by K. J. Parker
He looked across and saw that they were all still asleep: Velzen and the man with the spear, and twenty-six others. Then he noticed something; or rather, a perception that had been troubling his unconscious mind for some time slid into focus, so that he knew what it was. He could smell woodsmoke – not the campfire, because it was cold, must’ve gone out during the night; so there was another fire nearby, probably a large one if he could smell it further than he could see or hear the men who’d lit it. He cursed impatiently at his rotten sense of direction. They’d just wandered clear of the swamp where the battle had been when he’d been abducted, and after that they’d marched him a whole day, but in which direction he had no idea. Was it possible that the smoke was coming from Basano’s charcoal-burning? The wind, what little there was of it, seemed to be drifting in from the north. How far did smoke carry? Probably they taught you useful stuff like that at Deymeson, but of course he couldn’t remember. In any event, it wasn’t worth thinking about; even if he did manage to sneak away without waking up the soldiers, and even if by some miracle he managed to find his way to Basano’s camp, it was idiotic to suppose that the colliers would be prepared to protect him against twenty-eight armed and angry Amathy house men, even if they were capable of it. Besides, he still wasn’t sure whether he’d been captured or rescued, though the aches and pains from Velzen’s boot inclined him to favour the former. All right, then; from Basano’s camp, would he be able to find his way back up to the main road, in time to make a dash for it and get to the safety of Dui Chirra and Brigadier Muno’s regulars before the Amathy house caught up with him? Highly unlikely, and it’d depend very much on how far he’d be able to get before Velzen and his lads noticed he’d gone and figured out which way he was headed.
Even so; it was an alternative, an option, and it’d been a while since he’d had the luxury of one of them. And not to forget the adjustment in the odds that stealing a sword or a halberd on his way out would make; it wasn’t something he was proud of or liked to dwell on, but he’d confidently back himself against two, three, maybe four of these men at a time, if it came to a running battle in dense cover. Assuming, of course, that he really wanted to go back to Dui Chirra and carry on where he’d left off shovelling wet clay. That was yet another unwarranted assumption. There was the matter of a voice in the darkness, Copis (no, Xipho; Copis had never truly existed). If it really had been her, and she hadn’t cut his throat while he slept, as she could so easily have done – another perfectly good option spoiled by indecision and the faint blemish of memory.
Come on, he urged himself, get real: what possible good could come of running into Xipho again? Even if he survived the encounter and it didn’t result in a slow and painful death, the best he stood to gain was more slices of his past, maybe confirming what Gain had told him, or the dreams. Dui Chirra, on the other hand, was the only place he knew of where he stood any chance of being safe from further unwanted revelations, at least until the Poldarn’s Flute project finished and the gates were opened and the stockade came down. He couldn’t help smiling at his own obtuseness; how, when he’d been there, he’d foolishly assumed that the defences and guards were to keep him in, when all the time they’d been put there expressly to keep the other him out— Besides, he told himself, the food’s better at Dui Chirra; and if he got into another orgy of reminscences with Sergeant Velzen, one or other of them wasn’t going to survive it, so better all round to make sure it didn’t happen.
He took another look at the camp and the sleepers. He could see the man who was supposed to be keeping watch; he was sitting apart from the others, on slightly higher ground, with his back to the trunk of an old, fat copper beech. Maybe he wasn’t used to marching all day in difficult terrain; he’d fallen asleep at his post, his halberd lying on the ground beside him where it had slipped through his fingers. Getting past him wouldn’t be hard, and neither would taking his weapon; but the rest of them’d be waking up any time now – it was well on the way to getting light. If he was going to go, he had to go now.
Well, he thought, why not? If they caught him before he reached Dui Chirra, they had orders not to kill him. And on general principles, it was better to do something, even something that turned out to be bloody stupid, than hold still and allow things to be done to you.
Painfully and cautiously, he stood up. Dui Chirra it was, then. But first, he had to get out of this clearing.
Something else they almost certainly taught at Deymeson: how to walk about in a forest without making an unspeakable noise. Unfortunately, unlike drawing a sword and killing people, he didn’t seem to have learned it well enough for it to have become second nature to him. Maybe it had been something you could only do as an extra, outside regular hours, along with pottery and classical Thurmian literature, and he hadn’t bothered with it.
But the sentry turned out to be one of those happy people who can sleep through anything, including an escaping prisoner standing on his hand; so, in spite of forgetting to steal the halberd and having to go back for it, Poldarn made the edge of the clearing and set off into the forest, heading (he hoped) north. All he had to guide himself by was a very hazy recollection of the orientation of the stars – assuming the little white cluster he thought was the Chain wasn’t in fact the Seven Sleepers – and a faint taste of woodsmoke on the gentle breeze.
Accordingly, he was as surprised as he was pleased when, about three hours after sunrise, he walked out of a thick curtain of holly and found himself standing on the edge of a broad rutted road. It wasn’t where he’d expected to find himself, needless to say, since he’d been heading for the colliers’ camp. But there was only one road that this could possibly be: the main post road from Falcata to Dui Chirra. Somehow he’d contrived to cut a day’s march off his journey.
Amazing, Poldarn thought. I really should get lost more often.
By now, he had the sun to steer by, so he didn’t hesitate before turning left, due west, up a gently rising slope. There were no fresh footprints or wheel tracks in the mud, and the ruts were full of dirty brown water, knee-deep. Obviously not the busiest road in the Empire, and that was reassuring; the destroyers of Falcata hadn’t come this way, and he wasn’t likely to catch them up round the next bend.
That evening, after a thoroughly exhausting day of picking his way between the ruts, he was eventually forced off the road by a shower of heavy rain, which drove him into the shelter of the trees. He didn’t want to lose any time, since there was no knowing if Velzen and the soldiers were on his trail or how far behind they were, but blundering into a pothole in the dark and damaging himself would slow him up even more than stopping for a few hours. He found another patch of dense, scrubby holly and crawled into it to shelter from the rain, not that he could get any wetter than he was already. The thought of his dry shack inside the foundry stockade seemed almost unbearably luxurious. All he had to do was get to Dui Chirra and he’d practically be in paradise, because what more could anybody possibly want out of life than food, a change of clothes and a warm fire?
Poldarn must have fallen asleep; it was light again, though the rain was still falling as briskly as it had been when he’d closed his eyes. But there was another sound beside the patter of falling water on leaves and branches: the creak of wheels and the spattering noise of hooves in mud. Cautiously he peered through the holly branches and saw a small cart with an oiled-leather canopy.
Joy. Whoever they were, they must be going to Dui Chirra, or at least passing by it; and they’d have to have hearts of stone to refuse him a lift. He pushed out through the holly, hardly noticing the scatches on his face and hands, and charged across to meet the cart. Through the curtain of rain he could just make out two faces under the canopy.
‘Hey,’ he shouted, ‘wait up. Are you going to Dui Chirra?’
‘Yes,’ someone called back. ‘Want a lift?’
‘You bet,’ Poldarn yelled, splashing through the mud at a run. The cart stopped, and he hauled himself up onto the box as t
he two people sitting there budged up to give him room. The driver was a woman, though he couldn’t see her face past the shoulder of the man next to her who was all muffled up in a hooded coat and a blanket. ‘Thanks,’ he added, as he sat down.
‘No problem.’ The man turned his face towards him, and grinned. ‘You’ve saved us the job of looking for you. Hello, Ciartan.’
Before he could move, the man leaned forward and grabbed his collar. ‘It is you, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Yes, thought so. Well, this is a happy coincidence.’
Looking at the man’s face was like looking at his own reflection: the same white, melted, hairless skin. ‘Gain,’ Poldarn said.
‘Like I said,’ replied Gain Aciava, ‘we were just on our way to look for you. What’re you doing out of the camp? You aren’t supposed to leave.’
Gain let go of Poldarn’s collar. ‘I ran away,’ Poldarn replied. ‘But then I sort of got into trouble, so I’m heading back. But what’re you doing here? They said you were arrested by soldiers.’
‘That’s right.’ Gain was smiling. ‘Poor buggers,’ he said. ‘They’re dead now, and it wasn’t even their mistake. Just unlucky.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Poldarn said. ‘What happened?’
‘They arrested the wrong man,’ Gain said. ‘It was you they were after; but that clown Muno gave them me instead. He’ll say it was just a case of mistaken identity, but my guess is he was trying to save your life, repaying the family debt. His nephew,’ Gain explained, as Poldarn stared at him blankly. ‘One good turn deserving another, and all that. But anyway, it’s all been sorted out now, and here we are. Good to see you again.’
No, it isn’t, Poldarn thought; and then the driver reached up with her left hand and pushed aside the cowl of her hood, so that he could see her face. ‘Hello, Ciartan,’ she said.
For a moment he couldn’t decide what to do. If he tried to jump off the cart, Gain would grab hold of him, and there’d be a fight; he suddenly remembered that he’d left the halberd behind in the holly bushes, not that it’d have done him any good at such close quarters. Besides, he had no idea whether he wanted to escape or not – it was precisely the sort of useful knowledge that he’d been having to do without ever since he’d woken up in the mud beside the Bohec river three years ago.
He took a deep breath and let it go slowly. At the most fundamental level, it was a choice between walking in the rain or riding in a covered cart. No contest.
‘Hello, Copis,’ he replied.
Chapter Thirteen
‘You’re getting better,’ she said. ‘The last two times I’ve been driving in a cart with a man and met you on the road, you’ve killed him. And don’t call me Copis,’ she added. ‘My name’s Xipho – or had you forgotten?’
‘You see,’ Gain interrupted, before he could reply, ‘she hasn’t changed a bit, even after all these years. Next she’ll be saying she won’t help you with your homework.’
‘Shut up, Gain,’ Copis said dismissively, like a mother automatically rebuking a difficult child. ‘Well,’ she went on, ‘I’d like to say you’re looking good, but that’d be lying. You look ghastly, just like the idiot boy here. Somebody should’ve told you two not to play with fire.’
It was a moment before Poldarn managed to figure out what she was talking about. She went on: ‘It’s just as well Gain’s with me, I honestly don’t think I’d have recognised you; except, of course, I knew I was looking for a man with a horribly burned face. And your voice is the same. I guess I’d know it anywhere. But what the hell are you doing out here? You never did have any consideration. All the trouble we’ve been to, just so we’d meet you at Dui Chirra, and you weren’t even bloody well there.’
So that was it, the question answered. Gain had been telling the truth. Poldarn felt as though he’d walked across a desert, just to find himself back where he’d started from. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
For some reason, they both found that highly amusing. ‘It’s all right,’ Gain said, ‘you aren’t supposed to. And besides, your sensibilities are probably the least important thing in the whole world right now. Isn’t that right, Xipho?’
‘Yes.’ She took one hand off the reins to wipe rainwater out of her eyes. ‘A bit like old times, really; except that this time we’re the ones who know what’s going on, and you aren’t. Shall we tell him, Gain, or would it be more fun to let him sweat for a while?’
‘Probably,’ Gain replied. ‘But remember who we’ve got here – the most slippery boy in the whole school. Got to do something to keep him from running away. Either we bash him over the head and tie him up, or we tell him a story. What do you reckon?’
‘Tell him the story,’ Copis replied. ‘I haven’t got the energy to play games.’
While they were talking, Poldarn was figuring out the chances of getting away: a sitting jump off the box into the mud, followed by a frantic sprint for the cover of the trees. If only he could get a few yards into the forest, he felt sure he could lose them, but in order to get that far he’d have to be faster, cleverer for two whole seconds, maybe even three. It’d be like trying to outdraw two sword-monks simultaneously. Might as well try to escape drowning in a river by strangling it with his bare hands.
He turned and looked Gain Aciava in the eye. ‘All that stuff you told me,’ he said. ‘Was it true?’
Gain grinned. ‘Would I lie to you? I never have yet. And I’ve known you since you were seventeen.’
‘I’ve lied to you a lot,’ Copis put in. ‘But Gain’s not like me. Painfully straightforward. Did he tell you what he’s been doing for a living lately? Selling false teeth?’
Poldarn looked at both of them. He was quick, he had reflexes that could only be explained by reference to religion, fast and accurate enough to knock a flying crow out of the air with a stone. But not quick enough. ‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘And why were you looking for me?’
In the end, it was a straightforward race: a quarter-mile dash through the mud, carts on one side, horsemen on the other. The carts won, by a whisker; all but two of them made it in through the gate before Brigadier Muno’s outriders could intercept them. The two stragglers were cut off only yards from the stockade, but the defenders had no choice but to slam the gates in their faces, whereupon the riders surged round them like the incoming tide.
Fine, Monach said to himself, as he watched from the picket tower, it’ll have to be a siege, then. I’ve never done a siege before, it’ll be a new experience for me.
At least he was off to a good start, thanks to some appallingly bad judgement on the part of the supply-team drivers, who hadn’t realised that Muno’s people were, like themselves, government troops. The first they’d known of their mistake was when they’d thundered in through the gates and noticed that the armed men cheering them on and grinning were a bit too scruffy for regular soldiers. Then the gates swept shut, and the garrison men were jumping up on the carts, grabbing the drivers, twisting their arms behind their backs, and it was too late to get away. Monach couldn’t help feeling just a little bit sorry for them.
And grateful, too; if they hadn’t driven that last couple of miles with breathtaking skill and desperate courage, any further resistance on his part would’ve been out of the question. Even now, he only had enough supplies to last three weeks, four at the very most; but he had a shrewd suspicion that Muno was probably even worse off in that respect than he was. In Tulice in the wet season, a loaf in the stores was worth a bushel in a supply depot fifty miles away down swamped and flooded roads. Back in sixth grade, they’d been taught a reliable mathematical formula for calculating the probabilities of success in a siege. Assuming he’d remembered it correctly and his data was accurate, the odds were fifty-six to forty-four in his favour; so that was all right—
The bad thing about sieges, Monach rapidly discovered, was the overwhelming amount of administration they entailed. Guard shifts, rations, working parties to secure the defences; officers of the day, officers in
charge of supply, officers reporting to other officers reporting to him. Proper soldiers, of course, were trained for this sort of thing and took it in their stride; but he wasn’t a proper soldier, he was a sword-monk, and all he really knew about was pulling a sword out of a scabbard. If he’d wanted to be a clerk, he’d have stayed home and gone into the dried-fish business.
Fortunately, Monach soon discovered, he had an ally. Exactly how Spenno the pattern-maker had come to hate the government so much, he wasn’t quite sure, though as far as he could tell it was mostly to do with the titanic clash of personalities between himself and the admittedly insufferable Galand Dev. In any event, Spenno was if anything even more determined than he was that Brigadier Muno shouldn’t recapture the Dui Chirra foundry; and whereas Monach was a mere warlord, Spenno was a foreman – the same degree of difference, he soon realised, as between cast iron and tempered steel. From the moment when Monach found the courage to abdicate responsibility for the defence of Dui Chirra and let Spenno get on with it, everything seemed to flow as smoothly as a coil of tangled rope teased patiently apart by an expert. Within the hour, teams of efficient workers (foundrymen, Monach couldn’t help noticing, rather than his somewhat temperamental and unreliable fellow warriors) were stacking flour barrels, carrying planks of wood and buckets of nails, and hauling carts and wheelbarrows through the standing pools of rainwater in the yard. He had no idea what they were doing; but they did, which was all that mattered. Shaking his head, he went back up the picket tower, to watch the antlike scurrying and listen to the distant but clearly audible sound of Spenno’s fluent, musical swearing.