by K. J. Parker
Fine, Monach thought; any ideas he might have had about loading a dozen or so Poldarn’s Flutes onto the backs of a team of mules and putting twenty miles or so between his little army and Dui Chirra before Muno came back with overwhelming reinforcements wilted on the vine and died. Obviously, Muno and the government in Torcea had been terrified about someone stealing the tubes; wasted anxiety. Even when it was eventually finished, assuming it survived that long and passed its test without blowing up, how in the names of all the gods could anybody hope to steal something that big?
(In which case, either Xipho had screwed up in her planning for once, or else her disappearance wasn’t part of some ingenious plan for robbing the foundry and making a lightning-quick getaway into the depths of the forest.)
‘Some machine you’ve got there,’ he said. ‘Did you build it, or did you have it shipped in from Torcea?’
Spenno was contriving to look proud and offended at the same time. ‘They haven’t got anything like this in Torcea, not as far as I know. Don’t suppose there’s another like it in the world. Anyhow, that’s it, more or less. Now, are you planning on taking the tube with you when you go? Or was it something else you were after?’ Monach looked at him; it was like looking in a steamed-up mirror. ‘Something that’s nothing to do with the tubes?’
Monach nodded slightly. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘we only came here to get food.’
‘Is that so? But I thought you said earlier that you came on past Falcata. Why didn’t you take on supplies there?’
For a moment, Monach was sure that Spenno already knew, about Falcata and what had happened there. But how could he possibly know? ‘Too well guarded,’ he said. ‘We didn’t fancy tangling with the garrison.’
‘Fair enough,’ Spenno replied. ‘I can see the sense in that. Still, it’s a pity you didn’t come along just that bit earlier, you’d have been in time to see these two others I’ve been telling you about, from the old place. And you reckon he was from your year? Talk about coincidences. Anyhow,’ Spenno said suddenly, ‘that’s pretty much it – you’ve seen it all now, what we got here. Now it’s my turn to ask you a few questions, I guess. Like, exactly what is it you and your lot are after? Why’re you Angels, and what is it you’re avenging?’
Monach sighed. ‘That’s just a name I thought up,’ he said. ‘Basically, most of us, we were at what you might call a loose end when Deymeson got destroyed, so we thought we might as well go into business on our own account, if you follow me. A free company, I believe the term is.’
‘Ah. Like the Amathy house.’
‘You could say that. Except we aren’t mercenary soldiers, we only fight when we’re attacked. We just – sort of wander about, looking after ourselves.’
‘Oh. That’s not what I’d heard.’ Spenno shrugged. ‘Not that I care. I mean, you or the government, who gives a damn, there’s only ever predators and quarry. Not even sure which one you are, at that.’
After he’d thought about it for most of the rest of the day, Monach came to the conclusion that that was probably meant to be a compliment. Of a sort.
The dream had been going on for some time before he managed to figure out who he was, and who he was meant to be in the dream.
There was a crow. It was perched on his shoulder, and its wings were on fire – he could hardly breathe for the disgusting smell of burning feathers. He only had himself to blame for that, since he’d been the one who’d swatted the crow out of the air with the hearth-rake and held it down in the fire, while it had screamed at him and glared murderously at him. Now it didn’t seem to feel the pain from the burning; it was his decoy, to draw in the other crows so that he could throw stones and kill them. Its name was either Elaos or Gain or Cordo or Xipho, but he couldn’t remember which.
Anyhow, the crows kept on coming, high over his left shoulder, coming from wherever it was they were holding, crossing the hedge, banking on the glide, swooping low and beating upwind, only a foot or so off the ground, wing-tips curled upwards, silent. Each time he waited till he could make out the beak and the eye, to be sure he was in range; then, as soon as his circle was compromised, quickly to his feet, throwing his arm back as he moved, and as soon as he was above the top edge of the hide he let go, hurling the flint so hard that it jarred his elbow and shoulder. So far he hadn’t missed; some of them sank unwillingly to the ground in a flurry of ineffectual wing-beats, others dropped straight down, beak first, dead in the air. He’d killed so many that they were landing on top of each other, the stone-dead dropping on the backs of the dying, like the slaughtered monks when the raiders burned Deymeson—
And then he realised that he’d only been seeing a small part of the picture; because in the background behind him was a mountain, a volcano, and the black ash and shit it was hurling high up into the air was crows and more crows, every convulsion and spasm at the ruptured peak throwing out another flock; and the slopes and foothills of the volcano were already black with thousands upon thousands of dead crows, which presumably he’d killed too, though he couldn’t remember it offhand. But it didn’t matter, because any moment now the furnace deep in the volcano’s roots would be hot enough for the pour, and the red-golden lava would cascade down into the valley and cover everything– and he had nobody to blame but himself, because who in his right mind would build his farm in the bottom of a mould?
But he still wasn’t seeing the whole picture; because when he turned his head and looked down, he saw that the black fluttering wings drifting out of the air and landing at his feet were the swarf from a great drill that was boring into the mountain top, as Spenno and Father Tutor and the rest of the Order turned out the bore of Poldarn’s Flute; and the crow on his shoulder was saying, It all makes perfect sense, but you’re too bloody dim to see it.
‘Don’t be so annoying,’ he told the crow. ‘Besides, if you were half as smart as you seem to think you are, you’d have noticed that you’re perched on the wrong shoulder. This isn’t even my dream, for pity’s sake. You’re going to be in so much trouble when they find out you’ve given the wrong dream to the wrong guy.’
The crow squawked angrily, opened its burning wings and flapped laboriously up into the wind, battling for height until it was able to turn. As it slowly sailed away, he could just hear it saying, Told him but he wouldn’t listen, they never do, and he realised it’d been Spenno all along. He watched the bird until it was just a black dot in the sky; it dragged itself through the air until it was right over the glowing orange scar in the mountain, but a spurt of yellow flame licked it out of the sky like a lizard catching a fly with its tongue, and it fell, burning, onto the hearth.
My dream after all, then, the Earwig realised. I wish I knew where Xipho’d got to, though. It’d all make perfect sense if only she was here. But he knew where she had to be; somewhere down in the valley, driving her cart down the Falcata road (Falcata burning, burnt to charcoal by the fiery garbage from the volcano) and across the Bay straight towards Torcea—
The black feathery swarf from the great drill was up to his ankles as he stood up and threw his stone, hard and fast and straight as a stone ball shot from the lips of Poldarn’s Flute. All right, he wanted to scream, I get the point already. But of course all this wasn’t for his benefit, because he was only the Earwig, born follower, eternal subordinate, assistant sidekick. They were putting on the show for someone else. Went without saying.
(Falcata burning; thousands and thousands of houses, doors jammed and wedged shut, and inside were thousands and thousands and thousands of people screaming and fighting to get out, until finally the smoke and the falling rafters and the burning thatch swatted them down like a hearth-rake and pinned them to the hearth until they stopped moving—)
And Spenno was sitting on his shoulder, the book open on his knees, pointing and saying, Ciartan was here, but you just missed him; and at that moment, it suddenly occurred to him what Ciartan was calling himself these days; except that it wasn’t possible, because—
>
‘Bloody hell, Chief,’ Mezentius was saying, ‘what was all that about?’
He opened his eyes. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘What?’
‘You were having a bad dream or something,’ someone else said. ‘Screaming and yelling like someone was killing a pig with a blunt knife. We’ve been trying to wake you up, but you wouldn’t open your eyes.’
‘Oh,’ Monach said. The dream was slipping past him, but it was too late to pull it back. ‘What time is it?’
‘Hour or so after sunup,’ Mezentius said. ‘We let you lie in – thought we were doing you a favour.’
‘Oh.’ Monach sighed and swung his legs off the bed. ‘Anything been happening since I’ve been asleep?’
‘Not much,’ said someone else. ‘They’re still doing whatever it is they’re doing that makes that horrible noise, over in that big shed across the yard. And around midnight, they were up to something over where they’ve got that enormous oven contraption; they had one hell of a fire brewed up, and that nutcase foreman was cursing and swearing like they’d put hot coals down his trousers. But they reckon that’s normal and everything was going just fine.’ He shook his head. ‘They’re a bloody funny lot, if you ask me.’
Monach nodded. ‘The foreman told me that they were going to cast another six of the tubes last night, so I guess that’s what they were doing. Best leave them to it, they seem to know what they’re doing.’
‘Fine,’ interrupted Runting, the quarter-master. ‘Bloody good luck to them, since presumably it’s us they’re working for now. Talking of which, what in God’s name do we want with half a dozen tubular bells? I suppose we could sell them and buy food, if anybody knows who’d be likely to want to buy them—’
‘Runting, they’re not bells, they’re weapons,’ someone told him. ‘It’s some top secret thing the government’s cooking up to fight the raiders with. It’s what we’re here for, for the gods’ sakes. Don’t you ever bother coming to staff meetings?’
‘How can you fight the raiders with bells? You planning to ring them to death, or what?’
Monach pushed past them into the fresh, wet air. Even with Falcata in ashes, how long was it going to take for Colonel Muno to raise enough men to come back and kill them all? He’d only come here because they hadn’t got any food left, the Flutes hadn’t even crossed his mind. Now they had the food (only enough for a day or so), the Flutes weren’t ready to take even if he was minded to burden himself with them, Xipho hadn’t even been here and it wouldn’t be terribly smart to still be here when Muno got back. Time to go. Absolutely no reason to stay.
Had Ciartan really been here? When Spenno had mentioned another sword-monk, he’d assumed without thinking that it had to be Ciartan; now he couldn’t even remember what it was Spenno had said that had prompted the assumption. But if he had—
He went to see Galand Dev.
‘Paperwork,’ he said. ‘I’m assuming Colonel Muno was typical army when it came to filing and keeping copies of letters, all that shit?’
Galand Dev seemed more than a little offended by such an unashamedly blasphemous attitude, but he managed to answer the question without actually bursting apart. ‘He didn’t use sealed orders to light fires or wipe his bum, if that’s what you mean,’ he said. ‘I imagine you’ll find all his papers in the drawing office. I doubt very much he’d have taken them with him into battle.’
‘Fine,’ Monach said. ‘In that case, you can come along with me and help me find what I’m looking for.’
Galand Dev sighed. ‘There’s nothing in international law that says a prisoner of war’s got to help his captors rifle through official government archives,’ he said. ‘In fact, it’d probably be treason.’
Monach smiled pleasantly. ‘Fuck international law,’ he said. ‘Do as you’re told, or I’ll have you hung. Coming?’
Galand Dev nodded. ‘If you insist,’ he said, as they crossed the yard to the drawing office. ‘What exactly are you looking for, anyway?’
‘A while back,’ Monach replied, ‘one of your workers – I don’t know his name, but he was involved in a nasty accident and got badly burned; anyhow, while he was recovering from that, some soldiers turned up and arrested him.’
‘I know who you mean.’
‘Excellent. Now,’ Monach continued, ‘I’m assuming that Colonel Muno wouldn’t have released the man to these soldiers without a proper warrant, or some kind of paperwork at the very least. Do you think you could find it for me?’
Muno’s files were every bit as meticulously kept as Monach had expected them to be, and it wasn’t long before Galand Dev turned up what he wanted. The paper was still rolled up in its neat brass message-tube, the two halves of the broken seal still in place on either side of the cap. Monach twisted the cap off and teased the paper out with his fingers.
He recognised the form of words. In fact, its very familiarity struck him as disturbing even before he got to the signature at the bottom, which of course he recognised—
To Brigadier Muno, commanding the volcano-tube project at Dui Chirra foundry, greetings. You are hereby required to hand over to the bearers hereof the person more particularly described in the schedule hereto, and to afford immediately and without delay to the said bearers all aid and assistance that they may request in the furtherance of these presents. Schedule: the adult male, identity unknown, currently employed at Dui Chirra foundry in the capacity of blacksmith and general labourer, formerly a monk of the Order of Poverty and Education established at Deymeson. To be handed over under restraint, dead or alive. This warrant to supersede all powers, orders, facilities and immunities whatsoever.
As witness my hand the day and year hereinbefore written:
Cleapho
Imperial Chaplain In Ordinary
‘There you are, then,’ Galand Dev was saying. ‘Everything perfectly in order.’ Monach hadn’t noticed, but he’d been standing on tiptoe to read the warrant over his shoulder. ‘The gods only know what that joker’d got himself into,’ he went on. ‘Must’ve been something pretty drastic if the chaplain’s office was involved. Some sort of treason, anyhow, if it came under ecclesiastical jurisdiction.’ He stopped; Monach could almost hear the gears grinding inside his head, as it suddenly occurred to him to wonder why the Mad Monk was concerning himself with the validity of an Imperial warrant. ‘Friend of yours, or something?’ he asked, trying to sound guileless and failing dismally.
‘I want to know what happened,’ Monach said slowly, ‘on the day when this arrived.’
‘Sorry.’ Galand Dev was having to make an effort not to smirk. ‘But it’d have been handled by Muno and his staff; and, of course, they aren’t here for you to ask.’
‘Nor they are,’ Monach said, dangerously pleasant. ‘But someone must’ve seen them come and go, apart from Muno’s soldiers. Don’t you think?’
‘I suppose so. But—’
‘Fine. Find them, I’ve got some questions. You’ve got till mid-afternoon, so you’d better get a move on. Understood?’
Galand Dev may not have been the most perceptive man in the Empire, but he wasn’t blind and deaf. ‘Of course,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I’ll get someone on it – I’ll see to it myself,’ he corrected himself quickly, ‘right away.’
‘Thanks.’ Monach rolled up the paper, slid it back into the tube and stowed the tube in his coat pocket. ‘I won’t detain you any longer. Thank you for your time.’
If Monach derived any amusement from the sight of Galand Dev scuttling away like a stranded crab, he didn’t stop to savour it. Just like the old story about the philosopher and the child’s riddle, he thought; the more I think about it, the harder it gets. Cleapho, of all people; nominally the third most important man in the Empire, in practice the second (particularly now that Muno Silsny was dead and no new commander-in-chief had been appointed to replace him). Cleapho, defender of the faith, ex officio leader of what was left of the Deymeson order. Of course, Monach had never set eyes on him, Cleapho practic
ally never left Torcea—
Monach frowned, remembering something that Xipho had told him, about the time she’d spent going round the Bohec valley in a cart with Ciartan; how they’d run into Cleapho himself at some inn in Sansory, and Cleapho had taken Ciartan off for a private meeting, and there’d been a fight, government soldiers—
Far away at the back of his mind, a little voice Monach hadn’t heard for some time was asking an inconvenient question, and it wouldn’t shut up. It was asking: if Cleapho was really up to something, some dark plot involving Ciartan of all people, then how come the government soldiers had found out about it, and come hurrying to the scene to arrest the conspirators? For one thing, nobody outside the palace itself had the authority to arrest the Chaplain in Ordinary, certainly nobody who could be fetched by an informer in Sansory at half an hour’s notice. And if a plot had been discovered, with strong enough evidence to warrant arresting the chaplain, how come he hadn’t been seized and executed the moment he set foot back in Torcea?
And how come – damn that little voice, why couldn’t it keep its nasty suspicions to itself? – how come Xipho had recognised Chaplain Cleapho? Because she’d lived for a while in Torcea, she’d said, and had seen him preach at the Great Temple. Except – Monach was fairly certain of this but he could be getting confused – hadn’t her time in Torcea all been part of the lie she told Ciartan, to cover up the fact that she was an agent of the Order? In which case, she’d never been to Torcea at all, and couldn’t have seen Cleapho there—
Assuming she was telling the truth when she’d told him she’d been lying—
(Or perhaps she had been to Torcea at some point in her service, the same way he’d been to all sorts of places; in which case, she’d only lied about how she’d come to be in the capital and what she’d done while she was there. If only he could remember; if only Xipho was here.)