he said. 'So where do I go to get taken on?'

It wasn't hard to find, in spite of the young man's rather elliptical directions: a small booth, rather than a stall, on the far western edge of the market. There were a couple of sad-looking types sitting outside, and three large men lounging in the doorway. Poldarn asked if he could get through. They didn't move. He asked again. One of the large men told him all the jobs were taken, and suggested that he should go away. Poldarn wasn't inclined to believe him, since over his shoulder he could see a line of men inside the booth waiting to be inspected. When he pointed this out to the men in the doorway, one of them tried to push him out of the way.

A few moments later, a man in a long plush robe came out of the booth. He looked at the three men lying on the ground, and then at Poldarn.

'You're hired,' he said.

'Thank you,' Poldarn replied, rubbing his elbow where he'd made it worse by jarring it on someone's teeth. 'When do I start?'

'Right away, if you like,' the man said. 'What did they do to you?'

Poldarn shrugged. 'They didn't want me to apply for the job.'

'Oh.' The man frowned. 'Serves them right, then. What's your name?'

'Poldarn.'

The man raised an eyebrow. 'That's interesting,' he said. 'Southerner?'

Poldarn nodded. 'From Thurm province,' he said, hoping he wasn't making a big mistake.

'That figures,' the man replied. 'My father always used to say they're all a bunch of vicious psychotics in Thurm. My name's Falx, by the way; Falx Roisin.'

'Pleased to meet you,' Poldarn said. 'May I ask what line of work you're in?'

Falx grinned. 'You really aren't from these parts, are you?' he said. 'I'm a carter.' He smiled. 'Just like any other carter, really, except that last time I looked I had over a hundred carts. Plus six hundred horses, a dozen warehouses, more clerks than anybody could possibly have a use for, and what they do all day I'll probably never understand. Most people in Sansory know me, for one reason or another.'

'I see,' Poldarn said. 'But you need a bodyguard.'

Falx nodded. 'Well, sort of,' he said. 'More like a sergeant-at-arms, if you know what that is. Look, I don't like standing about in the middle of all this chaos, even if you do. My house is just across the way. Come and have a drink.'

If Falx Roisin seemed rather more affable than Poldarn would have expected for a man who owned so many carts and horses, that probably wasn't a bad thing. Falx led the way: down an alley into a small square, down another alley, over a bridge across something that looked like a stream and smelt like a drain, through an archway into a courtyard filled with carts, so tightly packed together that Poldarn had to edge sideways to get through. Beyond that was a big, flat-roofed brick building, which Poldarn assumed was one of the warehouses Falx had referred to. Once inside, though, he realised it wasn't.

The most bewildering thing about it was the colour. Every square inch of wall, ceiling and floor was either painted or covered with mosaic, depicting a wide range of subjects from deceptively realistic vases of flowers and bowls of fruit to cavalry battles and storms at sea to scenes from religion to elegant pornography. The quality of the work was as diverse as the subject matter, and since all the colours were fresh and none of the mosaics were scuffed or chipped it was a reasonable assumption that they were fairly new and that Falx Roisin had commissioned them.

'I like your pictures,' Poldarn said, lying.

It was the right thing to say. 'Thank you,' Falx replied. 'My son-that's the eldest boy-he's the painter; my daughter and my niece do the mosaics. Later on I'll show you the long gallery; what used to be the drying-loft when this place was a flax warehouse. Nearly all my family are artistic, in one way or another.'

Poldarn nodded. If there were a lot of art-lovers in Sansory, that would explain the need for bodyguards. Falx pulled out one of the two chairs (painted all over, except for the parts covered with ivory and lapis lazuli inlay) that were the only furniture in the room, and waved Poldarn into the other.

'I think I ought to warn you,' he said, as a door opened behind him, apparently in the middle of the sail of a large, rather impractical ship, and a woman came in carrying a jug of wine and two cups on a little brass tray with legs. 'Because you're not from around here, you can't be expected to know what you're getting into. I believe in being straight with people.'

Poldarn nodded again. If Falx required absolute honesty from all his workers, sooner or later he was going to have to point out that the laughing dryad on the wall just above Falx's head had one leg that was drastically longer than the other, but he hoped it wouldn't come to that. He tried not to stare, but it wasn't easy.

'The fact is,' Falx went on, 'your predecessors didn't live very long. I've had five men doing your job in the last eighteen months; one left after a week, in the middle of the night, and the others-' He sighed. 'Sent 'em home to their families for burial, it seemed like the least I could do. And of course it doesn't cost me anything.'

It was very good wine; light and sweet without being cloying. 'What does the job involve, exactly?' Poldarn asked.

'Well, part of it's genuine body guarding,' Falx replied, 'and that aspect of it's relatively safe. I don't pick fights if I can help it, and people don't tend to pick fights with me as a rule; certainly not twice. It's the other part where it starts getting dangerous. You see,' he went on, pouring himself a refill, 'I send a lot of letters, for other people: important messages, letters of credit, business negotiations, the sort of thing you don't want to entrust to just anybody who happens to be going in the right direction. It's very good business once you've got a reputation for making sure the letter gets there, and since I've got carts and couriers going all over the place all the time I can make good money with no additional costs. The trouble is,' he went on, fidgeting with the stem of his cup, 'I have some customers in that line who are very good customers, very good indeed, which means that if they want a letter carried, I can't really refuse to handle it, even if I've got an idea it's likely to be trouble.'

Poldarn frowned. 'You can tell in advance?'

'From where it's going and who's sending it, yes.' Falx nodded. 'Complicated stuff you don't need to bother yourself with. Anyway, when I'm lumbered with one of those letters, I don't really have any choice, I've got to send someone along with it to make sure it gets through. Nine times out of ten, it does. The tenth time-well, forty letters, four dead guards. How are you at mental arithmetic?'

Poldarn thought for a moment. 'Forty letters in eighteen months,' he said. 'That's nearly one a week. How far do these letters have to go?'

'Depends,' Falx replied with a shrug. 'Some of them a day either way; some of them it's a ten-day round trip. Just the job for someone who likes to get out and about a bit.'

'I can see that,' Poldarn said. 'And these other four men. What sort of things happened to them?'

'Let me see.' Falx steepled his fingers around his nose. 'Gusson was loss of blood-got stabbed in the stomach on the road, beat them off all right, didn't actually notice he'd been carved up till he reached the next town and tried to get down off the cart. Bello-I liked him, good sense of humour-he got shot with a crossbow at long range; one moment he was there, the driver told me, the next minute gone, just like that. Hell of a thing to happen. The man after him, name's on the tip of my tongue, he got opened up with a halberd in an inn halfway between Weal and Boc. They tried to make out it was a bar fight, but whatsisname was the quiet type, didn't go in for all that. Stupid part of it was, he was on his way back, they must have been watching the inn and hadn't realised he'd already delivered the letter. And Sullis, he had his head bust with a quarterstaff, not half an hour from the Eastgate; he'd probably have made it if it hadn't been chucking it down with rain, so that people were hurrying past and not likely to notice someone lying in a ditch at the side of the road. Generally, it's just two or three of them, never more than five; discharged soldiers, free company stragglers, well, you know the sort, I'm sure.'

Up in the far corner of the room, Poldarn happened to notice, there was a picture of a large dark bird. At first he thought it was a crow, but when he moved his head a little to one side, he realised it was meant to be a peacock.

'Anyway,' Falx said, 'that's the work. I was paying Sullis forty quarters a month, with board and expenses. You can have forty-five if you're interested.'

Without much of a frame of reference to go by, Poldarn wasn't quite sure how much forty-five quarters was. He thought of the price of a plate of bread and cheese, a horse, a crushed and straightened breastplate. On that basis, it sounded like good money. 'Fifty,' he said. 'And you'll save money in the long run, because I haven't got any family to be shipped back to.'

Falx looked at him for a moment, then laughed. 'You've got a sense of humour too,' he said. 'I like that. All right, fifty; after all, it's a rotten job, you'll earn it. I don't suppose you've got any references,' he added. 'No, I guessed not. Wouldn't expect you had, or you wouldn't be interested in the job. Still, I've been hiring men for twenty-five years on the basis of snap judgement; only been wrong twice and they were both clerks. You'll do.'

That appeared to be that; Falx finished his drink and stood up. 'Equipment,' he said, 'weapons, kit in general. Got any?'

Poldarn shook his head. 'I tend to use other people's, so I don't have any of my own.'

Clearly, Falx wasn't quite sure what to make of that. 'Doesn't matter,' he said. 'I'll take you along to the stores, they can sort you out there, and I'll get the duty foreman to show you your quarters, all that sort of thing. Anyway,' he added, 'welcome to the Falx house, and here's hoping this is the start of a long and happy association.'

Sense of humour? Poldarn wondered. On balance, probably not. They left the gorgeously painted hallway by a different door, crossed a small, enclosed yard and entered another building, essentially a half-size replica of the first. This one wasn't painted, however.

'Right,' Falx said, as an elderly man in a leather apron came out from a back room to meet them. 'This is Eolla, my foreman; marvellous chap, been with the house since my father's time. Eolla, this is Poldarn, he's the new-he's taking over Sullis' job. Give him what he needs, make him feel at home, you know the drill better than I do. All right?'

Eolla nodded gravely. 'Poldarn, did you say?' he asked.

'That's right.'

'Ah.' Eolla dipped his head and formally noticed Poldarn for the first time. 'Southerner?'

'Yes,' Poldarn replied, wishing he'd thought of another name. 'From Thurm.'

'You don't say. Right, you leave him with me, that'll be fine.' He clamped a proprietorial hand on Poldarn's shoulder. He had a grip like a leg vice. 'Anything else?'

Falx shook his head. If Poldarn didn't know better, he'd have imagined his new master was intimidated by the old man. 'I'll be getting on, then,' he said. 'There shouldn't be anything for you for a day or so, so you just settle in.'

Eolla looked at him and dipped his head again, as if to say dismissed. Falx withdrew briskly, shutting the door behind him. 'You're right,' Eolla said, as soon as the latch dropped, 'he's scared stiff of me. Good reason. Made his life hell when he was a boy.' He turned round-not just his head, his whole body-and looked Poldarn over from head to foot in a single long glance, the way Acka had looked over the stolen horse. 'And if you're from Thurm I'm the king of the pixies,' he went on. 'Not that I could give a damn where you're from. Doesn't matter where you're from, it's where you're at that counts.' He held the stare a moment or so longer. Poldarn stared back. Eolla laughed. 'You're all right,' he said, and held out a hand, which Poldarn took. 'Like he said, I'm Eolla. Actually, I'm not; my name's Eola Catariscas, but Falx Garaut-that's the old man-he could never be bothered to say it right, and Falx Roisin, don't suppose it's ever occurred to him to check, no reason why it should. So I got used to being Eolla. Doesn't bother me, been called a lot worse. Where are you really from?'

Poldarn grinned ruefully. 'I don't know,' he said.

Eolla raised an eyebrow. 'Well,' he said, 'that's a new one. Why don't you know?'

'I had an accident,' Poldarn replied, 'about five years ago. Don't ask me what happened; all I know is that I woke up in a ditch with a lump on my head the size of an apple. The first town I came to I asked them the name of the place and they told me it was called Josequin. So I guess you could say I'm from there.'

'Is that a fact?' Eolla shrugged his broad, thin shoulders. 'All right, then,' he said. 'And what've you been doing with yourself since?'

Poldarn laughed. 'Nothing very exciting,' he said. 'As soon as I figured I wasn't going to get my memory back in a hurry I started looking round for work, something to do, a place to live, all that. No skills, of course, but it wasn't long before I realised I had what you could call an aptitude for fighting; whether it's training or just a knack I was born with I have no idea. There was a living to be made at it in Josequin.'

Eolla nodded; he seemed to do that a lot. 'Guild town,' he said. 'Stands to reason. Never went there, never will now, of course. Can't say I'm bothered. You were lucky, then, being out of town at the time.'

'I'd left Josequin a few weeks earlier,' Poldarn replied. 'For my health.'

That seemed to constitute a satisfactory answer. 'Anyway,' Eolla said, 'you follow me, we'll go out the back and get you fitted out. Let's see, now. Two changes of clothes, three pairs of boots, two hats, one hood, two belts, loaded staff, plain staff, big and small satchel, plate, cup, big and small knife, lamp, oil, wick, tinderbox, three blankets, leather bottle, heavy coat and gambeson since you'll be on the road, and you can choose a weapon from the rack.' He grinned. 'Takes most people a lifetime to gather that much stuff, and here it's all given to you, compliments of the house, a whole life. Secondhand, of course,' he added. 'Falx house is generous, but we're not made of money. This way.'

One wall of the back room was lined with tall wooden bins; they walked down the line and Eolla rummaged about in each one in turn until he found something he reckoned would suit or fit. 'Practice,' he explained. 'Fifty years in the stores, I can tell a man's size the moment I lay eyes on him. Sorry,' he added, 'we're low on hats right now, this'll be too big, so you'll need to stuff some straw in the crown.'

Eolla didn't offer any account of where it had all come from, and Poldarn didn't ask. One of the shirts had a brown stain between the shoulder blades, but it had been neatly and carefully darned; a critical and final moment in one man's life, patched up with wool and issued to someone else. It was all good, serviceable stuff, none of it frayed or worn out. It occurred to Poldarn as he watched the old man skimming through the contents of the bins that he seemed to know each piece individually, then he realised that quite probably he'd issued most of them before, to some other new associate of the Falx house, two or twenty years ago. People come and go, but the things go on for ever, going out of the bins and being put back there.

'Properly speaking,' Eolla was saying, 'helmet's not included since you're not regular guard squad, but if you don't tell anybody, I won't. Try this.' He reached under a bench (without looking; he seemed to know by touch where everything was, like a blind man) and produced a narrow-brimmed brown felt hat. It was too heavy to be what it looked like, and when Poldarn turned it over he saw it was lined with neatly butted steel plates.

'Far as I know, never been tested,' Eolla said, 'so I can't promise it works. But it's most likely better than nothing.'

Poldarn put it on; a surprisingly good fit, maybe slightly too big. 'Thank you,' he said.

'Pleasure,' the old man replied. 'That was made for Falx Garaut's brother Tocco-nervous little man, he was, always fretting about getting beaten up or stabbed. So the old man got him a first-class gambeson-more a coat of plates, really, nothing but the best-and a collar lined with steel splints, and that hat. Did him no good in the long run, mind, but it was a kind thought.'

Eolla didn't seem inclined to enlarge on the fate of Falx Tocco, and Poldarn wasn't inclined to ask; but the hat seemed a good idea, regardless of its origins. He added it to the pile of his newly acquired possessions, which had grown to a substantial size.

'Right,' Eolla said, 'that's everything except weapons, they're in the locker here. Oh, unless-can you read?'

Poldarn nodded.

'Always a good idea, very useful.' Eolla stooped down and pulled out a big wooden trunk. 'Falx Roisin, he's very keen on reading, likes to encourage it in the house.' He raised the lid and let it drop; the trunk was full of books. There were bound books, in wood and leather covers, and rolled books, in handsome brass tubes. 'All religious, of course,' Eolla added with a slight sigh. 'But you're allowed two, since you'll be on the road. Falx Roisin figures it helps pass the time, keeps a man out of mischief.'

'Right.' Poldarn looked at the contents of the box. None of them had titles. 'What do you suggest?' he said.

Eolla shrugged. 'Haven't a clue,' he said. 'Not bothered, myself. If I were you, I'd go for the biggest, since you're getting them for nothing.'

That seemed entirely logical to Poldarn, so he picked out two bound books, both of them a full hand's span thick. 'Wrap your coat round one,' Eolla pointed out, 'makes a decent enough pillow. Worth thinking of these things if you're on the road all the time.' He pulled open a door that Poldarn hadn't noticed before and disappeared through it. Poldarn followed and waited for him to light the lamp with his tinderbox.

'Weapons locker,' Eolla said, superfluously. One wall was covered with racks for polearms-halberds, guisarms, bardiches, pollaxes, glaives; in the near corner there was a big barrel, with the hilts of long straight-bladed swords sticking up like roses in a vase; on another wall there was a rack of axes and two-handed swords, heads and points downwards. In the far corner was another trunk, similar in size and shape to the bookbox.

'What's in there?' Poldarn asked.

Eolla chuckled. 'Good question,' he replied. 'Nothing to do with you's the short answer. Still, you can take a look if you want.'

'I was just asking,' Poldarn said. 'If they're not on offer-'

'Ah go on, take a look,' the old man interrupted. 'Not something you're likely to see every day.'

So Poldarn lifted the lid and looked inside. He saw two dozen swords, all more or less the same. For a moment he wondered where he'd seen the like before; then he remembered. The wall painting at the Charity and Diligence. His namesake, the god in the cart, had been waving around something fairly similar.

'Pick one up if you like,' the old man said. 'Go on.'

Poldarn didn't want to seem rude, so he did as he was told. It was as long as his arm, from the point of his shoulder to the tip of his outstretched middle finger, though nearly a third of that length was the two-handed grip, protected by the spectacular inward-curving horns on the blade side that swept out above and below the hand to form the pommel and hand-guard. The blade itself curved sharply forward and down (I may have seen one of these before, he thought), making the sword look as if it was the wrong way up, until it flicked back up again a finger's length from the point to form a swan's beak. Underneath the edge flared out, widening as it followed the inward curve, ending in a thin, flat cutting section nearly a palm's breath across, at which point it followed the upwards sweep of the topside, giving the blade the appearance of a dolphin leaping. Just below the spine of the blade was a broad, shallow fuller that followed the profile of the curve, lightening it without sacrificing strength and throwing the centre of percussion forward into the pit of the hook. Neat, Poldarn thought.

'Like it?' Eollasaid.

'Yes,' Poldarn replied.

'Tough.' The old man laughed. 'Not for issue, those. You know what they are?'

'Swords,' Poldarn said. 'Or do they have a special name?'

'Probably,' Eolla said. 'But nobody knows what it is, or nobody that's telling. They're raider backsabres. Been there ten years, to my certain knowledge. God alone knows how the old man came by them. Anyhow, they don't leave this room, and I know exactly how many's in there, in case you were wondering.'

Poldarn shrugged and put the sword back where he'd got it from. 'Don't worry,' he said. 'I'll be happy with what I'm given, thank you very much.'

'That's the ticket,' Eolla said, closing the lid. 'Well, in that case, let's see what we've got.' He reached down into the sword barrel. 'Try this,' he said. 'Now this is a nice piece. Religious, look, just right for indoors and cramped spaces-like the box of a cart, for instance.'

Poldarn took the sword. It was short, less than two feet long, curved and single-edged, with a grip just about big enough for two hands. He drew it an inch or two from the scabbard. The blade was polished like a mirror, or the surface of a pool on a still day, except for a wavy, cloudy line running parallel to the cutting edge about a finger's width in.

'Religious?' he asked. 'What does that mean?'

Eolla looked at him. 'Must've been a smart old bang on the head you took,' he said. 'Religious, like the temple fencers. Don't worry about it,' he added, as Poldarn carried on looking bewildered. 'It means it's a nice piece of kit, too good to be in the barrel, by rights, but I like to have a few bits and pieces for a good cause. Will that do you?'

Without thinking Poldarn had undone his belt and wrapped a double loop round the mouth of the scabbard. 'I think so,' he said, tightening the buckle, and his hand dropped to the hilt and he drew 'Very sweet,' Eolla said, frowning slightly. 'Where'd you learn to do that? Oh, of course, you wouldn't know.'

Poldarn had sheathed the sword without realising. 'You do, though,' he said.

The old man shrugged. 'I've seen men who can draw that fast before. Temple fencers. If you can do that-well, figure it for yourself. Of course, you could've learned it somewhere else. Maybe you picked it up from a book, or worked it out for yourself, I don't know.'

Poldarn took a step closer. It seemed to him that the old man didn't like that much, 'But you don't think so,' Poldarn said.

'No,' Eolla replied, stepping sideways towards the door. 'If you want my opinion, you learned that in the temple.'

'What temple?' Poldarn asked.